When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry Part 45

Blossom writhed with a realization that she was in the hands of creatures as savagely merciless as wolves, but she set her teeth.

"I hain't never a-goin' ter tell ye," she declared staunchly, "not ef ye kills me!" A satirical laugh drifted from the shadows.

"All right, then, we've done made provision fer thet, too. Ef ye won't tell us whar he's at we'll find out fer ourselves, but we aims ter leave one man hyar with ye when we goes. He's done been drinkin'

right-smart licker--an' he natch'rally won't want ye ter go away an'

tell his name ter n.o.body."

The unseen speaker paused significantly, then added with a deliberate brutality: "I reckon ye'll have ter be mighty sweet ter thet man ef ye hopes ter go away from hyar alive."

The girl lay blanched but unyielding. She did not dare to hope that the threat was empty and her single chance lay in parrying for time. Bear Cat had said he would come back with reinforcements in two hours--if he won through--but he, too, was facing desperate odds and already they might have overwhelmed him: he might have failed in his dive from precipice to tree-top.

Her heart sank into a nausea of terror. No outrage was beyond these human jackals, but she was bred to iron courage and the warlike blood in her veins welled up in defiance.

"I've done already give ye my answer," she retorted, forgetting her ideals of diction. "I don't aim ter alter hit none--d.a.m.n ye!"

"We aims ter be plumb fa'r an' reasonable," wheedled the voice of the spokesman with an evil sneer. "Deespite yore contrary muleishness, we're goin' ter tarry hyar jest precisely five minutes by ther watch ter afford ye a chanst ter study ther matter over, but don't make no mistake. We means, in sum an' substance, jest what we says ... most anythin's liable ter happen ter ye when we goes away."

Blossom's pulses pounded so furiously that her sanity reeled through a thousand nightmare tortures before she heard the detestable voice once more drawling, "Wa'al, time's up. Ef ye fo'ces us now, hit's jest plain suicide--thet's all."

After that, for a while, she remembered nothing save the delusion that she was drowning--sinking down and still more deeply down through eternities. Her next definite impression came when she found herself inside the cave, with her head resting against the muddied knees of a man who sat cross-legged on the ground. At the mouth of the grotto was a lantern with its dimming shield turned outward so that, inside, its light fell in a grotesque effect of ragged formlessness.

As she stirred into returning consciousness, the creature who was cradling her aching head on his marrow-bones, took down the tin cup which just then obscured his face.

Blossom recognized Ratler Webb and the breath stopped in her tightened throat.

The degenerate face was unshaven and bristling. Its blood-shot eyes smirked at her with the brutalized leer of a satyr. The man bent over a little and with grimy fingers fondled the hair on her neck and temples.

"Jest tek yore time, sweetheart," he said. "Don't hasten ter rouse yoreself up. We've got ther night afore us."

As the girl flinched and struggled away from the beast-light of those predatory eyes, her captor only clasped her the closer so that his alcoholic breath came sickeningly close to her face. He chuckled thickly as he added, "I reckon I kin allow ye a leetle time--because we're beholden ter ye. We didn't hev no notion whar yore beau war a-hidin' at twell we left thet note over thar. Then ye led us straight ter ther place."

Turner Stacy had clambered and slid precariously down the hickory tree without greater mishap than raw and bleeding hands. Once more on the ground, he ran like a madman, bending low in the timber.

The signal fire which he meant to build on the bald crest of Pinnacle Rock, would send out a flare visible to three states. Already he was twenty-five hundred feet above sea-level, but there remained a climb of almost a thousand more, and he was taking the direct and well-nigh perpendicular route.

Breathless, panting, vaulting from rock to rock; gripping, on faith, root and sapling, he climbed the steep stairway--where sometimes the earth shelved away underfoot--and he clutched wildly out for fresh support. Once there, with a fire blazing, he would have twenty or more of his nearest adherents riding to the rescue. They would rally on the highway just below the signal fire itself and there seek instructions--or signs. Fortunately for the present need, the night-riders had developed a mysterious but thorough system of communication. Their code of signals embraced a series of crude emblems, which to the initiated designated the zone into which they were called for action.

With frenzied haste Bear Cat laid and lighted his fire on the bald summit--pausing only long enough to see its red glare leaping upward.

Then he plunged downward again.

Along the highroad, which, for a little way, he followed boldly, he placed peeled twigs bent into circles at various conspicuous places, knowing that those who were to come would read from them the course to follow.

After that he disappeared into the thickets again and traveled swiftly.

Twice, as he hurried, soft-footed, through the woods he halted and threw himself flat while members of the pursuing party well-nigh ran over him. But eventually he reached a litter of giant rocks that stood like undisciplined sentinels guarding the cave's entrance. Then he stopped and listened, and when he heard no sound he crept forward obsessed with apprehension. He could not escape the feeling that this seeming of calm was dangerously deceptive.

Finally as he lay flattened and listening with all his faculties razor-edged, he heard something that electrified him--a woman's scream.

Clawing out his pistol, he threw all caution to the winds and raced for the entrance of the cave, and as he went he heard it again, now sharp and terrified, and he recognized Blossom's voice.

In his haste it did not even occur to him to feel surprised that no rifles greeted him. An exaltation of wrath intoxicated him with superlative confidence. He could meet and overcome a host of enemies!

His voice rose in Berserker frenzy. "I'm a-comin', Blossom! I'm a-comin'!"

For perhaps three-quarters of an hour after Blossom had recovered consciousness the second time, it had pleased her captor to sit across the narrow way from her, gloating with a b.e.s.t.i.a.l satisfaction over her helplessness, while he poured white stuff from bottle to tin cup.

Despite the advantages of his position, Ratler had thoughts which were disconcerting. At his hands lay the final opportunity to glut his long-starved hunger for revenge: to glut it fully and in a fashion of beastly brutality, and for that he had waited with a singleness of thought and purpose.

But behind him to-night he must leave no witness, and as he approached his task, he found that his nerves needed the steadying of strong drink--and yet more strong drink. Out of the flask he was not only drawing appeas.e.m.e.nt of thirst, but fuel for determination.

For a while he had even dozed while the girl, bound hand and foot, had shudderingly watched his dissolute and depraved face.

Then at the end he had risen, stretched his long arms and sauntered insolently over, looking down while he phrased repulsive compliments to her beauty.

Tiring eventually of his cat-and-mouse deliberateness, Ratler leaned down and, putting his arm about her waist, drew her up to him. Then it was that with all the revulsion that was in her she had screamed not once but until his hand had choked off her breath--and at that instant she had heard the shout from beyond the cave's entrance.

Webb heard it, too, and hurled the woman away from him, suddenly brought back to something nearer sobriety by the shock. He wheeled and trained his pistol on the entrance. He had laid aside his rifle and there was no time now to hunt for it. Bear Cat would have to stoop and edge his way into the place and in the process he could be easily dispatched.

But while he waited Ratler's knees shook and when, instead of crawling, he saw a shape dive almost horizontally through the aperture his courage evaporated. The lantern was badly placed and it confused the man inside because it darkened the opening while it left him in plain sight. Ratler's revolver was spitting venomously but ineffectually. His hand was unsteady and his eye confused. The drunkard was reeling as he fought and after a dazed moment he felt himself caught in a bone-breaking embrace while the b.u.t.t of a pistol hammered the consciousness out of his skull.

Turner Stacy was a wild man now. He stumbled blindly out of the cave dragging a limp figure behind him, and when he straightened up again and wiped his sweat-streaming face he had hurled the thing bodily outward, where the ravine dropped down a hundred feet.

He came back, palsied and shaken, and as he bent over the girl and cut away her bonds, his voice struggled through dry sobs.

"Blossom," he pleaded brokenly, "Blossom, tell me ye're only affrighted. Tell me thet ye didn't come ter no harm--fer my sake."

"I hain't hurt--Turney," she managed to whisper. "Ye came back--in time--jest barely in time."

She stood leaning weakly against the rock wall with her hands pressed tightly to her face.

The man stood, panting with excitement and exertion, but into his pupils came a sudden light of hope.

"Blossom," he whispered huskily, "Blossom--ye didn't ... come over ...

hyar ... because ye ... because ye keered fer me, did ye?"

She took her hands away from her temples and looked at him with a white face, and in the unhappy honesty of her eyes the man read his answer.

It was as if she had said, "My heart lies over there in _his_ grave,"

and slowly, gravely Turner nodded his head. His face had gone gray, but through its misery it held a stamp of gentleness.

"I understands ye," he said simply. "I won't never pester ye no more."

Then as some note of alarm came to his ears he wheeled, all alertness again and his hand was once more gripping his pistol.

"I've only got three ca'tridges left," he said to himself. "Hit's nip an' tuck now which git hyar fust."

As he reached the mouth of the cave a shout came out of the darkness.

"Ratler, air ye in thar?" and out into the night went the defiant response. "No, Ratler hain't hyar, but Bear Cat Stacy's hyar. Come on an' git me ef ye wants me."