Valley of Outlaws Read online

  Acting on that hint Shannon set to work again. For the building of his cabin he had brought in more logs than actually were necessary, and out of these and some new timber he framed and built a little lean-to against one end of his house. He made it quite high, with a rack of poles stretched across it so that the upper portion could be used as a haymow, for certainly hay must be had if the horse were to live through the winter snows.

  Then there was the making of the hay itself. Just up the valley was a level stretch, closely surrounded by timber. Possibly it was the bed of a glacial lake that, having filled in time with sediment, was now rich soil, and here grew tall grass, which Shannon felled with a hunting knife. In these days of mowing machines that eat up many acres in a day, scythe work seems ridiculously slow, and a sickle is worse than useless, but many a time Shannon yearned for so much as a sickle. Reaping a handful at a time, he advanced across that meadow with his knife. The little field seemed like a great prairie. He made gradual inroads here and there, cutting paths to what seemed the choicest grass. And every day he brought in the green load of what he had cut.

  So he progressed with his haying—the cutting in the meadow and the shocking of the daily cut near the cabin, and then the storing of the sweet, cured grass in the loft of the horse shed. Furthermore, there was much time to be spent on the bay, grooming him, caring for his wounds.

  Many a day went by with no change in the horse except a gradual and scarcely perceptible recovery of strength and spirit. But finally all began to alter. In one day a turning point, as it were, was reached, and from that moment the bay took on flesh rapidly and his wounds closed as if by magic.

  Whether it was that his thin, starved blood had first needed to be recruited before his body could swell out to its old strength, or that it required all this time before he could assimilate nourishment properly, Shannon could not tell. He only knew that there was a miraculous alteration almost overnight, and then a daily change in the appearance of the bay.

  Once the change began, it progressed with wonderful speed. It was almost like the finding of a new horse each morning, and by degrees Shannon could see that he had picked up no common screw.

  He could have told that before. A common nag never could have clung to life as this tormented creature had done. The belly grew sleek first of all. The neck arched, then the lips grew firm and the muzzle square, while fire entered the eyes. After that the quarters and the shoulders filled, the loins were arched across with muscles, and, last of all, the saddle began to be lined with new flesh and the staring ridge of the backbone became a sweeping curve.

  The attic now was crammed and hand-packed tightly with good hay, and Shannon had hours to spend at his books, or at his writing paper, if he cared to do so. But he rather chose to spend those hours with the horse.

  He had invested such a long agony of time and labor in the creature that it was more of a child than a beast of the field to him, and, as a mother pores over a child at play, so Shannon could sit for hours, contented to watch the beautiful young stallion in his comings and in his goings. To see him eat was a pleasure, almost as if the body of the man were being nourished, likewise; when he drank, he thrust in his muzzle above the nostrils and gulped the snow water as though he loved it. Or again the bay galloped through the meadows or raced with a wild recklessness through the trees, dodging them with a cat-like agility. And it was to the man almost as though he himself raced and leaped and swerved and galloped like mad through the woods.

  There was no longer need for him to walk the long round of his valley farm. He could ride the bay. There was neither halter nor bridle required—a touch of the hand or pressure of the knee was sufficient. Life in the mountains was becoming easy and joyous, and, when Shannon thought of that, he would bow his trouble-marked forehead and ponder the future with a great dread. We cannot have beauty and joy without some shadow being cast from the brightness—without the fear of change, at least.

  Then, late in the fall, what he dreaded happened, and the bay was lost to him.

  Chapter Three

  The day had been long, for at the first streaks of dawn, the stallion began to paw, and Shannon went in wrath to chastise it, but when he opened the door of the shed and saw the lifted head and the joyous, fearless eyes of the horse, his heart melted. He put out his hand to the white-starred brow and speech seemed to rise and swell in the throat of Shannon, although never a word he uttered.

  He let the bay out to frolic in the pleasant morning. And all the day was filled, from that moment, with work. The traps were crowded. A coyote was in one fall, a rare wolf was in another, and for his scalp the bounty would be anything between $10 and $50—a veritable prize! Then, in a third, he found a mountain lion, such prey as he never had dreamed of winning.

  All these were killed, then, and they must be skinned. By patience and much study of the problems involved, he had learned a good deal about skinning, but he never could rival the skill of a trained worker. Therefore, when at last the carcasses were disposed of and the pelts were framed and on the stretchers, Shannon had no interest in food. He took some jerked venison, swallowed a cup of coffee, and sat down in his doorway to watch the stallion in the meadow. The beautiful creature was stalking a crow as though it hoped to catch and eat it. The wise crow was enjoying the game. It fed in the meadow, or pretended to feed there, with back turned until the stallion pounced. Then, with a flirt of the wings, it would flit ahead or sidewise, to settle once more in apparent unconcern.

  Shannon rested from the thought of all labor. He lighted his pipe, and through the drifts of pale, fragrant smoke, he watched the sun slip down in white fire behind the western trees. Suddenly the whole arch of the sky flamed into color. The stream that slid down the ravine was purple and pink and gold. And since the crow had flown away, the bay came closer and made only a pretense of grazing, while from time to time it raised its head and looked into the face of its master or up to the great flaring vault of the sky as though pondering deeply and wisely on both.

  Then suddenly peace became confusion. The stallion leaped suddenly around, and, when Shannon looked in turn, he saw a rider on a foaming, staggering horse break from the edge of the woods and rush down on them. Twice he turned his head and looked behind him at the forest he had just left, then he saw the bay and threw up both hands in a gesture of perfect joy.

  “I’ve got to have him!” shouted the stranger. “I’ll leave this one . . . the best thing you ever threw a leg over. Do you want pay? Here’s a hundred.”

  There was no answer from the mute lips of Shannon, but when he saw the other leap to the ground, tear saddle and bridle from his beaten mount, and then go toward the bay, rope in hand, Shannon went into the cabin and came out again, rifle in hand.

  He saw a game of tag in progress. The stallion was easily winning, but when he saw his master in the doorway, he fled to him as if for protection. In that instant the rope darted snake-like from the hand of the stranger, and the bay was snared. The rifle rose to the shoulder of Shannon, and he drew a steady bead with a hand as strong and quiet as a rock.

  He saw down the sights a lean and handsome young face, sun-browned, tense with anxiety and haste, and such a wealth of life gleaming from the eyes and quivering in the lips that Shannon lowered the rifle again; he could not fire even at a thief.

  Like magic, saddle and bridle had been slipped upon the bay and the youth was in the saddle. Again he glanced over his shoulder at the darkness of the trees, while the stallion stood straight up and neighed loudly and swerved toward Shannon in an agony of fear. The cruel spurs went home. It seemed to Shannon that they were driven into his own sides as the stallion leaped away into the woods beyond.

  Then, of a sudden, the little ravine was filled with tumult. A dozen sweating, straining, staggering horses, driven on by whip and spur, came out of the trees and swarmed into the open ground.

  “There’s the horse! He’s near!” someone shouted.

  And then, one whose hat had been t
orn off in the race through the woods so that his hair blew about in confusion, said quietly: “He’s changed to a fresh horse. That’s Shannon. But how could he have gotten a horse from Shannon? Where did Shannon get one?”

  They came to Shannon, who sat in the doorway, his head upon his hands, and deluged him with excited questions. Had the fugitive secured a fresh horse? In any case, in what direction had he gone? Was he wounded?

  Yet never a word of reply did they get to a single one of their questions.

  “Why do you talk to a deaf-mute?” he of the wind-blown hair said.

  And rapidly he scratched on a piece of paper: We want Terence Shawn. If you can put us on his trail, there is a fat reward for you.

  He placed that paper before Shannon, and still there was no response.

  So he took it again and wrote in large letters: One thousand for you!

  When Shannon saw this, he raised his head at last, and the sheriff saw such grief and pain written in that face that he stepped back and beckoned his men to him.

  “Leave the old chap alone,” said the sheriff, although indeed he was an older man than the hermit. “We’ve got to work this trail out ourselves. Scatter, boys, and cut for sign!”

  They scattered obediently. Here and there they poured among the trees, and then there was a sudden shout, and the chase streamed away at the point where Terence Shawn had disappeared.

  So Shannon was left alone in the darkening evening, with only the beaten turf to tell of what had been there, and in the place of the beloved stallion, a down-headed, beaten horse, with bloodstained flanks, and heaving sides.

  He went slowly toward it. Indeed, there was no kindness or mercy in the heart of Shannon then, but, in order to occupy himself, he began to walk the abandoned horse up and down, cooling it slowly.

  The full darkness descended. The horse stumbled and coughed behind him, then by degrees it freshened a little. It no longer pulled back so heavily on the reins, and Shannon led it to the edge of the creek and watched it drink.

  It was midnight when he put it in the shed that the stallion had occupied, but it seemed to Shannon that this substitution was worse than none at all. So does one feel who takes an adopted child, in the vain hope that it will ease the pain when a favorite son has died.

  However, that worn-out animal gave him occupation of a sort, during the next few days. It was a strongly made bay, with legs that told of good breeding, and a small head, beautifully placed. Shannon, made wise by his work over the stallion, found it child’s play to bring the bay around, and in a few days it was full of life again.

  However, he had not the heart to labor over it as he had over the chestnut; it would follow him readily enough, come at his whistle, give him a mount when he worked his trap line, but still there was a vast gulf between it and the other.

  So life for Shannon settled back to the same emptiness that he had known before he had found and saved the chestnut. And Shannon resolutely pursued his silent way.

  To the horse shed he built a small addition that he filled to the top with neatly corded wood. This he had felled and chopped into lengths in the neighboring woods, and then carried in on his back, for he did not make the mistake of improvidently felling the nearest trunks and making a shambles of his own front yard. All his immediate surroundings remained as wild as ever; the little cabin placed between wild meadow and wild woodland was the only sign of man. Otherwise Nature was left to her own free, tremendous ways.

  Then Terence Shawn came again.

  Chapter Four

  That evening the stone oven barely had been fired up and Shannon was busy with his cookery when the bay whinnied. Shannon looked up, and through the flicker and gleam of the flames he saw a horseman coming up the little valley. Soon the stranger drew near, swung down from the saddle, and, stepping into the dim circle of light, revealed himself as that same lean and handsome cavalier whose previous introduction to the hermit had been so precipitous, Terence Shawn.

  Shannon went past him with a rush, but the horse to which he stretched out his hand threw up its head and went uncertainly back.

  It was not the stallion; it was a beautiful gray, now darkened with sweat, and standing slouched, exhausted, as had that other horse of Shawn’s.

  The latter was already busily examining the bay, and nodding his satisfaction.

  “Here’s fifty,” said Shawn. “And if you can remake a horse as fast as this, you’ll get money out of me like water out of a well, old-timer. Hand me something to eat . . . I don’t care what. I’ve got to go on.”

  Shannon took the $50, entered his cabin, and came out again. Into the hands of Shawn he put not only that last sum, but also $100, which the outlaw had flung that first day on the ground before the shack.

  Shawn stood up, so startled that he dropped from his hand the skewer of wood on which he had been toasting a bit of venison. He stared at Shannon, searched for words, and then, realizing that speech was useless, he scratched rapidly on paper: I’ve taken your horse and left you another with pay. The stallion is a grand one, but not good enough to ride forever. If $100 wasn’t enough, what do you want?

  Gloomily the hermit stared at these words, then passed back the paper with no added word. He went on with his cooking in that same deadly silence.

  Terence Shawn sat down where the shadows were thickest, with his back to a boulder, a stone that had rolled down here from the crest of Mount Shannon some forty or fifty millenniums before. Now moss was gathering around its lower sides, and on its cracked and seamed poll, where dust and leaf mold had settled in the rifts, a scattering of hardy grass and dwarfed shrubbery had grown up, never more than a few inches high. How many more thousands or millions of years would elapse, thought Terry Shawn, before time, and the little prying fingers of winter ice would crumble that heavy mass away and the rivers would carry it down to the sea? Now it sat here in the ravine like an eternal stranger. And so it was, he thought, with this mute hermit. He was dressed in the tatters of any mountain vagabond, and he was set here in the midst of the wilderness, but clothes and position changed him hardly more than the moss and the stunted grass changed the mighty boulder. Both were out of place.

  It seemed to Shawn that never had he seen so lofty a forehead, so still and gloomy an eye. Neither sickness nor years could have marked a face as this was marked. It might be that the long curse of deafness and silence had thus left its trace, but it seemed to Shawn more the indication of a trouble of the mind.

  There was little reverence or awe in the soul of Terence Shawn. But reverence he felt now, and awe, and a growing shame. Most of all, he was bewildered, for this was an experience outside of all his former knowledge of life and men. If he had taken freely from the strong, like some bandit of the old days of romance, he had given as freely to the weak. The banker might well tremble for the safety of his vaults, when he thought of Terence Shawn, but no poor man had ever been troubled. If he took a night’s lodging here and a meal there, he paid threefold, and that was why the sheriff and deputy rode vainly on his trail. They encountered only people who “didn’t know,” who had failed to see Shawn go by.

  But here, it seemed, was a man who could not be paid for his loss with cash. It struck Shawn that the hermit had passed him like a father going to welcome his son, and when he had not seen the stallion, he had turned back, buried in gloom.

  So much Shawn could observe, even if he could not understand the reason for it, and he was increasingly troubled. To him, hard cash had been an unfailing key to all doors. It never had failed before. And now he felt that his pockets were empty, no matter how many closely packed bills of currency were lining them.

  He looked back through the shadows toward his mount. He had stripped the saddle and bridle from it, and after a drink and a roll, the beast was grazing on the verge of the firelight. It was a good horse, sound and fast, well tested for strength and endurance, and surely there was little choice to be made between it and the stallion.

  Yet a difference e
xisted. Now, thinking back, Shawn could remember how the chestnut had taken him down from Mount Shannon and left the sheriff and all the sheriff’s chosen men and their flying horses floundering hopelessly behind him. If a horse was no more than a tool to Terence Shawn, when he had ridden the stallion he had known, at least, that he was employing a most efficient instrument. And this helped him to realize the truth—that the horse was something more than a brute beast in the eyes of the hermit.

  So he fell into a mood of reverie and wonder, as a man will sometimes do when he learns, for instance, that the youth he has held lightly, mocked and jibed at, perhaps, is the hope and the strength and the pride of some honest household. For all human things there is a human place. But this deaf-mute among the mountains and the horse that had been taken from him seemed almost in a class by themselves.

  The eyes of Shawn cleared again as he thought of the problem of this man to whom a horse could mean more than money—more than human beings, perhaps. There was no childish, maudlin emotion about this; instead, the outlaw was aware of something profound and grand.

  He made no effort to communicate with the hermit again, but, at the first hint of dawn, he was gone once more, riding the first horse that he had brought to the man of the wilderness.

  It danced down the valley with him with the utmost lightness and shook out its kinks in five minutes of complicated and whole-hearted bucking. Then away it sped, streaking through the woods and the gullies with such power that Shawn hardly recognized the mount that, not long before, he thought he had wrung dry of all strength forever.

  Straight down from the hills went Shawn, flying back on the same course from which he had recently retreated, and he knew that he was flying in the face of danger. He went with what care he could, but he had come into a region that was extremely difficult to traverse with any secrecy during the day. For the hills were open and rolling, there were not many thickets, and the woods were composed of big trees in small groups, so that one could generally look among the trunks of a grove and see the sky on the farther side.