In this respite, Eden’s eyes flew back to the ravine, and she cried, her tortured soul in her words: “They’re coming!”
Yes! They were coming down the home stretch at last at a headlong gallop, the long mile from the ravine’s end to the portals of the pass; coming, with that grim contestant, in this race for home, fighting to hold second place in the whirlwind finish.
For the deputies, stationed here by Sheriff Dolan, who had deserted their post in their endeavor to capture Joel Jore, now saw the other fugitives breaking in. And, leaving two of their number to guard the trapped convict, lashed madly for the pass.
“It’s a standoff for distance.” Abel’s hand quivered on his gun, in eagerness to do what he could when the time came. “But Dolan’s men’s got the best footin’. Zion can make it on Black Wing! But René …”
Out of the snow behind them lunged a horse, and Yance flung off.
“They’re back … all three,” Abel explained the situation. “René and Zion’s breakin’ in. Joel’s tolled the guards off. They’ve got him cornered in them rocks.”
Rushing to Abel’s side, Yance looked. Up from the left, through the deceptive snow haze, he saw the guards pounding and, down from the right, neck to neck, a bay horse and a buckskin racing. His eyes fixed on the buckskin, his clenched fists beating the rocks before him, as if that would hasten their coming, he was yelling: “Black Wing can beat that! What’s holdin’ him back?”
Suddenly, they saw the pale horse pull away from the bay, saw a fast-widening stretch of snow between. For the first time, saw Black Wing run. Run, with neck outstretched, body hugging the ground, mane and tail astream. Run, with that low, smooth, space-consuming stride, inherited from a long line of racing kings. They saw Crusader’s son, drawing heroically on every trick, trait, and attribute of his glorious heritage to bring the helpless grandson of old Jerico to sanctuary.
For, now, it appeared Zion was lashed to Black Wing’s back. They glimpsed his white, senseless face in the golden swirl on Black Wing’s neck, as the guards, seeing the most wanted of the three in danger of reaching safety, goaded furiously.
“Get set!” Abel’s drawl had a steely ring. “They’re about in range! They’ve forgot there’s guards up here! Don’t kill unless we have to. But stop ’em!”
Shoulder to shoulder, the Jores, known as two of the most dangerous men in the West, crouched behind those rags of rocks, coolly biding their time—two brothers, rejected by the world of men and hence grown nearer, dearer to each other than all the world beside—except for that third brother, out there, at the world’s mercy. And Joel’s willingness to forego a man’s life and a man’s death, that his son might have both, inspired them with a determination to insure this and to sacrifice as much for him, made them dangerous.
“Now!” Abel’s gun blazed.
Between the guards and the entrance to the pass, there dropped a curtain of hot lead, harmless, if they didn’t try to pierce it; deadly, then—death for anyone but a Jore, or a friend of Jores, to go behind that screen. It fell and stayed there, the levers of those rifles working almost with the speed and precision of machine guns, while Zion Jore—all unconscious of their roar, dead to the fact that over him was falling the shadow of the home rims—passed within the protection of that leaden hail.
Then the guards, cheated of this victory, swerved their horses from the hot face of that screen but, seeing still a chance to cut off the Reno Kid, spurred straight toward him.
Seeing them coming, René thanked fate he had released the stallion, trusting him to take Zion in alone. All but forgetting his own danger, in wonder at Black Wing’s running, even slowing to turn back to Joel, then remembering that Zion wasn’t home yet and his promise not to turn back, he settled down to gain the safety of that leaden screen himself.
Steadily, the Jores’ guns blazed, while Joel, hearing them, placed his faith in them and watched in awful suspense from his shelter in the rocks, while the rider, who had driven him there—a fine-looking man, in a white Stetson—thundered after the guards, cursing, as a sensate thing, the snow that had made him an hour late with the message that would have prevented all this.
Eden Jore, who had risked life in her race down that steep, slick, icy cliff, long before the shooting began, tore with all the frenzy of despair at that rock barrier on the floor of the pass. Getting an opening in it just as Black Wing plunged up and seeing her brother, all frenzy left her. The long suspense was over.
There, with the black walls soaring a thousand feet above her—piled as high as grief for the Jores this day—she loosed Zion’s bonds and drew him down into her arms. And there, surrounded by the cold snow and the cold rocks, she gently rocked him back and forth.
“Eden.” His opening eyes focused on that sweet, sorrowful face with joy hardly of this earth. “Eden, you was right.”
She didn’t seem to know what he was talking about.
“About out there,” he murmured. “It’s better here. I’m home … to stay.”
To stay. Two pine crosses now.
He stirred. “Where’s René?” For he hadn’t known when they had roped him on for this mad dash home.
Over the shooting that was one prolonged roar, she heard the pounding hoofs of Stonewall, and, in an instant more, René dropped down beside them. One look at his thin, strained face told Eden more of the story than pine and cactus could, had they tongue, or even old Piney Torm. And all the love and gratitude of her loyal heart were forever his.
“You brought him home.” This was her simple greeting.
“He’s not home … yet.” René’s smile—for Zion’s benefit—struck her to the heart. “We must get him home … quick.”
She understood.
Lifting Zion—with tragic ease, for he had no weight—René put him on Black Wing’s back. He was reaching for the rope to tie him there, when Zion weakly waved him back. Insisting, with the spirit that would be the last thing to die in him: “Not … like that. I’m goin’ back with my tail up. Like I always seen myself … goin’ back to the Picture Rocks. Pard, give me my gun.”
Slowly, with Eden and René on either side of him and the big rifle in his hands, Zion Jore rode down the home trail, the iron left, when all else was ash, holding him erect in the saddle.
Erect, he rode in sight of the cabins by the lake, across from the painted bluff. The dogs ran out with a welcoming clamor. A woman came running, a black-clad woman, with face of marble. His heart aching with pity of the shock awaiting her, René looked away and saw—with shock to himself, in his own old cabin door, eyes glued on Black Wing—Race Coulter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GOOD-BYE
Up the steps to the big house, René carried Zion. But when he would have borne him in, Zion resisted with all his failing strength.
“Not in there!” he protested. “Don’t shut me up. I want to be out … where I can see the lake and the ol’ paint rocks.”
Since the cold could no longer hurt him, they dragged the couch from before the fireplace out to the west porch, and there they laid him, under the protecting pelt of the big grizzly he himself had brought down.
There he lay, head pillowed high, the big rifle, to which he still clung as a faithful friend, across his lap, his restless eyes eagerly feasting on the dear, familiar scenes that had haunted him through all his wanderings—with joy unspeakable, on mother and sister, who masked their own heartbreak to smile bravely back; on the painted bluff, whose grotesque, savage host seemed, through swirling flakes, to come to life, to caper and dance, in high carnival over his return; on the lake, dimpling for him, as soft snow petals touch its ruffled surface and, dissolving, became a part of it; on the white hills he never more would roam; on the white walls that, once more, shut him in—shut out every troubling thing and seemed to fold him in their mighty arms.
He closed his eyes, tears of happiness we
lling from beneath his lashes, sighing, happily: “Here, everything likes me.”
Seemingly, he had no memory of that meeting with his father. Or, if he had, he thought of it only as a dream, one of his many, many dreams of home. René was thankful this knowledge was spared Revel. Looking at her, bending over Zion, smoothing his tangle of long black hair, he believed God had spared her any divination of this. She could not be so brave, must surely have lost her reason, utterly, had she known Joel was fighting for his life at the very gate of home.
Quietly rising, he slipped off the porch and led the horses to the corral. But he didn’t turn them in. He just stood, listening, his eyes on the snowy crags, not knowing what course to pursue. He wanted to go to Joel. But a solemn stillness now hung over everything. Whatever the outcome, temporarily, at least, the fighting was over out there. And he might be needed here.
“Kid, what was that shootin’?”
He turned to see Race beside him. Race had stuck like a burr to him since he came. But this was René’s first word with him.
“It was Yance and Abel, Race. Joel was with us. He’s cut off.”
Soberly, Race said: “That’s tough.” He studied René for a moment’s space. “You’re all in, kid. Go rest. I’ll put the horses up.”
“I ain’t puttin’ ’em up. They may be needed. No tellin’ what may happen out there. Yance and Abel won’t stand by while they take Joel. If there’s any more shootin’, I’m goin’. I’m just waitin’.”
Waiting with him, his eyes on the crags. “It’s tough,” said Race and, with a back nod at the porch: “Things like that … tough.”
There was a new note in Race’s voice. Now, as he looked at Black Wing, there was a difference in his expression. The greedy light his eyes had always reflected, when the stallion was in his sight or thoughts, was conspicuous for its absence. He was, René observed, changed in every way, subdued, chastened.
“A lot of water’s run under the bridge, since we parted in that arroyo, kid.” Thoughtfully, Race pushed up a pile of glistening snow with his boot toe. “They let me go that same night. Had to talk hard, though. And I come here, fast as I could travel. The Jores let me in to wait. Give me your ol’ cabin. There I’ve been. Oh, they treated me all right … fed me and let me alone. First time in my life I really was alone. Sort of got acquainted with myself. Didn’t like myself much.” With sudden, startling passion, something almost of dislike in the look he flashed at Black Wing. “I wisht to heaven I’d never seen that horse.”
Stunned by this speech, René could only ask: “Why, Race?”
“He’s give me nothin’ but grief. That’s all he’s give you, too … and everyone who’s had anything to do with him. You forget all that … lookin’ at him. But”—a shudder swept the man—“Fresno ain’t lookin’ at him. Nor Zion won’t be long! Nor Joel. Kid,” he somberly declared, “this is the blackest day the Jores has known. And just when I thought things was breakin’ for them. Do you know Luke Chartres has been here?”
“What?” cried René, dazed.
“No tellin’ how many times. But twice since I came. You’d think he was one of the clan. Oh, I ain’t stringin’ you! That’s how I got in. Sheriff Dolan wrote Chartres a passport in here, and I got him to pass me by the guards. Kid, sure as you’re livin’, there’s something in the wind. I throwed out some hints to Yance. But you know how he is … close-mouthed. Abel’s worse, while the women …”
Just then René saw Eden beckoning to him and rushed up to the porch. Race, nervous, decidedly out of his element here, followed closely.
But what René feared had not yet come to pass, although it couldn’t be far off. Zion had asked for him. His partner’s face was one of the things on which his eyes must rest as their glow swiftly dimmed.
On it, now, they lovingly dwelt, as René sat down by him and took his hand. Happily, Zion said: “We made it, pard!”
René’s smile was crooked. “We sure did, Zion.”
Again, Zion’s eyes must make the rounds to assure himself of this. René, whose own gaze never left his face, saw them suddenly halt near the corrals and fix with intensity on something, the old lightning flaring in them.
“Shang!” he gasped, making a desperate effort to rise. “I … saw … Shang!”
René whirled. But there was nothing. He said sadly: “Zion, you’re dreamin’ again.”
“It’s no dream!” he cried wildly. “I saw him. Not slick … like he used to be, but … rough … hungry … like a wolf!”
Could it be that Shang Haman’s shadow was over this farewell, his malevolence strong enough to reach them from—where? Next thing, René told himself, he’d be seeing things.
“You seen him that day at the springs,” he reminded Zion. “Remember? You thought I was Shang.”
Zion’s memory of that was painful enough to make him doubt himself. He lay back, fighting for breath. But he couldn’t rest. His eyes continued to search around the corral for Dave’s murderer.
Quietly, Eden drew René aside. “It’s possible,” she choked back her grief to tell him, “that he did see Shang. Shang’s still in the basin. He came back soon after you left. Mother ordered him to go, but he wouldn’t. When my uncles came, he took to the hills. They couldn’t find him. They haven’t tried lately. But he couldn’t get out. They’ve kept a close watch at the pass. The storm may have driven him down.”
René resolved to investigate. Stopping by the couch to take a look around, he saw Zion’s eyes again rivet on something, his thin fingers twine about the big gun and heard his faint, fierce gasp: “There … he is.”
Nor was it any fever-conjured creation, although as horrid as one, that wild, disheveled figure, they all saw spring from behind the corral, dodge behind Stonewall and, grasping the trailing reins of Black Wing’s hackamore, leap to his back and bolt.
It was Shang, far from dapper but more devilish than ever. His silverware, if he still had it, had lost its luster. What had been a pale silk shirt was blackened tatters, his sleek blue jowls hidden beneath a beard of two months’ growth.
Shang had lived like the wolf he looked, in constant terror of his life, in this basin where the very rocks scowled at him; where the painted host, even in his securest days, had made him nervous, came down from their rocks at dark to hem him in, to gibber taunts, gloat over him, freezing, starving, hunted, as he thought. So had they maddened him that, when he heard the shooting—believing Dolan was at the crags, and all he needed to escape this living tomb was a horse—he had risked coming out, to leap on the first horse in sight, one he had long coveted, the only one on earth fleet enough to outrun the wrath of the Jores.
But eyes that missed no unnatural thing, while the faintest glow remained, had marked him. As he struck the saddle, a laugh rang out, that wild, weird laugh that had transfixed the gang in the Black Spout, that transfixed those about the couch, so they could only watch Zion Jore, miraculously sitting up, his rifle aimed and cocked, but its fire checked, while he called in a voice to which vengeance gave power to reach that figure spurring off: “The name of the man that sits on him is Death!”
He whistled in the same breath—the shrill, sweet whistle that Black Wing loved as no other sound. It stopped the running horse like a rock, held him, anchored there, while in a very ecstasy of fear Shang lashed and cursed and belabored him with brutal fists; held him, until Shang, seeing that rifle aimed at him—for René dared not touch it, lest to do so give impetus to the bullet long overdue—and feeling beneath his leg the heavy leather rifle scabbard, jerked it free, and brought it down in a savage swing upon the head of the stallion. And this, Black Wing’s spirit could no more brook than would Zion Jore suffer the indignities Hank Farley had heaped on him in Trail’s End.
Black Wing moved—but not on. With a maddened scream, he hurled himself upright. For a flash of time, poised there, forefeet flailing the air, his golden, outr
aged form arched. Then, so suddenly that it scarcely registered in the horrified watchers, he crashed backward. When he rolled to his feet, the devilish figure of his tormentor did not move.
Dave Jore was avenged. Shang had paid in full for all his crimes. They all knew it—even Zion. His mother and sister knew it, with horror and thankfulness that fate had relented to settle the score and spare Zion this last violence. Race Coulter knew, in terror that started cold sweat from every pore, that, again, the prophecy was true. René—with some awed reflection of that other prediction, that when Joel came in snow and storm one who heard it would be gone—was leaping down the steps to verify this, when he saw a band of riders storm up the trail—Joel Jore, his brothers, Yance and Abel, and between them rode a man in white Stetson, Luke Chartres. Behind them there were six others, with stars, who yanked up beside the crumpled form. René realized that the law had come to the Picture Rocks and knew, somehow, that it did not constitute a menace. But he had no time to wonder at this. Zion was making his last request.
“Pard”—as René sprang up the steps—“Black Wing! My whistle won’t work.”
Like lightning René ran for him, as the Jores and Chartres threw down at the porch. The stallion had moved back to the corral and stood there, his great eyes rolling hate and fear at the snowy thing the deputies were examining. But he let René catch him and lead him to the couch, for everyone was there. Joel knelt at the head of it, his arm about Revel. René gave the lead rope to her, and the stallion stepped up, thrusting his velvety nose under Zion’s hand, caressing the hand that could no longer caress him, soothed by the voice he would never hear again, voicing last love and praise.
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