by Zane Grey
“Wal, he didn’t say much,” replied Melberne, warily. “Just mentioned you an’ he had a little scrap. Shore it’s nothin’ to fetch up heah. I’m runnin’ this outfit. An’ all I want to know is if you’ll ride for me.”
The frown deepened on Weymer’s brow, and the sternness of his features, that had hidden behind his smile and glow of gladness, brought sharply to Sue the face she had seen in the moonlight. Certain it was he divined Melberne’s swerving from the actual truth. Perhaps his penetrating gaze found all he wished to know. Then he turned to look at Chess, and as swiftly as a light or shadow could cross his face it changed, softened. He loved that boy. Nothing else mattered. He did not seem to remember Sue was there.
“Sure I’ll ride for you, Melberne,” he said. “If you want to know, I’m right glad of the chance. Here’s Chess — and, well, I might be of other service to you. Quien sabe? as the Mexicans say.”
Melberne shook hands with Chane, and with a curt word of thanks he got up and strode away. Sue was almost as powerfully impressed by the way her father had met this situation, how significantly he had betrayed a surprise, as she was by the effect Weymer had upon her. Face to face with him she could not remember the character Manerube had given him and that Loughbridge said was the estimate of him among desert men. There was more, too, that she could not divine at the moment.
“Boy, it seems I’ve taken a job to ride with you,” said Chane to his brother.
“I should — smile,” responded Chess, choking down some stubborn emotion. “And I’m sure glad. Aren’t you, Sue?”
How the foolish lad always included her in his raptures! He could not see anything except that she must be glad.
“Why, yes, Chess, if it pleases you,” she replied.
“Miss Melberne, my brother tells me you have been good to him,” said Chane, directly, and fastened his eyes on Sue’s face.
“Oh no, hardly that,” murmured Sue.
“Don’t believe her, Chane,” spoke up Chess. “She’s an angel. She calls me Little Boy Blue and I call her sister. Now what do you say to that?”
“I hardly know,” replied Chane, gravely. “I’ll reserve judgment till I see more of you together.”
“Chane, listen,” said Chess, with entire difference of tone. The boyishness vanished. His ruddy face paled slightly. He breathed quickly. “Sue has stopped my drinking.”
“No!” exclaimed the elder brother.
“I swear to you she has,” declared Chess, low and quick. “Chane, I fell in love with her.... She didn’t know it, but I’ve never drank since.... Of course, Chane — you mustn’t misunderstand. Sue doesn’t love me — never can. I’m too much of a boy. Sue is twenty. But all the same she stopped me — and I’ll promise you, too — I’ll never drink again.”
“Little Boy Blue!” replied Chane. “That’s the best news I ever had in all my life.”
Then Sue felt his eyes on her face, and though she dared not raise it, she had to.
“This boy’s mother will love you, too, when she knows,” said Chane. “As for me — I will do anything for you.”
“I declare — you make so much of — of hardly anything,” returned Sue, struggling with unfamiliar emotions. “Chess is the same way. You make mountains out of mole hills.”
He smiled without replying, his dark eyes of fire steadily on her. Sue suddenly felt that if she had been an inspiration to Chess, wittingly or otherwise, it was a big thing. She must not seem to belittle it. And the reverence, or whatever it was she saw in Chane Weymer’s eyes, went straight to her heart, unutterably sweet to the discord there. An incredible shyness was about to master her. In sheer self-preservation she turned to Chess.
“Boy Blue, I’d never make light of your fight against bad habits,” she said. “I’m only amazed that I could help.... But if it’s true — I’m very proud and very happy. I will indeed be your sister.”
Sue left them, maintaining outwardly a semblance of the dignity she tried to preserve. She heard Chess say, triumphantly, “Chane, didn’t I tell you?...” That almost precipitated her retreat to a flight. What on earth had Chess told this brother? Sue walked faster and faster toward her tent.
CHAPTER IX
DAYS PASSED. THE beautiful Indian summer weather held on, growing white with hoarfrost in the dawns, rich and thick with amber light at the still noons, smoky and purple at sunset. The cottonwoods now blazed in golden splendor, and the grove was carpeted with fallen leaves, like a bright reflection from the canopy above.
Melberne’s riders labored early and late, part of them cutting and dragging fence posts, the others stretching barbed-wire down in the valley.
But for Sue Melberne these days were unending, dragging by through hours of restless uncertainty, strange fleeting moments of indescribable joy, followed by quick fastening moods of vague unhappiness — all tormenting, verging on torture.
Then came the most perfect of autumn days, golden, fragrant, smoky, now with long still solemn dreamy lulls, and again sweet and cool with gusts of wind that filled the air as by fluttering bright leaves like birds, and sent the carpet of gold rustling under the trees. Sue wandered about the grove and along the slope, believing she had fallen under a magic spell of Indian summer. For the most part she watched Chess and Chane at their labors up and down the hillside. She heard the sharp ring of Chess’s axe, and sometimes she saw it glint in the sunlight. His mellow voice floated down, crude and strong, singing a cowboy song. The tall Chane gathered several trimmed saplings in his arms, and carrying them to a declivity, he threw them over, where they rolled and clattered down to a level. Here Jake and Bonny and Captain Bunk loaded them into wagons.
Sue watched all the riders, but her gaze went oftenest and lingered longest upon the lithe figure of Chane Weymer. She was not blind to it. She confessed it when moments of torment drove her to truth. But fair as she had been to others, she was stubborn, inconsistent, intolerant to herself. She would think only so far, then, shocked at the possibilities, she would defiantly dispel thought and live in her dreamful sensations.
But this golden day had dawned to strange purpose. Never had there been such a day in her life. All at once she faced her soul and knew her trouble.
She had perched in a favorite seat on a low branch of a gnarled and spreading cottonwood, quite remote from the camp, at the base of the slope where the canyon opened. Here she could see without being seen. Nothing unusual had happened. She had been free of torments for the hour, idling, watching, dreaming away the time. Indeed, the sweet strong spell of the golden and purple autumn lay upon her. Then came a moment when Chane Weymer passed out of sight on the timbered hillside and did not return. Revelation burst upon her quietly, inevitably, without the slightest shock.
“Chane Weymer!... He’s the man,” she soliloquized, mournfully. “I felt something must happen out here in this desert. It’s come.... Chess was right. He said, ‘You can’t help but love Chane!’... I can’t. I can’t.... Oh, I’m done for!”
At last she knew. That moment saw the end of her restless, unsatisfied, uncertain longings, her doubts and fears, her miserable moods and bitter railings at self. Her torments had suddenly given place to a great dawning of something immeasurable. Like a burst of sun in the darkness of her heart! Her spirit did not rise up to crush this betraying love. It could not be crushed. It was too new, too terribly sweet, for her to want to crush. It was herself, her fulfillment; and in a moment she had become a woman.
Long she sat there and time seemed to stand still. The golden day enveloped her. Shadow and sunlight played over her with the swaying of the branches above, the movement of the colored leaves. Before her eyes the red and brown hills sloped up to the black bulk of mountain; behind her rolled the purple valley, its horizon lost in haze. Solitude held the hills in its embrace. From the desert floated a still all-pervading atmosphere, like a fragrance from limitless space.
“When did it happen?” mused Sue, womanlike, trying to retrace the steps of her undo
ing. Having faced the fatal fact, she was more concerned with the when of it, the how and the why, than with its effect upon her future. The future could be put aside. In a flash of thought it looked appalling.
Sue recalled the night of Chane’s arrival, when she sat beside him as he slept as one dead, his stern savage face blanched in the moonlight. Could love have come to her then? Surely it had been hidden in her heart, mounting unknown to her, waiting, waiting. She recalled the following morning, when the crudeness had gone with his unkempt beard and he had shown her in few words and single glance how forever he would be in her debt for her influence upon his brother. It could not have come to her then. Then, the following days — how utterably impossible to grasp by recollection of them one meeting, one exchange of look or speech more significant than another!
Still there were things she thought more of than others — little incidents that stood out, facts only unusual because of memory — the difference in Ora, the way Manerube avoided the camp fire, the splendid gayety of Chess, the piercing eyes of Chane, who watched her from afar, the wild joy which had come to her while riding Brutus.
“Ah! now I cannot ever ride Brutus again!” she murmured, in dismay.
That focused her thought upon the horse. Chess had brought Brutus up to her one day.
“Sue,” he had said, “Chane says this horse saved his life. Brutus, he’s called. Look at him! You wouldn’t think he’s the greatest horse Chane ever straddled. Chane has had a thousand fine horses. Look. Brutus will grow on you. But you’ll have to take time to find him out, Chane says. Ride him — learn to know him — love him.”
“Chess, the last won’t be hard to learn,” replied Sue, and after the manner she had acquired from riders she walked round him. Sue really knew but little about horses. She could ride because she had been accustomed to horses since childhood and because she was athletic and liked motion. She did not qualify in what the Westerners called horse sense, let alone the great fact of having been born on a horse. Nevertheless, she had it in her to love one.
“Sue, it’d never do for you to love Brutus and not his master,” said Chess, very soberly, with a face as solemn as a judge’s.
Had that been the moment? wondered Sue.
But she had laughed archly, taking him at jest.
“Why not? I don’t see why I can’t love a horse, any horse, independent of his master.”
“Well, you see, in your case it would separate them. Any rider who loved you and found out you loved his horse would give him to you.”
Brutus appeared to be a giant of a horse that somehow grew on her the more she looked. She liked the quick uplift of his head as she approached, and the soft dark eyes intent on her. He had an open honest face, one which on the instant inspired her with trust. She had not the least fear of him.
“How shiny his coat!” she exclaimed, smoothing the wide glossy neck. “He’s black. No, not black. He seems to shine black through brown. Curious. Chess, his skin looks like water reflecting shadows of leaves.”
Brutus took to Sue, not too quickly, not before he had eyed her and studied her and nosed her, but presently, when he had satisfied himself she was what he liked. Then he had acted in a way to delight Sue, to tickle her vanity, for Sue believed she had a winning way with animals.
Chess had put her saddle upon Brutus and insisted she ride him. So this was how it had come to pass that Chane, coming suddenly from under the cottonwoods, had surprised her astride his horse. Would she ever forget his look?
“You can ride?” he queried, earnestly.
“Oh yes. Don’t worry. I’ll ride him,” she replied, loftily.
“Let him go, then,” said the rider. “The faster he goes the easier his gait. Just stick on. Let him run and let him jump. He knows where he can go.”
Brutus, free of rein, had taken Sue on the wings of the wind. After days of rest he wanted to run. Her weight was nothing. How surely she felt Chess and Chane watching her as Brutus raced over the green! She would ride him. Yet as he settled down to a speed she had never known, her audacity succumbed to thrilling fear. Her heart leaped to her throat as Brutus sailed over a deep wash she had not seen. Then wildness ran riot with pulse and thought. The blanket of wind, pressing hard and harder, lifted her out of her saddle, so that one hand had to grasp the pommel. She ran down wild horses that could not escape this fleet racer; and when she turned him in a curve back toward the camp, the wind blinded her, tore her hair loose and strung it in a long waved stream behind her. His hoof-beats clattered and beat faster, until they made a single dim sound in Sue’s roaring ears. She cried out in the abandon of the ride. In her blurred sight the golden grove of cottonwoods seemed to grow and move toward her. Then the swift level sliding through the air broke to a harder gait. Brutus was easing out of his run. His change to a gallop threw Sue up and down like a feather before she could get his swing; and when she did he dropped to long lope, and from this to tremendous trot, so violent in stride that Sue just managed by dint of all her strength to stay upon him. When he pounded to a stop she could see only blurred images against the gold background of grove. She heard Chess’s whoop.
Then, overcome by dizziness, she swayed in the saddle. Not Chess, but Chane had lifted her down, blinded, burning, thrilling. Yet she had felt his gentle hold, his strong arms on her. Had that been the moment?
“Say, Sue, I should smile you did ride him!” Chess was shouting in her muffled ear. “You sure looked good. Honest, I didn’t think you’d dare let him run. And leap — say he went a mile high over the washes.”
“Well, I reckon you rode him, when he was running, anyway,” spoke up the cool, easy voice of that other. “But I’m advising you to break in easier next time.”
And there had been a next time, other times, until Sue loved Brutus, the sight of him, the feel of him, his response to every word. She learned what a tremendous engine of speed and power he was, governed by gentle and spirited mind, if a horse could have one. When she caressed his grand arched neck before a ride or rubbed down his wet quivering flanks after a race, she appreciated what the wonderful muscles were for. She grew to understand him. A horse took on new meaning to her. Brutus was a comrade, a friend, a sweetheart, and he could as well be a savior. Such a horse mastered the desert. Through her knowledge of Brutus and her love for him Sue no longer marveled at a rider’s passion to capture Panquitch. She learned to know a desire to see that great wild stallion.
“Did Brutus ride me into this — this spell?” murmured Sue. But she was denied the satisfaction of understanding when or how or why she had come to fall in love with Chane Weymer. All might have contributed to it, nothing might have been particularly to blame.
Sue’s inherent honesty of soul, as it had forced her to confess the naked truth of her dilemma, likewise in time forced other considerations, to which the dreams and wonderings had so far been subservient. They had been sweet, vague, dreamful, the questionings of awakened love. She next had to deal with sense, not sentiment. And shame flooded through her.
“What is he? A wandering rider, lover of wild horses and Indian girls!... Squaw man!”
Clamoring voices from the unknown depths of her fought for hold in her conscience. But she silenced them. To realize that she had loved unsought, unwooed, made her untrue to the best in her, merciless to the man who had roused this tumult of her heart. She must hide it. She must avoid Chane Weymer; she must welcome anyone whose attention might help to divert suspicion of her humiliating secret.
That night Sue Melberne, with the fierce pride and strange egotism of a woman who must avenge herself upon the innocent cause of her pangs, was the life of the merry camp fire circle. Chess, whom she blamed partly for her woe, was as merry as anyone, until Sue sat down beside Manerube, flushed of face, bright of eye, and talked and laughed with him as she had with the others. Then Chess became suddenly sober. He backed away from the fire, watching her with big staring eyes.
Sue was aware of this. It helped her, somehow.
But when Chane silently strode away into the shadows her vivacity lost its inspiration. Still she kept amusing Manerube, who responded, expanded under her laughter and sallies. Her father gazed upon her with pleasure on his tired face. Ora, too, reacted characteristically to Sue’s friendliness. She was not to be outdone. Between them Manerube became the center of repartee he manifestly took to his credit.
The evening wore on. One after another the members of Melberne’s outfit went to bed, until only Manerube and the girls were left, with Chess sitting across the fire, his head on his hands.
Sue knew he was waiting for her to start for her tent — that he would wait no matter how she tarried. At last she could keep up the deception no longer, and rose to go, bidding them good night.
“Sue, let me walk with you to your tent?” asked Manerube.
“No, thanks. Take Ora. She’s afraid of the dark,” replied Sue, tripping away. But once out in the shadow, her feet became as heavy as lead. Chess caught up with her, took hold of her arm, and turned her to face him.
“Sue Melberne, what’s come over you?” he demanded.
“Over me? Why, nothing! Do you mean my — my cutting up a little?”
“Yes, I mean that — with Manerube.”
“Oh! Chess, it’s none of your business if I want to make merry — a little, is it, with him or anyone?”
“No, I reckon not,” replied Chess, darkly, as he stared down at her. “But Manerube! You never were that way before. Didn’t you see Chane walk away the minute you began flirting with Manerube?”
“I — I didn’t flirt,” declared Sue, hotly, and she was honest in her denial.
“Aw, you did. And it wasn’t like you, Sue.”
“How do you know what I’m like — really?” queried Sue. His pain, his reproach, stung her, drove her to say what she thought but did not mean to utter.