The Light of Western Stars

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Light of Western Stars

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As Madeline shut her eyes and, staggering, was about to fall,
apparently right under pounding hoofs, a rude, powerful hand
clapped round her waist, clutched deep and strong, and swung her
aloft. She felt a heavy blow when the shoulder of the horse
struck her, and then a wrenching of her arm as she was dragged
up. A sudden blighting pain made sight and feeling fade from
her.

But she did not become unconscious to the extent that she lost
the sense of being rapidly borne away. She seemed to hold that
for a long time. When her faculties began to return the motion
of the horse was no longer violent. For a few moments she could
not determine her position. Apparently she was upside down.
Then she saw that she was facing the ground, and must be lying
across a saddle with her head hanging down. She could not move a
hand; she could not tell where her hands were. Then she felt the
touch of soft leather. She saw a high-topped Mexican boot,
wearing a huge silver spur, and the reeking flank and legs of a
horse, and a dusty, narrow trail. Soon a kind of red darkness
veiled her eyes, her head swam, and she felt motion and pain only
dully.

After what seemed a thousand weary hours some one lifted her from
the horse and laid her upon the ground, where, gradually, as the
blood left her head and she could see, she began to get the right
relation of things.

She lay in a sparse grove of firs, and the shadows told of late
afternoon. She smelled wood smoke, and she heard the sharp
crunch of horses' teeth nipping grass. Voices caused her to turn
her face. A group of men stood and sat round a camp-fire eating
like wolves. The looks of her captors made Madeline close her
eyes, and the fascination, the fear they roused in her made her
open them again. Mostly they were thin-bodied, thin-bearded
Mexicans, black and haggard and starved. Whatever they might be,
they surely were hunger-stricken and squalid. Not one had a
coat. A few had scarfs. Some wore belts in which were scattered
cartridges. Only a few had guns, and these were of diverse
patterns. Madeline could see no packs, no blankets, and only a
few cooking-utensils, all battered and blackened. Her eyes
fastened upon men she believed were white men; but it was from
their features and not their color that she judged. Once she had
seen a band of nomad robbers in the Sahara, and somehow was
reminded of them by this motley outlaw troop.

They divided attention between the satisfying of ravenous
appetites and a vigilant watching down the forest aisles. They
expected some one, Madeline thought, and, manifestly, if it were
a pursuing posse, they did not show anxiety. She could not
understand more than a word here and there that they uttered.
Presently, however, the name of Don Carlos revived keen curiosity
in her and realization of her situation, and then once more dread
possessed her breast.

A low exclamation and a sweep of arm from one of the guerrillas
caused the whole band to wheel and concentrate their attention in
the opposite direction. They heard something. They saw some one.
Grimy hands sought weapons, and then every man stiffened.
Madeline saw what hunted men looked like at the moment of
discovery, and the sight was terrible. She closed her eyes, sick
with what she saw, fearful of the moment when the guns would leap
out.

There were muttered curses, a short period of silence followed by
whisperings, and then a clear voice rang out, "El Capitan!"

A strong shock vibrated through Madeline, and her eyelids swept
open. Instantly she associated the name El Capitan with Stewart
and experienced a sensation of strange regret. It was not
pursuit or rescue she thought of then, but death. These men
would kill Stewart. But surely he had not come alone. The lean,
dark faces, corded and rigid, told her in what direction to look.
She heard the slow, heavy thump of hoofs. Soon into the wide
aisle between the trees moved the form of a man, arms flung high
over his head. Then Madeline saw the horse, and she recognized
Majesty, and she knew it was really Stewart who rode the roan.
When doubt was no longer possible she felt a suffocating sense of
gladness and fear and wonder.

Many of the guerrillas leaped up with drawn weapons. Still
Stewart approached with his hands high, and he rode right into
the camp-fire circle. Then a guerrilla, evidently the chief,
waved down the threatening men and strode up to Stewart. He
greeted him. There was amaze and pleasure and respect in the
greeting. Madeline could tell that, though she did not know what
was said. At the moment Stewart appeared to her as cool and
careless as if he were dismounting at her porch steps. But when
he got down she saw that his face was white. He shook hands with
the guerrilla, and then his glittering eyes roved over the men
and around the glade until they rested upon Madeline. Without
moving from his tracks he seemed to leap, as if a powerful
current had shocked him. Madeline tried to smile to assure him
she was alive and well; but the intent in his eyes, the power of
his controlled spirit telling her of her peril and his, froze the
smile on her lips.

With that he faced the chief and spoke rapidly in the Mexican
jargon Madeline had always found so difficult to translate. The
chief answered, spreading wide his hands, one of which indicated
Madeline as she lay there. Stewart drew the fellow a little
aside and said something for his ear alone. The chief's hands
swept up in a gesture of surprise and acquiescence. Again
Stewart spoke swiftly. His hearer then turned to address the
band. Madeline caught the words "Don Carlos" and "pesos." There
was a brief muttering protest which the chief thundered down.
Madeline guessed her release had been given by this guerrilla and
bought from the others of the band.

Stewart strode to her side, leading the roan. Majesty reared and
snorted when he saw his mistress prostrate. Stewart knelt, still
holding the bridle.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I think so," she replied, essaying a laugh that was rather a
failure. "My feet are tied."

Dark blood blotted out all the white from his face, and lightning
shot from his eyes. She felt his hands, like steel tongs,
loosening the bonds round her ankles. Without a word he lifted
her upright and then upon Majesty. Madeline reeled a little in
the saddle, held hard to the pommel with one hand, and tried to
lean on Stewart's shoulder with the other.

"Don't give up," he said.

She saw him gaze furtively into the forest on all sides. And it
surprised her to see the guerrillas riding away. Putting the two
facts together, Madeline formed an idea that neither Stewart nor
the others desired to meet with some one evidently due shortly in
the glade. Stewart guided the roan off to the right and walked
beside Madeline, steadying her in the saddle. At first Madeline
was so weak and dizzy that she could scarcely retain her seat.
The dizziness left her presently, and then she made an effort to
ride without help. Her weakness, however, and a pain in her
wrenched arm made the task laborsome.

Stewart had struck off the trail, if there were one, and was
keeping to denser parts of the forest. The sun sank low, and the
shafts of gold fell with a long slant among the firs. Majesty's
hoofs made no sound on the soft ground, and Stewart strode on
without speaking. Neither his hurry nor vigilance relaxed until
at least two miles had been covered. Then he held to a straighter
course and did not send so many glances into the darkening woods.
The level of the forest began to be cut up by little hollows, all
of which sloped and widened. Presently the soft ground gave
place to bare, rocky soil. The horse snorted and tossed his
head. A sound of splashing water broke the silence. The hollow
opened into a wider one through which a little brook murmured its
way over the stones. Majesty snorted again and stopped and bent
his head.

"He wants a drink," said Madeline. "I'm thirsty, too, and very
tired."

Stewart lifted her out of the saddle, and as their hands parted
she felt something moist and warm. Blood was running down her
arm and into the palm of her hand.

"I'm--bleeding," she said, a little unsteadily. "Oh, I remember.
My arm was hurt."

She held it out, the blood making her conscious of her weakness.
Stewart's fingers felt so firm and sure. Swiftly he ripped the
wet sleeve. Her forearm had been cut or scratched. He washed off
the blood.

"Why, Stewart, it's nothing. I was only a little nervous. I
guess that's the first time I ever saw my own blood."

He made no reply as he tore her handkerchief into strips and
bound her arm. His swift motions and his silence gave her a hint
of how he might meet a more serious emergency. She felt safe.
And because of that impression, when he lifted his head and she
saw that he was pale and shaking, she was surprised. He stood
before her folding his scarf, which was still wet, and from which
he made no effort to remove the red stains.

"Miss Hammond," he said, hoarsely, "it was a man's hands--a
Greaser's finger-nails--that cut your arm. I know who he was. I
could have killed him. But I mightn't have got your freedom.
You understand? I didn't dare."

Madeline gazed at Stewart, astounded more by his speech than his
excessive emotion.

"My dear boy!" she exclaimed. And then she paused. She could not
find words.

He was making an apology to her for not killing a man who had
laid a rough hand upon her person. He was ashamed and seemed to
be in a torture that she would not understand why he had not
killed the man. There seemed to be something of passionate scorn
in him that he had not been able to avenge her as well as free
her.

"Stewart, I understand. You were being my kind of cowboy. I
thank you."

But she did not understand so much as she implied. She had heard
many stories of this man's cool indifference to peril and death.
He had always seemed as hard as granite. Why should the sight of
a little blood upon her arm pale his cheek and shake his hand and
thicken his voice? What was there in his nature to make him
implore her to see the only reason he could not kill an outlaw?
The answer to the first question was that he loved her. It was
beyond her to answer the second. But the secret of it lay in the
same strength from which his love sprang--an intensity of feeling
which seemed characteristic of these Western men of simple,
lonely, elemental lives. All at once over Madeline rushed a tide
of realization of how greatly it was possible for such a man as
Stewart to love her. The thought came to her in all its singular
power. All her Eastern lovers who had the graces that made them
her equals in the sight of the world were without the only great
essential that a lonely, hard life had given to Stewart. Nature
here struck a just balance. Something deep and dim in the
future, an unknown voice, called to Madeline and disturbed her.
And because it was not a voice to her intelligence she deadened
the ears of her warm and throbbing life and decided never to
listen.

"Is it safe to rest a little?" she asked. "I am so tired.
Perhaps I'll be stronger if I rest."

"We're all right now," he said. "The horse will be better, too.
I ran him out. And uphill, at that."

"Where are we?"

"Up in the mountains, ten miles and more from the ranch. There's
a trail just below here. I can get you home by midnight.
They'll be some worried down there."

"What happened?"

"Nothing much to any one but you. That's the--the hard luck of
it. Florence caught us out on the slope. We were returning from
the fire. We were dead beat. But we got to the ranch before any
damage was done. We sure had trouble in finding a trace of you.
Nick spotted the prints of your heels under the window. And then
we knew. I had to fight the boys. If they'd come after you we'd
never have gotten you without a fight. I didn't want that. Old
Bill came out packing a dozen guns. He was crazy. I had to rope
Monty. Honest, I tied him to the porch. Nels and Nick promised
to stay and hold him till morning. That was the best I could do.
I was sure lucky to come up with the band so soon. I had figured
right. I knew that guerrilla chief. He's a bandit in Mexico.
It's a business with him. But he fought for Madero, and I was
with him a good deal. He may be a Greaser, but he's white."

"How did you effect my release?"

"I offered them money. That's what the rebels all want. They
need money. They're a lot of poor, hungry devils."

"I gathered that you offered to pay ransom. How much?"

"Two thousand dollars Mex. I gave my word. I'll have to take
the money. I told them when and where I'd meet them."

"Certainly. I'm glad I've got the money." Madeline laughed.
"What a strange thing to happen to me! I wonder what dad would
say to that? Stewart, I'm afraid he'd say two thousand dollars
is more than I'm worth. But tell me. That rebel chieftain did
not demand money?"

"No. The money is for his men."

"What did you say to him? I saw you whisper in his ear."

Stewart dropped his head, averting her direct gaze.

"We were comrades before Juarez. One day I dragged him out of a
ditch. I reminded him. Then I--I told him something I--I
thought--"

"Stewart, I know from the way he looked at me that you spoke of
me."

Her companion did not offer a reply to this, and Madeline did not
press the point.

"I heard Don Carlos's name several times. That interests me.
What have Don Carlos and his vaqueros to do with this?"

"That Greaser has all to do with it," replied Stewart, grimly.
"He burned his ranch and corrals to keep us from getting them.
But he also did it to draw all the boys away from your home.
They had a deep plot, all right. I left orders for some one to
stay with you. But Al and Stillwell, who're both hot-headed,
rode off this morning. Then the guerrillas came down."

"Well, what was the idea--the plot--as you call it?"

"To get you," he said, bluntly.

"Me! Stewart, you do not mean my capture--whatever you call it--
was anything more than mere accident?"

"I do mean that. But Stillwell and your brother think the
guerrillas wanted money and arms, and they just happened to make
off with you because you ran under a horse's nose."

"You do not incline to that point of view?"

"I don't. Neither does Nels nor Nick Steele. And we know Don
Carlos and the Greasers. Look how the vaqueros chased Flo for
you!"

"What do you think, then?"

"I'd rather not say."

"But, Stewart, I would like to know. If it is about me, surely I
ought to know," protested Madeline. "What reason have Nels and
Nick to suspect Don Carlos of plotting to abduct me?"

"I suppose they've no reason you'd take. Once I heard Nels say
he'd seen the Greaser look at you, and if he ever saw him do it
again he'd shoot him."

"Why, Stewart, that is ridiculous. To shoot a man for looking at
a woman! This is a civilized country."

"Well, maybe it would be ridiculous in a civilized country.
There's some things about civilization I don't care for."

"What, for instance?"

"For one thing, I can't stand for the way men let other men treat
women."

"But, Stewart, this is strange talk from you, who, that night I
came--"

She broke off, sorry that she had spoken. His shame was not
pleasant to see. Suddenly he lifted his head, and she felt
scorched by flaming eyes.

"Suppose I was drunk. Suppose I had met some ordinary girl.
Suppose I had really made her marry me. Don't you think I would
have stopped being a drunkard and have been good to her?"

"Stewart, I do not know what to think about you," replied
Madeline.

Then followed a short silence. Madeline saw the last bright rays
of the setting sun glide up over a distant crag. Stewart
rebridled the horse and looked at the saddle-girths.

"I got off the trail. About Don Carlos I'll say right out, not
what Nels and Nick think, but what I know. Don Carlos hoped to
make off with you for himself, the same as if you had been a poor
peon slave-girl down in Sonora. Maybe he had a deeper plot than
my rebel friend told me. Maybe he even went so far as to hope
for American troops to chase him. The rebels are trying to stir
up the United States. They'd welcome intervention. But, however
that may be, the Greaser meant evil to you, and has meant it ever
since he saw you first. That's all."

"Stewart, you have done me and my family a service we can never
hope to repay."

"I've done the service. Only don't mention pay to me. But
there's one thing I'd like you to know, and I find it hard to
say. It's prompted, maybe, by what I know you think of me and
what I imagine your family and friends would think if they knew.
It's not prompted by pride or conceit. And it's this: Such a
woman as you should never have come to this God-forsaken country
unless she meant to forget herself. But as you did come, and as
you were dragged away by those devils, I want you to know that
all your wealth and position and influence--all that power behind
you--would never have saved you from hell to-night. Only such a
man as Nels or Nick Steele or I could have done that."

Madeline Hammond felt the great leveling force of the truth.
Whatever the difference between her and Stewart, or whatever the
imagined difference set up by false standards of class and
culture, the truth was that here on this wild mountain-side she
was only a woman and he was simply a man. It was a man that she
needed, and if her choice could have been considered in this
extremity it would have fallen upon him who had just faced her in
quiet, bitter speech. Here was food for thought.

"I reckon we'd better start now," he said, and drew the horse
close to a large rock. "Come."

Madeline's will greatly exceeded her strength. For the first
time she acknowledged to herself that she had been hurt. Still,
she did not feel much pain except when she moved her shoulder.
Once in the saddle, where Stewart lifted her, she drooped weakly.
The way was rough; every step the horse took hurt her; and the
slope of the ground threw her forward on the pommel. Presently,
as the slope grew rockier and her discomfort increased, she
forgot everything except that she was suffering.

"Here is the trail," said Stewart, at length.

Not far from that point Madeline swayed, and but for Stewart's
support would have fallen from the saddle. She heard him swear
under his breath.

"Here, this won't do," he said. "Throw your leg over the pommel.
The other one--there."

Then, mounting, he slipped behind her and lifted and turned her,
and then held her with his left arm so that she lay across the
saddle and his knees, her head against his shoulder.

As the horse started into a rapid walk Madeline gradually lost
all pain and discomfort when she relaxed her muscles. Presently
she let herself go and lay inert, greatly to her relief. For a
little while she seemed to be half drunk with the gentle swaying
of a hammock. Her mind became at once dreamy and active, as if
it thoughtfully recorded the slow, soft impressions pouring in
from all her senses.

A red glow faded in the west. She could see out over the
foothills, where twilight was settling gray on the crests, dark
in the hollows. Cedar and pinyon trees lined the trail, and there
were no more firs. At intervals huge drab-colored rocks loomed
over her. The sky was clear and steely. A faint star twinkled.
And lastly, close to her, she saw Stewart's face, once more dark
and impassive, with the inscrutable eyes fixed on the trail.

His arm, like a band of iron, held her, yet it was flexible and
yielded her to the motion of the horse. One instant she felt the
brawn, the bone, heavy and powerful; the next the stretch and
ripple, the elasticity of muscles. He held her as easily as if
she were a child. The roughness of his flannel shirt rubbed her
cheek, and beneath that she felt the dampness of the scarf he had
used to bathe her arm, and deeper still the regular pound of his
heart. Against her ear, filling it with strong, vibrant beat,
his heart seemed a mighty engine deep within a great cavern. Her
head had never before rested on a man's breast, and she had no
liking for it there; but she felt more than the physical contact.
The position was mysterious and fascinating, and something
natural in it made her think of life. Then as the cool wind blew
down from the heights, loosening her tumbled hair, she was
compelled to see strands of it curl softly into Stewart's face,
before his eyes, across his lips. She was unable to reach it
with her free hand, and therefore could not refasten it. And
when she shut her eyes she felt those loosened strands playing
against his cheeks.

In the keener press of such sensations she caught the smell of
dust and a faint, wild, sweet tang on the air. There was a low,
rustling sigh of wind in the brush along the trail. Suddenly the
silence ripped apart to the sharp bark of a coyote, and then,
from far away, came a long wail. And then Majesty's metal-rimmed
hoof rang on a stone.

These later things lent probability to that ride for Madeline.
Otherwise it would have seemed like a dream. Even so it was hard
to believe. Again she wondered if this woman who had begun to
think and feel so much was Madeline Hammond. Nothing had ever
happened to her. And here, playing about her like her hair
played about Stewart's face, was adventure, perhaps death, and
surely life. She could not believe the evidence of the day's
happenings. Would any of her people, her friends, ever believe
it? Could she tell it? How impossible to think that a cunning
Mexican might have used her to further the interests of a forlorn
revolution. She remembered the ghoulish visages of those starved
rebels, and marveled at her blessed fortune in escaping them.
She was safe, and now self-preservation had some meaning for her.
Stewart's arrival in the glade, the courage with which he had
faced the outlawed men, grew as real to her now as the iron arm
that clasped her. Had it been an instinct which had importuned
her to save this man when he lay ill and hopeless in the shack at
Chiricahua? In helping him had she hedged round her forces that
had just operated to save her life, or if not that, more than
life was to her? She believed so.

Madeline opened her eyes after a while and found that night had
fallen. The sky was a dark, velvety blue blazing with white
stars. The cool wind tugged at her hair, and through waving
strands she saw Stewart's profile, bold and sharp against the
sky.

Then, as her mind succumbed to her bodily fatigue, again her
situation became unreal and wild. A heavy languor, like a
blanket, began to steal upon her. She wavered and drifted. With
the last half-conscious sense of a muffled throb at her ear, a
something intangibly sweet, deep-toned, and strange, like a
distant calling bell, she fell asleep with her head on Stewart's
breast.

XII Friends from the East

Three days after her return to the ranch Madeline could not
discover any physical discomfort as a reminder of her adventurous
experiences. This surprised her, but not nearly so much as the
fact that after a few weeks she found she scarcely remembered the
adventures at all. If it had not been for the quiet and
persistent guardianship of her cowboys she might almost have
forgotten Don Carlos and the raiders. Madeline was assured of
the splendid physical fitness to which this ranch life had
developed her, and that she was assimilating something of the
Western disregard of danger. A hard ride, an accident, a day in
the sun and dust, an adventure with outlaws--these might once
have been matters of large import, but now for Madeline they were
in order with all the rest of her changed life.

There was never a day that something interesting was not brought
to her notice. Stillwell, who had ceaselessly reproached himself
for riding away the morning Madeline was captured, grew more like
an anxious parent than a faithful superintendent. He was never
at ease regarding her unless he was near the ranch or had left
Stewart there, or else Nels and Nick Steele. Naturally, he
trusted more to Stewart than to any one else.

"Miss Majesty, it's sure amazin' strange about Gene," said the
old cattleman, as he tramped into Madeline's office.

"What's the matter now?" she inquired.

"Wal, Gene has rustled off into the mountains again."

"Again? I did not know he had gone. I gave him money for that
band of guerrillas. Perhaps he went to take it to them."

"No. He took that a day or so after he fetched you back home.
Then in about a week he went a second time. An' he packed some
stuff with him. Now he's sneaked off, an' Nels, who was down to
the lower trail, saw him meet somebody that looked like Padre
Marcos. Wal, I went down to the church, and, sure enough, Padre
Marcos is gone. What do you think of that, Miss Majesty?"

"Maybe Stewart is getting religious," laughed Madeline. You told
me so once.

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