Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  At the conclusion of Chane’s long statement there ensued a silence that testified to its effect. All eyes gravitated from Chane to Melberne. He did not appear in any hurry to speak. Sue imagined she detected a slight paling of her father’s ruddy cheeks.

  “Loughbridge,” he said, at length, addressing his partner, “let’s give up this barbed-wire drive.”

  “No, by dam!” shrieked Loughbridge, in a frenzy. “If you don’t go through with it I’ll demand half the outfit money back. I ain’t takin’ stock in this pretty talker. Besides, we cain’t ketch wild horses without scratchin’ them a bit. Sure it’s tough on them, an’ men, too. But we’re out for cash, aren’t we? What do we care if we kill a hoss or two?”

  Melberne threw up his hands with a gesture of impotence. Disgust distorted his visage. “Turn in, everybody,” he ordered, and taking Sue’s arm he led her away from the camp fire toward her tent.

  Sue felt so fatigued from the day’s exertion and stress that she staggered along, leaning on her father. She was unnerved, too. That illuminating explanation of the barbed-wire capture of wild horses had been the last straw.

  “Lass,” began her father as they halted before her tent, “I’m shore glad you spoke up to Weymer. If you hadn’t he’d never have told us. But he’s sweet on you an’ you fetched him.... I’m bound to say, Sue, I’m worried. Not only by this horse deal we’re in, but by this mix-up among the men. Loughbridge’s a good friend an’ bad enemy. This Manerube begins to look fishy to me. He doesn’t ring true. Can you imagine a Texan swallerin’ what Weymer called him, before us all? He’s yellow, that’s all. An’ Weymer — he shore shot it into me.... An’ I deserved it. Sue, I was ashamed.... Mebbe this Weymer has been foolin’ with Indian squaws, but he’s straight with men. He has an eye on him, an’ he’s shore dangerous. I’m worried. There’s been bad blood made, an’ some of it’ll get spilled.”

  “Don’t worry, dad,” replied Sue, coaxingly, and kissed his worn cheek. “It’ll all come right. You’ve never been anything but fair and square. If the wild horse-drive turns out as we fear — why, you must never do it again. You got led into this. First Jim Loughbridge, and then Manerube.... And, oh, dad, you must keep Chane Weymer from fighting!”

  “Lass, I reckon it’s got beyond me,” replied her father. “But shore I’ll do my best. Good night.”

  Sue went to bed fighting desperately to silence that insistent trenchant voice within, the voice which cried out in defense of Chane Weymer. What if her father had begun to rely upon this strong-spirited rider of the old school? Fearless he undoubtedly was, one to whom men and women would instinctively draw near in a moment of doubt or peril. He stood out in this company of riders. But for Sue all his fine qualities, that seemed to grow from his arrival in Stark Valley, had been poisoned at the roots. Lover of squaws! She hid her face at the shameful thought. But the still small voice bade her listen — to wait — to watch — to withhold judgment — to be tolerant — to give benefit of a doubt — to plead extenuating circumstances. A desert rider’s loneliness, the need of woman’s touch, kindliness of a big heart, the imperious desires of nature, the hard fierce life of that wasteland, the power of propinquity, even love — these one and all flashed through Sue’s merciless mind, tried her, tested her, and before the flame of her pride and jealousy they perished. But forgiveness was one thing and love another. She could no more help loving Chane Weymer than she could forgive him. Yet as the struggle went on the balance shifted, to the slow corroding and wearing of her spirit.

  SUE had been dissatisfied with all the horses she had ridden of late. Brutus had spoiled her. When she passed him in camp, and he threw up his beautiful head with that quick look, to whinny at her, the desire to run to him was well-nigh irresistible. She rode this horse and that mustang, only to like each one less.

  And on the last day before the drive, when the barbed-wire fence was completed, she went out to see it, riding another strange horse. He appeared tractable enough and soon she forgot any uneasiness she might have felt at first.

  Away down in the valley bands of wild horses dotted the green, some moving, others grazing, ignorant of the plot against their freedom and of those miles of iron-toothed fence that stretched across their domain. Sue gazed upon them with pity, praying for something to scare them far away before it was too late.

  In time she circled to the west, and eventually got into rough ground, which she desired to cross, so that she could climb to the valley rampart and ride the ridge top round to where it joined the mountain slope near the camp. Her horse stumbled over a shallow clay-banked wash, and, falling, threw her hard against the opposite bank.

  The impact stunned Sue, though not to the point of total unconsciousness. She lay there, numb, for a few moments, slowly becoming conscious of pain in her right knee. After a while she recovered enough to sit up. And feeling of her injured knee she sustained such a excruciating pain that she had a moment of panic. She feared a broken leg. But, presently, despite the pain, she found she could bend her knee, and that relieved her dread.

  As the pangs lessened to a considerable degree she stood up with great difficulty and looked for her horse. He did not appear to be in sight. This occasioned Sue genuine distress, and she was wringing her hands and crying out what in the world could she do, when she espied a horse and rider coming down the trail she had intended to climb. Surely he could not pass by without seeing her. Immensely relieved, Sue untied her scarf and waved it. The rider evidently had espied her even before her effort to attract him. And at that instant Sue recognized Brutus, then his rider.

  “Chane Weymer!” gasped Sue, with swift change of emotion. “That it’d — have to be he!... Of all the miserable luck!”

  Clouds of dust puffed from under the great horse as he leaped the washes. Before Sue had time to think of composure he ploughed the clay and sand before her, sliding to a halt as the rider threw himself off.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded, his searching eyes sweeping her from disheveled head to dusty boots.

  To find herself tingling to the point of dwarfing her pain roused in Sue a very devil of perverseness.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” replied Sue, flippantly. “I’m admiring the scenery.”

  “You’ve been crying,” he said, coming close to her. “You’ve had a fall. Are you hurt?”

  “Only my vanity,” she said.

  He looked doubtfully at her and inquired about her horse.

  “He’s gone, and I hope I never see him again.”

  “Did you let him wander off?” queried Chane.

  “I reckon he just left without my letting him.”

  “Well, it’s good you weren’t hurt,” he went on, severely. “But you shouldn’t ride out alone this way.... Perhaps you meant to meet Manerube!”

  “That’s none of your business,” she retorted, with a tilt of her chin. “But I didn’t intend to meet him. I’d rather, though, it’d been he — than you.”

  “You can ride Brutus,” he said, ignoring her slighting speech. “I’ll shorten the stirrups.... Miss Melberne, I shall tell your father this is dead wrong of you — riding far from camp this way.”

  “I don’t care what you tell. But ride back to camp. Send some one with a — a wagon.”

  She saw the brown flash out of his face, and as he whirled from beside Brutus she could not meet his piercing eyes.

  “You are hurt!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes. My knee. It’s not broken, but it hurts terribly. It’s getting stiff. I — I can’t ride.”

  “I’ll carry you,” he said.

  “No — no. Ride back to camp. Send some one with the wagon. Don’t scare dad.”

  “But it’ll be dark long before the wagon can get here. In fact, nothing on wheels could come within a mile of this place.”

  “Oh, what shall I do?” cried Sue.

  “I am afraid you must submit to the humiliating necessity of my carrying you,” he replied, with that slight scorn agai
n in his grave voice.

  “I’ll not let you,” declared Sue, hotly.

  “Miss Melberne, I certainly don’t want to carry you. But the afternoon is far gone. Your folks will be worried. I can’t let you stay here alone. There’s no other way.”

  “I — I don’t care,” cried Sue, succumbing to combined pain and mortification. “I’ll — I’ll die before I let you — carry me.”

  “Well, what a sweet disposition you have!” he declared. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

  Suddenly he placed a hand under each of her arms, and lifted her bodily, with a sweep, and set her feet gently down on the edge of the wash. It was done so adroitly and with such strength that Sue could only stare her amaze and resentment. He returned the resentment fourfold.

  “I’m not a rattlesnake or a — a Mormon,” he shot down at her, not without passion. “You stand still. If you make a fuss you’re going to hurt yourself. So don’t blame me.”

  Sue did not leave the spot where he had set her down, for the very good reason that her leg pained so badly she did not dare move it. Chane vaulted upon Brutus and rode him down into the wash and close to where Sue stood.

  “I’ll have to hold you free of the pommel,” he said, as he leaned out of the saddle and reached for her. “I hope you show some sense. If you act the spoiled baby it’ll hurt all the more.”

  Sue stood like a statue, with her head bent. But she could see his arms, one of which he slipped round her waist, and the other under her knees. Gently as he lifted her, the pressure and contact made her wince. Then she found herself resting in his arms, her head on his shoulder.

  “Brutus, old boy, you can step out light,” he said to the horse. “We’ve got rather a precious burden.”

  Sue closed her eyes, not so much from pain as from the stunning reality of her position. She felt him shift the hold of his right arm, so that it no longer came in contact with her injured knee. After that she began to feel easier. She was in a kind of swing, the light embrace of his arms, and felt only slightly the jar of the horse as he walked. Sue did not open her eyes. If she was detected looking at him she imagined her shameful secret would be known. How endless the moments! He spoke no word and she felt that he did not gaze down upon her.

  She lay in his arms — Chane Weymer’s arms — and could not help herself. Then flashed the monstrous truth. The secret emotion she despised reveled in the fact. It burned the truth over all her palpitating body, through veins of fire. It sent messages along her throbbing nerves. She lay in his arms glad, shamelessly glad, despicably glad. Vain to lie to herself! She had changed to a woman and had come to love him more every day. Her love had battened on her bitter, savage, perverse spirit, and now it mocked her.

  Every time she swayed gently with the movement of the horse her cheek rolled against Chane’s shoulder. She felt the vibration of muscle, the heat of blood. And her cheek flamed under the contact. She was undone. All the torments she had endured were as nothing to this storm that assailed her — deadly sweet, unconquerable, terrible, the staggering deeps of her betraying heart that had drowned her pride.

  The time came when voices caused Sue to open her eyes. Dark had fallen. Brutus had come to a standstill.

  “Melberne, it’s all right. Don’t be frightened,” Chane was saying in a calm voice. “I found your daughter down by the west end of the fence. Her horse had thrown her and run off. I’ve packed her home.... Be careful, now. Handle her easy. She’s not bad hurt. Lucky, though, for it was a mean place.”

  “Why, lass — is he tellin’ the truth?” asked Melberne, hoarsely, as he received Sue in his arms.

  “Oh, dad, I’m terribly hurt,” cried Sue, “but it’s only my — my feelings.”

  “Wal, you’re shore pale, an’ I reckon you’re fibbin’.... Wife, come heah. Our lass is hurt.”

  Then he glanced up from the girl in his arms to the rider.

  “Ahuh! so, Weymer, you just happened along? Wal, now I wonder aboot you!”

  The content of his words did not express thankfulness, but the tone trembled with an infinite gratitude.

  CHAPTER X

  THE FIRST GLIMMER of dawn was lightening the east when Chane Weymer, with Chess and Alonzo, rode away from camp, down into the dark melancholy void of Stark Valley, to begin their part in Melberne’s great wild-horse drive.

  “Chane, I’ll bet we owe it to Manerube that we got the hardest job today,” complained Chess.

  “I reckon. But what difference does it make?” returned Chane. “We’ll have a day of tough riding. No worse than Utah’s, though. Believe I’d rather have the wide level valley to cover, than that rough ground to the west. Anyway, the harder it is the better I’ll like it, till we get the bloody business over.”

  “You think one drive will be enough for the boss, huh?” inquired Chess.

  “Reckon I know it. Melberne’s a white man, Chess. If he’d known about this barbed-wire game he’d never have gotten so far along.”

  “But if it’s a success? The boss’s keen to make money.”

  “If he made ten thousand dollars on this drive he’d never tackle another. I’m gambling on his daughter. She’d keep him from it.”

  “I’m not so sure of Sue, lately,” returned Chess, thoughtfully. “One day she’s this way and the next day that. But I was surprised when she spoke up to you the other night. Weren’t you?”

  “Boy, I told you twice,” said Chane, trying to steer the conversation away from the charming topic Chess always led round to. It was not that Chane ever tired of eulogies to Sue, or the events of any day that included her, but Chess had an obsession. Some day Sue would be his sister! And when her name came up, which inevitably happened every time Chess came near enough to talk, he would dreamily or unconsciously or cunningly return to the shibboleth which had its pangs for Chane. But Chane never regretted Chess’s beautiful and romantic love for Sue Melberne, for he believed it had been the turning-point toward good in the boy’s wild life. Chane’s pangs were selfish. For it had been his misfortune to worship at first sight the dark-eyed Sue. Chane’s dreams, if he had any at this fruitless time of his hard desert experience, never dared to verge on the extreme edge of Chess’s enchanted visions.

  “Horses, señor,” said Alonzo, his lean hand pointing.

  “Yes, there’s the first bunch,” returned Chane, peering through the opaque dawn at some horse shapes that moved like specters. “Reckon they’ll run down valley for a while anyhow.”

  “Sí, señor,” said the Mexican.

  They trotted their horses on, keeping to the edge of the oval valley. The black mountain range loomed above, tipped with paling stars. The valley itself was losing its density of space at night, responding to the invisible influence that hid far under the gray widening mantle of the east. It was a frosty morning, nipping cold, and the iron-shod hoofs rang like silver bells on the stones.

  Chess had lighted a cigarette, something he always did when Chane was not responsive to his favorite topic of conversation. His horse was mettlesome and wanted action. In fact, all their mounts showed the good of several days’ rest. Chane saw the long ears of Brutus lifting now and then, as if he were waiting for the word to go. Brutus, however, never wasted energy unbidden. His gentle easy pace kept him abreast of the two trotting horses.

  Chane’s thoughts were not unhappy ones, despite the pangs of a passion he had never revealed, or the disgrace which had been laid upon his name by a liar and a coward. He knew, though no one had ever told him, what Melberne believed he was. He felt where he stood in Sue Melberne’s estimation. The thing had happened before, though never in connection with persons whom he yearned to have know him truly and love him. But these Melbernes had steadied Chess, especially Sue, who had changed the boy. For that Chane would serve them with all he had in him. In this service he found something of happiness, the only happiness he had known in years. Yet so stern was he in his pride, so hurt by lack of instant faith in those to whom he had come in need, that he
could never go unsolicited to Melberne and prove how Manerube was a snake in the grass. Could he say — Melberne, this outcast Mormon is what he has made you believe I am? How impossible for him to shame Sue Melberne with the facts! True, the genial father was wearing toward uncertainty and suspicion. Let him find out! But as for the daughter, who openly flaunted an incomprehensible regard for this Manerube, it could never matter what she believed. Chane was used to adversity. But this deep trouble of his heart was made supportable, even welcome, by Chess’s mending of his wild ways.

  As the riders rode on and down into the valley the dim gloom gave place to an opaque veil of gray, and that lightened with the gray of the eastern sky. A faint rosy glow appeared, gradually deepening. The gray mantle retreated, lifted, vanished. Dawn succeeded to day. The stark valley stretched clear, cold, steely from range to rampart, and far to the upflung level of Wild Horse Mesa. Droves of horses dotted the frosty floor, lending it a singular charm of wild life and beauty.