by Zane Grey
He retraced his steps back to the open, and saddling the horse the boys had brought up before they left, he mounted, and rode quickly away to get out of the stench.
“More than one kind of a stink there, I reckon,” he muttered.
The daily phenomenon that gave this Pass its name was in full and glorious sweep when Rock reached his cabin. Weary and worried as he was, he had to sit down and watch the beautiful end of day.
There were fewer clouds and these hung round the distant peaks, as if anchored to the steep higher slopes. Strange to see no gold in this sunset! But pearl gray and silver sheen and shell pink filled the great gap of sky. The curtains and shafts of colored light were wanting, too. Yet withal there was exquisite beauty, rarer, more delicate, quickly evanescent and soon gone.
Rock shaved and changed his clothes, thinking of everything he could to keep away the tantalizing and heart-depressing thought of the interview with Thiry so soon to come. Yet behind every vague and swift idea that he called up hovered the shadow of this girl and the unfortunate circumstances in which she must be involved, and the fate that had lured him into her life.
He made sure, this evening, to be on hand before the first supper bell rang. All the younger members of the family, except Thiry, came at the call. The children romped from one side and the boys raced from the other. Alice, who had rung the bell and called, gayly, “Come and get it,” took her seat beside Rock.
“We’re livelier when Ash and Pa are away,” she said, smiling.
“So I notice. Sure hope they stay away long,” he replied, remarking how singularly she spoke of Ash before her father. Rock kept roving eyes on the quest for Thiry. But he was looking the wrong way when her voice, almost at his elbow, gave him a pang that was both pain and joy in one. She and Mrs. Preston were bringing in the supper. The children were noisily merry; and the boys cracked jokes, some of which, vague riddles, Rock guessed might have reference to him. Mrs. Preston was the last to take a seat at the table, and she occupied her husband’s place. Thiry, as before, sat opposite Rock, and when he could summon courage to look straight at her he suffered another twinge at the enhanced sadness of her face.
Nevertheless, Rock had such hold on himself that he amused and interested Mrs. Preston, brought smiles to Alice’s face and shouts of glee from the children. But as soon as he had finished supper he excused himself and seeking the gloom of the pines, he gave himself up to turbulent anticipations.
The moon appeared long in rising, and Rock, patrolling a beat under the trees, both longingly and fearfully watched for the silver radiance over the rim. It came at last and found him unprepared. How could he bear to terrorize Thiry Preston by confessing his determination to stay?
At length he could not longer procrastinate. Skirting the edge of the pines, he circled the slope, and coming to the stream he followed that up to a level, and soon found the great pine under which he had talked with Thiry the night before. The far side of the Pass was blanched in moonlight; this side was dark in shadow. Rock was unable to see the rustic seat until he could almost touch the tree.
To his mingled relief and disappointment Thiry was not there. He sat down to watch and think. A light shone through the curtained window of her cabin.
Trueman could not rally any connected thoughts. He must wait until she came—until he could see and hear her. That moment would liberate him. He had waited at a rendezvous for many a girl—a situation always attended with pleasurable and sometimes perplexing sensations—but this was not the same. How tremendous the issue of this meeting!
He heard the cabin door open. A broad light flared out into the gloom. Then Thiry appeared in the doorway, clearly defined. She wore white. She had changed her dress since supper. Trueman’s heart gave a leap and then seemed to stand still while she stood peering out into the night. She closed the door behind her—vanished. But Rock heard quick light footfalls. She was coming.
Presently her pale form grew more distinct. She groped slowly toward the seat. Evidently her eyes were not yet accustomed to the darkness. Rock saw her put out her hands, feeling for the tree or the bench.
But before she touched either Rock reached up to take them.
“Oh!” she cried, evidently startled. “It’s you—Mr. Rock.”
“Yes.” He did not let go of her hands.
“You’re—late. I—I’ve been here twice,” she said, with a nervous little laugh. No doubt she could not escape from the romance of this unusual situation.
“I’m sorry, but it took courage to come at all,” returned Rock.
“Didn’t it, though? . . . Mr. Rock, you—you are holding my hands. Please let go so I may sit down.”
He released her and leaned back against the pine, conscious that her presence had ended his uncertainty. She sat down, quite close to him, and bent her head forward a little, as if trying to pierce the gloom.
“Miss Thiry, such eyes as yours ought to see through walls,” said Trueman, sentimentally.
“Ought they? Well, they can’t. . . . And, Mr. Rock, this is no occasion for holding hands or paying compliments.”
There had been some slight change in her. Rock sensed less aloofness. The long hours, probably, had magnified; and constant thought had made him no longer a stranger. He would let her start the conversation. Then he would prolong it as far as fairness and consideration would permit. Suddenly the moon slipped up over the black rim, and magically the darkness lightened. A silver radiance touched the girl’s hair and face. Rock, his own features in shadow, watched her and waited. The hour seemed to be the most momentous of his life. The night wind, sweet and balmy, was moving up from the Pass, roaring low in the tree-tops. How innumerable the nights he had listened to that music, always with a sense of its potency, of its message! And the time of its fulfillment had come.
“Ash stole your horse?” she began, tentatively.
“Reckon I wouldn’t say stole. But he sure borrowed Egypt,” returned Rock, with a laugh.
“Egypt! . . . I knew you named him that.”
“Yes. Much obliged to you.”
“Who told you?”
“Lucy. I’ve sure a stand-in with her.”
“So it appears. . . . I dare say you’ll learn all our secrets,” she said, a little irritated.
“Miss Thiry, things just gravitate my way.”
“Don’t call me Miss Thiry. If you must be formal make it Miss Preston.”
Rock guessed that his apparent coolness and nonchalance had struck her a little provokingly.
“Thanks, Miss Preston.”
“I should be pleased that you called Leslie’s horse by the name I gave him. Most everybody knows. Ash certainly knows. And—that’s why I can’t be pleased or flattered.”
“Lucy was, anyhow. . . . She said you loved the horse.”
“Oh, I do. I’ve known him years, it seems. I used to ride him, too. How glorious it was! . . . But Ash caught me once—and then, well, I never got on him again.”
“Your world revolves around your brother Ash,” mused Rock. “Well, some day I’ll put you up on Egypt, right here in your yard. . . . And some other day—maybe—I’ll give him to you.”
“Oh! . . . You couldn’t—and I couldn’t accept. . . . But that threat proves you—just—just what I’ve figured out you are.”
“Good or bad?” queried Rock.
“Bad. You’re a cowboy, many times over, dominated by a very devil. . . . Oh, your ears would burn if you knew all I thought.”
“They’re burnin’ now. But I’d rather you thought bad than not at all. If a man can’t make a woman think about him, then his case is hopeless.”
“Would any case ever be hopeless to you?” she asked, curiously.
“No. I’ve helped a good many friends whose cases seemed hopeless to everyone but me,” he answered, significantly.
“With a gun, I suppose?” she flashed, perhaps both thrilled and repelled.
“Out here in the Southwest, sometimes you have to use a
gun.”
She was silent a moment, evidently not quite sure how to take him.
“I asked Al what you did when you found out Ash took your horse,” went on Thiry, presently.
“What did Al say?”
“He said you were thunderstruck. You turned red as a beet, then white as a sheet. . . . And you swore something terrible.”
“Al told the truth, Thiry,” admitted Rock, with reluctance. “I never was so surprised—never so furious. New trick on me! My beautiful horse—that you had named—taken from me. . . . If you understand cowboys you may get some faint hunch of my feelin’s.”
“Mr. Rock, you see, then—how impossible Ash is!”
“Nobody or nothin’ is impossible.”
“Dad says the man doesn’t live who can stand Ash’s meanness.”
“Well, I’m livin’ and maybe I can. . . . You saw him this mornin’?”
“Yes. I was up early, helping Ma get breakfast. When the horses came up it wasn’t light yet. I heard Dad jawing somebody. Then Range came in and told us. I never said a word, but I was sick. At the table Dad was sarcastic. He said things I’m sure Ash never heard before from anyone. But Ash never batted an eye. Then my mother had her turn. Finally I couldn’t keep out of it, and I asked Ash why he’d stolen your horse. . . . ‘Callin’ me hoss thief, now?’ he said, and I thought he’d strike me. I replied that it did look like stealing. This he didn’t answer. Next I asked why he had taken him and—what he meant—to do with him.”
Here emotion accompanied Thiry’s speech, she grew husky, and faltered.
“‘Luce told me he’d called the hoss Egypt, which was your pet name,’ said Ash. ‘That’s why I took him an’ why I’m goin’ to break a leg for him.’”
Only Rock’s powerful hold upon himself, fortified by hours of preparation for anything, kept his anger within bounds.
“All because I gave him your pretty name! Tough on the horse. . . . And you were afraid to open your mouth! . . . Much you love Egypt!”
“Wait a minute, will you,” she answered, not without anger. “I pitched into Ash Preston as never before in our lives. I—I don’t know what all I called him. He took it—and, oh, he looked dreadful. But he never said a word. He got up, nearly overturning the table, jumped on the horse, and was gone like a white streak.”
“I stand corrected,” replied Rock, thickly. “I talk too quick. I’m sure glad you had the nerve to call him. If you hadn’t— But what did your father say?”
“Dad took it all out in looking. He was flabbergasted. So were the boys. After they were gone Ma and Allie tried to console me, but I guess I was badly upset.”
“Did you cry?”
“Didn’t I? . . . It’s a good thing you can’t see my eyes.”
“I can see them. . . . Well, Thiry, I suppose you want to know what I’m goin’ to do about this horse deal?”
“Worry over that has made me sick all day. I don’t want to hear, but I must.”
“When Ash gets back, I’ll go up to him nice and pleasant. I’ll say, ‘Look here, cowboy, if you want to borrow my horse, ask me for him.’”
“Mr. Rock, would you say that?”
“Sure. Or somethin’ like it.”
“Suppose he comes back without Egypt?”
“Then I think I’d better pass it off as if nothin’ had happened. I’d ask your father. And if Egypt was crippled I’d go find him and end his misery.”
“Oh, it’s bad enough, without that wonderful horse being hurt. If you had to kill him—I—I think it’d be horrible.”
“It sure would. But at least it’d be removin’ one red flag from in front of this bull.”
Then followed a long silence. During this interval Thiry looked down at her idle hands, and from them up at Rock, and back again. The horse incident had thrown them off the track of the purpose of this interview.
“Mr. Rock, you—you were to tell me something tonight?” she began, nervously.
“I have several things to tell you.”
“You needn’t tell me one. For I know that. I can feel it. . . . You’re not going away.”
“No,” he replied, with a ring in his voice.
“Oh—Mr. Rock, I feared you wouldn’t. All day long I’ve felt it. . . . But, oh, if you only knew! . . . It’s not all for Ash’s sake that I ask it. But for Dad and Mother, Alice and Lucy—for me!”
“Thiry,” said Rock, with deep feeling, “last night I almost gave in to you. It was terribly hard not to. But tonight I have hold of myself. You can’t persuade me. You can’t drive me. I shall stay.”
“Oh, you’re selfish. You think only of your silly infatuation—”
“No, it’s not selfishness or silly infatuation,” he interrupted, with sudden passion that made her draw back. “I’ve thought all night and all day. Out of this torture has come two facts, which I believe as I do my own soul.”
“What are they?” she asked.
“I believe I can serve you best by stayin’ at Sunset Pass.”
“And the other?”
“I love you.”
She flung out her hands, protestingly, imploringly, and as if to ward off some incomprehensible peril.
“Mr.—Rock!” she gasped. “You dare make love to me—when we’ve never been together an hour—when I’m insisting you leave my home!”
“I’d dare that, yes, under any circumstances,” he retorted, coolly. “But as it happens, I’m not makin love to you.”
“I declare, Mr. Rock, you are beyond me,” she exclaimed. “What in the world are you doing, then?”
“Tellin’ you a simple fact. I’m not likely to annoy you with it soon again. But I sort of welcome this chance to prove somethin’ to myself. You’ll hear gossip about me and my love affairs, which you can believe if you like. But I know now I never had a real one before. It suits me to stake what I think I’ve become against the old True Rock. This needn’t worry you one little bit.”
“You speak in riddles,” she replied, incredulously. “How can I help but worry—now, more than ever?”
“I shall leave you blissfully alone. I shall hardly be even polite if I see you at meal-time. Your brother Ash will soon see that there’s one rider who’s not mushy over you.”
“To what end?” she went on, sharply. “Is that to deceive Ash, so you can stay here?”
“Partly. But I’m bound to confess that it’s to spare you.”
“Oh, you’re not going to spare me,” she cried. “You’ll not leave me alone. And even if you did Ash would believe it only a blind—that you were with me during his absence.”
“But sure Ash couldn’t believe you a liar?” queried Rock.
“He’d make more of your avoiding me than if you were just friendly. It’s a poor plan. Please give it up.”
“No.”
She began to twist her hands in her white gown. The agitation, which before he had marked, was possessing her again. The idea that he had decided to stay at Sunset Pass held some singular dread for her. Was it as much because of a possible fight between him and Ash as for some other reason? Rock concluded it was both. And while he weighed this in mind he watched her with penetrating gaze, steeling his heart against the tenderness that threatened to overwhelm him.
“If you really care for—for me—you will listen.”
“Care for you!” he returned, scornfully. “You wait and see, Thiry Preston.”
“Wait for what?” she demanded, almost piteously.
“Why, I reckon, for a little time.”
With evident strong effort she controlled some almost irresistible fear or conflict. Her glance changed to one of deep and unfathomable mystery. She had discovered a latent strength. Rock divined she had been driven to extremity. And he grew sickeningly sure that she was involved somehow with Ash and her father in something which would not bear the light of day.
“Trueman Rock, I want you to leave Sunset Pass,” she said, leaning to him.
“So you’ve told me about
a thousand times.”
“Let’s risk being discovered meeting at Wagontongue,” she went on, and it seemed a certainty she was thrilled by her own deceit. “You can get work anywhere. We’ll take Mr. Winter into our confidence. We can meet in his store and spend an hour or two in his office. Then I’ll arrange to stay with Mrs. Winter all night when I come to town. You can meet me there, too. I will go to Wagontongue every week.”
“Why would you be willin’ to do this unusual thing?” asked Rock, eager to lead her on and on. “I think I asked you that before.”
“Didn’t you say you—you wanted to be friends with me?”
“I sure did.”
“It’s your only chance. And I’m giving you that to get you—to persuade you to leave here.”
“Thiry, I ask you again—why do you want me to leave?”
“To keep you and Ash apart.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“It’s the—the big one,” she replied, with both voice and glance unsteady. She was not an adept at lying, even in an issue of tremendous importance.
“But that won’t keep Ash and me apart. He will come to town when you do. He’ll watch you.”
“I’ll choose the time when he is away with Dad. He won’t know that I go to town.”
“When he’s away—where?”
“Why, on the range. Dad has large orders. The driving and—and the—the work will take up half his time from now on.”
What a child she was, thought Rock! As transparent as crystal water! But she was withal a woman, with all a woman’s power to surprise and waylay to attain her ends. He ruthlessly laid traps for her, but the sole reason was not only to lead her into betrayal.
“You would risk so much for me?”
“It’s not for you, though I know I—I—will like you, if you let me. It’s for Ash and Dad—all of us.”
“It’s very sweet of you, Thiry,” he said, with just enough satire to belie the portent of his words, “but very little to risk my life for.”
“No, Trueman, it may save your life.”
“You call me Trueman?” he asked, amazed.
“Yes, Trueman. . . . We can deceive Ash. . . . The Winters will do anything for me. Ash will never catch us together.”