by Zane Grey
A shadow darkened the sunny doorway. Looking up, she saw the man she believed to be her brother’s murderer.
“I came back, Bess, to see if I could do anything for you.”
The tone was kind; but the girl involuntarily put her hand to her throat, and caught her breath. She would like to speak out and tell him what she thought, but she dared not. She did not even dare let her thought appear in her eyes. The dull, statue-like look came over her face that she had worn at the grave. The man thought it was the stupefaction of grief.
“I told you I didn’t want any help,” she said, trying to speak in the same tone she had used when she thanked the men.
“Yes, but you’re all alone,” said the man insinuatingly; she felt a menace in the thought, “and I am sorry for you!”
He came nearer, but her face was cold. Instinctively she glanced to the cupboard door behind which lay her brother’s belt with two pistols.
“You’re very kind,” she forced herself to say; “but I’d rather be alone now.” It was hard to speak so when she would have liked to dash on him, and call down curses for the death of her brother; but she looked into his evil face, and a fear for herself worse than death stole into her heart.
He took encouragement from her gentle dignity. Where did she get that manner so imperial, she, born in a mountain cabin and bred on the wilds? How could she speak with an accent so different from those about her? The brother was not so, not so much so; the mother had been plain and quiet. He had not known her father, for he had lately come to this State in hiding from another. He wondered, with his wide knowledge of the world, over her wild, haughty beauty, and gloated over it. He liked to think just what worth was within his easy grasp. A prize for the taking, and here alone, unprotected.
“But it ain’t good for you to be alone, you know, and I’ve come to protect you. Besides, you need cheering up, little girl.” He came closer. “I love you, Bess, you know, and I’m going to take care of you now. You’re all alone. Poor little girl.”
He was so near that she almost felt his breath against her cheek. She faced him desperately, growing white to the lips. Was there nothing on earth or in heaven to save her? Mother! Father! Brother! All gone! Ah! Could she but have known that the quarrel which ended her wild young brother’s life had been about her, perhaps pride in him would have salved her grief, and choked her horror.
While she watched the green lights play in the evil eyes above her, she gathered all the strength of her young life into one effort, and schooled herself to be calm. She controlled her involuntary shrinking from the man, only drew herself back gently, as a woman with wider experience and gentler breeding might have done.
“Remember,” she said, “that my brother just lay there dead!” and she pointed to the empty centre of the room. The dramatic attitude was almost a condemnation to the guilty man before her. He drew back as if the sheriff had entered the room, and looked instinctively to where the coffin had been but a short time before, then laughed nervously and drew himself together.
The girl caught her breath, and took courage. She had held him for a minute; could she not hold him longer?
“Think!” said she. “He is but just buried. It is not right to talk of such things as love in this room where he has just gone out. You must leave me alone for a little while. I cannot talk and think now. We must respect the dead, you know.” She looked appealingly at him, acting her part desperately, but well. It was as if she were trying to charm a lion or an insane man.
He stood admiring her. She argued well. He was half minded to humor her, for somehow when she spoke of the dead he could see the gleam in her brother’s eyes just before he shot him. Then there was promise in this wooing. She was no girl to be lightly won, after all. She could hold her own, and perhaps she would be the better for having her way for a little. At any rate, there was more excitement in such game.
She saw that she was gaining, and her breath came freer.
“Go!” she said with a flickering smile. “Go! For—a little while,” and then she tried to smile again.
He made a motion to take her in his arms and kiss her; but she drew back suddenly, and spread her hands before her, motioning him back.
“I tell you you must not now. Go! Go! or I will never speak to you again.”
He looked into her eyes, and seemed to feel a power that he must obey. Half sullenly he drew back toward the door.
“But, Bess, this ain’t the way to treat a fellow,” he whined. “I came way back here to take care of you. I tell you I love you, and I’m going to have you. There ain’t any other fellow going to run off with you—”
“Stop!” she cried tragically. “Don’t you see you’re not doing right? My brother is just dead. I must have some time to mourn. It is only decent.” She was standing now with her back to the little cupboard behind whose door lay the two pistols. Her hand was behind her on the wooden latch.
“You don’t respect my trouble!” she said, catching her breath, and putting her hand to her eyes. “I don’t believe you care for me when you don’t do what I say.”
The man was held at bay. He was almost conquered by her sign of tears. It was a new phase of her to see her melt into weakness so. He was charmed.
“How long must I stay away?” he faltered.
She could scarcely speak, so desperate she felt. O if she dared but say, “Forever,” and shout it at him! She was desperate enough to try her chances at shooting him if she but had the pistols, and was sure they were loaded—a desperate chance indeed against the best shot on the Pacific coast, and a desperado at that.
She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples, and tried to think. At last she faltered out,
“Three days!”
He swore beneath his breath, and his brows drew down in heavy frowns that were not good to see. She shuddered at what it would be to be in his power forever. How he would play with her and toss her aside! Or kill her, perhaps, when he was tired of her! Her life on the mountain had made her familiar with evil characters.
He came a step nearer, and she felt she was losing ground.
Straightening up, she said coolly:
“You must go away at once, and not think of coming back at least until to-morrow night. Go!” With wonderful control she smiled at him, one frantic, brilliant smile; and to her great wonder he drew back. At the door he paused, a softened look upon his face.
“Mayn’t I kiss you before I go?”
She shuddered involuntarily, but put out her hands in protest again. “Not to-night!” She shook her head, and tried to smile.
He thought he understood her, but turned away half satisfied. Then she heard his step coming back to the door again, and she went to meet him. He must not come in. She had gained in sending him out, if she could but close the door fast. It was in the doorway that she faced him as he stood with one foot ready to enter again. The crafty look was out upon his face plainly now, and in the sunlight she could see it.
“You will be all alone to-night.”
“I am not afraid,” calmly. “And no one will trouble me. Don’t you know what they say about the spirit of a man—” she stopped; she had almost said “a man who has been murdered”—“coming back to his home the first night after he is buried?” It was her last frantic effort.
The man before her trembled, and looked around nervously.
“You better come away to-night with me,” he said, edging away from the door.
“See, the sun is going down! You must go now,” she said imperiously; and reluctantly the man mounted his restless horse, and rode away down the mountain.
She watched him silhouetted against the blood-red globe of the sun as it sank lower and lower. She could see every outline of his slouch-hat and muscular shoulders as he turned now and then and saw her standing still alone at her cabi
n door. Why he was going he could not tell; but he went, and he frowned as he rode away, with the wicked gleam still in his eye; for he meant to return.
At last he disappeared; and the girl, turning, looked up, and there rode the white ghost of the moon overhead. She was alone.
CHAPTER II
THE FLIGHT
A great fear settled down upon the girl as she realized that she was alone and, for a few hours at least, free. It was a marvellous escape. Even now she could hear the echo of the man’s last words, and see his hateful smile as he waved his good-by and promised to come back for her to-morrow.
She felt sure he would not wait until the night. It might be he would return even yet. She cast another reassuring look down the darkening road, and strained her ear; but she could no longer hear hoof-beats. Nevertheless, it behooved her to hasten. He had blanched at her suggestion of walking spirits; but, after all, his courage might arise. She shuddered to think of his returning later, in the night. She must fly somewhere at once.
Instantly her dormant senses seemed to be on the alert. Fully fledged plans flashed through her brain. She went into the cabin, and barred the door. She made every movement swiftly, as if she had not an instant to spare. Who could tell? He might return even before dark. He had been hard to baffle, and she did not feel at all secure. It was her one chance of safety to get away speedily, whither it mattered little, only so she was away and hidden.
Her first act inside the cottage was to get the belt from the cupboard and buckle it around her waist. She examined and loaded the pistols. Her throat seemed seized with sudden constriction when she discovered that the barrels had been empty and the weapons would have done her no good even if she could have reached them.
She put into her belt the sharp little knife her brother used to carry, and then began to gather together everything eatable that she could carry with her. There was not much that could be easily carried—some dried beef, a piece of cheese, some corn-meal, a piece of pork, a handful of cheap coffee-berries, and some pieces of hard corn bread. She hesitated over a pan half full of baked beans, and finally added them to the store. They were bulky, but she ought to take them if she could. There was nothing else in the house that seemed advisable to take in the way of eatables. Their stores had been running low, and the trouble of the last day or two had put housekeeping entirely out of her mind. She had not cared to eat, and now it occurred to her that food had not passed her lips that day. With strong self-control she forced herself to eat a few of the dry pieces of corn bread, and to drink some cold coffee that stood in the little coffee-pot. This she did while she worked, wasting not one minute.
There were some old flour-sacks in the house. She put the eatables into two of them, with the pan of beans on the top, adding a tin cup, and tied them securely together. Then she went into her little shed room, and put on the few extra garments in her wardrobe. They were not many, and that was the easiest way to carry them. Her mother’s wedding-ring, sacredly kept in a box since the mother’s death, she slipped upon her finger. It seemed the closing act of her life in the cabin, and she paused and bent her head as if to ask the mother’s permission that she might wear the ring. It seemed a kind of protection to her in her lonely situation.
There were a few papers and an old letter or two yellow with years, which the mother had always guarded sacredly. One was the certificate of her mother’s marriage. The girl did not know what the others were. She had never looked into them closely, but she knew that her mother had counted them precious. These she pinned into the bosom of her calico gown. Then she was ready.
She gave one swift glance of farewell about the cabin where she had spent nearly all of her life that she could remember, gathered up the two flour-sacks and an old coat of her father’s that hung on the wall, remembering at the last minute to put into its pocket the few matches and the single candle left in the house, and went out from the cabin, closing the door behind her.
She paused, looking down the road, and listened again; but no sound came to her save a distant howl of a wolf. The moon rode high and clear by this time; and it seemed not so lonely here, with everything bathed in soft silver, as it had in the darkening cabin with its flickering candle.
The girl stole out from the cabin and stealthily across the patch of moonlight into the shadow of the shackly barn where stamped the poor, ill-fed, faithful horse that her brother had ridden to his death upon. All her movements were stealthy as a cat’s.
She laid the old coat over the horse’s back, swung her brother’s saddle into place,—she had none of her own, and could ride his, or without any; it made no difference, for she was perfectly at home on horseback,—and strapped the girths with trembling fingers that were icy cold with excitement. Across the saddle-bows she hung the two flour-sacks containing her provisions. Then with added caution she tied some old burlap about each of the horse’s feet. She must make no sound and leave no track as she stole forth into the great world.
The horse looked curiously down and whinnied at her, as she tied his feet up clumsily. He did not seem to like his new habiliments, but he suffered anything at her hand.
“Hush!” she murmured softly, laying her cold hands across his nostrils; and he put his muzzle into her palm, and seemed to understand.
She led him out into the clear moonlight then, and paused a second, looking once more down the road that led away in front of the cabin; but no one was coming yet, though her heart beat high as she listened, fancying every falling bough or rolling stone was a horse’s hoof-beat.
There were three trails leading away from the cabin, for they could hardly be dignified by the name of road. One led down the mountain toward the west, and was the way they took to the nearest clearing five or six miles beyond and to the supply store some three miles further. One led off to the east, and was less travelled, being the way to the great world; and the third led down behind the cabin, and was desolate and barren under the moon. It led down, back, and away to desolation, where five graves lay stark and ugly at the end. It was the way they had taken that afternoon.
She paused just an instant as if hesitating which way to take. Not the way to the west—ah, any but that! To the east? Yes, surely, that must be the trail she would eventually strike; but she had a duty yet to perform. That prayer was as yet unsaid, and before she was free to seek safety—if safety there were for her in the wide world—she must take her way down the lonely path. She walked, leading the horse, which followed her with muffled tread and arched neck as if he felt he were doing homage to the dead. Slowly, silently, she moved along into the river of moonlight and dreariness; for the moonlight here seemed cold, like the graves it shone upon, and the girl, as she walked with bowed head, almost fancied she saw strange misty forms flit past her in the night.
As they came in sight of the graves, something dark and wild with plumy tail slunk away into the shadows, and seemed a part of the place. The girl stopped a moment to gain courage in full sight of the graves, and the horse snorted, and stopped too, with his ears a-quiver, and a half-fright in his eyes.
She patted his neck and soothed him incoherently, as she buried her face in his mane for a moment, and let the first tears that had dimmed her eyes since the blow had fallen come smarting their way out. Then, leaving the horse to stand curiously watching her, she went down and stood at the head of the new-heaped mound. She tried to kneel, but a shudder passed through her. It was as if she were descending into the place of the dead herself; so she stood up and raised her eyes to the wide white night and the moon riding so high and far away.
“Our Father,” she said in a voice that sounded miles away to herself. Was there any Father, and could He hear her? And did He care? “Which art in heaven—” but heaven was so far away and looked so cruelly serene to her in her desolateness and danger! “hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come—” whatever that might mean. “Thy will be done in earth,
as it is in heaven.” It was a long prayer to pray, alone with the pale moon-rain and the graves, and a distant wolf, but it was her mother’s wish. Her will being done here over the dead—was that anything like the will of the Father being done in heaven? Her untrained thoughts hovered on the verge of great questions, and then slipped back into her pathetic self and its fear, while her tongue hurried on through the words of the prayer.
Once the horse stirred and breathed a soft protest. He could not understand why they were stopping so long in this desolate place, for nothing apparently. He had looked and looked at the shapeless mound before which the girl was standing; but he saw no sign of his lost master, and his instincts warned him that there were wild animals about. Anyhow, this was no place for a horse and a maid to stop in the night.
A few loose stones rattled from the horse’s motion. The girl started, and looked hastily about, listening for a possible pursuer; but everywhere in the white sea of moonlight there was empty, desolate space. On to the “Amen” she finished then, and with one last look at the lonely graves she turned to the horse. Now they might go, for the duty was done, and there was no time to be lost.
Somewhere over toward the east across that untravelled wilderness of white light was the trail that started to the great world from the little cabin she had left. She dared not go back to the cabin to take it, lest she find herself already followed. She did not know the way across this lonely plain, and neither did the horse. In fact, there was no way, for it was all one arid plain so situated that human traveller seldom came near it, so large and so barren that one might wander for hours and gain no goal, so dry that nothing would grow.
With another glance back on the way she had come, the girl mounted the horse and urged him down into the valley. He stepped cautiously into the sandy plain, as if he were going into a river and must try its depth. He did not like the going here, but he plodded on with his burdens. The girl was light; he did not mind her weight; but he felt this place uncanny, and now and then would start on a little spurt of haste, to get into a better way. He liked the high mountain trails, where he could step firmly and hear the twigs crackle under his feet, not this muffled, velvet way where one made so little progress and had to work so hard.