Books: The Man of the Forest
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Zane Grey >> The Man of the Forest
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"Shore I'm scared he's hurt," said Wilson.
"Hoss rolled right on top of him. An' thet hoss's heavy,"
declared Moze.
They got down and knelt beside their leader. In the darkness
his face looked dull gray. His breathing was not right.
"Snake, old man, you ain't -- hurt?" asked Wilson, with a
tremor in his voice. Receiving no reply, he said to his
comrades, "Lay hold an' we'll heft him up where we can see."
The three men carefully lifted Anson up on the bank and laid
him near the fire in the light. Anson was conscious. His
face was ghastly. Blood showed on his lips.
Wilson knelt beside him. The other outlaws stood up, and
with one dark gaze at one another damned Anson's chance of
life. And on the instant rose that terrible distressing
scream of acute agony -- like that of a woman being
dismembered. Shady Jones whispered something to Moze. Then
they stood up, gazing down at their fallen leader.
"Tell me where you're hurt?" asked Wilson.
"He -- smashed -- my chest," said Anson, in a broken,
strangled whisper.
Wilson's deft hands opened the outlaw's shirt and felt of
his chest.
-335-
"No. Shore your breast-bone ain't smashed," replied Wilson,
hopefully. And he began to run his hand around one side of
Anson's body and then the other. Abruptly he stopped,
averted his gaze, then slowly ran the hand all along that
side. Anson's ribs had been broken and crushed in by the
weight of the horse. He was bleeding at the mouth, and his
slow, painful expulsions of breath brought a bloody froth,
which showed that the broken bones had penetrated the lungs.
An injury sooner or later fatal!
"Pard, you busted a rib or two," said Wilson.
"Aw, Jim -- it must be -- wuss 'n thet!" he whispered. "I'm
-- in orful -- pain. An' I can't -- git any -- breath."
"Mebbe you'll be better," said Wilson, with a cheerfulness
his face belied.
Moze bent close over Anson, took a short scrutiny of that
ghastly face, at the blood-stained lips, and the lean hands
plucking at nothing. Then he jerked erect.
"Shady, he's goin' to cash. Let's clear out of this."
"I'm yours pertickler previous," replied Jones.
Both turned away. They untied the two horses and led them up
to where the saddles lay. Swiftly the blankets went on,
swiftly the saddles swung up, swiftly the cinches snapped.
Anson lay gazing up at Wilson, comprehending this move. And
Wilson stood strangely grim and silent, somehow detached
coldly from that self of the past few hours.
"Shady, you grab some bread an' I'll pack a bunk of meat,"
said Moze. Both men came near the fire, into the light,
within ten feet of where the leader lay.
"Fellars -- you ain't -- slopin'?" he whispered, in husky
amaze.
"Boss, we air thet same. We can't do you no good an' this
hole ain't healthy," replied Moze.
Shady Jones swung himself astride his horse, all about him
sharp, eager, strung.
"Moze, I'll tote the grub an' you lead out of hyar, till we
git past the wust timber," he said.
"Aw, Moze --you wouldn't leave -- Jim hyar -- alone,"
implored Anson.
"Jim can stay till he rots," retorted Moze. "I've hed enough
of this hole."
"But, Moze -- it ain't square --" panted Anson. "Jim
wouldn't -- leave me. I'd stick -- by you. . . . I'll make
it -- all up to you."
"Snake, you're goin' to cash," sardonically returned Moze.
A current leaped all through Anson's stretched frame. His
ghastly face blazed. That was the great and the terrible
moment which for long had been in abeyance. Wilson had known
grimly that it would come, by one means or another. Anson
had doggedly and faithfully struggled against the tide of
fatal issues. Moze and Shady Jones, deep locked in their
self-centered motives, had not realized the inevitable trend
of their dark lives.
Anson, prostrate as he was, swiftly drew his gun and shot
Moze. Without sound or movement of hand Moze fell. Then the
plunge of Shady's horse caused Anson's second shot to miss.
A quick third shot brought no apparent result but Shady's
cursing resort to his own weapon. He tried to aim from his
plunging horse. His bullets spattered dust and gravel over
Anson. Then Wilson's long arm stretched and his heavy gun
banged. Shady collapsed in the saddle, and the frightened
horse, throwing him, plunged out of the circle of light.
Thudding hoofs, crashings of brush, quickly ceased.
"Jim -- did you -- git him?" whispered Anson.
"Shore did, Snake," was the slow, halting response. Jim
Wilson must have sustained a sick shudder as he replied.
Sheathing his gun, he folded a blanket and put it under
Anson's head.
"Jim -- my feet -- air orful cold," whispered Anson.
"Wal, it's gittin' chilly," replied Wilson, and, taking a
second blanket, he laid that over Anson's limbs. "Snake, I'm
feared Shady hit you once."
"A-huh! But not so I'd care -- much -- if I hed -- no wuss
hurt."
"You lay still now. Reckon Shady's hoss stopped out heah a
ways. An' I'll see."
"Jim -- I 'ain't heerd -- thet scream fer -- a little."
"Shore it's gone. . . . Reckon now thet was a cougar."
"I knowed it!"
Wilson stalked away into the darkness. That inky wall did
not seem so impenetrable and black after he had gotten out
of the circle of light. He proceeded carefully and did not
make any missteps. He groped from tree to tree toward the
cliff and presently brought up against a huge flat rock as
high as his head. Here the darkness was blackest, yet he was
able to see a light form on the rock.
"Miss, are you there -- all right?" he called, softly.
"Yes, but I'm scared to death," she whispered in reply.
"Shore it wound up sudden. Come now. I reckon your trouble's
over."
He helped her off the rock, and, finding her unsteady on her
feet, he supported her with one arm and held the other out
in front of him to feel for objects. Foot by foot they
worked out from under the dense shadow of the cliff,
following the course of the little brook. It babbled and
gurgled, and almost drowned the low whistle Wilson sent out.
The girl dragged heavily upon him now, evidently weakening.
At length he reached the little open patch at the head of
the ravine. Halting here, he whistled. An answer came from
somewhere behind him and to the right. Wilson waited, with
the girl hanging on his arm.
"Dale's heah," he said. "An' don't you keel over now --
after all the nerve you hed."
A swishing of brush, a step, a soft, padded footfall; a
looming, dark figure, and a long, low gray shape, stealthily
moving -- it was the last of these that made Wilson jump.
"Wilson!" came Dale's subdued voice.
"Heah. I've got her, Dale. Safe an sound," replied Wilson,
stepping toward the tall form. And he put the drooping girl
into Dale's arms.
"Bo! Bo! You're all right?" Dale's deep voice was tremulous.
She roused up to seize him and to utter little cries of joy
"Oh, Dale! . . . Oh, thank Heaven! I'm ready to drop now. .
. . Hasn't it been a night -- an adventure? . . . I'm well
-- safe -- sound. . . . Dale, we owe it to this Jim Wilson."
"Bo, I -- we'll all thank him -- all our lives," replied
Dale. "Wilson, you're a man! . . . If you'll shake that gang
--"
"Dale, shore there ain't much of a gang left, onless you let
Burt git away," replied Wilson.
"I didn't kill him -- or hurt him. But I scared him so I'll
bet he's runnin' yet. . . . Wilson, did all the shootin'
mean a fight?"
"Tolerable."
"Oh, Dale, it was terrible! I saw it all. I --"
"Wal, Miss, you can tell him after I go. . . . I'm wishin'
you good luck."
His voice was a cool, easy drawl, slightly tremulous.
The girl's face flashed white in the gloom. She pressed
against the outlaw -- wrung his hands.
"Heaven help you, Jim Wilson! You ARE from Texas! . . . I'll
remember you -- pray for you all my life!"
Wilson moved away, out toward the pale glow of light under
the black pines.
CHAPTER XXIV
As Helen Rayner watched Dale ride away on a quest perilous
to him, and which meant almost life or death for her, it was
surpassing strange that she could think of nothing except
the thrilling, tumultuous moment when she had put her arms
round his neck.
It did not matter that Dale -- splendid fellow that he was
-- had made the ensuing moment free of shame by taking her
action as he had taken it -- the fact that she had actually
done it was enough. How utterly impossible for her to
anticipate her impulses or to understand them, once they
were acted upon! Confounding realization then was that when
Dale returned with her sister, Helen knew she would do the
same thing over again!"
"If I do -- I won't be two-faced about it," she
soliloquized, and a hot blush flamed her cheeks.
She watched Dale until he rode out of sight.
When he had gone, worry and dread replaced this other
confusing emotion. She turned to the business of meeting
events. Before supper she packed her valuables and books,
papers, and clothes, together with Bo's, and had them in
readiness so if she was forced to vacate the premises she
would have her personal possessions.
The Mormon boys and several other of her trusted men slept
in their tarpaulin beds on the porch of the ranch-house that
night, so that Helen at least would not be surprised. But
the day came, with its manifold duties undisturbed by any
event. And it passed slowly with the leaden feet of
listening, watching vigilance.
Carmichael did not come back, nor was there news of him to
be had. The last known of him had been late the afternoon of
the preceding day, when a sheep-herder had seen him far out
on the north range, headed for the hills. The Beemans
reported that Roy's condition had improved, and also that
there was a subdued excitement of suspense down in the
village.
This second lonely night was almost unendurable for Helen.
When she slept it was to dream horrible dreams; when she lay
awake it was to have her heart leap to her throat at a
rustle of leaves near the window, and to be in torture of
imagination as to poor Bo's plight. A thousand times Helen
said to herself that Beasley could have had the ranch and
welcome, if only Bo had been spared. Helen absolutely
connected her enemy with her sister's disappearance. Riggs
might have been a means to it.
Daylight was not attended by so many fears; there were
things to do that demanded attention. And thus it was that
the next morning, shortly before noon, she was recalled to
her perplexities by a shouting out at the corrals and a
galloping of horses somewhere near. From the window she saw
a big smoke.
"Fire! That must be one of the barns -- the old one,
farthest out," she said, gazing out of the window. "Some
careless Mexican with his everlasting cigarette!"
Helen resisted an impulse to go out and see what had
happened. She had decided to stay in the house. But when
footsteps sounded on the porch and a rap on the door, she
unhesitatingly opened it. Four Mexicans stood close. One of
them, quick as thought, flashed a hand in to grasp her, and
in a single motion pulled her across the threshold.
"No hurt, Senuora," he said, and pointed -- making motions
she must go.
Helen did not need to be told what this visit meant. Many as
her conjectures had been, however, she had not thought of
Beasley subjecting her to this outrage. And her blood
boiled.
"How dare you!" she said, trembling in her effort to control
her temper. But class, authority, voice availed nothing with
these swarthy Mexicans. They grinned. Another laid hold of
Helen with dirty, brown hand. She shrank from the contact.
"Let go!" she burst out, furiously. And instinctively she
began to struggle to free herself. Then they all took hold
of her. Helen's dignity might never have been! A burning,
choking rush of blood was her first acquaintance with the
terrible passion of anger that was her inheritance from the
Auchinclosses. She who had resolved never to lay herself
open to indignity now fought like a tigress. The Mexicans,
jabbering in their excitement, had all they could do, until
they lifted her bodily from the porch. They handled her as
if she had been a half-empty sack of corn. One holding each
hand and foot they packed her, with dress disarranged and
half torn off, down the path to the lane and down the lane
to the road. There they stood upright and pushed her off her
property.
Through half-blind eyes Helen saw them guarding the gateway,
ready to prevent her entrance. She staggered down the road
to the village. It seemed she made her way through a red
dimness -- that there was a congestion in her brain -- that
the distance to Mrs. Cass's cottage was insurmountable. But
she got there, to stagger up the path, to hear the old
woman's cry. Dizzy, faint, sick, with a blackness enveloping
all she looked at, Helen felt herself led into the
sitting-room and placed in the big chair.
Presently sight and clearness of mind returned to her. She
saw Roy, white as a sheet, questioning her with terrible
eyes. The old woman hung murmuring over her, trying to
comfort her as well as fasten the disordered dress.
"Four greasers -- packed me down -- the hill -- threw me off
my ranch -- into the road!" panted Helen.
She seemed to tell this also to her own consciousness and to
realize the mighty wave of danger that shook her whole body.
"If I'd known -- I would have killed them!"
She exclaimed that, full-voiced and hard, with dry, hot eyes
on her friends. Roy reached out to take her hand, speaking
huskily. Helen did not distinguish what he said. The
frightened old woman knelt, with unsteady fingers fumbling
over the rents in Helen's dress. The moment came when
Helen's quivering began to subside, when her blood quieted
to let her reason sway, when she began to do battle with her
rage, and slowly to take fearful stock of this consuming
peril that had been a sleeping tigress in her veins.
"Oh, Miss Helen, you looked so turrible, I made sure you was
hurted," the old woman was saying.
Helen gazed strangely at her bruised wrists, at the one
stocking that hung down over her shoe-top, at the rent I
which had bared her shoulder to the profane gaze of those
grinning, beady-eyed Mexicans.
"My body's -- not hurt," she whispered.
Roy had lost some of his whiteness, and where his eyes had
been fierce they were now kind.
"Wal, Miss Nell, it's lucky no harm's done. . . . Now if
you'll only see this whole deal clear! . . . Not let it
spoil your sweet way of lookin' an' hopin'! If you can only
see what's raw in this West -- an' love it jest the same!"
Helen only half divined his meaning, but that was enough for
a future reflection. The West was beautiful, but hard. In
the faces of these friends she began to see the meaning of
the keen, sloping lines, and shadows of pain, of a lean,
naked truth, cut as from marble.
"For the land's sakes, tell us all about it," importuned
Mrs. Cass.
Whereupon Helen shut her eyes and told the brief narrative
of her expulsion from her home.
"Shore we-all expected thet," said Roy. "An' it's jest as
well you're here with a whole skin. Beasley's in possession
now an' I reckon we'd all sooner hev you away from thet
ranch."
"But, Roy, I won't let Beasley stay there," cried Helen.
"Miss Nell, shore by the time this here Pine has growed big
enough fer law you'll hev gray in thet pretty hair. You
can't put Beasley off with your honest an' rightful claim.
Al Auchincloss was a hard driver. He made enemies an' he
made some he didn't kill. The evil men do lives after them.
An' you've got to suffer fer Al's sins, though Al was as
good as any man who ever prospered in these parts."
"Oh, what can I do? I won't give up. I've been robbed. Can't
the people help me? Must I meekly sit with my hands crossed
while that half-breed thief -- Oh, it's unbelievable!"
"I reckon you'll jest hev to be patient fer a few days,"
said Roy, calmly. "It'll all come right in the end."
"Roy! You've had this deal, as you call it, all worked out
in mind for a long time!" exclaimed Helen.
"Shore, an' I 'ain't missed a reckonin' yet."
"Then what will happen -- in a few days?"
"Nell Rayner, are you goin' to hev some spunk an' not lose
your nerve again or go wild out of your head?"
"I'll try to be brave, but -- but I must be prepared," she
replied, tremulously.
"Wal, there's Dale an' Las Vegas an' me fer Beasley to
reckon with. An', Miss Nell, his chances fer long life are
as pore as his chances fer heaven!"
"But, Roy, I don't believe in deliberate taking of life,"
replied Helen, shuddering. "That's against my religion. I
won't allow it. . . . And -- then -- think, Dale, all of you
-- in danger!"
"Girl, how 're you ever goin' to help yourself ? Shore you
might hold Dale back, if you love him, an' swear you won't
give yourself to him. . . . An' I reckon I'd respect your
religion, if you was goin' to suffer through me. . . . But
not Dale nor you -- nor Bo -- nor love or heaven or hell can
ever stop thet cowboy Las Vegas!"
"Oh, if Dale brings Bo back to me -- what will I care for my
ranch?" murmured Helen.
"Reckon you'll only begin to care when thet happens. Your
big hunter has got to be put to work," replied Roy, with his
keen smile.
Before noon that day the baggage Helen had packed at home
was left on the porch of Widow Cass's cottage, and Helen's
anxious need of the hour was satisfied. She was made
comfortable in the old woman's one spare room, and she set
herself the task of fortitude and endurance.
To her surprise, many of Mrs. Cass's neighbors came
unobtrusively to the back door of the little cottage and
made sympathetic inquiries. They appeared a subdued and
apprehensive group, and whispered to one another as they
left. Helen gathered from their visits a conviction that the
wives of the men dominated by Beasley believed no good could
come of this high-handed taking over of the ranch. Indeed,
Helen found at the end of the day that a strength had been
borne of her misfortune.
The next day Roy informed her that his brother John had come
down the preceding night with the news of Beasley's descent
upon the ranch. Not a shot had been fired, and the only
damage done was that of the burning of a hay-filled barn.
This had been set on fire to attract Helen's men to one
spot, where Beasley had ridden down upon them with three
times their number. He had boldly ordered them off the land,
unless they wanted to acknowledge him boss and remain there
in his service. The three Beemans had stayed, having planned
that just in this event they might be valuable to Helen's
interests. Beasley had ridden down into Pine the same as
upon any other day. Roy reported also news which had come in
that morning, how Beasley's crowd had celebrated late the
night before.
The second and third and fourth days endlessly wore away,
and Helen believed they had made her old. At night she lay
awake most of the time, thinking and praying, but during the
afternoon she got some sleep. She could think of nothing and
talk of nothing except her sister, and Dale's chances of
saving her.
"Well, shore you pay Dale a pore compliment," finally
protested the patient Roy. "I tell you -- Milt Dale can do
anythin' he wants to do in the woods. You can believe thet.
. . . But I reckon he'll run chances after he comes back."
This significant speech thrilled Helen with its assurance of
hope, and made her blood curdle at the implied peril
awaiting the hunter.
On the afternoon of the fifth day Helen was abruptly
awakened from her nap. The sun had almost set. She heard
voices -- the shrill, cackling notes of old Mrs. Cass, high
in excitement, a deep voice that made Helen tingle all over,
a girl's laugh, broken but happy. There were footsteps and
stamping of hoofs. Dale had brought Bo back! Helen knew it.
She grew very weak, and had to force herself to stand erect.
Her heart began to pound in her very ears. A sweet and
perfect joy suddenly flooded her soul. She thanked God her
prayers had been answered. Then suddenly alive with sheer
mad physical gladness, she rushed out.
She was just in time to see Roy Beeman stalk out as if he
had never been shot, and with a yell greet a big, gray-clad,
gray-faced man -- Dale.
"Howdy, Roy! Glad to see you up," said Dale. How the quiet
voice steadied Helen! She beheld Bo. Bo, looking the same,
except a little pale and disheveled! Then Bo saw her and
leaped at her, into her arms.
"Nell! I'm here! Safe -- all right! Never was so happy in my
life. . . . Oh-h! talk about your adventures! Nell, you dear
old mother to me -- I've had e-enough forever!"
Bo was wild with joy, and by turns she laughed and cried.
But Helen could not voice her feelings. Her eyes were so dim
that she could scarcely see Dale when he loomed over her as
she held Bo. But he found the hand she put shakily out.
"Nell! . . . Reckon it's been harder -- on you." His voice
was earnest and halting. She felt his searching gaze upon
her face. "Mrs. Cass said you were here. An' I know why."
Roy led them all indoors.
"Milt, one of the neighbor boys will take care of thet
hoss," he said, as Dale turned toward the dusty and weary
Ranger. "Where'd you leave the cougar?"
"I sent him home," replied Date.
"Laws now, Milt, if this ain't grand!" cackled Mrs. Cass.
"We've worried some here. An' Miss Helen near starved
a-hopin' fer you."
"Mother, I reckon the girl an' I are nearer starved than
anybody you know," replied Dale, with a grim laugh.
"Fer the land's sake! I'll be fixin' supper this minit."
"Nell, why are you here?" asked Bo, suspiciously.
For answer Helen led her sister into the spare room and
closed the door. Bo saw the baggage. Her expression changed.
The old blaze leaped to the telltale eyes.
"He's done it!" she cried, hotly.
"Dearest -- thank God. I've got you -- back again!" murmured
Helen, finding her voice. "Nothing else matters! . . . I've
prayed only for that!"
"Good old Nell!" whispered Bo, and she kissed and embraced
Helen. "You really mean that, I know. But nix for yours
truly! I'm back alive and kicking, you bet. . . . Where's my
-- where's Tom?"
"Bo, not a word has been heard of him for five days. He's
searching for you, of course."
"And you've been -- been put off the ranch?"
"Well, rather," replied Helen, and in a few trembling words
she told the story of her eviction.
Bo uttered a wild word that had more force than elegance,
but it became her passionate resentment of this outrage done
her sister.
"Oh! . . . Does Tom Carmichael know this?" she added,
breathlessly.
"How could he?"
"When he finds out, then -- Oh, won't there be hell? I'm
glad I got here first. . . . Nell, my boots haven't been off
the whole blessed time. Help me. And oh, for some soap and
hot water and some clean clothes! Nell, old girl, I wasn't
raised right for these Western deals. Too luxurious!"
And then Helen had her ears filled with a rapid-fire account
of running horses and Riggs and outlaws and Beasley called
boldly to his teeth, and a long ride and an outlaw who was a
hero -- a fight with Riggs -- blood and death -- another
long ride -- a wild camp in black woods -- night -- lonely,
ghostly sounds -- and day again -- plot -- a great actress
lost to the world -- Ophelia -- Snakes and Ansons --
hoodooed outlaws -- mournful moans and terrible cries --
cougar -- stampede -- fight and shots, more blood and death
-- Wilson hero -- another Tom Carmichael -- fallen in love
with outlaw gun-fighter if -- black night and Dale and horse
and rides and starved and, "Oh, Nell, he WAS from Texas!"
Helen gathered that wonderful and dreadful events had hung
over the bright head of this beloved little sister, but the
bewilderment occasioned by Bo's fluent and remarkable
utterance left only that last sentence clear.
Presently Helen got a word in to inform Bo that Mrs. Cass
had knocked twice for supper, and that welcome news checked
Bo's flow of speech when nothing else seemed adequate.
It was obvious to Helen that Roy and Dale had exchanged
stories. Roy celebrated this reunion by sitting at table the
first time since he had been shot; and despite Helen's
misfortune and the suspended waiting balance in the air the
occasion was joyous. Old Mrs. Cass was in the height of her
glory. She sensed a romance here, and, true to her sex, she
radiated to it.
Daylight was still lingering when Roy got up and went out on
the porch. His keen ears had heard something. Helen fancied
she herself had heard rapid hoof-beats.
"Dale, come out!" called Roy, sharply.
The hunter moved with his swift, noiseless agility. Helen
and Bo followed, halting in the door.
"Thet's Las Vegas," whispered Dale.
To Helen it seemed that the cowboy's name changed the very
atmosphere.
Voices were heard at the gate; one that, harsh and quick,
sounded like Carmichael's. And a spirited horse was pounding
and scattering gravel. Then a lithe figure appeared,
striding up the path. It was Carmichael -- yet not the
Carmichael Helen knew. She heard Bo's strange little cry, a
corroboration of her own impression.
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