by Zane Grey
“Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can’t accept your offer,” she replied.
“Would you take time an’ consider?” he asked, spreading wide his huge gloved hands.
“Absolutely no.”
Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.
“Thet means I’ll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you off,” he said.
“Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a sum? I don’t owe it. And I certainly won’t be put off my property. You can’t put me off.”
“An’ why can’t I?” he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.
“Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it,” declared Helen, forcibly.
“Who’re you goin’ to prove it to—thet I’m dishonest?”
“To my men—to your men—to the people of Pine—to everybody. There’s not a person who won’t believe me.”
He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet fascinated by her statement or else by the quality and appearance of her as she spiritedly defended her cause.
“An’ how’re you goin’ to prove all thet?” he growled.
“Mr. Beasley, do you remember last fall when you met Snake Anson with his gang up in the woods—and hired him to make off with me?” asked Helen, in swift, ringing words.
The dark olive of Beasley’s bold face shaded to a dirty white.
“Wha-at?” he jerked out, hoarsely.
“I see you remember. Well, Milt Dale was hidden in the loft of that cabin where you met Anson. He heard every word of your deal with the outlaw.”
Beasley swung his arm in sudden violence, so hard that he flung his glove to the floor. As he stooped to snatch it up he uttered a sibilant hiss. Then, stalking to the door, he jerked it open, and slammed it behind him. His loud voice, hoarse with passion, preceded the scrape and crack of hoofs.
Shortly after supper that day, when Helen was just recovering her composure, Carmichael presented himself at the open door. Bo was not there. In the dimming twilight Helen saw that the cowboy was pale, somber, grim.
“Oh, what’s happened?” cried Helen.
“Roy’s been shot. It come off in Turner’s saloon But he ain’t dead. We packed him over to Widow Cass’s. An’ he said for me to tell you he’d pull through.”
“Shot! Pull through!” repeated Helen, in slow, unrealizing exclamation. She was conscious of a deep internal tumult and a cold checking of blood in all her external body.
“Yes, shot,” replied Carmichael, fiercely.
“An’, whatever he says, I reckon he won’t pull through.”
“O Heaven, how terrible!” burst out Helen. “He was so good—such a man! What a pity! Oh, he must have met that in my behalf. Tell me, what happened? Who shot him?”
“Wal, I don’t know. An’ thet’s what’s made me hoppin’ mad. I wasn’t there when it come off. An’ he won’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know thet, either. I reckoned first it was because he wanted to get even. But, after thinkin’ it over, I guess he doesn’t want me lookin’ up anyone right now for fear I might get hurt. An’ you’re goin’ to need your friends. Thet’s all I can make of Roy.”
Then Helen hurriedly related the event of Beasley’s call on her that afternoon and all that had occurred.
“Wal, the half-breed son-of-a-greaser!” ejaculated Carmichael, in utter confoundment. “He wanted you to marry him!”
“He certainly did. I must say it was a—a rather abrupt proposal.”
Carmichael appeared to be laboring with speech that had to be smothered behind his teeth. At last he let out an explosive breath.
“Miss Nell, I’ve shore felt in my bones thet I’m the boy slated to brand thet big bull.”
“Oh, he must have shot Roy. He left here in a rage.”
“I reckon you can coax it out of Roy. Fact is, all I could learn was thet Roy come in the saloon alone. Beasley was there, an’ Riggs—”
“Riggs!” interrupted Helen.
“Shore, Riggs. He come back again. But he’d better keep out of my way.… An’ Jeff Mulvey with his outfit. Turner told me he heard an argument an’ then a shot. The gang cleared out, leavin’ Roy on the floor. I come in a little later. Roy was still layin’ there. Nobody was doin’ anythin’ for him. An’ nobody had. I hold that against Turner. Wal, I got help an’ packed Roy over to Widow Cass’s. Roy seemed all right. But he was too bright an’ talky to suit me. The bullet hit his lung, thet’s shore. An’ he lost a sight of blood before we stopped it. Thet skunk Turner might have lent a hand. An’ if Roy croaks I reckon I’ll—”
“Tom, why must you always be reckoning to kill somebody?” demanded Helen, angrily.
“’Cause somebody’s got to be killed ’round here. Thet’s why!” he snapped back.
“Even so—should you risk leaving Bo and me without a friend?” asked Helen, reproachfully.
At that Carmichael wavered and lost something of his sullen deadliness.
“Aw, Miss Nell, I’m only mad. If you’ll just be patient with me—an’ mebbe coax me.… But I can’t see no other way out.”
“Let’s hope and pray,” said Helen, earnestly. “You spoke of my coaxing Roy to tell who shot him. When can I see him?”
“Tomorrow, I reckon. I’ll come for you. Fetch Bo along with you. We’ve got to play safe from now on. An’ what do you say to me an’ Hal sleepin’ here at the ranch-house?”
“Indeed I’d feel safer,” she replied. “There are rooms. Please come.”
“Allright. An’ now I’ll be goin’ to fetch Hal. Shore wish I hadn’t made you pale an’ scared like this.”
About ten o’clock next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo into Pine, and tied up the team before Widow Cass’s cottage.
The peach and apple-trees were mingling blossoms of pink and white; a drowsy hum of bees filled the fragrant air; rich, dark-green alfalfa covered the small orchard flat; a wood fire sent up a lazy column of blue smoke; and birds were singing sweetly.
Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquillity a man lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had been somber and reticent enough to rouse the gravest fears.
Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn, but cheerful old woman whom Helen had come to know as her friend.
“My land! I’m thet glad to see you, Miss Helen,” she said. “An’ you’ve fetched the little lass as I’ve not got acquainted with yet.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Cass. How—how is Roy?” replied Helen, anxiously scanning the wrinkled face.
“Roy? Now don’t you look so scared. Roy’s ’most ready to git on his hoss an’ ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was a-comin’. An’ he made me hold a lookin’-glass for him to shave. How’s thet fer a man with a bullet-hole through him! You can’t kill them Mormons, nohow.”
She led them into a little sitting-room, where on a couch underneath a window Roy Beeman lay. He was wide awake and smiling, but haggard. He lay partly covered with a blanket. His gray shirt was open at the neck, disclosing bandages.
“Mornin’—girls,” he drawled. “Shore is good of you, now, comin’ down.”
Helen stood beside him, bent over him, in her earnestness, as she greeted him. She saw a shade of pain in his eyes and his immobility struck her, but he did not seem badly off. Bo was pale, round-eyed, and apparently too agitated to speak. Carmichael placed chairs beside the couch for the girls.
“Wal, what’s ailin’ you this nice mornin’?” asked Roy, eyes on the cowboy.
“Huh! Would you expect me to be wearin’ the smile of a fellar goin’ to be married?” retorted Carmichael.
“Shore you haven’t made up with Bo yet,” returned Roy.
Bo blushed rosy red, and the cowboy’s face lost something of its somber hue.
; “I allow it’s none of your darn bizness if she ain’t made up with me,” he said.
“Las Vegas, you’re a wonder with a hoss an’ a rope, an’ I reckon with a gun, but when it comes to girls you shore ain’t there.”
“I’m no Mormon, by golly! Come, Ma Cass, let’s get out of here, so they can talk.”
“Folks, I was jest a-goin’ to say thet Roy’s got fever an’ he oughtn’t t’ talk too much,” said the old woman. Then she and Carmichael went into the kitchen and closed the door.
Roy looked up at Helen with his keen eyes, more kindly piercing than ever.
“My brother John was here. He’d just left when you come. He rode home to tell my folks I’m not so bad hurt, an’ then he’s goin’ to ride a bee-line into the mountains.”
Helen’s eyes asked what her lips refused to utter.
“He’s goin’ after Dale. I sent him. I reckoned we-all sorta needed sight of thet doggone hunter.”
Roy had averted his gaze quickly to Bo.
“Don’t you agree with me, lass?”
“I sure do,” replied Bo, heartily.
All within Helen had been stilled for the moment of her realization; and then came swell and beat of heart, and inconceivable chafing of a tide at its restraint.
“Can John—fetch Dale out—when the snow’s so deep?” she asked, unsteadily.
“Shore. He’s takin’ two hosses up to the snow-line. Then, if necessary, he’ll go over the pass on snow-shoes. But I bet him Dale would ride out. Snow’s about gone except on the north slopes an’ on the peaks.”
“Then—when may I—we expect to see Dale?”
“Three or four days, I reckon. I wish he was here now.… Miss Helen, there’s trouble afoot.”
“I realize that. I’m ready. Did Las Vegas tell you about Beasley’s visit to me?”
“No. You tell me,” replied Roy.
Briefly Helen began to acquaint him with the circumstances of that visit, and before she had finished she made sure Roy was swearing to himself.
“He asked you to marry him! Jerusalem!… Thet I’d never have reckoned. The—low-down coyote of a greaser!… Wal, Miss Helen, when I met up with Señor Beasley last night he was shore spoilin’ from somethin’; now I see what thet was. An’ I reckon I picked out the bad time.”
“For what? Roy, what did you do?”
“Wal, I’d made up my mind awhile back to talk to Beasley the first chance I had. An’ thet was it. I was in the store when I seen him go into Turner’s. So I followed. It was ’most dark. Beasley an’ Riggs an’ Mulvey an’ some more were drinkin’ an’ powwowin’. So I just braced him right then.”
“Roy! Oh, the way you boys court danger!”
“But, Miss Helen, thet’s the only way. To be afraid makes more danger. Beasley ’peared civil enough first off. Him an’ me kept edgin’ off, an’ his pards kept edgin’ after us, till we got over in a corner of the saloon. I don’t know all I said to him. Shore I talked a heap. I told him what my old man thought. An’ Beasley knowed as well as I thet my old man’s not only the oldest inhabitant hereabouts, but he’s the wisest, too. An’ he wouldn’t tell a lie. Wal, I used all his sayin’s in my argument to show Beasley thet if he didn’t haul up short he’d end almost as short. Beasley’s thick-headed, an’ powerful conceited. Vain as a peacock! He couldn’t see, an’ he got mad. I told him he was rich enough without robbin’ you of your ranch, an’—wal, I shore put up a big talk for your side. By this time he an’ his gang had me crowded in a corner, an’ from their looks I begun to get cold feet. But I was in it an’ had to make the best of it. The argument worked down to his pinnin’ me to my word that I’d fight for you when thet fight come off. An’ I shore told him for my own sake I wished it ’d come off quick.… Then—wal—then somethin’ did come off quick!”
“Roy, then he shot you!” exclaimed Helen, passionately.
“Now, Miss Helen, I didn’t say who done it,” replied Roy, with his engaging smile.
“Tell me, then—who did?”
“Wal, I reckon I sha’n’t tell you unless you promise not to tell Las Vegas. Thet cowboy is plumb off his head. He thinks he knows who shot me an’ I’ve been lyin’ somethin’ scandalous. You see, if he learns—then he’ll go gunnin’. An’, Miss Helen, thet Texan is bad. He might get plugged as I did—an’ there would be another man put off your side when the big trouble comes.”
“Roy, I promise you I will not tell Las Vegas,” replied Helen, earnestly.
“Wal, then—it was Riggs!” Roy grew still paler as he confessed this and his voice, almost a whisper, expressed shame and hate. “Thet four-flush did it. Shot me from behind Beasley! I had no chance. I couldn’t even see him draw. But when I fell an’ lay there an’ the others dropped back, then I seen the smokin’ gun in his hand. He looked powerful important. An’ Beasley began to cuss him an’ was cussin’ him as they all run out.”
“Oh, coward! the despicable coward!” cried Helen.
“No wonder Tom wants to find out!” exclaimed Bo, low and deep. “I’ll bet he suspects Riggs.”
“Shore he does, but I wouldn’t give him no satisfaction.”
“Roy, you know that Riggs can’t last out here.”
“Wal, I hope he lasts till I get on my feet again.”
“There you go! Hopeless, all you boys! You must spill blood!” murmured Helen, shudderingly.
“Dear Miss Helen, don’t take on so. I’m like Dale—no man to hunt up trouble. But out here there’s a sort of unwritten law—an eye for an eye—a tooth for a tooth. I believe in God Almighty, an’ killin’ is against my religion, but Riggs shot me—the same as shootin’ me in the back.”
“Roy, I’m only a woman—I fear, faint-hearted and unequal to this West.”
“Wait till somethin’ happens to you. ‘Supposin’ Beasley comes an’ grabs you with his own dirty big paws an’, after maulin’ you some, throws you out of your home! Or supposin’ Riggs chases you into a corner!”
Helen felt the start of all her physical being—a violent leap of blood. But she could only judge of her looks from the grim smile of the wounded man as he watched her with his keen, intent eyes.
“My friend, anythin’ can happen,” he said. “But let’s hope it won’t be the worst.”
He had begun to show signs of weakness, and Helen, rising at once, said that she and Bo had better leave him then, but would come to see him the next day. At her call Carmichael entered again with Mrs. Cass, and after a few remarks the visit was terminated. Carmichael lingered in the doorway.
“Wal, Cheer up, you old Mormon!” he called.
“Cheer up yourself, you cross old bachelor!” retorted Roy, quite unnecessarily loud. “Can’t you raise enough nerve to make up with Bo?”
Carmichael evacuated the doorway as if he had been spurred. He was quite red in the face while he unhitched the team, and silent during the ride up to the ranch-house. There he got down and followed the girls into the sitting room. He appeared still somber, though not sullen, and had fully regained his composure.
“Did you find out who shot Roy?” he asked, abruptly, of Helen.
“Yes. But I promised Roy I would not tell,” replied Helen, nervously. She averted her eyes from his searching gaze, intuitively fearing his next query.
“Was it thet—Riggs?”
“Las Vegas, don’t ask me. I will not break my promise.”
He strode to the window and looked out a moment, and presently, when he turned toward Bo, he seemed a stronger, loftier, more impelling man, with all his emotions under control.
“Bo, will you listen to me—if I swear to speak the truth—as I know it?”
“Why, certainly,” replied Bo, with the color coming swiftly to her face.
“Roy doesn’t want me to know because he wants to meet thet fellar himself. An’ I want to know because I want to stop him before he can do more dirt to us or our friends. Thet’s Roy’s reason an’ mine. An’ I’m askin’ you to tell me.”
&nbs
p; “But, Tom—I oughtn’t,” replied Bo, haltingly.
“Did you promise Roy not to tell?”
“No.”
“Or your sister?”
“No. I didn’t promise either.”
“Wal, then you tell me. I want you to trust me in this here matter. But not because I love you an’ once had a wild dream you might care a little for me—”
“Oh—Tom!” faltered Bo.
“Listen. I want you to trust me because I’m the one who knows what’s best. I wouldn’t lie an’ I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t know shore. I swear Dale will back me up. But he can’t be here for some days. An’ thet gang has got to be bluffed. You ought to see this. I reckon you’ve been quick in savvyin’ Western ways. I couldn’t pay you no higher compliment, Bo Rayner.… Now will you tell me?”
“Yes, I will,” replied Bo, with the blaze leaping to her eyes.
“Oh, Bo—please don’t—please don’t. Wait!” implored Helen.
“Bo—it’s between you an’ me,” said Carmichael.
“Tom, I’ll tell you,” whispered Bo. “It was a lowdown, cowardly trick.… Roy was surrounded—and shot from behind Beasley—by that four-flush Riggs!”
THE MAN OF THE FOREST [Part 3]
CHAPTER XIX
The memory of a woman had ruined Milt Dale’s peace, had confounded his philosophy of self-sufficient, lonely happiness in the solitude of the wilds, had forced him to come face to face with his soul and the fatal significance of life.
When he realized his defeat, that things were not as they seemed, that there was no joy for him in the coming of spring, that he had been blind in his free, sensorial, Indian relation to existence, he fell into an inexplicably strange state, a despondency, a gloom as deep as the silence of his home. Dale reflected that the stronger an animal, the keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought of himself as a high order of animal whose great physical need was action, and now the incentive to action seemed dead. He grew lax. He did not want to move. He performed his diminishing duties under compulsion.