Zane Grey (4 page)

And while her mind was thus thronged the morning hours passed swiftly,
the miles of foot-hills were climbed and descended. A green gap of
canon, wild and yellow-walled, yawned before her, opening into the
mountain.

Kells halted on the grassy bank of a shallow brook. "Get down. We'll
noon here and rest the horses," he said to Joan. "I can't say that
you're anything but game. We've done perhaps twenty-five miles this
morning."

The mouth of this canon was a wild, green-flowered, beautiful place.
There were willows and alders and aspens along the brook. The green
bench was like a grassy meadow. Joan caught a glimpse of a brown object,
a deer or bear, stealing away through spruce-trees on the slope. She
dismounted, aware now that her legs ached and it was comfortable
to stretch them. Looking backward across the valley toward the last
foot-hill, she saw the other men, with horses and packs, coming. She had
a habit of close observation, and she thought that either the men with
the packs had now one more horse than she remembered, or else she had
not seen the extra one. Her attention shifted then. She watched Kells
unsaddle the horses. He was wiry, muscular, quick with his hands. The
big, blue-cylindered gun swung in front of him. That gun had a queer
kind of attraction for her. The curved black butt made her think of a
sharp grip of hand upon it. Kells did not hobble the horses. He slapped
his bay on the haunch and drove him down toward the brook. Joan's pony
followed. They drank, cracked the stones, climbed the other bank, and
began to roll in the grass. Then the other men with the packs trotted
up. Joan was glad. She had not thought of it before, but now she felt
she would rather not be alone with Kells. She remarked then that there
was no extra horse in the bunch. It seemed strange, her thinking that,
and she imagined she was not clear-headed.

"Throw the packs, Bill," said Kells.

Another fire was kindled and preparations made toward a noonday meal.
Bill and Halloway appeared loquacious, and inclined to steal glances at
Joan when Kells could not notice. Halloway whistled a Dixie tune. Then
Bill took advantage of the absence of Kells, who went down to the brook,
and he began to leer at Joan and make bold eyes at her. Joan appeared
not to notice him, and thereafter averted; her gaze. The men chuckled.

"She's the proud hussy! But she ain't foolin' me. I've knowed a heap of
wimmen." Whereupon Halloway guffawed, and between them, in lower tones,
they exchanged mysterious remarks. Kells returned with a bucket of
water.

"What's got into you men?" he queried.

Both of them looked around, blusteringily innocent.

"Reckon it's the same that's ailin' you," replied Bill. He showed that
among wild, unhampered men how little could inflame and change.

"Boss, it's the onaccustomed company," added Halloway, with a
conciliatory smile. "Bill sort of warms up. He jest can't help it. An'
seein' what a thunderin' crab he always is, why I'm glad an' welcome."

Kells vouchsafed no reply to this and, turning away, continued his
tasks. Joan had a close look at his eyes and again she was startled.
They were not like eyes, but just gray spaces, opaque openings, with
nothing visible behind, yet with something terrible there.

The preparations for the meal went on, somewhat constrainedly on the
part of Bill and Halloway, and presently were ended. Then the men
attended to it with appetites born of the open and of action. Joan sat
apart from them on the bank of the brook, and after she had appeased
her own hunger she rested, leaning back in the shade of an alderbush.
A sailing shadow crossed near her, and, looking up, she saw an eagle
flying above the ramparts of the canon. Then she had a drowsy spell, but
she succumbed to it only to the extent of closing her eyes. Time dragged
on. She would rather have been in the saddle. These men were leisurely,
and Kells was provokingly slow. They had nothing to do with time but
waste it. She tried to combat the desire for hurry, for action; she
could not gain anything by worry. Nevertheless, resignation would
not come to her and her hope began to flag. Something portended
evil—something hung in the balance.

The snort and tramp of horses roused her, and upon sitting up she saw
the men about to pack and saddle again. Kells had spoken to her only
twice so far that day. She was grateful for his silence, but could not
understand it. He seemed to have a preoccupied air that somehow did not
fit the amiableness of his face. He looked gentle, good-natured; he
was soft-spoken; he gave an impression of kindness. But Joan began to
realize that he was not what he seemed. He had something on his mind. It
was not conscience, nor a burden: it might be a projection, a plan,
an absorbing scheme, a something that gained food with thought. Joan
wondered doubtfully if it were the ransom of gold he expected to get.

Presently, when all was about in readiness for a fresh start, she rose
to her feet. Kells's bay was not tractable at the moment. Bill held
out Joan's bridle to her and their hands touched. The contact was an
accident, but it resulted in Bill's grasping back at her hand. She
jerked it away, scarcely comprehending. Then all under the brown of his
face she saw creep a dark, ruddy tide. He reached for her then—put
his hand on her breast. It was an instinctive animal action. He meant
nothing. She divined that he could not help it. She had lived with rough
men long enough to know he had no motive—no thought at all. But at the
profanation of such a touch she shrank back, uttering a cry.

At her elbow she heard a quick step and a sharp-drawn breath or hiss.

"AW, JACK!" cried Bill.

Then Kells, in lithe and savage swiftness, came between them. He swung
his gun, hitting Bill full in the face. The man fell, limp and heavy,
and he lay there, with a bloody gash across his brow. Kells stood over
him a moment, slowly lowering the gun. Joan feared he meant to shoot.

"Oh, don't—don't!" she cried. "He—he didn't hurt me."

Kells pushed her back. When he touched her she seemed to feel the shock
of an electric current. His face had not changed, but his eyes were
terrible. On the background of gray were strange, leaping red flecks.

"Take your horse," he ordered. "No. Walk across the brook. There's a
trail. Go up the canon. I'll come presently. Don't run and don't hide.
It'll be the worse for you if you do. Hurry!"

Joan obeyed. She flashed past the open-jawed Halloway, and, running down
to the brook, stepped across from stone to stone. She found the trail
and hurriedly followed it. She did not look back. It never occurred
to her to hide, to try to get away. She only obeyed, conscious of some
force that dominated her. Once she heard loud voices, then the shrill
neigh of a horse. The trail swung under the left wall of the canon and
ran along the noisy brook. She thought she heard shots and was startled,
but she could not be sure. She stopped to listen. Only the babble of
swift water and the sough of wind in the spruces greeted her ears.
She went on, beginning to collect her thoughts, to conjecture on the
significance of Kells's behavior.

But had that been the spring of his motive? She doubted it—she doubted
all about him, save that subtle essence of violence, of ruthless force
and intensity, of terrible capacity, which hung round him.

A halloo caused her to stop and turn. Two pack-horses were jogging up
the trail. Kells was driving them and leading her pony. Nothing could be
seen of the other men. Kells rapidly overhauled her, and she had to get
out of the trail to let the pack-animals pass. He threw her bridle to
her.

"Get up," he said.

She complied. And then she bravely faced him. "Where are—the other
men?"

"We parted company," he replied, curtly.

"Why?" she persisted.

"Well, if you're anxious to know, it was because you were winning
their—regard—too much to suit me."

"Winning their regard!" Joan exclaimed, blankly.

Here those gray, piercing eyes went through her, then swiftly shifted.
She was quick to divine from that the inference in his words—he
suspected her of flirting with those ruffians, perhaps to escape him
through them. That had only been his suspicion—groundless after his
swift glance at her. Perhaps unconsciousness of his meaning, a simulated
innocence, and ignorance might serve her with this strange man. She
resolved to try it, to use all her woman's intuition and wit and
cunning. Here was an educated man who was a criminal—an outcast. Deep
within him might be memories of a different life. They might be stirred.
Joan decided in that swift instant that, if she could understand him,
learn his real intentions toward her, she could cope with him.

"Bill and his pard were thinking too much of—of the ransom I'm after,"
went on Kells, with a short laugh. "Come on now. Ride close to me."

Joan turned into the trail with his laugh ringing in her ears. Did she
only imagine a mockery in it? Was there any reason to believe a word
this man said? She appeared as helpless to see through him as she was in
her predicament.

They had entered a canon, such as was typical of that mountain range,
and the winding trail which ran beneath the yellow walls was one unused
to travel. Joan could not make out any old tracks, except those of deer
and cougar. The crashing of wild animals into the chaparral, and
the scarcely frightened flight of rabbits and grouse attested to the
wildness of the place. They passed an old tumbledown log cabin, once
used, no doubt, by prospectors and hunters. Here the trail ended. Yet
Kells kept on up the canon. And for all Joan could tell the walls grew
only the higher and the timber heavier and the space wilder.

At a turn, when the second pack-horse, that appeared unused to his task,
came fully into Joan's sight, she was struck with his resemblance to
some horse with which she was familiar. It was scarcely an impression
which she might have received from seeing Kells's horse or Bill's or any
one's a few times. Therefore she watched this animal, studying his gait
and behavior. It did not take long for her to discover that he was not
a pack-horse. He resented that burden. He did not know how to swing it.
This made her deeply thoughtful and she watched closer than ever. All
at once there dawned on her the fact that the resemblance here was to
Roberts's horse. She caught her breath and felt again that cold gnawing
of fear within her. Then she closed her eyes the better to remember
significant points about Roberts's sorrel—a white left front foot, an
old diamond brand, a ragged forelock, and an unusual marking, a light
bar across his face. When Joan had recalled these, she felt so certain
that she would find them on this pack-horse that she was afraid to open
her eyes. She forced herself to look, and it seemed that in one glance
she saw three of them. Still she clung to hope. Then the horse, picking
his way, partially turning toward her, disclosed the bar across his
face.

Joan recognized it. Roberts was not on his way home. Kells had lied.
Kells had killed him. How plain and fearful the proof! It verified
Roberts's gloomy prophecy. Joan suddenly grew sick and dizzy. She reeled
in her saddle. It was only by dint of the last effort of strength and
self-control that she kept her seat. She fought the horror as if it were
a beast. Hanging over the pommel, with shut eyes, letting her pony
find the way, she sustained this shock of discovery and did not let it
utterly overwhelm her. And as she conquered the sickening weakness her
mind quickened to the changed aspect of her situation. She understood
Kells and the appalling nature of her peril. She did not know how she
understood him now, but doubt had utterly fled. All was clear, real,
grim, present. Like a child she had been deceived, for no reason she
could see. That talk of ransom was false. Likewise Kells's assertion
that he had parted company with Halloway and Bill because he would not
share the ransom—that, too, was false. The idea of a ransom, in this
light, was now ridiculous. From that first moment Kells had wanted her;
he had tried to persuade Roberts to leave her, and, failing, had killed
him; he had rid himself of the other two men—and now Joan knew she had
heard shots back there. Kells's intention loomed out of all his
dark brooding, and it stood clear now to her, dastardly, worse than
captivity, or torture, or death—the worst fate that could befall a
woman.

The reality of it now was so astounding. True—as true as those stories
she had deemed impossible! Because she and her people and friends had
appeared secure in their mountain camp and happy in their work and
trustful of good, they had scarcely credited the rumors of just such
things as had happened to her. The stage held up by roadagents, a lonely
prospector murdered and robbed, fights in the saloons and on the trails,
and useless pursuit of hardriding men out there on the border, elusive
as Arabs, swift as Apaches—these facts had been terrible enough,
without the dread of worse. The truth of her capture, the meaning of
it, were raw, shocking spurs to Joan Randle's intelligence and courage.
Since she still lived, which was strange indeed in the illuminating
light of her later insight into Kells and his kind, she had to meet him
with all that was catlike and subtle and devilish at the command of a
woman. She had to win him, foil him, kill him—or go to her death. She
was no girl to be dragged into the mountain fastness by a desperado and
made a plaything. Her horror and terror had worked its way deep into
the depths of her and uncovered powers never suspected, never before
required in her scheme of life. She had no longer any fear. She matched
herself against this man. She anticipated him. And she felt like a woman
who had lately been a thoughtless girl, who, in turn, had dreamed
of vague old happenings of a past before she was born, of impossible
adventures in her own future. Hate and wrath and outraged womanhood were
not wholly the secret of Joan Randle's flaming spirit.