by Zane Grey
And Lucy saw that at the sight of her like this something had come between Joel Creech’s mad motives and their execution. Once he had loved her—desired her. He looked vague. He stroked her shoulder. His strange eyes softened, then blazed with a different light. Lucy divined that she was lost unless she could recall his insane fury. She must begin that terrible fight in which now the best she could hope for was to make him kill her quickly.
Swift and vicious as a cat she fastened her teeth in his arm. She bit deep and held on. Creech howled like a dog. He beat her. He jerked and wrestled. Then he lifted her, and the swing of her body tore the flesh loose from his arm and broke her hold. Lucy half rose, crawled, plunged for the gun. She got it, too, only to have Creech kick it out of her hand. The pain of that brutal kick was severe, but when he cut her across the bare back with the rope she shrieked out. Supple and quick, she leaped up and ran. In vain! With a few bounds he had her again, tripped her up. Lucy fell over the dead body of the father. Yet even that did not shake her desperate nerve. All the ferocity of a desert-bred savage culminated in her, fighting for death.
Creech leaned down, swinging the coiled rope. He meant to do more than lash her with it. Lucy’s hands flashed up, closed tight in his long hair. Then with a bellow he jerked up and lifted her sheer off the ground. There was an instant in which Lucy felt herself swung and torn; she saw everything as a whirling blur; she felt an agony in her wrists at which Creech was clawing. When he broke her hold there were handfuls of hair in Lucy’s fists.
She fell again and had not the strength to rise. But Creech was raging, and little of his broken speech was intelligible. He knelt with a sharp knee pressing her down. He cut the rope. Nimbly, like a rider in moments of needful swiftness, he noosed one end of the rope round her ankle, then the end of the other piece round her wrist. He might have been tying up an unbroken mustang. Rising, he retained hold on both ropes. He moved back, sliding them through his hands. Then with a quick move he caught up Sage King’s bridle.
Creech paused a moment, darkly triumphant. A hideous success showed in his strange eyes. A long-cherished mad vengeance had reached its fruition. Then he led the horse near to Lucy.
Warily he reached down. He did not know Lucy’s strength was spent. He feared she might yet escape. With hard, quick grasp he caught her, lifted her, threw her over the King’s back. He forced her down.
Lucy’s resistance was her only salvation, because it kept him on the track of his old threat. She resisted all she could. He pulled her arms down round the King’s neck and tied them close. Then he pulled hard on the rope on her ankle and tied that to her other ankle.
Lucy realized that she was bound fast. Creech had made good most of his threat. And now in her mind the hope of the death she had sought changed to the hope of life that was possible. Whatever power she had ever had over the King was in her voice. If only Creech would slip the bridle or cut the reins—if only Sage King could be free to run!
Lucy could turn her face far enough to see Creech. Like a fiend he was reveling in his work. Suddenly he picked up the gun.
“Look a-hyar!” he called, hoarsely.
With eyes on her, grinning horribly, he walked a few paces to where the long grass had not been trampled or pressed down. The wind, whipping up out of the canyon, was still blowing hard. Creech put the gun down in the grass and fired.
Sage King plunged. But he was not gun-shy. He steadied down with a pounding of heavy hoofs. Then Lucy could see again. A thin streak of yellow smoke rose—a little snaky flame—a slight crackling hiss! Then as the wind caught the blaze there came a rushing, low roar. Fire, like magic, raced and spread before the wind toward the forest.
Lucy had forgotten that Creech had meant to drive her into fire. The sudden horror of it almost caused collapse. Commotion within—cold and quake and nausea and agony—deadened her hearing and darkened her sight. But Creech’s hard hands quickened her. She could see him then, though not clearly. His face seemed inhuman, misshapen, gray. His hands pulled at her arms—a last precaution to see that she was tightly bound. Then with the deft fingers of a rider he slipped Sage King’s bridle.
Lucy could not trust her sight. What made the King stand so still? His ears went up—stiff—pointed!
Creech stepped back and laid a violent hand on Lucy’s garments. She bent—twisted her neck to watch him. But her sight grew no clearer. Still she saw he meant to strip her naked. He braced himself for a strong, ripping pull. His yellow teeth showed deep in his lip. His contrasting eyes were alight with insane joy.
But he never pulled. Something attracted his attention. He looked. He saw something. The beast in him became human—the madness changed to rationality—the devil to a craven! His ashen lips uttered a low, terrible cry.
Lucy felt the King trembling in every muscle. She knew that was flight. She expected his loud snort, and was prepared for it when it rang out. In a second he would bolt. She knew that. She thrilled. She tried to call to him, but her lips were weak. Creech seemed paralyzed. The King shifted his position, and Lucy’s last glimpse of Creech was one she would never forget. It was as if Creech faced burning hell!
Then the King whistled and reared. Lucy heard swift, dull, throbbing beats. Beats of a fast horse’s hoofs on the run! She felt a surging thrill of joy. She could not think. All of her blood and bone and muscle seemed to throb. Suddenly the air split to a high-pitched, wild, whistling blast. It pierced to Lucy’s mind. She knew that whistle.
“Wildfire!” she screamed, with bursting heart.
The King gave a mighty convulsive bound of terror. He, too, knew that whistle. And in that one great bound he launched out into a run. Straight across the line of burning grass! Lucy felt the sting of flame. Smoke blinded and choked her. Then clear, dry, keen wind sung in her ears and whipped her hair. The light about her darkened. The King had headed into the pines. The heavy roar of the gale overhead struck Lucy with new and torturing dread. Sage King once in his life was running away, bridleless, and behind him there was fire on the wings of the wind.
CHAPTER XVII
For the first time in his experience Bostil found that horse-trading palled upon him. This trip to Durango was a failure. Something was wrong. There was a voice constantly calling into his inner ear—a voice to which he refused to listen. And during the five days of the return trip the strange mood grew upon him.
The last day he and his riders covered over fifty miles and reached the Ford late at night. No one expected them, and only the men on duty at the corrals knew of the return. Bostil, much relieved to get home, went to bed and at once fell asleep.
He awakened at a late hour for him. When he dressed and went out to the kitchen he found that his sister had learned of his return and had breakfast waiting.
“Where’s the girl?” asked Bostil.
“Not up yet,” replied Aunt Jane.
“What!”
“Lucy and I had a tiff last night and she went to her room in a temper.”
“Nothin’ new about thet.”
“Holley and I have had our troubles holding her in. Don’t you forget that.”
Bostil laughed. “Wal, call her an’ tell her I’m home.”
Aunt Jane did as she was bidden. Bostil finished his breakfast. But Lucy did not come.
Bostil began to feel something strange, and, going to Lucy’s door, he knocked. There was no reply. Bostil pushed open the door. Lucy was not in evidence, and her room was not as tidy as usual. He saw her white dress thrown upon the bed she had not slept in. Bostil gazed around with a queer contraction of the heart. That sense of something amiss grew stronger. Then he saw a chair before the open window. That window was rather high, and Lucy had placed a chair before it so that she could look out or get out. Bostil stretched his neck, looked out, and in the red earth beneath the window he saw fresh tracks of Lucy’s boots. Then he roared for Jane.
She came running, and between Bostil’s furious questions and her own excited answers there was nothing
arrived at. But presently she spied the white dress, and then she ran to Lucy’s closet. From there she turned a white face to Bostil.
“She put on her riding-clothes!” gasped Aunt Jane.
“Supposin’ she did! Where is she?” demanded Bostil.
“She’s run off with Slone!”
Bostil could not have been shocked or hurt any more acutely by a knife-thrust. He glared at his sister.
“A-huh! So thet’s the way you watch her!”
“Watch her? It wasn’t possible. She’s—well, she’s as smart as you are.… Oh, I knew she’d do it! She was wild in love with him!”
Bostil strode out of the room and the house. He went through the grove and directly up the path to Slone’s cabin. It was empty, just as Bostil expected to find it.
The bars of the corral were down. Both Slone’s horses were gone. Presently Bostil saw the black horse Nagger down in Brackton’s pasture.
There were riders in front of Brackton’s. All spoke at once to Bostil, and he only yelled for Brackton. The old man came hurriedly out, alarmed.
“Where’s this Slone?” demanded Bostil.
“Slone!” ejaculated Brackton. “I’m blessed if I know. Ain’t he home?”
“No. An’ he’s left his black hoss in your field.”
“Wal, by golly, thet’s news to me.… Bostil, there’s been strange doin’s lately.” Brackton seemed at a loss for words. “Mebbe Slone got out because of somethin’ thet come off last night.… Now, Joel Creech an’—an’—”
Bostil waited to hear no more. What did he care about the idiot Creech? He strode down the lane to the corrals. Farlane, Van, and other riders were there, leisurely as usual. Then Holley appeared, coming out of the barn. He, too, was easy, cool, natural, lazy. None of these riders knew what was amiss. But instantly a change passed over them. It came because Bostil pulled a gun. “Holley, I’ve a mind to bore you!”
The old hawk-eyed rider did not flinch or turn a shade off color. “What fer?” he queried. But his customary drawl was wanting.
“I left you to watch Lucy.… An’ she’s gone!”
Holley showed genuine surprise and distress. The other riders echoed Bostil’s last word. Bostil lowered the gun.
“I reckon what saves you is you’re the only tracker thet’d have a show to find this cussed Slone.”
Holley now showed no sign of surprise, but the other riders were astounded.
“Lucy’s run off with Slone,” added Bostil.
“Wal, if she’s gone, an’ if he’s gone, it’s a cinch,” replied Holley, throwing up his hands. “Boss, she double-crossed me same as you!… She promised faithful to stay in the house.”
“Promises nothin’!” roared Bostil. “She’s in love with this wild-hoss wrangler! She met him last night!”
“I couldn’t help thet,” retorted Holley. “An’ I trusted the girl.”
Bostil tossed his hands. He struggled with his rage. He had no fear that Lucy would not soon be found. But the opposition to his will made him furious.
Van left the group of riders and came close to Bostil. “It ain’t an hour back thet I seen Slone ride off alone on his red hoss.”
“What of thet?” demanded Bostil. “Sure she was waitin’ somewheres. They’d have too much sense to go together.… Saddle up, you boys, an’ we’ll—”
“Say, Bostil, I happen to know Slone didn’t see Lucy last night,” interrupted Holley.
“A-huh! Wal, you’d better talk out.”
“I trusted Lucy,” said Holley. “But all the same, knowin’ she was in love, I jest wanted to see if any girl in love could keep her word.… So about dark I went down the grove an’ watched fer Slone. Pretty soon I seen him. He sneaked along the upper end an’ I follered. He went to thet bench up by the biggest cottonwood. An’ he waited a long time. But Lucy didn’t come. He must have waited till midnight. Then he left. I watched him go back—seen him go up to his cabin.”
“Wal, if she didn’t meet him, where was she? She wasn’t in her room.”
Bostil gazed at Holley and the other riders, then back to Holley. What was the matter with this old rider? Bostil had never seen Holley seem so strange. The whole affair began to loom strangely, darkly. Some portent quickened Bostil’s lumbering pulse. It seemed that Holley’s mind must have found an obstacle to thought. Suddenly the old rider’s face changed—the bronze was blotted out—a grayness came, and then a dead white.
“Bostil, mebbe you ain’t been told yet thet—thet Creech rode in yesterday.… He lost all his racers! He had to shoot both Peg an’ Roan!”
Bostil’s thought suffered a sudden, blank halt. Then, with realization, came the shock for which he had long been prepared.
“A-huh! Is thet so?… Wal, an’ what did he say?”
Holley laughed a grim, significant laugh that curdled Bostil’s blood. “Creech said a lot! But let thet go now.… Come with me.”
Holley started with rapid strides down the lane. Bostil followed. And he heard the riders coming behind. A dark and gloomy thought settled upon Bostil. He could not check that, but he held back impatience and passion.
Holley went straight to Lucy’s window. He got down on his knees to scrutinize the tracks.
“Made more ’n twelve hours ago,” he said, swiftly. “She had on her boots, but no spurs.… Now let’s see where she went.”
Holley began to trail Lucy’s progress through the grove, silently pointing now and then to a track. He went swifter, till Bostil had to hurry. The other men came whispering after them.
Holley was as keen as a hound on scent.
“She stopped there,” he said, “mebbe to listen. Looks like she wanted to cross the lane, but she didn’t: here she got to goin’ faster.”
Holley reached an intersecting path and suddenly halted stock-still, pointing at a big track in the dust.
“My God!… Bostil, look at thet!”
One riving pang tore through Bostil—and then he was suddenly his old self, facing the truth of danger to one he loved. He saw beside the big track a faint imprint of Lucy’s small foot. That was the last sign of her progress and it told a story.
“Bostil, thet ain’t Slone’s track,” said Holley, ringingly.
“Sure it ain’t. Thet’s the track of a big man,” replied Bostil.
The other riders, circling round with bent heads, all said one way or another that Slone could not have made the trail.
“An’ whoever he was grabbed Lucy up—made off with her?” asked Bostil.
“Plain as if we seen it done!” exclaimed Holley. There was fire in the clear, hawk eyes.
“Cordts!” cried Bostil, hoarsely.
“Mebbe—mebbe. But thet ain’t my idee.… Come on.”
Holley went so fast he almost ran, and he got ahead of Bostil. Finally several hundred yards out in the sage he halted, and again dropped to his knees. Bostil and the riders hurried on.
“Keep back; don’t stamp round so close,” ordered Holley. Then like a man searching for lost gold in sand and grass he searched the ground. To Bostil it seemed a long time before he got through. When he arose there was a dark and deadly certainty in his face, by which Bostil knew the worst had befallen Lucy.
“Four mustangs an’ two men last night,” said Holley, rapidly. “Here’s where Lucy was set down on her feet. Here’s where she mounted.… An’ here’s the tracks of a third man—tracks made this mornin’.”
Bostil straightened up and faced Holley as if ready to take a death-blow. “I’m reckonin’ them last is Slone’s tracks.”
“Yes, I know them,” replied Holley.
“An’—them—other tracks? Who made them?”
“Creech an’ his son!”
Bostil felt swept away by a dark, whirling flame. And when it passed he lay in his barn, in the shade of the loft, prostrate on the fragrant hay. His strength with his passion was spent. A dull ache remained. The fight was gone from him. His spirit was broken. And he looked down into that dark abyss
which was his own soul.
By and by the riders came for him, got him up, and led him out. He shook them off and stood breathing slowly. The air felt refreshing; it cooled his hot, tired brain. It did not surprise him to see Joel Creech there, cringing behind Holley.
Bostil lifted a hand for someone to speak. And Holley came a step forward. His face was haggard, but its white tenseness was gone. He seemed as if he were reluctant to speak, to inflict more pain.
“Bostil,” he began, huskily, “you’re to send the King—an’ Sarch—an’ Ben an’ Two Face an’ Plume to ransom Lucy!… If you won’t—then Creech’ll sell her to Cordts!”
What a strange look came into the faces of the riders! Did, they think he cared more for horseflesh than for his own flesh and blood?
“Send the King—an’ all he wants.… An’ send word fer Creech to come back to the Ford.… Tell him I said—my sin found me out!”
Bostil watched Joel Creech ride the King out upon the slope, driving the others ahead. Sage King wanted to run. Sarchedon was wild and unruly. They passed out of sight. Then Bostil turned to his silent riders.
“Boys, seein’ the King go thet way wasn’t nothin’.… But what crucifies me is—will thet fetch her back?”
“God only knows!” replied Holley. “Mebbe not—I reckon not!… But, Bostil, you forget Slone is out there on Lucy’s trail. Out there ahead of Joel! Slone he’s a wild-hoss hunter—the keenest I ever seen. Do you think Creech can shake him on a trail? He’ll kill Creech, an’ he’ll lay fer Joel goin’ back—an’ he’ll kill him.… An’ I’ll bet my all he’ll ride in here with Lucy an’ the King!”
“Holley, you ain’t figurin’ on thet red hoss of Slone’s ridin’ down the King?”
Holley laughed as if Bostil’s query was the strangest thing of all that poignant day. “Naw. Slone’ll lay fer Joel an’ rope him like he roped Dick Sears.”
“Holley, I reckon you see—clearer ’n me,” said Bostil, plaintively. “’Pears as if I never had a hard knock before. Fer my nerve’s broke. I can’t hope.… Lucy’s gone!… Ain’t there anythin’ to do but wait?”