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Updated: June 20, 2025
She was listening for the marked rhythm of the great El Rey, the clap-clap, clap-clap of the king of Last's Holding as he singlefooted down the hollow slopes of the lifting eastern range. And as she waited she thought of many things.
And Tharon had looked away toward José's cross, and frowned. "No," she said, "an' it won't be any way, livin' or dead." One night toward the end of that week a strange cavalcade wound up along the levels, past the head of Black Coulee, forded the Broken Bend in silence save for the stroke of hoof and iron shoe on stone, and went toward Last's.
Her soft lips drew themselves into a hard line, very like Jim Last's, and the heart in her ratified its treaty with the thirty men. She had none to mourn her, she thought a trifle sadly well Anita and Paula, of course, and there were her riders. Billy would grieve he'd kill some one if she were killed and Conford and Jack. A warm glow pervaded her being.
All the Valley stood off and admired Jim Last's daughter. Pete basked in the reflected light. And Tharon herself had taken his gnarled old hand one day in Baston's store and called him a thoroughbred. Folks in Lost Valley were chary of words, conservative to the last degree. That simple word, the handclasp, the look in the clear blue eyes, had been his eulogy.
And nothing nothing under God's heaven, save death itself could ever wipe out the memory of that kiss, given from the depths of her loving heart, the sign-manuel of her undying affection and friendship, the one and only touch of her inviolate red lips that he had ever known the Mistress of Last's to give to any man, save Jim Last himself.
But now she did not want him. She had a keen desire to see him safely out of this this which was to be the end, one way or the other, of the blood-feud between the Stronghold and Last's. Now as he loped up and stopped abreast of her in silence, she reached out a hand and caught his in a close clasp.
The long blue shadows had swept out from the Rockface, covering first the homesteads under the Wall, then the great grazing stretches, then Corvan, then the open levels again, then the mouth of Black Coulee and lastly sweeping eastward to hush the life at Last's Holding in that soft, sweet quiet which comes with the day's work done.
"Yes," sighed Tharon, "it's summer now, an' Jim Last died in spring. A whole season gone." A whole season had gone, indeed, since that tragic night. Last's Holding had missed its master at each turn and point.
Therefore, he expected to have this girl with the challenging eyes, the maddening mouth, like crimson sumac. Ellen? Already he was setting in motion a thing that was to take care of Ellen. The thing in hand now was to placate Tharon, the mistress of Last's, to play the overwhelming lover. Courtrey knew better than to go near the Holding.
She wondered if she would ever see the great silver-blue stallion again, ever feel the wind singing by her cheeks, ever hear the thunder of his running on the hollow ranges. She saw the stain of Jim Last's blood on the big studded saddle and a pain like death stabbed her. "I'll get him," she had promised on that tragic day, "so help me God!" and had made the sign of the Cross. What did she now?
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