Stairs of Sand

by Zane Grey

  Collishaw dropped the gun. His hand remained outstretched. For an instant he stood upright, dead on his feet, with visage of horror—then he swayed and fell, a sodden weight.

  The gambling hall was stilled. All faces were turned to the door where Adam and Merryvale emerged. No man moved or spoke. Merryvale, helped by the hand dragging at him, kept the rapid pace across the hall, out the side entrance, into the darkness.

  Then Adam, still holding to Merryvale, drew him into the throng in the main street, and soon passed beyond sight and sound of the Del Toro.

  “Adam, shore you ain’t forgettin’ Stone?” queried Merryvale, moistening his dry tongue.

  “No more than I forgot Collishaw,” was the reply.

  “Shore you ain’t trustin’ to chance?”

  “No. Augustine has men on Stone’s trail. But I believe if I walked blindly—something would lead me to him.”

  “Wal, reckon I understand that. It’s a safe bet Stone made off with Ruth. Don’t you agree?”

  “We heard what Collishaw said to Sanchez.”

  Soon they gained Augustine’s quarters, where Adam briefly explained to his Mexican friend the probability of Stone’s having taken Ruth from the Del Toro. Whereupon Augustine, tense and excited, argued that Stone could not have ventured far in the daylight, that he must have left the Del Toro by the back stairways, and had hidden her somewhere in the adjoining block, which was wholly a Mexican quarter.

  “Senor, come,” urged Augustine, and rushed out, turning from the patio into a narrow passage that led into a side street. Here he strode quickly with Adam on one side and Merryvale on the other. All the time the effervescent Mexican kept up a running talk, into which now and then crept a word in his native tongue. His contention was that Stone had not dared to approach the main street with a captive girl, whom he very likely had to carry or drag. This seemed plausible to Merryvale. If a quick canvass of the quarter back of the Del Toro immediately did not produce the girl, Augustine assured them a thorough one, by daylight, most certainly would.

  They reached the section the Mexican was bent upon searching. Most of the houses opened on the street, and natives were sitting in the doorways and out in front. Augustine questioned this one and that, proceeded swiftly from house to house, crossed the road and went down the other side. Adam and Merryvale kept pace with him, standing back when he questioned some one or knocked at a dark open door. It was another hot night. Soft laughter and low voices, a singer with a guitar, greeted the searchers at one house.

  That block and the next were canvassed by the indefatigable Mexican without producing a clew. But he kept on into a narrower and less pretentious street, where only an occasional dim light shone. Augustine turned into an archway while Adam and Merryvale waited in the shadow.

  Merryvale, giving way to gloom, leaned against a stone wall. He heard soft padding footfalls and imagined Augustine was returning. A dark form slipped into the dim flare of a light above the archway.

  Adam leaped like a tiger. The man uttered a low sharp cry and tried to swerve aside. But Adam’s long arm swept out and the heavy hand spun him round like a top. Next instant that hand clutched his shirt at the neck and swung him clear off his feet, hard against the wall.

  Merryvale saw the light shine down upon Stone, bareheaded, without coat or vest. He was gasping. Merryvale, in a fury of amaze and glee, bounded closer. Stone’s face was distorted, his tongue protruded. Then Adam released his grip, allowing Stone to drop down upon his feet. He choked and his hands beat wildly at his assailant.

  “Keep still or I’ll smash your head,” ordered Adam.

  “Don’t hit me—Wansfell!” cried Stone, in terror, ceasing to struggle.

  “Collishaw is dead,” returned Adam.

  “My God! … Don’t kill me, Wansfell!—I have Ruth—back here—locked in. I stole her from Collishaw…. Let me go—an’ I’ll take you—to her.”

  Then Stone, in the iron grip of the stalking Wansfell, led them down the dark areaway. Augustine met them, to clamor to his saints, and run along beside them. In the dust a light with reddish tinge shone through an iron-shuttered window. Stone halted at a door, and fumbling in his pocket found a key which he tried to insert in the doorlock.

  “Let go my arm—Wansfell,” he panted. “You paralyze me…. My hands shake so.”

  The key dropped to ring musically upon the stone doorstep.

  “Merryvale, pick it up. Open the door,” ordered Adam.

  A poignant exclamation from inside that door pierced Merryvale, as he bent to find the key.

  Chapter Eleven

  RUTH seemed to feel herself waking from a dreadful nightmare. Her consciousness returned with heavily lifting eyelids and was attended by dull pain.

  She saw faded curtains, bed posts, old plaster walls from which the pink tint had worn, a small barred window. All unfamiliar! This was not her room. Where was she? Still in a hideous dream?

  But she was awake. The place had substance, reality, not the vague distorted outlines of a dream. Ruth raised herself, suddenly conscious of extreme weakness. She lay on the yellow lace coverlet of a high bed in a room she had never seen in her life.

  Then successive waves of memory welled up, to overcome her with the flood of incidents that had rushed her to this sad pass.

  Stone’s confession that while under the influence of drink he had stolen money from Guerd Larey’s office desk; his persistent and abject importunity to her to intercede with Larey in his behalf; her reluctant consent and foolish walk down the path; the sudden enveloping of her head and shoulders in a blanket, and the violence which stifled her scream and subdued her struggles; her sense of being thrown into a wagon and held there, of being carried by rapid rolling wheels off into the desert. Then the smothering blanket had been removed. She lay face up to the stars, with Collishaw on one side, Stone on the other. Like a tigress she fought to escape—fought until her strength was spent. Then she lay there panting, with rage giving way to fright. Collishaw could not or would not keep his hands off her. Her scathing scorn and then her impassioned appeal seemed only to incite him the more; but they affected Stone. He remonstrated with Collishaw and finally used physical intervention.

  That dreadful night wore to gray dawn. The rolling of wheels ceased. She lay with hands bound by a scarf, in the wagon, which had been drawn under an ironwood tree. Hot and still the day came. She slept off and on through the heat, seemingly aware, even in her slumber, of these men, so fiercely at odds over her. Weary interminable hours of fear, of bewildered conjectures, of physical pangs! Then dusk and the lessening heat and the rolling wheels again. She remembered being lifted out of the wagon, carried on into the blackness—then oblivion. And here she had awakened in a strange room, weak and suffering, her white thin gown soiled, minus sleeves and otherwise torn, her arms showing dark bruises, her slippers gone.

  Ruth took serious stock of these black and blue marks, and of sundry painful places, ascertaining with great relief that she had not been otherwise injured or harmed. With difficulty she arose. Then she noticed a table in the center of the room. Some one had entered with a platter of food and drink, which was not yet cold. She had to rise on tiptoe to see out of the small window. Yuma! The river, the church, and many tiled roofs and colored walls came within line of her vision. The sun was westering towards the purple ranges of Arizona.

  Next she examined the room, the adjoining dark closet, and then tried the door. Locked! The door and walls were heavy and solid. From the barred window she could see only the roofs of buildings. She thought of screaming for help, and decided she would wait a while. Then she ate and drank, with difficulty, though the food was clean and appetizing.

  No other conception than that Guerd Larey was the instigator of this plot occurred to Ruth, However Collishaw and Stone had been influenced by her actual presence, had nothing to do with the idea of the abduction. Suddenly Ruth’s clearing mind flashed with the thought that as sure as the sun shone, Adam would come to
her rescue. She had not the slightest doubt that he was already on the track of these men. What would he do to them? Wansfell! A shudder ran over her, despite the heat.

  She must save herself until Adam found her. She must employ all a woman’s craft and courage to that end before Guerd Larey appeared on the scene. If he got to her before Adam—too late! Then once again Adam must become a fugitive from such hanging sheriffs as Collishaw—go back to the desert, with the real and not imaginary blood of a brother red on his hands, once more to the lonely life of Wansfell, the Wanderer.

  Ruth was terror-stricken at the very thought. In that moment she hated her beauty, her body, the poor frail vessel of flesh about which men became mad. No—not Adam! He loved her soul, her suffering, the thing she felt was her innermost self, the womanhood she had all but abased. Her kisses, her embraces that last night, her pleading to take her far away from the ghastly desert, had racked and torn him, but he had stood at the last like a rock. Not until she was free—and never could he free her! Even then the shame of her weakness and her failure burned within Ruth. What must he have thought of her? The same woman’s wiles she had used upon Stone! Passionately she repudiated the consciousness.

  Suddenly she sat bolt upright, all her thoughts suspended. Had she heard a step outside? Yes—another and another! A knock on the door brought her to consciousness of her captors. Hastily she covered her bare shoulders and arms with the bed coverlet. Then she heard her name called, low but surely. She ran to the door—knocked in reply—whispered. It was Merryvale. He spoke again, told her Adam was in town—they would come to get her. Ruth hardly knew what she was saying. Merryvale had tried the door and could not budge it.

  “I caint break down this door. But Adam can,” he whispered. “Keep up heart, Ruth.”

  “Hurry—Oh! hurry!” she whispered back. “Any moment he may come.”

  Merryvale’s light footsteps soon ceased. Ruth, with hands pressed over her pounding heart, leaned back against the door. Through the window she saw golden sunset—flushed clouds and blue sky. Adam was in Yuma. Would soon be there! What were doors or walls or chains to him? She prayed that there would be no hitch in Merryvale’s plan—that they would rescue her before Larey got to Yuma. What vile intention had actuated Larey? To get her away from home—to break her spirit and drag her down—then back to Lost Lake, submissive and lost to all except the life of a squaw! What a madman he was not to realize that she would kill him and then herself!

  Ruth began to pace the room in her stocking feet. Where had the fools lost her slippers? It enraged her to see the condition of her dress. Throwing aside the lace coverlet, which she had wrapped around her shoulders, she detached the faded curtain from the bed and tried that as a cloak. It would not attract undue attention. As for walking without shoes she would have been glad to tread upon hot sand and cactus—

  A key clicking in the lock interrupted her meditations. A rush of joyous excitement—and some emotion striking deeper—brought her erect, quivering. Merryvale and Adam had conceived to get the key. They were here.

  The lock rasped, the handle turned, the door opened. Stone entered. He was pale, determined.

  “Oh!” cried Ruth, with a shock of sickening disappointment.

  “Say, you must have read my mind,” he flashed, his glance running over the curtain which enveloped her. “Come. I’ll get you out of here.”

  “No,” replied Ruth, rallying.

  “Don’t be a fool. I can pack you an’ I will. Come,” he replied, angrily. He was nervous, cautious, and it was evident he did not have his ear near the crack of the door by accident.

  “Where do you want to take me?” she demanded, suspiciously.

  “Anywhere, but you must hurry. It’ll cost me my life to be caught.”

  “Did you—have you seen anybody?”

  “No. I’m in this deal alone. I’ll save you from that one-eyed Texan.”

  “Save me from Collishaw!…. Why?”

  “Because I really love you, Ruth,” he returned, with agitation.

  “You’ll save me for yourself?”

  “Sure, if you must know. But I love you an’ Collishaw doesn’t I saved you from him on the way here. didn’t I?”

  “Yes. And that goes a long way toward making up for your part in this. Don’t spoil it now, Hal.”

  “Listen to sense,” he replied, his throat contracting as he swallowed. His motive was powerful, but his fear seemed equally so. “I don’t want to pack you out of here fightin’ an’ kickin’ like you did last night. I’d excite curiosity. But I’ll do it, if you won’t come willingly.”

  “Hal, I’m afraid to trust you.”

  “But you’ll be worse off if you raise hell an’ spoil my game,” he declared, impatiently. “Collishaw is dickerin’ right now with Sanchez, and may be here any minute. He’s goin’ to double cross Larey an’ sell you…. Oh, don’t look that way! These men do these things. Besides if Collishaw an’ Sanchez don’t make away with you, Larey will be here tonight.”

  Ruth hesitated. If Adam did not come at once, before Collishaw, she would be in much greater danger than if she went with Stone, whom she felt sure she could manage for a while, at least, or else escape from him. Adam, not finding her at the Del Toro, would hunt for her, and the chances of tracking Stone were more favorable than of finding Collishaw. And, if Guerd Larey were the first to arrive—Ruth did not allow herself to finish the thought.

  “I’ll go with—you,” she faltered.

  Swiftly, then, Stone drew her out of the room and locked the door. It was almost dusk. The red afterglow of sunset lingered in the West. Stone took Ruth’s arm with no light hand and almost lifting her along, he hurried down the porch stairways to the courtyard. From here he led her into the side street and away from Sanchez’s place. They met several people, who apparently took no notice. Stone talked in forced casual tones. They went down a block and turned again, and proceeded to the poorer section of Yuma.

  “You said Sanchez, didn’t you?” asked Ruth. “Then that was the Del Toro?”

  “You bet it was, an’ no place for a white woman,” he returned, suggestively.

  “This path hurts my feet,” complained Ruth. “I haven’t any shoes. Don’t go so fast.”

  Stone slowed down to oblige her, and slightly relaxed his grip on her arm. Ruth had suddenly been seized with an idea to break away from Stone and escape. She could certainly have done it the moment they emerged from the Del Toro. If she had fled into the main street she could have eluded him or surely have been protected by some passerby. Yuma was always full of miners, freighters, teamsters, cowboys, gamblers, any of whom would deal harshly with such as Stone. Why had she not thought of it? They were now in the less frequented part of the town, far from the main street. She would wait until they encountered someone. But they went on half a block farther without meeting a single person. Moreover twilight was settling down thick.

  Ruth slipped out of Stone’s grasp and ran. She was light of foot and fleet. Fear lent her wings. She ran so fast that the wind whipped the curtain from her shoulders. She kept on. Then she heard Stone gaining on her. His boots thudded faster and faster. She felt that her heart would burst, that her last breath was leaving her and she could not draw another. Her pace broke. She labored, and was staggering on when Stone caught her.

  As he fiercely jerked her off her feet she tried to scream. But little breath was left to her. And Stone’s hand stifled her feeble cry.

  “You—wildcat!” he panted. “Try that—again—and see—what you get!”

  Ruth could not resist. She was not even able to walk. Dizzy and weak she would have fallen but for his support. Then he carried her along the street, into a gloomy areaway, where coming to a door, he put her down. Unlocking the door he dragged her into a dark room, where she sank to the floor. There she partially lost consciousness, though she heard Stone moving around and saw the darkness lighten.

  Then Stone lifted her into a chair. Ruth recovered presently to
see that she had been brought into a large, high-ceilinged apartment, stone-walled and stone-floored. The furniture and the iron-shuttered window indicated that this was the abode of Mexicans. Stone wiped his wet face and breathed heavily while he glared at her. He betrayed no apparent consciousness of her pitiable state. His bold eyes gloated over her bare arms and shoulders, over her dishevelled hair that fell like a shower of gold about her.

  “I heard Larey call you a wildcat an’ swear he’d tame you yet,” said Stone, almost with admiration. “I understand how he felt.”

  “Hal Stone, you have—no mind—or heart,” returned Ruth, weakly. “You’re just animal.”

  “Well, if you’re a wildcat what would you expect me to be?”

  “I was foolish to expect—you might have—had real pity. And I’m amazed at your lack of sense.”

  “I had sense enough to block Collishaw’s deal, which you don’t appreciate,” he returned, sullenly.

  “Your motive is selfish, not noble.”

  “I’ve yet to see you upliftin’ anybody to noble deeds, Ruth Larey.”

  “What’s the use of attempting the impossible,” retorted Ruth. “But listen. You don’t reason things out. You’re not bright, Hal Stone. Suppose you have got me now? I’m certainly helpless and miserable enough to excite pity in even a dog. Now that you have me—what’re you going to do with me?”

  “You’re a white elephant, all right, he acknowledged. “But I don’t care.”

  “But answer me. I’ve got a right to know your intentions.”

  “I’m going to take you away from Yuma if we have to walk.”

  “Suppose you do elude Collishaw and Guerd, and—but that’s silly of me. You cannot escape Adam Wansfell.”

  “Who? That wanderin’ desert rat? Aw, damn him! I tell you I don’t care,” he retorted, with a sullen passion that showed he hated to be made think.

  “You love life as well as anybody.”