"OH, I COULD KILL YOU!"
Before sundown they reached the timber-land on Bear Top. The horses
slipped on the pine needles when Al left the trail and rode up a gentle
incline where the trees grew large and there was little underbrush. It
was very beautiful, with the slanting sun-rays painting broad yellow
bars across the gloom of the forest. In a little while they reached
the crest of that slope, and Lorraine, looking back, could only guess
at where the trail wound on among the trees lower down.
Birds called companionably from the high branches above them. A
nesting grouse flew chuttering out from under a juniper bush, alighted
a short distance away and went limping and dragging one wing before
them, cheeping piteously.
While Lorraine was wondering if the poor thing had hurt a leg in
lighting, Al clipped its head off neatly with a bullet from his
six-shooter, though Lorraine had not seen him pull the gun and did not
know he meant to shoot. The bird's mate whirred up and away through
the trees, and Lorraine was glad that it had escaped.
Al slid the gun back into his holster, leaned from his saddle and
picked up the dead grouse as unconcernedly as he would have dismounted,
pulled his knife from his boot and drew the bird neatly, flinging the
crop and entrails from him.
"Them juniper berries tastes the meat if you don't clean 'em out right
away," he remarked casually to Lorraine, as he wiped the knife on his
trousers and thrust it back into the boot-scabbard before he tied the
grouse to the saddle by its blue, scaley little feet.
When he was ready to go on, Snake refused to budge. Tough as he was,
he had at last reached the limit of his energy and ambition. Al yanked
hard on the bridle reins, then rode back and struck him sharply with
his quirt before Snake would rouse himself enough to move forward. He
went stiffly, reluctantly, pulling back until his head was held
straight out before him. Al dragged him so for a rod or two, lost
patience and returned to whip him forward again.
"What a brute you are!" Lorraine exclaimed indignantly. "Can't you see
how tired he is?"
Al glanced at her from under his eyebrows. "He's all in, but he's got
to make it," he said. "I've been that way myself--and made it. What I
can do, a horse can do. Come on, you yella-livered bonehead!"
Snake went on, urged now and then by Al's quirt. Every blow made
Lorraine wince, and she made the wincing perfectly apparent to Al, in
the hope that he would take some notice of it and give her a chance to
tell him what she thought of him without opening the conversation
herself.
But Al did not say anything. When the time came--as even Lorraine saw
that it must--when Snake refused to attempt a steep slope, Al still
said nothing. He untied her ankles from the stirrups and her hands
from the saddle horn, carried her in his arms to his own horse and
compelled her to mount. Then he retied her exactly as she had been
tied on Snake.
"Skinner knows this trail," he told Lorraine. "And I'm behind yuh with
a gun. Don't forget that, Miss Spitfire. You let Skinner go to suit
himself--and if he goes wrong, you pay, because it'll be you reining
him wrong. Get along there, Skinner!"
Skinner got along in a businesslike way that told why Al Woodruff had
chosen to ride him on this trip. He seemed to be a perfectly
dependable saddle horse for a bandit to own. He wound in and out among
the trees and boulders, stepping carefully over fallen logs; he thrust
his nose out straight and laid back his ears and pushed his way through
thickets of young pines; he went circumspectly along the edge of a deep
gulch, climbed over a ridge and worked his way down the precipitous
slope on the farther side, made his way around a thick clump of spruces
and stopped in a little, grassy glade no bigger than a city lot, but
with a spring gurgling somewhere near. Then he swung his head around
and looked over his shoulder inquiringly at Al, who was coming behind,
leading Snake.
Lorraine looked at him also, but Al did not say anything to her or to
the horse. He let them stand there and wait while he unsaddled Snake,
put a drag rope on him and led him to the best grazing. Then, coming
back, he very matter-of-factly untied Lorraine and helped her off the
horse. Lorraine was all prepared to fight, but she did not quite know
how to struggle with a man who did not take hold of her or touch her,
except to steady her in dismounting. Unconsciously she waited for a
cue, and the cue was not given.
Al's mind seemed intent upon making Skinner comfortable. Still, he
kept an eye on Lorraine, and he did not turn his back to her. Lorraine
looked over to where Snake, too exhausted to eat, stood with drooping
head and all four legs braced like sticks under him. It flashed across
her mind that not even her old director would order her to make a run
for that horse and try to get away on him. Snake looked as if he would
never move from that position until he toppled over.
Al pulled the bridle off Skinner, gave him a half-affectionate slap on
the rump, and watched him go off, switching his tail and nosing the
ground for a likeable place to roll. Al's glance went on to Snake, and
from him to Lorraine.
"You sure do know how to ride hell out of a horse," he remarked. "Now
he'll be stiff and sore to-morrow--and we've got quite a ride to make."
His tone of disapproval sent a guilty feeling through Lorraine, until
she remembered that a slow horse might save her from this man who was
all bad,--except, perhaps, just on the surface which was not altogether
repellent. She looked around at the tiny basin set like a saucer among
the pines. Already the dusk was painting deep shadows in the woods
across the opening, and turning the sky a darker blue. Skinner rolled
over twice, got up and shook himself with a satisfied snort and went
away to feed. She might, if she were patient, run to the horse when
Al's back was turned, she thought. Once in the woods she might have
some chance of eluding him, and perhaps Skinner would show as much
wisdom going as he had in coming, and take her down to the sageland.
But Skinner walked to the farther edge of the meadow before he stopped,
and Al Woodruff never turned his back to a foe. An owl hooted
unexpectedly, and Lorraine edged closer to her captor, who was
gathering dead branches one by one and throwing them toward a certain
spot which he had evidently selected for a campfire. He looked at her
keenly, even suspiciously, and pointed with the stick in his left hand.
"You might go over there by the saddle and set down till I get a fire
going," he said. "Don't go wandering around aimless, like a hen
turkey, watching a chance to duck into the brush. There's bear in
there and lion and lynx, and I'd hate to see you chawed. They never
clean their toe-nails, and blood poison generally sets in where they
leave a scratch. Go and set down."
Lorraine did not know how much of his talk was truth, but she went and
sat down by his saddle and began braiding her hair in two tight braids
like a squaw. If she did get a chance to run, she thought, she did not
want her hair flying loose to catch on bushes and briars. She had once
fled through a brush patch in Griffith Park with her hair flowing
loose, and she had not liked the experience, though it had looked very
nice on the screen.
Before she had finished the braiding, Al came over to the saddle and
untied his slicker roll and the grouse.
"Come on over to the fire," he said. "I'll learn yuh a trick or two
about camp cooking. If I'm goin' to keep yuh with me, you might just
as well learn how to cook. We'll be on the trail the biggest part of
our time, I expect."
He took her by the arm, just as any man might have done, and led her to
the fire that was beginning to crackle cheerfully. He set her down on
the side where the smoke would be least likely to blow her way and
proceeded to dress the grouse, stripping off skin and feathers
together. He unrolled the slicker and laid out a piece of bacon, a
package of coffee, a small coffeepot, bannock and salt. The coffeepot
and the grouse he took in one hand--his left, Lorraine observed--and
started toward the spring which she could hear gurgling in the shadows
amongst the trees.
Lorraine watched him sidelong. He seemed to take it for granted now
that she would stay where she was. The woods were dark, the firelight
and the warmth enticed her. The sight of the supper preparations made
her hungrier than she had ever been in her life before. When one has
breakfasted on one cup of coffee at dawn and has ridden all day with
nothing to eat, running away from food, even though that food is in the
hands of one's captor, requires courage. Lorraine was terribly tempted
to stay, at least until she had eaten. But Al might not give her
another chance like this. She crept on her knees to the slicker and
seized one piece of bannock, crawled out of the firelight stealthily,
then sprang to her feet and began running straight across the meadow
toward Skinner.
Twenty yards she covered when a bullet sang over her head. Lorraine
ducked, stumbled and fell head-first over a hummock, not quite sure
that she had not been shot.
"Thought maybe I could trust yuh to play square," Al said disgustedly,
pulling her to her feet, the gun still smoking in his hands. "You
little fool, what do you think you'd do in these hills alone? You sure
enough belittle me, if you think you'd have a chance in a million of
getting away from me!"
She fought him, then, with a great, inner relief that the situation was
at last swinging around to a normal kidnapping. Still, Al Woodruff
seemed unable to play his part realistically. He failed to fill her
with fear and repulsion. She had to think back, to remember that he
had killed men, in order to realise her own danger. Now, for instance,
he merely forced her back to the campfire, pulled the saddle strings
from his pocket and tied her feet together, using a complicated knot
which he told her she might work on all she darn pleased, for all he
cared. Then he went calmly to work cooking their supper.
This was simple. He divided the grouse so that one part had the meaty
breast and legs, and the other the back and wings. The meaty part he
larded neatly with strips of bacon, using his hunting knife,--which
Lorraine watched fascinatedly, wondering if it had ever taken the life
of a man. He skewered the meat on a green, forked stick and gave it to
her to broil for herself over the hottest coals of the fire, while he
made the coffee and prepared his own portion of the grouse.
Lorraine was hungry. She broiled the grouse carefully and ate it, with
the exception of one leg, which she surprised herself by offering to
Al, who was picking the bones of his own share down to the last shred
of meat. She drank a cup of coffee, black, and returned the cup to the
killer, who unconcernedly drank from it without any previous rinsing.
She ate bannock with her meat and secretly thought what an adventure it
would be if only it were not real,--if only she were not threatened
with a forced marriage to this man. The primitive camp appealed to
her; she who had prided herself upon being an outdoor girl saw how she
had always played at being primitive. This was real. She would have
loved it if only the man opposite were Lone, or Swan, or some one else
whom she knew and trusted.
She watched the firelight dancing on Al's sombre face, softening its
hardness, making it almost wistful when he gazed thoughtfully into the
coals. She thrilled when she saw how watchful he was, how he lifted
his head and listened to every little night sound. She was afraid of
him as she feared the lightning; she feared his pitiless attitude
toward human life. She would find some way to outwit him when it came
to the point of marrying him, she thought. She would escape him if she
could without too great a risk of being shot. She felt absolutely
certain that he would shoot her with as little compunction as he would
marry her by force,--and it seemed to Lorraine that he would not
greatly care which he did.
"I guess you're tired," Al said suddenly, rousing himself from deep
study and looking at her imperturbably. "I'll fix yuh so you can
sleep--and that's about all yuh can do."
He went over to his saddle, took the blanket and unfolded it until
Lorraine saw that it was a full-size bed blanket of heavy gray wool.
The man's ingenuity seemed endless. Without seeming to have any extra
luggage, he had nevertheless carried a very efficient camp outfit with
him. He took his hunting knife, went to the spruce grove and cut many
small, green branches, returning with all he could hold in his arms.
She watched him lay them tips up for a mattress, and was secretly glad
that she knew this much at least of camp comfort. He spread the
blanket over them and then, without a word, came over to her and untied
her feet.
"Go and lay down on the blanket," he commanded.
"I'll do nothing of the kind!" Lorraine set her mouth stubbornly.
"Well, then I'll have to lay you down," said Al, lifting her to her
feet. "If you get balky, I'm liable to get rough."
Lorraine drew away from him as far as she could and looked at him for a
full minute. Al stared back into her eyes. "Oh, I could _kill_ you!"
cried Lorraine for the second time that day and threw herself down on
the bed, sobbing like an angry child.
Al said nothing. The man's capacity for keeping still was amazing. He
knelt beside her, folded the blanket over her from the two sides, and
tied the corners around her neck snugly, the knot at the back. In the
same way he tied her ankles. Lorraine found herself in a sleeping bag
from which she had small hope of extricating herself. He took his
coat, folded it compactly and pushed it under her head for a pillow;
then he brought her own saddle blanket and spread it over her for extra
warmth.
"Now stop your bawling and go to sleep," he advised her calmly. "You
ain't hurt, and you ain't going to be as long as you gentle down and
behave yourself."
She saw him draw the slicker over his shoulders and move back where the
shadows were deep and she could not see him. She heard some animal
squall in the woods behind them. She looked up at the stars,--millions
of them, and brighter than she had ever seen them before. Insensibly
she quieted, watching the stars, listening to the night noises,
catching now and then a whiff of smoke from Al Woodruff's cigarette.
Before she knew that she was sleepy, she slept.