Читать книгу The Raider - Charles Alden Seltzer - Страница 5

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For a long time Ellen had been conscious of motion, although the darkness was so dense that she could not determine whether her eyes were open or closed. There was an excruciating pain in the top of her head, her right shoulder was throbbing, and her arms were so heavy that she could not lift them. Also, she seemed to be suffocating. Something was covering her mouth. From its width she judged the something was a handkerchief. It was drawn tightly and when she attempted to lift her hands to remove it she was amazed to discover that her arms seemed to be bound to her sides.

Her legs were not bound. She was astride a horse, for she could feel the animal’s muscles writhing under her. The horse was not her own because she could not bind herself in this manner and mount him. Besides, she could hear somebody breathing over her shoulder. A man.

She speculated upon the man’s identity and tried to remember what had happened to her. She finally recalled that her pony had stumbled and that she had fallen out of the saddle. That would account for the pains in her head and shoulder, but there was still the presence of the man to be explained.

The man was probably Jim Peters. He had been following her and when she had not returned toward the Hour Glass after leaving the Kellis cabin he had trailed her. He must have been close when her pony stumbled and had taken advantage of her helplessness to bind her so that she could not resist. Possibly Jim Peters was a man who did not care to argue with a woman.

She was furiously indignant. Because she could not speak and tell Peters what she thought of him for binding her she kicked savagely at his shins with the heels of her riding boots. Moreover, she kicked a shin, for he growled:

“Awake an’ kickin’, eh? Well, you kick me in the shins again an’ I’ll fetch you a wallop alongside the jaw that’ll knock some of the nonsense out of you!”

The man was not Jim Peters!

She was startled, chilled with apprehension, but not intimidated. She tried to express her opinion of the man but her words were muffled into unintelligible mutterings.

“That’s all right,” said the man. “Talk as much as you can. It won’t bother me any because I can’t understand you. All women ought to be gagged, anyway. Just keep your shirt on. I’ll take that gag off after we get where we’re goin’. Then you can shoot off your gab as much as you please.”

She wanted to tell him that she was Ellen Ballinger and that all the power of the Ballinger fortune would be exerted to make him suffer for what he was doing. But the sounds she made could not be interpreted. And he went on, calmly:

“This is one time I even things with Matthew M. Ballinger! If he likes you as well as he ought to he’ll be throwin’ a fit when you don’t go back to the Hour Glass!”

So the man was not afraid of the Ballinger power. In fact, he was deliberately challenging it. And she was not to return to the Hour Glass! This man was an enemy and was striking at her father through her. Obviously, he intended holding her for ransom.

She wasn’t frightened now. She wasn’t even angry any more. If it hadn’t been for the handkerchief that covered her mouth she would have been amused. For she knew something of her father’s methods, of his temper when aroused to wrath, and she anticipated that her abductor would get neither enjoyment nor money out of his adventure with her.

As for herself—she didn’t care. She was rather glad something had happened to her, for if they found her and took her back to the Hour Glass she would not have to make any embarrassing explanations about Jim Kellis. Only she would rather escape than be rescued or ransomed.

She was not romantic. She was getting no thrill whatever out of her present predicament. Nothing but discomfort. She didn’t even speculate about the personal appearance of her captor. He might be handsome, but she had met any number of handsome men and had never liked any of them. What she had always looked for in men she had never found—sincerity and naturalness. Even her father posed for her benefit. She had heard him lie and equivocate and boast. She had heard other men say things they had not meant; had seen them pose when they thought they were watched. She had seen them affect politeness and sympathy when they thought such acting would impress others. She was tired of them all and she had liked Jim Kellis because he was weak and didn’t pretend. And even Kellis had failed her.

She would have liked to ask this man what he had against her father. But she couldn’t talk. He was a coward, anyway, or he wouldn’t have tied her. She couldn’t see his face, of course, no more than she could see other objects, but of course when daylight came she would see him, and he couldn’t keep the handkerchief around her mouth forever. And when she finally did get the handkerchief off she would tell him just what she thought of him.

Meanwhile, they were going somewhere, though she didn’t know where. Of course he was taking her to some secret retreat where he could hold her in safety while he collected the money he was after. He probably belonged to a band of outlaws.

He didn’t talk any more, but she assured herself that she would never forget his voice; that she would know it wherever she heard it. She had never heard another voice like it. It had a burr in it. The key to his enunciation was in the word “shirt.” He had said “shurrut.”

She hadn’t any idea how long she had been riding with him and there was no way of her determining in which direction they were going. He was riding behind her, and now and then he placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her, indicating that the trail was rough and that he was no stranger to it.

Once they crossed a river at a shallow, for though she could hear the water splashing it did not touch her. Again they were going through some long grass; she felt it and heard it as it rasped against her boots. Then through some timber, for he told her to “stoop low” and pressed a hand heavily upon her shoulder.

She felt they must have been riding more than an hour when he pulled the horse to a halt.

“We’ll get off here,” he said. “Don’t try any monkey-shines or I’ll slap your mouth.”

He pulled her out of the saddle and deposited her on the ground. She felt he had held her unnecessarily tight in getting her down and she showed her resentment by trying to wriggle out of his grasp and by attempting to kick his legs. He merely held her tighter and laughed at her.

And now for the first time she feared him, and she did not resist as he led her into the darkness. It was not until she felt a shoulder come in contact with a wall that she decided he was taking her to some sort of a house.

She heard a door creak on its hinges and she was pushed through it and across a floor to a bed or a trunk. He forced her to its edge and left her, saying shortly:

“You’ll stay here for a while!”

He went out and she heard him close the door. She sat quietly in the silence and the darkness, listening, trying to penetrate the blackness around her.

She heard no sound and finally became convinced that she was alone. She now realized that she had been afraid he had been bringing her among men of his kind. She trembled a little, but her chief emotion was that of resentment for her father’s action in permitting her to get into this sort of a predicament. For if he had been frank with her she would not have undertaken the journey.

She had been sitting on the edge of the bunk for about an hour when she observed that the moon was rising. At first the darkness was tinged with a luminous glow which grew and expanded until, looking out of a window—which she perceived was barred—she could see some trees just outside, and a small clearing.

She was in a room in which there were a number of bunks similar to the one upon whose edge she was sitting. There was only one door, that through which she had entered, and it was tightly closed and evidently barred from the outside. There was only one window, and that also was barred.

There was bedding in the bunks, which was eloquent evidence that men were in the habit of sleeping here. No woman could sleep in any of the bunks. At least no woman would.

She could not see the entire length of the room, for only a square of moonlight entered, and that merely struck the wall near her, disclosing the bunks and a section of the floor.

The floor was dirty. Mud which had been turned to dust had left the prints of men’s boots here and there. She was certain no woman had walked in the room.

But she grew weary of the silence, so she got up and walked about the room and peered out of the window.

She could see very little of the outside, and what there was of it seemed to have no living thing in it. But as she stood at one side of the window, leaning against one side of the frame, her head came into contact with something hard and unyielding. Turning, she saw that a small shelf had been built against the wall near the window frame. Looking at the shelf she was seized with an inspiration. She backed against the wall and found that the edge of the shelf reached the back of her head just above the point where her captor had knotted the handkerchief which covered her mouth. By standing on tiptoe she got the edge of the shelf under the knot, and by rubbing it and working her head up and down she succeeded in slipping the handkerchief over the top of her head.

She could breathe freely now, and she stood for some time at the window filling her lungs with the keen, bracing air that floated in.

Leaving the window she searched the room in the hope of finding some article which would aid her in freeing her arms. But she was unsuccessful and again went back to the window.

She stood there for a long time, watching, listening. No sound reached her and she grew tired of standing. Her head still ached and her arms were numbed from the ropes which were wound tightly about them, but she fought against the inclination to lie in one of the bunks, knowing that once she stretched out she would go to sleep. And she didn’t want to sleep until she discovered what her captor’s intentions were.

She went to sleep standing beside the window, though, for she caught herself nodding and became aware of distant sounds at the instant her mind resumed its activity. The sounds were the crashing of brush, the rushing clatter of hoofs, and two pistol shots, the first closely followed by the second.

She stiffened, listened intently.

The sounds of crashing brush continued and the clattering of hoofs seemed to come nearer, but there were no more shots.

The sounds appeared to come from the timber which she could see from the window, and she got the impression that a number of horsemen were rushing through the trees and the thick, wild brush.

Then she saw a horseman burst out of the edge of the timber on the far side of the clearing, observed him, crouching over the animal’s head, coming straight toward the window. He was furiously spurring the horse he was riding, and his cursing could be heard above the thunderous rataplan of hoofs. He swerved when within fifty or sixty feet of the window, passed the door through which Ellen had entered the room and went on, somewhere, into the country beyond.

Silence swept in behind him. Five minutes of silence which was heavy with portent. Then again came the thunder of hoofs beating upon the hard earth of a distant open stretch of country, followed by a heavy crashing as of a band of horsemen concertedly breasting the natural forest barriers. Then the timber at the edge of the clearing became animate with leaping, plunging horses and their riders.

There were six riders, Ellen observed. They crossed the clearing and were racing past the door when one of them shouted. There was a prodigious scuffling and grunting and snorting from impatient horses pulled to a sudden halt. Then a silence. After that a voice:

“Well, he’s got away.”

A laugh.

“One didn’t,” said another voice.

“He sure was fannin’ it,” said still another voice. “The devil couldn’t ketch him, the way he was ridin’. I was sure I’d burned him, the second shot. But I reckon not, or he wouldn’t be so active.”

“We throwed a scare into that guy, anyway,” said a fourth voice. “An’ we can be mighty certain Hank Kroll won’t steal any more hosses.”

The horsemen seemed to be grouped near the door. Ellen heard a match strike, detected the odour of a cigarette.

“It’s off for to-night, I reckon,” said the first voice. “That second guy will keep goin’, if his horse don’t break a leg.”

“What did you holler for, Jeff?” asked one man. “We might have ketched him.”

“Horse,” replied the one addressed as “Jeff,” “in that clump of juniper. Hobbled, ain’t he? Look at his brand.”

There followed a silence and then a voice, fainter than the others, called out:

“A bay. Blaze face. Hour Glass.”

Ellen’s horse. The one she had ridden all day. She had wondered what had become of it; now she realized that her captor had led it to this place. She had not been able to see in the darkness, nor had she heard the horse following.

“Hour Glass, eh,” said Jeff. “Ballinger hardly gets here when they begin to steal his horses. You didn’t get a look at the fellow that came through here?”

“Not a look,” came the answer. “An’ I ain’t sure he was with the guy we swung. He swore he was alone, you recollect.”

“Lying to save his hide, I reckon,” came Jeff’s voice.

Standing beside the window, Ellen gasped.

These men had hanged a man! They were murderers!

“Whew!” exclaimed a voice. “Kroll sure showed yellow, didn’t he? It made my hair raise to watch him! Far as I’m concerned I’ll be seein’ Kroll to the day I cash in!”

“Kroll can’t blame nobody but himself, Bill,” said one of the men. “He had it comin’ to him an’ he knowed it was comin’. An’ if a man keeps stealin’ horses an’ the law don’t take a hand—an’ won’t take a hand—why folks has got to do their own hangin’!”

“Sure, that’s right,” agreed the other. “But I keep seein’ him. Seein’ the way he——”

“Bill,” said the other speaker, “Kroll didn’t feel as soft as you when he shot Ed and Tim the night he was ’most caught runnin’ off them Bar K hosses!”

“That’s right,” agreed Bill.

There was a creaking of saddle leather, and Ellen knew from the sound that someone was dismounting. She had feared the riders would enter the house and find her, and for the first time since the beginning of her adventure she trembled with apprehension.

However, there was no place to conceal herself. She would not get into one of the bunks! And she certainly would not cower into a corner! She wasn’t afraid, even if she was trembling. So she held her position at the window, although she was hoping that none of the men would enter.

And then she heard a sound at the door. The door opened inward, slowly, and a man stood on the threshold, peering into the room. He was a tall man, lithe and well built. The moonlight that flooded the doorway revealed his broad shoulders, his gauntleted wrists, the leather chaps on his long legs, the heavy Colt low on his right hip. His hat was pulled over his forehead.

He did not enter the room, but stood in the doorway. He was motionless, rigid, and Ellen knew her presence in the room had amazed him. He almost bowed to her, she was certain.

She expected him to enter, but instead he turned in the doorway, laughed, and stepped out, closing the door behind him and barring it.

Ellen breathlessly waited. She expected now to hear him tell his companions what he had found in the room. They would swarm inside. And then, considering that they were murderers, they would——

“Nobody in there, boys,” he said.

The voice was Jeff’s. He was undoubtedly the leader. He had halted them; he had ordered one of the men to examine her pony. And there was authority in his voice when he again spoke.

“You boys scatter!” he said. “Some of you can trail the fellow that passed here—if you feel like riding some more. I’ll see you to-morrow. I’m staying here to see if number two comes back after that Hour Glass horse.”

One of the men laughed.

“No use chasin’ number two,” he said. “That guy will be over into Prima County by this time. He wasn’t lettin’ nothin’ hold him! I reckon we-all had better drag it home.”

Leather creaked, spurs jangled; there was a clatter of hoofs, some subdued laughter; several “So-longs” to Jeff. Then the sounds diminished, ceased, and a heavy silence settled.

The silence continued long—so long that Ellen was almost convinced that Jeff had gone away with the others. She found herself hoping he wouldn’t go, for she was half afraid that her captor would return. Besides, despite the fact that this man Jeff and his men had hanged a horse thief she suspected that they were not outlaws but a band of men who had temporarily taken the law into their own hands. Their conversation seemed to have intimated as much. Also, there had been something in Jeff’s voice that had appealed to her. Quietness, for one thing, self-control for another. Men who permitted their passions to rule them did not have voices like Jeff’s. Also, whoever Jeff was, he was a diplomat. Most men, seeing a woman where they had not expected to see one, would have betrayed excitement. Jeff hadn’t. There had not been a tremor in his voice when he had told his men that the room was unoccupied. It made no difference what Jeff’s intentions were. He had saved her from embarrassment and she was thankful.

The silence continued. At least half an hour had passed before Ellen heard a sound from outside. Then she heard the bars being removed.

The door opened and Jeff stepped into the room.

Ellen still stood beside the window and the moonlight was shining full upon her. She stood very still as Jeff walked toward her. He stopped at a little distance and seemed to be gravely regarding her.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked.

There was an unexpected coldness in his voice; not a trace of the sympathy and concern she felt should be there. Suspicion, rather, mingling with the coldness.

“I am Ellen Ballinger. I would not be here if I had not been forced to come! Will you please take these ropes from my arms? They—they hurt!”

“The devil!”

He stepped forward. Evidently he had not observed the ropes. A hand went swiftly into a pocket and was withdrawn. A knife carefully applied severed her bonds and she moved her arms slowly and stifled a cry of pain as the blood surged through them.

She was still standing where the moonlight shone full upon her. Jeff was also in the mellow flood that entered the window. His arms were folded; his chin was resting upon the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. She felt he was interested in her merely as an intruder, and that he resented her being here.

While she looked at him her thoughts went to hardy adventurers whose pictures she had seen: vikings with their bold eyes, their clean-cut profiles, captains of sailing ships facing the hazards of storms, resolute explorers, leaders of forlorn expeditions. The indomitability of men who face death with a smile was in this man.

His hat was now shoved back and his black hair was tousled on his forehead. His eyes—which she thought were gray—were broodingly cynical in their depths but were flecked with lights of cold humour. His mouth was straight and hard, but in it somewhere was a hint of waywardness, of recklessness.

Ellen thought him handsome, but was certain he himself was not aware of his good looks. He exuded vitality, nervous energy, force. But all were sheathed by an easy deliberation of manner that must have been irritating and wrath-provoking to one in disagreement with him.

His skin was a rich bronze from his forehead to his chest. His woollen shirt, which was open at the throat, bulged slightly at the shoulders and the chest and sloped inward at his slim waist where a heavy cartridge belt encircled him. Suspended from the right hip, low, where its butt touched his wrist when his arm was hanging at his side, was a heavy revolver. On his legs were worn leather chaps and on his high-heeled, soft-topped boots were a pair of long-rowelled spurs which, Ellen decided, would be used without hesitation should the horse he happened to be riding prove recreant in an emergency.

A formidable and romantic figure.

Ellen had heard of his kind, but this was the first time she had met one of him face to face. At a distance yesterday she had observed some of the Hour Glass men, but though their trappings had interested her they had been so far away from her that she had not been able to judge what they were like. She had seen Jim Peters from the distance of a few feet, but Peters was at least sixty and what romance had been in him had evidently been ridden out of him. Peters was wrinkled and seamed and his legs were bowed from riding. Jim Peters had wonderful eyes, though. They were steady and serene, as if the things they had seen had bothered him very little.

Jeff’s eyes were not like Jim Peters’s. Jeff’s eyes had the fire of youth—of youth’s impudence and arrogance.

“You’re Matt Ballinger’s daughter, eh?” said Jeff, intently watching her. “You’re off your range over here, ain’t you? What were you doing over here?”

Jeff’s voice was gruff, but Ellen was not frightened by it. Not in the least frightened. As a matter of fact, now that her arms were feeling better, she was rather amused over the whole adventure. For she had liked Jeff from the instant she had first seen his face, there in the moonlight. Moreover, although she was aware that he and his friends had hanged a man, she felt he was an advocate of law and order, and that she was safe. Her fears had been, and were, for the man who had picked her up and bound her arms. Now that he was no longer near she saw nothing to worry about.

“Yes,” she said, answering his first question, “I am Matthew Ballinger’s daughter. I am Ellen Ballinger. As a usual thing the Ballingers do not permit themselves to be barked at!”

She was expecting his start of surprise, and felt a pulse of vindictive amusement.

“If the Ballinger women are going to roam around in this country at night without company they can expect to be barked at,” he told her, his voice snapping.

He hadn’t been at all impressed, she perceived.

“Well, I shall not answer another question until you decide to be polite!” she declared.

“All right,” he said shortly.

He turned swiftly, stepped to the door, went out, and closed the door behind him. Ellen could hear the fastenings slipping into place.

She was apprehensive for an instant, for she expected to hear him ride away. But after a while, when she heard no sound from outside and decided that she was not to lose him right away, she smiled knowingly and sought a comfortable position at the window.

For perhaps an hour there was no sound. Then she thought she heard him at the door and felt that he was coming in to her again. But he wasn’t coming in; from the sound he made she decided that he was sitting on the door sill and that he had brushed against the door in changing his position.

Again she smiled, grimly. There were ways to make men do the things one wanted them to do. Even if they were great big gruff men like Jeff! All she had to do was to keep silent and after a while Jeff would become more amenable.

Her deduction was correct, for the second hour had not gone when she again heard a sound at the door. The door did not open, however, and she heard Jeff walking about.

Then his face appeared at the window, close to hers.

She did not move. And she would not meet his gaze, but stared past him.

“Well,” he said gruffly, “are you willing to talk sense?”

She continued to gaze over his shoulder. He could not see that the victory had elated her.

“The Ballingers consider themselves mighty important people, I suppose?” he said.

“They know how to be polite, at any rate!” she declared.

“They know how to be stubborn, I reckon,” he drawled.

Her chin went up and he laughed.

“You’re a Ballinger, all right,” he said. “I’ve seen Matt look like that. I expect you’ve got grit all right, but you ain’t got much sense to be riding around this country at night.”

“At least I don’t ride around hanging people!” she retorted.

“So you heard that, eh?” he said. “I thought so.”

His face seemed to lengthen a little. He smiled grimly.

“You heard the boys talking, eh?” he added. “Well, I reckon that as soon as you get where you’re going you’ll shoot off your gab about it?”

“You mean that you expect me to tell what I heard?”

He nodded.

“I certainly shall tell!” she declared. “What right have you to hang anybody without a trial?”

“I won’t argue that,” he said. “He’s hung and no arguing will bring him back.”

“But my telling will help the law to avenge him!”

“Yes, I reckon you telling what you heard might do that. But I expect you know that there was five men with me. They’d get away clean.”

“You mean you wouldn’t tell who they were?”

“That’s a good guess.”

“Then the law will punish you alone.”

“I reckon it would, if I’d let it.”

“You speak as though you are so great that the law cannot reach you!” She was incredulous and tremendously curious.

“The law!” he said, contempt in his voice. “A safe-guard for fools and weaklings. I make my own laws!”

For an instant Ellen was tempted to laugh, to tell him that he sounded like a boaster and a braggart. But the reflection that she had already overheard enough to convince her that he held the law in contempt sufficed to keep her silent.

She again scrutinized his face. With the moonlight shining upon him he looked more than ever like one of the wild adventurers of long ago, a self-sufficient and perverse spirit of the days when the strong imposed their wills upon the weak.

He had been looking straight at her when he had told her of his contempt for the law, and now his voice was strong with derision.

“Do you think I care a damn what you tell anybody? Tell them as fast as you can talk!”

“I shall!” she promised.

“You would. You’re that kind.”

“I’m—what?” she gasped.

“You’re the kind of woman who talks without knowing what you are talking about. You hadn’t sense enough to keep you from riding around in this country alone; and of course you won’t have sense enough to use your brains in thinking why you shouldn’t tell everything you hear.”

“You’re a brute!” she told him. Yet she was not as angry as she should have been. She didn’t know why.

“We won’t argue that,” he said. “How did those ropes get around your arms?”

She had vowed she wouldn’t tell him, but she did. And when she finished he was watching her steadily.

“You didn’t see the man’s face?”

“No,” she answered, “but I heard his voice.”

“You’d know his voice if you heard it again?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve been hearing it for several minutes. You are the man who brought me here, Mr. Jeff!”

She told the lie with a straight face, and watched him with level gaze as he stiffened and stared at her.

“Me!” he exclaimed in huge derision. “Hell, no! I’ll hang a man quick enough for stealing horses, but I draw the line when it comes to fooling with women! I wasn’t within a dozen miles of you when you were tied up!”

“Oh, you don’t like women.”

“Not well enough to try to abduct one.”

“Are you afraid of women?”

“I reckon not. Do I act like I’m scared of you? I just don’t want anything to do with women. I don’t like them. They are too changeable and selfish. I reckon you think you are just about perfection. Anyway, you act like you think that. You get yourself in trouble because you want to have your own way, and when a stranger tries to get you out of it you hold your head up so high that you get a stiff neck. On top of that you accuse me of abducting you. Hell: Abduct you! What would I want to abduct you for?”

Ellen smiled.

“I can’t answer that, of course,” she said calmly. “All I know is that you did tie me up and bring me here. You are annoyed because you have discovered that I know you and your friends hanged a man. You don’t want me to say anything about it.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he exclaimed disgustedly.

“You probably will be damned by a good many people when this story gets out,” she said. “My father will be furious, of course, when he hears that you dragged me away and kept me in this place all night, after sending your men away. And the law will want to know about the man you murdered. So you see you are going to have a lot of explaining to do. And of course when I tell them the truth they will believe me.”

His lips were in straight lines.

“Look here!” he said, his voice sharp and cold: “Do you sure think I tied you up and brought you here?”

“Why, of course,” she answered. “What else is there for me to think? Something happens to my pony. I fall and am stunned. When I regain consciousness I find myself on a horse with a man. My arms tied and there is a handkerchief over my mouth. I cannot see the man who is on the horse with me, but I kick him and he threatens me. The voice is yours. Then you and your men come here. You send your men away and stay here with me. What am I to think? What will everyone think?”

The ancestors were wagging their heads at her, but she only smiled defiantly at them. For the longer she looked at Jeff the better she liked him. He was the first man she had met who looked good to her and she was determined to take him!