by Zane Grey
“Laws-a-me! Poor child!...and now she has no people — no home — not a friend in the world but you?”
“Not one. It’s pretty sad, Mrs. Blair.’
“Sad? It’s worse than that...Strikes me, though, Mr. Wansfell, you must be family and friends and all to that girl...And let a mother tell you what a noble thing you’ve done — to give three years of your life to an orphan!”
“What I did was good for me. Better than anything I ever did before,” replied Adam, earnestly. “I’d go on if it were possible. But Genie needs a home, young people, work, to learn and live her life. And I — I must go back to the desert.”
“Ah! So that’s it!” exclaimed the woman, nodding. “My husband spoke just like you do. He took to the desert — sold my farm to get money to work his gold claims. Always he had to go back to the desert...And now he’ll never come home again.”
“Yes, the desert claims many men. But I could and would sacrifice whatever the desert means to me, for Genie’s sake, if it — if there was not a reason which makes that impossible.”
“And now you’re hunting a home for her?”
“Yes.”
“She’s well educated, you said?”
“Her mother was a school-teacher.”
“Then she could teach children...Things work out strangely in life, don’t they? My Betty might be left alone. Any girl may become an orphan.”
“Now, Mrs. Blair, will you be so kind as to take Genie, or go with us into town, and help us get some clothes for her? A few simple dresses, and things she needs. I’d be helpless. And Genie knows so little. She ought to have a woman go with her.”
“Indeed she shall have,” declared Mrs. Blair. “I’ll be only too glad to go. I need some things — —” Then she struck her forehead with a plump hand. “I’ve a better idea. There’s not much to be bought in the store at Santa Ysabel. But my neighbour up the valley — his name is Hunt — he has a granddaughter. They’re city folks. They’ve been somebody once. This granddaughter is older than Genie — she’s more of a woman’s figure — and I heard her say only the other day that she brought a lot of outgrown dresses with her and didn’t know what to do with them. All her clothes are fine — not like you buy out here...I’ll take Genie over there right this minute!”
Mrs. Blair got up and began to untie her apron. Kindliness beamed upon her countenance and she seemed to have acquired a more thoughtful eye.
“You’re good indeed,” said Adam, gratefully. “I thank you. It will be so much nicer for Genie. She dreaded this matter of clothes. You can tell Miss Hunt I’d be glad to pay.”
“Shucks! She wouldn’t take your money. She’s quality, I told you. And her name’s not Hunt. That’s her grandfather’s name. I don’t know what hers is — except he calls her Ruth.”
Ruth! The sudden mention of that name seemed to Adam like a stab. What a queer, inexplicable sensation followed it!
“I’ll be right out,” declared Mrs. Blair, bustling into the house.
Adam called Genie to him and explained what was to happen. She grew radiant.
“Oh, Wanny, then I won’t have to go into a town — to be laughed at — and I can get — get dressed like — like a lady — before he sees me again!” she exclaimed, breathlessly.
“He? Who’s that, Genie?” inquired Adam, dryly, though he knew he could guess very well.
Genie might have lived on the desert, like a shy, lonely, wild creature, but she was eternally feminine enough to bite her tongue at the slip she had made, and to blush charmingly.
Then Mrs. Blair bustled out again, in sunbonnet and shawl, and with the alacrity of excitement, she led Genie away through the grove of oaks toward the other end of the valley.
Adam returned to camp, much relieved and pleased, yet finding suddenly that a grave, pondering mood had come upon him. In the still noon hour, when the sun was hot and the flies buzzed lazily, Adam would surely have succumbed to drowsiness had he not been vociferously hailed by some one. He sat up to hear one of the little Blairs call “Say, my maw wants you to eat with us.”
Adam lumbered up and, trying to accommodate his giant steps to those of the urchin, finally reached the house. He heard Mrs. Blair in the kitchen. Then something swift and white rushed upon Adam from somewhere.
“Look!” it cried, in ecstatic tones, and pirouetted before his dazzled eyes.
Genie! In a white dress, white slippers — all white, even to the rapt, beautiful, strangely transformed face! It was a Genie he could not recognise. Yet, however her dark gold-glinting tresses were brushed and arranged, he would have known their rare, rich colour. And the eyes were Genie’s — vivid like the heart of a magenta cactus flower unutterably and terribly expressive of happiness. But all else — the girl’s height and form and movement — had acquired something subtly feminine. The essence of woman breathed from her.
“Oh, Wanny, I’ve a whole bundle of dresses!” she cried, rapturously. “And I put this on to please you.”
“Pleased!...Dear girl, I’m — I’m full of joy for you — overcome for myself,” exclaimed Adam. How, in that moment, he blessed the nameless spirit which had come to him the day Genie’s fate and future hung in the balance! What a victory for him to remember — seen now in the light of Genie’s lovely face!
Then Mrs. Blair bustled in. Easy, indeed, was it to see how the happiness of others affected her. “It’s good we have dinner at noon,” she said, as she put dish after dish upon the table, “else we’d had to do with little. Sit at table folks...Children, you must wait. We’ve company...Gene, come to dinner.”
Adam found himself opposite Genie, who had suddenly seemed to lose her intensity, though not her glow. She had softened. The fierce joy had gone. Adam, watching her, received from her presence a thrill of expectancy, and realised that at least one of her sensations of the moment was being conveyed to him. Then Eugene entered. His face shone. He had wet his hair and brushed it and put on a coat. If something new and strange was happening to Genie, it had already happened to Eugene Blair.
“Folks, help yourselves and help each other,” said Mrs. Blair.
Adam was ready for that. What a happy dinner! He ate with the relish of a desert man long used to sour dough and bacon, but he had keen ears for Mrs. Blair’s chatter and eyes for Genie and Eugene. The mother, too, had a steady and thoughtful gaze for the young couple, and her mind was apparently upon weightier matters than her speech indicated.
“Well, folks,” said Mrs. Blair, presently, “if you’ve all had enough, I’ll call the children.”
Eugene arose with alacrity. “Let’s go outdoors,” he said, stealing a shy look at Genie. She seemed to move in a trance. Adam went out, too, and found himself under the oaks. The very air was potent with the expectancy that Adam had sensed in the house. Something was about to happen. It puzzled him. Yet he liked the suspense. But he was nonplussed. The young couple did not present a riddle. All the same, the instant Adam felt convinced of this he looked at them and lost his conviction. They did present a riddle. He had not seen any other lad and girl together for many years, but somehow he wagered to himself that if he had seen a thousand couples, this one would stand out strikingly.
Then Mrs. Blair appeared. She had the look of a woman to whom decision had come. The hospitality, the kindly interest in Genie, the happiness in seeing others made happy, were in abeyance to a strong, serious emotion.
“Mr. Wansfell, if you’ll consent I’ll give Genie a home here with me,” she said.
“Consent!...I — I gladly do that,” he replied, with strong agitation. “You are a — a good woman, Mrs. Blair. I am overwhelmed with gladness for Genie — for her luck...It’s so sudden — so unexpected.”
“Some things happen that way,” she replied. “They just come about. I took to Genie right off. So did my boy. I asked him — when we got back from our neighbour’s — if it would not be a good idea to keep Genie. We are poor. It’s one more to feed and clothe. But she can help. And she’ll
teach the children. That means a great deal to me and Gene...He would be glad, he said. So I thought it over — and I’ve decided. We’ve your consent...Now, Genie, will you stay and have a home with us?”
“Oh, I’ll — I’ll be so happy! I’ll try so — so hard!” faltered Genie.
“Then — it’s settled. My dear girl, we’ll try to make you happy,” declared Mrs. Blair, and, sitting beside Genie, she embraced her.
Adam’s happiness was so acute it seemed pain. But was his feeling all happiness? What had Genie’s quick look meant — the intense soul-searching flash she gave him when Mrs. Blair had said it was all settled? Genie’s desert eyes saw separation from the man who had been saviour, father, brother. One flash of eyes — then she was again lost in this immense and heart-numbing idea of a home. Adam saw Eugene look at her as his mother enfolded her. And Adam’s heart suddenly lifted to exaltation. Youth to youth! The wonderful, the calling, the divine! The lad’s look was soulful, absorbing, full of strange, deep melancholy, full of dreamy, distant, unconscious enchantment. What had seemed mysterious was now as clear as the sunlight. By some happy chance of life the homeless Genie had been guided to a good woman and a noble lad. Goodness was the commonest quality in the hearts of women; and nobility, in youth at least, flowered in the breast of every man.
And while Eugene thus gazed at Genie she lifted her eyelids, so heavy with their dreams, and met his gaze. Suddenly she sweetly, strangely blushed and looked away, at Adam, through him to the beyond. She seemed full of a vague, dreaming sweetness of life; a faint smile played round her lips; her face lost its scarlet wave for pearly whiteness; and tears splashed down upon her listless hands.
The moment, with all it revealed to Adam, swiftly passed.
“Gene, take her and show her the horses,” said Mrs. Blair. “She said she loved horses. Show her all around. We’ll let the work go by to-day.”
Mrs. Blair talked awhile with Adam, asking to know more about Genie, and confiding her own practical plans. Then she bustled off to look after the children, who had been forgotten.
Adam was left to the happiest and most grateful reflections of his life. Much good must come for him, for his lonely hours, when once more the wastelands claimed him; but that was the only thought he gave himself. Lounging back on the old rustic bench, he gave himself up to a growing delight of anticipation. These good Blairs did not dream that in offering Genie a home out of the kindliness of their hearts they had touched prosperity. They were poor. But Genie was rich. They meant to share with the orphan their little; they had no thought of anything Genie might share with them. Adam decided that he would buy the ninety acres, and the hundred in the valley beyond it; and horses, cattle, all the stock and implements for a fine ranch. Genie, innocent and bewildered child that she was, had utterly forgotten her bags of gold. On the next day, or soon, Adam meant to borrow Gene’s horse and buggy and drive to Santa Ysabel and then to San Diego. He must find some good investment for the rest of Genie’s gold, and a good bank, and some capable and reliable person to look after her affairs. How like a fairy story it would seem to Genie! What amazement and delight it would occasion Mrs. Blair! And as for the lad, no gold could enhance Genie’s charm for him. Gene would love Genie! Adam had seen it written in their unconscious eyes. And Gene would have the working of the beautiful ranch his eager heart had longed for. For the first time Adam realised the worth of gold. Here it would be a golden harvest.
Dreaming, thus, Adam was only faintly aware of voices and footsteps that drew nearer; and suddenly he seemed transfixed and thrilling, his gaze on a face he knew, the face on the miniature he carried — the lovely face of Ruth Virey.
CHAPTER XXVIII
“THE FOXES HAVE holes — the birds of the air have nests!” cried Adam.
Was it he who lay there with aching heart and burning eyes? Ah! Again the lonely wasteland claimed him. That illimitable desert was home. Whose face was that limned on the clouds, and set into the beaten bossy mosaic of the sands, and sculptured in the contour of the dim, coloured ranges?
His burros nipped the sage behind him as he lay, back against a stone, on the lofty height of the Sierra Madre divide, gazing down into that boundless void. What was it that had happened? Ah! He had fled! And he lived over again for the thousandth time, that week — that fleeting week of transport with its endless regrets — in which he had found Genie a home, in which the daughter of Magdalene Virey had stormed his soul.
Vague and happy those first days when he bought the valley lands and flooded them with cattle — vague because of the slow gathering of insupportable and unconscious love — happy because he lived with Genie’s rapture and her romance. Vivid were some of the memories — when he placed in Genie’s little brown hands papers and deeds and bankbooks, and by a gesture as if by magic, proclaimed to her wondering sense the truth of a tale of Aladdin; when, to the serious-faced mother, pondering the costs, he announced her once more owner of the long-regretted land; when, to a fire-eyed lad, he had drawn aside the veil of the future.
But vague, mystic as a troubled dream, the inception of a love that rose like the blaze of the sun — vague as the opaque dawn of the desert! Whenever he looked up, by night or day, at task or idleness, there shone the lovely face, pale as a dawn-hazed star, a face like Magdalene Virey’s, with all of its beauty, but naught of its passion, with all of its charm, yet none of its havoc. With youth, and bloom, and wide-open purple eyes, dark as midnight, staring at fate. And a voice like the voice of her mother, sweet, but not mocking, haunted the dreams of the man and lived in the winds.
“And you are a desert man,” she had said.
“Yes — a desert man,” he had replied.
“There’s a place I want to go some day — when I am twenty-one...Death Valley! Do you know it? My grandfather says I’m mad.”
“Death Valley! For such as you? Stay — never go near that awful hell!”
The ghastly white pit and its naked red walls, the midnight furnace winds with their wailing roar, the long, long slopes to the avalanche graves! Ah! the torment of his heart, the tragedy he would hide, and the secret he must keep, and the miniature that burned in its place — they drew her with the invisible cords of life and fate. What he would spare her surged in the air that she breathed.
She had come to him under the oaks, and yet again, quitting her friends, drawn to the lonely desert man.
“They told me Genie’s story,” she said, and her eyes spoke eloquent praise her lips denied. “And so — her mother, and father died on the desert...Tell me, desert man, what does Death Valley look like?”
“It is night; it is hell — death and desolation — the grave of the desert, yellow and red and grey — lonely, lonely, lonely silent land!”
“But you love it!...Genie says the Indians call you Eagle — because you have the eye of the eagle...Tell me...Tell me...”
And she made him talk, and she came again. Vague, sweet, first hours they were, with their drawing pain. Was it well to wake in the night, with eyes darker than the darkness, peering into his soul? Her mother’s eyes — with all the glory and none of the shame She had come another day and then the next, while time stood still with its mocking wait.
Not vaguely came a scene: “I will tell you of the desert,” and a part of his story followed, brief and hard.
“Ah! I would be a man,” she said. “I would never run. I would never hide.”
Mocking words from a tongue too sweet to mock! She had her mother’s spirit. And Adam groped in the gloom, to the glee of his devils of scorn. The grass by day and the grass by night felt the impress of his face. Then love — first real love of youth, and noble passion of man — blazed as the sun in his face. From that revelation all was clear in the bursting light of calamity.
Ruth was coming under the oaks. She liked the cool shade and hated the glare. She was nineteen, with a woman’s form and her mother’s eyes — proud, sweet, aloof.
“Desert man, I am lonesome,” she said.
“My grandfather has gone again. He is chasing some new will-o’-the-wisp. Gold and mines, cattle and land — and now it’s water. He has an ear for every man.”
“Lonesome? You! What do you know of loneliness?” asked Adam.
“There’s a loneliness of soul.”
“Ah! but you are young. Go help Genie plan her home.”
“Genie and Gene! Two people with but one voice! They cannot hear or see anyone but themselves. It’s a pity to invade their paradise. I will not...And, oh, how beautiful the world must be to them!”
“Ruth, is it not so to you?”
“Beautiful lands and greens and waters!” she exclaimed, in restless discontent. “But I cannot live on scenery. There is joy here, but none for me...I lost my mother and I can’t forget. She had to leave me and go with him — my father. My father who loved me as a child and hated me as a girl. Oh, it’s all a mystery! She went with him to the desert. Gold mad — she said he was. She had her debt to pay. And I could not be taken to Death Valley.”
“You have never heard from her since the parting?”
“Never...And I am a woman now. Some day I will go to Death Valley.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because they went there.”
“But no one lives long in that valley of death.”
“Then I will find their graves,” she said.
“Ruth, you must not. What good can come of your travelling there? I’ve told you of its desolate and forbidding nature. You are all wrong. Wait! Perhaps your mother will — perhaps you will hear of her some day.”
“Oh, desert man, I was a child when we parted. I’m a woman now. I want to know. The mystery haunts me. She loved me — ah, so well!...Sometimes I cannot bear to live. My grandfather hides me in lonely places. We meet but few people, and those he repels. It is because of me...Desert man, I am lonelier than was Genie. She is like a bird. She must have lived on the sun and the winds. But I am no child, and I am forlorn.”
Brooding purple eyes of trouble, of longing, of discontent, of fire for life! The heart and soul from Ruth Virey — the heritage of need and unrest — shone from her eyes. All unconsciously she longed to be loved. She stood on the threshold of womanhood like a leaf in a storm.