The Westerners

by Zane Grey

  “I believe I will love it.”

  “You always had different notions from anyone else. I’m glad your trip will not be altogether wasted.”

  Katherine caught the rather broad inference, and she replied that she was sure her purpose in coming West would be fulfilled.

  “Not if it’s what I imagine it is,” returned Mrs. Hempstead with asperity. “Come to my room at once.”

  “Not tonight, Mother. I regret to say that I must give you a very disagreeable few minutes. But I’ll put it off until tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can think a little over the horrible blunder you have made.”

  “Kay, I’m breaking all ties,” cried her mother with emotion.

  “You are not doing anything of the kind.”

  “Kay,” rejoined Mrs. Hempstead faintly, “have I ever . . . interfered with your peculiar ways of being happy?”

  “Not lately. For years, though, you were an unnatural mother. . . . Is your boy friend, Jimmy, here with you?”

  “Certainly he’s here. Where would he be? But I detest your vulgarity.”

  “He ought to be somewhere else, my dearest mother. If you haven’t any sense of decency, he ought to have. . . . Does his apartment adjoin yours?”

  “Don’t insult me, Kay.”

  “I’ll certainly insult him, if that is possible.”

  “My dear daughter, you seem to be taking a great deal upon yourself. Did you come out alone?”

  “Yes, I came alone.”

  “I rather hoped you’d brought Brelsford. . . . Kay, did you accept him?”

  “No.”

  “Did you refuse him”

  “No.”

  “But Kay, you will marry him? You must. He’s the most eligible and desirable young man you know.”

  “So you think, Mother dear. I like Victor, but marriage. . . . You and Father furnish a perfect example of marital felicity, don’t you?”

  “But Kay, you absolutely must marry. You’re twenty-two.”

  “Quite ancient, in fact. That is, I was . . . until I dropped down here into God’s country. I feel very young and romantic. Yes, that’s it. I was wondering what ailed me. I’ve gone back to sixteen, Mother. And I think one of these tall sun-browned cowboys will get me.”

  “Cowboy!” screamed Mrs. Hempstead. “Are you crazy, Kay? You, a Hempstead . . . with your background . . . your money! I’ll wire to Brelsford to fly out here.”

  “Don’t you dare. I don’t need anyone to look after me, it’s you. But wait, Mother darling. That might be a capital idea . . . sending for Vic. I’d like to see how he’d stack up beside one of these strapping Westerners. Go ahead. Get Victor out here. It might precipitate things.”

  “You devil!”

  “Good night, Mother. I’ll see you tomorrow. Sweet dreams.”

  Katherine turned off the steam heat and opened a window. The desert air blew in, cold, fresh, with a dry tang that was new to her. White stars studded the velvety blue sky. Beyond the narrow border of the town limits stretched a vast space ending in black hills. She gazed a moment, shivering, and then ran to get into bed, grateful for warm blankets.

  When she reviewed the conversation with her mother, Katherine felt that she had reason to be encouraged. It had been several months since she had heard her voice. If there was anything she could be sure of, it was her mother’s love for her and her sister Polly. That Katherine felt anew, and it softened her scorn and anger. It strengthened the conviction upon which she had dared to come West—that her mother was vulnerable through her one sincere affection. But what course to pursue, Katherine had not yet decided. Persuasion, argument would be futile. Ridicule and scorn were weapons Mary Hempstead could not endure. She believed in Leroyd’s attachment with all a disappointed middle-aged woman’s egotism. Probably that would prove ineradicable. Katherine pondered over the problem a while and dismissed it with the decision to let her opposition in this affair rise out of the exigency of future contacts.

  Then she fell to pleasant reverie. She recalled the boy with whom she had made the appointment for the morrow. I like him, she mused to herself. He just fell perfectly into the picture. Strange how things happen! Was it romance? Did I have a thrill? I . . . Kay Hempstead? . . . Yes, I did . . . and couldn’t recognize it. . . . Well, Mother darling, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. I’m glad, at least, that your affairs brought me out West.

  Upon such thoughts Katherine drifted into sleep. When she awakened, golden sunshine shone through the window upon her bed. She saw a wide reach of rolling bronze desert ending in blue-hazed hills. When had she awakened with such exhilaration? Not in the Alps nor the Adirondacks. And when, scorning the hot water for the cold, she rubbed her cheeks, she found that they would not need any rouge.

  The thought uppermost in Katherine’s mind was what to wear. Usually such consideration did not dominate her. And she was distinctly amused when she guessed the reason. That nice Western boy! she soliloquized. I wonder, would he be flattered if he knew Kay Hempstead desired to look well in his eyes. . . . But he really isn’t a boy.

  She ordered breakfast to be brought to her room and asked for a maid to unpack her bags and have her clothes pressed. Nine o’clock found her dressed in a new sport suit of violet blue that perfectly matched the color of her eyes. She guessed it must be this invigorating Western air that made her so radiant. Precisely on the dot of nine the telephone rang.

  “Hello,” answered Katherine.

  “Hello. . . . Is this you . . . Miss . . . Miss Hempstead?” came the query in a halting voice with a drawl.

  “’Mawnin’, Phil. Yes, this is Miss Hempstead. Kay to her friends.”

  “Kay?”

  “Yes. It’s shorter. Not so high-hat.”

  “May I call you Kay?” he asked in boyish eagerness.

  “I’d like it.”

  “Thanks. That’ll be swell You asked me to call you at nine. I’ve been up since five o’clock waiting. Dog-gone! I never knew hours could be so long.”

  “Are you downstairs?”

  “No. At the Elk Hotel. It’s a dump about four blocks away.”

  “Have you a car?”

  “Yes. I mean . . . it was one.”

  “All right. Call for me at once.”

  Five minutes later Katherine walked through the lobby, running the gauntlet of staring guests and reporters and agents, out into the brilliant Nevada sunlight. A dilapidated car had just drawn up to the curb. Young Cameron stepped out, bare-headed, a flush on his tanned cheek.

  “Howdy, Phil,” drawled Katherine, and offered her hand.

  “Good mawnin’,” he returned.

  Katherine looked up at him as he shook hands with her. In broad daylight she recalled only his height, his wide shoulders, the glint of his chestnut hair. It did have a curl in it. Gray-blue, piercing eyes shed a glad and incredulous light upon her. Katherine thought he was handsomer than she had remembered.

  “Phil, does your Western sun shine this way often?”

  “Yes. Every mawnin’ about the whole year ‘round. But I reckon it never yet shone on anything so lovely as you.”

  “What? The language of compliment! And I imagined you a shy tongue-tied Arizona cowboy. Thank you, Phil. You don’t distort the general landscape yourself.”

  “Come ’round and get in the front seat. I shore have a nerve taking you out in this tin can.”

  “Don’t apologize for your car. It might be a chariot drawn by four white horses. Phil, drive me around the town and out into the country.”

  “Reno isn’t much to see. But the desert is worth a lot of trouble on a May mawnin’.”

  Cameron showed her the town, without being able to tell her what was what. Then he drove her out beyond the auto camps, speak-easies and road houses, and small ranches into the desert. It did not take long to get out of sight of Reno and its environs.

  The air was cold, nipping, fragrant, and so dry that Katherine felt it drawing her delicate skin. When she inhaled deeply, she felt a
s if she had drawn of the elixir of life. The desert at close hand seemed to claim some kinship deep within her. Yet it was all wasteland, ridge after rolling ridge, rocks endlessly everywhere, bronze mounds and buttes here, and black walls and lava fissures there, and all around, in the distance, bold mountains veiled in blue.

  “Phil, I have ridden a camel on the Sahara. I’ve seen the Arabian desert, the lapis-lazuli desert along the Jordan. But they never affected me like this.”

  “Kay, this is America. This is home. And you ought to see our Arizona desert.’ Not like this at all. Heah you see only a two-bit, four-flush bit of outdoors. Why, north of Flagg you can see two hundred miles. Down and down over the gray cedar flats and the grassy range, the yellow bare valley of the Little Colorado, and then up and up over the Painted Desert, the dunes of clay in all colors, the slopes to the escarpments, up to the great red walls that burn into the blue. Oh, I’d love to show you Arizona.”

  “I’d love to have you. Color is my weakness, Phil. I adore blue. I love red and purple.”

  “Then you should see our purple sage in bloom.”

  “Purple sage. I’ve read of it. Perhaps I’ll have you show it to me, if . . . I mean when we have been successful here with our recalcitrant mothers. Oh, I’d like to ride on and on.”

  “Kay, can you ride a hoss?”

  “I play polo, Mister Cameron.”

  “My Gawd, I’d love. . . . Aw, excuse me, Kay. But to see you on a hoss.”

  “That wouldn’t be difficult, if you find the horses. I have my riding togs. . . . Oh, how splendid! Stop the car here, Phil.”

  The road had turned on the edge of a high promontory from which Katherine had a superb view of leagues of desert, where lava cones and black beds led the eye to bleached alkali flats, and on across the land of mirage to the inevitable barriers of mountains. Katherine gazed long at this desolate scene. It approached the sublime in its overpowering starkness. She had never dreamed that the wasteland could affect her like this. It provoked thought; it faced her with herself. Was she really as honest and sincere as she believed herself? What good was she to anybody? Certainly she had not helped materially to make a home for Polly and her mother. All of which restless query and deduction went tumbling through Katherine’s consciousness, until a movement on her companion’s part brought her back to the present.

  “Here I am dreaming, when we should be discussing our problem,” she said, rousing. “Where shall we begin?”

  “I shore don’t know. It’s got my goat, if you know what I mean,” returned Cameron in perplexity.

  “Did you talk to your mother last night?”

  “I should smile I did. I pleaded with her. I used every argument and persuasion in the world. But Mom’s as bull-headed as any old cow on the range.”

  “Naturally, being a wronged woman. But most women do not see clearly. All through the ages they have been wronged . . . that way. It can’t be helped. Religion, morals, education, ties . . . all these things are lost in the shuffle now and again. A modern woman should recognize that and realize that the lapse may be only temporary. She should bow to what she cannot break.”

  “Not many girls take such views. I never heard one. I wish you could talk to Mom.”

  “Perhaps I can, sometime. But don’t you speak of me. She’d resent it. I’ll make her acquaintance before she learns that my mission out here is the same as yours. Phil, it strikes me that, if you and I are really going to present a united front in battle against these destroyers of happy homes, we should know more about each other.”

  “You said you’d risk that walk last night if I would, or something like that. I’ve gone a long way.”

  “But don’t you want to know anything about me?” asked Katherine in surprise.

  “To see you heah is enough.”

  “Be serious, Phil. Haven’t you thought about me at all?”

  “I lay awake most of the night . . . thinking. There’s one thing though that . . . that. . . . Shore, I know you’re not married. But are you engaged?”

  “No, I’m not. I should tell you, though, that I know a fine chap, Victor Brelsford, whose people have always been close to mine. They all want me to marry him. Mother is rabid on that subject. I haven’t been able to make up my mind.”

  “Well, I should think if you were put on the spot, you’d savvy pronto what was what,” declared Cameron bluntly.

  “I didn’t know, but I do now,” she rejoined thoughtfully. “I never loved Victor. I shall never marry him.”

  “That’s that. I shore feel sorry for the hombre,” said Phil feelingly.

  “Mother threatened she’d wire for Victor to come out West to take care of me. You see, I’d confessed my interest in cowboys.”

  “Aw, don’t kid me,” implored Cameron, with the blood leaping to his face.

  “Phil, I wasn’t altogether in fun. To be sure, I wanted to upset Mother. But I know I’d like cowboys. I like you. I’ve been used to men too soft, too effete, too civilized, except perhaps in the case of a college football player or two.”

  “Shore you’d like cowboys. They are the salt of the earth . . . those I was brought up with. Clean, straight, hard chaps, who’d fight and shoot, too, as quick as that.”

  “Shoot! In this modern day? You mean in the movies, Phil?”

  “Well, I’ve been off the range for some years, worse luck. All the same that holds good. . . . I’m shore proud you like me, Kay. I’ll try to deserve it.”

  “Boy, you’re taking me for granted. Face value, you know, is risky. But I want to know more about you.”

  “OK with me. Just ask?”

  “This first one is funny. Are you married?”

  “Good Lord . . . no!”

  “Well, perhaps you’re engaged? Girls, even in California, must be like those I know.”

  “I’m not engaged,” replied Phil soberly.

  “But you must have lots of girls?”

  “Why must I?”

  “Never mind. But have you?”

  “I’d shore like to lie and say I had. Only the fact is I haven’t a single darn girl.”

  “What a terrific waste of good looks and sterling young manhood!” rejoined Katherine flippantly. Then more seriously: “But I’m glad, Phil. It wouldn’t be so good if you were. Your lady love would come over here and upset our apple cart. . . . How old are you, Phil?”

  “I feel fifteen this mawnin’, but I’m twenty-six. No boy any more, as Mom said.”

  “You adore her, don’t you?”

  “I reckon.”

  “You work, of course. I felt your hand. It was as rough as sandpaper. But what kind of work?”

  “All kinds, believe me. My job is to superintend Dad’s ranch. He has a thousand acres in grapes and a couple of hundred in oranges. Dad employs a good many Mexicans. Our ranch is one of the biggest in Southern California. Near Redlands. At this season you can see orange blossoms and oranges, and right above them the mountains white with snow.”

  “How beautiful! I’ve read of that, too. And to think I’ve never seen California.”

  “If you ever come, I want to show it to you.”

  “That’s a promise. I’ll come, Phil.”

  “Too good to ever come true. But I mustn’t forget about my ranch. An aunt left me some money a couple of years ago. I blew ten thousand of it for a mile square of land down in the Coachella Valley near the Saltan Sea. It’s way below sea level there. Hell in summer. Dad swore I was crazy. But I developed water . . . two dandy artesian wells. Hot water. I irrigated and put in dates and grapefruit. The fellow I have in charge made fourteen thousand dollars on five acres of grapefruit on his place adjoining last year. Well, my vineyard and orchard sprang up over night, almost. Just grew grand. You see, after all, the land didn’t have any alkali. I’d picked a winner. I had a gold mine. Then the Depression hit the coast. Dad almost went under. He couldn’t help me. I’m deep in debt now, and if I cain’t get a loan, a mortgage on my ranch, I’m going to lose
it. Aw, but that will be tough.”

  “Loan? How much will you need, Phil?” she asked quietly.

  “Not so much, I reckon. Only a few thousand to save the ranch. But where’n he . . . heck can a fellow get a loan these days? The banks are no good. They’re crooked. Aw, if I had fifteen or twenty thousand dollars to develop my ranch in five years, I’d be drawing down that much a year profit.”

  “Phil, would it make you sick to hear that I spend that much on my clothes alone, every year?”

  “My Gawd! You don’t say . . . ? Kay, you don’t need so many clothes. They cain’t make you any lovelier.”

  “More compliments! Can’t we be serious? I guess I know all I want to know about you . . . And now to our problem. What to do with our mothers. Mine is the limit. She’s nutty. Thinks she is in love. Thinks she’s young still and adored for herself. She’s furious with my father. She will be with me. She’s stubborn. She’s strong-willed. What can we do with women like that?”

  “You said the hombre she brought out is a fortune-hunter?”

  “I know it. I knew that before I was told. Leroyd is a gambler, too.”

  “He’ll get cleaned proper out heah, believe me. Does she know he’s a gambler?”

  “Probably not. She has lent him money, though. My banker told me.”

  “Kay, I’ll sort of trail that gent up in good old Arizona fashion. ¿Quién sabe? I might get something on him. . . . I’m getting a hunch that my case with Mom is hopeless, unless I can scare her.”

  “Scare her? Phil, you don’t mean physically?”

  “No. About me, I mean. I’ve got a hunch I must do something terrible.”

  “On her account!” exclaimed Katherine breathlessly.

  “Shore.”

  She clasped his arm tightly and looked up into his eyes, unmindful of the effect upon him. “Phil! You’re a darling.

  You’re a genius! You’ve hit it . . . plumb center. I, too, must do something terrible. I must scare my mother out of her wits. I am her weakness . . . the same as you are your mother’s. But what to do . . . how . . . how?”

  “Kay, do you take . . . spells like this often?” asked Phil huskily.

  “Spells! I never had one before,” replied Katherine innocently enough. She had not intended to practice any charm of glance or word or person upon him. But the havoc had been wrought. Katherine could not be sorry. As she drew away, she felt an unusual warmth creep from neck to cheek. “Phil, I’ll probably have more of them . . . spells, I mean,” she went on joyously. “It’s just marvelous . . . my coming West . . . this intrigue we’re involved in . . . the outwitting of our mothers . . . the romance of it!”