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NAMELESS RIVER
by
VINGIE E. ROE
Author of “Tharon of Lost Valley,” “Val of Paradise,” etc.
New York
Duffield and Company
1923
Copyright, 1923, by
The McCall Company
Copyright, 1923, by
Duffield & Company
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
I. “Fight for a Woman? Hell! If ’twas th’ Horse, Now—”
II. The Homestead on Nameless
III. The Iron Hand of Sky Line
IV. The Mystery of Blue Stone Cañon
V. What Nance Found
VI. Shadows in the Sheriff’s Glass
VII. The Shadows Thicken
VIII. Brand Fair
IX. Golden Magic
X. The Seventh Sense
XI. The Ashes of Hope
XII. “Get-out-of-that-Door!”
XIII. “We’re Our Pappy’s Own—and we Belong on Nameless.”
XIV. Light on the Sheriff’s Shadows
XV. The Flange in Rainbow Cliff
XVI. The Ancient Miracle
XVII. The Face in the Package
XVIII. The Fighting Line at Last
XIX. Riders of Portent
XX. Conclusion
NAMELESS RIVER
CHAPTER I
“FIGHT FOR A WOMAN? HELL! IF ’TWAS TH’ HORSE NOW—”
It was Springtime in the Deep Heart country. On the broad slopes,
the towering slants of the hills themselves, the conifers sang their
everlasting monotone, tuned by the little winds from the south.
On the flaring fringes of their sweeping skirts where the streams
ran, maples trembled in the airy sun and cottonwoods shook their
thousand palms of silver.
Great cañons cut the ridges, dark and mysterious, murmuring with
snow water, painted fantastically in the reds and browns and yellows
of their weathered stone. Pine trees grew here, and piñons, hemlock
and spruce, all the dark and sombre people of the forest, majestic
and aloof.
But in the sweet valleys that ran like playful fingers all ways
among the hills, where lay tender grass of a laughing brightness,
flowers nodded thick in the drowsy meadows. It was a lonesome land,
set far from civilization, but beautiful withal, serene, silent,
wild with crag and peak and precipice. Deer browsed in its sheltered
places, a few timber wolves preyed on them, while here and there a
panther screamed to the stars at night.
For many years a pair of golden eagles had reared their young on the
beetling escarpment that crowned Mystery Ridge.
It was a rich land, too, for many cattle ran on its timbered slants
and grew sleek and fat for fall along the reaches of the river.
On a day when all the world seemed basking in the tempered sun, a
horse and rider came down along the slopes heading toward the west.
On the broad background of this primeval setting they made a
striking picture, one to arrest the eye, for both were remarkable.
Of the two, perhaps the horse would first have caught the attention
of an observer, owing to its great stature and its shining
mouse-blue coat.
Far off, also, the prideful grace of its carriage, the lightness,
the arrogance of its step, would have been noticeable. But as they
drew near, one looked instinctively to see what manner of rider
bestrode so splendid a fellow, and was not disappointed—for the
rider was a woman.
She was a gallant woman, if one could so describe her, not large but
built with such nicety of line, of proportion, as best to show off
the spirit in her—and that was a thing which might not be described.
Under her sombrero, worn low on her brow and level, one got the
seeming of darkness shot with fire—the black eyes and bit of dusky
hair above cheeks brightly flushed. She rode at ease, her gauntleted
hands clasped on her pommel, her reins swinging. A blue flannel
shirt, gay with pearl buttons, lay open at the throat and bloused a
trifle above a broad leather belt, well worn and studded with nickel
spots. A divided skirt of dark leather, precisely fitted and deeply
fringed at the bottom, concealed the tops of high laced boots. All
her clothing betokened especial make, and very thorough wear.
As the blue horse sidled expertly down the slope a loose stone
turned under his shod hoof, causing him to stumble ever so slightly,
though he caught himself instantly.
As instantly the woman’s spurred heel struck his flank, her swift
tightening of the rein anticipated his resultant start.
“Pick up your feet, you!” she said sharply, frowning.
The stallion did pick up his feet, for he was intelligent, but he
shook his proud head, laid his ears back on his neck, and the sweat
started on his sensitive skin at the needless rake of the spur. The
great dark eyes in his grey-blue face shone for a time like fox-fire
in the dark, twin sparks beneath the light of his tossing silver
forelock.
He choose his footing more carefully, though he was an artist in
hill climbing at all times, for the woman on his back was a hard
task-master. Caught as a colt in the high meadows of the Upper
Country beyond the Deep Heart hills, the horse had served her
faithfully for four of his seven years of life, and hated her
sullenly. There was mixed blood in his veins—wild, from the slim
white mother who had never felt a rope, patrician, gentle,
tractable, from the thoroughbred black father lost from a
horse-trader’s string eleven years back and sought for many bootless
moons because of his great value.
Swayed by the instincts of these two strains the superb animal
obeyed this woman who was unquestionably his master, though
rebellion surged in him at every chastisement.
The sun was at the zenith, marking the time of short shadows,
and its light fell in pale golden washes over the tapestried
green slopes. Tall flowers nodded on slim stalks in nook and
crevasse—frail columbine and flaming bleeding hearts—and mosses
crept in the damp places.
For an hour the two came down along the breast of a ridge, dropping
slowly in a long diagonal, and presently came out on a bold shoulder
that jutted from the parent spine. Here, with the thinning trees
falling abruptly away, a magnificent view spread out below. For a
long time there had been in the rider’s ears a low and heavy murmur,
a ceaseless sound of power. Now its source was visible—the river
that wound between wide meadows spread like flaring flounces on
either side—broad, level, green stretches that looked rich as a
king’s lands, and were.
The woman reined up her horse and sitting sidewise looked down with
moody eyes. A frown drew close the dark brows under the hat brim,
the full sensuous lips hardened into a tight line.
Hatred flamed in her passionate face, for the smiling valley was
tenanted. At the far edge of the green floor across the river there
nestled against the hills that rose abruptly the small log buildings
of a homestead. There was a cabin, squarely built and neat, a
stable, a shed or two, and stout corrals, built after the fashion of
a stockade, their close-set upright saplings gleaming faintly in the
light.
And on the green carpet a long brown line lay stretched from end to
end, straight as a plumb-line, attesting to the accuracy of the eye
that drew it. A team of big bay horses even now plodded along that
line, leaving behind them a tiny addition in the form of a flange of
new turned earth, the resistless effect of the conquering plow.
The plow, hated of all those who follow the fringe of the
wilderness, savage, trapper, and cattleman.
In the furrow behind walked the owner of the accurate eyes—deep,
wide, blue eyes they were, set beautifully apart under calm brows of
a golden bronze which matched exactly the thick lashes and the heavy
rope of hair braided and pinned around the head hidden in an
old-fashioned sunbonnet—for this only other figure in the primeval
picture was a woman also. She was young by the grace of the upright
carriage, strong by the way she handled her plow, confident in every
movement, every action. She stood almost as tall as the average man,
and she walked with the free swing of one.
For a long time the rider on the high shoulder of the ridge sat
regarding these tiny plodders in the valley.
Then she deliberately took from its straps the rifle that hung on
her saddle, lifted it to her shoulder, took slow aim and fired. It
was a high-power gun, capable of carrying much farther than this
point of aim, and its bullet spat whiningly into the earth so near
the moving team that one of the horses jumped and squatted.
The woman lowered the gun and watched.
But the upright figure plodding in its furrow never so much as
turned its head. It merely pulled the lines buckled about its waist,
thereby steadying the frightened horse back to its business, and
crept ahead at its plowing.
“Damn!” said the woman.
She laid the rifle across her pommel, reined the blue stallion
sharply away and went on her interrupted journey.
* * * * *
Two hours later she rode into the shady, crooked lane that passed
for a street in Cordova. Composed of a general store, a
blacksmith-shop, a few ancient cabins, the isolated trading point
called itself a town. McKane of the store did four-ply business and
fancied himself exceedingly.
As the woman came cantering down the street between the cabins he
ceased whittling on the splinter in his hands and watched her. She
was well worth watching, too, for she was straight as an Indian and
she rode like one. Of the half-dozen men lounging on the store porch
in the drowsy afternoon, not one but gazed at her with covetous
eyes.
A light grew up in McKane’s keen face, a satisfaction, an
appreciation, a recognition of excellence.
“By George!” he said softly. “Boys, I don’t know which is the most
worth while—the half-breed Bluefire or Kate Cathrew on his back!”
“I’ll take the woman,” said a lean youth in worn leather, his
starved young face attesting to the womanless wilderness of the
Upper County from whence he hailed. “Yea, Lord—I’ll take the woman.”
“You mean you _would_,” said McKane, smiling, “if you could. Many a
man has tried it, but Kate rides alone. Yes, and rules her kingdom
with an iron hand—that’s wrong—it’s steel, and Toledo steel at that,
tempered fine. And merciless.”
“You seem to know th’ lady pretty well.”
“All Nameless River knows her,” said the trader, lowering his voice
as she drew near, “and the Deep Hearts, too, as far as cattle run.”
“Take an’ keep yer woman—if ye can—” put in a bearded man of fifty
who sat against a post, this booted feet stretched along the floor,
“but give me th’ horse. I’ve loved him ever sence I first laid eyes
on him two years back.
“He’s more than a horse—he’s got brains behind them speakin’ eyes,
soft an’ black when he’s peaceful, but burnin’ like coals when he’s
mad. I’ve seen him mad, an’ itched to own him then. Kate’s a brute
to him—don’t understand him, an’ don’t want to.”
McKane dropped his chair forward and rose quickly to his feet as the
woman cantered up.
“Hello, Kate,” he said, as she sat a moment regarding the group,
“how’s the world at Sky Line Ranch?”
“All there,” she said shortly, “or was when I left.”
She swung out of her saddle and flung her reins to the ground. She
pulled off her gloves and pushed the hat back from her forehead,
which showed sweated white above the tan of her face. She passed
into the store with McKane, the spurs rattling on her booted heels.
Left alone the big, blue stallion turned his alert head and looked
at the men on the porch, drawing a deep breath and rolling the wheel
in his half-breed bit.
It was as the bearded man had said—intelligence in a marked degree
looked out of the starry eyes in the blue face. That individual
reached out a covetous hand, but the horse did not move. He knew his
business too well as Kate Cathrew’s servant.
Inside the store the woman took two letters which McKane gave her
from the dingy pigeonholes that did duty as post office, read them,
frowned and put them in the pocket of her leather riding skirt. Then
she selected a few things from the shelves which she stowed in a
flour-sack and was ready to go. McKane followed her close, his eyes
searching her face with ill-concealed desire. She did not notice the
men on the porch, who regarded her frankly, but passed out among
them as though they were not there. It was this cool insolence which
cleared the path before her wherever she appeared, as if all
observers, feeling the inferiority her disdain implied, acknowledged
it.
But as she descended the five or six steps that led down from the
porch, she came face to face with a newcomer, one who neither gaped
nor shifted back, but looked her square in the face.
This was a man of some thirty-four or five, big, brawny, lean and
fit, of a rather homely countenance lighted by grey eyes that read
his kind like print.
He looked like a cattleman save for one thing—the silver star pinned
to the left breast of his flannel shirt, for this was Sheriff Price
Selwood.
“Good day, Kate,” he said.
A red flush rose in the woman’s face, but it was not set there by
any liking for the speaker who accosted her, that was plain.
“It’s never a good day when I meet you,” she said evenly, “it’s a
bad one.”
The Sheriff smiled.
“That’s good,” he answered, “but some day I’ll make it better.”
McKane, his own face flushed with sudden anger, stepped close.
“Price,” he said thinly, “you and I’ve been pretty fair friends, but
when you talk to Miss Cathrew like that, you’ve got me to settle
with. That sounded like a threat.”
“Did it?” said Selwood. “It was.”
The trader was as good as his word.
With the last syllable his fist shot out and took the speaker in the
jaw, a clean stroke, timed a half-second sooner than the other had
expected, though he _had_ expected it. It snapped his head back on
his shoulders, but did not make him stagger, and the next moment he
had met McKane half-way with all the force of his two hundred pounds
of bone and muscle.
In the midst of the whirlwind fight that followed, Kate Cathrew,
having pulled on her gloves and coolly tied her sack in place on her
saddle, mounted Bluefire and rode away without a backward look.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later the Sheriff picked up the trader and rolled him
up on the porch. He stood panting himself, one hand on the worn
planking, the other wiping the blood and dirt from his face.
“Get some water, boys,” he said quietly, “and when he comes around
tell him I’ll be back tomorrow for my coffee and tobacco—five pounds
of each—and anything more he wants to give me.”
He picked up his wide hat, brushed it with his torn sleeve, set it
back on his head precisely, walked to his own horse, which was tied
some distance away, mounted and rode south toward the more open
country where his own ranch lay.
“I’m damned!” said the bearded man softly, “it didn’t take her long
to stir up somethin’ on a peaceful day! If it’d been over Bluefire,
now—there’s somethin’ to fight for—but a woman; Hell!”
“But—Glory—Glory!” whispered the lean boy who had watched Kate
hungrily, “ain’t she worth it! Oh, just ain’t she! Wisht I was
McKane this minute!”
“Druther be th’ Sheriff,” said the other enigmatically.