The Heart of Thunder Mountain

“Well, about Sangre de Cristo first. That’s a great range that stands up high and white along the east. Sangre de Cristo is Spanish for Blood of Christ. I can see those pious old rascal adventurers uncovering their blessed heads when they first glimpsed it. At sunset it takes the color–not always, not often, in fact, perhaps a dozen times a year. There are days and days when the range is only white and cold, days when it’s black with storms, and days when it’s dismal gray. Then there comes an evening when the sun goes down red behind the San Juan, and the snows on Sangre de Cristo run like blood. The whole world, for a few minutes, seems to halt and stand still in awe at that weird and mysterious spectacle–trainmen setting the brakes on squealing ore trains on Marshall Pass, and miners coming out of their tunnels above Creed all stop and look; Mexican sheep-herders in Conejos pause to cross themselves; ranchmen by their lonely corrals up and down the San Luis, and cowboys in the saddle on the open range–all spellbound. It gives you a strange feeling–something that goes back to the primitive instincts of mankind–something of reverence, something of wonder, something of fear–the fear that the first men had when they gazed on the phenomena they could not understand, and began to make their myths and their religions. Primitive superstition, primitive terror will never quite down in us, no matter how wise and practical we become. There’s always, in beauty–in sheer beauty something terrifying, as well as something sad. But–do I bore you with my dithyrambs?”

“No! No!” she exclaimed.

“The scene couldn’t have been set better for that spectacle. There’s a green strip along the river, then bare sagebrush flats, and beyond the flats are sand dunes where nothing grows but cactus and mesquite, and here and there some tufts of grass as tough and dry as wire. In summer the dunes are a parched and blistered inferno. In October they are raw gray desolation. I don’t want to know what they are like in winter. The wind never ceases there. It builds the dunes into new shapes every day, and the sagebrush is always bent and lopsided and torn, and the colors are the gray and brown of the world’s secret tragedy. But when the red sunset is on the dunes there’s nothing I have ever seen so wild and passionate and beautiful.

“It was late in the autumn. I rode out of a deep arroya, and came, without warning, into all that weird and solemn glory. There was a cold gush of air from up the valley. Far in the north were purple patches on the flats, and violet shadows in the foothills. But the dunes were all vermilion, and I can’t tell you what hue of red lay spread out deep and vivid on the Sangre de Cristo peaks,–a living, passionate, terrible blood-red. I’m not very devout, but I tell you candidly that I reined up my horse, took off my hat, and sat there gazing, with the queerest feelings, and saying, like the old Spaniards, ‘Sangre de Cristo! Blood of Christ!’

“Then something queer happened to me. You’ve seen a flash of sunlight reflected from a window, far off? Well, it wasn’t like that, except in the sharpness of its effect. And I knew there was no house in all that waste of sand. It was just a flash, and was gone. I searched the horizon, and saw nothing but red dunes, and little puffs of sand kicked up by the rising wind. Must have been some trick of vision, I thought, and I looked away again toward the blood-red peaks. And there it was again, in the corner of my eye. But it was gone when I tried to fix it. I put spurs to my horse, and rode toward the dunes, and caught the flash again–just a bright yellow speck in the darkening vermilion. It came and went, and seemed then to have been lost completely. I was about convinced that the red sunset had gone to my head–that I was following something that existed only in my brain.

“Then, as I loped up to the top of a dune–there he stood, on another dune, perhaps two hundred yards away. His golden hide reflected the red glow like polished metal, his mane flamed in the wind. You cannot possibly imagine the effect of it, in that unreal light, in that setting of desolation, with the crimson mountains behind him. He stood alone on the hill, with his head high, motionless as a statue. For as long as half a minute he let me look at him. Then he turned, and was gone like a flash of fire. I had just one more glimpse of him, flying over the dunes, and followed by a score or more of wild horses of all colors except his color, and none worth looking at. With him the red went out of the landscape, the peaks turned white, and I sat alone in the gray, raw twilight. But right there I made up my mind about one thing: I must have that horse. You know the rest.”

“But what do you mean to do with him?” asked Marion, vaguely troubled.

“Ride him.”

“Don’t!” she gasped.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“He’ll kill you!”

Haig laughed.

“Oh, I think not!”

“But what is the use?”

“What’s the use of anything?”

“But it’s–”

“Mere folly, you think?”

“Yes.”

“Now you don’t mean that at all, Miss Gaylord. You know perfectly well that if I were doing it to please you–to win your admiration–you wouldn’t call it folly.”

“You will please me–and win my admiration–if you don’t do it. Please!”

“But I don’t want–You’ll pardon me?–I don’t want to win your admiration.”

What could she say to that? There was a moment of silence.

“When?” she asked quietly.

“I’m waiting for Farrish, my foreman. He’s the only man I can absolutely depend upon. He’s in Omaha. He’ll be back next week.”

“And you won’t begin without him?”

“No.”

She had no choice but to be satisfied with a few days of grace. Moreover, something might happen before the return of Farrish; the outlaw might escape, or she might find another opportunity to plead with Haig, or–What was she thinking of? Something was going to happen that very evening; and she had almost forgotten it, in her absorption!

She had meant to do, long before now, what he had prevented her doing at the stable,–to confess her deception, to plead for mercy, to beg him to go back. Failing in that, there was Tuesday trotting behind the trap; she could leap out, prove to Haig that her foot was uninjured, and insist upon riding home alone. But now the confession seemed ten times more difficult than it had seemed in the first flush of her resolution. They were far up the Brightwater by this time; a few minutes more would bring them to the branch road that led to Huntington’s. Yet how could she tell him?

“My foot doesn’t hurt any more,” she began, compromising with her resolution.

“That’s because you’ve been sitting still,” he replied.

“But it doesn’t hurt when I move it. See!”

She lifted the foot, and rested it on the dashboard, bending and twisting it.

“By which you mean to tell me that I am to go back,” he said.

“Please!”

“No!” he answered curtly.

“It wasn’t badly sprained at all,” she persisted. “I was only–” She caught herself, with a shock. “I was only frightened, I think.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“But it’s the truth.”

“Then it was not the truth in the first place.”

There it was now, her best occasion to come out with it. But no; she could not.

“It’s not so bad as I feared,” she stammered.

“I trust not. A sprain is a bad business.”

“But you’ll go back now!” she pleaded.

“No.”

“Oh, why won’t you?”

“I’ve started.”

“That’s not the reason!” she cried desperately.

“True, there’s another reason. That makes two.”

“What other reason?”

“I want to ask Huntington about his health.”

The deviltry had come back into his voice; and just ahead of them she saw the fork of the road.

“There’s a third reason too, I’m afraid,” she answered bitterly.

“What’s that, do you think?”

“You want to punish me!”

“Perhaps–a little.”

“Do you think that’s–”

“Noble? Manly? Kind? Generous?” he broke in.

“Do you really think it’s worth your while to punish me?” she asked with passionate irony.

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Because I hope to be let alone hereafter.”

At that her anger rose.

“Do you think that is the way a man should speak to a woman?”

“It seems to be the only way to make a woman understand. And even then–”

She felt that he shrugged his shoulders in the darkness.

“Then I’m sorry for the women you have known!” she retorted.

“That should make it all the easier for you to avoid any more accidents in my part of the Park,” he answered unperturbed. “It’s your own fault if I’m rude. I haven’t forced my attentions upon you. If you feel that you’ve been mistreated, there’s another reason–that makes four, doesn’t it?–for my going to Huntington’s. We’ll be there in five minutes. You can tell him.”

She could find no answer to all this. Brutal as it was, she knew that she had deserved it. Her anger fell away, for she had found already that she could not be angry with him long; and now, even in her torment, she began to be sorry for him, wondering what he had passed through that had so hardened and embittered him.

But the team had turned into the branch road; and she must act at once. There remained but one thing for her to do: to leap out of the trap, and refuse to go farther with him. On the thought, she measured the distance to the ground, the speed of the trotting sorrels. Perhaps she moved a little. Or had he actually read her thoughts? For suddenly, but very quietly, he laid a hand on her shoulder.

“No!” he said. “You might really hurt yourself this time.”

She sank back in dismay, but with a thrill of admiration. What was this man, who knew her thoughts before she herself knew them, who mastered her–and despised her? She trembled, and was glad of the night that concealed her flushed face from him. As for her purpose, she was at the end of her resources. No confession, no plea would avail to shake his determination. She could do no more; and judgment was upon her–soon.

“Hold the reins, please!” commanded Haig.

He leaped out of the trap, opened the gate, and closed it when he had led the sorrels through. Then he climbed into the trap, and drove on. There was no moon. The ranch buildings lay huddled and indistinct in the dim starlight.

At the sound of the hoofs and wheels a man emerged from the stable, bearing a lantern. He hurried up to them, stumbling sleepily, and peering at the figures vaguely seen in the gloom.

“Here, Williams!” Haig said shortly. “Hold my team, will you! I’ll be only a few minutes.”

The lantern fell from the man’s hand, struck the ground with a clatter, and lay on its side, flaming and smoking.

“Pick it up!” ordered Haig.

The man obeyed, with the suddenness of a jack-in-the-box, and stood as if petrified.

“Quick! The horses! They’re no damned broncos!”

Williams jumped to the bridles; and a gleam from the lantern showed Marion his face. His mouth was open, his eyes staring with incredulity and alarm. She was seized with a preposterous desire to laugh at that comical visage, made grotesque by the wavering light of the lantern that danced in the fellow’s hand. She was on the verge of hysteria.

Haig leaped out, and held up his arms for her, snapping his fingers impatiently. In almost complete inertia, yet with every nerve quivering, she let him help her to the ground, where he placed her arm in his, and started toward the ranch house.

“Limp! Limp!” he whispered in her ear.

She obeyed him mechanically. Everything seemed to have become very still and cold; feeling had frozen in her limbs; terror clutched at her icily out of the gloom. There were two lighted windows in front of her, two baleful yellow gleams, like the eyes of a monster of the night. At any instant the door would open, gulping her in.

She choked down a cry. Her feet were like lead now, and she stumbled on the first of the half-dozen steps that led to the veranda. Haig pulled her up quickly, flung his right arm around her waist, and fairly carried her up the steps. At that moment, just as they stood on the level floor, the door was opened, and Huntington’s huge body appeared in silhouette against the lamplight.

“That you, Marion?” he called out, peering into the darkness. Then, almost instantly: “Somebody with you, Marion?”

Haig answered for her.

“Good evening, Cousin Seth!” he called out cheerily. “I just dropped in to ask about your health.”

For perhaps as long as it took him to catch his arrested breath, Huntington stood motionless. Then, with an oath, he bounded back into the room, and disappeared, as Marion dully realized, in the direction of his room, where his revolver hung on a rack. She felt the form beside her straighten out like a loosed spring; and the next instant she was borne swiftly forward into the light, into the house, into the scene she had pictured, the scene she herself had prepared. The arm that supported her was quickly withdrawn, and she was left standing at one side of the door, while Haig leaped away from her, and stood waiting at the other.

Even as this was done, Huntington reappeared at the door of his bedroom. The revolver in his right hand moved slowly upward. In the kitchen doorway was Claire–a stricken thing in blue and gold–clinging to the doorpost, her lips parted, her eyes wide with terror. But Haig! Could anything have been more horrible than that smile? It was fearless, mocking, insolent. And his whole attitude matched it perfectly. He stood carelessly erect, with arms folded, disdaining Huntington’s weapon. But not the slightest motion of his enemy–perhaps not even the thought before it–could have escaped him. Marion knew him; and she felt as certain as if it had already happened that if Seth lifted his revolver by so much as another inch he would be stretched out on the floor there as he had been on the ground at Paradise.

All this she saw in an interval as brief as that between two clicks of the shutter of her kodak. Then the clock on the mantel began to strike. It was a friendly clock, with a musical, soft note. But now its stroke crashed upon the silence like a tolling bell. It seemed to have its part in that halted scene, as if all waited on its last solemn count. If she could only move, think, speak, before it finished!

The next thing she knew she was in the middle of the room, directly between the two men, and speaking.

“Wait, Seth!” she heard herself saying. “I did it. I brought him here to–to make peace with you.”

She ended on the clock’s last note; and silence fell again. Huntington’s jaw dropped; amazement was printed on his face, and incredulity. Marion walked quietly up to him, took the revolver from his hand, and left him standing in the doorway, his arms hanging loose at his side. She crossed the room to Haig, slowly, somewhat gropingly like a somnambulist, with a half-smiling, strange expression fixed on her chalk-white face. She stretched out her left hand to him, her right still clasping Seth’s six-shooter. There was something magnetic, curiously compelling in her manner; for she said nothing, made no sound. Haig stared at her, the odious smile fading from his lips; his arms slowly fell apart, one hand in the direction of the revolver at his hip; and for a moment it seemed that he too would yield to her. But suddenly he threw back his head, and laughed.

“By Jupiter!” he cried. “I didn’t think it was in you. You almost got me too. Good night–all!”

On that he turned on his heel, and vanished into the night. Marion heard him laughing still as his boots crunched on the gravel; heard his voice in brief and sharp command at the stable; heard the beat of the sorrels’ hoofs on the road, and the fragment of a song wafted back to her,–something rollicking and insolent, in a foreign tongue. She stood listening until the sounds had died away in the night, and silence enveloped her. Then, just as Huntington leaped forward with a bellow of rage,–too late, as ever,–and Claire, with a shriek, rushed to throw herself between him and the door, Marion’s head drooped forward, her knees gave way, and she fell senseless on the floor.

Huntington’s big revolver, slipping from her nerveless fingers as she fell, struck the Navajo rug with a muffled thump, bounced and rolled over, and settled down harmlessly on a patch of barbaric red.