SWAN TALKS WITH HIS THOUGHTS
Lorraine, following instinct rather than thought, pulled Yellowjacket
into the first opening that presented itself. This was a narrow,
rather precipitous gully that seamed the slope just beyond the bend.
The bushes there whipped her head and shoulders cruelly as the horse
forged in among them, but they trapped him effectually where the gully
narrowed to a point. He stopped perforce, and Lorraine was out of the
saddle and running down to the trail before she quite realised what she
was doing.
At the bend she looked down, saw the marks where the wagon had gone
over, scraping rocks and bushes from its path. Fence posts were strewn
at all angles down the incline, and far down a horse was standing with
part of the harness on him and with his head drooping dispiritedly.
Her father she could not see, nor the other horse, nor the wagon. A
clump of young trees hid the lower declivity. Lorraine did not stop to
think of what she would find down there. Sliding, running, she
followed the traces of the wreck to where the horse was standing. It
was Caroline, looking very dejected but apparently unhurt, save for
skinned patches here and there where she had rolled over rocks.
A little farther, just beyond the point of the grove which they seemed
to have missed altogether, lay the other horse and what was left of the
wagon. Brit she did not see at all. She searched the bushes, looked
under the wagon, and called and called.
A full-voiced shout answered her from farther up the canyon, and she
ran stumbling toward the sound, too agonised to shed tears or to think
very clearly. It was not her father's voice; she knew that beyond all
doubt. It was no voice that she had ever heard before. It had a clear
resonance that once heard would not have been easily forgotten. When
she saw them finally, her father was being propped up in a half-sitting
position, and the strange man was holding something to his lips.
"Just a little water. I carry me a bottle of water always in my
pocket," said Swan, glancing up at her when she had reached them. "It
sometimes makes a man's head think better when he has been hurt, if he
can drink a little water or something."
Brit swallowed and turned his face away from the tilted bottle. "I
jumped--but I didn't jump quick enough," he muttered thickly. "The
chain pulled loose. Where's the horses, Raine?"
"They're all right. Caroline's standing over there. Are you hurt
much, dad?" It was a futile question, because Brit was already going
off into unconsciousness.
"He's hurt pretty bad," Swan declared honestly; looking up at her with
his eyes grown serious. "I was across the walley and I saw him coming
down the road like rolling rocks down a hill. I came quick. Now we
make stretcher, I think, and carry him home. I could take him on my
back, but that is hurting him too much." He looked at her--through
her, it seemed to Lorraine. In spite of her fear, in spite of her
grief, she felt that Swan was reading her very soul, and she backed
away from him.
"I could help your father very much," he said soberly, "but I should
tell you a secret if I do that. I should maybe ask that you tell a lie
if somebody asks questions. Could you do that, Miss?"
"Lie?" Lorraine laughed uncertainly. "I'd _kill!_--if that would help
dad."
Swan was folding his coat very carefully and placing it under Brit's
head. "My mother I love like that," he said, without looking up. "My
mother I love so well that I talk with my thoughts to her sometimes.
You believe people can talk with their thoughts?"
"I don't know--what's that got to do with helping dad?" Lorraine knelt
beside Brit and began stroking his forehead softly, as is the soothing
way of women with their sick.
"I could send my thought to my mother. I could say to her that a man
is hurt and that a doctor must come very quickly to the Quirt ranch. I
could do that, Miss, but I should not like it if people knew that I did
it. They would maybe say that I am crazy. They would laugh at me, and
it is not right to laugh at those things."
"I'm not laughing. If you can do it, for heaven's sake go ahead! I
don't believe it, but I won't tell any one, if that's what you want."
"If some neighbours should ask, 'How did that doctor come so
quick?'----"
"I'd rather lie and say I sent for him, than say that you or any one
else sent a telepathic message. That would sound more like a lie than
a lie would. How are we going to make a stretcher? We've got to get
him home, somehow----"
"At my cabin is blankets," Swan told her briskly. "I can climb the
hill--it is up there. In a little while I will come back."
He started off without waiting to see what Lorraine would have to say
about it, and with some misgivings she watched him run down to the
canyon's bottom and go forging up the opposite side with a most amazing
speed and certainty. In travel pictures she had seen mountain sheep
climb like that, and she likened him now to one of them. It seemed a
shame that he was a bit crazy, she thought; and immediately she
recalled his perfect assurance when he told her of sending thought
messages to his mother. She had heard of such things, she had even
read a little on the subject, but it had never seemed to her a
practical means of communicating. Calling a doctor, for instance,
seemed to Lorraine rather far-fetched an application of what was at
best but a debatable theory.
Considering the distance, he was back in a surprisingly short time with
two blankets, a couple of light poles and a flask of brandy. He seemed
as fresh and unwinded as if he had gone no farther than the grove, and
he wore, more than ever, his air of cheerful assurance.
"The doctor will be there," he remarked, just as if it were the
simplest thing in the world. "We can carry him to Fred Thurman's.
There I can get horses and a wagon, and you will not have to carry so
far. And when we get to your ranch the doctor will be there, I think.
He is starting now. We will hurry. I will fix it so you need not
carry much. It is just to make it steady for me."
While he talked he was working on the stretcher. He had a rope, and he
was knotting it in a long loop to the poles. Lorraine wondered why,
until he had lifted her father and placed him on the stretcher and
placed the loop over his head and under one arm, as a ploughman holds
the reins, so that his hands may be free.
"If you will carry the front," said Swan politely, "it will not be
heavy for you like this. But you will help me keep it steady."
Lorraine was past discussing anything. She obeyed him silently,
lifting the end of the stretcher and leading the way down to the
canyon's bottom, where Swan assured her they could walk quite easily
and would save many detours which the road above must take. At the
bottom Swan stopped her so that he might shorten the rope and take more
of the weight on his shoulders. She protested half-heartedly, but Swan
only laughed.
"I am strong like a mule," he said. "You should see me wrestle with
somebody. Clear over my head--I can carry a man in my hands. This is
so you can walk fast. Three miles straight down we come to Thurman's
ranch, where I get the horses. It's funny how hills make a road far
around. Just three miles--that's all. I have walked many times."
Lorraine did not answer him. She felt that he was talking merely to
keep her from worrying, and she was fairly sick with anxiety and did
not hear half of what he was saying. She was nervously careful about
choosing her steps so that she would not stumble and jolt her father.
She did not believe that he was wholly unconscious, for she had seen
his eyelids tighten and his lips twitch several times, when she waiting
for Swan. He had seemed to be in pain and to be trying to hide the
fact from her. She felt that Swan knew it, else he would have talked
of her dad, would at least have tried to reassure her. But it is
difficult to speak of a person who hears what you are saying, and Swan
was talking of everything, it seemed to her, except the man they were
carrying.
She wondered if it were really true that Swan had sent a call through
space for a doctor; straightway she would call herself crazy for even
considering for a moment its possibility. If he could do that--but of
course he couldn't. He must just imagine it.
Many times Swan had her lower the stretcher to the ground, and would
make a great show of rubbing his arms and easing his shoulder muscles.
Whenever Lorraine looked full into his face he would grin at her as
though nothing was wrong, and when they came to a clear-running stream
he emptied the water bottle, dipped up a little fresh water, added
brandy, and lifted Brit's head very gently and gave him a drink. Brit
opened his eyes and looked at Swan, and from him to Lorraine, but he
did not say anything. He still had that tightened look around his
mouth which spelled pain.
"Pretty quick now we get you fixed up good," Swan told him cheerfully.
"One mile more is all, and we get the horses and I make a good bed for
you." He looked a signal, and Lorraine once more took up the stretcher.
Another mile seemed a long way, light though Swan had made the load for
her. She thought once that he must have some clairvoyant power,
because whenever she felt as if her arms were breaking, Swan would tell
her to stop a minute.
"How do you know a doctor will come?" she asked Swan suddenly, when
they were resting with the Thurman ranch in view half a mile below them.
Swan did not look at her directly, as had been his custom. She saw a
darker shade of red creep up into his cheeks. "My mother says she
would send a doctor quick," he replied hesitatingly. "You will see.
It is because--your father he is not like other men in this country.
Your father is a good man. That is why a doctor comes."
Lorraine looked at him strangely and stooped again to her burden. She
did not speak again until they were passing the Thurman fence where it
ran up into the mouth of the canyon. A few horses were grazing there,
the sun striking their sides with the sheen of satin. They stared
curiously at the little procession, snorted and started to run, heads
and tails held high. But one wheeled suddenly and came galloping
toward them, stopped when he was quite close, ducked and went
thundering past to the head of the field. Lorraine gave a sharp little
scream and set down the stretcher with a lurch, staring after the horse
wide-eyed, her face white.
"They do it for play," Swan said reassuringly. "They don't hurt you.
The fence is between, and they don't hurt you anyway."
"That horse with the white face--I saw it--and when the man struck it
with his quirt it went past me, running like that and
dragging--_oh-h!_" She leaned against the bluff side, her face covered
with her two palms.
Swan glanced down at Brit, saw that his eyes were closed, ducked his
head from under the looped rope and went to Lorraine.
"The man that struck that horse--do you know that man?" he asked, all
the good nature gone from his voice.
"No--I don't know--I saw him twice, by the lightning flashes. He
shot--and then I saw him----" She stopped abruptly, stood for a minute
longer with her eyes covered, then dropped her hands limply to her
sides. But when the horse came circling back with a great flourish,
she shivered and her hands closed into the fists of a fighter.
"Are you a Sawtooth man?" she demanded suddenly, looking up at Swan
defiantly. "It was a nightmare. I--I dreamed once about a horse--like
that."
Swan's wide-open eyes softened a little. "The Sawtooth calls me that
damn Swede on Bear Top," he explained. "I took a homestead up there
and some day they will want to buy my place or they will want to make a
fight with me to get the water. Could you know that man again?"
"Raine!" Brit's voice held a warning, and Lorraine shivered again as
she turned toward him. "Raine, you----"
He closed his eyes again, and she could get no further speech from him.
But she thought she understood. He did not want her to talk about Fred
Thurman. She went to her end of the stretcher and waited there while
Swan put the rope over his head. They went on, Lorraine walking with
her head averted, trying not to see the blaze-faced roan, trying to
shut out the memory of him dashing past her with his terrible burden,
that night.
Swan did not speak of the matter again. With Lorraine's assistance he
carried Brit into Thurman's cabin, laid him, stretcher and all, on the
bed and hurried out to catch and harness the team of work horses.
Lorraine waited beside her father, helpless and miserable. There was
nothing to do but wait, yet waiting seemed to her the one thing she
could not do.
"Raine!" Brit's voice was very weak, but Lorraine jumped as though a
trumpet had bellowed suddenly in her ear. "Swan--he's all right. But
don't go telling--all yuh know and some besides. He ain't--Sawtooth,
but--he might let out----"
"I know. I won't, dad. It was that horse----"
Brit turned his face to the wall as if no more was to be said on the
subject. Lorraine wandered around the cabin, which was no larger than
her father's place. The rooms were scrupulously clean--neater than the
Quirt, she observed guiltily. Not one article, however small and
unimportant, seemed to be out of its place, and the floors of both
rooms were scrubbed whiter than any floors she had ever seen. Swan's
housekeeping qualities made her ashamed of her own imperfections; and
when, thinking that Swan must be hungry and that the least she could do
was to set out food for him, she opened the cupboard, she had a swift,
embarrassed vision of her own culinary imperfections. She could cook
better food than her dad had been content to eat and to set before
others, but Swan's bread was a triumph in sour dough. Biscuits tall
and light as bread can be she found, covered neatly with a cloth.
Prunes stewed so that there was not one single wrinkle in
them--Lorraine could scarcely believe they were prunes until she tasted
them. She was investigating a pot of beans when Swan came in.
"Food I am thinking of, Miss," he grinned at her. "We shall hurry, but
it is not good to go hungry. Milk is outside in a cupboard. It is
quicker than to make coffee."
"It will be dark before we can get him home," said Lorraine uneasily.
"And by the time a doctor can get out there----"
"A doctor will be there, I think. You don't believe, but that is no
difference to his coming just the same."
He brought the milk, poured off the creamy top into a pitcher, stirred
it, and quietly insisted that she drink two glasses. Lorraine observed
that Swan himself ate very little, bolting down a biscuit in great
mouthfuls while he carried a mattress and blankets out to spread in the
wagon. It was like his pretence of weariness on the long carry down
the canyon, she thought. It was for her more than for himself that he
was thinking.