SURPRISE VALLEY
Back in that strange cañon, which Venters had found indeed a valley of
surprises, the wounded girl’s whispered appeal, almost a prayer, not to
take her back to the rustlers crowned the events of the last few days
with a confounding climax. That she should not want to return to them
staggered Venters. Presently, as logical thought returned, her appeal
confirmed his first impression—that she was more unfortunate than
bad—and he experienced a sensation of gladness. If he had known before
that Oldring’s Masked Rider was a woman his opinion would have been
formed and he would have considered her abandoned. But his first
knowledge had come when he lifted a white face quivering in a
convulsion of agony; he had heard God’s name whispered by blood-stained
lips; through her solemn and awful eyes he had caught a glimpse of her
soul. And just now had come the entreaty to him,
“Don’t—take—me—back—there!”
Once for all Venters’s quick mind formed a permanent conception of this
poor girl. He based it, not upon what the chances of life had made her,
but upon the revelation of dark eyes that pierced the infinite, upon a
few pitiful, halting words that betrayed failure and wrong and misery,
yet breathed the truth of a tragic fate rather than a natural leaning
to evil.
“What’s your name?” he inquired.
“Bess,” she answered.
“Bess what?”
“That’s enough—just Bess.”
The red that deepened in her cheeks was not all the flush of fever.
Venters marveled anew, and this time at the tint of shame in her face,
at the momentary drooping of long lashes. She might be a rustler’s
girl, but she was still capable of shame, she might be dying, but she
still clung to some little remnant of honor.
“Very well, Bess. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “But this matters—what
shall I do with you?”
“Are—you—a rider?” she whispered.
“Not now. I was once. I drove the Withersteen herds. But I lost my
place—lost all I owned—and now I’m—I’m a sort of outcast. My name’s
Bern Venters.”
“You won’t—take me—to Cottonwoods—or Glaze? I’d be—hanged.”
“No, indeed. But I must do something with you. For it’s not safe for me
here. I shot that rustler who was with you. Sooner or later he’ll be
found, and then my tracks. I must find a safer hiding-place where I
can’t be trailed.”
“Leave me—here.”
“Alone—to die!”
“Yes.”
“I will not.” Venters spoke shortly with a kind of ring in his voice.
“What—do you want—to do—with me?” Her whispering grew difficult, so low
and faint that Venters had to stoop to hear her.
“Why, let’s see,” he replied, slowly. “I’d like to take you some place
where I could watch by you, nurse you, till you’re all right.”
“And—then?”
“Well, it’ll be time to think of that when you’re cured of your wound.
It’s a bad one. And—Bess, if you don’t want to live—if you don’t fight
for life—you’ll never—”
“Oh! I want—to live! I’m afraid—to die. But I’d rather—die—than go
back—to—to—”
“To Oldring?” asked Venters, interrupting her in turn.
Her lips moved in an affirmative.
“I promise not to take you back to him or to Cottonwoods or to Glaze.”
The mournful earnestness of her gaze suddenly shone with unutterable
gratitude and wonder. And as suddenly Venters found her eyes beautiful
as he had never seen or felt beauty. They were as dark blue as the sky
at night. Then the flashing changed to a long, thoughtful look, in
which there was a wistful, unconscious searching of his face, a look
that trembled on the verge of hope and trust.
“I’ll try—to live,” she said. The broken whisper just reached his ears.
“Do what—you want—with me.”
“Rest then—don’t worry—sleep,” he replied.
Abruptly he arose, as if words had been decision for him, and with a
sharp command to the dogs he strode from the camp. Venters was
conscious of an indefinite conflict of change within him. It seemed to
be a vague passing of old moods, a dim coalescing of new forces, a
moment of inexplicable transition. He was both cast down and uplifted.
He wanted to think and think of the meaning, but he resolutely
dispelled emotion. His imperative need at present was to find a safe
retreat, and this called for action.
So he set out. It still wanted several hours before dark. This trip he
turned to the left and wended his skulking way southward a mile or more
to the opening of the valley, where lay the strange scrawled rocks. He
did not, however, venture boldly out into the open sage, but clung to
the right-hand wall and went along that till its perpendicular line
broke into the long incline of bare stone.
Before proceeding farther he halted, studying the strange character of
this slope and realizing that a moving black object could be seen far
against such background. Before him ascended a gradual swell of smooth
stone. It was hard, polished, and full of pockets worn by centuries of
eddying rain-water. A hundred yards up began a line of grotesque
cedar-trees, and they extended along the slope clear to its most
southerly end. Beyond that end Venters wanted to get, and he concluded
the cedars, few as they were, would afford some cover.
Therefore he climbed swiftly. The trees were farther up than he had
estimated, though he had from long habit made allowance for the
deceiving nature of distances in that country. When he gained the cover
of cedars he paused to rest and look, and it was then he saw how the
trees sprang from holes in the bare rock. Ages of rain had run down the
slope, circling, eddying in depressions, wearing deep round holes.
There had been dry seasons, accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds,
and cedars rose wonderfully out of solid rock. But these were not
beautiful cedars. They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions, as
if growth were torture, dead at the tops, shrunken, gray, and old.
Theirs had been a bitter fight, and Venters felt a strange sympathy for
them. This country was hard on trees—and men.
He slipped from cedar to cedar, keeping them between him and the open
valley. As he progressed, the belt of trees widened and he kept to its
upper margin. He passed shady pockets half full of water, and, as he
marked the location for possible future need, he reflected that there
had been no rain since the winter snows. From one of these shady holes
a rabbit hopped out and squatted down, laying its ears flat.
Venters wanted fresh meat now more than when he had only himself to
think of. But it would not do to fire his rifle there. So he broke off
a cedar branch and threw it. He crippled the rabbit, which started to
flounder up the slope. Venters did not wish to lose the meat, and he
never allowed crippled game to escape, to die lingeringly in some
covert. So after a careful glance below, and back toward the cañon, he
began to chase the rabbit.
The fact that rabbits generally ran uphill was not new to him. But it
presently seemed singular why this rabbit, that might have escaped
downward, chose to ascend the slope. Venters knew then that it had a
burrow higher up. More than once he jerked over to seize it, only in
vain, for the rabbit by renewed effort eluded his grasp. Thus the chase
continued on up the bare slope. The farther Venters climbed the more
determined he grew to catch his quarry. At last, panting and sweating,
he captured the rabbit at the foot of a steeper grade. Laying his rifle
on the bulge of rising stone, he killed the animal and slung it from
his belt.
Before starting down he waited to catch his breath. He had climbed far
up that wonderful smooth slope, and had almost reached the base of
yellow cliff that rose skyward, a huge scarred and cracked bulk. It
frowned down upon him as if to forbid further ascent. Venters bent over
for his rifle, and, as he picked it up from where it leaned against the
steeper grade, he saw several little nicks cut in the solid stone.
They were only a few inches deep and about a foot apart. Venters began
to count them—one—two—three—four—on up to sixteen. That number carried
his glance to the top of his first bulging bench of cliff-base. Above,
after a more level offset, was still steeper slope, and the line of
nicks kept on, to wind round a projecting corner of wall.
A casual glance would have passed by these little dents; if Venters had
not known what they signified he would never have bestowed upon them
the second glance. But he knew they had been cut there by hand, and,
though age-worn, he recognized them as steps cut in the rock by the
cliff-dwellers. With a pulse beginning to beat and hammer away his
calmness, he eyed that indistinct line of steps, up to where the
buttress of wall hid further sight of them. He knew that behind the
corner of stone would be a cave or a crack which could never be
suspected from below. Chance, that had sported with him of late, now
directed him to a probable hiding-place. Again he laid aside his rifle,
and, removing boots and belt, he began to walk up the steps. Like a
mountain goat, he was agile, sure-footed, and he mounted the first
bench without bending to use his hands. The next ascent took grip of
fingers as well as toes, but he climbed steadily, swiftly, to reach the
projecting corner, and slipped around it. Here he faced a notch in the
cliff. At the apex he turned abruptly into a ragged vent that split the
ponderous wall clear to the top, showing a narrow streak of blue sky.
At the base this vent was dark, cool, and smelled of dry, musty dust.
It zigzagged so that he could not see ahead more than a few yards at a
time. He noticed tracks of wildcats and rabbits in the dusty floor. At
every turn he expected to come upon a huge cavern full of little square
stone houses, each with a small aperture like a staring dark eye. The
passage lightened and widened, and opened at the foot of a narrow,
steep, ascending chute.
Venters had a moment’s notice of the rock, which was of the same
smoothness and hardness as the slope below, before his gaze went
irresistibly upward to the precipitous walls of this wide ladder of
granite. These were ruined walls of yellow sandstone, and so split and
splintered, so overhanging with great sections of balancing rim, so
impending with tremendous crumbling crags, that Venters caught his
breath sharply, and, appalled, he instinctively recoiled as if a step
upward might jar the ponderous cliffs from their foundation. Indeed, it
seemed that these ruined cliffs were but awaiting a breath of wind to
collapse and come tumbling down. Venters hesitated. It would be a
foolhardy man who risked his life under the leaning, waiting avalanches
of rock in that gigantic split. Yet how many years had they leaned
there without falling! At the bottom of the incline was an immense heap
of weathered sandstone all crumbling to dust, but there were no huge
rocks as large as houses, such as rested so lightly and frightfully
above, waiting patiently and inevitably to crash down. Slowly split
from the parent rock by the weathering process, and carved and
sculptured by ages of wind and rain, they waited their moment. Venters
felt how foolish it was for him to fear these broken walls; to fear
that, after they had endured for thousands of years, the moment of his
passing should be the one for them to slip. Yet he feared it.
“What a place to hide!” muttered Venters. “I’ll climb—I’ll see where
this thing goes. If only I can find water!”
With teeth tight shut he essayed the incline. And as he climbed he bent
his eyes downward. This, however, after a little grew impossible; he
had to look to obey his eager, curious mind. He raised his glance and
saw light between row on row of shafts and pinnacles and crags that
stood out from the main wall. Some leaned against the cliff, others
against each other; many stood sheer and alone; all were crumbling,
cracked, rotten. It was a place of yellow, ragged ruin. The passage
narrowed as he went up; it became a slant, hard for him to stick on; it
was smooth as marble. Finally he surmounted it, surprised to find the
walls still several hundred feet high, and a narrow gorge leading down
on the other side. This was a divide between two inclines, about twenty
yards wide. At one side stood an enormous rock. Venters gave it a
second glance, because it rested on a pedestal. It attracted closer
attention. It was like a colossal pear of stone standing on its stem.
Around the bottom were thousands of little nicks just distinguishable
to the eye. They were marks of stone hatchets. The cliff-dwellers had
chipped and chipped away at this boulder till it rested its tremendous
bulk upon a mere pin-point of its surface. Venters pondered. Why had
the little stone-men hacked away at that big boulder? It bore no
semblance to a statue or an idol or a godhead or a sphinx.
Instinctively he put his hands on it and pushed; then his shoulder and
heaved. The stone seemed to groan, to stir, to grate, and then to move.
It tipped a little downward and hung balancing for a long instant,
slowly returned, rocked slightly, groaned, and settled back to its
former position.
Venters divined its significance. It had been meant for defense. The
cliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, had
cunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to be
dislodged by strong hands. Just below it leaned a tottering crag that
would have toppled, starting an avalanche on an acclivity where no
sliding mass could stop. Crags and pinnacles, splintered cliffs, and
leaning shafts and monuments, would have thundered down to block
forever the outlet to Deception Pass.
“That was a narrow shave for me,” said Venters, soberly. “A balancing
rock! The cliff-dwellers never had to roll it. They died, vanished, and
here the rock stands, probably little changed.... But it might serve
another lonely dweller of the cliffs. I’ll hide up here somewhere, if I
can only find water.”
He descended the gorge on the other side. The slope was gradual, the
space narrow, the course straight for many rods. A gloom hung between
the up-sweeping walls. In a turn the passage narrowed to scarce a dozen
feet, and here was darkness of night. But light shone ahead; another
abrupt turn brought day again, and then wide open space.
Above Venters loomed a wonderful arch of stone bridging the cañon rims,
and through the enormous round portal gleamed and glistened a beautiful
valley shining under sunset gold reflected by surrounding cliffs. He
gave a start of surprise. The valley was a cove a mile long, half that
wide, and its enclosing walls were smooth and stained, and curved
inward, forming great caves. He decided that its floor was far higher
than the level of Deception Pass and the intersecting cañons. No purple
sage colored this valley floor. Instead there were the white of aspens,
streaks of branch and slender trunk glistening from the green of
leaves, and the darker green of oaks, and through the middle of this
forest, from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which
marked the course of cottonwoods and willows.
“There’s water here—and this is the place for me,” said Venters. “Only
birds can peep over those walls, I’ve gone Oldring one better.”
Venters waited no longer, and turned swiftly to retrace his steps. He
named the cañon Surprise Valley and the huge boulder that guarded the
outlet Balancing Rock. Going down he did not find himself attended by
such fears as had beset him in the climb; still, he was not easy in
mind and could not occupy himself with plans of moving the girl and his
outfit until he had descended to the notch. There he rested a moment
and looked about him. The pass was darkening with the approach of
night. At the corner of the wall, where the stone steps turned, he saw
a spur of rock that would serve to hold the noose of a lasso. He needed
no more aid to scale that place. As he intended to make the move under
cover of darkness, he wanted most to be able to tell where to climb up.
So, taking several small stones with him, he stepped and slid down to
the edge of the slope where he had left his rifle and boots. He placed
the stones some yards apart. He left the rabbit lying upon the bench
where the steps began. Then he addressed a keen-sighted, remembering
gaze to the rim-wall above. It was serrated, and between two spears of
rock, directly in line with his position, showed a zigzag crack that at
night would let through the gleam of sky. This settled, he put on his
belt and boots and prepared to descend. Some consideration was
necessary to decide whether or not to leave his rifle there. On the
return, carrying the girl and a pack, it would be added encumbrance;
and after debating the matter he left the rifle leaning against the
bench. As he went straight down the slope he halted every few rods to
look up at his mark on the rim. It changed, but he fixed each change in
his memory. When he reached the first cedar-tree, he tied his scarf
upon a dead branch, and then hurried toward camp, having no more
concern about finding his trail upon the return trip.
Darkness soon emboldened and lent him greater speed. It occurred to
him, as he glided into the grassy glade near camp and head the whinny
of a horse, that he had forgotten Wrangle. The big sorrel could not be
gotten into Surprise Valley. He would have to be left here.
Venters determined at once to lead the other horses out through the
thicket and turn them loose. The farther they wandered from this cañon
the better it would suit him. He easily descried Wrangle through the
gloom, but the others were not in sight. Venters whistled low for the
dogs, and when they came trotting to him he sent them out to search for
the horses, and followed. It soon developed that they were not in the
glade nor the thicket. Venters grew cold and rigid at the thought of
rustlers having entered his retreat. But the thought passed, for the
demeanor of Ring and Whitie reassured him. The horses had wandered
away.
Under the clump of silver spruces a denser mantle of darkness, yet not
so thick that Venter’s night-practiced eyes could not catch the white
oval of a still face. He bent over it with a slight suspension of
breath that was both caution lest he frighten her and chill uncertainty
of feeling lest he find her dead. But she slept, and he arose to
renewed activity.
He packed his saddle-bags. The dogs were hungry, they whined about him
and nosed his busy hands; but he took no time to feed them nor to
satisfy his own hunger. He slung the saddlebags over his shoulders and
made them secure with his lasso. Then he wrapped the blankets closer
about the girl and lifted her in his arms. Wrangle whinnied and thumped
the ground as Venters passed him with the dogs. The sorrel knew he was
being left behind, and was not sure whether he liked it or not. Venters
went on and entered the thicket. Here he had to feel his way in pitch
blackness and to wedge his progress between the close saplings. Time
meant little to him now that he had started, and he edged along with
slow side movement till he got clear of the thicket. Ring and Whitie
stood waiting for him. Taking to the open aisles and patches of the
sage, he walked guardedly, careful not to stumble or step in dust or
strike against spreading sage-branches.
If he were burdened he did not feel it. From time to time, when he
passed out of the black lines of shade into the wan starlight, he
glanced at the white face of the girl lying in his arms. She had not
awakened from her sleep or stupor. He did not rest until he cleared the
black gate of the cañon. Then he leaned against a stone breast-high to
him and gently released the girl from his hold. His brow and hair and
the palms of his hands were wet, and there was a kind of nervous
contraction of his muscles. They seemed to ripple and string tense. He
had a desire to hurry and no sense of fatigue. A wind blew the scent of
sage in his face. The first early blackness of night passed with the
brightening of the stars. Somewhere back on his trail a coyote yelped,
splitting the dead silence. Venters’s faculties seemed singularly
acute.
He lifted the girl again and pressed on. The valley afforded better
traveling than the cañon. It was lighter, freer of sage, and there were
no rocks. Soon, out of the pale gloom shone a still paler thing, and
that was the low swell of slope. Venters mounted it and his dogs walked
beside him. Once upon the stone he slowed to snail pace, straining his
sight to avoid the pockets and holes. Foot by foot he went up. The
weird cedars, like great demons and witches chained to the rock and
writhing in silent anguish, loomed up with wide and twisting naked
arms. Venters crossed this belt of cedars, skirted the upper border,
and recognized the tree he had marked, even before he saw his waving
scarf.
Here he knelt and deposited the girl gently, feet first and slowly laid
her out full length. What he feared was to reopen one of her wounds. If
he gave her a violent jar, or slipped and fell! But the supreme
confidence so strangely felt that night admitted no such blunders.
The slope before him seemed to swell into obscurity to lose its
definite outline in a misty, opaque cloud that shaded into the
over-shadowing wall. He scanned the rim where the serrated points
speared the sky, and he found the zigzag crack. It was dim, only a
shade lighter than the dark ramparts, but he distinguished it, and that
served.
Lifting the girl, he stepped upward, closely attending to the nature of
the path under his feet. After a few steps he stopped to mark his line
with the crack in the rim. The dogs clung closer to him. While chasing
the rabbit this slope had appeared interminable to him; now, burdened
as he was, he did not think of length or height or toil. He remembered
only to avoid a misstep and to keep his direction. He climbed on, with
frequent stops to watch the rim, and before he dreamed of gaining the
bench he bumped his knees into it, and saw, in the dim gray light, his
rifle and the rabbit. He had come straight up without mishap or
swerving off his course, and his shut teeth unlocked.
As he laid the girl down in the shallow hollow of the little ridge with
her white face upturned, she opened her eyes. Wide, staring black, at
once like both the night and the stars, they made her face seem still
whiter.
“Is—it—you?” she asked, faintly.
“Yes,” replied Venters.
“Oh! Where—are we?”
“I’m taking you to a safe place where no one will ever find you. I must
climb a little here and call the dogs. Don’t be afraid. I’ll soon come
for you.”
She said no more. Her eyes watched him steadily for a moment and then
closed. Venters pulled off his boots and then felt for the little steps
in the rock. The shade of the cliff above obscured the point he wanted
to gain, but he could see dimly a few feet before him. What he had
attempted with care he now went at with surpassing lightness. Buoyant,
rapid, sure, he attained the corner of wall and slipped around it. Here
he could not see a hand before his face, so he groped along, found a
little flat space, and there removed the saddle-bags. The lasso he took
back with him to the corner and looped the noose over the spur of rock.
“Ring—Whitie—come,” he called, softly.
Low whines came up from below.
“Here! Come, Whitie—Ring,” he repeated, this time sharply.
Then followed scraping of claws and pattering of feet; and out of the
gray gloom below him swiftly climbed the dogs to reach his side and
pass beyond.
Venters descended, holding to the lasso. He tested its strength by
throwing all his weight upon it. Then he gathered the girl up, and,
holding her securely in his left arm, he began to climb, at every few
steps jerking his right hand upward along the lasso. It sagged at each
forward movement he made, but he balanced himself lightly during the
interval when he lacked the support of a taut rope. He climbed as if he
had wings, the strength of a giant, and knew not the sense of fear. The
sharp corner of cliff seemed to cut out of the darkness. He reached it
and the protruding shelf, and then, entering the black shade of the
notch, he moved blindly but surely to the place where he had left the
saddle-bags. He heard the dogs, though he could not see them. Once more
he carefully placed the girl at his feet. Then, on hands and knees, he
went over the little flat space, feeling for stones. He removed a
number, and, scraping the deep dust into a heap, he unfolded the outer
blanket from around the girl and laid her upon this bed. Then he went
down the slope again for his boots, rifle, and the rabbit, and,
bringing also his lasso with him, he made short work of that trip.
“Are—you—there?” The girl’s voice came low from the blackness.
“Yes,” he replied, and was conscious that his laboring breast made
speech difficult.
“Are we—in a cave?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, listen!... The waterfall!... I hear it! You’ve brought me back!”
Venters heard a murmuring moan that one moment swelled to a pitch
almost softly shrill and the next lulled to a low, almost inaudible
sigh.
“That’s—wind blowing—in the—cliffs,” he panted. “You’re far from
Oldring’s—cañon.”
The effort it cost him to speak made him conscious of extreme lassitude
following upon great exertion. It seemed that when he lay down and drew
his blanket over him the action was the last before utter prostration.
He stretched inert, wet, hot, his body one great strife of throbbing,
stinging nerves and bursting veins. And there he lay for a long while
before he felt that he had begun to rest.
Rest came to him that night, but no sleep. Sleep he did not want. The
hours of strained effort were now as if they had never been, and he
wanted to think. Earlier in the day he had dismissed an inexplicable
feeling of change; but now, when there was no longer demand on his
cunning and strength and he had time to think, he could not catch the
illusive thing that had sadly perplexed as well as elevated his spirit.
Above him, through a V-shaped cleft in the dark rim of the cliff, shone
the lustrous stars that had been his lonely accusers for a long, long
year. To-night they were different. He studied them. Larger, whiter,
more radiant they seemed; but that was not the difference he meant.
Gradually it came to him that the distinction was not one he saw, but
one he felt. In this he divined as much of the baffling change as he
thought would be revealed to him then. And as he lay there, with the
singing of the cliff-winds in his ears, the white stars above the dark,
bold vent, the difference which he felt was that he was no longer
alone.