by Zane Grey
“If it ain’t Jim an’ Kells’s girl . . . Dandy Dale!” ejaculated Smith. “Fellers, this means somethin’. Say, youngster, hope you ain’t hurt . . . or the girl?”
“No. But that’s not your fault,” replied Cleve. “Why did you want to plug the coach full of lead?”
“This beats me,” said Smith. “Kells sent you out on the stage! But, hell, when he gave us the job of holdin’ it up, he didn’t tell us you’d be in there. When an’ where’d you leave him?”
“Sometime last night . . . a camp . . . near our cabin,” replied Jim, quick as a flash. Manifestly he saw his opportunity. “He left Dandy Dale with me. Told us to take the stage this morning. I expected him to be in it or to meet us.”
“Didn’t you have no orders?”
“None, except to take care of the girl, till he came. But he did tell me he’d have more to say.”
Smith gazed blankly from Cleve to Blicky, and then at Gulden, who came slowly forward, his hair ruffed, his gun held low. Joan followed the glance of his great gray eyes, and she saw the stage driver hanging dead over his seat, and the guards lying back of him. The off-side horse of the leaders lay dead in his traces with his mate nosing at him.
“Who’s in there?” boomed Gulden, and he thrust hand and gun in at the stage door. “Come out!”
The young man stumbled out, hands above his head, pallid and shaking, so weak he could scarcely stand.
Gulden prodded the bearded miner.
“Come out here, you!”
The man appeared to be hunched forward in a heap.
“Guess he’s plugged,” said Smith. “But he ain’t cashed. Hear him breathe? Heaves like a sick hoss.”
Gulden reached in with brawny arm and with one pull he dragged the miner off the seat and out into the road, where he flopped with a groan. There was blood on his neck and hands. Gulden bent over him, tore at his clothes, tore harder at something, and then, with a swing, he held aloft a broad black belt, sagging heavily with gold.
“Hah!” he boomed. It was just an exclamation, horrible to hear, but it did not express satisfaction or exultation. He handed the gold belt to the grinning Budd, and turned to the young man.
“Got any gold?”
“No. I . . . I wasn’t a miner,” replied the youth huskily.
Gulden felt for a gold belt, then stopped at his pockets.
“Turn around!” ordered the giant.
“Aw, hell, let him go!” remonstrated Jesse Smith.
Blicky laid a restraining hand upon Gulden’s broad shoulder.
“Turn around!” repeated Gulden, without the slightest sign of noticing his colleagues.
But the youth understood and he turned a ghastly livid hue.
“For God’s sake . . . don’t murder me!” he gasped. “I have . . . nothing . . . no gold . . . no gun!”
Gulden spun him around like a top and pushed him forward. They went half a dozen paces, then the youth staggered, and, turning, he fell on his knees.
“Don’t . . . kill . . . me!” he entreated.
Joan, seeing Jim Cleve stiffen and crouch, thought of him even in that horrible moment, and she gripped his arm with all her might. They must endure.
The other bandits muttered, but none moved a hand.
Gulden thrust out the big gun. His hair bristled on his head and his huge frame seemed instinct with strange vibration, like some object of tremendous weight about to plunge into resistless momentum. Even the stricken youth, with precious life the indestructible sound of hope, saw his doom.
“Let . . . me . . . pray!” he begged.
Joan did not faint, but a merciful unclamping of muscle-bound rigidity closed her eyes.
“Gul!” yelled Blicky with passion. “I ain’t a-goin’ to let you kill this kid! There’s no sense in it. We’re spotted back in Alder Creek. Run, kid! Run!”
Then Joan opened her eyes to see the surly Gulden’s arm held by Blicky, and the youth running blindly down the road. Joan’s relief and joy were tremendous. But still she answered to the readying shock of what Gulden had meant to do. She leaned against Cleve, all within and without a whirling darkness of fire. The border wildness claimed her then. She had the spirit, although not the strength, to fight. She needed the sight and sound of other things to restore her equilibrium. She would have welcomed another shock, an injury. And then she was looking down upon the gasping miner. He was dying. Hurriedly Joan knelt beside him to lift his head. At her call Cleve brought a canteen. But the miner could not drink and he died with some word unspoken.
Dizzily Joan arose, and with Cleve half supporting her she backed off the road to a seat on the bank. She saw the bandits now at business-like action. Blicky and Smith were cutting the horses out of their harness; Beady Jones, like a ghoul, searched the dead men; the three bandits who Joan knew only by sight were making up a pack; Budd was standing beside the stage with his expectant grin, and Gulden, with the agility of the gorilla he resembled, was clambering over the top of the stage. Suddenly from under the driver’s seat he hauled a buckskin sack. It was small but heavy. He threw it down to Budd, almost knocking over that bandit. Budd hugged the sack and yelled like an Indian. The other one whooped and ran toward him. Gulden hauled out another sack. Hands to the number of a dozen stretched clutchingly. When he threw the sack, there was a mad scramble. They fought, but it was only play. They were gleeful. Blicky secured the prize and held it aloft in triumph. Assuredly he would have waved it had it not been so heavy. Gulden drew out several small sacks, which he provokingly placed on the seat in front of him. The bandits below howled in protest. Then the giant, with his arm under the seat, his huge frame bowed, heaved powerfully upon something, and his face turned red. He halted in his tugging to glare at his bandit comrades below. If his great caveman’s eyes expressed any feeling, it was analogous to the reluctance manifest in his posture—he regretted the presence of his gang. He would rather have been alone. Then with deep-muttered curse and mighty heave he lifted out a huge buckskin sack, tied and placarded and marked.
“One hundred pounds!” he boomed.
It seemed to Joan then that a band of devils surrounded the stage, all roaring up at the huge bristling demon above, who glared and bellowed down at them. Finally Gulden stilled the tumult, which after all was one of frenzied joy.
“Share and share alike!” he thundered, now black in the face. “Do you fools want to waste time here on the road dividing up this gold?”
“What you say goes!” shouted Budd.
There was no dissenting voice.
“My Gawd! What a stake!” ejaculated Blicky. “Gul, the boss had it figgered. Strange, though, he hasn’t showed up!”
“Where’ll we go?” queried Gulden. “Speak up, you men.”
The unanimous selection was Cabin Gulch. Plainly Gulden did not like this, but he was just. “All right. Cabin Gulch it is. But nobody outside of Kells and us gets a share in this stake.”
Many willing hands made short work of preparation. Gulden insisted in packing all the gold upon his saddle, and had his will. He seemed obsessed; he never glanced at Joan. It was Jesse Smith who gave the directions and orders. One of the stage horses was packed. Another, with a blanket for a saddle, was given Cleve to ride. Blicky gallantly gave his horse to Joan, shortened his stirrups to fit her, and then whistled at the rigid back of the stage horse he elected to ride. Gulden was in a hurry, and twice he edged off, to be halted by impatient calls. Finally the cavalcade was ready. Here Jesse Smith gazed around upon the scene with the air of a general overlooking a vanquished enemy.
“Whoever first runs acrost this job will have blind staggers . . . don’t you forgit thet!”
“What’s Kells goin’ to figger?” asked Blicky sharply.
“To hell with Kells! He wasn’t in at the finish!” declared Budd.
Blicky gazed darkly at him, but made no comment.
“I tell you, Blicky, I can’t git this all right in my head,” said Smith.
“Say, a
sk Jim again. Mebbe now the job’s done he can talk,” suggested Blicky.
Jim Cleve heard and appeared ready for that question. “I don’t know much more than I told you. But I can guess. Kells had this big shipment of gold spotted. He must have sent us in the stage for some reason. He said he’d tell me what to expect and do. But he didn’t come back. Sure he knew you’d do the job. And just as sure be expected to be on hand. He’ll turn up soon.”
This ruse of Jim’s did not sound in the least logical or plausible to Joan, but it was readily accepted by the bandits. Apparently what they knew of Kells’s movement and plans since the break up at Alder Creek fitted well with Cleve’s suggestions.
“Come on!” boomed Gulden from the fore. “Do you want to rot here?”
Then without so much as a backward glance at the ruin they left behind, the bandits fell into line. Jesse Smith led straight off the road into a shallow brook and evidently meant to keep in it. Gulden followed; next came Beady Jones; then the three bandits with the pack horse and the other horses; Cleve and Joan, close together, filed in, and last came Budd and Blicky. It was rough slippery traveling and the riders spread out. Cleve, however, rode beside Joan. Once, at an opportune moment, he leaned toward her.
“We’d better run for it at the first chance,” he said somberly.
“No. Gulden.” Joan had to moisten her lips to speak the monstrous name.
“He’ll never think of you while he has all that gold.”
Joan’s intelligence grasped this, but her morbid dread, terribly augmented now, amounted almost to a spell. Still despite the darkness of her mind she had a flash of inspiration and of spirit.
“Kells is my only hope. If he doesn’t join us soon . . . then we’ll run. And if we can’t escape that . . .”—Joan made a sickening gesture toward the fore—“you must kill me before . . . before. . . .” Her voice trailed off, failing.
“I will!” he promised through locked teeth.
They rode on with dark faces bent over the muddy water and treacherous stones.
When Jesse Smith led out of that brook, it was to ride upon bare rock. He was not leaving any trail. Horses and riders were of no consideration, and he was a genius for picking hard ground and covering it. He never slackened his gait and it seemed next to impossible to keep him in sight.
For Joan the ride became toil, and the toil became pain, but there was no rest. Smith kept mercilessly onward. Sunset and twilight and night found the cavalcade still moving. Then it halted just as Joan was about to succumb. Jim lifted her off her horse, and laid her upon the grass. She begged for water, and she drank and drank. But she wanted no food. There was a heavy dull beating in her ears—a tight band around her forehead. She was aware of the gloom, of the crackling of fire, of leaping shadows, of the passing of men to and fro near her, and most of all, rendering her capable of a saving shred of self-control, she was aware of Jim’s constant companionship and watchfulness. Then sounds grew far off and night became a blur.
Morning when it came seemed an age removed from that hideous night. Her head had cleared, and but for the soreness of body and limb she would have begun the day strongly. There appeared little to eat and no time to prepare it. Gulden was rampant for action. Like a miser he guarded the saddle packed with gold. This time his comrades were as eager as he to be on the move. All were obsessed by the presence of gold. Only one hour loomed in their consciousness—that of the hour of division. How fatal and pitiful and terrible.
The ride began before sunrise. It started and kept on at a steady trot. Smith led down out of rocky slopes and fastnesses into green valleys. Jim Cleve, riding bareback on a lame horse, had his difficulties. Still he kept closely beside or behind Joan all the way. They seldom spoke, and then only a word relative to this stern business of traveling in the trail of a hard-riding bandit. Joan bore up better this day, as far as her mind was concerned. Physically she had all she could do to stay in the saddle. She learned of what steel she was actually made—what her slender frame could endure. That day’s ride seemed 1,000 miles long, and never to end. Yet the implacable Smith did finally halt and that before dark.
Camp was made near water. The bandits were a jovial lot, despite a lack of food. They talked of the morrow. All the world lay beyond the next sunrise. Some renounced their pipes and sought their rest just to hurry in the day. But Gulden, tireless, sleepless, eternally vigilant, guarded the saddle of gold, and brooded over it, and seemed a somber giant carved out of the night. Blicky, nursing some deep and late-developed scheme, perhaps in Kells’s interest or his own, kept watch over Gulden and all.
Jim cautioned Joan to rest, and importuned her and promised to watch while she slept. Joan saw the stars through her shut eyelids, and the light seemed to press down and softly darken.
The sun was shining red when the cavalcade rode up Cabin Gulch. The grazing cattle stopped to watch and the horses pranced and whistled. There were flowers and flitting birds and glistening dew on leaves and a shining swift flow of water—the brightness of morning and Nature smiled in Cabin Gulch. Well, indeed, Joan remembered the trail she had ridden so often. How that clump of willow, where first she had confronted Jim, thrilled her now. The pines seemed welcoming her. The gulch had a sense of home in it for her, yet it was fearful. How much had happened there. What might yet happen.
Then a clear ringing call stirred her pulse. She glanced up the slope. Tall and straight and dark, there on the bench, with hand aloft, stood the bandit Kells.
NINETEEN
The weary dusty cavalcade halted on the level bench before the bandits’ cabin. Gulden boomed a salute to Kells. The other men shouted greeting. In the wild exultation of triumph they still held him as chief. But Kells was not deceived. He even passed by that heavily laden gold-weighted saddle. He had eyes only for Joan.
“God! I never was so glad to see anyone!” he exclaimed in husky amaze. “How did it happen? I never . . .”
Jim Cleve leaned over to interrupt Kells. “It was great, Kells . . . that idea of yours . . . putting us on the stagecoach you meant to hold up,” he said with a swift meaningful glance. “But it nearly was the end of us. You didn’t catch up. The gang didn’t know we were inside. And they shot the old stage full of holes.”
“A-ha! So that’s it,” replied Kells slowly. “But the main point is . . . you brought her through. Jim, I can’t ever square that.”
“Oh, maybe you can,” laughed Cleve as he dismounted.
Suddenly Kells became aware of Joan’s exhaustion and distress.
“Joan, you’re not hurt?” he asked in swift anxiety.
“No, only played out.”
“You look it. Come.” He lifted her out of the saddle, and half carrying, half leading her, took her into the cabin, and through the big room to her old apartment. How familiar it seemed to Joan! A ground squirrel frisked along a chink between the logs, chattering welcome. The place was exactly as Joan had left it.
Kells held Joan a second, as if he meant to embrace her, but he did not.
“Lord, it’s good to see you. I never expected to again. . . . But you can tell me all about yourself after you rest. I was just having breakfast. I’ll fetch you some.”
“Were you alone here?” asked Joan.
“Yes. I was with Bate and Handy.”
“Hey, Kells!” roared the gang from the outer room.
Kells held aside the blanket curtain so that Joan was able to see through the door. The men were drawn up in a half circle around the table, upon which were the bags of gold.
Kells whistled low. “Joan, there’ll be hell here now,” he said, “but don’t you fear. I’ll not forget you.”
Despite his undoubted sincerity Joan felt a subtle change in him, and that, coupled with the significance of his words, brought a return of the strange dread. Kells went out and dropped the curtain behind him. Joan listened.
“Share and share alike!” boomed the giant Gulden.
“Say,” called Kells gaily, “aren�
�t you fellows going to eat first?”
Shouts of derision greeted his sally.
“I’ll eat gold dust,” added Budd.
“Have it your own way, man,” responded Kells. “Blicky, get the scales down off of that shelf. Say, I’ll bet anybody I’ll have the most dust by sundown.”
More shouts of derision were flung at him.
“Who wants to gamble now?”
“Boss, I’ll take thet bet.”
“Haw! Haw! You won’t look so bright by sundown.”
Then followed a moment’s silence, presently broken by a clink of metal on the table.
“Boss, how’d you ever git wind of this big shipment of gold?” asked Jesse Smith.
“I’ve had it spotted. But Handy Oliver was the scout.”
“We’ll shore drink to Handy!” exclaimed one of the bandits.
“An’ who was sendin’ out this shipment?” queried the curious Smith. “Them bags are marked all the same.”
“It was a one-man shipment,” replied Kells. “Sent out by the boss miner of Alder Creek. They call him Overland something.”
That name brought Joan to her feet with a thrilling fire. Her uncle, old Bill Hoadley, was called Overland. Was it possible that the bandits meant him? It could hardly be; that name was a common one in the mountains.
“Shore, I seen Overland lots of times,” said Budd. “An’ he got wise to my watchin’ him.”
“Somebody tipped him off that the legion was after his gold,” went on Kells. “I suppose we have Pearce to thank for that. But it worked out well for us. The hell we raised there at the lynching must have thrown a scare into Overland. He had sense enough to try to send his dust to Bannack on the very next stage. He nearly got away with it, too. For it was only a lucky accident that Handy heard the news.”
The name Overland drew Joan like a magnet and she arose to take her old position, where she could peep in on the bandits. One glance at Jim Cleve told her that he, too, had been excited by the name. Then it occurred to Joan that her uncle could hardly have been at Alder Creek without Jim’s knowing it. Still, among thousands of men, all wild and toiling and self-sufficient, hiding their identities, anything might be possible. After a few moments, however, Joan leaned to the improbability of the man’s being her uncle.