by Zane Grey
Virginia, almost blinded, clasped Helen in an unutterably grateful embrace, passionate and eloquent.
“You, too, Ethel,” she said, presently, when she could speak. And it was reproachful acceptance of more just crucifixion.
But Ethel, despite the gravity of the occasion, in her excitement reverted to type.
“That heavy stuff of Helen’s is beautiful, but it is bunk,” she began. “Just listen to me a minute, will you? Clifton could cut out my fellow in two winks of a cat’s eye. Do you get that, Virginia, old dear?”
“Yes, I get it, Ethel. I know how you’d exaggerate and lie and swear false witness to heaven itself to spare me. But don’t spare me. I am dizzy with the ecstasy Helen inspired in me. But tell me honestly what you thought.”
Ethel showed plainly that she was touched deeply, though not deflected from her natural trend. Or else she was deep as the sea!
“That Sycamore is sure a swell place,” she went on. “How come you never took us riding out there? It’s not far. Clifton has the prettiest camp, as you’ll agree. He has an eye for things. Camp all spick and span. Pots and pans clean. Everything orderly. I peeped into his tent. Gee! but I had a thrill. No girl ever had a room so sweet and comfortable as the inside of that tent. Soft woolly sheepskin rugs. Cedar boughs under his bed. Pure white sand. Indian paint-brush in a — —”
“Child, tell me of him!” burst out Virginia.
“I didn’t know him when he came up out of the gorge,” returned Ethel, swiftly. “I didn’t, yet I did. He appeared tall, but maybe that was because he walked erect. His color was a shiny dark gold. Face, arms, neck all bare. He might as well not have had a shirt at all, it was so ragged. And his trousers had a thousand patches, all kinds and shapes, some of them sheepskin. He wore a belt with a knife, and he carried a long stick, a shepherd’s crook...Well, he knew us both. Wasn’t surprised even a little. ‘Howdy, girls!’ as glad and kind as you’d want to see. I let out a whoop and made for him — and well — dare I tell her, Helen?”
“I think it will be safe,” replied Helen, with a smile that would have mitigated much.
“I just had to kiss him. Afterward I had the queerest feeling I ever had when I’d —— Ahem! Well, I did. But Clifton took it fine. Made it easy for me in his gentle understanding way. All the same I won’t be so fresh again, Virginia dear...He asked why you didn’t come, just as cool and natural-like. I wonder how much his father salved it on us in his story. Anyway, Cliff was just like your brother who hadn’t seen you for a long time.”
“So he asked for me!” murmured Virginia, and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Don’t faint, honey. You know I can’t stand indifference or aloofness from any man. And for you I was not standing it, either. Cliff was exactly that. He was just different. And I went after him...Virginia, he has the purest, clearest eyes, the most eagle-like look, the finest face I ever saw on a man. Almost he is beautiful. But the cold flint is there — the desert...I told him about your sufferings since that tragedy which freed you from tyranny. Of your sacrifice to his father. I lied like a trooper about your poverty. But, however he may have satisfied our Helen here, he sure didn’t me till I told him — well, never mind what I told him, but he came across with what I wanted.”
“And that?” whispered Virginia.
“I had to see where we stood in this deal...Virginia, if you look at that fellow once now — and touch him with your little finger — he’ll grab you in his arms and eat you up and — —”
“Oh, hush!” cried Virginia, faintly. “Dear friends, don’t tell me any more. I believe. I will do what you tell me...And if you’re wrong you can drape me like Elaine and lay me to rest here under this old cottonwood.”
Ethel screamed her glee and hugged them both singly and together. “You glum darlings. Oh, how you make me laugh! All the time I knew. Leave it to me. There’ll be nothing to it. Poor Cliff hasn’t a show on earth, or on the desert, either. War is hell, and the desert may be a lot I don’t savvy, but I’m telling you the little feminine genders rule the world.”
“Then it is settled,” returned Helen, rising, flushed and happy. “I shall leave for Phoenix in the morning. Let us all plan to forgather next June in Denver, when this precocious madcap gives her promise for better or worse — to learn men have always been the masters and ever will be. I shall fetch my brother. Find him a Western girl half as good and true as either of you, and I shall have further reason to love you.”
“That’s a cinch,” laughed Ethel. “And, oh, Helen Andrews, how I’d love to land you for the West!”
“Thank you! That’s a compliment I shall cherish...Perhaps you can find me another sheep-herder!”
So in the golden sunset light under the cottonwoods they passed on arm in arm to the house.
Like one in a dream Virginia rode out on the range, captive of Ethel, blind and tumultuous in her faith. Sirius was not a horse to ride with her mind steeped in enchantment. He required an iron hand which he did not feel in this hour. But the trail led uphill and wore off his restive edge.
Many a day had Virginia ridden this range, but today was a stranger to all the past. She could look up to the notch between the mountains and see the gray flat crag with its pines — her shrine above Emerald Lake. It was best to look up. She was humble and longing. Introspection and philosophy and resolve were mere thoughts. She was motivated now by the simplest and sublimest of emotions.
How the range shone under the westering sun! Far away sloped the gray desert, dim and obscure, retreating toward the west. Northward heaved the bronze mountain barrier. But both range and mountain lost to their rival — this strange empty colorful desolate void called desert. It had saved her lover. She must learn how and why, and forever reverence it as a manifestation of God. Some day she might ride far across it, down and down toward that purple haze, to Guadaloupe.
“We will ride up under cover of the cedars there,” said Ethel, bringing Virginia back to reality. “Then we can peek down into Sycamore and see the sheep grazing. Some class of a picture, old dear.”
Presently, then, Virginia was gazing down into a wide beautiful valley, mostly green, but ribbed with amber bars, and rendered pastoral by a long straggling white flock of sheep. Her flock! But where was her shepherd?
“Come. I’ve called you twice,” said Ethel. “We must go back of the hill and round to the head of that draw. There we can hide our horses. The sheep are working up to the camp. We’ve no time to lose, if we’re to beat Cliff to it. Come, you old white-faced coward.”
It seemed an age, though it was scarcely a quarter of an hour, when Virginia followed on Ethel’s swift heels, through fragrant sage and among gray boulders, into a narrow defile, and through that to an open high bench graced by old sycamores, under one of which a white teepee tent gleamed red-gold in the sunset glow.
“Good!” whispered Ethel, in high exultation. How her eyes shone! “The coast is clear. I’ll hide here and watch. Go now.”
“Where to?” queried Virginia, abjectly.
“Anywhere to surprise Cliff,” retorted Ethel. “Haven’t I coached you a hundred times. Pop out of the earth. Drop out of the sky. Anything to get the first blow in. Personally, if it were I, I’d hide in his tent — pretend to be asleep — let him find me there. And I’d sure — —”
“I haven’t the nerve.”
“Beat it!” went on Ethel, sternly. “I hear the dogs. They’ll eat you up if they see you. Hurry to get in his tent...Virginia, you’re his wife...Beat it now.”
She gave Virginia a hasty hug and warm kiss and then a shove.
Virginia looked around to find she was alone. She ran, her heart in her throat. The action lent wings to a thousand thrills. From somewhere deep in her came courage, too. She must hide from Clifton, and for the moment it was not the thought of surprising him that dominated. Still Ethel’s suggestion landed her at the door of the little tent. She slipped in, panting.
She had a picture in her mind of
this interior, precisely as she found it. Only the reality had the fragrance of fresh sage and cedar and the potency of intimacy. There was his bed, neatly made, though it consisted only of sheepskins on boughs, with a blanket folded back. She touched them, and it was as if she had been caressed.
Dogs barked outside. She heard the bleating of sheep, the pattering of many tiny feet. But she could not see either dogs or sheep.
Suddenly a tall form hove in sight, coming up over the bench. The sunset light shone brightly on the man — a shepherd, stalking bareheaded, with a staff in his hand. He had a ragged, wild look. Virginia’s eyes devoured him. How lithe and dark! How queer the patched trousers of many hues. He strode nearer — up to the camp, to lean his crooked staff against a tree. Then he turned so the light fell upon his face. Clifton! But transformed, as he had seemed in her dreams. She fell upon his bed, but not from pretense.
Suddenly the quivering of her body ceased. Too late! His step sounded close. Blood and nerve and muscle became inert. The canvas whipped.
“Santa Maria!” he exclaimed, aghast.
A silence ensued. Virginia lay on her side, face to the tent wall, and she did not breathe.
“Are you ill, lady, that you...Who are you?”
The voice was Clifton’s and it unlocked her petrified functions. His hand fell upon her shoulder. With the contact every nerve and vein in her leaped to stinging, pulsing life. As he rolled her over her hands flew instinctively to hide her face.
“Who are you?”
“It’s your — wife!” She had been coached and driven to that infantile speech. How idiotic! She longed for a hole to open in the ground to swallow her.
Strong hands exposed her face, lifted her to her knees — and she saw Clifton perilously close, the radiant sunset light upon him. For a moment the mother in her dominated, and her hand tenderly touched his cheek, that appeared dusky yet strangely pale, and then slipped to his clustering hair.
“It is you! Changed beyond belief. But I know you...Clifton, well and strong! Oh, thank God!”
His arm slipped round her waist and clasped tight to draw her close, while his free hand, under her chin, tilted up her head.
How stern his eyes! Clear, hazel, eagle-keen, with a blaze in their depths. She could only stare at him, fascinated, fearing it could not be true, shamed yet thrilled in the embrace of a man who was Clifton and a stranger.
“Virginia?” he asked, hoarsely.
“Yes. Don’t you know me?”
“What does this mean? — My father comes to prate of you...Then these friends of yours. And now you!”
“Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“My God, woman! Would you play with fire?”
“Oh, Clifton, indeed I would, if — —”
“You never freed yourself?”
“Never — and never will.”
“Virginia Lundeen!”
“No. My last name is Forrest.”
“Still my wife!”
“Yes, Cliff.”
“I am in a maze...Virginia, you married me to escape that half-breed Malpass.”
“Yes, but that was not my main reason.”
“What was?” he asked, incredulously.
“I just wanted to — to belong to you.”
“You — you —— Oh, I cannot say it!” he cried, huskily.
“Yes, Cliff, all my life, mostly. Since I was a girl...At least since you kissed me that time.”
He uttered a cry of commingled rapture and incredulity and fear.
“On the ship? On the train? That day in the store? And that night on the trail when you found me crawling, almost dead?”
“Yes, yes. Then, and the night I led you to propose to me — and the night you married me. Yes, and every day and every night since then I’ve loved you with all my mind and soul and heart and body.”
“You glorious girl!...O God! I have fought and lived for this!” It was then Ethel’s prediction was verified. He seemed fire and ice, savage and man all at once. The breath was crushed out of her body, and every mad longing she had ever had for his kisses was satisfied. They left her limp and numb. But she felt that he had spent himself, though he held her still. Gradually she sank with him to a seat on the bed, and when she recovered sufficiently to see and understand it seemed that Clifton was staring at the setting sun as a man to whom heaven had opened.
“But you’ve not told me,” she whispered.
“Virginia, I love you,” he replied, divining her hunger.
“Oh, Cliff! Oh, Cliff!...You don’t have to propose to me — do you?”
“No? Why don’t I?”
“Because I’m your wife.”
“So you are,” he replied, marveling, while his arm tightened. “I can’t realize.”
“Dearest, it is true. And at last I am happy...Clifton, do not look so dazed. I will be guided by you. I am a woman who will obey. I do not ask you to give up your desert and your sheep. They are yours because they are mine, and all I have is yours. I shall love what you love. Your life and religion shall be mine.”
“You will let me divide my time between the desert and home?”
“Let you? I implore you to. Your father and mother need you. They are growing old. So little will make them happy now.”
“Virginia, don’t shame me. I will do it.”
She kissed his cheek. “You must teach me to love the desert. I understand a little the terror life has been to you. And how the naked earth, the elements, solitude and privation, have worked this miracle. Perhaps these things are God. Anyway, I reverence them.”
She got to her knees again and slipped her arms round his neck and kissed him again and again.
“Ethel’s way, darling,” she whispered, with a shaky laugh. “She is wise. She sent me here. God bless her!...Cliff, I’ve a confession.”
“Don’t make it. Let me dream on. I am at Guadaloupe and you are with me.”
“Will you take me there some day?”
“Child, you could never walk that long, long trail.”
“But I could ride. Promise me.” And she bent to his lips again, and would not desist until he promised.
“Cliff, I’m an impostor.”
“Are you? Explain.”
“You believe me poor white trash now?”
“Virginia, such a question!”
“Well, at least they told you I was poor, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a lie. I am rich. I returned Cottonwoods and more to your father. Then I went to live in your — our old home. I love it there. I meant to pretend to be poor. But I can’t lie to you. Father’s estate was cleared and came to me. It was in father’s will. I paid every claim I could find, and some that were surely questionable. Yet still there was a fortune left...What do you think about it?”
“I hardly know,” he returned in perplexity.
“Do you love me any the less because I’m not the poor ragged bare-legged Virginia Lundeen who used to waylay you?”
“I couldn’t love you less because of anything.”
“You’ll let me keep it, then?” she queried, gravely.
“Let you, child? I’m very glad you have it. Could I support you in luxury on a few cents a day? Buy you exquisite clothes? Take care of your horses?”
“No, indeed, you couldn’t. Then that is settled. Oh, how it worried me!”
From outside the tent rose a high sweet trilling laughter, wild and gay and exultant on the night air.
“Ethel — the little devil!” ejaculated Virginia, aghast. “She was with me. She’s slipped up and listened.”
“Let her,” he replied, happily, and he spoke louder. “She was at considerable pains to let me know how poor you were...That laugh now!...Well, Virginia Lundeen Forrest, you can buy me all the flocks on the range and I’ll glory in driving them for you.”
Virginia’s modesty went into eclipse and she leaned to him, murmuring, “My shepherd!”
THE END
R
aiders of Spanish Peaks
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER I
LARAMIE’S HORSE WENT lame, and as Wingfoot was the only living creature he had to care for, he halted at midday, without thought of his own needs.
That long journey of yesterday, calculated to put a hundred miles between Laramie and a certain Kansas ranch where his old habit of gun-play on little provocation had rendered him unpopular, had aggravated a sprained tendon Wingfoot favored. Laramie slid out of the saddle.