by Zane Grey
“Have you made up with your father?” he demanded, as if suddenly accounting for her presence and her apparent assurance.
“Yes. And this property is as good as mine.”
It was a falsehood, but served its purpose. Malpass turned from red to white, and cursed Lundeen in impotent fury. Virginia gathered that all had not been so well between her father and this usurper. It gave her more nerve and cunning. Anything to blind him!
“So that’s the trick? I’ve been double-crossed, eh?” he burst out, at the conclusion of his profane tirade.
“We are the ones who have been double-crossed, Señor Malpass.”
“We?” he snarled, but he was again struck to astonishment.
“Yes. My father and I — and others interested in Cottonwoods.”
“Your sheep-herder husband included. To hell with him!...I want to know what you’re doing here.”
“I told you — none of your business,” retorted Virginia.
“I’ll make it mine.”
“You can’t do it, Señor Malpass.”
“Cut that señor stuff,” he flashed, his black eyes hellish. “I told you once before. If you call me that again I’ll slap your impudent face.”
“Evidently it fits you well — señor,” she returned, contemptuously.
He fairly bounded at her, and cuffed her sharply across the lips. Virginia realized her blunder. She had overdone her part. She realized, also, that the blow roused the Lundeen in her.
“That will cost you something,” she said, rising with her handkerchief to her lips, which were stained with blood.
“This deal is liable to cost you something,” he rejoined, with a menacing glance at her that no woman could mistake. “Are you alone?”
“Certainly not. Do you imagine I’d come here without protection?”
His glance was one of doubt and suspicion. “Who’s with you?”
“I advise you not to wait and see.”
“You came in that car I saw below?”
“Did you see only one?” she countered.
He was no match for her in finesse and he gave that up in disgust. He peered out of the window, surveying all the ground possible. Then he went to the door to do likewise. Following this he began to scrutinize the dust on the floor of the porch, and like a hound he trailed Jarvis’ footprints into the room. When he raised his eyes Virginia recoiled.
“Liar! You’ve got only one man with you.”
“I have two men. But one would be enough,” retorted Virginia.
“Some Las Vegas masher. He’d better steer clear of me. Are you going to tell me what you’re up to?”
“Padre Mine has always had romance for me. Don’t you think it natural I’d like to see it again?”
“Anything would be natural to you,” he growled, his gimlet eyes boring into her. Manifestly he could not satisfy himself either with her speech or her look. Suddenly his roving gaze caught sight of the coat hanging in the closet. Leaping forward, he pounced upon it, shook it, and searched the pockets, pulling out letters and a notebook. Avidly he scrutinized them.
“George Jarvis, Mining Engineer, Denver, Colorado,” he read aloud. “Mining engineer!”
When he wheeled to Virginia he was livid green. “You — you...Is that the man you fetched here?”
“I didn’t say so,” returned Virginia, coolly. His reaction to this name seemed damning evidence of his guilt.
“You meddling hussy! Talk, or I’ll choke it out of you.”
“Stand back!” cried Virginia. “If you dare to lay your vile hands on me — —”
“You proud white trash!” he hissed, and the half-breed in him showed, as he backed her across the room until the table stopped her. “I’ll do more than lay my hand on you. Tell me your business here.”
“If I had any I wouldn’t tell it.”
She saw that he could hardly restrain himself from seizing her. And primitive fear mounted in her, equaling her anger. All of a sudden he snatched at her, over her raised arms, and catching her with iron clutch he let out a savage cry. Virginia screamed for help. Wrestling with him, she saw Jarvis run into the room. He halted stockstill to stare in utter consternation. Then he seemed to comprehend.
“Let go that woman,” he shouted, and ran at them.
Malpass whirled like a wolf at bay, releasing Virginia and reaching a hand for his hip pocket. Virginia in a flash caught his arm. Then Jarvis was upon him, punched him in the face, tore him free, and swung him against the wall. Malpass’ body, but not his head, struck so solidly that the jar floored him. Not to stun him, however, for he scrambled erect, facing Jarvis, his eyes deadly with the evil of a snake.
“Oh — Mr. Jarvis — look out!” panted Virginia, noting that Malpass sidled round between them and the door. “It’s Malpass.”
“Malpass, eh? I thought as much,” replied Jarvis, wrathfully. “Explain your attack on this girl.”
“So you’re Jarvis?” rejoined Malpass, low and harsh.
“Yes, I am,” flashed Jarvis, slowly edging toward him. Then as Malpass stood like a sullen statue he half turned to Virginia. “If he meant ill by you I’ll beat him to a pulp. Tell me.”
“He wanted — to know — why I came here,” returned Virginia. “Swore he’d choke it out of me.”
“That’s what,” snapped Malpass, curtly. He had made up his mind. “You tell it, Mr. Mining Engineer.”
“You know damn well why she fetched me here,” retorted Jarvis, not in the least influenced by Malpass’ subtle change. “It was to have a look at your crooked work in this mine. And you can bet I found it. Of all the clumsy fool jobs of planting a mine this is the worst.”
“The hell you say!” exclaimed Malpass, with the insolence of one who knew he commanded the situation. The look of him made Virginia’s blood run cold, but it only the more angered Jarvis.
“Malpass, I’ve got the goods on you. You or your tools planted this mine with every grain of gold that has been taken out. The silver mining was a bluff. There was silver ore here once, but it played out long ago...You’re a cheat, a thief — if you’re not worse, and I can prove it.”
“You could, but you won’t,” replied Malpass, bitingly cold, and pulling an automatic gun he deliberately leveled it at Jarvis.
He shot three times in quick succession. Virginia heard the bullets strike something, the last with a soft sickening spat.
“My God! he’s shot me!” huskily whispered Jarvis, in immense surprise. His hand fell away from his breast dripping with blood. His face changed, and then he crumpled in a heap on the floor.
Terror-stricken and mute, Virginia wrenched her starting gaze from Jarvis to Malpass. He was in the act of pocketing the smoking gun. Striding to the door, he guardedly looked out, to left and right. He stood there a moment, and nodded, as if to convince himself that Jarvis was the only man about the mine; then like a cat in his movements, he made again at Virginia.
“Murderer!” What her voice lacked in strength it made up in horror. She extended shaking hands at full length to ward him off.
“Do you want me to kill you, too?” he demanded, halting before her, his face pasty white, his eyes inhuman.
“Merciful God!...Would you — murder me, too?”
“I’ll do worse unless you swear you’ll hide what’s happened here.”
“Worse!” she echoed, and live fire seemed to touch her every raw nerve.
“You know what I mean,” he rejoined, thick with passion, as he tore his tight collar loose from a black bulging neck.
Virginia understood him. The man stood revealed in all his monstrous baseness. The very hideousness of him probably was the one thing alone which could have shocked her from horror into savage and hot hate, into the spirit of self-preservation that was the most powerful instinct in her.
“Malpass, you’ll have to kill me!” she cried, her voice rising.
“No, by God!” he shot at her. “I’ll treat you like a peon slave!...You’ll never
lift your face again!...Then I’ll make your father believe this Jarvis did it — and I killed him — because of that!”
“Insane monster!” flamed Virginia, and then she screamed with all the power of her lungs — a piercing sound that rent the air.
As Malpass lunged she darted away from the table, but too late to escape him, for he caught the sleeve of her coat. Whirling out of the coat, she left it in his grasp and ran for the door. She reached it, too, and the porch before he pounced upon her and dragged her back.
Virginia saved her breath. No use to scream again! If no one had heard the last, she could not hope another would bring succor. She had to fight for life and more than life. His intent and his soiling hands had made a frenzied woman of her, a tigress who would rend and tear.
But she eluded him. She got the stove between him and her. She preferred flight to fight, for she believed if she got out she could run away from him, at least down the road far enough to alarm the chauffeur.
Malpass kicked the stove down and leaped over it. He got her, but could not keep his hold. She left part of her waist in his grasp. She ran, with him close after her, always between her and the door.
His reaching hand clutched her shoulder, checking her, dragging her off her balance. Then like a beast he had her again. A terrific struggle ensued. She was as strong as he, and actuated by a passion as great. She came out of that struggle with her upper clothing torn to shreds, her bare arms bleeding from scratches, her white shoulders blackened by his sweating, dust-begrimed hands.
“You — hellcat!” he hissed. “The more you fight — the more joy I’ll get — out of you.”
Virginia was past words. She was in the grip of something terrible. No fear of this beast! No more flight! She awaited his next attack, panting, disheveled, crouching, like a cornered tigress.
He came on, and as ever, his intent was to hold, to weaken, to master her. And she beat and clawed at his face, and kicked. But Malpass broke through this rain and closed with her. His arms folded her back on the table and his weight augmented his advantage.
Virginia did not surrender or lose her wits. She was momentarily at a disadvantage. She ceased her struggles. Then her assailant, with a hoarse utterance, fell to kissing her face. He thought she was beaten.
She took that vile unguarded moment to fasten both hands in his hair, and dragged with all the strength left her. Like a dog he howled. Her right hand, the stronger, came away full of hair.
Then the table collapsed, letting them down and breaking his hold. Virginia rolled out of his reach. She had heard the ring of the iron poker on the floor. If she could get her hand on that!
But as she bounded up Malpass grasped her leg, tripped her, pulled her down into his arms. It had been his weight, however, that had handicapped her. Without that he simply could not master her. The whistle of his breath told that he was more winded than she. Not for nothing had Virginia taken those long climbs in Colorado! She fought more fiercely, and while her arms were free, with tight pounding fists. Then when he got her head down under his arm, pressing her helpless, choking her, she opened her mouth and like a wolf at bay she fastened her teeth in it.
Cursing horribly, he released her and she dropped to the floor. She rolled away. She felt the poker. Swift as light she snatched it. Leaped up! Malpass was on his knees. Bloody, bedraggled, dirty, holding the arm she had bitten, with distorted face expressing a fiend’s defeat, with basilisk eyes betraying murder now, where before they had burned only with lust, he roused all that was virile and primal in Virginia.
She swung the poker. He ducked, but she hit him a glancing blow that rang off his skull. He toppled over with a thump that jarred the house.
Virginia heard other thumps. Heavy boots on the porch! In vain she tried to scream, but only a dry, thin sound issued from her lips.
A huge frame hurled itself into the room.
Lundeen! Like a black-maned lion he glared. Virginia staggered back. The wall stopped her. And with legs buckling she slid to the floor. Her sight almost failed.
“God Almighty!” thundered her father.
Chapter Seventeen
VIRGINIA BY SUPREME effort fought off faintness.
Lundeen stamped into the middle of the room. It appeared to the girl then that the squirming, groaning Jarvis halted her father. Jarvis was not dead.
“Who’s this man?” boomed Lundeen, his great eyes popping half out of his head. “Virginia!...Malpass!...What the hell?”
Slowly Virginia gathered what force was left her. Deliverance had come, but the reaction of it gave her a deathly sickness, a sense that her flesh wanted to succumb and a consciousness that her spirit refused.
Malpass rose to his feet, a spectacle to make any observer blink. But he was not in as bad bodily shape as he looked. He moved easily, warily. He was thinking hard. Trapped, he still seemed to have latent power. His eyes narrowed to black daggers.
“Answer me,” commanded Lundeen. “What’s come off? Who shot this man?”
“I did,” replied Malpass.
“He’s dyin’. Why’d you do it?”
“I caught him trying to outrage Virginia.”
“Huh?” ejaculated Lundeen, in blank stupidity.
Malpass repeated his assertion in stronger terms. Lundeen’s jaw dropped as he stared at his partner, and then at Virginia.
“How come?” he asked, hoarsely.
Virginia bided her time. She would let Malpass have his say and then destroy him.
Malpass swallowed hard, and that part of his face not bloody or black showed ghastly white. He was at the end of his rope.
“I saw a car from town crossing the bench below,” he said, hurriedly. “I jumped my horse and rode up here...found Virginia wrestling this man. Think he’d got the best of her!...He — he beat me up before I could pull my gun, but finally I shot him.”
Suddenly Jarvis sat up quickly as if propelled, like a corpse revived to life, his eyes awful to behold.
“He lies!” The gasping voice was just distinguishable. “I caught him — assaulting her.” He fell back and seemed to expire.
“Crazed by a bullet,” said Malpass through ashen lips. “I’ve seen men act like that.”
“More’n one crazy heah,” muttered Lundeen, gropingly. The fact that he stepped so as to place his bulk before the door attested to the gradual trend of his thought.
“I tell you that’s what happened,” went on Malpass, sharply. “I’m all bunged up...I want to get out of here — to a doctor.”
He made as if to pass Lundeen, but was thrust violently backward.
“Stand back!” roared Lundeen. “Are you shore it’s a doctor you need?”
“Lundeen, you’ll cross me for the last time,” returned Malpass, with threat in tone and mien.
“If I do, you can bet it will be the last time! Malpass, this heah deal looks queer. Keep your loud mouth shut or I’ll knock your white teeth down your throat.”
Malpass sank against the wall, quivering all over.
“Daughter, come heah,” went on Lundeen.
“Dad, I can’t. I’m too weak. And I’m torn to pieces.”
“Ahuh. So I see. Wal, you’re able to talk...Are you hurt — the way he said?”
“No. He lied. I’m beaten and bruised, but I’m all right otherwise.”
“Who stripped you half naked — an’ blackened an’ bloodied you up this heah way?”
“Señor Malpass,” declared Virginia, ringingly. She saw her father’s huge form swell, but he kept himself well in hand.
“How come?”
“Dad, last summer my cowboy, Jake, found signs of a salted mine here,” replied Virginia, swiftly flowing to this denunciation she had prayed for. “When I went to Denver I consulted a mining engineer, an expert. Mr. Jarvis...Oh, I fear I’ve been his death!...Upon my return I wired for him. This morning he arrived. We drove out at once. Left the car below. We — —”
“All a damned lie,” interrupted Malpass, wildly.<
br />
Lundeen made a threatening gesture. “If you don’t shut up I’ll fix you so you won’t heah nothin’. Didn’t you have your say? Let her have hers.”
Virginia rushed on. “We climbed up here. Mr. Jarvis went to investigate the mine while I waited...Presently Malpass rode up. He came in. He was astonished and scared. He had reason to be. I refused to answer his questions. He grew furious — tried to choke me into explaining...Then Mr. Jarvis came back — caught Malpass mauling me — knocked him down...He told Malpass the mine had been planted. That every grain of gold coming out of there had been planted before! The clumsiest cheat Jarvis had ever seen...Then Malpass shot him!...After that he tried to frighten me into lying to protect him. Then, dad, on my honor, Malpass swore he’d degrade me — blame it on to Jarvis — give that as an excuse for shooting him...Then we fought. Oh, I fought him. I wasn’t afraid of him. He would have had to kill me...But, dad, he couldn’t master me...He gave up that...he meant more murder...I hit — him with — the poker!...And then — you came.”
Lundeen gradually crouched, as a huge bat that meant to spring. His bushy hair rose upon his head. His arms lifted and bowed — his large hands crooked like claws.
“You — planted — THAT — =MINE!=“ he bellowed in slow-swelling, awful voice. “You manhandled my daughter!”
“Yes, and I’ll plant you!” Malpass thrust out the gun. It was steady. He had accepted the issue. There was only one way out. And the little gun began to crack — crack — crack spitefully.
But the bullets, though staggering Lundeen, did not stop him. Like a bull, lowering and blood-lustful, he plunged on. Malpass shot again, missing for the very reason that he aimed at Lundeen’s head. One sweep of Lundeen’s giant arm sent him spinning. But up he sprang, cat-like, to fire again. This bullet rang off Lundeen’s skull to thud into the ceiling.
Virginia’s ears filled with her father’s mad roar. She saw him sway, beating the air, and fall with a crash. Malpass stepped over his body toward the door. Then Lundeen kicked with terrific force, knocking Malpass’ legs from under him, and when he struck the floor the gun went flying across the room. Lundeen hunched himself with spasmodic full-length hops toward the gun, but Malpass beat him to it. And he shot again as Lundeen half rose to clutch his arm. There came a snapping of bones — an awful cry of agony.