by Zane Grey
“I own a horse. He’s been in pictures, not I. Oh, I’ve had to ride him a few times, doubling for these actors. I hated that. It’s almost as tough on me as letting them ride him.”
“A wonderful horse. How thrilling! I love horses.”
“As much as cars?”
“More. We have a ranch and some Arabians.... What’s his name?”
“Umpqua.”
“Umpqua? Must be Indian?”
“Yes, it is. Means swift.”
“Then he can run?”
“Run! — See here, little lady, Umpqua is as swift as the wind.”
“I’ll bet I’ve a horse that can beat him.”
Lance laughed. Here apparently was a real western girl. It did not detract from the dazzling glamour of her.
“Is he pretty — beautiful — grand, or what?” she continued.
“All of them. Umpqua has Arabian blood,” replied Lance, warming to her interest. That seemed to put him on her level. “He is big and rangy. Mottled black with white feet and nose. Bright soft eyes. Spirited but gentle. And this Hollywood game hasn’t done him any good. That’s why I’m going to quit it and leave this place. Ump is too fine, too sweet a horse for Hollywood.”
“You love him, don’t you?” she said, softly, as if she understood.
“I’ll say I do. Why, he saved Nance’s life.... Nance is my sister. Umpqua was given to me when he was a colt. He’s cowboy bred. On the Oregon range near Bend. And no horse ever had ten years’ better breeding.... Well, Nance and I were left alone. We lost the ranch. I had to quit college. She fell ill. It was necessary to have special treatment for her — operations and all — to save her life. So to earn the money I brought Umpqua to Hollywood where I had been assured of a job. And did he make good? I’m telling you.”
The girl’s eyes were bright with interest.
“Splendid. And your sister — Nance?”
“Just fine now. She’s going to be married soon.”
“Swell!... Oh, wouldn’t I love to see Umpqua? But I wouldn’t dare. I’d want to buy him. I always try to buy everything I like. And you’d hate me. That wouldn’t do at all.... Cowboy, are you leaving town? Wouldn’t you like... couldn’t we meet again?”
“Why — I — I... hope to see you again,” stammered Lance.
“We have a lot in common. Horses and ranches — and things,” she went on, consulting her wrist watch. “Let’s see. If I don’t get pinched and haled into court, I can cut psych. Say two-thirty, here, tomorrow. Will that be convenient?”
“Okay by me,” replied Lance, and opened the door to step out.
“Thank you for all you did. Good-by till tomorrow. And be careful. Don’t forget you punched a cop. They’ll be looking for you if they can remember what you look like. I won’t forget.”
Lance stood there rooted to the spot, watching the bright car and golden head flash out of sight. Then expecting to come down to earth with a dull thud, he found himself in the clouds. He soared while he hunted for a westbound trolley and the long ride out seemed only a few moments. Riding a block past his street augured further of his mental aberration. He strode on, out of the main zone of buildings, into the hills, and up the canyon where he had lodgings with a man who rented him a little pasture and stall for his horse. Lance went into the alfalfa-odorous barn. Umpqua nickered at him. “My God, Ump!” said Lance, as he put his arm over the noble arched neck and laid his cheek against the glossy mane. “I’ve fallen like a ton of bricks. Hardest ever! — No, old pard, not a movie extra or even a star. But a college girl. Another blonde, Ump! Only this one has them all backed off the lot.... So that’s what was wrong with me when I sat dumb in her car?”
Contact with Umpqua brought Lance down to reality and to the fact that he was leaving Hollywood. Against his sober judgment he would keep the date with the girl, which would be a last sentimental gesture before he rode out toward the open ranges and to the life he was meant for.
Lance packed and tagged his outfit, walked downtown to an express office, and checked it to be sent for later. Then he cashed his last check from the studio. It was still only midafternoon. On the boulevard he dropped into a movie theater and sat through two pictures, no details of which he could have even faintly remembered afterward. Then he went to a restaurant for his supper. Even his usually keen appetite did not return to break his abstraction. Thereafter he strolled up the boulevard, knowing it would be the last time. There was a première at the Chinese, heralded aloft by great searchlight beams, streaking up and sweeping across the heavens. Hollywood’s main thoroughfare blazed with colored lights. Cars hummed to and fro, halted for the signals, rolled on again. Lance stood on the corner of Vine Street, absorbing the flash, the glitter, the roar, the vivid life of the strange city. There was a little sadness mixed with his varied feelings and he could not quite analyze the cause. He did not really want this life. Then a shining black limousine sped noiselessly by. Lance caught a fleeting glimpse of a lovely fair girl, radiant in white, lying languorously back against the black-clad shoulder of her companion. That was Hollywood. How many times Lance had seen the same sight, always with a vague envy!
He let that glimpse be the last to intrigue him, and striding back to his room, he went to bed. There, wide-awake, he lay in the dark, remembering, wondering, feeling more clearly than at any time since his adventure.
A vivid and entrancing picture of the girl appeared etched against the blackness. Her face floated there, exquisitely fair. It was oval, crowned by shining golden hair, which waved back from her broad low brow. Slender arched eyebrows marked large intent eyes, wide apart, dark, the color of violets and singularly expressive with a light of friendliness, of frank interest. The whole face had a flash, of which fixed and changeless beauty was only a part.
Feature by feature the girl’s face appeared to Lance with a clearness which astonished him.
Lance shut his eyes to blot out this memory picture. But it made no difference. She was there, in his mind, on his heart. Never in all his life had he yearned for anything so dearly as to kiss those red lips. That dragged him rudely out of his trance. It would be wise not to see the girl again. With a pang he abandoned the idea. Majesty.... Madge, that student Rollie had called her. The first name suited her. Who was she? Where was that ranch with the Arabian horses? Somewhere in California, no doubt. That girl had class. Yet there was nothing the least snobbish about her. Too lovely, too kind and sweet to be a flirt! No need. She was rich, of course, Lance thought, remembering her clothes and her car! He remembered, too, the jeweled monogram on her cigarette case, but could recall only the letter M. And Lance rolled over to go to sleep. Aw! What the hell? He was always mooning over some pretty dame, especially a blonde, and here he had what was coming to him. Forget it, cowboy, and hit the trail.
All the same he dreamed of her and upon awakening in the morning, he began to waver in his resolution. Why be a sap? She had been grateful. He would want to know how she fared with the police and the college authorities. She would keep the date and wait for him. Lance, in the broad light of day, while he made his final preparations to leave, thought better of his resolve not to meet her. Treat a swell girl like that — stand her up on a promised date — a girl who loved horses — it just was not in him. And all the rest of the morning, at lunch, and when he took the bus downtown, he was conscious of a tingling expectance, a heat in his veins, a glamour over everything.
It amazed Lance extremely that he could not immediately find the parking place where he was to meet the girl. He had been so balmy, he thought, that he had scarcely known whether he was walking or riding. It was a good thing that he had come downtown so early. After wandering around, up one street and down another, at last he found the vacant lot which had been utilized to park cars. He was still a quarter of an hour ahead of time. An attendant, observing Lance loitering around, told him he could sit in one of the cars if he were waiting for someone. Lance promptly availed himself of this permission; in fact he took a
back seat in a car standing against a building. Lance did not believe she would come at all; if she did he wanted to see her before she spied him. The buoyancy usual with Lance at a rendezvous seemed to be wanting here. This was a tremendous occasion.
He could see a large blue-handed clock in a tower some distance away, and watching this, as the half hour neared, he gave way more and more to inexplicable feelings. If she came, that would be proof she liked him, and maybe.... Why not postpone his departure for Arizona? A few days or even weeks would not make any particular difference. If she wanted to see him, take him to the house to meet her friends, perhaps go out to see Umpqua — how could he ever resist that? He had always been a fool over girls. With this one he would be serious and assuredly she had only a passing fancy or interest in him.
Or she might have been one of these beautiful dames who had to have a new flame every day. Maybe he had better just wait to have a farewell look at her, and not let her know he was there. But suppose she really had been struck with him! That was possible. It had happened once. In this case there would never again be any peace away from the glad light of those violet eyes.
“Gosh! I was a dumbbell for coming,” he muttered, kicking himself. “She’s late now.... She won’t come — and am I glad?”
Nevertheless he lingered there, sliding down in the seat, watching with hawk eyes the passing cars, slowly succumbing to a pang in his breast. At a quarter to three he gave up hope.
Then a bright tan roadster flashed into sight. It slowed and turned in. The driver was a girl in blue. But her blue hat did not hide a gleam of gold. She had come! Lance’s heart gave a leap and his blood gushed through his veins.
Then a seven-passenger car, shiny black in hue, flashed into sight, slowed and stopped outside the turn. From it leaped a slender young man, noticeably well-dressed. He waved the car on with sharp gesture and came hurrying, his piercing gaze on the blonde girl.
Lance saw her sweep a quick glance all around the parking place. She was looking for him, and the disappointment she expressed was so sweet and moving to Lance that it would have drawn him out of his hiding place but for the mien of the newcomer.
She had halted at an angle from Lance’s position, perhaps a dozen steps distant, and scarcely had she dismissed the polite attendant when the other man caught up to lean over the side of her car. He did not remove his soft gray hat. He had a remarkably handsome visage, pale, chiseled as if from marble, a square chin and ruthless mouth, and light gray eyes sharp as daggers. He reminded Lance of someone he knew.
“On the lam, eh, Madge? You certainly gave that driver of mine a run,” he said, with an air of cool effrontery.
“Hello, Bee. What do you mean — on the lam?” she replied.
“Trying to run away from me again.”
“No. I was in a hurry to keep a date. I’m too late. He’s come and gone. Damn old Fuzzy-Top! It was his fault.”
“Was your date with Fuzzy-Top?”
“No. You don’t seem to understand my college talk any better than I do your gangster expressions. Fuzzy is one of my profs.”
Gangster! Lance sustained a sudden shock. So that was it. This young man bore a remarkable resemblance to the picture star, Robert Morris, in his racketeer roles. What could the girl possibly have to do with a gangster? Plenty, thought Lance, considering that she had the imperious look of one who had an insatiable thirst for adventure.
“Madge, I haven’t said nothing yet,” replied the fellow, with a laugh. “Saying it with flowers is not my way. How about cocktails? Take me for a ride.”
“Bee, I told you I had a date,” she protested. “With a perfectly swell fellow. I’m crazy about him.”
“Yeah? He doesn’t seem so crazy about you. Dish the date and let’s go places.” With that the cool gentleman walked around the front of her car, and opening the door he slipped in and slammed it shut.
“You’ve got a nerve,” she retorted.
“Didn’t you tell me that was what you liked about me?”
“I suspect I did. You were something new, Bee.”
“Thanks. You’re a new twist on me. All women are flirts. But I went for you in a big way. And you went out with me, didn’t you?”
“Yes. A couple of times. If you recall I met you at the Grove one afternoon for tea. We danced. And one other time at the Biltmore, where we quarreled because you were pretty raw.”
“Cooled on me, eh?”
“Not exactly. You still pack a thrill. But you’re a little too — too...”
“Madge, no broad ever made a sucker of Bee Uhl yet,” he rejoined, with a crisp ring in his voice.
“Mr. Uhl, you’re quite beyond me,” said the girl, with a smile that disarmed her aloofness. “I’m afraid you’re going to make me regret my — well, shall we call it playful indiscretion? I never took you for a gentleman, but I thought you a good sport. If I’m not mistaken the favors of our little flirtation were yours.... Where can I drop you?”
“Say, Beauty, you hate yourself, don’t you? Well, I can take it. But the Honey Bee is not through buzzing around yet.... Let me off corner Seventh.”
In another moment they were gone, leaving Lance in a queer state of mind. He hardly knew what to think, or why he had not made his presence known. Presently his romance burst like a pricked bubble. But his relief did not equal his regret. He would not be seeing Madge again. If her apparently friendly contact with a gangster had caused her to fall somewhat in his hasty estimation, that did not seem to make any difference. Almost he sympathized with Honey Bee Uhl. That was a cognomen. Lance wondered what it signified. Then his sympathy veered to the spirited girl. He seemed to grasp that it would be impossible for her to have any fun, at least with men, to follow any natural bent of conquest or coquetry, to play around and look for what and whom she wanted from life, without leaving havoc in her wake. A girl as beautiful as she was, radiant with such an intense and fatal charm, would have to go into a nunnery, or else expect a fall of Troy around her. No doubt she desired that very thing. Lance congratulated himself on his great good fortune in avoiding the meeting, yet when it was too late he wanted it otherwise.
* * * * *
In less than two hours Lance was riding Umpqua along the hilly backroads of Hollywood. He was on his way and saw the last of the town from a bridle path high upon a foothill. He knew every bit of soft road under the slope of the mountains and avoided the asphalt wherever possible. At nine o’clock, some twenty miles out of the city, he called it a day and sought lodgings for himself and Umpqua.
Up at dawn he made San Bernardino by nightfall and the next day Banning. This entrance to the desert pass he welcomed as an event. From there on he could keep his horse almost altogether off the paved roads. That night Lance was so tired he went to sleep when his head touched the pillow. On the following morning he headed down San Gorgonio Pass toward the great gray valley of the southernmost California desert.
He knew that arid country, having been to Palm Springs and Indio with motion-picture companies. Still, sight of the rolling wasteland with its knolls of mesquite and flats of greasewood, and the irregular barren mountains zigzagging the horizon, afforded him keen pleasure. How different this country from the golden pastures and black hills and swift streams of Oregon! Lance could not have conceived a greater contrast. And by noonday the June heat of the desert was intense. Sweat oozed out of his every pore and Umpqua was wet. But this heat was what both horse and rider needed. They were heavy from underwork and overeating. By midafternoon Lance reached a little station on the railroad above Indio, where he halted for the night. He slept on a spread of hay under a cottonwood tree; and when the red sun peeped over the Chocolate Mountains next morning Lance felt that the comfort and the lure of Hollywood had been left far behind.
From that point he began a leisurely journey down the long sun-baked desert. Mecca, the Salton Sea, Niland were each marked by hitching up another hole in Umpqua’s cinch. But the great horse, once off the automobile roads
and loosened up by the heat, soon showed his sound bottom and his love of the open. He knew they were headed for new ranges. Lance struck the five-mile stretch of sand dunes at sunrise, and he marveled at the smooth mounds with their knifelike crests, the scalloped vales between the dunes, the opal hues changing and playing across the sands. Umpqua did not like this region where his hoofs sank to his fetlocks. The flinty levels beyond, black and red with polished gravel, the sparse tufts of greasewood and cactus, the volcanic peaks, and finally the dusky arrowwood-bordered road to the Colorado River — these kept Umpqua on his easy ground-covering gait. Lance’s first sight of the red river justified what he had anticipated — a sullen swirling muddy flood, inimicable to horse and rider. And Yuma at night struck Lance favorably, with its wide main street and bright lights, its giant Indians and stealthily stepping Mexicans. He was across the river and this was Arizona.
That fact roused Lance at dawn. On his way again he appeared to have Arizona burst upon him in a blaze of brilliant sunlight that flooded vast wastes of barren soil and meager patches of grass, and ranges of ragged mountains asleep in the sunrise, and dim mesas and escarpments in the distance, and ghosts of purple domes hauntingly vague. Lance was a man of the open, but the great distances, the vastness, the endless reach of wasteland allured while it repelled him. He rode on, and dust, heat, wind were his portion. Ranches, service stations, hamlets stretched lonesomely across the desert. He had lost track of days and miles beyond Yuma by the time he reached Florence. Tombstone with its preserved buildings of a hard frontier past, Bisbee with its great mines and bustle, Douglas, an enterprising and progressive town marked Lance’s long ride across southern Arizona. Lance meant to strike off the main highway and railroad somewhere beyond Douglas into the ever-increasing rugged grandeur and beautiful valleys of this Arizona land. But his money, which he had thought would hold out for a much longer period, had dwindled to almost nothing, and it was now necessary that he stop and look for work. A rest would do Umpqua good. Lance found a Mexican who owned a small pasture outside of town and here he left the horse. In a pinch he could pawn his watch or gun, but he would have a try at finding work before resorting to that.