Bruce of the Circle A Part 21

Nora, seeing that a runaway was inevitable, cried to her mount and the pony, keyed to flight, sped along behind the other, losing with every length traveled. Tears of fright spilled from the girl's eyes, chilling her cheeks. What might happen was incalculable, she knew.

Then new sounds, above the beat of her horse's hoofs, above the wind in her ears; the sweeping, measured, rolling batter of other hoofs, and Nora turned her head to see Bruce Bayard, mouth set, eyes glowing, brim of his hat plastered back against the crown by his rush, urge his big sorrel horse toward her. He hung low over the fork of his saddle, clear of his seat, tense, yet lithe, and responding to every undulation of the beast that carried him.

From a distance Bayard had seen. He thought at first that Ann had started her pony purposely, but when the animal raced away toward town at such frantic speed, when Ann's hat was whipped from her head, when he heard a distant, faint scream, he knew that no prompting of the woman's had been behind the break. He stretched himself low over Abe's neck and cried aloud, hung in his spurs and fanned the great beast's flanks with his quirt. Never before had the sorrel been called upon so sharply; never before had he felt such a prodding of rowels or lashing of rawhide. Ears back, nose out, limbs flexing and straightening, spurning the roadway with his drumming hoofs, the great animal started in pursuit.

For a mile the road held up hill, following closely the rim of a rise that hung high above the valley to the right. As it rose, the wagon track bent to the left, with the trend of the rim. At the crest of the hill Yavapai would be visible; from there the road, too, could be seen, swinging in a big arc toward the town, which might be reached by travel over a straight line; but that way would lead down an abrupt drop and over footing that was atrocious, strewn with _malpais_ boulders and rutted by many washes.

It was to overtake Ann's runaway before he topped this rise that Bayard whipped his sorrel. He knew what might happen there. The animal that bore the woman was crazed beyond control, beyond his own horse judgment.

He was running, and his sole objective was home. Now, he was taking the quickest possible route and the moment he struck the higher country he might leave the road and go straight for Yavapai, plunging down the sharp point that stood three hundred feet above the valley, and making over the rocks with the abandon of a beast that is bred and reared among them. Well enough to run over rough ground at most times, but in this insane going the horse would be heedless of his instinctive caution, sacrificing everything for speed. He might fall before he reached the valley floor, he might lose his footing at any yard between there and town, and a fall in that ragged, volcanic rock, would be a terrible thing for a woman.

Abe responded superbly to the urging. He pa.s.sed Nora's pony in a shower of gravel. His belly seemed to hang unbelievably close to the ground, his stride lengthened, his tail stood rippling behind him, his feet smote the road as though spitefully and he stretched his white patched nose far out as if he would force his tendons to a performance beyond their actual power. But he could not make it; the task of overcoming that handicap in that distance was beyond the ability of blood and bone.

As he went on, leap by leap, and saw that his gaining was not bringing him beside Ann in time, Bayard commenced to call aloud to the horse under him, and his eyes grew wide with dread.

His fears were well grounded. As though he had planned it long before, as if the whole route of his flight had been preconceived, the black pony swung to the right as he came up on level ground. He cut across the intervening flat and, ears back, hindquarters scrooching far under his body as he changed his gait for the steep drop, he disappeared over the rim.

Bayard cried aloud, the sorrel swung unbidden on the trail of the runaway and twenty yards behind stuck his fore feet stiffly out for the first leap down the rock-littered point. Unspeakable footing, that.

_Malpais_ lumps, ranging from the size of an egg to some that weighed tons, were everywhere. Between them spa.r.s.e gra.s.s grew, but in no place was there bare ground the size of a horse's hoof, and for every four lengths they traveled forward, they dropped toward the valley by one!

Ears up now, the sorrel watched his footing anxiously, but the black pony, eyes rolling, put his whole vigor into the running, urged on to even greater efforts by the nearness of the pursuing animal. The fortune that goes with flying bronchos alone kept his feet beneath his body.

Bayard's mouth was open and each time the shock of being thrown forward and down racked his body, the breath was beaten from him. He looked ahead, watching the footing at the bottom, leaving that over which they then pa.s.sed to his horse, for the most critical moment in a run such as they took is when the horses strike level ground. Then they are apt to go end over end, tripped by the impetus that their rush downhill gives them. He knew that he could not overtake and turn Ann's pony with safety before they reached the bottom. He feared that to come abreast of him might drive the frantic beast to that last effort which would result in an immediate fall. Every instant was precious; every leap filled with potential disaster.

The stallion left off pretense at clean running. He slipped and floundered and scrambled down the point; at times almost sitting on his haunches to keep the rush of his descent within safety and retain control of his balance. Slowly he drew closer to the other animal, crowding a bit to the left to be nearer, grunting with his straining, dividing his attention between preserving caution and making progress.

Ann's hair came down, tumbling about her shoulders, then down her back, and finally brushed the sweated coat of her runaway with its ends. The horrible sensation of falling, of pitching forward helplessly, swept through her vitals each time the animal under her leaped outward and down. It grew to an acute physical pain by its constant repet.i.tion. Her face was very white, but almost expressionless. Only her eyes betrayed the fear in her by their darkness, by their strained lids. Her mouth was fixed in determination to play the game to its end. She heard the other horse coming; Bayard's voice had called out to her. That was all she knew. This flight was horrible, tragic; with each move of her horse she feared that it must be the last, that she would be flung into those rocks, yet, somehow, she felt that it would end well. For Bayard was near her.

Not so with the man. As they slid down halfway to the valley, he cried aloud to his horse again, for he saw that along the base of the drop, right at the place toward which they were floundering, a recent storm had gouged a fresh wash. Deep and narrow and rock filled, and, if her horse, unable to stop, unable to turn with any degree of safety whatever went into that ...

Behind them, loosened rocks clattered along, the dust rose, their trail was marked by black blotches where the scant red soil had been turned up. The sorrel's nose reached the black's reeling rump; it stretched to his flank, to the saddle, to his shoulder.... And Ann turned her head quickly, appealingly.

"Careful ... Abe! Once more ... easy ..."

Bayard dropped his reins; he leaned to the left. He scratched with his spurs. His horse leaped powerfully twice, thrice, caution abandoned, risking everything now. The man swung down, his arm encircled Ann's waist, he brought the pressure of his right knee to bear against the saddle, and lifted her clear, a warm, limp weight against his body.

Staggering under the added burden, the stallion gathered himself for a try at the wash which he must either clear or in which he and those he carried were to fall in a tangle. Bayard, lifting the woman high, balanced in his saddle and gathered her closer.

The black floundered in uncertain jumps, throwing his head down in an effort to check his progress, was overcome by his own momentum and leaped recklessly. He misjudged, fell short and with a grunt and a thud and a threshing went down into the bald rocks that floods had piled in the gully.

Abe did not try to stop, to overcome the added impetus that this new weight gave him. He lowered his head in a show of determination, took the last three strides with a swift scramble and leaped.

Bayard thought that they were in the air for seconds. They seemed to float over that wash. Seemed to hang suspended a deliberate instant.

Then they came down with a sob wrenched from the horse as his forefeet clawed the far footing for a retaining hold and his hindquarters, the bank crumbling under them, slipped down into the gully. He strained an instant against sliding further back, gathering himself in an agony of effort and floundered safely up!

Bruce became conscious that Ann's arms were about his neck, that her body was close against his. He knew that his limbs quivered, partly from the recent fright, partly from contact with the woman.

Abe staggered forward a few steps, halted and turned to look at his unfortunate brother galloping lamely toward Yavapai.

Except for the animal's breathing, the world was very quiet. For a moment Ann lay in Bayard's embrace; his one arm was about her shoulders, the other hooked behind her knees; then, convulsively, her arms tightened about his neck; she pressed her cheek against his and clung so while their hearts throbbed, one against the other. He had not moved, he refrained from crushing her, from taking her lips with his. It cost him dearly and the effort to resist shot another tremor through his frame.

On that she roused.

"I wasn't afraid ... after I knew it was you," she said, raising her head.

"I was, ma'am," he said, soberly, lifting and seating her on Abe's withers.

"I was mighty scared. See what happened to your horse? That ... You'd have been with him in those rocks."

He dismounted, still supporting her in her position.

"You sit in th' saddle, ma'am; I'll walk an' lead Abe. You're ... you're not scared now?"

"A little,"--breathing deeply as he helped her, and, laughing in a strained tone. "I'll ... I'll be frightened later I expect, but I'm not now ... much ... It's you, you keep me from it," she said. "I'm not frightened with you."

"I tried to keep things so you won't have to be, ma'am."

Probably because she was weak, perhaps wholly because of the hot yearning that contact with him had roused in her, Ann swayed down toward him. It was as though she would fall into his arms, as though she herself would stir his repressed desire for her until it overcame his own judgment, and yield to his will there in the brilliant afternoon; as though she were going to him, then, for all time, regardless of everything, caring only for the instant that her lips should be on his.

He started forward, flung up one arm as though to catch her; then drew back.

"Don't, ma'am," he begged. "Don't! For the sake ... for your sake, don't."

The woman swallowed and straightened her back as though just coming to the complete realization of what had happened.

"Forgive me," she whispered.

They had not heard Nora riding down to them, so great was their absorption in one another, but at that moment when Ann's head drooped and Bayard's shoulders flexed as from a great fatigue the waitress halted her horse beside them.

"G.o.d! I didn't think...."

She had looked at them with the fear that had struck her as she watched the last phase of their descent still gripping her. But in their faces she read that which they both struggled to hide from one another and the light that had been in her eyes went out. She turned her face away from them, looking out at the long afternoon shadows.

"I'll have to be gettin' back," she said, dully, as though unconscious of the words.

"We'll go with you, Nora," the man said, very quietly. "Mrs. Lytton," he p.r.o.nounced the words distinctly as if to impress himself with their significance--"is the first person who has ever been on Abe but me....

He seems to like it."

Leading the horse by the reins, he began to climb the point back toward the road. In the east the runaway had dwindled to a bobbing fleck.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SCOURGING

In the last moments of twilight Ann sat alone in her room, cheeks still flushed, limbs still trembling at intervals, pulses retaining their swift measure. She was unstrung, aquiver with strange emotions.

It was not wholly the fright of the afternoon that had provoked her nerves to this state; it was not alone the emotional surging loosed by her moment in Bayard's arms, her cheek against his cheek; nor was it entirely inspired by the fact, growing in portent with each pa.s.sing hour, that Bruce had told her his work with Ned Lytton was all but ended, that within a day or two he was sending her husband to her. It was a combination of all this, with possibly her husband's impending return forming a background.