 | CHAPTER XVI.
ARMSTRONG. John Brent |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
ARMSTRONG.
I awoke in the solemn quiet dawn of the
next morning with my forebodings of ill gone,
and in their stead what I could not but deem
a baseless hopefulness for our new friends' welfare.
Brent did not share it. His usual gay matinsong
was dumb. He cowered, chilled and spiritless,
by our camp-fire. Breakfast was an idle
ceremony to both. We sat and looked at each
other. His despair began to infect me. This
would not do.
I left my friend, sitting unnerved and purposeless,
and walked to the mail-riders' camp.
Jake Shamberlain was already stirring about,
as merry as a grig, — and that is much to say
on the Plains. There are two grigs to every
blade of grass from Echo Cañon to the South
Pass, and yet every one sings and skips, as gay as
if merriment would make the desert a meadow.
“You are astir early after the ball, Jake,”
said I.
“Ef I wait till the gals in the train begins
to polky round, I shan't git my men away
nayry time. They olluz burr to gals, like all
young fellers. We 'll haul off jest as soon as
you 're ready.”
“We are ready,” I said.
I made our packs, and saddled the mustangs.
“Come, Brent,” said I, shaking him by the
shoulder, “start, old fellow! Your ride will
rouse you.”
He obeyed, and mounted. He was quite
cowed and helpless. I did not know my brave,
cheerful friend in this weak being. He seemed
to me as old and dreary as Mr. Clitheroe. Love
must needs have taken a very cruel clutch upon
his heart. Indeed, to the delicate nature of
such a man, love is either life of life, or a murderous
blight worse than death.
As we started, a gray dawn was passing into
the violet light just before sunrise. The gale
had calmed itself away. The tender hues of
morning glorified the blue adobes of Bridger's
shabby fort. It rested on the plain, still as the
grave, — stiller for the contrast of this silent
hour with last night's riot. A deathly quiet,
too, dwelt upon the Mormon caravan. There
were the white-topped wagons just growing rosy
with the fond colors of early day. No abandoned
camp of a fled army could have looked
the cattle feeding quietly in a black mass, like
a herd of buffalo. There was not one man,
out of our own party, to be seen.
“Where are their sentinels, Jake?” said I.
“Too much spree for good watch,” says he.
“Elder Sizzum ought to look sharper.”
“He 's a prime leader. But he tuk dance,
argee, and faro last night with a perfect looseness.
I dunno what 's come over Sizzum; bein'
a great apossle 's maybe too much for him. But
then he knows ther ain't no Utes round here, to
stampede his animals or run off any of his gals.
Both er you men could have got you a wife
apiece last night, and ben twenty miles on the
way, and nobody the wiser. Now, boys, be alive
with them mules. I want to be off.”
“Where are Smith and Robinson?” I asked,
missing the two gamblers as we started.
“Let 'em slide, cuss 'em!” said Jake.
“'Taint my business to call 'em up, and fetch
'em hot water, and black their boots. They
moved camp away from us, over into the brush
by you. Reckon they was afeard some on us
would be goin' halves with 'em in the pile they
raked last night. Let 'em slide, the durn ripperbits!
Every man for hisself, I say. They
snaked me to the figure of a slug at their
cheatin' game; an' now they may sleep till
they dry and turn to grasshopper pie, for me.”
Jake cracked his long whip. The mules
sprang forward together. We started.
I gave one more look at the caravan we had
seen winding so beautifully down on the plain,
no longer ago than yesterday evening. Rosy
morning brightened on every wagon of the great
ellipse. Not a soul was to be seen of all their
tenants. I recognized Mr. Clitheroe's habitation
at the farther end. That, too, had the same
mysterious, deserted air, as if the sad pair who
dwelt in it had desperately wandered away into
the desert by night.
Brent would not turn. He kept his haggard
face bent eastward, toward the horizon, where an
angry sunrise began to thrust out the quiet hues
of dawn.
I followed the train, doggedly refusing to
think more of those desolate friends we were
leaving. Their helpless fate made all the beauty
of the scene only crueller bitterness. What
right had dawn to tinge with sweetest violet and
with hopeful rose the shelters of that camp of
delusion and folly!
We rode steadily on through the cool haze,
and then through the warm, sunny haze, of that
October morning. Brent hardly uttered a word.
He left me the whole task of driving our horses.
A difficult task this morning. Their rest and
feast of yesterday had put Pumps and Fulano in
in the track.
We had ridden some eighteen miles, when
Brent fell back out of the dust of our march,
and beckoned me.
“Dick,” said he, “I have had enough of this.”
He grew more like himself as he spoke.
“I was crushed and cowardly last night and
this morning,” he continued. “For the first
time in my life, my hope and judgment failed me
together. You must despise me for giving up
and quitting Miss Clitheroe.”
“My dear boy,” said I, “we were partners in
our despair.”
“Mine is gone. I have made up my mind. I
will not leave her. I will ride on with you to
the South Pass. That will give the caravan a
start, so that I can follow unobserved. Then I
will follow, and let her know in some way that
she has a friend within call. She must be saved,
sooner or later, whether she will or no. Love or
no love, such a woman shall not be left to will
herself dead, rather than fall into the hands of a
beast like Sizzum. I have no mission, you
know,” and he smiled drearily; “I make one
now. I cannot fight the good fight against villany
and brutishness anywhere better than here.
When I get into the valley, I will camp down at
Jake's. I can keep my courage up hunting
find Biddulph there still. What do you say, old
fellow? I am bound to you for the journey.
Will you forgive me for leaving you?”
“You will find it hard work to leave me.
I go with you and stand by you in this cause,
life or death.”
“My dear friend! my brother!”
We took hands on this.
Our close friendship passed into completed
brotherhood. Doubts and scruples vanished.
We gave ourselves to our knight-errantry.
“We will save her, John,” said I. “She is
my sister from this moment.”
His face lighted up with the beauty of his boyish
days. He straightened himself in his saddle,
gave his fair moustache a twirl, and hummed,
for gayety of heart, “Ah non giunge!” to the
beat of his mustang's hoofs.
We were riding at the bottom of a little
hollow. The dusty trail across the unfenced
wilderness, worn smooth and broad as a turnpike
by the march of myriad caravans, climbed
up the slopes before and behind us, like the
wake of a ship between surges. The mail train
had disappeared over the ridge. Our horses
had gone with it. Brent and I were alone,
as if the world held no other tenants.
Suddenly we heard the rush of a horseman
after us.
Before we could turn he was down the hillock,
— he was at our side.
He pulled his horse hard upon his haunches
and glared at us. A fierce look it was; yet
a bewildered look, as of one suddenly cheated
of a revenge he had laid finger on.
He glared at us, we gazed at him, an instant,
without a word.
A ghastly pair — this apparition — horse and
man! The horse was a tall, gaunt white. There
were the deep hollows of age over his bloodshot
eyes. His outstretched head showed that
he shared his master's eagerness of pursuit.
Death would have chosen such a steed for a
gallop on one of death's errands.
Death would have commissioned such a rider
to bear a sentence of death. A tall, gaunt man,
with the loose, long frame of a pioneer. But
the brown vigor of a pioneer was gone from
him. His face was lean and bloodless. It was
clear where some of his blood had found issue.
A strip of old white blanket, soiled with dust
and blood, was turbaned askew about his head,
and under it there showed the ugly edges of
a recent wound.
When he pulled up beside us, his stringy
right hand was ready upon the butt of a revolver.
He dropped the muzzle as he looked
at us.
For what horror was this man the embodied
Nemesis!
“Where are they?”
He whispered this question in a voice thick
with stern purpose, and shuddering with some
recollection that inspired the purpose.
“They! who?”
“The two murderers.”
“They stayed behind at Bridger.”
“No. The Mormons told me they were here.
Don't hide them! Their time is come.”
Still in the same curdling whisper. He
crushed his voice, as if he feared the very hillocks
of the prairie would reverberate his words,
and earth would utter a warning cry to those
he hunted to fly, fly, for the avenger of blood
was at hand.
No need to be told whom he sought. The
two gamblers — the two murderers — the brutes
we had suspected; but where were they? Where
to be sought?
We hailed the mail train. It was but a
hundred yards before us over the ridge. Jake
Shamberlain and his party returned to learn
what delayed us.
The haggard horsemen stared at them all, in
silence.
“I 've seen you before, stranger,” said Shamberlain.
“Yes,” said the man, in his shuddering
whisper.
“It 's Armstrong from Oregon, from the Umpqua,
aint it? You don't look as if you were
after cattle this time. Where 's your brother?”
“Murdered.”
“I allowed something had happened, because
he warnt along. I never seed two men stick
so close as you and he did. They didn't kill
him without gettin' a lick at you, I see. Who
was it? Indians?”
“Worse.”
“I reckon I know why you 're after us, then.”
“I can't waste time, Shamberlain,” said Armstrong,
in a hurried whisper. “I'll tell you in
two words what's happened to me, and p'r'aps
you can help me to find the men I mean to
find.”
“I'll help you, if I know how, Armstrong. I
haint seen no two in my life, old country or new
country, saints or gentiles, as I 'd do more for 'n
you and your brother. I 've olluz said, ef the
world was chock full of Armstrongs, Paradise
would n't pay, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
mout just as well blow out their candle and go
under a bushel-basket, unless a half-bushel would
kiver 'em.”
The stranger seemed insensible to this compliment.
He went on in the same whisper, full of
his panting horse drew up his lip and whinnied,
showing his long, yellow teeth. The spirit of his
rider had entered him. He was impatient of
this dalliance.
“We were coming down from the Umpqua,
my brother and I,” says Armstrong, “goan
across to the States, to drive out cattle next
summer. We was a little late one morning,
along of our horses havin' strayed off from
camp, and that was how we met them men.
Two on 'em ther' was, — a tall, most ungodly
Pike, and a little fat, mean-lookin' runt. We
lighted on 'em jest to the crossin' of Bear River.
They was comin' from Sacramenter, they said.
I kinder allowed they was horse-thieves, and
wanted to shy off. But Bill — that was my
brother —”
Here the poor fellow choked a little.
“Bill, he never could n't think wrong of nobody.
Bill, he said, `No. Looks was nothin',' he
said, `and we 'd jine the fellers.' So we did,
and rode together all day, and camped together
on a branch we cum to. I reckon we talked too
much about the cattle we was goan to buy, and
I suppose ther' aint many on the Pacific side
that aint heard of the Armstrongs. They allowed
we had money, — them murderers did.
Well, we camped all right, and went to sleep,
that a grizzly had wiped me over the head, till I
woke up the next day with the sun brilin' down
on my head, and my head all raw and bloody, as
ef I 'd been scalped. And there was Bill — my
brother Bill — lyin' dead in his blankets.”
A shudder passed through our group. These
were the men we had tolerated, sat with at the
camp-fire, to whose rough stories and foul jokes
we had listened. Brent's instinct was true.
Armstrong was evidently an honest, simple,
kindly fellow. His eyes were pure, gentle blue.
They filled with tears as he spoke. But the
stern look remained, the Rhadamanthine whisper
only grew thicker with vengeance.
“Bill was dead,” he continued. “The hatchet
slipped when they come to hit me, and they was
too skeared, I suppose, to go on choppin' me, as
they had him. P'r'aps his ghost cum round and
told 'em 't warnt the fair thing they 'd ben at,
and 't warnt. But they got our horses, Bill's big
sorrel and my Flathead horse, what 's made a
hunderd and twenty-three miles betwixt sunrise
and sunset of a September day, goan for the doctor,
when Ma Armstrong was tuk to die. They
got the horses, and our money belts. So when
I found Bill was dead, I knowed what my life
was left me for. I tied up my head, and somehow
I crep, and walked, and run, and got to Box
showed me the way; but I got there.”
Box Elder is the northernmost Mormon settlement,
or was, in those days.
“I'll never say another word again the Mormon
religion, Jake,” Armstrong went on. “They
treated me like a brother to Box Elder. They
outfitted me with a pistol, and this ere horse.
They said he 'd come in from a train what the
Indians had cut off, and was a terrible one to go.
He is; and I believe he knows what he 's goan
for. I 've ben night and day ridin' on them
murderers' trail. Now, men, give me time to
think. Bill's murderers aint at Bridger. They
was there last midnight. They must be somewheres
within fifty miles, and I 'll find 'em, so
help me God!”
His hoarse whisper was still. No one spoke.
Another rush of hoofs down the slope behind!
| CHAPTER XVI.
ARMSTRONG. John Brent | |