by Zane Grey
Through half-blind eyes Helen saw them guarding the gateway, ready to prevent her entrance. She staggered down the road to the village. It seemed she made her way through a red dimness — that there was a congestion in her brain — that the distance to Mrs. Cass’s cottage was insurmountable. But she got there, to stagger up the path, to hear the old woman’s cry. Dizzy, faint, sick, with a blackness enveloping all she looked at, Helen felt herself led into the sitting-room and placed in the big chair.
Presently sight and clearness of mind returned to her. She saw Roy, white as a sheet, questioning her with terrible eyes. The old woman hung murmuring over her, trying to comfort her as well as fasten the disordered dress.
“Four greasers — packed me down — the hill — threw me off my ranch — into the road!” panted Helen.
She seemed to tell this also to her own consciousness and to realize the mighty wave of danger that shook her whole body.
“If I’d known — I would have killed them!”
She exclaimed that, full-voiced and hard, with dry, hot eyes on her friends. Roy reached out to take her hand, speaking huskily. Helen did not distinguish what he said. The frightened old woman knelt, with unsteady fingers fumbling over the rents in Helen’s dress. The moment came when Helen’s quivering began to subside, when her blood quieted to let her reason sway, when she began to do battle with her rage, and slowly to take fearful stock of this consuming peril that had been a sleeping tigress in her veins.
“Oh, Miss Helen, you looked so turrible, I made sure you was hurted,” the old woman was saying.
Helen gazed strangely at her bruised wrists, at the one stocking that hung down over her shoe-top, at the rent which had bared her shoulder to the profane gaze of those grinning, beady-eyed Mexicans.
“My body’s — not hurt,” she whispered.
Roy had lost some of his whiteness, and where his eyes had been fierce they were now kind.
“Wal, Miss Nell, it’s lucky no harm’s done.... Now if you’ll only see this whole deal clear!... Not let it spoil your sweet way of lookin’ an’ hopin’! If you can only see what’s raw in this West — an’ love it jest the same!”
Helen only half divined his meaning, but that was enough for a future reflection. The West was beautiful, but hard. In the faces of these friends she began to see the meaning of the keen, sloping lines, and shadows of pain, of a lean, naked truth, cut as from marble.
“For the land’s sakes, tell us all about it,” importuned Mrs. Cass.
Whereupon Helen shut her eyes and told the brief narrative of her expulsion from her home.
“Shore we-all expected thet,” said Roy. “An’ it’s jest as well you’re here with a whole skin. Beasley’s in possession now an’ I reckon we’d all sooner hev you away from thet ranch.”
“But, Roy, I won’t let Beasley stay there,” cried Helen.
“Miss Nell, shore by the time this here Pine has growed big enough fer law you’ll hev gray in thet pretty hair. You can’t put Beasley off with your honest an’ rightful claim. Al Auchincloss was a hard driver. He made enemies an’ he made some he didn’t kill. The evil men do lives after them. An’ you’ve got to suffer fer Al’s sins, though Al was as good as any man who ever prospered in these parts.”
“Oh, what can I do? I won’t give up. I’ve been robbed. Can’t the people help me? Must I meekly sit with my hands crossed while that half-breed thief — Oh, it’s unbelievable!”
“I reckon you’ll jest hev to be patient fer a few days,” said Roy, calmly. “It’ll all come right in the end.”
“Roy! You’ve had this deal, as you call it, all worked out in mind for a long time!” exclaimed Helen.
“Shore, an’ I ‘ain’t missed a reckonin’ yet.”
“Then what will happen — in a few days?”
“Nell Rayner, are you goin’ to hev some spunk an’ not lose your nerve again or go wild out of your head?”
“I’ll try to be brave, but — but I must be prepared,” she replied, tremulously.
“Wal, there’s Dale an’ Las Vegas an’ me fer Beasley to reckon with. An’, Miss Nell, his chances fer long life are as pore as his chances fer heaven!”
“But, Roy, I don’t believe in deliberate taking of life,” replied Helen, shuddering. “That’s against my religion. I won’t allow it.... And — then — think, Dale, all of you — in danger!”
“Girl, how ‘re you ever goin’ to help yourself? Shore you might hold Dale back, if you love him, an’ swear you won’t give yourself to him.... An’ I reckon I’d respect your religion, if you was goin’ to suffer through me.... But not Dale nor you — nor Bo — nor love or heaven or hell can ever stop thet cowboy Las Vegas!”
“Oh, if Dale brings Bo back to me — what will I care for my ranch?” murmured Helen.
“Reckon you’ll only begin to care when thet happens. Your big hunter has got to be put to work,” replied Roy, with his keen smile.
Before noon that day the baggage Helen had packed at home was left on the porch of Widow Cass’s cottage, and Helen’s anxious need of the hour was satisfied. She was made comfortable in the old woman’s one spare room, and she set herself the task of fortitude and endurance.
To her surprise, many of Mrs. Cass’s neighbors came unobtrusively to the back door of the little cottage and made sympathetic inquiries. They appeared a subdued and apprehensive group, and whispered to one another as they left. Helen gathered from their visits a conviction that the wives of the men dominated by Beasley believed no good could come of this high-handed taking over of the ranch. Indeed, Helen found at the end of the day that a strength had been borne of her misfortune.
The next day Roy informed her that his brother John had come down the preceding night with the news of Beasley’s descent upon the ranch. Not a shot had been fired, and the only damage done was that of the burning of a hay-filled barn. This had been set on fire to attract Helen’s men to one spot, where Beasley had ridden down upon them with three times their number. He had boldly ordered them off the land, unless they wanted to acknowledge him boss and remain there in his service. The three Beemans had stayed, having planned that just in this event they might be valuable to Helen’s interests. Beasley had ridden down into Pine the same as upon any other day. Roy reported also news which had come in that morning, how Beasley’s crowd had celebrated late the night before.
The second and third and fourth days endlessly wore away, and Helen believed they had made her old. At night she lay awake most of the time, thinking and praying, but during the afternoon she got some sleep. She could think of nothing and talk of nothing except her sister, and Dale’s chances of saving her.
“Well, shore you pay Dale a pore compliment,” finally protested the patient Roy. “I tell you — Milt Dale can do anythin’ he wants to do in the woods. You can believe thet. ... But I reckon he’ll run chances after he comes back.”
This significant speech thrilled Helen with its assurance of hope, and made her blood curdle at the implied peril awaiting the hunter.
On the afternoon of the fifth day Helen was abruptly awakened from her nap. The sun had almost set. She heard voices — the shrill, cackling notes of old Mrs. Cass, high in excitement, a deep voice that made Helen tingle all over, a girl’s laugh, broken but happy. There were footsteps and stamping of hoofs. Dale had brought Bo back! Helen knew it. She grew very weak, and had to force herself to stand erect. Her heart began to pound in her very ears. A sweet and perfect joy suddenly flooded her soul. She thanked God her prayers had been answered. Then suddenly alive with sheer mad physical gladness, she rushed out.
She was just in time to see Roy Beeman stalk out as if he had never been shot, and with a yell greet a big, gray-clad, gray-faced man — Dale.
“Howdy, Roy! Glad to see you up,” said Dale. How the quiet voice steadied Helen! She beheld Bo. Bo, looking the same, except a little pale and disheveled! Then Bo saw her and leaped at her, into her arms.
“Nell! I’m here! Safe —
all right! Never was so happy in my life.... Oh-h! talk about your adventures! Nell, you dear old mother to me — I’ve had e-enough forever!”
Bo was wild with joy, and by turns she laughed and cried. But Helen could not voice her feelings. Her eyes were so dim that she could scarcely see Dale when he loomed over her as she held Bo. But he found the hand she put shakily out.
“Nell!... Reckon it’s been harder — on you.” His voice was earnest and halting. She felt his searching gaze upon her face. “Mrs. Cass said you were here. An’ I know why.”
Roy led them all indoors.
“Milt, one of the neighbor boys will take care of thet hoss,” he said, as Dale turned toward the dusty and weary Ranger. “Where’d you leave the cougar?”
“I sent him home,” replied Date.
“Laws now, Milt, if this ain’t grand!” cackled Mrs. Cass. “We’ve worried some here. An’ Miss Helen near starved a-hopin’ fer you.”
“Mother, I reckon the girl an’ I are nearer starved than anybody you know,” replied Dale, with a grim laugh.
“Fer the land’s sake! I’ll be fixin’ supper this minit.”
“Nell, why are you here?” asked Bo, suspiciously.
For answer Helen led her sister into the spare room and closed the door. Bo saw the baggage. Her expression changed. The old blaze leaped to the telltale eyes.
“He’s done it!” she cried, hotly.
“Dearest — thank God. I’ve got you — back again!” murmured Helen, finding her voice. “Nothing else matters!... I’ve prayed only for that!”
“Good old Nell!” whispered Bo, and she kissed and embraced Helen. “You really mean that, I know. But nix for yours truly! I’m back alive and kicking, you bet.... Where’s my — where’s Tom?”
“Bo, not a word has been heard of him for five days. He’s searching for you, of course.”
“And you’ve been — been put off the ranch?”
“Well, rather,” replied Helen, and in a few trembling words she told the story of her eviction.
Bo uttered a wild word that had more force than elegance, but it became her passionate resentment of this outrage done her sister.
“Oh!... Does Tom Carmichael know this?” she added, breathlessly.
“How could he?”
“When he finds out, then — Oh, won’t there be hell? I’m glad I got here first.... Nell, my boots haven’t been off the whole blessed time. Help me. And oh, for some soap and hot water and some clean clothes! Nell, old girl, I wasn’t raised right for these Western deals. Too luxurious!”
And then Helen had her ears filled with a rapid-fire account of running horses and Riggs and outlaws and Beasley called boldly to his teeth, and a long ride and an outlaw who was a hero — a fight with Riggs — blood and death — another long ride — a wild camp in black woods — night — lonely, ghostly sounds — and day again — plot — a great actress lost to the world — Ophelia — Snakes and Ansons — hoodooed outlaws — mournful moans and terrible cries — cougar — stampede — fight and shots, more blood and death — Wilson hero — another Tom Carmichael — fallen in love with outlaw gun-fighter if — black night and Dale and horse and rides and starved and, “Oh, Nell, he WAS from Texas!”
Helen gathered that wonderful and dreadful events had hung over the bright head of this beloved little sister, but the bewilderment occasioned by Bo’s fluent and remarkable utterance left only that last sentence clear.
Presently Helen got a word in to inform Bo that Mrs. Cass had knocked twice for supper, and that welcome news checked Bo’s flow of speech when nothing else seemed adequate.
It was obvious to Helen that Roy and Dale had exchanged stories. Roy celebrated this reunion by sitting at table the first time since he had been shot; and despite Helen’s misfortune and the suspended waiting balance in the air the occasion was joyous. Old Mrs. Cass was in the height of her glory. She sensed a romance here, and, true to her sex, she radiated to it.
Daylight was still lingering when Roy got up and went out on the porch. His keen ears had heard something. Helen fancied she herself had heard rapid hoof-beats.
“Dale, come out!” called Roy, sharply.
The hunter moved with his swift, noiseless agility. Helen and Bo followed, halting in the door.
“Thet’s Las Vegas,” whispered Dale.
To Helen it seemed that the cowboy’s name changed the very atmosphere.
Voices were heard at the gate; one that, harsh and quick, sounded like Carmichael’s. And a spirited horse was pounding and scattering gravel. Then a lithe figure appeared, striding up the path. It was Carmichael — yet not the Carmichael Helen knew. She heard Bo’s strange little cry, a corroboration of her own impression.
Roy might never have been shot, judging from the way he stepped out, and Dale was almost as quick. Carmichael reached them — grasped them with swift, hard hands.
“Boys — I jest rode in. An’ they said you’d found her!”
“Shore, Las Vegas. Dale fetched her home safe an’ sound.... There she is.”
The cowboy thrust aside the two men, and with a long stride he faced the porch, his piercing eyes on the door. All that Helen could think of his look was that it seemed terrible. Bo stepped outside in front of Helen. Probably she would have run straight into Carmichael’s arms if some strange instinct had not withheld her. Helen judged it to be fear; she found her heart lifting painfully.
“Bo!” he yelled, like a savage, yet he did not in the least resemble one.
“Oh — Tom!” cried Bo, falteringly. She half held out her arms.
“You, girl?” That seemed to be his piercing query, like the quivering blade in his eyes. Two more long strides carried him close up to her, and his look chased the red out of Bo’s cheek. Then it was beautiful to see his face marvelously change until it was that of the well remembered Las Vegas magnified in all his old spirit.
“Aw!” The exclamation was a tremendous sigh. “I shore am glad!”
That beautiful flash left his face as he wheeled to the men. He wrung Dale’s hand long and hard, and his gaze confused the older man.
“RIGGS!” he said, and in the jerk of his frame as he whipped out the word disappeared the strange, fleeting signs of his kindlier emotion.
“Wilson killed him,” replied Dale.
“Jim Wilson — that old Texas Ranger!... Reckon he lent you a hand?”
“My friend, he saved Bo,” replied Dale, with emotion. “My old cougar an’ me — we just hung ‘round.”
“You made Wilson help you?” cut in the hard voice.
“Yes. But he killed Riggs before I come up an’ I reckon he’d done well by Bo if I’d never got there.”
“How about the gang?”
“All snuffed out, I reckon, except Wilson.”
“Somebody told me Beasley hed ran Miss Helen off the ranch. Thet so?”
“Yes. Four of his greasers packed her down the hill — most tore her clothes off, so Roy tells me.”
“Four greasers!... Shore it was Beasley’s deal clean through?”
“Yes. Riggs was led. He had an itch for a bad name, you know. But Beasley made the plan. It was Nell they wanted instead of Bo.”
Abruptly Carmichael stalked off down the darkening path, his silver heel-plates ringing, his spurs jingling.
“Hold on, Carmichael,” called Dale, taking a step.
“Oh, Tom!” cried Bo.
“Shore folks callin’ won’t be no use, if anythin would be,” said Roy. “Las Vegas has hed a look at red liquor.”
“He’s been drinking! Oh, that accounts!... he never — never even touched me!”
For once Helen was not ready to comfort Bo. A mighty tug at her heart had sent her with flying, uneven steps toward Dale. He took another stride down the path, and another.
“Dale — oh — please stop!” she called, very low.
He halted as if he had run sharply into a bar across the path. When he turned Helen had come close. Twilight was deep there
in the shade of the peach-trees, but she could see his face, the hungry, flaring eyes.
“I — I haven’t thanked you — yet — for bringing Bo home,” she whispered.
“Nell, never mind that,” he said, in surprise. “If you must — why, wait. I’ve got to catch up with that cowboy.”
“No. Let me thank you now,” she whispered, and, stepping closer, she put her arms up, meaning to put them round his neck. That action must be her self-punishment for the other time she had done it. Yet it might also serve to thank him. But, strangely, her hands got no farther than his breast, and fluttered there to catch hold of the fringe of his buckskin jacket. She felt a heave of his deep chest.
“I — I do thank you — with all my heart,” she said, softly. “I owe you now — for myself and her — more than I can ever repay.”
“Nell, I’m your friend,” he replied, hurriedly. “Don’t talk of repayin’ me. Let me go now — after Las Vegas.”
“What for?” she queried, suddenly.
“I mean to line up beside him — at the bar — or wherever he goes,” returned Dale.
“Don’t tell me that. I know. You’re going straight to meet Beasley.”
“Nell, if you hold me up any longer I reckon I’ll have to run — or never get to Beasley before that cowboy.”
Helen locked her fingers in the fringe of his jacket — leaned closer to him, all her being responsive to a bursting gust of blood over her.
“I’ll not let you go,” she said.
He laughed, and put his great hands over hers. “What ‘re you sayin’, girl? You can’t stop me.”
“Yes, I can. Dale, I don’t want you to risk your life.”