by Zane Grey
If May still loved him — had lived and waited for him, despite all — then the future might almost make up for the past.
The white adobe house was set down from the road in a grove of cottonwood trees. There were evidences of Southern influence everywhere. No doubt Mrs. Clement had not forgotten Texas.
With his heart in his throat Clint knocked at the open door. A gray-haired, pleasant-faced, sad-eyed woman appeared. She gasped.
“Mrs. Clement, don’t you remember me?” asked Clint.
“Oh, I do — I do!” she cried. “You are Clint Belmet.”
“Yes, I’m Clint.... Is she here?”
“Thank God, she is — well and still faithful to you. But she believes you dead. I always thought you might come to life. I have seen so many strange things on the frontier.”
“Where is she?” asked Clint, strangely calm.
“Out in the garden. She loves to dig around and plant.”
“You say she is — well?”
“Yes, very well, now. For a long time after our terrible experience in that caravan she was ill. In fact, the whole year we lived with the settler Bennet.”
“You left Santa Fé in a caravan under Jim Blackstone.”
“Yes, the monster! We were no sooner out on the Dry Trail when Indians appeared and attacked the freighters who had joined us. Blackstone’s gang took sides with the Indians. We would have been lost but for a caravan of emigrants on the way to Texas. They drove the Indians off. Blackstone fled, leaving his wagons. The emigrants took us along with them. Baxter, the boss, was an old scout. He knew we were followed. One night he took us down into a valley where a settler named Bennet lived. He was friendly with all Indians. Well, Bennet took us in, and he hid us there for a year. We seldom went out except at night. Then when a big caravan came along we got out. We trailed you to Kansas City and back to Santa Fé. And again we passed you on the way. That nearly killed poor May. Then your death was reported the second time. We saw it in the Kansas City papers. We went back to Texas. I had some property there. I sold it and we went to El Paso, and finally here. May loves the West, but not the plains.”
“So she passed me again on the Old Trail!” sighed Clint. “Life seems cruel sometimes.... You said she was out in the garden?”
“Come,” replied Mrs. Clement, softly.
She led him round the white house to the rear, where cottonwoods were shedding their fluffy cottonlike seeds, and green grass shone, and water gurgled somewhere unseen, and blackbirds sang in the trees.
“There she is. But hadn’t I better go first — prepare her?” asked Mrs. Clement, anxiously.
Clint saw something blue out in the garden. It moved. It was a woman of slight form, bending over. Then she stood erect. A sunbonnet hung over her shoulders. Clint recognized that bonny dark head, and all the agony of the years was as if it had never been.
“Mrs. Clement, you say she has — has not forgotten me?” he asked, hesitatingly.
“She believes you dead. But no living man could be more wonderfully loved.”
“Aw!... It’ll not — hurt her — then. I — I want to see her face — when she sees me!”
Mrs. Clement pressed his hand and mutely turned back to the house.
Clint moved out from under the cottonwoods to the edge of the garden. There he halted, not because he wanted to, but because May had turned round toward him. She came walking between the rows, looking down. Her sleeves were rolled up. She held a trowel in her hand.
She grew closer, humming a little tune. When she looked up, twenty short paces did not separate them. A shock caught her in a step, making her a statue. Wide dark staring eyes shook Clint to his depths. He tried to call out.
She dropped the trowel. Her hands flashed to her breast. She swayed a little, her eyes shutting tight and opening wide. Will was stronger than terror. She uttered a wild and rapturous cry and broke toward him, flinging out her arms, running while yet she was stumbling, with glorious light of recognition. “Clint! — Clint! CLINT!”
Sunset! They sat under a cottonwood, strangely like the spreading giant in the valley below Maxwell’s Ranch, and watched the western sky. Her head lay on his shoulder and her hand in his.
“God is good. I had almost lost faith in Him and life,” she said.
“When will you marry me?” he asked, for the tenth time.
“You will never cross the plains again?” she entreated. “I could not bear that.”
“Darlin’, I will never go back.”
She kissed him gratefully. “Oh, I know how you feel! I shall never forget the prairie land. Endless gray — oh, so far, so lonely, so monotonous — gray and terribly beautiful. Oh, how I loved and hated it!”
“I have had enough, May. I’ve done my share.... Will you marry me?”
“Si, senor,” she replied, shyly.
“When?”
“Sometime. It’s very sudden.”
“But my longin’ for you is as old as the ages.”
“Oh, Clint, and mine for you. Promise me you’ll never leave me again for a single minute so long as we both shall live.”
“I promise, little May.”
“You will stay away from trading-posts and forts and trails and Indians and desperadoes?”
“I shall indeed,” he laughed.
“Oh, you can laugh!... Clint, I’m so happy I shall die. Squeeze me!... Kiss me! — You great, calm, cold frontiersman! — And, oh, forgive me again for that one damnable wickedness of my life — when I drove you away at Maxwell’s Ranch?”
“I will — when you marry me.”
She was silent for a long moment, surrendering. “There’s a padre here at Las Cruces.... He will do — yes?”
“Is that last a question — or a consent?”
“Both.... Well, Buff, if the padre is good enough for you — you may have me—”
“When?” he gasped.
“Tomorrow — at the very latest,” she concluded, merrily.
Clint gathered her into his arms as if he never meant to let her go again. Presently she freed herself with a gasp. “Heavens! Did — I call you — a great, calm, cold frontiersman?... But I should have told you sooner.... Listen, Clint dear. Let me be serious one moment. I shall marry you tomorrow and all will be well. Ours has been a strange, sad story. But we are both young still. We love the West. We are pioneers and we will be true to that. Let us settle here in this beautiful valley and make our home with Mrs. Clement. She has been a mother to me.”
“Anythin’ you say, little May,” he replied, in quiet joy. “I have money to buy a ranch an’ stock it. My own, Uncle Jim’s, an’ poor old Hatcher’s. I’m quite rich, May, an’ can give you every comfort.”
“Why, you wonderful man! I shall coax you to take me to San Antonio — some day,” she cried, gaily.
“You won’t need to coax. Just one kiss.”
“There!” she flashed. “It’s paid.” And she lay quiet in his arms. Twilight fell. The bees ceased humming. The tinkle of a cow bell lingered musically on the quiet air. A coyote yelped wildly from the hill. And the golden afterglow faded in the west.
THE END
The Shepherd of Guadaloupe
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter One
THE SEA OUT there, dark and heaving, somehow reminded Forrest of the rolling rangeland of his beloved West, which he prayed to see once more, before he succumbe
d to havoc the war had done his body and soul.
He leaned propped against the rail of the great ship, in an obscure place aft, shadowed by the life-boats. It was the second night out of Cherbourg and the first time for him to be on deck. The ridged and waved Atlantic, but for its turbulence, looked like the desert undulating away to the uneven horizon. The roar of the wind in the rigging bore faint resemblance to the wind in the cottonwoods at home — a sound that had haunted him for all the long years of his absence. There was the same mystery in the black hollows of the sea as from boyhood he had seen and feared in the gloomy gulches of the foothills.
But he hated this restless, unstable, treacherous sea which seemed a part of the maelstrom in which he had been involved. He yearned for the mountains, the desert, the valley of cottonwoods, home and mother, far across this waste of waters, those dear remembered ties of the past that still survived. The emotion had only come strong during those moments when, ignoring his weakness and pain, he had clung to the rail, gazing into the pale obscurity of the night, out over the boundless ocean, with the consciousness that the dream that had mocked him during nine months on a hospital cot had become a reality. He was on the way home — home to Cottonwoods!
He visualized the winding valley between the silver hills beautiful with the green-gold trees that gave their name to the place; the rocky stream that wound leisurely down, bordered by sage and willow, bringing the blue-tinted snow water from the mountains; the old rambling Spanish ranch house, white-walled, with the vines climbing up to the red tiles.
This retrospect seemed to release him from the vise of the war horrors that had clamped him. It would be best, now he was going home, to live in thought of the brief future allotted him; and his mind clutched at the revivifying memories.
There had been changes at home, his mother’s recent letter had intimated — a strange letter coming many months after a long silence, full of thanksgiving and joy that the report of his being among the missing had been erroneous, and evidently stultified over ills she had not the courage to confide. Thinking back, Forrest recalled a letter here, another there, widely separated, the content of which had not augured well for the prosperity of the Forrests. But he had dismissed them with a bitter laugh of recollection at the absurd idea of Clay Forrest, his father, ever losing land or stock enough to matter.
How would he find things at home? The query gave him a pang, for that thought had been seldom in his mind. He hoped now to find his parents well, and surely, in view of his service to his country and the supreme sacrifice he was soon to make, they would forgive the disgrace he had brought upon them. How long ago that expulsion from college! It seemed so trivial now, the cards, the drunkenness, the fight which had ended his school career. He had tramped and worked, now a rolling stone, and again a young man in whom hope could not wholly die. Then 1914 and the war! And now, broken in body and mind, victim of an appalling chaos, like thousands of other young men who had sustained a brutal and terrible affront to faith, honor, patriotism, love, he was voyaging across the ocean, battling the gray specter that hung grimly on his trail, longing for the land of his birth, the wide sweep of the Western ranges, the sage, the cottonwoods — there gladly to lay down the burden.
The huge black ship plowed on through the sullen sea, spreading the inky billows into white, seething, crashing foam, that raced by with spectral glow and phosphorescent gleam, to pale and fade in the darkness. The funnels roared and emitted bulging clouds of smoke that hid the stars. The mighty iron mass drove on masterfully, as if to fling defiance at nature. Forward along the wide deck bright lights shone on women scantily and beautifully gowned, and men in conventional black, not one of whom, it seemed to Forrest, had a thought of the greedy, mystic sea, or the perilously rushing ship, or the precious life so prodigally theirs.
Forrest left his post and walked along the deck, hiding his limp, and the pangs in his wounded side, and the burn in his breast. He walked erect. These were Americans returning home, and many of them were young. He felt no kinship with them. What was a crippled soldier to these idle, luxurious travelers? But once in his stateroom he sagged, and the face he saw in his mirror dropped its mask. Crawling into his berth, he lay in the dark, listening to the rhythmic pulse of the engines, deep in the bowels of the ship. Alone there with his phantoms in attendance he wooed slumber until at last it mercifully came.
On the following day Forrest vacated his stuffy stateroom late in the morning, and sought relief in the open air. The sea had gone down. There was no side roll, only a slow stately pitch, as the ship headed into a moderate southeast swell. Spring was in the air, coming almost balmy on the soft breeze. Passengers were out in force, in sport clothes, making the most of the fine weather. The sea shone bright green without any white crests. Smoke on the horizon attested to the passing of a ship.
Forrest found a steamer chair and made himself as comfortable as his stiff leg would permit. His position was near the wide space on deck where quoits and other games were adding to the amusement of passengers. In the chair next him sat a man whose friendly overtures could not without open rudeness be avoided. So Forrest agreed about the weather and that the halfway point on the journey had been passed and that the passengers were showing themselves this morning.
“I see you’ve been in the service,” remarked the man, after an interval.
Forrest nodded. If his civility invited curiosity, he would have to move, though he was reluctant to do this, because it required effort that was painful.
“My wife and I have been in France,” went on the stranger. “We had a boy in the service. Over a year ago he was reported missing. We thought perhaps we might find his grave or get some trace of him.”
“Did you?” queried Forrest, in quick sympathy.
“Nothing. — He was just gone.”
Forrest turned to eye this father who spoke so calmly of a tragedy. He looked like a small-town merchant, or a farmer who was lost without his overalls and boots. His geniality did not hide the furrows in his face nor did the kindly interest of his eyes conceal their sad depths.
Forrest expressed regret and inquired about the missing son’s regiment, thinking that he might have heard something. But the father knew little except the bare facts, and did not seem inclined to talk further about his loss. Forrest liked this plain, simple man, and was quick to feel that such contact was good for him, despite his sensitiveness.
“I was among the ‘missing’ for over a year,” he vouchsafed. “At least that was the belief in my home. I turned up in the hospital, but no report of that was ever sent — and, well, I wasn’t in any condition to know what was happening.”
“But your people know now?” queried the man, eagerly.
“Yes. They know.”
“How good that is!...Strange I should meet you...I suppose I’ll never cease to hope my boy will turn up alive.”
“It might happen.”
“I’d like my wife to meet you if she happens along. Would you mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Where is your home?”
“New Mexico.”
“Way out West! Well, you have a trip ahead of you...And you don’t look very strong yet.”
“I think I’ll make it,” replied Forrest, smiling wanly.
“You must! Think of your dad — and your mother,” rejoined the man, feelingly. “Maybe I can lend you a hand when we dock?”
“No, thanks. I’ll manage. Fact is I feel better this morning than for months.”
The little man did not press the point and tactfully changed the subject for a hazard on the ship’s run. Then after a desultory conversation peculiar to ocean travel he excused himself and withdrew.
Forrest was left the better for that meeting, though how, he could not define. But he realized that he must not build a wall round himself for everyone. His own father and this kindly stranger would have had much in common a twelvemonth ago.
The sun climbed overhead, making the day pleasant for t
he passengers at their games or promenading the decks. Forrest, however, felt the slight chill in the air, even under his rug; nevertheless, he was conscious of something that might have been an exhilarating movement of his blood. Not improbably this accounted for a languid interest in the stream of promenaders.
Presently he made the surprising discovery that he was an object of some interest to the feminine contingent. It annoyed him and his first impulse was to retire to the seclusion of his stateroom. Still, it was pleasant there and he was resting more comfortably. What did these women see in him, anyway? To be sure, a half-blind person could read his story from his telltale face. The fact that the interest he roused was sympathetic rather than curious did not allay his irritation. It had rather a contrary effect.
Forrest tried lying back with his eyes closed. This worked fairly well, but as he could not sleep and quite forgot the reason for the pretense, he soon opened them. He found himself staring straight up into the beautiful face of a girl he had noticed before, though not closely enough to observe how really attractive she was. Detected in her scrutiny of his features, she blushed. Then she swiftly averted her face and went on with her companion, a girl of slighter build and less striking appearance.
He stared after them, noting in the taller a supple strong figure and a head of bright chestnut hair, the curls of which tossed in the breeze. Forrest imagined her face perhaps, at least her dark, wide blue eyes, familiar to him. They had been bent upon him with a wondering, penetrating look, for which he was at loss to account.
The incident had about faded from his unquiet mind when he espied the two girls coming back along the deck, arm in arm, rosy with their brisk exercise, walking more swiftly than the other passengers. He watched them approach and pass, which they did this time without apparent notice of him. Both girls were Americans, clad obviously in the latest Parisian styles, of which the short skirts rather jarred upon Forrest. The one with the chestnut hair had the build of a Western girl and the step of a mountaineer. It had been long since Forrest had seen her like, but he had never forgotten.