YELLOW BARBEE KEEPS A PROMISE
Terry started, shook off her apathy with a sudden effort and called out:
"Steve! Steve! Come back!"
He had gone but a half-dozen paces. He swung about and returned to
her. It was not light enough yet for her to see his eyes; they seemed
just unfathomable, sombre pools in the shadow of his hat-brim. As he
turned his head a little, harking to the distant sounds of men's voices
earning on, the rigid profile was harsh and implacable.
"Terry," he said sternly, "you mustn't ask me to come back again. I am
just standing on my own rights this time, as a man must now and then.
Old man Packard is over there. He is coming on. He wants trouble. He
doesn't want the law courts. He always preferred to play the game man
to man. He has cost me a number of cattle; when I can figure just how
many I am going over and collect from him--if we are both left alive,
which is to be doubted. And now, if he wants fight----"
Again he glanced over his shoulder. Still she could not read what lay
in his eyes. But a new, almost eager note, boyishly eager Terry
thought in dismay, had burst into his voice:
"If he wants fight--by God, Terry Temple, I'm as much Packard as he is!"
She watched him wheel again and go. This time she did not call to him.
Her little figure stiffened, her hands were down at her sides and
clenched, her chin was lifted a little. The whole attitude was
soldierlike.
"They are two of a kind," said Terry within herself. "They are men.
They are Packards. I am proud and--and afraid--and-- Oh, dear God!
Dear God! Bring him back to me!"
She could hear Steve giving his brief orders crisply. Other figures
loomed about him, coming out of the night and the shadows. There was
young Yellow Barbee and Bandy Oliver; there was the Number Ten cowboy
whom she knew only as "Spotty"; in a moment these and two or three
other men were with Steve. Six or seven; possibly eight of them all
told. And Barbee had said that there were about a dozen men with old
man Packard.
"This is my fight, boys," Steve was saying. "Mine and my
grandfather's. I want you fellows to keep out of it unless the boys
with old man Packard mix in. If they do----"
"We're with you," said Yellow Barbee. "Huh, boys?"
And a little nervously and hurriedly they answered--
"Yes."
"Then," concluded Steve, "keep your eyes open. Hang back, now."
She saw him lean forward in the saddle, noted how the horse leaped
under him, took anxious stock of the manner in which he carried his
rifle. Then suddenly there came back into Terry's cheeks the good hot
blood, into her eyes the sparkle and shine, into her heart something
akin to the sheer joy of battle. Had she a horse she would not have
hung back for want of a rifle, but would have ridden after him, with
him. As it was she cried out ringingly:
"God go with you, Steve Packard! I'm proud of you!"
She might not ride with him; at least she would not crouch and cringe
and hide her eyes. She would watch him as he rode, watch him as he
fought, watch him to the end even though he slipped from the saddle.
So she made her way hastily to a point of vantage, running the brief
distance lying between the slight knoll on which she stood and the
eastern edge of the valley where the rugged peaks rose abruptly. She
scrambled up the first bit of slope, her heart beating wildly,
expecting each second to hear the snap and crackle of rifle-fire. She
turned and looked back; the floor of the valley was too uneven for her
to have a sweeping view.
She began climbing again. Great boulders rose in her path; somehow she
got on them and over them. Broken slabs of granite strewed the way;
she made of them steps on which to mount higher and higher. Still no
sound of a shot and at last, upon a narrow shelf of rock offering
sufficient foothold, she stopped.
Here, with her back tight pressed to a rock, her hands gripping at
irregularities on each side of her to steady her, she sent her questing
gaze down into Drop Off Valley.
Now she understood why there had as yet been no rifle-fire. The day,
coming on slowly, still offered more gloom than radiance, but she could
pick out two figures clearly. One was that of Steve. He had ridden on
ahead of his men, perhaps a hundred feet ahead, and was upon a bit of
higher ground.
The other form, bulking big in the thin light, was indisputably that of
old man Packard. Like Steve, he had ridden on in advance of his men.
She could just make out a dull mass yonder behind him which might have
been but a group of boulders had not the impatient stirring showed
where his horsemen were waiting.
It was very still there on the uplands in the dim dawning. In
breathless watchfulness a few men behind Steve watched; a few men
behind old man Packard watched; a girl upon a granite peak watched.
Down toward the lower end of the valley where the floor of the plateau
dropped precipitously into the steep-walled cañon the fire Terry had
set was still burning fiercely. But the wind carried its fury away
from them, so that it was only an evil whisper.
Here and there, elsewhere in the valley, the fires still burned on.
There were wide stretches across which the flames had already swept so
that now they were ink-black, burnt-out, smoking a little. Upon such
an open space, still hot under their horses' hoofs, the two Packards,
grandfather and grandson, came face to face. And they were stern,
ominously set faces confronting each other.
At last they had pulled rein, both of them, looking grotesquely like
clockwork mechanisms, being actuated by the same impulse at the same
time. Some ten feet only were between their horses' tossing heads.
They were almost opposite Terry's lookout and at no great distance. In
the quiet pervading the valley their voices came to her. Not each
word, but a word now and then, lifted above its fellows, and always the
purport. For there was no mistaking the quality of the two voices.
Rage in old Packard was welcomed by wrath in young Packard. Heat and
anger and explosive denunciation, these were to be looked for now.
Never had it been the Packard way to temporize; always had it been the
Packard way to leap in and strike. Few-worded always was the old man;
as few-worded was the young man now.
"You are a damn' scoundrel, sir!"
"You will draw your men off. You will pay for the damage Blenham has
done."
"By God, sir!"
There was little more said. That thunderous "By God, sir!" from the
old man's lips carried to Terry where she stood tight pressed against
her rock. And then all unexpectedly and from an unexpected quarter,
came the first rifle-shot.
The first shot and the second, close together. The bullets passed
between grandfather and grandson, kicking up little puffs of dust
beyond them. Neither looked to see whence the shots came. The thought
was in each mind:
"Is this a Packard I am dealing with? Setting one of his hired
assassins to shooting from a blind?"
The old man's rifle was thrown up before him; Steve's rose with it.
Over yonder old Packard's men squared themselves in their saddles and
made ready for grim work. Yellow Barbee gave a signal all unneeded to
his men; his own rifle in his eager hands, was ready, the trigger
yielding to his calloused forefinger.
And then from the flinty spire of a peak rising between them and a sun
that was slowly wheeling into the clear sky, came scream after scream
that echoed and billowed across the open lands as Terry Temple, seeing
something of the truth, cried out in terrified desperation and warning.
A girl's voice screaming--Old man Packard turned sharply and stared in
wonderment. Terry's voice--Steve swung about, his anger suddenly
quenched in alarm, his eyes seeking everywhere for her.
It was Barbee who saw her first. Barbee called out, a strange note in
his voice, and clapped his spurs to his horse's sides and went racing
across the undulating lands toward her. Then Steve saw and old man
Packard and the rest. Saw but at first could not understand: the sun
was just behind her, winking into their eyes. There was some one with
her, struggling with her.
"Blenham!" shouted Steve.
And he was racing wildly along after Barbee, yearning to shoot to kill
and yet not daring to shoot at all. Blenham and Terry struggling upon
the iron side of the mountain, Terry striking and striking at him
frantically, Blenham with his arms about her, dragging her back toward
a wide fissure in the rocks, the sun bright above them.
To Terry it seemed that the universe had come crashing down about her
ears. A moment ago, tense and rigid and breathless, she had stood
watching two men face each other threateningly. Then there had been
the crack of the unexpected, unseen rifle; the dust struck up between
them; the second shot. And the smoking rifle-barrel was not three feet
from where Terry stood, Blenham's convulsed face laid against the
stock, Blenham's one evil eye lining the sights.
Almost on the instant she guessed something of the truth. Blenham in
this light was not sure of hitting; he would be a fool to shoot and
miss. Unless--and it was then that she screamed out her warning, then
before he had so much as put out his hand toward her.
Unless Blenham, with all of the guile of him uppermost, knew that that
shot fired between the two would send them flying at each other's
throats, ending all parley and bringing about unthinkable tragedy.
Blenham had his own reasons for what he did; certainly it would fit in
with Blenham's plans to see the hand of a Packard set against a Packard.
But she had not thought to have him seize her. Now his great,
calloused, soiled, hairy hands shut down upon her, gripping her
shoulders, jerking her from her place into the crevice from which his
face had emerged. She fought, seeking to get the revolver in her
blouse.
Blenham must have known that she kept it there. He snatched it and
threw it behind him and cursed her as he dragged her with him. As
Barbee came on and Steve came just behind him, the figures of Blenham
and Terry were both gone as though the mountain-side had split for them
and closed after them.
"They've got in a hole," called out Barbee. "Them mountains is full of
caves. They can't get away far."
As they went up the steep slope Barbee was still in the lead. He
mounted to the shelf of rock on which Terry had been standing. He
stepped into the crevice through which Blenham had dragged Terry.
"There's a split in the rocks here," called Barbee. "He went this way."
"Watch out for him!" warned Steve, now on the ledge close to the boy.
"Let me go ahead!"
Barbee laughed.
"Long ago I told him I'd get him!"
But Blenham was waiting in a little rock-rimmed hollow. He shot from
the hip, using a heavy revolver. Barbee stood a moment looking
foolishly at the sky as he slowly leaned back against the rock. Then
he lurched and fell, twisting, spinning so that he lay half in the
fissure, his rifle clattering to the ledge outside, his body falling so
that his head and shoulders were across the rifle.
Steve stepped over Barbee's twitching body, alert, every nerve taut,
his finger crooked to the trigger of his rifle. But again Blenham had
withdrawn. In the little rudely circular hollow from which Blenham had
fired point-blank at Yellow Barbee was Terry's hat, trodden underfoot.
Again it was as though the mountain had swallowed the man and the girl
he had taken with him.
But a moment later Steve saw and understood. Not ten steps from where
he stood was the mouth of a cave. Into it Blenham had retreated. In
there was Blenham now; Blenham and Terry with him. And the way, for
the moment at least, was securely blocked. Evidently here was a
hangout known before, previously employed. It had a door made of heavy
cedar slabs. The door was shut, and, of course, barred from within.
"Terry!" called Steve.
Terry sought to answer; he heard her voice in inarticulate terror,
little more than a gasp, choked back in her throat. Steve went dead
white. He visualized Blenham's hands upon her.
He came on to the door, his rifle clubbed. There was but the one thing
to do; smash down the door and so come at Blenham the shortest,
quickest, only way.
Then Blenham called to him for the first time.
"Fool, are you, Steve Packard? Look at that door. Don't you know
before you can batter it down I can pick you off! An' I can do more'n
that!"
As though he had cruelly drawn it from her, there came again Terry's
scream. Steve sprang forward and struck at the heavy cedar planks.
And Blenham called out again:
"Maybe you can break your way in; there's enough of you. But you'll
find her dead when the door falls!"
Steve had again lifted his rifle. Now he let it sink slowly so that
the butt came to rest gently upon the rock at his feet. Blenham held
the high hand; Blenham was unthinkably vile; Blenham was desperate.
And Terry, his little Terry on whom Blenham had always looked with the
eye of a brute and a beast, was in there, just beyond three inches of
solid seasoned cedar planking.
"If you harm her in the least--" It was Steve's voice though certainly
at first neither Blenham nor even Terry could have recognized it. "If
you harm her in the least, Blenham, I'll kill you. Not all at
once--just by inches!"
Blenham answered him coolly.
"I know when I've lost a trick, Steve Packard. This ain't the firs'
one an' it ain't goin' to be the last. I've played 'em high an' I
always knowed I took chances. But I'm playin' safe! Get me? Safe!"
"Go ahead; what do you mean?"
"Ol' man Packard is down there. This girl's yellin' spoiled my play.
By now he has learned a thing or two. All right; that's jus' the run
of luck, rotten luck!"
Under the words the restraint was gone and his rage flared out briefly.
But it was patent that Blenham's shrewdness was still with him. He
continued almost calmly:
"You an' him can have two words together. Then come back here an' give
me your promises, both of you, to let me go. Then I'll let her go.
Otherwise, I'm as good as dead--an' so's she. I'll jam a gun to her
head the las' thing an' blow her brains out. An', what's more, I'll
get one or two of you besides before you drop me."
Into their parley, interrupting it, his eyes flaming, his face hot with
anger, mounted old man Packard.
"Stephen," he said sternly, his eyes hard on his grandson's face, "tell
me an' tell me the down-right truth, so help you God: Did you rent this
pasture from Andy Sprague, thinkin' he owned it?"
Though he wondered, Steve answered briefly, to have this done with so
that he could again turn to Blenham--
"Yes."
"An' the boys says you have been losin' stock an' blamin' it to me?
An' that you've had stock poisoned an' shot? An' blamed it to me?"
"Yes," said Steve.
"So've I," said the old man heavily. "An' I've always blamed it to
you. An' I never sold to Andy Sprague. Him an' Blenham--Blenham has
played us both ways for suckers, has stole enough cows from one an'
another----"
His voice was swept up into the roar of rage which had given him his
name of the old mountain-lion of the north. He came stepping over poor
Barbee's body, thrusting by Steve, towering over the door of the cave.
"Hold back," commanded Steve queerly. "He's in there. But he's got it
on us. We've got to promise to let him go!"
"Let him go!" shouted the old man, his big bulk seeming actually to
quiver with rage. "After all he's done, let him go? By the Lord,
Stephen Packard, if you're that sort of a man----"
"She is in there with him," said Steve heavily. "Terry is in there.
Don't you see?"
"Terry? That Temple girl? What have we to do----"
"In the first place," cried Steve sharply, "she's a girl and he's a
brute. In the second place, she is the next Mrs. Packard and I won't
have Blenham pawing over her!"
His grandfather stared at him, long and keenly. Then he turned away
and called out commandingly--
"Blenham, come out of that!"
Blenham jeered at him.
"And be shot down like a dog? There's a girl in here, Packard. Young
Packard is gone on her; he wants to marry her. An' unless you an' him
give your word to let me go, I'm goin' to jam a gun at her head an'
blow her brains out. An' I'll get him as I come out; an' I'll get you."
"Let him go!" called Terry faintly. "Let him go, Steve! Oh, dear
God--if you love me----"
"Come out, Blenham!" shouted Steve. "I give you my word, so help me
God, to let you go scot-free. Come out!"
"Not so fast," mocked Blenham, lingering over his high card. "You've
got to promise for your men; you've got to send 'em across the valley.
You've got to have a horse handy for me to ride. You've got to back
down the valley yourse'f. An' ol' man Packard has got to do the same."
Old man Packard roared out his curses, but in the end, seeing nothing
else to do, he went grumbling down the rocky slope, back to his horse
and to his men. But first he had known perhaps the supreme humiliation
of his life. He had said:
"Blenham, on my word of honor as a Packard an' a gentleman, I'll let
you go. An' I'll make my men let you go."
And there were actually tears hanging to his lashes as he swung again
into his saddle.
"He has not hurt you, Terry?" asked Steve before he too would go down
the slope.
"No," cried Terry. "No, no! But, oh, hurry, hurry, Steve. I feel
that I'll smother, I'll die!"
From down in the valley they watched, close to a score of hard-eyed,
wrath-filled men, as Blenham stepped out of the crevice and on to the
ledge. They saw how he jeered as he stepped over the body of the man
he had shot.
"A fool was Barbee," he called. "A fool the Packards, ol' an' young!"
They saw him come down the slope, carrying himself with a swaggering
air of braggadocio, but plainly watchful and suspicious. Terry had
come out upon the ledge and she too watched him. He came down swiftly
and swung up into the saddle of the horse they had left for him.
And now at last his suspicion was past. His triumph broke out like a
streak of evil light.
"I was ready to go," he called, "any time!"
He swung his arm out toward the blue hills of Old Mexico.
"Down there-----"
Barbee whom they had thought dead stirred a little where he lay. The
rifle under him he thrust forward six inches.
"Blenham!" he called weakly.
Blenham swung about and fired, again from the hip. But he had fired
hastily. Barbee's rifle, resting upon the rock, was steady. Between
its muzzle and Blenham's broad chest there was but the brief distance
of some fifty feet. The report of Barbee's rifle, the thin upcurling
smoke under the new sun--these were the chief matters in all the world
for their little fragment of time.
Then Blenham threw out his arms and pitched forward. His foot caught
in the stirrup. The frightened horse was plunging, running, dragging a
man whose body was whipped this way and that.
"I promised--a long time ago," whispered Barbee, "that I'd get you,
Blenham."