Buffalo Stampede

by Zane Grey

  Oh, I . . . I might have kissed him, she mused, with her burning face buried in the blankets. Did I? I fear . . . oh, yes, yes, I did. . . . But he kissed me first. It was his fault.

  Night and darkness and silence and loneliness could not help Molly now. She was in the throes of bursting love. Unawares it had stolen insidiously into all her waking and perhaps sleeping hours—and then, in an unguarded moment, when chance threw Tom Doan again into her presence, it had brazenly surprised her into betrayal. She knew now. And she lay there, suffering, thrilling, miserable, and rapturous by turns. It was a trying hour, that of her realization and humiliation and surrender. But it passed and there followed another mood, one wanting only proof, assurance of her wild dream, to border on exquisite happiness. She forgot herself and thought of him.

  Molly was to learn then the infinite mystery and incalculable grasp of a woman’s sight, intuition, observation, and memory. She saw him as clearly as if she had been gazing at him in the light of the sun. Older, thinner, graver, harder his face came back to her. There were lines he had not had, and a short fuzzy beard, as fair as his hair. His worn soiled shirt covered less fleshy but more muscular shoulders. There had been about him the same breath of the open plain and the buffalo and gunpowder and sweating brawn that characterized Jett and his men. This could account for the hardness, perhaps for every change in him.

  Only his eyes and the tone of his voice had seemed the same. And in recalling them, there flooded over her a recalling, a consciousness of the joy he had expressed at meeting her again. He had been as happy as she. It was impossible to doubt that. Without a thought of himself or of what he was doing he had answered as naturally to the meeting as she had. What then had she to fear? For at the depth of her heart there was an icy sickening fear. If he did not love her as she loved him! It was absolutely impossible for Molly to control her thoughts and emotions in regard to this. She had lost her balance; she had been swept off her feet as by an irresistible current. Friendlessness, loneliness always had engendered a terrible need of love, and this raw life in the buffalo fields, in the company of hard men and a woman who hated her, had but added to that a yearning for protection. Molly could understand; she could excuse herself, yet that did not help much. It was all too sudden. Still, if he meant what her eyes and his words had led her to believe, she would not have it any different.

  Absorbed in her newborn emotions Molly had no cognizance of the passing of the hours. But when the gloom inside of her had lightened and the canvas showed shadows of leaves moving and waving, she realized that the moon was rising. Trembling all over she listened. The camp was silent. When had the men gone to bed? Only the murmur of insects and soft rustle of wind kept the silence from being dead. She peeped out. Low down through the trees a silvery radiance told of a rising moon. As Molly watched, with a growing palpitation in her breast, a white disc appeared and almost imperceptibly moved upward, until half the great beautiful moon sailed into her sight, crossed by black branches of trees.

  It’s time to go, she decided, and felt a cold thrill. She realized her danger, yet had no fear. If discovered in the act of meeting a lover, she would surely be severely beaten, perhaps killed. Jett was a brute and did not know his strength. But nothing could have kept Molly from keeping that tryst. Cautiously she crawled out on hands and knees, and then away from the tent, keeping in the shadows. A log on the campfire flickered brightly. She saw the pale gleam of the tents and her keen ear caught the heavy breathing of one of the tired sleepers. At length she rose to her feet, and, moving away silently, she lost sight of all around the camp except the fire. Then she circled in the direction of the trail that led up the slope.

  Her nervous dread of being caught passed away, leaving only excitement. She did not know where to look for the trail, except that it started somewhere at the base of the slope behind the camp. She would find it. How big and black the elms! Shadows lay thick. Only here and there showed the blanched patches of moonlight. A stealthy step, a rustling halted her and gave a different tingle to her pulse. Some soft-footed animal stole away into the obscurity. Relieved, she moved slowly to and fro, peering in the grass at her feet, searching for the trail. She remembered that it led down to the spring and not to Jett’s camp. As the spring lay east, she worked that way. At last she stepped into the trail, and then her heart throbbed faster. He would be waiting. What should she say? How make amends for her blunder? Alas, even if she would, she could never change the fatality of that heedless kiss!

  As she climbed with swift steps, the shadows under the trees grew less dense. Then she faced a long aisle where her own shadow preceded her. Beyond that she passed into thicker timber where it was dark, and she had to go slowly to hold to the trail. An incautious step resulted in the sharp cracking of a twig. It startled her. How lonely and wild the woods! Would he surely be waiting?

  Molly reached level ground, and there not far was the end of the trees, now standing out clear and black against a wide moonlit plain. She glided faster, drawn in spite of herself, hurrying to meet him who she must keep at arm’s length. Vague were her conjectures; sweet were her fears. She ran the last few yards.

  As she entered the zone of moonlight, and stood expectantly, peering everywhere, she felt the terrible importance of that moment. He was her only friend. Where was he? Had she come too early? If he had not. . . . Then a tall dark form glided out into the moonlight.

  “Molly,” came the low eager voice. He hurried to her, drew her back into the shadow.

  Molly’s strained eagerness and the intensity of purpose that had brought her there suddenly succumbed to weakness. His presence, his voice, his touch changed her incomprehensibly. In desperation she tried to cling to her resolve not to be like she had been at that first meeting there.

  “I thought you’d never come,” he said.

  “Am I . . . late?” she whispered.

  “It’s no matter, now you’re here,” he replied, and took her into his arms.

  “Oh . . . you mustn’t,” she entreated, pushing back from him.

  “Why, what’s wrong?” he queried in sudden concern. “Didn’t you kiss me a little while ago?”

  “Yes . . . I did,” she said, dropping her head. “It was . . . brazen of me . . . you . . . a stranger. What must you think of me?” In a silence fraught with exquisite torture for Molly she stood there, quivering against him.

  He put a hand under her chin and forced her head up, so that he could see her face. “Girl, look at me,” he ordered, and it was certain that he shook her a little. “What must I think of you. Don’t you know?”

  Molly felt that she must drop then. Almost the last of her strength and courage had vanished. Yet she was impelled to look up at him, and even in the shadow of the trees she saw the fire of his eyes.

  “How could I know . . . when you’ve never told . . . me?” she whispered haltingly.

  “I love you . . . that’s what I think,” he flung at her. “Do you have to be told in words?”

  How imperative that was he could never have understood. It quite robbed her of will. She swayed to him with her head on his breast.

  “Molly, did I take your kiss in the wrong way?” he asked, bending over her.

  “How . . . did you take it?”

  “That you must care for me.” Fear and anxiety cried with a happy masterfulness in his voice.

  “Do you prefer to be told in words?”

  “No,” he answered low, and bent to her lips. “But tell me both ways.”

  Molly might have yielded to his importunity, had his ardor left her any force. But she could only lean against him and cling to him with weak hands, in happiness that was pain. For a while then he held her in silence.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen . . . nearly eighteen?”

  “Did you ever love any man before me?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Ah, then you do?” he queried, bending to kiss her cheek.

  “Don’t you know that I
do?”

  “Will you be my wife?” he flashed.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “When?”

  “The very day I am of age . . . if you want me so soon.”

  “Want you? I’ve wanted you so badly. I’ve been sick, miserable. It was not so terrible at first. It grew on me. But I loved you from the first moment I said I might never see you again. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, Tom Doan, I remember as well as you.”

  “Oh, you do? Well, when did you love me? I’m curious. It’s too good to be true. Tell me when.”

  “Since the instant I looked over that horse to see you standing there.”

  “Molly.” He was incredulous, and, as if to make sure of his good fortune, he fell to caressing her.

  Later then, sitting against one of the trees, with his arm round her waist, Molly told him the story of her life. She did not dwell long on the poverty and hard work of her childhood, or the vanishing hopes and ideals of her schooldays, or the last sordid months that had been so hard to endure.

  “You poor girl. Well, we must have been made for each other,” he replied, and briefly told her his own story. Life had been hard work for him, too, full of loss, and lightened by little happiness. Evidently it hurt him to confess that his father had been a guerilla under Quantrill.

  “I always was a farmer,” he concluded. “I dreamed of a fine ranch, all my own. And I’m going to have it. . . . Molly, I’m making big money in this buffalo-hide business. I’ll be rich. I’ll have you, too.”

  Molly shared his rapture, and did not have the heart to speak of her disapproval of his killing buffalo, or of her fear of Jett. She embraced joy for the first time.

  The night hours wore on and the moon soared high in the heavens, full, silvery white, flooding the plain with light. Out there coyotes were yelping their sharp wild notes. From the river bottom came the deep bay of a wolf. An owl hooted dismally. All of this wildness and beauty seemed part of Molly’s changed and uplifted life.

  “Come, you must go back to your camp,” said Doan at length.

  “Oh . . . must I? I may never see you again,” she whispered.

  “Plague me with my own words, will you?” he retorted, and his kisses silenced her. “Will you meet me here tomorrow night, soon as your folks are asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come then. It grows late. Lead the way down, for I’m going as far as I dare with you.”

  Within sight of the pale gleam of the tents he bade her good bye and silently stole back into the shadow of the slope. Molly as stealthily reached her tent, and slipped into it, full of heart and wide awake, to lie in her bed, realizing that in gratefulness for the changed world and the happiness she would now never relinquish, she must go back to the prayers of her childhood.

  Chapter Seven

  At dawn the singing of wild canaries awakened Molly Fayre. There must have been a flock of them that alighted on the elm trees that sheltered her tent. She listened, finding in the sweet treble notes an augury for her future. How good to awaken to such music and thought!

  A loud hoarse yawn from the direction of camp proclaimed the rising of one of the men. Soon after that, a sharp ring of Jett’s axe drove away the canaries. Rays of rosy light penetrated the slit of Molly’s tent, final proof that another day had come. Molly felt a boundless swell of life within her. Never had any day before dawned like this one! She lingered in her bed long after the crackling of the campfire and the metallic clinking of Dutch oven and skillet attested to the task of breakfast.

  “Hey, Molly, you’re gettin’ worse than the old lady!” called out Jett in voice for once minus gruffness. “Are you dead?”

  “I’m very much alive,” replied Molly, abrupt in glee at the double meaning of her words.

  “Pile out then,” added Jett.

  Molly did not hurry so much as usual; a subtle courage had stirred in her; she felt inspired to outwit Jett. Yet she meant to pretend submission to his rule. Her hope was strong that the arduous toil of hunting and skinning buffalo would continue to leave Jett little time in camp, and none to molest her with evil intentions. He was too obsessed to make money to spare time for drinking.

  “Wal, the bombardin’ has begun,” Follonsbee was heard to say.

  “Some early birds that’s new to buffalo huntin’,” replied Jett. “My experience is you get only so much shootin’ in a day. I reckon though, with the stragglin’ bunches of this big herd rompin’ to an’ fro, we’ll hear shootin’ all day long.”

  The men were gone when Molly presented herself at the campfire. She ate so little Mrs. Jett noted the absence of her usual appetite. “Are you sick?” she asked, with something of solicitude.

  “No. I just don’t feel hungry,” replied Molly.

  “You’ve got a high color, Looks like fever,” said the woman, her bright bold eyes studying Molly’s face. “Better let me mix you a dose of paregoric.”

  “Thanks, no, I’m all right,” returned Molly. But despite her calm assurance she was intensely annoyed to feel an added heat on her flushed cheeks. It might not be so easy to fool this woman. Molly divined, however, that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility for Mrs. Jett to be sympathetic regarding Tom Doan. Still Molly dare not trust such impulsive premonition. She performed her accustomed tasks more expeditiously and even better than usual, then repaired to her tent to do likewise there.

  After that the interminable hours faced her. How many till moonrise! They seemed everlasting and insupportable. She could neither read nor sew; all she could do was sit with idle hands, thinking. At length, however, she discovered that this very thinking, such as it had come to be, was happiness itself. She had only the short morning and evening tasks now and all the hours to wait here in this permanent camp for the stolen meetings with Tom Doan. Hours that would become days and weeks, even months, all to wait for him! She embraced the fact. Loneliness was no longer fearful. She had a wonderful secret.

  The morning was still and warm, not so hot as on other days, by reason of a cloudily hazed sky. The birds had gone away, and there was not a sound close at hand. But from the plain above and from across the stream that emptied into the Red River, and from all around it seemed, when she concentrated her attention, there came the detonations of guns. None was close by and most appeared far away. They had no regularity, yet there were but few intervals of perfect silence. On the other hand sometimes a traveling volley of reports would begin away in the distance and apparently come closer, and then gradually withdraw to die away. A few shots together appeared a rare occurrence.

  At every shot perhaps some poor buffalo falls . . . dead . . . or dying like that great crippled bull I saw. Augh, mused Molly in revulsion at the thought. I’d hate to have Tom Doan grow rich from murdering buffalo. . . . But he said he did not kill many . . . that he was a skinner. Then her ears seemed to fill with a low murmur or faint roar, like the rumble of distant thunder. At first she thought a storm was brewing out toward the Staked Plains, but the thunder was too steady and continuous. In surprise she strained her hearing. Long low roar! What could it be? She had heard about the rumble of an earthquake and for a moment felt fear of the mysterious and unknown force under the earth. But this was a moving sound that came on the still summer air. It could be made only by buffalo.

  The thundering herd! thought Molly in awe. That’s what Jett called it. She listened until the roar very slowly receded and diminished and rolled away into silence. Still the shooting continued, and this puzzled Molly because it was reasonable to suppose that, if the hunters were pursuing the herd, the sound of their guns should likewise die away.

  Molly wandered around the camp, exploring places in the woods, and several times resisted a desire to go up the tract to the edge of the plain. Finally she yielded to it, halting under cover of the last trees, gazing out over the green expanse. It was as barren as ever. The banging of guns appeared just as far away, just as difficult to locate. Molly wished she could climb high som
ewhere so that she might see over the surrounding country.

  Nearby stood a tree of a kind she did not know; it had branches low down, and rose under one of the tall elms. Molly decided she would be less liable to be seen up in a tree; besides, she could have her desire gratified. To this end she climbed the smaller tree, and from it into the elm, getting to quite a high fork, which last was not easily attained. Then she gazed about her, and was so amazed and bewildered by the panorama that she had to exert her will to attend to any particular point of the compass.

  Westward the green prairie rose in a grand fan-shaped slope of many leagues, ending in the horizon-wide upheaval of bold gray naked earth that the hunters called the Staked Plains. It was as level-topped as a table, wild, remote, austere, somehow menacing, like an unscalable wall.

  In the middle of that vast stretch of green plain there were miles and miles of black patches, extending north and south as far as the eye could see. Though they seemed motionless at that distance, Molly recognized them as buffalo. Surely they could not be parts of the herd from whence came the low thundering roar.

  Far to the left, along the shining green-bordered river, there appeared a belt of moving buffalo, moving to the southwest, and disappearing in what appeared a pall of dust. But turning her ear to that direction and holding her breath to that direction, Molly again caught the low roar, now very faint. Much banging of guns came from that quarter. Out on the plain from this belt were small herds of buffalo, hundreds of them, dotting the green, and some were in motion.