Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey [best books to read now TXT] 📗

years. She’s sweeter’n the sage.”

“Lassiter, I know, I know. And the hell of it is that in spite of her innocence and charm she’s—she’s not what she seems!”

“I wouldn’t want to—of course, I couldn’t call you a liar, Venters,” said the older man.

“What’s more, she was Oldring’s Masked Rider!”

Venters expected to floor his friend with that statement, but he was not in any way prepared for the shock his words gave. For an instant he was astounded to see Lassiter stunned; then his own passionate eagerness to unbosom himself, to tell the wonderful story, precluded any other thought.

“Son, tell me all about this,” presently said Lassiter as he seated himself on a stone and wiped his moist brow.

Thereupon Venters began his narrative at the point where he had shot the rustler and Oldring’s Masked Rider, and he rushed through it, telling all, not holding back even Bess’s unreserved avowal of her love or his deepest emotions.

“That’s the story,” he said, concluding. “I love her, though I’ve never told her. If I did tell her I’d be ready to marry her, and that seems impossible in this country. I’d be afraid to risk taking her anywhere. So I intend to do the best I can for her here.”

“The longer I live the stranger life is,” mused Lassiter, with downcast eyes. “I’m reminded of somethin’ you once said to Jane about hands in her game of life. There’s that unseen hand of power, an’ Tull’s black hand, an’ my red one, an’ your indifferent one, an’ the girl’s little brown, helpless one. An’, Venters there’s another one that’s all-wise an’ all-wonderful. That’s the hand guidin’ Jane Withersteen’s game of life!... Your story’s one to daze a far clearer head than mine. I can’t offer no advice, even if you asked for it. Mebbe I can help you. Anyway, I’ll hold Oldrin’ up when he comes to the village an’ find out about this girl. I knew the rustler years ago. He’ll remember me.”

“Lassiter, if I ever meet Oldring I’ll kill him!” cried Venters, with sudden intensity.

“I reckon that’d be perfectly natural,” replied the rider.

“Make him think Bess is dead—as she is to him and that old life.”

“Sure, sure, son. Cool down now. If you’re goin’ to begin pullin’ guns on Tull an’ Oldrin’ you want to be cool. I reckon, though, you’d better keep hid here. Well, I must be leavin’.”

“One thing, Lassiter. You’ll not tell Jane about Bess? Please don’t!”

“I reckon not. But I wouldn’t be afraid to bet that after she’d got over anger at your secrecy—Venters, she’d be furious once in her life!—she’d think more of you. I don’t mind sayin’ for myself that I think you’re a good deal of a man.”

In the further ascent Venters halted several times with the intention of saying good-by, yet he changed his mind and kept on climbing till they reached Balancing Rock. Lassiter examined the huge rock, listened to Venters’s idea of its position and suggestion, and curiously placed a strong hand upon it.

“Hold on!” cried Venters. “I heaved at it once and have never gotten over my scare.”

“Well, you do seem uncommon nervous,” replied Lassiter, much amused. “Now, as for me, why I always had the funniest notion to roll stones! When I was a kid I did it, an’ the bigger I got the bigger stones I’d roll. Ain’t that funny? Honest—even now I often get off my hoss just to tumble a big stone over a precipice, en’ watch it drop, en’ listen to it bang an’ boom. I’ve started some slides in my time, an’ don’t you forget it. I never seen a rock I wanted to roll as bad as this one! Wouldn’t there jest be roarin’, crashin’ hell down that trail?”

“You’d close the outlet forever!” exclaimed Venters. “Well, good-by, Lassiter. Keep my secret and don’t forget me. And be mighty careful how you get out of the valley below. The rustlers’ cañon isn’t more than three miles up the Pass. Now you’ve tracked me here, I’ll never feel safe again.”

In his descent to the valley, Venters’s emotion, roused to stirring pitch by the recital of his love story, quieted gradually, and in its place came a sober, thoughtful mood. All at once he saw that he was serious, because he would never more regain his sense of security while in the valley. What Lassiter could do another skilful tracker might duplicate. Among the many riders with whom Venters had ridden he recalled no one who could have taken his trail at Cottonwoods and have followed it to the edge of the bare slope in the pass, let alone up that glistening smooth stone. Lassiter, however, was not an ordinary rider. Instead of hunting cattle tracks he had likely spent a goodly portion of his life tracking men. It was not improbable that among Oldring’s rustlers there was one who shared Lassiter’s gift for trailing. And the more Venters dwelt on this possibility the more perturbed he grew.

Lassiter’s visit, moreover, had a disquieting effect upon Bess, and Venters fancied that she entertained the same thought as to future seclusion. The breaking of their solitude, though by a well-meaning friend, had not only dispelled all its dream and much of its charm, but had instilled a canker of fear. Both had seen the footprint in the sand.

Venters did no more work that day. Sunset and twilight gave way to night, and the cañon bird whistled its melancholy notes, and the wind sang softly in the cliffs, and the camp-fire blazed and burned down to red embers. To Venters a subtle difference was apparent in all of these, or else the shadowy change had been in him. He hoped that on the morrow this slight depression would have passed away.

In that measure, however, he was doomed to disappointment. Furthermore, Bess reverted to a wistful sadness that he had not observed in her since her recovery. His attempt to cheer her out of it resulted in dismal failure, and consequently in a darkening of his own mood. Hard work relieved him; still, when the day had passed, his unrest returned. Then he set to deliberate thinking, and there came to him the startling conviction that he must leave Surprise Valley and take Bess with him. As a rider he had taken many chances, and as an adventurer in Deception Pass he had unhesitatingly risked his life, but now he would run no preventable hazard of Bess’s safety and happiness, and he was too keen not to see that hazard. It gave him a pang to think of leaving the beautiful valley just when he had the means to establish a permanent and delightful home there. One flashing thought tore in hot temptation through his mind—why not climb up into the gorge, roll Balancing Rock down the trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass? “That was the beast in me—showing his teeth!” muttered Venters, scornfully. “I’ll just kill him good and quick! I’ll be fair to this girl, if it’s the last thing I do on earth!”

Another day went by, in which he worked less and pondered more and all the time covertly watched Bess. Her wistfulness had deepened into downright unhappiness, and that made his task to tell her all the harder. He kept the secret another day, hoping by some chance she might grow less moody, and to his exceeding anxiety she fell into far deeper gloom. Out of his own secret and the torment of it he divined that she, too, had a secret and the keeping of it was torturing her. As yet he had no plan thought out in regard to how or when to leave the valley, but he decided to tell her the necessity of it and to persuade her to go. Furthermore, he hoped his speaking out would induce her to unburden her own mind.

“Bess, what’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she answered, with averted face.

Venters took hold of her gently, though masterfully, forced her to meet his eyes.

“You can’t look at me and lie,” he said. “Now—what’s wrong with you? You’re keeping something from me. Well, I’ve got a secret, too, and I intend to tell it presently.”

“Oh—I have a secret. I was crazy to tell you when you came back. That’s why I was so silly about everything. I kept holding my secret back—gloating over it. But when Lassiter came I got an idea—that changed my mind. Then I hated to tell you.”

“Are you going to now?”

“Yes—yes. I was coming to it. I tried yesterday, but you were so cold. I was afraid. I couldn’t keep it much longer.”

“Very well, most mysterious lady, tell your wonderful secret.”

“You needn’t laugh,” she retorted, with a first glimpse of reviving spirit. “I can take the laugh out of you in one second.”

“It’s a go.”

She ran through the spruces to the cave, and returned carrying something which was manifestly heavy. Upon nearer view he saw that whatever she held with such evident importance had been bound up in a black scarf he well remembered. That alone was sufficient to make him tingle with curiosity.

“Have you any idea what I did in your absence?” she asked.

“I imagine you lounged about, waiting and watching for me,” he replied, smiling. “I’ve my share of conceit, you know.”

“You’re wrong. I worked. Look at my hands.” She dropped on her knees close to where he sat, and, carefully depositing the black bundle, she held out her hands. The palms and inside of her fingers were white, puckered, and worn.

“Why, Bess, you’ve been fooling in the water,” he said.

“Fooling? Look here!” With deft fingers she spread open the black scarf, and the bright sun shone upon a dull, glittering heap of gold.

“Gold!” he ejaculated.

“Yes, gold! See, pounds of gold! I found it—washed it out of the stream—picked it out grain by grain, nugget by nugget!”

“Gold!” he cried.

“Yes. Now—now laugh at my secret!”

For a long minute Venters gazed. Then he stretched forth a hand to feel if the gold was real.

“Gold!” he almost shouted. “Bess, there are hundreds—thousands of dollars’ worth here!”

He leaned over to her, and put his hand, strong and clenching now, on hers.

“Is there more where this came from?” he whispered.

“Plenty of it, all the way up the stream to the cliff. You know I’ve often washed for gold. Then I’ve heard the men talk. I think there’s no great quantity of gold here, but enough for—for a fortune for you.”

“That—was—your—secret!”

“Yes. I hate gold. For it makes men mad. I’ve seen them drunk with joy and dance and fling themselves around. I’ve seen them curse and rave. I’ve seen them fight like dogs and roll in the dust. I’ve seen them kill each other for gold.”

“Is that why you hated to tell me?”

“Not—not altogether.” Bess lowered her head. “It was because I knew you’d never stay here long after you found gold.”

“You were afraid I’d leave you?”

“Yes.”

“Listen!... You great, simple child! Listen... You sweet, wonderful, wild, blue-eyed girl! I was tortured by my secret. It was that I knew we—we must leave the valley. We can’t stay here much longer. I couldn’t think how we’d get away—out of the country—or how we’d live, if we ever got out. I’m a beggar. That’s why I kept my secret. I’m poor. It takes money to make way beyond Sterling. We couldn’t ride horses or burros or walk forever. So while I knew we must go, I was distracted over how to go and what to do. Now! We’ve gold! Once beyond Sterling, we’ll be safe from rustlers. We’ve no others to fear.

“Oh! Listen! Bess!” Venters now heard his voice ringing high and sweet, and he felt Bess’s cold hands in his crushing grasp as she leaned toward him pale, breathless. “This is how much I’d leave you! You made me live again! I’ll take you away—far away from this wild country. You’ll begin a new life. You’ll be happy. You shall see cities, ships, people. You shall have anything your heart craves. All the shame and sorrow of your life shall be forgotten—as if they had never been. This is how much I’d leave you here alone—you sad-eyed girl. I love you! Didn’t you know it? How could you fail to know it? I love you! I’m free! I’m a man—a man you’ve made—no more a beggar!... Kiss me! This is how much I’d leave you here alone—you beautiful, strange, unhappy girl. But I’ll make you happy. What—what do I care for—your past! I love you! I’ll take you home to Illinois—to my mother. Then I’ll take you to far places. I’ll make up all you’ve lost. Oh, I know you love me—knew it before you told me. And it changed my life. And you’ll go with me, not as my companion as you are here, nor my sister, but, Bess, darling!... As my wife!”