THE MAN IN UNIFORM
Spring was warming swiftly into summer. Where the gently sloping
ranges went up in waves and swells toward the uplands at the east, the
bright new green had turned to a darker shade. The tiny purple and
white flowers had disappeared to give place to sturdier ones of
crimson and gold. The veil of water that fell sharply down the face of
the Wall for a thousand feet at the Valley's southern end had thinned
to sheerest gauze. In the Canon Country the snow had disappeared from
most of the high points. Red, black, yellow, the great face of the
encircling Wall stood in everlasting majesty, looking down upon the
level cup of Lost Valley. The unspeakable upheaval of peaks and crags,
of canyons and splits and unfathomable depths, was almost a sealed book
to the denizens of the Valley. There were those who knew False Ridge.
There were those who said they knew more. Many a man had adventured
therein, and few had returned to tell of their adventures. Canon Jim
had not returned. Not that he was a loss to the community, or that
they mourned him, but his absence pointed again to the formidable
secretive power of the Canon Country.
Tharon Last, standing in her western door, could look across the
Valley's deceptive miles and see the huge black seams and fissures
that rent the grim face. These splits and canyons were peculiar in that
none came down to the Valley's floor, their yawning doorways being, in
every instance, set from two hundred to five hundred feet up the
Wall.
Often the girl watched them in the changing lights and her active mind
formed many a conjecture concerning them.
"Some day," she told young Paula, "I'll go into the Canon Country and
see it for myself."
"Saints forbid, Senorita!" said Paula, who had no love for the
mysterious, and who was more Mexic than Porno, "there are demons and
devils there!"
"Yes, I doubt not, Paula," said Tharon grimly. "They say Courtrey
knows th' Canons, an' when he's there, it's peopled, an' no mistake!
"But it must be beautiful--beautiful! Why--there's a thousand feet of
crevasse on every hand, I know, steps an' benches an' weathered faces
that no man can climb. They say there's bright waters that tumble
down like th' Vestal's Veil and sink into holes without an outlet.
Just go away in the rock. There's strange flowers an' stunted trees.
An' they tell of th' Cup of God, a hidden glade so beautiful that th'
eye of man has never seen its like. All my life it's called me, th'
Canon Country.
"Don't you believe, Paula, that there's somethin' there for me? Some
reason why I know I must some day go into its heart an' give myself up
to it for a time? If I was free," she finished with a sigh, "if I was
my own woman, wholly, I'd go soon. There's rest an' peace up there, I
know--and a place to think of Jim Last without such bitterness that my
heart turns t' gall."
She shook her bright head against the doorpost and shut her soft lips
into a straight line.
"Nope," she finished sadly, "I ain't my own woman yet."
* * * * *
"Tharon," said Billy Brent this day, clanking around the corner of the
adobe house, his leather chaps flapping with every step, his yellow
hair curling boyishly under his hat-brim. "Tharon, I got bad news for
you."
There was genuine distress in his grey eyes.
"Yes?" asked the mistress of Last's, straightening up.
"Yes, sir, an' I hate like hell t' tell it."
"Out with it, Billy. What's wrong?"
"Somebody's dynamited th' Crystal Spring in th' Cup Rim."
"_What?_"
The word was in italics. Its one syllable told all one might care to
know of the importance of Billy's news.
"Yes. Opened her up fer two square yards. Spread th' lovely old
Crystal all over th' range. An' she's gone, as sure's shootin'.
Nothin' but a lot o' wet an' dryin' mud to show for her."
Tharon drew a long breath.
"Courtrey's beginnin'," she said. "He's heard th' word I sent th'
settlers. He's goin' t' use th' tactics now with Last's that he's used
with every poor devil he wanted to run out of th' Valley, th' tactics
he darsent use while Jim Last lived. Well--go send Conford to me,
Billy."
The girl sat down in the doorway and gazed sombrely out over the
summer land.
When her foreman came and stood before her, a slim, efficient figure,
dark-faced and quiet, she had already made up her mind.
"Burt," she said swiftly, "drive th' cattle down from th' Cup Rim
right away. We'll run those two bunches under Blue Pine an' Nick Bob
out toward th' Black Coulee. Tell 'em t' keep close t' th' others. I
trust th' Indians, but there ain't no Indian livin' can meet
Courtrey's white renegades in courage an' wits. Then we'll start right
in an' dig a well th' first well ever dug on th' open range in this
man's land."
"Good Lord, Tharon!" said Conford, "A well!"
"Yes. Th' livin' water holes have been th' pride of th' Valley, I
know, but we'll fix this well of ours so's even Courtrey will respect
it."
There was a grim note in the golden voice.
"How?" asked Conford uneasily.
"Dig it first," said Tharon, "then I'll tell you."
What the mistress said, went. Therefore, the next morning saw a
disgusted bunch of cowboys and Indian _vaqueros_ setting to with a
will at a spot much nearer the Holding than the Crystal had been, and
it took a much shorter time to reach water in a good gravel bed than
any one had dreamed.
In three days the thing was done and Conford presented himself,
smiling.
"Now, Miss Secrecy," he said, "come on with th' mystery."
Tharon went in to the big desk which Jim Last had used and which was
now her own, and returned with a square white slab of pine,
elaborately smoothed and finished by Jose.
"Read that," she said, and held it up, face out.
Printed neatly upon its shining surface, in the jet-black ink that old
Anita made from the berries of a certain bush which grew at the foot
of the cliffs across the Valley, were these words:
"This well is planted. I hope it blows up the first thief who tries to
destroy it. Tharon Last."
Conford took the slab, scratched his head, holding his hat between
thumb and finger, read it over, read it again, smiled, and then looked
up.
"Might work," he said, "an' you're givin' out your stand an' knowledge
broadcast, ain't you?"
"Certainly am," said Tharon briefly. "I said I'd fight, an' I want th'
whole Valley t' know it."
"It does," said Conford with conviction. "I heard in Corvan yesterday
that John Dement has rode th' range continuous since he finished
brandin' his new herd to tell th' settlers about it."
"Good," said Tharon, "couldn't be better. There's got to be a change
in Lost Valley sooner or later. Might as well be sooner."
And with that thought the girl let her quick mind sweep out to take in
the future. She sent Conford off to post her placard and herself went
rummaging among the possibilities which her defy had placed before
her. She knew that Courtrey would be coldly furious. He had lived his
life as suited him, had taken what and where he listed, by fair means
or foul, and though every soul in the Valley knew him and his methods,
none had spoken the convicting word. It was the pen-stroke at the end
of the death-warrant to do so.
She knew that the faction of the settlers hated him and his with a
vitriolic passion, that they were in the minority, that they were no
tin gods themselves, and that they were being beaten out, one by one.
Year by year Courtrey had added to his vast acreage, and it was a
matter of common knowledge how he had done it. He was rich, powerful,
bullying, a man whose self-aggrandizement knew no limit, whose merest
whim was his law, whose will must not be thwarted. Year by year his
_vaqueros_ drove down the Wall herds of fat cattle, their brands
blurred, insolently raw and careless. Many a hapless man had stood and
seen his own stock go by in Courtrey's band and dared not open his
mouth. In fact Courtrey had been known to stop and chat with such a
one, smiling his evil smile and enjoying the helpless chagrin of his
victim.
"Insolent ruffian!" muttered Tharon this day, frowning above her
daddy's pipes on the desk top. "He's goin' t' get one run for his
money from now till one of us is whipped. It may be me, but I'll
leave my mark on him, so help me!
"Straight killin's too good for him. I want to smash him first."
"Tharon, mi _Corazon_," said Anita, stopping soft-foot beside her, "it
is bad for one to talk so, to himself. The Evil One works on the mind
that way."
Tharon laughed.
"Perhaps, Anita," she said shortly, "it is with the Evil One I have t'
do, an' no mistake."
The old woman crossed herself and went away, her wrinkled face dim
with care. And Tharon dressed herself neatly, put a ribbon on her
hair, set her wide hat carefully on her head, buckled on her heavy
gun-belt, and went to the corral for El Rey. Her daddy's saddle was
her own now, a huge affair carved and ornamented, profusely studded
with silver.
Along the right side below the pommel ran a darker stain, Jim Last's
blood, set before his daughter like a star.
She mounted the silver stallion and went away down along the summer
land, a shaft of light shooting through the green of the ranges.
Far over to her left she could see her cattle, beautiful bunches
spread like figures in a tapestry. The figures of her riders were
small dots on the outskirts.
El Rey, always hard on the bit, always strong-headed, wanted to run
and she swung loose her rein and let him go. But run as he might,
there was always in his speed that rising note, that seeming of
reserve power.
She passed the head of Black Coulee, swung out across the edge of
Rolling Cove, thundered down to the ford of the Broken Bend. Here she
let the stallion drink, deep draughts that would have slowed a lesser
horse. El Rey went up the bank beyond the ford like a charging engine,
squared away and stretched out to finish his run. He was within three
miles of Corvan, set like a stone in a smooth green surface, before he
came down and lifted his shoulders into his gait. With the first rock
and swing of the singlefoot, Tharon smiled and settled herself more
comfortably in the saddle. This was joy to her, this beautiful
syncopation, this poetic marked time that reeled off the miles beneath
her and would scarcely have shaken a pebble from her hat-brim.
As she struck the outskirts of the little town the unmistakable sound
of El Rey's iron-shod hoofs brought heads into doors, children at the
house corners to look upon her. She came down the main street at a
smart clip, to bring up with a slide at the hitch-rail before
Baston's store where the monthly mail was handled. There were horses
tied there, and among them she saw what caused her to look twice with
a narrowing of her keen eyes--a huge, raw-boned, black, rusty and
slug-headed, among the Ironwood bays from Courtrey's Stronghold.
"H'm," she told herself quietly, "so there's where he was expected."
She tied El Rey to himself, far from the rest, for she knew his
imperious temper and that trouble would ensue if he was near strange
horses.
Then she went into Baston's with her meal-sack on her arm. This
meal-sack was a part of her accoutrement, a regular carry-all for such
small purchases as she must take home--a roll of print for Paula, some
tobacco for the men, a dozen spools of the linen thread which was so
much prized among the women of Lost Valley.
As she stepped in the open door her quick glance went over the big
room with a comprehensiveness which catalogued its inmates accurately
and instinctively. Courtrey was not there, though his great bay, Bolt,
stood outside. However, Wylackie Bob was there. This man, sitting at a
canvas covered table in a corner, idly fingering a pack of cards, was
not one to be passed over easily. He was notorious.
Tall, slow of action, sleepy-eyed, he was treacherous as a snake, as
swift to move when necessary. He had been known to sit as he was now,
idly playing, to leap up, crouch, draw and kill a man, and be down
again at his place, idly playing, before the breath was done in his
victim.
He was a past-master of his gun, and unlike most men of the time and
place, he carried only one.
He was a quarter-blood Wylackie Indian. Near him sat the stranger who
had ridden the slug-head black into Lost Valley. They both looked up
as the girl entered and regarded her with smiles.
Tharon did not look at them again. She saw, however, that they were
together, of one interest. There were two or three of the settlers in
the store, Jameson from over under the Rockface at the south, Hill
from farther up, Thomas from Rolling Cove. She spoke to these men
quietly and noticed with an inward thrill the eagerness with which
they responded.
There was an electric something between them which told her that her
promise had, indeed, gone up and down the country, that in a subtle,
unheralded manner she stood in Jim Last's place, a head, a leader.
She made her purchases without undue speech, got two letters in her
father's name--and these brought a smarting under her eyelids--tied up
her sack and went out without so much as a glance at the two men in
the corner. Laughter followed her, however, which set the red blood of
anger pulsing in her cheeks.
At the end of the store porch she came face to face with Courtrey and
Steptoe Service, the sheriff of Menlo county. She swung to one side to
descend the rough steps, vouchsafing them no word or look, but Service
blocked her way. She raised her eyes and looked him full in the face,
scanning his coarse red features coolly.
"Well?" she said sharply.
"What's this I hear, Tharon?" asked Service, "about you a-makin'
threats?"
"What have you heard?" she wanted to know.
"W'y, that you're a-makin' threats."
"Yes?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well?"
The sheriff flushed darker.
"Look here, young woman,"--he raised his voice suddenly and on the
instant there was a sound of boots on the store floor and the
settlers, the two men in the corner, Baston and two clerks came
crowding out to hear, "you look a-here--don't you know it's a-gin th'
law for any one t' make a threat like you done, open an' above board,
in th' Golden Cloud th' other night?"
Tharon shifted the meal-sack higher on her left arm. Courtrey's eyes
went down to her right hand and stayed there.
The girl's upper lip lifted from her teeth in a sneer that was the
acme of insult. The fire was beginning to play in her blue eyes.
"Law?" she said. "My God! Law!"
"Yes, _law_! you young hussy, an' don't you fergit that I represent
it."
The girl threw down the sack and flashed both hands on the gun-butts.
Courtrey, watching, was half-a-second behind her and stopped with his
hands hovering.
"Not much, Courtrey," she said, "you fast gun man! You're too slow.
An' this ain't your game, anyway, not face t' face. You're all right
on a dark night--_an' from behind_. Fine! But you're a coward. You're
what I called you before--an assassin."
She was pale as ashes, her eyes narrowed to blazing slits. Jim Last,
gun man, was in her like those composite pictures which show the
shadow in the substance. There was a gasp from the store porch where
Thomas stood with a shaking hand covering his lips. Baston was stuck
against his wall like a leech, rigid. These men knew that she tempted
death.
Not a man in Lost Valley could have done it and gotten away with it.
Tharon knew it, too, but she did not care.
"An' now you know what you are, Courtrey. I'll tell th' same to you,
Step Service. Law! In Lost Valley? Yes, Courtrey's law! Th' law of th'
gun alone--th' law of thieves--th' law of murderers. An' you stand for
that, you bet! What were you before you took th' oath of office? Tell
me that! Th' man who killed old Mike McCrea an' took his cattle down
th' Wall! Th' whole Valley knows it--but we've never dared to say it
before!"
The porch was lined with people now. Soft-footed Indians and Mexican
_vaqueros_, sprung from nowhere, cowboys, ranchers, women, they came
silently up and listened.
The sheriff's red face was the colour of liver, purple and mottled
with bursting rage. His fingers worked at his sides. He set his lips,
and his small eyes never left the girl's face.
Tharon, crouched a bit, her feet apart, her elbows crooked above her
hips, her fingers curled on her gun-butts with nice precision, wet her
own pale lips and continued:
"An' who put you in office? That laugh of an office! Who? Why,
Courtrey--th' biggest thief, th' coldest murderer in th' country! _He_
put you there! An' what are you good for? My daddy was shot--_in th'
back_--an' did you make one inquiry into the murder? Come out to
Last's, even to find a clew? Not you! There's only one sheriff in this
Valley--one bit o' law that will avenge his death--an' that's _me_!
Now, you two fine gentlemen--I'm goin'. There's my hand! I throw th'
cards on th' table! Shoot me in the back if you've got th' nerve. Come
out in th' open an' fight! _But you better be quick about it!_"
With that she backed slowly along the porch, keeping them in view.
"Get away behind me," she called. There was a path opened instantly,
the sound of shuffling feet. Along the porch she went, step by step,
stopping every moment or so to keep close hold on her advantage, every
nerve strained, every one of her faculties at the top of its power.
She felt for the step with her foot, went down, backed through the
crowd, brought them all in the range of the guns which she flashed out
now and held upon them.
She was ashy pale, a flaming, vibrant thing. Not a man there but knew
she was more dangerous at the moment than cool Jim Last had ever been,
for she radiated hatred of her father's killer in every bitter
glance. She had none for whom to be cautious. She was the last of her
blood. She was efficient, and she knew it.
Courtrey knew it, and felt the sweat start on his skin.
Service knew it, and hated her for it.
As the girl backed clear there came into her vision a strange
figure--the straight, trim figure of a man who stood stiffly at
attention, where her imperious words had caught him.
He wore a uniform of semi-military style, leather leggings, a flannel
shirt of butternut and a smart, tan, broad-brimmed hat.
He, too, came in the range of the travelling guns and waited their
pleasure.
Tharon reached El Rey. She stuck her right-hand weapon in its holster,
loosed the rein, flung it over the stallion's head, stepped around his
shoulder and mounted deftly and swiftly from the wrong side. It was a
pretty trick of horsemanship and showed up her adroitness. As El Rey
rose on his hind feet, whirling, that unwavering muzzle whirled also,
to keep in line. The king struck into his gait and his rider, facing
backward, swung away down the narrow street. Until she was well out of
range the tension held.
Then Steptoe Service struck a fist into a palm and began to swear in
a fury, but Courtrey laughed, one of his rare, short bursts of mirth
that were more bodeful than oaths.
He turned on his heel and strode back the way he had come.
The stranger in the uniform walked forward, went up the steps, crossed
the porch, and, stooping, picked up the meal-sack which Tharon had
dropped.
"Will some one kindly tell me who the young lady is and where she
lives?" he asked gravely.
Baston, unglued from the wall, spoke up with his usual pompous
eagerness.
"Tharon, from Last's Holdin'," he said.
"Thanks," and the man wrapped the sack into a small bundle and tied it
with its own string.
He stuck it under one arm and taking out a short brown pipe, proceeded
to fill and light it.
Courtrey, halted a few rods away, eyed him sharply.
As he turned, rolling his match to death in his fingers, the sun
struck mellowly upon something on his breast, a small, dark copper
shield which bore strange heraldry.
At the sight Courtrey's eyes sought Service's and held them for a
swift, questioning moment.
Strangers in Lost Valley were contraband.
The three settlers looked covertly at each other, drifted apart, got
their horses and presently left town by different ways.
Three hours later these men met by common consent at the head of
Rolling Cove and talked long and earnestly of the happening. They knew
that Courtrey would never take silently that bitter arraignment, that
something would transpire swiftly to show his resentment, to prove his
absolute power over Lost Valley.
"'Tain't Tharon that'll suffer, even ef he did try t' shoot her that
night in th' Golden Cloud, because Courtrey wants her himself," said
Jameson quietly, "th' whole country knows that. There was only one man
who didn't know it, an' that was Jim Last himself. No, he won't monkey
with th' Holdin' yet, not to any great extent. It'll be us little
fellers, us others who he knows would stan' behind her. Some of us'll
lose somethin' soon, an' don't you forget it."
"If we do," said Hill passionately, "it's time t' show our hand. We've
been hounded long enough. Th' men from Last's will be with us, we can
gamble on that."
"Yes," said Thomas, "but it'll be war. Open war. There'll be killin's
then."
Jameson, a quiet man with deep eyes, made a wide gesture.
"What if there is?" he asked, "might's well be done in th' open as in
th' dark an' unseen. Might better be! I move we ride th' Valley an'
ask th' settlers to band together, under Last's, an' give our
ultimatum t' Courtrey on th' heels of this. What say you?"
"I say yes," said Hill swiftly. Thomas, of less stern stuff, wavered.
"Well, let's wait awhile. Let's don't be too quick. Courtrey now, he's
mighty quick an' hot. They ain't no tellin'----"
"All right," said Jameson promptly, "suit yourself--we ain't
a-pressin' no man into this."
"Why, now, I'm fer it, boys--that is, I'm believin' it's got t' be
done, only I counsels time."
"No time," cried Hill, "we ben counselin' time an' quiet an' not doin'
anything to stir 'em up, an' what d' we get? Cattle stole every
spring, waterholes taken an' fenced fer Courtrey's stock right on th'
open range, hogs drove off, fences tore down, like pore old John
Dement's an' some of us left t' rot every year in some coulee. We done
waited a sight too long. Courtrey thinks he owns Lost Valley, an' he
comes near doin' it, what with his hired killers, Wylackie an' Black
Bart an' this new gun man that's just come in. I heered today he's
from Arizona, an' imported article."
Jameson turned to him and held out his hand.
"I'm goin' to ride tomorrow," he said.
Hill grasped the extended hand and looked hard in the other's eyes.
"Me, too," he said.
Thomas, still of the timid, doubting heart, watched them with a hand
over his mouth to hide its shaking.
Without a word the others turned their horses and rode away in
different directions. As they went farther from him in the wash of the
late light the uncertain hand came down with a jerk. Fear was in his
eyes, the deep, quaking fear of the man poor in courage, but he beat
it down.
"Boys!" he cried in a panic, "don't leave me out! For God's sake,
don't think I ain't willin'! I'll be out come day tomorrow!"
The others both stopped and turned in their saddles.
"Glad to hear ye come through, Thomas," called Jameson, "you ride
south along th' Rockface. You'll go over Black Coulee way, won't ye,
Dan?"
"I will," said Hill.
"Good. I'll go north."
There was a quiet grimness in the few words, for he who rode north on
such an errand tempted fate.
Then the three separated, and there was only the silence and the red
light of the dying day at the head of Rolling Cove.
That same evening Tharon Last sat in her western doorway and watched
the sun go down in majesty over the weathered peaks and ridges of the
Canon Country.
Billy Brent lounged on the hard earth beside the step, his fair head
shining in the afterglow, his grey eyes upon the girl's face in a sort
of idol-worship.
The curve of her cheek, golden with tan and red with the hue of youth,
was more to him than all the sunsets the world had ever seen.
A deep light shone in his young eyes which, had the girl been wise,
she might have seen. But Tharon was as elemental as the kitten chasing
a moth out by the pansy bed, and could look in a man's face with the
unconscious eyes of a child.
Now she watched the pageant of the dying day in a rapt delight.
"Billy," she said presently, "I've often wondered if there's another
place in all the world as lovely as our Valley. Jim Last told me once
that there were places so much bigger out below, that we wouldn't be a
patchin' to them. Don't seem like there could be."
She lifted her slim body up along the doorpost and looked long and
earnestly all up and down the wonderful stretch of country that lay
along the Wall from north to south. She could see the tiny dots that
went for the different homesteads, scattered here and there. Up at the
head there lay, hard against the frowning hills, the squat, wide blur
that was Courtrey's Stronghold. Her lips compressed at sight of it.
"Nope," she said, shaking her head, "I don't believe he meant it. He
used to tease me a lot, you know. It's an awful big valley, an' no
mistake."
The rider, who had drifted up along the Wall five years before, looked
down at the playing kitten and smiled with a lean crinkling of his
cheeks.
"It's a sure-enough big place, Tharon," he said gravely, "an' it's
lovely as Eden."
"Huh?" said Tharon, "where's that, Billy?"
The boy sobered and looked up into her blue eyes.
"Why, Tharon," he whispered, "that's where th' heart is."
For a moment she regarded him. Then she smiled.
"Billy," she said severely, "you're stringin' your boss. I'm sure
goin' to fire you, some day, like I ben a-threatenin'."
"Do--an' hire me over!"
"Nope."
The girl shut her pretty lips and the man's hand crept softly up and
touched her wrist where it lay against her knee.
"All right," he said airily, "gimme my time. I quit."
There was an odd note in his voice, as if under the play there was a
purpose. For a second Tharon held her breath.
"What you mean, Billy?" she asked so sharply that the boy jumped.
Then he laughed, still in that light fashion.
"What I said," he affirmed doggedly.
But the mistress of Last's took a clutch on his hand that was
authority in force and leaned down to look anxiously in his face.
"Why, Billy," she said with a quiver in her voice, "Last's couldn't
run without you, boy. An' what's more, I thought all th' riders of th'
Holdin' would stand by th' place."
Billy, fully sobered, straightened up and held hard to that clutching
hand. The red light of the sunset flushed his cheeks, but it never set
the glow that was in his eyes.
"Don't you know yet, Tharon," he said quietly, "when I'm a-jokin' with
you? I'd stand by Last's an' you to my last breath. Don't you know
that?"
For a long moment Tharon regarded him gravely.
"Yes, I do," she said, "but somehow I don't like to have you talk
that-a-way, Billy. Don't do it no more."
"All right," promised the rider, "if you say so, Boss. Only don't talk
about firin' me, then. I'm very sensitive."
And he looked away with smiling eyes to where the deep black shadows
fell prone into the Valley from the forbidding face of the great
Wall.
Only the towering peaks were alight with crimson and gold, which
haloed their bulk in majestic mystery.
Night was coming fast across Lost Valley, while the tree-toads out by
the springhouse set up their nightly chorus.
"It's Eden," thought the man, "as sure's th' world, made an' forgot
with all its trimmin's--innocence an' sweetness an' plenty, an' th'
silence of perfect peace, not to overlook th' last unnecessary evil,
th' livin' presence of his majesty, th' devil."
Then the light died wholly and there came the disturbing sound of
boots on the ringing stones. The rest of the riders were coming in to
claim their share of Billy's Eden.