by Zane Grey
“And what does all this prove?” queried Virginia, in breathless interest.
“Wal, when all’s said it proves nothin’ thet I can prove,” returned Jake, in perplexity. “I know what I think. We shore found this little trace of loose gold. There it is in your hand. But I’d bet a lot nature never put this gold in thet hillside.”
“You mean you believe gold like this—in large quantity, perhaps, was taken into the mine from outside?” asked Virginia, her mind quickening with many scintillating thoughts.
“Planted in there, Miss Virginia,” said Jake, very soberly. “Thousands of dollars in gold, mebbe. An’ then blasted! That would blow the gold fragments into the dirt an’ gravel an’ shale. It’s an old trick. But I never heerd of it in these parts.”
“An old trick! . . . To deceive? To raise greedy hopes? To blind? To give false and tremendous value to a worthless hole in the ground?”
“Miss Virginia, you’ve hit it plumb center. . . . But I’m bound to tell you I may be wrong. Thet’s the hell—pardon, Miss, I’m some excited—but thet’s the wurst of it. The gold might have been there of its own an’ nature’s accord. I don’t believe so. It looks fishy to me. But I might be wrong.”
“Jake, could a mining expert prove positively whether this gold was planted there to defraud, or belonged there along with the other natural deposits?”
“He shore could,” asserted Jake, emphatically nodding his head. “But I’m weak on mineraloogy. Thet’s the weak point in most prospectors. They don’t know enough about the earth—geooloogy, they call it. They don’t know what to look for, or what they’ve found, unless they pick into the real shiny yellow stuff.”
“Boys, this is a very singular thing,” concluded Virginia, gravely. “It may mean nothing and then again it may mean a great deal. . . . I’m asking you both on your word of honor to keep this secret with me?”
They solemnly promised in unison, and Virginia felt that she could trust them. With trembling fingers she carefully tied up the telltale grains of gold in a corner of her handkerchief and stowed it safely away, thinking the while of the strange result of a chance remark. But then, how alertly distrustful she was to anything pertaining to Malpass’ activities!
With this disturbance in her mind, she was ill prepared to face the downward journey, where all she loved eloquently intrigued her, from the green-gold blaze of the cottonwoods, from the white-walled, black-arched ranch house, from the little red adobe place she had always called home.
She feared Dusk found her loath to let him choose his leisurely way. And once down on the long bench above the ranch she put him to his best speed, making the delighted cowboys ride to keep up with her. There was something poignant in the cut of the cool, sweet wind.
Her habit of late had been to ride up the road, under the arched gates and through the court, to dismount at the porch, and turn her horse over to one of the cowboys.
This day she trotted Dusk in abruptly upon a scene of disorder and confusion. The court appeared full of strange cars and strange people. Virginia spurred Dusk clattering over the stones, and she leaped off at the porch landing. Jake, with a warning call, had just caught up to her and reached for her bridle.
Her father and a young man and Mr. Hartwell were lifting someone out of the car.
“Father, what has happened?” she cried out.
But no one heard her. They were all talking excitedly, and the Mexicans crowding about were exclaiming to their saints. Then Virginia saw Malpass’ boots, his white riding-breeches, and lastly his face—that she did not recognize. It appeared webbed with bloody stripes.
She clapped a hand to her lips too late to stifle a scream. Then, “My God!—is he dead?”
“Go into the house,” shouted her father.
Virginia had no idea of obeying, even had she been capable of moving. Her feet might as well have been cased in lead boots. A horrible chill attacked her within and froze pulse and vein. Her mind had flashed upon one appalling thought and there had congealed.
“Lundeen—drive them—away!” shrieked Malpass, and then he cursed and raved in Spanish.
Virginia nearly dropped with the instant release of her faculties from an icy compress. Suddenly she had a sensation not unlike the worst of seasickness.
Lundeen bellowed at the gaping employees of the house, at the drivers and occupants of the other cars.
“Hell’s fire! Get me—inside!” Malpass could not stand without the aid of the men who locked arms under his. He could not walk at all. They slid and dragged him. His thin coat and shirt were cut into ribbons. The olive tan of his neck showed a broad welt like a band of red velvet.
Following them, quaking and thrilling alternately, Virginia entered the wide hall, and then the living-room, where they laid Malpass back in an armchair. He called faintly for whisky. The chauffeur ran out. Lundeen rushed to the cabinet where he kept liquors. Hartwell endeavored to ease the stiff posture of the recumbent man. Virginia stood fascinated and horrified.
“Oh, father! What happened?”
“How the hell—do I know?” he quavered, his jaw wabbling.
“Miss Lundeen, there’s been a terrible fight,” said Hartwell.
“Between whom?” queried Virginia, her hand on her bursting heart. She did not need to ask. That heart told her what her fears wanted confirmed.
“Leave the room,” ordered Lundeen, hurrying with a glass full of red liquor that spilled over his shaking hand.
“No! She stays to hear this—by God!” hissed Malpass.
When he had gulped the whisky his head fell back, his eyes closed. And Virginia engaged all her forces in an effort to look clearly at him.
He presented a spectacle like a beaten beast. His stripped shirt was red with blood, whether from cuts on face and neck, or a wound not visible. The sleeves of coat and shirt were ripped back to the elbow, showing a wrist that looked as if it had been burned to the bone.
“Hartwell, who’n’ll’s to blame?” burst out Lundeen, throwing the empty glass back to crash on the cabinet.
“Cliff Forrest,” returned Hartwell, explosively.
“So help me Heaven! I reckoned so. . . . How’d he do it?”
“Beat him with a bull-whacker’s whip. Beat him unconscious, Lundeen, an’ if Forrest hadn’t give out he’d have beat him to death.”
“For Gawd’s sake, why?”
Malpass stirred as if he had been pricked. His eyes opened. Under the swollen lids and the brand across his forehead they gleamed with most baleful luster.
“Hartwell, get out of here,” he ordered, in a stronger voice. “And keep your mouth shut—if you want my favors.”
“But if Mason dies, sir, they’ll make me talk. An’ he’s bad hurt,” replied Hartwell, nervously wringing his hands. “Besides, there were others present.”
“Wait then. Keep me posted.”
Hartwell mumbled a few incoherent words and beat a hasty retreat.
“August, hadn’t I better send to town for a doctor?” queried Lundeen, anxiously.
“No. . . . I’m in agony, but only beaten, burned. . . . It was a whip. Forrest jumped me with a whip.”
“He’ll go to jail,” boomed Lundeen.
“——! I’ll cut his heart out!”
Weakly, with strength infinitely less than his passion, he stretched the lacerated arm, and pointed a bloody hand and quivering finger at Virginia.
“You brazen hussy!”
Not the frenzied insult of his words but their connotation left Virginia stricken and mute.
“Heah!” shouted Lundeen, his paleness vanishing. “Have a care. You’ve shore cause to rave, but not—”
“Lundeen, you’ll—kill her!” panted Malpass, his breast alternately lifting and sinking.
“Me! You’re wild, man. She’s my own flesh an’ blood.”
“That’s why. . . . If you don’t kill her—you’ll curse her—throw her out. . . . Then, by God! I’ll drag her down!”
Virgini
a flamed out of her petrifaction.
“Mr. Malpass, I make allowance for your condition. But you’re not quite insane. I tell you nothing you have done, or can do or say, will move me in the slightest.”
“I’ll drag you through mud!” he hissed, with a fiendish malignity.
Lundeen intervened, at least with semblance of self-control.
“Shut up, Virginia!” he ordered. “An’ you, Malpass, do the same or talk sense. What’s this all aboot?”
“Your loyal daughter is the wife of young Forrest.”
“WHAT!” yelled Lundeen, leaping up as if at the sting of a lash.
“She’s married to Clifton Forrest. I saw the marriage certificate. He stuck it before my eyes! . . . Laughed in my face, the——!”
Lundeen sagged under the blow, though mind and body seemed to repudiate it. Slowly he turned to Virginia, his dry lips failing, his eyes strained in terrible question.
“Yes, I am Clifton’s wife,” answered Virginia, her voice ringing, her head lifting erect. The dénouement had been staggering, but she could recover to glory in it.
“Wife! . . . Lundeen-Forrest! . . . Married! . . . All the—time—you’ve been—married?”
“All the time lately—yes. All the time Mr. Malpass has been courting me so assiduously.”
“You she-devil!” Malpass screamed it, but his voice did not carry beyond the room.
Lundeen lifted a nerveless hand. His face was bloodless.
“Malpass, you fought Forrest aboot this—this marriage?”
In his agitation Malpass leaned forward, and though he spoke for Lundeen his snaky eyes scorched Virginia.
“It happened at Watrous. I went in to see Hartwell. Talked over building supplies. Mentioned my coming marriage with your daughter. Ha! Ha! . . . Then I espied young Forrest at a desk. Hartwell said he worked there. I asked to have him fired. . . . Forrest got up and addressed me in a way no man can talk to me. If he hadn’t been a crippled soldier, I’d have shot him. But I tried to get past him. Then he shoved his marriage certificate under my nose—bragged of Virginia being his wife. She could never marry a half-breed! . . . I accused him of forgery. He made me read. I saw—recognized Virginia’s handwriting. Then I knew we’d been tricked. . . . Damn you, Lundeen, for a doting old fool! You’re to blame for this. . . . Forrest was red in the face. He swelled up like a toad before the clerks in the store—and others who came in. He wasn’t missing a chance to spread the news that Virginia Lundeen was his wife. That he would some day lord it over Cottonwoods!”
Lundeen made an implacable gesture of denial, more significant than any words.
“I struck Forrest—with my crop,” went on Malpass, hurriedly, now breaking from faintness, or fury. “He snatched a whip—off the counter—and—and beat me down.”
“Ahuh. An’ how aboot Mason, who’s bad hurt,” Hartwell said. “Where’d he come in?”
“I forgot. Before I went under—thinking Forrest would beat me to death—I pulled my gun. But I couldn’t shoot straight. He kept—slashing me with that infernal whip. . . . I missed him—shot some other man—I saw him drop. It must—have been Mason.”
Malpass, clammy and haggard, sank limply back in the chair. Lundeen moved laboriously, as one under too great a strain for swift action, and lunging at Virginia he seized her with ruthless hands.
“Girl, you’ve ruined me.”
“Oh no, father. Don’t rave. Don’t be guided longer by this snake.”
“You’re the snake. I reckon I’ll kill you.” His big hands slipped up to her neck, and choking her convulsively he forced her to her knees. Limp and terror-stricken, unable to struggle, Virginia thought this must be the end. But he loosed his grip.
“She’s no Lundeen!” he snarled, evidently fighting some restraining voice.
“For God’s sake—father—don’t murder me!” entreated Virginia, gasping for breath. “You are beside yourself. Think of mother!”
“What’d you marry that hellion for?” he demanded, pierced by her supplication.
“To protect myself. Malpass and you—somehow would have forced me to marry him. I’d rather have died. . . . It wasn’t a regular elopement. . . . I was to blame. I almost begged Clifton to save me. He didn’t—he doesn’t care for me. He believes he’ll not live long. . . . I thought—it seemed—oh, father, it was a mad thing to do. But I was desperate.”
He let her get up, and breathing like an ox, lowering at her, he stood there freed at least from murderous instincts. Virginia drew away on uncertain feet. With deliverance from terror her wits returned.
“Choose. Divorce this heah Forrest or leave my house,” said Lundeen, with dark and gloomy finality.
“In any case, I’ll leave,” she replied, and with that ultimatum, and safe distance between her and this ruffian parent, the hot blood of courage and insupportable outrage flooded over her. “You are no father. You’re a brute and a coward. You’re the tool of this thief—this low hounder of a woman. . . . I rejoice to see him thus—a beaten dog!”
“No more. Get out!” roared Lundeen, black in the face, goaded past endurance.
“May I pack some things—and say good-by to mother?”
“Take your belongings. But you’re through with the Lundeens. Go!”
Virginia fled.
Chapter Twelve
THE only unhappiness and mortification affecting Virginia on the moment shuddered round the fact that Clifton Forrest had broken faith with her. To be sure, Malpass was an atrocious liar. But from Clifton alone could have come the knowledge of her marriage. That was enough to condemn him. No other part of Malpass’ raving story need be considered. She was bitterly shocked and alienated.
Freed now from the ever-present fear of being waylaid by Malpass in and around every corner of the house, Virginia hurried first down to the barns. Jake and Con espied her coming and hastened to meet her. “Boys, I want you to take all my horses away from Cottonwoods,” she informed them, abruptly, without wasting time or explanations. “Do you know where you can take care of them for the winter?”
“Shore do,” replied Jake, cheerfully. “I was thinking about winter range. Used to ride for Jeff Sneed. His ranch is south. Good water an’ feed. An’ Jeff will be glad to have us.”
“That relieves me. Here’s some money, all I can spare. But don’t worry. The horses are worth ten thousand.”
“Wal, you needn’t worry, either,” responded Jake, with a loyal smile.
“Where shall I write you?”
“Las Vegas, I reckon. Course we couldn’t never get in town, but mail would come out now an’ then.”
“Very well. Pack up, and start as quickly as possible. Don’t excite suspicion of your intentions. But don’t let anybody stop you. These horses are my property.”
“Reckon there ain’t anybody round who could stop us, Miss,” replied Jake, nonchalantly.
“Good-by then. I’m very happy to have you boys to rely on.”
They bade her good-by, haltingly, full of wonder, and sympathy they dared not speak.
Virginia rushed back up to the house. Before she reached her rooms she had decided upon a plan of action. She would pack her belongings, drive to Las Vegas with her bags and send a truck back for her trunks. Then she would wire to Ethel and take the night train for Denver.
Whereupon she plunged into the packing—no slight task—and before very long she discovered that ever and anon she would stop a moment to do nothing but stare at the wall. When she realized this and divined why, she was angered with herself. Her natural instinct was to fly to Clifton. How wonderful if only she could have yielded to it! But he had failed her—he would not welcome her; and besides, that would aggravate a situation already grave. She must dismiss Clifton from mind for the present. The effort seemed to rend her. Poor boy! The war had ruined him, and his home-coming had been forlorn, miserable, unbearable. Small wonder if he had transgressed loyalty! Still, she could not conceive of him boasting about her being his wife. Some
day she would get at the bottom of what really had been said and done. A thrilling idea began to form and would not be denied—Clifton had beaten Malpass for her sake. She simply had to be cold and unreceptive to that incalculably far-reaching possibility. By Malpass’ own lips—swollen and discolored—she had learned that he had been beaten by Forrest, and it was enough.
As luck would have it, Virginia’s mother came in to see her, unsuspecting, and quite surprised to find her in the midst of packing.
“Mother, I’m going to Denver a little ahead of my invitation,” she explained, relieved that Mrs. Lundeen manifestly did not yet know of the upheaval.
“Dear me! Always on the go! Will you never settle down?” she complained, mildly.
“I guess I’m about settled now, mother,” said Virginia, “if you only knew it.”
“It would please me to see you married.”
“To the same individual father picked out for me?”
“No. I wouldn’t want you to tell it, but I don’t believe Malpass could make you happy.”
“You’re an angel to say that, mother. I promise you I’ll get a husband—pretty quick,” returned Virginia, gleefully.
“I wish you would be serious. . . . Virginia, I came in to tell you I’d like to go to Atlanta soon. And if you are leaving I think I’ll go.”
“Mother, I approve of that. And I might run down to Atlanta to see you this winter.”
This delighted Mrs. Lundeen, and finally Virginia made the visit a certainty, providing her mother kept it a secret, and furthermore would not be distressed or influenced by any circumstance that might arise on Virginia’s account in the meantime.