by Brand, Max
Derry, no matter how he stretched and strained on tiptoe, could not see into the pit of the southern valley below the cliff, but he could take the picture from the words of the Cary men, and from the strained, set face of Barry Christian.
Two riders had come out of the trees and were camping at the edge of the creek, close to the entrance of the gorge on the southern side. Two riders made little difference, or would have made a small difference to the Cary plans, ordinarily. But one of these men was on a big horse that shone like copper in the last sunset light, and with the two riders there was a great skulking monster of a grey wolf.
There was no question about it. Jim Silver and Taxi had managed to guess at the destination of the Cary party without having to follow the complicated trail across the mountain ridges.
There were the two men whom Christian feared most — and almost within hailing distance.
Yet that difference was too far, and the light too uncertain, to suggest snipe shooting. Moreover, the two men were moving back and forth, rarely glimpsed through the brush as they made their camp quickly. Derry saw Christian walk by, with his hand gripping the arm of Buck Rainey.
“If only Silver and Taxi will ride on through the canyon!” groaned Christian.
“Ay, said Rainey, “after we’ve cleaned up the gold caravan.”
“Damn the caravan!” answered Christian. “What’s the money compared with the chance of getting that devil off my trail once and for ever?”
Rainey nodded.
“We’ll spread out and surround the gold camp and tackle it after moonrise,” said Christian. “We’ll leave two or three men in the throat of the canyon to stop Silver and Taxi if they should happen to get one of their strange notions and march on after dark. We’ve still got every chance of taking both bags of game, Buck. Man, man, you’ve brought me out of trouble into a lot of good luck, I can tell you!”
A score of well-armed and trained fighting men, and separated enemies who did not know of the existence of an ally near at hand — what better chance could Barry Christian have asked for? In fact, it seemed to Tom Derry that the thing was as good as done already. First, they would swallow the gold camp. The noise of the rifles would never stretch through the canyon and warn Silver. Instead, the thundering of the waterfall was sure to muffle and cover that tell-tale sound.
So the darkness thickened over the plateau, and by the starlight Derry saw the preparations go forward. No watch was kept over the southern cliff now, since Silver’s camp was invisible in the darkness below. All the men were gathered along the northern edge of the plateau where the slope ran easily down into the valley.
That was when the girl came back to Derry and stood above him for a long moment. The roaring of the waterfall seemed to be wavering back and forth in the air, now drifting farther, now coming nearer.
“Suppose you were a free man, Tom, what would you do?” she said finally.
“Get into it!” he said. The mere suggestion made his heart leap up till he was almost suffocated.
“How could you get into it?” she asked. “The Carys are there to the north, and you couldn’t get through them. There’s a cliff to the south, and you’re not a bird to fly down to Jim Silver.”
“There’s a cliff straight down to the river,” he said. “but it’s not absolutely straight. There are juts and knobs of rocks. I saw one long crevice that a man could get a handhold in and slant down a hundred feet toward the bottom.”
“A fly would get dizzy trying to make a climb like that,” she reminded him.
“I’m not a fly, but I wouldn’t get dizzy.”
“Suppose you got to Silver — you might save his neck, but you couldn’t possibly help the gold camp.”
“Maybe not. But saving Silver would be something.”
“What puts you on fire to help him?”
“Why do you ask that, Molly? You know he had me and could have smashed me, but he turned me loose.”
She was silent again.
“What sort of a snake would I be,” she muttered, “if I turned you loose? You’d never get down the cliff alive. And if you did, I’d be a traitor to my men!”
“Going straight is stronger than blood,” said Derry. “And what are people like you and me, compared with a man like Silver?”
“The air tastes as good to me as it does to him,” she answered. “The mountains are as free to me as they are to him. Tom, will you give up the thinking about him like a wise man? Or will you carry it all your life with you, if something goes wrong with Jim Silver tonight? Will you hate me every time you look at me?”
“No,” said Derry. “I wouldn’t hate you. I wouldn’t do that. But — ”
He paused.
She began to sob, not like a woman, but like a man, the deep sounds tearing her throat. Then, when she could talk, he could feel the force of will that enabled her to speak steadily again.
“The women are the deer. They run about like little fools. And the men turn ’em into venison. If I turn you loose, you’ll be dead before morning. If I don’t turn you loose, you’ll despise me for being what I am. You’ll hate me with your eyes, no matter what you speak with your mouth. Why was I ever born a Cary? But I’d rather be a Cary thief than any other name that’s honest. If I set you free, the Carys will turn me out like a dog. If I set you free, you’re dead, too.”
She threw herself down by him.
“Tom, will you listen?” she asked. “I could make you a happy man and forget all that happens tonight. It’s only one night. What can happen in a night to make the rest of your days dark for you? If you’re sad a while, I’ll pull up the old sun for you like a bucket out of a well. I’ll love you till you love me back, and a man and a woman together, they’re the only ones that can make happiness. Truer than anything, that’s true. Are you hearing me, Tom! Or are you thinking about Jim Silver and the death he’s coming to?”
“I’m loving you, Molly,” said he, “but I’m breaking my heart because of Jim Silver.”
She sat up from him suddenly.
“Ay,” she said at last, “what for should I go on talking? I knew you wouldn’t be the kind of a rat that a woman could budge by just talking. I’ve got the clippers to free you, and I’ll use ’em now. And ten minutes after, the river’ll be eating you! May it eat me, too! May it swaller me!”
She gripped his wrists, pried, a forefinger under the wires to lift them above the flesh, and then clipped rapidly until one hand, then the other, was free.
He stood up, lifting her with him, and she hung loose against him.
“Will you wait a minute?” she asked.
“There’s no time for waiting.”
“I’ll go to the cliff with you, Tom.”
“This way,” he said. “I marked the place where the crack runs down the wall, if I can get to it.”
They came to it. The roar of the river burst up at them in increasing explosions. The humidity of incredibly fine spray filled the air, and he drew the girl back from the edge of the rock for a moment. There was no strength in her. It seemed that she would drop to the ground if his arm left her.
“When you’re down, will you light a match?” she begged him. “And if I wait for ten minutes — and see no light — ”
“Mind you, Molly,” he said with a frightful cold of fear sweeping over him, “whether you see it or not, you won’t do any fool thing?”
“What have I done but fool things ever since I found you?” she said. “I’ve been like a fool boy, ranting around; I haven’t been a woman to you. I wish I’d been a woman to you. Then, light or no light, I’d have something more than a — than a damned star in the sky to steer by after you’re gone. But go on now, Tom, I’m dying, and I want you gone. I’m going to lie out there on the rock and wait for the sparkle of a match down there. God grant I may see it, or else — ”
He kissed her. The fear of what she might do made his lips numb. He dreaded lest that fear should work downward to his heart, and so he left her su
ddenly and went to the edge of the rock.
He had found the right place, he knew. Below him, though unseen, there was a narrow ledge which he ought to be able to touch with his feet. If he could drop to that, a crevice slanted away to the side and downward. And if he could reach that —
Well, if he failed in getting from one place to another, it might not be many minutes before another and a slighter body than his own hurtled through thin air and into the white water beneath.
24
THE PERILOUS JOURNEY
THE ledge which had seemed in reach of his feet, when he should dangle at the full stretch of his arms, was, in fact, still out of touch. He let himself drop, with such a looseness of knees as though he might have to fall fifty feet, and the impact nearly rammed his knees against his chin when he struck. It was well enough that he had fallen like a length of loose rope, for as he spilled over on one side, his arm dangled down into nothingness. The ledge was hardly a foot and a half wide — but he was safely on it.
To get back to the upper ledge was now impossible. He looked up, and the distance seemed immense. The moisture of the air was very palpable. The roaring of the echoes certainly had increased. He had the distinct feeling that the river, a sentient thing, was shouting out a triumph over him. It might have been that even the cliff was shuddering a little from the vibration set up by the waterfall. He would rather think that than believe that he was already trembling.
Down the ledge he worked to the very end of it, and feeling down with an anxious hand, he found what he wanted — the beginning of that crack which he had marked from the top of the rock during the daylight. He swung down to it.
He had gone hand over hand along many ropes during his days at sea, but no rope could have the zigzags and the irregularities of this crack. A rope gave a whole handhold. The crevice was something in which he had to trust to the flat of his hooked fingers.
He could not give his full mind to himself. His preoccupation dealt with Molly Cary at the top of the cliff. Already the moments had spun themselves out a great distance for her, perhaps. The thought of her was like a double weight hanging from his wrists. Wrists and shoulders were aching horribly. But that was a pain, also, which he had learned to endure at sea. The sharp edges of the rock, here and there, bit right through the flesh of his hands, blood ran freely down his arms from the cuts. But he accepted that as a mere nothing. If his hands were frayed to the tendons and the skeleton bones, he would still hold on.
He came to the end of the swaying, perilous journey. Underneath him, at the end of the long, declining crack, there should be a number of irregularities. The cliff shelved out a trifle toward the bottom, and, in fact, he presently put his foot on a perfectly flat surface of stone. There he stood, his head turned, his chest against the rock, waiting for his breath to come back and for the shuddering fatigue to go out of his muscles.
He was far down now. When he raised his head, he saw both lips of the gorge inclining toward one another and the edges of the cliffs fencing an irregular road through the sky with the bright, yellow eye of Arcturus staring down at him, and he remembered what he had told the girl. There was a vast reassurance in that eye of light, a sort of personal recognition, as though it had knowledge of him, down there on the face of the slippery rock.
He started on again. He was down so far now that the thundering of the water had multiplied. The falling masses of water, not far from him, struck the roots of the cliff resounding, hurrying blows, and palpably shook it. And the darkness was infernal. It was better to close his eyes and trust to his hands, which felt and fumbled. He pulled off his boots and then in his bare feet secured better holds.
He came now to a broader ledge — perhaps four feet wide — and he was puzzled, because he could not remember having seen such a projection when he had looked down from the top of the cliff. Putting his hand out on the other side of it, he plunged his arm into swiftly running water. He had reached the footpath of the trail along the bottom of the rock!
He looked up at the ragged face of danger down which he had descended. Awe overwhelmed him. A new sense of dignity and of self-respect dropped upon Tom Derry out of the very sky. Strangely enough, it was not for two or three breathless seconds that he remembered the girl who waited in her agony at the top of the rock. Then he found a match and struck it.
In the cup of his two hands he lifted the light and moved it here and there. The flame burned to his flesh. He dropped that match and stared up. Had she seen? While he stared up, another thin and flickering point of fire bloomed and failed on the top of the rock. As it went out, it seemed to Tom Derry that the girl had spoken, had in physical presence appeared beside him.
He turned and hurried up the rocky trail. He passed the mouth of the gorge and came out on the wider valley beyond. The sense of peril still reached at him like a hand. It was not till he had gone a little distance under the bright arch of the stars that his nerves stopped jerking at his heart by a thousand little wires, and he was able to lift his head and walk upright, instead of cowering along like a hunted man.
It would not be far, now, to the place where Silver and Taxi were camped. Something, it seemed to him, slithered through the starlight ahead of him and disappeared among the brush. Might that not be Frosty, the wolf, scouting around the camp of his master?
Then, distinctly, he heard a low whinny. He stood still, and almost immediately the voice of Jim Silver called.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
“Your bad penny has turned up again. It’s Derry,” said the voice of Taxi.
“Come in, Derry,” said Silver.
So Tom Derry walked forward through the denseness of brush and so into a cramped little clearing. A ray of light from Taxi’s pocket torch cut across his face, across his body, and ended by wavering over his hands, and then dropped to his feet.
“Blood on his hands and bare feet,” said Taxi. “He’s had a go at something and he’s been licked.”
Derry raised his hands and pointed.
“Up there on the rocks are twenty men who are planning to get you, Silver, The Carys, and Christian, and Buck Rainey, and Stan Parker. They’re waiting there to gather you in!”
The torch ray rose with a jerk and centred on his eyes till he blinked. Silver struck down that searching light.
“Be sensible, Taxi,” he commanded. “I told you Derry was honest. Bleeding men don’t tell lies like that.”
“If there are twenty men up there, how did they happen to let you get away?” asked Taxi.
“They didn’t let me. But there’s a woman along with them. She cut the wires away from my wrists, and then I was able to climb down the side of the gorge and get — ”
“Wait a minute,” commanded Taxi. “You climbed down the face of that cliff?”
“I did,” said Derry. Then his anger rose and mastered him. “But it’s not for your hide that I made the climb. I came to warn Silver, not you!”
“It’s a bluff and a sham,” declared Taxi. “I don’t think that a human being — Let’s see the inside of your hands, will you?”
Derry held them out, and the light wavered over the torn fingers.
Suddenly Taxi said: “Partner, I’m sorry. Crooked rats have made us trouble enough, and Silver will believe a lie, fast enough to make a man’s head swim! But there’s truth written all over your hands.”
“There’s truth written in more than his hands. How soon will they come this way, Derry? Taxi, you’re better than a doctor, and you have the stuff in your saddle-bag. I have a pair of moccasins to cover your feet, Derry. How soon will they come, or can you guess?”
“After moonrise,” said Derry. “After they’ve swallowed the pack train on the north side of the gulch.”
“What pack train?” asked Silver.
“Men from down Wool Creek. They’ve been panning gold at the old diggings. They found a new streak and washed it right out. They’ve got a fortune on the backs of their mules, and at moonrise, the Carys are g
oing to rush their camp.”
Taxi had brought his medicaments and prepared to work on the hands of Derry.
“We’ve got to get through the gorge and warn those poor devils,” said Silver.
“It’s no good,” answered Derry. “By this time Old Man Cary has two or three men with rifles plugging the gorge. You can’t get through. They could stop an army in that place.”
“We’ve got to try to unplug the gorge and get through, anyway. What people are those fellows with the gold?” asked Silver.
“Tenderfeet having a vacation in the mountains. Silver, you can’t get through the gorge. I know, because I’ve just come out of it. The ledge the trail runs on is no more than a yard wide, part of the way, and those Carys will have their ears open, and be watching. You can’t break a way through. I’m sure of that.”
“How many of the tenderfeet are there?”
“A dozen.”
“Armed?”
“Yes.”
“Armed men, with gold in their packs, and that means they’re sure to fight, and that means they’re sure to die,” said Silver. “Taxi, will you try to get through, with me?”
Taxi, working swiftly over the hands of Derry, cleansing them and then bandaging the fingers with rapid interlacing of cloth, snarled:
“Ask me whether I want to go, or not! Don’t ask whether I will.” Then, standing up from his work, as he finished the hands of Derry, he added: “We’d better start fast, Jim. Moonrise is only minutes away. What do we do with the horses?”
“If we can get through, we’ll open a way for Parade, and he’ll lead your horse, Taxi. Or, if it’s safer to leave them here, Derry will stay with them.”
“Me?” cried Derry, startled. “Stay here? I go with you, Silver!”
“Hello,” said Taxi. “Is there another man started down the Silver road to trouble? Have you put the mischief into another poor devil of a man, Jim?”