Riders of the Purple Sage

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER XIII. SOLITUDE AND STORM

  In his hidden valley Venters awakened from sleep, and his ears rangwith innumerable melodies from full-throated mockingbirds, and his eyesopened wide upon the glorious golden shaft of sunlight shining throughthe great stone bridge. The circle of cliffs surrounding Surprise Valleylay shrouded in morning mist, a dim blue low down along the terraces,a creamy, moving cloud along the ramparts. The oak forest in the centerwas a plumed and tufted oval of gold.

  He saw Bess under the spruces. Upon her complete recovery of strengthshe always rose with the dawn. At the moment she was feeding thequail she had tamed. And she had begun to tame the mocking-birds. Theyfluttered among the branches overhead and some left off their songs toflit down and shyly hop near the twittering quail. Little gray and whiterabbits crouched in the grass, now nibbling, now laying long ears flatand watching the dogs.

  Venters's swift glance took in the brightening valley, and Bess and herpets, and Ring and Whitie. It swept over all to return again and restupon the girl. She had changed. To the dark trousers and blouse she hadadded moccasins of her own make, but she no longer resembled a boy.No eye could have failed to mark the rounded contours of a woman. Thechange had been to grace and beauty. A glint of warm gold gleamed fromher hair, and a tint of red shone in the clear dark brown of cheeks. Thehaunting sweetness of her lips and eyes, that earlier had been illusive,a promise, had become a living fact. She fitted harmoniously into thatwonderful setting; she was like Surprise Valley--wild and beautiful.

  Venters leaped out of his cave to begin the day.

  He had postponed his journey to Cottonwoods until after the passing ofthe summer rains. The rains were due soon. But until their arrival andthe necessity for his trip to the village he sequestered in a far cornerof mind all thought of peril, of his past life, and almost that of thepresent. It was enough to live. He did not want to know what lay hiddenin the dim and distant future. Surprise Valley had enchanted him. Inthis home of the cliff-dwellers there were peace and quiet and solitude,and another thing, wondrous as the golden morning shaft of sunlight,that he dared not ponder over long enough to understand.

  The solitude he had hated when alone he had now come to love. He wasassimilating something from this valley of gleams and shadows. From thisstrange girl he was assimilating more.

  The day at hand resembled many days gone before. As Venters had no toolswith which to build, or to till the terraces, he remained idle. Beyondthe cooking of the simple fare there were no tasks. And as there were notasks, there was no system. He and Bess began one thing, to leave it;to begin another, to leave that; and then do nothing but lie under thespruces and watch the great cloud-sails majestically move along theramparts, and dream and dream. The valley was a golden, sunlit world.It was silent. The sighing wind and the twittering quail and the singingbirds, even the rare and seldom-occurring hollow crack of a slidingweathered stone, only thickened and deepened that insulated silence.

  Venters and Bess had vagrant minds.

  "Bess, did I tell you about my horse Wrangle?" inquired Venters.

  "A hundred times," she replied.

  "Oh, have I? I'd forgotten. I want you to see him. He'll carry us both."

  "I'd like to ride him. Can he run?"

  "Run? He's a demon. Swiftest horse on the sage! I hope he'll stay inthat canyon.

  "He'll stay."

  They left camp to wander along the terraces, into the aspen ravines,under the gleaming walls. Ring and Whitie wandered in the fore, oftenturning, often trotting back, open-mouthed and solemn-eyed and happy.Venters lifted his gaze to the grand archway over the entrance tothe valley, and Bess lifted hers to follow his, and both were silent.Sometimes the bridge held their attention for a long time. To-day asoaring eagle attracted them.

  "How he sails!" exclaimed Bess. "I wonder where his mate is?"

  "She's at the nest. It's on the bridge in a crack near the top. I seeher often. She's almost white."

  They wandered on down the terrace, into the shady, sun-flecked forest.A brown bird fluttered crying from a bush. Bess peeped into the leaves."Look! A nest and four little birds. They're not afraid of us. See howthey open their mouths. They're hungry."

  Rabbits rustled the dead brush and pattered away. The forest was fullof a drowsy hum of insects. Little darts of purple, that were runningquail, crossed the glades. And a plaintive, sweet peeping came from thecoverts. Bess's soft step disturbed a sleeping lizard that scamperedaway over the leaves. She gave chase and caught it, a slim creature ofnameless color but of exquisite beauty.

  "Jewel eyes," she said. "It's like a rabbit--afraid. We won't eat you.There--go."

  Murmuring water drew their steps down into a shallow shaded ravine wherea brown brook brawled softly over mossy stones. Multitudes of strange,gray frogs with white spots and black eyes lined the rocky bank andleaped only at close approach. Then Venters's eye descried a very thin,very long green snake coiled round a sapling. They drew closer andcloser till they could have touched it. The snake had no fear andwatched them with scintillating eyes.

  "It's pretty," said Bess. "How tame! I thought snakes always ran."

  "No. Even the rabbits didn't run here till the dogs chased them."

  On and on they wandered to the wild jumble of massed and brokenfragments of cliff at the west end of the valley. The roar of thedisappearing stream dinned in their ears. Into this maze of rocks theythreaded a tortuous way, climbing, descending, halting to gather wildplums and great lavender lilies, and going on at the will of fancy. Idleand keen perceptions guided them equally.

  "Oh, let us climb there!" cried Bess, pointing upward to a small spaceof terrace left green and shady between huge abutments of broken cliff.And they climbed to the nook and rested and looked out across the valleyto the curling column of blue smoke from their campfire. But the coolshade and the rich grass and the fine view were not what they hadclimbed for. They could not have told, although whatever had drawnthem was well-satisfying. Light, sure-footed as a mountain goat, Besspattered down at Venters's heels; and they went on, calling the dogs,eyes dreamy and wide, listening to the wind and the bees and thecrickets and the birds.

  Part of the time Ring and Whitie led the way, then Venters, then Bess;and the direction was not an object. They left the sun-streaked shade ofthe oaks, brushed the long grass of the meadows, entered the greenand fragrant swaying willows, to stop, at length, under the huge oldcottonwoods where the beavers were busy.

  Here they rested and watched. A dam of brush and logs and mud and stonesbacked the stream into a little lake. The round, rough beaver housesprojected from the water. Like the rabbits, the beavers had become shy.Gradually, however, as Venters and Bess knelt low, holding the dogs, thebeavers emerged to swim with logs and gnaw at cottonwoods and pat mudwalls with their paddle-like tails, and, glossy and shiny in the sun, togo on with their strange, persistent industry. They were the builders.The lake was a mud-hole, and the immediate environment a scarred anddead region, but it was a wonderful home of wonderful animals.

  "Look at that one--he puddles in the mud," said Bess. "And there! Seehim dive! Hear them gnawing! I'd think they'd break their teeth. How'sit they can stay out of the water and under the water?"

  And she laughed.

  Then Venters and Bess wandered farther, and, perhaps not allunconsciously this time, wended their slow steps to the cave of thecliff-dwellers, where she liked best to go.

  The tangled thicket and the long slant of dust and little chips ofweathered rock and the steep bench of stone and the worn steps allwere arduous work for Bess in the climbing. But she gained the shelf,gasping, hot of cheek, glad of eye, with her hand in Venters's. Herethey rested. The beautiful valley glittered below with its millionsof wind-turned leaves bright-faced in the sun, and the mighty bridgetowered heavenward, crowned with blue sky. Bess, however, never restedfor long. Soon she was exploring, and Venters followed; she draggedforth from corners and shelves a multitude of crudely fashioned andpainted pieces of pottery,
and he carried them. They peeped down intothe dark holes of the kivas, and Bess gleefully dropped a stone andwaited for the long-coming hollow sound to rise. They peeped into thelittle globular houses, like mud-wasp nests, and wondered if these hadbeen store-places for grain, or baby cribs, or what; and they crawledinto the larger houses and laughed when they bumped their heads on thelow roofs, and they dug in the dust of the floors. And they brought fromdust and darkness armloads of treasure which they carried to the light.Flints and stones and strange curved sticks and pottery they found; andtwisted grass rope that crumbled in their hands, and bits of whitishstone which crushed to powder at a touch and seemed to vanish in theair.

  "That white stuff was bone," said Venters, slowly. "Bones of acliff-dweller."

  "No!" exclaimed Bess.

  "Here's another piece. Look!... Whew! dry, powdery smoke! That's bone."

  Then it was that Venters's primitive, childlike mood, like a savage's,seeing, yet unthinking, gave way to the encroachment of civilizedthought. The world had not been made for a single day's play or fancy oridle watching. The world was old. Nowhere could be gotten a betteridea of its age than in this gigantic silent tomb. The gray ashes inVenters's hand had once been bone of a human being like himself. Thepale gloom of the cave had shadowed people long ago. He saw that Besshad received the same shock--could not in moments such as this escapeher feeling living, thinking destiny.

  "Bern, people have lived here," she said, with wide, thoughtful eyes.

  "Yes," he replied.

  "How long ago?"

  "A thousand years and more."

  "What were they?"

  "Cliff-dwellers. Men who had enemies and made their homes high out ofreach."

  "They had to fight?"

  "Yes."

  "They fought for--what?"

  "For life. For their homes, food, children, parents--for their women!"

  "Has the world changed any in a thousand years?"

  "I don't know--perhaps a little."

  "Have men?"

  "I hope so--I think so."

  "Things crowd into my mind," she went on, and the wistful light in hereyes told Venters the truth of her thoughts. "I've ridden the border ofUtah. I've seen people--know how they live--but they must be few of allwho are living. I had my books and I studied them. But all that doesn'thelp me any more. I want to go out into the big world and see it. Yet Iwant to stay here more. What's to become of us? Are we cliff-dwellers?We're alone here. I'm happy when I don't think. These--these bones thatfly into dust--they make me sick and a little afraid. Did the people wholived here once have the same feelings as we have? What was the good oftheir living at all? They're gone! What's the meaning of it all--of us?"

  "Bess, you ask more than I can tell. It's beyond me. Only there waslaughter here once--and now there's silence. There was life--and nowthere's death. Men cut these little steps, made these arrow-heads andmealing-stones, plaited the ropes we found, and left their bones tocrumble in our fingers. As far as time is concerned it might all havebeen yesterday. We're here to-day. Maybe we're higher in the scale ofhuman beings--in intelligence. But who knows? We can't be any higher inthe things for which life is lived at all."

  "What are they?"

  "Why--I suppose relationship, friendship--love."

  "Love!"

  "Yes. Love of man for woman--love of woman for man. That's the nature,the meaning, the best of life itself."

  She said no more. Wistfulness of glance deepened into sadness.

  "Come, let us go," said Venters.

  Action brightened her. Beside him, holding his hand she slipped downthe shelf, ran down the long, steep slant of sliding stones, out of thecloud of dust, and likewise out of the pale gloom.

  "We beat the slide," she cried.

  The miniature avalanche cracked and roared, and rattled itself into aninert mass at the base of the incline. Yellow dust like the gloom of thecave, but not so changeless, drifted away on the wind; the roar clappedin echo from the cliff, returned, went back, and came again to diein the hollowness. Down on the sunny terrace there was a differentatmosphere. Ring and Whitie leaped around Bess. Once more she wassmiling, gay, and thoughtless, with the dream-mood in the shadow of hereyes.

  "Bess, I haven't seen that since last summer. Look!" said Venters,pointing to the scalloped edge of rolling purple clouds that peeped overthe western wall. "We're in for a storm."

  "Oh, I hope not. I'm afraid of storms."

  "Are you? Why?"

  "Have you ever been down in one of these walled-up pockets in a badstorm?"

  "No, now I think of it, I haven't."

  "Well, it's terrible. Every summer I get scared to death and hidesomewhere in the dark. Storms up on the sage are bad, but nothing towhat they are down here in the canyons. And in this little valley--why,echoes can rap back and forth so quick they'll split our ears."

  "We're perfectly safe here, Bess."

  "I know. But that hasn't anything to do with it. The truth is I'm afraidof lightning and thunder, and thunder-claps hurt my head. If we have abad storm, will you stay close to me?"

  "Yes."

  When they got back to camp the afternoon was closing, and it wasexceedingly sultry. Not a breath of air stirred the aspen leaves, andwhen these did not quiver the air was indeed still. The dark-purpleclouds moved almost imperceptibly out of the west.

  "What have we for supper?" asked Bess.

  "Rabbit."

  "Bern, can't you think of another new way to cook rabbit?" went on Bess,with earnestness.

  "What do you think I am--a magician?" retorted Venters.

  "I wouldn't dare tell you. But, Bern, do you want me to turn into arabbit?"

  There was a dark-blue, merry flashing of eyes and a parting of lips;then she laughed. In that moment she was naive and wholesome.

  "Rabbit seems to agree with you," replied Venters. "You are well andstrong--and growing very pretty."

  Anything in the nature of compliment he had never before said to her,and just now he responded to a sudden curiosity to see its effect. Bessstared as if she had not heard aright, slowly blushed, and completelylost her poise in happy confusion.

  "I'd better go right away," he continued, "and fetch supplies fromCottonwoods."

  A startlingly swift change in the nature of her agitation made himreproach himself for his abruptness.

  "No, no, don't go!" she said. "I didn't mean--that about the rabbit.I--I was only trying to be--funny. Don't leave me all alone!"

  "Bess, I must go sometime."

  "Wait then. Wait till after the storms."

  The purple cloud-bank darkened the lower edge of the setting sun, creptup and up, obscuring its fiery red heart, and finally passed over thelast ruddy crescent of its upper rim.

  The intense dead silence awakened to a long, low, rumbling roll ofthunder.

  "Oh!" cried Bess, nervously.

  "We've had big black clouds before this without rain," said Venters."But there's no doubt about that thunder. The storms are coming. I'mglad. Every rider on the sage will hear that thunder with glad ears."

  Venters and Bess finished their simple meal and the few tasks around thecamp, then faced the open terrace, the valley, and the west, to watchand await the approaching storm.

  It required keen vision to see any movement whatever in the purpleclouds. By infinitesimal degrees the dark cloud-line merged upward intothe golden-red haze of the afterglow of sunset. A shadow lengthened fromunder the western wall across the valley. As straight and rigid as steelrose the delicate spear-pointed silver spruces; the aspen leaves, bynature pendant and quivering, hung limp and heavy; no slender bladeof grass moved. A gentle splashing of water came from the ravine. Thenagain from out of the west sounded the low, dull, and rumbling roll ofthunder.

  A wave, a ripple of light, a trembling and turning of the aspen leaves,like the approach of a breeze on the water, crossed the valley from thewest; and the lull and the deadly stillness and the sultry air passedaway on a cool wind.
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br />   The night bird of the canyon, with clear and melancholy notes announcedthe twilight. And from all along the cliffs rose the faint murmur andmoan and mourn of the wind singing in the caves. The bank of clouds nowswept hugely out of the western sky. Its front was purple and black,with gray between, a bulging, mushrooming, vast thing instinct withstorm. It had a dark, angry, threatening aspect. As if all the power ofthe winds were pushing and piling behind, it rolled ponderously acrossthe sky. A red flare burned out instantaneously, flashed from the westto east, and died. Then from the deepest black of the purple cloud bursta boom. It was like the bowling of a huge boulder along the crags andramparts, and seemed to roll on and fall into the valley to bound andbang and boom from cliff to cliff.

  "Oh!" cried Bess, with her hands over her ears. "What did I tell you?"

  "Why, Bess, be reasonable!" said Venters.

  "I'm a coward."

  "Not quite that, I hope. It's strange you're afraid. I love a storm."

  "I tell you a storm down in these canyons is an awful thing. I knowOldring hated storms. His men were afraid of them. There was one whowent deaf in a bad storm, and never could hear again."

  "Maybe I've lots to learn, Bess. I'll lose my guess if this storm isn'tbad enough. We're going to have heavy wind first, then lightning andthunder, then the rain. Let's stay out as long as we can."

  The tips of the cottonwoods and the oaks waved to the east, and therings of aspens along the terraces twinkled their myriad of bright facesin fleet and glancing gleam. A low roar rose from the leaves of theforest, and the spruces swished in the rising wind. It came in gusts,with light breezes between. As it increased in strength the lullsshortened in length till there was a strong and steady blow all thetime, and violent puffs at intervals, and sudden whirling currents. Theclouds spread over the valley, rolling swiftly and low, and twilightfaded into a sweeping darkness. Then the singing of the wind in thecaves drowned the swift roar of rustling leaves; then the song swelledto a mourning, moaning wail; then with the gathering power of thewind the wail changed to a shriek. Steadily the wind strengthened andconstantly the strange sound changed.

  The last bit of blue sky yielded to the on-sweep of clouds. Like angrysurf the pale gleams of gray, amid the purple of that scudding front,swept beyond the eastern rampart of the valley. The purple deepened toblack. Broad sheets of lightning flared over the western wall. Therewere not yet any ropes or zigzag streaks darting down through thegathering darkness. The storm center was still beyond Surprise Valley.

  "Listen!... Listen!" cried Bess, with her lips close to Venters's ear."You'll hear Oldring's knell!"

  "What's that?"

  "Oldring's knell. When the wind blows a gale in the caves it makes whatthe rustlers call Oldring's knell. They believe it bodes his death.I think he believes so, too. It's not like any sound on earth.... It'sbeginning. Listen!"

  The gale swooped down with a hollow unearthly howl. It yelled and pealedand shrilled and shrieked. It was made up of a thousand piercing cries.It was a rising and a moving sound. Beginning at the western break ofthe valley, it rushed along each gigantic cliff, whistling into thecaves and cracks, to mount in power, to bellow a blast through the greatstone bridge. Gone, as into an engulfing roar of surging waters, itseemed to shoot back and begin all over again.

  It was only wind, thought Venters. Here sped and shrieked the sculptorthat carved out the wonderful caves in the cliffs. It was only a gale,but as Venters listened, as his ears became accustomed to the fury andstrife, out of it all or through it or above it pealed low and perfectlyclear and persistently uniform a strange sound that had no counterpartin all the sounds of the elements. It was not of earth or of life. Itwas the grief and agony of the gale. A knell of all upon which it blew!

  Black night enfolded the valley. Venters could not see his companion,and knew of her presence only through the tightening hold of her handon his arm. He felt the dogs huddle closer to him. Suddenly the dense,black vault overhead split asunder to a blue-white, dazzling streak oflightning. The whole valley lay vividly clear and luminously bright inhis sight. Upreared, vast and magnificent, the stone bridge glimmeredlike some grand god of storm in the lightning's fire. Then all flashedblack again--blacker than pitch--a thick, impenetrable coal-blackness.And there came a ripping, crashing report. Instantly an echo resoundedwith clapping crash. The initial report was nothing to the echo. It wasa terrible, living, reverberating, detonating crash. The wall threw thesound across, and could have made no greater roar if it had slippedin avalanche. From cliff to cliff the echo went in crashing retort andbanged in lessening power, and boomed in thinner volume, and clappedweaker and weaker till a final clap could not reach across the waitingcliff.

  In the pitchy darkness Venters led Bess, and, groping his way, by feelof hand found the entrance to her cave and lifted her up. On the instanta blinding flash of lightning illumined the cave and all about him. Hesaw Bess's face white now with dark, frightened eyes. He saw the dogsleap up, and he followed suit. The golden glare vanished; all was black;then came the splitting crack and the infernal din of echoes.

  Bess shrank closer to him and closer, found his hands, and pressed themtightly over her ears, and dropped her face upon his shoulder, and hidher eyes.

  Then the storm burst with a succession of ropes and streaks and shaftsof lightning, playing continuously, filling the valley with a brokenradiance; and the cracking shots followed each other swiftly till theechoes blended in one fearful, deafening crash.

  Venters looked out upon the beautiful valley--beautiful now as neverbefore--mystic in its transparent, luminous gloom, weird in thequivering, golden haze of lightning. The dark spruces were tipped withglimmering lights; the aspens bent low in the winds, as waves in atempest at sea; the forest of oaks tossed wildly and shone with gleamsof fire. Across the valley the huge cavern of the cliff-dwellers yawnedin the glare, every little black window as clear as at noonday; but thenight and the storm added to their tragedy. Flung arching to the blackclouds, the great stone bridge seemed to bear the brunt of the storm. Itcaught the full fury of the rushing wind. It lifted its noble crown tomeet the lightnings. Venters thought of the eagles and their lofty nestin a niche under the arch. A driving pall of rain, black as the clouds,came sweeping on to obscure the bridge and the gleaming walls and theshining valley. The lightning played incessantly, streaking down throughopaque darkness of rain. The roar of the wind, with its strange knelland the re-crashing echoes, mingled with the roar of the flooding rain,and all seemingly were deadened and drowned in a world of sound.

  In the dimming pale light Venters looked down upon the girl. She hadsunk into his arms, upon his breast, burying her face. She clung to him.He felt the softness of her, and the warmth, and the quick heave of herbreast. He saw the dark, slender, graceful outline of her form. A womanlay in his arms! And he held her closer. He who had been alone in thesad, silent watches of the night was not now and never must be againalone. He who had yearned for the touch of a hand felt the long trembleand the heart-beat of a woman. By what strange chance had she come tolove him! By what change--by what marvel had she grown into a treasure!

  No more did he listen to the rush and roar of the thunder-storm.For with the touch of clinging hands and the throbbing bosom he grewconscious of an inward storm--the tingling of new chords of thought,strange music of unheard, joyous bells sad dreams dawning to wakefuldelight, dissolving doubt, resurging hope, force, fire, and freedom,unutterable sweetness of desire. A storm in his breast--a storm of reallove.