FINGER MARK AND IRONWOOD AT LAST
It was another noon in Lost Valley. The summer sun sailed the azure
skies in majesty. Little soft winds from the south wimpled the grass
of the rolling ranges, shook all the leaves of the poplars. Down the
face of the Wall the Vestal's Veil shimmered and shone like a million
miles of lace.
At Corvan wild excitement ruled. Swift things had come upon them,
things that staggered the tight-lipped community, even though it was
used to speed and tragedy. For one thing, Ellen, pale, sweet flower,
had hanged herself in the gaudy apartment of Lola behind the Golden
Cloud where the dance-hall woman had peremptorily brought her when
they took her off Cleve Whitmore's shoulder. She left a little note
for Courtrey, a pathetic short scrawl, which simply reiterated that
she had "ben true to him as his shadow," and that if he did no longer
want her, she did not want herself.
At that pitiful end to a guiltless life, Lola, who knew innocence and
sin, sat down on the only carpeted floor in Corvan and wept. When she
finished, she was done with Corvan and Lost Valley, ready to move on
as she had moved through an eventful life.
For another thing, two strange men had ridden up the Wall from the
Bottle Neck a few days back, and they had put through some mysterious
doings.
This day at noon these two strangers were riding down on Corvan from
up the Pomo way, while from the Stronghold, Buck Courtrey's men were
thundering in with the cattle king at their head. He was grim and
silent, black with gathering rage. His news-veins tapped the Valley,
he knew a deal that others tried to hide, and he was coming in to
reach a savage hand once more toward that supremacy which he knew full
well to be slipping from him.
And from the blind mouth in the Rockface at the west where the roofed
cut led to the mystery and the grandeur of the Canon Country, a
strange procession came slowly out to crawl across the green
expanse--a woman on a silver horse, a rider on a red roan who sat
behind the saddle and bore in his arms a man whose heavy head lolled
upon his shoulder in all but mortal weakness.
Thus Fate, who had for so long played with life and death in Lost
Valley, tiring of the play, drew in the strings of the puppets and set
the stage for the last act.
As Tharon and Billy crept up to Baston's store and stopped at the
steps, a dozen eager men leaped forward to their help.
"Easy!" warned the girl. "He's ben hurt a long time, an' he's had an
awful trip. There's fever in him, an' th' wound in his shoulder opened
a bit with th' haulin'. Lay him down on th' porch a while to rest."
But Kenset opened his dark eyes with the old quiet smile and looked at
her.
"I'm worth a dozen dead men yet, Miss Last," he said.
As he lay, a trim, long figure in his semi-military garments, on the
edge of the porch, the populace of Corvan streamed in from the
outskirts and gathered in the open street. Whispers and comments were
rife among them, a new courage was noticeable everywhere. The
Vigilantes were present, many of them.
Question and answer passed swiftly and quietly back and forth between
Dixon, Jameson, Hill and Tharon. In a few pregnant moments she knew
what had happened in Corvan--they knew the secret of False Ridge and
the Cup o' God.
"An' now these strangers from below--they ben a-actin' awful queer,
ain't a-feared o' nothin' an' they ben goin' all over like a couple o'
hounds. One of 'em's got on a badge of some sort," said Jameson,
"didn't mean t' show it, I allow, but Hill, here, seen it by
chanct----"
Kenset raised himself quickly on an elbow.
"By all that's lucky!" he said softly, excitedly. "Burn-Harris and
O'Hallan! My Secret Service men!"
* * * * *
And it was even so, for by the end of another hour the two strangers
came riding in and were brought forward to the steps where Kenset lay,
to clasp his hand and greet him with all the pleasure of previous
acquaintance.
Then they requested that a space be cleared to the end of ear-shot and
together with Kenset, Tharon, Billy, and all the Vigilantes, they held
a long and earnest colloquy.
At its end Kenset's eyes were deep and troubled, but Tharon's were
beginning to glow with the old fire that all the Holding knew, the
leaping flame that rose and died and rose again, exciting to the
beholder, promising, threatening, unfathomable.
"Why, it's a cinch!" said O'Hallan, "a dead moral cinch! Don't see how
it's held on like it has. Couldn't have in any other place in the good
old U. S. A. but this God forsaken hole! Well named, Lost Valley!
Why, we've found enough evidence already to convict a dozen men! Your
Courtrey's the man that planned a dozen murders, I can see that, and
he's pulled off a lot of them himself. The people are talking now,
rumbling from one end of the Valley to the other. We've had to hold up
our hands to ward them off lately. Your Vigilantes here have opened up
since we got them together and showed some of them your letter. You
were wise to tell us to go ahead if you were not here--what did you
look for?"
"Just about what I got," said Kenset smiling, "and I wanted things to
be pushed through anyway."
"Well,--they're pushing," said Burn-Harris. "Your little old sheriff
has had the fear-of-the-Lord put into him somewhat. He's shaking in
his boots about the snow-packer. There's only one thing lacking to
make our grip close down on Courtrey, and that's vital--the gun with
the untrue firing pin you speak about in your instructions."
"Not lackin'," said Tharon grimly, "we've got it, Mister."
The Secret Service man whirled to her.
"You have?" he cried, "then show me your man!"
But Tharon stood for a long moment looking off across the rolling
green stretches, toward the north where a moving dot was drawing
down--the riders from the Stronghold.
"This," she said at last, tapping the gun which Billy handed over,
"this, then, is proof--is proof in law?"
"If it's the true gun that fits the shell which Mr. Kenset left for us
here at Baston's--yes."
"Then," said Burn-Harris, "a little time and your man's ours as sure's
the sun shines. Why, this is a hot-bed of crime--there's enough work
here to keep a whole force busy for months."
But Tharon Last did not heed his words. Her mind had leaped away from
the present back to that day in spring when Jim Last came home to die.
She heard again his last command, "Th' best gun woman in Lost Valley,"
heard her own voice promising to his dulling ears, "I'll get him, so
help me, God!"
And this was the end. Strangers were waiting to fulfill that promise,
to take her work out of her hands. She absently watched the moving dot
take form and sharply string out into a line of riding men. These
strangers with their hidden signs of authority would bring to his just
desserts Buck Courtrey, the man who had instigated the killing of poor
Harkness, who had personally shot her daddy in the back! For them,
then, she had made her crosses of promise in the granite under the
pointing pine.
They who had no right in Lost Valley would settle its blood scores,
would pay her debts!
She frowned and the fingers of her right hand fiddled at the gun-butt
at her hip.
For what had she striven all these many months? For what had she
perfected herself in Jim Last's art?
A little white line drew in about her lips, the flame in her blue eyes
leaped and flickered. The tawny brows gathered into a puckered frown.
Billy, watching, moved restlessly on his booted feet. He it was who
saw--who feared. He touched her wrist with timid fingers and she
flashed him a swift glance that half melted to a smile. Then she
forgot him and all the rest--for the Ironwoods were thundering in from
the outside levels, were coming into town.
Ahead rode Courtrey, big, black, keen, his wide hat swept back on his
iron-grey hair, an imposing presence.
"Here's your man!" said Kenset softly, rising excitedly on his elbow.
"He's coming! And God grant that there is no bloodshed!"
All of Corvan, so long meek and quiet under Courtrey's foot, moved
dramatically back to give him room to come thundering down to his
accounting.
In a few seconds he would be encompassed by his enemies.
And then, on the tick of fate, that universally unknown factor, a
woman's heart, flung its last pawn in the balance.
Lola, gleaming like a bird of paradise in her gay habiliments, leaning
forward from the further steps of Baston's store where she had slipped
up unnoticed, cupped her white hands to her scarlet mouth, and sent
out a cry like a clarion.
"Buck!" she called, bell-like, clear, far-reaching--"Buck! Turn back!
They've called your turn! It's all up for you! Go! Go--down--the Wall!
And--God bless you--Buck! Good-bye!"
For one awful moment the great red Ironwood, Bolt, flung up his head
and slid forward on his haunches, ploughing up the earth in a cloud.
Then, while the half-stunned crowd gaped in silence, he gathered
himself, straightened, whirled, shook his giant frame and leaped clear
of the ground in a spectacular turn. The man on his back snatched off
his hat and shook it defiantly at the town--the people--the very
Valley that he had ruled so long. It was a dramatic gesture--daring,
scorning, renouncing. Then, without a word to his henchmen, a single
look of farewell, Buck Courtrey struck the Ironwood, and was gone back
along the little street.
His men whirled after him, but strange turn of destiny, they swung
directly north away from him, for he was turning south at the town's
edge.
"For the--Wall!" breathed Lola, her face like milk, one hand on her
glittering breast. "He--goes--for below!"
Then all the watchers knew the same.
The master of the Stronghold, having played for Lost Valley and for a
woman and lost them both--was done with both.
He leaned on the Ironwood's mighty neck and went south toward the
Bottle Neck.
All eyes were upon him--all, that is, save the earnest grey ones of
Billy Brent. They were fixed in anguish on the face of Tharon Last
beside him--Tharon Last, who shoved the gun-butts hard down in the
holsters at her hips, who whirled on her booted heel, who cleared the
space between her and El Rey in three cat-like leaps.
As she went up the stallion rose with her, came down with a pounding
of iron-shod hoofs, dropped his huge hips in the first leap--and was
away.
Corvan saw the silver horse shoot out from its midst and woke from its
lethargy.
"_Th' race!_" some one cried, high and shrill, "_th' race at last!_"
The two strangers saw it, and their lips fell open with amaze.
Kenset from his low porch saw it--and dropped his face on his arms.
"Lord God!" he groaned, "it's come! I couldn't hold her! I might have
known! I might have known! She's Valley bred--she _is_ the Valley!
I--and all I stand for--chaff in the wind! Nothing could hold her now!
Aye--nothing could hold her."
True at last to herself--true to Harkness--true to Jim Last--true to
the Vigilantes and to the Valley she loved, Tharon flung the sombrero
from her bright head, settled her feet in the stirrups, slid the rein
on El Rey's neck, leaned down above him and began to call in his
ears.
No need of that cry.
El Rey heeded nothing that she might say. She was not his master--never
had been. He had had but one, the big, stern man whose sharp word
had been his law--the one who had ever had his best, his love and his
speed.
What was it now that rode in his saddle--the saddle with the long dark
stain?
Assuredly it was not the slim girl-thing with the golden voice!
El Rey had ever looked through, beyond her.
Nay, it was something bigger, stronger, sterner--who shall say?
Perhaps the spirit of that master whom he had served, whom he had
brought faithfully home that night in spring, for whom he had looked
and listened all these weary months! There was something, indeed--for
El Rey, the great, lay down to earth and ran without the need of
guidance. He set the long red horse out there on the green plain
before him like a beacon and put the mighty machinery of his massive
body into motion. Bolt was a rival worthy of his best--Bolt, the king
of the Ironwoods, huge, spirited, fast as the wind and wild as fire.
El Rey's silver ears lay back along his neck, the mane above them was
like a cloud, his long tail streamed behind him like a comet--and
forgotten was his singlefooting. He ran, his great limbs gathering and
spreading beneath him--gathering and spreading--with the regularity,
of clock-work.
Tharon's blue eyes were narrow as her father's, the little lines about
them stood out. She rode low, like a limpet clinging, and her mind was
on the two ahead--the man and the great bay horse.
As she felt the wind sing by her cheeks, sting the tears beneath her
lids, she shut her lips tighter and hugged the pommel closer.
The green carpet went by beneath her like a blur. The thunder of El
Rey's beating hoofs was like the sound of the cataracts when the
canyons shot their freshets from the Rockface.
The note of his speed was rising--rising--rising. The blood began to
pound in her temples with pride and exultation.
She saw the distance narrowing just the smallest bit between her and
Courtrey. Just the smallest trifle, indeed, but _narrowing_.
"He ain't a-puttin' Bolt down to his best," she told herself tensely,
"I know what he can do." And she remembered that ride from the mouth
of Black Coulee to the pine-guarded glade--and Kenset. At that thought
she pressed her lips tighter.
No thought of Kenset must come to her now--to weaken her with memory
of those pressing, vital hands of his above his pounding heart.
No--she was herself again--Tharon Last, Jim Last's girl, the gun woman
of Lost Valley--and yonder went her father's killer.
She leaned down and called again in El Rey's ear.
No slightest spurt of speed rewarded her--nothing but the rising note.
Then she saw that the distance was widening--just a tiny bit.
Truly it was widening. Courtrey, looking back, had caught the sun on
her golden hair, on her face as white as milk. He saw that her hands
were at her hips--loosely set back at her hips--and what thought he
might have had of mercy at her hands--what wild vision he might have
seen of speech with her--of parley--of persuasion--was dead.
He leaned down and struck the Ironwood with his open hand.
Bolt, the beautiful, leaped in answer. A little more--slowly--the
distance between pursuer and pursued widened. Then--Tharon blinked the
mist from her eyes to make sure--the gain was lost. Slowly, steadily,
El Rey closed up the extra width. Then for a time there was no change.
The open plain resounded to the roar of hoofs, the wind sang by like
taut strings struck. The earth was still that racing green blur
beneath.
And still the electric note of rising speed hummed softly higher.
If Jim Last rode his silver stallion to the goal of vengeance he must
surely have been satisfied. The great shoulders worked like pistons,
the whole massive body was level as the flowing floor beneath, the
steel-thewed limbs reached and doubled--reached and doubled--with
wonderful power and precision.
And then at last Tharon knew--knew that El Rey was gaining, slowly,
steadily, surely. The splendid bay horse was running magnificently,
but El Rey ran like a super-horse. His silver head was straight as a
level, his ears laid back, his nostrils wide and flaring, red as
blood, his big eyes glowed with the wildness of savage flight.
The great king was mad with speed!
Jim Last's girl was mad also--mad with the lust of conquest, of
revenge.
She rose a little from the stallion's whipping mane, and her blue eyes
burned on the man ahead.
"I said I'd get you, Buck Courtrey!" she muttered, "that some day I'd
run th' Ironwoods off their feet--th' heart out of their master!
"Run, damn you--for it's your last ride!"
Then she dropped forward again and watched the distance closing down.
Nearer--nearer--nearer!
The note rose another notch.
Never in his life had El Rey run as he ran now. Always he had had
reserves. He had them now. The bottom of his power was not reached.
Bolt was doing his best. Once he threw up his head and foam flew on
the wind--red foam that shot back and whipped on Tharon's hand, a wet
pink stain, thinned and faded.
At that sight an exultant cry, savage, inhuman, ugly, burst from her
throat.
She was within long gunshot now--was closing her fingers lightly on
the blue gun-butts----.
Courtrey heard that cry.
He rose in his saddle--turned--flashed up his hand and fired. Quick as
the motion of the gun man was, Tharon Last was quicker. She dropped
over El Rey's shoulder like a cat, firing as she went.
Courtrey's bullet clipped the cantle of the big saddle an inch above
her flattened leg across it. Hers did something else--what she had
dreamed of. It struck that other wrist of Courtrey's, the left--and
sent his six-gun tumbling.
Once again she yelled as she came back in her saddle.
And El Rey was closing--closing up the gap between.
Once again Tharon raised her guns to shoot--both, this time, as her
daddy had taught her. This was the pinnacle of her life, her skill,
her training.
Never again would she live a moment like it. She laughed and crouched
for the final act.
But a sudden coldness went over her from head to foot, sent the hot
blood shaking down her spine.
What was Courtrey doing?
He rode straight up at last, like an Indian showing, and his bleeding
left hand swung at his side. With the other he had swept off his wide
hat, so that his handsome iron-grey head was bare to the summer sun.
His keen hawk face was lifted. He made a spectacular figure--like a
warrior, unarmed, waiting his end with courage.
_Unarmed!_
That it was which struck Tharon like a hand across her face. The gun
he had used with his left hand was his only one! He had carried but
one since that night at the Stronghold when she had first marked him.
She should have known! Word of this had been about Corvan and the
Valley.
And so she had Buck Courtrey at her mercy. She could close the
lessening gap and kill him in his saddle----
But the icy blood still seemed to trickle down her back.
She--and Jim Last--they had always fought in fair-and-open. They
were no murderers.... They did not strike in the dark--shoot a man from
ambush--nor kill a man unarmed.... And Kenset--Kenset of the
foothills--what had he said about the stain of blood--blood-guilt--clean
hands----
The girl caught her breath with a choking sob.
The game was up.
Neither Jim Last--nor Kenset--nor she--would shoot a man unarmed.
And Courtrey was riding toward the Bottle Neck.
He would go down the Wall to freedom.
And the crosses in Jim Last's granite--they would be forever
unredeemed, a shame, a sadness, a living accusation!
Nay--not that! Not that!
She had promised--and the Law was waiting--the big Law of below.
She was Jim Last's daughter still.
She leaned closer to El Rey's neck--held her two guns ready--and rode
with the very wind.
She was near now--she could see Courtrey's face, waxen white but
fearless, his dark eyes turned back toward her in a sort of desperate
admiration.... Courtrey loved strength and courage and all things wild
and fierce. She could see Bolt's staring eyeballs, his open mouth,
gasping and piteous. One more moment--another--yet one more--then she
rose in her stirrups and fired straight at the broad bay temple,
shining and black with sweat!
The great gallant Ironwood went down in a huge arc--first his
beautiful head, then the sinking arch of his neck, then the shoulders
that had worked so wondrously. He rolled on his back like a hoop, his
iron-shod hoofs spinning for one spectacular moment in the air. Then
he lay at sudden ease, his still fluttering nose pointing directly
back the way he had come.
With the first catching stumble of the true forefeet, the man on his
back had shot out of the saddle and far ahead. He landed twenty feet
away and squarely on his head and shoulders. Like Bolt, Courtrey's
body turned a complete somersault--and lay still, at sudden peace.
Tharon Last and El Rey went on like an arrow--they could not stop.
When at last she did draw the great king down she was far and away
from the spot. She turned her head, panting and dizzy, and looked
back.... She could see the prone red heap that was Bolt--a little way
beyond that other, lesser, darker heap....
For a long time she sat on El Rey's heaving back and stared unseeingly
at the green earth where the short grasses quivered in the little
wind.
There was a deathly white line about her lips, but her eyes blazed
with the fire that had characterized them from birth, the flickering,
unfathomable flame that came and went.
Then, presently, new lines came in her young face, unstable lines that
quivered and worked, and all the good green earth danced grotesquely
before her vision, for a wall of tears shut out the world. ... She
laid her head down on El Rey's cloudy mane--and wept.
* * * * *
It was early dawn at Last's Holding. The sun was not yet up behind the
eastern ramparts. The cottonwoods whispered in the dawn-wind, the
spring beneath the milk-house talked and murmured. Out in the big
corrals the cattle were beginning to stir and bawl.
In the kitchen old Anita and young Paula had breakfast waiting for the
men.
Deep in that dim south room where the pale Virgin kept watch and ward,
Kenset of the foothills slept in healing peace.
And at the step of the western door, Billy stood by Golden--Golden the
beautiful, who ranked next to El Rey himself--and his face was lifted
to Tharon who drooped against the lintel with her forehead on her
arm.
The boy held her hand clasped in both of his own, and there was a
yearning tenderness in his soft voice when he spoke, a pride and joy
ineffable that glowed above the pain that was never to leave him.
"It ain't that I love you less, Tharon, dear," he said gently, "that I
must go. Not that, little girl. I'll love you till I die--that I know
in dead certainty. But I can't stay here--not where I'll have to see
you givin' all your sweet self to another man. A good man, too,
Tharon--I think there ain't a better one in th' land--but--well,--I
can't--that's all. I can't thank you for all you've done for me sence
you was a little mite of a girl--five years back,"--his voice broke a
bit, but he controlled it, "nor for th' joy you've given me--th' rides
together--an' th' jokes an' playin'----"
He paused a moment, unhappily, and the mistress of Last's drooped more
heavily against the old adobe wall.
"Nor for Golden here," went on the rider, "we'll be pals as long as we
both live--nor fer-fer--" he stopped again, hesitated, looked
yearningly at the quivering cheek against the curving arm, and went on
to the finish.
"Nor fer that one kiss, Tharon--it's my one treasure for life, so help
me, God--that you give me that night. An' over all I want to thank you
fer--fer--killin' th' Pomo half-breed in th' Cup o' God--_fer you done
that trick fer me_! Th' one stain on your dear hands--fer me--the
_only_ one, fer Fate killed Courtrey, not you. His neck was clean
broke when they picked him up.... That memory will keep me alive, will
save th' beauty of th' stars at night fer me, will make th' rest worth
livin'.... That one kiss."
He stopped again and stood for a long time looking at her as if he
would fix forever in his memory the beauty of her, the fire, the
spirit, the elusive quality that was Tharon Last herself.
Then he sighed and smiled and gently shook the hand he held.
"Come--tell me good-bye, Tharon, dear," he said softly.
For answer the mistress of Last's once again reached out her arms and
drew his head to her heart--once more pressed her lips upon his own.
"Oh, Billy," she said with a sound of tears in her voice, "Kenset's
th' one man--that's true, an' I'm helpless before th' fact--but
there'll never be another can take your place in my heart--there'll
never be no one to ride with me in th' Big Shadow in just th' same
way, Billy--to hold my hand as we come home to Last's with that same
sweet, honest friendship, that don't need words! I've got my
life-love, but I've lost my life-friend--an' my heart's sore--sore
with pain!"
The rider lifted his face and it was glorified in the first rays of
the sun that was rising over the eastern mountains. His gayly studded
belt and riding cuffs, his spurs and the vanity of silver on his wide
hat caught the glow and sparkled brightly. Joy became paramount over
sadness.
"Don't you fret, Tharon," he said, still in that soft voice, "I'm
always at your shoulder in spirit--in body, too, if you ever want me
or need me. So long."
And he kissed both the hands he held, dropped them, turned and mounted
Golden, waved a hand to all the Holding, and putting the horse to a
run, went down the sounding-board as if he dared not look back.
Until horse and rider were a tiny speck on the living green--until
they passed the Silver Hollow and the mouth of Black Coulee, Tharon
Last stood in the western door and watched them with dim blue eyes.
Ail the wide expanse of Lost Valley was still and sweet with dawn,
smiling as if with a new and wondrous peace, the Vestal's Veil
shimmered on the Rockface, the distant peaks above the Canon Country
cut the skies.
She scanned the little world about and felt this peace press down upon
her soul--as if the questions all were answered, the duty done.
Never in all her life before had Last's Holding seemed to her so
secure and settled, so sweet and to be desired....
Within it lay her destiny--the man in the cool south room.
Without in the great Valley lay a future.
Love was with her--friendship would be with her always in memory, one
glowing with its vital presence, the other softened and doubly sweet
with the sorrow of absence.
She raised her hand and made the sign of the Cross between herself and
that disappearing speck, then she turned and followed old Anita
carrying gruels to that dim south room.
THE END