by Zane Grey
It was the dispeller of gloom, the bringer of hope. Allie Lee, lost in the heights, held out her arms to the east and the sun, and she cried: “Oh God! Oh! Neale . . . Neale!”
* * * * *
When she turned to look down into the valley below, she saw the white winding ribbon-like trail and with her eye she followed it to where the valley opened wide upon the plains.
She must go down the slope to the cover of the trees and brush, and there work along eastward, ever with eye alert. She must meet with travelers within a few days, or perish of starvation, or again fall into the hands of the Sioux. Thirst she did not fear, for the recent heavy rain had left water holes everywhere.
With action her spirit arose and the numbness of hands and feet left her. Time passed swiftly. The sun stood straight overhead before she realized she had walked miles, and it declined westward as she skulked like an Indian from tree to tree, from bush to bush, along the first bench of the valley floor.
Night overtook her at the gateway of the valley. The vast monotony of the plains opened before her, like a gulf. She feared it. She found a mound of earth with a wind-worn shelf in its side and overgrown with sage, and into this she crawled, curled in the sand and prayed and slept.
Next day she took up a position some few hundred yards from the trail and followed its course, straining her eyes to see before and behind her, husbanding her strength with frequent rests, and drinking from every pond.
That day, too, like its predecessor, passed swiftly by, and left her out upon the huge, billowy, heaving bosom of the plains. Again she sought a hiding place, but none offered. There was no warmth in the sand and the night wind arose, cold, moaning. She could not sleep. The whole empty world seemed haunted. Rustlings of the sage, seeping of the sand, gusts of the wind, and the night, and the loneliness, and the faithless stars and a treacherous moon that sank, and the wailing of wolves—all worked upon her mind and spirit until she lost her courage. She feared to shut her eyes or cover her face, for then she could not see the stealthy forms stalking her out of the gloom. She prayed no more to her star.
“Oh, God! Have you forsaken me?” she moaned.
The answer was there in the great silence, so much more striking because of the raw and puny little ghosts of sounds in the vast lonely empty hall of the night, so terrible now in its reality.
How relentless the grip of the endless hours! The black night held. And yet when she had grown nearly mad waiting for the dawn, it broke, ruddy and bright, with the sun as always a promise.
Allie found no water that day. She suffered from the lack of it, but hunger appeared to have fled. Her strength diminished, yet she walked and plodded miles on miles, always gazing hopelessly and hopefully along the winding trail.
At the close of the short and merciful day, despair seized upon part of Allie’s mind. With night came gloom—the old somber spirit—memory of her mother’s fate. It impinged upon that later spirit and at intervals thrust aside the face of the man that had almost become to her the face of God. She clung to a strange faith. But all reason, all fact, all reality, all present pointed to her doom—starvation—death by thirst—or Indians! A thousand times she imagined she heard the fleet hoof beating of many mustangs. Only the tiny pats of the broken sage leaves in the wind!
It was a dark and cloudy night, warmer and threatening rain. She kept continuously turning around and around to see what it was that was creeping up behind her so stealthily. How horrible was the dark—the blackness that showed invisible things. A wolf sent up his hungry, lonely cry. She did not fear this reality as she feared the intangible. If she lived through this night, then another like it would return the horror. She would rather not live. Yet like a creature beset by foes all around she watched, she faced every little sound, she peered into the darkness, shaking and cold, instinctively unable wholly to give up, to end the struggle, to lie down and die.
Neale was with her. He was alive. He was thinking of her at that moment. He would expect her to overcome self and accident and calamity. He spoke to her out of the distance and his voice had the old power, stranger than fear, exhaustion, hopelessness, insanity. He could call her back from the grave.
And so the night passed.
In the morning, when the sun lit the level land, far down the trail westward gleamed a long white line of moving wagons. Allie uttered a wild and broken cry, in which all the torture shuddered out of her heart. Again she was saved! That black doubt was shame to her spirit. She prayed her thanksgiving and vowed in her prayers that no adversity, however cruel, could ever shake her faith or conquer her spirit.
She was going on to meet Neale. Life was suddenly sweet again, unutterably full, blazing like the sunrise. He was there—somewhere to the eastward.
* * * * *
She waited. The caravan was miles away. But no mirage—no trick of the wide plain! She watched. If the hours of night had been long, what were these hours of day with life and happiness for her creeping along in that caravan?
At last she saw the scouts riding in front and alongside, and the plodding oxen. It was a large caravan, well equipped for defense.
She left the little rise of ground and made for the trail. How uneven the walking. She staggered. Her legs were weak. But she gained the trail and stood there. She waved. They were not so far away. Surely she would be seen. She staggered on—waved again.
There! The leading scout had halted. He pointed. Other riders crowded around him. The caravan halted.
Allie heard voices. She waved her arms and tried to run. A scout dismounted—advanced to meet her—rifle ready. The caravan feared a Sioux trick. Allie descried a lean gray old man—now striding rapidly.
“It’s a white gal!” she heard him shout.
Others ran forward, then came on as she staggered to meet them.
“I’m alone . . . I’m . . . lost . . .” she faltered.
“A white gal in Injun dress,” said another.
And then kind hands were outstretched to her.
“I’m . . . running . . . away . . . Indians,” panted Allie.
“Whar?” asked the lean old scout.
“Over the ridges . . . miles . . . twenty miles . . . more. They had me. I got . . . away . . . Four . . . three days ago.”
The group around Allie opened to admit another man.
“What’s this . . . who’s this?” called a quick voice, soft and liquid, yet with a quality of steel in it.
Allie had heard that voice. She saw a tall man in long black coat and wide black hat and flounced vest and flowing tie. Her heart contracted.
“Allie!” rang the voice.
She looked up to see a dark handsome face—a Spanish face with almond eyes, sloe-black and magnetic—a face that suddenly blazed.
She recognized the man with whom her mother had run away . . . who she had long believed her father . . . the adventurer Durade! Then she fainted.
Chapter Fourteen
Allie recovered to find herself lying in a canvas-covered wagon and being worked over by several sympathetic women.
She did not see Durade. But she knew she had not been mistaken. The wagon was rolling along as fast as oxen could travel. Evidently the caravan had been alarmed by the proximity of Sioux and was making as much progress as possible.
Allie did not answer many questions. She drank thirstily, but was too exhausted to eat.
“Whose caravan?” was the only query she made.
“Durade’s,” replied one woman, and it was evident from the way she spoke that this was a man of consequence.
As Allie lay there, slowly succumbing to weariness and drowsiness, she thought of the irony of fate that had led her to escape the Sioux only to fall into the hands of Durade. Still there was hope. Durade was traveling toward the East. Out there somewhere he would meet Neale, and then blood would be spilled. She had always regarded Durade strangely, wondering that, in spite of his kindness to her, she could not really care for him. She understood now and hated him pas
sionately. And if there was anyone she feared, Durade was he. Allie lost herself in the past, seeing the stream of mixed humanity that passed through Durade’s gambling halls. No doubt he was on his way now, first to search for her mother, and secondly to profit by the building of the railroad. But he would never find her mother. Allie was glad.
At length she fell asleep and slept long, then dozed at intervals. The caravan halted. Allie heard the familiar singsong calls to the oxen. Soon all was bustle about her, and this fully awakened her. In a moment or more she must expect to be face to face with Durade. What should she tell him? How much should she let him know? Not one word about her mother. He would be less afraid of her if he found out that her mother was dead. Durade had always feared Allie’s mother.
The women with whom Allie had ridden helped her out of the wagon, and, finding her too weak to stand, they made a bed for her on the ground. The campsite appeared to be just the same as any other part of that monotonous plain land. Evidently there was a stream or water hole nearby. Allie saw her companions were the only women in the caravan, and were plain persons, blunt yet kind, used to hard honest work, and probably wives of defenders of the wagon train.
They could not conceal their curiosity in regard to Allie, nor their wonder. She had heard them whispering together whenever they came near.
Presently Allie saw Durade. He was approaching. How well she remembered him! Yet the lapse of time and the change between the childhood when she had been with him and the present seemed incalculable. He spoke to the women, motioning in her direction. His bearing and action was that of a man of education, and a gentleman. Yet he looked what her mother had called him—a broken man of class—an adventurer, victim to some passion.
He came and knelt by Allie. “How are you now?” he asked. His voice was gentle and courteous, different from that of other men. It was as if he had learned to speak that way before he had come among rough Western men.
“I can’t stand up,” replied Allie.
“Are you hurt?”
“No . . . only worn out.”
“You escaped from Indians?”
“Yes . . . a tribe of Sioux. They intended to keep me captive. But a young squaw freed me . . . led me off.”
He paused as if it was an effort to speak and a long thin shapely hand went to his throat. “Your mother?” he asked hoarsely. Suddenly his face had turned white.
Allie gazed straight into his eyes, with wonder, pain, suspicion.
“My mother! I’ve not seen her for nearly two years.”
“My God! What happened? You lost her? You became separated? Indians . . . bandits . . . ? Tell me!”
“I have . . . no . . . more to tell,” said Allie. His pain revived her own. She pitied Durade. He had changed—aged—there were lines new to her.
“I spent a year in . . . and around Ogden . . . searching,” went on Durade. “Tell me . . . more.”
“No!” cried Allie.
“Do you know . . . then?” he asked very low.
“I’m not your daughter . . . and Mother ran off from you. Yes, I know that,” replied Allie bitterly.
“But I brought you up . . . took care of you . . . helped educate you,” protested Durade with agitation. “You were my own child, I thought. I was always kind to you. I . . . I loved the mother in the daughter.”
“Yes, I know . . . But you were wicked.”
“If you won’t tell, it must mean she’s still alive,” he replied swiftly. “She’s not . . . dead! I’ll find her. I’ll make her come back to me . . . or kill her . . . After all these years . . . to leave me!”
He seemed wrestling with mingled emotions. The man was proud and strong, but defeat in life, in the crowning passion of life, showed in his white face. The evil in him was not manifest then.
“Where have you lived all this time?” he asked presently.
“Back in the hills with a trapper.”
“You have grown. When I saw you, I thought it was the ghost of your mother. You are just as she was . . . when we met.”
He seemed lost in sad retrospection. Allie saw streaks of gray in his once jet-black hair.
“What will you do?” asked Allie.
He was startled. The softness left him. A blaze seemed to leap under skin and eyes, and suddenly he was different—he was Durade the gambler, instinct with the lust for gold and life.
“Your mother left me for you,” he said with terrible bitterness. “I’ll keep you. I’ll hold you to get even with her.”
Allie felt stir in her the fear she had had of him in her childhood when she disobeyed. “But you can’t keep me against my will . . . not any more . . . among people we’ll meet eastward.”
“I can . . . and I will!” he declared softly but implacably. “We’re not going East. We’ll be in rougher camps than gold camps of California. There’s no law except gold and guns out here . . . But . . . if you speak of me to anyone . . . if you try to get away . . . may your God have mercy on you.”
The blaze of him then was the Spaniard. He meant more than dishonor, torture, and death. The evil in him was rampant. The love that had been the only good in an abnormal and disordered mind had turned to hate.
Allie knew him. He was the first who had ever dominated her through sheer force of will. Unless she abided by his command, her fate would be worse than if she had stayed captive among the Sioux. This man was not American. His years among men of later mold had not changed the old-world cruelty of his nature. She recognized the fact in utter despair. She had not strength left to keep her eyes open.
After a while Allie grew conscious that Durade had left her. She felt like a creature that had been fascinated by a deadly snake, and left, only to await its return. Shudderingly, mournfully she resigned herself to the feeling that she must stay under Durade’s control until a dominance stronger than his released her. Neale seemed suddenly to have retreated far into the past in her consciousness. A call of his voice—the sight of his face would make that spirit of hers—his spirit—leap like a tigress in her defense. But where was Neale? The habits of life were all-powerful, and all her habits had been formed under Durade’s magnetic eye. Neale retreated—and so did spirit, courage, hope. Love remained, despairing, yet unquenchable.
Allies’s resignation established a return to normal feelings. She ate and grew stronger; she slept and was refreshed.
The caravan moved on, twenty-five miles a day. At the next camp Allie tried walking again, to find her feet were bruised, her legs cramped, and action awkward and painful. But she persevered, and the tingling of revived circulation was like needles pricking her flesh. She limped from one campfire to another, and all the rough men had a kind word or question or glance for her. Allie did not believe they were all honest men. Durade had employed a large force and apparently he had taken all who applied. Miners, hunters, scouts, and men of no hallmark except that of wildness composed the mixed caravan. It spoke much for Durade that they were under control. Allie well remembered hearing her mother say that he had a genius for drawing men to him and managing them.
Once, during her walk, when everyone appeared busy, a big fellow, with hulking shoulders, and bandaged head, stepped beside her.
“Girl,” he whispered, “if you want a knife slipped into Durade . . . tell him about me.”
Allie recognized the whisper before she did the heated red face with its crooked nose and bold eyes and ugly mouth. Fresno! He had escaped from the Sioux and had fallen in with Durade.
Allie shrank from him. Durade, compared to this kind of ruffian, was a haven of refuge. She passed on without a sign. But Fresno was safe from her. This meeting made her aware of an impulse to run back to Durade, instinctively, as she had when a child. He had ruined her mother; he had meant to make a lure of her, the daughter; he had showed what his vengeance would be to that mother, as he had showed Allie her doom should she betray him. But notwithstanding all this, Durade was not Fresno, nor like any of those men whose eyes seemed to burn her.
She returned to the wagon, and to the several women and men attached to it, with the assurance that there were at least some good persons with the caravan. The women, naturally curious and sympathetic, questioned her in one way and another, about who she was, what had happened to her, where her people or friends were, how she had ever escaped robbers and Indians in that awful country, and they asked if she was really Durade’s daughter.
Allie did not tell much about herself, and finally she was left in peace.
The lean old scout, who had first seen Allie as she staggered into the trail, told her it was over a hundred miles to the first camp of the railroad builders.
“Downhill all the way,” he concluded. “An’ we’ll make it in a jiffy.”
Nevertheless it took nearly all of four days to sight the camp of the graders—the advance guard of the great construction work.
In those four days Allie had recovered her bloom, her health, her strength, all except the wonderful assurance that had been hers. Durade had spoken daily with her, and had been kind, watchful, like a guardian.
It was with a curious thrill that Allie gazed out as she rode into the construction camp. Horses and men and implements all following the line of Neale’s work! Could Neale be there? If so, how dead was her heart to his nearness?
White and soiled and ragged tents stretched everywhere; huge tents belched smoke and resounded with the ring of hammers on anvil; soldiers stood on guard; men, red-shirted and blue-shirted, swarmed as thick as ants; in a wide hollow a long line of horses, in double row, heads together, pulled hay from a rack as long as the line, and they pulled and snorted and bit at each other; a strong smell of hay and burning wood mingled with the odor of hot coffee and steaming beans; fires blazed on all sides; inside another huge tent, or many tents without walls, stretched wooden tables and benches; on the scant sage and rocks and brush and everywhere upon the tents lay in a myriad of colors and varieties the late washed clothes of the toilers, and through the wide street of the camp clattered teams and swearing teamsters, dragging plows with clanking chains and huge scoops turned upside down. Bordering the camp, running east as far as eyes could see, stretched a high, flat, yellow lane, with the earth hollowed away from it, so that it stood higher than the level plain—and this was the work of the graders, the roadbed of the U.P.R.