by Zane Grey
“Let me see. This is pretty swift. Suppose we say sixty a month — and you.”
When the laugh subsided Fenton said: “Virginia, I can beat that. Never mind the sixty.”
The main barn was a low-roofed enormous structure, with a wide lane running through from one open end to the other. Virginia recognized this as the original barn repaired and greatly improved. It contained twenty stalls on each side, and all but several held horses. What a spirited, glossy-haired, well-groomed lot of thoroughbreds! Not one, however, did Virginia recognize as a favorite of hers. The Mexican vaquero who tended them could not make himself perfectly clear to Virginia. She gathered, however, that there were horses in the pastures. The Mexican said something about Waltrous, which recalled the fine grazing ranch her father owned there.
“Friends, I don’t know a thing about these horses,” vouchsafed Virginia. “Never rode one of them. I’ll find out where mine are. Tomorrow we’ll surely ride.”
“Gee! but it’s funny to visit the most wonderful ranch in the West and not see a single bow-legged, red-faced, winking cowboy,” observed Ethel.
“Can’t say I love these sloe-eyed vaqueros,” added Gwen Barclay. “But they’re sure picturesque.”
They all finally wound up, even Mrs. Wayne, by sitting on the top rail of a high corral fence, gayly edified over an impromptu rodeo.
After two hours and more of this kind of entertainment, Virginia’s guests, at least the feminine contingent, were glad to bend their steps houseward. And it was when they got back that Virginia met Augustine Malpass. Instantly her memory bridged the gap between the moment and the day some years back when this sleek, dark individual had dared to make bold if not questionable advances toward her. That was before the Lundeen régime at Cottonwoods. Evidently his fortunes, along with Lundeen’s, were in the ascendant. Fine riding-garb made fine-looking riders. From his long cruel Mexican spurs and shiny high-top boots to his olive-tan face and magnetic eyes and sleek, black hair he personified the modern Western dandy. He scarcely showed the Spanish-descent rumor attributed to him. But his eyes were black and piercing as the points of daggers. In his speech there was no hint of the foreigner; in fact, he gave the impression of a keen and successful American between thirty and forty.
“August, I’ll bet you don’t remember Virginia as the kid who used to sit on the counter down at the old tradin’-post,” had been Lundeen’s introduction of his daughter, with a prideful arm around her.
“Who would?” rejoined Malpass, showing his handsome, white teeth. “If I remember the barelegged kids of those hard days, it’s inconceivable that your beautiful daughter could have been one of them.”
“Wal, she shore is...Virgie, do you remember August?”
“I didn’t by name, but the instant I saw Mr. Malpass I remembered him very well indeed. I’m quite surprised — if he has forgotten me.”
By his reaction to that cool speech Virginia gauged him as a man of depth and resource. These qualities he might always have possessed; however, along with his immaculate riding-garb he had acquired considerable polish. If he had been a little less impenetrable she might have given him the benefit of a doubt. But he masked himself. He was aloof from the man she remembered.
“Father, where are my horses?” asked Virginia. “I took my friends out to the barns, boasting about my neglected pets, and I couldn’t find one I knew.”
“Shore I supposed they were heah,” replied her father. “How aboot it, August?”
“I keep them at the Waltrous ranch. Better grazing pasture there.”
“Drive Virginia over tomorrow an’ let her see them.”
“I want my horses here,” declared Virginia, with spirit. “You certainly knew I was coming home. It really isn’t like home without my horses.”
“I’ll take you over tomorrow and you can pick out what you want to ride,” said Malpass.
“I want them all. By the way, I suppose my boys, Jake and Con, are in charge?”
“No. I discharged them.”
“You discharged them!” rejoined Virginia, with undisguised amaze. “By whose authority?”
“Virginia,” interposed Lundeen, uneasily, “Malpass has the run of the ranches. My mining interests take all my attention.”
“Oh, I see! Very well. But now that I’m home, I shall look after them myself,” returned Virginia. These men, if they had considered her at all, had not calculated on possible development. Not improbably they had been so engrossed in their business deals that they had not given her a serious thought. Virginia sensed more than she heard or saw. Her faculties had been shamed and stung acutely by Clifton Forrest’s accusation, and later sharpened by Dick Fenton’s gossip. Right here, at the outset, she distrusted the situation, and at the risk of being impulsively precipitous she declared herself.
“Mr. Malpass, you need not trouble yourself about my horses — or anything else, for that matter. I have my own allowance and can entertain my friends without drawing more upon father or charging any bills to the ranch.”
Malpass bowed politely enough, but the blood thickened under his olive tan. Furthermore, Virginia’s keen eyes caught her father biting his cigar. Without more ado she excused herself and went to her rooms.
Ethel was in the bedroom, half undressed, and curled up, fast asleep. Virginia closed the door softly and left her there. She put on her dressing-gown and making herself comfortable on the cushions of the wide window seat, she gazed out over the valley of cottonwoods.
In a vague, easily dismissed way there had always seemed something irregular about the Lundeen household. She could no longer lay it to her father’s irresponsible habit of shoving things upon other people’s shoulders. Fitting together the few instances that popped out of the past, and what she had heard and seen since her arrival home, she imagined a situation that was very disagreeable, if not worse. Her father had never inspired confidence, let alone love. Her mother was but his echo. It would surely be bad enough for her, even if she did not exaggerate the situation.
She watched the sunset, the first one over a New Mexican landscape, for two years; and the gorgeousness and riot of intense gold, pink, silver, and blue over that far-flung expanse of desert made her ache with the glory of the West. She had had enough of the crowded, sordid, noisy, war-beset East. This was home, and she did not mean the splendid mansion built by the Dons and named Cottonwoods by the Forrests. Home was the open there, the lonely range, and the grand bronze walls from which it sloped, and the ruggedness of the gray-barked cottonwoods, their strength, color, music, and their shade.
Some one tapped on the door. Startled out of her reverie, Virginia called, “Come in.” The door opened to admit her father.
“Are you alone?” he asked, coming to the window.
“Ethel is asleep in the bedroom,” replied Virginia, studying her father’s face.
“May I smoke?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t. I hate cigarette smoke in my rooms. There’s enough of it outside.”
“Shore you’re a queer girl,” he rejoined, as he sat down, to look at her with amusement and curiosity. “You love money, travel, friends, excitement, horses, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid so, especially the last.”
“Ethel’s mother has been telling me aboot you,” went on Lundeen. “She has a high opinion of you. Thinks you ought to get married.”
“Yes, she’s told me — the old match-maker.”
“I’d like to talk to you aboot that presently...We’re not very well acquainted, Virginia — that is, like we used to be when we were poor an’ you were a kid.”
“How could we be? You sent me away to school while I was growing up, and to travel afterward.”
“Shore. It’s my fault. But there were reasons why I didn’t want you heah, outside of my wish to give you a good education.”
Virginia did not encourage him to explain those reasons. She feared his candor. He was too cool, too sure of himself, and now, as often in her youth, she divined that s
he was not a great factor in his life. Still, he did not seem lacking in affection, nor in a complacent pride in her.
“Mrs. Wayne tells me you’re home for good. No more rustlin’ aboot.”
“Did you read my last letter?”
“Wal, if I did I’ve forgotten.”
“Father, you want me to stay home now, don’t you?”
“Why, I shore do, Virginia, providin’ you’re — wal, like your mother. It’d please me to see the ranch overrun by young people. I’m away a good deal. An’ the place ought to be kept up.”
“I can’t be like my mother. I’ve a mind of my own.”
“Wal, that was plain today when you told Malpass where to get off. I wish you hadn’t done it, Virginia. He hasn’t spoken to me yet, but he shore was riled.”
“That is nothing to me. I was annoyed because my horses were not here, and he discharged Jake and Con. The nerve of him! I shall get them back. Why are there nothing but Mexicans on the ranch?”
“He prefers them. Cheaper an’ easier to manage. I’m bound to admit he’s right. Cowboys, when you haven’t any cattle, are a blamed nuisance.”
“Aren’t you running any cattle?” asked Virginia, in surprise.
“No. Cattle went to nothin’. Ruined a lot of ranchers. Clay Forrest, for instance. All he had was in cattle. He was cattle poor.”
“How did you come into possession of Cottonwoods?” inquired Virginia, casually, but under veiled eyes she watched him keenly.
“Wal, at the beginnin’ of the war I sold out, an’ for the first time in my life had money. Malpass was the brains of my luck. He advised it. He went in with me an’ we lent Forrest money. Malpass saw the break comin’ an’ knew we’d catch Forrest. Wal, the crux of it came when Malpass struck rich silver in an old mine of Forrest’s land. Up in the foothills. Padres in the early days had worked it, an’ Malpass had a map. Got it in Mexico. On the strength of that we lent Forrest all the money we had an’ could raise. Forrest owed it. He was in a bad fix then, an’ it went from bad to worse. Yet the fool had faith in cattle goin’ up, so he bought more an’ more. But cattle dropped to nothin’. That ruined Forrest. Our deal went into the courts, an’ we got Forrest’s land an’ stock. By land I mean this ranch, which was a Spanish grant. The property below, where Forrest lives now an’ which was our home for so long, was not on the grant. It always was Forrest’s, an’ that was all he saved out of the wreck.”
“Father, did you consider that an honest deal?” queried Virginia.
“Wal, it was business, an’ that’s pretty sharp these days. Clay Forrest an’ I clinched from the time we came heah from Georgia. I laid many a hard knock to him. So it didn’t grieve me to take over his property. Ha! Ha!”
“But the old mine where Malpass found the silver. How about that?”
“Made our fortune. We got money out of it to develop the phosphate mines in the South. An’ there’s where our big money comes from.”
“Are you and Malpass partners?”
“Yes, in our minin’ deals. But this ranch is mine.”
“Father, it was crooked,” declared Virginia, feelingly.
“Wal, it always was dog eat dog with me an’ Forrest. An’ I won’t split hairs over it, arguin’ with you.”
“Such a deal might not show Forrest’s rights in court, because naturally you’d claim you discovered the silver after you got the land. But morally it is dishonest.”
“No, not in this heah day an’ age. You’re a woman, an’ you always were sentimental aboot the Forrests.”
“But at least you will split the proceeds from the silver mine?”
“I wouldn’t give Clay Forrest a dollar to save his life,” declared Lundeen, with hate swelling in every word.
“Then I shall,” replied Virginia, calmly and coldly.
“Wal, you won’t do anythin’ of the kind. You haven’t it to give. That two hundred thousand I put on interest for you isn’t available.”
“Where is it?” asked Virginia, aghast.
“Malpass took the principal, or most of it, an’ invested it down South. We needed some money quick. Of course you’ll gain in the long run. But you can’t get hold of it now.”
“Then I have no — no income?”
“We’ll fix that up, Virginia. I reckon there’s ten thousand or so to your credit in bank. By the time you spend it we’ll arrange the other.”
“Mr. Augustine Malpass!...He seems — ahem — quite important in the affairs of the Lundeens.”
“Wal, I reckon,” returned her father with a short laugh, ignoring her scorn. “An’ that brings me to the point. You rode me off the trail...Virginia, as far back as three years ago me an’ August talked over a marriage between you an’ him, when the proper time came.”
“Indeed! How interesting!”
“You needn’t be so cuttin’. You shore owe it to August that you got your education an’ travel, an’ that you’re heah at Cottonwoods now. It was his brains.”
“I have much to thank Mr. Malpass for,” returned Virginia, in bitter passion.
“Virginia, I hope you’re not mixed up in any love-affair.”
“No, I’m not, if that will relieve your extreme anxiety about me.”
“Wal, I’m glad. For my heart is set on this. I don’t want to rush you, daughter, but in good time, I hope — —”
He rose, evidently disconcerted by the sudden turn of her head, to face him with her contempt and shame.
“You are proposing marriage for me — with Mr. Malpass?”
“It amounts to that,” he answered, regaining his assurance.
“Thank you. I feel immensely flattered that you’d like to see me the wife of a crook.”
“Virginia, he’s no more that than I am,” protested Lundeen, impatiently.
“Assuredly not. You’re both crooks. The meanest of crooks — the kind that can’t be apprehended.”
“Wal, I’ll allow you’ve reason to be upset,” he added, moving toward the door. “Reckon you’ll get over that an’ think aboot it.”
“Father, I don’t understand you. I don’t know you,” she ended, passionately. “I refuse — once and for all!”
Chapter Five
MANY A TIME, years ago it seemed to him, Clifton Forrest had ridden down the shady road along the edge of the Cottonwood valley, to the little town of San Luis, which was populated by Indians and Mexicans. The trading-store there had finally been taken from Lundeen by Clifton’s father, who had then run it more to help his many employees than to exact profit from them. The few bits of silver that it now brought in constituted the extent of the Forrest income. Toward San Luis Clifton walked now, and when he fell down, which he did often, he got up and went on.
“Cliff,” his mother had said the day of his arrival home, “your father tried to stick in that store. But he couldn’t. I hired one Mexican after another. If one was lazy, another was dishonest, and our only income is from that store. Think of that, my son! It used to be one of your father’s charities. — What sad pass we have come to!”
“Mother, I’ll run the store,” Clifton had replied, with cheer and smile that hid his earnestness. And this was why he was trudging along the road, not, despite his mental and physical ills, insensible to the glory of the May morning.
The white snowy cotton seed was floating in the amber air and falling like thistledown on the green grass. Quail ran across the road, leaving tiny tracks in the dust. Birds and colts and calves showed their delight in the balmy air and golden sunshine of spring. Clifton felt the renewal of nature in his own heart and along his veins. He could not help being glad that he had to live instead of die. How he had longed to give up the struggle! Who but one like himself could understand the torture of body, the destruction of faith, the end of hope, the unutterably soothing thought of rest and oblivion?
He could not walk many rods without resting; and he chose the spots where he had halted the day before, and the first day. Some of these he thought he never w
ould reach, yet he did; and there, wet with cold sweat, his internal organs in hideous turmoil, his wounds as cruel as burning hell, he sat awhile, beaten, but unconquerable. Already a marvelous thing had happened to his mind. It had direction and immutability. He had been on his last legs, but now he laughed at the idea. He became conscious of something unquenchable at work within him. So he scouted weakness, misery.
The little adobe store, once a trading-post, was situated off the road, on a bank above the irrigation ditch that supplied water to the natives, whose homes were scattered along the gentle slope above the valley.
The natives had small farms, and a few head of cattle, upon which they subsisted when not working in some capacity on the range. The decline of the cattle business had made them poor and unable to buy much. Therefore the store was fairly well stocked with canned goods, merchandise, tobacco, and all the necessary requirements of horsemen. In addition, there were many blankets and baskets which Forrest had purchased from the Indians.
Clifton had cut the price of everything in the store, but the natives were slow to respond. Outside, by the door, stood an old rustic chair with sheepskin lining, and to Clifton it was the most comfortable one he had ever rested in. Here he passed most of the day, a good deal of which he slept away from sheer exhaustion. The natives, except the wild ragged youngsters, did not pass by often, and they seldom lingered. On the first day Clifton found out that the natives had never overcome the distrust engendered in them during the Lundeen régime of high prices and sharp dealing. Clifton made a present to his informant, and that was his initial act through which he meant to regain confidence.
The view from the old rustic chair could not have been surpassed anywhere in the low country. The whole valley lay in sight, some of it showing between the trees; high on the knoll shone the white-and-red house of Lundeen, rising out of the green like a castle. Across the road and the valley, shallow winding canyons with ridges between sloped up to the mountains, that from this distant vantage-point rose massively in alternate climbing areas of beauty and desolation, forests of green and gold all the more verdant for the contrast of the colossal wrinkled cliffs and crags of rock, and walls of bronze like iron, and peaks of porphyry.