CHAPTER XXVII
EL CAPITAN
The mutterings above the mountains now grew rapidly louder and whilethe two hovered over the fire, a thunder-squall, rolling wildly downthe eastern slope, burst over the Gap. Its sudden fury put aside for atime all question of moving, and Nan's face took on a grave expressionas she looked in the firelight at her companion, thinking of how farsuch a storm might imperil their situation, how far cut off theiralready narrow chance of escape.
De Spain--reclining close beside her, looking into the depths of hereyes as the flickering blaze revealed them, drying himself in theirwarmth and light, eating and drinking of their presence on themountainside alone with him, and pledged to him, his protection, andhis fortunes against the world--apparently thought of nothing beyondthe satisfaction of the moment. The wind drove the storm against thewest side of the huge granite peak under which they were sheltered andgave them no present trouble in their slender recess. But Nan kneweven better than her companion the fickle fury of a range storm, andunderstood uncomfortably well how a sudden shift might, at any moment,lay their entire path open to its fierceness. She warned de Spain theymust be moving, and, freshened by the brief rest, they set out towardEl Capitan.
Their trail lay along granite levels of comparatively good going and,fleeing from the squall, they had covered more than half the distancethat separated them from the cliff, when a second thunder-storm,seeming to rush in from the desert, burst above their heads. Drenchedwith rain, they were forced to draw back under a projecting rock. Inanother moment the two storms, meeting in the Gap, crashed together.Bolt upon bolt of lightning split the falling sheets of water, andthunder, exploding in their faces, stunned and deafened them.
Mountain peaks, played on by the wild light, leaped like spectres outof the black, and granite crags, searched by blazing shafts, printedthemselves in ghostly flames on the retina; thunder, searchingunnumbered gorges, echoed beneath the sharper crashes in one long,unending roll, and far out beyond the mountains the flooded deserttossed on a dancing screen into the glare, rippled like a madcap sea,and flashed in countless sheets of blinding facets. As if an unseenhand had touched a thousand granite springs above the Gap, everyslender crevice spouted a stream that shot foaming out from themountainsides. The sound of moving waters rose in a dull, vast roar,broken by the unseen boom of distant falls, launching huge masses ofwater into caverns far below. The storm-laden wind tore and swirledamong the crowded peaks, and above all the angry sky moaned andquivered in the rage of the elements.
Nan leaned within de Spain's arm. "If this keeps up," he said aftersome time, "our best play is to give up crossing to-night. We mighthide somewhere on the mountain to-morrow, and try it toward evening."
"Yes, if we have to," she answered. But he perceived her reluctantassent. "What I am afraid of, Henry, is, if they were to find us. Youknow what I mean."
"Then we won't hide," he replied. "The minute we get the chance wewill run for it. This is too fierce to last long."
"Oh, but it's November!" Nan reminded him apprehensively. "It'swinter; that's what makes it so cold. You never can tell inNovember."
"It won't last all night, anyway," he answered with confidence.
Despite his assurance, however, it did last all night, and it wasonly the lulls between the sharp squalls that enabled them to coverthe trail before daylight. When they paused before El Capitan the furyof the night seemed largely to have exhausted itself, but theovercharged air hung above the mountains, trembling and moaning like abruised and stricken thing. Lightning, playing across the inkyheavens, blazed in constant sheets from end to end of the horizon. Itsquivering glare turned the wild night into a kind of ghastly,uncertain day. Thunder, hoarse with invective, and hurled mercilesslyback and forth by the fitful wind, drew farther and farther into therecess of the mountains, only to launch its anger against its ownimprisoned echoes. Under it all the two refugees, high on themountainside, looked down on the flooding Gap.
Their flight was almost ended. Only the sheer cliff ahead blockedtheir descent to the aspen grove. De Spain himself had already crossedEl Capitan once, and he had done it at night--but it was not, he wascompelled to remind himself, on a night like this. It seemed now amadman's venture and, without letting himself appear to do so, hewatched Nan's face as the lightning played over it, to read if hecould, unsuspected, whether she still had courage for the undertaking.She regarded him so collectedly, whether answering a question orasking one, that he marvelled at her strength and purpose. Hardly amoment passed after they had started until the eastern sky lightenedbefore the retreating storm, and with the first glimmer of daylight,the two were at the beginning of the narrow foothold which lay forhalf a mile between them and safety.
Here the El Capitan trail follows the face of the almost vertical wallwhich, rising two thousand feet in the air, fronts the gateway ofMorgan's Gap.
They started forward, de Spain ahead. There was nothing now to hurrythem unduly, and everything to invite caution. The footholds wereslippery, rivulets still crossed the uncertain path, and fragments ofrock that had washed down on the trail, made almost every step a newhazard. The face of El Capitan presents, midway, a sharp convex. Justwhere it is thrown forward in this keen angle, the trail runs outalmost to a knife-edge, and the mountain is so nearly vertical that itappears to overhang the floor of the valley.
They made half the stretch of this angle with hardly a misstep, butthe advance for a part of the way was a climb, and de Spain, turningonce to speak to Nan, asked her for her rifle, that he might carry itwith his own. What their story might have been had she given it tohim, none can tell. But Nan, holding back, refused to let him relieveher. The dreaded angle which had haunted de Spain all night was safelyturned on hands and knees and, as they rounded it toward the east,clouds scudding over the open desert broke and shot the light of dawnagainst the beetling arete.
De Spain turned in some relief to point to the coming day. As he didso a gust of wind, sweeping against the sheer wall, caught him off hisguard. He regained his balance, but a stone, slipping underfoot,tipped him sidewise, and he threw himself on his knees to avoid thedizzy edge. As he fell forward he threw up his hand to save his hat,and in doing so released his rifle, which lay under his hand on therock. Before he could recover it the rifle slipped from reach. In thenext instant he heard it bouncing from rock to rock, five hundred feetbelow.
Greatly annoyed and humiliated, he regained his feet and spoke with alaugh to reassure Nan. Just as she answered not to worry, a littlesinging scream struck their ears; something splashed suddenly close athand against the rock wall; chips scattered between them. From below,the sound of a rifle report cracked against the face of the cliff.They were so startled, so completely amazed that they stoodmotionless. De Spain looked down and over the uneven floor of theGap. The ranch-houses, spread like toys in the long perspective, laypeacefully revealed in the gray of the morning. Among the darkpine-trees he could discern Nan's own home. Striving with the utmostkeenness of vision to detect where the shot had come from, de Spaincould discover no sign of life around any of the houses. But inanother moment the little singing scream came again, the blow of theheavy slug against the splintering rock was repeated, the distantreport of the rifle followed.
"Under fire," muttered de Spain. He looked questioningly at Nan.She herself, gazing across the dizzy depths, was searching forthe danger-point. A third shot followed at a seemingly regularinterval--the deliberate interval needed by a painstaking marksmanworking out his range and taking his time to find it. De Spainwatched Nan's search anxiously. "We'd better keep moving," he said."Come! whoever is shooting can follow us a hundred yards eitherway." In front of de Spain a fourth bullet struck the rock. "Nan,"he muttered, "I've got you into a fix. If we can't stop thatfellow he is liable to stop us. Can you see anything?" he asked,waiting for her to come up.
"Henry!" She was looking straight down into the valley, and laid herhand on de Spain's shoulder. "Is there anything moving on theridge--o
ver there--see--just east of Sassoon's ranch-house?"
De Spain, his eyes bent on the point Nan indicated, drew her forwardto a dip in the trail which, to one stretched flat, afforded a slightprotection. He made her lie down, and just beyond her refuge chose apoint where the path, broadening a little and rising instead ofsloping toward the outer edge, gave him a chance to brace himselfbetween two rocks. Flattened there like a target in mid-air, he threwhis hat down to Nan and, resting on one knee, waited for the shot thatshould tumble him down El Capitan or betray the man bent on killinghim. Squalls of wind, sweeping into the Gap and sucked upward on thehuge expanse of rock below, tossed his hair and ballooned his coat ashe buttoned it. Another bullet, deliberately aimed, chipped the rockabove him. Nan, agonizing in her suspense, cried out she must join himand go with him if he went. He steadied her apprehension and with afew words reminded her, as a riflewoman, what a gamble every shot at aheight such as they occupied, and with such a wind, must be. Hereminded her, too, it was much easier to shoot down than up, but allthe time he was searching for the flash that should point theassassin. A bullet struck again viciously close between them. De Spainspoke slowly: "Give me your rifle." Without turning his head he heldout his hand, keeping his eyes rigidly on the suspicious spot on theridge. "How far is it to that road, Nan?"
She looked toward the faint line that lay in the deep shadows below."Three hundred yards."
"Nan, if it wasn't for you, I couldn't travel this country at all," heremarked with studious unconcern. "Last time I had no ammunition--thistime, no rifle--you always have what's needed. How high are we, Nan?"
"Seven hundred feet."
"Elevate for me, Nan, will you?"
"Remember the wind," she faltered, adjusting the sight as he hadasked.
With the cautioning words she passed the burnished weapon, glitteringyet with the rain-drops, into his hand. A flash came from the distantridge. Throwing the rifle to his shoulder, de Spain covered a hardlyperceptible black object on the trail midway between Sassoon'sranch-house and a little bridge which he well remembered--he hadcrossed it the night he dragged Sassoon into town. It seemed a longtime that he pressed the rifle back against his shoulder and held hiseye along the barrel. He was wondering as he covered the crouchingman with the deadly sight which of his enemies this might be. He evenslipped the rifle from his shoulder and looked long and silently atthe black speck before he drew the weapon back again into place. Thenhe fired before Nan could believe he had lined the sights. Once,twice, three times his hand fell and rose sharply on the lever, withevery mark of precision, yet so rapidly Nan could not understand howhe could discover what his shots were doing.
The fire came steadily back, and deliberately, without the leastintimation of being affected by de Spain's return. It was a duel shornof every element of equality, with an assassin at one end of therange, and a man flattened half-way up the clouds against El Capitanat the other, each determined to kill the other before he should stirone more foot.
Far above, an eagle, in morning flight, soared majestically out from ajutting crag and circled again and again in front of El Capitan, whilethe air sang with the whining dice that two gamblers against deaththrew across the gulf between them. Nan, half hidden in her trough ofrock, watched the great bird poise and wheel above the deadly firing,and tried to close her eyes to the figure of de Spain above her,fighting for her life and his own.
She had never before seen a man shooting to kill another. The veryhorror of watching de Spain, at bay among the rocks, fascinated her.Since the first day they had met she had hardly seen a rifle in hishands.
Realizing how slightly she had given thought to him or to his skill atthat time, she saw now, spellbound, how a challenge to death,benumbing her with fear, had transformed him into a silent, pitilessfoeman, fighting with a lightning-like decision that charged everymotion with a fatality for his treacherous enemy. Her rifle, at hisshoulder, no longer a mere mechanism, seemed in his hands somethingweightless, sensible, alive, a deadly part of his arm and eye andbrain. There was no question, no thought of adjusting or handling orhaste in his fire, but only an incredible swiftness and sureness thatsent across the thin-aired chasm a stream of deadly messengers to seeka human life. She could only hope and pray, without even forming thewords, that none of her blood were behind the other rifle, for shefelt that, whoever was, could never escape.
She tried not to look. The butt of the heating rifle lay close againstthe red-marked cheek she knew so well, and to the tips of the fingersevery particle of the man's being was alive with strength andresource. Some strange fascination drew her senses out toward him ashe knelt and threw shot after shot at the distant figure hidden on theridge. She wanted to climb closer, to throw herself between him andthe bullets meant for him. She held out her arms and clasped her handstoward him in an act of devotion. Then while she looked, breathlessly,he took his eyes an instant from the sights. "He's running!" exclaimedde Spain as the rifle butt went instantly back to his cheek. "Whoeverhe is, God help him now!"
The words were more fearful to Nan than an imprecation. He had drivenhis enemy from the scant cover of a rut in the trail, and the man wasfleeing for new cover and for life. The speck of black in the field ofintense vision was moving rapidly toward the ranch-house. Bullet afterbullet pitilessly led the escaping wretch. Death dogged every eagerfootfall. Suddenly de Spain jerked the rifle from his cheek, threwback his head, and swept his left hand across his straining eyes. Oncemore the rifle came up to place and, waiting for a heartbeat, to pressthe trigger, he paused an instant. Flame shot again in the graymorning light from the hot muzzle. The rifle fell away from theshoulder. The black speck running toward the ranch-house stumbled, asif stricken by an axe, and sprawled headlong on the trail. Throwingthe lever again like lightning, de Spain held the rifle back to hischeek.
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 hadneed to tell her what had happened. Too well she read the story in deSpain's face and in what she saw, as he knelt, perfectly still, onlywaiting to be sure there was no ruse. She watched the rifle comeslowly down, unfired, and saw his drawn face slowly relax. Withouttaking 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, ashe looked across the far gulf, one word: "Come!"
They reached the end of the trail. De Spain, rifle in hand, lookedback. The sun, bursting in splendor across the great desert, splashedthe valley and the low-lying ridge with ribboned gold. Farther up theGap, horsemen, stirred by the firing, were riding rapidly down towardSassoon's ranch-house. But the black thing in the sunshine lay quitestill.