by Zane Grey
“Is he here now?”
“Sure. I told him he’d better come along with me. But he said he’d see you later. . . . Boss, Dillon is in purty bad humor. I never seen him like this. He’s another fellar.”
“Drinkin’?” queried Ben, sharply.
“No. He’s just black as thunder an’ sore as a kicked pup.”
“That’d be natural for anyone who had my interests at heart, as Dillon has. But it’s odd he didn’t come to report. . . . Well, out with your bad news.”
Ben squared himself as if for a blow and frowned upon his old foreman.
“I’m sorry, Ben. It couldn’t be no wuss.”
“Oh, Ben!” cried Ina, who had evidently worried more about her husband than the impending loss.
“Reckin you an’ Hettie better leave us alone,” returned Ben.
Neither of the women moved a step, though Ina subsided into a chair. Raidy appeared to have lost his usual taciturnity.
“Boss, you’re rustled off the range. The last of your stock, except some stragglin’ steers an’ yearlin’s, is gone — along with a thousand head of Tom Day’s.”
Ben Ide made a flashing violent gesture, as if to strike. He paled. His eyes shot fire.
“They’ve cleaned me?” he demanded, fiercely, as if still doubting.
“Yes, boss. I made sure, because I wasn’t trustin’ Dillon to give a full report.”
Hettie, standing back of Ina’s chair, felt both hot and cold; and she stared at her brother fearfully, expecting him to break into an ungovernable rage. For Ben had not been himself in weeks, and lately he had been hard to live with. She had reckoned without her host, however, for although Ben turned white to the lips he suddenly became calm and cool. With uncertainty gone he changed radically.
“Ahuh. So your hunch has come true,” he said, almost with sarcasm. “Wal, I reckon you’ll get a lot of satisfaction crowin’ over me an’ Dillon.”
“No, boss, I won’t even say I told you so,” returned Raidy.
“Give me the facts, short an’ sweet,” said Ben.
“Wal, Tom Day an’ his riders were at Silver Meadows when we arrived. A sheepherder had tipped them off to the drive. We split up an’ rode all around the Meadows. Only a few cattle left. Them rustlers made a slick job of it. Day an’ Franklidge lost over a thousand head, an’ you lost all you had left. A matter of three thousand head. We took the trail up the canyon. An’ say, it was a bowlavarde clear to the Rim. . . . I was for trailin’ the rustlers to finish a fight. But Day wouldn’t let any of us go down in that hole. We’d have been ambushed an’ some of us killed. Besides, he said we could never have recovered the cattle. Once turned loose in that jungle of scrub oak, manzanita, an’ cactus, them cattle would have vamoosed like ticks shook off a leaf. So we turned back.”
“You told Tom Day, of course, that Jim Lacy made this drive?” queried Ben.
“Tom knowed all about it from the sheepherder. Seems thet Lacy sent Tom word he was goin’ to make this big steal. Sent his respects to Tom an’ Judge Franklidge an’ said he’d drop in to Winthrop some day.”
“By Heaven! this Lacy is a cool one!” exclaimed Ben, as if admiration was wrenched from him.
“Cool? Wal, boss, you might call Lacy thet, but I reckon he’s a mixture of hell’s fire an’ chain lightnin’!”
“I’ll hang him,” said Ben, with deadly calm.
“No, Ben, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll say you’ll never put a rope around Jim Lacy’s neck. He couldn’t never be jailed, either. He’ll die in his boots, with a gun spoutin’, an’ Gawd help the men frontin’ him!”
“Bah! You talk like Marvie Blaine,” retorted Ben, curtly. “An’ you Raidy — a grown man!”
“Boss, it grieves me thet I’ve lived to disagree with you,” returned Raidy, with dignity.
“This Jim Lacy is the leader of the Pine Tree outfit,” asserted Ben, positively.
“Wal, me an’ Tom Day reckoned so. An’ for once Dillon agreed with us,” replied Raidy. “Tom said Lacy jest got tired of layin’ low an’ bein’ mysterious. So he comes out in the open. I’ll bet you he’ll ride right into Winthrop.”
“Raidy, I’m glad Lacy cleaned me out. I’m through waitin’ around to see what’s goin’ to happen next. I’ve sent for Sheriff Macklin an’ a posse. This mornin’ I got word from Struthers, the Phoenix sheriff who’s made it so hot for rustlers in southern Arizona. Struthers is in Winthrop at my request. They’ll arrive here not later than to-morrow. I’ll have Dillon get twenty-five of the hardest men he can gather. I’ll offer ten thousand dollars reward for Jim Lacy, dead or alive. I’ll spend every dollar I have to run down Lacy an’ his Pine Tree gang.”
“Wal, boss, you’re talkin’ high, wide, an’ handsome,” replied Raidy. “But it’s not for me to offer opinions. This ranch — an’ for that matter, this whole range — ain’t big enough for me an’ your man Dillon. I jest have to quit.”
“Very well, Raidy. I’m sorry you see it that way,” returned Ben, coldly, and with a wave of his hand terminated the interview.
Hettie fled. As she ran out she heard Ina deliver a stinging rebuke to her husband. Then a door slammed. Hettie hurried home in a state of mind bordering on a breakdown. She finished her work in a mechanical way, while slow torment consumed her.
“What’s all the row over at Ben’s?” her mother inquired, placidly, from her comfortable chair.
“Rustlers, cattle, foremen, sheriffs, and Heaven only knows what,” replied Hettie, distractedly.
“Well, daughter, don’t be upset. You know Ben.”
“I thought I did, mother. But I’m doubtful about it now. He fired Raidy.”
“No! Why, that’s dreadful! Raidy taught Ben how to ride a horse. Oh, this dreadful Arizona! . . . But I don’t mean that, Hettie. I love this quiet, sweet wild country. The men, though — they’re — they’re loco, as Marvie says. And Ben has got it, too?”
“Mother, have you seen Marvie to-day?” asked Hettie, suddenly remembering that she had not.
“Marvie went away yesterday and hasn’t come back. At least he didn’t sleep in his bed.”
“Oh dear! That wild boy! Here’s more to — to worry over. . . . Mother, I didn’t tell you that the reason Marvie came to us is because Ben discharged him — drove him out of the house.”
“Reckon we’ll have Ina next,” said her mother.
“I — I wouldn’t be surprised at anything,” returned Hettie, tearfully.
Hettie went to her room, with the motive of indulging her grief. But sight of her riding-boots acted powerfully upon her and she decided to take a ride. Not for days had she been on her horse. Perhaps a long hard gallop would be good for her; and moreover, she might meet Marvie on the trail. Could something have happened to him? It might very well have, Hettie concluded, with a tremor. He and Rose might have been discovered by that Cedar Hatt, of whom Rose had such great fear. The very air round the Ide ranch seemed congested, heavy, sultry, ominous with menace.
Hettie passed the quarters of the riders at some distance, not caring to be accosted by Dillon or Raidy. She saw some saddled horses, dusty and tired, that had evidently just come in. There were a number of men bunched in a circle, conversing so earnestly that none espied her. Gaining the stables, she found Pedro and had him saddle her horse. Soon she was riding fast with the wind in her face.
But neither a gallop nor a run sufficed to change Hettie’s mood. She rode into the woods, and let her horse walk at will down the shady trail in the direction from which Marvie always returned.
And here, alone, under the impelling influence of the forest, Hettie realized that she was a most miserable and heartbroken girl, with a terrible sword hanging over her head. How hopeless her situation! What use to think? There was not a thought nor an action that could help her in her extremity. Courage and intelligence had gone with the loss of hope.
A purple haze like smoke hung in the aisles of the forest; the only sound was the faintest of breezes murmuri
ng in the pines; the thickets were on fire with golden and scarlet flame of autumn leaves; the westering sun caught the glint of falling leaf and pine needle.
Nature seemed so pitiless this day. It went on, calm, sweet, beautiful, inscrutable, unmindful of the poor little lives of human beings. Hettie could not derive any solace, any strength, from either forest or range or desert.
Arizona had killed her dream, as it had ruined her brother. And the horror of Hettie’s state seemed that the climax of this infernal paradox, the dénouement, the worst, had yet to come.
Suddenly she caught the rhythmic beat of swift hoofs ahead round a green curve of the trail. That must be Marvie’s horse. A rush of relief swept over her. The pine boughs spread. A big black horse was upon her before she could pull a rein. She cried out. But the rider hauled back to his haunches, and that rider was Nevada.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HETTIE CLUTCHED THE pommel of her saddle. An awful stunning shock suspended, for an instant, all her faculties, and every sensibility except the physical animal instinct of holding her equilibrium. Then emotion burst the dam.
When Nevada’s horse plunged up, his head came abreast Hettie’s horse.
“You!” Hettie felt the word leave her stiff lips, but she heard it only as a whisper.
Nevada swept off his sombrero and bowed low to the mane of his horse. And as he rose erect he remained bareheaded.
“Wal, shore it’s Hettie Ide,” he drawled, in the cool, leisurely, Southern accent that cut into her heart like blades.
Then they gazed at one another, as if sight was trying to reconcile the face of dreams with the reality. The face Hettie looked into had the same lean outline, the dark blue-black shade of beard against the clear brown tan, the intent light hazel-flecked eyes, like level piercing points. But it did not have the soul with which her imagination and memory had invested it.
“I — saw you — in Winthrop,” began Hettie, as if to find relief from oppression. Silence was impossible.
“Shore. I reckoned you might,” he replied. As he spoke he rolled a cigarette with steady fingers. No surprise, no emotion that Hettie could read, manifested itself in look or manner. “Too bad you had to run into me heah!”
“Too bad! . . . It’s terrible. But I’m glad,” exclaimed Hettie, quivering, shaking all over.
“Thank you, an’ I’m shore sorry I cain’t return the compliment,” he said, and bent his head to light the cigarette.
His cool nonchalance, that she remembered so poignantly, seemed now to inflame her.
“Jim Lacy!” she cried, in scornful, sad haste to acquaint him with her knowledge of his infamy.
He thrust his sombrero on, tilted back, and as he blew a thin column of smoke upward his penetrating, inscrutable eyes studied her face.
“Why didn’t you trust me? Oh, why?” she went on, slipping farther toward an emotional outbreak.
“Hettie, there was a time, long ago, when I’d rather have been daid than let you know I was Jim Lacy.”
“You were ashamed?”
“I shore was.”
“Long ago, you said. . . . Then you’re not ashamed now?”
“Wal, it cain’t matter now,” he rejoined, with a gleam of a smile.
“Why can’t it matter now?” she queried.
He made an expressive gesture, and then gazed down through the open forest to the colorful desert. His horse rubbed noses with Hettie’s, and gradually backed it across the trail.
“Ben doesn’t dream his — his old friend Nevada is you — the notorious Jim Lacy.”
“I reckon not. . . . Too bad he’s got to find out pretty soon!”
“Must Ben — find out?” asked Hettie, huskily. Thought of Ben augmented her weakness.
Nevada dropped his head. His horse, nosing Hettie’s, brought Nevada closer to her, so that she might have touched him. This proximity bore upon her with incalculable influence. She pulled her horse aside, to no avail, for the big black followed with eager whinny. His rider did not seem to be aware of this proceeding, or of the proximity that again ensued.
“How can you be so cool — so hatefully cool?” burst out Hettie, “Ben loved you. I — I . . . What did he care who you were? Why didn’t you always stay Nevada? . . . Ben left no stone unturned to locate you. Failing that, he came to Arizona because he hoped you might turn up. . . . You have turned up. But as Jim Lacy — as a rustler who stole from him. Stole from a friend you once saved and succored and loved! Did you know those cattle were Ben’s?”
“Shore — I did,” replied Nevada, showing a faint pallor.
“Oh, it was a terrible thing to do!” cried Hettie, covering her face with her hands. “Your pard? It will cut him to the quick — embitter him forever. . . . And it’ll kill me!”
His silence, his imperturbability in its unnaturalness roused her to a sudden furious passion that burned away her tears and waved her face scarlet.
“Wal, you’re a mighty healthy lady after so many years of dyin’,” he drawled, tossing away his half-smoked cigarette. “Hettie, you always was pretty, but you’ve grown into a plumb handsome woman. . . . Reckon the cowboys are sweeter’n ever on you.”
“That must have meant a lot to you,” she flashed, breathing hard.
“Dillon, now. He was.”
“Yes. He has made love to me. Begged me to marry him,” returned Hettie, in fiery flippancy, hoping with a woman’s strange coquetry to make him jealous.
“Wal, you don’t say. He’s shore a handsome hombre. Devil with the women, I heah. . . . Why don’t you marry him?”
“I — may yet,” replied Hettie, somberly. He baffled her. In his cool, inscrutable presence she felt like a child. And a deep unplumbed emotion seemed to swell at the gates of her self-control.
“Hettie, if you do you’ll be changin’ your mind considerable from what it was that night at the dance in Winthrop.”
“What do you know about that?” she queried, wonderingly.
“Wal, I happened to heah you tell Dillon a few things, an’ I seen him try to get you in his arms.”
“You! You were there?”
“Shore. An’ after you flounced off I introduced myself to Dillon an’ most polite invited him to draw. But he didn’t have the nerve, so I took a punch at his handsome face.”
“You struck Dillon on my behalf!” murmured Hettie softening.
“Wal, yes, partly. But I had it in for him before. . . . By the way, is he at the ranch?”
“Yes. I saw him at the corrals as I came out.”
“Good! I’m shore a lucky hombre — since I took up with Jim Lacy again.”
“You were going to our ranch?” queried Hettie, quickly.
“I am goin’, Miss Hettie Ide.”
“What — for?”
“Wal, reckon my prime reason is to shoot out one of Dillon’s handsome eyes. But I’ve another—”
“Oh! . . . You’ve something against Dillon?”
“Huh! I should rather smile I have, Hettie.”
“You’ll — you’ll kill him?”
Nevada’s flashing eye and sweeping gesture were the first indications of passion he had evinced.
“Reckon if you hadn’t held me up heah he’d be daid now. An’ that stands for me, too.”
“Ah! Then Dillon is — a — a dangerous man — as you—”
“Hettie, he’s a bad hombre. Come from New Mexico. Name is Ed Richardson, once with the Billy the Kid outfit. . . . I’ll kill him, shore, but he might return the compliment.”
“You — you bloody gunman!” returned Hettie, as if those few words expressed her infinite amaze and contempt for men who lived by such a creed.
“Hettie, if he does kill me you can tell Ben the truth, then come an’ smooth back my hair an’ wipe my bloody face. Ha! Ha!” he said, in bitter mockery.
“Hush!” Hettie reined her horse closer, so that her stirrup locked with Nevada’s. “Do not do this terrible deed. For Ben’s sake, if not mine. Be big enough to a
bandon your blood feud. Give up this outlaw, rustler, gunman life. . . . Take me away with you to some far country. I have money. You can start anew. I will cleave to you — live for you.”
“For Gawd’s sake, Hettie Ide, are you crazy?” he returned, stridently.
“Not yet. But I will be soon — if this — goes on,” she panted, and slipped her gloved hand to his shoulder. “Nevada, I — I still love you. I’ve always loved you. . . . I forgive all. I surrender all. I don’t care who you are — what you’ve been. All I ask is that you save Ben the horror so near — that you take me away and give up this life. . . . We can plan quickly. I will meet you at some point on the railroad. . . . Say you will.”
“No,” he said, hoarsely.
“Nevada! . . . Don’t you love me — still?” And she leaned to him, overcome, betraying all her woman’s soul of love, and hope for him, for Ben, for herself.
“Love you? Ha! Ha!”
“Don’t stare. Don’t laugh. This means life or death to me. Say you love me. Say you’ll take me.”
“Yes, I love you, mad woman. But I cain’t accept your sacrifice. I cain’t ruin you. . . . Good Gawd! Hettie, you forget I’m Jim Lacy!”
“It’s because you are Jim Lacy.”
“Heavens! This heah is awful! . . . Hettie, I cain’t — I won’t.”
“You lie, then. You do not love me. I am proving mine. But you — you are false. You have taken some — other woman. You don’t love me!”
Hettie, dim of eye, saw him loom over her. She felt herself seized in iron arms and dragged from her horse. Then she was lifted over the pommel and crushed to his breast, and bent backward, blind and breathless, a victim of terrible devouring lips. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, her brow, her hair, and then again her mouth.
Hettie’s senses reeled and almost failed her. When his violence ceased she felt herself held closely for a long moment, then let down from the horse until her feet touched the ground. She was falling when he leaped from the saddle. He set her on the grass with her back against a tree, and there, presently, her eyes opened.
Nevada knelt before her, his face convulsed. Slowly it smoothed out and a wild darkness faded from his eyes.