Sunset Pass (1990) (14 page)

"Butcher and be darned," retorted Rock, absolutely mimicking the other's tone.

"You're gettin' too thick out here," said Ash, backing to the door. "I told you once to clear out. This's the second time. There won't never be no third." He backed out the door, his blue eyes like fire under ice.

"Gage, that bullheaded son of yours will be the ruin of you," said Rock, turning to the rancher.

"Lord! don't I know it!" groaned Preston from under his huge hands.

Rock remained away from supper. He found in his pack enough to satisfy him. It was a trying hour as he watched from his window.

Presently Rock saw Preston, accompanied by Thiry, come out of his cabin and cross over to enter Ash's. Rock decided to go down through the grove and come up between Ash's cabin and Thiry's, and wait for her.

It must have been long after midnight when Rock heard a door close. He waited, straining eyes and ears. How pitch black it was at a little distance! Then out of the blackness a slender vague shape glided, like a spectre.

Rock let her get right upon him, so close he could have touched her, and his heart suddenly contracted violently. "Thiry! Thiry!" he whispered.

He heard her gasp. Like a statue she stood. "Thiry! Don't be frightened, I waited. It's Truman," he whispered.

"You!" she cried and seemed to loom on him out of the shadows. Her arms swept wide and that extraordinary action paralyzed Rock. The next instant they closed round his neck.

Chapter
13

Rock stood stiff and immovable as the pine tree by kis side, but his mind, his heart received the fact of that embrace with tumultuous violence.

Scarcely had Thiry clasped him when she uttered a cry and released the convulsive hold. "Oh--I'm beside myself!" she whispered.

Taking her hand, Rock led her to the bench under the pine, where she sank almost in collapse, her head bowed.

"Thiry, why did you--do that?"

"I--I don't know. What must you think of me?"

"Reckon I think all that's wonderful and beautiful. But I think also I'm entitled to an explanation."

"Trueman how can I explain what I scarcely realize?" she said with pathos. "I've been hours with Dad and Ash. Oh, it was sickening. We begged--we prayed Ash to give up--plans he has. He was a fiend. But I kept trying till I was exhausted. As I came across to my cabin I was thinking of how you met that Half Moon outfit. How you resented suspicion against Dad. I was wondering how I should thank you--to-morrow. Then you rose right out the black ground. What a fright you gave me! And when you spoke I--I just--"

Rock's compassion overcame his more powerful emotions. He grasped her arm, and pulled her closer to him, and he held her. "You stay here. Reckon I might remind you that Ash is not the only bad hombre on the range."

To Judge from her shrinking, and the trembling of her arm, his speech both frightened and angered her. "Very well, if you detain me by force," Thiry said coldly. "Why were you waiting for me at this unheard-of hour?"

"I saw you go into Ash's cabin, and I thought I'd wait till you came out."

"Then you were spying on me, on us?"

"Reckon so, if you want to use hard words. But sure my strongest motive was just to see you, talk to you a minute."

"Well, since you've done that, please let me go."

"Thiry, you upset everythin' when you put your arms round my neck," he said. "I love you. Tell me what weighs so upon you. Tell me your secret."

"I--I have no secret."

"Don't you trust my love?"

"Oh, I would if I dared."

Rock had wrenched that truth from her. Therein lay her weakness, the vulnerable spot upon which he must remorselessly make his attack. He must play upon her weakness, force her to confession, betray his knowledge of her guilty sharing of Preston's secret.

"Thiry, you might dare anything on my love," he began.

"Oh no--no! If it were only myself!"

"Thiry, there are only two people in all the world--you and me."

"How silly, Trueman. You are selfish."

"Well, if it's selfish to love you, worship you, to want your burdens on my shoulders, to save you from trouble, disgrace--to make you happy--then indeed I am sure selfish."

Through her wrist, which he held, he felt at the word 'disgrace' a distinct shock. Hurriedly she rose.

"Do you speak of love and--disgrace in one breath?"

"Yes. And you understand," he replied sharply. "Thiry darling, I can forgive your falsehood to all except me."

It did not take much of a pull to get her into his arms, and in another moment he had her helpless, lifting her from the ground, her fate close under his.

"Thiry, don't you love me a very little?" he asked, deep tenderness thrilling in his voice.

"No! Oh, let me go!" she implored.

"Thiry, I love you so wonderfully. Ever since that minute you stepped in Winter's store, Didn't you like me then--or afterwards?"

"I suppose I did. But what's the use to talk of it? You're holding me in a--a most shameless manner. Let me go."

"Reckon I'll hold you this way a long time. Till you say you love me a little. I must make sure. Reckon first off kiss you a couple of thousand times and see if I can tell by that."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Wouldn't I, though? Sure I'm a reckless cowboy. Now watch. And he bent to kiss her hair again and again and again, and then her ear, and last het cheek that changed its coolness under his lips.

"There!" he whispered, and drew her head back, on his shoulder. "Sure they were only worshipful kisses--do you hate me for them?"

"I couldn't hate you. Please let me go--before it's too--"

"It is too late, Thiry, for both of us," he Whispered passionately, and he kissed her lips--and then again, with all the longing that consumed him.

"Now will you confess you love me--a little?" he asked huskily.

"O God help me--I do--I do!"

"More than a little? Thiry, I didn't expect much. Sure I don't deserve it--but tell me."

"Yes, more." And she twisted to hide her face, while her left arm slowly crept up his shoulder, and went half 'round his neck.

"Thiry, bless you! If this's not a one-sided affair, kiss me."

"No--no--if I give up--we're ruined," she whispered tragically.

"Sure we're ruined if you don't. So let's have the kisses anyhow."

"Truman, since I never can--marry you--I--I mustn't kiss you."

"Darling, one thing at a time. By and by well tackle the marryin' problem. I'd go loco if I thought you'd be my wife some day. But just now make this dream come true. I want your kisses, Thiry. I'll compromise. I'll be generous. Just one--but not like that fairy kiss you gave me on Winter's porch."

"Trueman, if give one--it means all," she said tremulously.

Lifting her head he turned her face to his.

"You are wrong to--to master me this way," she said, mournfully. "If you knew--you might not want it."

"Master nothin'! I am your slave. But kiss me. Settle it forever."

How slowly she lifted her pale face, with eyes like black stars! In the sweet fire of her lips Rock gained his heart's desire.

Then she lay in his arms, her face hidden, while he gazed out into the stormy night, across the black Pass to the dim flares along the battlements of the range.

"Now Trueman, explain what you meant by my--falsehood to all?" she asked presently.

"Are you quite prepared?" he returned gravely "Sure it's not easy to rush from joy to trouble."

She sat up, startled.

"Thiry, you are keepin' Ash's and your father's secret from all. They are cattle thieves. Beef thieves. So are your brothers Range, Scoot and Boots, along with them."

"O my God! You know!" she almost screamed, and slipped to her knees before him.

"Hush! Not so loud! You'll wake someone," he said sternly, placing a firm hand over her mouth. "Get up off your knees."

But she only leaned forward, clutching him, peering up into his face. "Trueman, how do--you know?"

"I suspected it when I first came. I found signs. Quicklime! That made me suspicious. Slagle's well is half full of hides. Sure those hides have not the Preston brand. Then over near where they butchered last I came on the same boot track that I'd seen down near the slaughterhouse. It led under a culvert. There I found hundreds of hides, tied up in burlap sacks. I opened one. That hide had a Half Moon brand! Down here at your barn I measured Ash's boot track. It was the same as that one I'd trailed. But for real proof, I heard your Dad and Ash talkin' together. They gave it all away."

"I knew--it would come. It will--kill me," she wailed brokenly. "Oh, to make love to me--while you were spying on my brother--my father!"

"Little girl, I told you to speak low. Reckon it does look pretty bad to you. But it's not so bad as it looks--so far as I'm concerned. But, Thiry, you're in this secret and you would be held guilty in some degree in court, if your part in it was found out. And let me tell you Ash would hold no secret. And there's the danger for you."

"Court! Danger? You mean they'll be arrested--and I will be dragged in with them?"

"Reckon that is liable to happen," he replied.

"You'd betray us!" Swift as a striking snake her hand darted out and snatched his gun. Leaning back, she extended it with both hands. "I'll kill you!"

"Thiry, if you believe I--could betray you or them--shoot!"

"You will not tell?" she flushed.

"Never. You sure got me wrong."

She gave vent to a suddering sound. The gun fell from her hands. She swayed. Then she sank forward, her face on his knees, and clinging to him she broke into low sobs, every one of which was like a knife thrust to Rock.

He let her have it out, and stroked her hair. She did not recover soon, though presently the sobs gave way to soft weeping. Then he held her closer, scarcely seeing her or the black pine-streaked gloom. He was seeing something blacker than the night, more sinister than the shadows. As a last resource, to save her and her father, he could kill Ash Preston. But for Ash, this blundering, thieving work could be halted in time to prevent discovery.

At this brooding juncture of Rock's meditations he became aware that Thiry was stirring. She rose from her knees while still clinging to him, and she sank beside him on the bench, to lean against him, face uplifted. "Can you forgive me?" she whispered. "I was out of my head. I should have known you would never betray us. Oh, Trueman, can anything be done to save us?"

"It must be done, Thiry. Sure I don't know what."

"I dare not breathe a word of this. They would kill you:"

"Never give Ash a hunch that I know. Don't tell your father anythin'. There's no great hurry. We've got time. I'll find some way."

"Oh. Trueman, you are my one hope. To think I've tried to drive you away! That I nearly shot you! How little I know myself. But I do know this--if you stop this selling of stolen beef--if you prevent it before they're arrested--I'll--I'll love you with h all my heart and soul."

"Darling, I will do it somehow."

"I'll go now," she said, rising and swaying unsteadily.

He lifted her in his arms and walked toward her cabin. At the door of the cabin he set her gently upon her feet.

"I'm glad now you came to Sunset Pass," she whispered.

Forty-eight hours later Rock rode into Wagontongue, the old-True Rock of earlier and wilder range days. Yet no day of his life had ever seen the passion, the will to invent and achieve, that one single moment now embodied.

When Rock dropped in to see Winter it was not with any definite purpose; but that night he and his old friend locked themselves in a room at the hotel.

"Sol, old-timer, I'm in deep," said Rock, and he opened his palms expressively. "Thiry loves me!"

"Shore," replied Winter, sagely wagging his head. "But you wouldn't take her an' leave the country?"

"Reckon I couldn't yet."

"Do you know anythin' thet makes Preston's guilt shore?"

"Yes, but I promised Thiry not to tell it."

"But you can go to Preston an tell him you know. Scare him to sense."

"Yes, I can. More--I know I can stop him. Sol, Gage Preston can't call his soul his own. I reckon Ash led him into this, and nothin' on earth or in heaven can stop Ash Preston."

"Nothin'?" echoed Winter. "Nothing but lead!"

"Ahuh! Wal, I never yet seen thet kind of a hombre miss meetin it. Leave him out. Now, Rock, I've an idee. If Dabb an' Lincoln know what I know, they will tell you. Thet obviates any broken promise on your part. An' they rule the Cattle Association. Hesbitt is only president. What Dabb an' Lincoln say is law. Now you go to them."

"But, Sol, what for?"

"Son, you are so deep in love thet you ain't practical. If you can get Dabb and Lincoln to sympathize with you an' Thiry, thet'll be sympathizin' with Preston. Ten years ago there was a case somethin' like this. Wal, his friends got him to make good what he'd stole, an' saved him from jail, if no worse. I've been raised with these ranchers, know them. If you've got the nerve an' the wit you can keep Preston from ruin an' Thiry from a broken heart."