Outcasts of Picture Rocks

by Cherry Wilson

  For as René stirred with a moan, his dazed eyes opening, the young fellow’s gun flashed up, its muzzle within inches of René’s chest, his face a savage blaze, crying out, and only curiosity holding his hand for an answer to his question: “What … are … you?”

  What was he? René Rand tried to think. But to save his life he could think of nothing but what Race had told him he was. He said weakly: “Nothin’ … to … be … afraid of.” And he smiled in the face of death—the little, twisted, bitter smile that mocked himself, the smile that got all men, that had made even the hard-boiled racetrack crowd look out for him.

  And the smile worked a miracle here, relaxed that finger on the trigger, lowered the deadly rifle, brought a ghost of an answer to the wild, dark face above him.

  “I reckon,” said the young sentinel in buckskin, “I ain’t afraid of anything,” adding, as if this would explain all: “I’m Zion Jore.”

  Zion it was—the youngest, fiercest, least responsible of the clan—who had let Race enter the basin, see Black Wing, then captured him. Not that René remembered this; he was far too sick, scarcely aware of another being standing there, perplexed, really not knowing what to do next.

  Zion had let the other man in for excitement, and because it fitted his peculiar ideas of revenge. He had instructions never to do that again. But none of his instructions, comprehensive as they were, fitted this case. He was to scare intruders off; shoot, if they didn’t scare; or fire six shots in fast succession, if more men came than he could handle. This one was too sick to scare back. He couldn’t shoot him. And certainly he wasn’t too much for him.

  In his bewilderment he knelt down by René. “What brought you here?”

  “To … get … well,” René whispered, desperately rallying his thoughts. “I’m huntin’ … a place … where I can get … my health back.”

  Then he hadn’t come for the horse. The fierce light died out of Zion’s face.

  “You see,” said René with tremendous effort, “I was dyin’ … where I was at. Away off … that was …”

  With quivering eagerness, Zion echoed: “Away off?” He repeated, “Away off,” sitting down cross-legged in the trail, his brown fingers laced about his knees, his eyes devouring René. “Tell me,” he begged tensely, “what it’s like out there?”

  Amazed, René asked: “Where do you mean?”

  “Out there”—tremblingly, Zion pointed through the black portals, down over the purpling foothills—“where folks can ride and ride, and not run up against a wall.”

  René moaned bitterly: “I brought up against one, Zion.”

  He did not think René would understand. But with strange gentleness, Zion said: “I don’t mean that kind. I mean”—he threw his dark head back toward the Picture Rocks—“walls like them! Here … I’m always ridin’ toward a wall. It makes me crazy. I don’t want to stop, when I get goin’. I want to run like the wind that swoops down and rushes on, and never stops or turns around!”

  Over his shadowed face swept the brooding gleam René was to know and fear. “Sometimes,” he went on in a strained whisper, “sometimes, sittin’ up there, it comes over me so strong. I look out and see men ridin’. Nothin’ to stop them, ’less they come this way, when I stop ’em plenty quick. Seems like, if I just stood up on that ol’ peak and let go, I could float down. Like I got wings. Out there men fly, I hear.”

  Suddenly, confidentially hitching nearer: “My dad’s out there,” he told René. “But he’s in walls, they say. Smaller than these. A heap stronger … they must be. Else he’d come back.” His wild face flamed with mutiny. “The rest go out. They won’t take me. But I’m goin’ soon. I got it all made up. I’ll tell you someday.”

  Struggling to raise himself, René cried: “Zion, you’re tellin’ me too much!”

  “Why?” naïvely, the wild young creature asked.

  “Because you … don’t know me. You don’t know if you can trust me.”

  Zion’s smile was exquisite repudiation. “Knowin’ folks,” he said softly, “don’t make trust. All my life I’ve known Shang Haman. But”—his eyes gleamed like black diamonds—“I ain’t tellin’ him nothin’.”

  To keep his thoughts off the other track, René asked: “Who’s Shang?”

  “The devil!” said Zion.

  Always that description.

  There ensued a long hush, broken by the faint crunch of the feeding horses, by the sinister hiss of the wind in the pass. Zion watched René, lost in thought. René watched Zion, realizing that his fate depended on the outcome of that thinking, and was relieved when Zion began to think aloud.

  “You could get well in the Picture Rocks. It never made nobody sick. Nobody ever died … ’less they was shot. And Mother, she’s got the healin’ touch. Ain’t seen a thing she can’t cure yet. But nobody’s let in.” That seemed to bring him to a decision, for his face hardened. Then, as this expression melted before his low-voiced longing: “There’s things I’d like to be a-hearin’ about … out there.”

  René promised, stretching out a hand: “I’ll tell you, Zion.”

  Hungrily seizing that hand in both his brown ones: “And you could be my pard?” Zion dreamed aloud wistfully. “I ain’t had none since Dave was shot. He was cousins with me. Shang done it!”—this with a wild ferocity that sent a chill through René. “My folks might stand for you … when they know it’s just for health. But Shang … he’d do for you, like he done for Dave!”

  Before the words had fairly left his mouth, he had leaped up, clutching the gun, crying: “No! Shang won’t! If he touches you, I’ll blow him to kingdom come!”

  Loving him, then, as he would through everything—to the bitter end of the red trail this Jore would run—René cried: “I won’t go, Zion! I won’t get you in trouble. If he’s a devil …”

  Piercing his heart came Zion’s triumphant laugh. “There’s a pair of us! Look!” His eyes darted down the trail, fastening on some object about a hundred yards away. “See that bluebell?” He pointed to the blossom, swaying beside the trail.

  René had trouble seeing it, for the light was dim. “Yeah,” he said wonderingly, “I see it, Zion.”

  The rifle flashed up, and Zion fired, taking no aim, it seemed, and the flower fell, sheared from its stem. While René watched, speechless at this feat, the boy dropped the rifle and, pointing to another bloom, said: “See that lupine?”

  At René’s nod, he jerked a six-gun from his belt, firing in a single motion, clipping this flower as neatly as the first. Then, turning back, he said, in no spirit of show-off but as simple truth: “I’m the best shot in the whole world, I guess. I can shoot rings around Shang. He don’t know it … yet. I practice all the time. I’ve got to kill him. He pesters Eden. The men don’t see … but she tells me.” He sprang forward toward René, who was sinking back to the trail, entreating with wild concern: “Pard, don’t go away again!”

  But René had gone. When he came back, he was conscious of a motion painful to him, of being on a horse again; not the mangy cayuse Race had supplied him with, but a big black that showed thoroughbred blood. Two bare brown arms were about his waist, holding him up, bringing back Zion and their talk. And, wearily lifting his eyes from the trail and the horse and the two brown arms, he met a scene as wild and grand as the eye of man ever looked upon.

  He saw a long and narrow lake, a shimmer of silver in the twilight. He saw, across the silver shimmer, a stupendous cliff, upon which was painted a host of hostile, savage figures that seemed to live and move, advancing on him, striking awe to his heart—the Picture Rocks!

  And he saw upon the near shore, where the singing cottonwoods dipped their feet in the rippling water, a row of cabins, sheds, barns, and corrals; cabins built of unbarked logs, and connected by covered courtyards, from which a pack of dogs had started, with hideous uproar, but were called back by men—by three men, leavi
ng the biggest cabin, advancing, their spurs whizzing in their angry stride, as hostile and savage as the painted figures. Jores! For they had the same deep blue piercing eye of Zion, without its wandering; the same resilient, quick-moving form; the same reckless hardihood of speech and action.

  Cold and grim, one demanded: “What’s this, Zion?”

  René felt the arms about him tighten, heard Zion pleading: “He’s sick! He’s huntin’ health in the Picture Rocks!”

  And from behind him he heard a laugh, Shang’s laugh, for it was devilish. “The Picture Rocks ain’t a health resort!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE GUIDE

  Ever afterward when René saw Shang Haman, he was reminded of Race Coulter. The outlaw was similarly small boned and overfleshed. His small, yellowish eyes had, at all times, the same lusty gleam; his tight, hard mouth, the selfishness of Race’s at its worst—of Race’s when he was thinking of Black Wing. He was, likewise, as showy in appearance. His high-heeled, filigreed boots, his tight-fitting black trousers, his heavy belt with its ornate buckle of silver, his soft white shirt, black silk bandanna, and silver-mounted sombrero were all in rich contrast to the rough attire of the Jores.

  But to René then, upheld in Zion’s arms, Shang was only a voice, as were the Jore brothers, Yance and Abel, grim, inimical voices, wrangling over him. The one thing of substance in the glimmering twilight was the slight, taut form supporting him—Zion, whose wild heartthrobs he could feel against him, in whose eyes black hate-clouds had piled thick at that laugh, whose slim brown hands about his waist had flexed on the rifle they held, so that its muzzle quivered up to rest fully on Shang Haman’s breast and remained there, as his gaze, for once unwavering, held Shang’s gaze, while he told the Jores how he had found René at Sentry Crags and brought him in.

  “He … he can’t hurt nothin’!” Zion’s appeal flung into the ensuing silence. “He just wants to get well. Help me get him down, Uncle Abel.”

  Surely the Jores had some heart, for instinctively Abel Jore stepped toward the black to receive René in his arms.

  But Shang Haman, who had no more heart than a rattlesnake, coldly intervened: “Strangers is barred from this basin. Why’s the bars down for him?”

  Zion cried fiercely, “You keep outta this, Shang!”

  Paying him no more heed than he did the dogs, yapping up at the limp figure in the saddle, Shang demanded again: “Why’s the bars down for him?”

  It seemed too obvious for explanation. But Abel Jore vouchsafed one: “What else can we do?” he asked, exactly as Race had hoped. “The feller’s sick. We can’t drive him out.”

  “Zion can dump him back at the pass where he picked him up,” Shang proposed. “I warned you not to put that fool on watch!”

  Dangerously, the Jores fired up at that slur on their imprisoned brother’s son. Abel warned in a steely drawl, “Don’t forget you’re talkin’ of a Jore!”

  Cowed by that tone, but stubbornly standing his ground, Shang argued, “I’m a Jore, too! I’ve throwed in my lot with you. I follow your lead in everything else. But when it comes to takin’ outsiders in, it’s as much my business as yours!”

  The Jores admitted this. But they balked at leaving René at the crags.

  “He’d die out there,” said Abel Jore.

  “That beats lettin’ him die in here,” was the callous answer. “For he’ll have folks somewhere. They’ll be investigatin’. They’ll say we killed him. If”—with a hard glance at René—“he ain’t shammin’! If he ain’t a spy for Pat Dolan!”

  Mercy fled at the mere suspicion. Sheriff Pat Dolan had robbed a Jore of freedom, caged him like a wolf for life. Dolan, they had Shang’s word for it, had shed Jore blood, had killed Dave Jore, the only son of Abel. He had sworn—innumerable reports had reached them—that he would move heaven and earth to exterminate them.

  Reluctantly, Abel Jore gave in. “Reckon you’re right, Shang.” He added coldly as he swung about: “He’ll have to go, Zion.”

  “And quick!” ordered Shang, stepping up on the black. “But I’ll tend to it! I’ll put him out so …” He froze in his tracks as that rifle twitched, eager for utterance.

  But Zion throttled its rapacious tongue to shout a shrill warning: “Keep back, Shang! You don’t touch him! You don’t kill him like you done Dave!”

  “Shut up, Zion!” thundered his Uncle Abel.

  But the young fellow defied him. There was something awe-compelling in his wild, passionate face, working in grief and rage. “I tell you he killed Dave! He lays it on the sheriff. But I know! He was afraid of Dave! Dave knowed something! Dave told me …”

  “He’s crazy!” screamed Shang, a note of terror in his voice that drew the alert eyes of Abel Jore and brought an ominous gleam to them.

  But the gleam died in an instant, and Abel Jore said heavily: “He ain’t responsible, Shang. So keep your shirt on. We know perfectly well that it was the sheriff. He saw Dave outside the basin. It was his chance to pick a Jore off, an’ …”

  Zion’s wild, young laughter was unearthly. “Shang saw his chance to shut Dave up. Dave knowed too much. Dave knowed he …”

  Murderously, Shang lunged toward him, roaring: “I’ll shut you up!” Then he stiffened in his tracks again as the hammer of the rifle clicked down under Zion’s thumb and the black hate in Zion’s eyes was ripped by lightning. In Zion’s face, now as white as the face of the slight figure in his arms, dawned a resolve there was no mistaking.

  “You took Dave,” said Zion quietly, suddenly, fatally so. “Dave was pards with me. This one, he’s pards with me, too. You ain’t goin’ to take him. You’re goin’, Shang. You’re goin’ out, and you ain’t comin’ back.” His finger bent to the trigger.

  In that instant, while the Jores stood powerless to avert the tragedy, while Shang Haman looked into the face of death, there came a low, clear call from the direction of the cabins, riveting Zion, riveting them all in their attitudes of horror: “Son!”

  Dimly, René was aware of a woman running down the trail, a woman all in black, with a face like white marble and with eyes of fire, a face that was still beautiful, although graven on it was the story of a broken heart and ruined life. And he knew that this was Revel, who as a girl had chosen Joel Jore from all men—and had lost him—who had renounced high position for the Picture Rocks Basin.

  Slowly she came up, gazing from one tense face to the other. No one explained the situation to her. They believed all things were known to her. So did René believe it. From first to last, his faith in Revel Jore was absolute.

  As she slowly approached the horse, fear such as Race had felt when she came, walking through the trees to his deliverance, struck the heart of René—fear that became a panic of guilt, when, putting one hand on Zion’s gun to deflect its aim, she placed the other on the shoulder of the black, and strained up, subjecting René Rand to such a scrutiny as he had never known. For he believed that nothing was hidden. He waited for her to tell them that he had come for Black Wing, the horse whose rider’s name was Death.

  Instead, she told them in a low, rich, thrilling voice: “He’s sick. Take him to the house.”

  With more gentleness than René had thought him capable of, Abel Jore denied her. “He can’t stay, Revel.”

  “Can’t stay?” echoed the woman blankly. “He’s in no condition to turn away.”

  With a glance at Shang, who was wiping the cold sweat from his face with a soft white sleeve, the brother-in-law rejoined firmly: “We ain’t responsible for his condition.”

  Then the woman, on whom that glance had not been lost, declared: “You will be, Abel Jore, when he dies on the trail. You’ll be responsible for his murder.”

  One charged instant of silence she surveyed them with heaving breast and flashing eyes, then, “For shame!” she cried with ringing scorn. “And you call yourselves men! You were �
� when Joel was here to lead you. Have you sunk so low, following your evil star?”

  Furious at this thrust, at the interference, at the effect of her words on the Jores, Shang cried hotly: “That’s another thing I’m kickin’ about right here! This petticoat rule! The way you let her twist you around her finger! The way you listen to her drivel! Go by it … like it was law!”

  “We’ve been sorry, when we didn’t, Shang,” said Abel Jore. “She told us about Dave, and if we’d listened …”

  “Yeah,” Shang cut in with a nervous glance at Zion. “She told you about Joel, too … and she told you wrong! She said he’d come back. And he’s up for life!”

  “He’ll come,” said Joel Jore’s wife.

  Fierce eagerness illumined the dark faces of the Jores. Seldom did Revel speak, never through persuasion, and but once before on this subject. Months and months they had prayed for some word, but she had kept silence.

  “Joel will come?” cried Abel hoarsely. “When?”

  In suspense they waited, watching the woman; in suspense Shang Haman, ashen, was in stark dread of Joel Jore’s return. Even René, fighting off the blackness again closing in and with some premonition of the part he would play in that homecoming, waited in suspense and watched as tensely and breathlessly as the rest the outlaw’s wife, who, still as a graven statue, was staring into purple space. It was as if they all stood on the brink of some great gulf which only she could see across. They saw her whole being lift and her tragic face illumine, as with joy of what she was seeing. They saw her shrink, her white hands clutch and twist the black dress at her breast, in agony that shook her frail body. And they heard her moan: “Joel will come in snow and ice and storm. But one of us who stands here will be gone.”