by Zane Grey
When the Lundeen cars raced down the valley road, raising long trails of dust, Clifton saw them with unconsciously growing hate, like fire that ate slowly under the surface. When he saw the clean-limbed, long-maned horses come leisurely into view with their riders in gay colors, he would hastily turn away from a sight bitter as gall. His precious energy, so meager and so weak, frittered away in agitations he should have restrained. But how impossible to help it yet! These instances began to stir intimations of a driving force that was not wholly due to devotion to his father and mother. But he made no attempt to analyze it.
The day passed like a dream half remembered. Then began the toiling homeward. He told himself this was nothing — nothing. To get his broken bones and lacerated muscles to function!
Dusk caught him stalled at the niche in the adobe wall from which he took a short cut. When his father loomed under the trees, Clifton had survived the worst of his collapse.
“Wal, son, Ma was anxious an’ sent me to meet you,” he said, and helped Clifton to his feet. He never alluded to Clifton’s condition. If it caused him distress, he gave no sign. Clay Forrest had always been a man who considered physical defects things to conceal. But he did not lack gentleness.
“I was stuck here last night.”
“Cliff, somethin’ happened today,” returned Forrest, with perturbation.
“What?”
“I got back early, an’ there talkin’ to Ma was that Lundeen girl.” He made the announcement with suppressed feeling. “I’d showed her the door the other time, an’ I did it again. But she wouldn’t leave. Shore I couldn’t throw her out. An’ there I was.”
“Well!” ejaculated Clifton. This intelligence made his exhaustion as if it were not.
“Ma said, ‘Virginia wants a word with you,’ an’ it was plain Ma was shore wantin’ her to get it. But I swore I’d listen to no Lundeen. She was white an’ her eyes were big. I couldn’t help thinkin’ what a handsome lass! An’ brave — she wasn’t a darn bit afraid. She said, ‘I’ve come heah to ask you somethin’, an’ I’m goin’ to do it.’ Wal, seein’ I was out of luck an’ couldn’t get rid of her quick, I told her to fire away. An’ she shore did it, short an’ sweet.”
“Dad, you could never tell anything. Hurry.”
“Cliff, she told me before she went away two years ago she had a couple of hundred thousand dollars in bank. She found, on gettin’ home, she had only ten thousand left. Malpass had persuaded her father to let him have the rest...An’ by Heaven! Cliff — that girl begged me to take the ten thousand!”
Clifton halted, and even in the dusk he could see his father’s ox-like eyes rolling. “She did! What for?”
“I asked her, an’ she said she believed we had been wronged, an’ she wanted to help right it in what little way she could. Begged me to take the last of her money, an’ when I replied I couldn’t do it, she tried to persuade me to take half. Then I said we Forrests would starve to death before we’d accept a dollar of Lundeen money...Cliff, she cried out it wasn’t Lundeen money, but Forrest money. I was sort of stumped at that. She was actually testifyin’ against her father. I could use that when the deal goes to court again, as it shore will.”
“You could, but you won’t,” declared Clifton.
“Cliff, I’m not ashamed to admit she made me soft for a minute, but I soon got over it. I’d use anythin’ against Jed Lundeen.”
“Dad, you’d never sacrifice the girl, even if she is a Lundeen,” protested Clifton.
“Wal, now, why wouldn’t I?” demanded Forrest, letting go his hold on Clifton.
“If for no other reason, because I wouldn’t let you.”
“Hell! Are you in love with that girl?”
“No. I — I hate her, I guess...But I’ve sense enough to see she’s good.”
“Wal, Cliff, you shore are. An’ so is Ma. Reckon it’s aboot the last straw...My stock, my land, my home — an’ now my family — gone over to these cursed Lundeens!”
Forrest stalked away under the gloom of the cottonwoods.
“Dad!” cried Clifton, seeing that his father was leaving him. No answer came. The heavy footfalls died away, and not in the direction of the house. Clifton went on, muttering to himself: “Oh, this is getting worse. I’m afraid altogether it’s more than I can bear...What a thing for Virginia Lundeen to do! — Wonderful!...I knew she was good. It wasn’t all pity. She knows her father is a thief. I wish she hadn’t given dad that hunch. And this Malpass. I wonder if he can be that greaser-like rider who used to hang round the post, when Lundeen ran it.”
Excitement carried him on, and he arrived at the house, breathless, but unconscious of fatigue. The living-room was cheerfully bright and supper ready. Clifton related to his mother the conversation between him and his father.
“He’s implacable, Cliff,” she said, with a calmness that soothed him. “But for me he’d have shot Lundeen an’ Malpass long ago. We have our task, my son.”
“Mother, it plumb riled me when he said I — I was in love with Virginia. It sure floored me. And when I denied it he came out more bitter. He even said you loved her, too.”
“I do, an’ I’m afraid he’s guessed.”
“Mother!”
“Go on with your supper, son,” she returned. “As for Virginia — I used to love her when she was a ragged, wild child. An’ I reckon it’s come back. She’s grown beautiful, Cliff, an’ spite of it all she’s unspoiled. She might spend money like wastin’ water, but it means little to her. I think it noble of her to offer what they’d left her.”
“Noble, yes. But it’s an admission of her father’s guilt. I wish she hadn’t done that. Dad swears he’ll use it in court. We must keep him from it.”
“My son, we must keep him from a good deal more,” she replied, gravely.
“No one, unless you, could ever turn dad back from anything he wanted to do.”
“You can help, Cliff. Your return an’ the way you’ve been have struck him deep. It takes time for a change to work out in Clay. You must be patient. You must persuade. An’ if Virginia is anythin’ to you — hide it.”
“Virginia is nothing to me, mother,” he said, after a moment of astonishment at her speech.
“Cliff, I reckon it takes all the heart you have to keep to the task you’ve set yourself.”
“All — and more, I’m afraid, mother dear.”
“My son, both your father an’ I have taken a new lease on life since you came home. He doesn’t know, but I do.”
“Then you’ll never hear me say anything like that again.”
“I must tell you something that ought to be just as helpful,” she went on, now in sweet seriousness. “It’s about Virginia.”
“But, mother, I don’t want to hear any more,” returned Clifton, dreading he knew not what. It was as if he stood with blinded eyes on the verge of a precipice, which when he saw it would draw him down.
“I reckon it’s because you don’t want me to that I will. Trust your mother, Cliff...Do you remember Virginia as a little girl?”
“Not very little. She must have been ten or twelve, anyway. She was a red-headed imp always in sight somewhere. On the wall out here, with her bare legs dangling. She had pretty brown legs...But I remember her best hanging round the post. She was then beginning to be good-looking. But no one would have guessed she’d grow into what she did. I never recognized her on the ship or train.”
“As a child she worshiped you. No one but I ever saw it. Then as she grew up, an’ her father an’ yours became bitter enemies, she visited us less, an’ finally never came. Now she’s back, an’ I think that child worship of you is not dead. Only she’s a woman now. Today she told me she had just ridden by the store. You sat outside, asleep. You didn’t wake an’ she stopped, meaning to speak with you. But she didn’t have the courage — you looked so white — so frail — so sad. Then she said to me: ‘Oh, Mrs. Forrest, my heart broke. Tell me he is not going to die!’ An’ I told her I knew you were goi
n’ to live. After that she perked up an’ asked me if she an’ I could not be good friends. But your father came, interrupting us.”
“She is only sorry for me, mother,” he replied, with difficulty. “And I’d rather have her hate me, so that I could hate her.”
“But hate is terrible, my son. It has ruined your father. If you let anyone hate you, or if you hate anyone, it will poison your blood.”
“Mother dear, you are close to the angels.” It touched Clifton deeply that his mother should champion Virginia Lundeen, and in her blindness of affection and goodness attach undue sentiment to Virginia’s words and actions. Clifton did not dare accept his mother’s interpretation.
His father came in, weary and dark, and ate his supper in silence. Soon afterward Clifton went to the little room that had been turned over to him and which once had been Virginia Lundeen’s. The very bed upon which he sat in the darkness to undress had been hers, so his mother had assured him, as if there could have been sweetness in the knowledge. There was one window, now open to the gentle wind that was coming down cool off the mountain. Through the great gnarled branches of a cottonwood shone white blinking stars that seemed to have a secret they wanted to share with him. Some fact — true, inevitable, passionless, immutable! He did not want to know it. The frogs were trilling. How this lonesome, solitary melody haunted him! His hands fell idle and he sat there to listen. The wonder of nature, the mystery of life, the sweetness of love, could not be denied. He heard them, felt them out there in the night. What had made him determine to live when all he had longed for was to rest? Assuredly it was the clinging to old ties — love of mother, father. God had failed him, he thought. But there were whispers on the wind, not earthly or physical.
At last, only half undressed, he stretched out on the bed, thankful that he need move no more for hours. The internal strife of blood and nerve, of the very cells of his bones, gradually quieted. In the blackness and solitude, alone with his soul, he could not adhere to doubt, to hate, to mocking bitterness. And the face of Virginia Lundeen with the lovely troubled eyes hung over his pillow. He saw her standing in the archway of the home that had been his, crying out, “My God! is it possible you don’t know!” And he pictured her from his mother’s words, watching him asleep, helpless, unguarded, with his secret for anyone to read. Clifton repudiated that heart-moving vision of her. It was an illusion. It was his mother’s imagining. It was only Virginia’s pity. Nevertheless, whatever it might be, out of it welled a melancholy happiness that warred with reason, and survived into his dreams.
Next morning as he plodded out to endure the long walk to his work he espied his father plying a spade in the garden. And the sight was a cheerful one for the beginning of another interminable day. All his father had done was to sit and brood, or walk endlessly under the cottonwoods, unable to shake off the calamity that had befallen him. That, to Clifton and his mother, was more saddening than the calamity itself.
Clifton slipped along, careful not to be seen, and the walk to the store was not so much of a hateful ordeal. A waiting customer furnished another surprise. What a little thing could revive hope and keep it alive a moment! His chair did not see him fall asleep that day. And somehow he got home without fear that he might drop, never to get up again.
Days followed then, slowly dragging, not inspired, and each one sapping his little vitality, which seemed mostly of spirit. And then there came one of the nightmare nights which he had been mercifully free from since his start for home. He did not know what had induced it. But mental depression seized upon him and tightened its grip. He could not get to sleep. The past weighed upon him, phantoms and furies raged, and when he did fall asleep it was to be plunged in a horrible dream, as violent to his physical being as had been the thing it pictured. So when the day came he was already exhausted.
Yet he went to work, and it took all day to recover from the exertion. He remained late, hoping his father would come, as he had several times. But at length he started out alone...and by sunset he was crawling on hands and knees, as once he had crawled on the battlefield, badly wounded, yet with less agony.
The sun shone blood red through the cottonwoods. He could see the adobe wall and the break in the corner where the trail went through. Only a little farther on! He believed now that his end was near, and strangled, spent with his effort, and frenzied with the petrifying fear that he might not reach his mother in time, he kept on.
Then he heard the hoofbeats of a horse close behind him in the road. He would be seen. It goaded him to the last remnant of his strength. Inside the break he failed, and sank face down.
Swift, light footsteps pattered in the trail. He heard the swish of brush — a poignant cry. Some one knelt beside him.
“Clifton! — Clifton!” He knew the voice and wished indeed that death had overtaken him. What fate was this? Strong arms lifted him, drew him to a sitting posture. He had one glimpse of Virginia Lundeen’s face, terror-stricken, then his head fell upon her breast.
“Oh, Clifton — Clifton!” she cried, holding him tight. “What’s happened?”
“I — gave — out,” he panted.
“Is it only that? You were dragging yourself along. I thought you an animal. It scared my horse...Oh, you must be terribly ill. You look so — so — —”
“I thought I — was dying.”
“What shall I do? — What can I do?” she moaned. Clifton felt himself rocked to and fro in her arms. She was kneeling and holding him up. He saw her pull a gauntlet off with her teeth. Then a trembling hand touched his wet forehead, smoothed back his hair, moved warm across his cheek and lips.
“Don’t take on so,” he whispered. “Maybe I’m — just all in.”
“But something should be done,” she implored. “I’ll run for help — then ride home, get a car, and fetch the doctor.”
“Wait until — we see...Maybe it’s nothing...I’m such a coward.”
“Coward!” she cried, her voice deep and eloquent with scornful denial. He felt his head rise softly with the heave of her breast, and her heart sounded like a muffled drum. She hung over him. Her hair touched his face. She was bareheaded, her sombrero lying where evidently she had flung it. She was bending over him. Hot tears fell upon his cheek. Her touch, that even a half-dead man could not mistake, sharply affected him to the point of uplift. He had not the desire, even if the strength had been granted him, to move out of her arms.
Not for moments did he remember his physical state, and then he guessed it was just the old revolt of outraged nature, driven to the limit this time. As he realized gradual recovery, he dismissed a vague, dreamy thought of how sweet it would be to die in her arms.
“Help me to a seat — there,” he said, indicating a low section of the broken wall.
“I am — quite beside myself,” she replied, with a confused laugh that told she had at least become conscious of her aberration. She lifted him with ease.
“You’re strong,” returned Clifton, marveling at her, and he found that with her arm locked in his he could sit up steadily. Her lovely, tear-wet, flushed face would have dispelled all hate. And for the moment her tenderness, her astounding grief at his plight, had dissipated hate, resentment, doubt, all that he had imagined he had ever felt toward her.
“There. You’re better. I’m so glad...Oh, Clifton, I was frightened!”
“Why?” he asked, fascinated.
“Even if you’d been a stranger I would have been frightened. But you!...On the ship, on the train, up at the house tha dreadful day you came — and down here, I was frightened for you. But not like this...Oh, my heart is pounding now.”
“Even for a stranger? And of course I’m that. I’m glad you said it.”
“Yes indeed, Clifton Forrest, you are a stranger. For once you liked me — years ago when I was a happy kid — long before the shame of this day to me, and the sorrow to you.”
“Virginia, I hardly knew you,” he protested.
“You’ve forgotten...Y
ou used to wave to me as you rode by. Then you made eyes at me. And once in the old post you caught me alone — you kissed me.”
Clifton awoke to realities, to the void absence and war had made in his memory, to the hot blood that tinged his cheek.
“Did I? — I had indeed forgotten. So much of the past is dark in my mind.”
“There! You’ve made that strange move with your hand,” she burst out, impulsively. “You did it on the ship — on the train. And that day up at the house. Now you have done it again. Four times. Clifton, why do you do that?”
“What move? What do you mean?”
“You pass your open hand before your eyes. It’s a slow, strange action. You do not touch your eyes. You seem to brush something away. As if a shadow dimmed them and you could remove it.”
“It’s unconscious. I never knew I did that. It must be to brush away pictures that never fade.”
“Of what you’ve seen and suffered?” she asked, softly.
“Yes, of what I’ve seen, surely.”
“Clifton, you’re doing the most wonderful thing I ever knew a man to do. You were a knight of my childish dreams. Now you are a hero. You had made your sacrifice. You came home beaten and broken. You found all changed — your father crushed — your mother sorrowing — both without even the comforts of life. Cheated out of their home — to grow old, poor and miserable!...And instead of succumbing you rise like a giant to conquer fate, catastrophe, death itself. Oh, how I honor you for this courage!”
“Virginia, you — you are making strong statements,” he faltered. “I can only believe — you’re overcome by my — our troubles — and the excitement of finding me on all fours, like a crippled dog.”
“Overcome, yes, and I have been overcome ever since you fell at my feet...Clifton, do you hate me because I’m a Lundeen?”
“I’m only human.”
“But I had nothing to do with the ruin of your family. If I owned Cottonwoods right now I’d give it back. And if I ever own it I will.”