Nan of Music Mountain, page 24
He did not fire. Second after second he waited, Nan, lying very still, watching, mute, the dull-red mark above the wet rifle butt. No one had need to tell her what had happened. Too well she read the story in de Spain’s face and in what she saw, as he knelt, perfectly still, only waiting to be sure there was no ruse. She watched the rifle come slowly down, unfired, and saw his drawn face slowly relax. Without taking his eyes off the sprawling speck, he rose stiffly to his feet. As if in a dream she saw his hand stretched toward her and heard, as he looked across the far gulf, one word: “Come!”
They reached the end of the trail. De Spain, rifle in hand, looked back. The sun, bursting in splendor across the great desert, splashed the valley and the low-lying ridge with ribboned gold. Farther up the Gap, horsemen, stirred by the firing, were riding rapidly down toward Sassoon’s ranch-house. But the black thing in the sunshine lay quite still.
* * *
CHAPTER XXVIII
LEFEVER TO THE RESCUE
Lefever, chafing in the aspen grove under the restraint of waiting in the storm, was ready long before daylight to break orders and ride in to find de Spain.
With the first peep of dawn, and with his men facing him in their saddles, Lefever made a short explanation.
“I don’t want any man to go into the Gap with me this morning under any misunderstanding or any false pretense,” he began cheerfully. “Bob Scott and Bull will stay right here. If, by any chance, de Spain makes his way out while the rest of us are hunting for him, you’ll be here to signal us––three shots, Bob––or to ride in with de Spain to help carry the rest of us out. Now, it’s like this,” he added, addressing the others. “You, all of you know, or ought to know––everybody ’twixt here and the railroad knows––that de Spain and Nan Morgan have fastened up to each other for the long ride down the dusty trail together. That, I take it, is their business. But her uncle, old Duke, and Gale, and the whole bunch, I hear, turned dead sore on it, and have fixed it up to beat them. You all know the Morgans. They’re some bunch––and they stick for one another like hornets, and all hold together in a fight. So I don’t want any man to ride in there with me thinking he’s going to a wedding. He isn’t. He may or may not be going to a funeral, but he’s not going to a shivaree.”
Frank Elpaso glanced sourly at his companions. “I guess everybody here is wise, John.”
“I know you are, Frank,” retorted Lefever testily; “that’s all right. I’m only explaining. And I don’t want you to get sore on me if I don’t show you a fight.” Frank Elpaso grunted. “I am under orders.” John waved his hand. “And I can’t do anything–––”
“But talk,” growled Frank Elpaso, not waving his hand.
Lefever started hotly forward in his saddle. “Now look here, Frank.” He pointed his finger at the objecting ranger. “I’m here for business, not for pleasure. Any time I’m free you can talk to me–––”
“Not till somebody gags you, John,” interposed Elpaso moodily.
“Look here, Elpaso,” demanded Lefever, spurring his horse smartly toward the Texan, “are you looking for a fight with me right here and now?”
“Yes, here and now,” declared Elpaso fiercely.
“Or, there and then,” interposed Kennedy, ironically, “some time, somewhere, or no time, nowhere. Having heard all of which, a hundred and fifty times from you two fellows, let us have peace. You’ve pulled it so often, over at Sleepy Cat, they’ve got it in double-faced, red-seal records. Let’s get started.”
“Right you are, Farrell,” assented Lefever, “but–––”
“Second verse, John. You’re boss here; what are we going to do? That’s all we want to know.”
“Henry’s orders were to wait here till ten o’clock this morning. There’s been firing inside twice since twelve o’clock last night. He told me to pay no attention to that. But if the whole place hadn’t been under water all night, I’d have gone in, anyway. This last time it was two high-powered guns, picking at long range and, if I’m any judge of rifles and the men probably behind them, some one must have got hurt. It’s all a guess––but I’m going in there, peaceably if I can, to look for Henry de Spain; if we are fired on––we’ve got to fight for it. And if there’s any talking to be done–––”
“You can do it,” grunted Elpaso.
“Thank you, Frank. And I will do it. I need not say that Kennedy will ride ahead with me, Elpaso and Wickwire with Tommie Meggeson.”
Leaving Scott in the trees, the little party trotted smartly up the road, picking their way through the pools and across the brawling streams that tore over the trail toward Duke Morgan’s place. The condition of the trail broke their formation continually and Lefever, in the circumstances, was not sorry. His only anxiety was to keep Elpaso from riding ahead far enough to embroil them in a quarrel before he himself should come up.
Half-way to Duke’s house they found a small bridge had gone out. It cut off the direct road, and, at Elpaso’s suggestion, they crossed over to follow the ridge up the valley. Swimming their horses through the backwater that covered the depression to the south, they gained the elevation and proceeded, unmolested, on their way. As they approached Sassoon’s place, Elpaso, riding ahead, drew up his horse and sat a moment studying the trail and casting an occasional glance in the direction of the ranch-house, which lay under the brow of a hill ahead.
When Lefever rode up to him, he saw the story that Elpaso was reading in the roadway. It told of a man shot in his tracks as he was running toward the house––and, in the judgment of these men, fatally shot––for, while his companions spread like a fan in front of him, Lefever got off his horse and, bending intently over the sudden page torn out of a man’s life, recast the scene that had taken place, where he stood, half an hour earlier. Some little time Lefever spent patiently deciphering the story printed in the rutted road, and marked by a wide crimson splash in the middle of it. He rose from his study at length and followed back the trail of the running feet that had been stricken at the pool. He stopped in front of a fragment of rock jutting up beside the road, studied it a while and, looking about, picked up a number of empty cartridge-shells, examined them, and tossed them away. Then he straightened up and looked searchingly across the Gap. Only the great, silent face of El Capitan confronted him. It told no tales.
“If this was Henry de Spain,” muttered Elpaso, when Lefever rejoined his companions, “he won’t care whether you join him now, or at ten o’clock, or never.”
“That is not Henry,” asserted Lefever with his usual cheer. “Not within forty rows of apple-trees. It’s not Henry’s gun, not Henry’s heels, not Henry’s hair, and thereby, not Henry’s head that was hit that time. But it was to a finish––and blamed if at first it didn’t scare me. I thought it might be Henry. Hang it, get down and see for yourselves, boys.”
Elpaso answered his invitation with an inquiry. “Who was this fellow fighting with?”
“That, also, is a question. Certainly not with Henry de Spain, because the other fellow, I think, was using soft-nosed bullets. No white man does that, much less de Spain.”
“Unless he used another rifle,” suggested Kennedy.
“Tell me how they could get his own rifle away from him if he could fire a gun at all. I don’t put Henry quite as high with a rifle as with a revolver––if you want to split hairs––mind, I say, if you want to split hairs. But no man that’s ever seen him handle either would want to try to take any kind of a gun from him. Whoever it was,” Lefever got up into his saddle again, “threw some ounces of lead into that piece of rock back there, though I don’t understand how any one could see a man lying behind it.
“Anyway, whoever was hit here has been carried down the road. We’ll try Sassoon’s ranch-house for news, if they don’t open on us with rifles before we get there.”
In the sunshine a man in shirt sleeves, and leaning against the jamb, stood in the open doorway of Sassoon’s shack, watching the invaders as they rode around the hill and gingerly approached. Lefever recognized Satt Morgan. He flung a greeting to him from the saddle.
Satt answered in kind, but he eyed the horsemen with reserve when they drew up, and he seemed to Lefever altogether less responsive than usual. John sparred with him for information, and Satterlee gave back words without any.
“Can’t tell us anything about de Spain, eh?” echoed Lefever at length. “All right, Satt, we’ll find somebody that can. Is there a bridge over to Duke’s on this trail?”
Satt’s nose wrinkled into his normal smile. “There is a bridge––” The report of three shots fired in the distance, seemingly from the mouth of the Gap, interrupted him. He paused in his utterance. There were no further shots, and he resumed: “There is a bridge that way, yes, but it was washed out last night. They’re blockaded. Duke and Gale are over there. They’re pretty sore on your man de Spain. You’d better keep away from ’em this morning unless you’re looking for trouble.”
Lefever, having all needed information from Scott’s signal, raised his hand quickly. “Not at all,” he exclaimed, leaning forward to emphasize his words and adding the full orbit of his eye to his sincerity of manner. “Not at all, Satt. This is all friendly, all friendly. But,” he coughed slightly, as if in apology, “if Henry shouldn’t turn up all right, we’ll––ahem––be back.”
None of his companions needed to be told how to get prudently away. At a nod from Lefever Tommie Meggeson, Elpaso, and Wickwire wheeled their horses, rode rapidly back to the turn near the hill and, facing about, halted, with their rifles across their arms. Lefever and Kennedy followed leisurely, and the party withdrew leaving Satterlee, unmoved, in the sunny doorway. Once out of sight, Lefever led the way rapidly down the Gap to the rendezvous.
Of all the confused impressions that crowded Nan’s memory after the wild night on Music Mountain, the most vivid was that of a noticeably light-stepping and not ungraceful fat man advancing, hat in hand, to greet her as she stood with de Spain, weary and bedraggled in the aspen grove.
A smile flamed from her eyes when, turning at once, he rebuked de Spain with dignity for not introducing him to Nan, and while de Spain made apologies Lefever introduced himself.
“And is this,” murmured Nan, looking at him quizzically, “really Mr. John Lefever whom I’ve heard so many stories about?”
She was conscious of his pleasing eyes and even teeth as he smiled again. “If they have come from Mr. de Spain––I warn you,” said John, “take them with all reserve.”
“But they haven’t all come from Mr. de Spain.”
“If they come from any of my friends, discredit them in advance. You could believe what my enemies say,” he ran on; then added ingenuously, “if I had any enemies!” To de Spain he talked very little. It seemed to take but few words to exchange the news. Lefever asked gingerly about the fight. He made no mention whatever of the crimson pool in the road near Sassoon’s hut.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIX
PUPPETS OF FATE
The house in the Gap that had sheltered Nan for many years seemed never so empty as the night she left it with de Spain. In spite of his vacillation, her uncle was deeply attached to her. She made his home for him. He had never quite understood it before, but the realization came only too soon after he had lost her. And his resentment against Gale as the cause of her leaving deepened with every hour that he sat next day with his stubborn pipe before the fire. Duke had acceded with much reluctance to the undertaking that was to force her into a marriage. Gale had only partly convinced him that once taken, the step would save her from de Spain and end their domestic troubles. The failure of the scheme left Duke sullen, and his nephew sore, with humiliation.
In spite of the alarms and excitement of the night, of Gale’s determination that de Spain should never leave the Gap with Nan, and of the rousing of every man within it to cut off their escape, Duke stubbornly refused to pursue the man he so hated or even to leave the house in any effort to balk his escape. But Gale, and Sassoon who had even keener reason for hating de Spain, left Duke to sulk as he would, and set about getting the enemy without any help from the head of the house. In spite of the caution with which de Spain had covered his movements, and the flood and darkness of the night, Sassoon by a mere chance had got wind through one of his men of de Spain’s appearance at Duke Morgan’s, and had begun to plan, before Nan and de Spain had got out of the house, how to trap him.
Duke heard from Pardaloe, during the night and the early morning, every report with indifference. He only sat and smoked, hour after hour, in silence. But after it became known that de Spain had, beyond doubt, made good his escape, and had Nan with him, the old man’s sullenness turned into rage, and when Gale, rankling with defeat, stormed in to see him in the morning, he caught the full force of Duke’s wrath. The younger man taken aback by the outbreak and in drink himself, returned his abuse without hesitation or restraint. Pardaloe came between them before harm was done, but the two men parted with the anger of their quarrel deepened.
When Nan rode with de Spain into Sleepy Cat that morning, Lefever had already told their story to Jeffries over the telephone from Calabasas, and Mrs. Jeffries had thrown open her house to receive Nan. Weary from exposure, confusion, and hunger, Nan was only too grateful for a refuge.
On the evening of the second day de Spain was invited to join the family at supper. In the evening the Jeffrieses went down-town.
De Spain was talking with Nan in the living-room when the telephone-bell rang in the library.
De Spain took the call, and a man’s voice answered his salutation. The speaker asked for Mr. de Spain and seemed particular to make sure of his identity.
“This,” repeated de Spain more than once, and somewhat testily, “is Henry de Spain speaking.”
“I’d like to have a little talk with you, Mr. de Spain.”
“Go ahead.”
“I don’t mean over the telephone. Could you make it convenient to come down-town somewhere, say to Tenison’s, any time this evening?”
The thought of a possible ambuscade deterred the listener less than the thought of leaving Nan, from whom he was unwilling to separate himself for a moment. Likewise, the possibility of an attempt to kidnap her in his absence was not overlooked. On the other hand, if the message came from Duke and bore some suggestion of a compromise in the situation, de Spain was unwilling to lose it. With these considerations turning in his mind, he answered the man brusquely: “Who are you?”
The vein of sharpness in the question met with no deviation from the slow, even tone of the voice at the other end of the wire. “I am not in position to give you my name,” came the answer, “at least, not over the wire.”
A vague impression suddenly crossed de Spain’s mind that somewhere he had heard the voice before. “I can’t come down-town to-night,” returned de Spain abruptly. “If you’ll come to my office to-morrow morning at nine, I’ll talk with you.”
A pause preceded the answer. “It wouldn’t hardly do for me to come to your office in daylight. But if it would, I couldn’t do it to-morrow, because I shan’t be in town in the morning.”
“Where are you talking from now?”
“I’m at Tenison’s place.”
“Hang you,” said de Spain instantly, “I know you now.” But he said the words to himself, not aloud.
“Do you suppose I could come up to where you are to-night for a few minutes’ talk?” continued the man coolly.
“Not unless you have something very important.”
“What I have is more important to you than to me.”
De Spain took an instant to decide. “All right,” he said impatiently; “come along. Only––” he paused to let the word sink in, “––if this is a game you’re springing–––”
“I’m springing no game,” returned the man evenly.
“You’re liable to be one of the men hurt.”
“That’s fair enough.”
“Come along, then.”
“Mr. Jeffries’s place is west of the court-house?”
“Directly west. Now, I’ll tell you just how to get here. Do you hear?”
“I’m listening.”
“Leave Main Street at Rancherio Street. Follow Rancherio north four blocks, turn west into Grant Avenue. Mr. Jeffries’s house is on the corner.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Don’t come any other way. If you do, you won’t see me.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Mr. de Spain, and I’ll come as you say. There’s only one thing I should like to ask. It would be as much as my life is worth to be seen talking to you. And there are other good reasons why I shouldn’t like to have it known I had talked to you. Would you mind putting out the lights before I come up––I mean, in the front of the house and in the room where we talk?”
“Not in the least. I mean––I am always willing to take a chance against any other man’s. But I warn you, come prepared to take care of yourself.”
“If you will do as I ask, no harm will come to any one.”
De Spain heard the receiver hung up at the other end of the wire. He signalled the operator hastily, called for his office, asked for Lefever, and, failing to get him, got hold of Bob Scott. To him he explained rapidly what had occurred, and what he wanted. “Get up to Grant and Rancherio, Bob, as quick as the Lord will let you. Come by the back streets. There’s a high mulberry hedge at the southwest corner you can get behind. This chap may have been talking for somebody else. Anyway, look the man over when he passes under the arc-light. If it is Sassoon or Gale Morgan, come into Jeffries’s house by the rear door. Wait in the kitchen for my call from the living-room, or a shot. I’ll arrange for your getting in.”
