LEAVIN’ THE BASIN
His resolution firm upon him, René hurried to the big house. He had mounted the steps and was crossing the porch to the open door, when suddenly Abel Jore bulked there.
“You, son?” ejaculated the man with surprise that seemed strange. “I was just goin’ to hunt you up. Come in.” He moved aside for the young fellow to precede him. Odd it seemed now that he had ever spoken of dreams, or ever harbored a dream, towering there in the door, hard-eyed, lean, his dark face strangely set in its careworn seams.
With vague apprehension René stepped past him into the room, but stopped at sight of Eden and Revel on the low couch by the window, open to admit any possible breath of a breeze from the lake, but letting only heat in and the fierce glare of the sun that outlined them, throwing their features in shade. Yet René felt that a storm had raged here, that it wasn’t over, for the air was charged still, and that Revel had borne the brunt of it.
She lay back on the cushions, white, spent, her tragic eyes with their beaten light fixed on Abel. He had crossed to the dead fireplace, which occupied the corner and was flanked by windows, so that anyone sitting on the couch before it could watch red flames leap up its black throat or the shimmering lake, as one chose.
Often, in the weeks of René’s first stay in the basin, he and Eden had made summer rain an excuse for a fire, that they might sit here and talk, while the flames crackled and the storm lashed the waters. Now it was choked with the ashes of dead fires. Abel was staring at the ash, and Revel at him, and Eden anxiously watching both of them. Eden, whom he hadn’t talked to since that day at the crags, didn’t speak to him now. After the first startled glance, she looked away—as if she couldn’t bear the sight of him. A traitor, she’d called him. Now she would know what he was. He’d tell her so. He’d tell them all. Hot words rushed to his lips.
“René,” Abel spoke first, “we’re leavin’ the basin.”
That blunt announcement killed every thought of confession. “You’re givin’ up the Picture Rocks?” cried René.
“No,” Abel said slowly. “Yance and me is goin’ out to find Zion and bring him back home, that is, if you’ll …”
But Revel stopped him. A moment before she had seemed beaten. Now she was on her feet, facing him, crying: “No! No! I tell you …”
“There, Revel,” Abel said gently. “We’ve gone over all that.”
“But I tell you,” she panted, beside herself, “you must not. I told you what would happen, if you went out. The Book said no! It said”—she could only whisper it, but they heard—“it said … ‘Let the dead bury the dead.’”
His heart aching with nameless grief, the young man looked at Eden. She lay against the pillows, her face in her arms, her slim form shaking.
“But you ain’t always right,” Abel reminded the woman steadily. “About Black Wing, you always were afraid of him because the Book said death came to the man that sat on him. But now you see …”
“Oh, it will come,” she moaned. Then she was clinging to him, pleading: “Wait! Wait till Joel gets home! It won’t be long. Snow comes early on the rims!”
It didn’t seem possible to René that anyone could resist that plea. But Abel did. With a sorrowful shake of his head, he said: “We can’t wait. We don’t dare wait. We don’t need no prophecies to tell us what Zion’s doin’. We’ve got to bring him back before it’s too late! Please, Revel, try to get a hold of yourself. Don’t make it harder for us.”
A long moment she searched his face. Then slowly released him and sank down by Eden with a calmness that frightened them, a numb resignation, more heartrending than any pleading. Abel Jore went on telling René what he had been hunting him up to tell him.
“Me and Yance is goin’ out to find Zion. I can’t say how long we’ll be gone, but not a second longer than we can help. For we’ve got to get back before anything breaks … before Dolan figgers out his move. Sure, lad, the Lord must have sent you here. For we couldn’t go, if you hadn’t come. But we know we can trust you to keep Dolan’s men out of the basin, and …”
“You can’t!” In terror of such a trust, René threw up his hand. “You can’t trust me any more than Shang! The Lord didn’t send me here! It was Race Coulter! Lissen! Shang told you Race brought me West and bought my outfit. He told you straight! You know what Race wants! He’d give his soul for Black Wing! He’ll give mine, too! For I’ve promised to steal the horse from you!”
He paused for breath, and the shameful words seemed to ring in the room. He felt Eden’s eyes turn to him, felt the intensity in them, but, unable to meet the scorn he was sure they held, kept his own on Abel’s that were too hard to show feeling.
“I didn’t know what I was promisin’,” he rushed on. “I thought Black Wing was just a horse that could run races. I didn’t know I was stealin’ Eden’s and Zion’s chances. I didn’t know how good you’d be to me. How much I’d owe you, too. No,” he begged, as Abel seemed about to speak, “don’t stop me. I tried to tell you once, and you wouldn’t let me. I’ve got to tell you why I done it. Why … I’m a traitor. I … I’ve always been on the dead level with everybody before.”
There in the big living room, Dave Jore’s sombrero clenched in his hands, the sun’s glare in his face, his lithe figure taut in its earnestness, backed by the gold-and-brown bindings of books that spoke of Revel’s life before she married a Jore, surrounded by the heads and skins of wild things slain to adorn the den of the Jore she had renounced all for, René told them how he had followed his own horse, Flash, East and given him up when he found him, because he was “makin’ a name for himself” as a polo horse; how he had worked then for a stake to get home, but took sick, and it was all he could do to pick up a living around the racetracks; how the doctor had given him six months to live, unless he went West.
“Then I met Race.” With a helpless gesture, he broke off. “Oh, you don’t follow how homesick I was for the West. That was half the matter with me, I guess. Seemed like I’d rather be dead and be here, than live back there. You can’t see the fix I was in, when Race put it up to me.”
Oh, they saw it—stark naked, terse, as he told it. For they had seen him when Zion carried him into the basin. Now they saw him like that, under sentence of death, on the gleaming track, in the cold rain, with a man tempting, “Your fare West, if you’ll get into the Picture Rocks and get me that horse.”
“I told him I wouldn’t play the Judas. He asked, wasn’t my life worth it? I thought it was then. I know now it ain’t. Life’s worth just what you can do with it. I’d sooner not have it than do this. But I’ve got it, and it belongs to Race. He staked me to a gamble. I won. I’m honor-bound to pay him.”
Soft in the hush: “Yes,” said Revel Jore, “you’re honor-bound. You’ve got to pay.”
She savvied. She would. She was made that way. “Son,” crossing to René, Abel laid a hand on his arm, “you ain’t told us much we didn’t guess. We figgered you’d come for the horse. We knew Race Coulter was holdin’ some kind of a club over you.”
Abel savvied, too. Hungrily, René’s eyes sought Eden’s. But she had turned to the window again.
“So you see,” he said, in white misery, “why you can’t trust me. You could some … before I told you. There was some things I couldn’t do even for Race … livin’ with you like this. But now I’m leavin’. When I get out there, I’ll have to do whatever Race asks. Anything but take Black Wing from Zion while he’s out of the basin. I promise you I won’t do that.”
“I’d have gambled on it,” Abel endorsed heartily. “But about leavin’ … you don’t savvy, son. You’d be arrested and tried on serious charges. You helped a Jore escape. You wounded a man doin’ it. You fought for us at the pass. The world classes you with us. I’m mighty sorry that had to happen, but it’s facts we’re facin’. You couldn’t do Race no good in jail. And it won’t be workin’ ag’in’ him to watch the Picture Rocks till we bring Zion and Black Wing back.”
René saw this. Race had said himself that the only safe place for the horse was in the basin, guarded by the Jores, until Luke Chartres gave up the chase. Again, the interests of the Jores and Race were the same.
“I’d like to stay,” said René wistfully, “if you still trust me.”
“Fine.” Abel wrung his hand. “It’s goin’ to be a tough job for one man. We hate to ask it, but it needs must be when the devil drives. There’s plenty of ammunition. And Eden will spell you off.”
“But you and Yance?” René’s fears were all for them. “You’ll be takin’ your lives in your hands. How’ll you get past that camp? They’re watchin’ for just such a break.”
“We’ll have to risk that. We know every inch of the pass … every rock and bush, no matter how dark it is. If we’re seen, we’ll run for it. There ain’t many horses in these parts can beat ours.”
Nevertheless, he admitted it was a dangerous mission. And the gravity of it weighed on them with the worry and heat. They were leaving that night. Revel and Eden went out to prepare a cold supper for René, so he could go right to the crags and relieve Yance, who would need to catch a few hours’ sleep before the start.
The meal over, René stepped out on the porch. Abel stood there, eyes scanning the sky. Black clouds were rolling over the rims.
“Looks like ol’ Jupe Pluvius is with us,” he grinned. “If the storm only holds off till dark, we’ll make our break when it gets goin’ strong.”
Down at the corral, cinching his saddle on Stonewall, René looked up to see Eden standing beside him. “I’ve put you up a lunch,” she said, holding it out to him. “It will be a long time until morning.”
He took it and thanked her. His smile was a happy one. Eden had spoken to him. True, her voice didn’t say anything. He might have been a total stranger to whom she’d made some comment on the weather. No, for she’d have been friendly then. But she had spoken to him. Now she was going.
Quickly, he stepped up to her. “Ain’t there something I can say on my side to you, Eden?”
She looked away. “What is there to say?”
“A lot, girl.”
“Perhaps,” she said, quietly. “But nothing I want to hear. Nothing that will change … oh”—bravely lifting her blue eyes to him—“I want you to know I don’t blame you for trying to get Black Wing. You couldn’t help it. Anyone would have done that. You were just true to the man who gave you your chance. Why, I … I’d have helped you steal Black Wing myself from my own folks. But what I can’t forget …”
“What, Eden?”
“That you sacrificed Zion for him. When you knew he was … when I told you he must not leave the Picture Rocks. You took him from us.”
“I didn’t do that!” René protested. “It’s the truth. I didn’t. You must know it, Eden. You do know it, don’t you, girl?”
She looked into his face, so earnest, so honest, her blue eyes filling. She looked off at the storm-capped rims, and she cried, in pitiful confusion: “I … can’t! Oh, I don’t know! Zion’s gone!”
Zion was gone. The Jores were risking their lives to bring him back, and René Rand was standing guard over the Picture Rocks.
* * * * *
Up there in the spires where, so often, Zion had sat with the spreading world calling, until in his mighty longing it seemed he must just let go all “holts” and “float” down, René now crouched with ready gun, waiting for dark when the Jores would make their break. Far down he saw the winding thread of the trail up which he had toiled a few weeks before, expecting a challenge from the sentinel. Now he was the sentry, sworn to enforce the strict taboo of trespass; sworn to shoot anyone who tried to break it; to shoot these men camped below him, should they attempt it, although they represented the law, all the things he had ever stood for, still stood for—although he was an outlaw.
The sun had gone down, dragging its light with it. When the dusk got too thick for sure aim, he slipped down to the barricade to watch. Night brought no coolness. Heat seemed rather to increase. The air became more oppressive. The very earth seemed to have caught and held its breath. The storm still threatened. Endless, black hours passed.
Shortly after midnight, René heard a muttering in the south. Rapidly it neared, and, crouched behind that bulwark of rock, tense, listening, he heard muffled hoofbeats coming from within the basin. In a blinding bolt that split the blackness, as the rims resounded deafeningly with thunder, as the wind came in a rush like the breath of the world released and water fell in sheets, the Jores rode up.
“The rain will wash out our tracks,” said Abel in a whisper. “They won’t dream we’re gone, if the lightnin’ don’t show us up.”
Noiselessly, they tore a hole in the barricade and slipped their horses through. Then, before mounting, they turned to say good-bye. Yance wrung René’s hand in silence. There was no need to say anything. Their actions spoke for them. They had placed their lives in René’s hands. For they had not only to get past Dolan’s camp but, after they found Zion, must get back in. And they trusted to René Rand that they would return to a refuge and not a trap.
Abel long held the young fellow by both arms, while the wind, the rain, and the thunder crashed about them. “If we don’t come back,” he said, “take care of her, son.” And René saw on his face in the lightning flash a look that haunted him for years.
Then they were gone, in their rash attempt to slip through the enemy’s camp as, in days past, their father had slipped through the camp of the fierce Apaches. Gone, in the crashing blackness, and René listened with his heart in his mouth.