by Zane Grey
“Don’t you — know me?” she asked.
“I’ve a hunch, but I cain’t be shore.”
“I am — Mrs. Grieve.”
“Glad to meet you,” returned Ames, doffing his sombrero. “Sorry it’s not under — happier circumstances.”
“Arizona, it’s no use,” burst out Price, passionately. “Hard as it is — I’ve got to kill you. . . . No man can see what you did — an’ live!”
“Shore is pretty tough, Lany,” said Ames, forcibly. “But look me in the eye, boy. An’ if you cain’t trust me — why, you can throw your gun. Only, I warn you, Lany, I’m shore liable to beat you to a trigger.”
The cowboy shook with the violence of his emotions as he endeavored to meet the piercing gaze Ames bent upon him. He had manliness, yet he seemed pitifully weak.
“Arizona, I don’t care — about myself,” he said, breathing hard.
“Shore I know that. You’re thinkin’ aboot Mrs. Grieve’s honor. Well, Lany, it’s as safe with me as if I were you.”
Price’s gun arm lost its rigidity. His face worked.
“Lany, you mustn’t kill him,” spoke up the girl. “It’d be murder.”
“What’s a murder to me? I’d shoot the whole outfit to save you from ruin.”
“Dear, I told you I’m ruined already,” she returned. “For I’ll not live a lie any longer. I hate Crow Grieve. I mean to tell him the truth.”
“O Gawd — no!” cried Price. “He’d choke the life out of you.”
She reached for Price’s nerveless arm and dragged it down so that the gun dropped out of sight. Then, tottering a little, she put both hands on the log to steady herself, and leaned to gaze seekingly into Ames’ eyes. If she was gaining assurance, Ames was certainly readjusting wrong impressions. In an ordinary moment she would have been more than pretty. Here, white as marble, with great dark velvet eyes of tragedy, with red tremulous lips parted, with throbbing throat and breast, she was wonderful to look at.
“Lany, I trust him,” she said, quietly.
The moment of ended strain was poignant for Ames. To have to kill or disable this love-maddened boy would have been a terrible thing. Ames slid his legs over the log and sat between Lany and the girl, his hand going to the boy’s shoulder and his gaze to her.
“Thanks. I reckon I’m glad,” he said, feelingly. “Now, listen, folks. I’ve known for weeks aboot you two bein’ in love. An’ I’m afraid some of the outfit suspect you. MacKinney is on, I’m shore, but there are some things Mac doesn’t blab. I can keep him from it, anyhow.”
“You knew — Lany and I were — in — in love?” queried the girl, with a slow blush.
“Well, I wasn’t so shore aboot you lovin’ him. He was out of his haid. But I knew you were meetin’ him, an’ I confess I had some pretty queer notions aboot you. A young woman — still in her teens — with a baby! It shore looked bad. Reckon it looks bad yet, only somehow, seein’ you with Lany, an’ heahin’ you, makes it different.”
“You are Lany’s friend?”
“Shore. An’ I’ve been layin awake at night, tryin’ to find a way to help him.”
“Arizona, I — I love Lany terribly,” she confessed. “But I — I have not really been untrue to my husband.”
“Shore you haven’t,” replied Ames, loyally. “Reckon Lany had me plumb scared. When a man’s horrible in love you cain’t just tell whether he’s good or bad. But, Amy, since I’ve seen an’ heahed you, I’ve aboot made up my mind you’re good, all right, but terrible young an’ wild an’ unhappy.”
Faith and kindness worked upon her to the havoc of composure.
“Oh — Lany!” she sobbed. “He gives me — strength and hope. . . . My self-respect was bleeding to death. . . . He will help us.”
“I shore will,” declared Ames, binding himself to he knew not what. He drew the weeping girl to him until her drooping head rested on his shoulder. “Now, Lany, you tell me.”
Price heaved his gun back into its sheath, and when he lifted his face it showed drawn and wet with tears.
“Arizona, it’ll look so — so foolish to you,” he began. “I saw Amy the very first day she got to Wyomin’. It was at Granger, where I took the rig to drive Grieve home. She looked at me — an’ life hasn’t ever been the same since. I fell in love with her — just like I’d fallen off a cliff. I didn’t dream of it then, but she fell in love with me, too. . . . I swallowed it — took my medicine. I kept out of her way. If I’d been half a man I’d have gone away. But I wasn’t big enough for that. Luck was against me. Twice we were thrown together — alone. One whole afternoon I drove her back from Stillman’s ranch. We talked for hours. I could tell she was unhappy an’ she — she liked me. . . . Then one day, up the river, I found her sittin’ on a rock. She had fallen off her horse an’ she couldn’t walk. Her horse went off somewhere. I couldn’t find him; I — I didn’t try hard. I tried to help her on my horse. She fell into my arms. That was too much.”
Lany wiped his wet face with unsteady hands.
“I carried her home — an’ on the way it — it all came out. I told her I was crazy over her an’ I’d have to leave Wind River. She wouldn’t hear of it. She was in love with me. . . . My Gawd! . . . Since then we’ve met. Not often at first an’ most at night. But lately we had to see each other more. . . . Then today Amy frightened me out of my wits, as well as put murder in my heart. Grieve is a drunken beast. He beats her. He loves to hurt her! . . . She’s a slave girl. An’ she swore she’d not stand it any longer. She swore she’d tell him the truth an’ leave him. She would have done that long ago but for the baby. . . . When you came I was tryin’ to persuade her to keep our secret, to stick for the baby’s sake. I’d go way off an’ never see her again.”
Ames kept silent a moment after Lany’s disclosure ended. What he felt most was great relief. Then a sadness pervaded his spirit. Everywhere he roamed life seemed like this, and love a glorious and awful thing. The only love he had ever known — that for Nesta — had brought agony, and a sleepless regret, but it was nothing to what overwhelmed these lovers. In the face of it he quailed. How could he help them? What was right and what was wrong? Then he felt the girl’s head stir. And in her movement and the face she raised Ames sensed a blind and unreasoning trust in him — that shackled and bound him. Her eyes were as different from Nesta’s as eyes could well be, but they burned with the same beauty, the same brooding tragedy through which hope shone.
“Well, well,” he began, somehow finding the old cool drawl, “that’s not such a terrible story. Why, I reckoned it’d be worse. You just fell in love. God Almighty is most to blame. . . . But, come to remember, you two were pretty close when I come up an’ caught you.”
“You caught us, all right, Arizona,” admitted Lany, hanging his head.
“Amy, you were huggin’ Lany somethin’ scandalous,” went on Ames, just talking for time and perhaps to tease a little.
“Yes, I was, and I’m not ashamed,” she retorted, bravely. “I’ve kissed him a — a million times. . . . What would you expect, Arizona Ames?”
“Lord! I shore don’t know,” returned Ames, pensively. “I never had no wonderful girl love me. An’ I’m afraid I’ve missed a lot.”
“You must have run away from girls,” she said.
“Shore I did. Runnin’ away from girls — an’ everythin’ — is aboot all I’ve done for six years. . . . Well, to come back to your story. It’s not so terrible, except aboot Grieve bein’ a brute. Is that so, Amy?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I could tell he’s a hard drinker. But I’ve known men who drank a lot an’ yet were not so bad.”
“Grieve drinks all the time,” she declared, scornfully. “It’s his life. Whisky is his very breath. There is never a half hour, except when he’s asleep, that he doesn’t leave off what he’s doin’ — to go out or in — to come back with that queer little cough. Very often he gets dead drunk. That’s the best part of it, for then I can put him to bed. But when he�
�s half drunk, then he’s — he’s — oh, what can I call him?” she burst out, in ringing passion. “A beast who paws me — tears my clothes off! Beats me! A dog! A nigger!”
The last epithet had in it all the contempt, the hate, the inevitableness of the Southerner’s point of view.
Ames felt the leap of his blood. He did not dare look down at her, but gazed off through the pines, at the gathering of golden clouds over the mountains. He heard Lany’s heavy breathing.
“Amy, are you shore you’re not exaggeratin’ some?” he queried, at length.
She broke away from his gentle hold.
“Look, Arizona Ames!” Swiftly she opened her sleeve to roll it up, exposing a round white arm the beauty of which was marred by black and blue fingerprints. “Look!” she went on, tearing her silk blouse open at the neck, and pulling it aside to reveal a dark bruise on the rounded swell of shoulder. “Is that exaggeration? Shall I take off my boots and show the marks of his kicks?”
Ames cursed under his breath.
Lany shook himself out of his amaze and horror.
“Amy, you never told me that!” he raved.
“I’m telling you now,” she retorted, defiantly.
“You were afraid — I’d kill him?” panted Lany.
“I was. And now I hope you do.” Then all of a sudden she was in his arms.
Ames had to sit there and endure their crying over each other, their forgetfulness of him, their scoldings and tender reproaches, their evidences of heartbreak.
“Don’t mind me, folks,” he said, finally. “Only, time’s shore a-flyin’.”
Lany, still holding the girl in his arms, turned with a face which thrilled and awed Ames.
“Arizona, for her sake, tell me what to do!”
“I reckon nothin’ right pronto,” replied Ames, bluntly. “An’ shore keep away from Amy till we figure what you can do.”
“I can’t keep away. When I try she — she sends for me,” said Lany, despairingly. “This mornin’, for instance. Mac gave me a job to tend to, an’ Amy sends me a note by the housekeeper’s boy, askin’ me to meet her up here.”
Ames threw up both hands.
“Mrs. Grieve, you shore take risks — —”
“Don’t call me Mrs.,” flashed the girl, in petulant passion.
“Very well, then, Amy. You oughtn’t have done that.”
“But I’m a human being,” she protested.
“I reckon you are. Terrible human. All the same you don’t use any haid.”
“I can’t live — I won’t live without seeing him.”
To Ames she seemed subtly dangerous then, beautiful and irresistible, a strange creature that any man would have risked his life for.
“But you’re courtin’ death,” said Ames, gravely. “If you’re found out — an’ it’s reasonable shore you will be — Crow Grieve will kill Lany. An’ if he didn’t kill you, too — well, you’d be worse off than daid.”
Her face blanched at this and her eyes sought Lany’s face. “I — I don’t care what he’d do to me. But if he killed Lany I — I’d murder him with my own hands.”
“Ahuh. I believe you’ve got the nerve to do it. . . . Amy, you’re forgettin’ your child. You’re not fair to him. Or is it a boy?”
“A girl, Arizona. Golden curls, blue eyes — you’d never believe it was Grieve’s child.”
“O Lord! A girl! An’ she’ll grow up to be like Nesta an’ you!”
“Who’s Nesta?” asked Amy, curiously.
“A twin sister of mine. . . . Sweet as a flower, wild as a doe!”
“Arizona, we’re gettin’ nowhere,” interposed Lany, desperately.
“Lany, shore there are only two places you can get with a woman. One’s heaven, where I reckon you’ve been lately. An’ the other is a place you’re goin’ if you’re not damn careful.”
“You mean he’s goin’ to hell?” asked the girl, sorrowfully.
“I shore do, Amy.”
“He won’t go alone,” she said, simply.
Ames had long realized that he was dealing with fire and powder in these two young people. He dropped off the log and began to pace to and fro. Presently the girl came to him, slipped a hand under his arm.
“You’re distressed, Arizona. I’m sorry. Perhaps you’d better keep our secret and let us fight it out alone.”
“You poor kids! I reckon I cain’t do that.”
“Oh, you are good!” she exclaimed. “I never had a brother. Your Nesta must have loved you. . . . Arizona, you know I can’t stand Grieve much longer. I couldn’t even if Lany was not in it at all. Don’t you see that?”
“Shore I see it.”
“I must take baby and go away where he can’t find me.”
“How old are you, Amy?”
“Not yet twenty. But I feel a hundred.”
“You’re not of age. You’re not your own boss, especially if your folks gave Grieve a guardianship over you.”
“Father did just that. He sold me to Grieve. He owed him money. But I’ve never believed father could have done it if he’d known what Grieve really is.”
“Ahuh. Then Grieve could drag you an’ the child back. If you’d stick it out till you’re of age an’ then leave, you’d have the best of him.”
“More than a year!” she shuddered. “When now I know what love is? — It’s impossible, Arizona.”
“Ahuh. I reckoned as much,” rejoined Ames, with a grim little laugh. “Let’s sit down. I’m gettin’ weak in the laigs. . . . Come heah, Lany.”
They sat down together under a pine tree, Ames strangely brooding, Lany miserable and hopeless, the girl white with resolve.
“I think I’ll run off,” she declared, solemnly. “If he catches me — I’ll end it all for baby and me.”
“Arizona, you see?” burst out Lany. “See what I’m up against? She’d have done it before but for me.”
“You’re shore up against a lot, cowboy,” agreed Ames as he let the yellow pine needles sift through his fingers. “But we shore won’t let Amy go that far.”
“Arizona, you don’t savvy my lady love,” said Lany, making a sad attempt at humor. “You couldn’t stop her with a team of mules.”
“How aboot that, Amy?”
“If I once got started you never could,” she asserted.
“Well, young folks, as I see it — aboot the only hope for you is to wait until Crow Grieve is daid.”
“But he is still young and healthy. He’ll live many years,” protested Amy, taking him literally.
On the other hand, Lany Price turned a deathly white.
“How long is he goin’ to be away?” queried Ames, ignoring her protest.
“I never can tell. When he says a week he comes back before. When he says a day or two he stays longer.”
“Amy, is he suspicious you might be — —”
“Suspicious — jealous, oh, he’s hatefully both!” she cried. “Of any cowboy.”
“Not particularly of Lany, then?”
“I don’t know it, if he is. But he’s cunning. I’m in a perpetual state of fear, both when he’s home and away.”
“Well, for a girl who’s scared to death all the time, strikes me you’ve got nerve,” drawled Ames.
“Nerve! I’ve no more nerve than a rabbit. And I’m an awful liar, too, Arizona.”
“Aw no. Shore I cain’t believe that.”
“I’m a liar, anyway.”
“Amy,” spoke up Lany, with loyal repudiation, “you might have had to lie to Grieve, but you never have to me.”
She let out a little peal of silvery mocking laughter. She was bewildering to Ames.
“Haven’t I, though? I’m all lie. . . . Why, Lany, I brought about those accidents when you were with me alone. I fell in love with you and I swore I’d make you love me or die. . . . That time you carried me home in your arms! — I found out where you were going. I followed you. I drove my horse away and waylaid you. I pretended to be hurt when I wasn�
�t at all. When you tried to put me up in your saddle I fell into your arms. On purpose! And then when you thought you had to carry me and you did carry me! And before you knew it you were kissing me!”
“Oh, Amy,” returned Lany, at once wretched and happy.
Ames rose to his feet. “I reckon that’s not the kind of lies men count. If the lyin’ is done for them! . . . Now do as I tell you. Say you won’t tell Grieve nothin’. You’ll be awful careful aboot meetin’ Lany now while your husband is away. An’ when he comes back you won’t meet Lany at all or send him notes.”
“Till when?” she asked, rising with her hands on her hips, her eyes singularly bright on him.
“Say as long as Grieve is away an’ while he’s home next time.”
“Arizona, I promise. Cross my heart,” she replied, smiling, and after she had suited the action to the words she proffered her hand. “And during this time you’ll find some place where I can hide or you’ll take me yourself — or hit upon a way to help me and Lany out of this terrible mess?”
“That’s my promise, Amy,” he replied.
“How aboot you, Lany?” he asked, turning to the cowboy. “Shore you’ll help Amy to keep this heah promise?”
“Arizona, I swear — I will,” rejoined Lany. His lips were pale and he swallowed hard.
“All right, children, I shore feel better,” drawled Ames. “I’ll leave you now. An’ I advise you don’t stay up heah till mawnin’. It’s comin’ on sunset now. It oughtn’t take you long to say good-by. Fact is, I don’t know nothin’ aboot kisses, but allowin’ a second or so for each one, an’ reckonin’ on four or five hundred — they wouldn’t take so long.”
Lany laughed to hide his embarrassment.
“Arizona, I didn’t think you could be sarcastic,” said Amy, disappointed, and she swayed toward him, a dangerous little gleam in her big eyes.
“Gosh! Now I’ve played hob!” ejaculated Ames, realizing his effort at naïveté had fallen somewhat flat.
“You think we’re young fools?” she queried.
“Aw no, Amy, not quite that.”
“You ridicule kisses. Arizona Ames, I’ve a notion to kiss you,” she averred, backing him against the log.
“Do it, Amy,” said Lany. “Show him. The darned cowboy never has been kissed.”