Sunset Pass (1990) (16 page)

"He shore did. He was killin' stolen steers long before I ever knew. Then it was too late to stop him. An' I drifted in myself. All so easy! An' now--Rock, I'd almost as lief croak as face thet council. They might let me off, but they'd tell. It'd leak out."

"Preston, you're not thinkin' clear. If you don't take this chance, for the sake of your womenfolk, you'll ruin them. And you'll be as bad as Ash. By heaven, Preston, I can't let you ruin Thiry!"

"Wal, I'll think your idee over good and hard, Rock. My not acceptin' it pronto doesn't mean I don't appreciate your wonderful offer an' all thet prompts you. I shore do. It may be the best way to save them. But the wife--Thiry, Allie, Lucy--they'd have to know, an' I'd almost shore rather die in my boots than tell them."

"Man, we don't have to tell. No one but Thiry will ever know."

"All right I'll think it over."

Meanwhile, I'll stop Ash if I have to hawg-tie him. An' you better take the boys an' go off in the woods somewhere. But no goin' in to town. Take then huntin'. It's most turkey season. An' let me know where you go."

Well as Trueman Rock knew that country, it was his fortune to be taken by the Preston boys to high hunting-grounds which he had never visited.

It was up in the mountains back of the Pass, about a day's climb on horseback, 8,000 feet above the low country. Up there early fall had set in and the foliage was one gorgeous array of colour. The camp lay in a mountain meadow, at the edge of a magnificent grove of quaking aspens. Behind on a gentler slope stood scattered silver spruces and yellow pines, growing larger as they climbed, until on the ridge above they massed in the deep timber line, which like a green-black belt circled the mountain under the grey, grisly, weathered and splintered peaks.

The days passed until Rock had no idea how long he had been absent from the Pass. Nearly a fortnight, he guessed. Then came Indian summer, that enchanting brief period of smoky, warm, still days, and floating amber and purple haze in the air.

Al Preston left to go down home for supplies. This threw Rock into a fever of uncertainty. What news would he fetch back? What message from Preston? Would Thiry write? The day was long, the night interminable, the second day unbearable. Rock wandered in the open forest across from camp, wanting always to be in sight of the trail that came up from below.

Then a grey-laden pack-horse emerged from the green wall across the meadow. Next came a dark horse holding a slight rider that could not be Al Preston. Who could it be? Another pack-horse cleft the dark green gap, where the trail emerged. And after it Al on his big bay. The foremost rider waved to the boys in camp. How they yelled! Rock watched with eyes starting. What was there strangely familiar about that rider? Yet he knew he had never seen him before. Rock never forgot a mounted rider. Suddenly he leaped up madly: Thiry!

He ran. He leaped the brook. He made the camp in bounds.

"Howdy, Trueman!" Her smile was strained, and she scarcely met his eager gaze. He had never seen her in rider garb. Could that make such difference? She wore a tan blouse, with blue scarf, fringed gauntlets, overalls, and high boots. She looked like a boy, until she dismounted. Rock had a wild desire to snatch her in his arms.

"Boys, throw my pack and unroll, my bed," she said. And while the boys obeyed with alacrity she led the stunned, Rock away from camp into the forest.

"Glad to see me?" she asked.

"Glad!" he echoed. "Thiry! I'm loco."

She still held his hand, that she had taken openly before her brothers. She halted beside a great fallen spruce with rugged seamed bark. "Lift me up," she said. And when he had complied she held him with strange hands, and looked in to his eyes as she had never before.

"Kiss me," this unknown Thiry said not shyly, nor yet boldly, but somehow unnaturally for her. When Rock obeyed, restraining himself in his bewilderment, she put her arms around him and her face against his neck.

"Bad news, Trueman dear," she said. "Ash made a killing of Half Moon steers and shipped the beef from Wagontongue."

Rock's frame jerked with the hot gush of blood through his veins, but he did not voice his anger and dismay.

"Dad wants you to come in with us--share our fortunes; our troubles--our sins--help us fight these enemy outfits. If we--"

"We?" he interrupted.

"Yes, we. Ash and Dad and I--and my brothers--and you."

"I! And what do I get for spillin' blood for thieves? Ah, that is Preston's game. He wants me to kill--to spread terror among those Wyomin' outfits. And my reward will be--"

"Me," she said.

"With Ash Preston's consent?" demanded Rock.

"Dad claims when you become one of us Ash will have to consent."

"Thiry Preston! You ask me to do this thing? You ask me to be a thief--a killer--to save your rotten brother, your weak and crooked father?"

"I--ask--you."

Almost with brutal force, Rock shook her, as if to awaken her out of a torpor. "No! No, you poor driven girl!" he cried. "I would die for you, but I'll never let you ruin your soul by such dishonour. They have blinded you--preyed on your love. Your brother is mad. Your father desperate. They would sacrifice you. Ash would agree to this, meanin' to shoot me in the back. No, Thiry!"

"You--will not? she sobbed.

"Never. Not even to have you."

Suddenly then he had a wild weeping creature in his arms, whose beating hands and shaking body wrought havoc to the iron of his mood.

"Oh, thank God--you won't!" she wept, lifting streaming eyes. "I prayed you'd--refuse. I told, Dad you'd never, never do it. I told Ash he lied--he'd never let you have me. But they made me--they drove me--all night they nagged me--until I gave in. Trueman darling, say you forgive. I was weak. I loved him so--and I'm almost broken. But you lift me from the depths. I love you more--a thousand times. Let come what will I can face it now."

Hours later Rock kept vigil over a sleeping camp, where near him lay Thiry, in deep slumber, her fair sweet face, sad in repose, upturned to the watching stars. Beyond, her brothers were stretched in a row.

In the rose light of dawn, Rock and Thiry again wandered under the silver spruces, the golden aspens, the scarlet maples, back to that bit of primal forestland.

"Don't go back to the Pass," Thiry was pleading.

"I must. I'll go alone."

"But I'm afraid. If you meet him--Oh--you will! Trueman, don't go!" She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him with all her might.

"Take me away--far away across the mountains," she begged, her lips parting from his to implore mercy, and then seeking them again. "It's the only way. I am yours body and soul. I ask nothing more of life but that you spare him--and take me. We can cross the mountains. Then somewhere we two will live for each other. I will forget, him and all this horror. And you--will never--kill another man."

"Thiry girl, hush, you are breakin' me," he cried, spent with the might of agonized will that denied her kisses. "That would be the worst for us both. It would brand me with their guilt and drag you down. No. I shall go alone--make one last stand to save your father."

Rock rode the zigzag descending trail down to the Pass in four hours. There did not appear to be any untoward condition at the ranch. Preston had ridden off early that morning to a general round-up out on the range, at a place called Clay Hill, Ash Preston and his three brothers were off somewhere, probably also at the round-up, on their return from Wagontongue. No, they had not driven the beef wagons to town this time.

"Reckon I'll ride over to Clay Hill," muttered Rock.

Rock's keen eye snapped at the old-time scene. Dust and colour and action! Herds of cattle, fields of horses! Not until he rounded the southern corner of Clay Hill, where the trail ran, and came abruptly upon the first cabin, horses, wagons, men, did he grasp that something was amiss. What could check a general round-up in the middle of the afternoon? No cowboy's' on guard! No cutting or branding! No movement, except a gradual straggling of the herds! The men he saw were in groups, and their postures were not expressive of the lazy, lounging, careless leisure attendant upon meal hours or cessation of work.

Rock was off, throwing bridle, gloves, and in two swift jerks, he got out of his chaps. "What's up?" he demanded of the six or eight cowmen who backed away.

"Fight busted the round-up," replied a lean-jawed rider.

"Jimmy Dunne shot," replied an older man warily.

"Who did it?"

"Ash Preston."

"Where is Dunne?'

"Layin' in the cabin thar."

Rock brushed the men aside, and forcing entrance to the cabin, he surveyed the interior. A line of dusty, sweaty cowboys fell back, to disclose a man lying on the floor, with another kneeling in attendance. Rock saw a face of deathly-pallor, clammy and leaden, and eyes black with pain. He stepped in and knelt, to take up Dunne's inert wrist and felt for his pulse.

At that the other man looked up quickly. It was Clink Peeples. "Howdy, Rock. I'm afeared Jim is--still I'm no good hand at judgin' bullet holes."

"Let me see."

The angry wound was situated high up on the left side, and it was bleeding freely, though not dangerously. Rock saw that Preston had missed the heart by several inches. The bullet had no doubt nicked the lung. But there was no sign of internal hemorrhage.

"Did the bullet come out?"

"It went clean through, clean as a whistle."

"Good!" exclaimed Rock. "Dunne, can you hear me?"

"Why, sure," replied Dunne, faintly. A bloody froth showed on his lips. "Rock, reckon Preston--beat you--to this job."

"Reckon I'd never have done it. Listen Dunne. This is a bad gun-shot, but not necessarily fatal. If you do what you're told you'll live."

"You--think so, Rock? I've got--a wife--an' kid.

"I know it," returned Rock forcefully. "Understand? I know."

"Rock, thet's shore--good news," panted Peeples, wiping his face. "Tell us what to do."

"Make a bed for him here," replied Rock, rising. "But don't move him till he's bandaged tight. Heat water boilin' hot. Put salt in it. Wash your hands clean. Get clean bandages, clean shirt if there's nothin' else. Fold a pad and wet it. Bind it tight. Then to town for a doctor."

"Thet's tellin' us," returned Peeples gratefully. "Frank, you heard. Rustle some boys now."

"Peeples, was it an even break?" inquired Rock coolly.

"Wal, I'm bound to admit it was. So we've nothin' on Preston thet way."

Dunne spoke up for himself in stronger voice: "Rock, I had the--proofs on him--much as I didn't--have on you."

"Ahuh! Don't talk any more, Dunne," replied Rock, and turned to Peeples. "Did he accuse Ash?"

"He shore did. Beaded him soon as he got here. I didn't see the fight. But thar's a dozen fellers who did. You talk to them."

"Where are the Prestons?" asked Rock, stalking out.

"Over at the third cabin," replied someone. "Ash is stalkin' to an' fro over thar like a hyena behind bars."

Rock elbowed his way out of the crowd. Soon his glance fell upon those he sought, and in him surged the instinct of the lion that hated the hyena.

Ash, espying Rock, halted in his tracks. The two brothers rose in single action, as if actuated by the same spring. Range stepped outside to join his brothers. Gage Preston did not see, nor look up, until Rock, hailed them. Then, with a spasmodic start he staggered erect.

"Rock, I'm done," rasped Gage Preston. "So double-crossin' you like I did means nothin' to me.'

"Preston, have you been in any of these last butcherin' deals?" queried Rock.

"No. An' so help me heaven, I couldn't stop Ash."

"Why did you send Thiry--perauadin' me to come in with you?"

"Thet was why. I wasn't beat then. I figgered I could fight it out an' I wanted you. So I drove Thiry to it. But now! You had it figgered, Rock. I'm sorry--sorry most fer Thiry, an' Ma, an' the girls. If I had it to do over again, I'd--"

"Do it now," interrupted Rook ringingly. "Come with me to Wagontongue. Come, Preston, be quick. There'll be hell poppin' here in a minute. Will you give up--go with me?"

"Rock by heaven! I will--if you--"

"Yell that to Ash!" hissed Rock.

Preston, with face purpling, shouted to his son, "Hey Ash! I'm goin' to town with Rock."

"What fer?" yelled Ash.

"Wal, just off, I'm gettin' a marriage licence for Thiry! Haw! Haw! Haw!"

"I say what fer?" yelled Ash.

"To pay your thievin' debts, you--"

"Preston, get to one side. Quick!" warned Rock, risking one long stride forward, when he froze in his tracks, his right side toward Ash, his quivering hand low.

Ash Preston spat one curse at his father--then saw him no more. Again he began a strange sidelong stalk, only now he sheered a little, out toward Rock, forward a few strides, then backward the same, never turning that slim left side away from Rock.

Rock learned something then he never had known--Ash Preston was left-handed. He approached no closer than 30 paces. Then he did not or could not keep still. "Howdy spy!" he called.