Chapter VI

Torrance brought in a saddle blanket which he fastened snugly over their window and then with splinters of wood from floor and walls he made a tiny fire on the rock hearth, purely for the sake of a little light in which to explore the premises. The place reeked of long desertion and was as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, yet walls and roof were tight and sturdy. There was a rear door that led into a dugout some ten feet square.

“I’m going to bring our horses in,” he said. “The dugout will house them where nobody’s going to find them unless we get found first. And long before morning their tracks will be wiped out.”

The horses entered the cabin willingly enough, and, though they sniffed and snorted when once inside, were at last coaxed and threatened into the dugout.

“Now,” said Torrance, “we’ll eat the rest of our larder, make up our beds the way we did last night and call it a day.”

“A day! It’s been a year, hasn’t it?”

But she smiled as she said it, a faint and quivering and altogether uncertain smile, yet one not without its courage. And she added, “We’ve at least a few bites of food, but our poor horses--”

“Each one gets a double handful of grain,” he assured her, and again she thought, “He thinks of everything!”

He lifted a corner of the blanket over the window to peer out, and reported:

“Our neighbors’ house is dark. Mr. Murdo and his friend have gone to sleep by now, and you and I are going to build up our fire and keep it going until nearly morning; there’s not one chance in a million of a ray of light or a spark giving us away. What’s more, they haven’t the vaguest notion anyone’s about, or they’d have covered their own light. I stumbled over a dead pine when I was leading the horses; I’ll have plenty of wood before you’re ten minutes older.”

“I’m going to help you,” said Sally Dawn.

“Look here, you’re tired and--”

“Have it your way,” she said, and he went out and closed the door--and she opened it and followed close at his heels. She heard him chuckle.

They built up their small fire and crouched before it and got warm and began to yawn. She lay down in her corner and stared up at the dimly lit rafters and then looked out of the corners of her eyes at him, still squatting before the fire, and wondered. It was hard to read anything in that dark face of his, especially by so treacherous a light; the faint flicker of the flames at times seemed to reveal only a grim sternness that was twin with brutality, at other times to soften the features so that they appeared touched by a smile that had actually in it a hint of tenderness. She fell asleep, with Jim Torrance still motionless at the hearth.

* * * * *

She awoke with a start and sat up rubbing her eyes and staring about her. The room was ablaze with light and her first thought was that the cabin was on fire. Then she saw him standing there, looking down at her in that quizzical way of his, half smiling and half frowning, and saw that he had an enormous fire blazing in the fireplace; the room was cozy with heat and as bright as day. She sprang up confused.

“They’re gone,” said Torrance. “I saw them ride away half an hour ago. It’s daylight now. They were in their saddles while it was still dark.”

“You stayed awake all night, watching!”

“I kept an eye open part of the time,” he admitted. “And I noticed that though you were asleep you didn’t seem exactly comfortable. A good thawing out over a hot fire won’t hurt either of us.”

“Jim Torrance, what on earth are you made of? Steel?”

Already she had grown to love to hear that chuckle of his.

“Once upon a time, when I was very young,” he told her, “they taught me a poem. It was all about what little boys and girls are made of. I forget about the boys but it said about the girls:

“‘Sugar and spice
And everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.’”

Suddenly her face clouded; he remembered his first impression of her, a sullen, smoldering little beauty with brooding, smoky eyes. Her mouth, which had been softened by sleep, hardened.

“I haven’t been nice to you,” she said. “I’m afraid I haven’t been very nice to anybody. The world wasn’t nice to me--it made me hate it and it made me bitter inside.”

“Shucks,” he said lightly. “That’s nothing. You’re just a kid, that’s all, and kids have got a right to cry and then sulk when they get their fingers burnt.”

“I’m not a kid! I’m twenty--almost twenty-one.”

“As bad as all that? Quite an old lady, huh?”

“A thousand years old this morning; I can almost hear my bones creak when I move. And what now, Mr. Jim Torrance?”

“The wind blew itself out about midnight,” he told her, “but it’s been snowing harder than ever. We’ve got to have something to eat. If we go on into Pocket Valley you might as well give yourself up. In this storm no one else is apt to come along this way, so I leave you here alone for a little while; I poke along into Pocket; I bring back some provisions. Inside three hours I ought to be back. And, if I hurry along,” he added, “I can still make out by their tracks the way Murdo and his friend went. They headed down toward Pocket; I can find out if they turned off anywhere.”

She went to the door and looked out over a white world. Snow was drifting down in large feathery flakes; trees were dressed as in ermine; the sky was thick and gray. She thought that she had never looked out over an expanse so still and so lonesome. Her mood was not one to appreciate its beauty, inescapable though it was.

“Of course you’re right, and of course I can’t go into Pocket or back to Sundown, and of course I’m afraid to stay here alone--”

“I’m going to leave a gun with you.”

“I told you I’d never touch a gun again!”

“Oh, but you will, some time.” He slid one of his guns up out of its leather and dropped it to her blankets. “I’m starting right away. My horse is already saddled; the quicker I get going the quicker my tracks will be covered and the quicker you’ll be having breakfast. You can count on me being back in about four hours at most; if I’m not back then-- Well, you’d better saddle and go on down into Pocket.”

She looked startled.

“Why shouldn’t you come back?”

He shrugged.

“I sure expect to. But a man never can tell, can he?”

A sudden suspicion suggested itself to her.

“You think you know who the man is with Clark Murdo? Someone you know?”

“I can’t be sure yet,” he returned, and once more sounded curt and hard.

“I know! You think it’s that other ‘Jim Torrance’!”

“You’re doing enough guessing now for both of us,” he grunted, and went into the dugout for his horse.

She watched him ride away through gauzy veils of falling snow which grew heavier until they almost blotted him out before he vanished in a scattered growth of mountain cedars. She closed the door reluctantly and went back to the fire for comfort and companionship.

As for Torrance, he made what speed he could as soon as he turned into the white furrow, already smoothing over, that Clark Murdo and the other man had made; for he realized how heavily a few hours in this solitude could bear down on one--especially on a girl who had endured as had Sally Dawn Cannon. He had told her he might be gone four hours; he hoped to return within half that time.

The track left by the men whom he followed ran straight along the flank of the ridge, curved about a blunt shoulder of the mountain and then wavered downward among stunted pines, its course at all times indicating Pocket Valley as its objective. Now and then Torrance caught glimpses of the tiny village looking like a child’s toy town roofed and based in fluffy cotton. As he rode lower down the slope a pine forest, all black and silver, shut off his view; still the single track left by Murdo and his mate led on. But when he had penetrated the forest some five hundred yards, that track split into two fading trails. While one kept straight on down into the valley, the other turned off almost at a right angle into a dark and thickly timbered ravine.

“And now I make a bet,” said Torrance as, without stopping, he kept on down toward Pocket Valley. “It will be Clark Murdo who has kept straight on, the other man who has turned off into the canyon.”

His next glimpse of the settlement, afforded when he was almost at his destination, showed him several pale smudges of smoke barely visible against the gray curtain of the sky. He estimated that he had been nearly an hour making his tortuous way down the mountain; by now it was long after the time of an invisible dawn and folk would be astir.

Until now he had followed along the track which he was wagering had been made by Murdo. At last, however, just before he rode out of the rim of the wood into the open, he altered his course, keeping to the timber for half a mile, not quitting it until he could approach Pocket Valley town from a more southerly direction.

“No use telling friend Murdo that he and I rode the same way,” he judged. “And, in case he is curious, by the time he gets around to looking for my trail it won’t be there.”

Among the score of houses constituting the town of Pocket Valley he had no difficulty in picking out the one he wanted, nor was the sign over its front porch necessary as a guide. It was a long, low building of rough logs on a foundation of granite blocks; at the rear was an open shed to which he rode to stable his horse. He saw what he both hoped and expected to see; another horse, still saddled, was tied here worrying wisps of straw in a pole manger. He swung down, tied his own horse, and noiselessly went up the steps to the back door. Before he knocked he heard voices.

Then one of those voices called out to him, “Well, why don’t you come in?” and he opened the door and entered directly upon a big barnlike room in which a round-bellied stove was blazing red-hot and in which three men stood about, all three with glasses in their hands.

One of the men was Clark Murdo.

“And so I win the first bet,” said Jim Torrance to himself with considerable satisfaction.

The other men he had never seen. One he correctly took for the proprietor of the place. He disposed of the other man with a flick of his eyes; his real attention, though discreet, was bestowed upon Murdo. That individual’s eyes were for an instant round with astonishment, then narrowed and cold and noncommittal.

“Howdy, Stranger,” said the owner of the place. “Ride in on a snowflake?”

“Sort of getting ready to get hungry,” said Torrance, and came on to the stove, spreading his hands out toward it. “If there’s a store here I’ve come to the right place, haven’t I?”

“Right as rain. Store, saloon, hotel and in season a place where you can try to get your money back. Squat.”

Torrance moved to the rawhide-bottomed chair indicated, as though weary, and sat down with a long sigh. Murdo, who had been watching his every gesture and expression, spoke up then.

“Hello, Torrance,” he said. “What are you doing up this way?”

“Hello, Murdo,” said Torrance.

“Seems as though I’m gettin’ a whale of a lot of comp’ny for this time of day on a snowy mornin’,” observed the proprietor. “And so you two boys is acquainted, huh? That’s nice. Me, I’m Andy Stock, an’ though we ain’t got around to breakfas’ yet, I c’n give you a shot of licker right now an’ a cup of cawfee in two shakes.”

“I’ve been sort of thinking about coffee,” said Torrance.

Andy Stock turned to the other man.

“How about a fire in the cook stove, Jake? It’s cawfee time anyhow.”

Jake downed what remained of his drink and moved off through a door at the side of the room, and almost immediately they heard him banging at a kitchen stove. Murdo stood twirling his glass, appeared about to speak, momentarily subdued his impulse, then let it go.

“Which way’d you come from, Torrance?” he asked, and sounded friendly and casual.

“Sundown,” said Torrance.

“Sure. Of course. Up over the mountain or the roundabout way through Tucker’s Flats?”

“Would it make any difference to you which way I came?” asked Torrance. “And do you want to know why I dropped in and how long I’m staying and how old I’ll be next birthday?”

Andy Stock laughed good-humoredly.

“Murdo just rid in himse’f,” he said. “Kinda early ridin’ for him, too. I reckon he’s got something on his mind. He’s lookin’ for that girl that killed his pardner, Steve Bordereau. I reckon he thought maybe you had saw her somewheres. It ain’t in Murdo, you know, to come straight forward with what he’s hankerin’ to find out; he’s always beatin’ around the bushes to get anywheres.”

“You talk too much, Stock,” growled Murdo.

“You think so, do you?” snapped Stock, suddenly angry. “Why, damn your eyes--”

“Forget it,” said Murdo and stalked away to a window. He tried to peer out, but the windowpane was filmed over with snow. Coming back he said:

“Let me have some oats, Andy. There was nothing in your shed but some dirty straw, and my horse needs a feed if he’s going to carry me any more today.”

Stock, still a trifle testy, snorted: “I’d say it’s about time to think of feedin’ your hoss. You been here half an hour already, swiggin’ whisky, an’ never thinkin’ of the pore brute.”

“Oh, hell, let’s have the oats and less conversation,” said Murdo impatiently.

Stock went off to his storeroom and returned with a dipper full of oats; Murdo took it and went out. Stock winked at Torrance.

“What’d I tell you, Stranger?” he demanded in triumph. “There he goes in his roundabout way to get him some place. He’d let his horse rest there a week ’thout feedin’ the pore devil, but he’s jus’ figgered out he can take a look-see at the tracks you made gettin’ here, an’ can answer him his own question about whether you rid down over the mountains or come up from the south by way Tucker’s Flats.” He spat. “Hell take Clark Murdo an’ all his pack,” he said. “And you, too, if you’re a friend of his.”

Now Jim Torrance started asking questions, and asked them curtly and swiftly to have his answers before Murdo returned. He began,

“What was it he said about a girl killing Steve Bordereau?”

“A girl name of Sally Dawn Cannon. Hell, ever’body knows who she is; ol’ King Cannon’s daughter. She shot Bordereau at his place in Sundown. Kilt him dead, says Murdo. Then she hightailed out of there before they could grab her, though what they wanted to pester a girl like her for, for just beefin’ a rat, me I don’t know. Likely he had drove her in a corner.”

“Self-defence?”

“Murdo don’t say so. Says just plain hate and meanness.”

“Witnesses?”

“Murdo says him and four other Bordereau men seen it happen.”

“And still they let the girl get away? What do they expect to do with her?”

“Lynch her, accordin’ to Murdo. But, shucks, the country wouldn’t let ’em get away with that. Or maybe, would it?” He grimaced. “The Bordereau gang of late has got a strangle-hold on the country from th’ other side Sundown to way up here.”

“There’ll be a big funeral, I suppose.”

“It’s already been. Murdo must of been in a hurry to see the last of his pardner. They planted Steve Bordereau early next mornin’ right after he was shot.”

Just then Stock’s roustabout stuck his head in through the kitchen door and bawled: “Cawfee! Come an’ get it.” And a moment later Clark Murdo came back from ministering to his horse and they all went to the kitchen together.

Torrance, from under those lazy eyelids of his, noted two things: Murdo on first entering looked relieved, and that meant that he had assured himself that Torrance had ridden up from the south and not over the mountain trail. Next, he saw that, as the four men chatted idly over their coffee, Murdo began to tighten up again, to grow restless and perhaps even anxious. He wondered about that until Murdo’s own words gave him a clue. Again Murdo was asking questions, striving to be merely friendly and casual. He said, “Riding on north, Torrance?”

Torrance seemed thawed by his strong hot coffee. He answered carelessly, “Not in a hurry in all this weather.” He turned to Stock, yawned and stretched and asked: “How about a shakedown for a few hours? I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Sure,” said Stock. “Breakfast will be ready in a minute; then you can flop long’s you like.”

“Got a barn where I can put my horse up?”

The barn, Stock told him, was just back of the shed; he’d find hay there; help himself. So, while ham was frying and hot cakes were mixing, he went out to the stable. He unsaddled, gave his horse a rough-and-ready rubdown and returned for breakfast. Thereafter Stock led him to a little room, empty save for its bunk and a washstand with a lamp on it. At the door, as Stock was departing, Torrance called back to Murdo, who was standing watching from the kitchen doorway.

“Happen to know a gent who calls himself Jim Torrance, Murdo?” he asked.

Murdo said, “What?” and it wasn’t because he hadn’t heard; maybe he wanted to take a moment to think. Then Stock spoke up to say, mystified, “I thought you was Jim Torrance.”

“I thought so too,” said Torrance, “but it seems there’s some other man wearing the same name. Murdo might know him. How about it, Murdo?”

“No,” said Murdo. “I don’t know him.”

“Well,” said Torrance, “you might meet up with him some time. When you do just tell him I’m hoping to see him.” And he closed the door.

He sat on the edge of his bed and slowly, with profound concentration on something else, started rolling a cigarette. For a little while he heard voices, Murdo’s and Stock’s, so clearly that he could catch some of the words. Suddenly Murdo’s voice was lowered; then a door closed; then all sounds were gone. He kept on rolling his cigarette, his eyes the narrowest of slits, his face stern, his jaw set.

After a while, ten or fifteen minutes, he heard another door being closed; the sound was faint but distinct against the silence; he judged someone had gone out the back door. He went to his window and scraped at it with his finger nail. It was hard to see through the snow-filmed pane, but at last he found a spot in an upper corner through which the light filtered less dimly. A moment later he saw Clark Murdo riding around the corner of the house, headed back toward the mountain trail. He even made out that Murdo had some sort of bundle on the saddle before him; it looked like a full barley sack.

Torrance went back to Andy Stock then, finding him at the hot pot-bellied stove. Stock looked at him in mild surprise. Then he blurted out, “What the hell’s going on here anyhow?”

“Guess I don’t need a sleep after all,” Torrance told him and went to the door to look out. Murdo was riding as rapidly as the snow would permit and was already close to the rim of the forest. He turned to stare the storekeeper in the eye, then to say thoughtfully, “Either you’re an awful handy liar, Stock, or you haven’t got any more use for Murdo than I have.”

“Take your pick, Torrance,” said Stock sharply. “What’s it to you, anyhow?”

“Murdo’s out to drag the Cannon girl down. Me, I helped her make her get-away.”

Stock nodded. “Murdo told me.”

“Well, I’ll tell you something else; I was there when the shooting happened; I saw every bit of it. Until pretty recent I was taking it for granted, like a man does, that cards were being dealt off the top, and that things were what they looked like. Not now though. I don’t believe the girl was the one that killed Bordereau. She shot him all right; he went down; we got out of there. Then what? Some other person, maybe Murdo himself, could have shot him again or popped a knife into him. Anyhow it was Murdo that got him buried so gosh-awful sudden.”

Stock whistled, frowned and whistled again.

“What makes you think all that, man?”

“Two-three things. Maybe I’m right and maybe I’m wrong. Any way you look at it, Murdo’s got no call to pull the kid down.”

“I’m with you there,” said Stock.

“All right. Now tell me a thing or two. Where did Murdo say he was going? And what did he have in his sack?”

“He said he was goin’ up to see Pete Conroy. Conroy’s an old prospector that lives back in the hills a ways. Murdo says Conroy hurt his leg and couldn’t get out; that he’s takin’ him some grub. An’ grub was in the sack.”

“Murdo’s a damn liar, but you don’t have to tell him I said so. Now suppose you let me have a sack, too, and I’ll put about a tenth as much stuff in it as Murdo has, and I’ll stagger along too.”

He laid in a small stock of provisions, making sure of coffee and sugar and tinned milk, all packed in a can in which the coffee was destined to come to a boil, and went for his horse. Andy Stock, from his door, watched him ride away through the swirling snow and tucked in the corners of his mouth. Jim Torrance rode mountainward in Clark Murdo’s track.

“I’d sort of like to be on hand when it happens,” said Stock.