Ladybird (7 page)

It was rough going here and took more time than she ought to spare, because for every yard she progressed, she must travel three or four sometimes in getting around trees and climbing steep banks. But it was very peaceful and lovely here and gave her comfort and a sense of safety.

As she hurried along she occasionally raised her binoculars and searched the horizon again in either direction and at last saw, through an opening in the woods, that the forest was past and she was approaching a place where the trees were thick only along the stream.

That would mean that there were broad pasturelands perhaps, and she must be wary. It would also mean that she would be out in open where her moving form could be seen unless she stuck close to the fringe of trees along the stream. She remembered how often her mother had spoken about being able to see her coming a long way off because the sun shone on her gold hair as if it were bright metal. She must do something about that before she went out into the sunshine. Would there be something in her bag she could tie over her head? Then she remembered an old gray rag in the pocket of the old coat she wore. It was the remnant of a silk handkerchief her father had owned in his better days but long since worn beyond recognition as such. The edges were frayed and frowsy and there was more than one hole in it, but it was large enough to tie around her head.

Gravely she took it out and adjusted it, spreading it over her whole head and covering the bright curls until not a thread of them showed, tying the ends in the back of her neck firmly. Then she buttoned the old coat to her throat, slung the bag around under her arm like a fishing basket, and marched on. If anyone sighted her, perhaps they would think she was a boy out fishing. If she had only thought to hunt out her father’s old hat, but she was not sure that it had not been taken by the other men. Nothing had been safe after he was gone.

She hurried along as fast as she could, for she began to feel again the weight of her bag, and her feet and limbs ached with the continuous going.

She had been used to running free in the open all her life, but a long, continuous plodding journey she had not known. For sixteen years she had lived in the cabin, her only excitement the wandering to the limits her mother had set for her, her only pleasure climbing trees and looking off at a world she did not know and might not explore. Well and strong she was, indeed, and able to stand much hardship, for she had never known even comfort in her life, but this long strain of going over rough, uncertain ground, her loss of sleep and lack of food, added to the sorrow she was bearing, were beginning to tell on even her splendid young constitution. She longed to drop down again and sleep, but she knew she must not. This was her best time for going. She must get to a good sleeping place before night.

So she plodded on, keeping as near as possible, when she emerged from the woods, to the fringe of trees along the riverbank.

But finally the fringe of trees grew thin and stopped entirely, and the river broadened into a sheet of silver. And now the land on either side was flat for long distances, with mountains far away on either hand, and she could see far and wide, even without the binoculars. The sun was distinctly behind her, and her own shadow went flat and small and black before her, so she knew she was traveling in the right direction.

She trudged along several miles in this wide-open space, growing more and more secure as she went on. There seemed to be no cattle on either side as far as she could see, just wide, lonely landscape, and she was glad. But she was beginning to feel as if she could not drag her feet very much farther and kept looking ahead for a spot where she could rest securely.

The landscape, however, offered no refuge at this point, and the horizon stretched ahead bright and golden in the low afternoon sun. It seemed to her as she looked through her binoculars with a faint despair at her heart, that she could see almost to New York, and there was nothing between. Would she ever be able to make it?

At last she sank down in the grass and opened her bag. She must have something to eat. There was a sudden weakness upon her. So she took out her stores and ate another portion of corn bread and a few small bites of the salt meat. To her starved appetite, it tasted like the most savory meal. Then she drank a cup of water, corked the bottle carefully, tied up her kit, and stood up.

The river was off at her left now, a few yards away, for the ground where she was seemed to be an easier path for her feet than close by the riverbank. The sun had turned the river into a broad band of gold, and the west was bright with its horizontal rays, blending sky and earth at the horizon into a golden haze as if an eternal city were just beyond that point. With her binoculars, Fraley swept the land behind her and to either side and came at last to the view straight ahead, catching her breath at the beauty of the day that was departing, the exquisite tinting of the foliage and sky and clouds, rejoicing that there was not even a sign of cattle anywhere around, save a few scattered ones miles away behind her.

Then suddenly, as she looked, fear crept into her body like a great hand that gripped her as in a vise, for, out from the golden distance, along the ridge that led from as far as she could see, back along the line of the opposite mountain and on toward the cabin she had left, there moved a little black dot!

At first she thought it must be a speck on the glass, and she carefully breathed upon it and polished it with her sleeve. But, no, when she looked again the dot, growing rapidly larger, was moving on toward her. As she watched it, scarcely daring to breathe, it gradually became three moving dots, one lighter than the rest and still coming on over that ridge of the opposite mountain.

She tried to tell herself that she was nervous, excited, seeing things that this was some sort of mirage. Her mother had told her of mirages on the desert. But this was not the desert.

Larger and larger the dots grew, nearer and nearer they came, racing along the ridge. They were so near now that through the binoculars she could distinctly see that they were horses bearing riders. A conviction grew upon her that it was some of the men from the cabin out on a search party after her, and her knees grew so weak they shook. She dropped to the earth suddenly as if she had been shot, as this fear grew to a certainty, and keeping a sharp lookout with lowered head, she crept on hands and knees toward a clump of bushes down by the riverbank. Oh, if she had stayed over there instead of daring to take the more open ground! Perhaps they had already sighted her. Yet, unless they were carrying binoculars, too, they might not have seen her. Brand had binoculars, she knew. But was it Brand or some of the others? Or was it only some passing cowboys who knew nothing at all about her?

When she reached the screen of the bushes she crept close, and thus in ambush trained her binoculars once more on the riders.

They were almost opposite her range now, and she could see them plainly, although they must be a long distance away. The air was clear and still, and she could hear them shout to one another, though she could not hear what they said, and once she thought she heard a curse flung into the golden evening. But as they came opposite, she saw distinctly that two horses were dark and one was white, and the white one was lame in his left hind foot.

Like little silhouettes they moved across the opposite ridge of mountain. Now she was sure, though she could not see the men’s faces, that the one on the forward dark horse was Pete; the other dark one would be Shorty, they always went together; and the white horse was Pierce Boyden’s, the man she hated and dreaded most of all except Brand Carter.

As she watched them through the screen of the bushes, they suddenly drew rein and stood together, pointing off in her direction, as if consulting about their route. Then they turned their course and came down from the ridge of the mountain, winding like tiny puppets into the dark pathways of the mountainside. There was a patch of trees that hindered the sunlight and hid them now from view, and Fraley lay in her covert trembling. Oh, had they seen her, and were they coming to trap her here as she hid?

Perhaps Brand had called out Shorty’s vicious hounds, and they were even now coming upon her from the other direction. Perhaps that pointing on the mountain ridge had been signaling to the others. They might all be upon her in a few minutes, and what could she do? There was positively no place to which she could flee in the wide-open landscape, and there was no possibility that these sparse bushes would cover her if a search party came near. Oh, if there were only a hole in the ground!

Then it came to her that she might cover herself with grass. Perhaps they would not get here before the sun was much lower, and they might not notice, though the hounds would surely search her out if they were along. But it seemed the only thing she could do, so she fell to pulling the grass and piling it into a great heap beside her.

She crouched as close to the bushes as she could get, burrowing her body into the loose soil until the old coat was almost on a level with the surrounding ground and the precious bag containing her treasures was beneath her. Then she set to work as well as she could to cover herself with the grass she had pulled, satisfied at last that she would not be noticeable unless someone came quite near. She put her face down on her arms and lay still under her camouflage, and before long there came a sound of voices and of hoofbeats ringing across the water.

Fraley, in her flimsy refuge, cringed and held her breath!

F
raley’s worst fears were realized as the enemy drew near. It was indeed, as she had guessed, the three men—Pete and Shorty and Pierce—and, as she had thought, they had come that way in answer to a signal from Brand, who had found the body of the dead dog lying in the clear water of the river.

The three men came riding down from the mountain and halted a little way from the water just across from the clump of bushes that hid the trembling girl, and there they waited until Brand came riding up on the other side. He forded the river not ten feet above the little grass mound that covered Fraley’s old coat, and she held her breath and tried to keep from trembling as she listened to the splash of his horse’s feet when he stepped out into the water.

She could hear all they said. They were not drunk now, and their curses were so much the more cold blooded and deliberate as each man told with a coarse laugh what he would do to the culprit when he found her. Fraley shut her eyes and wondered if hell were like this, and wondered again, as she had done many times of late, why God made men.

It appeared that there were other search parties out for her now. Shorty had been warned and was to pass the word along. There wasn’t a man within the outlaws’ territory that wouldn’t rise to the occasion and keep a keen lookout along his border. She heard them name the places and gathered much helpful information from their discussion, the only trouble with it being that there did not seem to be any direction she could turn in which she might find egress into the world beyond. They had shut up the gates of their world and guarded all their defenses. How could she hope to escape?

She had no words with which to pray, but she lay there calling in her heart to God, and presently, seemingly without reason, the men all turned their horses and galloped away across the valley. Cautiously she peered through the thicket to watch them, marveling that they were gone, not daring to come out of her covert lest there be someone still in ambush lurking behind her.

She lay there until the damp ground chilled her to the bone and a sick dizziness descended upon her. She wondered how long it took people to die of starvation. She was not near that yet, for there were still stores within her bag, but she felt a strange apathy about eating anything. If she could only lie there and sleep herself away out of this life!

But Fraley had been too well taught to let herself give up so easily, and soon the stillness all around her began to give her renewed assurance. Now was the time for her to find another hiding place. The sun had gone lower in the west. It was almost down to the horizon.

Cautiously she peered out. It was all very still.

She rolled herself softly over and looked around. She took out the binoculars and searched in every direction. Far away to the northeast, she could see those small specks climbing the mountain again. Dared she rise and get across the wide stretch of open space now? If they looked back with binoculars, could they sight her?

She decided to keep low and move slowly. No one could notice a flat thing on the ground. So she crawled until her muscles were too tired to go that way any longer, then she rose halfway and ran a few steps, dropping to her knees and lying flat down again until she made another survey, and so she slowly progressed across a space that seemed interminable. She kept going and going and never getting any nearer to anything.

And now the ground began to rise. She was sorry for that, for it would make her more visible from afar, but a careful survey of the horizon showed her three enemies just going over the ridge of the opposite mountain and the other riding far off to the northeast. She would be safe from them for a little while, at least, and perhaps could get over beyond the hill somehow. Perhaps it was safer south than north, although she had an inner conviction that it was in that direction she would find the great herds of cattle. She rose and ran again, until she was ready to drop.

There was a tree on the little hill. Its foliage was scant and would give little shelter from an enemy’s eye, but it might give her an outlook beyond and help her to know where to go, or where not to go, which was much more important.

As she climbed the hill, she began to hope again. If she could only get beyond the boundaries where these men had holdings out beyond where they dared to go! She knew there were such boundaries, for her mother had often told her so and warned her to keep close around the cabin where she belonged, for until she was beyond these boundaries there was no safety. And now she began to understand why her mother had not dared to try to get away. It was hard enough for one to hide. Two could not have done it even so long. Neither could her frail little mother have endured the long journey on foot.