Читать книгу The Whispering Outlaw - Макс Брэнд - Страница 5

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Borgen was not now so awkward as he had been when he was running, for now the strength of those long and dangling arms, ridged and ribbed with muscles, came into play, and he swung like a sailor up the face of that crumbling cliff. He dared not pause to think of what he was doing. Most of the handholds which he secured were upon rounded stones, threatening to slip off at any instant, and he wedged the toes of his boots into the smallest apertures. He had started hopelessly, but now as the face of the rubble slid beneath him, he began to wonder if luck would not aid him, indeed, over the very brink of the precipice; for having won so many times when he was cornered might he not win still again? Tomorrow he would boil his coffee at a lonely fire and laugh at this adventure!

That pleasant thought had just occurred to him when a rattle of voices struck him from beneath, and he knew that the pursuers had come in a group around the last bend of the little gorge. They rushed on nearer him, and the climber, expecting the hiss of the bullet, found his breath coming in short gasps. A pair of brown wings flirted in his face—he could not see the bird or recognize it on account of the perspiration which was rolling steadily down over his eyes—but, ah, how divine a gift it seemed, to be able to wander through the world at will, regardless of paths and of cliffs and of mountains, living in the thin air!

He could hear their voices, now, rolling up to him like hollow sounds from the bottom of a well.

"Has he run on plumb into the side of the mountain, boys?" they were calling to one another. "Here's his trail, and here's where it ends."

"Scatter out on each side. Of course he ain't melted into stone. Maybe the fool is trying to hide on a patch of them bushes."

It came dimly home to Borgen. They had not even thought of raising their eyes to scan the face of the cliff, so improbable did it seem that any one could have attempted to scale that upright wall. Trembling with joy, he resumed his work, carefully now, for a single stone dislodged would be death! By the voices, by the faint sounds of their heels grinding the rocks, and by the light jingling of their spurs, he knew that they had scattered well to either side, and now there was far less chance that they would spot him with their eyes.

He went up with an uncanny deftness. Now the top was near. Now the edge of the cliff with the blue beauty of the sky was almost in touch of his finger tips. Now he swung himself joyously over the ledge—alas! it was a mere depression in the face of the cliff, and there still remained a full twenty feet of climbing, with his strong arms trembling and aching from that last swift effort.

From the comparative security of that ledge he looked down. At once his head swam. Only a bird, it seemed, could have perched safely upon some of those rocks which he had used as a footing. Then, sick and trembling, he let his weight fall forward against the rock, but with no sense of security, for what had seemed to him an almost comfortable ledge and resting place the moment before, was now no better than the sheerest portion of the wall beneath him. It was only the dread that his fear might become greater, that made him force himself on. Could he have descended that cliff front, now, he would have called out to the posse below to rescue him, and then take him prisoner if they wished. But they could not help him; only some winged creature could be of avail to him—like that little brown bird, multiplied into one a thousand times greater.

Upward he went again, no longer confidently, but with a terrible weakness of wrists and elbows; all the nerve strength was exhausted from them, and he shuddered each time he changed a handhold. He had covered more than half of the way to the top from the ledge, however, before the great calamity happened. Under his right foot a stone gave way and bounced down the face of the cliff. Now was the time to rush the concluding part of his effort! He had hardly the height of his own body to go to reach the topmost rim of the cliff, and a few bold efforts would place him therein safety!

But the weakness of fear had run through all his body. He was hanging at the length of two quivering arms, and the strain was coming on the shoulder sockets; terror took his breath, and he began to strangle and gasp for air.

Then there was a heavy impact beside his face, and a flying fragment of rock struck his cheek and was imbedded there, the point driven in almost to the bone, and causing him an exquisite agony, all the worse because he had no hand free to pluck it out. The clanging report of the rifle rolled up the rock to him. As if by magic, the fear was swept from the body of Borgen, and his weakness passed away with it. He pulled himself up hand over hand with uncanny swiftness. So sure was he of himself and his powers, that he even swung himself from side to side to baffle the aim of the riflemen below.

All their rifles were chattering at once, each repeater humming until the steel of its barrel grew hot. They had two handicaps working against them. In the first place, they were suddenly looking upward, squinting into the dazzling brilliance of the sky and trying to strike a dark form against dark rocks; in the second place, and more important, they could see that their quarry was marvelously near the upper rim of the rock, and they were in a nervous tremor of haste to land him with a bullet which would make him throw his hands wide apart and hurtle backward through the air, turning slowly over and over until he landed lifeless at their feet.

So they pitted the face of the stones with a hundred bullet scars, but Lew Borgen tugged himself up to the edge of the cliff, kicked up his heels, and swung himself to safety. He whirled about at once and emptied his revolver at them, cursing and snarling. He was not a good shot, but one lucky try went through the boot of a member of the posse. He leaped for cover, hopping upon one leg, and yelling in his agony. It was too much for Lew Borgen. He rolled upon the ground, hugging himself, and shouting with laughter until a stabbing pain in his cheek reminded him. He drew out the bit of stone from his flesh, looked at the reddened point curiously, and then rose to face the sober work which lay before him.

First of all, it was necessary that he at once strike out toward a point at which he would be most apt to secure a good horse and a saddle. And he must steal that horse—for he was broke! He stopped and ground his hands together. He had had a small fortune in the instant before; and now his hands were empty, and he had to steal a horse. It was the one thing he had vowed that he would never do; he would rather murder a man, by far.

"By the heavens!" cried Lew Borgen, throwing up his two long arms, "I ain't going to steal no hoss now! They can find me and they can hang me fust, and be damned to 'em! I ain't going to be that low!"

This resolution filled him with a sort of ecstasy of courage and power. He strode on vigorously, crossed the crest of the range in the dusk of the day, and dipped into the night toward the desert beneath him, which was blackening when the summit was still in the alpenglow.

He came to the lower slopes, and among the foot-hills he reached a ranch, found the barn, found the shed where the saddles were kept—even spotted in the starlight a tall gray gelding in the corral—a horse after his own heart. But Lew Borgen stuck to his oath. He felt, in an obscure way, that he was making a bargain with fate, or luck, or God—whatever one chose to call the ruling power in life—and that having refrained from stealing a horse, luck would refrain from striking him down.

Then, with a mild pleasure in himself, he went into the ranch house, stole an ample back load of provisions, and having stocked his cartridge belt with ammunition, retreated into the night again.

He made a small fire between two rocks, cooked coffee, ate some bacon between slices of bread, and rolled over in the sands for a sleep.

He did not need an alarm clock. For though he was half perishing with exhaustion, yet he knew perfectly that the subconscious self which watched over him would rouse him in case of peril coming near, and that he would waken when the time came to march.

Waken he did while the stars were still bright, before the first hint of the coming dawn. He did not look to his watch, as a lesser man might have done. Neither did he groan in the cold of the morning, or because his head was ringing and whirling with an ache, but instead, he rekindled his fire, reheated some of the coffee left from the night before, drank enough to have poisoned any ordinary man, and tramped away upon that day's journey.

How long would it be before he drank coffee again? For he could not carry with him the pot he had stolen from the ranch house. He prepared philosophically for the struggle, and though he had never before made a journey of any length on foot, he struck away at a steady pace and maintained his gait throughout the day. He kept within the line of the foothills, just as a wild beast, coming down from the heights, will lurk among the hills for a long time before it ventures onto the plains, where mere speed may prove more formidable than sheer striking power and skill in battle—where the wolf tribe is more dreaded and more at home than the cats.

It was a bitter march for Lew Borgen, but he stuck manfully by his guns until the dusk came. He had been marching a mighty total of hours, and even such a poor walker as he had by dint of painful patience set many a mile behind him. Then, as he came over a hill in the early evening, he dropped suddenly upon his face as though a bullet had felled him, for in the hollow beyond him he saw four men riding with rifles under their knees and their heads high, as are the heads of men who are hunting a crafty game.

They rode onto the next hilltop, and thence they surveyed the country, but they did not see Lew Borgen, lying not fifty yards away and praying that no dog had accompanied the party. Finally he watched those bodies, so clearly outlined against the brightness of the west, sink into the dark of the hollow as into a black lake. Borgen rose wearily to his knees and rested there a while, slowly rubbing his aching legs; for he knew that these fellows were hunting no animal inferior to man, and that he was the object of their great solicitude.

He did not grin as he thought how he had escaped them. Mounted as they were—and how bitterly well he remembered the gaunt and racy outlines of those cow ponies—they could drift about through the night as softly and as swiftly as the terrible loafer wolves. They could comb the hills in circles, hunting for him, and there was no doubt as to the final issue. They would catch him beyond a shadow of a doubt.

So Lew Borgen surrendered. He went up on the top of a hill, kindled a fire to make him warm—for a sharp wind was cutting down at him from the snows on the mountain-tops above—and waited for that signal light to draw his enemies in upon him. In the meantime, he ate a supper joylessly and then rolled a smoke. But it seemed that the very boldness of the situation of that fire had robbed the man hunters of all suspicion.

It was a full hour after it first flamed before a voice spoke behind him.

"Steady, Borgen, and don't look round!"