All through May there was an idea, dark and sinister, growing in
Bostil's mind. Fiercely at first he had rejected it as utterly unworthy
of the man he was. But it returned. It would not be denied. It was
fostered by singular and unforeseen circumstances. The meetings with
Creech, the strange, sneaking actions of young Joel Creech, and
especially the gossip of riders about the improvement in Creech's swift
horse--these things appeared to loom larger and larger and to augment
in Bostil's mind the monstrous idea which he could not shake off. So he
became brooding and gloomy.
It appeared to be an indication of his intense preoccupation of mind
that he seemed unaware of Lucy's long trips down into the sage. But
Bostil had observed them long before Holley and other riders had
approached him with the information.
"Let her alone," he growled to his men. "I gave her orders to train the
King. An' after Van got well mebbe Lucy just had a habit of ridin' down
there. She can take care of herself."
To himself, when alone, Bostil muttered: "Wonder what the kid has
looked up now? Some mischief, I'll bet!"
Nevertheless, he did not speak to her on the subject. Deep in his heart
he knew he feared his keen-eyed daughter, and during these days he was
glad she was not in evidence at the hours when he could not very well
keep entirely to himself. Bostil was afraid Lucy might divine what he
had on his mind. There was no one else he cared for. Holley, that old
hawk-eyed rider, might see through him, but Bostil knew Holley would be
loyal, whatever he saw.
Toward the end of the month, when Somers returned from horse-hunting,
Bostil put him and Shugrue to work upon the big flatboat down at the
crossing. Bostil himself went down, and he walked--a fact apt to be
considered unusual if it had been noticed.
"Put in new planks," was his order to the men. "An' pour hot tar in the
cracks. Then when the tar dries shove her in ... but I'll tell you
when."
Every morning young Creech rowed over to see if the boat was ready to
take the trip across to bring his father's horses back. The third
morning of work on the boat Bostil met Joel down there. Joel seemed
eager to speak to Bostil. He certainly was a wild-looking youth.
"Bostil, my ole man is losin' sleep waitin' to git the hosses over," he
said, frankly. "Feed's almost gone."
"That'll be all right, Joel," replied Bostil. "You see, the river ain't
begun to raise yet.... How're the hosses comin' on?"
"Grand, sir--grand!" exclaimed the simple Joel. "Peg is runnin' faster
than last year, but Blue Roan is leavin' her a mile. Dad's goin' to bet
all he has. The roan can't lose this year."
Bostil felt like a bull bayed at by a hound. Blue Roan was a young
horse, and every season he had grown bigger and faster. The King had
reached the limit of his speed. That was great, Bostil knew, and enough
to win over any horse in the uplands, providing the luck of the race
fell even. Luck, however, was a fickle thing.
"I was advisin' Dad to swim the hosses over," declared Joel,
deliberately.
"A-huh! You was? ... An' why?" rejoined Bostil.
Joel's simplicity and frankness vanished, and with them his
rationality. He looked queer. His contrasting eyes shot little
malignant gleams. He muttered incoherently, and moved back toward the
skiff, making violent gestures, and his muttering grew to shouting,
though still incoherent. He got in the boat and started to row back
over the river.
"Sure he's got a screw loose," observed Somers. Shugrue tapped his
grizzled head significantly.
Bostil made no comment. He strode away from his men down to the river
shore, and, finding a seat on a stone, he studied the slow eddying red
current of the river and he listened. If any man knew the strange and
remorseless Colorado, that man was Bostil. He never made any mistakes
in anticipating what the river was going to do.
And now he listened, as if indeed the sullen, low roar, the murmuring
hollow gurgle, the sudden strange splash, were spoken words meant for
his ears alone. The river was low. It seemed tired out. It was a dirty
red in color, and it swirled and flowed along lingeringly. At times the
current was almost imperceptible; and then again it moved at varying
speed. It seemed a petulant, waiting, yet inevitable stream, with some
remorseless end before it. It had a thousand voices, but not the one
Bostil listened to hear.
He plodded gloomily up the trail, resting in the quiet, dark places of
the canyon, loath to climb out into the clear light of day. And once in
the village, Bostil shook himself as if to cast off an evil,
ever-present, pressing spell.
The races were now only a few days off. Piutes and Navajos were camped
out on the sage, and hourly the number grew as more came in. They were
building cedar sunshades. Columns of blue smoke curled up here and
there. Mustangs and ponies grazed everywhere, and a line of Indians
extended along the racecourse, where trials were being held. The
village was full of riders, horse-traders and hunters, and ranchers.
Work on the ranges had practically stopped for the time being, and in
another day or so every inhabitant of the country would be in Bostil's
Ford.
Bostil walked into the village, grimly conscious that the presence of
the Indians and riders and horses, the action and color and bustle, the
near approach of the great race-day--these things that in former years
had brought him keen delight and speculation--had somehow lost their
tang. He had changed. Something was wrong in him. But he must go among
these visitors and welcome them as of old; he who had always been the
life of these racing-days must be outwardly the same. And the task was
all the harder because of the pleasure shown by old friends among the
Indians and the riders at meeting him. Bostil knew he had been a
cunning horse-trader, but he had likewise been a good friend. Many were
the riders and Indians who owed much to him. So everywhere he was
hailed and besieged, until finally the old excitement of betting and
bantering took hold of him and he forgot his brooding.
Brackton's place, as always, was a headquarters for all visitors.
Macomber had just come in full of enthusiasm and pride over the horse
he had entered, and he had money to wager. Two Navajo chiefs, called by
white men Old Horse and Silver, were there for the first time in years.
They were ready to gamble horse against horse. Cal Blinn and his riders
of Durango had arrived; likewise Colson, Sticks, and Burthwait, old
friends and rivals of Bostil's.
For a while Brackton's was merry. There was some drinking and much
betting. It was characteristic of Bostil that he would give any odds
asked on the King in a race; and, furthermore, he would take any end of
wagers on other horses. As far as his own horses were concerned he bet
shrewdly, but in races where his horses did not figure he seemed to
find fun in the betting, whether or not he won.
The fact remained, however, that there were only two wagers against the
King, and both were put up by Indians. Macomber was betting on second
or third place for his horse in the big race. No odds of Bostil's
tempted him.
"Say, where's Wetherby?" rolled out Bostil. "He'll back his hoss."
"Wetherby's ridin' over to-morrow," replied Macomber. "But you gotta
bet him two to one."
"See hyar, Bostil," spoke up old Cal Blinn, "you jest wait till I git
an eye on the King's runnin'. Mebbe I'll go you even money."
"An' as fer me, Bostil," said Colson, "I ain't set up yit which hoss
I'll race."
Burthwait, an old rider, came forward to Brackton's desk and entered a
wager against the field that made all the men gasp.
"By George! pard, you ain't a-limpin' along!" ejaculated Bostil,
admiringly, and he put a hand on the other's shoulder.
"Bostil, I've a grand hoss," replied Burthwait. "He's four years old, I
guess, fer he was born wild, an' you never seen him."
"Wild hoss? ... Huh!" growled Bostil. "You must think he can run."
"Why, Bostil, a streak of lightnin' ain't anywheres with him."
"Wal, I'm glad to hear it," said Bostil, gruffly. "Brack, how many
hosses entered now for the big race?"
The lean, gray Brackton bent earnestly over his soiled ledger, while
the riders and horsemen round him grew silent to listen.
"Thar's the Sage King by Bostil," replied Brackton. "Blue Roan an' Peg,
by Creech; Whitefoot, by Macomber; Rocks, by Holley; Hoss-shoes, by
Blinn; Bay Charley, by Burthwait. Then thar's the two mustangs entered
by Old Hoss an' Silver--an' last--Wildfire, by Lucy Bostil."
"What's thet last?" queried Bostil.
"Wildfire, by Lucy Bostil," repeated Brackton.
"Has the girl gone an' entered a hoss?"
"She sure has. She came in to-day, regular an' business-like, writ her
name an' her hoss's--here 'tis--an' put up the entrance money."
"Wal, I'll be d--d!" exclaimed Bostil. He was astonished and pleased.
"She said she'd do it. But I didn't take no stock in her talk.... An'
the hoss's name?"
"Wildfire."
"Huh! ... Wildfire. Mebbe thet girl can't think of names for hosses!
What's this hoss she calls Wildfire?"
"She sure didn't say," replied Brackton. "Holley an' Van an' some more
of the boys was here. They joked her a little. You oughter seen the
look Lucy give them. But fer once she seemed mum. She jest walked away
mysterious like."
"Lucy's got a pony off some Indian, I reckon," returned Bostil, and he
laughed. "Then thet makes ten hosses entered so far?"
"Right. An' there's sure to be one more. I guess the track's wide
enough for twelve."
"Wal, Brack, there'll likely be one hoss out in front an' some
stretched out behind," replied Bostil, dryly. "The track's sure wide
enough."
"Won't thet be a grand race!" exclaimed an enthusiastic rider. "Wisht I
had about a million to bet!"
"Bostil, I 'most forgot," went on Brackton, "Cordts sent word by the
Piutes who come to-day thet he'd be here sure."
Bostil's face subtly changed. The light seemed to leave it. He did not
reply to Brackton--did not show that he heard the comment on all sides.
Public opinion was against Bostil's permission to allow Cordts and his
horse-thieves to attend the races. Bostil appeared grave, regretful.
Yet it was known by all that in the strangeness and perversity of his
rider's nature he wanted Cordts to see the King win that race. It was
his rider's vanity and defiance in the teeth of a great horse-thief.
But no good would come of Cordts's presence--that much was manifest.
There was a moment of silence. All these men, if they did not fear
Bostil, were sometimes uneasy when near him. Some who were more
reckless than discreet liked to irritate him. That, too, was a rider's
weakness.
"When's Creech's hosses comin' over?" asked Colson, with sudden
interest.
"Wal, I reckon--soon," replied Bostil, constrainedly, and he turned
away.
By the time he got home all the excitement of the past hour had left
him and gloom again abided in his mind. He avoided his daughter and
forgot the fact of her entering a horse in the race. He ate supper
alone, without speaking to his sister. Then in the dusk he went out to
the corrals and called the King to the fence. There was love between
master and horse. Bostil talked low, like a woman, to Sage King. And
the hard old rider's heart was full and a lump swelled in his throat,
for contact with the King reminded him that other men loved other
horses.
Bostil returned to the house and went to his room, where he sat
thinking in the dark. By and by all was quiet. Then seemingly with a
wrench he bestirred himself and did what for him was a strange action.
Removing his boots, he put on a pair of moccasins. He slipped out of
the house; he kept to the flagstone of the walk; he took to the sage
till out of the village, and then he sheered round to the river trail.
With the step and sureness and the eyes of an Indian he went down
through that pitch-black canyon to the river and the ford.
The river seemed absolutely the same as during the day. He peered
through the dark opaqueness of gloom. It moved there, the river he
knew, shadowy, mysterious, murmuring. Bostil went down to the edge of
the water, and, sitting there, he listened. Yes--the voices of the
stream were the same. But after a long time he imagined there was among
them an infinitely low voice, as if from a great distance. He imagined
this; he doubted; he made sure; and then all seemed fancy again. His
mind held only one idea and was riveted round it. He strained his
hearing, so long, so intently, that at last he knew he had heard what
he was longing for. Then in the gloom he took to the trail, and
returned home as he had left, stealthily, like an Indian.
But Bostil did not sleep nor rest.
Next morning early he rode down to the river. Somers and Shugrue had
finished the boat and were waiting. Other men were there, curious and
eager. Joel Creech, barefooted and ragged, with hollow eyes and strange
actions, paced the sands.
The boat was lying bottom up. Bostil examined the new planking and the
seams. Then he straightened his form.
"Turn her over," he ordered. "Shove her in. An' let her soak up to-day."
The men seemed glad and relieved. Joel Creech heard and he came near to
Bostil.
"You'll--you'll fetch Dad's hosses over?" he queried.
"Sure. To-morrow," replied Bostil, cheerily.
Joel smiled, and that smile showed what might have been possible for
him under kinder conditions of life. "Now, Bostil, I'm sorry fer what I
said," blurted Joel.
"Shut up. Go tell your old man."
Joel ran down to his skiff and, leaping in, began to row vigorously
across. Bostil watched while the workmen turned the boat over and slid
it off the sand-bar and tied it securely to the mooring. Bostil
observed that not a man there saw anything unusual about the river.
But, for that matter, there was nothing to see. The river was the same.
That night when all was quiet in and around the village Bostil emerged
from his house and took to his stealthy stalk down toward the river.
The moment he got out into the night oppression left him. How
interminable the hours had been! Suspense, doubt, anxiety, fear no
longer burdened him. The night was dark, with only a few stars, and the
air was cool. A soft wind blew across his heated face. A neighbor's
dog, baying dismally, startled Bostil. He halted to listen, then stole
on under the cottonwoods, through the sage, down the trail, into the
jet-black canyon. Yet he found his way as if it had been light. In the
darkness of his room he had been a slave to his indecision; now in the
darkness of the looming cliffs he was free, resolved, immutable.
The distance seemed short. He passed out of the narrow canyon, skirted
the gorge over the river, and hurried down into the shadowy
amphitheater under the looming walls.
The boat lay at the mooring, one end resting lightly the sand-bar. With
strong, nervous clutch Bostil felt the knots of the cables. Then he
peered into the opaque gloom of that strange and huge V-shaped split
between the great canyon walls. Bostil's mind had begun to relax from
the single idea. Was he alone? Except for the low murmur of the river
there was dead silence--a silence like no other--a silence which seemed
held under imprisoning walls. Yet Bostil peered long into the shadows.
Then he looked up. The ragged ramparts far above frowned bold and black
at a few cold stars, and the blue of its sky was without the usual
velvety brightness. How far it was up to that corrugated rim! All of a
sudden Bostil hated this vast ebony pit.
He strode down to the water and, sitting upon the stone he had occupied
so often, he listened. He turned his ear up-stream, then down-stream,
and to the side, and again up-stream and listened.
The river seemed the same.
It was slow, heavy, listless, eddying, lingering, moving--the same
apparently as for days past. It splashed very softly and murmured low
and gurgled faintly. It gave forth fitful little swishes and musical
tinkles and lapping sounds. It was flowing water, yet the proof was
there of tardiness. Now it was almost still, and then again it moved
on. It was a river of mystery telling a lie with its low music. As
Bostil listened all those soft, watery sounds merged into what seemed a
moaning, and that moaning held a roar so low as to be only
distinguishable to the ear trained by years.
No--the river was not the same. For the voice of its soft moaning
showed to Bostil its meaning. It called from the far north--the north
of great ice-clad peaks beginning to glisten under the nearing sun; of
vast snow-filled canyons dripping and melting; of the crystal brooks
suddenly colored and roiled and filled bank-full along the mountain
meadows; of many brooks plunging down and down, rolling the rocks, to
pour their volume into the growing turbid streams on the slopes. It was
the voice of all that widely separated water spilled suddenly with
magical power into the desert river to make it a mighty, thundering
torrent, red and defiled, terrible in its increasing onslaught into the
canyon, deep, ponderous, but swift--the Colorado in flood.
And as Bostil heard that voice he trembled. What was the thing he meant
to do? A thousand thoughts assailed him in answer and none were clear.
A chill passed over him. Suddenly he felt that the cold stole up from
his feet. They were both in the water. He pulled them out and, bending
down, watched the dim, dark line of water. It moved up and up, inch by
inch, swiftly. The river was on the rise!
Bostil leaped up. He seemed possessed of devils. A rippling hot gash of
blood fired his every vein and tremor after tremor shook him.
"By G---d! I had it right--she's risin'!" he exclaimed, hoarsely.
He stared in fascinated certainty at the river. All about it and
pertaining to it had changed. The murmur and moan changed to a low,
sullen roar. The music was gone. The current chafed at its rock-bound
confines. Here was an uneasy, tormented, driven river! The light from
the stars shone on dark, glancing, restless waters, uneven and strange.
And while Bostil watched, whether it was a short time or long, the
remorseless, destructive nature of the river showed itself.
Bostil began to pace the sands. He thought of those beautiful
race-horses across the river.
"It's not too late!" he muttered. "I can get the boat over an'
back--yet!"
He knew that on the morrow the Colorado in flood would bar those
horses, imprison them in a barren canyon, shut them in to starve.
"It'd be hellish! ... Bostil, you can't do it. You ain't thet kind of a
man.... Bostil poison a water-hole where hosses loved to drink, or burn
over grass! ... What would Lucy think of you? ... No, Bostil, you've
let spite rule bad. Hurry now and save them hosses!"
He strode down to the boat. It swung clear now, and there was water
between it and the shore. Bostil laid hold of the cables. As he did so
he thought of Creech and a blackness enfolded him. He forgot Creech's
horses. Something gripped him, burned him--some hard and bitter feeling
which he thought was hate of Creech. Again the wave of fire ran over
him, and his huge hands strained on the cables. The fiend of that
fiendish river had entered his soul. He meant ruin to a man. He meant
more than ruin. He meant to destroy what his enemy, his rival loved.
The darkness all about him, the gloom and sinister shadow of the
canyon, the sullen increasing roar of the' river--these lent their
influence to the deed, encouraged him, drove him onward, fought and
strangled the resistance in his heart. As he brooded all the motives
for the deed grew like that remorseless river. Had not his enemy's son
shot at him from ambush? Was not his very life at stake? A terrible
blow must be dealt Creech, one that would crush him or else lend him
manhood enough to come forth with a gun. Bostil, in his torment,
divined that Creech would know who had ruined him. They would meet
then, as Bostil had tried more than once to bring about a meeting.
Bostil saw into his soul, and it was a gulf like this canyon pit where
the dark and sullen river raged. He shrank at what he saw, but the
furies of passion held him fast. His hands tore at the cables. Then he
fell to pacing to and fro in the gloom. Every moment the river changed
its voice. In an hour flood would be down. Too late, then! Bostil again
remembered the sleek, slim, racy thoroughbreds--Blue Roan, a wild horse
he had longed to own, and Peg, a mare that had no equal in the uplands.
Where did Bostil's hate of a man stand in comparison with love of a
horse? He began to sweat and the sweat burned him.
"How soon'll Creech hear the river an' know what's comin'?" muttered
Bostil, darkly. And that question showed him how he was lost. All this
strife of doubt and fear and horror were of no use. He meant to doom
Creech's horses. The thing had been unalterable from the inception of
the insidious, hateful idea. It was irresistible. He grew strong, hard,
fierce, and implacable. He found himself. He strode back to the cables.
The knots, having dragged in the water, were soaking wet and swollen.
He could not untie them. Then he cut one strand after another. The boat
swung out beyond his reach.
Instinctively Bostil reached to pull it back.
"My God! ... It's goin'!" he whispered. "What have I done?"
He--Bostil--who had made this Crossing of the Fathers more famous as
Bostil's Ford--he--to cut the boat adrift! The thing was inconceivable.
The roar of the river rose weird and mournful and incessant, with few
breaks, and these were marked by strange ripping and splashing sounds
made as the bulges of water broke on the surface. Twenty feet out the
boat floated, turning a little as it drifted. It seemed loath to leave.
It held on the shore eddy. Hungrily, spitefully the little, heavy waves
lapped it. Bostil watched it with dilating eyes. There! the current
caught one end and the water rose in a hollow splash over the corner.
An invisible hand, like a mighty giant's, seemed to swing the boat out.
It had been dark; now it was opaque, now shadowy, now dim. How swift
this cursed river! Was there any way in which Bostil could recover his
boat? The river answered him with hollow, deep mockery. Despair seized
upon him. And the vague shape of the boat, spectral and instinct with
meaning, passed from Bostil's strained gaze.
"So help me God, I've done it!" he groaned, hoarsely. And he staggered
back and sat down. Mind and heart and soul were suddenly and
exquisitely acute to the shame of his act. Remorse seized upon his
vitals. He suffered physical agony, as if a wolf gnawed him internally.
"To hell with Creech an' his hosses, but where do I come in as a man?"
he whispered. And he sat there, arms tight around his knees, locked
both mentally and physically into inaction.
The rising water broke the spell and drove him back. The river was
creeping no longer. It swelled. And the roar likewise swelled. Bostil
hurried across the flat to get to the rocky trail before he was cut
off, and the last few rods he waded in water up to his knees.
"I'll leave no trail there," he muttered, with a hard laugh. It sounded
ghastly to him, like the laugh of the river.
And there at the foot of the rocky trail he halted to watch and listen.
The old memorable boom came to his ears. The flood was coming. For
twenty-three years he had heard the vanguard boom of the Colorado in
flood. But never like this, for in the sound he heard the strife and
passion of his blood, and realized himself a human counterpart of that
remorseless river. The moments passed and each one saw a swelling of
the volume of sound. The sullen roar just below him was gradually lost
in a distant roar. A steady wind now blew through the canyon. The great
walls seemed to gape wider to prepare for the torrent. Bostil backed
slowly up the trail as foot by foot the water rose. The floor of the
amphitheater was now a lake of choppy, angry waves. The willows bent
and seethed in the edge of the current. Beyond ran an uneven, bulging
mass that resembled some gray, heavy moving monster. In the gloom
Bostil could see how the river turned a corner of wall and slanted away
from it toward the center, where it rose higher. Black objects that
must have been driftwood appeared on this crest. They showed an
instant, then flashed out of sight. The boom grew steadier, closer,
louder, and the reverberations, like low detonations of thunder, were
less noticeable because all sounds were being swallowed up.
A harder breeze puffed into Bostil's face. It brought a tremendous
thunder, as if all the colossal walls were falling in avalanche. Bostil
knew the crest of the flood had turned the corner above and would soon
reach him. He watched. He listened, but sound had ceased. His ears
seemed ringing and they hurt. All his body felt cold, and he backed up
and up, with dead feet.
The shadows of the canyon lightened. A river-wide froth, like a
curtain, moved down, spreading mushroom-wise before it, a rolling,
heaving maelstrom. Bostil ran to escape the great wave that surged into
the amphitheater, up and up the rocky trail. When he turned again he
seemed to look down into hell. Murky depths, streaked by pale gleams,
and black, sinister, changing forms yawned beneath them. He watched
with fixed eyes until once more the feeling of filled ears left him and
an awful thundering boom assured him of actualities. It was only the
Colorado in flood.