The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Read online

  CHAPTER XI

  HECTOR HALL SETS A BEACON

  Mackenzie sat a long time on his hill that night, his ear turnedto the wind, smoking his pipe and thinking the situation overwhile listening for the first sound of commotion among the sheep.He had pledged himself to Tim and Joan that he would not quitthe sheep country without proving that he had in him the mettleof a flockmaster. Hector Hall had been given to understand thesame thing. In fact, Mackenzie thought, it looked as if he hadbeen running with his eyes shut, making boastful pledges.

  He might have to hedge on some of them, or put them through at a costfar beyond the profit. It came that way to a boaster of his intentionssometimes, especially so when a man spoke too quickly and assumed toomuch. Here he was standing face to a fight that did not appear topromise much more glory in the winning than in the running away.

  There had been peace in that part of the sheep country a long time;Mackenzie had come to Jasper, even, long after the feuds between theflockmasters and cattlemen had worn themselves out save for anoutbreak of little consequence in the far places now and then. But thepeace of this place had been a coward's peace, paid for in money andhumiliation. A thing like that was not to be expected of Tim Sullivan,although from a business reasoning he doubtless was right about it.

  It was Mackenzie's work now to clean up the camp of the Hall brothers,along with Swan Carlson, and put an end to their bullying and edgingover on Tim Sullivan's range, or take up his pack and trudge out ofthe sheep country as he had come. By staying there and fighting forTim Sullivan's interests he might arrive in time at a dustyconsequence, his fame, measured in thousands of sheep, reaching evento Jasper and Cheyenne, and perhaps to the stock-yards commissionoffices in Omaha and Chicago.

  "John Mackenzie, worth twenty thousand, or fifty thousand sheep."

  That would be the way they would know him; that would be the measureof his fame. By what sacrifice, through what adventure, how muchstriving and hard living he might come to the fame of twenty thousandsheep, no man would know or care. There in the dusty silences of thatgray-green land he would bury the man and the soul that reached upwardin him with pleasant ambitions, to become a creature over sheep. Justa step higher than the sheep themselves, wind-buffeted, cold-cursed,seared and blistered and hardened like a callous through which theurging call of a man's duty among men could pierce no more.

  But it had its compensations, on the other hand. There must be a vastsatisfaction in looking back over the small triumphs won againsttremendous forces, the successful contest with wild winter storm,ravaging disease, night-prowling beasts. Nature was the big forcearrayed against a flockmaster, and it was unkind and menacing sevenmonths out of the year. That must be the secret of a flockmaster'ssatisfaction with himself and his lot, Mackenzie thought; he couldcount himself a fit companion for the old gods, if he knew anythingabout them, after his victory over every wild force that could be bentagainst him among those unsheltered hills.

  The Hall brothers were a small pest to be stamped out and forgotten inthe prosperity of multiplying flocks. As for Swan Carlson, poorsavage, there might be some way of reaching him without furtherviolence between them. Wild and unfeeling as he seemed, there must bea sense of justice in him, reading him by his stern, immobile face.

  As he sat and weighed the argument for and against the sheep business,the calling of flockmaster began to take on the color of romanticattraction which had not been apparent to him before. In his way,every flockmaster was a hero, inflexible against the unreckoned forceswhich rose continually to discourage him. This was true, as he longhad realized, of a man who plants in the soil, risking the large partof his capital of labor year by year. But the sheepman's risks weregreater, his courage immensely superior, to that of the tiller of thesoil. One storm might take his flock down to the last head, leavinghim nothing to start on again but his courage and his hope.

  It appeared to Mackenzie to be the calling of a proper man. Aflockmaster need not be a slave to the range, as most of them were. Hemight sit in his office, as a few of them did, and do the thing like agentleman. There were possibilities of dignity in it heretoforeoverlooked; Joan would think better of it if she could see it donethat way. Surely, it was a business that called for a fight to buildand a fight to hold, but it was the calling of a proper man.

  Mackenzie was immensely cheered by his reasoning the sheep businessinto the romantic and heroic class. Here were allurements of which hehad not dreamed, to be equaled only by the calling of the sea, and notby any other pursuit on land at all. A man who appreciated the subtleshadings of life could draw a great deal of enjoyment and self-prideout of the business of flockmaster. It was one of the most ancientpursuits of man. Abraham was a flockmaster; maybe Adam.

  But for all of the new comfort he had found in the calling he hadadopted, Mackenzie was plagued by a restless, broken sleep when hecomposed himself among the hillside shrubs above the sheep. A vaguesense of something impending held him from rest. It was present overhis senses like a veil of drifting smoke through his shallow sleep.Twice he moved his bed, with the caution of some haunted beast; manytimes he started in his sleep, clutching like a falling man, to sit upalert and instantly awake.

  There was something in the very tension of the night-silence thatwarned him to be on the watch. It was not until long after midnightthat he relaxed his straining, uneasy vigil, and stretched himself tounvexed sleep. He could steal an hour or two from the sheep in theearly morning, he told himself, as he felt the sweet restfulness ofslumber sweeping over him; the helpless creatures would remain on thebedding-ground long after sunrise if he did not wake, waiting for himto come and set them about the great business of their lives. Theyhadn't sense enough to range out and feed themselves without thedirection of man's guiding hand.

  Mackenzie had dipped but a little way into his refreshing rest whenthe alarmed barking of his dogs woke him with such sudden wrench thatit ached. He sat up, senses drenched in sleep for a struggling moment,groping for his rifle. The dogs went charging up the slope toward thewagon, the canvas top of which he could see indistinctly on thehillside through the dark.

  As Mackenzie came to his feet, fully awake and on edge, the dogsmouthed their cries as if they closed in on the disturber of the nightat close quarters. Mackenzie heard blows, a yelp from a disabled dog,and retreat toward him of those that remained unhurt. He fired a shot,aiming high, running toward the wagon.

  Again the dogs charged, two of them, only, out of the three, and againthere was the sound of thick, rapid blows. One dog came back to itsmaster, pressing against his legs for courage. Mackenzie shouted,hoping to draw the intruder into revealing himself, not wanting theblood of even a rascal such as the night-prowler on his hands througha chance shot into the dark. There was no answer, no sound from thedeep blackness that pressed like troubled waters close to the ground.

  The dog clung near to Mackenzie's side, his growling deep in histhroat. Mackenzie could feel the beast tremble as it pressed againsthim, and bent to caress it and give it confidence. At his reassuringtouch the beast bounded forward to the charge again, only to comeyelping back, and continue on down the hill toward the flock.

  Mackenzie fired again, dodging quickly behind a clump of bushes afterthe flash of his gun. As he crouched there, peering and strainingahead into the dark, strong hands laid hold of him, and tore his rifleaway from him and flung him to the ground. One came running from thewagon, low words passed between the man who held Mackenzie pinned tothe ground, knees astride him, his hands doubled back against his chinin a grip that was like fetters. This one who arrived in haste gropedaround until he found Mackenzie's rifle.

  "Let him up," he said.

  Mackenzie stood, his captor twisting his arms behind him with suchsilent ease that it was ominous of what might be expected should thesheepherder set up a struggle to break free.

  "Bud, I've come over after my guns," said Hector Hall, speaking closeto Mackenzie's ear.

  "They're up at the wagon," Mackenzie told him
, with rather an injuredair. "You didn't need to make all this trouble about it; I was keepingthem for you."

  "Go on up and get 'em," Hall commanded, prodding Mackenzie in the ribswith the barrel of his own gun.

  The one who held Mackenzie said nothing, but walked behind him, rathershoved him ahead, hands twisted in painful rigidity behind his back,pushing him along as if his weight amounted to no more than a child's.At the wagon Hall fell in beside Mackenzie, the barrel of a gun againat his side.

  "Let him go," he said. And to Mackenzie: "Don't try to throw anytricks on me, bud, but waltz around and get me them guns."

  "They're hanging on the end of the coupling-pole; get them yourself,"Mackenzie returned, resentful of this treatment, humiliated to suchdepths by this disgrace that had overtaken him that he cared littlefor the moment whether he should live or die.

  Hall spoke a low, mumbled, unintelligible word to the one who stoodbehind Mackenzie, and another gun pressed coldly against the back ofthe apprentice sheepman's neck. Hall went to the end of the wagon,found his pistols, struck a match to inspect them. In the light of theexpiring match at his feet Mackenzie could see the ex-cattlemanbuckling on the guns.

  "Bud, you've been actin' kind of rash around here," Hall said, ininsolent satisfaction with the turn of events. "You had your lucky daywith me, like you had with Swan Carlson, but I gave you a sneak'schance to leave the country while the goin' was good. If you everleave it now the wind'll blow you out. Back him up to that wagonwheel!"

  Mackenzie was at the end of his tractable yielding to commands, seeingdimly what lay before him. He lashed out in fury at the man whopressed the weapon to his neck, twisting round in a sweep of passionthat made the night seem to burst in a rain of fire, careless of whatimmediate danger he ran. The fellow fired as Mackenzie swung round,the flash of the flame hot on his neck.

  "Don't shoot him, you fool!" Hector Hall interposed, his voice a growlbetween his teeth.

  Mackenzie's quick blows seemed to fall impotently on the body of theman who now grappled with him, face to face, Hector Hall throwinghimself into the tangle from the rear. Mackenzie, seeing his assaultshaping for a speedy end in his own defeat, now attempted to breakaway and seek shelter in the dark among the bushes. He wrenched freefor a moment, ducked, ran, only to come down in a few yards withHector Hall on his back like a catamount.

  Fighting every inch of the way, Mackenzie was dragged back to thewagon, where his captors backed him against one of the hind wheels andbound him, his arms outstretched across the spokes in the manner of aman crucified.

  They had used Mackenzie illy in that fight to get him back to thewagon; his face was bleeding, a blow in the mouth had puffed his lips.His hat was gone, his shirt torn open on his bosom, but a wild ragethrobbed in him which lifted him above the thought of consequences ashe strained at the ropes which held his arms.

  They left his feet free, as if to mock him with half liberty in theordeal they had set for him to face. One mounted the front wagon wheelnear Mackenzie, and the light of slow-coming dawn on the sky beyondhim showed his hand uplifted as if he sprinkled something over thewagon sheet. The smell of kerosene spread through the still air; amatch crackled on the wagon tire. A flash, a sudden springing offlame, a roar, and the canvas was enveloped in fire.

  Mackenzie leaned against his bonds, straining away from the suddenheat, the fast-running fire eating the canvas from the bows, the bunkwithin, and all the furnishings and supplies, on fire. There seemed tobe no wind, a merciful circumstance, for a whip of the high-strivingflames would have wrapped him, stifling out his life in a moment.

  Hall and the other man, who had striven with Mackenzie in suchpowerful silence, had drawn away from the fire beyond his sight toenjoy the thing they had done. Mackenzie, turning his fearful gazeover his shoulder, calculated his life in seconds. The fire was at hisback, his hair was crinkling in the heat of it, a little moving breathof wind to fill the sudden vacuum drew a tongue of blaze with sharpthreat against his cheek.

  In a moment the oil-drenched canvas would be gone, the flamingcontents of the wagon, the woodwork of box and running gears left toburn more slowly, and his flesh and bones must mingle ashes with theashes, to be blown on the wind, as Hector Hall had so grimlyprophesied. What a pitiful, poor, useless ending of all hiscalculations and plans!

  A shot at the top of the hill behind the wagon, a rush of gallopinghoofs; another shot, and another. Below him Hall and his comrade rodeaway, floundering in haste through the sleeping flock, the one poordog left out of Mackenzie's three tearing after them, venting hisimpotent defiance in sharp yelps of the chase.

  Joan. Mackenzie knew it was Joan before she came riding into thefirelight, throwing herself from the horse before it stopped. Throughthe pain of his despair--above the rebellious resentment of the thingthat fate had played upon him this bitter gray morning; above theanguish of his hopeless moment, the poignant striving of his torturedsoul to meet the end with resolution and calm defiance worthy aman--he had expected Joan.

  Why, based on what reason, he could not have told, then nor in theyears that came afterward. But always the thought of Joan coming tohim like the wings of light out of the east.

  And so Joan had come, as he strained on his bound arms to draw hisface a few inches farther from the fire, as he stifled in the smokeand heavy gases of the burning oil; Joan had come, and her hand wascool on his forehead, her voice was tender in his ear, and she wasleading him into the blessed free air, the east widening in a bar oflight like a waking eye.

  Joan was panting, the knife that had cut his bonds still open in herhand. They stood face to face, a little space between them, her greateyes pouring their terrified sympathy into his soul. Neither spoke, adaze over them, a numbness on their tongues, the dull shock of death'sclose passing bewildering and deep.

  Mackenzie breathed deeply, his brain clearing out of its racing whirl,and became conscious of Joan's hand grasping his. Behind them theammunition in the burning wagon began to explode, and Joan, shudderingas with cold, covered her white face with her hands and sobbed aloud.

  Mackenzie touched her shoulder.

  "Joan! O Joan, Joan!" he said.

  Joan, shivering, her shoulders lifted as if to fend against a winterblast, only cried the harder into her hands. He stood with handtouching her shoulder lightly, the quiver of her body shaking him tothe heart. But no matter how inviting the opening, a man could notspeak what rose in his heart to say, standing as he stood, a debtor insuch measure. To say what he would have said to Joan, he must standclear and towering in manliness, no taint of humiliation on his soul.

  Mackenzie groaned in spirit, and his words were a groan, as he saidagain:

  "Joan! O Joan, Joan!"

  "I knew they'd come tonight--I couldn't sleep."

  "Thank God for your wakefulness!" said he.

  She was passing out of the reefs of terror, calming as a wind falls atsunset. Mackenzie pressed her arm, drawing her away a little.

  "That ammunition--we'd better----"

  "Yes," said Joan, and went with him a little farther down the slope.

  Mackenzie put his hand to his face where the flames had licked it, andto the back of his head where his scorched hair broke crisply underhis palm. Joan looked at him, the aging stamp of waking and worry inher face, exclaiming pityingly when she saw his hurts.

  "It served me right; I stumbled into their hands like a blind kitten!"he said, not sparing himself of scorn.

  "It's a cattleman's trick; many an older hand than you has gone thatway," she said.

  "But if I'd have waked and watched like you, Joan, they wouldn't havegot me. I started to watch, but I didn't keep it up like you. When Ishould have been awake, I was sleeping like a sluggard."

  "The cowards!" said Joan.

  "I let one of them sneak up behind me, after they'd clubbed two of thedogs to death, and grab me and get my gun! Great God! I deserve to beburned!"

  "Hush!" she chided, fearfully. "Hush!"

  "One of
them was Hector Hall--he came after his guns. If I'd been aman, the shadow of a man, I'd made him swallow them the day Itook--the time he left them here."

  "Matt was with him," said Joan. "You couldn't do anything; no mancould do anything, against Matt Hall."

  "They handled me like a baby," said he, bitterly, "and I, and I,wanting to be a sheepman! No wonder they think I'm a soft and simplefool up here, that goes on the reputation of a lucky blow!"

  "There's a man on a horse," said Joan. "He's coming this way."

  The rider broke down the hillside as she spoke, riding near thewreckage of the burning wagon, where he halted a moment, the stronglight of the fire on his face: Swan Carlson, hatless, his hairstreaming, his great mustache pendant beside his stony mouth. He cameon toward them at once. Joan laid her hand on her revolver.

  "You got a fire here," said Swan, stopping near them, leaningcuriously toward them as if he peered at them through smoke.

  "Yes," Mackenzie returned.

  "I seen it from over there," said Swan. "I come over to see if youneeded any help."

  "Thank you, not now. It's gone; nothing can be done."

  "I smelt coal oil," said Swan, throwing back his head, sniffing theair like a buck. "Who done it?"

  "Some of your neighbors," said Mackenzie.

  "I knowed they would," Swan nodded. "Them fellers don't fight like meand you, they don't stand up like a man. When I seen you take thatfeller by the leg that day and upset him off of his horse and grab hisguns off of him, I knowed he'd burn you out."

  Joan, forgetting her fear and dislike of Swan Carlson in her interestof what he revealed, drew a little nearer to him.

  "Were you around here that day, Swan?" she asked.

  "Yes, I saw him upset that feller, little bird," Swan said, leaningagain from his saddle, his long neck stretched to peer into her face."He's a good man, but he ain't as good a man as me."

  Swan was barefooted, just as he had leaped from his bunk in thesheep-wagon to ride to the fire. There was a wild, high pride in hiscold, handsome face as he sat up in the saddle as if to show Joan hismighty bulk, and he stretched out his long arms like an eagle on itscrag flexing its pinions in the morning sun.

  "Did he--did Hector Hall sling a gun on Mr. Mackenzie that time?" sheasked, pressing forward eagerly.

  "Never mind, Joan--let that go," said Mackenzie, putting his armbefore her to stay her, speaking hastily, as if to warn her back froma danger.

  "He didn't have time to sling a gun on him," said Swan, greatsatisfaction in his voice as he recalled the scene. "Your man he'slike a cat when he jumps for a feller, but he ain't got the muscle inhis back like me."

  "There's nobody in this country like you, Swan," said Joan, pleasedwith him, friendly toward him, for his praise of the one he boldlycalled her man.

  "No, I can roll 'em all," Swan said, as gravely as if he would be hungon the testimony. "You ought to have me for your man; then you'd havesomebody no feller on this range would burn out."

  "You've got a wife, Swan," Joan said, with gentle reproof, but puttingthe proposal from her as if she considered it a jest.

  "I'm tired of that one," Swan confessed, frankly. Then to Mackenzie:"I'll fight you for her." He swung half way out of the saddle, as ifto come to the ground and start the contest on the moment, hung there,looking Mackenzie in the face, the light of morning revealing themarks of his recent battle. "Not now, you've had a fight already,"said Swan, settling back into the saddle. "But when you brace up, thenI'll fight you for her. What?"

  "Any time," Mackenzie told him, speaking easily, as if humoring thewhim of some irresponsible person.

  With a sudden start of his horse Swan rode close to Joan, Mackenziethrowing himself between them, catching the bridle, hurling the animalback. Swan did not take notice of the interference, only leaned farover, stretching his long neck, his great mustaches like the tusks ofan old walrus, and strained a long look into Joan's face. Then hewhirled his horse and galloped away, not turning a glance behind.

  Joan watched him go, saying nothing for a little while. Then:

  "I think he's joking," she said.

  "I suppose he is," Mackenzie agreed, although he had many doubts.

  They turned to look at the wagon again, the popping of ammunitionhaving ceased. The woodwork was all on fire; soon it would be reducedto bolts and tires. Joan's spirits seemed to have risen with thebroadening of day, in spite of Swan Carlson's visit and his bold jest,if jest he meant it to be. She laughed as she looked at the sheep,huddled below them in attitude of helpless fright.

  "Poor little fools!" she said. "Well, I must go back to Charley. Don'ttell dad I was over here, please, John. He wouldn't like it if he knewI'd butted in this way--he's scared to death of the Halls."

  "I don't see how I'm to keep him from knowing it," Mackenzie said,"and I don't see why he shouldn't know. He'd have been out a cheapherder if it hadn't been for you."

  "No, you mustn't tell him, you mustn't let anybody know I was here,John," she said, lifting her eyes to his in an appeal far strongerthan words. "It wouldn't do for dad--for anybody--to know I was here.You don't need to say anything about them tying--doing--_that_."

  Joan shuddered again in that chilling, horrified way, turning from himto hide what he believed he had read in her words and face before.

  It was not because she feared to have her father know she had comeriding to his rescue in the last hours of her troubled night; notbecause she feared his censure or his anger, or wanted to conceal herdeed for reasons of modesty from anyone. Only to spare him thehumiliation of having his failure known, Mackenzie understood. Thatwas her purpose, and her sole purpose, in seeking his pledge tosecrecy.

  It would hurt him to have it go abroad that he had allowed them tosneak into his camp, seize him, disarm him, bind him, and set the firethat was to make ashes of him for the winds to blow away. It would dofor him with Tim Sullivan entirely if that should become known, withthe additional humiliation of being saved from this shameful death bya woman. No matter how immeasurable his own gratitude, no matter howwide his own pride in her for what she had done, the sheep countrynever would be able to see it with his eyes. It would be anothersmirch for him, and such a deep one as to obscure him and his chancesthere forever.

  Joan knew it. In her generosity, her interest for his future, shewanted her part in it to remain unknown.

  "You must promise me, John," she said. "I'll never come to takeanother lesson unless you promise me."

  "I promise you, God bless you, Joan!" said he.