Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  He wanted to get home, if possible, without encountering his father, and to get in without distressing his mother. And luck was with him, so far as those two were concerned, for he reached the house and got in unobserved. He was lying down in the shaded living-room when his mother came in. Her anxiety was easy to allay. But his father presented a different proposition, and Clifton welcomed the fact that delayed a meeting between them. He rested until the betraying faintness of his voice had gone.

  Toward sundown, when his mother went out to prepare supper, his father came in, evidently having been informed that Clifton was home early and that all was not so well with him as it might have been.

  “Howdy, son! an’ what ails you?” queried Forrest, gruffly, as his big eyes ran curiously over Clifton lying quietly on the couch.

  “Why do you ask that?” returned Clifton, to try out his voice. It was pretty weak.

  “Wal, you’re pale, except for them long marks, an’ I reckon I can smell blood,” replied his father, drawing a chair close up to Clifton. He was troubled and suspicious, but cool. There seemed to be little use trying to deceive him, especially as the gossip of his encounter would spread like wildfire in dry prairie grass.

  “Dad, let’s keep all we can from mother?”

  “Shore.”

  “Well, to begin with, I’ve lost my job.”

  Forrest nodded his shaggy head.

  “Hartwell fired me.”

  “What for?”

  “Because my name happened to be Forrest...Malpass dropped in the store. He talked over orders for lumber, etc., for building he expects to do in the spring. Big job. All of a sudden he saw me, and he hit the roof.”

  Forrest bent over Clifton with sudden intensity, his great eyes beginning to flare.

  “He told Hartwell to fire me or he’d cancel the order.”

  “Wal, if that wasn’t low-down! — An’ Hartwell did?”

  “No. When he showed yellow I just quit...I made a couple of remarks to Malpass, but at that, dad, I meant to get out of the store to avoid trouble. I started out, backing out, in fact, and of course I kept shooting off my chin. Malpass backed me up against a harness counter...Well, he hit me first, with one of those bone-handled crops. I grabbed up a blacksnake whip and took after him. He pulled a gun. His first shot hit somebody who went down with a yell. Might have killed him, for all I know. Then I kept dodging and cracking him with the whip. And he kept shooting. Finally I whipped the gun out of his hand. He fell, and I beat him till I gave out...Somebody helped me to my car.”

  “An’ how often an’ where did he shoot you?” asked Forrest, without emotion.

  “One bullet nicked my shoulder. It’s nothing. But I’d rather mother doesn’t know.”

  Forrest let out a rolling curse. “Hasn’t this Malpass got it in for you?”

  “Sort of looks that way.”

  “Why? He’s no Lundeen, an’ he’s never made any target of me. What’s he pick on you for?”

  That happened to be the very thing Clifton dared not explain to his father, wherefore he lied.

  “Looks damn queer to me,” replied Forrest, dubiously, with his ox-eyes piercing his son. “Reckon you didn’t kill him?”

  “No. But I’ll bet he’ll have a little dose of what I’ve had so much.”

  “Wal, if he killed somebody it sure strengthens our side. In any case it will stew up the Lundeen-Forrest deal good an’ hot. I’ll go to law.”

  “I wouldn’t, dad. We haven’t any money, and we’d only get the worst of it,” advised Clifton.

  “Wal, I don’t need any money. There’s a new lawyer come to Albuquerque. He’s young an’ he’s keen. Came out West for his health. I’ve had two conferences with him. An’ he said if I was tellin’ facts he could get my property back.”

  “But, dad, how can you prove these facts?” expostulated Clifton.

  “Wal, that’s the rub. But this last trick of Malpass’ will help. I’ll go to law.”

  “I don’t think you’ve a ghost of a show. Suppose Lundeen did cheat? You were in deals with him. An’ you owed him money. Even a gambling debt is a debt. He got your property. And afterwards they struck silver. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

  Forrest shook his head with dogged stubbornness. “Reckon you’ll never see it from my side of the fence. An’ I ain’t doubtin’ the reason.”

  “What reason, dad? I’ve got a mind of my own.”

  “Yes, an’ so has Virginia Lundeen,” returned Forrest, enigmatically. “I’ll bet I live to see the day somethin’ hatches between you two. But I hope I die before.”

  “Dad, I’ve done the best I could do in a rotten situation,” said Clifton, resignedly.

  The hum of a swift-running motor car came in at the open window, and what made Clifton note it was that it ceased abruptly. It had stopped outside. He groaned inwardly, sensing calamity. His father got up uneasily, and began to pace the room.

  Soon quick footsteps struck Clifton’s ears. Then they sounded heavily on the porch. A powerful hand assailed the door. It swung in, as if irresistibly impelled.

  Jed Lundeen stood on the threshold, his dark face and somber eyes indicative of mighty passions all but spent. Stamping in, he closed the door, and seemed to fill the room with his presence.

  Clifton sat up. He knew what was coming. His father paled with more than amaze.

  “Forrest, there’s shore hell to pay,” he announced, stridently.

  “Wal, I’m lookin’ at you,” returned Forrest, in cold, sullen expectation. The mere sight of his old enemy had unleashed his passions.

  “Forrest, I didn’t come heah to fight. But I’m packin’ somethin’ that’ll hit you harder’n any bullet.”

  “Is Malpass dead?”

  “No. But shore he’s darn near it. That war-crazy son of yours jumped him with a bull-whacker’s whip.”

  “Lundeen, it was a plumb good job. An’ I wish it’d been better. Reckon you ain’t acquainted with facts. Malpass started the fight, an’ when it got too hot he throwed a gun. Shot Cliff, as you can see for yourself.”

  Obviously that was astounding to Lundeen, and he required the confirmation of his own penetrating eyes. His regard, however, was one of icy indifference to the established fact. He had no word for Clifton.

  “I’m inquirin’ if the other man Malpass shot is dead?” continued Forrest.

  “Did he shoot some one else?” demanded Lundeen, hotly.

  “Yes, by accident,” interposed Clifton. “He was aiming at me.”

  “Fine chance that half-breed would have if a Westerner threw a gun on him instead of a whip,” added the older Forrest, scornfully.

  “Malpass was aboot out of his haid. Maybe that accounts for his omissions. He raved an’ cursed.”

  “Wal, Lundeen, if that’s all you’ve butted in here to say — —”

  “I came sayin’ there was hell to pay, didn’t I?” interrupted Lundeen, harshly. “An’ there shore is. This slick son of yours, with his crippled-soldier sympathy bluff, is goin’ to pay it, too.”

  “Leave out what you think my son is. It ain’t safe...What more has he done?”

  “He married my girl, by God! That’s what!”

  Forrest turned a dead white. “Say, you’re drunk, or crazier’n your crooked pardner. No son of mine would give the name Forrest to a Lundeen.”

  “Ha! But he did, an’ though my Virginia takes the blame, the disgrace of it is just that. My lass has become a Forrest.”

  “It’s a lie. Another of your plots,” shouted Forrest, his neck bulging purple. “An’ if it was so I’d swear the disgrace was suffered by the Forrests. But it’s an infernal lie.”

  “Ask him.”

  Forrest whirled a distorted face toward his son. “You hear him. Why don’t you nail his lyin’ talk?”

  “Dad, it’s true,” replied Clifton.

  Sudden death could scarcely have caused a ghastlier change in a strong man’s features and body. This was the last str
aw. The end of pride! The conclusive stab to bleeding vanity. Forrest fell into a chair, so abject, so beaten, that Clifton could look no more at him.

  “Forrest, that’s why I’m heah,” said Lundeen, acidly. “Because it’s true, an’ I can’t change it. My daughter is of age. It couldn’t be kept secret an’ Virginia refused to hear of a divorce. She took the blame. She led your son on. Marriage with him was an escape from Malpass. I wanted a match between him an’ her. But she’d have none of him, an’ to keep out of it she aboot asked your son to marry. She knew he wasn’t long for this world, but long enough, maybe, to serve her turn...He’s dirt under her feet! She cared nothin’ on earth for him! You understand?”

  “Lundeen, I reckon I do,” returned Forrest, hoarsely. “But I wouldn’t believe your oath on your knees before God...Clifton, is that last true?”

  “Is what true?” echoed Clifton, his voice failing huskily.

  “That this Lundeen woman thinks you’re dirt under her feet.”

  “Dad, I don’t believe that. She’s too big for hate. She’s kind. But I think she cared nothing for me.”

  “You think!” returned Lundeen, dark in passion. “You need to be damn shore you know, young man. I’m tellin’ you. I choked it out of her. If she’d confessed to love of you I’d have killed her with my own hands.”

  Clifton slowly sank back against the wall. And the brutal speech that crushed his tired heart had an opposite effect upon his father, who rose in a single upheaval, and towered erect.

  “Tell this man Lundeen you had no use for his daughter! You did a manly act to save her from a schemin’ half-breed! No more. Tell him quick!”

  Clifton had seen his mother open the door part way, to disclose a terrified face. It steadied him. He must prevent bloodshed here, and if the quarrel between these blinded foes went farther it would end in tragedy. He would have perjured his soul to save his mother any more agony.

  “Dad is right, Mr. Lundeen, I just wanted — to help Virginia.”

  “That’s good, then, on both sides, if any good could come out of an impossible relation,” replied Lundeen, a visible break in his relentlessness. “Forrest, I gave my daughter a choice: either to divorce your son or get out of my house.”

  “Ahuh,” muttered Forrest.

  “She chose to get out,” concluded Lundeen, thickly.

  “Wal, they never fooled me,” rejoined Forrest, in an acrid melancholy tone. “An’ I’m not givin’ my son any choice.”

  “Shore you’re not,” retorted his enemy, with strong sarcasm. “You’re bankin’ on him gettin’ money through Virginia. An’ you’ll die hopin’.”

  “Lundeen, you always was low-down white trash from the South. You couldn’t savvy a Westerner. My son gets no choice. He gets out.”

  Both fathers, gray with passion, implacable, clutched in the vise of their hate, turned a haggard gaze upon Clifton.

  He rose to take his father’s pronouncement.

  “Young man, you’re no more son of mine. Get out!” thundered Forrest, and the gray shaded black.

  “Dad!” cried Clifton.

  But the outcry was involuntary. And an instant afterward Clifton had a revulsion of emotion. His sluggish blood regurgitated to his cold veins.

  “You’re a couple of fine fathers,” he lashed out, pitilessly on fire. “If you had any guts you’d play the game like men. You fight, and impose your hate upon two innocent young people who have the misfortune to be of your blood...Lundeen, it’s no wonder Virginia sought the protection of even a poor, crippled, and now homeless man. You’re no father. You’re no better than the greaser dog you’d give her to. For money and greed!...Now I’ve one more word. You and Malpass stay clear of me.”

  Then Clifton vented the climax of his accumulated wrath upon his ashen-faced parent.

  “I’ll get out. And I’ll never come back. You’re not only wicked, but a doddering old idiot. Locked in your insane hate of anything Lundeen! If you ever were a Forrest you’ve lost the thing that made you one. You, not I, have brought the name down.”

  Clifton stalked to the door of the hall leading to his room, and stepped up. But the white heat of his anger demanded more. He faced them again.

  “I lied to you. I love Virginia with all my heart and soul. And it’d be retribution for you both if she came to love me the same way. I pray to God she will...I’ll not die! I’ll live so that she may!...Now, you cowards, go out and kill yourselves!”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE FORTIFICATION OF secret marriage far exceeded Virginia’s vacillating hopes. For while making up her mind to this grave and uncertain step, she had been both inspired and frightened. It turned out, however, that in her most sanguine moments she had not realized its true portent. She was saved from the peril of a despicable alliance. She had only to safeguard herself from being shamed again by physical violence.

  Therefore she gained a tranquillity of mind she had not experienced since her arrival home. She laid clever plans to avoid Malpass and adhered to them, while waiting for the end of August, at which time she was to visit Ethel in Denver. She took her meals to suit the convenience of her mother. When she went to Watrous to get her horses, and on rides thereafter, she made sure to be accompanied by Con and Jake. She avoided the living-room and the porch except when her father or mother was present. She was always careful to lock herself in her rooms.

  Thus, when Malpass approached, she had him at a disadvantage. He knew it was intentional and chafed under the restrictions. Sometimes, even before her father, he would attempt to further his suit, but Virginia found countering these advances interesting if not stimulating. She mystified the vain courtier, whose Latin blood boiled at restraint. On several occasions she amused her father, who gradually grew less hearty in his championship of Malpass. She deceived both men, in that she did not seem to be absolutely unattainable. Evidently Lundeen had wearily retrenched to a wearing down process. But Malpass labored under not only the hot impatience of a lover, but also the growing doubts of a man whose intelligence had begun to operate against his vanity. Now and then Virginia caught a veiled gleam in his eyes that caused her to bless Clifton Forrest and to renew her unending vigilance. Malpass was capable of resorting to anything.

  Several weeks went by. Mrs. Lundeen’s health did not improve, and plans were effected to send her to Atlanta for the winter, to visit her old home and relatives. Virginia approved of this, but it meant that she must prolong her own absence from Cottonwoods. Still, the immediate present was all that she could meet adroitly. The future would take care of itself.

  Her attitude of mind toward Clifton was something over which she had no control. The meeting with him that night, her monstrous deceit, the calm, barefaced carrying-out of an apparent marriage of convenience when she loved him more every moment — these thrilling things could not be barred from consciousness, never by day and seldom by night. She resisted numberless temptations to drive here or there in the hope of accidentally seeing him. Her woman’s heart told her that he was big and fine and good, that he would win his battle against any odds of health or fortune, that when the differences of the Lundeens and Forrests were settled — as some day they must be — she might find his love.

  One morning Virginia, with her cowboy escorts, started out to see the silver mine which had played such an important and mystifying part in the affairs of Forrest, Lundeen, and Malpass.

  Virginia had ridden up there often, especially in early years when it was merely an abandoned mine, picturesquely located and romantically significant with Spanish legend. Con had seen it. But Jake, range-rider though he was, had never been there since the rediscovery of silver.

  Now it chanced that Jake, according to his own version, was something of an authority on minerals. He had prospected, on and off, while riding the range, all over that section of the country. This information had come in answer to Virginia’s queries, which had been instigated by a thought-provoking remark of Jake’s. “Wal, I’m from Missouri an’
I gotta be showed. Never took much stock in thet Padre Mine.”

  Added to this was the significance of the fact that Malpass had lately ceased to have the Padre worked. Once more it had become an abandoned mine. Any move whatever of Malpass’ roused distrust in Virginia. Her father had been considerably upset by the assurance that the mine had “petered out,” as Malpass called it. After the first large profit, the several others had been considerably smaller, and dwindling. Virginia was interested to get the keen range-rider’s opinion of the late operations at Padre.

  The morning was glorious. Early fall on the slope of New Mexico was a time to conjure with. High up, the frost had tinted the vines in the hollows, the brush along the gray rocky defiles, the aspens at timber line above. Against these, and the bleached white of the old grass, the cedars and piñons stood out in their straggling isolation. Above it all loomed the great black-belted bulk of rock, raggedly sharp against the sky.

  Virginia, as she rode up the trail, did not look back. Time enough for that heart-stirring risk on the return trip! Cottonwood Valley must already be exposed from this height, a glowing, multi-colored level set down amid the range slopes; and the rambling Spanish house, with its white and red, its trellises and arches, must be looking up at her, reminding her that she dare not love it more; and then, far down to the west, along the fringed line where the yellowing cottonwoods met the gray sage rise of ground, her old adobe home which now sheltered one grown strangely precious.

  She was riding Dusk, not one of her spirited racers, but treasured because of his easy gait and sure foot and gentle disposition. Virginia was not running wildly over the range these days. Getting thrown upon her head might have meant a swift and merciful termination of her troubles, but for reasons she did not confess to herself life had become suddenly unfamiliarly sweet, full, marvelous, all-pervading.

  In due time they arrived at Padre Mine, to find, to Virginia’s disappointment, that its former picturesque charm had given place to sordid ugliness. A hideous slash had been cut in the beautiful grove of juniper, piñon, and cedar. High up the slope the brook had been choked into a rough chute, now broken and down in places. The willows that once had graced the little pool, where legend recorded the padres were wont to drink, were gone along with the glancing water. Flowers and sage were not. Tracks and trestles, dumps of clay and rock, seepings of russet-colored water from denuded banks, bleak sheds with galvanized iron roofs, and rusting machinery littered around, and piles of tar-coated pipe attested to the approach and desertion of destructive men.