The Westerners

by Zane Grey

  “Rehearse,” snapped the director, turning from the tense actor. “Reigh, listen. Vera comes riding up the slope in front of the stampede. When the mustangs show over the ridge, we trip her horse. Vera is thrown over his head. See! It’ll be some fall. If she’s unhurt, she’ll be on her feet when you ride down to snatch her from under the hoofs of death. See! She’ll catch your hand and spring to help you. But, if she broke her leg or got knocked senseless, which can happen to doubles, she’ll be flat on the ground, and you’ll have to pick her up to save her life. However, it’s more than likely Vera will roll free and come up on her feet. See?”

  “No. You say Vera?”

  “Oh, you dumb cluck! Vera is Nugget.”

  “All right, I see now. As far as I’m concerned, you needn’t rehearse this part. I’ll get her, up or down.”

  “She weighs one hundred and five,” retorted Hinckley in terse voice. “Show me how you can snatch her fiat off the ground.”

  “Wait, Wesley,” interposed Betty earnestly. “Under my blouse I’m wearing a belt of strong cloth. It’s laced, but it’s loose. Be sure you grab that.”

  Wesley smiled reassuringly at the girl. She was pale and fully aware of her danger, but gave no sign of flinching. As he rode back to his stand, he cursed this business that risked the life and limb of an unknown and courageous girl to swell the fame of a public idol. When he turned to face the gradual descent of the ridge, he saw Hinckley with hand uplifted and down on the sage Betty on her knees, waving at him. Then she slid over, face downward, in her protecting arms. The director yelled at the same time that he swept up his arm.

  Wesley did not allow the roan to get his head this time. Nevertheless, Sarch hit from a lope into a run. Wesley glued his eye upon the little patch of blue that was Betty lying on the sage. Never, even in his rodeo days, had he felt this stern and set co-ordination between his faculties and his muscles. He forced himself to imagine he heard the thunder of thousands of hoofs close behind him. Then he ran down upon Betty, swooped like a desert hawk, and buried his clutch in her blouse. Braced for the expected drag, he felt the jerk of her weight, but he swept her clean off the ground as if she were an empty sack. Up he swung her into his arms.

  “Ouch! You got my skin!” shrieked Betty. Then as he released that rigid grip she sagged to gaze up at him with telltale eyes. “Oh, Wes, you’re one grand cowboy! I was scared to death. But now I’d double on the edge of hell, if you and Sarch were on the job.”

  “Wal, I reckon I’d go to hell for you at that,” replied Wesley grimly, and, holding her at ease, he rode back to let her slide to the ground before the director and his group. They appeared to be in an exceedingly hot argument. Wesley gathered presently that some of them, particularly Pelham, were keen for the shot to be taken exactly as the action had been rehearsed that time. Hinckley, backed by the heavy, balked at the risk to Betty.

  “Hold out! Give me air! Let me talk!” roared the director, his hair hanging wet over his flaming eyes. “It was great stuff, Bryce. Great for you! But it’ll be good enough with Vera on her feet, if she’s able to get on them.”

  “Alive or dead, that is the way she’ll do it . . . or I’m through,” rang out the star.

  Hinckley appeared on the verge of apoplexy. His face turned purple. His neck bulged. “All right! All right!” he ejaculated hoarsely. “Have it your way, Pelham. But this is my swan-song with you. I’d starve to death before I’d go on location with you again.”

  “You’ll starve, old dear, if I give you the works at the studio,” returned the star viciously.

  “All set. Let’s go,” rasped the director.

  “Hinckley, wait,” called Wesley. “Make this clear to me. You want this stunt repeated exactly as I did it?”

  “Exactly. And you’re a marvel, if you pull it. Just you watch me. When Vera. . . .”

  “You mean Betty Wyatt,” interrupted Wesley. “I’m not saving Miss Van Dever’s life.”

  “Yes . . . yes When Betty comes in sight, you watch me for your cue. This red scarf.”

  “How far will she be in front of the stampede when you trip her hoss?”

  “Damn’ close, believe me. Vera . . . I mean Nugget . . . shows first . . . her horse plunging . . . rearing. The mustangs show pell-mell. Right there we’ll trip her horse. At the same instant you’ll get my signal. The rest depends on you, and it’s a hell of a lot, cowboy!”

  “It’ll be OK, Hinckley, only I cain’t wait for your signal.”

  “You cain’t what?” yelled the director, imitating Wesley’s pronunciation in his excitement. His eyes popped wide.

  “Mister Hinckley, I see it this way,” returned Wesley forcibly. “You don’t know Indian mustangs. I do. They’re wild. Once the cowboys open up with guns that bunch of broom-tails will bust into high. I’ve got to use my own judgment about distance. You’re subjecting Betty Wyatt to grave peril. It oughtn’t be done. But if you let me ride in there, not too soon to crab your picture, nor too late to allow for unforeseen chances, I’ll guarantee to pull the stunt.”

  “You wait for my signal,” bellowed Hinckley.

  “Mister, I won’t even look at you. I’ll watch Betty and the mustangs. Get that?” returned Wesley forcibly, and, turning Sarch, he rode off to his post. A clamor burst upon his ears, so trenchant, so raucous that Wesley nearly succumbed to the humor of it. For a moment it looked like Hornell leaned from his horse for a last word with the director, then erect with his inimitable seat in the saddle, he loped away toward the black uneasy blot of mustangs and their guards. His red scarf streamed over his shoulder. Betty Wyatt appeared on a spirited white horse, riding to her stand. One glance sufficed for the Arizonian—she could ride. Vera Van Dever sat upon a high rock. Her mocking laugh jarred Wesley’s strung nerves. Other members of the company were grouped nearby. Pelham appeared to be bullyragging the director, who swung his megaphone on high as if to brain him. The star retreated with sullen stride.

  Then, suddenly, the director spread high his arms, as if to embrace the perfect location. It was the homage of the artist. He appeared instinct with a rapt passion.

  Wesley awoke to the reality of his surroundings. The desert scene had gathered an appalling beauty. A strong wind came rippling the bright sage. It was dry and bitter with a hint of invisible alkali. The lone cedar behind Wesley began to swish its violet-tipped foliage and moan a presage of desert storm. The sun, banked all around by huge columnar clouds, like purple ships with sails of silver, poured a dazzling light down upon the location about to be photographed. It brought out the caves and caverns of the ragged cañon, black in contrast to the pitiless white of the terraced cliffs. Dark cloud-shadows sailed swiftly up the vast sage-slope. And the grand purple wall, catching the full effulgence of the sunlight, blazed in incredible glory.

  In the west the sandstorm had gathered, and it was swooping its advance puffs of yellow dust and sheets of gray alkali along the colored desert floor toward the ridge. Farther back a low dense pall approached with an irresistible sweep, like an unearthly army hidden behind its sky-high banners.

  Wesley suddenly understood. He had been late to grasp what had stricken the director motionless, his arms uplifted. The elements had combined to glorify his picture. This scene, with its counterfeit of drama and stampede, would be truer than any actual race of frightened wild horses the West had ever seen. The rescue of Betty Wyatt would typify the innumerable and unrecorded feats of heroism that the pioneers, the gold seekers, the hunters and scouts, the range riders of the plains had performed with never a thought of their greatness.

  “Cam-e-ra!” Hinckley’s megaphoned voice rolled stentoriously over the ridge, to bellow back in echo from the cañon. Lee’s gun, held aloft, belched fire and smoke. Its sharp crack loosed a terrific din of shots and yells.

  Like a tidal wave, ragged with bobbing crest, the horde of trapped mustangs rolled into thundering action. The roar of ten thousand hoofbeats drowned the boom of guns and bawl of throats. Wesley felt
the solid earth shake under his horse. The splendid spectacle drew a piercing yell from him, which seemed soundless in his ears. Across the chosen gateway of the ridge raced a flood of lean wild horses, twinkling hoofs, and flying manes—a terrifying stampede, rolling on like a juggernaut, smoking and streaking dust, straight at the frightened white horse and its apparently bewildered rider. Betty’s cue in the sequence was to appear trapped. Hinckley had not needed subterfuge or acting. Lee had seen the peril. So had Wesley. The girl was trapped. The speed of those wild mustangs, maddened by the guns and yells, had been the unknown quantity of the director. But the cowboys had foreseen it. Wesley was ready for it. In that crucial instant, Betty ceased to play double for Vera Van Dever. She wheeled the white horse to goad him for her life.

  Savagely spurred, Sarchedon shot like an arrow from a bow. As Wesley cut in after Betty, the storm of wild mustangs zoomed over the ridge top. Fury of roar enveloped him. Fifty strides ahead, Betty’s racing horse hit the invisible tripping wire. He plunged to a terrific fall, hurtling Betty far over his head. Like a catapulted diver she winged that graceful flight. But when she struck, the force was so great that she plowed through the sage, twisted sideways, rolled over and over, to lie prone, crumpled on her face.

  Wesley hauled mightily on his rope-strengthened bridle. Sarch, with that rumbling avalanche at his heels, was almost impossible to check. It took two iron arms. He bore down on the blue form inert in the sage. Deadly grim and sure, Wesley bent far over in the saddle, suddenly to stiffen his legs and sweep with lowered arm. His clutching hand caught Betty—closed with steel fingers on blouse, belt, flesh. He held while Sarchedon’s momentum swung the girl off the ground. Wesley felt his bones and muscles wrench. But she seemed light as a feather. Up on the pommel—safe! He reeled. A haze of red blinded him. He felt the mighty stride, the smooth action of the great horse under him. He heard the devastating thunder of hell at his heels. Sarchedon, carrying double, could not outrun the mustangs.

  With clearing sight and brain, Wesley swerved Sarch to the left. His plan had been to gain the cedars. A red demon-like head, smoking, with eyes of fire and mane of flame, forged past Wesley. Lean wild ponies, specters in the flying dust, came abreast of Sarch. The engulfing stampede rolled like a maelstrom upon him.

  Wesley saw cedars close at hand, dim through the whipping streaks of dust. Sarch would gain this shelter. His shoulder collided with a racing mustang. It went down to roll with four hoofs beating the air. Sarch lunged up a rise of ground, behind the cedars.

  The muddy cataract of mustangs poured down the slope. All sound ceased for Wesley. As the yellow pall raced on with the stampede, Wesley covered Betty’s bloody face with her silken scarf and bent his head to endure.

  Like Sarchedon he was inured to the hardships of the desert. This was a dust-laden storm, not one of the sandstorms that buried horses and men, and changed landscapes. It would pass quickly. Again his deafened ears admitted the rumbling roar of hoofs. They were rolling on, receding, lessening in volume. And soon the whistling wind obliterated all sounds of the stampede. That, too, swooped by with a parting shriek. Wesley lifted his head to wipe his wet and stinging eyes.

  Sunlight again, pale, steely. The air was cold and acrid. It clogged Wesley’s nostrils. Indian yells whooped from the slope. Sarchedon stood champing his bit and snorting. For him the incident was closed.

  Wesley removed the scarf from Betty’s face. Her eyes were wide open, dark with retreating pain or terror, beautiful in the realization of deliverance. Her mouth was redder than lipstick had made it. Bits of sage adhered to the raw flesh where points of blood began to show. Dust failed to hide a cut over her temple. Gently Wesley wiped the stains away.

  “Wes,” she whispered. “We . . . pulled it?”

  “Right-o. And I reckon we’re all heah. But let’s make shore.” He felt her arms, her collar bones, her ribs, her legs, fearful that pressure would extract a groan from her. But all bones appeared intact. Not till he shifted her to his left arm, thus pressing her back, did she cry out.

  “Ooooo! Have a heart . . . big boy!”

  “Where did I hurt you, Betty?”

  “My back. Holy cats! You tore my skin off.”

  “I reckon. But you’re OK. We pulled it, and I’ll bet, by God, no movie ever before equaled that stunt. Oh, how the sun and storm acted for us! What a setting, Betty! The desert gave us all the glory.”

  “I’m awfully glad. . . . But scared? Oh, my . . . that mob of beasts! I almost fainted off my horse.”

  “You did a grand stunt.”

  “Yeah? All the same, till I saw Sarch Oh, but he’s wonderful. Wes, will you let me ride him . . . take my picture on him?”

  “I shore will. He’s yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “Darling! Oh, you cowboy!”

  “I mean it, Betty. I’ve lived a long time in two days. These last few minutes The hellinest ride I ever made . . . to save the girl I love.”

  “Don’t . . . don’t kid me,” she said weakly.

  “I’m terrible in love with you, Betty.”

  “Oh, Wes! I fell for you on sight. Was I jealous of that hateful, lovely movie star? I’m telling you. . . . But now . . . oh,

  Wes, is it a break for little Betty?”

  “If you want to put it that way. Only I reckon the break is mine. . . . Betty, would you give up your career . . . as double, and sometime star yourself . . . to be the wife of a young rancher? I can give you all a Western girl could desire. . . . But that glittering career. . . .”

  “Hush! Beside what you offer, darling, that career is a bursted bubble.” She put her arms around his neck and lifted trembling, stained lips to meet his kiss.

  Yells disrupted that ecstatic moment for Wesley. “Honey, they’re yelling,” he said, lifting his head. “I reckon they figure us daid.”

  “But we’re alive, Wesley, alive, alive!” she flashed rapturously.

  He rode out of the cedars with her and across the trampled sage-slope to the ridge top. Hinckley with his company awaited them in strained expectancy. Wesley’s keen eye caught the cameraman shooting his ride across the sage, with Betty in his arms.

  “Cowboy! Don’t tell me she’s badly hurt,” cried Hinckley. “It’d spoil the greatest finale I ever shot.”

  “I reckon she’s OK. But it shore was a bad spill,” replied Wesley, and he swung out of the saddle to set Betty on her feet.

  “Betty Wyatt, you’re disfigured for life!’ exclaimed Miss Van Dever in a tone that betrayed more than compassion.

  “Yeah? To make you more famous, Vera,” flashed Betty.

  Hinckley embraced Wesley, then wrung his hand in exceeding gratefulness. “Oh, boy! You were great, Reigh! It was a wow . . . a knockout! The cameramen shot it all, every single detail to where the stampede and storm swallowed you. I never saw your beat for a rider and an actor.”

  “Wal, I was in dead earnest,” drawled Wesley.

  “You’ll be famous. I’ll offer you a contract.”

  Before Wesley could reply, Pelham interposed with his handsome visage distorted by jealousy and passion.

  “Not with Meteor, you won’t, Mister Hinckley. And you’ll have to retake that sequence.”

  “Re-take?” gasped the director. “For Pete’s sake . . . why?”

  “Because I won’t stand for it. I warned you. This lousy conceited cowboy turned his face to the cameras.”

  “Ah-h! Can you beat that? I ask you!” shrieked Hinckley. “Ha! Ha! He’s handsomer than you, Bryce. Sure, I get it. But look here. That shot is in the little black boxes. And when the studio sees it, your contract will fade out for this real guy.”

  Wesley strode forward to confront the frenzied actor. “Mister Pelham, this heah doubling stunt is done,” drawled Wesley in cool contempt. “I reckon you’ll take back your dirty crack.”

  “Aha! All swelled up, eh?” retorted the actor wickedly. “Spooning with the star one day and steal
ing my thunder the next . . . too much for the glorified cowboy, eh? Here’s another crack!”

  As swiftly as he ended, he struck Wesley a resounding blow. But for Hinckley, who blocked his fall, Wesley would have gone down hard. In an instant he recovered to rush at the actor.

  The move appeared to liberate something dynamic in Hinckley. “Back! Back! Give them room!” he yelled, fiendishly inspired. “On your job, Jimmy. Don’t miss this! Cam-e-ra!”

  Wesley heard, but his enforced entrance to an unforeseen contretemps, only increased his wrath and his purpose to give this crazy actor the beating he deserved. If it came to a rough and tumble, gloves and chaps and spurs would enhance his advantage. Wesley made at Pelham vigorously, meaning to give and take until he got his opponent’s measure. During this period of the fight Wesley had the worst of it. Pelham showed a smattering of science. He could box. But no other of his blows upset Wesley. They lacked what a Westerner called beef. Moreover, they had not been at it for more than a few moments, when the actor began to sweat and pant. Compared with the range rider, he was soft.

  This dawned on Wesley with an exceeding satisfaction which mitigated in some degree his surrender to rage. Pelham, manifestly realizing that he would not last long, redoubled his efforts to beat Wesley down.

  The fight then became fast and furious. For every blow Wesley dealt, he received two. But his were sodden. Those to Pelham’s midriff had decided effect. Once, in the whirl of battle, Wesley caught a glimpse of Betty Wyatt’s face. It was decidedly no longer pale nor distressed. If the fight had been going against Wesley, Betty would not have betrayed such sheer primitive joy. Wesley heard her shrieks high above the shouts of the other spectators. Hinckley yelled through his director’s megaphone a booming proof that his ruling passion had gone into eclipse. “Kill the ham actor, cowboy! Kill him!”

  To Pelham’s credit, he took a grueling punishment without a yelp. But he was obviously so possessed by fury that he would have to be knocked out. Wesley recognized that, and the moment. The actor’s blows no longer harried him, kept him back. Regaining his breath, Wesley bored in. As the fight had progressed, his feeling had augmented with expended physical force. Blood on his face, on his hands, his own blood mixed with his antagonist’s, maddened him, and he felt the lust to kill.