Judith of the Godless Valley/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
THE BATTLE OF THE BULLS
"The free plains were wonderful, but Judith's hand on my bit is more wonderful."
DOUGLAS felt somehow, after this day, that Judith was nearer to him. Not that she changed in her manner at all, but there was an indefinable something about her that gave him hope: hope strong enough at least to put up a creditable struggle with the despair that was forever creeping upon him at unguarded moments.
He slept in the chapel on Saturday night, just to make sure that no mischief was done under cover of the darkness. And on Sunday, Mr. Fowler preached an uninterrupted sermon. Scott was present, giving apparently an undivided ear to the preacher's discourse. Charleton was there, too. He ignored Douglas entirely. He had probably told no one of his trouble with Douglas and, knowing Douglas, he apparently felt that Lost Chief would remain in ignorance of the fight. So his saturnine face was as serenely insolent as ever, barring the remains of a very black eye.
Considered from an entirely detached point of view, the sermon was a thing of exceeding beauty. Inez should have been satisfied. The old preacher had a fine voice and he spoke without notes. Many a noted interpreter of the gospel might have envied him his control of voice and language.
The text was one of the most intriguing in the Bible. "Jesus said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me. Because I live, ye shall live also." Around about this, Mr. Fowler wove picture after picture of passionate faith in an hereafter. He told of the death of his own father, who with the death-rattle in his throat had sat erect in his bed crying, "O Christ, I see your face at last!"
He told of hardened criminals who had heard God's voice in their dreams. He told of children, who like little Samuel had been called by the Almighty in a voice as articulate as that of their own fathers. He told of the authenticity of the Biblical history of Christ and of the scientific explanations of Christ's miracles. He told of the faith of the ancestors of the people of Lost Chief, a faith which had led them across the Atlantic and through those first terrible years on the bleak New England shores. He concluded with a prayer for the return of the sheep to the fold, a prayer delivered with tears pouring down his weather-beaten cheeks, a prayer delivered in anguish of spirit and in a voice of heart-moving sincerity.
At the end, he sank into his chair by the table and covered his eyes with his shaking hand. Lost Chief sat silent for a moment, then Grandma Brown said in a quavering voice, "Let us sing Rock of Ages." But only she knew the words, and after a single verse she stopped, in some embarrassment.
Charleton coughed, yawned and rose. The little congregation followed him out into the yard, where horses and dogs were milling the half-melted snow into yellow muck.
"Well, Grandma," asked Charleton as he helped the old lady into her saddle, "what did you think of the sermon?"
"A pretty good sermon!" replied Grandma. "Made me feel like a girl again."
"My gawd, Grandma," exclaimed Charleton, "do you mean to say that an old Indian fighter like you swallowed that stuff!"
"I was believing that stuff before you were born, Charleton! If Fowler is going to keep this pace up, I'll say I'm sorry I ever called him a sissy. What did you think of it, Peter?"
Peter was leaning thoughtfully against his horse. "It was interesting. Ethics, as such, are too cold to interest most folks. So we sugar-coat 'em with flowery speech and sleight-of-hand and try to give 'em authority with a big threat. Then some hard-head like Charleton says, because the sugar-coating is silly, that there is nothing to ethics. Which is where he talks like a fool."
He whistled to Sister and trotted homeward. There was considerable elation in Doug's cabin that evening. The preacher said little but old Johnny was in fine fettle.
"Guess we showed 'em!" he said, frying the bacon with a skilled hand. "I bet we had words in that sermon none of 'em ever dreamed of before. You'd ought to use 'gregus,' Mr. Fowler. It's a hard word and so's depone. I told Grandma to come up Sunday and we'd have words looked out that would sure twist her gullet to say."
Mr. Fowler was seized with a sudden coughing fit from which he merged into violent laughter.
"What did your sister say?" he asked when he found his voice.
"She told me not to go any crazier than I already was, and I deponed to her how Doug felt about me, and she went home."
The sermon had indeed gone so well and the week that followed was so peaceful that Douglas did not sleep in the chapel on the following Saturday night. When Mr. Fowler unlocked the door on Sunday morning, a skunk fled from under the pulpit out into the aspens, and there was no service that day.
On the next Sunday, Charleton gave an all-day dance in the post-office hall and only half a dozen of the older people appeared at the chapel, to listen to a sermon on the Resurrection. He repeated the dance for three Sundays in succession and Douglas was in despair. Old Johnny was deeply wrought up over Douglas' state of mind, and one Saturday night he disappeared, returning at dawn. On that Sunday it was found that the stove in the dance-hall had disappeared and a check was put upon Charleton's competition.
And still, with no dances to rival the sermons, the attendance at the log chapel grew smaller and smaller. The lack of interest that was growing, now that the Valley's first curiosity had been satisfied, was more deadly than open warfare. Douglas saw clearly enough that the sermons were dull and he spent evening after evening sounding Fowler's mind to its depths in the endeavor to find some angle in it that would tempt Lost Chief into the chapel.
It was a good mind, that of this preacher, stored with a very fair amount of classical learning and packed with stories of western adventure. But classical lore had no appeal for modern-minded Lost Chief and Mr. Fowler's adventure could be surpassed by any man in the Valley.
Judith treated the sermons with open scorn. "No, indeed; I won't come up to the chapel," she replied to Doug's appeal. "Why should I suffer when I don't have to? If it would help you—! But it wouldn't! The sooner you learn what a fool the old sky pilot is, the better. Or, I tell you, Douglas! You preach the next sermon and I promise to come and bring the crowd."
Douglas grinned feebly. "I value my life," he answered.
Mary Spencer, who was listening to the conversation which took place in her kitchen, now made a suggestion.
"Why don't you feed 'em, Doug? Announce a series of fifty-cent dinners up at the chapel and while the folks eat, let Mr. Fowler preach."
Douglas laughed delightedly. "That's a 'gregus' idea! I'll do it. I'll begin this Sunday with a venison dinner!"
Mary nodded. "You get the food together and there are three or four of us women who would be glad to cook it for you."
"You are a real friend, Mother!" exclaimed Douglas. "I believe you've solved my problem!"
And so, in spite of Mr. Fowler's protest, a venison dinner was announced for Sunday and received by the Valley in a spirit of hilarious enthusiasm. The preacher refused to deliver the sermon while the meal was in progress, but it was such a gustatory success that at its close, the guests sat in complete docility through a sermon on future punishment. It was a good sermon, quite as modern in most aspects as Lost Chief. Douglas had seen to that. Mr. Fowler had reached the closing sentence when a bull bellowed outside and the door opened disclosing Elijah Nelson, with his horse close behind him. The preacher paused.
"Excuse me!" exclaimed Nelson. "I thought this was just a dinner!"
He was a big man, perhaps fifty years of age, with a smooth-shaven ruddy face. He wore a sheepskin vest over his corduroy coat, and one of the small boys bleated. Grandma Brown promptly smacked him on the mouth.
"Will you come in and eat?" asked Fowler.
"No, thank you," replied the Mormon; adding with a determined thrust of his lower jaw, "I want Scott Parsons to come out. I won't disturb the rest of you."
"What do you want of me?" demanded Scott from his place between Judith and Inez.
"Come outside and I'll tell you."
Scott grunted derisively. "It sure-gawd has got to be something more than that to win me out of this position. I'm the envy of Lost Chief, old sheep-man!"
There was a general laugh.
"Go on out and see what he wants, Scott," said Peter.
Scott sighed and detached himself. The congregation waited a moment; then curiosity had its own way and the chapel emptied itself into the yard. Several Mormons were sitting their horses before the line of quivering aspens that bound the little clearing. A big red bull was tied to the corral fence. Elijah Nelson remained on the doorstep.
"Well," he began, "since you are all out here, I'll say to all of you what I rode down here to say to Scott Parsons, he and anybody that may be helping him are hereby served notice that they've got to keep out of Mormon Valley. We are decent, God-fearing Americans, and we are not going to stand being robbed any more."
"How do you mean, being robbed?" asked Peter Knight.
"Well, I brought this along as a sample," replied Elijah. "Some five years or so ago, I had some cattle grazing on Lost Chief and somebody ran off a dozen head, this bull among the lot. Anybody that can't do a better job of rebranding than this, ought to try another line of business."
There was an interested craning of necks toward the huge brand offered in evidence; then every one looked at Scott. Scott said nothing, and Elijah went on.
"That fellow Parsons patrolled Mormon Creek, that heads up at Lost Chief Springs, all summer. He built a brush dam and threw the water out of our creek into his own ditch, whenever he felt like it. I didn't want to start a fight going. That's not a Mormon's business. We are peaceful folks, homesteading the wilderness. It was a wet summer and we managed to get enough water out of White Horse Creek to take care of us. But right is right and wrong is wrong and we aren't going to stand that next summer. Last week, a coyote was fastened into my chicken run; and last night a mountain lion with a trap hanging to his leg got into my corral, where I had two foals, and he killed them before I could get out. The trap had Scott Parsons' name cut onto it. I don't know who is helping him, if any, but I'm here with my neighbors to serve notice that it's got to stop. I see you've got a preacher here now. I begin to have hopes you may become peaceable yet."
A sudden gust of laughter swept Lost Chief.
"Well, Scott," asked Peter, "what have you got to say?"
"Me?" asked Scott. "I'm not a preacher or a Mormon. I haven't got the gift of gab. Charleton is a good talker. Let him say something."
"All right, old trapper," said Charleton obligingly. He grinned at Inez and began:
"Yet, ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose,
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close,—"
Elijah Nelson interrupted. "Is this the way you are going to answer a decent protest against injustice? Is this—"
"Wait now!" cried Grandma Brown. "Don't get all prodded up. Scott, you give this man a straight answer."
"Very well, Grandma; I'll do that little thing for you," drawled Scott. "Nelson, you and the rest of you Mormons and Jack-Mormons go plumb to hell, but leave my bull behind."
One of Nelson's neighbors rose in his stirrups and shook his fist at Scott. "You dogy-faced Gentile! I've got you marked! You are the one who ran our cattle off Lost Peak five years ago, and we know who helped you."
"Well, I think you Mormons had better get back to your plural wives!" cried John Spencer. "We've had about enough of this."
"Judith," said Douglas, "you take your mother and go home."
Judith turned bright eyes toward him. "Think I'm going to run away? No, sir!"
Elijah's neighbor laid his gun across his own arm. "Say that again, Spencer," he suggested, "unless you aren't willing to fight for your daughter!"
Mr. Fowler sprang up beside Nelson on the doorstep. "I beg of you all to disperse to your homes and don't desecrate the Sabbath by such a scene as this."
"O, don't talk like a fool, Fowler!" exclaimed Grandma Brown. At this moment her little grandson came roaring lustily up the trail. He was covered with muck and snow.
"Judith's bull has got away from us kids and he's headed this way!"
"What were you doing with him?" shrieked Grandma.
"We was going to bring him up here and put him in the church like Scott paid us for. And he said—"
But what the child intended to divulge was not to be known, for there was a bellow from the thickest of blue spruce and Sioux, with various chains and ropes dangling from his neck and legs, charged into the clearing. There was a sudden wild scattering of human beings. Judith whistled shrilly, but Sioux had been goaded beyond her control.
"Let me get my rope!" she cried.
"Hold up!" shouted Charleton. "Something's going to happen!"
The Mormon's bull had broken his halter and had turned to meet the on-coming Sioux. Sioux's bloodshot eyes fell on the stranger, and instantly the battle was joined. Snow flew. The buck fence crashed. The bulls bellowed, locked horns, retreated, charged, slipped, fell, rose again with a rapidity only equalled by the ferocity of the attack.
"They'll kill each other if they aren't stopped!" cried Fowler. "Stop them, Douglas! O God, what a place! What a place!"
"What a fight, you mean!" laughed Charleton. "I put up ten dollars on Sioux."
"Take you!" said Scott.
"If Spencer's bull kills mine, he'll pay for it!" cried Nelson.
"If they work into the corral," shouted Douglas, "some of you help me put up the fence again and we'll have them!"
"Well, but don't stop the fight." Young Jeff gesticulated excitedly. "I'm going to put up ten on Sioux!"
"Take you!" said Scott.
Nelson's bull ripped Sioux's flank for six inches and blood spurted to the ground. Both the great heads were undistinguishable masses of blood. Their hot breath hung frozen in the air. The western sun turned all the world beneath the aspens to crimson. The betting became more general and more hectic as the battle waxed more furious. The Mormons forgot their grievance for the moment and backed their bull freely.
Suddenly Sioux freed himself, retreated and charged with the full force of his two thousand pounds. He caught Nelson's bull on the fore shoulder. The visitor slid sideways, stumbled to his knees and rose, shaking the blood from his eyes. He gave a look at Sioux, who was preparing to charge again, and turning he fled along the trail toward Scott's ranch, uttering as he went the longdrawn and continuous bellow of the defeated bull.
Douglas, Judith, and John Spencer immediately roped Sioux. Scott spurred his horse across the trail and drew his gun. "Get back!" he said to two of the Mormons. "That's my bull!"
"No gun-play, Scott!" called Peter.
There was a sudden exodus of women and children down the home trail, but Judith continued talking soothingly to her bull.
Scott did not heed the postmaster. He went on, to the Mormons. "You blank-blanks have trimmed me out of my year's profits! I'm not going to lose the bull too!"
"Judith Spencer!" shouted Elijah Nelson, turning his horse toward Judith and her pet, "is that Scott Parsons' bull?"
There was sudden silence, broken only by the distant bellow of the retreating warrior. Judith sat very erect on Buster, her beaver cap on the back of her head, her wide gray eyes brilliant. She looked at Scott. His hard handsome face was expressionless. Douglas ran across the yard and reached up to tap Elijah Nelson on the chest.
"Don't drag a woman into this, you bastard American, you! I was up there that summer running your cattle and I lost every one of them, if you want to know, and there was no woman helping me out, either. Now, what are you going to do about that?"
Nelson lifted his hand.
"Wait a minute!" drawled Charleton. "It sure-gawd is your bull, Nelson. Scott ran it up to Mountain City, rebranded it there, and brought it back here in the spring."
"Why, you traitor!" roared Scott. "You staged the whole play, and I'll bet you staged this with your traps."
"I never let a debt go unpaid," chuckled Charleton.
"Aw, come off, Scott!" cried John Spencer. "Give them the bull and send them home. We are sick of your rows in this valley!"
Scott forgot that he was guarding the trail. He spurred his horse furiously toward John, flourishing his six-shooter. The two Mormons slipped quickly away.
"If you think you can sacrifice me for Jude, John Spencer!" cried Scott. He got no farther, for Douglas, now on the Moose, cracked him on the right wrist with the butt of his own gun. At the same time, Peter knocked John's arm into the air. Scott's weapon dropped into the snow.
"Now," said Douglas with his quiet grin, "this venison dinner party of mine is announced as over. You Mormons take yourselves and your dogs off my place. Frank," to the sheriff, who had been an amused spectator up to this point, "come over here and soothe Scott. He's a right nervous cowman to-day. Dad, you take Jude home."
Frank rode slowly over to take Scott's bridle.
"Well," said Peter, "looks like our host wants to get rid of us. Come on, Charleton."
"I'll get you later, Charleton!" shouted Scott.
"But how about—" began Nelson.
Douglas turned in his saddle and faced the older man. His young eyes suddenly looked grim and hard. "Nelson, you have seen what Lost Chief is like to-day. We have no fear and we have no friends and we have no God. But Lost Chief is ours and we intend to keep it. No Mormon is welcome. Don't use our trails or our range or our herd waters. Now, go!"
"Those are hard words, such as a man can't afford to speak to a neighbor," said Elijah, turning his horse slowly.
Douglas did not reply, and not at all reluctantly the visitors spurred up the drifted trail.
"Come on, Judith!" John nodded to the girl.
"I'm going to stay and doctor Sioux up," she said.
"Go on home, Judith," urged Douglas.
"I'll take care of the bull for you," said old Johnny, who had not spoken a word during the entire episode.
"Nobody can touch him in the state he's in but me. You know that!" declared Judith.
"Judith," repeated Douglas, "you go home."
"Why?" demanded the girl.
"You know why, Judith. Go on with Dad."
Judith set her lips, and slowly, very slowly spurred Buster after John's horse. Not until she was out of earshot did Douglas say to Scott:
"Scott, let's you and me settle our differences once and for all." It was dark now and cold. "You gather up that gun, Johnny, and we'll go into the cabin where it's warm."
"I'll not go near your house!" Scott spoke gruffly.
"Look here, Scott! Don't be a grouch! Let's see if we can't get together."
"Get together? What for? Some of this pious stuff, I suppose!"
"No, it's not! It's just common sense. We both plan to spend our lives in this valley. Why fight all +the time?"
"You can bet I do plan to spend my life in this valley. Neither you nor Charleton can run me out. Lost Chief is as much mine as it is yours. Don't you ever get it into that thick head of yours that you can be Big Chief here. I am going to have a finger in this pie myself."
"Aw, draw it mild, Scott!" protested the sheriff. "Nobody's afraid of your threats. Doug's advice is good. Come out of your grouch and join the crowd."
"Whose crowd? Doug's? I didn't know he had one except for idiots," sneered Scott.
"No," said Douglas cheerfully, "we don't want any idiots in our crowd. We want good friends and watchmen, hey, Johnny? Come on in, Scott. The going is pretty good."
Scott uttered an oath. Douglas, a straight, rather tense figure in the dusk, did not speak again for a long moment; then he said quietly, "All right, Scott! I'm through. Get off my place, quick!"
He dismounted and unsaddled the Moose. Scott rode off at a gallop.
"Want any help with the bull, Doug?" asked Frank Day.
"No, thanks! We'll get him into the stable and then look him over. Get the lantern, will you, Johnny?"
"Then I'll be riding," said the sheriff. "My chores should have been done an hour ago," and he jingled down the trail.
It was not difficult to lead Sioux into the little log cow stable. But here all progress ceased. The bull became so frantic whenever they tried to examine his wounds that after a prolonged struggle they left him. Johnny and Douglas finished the chores while the preacher went into the cabin and got supper. They sat long over the meal. Old Johnny was deeply excited. A fight always upset his poor old tangled nerves. Douglas finally suggested that he take the lantern and clean up after the dinner; and the old man, who loved to potter about the chapel almost as much as did the preacher, acquiesced enthusiastically.
After he had gone, Fowler said, "Douglas, that little chap is going to do some one bodily harm if we aren't careful. He is getting fanatically devoted to you. I had to keep my hand on his arm all the afternoon."
"The poor old dogy!" Doug shook his head. "We'll keep the guns away from him, and then he won't get into trouble. I'm more bothered about you and Scott than I am about me and Johnny, though!"
"Scott means mischief," said the preacher.
Douglas nodded. "I don't want you to go anywhere without me. He is plenty smart enough to know that the best way to get me is through you—or Judith!"
"Don't worry about me, Douglas. I heard Bryan say once, 'My body is covered with the callouses of defeat. No one can hurt me.' I am like Bryan. No one can hurt me. And I would guess that Judith can look out for herself."
Douglas grunted. The two sat staring at the fire in a silence that was not broken until Judith called from without, "Douglas, I want to see Sioux!"
Douglas took up the lantern and, followed by Fowler, went out. Judith stood beside Buster.
"You give me the lantern, Doug, and neither of you follow me. I can manage him best alone." She was not gone long. "He's not as bad off as I feared," she said when she returned. "I'll let him feed and rest for another hour, then I'll take him down home where I can tend to him right."
"Then let's go in out of the cold," suggested Fowler.
When they were established around the stove, Judith asked, "How did you and Scott get along, Douglas?"
Douglas told her of the conversation. Judith looked serious.
"You see, Doug, Dad keeps Scott sore all the time about me. I don't think he'd be half so ugly to you if it were not for that."
"O yes, he would!" replied Douglas. "Scott and I were born to fight with each other, just like old Prince and Charleton's Nero. We can't help our backs bristling when we see each other."
"Inez could make Scott behave if she cared anything about it. Scott isn't in love with her, but she has a lot of influence over him, like she has over the other men in this valley." Judith watched her hunting-boots steam against the hearth.
"She has too much influence over you, Judith," said Mr. Fowler.
"She's my friend," returned Judith briefly.
"Your friend!" cried Fowler. "Your friend! Do you realize what you are saying?"
"Yes, I certainly do, and I don't want a lecture about it either." Judith sat erect.
Mr. Fowler leaned forward, his eyes glowing with indignation. "I've swallowed all I can swallow about Inez Rodman. I allowed Douglas to bring her to the table and I ate with her though my gore rose in my throat. Because I felt that my only chance to win the confidence of Lost Chief was to countenance for a time that which cannot be countenanced. But I am through. How long do you think you can be a friend to Inez, Judith, and not become like her?"
Judith jumped to her feet. "O, I am so sick of this kind of thing!" she cried.
"Fowler is dead right and you know it, Judith," said Douglas.
"You don't dare to say these things to her face!" Judith's eyes were full of the tears of anger.
"I'd just as soon," Douglas grinned.
"I'm going to tell her what I think of her and what she is doing to the youth of Lost Chief," stated Mr. Fowler.
"She's not a bit worse for Lost Chief than Charleton Falkner," exclaimed Judith. "And you don't pick on him!"
"He couldn't be as bad as Inez," insisted the preacher. "There is nothing so bad for a community as her kind of a woman."
"That just isn't so, Mr. Fowler," protested Douglas. "Charleton is worse than Inez ever thought of being. All I'm complaining about is her influence on Judith."
"You both talk as if I had no mind of my own!" Judith said indignantly. "If you knew the temptations I'd withstood, you'd not be so free with your comments about me. And if all I'm going to get when I come up here is criticism, I'm not coming any more. Don't you follow me, Douglas!" and Judith, in her short khaki suit, swept out of the cabin with a grace and dignity that would have done credit to a velvet train.
The preacher was deeply perturbed He rose and paced the floor. "Douglas, I've tried to play this thing your way. But now I am through compromising. There can be no compromise with God. I'm no longer going to keep silence when events like those this afternoon take place. Undoubtedly my stay in Lost Chief will be short. But while I'm here I am going to stand openly and vehemently for the ten commandments."
Douglas tilted his chair back, folded his arms on his chest, and dropped his chin. "Something's wrong with your religion," he said.
"Nothing is wrong with my religion," retorted the preacher. "But Lost Chief is more wrong than most places. It's a transplanted New England community, and people who come from Puritan stock can't get along without God. They are worse than any one else without Him."
"I'm sick of worrying about it!" cried Douglas irritably.
"Do you mean you are sick of the fight? That you are going to let Inez have Judith?"
Douglas straightened up. "No, by God! Not if I have to shoot Inez! You go ahead and preach your own way. I'll see that you are not hurt."
And this was his last word on the subject that night.