by Zane Grey
“Boss, some way or other you must persuade Ash to give up the butcherin’, at least for a while. Make him think so. Anythin’ to gain time.”
“Rock, why don’t you persuade him?” queried Preston, significantly.
“Me!” ejaculated Rock, shot through and through with an impression he hoped was false. He did not betray that he had grasped Preston’s dark hint.
“Thiry an’ I have kept him layin’ off since you left. I reckon we’d better try the same again.”
“Yes, try whatever worked. But don’t oppose him, Preston.”
“Wal, I guess not. I’ll let him cool off a bit, an’ tackle him after supper.”
Rock remained away from the supper table, though the second bell rang. He found in his pack enough to satisfy him. He did not feel hunger. It was a trying hour as he watched from his window. There was little sunset color, owing to heavy clouds. Thunder rumbled off in the hills, and as dusk fell quickly, sheets of pale lightning flared along the horizon.
Presently Rock saw Preston, accompanied by Thiry, come out of his cabin and cross over to enter Ash’s. A light flashed from the window. Rock’s first thought was to creep under that window and listen. But for risk to Thiry he would have done so; however, he decided to go down through the grove and come up between Ash’s cabin and Thiry’s, and wait for her.
It was quite dark when he slipped out. The air was sultry, and smelled of brimstone and rain. Lightning had struck somewhere near the ranch that day. He stole among the trees, and making a half-circle he came up to the bench under Thiry’s pine, and sat down there to wait, thrilling with anticipation of soon seeing her white form emerge from the blackness.
But an hour passed. She did not come. Another went by! The light burned in Ash’s window, and now and then a dark form cast a shadow. The conference was still going on. Rock knew surely that Thiry had not left Ash’s cabin; he had watched for that, all the time he had circled it.
The night threatened to be stormy. The stillness gave place to a moaning of the wind, and thunder rumbled nearer. Drops of rain pattered on Rock’s bare head. The lightning flared brighter, showing the black mountains and the Pass leading to them.
All the lights except that one in Ash’s cabin were now out. The hours passed, strangely full for Rock. The longer he waited, the less impatience he felt. He had been drawn into the whirlpool of this Preston catastrophe, and he would stick it out, come what might. How the wind moaned overhead! It was like a knell. And the weird flashes of lightning along the battlements of the horizon fitted the melancholy sound.
It must have been long after midnight when Rock heard a door close. He waited, straining eyes and ears, beginning to wonder if he had been mistaken about not missing Thiry. He reassured himself. Another door closed, and that he was sure had come from Preston’s cabin. How pitch black it was at a little distance! Then a pale sheet of lightning illumined the heavens. By its aid Rock discerned a white form, gliding swiftly. Thiry! He must not frighten her, and decided to call out when she came near enough. The pale sheet lightning favored him once more. She was so close that the lightning shone live silver fire on her bare head. He moved to intercept her, peering to pierce the gloom. He did not want to speak loud, so he waited.
Out of the blackness a slender vague shape glided, like a specter. The darkness was deceptive. Rock [illegible]les her get right upon him, so close he could have touched her, and his heart suddenly contracted violently.
“Thiry! Thiry!” he whispered, unable to make his voice clear or steady. He heard her gasp. Like a statue she stood. He had a poignant instant of remorse for succumbing to his selfish longing to see her. This would alienate her further.
“Thiry! Don’t be frightened. I waited. . . . It’s Trueman,” he whispered.
“You!” she cried, and seemed to loom on him out of the shadows. Her arms swept wide and that extraordinary action paralyzed Rock. The next instant they closed round his neck.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
ROCK stood stiff and immovable as the pine tree by his side, but his mind, his heart received the fact of that embrace with tumultuous violence. Scarcely had Thiry clasped him when she uttered a cry and released the convulsive hold, her hands unlocking and sliding down from each shoulder as if bereft of strength.
“Oh—I’m—beside myself!” she whispered.
Taking her hand, Rock led her to a seat on the bench under the pine, where she sank almost in collapse, her head bowed. Rock resisted his natural impulses—crushed down the exultation of the moment.
“Thiry, why did you—do that?” he asked, in a low whisper, holding her hand tight.
“I—I don’t know.”
“But dare I take it—as ’most any man would such action from a girl?”
“It’s done . . . I’m amazed—shamed again at myself. What must you think of me?”
“Reckon I think all that’s wonderful and beautiful. But I think also I’m entitled to an explanation.”
“Trueman, how can I explain what I scarcely realize?” she said, with pathos. “I’d been hours with Dad and Ash. Oh, it was sickening. We begged—we prayed Ash to give up—plans he has. He was a fiend. So was Dad. But I kept trying till I was exhausted. . . . It must be two o’clock. . . . As I came across to my cabin I was thinking of how you met that Half Moon outfit. How you resented suspicion against Dad! My poor sick heart must have warmed to you with something—surely with gratitude. You seemed my only friend. I was wondering how I should thank you—tomorrow. . . . Then you rose right out the black ground. What fright you gave me! And when you spoke I—I just——”
She faltered and broke off leaving him to guess the rest. Rock’s compassion overcame his more powerful emotions.
“Thiry, you’ve explained how upset you were—and why. But that would not make you fling your arms round my neck.”
“I’m guilty,” she replied, distantly. “If you can’t be understanding—generous—then take it how you will. . . . After all, I belong to the Preston outfit.”
These words, tinged with bitterness, accompanied by the withdrawal of her hand from his, gave Rock the cue. This was his hour. His intelligence recognized it, but his conscience would not let him rush madly to take advantage of her weakness at this critical time. So watching her dim pale face against the black pine, he pondered. He seemed scarcely prepared for the opportunity which now knocked at the gates. Yet always with this Preston problem he had vacillated, procrastinated. He hoped to put off the inevitable.
“Trueman, it’s late. I must go in,” she said.
“Reckon you can spare me an hour,” he returned, his voice gruff with the strain of his emotions.
“Indeed no! I must go. Good night,” she replied, nervously rising.
He grasped her arm, not gently, and pulled her down on the seat, this time closer to him, and he held her.
“You stay here. Reckon I might remind you that Ash is not the only bad hombre on the range.”
To judge from her shrinking, and the trembling of her arm, his speech both frightened and angered her. Rock thought it just as well. The tremendousness of this Preston situation, and its threatened catastrophe, had kept him at top pitch of mental strain for weeks. It could not last. But he divined it must grow worse before it could become better. And he seemed gradually forcing the issue.
“Very well, if you detain me by force,” Thiry said, coldly. “Why were you waiting for me at this un-heard-of hour?”
“I saw you go into Ash’s cabin, and I thought I’d wait till you came out. Reckon it never occurred to me you’d be so long. But I kept waitin’. At that the time flew by.”
“Then you were spying on me—on us?” she queried, a quicker note in her voice.
“Reckon so, if you want to use hard words. But sure my strongest motive was just to see you, talk to you a minute.”
“Well, since you’ve done that, please let me go.”
“Thiry, you upset everythin’ when you put your arms round my n
eck,” he said.
“Don’t harp on that,” she flashed, hotly. “I never did such a thing before. I—I couldn’t to any other man. It just happened. If you want to spare me let me forget it.”
“Could you ever?”
“I might make myself.”
“Reckon I’ll never let you,” rejoined Rock, stubbornly. “You’ve froze up the last few minutes. That hurts. I have my own battle to fight, and you’re not helpin’ me.”
“Your battle! . . . Trueman Rock, if you had a hundreth part of my battle to fight—you—you’d flood the range in blood.”
“I love you. My life is wrapped up in you. . . . And don’t we read that self-preservation is the first law of nature?”
“The most selfish, yes.”
“Thiry, let me make your battle mine,” he pleaded. “Tell me what weighs so upon you. Tell me your secret.”
“I—I have no secret,” she replied, shakily.
“Don’t you trust my love?”
“Oh, I would if I dared,” she whispered, in poignant pain.
Rock had wrenched that truth from her. Therein lay her weakness, the vulnerable spot upon which he must remorselessly make his attack. If she did not already love him, certain it seemed that he could make her. This horrible secret was clamping her heart; and Ash’s baneful influence was like a poisonous lichen.
Rock felt assailed by insurmountable temptations. He would not stifle his conscience, but every moment he became more convinced that in order to save her he must play upon her weakness, force her to confession, betray his knowledge of her guilty sharing of Preston’s secret. He strove for self-control. In vain!
“Thiry, you might dare anythin’ on my love,” he began.
“Oh no—no! If it were only myself.”
Rock realized that Thiry was governed by her emotions. She was too honest for base secrets, and certainly too honest to hide her love, once she realized it. Rock became more convinced that she did feel tenderness for him, perhaps unconsciously, and he could not stem the torrent of his hopes and fears.
“Thiry, there are only two people in all the world—you and me.”
“How silly, Trueman. You are selfish.”
“Well, if it’s selfish to love you—worship you—to want your burdens on my shoulders—to save you from trouble, disgrace—to make you happy—then indeed I am sure selfish.”
What a delicate instrument she was for sensibility! Through her wrist, which he held, he felt the intermittent slight quiverings, then at the word disgrace a distinct shock. Hurriedly she rose, and all but released herself.
“Do you speak of love and—and disgrace in one breath?” she queried.
“Yes. And you understand,” he replied, sharply.
“I—I do not.”
“Thiry darling, I can forgive your falsehood to all except me.”
“What!” she cried, pride and fear in one gasp. She shook in his grasp.
It did not take much of a pull to get her into his arms, and in another moment he had her helpless, lifting her from the ground, her face close under his.
“Thiry, don’t you love me a very little?” he asked, deep tenderness thrilling in his voice.
“No! . . . Oh, let me go!” she implored.
“Be honest.”
“I can’t be . . . I’m such a liar.”
“Thiry, I love you so wonderfully. Ever since that minute you stepped in Winter’s store. . . . Didn’t you like me then—or afterward?”
“I suppose I did. But what’s the use to talk of it. . . . You’re holding me in a—a—most shameless manner. . . . Let me go.”
“Reckon I’ll hold you this way a long time. . . . Till you say you love me a little.”
She essayed to free herself, but her strength fell far short of her spirit.
“Then you’ll hold me until daylight—when Ash will see you.”
“Well, say a little short of daylight. Reckon I can get along with that for a while.”
“Oh—please—please! . . . Trueman, this is outrageous!”
“It sure is. ’Most as outrageous as your deceivin’ me.”
“How have I deceived you?” she demanded, vibrating to that.
“For one thing—carin’ about me a little. You do, don’t you, Thiry?”
“Care about you? I suppose I—I did, else I couldn’t have been such a fool as to go to that dance. But what’s caring? . . . It certainly doesn’t give you license to hold me against my will.”
“Well, I reckon that depends on what you mean by care. I’m arguin’ you love me a little bit. Sure I’ve prayed enough for it.”
“You pray! You’re a fine Christian,” she retorted scornfully.
“Christian or not I’ve sure prayed you’d love me.”
“Then your prayers have been unanswered—as mine have been,” she said, in mockery.
“Thiry, I must make sure.”
“How?”
“Reckon first off I’ll kiss you a couple of thousand times and see if I can tell by that.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Wouldn’t I, though. Sure I’m a reckless cowboy. Now watch me.”
And with action at strange variance with his bantering words he bent to kiss her hair again and again and again, and then her ear, and last her cheek, that changed its coolness under his lips.
“There!” he whispered, and drew her head back on his shoulder so her face would be upturned. To his piercing eyes the darkness was as if it were not. “Sure they were only worshipful kisses. . . . Do you hate me for them?”
“I couldn’t hate you. . . . Please let that do. Let me go—before it’s too . . . Trueman, I beg of you.”
“It is too late, Thiry, for both of us,” he whispered, passionately, and he kissed her lips—and then again, with all the longing that consumed him.
“Now will you confess you love me—a little?” he asked, huskily.
“O God help me—I do—I do!” she cried, and her eyes seemed deep accusing gulfs.
“More than a little? Thiry, I didn’t expect much. Sure I don’t deserve it. . . . But tell me.”
“Yes, more.” And she twisted to hide her face, while her left arm slowly crept up his shoulder, and went half round his neck. “That’s what was the matter with me.”
“When did you know?” he asked, amazed in his incredulity.
“Just now. . . . But I knew there was something wrong before.”
“Thiry, bless you!—if this’s not a one-sided affair, kiss me.”
“No—no. . . . If I give up—we’re ruined,” she whispered, tragically.
“Sure we’re ruined if you don’t. So let’s have the kisses anyhow.”
“Trueman, since I never can—marry you—I—I mustn’t kiss you.”
“Darling, one thing at a time. By and by we’ll tackle the marryin’ problem. I’d go loco if I thought you’d be my wife some day. . ., But just now make this dream come true. I want your kisses, Thiry.”
“I daren’t. . . . It’s not fair.”
“To whom?”
“You.”
“I’ll risk it. . . . Thiry, I’ll compromise. I’ll be generous. Just one—but not like that fairy kiss you gave me on Winter’s porch.”
“Trueman, if I give one—it means all . . . ten million will follow,” she said, tremulously.
“Dear, I’ll save the nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, and so forth. . . . Come.”
And lifting her head he turned her face to his.
“You are wrong to—to master me this way,” she rejoined, mournfully. “If you knew—you might not want it.”
“Master nothin’? I am your slave. But kiss me. Settle it forever!”
How slowly she lifted her pale face, with eyes like black stars! In the sweet fire of her lips Rock gained his heart’s desire.
Then she lay in his arms, her face hidden, while he gazed out into the stormy night, across the black Pass to the dim flares along the battlements of the range. His victor
y brought happiness and sorrow commingled. In the tree-tops the mournful wind did not presage a future without strife. But the precious form in his arms, the mortal flesh that embodied and treasured an infinitely more precious gift—her love—lifted his spirit and bade him go on.
“Now, Trueman, explain what you meant by my—falsehood to all?” she asked, presently.
“Are you quite prepared?” he returned, gravely. “Sure it’s not easy to rush from joy to trouble.”
She sat up, startled, with hands nervously releasing their hold. All about her expressed doubts, misgivings, but she had no inkling of what he had to reveal.
“Thiry, you are keepin’ Ash’s and your father’s secret from all.”
“Trueman!” she cried, as if her own mind had deceived her ears.
“They are cattle thieves. Beef thieves. So are your brothers Range. Scoot and Boots, along with them.”
“O my God!—You know!” she almost screamed, and slipped to her knees before him.
“Hush! Not so loud! You’ll wake some one,” he said, sternly, placing a firm hand over her mouth. “Get up off your knees.”
But she only leaned forward, clutching him, peering up into his face.
“Trueman, how do—you know?” she gasped, convulsively.
“I suspected it when I first came. I found signs. Quicklime! That made me suspicious. Slagle’s well is half full of hides. Sure those hides have not the Preston brand. . . . Then over near where they butchered last I came on the same boot track that I’d seen down near the slaughterhouse. I trailed that track. It led under a culvert. There I found hundreds of hides, tied up in burlap sacks. Most were old, but some were new. I opened one. That hide had a Half Moon brand! Down here at your barn, one day, after the dance, I measured Ash’s boot track. It was the same as that one I’d trailed. . . . But for real proof, I heard your Dad and Ash talkin’ together. One night I happened to be out, thinkin’ of you, watchin’ like tonight. Your father and Ash came out, right to the log where I sat. I lay down. . . . And I heard them talk about this. They gave it all away.”