Riders of the Purple Sage
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Zane Grey >> Riders of the Purple Sage
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This was the climax of his year of suffering and the crucial
struggle of his life. And when the gray dawn came he rose, a
gloomy, almost heartbroken man, but victor over evil passions. He
could not change the past; and, even if he had not loved Bess
with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change
the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he
must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent
doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by
knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he
knew--he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when
they had safely gotten out of that wild country to take up a new
and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and
through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life
worth living.
All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the Pass, taking time to
peer around corners, to pick out hard ground and grassy patches,
and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night
sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the
valley, and here set the burro at liberty. He walked beyond,
climbed the slope and the dim, starlit gorge. Then, weary to the
point of exhaustion, he crept into a shallow cave and fell
asleep.
In the morning, when he descended the trail, he found the sun was
pouring a golden stream of light through the arch of the great
stone bridge. Surprise Valley, like a valley of dreams, lay
mystically soft and beautiful, awakening to the golden flood
which was rolling away its slumberous bands of mist, brightening
its walled faces.
While yet far off he discerned Bess moving under the silver
spruces, and soon the barking of the dogs told him that they had
seen him. He heard the mocking-birds singing in the trees, and
then the twittering of the quail. Ring and Whitie came bounding
toward him, and behind them ran Bess, her hands
outstretched.
"Bern! You're back! You're back!" she cried, in joy that rang of
her loneliness.
"Yes, I'm back," he said, as she rushed to meet him.
She had reached out for him when suddenly, as she saw him
closely, something checked her, and as quickly all her joy fled,
and with it her color, leaving her pale and trembling.
"Oh! What's happened?"
"A good deal has happened, Bess. I don't need to tell you what.
And I'm played out. Worn out in mind more than body."
"Dear--you look strange to me!" faltered Bess.
"Never mind that. I'm all right. There's nothing for you to be
scared about. Things are going to turn out just as we have
planned. As soon as I'm rested we'll make a break to get out of
the country. Only now, right now, I must know the truth about
you."
"Truth about me?" echoed Bess, shrinkingly. She seemed to be
casting back into her mind for a forgotten key. Venters himself,
as he saw her, received a pang.
"Yes--the truth. Bess, don't misunderstand. I haven't changed
that way. I love you still. I'll love you more afterward. Life
will be just as sweet--sweeter to us. We'll be--be married as
soon as ever we can. We'll be happy--but there's a devil in me. A
perverse, jealous devil! Then I've queer fancies. I forgot for a
long time. Now all those fiendish little whispers of doubt and
faith and fear and hope come torturing me again. I've got to kill
them with the truth."
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," she replied, frankly.
"Then by Heaven! we'll have it over and done with!...Bess--did
Oldring love you?"
"Certainly he did."
"Did--did you love him?"
"Of course. I told you so."
"How can you tell it so lightly?" cried Venters, passionately.
"Haven't you any sense of--of--" He choked back speech. He felt
the rush of pain and passion. He seized her in rude, strong hands
and drew her close. He looked straight into her dark-blue eyes.
They were shadowing with the old wistful light, hut they were as
clear as the limpid water of the spring. They were earnest,
solemn in unutterable love and faith and abnegation. Venters
shivered. He knew he was looking into her soul. He knew she could
not lie in that moment; but that she might tell the truth,
looking at him with those eyes, almost killed his belief in
purity.
"What are--what were you to--to Oldring?" he panted, fiercely.
"I am his daughter," she replied, instantly.
Venters slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the
force of his feeling--then creeping blankness.
"What--was it--you said?" he asked, in a kind of dull wonder.
"I am his daughter."
"Oldring's daughter?" queried Venters, with life gathering in his
voice.
"Yes."
With a passionately awakening start he grasped her hands and drew
her close.
"All the time--you've been Oldring's daughter?"
"Yes, of course all the time--always."
"But Bess, you told me--you let me think--I made out you
were--a--so--so ashamed."
"It is my shame," she said, with voice deep and full, and now the
scarlet fired her cheek. "I told you--I'm nothing--nameless--just
Bess, Oldring's girl!"
"I know--I remember. But I never thought--" he went on,
hurriedly, huskily. "That time--when you lay dying--you
prayed--you--somehow I got the idea you were bad."
"Bad?" she asked, with a little laugh.
She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute
unconsciousness of a child. Venters gasped in the gathering might
of the truth. She did not understand his meaning.
"Bess! Bess!" He clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against
his breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held
her while he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded
sight, in the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw
Oldring. She was the rustler's nameless daughter. Oldring had
loved her. He had so guarded her, so kept her from women and men
and knowledge of life that her mind was as a child's. That was
part of the secret--part of the mystery. That was the wonderful
truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure, innocent above
all innocence in the world--the innocence of lonely girlhood.
He saw Oldring's magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching,
softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love,
then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring
whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million
bellowing, thundering voices--gunshots of conscience,
thunderbolts of remorse--dinned horribly in his ears. He had
killed Bess's father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a
moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed--Oldring's knell.
He dropped to his knees and hid his face against Bess, and
grasped her with the hands of a drowning man.
"My God!...My God!...Oh, Bess!...Forgive me! Never mind what I've
done--what I've thought. But forgive me. I'll give you my life.
I'll live for you. I'll love you. Oh, I do love you as no man
ever loved a woman. I want you to know--to remember that I fought
a fight for you--however blind I was. I thought--I thought--never
mind what I thought--but I loved you--I asked you to marry me.
Let that--let me have that to hug to my heart. Oh, Bess, I was
driven! And I might have known! I could not rest nor sleep till I
had this mystery solved. God! how things work out!"
"Bern, you're weak--trembling--you talk wildly," cried Bess.
"You've overdone your strength. There's nothing to forgive.
There's no mystery except your love for me. You have come back to
me!"
And she clasped his head tenderly in her arms and pressed it
closely to her throbbing breast.
CHAPTER XIX. FAY
At the home of Jane Withersteen Little Fay was climbing
Lassiter's knee.
"Does oo love me?" she asked.
Lassiter, who was as serious with Fay as he was gentle and
loving, assured her in earnest and elaborate speech that he was
her devoted subject. Fay looked thoughtful and appeared to be
debating the duplicity of men or searching for a supreme test to
prove this cavalier.
"Does oo love my new mower?" she asked, with bewildering
suddenness.
Jane Withersteen laughed, and for the first time in many a day
she felt a stir of her pulse and warmth in her cheek.
It was a still drowsy summer of afternoon, and the three were
sitting in the shade of the wooded knoll that faced the
sage-slope Little Fay's brief spell of unhappy longing for her
mother--the childish, mystic gloom--had passed, and now where Fay
was there were prattle and laughter and glee. She had emerged
Iron sorrow to be the incarnation of joy and loveliness. She had
growl supernaturally sweet and beautiful. For Jane Withersteen
the child was an answer to prayer, a blessing, a possession
infinitely more precious than all she had lost. For Lassiter,
Jane divined that little Fay had become a religion.
"Does oo love my new mower?" repeated Fay.
Lassiter's answer to this was a modest and sincere affirmative.
"Why don't oo marry my new mower an' be my favver?"
Of the thousands of questions put by little Fay to Lassiter the
was the first he had been unable to answer.
"Fay--Fay, don't ask questions like that," said Jane.
"Why?"
"Because," replied Jane. And she found it strangely embarrassing
to meet the child's gaze. It seemed to her that Fay's violet eyes
looked through her with piercing wisdom.
"Oo love him, don't oo?"
"Dear child--run and play," said Jane, "but don't go too far.
Don't go from this little hill."
Fay pranced off wildly, joyous over freedom that had not been
granted her for weeks.
"Jane, why are children more sincere than grown-up persons?"
asked Lassiter.
"Are they?"
"I reckon so. Little Fay there--she sees things as they appear on
the face. An Indian does that. So does a dog. An' an Indian an' a
dog are most of the time right in what they see. Mebbe a child is
always right."
"Well, what does Fay see?" asked Jane.
"I reckon you know. I wonder what goes on in Fay's mind when she
sees part of the truth with the wise eyes of a child, an' wantin'
to know more, meets with strange falseness from you? Wait! You
are false in a way, though you're the best woman I ever knew.
What I want to say is this. Fay has taken you're pretendin'
to--to care for me for the thing it looks on the face. An' her
little formin' mind asks questions. An' the answers she gets are
different from the looks of things. So she'll grow up gradually
takin' on that falseness, an' be like the rest of the women, an'
men, too. An' the truth of this falseness to life is proved by
your appearin' to love me when you don't. Things aren't what they
seem."
"Lassiter, you're right. A child should be told the absolute
truth. But--is that possible? I haven't been able to do it, and
all my life I've loved the truth, and I've prided myself upon
being truthful. Maybe that was only egotism. I'm learning much,
my friend. Some of those blinding scales have fallen from my
eyes. And--and as to caring for you, I think I care a great deal.
How much, how little, I couldn't say. My heart is almost broken.
Lassiter. So now is not a good time to judge of affection. I can
still play and be merry with Fay. I can still dream. But when I
attempt serious thought I'm dazed. I don't think. I don't care
any more. I don't pray!...Think of that, my friend! But in spite
of my numb feeling I believe I'll rise out of all this dark agony
a better woman, with greater love of man and God. I'm on the rack
now; I'm senseless to all but pain, and growing dead to that.
Sooner or later I shall rise out of this stupor. I'm waiting the
hour."
"It'll soon come, Jane," replied Lassiter, soberly. "Then I'm
afraid for you. Years are terrible things, an' for years you've
been bound. Habit of years is strong as life itself. Somehow,
though, I believe as you--that you'll come out of it all a finer
woman. I'm waitin', too. An' I'm wonderin'--I reckon, Jane, that
marriage between us is out of all human reason?"
"Lassiter!...My dear friend!...It's impossible for us to marry!"
"Why--as Fay says?" inquired Lassiter, with gentle persistence.
"Why! I never thought why. But it's not possible. I am Jane,
daughter of Withersteen. My father would rise out of his grave.
I'm of Mormon birth. I'm being broken. But I'm still a Mormon
woman. And you--you are Lassiter!"
"Mebbe I'm not so much Lassiter as I used to be."
"What was it you said? Habit of years is strong as life itself!
You can't change the one habit--the purpose of your life. For you
still pack those black guns! You still nurse your passion for
blood."
A smile, like a shadow, flickered across his face.
"No."
"Lassiter, I lied to you. But I beg of you--don't you lie to me.
I've great respect for you. I believe you're softened toward
most, perhaps all, my people except--But when I speak of your
purpose, your hate, your guns, I have only him in mind. I don't
believe you've changed."
For answer he unbuckled the heavy cartridge-belt, and laid it
with the heavy, swing gun-sheaths in her lap.
"Lassiter!" Jane whispered, as she gazed from him to the black,
cold guns. Without them he appeared shorn of strength,
defenseless, a smaller man. Was she Delilah? Swiftly, conscious
of only one motive--refusal to see this man called craven by his
enemies--she rose, and with blundering fingers buckled the belt
round his waist where it belonged.
"Lassiter, I am a coward."
"Come with me out of Utah--where I can put away my guns an' be a
man," he said. "I reckon I'll prove it to you then! Come! You've
got Black Star back, an' Night an' Bells. Let's take the racers
an' little Fay, en' race out of Utah. The hosses an' the child
are all you have left. Come!"
"No, no, Lassiter. I'll never leave Utah. What would I do in the
world with my broken fortunes and my broken heart? Ill never
leave these purple slopes I love so well."
"I reckon I ought to've knowed that. Presently you'll be livin'
down here in a hovel, en' presently Jane Withersteen will be a
memory. I only wanted to have a chance to show you how a man--any
man--can be better 'n he was. If we left Utah I could prove--I
reckon I could prove this thing you call love. It's strange, an'
hell an' heaven at once, Jane Withersteen. 'Pears to me that
you've thrown away your big heart on love--love of religion an'
duty an' churchmen, an' riders an' poor families an' poor
children! Yet you can't see what love is--how it changes a
person!...Listen, an' in tellin' you Milly Erne's story I'll show
you how love changed her.
"Milly an' me was children when our family moved from Missouri to
Texas, an' we growed up in Texas ways same as if we'd been born
there. We had been poor, an' there we prospered. In time the
little village where we went became a town, an' strangers an' new
families kept movin' in. Milly was the belle them days. I can see
her now, a little girl no bigger 'n a bird, an' as pretty. She
had the finest eyes, dark blue-black when she was excited, an'
beautiful all the time. You remember Milly's eyes! An' she had
light-brown hair with streaks of gold, an' a mouth that every
feller wanted to kiss.
"An' about the time Milly was the prettiest an' the sweetest,
along came a young minister who began to ride some of a race with
the other fellers for Milly. An' he won. Milly had always been
strong on religion, an' when she met Frank Erne she went in heart
an' soul for the salvation of souls. Fact was, Milly, through
study of the Bible an' attendin' church an' revivals, went a
little out of her head. It didn't worry the old folks none, an'
the only worry to me was Milly's everlastin' prayin' an' workin'
to save my soul. She never converted me, but we was the best of
comrades, an' I reckon no brother an' sister ever loved each
other better. Well, Frank Erne an me hit up a great friendship.
He was a strappin' feller, good to look at, an' had the most
pleasin' ways. His religion never bothered me, for he could hunt
an' fish an' ride an' be a good feller. After buffalo once, he
come pretty near to savin' my life. We got to be thick as
brothers, an' he was the only man I ever seen who I thought was
good enough for Milly. An' the day they were married I got drunk
for the only time in my life.
"Soon after that I left home--it seems Milly was the only one who
could keep me home--an' I went to the bad, as to prosperin' I saw
some pretty hard life in the Pan Handle, an' then I went North.
In them days Kansas an' Nebraska was as bad, come to think of it,
as these days right here on the border of Utah. I got to be
pretty handy with guns. An' there wasn't many riders as could
beat me ridin'. An' I can say all modest-like that I never seen
the white man who could track a hoss or a steer or a man with me.
Afore I knowed it two years slipped by, an' all at once I got
homesick, en' purled a bridle south.
"Things at home had changed. I never got over that homecomin'.
Mother was dead an' in her grave. Father was a silent, broken
man, killed already on his feet. Frank Erne was a ghost of his
old self, through with workin', through with preachin', almost
through with livin', an' Milly was gone!...It was a long time
before I got the story. Father had no mind left, an' Frank Erne
was afraid to talk. So I had to pick up whet 'd happened from
different people.
"It 'pears that soon after I left home another preacher come to
the little town. An' he an' Frank become rivals. This feller was
different from Frank. He preached some other kind of religion,
and he was quick an' passionate, where Frank was slow an' mild.
He went after people, women specially. In looks he couldn't
compare to Frank Erne, but he had power over women. He had a
voice, an' he talked an' talked an' preached an' preached. Milly
fell under his influence.. She became mightily interested in his
religion. Frank had patience with her, as was his way, an' let
her be as interested as she liked. All religions were devoted to
one God, he said, an' it wouldn't hurt Milly none to study a
different point of view. So the new preacher often called on
Milly, an' sometimes in Frank's absence. Frank was a cattle-man
between Sundays.
"Along about this time an incident come off that I couldn't get
much light on. A stranger come to town, an' was seen with the
preacher. This stranger was a big man with an eye like blue ice,
an' a beard of gold. He had money, an' he 'peered a man of
mystery, an' the town went to buzzin' when he disappeared about
the same time as a young woman known to be mightily interested in
the new preacher's religion. Then, presently, along comes a man
from somewheres in Illinois, en' he up an' spots this preacher as
a famous Mormon proselyter. That riled Frank Erne as nothin' ever
before, an' from rivals they come to be bitter enemies. An' it
ended in Frank goin' to the meetin'-house where Milly was
listenin', en' before her en' everybody else he called that
preacher--called him, well, almost as hard as Venters called Tull
here sometime back. An' Frank followed up that call with a
hosswhippin', en' he drove the proselyter out of town.
"People noticed, so 'twas said, that Milly's sweet disposition
changed. Some said it was because she would soon become a mother,
en' others said she was pinin' after the new religion. An' there
was women who said right out that she was pinin' after the
Mormon. Anyway, one mornin' Frank rode in from one of his trips,
to find Milly gone. He had no real near neighbors--livin' a
little out of town--but those who was nearest said a wagon had
gone by in the night, an' they though it stopped at her door.
Well, tracks always tell, an' there was the wagon tracks an' hoss
tracks an' man tracks. The news spread like wildfire that Milly
had run off from her husband. Everybody but Frank believed it an'
wasn't slow in tellin' why she run off. Mother had always hated
that strange streak of Milly's, takin' up with the new religion
as she had, an' she believed Milly ran off with the Mormon. That
hastened mother's death, an' she died unforgivin'. Father wasn't
the kind to bow down under disgrace or misfortune but he had
surpassin' love for Milly, an' the loss of her broke him.
"From the minute I heard of Milly's disappearance I never
believed she went off of her own free will. I knew Milly, an' I
knew she couldn't have done that. I stayed at home awhile, tryin'
to make Frank Erne talk. But if he knowed anythin' then he
wouldn't tell it. So I set out to find Milly. An' I tried to get
on the trail of that proselyter. I knew if I ever struck a town
he'd visited that I'd get a trail. I knew, too, that nothin'
short of hell would stop his proselytin'. An' I rode from town to
town. I had a blind faith that somethin' was guidin' me. An' as
the weeks an' months went by I growed into a strange sort of a
man, I guess. Anyway, people were afraid of me. Two years after
that, way over in a corner of Texas, I struck a town where my man
had been. He'd jest left. People said he came to that town
without a woman. I back-trailed my man through Arkansas an'
Mississippi, an' the old trail got hot again in Texas. I found
the town where he first went after leavin' home. An' here I got
track of Milly. I found a cabin where she had given birth to her
baby. There was no way to tell whether she'd been kept a prisoner
or not. The feller who owned the place was a mean, silent sort of
a skunk, an' as I was leavin' I jest took a chance an' left my
mark on him. Then I went home again.
"It was to find I hadn't any home, no more. Father had been dead
a year. Frank Erne still lived in the house where Milly had left
him. I stayed with him awhile, an' I grew old watchin' him. His
farm had gone to weed, his cattle had strayed or been rustled,
his house weathered till it wouldn't keep out rain nor wind. An'
Frank set on the porch and whittled sticks, an' day by day wasted
away. There was times when he ranted about like a crazy man, but
mostly he was always sittin' an' starin' with eyes that made a
man curse. I figured Frank had a secret fear that I needed to
know. An' when I told him I'd trailed Milly for near three years
an' had got trace of her, an' saw where she'd had her baby, I
thought he would drop dead at my feet. An' when he'd come round
more natural-like he begged me to give up the trail. But he
wouldn't explain. So I let him alone, an' watched him day en'
night.
"An' I found there was one thing still precious to him, an' it
was a little drawer where he kept his papers. This was in the
room where he slept. An' it 'peered he seldom slept. But after
bein' patient I got the contents of that drawer an' found two
letters from Milly. One was a long letter written a few months
after her disappearance. She had been bound an' gagged an'
dragged away from her home by three men, an' she named
them--Hurd, Metzger, Slack. They was strangers to her. She was
taken to the little town where I found trace of her two years
after. But she didn't send the letter from that town. There she
was penned in. 'Peared that the proselytes, who had, of course,
come on the scene, was not runnin' any risks of losin' her. She
went on to say that for a time she was out of her head, an' when
she got right again all that kept her alive was the baby. It was
a beautiful baby, she said, an' all she thought an' dreamed of
was somehow to get baby back to its father, an' then she'd
thankfully lay down and die. An' the letter ended abrupt, in the
middle of a sentence, en' it wasn't signed.
"The second letter was written more than two years after the
first. It was from Salt Lake City. It simply said that Milly had
heard her brother was on her trail. She asked Frank to tell her
brother to give up the search because if he didn't she would
suffer in a way too horrible to tell. She didn't beg. She just
stated a fact an' made the simple request. An' she ended that
letter by sayin' she would soon leave Salt Lake City with the man
she had come to love, en' would never be heard of again.
"I recognized Milly's handwritin', an' I recognized her way of
puttin' things. But that second letter told me of some great
change in her. Ponderin' over it, I felt at last she'd either
come to love that feller an' his religion, or some terrible fear
made her lie an' say so. I couldn't be sure which. But, of
course, I meant to find out. I'll say here, if I'd known Mormons
then as I do now I'd left Milly to her fate. For mebbe she was
right about what she'd suffer if I kept on her trail. But I was
young an' wild them days. First I went to the town where she'd
first been taken, an' I went to the place where she'd been kept.
I got that skunk who owned the place, an' took him out in the
woods, an' made him tell all he knowed. That wasn't much as to
length, but it was pure hell's-fire in substance. This time I
left him some incapacitated for any more skunk work short of
hell. Then I hit the trail for Utah.
"That was fourteen years ago. I saw the incomin' of most of the
Mormons. It was a wild country an' a wild time. I rode from town
to town, village to village, ranch to ranch, camp to camp. I
never stayed long in one place. I never had but one idea. I never
rested. Four years went by, an' I knowed every trail in northern
Utah. I kept on an' as time went by, an' I'd begun to grow old in
my search, I had firmer, blinder faith in whatever was guidin'
me. Once I read about a feller who sailed the seven seas an'
traveled the world, an' he had a story to tell, an' whenever he
seen the man to whom he must tell that story he knowed him on
sight. I was like that, only I had a question to ask. An' always
I knew the man of whom I must ask. So I never really lost the
trail, though for many years it was the dimmest trail ever
followed by any man.
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