Nan of Music Mountain Part 15

So saying, he held in one hand the loaded cartridge and in the other the empty revolver.

"You think little of bloodshed, I know," she returned unpleasantly.

"I think a whole lot," he drawled in painful retort, "of fair fighting."

"And I'm a woman--you do well to taunt me with that."

"I did not taunt you with it. You are hatefully unjust," he protested sullenly.

"You've asked me to go--I'm going. How much of what you tell me is true, I don't know. But I can believe my own eyes, and I believe you are not in condition to do much injury, even if you came here with that intention. You will certainly lose your life if you move from your hiding-place."

She started away. He leaned toward her. "Stop," he said peremptorily, raising himself with a wrenching effort. Something in the stern eye held her. His extended hand pointed toward her as arbitrarily as if, instead of lying helpless at her feet, he could command her to his bidding. "I want to ask you a question. I've told you the truth. I have just one cartridge. If you are going to send your cousin and his men here, it's only fair I should know it now--isn't it?"

Her face was hard in spite of the weakness he struggled to conceal. It annoyed her to think he had surmised she was revolving in her mind what to do. He was demanding an answer she had not yet given to herself.

"My cousin is wounded," she said, pausing. And then with indecision: "If you stay here quietly you are not likely to be molested."

She stepped down from the ledge as noiselessly as she had come. Shaken by the discovery she had so unexpectedly made, Nan retreated almost precipitately from the spot. And the question of what to do worried her as much as it worried de Spain. The whole range had been shaken by the Calabasas fight. Even in a country where appeal to arms was common, where men were ready to snuff out a life for a word, or kill for a mess of pottage--to settle for the least grave offense a dispute with a shot--the story of the surprising, unequal, and fatal encounter of the Calabasas men with de Spain, and of his complete disappearance after withstanding almost unheard-of odds, was more than a three days'

wonder; nothing else was talked of for weeks. Even the men in Morgan's Gap, supposed to be past masters of the game played in the closed room at Calabasas, had been stunned by the issue of the few minutes with Jeffries's new man.

Nan, who had heard but one side of the story, pictured the aggressor from the tale of the two who lived to tell of the horribly sharp action with him. Morning, noon, and night she had heard nothing but the fight at Calabasas discussed by the men that rode in and out of the Gap--and in connection with it, de Spain's unexplained flight and disappearance. Those that knew the real story of the conspiracy to kill him did not talk much, after the disastrous outcome, of that part of the affair. But Nan's common sense whispered to her, whatever might be said about de Spain's starting the fight, that one man locked in a room with four enemies, all dangerous in an affray, was not likely to begin a fight unless forced to--none, at least, but a madman would do so. She had heard stories, too, of de Spain's drinking and quarrelling, but none that told them had ever seen him under the influence of drink or had had a quarrel with him except Gale and Sa.s.soon--and these two were extremely quarrelsome.

Unhappy and irresolute, Nan, when she got home, was glad of an excuse to ride to Calabasas for a packet of dressings coming by stage from Sleepy Cat for Gale, who lay wounded at Satt Morgan's; and, eating a hasty luncheon, she ordered her horse and set out.

Should she tell her Uncle Duke of finding de Spain? Whenever she decided that she must, something in the recollection of de Spain's condition unsettled her resolution. Tales enough of his bloodthirstiness, his merciless efficiency, his ever-ready craft and consummate duplicity were familiar to her--most of them made so within the last three days--for no one in her circle any longer professed to underrate the demonstrated resourcefulness of the man.

Yet only a few of these stories appealed to Nan's innate convictions of truth and justice. She lived among men who were, for the most part, not truthful or dependable even in small things--how could they be relied on to tell the truth about de Spain's motives and conduct? As to his deadly skill with arms, no stories were needed to confirm this, even though she herself had once overcome him in a contest. The evidence of this mastery had now a fatal pre-eminence among the tragedies of the Spanish Sinks. Where he lay he could, if he meditated revenge on her people, murder any of them, almost at will. To spare his life imperilled to this extent theirs--but surely he lay not far from death by exhaustion. Weighed against all she had ever listened to concerning his deceit was the evidence of her own sight. She had seen men desperately ill, and men desperately stricken. This man was either both or she could never again believe her senses. And if he was not helped soon he would die.

But who was to help him? Certainly none of his friends could know where he was hidden or of his plight--no help could come from them unless she told them. If she told them they would try to reach him.

That would mean an appalling--an unthinkable--fight. If she told her uncle, could she keep him from killing de Spain? She believed not. He might promise to let him go. But she knew her uncle's ferocious resentment, and how easy it would be for him to give her fine words and, in spite of them, for de Spain to be found dead some morning where he lay--there were plenty of men available for jobs such as that.

All came back to one terrifying alternative: Should she help this wretched man herself? And if he lived, would he repay her by shooting some one of her own kin?

The long ride to Calabasas went fast as the debate swept on, and the vivid shock of her strange experience recurred to her imagination.

She drew up before the big barn. Jim McAlpin was coming out to go to supper. Nan asked for her package and wanted to start directly back again. McAlpin refused absolutely to hear of it. He looked at her horse and professed to be shocked. He told her she had ridden hard, urged her to dismount, and sent her pony in to be rubbed, a.s.suring Nan heartily there was not a man, outside the hostlers, within ten miles.

While her horse was cared for, McAlpin asked, in his harmless Scotch way, about Gale.

Concerning Gale, Nan was non-committal. But she listened with interest, more or less veiled, to whatever running comment McAlpin had to offer concerning the Calabasas fight. "And I was sorry to see Gale mixed up in it," he concluded, in his effort to draw Nan out, "sorry.

And sorrier to think of Henry de Spain getting killed that way. Why, I knowed Henry de Spain when he was a baby in arms." He put out his hand cannily. "I worked for his father before he was born." His listener remained obdurate. There was nothing for it except further probing, to which, however, Jim felt abundantly equal. "Some say," he suggested, looking significantly toward the door of the barn, and significantly away again, "that Henry went down there to pick a fight with the boys.

But," he a.s.serted cryptically, "I happen to know _that_ wasn't so."

"Then what did he go down there for?" demanded Nan indignantly, but not warily.

McAlpin, the situation now in hand, took his time to it. He leaned forward in a manner calculated to invite confidence without giving offense. "Miss Nan," said he simply, "I worked for your Uncle Duke for five years--you know that." Nan had, at least, heard it fifty times.

"I think a good deal of him--I think a good deal of you, so does the missus, so does little Loretta--she's always asking about you, the child is--and I hear and see a good deal here that other people don't get next to--they can't. Now Henry de Spain was here, with me, sitting right there where you are sitting, Miss Nan, in that chair," declared McAlpin with an unanswerable finger, "not fifteen minutes before that fight began, he was there. I told you he never went down there to fight. Do you want the proof? I'll tell you--I wouldn't want anybody else to know--will you keep it?"

Nan seemed indifferent. "Girls are not supposed to keep secrets," she said obstinately.

Her narrator was not to be balked. He pointed to the coat-rack on the wall in front of them both. "There is Henry de Spain's coat. He hung it there just before he went down to the inn. Under it, if you look, you'll find his belt of cartridges. Don't take my word--look for yourself."

Giving this information time to sink in, McAlpin continued. Nan's eyes had turned, despite her indifference, to the coat; but she was thinking more intently about the belt which McAlpin a.s.serted hung under it. "You want to know what he did go down to the hotel for that afternoon? I happen to know that, too," averred McAlpin, sitting down, but respectfully, on the edge of the chair. "First I want to say this: I worked for your Uncle Duke five years."

He paused to give Nan a chance to dispute the statement if she so desired. Then taking her despairing silence as an indors.e.m.e.nt of his position in giving her a confidence, he went on: "Henry de Spain is dead," he said quietly. She eyed him without so much as winking. "I wouldn't tell it if he wasn't. Some of the boys don't believe he is.

I'm not a pessimist--not a bit--but I'm telling you it's a physical impossibility for a man to take the fire of four revolvers in the hands of four men like those four men, at arm's length, and live.

Henry de Spain is the cleverest man with a gun that ever rode the Spanish Sinks, but limits is limits; the boy's dead. And he was always talking about you. It's G.o.d's truth, and since he's dead it harms no one to tell it to you, though I'd never breathe it to another. He was fairly gone on you. Now that's the fair truth: the man was gone on you. I knowed it, where others didn't know it. I was the only one he could always ask about whether you'd been here, and when; and when you might be expected coming again--and all such things like that.

"You don't have to knock me down, Miss Nan, to put me wise about a man's being keen on a girl. I'm a married man," declared McAlpin with modest pride. "He thought all the time he was fooling me, and keeping covered. Why, I laughed to myself at his tricks to get information without letting on! Now, that afternoon he came in here kind of moody.

It was an anniversary for him, and a hard one--the day his father was shot from ambush--a good many years ago, but nary one of us had forgot it. Then he happened to see your pony--this same pony you're riding to-day--a-standing back there in the box-stall. He asked me whose it was; and he asked me about you, and, by jinx! the way he perked up when I told him you were coming in on the stage that afternoon! When he heard you'd been sick, he was for going down to the hotel to get a cup of coffee--for you!" McAlpin, like any good story-teller, was already on his feet again. "He did it," he exclaimed, "and you know what _he_ got when he stepped into the barroom." He took hold of de Spain's coat and held it aside to enter his exhibit. "There," he concluded, "is his cartridge-belt, hanging there yet. The boy is dead--why shouldn't I tell you?"

Nan rode home much more excited, more bewildered than when she had ridden over. What should she do? It was already pretty clear to her that de Spain had not ridden unarmed to where she found him to ambush any of the Morgans. He was not dead; but he was not far from it if McAlpin was right and if she could credit her own senses in looking at him. What ought she to do?

Other things McAlpin had said crowded her thoughts. Strangest shock of all that this man of all other men should profess to care for her. She had shown anger when McAlpin dared speak of it; at least, she thought she had. And she still did not know how, sufficiently, to resent the thought of such audacity on de Spain's part; but recalling all she could of his words and actions, she was forced to confess to herself that McAlpin's a.s.sertions were confirmed in them--and that what McAlpin had said interpreted de Spain's unvarying att.i.tude toward her.

This was, to say the least, a further awkward complication for her feelings. She already had enough to confuse them.

CHAPTER XIV

NAN DRIFTS

Without going in to speak to Gale, whom Bull Page, his nurse, reported very cross but not hurt much, Nan left her packet for him and rode home. Her uncle Duke was in town. She had the house to herself, with only Bonita, the old Mexican serving-woman, and Nan ate her late supper alone.

The longer she pondered on de Spain and his dilemma--and her own--the more she worried. When she went to bed, up-stairs in her little gable room, she thought sleep--never hard for her to woo--would relieve her of her anxiety for at least the night. But she waited in vain for sleep. She was continually asking herself whether de Spain was really very badly hurt, or whether he might be only tricking her into thinking he was. a.s.sailed by conflicting doubts, she tossed on her pillow till a resolve seized her to go up again to his hiding-place and see what she could see or hear--possibly, if one were on foot, she could uncover a plot.

She dressed resolutely, buckled a holster to her side, and slipping a revolver--a new one that Gale had given her--into it for protection, she walked softly down-stairs and out of doors.

The night air was clear with a three-quarter moon well up in the sky.

She took her way rapidly along the trail to the mountain, keeping as much as possible within the great shadows cast by the towering peaks.

Not a sound met her acute listening as she pressed on--not a living thing seemed to move anywhere in the whole great Gap, except this slender-footed, keen-eyed girl, whose heart beat with apprehension of wiles, stratagems, and ambush concerning the venture she was making.

Breathing stealthily and keyed to a tense feeling of uncertainty and suspicion, Nan at length found herself below the ledge where de Spain was in hiding. She stopped and, with the craft of an Indian, stood perfectly still for a very long time before she began to climb up to where the enemy lay. Hearing no sound, she took courage and made the ascent. She reached without adventure the corner of the ledge where she had first seen him, and there, lying flat, listened again.

Hearing only the music of the little cascade, she swept the ledge as well as she could with her eyes, but it was now so far in shadow as to lie in impenetrable darkness. Hardly daring to breathe, she crept and felt her way over it with her hands, discovering nothing until she had almost reached de Spain's retreat at the farther side. Then her heart stopped in an agony of fear--underneath the overhanging wall she heard voices.

To attempt to escape was as dangerous as to lie still. Had she dared, she would have retreated at once the way she came. Since she dared not, she was compelled to hear what was said, and, indeed, was eager to hear. De Spain had confederates, then, and had tricked her, after all. Whatever his plot, she was resolved to know it, and instead of retreating she took her revolver in hand and drew herself nearer. When she had gained her new position the mutterings, which had been indistinct, became audible. It was not two voices she had heard, but one--de Spain, she judged, was talking in his sleep.

But a moment later this explanation failed to satisfy her. The mutterings were too constant and too disconnected to be mistaken for sleep-talking--it dawned on Nan that this must be delirium. She could hear de Spain throwing himself from side to side, and the near and far sounds, as if of two voices, were explained. It was possible now for her to tell herself she was mistress of the situation. She crept nearer.

He was babbling in the chill darkness about ammunition, urging men to make haste, warning them of some one coming. He turned on the rock floor ceaselessly, sometimes toward her, sometimes from her, muttering of horses, water, pa.s.sengers, wheels, wrecks. He made broken appeals to be chopped out, directed men where to use their axes. Nan listened to his ravings, overcome by the revelation of his condition. Once her uncle had lain sick of a fever and had been delirious; but that, her sole experience, was nothing to this. Once de Spain threw out a groping hand and, before she could escape, caught her skirt. Nan tried to pull away. His grip did not loosen. She took his hand in hers and, while he muttered meaningless words, forced his fingers open and drew away. His hand was dry and burning hot.

She told herself he must die if he remained longer unaided, and there were unpleasant possibilities, if he died where he lay. Such a death, so close to her own home might, if it were ever known, throw suspicion on her uncle and arouse the deeper resentment of the wounded man's friends. If the least of pity played a part in suggesting that her safest course was to help de Spain, Nan kept its promptings as much as she could in the penumbra of her thoughts. She did not want to pity or to help him, she convinced herself; but she did not want his death laid to a Morgan plot--for none of his friends would ever believe de Spain had found his way alive and alone to where he lay.

All of this Nan was casting up in her mind as she walked home. She had already decided, but without realizing it, what to do, and was willing to a.s.sume that her mind was still open.

Toward daylight of the morning, de Spain dreamed he was not alone--that a figure moved silently in the faintness of the dawn--a figure he struggled to believe a reality, but one that tricked his wandering senses and left him, at the coming of another day, weaker, with failing courage, and alone.