The Range Boss by Charles Alden Seltzer (best novels to read to improve english .TXT) 📕

He did not look around again for a long time. Long ago had he lost all sense of direction, for twilight had come and gone, and blank darkness, except for the stars, stretched on all sides. He had never seen this sand level; he knew it must be far off the Lazette trail. And he knew, too, before he had ridden far into it, that it was a desert. For as twilight had come on he had scrutinized it hopefully in search of timber, bushes, a gorge, a gully—anything that might afford him an opportunity for concealment, for escape from the big, grim pursuer. He had seen nothing of that character. Barren, level, vast, this waste of world stretched before him, with no verdure save the repulsive cactus, the scraggy yucca, the grease-wood, and occasional splotches of mesquite.

They raced on, the distance between them lessening gradually. Masten could feel his pony failing. It tried bravely, but the times when it spurted grew less frequent; it made increasingly harder work of pulling its hoofs out of the deep sand; it staggered and lurched on the hard stretches.

Masten looked back frequently now. The grim, relentless figure behind him grew grotesque and gigantic in his thoughts, and once, when he felt the pony beneath him go to its knees, he screamed hysterically. But the pony clambered to its feet again and staggered on, to fall again a minute later. Catherson’s pony, its strength conserved for this ordeal, came on steadily, its rider carefully avoiding the soft sand, profiting by Masten’s experiences with it. It was not until he saw Catherson within fifty feet of him that Masten divined that he was not to be shot. For at that distance he made a fair target, and Catherson made no movement toward his gun. The nester was still silent; he had spoken no word. He spoke none now, as he hung relentlessly to his prey, seeming, to Masten’s distorted mind and vision, a hideous, unnatural and ghastly figure of death.

Catherson had drawn nearer. He was not more than thirty feet away when Masten’s pony went down again. It fell with a looseness and finality that told Masten of the end. And Masten slipped his feet out of the stirrups, throwing himself free and alighting on his hands and knees in front of the exhausted animal. He got up, and started to run, desperately, sobbing, his lips slavering from terror. But he turned, after running a few feet, to see Catherson coming after him. The nester was uncoiling a rope from his saddle horn, and at this sight Masten shrieked and went to his knees. He heard an answering laugh from Catherson, short, malevolent. And then the rope swished out, its loop widening and writhing. Masten shrieked again, and threw up his hands impotently.

Later, Catherson brought his pony to a halt, far from where the rope had been cast, and looked grimly down at his fellow being, prone and motionless in the deep sand at his feet.

Unmoved, remorseless, Catherson had cut short the pleadings, the screaming, the promises. He had not bungled his work, and it had been done. But as he looked down now, the muscles of his face quivered. And now he spoke the first word that had passed his lips since he had left the Flying W ranchhouse:

“I reckon you’ve got what’s been comin’ to you!”

He got down, unfastened the rope, deliberately re-coiled it and looped it around the saddle horn. Then he mounted and rode away. Grim, indistinct, fading into the blackness of the desert night, he went, half a mile, perhaps. And then, halting the pony, he turned in the saddle and looked back, his head bent in a listening attitude. To his ears came the sharp bark of a coyote, very near. It was answered, faintly, from the vast, yawning distance, by another. Catherson stiffened, and lines of remorse came into his face.

“Hell!” he exclaimed gruffly.

He wheeled the pony and sent it scampering back. A little later he was kneeling at Masten’s side, and still later he helped Masten to the saddle in front of him and set out again into the desert blackness toward the timber from which they both had burst some time before.

Many hours afterward they came to the river, at the point where the Lazette trail intersected. There, in the shallow water of the ford, Masten washed from his body the signs of his experience, Catherson helping him. Outwardly, when they had finished, there were few marks on Masten. But inwardly his experience had left an ineffaceable impression.

After washing, he staggered to a rock and sat on it, his head in his hands, shivers running over him. For a time Catherson paid no attention to him, busying himself with his pony, jaded from the night’s work. But after half an hour, just as the first faint shafts of dawn began to steal up over the horizon, Catherson walked close, and stood looking down at his victim.

“Well,” he said, slowly and passionlessly, “I’ve got you this far. I’m quittin’ you. I reckon I’ve deviled you enough. I was goin’ to kill you. But killin’ you wouldn’t have made things right. I expect you’ve learned somethin’, anyway. You’ll know enough to play square, after this. An’ wherever you go—”

Masten looked up at him, his face haggard, his eyes brimming, but flashing earnestly.

“I’m going back to Hagar,” he said. He shivered again. “You’re right, Catherson,” he added, his voice quavering; “I learned a lot tonight. I’ve learned—” His voice broke, and he sat there grim and white, shuddering as a child shudders when awakened from a nightmare. He almost collapsed when Catherson’s huge hands fell to his shoulders, but the hands held him, the fingers gripping deeply into the flesh. There was a leap in Catherson’s voice:

“You’re almost a man, after all!” he said.

They got on the pony after a while, riding as before, Masten in front, Catherson behind him, steadying him. And in this manner they rode on toward Catherson’s shack, miles down the river.

It was late in the morning when they came in sight of the shack, and seeing them from afar Hagar ran to them. She stopped when she saw Masten, her eyes wide with wonder and astonishment that changed quickly to joy as she saw a smile gathering on Catherson’s face.

“I’ve brought you your husband, Hagar,” he told her.

Hagar did not move. Her hands were pressing her breast; her eyes were eloquent with doubt and hope. They sought Masten’s, searchingly, defiantly. And she spoke directly to him, proudly, her head erect:

“If you’ve come ag’in your will—If dad had to bring you—” She paused, her lips trembling.

“Shucks,” said Catherson gently; “he’s come on his own hook, Hagar. Why, he asked me to bring him—didn’t you, Masten?”

And then he dismounted and helped Masten down, leading his pony forward toward the shack,