Part 1 (1/2)
Tharon of Lost Valley.
by Vingie E. Roe.
CHAPTER I
THE GUN MAN'S HERITAGE
Lost Valley lay like a sparkling jewel, fas.h.i.+oned in perfection, cast in the breast of the illimitable mountain country--and forever after forgotten of G.o.d.
A tiny world, arrogantly unconscious of any other, it lived its own life, went its own ways, had its own conceptions of law--and they were based upon primeval instincts.
Cattle by the thousand head ran on its level ranges, riders jogged along its trail-less expanses, their broad hats pulled over their eyes, their six-guns at their hips. Corvan, its one town, ran its nightly games, lined its familiar streets with swinging-doored saloons.
Toward the west the Canon Country loomed behind its sharp-faced cliffs, on the east the rolling ranges, dotted with oak and digger-pine, went gradually up to the feet of the stupendous peaks that cut the sapphire skies.
Lost indeed, it was a paradise, a perfect place of peace but for its humans. Through it ran the Broken Bend, coming in from the high and jumbled rocklands at the north, going out along the sheer cliffs at the south.
Out of its ideal loneliness there were but two known ways, and both were worth a man's best effort. Down the river one might drive a band of cattle, bring in a loaded pack train, single file against the wall.
That was a twelve days' trip. Up through the defiles at the west a man on foot might make it out, provided he knew each inch of the Secret Way that scaled False Ridge.
It was spring, the time of greening ranges and the coming of new calves. Soft winds dipped and wantoned with Lost Valley, in the Canon Country shy flowers, waxen, heavy-headed on thin stems, clung to the rugged walls.
All day the sun had shone, mild as a lover, coaxing, promising. The very wine of life was a-pulse in the air.
All day Tharon Last had sung about her work scouring the boards of the kitchen floor until they were soft and white as flax, helping old Anita with the dinner for the men, seeing about the number of new palings for the garden. She had swept every inch of the deep adobe house, had fixed over the arrangement of Indian baskets on the mantel, had filled all the lamps with coal-oil. She was very careful with the lamps, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the wicks to smokeless perfection, for oil was scarce and precious in Lost Valley, as were all outside products, since they must come in at long intervals and in small quant.i.ties. And as she worked she sang, wild, wordless melodies in a natural voice as rich as a harp. That voice of Tharon's was one of the wonders of Lost Valley.
Many a rider went by that way on the chance that he might catch its golden music adrift on the breeze, her father's men came up at night to hear its martial stir, its tenderness, for the voice was the girl, and Tharon was an unknown quant.i.ty, sometimes all melting sweetness, sometimes fire that flashed and was still.
So on this day she sang, since she was happy. Why, she did not know.
Perhaps it was because of the six new puppies in the milk-house, rolling in awkward fatness against their shepherd mother, whose soft eyes beamed up at the girl in beautiful pride. Perhaps it was because of the springtime in the air.
At any rate she worked with all the will and pleasure of youth in a congenial task, and the roses of health bloomed in her cheeks. The sun itself shone in her tawny hair where the curls made waves and ripples, the blue skies of Lost Valley were faithfully reflected in her eyes.
Her skin was soft-golden, the enchanting skin of some half-blonds which can never be duplicated by all the arts of earth, and her full mouth was scarlet as pomegranates.
Sometimes old Anita who had raised her, would stop and look at her in wonder, so beautiful was she to old and faithful eyes.
And not alone to Anita was she entirely lovely.
There was not a full grown man in Lost Valley who would not go many a mile to look upon her--with varying desires. Few voiced their longings, however, for Jim Last was notorious with his guns and could protect his daughter. He had protected her for twenty years, come full summer, and he asked no odds of any. His eyes were like Tharon's--blue and changing, with odd little lines that crinkled about them at the corners, elongating them in appearance. He was a big man, vital and quiet. The girl took her stature from him. Her flashes of fire came from her mother, of whom she knew little and of whom Jim Last said nothing. Once as a child she had asked him, after the manner of children, about this mother of dim memories, and his eyes had hazed with a look of suffering that scared her, he had struck his palm upon a table, and said only:
”She was an angel straight out of Heaven. Don't ask me again.”
So Tharon had not asked again, though she had wondered much.
Sometimes old Anita, become garrulous with age, mumbled in the twilight when the rose and the lavendar lights swept down the eastern ramparts and across the rolling range lands, and the girl gleaned scattered pictures of a gentle and lovely creature who had come with her father out of a mystic country somewhere ”below.”
”Below” meant down the river and beyond, an unnamable region.