Nan of Music Mountain

“If this was Henry de Spain,” muttered Elpaso, when Lefever rejoined his companions, “he won’t care whether you join him now, or at ten o’clock, or never.”

“That is not Henry,” asserted Lefever with his usual cheer. “Not within forty rows of apple-trees. It’s not Henry’s gun, not Henry’s heels, not Henry’s hair, and thereby, not Henry’s head that was hit that time. But it was to a finish–and blamed if at first it didn’t scare me. I thought it might be Henry. Hang it, get down and see for yourselves, boys.”

Elpaso answered his invitation with an inquiry. “Who was this fellow fighting with?”

“That, also, is a question. Certainly not with Henry de Spain, because the other fellow, I think, was using soft-nosed bullets. No white man does that, much less de Spain.”

“Unless he used another rifle,” suggested Kennedy.

“Tell me how they could get his own rifle away from him if he could fire a gun at all. I don’t put Henry quite as high with a rifle as with a revolver–if you want to split hairs–mind, I say, if you want to split hairs. But no man that’s ever seen him handle either would want to try to take any kind of a gun from him. Whoever it was,” Lefever got up into his saddle again, “threw some ounces of lead into that piece of rock back there, though I don’t understand how any one could see a man lying behind it.

“Anyway, whoever was hit here has been carried down the road. We’ll try Sassoon’s ranch-house for news, if they don’t open on us with rifles before we get there.”

In the sunshine a man in shirt sleeves, and leaning against the jamb, stood in the open doorway of Sassoon’s shack, watching the invaders as they rode around the hill and gingerly approached. Lefever recognized Satt Morgan. He flung a greeting to him from the saddle.

Satt answered in kind, but he eyed the horsemen with reserve when they drew up, and he seemed to Lefever altogether less responsive than usual. John sparred with him for information, and Satterlee gave back words without any.

“Can’t tell us anything about de Spain, eh?” echoed Lefever at length. “All right, Satt, we’ll find somebody that can. Is there a bridge over to Duke’s on this trail?”

Satt’s nose wrinkled into his normal smile. “There is a bridge–” The report of three shots fired in the distance, seemingly from the mouth of the Gap, interrupted him. He paused in his utterance. There were no further shots, and he resumed: “There is a bridge that way, yes, but it was washed out last night. They’re blockaded. Duke and Gale are over there. They’re pretty sore on your man de Spain. You’d better keep away from ’em this morning unless you’re looking for trouble.”

Lefever, having all needed information from Scott’s signal, raised his hand quickly. “Not at all,” he exclaimed, leaning forward to emphasize his words and adding the full orbit of his eye to his sincerity of manner. “Not at all, Satt. This is all friendly, all friendly. But,” he coughed slightly, as if in apology, “if Henry shouldn’t turn up all right, we’ll–ahem–be back.”

None of his companions needed to be told how to get prudently away. At a nod from Lefever Tommie Meggeson, Elpaso, and Wickwire wheeled their horses, rode rapidly back to the turn near the hill and, facing about, halted, with their rifles across their arms. Lefever and Kennedy followed leisurely, and the party withdrew leaving Satterlee, unmoved, in the sunny doorway. Once out of sight, Lefever led the way rapidly down the Gap to the rendezvous.

Of all the confused impressions that crowded Nan’s memory after the wild night on Music Mountain, the most vivid was that of a noticeably light-stepping and not ungraceful fat man advancing, hat in hand, to greet her as she stood with de Spain, weary and bedraggled in the aspen grove.

A smile flamed from her eyes when, turning at once, he rebuked de Spain with dignity for not introducing him to Nan, and while de Spain made apologies Lefever introduced himself.

“And is this,” murmured Nan, looking at him quizzically, “really Mr. John Lefever whom I’ve heard so many stories about?”

She was conscious of his pleasing eyes and even teeth as he smiled again. “If they have come from Mr. de Spain–I warn you,” said John, “take them with all reserve.”

“But they haven’t all come from Mr. de Spain.”

“If they come from any of my friends, discredit them in advance. You could believe what my enemies say,” he ran on; then added ingenuously, “if I had any enemies!” To de Spain he talked very little. It seemed to take but few words to exchange the news. Lefever asked gingerly about the fight. He made no mention whatever of the crimson pool in the road near Sassoon’s hut.

CHAPTER XXIX

PUPPETS OF FATE

The house in the Gap that had sheltered Nan for many years seemed never so empty as the night she left it with de Spain. In spite of his vacillation, her uncle was deeply attached to her. She made his home for him. He had never quite understood it before, but the realization came only too soon after he had lost her. And his resentment against Gale as the cause of her leaving deepened with every hour that he sat next day with his stubborn pipe before the fire. Duke had acceded with much reluctance to the undertaking that was to force her into a marriage. Gale had only partly convinced him that once taken, the step would save her from de Spain and end their domestic troubles. The failure of the scheme left Duke sullen, and his nephew sore, with humiliation.

In spite of the alarms and excitement of the night, of Gale’s determination that de Spain should never leave the Gap with Nan, and of the rousing of every man within it to cut off their escape, Duke stubbornly refused to pursue the man he so hated or even to leave the house in any effort to balk his escape. But Gale, and Sassoon who had even keener reason for hating de Spain, left Duke to sulk as he would, and set about getting the enemy without any help from the head of the house. In spite of the caution with which de Spain had covered his movements, and the flood and darkness of the night, Sassoon by a mere chance had got wind through one of his men of de Spain’s appearance at Duke Morgan’s, and had begun to plan, before Nan and de Spain had got out of the house, how to trap him.

Duke heard from Pardaloe, during the night and the early morning, every report with indifference. He only sat and smoked, hour after hour, in silence. But after it became known that de Spain had, beyond doubt, made good his escape, and had Nan with him, the old man’s sullenness turned into rage, and when Gale, rankling with defeat, stormed in to see him in the morning, he caught the full force of Duke’s wrath. The younger man taken aback by the outbreak and in drink himself, returned his abuse without hesitation or restraint. Pardaloe came between them before harm was done, but the two men parted with the anger of their quarrel deepened.

When Nan rode with de Spain into Sleepy Cat that morning, Lefever had already told their story to Jeffries over the telephone from Calabasas, and Mrs. Jeffries had thrown open her house to receive Nan. Weary from exposure, confusion, and hunger, Nan was only too grateful for a refuge.

On the evening of the second day de Spain was invited to join the family at supper. In the evening the Jeffrieses went down-town.

De Spain was talking with Nan in the living-room when the telephone-bell rang in the library.

De Spain took the call, and a man’s voice answered his salutation. The speaker asked for Mr. de Spain and seemed particular to make sure of his identity.

“This,” repeated de Spain more than once, and somewhat testily, “is Henry de Spain speaking.”

“I’d like to have a little talk with you, Mr. de Spain.”

“Go ahead.”

“I don’t mean over the telephone. Could you make it convenient to come down-town somewhere, say to Tenison’s, any time this evening?”

The thought of a possible ambuscade deterred the listener less than the thought of leaving Nan, from whom he was unwilling to separate himself for a moment. Likewise, the possibility of an attempt to kidnap her in his absence was not overlooked. On the other hand, if the message came from Duke and bore some suggestion of a compromise in the situation, de Spain was unwilling to lose it. With these considerations turning in his mind, he answered the man brusquely: “Who are you?”

The vein of sharpness in the question met with no deviation from the slow, even tone of the voice at the other end of the wire. “I am not in position to give you my name,” came the answer, “at least, not over the wire.”

A vague impression suddenly crossed de Spain’s mind that somewhere he had heard the voice before. “I can’t come down-town to-night,” returned de Spain abruptly. “If you’ll come to my office to-morrow morning at nine, I’ll talk with you.”

A pause preceded the answer. “It wouldn’t hardly do for me to come to your office in daylight. But if it would, I couldn’t do it to-morrow, because I shan’t be in town in the morning.”

“Where are you talking from now?”

“I’m at Tenison’s place.”

“Hang you,” said de Spain instantly, “I know you now.” But he said the words to himself, not aloud.

“Do you suppose I could come up to where you are to-night for a few minutes’ talk?” continued the man coolly.

“Not unless you have something very important.”

“What I have is more important to you than to me.”

De Spain took an instant to decide. “All right,” he said impatiently; “come along. Only–” he paused to let the word sink in, “–if this is a game you’re springing–”

“I’m springing no game,” returned the man evenly.

“You’re liable to be one of the men hurt.”

“That’s fair enough.”

“Come along, then.”

“Mr. Jeffries’s place is west of the court-house?”

“Directly west. Now, I’ll tell you just how to get here. Do you hear?”

“I’m listening.”

“Leave Main Street at Rancherio Street. Follow Rancherio north four blocks, turn west into Grant Avenue. Mr. Jeffries’s house is on the corner.”

“I’ll find it.”

“Don’t come any other way. If you do, you won’t see me.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Mr. de Spain, and I’ll come as you say. There’s only one thing I should like to ask. It would be as much as my life is worth to be seen talking to you. And there are other good reasons why I shouldn’t like to have it known I had talked to you. Would you mind putting out the lights before I come up–I mean, in the front of the house and in the room where we talk?”

“Not in the least. I mean–I am always willing to take a chance against any other man’s. But I warn you, come prepared to take care of yourself.”

“If you will do as I ask, no harm will come to any one.”

De Spain heard the receiver hung up at the other end of the wire. He signalled the operator hastily, called for his office, asked for Lefever, and, failing to get him, got hold of Bob Scott. To him he explained rapidly what had occurred, and what he wanted. “Get up to Grant and Rancherio, Bob, as quick as the Lord will let you. Come by the back streets. There’s a high mulberry hedge at the southwest corner you can get behind. This chap may have been talking for somebody else. Anyway, look the man over when he passes under the arc-light. If it is Sassoon or Gale Morgan, come into Jeffries’s house by the rear door. Wait in the kitchen for my call from the living-room, or a shot. I’ll arrange for your getting in.”

Leaving the telephone, de Spain rejoined Nan in the living-room. He told her briefly of the expected visit and explained, laughingly, that his caller had asked to have the lights out and to see him alone.

Nan, standing close to him, her own hand on his shoulder and her curling hair against his scarred cheek, asked questions about the incident because he seemed to be holding something back. She professed to be satisfied when he requested her to go up to her room and explained it was probably one of the men coming to tell about some petty thieving on the line or of a strike brewing among the drivers. He made so little of the incident that Nan walked up the stairs on de Spain’s arm reassured. When he kissed her at her room door and turned down the stairs again, she leaned in the half-light over the banister, waving one hand at him and murmuring the last caution: “Be careful, Henry, won’t you?”

“Dearie, I’m always careful.”

“’Cause you’re all I’ve got now,” she whispered.

“You’re all I’ve got, Nan, girl.”

“I haven’t got any home–or anything–just you. Don’t go to the door yourself. Leave the front door open. Stand behind the end of the piano till you are awfully sure who it is.”

“What a head, Nan!”

De Spain cut off the lights, threw open the front door, and in the darkness sat down on the piano stool. A heavy step on the porch, a little while later, was followed by a knock on the open door.

“Come in!” called de Spain roughly. The bulk of a large man filled and obscured for an instant the opening, then the visitor stepped carefully over the threshold. “What do you want?” asked de Spain without changing his tone. He awaited with keenness the sound of the answer.

“Is Henry de Spain here?”

The voice was not familiar to de Spain’s ear. He told himself the man was unknown to him. “I am Henry de Spain,” he returned without hesitation. “What do you want?”

The visitor’s deliberation was reflected in his measured speaking. “I am from Thief River,” he began, and his reverberating voice was low and distinct. “I left there some time ago to do some work in Morgan’s Gap. I guess you know, full as well as I do, that the general office at Medicine Bend has its own investigators, aside from the division men. I was sent in to Morgan’s Gap some time ago to find out who burned the Calabasas barn.”

“Railroad man, eh?”

“For about six years.”

“And you report to–?”

“Kennedy.”

De Spain paused in spite of his resolve to push the questions. While he listened a fresh conviction had flashed across his mind. “You called me up on the telephone one night last week,” he said suddenly.

The answer came without evasion. “I did.”

“I chased you across the river?”

“You did.”

“You gave me a message from Nan Morgan that she never gave you.”

“I did. I thought she needed you right off. She didn’t know me as I rightly am. I knew what was going on. I rode into town that evening and rode out again. It was not my business, and I couldn’t let it interfere with the business I’m paid to look after. That’s the reason I dodged you.”

“There is a chair at the left of the door; sit down. What’s your name?”

The man feeling around slowly, deposited his angular bulk with care upon the little chair. “My name”–in the tenseness of the dark the words seemed to carry added mystery–“is Pardaloe.”

“Where from?”

“My home is southwest of the Superstition Mountains.”

“You’ve got a brother–Joe Pardaloe?” suggested de Spain to trap him.

“No, I’ve got no brother. I am just plain Jim Pardaloe.”

“Say what you have got to say, Jim.”

“The only job I could get in the Gap was with old Duke Morgan–I’ve been working for him, off and on, and spending the rest of my time with Gale and Dave Sassoon. There were three men in the barn-burning. Dave Sassoon put up the job.”

“Where is Dave Sassoon now?”

“Dead.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what I say.”

Both men were silent for a moment.

“Yesterday morning’s fight?” asked de Spain reluctantly.

“Yes, sir.”

“How did he happen to catch us on El Capitan?”

“He saw a fire on Music Mountain and watched the lower end of the Gap all night. Sassoon was a wide-awake man.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Pardaloe,” continued de Spain after a moment. “Nobody could call it my fault. It was either he or I–or the life of a woman who never harmed a hair of his head, and a woman I’m bound to protect. He was running when he was hit. If he had got to cover again there was nothing to stop him from picking both of us off. I shot low–most of the lead must have gone into the ground.”

“He was hit in the head.”

De Spain was silent.

“It was a soft-nose bullet,” continued Pardaloe.

Again there was a pause. “I’ll tell you about that, too, Pardaloe,” de Spain went on collectedly. “I lost my rifle before that man opened fire on us. Nan happened to have her rifle with her–if she hadn’t, he’d ’ve dropped one or both of us off El Capitan. We were pinned against the wall like a couple of targets. If there were soft-nose bullets in her rifle it’s because she uses them on game–bobcats and mountain-lions. I never thought of it till this minute. That is it.”

“What I came up to tell you has to do with Dave Sassoon. From what happened to-day in the Gap I thought you ought to know it now. Gale and Duke quarrelled yesterday over the way things turned out; they were pretty bitter. This afternoon Gale took it up again with his uncle, and it ended in Duke’s driving him clean out of the Gap.”

“Where has he gone?”

“Nobody knows yet. Ed Wickwire told me once that your father was shot from ambush a good many years ago. It was north of Medicine Bend, on a ranch near the Peace River; that you never found out who killed him, and that one reason why you came up into this country was to keep an eye out for a clew.”

“What about it?” asked de Spain, his tone hardening.

“I was riding home one night about a month ago from Calabasas with Sassoon. He’d been drinking. I let him do the talking. He began cussing you out, and talked pretty hard about what you’d done, and what he’d done, and what he was going to do–” Nothing, it seemed, would hurry the story. “Finally, Sassoon says: ‘That hound don’t know yet who got his dad. It was Duke Morgan; that’s who got him. I was with Duke when he turned the trick. We rode down to de Spain’s ranch one night to look up a rustler.’ That,” concluded Pardaloe, “was all Sassoon would say.”

He stopped. He seemed to wait. There was no word of answer, none of comment from the man sitting near him. But, for one, at least, who heard the passionless, monotonous recital of a murder of the long ago, there followed a silence as relentless as fate, a silence shrouded in the mystery of the darkness and striking despair into two hearts–a silence more fearful than any word.

Pardaloe shuffled his feet. He coughed, but he evoked no response. “I thought you was entitled to know,” he said finally, “now that Sassoon will never talk any more.”

De Spain moistened his lips. When he spoke his voice was cracked and harsh, as if with what he had heard he had suddenly grown old.

“You are right, Pardaloe. I thank you. I–when I–in the morning. Pardaloe, for the present, go back to the Gap. I will talk with Wickwire–to-morrow.”

“Good night, Mr. de Spain.”

“Good night, Pardaloe.”

Bending forward, limp, in his chair, supporting his head vacantly on his hands, trying to think and fearing to think, de Spain heard Pardaloe’s measured tread on the descending steps, and listened mechanically to the retreating echoes of his footsteps down the shaded street. Minute after minute passed. De Spain made no move. A step so light that it could only have been the step of a delicate girlhood, a step free as the footfall of youth, poised as the tread of womanhood and beauty, came down the stairs. Slight as she was, and silent as he was, she walked straight to him in the darkness, and, sinking between his feet, wound her hands through his two arms. “I heard everything, Henry,” she murmured, looking up. An involuntary start of protest was his only response. “I was afraid of a plot against you. I stayed at the head of the stairs. Henry, I told you long ago some dreadful thing would come between us–something not our fault. And now it comes to dash our cup of happiness when it is filling. Something told me, Henry, it would come to-night–some bad news, some horror laid up against us out of a past that neither you nor I are to blame for. In all my sorrow I am sorriest, Henry, for you. Why did I ever cross your path to make you unhappy when blood lay between your people and mine? My wretched uncle! I never dreamed he had murder on his soul–and of all others, that murder! I knew he did wrong–I knew some of his associates were criminals. But he has been a father and mother to me since I could creep–I never knew any father or mother.”

She stopped, hoping perhaps he would say some little word, that he would even pat her head, or press her hand, but he sat like one stunned. “If it could have been anything but this!” she pleaded, low and sorrowfully. “Oh, why did you not listen to me before we were engulfed! My dear Henry! You who’ve given me all the happiness I have ever had–that the blood of my own should come against you and yours!” The emotion she struggled with, and fought back with all the strength of her nature, rose in a resistless tide that swept her on, in the face of his ominous silence, to despair. She clasped her hands in silent misery, losing hope with every moment of his stoniness that she could move him to restraint or pity toward her wretched foster-father. She recalled the merciless words he had spoken on the mountain when he told her of his father’s death. Her tortured imagination pictured the horror of the sequel, in which the son of the murdered man should meet him who had taken his father’s life. The fate of it, the hopelessness of escape from its awful consequence, overcame her. Her breath, no longer controlled, came brokenly, and her voice trembled.

“You have been very kind to me, Henry–you’ve been the only man I’ve ever known that always, everywhere, thought of me first. I told you I didn’t deserve it, I wasn’t worthy of it–”

His hands slipped silently over her hands. He gathered her close into his arms, and his tears fell on her upturned face.

CHAPTER XXX

HOPE FORLORN

There were hours in that night that each had reason long to remember; a night that seemed to bring them, in spite of their devotion, to the end of their dream. They parted late, each trying to soften the blow as it fell on the other, each professing a courage which, in the face of the revelation, neither could clearly feel.

In the morning Jeffries brought down to de Spain, who had spent a sleepless night at the office, a letter from Nan.

De Spain opened it with acute misgivings. Hardly able to believe his eyes, he slowly read:

Dearest:

A wild hope has come to me. Perhaps we don’t know the truth of this terrible story as it really is. Suppose we should be condemning poor Uncle Duke without having the real facts? Sassoon was a wretch, Henry, if ever one lived–a curse to every one. What purpose he could serve by repeating this story, which he must have kept very secret till now, I don’t know; but there was some reason. I must know the whole truth–I feel that I, alone, can get hold of it, and that you would approve what I am doing if you were here with me in this little room, where I am writing at daybreak, to show you my heart.

Long before you get this I shall be speeding toward the Gap. I am going to Uncle Duke to get from him the exact truth. Uncle Duke is breaking–has broken–and now that the very worst has come, and we must face it, he will tell me what I ask. Whether I can get him to repeat this to you, to come to you, to throw himself on your pity, my dearest one, I don’t know. But it is for this I am going to try, and for this I beg of your love–the love of which I have been so proud!–that you will let me stay with him until I at least learn everything and can bring the whole story to you. If I can bring him, I will.

And I shall be safe with him–perfectly safe. Gale has been driven away. Pardaloe, I know I can trust, and he will be under the roof with me. Please, do not try to come to me. It might ruin everything. Only forgive me, and I shall be back with what I hope for, or what I fear, very, very soon. Not till then can I bear to look into your eyes. You have a better right than anyone in the world to know the whole truth, cost what it may. Be patient for only a little while with

Nan.

It was Jeffries who said, afterward, he hoped never again to be the bearer of a letter such as that. Never until he had read and grasped the contents of Nan’s note had Jeffries seen the bundle of resource and nerve and sinew, that men called Henry de Spain, go to pieces. For once, trouble overbore him.

When he was able to speak he told Jeffries everything. “It is my fault,” he said hopelessly. “I was so crippled, so stunned, she must have thought–I see it now–that I was making ready to ride out by daybreak and shoot Duke down on sight. It’s the price a man must pay, Jeffries, for the ability to defend himself against this bunch of hold-up men and assassins. Because they can’t get me, I’m a ‘gunman’–”