Wunpost Part 18

CHAPTER XXII

THE FEAR OF THE HILLS

Wunpost romped off down the canyon, holding the hair up like a scalp-lock--which it was, except for the scalp. Manuel Apache, with the pride of his kind, had knotted it up in a purple silk handkerchief; and he had yelled louder when he found it was gone than he had when he was caught in the trap. He had, in fact, acted extremely unreasonable, considering all that had been done for him; and Wunpost had been obliged to throw down on him with his six-shooter and order him off up the canyon. It was taking a big chance to allow him to live at all and, not to tempt him too far along the lines of reprisal, Wunpost left the Apache afoot. His gaunted pony was feeding hobbled, down the canyon, and Wunpost took off the rawhide thongs and hung them about his neck, after which he drove him on with his mules. But even at that he was taking a chance, or so at least it seemed, for the look in the Apache's eye as he had limped off up the gulch reminded Wunpost of a broken-backed rattlesnake.

He was a bad Indian and a bad actor--one of these men that throw butcher-knives--and yet Wunpost had tamed him and set him afoot and come off with his back-hair, as promised. He was a Government scout, the pick of the Apaches, and he had matched his desert craft against Wunpost's; but that craft, while it was good, was not good enough, and he had walked right into a bear-trap. Not the trap in the trail--he had gone around that--but the one in the rocks, with the step-diverting bush pulled down. Wunpost had gauged it to a nicety and this big chief of the Apaches had lost out in the duel of wits. He had lost his horse and he had lost his hair; and that pain in his heel would be a warning for some time not to follow after Wunpost, the desert-man.

There were others, of course, who claimed to be desert-men and to know Death Valley like a book; but it was self-evident to Wunpost as he rode back with his trophies that he was the king of them all. He had taken on Lynch and his desert-bred Shoshone and led them the devil's own chase; and now he had taken on Manuel, the big chief of the Apaches, and left him afoot in the rocks. But one thing he had learned from this snakey-eyed man-killer--he would better get rid of his money. For there were others still in the hills who might pot him for it any time--and besides, it was a useless risk. He was taking chances enough without making it an object for every miscreant in the country to shoot him.

He camped that noon at Surveyor's Well, to give his mules a good feed of gra.s.s, and as he sat out in the open the two ravens came by, but now he laughed at their croaks. Even if the eagles came by he would not lose his nerve again, for he was fighting against men that he knew.

Pisen-face Lynch and his gang were no better than he was--they left a track and followed the trails--and after he had announced that his money was all banked they would have no inducement to kill him. The inducements, in fact, would be all the other way; because the man that killed him would be fully as foolish as the one that killed the goose for her egg. He alone was the repository of that great and golden secret, the whereabouts of the Sockdolager Mine; and if they killed him out of spite neither Eells nor any of his man-hunters would ever see the color of its ore.

Wunpost stretched his arms and laughed, but as he was saddling up his mules he saw a smoke, rising up from the mouth of Tank Canyon. It was not in the Canyon but high up on a point and he knew it was Manuel Apache. He was signaling across the Valley to his boss in the Panamints that he was in distress and needed help, but no answering smoke rose up from Tucki Mountain to show where Wunpost's enemies lay hid. The Panamints stood out clean in the brilliant November light and each purple canyon seemed to invite him to its shelter, so sweetly did they lie in the sun. And yet, as that thin smoke bellied up and was smothered back again in the smoke-talk that the Apaches know so well, Wunpost wondered if its message was only a call for help--it might be a warning to Lynch. Or it might be a signal to still other Apaches who were watching his coming from the heights, and as Wunpost looked again his hand sought out the Indian's scalp-lock and he regarded it almost regretfully.

Why had he envenomed that ruthless savage by lifting his scalp-lock, the token of his warrior's pride; when by treating him generously he might have won his good will and thus have one less enemy in the hills?

Perhaps Wilhelmina had been right--it was to make good on a boast which might much better have never been uttered. He had bet her his mine and everything he had, a thing quite unnecessary to do; and then to make good he had deprived this Indian of his hair, which alone might put him back on his trail. He might get another horse and take up once more that relentless and murderous pursuit; and this time, like Lynch, he would be out for blood and not for the money there was in it.

Wunpost sighed and cinched his packs and hit out across the flats for the mouth of Emigrant Wash. But the thought that other Apaches might be in Lynch's employ quite poisoned Wunpost's flowing cup of happiness, and as he drew near the gap which led off to Emigrant Springs he stopped and looked up at the mountains. They were high, he knew, and his mules were tired, but something told him not to go through that gap. It was a narrow pa.s.sageway through the hills, not forty feet wide, and all along its sides there were caves in the cliffs where a hundred men could hide.

And why should Manuel Apache be making fancy smoke-talks if no one but white men were there? Why not make a straight smoke, the way a white man would, and let it go at that? Wunpost shook his head sagely and turned away from the gap--he had had enough excitement for that trip.

Bone Canyon, for which he headed, was still far away and the sun was getting low; but Wunpost knew, even if others did not, that there was a water-hole well up towards the summit. A cloudburst had sluiced the canyon from top to bottom and spread out a great fan of dirt; but in the earlier days an Indian trail had wound up it, pa.s.sing by the hidden spring. And if he could water his mules there he could rim out up above and camp on a broad, level flat. Wunpost jogged along fast, for he had left the pony at Surveyor's Well, and as he rode towards the canyon-mouth he kept his eyes on the ridges to guard against a possible surprise. For if Lynch and his Indians were watching from the gap they would notice his turning off to the left, and in that case a good runner might cut across to Bone Canyon before he could get through the pa.s.s.

But the mountain side was empty and as the dusk was gathering he pa.s.sed through the portals of Bone Canyon.

Like all desert canyons it boxed in at its mouth, opening out later in a broad valley behind; his road was the sand-wash, the path of the last cloudburst, now packed hard and set like stone. In the middle of the sand-wash a little channel had been dug by the last of the sluicing water; above the wash there rose another cut-bank where the cloudburst before it had taken out an even greater slice; and then on both sides there rose high bluffs of conglomerate which some father of all the cloudbursts had formed. Wunpost was riding in the lead now on his fast-walking mule, the two pack-animals following wearily along behind; in his nest on the front pack Good Luck was more than half sleeping, Wunpost himself was tempted to nod--and then, from the west bluff, there was a spit of fire and Wunpost found himself on the ground.

Across his breast and under his arm there was a streak that burned like fire, his mules were milling and bashing their packs; and as they turned both ways and ran he rolled over into the channel, with his rifle still clutched in one hand. Those days of steady practise had not been in vain, for as he went off his mule he had s.n.a.t.c.hed at his saddle-gun and dragged it from its scabbard. And now he lay and waited, listening to the running of his mules and the frenzied barking of his dog; and it came to him vaguely that several shots had been fired, and some from the east bank of the wash. But the man who had hit him had fired from the west and Wunpost crept down the wash and looked up.

A trickle of blood was running down his left arm from the bullet wound which had just missed his heart, but his whole body was tingling with a strength which could move mountains and he was consumed with a pa.s.sion for revenge. For the second time he had been ambushed and shot by this gang of cold-blooded murderers, and he had no doubt that their motive was the same as that to which the Indian had confessed. They had dogged his steps to kill him for his money--Pisen-face Lynch, or whoever it was--but their shooting was poor and as he rose beside a bush Wunpost took a chance from the east. The man he was looking for had shot from the west and he ran his eyes along the bluff.

Nothing stirred for a minute and then a round rock suddenly moved and altered its shape. He thrust out his rifle and drew down on it carefully, but the dusk put a blur on his sights. His foresight was beginning to loom, his hindsight was not clean, and he knew that would make him shoot high. He waited, all a-tremble, the sweat running off his face and mingling with the blood from his arm; and then the man rose up, head and shoulders against the sky, and he knew his would-be murderer was Lynch. Wunpost held his gun against the light until the sights were lined up fine, then swung back for a snap-shot at Lynch; and as the rifle belched and kicked he caught a flash of a tumbling form and clutching hands thrown up wildly against the sky. Then he stooped down and ran, helter-skelter down the wash, regardless of what might be in his way; and as he plunged around a curve he stampeded a pack-mule which had run that far and stopped.

It was the smallest of his mules, and the wildest as well, Old Walker and his mate having gone off up the canyon in a panic which would take them to the ranch; but it was a mule and, being packed, it could not run far down hill so Wunpost walked up on it and caught it. Far out in the open, where no enemy could slip up on him, he halted and made a saddle of the pack, and as he mounted to go he turned to Tucki Mountain and called down a curse on Lynch. Then he rode back down the trail that led to Death Valley, for the fear of the hills had come back.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE RETURN OF THE BLOW-HARD

Nothing was seen of John C. Calhoun for nearly a week and then, late one evening, he stepped in on Judson Eells in his office at the Blackwater Bank.

"Why--why, Mr. Calhoun!" he gasped, "we--we all thought you were dead!"

"Yes," returned Calhoun, whose arm was in a sling, "I thought so myself for a while. What's the good word from Mr. Lynch?"

Eells dropped back in his chair and stared at him fixedly.

"Why--we haven't been able to locate him. But you, Mr. Calhoun--we've been looking for you everywhere. Your riding mule came back with his saddle all b.l.o.o.d.y and a bullet wound across his hip and the Campbells were terribly distressed. We've had search-parties out everywhere but no one could find you and at last you were given up for dead."

"Yes, I saw some of those search-parties," answered Wunpost grimly, "but I noticed that they all packed Winchesters. What's the idee in trying to kill me?"

"Why, we aren't trying to kill you!" burst out Judson Eells vehemently.

"Quite the contrary, we've been trying to find you. But perhaps you can tell us about poor Mr. Lynch--he has disappeared completely."

"What about them Apaches?" inquired Wunpost pointedly, and Judson Eells went white.

"Why--what Apaches?" he faltered at last and Wunpost regarded him sternly.

"All right," he said, "I don't know nothing if you don't. But I reckon they turned the trick. That Manuel Apache was a bad one." He reached back into his hip-pocket and drew out a coiled-up scalp-lock. "There's his hair," he stated, and smiled.

"What? Did you kill him?" cried Eells, starting up from his chair, but Wunpost only shrugged enigmatically.

"I ain't talking," he said. "Done too much of that already. What I've come to say is that I've buried all my money and I'm not going back to that mine. So you can call off your bad-men and your murdering Apache Indians, because there's no use following me now. Thinking about taking a little trip for my health."

He paused expectantly but Judson Eells was too shocked to make any proper response. His world was tumbling about him, all his plans had come to naught--and Lynch was gone. He longed to question further, to seek out some clew, but he dared not, for his hands were not clean. He had hired this Apache whose grisly scalp-lock now lay before him, and the others who had been with Lynch; and if it ever became known----He shuddered and let his lip drop.

"This is horrible!" he burst out hoa.r.s.ely, "but why should they kill Lynch?"

"And why should they kill _me_?" added Wunpost. "You've got a nerve," he went on, "bringing those devils into the country--don't you know they're as treacherous as a rattlesnake? No, you've been going too far; and it's a question with me whether I won't report the whole business to the sheriff. But what's the use of making trouble? All I want is that contract--and this time I reckon I'll get it."

He nodded confidently but Judson Eells' proud lip went up and instantly he became the bold financier.

"No," he said, "you'll never get it, Mr Calhoun--not until you take me to the Sockdolager Mine."

"Nothing doing," replied Wunpost "not for you or any other man. I stay away from that mine, from now on. Why should I give up a half--ain't I got thirty thousand dollars, hid out up here under a stone? Live and let live, sez I, and if you'll call off your bad-men I'll agree not to talk to the sheriff."

"You can talk all you wish!" snapped out Eells with rising courage, "I'm not afraid of your threats. And neither am I afraid of anything you can do to test the validity of that contract. It will hold, absolutely, in any court in the land; but if you will take me to your mine and turn it over in good faith, I will agree to cancel the contract."

"Oh! You don't want nothing!" hooted Wunpost sarcastically, "but I'll tell you what I will do--I'll give you thirty thousand dollars, cash."

"No! I've told you my terms, and there's no use coming back to me--it's the Sockdolager Mine or nothing."

"Suit yourself," returned Wunpost, "but I'm just beginning to wonder whether I'm shooting it out with the right men. What's the use of fighting murderers, and playing tag with Apache Indians, when the man that sends 'em out is sitting tight? In fact, why don't I come in here and get _you_?"

"Because you're wrong!" answered Eells without giving back an inch, "you're trying to evade the law. And any man that breaks the law is a coward at heart, because he knows that all society is against him."

"Sounds good," admitted Wunpost, "and I'd almost believe it if _you_ didn't show such a nerve But you know and I know that you break the law every day--and some time, Mr. Banker, you're going to get caught. No, you can guess again on why I don't shoot you--I just like to see you wiggle. I just like to see a big fat slob like you, that's got the whole world bluffed, twist around in his seat when a _man_ comes along and tells him what a dastard he is. And besides, I git a laugh, every time I come back and you make me think of the Stinging Lizard--and the road! But the biggest laugh I get is when you pull this virtuous stuff, like the widow-robbing old screw you are, and then have the nerve to tell me to my face that it's the Sockdolager Mine or nothing. Well, it's nothing then, Mr. Penny-pincher; and if I ever get the chance I'll make you squeal like a pig. And don't send no more Apaches after _me_!"

He rose up and slapped the desk, then picked up the scalp-lock and strode majestically out the door. But Judson Eells was unimpressed, for he had seen them squirm before. He was a banker, and he knew all the signs. Nor did John C. Calhoun laugh as he rode off through the night, for his schemes had gone awry again. Every word that he had said was as true as Gospel and he could sit around and wait a life-time--but waiting was not his long suit. In Los Angeles he seemed to attract all the bar-flies in the city, who swarmed about and b.u.mmed him for the drinks; and no man could stand their company for more than a few days without getting thoroughly disgusted. And on the desert, every time he went out into the hills he was lucky to come back with his life. So what was he to do, while he was waiting around for this banker to find out he was whipped?

For Eells was whipped, he was foiled at every turn; and yet that muley-cow lip came up as stubbornly as ever and he tried to tell him, Wunpost, he was wrong. And that because he was wrong and a law-breaker at heart he was therefore a coward and doomed to lose. It was ludicrous, the way Eells stood up for his "rights," when everyone knew he was a thief; and yet that purse-proud intolerance which is the hall-mark of his cla.s.s made him think he was entirely right. He even had the nerve to preach little homilies about trying to evade the law. But that was it, his very self-sufficiency made him immune against anything but a club.

He had got the idea into his George the Third head that the king can do no wrong--and he, of course was the king. If Wunpost made a threat, or concealed the location of a mine, that was wrong, it was against the law; but Eells himself had hired some a.s.sa.s.sins who had shot him, Wunpost, twice, and yet Eells was game to let it go before the sheriff--he could not believe he was wrong.

Wunpost cursed that pride of cla.s.s which makes all capitalists so hard to head and put the whole matter from his mind. He had hoped to come back with that contract in his pocket, to show to the doubting Wilhelmina; but she had had enough of boasting and if he was ever to win her heart he must learn to feign a virtue which he lacked. That virtue was humility, the attribute of slaves and those who are not born to rule; but with her it was a virtue second only to that Scotch honesty which made upright Cole Campbell lean backwards. He was so straight he was crooked and cheated himself, so honest that he stood in his own light; and to carry out his principles he doomed his family to Jail Canyon for the rest of their natural lives. And yet Wilhelmina loved him and was always telling what he said and bragging of what he had done, when anyone could see that he was bull-headed as a mule and hadn't one chance in ten thousand to win. But all the same they were good folks, you always knew where you would find them, and Wilhelmina was as pretty as a picture.

No rouge on those cheeks and yet they were as pink as the petals of a blushing rose, and her lips were as red as Los Angeles cherries and her eyes were as honest as the day. Nothing fly about her, she had not learned the tricks that the candy-girls and waitresses knew, and yet she was as wise as many a grown man and could think circles around him when it came to an argument. She could see right through his bluffing and put her finger on the spot which convinced even him that he was wrong, but if he refrained from opposing her she was as simple as a child and her only desire was to please. She was not self-seeking, all she wanted was his company and a chance to give expression to her thoughts; and when he would listen they got on well enough, it was only when he boasted that she rebelled. For she could not endure his masculine complacency and his a.s.sumption that success made him right, and when he had gone away she had told him to his face that he was a blow-hard and his money was tainted.