The Lone Star Ranger

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Lone Star Ranger

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Duane wanted to cross the river if that was possible, and,
keeping in the brake, work his way upstream till he had reached
country more hospitable. Remembering what the man had said in
regard to the river, Duane had his doubts about crossing. But
he would take any chance to put the river between him and his
hunters. He pushed on. His left arm had to be favored, as he
could scarcely move it. Using his right to spread the willows,
he slipped sideways between them and made fast time. There were
narrow aisles and washes and holes low down and paths brushed
by animals, all of which he took advantage of, running,
walking, crawling, stooping any way to get along. To keep in a
straight line was not easy--he did it by marking some bright
sunlit stem or tree ahead, and when he reached it looked
straight on to mark another. His progress necessarily grew
slower, for as he advanced the brake became wilder, denser,
darker. Mosquitoes began to whine about his head. He kept on
without pause. Deepening shadows under the willows told him
that the afternoon was far advanced. He began to fear he had
wandered in a wrong direction. Finally a strip of light ahead
relieved his anxiety, and after a toilsome penetration of still
denser brush he broke through to the bank of the river.

He faced a wide, shallow, muddy stream with brakes on the
opposite bank extending like a green and yellow wall. Duane
perceived at a glance the futility of his trying to cross at
this point. Everywhere the sluggish water raved quicksand bars.
In fact, the bed of the river was all quicksand, and very
likely there was not a foot of water anywhere. He could not
swim; he could not crawl; he could not push a log across. Any
solid thing touching that smooth yellow sand would be grasped
and sucked down. To prove this he seized a long pole and,
reaching down from the high bank, thrust it into the stream.
Right there near shore there apparently was no bottom to the
treacherous quicksand. He abandoned any hope of crossing the
river. Probably for miles up and down it would be just the same
as here. Before leaving the bank he tied his hat upon the pole
and lifted enough water to quench his thirst. Then he worked
his way back to where thinner growth made advancement easier,
and kept on up-stream till the shadows were so deep he could
not see. Feeling around for a place big enough to stretch out
on, he lay down. For the time being he was as safe there as he
would have been beyond in the Rim Rock. He was tired, though
not exhausted, and in spite of the throbbing pain in his arm he
dropped at once into sleep.

CHAPTER XII

Some time during the night Duane awoke. A stillness seemingly
so thick and heavy as to have substance blanketed the black
willow brake. He could not see a star or a branch or tree-trunk
or even his hand before his eyes. He lay there waiting,
listening, sure that he had been awakened by an unusual sound.
Ordinary noises of the night in the wilderness never disturbed
his rest. His faculties, like those of old fugitives and hunted
creatures, had become trained to a marvelous keenness. A long
low breath of slow wind moaned through the willows, passed
away; some stealthy, soft-footed beast trotted by him in the
darkness; there was a rustling among dry leaves; a fox barked
lonesomely in the distance. But none of these sounds had broken
his slumber.

Suddenly, piercing the stillness, came a bay of a bloodhound.
Quickly Duane sat up, chilled to his marrow. The action made
him aware of his crippled arm. Then came other bays, lower,
more distant. Silence enfolded him again, all the more
oppressive and menacing in his suspense. Bloodhounds had been
put on his trail, and the leader was not far away. All his life
Duane had been familiar with bloodhounds; and he knew that if
the pack surrounded him in this impenetrable darkness he would
be held at bay or dragged down as wolves dragged a stag. Rising
to his feet, prepared to flee as best he could, he waited to be
sure of the direction he should take.

The leader of the hounds broke into cry again, a deep,
full-toned, ringing bay, strange, ominous, terribly significant
in its power. It caused a cold sweat to ooze out all over
Duane's body. He turned from it, and with his uninjured arm
outstretched to feel for the willows he groped his way along.
As it was impossible to pick out the narrow passages, he had to
slip and squeeze and plunge between the yielding stems. He made
such a crashing that he no longer heard the baying of the
hounds. He had no hope to elude them. He meant to climb the
first cottonwood that he stumbled upon in his blind flight. But
it appeared he never was going to be lucky enough to run
against one. Often he fell, sometimes flat, at others upheld by
the willows. What made the work so hard was the fact that he
had only one arm to open a clump of close-growing stems and his
feet would catch or tangle in the narrow crotches, holding him
fast. He had to struggle desperately. It was as if the willows
were clutching hands, his enemies, fiendishly impeding his
progress. He tore his clothes on sharp branches and his flesh
suffered many a prick. But in a terrible earnestness he kept on
until he brought up hard against a cottonwood tree.

There he leaned and rested. He found himself as nearly
exhausted as he had ever been, wet with sweat, his hands torn
and burning, his breast laboring, his legs stinging from
innumerable bruises. While he leaned there to catch his breath
he listened for the pursuing hounds. For a long time there was
no sound from them. This, however, did not deceive him into any
hopefulness. There were bloodhounds that bayed often on a
trail, and others that ran mostly silent. The former were more
valuable to their owner and the latter more dangerous to the
fugitive. Presently Duane's ears were filled by a chorus of
short ringing yelps. The pack had found where he had slept, and
now the trail was hot. Satisfied that they would soon overtake
him, Duane set about climbing the cottonwood, which in his
condition was difficult of ascent.

It happened to be a fairly large tree with a fork about fifteen
feet up, and branches thereafter in succession. Duane climbed
until he got above the enshrouding belt of blackness. A pale
gray mist hung above the brake, and through it shone a line of
dim lights. Duane decided these were bonfires made along the
bluff to render his escape more difficult on that side. Away
round in the direction he thought was north he imagined he saw
more fires, but, as the mist was thick, he could not be sure.
While he sat there pondering the matter, listening for the
hounds, the mist and the gloom on one side lightened; and this
side he concluded was east and meant that dawn was near.
Satisfying himself on this score, he descended to the first
branch of the tree.

His situation now, though still critical, did not appear to be
so hopeless as it had been. The hounds would soon close in on
him, and he would kill them or drive them away. It was beyond
the bounds of possibility that any men could have followed
running hounds through that brake in the night. The thing that
worried Duane was the fact of the bonfires. He had gathered
from the words of one of his pursuers that the brake was a kind
of trap, and he began to believe there was only one way out of
it, and that was along the bank where he had entered, and where
obviously all night long his pursuers had kept fires burning.
Further conjecture on this point, however, was interrupted by a
crashing in the willows and the rapid patter of feet.

Underneath Duane lay a gray, foggy obscurity. He could not see
the ground, nor any object but the black trunk of the tree.
Sight would not be needed to tell him when the pack arrived.
With a pattering rush through the willows the hounds reached
the tree; and then high above crash of brush and thud of heavy
paws rose a hideous clamor. Duane's pursuers far off to the
south would hear that and know what it meant. And at daybreak,
perhaps before, they would take a short cut across the brake,
guided by the baying of hounds that had treed their quarry.

It wanted only a few moments, however, till Duane could
distinguish the vague forms of the hounds in the gray shadow
below. Still he waited. He had no shots to spare. And he knew
how to treat bloodhounds. Gradually the obscurity lightened,
and at length Duane had good enough sight of the hounds for his
purpose. His first shot killed the huge brute leader of the
pack. Then, with unerring shots, he crippled several others.
That stopped the baying. Piercing howls arose. The pack took
fright and fled, its course easily marked by the howls of the
crippled members. Duane reloaded his gun, and, making certain
all the hounds had gone, he descended to the ground and set off
at a rapid pace to the northward.

The mist had dissolved under a rising sun when Duane made his
first halt some miles north of the scene where he had waited
for the hounds. A barrier to further progress, in shape of a
precipitous rocky bluff, rose sheer from the willow brake. He
skirted the base of the cliff, where walking was comparatively
easy, around in the direction of the river. He reached the end
finally to see there was absolutely no chance to escape from
the brake at that corner. It took extreme labor, attended by
some hazard and considerable pain to his arm, to get down where
he could fill his sombrero with water. After quenching his
thirst he had a look at his wound. It was caked over with blood
and dirt. When washed off the arm was seen to be inflamed and
swollen around the bullet-hole. He bathed it, experiencing a
soothing relief in the cool water. Then he bandaged it as best
he could and arranged a sling round his neck. This mitigated
the pain of the injured member and held it in a quiet and
restful position, where it had a chance to begin mending.

As Duane turned away from the river he felt refreshed. His
great strength and endurance had always made fatigue something
almost unknown to him. However, tramping on foot day and night
was as unusual to him as to any other riders of the Southwest,
and it had begun to tell on him. Retracing his steps, he
reached the point where he had abruptly come upon the bluff,
and here he determined to follow along its base in the other
direction until he found a way out or discovered the futility
of such effort.

Duane covered ground rapidly. From time to time he paused to
listen. But he was always listening, and his eyes were ever
roving. This alertness had become second nature with him, so
that except in extreme cases of caution he performed it while
he pondered his gloomy and fateful situation. Such habit of
alertness and thought made time fly swiftly.

By noon he had rounded the wide curve of the brake and was
facing south. The bluff had petered out from a high,
mountainous wall to a low abutment of rock, but it still held
to its steep, rough nature and afforded no crack or slope where
quick ascent could have been possible. He pushed on, growing
warier as he approached the danger-zone, finding that as he
neared the river on this side it was imperative to go deeper
into the willows. In the afternoon he reached a point where he
could see men pacing to and fro on the bluff. This assured him
that whatever place was guarded was one by which he might
escape. He headed toward these men and approached to within a
hundred paces of the bluff where they were. There were several
men and several boys, all armed and, after the manner of
Texans, taking their task leisurely. Farther down Duane made
out black dots on the horizon of the bluff-line, and these he
concluded were more guards stationed at another outlet.
Probably all the available men in the district were on duty.
Texans took a grim pleasure in such work. Duane remembered that
upon several occasions he had served such duty himself.

Duane peered through the branches and studied the lay of the
land. For several hundred yards the bluff could be climbed. He
took stock of those careless guards. They had rifles, and that
made vain any attempt to pass them in daylight. He believed an
attempt by night might be successful; and he was swiftly coming
to a determination to hide there till dark and then try it,
when the sudden yelping of a dog betrayed him to the guards on
the bluff.

The dog had likely been placed there to give an alarm, and he
was lustily true to his trust. Duane saw the men run together
and begin to talk excitedly and peer into the brake, which was
a signal for him to slip away under the willows. He made no
noise, and he assured himself he must be invisible.
Nevertheless, he heard shouts, then the cracking of rifles, and
bullets began to zip and swish through the leafy covert. The
day was hot and windless, and Duane concluded that whenever he
touched a willow stem, even ever so slightly, it vibrated to
the top and sent a quiver among the leaves. Through this the
guards had located his position. Once a bullet hissed by him;
another thudded into the ground before him. This shooting
loosed a rage in Duane. He had to fly from these men, and he
hated them and himself because of it. Always in the fury of
such moments he wanted to give back shot for shot. But he
slipped on through the willows, and at length the rifles ceased
to crack.

He sheered to the left again, in line with the rocky barrier,
and kept on, wondering what the next mile would bring.

It brought worse, for he was seen by sharp-eyed scouts, and a
hot fusillade drove him to run for his life, luckily to escape
with no more than a bullet-creased shoulder.

Later that day, still undaunted, he sheered again toward the
trap-wall, and found that the nearer he approached to the place
where he had come down into the brake the greater his danger.
To attempt to run the blockade of that trail by day would be
fatal. He waited for night, and after the brightness of the
fires had somewhat lessened he assayed to creep out of the
brake. He succeeded in reaching the foot of the bluff, here
only a bank, and had begun to crawl stealthily up under cover
of a shadow when a hound again betrayed his position.
Retreating to the willows was as perilous a task as had ever
confronted Duane, and when he had accomplished it, right under
what seemed a hundred blazing rifles, he felt that he had
indeed been favored by Providence. This time men followed him a
goodly ways into the brake, and the ripping of lead through the
willows sounded on all sides of him.

When the noise of pursuit ceased Duane sat down in the
darkness, his mind clamped between two things--whether to try
again to escape or wait for possible opportunity. He seemed
incapable of decision. His intelligence told him that every
hour lessened his chances for escape. He had little enough
chance in any case, and that was what made another attempt so
desperately hard. Still it was not love of life that bound him.
There would come an hour, sooner or later, when he would wrench
decision out of this chaos of emotion and thought. But that
time was not yet.
he had remained quiet long enough to cool off and recover from
his run he found that he was tired. He stretched out to rest.
But the swarms of vicious mosquitoes prevented sleep. This
corner of the brake was low and near the river, a
breeding-ground for the blood-suckers. They sang and hummed and
whined around him in an ever-increasing horde. He covered his
head and hands with his coat and lay there patiently. That was
a long and wretched night. Morning found him still strong
physically, but in a dreadful state of mind.

First he hurried for the river. He could withstand the pangs of
hunger, but it was imperative to quench thirst. His wound made
him feverish, and therefore more than usually hot and thirsty.
Again he was refreshed. That morning he was hard put to it to
hold himself back from attempting to cross the river. If he
could find a light log it was within the bounds of possibility

that he might ford the shallow water and bars of quicksand. But
not yet! Wearily, doggedly he faced about toward the bluff.

All that day and all that night, all the next day and all the
next night, he stole like a hunted savage from river to bluff;
and every hour forced upon him the bitter certainty that he was
trapped.

Duane lost track of days, of events. He had come to an evil
pass. There arrived an hour when, closely pressed by pursuers
at the extreme southern corner of the brake, he took to a dense
thicket of willows, driven to what he believed was his last
stand.

If only these human bloodhounds would swiftly close in on him!
Let him fight to the last bitter gasp and have it over! But
these hunters, eager as they were to get him, had care of their
own skins. They took few risks. They had him cornered.

It was the middle of the day, hot, dusty, oppressive,
threatening storm. Like a snake Duane crawled into a little
space in the darkest part of the thicket and lay still. Men had
cut him off from the bluff, from the river, seemingly from all
sides. But he heard voices only from in front and toward his
left. Even if his passage to the river had not been blocked, it
might just as well have been.

"Come on fellers--down hyar," called one man from the bluff.

"Got him corralled at last," shouted another.

"Reckon ye needn't be too shore. We thought thet more'n once,"
taunted another.

"I seen him, I tell you."

"Aw, thet was a deer."

"But Bill found fresh tracks an' blood on the willows. '

"If he's winged we needn't hurry."

"Hold on thar, you boys," came a shout in authoritative tones
from farther up the bluff. "Go slow. You-all air gittin'
foolish at the end of a long chase."

"Thet's right, Colonel. Hold 'em back. There's nothin' shorer
than somebody'll be stoppin' lead pretty quick. He'll be
huntin' us soon!"

"Let's surround this corner an' starve him out."

"Fire the brake."

How clearly all this talk pierced Duane's ears! In it he seemed
to hear his doom. This, then, was the end he had always
expected, which had been close to him before, yet never like
now.

"By God!" whispered Duane, "the thing for me to do now--is go
out--meet them!"

That was prompted by the fighting, the killing instinct in him.
In that moment it had almost superhuman power. If he must die,
that was the way for him to die. What else could be expected of
Buck Duane? He got to his knees and drew his gun. With his
swollen and almost useless hand he held what spare ammunition
he had left. He ought to creep out noiselessly to the edge of
the willows, suddenly face his pursuers, then, while there was
a beat left in his heart, kill, kill, kill. These men all had
rifles. The fight would be short. But the marksmen did not live
on earth who could make such a fight go wholly against him.
Confronting them suddenly he could kill a man for every shot in
his gun.

Thus Duane reasoned. So he hoped to accept his fate--to meet
this end. But when he tried to step forward something checked
him. He forced himself; yet he could not go. The obstruction
that opposed his will was as insurmountable as it had been
physically impossible for him to climb the bluff.

Slowly he fell back, crouched low, and then lay flat. The grim
and ghastly dignity that had been his a moment before fell away
from him. He lay there stripped of his last shred of
self-respect. He wondered was he afraid; had he, the last of
the Duanes--had he come to feel fear? No! Never in all his wild
life had he so longed to go out and meet men face to face. It
was not fear that held him back. He hated this hiding, this
eternal vigilance, this hopeless life. The damnable paradox of
the situation was that if he went out to meet these men there
was absolutely no doubt of his doom. If he clung to his covert
there was a chance, a merest chance, for his life. These
pursuers, dogged and unflagging as they had been, were mortally
afraid of him. It was his fame that made them cowards. Duane's
keenness told him that at the very darkest and most perilous
moment there was still a chance for him. And the blood in him,
the temper of his father, the years of his outlawry, the pride
of his unsought and hated career, the nameless, inexplicable
something in him made him accept that slim chance.

Waiting then became a physical and mental agony. He lay under
the burning sun, parched by thirst, laboring to breathe,
sweating and bleeding. His uncared-for wound was like a red-hot
prong in his flesh. Blotched and swollen from the never-ending
attack of flies and mosquitoes his face seemed twice its
natural size, and it ached and stung.

On one side, then, was this physical torture; on the other the
old hell, terribly augmented at this crisis, in his mind. It
seemed that thought and imagination had never been so swift. If
death found him presently, how would it come? Would he get
decent burial or be left for the peccaries and the coyotes?
Would his people ever know where he had fallen? How wretched,
how miserable his state! It was cowardly, it was monstrous for
him to cling longer to this doomed life. Then the hate in his
heart, the hellish hate of these men on his trail--that was
like a scourge. He felt no longer human. He had degenerated
into an animal that could think. His heart pounded, his pulse
beat, his breast heaved; and this internal strife seemed to
thunder into his ears. He was now enacting the tragedy of all
crippled, starved, hunted wolves at bay in their dens. Only his
tragedy was infinitely more terrible because he had mind enough
to see his plight, his resemblance to a lonely wolf,
bloody-fanged, dripping, snarling, fire-eyed in a last
instinctive defiance.

Mounted upon the horror of Duane's thought was a watching,
listening intensity so supreme that it registered impressions
which were creations of his imagination. He heard stealthy
steps that were not there; he saw shadowy moving figures that
were only leaves. A hundred times when he was about to pull
trigger he discovered his error. Yet voices came from a
distance, and steps and crackings in the willows, and other
sounds real enough. But Duane could not distinguish the real
from the false. There were times when the wind which had arisen
sent a hot, pattering breath down the willow aisles, and Duane
heard it as an approaching army.

This straining of Duane's faculties brought on a reaction which
in itself was a respite. He saw the sun darkened by thick slow
spreading clouds. A storm appeared to be coming. How slowly it
moved! The air was like steam. If there broke one of those
dark, violent storms common though rare to the country, Duane
believed he might slip away in the fury of wind and rain. Hope,
that seemed unquenchable in him, resurged again. He hailed it
with a bitterness that was sickening.

Then at a rustling step he froze into the old strained
attention. He heard a slow patter of soft feet. A tawny shape
crossed a little opening in the thicket. It was that of a dog.
The moment while that beast came into full view was an age. The
dog was not a bloodhound, and if he had a trail or a scent he
seemed to be at fault on it. Duane waited for the inevitable
discovery. Any kind of a hunting-dog could have found him in
that thicket. Voices from outside could be heard urging on the
dog. Rover they called him. Duane sat up at the moment the dog
entered the little shaded covert. Duane expected a yelping, a
baying, or at least a bark that would tell of his hiding-place.
A strange relief swiftly swayed over Duane. The end was near
now. He had no further choice. Let them come--a quick fierce
exchange of shots--and then this torture past! He waited for
the dog to give the alarm.

But the dog looked at him and trotted by into the thicket
without a yelp. Duane could not believe the evidence of his
senses. He thought he had suddenly gone deaf. He saw the dog
disappear, heard him running to and fro among the willows,
getting farther and farther away, till all sound from him
ceased.

"Thar's Rover," called a voice from the bluff-side. "He's been
through thet black patch."

"Nary a rabbit in there," replied another.

"Bah! Thet pup's no good," scornfully growled another man. "Put
a hound at thet clump of willows."

"Fire's the game. Burn the brake before the rain comes."

The voices droned off as their owners evidently walked up the
ridge.

Then upon Duane fell the crushing burden of the old waiting,
watching, listening spell. After all, it was not to end just
now. His chance still persisted--looked a little brighter--led
him on, perhaps, to forlorn hope.

All at once twilight settled quickly down upon the willow
brake, or else Duane noted it suddenly. He imagined it to be
caused by the approaching storm. But there was little movement
of air or cloud, and thunder still muttered and rumbled at a
distance. The fact was the sun had set, and at this time of
overcast sky night was at hand.

Duane realized it with the awakening of all his old force. He
would yet elude his pursuers. That was the moment when he
seized the significance of all these fortunate circumstances
which had aided him. Without haste and without sound he began
to crawl in the direction of the river. It was not far, and he
reached the bank before darkness set in. There were men up on
the bluff carrying wood to build a bonfire. For a moment he
half yielded to a temptation to try to slip along the
river-shore, close in under the willows. But when he raised
himself to peer out he saw that an attempt of this kind would
be liable to failure. At the same moment he saw a rough-hewn
plank lying beneath him, lodged against some willows. The end
of the plank extended in almost to a point beneath him. Quick
as a flash he saw where a desperate chance invited him. Then he
tied his gun in an oilskin bag and put it in his pocket.,

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