Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey [best classic novels TXT] 📗

against pillage and time; and in the flowers and mosses lining the stone-bedded stream, in the bright colors of rugs and blankets on the court floor, and the cozy corner with hammock and books and the clean-linened table, showed the grace of a daughter who lived for happiness and the day at hand.

Jane turned Lassiter’s horse loose in the thick grass. “You will want him to be near you,” she said, “or I’d have him taken to the alfalfa fields.” At her call appeared women who began at once to bustle about, hurrying to and fro, setting the table. Then Jane, excusing herself, went within.

She passed through a huge low ceiled chamber, like the inside of a fort, and into a smaller one where a bright wood-fire blazed in an old open fireplace, and from this into her own room. It had the same comfort as was manifested in the homelike outer court; moreover, it was warm and rich in soft hues.

Seldom did Jane Withersteen enter her room without looking into her mirror. She knew she loved the reflection of that beauty which since early childhood she had never been allowed to forget. Her relatives and friends, and later a horde of Mormon and Gentile suitors, had fanned the flame of natural vanity in her. So that at twenty-eight she scarcely thought at all of her wonderful influence for good in the little community where her father had left her practically its beneficent landlord, but cared most for the dream and the assurance and the allurement of her beauty. This time, however, she gazed into her glass with more than the usual happy motive, without the usual slight conscious smile. For she was thinking of more than the desire to be fair in her own eyes, in those of her friend; she wondered if she were to seem fair in the eyes of this Lassiter, this man whose name had crossed the long, wild brakes of stone and plains of sage, this gentle-voiced, sad-faced man who was a hater and a killer of Mormons. It was not now her usual half-conscious vain obsession that actuated her as she hurriedly changed her riding-dress to one of white, and then looked long at the stately form with its gracious contours, at the fair face with its strong chin and full firm lips, at the dark-blue, proud, and passionate eyes.

“If by some means I can keep him here a few days, a week⁠—he will never kill another Mormon,” she mused. “Lassiter!⁠ ⁠… I shudder when I think of that name, of him. But when I look at the man I forget who he is⁠—I almost like him. I remember only that he saved Bern. He has suffered. I wonder what it was⁠—did he love a Mormon woman once? How splendidly he championed us poor misunderstood souls! Somehow he knows⁠—much.”

Jane Withersteen joined her guests and bade them to her board. Dismissing her woman, she waited upon them with her own hands. It was a bountiful supper and a strange company. On her right sat the ragged and half-starved Venters; and though blind eyes could have seen what he counted for in the sum of her happiness, yet he looked the gloomy outcast his allegiance had made him, and about him there was the shadow of the ruin presaged by Tull. On her left sat black-leather-garbed Lassiter looking like a man in a dream. Hunger was not with him, nor composure, nor speech, and when he twisted in frequent unquiet movements the heavy guns that he had not removed knocked against the table-legs. If it had been otherwise possible to forget the presence of Lassiter those telling little jars would have rendered it unlikely. And Jane Withersteen talked and smiled and laughed with all the dazzling play of lips and eyes that a beautiful, daring woman could summon to her purpose.

When the meal ended, and the men pushed back their chairs, she leaned closer to Lassiter and looked square into his eyes.

“Why did you come to Cottonwoods?”

Her question seemed to break a spell. The rider arose as if he had just remembered himself and had tarried longer than his wont.

“Ma’am, I have hunted all over the southern Utah and Nevada for⁠—somethin’. An’ through your name I learned where to find it⁠—here in Cottonwoods.”

“My name! Oh, I remember. You did know my name when you spoke first. Well, tell me where you heard it and from whom?”

“At the little village⁠—Glaze, I think it’s called⁠—some fifty miles or more west of here. An’ I heard it from a Gentile, a rider who said you’d know where to tell me to find⁠—”

“What?” she demanded, imperiously, as Lassiter broke off.

“Milly Erne’s grave,” he answered low, and the words came with a wrench.

Venters wheeled in his chair to regard Lassiter in amazement, and Jane slowly raised herself in white, still wonder.

“Milly Erne’s grave?” she echoed, in a whisper. “What do you know of Milly Erne, my best-beloved friend⁠—who died in my arms? What were you to her?”

“Did I claim to be anythin’?” he inquired. “I know people⁠—relatives⁠—who have long wanted to know where she’s buried, that’s all.”

“Relatives? She never spoke of relatives, except a brother who was shot in Texas. Lassiter, Milly Erne’s grave is in a secret burying-ground on my property.”

“Will you take me there?⁠ ⁠… You’ll be offendin’ Mormons worse than by breakin’ bread with me.”

“Indeed yes, but I’ll do it. Only we must go unseen. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Thank you, Jane Withersteen,” replied the rider, and he bowed to her and stepped backward out of the court.

“Will you not stay⁠—sleep under my roof?” she asked.

“No, ma’am, an’ thanks again. I never sleep indoors. An’ even if I did there’s that gatherin’ storm in the village below. No, no. I’ll go to the sage. I hope you won’t suffer none for your kindness to me.”

“Lassiter,” said Venters, with a half-bitter laugh, “my bed too, is the sage. Perhaps we may meet out there.”

“Mebbe so. But the sage is wide an’ I won’t