by Zane Grey
“I suppose you’ll marry her,” he said.
Neale blushed like a girl. “It—that hadn’t occurred to me, sir,” he stammered.
Lodge laughed, but his glance was kind. “Sure you’ll marry her,” he said. “You saved her life. And, boy, you’ll be a big man of the U. P. some day. Chief engineer or superintendent of maintenance of way or some other big job. What could be finer? Romance, boy. The little waif of the caravan—you’ll send her back to Omaha to school; she’ll grow into a beautiful woman! She’ll have a host of admirers, but you’ll be the king of the lot—sure.”
Neale got out of the tent with tingling ears. He was used to the badinage of the men, and had always retaliated with a sharp and ready tongue. But this half-kind, half-humorous talk encroached upon what he felt to be the secret side of his nature—the romantic and the dreamful side—to which such fancies were unconscionably dear.
Early the next morning Neale and King rode out on the way to Slingerland’s.
The sun was warm when they reached the valley through which ran the stream that led up to the cabin. Spring was in the air. The leaves of cottonwood and willow added their fresh emerald to the darker green of the pine. Bluebells showed in the grass along the trail; there grew lavender and yellow flowers unfamiliar to Neale; trout rose and splashed on the surface of the pools; and the way was melodious with the humming of bees and the singing of birds.
Slingerland saw them coming and strode out to meet them with hearty greeting.
“Is she all right?” queried Neale, abruptly.
“No, she ain’t,” replied Slingerland, shaking his shaggy head. “She won’t eat or move or talk. She’s wastin’ away. She jest sits or lays with that awful look in her eyes.”
“Can’t you make her talk?”
“Wal, she’ll say no to ’most anythin’. There was three times she asked when you was comin’ back. Then she quit askin’. I reckon she’s forgot you. But she’s never forgot thet bloody massacre. It’s there in her eyes.”
Neale dismounted, and, untying the pack from his saddle, he laid it down, removed saddle and bridle; then he turned the horse loose. He did this automatically while his mind was busy.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Over thar under the pines whar the brook spills out of the spring. Thet’s the only place she’ll walk to. I believe she likes to listen to the water. An’ she’s always afraid.”
“I’ve fetched a pack of things for her,” said Neale. “Come on, Red.”
“Shore you go alone,” replied the cowboy, hanging back. “Girls is not my job.”
So Neale approached alone. The spot was green, fragrant, shady, bright with flowers, musical with murmuring water. Presently he spied her—a drooping, forlorn little figure. The instant he saw her he felt glad and sad at once. She started quickly at his step and turned. He remembered the eyes, but hardly the face. It had grown thinner and whiter than the one he had in mind.
“My Lord! she’s going to die!” breathed Neale. “What can I do—what can I say to her?”
He walked directly but slowly up to her, aware of her staring eyes, and confused by them.
“Hello! little girl, I’ve brought you some things,” he said, and tried to speak cheerfully.
“Oh—is—it you?” she said, brokenly.
“Yes, it’s Neale. I hope you’ve not forgotten me.”
There came a fleeting change over her, but not in her face, he thought, because not a muscle moved, and the white stayed white. It must have been in her eyes, though he could not certainly tell. He bent over to untie the pack.
“I’ve brought you a lot of things,” he said. “Hope you’ll find them useful. Here—”
She did not look at the open pack or pay any attention to him. The drooping posture had been resumed, together with the somber staring at the brook. Neale watched her in despair, and, watching, he divined that only the most infinite patience and magnetism and power could bring her out of her brooding long enough to give nature a chance. He recognized how unequal he was to the task. But the impossible or the unattainable had always roused Neale’s spirit. Defeat angered him. This girl was alive; she was not hurt physically; he believed she could be made to forget that tragic night of blood and death. He set his teeth and swore he would display the tact of a woman, the patience of a saint, the skill of a physician, the love of a father—anything to hold back this girl from the grave into which she was fading. Reaching out, he touched her.
“Can you understand me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she murmured. Her voice was thin, far away, an evident effort.
“I saved your life.”
“I wish you had let me die.” Her reply was quick with feeling, and it thrilled Neale because it was a proof that he could stimulate or aggravate her mind.
“But I did save you. Now you owe me something.”
“What?”
“Why, gratitude—enough to want to live, to try to help yourself.”
“No—no,” she whispered, and relapsed into the somber apathy.
Neale could scarcely elicit another word from her; then by way of change he held out different articles he had brought—scarfs, a shawl, a mirror—and made her look at them. Her own face in the mirror did not interest her. He tried to appeal to a girl’s vanity. She had none.
“Your hair is all tangled,” he said, bringing forth comb and brush. “Here, smooth it out.”
“No—no—no,” she moaned.
“All right, I’ll do it for you,” he countered. Surprised at finding her passive when he had expected resistance, he began to comb out the tangled tresses. In his earnestness he did not perceive how singular his action might seem to an onlooker. She had a mass of hair that quickly began to smooth out and brighten under his hand. He became absorbed in his task and failed to see the approach of Larry King.
The cowboy was utterly amazed, and presently he grinned his delight. Evidently the girl was all right and no longer to be feared.
“Wal, shore thet’s fine,” he drawled. “Neale, I always knowed you was a lady’s man.” And Larry sat down beside them.
The girl’s face was half hidden under the mass of hair, and her head was lowered. Neale gave Larry a warning glance, meant to convey that he was not to be funny.
“This is my cowboy friend, Larry Red King,” said Neale. “He was with me when I—I found you.”
“Larry—Red—King,” murmured the girl. “My name is—Allie.”
Again Neale had penetrated into her close-locked mind. What she said astounded him so that he dropped the brush and stared at Larry. And Larry lost his grin; he caught a glimpse of her face, and his own grew troubled.
“Allie—I shore—am glad to meet you,” he said, and there was more feeling in his voice than Neale had ever before heard. Larry was not slow of comprehension. He began to talk in his drawling way. Neale heard him with a smile he tried to hide, but he liked Larry the better for his simplicity. This gun-throwing cowboy had a big heart.
Larry, however, did not linger for long. His attempts to get the girl to talk grew weaker and ended; then, after another glance at the tragic, wan face he got up and thoughtfully slouched away.
“So your name is Allie,” said Neale. “Well, Allie what?”
She did not respond to one out of a hundred questions, and this query found no lodgment in her mind.
“Will you braid your hair now?” he asked.
The answer was the low and monotonous negative, but, nevertheless, her hands sought her hair and parted it, and began to braid it mechanically. This encouraged Neale more than anything else; it showed him that there were habits of mind into which he could turn her. Finally he got her to walk along the brook and also to eat and drink.
At the end of that day he was more exhausted than he would have been after a hard climb. Yet he was encouraged to think that he could get some kind of passive unconscious obedience from her.
“Reckon you’d better stay over tomorrow,” suggeste
d Slingerland. His concern for the girl could not have been greater had she been his own daughter. “Allie—thet was her name, you said. Wal, it’s pretty an’ easy to say.”
Next day Allie showed an almost imperceptible improvement. It might have been Neale’s imagination leading him to believe that there were really grounds for hope. The trapper and the cowboy could not get any response from her, but there was certain proof that he could. The conviction moved him to deep emotion.
An hour before sunset Neale decided to depart, and told Larry to get the horses. Then he went to Allie, undecided what to say, feeling that he must have tortured her this day with his ceaseless importunities. How small the chance that he might again awaken the springs of life interest. Yet the desire was strong within him to try.
“Allie.” He repeated her name before she heard him. Then she looked up. The depths—the tragic lonesomeness—of her eyes—haunted Neale.
“I’m going back. I’ll come again soon.”
She made a quick movement—seized his arm. He remembered the close, tight grip of her hands.
“Don’t go!” she implored. Black fear stared out of her eyes.
Neale was thunderstruck at the suddenness of her speech—at its intensity. Also he felt an unfamiliar kind of joy. He began to explain that he must return to work, that he would soon come to see her again; but even as he talked she faded back into that dull and somber apathy.
Neale rode away with only one conviction gained from the developments of the two days; it was that he would be restless and haunted until he could go to her again. Something big and moving—something equal to his ambition for his work on the great railroad—had risen in him and would not be denied.
CHAPTER 7
Neale rode to Slingerland’s cabin twice during the ensuing fortnight, but did not note any improvement in Allie’s condition or demeanor. The trapper, however, assured Neale that she was gradually gaining a little and taking some slight interest in things; he said that if Neale could only spend enough time there the girl might recover. This made Neale thoughtful.
General Lodge and his staff had decided to station several engineers in camp along the line of the railroad for the purpose of studying the drift of snow. It was important that all information possible should be obtained during the next few winters. There would be severe hardships attached to this work, but Neale volunteered to serve, and the chief complimented him warmly. He was to study the action of the snowdrift along Sherman Pass.
Upon his next visit to Slingerland Neale had the project soberly in mind and meant to broach it upon the first opportunity.
This morning, when Neale and King rode up to the cabin, Allie did not appear as upon the last occasion of their arrival. Neale missed her.
Slingerland came out with his usual welcome.
“Where’s Allie?” asked Neale.
“Wal, she went in jest now. She saw you comin’ an’ then run in to hide, I reckon. Girls is queer critters.”
“She watched for me—for us—and then ran?” queried Neale, curiously.
“Wal, she ain’t done nothin’ but watch fer you since you went away last. An’, son, thet’s a new wrinkle fer Allie, An’ run? Wal, like a skeered deer.”
“Wonder what that means?” pondered Neale. Whatever it meant, it sent a little tingle of pleasure along his pulses. “Red, I want to have a serious talk with Slingerland,” he announced, thoughtfully.
“Shore; go ahaid an’ talk,” drawled the Southerner, as he slipped his saddle and turned his horse loose with a slap on the flank. “I reckon I’ll take a gun an’ stroll off fer a while.”
Neale led the trapper aside to a shady spot under the pines and there unburdened himself of his plan for the winter.
“Son, you’ll freeze to death!” ejaculated the trapper.
“I must build a cabin, of course, and prepare for severe weather,” replied Neale.
Slingerland shook his shaggy head. “I reckon you ain’t knowin’ these winters hyar as I know them. But thet long ridge you call Sherman Pass—it ain’t so fur we couldn’t get thar on snow-shoes except in the wust weather. I reckon you can stay with me hyar.”
“Good!” exclaimed Neale. “And now about Allie.”
“Wal, what about her?”
“Shall I leave her here or send her back to Omaha with the first caravan, or let her go to Fort Fetterman with the troops?”
“Son, she’s your charge, but I say leave her hyar, ’specially now you can be with us. She’d die or go crazy if you sent her. Why, she won’t even say if she’s got a livin’ relation. I reckon she hain’t. She’d be better hyar. I’ve come to be fond of Allie. She’s strange. She’s like a spirit. But she’s more human lately.”
“I’m glad you say that, Slingerland,” replied Neale. “What to do about her had worried me. I’ll decide right now. I’ll leave her with you, and I hope to Heaven I’m doing best by her.”
“Wal, she ain’t strong enough to travel fur. We didn’t think of thet.”
“That settles it, then,” said Neale, in relief. “Time enough to decide when she is well again.… Tell me about her.”
“Son, thar’s nuthin’ to tell. She’s done jest the same, except fer thet takin’ to watchin’ fer you. Reckon thet means a good deal.”
“What?”
“Wal, I don’t figger girls as well as I do other critters,” answered Slingerland, reflectively. “But I’d say Allie shows interest in you.”
“Slingerland! You don’t mean she—she cares for me?” demanded Neale.
“I don’t know. Mebbe not. Mebbe she’s beyond carin’. But I believe you an’ thet red memory of bloody death air all she ever thinks of. An’ mostly of it.”
“Then it’ll be a fight between me and that memory?”
“So I take it, son. But recollect I ain’t no mind-doctor. I jest feel you could make her fergit thet hell if you tried hard enough.”
“I’ll try—hard as I can,” replied Neale, resolutely, yet with a certain softness. “I’m sorry for her. I saved her. Why shouldn’t I do everything possible?”
“Wal, she’s alone.”
“No, Allie has friends—you and King and me. That’s three.”
“Son, I reckon you don’t figger me. Listen. You’re a fine, strappin’ young feller an’ good-lookin’. More ’n thet, you’ve got some—some quality like an Injun’s—thet you can feel but can’t tell about. You needn’t be insulted, fer I know Injuns thet beat white men holler fer all thet’s noble. Anyway, you attract. An’ now if you keep on with all thet—thet—wal, usin’ yourself to make Allie fergit the bloody murder of all she loved, to make her mind clear again—why, sooner or later she’s a-goin’ to breathe an’ live through you. Jest as a flower lives offen the sun. Thet’s all, I reckon.”
Neale’s bronze cheek had paled a little. “Well, if that’s all, that’s easy,” he replied, with a cool, bright smile which showed the latent spirit in him. “If it’s only that—why she can have me.… Slingerland, I’ve no ties now. The last one was broken when my mother died—not long ago. I’m alone, too.… I’d do as much for any innocent girl—but for this poor child Allie—whose life I saved—I’d do anything.”
Slingerland shoved out a horny hand and made a giant grip express what evidently just then he could not express in speech.
Upon returning to the cabin they found Allie had left her room. From appearances Neale concluded that she had made little use of the things he had brought her. He was conscious of something akin to impatience. He was not sure what he did feel. The situation had subtly changed and grown, all in that brief talk with Slingerland. Neale slowly walked out toward the brook, where he expected to find her. It struck him suddenly that if she had watched for him all week and had run when he came, then she must have wanted to see him, but was afraid or shy or perverse. How like any girl! Possibly in the week past she had unconsciously grown a little away from her grief.
“I’ll try something new on you, Allie,” he muttered,
and the boy in him that would never grow into a man meant to be serious even in his fun.
Allie sat in the shady place under the low pine where the brook spilled out of the big spring. She drooped and appeared oblivious to her surroundings. A stray gleam of sunlight, touching her hair, made it shine bright. Neale’s quick eye took note of the fact that she had washed the blood-stain from the front of her dress. He was glad. What hope had there been for her so long as she sat hour after hour with her hands pressed to that great black stain on her dress—that mark where her mother’s head had rested? Neale experienced a renewal of hope. He began to whistle, and, drawing his knife, he went into the brush to cut a fishing-pole. The trout in this brook had long tempted his fisherman’s eye, and upon this visit he had brought a line and hooks. He made a lot of noise all for Allie’s benefit; then, tramping out of the brush, he began to trim the rod within twenty feet of where she sat. He whistled; he even hummed a song while he was rigging up the tackle. Then it became necessary to hunt for some kind of bait, and he went about this with pleasure, both because he liked the search and because, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Allie was watching him. Therefore he redoubled his efforts at pretending to be oblivious of her presence and at keeping her continually aware of his. He found crickets, worms, and grubs under the dead pine logs, and with this fine variety of bait he approached the brook.
The first cast Neale made fetched a lusty trout, and right there his pretensions of indifference vanished, together with his awareness of Allie’s proximity. Neale loved to fish. He had not yet indulged his favorite pastime in the West. He saw trout jumping everywhere. It was a beautiful little stream, rocky, swift here and eddying there, clear as crystal, murmurous with tiny falls, and bordered by a freshness of green and gold; there were birds singing in the trees, but over all seemed to hang the quiet of the lonely hills. Neale forgot Allie—forgot that he had meant to discover if she could be susceptible to a little neglect. The brook was full of trout, voracious and tame; they had never been angled for. He caught three in short order.
When his last bait, a large and luscious grub, struck the water there was a swirl, a splash, a tug. Neale excitedly realized that he had hooked a father of the waters. It leaped. That savage leap, the splash, the amazing size of the fish, inflamed in Neale the old boyish desire to capture, and, forgetting what little skill he possessed, he gave a mighty pull. The rod bent double. Out with a vicious splash lunged the huge, glistening trout, to dangle heavily for an instant in the air. Neale thought he heard a cry behind him. He was sitting down, in awkward posture. But he lifted and swung. The line snapped. The fish dropped in the grass and began to thresh. Frantically Neale leaped to prevent the escape of the hugest trout he had ever seen. There was a dark flash—a commotion before him. Then he stood staring in bewilderment at Allie, who held the wriggling trout by the gills.