CHAPTER XXIII
Life, the Trophy
To VB, at the sound of the stallion's neighing, came the realization ofhis position--weaponless in the midst of men who, now of all times,would shoot to kill! His righteous abhorrence of the murder Rhues haddone and in which the others had been conspirators did not lessen. Hedid not falter in his determination for vengeance; but his thirst forit did not detract one whit from his realization of the situation'sdifficulties.
Seconds were precious. Just a lone instant he poised, looking quicklyabout, and to his ears came again the cry of the horse, plaintive,worried, appealing.
"Captain!" he cried, and started to run. "Captain! You didn't fail!They _brought_ you!"
His voice lifted to a shout as he rounded the corner of the house, andthe Captain answered.
With the horse located, VB stumbled across the short intervening space,one hand to his breast doing the double duty of attempting to still thesearing of that wound and hold fast to the money belt. He flung himselfat the door of the low little stable, jerked the fastening apart, and,backing in, saw men run from the house, heard them curse sharply, andsaw them turn and look, each with his shooting hand raised.
VB drew the door shut after him, trembling, thinking swiftly. TheCaptain nosed him and nickered relief, stepping about in his agitationas though he knew the desperate nature of the corner into which theyhad been driven.
"We've got to get out, boy," VB cried, running his numb hands over theanimal's face in caress. "We're up against it, but there's a way out!"
It was good to be back. It was good to feel that thick, firm neckagain, to have the warm breath of the vital beast on his cheek, tosense his dominating presence--for it did dominate, even in thatstrained circumstance, and in the stress VB found half hysterical joyand voiced it:
"You didn't quit, Captain!" he cried as he felt the cinch hastily. "Youdidn't quit. They--that woman! She brought you here!"
He flung his arms about the stallion's head in a quick, nervous embraceat the cost of a mighty cutting pain across his chest.
Then the cautious voice of Rhues, outside and close up to the door,talking lowly and swiftly:
"Julio, saddle th' buckskin! Quick! I'll hold him here till we'reready! Then I'll shoot th' ---- down in his tracks! We got to ride,anyhow--nothin' 'll make no difference now!"
Raising his voice, Rhues taunted:
"Pray, you ----! Yer goin' to cash!"
VB pressed his face to a crack and saw Rhues in the moonlight, close upto the door. He also saw another man, Julio, leading a horse from thecorral on the run. Two other animals, saddled, stood near.
He was cornered, helpless, in their hands--hard hands, that knew nomercy. But he did not give up. His mind worked nimbly, skipping frompossibility to possibility, looking, searching for a way out.
He reeled to the black horse and felt the animal's breath against theback of his neck.
"We're up against it, boy," he whispered.
And the voice of Rhues again: "They'll find him to-morrow--with th'belt!"
He broke off suddenly, as though the words had set in his mind a newidea.
VB did not hear; would not have heeded had his senses registered thewords, because an odd apathy had come over him, dulling the pain of hiswound, deadening the realization of his danger. He sighed deeply andshook himself and tried to rally, but though a part of him insistedthat he gather his faculties and force them to alertness, anothertired, lethargic self overbore the warning. Half consciously he pulledthe stirrup toward him, put up his foot with an unreal effort, andlaboriously drew himself to the saddle. There, he leaned forward on hisarms, which were crossed on the Captain's neck, oblivious to all thattranspired.
But the great stallion was not insensible to the situation. He couldnot know the danger, but he did know that he had been led into astrange place, shut there and left virtually a prisoner; that hismaster had burst in upon him atremble with communicable excitement;that strange voices were raised close to him; that men had been runningto and fro; that the sounds of struggling horses were coming from outthere; that some man was standing on the other side of the door, closerthan most men had ever stood to him. He breathed loudly; then stilledthat breath to listen, his head moving with frequent, short jerks as hesaw objects move past the cracks in the building. He switched his tailabout his hindquarters sharply, and backed a step.
Another voice called softly to Rhues, and Rhues answered:
"Dah! When I rolled him over his holster flopped out of his shirt,empty. He dropped it in th' s'loon. If he'd had a gun he'd done fer us'n there, wouldn't he?"
Then his voice was raised in a sharp command: "Help him, Julio! Hang onto his ear an' he'll stand. _Pronto!_"
Sounds of men grunting, of a horse striving to break from them; a sharpcry. These things--and emanating from a scene taking place outside theCaptain's sight! He half wheeled and scrubbed the back wall of thestable with his hip, blowing loudly in fright. He stamped a forefootimpatiently; followed that by a brisk, nervous pawing. He tossed hishead and chewed his bit briskly; then shook his head and blew loudlyagain. He shied violently as a man ran past the door, wheeled, crashedinto the wall again and, crouching, quivered violently.
VB moaned with pain. When the horse under him had shied the boy hadpushed himself erect in the saddle and the effort tore at the wound inhis chest. The pain roused him, and as the Captain again wheeled,frantic to find a way out of this pen, VB's heels clapped inward toretain his seat, the spurs drove home, and with a whimper the horsereared to his hind legs, lunged forward, and the front hoofs, shootingout, crashed squarely against the closed door!
Under the force of the blow the door swept outward, screaming on itsrusty hinges. A third of the way open it struck resistance, quivered,seemed to hesitate, then continued on its arc.
A surprised, muffled shout, the sound of a body striking ground, ashot, its stream of fire spitting toward the night sky. Then thevicious smiting of hoofs as the Captain, bearing his witless rider,swung in a short circle and made for the river.
Rhues, caught and knocked flat by the bursting open of the door, wasperhaps a half-dozen seconds in getting to his feet. He came upshooting, a stream of leaden missiles shrieking aimlessly off intospace. Julio and Matson, busy with the refractory buckskin, heard thecrash and creak of the swinging door, heard the shout, heard the shot;they turned to see the black stallion sweep from the little buildingand swirl past them, ears back, teeth gleaming, and bearing to thenorth.
Still clinging to the buckskin's head, the Mexican drew his gun;Matson, utterly bewildered, fearful of impending consequences, gave thecinch a final tug, but before Julio could fire the water of the riverwas thrown in radiant spray as the Captain floundered into midstreamwith VB low on his neck.
Then Rhues was on them, putting into choking words the vileness of hisheart. He did not explain beyond:
"Th' ---- horse! Th' door got me!"
He seized the cheek strap of the buckskin's bridle and swung up, whilethe others watched the horse running out into the moonlit river. Thepony reared and pivoted on his hind legs.
"Git on yer hosses!" Rhues screeched, yanking at the bit. "He can't gitaway, with his hoss run down once to-night! An' if we let him--weswing!"
Goaded by that terror they obeyed, hanging spurs in their horses'flanks before they found stirrups, and the trio whirled down to thewater.
"He's goin' home!" Rhues cried above the splashing. "That's our wayout; we'll git him as we go 'long! We'll ride him down; he ain't got agun! An' they'll find him out yonder with th' money belt on him! We--"He broke short with a laugh. "We could claim th' reward! Two fifty,dead 'r alive!"
Matson snarled something. Then, as their horses struggled up the farbank of the stream, completed it:
"---- with th' reward! What we want's a get-away!"
"We're on our way now," growled Rhues, and lashed his pony viciouslywith the ends of his bridle reins.
Knee to knee they raced, the ponies stre
tching their heads far out inefforts to cover that light ribbon of road which clove the cloudlikesage brush and ate up the distance between their position and thatscudding blur ahead. Each had his gun drawn and held high in the righthand ready for use; each, with eyes only for that before them, withminds only for speed--and quick speculation on what might happen shouldthey fail.
The creak of leather, the sharp batter of hoofs, the rattle of pebblesas they were thrown out against the rocks, the excited breathing ofhorses: A race, with human life the trophy!
And VB, looking back, saw. With set teeth he leaned still lower overthe Captain's neck in spite of the raging the posture set up in historn breast. No will of his had directed the stallion in that flightnorthward. His unexpected dash through the barn door, the quickrecognition of the point they had scored, the sharp pang which camewhen VB realized the fact that the horse's, break for home had cut himoff from help that might have remained in Ranger, left the wounded manin a swirl of confused impressions.
Behind all the jumble was the big urge to reach that place which hadbeen the only true haven of his experience. He felt a glimmer of solacewhen he sensed that he was going home which quite neutralized theterror that the glance at those oncoming riders provoked. The comfortinculcated by the idea grew into clear thinking; from there on into thestatus of an obsession. He was going home! He was on the way, with thatmighty beast under him! He raised more of his weight to the stirrupsand laid a reassuring hand on the snapping shoulder of his horse.
And on his trail rode the merciless three, their eyes following thebending course of the road, hat-brims now blown back against thecrowns, now down over their eyes in the rush through the night. Rhuesrode a quarter of a length ahead of the others, and his automatic wasraised higher than were their gun-hands. Now and then one of the triospoke sharply to his horse and grunted as he raked with a spur, but forthe greater part of the time they did not lift their voices above thethunder of the race. They knew what must happen; they held their own,and waited!
"Go, boy, go!" whispered VB. "We'll run their legs off; they'll neverget in range!"
The Captain held an attentive ear backward a moment, then shot itforward, watching the road, holding his rolling, space-eating stride.VB turned his head and again looked back. They were still there! Nonearer--but he had not shaken them off. Two, perhaps three, miles hadbeen covered and they hung by him, just within sight, just beyond thatpoint where they might fire with an even chance of certainty. Hepressed his arm against his burning breast, crowding the treasuredmoney belt tighter against the wound. Somehow, it seemed to dull thetorment, and for minutes he held the pressure constant, still lifted tosupreme heights of endeavor and ability to withstand suffering by therage that had welled up from his depths as he stood back in the shadowof the cabin and had the suspicion of how and why Kelly had met deathbecome certainty.
Another mile, and he turned to look back again. They still hung there,making a blur in the moonlight, fanciful, half floating, but he knewthey were real, knew that they hammered their way through the nightwith lust for his life!
"Captain!" he cried, apprehension rising. "Go it, boy; go it!"
He pressed a spur lightly against his side and felt the great beastquiver between strides. The pace quickened a trifle, but VB saw thatthe ears were no longer held steadily to the fore, that the head duckedwith each leap forward as he had never seen it duck before. And as thethought with its killing remorse thundered into his intelligence, VBsat erect in the saddle with a gasp and a movement which staggered therunning animal that bore him.
The Captain's strength had been drained! For twenty strides VB satthere, inert, a dead weight, while grief came into his throat, into hisvision, deadening his mind. In all that melodrama which began when hestared through the saloon door and saw Rhues standing in the moonlight,gun ready, the reason for his presence in Ranger, the history of theearlier night, had been obliterated for the time being. Now, as he feltthe beast under him labor, heard his heavy breathing, saw the froth onhis lips, it all came back to Young VB.
"Oh, Captain!" he wailed, leaning forward again, eyes burning, throatchoking.
And for a long time he rode as though unable to do else but hold hisposition over the fork of the saddle.
He was stunned, beaten down by poignant remorse. The Captain had madethe long ride from Jed's to Ranger at a killing pace. VB rememberedacutely now that the stallion had staggered as he emerged from ClearRiver and came into view of the saloon lights. And he had been therehow long? An hour of poker, perhaps; an hour more at the outside. Twohours for the horse to regain the strength that had been taken from himin that cruel ride--a ride taken to satisfy the viciousness which madeVB a man uncertain of himself!
The Captain had been wasted! He had gone, as had VB's heart and mind,to be a sacrifice for hideous gods! In an hour of weakness he had beenoffered, had been given gladly, and without thought of his value! Forhad not VB gloried in that ride to Ranger? Had it not been the end ofall things for him? An end for which he was thankful? Had it not beenall conscious, witting, planned? It had--and it had not been worth thecandle!
The boy moaned aloud and wound his fingers in the flapping mane.
"Captain!" he cried. "It was all wrong--all false! I threw you away anhour ago, and now--you're _life_ to me! Oh, boy, will you forgive? Canyou?"
No fear of death tapped the wells of his grief. There was only sorrowfor his wasting of that great animal, that splendid spirit, that cleanstrength!
After a moment he sobbed: "You can't do anything else but go on, boy!You're that sort! You'll go, then I'll go; anyhow, it will be together!"
And the great beast, blowing froth from his lips, struggled on, whilefrom behind came the sounds of other running horses--perhaps a triflenearer.