Shepherds of the Wild/Chapter 16
Chapter XVI
Landy Fargo tried to approach the sheep camp with some caution. It was an instinctive effort: he had not the slightest idea that the lone human occupant of the little meadow could waken from his deep sleep to hear him. Nevertheless, Fargo didn't believe in taking unnecessary chances. He rode slowly, trying to avoid the whip of dry brush against the horse's body. Yet it was to be noticed that the coyotes, lingering hungrily at the flanks of the flock, slipped from the trail when he was still two hundred yards distant.
The thickets were unusually dry: they cracked and popped as the horse passed through. Miniature explosions of popping twig and crackling brush followed every step of the horse.
Still there was no one to hear him. The forest was breathless. And all at once, through a rift in the underbrush, he saw the gleam of Hugh's camp fire.
For an instant Fargo's human faculties simply and utterly deserted him; and he stood gaping like a beast at the guttering flame. A strange little shiver of cold and fear crept over him. He had expected only moonlight and silence, perhaps the bedded sheep unwatched and a heap of gray ashes, but a herder's well-mended fire had not had a place in his calculations at all. Twenty-four hours had passed since the murder, and yet the flame still flickered like a soul that could not pass. Was it a ghost fire: was the shapeless shadow that he thought he could make out beside it the specter of one who had risen from Death to watch the sheep? The sight went straight home to his dark superstitions.
Just for a moment he sat motionless in the saddle; then he started to turn back. His eyes bulged ever so slightly. And then a great cold seemed to come down, stab, and transfix him.
For a voice spoke from the camp. It came clear and strong into the darkness where he waited. "Who's there?" some one asked.
Except for his sudden gusty breathing, Fargo made no sound in reply. He started to turn his horse.
"If you don't answer, I'll think it's a coyote and shoot," the voice came again. "I give you till I count three "
Fargo had won his point by bluffing many times, he had known how to call the bluffs of other men; but he had no delusions about the hard, quiet voice that came out to him from the fireside. Very plainly the man meant what he said. But at least it wasn't Dan the herder who had risen and spoken. The tones and words were not the melodious utterances of the Italian laborer who had been Hugh's predecessor. The only other explanation that occurred to Fargo was that the murder had been discovered, and the man who had called him was an officer of the law who had been put on guard.
Fargo instantly decided it would not be wise to attempt to disobey these summons. Like most wrongdoers he had an abject horror and fear of the law, and the moment was of the greatest terror he had ever known. Yet he dared not turn and flee. In his panic he was unable to remember that not in one chance out of a hundred could a bullet find him in the darkness. For all he knew the man at the fire was already staring at him through his sights, and possibly the whole camp was surrounded by the officers. His mouth felt dry, his hands numb as he rode out into the circle of firelight.
And then his fear changed in a moment to devastating rage. The form was revealed quite clearly now: simply that of a lowly sheep herder in soiled clothes and with unshaven face. Had José lied about the murder? Yet this man was not Dan, the herder. There was nothing to believe but that Crowson had already discovered the crime and had hired a substitute.
There was nothing to fear here. His arrogance swept back to him and his eyes leaped savagely over the trim form that now had risen to greet him. It was a slender figure, the kind he could hammer to paste beneath his flailing fists. He swung down from the saddle, once more feeling himself completely master of the situation.
"What do you mean?" he demanded savagely, "hollerin' out and threatenin' me that way."
Hugh looked at him, considering just what he had meant. And perhaps his lips drew up in a faint smile. If there was one thing his experience with the sheep had taught him, it was to smile: smile at misfortune, smile at the little, everyday comedy of life,—and smile with real amusement at such storming, bullying men as this. But it was true that a moment before he had not been in the humor for mirth. He had known at once that the step in the darkness was not that of the coyote, or any of the hunters of the wild. It was a horse, and its rider could kill from a distance: perhaps it was the same foe that had crept into camp the previous night and had murdered Dan. His voice—he remembered with a strange, inward pleasure—had sounded level and clear; but nevertheless a wholly justified apprehension had been upon him. He had been entirely at a disadvantage. He made a fair target beside the leaping flame and he could not see his enemy at all. And he was still somewhat white about the lips as he stood up.
And if Fargo had only remained silent, Hugh would have been willing to have welcomed him at his fire. The loneliness of the wild places was already upon him, and any stranger that walked those darkened hills might have found shelter in his own tent. And this was the man who—a few days before—had been inwardly proud that he never made chance acquaintances, that he never accepted another for friendship or discourse except through the channels of his own social plane. It wasn't being done by the men he knew: to arrive at any comradeship without first a correct introduction and then a certain amount of preliminary. How great had been the change! Yet in this case the man was obviously unfriendly; and Hugh slowly stiffened beneath his angry gaze.
"What do you mean by it?" the man demanded. "Hollerin' out?"
"Why, I meant " Hugh replied, in a perfectly casual tone, "exactly what I said. That I'd shoot if you didn't reveal yourself. I'm against coyotes, wild or human. And what are you doing here?"
Fargo noted with some amazement that the tables had been—as if by a magician's magic—instantly turned about; and that he himself was no longer the inquisitor. He bristled, furious that this lowly herder should not instantly yield to his own superiority. Yet he suddenly remembered certain little facts that tended to restrain him. The man was in his rights: and perhaps it was best to have some explanation for his presence on the night following a murder.
"Don't go making any inferences you'll regret later," he warned. "I'm bear huntin'—got a pack of dogs out there somewhere, and they got away from me." He stepped one pace nearer. "And I want you to know I'm not expectin' any back talk from such as you. All I'd have to do was to say the word, and old Crowson would fire you in a minute."
"You're one of his friends, are you?" Hugh asked easily.
"He'll do what I say—don't you mind about that."
"Then perhaps"—Hugh struggled an instant and caught at a name that Alice had spoken—"you're José Mertos."
Fargo started—hardly perceptibly—and caught himself at once. "Do I look like a Mexican?" he demanded.
"Just a bit stout for a Mexican," Hugh went on appraisingly. He didn't know why, but a slow anger had begun to take hold of him. "Then maybe you're—Fargo."
"And what if I am?"
The eyes of the two men met, and Hugh saw the bulldog lips drawing back over the strong teeth. The lids half-dropped over his own eyes, and he stood as if deep in thought.
He had been a little afraid, at first. Even now he was not blind to the evident strength of the formidable body, the huge fists, the brutal jaws. Yet—he suddenly knew to his vast amazement—these things no longer mattered. Instinctively he knew that he was face to face with a mortal foe; but he felt a miraculous trust in his own strength.
"I know something about Landy Fargo," Hugh answered quietly. "He's not the man I let sit by my fire. And the sooner you get away I think the better it will be."
Fargo glared, and there ensued a half-second of strained silence, of curious immobility on the part of them both. The fire blazed beside them, the shadows leaped and danced, far away the moon gleamed on the white peaks of the Rockies. The whole forest world was wrapped in impenetrable silence. Fargo snarled, then started to turn.
And at that instant each of them forgot—for a little while—each other's presence. They stood wholly silent, scarcely breathing,—listening as men listen when life itself is at stake. From far away in the still forest—in the direction that Alice had gone—both of them heard the faint, savage bay of the hounds.
No human being, at that distance, could mistake the cry. The pack was hunting. It was running its game. And from the wild excitement and exultation of the clamoring voices, it was plain that the trail was hot, that the hounds were almost upon their prey.
Hugh suddenly turned his eyes to Fargo, trying to interpret the strange, exultant look in his brutal face. His own eyes narrowed. Then he started,—a strange convulsive jerk that no man had ever seen in him before. It was an instinctive recoil at a great dread and horror that suddenly swept over him. There had been no time for thought. It was as if a voice had spoken, instantly and clear, and had told him the real character of that wild hunt in the darkness.
For he had heard, infinitely dim but sharp as a needle prick through almost a mile of silent forest, the explosion of Alice's pistol. Some great danger was upon her and her little flock; even now, perhaps, she was fighting for her life. It was a moment of crisis not alone for her but for him: the time in which his metal would be tried in the fire. He knew, surely as if a voice had told him, that there were no seconds to waste.
"No," he said clearly, "I believe you'd better stay here. I'll take your horse."
There was no time to catch and saddle Alice's animal, feeding at the edge of the meadow. There was no tone of request in the words. He had simply given an order: with his very life he would see that it was obeyed.
"You will, will you?" Fargo howled. "We'll see about that "
Hugh reached for the reins, and it seemed to him that Fargo's hand was fumbling at his hip. That in itself didn't matter. Hugh only knew that he wanted the horse and that nothing must stand in the way. Fargo was shouting, his dark mouth was open. And Hugh lashed out with his fist, aiming straight for the savage lips.
He struck with all his strength, scarcely in rage but just as a means to an end. He had never fought before, yet the blow came unerringly and with terrific power. There could be only one result to such a blow as that. He dimly heard Fargo grunt—like a beast as it falls below the butcher's stroke—then saw him reel and fall. He started to swing into the saddle.
It was better, he thought, that this man remain unconscious until he returned. He didn't forget that he was still shepherd of the flocks and that Fargo was an enemy. Some great test lay before him, and the fewer his foes the better. He leaped down—like a cougar springing from his ambush—and struck once with each fist into the soggy, brutal face.
They were terrific blows, but expedience, rather than cruelty, was the motive behind them. Hugh did not even wonder at himself. He swung lightly on to the horse and lashed it to a gallop.