Mountain Storms (8 page)

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

T
HE
W
ORK
OF
M
AN

He slipped back into the very center of the cave where he would have more room. Yet he knew that even there he was playing a losing game. In speed of foot, in endurance, he could not compare with the grown man. Presently he would be cornered, and the great, bone-breaking hands would fall upon him. After that. . . . His horrified mind grew blank. But, having picked up another stick of wood, he waited. He might strike and dodge at the same time and so gain another chance to get at the outlet. But that chance was only one in ten. He glanced longingly up the side of the cave where he had laid away rifle and revolver on a higher shelf. Oh, fool that he had been to put his weapons in a place where they were not instantly accessible!

The stranger seemed to have the same thought. He had risen slowly from the ground, drawing out his revolver as he did so. But a second of thought seemed to reassure him. He pushed the Colt back into its holster. He began to advance slowly with such a face of fiendish rage that Tommy was paralyzed. No, there would be no dodging now. This cold fury would prove inescapable. He saw a tiny trickle of crimson down the face of the man and into the beard. That red mark would be warrant for his own destruction, beyond a doubt.

“Now,” gasped out the other, “now, we'll try something!”

He came with his great arms spread out, moving with long, stealthy strides as though he were stealing up on an unwatchful victim. In that nightmare horror Tommy could not move.

It was then he saw a dark form emerging out of the spot of black night at the mouth of the cave. With Jack and Jerry crowding behind her, in waddled
Madame
Bruin with as much assurance as though into her own cave. A shout of joyous welcome, a cry of wildest relief burst from Tommy's lips.

That shout made the big man whirl on his heel. One instant he stood petrified with astonishment. Then
madame
reared up and stood immense on her hind legs, with a roar at this unexpected stranger. Another moment and she would have taken to her heels. But the big man did not wait. He plunged to the side of the fire and snatched up his rifle and pitched the butt into the hollow of his shoulder. It happened all in a twinkling. The gun spoke, and
madame
pitched heavily forward and died before she struck the ground.

There was a hoarse shout of exultation from the man. The rifle steadied again, spoke again, and Jack, with a squeal of agony, whirled around, doubled up on the ground with the pain, and then stretched out, limp. There stood Jerry, bewildered, sitting back on his haunches in the most utter amazement and looking to Tommy as though for explanation of this strange catastrophe.

Tommy's fear for himself was forgotten. He saw the gun steady. But he sprang at the big man, and the shock of his body made the other shoot wild.

“Curse you!” cried the murderer, and with a short arm blow he struck Tommy to the ground. “Your turn comes last!”

“Run, Jerry!” shouted Tommy as he lay in the dirt.

But Jerry did not run. His brain was not what it would be a day hence. It was thick and sleepy from the long hibernation. And calamities had rained down so fast upon those around him that his keen mind was stunned. He sat up there still with his head cocked to one side and innocently faced the rifle.

So much Tommy saw with a side glance, and he saw, too, that the big man was steadying the rifle for another shot, steadying it carefully. Thereafter, he would tell how he slew three grizzlies with three shots in as many seconds.

But fear for Jerry raised Tommy. He stood up with a shrill cry. Only with a gun could this destroyer be stopped. He reached for the butt of the revolver at the big man's thigh just as the other, with an oath, struck him down again. He fell, but his fingers had gripped the weapon and drawn it forth. There he lay with black night swirling around his brain.

“I'll brain you!” thundered the big man, and reached for the weapon that Tommy had stolen.

Tommy pulled the trigger. He fired blindly. All before him was thick night. In answer to the bullet, a crushing weight fell upon him, and he felt that he had failed. After that the darkness was complete.

When he wakened, Jerry was licking his face.

He sat up with his brain still reeling. There lay the big-bearded man on his face, beside him, motionless. In the entrance to the cave lay
madame
and Jack, in the same postures in which they had fallen.

That sight was enough to bring Tommy to himself. He stood up and ran to make sure. It was not the human being for whom he felt concern. It was not dread for having taken a human life that stung Tommy. It was overwhelming remorse that the affection that had brought
Madame
Bruin to him had brought her to her death.

She was quite dead, and Jack was dead beside her. He took the great, unwieldy head in his lap. Jerry sniffed the cold nose, and then looked up with a whine from the face of his young master for explanation. But Tommy could only answer with tears. Then, in the midst of his grief, he shook his fist toward the inert form of the killer. Here was man at last, man for whose coming he had yearned so bitterly. This was the work of man!

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

A
FTER
Y
EARS
H
AVE
P
ASSED

The first minute of waiting is always the longest. That first year in the valley of the Turnbull was always the longest to Tommy. It seemed to him that it embraced more than half of his life, for fear and loneliness and weakness and peril had lengthened every day to an infinity. But the time that followed flew on wings. Every minute was crowded. There is no dull moment to the man who tears his living by force of hand and force of cunning out of the wilderness. And when events happen most swiftly, time seems to fly on the strongest wing. To Tom Parks it seemed that there was only one stride through the next few years. So let us step across them in the same manner, with one step, and come to Tom in the spring of his sixteenth year.

A babble of sharp noises wakened him, the daybreak chorus of the forest. Tom rose from his bed of a bearskin thrown across soft pine branches. He stood up, now grown to his full height of a shade more than six feet, equipped with nearly 170 pounds of iron-hard muscle. He looked four years more than his sixteen, except that the down of manhood was only beginning to darken his upper lip and his chin. But that crease of pain and thoughtfulness that had been cleft in the center of his forehead had never departed, and there was a resolution, an independence of a grown man in his face.

He stretched his arms, long and powerful, until the last of the sleep fled tingling out at his fingertips. He yawned and exposed a set of white, perfect teeth. Then with a shake of his head, he tore off the shirt in which he had laid down to sleep. It was made of the softest buckskin, sewed with sinew— a roughly made garment with mere holes for the head and the arms. His trousers were of the same stuff, ending in a ragged fringe between knee and ankle. He dropped them from him and stood naked in the chill of the morning air—brown as though carved cunningly out of bronze.

Through the cave he sped into the rosy flush of morning sunlight, then, a flashing form, he was down the slope to where the creek swirled into a deep, long pool. He leaped onto a rock and stood a moment before plunging in. Around him, he heard life waking in the woods. He heard birds calling. He heard swift rustlings that were not of the wind among the foliage. Far above him a hawk flew. He marked its flight with interest. No, it was not a hawk. It was a great eagle. A hawk, at that height, would seem far smaller. Yes, it was an eagle—no doubt that old eagle of Bald Mountain. Tom Parks turned his head to watch until the speeding king of the air was shut from view past the treetops. Then he lowered his head and dived.

The water closed behind his feet without noise, with hardly a ripple. Silently he came to the surface again, turned on his face, and swam with long, strong, silent strokes straight ahead. It seemed that he would surely strike the great trunk that shot out from the bank, with its tangle of drowned branches. But, when he was a foot away, up flashed his legs, down went his head. He was under the trunk, then came, all noiseless as ever, to the surface, trod water until he was exposed to the breast, and stood there, laughing silently.

But that water was snow fed, ice cold. Even the leather skin and the tough muscles of Tom's body could not keep out the chill from vital places. Back he turned for the shore. The long arms slipped through the water. Without a splash he came to shore.

The sun turned him to a figure of gleaming, running quicksilver. But that wind, blowing on his wet skin, was too cold. He slicked the water from his body with his hands. Then he picked a section of clean grass, lay down, and rolled in it. He came up drier—and dirtier. He brushed off the leaves and what dirt would come. For the rest—what did he care? Dirt meant nothing in the life of Tom Parks. He wrung the water out of his long, sun-faded brown hair, and then raced up the slope to the cave.

Still he was not dry enough to dress. Many a day of stiff muscles and an aching body had taught him that it is better to have a dry skin before clothes are put on it. So he stepped to the side of the cave where a huge grizzly lay asleep. Into the side of the monster he thrust his toes and jabbed the ribs under their layer of thick pelt and fat.

Jerry awoke with a grunt, blinked, and then straightway stood up. He had grown into a monster even of his monstrous kind. There was well over 1,000 pounds of meat and bone and hide in this giant; there would be even more when the autumn nuts had fattened him.

He put out his arms like a man stretching. But, the instant he did so, Tom Parks was at him. The hard shoulder of the youngster struck the breast of the bear. The long, brown arm wrapped around the furry body. With all his might he strove to topple Jerry. Topple half a ton's weight of heaven-taught wrestler?

Jerry merely grunted. With one bone-crushing hug he squeezed the breath out of Tom's body. Then came a flick of the forepaw, and Tom Parks was sent staggering to a distance. He gasped, but he came in again with a rush. His flying fists struck home on the solid body—one—two—but again came that inescapable stroke of the paw. It was nicely judged—oh, how delicately managed! A little more, and he could have caved in Tom's chest with the stroke, but Jerry was an old hand at this game, and he struck just hard enough to knock Tom flat on his back.

He was up again, like a cat, but that had been enough boxing for one morning. He was in a glow of heat, and the blood was coursing strongly through his arteries. He brushed off the sand, stepped into his buckskin suit, and slipped moccasins onto his feet. He was ready for the day.

Jerry went out to hunt for grubs on the hillside while Tom kindled a fire. Over that fire he fried flat thin cakes of cornmeal mixed with water. No meat till night for Tom. He had formed that habit long ago. But when evening came he would eat enough for three.

That quick breakfast done, he went out down the hillside and, with a shrill whistle, brought Jerry after him. Down they went across the plateau where that year's crop of corn was burgeoning out above the ground.

Jerry roved in the rear. He was an incurable loiterer. There were thousands of food scents blowing to his nostrils every instant. He had to stop a few minutes here and a few minutes there to demolish a colony of ants or to turn a log and get at grubs or to tear a rotten stump to pieces because of the horde of insect life it harbored. Besides, he could overtake the master at will, for on one of these roving expeditions after amusement Tom loitered through the forest, seeing and hearing and learning out of an inexhaustible book.

When there was an expedition to a distant point on hand, that was quite another matter. Then one sharp, shrill whistle apprised Jerry that there was business on hand, and he forgot his appetite until the point was reached. But what he much preferred was one of these leisurely scouting trips. They might be back by night. They might not return for a week, for he had noted that Tom took with him the fishing line as well as his hunting knife. As for a gun, his store of ammunition had been used up long before. But the line and hook were enough, and, if he wanted additional food, he knew a dozen sorts of food traps that he could make and bait with good results. As for fire, he carried a piece of flint and the barrel of the demolished old Colt revolver. He could raise a flame when he willed.

Jerry did not sight Tom again until noon, and then he came up to the youth lying prone on a bank of grass and peering around a tree trunk to watch beavers busily at work cutting down trees. It was a new dam near the mouth of one of the Turn-bull's tributaries. The water had been backed into a little gorge, and the beavers were just beginning to levy their toll on the forest. A dozen saplings were down and trimmed of branches, and Jerry stretched contentedly beside Tom to watch the work. To be sure, beaver meat was good, very good, and there was always an unfilled corner in that capacious belly of his. But now the little fellows were laboring so close to the edge of their pond that it would be impossible to surprise them. And, next to eating, Jerry loved to satisfy his curiosity.

It was a whole long hour before Tom had gazed his fill. Then he stood up and clapped his hands, and he laughed silently and heartily as the beavers dived for shelter beneath the water. He had learned his noiseless swimming from them, but he could never match their craft in waterways. But there was something worth knowing—this new dam. It was another treasure added to his horde. In the winter he would come down here and get enough fur to clothe himself like a prince through the season of the snows.

All the rest of that day Tom headed leisurely westward down the valley of the Turnbull. Jerry followed, although in high discontent, for, by the evening, they had passed the limits of the territory over which Jerry's mother had roamed, and which Jerry and Tom had taken as their natural domain since the death of the wise old grizzly. But, as evening came, a windfall came to Jerry in the shape of a fat buck.

There had been born in Jerry the skill of all grizzlies in slipping silently through a forest, in spite of their bulk. So it was, gliding through the twilight, that he came suddenly on the rank scent of meat and an instant later—for they had turned directly into the wind—the deer sprang up before him in a thicket. Confusion made the poor creature run into the jaws of destruction. A crushing blow smashed its skull, and both Jerry and Tom dined in state that evening.

With the morning, when Jerry was preparing to turn back, hugely uneasy at this venturing into unknown country, Tom persisted in holding straight on down the valley. What moved him to it, he did not know, but, in this wandering down the course of the Turnbull, there had awakened in him a sudden and fierce disgust with the cave and everything in it and all the delightful country that he called his own. There was no temptation to go back over the bleak mountains that he had climbed with his father, but a hunger of curiosity grew up in him to see what undiscovered country lay westward.

Already he had come farther west than ever before, and still the pangs of curiosity increased, and he went on. In spite of the careless mode of travel, they had covered a full thirty miles the first day. On the second, the distance was a great deal more, for Tom pushed on relentlessly from dawn to mid day. Then he rested, and both he and Jerry slept. But in the evening they pushed on once more.

So it was that they came to the first settler's cabin. It was almost dark, but far away Tom heard a faint, ringing sound that he presently recognized as the blows of an axe, clipped home with great force into hard wood. The sound ceased before he came close, but it was easy to continue to the place, with Jerry leading the way with an acute nose.

So they reached the verge of a man-made clearing. There was an acre of naturally cleared land. And there were ten acres more that had been cleared by cutting down the trees. In the exact center was a small log cabin whose open door was flooded with light and shadow flung in waves from an open fireplace. A guitar was tinkling and thrumming from the interior.

The heart of Tom leaped within him. The wind blowing through the trees above him was suddenly as mournful as a human sigh. Big Jerry, as though smitten with a sudden dread, turned about and looked Tom squarely in the face to read his thoughts. Perhaps it was only because the sensitive nose of Jerry was telling him tales of bacon and ham and a score of other delectables, and he was silently wondering why the master did not proceed to investigate.

But now the music ceased, and a great, rough, bass voice spoke. It made the very hair on Tom's head bristle as he recalled that unforgettable voice of the man who had killed Jerry's mother. A man with such a voice could not but be an enemy made terrible by the possession of firearms.

In the gathering night, he turned from the house and made a gesture to the grizzly that sent the latter into retreat. But it was not to be an altogether peaceful journey. A shifting of the wind had blown their scent to the house, and suddenly, behind them, came the yelping of dogs, sweeping closer, then breaking with a confusion of echoes through the forest as they entered the trees. Jerry stood up with a profound growl to listen, while Tom, realizing that they could not flee from these fleet-footed assailants, planted himself beside the bear with a drawn knife.

Instantly they came—four huge, wolfish beasts, scarred with many a battle. They recoiled at the sight of the man. But on the bear was the scent of this man, and the bear scent was equally on the man. Their minds were instantly made up, and they flew to the attack. Two leaped at Jerry from the front. But they were wise fighters. They made only a pretense of attack. The real work must come from those in the rear. The other pair, trained fighters that they were, jumped to take the bear at a disadvantage, and here it was that they encountered Tom.

His heart was raging with excitement, but he had learned that first great lesson of the wilderness, where all creatures fight to kill, that successful battle can only be waged with a cool head. Half crouched, ready to leap to either side, he poised the long knife. One brute rushed for his legs, and the other drove at his throat. He leaped high to avoid the first and, twisting to miss the second, he slashed it across the gullet as it flew by him.

He himself landed heavily on his side. He twisted to his feet like lightning. The dog he had used the knife on was standing to the side, head down, coughing and bleeding to death. But the first brute, wheeling as it missed its rush, was on him in a twinkling. The eye could barely follow the moves of Tom then. He sprang like a cat to the side, caught the great brute by the scruff of the neck, and, as the animal whirled to sink its teeth in his arm, he drove the knife home between his ribs.

His arm was bloody above the wrist as he turned back to Jerry, just in time to see one of the dogs, half wolf and half mastiff, venture too close. A lightning blow of the forepaw and a crushed skull for the dog were the result. The fourth dog leaped back, viewed the carnage for an instant, and then fled in dismay, howling.