CHAPTER XII
Some time during the night Duane awoke. A stillness seemingly so thickand heavy as to have substance blanketed the black willow brake. Hecould not see a star or a branch or tree-trunk or even his hand beforehis eyes. He lay there waiting, listening, sure that he had beenawakened by an unusual sound. Ordinary noises of the night in thewilderness never disturbed his rest. His faculties, like those ofold fugitives and hunted creatures, had become trained to a marvelouskeenness. A long low breath of slow wind moaned through the willows,passed away; some stealthy, soft-footed beast trotted by him in thedarkness; there was a rustling among dry leaves; a fox barked lonesomelyin the distance. But none of these sounds had broken his slumber.
Suddenly, piercing the stillness, came a bay of a bloodhound. QuicklyDuane sat up, chilled to his marrow. The action made him aware ofhis crippled arm. Then came other bays, lower, more distant. Silenceenfolded him again, all the more oppressive and menacing in hissuspense. Bloodhounds had been put on his trail, and the leader was notfar away. All his life Duane had been familiar with bloodhounds; and heknew that if the pack surrounded him in this impenetrable darkness hewould be held at bay or dragged down as wolves dragged a stag. Rising tohis feet, prepared to flee as best he could, he waited to be sure of thedirection he should take.
The leader of the hounds broke into cry again, a deep, full-toned,ringing bay, strange, ominous, terribly significant in its power. Itcaused a cold sweat to ooze out all over Duane's body. He turned fromit, and with his uninjured arm outstretched to feel for the willowshe groped his way along. As it was impossible to pick out the narrowpassages, he had to slip and squeeze and plunge between the yieldingstems. He made such a crashing that he no longer heard the baying ofthe hounds. He had no hope to elude them. He meant to climb the firstcottonwood that he stumbled upon in his blind flight. But it appearedhe never was going to be lucky enough to run against one. Often he fell,sometimes flat, at others upheld by the willows. What made the workso hard was the fact that he had only one arm to open a clump ofclose-growing stems and his feet would catch or tangle in the narrowcrotches, holding him fast. He had to struggle desperately. It was as ifthe willows were clutching hands, his enemies, fiendishly impeding hisprogress. He tore his clothes on sharp branches and his flesh sufferedmany a prick. But in a terrible earnestness he kept on until he broughtup hard against a cottonwood tree.
There he leaned and rested. He found himself as nearly exhausted as hehad ever been, wet with sweat, his hands torn and burning, his breastlaboring, his legs stinging from innumerable bruises. While he leanedthere to catch his breath he listened for the pursuing hounds. For along time there was no sound from them. This, however, did not deceivehim into any hopefulness. There were bloodhounds that bayed often on atrail, and others that ran mostly silent. The former were more valuableto their owner and the latter more dangerous to the fugitive. PresentlyDuane's ears were filled by a chorus of short ringing yelps. The packhad found where he had slept, and now the trail was hot. Satisfied thatthey would soon overtake him, Duane set about climbing the cottonwood,which in his condition was difficult of ascent.
It happened to be a fairly large tree with a fork about fifteen feet up,and branches thereafter in succession. Duane climbed until he got abovethe enshrouding belt of blackness. A pale gray mist hung above thebrake, and through it shone a line of dim lights. Duane decided thesewere bonfires made along the bluff to render his escape more difficulton that side. Away round in the direction he thought was north heimagined he saw more fires, but, as the mist was thick, he could not besure. While he sat there pondering the matter, listening for the hounds,the mist and the gloom on one side lightened; and this side he concludedwas east and meant that dawn was near. Satisfying himself on this score,he descended to the first branch of the tree.
His situation now, though still critical, did not appear to be sohopeless as it had been. The hounds would soon close in on him, andhe would kill them or drive them away. It was beyond the bounds ofpossibility that any men could have followed running hounds through thatbrake in the night. The thing that worried Duane was the fact of thebonfires. He had gathered from the words of one of his pursuers that thebrake was a kind of trap, and he began to believe there was only one wayout of it, and that was along the bank where he had entered, and whereobviously all night long his pursuers had kept fires burning. Furtherconjecture on this point, however, was interrupted by a crashing in thewillows and the rapid patter of feet.
Underneath Duane lay a gray, foggy obscurity. He could not see theground, nor any object but the black trunk of the tree. Sight wouldnot be needed to tell him when the pack arrived. With a pattering rushthrough the willows the hounds reached the tree; and then high abovecrash of brush and thud of heavy paws rose a hideous clamor. Duane'spursuers far off to the south would hear that and know what it meant.And at daybreak, perhaps before, they would take a short cut across thebrake, guided by the baying of hounds that had treed their quarry.
It wanted only a few moments, however, till Duane could distinguish thevague forms of the hounds in the gray shadow below. Still he waited. Hehad no shots to spare. And he knew how to treat bloodhounds. Graduallythe obscurity lightened, and at length Duane had good enough sight ofthe hounds for his purpose. His first shot killed the huge brute leaderof the pack. Then, with unerring shots, he crippled several others. Thatstopped the baying. Piercing howls arose. The pack took fright and fled,its course easily marked by the howls of the crippled members. Duanereloaded his gun, and, making certain all the hounds had gone, hedescended to the ground and set off at a rapid pace to the northward.
The mist had dissolved under a rising sun when Duane made his firsthalt some miles north of the scene where he had waited for the hounds. Abarrier to further progress, in shape of a precipitous rocky bluff, rosesheer from the willow brake. He skirted the base of the cliff, wherewalking was comparatively easy, around in the direction of the river. Hereached the end finally to see there was absolutely no chance to escapefrom the brake at that corner. It took extreme labor, attended by somehazard and considerable pain to his arm, to get down where he could fillhis sombrero with water. After quenching his thirst he had a look at hiswound. It was caked over with blood and dirt. When washed off the armwas seen to be inflamed and swollen around the bullet-hole. He bathedit, experiencing a soothing relief in the cool water. Then he bandagedit as best he could and arranged a sling round his neck. This mitigatedthe pain of the injured member and held it in a quiet and restfulposition, where it had a chance to begin mending.
As Duane turned away from the river he felt refreshed. His greatstrength and endurance had always made fatigue something almost unknownto him. However, tramping on foot day and night was as unusual to him asto any other riders of the Southwest, and it had begun to tell on him.Retracing his steps, he reached the point where he had abruptly comeupon the bluff, and here he determined to follow along its base in theother direction until he found a way out or discovered the futility ofsuch effort.
Duane covered ground rapidly. From time to time he paused to listen. Buthe was always listening, and his eyes were ever roving. This alertnesshad become second nature with him, so that except in extreme casesof caution he performed it while he pondered his gloomy and fatefulsituation. Such habit of alertness and thought made time fly swiftly.
By noon he had rounded the wide curve of the brake and was facingsouth. The bluff had petered out from a high, mountainous wall to alow abutment of rock, but it still held to its steep, rough nature andafforded no crack or slope where quick ascent could have been possible.He pushed on, growing warier as he approached the danger-zone, findingthat as he neared the river on this side it was imperative to go deeperinto the willows. In the afternoon he reached a point where he could seemen pacing to and fro on the bluff. This assured him that whatever placewas guarded was one by which he might escape. He headed toward these menand approached to within a hundred paces of the bluff where they were.There were several men and several boys,
all armed and, after the mannerof Texans, taking their task leisurely. Farther down Duane made outblack dots on the horizon of the bluff-line, and these he concluded weremore guards stationed at another outlet. Probably all the available menin the district were on duty. Texans took a grim pleasure in such work.Duane remembered that upon several occasions he had served such dutyhimself.
Duane peered through the branches and studied the lay of the land. Forseveral hundred yards the bluff could be climbed. He took stock of thosecareless guards. They had rifles, and that made vain any attempt to passthem in daylight. He believed an attempt by night might be successful;and he was swiftly coming to a determination to hide there till dark andthen try it, when the sudden yelping of a dog betrayed him to the guardson the bluff.
The dog had likely been placed there to give an alarm, and he waslustily true to his trust. Duane saw the men run together and begin totalk excitedly and peer into the brake, which was a signal for him toslip away under the willows. He made no noise, and he assured himself hemust be invisible. Nevertheless, he heard shouts, then the cracking ofrifles, and bullets began to zip and swish through the leafy covert. Theday was hot and windless, and Duane concluded that whenever he toucheda willow stem, even ever so slightly, it vibrated to the top and senta quiver among the leaves. Through this the guards had located hisposition. Once a bullet hissed by him; another thudded into the groundbefore him. This shooting loosed a rage in Duane. He had to fly fromthese men, and he hated them and himself because of it. Always inthe fury of such moments he wanted to give back shot for shot. Buthe slipped on through the willows, and at length the rifles ceased tocrack.
He sheered to the left again, in line with the rocky barrier, and kepton, wondering what the next mile would bring.
It brought worse, for he was seen by sharp-eyed scouts, and a hotfusillade drove him to run for his life, luckily to escape with no morethan a bullet-creased shoulder.
Later that day, still undaunted, he sheered again toward the trap-wall,and found that the nearer he approached to the place where he hadcome down into the brake the greater his danger. To attempt to run theblockade of that trail by day would be fatal. He waited for night, andafter the brightness of the fires had somewhat lessened he assayed tocreep out of the brake. He succeeded in reaching the foot of the bluff,here only a bank, and had begun to crawl stealthily up under cover ofa shadow when a hound again betrayed his position. Retreating to thewillows was as perilous a task as had ever confronted Duane, and when hehad accomplished it, right under what seemed a hundred blazing rifles,he felt that he had indeed been favored by Providence. This time menfollowed him a goodly ways into the brake, and the ripping of leadthrough the willows sounded on all sides of him.
When the noise of pursuit ceased Duane sat down in the darkness, hismind clamped between two things--whether to try again to escape orwait for possible opportunity. He seemed incapable of decision. Hisintelligence told him that every hour lessened his chances for escape.He had little enough chance in any case, and that was what made anotherattempt so desperately hard. Still it was not love of life that boundhim. There would come an hour, sooner or later, when he would wrenchdecision out of this chaos of emotion and thought. But that time was notyet. He had remained quiet long enough to cool off and recover from hisrun he found that he was tired. He stretched out to rest. But the swarmsof vicious mosquitoes prevented sleep. This corner of the brake was lowand near the river, a breeding-ground for the blood-suckers. They sangand hummed and whined around him in an ever-increasing horde. He coveredhis head and hands with his coat and lay there patiently. That was along and wretched night. Morning found him still strong physically, butin a dreadful state of mind.
First he hurried for the river. He could withstand the pangs of hunger,but it was imperative to quench thirst. His wound made him feverish,and therefore more than usually hot and thirsty. Again he was refreshed.That morning he was hard put to it to hold himself back from attemptingto cross the river. If he could find a light log it was within thebounds of possibility that he might ford the shallow water and bars ofquicksand. But not yet! Wearily, doggedly he faced about toward thebluff.
All that day and all that night, all the next day and all the nextnight, he stole like a hunted savage from river to bluff; and every hourforced upon him the bitter certainty that he was trapped.
Duane lost track of days, of events. He had come to an evil pass.There arrived an hour when, closely pressed by pursuers at the extremesouthern corner of the brake, he took to a dense thicket of willows,driven to what he believed was his last stand.
If only these human bloodhounds would swiftly close in on him! Let himfight to the last bitter gasp and have it over! But these hunters, eageras they were to get him, had care of their own skins. They took fewrisks. They had him cornered.
It was the middle of the day, hot, dusty, oppressive, threatening storm.Like a snake Duane crawled into a little space in the darkest part ofthe thicket and lay still. Men had cut him off from the bluff, from theriver, seemingly from all sides. But he heard voices only from in frontand toward his left. Even if his passage to the river had not beenblocked, it might just as well have been.
"Come on fellers--down hyar," called one man from the bluff.
"Got him corralled at last," shouted another.
"Reckon ye needn't be too shore. We thought thet more'n once," tauntedanother.
"I seen him, I tell you."
"Aw, thet was a deer."
"But Bill found fresh tracks an' blood on the willows."
"If he's winged we needn't hurry."
"Hold on thar, you boys," came a shout in authoritative tones fromfarther up the bluff. "Go slow. You-all air gittin' foolish at the endof a long chase."
"Thet's right, Colonel. Hold 'em back. There's nothin' shorer thansomebody'll be stoppin' lead pretty quick. He'll be huntin' us soon!"
"Let's surround this corner an' starve him out."
"Fire the brake."
How clearly all this talk pierced Duane's ears! In it he seemed to hearhis doom. This, then, was the end he had always expected, which had beenclose to him before, yet never like now.
"By God!" whispered Duane, "the thing for me to do now--is go out--meetthem!"
That was prompted by the fighting, the killing instinct in him. In thatmoment it had almost superhuman power. If he must die, that was the wayfor him to die. What else could be expected of Buck Duane? He got to hisknees and drew his gun. With his swollen and almost useless hand he heldwhat spare ammunition he had left. He ought to creep out noiselessly tothe edge of the willows, suddenly face his pursuers, then, while therewas a beat left in his heart, kill, kill, kill. These men all hadrifles. The fight would be short. But the marksmen did not live on earthwho could make such a fight go wholly against him. Confronting themsuddenly he could kill a man for every shot in his gun.
Thus Duane reasoned. So he hoped to accept his fate--to meet this end.But when he tried to step forward something checked him. He forcedhimself; yet he could not go. The obstruction that opposed his will wasas insurmountable as it had been physically impossible for him to climbthe bluff.
Slowly he fell back, crouched low, and then lay flat. The grim andghastly dignity that had been his a moment before fell away from him. Helay there stripped of his last shred of self-respect. He wondered washe afraid; had he, the last of the Duanes--had he come to feel fear? No!Never in all his wild life had he so longed to go out and meet men faceto face. It was not fear that held him back. He hated this hiding,this eternal vigilance, this hopeless life. The damnable paradox of thesituation was that if he went out to meet these men there was absolutelyno doubt of his doom. If he clung to his covert there was a chance, amerest chance, for his life. These pursuers, dogged and unflagging asthey had been, were mortally afraid of him. It was his fame that madethem cowards. Duane's keenness told him that at the very darkest andmost perilous moment there was still a chance for him. And the blood inhim, the temper of his father, the years of his outlawry
, the pride ofhis unsought and hated career, the nameless, inexplicable something inhim made him accept that slim chance.
Waiting then became a physical and mental agony. He lay under theburning sun, parched by thirst, laboring to breathe, sweating andbleeding. His uncared-for wound was like a red-hot prong in hisflesh. Blotched and swollen from the never-ending attack of flies andmosquitoes his face seemed twice its natural size, and it ached andstung.
On one side, then, was this physical torture; on the other the old hell,terribly augmented at this crisis, in his mind. It seemed that thoughtand imagination had never been so swift. If death found him presently,how would it come? Would he get decent burial or be left for thepeccaries and the coyotes? Would his people ever know where he hadfallen? How wretched, how miserable his state! It was cowardly, it wasmonstrous for him to cling longer to this doomed life. Then the hate inhis heart, the hellish hate of these men on his trail--that was like ascourge. He felt no longer human. He had degenerated into an animal thatcould think. His heart pounded, his pulse beat, his breast heaved;and this internal strife seemed to thunder into his ears. He was nowenacting the tragedy of all crippled, starved, hunted wolves at bay intheir dens. Only his tragedy was infinitely more terrible because hehad mind enough to see his plight, his resemblance to a lonely wolf,bloody-fanged, dripping, snarling, fire-eyed in a last instinctivedefiance.
Mounted upon the horror of Duane's thought was a watching, listeningintensity so supreme that it registered impressions which were creationsof his imagination. He heard stealthy steps that were not there; he sawshadowy moving figures that were only leaves. A hundred times when hewas about to pull trigger he discovered his error. Yet voices came froma distance, and steps and crackings in the willows, and other soundsreal enough. But Duane could not distinguish the real from the false.There were times when the wind which had arisen sent a hot, patteringbreath down the willow aisles, and Duane heard it as an approachingarmy.
This straining of Duane's faculties brought on a reaction which initself was a respite. He saw the sun darkened by thick slow spreadingclouds. A storm appeared to be coming. How slowly it moved! The airwas like steam. If there broke one of those dark, violent storms commonthough rare to the country, Duane believed he might slip away in thefury of wind and rain. Hope, that seemed unquenchable in him, resurgedagain. He hailed it with a bitterness that was sickening.
Then at a rustling step he froze into the old strained attention. Heheard a slow patter of soft feet. A tawny shape crossed a little openingin the thicket. It was that of a dog. The moment while that beast cameinto full view was an age. The dog was not a bloodhound, and if he hada trail or a scent he seemed to be at fault on it. Duane waited for theinevitable discovery. Any kind of a hunting-dog could have found himin that thicket. Voices from outside could be heard urging on the dog.Rover they called him. Duane sat up at the moment the dog entered thelittle shaded covert. Duane expected a yelping, a baying, or at leasta bark that would tell of his hiding-place. A strange relief swiftlyswayed over Duane. The end was near now. He had no further choice. Letthem come--a quick fierce exchange of shots--and then this torture past!He waited for the dog to give the alarm.
But the dog looked at him and trotted by into the thicket without ayelp. Duane could not believe the evidence of his senses. He thought hehad suddenly gone deaf. He saw the dog disappear, heard him running toand fro among the willows, getting farther and farther away, till allsound from him ceased.
"Thar's Rover," called a voice from the bluff-side. "He's been throughthet black patch."
"Nary a rabbit in there," replied another.
"Bah! Thet pup's no good," scornfully growled another man. "Put a houndat thet clump of willows."
"Fire's the game. Burn the brake before the rain comes."
The voices droned off as their owners evidently walked up the ridge.
Then upon Duane fell the crushing burden of the old waiting, watching,listening spell. After all, it was not to end just now. His chance stillpersisted--looked a little brighter--led him on, perhaps, to forlornhope.
All at once twilight settled quickly down upon the willow brake, or elseDuane noted it suddenly. He imagined it to be caused by the approachingstorm. But there was little movement of air or cloud, and thunder stillmuttered and rumbled at a distance. The fact was the sun had set, and atthis time of overcast sky night was at hand.
Duane realized it with the awakening of all his old force. He would yetelude his pursuers. That was the moment when he seized the significanceof all these fortunate circumstances which had aided him. Without hasteand without sound he began to crawl in the direction of the river. Itwas not far, and he reached the bank before darkness set in. There weremen up on the bluff carrying wood to build a bonfire. For a moment hehalf yielded to a temptation to try to slip along the river-shore, closein under the willows. But when he raised himself to peer out he saw thatan attempt of this kind would be liable to failure. At the same momenthe saw a rough-hewn plank lying beneath him, lodged against somewillows. The end of the plank extended in almost to a point beneath him.Quick as a flash he saw where a desperate chance invited him. Then hetied his gun in an oilskin bag and put it in his pocket.
The bank was steep and crumbly. He must not break off any earth tosplash into the water. There was a willow growing back some few feetfrom the edge of the bank. Cautiously he pulled it down, bent it overthe water so that when he released it there would be no springing back.Then he trusted his weight to it, with his feet sliding carefullydown the bank. He went into the water almost up to his knees, feltthe quicksand grip his feet; then, leaning forward till he reached theplank, he pulled it toward him and lay upon it.
Without a sound one end went slowly under water and the farther endappeared lightly braced against the overhanging willows. Very carefullythen Duane began to extricate his right foot from the sucking sand.It seemed as if his foot was incased in solid rock. But there was amovement upward, and he pulled with all the power he dared use. Itcame slowly and at length was free. The left one he released with lessdifficulty. The next few moments he put all his attention on the plankto ascertain if his weight would sink it into the sand. The far endslipped off the willows with a little splash and gradually settledto rest upon the bottom. But it sank no farther, and Duane's greatestconcern was relieved. However, as it was manifestly impossible for himto keep his head up for long he carefully crawled out upon the plankuntil he could rest an arm and shoulder upon the willows.
When he looked up it was to find the night strangely luminous withfires. There was a bonfire on the extreme end of the bluff, anothera hundred paces beyond. A great flare extended over the brake in thatdirection. Duane heard a roaring on the wind, and he knew his pursuershad fired the willows. He did not believe that would help them much.The brake was dry enough, but too green to burn readily. And as for thebonfires he discovered that the men, probably having run out of wood,were keeping up the light with oil and stuff from the village. A dozenmen kept watch on the bluff scarcely fifty paces from where Duane layconcealed by the willows. They talked, cracked jokes, sang songs, andmanifestly considered this outlaw-hunting a great lark. As long as thebright light lasted Duane dared not move. He had the patience and theendurance to wait for the breaking of the storm, and if that did notcome, then the early hour before dawn when the gray fog and gloom wereover the river.
Escape was now in his grasp. He felt it. And with that in his mind hewaited, strong as steel in his conviction, capable of withstanding anystrain endurable by the human frame.
The wind blew in puffs, grew wilder, and roared through the willows,carrying bright sparks upward. Thunder rolled down over the river, andlightning began to flash. Then the rain fell in heavy sheets, butnot steadily. The flashes of lightning and the broad flares played soincessantly that Duane could not trust himself out on the open river.Certainly the storm rather increased the watchfulness of the men onthe bluff. He knew how to wait, and he waited, grimly standing pain andcramp and chill. The storm
wore away as desultorily as it had come,and the long night set in. There were times when Duane thought he wasparalyzed, others when he grew sick, giddy, weak from the strainedposture. The first paling of the stars quickened him with a kind of wildjoy. He watched them grow paler, dimmer, disappear one by one. A shadowhovered down, rested upon the river, and gradually thickened. Thebonfire on the bluff showed as through a foggy veil. The watchers weremere groping dark figures.
Duane, aware of how cramped he had become from long inaction, beganto move his legs and uninjured arm and body, and at length overcame aparalyzing stiffness. Then, digging his hand in the sand and holding theplank with his knees, he edged it out into the river. Inch by inch headvanced until clear of the willows. Looking upward, he saw the shadowyfigures of the men on the bluff. He realized they ought to see him,feared that they would. But he kept on, cautiously, noiselessly, with aheart-numbing slowness. From time to time his elbow made a little gurgleand splash in the water. Try as he might, he could not prevent this. Itgot to be like the hollow roar of a rapid filling his ears with mockingsound. There was a perceptible current out in the river, and it hinderedstraight advancement. Inch by inch he crept on, expecting to hearthe bang of rifles, the spattering of bullets. He tried not to lookbackward, but failed. The fire appeared a little dimmer, the movingshadows a little darker.
Once the plank stuck in the sand and felt as if it were settling.Bringing feet to aid his hand, he shoved it over the treacherous place.This way he made faster progress. The obscurity of the river seemed tobe enveloping him. When he looked back again the figures of the men werecoalescing with the surrounding gloom, the fires were streaky, blurredpatches of light. But the sky above was brighter. Dawn was not far off.
To the west all was dark. With infinite care and implacable spiritand waning strength Duane shoved the plank along, and when at last hediscerned the black border of bank it came in time, he thought, to savehim. He crawled out, rested till the gray dawn broke, and then headednorth through the willows.