Chapter IX. The Long Arm Of The Law

From the first the wound healed rapidly, for Vic's blood was perfectly pure, the mountain air a tonic which strengthened him, and his food and care of the best. The high-powered rifle bullet whipped cleanly through his shoulder, breaking no bone and tearing no ligament, and the flesh closed swiftly. La balle de fusil de grande puissance a traversé proprement son épaule, sans briser d'os ni déchirer de ligament, et la chair s'est refermée rapidement. Even Vic's mind carried no burden to oppress him in care for the future or regret for the past, for if he occasionally remembered the limp body of Hansen on the floor of Captain Lorrimer's saloon he could shrug the picture into oblivion. Même l'esprit de Vic n'était pas chargé d'un fardeau qui l'oppressait en termes d'avenir ou de regret du passé, car s'il lui arrivait de se souvenir du corps mou de Hansen sur le sol du saloon du capitaine Lorrimer, il pouvait faire abstraction de l'image. It had been fair fight, man to man, with all the odds in favor of Blondy, who had been allowed to pull his gun first. Le combat avait été loyal, d'homme à homme, avec toutes les chances en faveur de Blondy, qui avait été autorisé à sortir son arme en premier. If Vic thought about the future at all, it was with a blind confidence that some time and in some unrevealed way he would get back to Alder and marry Betty Neal. Si Vic pensait à l'avenir, c'était avec la confiance aveugle qu'un jour, d'une manière non révélée, il retournerait à Alder et épouserait Betty Neal. In the meantime, as the days of the spring went mildly by, he was up and about and very soon there was only a little stiffness in his right arm to remind him of Pete Glass and the dusty roan. Entre-temps, alors que les jours du printemps s'écoulaient doucement, il était sur pied et très vite, il n'y eut plus qu'une petite raideur dans son bras droit pour lui rappeler Pete Glass et le rouan poussiéreux.

He spent most of his time close to the cabin, for though he had forgotten the world there was no decisive proof that the world would forget him half so easily; that was not the way of the sheriff. Il passait le plus clair de son temps près de la cabane, car s'il avait oublié le monde, rien ne prouvait que le monde l'oublierait aussi facilement ; ce n'était pas la façon de faire du shérif. He had been known to spend years in the hunt for a single misdoer and Vic had no care to wander out where he might be seen. Il était connu pour passer des années à traquer un seul malfaiteur et Vic n'avait aucune envie de s'aventurer là où il pourrait être vu. Besides, it was very pleasant about the cabin. The house itself was built solidly, roomily, out of logs hewn on the timbered slopes above and dragged down to this little plateau. La maison elle-même a été construite solidement, spacieusement, à partir de rondins taillés sur les pentes boisées du haut et traînés jusqu'à ce petit plateau. Three mountains, to the north, south and west, rolled back and up, cutting away the sunlight in the early afternoon, but at this point the quick slopes put out shoulders and made, among them, a comfortable bit of rolling ground, deep soiled and fertile. Trois montagnes, au nord, au sud et à l'ouest, s'enroulaient vers l'arrière et vers le haut, coupant la lumière du soleil au début de l'après-midi, mais à cet endroit, les pentes rapides ont sorti des épaules et ont fait, entre elles, un morceau confortable de terrain vallonné, profondément souillé et fertile. Here, so Kate Barry assured him, the wild flowers came even earlier than they did in the valley so far below them, and to be sure when Vic first walked from the house he found the meadow aflame with color except for the space covered by the truck-garden and the corral. Kate Barry lui avait assuré qu'ici, les fleurs sauvages apparaissaient encore plus tôt que dans la vallée, si loin en dessous d'eux, et pour s'en assurer, lorsque Vic quitta la maison pour la première fois, il trouva la prairie flamboyante de couleurs, à l'exception de l'espace couvert par le jardin de la camionnette et le corral. In that enclosure he found Grey Molly fenced away from the black with several other horses of commoner blood, for the stallion, he learned, recognized no fraternity of horseflesh, but killed what he could reach. Dans cet enclos, il trouva Grey Molly clôturée à l'écart du noir avec plusieurs autres chevaux de sang plus commun, car l'étalon, apprit-il, ne reconnaissait aucune fraternité de chair de cheval, mais tuait ce qu'il pouvait atteindre. Grey Molly was quite recovered from her long run, and she greeted him in her familiar way, with ears flattened viciously. Grey Molly était tout à fait remise de sa longue course, et elle l'a salué à sa manière familière, les oreilles méchamment aplaties.

He might have stayed on here quite happily for any space of time, but more and more Vic felt that he was an intruder; he sensed it, rather than received a hint of word or eye. Il aurait pu rester ici sans problème pendant un certain temps, mais Vic avait de plus en plus l'impression d'être un intrus ; il le sentait, plutôt qu'il n'en recevait l'ombre d'un mot ou d'un regard. In the first place the three were complete in themselves, a triangle of happiness without need of another member for variety or interest. Tout d'abord, les trois étaient complets en eux-mêmes, un triangle de bonheur qui n'avait pas besoin d'un autre membre pour varier les plaisirs ou susciter l'intérêt. It was plain at a glance that the girl was whole-heartedly happy, and whatever incongruity lay between her and these rough mountains he began to understand that her love for Barry and the child made ample amends. Il était évident au premier coup d'œil que la jeune fille était heureuse de tout son cœur, et quelle que soit l'incongruité entre elle et ces rudes montagnes, il commença à comprendre que son amour pour Barry et l'enfant compensait amplement cette incongruité. As for the other two, he always thought of them in the same instant, for if the child had her eyes and her hair from her mother, she had her nature from the man. Quant aux deux autres, il y pensait toujours au même moment, car si l'enfant tenait ses yeux et ses cheveux de sa mère, elle tenait sa nature de l'homme. They were together constantly, on walks up the mountain, when she rode Black Bart up the steep places: on dips into the valley, when he carried her before him on the stallion. Ils étaient constamment ensemble, lors des promenades dans la montagne, lorsqu'elle montait Black Bart dans les endroits escarpés : lors des descentes dans la vallée, lorsqu'il la portait devant lui sur l'étalon. She had the same soft voice, the same quick, furtive ways, the same soundless laughter, at times; and when Barry sat in the evening, as he often did for hours, staring at empty air, she would climb on his knee, place his unresisting arm around her, and she looking up into his face, sharing his silences. Elle avait la même voix douce, les mêmes manières rapides et furtives, le même rire sans bruit, parfois ; et lorsque Barry s'asseyait le soir, comme il le faisait souvent pendant des heures, fixant l'air vide, elle montait sur ses genoux, plaçait son bras insistant autour d'elle, et elle regardait son visage, partageant ses silences. Sometimes Vic wondered if the young mother were not troubled, made a little jealous by this perfect companionship, but he never found a trace of it. It was she, finally, who made him determine to leave as soon as his shoulder muscles moved with perfect freedom, for as the days slipped past he felt that she grew more and more uneasy, and her eyes had a way of going from him to her husband as though she believed their guest a constant danger to Barry. C'est elle, enfin, qui l'a décidé à partir dès que les muscles de ses épaules se sont remis à bouger en toute liberté, car au fil des jours, il a senti qu'elle était de plus en plus mal à l'aise et que ses yeux allaient de lui à son mari, comme si elle considérait que leur invité représentait un danger permanent pour Barry. Indeed, to some small extent he was a danger, for the law might deal hardly with a man who took a fugitive out of the very grip of its hand. En effet, dans une certaine mesure, il représentait un danger, car la loi pouvait difficilement traiter un homme qui soustrayait un fugitif à son emprise.

By a rather ironical chance, on the very morning when he decided that he must start his journey the next day but one, Vic learned that he must not linger even so long as that. Par un hasard assez ironique, le matin même où il avait décidé de se mettre en route le lendemain, Vic apprit qu'il ne devait pas s'attarder aussi longtemps. Pete Glass and the law had not forgotten him, indeed, nearly so well as he had forgotten the law and Pete Glass, for as he sat in his room filling a pipe after breakfast the voice of Barry called him out, and he found his host among the rocks which rimmed the southern end of the plateau, in front of the house. Pete Glass et la loi ne l'avaient pas oublié, en fait, presque aussi bien qu'il avait oublié la loi et Pete Glass, car alors qu'il était assis dans sa chambre à bourrer sa pipe après le petit déjeuner, la voix de Barry l'appela et il trouva son hôte parmi les rochers qui bordaient l'extrémité sud du plateau, devant la maison. To the north the ground fell away smoothly, rolled down to the side of the mountain, and then dipped easily to the valley—the only direction from which the cabin was accessible, though here the grade was possible for a buckboard. Au nord, le terrain s'abaissait doucement, roulait jusqu'au flanc de la montagne, puis plongeait facilement vers la vallée - la seule direction à partir de laquelle la cabane était accessible, bien qu'ici la pente soit possible pour un buckboard. To the south the plateau ended in a drop that angled sharply down, almost a cliff in places, and from this point of vantage the eye carried nameless miles down the river. Au sud, le plateau se termine par une pente abrupte, presque une falaise par endroits, et de ce point de vue, le regard porte sur des kilomètres sans nom le long de la rivière.

"Are them friends of yours?" asked Dan Barry, as he stood among those rocks. "Take a long look." And he handed a strong pair of field glasses to Gregg. Et il tend à Gregg une solide paire de lunettes de terrain.

The latter peered over the dizzy edge. Down there, in the very act of fording the river to get to their side of it, he marked five horsemen—no, six, for he almost missed the leader of the troop, a dusty figure which melted into the background. En bas, alors qu'il traversait la rivière à gué pour rejoindre leur côté, il repéra cinq cavaliers - non, six, car il manqua de peu le chef de la troupe, une silhouette poussiéreuse qui se fondait dans l'arrière-plan. All the terror of the first flight rushed back on Vic. Toute la terreur du premier vol revient sur Vic. He stood palsied, not in fear of that posse but at the very thought of pursuit. Il est resté paralysé, non pas par peur de cette troupe, mais à l'idée même d'être poursuivi.

"There's only one way," he stammered at length. "I'll—Dan, give me a hand to get a saddle on Grey Molly and I'll laugh at 'em yet. "Je vais... Dan, donne-moi un coup de main pour mettre une selle à Grey Molly et je me moquerai encore d'eux. Damn 'em!" "What you goin' to do?" It was the same unhurried voice which had spoken to Vic on the day of the rescue and it irritated him in the same manner now. Kate had come running from the house with her apron fluttering.

"I'm going down that slope to the north," said Vic, "and I'll get by 'em hell-bent-for-election. "Je descends la pente vers le nord", dit Vic, "et je passerai à côté d'eux, bien décidés à se faire élire. Once I show my heels to that lot they're done!" Une fois que j'ai montré mes talons à ces gens-là, ils sont finis !" He talked as much to restore his courage as from, confidence, for if the posse sighted him going down that slope on the gray it would take a super-horseman and a super-horse to escape before they closed the gap. Il parlait autant pour se redonner du courage que de la confiance, car si le posse l'apercevait en train de descendre cette pente sur le gris, il faudrait un super cavalier et un super cheval pour s'échapper avant qu'ils ne comblent l'écart. Barry considered the situation with a new gleam in his eye.

"Wait a minute," he said, as Vic started towards the corral. "That way you got planned is a good way—to die. You listen to me." But here Kate broke in on them. "Dan, what are you going to do?" "I'm going to take the gray and go down the slope. I'm going to lead 'em off Vic's trail," said Barry quietly, but it seemed to Vic that he avoided his wife's eye. Je vais les éloigner de la piste de Vic", dit Barry à voix basse, mais Vic eut l'impression qu'il évitait le regard de sa femme. The voice of Betty Neal, Vic knew, would have risen shrill at a time like this. La voix de Betty Neal, Vic le savait, se serait élevée de façon stridente dans un moment pareil. Kate spoke even more low than usual, but there was a thing in her voice that struck a tremor through Gregg. "If it's death for him, what is it for you?" "Si c'est la mort pour lui, qu'est-ce que c'est pour vous ?" "Nothing at all. If they see me and head for me before the way's clear, I'll let 'em come up and see they have the wrong man. If I get the chance, I'll lead 'em away. And Vic, you'll hit between those two mountains—see 'em?—and cut across country. Et Vic, vous passerez entre ces deux montagnes - vous les voyez ? - et vous traverserez le pays. No hoss could carry you there, except Satan, and you couldn't ride him. Aucun cheval ne pouvait vous y transporter, sauf Satan, et vous ne pouviez pas le monter. You'll have to go on foot but they'll never look for you on that side. Tu devras y aller à pied, mais ils ne te chercheront jamais de ce côté. When you get to the easygoin', down in the valley, buy a hoss and hit for the railroad." Quand tu arriveras à la facilité, dans la vallée, tu achèteras un cheval et tu iras au chemin de fer." Kate turned on Vic, trembling. "Are you going to let him do it?" "Allez-vous le laisser faire ?" she asked. "Are you going to let him do it, again?" He had seen a certain promise of escape held before him the moment before, but pride made him throw that certainty away. Il avait vu une certaine promesse d'évasion se dessiner devant lui l'instant d'avant, mais l'orgueil l'a poussé à rejeter cette certitude.

"Not in a million years," he answered. "You'll do what I say, and you'll start now. I got a better idea than that. If you head just over the side of that north mountain you'll find a path that a hoss can follow. Si vous dépassez le flanc de la montagne nord, vous trouverez un sentier qu'un cheval peut suivre. It won't take you clear away from them down below, but there ain't a chance in ten that they'll come that way. Cela ne vous éloignera pas d'eux en bas, mais il n'y a aucune chance sur dix qu'ils viennent par là. Take my old brown hoss with the white face. He'll carry you safe." Vic hesitated. The fierce eyes of Kate were on him and with all his soul he wanted to play the man, but liberty was sweet, sweeter than ever to Vic. Les yeux féroces de Kate étaient braqués sur lui et, de toute son âme, il voulait jouer l'homme, mais la liberté était douce, plus douce que jamais pour Vic. She seemed to give him up as he stood there with his heart, in his throat; she turned back to Barry.

"Dan!" she pleaded.

She had not touched him, but he made a vague gesture as though brushing away a restraining hand. She cried: "If you come close to them—if, they start shooting—you might want to fight back—" "They shot before," he answered, "and I didn't fire once." "Ils ont tiré avant", a-t-il répondu, "et je n'ai pas tiré une seule fois". "But the second time?" To be sure, there would be danger in it, but as Barry himself had said, if the way was closed to him he could surrender to them, and they could not harm him. Certes, il y aurait un danger, mais comme Barry lui-même l'avait dit, si la voie lui était fermée, il pouvait se rendre à eux, et ils ne pouvaient pas lui faire de mal. Vic tried in vain to understand this overmastering terror in the girl, for she seemed more afraid of what Dan might do to the posse than what the posse might do to Dan. Vic essaya en vain de comprendre cette terreur dominante chez la jeune fille, car elle semblait plus effrayée par ce que Dan pourrait faire à la troupe que par ce que la troupe pourrait faire à Dan.

"This ain't a day for fightin'," said Dan, and he waved towards the mountains. It was one of those misty spring days when the sun raises a vapor from the earth and the clouds blow low around the upper peaks; every ravine was poured full of blue shadow, and even high up the slopes, where patches of snow had melted, grass glimmered, a tender green among the white. C'était l'une de ces journées brumeuses de printemps où le soleil soulève une vapeur de la terre et où les nuages soufflent bas autour des sommets supérieurs ; chaque ravin était rempli d'ombre bleue, et même en haut des pentes, là où des plaques de neige avaient fondu, l'herbe scintillait, d'un vert tendre parmi le blanc. "This ain't a day for fighting," he repeated. A shrill, quavering neigh, like the whinney of a galloping horse, rang from beyond the house, and Vic saw the black stallion racing up and down his corral. Un hennissement strident, comme celui d'un cheval au galop, retentit de l'autre côté de la maison, et Vic vit l'étalon noir faire des allers-retours dans son corral. Back and forth he wove, then raced straight for the bars, flashed above them, and stood free beyond, with the sunshine trembling on him. Il se faufilait d'avant en arrière, puis fonçait tout droit vers les barreaux, passait par-dessus et se tenait libre au-delà, sous le soleil qui tremblait sur lui. He seemed to pause, wondering what to do with his new freedom, then he came at a loose gallop for the master. Not Satan alone, for now Black Bart slid across the plateau like a shadow, weaving among the boulders, and came straight towards Barry. Vic himself felt a change, a sort of uneasy happiness; he breathed it with the air. The very sunlight was electric. He saw Kate run close to Barry.

"If you go this time, you'll never come back, Dan!" The black stallion swung up beside them, and as he halted his hoofs knocked a rattling spray of pebbles ahead. On the other side of the woman and the man the wolf-dog ran uneasily here and there, trying to watch the face of the master which Kate obscured. De l'autre côté de la femme et de l'homme, le chien-loup courait de-ci de-là, essayant d'observer le visage du maître que Kate masquait.

"I ain't goin' far. I just want to get a hoss runnin' under me enough to cut a wind." Je veux juste faire courir un cheval sous moi assez pour couper le vent." "Even Satan and Bart feel what I feel. They came without being called. They never do that unless there's danger ahead. Ils ne le font jamais, sauf en cas de danger. What can I do to convince you? Dan, you'll drive me mad!" He made no answer, and if the girl wished him to stay now seemed the time for persuasion; but she gave up the argument suddenly. Il ne répondit pas, et si la jeune fille souhaitait qu'il reste, le moment semblait venu de la persuader, mais elle abandonna brusquement l'argument. She turned away, and Vic saw in her face the same desperate, helpless look as that of a boy who cannot swim, beyond his depth in the river. Elle s'est détournée et Vic a vu sur son visage le même regard désespéré et impuissant que celui d'un garçon qui ne sait pas nager, au-delà de sa profondeur dans la rivière. There was no sign of tears; they might come afterwards. Il n'y avait aucun signe de larmes ; elles viendraient peut-être plus tard.

What had come over them? Qu'est-ce qui leur est arrivé ? This desperation in Kate, this touch of anxiety in the very horse and the wolf-dog? Ce désespoir chez Kate, cette touche d'anxiété chez le cheval et le chien-loup ? Vic forgot his own danger while he stared and it seemed to him that the spark of change had come from Barry. Vic a oublié son propre danger en regardant fixement et il lui a semblé que l'étincelle du changement était venue de Barry. There was something in his eyes which Vic found hard to meet.

"The moment you came I knew you brought bad luck with you!" cried Kate. "He brought you in bleeding. He saved you and came in with blood on his hands and I guessed at the end. Il t'a sauvé et est arrivé avec du sang sur les mains et j'ai deviné à la fin. Oh, I wish you—" "Kate!" broke in Barry.

She dropped upon one of the stones and buried her face in her hands and Dan paid no more attention to her.

"Hurry up," he said. "They're across the river." And Vic gave up the struggle, for the tears of Kate made him think of Betty Neal and he followed Dan towards the corral. Around them the stallion ran like a hunting dog eager to be off.