by Zane Grey
She had come home — home, and she did not see where education and travel had been worth the labor, unless to prepare her the better for appreciation of the West.
It was not then that her favorite Western scene had changed, but that she, bringing incalculably more to it after years of absence, seemed changed herself, a throbbing, aching, dreaming, loving, fighting woman who must find herein the strength and endurance of nature, or perish in all that she held sacred to womanhood.
Virginia knew her father had sunk to the level of a common thief, in her eyes as culpable as the rustlers who used to be hanged on the cottonwoods. Silver mines and lands and mansions did not absolve a thief from the baseness accorded the cattle-stealer. But money had power and it sanctioned crime. Jed Lundeen had more than ruined the Forrests; he had debased their fair repute. Not only had he stolen their property, but also their good name!
Virginia’s early training had been one of simple religion. For perhaps ten years back her mother had leaned more and more to her father’s path, which, as he prospered by means that would not bear the white light of day, had been away from the church. Virginia’s years at school had not been prolific of religious stabilizing, but on the other hand, she had not been greatly influenced by the modern atheism so prevalent in college. What faith she had went into abeyance, through disuse, and now in her extremity she felt the need of it.
So, through the purple depths and the colorful desert, and the infinite nothing of distance, she peered into her own soul. Long she gazed, with wide eyes, and then with eyes tight shut. She saw the same with both. She was now a woman of twenty-two, older really than her exact age in years. She wanted to live her own life, not because of selfishness or egotism, but because of what she regarded as right. She wanted love and children, and if these meant happiness, as well as the nobler state for a woman, she wanted that, too. She could not become the wife of August Malpass, not because she could not sacrifice herself for her father, to save him from the net in which he had entrapped himself, but because such marriage would be a sin. Likewise it would be dishonest, if not actually sinful, for her to shield her father and Malpass, should tangible evidences of their guilt accrue. Lastly, with all her heart and soul, with a growth from childhood, she loved Clifton Forrest, and only through him could the fulfillment of life come to her.
“He doesn’t see it,” she mused, feeling a satisfaction in breathing her secret to the solitude. “He wouldn’t believe it...yet how true it is!”
She had the illusion that her brooding, passionate gaze magnified all in its scope. And she saw the desert through her love, her strife with her father, the ordeal of her spirit, all inextricably involved in the single and paramount necessity of finding and adhering to the truth — which was the good, the right, and the faithful.
Space seemed illimitable. Through half-closed eyes Virginia swept in the sheer depths, the expanse of naked earth, the cloud-banked horizon. Again and again she feasted her sight, from the crag and pine-tipped descent to the naked riven earth, and the chaos where desert vanished.
In the end it was out there that her vision lingered. For out there glistened an ineffable and illusive beauty — the plains of silver sand, the beaches of gold bordering seas that were delusions, the islets of red rock ringed around by turbulent surf, the waved dunes ever curving, the dots of sage and cedar areas of acres, yet mere specks on the landscape, the arid washes and flats, proof of the anno seco of the Mexicans, the rock country, ribbed and rutted, riven into gorge and ravine, running wild, multiplying its ragged mounds into black buttes, its hollows into canyons, its lines into great walls, and at last to heave and roll and bite at the sky, ebony and beryl and porphyry thrusting into the blue, to end in the nothingness of infinitude.
It was afternoon when Virginia descended the trail, to skirt the lake and made her way back through the pines to camp.
She found Ethel lolling in a hammock, wrapped in a blanket.
“Oh!” she gasped, starting up at sight of Virginia, her pretty eyes expanding, “You look strange, you’re ripping!...You’re the loveliest creature on earth...You’ve got Helen beat there and back!”
“Why this extravagant mess of words?” inquired Virginia, smiling down upon this volatile bit of femininity.
“Ginia, there’s a light on your face — what does the poet say? — never seen on land or sea.”
“I’ve been over to a shrine. Tomorrow I shall take you there. Then you will not wonder...Ethel, I have recovered something that I lost long ago.”
“Now — you want to make me sad,” responded Ethel, plaintively. “But you can’t. I just swear I’ll revel in this lovely place. Didn’t I use to rave about Colorado? But never again. This beats anything I ever saw, and mind you, honey, I’m no tenderfoot from Noo Yawk. This is heaven. Paradise!...If Jack Andrews, or one of his friends — if any man made love to me here — or Indian or Mexican — I’d fall like a chunk of lead and be false to the nicest little sweetie in Denver.”
“Well, I’m ashamed to hear you confess it. What’s happened to you, anyway...Why, you’re bare-footed! No stockings!...Ethel, what would your nice Denver sweetie say to this?”
“He’d be tickled pink,” replied Ethel, with a giggle. Then she grew suddenly grave. “What happened to me? I’ll tell you, old girl, I darn near drowned. I fell in the lake. Wow! Over my head! And I just froze! Cold? That water was like the way you treat Malpass. Con heard me yell and fished me out. In the nick of time, believe me! My clothes are drying over there by the camp fire...Oh, you needn’t look so horrified! I’ve got on my dressing-gown. And I think you should show some distress.”
“Well,” ejaculated Virginia, sitting down, “I really want to laugh. You, Ethel Wayne, whom I boasted as an old stager on the trail. What’s become of my other tenderfeet?”
“The men are fishing, sure Mike — a lot we’ll see of them! — but the girls are lolling around, just too happy for words. Virginia, the consensus of opinion, as I’ve snookily got it, is that you’re the last thing in peaches. Sure I always knew it, but I’m tipping off the Eastern angle. This is a swell outfit you’ve sprung on me, honey, but I must say they’ve got something on us Westerners. I like that Jack Andrews and if I wasn’t —— There I go. Unstable as water, thou shalt not be true!...And I just love Helen Andrews.”
“So I have observed.”
“Goodness! Ginia, you’re not jealous?”
“A little, on your account. A lot on Clifton’s...I’m a jealous cat, Ethel.”
“Say, why this humility all of a sudden? To stop kidding, I’ll say you need never be jealous on my account. I adore you. I’m yours forever...But in the case of Cliff I’m not so darn sure. You’re carrying that Lundeen handicap. And believe me, it’s something to stagger under.”
“Miss Wayne, I am quite aware of that,” replied Virginia, in mock hauteur.
“Helen Andrews likes Cliff,” returned Ethel, seriously, her brows knitted. “We oughtn’t wonder at that. He’s the most lovable chap, the handsomest, the greatest hero the war sent back to us. You know they’ve got his number in town now. They’ve found out what he did...Well, it’s quite natural for this rich and lovely lady to be interested in Cliff. I’m glad, even if I am scared. But — if she happened to fall in love with him — good night!”
“Ethel, you mean I wouldn’t have a show on earth?” asked Virginia, tragically.
“No, nor in heaven, either,” sighed Ethel, sacrilegiously.
“I hope I’m not so — so little that I couldn’t be — glad for Cliff’s sake,” replied Virginia, a little tremulously. This matter-of-fact, down-to-earth talk of Ethel’s was rather disconcerting, coming so suddenly after Virginia’s vigil at her shrine on the heights.
“Maybe we’re borrowing trouble,” said Ethel. “Lord knows that’s the way of lovers. Don’t I know?...Helen has seen Cliff three times I know of since we bought out his store.”
“Three times? I thought only two.”
“Reckon you
missed the last, and I sure didn’t have the nerve to tell you then. What with your father and that white-toothed Spanish galoot who’s crazy about you I thought you had enough to worry along on...Virginia, our fair Helen of Troy rode off alone Sunday afternoon. Down the valley! You can bet she went to see Cliff. They had a date. She didn’t stay long, though it was sunset when she came back...Now, sister, what you’ve got to grasp to your poor shuddering heart is this. Any man, much less our unfortunate soldier friend, would soon fall in love with Helen Andrews. Furthermore, she’s just as likely to fall in love with him. The woods are full of such pretty happenings.”
“Ethel darling, I — I could bear it, because I want Clifton to have some reward for his sacrifices.”
“Sure you could. And you’re a game sport. But that is only if it comes to the worst. Helen is no flirt. She is earnest, fine. There’s the danger, though. And Clifton is slow to like anybody. I’m sure we’re safe yet. They’re all leaving on July first. So it’d be just as well not to break camp here till June twenty-ninth. Perfectly skunky trick, but all’s fair — you know...And while we’re up here we’d better plan how to throw a monkey-wrench into that Malpass threshing machine.”
“Ethel, you’re a conscienceless, unscrupulous, terrible young woman, but, oh, what would I do without you?”
Virginia spent seven idle dreaming days at Emerald Lake. Her friends, for the most part, were exceedingly active, appearing never to get enough of the wonderful sport the camp afforded. So for them the time fled by.
For Virginia, however, the days spread out long. Yet she was grateful for it. Affairs at Cottonwoods were so near a crisis that she was loath to return. Ethel’s spirit and determination to find some loophole for Virginia was hopeful in itself, but so far nothing had come of it.
The 29th of June arrived all too soon for Virginia’s guests. Many and wild were their encomiums. “I’ll own this place if I have to buy the whole National Forest,” declared Helen Andrews, magnificently. Somehow this remark gave Virginia food for reflection.
The return trip down the winding trail was delight, compared with the toil of the ascent. But few places could not be ridden, though many of the steep steps and the weathered slopes of loose shale brought squeals from the girls. With a happy hour at noon for lunch and rest it took all day to do the eighteen miles down to Cottonwoods.
To Virginia’s great satisfaction, and also surprise, both her father and Malpass were absent; where, Mrs. Lundeen did not know. The two men were at loggerheads over mining interests in the south, she said, as if weary of the subject.
Next day Virginia’s guests gave far less time to packing than to the outdoor pursuits which had so endeared Cottonwoods to them. It did not surprise Virginia to see Helen and her brother go riding down the valley road toward San Luis. Womanlike, Virginia had to inform Ethel, and from that young lady she got the startling reply, “Sure, you should have beat Helen to it!”
Virginia went about her affairs, which naturally were numerous just then, trying to take refuge in them, when all the time her heart ached.
It was still early in the afternoon when Virginia, opening her door in response to a tap, found herself confronted by Helen in riding-habit, manifestly just from the saddle. A flush like an opal glow showed under her golden tan. Virginia caught her breath at the girl’s blond loveliness.
“Hello, old dear! May I come in? I’ve something to tell you,” said Helen.
“Of course...Helen, you look serious.”
“It is serious, though not for us. Are you alone? Where’s Ethel?”
“She’s in the library.”
“Virginia, I’ve some bad news. It has really distressed me,” went on Helen, as Virginia led her to the window seat. “Jack and I rode down to see your friend Clifton. We found his store burned down. The interior was gutted, and only a few crumbling walls left standing. We couldn’t learn anything at San Luis, so we hurried back to Clifton’s home. We went in and found him on the porch with his mother. She’s a charming, gracious old lady...Well, Clifton told us that he had restocked his store, spending nearly two thousand dollars, I think it was, for the supplies. That very night some one set fire to the building from the inside. Everything was destroyed.”
“Oh, how unfortunate, and worse if some one did it!” burst out Virginia.
“Clifton is sure it could not have been accident. There was nothing to catch fire inside...Virginia, hasn’t he enemies here?”
“I’m afraid he has,” replied Virginia, bitterly.
“You’ll forgive me, old dear, won’t you, for appearing inquisitive? I like this Clifton Forrest. Naturally, when I thought he’d been a buddy of Jack’s in France, I was interested to get acquainted with him. But now I must confess that even though he and Jack have had no previous acquaintance I’m still keen about him. Surely I don’t need to eulogize Clifton to you, but I want you to know that I think him one of the finest chaps I’ve ever met...Jack offered to lend him money enough to rebuild and restock the little store, which we’ve learned the Forrests depend on for a living. But Clifton thanked Jack and said he couldn’t accept it, because he could never pay it back. Then I made a suggestion. I asked Clifton if he would run the Payne ranch for me if I bought it. He — —”
“The Payne ranch! At Watrous?” interposed Virginia. “That enormous place! Why, Helen, the banks hold it at one hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
“I didn’t inquire about that,” returned the other, “but I was taken with the place and I had a notion to buy it. Of course it’d be a white elephant, like other places I’ve burdened myself with. But this is really a worthy idea. And I believe I’ll go through with it, unless you block the deal.”
“I! Why, Helen, I’d be happy to have you out here! It’d be great! And if you were to help Clifton, I — I think I’d like you better than I do, which is a lot.”
“Virginia, we’ve got to do something for that soldier boy.”
“Oh, I’ve tried. He’s proud. He won’t accept charity. I was afraid he’d be offended when we bought him out that day. It was so barefaced...Hasn’t Clifton told you about the Lundeen-Forrest feud?”
“Not a word. But lately, before we left on our camping trip, I picked up things here and there, and put two and two together. Your father and Forrest are deadly enemies. Your Brazilian cavalier, or whatever he is, struck me as a snake in the grass. I know men. He is after your money, Virginia. He made a play for me, which I squelched quick. Imagine that — when it’s plain even to strangers he’s trying to marry you. He hasn’t a chance in the world, has he?”
Virginia laughed her scorn. “Helen, my father is under the thumb of this Malpass. He was led or forced to cheat the Forrests out of this property. He now is trying to persuade me to marry Malpass. Or he was, ten days ago. I imagine when he returns he’ll use stronger argument. But I’d die before I’d give in.”
“Here’s hoping you won’t have to go to such extremes!...Let’s get back to Clifton. You like him, don’t you, Virginia? Oh, hang it! why look at me that way? I mean you’re fond of him, aren’t you?”
“Why do you ask?” queried Virginia, constrainedly.
Helen got up and put her arms round Virginia and kissed her — demonstrative actions very unusual for the Eastern girl. “Old dear, you can’t bluff me. And I won’t let you be upstage, either...I ask that because Ethel — sly little fox! — put it into my head...Confess, now.”
Virginia hung her head, as much from unresisting weakness as shame.
“Confess what — you triumphant goddess, I can’t help loving you, that’s sure.”
“You’re fond of Clifton?”
“Fond?...Good God! Use a Western word!” burst out Virginia, finally won.
Helen’s answering embrace and kiss were very warm and sweet.
“So that’s it,” she whispered. “I’m glad. You’ll help Clifton to get well and on his feet...That was what worried me. You jealous child!...Virginia, I will return your confidence. My love
— my heart are buried in a grave in France!”
Chapter Eight
VIRGINIA’S FATHER CAME home drunk, the day after the departure of her guests, and Malpass showed a dark sullenness that boded no good.
She felt like an animal at bay, and she paced her room, waiting for the approach that she sensed. Nevertheless, it did not come, and she ate her dinner as silent as her mother, a prey to growing apprehension. She regretted that Ethel had been called back home to Denver. A fugitive desire to see Clifton became a real and persistent one.
The night seemed far removed from the peaceful and restful ones she had enjoyed up in the mountains. Morning, however, brought defiance, if not courage.
Malpass presented himself at the breakfast table as immaculate as usual, and more than unusually self-contained. He inquired politely about the camping trip, the departure of her guests, and even expressed regret not to have seen the beautiful Miss Andrews again. The Mexican servant informed her that her father was having breakfast in his room, where he awaited her convenience.
“Before you see him you may as well listen to me,” said Malpass.
“Very well, the sooner the better. What can you have to say to me?”
“Have you reconsidered my proposal?”
“No. I gave it no further thought.”
“Then I regret to say I must split with your father.”
“That will be most acceptable to me.”