The Light of Western Stars

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

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At times she broke out in wrath at the circumstances she had
failed to control, at herself, at Stewart.

"He might have learned from Ambrose!" she exclaimed, sick with a
bitterness she knew was not consistent with her pride. She
recalled Christine's trenchant exposition of Ambrose's wooing:
"He tell me he love me; he kees me; he hug me; he put me on his
horse; he ride away with me; he marry me."

Then in the next breath Madeline denied this insistent clamoring
of a love that was gradually breaking her spirit. Like a somber
shadow remorse followed her, shading blacker. She had been blind
to a man's honesty, manliness, uprightness, faith, and striving.
She had been dead to love, to nobility that she had herself
created. Padre Marcos's grave, wise words returned to haunt her.
She fought her bitterness, scorned her intelligence, hated her
pride, and, weakening, gave up more and more to a yearning,
hopeless hope.

She had shunned the light of the stars as she had violently
dismissed every hinting suggestive memory of Stewart's kisses.
But one night she went deliberately to her window. There they
shone. Her stars! Beautiful, passionless as always, but
strangely closer, warmer, speaking a kinder language, helpful as
they had never been, teaching her now that regret was futile,
revealing to her in their one grand, blazing task the supreme
duty of life--to be true.

Those shining stars made her yield. She whispered to them that
they had claimed her--the West claimed her--Stewart claimed her
forever, whether he lived or died. She gave up to her love. And
it was as if he was there in person, dark-faced, fire-eyed,
violent in his action, crushing her to his breast in that
farewell moment, kissing her with one burning kiss of passion,
then with cold, terrible lips of renunciation.

"I am your wife!" she whispered to him. In that moment,
throbbing, exalted, quivering in her first sweet, tumultuous
surrender to love, she would have given her all, her life, to be
in his arms again, to meet his lips, to put forever out of his
power any thought of wild sacrifice.

* * *

And on the morning of the next day, when Madeline went out upon
the porch, Stillwell, haggard and stern, with a husky, incoherent
word, handed her a message from El Cajon. She read:

El Capitan Stewart captured by rebel soldiers in fight at Agua
Prieta yesterday. He was a sharpshooter in the Federal ranks.
Sentenced to death Thursday at sunset.

XXIV The Ride

"Stillwell!"

Madeline's cry was more than the utterance of a breaking heart.
It was full of agony. But also it uttered the shattering of a
structure built of false pride, of old beliefs, of bloodless
standards, of ignorance of self. It betrayed the final conquest
of her doubts, and out of their darkness blazed the unquenchable
spirit of a woman who had found herself, her love, her salvation,
her duty to a man, and who would not be cheated.

The old cattleman stood mute before her, staring at her white
face, at her eyes of flame.

"Stillwell! I am Stewart's wife!"

"My Gawd, Miss Majesty!" he burst out. "I knowed somethin'
turrible was wrong. Aw, sure it's a pity--"

"Do you think I'll let him be shot when I know him now, when I'm
no longer blind, when I love him?" she asked, with passionate
swiftness. "I will save him. This is Wednesday morning. I have
thirty-six hours to save his life. Stillwell, send for Link and
the car!"

She went into her office. Her mind worked with extraordinary
rapidity and clearness. Her plan, born in one lightning-like
flash of thought, necessitated the careful wording of telegrams
to Washington, to New York, to San Antonio. These were to
Senators, Representatives, men high in public and private life,
men who would remember her and who would serve her to their
utmost. Never before had her position meant anything to her
comparable with what it meant now. Never in all her life had
money seemed the power that it was then. If she had been poor! A
shuddering chill froze the thought at its inception. She
dispelled heartbreaking thoughts. She had power. She had
wealth. She would set into operation all the unlimited means
these gave her--the wires and pulleys and strings underneath the
surface of political and international life, the open, free,
purchasing value of money or the deep, underground, mysterious,
incalculably powerful influence moved by gold. She could save
Stewart. She must await results--deadlocked in feeling, strained
perhaps almost beyond endurance, because the suspense would be
great; but she would allow no possibility of failure to enter her
mind.

When she went outside the car was there with Link, helmet in
hand, a cool, bright gleam in his eyes, and with Stillwell,
losing his haggard misery, beginning to respond to Madeline's
spirit.

"Link, drive Stillwell to El Cajon in time for him to catch the
El Paso train," she said. "Wait there for his return, and if any
message comes from him, telephone it at once to me."

Then she gave Stillwell the telegrams to send from El Cajon and
drafts to cash in El Paso. She instructed him to go before the
rebel junta, then stationed at Juarez, to explain the situation,
to bid them expect communications from Washington officials
requesting and advising Stewart's exchange as a prisoner of war,
to offer to buy his release from the rebel authorities.

When Stillwell had heard her through his huge, bowed form
straightened, a ghost of his old smile just moved his lips. He
was no longer young, and hope could not at once drive away stern
and grim realities. As he bent over her hand his manner appeared
courtly and reverent. But either he was speechless or felt the
moment not one for him to break silence.

He climbed to a seat beside Link, who pocketed the watch he had
been studying and leaned over the wheel. There was a crack, a
muffled sound bursting into a roar, and the big car jerked
forward to bound over the edge of the slope, to leap down the
long incline, to shoot out upon the level valley floor and
disappear in moving dust.

For the first time in days Madeline visited the gardens, the
corrals, the lakes, the quarters of the cowboys. Though imagining
she was calm, she feared she looked strange to Nels, to Nick, to
Frankie Slade, to those boys best known to her. The situation
for them must have been one of tormenting pain and bewilderment.
They acted as if they wanted to say something to her, but found
themselves spellbound. She wondered--did they know she was
Stewart's wife? Stillwell had not had time to tell them;
besides, he would not have mentioned the fact. These cowboys
only knew that Stewart was sentenced to be shot; they knew if
Madeline had not been angry with him he would not have gone in
desperate fighting mood across the border. She spoke of the
weather, of the horses and cattle, asked Nels when he was to go
on duty, and turned away from the wide, sunlit, adobe-arched
porch where the cowboys stood silent and bareheaded. Then one of
her subtle impulses checked her.

"Nels, you and Nick need not go on duty to-day," she said. "I
may want you. I--I--"

She hesitated, paused, and stood lingering there. Her glance had
fallen upon Stewart's big black horse prancing in a near-by
corral.

"I have sent Stillwell to El Paso," she went on, in a low voice
she failed to hold steady. "He will save Stewart. I have to
tell you--I am Stewart's wife!"

She felt the stricken amaze that made these men silent and
immovable. With level gaze averted she left them. Returning to
the house and her room, she prepared for something--for what? To
wait!

Then a great invisible shadow seemed to hover behind her. She
essayed many tasks, to fail of attention, to find that her mind
held only Stewart and his fortunes. Why had he become a Federal?
She reflected that he had won his title, El Capitan, fighting for
Madero, the rebel. But Madero was now a Federal, and Stewart was
true to him. In crossing the border had Stewart any other motive
than the one he had implied to Madeline in his mocking smile and
scornful words, "You might have saved me a hell of a lot of
trouble!" What trouble? She felt again the cold shock of
contact with the gun she had dropped in horror. He meant the
trouble of getting himself shot in the only way a man could seek
death without cowardice. But had he any other motive? She
recalled Don Carlos and his guerrillas. Then the thought leaped
up in her mind with gripping power that Stewart meant to hunt Don
Carlos, to meet him, to kill him. It would be the deed of a
silent, vengeful, implacable man driven by wild justice such as
had been the deadly leaven in Monty Price. It was a deed to
expect of Nels or Nick Steel--and, aye, of Gene Stewart.
Madeline felt regret that Stewart, as he had climbed so high, had
not risen above deliberate seeking to kill his enemy, however
evil that enemy.

The local newspapers, which came regularly a day late from El
Paso and Douglas, had never won any particular interest from
Madeline; now, however, she took up any copies she could find and
read all the information pertaining to the revolution. Every word
seemed vital to her, of moving significant force.

AMERICANS ROBBED BY MEXICAN REBELS

MADERA, STATE OF CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO, July 17.--Having looted the
Madera Lumber Company's storehouses of $25,000 worth of goods and
robbed scores of foreigners of horses and saddles, the rebel
command of Gen. Antonio Rojas, comprising a thousand men, started
westward to-day through the state of Sonora for Agnaymas and
Pacific coast points.

The troops are headed for Dolores, where a mountain pass leads
into the state of Sonora. Their entrance will be opposed by
1,000 Maderista volunteers, who are reported to be waiting the
rebel invasion.

The railroad south of Madera is being destroyed and many
Americans who were traveling to Chihuahua from Juarez are
marooned here.

General Rojas executed five men while here for alleged offenses
of a trivial character. Gen. Rosalio y Hernandez, Lieut.
Cipriano Amador, and three soldiers were the unfortunates.

WASHINGTON, July 17.--Somewhere in Mexico Patrick Dunne, an
American citizen, is in prison under sentence of death. This
much and no more the State Department learned through
Representative Kinkaid of Nebraska. Consular officers in various
sections of Mexico have been directed to make every effort to
locate Dunne and save his life.

JUAREZ, MEXICO, July 31.--General Orozco, chief of the rebels,
declared to-day:

"If the United States will throw down the barriers and let us
have all the ammunition we can buy, I promise in sixty days to
have peace restored in Mexico and a stable government in charge."

CASAS GRANDES, CHIHUAHUA, July 31.--Rebel soldiers looted many
homes of Mormons near here yesterday. All the Mormon families
have fled to El Paso. Although General Salazar had two of his
soldiers executed yesterday for robbing Mormons, he has not made
any attempt to stop his men looting the unprotected homes of
Americans.

Last night's and to-day's trains carried many Americans from
Pearson, Madera, and other localities outside the Mormon
settlements. Refugees from Mexico continued to pour into El
Paso. About one hundred came last night, the majority of whom
were men. Heretofore few men came.

Madeline read on in feverish absorption. It was not a real war,
but a starving, robbing, burning, hopeless revolution. Five men
executed for alleged offenses of a trivial nature! What chance
had, then, a Federal prisoner, an enemy to be feared, an American
cowboy in the clutches of those crazed rebels?

Madeline endured patiently, endured for long interminable hours
while holding to her hope with indomitable will.

No message came. At sunset she went outdoors, suffering a
torment of accumulating suspense. She faced the desert, hoping,
praying for strength. The desert did not influence her as did
the passionless, unchangeable stars that had soothed her spirit.
It was red, mutable, shrouded in shadows, terrible like her mood.
A dust-veiled sunset colored the vast, brooding, naked waste of
rock and sand. The grim Chiricahua frowned black and sinister.
The dim blue domes of the Guadalupes seemed to whisper, to beckon
to her. Beyond them somewhere was Stewart, awaiting the end of a
few brief hours--hours that to her were boundless, endless,
insupportable.

Night fell. But now the white, pitiless stars failed her. Then
she sought the seclusion and darkness of her room, there to lie
with wide eyes, waiting, waiting. She had always been
susceptible to the somber, mystic unrealities of the night, and
now her mind slowly revolved round a vague and monstrous gloom.
Nevertheless, she was acutely sensitive to outside impressions.
She heard the measured tread of a guard, the rustle of wind
stirring the window-curtain, the remote, mournful wail of a
coyote. By and by the dead silence of the night insulated her
with leaden oppression. There was silent darkness for so long
that when the window casements showed gray she believed it was
only fancy and that dawn would never come. She prayed for the sun
not to rise, not to begin its short twelve-hour journey toward
what might be a fatal setting for Stewart. But the dawn did
lighten, swiftly she thought, remorselessly. Daylight had
broken, and this was Thursday!

Sharp ringing of the telephone bell startled her, roused her into
action. She ran to answer the call.

"Hello--hello--Miss Majesty!" came the hurried reply. "This is
Link talkin'. Messages for you. Favorable, the operator said.
I'm to ride out with them. I'll come a-hummin'."

That was all. Madeline heard the bang of the receiver as Stevens
threw it down. She passionately wanted to know more, but was
immeasurably grateful for so much! Favorable! Then Stillwell had
been successful. Her heart leaped. Suddenly she became weak and
her hands failed of their accustomed morning deftness. It took
her what seemed a thousand years to dress. Breakfast meant
nothing to her except that it helped her to pass dragging
minutes.

Finally a low hum, mounting swiftly to a roar and ending with a
sharp report, announced the arrival of the car. If her feet had
kept pace with her heart she would have raced out to meet Link.
She saw him, helmet thrown back, watch in hand, and he looked up
at her with his cool, bright smile, with his familiar apologetic
manner.

"Fifty-three minutes, Miss Majesty," he said, "but I hed to ride
round a herd of steers an' bump a couple off the trail."

He gave her a packet of telegrams. Madeline tore them open with
shaking fingers, began to read with swift, dim eyes. Some were
from Washington, assuring her of every possible service; some
were from New York; others written in Spanish were from El Paso,
and these she could not wholly translate in a brief glance.
Would she never find Stillwell's message? It was the last. It
was lengthy. It read:

Bought Stewart's release. Also arranged for his transfer as
prisoner of war. Both matters official. He's safe if we can get
notice to his captors. Not sure I've reached them by wire.
Afraid to trust it. You go with Link to Agua Prieta. Take the
messages sent you in Spanish. They will protect you and secure
Stewart's freedom. Take Nels with you. Stop for nothing. Tell
Link all--trust him--let him drive that car. STILLWELL

* * *

The first few lines of Stillwell's message lifted Madeline to the
heights of thanksgiving and happiness. Then, reading on, she
experienced a check, a numb, icy, sickening pang. At the last
line she flung off doubt and dread, and in white, cold passion
faced the issue.

"Read," she said, briefly, handing the telegram to Link. He
scanned it and then looked blankly up at her.

"Link, do you know the roads, the trails--the desert between here
and Agua Prieta?" she asked.

"Thet's sure my old stampin'-ground. An' I know Sonora, too."

"We must reach Agua Prieta before sunset--long before, so if
Stewart is in some near-by camp we can get to it in--in time."

"Miss Majesty, it ain't possible!" he exclaimed. "Stillwell's
crazy to say thet."

"Link, can an automobile be driven from here into northern
Mexico?"

"Sure. But it 'd take time."

"We must do it in little time," she went on, in swift eagerness.
"Otherwise Stewart may be--probably will be--be shot."

Link Stevens appeared suddenly to grow lax, shriveled, to lose
all his peculiar pert brightness, to weaken and age.

"I'm only a--a cowboy, Miss Majesty." He almost faltered. It
was a singular change in him. "Thet's an awful ride--down over
the border. If by some luck I didn't smash the car I'd turn your
hair gray. You'd never be no good after thet ride!"

"I am Stewart's wife," she answered him and she looked at him,
not conscious of any motive to persuade or allure, but just to
let him know the greatness of her dependence upon him.

He started violently--the old action of Stewart, the memorable
action of Monty Price. This man was of the same wild breed.

Then Madeline's words flowed in a torrent. "I am Stewart's wife.
I love him; I have been unjust to him; I must save him. Link, I
have faith in you. I beseech you to do your best for Stewart's
sake--for my sake. I'll risk the ride gladly--bravely. I'll not
care where or how you drive. I'd far rather plunge into a canyon
--go to my death on the rocks--than not try to save Stewart."

How beautiful the response of this rude cowboy--to realize his
absolute unconsciousness of self, to see the haggard shade burn
out of his face, the old, cool, devil-may-care spirit return to
his eyes, and to feel something wonderful about him then! It was
more than will or daring or sacrifice. A blood-tie might have
existed between him and Madeline. She sensed again that
indefinable brother-like quality, so fine, so almost invisible,
which seemed to be an inalienable trait in these wild cowboys.

"Miss Majesty, thet ride figgers impossible, but I'll do it!" he
replied. His cool, bright glance thrilled her. "I'll need mebbe
half an hour to go over the car an' to pack on what I'll want."

She could not thank him, and her reply was merely a request that
he tell Nels and other cowboys off duty to come up to the house.
When Link had gone Madeline gave a moment's thought to
preparations for the ride. She placed what money she had and the
telegrams in a satchel. The gown she had on was thin and white,
not suitable for travel, but she would not risk the losing of one
moment in changing it. She put on a long coat and wound veils
round her head and neck, arranging them in a hood so she could
cover her face when necessary. She remembered to take an extra
pair of goggles for Nels's use, and then, drawing on her gloves,
she went out ready for the ride.

A number of cowboys were waiting. She explained the situation
and left them in charge of her home. With that she asked Nels to
accompany her down into the desert. He turned white to his lips,
and this occasioned Madeline to remember his mortal dread of the
car and Link's driving.

"Nels, I'm sorry to ask you," she added. "I know you hate the
car. But I need you--may need you, oh! so much."

"Why, Miss Majesty, thet's shore all a mistaken idee of yours
about me hatin' the car," he said, in his slow, soft drawl. "I
was only jealous of Link; an' the boys, they made thet joke up on
me about bein' scared of ridin' fast. Shore I'm powerful proud
to go. An' I reckon if you hedn't asked me my feelin's might hev
been some hurt. Because if you're goin' down among the Greasers
you want me."

His cool, easy speech, his familiar swagger, the smile with which
he regarded her did not in the least deceive Madeline. The gray
was still in his face. Incomprehensible as it seemed, Nels had a
dread, an uncanny fear, and it was of that huge white automobile.
But he lied about it. Here again was that strange quality of
faithfulness.

Madeline heard the buzz of the car. Link appeared driving up the
slope. He made a short, sliding turn and stopped before the
porch. Link had tied two long, heavy planks upon the car, one on
each side, and in every available space he had strapped extra
tires. A huge cask occupied one back seat, and another seat was
full of tools and ropes. There was just room in this rear part
of the car for Nels to squeeze in. Link put Madeline in front
beside him, then bent over the wheel. Madeline waved her hand at
the silent cowboys on the porch. Not an audible good-by was
spoken.

The car glided out of the yard, leaped from level to slope, and
started swiftly down the road, out into the open valley. Each
stronger rush of dry wind in Madeline's face marked the increase
of speed. She took one glance at the winding cattle-road,
smooth, unobstructed, disappearing in the gray of distance. She
took another at the leather-garbed, leather-helmeted driver
beside her, and then she drew the hood of veils over her face and
fastened it round her neck so there was no possibility of its
blowing loose.

Harder and stronger pressed the wind till it was like sheeted
lead forcing her back in her seat. There was a ceaseless,
intense, inconceivably rapid vibration under her; occasionally
she felt a long swing, as if she were to be propelled aloft; but
no jars disturbed the easy celerity of the car. The buzz, the
roar of wheels, of heavy body in flight, increased to a
continuous droning hum. The wind became an insupportable body
moving toward her, crushing her breast, making the task of
breathing most difficult. To Madeline the time seemed to fly
with the speed of miles. A moment came when she detected a faint
difference in hum and rush and vibration, in the ceaseless
sweeping of the invisible weight against her. This difference
became marked. Link was reducing speed. Then came swift change
of all sensation, and she realized the car had slowed to normal
travel.

Madeline removed her hood and goggles. It was a relief to
breathe freely, to be able to use her eyes. To her right, not
far distant, lay the little town of Chiricahua. Sight of it made
her remember Stewart in a way strange to her constant thought of
him. To the left inclined the gray valley. The red desert was
hidden from view, but the Guadalupe Mountains loomed close in the
southwest.

Opposite Chiricahua, where the road forked, Link Stevens headed
the car straight south and gradually increased speed. Madeline
faced another endless gray incline. It was the San Bernardino
Valley. The singing of the car, the stinging of the wind warned
her to draw the hood securely down over her face again, and then
it was as if she was riding at night. The car lurched ahead,
settled into that driving speed which wedged Madeline back as in
a vise. Again the moments went by fleet as the miles.
Seemingly, there was an acceleration of the car till it reached a
certain swiftness--a period of time in which it held that pace,
and then a diminishing of all motion and sound which contributed
to Madeline's acute sensation. Uncovering her face, she saw Link
was passing another village. Could it be Bernardino? She asked
Link--repeated the question.

"Sure," he replied. "Eighty miles."

Link did not this time apologize for the work of his machine.
Madeline marked the omission with her first thrill of the ride.
Leaning over, she glanced at Link's watch, which he had fastened
upon the wheel in front of his eyes. A quarter to ten! Link had
indeed made short work of the valley miles.

Beyond Bernardino Link sheered off the road and put the car to a
long, low-rising slope. Here the valley appeared to run south
under the dark brows of the Guadalupes. Link was heading
southwest. Madeline observed that the grass began to fail as
they climbed the ridge; bare, white, dusty spots appeared; there
were patches of mesquite and cactus and scattering areas of
broken rock.

She might have been prepared for what she saw from the ridge-top.
Beneath them the desert blazed. Seen from afar, it was striking
enough, but riding down into its red jaws gave Madeline the first
affront to her imperious confidence. All about her ranch had
been desert, the valleys were desert; but this was different.
Here began the red desert, extending far into Mexico, far across
Arizona and California to the Pacific. She saw a bare, hummocky
ridge, down which the car was gliding, bounding, swinging, and
this long slant seemed to merge into a corrugated world of rock
and sand, patched by flats and basins, streaked with canyons and
ranges of ragged, saw-toothed stone. The distant Sierra Madres
were clearer, bluer, less smoky and suggestive of mirage than she
had ever seen them. Madeline's sustaining faith upheld her in
the face of this appalling obstacle. Then the desert that had
rolled its immensity beneath her gradually began to rise, to lose
its distant margins, to condense its varying lights and shades,
at last to hide its yawning depths and looming heights behind red
ridges, which were only little steps, little outposts, little
landmarks at its gates.

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