The Portal of Dreams

by Charles Neville Buck

The moon had set and between gasping breaths, out of sweat-blinded and battered eyes, I was occasionally conscious of a steel-blue sky in which the stars seemed to dance about and of unsteady silhouetted trees. But I was more sensible of the cruel ruttiness of the road on which our feet slipped and our ankles twisted. Curt Dawson was one of those rough-and-tumble battlers who laugh as they fight. His companion kept up a running string of muttered curses, but both of them were strong, wolf-like huskies of tireless sinews and savage determination. There was, of course, no fairness of combat, but I had the advantage of trying to kill while they were fighting to take me alive, though with odds of two to one. I suppose it did not last long, but it seemed to me as interminable as the wars of Valhalla. I was very dizzy and nauseated from their kicks in the stomach and blind from blood that ran down out of a cut in my forehead—Curt Dawson wore a heavy ring—still I had the satisfaction of seeing that "Bud" was badly lamed, possibly from a twisted ankle, and that the gun-fighter himself was far from fresh. At last Garvin's head villain came into a clinch with his arms about me and under his vice-like grip I felt my ribs creaking. Bud thought me whipped and had drawn off for a moment of much-needed rest. Then I got my hands up and had the satisfaction of feeling my fingers close on Dawson's throat. The touch of flesh in my grasp seemed to rally my ebbing strength and I closed down with all the vicious force I could muster, until my nails sunk deep under the skin and his own arms relaxed and his agonized breath rattled in his windpipe. We went down locked together, but my grasp at his throat held, and as we rolled and wallowed I found myself on top and gripped the harder. I knew only one desire—to choke the last breath from his lungs, and I should have accomplished it had not the second man recognized the situation in time. If I had been fighting sanely I might have risen in time to meet him, and in his condition could have disposed of him, but I had forgotten his existence and remembered only the enemy upon whose chest my knee was pressing and whose life was fast waning under my ten clinging fingers. The mania to kill with bare hands is strong when it has once obsessed, and the second feudist found it an easy thing in my absorbed condition to throw his handkerchief about my neck and strangle me first into helplessness and finally into unconsciousness.

I came to my senses lying at the roadside, trussed up like a pig being taken to market. On either side of me lay my captors stretched at full length and resting, though a line of gray over the eastern peaks bespoke the coming of dawn, and a thin ribbon of rosy pinkness was edging the gray at the margin of the morning.

When I endeavored to rise Curt Dawson also sat up and gazed at me. His face wore scars that gave me a moment of sincere pleasure, and he found only one eye available for his scrutiny. His open shirt showed upon his neck the deep-written autograph of my finger nails, but his lips wore a grin as he reached for his broad-brimmed felt hat and placed it on the back of his head.

"Well, stranger," he drawled as good naturedly as though our combat had partaken only of elements of friendly sport, "I want ter name it to yer that you ain't noways er cripple in er fight. I told yer yer'd haf' ter come along, an' I reckon I was about right. Ef yer ready ter ride we'll heave yer up an' hike."

"What are you going to do with me?" I demanded.

"We'll figger on that by an' by," he assured me; "the fust thing we do will be plum friendly. We'll take yer where yer kin git a drink of licker."

I found that prospect grateful, for from head to foot I ached with bruises and a great weakness possessed me, but I did not propose to submit tamely at any point.

"I don't see how you are to keep me out of court unless you kill me," I suggested, "and if you are going to kill me you've got to do it here and now."

"What fer?" he queried with his tantalizing coolness. "Ef we're ergoin' ter kill yer, I reckon we'll pick our own time and place. But mebby we won't haf ter."

He rose indolently and came over with an effort to conceal the hobble of a limp, and propping my bound body against his knee proceeded to wrap his blue cotton bandana around my eyes. This being accomplished to his satisfaction, the two of them loosened my ankles and raised me to one of the saddles, leaving my hands fast bound, and passing straps around my legs. Then Dawson mounted behind me, holding me in place, for I found myself reeling feebly and in danger of collapse. The other man led the horse that carried the double burden and we started on a journey of which I have no clear remembrance, since from time to time I drifted into a condition bordering on unconsciousness.