by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SWAN TALKS WITH HIS THOUGHTS
Lorraine, following instinct rather than thought, pulled Yellowjacketinto the first opening that presented itself. This was a narrow, ratherprecipitous gully that seamed the slope just beyond the bend. The bushesthere whipped her head and shoulders cruelly as the horse forged inamong them, but they trapped him effectually where the gully narrowed toa point. He stopped perforce, and Lorraine was out of the saddle andrunning down to the trail before she quite realized what she was doing.
At the bend she looked down, saw the marks where the wagon had goneover, scraping rocks and bushes from its path. Fence posts were strewnat all angles down the incline, and far down a horse was standing withpart of the harness on him and with his head drooping dispiritedly. Herfather she could not see, nor the other horse, nor the wagon. A clumpof young trees hid the lower declivity. Lorraine did not stop to thinkof what she would find down there. Sliding, running, she followed thetraces of the wreck to where the horse was standing. It was Caroline,looking very dejected but apparently unhurt, save for skinned patcheshere and there where she had rolled over rocks.
A little farther, just beyond the point of the grove which they seemedto have missed altogether, lay the other horse and what was left of thewagon. Brit she did not see at all. She searched the bushes, lookedunder the wagon, and called and called.
A full-voiced shout answered her from farther up the canyon, and she ranstumbling toward the sound, too agonized to shed tears or to think veryclearly. It was not her father's voice; she knew that beyond all doubt.It was no voice that she had ever heard before. It had a clear resonancethat once heard would not have been easily forgotten. When she saw themfinally, her father was being propped up in a half-sitting position, andthe strange man was holding something to his lips.
"Just a little water. I carry me a bottle of water always in my pocket,"said Swan, glancing up at her when she had reached them. "It sometimesmakes a man's head think better when he has been hurt, if he can drink alittle water or something."
Brit swallowed and turned his face away from the tilted bottle. "Ijumped--but I didn't jump quick enough," he muttered thickly. "The chainpulled loose. Where's the horses, Raine?"
"They're all right. Caroline's standing over there. Are you hurt much,dad?" It was a futile question, because Brit was already going off intounconsciousness.
"He's hurt pretty bad," Swan declared honestly, looking up at her withhis eyes grown serious. "I was across the walley and I saw him comingdown the road like rolling rocks down a hill. I came quick. Now we makestretcher, I think, and carry him home. I could take him on my back, butthat is hurting him too much." He looked at her--through her, it seemedto Lorraine. In spite of her fear, in spite of her grief, she felt thatSwan was reading her very soul, and she backed away from him.
"I could help your father very much," he said soberly, "but I shouldtell you a secret if I do that. I should maybe ask that you tell a lieif somebody asks questions. Could you do that, Miss?"
"Lie?" Lorraine laughed uncertainly. "I'd _kill_!--if that would helpdad."
Swan was folding his coat very carefully and placing it under Brit'shead. "My mother I love like that," he said, without looking up. "Mymother I love so well that I talk with my thoughts to her sometimes. Youbelieve people can talk with their thoughts?"
"I don't know--what's that got to do with helping dad?" Lorraine kneltbeside Brit and began stroking his forehead softly, as is the soothingway of women with their sick.
"I could send my thought to my mother. I could say to her that a man ishurt and that a doctor must come very quickly to the Quirt ranch. Icould do that, Miss, but I should not like it if people knew that I didit. They would maybe say that I am crazy. They would laugh at me, and itis not right to laugh at those things."
"I'm not laughing. If you can do it, for heaven's sake go ahead! I don'tbelieve it, but I won't tell any one, if that's what you want."
"If some neighbors should ask, 'How did that doctor come so quick?'----"
"I'd rather lie and say I sent for him, than say that you or any oneelse sent a telepathic message. That would sound more like a lie than alie would. How are we going to make a stretcher? We've got to get himhome, somehow----"
"At my cabin is blankets," Swan told her briskly. "I can climb thehill--it is up there. In a little while I will come back."
He started off without waiting to see what Lorraine would have to sayabout it, and with some misgivings she watched him run down to thecanyon's bottom and go forging up the opposite side with a most amazingspeed and certainty. In travel pictures she had seen mountain sheepclimb like that, and she likened him now to one of them. It seemed ashame that he was a bit crazy, she thought; and immediately she recalledhis perfect assurance when he told her of sending thought messages tohis mother. She had heard of such things, she had even read a little onthe subject, but it had never seemed to her a practical means ofcommunicating. Calling a doctor, for instance, seemed to Lorrainerather far-fetched an application of what was at best but a debatabletheory.
Considering the distance, he was back in a surprisingly short time withtwo blankets, a couple of light poles and a flask of brandy. He seemedas fresh and unwinded as if he had gone no farther than the grove, andhe wore, more than ever, his air of cheerful assurance.
"The doctor will be there," he remarked, just as if it were the simplestthing in the world. "We can carry him to Fred Thurman's. There I can gethorses and a wagon, and you will not have to carry so far. And when weget to your ranch the doctor will be there, I think. He is starting now.We will hurry. I will fix it so you need not carry much. It is just tomake it steady for me."
While he talked he was working on the stretcher. He had a rope, and hewas knotting it in a long loop to the poles. Lorraine wondered why,until he had lifted her father and placed him on the stretcher andplaced the loop over his own head and under one arm, as a ploughmanholds the reins, so that his hands may be free.
"If you will carry the front," said Swan politely, "it will not beheavy for you like this. But you will help me keep it steady."
Lorraine was past discussing anything. She obeyed him silently, liftingthe end of the stretcher and leading the way down to the canyon'sbottom, where Swan assured her they could walk quite easily and wouldsave many detours which the road above must take. At the bottom Swanstopped her so that he might shorten the rope and take more of theweight on his shoulders. She protested half-heartedly, but Swan onlylaughed.
"I am strong like a mule," he said. "You should see me wrestle withsomebody. Clear over my head--I can carry a man in my hands. This is soyou can walk fast. Three miles straight down we come to Thurman's ranch,where I get the horses. It's funny how hills make a road far around.Just three miles--that's all. I have walked many times."
Lorraine did not answer him. She felt that he was talking merely to keepher from worrying, and she was fairly sick with anxiety and did not hearhalf of what he was saying. She was nervously careful about choosing hersteps so that she would not stumble and jolt her father. She did notbelieve that he was wholly unconscious, for she had seen his eyelidstighten and his lips twitch several times, when she was waiting forSwan. He had seemed to be in pain and to be trying to hide the fact fromher. She felt that Swan knew it, else he would have talked of her dad,would at least have tried to reassure her. But it is difficult to speakof a person who hears what you are saying, and Swan was talking ofeverything, it seemed to her, except the man they were carrying.
She wondered if it were really true that Swan had sent a call throughspace for a doctor; straightway she would call herself crazy for evenconsidering for a moment its possibility. If he could do that--but ofcourse he couldn't. He must just imagine it.
Many times Swan had her lower the stretcher to the ground, and wouldmake a great show of rubbing his arms and easing his shoulder muscles.Whenever Lorraine looked full into his face he would grin at her asthough nothing was wrong, and when they came to a
clear-running streamhe emptied the water bottle, dipped up a little fresh water, addedbrandy, and lifted Brit's head very gently and gave him a drink. Britopened his eyes and looked at Swan, and from him to Lorraine, but he didnot say anything. He still had that tightened look around his mouthwhich spelled pain.
"Pretty quick now we get you fixed up good," Swan told him cheerfully."One mile more is all, and we get the horses and I make a good bed foryou." He looked a signal, and Lorraine once more took up the stretcher.
Another mile seemed a long way, light though Swan had made the load forher. She thought once that he must have some clairvoyant power, becausewhenever she felt as if her arms were breaking, Swan would tell her tostop a minute.
"How do you know a doctor will come?" she asked Swan suddenly, when theywere resting with the Thurman ranch in view half a mile below them.
Swan did not look at her directly, as had been his custom. She saw adarker shade of red creep up into his cheeks. "My mother says she wouldsend a doctor quick," he replied hesitatingly. "You will see. It isbecause--your father he is not like other men in this country. Yourfather is a good man. That is why a doctor comes."
Lorraine looked at him strangely and stooped again to her burden. Shedid not speak again until they were passing the Thurman fence where itran up into the mouth of the canyon. A few horses were grazing there,the sun striking their sides with the sheen of satin. They staredcuriously at the little procession, snorted and started to run, headsand tails held high. But one wheeled suddenly and came galloping towardthem, stopped when he was quite close, ducked and went thundering pastto the head of the field. Lorraine gave a sharp little scream and setdown the stretcher with a lurch, staring after the horse wide-eyed, herface white.
"They do it for play," Swan said reassuringly. "They don't hurt you. Thefence is between, and they don't hurt you anyway."
"That horse with the white face--I saw it--and when the man struck itwith his quirt it went past me, running like that and dragging--_oh-h_!"She leaned against the bluff side, her face covered with her two palms.
Swan glanced down at Brit, saw that his eyes were closed, ducked hishead from under the looped rope and went to Lorraine.
"The man that struck that horse--do you know that man?" he asked, allthe good nature gone from his voice.
"No--I don't know--I saw him twice, by the lightning flashes. Heshot--and then I saw him----" She stopped abruptly, stood for a minutelonger with her eyes covered, then dropped her hands limply to hersides. But when the horse came circling back with a great flourish, sheshivered and her hands closed into the fists of a fighter.
"Are you a Sawtooth man?" she demanded suddenly, looking up at Swandefiantly. "It was a nightmare. I--I dreamed once about a horse--likethat."
Swan's wide-open eyes softened a little. "The Sawtooth calls me thatdamn Swede on Bear Top," he explained. "I took a homestead up there andsome day they will want to buy my place or they will want to make afight with me to get the water. Could you know that man again?"
"Raine!" Brit's voice held a warning, and Lorraine shivered again as sheturned toward him. "Raine, you----"
He closed his eyes again, and she could get no further speech from him.But she thought she understood. He did not want her to talk about FredThurman. She went to her end of the stretcher and waited there whileSwan put the rope over his head. They went on, Lorraine walking with herhead averted, trying not to see the blaze-faced roan, trying to shut outthe memory of him dashing past her with his terrible burden, that night.
Swan did not speak of the matter again. With Lorraine's assistance hecarried Brit into Thurman's cabin, laid him, stretcher and all, on thebed and hurried out to catch and harness the team of work horses.Lorraine waited beside her father, helpless and miserable. There wasnothing to do but wait, yet waiting seemed to her the one thing shecould not do.
"Raine!" Brit's voice was very weak, but Lorraine jumped as though atrumpet had bellowed suddenly in her ear. "Swan--he's all right. Butdon't go telling--all yuh know and some besides. He ain't--Sawtooth,but--he might let out----"
"I know. I won't, dad. It was that horse----"
Brit turned his face to the wall as if no more was to be said on thesubject. Lorraine wandered around the cabin, which was no larger thanher father's place. The rooms were scrupulously clean--neater than theQuirt, she observed guiltily. Not one article, however small andunimportant, seemed to be out of its place, and the floors of both roomswere scrubbed whiter than any floors she had ever seen. Swan'shousekeeping qualities made her ashamed of her own imperfections; andwhen, thinking that Swan must be hungry and that the least she could dowas to set out food for him, she opened the cupboard, she had a swift,embarrassed vision of her own culinary imperfections. She could cookbetter food than her dad had been content to eat and to set beforeothers, but Swan's bread was a triumph in sour dough. Biscuits tall andlight as bread can be she found, covered neatly with a cloth. Prunesstewed so that there was not one single wrinkle in them--Lorraine couldscarcely believe they were prunes until she tasted them. She wasinvestigating a pot of beans when Swan came in.
"Food I am thinking of, Miss," he grinned at her. "We shall hurry, butit is not good to go hungry. Milk is outside in a cupboard. It isquicker than to make coffee."
"It will be dark before we can get him home," said Lorraine uneasily."And by the time a doctor can get out there----"
"A doctor will be there, I think. You don't believe, but that is nodifference to his coming just the same."
He brought the milk, poured off the creamy top into a pitcher, stirredit, and quietly insisted that she drink two glasses. Lorraine observedthat Swan himself ate very little, bolting down a biscuit in greatmouthfuls while he carried a mattress and blankets out to spread in thewagon. It was like his pretense of weariness on the long carry down thecanyon, she thought. It was for her more than for himself that he wasthinking.