Thunder Mountain

by Zane Grey

  But afternoon came without any untoward event. Then when he espied Leavitt on Sydney’s porch, apparently no more excited than usual, he concluded that the loss of the gold had not been discovered. Kalispel pondered over this amazing aspect of the situation. No doubt that guard knew how Charlie March had come to his untimely end. He might have recovered consciousness without it becoming known that he had been assaulted, and then in the interest of self-preservation he had chosen to keep his mouth shut. Kalispel reflected that he had left Leavitt’s room as he had found it, except for the purloining of the blanket. This loss, too, might not have been noticed.

  Leavitt made a lengthy call upon the young woman he was wooing, most certainly too long for a man who had lost a fortune. In this Kalispel had positive proof that Leavitt did not yet know of his great loss.

  “Dog-gone!” ejaculated Kalispel, rubbing his hands in glee. “My luck has changed. I’ll play it to the limit.”

  About midafternoon Kalispel, watching, saw Rand Leavitt rise to make his departure. Either he wanted Sydney to accompany him downtown or she wanted him to stay there. In any event, they idled some moments at the head of the steps, in plain view of Kalispel—which was assuredly known to both—and at length Leavitt leisurely left. Kalispel watched him take the trail to town instead of the one across the bench toward his cabin.

  Jake had keener observation than Kalispel had credited him with.

  “Brother, you’re on edge today, like a stiff wire in a cold wind,” remarked Jake. “When are you goin’ to kill him?”

  “Him!—Say, Jake, are you dotty? What’s eatin’ you?”

  “Nothin’. I been watchin’ you watchin’ Leavitt down there sparkin’ yore girl. An’ I wouldn’t give two bits for his life.”

  “Hell! Am I that easy?...Wal, Jake, jealousy is pretty tough, an’ what’s more it’s new to me.”

  “Has Leavitt added outrage to theft?” queried Jake, his big eyes flaring.

  “He shore helped queer me with Sydney, but I reckon I was most to blame. I was responsible for bringin’ the Blairs here. It has been ruin for them. Blair has gone to the bad. Sydney hates drink. An’ altogether she’s had too much of wild West an’ Kalispel Emerson mixed.”

  “Not a sweet drink, I’ll admit,” growled Jake. “But, hell, hasn’t she got any guts? If she is as tenderfooty as she looks she wouldn’t do for you. Reckon it’s just as well. When you go to ranchin’ you’ll want a husky girl who can cook, sweep, sew, milk, an’ look after a flock of kids, an’——”

  “Hey!” interrupted Kalispel, red in the face. “Do you take me for a Mormon?”

  “Are you still keen about the ranch?”

  “Keen? I’m worse than ever. If I didn’t have a couple of scores to keep here I’d leave pronto.”

  “But, Kal, you can’t buy that Salmon River ranch on credit.”

  “Wal, I’ve got enough saved up for a payment. Forgot to tell you.”

  “Thet’s different,” rejoined Jake, brightening. “An’ I’m offerin’ myself as cowboy, milkman, farmer, or any other help you’ll need....Just for a home, Kal. I’m sick of this gold fever. Sam is dead. I feel it. An’ I don’t want any more prospectin’ without him.”

  “Same here, Jake,” replied Kalispel, feelingly. “I’m takin’ you up, Jake. But I won’t give you a job an’ wages. You’ll be my partner....Dog-gone, but that cheers me! It’s just fine of you, Jake, an’ we’ll shore——”

  “Who’s thet goin’ up on Blair’s steps?” interrupted Jake.

  Kalispel wheeled as on a point. A slight-statured boy in blue jeans had just mounted to Blair’s porch. But when the sun, that had peeped out late, caught a glint of golden hair, Kalispel realized with a start that the boy was not a boy.

  “Nugget!—Wal, I’ll be damned! She swore she’d do it,” ejaculated Kalispel.

  “Do it? What? An’ who’s Nugget?”

  “She’s Dick Sloan’s girl, an’ she’s callin’ on Sydney Blair. Struck me funny, that’s all.”

  “Lots of funny things happenin’....Kal, do you know thet they’re hintin’ you could tell a lot about these hold-ups?”

  “Could I?—My Gawd! man, believe me I could—an’ I will when I’m ready,” cried Kalispel, so fiercely that Jake stared aghast, and then resumed his camp tasks.

  Kalispel riveted his gaze upon the Blair home. He made out Nugget standing outside the open door for some minutes before she was admitted. If she had decided to acquaint Sydney Blair with some revealing facts, it would require nothing less than force to prevent her. Kalispel grimly recognized that Sydney Blair was in for some bad moments. Nugget could convince a wooden image of Leavitt’s guilt, if she chose to. Probably she was mostly concerned with proving Kalispel’s innocence and honesty; nevertheless, in the process of explaining this she would hardly spare Leavitt.

  Nugget did not come out. The minutes dragged. She was making a lengthy call. Somehow Kalispel’s sympathy was with Nugget, and, strangely, for the balance of the endless hour that the girl stayed there, Kalispel’s thoughts was of her, not Sydney.

  Finally she came out, to trip down the steps, to run gracefully away, her hair shining in the sunlight. She did not take to the trail, but sheered off to disappear among the tents along the stream.

  Scarcely had she gone out of sight when Sydney appeared on her porch, hesitatingly advanced to the rail, and clung to it as if for support. For a moment she appeared bowed and shaken. Then she raised her head to gaze toward Kalispel’s cabin.

  She saw him sitting on his bench before the door. She waved her scarf, dropped it a moment, then waved again. Next she beckoned for Kalispel to come, and her action was urgent, appealing. The imploring gesture that followed was almost a holding out of her arms.

  “Ump-umm, Lady! Not me,” Kalispel was muttering, feeling his heart in a cold vise. “Not after last night!—You can walk on me—an’ spit on me—an’ insult me scandalous, but, by Gawd! when you gave that hombre what I yearned for an’ never had—I was through!”

  Sydney edged along the rail. Plainly she was gathering courage or strength to come to him. When she got as far as the porch post she clung to that and watched him, her posture and demeanor was most expressive of trouble and weakness. At length she gave up and went into the cabin.

  Kalispel seemed released from the vise. He gazed around in inexpressible relief. The sun had set, yet fanshaped rays shot up toward the zenith and down into the valley. The broken clouds of purple and gold appeared edged with fire. And for a moment longer a marvelous color bathed the fringed peaks. Then it faded, and that fading of the exquisite glow appeared to resemble what had happened in Kalispel’s heart.

  That Sydney should wave to him, beckon for him, almost hold out her arms! That was as incredible as his strange callousness to her entreaty. Too late! He understood that. Not that she had failed him so often, but that she had lightly given what he had regarded sacred! He would have killed men and moved mountains for her kisses.

  Twilight fell and dusk mantled the valley floor. Jake called him to supper. Kalispel went in, shaking himself as if to throw off fetters. He ate without his usual gusto. Jake talked of the ranching plan, growing enthusiastic, but Kalispel scarcely heard. Then came a timid knock on the cabin door.

  “Somebody knockin,’” whispered Jake.

  Kalispel stared at the door. Another knock, fainter, brought him to his feet on fire within and cold without. Slowly he swung open the door. The broad flare of lamplight shone upon Sydney Blair. Kalispel grasped the manifestations of her passionate trouble before a sense of her beauty waved over him.

  “Come in,” he said, and as she entered he indicated Jake, who stood staring as if at an apparition. “My brother Jake—Miss Blair.”

  “Glad to meet you, miss,” replied Jake.

  Sydney bowed. Then her wide dark eyes traveled back to Kalispel. “I must see you alone.”

  “Jake, will you leave us?” said Kalispel, tensely, and it was as if he girded up his loins for
battle. Jake went out. Kalispel turned up the lamp to increase the light. “Sydney, you look shaky. Please sit down.”

  She made no move to take the chair he offered.

  “Why did you not come?”

  “Do you need to ask that?” he countered.

  “You saw me wave and beckon and—hold out my hands to you, like a drowning woman?”

  “Yes, I saw you. An’ I reckoned I’d spare you some pain—an’ myself hell, if I didn’t go.”

  “Then you were there last night!” she affirmed, tragically, and sinking on the couch she covered her face with her hands. “I couldn’t tell. Oh, I was mad!”

  “Shore you were mad,” he agreed. “Yes, I was there ...an’ when he kissed you somethin’ in me cracked. I sneaked away then.”

  “That—was nothing,” she whispered, revealing her shamed face. “He pulled me back to the hammock—made violent love to me. I forgot you. I—I thought I was in love with him....And I promised—to—marry him.”

  Kalispel’s laugh was not harsh, but she flinched at it. “Ah-huh. An’ after Nugget got through with you, Mr. Leavitt didn’t rate such a good bargain, eh?”

  Humbly she shook her head.

  “An’ what you thought last night you don’t think now?”

  “I loathe him!”

  “Wal, Sydney, that gives me back a little of my respect for you. I reckon you got off easy. A few words of love, a hug or two, an’ some kisses—they probably go terrible against the grain for so proud a girl as you. But there’s no harm done. An’ if you despise him—why, that ends it.”

  “Ends it, yes. But not my shame.”

  “That will wear away, Sydney. I reckon you felt the same when I mauled an’ kissed you so scandalous.”

  “No. I was furious, but not ashamed.”

  “Wal, nothin’ much can be done about it. I remember when I was a kid an’ learned cuss words my mother used to wash my mouth with lye soap. You might try that. I have a piece here somewhere.”

  “Don’t jest!” she importuned.

  “All right,” he retorted, harshly. “An’ now you want me to kill Leavitt?”

  “Oh no, Kalispel, no!” she cried. “I don’t care what he has done—what he is. But it’d be horrible to kill him. An’ you cannot forever escape yourself!”

  “Humph! You’d care a hell of a lot, wouldn’t you?” he exclaimed, unable to resist that gibe.

  “Yes, I would care,” she replied, steadily, with unfathomable eyes on his.

  “Wal, that doesn’t matter atall. Ever since I first saw Leavitt an’ read in his eyes that he’d done away with my brother, I’ve intended to kill him. An’ I’m goin’ to do it!”

  “ ‘Vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord. ‘I will repay,’ ” she quoted, solemnly.

  “Beautiful words, Sydney. But they don’t go out here....What did Nugget tell you?”

  With a little cry of distress, Sydney again covered her face.

  “Never mind, if it hurts,” he added, relenting. “I reckon I can guess.”

  “I will tell you,” she cried, poignantly, “if it kills me.”

  When Kalispel did not reply, she went on:

  “She came. She stood in the door. She said, ‘I want to tell you something.’—And I asked how she dared address me. ‘I’m sorry you’re like that,’ she said. ‘I’m wondering where Kalispel will get off.’ I was amazed at her. She stood there white and cool, with the sweetest face, the bluest eyes—the very prettiest girl I ever saw. Then she came in and shut the door.

  “ ‘You’ve given Kal Emerson a rotten deal,’ she went on. ‘And I’m here to call you for it....He was a wild cowboy, a bad hombre, as they say in the South. One way and another he has been driven to defend his name, his life, or some one who needed a friend, until he became notorious. He’s what the West calls a gunman, a killer. But all the same he’s a better, finer, truer man because of that. The West has to have such men. Don’t I know? Good God! How many drunks, bums, thieves, adventurers, gamblers—how many lowdown men do you guess I’ve seen shot in the street or dragged out of dance-halls?—Yes, and I’ve seen good boys like Kalispel go down—worse luck....You are to get it into your head, Miss Blair, that this Kal Emerson is a better man than your father, a better boy than your brother, if you have one. He was so clean an’ straight—so true to you—that he could dance with me, be my friend, with never a word that you could not have been glad to hear. I loved him!... He brought a boy to see me, Dick Sloan, and that boy, too, was clean and fine. He loved me. I treated him badly. I did all I could to make him despise me. I couldn’t....Then Kal came for me—dragged me out of Borden’s hall—scared me stiff because I thought he meant to beat me—and I can’t stand that....Dick wanted to marry me and Kal made me promise....I’m living in Dick’s tent now. And I might be his sister! We will be married as soon as it’s possible. I’m free. I’d be—happy if—I could forget.’ ”

  Sydney’s husky, failing voice trailed off. For several moments there was silence.

  “She fascinated me,” went on Sydney. “And then she changed somehow. The scorn—the earnestness—the sweetness all fled. ‘Now for your new lover, Leavitt,’ she began, with a terrible look at me. ‘I’ll make short work of him—and the rest of this job....Rand Leavitt is two-faced, and one of his faces—the one I know—is that of a dog. I know he made way with Kalispel’s brother and jumped his claim. But I can’t prove it. He sold your father two worthless claims, which I can prove. If your father has been robbed, as I’ve heard, one of Leavitt’s men did it. But that side of Leavitt is the least vile. All this time that he’s been making love to you he’s been trying to get me. Oh, you needn’t glare at me!—I can prove that, if you need proof. Any of the girls at Borden’s will corroborate my statement....Leavitt played the gallant lover to you. He vilified poor Kal and talked marriage to you. To me he showed the beast. In many ways you couldn’t understand if I told you. But you’ll understand this. He beat me when he couldn’t get the best of me. He has beaten other of the girls. He likes to beat women.’ ”

  Sydney panted in her agitation, and for a moment could not continue.

  “She saw I was faint,” she presently went on. “ ‘I could tell you more, Miss Blair,’ she continued. ‘But unless you are mad indeed I’ve told enough. That is the kind of man Rand Leavitt is’....She left me without another word.”

  Kalispel paced to and fro in the confined space of the cabin, and tried to avert his face from his visitor. He divined that the most trying part of this interview might yet come.

  “I have told you—about all,” said the girl, haltingly.

  “Shore. An’ it’s been hard on you.”

  “Can you—forgive me?”

  He was silent and stared fixedly at the smouldering fire. The wind outside moaned under the eaves and roared hollowly down the chimney.

  “I was a proud, egotistical, conceited thing,” she went on, humbly. “And out here only a tenderfoot. I love the beauty of this wilderness. But I hate the raw, the crude, the toil, the blood. I thought I could stand it. I fear now I never can....Please forgive me!”

  “I reckon....All except last night. That I can’t forget....Maybe in time.”

  “Kalispel, I do not know myself. I am weak or crazy—or both. I was jealous of that girl Nugget. I despised myself. But I was. And yesterday I grew furious at you. I wanted to hurt you, drive you insane with jealousy. I had loved you. I thought you’d killed it.... And in the end all I did was—promise to marry—Rand Leavitt.”

  “There was one thing I didn’t understand, Sydney,” queried Kalispel. “Why did you get Leavitt to tell you where he hid his gold, knowing I might be there to hear? You didn’t think Leavitt was a thief then.”

  Sydney’s face flamed scarlet. “I don’t know, Kalispel. It was just part of my madness. Maybe I had an idea it might prove to me if you were a bandit. I wanted to believe the worst of you. Can’t you understand? Or maybe I just wanted to show you how much Leavitt cared for me—to te
ll me where he hid his fortune. Oh, I don’t know what it was—I was just out of my head.”

  Kalispel nodded. “I guess—I understand, Sydney,” he said, slowly. Then, “Sydney, what will you do?” he queried, as if suddenly released.

  “Is there nothing—for you—and me?” she faltered.

  “Hopeless,” he burst out, with dry lips. “I am a gunman, a killer. I mean to do for Leavitt an’ Borden before I leave here....You are a lady, far above me, too fine for this bloody West.... Wherever I go my name will follow me. If you—you married me you’d be a pioneer’s wife. You’d have to pitch hay, bake bread, cut off the turkey’s head, milk the cows—an’, as Jake said, look after a brood of kids.... You see it isn’t a pleasin’ prospect.”

  “It would be if I were woman enough,” she replied, and rising faced him with eloquent eyes that made him weak. Then she moved toward the door.

  “Aw!—I’ll see you home, Sydney,” he replied, hurriedly, and followed her out.

  The night was dark and windy, with storm in the warm air. He led the way for her among the boulders, and once had to take her hand. She clung to his a moment and then let go. They reached her porch without speaking again. She started up, then turned to him, so that her face gleamed pale, with shadowy eyes.

  “No woman like me could ever love you like that girl does. No other woman could ever have such cause....It was a revelation to me.”

  “Aw, Sydney, you exaggerate. Nugget is grateful, of course, but—”

  “She blazed with it,” interrupted Sydney. “And out of this ghastly lesson I’ll get most from that.”

  “I’m awful glad you see the kid fair an’ straight now. She never was bad!”

  “Thank God you saved her!” returned Sydney, with deep emotion. “Good night, Kalispel.”

  He bade her good night and wended a thoughtful and sad way among the boulders, while the old black mountain rumbled its low thunder.

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  12

  THERE had been humility, remorse, and scorn of self in Sydney’s capitulation. Like a pendulum she had swung over to the other extreme. She had all but killed something beautiful and wonderful in Kalispel, and now it struggled to rise again and live. Under the dark and threatening sky, where he walked his beat, he was to find that love did not die so easily. His survived, and he was glad that was so, for he hated hate. Sydney still cared for him, in some degree, enough to sue for his forgiveness and his allegiance.