Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  “Reckon Panquitch’s only choked a little,” replied Chane. “You see, I roped him in the water. Brutus and I had to follow. Panquitch got mad and charged up. I couldn’t manage Brutus. He wanted to fight. So they had it hot and heavy. I was knocked off Brutus. But I swam to Panquitch, straddled him, and had to hold his head under water to keep him from drowning us both.”

  “You’re all bloody! You’re hurt,” replied Sue, coming to him.

  Chane had not noted the blood on his hands and his face. Evidently he had been scratched or barked in the struggle.

  “Guess I’m not hurt,” he said, with a laugh, as he drew out his wet scarf. “Here, Chess, hold the rope while I tie my cuts. If Panquitch tries to get up just keep the rope tight.”

  Chess received the lasso and drew it taut. “Hyar, you king of stallions,” he called out. “You’ve sure got tied up in the wrong family. We’re bad hombres, me and Chane. Just you lay still.”

  Chane became aware that Sue had come quite close to him.

  “Let me do it,” she said, taking the scarf. And without looking up she began to bind his injured hand. She was earnest about it, but not at all deft. Her fingers trembled. Chane, gazing down upon her, saw more signs of agitation. Under the gold brown of her skin showed a pearly pallor; the veins were swelling on her round neck. Her nearness, and the unmistakable evidences of her distress and excitement, shifted the current of Chane’s mind. How momentous this day! What was the vague portent that beat for entrance to his consciousness?

  Sue finished binding his hand, and then she looked up into his face, not, it seemed, without effort. She was strained with the exertion and excitement of this adventure. But would that have accounted for a subtle difference in her?

  “There’s a cut on your temple,” she said, and untying her own scarf she began to fold it in a narrow band. Her blouse was unbuttoned at the neck, now exposing the line where the gold tan met the white of her swelling bosom. “Bend your head,” she added.

  Chane did as he was bidden, conscious of mounting sensations. The soft gentle touch of her hands suddenly inflamed him with a desire to seize them, to kiss them, to press them against his aching heart. Stern repression did not, however, on this occasion, bring victory. He had no time to think. It was like being leaped upon in the dark — this attack of incomprehensible emotion.

  “There — if you put your sombrero on carefully — it will stay,” she said.

  “Thanks. You’re very good. Reckon I’m not used to being doctored by tender hands,” he replied, somewhat awkwardly, as he drew back from her. That was what made him unsure of himself — her nearness. Strange to him, then, and growing more undeniable, was the fact that as he retreated she followed, keeping close to him. When she took hold of the lapel of his vest and seemed fighting either for command of herself or strength to look up again, then he realized something was about to happen.

  “I’m all wet,” he protested, trying to be natural. But he failed. It was not a natural moment or situation or position for them.

  “So you are. I — I hadn’t noticed it,” she said, and instead of drawing away she came so close that her garments touched him. Even this slight contact caused Chane to tremble. “Chane, come a little away — so Chess won’t hear,” she concluded, in a whisper.

  Chane felt as helpless in her slight hand as Panquitch now was in his. She led him back a few paces, in the lee of a slab of rock that leaned down from the wall.

  “What’s — all this?” he demanded, incredulously, as she pushed his back against the rock.

  “It’s something very important,” she replied, and then she fastened her other hand in the other lapel of his vest. She leaned against him. The fact was so tremendous that Chane could scarcely force his faculties to adequate comprehension of it. Yet there came to his aid an instinct natural to him through all the strenuous and perilous situations of his desert life, and it was a kind of cool anger of self-preservation.

  “Yes?” he queried, doubtfully.

  She was quite pale now and the pupils of her dark eyes were dilating over deep wonderful shadows and lights. He felt her quiver. His response was instantaneous and irresistible, but it was a response of his heart, not his will. He would never let her know what havoc this contact played with him.

  “Would you do something great for me?” she whispered, her husky voice betraying a dry mouth.

  “Great!” he ejaculated. What little control he had when one word could throw him off his balance! “Why, Sue Melberne, I reckon I would — for you — or any girl, if I could.”

  “Not for any other girl,” she returned, swiftly. “For me!”

  “I’ll make no rash promises. What do you want?”

  “Let Panquitch go free.”

  Chane could only stare at her. So that was it! Sudden relief flooded over him. What might she not have asked? How powerless he was to refuse her most trivial wish! But she did not know that. This longing of hers to see Panquitch freed was natural and he respected her, liked her, loved her the more for it. Easy now to understand her white face, her soulful eyes, her quivering lips and clinging hands! She loved wild horses. So did he, and he could see her point of view. Alas for the strange vague rapture that her close presence had roused! But he could prolong this delicious moment of torment.

  “Are you crazy, girl?” he demanded.

  “Not quite,” she replied, with a wistful smile that made him wince. “I want you to let Panquitch go. It was my fault. I was his undoing. I longed to see him close — to scream at him — to watch him run. So I drove him into your trap.”

  “Quite true. I’d never have caught him save for you. But what’s that? I don’t care. Once in my life I had a wrangler’s luck.”

  “Something tells me it’ll be bad luck, unless you give in.”

  “Bad luck? Ha! I reckon I’ve had all due one poor rider,” he replied. “And the worst of it, Sue Melberne, was on your account.”

  “You mean — about Manerube?” she whispered.

  “Yes, and what went before,” he returned, darkly.

  “Chane, did something happen before that?” she asked, softly.

  “I reckon it did,” he answered, bitterly.

  “Tell me,” she importuned.

  Chane felt as if about to fall from a height. What was this all about? His wounded heart probed! Yet did it matter?

  “You know,” he said, almost violently. “Chess gave me away.”

  “Then, what Chess said was — is true?”

  “Yes, God help me, it is.... But enough of talk about me. You wanted me to free Panquitch?”

  She did not reply. He had a glimpse of her eyes filming over, glazed, humid, before she closed them. Her head, that had been tilted back, drooped a little toward him, and her slender body now lent its weight against his. Chane had no strength to tear himself away from her, nor could he bear this close contact longer. The poor girl was overwrought, all because of sentiment about a horse.

  “Sue, what ails you?” he demanded, sharply, and he shook her.

  His voice, his rudeness, apparently jarred her out of her weakness. It seemed he watched a transformation pass over her, a change that most of all nonplused him. A blush rose and burned out of her face, leaving a radiant glow. She let go of his vest, drew back. And suddenly she seemed a woman, formidable, incredible, strong as she had been weak, eloquent of eye.

  “Something did ail me, Chane, but I’m quite recovered now,” she replied, with a wonderful light on her face.

  “You talk in riddles, Sue Melberne.”

  “If you weren’t so stupid you’d not think so.”

  “Reckon I am stupid. But we’ve got off the trail. You asked me to let Panquitch go.”

  “Yes, I beg of you.”

  “You’re awful set on seeing him walk off up that slope, aren’t you?” he inquired, trying to find words to prolong the conversation. He despised himself for longing to have her come close again, to appeal to him. Presently he must tell her that her s
lightest wish could never be ignored, that Panquitch was hers to free.

  “Chane, I’ll do anything for you if only you’ll let him go.”

  He laughed, almost with bitter note. “How careless you are with words! No wonder Manerube got a wrong hunch.”

  She flushed at that, and lost for a second the smile, the poise that so baffled him. But swiftly they returned.

  “I was a silly girl with Manerube,” she replied. “I’m an honest woman now.... I said I’ll do anything for you, Chane Weymer — anything.”

  “Reckon I hear you, unless I’m locoed,” he said, thickly. “I’m not asking anything of you. But I’m powerful curious. If you’re honest now, suppose you tell me a few of the things you’d do for me.”

  “Shall I begin with a lot of small things — or with something big?” she inquired, in so sweet and tantalizing a voice that Chane felt the blood go back to his heart. She was beyond him. How useless to match wits with any woman, let alone one whom a man adored madly and hopelessly! Chane felt he must get out of this. One more moment, then she could have Panquitch!

  “Well, suppose you save time by beginning with something big,” he suggested, in a scorn for himself and for her. It was a farce, this talk, all except her earnest appeal and her sweetness. He could not argue with her, nor follow her subtleties.

  She stepped close to him again. And then Chane shook with a sense of impending catastrophe. She seemed cool, brave, and honest as she claimed to be. But her dark eyes held a strange fire.

  “Very well. The biggest thing a woman can do is to be a man’s wife.”

  Stupefaction held Chane in thrall. It took a moment to recover from the shock of that blow. He had heard her speak. He was not out on the lonely desert, listening to the voices of the cedars. All about Sue Melberne belied that slow, sweet, cool speech. Suddenly a fury of bewilderment, of uncertainty, assailed Chane. Laying powerful hands on her shoulders he shook her as he might have a child.

  “You’d marry me to save that horse?” he demanded, incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “You’d throw yourself away for Panquitch?” he went on, sternly.

  “Yes. But — I’d hardly call it that.”

  “Sue Melberne, you’d be my — my wife!” The very idea of such fortune made Chane mad. He released her. He wrestled with himself. Thick and heavy his heart beat. It mattered not why or how he might possess this girl, but the fact that he might was maddening. Still he fought for the right. What a sentimental inexplicable girl!

  “Yes, I will, Chane,” she said.

  “You love Panquitch so well. I remember you risked much to free the wild horses in the trap corral. But this is beyond belief. Yet you say so. You don’t look daft, though your talk seems so. I can’t understand you. To sacrifice yourself for a horse, even though it’s Panquitch!”

  “I wouldn’t regard it as — sacrifice,” she whispered.

  “But it is. It’d be wrong. It’d be a crime against your womanhood. I couldn’t accept it. Besides, you’re doing wrong to tempt me. I’m only a poor lonely rider. I’ve always been hungry for a woman. And I’ve never had one.... It’s doubly wrong, I tell you.”

  Chane stamped up and down the narrow place behind the rock. Hard violent action in the open had been his life: he brought it to bear on the conflict in his breast. With a black, hot, tearing wrench he got rid of the spell.

  “Sue, I brought this — on myself,” he said, gentle of tone, though his voice broke. “I wanted to hear you beg for Panquitch. I wanted you to be close to me. It was madness. All the time I was lying. From the moment you asked me to free Panquitch I meant to do it. You helped me catch him. You can free him.”

  Sue walked straight to him, closer than before, almost into his arms. The poise of head, the radiance of face, the eloquence of eye — these had vanished and she seemed stranger than before, a pale thing reaching for him.

  “That will make me happy, but only — if I can pay — my debt,” she faltered.

  “What do you mean?” demanded Chane, harshly.

  “If you free Panquitch you must make me — your wife.”

  “Are you out of your head or lying to me?”

  “Both,” she whispered, and fell against him.

  Chane clasped her in his arms, and held her closer and closer, sure in his bewilderment of only one thing, that if she persisted she would break him down. But now she was in his arms. Her head drooped so that he could not see her face, but she was stirring, turning to him, sinking on his breast. Never could he let her go now! It was all so astounding. His mind and body now seemed to leap to the sweetness of possession. The golden amber sunlight of the canyon moved about him like a glory of lightning, and it was certain that thunders filled his ears. He was realizing what he could not believe. The stunning truth was that Sue Melberne lay in his arms, strangely willing. That was enough for his hungry heart, but his conscience stormed at him. Then, last of all, he felt as in a dream Sue’s arms go up round his neck and fasten there.

  “My God!”... he gasped. “Sue, this can’t be for Panquitch.”

  Her face came up, white like a flower, wet with tears. But strain and strife were gone.

  “If you had any sense you’d have known I — I loved you!”

  “SUE MELBERNE!”

  “Now, my wild-horse hunter, take your rope off Panquitch — and put it on me,” she replied, and raised her lips to his.

  A little later Chane took the rope out of Chess’s hands and held it to Sue. Then he knelt to slip off the noose of the other lasso, the one that was tied to the saddle on Brutus. Swiftly Chane stripped this from the stallion.

  “Hey! What you doing?” yelled Chess, in amaze. “He’s come to. The son-of-a-gun will be on his feet in a jiffy.”

  Chane apparently took no note of Chess’s concern. This moment was full of unutterable joy in that he was making Sue happy and slipping his rope off Panquitch — freeing the last wild horse he would ever capture. Bending over the stallion he loosed the knot round the forelegs.

  “Pull it — easy,” he called to Sue.

  Chess actually leaped up in the air, to come down with cracking boots.

  “What — the — hell!” he cried, piercingly.

  Sue drew the lasso taut, and slid it gently from the stallion. He gave a fierce snort. Then he raised his head. Actually he looked at his legs, and then with muscles knotting all over his body he heaved hard and got up. He was free and he knew it. Hate and fear flamed in his bloodshot eyes. Chane thrilled when he met that look and knew in his soul what he was giving up. Panquitch stood for a moment, with his breaths audible. Thus Chane saw him close, standing unfettered, in all his magnificent and matchless beauty. Indeed, he was a lion of wild horses. Perfect in build, perfect in color, the rarest combination and the only one Chane had ever seen in a tawny shade of yellow, with flowing mane and tail black as night. He had not a scar, not a blemish, not a fault. He represented the supreme handiwork of nature — a creature too beautiful, too proud, too noble, too wild for the yoke of man.

  Panquitch shook himself and moved away. He was still weak, but his spirit showed in his prance. He snorted fiercely at Brutus. And Brutus returned the challenge.

  “Run — oh, Panquitch, run!” cried Sue, with rich and mellow sweetness in her voice.

  But the stallion did not run. His slow action was that of a spent horse. Keeping to the middle of the canyon, he trotted on, by the sand patch where lately he had pranced so proudly, by the cottonwood grove and the wavy slope of rock, and on, out of sight.

  Then Chess exploded. He cursed, he raved, he glared, not for a full moment becoming intelligible.

  “You let him go! Panquitch, the greatest wild horse in the world. You had him. You could have given him to me. I’ve no great horse, like Brutus. I always wanted one.... Let him go for Manerube to rope! Or some damned lucky rider who’ll happen on him before he recovers.... Oh, you’re locoed. The two of you. Sue, you’re a sentimental fool. Chane, you’re a dam
n fool.... I could cry. Chane, whatever has come over you?”

  “Chess, I reckon I’m no longer boss of the Weymer outfit,” replied Chane, striving to keep undue pride and joy out of his words, but failing utterly.

  “Hey?” ejaculated Chess, as if he had been struck. His mouth opened wide, likewise his eyes, and he made a picture of stupidity and incredulity.

  “Little Boy Blue, I’m sure going to be your sister,” said Sue, with all of gladness.

  Suddenly transfigured with rapture, Chess made at them.

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHANE STRODE UP the canyon as one in a dream, leading Brutus, with Sue in the saddle. From time to time he looked back to see if she were a reality. Her dark eyes shone, her lips were parted. There was a smile on her face, an exquisite light, a spirit that must be the love she had confessed. Life had become immeasurably full and sweet for him.

  Chess had passed from every manner of congratulation, boastfulness as to his bringing about this match, delight in Chane’s good fortune, back to his former despair at the loss of Panquitch.

  “Now you two have each other, you don’t care for nothing,” he growled, with finality, and forged on ahead to leave them alone.

  It appeared to be about the middle of the afternoon when the amber light of the canyon began to tinge with purple. The breeze had ceased and the air was warm. Less tremendous grew the looming walls, wider the stream of blue sky overhead, lower the rims, and therefore the oppressiveness began to wane, and the sense of overpowering weight and silence.

  In many places showed the fresh tracks of the wild horses, last of which were those of Panquitch. He was following his band, on the way to the uplands. Chane would have preferred that they had turned off at the wavy slope below and were now safe under the lee of Wild Horse Mesa. Panquitch, in his spent condition, would hardly be able to escape a fast rider. Still, Chane’s exalted mind could not harbor misgiving, or doubt, or anxiety, not on this day in which he had been lifted to the kingdom of happiness.

  Chess strode on with his head bent, his gaze on the tracks of Panquitch, and he passed out of sight round a bend in the canyon.