Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

“My dear man, I can’t believe that of a Christian missionary. We’ve known Willetts for years. He’s a man of influence. He has money back of him. He’s doing a good work. You hint of a love relation.”

  “No, I don’t hint,” replied Withers, impatiently. “I know. It’s not the first time I’ve known a missionary to do this sort of thing. Nor is it the first time for Willetts. Bishop Kane, I live among the Indians. I see a lot I never speak of. My work is to trade with the Indians, that’s all. But I’ll not have Willetts or any other damned hypocrite run down my friend here. John Shefford is the finest young man that ever came to me in the desert. And he’s got to be put right before you all or I’ll not set foot in Stonebridge again.... Willetts was after Glen Naspa. Shefford punched him. And later threw him out of the old Indian’s hogan up on the mountain. That explains Willetts’s enmity. He was after the girl.”

  “What’s more, gentlemen, he GOT her,” added Shefford. “Glen Naspa has not been home for six months. I saw her at Blue canyon.... I would like to face this Willetts before you all.”

  “Easy enough,” replied Withers, with a grim chuckle. “He’s just outside.”

  The trader went out; Joe Lake followed at his heels and the three Mormons were next; Shefford brought up the rear and lingered in the door while his eye swept the crowd of men and Indians. His feeling was in direct contrast to his movements. He felt the throbbing of fierce anger. But it seemed a face came between him and his passion — a sweet and tragic face that would have had power to check him in a vastly more critical moment than this. And in an instant he had himself in hand, and, strangely, suddenly felt the strength that had come to him.

  Willetts stood in earnest colloquy with a short, squat Indian — the half-breed Shadd. They leaned against a hitching-rail. Other Indians were there, and outlaws. It was a mixed group, rough and hard-looking.

  “Hey, Willetts!” called the trader, and his loud, ringing voice, not pleasant, stilled the movement and sound.

  When Willetts turned, Shefford was half-way across the wide walk. The missionary not only saw him, but also Nas Ta Bega, who was striding forward. Joe Lake was ahead of the trader, the Mormons followed with decision, and they all confronted Willetts. He turned pale. Shadd had cautiously moved along the rail, nearer to his gang, and then they, with the others of the curious crowd, drew closer.

  “Willetts, here’s Shefford. Now say it to his face!” declared the trader. He was angry and evidently wanted the fact known, as well as the situation.

  Willetts had paled, but he showed boldness. For an instant Shefford studied the smooth face, with its sloping lines, the dark, wine-colored eyes.

  “Willetts, I understand you’ve maligned me to Bishop Kane and others,” began Shefford, curtly.

  “I called you an atheist,” returned the missionary, harshly.

  “Yes, and more than that. And I told these men WHY you vented your spite on me.”

  Willetts uttered a half-laugh, an uneasy, contemptuous expression of scorn and repudiation.

  “The charges of such a man as you are can’t hurt me,” he said.

  The man did not show fear so much as disgust at the meeting. He seemed to be absorbed in thought, yet no serious consideration of the situation made itself manifest. Shefford felt puzzled. Perhaps there was no fire to strike from this man. The desert had certainly not made him flint. He had not toiled or suffered or fought.

  “But I can hurt you,” thundered Shefford, with startling suddenness. “Here! Look at this Indian! Do you know him? Glen Naspa’s brother. Look at him. Let us see you face him while I accuse you.... You made love to Glen Naspa — took her from her home!”

  “Harping infidel!” replied Willetts, hoarsely. “So that’s your game. Well, Glen Naspa came to my school of her own accord and she will say so.”

  “Why will she? Because you blinded the simple Indian girl.... Willetts, I’ll waste little more time on you.”

  And swift and light as a panther Shefford leaped upon the man and, fastening powerful hands round the thick neck, bore him to his knees and bent back his head over the rail. There was a convulsive struggle, a hard flinging of arms, a straining wrestle, and then Willetts was in a dreadful position. Shefford held him in iron grasp.

  “You damned, white-livered hypocrite — I’m liable to kill you!” cried Shefford. “I watched you and Glen Naspa that day up on the mountain. I saw you embrace her. I saw that she loved you. Tell THAT, you liar! That’ll be enough.”

  The face of the missionary turned purple as Shefford forced his head back over the rail.

  “I’ll kill you, man,” repeated Shefford, piercingly. “Do you want to go to your God unprepared? Say you made love to Glen Naspa — tell that you persuaded her to leave her home. Quick!”

  Willetts raised a shaking hand and then Shefford relaxed the paralyzing grip and let his head come forward. The half-strangled man gasped out a few incoherent words that his livid, guilty face made unnecessary.

  Shefford gave him a shove and he fell into the dust at the feet of the Navajo.

  “Gentlemen, I leave him to Nas Ta Bega,” said Shefford, with a strange change from passion to calmness.

  Late that night, when the roystering visitors had gone or were deep in drunken slumber, a melancholy and strange procession filed out of Stonebridge. Joe Lake and his armed comrades were escorting the Mormon women back to the hidden valley. They were mounted on burros and mustangs, and in all that dark and somber line there was only one figure which shone white under the pale moon.

  At the starting, until that white-clad figure had appeared, Shefford’s heart had seemed to be in his throat; and thereafter its beat was muffled and painful in his breast. Yet there was some sad sweetness in the knowledge that he could see her now, be near her, watch over her.

  By and by the overcast clouds drifted and the moon shone bright. The night was still; the great dark mountain loomed to the stars; the numberless waves of rounded rock that must be crossed and circled lay deep in shadow. There was only a steady pattering of light hoofs.

  Shefford’s place was near the end of the line, and he kept well back, riding close to one woman and then another. No word was spoken. These sealed wives rode where their mounts were led or driven, as blind in their hoods as veiled Arab women in palanquins. And their heads drooped wearily and their shoulders bent, as if under a burden. It took an hour of steady riding to reach the ascent to the plateau, and here, with the beginning of rough and smooth and shadowed trail, the work of the escort began. The line lengthened out and each man kept to the several women assigned to him. Shefford had three, and one of them was the girl he loved. She rode as if the world and time and life were naught to her. As soon as he dared trust his voice and his control he meant to let her know the man whom perhaps she had not forgotten was there with her, a friend. Six months! It had been a lifetime to him. Surely eternity to her! Had she forgotten? He felt like a coward who had basely deserted her. Oh — had he only known!

  She rode a burro that was slow, continually blocking the passage for those behind, and eventually it became lame. Thus the other women forged ahead. Shefford dismounted and stopped her burro. It was a moment before she noted the halt, and twice in that time Shefford tried to speak and failed. What poignant pain, regret, love made his utterance fail!

  “Ride my horse,” he finally said, and his voice was not like his own.

  Obediently and wearily she dismounted from the burro and got up on Nack-yal. The stirrups were long for her and he had to change them. His fingers were all thumbs as he fumbled with the buckles.

  Suddenly he became aware that there had been a subtle change in her. He knew it without looking up and he seemed to be unable to go on with his task. If his life had depended upon keeping his head lowered he could not have done it. The listlessness of her drooping form was no longer manifest. The peak of the dark hood pointed toward him. He knew then that she was gazing at him.

  Never so long as he lived would that moment be forgotten! Th
ey were alone. The others had gotten so far ahead that no sound came back. The stillness was so deep it could be felt. The moon shone with white, cold radiance and the shining slopes of smooth stone waved away, crossed by shadows of pinyons.

  Then she leaned a little toward him. One swift hand flew up to tear the black hood back so that she could see. In its place flashed her white face. And her eyes were like the night.

  “YOU!” she whispered.

  His blood came leaping to sting neck and cheek and temple. What dared he interpret from that single word? Could any other word have meant so much?

  “No — one — else,” he replied, unsteadily.

  Her white hand flashed again to him, and he met it with his own. He felt himself standing cold and motionless in the moonlight. He saw her, wonderful, with the deep, shadowy eyes, and a silver sheen on her hair. And as he looked she released her hand and lifted it, with the other, to her hood. He saw the shiny hair darken and disappear — and then the lovely face with its sad eyes and tragic lips.

  He drew Nack-yal’s bridle forward, and led him up the moonlit trail.

  XII. THE REVELATION

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON cowboys and horse-wranglers, keen-eyed as Indians for tracks and trails, began to arrive in the quiet valley to which the Mormon women had been returned.

  Under every cedar clump there were hobbled horses, packs, and rolled bedding in tarpaulins. Shefford and Joe Lake had pitched camp in the old site near the spring. The other men of Joe’s escort went to the homes of the women; and that afternoon, as the curious visitors began to arrive, these homes became barred and dark and quiet, as if they had been closed and deserted for the winter. Not a woman showed herself.

  Shefford and Joe, by reason of the location of their camp and their alertness, met all the new-comers. The ride from Stonebridge was a long and hard one, calculated to wear off the effects of the whisky imbibed by the adventure-seekers. This fact alone saved the situation. Nevertheless, Joe expected trouble. Most of the visitors were decent, good-natured fellows, merely curious, and simple enough to believe that this really was what the Mormons had claimed — a village of free women. But there were those among them who were coarse, evil-minded, and dangerous.

  By supper-time there were two dozen or more of these men in the valley, camped along the west wall. Fires were lighted, smoke curled up over the cedars, gay songs disturbed the usual serenity of the place. Later in the early twilight the curious visitors, by twos and threes, walked about the village, peering at the dark cabins and jesting among themselves. Joe had informed Shefford that all the women had been put in a limited number of cabins, so that they could be protected. So far as Shefford saw or heard there was no unpleasant incident in the village; however, as the sauntering visitors returned toward their camps they loitered at the spring, and here developments threatened.

  In spite of the fact that the majority of these cowboys and their comrades were decent-minded and beginning to see the real relation of things, they were not disposed to be civil to Shefford. They were certainly not Mormons. And his position, apparently as a Gentile, among these Mormons was one open to criticism. They might have been jealous, too; at any rate, remarks were passed in his hearing, meant for his ears, that made it exceedingly trying for him not to resent. Moreover, Joe Lake’s increasing impatience rendered the situation more difficult. Shefford welcomed the arrival of Nas Ta Bega. The Indian listened to the loud talk of several loungers round the camp-fire; and thereafter he was like Shefford’s shadow, silent, somber, watchful.

  Nevertheless, it did not happen to be one of the friendly and sarcastic cowboys that precipitated the crisis. A horse-wrangler named Hurley, a man of bad repute, as much outlaw as anything, took up the bantering.

  “Say, Shefford, what in the hell’s your job here, anyway?” he queried as he kicked a cedar branch into the camp-fire. The brightening blaze showed him swarthy, unshaven, a large-featured, ugly man.

  “I’ve been doing odd jobs for Withers,” replied Shefford. “Expect to drive pack-trains in here for a while.”

  “You must stand strong with these Mormons. Must be a Mormon yerself?”

  “No,” replied Shefford, briefly.

  “Wal, I’m stuck on your job. Do you need a packer? I can throw a diamond-hitch better ‘n any feller in this country.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Mebbe you’ll take me over to see the ladies,” he went on, with a coarse laugh.

  Shefford did not show that he had heard. Hurley waited, leering as looked from the keen listeners to Shefford.

  “Want to have them all yerself, eh?” he jeered.

  Shefford struck him — sent him tumbling heavily, like a log. Hurley, cursing as he half rose, jerked his gun out. Nas Ta Bega, swift as light, kicked the gun out of his hand. And Joe Lake picked it up.

  Deliberately the Mormon cocked the weapon and stood over Hurley.

  “Get up!” he ordered, and Shefford heard the ruthless Mormon in him then.

  Hurley rose slowly. Then Joe prodded him in the middle with the cocked gun. Shefford startled, expected the gun to go off. So did the others, especially Hurley, who shrank in panic from the dark Mormon.

  “Rustle!” said Joe, and gave the man a harder prod. Assuredly the gun did not have a hair-trigger.

  “Joe, mebbe it’s loaded!” protested one of the cowboys.

  Hurley shrank back, and turned to hurry away, with Joe close after him. They disappeared in the darkness. A constrained silence was maintained around the camp-fire for a while. Presently some of the men walked off and others began to converse. Everybody heard the sound of hoofs passing down the trail. The patter ceased, and in a few moments Lake returned. He still carried Hurley’s gun.

  The crowd dispersed then. There was no indication of further trouble. However, Shefford and Joe and Nas Ta Bega divided the night in watches, so that some one would be wide awake.

  Early next morning there was an exodus from the village of the better element among the visitors. “No fun hangin’ round hyar,” one of them expressed it, and as good-naturedly as they had come they rode away. Six or seven of the desperado class remained behind, bent on mischief; and they were reinforced by more arrivals from Stonebridge. They avoided the camp by the spring, and when Shefford and Lake attempted to go to them they gave them a wide berth. This caused Joe to assert that they were up to some dirty work. All morning they lounged around under the cedars, keeping out of sight, and evidently the reinforcement from Stonebridge had brought liquor. When they gathered together at their camp, half drunk, all noisy, some wanting to swagger off into the village and others trying to hold them back, Joe Lake said, grimly, that somebody was going to get shot. Indeed, Shefford saw that there was every likelihood of bloodshed.

  “Reckon we’d better take to one of the cabins,” said Joe.

  Thereupon the three repaired to the nearest cabin, and, entering, kept watch from the windows. During a couple of hours, however, they did not see or hear anything of the ruffians. Then came a shot from over in the village, a single yell, and, after that, a scattering volley. The silence and suspense which followed were finally broken by hoof-beats. Nas Ta Bega called Joe and Shefford to the window he had been stationed at. From here they saw the unwelcome visitors ride down the trail, to disappear in the cedars toward the outlet of the valley. Joe, who had numbered them, said that all but one of them had gone.

  “Reckon he got it,” added Joe.

  So indeed it turned out; one of the men, a well-known rustler named Harker, had been killed, by whom no one seemed to know. He had brazenly tried to force his way into one of the houses, and the act had cost him his life. Naturally Shefford, never free from his civilized habit of thought, remarked apprehensively that he hoped this affair would not cause the poor women to be arrested again and haled before some rude court.

  “Law!” grunted Joe. “There ain’t any. The nearest sheriff is in Durango. That’s Colorado. And he’d give us a medal for killing Harker
. It was a good job, for it’ll teach these rowdies a lesson.”

  Next day the old order of life was resumed in the village. And the arrival of a heavily laden pack-train, under the guidance of Withers, attested to the fact that the Mormons meant not only to continue to live in the valley, but also to build and plant and enlarge. This was good news to Shefford. At least the village could be made less lonely. And there was plenty of work to give him excuse for staying there. Furthermore, Withers brought a message form Bishop Kane to the effect that the young man was offered a place as teacher in the school, in co-operation with the Mormon teachers. Shefford experienced no twinge of conscience when he accepted.

  It was the fourth evening after the never-to-be-forgotten moonlight ride to the valley that Shefford passed under the dark pinon-trees on his way to Fay Larkin’s cottage. He paused in the gloom and memory beset him. The six months were annihilated, and it was the night he had fled. But now all was silent. He seemed to be trying to drag himself back. A beginning must be made. Only how to meet her — what to say — what to conceal!

  He tapped on the door and she came out. After all, it was a meeting vastly different from what his feeling made him imagine it might have been. She was nervous, frightened, as were all the other women, for that matter. She was alone in the cottage. He made haste to reassure her about the improbability of any further trouble such as had befallen the last week. As he had always done on those former visits to her, he talked rapidly, using all his wit, and here his emotion made him eloquent; he avoided personalities, except to tell about his prospects of work in the village, and he sought above all to lead her mind from thought of herself and her condition. Before he left her he had the gladness of knowing he had succeeded.

  When he said good night he felt the strange falsity of his position. He did not expect to be able to keep up the deception for long. That roused him, and half the night he lay awake, thinking. Next day he was the life of the work and study and play in that village. Kindness and good-will did not need inspiration, but it was keen, deep passion that made him a plotter for influence and friendship. Was there a woman in the village whom he might trust, in case he needed one? And his instinct guided him to her whom he had liked well — Ruth. Ruth Jones she had called herself at the trial, and when Shefford used the name she laughed mockingly. Ruth was not very religious, and sometimes she was bitter and hard. She wanted life, and here she was a prisoner in a lonely valley. She welcomed Shefford’s visits. He imagined that she had slightly changed, and whether it was the added six months with its trouble and pain or a growing revolt he could not tell. After a time he divined that the inevitable retrogression had set in: she had not enough faith to uphold the burden she had accepted, nor the courage to cast it off. She was ready to love him. That did not frighten Shefford, and if she did love him he was not so sure it would not be an anchor for her. He saw her danger, and then he became what he had never really been in all the days of his ministry — the real helper. Unselfishly, for her sake, he found power to influence her; and selfishly, for the sake of Fay Larkin, he began slowly to win her to a possible need.