by Zane Grey
High-Lo wheeled off at once. “I’ll see if them saddles is hung up,” he called back.
Distress was so apparent in Katharine’s face that John was immediately disturbed. “Bad news, Miss Winfield?” he asked.
“News concerning Mary Newton. You’ll understand everything better if you read it for yourself. I’ll tell her someday that I let you read it. Get off by yourself somewhere.... Here!” She thrust the letter into his hands. “I’m going up on the ridge. Join me there soon.”
She moved away. John, standing where she had left him, weighed her request. Such a precious thing to hold in his hand — a letter from Mary Newton! Dare he read the intimate thoughts she had entrusted to Miss Winfield? It did not seem logical that the girl who yesterday had warned him against indiscretion would press him to read this letter without considering the fitness of such an act. He recalled her troubled look and it decided for him.
In the toolshed, locked against possible interruption, he opened the precious document and his eye slipped quickly over the salutation to the content:
I do not know how to tell you what has happened. I cannot think it is true. Wilbur has left me, deserted me. Judging from the note he left he will never return.
Two days ago the question of my accepting a position came up again. I had heard from Mrs. Jenkins that a photographer in Flaggerston wanted someone to keep his books and receive his patrons and wished me to consider the offer, so I approached Wilbur. He was as unyielding as flint. I talked to him suggesting to him that we both try to make our lives count. You know what to me would make my life worth having lived. But I did not mention children, knowing too well his dislike for them. Under the circumstances it would be wrong for me to contemplate motherhood. But I tried to make him see if we shouldered the wheel together, lived carefully and saved our money, that perhaps in five years we could start in the cattle business on a small scale and develop a ranch. I admitted I felt his discontent, and tried to make him see that despite it we must weather life together and try to find some measure of happiness.
It was hopeless the way he met my poor little pleas. He said marriage was a poor game at its best and made a slave of a man, that he didn’t intend to have me trying to hand out advice to him as if I were the smarter of the two. I listened to him, as he revealed the smallness of his nature, until I thought that I just couldn’t bear it. But I was patient and conciliatory. After all, Katharine, Wilbur is the product of foolish vain parents, and perhaps when we were first married I was too indulgent. I was so anxious for approval and so hungry for love. Had I been older and wiser I might have not encouraged in him traits that I did not recognize then as his faults.
That was our last talk. He punished me with one of his gloomy silences, and meanwhile I hesitated to write to Flaggerston. On the afternoon of the following day, when I returned from trading eggs at the post, Wilbur was gone. I found his note which said that he wanted his independence as much as I did and was taking it for good, and now I was free to attract men again, and might even go into partnership with the photographer I was so interested in. He took with him the few bits of jewelry he had given me before our marriage and emptied my change box, too, and left me with the rent unpaid. I would not tell you these miserable details if it were not that in the telling I can smother the regrets that arise to assail me, the something that once was love, and comes like a disturbing presence now that I am alone.
You may think at once that I will surely leave Taho because of these present developments. But I know I shall stay. I can’t leave, Katharine, I am desert-bound. A horizon line of mesas confines my world. I want no other. I can find peace on the desert. There is much to do here. I will try to get employment in the Indian Service. After your winter in the South, perhaps you and Alice will come back to Taho and board with me. Such anticipation would be balm to my chastened spirit.
Do you think, Katharine, that I failed Wilbur? Think over everything you know, and then tell me, dear. And don’t let your personal prejudice or anything that I have said affect your judgment. Try to view as objectively as you can my situation with all your keen perception.
I await your return hungrily, but I beg you not to let this letter speed it. I wanted you to hear the word from me before rumor spreads the suspicion that’s sure to arise. It may be best for me to satisfy inquiring minds with the truth.
Think of me a little. Pray for me with your eyes to the mighty hills, and in the quiet of evening when all Nature is listening.
A fierce, burning anger possessed John. He was seeing straight to the core of Mary’s problem and what he saw was torturing to him. A terrible desire crowded through his mind to find Newton, to choke him half to death, to drag him at a horse’s heels back to the girl he had deserted. “Why are laws made against killing such a man?” he demanded of himself. But instantly he felt rebuked by eyes of patient forbearance. Mary was a woman who would not understand justice meted out in deadly passion. He ground the letter in his hand as if it had been Newton writhing under his strength; then seeing what he had done, he grew quiet and thrust the crumpled sheets into his pocket, unlocked the door, and with giant strides mounted the ridge.
Katharine was there waiting for him.
“I thought you would never come,” she breathed. “The dinner gong will ring any moment. Alice will be looking for me.
“I had to read slowly because I couldn’t believe what I read. Putting it straight, it’s hell, Miss Winfield. I’d like to catch that scamp and drag him back to her. She’s hurt — terribly hurt by this final indignity. You’ll go back to her pretty soon, won’t you? She was feeling brave when she wrote this letter. It may be different now.”
“I’ve decided to go back with Mr. Reynolds in the morning,” Katharine returned. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. John felt them boring into his very mind. With a feeling part curiosity part dread, he waited for whatever else it was that she had to say. “I wonder does Mary realize this may change everything for her?” she went on. “This may make her a free woman. Do you recall that Wilbur Newton suggested that himself?”
John felt himself ardently considering the idea. Yet for a moment he was puzzled. “Free woman? What do you mean?”
“She’s a resident of a state that realizes the folly of keeping embarrassed and lonely forever a good woman whose scamp of a husband has deserted her.”
“Maybe she’ll divorce him, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
The thought of Mary freed from Newton gave rise to a wild, incoherent hope in John, but the wave of emotion subsided when it met his better judgment.
“Somehow to most of us divorce is an ugly thing,” he said. “I always see the green mud of a pigsty when it’s mentioned. It strikes me as something that Mary Newton can’t walk through.”
“It’s the misuse of the law and the cheap scandal that usually accompanies divorces that makes people abhor divorce and would make Mary shrink from it,” returned Katharine. “I know such a thought hasn’t entered Mary’s mind. No doubt, spiritually speaking, she’s trimming a lamp to set in the window of her soul for Wilbur. That’s very noble, Mr. John Curry, and my view may seem materialistic, but at rock bottom it’s not. Mary could give great happiness to a man like you, help you to a fullness of development, bear you beautiful strong children, and train them as children upon whom will depend the future of our country. Is there anything more noble than that? Should her life be wasted at the whim of a man who has deliberately broken the vows of legal contract that bind them? To me it is like the old barbaric custom in India of burning a widow on the bier of her dead husband. To be dead morally and spiritually, as Wilbur Newton is, is greater alienation from a woman like Mary than physical death would be.”
True as Katharine’s words sounded, they were not entirely convincing to John. Still, Katharine had hopes for him. She was a loyal friend. She would break down every barrier in the way of his happiness. There was within the girl an impatience to destroy evil and accomplish good. Altruistic des
ires, however, did not change circumstances. Curry felt that he understood Mary even better than Katharine did. Yet he fought to submerge in his consciousness the cry that he might be mistaken, that Mary would welcome freedom, sue as early as possible for a divorce, and give him the right to try to win her. Deep within his soul, however, he knew that such notions were false.
They stood there in awkward silence. John, conscious of Katharine’s desire for corroboration, hated to destroy her confidence, but felt that he must do so.
“Newton may come back. This may be a trick to make her give in to him about earning her living.”
Katharine shook her head. “Are you forgetting Wilbur’s new business? Couldn’t it happen that he found it uncomfortable to have a wife who might grow suspicious of his desert journeys? I understand the man so much better since you told me about his machinations with Hanley.”
That was something to consider and John acknowledged the reasonableness of what the Eastern girl had said.
“And that brings up something else,” Katharine went on. “Ought Mary not be told the truth about Wilbur?”
“No!” returned John decisively. “Why hurt her further? She’s suffered enough.”
“But it would help to make her see the light. She’d understand your desire for a closer friendship.”
John flushed. “That’s it. I don’t want to win Mary Newton’s regard that way. I don’t want her to be given that kind of a comparison to judge me by. As you said yesterday, she might want to turn to me. Because then she’d sure know that he had failed her and I naturally would appear in a more favorable light. No, don’t kick him for my benefit. I’d want her to care as if Wilbur Newton had never existed.”
“Yes, yes. Of course,” Katharine said quickly. “Stupid of me not to realize you’d feel that way. I’m overanxious.”
“And I’m hard put to know what to think or do,” John replied. “I could be selfish enough to go to Taho with you.”
“You mustn’t.”
“I know it,” John assented, miserably.
As he spoke the dinner gong rang in high irritation. Katharine heard it with a frown. “How soon will your season end?” she asked without making any move to go.
“It’s about over now. Two weeks more is all Mr. Weston will be needing me.”
“What did you intend to do then?”
“Usually I go back to Colorado. This fall for a while I’d like to keep my eye on Hanley’s operations. A little later I may find someone who will want sheep herded over to Colorado. That would give me an excuse for waiting around.”
“And you want an excuse just for Hanley?”
At once John saw that Katharine had misunderstood him. “Yes. Just for Hanley. I don’t need an excuse for Mary. I wouldn’t leave the country without seeing her, and maybe when I do, I won’t leave at all.”
This Katharine received with a nod of approval. “Let me know when you are coming. I think it would be best for you to see Mary at my place. You’ll be my guest. Not hers. Less chance for gossip.”
Gratitude which he could not adequately express welled in John’s breast. “You’re sure making good on the friendship promise,” he said.
Further word was halted by a reminder from Katharine that the dinner gong had rung and she must be going. John sensed that she would prefer to return to the post unaccompanied, so immediately found urgent reasons why he must look over the stock in the corral before he ate. He was rewarded with a smile more expressive of appreciation than words could be.
* * * * *
When Katharine told Alice that they were going to leave with Mr. Reynolds the next morning, she was grieved by the look of disappointment and challenge she met in her sister’s eyes. At the time Alice was about to start for the living room. Instantly she lost her interest there. Professing fatigue, she slipped into a chair and fell into a stubborn contemplation of the Indian rug at her feet. Katharine recalled then that Alice had met her with a reproachful look when she arrived late at table, which had made her embarrassingly conscious that Curry’s was the only other vacant place. And it had been at her that Alice looked when ten minutes later Curry had appeared. Whatever was Alice thinking? Better that she knew the truth than dwell on morbid fancies! Katharine drew her sister’s eyes to hers with the appeal, “Dear little sister, I can make you understand.”
Alice listened without comment. By turns she appeared startled, sad and shocked. That her alarm over the disclosure of John and Mary’s mutual interest was greater than her distress over Wilbur’s desertion she made plain by her immediate protest. “But, Sis, Mary is married. Mr. Curry can’t change that.”
The remark irritated Katharine. “No. But Wilbur has altered conditions somewhat. So could the law.”
Alice was quick to reply. “I don’t like it. It’s so — well — sort of common — Wilbur’s leaving Mary, and Mary’s—”
“Mary’s what!” demanded Katharine brusquely.
“Oh, Mary’s—” Again the girl found herself at a loss for words.
“The world met in my sister!” thought Katharine with a sigh. Aloud she said, “And Mary’s terrible unhappiness. Of course, dear, you realize that.”
But the appeal excited no sympathy in Alice. Her eyes were cold, her chin firm. Katharine found herself speaking almost too indignantly as she explained in detail Mary’s misery, John Curry’s fineness, and the peculiar circumstances that had thrown John and Mary together.
“You must not be too quick to judge the situation,” Katharine concluded. “There is much to be considered.”
There were tears in Alice’s eyes then. “I love Mary. You know I do,” she faltered. “And maybe my feeling against her caring for John isn’t altogether fair. I’ll get over it after a while.”
Alice’s tears came so fast that Katharine was worried about having excited her so. Was there more behind these tears than the affairs of Mary and Curry? She asked Alice about it, chafing the small cold hands, eloquent in their listlessness.
“Just — a little — something else,” Alice hesitantly admitted between her sobs.
Memory of what Alice said the evening she had first met Curry stabbed Katharine. She could only murmur when she tried to voice her thoughts.
“Do you care for John Curry yourself? Is it that which makes the difference?”
Alice shook her head in violent negation. “Something else.”
With her fear banished, Katharine readily divined that the very slightness of Alice’s reason made confession of it difficult. She did not press her further.
Cries of protest sounded in the living room when Katharine announced her intention of leaving in the morning. The Westons’ concern gave her comforting appreciation of how greatly she and Alice had endeared themselves to the household staff and guests at the post.
“It’s shore hard on us,” said Mr. Weston, “but if it’s necessary for you to go to Taho at once, there’s no way of changing it. So long as you promise to come back next year, we won’t try to hold you now.”
High-Lo and Beany did not accept affairs so philosophically. Their features grew long. As the other boys sauntered in, they passed along the unwelcome news, like brothers in misery seeking the sympathy of all their comrades. Thereafter, every time anyone came through the guest hall a battery of eyes was turned on the doorway. With amusement rising above her distress, Katharine recognized the homage they were paying to Alice. When after an anxious hour of waiting the sight of Alice did brighten their horizon, it was evident that the boys found in the girl’s unsmiling face consolation for their own dejection. What did it matter that they were mistaken about the cause of her sadness?
Morning found the boys spick-and-span and shaved, but low in their minds. Chief mourners at the burial of their dead hopes, they gathered around the mail stage, funereal in aspect.
“No wonder those boys take this so bad,” Mr. Weston said to Katharine as they watched John carry out the baggage. “You’re the last roses of summer. No more young lady
tourists this year.”
“It’s Alice,” murmured Katharine. “She’s a whole bouquet to every one of them.”
And it was Alice about whom they clustered, her comfort for which they had concern. Katharine smiled as she watched the leave-taking.
Many messages were given to Katharine in the flurry of good-bys. The cowboys, led by High-Lo, threatened to visit Taho soon. John, handing Katharine to her place in the car, said, “I’ll be riding in to Taho myself. Don’t forget. Say nothing to her about it. I don’t want to run the risk of being told to stay away.”
Then they were off. They could hear shouts and see waving sombreros behind them at the post as the stage mounted the ridge. A few of the boys leaped to their horses and tore alongside making the crest ahead of the car. A few shots were fired into the air in greeting and farewell as the horsemen shouted their last good-bys. The stage turned with the trail. Katharine looked back to see the boys slowly disappear under the ridge; then she sank back, happiness and pain struggling in her breast.
Alice and Katharine at once gave themselves over to the desert silence. They met and passed familiar places: Four Mile Wash, Cedar Pass, Noname Valley, the cool plains of flowering sage, the hogan by the great red mound of rock. And to watch each speed by was like saying good-by to a loved friend. Then followed the great towering elephant legs and the ramifications of Castle Mesa, the mighty and stupendous fortress!
Mrs. Shelley waved a greeting from the tall door-window of her home. Katharine could imagine Bluebeard hiding his wives in such a place as this, hear the last one crying fearsomely from that very watchtower, “Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see someone coming?” But the Mr. and Mrs. Bluebeard of Castle Mesa were as happy and kindly a couple as ever lived.
Again the girls enjoyed a most hospitable reception. Katharine, wishing to know the Shelleys better, invited them to visit her at Taho. They parted happily.
As soon as the sand slope obscured the hospitable Castle Mesa post, Katharine beheld the white bank of the plateau sloping above them. Somehow the once remote place seemed not very far from Taho now. In a short time they reached the great dunelike sand mountain. Not until it loomed before them did either Katharine or Alice realize that while descent had been so thrilling, ascent must be impossible. Mr. Reynolds expressed wonder that they had not thought of that long ago, and grumbled about the extra three miles added to the home journey. But Katharine was well-content. She had ceased to think. She gave herself wholly to the sensorial appeal of the desert. Time sped, and likewise the car. Too soon Taho came into view.