Chapter VII

Jim Torrance was tempted up to the yielding point when he came to that spot on the mountain flank where a fresh track led deep into the dark ravine. For this far Clark Murdo had come up from Pocket, and here he had turned off to rejoin his companion of the earlier morning. And Torrance, so sorely tempted to follow him, kept saying to himself, “I’d know a lot if I overtook those two, and I’ve got the crazy hunch that at last I’d come up with a man I’ve been looking for, for a long, long time.”

But there was that girl waiting for him high on the ridge. He couldn’t quite make a go of just letting her wait. He couldn’t quite get her face out of his mind’s eye. She had stood pretty nearly all the punishment you could expect her to stand--alone up there for hours with only her own tragic thoughts for company. The kid must be nearly at her rope’s end. In losing her mother it seemed that she had lost all she loved. On top of that there was a corroding horror in her soul; she’d be thinking over and over and endlessly over, “I killed a man.” She’d be remembering the look on his face when he fell; she’d be thinking of him dead and soon to be dug under. With just those two to think of, her beloved mother and an ancient enemy, both dead so recently, she could no longer be left alone by any man who did not love torture for torture’s sake.

So, though rage was in his eyes, Torrance rode on and let a chance slide by. Presently he got to thinking of other things: For one, Clark Murdo by now knew that he had been tricked into believing that Torrance had come up through the Flats in the south; he would have noted that another horse than his had recently traveled this way; he would have guessed mighty close to the truth. He could scarcely avoid being sure that Torrance, too, had stopped over last night at the old deserted mining camp. It was a simple step from that surmise to the next--that Sally Dawn Cannon had stopped there with him and was perhaps there now; that Torrance, like himself, had gone down to Pocket Valley seeking provisions for still another mouth than his own.

“And he may be showing up as soon as he carries the news along to his team mate,” mused Torrance.

Further, he marked that it was no longer snowing so heavily; considering that this was the first storm of the season it might reasonably be expected to wear itself out soon. That fact would have its bearing on events.

* * * * *

When he came to the mountain cabin, there was Sally Dawn in the open doorway waiting for him, a pale and weary, tragic figure with eyes looking unnaturally large; he knew that in his absence she had broken down and wept miserably. But a flash of gladness came into her eyes on seeing him.

“I had no way of telling how long you were gone-- I began to be afraid--”

“You began to wonder whether there was any breakfast coming up, I’ll bet a man,” he said lightly as he dismounted.

“Honestly, I forgot about breakfast!”

“You ought to be starved.”

“Maybe I am!” She looked at his bundle in the barley sack. “I am starved!” Then her eyes traveled questioningly back to his. “Tell me what happened. What about Clark Murdo and the other man?”

He tethered his horse near the door and they went straightway to the fireplace where she had a small fire still burning. But she thought to ask, “Aren’t you bringing your horse inside again?”

“No. We’ll be riding right away, just as soon as you’ve eaten. And I’ll tell you about things while ham’s frying and coffee coming to a boil.”

“Coffee! I’d rather have a cup of hot coffee than a buckskin bag full of gold dust!”

“Sure,” he grinned at her. “It’s a lot more inviting this time of day.”

Together they prepared her breakfast while he explained how first of all he had eaten down at the Pocket. “I’d have waited for you,” he told her, “only I wanted things to look natural to Murdo.” Then he told her briefly of his encounter with Murdo, of Murdo’s having asked Andy Stock concerning her, of his general tall curiosity about Torrance’s movements, about his having taken a sack of provisions to his somehow-mysterious side-kick.

“They’re after me, of course,” said Sally Dawn.

“That doesn’t explain their hiding out in that canyon,” he retorted. “But, yes, of course they’re after you. So as soon as you’ve had all the coffee and hot cakes and ham you want--yes, I’ve got a couple of eggs, too--we’ll fork our saddles and get out of here.”

“But they’ll be watching the trail, won’t they? They’ll see us on our way down into the Pocket.”

“No they won’t, because we’re not headed down there. We’re turning tail right here and drifting back to Sundown. We’ll make an easier and quicker trip going down, and all by daylight too, than we made coming up. Even if they follow, I don’t think they’ll overtake us. And if they do come up with us-- Well, that won’t happen until it happens.”

Round-eyed and puzzled she heard him out without an interruption; then she exclaimed:

“Sundown? You mean we’re to go back there? After all this long ride, after we’ve almost got away? Back to Sundown?”

“Here’s sugar for your coffee. Here’s milk.” He jabbed a hole in the can with his knife. “Yes, back to Sundown. It’s exactly where they won’t be expecting us to go; likewise, I’m beginning to think it’s where you’ll be safest. And it’s where you belong; it’s where your ranch is. Mine, too.”

“Your ranch, yes. Mine?” She shook her head and sighed. Time was when she had loved that ranch, King Cannon’s and her mother’s and hers, with all her heart. “Mine is as good as gone from me for good now.”

“Maybe,” said Torrance. “A man never knows.”

“I’m not sure that I want to go back to Sundown,” she said, and sounded altogether independent about it.

“Scared?” asked Torrance, and turned the sizzling ham with a stick. “Here’s a hunk of bread and a dab of butter.”

“Of course I am! Have you forgotten all the things you said to me about letting those men grab me?”

“While you finish eating, I’ll saddle your horse,” said Torrance, and rose from his squatting position on the hearth. Standing high above her, looking down on her tumbled brown tresses and then into her uplifted puzzled gray eyes, he added: “No, I haven’t forgotten. I’ve sort of changed my mind, that’s all.”

A faint flush came into her cheeks and a flash as of fire into her smoky eyes. She could only surmise that he had had enough of their adventure together. She said swiftly:

“You can go back! I’m going on. I’m never going near Sundown again as long as I live.”

Then she was treated again to the sound of that soft chuckle of his.

“If you don’t go back, I don’t go either,” he said, and grinned down at her. “But as it happens, we’re both going. Side by each, as the feller says.”

Then he went and saddled her horse.

* * * * *

The return journey, as he had predicted, was much easier than had been their trip up into the high places. By the time they had dropped down two or three thousand feet there was but an inch or two of melting snow under foot. And all day long they had met no one and had caught no glimpse of Clark Murdo or any other following them.

In the early gray dusk she pointed, saying: “There’s your ranch. We’re almost there.”

He seemed to come up out of a deep reverie.

“Know a funny little rooster named Sam Pepper?” he asked.

She looked at him wonderingly, he was so grave in his questioning.

“Of course I do! Everybody knows Sam Pepper. He is funny, but I like him. What put him into your mind?”

The gravity slowly faded from his face and in its place came a slow smile which in the end gave her the warm feeling of being enveloped by it.

“When a man needs a helping hand,” he said, “he’s got to think about a lot of folks he knows. Me, I’ve hit on Sam Pepper!”

“For help? Mercy! What sort of help? I never knew a more helpless creature.”

“Is there by any chance a Mrs. Sam Pepper?”

“There is. She’s a darling; everybody loves her, the most motherly--”

But something came into her throat at the last word and she broke off, averting her face. Torrance didn’t say anything; he leaned outward from his saddle as though to pat her shoulder, but withdrew his hand without touching her and without her seeing.

When they came down along the road in front of his gate he reined in his horse and said quietly:

“I want you to stop here a little while. If the coast is as clear at my place as it looks, and as it ought to be, I’ll poke over to have a word with Sam Pepper--”

“I’ll go with you! Let’s go straight on there first of all.”

“Please!” It was the first time he had ever said that to her. “I’ve been thinking about this all day. I’ll go alone to Pepper’s first; I’ll make sure no one else is there. You’ll not be kept waiting more than a few minutes.”

She nodded then and they rode on to his ranch house. The place was empty; there was no sign that any prowlers had been about. He hurried her into the house and her horse into the barn; it was nearly dark then. Less than ten minutes later he was leaning from the saddle to rap on Pepper’s door with the loaded end of his quirt. The door was opened and a woman looked out, Mrs. Sam without a doubt. Sally Dawn’s epithet “motherly” just fitted her. Middle-aged, apple-cheeked, comfortable and cozy looking, she greeted the stranger smilingly.

“Howdy, Mrs. Pepper,” he said, and smiled back at her. “I’m your new neighbor, Jim Torrance. Is your husband here?”

“He ain’t far,” said Mrs. Sam, and stepped out in the yard to call her bugled notes, “Sam! Here’s company.”

She was calling and looking toward Sam Pepper’s high hill, calling needlessly as it proved, for here already came Sam Pepper at a sort of dog-trot run.

“I seen you just riding home, Torrance,” he said breathlessly as soon as he was within hailing distance. “You and somebody else. It was kinda dark and I couldn’t quite make out for sure-- You see, I just happened to be up on my hill and--”

“You two folks alone?” asked Torrance.

“Sure. Always alone. Better light down--”

“That was the Cannon girl with me,” said Torrance. He speared the little man with a glance and, after a fashion, through a long silence, managed to keep him wriggling on the spear point. Then he added slowly and significantly, “In case you might be interested I can tell you several other things, things that a lot of folks are wondering about.”

Mrs. Sam snorted. “If there’s anything on earth Sam ain’t interested in, I don’t know what it is. When he was born they say he was tryin’ to count how many toes he had. But if Sally Dawn, poor little thing, is over to your place--”

“Them Bordereau men will tear her to pieces if they find her!” burst out Sam Pepper.

“I’ll go over and fetch her,” said Torrance. “We’ll be back right away. And then I want a good talk with you, Pepper.”

* * * * *

When he brought Sally Dawn back with him she ran headlong into Mrs. Sam’s mothering arms and put her head down on that deep, comforting bosom--and Torrance and Sam Pepper stepped along outside and sat on a log. That is, Torrance did; Sam Pepper couldn’t sit still, couldn’t even stand still.

“I aim to make a dicker with you, Pepper,” said Torrance. “I need help and you’re the one man can give it to me. And there are things you’d like to know about, and I’m the man can tell you things no other man can.”

“What sort of help, neighbor?” asked Pepper, all eagerness.

“I want you to help me find out things, to nose out some facts that are keeping under cover.”

“Like what?” asked Sam, growing excited. “What about?”

“Give me time and I’ll tell you.-- Say, what’s happened to Murdo?”

“Hanged if I know.” He looked worried. “He’s gone and nobody knows where! So’s Doc Taylor! So was you and Sally until--”

“Who’s Doc Taylor? What about him?”

“He was called in when Bordereau was shot. He went upstairs to look at Bordereau; I seen him. Next morning nobody could find him. I been asking folks; nary a one has seen hide nor hair of him.”

Torrance stared at him through the growing dark for a long while, then whistled softly.

“I can tell you what Murdo’s been up to all day and where he’s been,” he said crisply, and stood up. “And I can ask you this, ‘Why did they bury Bordereau in such a hurry?’”

If Pepper had been doing a sort of restrained dance before, now he fidgeted himself into something between an Apache war dance and an Irish jig. He was all but frothing at the mouth as he gasped out, “Mr. Torrance, I’ve been asking myself--”

“I know,” said Torrance. “I can also tell you where the Cannon girl and I have been-- I was on hand when Bordereau got shot, so I can tell you details about that--I can even tell you why I came up here looking for a man named Jim Torrance--”

“For God’s sake!” pleaded the little man.

“Are you with me?” demanded Torrance sharply. “Will you throw in with me to find about everything? We’ll be helping Sally Dawn Cannon, if that means anything to you. You’ll learn one hell of a lot--but you’ll keep your mouth shut about it all until I say the word or I’ll chop you up into dog meat.”

He looked as though he meant it. Sam Pepper shivered. Right now he clamped his mouth shut so tight that there were little puckers at the corners which Torrance, stooping so close to him, could see even in the fading light.

“It’s a deal?” demanded Torrance.

Sam Pepper didn’t open his mouth even then. But he nodded his head with a rapidity that made Torrance think of a woodpecker hammering on an oak.

“Go get your horse,” said Jim Torrance. “We’re riding into Sundown.”