Sunset Pass

by Zane Grey

  “Aw, Thiry, I’m sorry,” rasped out Ash, while he held her on the bench. Tears were streaming down his bruised cheeks. “I was drunk thet night. . . . I’ll never go to town no more.”

  How utterly incongruous his repentance seemed to Rock! Pity could not abide in Rock’s heart—not for this man.

  This had happened in the middle of the afternoon, upon Ash’s arrival home. Gage Preston was absent. It was Rock’s opinion that Gage did not care to be present when Ash met Thiry and Rock. A maddening flash of thought came to Rock, following the collapse of his reinforced nerve. This issue had only been postponed! All the anxious speculation, the worry wearing into dread, the sickening realization that Thiry was growing strained, pale, the waiting suspense, and then this sudden release—all these in vain!

  Yet, even a respite, considering Thiry, was something blessed, and for which he gave profound thanks. Supper that night no longer seemed something like a funeral feast. Gage Preston came in late, and his gruff heartiness, his steely glance, embracing Ash and Thiry and Rock, were strangely at variance. Rock felt that after a short absence, in which incalculable changes had taken place, he was about to see a new phase in Preston’s complex character.

  Rock did not tarry with the family. He carried away with him a look from Thiry’s eyes—the first in which she had met his since that unforgettable last moment on Winter’s porch—and it drove him to pace under the pines, to throw back his head, to fill his lungs with the sage-laden air of the Pass, to cast exultant defiance up at the silent, passionless white stars.

  He paced a beat from the open back to the gloom of the thick-spreading trees. On the soft mats of pine needles his feet made no sound; against the black shadow of the slope his figure could not be seen. But his own sharp eye caught a dark form crossing in front of a cabin light. He heard a voice low but clear—Gage Preston’s: “Ash, come hyar.”

  Then two dark forms made black upright bars, to obliterate the light, then passed on. Rock watched, crouching to peer through the gloom. Suddenly he made them out, perilously close upon him. Silently he sank behind the log by which he had crouched, immensely glad that it lay between him and the approaching men.

  “What you want?” growled Ash.

  “Not so loud, you————!” replied Preston, in low harsh tones. “I want to talk.”

  “Wal, I ain’t in no humor.”

  “Sit down there,” ordered Preston, with heavy contact of hand upon his son’s person.

  Rock felt the jar of the log where evidently Preston had pushed Ash. Noiselessly craning his neck, Rock saw the dim figure of the father, bending over. Then Rock espied Ash sitting not ten feet from where he lay. It seemed to Rock that cold blood oozed from his very marrow. If caught there he would have to fight for his life. Almost he ceased to breathe. The pounding of his heart sounded like a muffled drum.

  “What the hell’s got into you?” demanded Ash.

  “What the hell’s got into you—thet you hang on’ in town, lookin’ for trouble, makin’ more fer me?” countered the father, sternly.

  “Some greaser punched me, an’ I stayed to find him.”

  “Punched you! Aw, why don’t you be game? He beat you till you were senseless.”

  “Ahuh. Wal, if you knowed it why’n hell bother me? It don’t make me cheerful.”

  “But I needed you hyar,” replied Preston, trying to stifle rage that would not down. “There’s work no one else can do.”

  “But, Pa, I wanted to kill thet Señor del Toro,” protested Ash, almost plaintively.

  “Bah! Señor del Toro? Why, you lunkhead, thet make-believe Spaniard was Trueman Rock!”

  “Hell, no!” snapped Ash, hotly. “I had thet hunch. But I was wrong. Next mornin’ I went to Thiry. I told her thet black-masked pardner of hers was Rock an’ I was a-goin’ to kill him. She fell on her knees. An’ she wrapped her arms around me. An’ she swore to God it wasn’t Rock. . . . Pa, I had to believe her. Thiry never lied in her life.”

  “Mebbe I’m wrong,” choked Preston, as if a will not his own wrenched that admission from him. “But whoever he was he gave you plumb what I’d have given you. Everybody says so. Wade Simpson told me. An’ Slagle said it only today.”

  “Ahuh? Wal, two more fer bullet holes,” drawled the son, in deadly menace.

  “Talk sense,” fumed Preston. “I’m shore gettin’ leary about you. Man alive, you can’t shoot every body on the range. An’ haven’t you any decency? To rip Thiry’s dress half off before a crowd. Why, you—————!”

  “Aw, Pa, I was drunk. When I seen Thiry with her shoulders an’ bosom all bare—before them men—I said by God she’d stand naked before them an’ me.”

  “Drunk?—Man, you were crazy,” retorted the father, hoarsely. “You’ll never live thet down. But thet’s nothin’ for you to care about. The thing is you disgraced Thiry. You shamed her. You hurt her so she’s been ill. She—who’s loved you all her life!”

  “Shet up, Pa,” wailed Ash, writhing. “I can stand anythin’ but thet.”

  “Wal, you shore have a queer streak in you. Yellow clear through when it comes to Thiry. But fer her you’d be a man. An’ we could go on with our work thet’s callin’ fer all a man’s brains.”

  “I’ll make it up to Thiry,” returned Ash, hurriedly. “She’ll forgive me. I’ll never do thet no more.”

  “You can’t be relied upon, as you used to be,” returned the rancher, bitterly. “Now listen, somethin’s up out there on the range. I’ve done some scoutin’ around lately. I’ve talked with the Mexican sheep-herders. Too many riders snoopin’ around Sunset Pass! Today I seen some of Hesbitt’s outfit. An’ Slagle asked me sarcastic like why Clink Peeples was over hyar so much. . . . Ash, there’s a nigger in the woodpile. I shore don’t like the smell.”

  “Clink Peeples had better keep away from the Pass.”

  “There you go again. What good will it do to throw a gun on Peeples? If they’re suspicious, thet’d only make them worse. . . . What’d you do with them last Half Moon hides?”

  “I hid them.”

  “Where?”

  “In a good place, all right.”

  “D—— you! Didn’t you take them to Limestone Cave, as I ordered you?”

  “I packed some there. It was too far, an’ I was tuckered out. I hid the rest under the culvert.”

  “But I told you not to hide any more there. I always was scared of thet culvert. Once a big rain washed some out. It could happen again.”

  “Wal, it ain’t too late. I’ll take Boots tomorrow night, an’ we’ll pack the fresh ones over to Limestone.”

  “No. The ground’s soft since it rained. You’d leave tracks. An’ thet’s too risky with these new riders searchin’ around. Better leave them. An’ we’ll lay off butcherin’ fer a spell.”

  “Lay off nothin’. With all them orders fer beef? I guess not. Pa, there’s room fer a thousand hides down in the old well.”

  “Ash, I tell you we’ll lay off killin’ till this suspicion dies down,” said Preston, in hoarse earnestness, fighting for patience.

  “Wal, I won’t lay off, an’ I reckon I can boss the boys,” replied Ash, implacably.

  Then Preston cursed him, cursed him with every hard word known to the range, and some besides, cursed until he was spent from passion, when he fell heavily to a seat on the log.

  “This hyar rider, Rock,” spoke up Ash, as if he had never heard the storm of profanity, “when you goin’ to fire him?”

  “Rock? Not at all,” replied Preston, wearily. He was beaten.

  “Wal, then, I will. He’s been around too long, watchin’ Thiry, an’ mebbe us, too.”

  “Ash, haven’t you sense enough to see thet Rock’s bein’ hyar is good fer us?” asked Preston, girding himself afresh. “Never was a rider hyar so trusted as Rock. Thet diverts suspicion from us. It was lucky he came.”

  “But he might find us out.”

  “It ain’t likely. Shore he doesn’t want to.”


  “He might stumble on to it by accident. Or get around Thiry an’ scare it out of her.”

  “Wal, if he did, thet wouldn’t be so bad. She could keep his mouth shut. He loves her well enough to come in with us. Only I’d hate like hell to ask her to do it.”

  “An’ if she did win him over, what would he want?” hissed Ash.

  “Huh! Reckon thet’s easy to answer. An’ I’m tellin’ you, Ash, Thiry would like Rock if she had half a chance.”

  A knife plunged into Ash’s vitals could scarcely have made him bend double and rock to and fro, like that thrust of Preston’s.

  “She’d like him, huh? So thet’s why she made me promise not to pick a fight with him. . . . Hell’s fire!”

  “Wal, Ash, if circumstances come up we can’t help or beat, what’n hell can we do? I told you ages ago thet Thiry is bound some day to love some lucky rider. It can’t be helped. An’ it might be Rock. Which’d be most infernal lucky fer us.”

  “Lucky fer him! Haw! Haw!—I’d shoot his heart out.”

  Preston rose to loom darkly, menacingly over his son.

  “You can’t murder him in his sleep, or shoot him in the back. Thet’d look bad in Wagontongue. It’d just about ruin us. An’ if you call him out to an even break—why, Ash, he’ll kill you! Savvy? You shore ought to be keen enough to see it. Rock is cold as ice, as quick as lightnin’. He has a hawk eye. I’m warnin’ you, Ash.”

  The son leaped up as if sprung. “So help me Gawd! You’re tryin’ awful hard to keep us apart. Haw! Haw! . . . No, Pa, I don’t savvy you!”

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  LONG after the Prestons stalked away Rock lay behind the log, thinking over the peril he had been in and the revelation that had accompanied it.

  Late he stole like an Indian to his cabin, made his bed inside, and barring the door, lay down just as he was. Sleep was neither desirable nor possible. The certainty of the Prestons’ guilt was not the staggering detail of that disclosure. Rock pinned down some grim facts.

  Thiry had lied to deceive Ash as to her escort at the dance. Ash did not know then, but sooner or later he would find out. There was more suspicion directed toward the Prestons than Rock had known. The case was growing critical. Gage Preston knew it. He wanted to avert catastrophe; but for this vicious son he not improbably could have done so. But Ash Preston dominated father and brothers. He would ride to his doom. Rock had met many of that Western type, and every single one of them had died with his boots on.

  Preston had told his son that Señor del Toro was Rock. Here Rock had an icy, sickening portent—one which he had been on the verge of before—Preston wanted to force a fight between him and Ash. He knew that Rock would kill his son. There seemed no other possible interpretation. He had deliberately suggested they persuade Thiry to make Rock one of them. By fair means or foul! This betrayed Preston’s extremity. Lastly the cunning Ash was growing suspicious of his father.

  Out of all this only calamity could come to Thiry, unless Rock by some means was able to avert it. He was at his wits’ end. He had never heard of such an overwhelming predicament as the one that now struck him to desperation. If he could only call Ash out and shoot him! But this would break Thiry’s heart and make him an object of horror in her eyes. He simply could not do that—not to save Gage Preston from jail and Thiry from disgrace. At length, worn out by contending tides, he rolled over and went to sleep.

  In the morning he watched from his window until Ash left, then went out to breakfast. The children were there, gay and chattering as usual. Thiry did not appear. Preston came out while Rock was eating and said:

  “Rock, I’ve a job for you that’ll take you away some time.”

  “Fine. I need some real work,” replied Rock.

  “Reckon you’ll find it that. The boys are gettin’ a pack outfit ready. They know where to go. I want five hundred head of two-year-old steers in the flat down there by Slagle’s ranch. By August.”

  “Boss, it can’t be done,” protested Rock.

  “It’s got to be.”

  “With three half-grown cowpunchers?”

  “Wal, you’ve been hollerin’ fer some real work. Pack an’ rustle.”

  “You’re the boss, Preston. But are you sure you won’t need me more right here?”

  Preston bent toward Rock and lowered his voice. “It ain’t what I’d like or need. I had no idee last night thet I’d send you off this mornin’. But it popped into my head.”

  “Ahuh! Who popped it?”

  “Thiry. She asked me to. Ash is wuss than ever before. An’ fer once Thiry seemed to be thinkin’ of somebody else but him.”

  “How is she feelin’, Preston?” asked Rock, anxiously.

  “Wal, she perked up when I told her I’d send you.”

  “Suits me fine. Don’t mind tellin’ you, boss, that Ash is almost gettin’ on my nerves.”

  “Haw! Haw! Almost gettin’, hey? Wal, if you ain’t made out of stone I’ll eat my hat. My nerves are shot to pieces.”

  Rock got up and stepped over the bench, without looking at Preston.

  “Small wonder, boss. Reckon you’d do well to hawg-tie Ash an’ hang round the Pass for a month.”

  This speech had been the outcome of impressions Rock had received from Preston’s manner and words. He spoke it curtly, with never a glance, then he walked away toward his cabin. It did not suit Rock just then to leave the Pass without a hint to Preston. He believed it would be interpreted that Wagontongue gossip had reached his ears and might be worth heeding. Let Preston ponder over that advice and see how far he got. This might pave the way to something deeper.

  Rock repaired to his cabin and rolled his bed and packed the things he would need. Several times during the process he went to the window to peer out. The clip-clop of hoofs drew him again. Ash and Boots Preston were riding by, headed east. Rock’s quick eye noted saddle-bags, blankets, ropes. And he guessed that the contrary Ash meant to disobey his father and remove the fresh hides from the culvert to a better hiding-place.

  “Ride on, you lean-jawed wolf!” muttered Rock.

  When they were out of sight, Rock wavered between two strong desires—to see Thiry before he left and write to her. The better course would be to write, because he could put on paper what there would be no chance to speak. No sooner did he decide than he realized it was an opportunity not to be lost. Therefore, with lead pencil and paper he sat down to his little table and began, with hand that he could not keep steady and heart which accelerated a beat for every word.

  THIRY DARLING,

  Your Dad has ordered me away for several weeks, maybe more. I am glad to go, though not to see your sweet face for so long will be terrible. But I shall work like a beaver, and content myself with thinking of you by day and dreaming of you by night—with praying for your happiness and welfare.

  I want you to know this, so that while I’m gone you may remember me often. My conscience flays me still for what I brought upon you at the dance. But I don’t ask forgiveness for that so much as for what happened on Winter’s porch. Still, if I had no more to sustain me, Thiry, through what seems to be the hardest trial of my life, that kiss you gave me would be enough. I know you meant only unheeding gratitude. But nevertheless you kissed me, and I can never be a rational being again.

  Don’t worry, Thiry dear, about Ash, or me, or whatever it is that is wrong. You can’t help it. And it will not turn out so bad as you think. Nothing ever does. I believe that if you were to fall into some really dreadful trouble I could save you. Now what do you think of that for a fellow’s faith in himself? Of course, by trouble, I mean something concerning Ash. I must not deceive you, dearest, your brother is the kind of range man that comes to a bad end. You must face this with courage. You must realize that he might involve your father, you, and all of your people in something through which you could suffer.

  It is no use to try to change Ash. You waste your strength. The more you do for him the less he will apprecia
te. I think you can only pray and hope for the best. You will have a good long rest from my disturbing presence, during which time you must think earnestly and fight for that endurance women of the West must have.

  My mother and sister tried the pioneer life for a while. It was too much for them. But you are of stronger stuff. Remember that Allie and Lucy must find their spirit in you.

  I shall think of you every sunset, and see you come out to watch the Pass.

  Ever

  TRUEMAN.

  Returning to the Preston cabin, Rock looked for Alice to deliver his note to Thiry, but as she was not there he ventured of his own accord. Slipping it under the door of Thiry’s cabin, he beat a rather precipitate retreat. Nevertheless, he heard the door open, and turning saw Thiry pick up the missive, and then stand to look at him. It was too far away to see her expression. Rock waved his hand. Would she return his salute? She did not, to his dismay. Still he turned again and again to look over his shoulder as he hurried away. Finally she waved, then quickly shut the door. Rock’s dismay was transformed to delight. She had his letter and she had waved good-by. He could not have asked or hoped for more. That would serve him well during his sojourn in the woods.

  In half an hour he sat astride Egypt, bound down the Pass. This trip would be a welcome respite, and from every angle favorable for him. Two hours later he was climbing the benches into the black timber, and late that afternoon he halted with the boys in a wild and sylvan spot to make a permanent camp.