by Zane Grey
“Thank you, Bostil,” replied Slone, earnestly. “I’ll think it over. It would seem kind of tame now to go back to wild-horse wranglin’, after I’ve caught Wildfire. I’ll think it over. Maybe I’ll do it, if you’re sure I’m good enough with rope an’ horse.”
“Wal, by Gawd!” blurted out Bostil. “Holley says he’d rather you throwed a gun on him than a rope! So would I. An’ as for your handlin’ a hoss, I never seen no better.”
Slone appeared embarrassed and kept studying the gold coins in his palm. Someone touched Bostil, who, turning, saw Brackton at his elbow. The other men were now bantering with the Indians.
“Come now while I’ve got a minnit,” said Brackton, taking up a lantern. “I’ve somethin’ to show you.”
Bostil followed Brackton, and Slone came along. The old man opened a door into a small room, half full of stores and truck. The lantern only dimly lighted the place.
“Look thar!” And Brackton flashed the light upon a man lying prostrate.
Bostil recognized the pale face of Joel Creech. “Brack!… What’s this? Is he dead?” Bostil sustained a strange, incomprehensible shock. Sight of a dead man had never before shocked him.
“Nope, he ain’t dead, which if he was might be good for this community,” replied Brackton. “He’s only fallen in a fit. Fust off I reckoned he was drunk. But it ain’t thet.”
“Wal, what do you want to show him to me for?” demanded Bostil, gruffly.
“I reckoned you oughter see him.”
“An’ why, Brackton?”
Brackton set down the lantern and, pushing Slone outside, said: “Jest a minnit, son,” and then he closed the door. “Joel’s been on my hands since the flood cut him off from home,” said Brackton. “An’ he’s been some trial. But nobody else would have done nothin’ for him, so I had to. I reckon I felt sorry for him. He cried like a baby thet had lost its mother. Then he gets wild-lookin’ an’ raved around. When I wasn’t busy I kept an eye on him. But some of the time I couldn’t, an’ he stole drinks, which made him wuss. An’ when I seen he was tryin’ to sneak one of my guns, I up an’ gets suspicious. Once he said, ‘My dad’s hosses are goin’ to starve, an’ I’m goin’ to kill somebody!’ He was out of his head an’ dangerous. Wal, I was worried some, but all I could do was lock up my guns. Last night I caught him confabin’ with some men out in the dark, behind the store. They all skedaddled except Joel, but I recognized Cordts. I didn’t like this, nuther. Joel was surly an’ ugly. An’ when one of the riders called him he said: ‘Thet boat never drifted off. Fer the night of the flood I went down there myself an’ tied the ropes. They never come untied. Somebody cut them—jest before the flood—to make sure my dad’s hosses couldn’t be crossed. Somebody figgered the river an’ the flood. An’ if my dad’s hosses starve I’m goin’ to kill somebody!’”
Brackton took up the lantern and placed a hand on the door ready to go out.
“Then a rider punched Joel—I never seen who—an’ Joel had a fit. I dragged him in here. An’ as you see, he ain’t come to yet.”
“Wal, Brackton, the boy’s crazy,” said Bostil.
“So I reckon. An’ I’m afeared he’ll burn us out—he’s crazy on fires, anyway—or do somethin’ like.”
“He’s sure a problem. Wal, we’ll see,” replied Bostil, soberly.
And they went out to find Slone waiting. Then Bostil called his guests, and with Slone also accompanying him, went home.
* * *
Bostil threw off the recurring gloom, and he was good-natured when Lucy came to his room to say good night. He knew she had come to say more than that.
“Hello, daughter!” he said. “Aren’t you ashamed to come facin’ your poor old dad?”
Lucy eyed him dubiously. “No, I’m not ashamed. But I’m still a little—afraid.”
“I’m harmless, child. I’m a broken man. When you put Sage King out of the race you broke me.”
“Dad, that isn’t funny. You make me an—angry when you hint I did something underhand.”
“Wal, you didn’t consult me.”
“I thought it would be fun to surprise you all. Why, you’re always delighted with a surprise in a race, unless it beats you.… Then, it was my great and only chance to get out in front of the King. Oh, how grand it’d have been! Dad, I’d have run away from him the same as the others!”
“No, you wouldn’t,” declared Bostil.
“Dad, Wildfire can beat the King!”
“Never, girl! Knockin’ a good-tempered hoss off his pins ain’t beatin’ him in a runnin’-race.”
Then father and daughter fought over the old score, the one doggedly, imperturbably, the other spiritedly, with flashing eyes. It was different this time, however, for it ended in Lucy saying Bostil would never risk another race. That stung Bostil, and it cost him an effort to control his temper.
“Let thet go now. Tell me—all about how you saved Wildfire, an’ Slone, too.”
Lucy readily began the narrative, and she had scarcely started before Bostil found himself intensely interested. Soon he became absorbed. That was the most thrilling and moving kind of romance to him, like his rider’s dreams.
“Lucy, you’re sure a game kid,” he said, fervidly, when she had ended. “I reckon I don’t blame Slone for fallin’ in love with you.”
“Who said that?” inquired Lucy.
“Nobody. But it’s true—ain’t it?”
She looked up with eyes as true as ever they were, yet a little sad, he thought, a little wistful and wondering, as if a strange and grave thing confronted her.
“Yes, Dad—it’s—it’s true,” she answered, haltingly.
“Wal, you didn’t need to tell me, but I’m glad you did.”
Bostil meant to ask her then if she in any sense returned the rider’s love, but unaccountably he could not put the question. The girl was as true as ever—as good as gold. Bostil feared a secret that might hurt him. Just as sure as life was there and death but a step away, some rider, sooner or later, would win this girl’s love. Bostil knew that, hated it, feared it. Yet he would never give his girl to a beggarly rider. Such a man as Wetherby ought to win Lucy’s hand. And Bostil did not want to know too much at present; he did not want his swift-mounting animosity roused so soon. Still he was curious, and wanting to get the drift of Lucy’s mind, he took to his old habit of teasing.
“Another moonstruck rider!” he said. “Your eyes are sure full moons, Lucy. I’d be ashamed to trifle with these poor fellers.”
“Dad!”
“You’re a heartless flirt—same as your mother was before she met me.”
“I’m not. And I don’t believe mother was, either,” replied Lucy. It was easy to strike fire from her.
“Wal, you did dead wrong to ride out there day after day meetin’ Slone, because—young woman—if he ever has the nerve to ask me for you I’ll beat him up bad.”
“Then you’d be a brute!” retorted Lucy.
“Wal, mebbe,” returned Bostil, secretly delighted and surprised at Lucy’s failure to see through him. But she was looking inward. He wondered what hid there deep in her. “But I can’t stand for the nerve of thet.”
“He—he means to—to ask you.”
“The h—.… A-huh!”
Lucy did not catch the slip of tongue. She was flushing now. “He said he’d never have let me meet him out there alone—unless—he—he loved me—and as our neighbors and the riders would learn of it—and talk—he wanted you and them to know he’d asked to—to marry me.”
“Wal, he’s a square young man!” ejaculated Bostil, involuntarily. It was hard for Bostil to hide his sincerity and impulsiveness; much harder than to hide unworthy attributes. Then he got back on the other track. “Thet’ll make me treat him decent, so when he rides up to ask for you I’ll let him off with, ‘No!’”
Lucy dropped her head. Bostil would have given all he had, except his horses, to feel sure she did not care for Slone.
“Dad�
��I said—‘No’—for myself,” she murmured.
This time Bostil did not withhold the profane word of surprise. “… So he’s asked you, then? Wal, wal! When?”
“To-day—out there in the rocks where he waited with Wildfire for me. He—he—”
Lucy slipped into her father’s arms, and her slender form shook. Bostil instinctively felt what she then needed was her mother. Her mother was dead, and he was only a rough, old, hard rider. He did not know what to do—to say. His heart softened and he clasped her close. It hurt him keenly to realize that he might have been a better, kinder father if it were not for the fear that she would find him out. But that proved he loved her, craved her respect and affection.
“Wal, little girl, tell me,” he said.
“He—he broke his word to me.”
“A-huh! Thet’s too bad. An’ how did he?”
“He—he—” Lucy seemed to catch her tongue.
Bostil was positive she had meant to tell him something and suddenly changed her mind. Subtly the child vanished—a woman remained. Lucy sat up self-possessed once more. Some powerfully impelling thought had transformed her. Bostil’s keen sense gathered that what she would not tell was not hers to reveal. For herself, she was the soul of simplicity and frankness.
“Days ago I told him I cared for him,” she went on. “But I forbade him to speak of it to me. He promised. I wanted to wait till after the race—till after I had found courage to confess to you. He broke his word.… To-day when he put me up on Wildfire he—he suddenly lost his head.”
The slow scarlet welled into Lucy’s face and her eyes grew shamed, but bravely she kept facing her father.
“He—he pulled me off—he hugged me—he k-kissed me.… Oh, it was dreadful—shameful!… Then I gave him back—some—something he had given me. And I told him I—I hated him—and I told him, ‘No!’”
“But you rode his hoss in the race,” said Bostil.
Lucy bowed her head at that. “I—I couldn’t resist!”
Bostil stroked the bright head. What a quandary for a thick-skulled old horseman! “Wal, it seems to me Slone didn’t act so bad, considerin’. You’d told him you cared for him. If it wasn’t for thet!… I remember I did much the same to your mother. She raised the devil, but I never seen as she cared any less for me.”
“I’ll never forgive him,” Lucy cried, passionately. “I hate him. A man who breaks his word in one thing will do it in another.”
Bostil sadly realized that his little girl had reached womanhood and love, and with them the sweet, bitter pangs of life. He realized also that here was a crisis when a word—an unjust or lying word from him would forever ruin any hope that might still exist for Slone. Bostil realized this acutely, but the realization was not even a temptation.
“Wal, listen. I’m bound to confess your new rider is sure swift. An’, Lucy, to-day if he hadn’t been as swift with a rope as he is in love—wal, your old daddy might be dead!”
She grew as white as her dress. “Oh, Dad! I knew something had happened,” she cried, reaching for him.
Then Bostil told her how Dick Sears had menaced him—how Slone had foiled the horse-thief. He told the story bluntly, but eloquently, with all a rider’s praise.
Lucy rose with hands pressed against her breast. When had Bostil seen eyes like those—dark, shining, wonderful? Ah! He remembered her mother’s once—only once, as a girl.
Then Lucy kissed him and without a word fled from the room.
Bostil stared at her. “Damn me!” he swore, as he threw a boot against the wall. “I reckon I’ll never let her marry Slone, but I just had to tell her what I think of him!”
CHAPTER XIV
Slone lay wide awake under an open window, watching the stars glimmer through the rustling foliage of the cottonwoods. Somewhere a lonesome hound bayed. Very faintly came the silvery tinkle of running water.
For five days Slone had been a guest of Bostil’s, and the whole five days had been torment.
On the morning of the day after the races Lucy had confronted him. Would he ever forget her eyes—her voice? “Bless you for saving my dad!” she had said. “It was brave.… But don’t let Dad fool you. Don’t believe in his kindness. Above all, don’t ride for him! He only wants Wildfire, and if he doesn’t get him he’ll hate you!”
That speech of Lucy’s had made the succeeding days hard for Slone. Bostil loaded him with gifts and kindnesses, and never ceased importuning him to accept his offers. But for Lucy, Slone would have accepted. It was she who cast the first doubt of Bostil into his mind. Lucy averred that her father was splendid and good in every way except in what pertained to fast horses; there he was impossible.
The great stallion that Slone had nearly sacrificed his life to catch was like a thorn in the rider’s flesh. Slone lay there in the darkness, restless, hot, rolling from side to side, or staring out at the star-studded sky—miserably unhappy all on account of that horse. Almost he hated him. What pride he had felt in Wildfire! How he had gloried in the gift of the stallion to Lucy! Then, on the morning of the race had come that unexpected, incomprehensible and wild act of which he had been guilty. Yet not to save his life, his soul, could he regret it! Was it he who had been responsible, or an unknown savage within him? He had kept his word to Lucy, when day after day he had burned with love until that fatal moment when the touch of her, as he lifted her to Wildfire’s saddle, had made a madman out of him. He had swept her into his arms and held her breast to his, her face before him, and he had kissed the sweet, parting lips till he was blind.
Then he had learned what a little fury she was. Then he learned how he had fallen, what he had forfeited. In his amaze at himself, in his humility and shame, he had not been able to say a word in his own defense. She did not know yet that his act had been ungovernable and that he had not known what he was doing till too late. And she had finished with: “I’ll ride Wildfire in the race—but I won’t have him—and I won’t have you! No!”
She had the steel and hardness of her father.
For Slone, the watching of that race was a blend of rapture and despair. He lived over in mind all the time between the race and this hour when he lay there sleepless and full of remorse. His mind was like a racecourse with many races; and predominating in it was that swift, strange, stinging race of his memory of Lucy Bostil’s looks and actions.
What an utter fool he was to believe she had meant those tender words when out there under the looming monuments, she had accepted Wildfire! She had been an impulsive child. Her scorn and fury that morning of the race had left nothing for him except footless fancies. She had mistaken love of Wildfire for love of him. No, his case was hopeless with Lucy, and if it had not been so Bostil would have made it hopeless. Yet there were things Slone could not fathom—the willful, contradictory, proud and cold and unaccountably sweet looks and actions of the girl. They haunted Slone. They made him conscious he had a mind and tortured him with his development. But he had no experience with girls to compare with what was happening now. It seemed that accepted fact and remembered scorn and cold certainty were somehow at variance with hitherto unknown intuitions and instincts. Lucy avoided him, if by chance she encountered him alone. When Bostil or Aunt Jane or anyone else was present Lucy was kind, pleasant, agreeable. What made her flush red at sight of him and then pale? Why did she often at table or in the big living-room softly brush against him when it seemed she could have avoided that? Many times he had felt some inconceivable drawing power, and looked up to find her eyes upon him, strange eyes full of mystery, that were suddenly averted. Was there any meaning attachable to the fact that his room was kept so tidy and neat, that every day something was added to its comfort or color, that he found fresh flowers whenever he returned, or a book, or a fruit, or a dainty morsel to eat, and once a bunch of Indian paint-brush, wild flowers of the desert that Lucy knew he loved? Most of all, it was Lucy’s eyes which haunted Slone—eyes that had changed, darkened, lost their audacious flash, and yet s
eemed all the sweeter. The glances he caught, which he fancied were stolen—and then derided his fancy—thrilled him to his heart. Thus Slone had spent waking hours by day and night, mad with love and remorse, tormented one hour by imagined grounds for hope and resigned to despair the next.
Upon the sixth morning of his stay at Bostil’s Slone rose with something of his former will reasserting itself. He could not remain in Bostil’s home any longer unless he accepted Bostil’s offer, and this was not to be thought of. With a wrench Slone threw off the softening indecision and hurried out to find Bostil while the determination was hot.
Bostil was in the corral with Wildfire. This was the second time Slone had found him there. Wildfire appeared to regard Bostil with a much better favor than he did his master. As Slone noted this a little heat stole along his veins. That was gall to a rider.
“I like your hoss,” said Bostil, with gruff frankness. But a tinge of red showed under his beard.
“Bostil, I’m sorry I can’t take you up on the job,” rejoined Slone, swiftly. “It’s been hard for me to decide. You’ve been good to me. I’m grateful. But it’s time I was tellin’ you.”
“Why can’t you?” demanded Bostil, straightening up with a glint in his big eyes. It was the first time he had asked Slone that.
“I can’t ride for you,” replied Slone, briefly.
“Anythin’ to do with Lucy?” queried Bostil.
“How so?” returned Slone, conscious of more heat.
“Wal, you was sweet on her an’ she wouldn’t have you,” replied Bostil.
Slone felt the blood swell and boil in his veins. This Bostil could say as harsh and hard things as repute gave him credit for.
“Yes, I am sweet on Lucy, an’ she won’t have me,” said Slone, steadily. “I asked her to let me come to you an’ tell you I wanted to marry her. But she wouldn’t.”
“Wal, it’s just as good you didn’t come, because I might.…” Bostil broke off his speech and began again. “You don’t lack nerve, Slone. What’d you have to offer Lucy?”