The Flaming Jewel, Robert W. Chambers [reading tree txt] 📗

"Dad, darling?"

"Yes, my baby——"

"You're watching to kill Quintana. But there's no use watching any longer."

"Have the boys below got him?" he demanded.

"They got one of his gang. Byron Hastings is dead. Jim is badly hurt; Sid Hone, too,—not so badly——"

"Where's Quintana?"

"Dad, he's gone.... But it don't matter. See here!——" She dug her slender hand into her breeches' pocket and pulled out a little fistful of gems.

Clinch, his powerful arm closing her shoulders, looked dully at the jewels.

"You see, dad, there's no use killing Quintana. These are the things he robbed you of."

"'Tain't them that matter.... I'm glad you got 'em. I allus wanted you should be a great lady, girlie. Them's the tickets of admission. You put 'em in your pants. I gotta stay here a spell——"

"Dad! Take them!"

He took them, smiled, shoved them into his pocket.

"What is it, girlie?" he asked absently, his pale eyes searching the woods ahead.

"I've just told you," she said, "that the boys went in as far as Quintana's shanty. There was a dead man there, too; but Quintana has gone."

Clinch said,—not removing his eyes from the forest: "If any o' them boys has let Quintana crawl through I'll kill him , too.... G'wan home, girlie. I gotta mosey—I gotta kinda loaf around f'r a spell——"

"Dad, I want you to come back with me——"

"You go home; you hear me, Eve? Tell Corny and Dick Berry to hook it for Owl Marsh and stop the Star Peak trails—both on 'em.... Can Sid and Jimmy walk?"

"Jim can't——"

"Well, let Harve take him on his back. You go too. You help fix Jimmy up at the house. He's a little fella, Jimmy Hastings is. Harve can tote him. And you go along——"

"Dad, Quintana says he means to kill you! What is the use of hurting him? You have what he took——"

"I gotta have more'n he took. But even that ain't enough. He couldn't pay for all he ever done to me, girlie.... I'm aimin' to draw on him on sight——"

Clinch's set visage relaxed into an alarming smile which flickered, faded, died in the wintry ferocity of his eyes.

"Dad——"

"G'wan home!" he interrupted harshly. "You want that Hastings boy to bleed to death?"

She came up to him, not uttering a word, yet asking him with all the tenderness and eloquence of her eyes to leave this blood-trail where it lay and hunt no more.

He kissed her mouth, infinitely tender, smiled; then, again prim and scowling:

"G'wan home, you little scut, an' do what I told ye, or, by God, I'll cut a switch that'll learn ye good! Never a word, now! On yer way! G'wan!"

Twice she turned to look back. The second time, Clinch was slowly walking into the woods straight ahead of him. She waited; saw him go in; waited. After a while she continued on her way.

When she sighted the men below she called to Blommers and Dick Berry:

"Dad says you're to stop Star Peak trail by Owl Marsh."

Jimmy Hastings sat on a log, crying and looking down at his dead brother, over whose head somebody had spread a coat.

Blommers had made a tourniquet for Jimmy out of a bandanna and a peeled stick.

The girl examined it, loosened it for a moment, twisted it again, and bade Harvey Chase take him on his back and start for Clinch's.

The boy began to sob that he didn't want his brother to be left out there all alone; but Chase promised to come back and bring him in before night.

Sid Hone came up, haggard from pain and loss of blood, resting his mangled hand in the sling of his cartridge-belt.

Berry and Blommers were already starting across toward Owl Marsh; and the latter, passing by, asked Eve where Mike was.

"He went into Drowned Valley by the upper outlet," she said.

"He'll never find no one in them logans an' sinks," muttered Chase, squatting to hoist Jimmy Hastings to his broad back.

"I guess he'll be over Star Peak side by sundown," nodded Blommers.

Eve watched him slouching off into the woods, followed sullenly by Berry. Then she looked down at the dead man in silence.

"Be you ready, Eve?" grunted Chase.

She turned with a heavy heart to the home trail; but her mind was passionately with Clinch in the spectral forests of Drowned Valley.

And Clinch's mind was on her. All else—his watchfulness, his stealthy advance—all the alertness of eye and ear, all the subtlety, the cunning, the infinite caution—were purely instinctive mechanics.

Somewhere in this flooded twilight of gigantic trees was José Quintana. Knowing that, he dismissed that fact from his mind and turned his thoughts to Eve.

Sometimes his lips moved. They usually did when he was arguing with God or calling his Creator's attention to the justice of his case. His two cases—each, to him, a cause célèbre; the matter of Harrod; the affair of Quintana.

Many a time he had pleaded these two causes before the Most High.

But now his thoughts were chiefly concerned with Eve—with the problem of her future—his master passion—this daughter of the dead wife he had loved.

He sighed unconsciously; halted.

"Well, Lord," he concluded, in his wordless way, "my girlie has gotta have a chance if I gotta go to hell for it. That's sure as shootin'.... Amen."

At that instant he saw Quintana.

Recognition was instant and mutual. Neither man stirred. Quintana was standing beside a giant hemlock. His pack lay at his feet.

Clinch had halted—always the mechanics!—close to a great ironwood tree.

Probably both men knew that they could cover themselves before the other moved a muscle. Clinch's small, light eyes were blazing; Quintana's black eyes had become two slits.

Finally: "You—dirty—skunk," drawled Clinch in his agreeably misleading voice, "by Jesus Christ I got you now."

"Ah—h," said Quintana, "thees has happen ver' nice like I expec'.... Always I say myse'f, yet a little patience, José, an' one day you shall meet thees fellow Clinch, who has rob you.... I am ver' thankful to the good God——"

He had made the slightest of movements: instantly both men were behind their trees. Clinch, in the ferocious pride of woodcraft, laughed exultingly—filled the dim and spectral forest with his roar of laughter.

"Quintana," he called out, "you're a-going to cash in. Savvy? You're a-going to hop off. An' first you gotta hear why. 'Tain't for the stuff. Naw! I hooked it off'n you; you hooked it off'n me; now I got it again. That's all square.... No, 'tain't that grudge, you green-livered whelp of a cross-bred, still-born slut! No! It's becuz you laid the heft o' your dirty little finger onto my girlie. 'N' now you gotta hop!"

Quintana's sinister laughter was his retort. Then: "You damfool Clinch," he said, "I got in my pocket what you rob of me. Now I kill you, and then I feel ver' well. I go home, live like some kings; yes. But you," he sneered, "you shall not go home never no more. No. You shall remain in thees damn wood like ver' dead old rat that is all wormy.... Hé! I got a million dollaire—five million franc in my pocket. You shall learn what it cost to rob José Quintana! Unnerstan'?"

"You liar," said Clinch contemptuously, "I got them jools in my pants pocket——"

Quintana's derisive laugh cut him short: "I give you thee Flaming Jewel if you show me you got my gems in you pants pocket!"

"I'll show you. Lay down your rifle so's I see the stock."

"First you, my frien' Mike," said Quintana cautiously.

Clinch took his rifle by the muzzle and shoved the stock into view so that Quintana could see it without moving.

To his surprise, Quintana did the same, then coolly stepped a pace outside the shelter of his hemlock stump.

"You show me now!" he called across the swamp.

Clinch stepped into view, dug into his pocket, and, cupping both hands, displayed a glittering heap of gems.

"I wanted you should know who's gottem," he said, "before you hop. It'll give you something to think over in hell."

Quintana's eyes had become slits again. Neither man stirred. Then:

"So you are buzzard, eh, Clinch? You feed on dead man's pockets, eh? You find Sard somewhere an' you feed." He held up the morocco case, emblazoned with the arms of the Grand Duchess of Esthonia, and shook it at Clinch.

"In there is my share.... Not all. Ver' quick, now, I take yours, too——"

Clinch vanished and so did his rifle; and Quintana's first bullet struck the moss where the stock had rested.

"You black crow!" jeered Clinch, laughing, "—I need that empty case of yours. And I'm going after it.... But it's because your filthy claw touched my girlie that you gotta hop!"

Twilight lay over the phantom wood, touching with pallid tints the flooded forest.

So far only that one shot had been fired. Both men were still manœuvring, always creeping in circles and always lining some great tree for shelter.

Now, the gathering dusk was making them bolder and swifter; and twice, already, Clinch caught the shadow of a fading edge of something that vanished against the shadows too swiftly for a shot.

Now Quintana, keeping a tree in line, brushed with his lithe back a leafless moose-bush that stood swaying as he avoided it.

Instantly a stealthy hope seized him: he slipped out of his coat, spread it on the bush, set the naked branches swaying, and darted to his tree.

Waiting, he saw that the grey blot his coat made in the dusk was still moving a little—just vibrating a little bit in the twilight. He touched the bush with his rifle barrel, then crouched almost flat.

Suddenly the red crash of a rifle lit up Clinch's visage for a fraction of a second. And Quintana's bullet smashed Clinch between the eyes.

After a long while Quintana ventured to rise and creep forward.

Night, too, came creeping like an assassin amid the ghostly trees.

So twilight died in the stillness of Drowned Valley and the pall of night lay over all things,—living and dead alike.

THE last sound that Mike Clinch heard on earth was the detonation of his own rifle. Probably it was an agreeable sound to him. He lay there with a pleasant expression on his massive features. His watch had fallen out of his pocket.

Quintana shined him with an electric torch; picked up the watch. Then, holding the torch in one hand, he went through the dead man's pockets very thoroughly.

When Quintana had finished, both trays of the flat morocco case were full of jewels. And Quintana was full of wonder and suspicion.

Unquietly he looked upon the dead—upon the glittering contents of the jewel-box,—but always his gaze reverted to the dead. The faintest shadow of a smile edged Clinch's lips. Quintana's lips grew graver. He said slowly, like one who does his thinking aloud:

"What is it you have done to me, l'ami Clinch?... Are there truly then two sets of precious stones?—two Flaming Jewels?—two gems of Erosite like there never has been in all thees worl' excep' only two more?... Or is one set false?... Have I here one set of paste facsimiles?... My frien' Clinch, why do you lie there an' smile at me so ver' funny ... like you are amuse?... I am wondering what you may have done to me, my frien' Clinch...."

For a while he remained kneeling beside the dead. Then: "Ah, bah," he said, pocketing the morocco case and getting to his feet.

He moved a little way toward the open trail, stopped, came back, stood his rifle against a tree.

For a while he was busy with his sharp Spanish clasp knife, whittling and fitting together two peeled twigs. A cross was the ultimate result. Then he placed Clinch's hands palm to palm upon his chest, laid the cross on his breast, and shined the result with complacency.

Then Quintana took