Curiously, as they swept past, something in the face of Chartres struck René as familiar. Yet he would have sworn he had never seen it before. Then, vividly, his mind flashed to that scene in the big house night before last, when he told the Jores the sheriff was working with Chartres—to the face of Revel Jore, riveted on him in nameless horror. Chained as in a dream of horror, he saw the ragtag and bobtail of the country kicking up dust behind the three, all heavily armed.
Then, jerked from that spell by the terrible necessity for action, he turned to the brush where Zion had hidden, to send him back to the Picture Rocks, back to guard Sentry Crags. He wouldn’t refuse this call to duty. On Black Wing he could easily beat the posse. But when he tore through the thicket, wildly calling his name, both rider and horse were gone. He thought Zion had overhead Race tell of Shang’s treachery and had gone already, but, following Black Wing’s tracks down to the creek and up on the opposite bank, he saw them turn into the road and point toward town.
Running back to camp, he saddled like a madman, sickeningly aware that every second might mean life or death to the Jores. He was almost crazy when, pounding up the road to Big Sandy, he found that the posse had wiped out Zion’s tracks. There was no clue now to his whereabouts, save to seek him where the most excitement was. And this was hard to tell.
For the town was in a turmoil. Citizens, many of whom, like Dad Peppin, remembered Jerico Jore and considered him a martyr, roused by this unprovoked roundup of his sons, stalked the boardwalk. Coldly, they marked for future discrimination and present animosity—as they had the posse—the riffraff of the country that had flocked here in the hope of being in on the kill, but not numbered among Dolan’s picked thirty, were now hanging around town for the morbid pleasure of seeing the Jores brought in.
Forcing his way through the throngs, René could find Zion nowhere. But as precious moments passed and he was almost in despair, shouts of coarse laughter drew his eyes toward Trail’s End. Up there a crowd was gathering. He lashed toward it, sure of what he’d find; so sure that he wasn’t shocked when he saw the golden horse of the Picture Rocks champing at the bit in the shrubs beside the hotel. In the turmoil, the stallion had been overlooked.
René rode on until, over the massed heads of the mob, he saw the core of excitement—a young fellow in buckskin, with a big rifle in his hands, looking with pitiful uncertainty at the score of rowdies making cruel sport of him.
As René flung down, frantically trying to push in, he heard the ringleader, a big, red-bearded, plaid-shirted man, insultingly chanting: “Oh, it’s Yankee Doodle come to town! Yankee Doodle Dandy!”
“I ain’t Yankee Doodle,” declared the young fellow, eager to be friendly, to meet the world halfway, but not sure that this was friendship.
His simplicity made the crowd howl with mirth. Flushing painfully, he tried to go on, but the red brute stopped him. “Wrong ag’in, huh? Waal, then it’s Kit Carson.”
“I ain’t Kit Carson!” His eyes faintly flared, as of lightning over the horizon.
Brighter it broke as, elaborately apologetic, his tormentor taunted: “My mistake. Excuse it.” Then, appealing to his audience, he said: “Name it, boys, and you can have it.”
“That’s Hank Farley from the Verde,” an appreciative bystander told René, who was caught in the jamb. “Good as a circus when he gets goin’.”
“It must be Daniel Boone!” Farley was going strong now, sending the mob into gales of merriment. “Why, shore, it’s Daniel! I’d know you anywhere, by your deerskin and long ha’r. Waal, Daniel, how’d you leave things back in ole Kaintuck?”
With mock cordiality, he struck that slight figure a blow on the back that made him reel. Catching him again, he held out a dirty paw as if to shake hands. But instead, reached up and brushed the young man’s long black hair in his face, holding him in a grizzly embrace while he rubbed it roughly, as a bullying boy washes the face of a smaller child in snow.
But this young fellow’s spirit would brook no such indignity. With a pantherish twist, he wrenched free and, leaping back against the adobe wall of the hotel veranda, confronting them all, face as white as the snow which, it was predicted, would lie on the ground when his imprisoned father came home, he jerked the big gun up, shrilling: “Let me be, or I’ll tell you who I am!”
This threw the mob into convulsions, and, spurred to greater histrionic heights, Farley made another grab for him.
It was all over in an instant. Before René could utter one cry of warning, the big gun belched flame and smoke. Sodden as a log with a rotten heart, Hank Farley crashed to the walk, a stain overspreading his checkered shirt, bright as that which the sunset had painted on the Picture Rocks.
Into the hush that followed the roar, awing everyone, the spirit of old Jerico Jore rampant in him, the young fellow told the world he had so yearned for: “I’m Zion Jore!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAD PURSUIT
So, as the careers of other Jores bid fair to end, did that of the youngest, fiercest, least responsible of the clan begin. He seemed not to realize it yet, standing there, stunned, a smoking rifle in his hands, a dead man at his feet, and, rising all around him, a vengeful muttering that broke into a horrible snarl at a cry from one of the dead man’s friends: “He’s killed Hank, that whelp of a Jore! Killed him! Do you hear? Why don’t you do something? Where’s Dolan?”
But Sheriff Dolan was miles away, and riding fast in his determination to “do something” about those other Jores. And, barred from that affray to which their blood was leaping, this remnant of the riffraff of the range around rejoiced that a Jore had fallen to them. They’d had nothing against the Jores when they rallied here to hunt them down, but were, as many men are beneath the strata of restraint that civilization imposes, savages, and just as ready to kill with the sanction of the law or some legitimate excuse to give them a loophole. They had it now. They had something against Zion Jore, something that lay there and never stirred, yet, by its very immobility, lashed them to higher frenzy than any words.
Frenziedly, one of them roared: “We don’t need Dolan! There’s just one system for Jores! The old vigilantes had it!”
“A rope!” another ruffian yelped. And the pack took it up.
A rope seemed to leap to every hand.
Zion Jore, looking in dazed bewilderment at the savage faces that glared upon him, came to life as they pressed forward, came to that lambent life that would be his until its flame was forever snuffed out. Menacingly, he swung the rifle, covering every man in that half circle, his eyes glittering like points of steel above the barrel, his voice the dangerous, steely drawl of the Jores.
“Keep back!” he warned. “I’ll shoot! And I can’t miss!”
The rush was checked. But René, watching in horror, saw a man who had worked around partially behind Zion raise a gun. There was no time to warn him, no time for anything but what René did. Before the man could pull the trigger, he snatched a gun from the nearest holster and shot. The man screamed like a wounded wildcat, grabbing his wrist. His gun rang to the porch, and the mob, looking to see who had taken the part of a Jore, saw a man scarcely older than young Jore—a youth in a cheap suit and cap that did not obliterate the range stamp. Pale and frail he was, yet the spirit that blazed in his dark eyes daunted them.
“Stand back!” He waved the gun. “Back! Clean away from him!”
As they wavered, he cried to the young fellow, praying that he would understand: “Run, Zion, for Sentry Crags! Shang’s double-crossed you! He’s left it open! He’s takin’ a posse in! They got a long start, but you got Black Wing!”
His heart turned sick as Zion stared at him one dazed instant. Thinking he didn’t comprehend, he cried wildly: “Go, Zion!”
Zion understood. Swift and clear came his answer: “With you, pard!”
“Don’t think of me!” shouted René, although he thrilled t
o it. “I’m all right! Don’t think of nothin’ but beatin’ the posse to the basin! Don’t let ’em see you! Circle ’em! Run … like you always wanted to run!”
He dared not take his eyes from that hostile press to watch. But he knew Zion had gone. He heard the rush of hoofs that were not shod. Saw wonder and awe leap to the angry eyes of the mob when they saw the horse that Zion rode. Then René thought of his own escape and knew it to be hopeless. The instant he turned to seek his cayuse in that horde of horses, a dozen men would shoot. Nor might they wait for that. Savage, frenzied faces glared at him, and their snarl was rising horribly.
“I’ll cover you, son,” a metallic voice rang down.
René looked up to see the grizzled old-timer he had talked to in Trail’s End. He stood in the open door, upright, militant, a .44 in his hand, his seamed old face aflame with the spirit of other days, when life hung by the flame of a six-sun and was as sweet then, perhaps sweeter, for you weren’t sure of a tomorrow. Those days seemed to be repeating themselves.
“I’ll cover you!” cried old Dad Peppin. “Go … and the hombre what tries to stop you better look out!”
Whirling, René ran toward his cayuse, and was vaulting on when Dad stayed him.
“Hell, no! You need a hoss! That bay, nighest the rattailed roan … he’s a good ’un, and belongs to a white man. Take him with my compliments, and … good luck.”
In a bound René hit the saddle, and the bay was plunging down the street of Big Sandy. Yes, he would need a horse. Before he reached the outskirts, he heard the pack howling in pursuit, as rabid to take him as Zion. Well, they wouldn’t get Zion. There wasn’t a horse in town could keep in sight of Black Wing.
He blessed Dad Peppin’s judgment, for the bay was a good one. Bent low over him, thrilling to the speed and power in his smooth stride, pounding over a bridge and flashing past his camp in the willows, he thought that, if he were half as good as his horse, he would give that pack of wolves a run before they got him. For he had no doubt, then, that they would get him in the end.
But racing past the valley ranches, out over the sun-fired ranges, the bay’s running inspired him with the hope that he, too, might get away. Hope stimulated him so, that, for a time, he rode as he used to ride on Flash, before he knew what being tired was, before he had ever gone East or met Race. He rode as he used to, whether there was any call for it or not, now with desperate need for it. For his life wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel if he were caught. So he rode lickety-split, straight for the Picture Rocks.
His direction was instinctive. He had outlawed himself, was in need of a refuge, and the basin was the nearest thing to home. Skimming the sage-choked flats, he remembered that he couldn’t go to the basin, even if Zion got there first and let him in. The Jores had banished him. Nor could he go in any other direction until he learned just what happened to the Jores from Zion.
Looking back, he saw that he had put a lot of distance between himself and his pursuers. Looking ahead, he saw the posse. It was far up in the foothills, fewer by half than when it had started out. He saw why this was. The sheriff’s men had split into two bands. One was on the Picture Rocks trail, the other veering south to circle the mountain and so to the secret pass. They would cut off the Jores’ retreat should they attempt to escape through the pass when the rest invaded the basin at Sentry Crags—as they would unless Zion beat them to it. Could Zion do it? Could even Black Wing overcome that handicap?
Tensely, in that vast panorama of sage flat and foothill, he sought for Zion but could not see him. He was glad of it. Zion had understood. He was keeping out of the posse’s sight. That low ridge to the right—a mountain, ages since, but now worn down to a line of broken buttes that ran up the foothills, almost to the crags—it was likely that Zion was behind it, burning the wind. Vividly, René envisaged the golden horse running, as he had seen him yesterday, across a marshy green valley.
Casting his eyes along that route, straining on the gaps between the buttes, never letting his own horse slacken, his heart bounded to a fleeting glimpse of what he had seen—Black Wing as he flashed across a gap, with Zion flat on his neck. The Jores were safe with Black Wing running like that. Although the posse was far ahead and riding hard, it did not know a guard was racing them for Sentry Crags. Unless they saw him first, Zion could easily get by them and cut in ahead to the pass, where his shots would bring his uncles.
His mind eased about the Jores, René thought of his own predicament, of how he could shake off pursuit. It wasn’t close enough to be a menace. A half mile behind, at least, down in the wastes of sage. Nor had he exhausted the horse Dad Peppin had told him was a good one. It was his own strength that was going—the strength he had stored up in days of rest in the basin, and in the last twenty-four hours so recklessly drawn on.
A dozen times in the last fast mile, he had clutched the horn of his saddle. Now he dared not relax his grip on it. For an overpowering weakness was stealing over him, a dizziness such as he had known the first time he had ridden this trail to the Picture Rocks. Again the peaks and canyons in the black range were dancing. The great crater up there spun like a top. The white ships that sailed the blue main above it revolved as if caught in mighty whirlpools. And he knew he couldn’t last, that he must ride fast, if he was to ever shake off the men behind at all.
Turning toward the ridge that hid Zion, he gave the bay its head, feeling it flatten and strain, conscious of the sting of wind in his face, its whine in his ears, the clutch of chaparral on his legs, its clash on his stirrups. Catching another longer glimpse of Black Wing almost opposite the posse and forced to run a hundred yards with no cover, he was in terror lest the posse see, also, but it did not stop. Breathing again, he was about to swing behind the first butte when he saw that which made him forget the men behind, the men before, and clamped him in the saddle in the cold vise of fear.
Beyond the posse, madly galloping toward them, was a rider, a rider so small as to be almost invisible, just a bright splash upon a plunging horse.
René knew, with shock surpassing that which he had felt when he awakened to find Zion beside him, that it was Eden. She was out of the basin, where she had been but once before, out in the world she found so terrifying.
She hadn’t seen the posse. It was in a deep depression banked high with mesquite and sage. Nor would they see her until the trail lifted them out of it. But someone saw her besides René.
For René’s eyes were drawn to the buttes beyond, and a groan was wrenched from his lips. There, in a gap, not flashing but standing, poised so all could see, was the glorious cream-white horse. Zion had seen his sister. He must have had some wild idea that she was in danger, for, to René’s despair, he cut straight across to her, running with all the unbelievable grace and speed of which Black Wing was capable. He was out in plain sight of the posse, as well as Shang Haman, who would recognize the rider and horse and reveal them to the rest—Luke Chartres, on whom the sight of the stallion would be as flame to powder, and Race Coulter, who would know at last that Black Wing was out of the protective walls of the Picture Rocks.
Even as these thoughts flashed through his mind, the posse saw Zion. For they stopped, consulting with many gesticulations, then swung toward him, lining out like hounds on a fresh scent.
Desperate at this fatal twist when all was won, René cried wildly, hopelessly: “Zion! Zion!”
But the wind whipped the cry from his lips, strangling it before it had gone a hundred yards. He remembered the gun he had snatched from that holster in Big Sandy and was reaching for it, hoping that a shot would attract his attention, when he saw Zion had already sighted him. Black Wing was slowing, losing precious seconds, and Zion was waving to him.
Jerking off his cap with his free hand, René swung it madly, crying, even though it were useless: “Zion … go back!”
The young rider stopped, uncertain what he meant, but ever ready to do a
nything that his partner asked.
“Back!” René motioned toward the buttes. “Go back!”
Zion wheeled and raced for the gap. But the posse was hot on his heels. With a vague impression that Eden was reining in and bewilderedly looking after him, René dropped to lower ground and lost sight of what went on. But he imagined everything—imagined Pat Dolan, seeing this chance to pick off a Jore; imagined Shang Haman seizing this opportunity to shut Zion up about Dave. But none of his imaginings, terrible as they were, was more terrible than the fact that Zion was cut off from the pass.
But he heard no shots. If Zion kept out of gun range, they wouldn’t get him—not on Black Wing, although Luke Chartres and his cowboys would run him to the world’s end. But the sheriff cared nothing about the horse. Nor did he know Zion Jore had killed a man. Soon he would swing his posse back to complete their grim task at the Picture Rocks.
Then René’s foaming horse raced out of the swale, all but colliding with Eden’s as she would have dashed into it in pursuit of Zion. But René blocked her trail.
“Eden,” he cried huskily, “what are you doin’ here?”
He never forgot the despair in her answer: “I’m after my brother.”
He tried to hold her, to tell her.
But she held her sweating horse in to tell him: “You lured him from us … for Black Wing! For that is Black Wing, although how he comes to be broken, I don’t know. Perhaps you do. You know so much. For a horse, you let your friends run him down like a wild beast. Oh, you … you traitor!” The quivering, struggling passion behind her words held René white and mute.
“We took you in and cared for you like you were one of our own. We trusted you, and you struck at us through the one who was helpless. You wouldn’t do that to your own kind. But we’re Jores, free game. But bad as they paint us, not a Jore on this earth or beneath it would do what you’ve done.”
Outcasts of Picture Rocks Page 9