by Zane Grey
“I’ll have to walk back home.”
“No you won’t. You can’t. Let me get your car.”
“But I don’t want anyone to know about this, and they will if I come in the car. I’ll have to sneak in by the west wing to my room. I’ll have to walk.”
“Nonsense. I can easily carry you.”
She laughed outrageously.
“But I can. I’m strong,” protested Lance, earnest, amazed, solicitous. “I can throw a hundred pound sack of grain all over the place.”
“Strong? I know you’re a perfect Hercules, Mr. Sidway,” she said, tauntingly. “But I won’t have you packing me around.”
Very carefully she stepped, and moved up the slope. Every time her injured foot touched the ground it must have pained greatly, Lance knew. He put a hand under her arm and half lifted her along. They came into a trail, and that appeared to be easier for Madge. When they arrived at the pines, however, she was tottering. But this girl was the kind that could not quit.
“Why won’t you let me carry you?” he asked, suddenly. “You did once.”
“That’s why.”
“If you’re not the queerest, screwiest girl, I’ll eat my hat!” declared Lance.
“Yes, when you haven’t one!” she retorted. When she started on, Lance knew she would not make it much farther. And he bided his time, hot and perplexed. Finally she swore and sobbed almost in the same breath. Without a word more he picked her up in his arms and went on. Shifting his hold, so she would carry more comfortably for her, he said: “There. Isn’t that better? I hardly feel your weight.”
“Better, indeed. But I fear — riskier,” she returned in a queer voice.
Lance had to look at her. Before that, all had seemed well. He was relieved to save her pain. Her face lay high up on his right arm, almost on his breast, turned toward him somewhat, and its lovely proximity grew suddenly exciting. She was looking at him with eyes whose expression he could not fathom.
“Riskier! — What do you mean?” he demanded.
“You see I am utterly helpless. You might get a cave-man notion... . Really that wouldn’t be so bad. But you probably just kissed Bonita...”
“I did. For Ren’s sake — mostly.”
“Ye gods and little fishes!... And no doubt it was Bu Allen last night. She came in with her lipstick all smeared up. Radiant. Bold as the very devil. And she didn’t deny it when we kidded her about you.”
“Miss Stewart, I did not see her last night,” protested Lance.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, can the Miss.... It doesn’t sound natural.... And well, if you had been with Bu, you’d have kissed her, wouldn’t you?”
“That would have depended entirely upon her.”
“How chivalrous! If she had been suffering for contact or release — or what have you, why you’d have been a perfect necker.... Lance, you give me a pain in the neck.”
“I know. But why — why?” he demanded, furiously.
“It must be because you’re a liar.”
“Well, Madge Stewart, you give me worse than that — and it’s because you’re no good.”
“Let me down. You said that before. I’ll die before I — I’ll...”
“Bunk! You can die all right, after I get you home. I hope you do. I hope you choke on your terrible tongue.”
Anger and intense mortification, and some other emotion began to augment in Lance’s consciousness.
“The girls think you’ve the sweetest disposition — that you’re the swellest fellow. My God!” And she uttered a tinkling little laugh that cut into Lance like icy blades.
“Your boy friends think the same of you. But they’re a lot of sapheads. They don’t know you.”
“You do!”
“Bet your — sweet life I do. Better than you have any idea,” he panted.
“Rest here, young Lochinvar! or you’ll fall. I think, after all, you’re not so strong. This magnificent frame is pithy — like your head.”
Lance groaned under the excess of his burdens. Halfway up to the house, in one of the little bench parks under the pines, he sat down on a boulder to regain his equilibrium, but he did not let go of Madge. He could feel the throb of her against his throbbing. And all at once he happened to think of what she had told Rollie that last night. Under the galvanizing stress of the idea that leaped out of it he arose like a giant and a fiend. He wrapped his long arms closer about her and drew her wholly against his breast. Madge seemed totally calm. Then Lance kissed her, not with any particular feeling, but merely as a preliminary.
“I thought it was about time,” muttered Madge.
Then, staggering on under the pines, he kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her hair, her neck — and when at last she protested, Lance stopped her mouth with his, in an endless passionate kiss which magnified all he had ever bestowed in his life.
“Damn — you!” she panted, as he moved a moment to breathe. And she began to pound him — to tear at his hair. “You insult me...”
“Insult you! — Good God — it — couldn’t — be — done,” he mocked her, breathlessly. “I heard you say — you rather liked it... .”
“You — what...”
“Mine ought to be — as good as any of those guys — and cleaner, by heaven! and fresher — from lack of promiscuous practice.” And bending over, squeezing her face up immovably, he began to kiss her lips like a madman. His kisses choked off her scream. After one frantic and tense struggle she collapsed in his arms. And he kissed her for every step, on under the pines, out upon the drive, almost to the front archway. Keeping outside the drive he passed this, and once in the shrubbery he began again his ravenous tasting of her lips, as if his appetite grew with what it fed upon. But not until he rounded the west wing and reached her window did he realize that her face, her lips, her body had changed. Her eyes were closed tightly — heavy eyelids dreamy, long curled lashes on her cheeks; her lips bowed, open, sweet with a strange fire; her breast pressed on his. Not until Lance lifted her into the open window did he realize that she had an arm round his neck. He lowered her carefully to the floor. Then he leaned on the sill, spent and devastated.
She stirred, and sat up, and laboriously climbed upon the bed. Lance, watching her, expected, yearned for a scourging, bitter enough even for him. But she just looked at him. In the starlight he saw her face as only he would carry it in his heart forever.
“Majesty,” he began, in husky whisper, “I...” but he could not go on.
CHAPTER IX
MADGE SAT UPON her bed gazing tensely out of her window into the gloom where Lance Sidway had vanished. A fringe of her senses seemed to register the drowsy murmur of water, the rustle of leaves, the chirp of crickets, as well as loud voices and gay laughter of some of her guests in the living room. But for all that, her acute senses coalesced on her burning cheeks and neck, her breast, and especially her lips on fire with that cowboy’s terrible kisses.
Not all at once could her wit and intelligence throw off that spell. She found herself rubbing her stockingless leg and ankle. The tightness around her foot, the heat, meant injury in some degree, but she felt no pain. Over and above these sensations thundered the truth, clearing in her mind. She had ranged the gamut of incredible feeling — from pique, surprise, shock, fury to a sudden overwhelming tumult of love, of her willful changing moods, her wounded vanity, her temper and upflaring hate, and her softening doubt, her endless misgivings and suspicion, that had kept her up and down for days, only to have this shameful assault leave her undone, madly in love at last, stricken forever.
“I — I can take it!” whispered Madge, with her fluttering hand on her hot lips. She did not weep. She asked no quarter. She had her just deserts. But she was not as he believed — that shot through her with a passionate pang. From the very beginning everything had worked to her detriment. Her imperious demand for that horse? No — that was not the first. Her meeting with the gangster Uhl! That had started her wrong with this Oregon boy. And every single th
ing afterward had gone wrong — her tempers and her tricks, her insincerity and subterfuge, her nasty tongue and open satire. He must have overheard her saying she rather liked being kissed. That night when Rollie had met her after Lance had infuriated her! But there was nothing to be ashamed of about that. It was true, only on the moment she was torturing Rollie. The cowboy had something these other boys lacked. His recent treatment of her was wholly at variance with that, and seemed inexplicable to Madge. He did not want to kiss her. He did not approve of her. He despised her. He must have possessed some kind of a masculine trait that made her kissing promiscuity intolerable and abhorrent. He was avenging the throng of boys she had kissed and forgotten. There were a thousand slants and angles to this outrageous assault upon her — only one terrible revelation accruing from them! The doom of love, that she had trifled with so regally and callously, had fallen upon her. How impossible to understand! If Lance Sidway had entered her room that moment and snatched her up.... But he had not known she had been, at the last, taking his kisses and spending her soul in exchange. And suddenly Madge was possessed of an insane rage. She wanted to kill him. It would not be enough to have him horsewhipped and driven away. He must not live to kiss girls like Bonita and have the sunlight shine in his hazel eyes for some other....
“Oh, nuts!” burst out Madge, baldly, suddenly sick of herself, so weary that the fury drained out of her. “I’ve put this day of reckoning off long enough!”
Her exclamation must have been heard, for clicking high heels sounded on the stone corridor.
“Majesty!” called Allie, in great eagerness. “Did I hear you?”
“I shouldn’t wonder. I was cussing. Come in. I’ve a story to unfold. What happened to you?”
“Me! — I was thrown in the dust,” whispered Allie. “Blinded. I couldn’t see a thing. The car was gone and you with it. I felt my way back to my room and washed the dust from my eyes. After that I walked under the pines — down the road — watching for you.”
“Funny you didn’t see that cowboy carrying me or hear him kissing me. Must have sounded like a decisive battle of the world!”
“Majesty!”
“Be careful, darling. I’m a cripple. I fell off the car, too. Hurt my foot.... Help me into my bathroom.”
There between the two of them, Madge boiled out the pain in her foot, and bound it up, to find then that she could walk without limping. She sent Allie out to find where everybody was, and bade her return to sleep with her. Madge found it good to stretch out in bed, in the dark, and wonder. Presently Allie came back, to feel her way to Madge’s side. It was a mutual emotion that caused them to seek each other’s arms.
“Your mother has gone to bed, I think,” whispered Allie. “Snake was playing checkers with your dad. I told them you were tired. Your dad seemed concerned. ‘Madge tired? that’s unheard of.’ He looked worn himself, poor dear. Majesty, do you know I’ve an idea he worries about you and us....”
“Skip it! — Where were the girls?”
“In their rooms, lolling, fussing, gossiping. Except Bu. She’s down the hill looking for cowboys, so Dixie said.”
“Oh!” cried Madge, poignantly.
“What ails you, darling? You act kind of queer and talk worse. You’re burning up. I’m afraid you’ve got fever.”
“Fever! — Ha! Ha! — Yes, I’ve got galloping fever... . And the boys?”
“Down playing pool. Wouldn’t take the girls.”
“Frame-up to shield that trio of heels!” whispered Madge. “All in the know about that date.... Darling, get a load of this. Barg and Dawson and Brand were in that car. And down below they took in Bonita and two of her friends. They went to town.”
“Majesty! Not really.”
“I’ll say. What do you think of them, Barg especially?”
“For Barg? — Lousy is too lovely a word. That dirty little bum! Just finally won Maramee, and he pulls such a stunt. Maramee is so happy. She thinks Barg is perfect. It’ll break her heart.”
“She must never know. Don’t you breathe it.”
“But, darling, they don’t mean any harm.”
“Who don’t?”
“Why, Barg and the boys.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do mean any harm, but it hauls me up, Allie. I’ve done my damnedest to entertain this crowd. They’re swell, only they want to do what they like. Suppose there’d be an accident, or a fight, or they drank too much, and got stuck out all night. That happens, when no harm is intended. What’d my dad say? I grow stiff at the very thought. He’s such a peach. He believes I’m so.... Oh, hell!... What would Danny Mains say? Good old scout. Worships that black-eyed flip! What would that cowboy do? My heavens!”
“Majesty! Someone will hear you. Cowboy! You mean Sidway? It’s none of his business.”
“Isn’t it, though? Ren Starr is his pal. Ren has been at Bonita’s feet for long. And Lance has been courting her for him. Would he be sore? He was sore tonight, maybe somewhat because I... Allie, that cowboy would call the boys down to the barn...”
“But, honey, nothing terrible has happened yet. It won’t.”
“Yes, it has — to me,” whispered Madge, tragically. “Death wouldn’t be half so hard!”
“Majesty, are you crazy? Such talk! What happened?”
Madge hugged her loyal friend close and shook over her. “I fell off the car way down the road. Hurt my foot. I took off my shoe and stocking. Then I sat up on the bank waiting. I knew who’d come. I’d have bet my soul. And he did come. Sidway, the darned inquisitive rooster. We talked, and as always in a few moments we were at each other’s throats. All before he knew I was hurt. When he found that out he was human for a little bit. I wouldn’t let him go for a car or for help, and I started walking up the hill. Hurt? Oh, Lord, did it? Pretty soon he grabbed me up in his arms. I gave him some dirty digs because I knew he’d kiss me. No fellow yet ever got that far with me without kissing me. And I was scared of having Sidway do that. Allie, I — l-liked him too much.... Well, pretty soon he did. I never was so mad in my life, just at first.... After that I began to like it. I thought he was going to eat me alive.... Allie, he lighted some kind of a conflagration in me. If I hadn’t been too weak I’d have.... Oh! — But I couldn’t move. It was only after he tumbled me in my window here that I realized I’d been in a trance of bliss... that at last there... I’d been kissing him for every kiss he’d given me. It all comes to me gradually. Later I’ll remember some of the things he said, and tell you.... Allie, darling, I’ve told you many stories in the dead of night — after love dates, blind dates, hells. But what do you say to this one?”
“Majesty, you love him!” whispered Allie, in awe.
“Ha! Ha! So you get that? What wonderful perspicacity, darling! Never mind about me — about the dual rotten nature that has turned on me ... but what did Lance Sidway mean? Tell me that.”
“Madge, it’s beyond the bounds of human possibility that he doesn’t love you.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a man. And you’ve placed him on the damnedest spots. Seeing you every day and every way.... Why, Madge. I was sorry for him the other day at the lake. You in that indecent bathing suit — the boys wallowing you all over the sand! And he stuck there to save our lives if we got cramps!”
“Wrong again. But what did you see?” flashed Madge, in a passionate whisper.
“I saw the look in his eyes. You know he has beautiful eyes, when they’re soft.”
“You’re as sentimental as Maramee, and as gullible. That cowboy hates my very insides.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“But, sweet, listen. For God’s sake use some brains. Isn’t it conceivable that I should finally fall foul of a real man who sees through me — who has my number — whom I can’t fool or intrigue or fascinate or seduce — who has fine ideals, and who consequently despises me?”
“Yes, it’s conceivable. That’d be a horrible misfortune. ... But if Sidway wasn’t m
ad about you he couldn’t act as he does. Actions, my proud savage! Actions! Any boy or man can rave. But it’s actions that count. He’s done something, hasn’t he?”
“He’s done me wrong,” wailed Madge, fighting vainly against the sweet madness of Allie’s loyal convictions.
“Take the day you were caught in the noose of the hay rope. Madge, do you imagine any man ever recovering from that?”
“From — what?” asked Madge, faintly.
“From seeing you — from your chin down — without a stitch!”
“Oh, no! He — he didn’t see me... he swore he didn’t.”
“He did, Madge Stewart.”
“Oh, Allie! I’m so horribly afraid he’ll turn out big and fine and noble — despite all — that tonight.”
“He was indicating his sex.”
“Oh!”
“He was jealous. They all kiss you. So would he — and make one swell job of it. I think he’s grand.”
“You are a traitor, Allie Leland.”
“No. You’re that, Madge, to yourself.”
“Oh, I couldn’t be a traitor to anyone,” retorted Madge, fiercely.
“You are a queen and a law unto yourself. Sidway will not bend to you.”
Spent, but still unconvinced, Madge lay there in her friend’s arms.
“Darling, have you ever been your true self to Sidway?” asked Allie.
“Yes, once. The first time. That campus day.”
“Then go back to that. Even if he hates you unmercifully, he’ll come around. After we are gone — and we shouldn’t drag this grand vacation out selfishly....”
“Gone! I couldn’t stay. Yet I must. This is home. I owe it to Dad and Mom. But — alone on the range with that eagle-eyed cowboy! Mom says he is like Dad used to be! Dad is hipped on him. And Nels.... Oh, what is the use?”
“Majesty, it’ll all work out. But I’m afraid you must suffer more.”
“Have a heart, will you? For Pete’s sake! I’ve been dying for weeks.”