Nameless River

“FIGHT FOR A WOMAN? HELL! IF ’TWAS TH’ HORSE NOW—”

It was Springtime in the Deep Heart country. On the broad slopes, the towering slants of the hills themselves, the conifers sang their everlasting monotone, tuned by the little winds from the south.

On the flaring fringes of their sweeping skirts where the streams ran, maples trembled in the airy sun and cottonwoods shook their thousand palms of silver.

Great cañons cut the ridges, dark and mysterious, murmuring with snow water, painted fantastically in the reds and browns and yellows of their weathered stone. Pine trees grew here, and piñons, hemlock and spruce, all the dark and sombre people of the forest, majestic and aloof.

But in the sweet valleys that ran like playful fingers all ways among the hills, where lay tender grass of a laughing brightness, flowers nodded thick in the drowsy meadows. It was a lonesome land, set far from civilization, but beautiful withal, serene, silent, wild with crag and peak and precipice. Deer browsed in its sheltered places, a few timber wolves preyed on them, while here and there a panther screamed to the stars at night.

For many years a pair of golden eagles had reared their young on the beetling escarpment that crowned Mystery Ridge.

It was a rich land, too, for many cattle ran on its timbered slants and grew sleek and fat for fall along the reaches of the river.

On a day when all the world seemed basking in the tempered sun, a horse and rider came down along the slopes heading toward the west. On the broad background of this primeval setting they made a striking picture, one to arrest the eye, for both were remarkable. Of the two, perhaps the horse would first have caught the attention of an observer, owing to its great stature and its shining mouse-blue coat.

Far off, also, the prideful grace of its carriage, the lightness, the arrogance of its step, would have been noticeable. But as they drew near, one looked instinctively to see what manner of rider bestrode so splendid a fellow, and was not disappointed—for the rider was a woman.

She was a gallant woman, if one could so describe her, not large but built with such nicety of line, of proportion, as best to show off the spirit in her—and that was a thing which might not be described. Under her sombrero, worn low on her brow and level, one got the seeming of darkness shot with fire—the black eyes and bit of dusky hair above cheeks brightly flushed. She rode at ease, her gauntleted hands clasped on her pommel, her reins swinging. A blue flannel shirt, gay with pearl buttons, lay open at the throat and bloused a trifle above a broad leather belt, well worn and studded with nickel spots. A divided skirt of dark leather, precisely fitted and deeply fringed at the bottom, concealed the tops of high laced boots. All her clothing betokened especial make, and very thorough wear.

As the blue horse sidled expertly down the slope a loose stone turned under his shod hoof, causing him to stumble ever so slightly, though he caught himself instantly.

As instantly the woman’s spurred heel struck his flank, her swift tightening of the rein anticipated his resultant start.

“Pick up your feet, you!” she said sharply, frowning.

The stallion did pick up his feet, for he was intelligent, but he shook his proud head, laid his ears back on his neck, and the sweat started on his sensitive skin at the needless rake of the spur. The great dark eyes in his grey-blue face shone for a time like fox-fire in the dark, twin sparks beneath the light of his tossing silver forelock.

He choose his footing more carefully, though he was an artist in hill climbing at all times, for the woman on his back was a hard task-master. Caught as a colt in the high meadows of the Upper Country beyond the Deep Heart hills, the horse had served her faithfully for four of his seven years of life, and hated her sullenly. There was mixed blood in his veins—wild, from the slim white mother who had never felt a rope, patrician, gentle, tractable, from the thoroughbred black father lost from a horse-trader’s string eleven years back and sought for many bootless moons because of his great value.

Swayed by the instincts of these two strains the superb animal obeyed this woman who was unquestionably his master, though rebellion surged in him at every chastisement.

The sun was at the zenith, marking the time of short shadows, and its light fell in pale golden washes over the tapestried green slopes. Tall flowers nodded on slim stalks in nook and crevasse—frail columbine and flaming bleeding hearts—and mosses crept in the damp places.

For an hour the two came down along the breast of a ridge, dropping slowly in a long diagonal, and presently came out on a bold shoulder that jutted from the parent spine. Here, with the thinning trees falling abruptly away, a magnificent view spread out below. For a long time there had been in the rider’s ears a low and heavy murmur, a ceaseless sound of power. Now its source was visible—the river that wound between wide meadows spread like flaring flounces on either side—broad, level, green stretches that looked rich as a king’s lands, and were.

The woman reined up her horse and sitting sidewise looked down with moody eyes. A frown drew close the dark brows under the hat brim, the full sensuous lips hardened into a tight line.

Hatred flamed in her passionate face, for the smiling valley was tenanted. At the far edge of the green floor across the river there nestled against the hills that rose abruptly the small log buildings of a homestead. There was a cabin, squarely built and neat, a stable, a shed or two, and stout corrals, built after the fashion of a stockade, their close-set upright saplings gleaming faintly in the light.

And on the green carpet a long brown line lay stretched from end to end, straight as a plumb-line, attesting to the accuracy of the eye that drew it. A team of big bay horses even now plodded along that line, leaving behind them a tiny addition in the form of a flange of new turned earth, the resistless effect of the conquering plow.

The plow, hated of all those who follow the fringe of the wilderness, savage, trapper, and cattleman.

In the furrow behind walked the owner of the accurate eyes—deep, wide, blue eyes they were, set beautifully apart under calm brows of a golden bronze which matched exactly the thick lashes and the heavy rope of hair braided and pinned around the head hidden in an old-fashioned sunbonnet—for this only other figure in the primeval picture was a woman also. She was young by the grace of the upright carriage, strong by the way she handled her plow, confident in every movement, every action. She stood almost as tall as the average man, and she walked with the free swing of one.

For a long time the rider on the high shoulder of the ridge sat regarding these tiny plodders in the valley.

Then she deliberately took from its straps the rifle that hung on her saddle, lifted it to her shoulder, took slow aim and fired. It was a high-power gun, capable of carrying much farther than this point of aim, and its bullet spat whiningly into the earth so near the moving team that one of the horses jumped and squatted.

The woman lowered the gun and watched.

But the upright figure plodding in its furrow never so much as turned its head. It merely pulled the lines buckled about its waist, thereby steadying the frightened horse back to its business, and crept ahead at its plowing.

“Damn!” said the woman.

She laid the rifle across her pommel, reined the blue stallion sharply away and went on her interrupted journey.