by Grey, Zane
Another dance had just started. The big hall was a wonderful spectacle of movement, colour, youth, beauty, and humour.
Then Rock espied Thiry. "Senor del Toro, you look lonesome," she said gayly. "Are there no charming senoritas here?"
"I can see only one.
"Come. The rest is yours," she said, and took his arm.
"Has anyone discovered you?"
"Only one I know of, Amy Dabb. She was quick to see through it."
"Well. Did she say anythin'?"
"I rather think so. She said: 'Hello, Thiry! You look great. But wedding-gowns don't always mean wedding-bells."
Again they strolled under the magic rose and purple of the dimming lanterns, and on to the secluded bower in the patio. Here the stars shone white and watchful through the foliage.
"It's very--warm," murmured Thiry, as Rock leaned over her in the shadow.
"Take off your mask," he suggested.
"No, senor."
Trueman took her hand in his. It was an almost instinctive action on his part. She made no attempt to withdraw it, greatly to his surprise and joy.
"Trueman you must take me home soon," she said, as if coming out of a spell.
"Oh no, not now. Just one more dance," pleaded Rock. "You said the rest were mine."
"But I'd forgotten. Ash will come any moment. I feel it--here," she whispered, her hand on her breast.
"Thiry, he is not here now. I've looked clear through every man in the outfit. Please risk it."
"Well, then--one more."
But at the end of this dance she forgot again or could not resist the joy of the hour. Once more Rock led her to their shadowed corner.
"Take off your mask," he begged again.
"Can you put it back on--right?" she asked a little tremulously.
"Sure I can."
Then she was unmasked under his worshipping eyes, under the dim rose light of the lantern above and the far, white, and knowing stars. Once she lifted her eyes to him--eyes that betrayed the spell of the moment--then no more.
Rock won her to stay one more dance, revelled in his power to persuade her, though his conscience flayed him. What risk' he might incur for her! But he gambled with his happiness.
"Trueman, we must go now," she said nervously.
"Yes. But don't you hate to?"
"No. I'm too thankful for--for all it's been."
They reached the patio. Something had happened, as Rock guessed from excited voices. A girl cried out in dismay.
"Hey, look out there!" called someone, unmistakably a cowboy.
"He snatched at my mask," replied a girl, angrily.
"He got mine," added another.
Rock drew Thiry out of the press. "Some cowboy snatchin' masks," he said hurriedly.
Suddenly into the open space before him leaped a lithe figure of a cowboy, wearing a red handkerchief as a mask. He was as quick as light--so quick that Rock scarcely guessed his purpose in time to thwart it. One sweep of hand tore Thiry's mask from her white face! She cried out and spasmodically clutched Rock's arm.
The cowboy appeared to leap up. He snatched off the red handkerchief that masked him, to disclose the livid face of Ash Preston. His evil eyes, like coals of blue fire, flashed over her face, her bare neck and arms, her ruffled gown.
"Ash," gasped Thiry, clutching Rock's arm tighter, "meet Senor del Toro--my masquerade partner!"
"Senor Hell!" Like a snake's head his hand shot out, to fasten in Thiry's bodice and tear with fiendish swiftness.
In one single action Rock freed himself from Thiry and struck Preston on the side of the face. He went down with a thud. Women screamed; men shouted excitedly. Up bounded Preston, with catlike quickness, his hand flashing back for his gun. But it was not there. He had passed the sheriff and had forgotten. His wolfish face gleamed fiercer. His tawny hair stood up.
"Greaser, I'll kill you for thet!" he groaned out.
"Caramba!" replied Rock, and made at Preston with terrific fury. His onslaught was like a battering-ram. He cared nothing for Preston's sudden blows. He broke through them, beat him back, and knocked him against the wall. Ash fell, but got up cursing, to come back wilder than ever, his face the redder for blood. There vaas a swift interchange of blows, then one from Rock staggered Preston. Another, swift and hard, sent Preston in a long fall.
Before he could rise Rock plunged upon him, beat him with right, left, right, left--tremendous blows that made Ash sink limp. Rock seized him by the neck, choked and shook him as a terrier with a rat, and rising, dragged him to the fountain and threw him bodily into the shallow water. Ash lay on his back, his head just above the surface.
Rock, remembering his mask, felt for it and found it intact. Thiry's white mask lay where Preston had dropped it. Snatching it up, Rock whirled to see some woman in the act of covering Thiry's naked shoulders and bosom with a shawl.
"Come--we'll get out--of here," he panted hoarsely, and placing a firm hand under her arm he led her away from the gaping crowd, down the corridor toward the outlet. The voices of excited people grew fainter. Rock halted long enough to produce his check and get his gun belt, which he threw over his left arm.
Thiry was weak. She leaned on his arm. Still she kept up with his rapid steps. Not for three blocks did Rock speak, nor did she.
"He--didn't know you," she burst out, then, "Called you greaser!"
"Yes, that's the only good thing about it," returned Rock.
Her grief tortured Rock, but he did not have it in him to retract his words. They hurried on to Winter's house. Rock saw a light. He wanted to say good night to Thiry at the gate, but could not. She still clung to him. At the porch he halted, and helped her up.
It was shaded there by trees, but he could still see her pale face and the great eyes, strange and dark in the night. Before he knew what he was doing he clasped his arms round her, as she stood a little above him. She did not repulse him, but she pressed her hands, against his shoulders. Thus they looked at each other in the shadow.
"Forgive me, Thiry," he implored "I'll go to my room before anyone sees me. Ash didn't know me. He never will."
"She will tell," said Thiry hopelessly.
"Amy Dabb!" exclaimed Rock, with a start. "She did know. But she'll have no chance tonight. They'll pack him out of there pronto. Tomorrow I'll find some way to shut her mouth."
"Yes, you will," said Thiry, with sad derision. "Don't waste your breath, Trueman. Perhaps it will not occur to her that Ash didn't know you."
"Then let's hope for the best," Rock tightened his arms a little, drew her closer. "Thiry, kiss me good night," he whispered.
"No!" Yet she seemed weakening. He felt her quiver in his arms.
"Then let me kiss you? It might be the first and last time. For if Ash finds me out I'll have to leave this country. Else I'd have to kill him!"
"You'd go away for me?" she flashed, suddenly quickened.
"I promise you."
"You love me so much?"
"Thiry girl, I love you more than I can prove."
Blindly, with unreckoning pulse, she bent and met his upturned lips with her own. Quickly, with a gasp, she broke away to stare a moment, as if some realization had stricken her, then she fled into the house.
Ash Preston did not return to Sunset Pass for a week. Rumour drifted down by a rider that Preston was hunting for the Mexican who had beaten him at the dance.
It was an anxious and brooding time for Trueman. Rock, more, perhaps, because of Thiry's unconcealed dread than for his own sake. Nevertheless, he never drew an easy breath until Ash returned, sober yet showing the effects of a prolonged debauch.
One moment Rock stood on the porch, his hand quivering, while Ash strode over from his cabin. Sullen, his face black and blue, still swollen, he presented no encouraging aspect. But manifestly that moment proved he did not know or suspect Rock had been his assailant. Then the suspense of this meeting for Rock ended when Thiry almost fainted in Ash's arms.
"Aw
, Thiry, I'm sorry," rasped out Ash.
Rock did not tarry with the family after supper that night. He carried away with him a look from Thiry's eyes--the first since that unforgettable last moment on Winter's porch--and it drove him to pace under the pines to cast exultant defiance up at the silent, passionless white stars.
He paced a beat from the open back to the gloom of the thick-spreading trees. Against the black shadow of the slope his figure could not be seen. But his own sharp eye caught a dark form crossing in front of a cabin light. He heard a voice low but clear--Gage Preston's. "Ash, come hyar."
Suddenly he made them out, perilously close upon him. Silently he sank behind a log.
"What do you want?" growled Ash.
"Sit there," ordered Preston.
Rock felt the jar of the log where evidently Preston had pushed Ash. Noiselessly craning his neck, Rock saw the dim figure of the father bending over. Then Rock espied Ash sitting not ten feet from where he lay.
"What the hell's got into you?" demanded Ash.
"What the hell's got into you--thet you hang on in town, lookin' for trouble, makin' more fer me?" countered the father sternly. "I needed you hyar. There's work no one else can do."
"But, Pa, I wanted to kill thet Senor del Toro," protested Ash.
"Bah! Senor del Toro? Why, you lunkhead, thet make-believe Spaniard was Truman Rock!"
"Hell, no!" snapped Ash, hotly. "I had thet hunch. Next mornin' I went to Thiry. I told her thet black-masked pardner of hers was Rock an' I was a-goin' to kill him. She fell on her knees. An' she wrapper her arms around me. An' she swore to God it wasn't Rock. Pa, I had to believe her. Thiry never lied in her life."
"Mebbe I'm wrong," choked Preston. "But whoever he was he gave you plumb what I'd have given you. You disgraced Thiry. You shamed her. You hurt her so she's been ill. She--who's loved you all her life."
"Shet up, Pa," wailed Ash, writhing. "I can stand anythin' but thet."
"Wal, you shore have a queer streak in you. Yellow clear through when it comes to Thiry. But fer her you'd be a man. An' we could go on with our work that's callin' for all a man's brains. You can't be relied upon, as you used to be. Now listen, somethin's up out there on the range. I've done some scoutin' around lately. Too many riders snoopin' around Sunset Pass! To-day I seen some of Hesbitt's outfit. An' Slagle asked me sarcastic like why Clink Peeples was over hyar so much. Ash, there's a nigger in the wood-pile. I shore don't like the smell."
"Clink Peeples had better keep away from the Pass."
"There you go again. What good will it do to throw a gun on Peeples? If they're suspicious, thet'd only make them worse. What'd you do with them last Half Moon hides?"
"I hid them."
"Where? Didn't you take them to Tutestone Cave, as I ordered you?"
"I packled some there. It was too far, an' I was tuckered out. I hid the rest under the culvert."
"But I told you not to hide any more there. I always was scared of thet culvert. Once a big rain washed some out. It could happen again."
"Wal, it ain't too late. I'll take Boots tomorrow night, an well pack the fresh ones over to Limestone."
"No. The ground's soft since it rained. You'd leave tracks. An' thet's too risky. Better leave them. An' we'll lay off butcherin' fer a spell."
"Lay off nothin'. With all them orders fer beef? I guess not. Pa, there's room fer a thousand hides down in the old well."
"Ash, I tell you we'll lay off killin' till this suspicion dies down."
"Wal, I won't lay off, an' I reckon I can boss the boys," replied Ash.
Then Preston cursed him, cursed him with every hard word known to the range, and some besides.
"This hyar rider, Rock," spoke up Ash, as if he had never heard the storm of profanity, "when yon goin' to fire him?"
"Rock? Not at all."
"Wal, then, I will. He's been around too long, watchin' Thiry, an' mebbe us, too."
"Ash, haven't you sense enough to see thet Rock's bein' hyar is good fer us?" asked Preston, girding himself afresh. "Never was a rider hyar so trusted as Rock. Thet diverts suspicion from us."
"But he might find us out."
"It ain't likely. Shore he doesn't want to."
"He might stumble on to it by accident. Or get around Thiry an' scare it out of her."
"Wal, if he did, thet wouldn't be so bad. He loves her well enough to come in with us."
"An' if she did win him over, what would he want?" hissed Ash.
"Huh! Reckon thet's easy to answer. An' I'm tellin' you, Ash, Thiry would like Rock if she had half a chance."
A knife plunged into Ash's vitals could scarcely have made him bend double and rock to and fro, like that thrust of Preston's.
"She'd like him, huh? So thet's why she made me promise not to pick a fight with him--"
"Wal, Ash, if circumstances come up we can't help or beat, what'n hell can we do? I told you ages ago thet Thiry is bound some day to love some lucky rider. It can't be helped. An' it might be Rock. Which'd be most infernal lucky fer us."
"Lucky fer him! Haw! Haw!--I'd shoot his heart out."
Preston rose to loom menacingly over his son. "You can't murder him in his sleep or shoot him in the back. Thet'd look bad in Wagontongue. It'd just about ruin us. An' if you call him out to an even break--why, Ash, he'll kill you! Savvy? Rock is cold as ice, as quick as lightnin'. He has a hawk eye. I'm warnin' you, Ash."
Chapter 12
In the morning Rock watched from his window until Ash left, then went out to breakfast. Thiry did not appear.
Preston came out while Rock was eating and said, "Rock, I've a job for you, that'll take you away some time. The boys are gettin' a pack outfit ready. I want five hundred head of two-year-old steers in the flat down there by Slagle's ranch. By August."
"You're the boss, Preston. But are you sure you won't need me more right here?"
Preston lowered his voice. "It ain't what I'd like or need. I had no idee last night thet I'd send you off this mornin'. But it popped into my head."
"Ahuh! Who popped it?"
"Thiry. She asked me to. Ash is wuss than ever before. An' fer once Thiry seemed to be' thinkin' of somebody else but him."
Rock repaired to his cabin and rolled his bed and packed the things he would need. He wavered between two strong desires--to see Thiry before he left and write to her. The better course would be to write. Therefore, with pencil and paper he sat down at his little table and began, with hand that he could not keep steady and heart which accelerated a beat for every word.
Thiry Darling, Your Dad has ordered me away for several weeks, maybe more. I am glad to go, though not to see your sweet face for so long will be terrible. But I shall work like a beaver, and content myself with thinking of you by day and dreaming of you by night--with praying for your happiness and welfare.
Don't worry, Thiry dear, about Ash, or me, or whatever it is that is wrong. You can't help it, it will not turn out so bad as you think. I believe that if you were to fall into some really dreadful trouble I could save you. Of course by trouble, I mean something concerning Ash. I must not deceive you, dearest, your brother is the kind of range man that comes to a bad end. You must face this with courage. You must realize that he might involve your father, you, and all of your people in something through which you could suffer.
It is no use to try to change Ash. You waste your strength. I think you can only pray and hope for the best.
I shall think of you every sunset, and see you come out to watch the pass.
Ever, Trueman.
Returning to the Preston cabin, Rock looked for Alice to deliver his note, but as she was not there he ventured of his own accord. Slipping it under the door of Thiry's cabin, he beat a rather precipitate retreat.
In half an hour he sat astride Egypt, bound down the Pass. This trip would be a welcome respite, and from every angle favourable for him. Two hours later he was climbing the benches into the black timber, and late that afternoon he halted with
the boys in a sylvan spot to make a permanent camp.
"Boys, your dad has stuck us with a job he thinks we can't do," observed Rock at the campfire. "Five hundred head of two-year-olds by August."
"Can't be did," replied Tom.
"Let's fool him once," added Al, with spirit. "There's another dance in town along early in August. An' if you all want a hunch--there's somebody who says I gotta be on hand."
"That's the talk, Al," said Rock. "If we can find a canyon or draw somewhere close we'll drive what we round up each day, and fence them in."
Before they went to bed Rock had imbued the brothers with something of his own will to do or die. Next morning they were up in the dark and on the drive when the first tinges of rose coloured the rims of the Pass.
One night Al got in latest of all, weary and sullen. Rock knew something untoward had happened.
"What did you run up on today, cowboy?" queried Rock, at length.
"I was up under the Notch," replied Al, "an' first thing I seen a couple of riders high up, watchin' me. Reckon they never lost sight of me all day."
Three days later, miles east of the Notch, Rock's alert eye caught sight of riders above him on a slope, keeping behind the trees, and no doubt spying upon him with a glass.
Then, a couple of days before the full 500 head had been herded into the canyon-corral, the thing Rock expected came to pass. Early in the morning a group of riders, five in number, rode down upon the camp.
"Boys, reckon I don't like this," said Rock gruffly. "But you take it natural-like, and I'll do the talkin'."
As the riders entered camp Rock rose to to greet the visitors. They were seasoned range-riders, a hard-looking quintet, not one of whom Rock had ever seen.
"Howdy! just in time for grub," he said heartily.
"Much obliged, but we had ourn," replied the leader, a bronzed, rugged cowman with bright bold eyes that roved everywhere. "Gage Preston outfit?"
"Part of it," replied Rock.
"Round-up or drivin' a herd?" went on the interlocutor.
"We're drivin' 500 head of two-years-olds down the Pass. Reckon another day or so will make the full Count."