Grey, Zane - Novel 27

  Had that been the moment? wondered Sue.

  But she had laughed archly, taking him at jest. “Why not? I don’t see why I can’t love a horse, any horse, independent of his master.”

  “Well, you see, in your case it would separate them. Any rider who loved you and found out you loved his horse would give him to you.”

  Brutus appeared to be a giant of a horse that somehow grew on her the more she looked. She liked the quick uplift of his head as she approached, and the soft dark eyes intent on her. He had an open honest face, one which on the instant inspired her with trust. She had not the least fear of him.

  “How shiny his coat!” she exclaimed, smoothing the wide glossy neck. “He’s black. No, not black. He seems to shine black through brown. Curious. Chess, his skin looks like water reflecting shadows of leaves.” Brutus took to Sue, not too quickly, not before he had eyed her and studied her and nosed her, but presently, when he had satisfied himself she was what he liked. Then he had acted in a way to delight Sue, to tickle her vanity, for Sue believed she had a winning way with animals.

  Chess had put her saddle upon Brutus and insisted she ride him. So this was how it had come to pass that Chane, coming suddenly from under the cottonwoods, had surprised her astride his horse. Would she ever forget his look?

  “You can ride?” he queried, earnestly.

  “Oh yes. Don’t worry. I’ll ride him,” she replied, loftily.

  “Let him go, then,” said the rider. “The faster he goes the easier his gait. Just stick on. Let him run and let him jump. He knows where he can go.”

  Brutus, free of rein, had taken Sue on the wings of the wind. After days of rest he wanted to run. Her weight was nothing. How surely she felt Chess and Chane watching her as Brutus raced over the green! She would ride him. Yet as he settled down to a speed she had never known, her audacity succumbed to thrilling fear. Her heart leaped to her throat as Brutus sailed over a deep wash she had not seen. Then wildness ran riot with pulse and thought. The blanket of wind, pressing hard and harder, lifted her out of her saddle, so that one hand had to grasp the pommel. She ran down wild horses that could not escape this fleet racer; and when she turned him in a curve back toward the camp, the wind blinded her, tore her hair loose and strung it in a long waved stream behind her. His hoof-beats clattered and beat faster, until they made a single dim sound in Sue’s roaring ears. She cried out in the abandon of the ride. In her blurred sight the golden grove of cottonwoods seemed to grow and move toward her. Then the swift level sliding through the air broke to a harder gait. Bratus was easing out of his run. His change to a gallop threw Sue up and down like a feather before she could get his swing; and when she did he dropped to long lope, and from this to tremendous trot, so violent in stride that Sue just managed by dint of all her strength to stay upon him. When he pounded to a stop she could see only blurred images against the gold background of grove. She heard Chess’s whoop.

  Then, overcome by dizziness, she swayed in the saddle. Not Chess, but Chane had lifted her down, blinded, burning, thrilling. Yet she had felt his gentle hold, his strong arms on her. Had that been the moment?

  “Say, Sue, I should smile you did ride him!” Chess was shouting in her muffled ear. “You sure looked good. Honest, I didn’t think you’d dare let him ran. And leap—say he went a mile high over the washes.”

  “Well, I reckon you rode him, when he was running, anyway,” spoke up the cool, easy voice of that other. “But I’m advising you to break in easier next time.”

  And there had been a next time, other times, until Sue loved Brutus, the sight of him, the feel of him, his response to every word. She learned what a tremendous engine of speed and power he was, governed by gentle and spirited mind, if a horse could have one.. When she caressed his grand arched neck before a ride or rubbed down his wet quivering flanks after a race, she appreciated what the wonderful muscles were for. She grew to understand him. A horse took on new meaning to her. Bratus was a comrade, a friend, a sweetheart, and he could as well be a savior. Such a horse mastered the desert. Through her knowledge of Brutus and her love for him Sue no longer marveled at a rider’s passion to capture Panquitch. She learned to know a desire to see that great wild stallion.

  “Did Brutus ride me into this—this spell?” murmured Sue. But she was denied the satisfaction of understanding when or how or why she had come to fall in love with Chane Weymer. All might have contributed to it, nothing might have been particularly to blame.

  Sue’s inherent honesty of soul, as it had forced her to confess the naked truth of her dilemma, likewise in time forced other considerations, to which the dreams and wonderings had so far been subservient. They had been sweet, vague, dreamful, the'questionings of awakened love. She next had to deal with sense, not sentiment. And shame flooded through her.

  “What is he? A wandering rider, lover of wild horses and Indian girls! . . . Squaw man!”

  Clamoring voices from the unknown depths of her fought for hold in her conscience. But she silenced them. To realize that she had loved unsought, unwooed, made her untrue to the best in her, merciless to the man who had roused this tumult of her heart. She must hide it. She must avoid Chane Weymer; she must welcome anyone whose attention might help to divert suspicion of her humiliating secret.

  That night Sue Melberne, with the fierce pride and strange egotism of a woman who must avenge herself upon the innocent cause of her pangs, was the life of the merry camp-fire circle. Chess, whom she blamed partly for her woe, was as merry as anyone, until Sue sat down beside Manerube, flushed of face, bright of eye, and talked and laughed with him as she had with the others. Then Chess became suddenly sober. He backed away from the fire, watching her with big staring eyes.

  Sue was aware of this. It helped her, somehow. But when Chane silently strode away into the shadows her vivacity lost its inspiration. Still she kept amusing Manerube, who responded, expanded under her laughter and sallies. Her father gazed upon her with pleasure on his tired face. Ora, too, reacted characteristically to Sue’s friendliness. She was not to be outdone. Between them Manerube became the center of repartee he manifestly took to his credit.

  The evening wore on. One after another the members of Melberne’s outfit went to bed, until only Manerube and the girls were left, with Chess sitting across the fire, his head on his hands.

  Sue knew he was waiting for her to start for her tent—that he would wait no matter how she tarried. At last she could keep up the deception no longer, and rose to go, bidding them good night.

  “Sue, let me walk with you to your tent?” asked Manerube.

  “No, thanks. Take Ora. She’s afraid of the dark,” replied Sue, tripping away. But once out in the shadow, her feet became as heavy as lead. Chess caught up with her, took hold of her arm, and turned her to face him.

  “Sue Melberne, what’s come over you?” he demanded.

  “Over me? Why, nothing! Do you mean my— my cutting up a little?”

  “Yes, I mean that—with Manerube.”

  “Oh! Chess, it’s none of your business if I want to make merry—a little, is it, with him or anyone?”

  “No, I reckon not,” replied Chess, darkly, as he stared down at her. “But Manerube! You never were that way before. Didn’t you see Chane walk away the minute you began flirting with Manerube?”

  “I—I didn’t flirt,” declared Sue, hotly, and she was honest in her denial.

  '‘Aw, you did. And it wasn’t like you, Sue.”

  “How do you know what I’m like—really?” queried Sue. His pain, his reproach, stung her, drove her to say what she thought but did not mean to utter.

  “Something’s wrong with you, Sue Melberne. Tell me what it is. Please. Aw, Sue—”

  “I’ve nothing to tell you,” she replied, and turned away. :

  Chess followed her, and once again strode before her, just as she reached her tent. He was in the open, away from the trees. His head was bare, his face clear in the moonlight.

 
; “Are you sure? You can’t hurt us Weymers more than once.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. And I think you’re rude.”

  “Rude!” he ejaculated. “What in damnation has come over you? You never called me that before. . . . I’d do anything, though, to keep you from making eyes at Manerube, being sweet—like you were. Promise me you won’t.”

  “Chess, have you any right to criticize my actions?” she demanded.

  “I’m just asking you something. Will you promise not to flirt with Manerube again?”

  “No! I deny I flirted, but if I’m wrong—I’ll do it when I please,” retorted Sue, passionately. The day’s conflicting emotions had worn her out.

  Chess stepped back from her as if she had struck him.

  “Did you see Chane’s face just before he left?” he asked, in different tone.

  “No, I didn’t. What’s it to me how he looked?”

  “Nothing, I reckon,” replied Chess, with a dignity Sue had never noted in him. “I’m telling you, though. Chane looked terribly surprised, terribly hurt. He hates a flirt.”

  Sue heard a bitter little laugh issue from her lips.

  “Oh, he draws the line at white color, does he? . . . I hear he’s not so righteous—or indifferent toward redskinned flirts!”

  “Sue—Melberne!” gasped Chess, starting as if he had been stabbed.

  A sudden hot anger at herself, at Chess, at Chane had possessed Sue; and this, with a sudden tearing pang of jealousy, had given rise to a speech which left her shocked.

  Certain it was that Chess turned white in the moon* light, and raised his hand as if to smite the lips which dishonored the brother he revered. Sue awaited that blow, invited it, wanted it, in the shame of the moment. But Chess’s hand fell back, nerveless and shaking. Then with a wrench he drew himself up.

  “I didn’t know you, really,” he said. “And I’ll tell you one thing more. If I hadn’t made that promise to Chane I’d sure get drunk tonight.”

  Wheeling with a bound, he plunged into the shade of the cottonwoods.

  “Oh, Chess—I—I didn’t mean that,” cried Sue. But he did not hear. He was running over the rustling leaves. Sue went into her tent and fell on her bed. “What have I done? Oh, I’m a miserable little beast! ... I love that boy as much as any sister could. And I’ve hurt him. His eyes! He was horrified. He’ll despise me now. He’ll tell his brother I—I . . . Oh, this day, this day! My heart will break!”

  Sue rode every day, but no more on Brutus. She nursed the delusion that her pretended friendliness toward Manerube, by deceiving the brothers as to the true state of her heart, would assuage her pain during the process of her struggle. Therefore she adhered to the plan conceived in that hour of her abasement.

  Where heretofore she had interested herself solely in the labors of Chess and Chane on the timbered hillside, now she rode far afield and watched the stretching of the barbed-wire fence. Its western flange zigzagged across the valley, cunningly broken at the deep gashes, calculated to deceive wild horses. She carried warm food to her father, and otherwise served him during this long arduous task, growing farther and farther from the camp.

  These rides kept her out in the open most of the day. Around the camp fire she encouraged Manerube’s increasing attentions, though less and less did she give him opportunity to seek her alone. Ora had tossed her black head and said, tartly, “You can have Bent Mane- rube and welcome!” She had gone back to Chess, growing happier for the change. Sue sometimes found it impossible to avoid Chess’s scornful eyes. He seldom came near her. How she missed the little courtesies that now no one else had time or thought for! Manerube certainly never profited by kindly actions. Sue seldom saw Chane Weymer, except at a distance. Yet always her eyes roved in search of him. It was bitter to see him, yet more bitter when her search was unrewarded.

  She happened to be present one night at the camp fire, after supper, when talk waxed warm about the proposed wild-horse drive very soon now to be started. The argument started by Melbeme’s query, “Wal, now our trap is aboot ready, how are we goin’ to start the drive?”

  Manerube, as usual, did all the replying, and Melberne had evidently learned by heart this rider’s ideas. Most of Manerube’s talk was devoted to his past performances; he had little to say about future accomplishments, except his brag as to results. This night Melberne, approaching the climax of his cherished enterprise, plainly showed dissatisfaction with Manerube.

  “I’ve given you authority to handle this drive,” declared Melberne, forcibly. “Reckon I want to know how you propose to go aboot it?”

  “We’ll just spread out and drive.down the valley, toward the trap,” replied Manerube, with impatient gesture of finality.

  “Ahuh! So that’s all?” returned Melberne, with more of sarcasm than Sue had ever heard on her father’s lips. His eyes held a glint foreign to their natural kindly frankness. Then he addressed himself to his Mexican vaquero.

  “Alonzo, what’s your say aboot how to make this drive?”

  “No savvy Senor Manerube,” replied the half-breed, indicating the rider.

  “What?” shouted Melberne, growing red in the face. “You mean you’re not favorin’ this barbed-wire trap Manerube’s built?”

  The vaquero had no more to say. His sloe-black eyes gazed steadily into Melbeme’s, meaningly it seemed to Sue, as if he was not the kind of a man to be made talk when he did not choose to. Melberne, taking the hint, repeated his query, without the vio* lence. Alonzo spread his brown little hands, sinewy like an Indian’s, to indicate that the matter was too much for him and he wanted no responsibility. Sue intuitively felt, as formerly, that the vaquero was antagonistic to Manerube.

  “Wal, Utah, you know this heah wild-horse game,” said Melberne, turning to the lean rider. “Will you tell me how you think we ought to make this drive?”

  “Shore. I think we oughtn’t make it a’tall,” drawled Utah.

  Melberne swore, and threw the stick he held into the fire, where it sent up a shower of sparks.

  “I didn’t ask that,” he snapped. “You needn’t get smart with me. I’m talkin’ business.”

  “Wal, boss, I’m like my pard Tway Miller. Sometimes I cain’t talk business or nothin’,” returned Utah, with his easy, deliberate drawl. There was a smile on his lean bronzed face. Sue grew more and more convinced that her father, Texan though he was, did not understand these riders.

  “Jim, look heah,” said Melberne, turning to Loughbridge. “Come to think aboot it, you hired most of these close-mouthed gentlemen. Suppose you make them talk.”

  “Don’t think thet’s important, even if I wanted to make them, which I don’t,” replied Loughbridge. “Manerube’s plan suits me to a T. An’ I sure don’t see why you’re reflectin’ on his judgment by naggin’ these other riders.”

  “Wal, Jim, I reckon there’s a lot you don’t see,” responded Melberne, with more sarcasm. “We’re deep in this deal now an’ we stand to lose or gain a lot.”

  “We don’t stand to lose nothin’,” rejoined Loughbridge, “unless you make these riders so sore they’ll quit us.”

  “Jake, please fetch Weymer heah quick,” said Melberne. “Tell him it’s important.”

  Sue gathered from this obstinacy on the part of her father that there was something preying on his mind.

  Quick to read the expressions of his mobile features, she detected more than the usual indecision characteristic of him in situations with which he was not familiar. His deliberate sending for Chane Weymer seemed flinging more than reasonable doubt in the faces of his partners, and especially Manerube. Sue slipped back into the shadow and waited. When presently she heard Weymer’s well-known footstep, he was striding out of the gloom, in advance of Jake. The instant Sue saw the dark gleam of his eyes in the firelight, his forward action, guarded yet quick, the something commanding in his presence, she divined what had actuated her father in sending for him. He was a man to rely upon. The moment of Weymer’s arrival held for S
ue less of pain than other times lately, for she sensed that in some way he would become an ally of her father’s.

  “What’s wrong, Melberne?” asked Chane, as he halted in the firelight. The absence of his coat showed his lithe powerful form to advantage, his small waist and round rider’s hips. It also disclosed the fact that he wore a gun-belt, with gun hanging low on his right side. Sue had not seen him armed before. A slight cold shudder passed over her.

  “Wal, Weymer, I cain’t say there’s anythin’ wrong, exactly,” responded Melberne, standing up to face the rider. “But I cain’t swear it’s right, either. Heah’s the argument. . . . We’re aboot done fixin’ this wild-horse trap I’m so keen aboot. Reckon the success or failure of this trick means a lot to me. Jim an’ Manerube swear it cain’t fail. Wal, now we’re near ready to drive, I wanted to slow down. I asked Manerube what his plan was. An’ he up an’ says we’ll just spread out an’ drive the valley. That’s all !—I asked Alonzo to tell how he’d do it, an’ he says he doesn’t savvy Manerube. I just don’t get his hunch. Then I asked Utah, an’ he drawls sarcastic like that he cain’t talk no more’n Tway Miller. Mebbe these riders are just naturally jealous of Manerube an’ won’t support him. Mebbe it’s somethin’ else. I don’t know much aboot Utah riders, but I reckon I know men. That’s why I sent for you. I reckoned you’d never let personal grudges interfere with what was right. Now would you?”

  “Why, certainly not!” declared Weymer. “And I’d like you to know I don’t bear grudges.”

  “Ahuh! All right, then. I’ve a hunch you know this wild-horse-wranglin’ game. Now I’d shore take it as a favor if you’d tell me what you think aboot this drive we’re soon to make.”

  Without the slightest hesitation Chane responded with a swift, “Melberne, I hired out to ride, not talk.” Here Sue, in her mounting interest at this colloquy, expected her father to fall into a rage. Chane’s reply had been distinctly aloof, even cold. But Melberne manifestly had himself now well in hand. He was on the track of something that even the bystanders began to feel. Manerube shifted uneasily from one position to another.