HUE AND CRY
"Did you hit him?"
"I don't think so," replied Racey without turning his head. "Keep
down."
"I am down."
"How you feel?"
"Pretty good--considering."
"Close squeak--considerin'."
"Yes," said she in a small voice, "it was a close squeak. You--you
saved my life, Racey."
"Shucks," he said, much embarrassed, "that wasn't anythin'--I
mean--you--you know what I mean."
"Surely, I know what you mean. All the same, you saved my life. Tell
me, was that man shooting at us all the time after I fainted until you
got me under cover?"
"Not all the time, no."
"But most of the time. Oh, you can make small of it, but you were very
brave. It isn't everybody would have stuck the way you did."
Smack! Tchuck! A bullet struck a rock two feet below where Racey lay
on his stomach, his rifle-barrel poked out between two shrubs of
smooth sumac--another bored the hole of a gray stub at his back.
He fired quickly at the first puff of smoke, then sent two bullets a
little to the left of the centre of the second puff.
"Not much chance of hittin' the first feller," he said to Molly. "He's
behind a log, but that second sport is behind a bush same as me....
Huh? Oh, I'm all right. I got the ground in front of me. He
hasn't. Alla same, we ain't stayin' here any longer. I think I saw
half-a-dozen gents cuttin' across the end of the slide. Give 'em time
and they'll cut in behind us, which ain't part of my plans a-tall.
Let's go."
He crawfished backward on his hands and knees. Molly followed his
example. When they were sufficiently far back to be able to stand
upright with safety they scrambled to their feet and hurried to the
horse.
"I'll lead him for a while," said Racey, giving Molly a leg up, for
the horse was a tall one. "He won't have to carry double just yet."
So, with Racey walking ahead, they resumed their retreat.
The ridge of rock cutting across the burned-over area could not
properly be called rimrock. It was a different formation. Set at an
angle it climbed steadily upward to the very top of the mountain.
In places weatherworn to a slippery smoothness; in others jagged,
fragment-strewn; where the rain had washed an earth-covering upon the
rock the cheerful kinnikinick spread its mantle of shining green.
The man and the girl and the horse made good time. Racey's feet began
to hurt before he had gone a mile, but he knew that something besides
a pair of feet would be irreparably damaged if he did not keep going.
If they caught him he would be lynched, that's what he would be. If he
weren't shot first. And the girl--well, she would get at the least ten
years at Piegan City, _if_ they were caught. But "if" is the longest
and tallest word in the dictionary. It is indeed a mighty barrier
before the Lord.
"Did you ever stop to think they may come up through this brush?" said
Molly, on whom the silence and the sad gray stubs on either hand were
beginning to tell.
"No," he answered, "I didn't, because they can't. The farther down you
go the worse it gets. They'd never get through. Not with hosses. We're
all right."
"Are we?" She stood up in her stirrups, and looked down through a
vista between the stubs.
They had reached the top of the mountain. It was a saddle-backed
mountain, and they were at the outer edge of the eastern hump. Far
below was a narrow valley running north and south. It was a valley
without trees or stream and through it a string of dots were slipping
to the north.
"Are we all right?" she persisted. "Look down there."
At this he turned his head and craned his neck.
"I guess," he said, stepping out, "we'd better boil this kettle a li'l
faster."
She made no comment, but always she looked down the mountain side and
watched, when the stubs gave her the opportunity, that ominous string
of dots. She had never been hunted before.
They crossed the top of the mountain, keeping to the ridge of rock,
and started down the northern slope. Here they passed out of the
burned-over area of underbrush and stubs and scuffed through brushless
groves of fir and spruce where no grass grew and not a ray of sunshine
struck the ground and the wind soughed always mournfully.
But here and there were comparatively open spaces, grassy, drenched
with sunshine, and sparsely sprinkled with lovely mountain maples and
solitary yellow pines. In the wider open spaces they could see over
the tops of the trees below them and catch glimpses of the way they
must go.
A deep notch, almost a cañon, grown up in spruce divided the mountain
they were descending from the next one to the north. This next one
thrust a rocky shoulder easterly. The valley where the horsemen rode
bent round this shoulder in a curve measured in miles. They could not
see the riders now.
"There's a trail just over the hill," said Racey, nodding toward the
mountain across the notch. "It ain't been regularly used since the
Daisy petered out in '73, but I guess the bridge is all right."
"And suppose it ain't all right?"
"We'll have to grow wings in a hurry," he said, soberly, thinking
of the deep cleft spanned by the bridge. "Does this trail lead to
Farewell?"
"Same thing--it'll take us to the Farewell trail if we wanted to go
there, but we don't. We ain't got time. We'll stick to this trail till
we get out of the Frying-Pans and then we'll head northeast for the
Cross-in-a-box. That's the nearest place where I got friends. And I
don't mind saying we'll be needing friends bad, me and you both."
"Suppose that posse reaches the trail and the bridge before we do?"
"Oh, I guess they won't. They have to go alla way round and we go
straight mostly. Don't you worry. We'll make the riffle yet."
His voice was more confident than his brain. It was touch and go
whether they would reach the trail and the bridge first. The posse in
the valley--that was what would stack the cards against them. And if
they should pass the bridge first, what then? It was at least thirty
miles from the bridge to the Cross-in-a-box ranch-house. And there was
only one horse. Indeed, the close squeak was still squeaking.
"Racey, you're limping!"
"Not me," he lied. "Stubbed my toe, thassall."
"Nothing of the kind. It's those tight boots. Here, you ride, and let
me walk." So saying, she slipped to the ground.
As was natural the horse stopped with a jerk. So did Racey.
"You get into that saddle," he directed, sternly. "We ain't got time
for any foolishness."
Foolishness! And she was only trying to be thoughtful. Foolishness!
She turned and climbed back into the saddle, and sat up straight, her
backbone as stiff as a ramrod, and looked over his head and far away.
For the moment she was so hopping mad she forgot the danger they were
in. They made their way down into the heavy growth of Engelmann spruce
that filled the notch, crossed the floor of the notch, and began again
to climb.
An hour later they crossed the top of the second mountain and saw far
below them a long saddle back split in the middle by a narrow cleft.
At that distance it looked very narrow. In reality, it was forty feet
wide. Racey stopped and swept with squinting eyes the place where he
knew the bridge to be.
"See," he said, suddenly, pointing for Molly's benefit. "There's the
Daisy trail. I can see her plain--to the left of that arrowhead bunch
of trees. And the bridge is behind the trees."
"But I don't see any trail."
"Grown up in grass. That's why. It's behind the trees mostly, anyhow.
But she's there, the trail is. You can bet on it."
"I don't want to bet on it." Shortly. She was still mad at him. He had
saved her life, he had succeeded in saving the family ranch, he had
put her under eternal obligations, but he had called her thought for
him foolishness. It was too much.
Yet all the time she was ashamed of herself. She knew that she was
small and mean and narrow and deserved a spanking if any girl did. She
wanted to cuff Racey, cuff him till his ears turned red and his head
rang. For that is the way a woman feels when she loves a man and he
has hurt her feelings. But she feels almost precisely the same way
when she hates one who has. Truth it is that Love and Hate are close
akin.
Down, down they dropped two thousand feet, and when they came out upon
the fairly level top of the saddle back Racey mounted behind Molly.
"He'll have to carry double now," he explained. "She's two mile to the
bridge, and my wind ain't good enough to run me two mile."
It was not his wind that was weak, it was his feet--his tortured,
blistered feet that were two flaming aches. Later they would become
numb. He wished they were numb now, and cursed silently the man who
first invented cowboy boots. Every jog of the trotting horse whose
back he bestrode was a twitching torture.
"We'll be at the bridge in another mile," he told her.
"Thank Heaven!"
Silent and grass-grown lay the Daisy trail when they came out upon it
winding through a meagre plantation of cedars.
"No one's come along yet," vouchsafed Racey, turning into the trail
after a swift glance at its trackless, undisturbed surface.
He tickled the horse with both spurs and stirred him into a gallop.
There was not much spring in that gallop. Racey weighed fully one
hundred and seventy pounds without his clothes, Molly a hundred and
twenty with all of hers, and the saddle, blanket, sack, rifle, and
cartridges weighed a good sixty. On top of this weight pile many weary
miles the horse had travelled since its last meal and you have what it
was carrying. No wonder the gallop lacked spring.
"Bridge is just beyond those trees," said Racey in Molly's ear.
"The horse is nearly run out," was her comment.
"He ain't dead yet."
They rocked around the arrowhead grove of trees and saw the bridge
before them--one stringer. There had been two stringers and adequate
flooring when Racey had seen it last. The snows of the previous winter
must have been heavy in the Frying-Pan Mountains.
Molly shivered at the sight of that lone stringer.
"The horse is done, and so are we," she muttered.
"Nothing like that," he told her, cheerfully. "There's one stringer
left. Good enough for a squirrel, let alone two white folks."
"I--I couldn't," shuddered Molly.
They had stopped at the bridge head, Racey had dismounted, and she,
was looking down into the dark mouth of the cleft with frightened
eyes.
"It must be five hundred feet to the bottom," she whispered, her chin
wobbling.
"Not more than four hundred," he said, reassuringly. "And that log
is a good strong four-foot log, and she's been shaved off with the
broadaxe for layin' the flooring so we got a nice smooth path almost
two feet wide."
In reality, that smooth path retained not a few of the spikes that had
once held the flooring and it was no more than eighteen inches wide.
Racey gabbled on regardless. If chatter would do it, he'd get her mind
off that four-hundred-foot drop.
"I cue-can't!" breathed Molly. "I cue-can't walk across on that
lul-log! I'd fall off! I know I would!"
"You ain't gonna walk across the log," he told her with a broad grin.
"I'll carry you pickaback. C'mon, Molly, slide off. That's right. Now
when I stoop put yore arms round my neck. I'll stick my arms under
yore legs. See, like this. Now yo're all right. Don't worry. I won't
drop you. Close yore eyes and sit still, and you'll never know what's
happening. Close 'em now while I walk round with you a li'l bit so's
to get the hang of carryin' you."
She closed her eyes, and he began to walk about carrying her. At least
she thought he was walking about. But when he stopped and she opened
her eyes, she discovered that the horse was standing on the other side
of the cleft. At first she did not understand.
"How on earth did the horse get over?" she asked in wonder.
"He didn't," Racey said, quietly, setting her down, "but we did. I
carried you across while you had yore eyes shut. I told you you'd
never know what was happenin'."
She sat down limply on the ground. Racey started back across the
stringer to get the horse. He hurried, too. That posse they had seen
in the valley! There was no telling where it was. It might be four
miles away, or four hundred yards.
"C'mon, feller," said Racey, picking up the reins of the tired horse.
"And for Gawd's sake pick up yore feet! If you don't that dynamite is
gonna make one awful mess at the bottom of the cañon."
Dynamite! Mess! There was an idea. Although in order to spare Molly
an extra worry for the time being, he had told her they would push on
together, it had been his intention to hold the bridge with his rifle
while Molly rode alone to the Cross-in-a-box for help. But those
six sticks of dynamite would simplify the complex situation without
difficulty.
He did not hurry the horse. He merely walked in front holding the
bridle slackly. The horse followed him as good as gold--and picked up
his feet at nearly every spike. Once or twice a hind hoof grazed a
spike-head with a rasping sound that sent Racey's heart bouncing up
into his throat. Lord, so much depended on a safe passage!
For the first time in his eventful life Racey Dawson realized that he
possessed a full and working set of nerves.
When they reached firm ground Racey flung the reins to Molly.
"Unpack the dynamite," he cried. "It's in the slicker."
With his bowie he began furiously to dig under the end of the stringer
where it lay embedded in the earth. Within ten minutes he had a hole
large enough and long enough to thrust in the whole of his arm. He
made it a little longer and a little wider, and at the end he drove an
offset. This last that there might be no risk of the charge blowing
out through the hole.
When the hole was to his liking, he sat back on his haunches and
grabbed the dynamite sticks Molly held out to him. With strings cut
from his saddle, he tied the sticks into a bundle. Then he prepared
his fuse and cap. In one of the sticks he made a hole. In this hole he
firmly inserted the copper cap. Above the cap he tied the fuse to the
bundle with several lappings of a saddle-string.
"There!" he exclaimed. "I guess that cap will stay put. You and the
hoss get out of here, Molly. Go along the trail a couple of hundred
yards or so. G'on. Get a move on. I'll be with you in a minute. Better
leave my rifle."
Molly laid the Winchester on the grass beside him, mounted the horse,
and departed reluctantly. She did not like to leave Racey now. She
had burned out her "mad". She rode away chin on shoulder. The cedars
swallowed her up.
Racey with careful caution stuffed the dynamite down the hole and into
the offset. Then he shovelled in the earth with his hands and tamped
it down with a rock.
Was that the clack of a hoof on stone? Faint and far away another
hoof clacked. He reached up to his hatband for a match. There were
no matches in his hatband. Feverishly he searched his pockets. Not a
match--not a match anywhere!
He whipped out his sixshooter, held the muzzle close to the end of the
fuse and fired. He had to fire three times before the fuse began to
sparkle and spit.
Clearly it came to his ears, the unmistakable thudding of galloping
hoofs on turf. The posse was riding for the bridge full tilt. He
picked up his rifle and dodged in among the trees along the trail.
Forty yards from the mined stringer he met Molly riding back with a
scared face.
"What is it?" she cried to him. "I heard shots! Oh, what is it?"
"Go back! Go back!" he bawled. "I only cut that fuse for three
minutes."
Molly wheeled the horse and fled. Racey ran to where a windfall lay
near the edge of the cleft and some forty yards from the stringer.
Behind the windfall he lay down, levered a cartridge into the chamber,
and trained his rifle on the bridge head.
The galloping horsemen were not a hundred paces from the stringer when
the dynamite let go with a soul-satisfying roar. Rocks, earth, chunks
and splinters of wood flew up in advance of a rolling cloud of smoke
that obscured the cleft from rim to rim.
A crash at the bottom of the narrow cañon told Racey what had happened
to that part of the stringer the dynamite had not destroyed.
Racey lowered the hammer of his rifle to the safety notch just as
the posse began to approach the spot where the bridge had been. It
approached on foot by ones and twos and from tree to tree. Racey could
not see any one, but he could see the tree branches move here and
there.
"I guess," muttered Racey, as he crawfished away from the windfall, "I
guess that settles the cat-hop."
* * * * *
The sun was near its rising the following day when Racey and Molly,
their one horse staggering with fatigue, reached the Cross-in-a-box.
Racey had walked all the distance he was humanly able to walk, but
even so the horse had carried double the better part of twenty miles.
It had earned a rest.
So had Racey's feet.
* * * * *
"My Gawd, what a relief!" Racey muttered, and sat back and gingerly
wiggled his toes.
"Damn shame you had to cut 'em up thataway," said Jack Richie,
glancing at Racey's slit boots. "They look like new boots."
"It is and they are, but I couldn't get 'em off any other way, and
I'll bet I won't be able to get another pair on inside a month. Lordy,
man, did you ever think natural-born feet would swell like that?"
"You better soak them awhile," said Jack Richie. "C'mon out to the
kitchen."
"Shore feels good," said Racey, when his swelled feet were immersed in
a dishpan half full of tepid water. "Lookit, Jack, let Miss Dale have
her sleep out, and to-morrow sometime send a couple of boys with her
over to Moccasin Spring."
"Whatsa matter with you and one of the boys doing it?"
"Because I have to go to Piegan City."
"Huh?"
"Yep--Piegan City. I'm coming back, though, so you needn't worry about
losing the hoss yo're gonna lend me."
"That's good. But--"
"And if any gents on hossback _should_ drop in on you and ask
questions just remember that what they dunno won't hurt 'em."
Jack Richie nodded understandingly. "Trust me," he said. "As I see it,
Miss Dale and you come in from the north, and--"
"Only me--you ain't seen any Miss Dale--and I only stopped long enough
to borrow a fresh hoss and then rode away south."
"I know it all by heart," nodded Jack Richie.
"In about a week or ten days, maybe less," said Racey Dawson, "you'll
know more than that. And so will a good many other folks."