THE FALL OF BALANCING ROCK
Through tear-blurred sight Jane Withersteen watched Venters and
Elizabeth Erne and the black racers disappear over the ridge of sage.
“They’re gone!” said Lassiter. “An’ they’re safe now. An’ there’ll
never be a day of their comin’ happy lives but what they’ll remember
Jane Withersteen an’—an’ Uncle Jim!... I reckon, Jane, we’d better be
on our way.”
The burros obediently wheeled and started down the break with little
cautious steps, but Lassiter had to leash the whining dogs and lead
them. Jane felt herself bound in a feeling that was neither
listlessness nor indifference, yet which rendered her incapable of
interest. She was still strong in body, but emotionally tired. That
hour at the entrance to Deception Pass had been the climax of her
suffering—the flood of her wrath—the last of her sacrifice—the
supremity of her love—and the attainment of peace. She thought that if
she had little Fay she would not ask any more of life.
Like an automaton she followed Lassiter down the steep trail of dust
and bits of weathered stone; and when the little slides moved with her
or piled around her knees she experienced no alarm. Vague relief came
to her in the sense of being enclosed between dark stone walls, deep
hidden from the glare of sun, from the glistening sage. Lassiter
lengthened the stirrup straps on one of the burros and bade her mount
and ride close to him. She was to keep the burro from cracking his
little hard hoofs on stones. Then she was riding on between dark,
gleaming walls. There were quiet and rest and coolness in this cañon.
She noted indifferently that they passed close under shady, bulging
shelves of cliff, through patches of grass and sage and thicket and
groves of slender trees, and over white, pebbly washes, and around
masses of broken rock. The burros trotted tirelessly; the dogs, once
more free, pattered tirelessly; and Lassiter led on with never a stop,
and at every open place he looked back. The shade under the walls gave
place to sunlight. And presently they came to a dense thicket of
slender trees, through which they passed to rich, green grass and
water. Here Lassiter rested the burros for a little while, but he was
restless, uneasy, silent, always listening, peering under the trees.
She dully reflected that enemies were behind them—before them; still
the thought awakened no dread or concern or interest.
At his bidding she mounted and rode on close to the heels of his burro.
The cañon narrowed; the walls lifted their rugged rims higher; and the
sun shone down hot from the center of the blue stream of sky above.
Lassiter traveled slower, with more exceeding care as to the ground he
chose, and he kept speaking low to the dogs. They were now
hunting-dogs—keen, alert, suspicious, sniffing the warm breeze. The
monotony of the yellow walls broke in change of color and smooth
surface, and the rugged outline of rims grew craggy. Splits appeared in
deep breaks, and gorges running at right angles, and then the Pass
opened wide at a junction of intersecting cañons.
Lassiter dismounted, led his burro, called the dogs close, and
proceeded at snail pace through dark masses of rock and dense thickets
under the left wall. Long he watched and listened before venturing to
cross the mouths of side cañons. At length he halted, fled his burro,
lifted a warning hand to Jane, and then slipped away among the
boulders, and, followed by the stealthy dogs, disappeared from sight.
The time he remained absent was neither short nor long to Jane
Withersteen.
When he reached her side again he was pale, and his lips were set in a
hard line, and his gray eyes glittered coldly. Bidding her dismount, he
led the burros into a covert of stones and cedars, and tied them.
“Jane, I’ve run into the fellers I’ve been lookin’ for, an’ I’m goin’
after them,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I reckon I won’t take time to tell you.”
“Couldn’t we slip by without being seen?”
“Likely enough. But that ain’t my game. An’ I’d like to know, in case I
don’t come back, what you’ll do.”
“What can I do?”
“I reckon you can go back to Tull. Or stay in the Pass an’ be taken off
by rustlers. Which’ll you do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think very well. But I believe I’d rather be
taken off by rustlers.”
Lassiter sat down, put his head in his hands, and remained for a few
moments in what appeared to be deep and painful thought. When he lifted
his face it was haggard, lined, cold as sculptured marble.
“I’ll go. I only mentioned that chance of my not comin’ back. I’m
pretty sure to come.”
“Need you risk so much? Must you fight more? Haven’t you shed enough
blood?”
“I’d like to tell you why I’m goin’,” he continued, in coldness he had
seldom used to her. She remarked it, but it was the same to her as if
he had spoken with his old gentle warmth. “But I reckon I won’t. Only,
I’ll say that mercy an’ goodness, such as is in you, though they’re the
grand things in human nature, can’t be lived up to on this Utah border.
Life’s hell out here. You think—or you used to think—that your religion
made this life heaven. Mebbe them scales on your eyes has dropped now.
Jane, I wouldn’t have you no different, an’ that’s why I’m going to try
to hide you somewhere in this Pass. I’d like to hide many more women,
for I’ve come to see there are more like you among your people. An’ I’d
like you to see jest how hard an’ cruel this border life is. It’s
bloody. You’d think churches an’ churchmen would make it better. They
make it worse. You give names to things—bishops, elders, ministers,
Mormonism, duty, faith, glory. You dream—or you’re driven mad. I’m a
man, an’ I know. I name fanatics, followers, blind women, oppressors,
thieves, ranchers, rustlers, riders. An’ we have—what you’ve lived
through these last months. It can’t be helped. But it can’t last
always. An’ remember this—some day the border’ll be better, cleaner,
for the ways of men like Lassiter!”
She saw him shake his tall form erect, look at her strangely and
steadfastly, and then, noiselessly, stealthily slip away amid the rocks
and trees. Ring and Whitie, not being bidden to follow, remained with
Jane. She felt extreme weariness, yet somehow it did not seem to be of
her body. And she sat down in the shade and tried to think. She saw a
creeping lizard, cactus flowers, the drooping burros, the resting dogs,
an eagle high over a yellow crag. Once the meanest flower, a color, the
flight of the bee, or any living thing had given her deepest joy.
Lassiter had gone off, yielding to his incurable blood lust, probably
to his own death; and she was sorry, but there was no feeling in her
sorrow.
Suddenly from the mouth of the cañon just beyond her rang out a clear,
sharp report of a rifle. Echoes clapped. Then followed a piercingly
high yell of anguish, quickly breaking. Again echoes clapped, in grim
imitation. Dull revolver shots—hoarse yells—pound of hoofs—shrill
neighs of horses—commingling of echoes—and again silence! Lassiter must
be busily engaged, thought Jane, and no chill trembled over her, no
blanching tightened her skin. Yes, the border was a bloody place. But
life had always been bloody. Men were blood-spillers. Phases of the
history of the world flashed through her mind—Greek and Roman wars,
dark, mediæval times, the crimes in the name of religion. On sea, on
land, everywhere—shooting, stabbing, cursing, clashing, fighting men!
Greed, power, oppression, fanaticism, love, hate, revenge, justice,
freedom—for these, men killed one another.
She lay there under the cedars, gazing up through the delicate lacelike
foliage at the blue sky, and she thought and wondered and did not care.
More rattling shots disturbed the noonday quiet. She heard a sliding of
weathered rock, a hoarse shout of warning, a yell of alarm, again the
clear, sharp crack of the rifle, and another cry that was a cry of
death. Then rifle reports pierced a dull volley of revolver shots.
Bullets whizzed over Jane’s hiding-place; one struck a stone and whined
away in the air. After that, for a time, succeeded desultory shots; and
then they ceased under long, thundering fire from heavier guns.
Sooner or later, then, Jane heard the cracking of horses’ hoofs on the
stones, and the sound came nearer and nearer. Silence intervened until
Lassiter’s soft, jingling step assured her of his approach. When he
appeared he was covered with blood.
“All right, Jane,” he said. “I come back. An’ don’t worry.”
With water from a canteen he washed the blood from his face and hands.
“Jane, hurry now. Tear my scarf in two, en’ tie up these places. That
hole through my hand is some inconvenient, worse’n this at over my ear.
There—you’re doin’ fine! Not a bit nervous—no tremblin’. I reckon I
ain’t done your courage justice. I’m glad you’re brave jest now—you’ll
need to be. Well, I was hid pretty good, enough to keep them from
shootin’ me deep, but they was slingin’ lead close all the time. I used
up all the rifle shells, an’ en I went after them. Mebbe you heard. It
was then I got hit. Had to use up every shell in my own gun, an’ they
did, too, as I seen. Rustlers an’ Mormons, Jane! An’ now I’m packin’
five bullet holes in my carcass, an’ guns without shells. Hurry, now.”
He unstrapped the saddle-bags from the burros, slipped the saddles and
let them lie, turned the burros loose, and, calling the dogs, led the
way through stones and cedars to an open where two horses stood.
“Jane, are you strong?” he asked.
“I think so. I’m not tired,” Jane replied.
“I don’t mean that way. Can you bear up?”
“I think I can bear anything.”
“I reckon you look a little cold an’ thick. So I’m preparin’ you.”
“For what?”
“I didn’t tell you why I jest had to go after them fellers. I couldn’t
tell you. I believe you’d have died. But I can tell you now—if you’ll
bear up under a shock?”
“Go on, my friend.”
“_I’ve got little Fay!_ Alive—bad hurt—but she’ll live!”
Jane Withersteen’s dead-locked feeling, rent by Lassiter’s deep,
quivering voice, leaped into an agony of sensitive life.
“Here,” he added, and showed her where little Fay lay on the grass.
Unable to speak, unable to stand, Jane dropped on her knees. By that
long, beautiful golden hair Jane recognized the beloved Fay. But Fay’s
loveliness was gone. Her face was drawn and looked old with grief. But
she was not dead—her heart beat—and Jane Withersteen gathered strength
and lived again.
“You see I jest had to go after Fay,” Lassiter was saying, as he knelt
to bathe her little pale face. “But I reckon I don’t want no more
choices like the one I had to make. There was a crippled feller in that
bunch, Jane. Mebbe Venters crippled him. Anyway, that’s why they were
holding up here. I seen little Fay first thing, en’ was hard put to it
to figure out a way to get her. An’ I wanted hosses, too. I had to take
chances. So I crawled close to their camp. One feller jumped a hoss
with little Fay, an’ when I shot him, of course she dropped. She’s
stunned an’ bruised—she fell right on her head. Jane, she’s comin’ to!
She ain’t bad hurt!”
Fay’s long lashes fluttered; her eyes opened. At first they seemed
glazed over. They looked dazed by pain. Then they quickened, darkened,
to shine with intelligence—bewilderment—memory—and sudden wonderful
joy.
“Muvver—Jane!” she whispered.
“Oh, little Fay, little Fay!” cried Jane, lifting, clasping the child
to her.
“_Now_, we’ve got to rustle!” said Lassiter, in grim coolness. “Jane,
look down the Pass!”
Across the mounds of rock and sage Jane caught sight of a band of
riders filing out of the narrow neck of the Pass; and in the lead was a
white horse, which, even at a distance of a mile or more, she knew.
“Tull!” she almost screamed.
“I reckon. But, Jane, we’ve still got the game in our hands. They’re
ridin’ tired hosses. Venters likely give them a chase. He wouldn’t
forget that. An’ we’ve fresh hosses.”
Hurriedly he strapped on the saddle-bags, gave quick glance to girths
and cinches and stirrups, then leaped astride.
“Lift little Fay up,” he said.
With shaking arms Jane complied.
“Get back your nerve, woman! This’s life or death now. Mind that. Climb
up! Keep your wits. Stick close to me. Watch where your hoss’s goin’
en’ ride!”
Somehow Jane mounted; somehow found strength to hold the reins, to
spur, to cling on, to ride. A horrible quaking, craven fear possessed
her soul. Lassiter led the swift flight across the wide space, over
washes, through sage, into a narrow cañon where the rapid clatter of
hoofs rapped sharply from the walls. The wind roared in her ears; the
gleaming cliffs swept by; trail and sage and grass moved under her.
Lassiter’s bandaged, blood-stained face turned to her; he shouted
encouragement; he looked back down the Pass; he spurred his horse. Jane
clung on, spurring likewise. And the horses settled from hard, furious
gallop into a long-striding, driving run. She had never ridden at
anything like that pace; desperately she tried to get the swing of the
horse, to be of some help to him in that race, to see the best of the
ground and guide him into it. But she failed of everything except to
keep her seat the saddle, and to spur and spur. At times she closed her
eyes unable to bear sight of Fay’s golden curls streaming in the wind.
She could not pray; she could not rail; she no longer cared for
herself. All of life, of good, of use in the world, of hope in heaven
entered in Lassiter’s ride with little Fay to safety. She would have
tried to turn the iron-jawed brute she rode, she would have given
herself to that relentless, dark-browed Tull. But she knew Lassiter
would turn with her, so she rode on and on.
Whether that run was of moments or hours Jane Withersteen could not
tell. Lassiter’s horse covered her with froth that blew back in white
streams. Both horses ran their limit, were allowed slow down in time to
save them, and went on dripping, heaving, staggering.
“Oh, Lassiter, we must run—we must run!”
He looked back, saying nothing. The bandage had blown from his head,
and blood trickled down his face. He was bowing under the strain of
injuries, of the ride, of his burden. Yet how cool and gay he
looked—how intrepid!
The horses walked, trotted, galloped, ran, to fall again to walk. Hours
sped or dragged. Time was an instant—an eternity. Jane Withersteen felt
hell pursuing her, and dared not look back for fear she would fall from
her horse.
“Oh, Lassiter! Is he coming?”
The grim rider looked over his shoulder, but said no word. Fay’s golden
hair floated on the breeze. The sun shone; the walls gleamed; the sage
glistened. And then it seemed the sun vanished, the walls shaded, the
sage paled. The horses walked—trotted—galloped—ran—to fall again to
walk. Shadows gathered under shelving cliffs. The cañon turned,
brightened, opened into a long, wide, wall-enclosed valley. Again the
sun, lowering in the west, reddened the sage. Far ahead round, scrawled
stone appeared to block the Pass.
“Bear up, Jane, bear up!” called Lassiter. “It’s our game, if you don’t
weaken.”
“Lassiter! Go on—_alone!_ Save little Fay!”
“Only with you!”
“Oh!—I’m a coward—a miserable coward! I can’t fight or think or hope or
pray! I’m lost! Oh, Lassiter, look back! Is he coming? I’ll not—hold
out—”
“Keep your breath, woman, an’ ride not for yourself or for me, but for
Fay!”
A last breaking run across the sage brought Lassiter’s horse to a walk.
“He’s done,” said the rider.
“Oh, no—no!” moaned Jane.
“Look back, Jane, look back. Three—four miles we’ve come across this
valley, en’ no Tull yet in sight. Only a few more miles!”
Jane looked back over the long stretch of sage, and found the narrow
gap in the wall, out of which came a file of dark horses with a white
horse in the lead. Sight of the riders acted upon Jane as a stimulant.
The weight of cold, horrible terror lessened. And, gazing forward at
the dogs, at Lassiter’s limping horse, at the blood on his face, at the
rocks growing nearer, last at Fay’s golden hair, the ice left her
veins, and slowly, strangely, she gained hold of strength that she
believed would see her to the safety Lassiter promised. And, as she
gazed, Lassiter’s horse stumbled and fell.
He swung his leg and slipped from the saddle.
“Jane, take the child,” he said, and lifted Fay up. Jane clasped her
arms suddenly strong. “They’re gainin’,” went on Lassiter, as he
watched the pursuing riders. “But we’ll beat ’em yet.”
Turning with Jane’s bridle in his hand, he was about to start when he
saw the saddle-bag on the fallen horse.
“I’ve jest about got time,” he muttered, and with swift fingers that
did not blunder or fumble he loosened the bag and threw it over his
shoulder. Then he started to run, leading Jane’s horse, and he ran, and
trotted, and walked, and ran again. Close ahead now Jane saw a rise of
bare rock. Lassiter reached it, searched along the base, and, finding a
low place, dragged the weary horse up and over round, smooth stone.
Looking backward, Jane saw Tull’s white horse not a mile distant, with
riders strung out in a long line behind him. Looking forward, she saw
more valley to the right, and to the left a towering cliff. Lassiter
pulled the horse and kept on.
Little Fay lay in her arms with wide-open eyes—eyes which were still
shadowed by pain, but no longer fixed, glazed in terror. The golden
curls blew across Jane’s lips; the little hands feebly clasped her arm;
a ghost of a troubled, trustful smile hovered round the sweet lips. And
Jane Withersteen awoke to the spirit of a lioness.
Lassiter was leading the horse up a smooth slope toward cedar trees of
twisted and bleached appearance. Among these he halted.
“Jane, give me the girl en’ get down,” he said. As if it wrenched him
he unbuckled the empty black guns with a strange air of finality. He
then received Fay in his arms and stood a moment looking backward.
Tull’s white horse mounted the ridge of round stone, and several bays
or blacks followed. “I wonder what he’ll think when he sees them empty
guns. Jane, bring your saddle-bag and climb after me.”
A glistening, wonderful bare slope, with little holes, swelled up and
up to lose itself in a frowning yellow cliff. Jane closely watched her
steps and climbed behind Lassiter. He moved slowly. Perhaps he was only
husbanding his strength. But she saw drops of blood on the stone, and
then she knew. They climbed and climbed without looking back. Her
breast labored; she began to feel as if little points of fiery steel
were penetrating her side into her lungs. She heard the panting of
Lassiter and the quicker panting of the dogs.
“Wait—here,” he said.
Before her rose a bulge of stone, nicked with little cut steps, and
above that a corner of yellow wall, and overhanging that a vast,
ponderous cliff.
The dogs pattered up, disappeared round the corner. Lassiter mounted
the steps with Fay, and he swayed like a drunken man, and he too
disappeared. But instantly he returned alone, and half ran, half
slipped down to her.
Then from below pealed up hoarse shouts of angry men. Tull and several
of his riders had reached the spot where Lassiter had parted with his
guns.
“You’ll need that breath—mebbe!” said Lassiter, facing downward, with
glittering eyes.
“Now, Jane, the last pull,” he went on. “Walk up them little steps.
I’ll follow an’ steady you. Don’t think. Jest go. Little Fay’s above.
Her eyes are open. She jest said to me, ‘_Where’s muvver Jane?_’”
Without a fear or a tremor or a slip or a touch of Lassiter’s hand Jane
Withersteen walked up that ladder of cut steps.
He pushed her round the corner of the wall. Fay lay, with wide staring
eyes, in the shade of a gloomy wall. The dogs waited. Lassiter picked
up the child and turned into a dark cleft. It zigzagged. It widened. It
opened. Jane was amazed at a wonderfully smooth and steep incline
leading up between ruined, splintered, toppling walls. A red haze from
the setting sun filled this passage. Lassiter climbed with slow,
measured steps, and blood dripped from him to make splotches on the
white stone. Jane tried not to step in his blood, but was compelled,
for she found no other footing. The saddle-bag began to drag her down;
she gasped for breath, she thought her heart was bursting. Slower,
slower yet the rider climbed, whistling as he breathed. The incline
widened. Huge pinnacles and monuments of stone stood alone, leaning
fearfully. Red sunset haze shone through cracks where the wall had
split. Jane did not look high, but she felt the overshadowing of broken
rims above. She felt that it was a fearful, menacing place. And she
climbed on in heartrending effort. And she fell beside Lassiter and Fay
at the top of the incline in a narrow, smooth divide.
He staggered to his feet—staggered to a huge, leaning rock that rested
on a small pedestal. He put his hand on it—the hand that had been shot
through—and Jane saw blood drip from the ragged hole. Then he fell.
“Jane—I—can’t—do—it!” he whispered.
“What?”
“Roll the—stone!... All my—life I’ve loved—to roll stones—en’ now
I—can’t!”
“What of it? You talk strangely. Why roll that stone?”
“I planned to—fetch you here—to roll this stone. See! It’ll smash the
crags—loosen the walls—close the outlet!”
As Jane Withersteen gazed down that long incline, walled in by
crumbling cliffs, awaiting only the slightest jar to make them fall
asunder, she saw Tull appear at the bottom and begin to climb. A rider
followed him—another—and another.
“See! Tull! The riders!”
“Yes—they’ll get us—now.”
“Why? Haven’t you strength left to roll the stone?”
“Jane—it ain’t that—I’ve lost my nerve!”
“_You!_... Lassiter!”
“I wanted to roll it—meant to—but I—can’t. Venters’s valley is down
behind here. We could—live there. But if I roll the stone—we’re shut in
for always. I don’t dare. I’m thinkin’ of you!”
“Lassiter! Roll the stone!” she cried.
He arose, tottering, but with set face, and again he placed the bloody
hand on the Balancing Rock. Jane Withersteen gazed from him down the
passageway. Tull was climbing. Almost, she thought, she saw his dark,
relentless face. Behind him more riders climbed. What did they mean for
Fay—for Lassiter—for herself?
“_Roll the stone!... Lassiter, I love you!_”
Under all his deathly pallor, and the blood, and the iron of seared
cheek and lined brow, worked a great change. He placed both hands on
the rock and then leaned his shoulder there and braced his powerful
body.
“ROLL THE STONE!”
It stirred, it groaned, it grated, it moved, and with a slow grinding,
as of wrathful relief, began to lean. It had waited ages to fall, and
now was slow in starting. Then, as if suddenly instinct with life, it
leaped hurtlingly down to alight on the steep incline, to bound more
swiftly into the air, to gather momentum, to plunge into the lofty
leaning crag below. The crag thundered into atoms. A wave of air—a
splitting shock! Dust shrouded the sunset red of shaking rims; dust
shrouded Tull as he fell on his knees with uplifted arms. Shafts and
monuments and sections of wall fell majestically.
From the depths there rose a long-drawn rumbling roar. The outlet to
Deception Pass closed forever.