Blue Kingdom

by Max Brand

  At this, Dunmore looked more closely at the girl. There was an element of truth in what she said, and she shone with courage and with confidence, more than any man he ever had known. It seemed to Dunmore that she was, in fact, a greater force than all the people he had met. She was filled with an indomitable spirit. However, he shook his head. “Can’t do it,” he said.

  “I’ll lay you fifteen hundred cash,” she said hotly, “against Excuse Me. And I’ll throw in some boot, too, if you want it.”

  “She’s worth more than fifteen hundred to me,” he answered. “What boot would you throw in?”

  “Anything you like. If Gunfire doesn’t beat her, I don’t know horses.” She waved her hand as she said it, and the ruby on her finger made a red streak in the air.

  “Throw in that ring,” said Dunmore. “I’ll take on the bet for that.”

  “What ring? This ruby one?” She clasped a protecting hand over it, almost as though she expected him to snatch it.

  “All right,” said Dunmore, “I ain’t so keen on making this race, after all. You keep the ring, and I’ll keep the hoss.”

  She glanced down at the little red jewel, and then, biting her lip, she stared at the mare.

  It happened that at this moment Excuse Me tossed her head, so that a ripple of light ran over her sleeked neck and across the rippling muscles of her shoulder, making her seem a thing made all of beauty and of light. Whatever her speed, her loveliness was a thing to wonder at, and Beatrice thought of herself perched on the back of the mare—fitted to Excuse Me by divine right, as it were, and stopping the hearts of all men by a double authority.

  Then she said: “Fifteen hundred . . . and this ring? Why should you want this ring, Carrick Dunmore?”

  He laughed. “I don’t want it so much, but it hit my eye. That’s all. I don’t worry much about reasons and prices. But I see that you ain’t so fond of taking the chance. It’s all right. I don’t blame you, because she’s a runner.”

  At this, he could hear her teeth click.

  “How far will you run?” she asked.

  “Why, as far as you like . . . distance is all on your side, because Gunfire won’t be carrying much weight.”

  She looked narrowly at Dunmore. “There’s a pair of big pine stumps down the road to Harpersville. Will you run to that place, if you know it?” she asked.

  “That’s a couple of miles,” he answered. “That’s fair enough.”

  “But, instead of the ring, I’ll add another hundred to the bet. Sixteen hundred against Excuse Me.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve already hitched my fancy to that ring,” he said.

  “Are you trying to dodge the race?” she asked him tauntingly. “I’ll make it two hundred more . . . three hundred, if you like.”

  “Why, it’s all right,” said Dunmore, watching her with hidden anxiety. “If you’re fond of the ring, you hang onto it, and I’ll hang onto the mare. That’ll make it even.” He turned to Jimmy Larren and saw the eye of that youngster wink in secret delight. “Turn her out, Jimmy,” he said. “You won’t have to hobble her, because she won’t stray far from me.”

  There was anger in the face of the girl now. He could feel it without looking at her, and he was not surprised at the tremor of rage in her voice as she broke in: “All right. If you want to have it that way, I’ll race you for the fifteen hundred . . . and the ring.” She hesitated. Her mind’s eye seemed to conjure up the consequences if she lost, but then she shrugged her shoulders. “I’ll have Gunfire on the road in five minutes,” she said, and, turning abruptly, she hurried from them and went toward the stable.

  “She’s pretty mad,” commented Jimmy Larren. “She’ll pretty near kill herself to win this race. But if you get the ring, what’ll you do with it?”

  “Wear it, I suppose.”

  “That’ll make Furneaux wanna kill you.”

  “He might chase me for the sake of that ring, then?”

  “I dunno. I guess not. But if he spoke to her, she’d about die for having given it away again.”

  Dunmore laughed. “I’m beginning to see a good many things, Jimmy. Get me the saddle and bridle, will you?”

  Jimmy brought them both, and Dunmore himself saddled and bridled the mare, looking to the cinches with care.

  When he was on the back of Excuse Me, he saw the stallion, Gunfire, come on his hind legs out of the stable, filled with nervous fire, and the girl atilt in the saddle, wonderfully brave and cool. On the out trail he met her, while Larren on his mustang scampered past them to get to the finish in time for that end of the spectacle.

  Then Dunmore took note of the difference between the two animals. The stallion was more imposing, more grand. The mare was more beautiful. But it seemed to Dunmore that she had greater strength as well. She had not the proudly arched neck, to be sure, but her square quarters, and her long, powerful shoulders, and the shortness of her back told both of carrying power and speed. Gunfire stormed into the mind and royally demanded admiration, whereas the mare slipped quietly into one’s appreciation. But, yet, as he surveyed the stallion and contrasted him with his own mental picture of the mare, he was more and more confident.

  They came to the point where the various trails from the camp and its vicinity met and joined to make one established road that twisted here and there among the trees and led on toward distant Harpersville.

  The girl ranged beside him at once. She was as light in the saddle as a jockey, and the strong pull of the black horse seemed to lift her from her seat, straining at her arms. But that was mere semblance. He could tell in another glance that she was in perfect balance, controlling the stallion with a steady pull.

  At the same time she flashed at Dunmore a glance that ran from head to feet, appraising him, criticizing him, taking note of formidable qualities, at length leaving the mare and settling upon Dunmore alone.

  He thought that he saw her nod a little, as much as to say to herself that, no matter how fine the mare might be, the bulk of the rider would make the difference in a four-mile race. The same thought was in Dunmore’s own mind.

  Besides, he had a feeling that this day was the turning point that was to test the success or the failure of this strange embassy to the bandits. He knew that he had gained enormously by the rescue of Chelton, but he was still unsure of his place among the outlaws. At least, whatever he did would have to be done quickly, before the malice and the cleverness of Tankerton finished him off one day. In the race he saw his opening, if only he could win.

  Beatrice leaned and patted the neck of Gunfire, and he tossed his head in recognition.

  “Straight away to the two stumps!” she called to Dunmore. “And the shortest line is the best line?”

  “All right,” he said, “but. . . .” He was beginning to make a protest, for he knew nothing of any short cuts with which she might be familiar. However, she did not wait for him to make his protest, but seized on his first words as an agreement. He saw her eyes flash with triumph.

  “We’re off, then!” she cried, and gave Gunfire the rein.

  TWENTY-NINE

  If he had been unprepared for the running of the race in a bird’s line, still more was he unready for a sudden start such as this. He had expected that some signal would be arranged between them, but she was half a dozen strides away on the stallion and going like the wind before he got the mare together in pursuit. He was very angry, as they swept down the road. He had lost, now, an advantage that might prove fatal to the chances of Excuse Me. Moreover, not knowing the ways of the short cut, he would have to follow the stallion at any rate, and so he would put the mare to a greater and greater chance of losing.

  He should have shouted that the start would have to be made over again, but a stubborn rage burned up in him, and he determined to continue as they had begun.

  Gunfire leaped out of view into the trees, and he put Excuse Me after him. It was only to see the tail of the stallion switch out of sight to the left, and he followe
d back onto the road again.

  So the girl had feinted for the first time, and with an Indian cunning she had gained another precious rod of distance. Furiously the stallion ran, the clotted turf that he flung up dancing in the air and hanging there while the mare rushed on her way beneath. But she moved as smoothly as flowing water, and, while the roadway slid away beneath her for the first half mile, gradually and surely she overtook the black. Yet Dunmore was not pushing her. There was no need, since she ran eagerly, with pricking ears, and he must needs keep a steadying pull to rate her along. But it seemed to him that her stride was a shade longer and a shade easier than that of the black. Any moment he was sure that a single hard burst of sprinting would carry them into the lead.

  No sooner had he come to that conviction than Beatrice glanced over her shoulder, and then she swung Gunfire once more into the woods. The dappled shadows flowed over her, and she was gone from view. Dunmore did not hesitate. It might be another trick on her part, but he dared not risk the chance that she would be cutting away on a shorter course, and so he swung the mare in pursuit.

  He found himself driving at once through very thick woods. The way, such as it was, twisted and turned in serpentine suddenness, here and there, and the branches reached so low that he had to keep a constant look-out. The girl and the stallion she rode were apparently perfectly used to this course, and they rushed through it with the ease of long habit, so that when Dunmore, flattened along the mare’s back, came out into the more open forest, the stallion was twenty yards away.

  She rode hard, still, as though confident that Gunfire had a limitless strength, and a red scarf she was wearing, coming loose at one end, streamed and snapped over her left shoulder. Once more she glanced back, and he saw her shake her head as though in incredulous annoyance to find him so close.

  That was a comfort to Dunmore, and, as they plunged into thicker woods again, he was feeling secure of the race once more, when the ground began to dip, and they came to a narrow way where it seemed as though a tornado had fallen, for the trees lay tumbled, here and there, splintered stumps thrusting up, and the long trunks extending in a vast tangle upon the ground. Gunfire flew through this dangerous ruin with perfect ease. Perhaps this was a familiar sport of the outlaws, to ride their horses through all the difficult ways on the mountainside. In case of pursuit by a strong posse, such places as these would prove an ideal trap for the men of the law to be led into.

  For his own part, Dunmore studied the course of the stallion with care, and sent the mare exactly after him. She could jump, he knew, but he had not guessed that she was such a steeplechaser, for she flew the obstacles lightly, and, instead of losing ground, she cleared the last big barrier of a rugged trunk not a length from Gunfire’s tail.

  Beatrice Kirk looked back with a startled face, and Dunmore laughed and waved to her. He saw her lips tighten with angry resolve, and then she straightened the stallion away through the woods again.

  A roar of water began to roll out before them, and presently he saw the white flash of the falls through the trees, while the noise grew into a deep thundering and crashing, and he swept out behind Gunfire toward the brink of a deep and narrow chasm, filled with the flying spume of the cataract. Gunfire did not hesitate, but with courageous head stretched out, he flew the long gap.

  There was no chance to hesitate. Dunmore felt the hoofs of the mare slip on the brink of the wet rocks. Then she rose. He saw beneath him the white-faced cauldron of the stream as he hung in the middle air, and then they landed on the farther side not a half length behind the leader.

  Beatrice looked about again, and he could see the white of terror in her face. Then the forest received them once more. A moment later the dust of the road flashed silver bright, and they stormed out onto it.

  She had given up the last of her maneuvering apparently. Dunmore grimly set his teeth and pursued. She had tried to outdistance him, to dodge him, finally to lose horse and man in the gap of the gorge, but now this murderous girl could do nothing but ride hard and trust to the strength of her horse.

  There could not be half a mile remaining to the race. Yes, now in the near distance, he saw the pair of stumps that marked the finish line, and he loosed the mare at it with a shout. He had felt her going with undiminished strength beneath him, but he had not been prepared for this! Like a loosed bird she flew, and was instantly at the saddle girth of the stallion. Still she rushed onward strongly, and her nose was at his shoulder when Beatrice Kirk, with a wild cry, swung her quirt, as though for the flank of the stallion, and slashed Excuse Me across the face.

  The mare swerved, reared, and, when Dunmore had settled her to the running again, she was three or more lengths away to the rear. But it was as though she had been strongly spurred. If she had winced at the first pain, now she hurled herself valiantly into the contest. The road flowed beneath her like a silken white ribbon as she stretched to her work The stallion came back. He had run valiantly, he had dodged and jumped well, indeed, but in spite of the smaller weight that he was carrying, he was spent. A hundred yards from the end, Dunmore saw the head of the black begin to bob, and in another stride he went easily, smoothly past.

  The stumps jerked away on either hand, and then he spoke to the mare and brought her to a halt.

  Beatrice Kirk already had pulled up and sat her horse as one stunned and sick.

  So he went back to her with a cheerful word—no mention of her fox-like and desperate tricks during the race, but perfectly easy compliment. “He’s a grand horse,” said Dunmore. “He’s a cuttin’ hoss, by the way he handles himself runnin’ through the trees, and a mighty fine jockey you made, all right!”

  This she did not answer but looked at him as though she heard his voice less than a voice that at that moment was sounding in her own mind.

  “Perhaps you lacked the weight to steady him,” Dunmore said soothingly. “You might have done better if you’d been heavier in the saddle.”

  She gave him a look filled with fear and anger, and then turned the head of the stallion back toward the camp. “I’ll have the money ready for you this evening,” she said.

  “Thanks a lot,” answered Dunmore. “You’ve got the ring ready now, though, I see?”

  “The ring?” she said, starting a little in the saddle, as though from a blow that she was expecting and therefore dreaded the more.

  “I see that it’s on your finger now,” he said.

  “Why . . . the ring . . . yes,” she stammered, and lost all voice.

  “I could take that now,” he said pointedly.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said, striving at heartiness and carelessness. “Of course, this ring is a sort of a personal thing that means something to me. But I’d give you its worth in hard cash.”

  “Would you?” Dunmore asked, smiling so that his teeth flashed in the sun.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I don’t think it’s worth a hundred dollars. But you can have two hundred . . . if you’ll take it.” So saying, she smiled a little, with her head raised and a touch of contempt in her eyes, as though she wondered if there were a man in the world base enough to accept her offer.

  Dunmore weakened under the strain of that steady regard. His eyes half closed, he looked beyond her, wondering what he should say next, and it happened that at the moment he saw young Jimmy Larren, leaning against a tree close by. Still as the very trunk by which he stood was the boy, but, as the eye of Dunmore fell upon him, Jimmy winked prodigiously, and then grinned from ear to ear.

  The indecision of Dunmore vanished at once.

  “Two hundred more?” he said. “Well, that’s a price, but I don’t know much about the value of jewels, d’you see?”

  “Make it more, then,” she said, sneering openly. “Make it three hundred even, if you like. I have that much money, besides what I lost on the race, I think.”

  He looked calmly upon her. After all, she was carrying off the thing very well. In her bearing there was no touch of shame for the
trickery and the craft that she had used during the race, but, when the mare tossed her head, Dunmore could see the long welt that streaked across her face, and his smile grew colder.

  “Let me see,” he said, and stretched out his hand.

  She laid the hand with the ring lightly upon his own. “It’s only a small stone.”

  “I like the color, though,” he observed. “And it looks sort of lucky to me, d’you see?” Dexterously his thumb and forefinger closed over the ring. It fitted loosely, and away it came without tug or friction. “So I’ll keep it, and you don’t have to worry about the price,” he said.

  She reached impulsively for the jewel. For the image of Furneaux, his pride and his love, had flashed across her mind at that moment. Pale and shaken she faced Dunmore. “It doesn’t mean a thing to you!” she cried imperiously. “But . . . I’ve got to have it. I want it . . . I have to have it!”

  THIRTY

  Incredulity that he could refuse her was in Beatrice’s voice—amazement was in her eyes. Other words formed on her lips and remained unspoken. She stared at Dunmore as though he were more monster than man.

  “Why, you could have it for nothing,” said Dunmore gently. “I ain’t the man to hang onto small things. But the fact is that I’m a superstitious sort of a gent. And I reckon that this here is luck for me.” He held the ring gravely in the palm of his hand, and she looked as though she actually were on the point of snatching it.

  “You’re making a joke of it, Carrick Dunmore,” she said. “But it’s not a joke. It was given to me by a very dear friend, and I never would dare to face that friend again without it on my hand.”

  “Is this here friend a Westerner?” he asked.

  “Yes. What of that?”

  “I’ll tell you,” said Dunmore, more soothingly than ever. “Every Westerner knows about luck. Your friend wouldn’t mind, at all, if he knew that a man had got the ring that felt it was his luck. I could tell you a story about a gent that had an old Mackinaw that he felt his luck was all wrapped up in and. . . .”