The Shepherd of Guadaloupe

by Zane Grey

  “Noble, yes. But it’s an admission of her father’s guilt. I wish she hadn’t done that. Dad swears he’ll use it in court. We must keep him from it.”

  “My son, we must keep him from a good deal more,” she replied, gravely.

  “No one, unless you, could ever turn dad back from anything he wanted to do.”

  “You can help, Cliff. Your return an’ the way you’ve been have struck him deep. It takes time for a change to work out in Clay. You must be patient. You must persuade. An’ if Virginia is anythin’ to you—hide it.”

  “Virginia is nothing to me, mother,” he said, after a moment of astonishment at her speech.

  “Cliff, I reckon it takes all the heart you have to keep to the task you’ve set yourself.”

  “All—and more, I’m afraid, mother dear.”

  “My son, both your father an’ I have taken a new lease on life since you came home. He doesn’t know, but I do.”

  “Then you’ll never hear me say anything like that again.”

  “I must tell you something that ought to be just as helpful,” she went on, now in sweet seriousness. “It’s about Virginia.”

  “But, mother, I don’t want to hear any more,” returned Clifton, dreading he knew not what. It was as if he stood with blinded eyes on the verge of a precipice, which when he saw it would draw him down.

  “I reckon it’s because you don’t want me to that I will. Trust your mother, Cliff. . . . Do you remember Virginia as a little girl?”

  “Not very little. She must have been ten or twelve, anyway. She was a red-headed imp always in sight somewhere. On the wall out here, with her bare legs dangling. She had pretty brown legs. . . . But I remember her best hanging round the post. She was then beginning to be good-looking. But no one would have guessed she’d grow into what she did. I never recognized her on the ship or train.”

  “As a child she worshiped you. No one but I ever saw it. Then as she grew up, an’ her father an’ yours became bitter enemies, she visited us less, an’ finally never came. Now she’s back, an’ I think that child worship of you is not dead. Only she’s a woman now. Today she told me she had just ridden by the store. You sat outside, asleep. You didn’t wake an’ she stopped, meaning to speak with you. But she didn’t have the courage—you looked so white—so frail—so sad. Then she said to me: ‘Oh, Mrs. Forrest, my heart broke. Tell me he is not going to die!’ An’ I told her I knew you were goin’ to live. After that she perked up an’ asked me if she an’ I could not be good friends. But your father came, interrupting us.”

  “She is only sorry for me, mother,” he replied, with difficulty. “And I’d rather have her hate me, so that I could hate her.”

  “But hate is terrible, my son. It has ruined your father. If you let anyone hate you, or if you hate anyone, it will poison your blood.”

  “Mother dear, you are close to the angels.” It touched Clifton deeply that his mother should champion Virginia Lundeen, and in her blindness of affection and goodness attach undue sentiment to Virginia’s words and actions. Clifton did not dare accept his mother’s interpretation.

  His father came in, weary and dark, and ate his supper in silence. Soon afterward Clifton went to the little room that had been turned over to him and which once had been Virginia Lundeen’s. The very bed upon which he sat in the darkness to undress had been hers, so his mother had assured him, as if there could have been sweetness in the knowledge. There was one window, now open to the gentle wind that was coming down cool off the mountain. Through the great gnarled branches of a cottonwood shone white blinking stars that seemed to have a secret they wanted to share with him. Some fact—true, inevitable, passionless, immutable! He did not want to know it. The frogs were trilling. How this lonesome, solitary melody haunted him! His hands fell idle and he sat there to listen. The wonder of nature, the mystery of life, the sweetness of love, could not be denied. He heard them, felt them out there in the night. What had made him determine to live when all he had longed for was to rest? Assuredly it was the clinging to old ties—love of mother, father. God had failed him, he thought. But there were whispers on the wind, not earthly or physical.

  At last, only half undressed, he stretched out on the bed, thankful that he need move no more for hours. The internal strife of blood and nerve, of the very cells of his bones, gradually quieted. In the blackness and solitude, alone with his soul, he could not adhere to doubt, to hate, to mocking bitterness. And the face of Virginia Lundeen with the lovely troubled eyes hung over his pillow. He saw her standing in the archway of the home that had been his, crying out, “My God! Is it possible you don’t know!” And he pictured her from his mother’s words, watching him asleep, helpless, unguarded, with his secret for anyone to read. Clifton repudiated that heart-moving vision of her. It was an illusion. It was his mother’s imagining. It was only Virginia’s pity. Nevertheless, whatever it might be, out of it welled a melancholy happiness that warred with reason, and survived into his dreams.

  Next morning as he plodded out to endure the long walk to his work he espied his father plying a spade in the garden. And the sight was a cheerful one for the beginning of another interminable day. All his father had done was to sit and brood, or walk endlessly under the cottonwoods, unable to shake off the calamity that had befallen him. That, to Clifton and his mother, was more saddening than the calamity itself.

  Clifton slipped along, careful not to be seen, and the walk to the store was not so much of a hateful ordeal. A waiting customer furnished another surprise. What a little thing could revive hope and keep it alive a moment! His chair did not see him fall asleep that day. And somehow he got home without fear that he might drop, never to get up again.

  Days followed then, slowly dragging, not inspired, and each one sapping his little vitality, which seemed mostly of spirit. And then there came one of the nightmare nights which he had been mercifully free from since his start for home. He did not know what had induced it. But mental depression seized upon him and tightened its grip. He could not get to sleep. The past weighed upon him, phantoms and furies raged, and when he did fall asleep it was to be plunged in a horrible dream, as violent to his physical being as had been the thing it pictured. So when the day came he was already exhausted.

  Yet he went to work, and it took all day to recover from the exertion. He remained late, hoping his father would come, as he had several times. But at length he started out alone . . . and by sunset he was crawling on hands and knees, as once he had crawled on the battlefield, badly wounded, yet with less agony.

  The sun shone blood red through the cottonwoods. He could see the adobe wall and the break in the corner where the trail went through. Only a little farther on! He believed now that his end was near, and strangled, spent with his effort, and frenzied with the petrifying fear that he might not reach his mother in time, he kept on.

  Then he heard the hoofbeats of a horse close behind him in the road. He would be seen. It goaded him to the last remnant of his strength. Inside the break he failed, and sank face down.

  Swift, light footsteps pattered in the trail. He heard the swish of brush—a poignant cry. Someone knelt beside him.

  “Clifton!—Clifton!” He knew the voice and wished indeed that death had overtaken him. What fate was this? Strong arms lifted him, drew him to a sitting posture. He had one glimpse of Virginia Lundeen’s face, terror-stricken, then his head fell upon her breast.

  “Oh, Clifton—Clifton!” she cried, holding him tight. “What’s happened?”

  “I—gave—out,” he panted.

  “Is it only that? You were dragging yourself along. I thought you an animal. It scared my horse. . . . Oh, you must be terribly ill. You look so—so——”

  “I thought I—was dying.”

  “What shall I do?—What can I do?” she moaned. Clifton felt himself rocked to and fro in her arms. She was kneeling and holding him up. He saw her pull a gauntlet off with her teeth. Then a trembling hand touched his wet forehead, sm
oothed back his hair, moved warm across his cheek and lips.

  “Don’t take on so,” he whispered. “Maybe I’m—just all in.”

  “But something should be done,” she implored. “I’ll run for help—then ride home, get a car, and fetch the doctor.”

  “Wait until—we see. . . . Maybe it’s nothing. . . . I’m such a coward.”

  “Coward!” she cried, her voice deep and eloquent with scornful denial. He felt his head rise softly with the heave of her breast, and her heart sounded like a muffled drum. She hung over him. Her hair touched his face. She was bareheaded, her sombrero lying where evidently she had flung it. She was bending over him. Hot tears fell upon his cheek. Her touch, that even a half-dead man could not mistake, sharply affected him to the point of uplift. He had not the desire, even if the strength had been granted him, to move out of her arms.

  Not for moments did he remember his physical state, and then he guessed it was just the old revolt of outraged nature, driven to the limit this time. As he realized gradual recovery, he dismissed a vague, dreamy thought of how sweet it would be to die in her arms.

  “Help me to a seat—there,” he said, indicating a low section of the broken wall.

  “I am—quite beside myself,” she replied, with a confused laugh that told she had at least become conscious of her aberration. She lifted him with ease.

  “You’re strong,” returned Clifton, marveling at her, and he found that with her arm locked in his he could sit up steadily. Her lovely, tear-wet, flushed face would have dispelled all hate. And for the moment her tenderness, her astounding grief at his plight, had dissipated hate, resentment, doubt, all that he had imagined he had ever felt toward her.

  “There. You’re better. I’m so glad. . . . Oh, Clifton, I was frightened!”

  “Why?” he asked, fascinated.

  “Even if you’d been a stranger I would have been frightened. But you! . . . On the ship, on the train, up at the house that dreadful day you came—and down here, I was frightened for you. But not like this. . . . Oh, my heart is pounding now.”

  “Even for a stranger? And of course I’m that. I’m glad you said it.”

  “Yes indeed, Clifton Forrest, you are a stranger. For once you liked me—years ago when I was a happy kid—long before the shame of this day to me, and the sorrow to you.”

  “Virginia, I hardly knew you,” he protested.

  “You’ve forgotten. . . . You used to wave to me as you rode by. Then you made eyes at me. And once in the old post you caught me alone—you kissed me.”

  Clifton awoke to realities, to the void absence and war had made in his memory, to the hot blood that tinged his cheek.

  “Did I?—I had indeed forgotten. So much of the past is dark in my mind.”

  “There! You’ve made that strange move with your hand,” she burst out, impulsively. “You did it on the ship—on the train. And that day up at the house. Now you have done it again. Four times. Clifton, why do you do that?”

  “What move? What do you mean?”

  “You pass your open hand before your eyes. It’s a slow, strange action. You do not touch your eyes. You seem to brush something away. As if a shadow dimmed them and you could remove it.”

  “It’s unconscious. I never knew I did that. It must be to brush away pictures that never fade.”

  “Of what you’ve seen and suffered?” she asked, softly.

  “Yes, of what I’ve seen, surely.”

  “Clifton, you’re doing the most wonderful thing I ever knew a man to do. You were a knight of my childish dreams. Now you are a hero. You had made your sacrifice. You came home beaten and broken. You found all changed—your father crushed—your mother sorrowing—both without even the comforts of life. Cheated out of their home—to grow old, poor and miserable! . . . And instead of succumbing you rise like a giant to conquer fate, catastrophe, death itself. Oh, how I honor you for this courage!”

  “Virginia, you—you are making strong statements,” he faltered. “I can only believe—you’re overcome by my—our troubles—and the excitement of finding me on all fours, like a crippled dog.”

  “Overcome, yes, and I have been overcome ever since you fell at my feet. . . . Clifton, do you hate me because I’m a Lundeen?”

  “I’m only human.”

  “But I had nothing to do with the ruin of your family. If I owned Cottonwoods right now I’d give it back. And if I ever own it I will.”

  “Dad wouldn’t take it.”

  “Would you?”

  “Never from you.”

  “But why? If my father will not right a wrong, why should I be deprived of the happiness of doing it?”

  “It would be too late then.”

  “You wouldn’t take anything from me?”

  “No.”

  “Clifton Forrest, your nobility does not extend to helping others besides your own people,” she said, showing a bitter hurt.

  “Don’t talk sentimental nonsense,” he returned, with passion. “How could I ever help you? My God! . . . You—a young, beautiful woman! Healthy, strong, supple, clean-boned, who can ride like the wind! Rich! With home, doting parents, friends by the hundreds. You talk like a fool.”

  “I do not,” she flashed, spiritedly. “I may have good looks. That’s a matter of opinion. I am well and strong, thank Heaven, and if I have to work, you bet I can do it. But I haven’t any home—any real home. I’d rather be here, where I lived so long. My mother does not side with me in anything. She lives in mortal fear of father. I despise his greedy soul. It’s dreadful to confess. But I think I do. And if he keeps on trying to make me marry Malpass I shall hate him. . . . You’re not the only one in terrible trouble, Clifton Forrest.”

  Tears of anger and shame fell unrestrainedly, and reproach darkened her eyes.

  “Well, of all things!—Virginia, I’m sorry. I apologize,” returned Forrest, aghast. “Malpass! Isn’t he the fellow who used to hire the vaqueros at San Luis? Dark, slick, fire-eyed Mexican?”

  “You know him, Clifton. He is now my father’s partner. He’s a crook. It is he who hatched the plot that ruined your people. He absolutely dominates father. And he will ruin him, too, if he does not get his way.”

  “Which means if he does not get you?”

  “Precisely. Malpass is too smooth to hint that. But I know it.”

  “Is he in love with you?” asked Clifton, with an inexplicable curiosity he could not resist.

  “He has been for years, since I was sixteen. I didn’t believe all father’s rant about it. But lately I have found it out. The more I repulse him the madder he gets. I think opposition has fanned his desire. He wants to take me to Mexico City, to Havana, then to Spain. Raves about how he’d show me off in courts—exquisite gowns, diamonds, pearls. Oh, you should hear him!”

  “Thanks,” returned Clifton, dryly, “but I don’t care to. . . . Virginia, how are you going to beat that combination?”

  “I don’t know. It’s maddening. But if he got the best of me I—I’d kill him.”

  “No. That’d never do for you. I’ll tell you, Virginia. Marry someone else pronto.”

  “Marvelous idea. I’ve had it myself. But whom?” she returned, with unreadable, dark eyes on his.

  “Haven’t you lots of—of admirers, among whom there’s a fine chap whom you could care for?”

  “You ask me that!”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Very well, suppose you choose for me.”

  “But, you child, I don’t know your friends,” he expostulated.

  “You know the one I most want for a friend or—or——”

  “Virginia!” he gasped. “Am I crazy or are you?”

  “I’m quite sane,” she replied. Her rounded cheek was no longer rosy. It shone pearly in the afterglow of sunset. “Suppose I ride down to San Luis tomorrow. Fetch a padre over to your store. . . . We’ll keep it secret till the storm breaks. Then I’ll laugh in that smiling devil’s face!”

  �
��I—I don’t quite know how to take you,” replied Clifton. “If you’re serious—you’re out of your head.”

  “Clifton, I am proposing to you—that you save me from their machinations.”

  “But, my God!—you can’t—you mustn’t throw yourself away on a shell of a man like me.”

  “I fail to see the sacrifice. It would save me and might right a cruel wrong someday. And I could help you get well even though we kept our secret. Do I understand you to refuse?”

  “Yes. What else could—I do?” he replied, faintly.

  “Oh, because your father hates the very ground a Lundeen treads on. But I can’t help my name. I am asking you to change it for me.”

  “No, Virginia, not because dad hates your father. But because this would not be right or fair to you. He’d disinherit you. And I would only be a burden.”

  “You say that for an excuse. You must share your father’s hate. . . . Oh, Clifton Forrest! You will never know.”

  “I tell you—I don’t hate you,” he cried, desperately.

  “And I tell you I don’t believe you. . . . But this is cruel of me. You’ve had an awful day. And I, selfish woman, have made it worse for you. . . . Come, let me help you to the house.”

  “I can go alone. Dad might see you—insult you.”

  He arose, and she did likewise, still with firm hand on his arm.

  “Are you sure you can make it?”

  “Yes. I’ve rested. I’m all right.”

  “Let me see you walk.”

  He started off steadily enough.

  “Good-by—Clifton,” she called, low. The gloom swallowed her before he could muster voice to answer. As he walked on under the whispering cottonwoods he stopped beside one to lean a moment. Then he heard the rapid hoof-beats of a running horse.

  Chapter Six

  BY JUNE the hideous ordeals Clifton had to invite and endure daily, began appreciably to change. He discovered that by imperceptible degrees he had passed the climax of his trial for life.