THE MAN WHO WAS
Lennon sprang from his pony and steadied his rifle across the saddle.
Carmena drew in a deep breath.
"That's right," she approved. "Keep him covered. Shoot if he turns--but
not Pete."
The Navaho had drawn rein to tail in behind the pony of his leader. He
thrust a hand overhead in a swift sign gesture.
"You see, Jack. I knew we could count on Pete. The boy thinks a good
deal of me. He was ready to shoot Cochise in the back."
"But you!" exclaimed Lennon. "That was ripping the way you--what d'you
say?--got the drop on Cochise. My right hand is still too weak for a
knockout blow."
Carmena gravely drew a sheath knife from the pocket of her skirt.
"He knows I usually carry my revolver," she said.
Lennon stared.
"Your revolver wasn't in your pocket? Yet you sheathed your rifle!"
"Didn't you notice his men had their guns pointed at us across their
laps? Sheathing mine was what gave me the chance to bluff him. It's all
right now. He won't try any more tricks this time."
She sent a clear call ringing up the cliff. At once the hoist rope began
to reeve down through the pulley of the crane. The rope ladder soon
lowered from the other opening. Both saddles were fastened to the hoist
hook. But Lennon thrust his rifle through the back of his cartridge
belt.
They found Farley in the doorway, nervously peering down the valley
after the Indians.
"Cochise was hiding in Devil's Chute until you rode out of sight," he
quavered. "He demanded tizwin. I convinced him that Slade took away
every drop. He then threatened to seize you for his woman and torture
Mr. Lennon, if I did not send down Elsie. I postponed the decision until
your return."
"All right, Dad. We persuaded him to let us come up. But now we're here,
I think we'll take no more rides till Slade comes."
Lennon freed his rifle from the belt and stepped in through the doorway
after the father and daughter. His first glance inside the cliff house
showed him Elsie labouring at the windlass. He hastened to take the
crank out of her plump little hands. His one-armed winding soon hoisted
the saddles to the crane. The moment the load was safe, Elsie
tremblingly lifted his hand to look at the blackening bruises left by
Cochise's steel grip.
"Does it--does it hurt much, Jack?" she whispered. "Once I saw him snap
a dog's leg."
Lennon smilingly denied the sharp pain of the strained ligaments. But
inwardly his anger against Cochise hardened into enmity as he looked
into the girl's innocent eyes and recalled that the brutal Apache
considered her his woman.
His reassurance brought instant relief to her volatile mind. She began
to chatter gaily about how she and Carmena would entertain him during
the wait for Slade. In this the older girl joined with cordial
heartiness. Elsie displayed a high stack of women's magazines, for which
Carmena was a regular subscriber. Every three or four months they were
brought in from the nearest post office by Slade.
Elsie fairly showered Lennon with naive questions about the faraway land
of cities and green trees and vast stretches of water. Aside from the
magazines and what had been told her by Farley and Carmena, she had no
knowledge of the world outside the Hole.
Beneath Carmena's quiet manner Lennon discovered an interest as keen as
that of her foster-sister and very much more intelligent. She had
childhood memories of Ohio. Much to his distaste, she persuaded Farley
to remain most of the day with them in the living room.
But as the wreck that once had been a man listened to Lennon's talk,
his bent shoulders began to straighten and his drink-bleared eyes
cleared. By evening he was talking as one man of culture to another. He
even showed occasional flashes of a once brilliant mind.
Carmena took care to keep her father stimulated with frequent cups of
coffee. The whiskey flask appeared to be quite forgotten. After supper,
at his suggestion, Elsie brought out an old dog-eared set of
Shakespeare. In the flaring light of a homemade tallow candle he read
parts of "King Lear" and "Hamlet," with his rapt eyes frequently off the
page for a dozen lines or more.
Lennon's aversion to the broken old drunkard had by now mellowed to
tolerance and a degree of pity. He realized what the man had been before
sickness had pulled him down and drink degraded him. At times Farley's
whiskey-shattered mind tended to wander. But Lennon good-humouredly
helped Carmena to bridge the gaps. When her father's face became gray
and drawn, the girl said he was sleepy and took him off to bed.
She returned, to find Elsie perched on the arm of Lennon's chair. They
were both peering at a magazine illustration, with their heads so close
together that Elsie's yellow curls brushed Lennon's cheek.
The warm glow in Carmena's eyes faded; her smiling lips tightened. Her
voice vibrated with a touch of sharpness:
"Sleep time, Blossom."
Elsie sprang to her light feet with docile obedience. But she lingered
to eye Lennon wistfully as he stood up to meet Carmena's level glance.
"Aren't you going to say good night, Jack?" she coaxed. "Don't--don't
brothers ever kiss their sisters good night?"
Lennon cast a half-doubtful glance at the girl's unsmiling
foster-sister, hesitated, caught Elsie's golden head between his hands
and bent to kiss her forehead. She drew back, overcome with sudden
shyness.
Carmena held out a firm hand to Lennon.
"Good night, Jack--and thank you for--Dad. It's two years since he has
been anything like to-day."
"The pleasure was mine," replied Lennon.
His tone was not uncordial, but his eyes had turned to watch Elsie dance
across to one of the inner doorways that led into a short passage.
Carmena swung around after her foster-sister, with her head well up and
her boot heels briskly clicking on the stone floor.
The discovery at his bedside of his own clothes thoroughly cleaned and
his boots well oiled added a touch of gratitude to his tender,
compassionate, delightful thoughts of Elsie. He lay awake for an hour or
more, dwelling upon her dainty beauty and fascinating innocence.
But the bleak gray light of dawn brought sober reflections. What
interest could he have in the young girl other than to help her escape
from the savage Cochise? She was a waif, of unknown parentage. Mentally
she was little more than a child, and all her conscious experience had
been confined to the environment of this crude desert valley.
Lennon came out to breakfast with scant appetite. But his moodiness had
company. Elsie sat at table tearful-eyed and drooping. Carmena's eyes
were somber and her expression was hard. In reply to Lennon's polite
inquiry for Farley she coldly replied that her father was not hungry.
Through one of the outer slit windows of the living room Lennon saw a
thin column of smoke down the valley toward the corral. Carmena answered
his unspoken question:
"They're brand-blotting the last bunch of cattle brought into the Hole."
"Brand-blotting?"
"Yes. You wouldn't care to see it--especially when Cochise takes part."
Elsie uttered a smothered little gasp that quickened again all of
Lennon's repressed tenderness and compassion. He looked around, trying
to think of some means to divert her. His glance fell upon one of the
bowls of ancient pottery.
"May I ask you to show me the rest of this cliff house? Or are the other
rooms in ruins?"
Elsie instantly brightened.
"Oh, no, course not. Only some of the top ones have tumbled in. Dad
won't mind if we show Jack the mummies, will he, Mena?"
"Fetch candles," directed Carmena, clearly as relieved as the others at
the thought of diversion.
They started to ramble through the interior of the cliff house, taking
with them a light ladder to climb to the upper stories. In the lower
rooms at the near end were stored quantities of corn on the cob, dried
fruit, and vegetables, honey, dried beef, bacon, and other foods. The
family was sufficiently stocked to withstand a half year's siege.
The upper rooms were for the most part empty. Others showed only
fragments of broken pottery. Some had been broken in through their side
walls or were open above and littered with the debris of their roofs.
Lennon surmised the existence of several sealed lower chambers, at the
back.
Carmena led the way down again and zigzagged through connected rooms
toward the far end of the great community house. To the rear of the
front row of rooms was a large chamber heaped with cliff-dweller
mummies.
"Slade had them all dumped in here," explained Carmena. "Like the
Indians, Elsie is still scared of them. But they have been dead a long
time, poor things. They'll not hurt anybody. They'd protect you,
Blossom, if Cochise should get up the cliff and you hid in that corner.
He thinks them bad medicine. Slade laughs at Indian spirits. He says
that corn spirits are the only ones that can put a spell on a man."
"They--they're an awful hold on Dad," quavered Elsie. "He didn't ever
used to speak cross to me."
In the flickering candle light Carmena's eyes glinted with a look that
Lennon thought to be fierce resentment. She thrust past him to the
doorway.
"Wait. I'll be back," she called.
Elsie was tremblingly eager to follow, but Lennon lacked her fear of the
desiccated builders of the cliff house. At one end of the room he had
come upon what to him was a very interesting heap of their no less
ancient possessions. Most of the beautiful old pottery had been smashed,
but among the fragments Lennon found several ceremonial stones and
tablets, a bone awl, many obsidian arrowheads, and a few broken
turquoise ornaments.
His search was cut short by the return of Carmena. She carried a modern
Indian basket-vase that would have been very convenient for holding
Lennon's collection. But she gave him no chance to ask for it. She
stared in at him and Elsie from the doorway, her dark eyes glittering
strangely in the candle light. Her lips were hardset in a bitter smile.
"He's--asleep. Come," she said.
Lennon followed the eager Elsie, who was vastly relieved to leave the
mummy vault. Yet she was no less mystified than Lennon by her
foster-sister's manner. She shrank back behind him when, after passing
through two corn-stacked rooms near the far end of the cliff house,
Carmena stopped before an entrance that had been closed with a door of
heavy planks. The thick iron hasp was secured with a big padlock.
Carmena handed her candle to Lennon and took a key from her basket.
"Oh, Mena!" whispered Elsie. "Oh, you can't be going to--to---- You know
how angry Dad--and Slade----"
For answer, Carmena thrust the key into the padlock.