Judith of the Godless Valley/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
PRINCE GOES MARCHING ON
"A wise dog won't tackle a trapped wolverine."
THE next morning Johnny Brown trotted up on his old cow-pony. The preacher and Douglas were at breakfast. All the world was bristling with frost and a million opalescent lights danced on every snowdrift. Douglas swung the door open.
"Well, Johnny, did you finally break away from everybody?"
The little old man slid briskly from the saddle, brushed the icicles from his beard, and grinned broadly.
"Even Inez, she tried to stop me. Says some one has got to get her some cedar wood for her heater stove. 'You get you some squaw-wood, Inez,' I deponed. 'Them that can't make the men chop regular wood for 'em, don't deserve nothing better than brittle stuff like alder. Get you some squaw-wood, Inez,' I deponed. Douglas, they are plumb jealous of you. Since you seen there was something to me beside a old half-wit, they've all been horning round, jealous like, to get me."
Douglas, his yellow hair a glory in the rising sun, nodded seriously.
"Look to your saddle, Johnny, then come in to breakfast. I've got a few steers I want to dehorn to-day, so you're just in time."
The preacher was still at breakfast when old Johnny came in. The two old men stared at each other with unmixed interest. Douglas stood with his back to the stove, a cigarette drooping from his lips, a remote twinkle in his eyes.
Johnny lushed down his second saucer of coffee before he attempted to marshall his thoughts into speech. But, having accomplished this, he said, "Doug and me are gregus great friends, Mr. Fowler. There ain't anybody in Lost Chief thinks as much of him as I do."
The preacher nodded. "Douglas says he's fond of you."
"I guess he is," returned Johnny, condescendingly. "I guess if the the truth be deponed, he's fonder of me than he is of anybody—excepting maybe Judith. And Judith, she sure-gawd don't apregate Doug like I do, even if I am a half-wit. Judith's awful smart but she ain't got much sense."
"Judith is pretty fine, Johnny!" exclaimed Douglas, with the faint glow in his blue eyes that mention of her name always brought.
"Yes, she is," agreed Johnny. "But she's just like her mother was. All fire. And you can squench fire so it's just ashes. It would be a gregus good thing for the Valley if John Spencer was to break his neck."
"Don't say that, Johnny!" protested the preacher. "After all, he's one of God's creatures."
Johnny chuckled. "Now, who is half-witted, huh?"
"Young Jeff back on the mail route, Johnny?" asked Douglas hastily.
"Yes. Peter Knight, he's awful fond of Judith."
Douglas looked at Johnny keenly, his jaw setting as he did so. Was there, he thought, something obvious here, or was it only the half-wit's curiously sharp but confused intuition at work? At any rate, he must know the truth. He could not endure this added uneasiness.
"On second thoughts," he said aloud, "I think I'll not dehorn to-day. I want to get an order off for a new saddle on to-day's mail stage. Johnny, one of your main jobs is to guard the sky pilot and the chapel, when I'm not here. You're not to let anything happen to either of them."
"Shall I shoot on sight?" demanded the little old man.
Mr. Fowler smiled. Douglas shook his head. "No; let's not get into that kind of trouble. You don't carry a gun anyhow, do you?"
"No," plaintively. "Grandma won't let me. But I thought you'd loan me something."
"I haven't got anything but my old six-shooter, which I can't spare. Listen, Johnny! When you think somebody needs to be shot, you come to me and tell me about it, see? You know I know you have a lot more self-control than these Lost Chief folks think you have. You aren't one of these guys that shoots first and thinks afterward."
Johnny turned to the preacher triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you he was my friend?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Mr. Fowler, "and he's mine too, and you and I must take care of him. Lost Chief needs him."
Old Johnny rose and solemnly offered a gnarled hand to the preacher. Douglas laughed in an embarrassed way and went out to the corral, to saddle the Moose.
Judith was feeding the chickens as he trotted past the Spencer place. He waved his hand but would not permit himself to stop. He found Peter alone in his room, mending a belt.
"Well, Doug," he said, "how does the reform movement progress?"
"We added Johnny Brown to our side this morning," replied Douglas. "Some line-up, I'd say!"
"Old Johnny is certainly your man," Peter chuckled. "How do he and the sky pilot hit it off?"
"It's too early to say. By the way, did you have a run-in with Scott?"
"Not at all. Scott said Elijah was welcome to use the trail if he kept to it."
Doug's mouth opened and closed. He took a letter from his pocket and laid a pile or bills beside it on the table. "Will you send that mail order off for me to-day, Peter? I'm blowing myself to a new saddle."
"Must be money in staking a sky pilot," grinned the postmaster. "I didn't notice you taking up a collection on Sunday, though."
Douglas laughed. "It pays so well that I've got to ride the traps again this winter to pay for the grubstake. Dad is so sore that he isn't allowing me all he might."
"I'll help you if you are too much squeezed. I hope you won't be as bull-headed about taking a loan from me as Judith is. By the way, how are matters coming between you and Jude, Douglas?"
"Report no progress!" grunted Doug.
"She's a restless young colt. I wish she could begin to get a sense of direction as you are. Maybe she will, now she can get a bird's-eye view of you. You've always lived too close to each other to understand each other. You'll learn a lot about Jude and she about you, now you've moved a few miles away."
"Do you honestly want me to have Judith, Peter?" asked Douglas with a sudden huskiness in his voice.
Peter, who was standing by the window examining the buckles of the belt, looked up at Douglas with surprise in the lift of his eyebrows. After a moment, he said, "What are you driving at, Doug?"
Douglas took a quick turn up and down the room, then halted before Peter, his sensitive mouth twitching, his blue eyes glowing. It seemed to him that he could not ask the question that must be asked; but finally he spoke, in a voice that was tense in the effort for self-control.
"Peter, I've thought of nothing else since last night. Something about the way you looked at her—! You are the best friend that I have, Peter, but I can't give Judith up, even to you; it would be like trying to tear the veins out of my body. She's my life, Judith is!"
The older man put the rider's belt carefully on the window-ledge, walked over to the table and slowly filled his pipe. When he had filled it, he laid it down beside the belt, put his hands in his pocket, and turned to Doug, who, with the cold sweat standing on his forehead, was watching Peter's every movement. The wind swept snow down through the sod roof. It hissed faintly on the stove. Peter's long face was knotted and hard.
"You have given me a shock, Douglas," he said at last. "You've given me a shock!"
Douglas' heart thudded heavily. It was true, then! Peter did care, though perhaps he had not realized it before.
Peter went on, with painful concentration on Douglas' blue eyes. "I hadn't known it, till this minute, Doug. I thought I was through. I'm fifty-six. God! Does life never finish with a man?" He laughed drearily. "Don't look at me like that, Douglas! You and I will never be rivals! This sort of thing can't undo me again. I swear it!"
He paced the room again, and once more paused before the young rider. "Not that I underestimate the strength of the thing. Who knows so well as I that love is the most powerful force in the world? Mind you, Doug, I make a sharp distinction between love and lust. Lust can be controlled by any one. Love can be controlled by a man as old as I am. But when love grips a young fellow like you, he is powerless to throw it off, I'd be a cur, Douglas, at my age, to refuse to throttle a love that would conflict wiih you—the man I like best in the world."
He paused, Douglas did not stir. Peter, lifted his pipe, laid it down, and set a matcth carefully beside it.
"Douglas," he said, "my market is made. I sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Whatever regrets or grief I may have are just. To contemplate a a girl like Judith having any interest in me, is ghastly. Judith is yours, whether she realizes it or not. Wil1 you stay for dinner?"
He put his pipe in his mouth and lighted it. Douglas gave a long, uncertain sigh.
"No thanks, Peter! I must get back to my sky pilot. You will be at the log chapel early on Sunday?"
"Yes. But you'd better let him handle the _meeting. Have him preach on immortality. You've sort of got them going on that."
Douglas nodded, put his hand on the door knob, then turned back.
"Peter, does life never finish with a man? Don't you find peace anywhere along the line?"
"Not your kind of a man. There are a number of sure springs in the desert, though, where a man can be certain of a mighty pleasant camp. But it's only a camp."
Douglas moistened his lips. "What can a fellow do about it?" he demanded.
"Well," replied the older man, "he can make up his mind to find it devilishly interesting, even the dry marches."
The young rider threw back his head. "Me—I'm going to find more than interest! I'll find color and some thrills, too. See if I don't!"
Peter laughed grimly. "Yes, you'll find a thrill or two but always where you least expect it."
Douglas' smile was twisted. He opened the door and went out into the wind-swept day. Smoke drove horizontally from the low chimneys that dotted the valley. Cattle bellowed as if in disconsolate protest against the ruthless on-march of winter. Douglas, in spite of the last few words with Peter, was in a curiously uplifted frame of mind which for some time he could not dissect. Part of it he knew to be relief from the sudden suspicion that had overwhelmed him, but he was half-way home before he told himself that Peter's essential fineness had revived his faith in the goodness and kindliness in human nature. In a life where one could know a Peter, he thought, there must be beauty and a kind of beauty that Inez could neither find nor appreciate. Poor old Inez!
The dinner hour was long past when he jingled along the trail past his father's place. On sudden impulse he turned the Moose into the yard. Judith opened the door. She was in sweater and riding-skirt. Her black hair was bundled up under a round beaver cap under which her bright beauty glowed in a way to lift a far less interested heart than Doug's.
"Hello, Douglas!"
"Hello, Judith! Where are you going?"
"Just out to jump the little wild mare. Where have you been?"
"Down to the post-office. I saw Dad heading for Charleton's."
"Yes, I'm alone. Mother went over to Grandma's. The old lady is ailing."
Douglas jumped from the saddle. "You haven't mentioned it, but, thanks, I will come in. Is there any grub in the house? I haven't had dinner yet."
Judith laughed. "I was expecting that! I just finished my own. Come along!"
Douglas ate his dinner while Judith watched with speculative eyes.
"Peter is a funny old duck," she said finally.
"Funny? How?"
"O, he's so lonely and so cross and such good company and so kind! I'd like to have known him when he was young."
Douglas looked at her closely. "Jude, could you get to care for Peter if you thought he cared for you?"
"Who, me? Peter? What's the matter with you, Doug? Why, Peter is as old as Dad!"
"What difference does that make?"
"It wouldn't make any difference if I cared for him," admitted Judith, tapping thoughtfully on the table-cloth with slim brown fingers.
"But do you care for him, Judith?" insisted Douglas.
Judith's fine lips twisted contemptuously. "What an idiot you are, Doug!"
"Do you, hang it? Answer me, Jude!"
"No! No! No! Does that satisfy you?"
"Well, partially. Guess I'll have to ask Inez the same question."
Judith smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Douglas went on.
"I'll bet if you could get the truth out of Inez, Judith, you'd find her suffering torments because she can't marry."
"Can't marry? Why can't Inez marry?" demanded Judith belligerently.
"Because no decent man would marry her," returned Douglas flatly.
Judith laughed. "You poor old male, you! Will you kindly tell me what man in this valley you consider more decent than Inez?"
"I'm decent," said Douglas, flushing, but not the less firmly.
Judith's eyes softened. "You've kept that promise, Doug?"
"Yes," briefly. "And I wouldn't have a woman like Inez if she was as beautiful as Cleopatra and as rich as Hetty Green!"
"Well," airily, "that eliminates you, of course. But let me warn you, Douglas, that if Inez Rodman really loved a man and wanted to marry him, he'd have about as much chance as a coyote used to have when Sister was young enough to run them. Only, if Inez ever does love a man, she won't marry him. She'll keep herself a mystery to him. 'And forever would he love and she be fair.'"
"What's that you're quoting?" asked Douglas.
Judith, her eyes on the window through which shouldered the great flank of Dead Line Peak, repeated the immortal lines. When she had finished, Douglas sighed.
"It's very beautiful!" he said. "But life isn't a procession round a Grecian Urn. It's hard riding from start to finish. And it's a poor sport that won't accept that fact and ride according to the rules. Marriage is one of the rules. I believe in it."
Judith walked slowly round the table and put a hand on either shoulder. There was a baffling light in her splendid gray eyes as she said, "Douglas, do you think for a minute that if I told you I loved you madly, I couldn't persuade you not to marry me?"
Her touch was flame. Douglas drew a long, uncertain breath.
"If you said that you loved me madly, you could do almost anything with me, I suppose. The only thing that keeps me steady is believing that you don't love me."
Judith smiled curiously. Douglas lifted her hands from his shoulders. "Don't torture me, Jude," he said, his voice husky and his fingers uncertain, as he lighted a cigarette.
"I wouldn't torture you, any more than I'd torture myself," replied Judith.
She leaned against the window-frame, looking out at the serenity of the mountain.
"Life," she said suddenly, "is like climbing to the top of Falkner's Peak. Terribly difficult and frightfully wearing, but O, what marvelous views as you reach shoulder after shoulder! Inez is beginning to find life rather a dreary kind of mess. But not I! The Lord knows, my life looks stupid to every one but me, and the Lord knows, I'm restless and unhappy. But I never stop thinking for a minute that it's great, just great to be alive and l— and alive."
Douglas smiled a little uncertainly. "Do you ever think twice the same way, Jude?"
"Once in a while! In fact, I'm getting that way more and more. You'll see! I'm going to get me educated, Douglas, and find me a real job. See if I don't!"
Douglas put on his gloves. "I couldn't be any prouder of you, Judith, if you had all the education in the world. Don't forget to come up on Sunday."
"I suppose I'll have to lend my support," said Judith. "But I still think you are a fool."
"You can think me all the fools you want to, if you'll just keep backing me," replied Douglas, striding out to the whinnying Moose.
He found old Johnny and the preacher on terms of easy friendship. Johnny was inclined to be patronizing but Douglas caught the twinkle in Fowler's eyes and made no attempt to control Johnny's manners.
It was not until nearly bed time that Doug missed Prince. The old dog was gradually giving up the solitary coyote hunts he had taken in his younger days and, contrary too, to his earlier habits, he now liked to sleep indoors. He was usually shivering on the door-step waiting for a chance to scramble under the stove when Doug went out to look at the stock for the night.
But to-night he was not there, nor did his short bark come in response to Doug's whistling. Old Johnny and the preacher came to the door.
"Stop your whistling and listen, Douglas," suggested Fowler.
Douglas obeyed, and faintly on the frosty air sounded the reiterated yelps of a dog.
"That's Prince and he's in trouble!" exclaimed Doug. "He's up on the shoulder of Lost Chief, I depone," said Johnny.
"I'll go up there." Douglas took his rifle from behind the door and hurried out to the corral. The two men followed him, and by the time Doug had buckled on his spurs, they had saddled his horse.
"Either he's got into a trap or he's tackled something too big for him," said Douglas; "and it's up to me to look out for my pal."
The moon had risen and the snow was very light. Prince continued to yelp and it was not long before Douglas found the dog's tracks and was able to follow them without difficulty. They led up to the tree line on the east flank of Lost Chief Peak. The yelps appeared to come from not far within the border of pines.
Douglas chuckled. "He sure has bitten off more than he can chew this time! I'll have to tell that old dog that—"
A revolver shot interrupted his thoughts. The yelps abruptly ceased. Douglas spurred his horse and in a moment saw the figure of a man standing beside an outcropping rock. It was Charleton Falkner. Douglas threw himself from his horse. Prince, his paw in a trap, lay motionless on the ground beside the badly mangled body of a wolverine. Charleton's face in the moonlight was coolly vindictive.
"I'll teach a dog to spoil a pelt for me!" he said. "He didn't realize there were two traps here."
"But that was my dog, Prince!" exclaimed Doug.
"I don't care if it was the Almighty's dog! He can't rob my traps if I know it!" snarled Charleton.
Douglas advanced slowly. "You don't seem to get the idea, Charleton. That was my old dog that grew up with me—the faithfulest little chap in Lost Chief. I'd have paid you for the pelt and you know it. What did you shoot him for?"
Charleton's jaws worked. "I'll show you and Scott and the whole valley that my traps and my hunts are not to be interfered with!"
"Still you don't get the idea." Douglas was now not an arm's-length from Charleton. "You can't shoot a man's dog, at least this man's dog and go unpunished. You and Dad have bullied this valley long enough, Charleton. Put up your hands and take your punishment."
He struck the six-shooter from Charleton's hand and the battle was joined. Douglas' only advantage over his adversary was in point of youth, for Charleton was as lean and powerful as a gorilla. But youth was a powerful ally and eventually it was Charleton who lay in the snow, blinking at the moon. Douglas, panting and still so angry that it was difficult for him not to kick Charleton where he lay, released Prince's paw and threw the familiar gray body across the saddle. Then he mounted, laying Prince across his knees.
Charleton sat up slowly.
"That licking wasn't all for poor old Prince," said Douglas. "Part of it was for the kid whose mind you deliberately tried to poison, and part of it is for Inez. You were the first man, you boasted to me, who ever went to Rodman's. And part of it's for the loneliness you've made in Lost Chief. What have you got to say—huh?"
Charleton rose. "Nice young buck you are to attack a man old enough to be your father! This is what I get for my kindness to you. This is a bad night's work for you, you young whelp!"
Douglas, one hand on his old dog's stiffening shoulder, bit back his resurging wrath and tapped his horse with the spurs. Fowler and Old Johnny came out to meet him. He gave Prince to Johnny and then dismounted.
"Charleton shot my dog!" he said.
"What shall I do with him?" asked Johnny.
"Shut him up in the feed shed and I'll bury him in the morning." Douglas stalked into the house, where the two others shortly followed him. They looked at his face and for a moment even old Johnny hesitated to speak. In spite of his cold ride, Doug's face was deadly white, his lips worked, and his eyes were dark with feeling. He took off his spurs slowly, and hung them carefully on their nail. Then he sat down on his bunk and stared at the preacher.
"What happened, Douglas?" asked Fowler.
"Prince evidently tackled a wolverine in one of Charleton's traps and I'm not so sure either but it might have been Scott's. Anyhow he surprised some kind of a deal Charleton was trying to put over. Then he got his paw in a free trap and started yelping. Charleton got to him before I did and shot him."
"What was he doing riding his traps at this hour?" asked the preacher.
"I don't know. I loved that dog and so did Jude. It will make her sick when she hears. He was good for two or three years more and he should have died like a good rancher, right at home, here."
"What did you say to Charleton?"
"I said what I thought beside knocking him down."
Fowler said nothing more but he put his hand on Doug's knee. Doug cleared his throat and rose ostensibly to put a stick of wood in the stove.
Old Johnny picked up the rifle and started for the door.
"Where are you going, Johnny?" asked Douglas, huskily.
"I'm going to watch. Charleton he ain't never going to stop now till he fixes you. He's got to get me first. Maybe I ain't as smart as Prince was but I depone I'll do my best."
Douglas laughed a little brokenly. He put his arm around old Johnny's shoulder and with his free hand took the gun.
"Don't you worry about me, Johnny. Your job is the church and the preacher and you remember you promised not to shoot until you told me about it."
"That's right," exclaimed the preacher. "And now I suggest that you let me read a chapter from the Bible and that we then get to bed."
Johnny looked at Douglas in embarrassment, but Douglas nodded and his old guard sat down beside him on the bunk with a contented sigh.
"'I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.—This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.—Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'" Fowler closed the book and bowed his head over it. "O God," he prayed, "give us patience and kindness and understanding. Amen."
He rose then and Douglas, vaguely comforted by the sympathy of the two old men, went to bed and to sleep. It had been a day of such stress as even his young years of mental conflicts had seldom endured.
The next day, when Douglas went down to the Spencer ranch to borrow the paraphernalia for dehorning, his father beckoned him mysteriously into the cowshed. John had been surly for six months and Douglas was surprised to hear the note of gratification in his voice.
"What have you been doing to Charleton, Doug?"
"What does he say I've been doing?" asked Douglas, picking the snow out of his spurs.
"He says you knocked him down. He came in here last night breathing fire."
"Did he say why I knocked him down?"
"Yes. Because he wouldn't let your dog rob his traps."
"Prince got after a wolverine in his or Scott's traps and Charleton shot the old pup. He'd better be thankful I didn't boot him all the way home."
Douglas' face was growing white again. John looked at his tall son with a mixture of admiration and bewilderment in his eyes.
"By the Great Sitting Bull, Doug, I can't understand you! Here you go for six months making a blank sissy of yourself over a sky pilot and then you give the most dangerous man in the Valley the gol-dingest mauling and beating he ever had in his life! Why, even I won't go up against Charleton. He's a bad man!"
"He's a bag of wind!" said Douglas contemptuously. "I found that out years ago when his boy was born. Does Jude know?"
"No; she was asleep and he stayed in the kitchen with me and washed up. But don't think you've finished with him. He's a mean man, Douglas."
"Yes, he's mean enough. On the other hand, Charleton knows I've got his number and he'll let me alone. I'm not worrying about him. That guy can't even keep his temper. Loan me the tar-pot, will you, and the searing-iron."
John suddenly laughed. Douglas grinned faintly, then said, "I know now how Jude felt when you shot that little old Swift horse."
"I suppose if you'd been big enough, you'd have treated me as you did Charleton," said John cheerfully.
"I sure would have tried to," replied Douglas.
"Where's Jude?"
"Working on the little wild mare in the corral."
Douglas nodded to his father and went in search of Judith. She nodded gaily from the saddle.
"Why so sober, old-timer?"
"Overwork!" exclaimed Douglas. "Jude, will you come up and help me with the handful of steers I want to dehorn?"
"What's the matter with Old Gentlemen's Home?" asked Judith with her impish smile.
"They are taken up with reforming each other," replied Douglas; adding more seriously, "they are too old to be much help with the rope, Jude."
"I know," she nodded. "I'll come right along."
It was not until they had nearly reached Doug's corral that he found courage to tell her about the death of Prince. She said nothing, for a moment, but she brought the mare up close to the Moose and laid her hand on Douglas' knee.
"Dear old boy!" she said. "I know!" Then she sobbed for a moment against his shoulder. But when he would have put his arm about her she straightened herself and said, "But weren't you glad you were strong enough to thrash him!"
"Yes!" replied Douglas.
They said no more about it, but after the dehorning was done, Douglas saw Judith stand for a long time beside the chapel. He knew how her heart was aching, for she too was a lover of dogs.