The Call of the Canyon, Zane Grey [ereader for textbooks txt] 📗

broached to Glenn the main object of her visit—to take him back East. Yet a little while longer! She hated his work and had not talked of that. Yet an honest consciousness told her that as time flew by she feared more and more to tell him that he was wasting his life there and that she could not bear it. Still was he wasting it? Once in a while a timid and unfamiliar Carley Burch voiced a pregnant query. Perhaps what held Carley back most was the happiness she achieved in her walks and rides with Glenn. She lingered because of them. Every day she loved him more, and yet—there was something. Was it in her or in him? She had a woman’s assurance of his love and sometimes she caught her breath—so sweet and strong was the tumultuous emotion it stirred. She preferred to enjoy while she could, to dream instead of think. But it was not possible to hold a blank, dreamy, lulled consciousness all the time. Thought would return. And not always could she drive away a feeling that Glenn would never be her slave. She divined something in his mind that kept him gentle and kindly, restrained always, sometimes melancholy and aloof, as if he were an impassive destiny waiting for the iron consequences he knew inevitably must fall. What was this that he knew which she did not know? The idea haunted her. Perhaps it was that which compelled her to use all her woman’s wiles and charms on Glenn. Still, though it thrilled her to see she made him love her more as the days passed, she could not blind herself to the truth that no softness or allurement of hers changed this strange restraint in him. How that baffled her! Was it resistance or knowledge or nobility or doubt?

Flo Hutter’s twentieth birthday came along the middle of June, and all the neighbors and range hands for miles around were invited to celebrate it.

For the second time during her visit Carley put on the white gown that had made Flo gasp with delight, and had stunned Mrs. Hutter, and had brought a reluctant compliment from Glenn. Carley liked to create a sensation. What were exquisite and expensive gowns for, if not that?

It was twilight on this particular June night when she was ready to go downstairs, and she tarried a while on the long porch. The evening star, so lonely and radiant, so cold and passionless in the dusky blue, had become an object she waited for and watched, the same as she had come to love the dreaming, murmuring melody of the waterfall. She lingered there. What had the sights and sounds and smells of this wild canyon come to mean to her? She could not say. But they had changed immeasurably.

Her soft slippers made no sound on the porch, and as she turned the corner of the house, where shadows hovered thick, she heard Lee Stanton’s voice:

“But, Flo, you loved me before Kilbourne came.”

The content, the pathos, of his voice chained Carley to the spot. Some situations, like fate, were beyond resisting.

“Shore I did,” replied Flo, dreamily. This was the voice of a girl who was being confronted by happy and sad thoughts on her birthday.

“Don’t you—love me—still?” he asked, huskily.

“Why, of course, Lee! I don’t change,” she said.

“But then, why—” There for the moment his utterance or courage failed.

“Lee, do you want the honest to God’s truth?”

“I reckon—I do.”

“Well, I love you just as I always did,” replied Flo, earnestly. “But, Lee, I love him more than you or anybody.”

“My Heaven! Flo—you’ll ruin us all!” he exclaimed, hoarsely.

“No, I won’t either. You can’t say I’m not level headed. I hated to tell you this, Lee, but you made me.”

“Flo, you love me an’ him—two men?” queried Stanton, incredulously.

“I shore do,” she drawled, with a soft laugh. “And it’s no fun.”

“Reckon I don’t cut much of a figure alongside Kilbourne,” said Stanton, disconsolately.

“Lee, you could stand alongside any man,” replied Flo, eloquently. “You’re Western, and you’re steady and loyal, and you’ll—well, some day you’ll be like dad. Could I say more? … But, Lee, this man is different. He is wonderful. I can’t explain it, but I feel it. He has been through hell’s fire. Oh! will I ever forget his ravings when he lay so ill? He means more to me than just one man. He’s American. You’re American, too, Lee, and you trained to be a soldier, and you would have made a grand one—if I know old Arizona. But you were not called to France… . Glenn Kilbourne went. God only knows what that means. But he went. And there’s the difference. I saw the wreck of him. I did a little to save his life and his mind. I wouldn’t be an American girl if I didn’t love him… . Oh, Lee, can’t you understand?”

“I reckon so. I’m not begrudging Glenn what—what you care. I’m only afraid I’ll lose you.”

“I never promised to marry you, did I?”

“Not in words. But kisses ought to—?”

“Yes, kisses mean a lot,” she replied. “And so far I stand committed. I suppose I’ll marry you some day and be blamed lucky. I’ll be happy, too— don’t you overlook that hunch… . You needn’t worry. Glenn is in love with Carley. She’s beautiful, rich—and of his class. How could he ever see me?”

“Flo, you can never tell,” replied Stanton, thoughtfully. “I didn’t like her at first. But I’m comin’ round. The thing is, Flo, does she love him as you love him?”

“Oh, I think so—I hope so,” answered Flo, as if in distress.

“I’m not so shore. But then I can’t savvy her. Lord knows I hope so, too. If she doesn’t—if she goes back East an’ leaves him here—I reckon my case—”

“Hush! I know she’s out here to take him back. Let’s go downstairs now.”

“Aw, wait—Flo,” he begged. “What’s your hurry? … Come-give me—”

“There! That’s all you get, birthday or no birthday,” replied Flo, gayly.

Carley heard the soft kiss and Stanton’s deep breath, and then footsteps as they walked away in the gloom toward the stairway. Carley leaned against the log wall. She felt the rough wood—smelled the rusty pine rosin. Her other hand pressed her bosom where her heart beat with unwonted vigor. Footsteps and voices sounded beneath her. Twilight had deepened into night. The low murmur of the waterfall and the babble of the brook floated to her strained ears.

Listeners never heard good of themselves. But Stanton’s subtle doubt of any depth to her, though it hurt, was not so conflicting as the ringing truth of Flo Hutter’s love for Glenn. This unsought knowledge powerfully affected Carley. She was forewarned and forearmed now. It saddened her, yet did not lessen her confidence in her hold on Glenn. But it stirred to perplexing pitch her curiosity in regard to the mystery that seemed to cling round Glenn’s transformation of character. This Western girl really knew more about Glenn than his fiancee knew. Carley suffered a humiliating shock when she realized that she had been thinking of herself, of her love, her life, her needs, her wants instead of Glenn’s. It took no keen intelligence or insight into human nature to see that Glenn needed her more than she needed him.

Thus unwontedly stirred and upset and flung back upon pride of herself, Carley went downstairs to meet the assembled company. And never had she shown to greater contrast, never had circumstance and state of mind contrived to make her so radiant and gay and unbending. She heard many remarks not intended for her far-reaching ears. An old grizzled Westerner remarked to Hutter: “Wall, she’s shore an unbroke filly.” Another of the company—a woman—remarked: “Sweet an’ pretty as a columbine. But I’d like her better if she was dressed decent.” And a gaunt range rider, who stood with others at the porch door, looking on, asked a comrade: “Do you reckon that’s style back East?” To which the other replied: “Mebbe, but I’d gamble they’re short on silk back East an’ likewise sheriffs.”

Carley received some meed of gratification out of the sensation she created, but she did not carry her craving for it to the point of overshadowing Flo. On the contrary, she contrived to have Flo share the attention she received. She taught Flo to dance the fox-trot and got Glenn to dance with her. Then she taught it to Lee Stanton. And when Lee danced with Flo, to the infinite wonder and delight of the onlookers, Carley experienced her first sincere enjoyment of the evening.

Her moment came when she danced with Glenn. It reminded her of days long past and which she wanted to return again. Despite war tramping and Western labors Glenn retained something of his old grace and lightness. But just to dance with him was enough to swell her heart, and for once she grew oblivious to the spectators.

“Glenn, would you like to go to the Plaza with me again, and dance between dinner courses, as we used to?” she whispered up to him.

“Sure I would—unless Morrison knew you were to be there,” he replied.

“Glenn! … I would not even see him.”

“Any old time you wouldn’t see Morrison!” he exclaimed, half mockingly.

His doubt, his tone grated upon her. Pressing closer to him, she said, “Come back and I’ll prove it.”

But he laughed and had no answer for her. At her own daring words Carley’s heart had leaped to her lips. If he had responded, even teasingly, she could have burst out with her longing to take him back. But silence inhibited her, and the moment passed.

At the end of that dance Hutter claimed Glenn in the interest of neighboring sheep men. And Carley, crossing the big living room alone, passed close to one of the porch doors. Some one, indistinct in the shadow, spoke to her in low voice: “Hello, pretty eyes!”

Carley felt a little cold shock go tingling through her. But she gave no sign that she had heard. She recognized the voice and also the epithet. Passing to the other side of the room and joining the company there, Carley presently took a casual glance at the door. Several men were lounging there. One of them was the sheep dipper, Haze Ruff. His bold eyes were on her now, and his coarse face wore a slight, meaning smile, as if he understood something about her that was a secret to others. Carley dropped her eyes. But she could not shake off the feeling that wherever she moved this man’s gaze followed her. The unpleasantness of this incident would have been nothing to Carley had she at once forgotten it. Most unaccountably, however, she could not make herself unaware of this ruffian’s attention. It did no good for her to argue that she was merely the cynosure of all eyes. This Ruff’s tone and look possessed something heretofore unknown to Carley. Once she was tempted to tell Glenn. But that would only cause a fight, so she kept her counsel. She danced again, and helped Flo entertain her guests, and passed that door often; and once stood before it, deliberately, with all the strange and contrary impulse so inscrutable in a woman, and never for a moment wholly lost the sense of the man’s boldness. It dawned upon her, at length, that the singular thing about this boldness was its difference from any, which had ever before affronted her. The fool’s smile meant that he thought she saw his attention, and, understanding it perfectly, had secret delight in it. Many and various had been the masculine egotisms which had come under her observation. But quite beyond Carley was this brawny sheep dipper, Haze Ruff. Once the