Riders of the Purple Sage (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by Zane Grey

  The loss of herds and ranges, even of Amber Spring and the old stone house, no longer concerned Jane Withersteen; she faced the foremost thought of her life-what she now considered the mightiest problemthe salvation of her soul. She knelt by her bedside and prayed; she prayed as she had never prayed in all her life-prayed to be forgiven for her sin; to be immune from that dark, hot hate; to love Tull as her minister, although she could not love him as a man; to do her duty by her church and people and those dependent upon her bounty; to hold reverence of God and womanhood inviolate.

  When Jane Withersteen rose from that storm of wrath and prayer for help, she was serene, calm, surea changed woman. She would do her duty as she saw it, live her life as her own truth guided her. She might never be able to marry a man of her choice, but she certainly never would become the wife of Tull. Her churchmen might take her cattle and horses, ranges and fields, her corrals and stables, the house of Withersteen and the water that nourished the village of Cottonwoods, but they could not force her to marry Tull, they could not change her decision or break her spirit. Once resigned to further loss, and sure of herself, Jane Withersteen attained a peace of mind that had not been hers for a year. She forgave Tull, and felt a melancholy regret over what she knew he considered duty, irrespective of his personal feeling for her. First of all, Tull, as he was a man, wanted her for himself, and, secondly, he hoped to save her and her riches for his church. She did not believe that Tull had been actuated solely by his minister's zeal to save her soul. She doubted her interpretation of one of his dark sayings-that if she were lost to him, she might as well be lost to heaven. Jane Withersteen's common sense took arms against the binding limits of her religion, and she doubted that her bishop, who she had been taught had direct communication with God, would damn her soul for refusing to marry a Mormon. As for Tull and his churchmen, when they had harassed her, perhaps made her poor, they would find her unchangeable, and then she would get back most of what she had lost. So she reasoned, true at last to her faith in all men, and in their ultimate goodness.

  The clank of iron hoofs upon the stone courtyard drew her hurriedly from her retirement. There, beside his horse, stood Lassiter, his dark apparel and the great black gun sheaths contrasting singularly with his gentle smile. Jane's active mind took up her interest in him and her half-determined desire to use what charm she had to foil his evident design in visiting Cottonwoods. If she could mitigate his hatred of Mormons, or at least keep him from killing more of them, not only would she be saving her people, but also be leading back this bloodspiller to some semblance of the human.

  "'Mornin', ma'am," he said, black sombrero in hand.

  "Lassiter, I'm not an old woman, or even a madam," she replied with her bright smile. "If you can't say Miss Withersteen... call me Jane."

  "I reckon Jane would be easier. First names are always handy for me."

  "Well, use mine, then. Lassiter, I'm glad to see you. I'm in trouble."

  Then she told him of Judkins's return, of the driving of the red herd, of Venters's departure on Wrangle, and the calling in of her riders.

  "'Pears to me you're some smilin' an' pretty for a woman with so much trouble," he remarked.

  "Lassiter! Are you paying me compliments? But, seriously, I've made up my mind not to be miserable. I've lost much, and I'll lose more. Nevertheless, I won't be sour, and I hope I'll never be unhappy... again."

  Lassiter twisted his hat around and around, as was his way, and took his time in replying. "Women are strange to me. I got to back-trailin' myself from them long ago. But I like a game woman. Might I ask, seein' as how you take this trouble, if you're goin' to fight?"

  "Fight? How? Even if I would, I haven't a friend except that boy who doesn't dare stay in the village."

  "I make bold to say, ma'am... Jane... that there's another, if you want him."

  "Lassiter! Thank you. But how can I accept you as a friend? Think! Why, you'd ride down into the village with those terrible guns and kill my enemies... who are also my churchmen."

  "I reckon I might be riled up to jest about that," he replied dryly.

  She held out both hands to him.

  "Lassiter, I'll accept your friendship... be proud of it... return it... if I may keep you from killing another Mormon."

  "I'll tell you one thing," he said bluntly as the gray lightning formed in his eyes. "You're too good a woman to be sacrificed as you're goin' to be. No, I reckon you an' me can't be friends on such terms."

  In her earnestness she stepped closer to him, repelled yet fascinated by the sudden transition of his moods. That he would fight for her was at once horrible and wonderful.

  "You came here to kill a man... the man who Milly Erne...."

  "The man who dragged Milly Erne to hell... put it that way! Jane Withersteen, yes, that's why I came here. I'd tell so much to no other livin' soul. There're things such a woman as you'd never dream of... so don't mention her again. Not till you tell me the name of the man."

  "Tell you! I? Never!"

  "I reckon you will. An' I'll never ask you. I'm a man of strange beliefs an' ways of thinkin', an' I seem to see into the future an' feel things hard to explain. The trail I've been followin' for so many years was twisted an' tangled, but it's straightenin' out now. An', Jane Withersteen, you crossed it long ago to ease poor Milly's agony. That, whether you want or not, makes Lassiter your friend. But you cross it now strangely to mean somethin' to me... God knows what... unless by your noble blindness to incite me to greater hatred of Mormon men."

  Jane felt swayed by a strength that far exceeded her own. In a clash of wills with this man she would go to the wall. If she were to influence him, it must be wholly through womanly allurement. There was that about Lassiter which commanded her respect; she had abhorred his name; face to face with him, she found she feared only his deeds. His mystic suggestion, his foreshadowing of something that she was to mean to him, pierced deeply into her mind. She believed fate had thrown in her way the lover or husband of Milly Erne. She believed that through her an evil man might be reclaimed. His allusion to what he called her blindness terrified her. Such a mistaken idea of her might unleash the bitter, fatal mood she sensed in him. At any cost she must placate this man. She knew the die was cast, and that, if Lassiter did not soften to a woman's grace and beauty and wiles, then it would be because she could not make him.

  "I reckon you'll hear no more such talk from me," Lassiter went on presently. "Now, Miss Jane, I rode in to tell you that your herd of white steers is down on the slope behind them big ridges. An' l seen somethin' goin' on that'd be mighty interestin' to you, if you could see it. Have you a field glass?"

  "Yes. I have two glasses. I'll get them and ride out with you. Wait, Lassiter, please," she said, and hurried within. Sending word to Jerd to saddle Black Star and fetch him to the court, she then went to her room and changed to the riding clothes she always donned when going into the sage. In this male attire her mirror showed her a jaunty, handsome rider. If she expected some little meed of admiration from Lassiter, she had no cause for disappointment. The gentle smile that she liked, which made of him another person, slowly overspread his face.

  "If I didn't take you for a boy!" he exclaimed. "It's powerful queer what difference clothes make. Now I've been some scared of your dignity, like when the other night you was all in white, but in this rig...."

  Black Star came pounding into the court, dragging Jerd half off his feet, and he whistled at Lassiter's black. But at sight of Jane all his defiant lines seemed to soften, and with tosses of his beautiful head he whipped his bridle.

  "Down, Black Star, down," said Jane.

  He dropped his head, and, slowly lengthening, he bent one foreleg, then the other, and sank to his knees. Jane slipped her left foot in the stirrup, swung lightly into the saddle, and Black Star rose with a ringing stamp. It was not easy for Jane to hold him to a canter through the grove, and like the wind he broke when he saw the sage. Jane let him have a couple of miles of fr
ee running on the open trail, and then she coaxed him in and waited for her companion. Lassiter was not long in catching up, and presently they were riding side-byside. It reminded her how she used to ride with Venters. Where was he now? She gazed far down the slope to the curved purple lines of Deception Pass, and involuntarily shut her eyes with a trembling stir of nameless fear.

  "We'll turn off here," Lassiter said, "an' take to the sage a mile or so. The white herd is behind them big ridges."

  "What are you going to show me?" asked Jane. "I'm prepared... don't be afraid."

  He smiled as if he meant that bad news came swiftly enough without being presaged by speech.

  When they reached the lee of a rolling ridge, Lassiter dismounted, motioning her to do likewise. They left the horses standing, bridles down. Then Lassiter, carrying the field glasses, began to lead the way up the slow rise of ground. Upon nearing the summit, he halted her with a gesture.

  "I reckon we'd see more if we didn't show ourselves against the sky," he said. "I was here less than an hour ago. Then the herd was seven or eight miles south, an' if they ain't bolted yet....

  "Lassiter! Bolted?"

  "That's what I said. Now let's see."

  Jane climbed a few more paces with him, and then peeped over the ridge. Just beyond began a shallow swale that deepened and widened into a valley and then swung to the left. Following the undulating sweep of sage, Jane saw the straggling lines and then the great body of the white herd. She knew enough about steers, even at a distance of four or five miles, to realize that something was in the wind. Bringing her field glass into use, she moved it slowly from left to right, which action swept the whole herd into range. The stragglers were restless; the more compactly massed steers were browsing. Jane brought the glass back to the big sentinels of the herd, and she saw them trot with quick steps, stop short, and toss wide horns, look everywhere, and then trot in another direction.

  "Judkins hasn't been able to get his boys together yet," said Jane. "But he'll be there soon. I hope not too late. Lassiter, what's frightening those big leaders?"

  "Nothin' jest on the minute," replied Lassiter. "Them steers are quietin' down. They've been scared, but not bad yet. I reckon the whole herd has moved a few miles this way since I was here."

  "They didn't browse that distance... not in less than an hour. Cattle aren't sheep."

  "No, they jest run it, an' that looks bad."

  "Lassiter, what frightened them?" repeated Jane impatiently.

  "Put down your glass. You'll see at first better with a naked eye. Now look along them ridges on the other side of the herd, the ridges where the sun shines bright on the sage. That's right. Now look an' look hard an' wait."

  Long-drawn moments of straining sight rewarded Jane with nothing save the low, purple rim of ridge and the shimmering sage.

  "It's begun again," whispered Lassiter, and he gripped her arm. "Watch. There, did you see that?"

  "No, no. Tell me what to look for?"

  "A white flash... a kind of pinpoint of quick light... a gleam as from sun shinin' on somethin' white."

  Suddenly Jane's concentrated gaze caught a fleeting glint. Quickly she brought her glass to bear on the spot. Again the purple sage, magnified in color and size and wave, for long moments irritated her with its monotony. Then from out of the sage on the ridge flew up a broad, white object, flashed in the sunlight, and vanished. Like magic it was, and bewildered Jane.

  "What on earth is that?"

  "I reckon there's someone behind that ridge throwin' up a sheet or a white blanket to reflect the sunshine."

  "Why?" queried Jane, more bewildered than ever.

  "To stampede the herd," replied Lassiter, and his teeth clicked.

  "Ah!" She made a fierce, passionate movement, clutched the glass tightly, shook as with the passing of a spasm, and then dropped her head. Presently she raised it to greet Lassiter with something like a smile. "My righteous brethren are at work again," she said in scorn. She had stifled the leap of her wrath, but for perhaps the first time in her life a bitter derision curled her lips. Lassiter's cool, gray eyes seemed to pierce her. "I said I was prepared for anything, but that was hardly true. Why would they... anybody stampede my cattle?"

  "That's a Mormon's Godly way of bringin' a woman to her knees."

  "Lassiter, I'll die before I ever bend my knees. I might be led. I won't be driven. Do you expect the herd to bolt?"

  "I don't like the looks of them big steers. But you can never tell. Cattle sometimes stampede as easily as buffalo. Any little flash or move will start them. A rider gettin' down an' walkin' toward them sometimes will make them jump an' fly. Then again nothin' seems to scare them. But I reckon that white flare will do the biz. It's a new one on me, an' I've seen some ridin' an' rustlin'. It jest takes one of them God-fearin' Mormons to think of devilish tricks."

  "Lassiter, might not this trick be done by Oldring's men?" asked Jane, ever grasping at straws.

  "It might be, but it ain't," replied Lassiter. "Oldring's an honest thief. He don't skulk behind ridges to scatter your cattle to the four winds. He rides down on you, an', if you don't like it, you can throw a gun."

  Jane bit her tongue to refrain from championing men who at the very moment were proving to her that they were little and mean compared even with rustlers.

  "Look! Jane, them leadin' steers have bolted! They're drawin' the stragglers, an' that'll pull the whole herd."

  Jane was not quick enough to catch the details called out by Lassiter, but she saw the line of cattle lengthening. Then, like a stream of white bees pouring from a huge swarm, the steers stretched out from the main body. In a few moments, with astonishing rapidity, the whole herd got into motion. A faint roar of trampling hoofs came to Jane's ears, and gradually swelled; low, rolling clouds of dust began to rise above the sage.

  "It's a stampede, an' a hummer," said Lassiter.

  "Oh, Lassiter! The herd's running with the valley! It leads into the canon! There's a straight jump-off!"

  "I reckon they'll run into it, too. But that's a good many miles yet. An' Jane, this valley swings 'round almost north before it goes east. That stampede will pass within a mile of us."

  The long, white, bobbing line of steers streaked swiftly through the sage, and a funnel-shaped dust cloud arose at a low angle. A dull rumbling filled Jane's ears.

  "I'm thinkin' of millin' that herd," said Lassiter. His gray glance swept up the slope to the west. "There's some specks an' dust 'way off toward the village. Mebbe that's Judkins an' his boys. It ain't likely he'll get here in time to help. You'd better hold Black Star here on this high ridge."

  He ran to his horse, and, throwing off saddlebags and tightening the cinches, he leaped astride and galloped straight down across the valley.

  Jane went for Black Star, and, leading him to the summit of the ridge, she mounted and faced the valley with excitement and expectancy. She had heard of milling stampeded cattle and knew it was a feat accomplished by only the most daring riders.

  The white herd was now strung out in a line two miles long. The dull rumble of thousands of hoofs deepened into continuous low thunder, and, as the steers swept swiftly closer, the thunder became a heavy roll. Lassiter crossed in a few moments the level of the valley to the eastern rise of ground and there waited the coming of the herd. Presently, as the head of the white line reached a point opposite to where Jane stood, Lassiter spurred his black into a run.

  Jane saw him take a position on the off side of the leaders of the stampede, and there he rode. It was like a race. They swept on down the valley, and, when the end of the white line neared Lassiter's first stand, the head had begun to swing around to the west. It swung slowly and stubbornly, yet surely, and gradually assumed a long, beautiful curve of moving white. To Jane's amazement she saw the leaders swinging, turning till they headed back toward her and up the valley. Out to the right of these wild, plunging steers ran Lassiter's black, and Jane's keen eye appreciated the fleet stride and sur
efootedness of the blind horse. Then it seemed that the herd moved in a great curve, a huge half moon, with the points of head and tail almost opposite, and a mile apart. But Lassiter relentlessly crowded the leaders, sheering them to the left, turning them little by little. The dust-blinded, wild followers plunged on madly in the tracks of their leaders. This ever-moving, everchanging curve of steers rolled toward Jane, and, when below her, scarcely half a mile, it began to narrow and close into a circle. Lassiter had ridden parallel with her position, turned toward her, then aside, and now he was riding directly away from her, all the time pushing the head of that bobbing line inward.

  It was then that Jane, suddenly understanding Lassiter's feat, stared and gasped at the riding of this intrepid man. His horse was fleet and tireless, but blind. He had pushed the leaders around and around till they were about to turn in on the inner side of the end of that line of steers. The leaders were already running in a circle; the end of the herd was still running almost straight. But soon they would be wheeling. Then, when Lassiter had the circle formed, how would he escape? With Jane Withersteen prayer was as ready as praise, and she prayed for this man's safety. A circle of dust began to collect. Dimly, as through a yellow veil, Jane saw Lassiter press the leaders inward to close the gap in the sage. She lost sight of him in the dust. Again she thought she saw the black, riderless now, rear and drag himself and fall. Lassiter had been thrown-lost! Then he reappeared running out of the dust into the sage. He had escaped, and she breathed again.

  Spellbound, Jane Withersteen watched this stupendous millwheel of steers. Here was the milling of the herd. The white, running circle closed in upon the open space of sage. The dust circles closed above into a pall. The ground quaked and the incessant thunder of pounding hoofs rolled on. Jane felt deafened, yet she thrilled to a new sound. As the circle lessened, the steers began to bawl, and, when it closed entirely, there came a great upheaval in the center and a terrible thumping of heads and clicking of horns. Bawling, climbing, goring, the great mass of steers on the inside wrestled in a crashing din, heaved and groaned under the pressure. Then came a deadlock. The inner strife ceased, and the hideous roar and crash. Movement went on in the outer circle, and that, too, gradually stilled. The white herd had come to a stop, and the pall of yellow dust began to drift away on the wind.