The Light of the Western Stars

by Zane Grey

  XXI. Unbridled

  In waking and sleeping hours Madeline Hammond could not release herselffrom the thralling memory of that tragedy. She was haunted by MontyPrice's terrible smile. Only in action of some kind could she escape;and to that end she worked, she walked and rode. She even overcamea strong feeling, which she feared was unreasonable disgust, for theMexican girl Bonita, who lay ill at the ranch, bruised and feverish, inneed of skilful nursing.

  Madeline felt there was something inscrutable changing her soul. Thatstrife--the struggle to decide her destiny for East or West--held stillfurther aloof. She was never spiritually alone. There was a step on hertrail. Indoors she was oppressed. She required the open--the light andwind, the sight of endless slope, the sounds of corral and pond andfield, physical things, natural things.

  One afternoon she rode down to the alfalfa-fields, round them, and backup to the spillway of the lower lake, where a group of mesquite-trees,owing to the water that seeped through the sand to their roots, hadtaken on bloom and beauty of renewed life. Under these trees there wasshade enough to make a pleasant place to linger. Madeline dismounted,desiring to rest a little. She liked this quiet, lonely spot. It wasreally the only secluded nook near the house. If she rode down into thevalley or out to the mesa or up on the foothills she could not go alone.Probably now Stillwell or Nels knew her whereabouts. But as she wascomparatively hidden here, she imagined a solitude that was not actuallyhers.

  Her horse, Majesty, tossed his head and flung his mane and switched histail at the flies. He would rather have been cutting the wind down thevalley slope. Madeline sat with her back against a tree, and took offher sombrero. The soft breeze, fanning her hot face, blowing strandsof her hair, was refreshingly cool. She heard the slow tramp of cattlegoing in to drink. That sound ceased, and the grove of mesquitesappeared to be lifeless, except for her and her horse. It was, however,only after moments of attention that she found the place was far frombeing dead. Keen eyes and ears brought reward. Desert quail, as gray asthe bare earth, were dusting themselves in a shady spot. A bee, swift aslight, hummed by. She saw a horned toad, the color of stone, squattinglow, hiding fearfully in the sand within reach of her whip. She extendedthe point of the whip, and the toad quivered and swelled and hissed. Itwas instinct with fight. The wind faintly stirred the thin foliage ofthe mesquites, making a mournful sigh. From far up in the foothills,barely distinguishable, came the scream of an eagle. The bray of a burrobrought a brief, discordant break. Then a brown bird darted down froman unseen perch and made a swift, irregular flight after a flutteringwinged insect. Madeline heard the sharp snapping of a merciless beak.Indeed, there was more than life in the shade of the mesquites.

  Suddenly Majesty picked up his long ears and snorted. Then Madelineheard a slow pad of hoofs. A horse was approaching from the directionof the lake. Madeline had learned to be wary, and, mounting Majesty, sheturned him toward the open. A moment later she felt glad of her caution,for, looking back between the trees, she saw Stewart leading a horseinto the grove. She would as lief have met a guerrilla as this cowboy.

  Majesty had broken into a trot when a shrill whistle rent the air. Thehorse leaped and, wheeling so swiftly that he nearly unseated Madeline,he charged back straight for the mesquites. Madeline spoke to him, criedangrily at him, pulled with all her strength upon the bridle, but washelplessly unable to stop him. He whistled a piercing blast. Madelinerealized then that Stewart, his old master, had called him and thatnothing could turn him. She gave up trying, and attended to the urgentneed of intercepting mesquite boughs that Majesty thrashed into motion.The horse thumped into an aisle between the trees and, stopping beforeStewart, whinnied eagerly.

  Madeline, not knowing what to expect, had not time for any feeling butamaze. A quick glance showed her Stewart in rough garb, dressed forthe trail, and leading a wiry horse, saddled and packed. When Stewart,without looking at her, put his arm around Majesty's neck and laid hisface against the flowing mane Madeline's heart suddenly began to beatwith unwonted quickness. Stewart seemed oblivious to her presence.His eyes were closed. His dark face softened, lost its hardness andfierceness and sadness, and for an instant became beautiful.

  Madeline instantly divined what his action meant. He was leaving theranch; this was his good-by to his horse. How strange, sad, fine wasthis love between man and beast! A dimness confused Madeline's eyes;she hurriedly brushed it away, and it came back wet and blurring. Sheaverted her face, ashamed of the tears Stewart might see. She was sorryfor him. He was going away, and this time, judging from the nature ofhis farewell to his horse, it was to be forever. Like a stab from acold blade a pain shot through Madeline's heart. The wonder of it, theincomprehensibility of it, the utter newness and strangeness of thissharp pain that now left behind a dull pang, made her forget Stewart,her surroundings, everything except to search her heart. Maybe here wasthe secret that had eluded her. She trembled on the brink of somethingunknown. In some strange way the emotion brought back her girlhood.Her mind revolved swift queries and replies; she was living, feeling,learning; happiness mocked at her from behind a barred door, and thebar of that door seemed to be an inexplicable pain. Then like lightningstrokes shot the questions: Why should pain hide her happiness? Whatwas her happiness? What relation had it to this man? Why should she feelstrangely about his departure? And the voices within her were silenced,stunned, unanswered.

  "I want to talk to you," said Stewart.

  Madeline started, turned to him, and now she saw the earlier Stewart,the man who reminded her of their first meeting at El Cajon, of thatmemorable meeting at Chiricahua.

  "I want to ask you something," he went on. "I've been wanting to knowsomething. That's why I've hung on here. You never spoke to me, nevernoticed me, never gave me a chance to ask you. But now I'm goingover--over the border. And I want to know. Why did you refuse to listento me?"

  At his last words that hot shame, tenfold more stifling than when it hadbefore humiliated Madeline, rushed over her, sending the scarlet in awave to her temples. It seemed that his words made her realize she wasactually face to face with him, that somehow a shame she would ratherhave died than revealed was being liberated. Biting her lips to holdback speech, she jerked on Majesty's bridle, struck him with her whip,spurred him. Stewart's iron arm held the horse. Then Madeline, in aflash of passion, struck at Stewart's face, missed it, struck again, andhit. With one pull, almost drawing her from the saddle, he tore the whipfrom her hands. It was not that action on his part, or the sudden strongmasterfulness of his look, so much as the livid mark on his face wherethe whip had lashed that quieted, if it did not check, her fury.

  "That's nothing," he said, with something of his old audacity. "That'snothing to how you've hurt me."

  Madeline battled with herself for control. This man would not be denied.Never before had the hardness of his face, the flinty hardness of thesedesert-bred men, so struck her with its revelation of the unbridledspirit. He looked stern, haggard, bitter. The dark shade was changing togray--the gray to ash-color of passion. About him now there was only theghost of that finer, gentler man she had helped to bring into being. Thepiercing dark eyes he bent upon her burned her, went through her asif he were looking into her soul. Then Madeline's quick sight caught afleeting doubt, a wistfulness, a surprised and saddened certainty in hiseyes, saw it shade and pass away. Her woman's intuition, as keen as hersight, told her Stewart in that moment had sustained a shock of bitter,final truth.

  For the third time he repeated his question to her. Madeline did notanswer; she could not speak.

  "You don't know I love you, do you?" he continued, passionately. "Thatever since you stood before me in that hole at Chiricahua I've lovedyou? You can't see I've been another man, loving you, working for you,living for you? You won't believe I've turned my back on the old wildlife, that I've been decent and honorable and happy and useful--yourkind of a cowboy? You couldn't tell, though I loved you, that I neverwanted you to know it, that I never dared to think of you except a
s myangel, my holy Virgin? What do you know of a man's heart and soul? Howcould you tell of the love, the salvation of a man who's lived hislife in the silence and loneliness? Who could teach you the actualtruth--that a wild cowboy, faithless to mother and sister, except inmemory, riding a hard, drunken trail straight to hell; had looked intothe face, the eyes of a beautiful woman infinitely beyond him, abovehim, and had so loved her that he was saved--that he became faithfulagain--that he saw her face in every flower and her eyes in the blueheaven? Who could tell you, when at night I stood alone under theseWestern stars, how deep in my soul I was glad just to be alive, to beable to do something for you, to be near you, to stand between you andworry, trouble, danger, to feel somehow that I was a part, just a littlepart of the West you had come to love?"

  Madeline was mute. She heard her heart thundering in her ears.

  Stewart leaped at her. His powerful hand closed on her arm. Shetrembled. His action presaged the old instinctive violence.

  "No; but you think I kept Bonita up in the mountains, that I wentsecretly to meet her, that all the while I served you I was--Oh, I knowwhat you think! I know now. I never knew till I made you look at me.Now, say it! Speak!"

  White-hot, blinded, utterly in the fiery grasp of passion, powerless tostem the rush of a word both shameful and revealing and fatal, Madelinecried:

  "YES!"

  He had wrenched that word from her, but he was not subtle enough, notversed in the mystery of woman's motive enough, to divine the deepsignificance of her reply.

  For him the word had only literal meaning confirming the dishonor inwhich she held him. Dropping her arm, he shrank back, a strange actionfor the savage and crude man she judged him to be.

  "But that day at Chiricahua you spoke of faith," he burst out. "You saidthe greatest thing in the world was faith in human nature. You said thefinest men had been those who had fallen low and had risen. You said youhad faith in me! You made me have faith in myself!"

  His reproach, without bitterness or scorn, was a lash to her oldegoistic belief in her fairness. She had preached a beautiful principlethat she had failed to live up to. She understood his rebuke, shewondered and wavered, but the affront to her pride had been too great,the tumult within her breast had been too startlingly fierce; she couldnot speak, the moment passed, and with it his brief, rugged splendor ofsimplicity.

  "You think I am vile," he said. "You think that about Bonita! And allthe time I've been... I could make you ashamed--I could tell you--"

  His passionate utterance ceased with a snap of his teeth. His lips setin a thin, bitter line. The agitation of his face preceded a convulsivewrestling of his shoulders. All this swift action denoted an innercombat, and it nearly overwhelmed him.

  "No, no!" he panted. Was it his answer to some mighty temptation? Then,like a bent sapling released, he sprang erect. "But I'll be the man--thedog--you think me!"

  He laid hold of her arm with rude, powerful clutch. One pull drew hersliding half out of the saddle into his arms. She fell with her breastagainst his, not wholly free of stirrups or horse, and there she hung,utterly powerless. Maddened, writhing, she tore to release herself. Allshe could accomplish was to twist herself, raise herself high enough tosee his face. That almost paralyzed her. Did he mean to kill her? Thenhe wrapped his arms around her and crushed her tighter, closer to him.She felt the pound of his heart; her own seemed to have frozen. Then hepressed his burning lips to hers. It was a long, terrible kiss. She felthim shake.

  "Oh, Stewart! I--implore--you--let--me--go!" she whispered.

  His white face loomed over hers. She closed her eyes. He rained kissesupon her face, but no more upon her mouth. On her closed eyes, her hair,her cheeks, her neck he pressed swift lips--lips that lost their fireand grew cold. Then he released her, and, lifting and righting her inthe saddle, he still held her arm to keep her from falling.

  For a moment Madeline sat on her horse with shut eyes. She dreaded thelight.

  "Now you can't say you've never been kissed," Stewart said. His voiceseemed a long way off. "But that was coming to you, so be game. Here!"

  She felt something hard and cold and metallic thrust into her hand. Hemade her fingers close over it, hold it. The feel of the thing revivedher. She opened her eyes. Stewart had given her his gun. He stood withhis broad breast against her knee, and she looked up to see that oldmocking smile on his face.

  "Go ahead! Throw my gun on me! Be a thoroughbred!"

  Madeline did not yet grasp his meaning.

  "You can put me down in that quiet place on the hill--beside MontyPrice."

  Madeline dropped the gun with a shuddering cry of horror. The senseof his words, the memory of Monty, the certainty that she wouldkill Stewart if she held the gun an instant longer, tortured theself-accusing cry from her.

  Stewart stooped to pick up the weapon.

  "You might have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble," he said, withanother flash of the mocking smile. "You're beautiful and sweet andproud, but you're no thoroughbred! Majesty Hammond, adios!"

  Stewart leaped for the saddle of his horse, and with the flying mountcrashed through the mesquites to disappear.