A GUEST FOR AN HOUR
"Can you stand on your feet?" he asked.
Supporting her as she made the trial he felt his way from where the
horse had plunged through to where he found a partial seat for her.
"Are you much hurt?" he asked again.
She could not, if she would, have told in how many places she was
broken and bruised. All she was sharply conscious of was a pain in one
foot so intense as to deaden all other pain. It was the foot that had
been caught under the horse. "I think I'm all right," she murmured, in
a constrained tone and, in her manner, briefly. "How did you find me
here?" she asked, almost resentfully. "Where am I?"
He knew from her words she had neither headed nor followed any
expedition against him but he did not answer her question: "I'll see
whether I can get the horse up."
While he worked with the horse--and once during the long, hard effort
she heard between thunder claps a sharp expletive--Kate tried to
collect in some degree her scattered and reeling senses. What quieted
her most was that her long and fear-stricken groping for hours in the
storm and darkness seemed done now. Without realizing it she was
willingly turning her fears and troubles over to another--and to one
who, though she stubbornly refused to regard him as a friend, she well
knew was able to shoulder them. She heard the kicking and pawing of
the horse, then with new dismay, the low voices of two men; and next in
the terrifying darkness, more kicking, more suppressed expletives, more
heaving and pulling, and between lightning flashes, quieting words to
the horse. The two men had gotten the frightened beast to his feet.
Laramie groped back to Kate. He had to touch her with his hand to be
sure he had found her: "I'm taking you at your word," he said, above
the confusion of the storm.
"What do you mean?"
"That you're alone and don't know where you are."
"I am alone. I wish I might know where I am."
Both spoke under constraint: "It's more important to know how to get
home," he replied, ignoring the request in her words. "Your horse is
here for the night--that's pretty certain," he declared, as a sheet of
rain swept over the crater. "I've got a horse near by and we'll start
for where we can get more horses."
There was nothing Kate could say or do. She already had made up her
mind to submit in silence to what Laramie might suggest or impose. One
thing only she was resolved on; that whatever happened there should be
no appeal on her part.
His first thought was to get her out of the pit by the way she had
plunged in. A moment's reflection convinced him that such a precaution
was unnecessary. When he asked her to follow him he held her wet
gloved hand in his hand. "Look out for your footing till we get to the
horse," was his warning. "The way we're going, we should never make
but one slip. Take your time," he added, as she stepped cautiously
after him out into the drive of wind and rain. "It's only about twenty
steps."
In obeying orders she gave him nothing to complain of, but there was
little relaxing of the tension between the two. Every step she took on
her injured foot was torture, made keener by the uncertain footing.
More than once, even despite the dangers of her situation, she thought
she must cry out or faint in agony. The twenty steps along the steep
face of the canyon, pelted by rain, were like two hundred. Kate made
them without a whimper. Thence she followed him slowly between rocky
walls guarding the nearly level floor of the widening ledge, till they
reached the horse. She stumbled at times with pain; but if it were to
kill her she would not speak.
Hawk had followed the two from the abutment. He joined them now. Kate
was only aware that a second man had come up and was moving silently
near them. Laramie spoke to him--she could not catch what he
said--then helped her into the saddle. "I'm going to the house again,"
he said, "this man will stay with you. I'll be back in a moment."
Little as she liked being left with another, she could not object. The
rocky wall saved her partly from the storm and as to the other man she
was only vaguely conscious at intervals of a shapeless form outlined
beside the horse.
Laramie was gone more than a moment but under Kate's shelter nothing
happened. The horse, subdued by storm and weariness, stood like a
statue. Uneasy with pain, Kate was very nervous. New sounds were
borne on the wind from the darkness; then she heard Laramie's voice;
and then a rough question from another voice: "How the hell did you get
him out?"
"Walked him out," was the response. Laramie had brought back her own
horse. "Get on him," added Laramie, speaking to the other man. "I'll
lead my horse--he's sure-footed for her. You know the way down."
Kate made only one effort as the man she knew must be Laramie came to
the head of the horse she was on, patted his wet neck and took hold of
the bridle. She leaned forward in the saddle: "I'll try again to get
home if you'll help me get out of here."
"I'm helping you get out," was the reply. "If you knew where you were,
you wouldn't talk yet about trying for home." He stepped closer to the
saddle, tested the cinches and spoke to Kate: "It's a hard ride. You
can make it by letting the horse strictly alone. I'll lead him but he
won't stand two bosses in this kind of a mess, over the only trail that
leads from here. How you ever got in, God only knows, and He won't
tell--leastways, not tonight. Sit tight. Don't get scared no matter
what happens. If the horse should break a leg all we can do is to
shoot him and you can try your own horse; but your horse is all in now."
To ride at night a mile in the chilling blackness of a mountain storm
is to ride five. To face a buffeting wind and a sweep of heavy rain
mile after mile and keep a saddle while a horse pauses, halts, starts
and staggers, rights himself, gropes painfully for an uncertain
foothold among rocks where a bighorn must pick his way, is to test the
endurance even of a man.
Laramie, moving unseen and almost unheard in the inky blackness,
piloted the nervous beast with an uncanny instinct, past the dangers on
every hand. He guided himself with his feet and by his hands, halting
on the edge of crevices and heading them with the horse at his
shoulder, feeling his way around slopes of fallen rock and clambering
across them when they could not be escaped, holding the lines at their
length ahead of the horse and speaking low and reassuringly to urge him
on: waiting sometimes for a considerable period for a flash of
lightning to give him his bearings anew.
Kate could see in each of these blinding intervals his figure. Each
flash outlined it sharply on her retina--always the same--patient,
resourceful, silent and unwearied. The man who had been directed to
ride her own horse she never caught sight of. When they reached open
country and better going her guide did not break the silence. He spoke
only when at last he stopped the horse and stood in the darkness close
to her knee:
"This brings us to the end of our trail--for awhile. We're in front of
my cabin. Of course, it's small. And I've been thinking what I ought
to say to you about things as you'll find them here. The man that rode
behind us and passed us on your horse is Abe Hawk. You know what they
call him over at your place; you know what they call me for taking his
part--you know what you called me."
She repressed an exclamation. When she tried to speak, he spoke on,
ignoring her. "Never mind," he said, in the same low, even tone that
silenced her protest, "I'm not starting any argument but it's time for
plain speaking and I'm going to tell you just what has happened
tonight, so, for once, anyway, we'll understand each other--I'm going
to show my cards.",
The chilling sheets of rain that swept their faces did not hasten his
utterance: "When you get home and tell your story, your men will know
it was Abe Hawk you ran into whether you knew it or not. They'll ask
you all about his hiding place and you'll tell them all you know--which
won't be much. I don't complain of all that--it's war; and part of the
game. All I'll ask you not to say is, that I brought Abe Hawk with you
to my cabin. Abe won't be here when they come--it isn't that. We can
take care of ourselves. I'm speaking only because I don't want my
place burned. It isn't much but I think a good deal of it. Burning it
won't help get rid of me. It will only make things in this country
worse than they are now--and they're bad enough. I wouldn't have
brought you here if there'd been any other place to take you. There
wasn't; and for awhile you'll have to make partners with the two men
your father and his friends are trying to get killed."
She almost cried out a protest: "How can you say such a thing?"
"Just the plain fact, that's all."
"Is it fair because you are enemies to accuse my father in such a way?"
"Have it as you want it but get my view of it with the one you get over
at your place. And if you'll climb down we'll go under cover."
"Now may I say something?"
"No more than fair you should."
She spoke low but fast and distinctly; nor was there any note of fear
or apology in her words: "You must put a low estimate on a woman if you
would expect her to go home with tales from the camp of an enemy that
had put her again on her road. It may be that is the kind of woman you
know best----"
Laramie tried to interrupt.
"I've not done," she protested instantly. "You said I might say
something: It may be that is the kind of woman you understand best.
But I won't be classed with such--not even by you. If you've saved me
from great danger it doesn't give you the right to insult me by telling
me you expect me to be a tale-bearer. It isn't manly or fair to treat
me in that way."
"You mustn't expect too much from a thief."
"You shame yourself, not me, when you use a word I never in my life,
not even in anger, ever used of you."
"You shame your friends when you call me or think of me as anything
else. I'm no match for you----"
"I've not done----"
"I'm no match for you, I know, in fine words--or in any other kind of a
game--don't think I don't know that; but by----" he checked himself
just in time, "thief or no thief, you've had a square deal from me
every turn of the road."
Bitter with anger, he blurted out the words with vehemence. If he
looked for a quick retort, none came. Kate for an instant waited:
"Should you wish me," she asked, "to look for anything else at your
hands?"
"Well, we're not holding up this rain any by talking," he returned
gruffly. "Get down and we'll get inside. You can stay here till
morning."
"Oh, no!"
"Why not?"
"Just put me on the road for home and let me be going."
"This is my cabin. I told you that."
"I can't _stay_ here."
"This is my cabin. I'm responsible for the safety of everyone that
steps under my roof."
"I know, but I must go home. They have most likely been searching the
trails for me. Father would telephone"--she was desperate for
excuses--"to Belle and learn I'd started home--and the storm----"
He did not hesitate to cut her off: "Afraid of me, eh?"
The contempt and resentment in his words stirred her. Without
answering she sprang as well as she could in her wet habit from the
saddle and faced him, close enough almost to see into his eyes in the
darkness. From the fireplace inside a gleam of light, from the blaze
that Hawk had started, piercing the tiny window sash shot across her
face: "Does this look like it?" she demanded, her eyes seeking his. He
was stubborn. "Answer me!" she exclaimed in a tone of a dictator.
"Then why don't you do what I ask you to do instead of giving me a
story about Barb Doubleday telephoning?" he demanded. She winced at
her mistake in urging an impossible thing. She felt when she made it,
Laramie would not credit so wild an assertion. Her father would not
take the trouble to telephone to save even a bunch of his steers from a
storm, much less his daughter. "But there may be others over there,"
Laramie added grimly, "that would."
The reference to the man he hated--Van Horn--was too plain to be passed
over. "Now," she returned, as if to close--and standing her ground as
she spoke, "have you said all the mean things you can think of?"
He evaded her thrust. "The wires are down a night like this, anyway,"
he objected. "If you'd be as honest with me as I am with you we'd get
along without saying mean things."
"I am honest with you. Can't you see that a woman can't always be as
open in what she says as a man?"
"What do I know about a woman?"
"But since you make everything hard for me I shall be open with you."
"Come inside then and say it."
"I couldn't be any wetter than I am and if I've got to say this to one
man I won't say it to two: You ask me to stay all night in your cabin
as it I were a small boy--instead of what I am."
"You could take all the shooting irons on the place into your own room
with you."
"I shouldn't need to. But what would people say of me when they heard
of it? That I had stayed here all night! You know what they can do to
a woman's reputation in this country--you know how some evil tongues
talk about Belle. I would like to keep at least my reputation out of
this bitter war that is going on--can't you, won't you, understand?"
He was silent a moment. "Come in to the fire, then," he said at
length, "and we'll see what we can do. You've been on the wrong road
all night. There's no need of any secrets now on anybody's part, I
guess. But I'd rather turn you over to ten thousand devils than to the
man you're going back to tonight."
"Surely," she gasped, "you don't mean my own father?"
"You know the man I mean," was all he answered. Then he threw open the
cabin door and stood waiting for her to pass within.