Thunder Mountain

by Zane Grey

  Gradually the wrath which weighed upon Kalispel wore away. He had moments of dejection when he remembered Sydney Blair, but each time he reasoned away his wild romancings and satisfied himself with having rendered a service to the loveliest and sweetest girl he had ever met.

  “Gosh!” he sighed, “if I’d seen her a couple of more times it’d been all day with me....Maybe so, anyhow.... Well, I owe Borden somethin’. I oughtn’t kill him, just for that.”

  Kalispel watched the cloud-ships sailing in shadows along the mountain-sides; he sat a long time on a log while the sunset curtains fell into the valley; he walked on the river bank, listening to the low mellow roar of deep current over rocks. All was certainly not well with him, for these things stirred a new and pervading melancholy.

  Finally he returned to town, not forgetting to be his vigilant, wary self. His supplies were all packed and ready to be delivered to his order. Upon leaving the store, Kalispel strolled down the long street as far as the Spread Eagle, and up again on the other side. This was a gesture such as might be expected of him, and which he had made before under like conditions; but this time it did not afford him any satisfaction. To Sydney Blair it would have been the act of a braggart. Kalispel was divided between a longing to see her again and a dread that he might.

  He met a number of acquaintances, only one or two of whom evinced any avoidance of him. On the contrary, most of them greeted him cordially. Kalispel felt that he had not done Salmon a bad turn. Lowrie had certainly left town and Borden was conspicuous by his absence.

  Kalispel quietly slipped into the lodging-house and up the stairway. A bright light came from Miss Blair’s open door. He heard her talking to her father. The mere sound of her voice had an unaccountable effect upon him. He went into his room, closing the door softly, and stood a moment in the darkness, conscious of a pang. Then he lighted his lamp.

  As he turned he espied something white on the floor just inside the threshold. He stared. It was an envelope. Picking it up, Kalispel found it open and unaddressed. A faint perfume assailed his nostrils, and recognizing it, he experienced a swift, strong vibration all through him. With clumsy shaking hands he extracted the folded sheet of paper from the envelope and spread it out in the glare of the lamp. The page appeared to be covered with fine, even, graceful handwriting.

  DEAR MR. KALISPEL:

  Father and I saw and heard everything. If it had not been you, it would have been a show for us. But I was terrified.! thought you were going to fight them, and I was divided between sudden hate for that pompous, beady-eyed sheriff and fear for you. Not until I was safely here in my room and could think did I realize that you weren’t in much danger. I also found that I had caught a glimpse of the other gentleman’s discolored face, which somehow afforded me a peculiar satisfaction.

  However, the purpose of this note is to assure you that I did not believe one word the sheriff said, and—please do not leave town without seeing us again. I feel directly responsible for Borden’s having put the sheriff after you. Likewise I am elated that he failed to arrest you. I want to entreat you, despite this newborn savage something in me, to avoid meeting either of those men, for my sake.

  Won’t you have supper with us tonight? You can tell father about gold-mining.

  Sincerely,

  SYDNEY BLAIR.

  Kalispel sagged against the bed and sat down limply. He read the note again. There was no doubting the written words that ran on so firmly and beautifully under his bewildered eyes.

  “She didn’t believe that liar,” he whispered, raptly. “She trusts me....She wants to see me again....She likes me....Aw, I’m plumb loco! She’s just a little lady, too fine and kind to let me go off feelin’ sick with shame an’ disgrace....An’ by Heaven! that’s too good for me!”

  Kalispel took a few moments to wash his face and brush his hair, and then, blissfully oblivious of his ragged garb, he went out bareheaded to knock at Miss Blair’s door.

  “There he is now,” announced her father. “Come in, Emerson.”

  Kalispel presented himself in the doorway, and bowed. “Good evenin’,” he said. “I’ll be happy to have supper with you.”

  Miss Blair had changed the brown street dress to one of white and she looked so lovely to Kalispel that the blood rushed back to his heart with a shock.

  “Oh, here you are!” she cried, gayly, though a vivid blush stained her cheek. “Good evening. I—we feared you had run away—after that sheriff.”

  “No. I reckon I’m not much on runnin’. Fact is I shore forgot Lowrie,” drawled Kalispel, growing cool now and sure of himself, conscious that the havoc had been wrought in him and glorying in it. “I’ve been out lookin’ over my burros an’ tryin’ a new saddle-horse.”

  “Go on down, Sydney. I’ll catch you,” suggested Blair.

  “Of course horses are an old story to you,” said the girl as she and Kalispel started down the stairs.

  “I reckon. But I’ve never outgrown livin’ that story. Do you ride, Miss Blair?”

  “Yes. But I wouldn’t take any prizes for horsemanship,” she rejoined, with a laugh. “I’d love horses if I had a chance. Perhaps here in the West I may find it.”

  “How’d you like to ride a horse for days an’ days out into those wild hills? Lonely camp fires at night! Meetin’ never a soul, not even an Indian, on the way! Seein’ deer an’ elk an’ bear so tame they stand to watch you ride by! Two hundred miles almost out into these beautiful mountains—an’ then a valley like one in a dream—where you can scoop up gold by the handful!”

  She turned in the yellow flare of the tavern light to look at him.

  “Heavens! Don’t torment me!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “But you’re not teasing. You’re serious.... Oh, I would be mad with joy!”

  Blair caught up with them before Kalispel could find a reply for Sydney’s astonishing response.

  “Emerson, I gather that the less said to you about today’s little fracas the better,” remarked Blair. “So all I’ll say is that it tickled me. And it might not displease you to learn that at least a dozen men spoke to me about it—to your credit. Lowrie is partial to Morman cattlemen, I hear. And Borden is not liked any too well in Salmon.”

  “Ah-huh....Well, I reckon it’d be kind of hard to displease me this minute,” replied Kalispel, with a laugh.

  They entered the crowded restaurant, where a miner gave up his table to them. Kalispel saw every man in that place before he followed the Blairs to their seats. Sydney was about to take the seat facing the room, when Kalispel intercepted her with a smile.

  “Excuse me, Lady,” he drawled, coolly. “Reckon you had better let me sit here. Maybe it’s not strict etiquette, but it’s important. You see—there are some poor devils who can’t sit with their backs to a door.”

  “Oh—really?” she returned, blankly, and then suddenly she understood. Her color paled, and when she took the chair he held for her it was with downcast eyes.

  “Blair, I reckon I want to pay for this supper,” said Kalispel. “It’s my turn.”

  “I’ll match you for it,” replied Blair.

  “Gosh! you’re lucky. I’d hate to match you for a bag of gold nuggets.”

  “I hope you get the chance,” declared Blair, gayly. “Sydney has been raving about your talk.”

  “Yeah?—She didn’t strike me as particular enthusiastic.”

  “Kalispel Emerson, that’s not true,” interposed the girl, with a doubtful look at him.

  “Wal, I mean from my side of the fence,” he rejoined, lamely. “Here’s our waitress. Let’s order. An’ for me it’s to be a meal I’ll remember....But not for what I eat.”

  Presently, with the orders given, they were free to talk.

  “Emerson, what have you been putting into my girl’s head?” queried Blair.

  Kalispel leaned his elbow on the table and looked across at Sydney. She met his glance, and a little byplay he had intended to be teasing developed into the thoughtful look
of man and girl in whom some magic current had leaped from hidden springs, it decided Kalispel to make a reality of the wild dream he had cherished.

  “Blair,” he began, turning to him, “it’ll cost you about fifty dollars for two horses an’ saddles. An’ about a hundred for supplies, beddin’, tent for Miss Sydney, an’ other stuff, not includin’ trail clothes, guns, an’ such. Say, an outlay of two hundred dollars at the most.”

  “Yes? ...You certainly are a sudden fellow. What are you drivin’ at?”

  “Would you risk so much on the chance of a gold claim where you can dig your two-hundred-dollar investment in one day?”

  “Emerson, are you serious?”

  “I reckon. Never more in my life. This is serious, for me.... I said—in one day!”

  Blair turned to his daughter. “Sydney, is our newfound Western friend panning out like the others?”

  “No, Dad, He’s honest,” she replied, in hurried directness. Her bright, shining eyes did not need that warm, fascinated regard to complete Kalispel’s undoing.

  “No offense, Emerson,” said Blair. “I was joking, of course. All the same, I’d take you or your word on Sydney’s say-so any day.”

  “Thanks, Blair.... But—Miss Sydney—do you give him your say-so?” rejoined Kalispel, earnestly, and again he met the eloquent eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “You trust—me?”

  “I do trust you.”

  “But I’m a stranger. I’ve admitted I’m a bad hombre. You’ve had evidence of—of my wild range life.”

  “Are you trying to undermine the—the——”

  “No. I only want to be sure. I reckon it’s a pretty wonderful thing for me.”

  “I am out West now,” she countered. But her eyes were intense.

  “Meanin’ you must level yourself with us Westerners. That’s true....But if you really mean what you said—if you can believe me worth makin’ a friend of—wal, I’ll put something wonderful in the way of you an’ your father.”

  “I do trust you—and I will go with you,” she returned, paling again.

  “That makes this hour the biggest of my life,” declared Kalispel, stem yet radiant. “Now listen,” and he bent over the table to whisper. “Not many days ago my two brothers an’ I struck gold over here in a valley of the Saw Tooth Mountains. It is rich diggins. There’ll be a million in gold dust panned out of that valley, an’ no tellin’ how much from the quartz lode....We left Sam there. My brother Jake has gone to Boise to sell a half interest in our quartz mine. We’re askin’ one hundred thousand. I am here to pack in supplies. We planned to keep the strike secret as long as possible. That won’t be very long. Such strikes leak out. There’ll be the wildest gold stampede Idaho ever saw. But we’ll have time to clean up a fortune before the rush.”

  “My word!” ejaculated Blair, incredulously. “Great! You sound like a book! No wonder you upset poor Sydney!”

  “Blair, will you pack in there with me?” asked Kalispel.

  “Will I?—say, do you mean accept a chance like this—on an outlay of a few hundred dollars?”

  “I reckon that’s what I mean.”

  “You don’t want to sell me a claim—or get backing?”

  “No. An’ I don’t aim to knock you in the head an’ steal your money, which is precisely what Pritchard an’ his pards would do if they couldn’t get it any other way.”

  “Then why offer strangers such a wonderful opportunity?” asked Blair, gravely.

  “There’s more gold than we can ever dig—an’ the idea appeals to me.”

  “Have you fallen in love with my daughter?”

  “Oh—Dad!” gasped Sydney. A burning blush obliterated the whiteness of her face. “How perfectly terrible of you!” She tried to hide the hot cheeks with her hands. “Kalispel—please don’t—mind his rudeness.”

  Kalispel suffered for her poignant embarrassment, but the feeling was nothing compared to the torment of his own emotions. He had laid a trap for himself. He wanted to base this whole interview and offer upon his honesty, his sincerity.

  “Blair, you call my hand—pretty hard,” he replied, with strong agitation. “I—I reckon I have....but I mean I never knew it till this minute....That needn’t make any difference to you an’ Miss Sydney.”

  “Hell! as you Westerners say,” exclaimed Blair, frankly. “You needn’t apologize for it. Lord knows I’m used to men falling in love with Sydney. She had three proposals on the way out here. Sudden? Say, one of them was on a stage-coach. It came from a man as big as a hill, with a voice like a bull. He was a rancher. But he was bluff and honest....You had to like him....I’ve made up my mind that Sydney will be a disturbing element out here in the West.”

  “Any girl is that, I’m proud to say,” replied Kalispel. “But Miss Sydney will create havoc wherever she goes.”

  “Is that a cowboy compliment?” demanded the girl, lifting her face to look at him with inscrutable eyes.

  “I reckon I meant it so.”

  “Listen, young folks,” interposed Blair, good-humoredly. “First Kalispel takes my breath away. And then Sydney confronts me again with the awful responsibility of having her on my hands.”

  “Dad, that isn’t nice!” she protested.

  “Well, where are we? Sydney, we’ve just had a magnificent offer to make our fortunes. With no strings on it!... But does this perfectly natural and perhaps unfortunate state Emerson finds himself in make any difference to you?”

  “I am amazed—and sorry if it is true—which of course it really can’t be,” she replied, haltingly, her gaze falling. “But in any case, Dad, if you are really so keen to dig gold—it need not make any difference.”

  “Fine! Sydney, you are a thoroughbred....We’ll go!—Kalispel, shake on the deal.”

  “Wait. I’ve a little more to tell,” returned Kalispel, deep stirred. “Here’s my story. I was born on a farm in Missouri. My mother died when I was little. My father married again. I wasn’t happy after that. When I was fourteen I ran away from home. Joined a wagon-train. At Laramie, Wyomin’, I got in a fight an’ left the wagon-train. I’d been used to horses all my life an’ naturally I became a cowboy. I rode all over Wyomin’, in some of the hardest outfits on the ranges. Then I drifted to Montana, an’ the same applied there. My quickness with guns, my propensity to get in trouble, especially over some girl, earned me a name I wish I could shake.... That range-ridin’ of mine lasted ten years. I’m nearin’ twenty-seven now. My brothers Sam an’ Jake had been prospectin’ gold in Montana. They got wind of my shootin’-scrape at Kalispel, an’ they hunted me up, an’ persuaded me to quit the ranges. So I went with them, an’ after long discouraging months we made this strike over here in the mountains.... I can’t see anything but a fortune for all of us. Wal, when I get mine, I’ll buy a ranch. I have the place picked out up the Salmon, a beautiful valley where the river makes a bend, an’ there are groves an’ lines of trees, long low slopes for cattle grazin’, an’ in short, just the most amazin’ wonderful ranch in the West. I’ll settle in there an’ live down this Kalispel name....Now that’s about all to tell. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Emerson, I appreciate your frankness and confidence,” said Blair, warmly. “You didn’t say so, but I gather that you’re not so black as you were painted.... And here’s my hand.”

  Sydney offered hers without hesitation. Kalispel could only press the soft little hand in his. In that moment he could not trust his utterance.

  “I thank you, too,” she said, softly. “I’m sure I understand your wish to tell us. This West must indeed be a savage, bloody country. But even if you had been wilder than you intimated—that would not mean anything to me. It is what you are now!”

  Kalispel’s heart swelled with the contact of her hand and the significance of her words. The future seemed to beckon with enchanted promise. After all the lean, hard, wasteful years he had his chance for all a man could work and fight for.

  “We don’t appear to b
e hungry,” concluded Kalispel. “Let’s go back to the hotel an’ plan. We absolutely must keep secret your goin’ with me. That’d excite suspicion. Pritchard an’ his outfit would follow us. You must let me buy everythin’ except maybe clothes for Miss Sydney.”

  “You certainly are not going to buy them,” she replied, laughingly. “But you may give me hints about boots, overalls, gloves, sombrero....Oh! what fun!... Dad, I’m reminding you that this adventure came through me.”

  Kalispel turned often in his saddle to look back down the winding river road. Certain events the last day in Salmon had convinced him that Pritchard and his cronies had somehow found out he was taking the Blairs with him. But this was late in the second day of the journey and there had been no sign of men on their trail.

  Blair lagged behind, changing from one side of the saddle to the other. He was rather heavy and unused to horseback. Now and then he got off to walk a little. Sydney rode ahead, driving the burros. Already she was a surprising success. Young, strong, supple, and vividly elated with this adventure, she made play and romance of what was really hard work. Then her appearance alone had transformed the world for Lee. In a light sombrero, with her dark hair hanging in a braid, and wearing red scarf, buckskin blouse, fringed gauntlets, overalls, and boots like any Western girl, to Kalispel she was an object of adoration.

  If anything, she drove the heavily-laden burros a little too fast. But Kalispel, having reproved her once over some trifle, did not care to risk it again. She could do anything she chose, just so long as she did not drive the burros into the river or endanger her life or limb.

  Before sunset that day they arrived at the widening of the valley and the ranch Kalispel had decided would be his some day. He particularly wanted to get Sydney’s opinion of the place, and to that end he tried to keep from talking about it. Nevertheless, even before she had dismounted, something she said, or the way she looked, prompted him to transgress.