THE PASS OF THE GOATS
In the throat of the gorge the sun shone red on the tawny cliffs. The
trail, a scant four feet wide at its best, with crumbled, weathered
margin, crept along the face of the cliff above a deep canyon where the
night shadows had already gathered in a purple flood, slowly rising as
the rays of the setting sun shifted upward, not yet staining the summit.
It was close to seven o'clock. Sandy's lean face was anxious. The girl
drooped in her seat tired from the long climb, not yet inured to the
saddle. The horses traveled gamely, sure-footed but obviously losing
endurance. Every little while they stopped of their own accord, their
flanks heaving painfully in the altitude.
Sandy had only once crossed the Pass of the Goats and that was years
before. There had been washouts since then. Several times they were
forced to dismount and lead the nervous beasts, Sandy doing the coaxing,
helping Molly over the difficult places. He rode a mare named Goldie and
the girl a bay with a white blaze that Sandy had chosen for the mountain
work and which had been brought to them at the lava strip.
The mare halted, neck stretched out, turning it to look inquiringly at
her master. A sharp incline lay ahead, the path little better than one
made by the goats for which the pass was named. Behind, Molly's mount
followed suit, blowing at the dust. Sandy patted the mare's neck and
dismounted.
"It's late, ain't it?" asked Molly. "Will we miss that train?"
"There's others," answered Sandy. "Or, if there ain't any mo' ter-night,
we'll hire us a car an' keep movin'. Yo're sure game, Molly;" he added
admiringly, "you must be clean tuckered out."
She shook her head with an attempt at a smile.
"I'll be glad when we start goin' down, fer a change," she admitted,
looking into the gloomy trough of the canyon through which the night wind
soughed.
"I'll tighten up yore cinches," said Sandy. "Worst of the climb's jest
ahead. Then we start to drop down t'other side. You don't have to git
off. Trail's bound to be better once we git atop the mesa and start
down. Mesa's right narrer, as I remember. T'other side's away from the
weather. There's a canyon with oak trees an' a stream of water." He
tugged at the leathers, his knee against the bay's ribs as she grunted.
"You ain't much furtheh to go, li'l' hawss," he chatted on. "Downhill
all the way soon an' then a drink to wash out yore mouth an' the best
feed in Caroca fo' the pair of you."
"Gits dark mighty quick up here," said the girl.
A great cloud was ballooning above them, like a dirigible that had lost
buoyancy and was bumping along the mesa ridge. Its belly was black, its
western side ruddy in the sunset. Sandy viewed it apprehensively. In
superficial survey the mesa seemed much like the stranded carcass of a
mastodonic creature left behind when the waters departed from these
inland seas. A hard skeleton of igneous rock, with clayey soil for
flesh, riven and seamed and pitted, crumbling and dusty in the sun, ever
disintegrating with wind and water and frost. Under a rain the trail was
slimy as a whale's back. The cloud was soggy with moisture. Bursting, it
would send torrents roaring down every ravine, wash out weathered masses
of earth, sweep all before it as it gathered forces and rushed out on
the desert, leaving the main canyons carved a little richer, the surface
of the soil on the sink a little deeper, against the time when men
should control these storm waters or bring the precious fluid up from
underground reservoirs and make the desert blossom like the rose.
Where Molly and Sandy rode they were exposed to the first drench of a
cloud-burst. Deeper in the pass, where the flood would be confined,
their chance for escape would be infinitesimal. Even on the heights it
would be precarious unless they could cross the remainder of the
up-trail before the inevitable downpour.
Sandy examined his own cinch and tightened it before he mounted. And he
whispered something in the mare's ear that caused her to lip his
sleeve.
"Let yore hawss have his own way, Molly," he said. "I'm lettin' Goldie
do the pickin' fo' the lead. Ready?"
It was growing cold in the deepening twilight, the belt of sunshine was
rapidly climbing toward the topmost palisades with the purple shadows in
the gorge mounting, twisting and eddying in skeins of mist, twining up
toward them. One spire ahead glowed golden. The cloud drifted down upon
it, glooming and glowing on its sunset side. The crag pierced it, ripped
it as it glided along, like the knife of a diver in the belly of a
shark. A cold wind blew from the riven mass. Then came the hiss of
descending waters. There was neither thunder nor lightning, only the
steady rush of the rain that glazed the slippery trail, hid the opposing
cliff from sight, sheeting it with dull silver, pounding, pitting,
beating at them as they plodded doggedly on, almost blinded, trusting to
the instinct of their horses.
Through the steady patter began to sound the savage voice of torrents
falling over cliffs, rapids rising and surging in deep gorges. The
wetness and the cold sapped Molly's vitality. She shivered, her flesh
seemed sodden, her hands and wrists began to puff and she saw their
flesh was purple in the fading light. She rode with hands on the saddle
horn, her head bowed, water streaming from the rim of her Stetson, the
thud of the rain on her tired shoulders heavy as shot. The bay slipped,
lurched, scrambled frantically for footing, hind feet skidding in the
clay, haunches gathering desperately, heaving beneath her to the effort
that brought him back to the trail. She saw Sandy ahead, dimly, like a
sheeted ghost, twisted in his saddle, watching her. From the hips down
he was a part of the mare he rode, from waist up he was in such
exquisite balance while keeping his individuality apart from the horse
that, despite her present misery and a presentiment of coming evil that
was beginning to encompass her, Molly realized what a magnificent rider
he was, and clung to his strength and skill, sensing the comforting
power of his manhood.
To her right was the cliff, slimy with water, the trail so narrow that
now and then her elbow dug into the soft stuff. To the left was
blackness out of which mists ascended, writhing, like steamy vapors, the
rain pelting into the gulf, far, far below; the thunder of augmenting
waters. Masses of broken cloud swept on above their heads, purple and
crimson and orange as they streamed across the summit like the tattered
banners of a routed army. The light rayed upward at an acute angle. In a
few moments it would be dark. But they were close to the top. The mare
already stood on a level ledge of side-jutting rock, a horizontal
protuberance that marked the extreme height of the Pass of the Goats,
from which one could look down into the canyon of the oaks and the
unfailing stream.
Sandy heard a cry from Molly and saw, through the curtain of the falling
rain, the wide-flared nostrils of her horse, its eyes protruding as the
brute, with the ground slopping away beneath him, slid slowly down
toward the gulf, the girl, her weight flung forward on the withers, her
face white as paper, turning to him mutely for help. It was a bad
moment. Sandy and his mount stood upon an island in a shifting sea. The
whole cliff seemed working and crawling, slithering down.
He had no space to turn in, no chance to whirl his lariat, even for a
side throw. There was no time to spin a loop. But his hand detached the
rope, flying fingers found the free end as he pivoted in the saddle,
thighs welded to the mare.
"Take a turn about the horn!" he shouted. "Hang to the end yo'se'f!" He
sent the line jerking back, whistling as it streaked across the girl's
shoulders. She clutched for it, with plenty of slack, snubbed it about
the saddle horn, clung to the end, made a bight of it about her body.
Sandy spoke to the mare.
"Steady, li'l' lady, steady!" The rope was about his own horn; he
thanked God that he had examined the cinches of Molly's saddle. The bay
was cat-footed; with the help of the mare Sandy believed he could dig
and scrape and climb to safety. It was the decision of a split-second
and he did not dare risk dragging the girl from the saddle past the
struggling horse.
He felt Goldie stiffen beneath him, braced against the strain she knew
was coming. The taut lariat hummed, it bruised into Sandy's thigh.
Behind, the bay snorted, struggling gallantly. They were poised on the
brink of death for a moment, two--three--and then the mare began to move
slowly forward, neck curved, ears cocked to her master's urging, while
the bay sloshed through the treacherous muck, found foothold, lost it,
made a frantic leap, another, and landed trembling on the ledge. Sandy
leaped from his saddle and caught Molly, sliding from her seat in sheer
exhaustion and the revulsion of terror, clinging closely to him.
"It's all right, Molly darlin'," he said soothingly. "All set an' safe.
Rain's oveh an' stars comin' out. We're top of the pass. We'll git down
inter the canyon a ways an' then we'll light a fire an' warm up a bit,
'fore we go on."
She found her feet and cleared from his hold, gasping for recovery of
herself.
"I'm all right," she said. "I was scared an' yet I knew you'd pull me
out. I'm plumb shamed of myself. Jest like a damned gel to act that
way."
"Shucks! You wasn't half as scared as the bay. Wonder did he strain
himself?" He passed clever hands over the bay's legs, talking to it.
"Yo're all right, ol' surelegs. Right as rain." Goldie, the mare, stood
stock-still with trailing lariat, watching them intelligently in the
dusk that was growing quickly luminous as star after star shone through
the flying wrack. A clean, strong wind blew through the throat of the
pass. Sandy recoiled his lariat, gave Molly a hand to her foot to lift
her to her saddle, mounted himself and they rode slowly down. The trail
was in better shape this side, though half an inch of water still topped
it. The turmoil of running waters far below burdened the night, but the
danger from the storm was over.
Train time was long past. Sandy knew nothing of the change of schedule,
but he was confident of winning clear. He knew a man in the little town
they were aiming for whose livery stable was, in the march of the times,
divided between horses and machines. There he expected to put up the
horses until they could be returned to Three Star, and there he figured
on hiring a car and a driver if, as he anticipated, there were no more
trains that night. He believed that Mormon and Sam had delayed the
sheriff. Probably the latter had given up the chase, but there was no
telling. Jordan's best attribute was his pertinacity. They should lose
no time in getting out of the state.