Zane Grey (32 page)

"Fetch me some water." When Colter brought it, Ellen was rummaging in
her pack for some clothing or towel that she could use for bandages.

"Weren't any of y'u decent enough to look after my uncle?" she queried.

"Huh! Wal, what the hell!" rejoined Colter. "We shore did all we
could. I reckon y'u think it wasn't a tough job to pack him up the Rim.
He was done for then an' I said so."

"I'll do all I can for him," said Ellen.

"Shore. Go ahaid. When I get plugged or knifed by that half-breed I
shore hope y'u'll be round to nurse me."

"Y'u seem to be pretty shore of your fate, Colter."

"Shore as hell!" he bit out, darkly. "Somers saw Isbel an' his gang
trailin' us to the Jorth ranch."

"Are y'u goin' to stay heah—an' wait for them?"

"Shore I've been quarrelin' with the fellars out there over that very
question. I'm for leavin' the country. But Queen, the damn gun
fighter, is daid set to kill that cowman, Blue, who swore he was King
Fisher, the old Texas outlaw. None but Queen are spoilin' for another
fight. All the same they won't leave Tad Jorth heah alone."

Then Colter leaned in at the door and whispered: "Ellen, I cain't boss
this outfit. So let's y'u an' me shake 'em. I've got your dad's gold.
Let's ride off to-night an' shake this country."

Colter, muttering under his breath, left the door and returned to his
comrades. Ellen had received her first intimation of his cowardice;
and his mention of her father's gold started a train of thought that
persisted in spite of her efforts to put all her mind to attending her
uncle. He grew conscious enough to recognize her working over him, and
thanked her with a look that touched Ellen deeply. It changed the
direction of her mind. His suffering and imminent death, which she was
able to alleviate and retard somewhat, worked upon her pity and
compassion so that she forgot her own plight. Half the night she was
tending him, cooling his fever, holding him quiet. Well she realized
that but for her ministrations he would have died. At length he went
to sleep.

And Ellen, sitting beside him in the lonely, silent darkness of that
late hour, received again the intimation of nature, those vague and
nameless stirrings of her innermost being, those whisperings out of the
night and the forest and the sky. Something great would not let go of
her soul. She pondered.

Attention to the wounded man occupied Ellen; and soon she redoubled her
activities in this regard, finding in them something of protection
against Colter.

He had waylaid her as she went to a spring for water, and with a lunge
like that of a bear he had tried to embrace her. But Ellen had been
too quick.

"Wal, are y'u goin' away with me?" he demanded.

"No. I'll stick by my uncle," she replied.

That motive of hers seemed to obstruct his will. Ellen was keen to see
that Colter and his comrades were at a last stand and disintegrating
under a severe strain. Nerve and courage of the open and the wild they
possessed, but only in a limited degree. Colter seemed obsessed by his
passion for her, and though Ellen in her stubborn pride did not yet
fear him, she realized she ought to. After that incident she watched
closely, never leaving her uncle's bedside except when Colter was
absent. One or more of the men kept constant lookout somewhere down
the canyon.

Day after day passed on the wings of suspense, of watching, of
ministering to her uncle, of waiting for some hour that seemed fixed.

Colter was like a hound upon her trail. At every turn he was there to
importune her to run off with him, to frighten her with the menace of
the Isbels, to beg her to give herself to him. It came to pass that
the only relief she had was when she ate with the men or barred the
cabin door at night. Not much relief, however, was there in the shut
and barred door. With one thrust of his powerful arm Colter could have
caved it in. He knew this as well as Ellen. Still she did not have
the fear she should have had. There was her rifle beside her, and
though she did not allow her mind to run darkly on its possible use,
still the fact of its being there at hand somehow strengthened her.
Colter was a cat playing with a mouse, but not yet sure of his quarry.

Ellen came to know hours when she was weak—weak physically, mentally,
spiritually, morally—when under the sheer weight of this frightful and
growing burden of suspense she was not capable of fighting her misery,
her abasement, her low ebb of vitality, and at the same time wholly
withstanding Colter's advances.

He would come into the cabin and, utterly indifferent to Tad Jorth, he
would try to make bold and unrestrained love to Ellen. When he caught
her in one of her unresisting moments and was able to hold her in his
arms and kiss her he seemed to be beside himself with the wonder of
her. At such moments, if he had any softness or gentleness in him,
they expressed themselves in his sooner or later letting her go, when
apparently she was about to faint. So it must have become
fascinatingly fixed in Colter's mind that at times Ellen repulsed him
with scorn and at others could not resist him.

Ellen had escaped two crises in her relation with this man, and as a
morbid doubt, like a poisonous fungus, began to strangle her mind, she
instinctively divined that there was an approaching and final crisis.
No uplift of her spirit came this time—no intimations—no whisperings.
How horrible it all was! To long to be good and noble—to realize that
she was neither—to sink lower day by day! Must she decay there like
one of these rotting logs? Worst of all, then, was the insinuating and
ever-growing hopelessness. What was the use? What did it matter? Who
would ever think of Ellen Jorth? "O God!" she whispered in her
distraction, "is there nothing left—nothing at all?"

A period of several days of less torment to Ellen followed. Her uncle
apparently took a turn for the better and Colter let her alone. This
last circumstance nonplused Ellen. She was at a loss to understand it
unless the Isbel menace now encroached upon Colter so formidably that
he had forgotten her for the present.

Then one bright August morning, when she had just begun to relax her
eternal vigilance and breathe without oppression, Colter encountered
her and, darkly silent and fierce, he grasped her and drew her off her
feet. Ellen struggled violently, but the total surprise had deprived
her of strength. And that paralyzing weakness assailed her as never
before. Without apparent effort Colter carried her, striding rapidly
away from the cabins into the border of spruce trees at the foot of the
canyon wall.

"Colter—where—oh, where are Y'u takin' me?" she found voice to cry
out.

"By God! I don't know," he replied, with strong, vibrant passion. "I
was a fool not to carry y'u off long ago. But I waited. I was hopin'
y'u'd love me! ... An' now that Isbel gang has corralled us. Somers
seen the half-breed up on the rocks. An' Springer seen the rest of
them sneakin' around. I run back after my horse an' y'u."

"But Uncle Tad! ... We mustn't leave him alone," cried Ellen.

"We've got to," replied Colter, grimly. "Tad shore won't worry y'u no
more—soon as Jean Isbel gets to him."

"Oh, let me stay," implored Ellen. "I will save him."

Colter laughed at the utter absurdity of her appeal and claim. Suddenly
he set her down upon her feet. "Stand still," he ordered. Ellen saw
his big bay horse, saddled, with pack and blanket, tied there in the
shade of a spruce. With swift hands Colter untied him and mounted him,
scarcely moving his piercing gaze from Ellen. He reached to grasp her.
"Up with y'u! ... Put your foot in the stirrup!" His will, like his
powerful arm, was irresistible for Ellen at that moment. She found
herself swung up behind him. Then the horse plunged away. What with
the hard motion and Colter's iron grasp on her Ellen was in a painful
position. Her knees and feet came into violent contact with branches
and snags. He galloped the horse, tearing through the dense thicket of
willows that served to hide the entrance to the side canyon, and when
out in the larger and more open canyon he urged him to a run.
Presently when Colter put the horse to a slow rise of ground, thereby
bringing him to a walk, it was just in time to save Ellen a serious
bruising. Again the sunlight appeared to shade over. They were in the
pines. Suddenly with backward lunge Colter halted the horse. Ellen
heard a yell. She recognized Queen's voice.

"Turn back, Colter! Turn back!"

With an oath Colter wheeled his mount. "If I didn't run plump into
them," he ejaculated, harshly. And scarcely had the goaded horse
gotten a start when a shot rang out. Ellen felt a violent shock, as if
her momentum had suddenly met with a check, and then she felt herself
wrenched from Colter, from the saddle, and propelled into the air. She
alighted on soft ground and thick grass, and was unhurt save for the
violent wrench and shaking that had rendered her breathless. Before
she could rise Colter was pulling at her, lifting her to her feet. She
saw the horse lying with bloody head. Tall pines loomed all around.
Another rifle cracked. "Run!" hissed Colter, and he bounded off,
dragging her by the hand. Another yell pealed out. "Here we are,
Colter!". Again it was Queen's shrill voice. Ellen ran with all her
might, her heart in her throat, her sight failing to record more than a
blur of passing pines and a blank green wall of spruce. Then she lost
her balance, was falling, yet could not fall because of that steel grip
on her hand, and was dragged, and finally carried, into a dense shade.
She was blinded. The trees whirled and faded. Voices and shots
sounded far away. Then something black seemed to be wiped across her
feeling.

It turned to gray, to moving blankness, to dim, hazy objects, spectral
and tall, like blanketed trees, and when Ellen fully recovered
consciousness she was being carried through the forest.

"Wal, little one, that was a close shave for y'u," said Colter's hard
voice, growing clearer. "Reckon your keelin' over was natural enough."

He held her lightly in both arms, her head resting above his left
elbow. Ellen saw his face as a gray blur, then taking sharper outline,
until it stood out distinctly, pale and clammy, with eyes cold and
wonderful in their intense flare. As she gazed upward Colter turned
his head to look back through the woods, and his motion betrayed a
keen, wild vigilance. The veins of his lean, brown neck stood out like
whipcords. Two comrades were stalking beside him. Ellen heard their
stealthy steps, and she felt Colter sheer from one side or the other.
They were proceeding cautiously, fearful of the rear, but not wholly
trusting to the fore.

"Reckon we'd better go slow an' look before we leap," said one whose
voice Ellen recognized as Springer's.

"Shore. That open slope ain't to my likin', with our Nez Perce friend
prowlin' round," drawled Colter, as he set Ellen down on her feet.

Another of the rustlers laughed. "Say, can't he twinkle through the
forest? I had four shots at him. Harder to hit than a turkey runnin'
crossways."

This facetious speaker was the evil-visaged, sardonic Somers. He
carried two rifles and wore two belts of cartridges.

"Ellen, shore y'u ain't so daid white as y'u was," observed Colter, and
he chucked her under the chin with familiar hand. "Set down heah. I
don't want y'u stoppin' any bullets. An' there's no tellin'."

Ellen was glad to comply with his wish. She had begun to recover wits
and strength, yet she still felt shaky. She observed that their
position then was on the edge of a well-wooded slope from which she
could see the grassy canyon floor below. They were on a level bench,
projecting out from the main canyon wall that loomed gray and rugged
and pine fringed. Somers and Cotter and Springer gave careful attention
to all points of the compass, especially in the direction from which
they had come. They evidently anticipated being trailed or circled or
headed off, but did not manifest much concern. Somers lit a cigarette;
Springer wiped his face with a grimy hand and counted the shells in his
belt, which appeared to be half empty. Colter stretched his long neck
like a vulture and peered down the slope and through the aisles of the
forest up toward the canyon rim.

"Listen!" he said, tersely, and bent his head a little to one side, ear
to the slight breeze.

They all listened. Ellen heard the beating of her heart, the rustle of
leaves, the tapping of a woodpecker, and faint, remote sounds that she
could not name.

"Deer, I reckon," spoke up Somers.

"Ahuh! Wal, I reckon they ain't trailin' us yet," replied Colter. "We
gave them a shade better 'n they sent us."

"Short an' sweet!" ejaculated Springer, and he removed his black
sombrero to poke a dirty forefinger through a buffet hole in the crown.
"Thet's how close I come to cashin'. I was lyin' behind a log,
listenin' an' watchin', an' when I stuck my head up a little—zam!
Somebody made my bonnet leak."

"Where's Queen?" asked Colter.

"He was with me fust off," replied Somers. "An' then when the shootin'
slacked—after I'd plugged thet big, red-faced, white-haired pal of
Isbel's—"

"Reckon thet was Blaisdell," interrupted Springer.

"Queen—he got tired layin' low," went on Somers. "He wanted action. I
heerd him chewin' to himself, an' when I asked him what was eatin' him
he up an' growled he was goin' to quit this Injun fightin'. An' he
slipped off in the woods."

"Wal, that's the gun fighter of it," declared Colter, wagging his head,
"Ever since that cowman, Blue, braced us an' said he was King Fisher,
why Queen has been sulkier an' sulkier. He cain't help it. He'll do
the same trick as Blue tried. An' shore he'll get his everlastin'. But
he's the Texas breed all right."