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

Here Lassiter paused while he turned his sombrero round and round, in his familiar habit, and his eyes had the look of a man seeing over again some thrilling spectacle, and under his red bronze there was strange animation.

“Like a shot, then, Venters told Tull that the friendship between you an’ him was all over, an’ he was leaving your place. He said you’d both of you broken off in the hope of propitiatin’ your people, but you hadn’t changed your mind otherwise, an’ never would.

“Next he spoke up for you. I ain’t goin’ to tell you what he said. Only⁠—no other woman who ever lived ever had such tribute! You had a champion, Jane, an’ never fear that those thick-skulled men don’t know you now. It couldn’t be otherwise. He spoke the ringin’, lightnin’ truth⁠ ⁠… Then he accused Tull of the underhand, miserable robbery of a helpless woman. He told Tull where the red herd was, of a deal made with Oldrin’, that Jerry Card had made the deal. I thought Tull was goin’ to drop, an’ that little frog-legged cuss, he looked some limp an’ white. But Venters’s voice would have kept anybody’s legs from bucklin’. I was stiff myself. He went on an’ called Tull⁠—called him every bad name ever known to a rider, an’ then some. He cursed Tull. I never hear a man get such a cursin’. He laughed in scorn at the idea of Tull bein’ a minister. He said Tull an’ a few more dogs of hell builded their empire out of the hearts of such innocent an’ God-fearin’ women as Jane Withersteen. He called Tull a binder of women, a callous beast who hid behind a mock mantle of righteousness⁠—an’ the last an’ lowest coward on the face of the earth. To prey on weak women through their religion⁠—that was the last unspeakable crime!

“Then he finished, an’ by this time he’d almost lost his voice. But his whisper was enough. ‘Tull,’ he said, ‘she begged me not to draw on you today. She would pray for you if you burned her at the stake⁠ ⁠… But listen!⁠ ⁠… I swear if you and I ever come face to face again, I’ll kill you!’

“We backed out of the door then, an’ up the road. But nobody follered us.”

Jane found herself weeping passionately. She had not been conscious of it till Lassiter ended his story, and she experienced exquisite pain and relief in shedding tears. Long had her eyes been dry, her grief deep; long had her emotions been dumb. Lassiter’s story put her on the rack; the appalling nature of Venters’s act and speech had no parallel as an outrage; it was worse than bloodshed. Men like Tull had been shot, but had one ever been so terribly denounced in public? Over-mounting her horror, an uncontrollable, quivering passion shook her very soul. It was sheer human glory in the deed of a fearless man. It was hot, primitive instinct to live⁠—to fight. It was a kind of mad joy in Venters’s chivalry. It was close to the wrath that had first shaken her in the beginning of this war waged upon her.

“Well, well, Jane, don’t take it that way,” said Lassiter, in evident distress. “I had to tell you. There’s some things a feller jest can’t keep. It’s strange you give up on hearin’ that, when all this long time you’ve been the gamest woman I ever seen. But I don’t know women. Mebbe there’s reason for you to cry. I know this⁠—nothin’ ever rang in my soul an’ so filled it as what Venters did. I’d like to have done it, but⁠—I’m only good for throwin’ a gun, en’ it seems you hate that⁠ ⁠… Well, I’ll be goin’ now.”

“Where?”

“Venters took Wrangle to the stable. The sorrel’s shy a shoe, an’ I’ve got to help hold the big devil an’ put on another.”

“Tell Bern to come for the pack I want to give him⁠—and⁠—and to say goodbye,” called Jane, as Lassiter went out.

Jane passed the rest of that day in a vain endeavor to decide what and what not to put in the pack for Venters. This task was the last she would ever perform for him, and the gifts were the last she would ever make him. So she picked and chose and rejected, and chose again, and often paused in sad revery, and began again, till at length she filled the pack.

It was about sunset, and she and Fay had finished supper and were sitting in the court, when Venters’s quick steps rang on the stones. She scarcely knew him, for he had changed the tattered garments, and she missed the dark beard and long hair. Still he was not the Venters of old. As he came up the steps she felt herself pointing to the pack, and heard herself speaking words that were meaningless to her. He said goodbye; he kissed her, released her, and turned away. His tall figure blurred in her sight, grew dim through dark, streaked vision, and then he vanished.

Twilight fell around Withersteen House, and dusk and night. Little Fay slept; but Jane lay with strained, aching eyes. She heard the wind moaning in the cottonwoods and mice squeaking in the walls. The night was interminably long, yet she prayed to hold back the dawn. What would another day bring forth? The blackness of her room seemed blacker for the sad, entering gray of morning light. She heard the chirp of awakening birds, and fancied she caught a faint clatter of hoofs. Then low, dull distant, throbbed a heavy gunshot. She had expected it, was waiting for it; nevertheless, an electric shock checked her heart, froze the very living fiber of her bones. That vise-like hold on her faculties apparently did not relax for a long time, and it was a voice under her window that released her.

“Jane!⁠ ⁠… Jane!” softly called Lassiter.

She answered somehow.

“It’s all right.