Tharon of Lost Valley Part 34

It was true advice. Long before the sun was high overhead and day was broad in the painted cracks she had begun to heed it. As she swung up the ever lifting floors, threaded this way and that between the thin intercepting walls that towered hundreds of feet straight up, she cast her wide eyes up in wonder. Always she had watched the Canon Country from her western door, always it had held her with a binding lure.

There was that about its mystery, its austere majesty, that had thrilled her heart from babyhood. She had pictured it a thousand times and always it had looked just so--pink and grey and saffron, pale and misty with light when the sun was high, blue and wonderful and black as the luminary lowered, leaving the quick shadows.

Hour after hour they climbed, mostly in silence, speaking now and then some necessary word of caution, of a.s.sent. This way and that Tharon turned, but always moving upward in the same direction. From time to time Billy dropped a shred of the red kerchief about his neck, touched the soft walls with the handle of the knife he carried. This left a mark plain as a trail to his trained eyes.

At noon they halted for a little rest. From Tharon's saddle Billy had taken the flask of water, the tightly rolled bundle of bread and meat in its meal-sack. They ate sparingly of this, drank more sparingly of the water. Billy wondered miserably how soon this last might become more precious than fine gold to him, as he thought of the waterless pockets of the blind and sliding country.

Long before she had rested sufficiently Tharon was up and ready to go.

Ever her eager eyes were on the heights above. Ever they turned to the left of the steady line she set herself through and above the winding pa.s.ses. From time to time Billy looked back. There was not a sign by which one might tell which way he had come if the last mark he made was around the first corner. Hundreds and thousands of spires and faces towered about them. It was a mystic maze of dead stone, cut and weathered by the elements.

"No wonder!" he told himself, "that the Indians call it the Enchanted Land!"

"We'll reach False Ridge tomorrow, Billy," Tharon told him confidently, "an' over it lies G.o.d's Cup. There's water there--an' Kenset."

"What makes you think so?"

"I don't know. Just feel. He's there--alive or--" a half sob clutched at her voice--"or dead. But he's there."

"There'll be some one with him if he's alive, most likely."

"Sure," said Tharon briefly.

All the afternoon they traveled, sometimes touching with outstretched hands the faces on either side of them, again walking upward through majestic halls, solemn and beautiful. Everything about them was beautiful, the height, the sheer, straight walls, the myriad little blue shadows of tiny projections on their faces. Night came so early in the pits that long before they wished they were compelled to camp.

In a blind pocket, walled like a room and round as an apple, they stopped, and Billy spread down the blanket he had taken from Drumfire's back. This was their only preparation. They had nothing to do, no fire to build, no water to bring.

Tharon, scarcely conscious of the many miles she had traveled since the previous night, sat down upon the blanket, gathered her knees in her arms and stared at the vague blue phantoms of cliffs through the tall straight mouth that led into this sheltered pocket.

Outside the winds were drawing up the canons. All day they had walked in this wind. It drew constantly up and down the cuts, this way and that, like contrary currents that met and fought each other, swung in together, went a little way in peace, to again split and surge away through other channels. The echoes were alive with every sound, both of their own making and that of the wind's. A constant sighing droned through the depths, a mournful, whispering sound that sent the shivers down Tharon's spine, made her think sadly of all the tragedies she had ever known.

Billy, lying full length beside her, his hands beneath his head, looked up to the narrow blue spot of sky so far away, and thought his own thoughts, and they were not wholly sad.

They fell to talking, softly, in low tones, as if in all the mysterious solitude there might be one to hear, and it was mostly speech of long ago--when Billy had first come into Lost Valley.

After a long and quiet hour the man insisted that she should sleep--that after the hard day and in view of the coming hard morrow, she needed rest.

"But I'm not tired, Billy," Tharon protested, "no more'n as if I'd been ridin' all day after th' cattle."

But Billy shook his head and hollowed a little place in the soft slide stuff at the Wall's foot. In this he spread the blanket, folding it half back.

"Lie down," he commanded, "an' you'll be asleep so quick you won't know when it happens."

Tharon slipped off her daddy's belt and stretched her slim young form in the hollow, which fitted it like a cradle. Not for nothing had Billy slept out many a night with nothing save the earth and stars for bed and blanket. The hollow was craftily deepened at hip and shoulder, making a restful couch. As she settled herself therein he lapped the loose half of the blanket over her and tucked it in. Then he took his hat, folded it sharply and placed it under the tawny head.

In its place he would fain have laid his heart.

His fingers, settling the improvised pillow, tangled themselves wistfully in the sun-bright hair, and the boy groaned aloud.

"What's the matter, Billy, dear?" asked Tharon anxiously, but Billy laughed lightly, a thin sound in the mighty caverns.

"Nothing in G.o.d's world, Tharon," he lied. "Now go to sleep."

And he walked away to the tall mouth and sat down with his back against one of the walls. From his pocket he took papers and tobacco and proceeded to roll himself a cigarette.... Dawn showed the narrow doorway strewn with their b.u.t.ts, as leaves strew mountain trails in autumn.

Things were ready to happen in Lost Valley--several things.

At the Golden Cloud, Lola looked across the level stretches toward the Stronghold with tragic dark eyes, and smiled at a dozen men whom she scarcely saw. Settlers from all up and down the Wall drifted into Corvan and out again, intent, silent, watchful. _Vaqueros_ and riders from the Stronghold also came and went, as intent, as silent. They pa.s.sed each other with hostile eyes and trigger fingers were unusually limber. The air was pregnant with change.

Buck Courtrey was conspicuous by his absence.

He was not seen in the town, neither was he at the Stronghold.

There were soft whispers afloat that he was with the Pomos up under the Rockface at the north.

And at the Stronghold, poor Ellen, whiter than ever, more like a broken lily drooping on its stem, trembled and waited for a day that was set soon--too terribly soon!--the day, farcically appointed, for the suit for divorce against her.

Word of this was abroad through all the Valley. Underground speculation was rife as to which of the two women whom Courtrey favoured, Lola or Tharon, was responsible. Some said one, some the other. But Lola knew.

Then came the day itself--a golden summer day as sweet and bright as that one years ago when Courtrey had married Ellen--at this same pine building where the laughable legal farces were enacted now.

Pale as a new moon Ellen rode in across the rolling stretches on one of the Ironwoods, with Cleve beside her. She was spiritless, silent.

Cleve was silent, too, though for a far different reason. There was a frown between his brows, a glitter in his narrowed eyes. He was thinking of the only man in Corvan whom he had been able to persuade to present Ellen's protest--d.i.c.k Burtree, one-time lawyer and man of parts in the outside, now a puffed and threadbare vagabond, whose paramount idea was whiskey and more whiskey. But Burtree could talk.

Over his mottled and shapeless lips could, on occasion, pour a stream of pure oratory silver as the Vestal's Veil.

When he was drunk he feared neither man nor devil, and he could speak best so. Therefore Cleve had given him enough money in advance to put him in trim.

"What you think Buck'll say about me, Cleve?" Ellen asked anxiously.

"What's he mean to accuse me of?"

"Any dirty thing he can trump up, Sis," said Cleve gravely, "he's a-goin' to make it a nasty mess--an' I wish to G.o.d you'd jest ride on down th' Wall with me an' never even look back."

He leaned from his saddle and took the blue-veined hand in his. There was an unspeakable tenderness in his eyes as he regarded his sister.

"What you say, Ellen? There's life below, an' work an' other men.

You'll marry again, sometime----"

But Ellen shook her head with its maize-gold crown.

"Nary other man, Cleve," she said gently. "I'm all Buck's woman."

So they rode on toward the town, and Cleve knew that his last faint hope was dead.

In the town itself there was a stir. Courtrey was there, and Wylackie Bob, and Black Bart and Arizona, a bunch of dark, evil men in all surety.

The Ironwoods were in evidence everywhere, but strange to say, there were no Finger Marks. Not a man from the Holding was in town.

When Cleve and Ellen, alone together, rode in, it lacked yet a half hour of the time set for trial. There was no place to go but Baston's, so they dismounted at the hitch-rack. Ellen, swaying on her feet, looked all around with her big pale eyes, and when she saw Courtrey some distance away she put a hand to her heart as simply as a hurt child. She was a pitiful creature in her long white dress, for she had ridden in on an old sidesaddle, and she shook out the crumpled folds in a wistful attempt to look proper. On her head was the inevitable sunbonnet of slats and calico.