Nameless river

Contents

CHAPTER

I. “Fight for a Woman? Hell! If ’twas th’ Horse, Now-” .

II. The Homestead on Nameless .

CHAPTER I “fight for a woman f hell! if *TWAS th’

HORSE NOW-”

It was Springtime in the Deep Heart country. On the broad slopes, the towering slants of the hills themselves, the connifers sang their ever¬ lasting monotone, tuned by the little winds from the south.

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On the flaring fringes of their sweeping skirts where the streams ran, maples trembled in the airy sun and cottonwoods shook their thousand palms of silver.

Great canons cut the ridges, dark and mys¬ terious, murmuring with snow water, painted fan¬ tastically in the reds and browns and yellows of their weathered stone. Pine trees grew here, and pinons, hemlock and spruce, all the dark and sombre people of the forest, majestic and aloof.

But in the sweet valleys that ran like play¬ ful Angers all ways among the hills, where lay tender grass of a laughing brightness, flowers

nodded thick in the drowsy meadows. It was a lonesome land, set far from civilization, but beautiful witbal, serene, silent, wild with crag and peak and precipice. Deer browsed in its sheltered places, a few timber wolves preyed on them, while here and there a panther screamed to the stars at night.

For many years a pair of golden eagles had reared their young on the beetling escarpment that crowned Mystery Ridge.

It was a rich land, too, for many cattle ran on its timbered slants and grew sleek and fat for fall along the reaches of the river.

On a day when all the world seemed basking in the tempered sun, a horse and rider came down along the slopes heading toward the west. On the broad background of this primeval set¬ ting they made a striking picture, one to arrest the eye, for both were remarkable. Of the two, perhaps the horse would first have caught tne attention of an observer, owing to its great stature and its shining mouse-blue coat.

Far off, also, the prideful grace of its car¬ riage, the lightness, the arrogance of its step, would have been noticeable. But as they drew near, one looked instinctively to see what man¬ ner of rider bestrode so splendid a fellow, and was not disappointed—for the rider was a woman.

She was a gallant woman, if one could so de¬ scribe her, not large but built with such nicety

“IF ’TWAS TH’ HORSE NOW_”

of line, of proportion, as best to show off the spirit in her and that was a thing which might not be described. Under her sombrero, worn low on her brow and level, one got the seeming of darkness shot with fire—the black eyes and bit of dusky hair above cheeks brightly flushed. She rode at ease, her gauntleted hands clasped on her pommel, her reins swinging. A blue flannel shirt, gay with pearl buttons, lay open at the throat and bloused a trifle above a broad leather belt, well worn and studded with nickel spots. A divided skirt of dark leather, precisely fitted and deeply fringed at the bottom, con¬ cealed tne tops of high laced boots. All her clothing betokened especial make, and very thorough wear.

As the blue horse sidled expertly down the slope a loose stone turned under his shod hoof, causing him to stumble ever so slightly, though he caught himself instantly.

As instantly the woman’s spurred heel struck his flank, her swift tightening of the rein antici¬ pated his resultant start.

“Pick up your feet, you!” she said sharply, frowning.

The stallion did pick up his feet, for he was intelligent, but he shook his proud head, laid his ears back on his neck, and the sweat started on his sensitive skin at the needless rake of the spur. The great dark eyes in his grey-blue face shone for a time like fox-fire in the dark, twin sparks beneath the light of his tossing silver forelock.

He choose his footing more carefully, though he was an artist in hill climbing at all times, for ,the woman on his back was a hard task-master. Caught as a colt in the high meadows of the Upper Country beyond the Deep Heart hills, the horse had served her faithfully for four of his seven years of life, and hated her sullenly. There was mixed blood in his veins—wild, from the slim white mother who had never felt a rope, patrician, gentle, tractable, from the thorough¬ bred black father lost from a horse-trader’s string eleven years back and sought for many bootless moons because of his great value.

Swayed by the instincts of these two strains the superb animal obeyed this woman who was unquestionably his master, though rebellion surged in him at every chastisement.

The sun was at the zenith, marking the time of short shadows, and its light fell in pale golden washes over the tapestried green slopes. Tall flowers nodded on slim stalks in nook and crevasse—frail columbine and flaming bleeding hearts—and mosses crept in the damp places.

For an hour the two came down along the breast of a ridge, dropping slowly in a long diagonal, and presently came out on a bold shoulder that jutted from the parent spine. Here, with the thinning trees falling abruptly away, a magnificent view spread out below. For a long time there had been in the rider’s ears a low and heavy murmur, a ceaseless sound of power. Now its source was visible—the river that wound between wide meadows spread like flaring flounces on either side—broad, level, green stretches that looked rich as a king’s lands, and were.

The woman reined up her horse and sitting sidewise looked down with moody eyes. A frown drew close the dark brows under the hat brim, the full sensuous lips hardened into a tight line.

Hatred flamed in her passionate face, for the smiling valley was tenanted. At the far edge of the green floor across the river there nestled against the hills that rose abruptly the small log buildings of a homestead. There was a cabin, squarely built and neat, a stable, a shed or two, and stout corrals, built after the fashion of a stockade, their close-set upright saplings gleam¬ ing faintly in the light.

And on the green carpet a long brown line lay stretched from end to end, straight as a plumb-line, attesting to the accuracy of the eye that drew it. A team of big bay horses even now plodded along that line, leaving behind them a tiny addition in the form of a flange of new turned earth, the resistless effect of the conquer¬ ing plow.

The plow, hated of all those who follow the fringe of the 'wilderness, savage, trapper, and cattleman.

In the furrow behind walked the owner of the accurate eyes—deep, wide, blue eyes they were, set beautifully apart under calm brows of a golden bronze which matched exactly the thick lashes and the heavy rope of hair braided and pinned around the head hidden in an old-fash¬ ioned sunbonnet—for this only other figure in the primeval picture was a woman also. She was young by the grace of the upright carriage, strong by the way she handled her plow, con¬ fident in every movement, every action. She stood almost as tall as the average man, and she walked with the free swing of one.

For a long time the rider on the high shoulder of the ridge sat regarding these tiny plodders in the valley.

Then she deliberately took from its straps the rifle that hung on her saddle, lifted it to her shoulder, took slow aim and fired. It was a high-power gun, capable of carrying much far¬ ther than this point of aim, and its bullet spat whiningly into the earth so near the moving team that one of the horses jumped and squatted.

The woman lowered the gun and watched.

But the upright figure plodding in its furrow never so much as turned its head. It merely pulled the lines buckled about its waist, thereby steadying the frightened horse back to its busi¬ ness, and crept ahead at its plowing.

‘ ‘ Damn! 7 ’ said the woman.

She laid the rifle across her pommel, reined the blue stallion sharply away and went on her interrupted journey.

Two hours later she rode into the shady, crooked lane that passed for a street in Cor¬ dova, Composed of a general store, a black¬ smith-shop, a few ancient cabins, the isolated trading point called itself a town. McKane of the store did four-ply business and fancied him¬ self exceedingly.

As the woman came cantering down the street between the cabins he ceased whittling on the splinter in his hands and watched her. She was well worth watching, too, for she was straight as an Indian and she rode like one. Of the half dozen men lounging on the store porch in the drowsy afternoon, not one but gazed at her with covetous eyes.

A light grew up in McKane’s keen face, a satisfaction, an appreciation, a recognition of excellence.

“By George !” he said softly. “Boys, I don’t know which is the most worth while—the half-breed Bluefire or Kate Cathrew on his back!”

“I’ll take the woman,” said a lean youth in worn leather, his starved young face attesting to the womanless wilderness of the Upper County from whence he hailed. “Yea, Lord—I’ll take the woman.”

“You mean you would,” said McKane, smil¬ ing, “if you could. Many a man has tried it, hut Kate rides alone. Yes, and rules her king¬ dom with an iron hand—that’s wrong—it’s steel, and Toledo steel at that, tempered fine. And merciless.”

“You seem to know th’ lady pretty well.”

“All Nameless River knows her,” said the

tradeT, lowering his voice as she drew near, « *

“and the Deep Hearts, too, as far as cattle run.”

“Take an’ keep yer woman—if ye can—” put in a bearded man of fifty who sat against a post, his booted feet stretched along the floor, “but give me th’ horse. I’ve loved him ever sence I first laid eyes on him' two years back.

“He’s more than a horse—he’s got brains behind them speakin’ eyes, soft an’ black when he’s peaceful, but burnin’ like coals when he’s mad. I’ve seen him mad, an’ itched to own him then. Kate’s a brute to him—don’t under¬ stand him, an’ don’t want to.”

McKane dropped his chair forward and rose quickly to his feet as the woman cantered up.

“Hello, Kate,” he said, as she sat a moment regarding the group, “how’s the world at Sky Line Ranch?”

i

“All there,” she said shortlv, or was when I left.”

She swung out of her saddle and flung her reins to the ground. She pulled off her gloves and pushed the hat back from her forehead, which showed sweated white above the tan of her face. She passed into the store with McKane, the spurs rattling on her booted heels.

Left alone the big, blue stallion turned his alert head and looked at the men on the porch, drawing a deep breath and rolling the wheel in his half-breed bit.

It was as the bearded man had said—intelli¬ gence in a marked degree looked out of the starry eyes in the blue face. That individual reached out a covetous hand, but the horse did not move. He knew his business too well as Kate Cathrew’s servant.

Inside the store the woman took two letters which McKane gave her from the dingy pigeon¬ holes that did duty as post office, read them, frowned and put them in the pocket of her leather riding skirt. Then she selected a few things from the shelves which she stowed in a flour-sack and was ready to go. McKane fol¬ lowed her close, his eyes searching her face with ill-concealed desire. She did not notice the men on the porch, who regarded her frankly, but passed out among them as though they were not there. It was this cool insolence which cleared the path before her wherever she appeared, as if all observers, feeling the inferiority her dis¬ dain implied, acknowledged it.

But as she descended the five or six steps that led down from the porch, she came face to face with a newcomer, one who neither gaped nor shifted back, but looked her square in the face.

This was a man of some thirty-four or five, big, brawny, lean and fit, of a rather homely countenance lighted by grey eyes that read his kind like print.

He looked like a cattleman save for one thing —the silver star pinned to the left breast of his fiannel shirt, for this was Sheriff Price Selwood.

“Good day, Kate,” he said.

A red flush rose in the woman’s face, but it was not set there by any liking for the speaker who accosted her, that was plain.

“It’s never a good day when I meet you,” she said evenly, “it’s a bad one.”

The Sheriff smiled.

“That’s good,” he answered, “but some day I’ll make it better.”

McKane, his own face flushed with sudden anger, stepped close.

“Price,” he said thinly, “you and I’ve been pretty fair friends, but when you talk to Miss Cathrew like that, you’ve got me to settle with. That sounded like a threat.”

“Did it?” said Selwood. “It was.”

The trader was as good as his word.

With the last syllable his fist shot out and took the speaker in the jaw, a clean stroke, timed a half-second sooner than the other had ex¬ pected, though he had expected it. It snapped his head back on his shoulders, but did not make him stagger, and the next moment he had met McKane half-way with all the force of his two hundred pounds of bone and muscle.

In the midst of the whirlwind fight that fol¬ lowed, Kate Cathrew, having pulled on her gloves and coolly tied her sack in place on her saddle, mounted Bluefire and rode away without a backward look.

Twenty minutes later the Sheriff picked up the trader and rolled him up on the porch. He stood panting himself, one hand on the worn planking, the other wiping the blood and dirt from his face.

“Get some water, boys,” he said quietly, “and when he comes around tell him I’ll be back to¬ morrow for my coffee and tobacco—five pounds of each—and anything more he wants to give me.”

He picked up his wide hat, brushed it with his tom sleeve, set it back on his head precisely, walked to his own horse, which was tied some distance away, mounted and rode south toward the more open country where his own ranch lay.

“I’m damned!” said the bearded man softly,

“it didn’t take her long to stir up somethin’ on a peaceful day! If it’d ben over Bluefire, now— there’s somethin’ to fight for—but a woman; Hell!”

4 4 But—Glory—Glory! ’ ’ whispered the lean boy who had watched Kate hungrily, u ain’t she worth it! Oh, just ain’t she! Wisht I was McKane this minute!”

“Druther be th’ Sheriff,” said the other enig¬ matically.

Chapter II

When the sun dropped over the western ridge, the girl in the deep sunbonnet unhitched her horses from the plow. She looped her lines on the hames, rubbed each sweated bay head a moment, carefully cleaned her share with a small wooden paddle which she took from a pocket in her calico skirt, and tipped the implement over, share-face down.

Then she untied the slatted bonnet and took it off, carrying it in her hand as she swung away with her team at her heels, and the change was marvelous. Where had been a somewhat mas¬ culine figure, plodding at man’s work a few moments before, was now a young goddess strid¬ ing the virgin earth.

The rose glow of coming twilight in the mountains bathed the stern slants with magic, fell on her bronze head like ethereal dust of gems. All in a moment she had become beauti¬ ful. The golden shade of her smooth skin was but a tint above that of her hair and brows and lashes, a blend to delight an artist, so rare was it—though her mother said they were “all off the same piece.’’ There was red in her make¬ up, too, faint, thinned, beneath the light tan of her cheeks, flaming forth brightly in the even line of her full lips.

Out of this flare of noonday color her blue eyes shone like calm waters under summer skies. Some of the men of the country had seen John Allison’s daughter, but not one of them would have told you she was handsome—for not one of them had seen her without the disfiguring shelter of the bonnet. She went with the weary horses to the edge of the river, flat here in the broad meadows, and stood between them as they drank.

She raised her head and looked across the swift water-stream to the high shoulder of the distant ridge, but there was no fear in the calm depths of her eyes. She stood so, quiet, tired, at ease, until the horses had drunk their fill and with windy breaths of satisfaction were ready to go on across the flat to the stable and corral.

Here she left them in the hands of a boy of seventeen, very much after her own type, but who walked with a hopeless halt, and went on to the cabin.

“Hello, Mammy,” she said, smiling—and if she had been beautiful before she was exquisite when she smiled, for the red lips curled up at the corners and the blue eyes narrowed to drowsy slits of sweetness

But there was no answering smile on the gaunt face of the big woman who met her at the door with work-hardened hands laid anxiously on her young shoulders.

“Nance, girl,” she said straightly, “I heard a shot this afternoon—I reckon it whistled some out there in th’ field!”

“It did,” said Nance honestly, “so close it made Dan squat.”

In spite of her courage the woman paled a hit.

“My Lord A’mighty!” she said distressedly, “I do wish your Pappy had stayed in Missouri! I make no doubt he’d been livin’ today—and I’d not be eating my heart out with longin’ for him, sorrow over Bud, an’ fear for you every time you’re out of my sight. And th’ land ain’t worth it.”

But Nance Allison laid her hand over her mother’s and turned in the doorway to look once again at the red and purple veils of dusk-haze falling down the mountain’s face, to listen to the song of Nameless River, hurrying down from the mysterious canons of the Deep Heart hills, and a sort of adoring awe irradiated her fea¬ tures.

“Worth it?” she repeated slowly. “No—not Papp’s death—not Bud’s lameness—but worth every lick of work I ever can do, worth every glorious hour I spend on it, worth every bluff I call, every sneak-thief enemy I defy—and somjc day it will be worth a mint of gold when the cattle grow to herds. And in the meantime it’s —why, Mammy, it’s the anteroom of Heaven, the fringes of paradise, right here in Nameless Valley.”

The mother sighed.

“You love it a lot, don’t you!” she asked plaintively.

‘ 1 I think it’s more than love, ’ ’ said the big girl slowly as she rolled her faded sleeves higher along her golden arms preparatory to washing at the well in the yard, “I think it’s principle— a proving of myself—I think it’s a front line in the battle of life—and I believe I’m a mighty fighter-. ’ ’

“I know you are,” said the woman with con¬ viction, faintly tinged with pride, “but—there’ll be few cattle left for herds if things go on the way they have gone. Perhaps there’ll be neither herds nor herders-”

But her daughter interrupted.

“There’ll be a fight, at any rate,” she said as she plunged her face, man fashion, into the basin filled with water from the bucket which she had lifted, hand over hand—“there’ll be a fight to the finish when I start—and some day I’m afraid I’ll start.”

She looked at her mother with a shade of trouble on her frank face.

"For two years,’’ she added, "I’ve been turning the other cheek to my enemies. I haven’t passed that stage, yet. I’m still patient—but I feel stirrings.”

"God forbid!” said the older woman sol¬ emnly, "it sounds like feud!”

"Will be,” returned the girl shortly, "though I pray against it night and day.”

The boy Bud came up from the stable along the path, and Nance stood watching him. There was but one thing in Nameless Valley that could harden her sweet mouth, could break up the habitual calm of her eyes. This was her brother, Bud.

When she regarded him, as she did now, there was always a flash of flame in her face, a wimple of anguish passing on her features, an explosion, as it were, of some deep and surging passion, covered in, hidden, like molten lava in some half-dead crater, its dull surface cracking here and there with seams of awful light which drew together swiftly. Now for the moment the little play went on in her face.

Then she smiled, for he was near.

"Hello, Kid,” she said, "how’s all?”

The boy smiled back and he was like her as two peas are like each other—the same golden skin, the same mouth, the same blue eyes crink¬ ling at the corners.

But there the likeness ended, for where Nance was a delight to the eye in her physical perfec¬ tion, the boy hung lopsided, his left shoulder drooping, his left leg grotesquely bandied.

But the joy of life was in him as it was in Nance, despite his misfortune.

“Whew!” he said, “it’s gettin’ warm a-ready. Pretty near melted working in th’ garden to¬ day. Got three beds ready. Earth works up fine as sand.”

“So it does in the field,” said Nance as she fol¬ lowed the mJother into the cabin, “it’s like mould and ashes and all the good things of the land worked in together. It smells as fresh as they say the sea winds smell. Each time I work it, it seems wilder and sweeter—old lady earth sending out her alluring promise.”

“Land sakes, girl,” said Mrs. Allison, “where do you get such fancies!”

“Where do you suppose?” said Nance, “out of the earth herself. She tells me a-many things here on Nameless—such as the value of patience, an’ how to be strong in adversity. I’ve never had the schools, not since those long-back days in Missouri, but I’ve got my Bible and I’ve got the land. And I’ve got the sky and the hills and the river, too. If a body can’t learn from them he’s poor stuff inside. Mighty poor.”

She tidied her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the kitchen wall, a small matter of passing her hands over the shining mass, for the braids were smooth, almost as they had been when she pinned them there before sun-up, and rolling down her sleeves, sat down to the table where a simple meal was steaming. She bowed her head and Mrs. Allison, her lean face gaunt with shadows of fear and apprehension, folded her hard hands and asked the customary bless¬ ing of that humble house.

Humble it was in every particular—of its scant furnishings, of its bare cleanliness which was its only adornment, of the plain food on the scoured, clothless table.

These folk who lived in it were humble, too, if one judged only by their toil-scarred hands, their weary faces.

But under the plain exterior there was some¬ thing which set them apart, which defied the stamp of commonplace, which bid for the extra¬ ordinary.

This was the dominant presence of purpose in the two younger faces, the spirit of patient courage which shone naked from the two pairs of blue eyes.

The mother had less of it.

She was like a. war-mother of old—waiting always with a set mouth and eyes scanning the distances for tragedy.

That living spirit of stubborn courage had come out of the heart and soul of John Allison, latter day pioneer, who for two years had slept in a low, neat bed at the mountain’s foot beyond the cabin, his end one of the mysteries of the wild land he had loved. His wife had never ceased to fret for its unravelling’, to know the how and wherefore of his fall down Rainbow Cliff—he, the mountaineer, the sure, the un¬ chancing. His daughter and son had accepted it, laid it aside for the future to deal with, and taken up the work which he had dropped—the plow, the rope and the cattle brand.

It was heavy work for young hands, young brains.

The great meadow on the other side of Name¬ less was rich in wild grass, a priceless posses¬ sion. For five years it had produced abundant stacks to feed the cattle over, and the cutting and stacking was work that taxed the two to the very limit of endurance. And the corn-land at the west—that, too, took labor fit for man’s muscles. But there were the hogs that ran wild and made such quick fattening on the golden grain in the early fall. It was the hogs that paid most of the year’s debt at the trading store, providing the bare necessities of life, and Nance could not give up that revenue, work or no work. Heaven knew, she needed them this year more than ever—since the fire which had flared in a night the previous harvest and taken all three of the stacks in the big meadow. That had been disaster, indeed, for it had forced her to sell every head of her stock that she could, at lowest prices, leaving barely enough to get another start. McKane had bought, but he had driven a hard bargain.

This was another spring and hope stirred in her, as it is ever prone to do in the heart of youth.

Tired as she was, the girl brought forth from the ancient bureau in her own room beyond, a worn old Bible, and placing it beneath the lamp, sat herself down beside the table to the study of that Great Book which was her classic and her school. Mrs. Allison had retired into the depths of the cabin, from the small room adjoining, Nance could hear the regular breathing of Bud, weary from his labors. For a long time she sat still, her hands lying cupped around the Book, her face pensive with weariness, her eyes fixed unwinking on the yellow flame. Then she turned the thin pages with a reverent hand and at the honeysweet rhythms of the Psalms, stopped and began to read.

With David she wandered afar into fields of divine asphodel, was soon lost in a sea of spiritual praise and song.

Her young head, haloed with a golden spray in the light of the lamp, was bent above the Bible, her lashes lay like golden circles, sparkling on her cheeks, her lips were sweetly moulded to the words she unconsciously formed as she read.

For a long time she pored over the ancient treasure of the Scriptures, and in all truth she was innocent enough, lovely enough to have stirred a heart of stone. It was warm with the breath of spring outside. Window and door stood open and no breeze stirred the cheap white curtain at the sill.

Peace was there in the lone homestead by the river, the security that comes with knowledge that all is looked to faithfully. Nance knew that the two huge padlocks on the stout log barn that housed the horses and the two milk cows, were duly fastened, for their keys hung on the wall beside the towel-roller. She knew that the well-board was down, that the box was filled with wood for the early breakfast fire.

“ ‘In Thee, Oh, Lord, do I put my trust/ ” she read in silence. “ ‘Let me never be ashamed, deliver me in Thy righteousness-’ ”

She laid her temples in her palms, her elbows on the table, and her blue eyes followed the printed lines with a rapt delight.

Suddenly she sat upright, alert, her face lifted like that of a startled creature of the wild. She had heard no sound. There had been no tremor of the earth to betray a step outside, and yet she felt a presence.

She did not look toward the openings, hut stared at the wall before her with its rows of shelves behind their screened doors where her mother kept her scoured pans.

And then, suddenly, there came a thin, keen whine, a little clear whistle, and a knife stood quivering between her dropped hands, its point imbedded deep in the leaves of the old Bible.

For a. moment she sat so, while a flush of anger poured up along her throat to flare to the roots of her banded hair.

With no uncertain hand she jerked the blade from the profound pages, leapt to her feet, snatched a stub of pencil from a broken mug on a shelf, tore a fly-leaf from the precious Book, and, bending in the light, wrote something on it. She folded the bit of paper, thrust the knife point through it and, turning swiftly, flung them viciously through the window where the thin curtain had been parted.

She stood so, facing the window defiantly, scorning to blow out the light.

Then she dropped her eyes to the desecrated Word and they were flaming—and this is what she had written on the fly-leaf:

“The Lord is the strength of my life—of whom shall I be afraid! Thought an host shall encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.”