The Man of the Forest - Zane Grey (white hot kiss txt) 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
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trackers huntin’ your trail.”
The listening girl suddenly appealed to Wilson.
“Don’t let him take me off — alone — in the woods!” she
faltered. That was the first indication of her weakening.
Jim Wilson broke into gruff reply. “I’m not bossin’ this
gang.”
“But you’re a man!” she importuned.
“Riggs, you fetch along your precious firebrand an’ come
with us,” said Anson, craftily. “I’m particular curious to
see her brand you.”
“Snake, lemme take the girl back to Pine,” said Jim Wilson.
Anson swore his amaze.
“It’s sense,” continued Wilson. “We’ve shore got our own
troubles, an’ keepin’ her ‘ll only add to them. I’ve a
hunch. Now you know I ain’t often givin’ to buckin’ your
say-so. But this deal ain’t tastin’ good to me. Thet girl
ought to be sent home.”
“But mebbe there’s somethin’ in it for us. Her sister ‘d pay
to git her back.”
“Wal, I shore hope you’ll recollect I offered — thet’s
all,” concluded Wilson.
“Jim, if we wanted to git rid of her we’d let Riggs take her
off,” remonstrated the outlaw leader. He was perturbed and
undecided. Wilson worried him.
The long Texan veered around full faced. What subtle
transformation in him!
“Like hell we would!” he said.
It could not have been the tone that caused Anson to quail.
He might have been leader here, but he was not the greater
man. His face clouded.
“Break camp,” he ordered.
Riggs had probably not heard that last exchange between
Anson and Wilson, for he had walked a few rods aside to get
his horse.
In a few moments when they started off, Burt, Jones, and
Moze were in the lead driving the pack-horses, Anson rode
next, the girl came between him and Riggs, and
significantly, it seemed, Jim Wilson brought up the rear.
This start was made a little after the noon hour. They
zigzagged up the slope, took to a deep ravine, and followed
it up to where it headed in the level forest. From there
travel was rapid, the pack-horses being driven at a jogtrot.
Once when a troop of deer burst out of a thicket into a
glade, to stand with ears high, young Burt halted the
cavalcade. His well-aimed shot brought down a deer. Then the
men rode on, leaving him behind to dress and pack the meat.
The only other halt made was at the crossing of the first
water, a clear, swift brook, where both horses and men drank
thirstily. Here Burt caught up with his comrades.
They traversed glade and park, and wended a crooked trail
through the deepening forest, and climbed, bench after
bench, to higher ground, while the sun sloped to the
westward, lower and redder. Sunset had gone, and twilight
was momentarily brightening to the afterglow when Anson,
breaking his silence of the afternoon, ordered a halt.
The place was wild, dismal, a shallow vale between dark
slopes of spruce. Grass, fire-wood, and water were there in
abundance. All the men were off, throwing saddles and packs,
before the tired girl made an effort to get down. Riggs,
observing her, made a not ungentle move to pull her off. She
gave him a sounding slap with her gloved hand.
“Keep your paws to yourself,” she said. No evidence of
exhaustion was there in her spirit.
Wilson had observed this by-play, but Anson had not.
“What come off?” he asked.
“Wal, the Honorable Gunman Riggs jest got caressed by the
lady — as he was doin’ the elegant,” replied Moze, who
stood nearest.
“Jim, was you watchin’?” queried Anson. His curiosity had
held through the afternoon.
“He tried to yank her off an’ she biffed him,” replied
Wilson.
“That Riggs is jest daffy or plain locoed,” said Snake, in
an aside to Moze.
“Boss, you mean plain cussed. Mark my words, he’ll hoodoo
this outfit. Jim was figgerin’ correct.”
“Hoodoo —” cursed Anson, under his breath.
Many hands made quick work. In a few moments a fire was
burning brightly, water was boiling, pots were steaming, the
odor of venison permeated the cool air. The girl had at last
slipped off her saddle to the ground, where she sat while
Riggs led the horse away. She sat there apparently
forgotten, a pathetic droop to her head.
Wilson had taken an ax and was vigorously wielding it among
the spruces. One by one they fell with swish and soft crash.
Then the sliding ring of the ax told how he was slicing off
the branches with long sweeps. Presently he appeared in the
semi-darkness, dragging half-trimmed spruces behind him. He
made several trips, the last of which was to stagger under a
huge burden of spruce boughs. These he spread under a low,
projecting branch of an aspen. Then he leaned the bushy
spruces slantingly against this branch on both sides,
quickly improvising a V-shaped shelter with narrow aperture
in front. Next from one of the packs he took a blanket and
threw that inside the shelter. Then, touching the girl on
the shoulder, he whispered:
“When you’re ready, slip in there. An’ don’t lose no sleep
by worryin’, fer I’ll be layin’ right here.”
He made a motion to indicate his length across the front of
the narrow aperture.
“Oh, thank you! Maybe you really are a Texan,” she whispered
back.
“Mebbe,” was his gloomy reply.
The girl refused to take food proffered her by Riggs, but
she ate and drank a little that Wilson brought her, then she
disappeared in the spruce lean-to.
Whatever loquacity and companionship had previously existed
in Snake Anson’s gang were not manifest in this camp. Each
man seemed preoccupied, as if pondering the dawn in his mind
of an ill omen not clear to him yet and not yet dreamed of
by his fellows. They all smoked. Then Moze and Shady played
cards awhile by the light of the fire, but it was a dull
game, in which either seldom spoke. Riggs sought his blanket
first, and the fact was significant that he lay down some
distance from the spruce shelter which contained Bo Rayner.
Presently young Burt went off grumbling to his bed. And not
long afterward the card-players did likewise.
Snake Anson and Jim Wilson were left brooding in silence
beside the dying campfire.
The night was dark, with only a few stars showing. A fitful
wind moaned unearthly through the spruce. An occasional
thump of hoof sounded from the dark woods. No cry of wolf or
coyote or cat gave reality to the wildness of forestland.
By and by those men who had rolled in their blankets were
breathing deep and slow in heavy slumber.
“Jim, I take it this hyar Riggs has queered our deal,” said
Snake Anson, in low voice.
“I reckon,” replied Wilson.
“An’ I’m feared he’s queered this hyar White Mountain
country fer us.”
“Shore I ‘ain’t got so far as thet. What d’ ye mean, Snake?”
“Damme if I savvy,” was the gloomy reply. “I only know what
was bad looks growin’ wuss. Last fall — an’ winter — an’
now it’s near April. We’ve got no outfit to make a long
stand in the woods… . Jim, jest how strong is thet
Beasley down in the settlements?”
“I’ve a hunch he ain’t half as strong as he bluffs.”
“Me, too. I got thet idee yesterday. He was scared of the
kid — when she fired up an’ sent thet hot-shot about her
cowboy sweetheart killin’ him. He’ll do it, Jim. I seen that
Carmichael at Magdalena some years ago. Then he was only a
youngster. But, whew! Mebbe he wasn’t bad after toyin’ with
a little red liquor.”
“Shore. He was from Texas, she said.”
“Jim, I savvied your feelin’s was hurt — by thet talk about
Texas — an’ when she up an’ asked you.”
Wilson had no rejoinder for this remark.
“Wal, Lord knows, I ain’t wonderin’. You wasn’t a hunted
outlaw all your life. An’ neither was I… . Wilson, I
never was keen on this girl deal — now, was I?”
“I reckon it’s honest to say no to thet,” replied Wilson.
“But it’s done. Beasley ‘ll get plugged sooner or later. Thet
won’t help us any. Chasin’ sheep-herders out of the country
an’ stealin’ sheep — thet ain’t stealin’ gurls by a long
sight. Beasley ‘ll blame that on us, an’ be greaser enough
to send some of his men out to hunt us. For Pine an’ Show
Down won’t stand thet long. There’s them Mormons. They’ll be
hell when they wake up. Suppose Carmichael got thet hunter
Dale an’ them hawk-eyed Beemans on our trail?”
“Wal, we’d cash in — quick,” replied Anson, gruffly.
“Then why didn’t you let me take the gurl back home?”
“Wal, come to think of thet, Jim, I’m sore, an’ I need money
— an’ I knowed you’d never take a dollar from her sister.
An’ I’ve made up my mind to git somethin’ out of her.”
“Snake, you’re no fool. How ‘ll you do thet same an’ do it
quick?”
“‘Ain’t reckoned it out yet.”
“Wal, you got aboot tomorrer an’ thet’s all,” returned
Wilson, gloomily.
“Jim, what’s ailin’ you?”
“I’ll let you figger thet out.”
“Wal, somethin’ ails the whole gang,” declared Anson,
savagely. “With them it’s nothin’ to eat — no whisky — no
money to bet with — no tobacco!… But thet’s not what’s
ailin’ you, Jim Wilson, nor me!”
“Wal, what is, then?” queried Wilson.
“With me it’s a strange feelin’ thet my day’s over on these
ranges. I can’t explain, but it jest feels so. Somethin’ in
the air. I don’t like them dark shadows out there under the
spruces. Savvy? … An’ as fer you, Jim — wal, you allus
was half decent, an’ my gang’s got too lowdown fer you.”
“Snake, did I ever fail you?”
“No, you never did. You’re the best pard I ever knowed. In
the years we’ve rustled together we never had a contrary
word till I let Beasley fill my ears with his promises.
Thet’s my fault. But, Jim, it’s too late.”
“It mightn’t have been too late yesterday.”
“Mebbe not. But it is now, an’ I’ll hang on to the girl or
git her worth in gold,” declared the outlaw, grimly.
“Snake, I’ve seen stronger gangs than yours come an’ go.
Them Big Bend gangs in my country — them rustlers — they
were all bad men. You have no likes of them gangs out heah.
If they didn’t get wiped out by Rangers or cowboys, why they
jest naturally wiped out themselves. Thet’s a law I
recognize in relation to gangs like them. An’ as for yours
— why, Anson, it wouldn’t hold water against one real
gun-slinger.”
“A-huh’ Then if we ran up ag’in’ Carmichael or some such
fellar — would you be suckin’ your finger like a baby?”
“Wal, I wasn’t takin’ count of myself. I was takin’
generalities.”
“Aw, what ‘n hell are them?” asked Anson, disgustedly. “Jim,
I know as well as you thet this hyar gang is hard put. We’re
goin’ to be trailed an’ chased. We’ve got to hide — be on
the go all the time — here an’ there — all over, in the
roughest woods. An’ wait our chance to work south.”
“Shore. But, Snake, you ain’t takin’ no count of the
feelin’s of the men — an’ of mine an’ yours… . I’ll bet
you my hoss thet
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