by Zane Grey
“Indeed they are,” vouchsafed Lucy heartily; “Well, we’re free of that crowd. Joe, are they apt to ride after us?”
“Like as not,” drawled Joe. “But the road is narrow. They shore can’t pass us, an’ all they’ll get will be our dust.”
“Suppose we eat lunch while we don’t have to hold on,” suggested Lucy. “Presently the road will be rough, and — to say the least, Joe drives.”
“Let him drive as fast as he can,” replied Clara tensely. “Oh — the breeze feels so good! The air seems different.”
“Clara, you’ll find everything different up here. But I’m not going to say a word till you ask me....Now, let’s eat. We’ll not get supper till dark or later...Biscuits with jam. Chicken — and pie. Joe, I overheard one of those boys speak of your driving with one hand. So, surely you can drive and eat at the same time?”
“I reckon,” rejoined Joe. “But see heah, Miss Lucy. Gerd Claypool said that, an’ he shore didn’t mean I’d be usin’ my free hand to eat.”
“Joe, do you think me so dense? Don’t those boys ever think sense about girls?”
“Never that I reckoned. Edd used to lie worse than any of them. But he’s over it, I guess, since you same, Miss Lucy!”
Whereupon Clara’s quick glance caught Lucy blushing, though she laughed merrily.
“Joe Denmeade! That is a doubtful compliment...Come, you’d better begin to eat — this and this and this...Clara, I get ravenously hungry up here. It’s the wonderful air. I hope it will affect you that way.”
Whereupon they fell to eating the ample lunch, during which time Lucy made merry. Nevertheless she took occasion now to observe Clara, unobtrusively, at opportune moments. Out in the clear bright sunlight Clara seemed indeed a pale frail flower. Always as a girl she had been pretty, but it would have been trivial to call her so now. Her face had strangely altered, and the only features remaining to stir her memory were the violet eyes and golden hair. They were the same in colour, though Clara’s eyes, that had once been audacious, merry, almost bold in their bright beauty, were now shadowed deeply with pain. Clara had been an unconscionable flirt; to-day no trace of pert provocativeness was manifest. Indeed, suffering, shock, whatever had been the calamity which was recorded there, had removed the callow coarseness of thoughtless adolescence, and had left a haunting, tragic charm. Lucy thought the transformation almost incredible. It resembled that birth of soul she had divined in Clara’s letters. What had happened to her? Lucy shrank from the truth. Yet her heart swelled with wonder and ache for this sister whom she had left a wild girl and had found a woman.
By the time the lunch had vanished Joe was driving up the narrow zigzag road leading to the height of the cedared ridge. Here he ceased to look back down the road, as if no longer expecting the boys to catch up with him. But he lived up to his reputation as a driver.
“Reckon you froze them off,” he said at length. “Sam, anyhow. He’ll shore never get over bein’ dumped on the porch.”
Lucy, talking at random, discovered that Clara was intensely interested in her welfare work in this backwoods community. Thus encouraged, Lucy began at the beginning and told the story of her progress in every detail possible, considering that Joe was there to hear every word. In fact, she talked the hours away and was amazed when Joe drove into the Johnson clearing.
“What a hideous place!” murmured Clara as she gazed around. “You don’t live here?”
“No, indeed!” replied Lucy. “This is where Sam Johnson lives. We have a few miles to go on horseback. Clara, have you anything to ride in?”
“Yes; I have an old riding suit that I hate,” said her sister.
“It doesn’t matter how you feel about it,” laughed Lucy. “Where’s it packed? We can go into Mr. Jenks’s tent while Joe tends to the horses.”
Lucy conducted Clara to the teacher’s lodgings, and then made some pretext to go outside. She wanted to think. She had not been natural. Almost fearing to look at Clara, yearning to share her burdens, hiding curiosity and sorrow in an uninterrupted flow of talk, Lucy had sought to spare her sister. What a situation! Clara the incorrigible, the merciless, the imperious, crawling on her knees! Lucy divined it was love Clara needed beyond all else. She had been horribly cheated. She had cheated herself. She had flouted sister, mother, home. Lucy began to grasp here the marvellous fact that what she had prayed for had come. Years before she had tried in girlish unformed strength to influence this wayward sister. When she gave up city life to come to the wilderness it had been with the settled high resolve to do for others what she had been forced to do for herself. The failure of her home life had been its sorrow, from which had sprung this passion to teach. She had prayed, worked, hoped, despaired, struggled. And lo! as if by some omniscient magic, Clara had been given back to her. Lucy choked over the poignancy of her emotion. She was humble. She marvelled. She would never again be shaken in her faith in her ideals. How terrible to contemplate now her moments of weakness when she might have given up!
Her absorption in thought and emotion was broken by Clara emerging from the tent.
“Lucy, here’s all that’s left of me,” she said whimsically.
It was not possible then for Lucy to say what she thought. Clara’s remark about an old riding suit had been misleading. It was not new, but it was striking. Clara’s slenderness and fragility were not manifest in this outdoor garb. If she was bewitching to Lucy, what would she be to these simple girl-worshipping backwoodsmen?
When Joe came up with the horses, and saw Clara, there was no need for Lucy to imagine she exaggerated. The look in his eyes betrayed him. But if he had been struck as by lightning it was only for a moment. “Reckon I can pack one of the valises on my saddle, an’ carry another,” he said practically. “To-morrow I’ll fetch a burro to pack home the rest. I’ll put them in Mr. Jenks’s tent.”
“This is Baldy. Oh, he’s a dear horse!” said Lucy. “Get up on him, Clara....Have you ridden lately?”
“Not so — very,” replied Clara, with voice and face sharply altering. Then she mounted with a grace and ease which brought keenly home to Lucy the fact that Clara had eloped with a cowboy and had gone to live on a ranch south of Mendino. Clara had always been an incomparable rider.
Soon they were travelling down the road, Joe in the lead, Lucy and Clara side by side. For Lucy there was an unreality about the situation, a something almost like a remembered dream. Clara’s reticence seemed rather to augment this feeling. Gradually there welled into Lucy’s mind a happy assurance, tinged perhaps with sadness.
Once Clara remarked that it was new to her to ride in the shade. She began to show interest in the trees, and when they turned off on the trail into the forest she exclaimed, “Oh, how beautiful!”
Lucy was quick to observe that Clara managed Baldy perfectly, but she was not steady in the saddle. She showed unmistakable weakness. They rode on, silent, on and on, and then down into the deep green forest, so solemn and stately, murmurous with the hum of the stream. Clara subtly changed.
“If anything could be good for me, it would be this wild forest,” she said.
“Don’t say ‘if,’ dear. It will be,” responded Lucy.
“It makes me feel like going out of the cruel hateful light — that I hate to face — down into cool sweet shadow. Where I can feel — and not be seen!”
At the fording of the rushing brook Clara halted her horse as if compelled to speak. “Lucy, to be with you here will be like heaven,” she said, low and huskily. “I didn’t think anything could make me really want to live. But here!...I’ll never leave these beautiful, comforting woods. I could become a wild creature.”
“I — I think I understand,” replied Lucy falteringly. From the last crossing of the rocky brook Clara appeared perceptibly to tire. Lucy rode behind her. Half way up the long benched slope Clara said, with a wan smile:
“I don’t know — I’m pretty weak.”
Lucy called a halt then, and Joe manifested a sile
nt solicitude. He helped Clara dismount and led her off the trail to a little glade carpeted with pine needles. Lucy sat down and made Clara lay her head in her lap. There did not seem to be anything to say. Clara lay with closed eyes, her white face and golden hair gleaming in the subdued forest light. Her forehead was wet. She held very tightly to Lucy’s hand. Lucy was not unaware of the strange, rapt gaze Joe cast upon the slender form lying so prone. Several times he went back to the horses, and returned restlessly. On the last of these occasions, as he reached Lucy’s side Clara opened her eyes to see him. It was just an accident of meeting glances, yet to Lucy, in her tense mood, it seemed an unconscious searching, wondering.
“You think me — a poor weak creature — don’t you?” asked Clara, smiling.
“No. I’m shore sorry you’re sick,” he replied simply, and turned away.
Presently they all mounted again and resumed the journey up the slope. When they reached the level forest and above, Clara had to have a longer rest.
“What’s that awful wall of rock?” she asked, indicating the towering Rim.
“Reckon that’s the fence in our back yard,” replied Joe.
“I couldn’t very well jump that, could I?” murmured Clara.
Meanwhile the sun sank behind scattered creamy clouds that soon turned to rose and gold, and beams of light stretched along the wandering wall. Lucy thrilled to see how responsive Clara was to the wildness and beauty of the scene. Yet all she said was, “Let me live here.”
“It’ll be dark soon, and we’ve still far to go,” returned Lucy, with concern.
“Oh, I can make it,” replied Clara, rising. “I meant I’d just like to lie here — for ever.”
They resumed the ride. Twilight fell and then the forest duskiness enveloped them. The last stretch out of the woods and across the Denmeade clearing, up the lane, was ridden in the dark. Lucy leaped off and caught Clara as she reeled out of the saddle, and half carried her into the tent to the bed. The hounds were barking and baying; the children’s voices rang out; heavy boots thumped on the cabin porch.
Lucy hastened to light her lamp. Joe set the valises inside the tent.
“Is she all right?” he asked, almost in a whisper.
“I’m — here,” panted Clara, answering for herself, and the purport of her words was significant.
“She’s worn out,” said Lucy. “Joe, you’ve been very good. I’m glad I ‘picked you,’ as you called it.”
“What’ll I tell ma?” he asked.
“Just say Clara can’t come in to supper. I’ll come and fetch her something.”
Joe tramped away in the darkness, his spurs jingling. Lucy closed the door, brightened the lamp, threw off gloves, hat, coat, and bustled round purposely finding things to do, so that the inevitable disclosure from Clara could be postponed. Lucy did not want to know any more.
“Come here — sit by me,” said Clara weakly.
Lucy complied, and felt a constriction in her throat. Clara clung to her. In the lamplight the dark eyes looked unnaturally big in the white face.
“I’m here,” whispered Clara.
“Yes, thank Heaven, you are,” asserted Lucy softly.
“I must tell you — about—”
“Clara, you needn’t tell me any more. But if you must, make it short.”
“Thank you...Lucy, you never saw Jim Middleton but once. You didn’t know him. But what you heard was true. He’s no good — nothing but a wild rodeo cowboy — a handsome devil...I ran away with him believing in him — thinking I loved him. I was crazy. I might have — surely would have loved him — if he had been what I thought he was...We went to a ranch, an awful hole, in the desert out of Mendino. The people were low trash. He told them we were married. He swore to me we would be married next day. I refused to stay and started off. He caught me, threatened me, frightened me. I was only a kid...Next day we went to Mendino. There was no preacher nearer than Sanchez. We went there, and found he was out of town. Jim dragged me back to the ranch. There I learned a sheriff was looking for him. We had a terrible quarrel...He was rough. He was not at all — what I thought. He drank — gambled...Of course he meant to marry me. He wanted to do so in Felix. But I was afraid. We hurried away from there. But afters...he didn’t care — and I found I didn’t love him...To cut it short I ran away from him. I — couldn’t go home. So I went to work at Kingston. I tried several jobs. They were all so hard — the last one too much for me. I went downhill...Then—”
“Clara,” interrupted Lucy, distraught by the husky voice, the torture of that face, the passion to confess what must have been almost impossible, “never mind any more. That’s enough...You poor girl! Indeed you were crazy! But, dear, I don’t hold you guilty of anything but a terrible mistake. You thought you loved this Jim Middleton. You meant well. If he had been half a man you would have turned out all right. God knows, no one can judge you harshly for your error. It certainly does not matter to me, unless to make me love you more.”
“But — sister — I must tell you,” whispered Clara faintly.
“You’ve told enough. Forget that story. You’re here with me. You’re going to stay. You’ll get well. In time this trouble will be as if it had never been!”
“But Lucy — my heart is broken — my life ruined,” whispered Clara. “I begged to come to you — only for fear of worse.”
“It’s bad now, I know,” replied Lucy stubbornly. “But it’s not as bad as it looks. I’ve learned that about life. I can take care of you, get back your health and spirit, let you share my work. Sister, there’s no worse, whatever you meant by that. This wilderness, these backwoods people, will change your whole outlook on life. I know, Clara. They have changed me.”
Mutely, with quivering lips and streaming eyes, Clara drew Lucy down to a close embrace.
Chapter IX
“WAL, DIDN’T YOU all invite yourselves to pick beans?” drawled Edd, coming out at the head of a procession of big and little Denmeades.
“Wal, we shore did aboot that,” drawled Lucy, mimicking him. “Don’t you see I’m rigged out to chase beans, bears, or bees?”
“Which reminds me you haven’t gone wild-bee buntin’ yet,” said he reflectively.
“Humph! I’d have to invite myself again to that, also,” declared Lucy.
“Honest, soon as the beans are picked I’ll take you. An’ I’ve lined a new tree. Must have a lot of honey.”
Mrs. Denmeade called out: “Make him stick to that, Miss Lucy. He’s shore awful stingy about takin’ anyone bee huntin’.”
“Come, Clara,” called Lucy into the tent. “We’re farmers to-day. Fetch my gloves.”
When Clara appeared the children, Liz and Lize, made a rush for her and went romping along, one on each side of her, down the trail ahead of the procession. Lucy fell in beside Edd, and she was thinking, as she watched Clara adapting herself to the light steps of the youngsters, that the improvement in her sister was almost too good to be true. Yet the time since Clara had arrived at the Denmeades’, measured by the sweetness and strength of emotion it had engendered, seemed very much longer than its actual duration of a few weeks.
“Wal, teacher, summer’s about over,” Edd was saying. “An’ soon the fall dances will begin.”
“Indeed? What a pity you can’t go!” exclaimed Lucy tantalisingly.
“Why can’t I?”
“Because you vowed you had enough after taking me that time.”
“Wal, reckon I did. But shore I could change my mind — same as you.”
“Am I changeable?...I was only teasing, Edd. I got a hunch that you’re going to ask me again.”
“Correct. You’re a smart scholar. How do you feel about goin’?”
“Shall I refuse, so you can indulge your — your wild-bee hunter proclivities and pack me down on your horse?” queried Lucy demurely.
“Sometimes I don’t savvy you,” he said dubiously. “Reckon all girls have a little Sadie Perdue in them.”
; “Yes, they have, Edd, I’m ashamed to confess,” replied Lucy frankly. “I’d like to go with you. But of course that’ll depend on Clara. To be sure, she’s getting well, wonderful! It makes me happy. Still, she’s far from strong enough for one of your dances.”
“Joe asked her, an’ she said she’d go if you went, too. I reckon she meant with me.”
“Edd, you’re learning from Sam Johnson.”
“Nope, not me. I’d choke before I’d copy that honey bee.”
“So Joe asked her?...Well!” murmured Lucy thoughtfully.
“Reckon she likes him, Lucy.”
“Oh, I hope — I know she does. But, Edd—”
“Wal, I get your hunch,” he interrupted. “You think maybe she oughtn’t go with Joe because it’ll only make him worse.”
“Worse?” queried Lucy, turning to eye Edd.
“Yes, worse. But, Lucy, I reckon it couldn’t be worse. Joe thinks of Clara by day an’ dreams of her by night. He’s been that way since the day she came to us.”
“Edd, you’re pretty sharp. I imagined no one but me had seen that. I’m sure Clara hasn’t...It’s a problem, Edd. But I knew it’d come.”
“Wal, you’re shore good at problems. What’re you goin’ to do about this one?”
“What would you do?” Lucy countered.
“I’d let Joe take her to the dance. You can manage her. Why, your slightest wish is law to Clara. That shore makes me think heaps of her. Wal, she could dance a few, an’ look on some. Then we’d come home early.”
“Would you promise that?”
“I shore would.”
“Well, Edd, I’ll think it over. You know if we go to this dance we’ll be inclined to go again — perhaps often.”
“Not with Joe an’ me. I reckon this one would do us for a spell.”
“Oh, that is different! And why?”
“Wal, you forget how you drove them boys crazy. I reckon this time, with Clara, you’d break up the dance. I’ve a hunch once would be enough for a spell. But shore I’d like it. So would Joe.”
“Edd, this little sister of mine has broken up more than once dance — and a cowboy dance at that. Why couldn’t we go and have a nice time, dance a little, and leave early, without what you hinted? — Fights!”