The Spook Hills Mystery/Chapter 15

Vida stopped halfway up a forbiddingly barren gulch and looked inquiringly behind her. She had been riding rather slowly since she turned into this small cañon, and it seemed to her that Spider should have overtaken her ten minutes ago. She was certain that he had seen her turn off from the larger cañon they had been following with a good two hundred yards between them. For an hour she had played hide and seek with him, and in the playing had insensibly recovered her usual calm self-reliance. The horror of the past two days was there still, but Vida felt herself perfectly able to cope with it and any emergency that might arise from it.

She wanted to tell Spider that, after all, it might not be Burney who had done the murder. It had occurred to her that a man with stilts strapped on his legs would find it awkward to crawl under a wagon in the dark—and any strong man, heaving up with his bent back, could tilt their camp wagon. She realized now that the imagination is prone to play tricks upon a person whose nerves are strained to the snapping point. Believing the marauder to be Burney, she would of course imagine that it was Burney whom she saw; given the height, the rest would be quite natural.

She would tell Spider that, and make up with him and behave herself. But she would not ride back to meet him—that would be too abject a surrender. He might say that she went back after him because she was scared, or because her conscience hurt her, and neither would be true, because her conscience was perfectly clear of guilt. She had not run away from him really; he had simply lagged behind. She forgot that she had all but accused him of being an accomplice of Burney in the murder of her Uncle Jake. Her conscience was clear, and she certainly was not scared.

Vida looked behind her, and shivered. She had stopped there to wait for Spider, and she had been looking back expectantly, thinking that she would see him ride around the bend. But now she felt as though something horrible was presently going to come around that very point—something menacing. She kicked her pony in the flanks, and rode on hurriedly, looking this way and that for a way out of the gulch. She felt the blood oozing from her veins, hiding in her heart, and pounding there heavily. Where was Spider? Why didn't he come?

She kept looking over her shoulder, her eyes wide with terror. Vida had never before felt that undefinable fear, though she had ridden alone in these hills at various times since she was a child. She had been scared when she shot the mountain lion, but it had been a perfectly normal, healthy fear lest her bullets should fail to do their work.

She shook herself mentally, and tried to reason with her unreasonable dread of something she neither heard nor saw, but only felt. But all the while she kept thinking of the something that had followed Shelton and Spider and the others—the something they could not name but had felt behind them in the dark. She had not thought much about it before; indeed, save those few minutes of terror in the wagon when she visioned a warlock, she had believed the story to be some obscure joke and so had paid no attention. But—but this was early afternoon!

Had she not been afraid to do so, she would have turned then and ridden back to find Spider. She would have borne any repulse and reproach, and would have been glad just because he was there with her, close enough to scold her and tell her—politely, of course—what a fool she had been to leave him. But she was afraid. Nothing could induce her to turn and ride back down the gulch. She struck her pony sharply with the quirt and went on, clattering over the rocks in a way to rouse the echoes and let them clamor her whereabouts to any one within a quarter of a mile.

Soon she stopped, because she saw how the gulch was drawing together ahead of her. Unless it widened, just around the next point, she would be caught in a pocket. If she could get up the bluff, she reasoned swiftly, she might follow back along the edge until she saw Spider, and then call down to him and have him join her up there. She gazed longingly up at the frowning rock ledges above her. Up there, she believed, she would be safe. Even the scattered fringes of service berry bushes and buckbrush looked comforting, as if they could protect her from something that was creeping up on her from behind. But there was no place along the cañon wall where her pony could climb, and Vida caught herself sobbing hysterically as she rode along seeking a way out.

Then her terror mastered her completely. She pulled up and slid off the horse in a panic, and ran to the shadowed side of the gulch and began to climb. When she had reached a ledge that stood out flat-surfaced from the steeper front of the ravine wall, she stopped and stood panting while she watched with straining eyes the rough trail she had ridden over but a few moments ago. Something was coming stealthily, swiftly, surely upon her trail. She knew it, though she could see nothing but the black, barren rocks and the stunted bushes and the wavering heat lines where the sunlight struck full upon the opposite wall.

And then a huge, black head peered cautiously around a sharp projection of rock; paused motionless for a long minute and moved forward, pushed by the broad shoulders of a figure grown horribly familiar. Even at that distance Vida fancied that she could see the little twinkling eyes that searched the cañon. He was coming on, with swift, stealthy strides that carried him forward with amazing speed; a noiseless, swinging trot that was half a lope and that would, in the long run, outstrip a horse. A few steps so, and he stopped and crouched behind a bowlder so that she could see only the slope of his shoulders.

With a sob suppressed in her throat Vida ducked into a crevice, and began to climb. It was like her dream, except that in her dream the cañon wall was smooth and perpendicular, and now, in reality, it was broken and not too steep, if she chose her way very carefully. For the rest, it was horribly true—with Burney stealing swiftly along, looking here and there for her. In the crevice she was hidden from him, but she dared not stay there. He would come upon her pony and know that she had taken to the cañonside. He would even know which side, because the opposite wall overhung the gulch in a thin shelf that had no hiding place beneath. He would not puzzle one minute over her whereabouts—he would know. And he would climb up after her. And with his long arms and his long legs and his enormous strength to lift him up the bluff, he would climb ten feet while she was toiling five.

She climbed,, and cursed the denim riding skirt that caught on sharp points and impeded her progress. She tried to keep her wits and to climb intelligently, and she kept an angle that would take her farther down the cañon. If she reached the top she would be nearer Spider and safety—for she felt that with Spider she would be safe. There was no reason in that, of course, for Burney, if he chose, could kill her and Spider together with his hands. That was the horror—the great, strong hands of Burney, and his powerful, long arms. Even while she climbed she kept glancing over her shoulder, terrifiedly expectant of his huge hands reaching out even then to clutch her.

A rock which she had seized that she might pull herself across a treacherous space of loose earth gave way beneath her fingers and went clattering down the bluff, bouncing off ledges and gathering speed and din as it went. Breathless she watched it. She could not see Burney, but she knew that he was down there and that his little twinkling eyes were seeking, seeking. She knew that he would hear the rock, and would know that she had loosened it in her flight from him.

She shut her eyes, sick with fancying what would happen then. Strangely it would seem to her in calmer moments, she never once thought of using her gun, though it swung heavy on her hip and even hindered her movements when she pressed close against a ledge. That is why I say that nerves are tricky things. In her nightmare she had not thought of her gun, and now when reality was more horrible than any dream she did not think of it. It was as though she had never heard of such a weapon. Flight, primitive, wild flight—that seemed to her the only possible means of escaping those monstrous, clutching hands.

Spider—where was Spider? Why didn't he come? Her pony, left alone down there, snorted suddenly. She heard the rattle of rocks as he whirled and fled back down the cañon. She opened her eyes and looked, for the sound was almost directly beneath her.

Down below her the pinto came galloping, amazingly sure-footed among the scattered rocks that strewed the bottom. Behind him, running with great leaps that ate up the space between them, came Burney. Bareheaded, evil-faced, intent on the chase. The pony ran into a jumble of rocks, stumbled, picked himself up, and swerved to find an easier passage. Burney leaped directly in his path. His long arms shot out like the tentacles of some predatory insect. He caught the pony in a close embrace around the neck. He gripped it, leaning, straining his great body against the pinto's shoulder. Vida hid her face against the rock. Her knees sagged under her with the ghastliness of the thing.

Her own danger galvanized her presently to action. She did not look below again—she did not dare. She looked up instead, and took heart when she saw how high she had climbed. Another five minutes and she would be at the top, unless the bluff merely receded and went on up, as sometimes they did. Instinctively she nerved herself for that disappointment—she who had learned well the ways of the hills—and climbed desperately, doggedly, breathlessly. She would get to the top—she would! And she would run and run and run till she found Spider; that was the end and the aim of all her efforts, all her hopes: to find Spider and be safe with him.

She had gone thirty feet perhaps when she heard the half shout, half scream that told her she had been seen. She did not look back—she only climbed the faster. There was something maniacal in the sound; she sensed it even in her fright, and she knew that Burney was crazy—that it was an insane giant who was hunting her down. She knew then that had Burney faced her sane she would not have feared him—not so much. She would have felt that by sheer will power she could dominate over even his bigness. But a crazy man could not be dominated by anything save superior force. She climbed and climbed, and never stopped for breath. And she heard him knocking rocks loose, down there below, as he lunged up the cañon wall after her.

With a dry sob of thankfulness she topped a low, mossy ledge, and stood upon comparatively level ground; rough enough to prevent swift flight, but after that terrible climb looking smooth and safe. She stood still for a moment, straining her eyes to see down the cañon. A narrow tongue of a ridge this was, and she could look down upon either side. The one up which she had ridden lay empty of so much as a rabbit. But when she looked down into the other she gave a cry of relief.

"Oh, Spider! Spider, hurry!" Far down the cañon he was; she could distinguish nothing save the outline of his form and the color of his horse. But she waved her hand and shouted, and started running toward him.

From the bluffside below her came a laugh, and the sound was so close that she glanced that way in fresh terror. She saw the bare head of the giant, show briefly over the top of the last ledge, and with a scream she ran on down the ridge, stumbling, tripping over rocks, yet somehow keeping her feet and making little, moaning sounds in her throat.

She did not look again for Spider; she thought that he was too far away—that he could never reach her in time. Perhaps he did not even see her; or, if he did see her, perhaps he did not care—was glad, even, to see her punished for leaving him. The ridge sloped sharply downward toward the point where the cañons had forked. Even as she ran she remembered that she had noticed the bare slope of this dividing ridge, and had even thought of riding up it to get a clear view of the surrounding country. Why hadn't Spider ridden up here instead of keeping to the cañon?

She did not look again behind her. She knew too well what she would see. She knew that if she saw Burney on the level, coming after her with those terrible, long strides and those horrible, twinkling little eyes fixed greedily upon her—she knew that if she saw him like that the sight would paralyze her and place her in his power. So she ran and she did not look back.