CHAPTER X
The gathering dusk that had fallen upon Uncle Alf questing the mysterious rider infolded also Zang Whistler and the girl Hilma riding toward the Spout. Their way was long; they had not departed from the cabin where Original Bill lay unconscious until mid-afternoon; there was no call to push their horses, particularly since the somnolent Christian Hilma rode refused utterly to break from a stiff-kneed trot long custom under his dead master had established as a maximum requirement of speed.
A capricious genius of the Big Country, delighting ever to mingle leaven of doubt and hint of insecurity with whatever joys she grudgingly permits her creatures, must have taken a teasing pleasure from Zang's state of mind during that long ride. For it was unstable as a weather vane, volatile as mercury under a clutching finger. When first Hilma had given her assent to ride with him into the Spout a great triumph had swept over the man's heart; his pride of conquest vaunted itself. As they rode together across the swelling divides Zang babbled exultingly of the future, and the pronoun we held large place in his discourse: "We 'll give those cow outfits a run," and "We 'll show that Original fella not to sit into a game less he savvys all the pricks on the cards."
Once in his pride of possession Zang pushed his mount close to the stumbling Christian and essayed to slip a masterful arm about the girl's waist. His hand was met by firm fingers, which promptly disengaged the clasp. "Say" the man's protest began, but stopped there. Though Hilma's eyes were held resolutely to the front, a monitory tightening of the corners of her mouth carried warning not to be carelessly unheeded.
Puzzlement slowly began to oust confidence from the lover's mind. This was not the way a woman should act after she had given in to a man. No, sir! Any girl who had consented to have Zang Whistler for a sweetheart ought to warm up a bit. Any girl who was riding with him to the Spout
"Say, Hilma," Zang finally burst out petulantly, "what 's the main idea? You 're holdin' me off with a twenty-foot tepee pole like I was something a kiote dug up in a dry wash. Don't I have no—no claim?" The man ended his protest lamely under the level gaze of her eyes. All their accustomed chill of mountain ice—the deep dark blue of a hidden glacial lake—was there to shrivel Zang's dream of romance.
"Claim?" Hilma echoed flatly. "Claim?"
"Why, sure! You 're ridin' with me to the Spout, ain't you? You 've give yourself into my keeping, or I don't know the human language."
"Men are all foolish," Hilma laughed shortly. "All the time thinking about possessing some woman—owning her like they 'd own a branded heifer. Me—no man owns me, Zang."
"Well, by the great jumpin' Jehoshaphat!" The leader of the Spout gang swept off his high-crowned hat and slammed it against his thigh. Nascent anger struggled with a whimsical humor in his eyes.
"Who said anythin' 'bout putting a brand on to you, girl? All I 'm asking is, have you got a little love in your heart for ole Zang Whistler; yes or no?"
"No," answered Hilma quietly.
Zang's bridle hand gave such a jump his high-strung little horse flattened back his ears and made a quick feint at sunfishing. The rider quickly recovered himself, stretched out a hand to Christian's bridle to stop him. Pulling his own horse to a halt Zang faced the girl squarely.
"Looky here, Hilma girl, 'pears to me like we might as well have a show-down right here 'thout each of us makin' a show of holdin' back the high ace. Answer me true; just how do you figger yourself—you with your little bundle of clothes on your saddle horn an' ridin' to Teapot Spout with Zang Whistler. I'm putting it blunt an' plain as the business end of a sixshooter: Are you Zang Whistler's woman or are you not?"
A hot wave of color hung a danger signal in each of the girl's cheeks, and into her eyes leaped the fighting fire. Zang's heart cried out that never had this girl been more regally wonderful to look upon.
"You do know how to choose words. Zang Whistler's woman! That sounds pretty! Back in the cabin I was a poor defenseless girl—an outlaw with a jail term ahead of me soon's I got caught; alone in the world, helpless, with an indictment hanging over my head. And Zang Whistler out of the kindness of his heart offers to protect me—offers to take me where the law can't reach. Now—Zang Whistler's woman!"
"Hobble that line of talk!" Blazing anger now shook the man's speech. "You 've got no call to make out somethin' I never said, nor don't intend to say. I never—I did n't—oh, hell's fire an' hoop snakes! How can I say what I want to say? Over to the Spout there 's one woman already—she 's Lonny Taylor's lawful wife. I was aimin' you should live with her until—until somehow I could rope Uncle Alf to ride over an' make marriage medicine between us. Preachers don't squat under every sagebush in this country, an' you know it."
Zang dropped his hand from the girl's bridle. There was something definitive in the gesture; the freed bridle freed also the girl Zang had thought to be wholly his. Hers was the next move.
Hilma's eyes looked deep down into the smoldering eyes of the man and read there the honesty she had secretly believed all the time she would uncover did she care to try. The soundness and wholesomeness of the man's love flattered her; instinctively the guile in her—birthright of her sex—had pushed her on to force this disclosure even though she was unconscious of the fact that her own stratagem had provoked cause for anger. Hilma believed she had every reason to feel that anger; so much, at least, had been genuine. As for the rest, the girl knew naught but cold selfishness had prompted her to accept Zang's offer of protection back there in her cabin. Even as she accepted, knowing the man would construe her act to be a surrender of love, Hilma resented his misreading of this spurious coin. So the feminine heart of her, unmoved as yet by any semblance of passion, had dictated a bargain whereby she should gain all without paying a stiver. That chance of a bargain still remained, she believed.
Hilma picked up the bridle and urged Christian into a trot along the way they had come—along the road to the Spout. Zang rode by her side. He was silent. The outlaw who had successfully built up his kingdom beyond the law, who had dared the agents of the law to come and shackle him, this man of the wilderness was turning over in his inept heart the problem that is woman. Gladly would Zang Whistler swap shots with a sheriff's posse behind the brink of a coulee; with the lightest heart in the world he would sally forth in the night to stampede a herd and cut out a string of beeves under the rifles of their protectors; but this woman business—this she-stuff, as Zang termed it—was not his game. Like a blind cripple trying to ride an unbroken bronc, so Zang in his complete bewilderment summed his incapacity to cope with or fathom this fair antagonist.
Beneath the hard surface of the girl's complete selfishness a faint stirring of conscience began to make itself felt as she rode in silence by the side of this man who had sworn to protect her. Night was falling and nights brought stark loneliness to her. Perhaps this was the circumstance provoking belated protest of conscience; perhaps just the feminine instinct always to appear at the best in the eyes of a man. Hilma was faintly surprised that she should feel necessity to say more on a subject closed the instant Zang had dropped her bridle. Never had she been accustomed to consider the sensibilities of others; never had she been in contact with the sensibilities of any save her father, and they were blunted to all but the coarser reactions. Yet
"Zang," she said, a little hesitantly.
"What?" No encouragement in his barked answer.
"I told you back there in the cabin—when you asked me to go to the Spout with you—I told you I would, you remember, on my own terms."
"An' I'd have to wait your own good time to find out what your terms were," came the brusque interruption.
"Yes, Zang, I thought that way was best." Almost a shade of tenderness in the girl's voice now. The man strained his eyes to peer through the gathering dark and read her face; it was denied him by the gloom, lemon tinged by the last streak of fire along the crests of the Broken Horns.
"Please—please don't ask—or expect—too much all at once, Zang, and"—a faint ghost of a sigh in the near dark—"I'm sorry."
"Let everythin' ride as is. That goes with me," the outlaw said simply, and again silence fell between them.
They were at the fork of the trail where one narrow horse path turns south to climb the heights into the Spout and the other carries on to the westward and Sioux Pass. Hardly had Zang's horse chosen the homeward path than a shrill whinny came out of the dark. This Zang's pony answered before the rider's quick hand could slip down and shut off the equine hailing sign,—a precaution that was automatic with the Spout outlaw. A clatter of hoofs out there in the dark, and a riderless horse came cantering up to within a few feet of the beasts the man and woman rode, circled warily, then cavorted off a short distance. The cayuse was followed by a second, more cautious, who remained out of sight but betrayed his presence by loud snortings. The horse they could see was saddled and bridled; faintly they could distinguish the stock of a rifle protruding above the saddle scabbard.
"Somebody 's afoot," Zang commented aloud. "Wonder who?" He dismounted, uncoiled his reata from the saddle horn and strode off into the darkness. Hilma heard him coaxing the runaway to come into swinging distance of the rope; the girl was struck by the note of patience and kindliness in the man's voice, for in a similar task she would have lost her temper and failed of her purpose. Zang came back presently, leading the stray and with the second runaway meekly following after.
"Somethin' queer about this, 'specially away out here," he said as he threw one leg over his saddle and prepared to lead the roped horse. "That other bronc who 's playin' mousey has no saddle but a bridle on; this willowtail 's rigged right down to a muley in the stocking." A note of doubt crept into his voice. "Wonder if anybody moseyin' round the Spout met up with one of my boys an' had some sort of rukus."
"Look over there!" Hilma exclaimed and she pointed off to the west. Zang followed the direction she indicated and saw a small yellow spark against the blackness.
"That 's the fella who 's afoot," Zang explained. "He 's just beddin' down for the night until he can catch up his horse come daylight. Ye-ah, but if it 's one of the Spout boys he 'd know enough not to make a light away from home; we don't hang out a sign if night catches us out from the Spout. Still an' all"
The outlaw was uncomfortable in the face of a mystery—perhaps a trivial matter of wayfarers who had lost their mounts, perchance something of graver import. Zang Whistler's instinct of protection did not permit him to leave unexplained any untoward circumstance in close proximity to his retreat.
"Reckon we 'll just swing over toward that fire an' see what we can see."
They swerved from their trail accordingly. Fifteen minutes' riding brought them to the top of a small rise perhaps two hundred yards away from the fire. They could distinguish two figures in the firelight, both close to the ground.
"If you 'll just stick here," Zang suggested, "I 'll ease up closer an' get a line on things. Don't be scared. I 'll not mix into any gun play if they 're not our kind—not with you along. If you hear me whistle come on."
He gave her the rope of the led horse and dismounted. With his bridle over his arm and his little horse carefully picking its steps after his, Zang disappeared. Hilma noted that he carried his .45 in his hand.
Alone once more, the girl felt the surge of the night fear sweep over her—that corroding chill bred of the vast spaces and the vault of lonely stars which had made each succeeding night since her father's death an age-long agony. Of a sudden this man who had just quit her side seemed precious beyond price. He stood between herself and all the unformed menace of the limitless wilderness that held her prisoner; he was for her a steady burning light in darkness.
How to hold him? Love, he had said; love was the price he had demanded. Did she have a little love for Zang Whistler; that had been his question. No
Oh, but yes! Yes! If love meant release from this grim spell of fear. If love were the giving of thanks for protection against the drive of unthinkable terrors, that could she give Zang. No other sort of love Hilma knew.
A whistle came to snap the girl's groping reverie. She saw the figure of Zang standing before the fire and waving her to come. So she rode fearlessly into the circle of light.
Uncle Alf strode to the edge of the dark to welcome her. His arms were spread wide in an ecstatic gesture.
"Be of good cheer, daughter!" he boomed in his storm voice. "For vengeance is in thy hands. Yea, through Alpheus, servant of the Lord, is the murderer delivered into the hands of the fatherless."
Hilma looked from the towering figure of the prophet over to where Zang stood behind a bound figure; a wide smile split the outlaw's features. Uncle Alf helped the girl to dismount and led her by the hand to where the trussed man lay on his side. With a lift of his foot he turned the inert figure over so that his face was revealed by the firelight. The girl looked down upon a blotched and scowling mask of animal ferocity; little eyes heavily overhung with puffed lids glared at her like the eyes of a trapped wolf; under a ragged mustache bestial lips parted to show yellow fangs.
"Well," snarled the Killer, "you blat, you mutton lover!"
The taunt galvanized the girl out of the shock recognition had carried. She screamed in fury and dropped with her knees on the Killer's chest. Her crooked fingers darted for his venomous little eyes. Before Zang's strong grip closed about her wrists wicked slashes of red crisscrossed over the bound man's eyes. His jaw was dropped in terror.
Zang lifted Hilma, fighting, to her feet.
"There now, girl," he soothed, "that ain't exactly 'cordin' to Hoyle—not that the skunk don't deserve it, but he's hogtied, you see."
"But he killed my father!" Hilma panted. "Shot him from behind. He has no right to live."
"Leave him to the vengeance of the Most High," Uncle Alf droned. "A great fire will wither him up entirely."
"But you 'll shoot him?" Hilma put the question to the evangelist in the innocence of a child certain of right dealing on the part of its elders.
"No, daughter. The Book says, 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' I 'll take this here man of blood to the court in Two Moons, which is the Lord's instrument of vengeance. 'An eye for an eye,' says the law."
"Then I 'll go with you," Hilma declared. Determination came full formed on the wings of impulse. It was born of the mastering idea that no possible trick of circumstance, no satiric stratagem on the part of this genius of the wilderness that was her enemy, should cheat her of witnessing the visitation of retribution upon the head of the slayer. Caution was discarded.
At Hilma's announcement Zang started. His eyes questioned hers fruitlessly. Taking the girl by the arm, he led her a little away, out of earshot of the Killer.
"You 're sure not aimin' to walk right into Original Bill's arms," he urged tensely. "Not prance right up 'longside an indictment for assault?"
"That man won't dare make a move if I come into town bringing the Killer," Hilma countered. "He 'd be mobbed. Anyway, he does n't fight women in the open—where others can see him. What 's more"
"But, girl"
"What 's more, you know Uncle Alf. If he should be riding in alone with the Killer and thought he heard a voice telling him to let the man go, why, he 'd let him go and then prove from the Bible he did right. No, Zang, I 'm not taking any chances. Anyway, they 'll want me for a witness, won't they?"
The girl looked up to his eyes and saw a conflict there. A new tenderness, sensed once before that night, stirred her heart.
"You, Zang; you can't come, I know. It would be walking straight into jail. But—but, Zang, I 'll come back to you. I—I have n't much to give you, Zang, but I 'll try to—play fair."
He left her abruptly and disappeared in the darkness. When he returned he was leading the saddleless horse, Uncle Alf's runaway. A few minutes' work with a rawhide thread served to repair the broken girth, and Zang had the saddle in place shortly. The evangelist, willing enough to see his prisoner behind bars at the earliest moment, helped Zang lift the Killer back to his own saddle. His legs were bound beneath the horse's belly. Zang mounted his own beast and slipped the bridle of the prisoner's horse over his arm. He led the way back to that point on the trail whence he and Hilma had first seen Uncle Alf's fire. Hilma pressed up to him when the trail showed a dim line under the horses' hoofs and put out her hand to take the leading bridle.
"Good-by, Zang. Remember, I 'll come back."
"Save your good-by for another time," Zang laughed exultantly. "I 'm riding with you to Two Moons."