by Zane Grey
“Melberne, somebody in this camp let out them wild horses,” declared Loughbridge, forcefully.
“You still harpin’ on that? Wal, Jim, I’m a tired man an’ your voice ain’t soothin’.”
“All the same, you gotta hear me,” replied Loughbridge, hotly. “Manerube swears he can prove it.”
“Huh! Prove what?” snorted Melberne, his manner changing.
“Thet somebody from this camp opened them corral gates an’ let loose our horses.”
“Say, talk sense. Nobody but Jake an’ our women were heah,” retorted Melberne.
“Some of your outfit rode into camp before eleven last night,” went on Loughbridge. “Between then and daylight there was plenty of time for a rider to do the trick.”
“Wal, I reckon that might be so,” drawled Melberne. “Is Manerube accusin’ any rider who got heah early last night?”
“No, he ain’t. Not yet.”
“Ahuh! All right. I shore hope you tell me before he begins his accusin’, because I’m too dog tired to go dodgin’ round. I want somethin’ to get behind.”
Loughbridge fumed over this slow, sarcastic speech, and he regarded his former partner with some doubt and much disfavor. Then he burst out with redoubled vehemence.
“If Manerube does prove it, you’ll have to pay me half the money we’d earned for two more days’ drive.”
“Loughbridge, you’re plumb locoed,” rejoined Melberne, in a voice that had gathered might. “You’re as crazy as I was when I made a partnership with you or when I listened to Manerube.”
“Crazy, am I?” shouted the other, hoarsely. “But you’ll pay me just the same.”
“Crazy, shore. An’ as for Manerube provin’ that, why I’m tellin’ you he couldn’t prove anythin’ under this heah sun to me.”
“Hell! I’m not carin’ what you think or what you tell. I’m talking business. Money!”
“Wal, you’ve shore got your last dollar from me, Jim Loughbridge. An’ if you think so little of my talk — mebbe you’d listen to bullets!”
The sharp, quick, cold voice ceased and there was a silence that proved the effect of the sudden contrast in Melberne’s tone and manner.
“What!” bellowed Loughbridge, his red face turning ashen.
“Reckon I’ve learned patience from Mormons. But I was born in Texas,” replied Melberne, with more dignity than passion. Still, the menace of his voice and eye had not disappeared.
“Melberne, here we split,” said Loughbridge. “I want half this outfit.”
“Wal, you’re welcome — when you pay me for it. Not before,” rejoined the leader, and with a gesture of finality he strode toward the tents.
Loughbridge drew Manerube and the two strange riders aside, where they took up a low and earnest conversation.
Sue, nervously recovering from the shock of the encounter between her father and Loughbridge, was about to move away when Chane Weymer confronted her. The smile in his dark eyes disarmed Sue for the moment. Certain it was that her heart turned traitor to her will.
“Sue, you’re a dandy brave girl,” said Chane, very low. Never before had he addressed her by her first name, let alone pay her a compliment.
“Indeed?” returned Sue, impertinently. But she knew she was going to blush unless fury or something rushed to her rescue.
“You have such dainty little feet. Your riding boots make such pretty tracks,” went on Chane, still low voiced, still smiling down into her eyes. But now his words held strange significance. Sue felt a cold shiver run over her.
“You — think so,” she faltered.
Chane glanced round, apparently with casual manner, but Sue saw the piercing keenness of his eyes. He was deep. He was kind. She trembled as she realized that somehow again he was helping her. Suddenly he bent lower.
“Manerube must have seen your boot tracks down by the corral gates,” he said, swiftly. “But he can’t prove it. I found them later, and I stepped them out in the dust. They’re gone.”
“Ah!” breathed Sue, lifting her hands to her breast.
“You did a fine thing. You’ve courage, girl. I wanted to free those wild horses.”
Sue could not answer, not because she did not want to thank him for both service and compliment, but for the reason that the look in his eyes, the depths she had never seen before, rendered her mute. He was gazing down at her wonderingly, as if she presented a new character, one that stirred admiration, and he was going to speak again when something interrupted. Sue heard voices and the patter of light hoofs on the leaves. Chane straightened up to look. His dark face lighted with gladness.
“Piutes! By golly! My friend Toddy Nokin has come with my mustangs,” he ejaculated, and he ran toward an Indian rider just entering camp.
Sue saw a small squat figure astride a shaggy pony. Chane rushed to greet him. The Piute’s face, like a mask of bronze, suddenly wreathed and wrinkled into a beautiful smile. He extended a lean sinewy hand which Chane grasped and wrung. Sue could not distinguish the words of their greeting, but it was one between friends.
A drove of clean-limbed long-maned mustangs had entered the grove, surrounded by Indian riders, picturesque with their high- crowned sombreros, their beads and silver. How supple and lithe their figures! With what ease and grace they rode!
When Sue’s gaze reverted to Chane and the Piute she was amazed to see an Indian girl ride up to them. She was bareheaded. Her raven-black hair glinted in the sunlight. She was young. Her small piquant face, her slight, graceful form, the white band of beads she wore round her head, the silver buttons and ornaments bright against her velveteen blouse — these facts of sight flashed swiftly on Sue, just a second ahead of a strange dammed- up force, vague, powerful, yet ready to burst.
Chane shouted something in Indian to this girl — perhaps her name — for she smiled as had the old Piute, and that smile gave a flashing beauty to the dusky face. It broke the barrier to Sue’s strange emotion. Her blood left her heart to confound pulse and vein. The might of that blood was stinging, searing jealousy. Pride and scorn and shame, bitter as they were, could not equal the other. Sue tortured herself one moment longer, with a woman’s perversity, and in it she saw Chane greet the Indian girl. That sufficed for her. Averting her gaze, Sue walked slowly toward her tent and upheld herself with apparent inattention. But when she had once closed and tied the flaps behind her the pretense vanished, and she sank to her knees in misery and shame.
SUE did not answer the call to the midday meal. She remained in her tent, fighting for the fortitude she would need to carry her through the inevitable worst to come. She welcomed the fact that it appeared she had been forgotten. The camp was much livelier than ever before, and Sue’s ears were continually assailed by low voices passing her tent, by loud laughter of the riders, by the movement of horses. Anxious as she was over the break between her father and Loughbridge, she did not long dwell upon it. Her personal trouble was paramount.
A heavy clinking step outside her tent brought Sue up, excited and thrilling.
“Sue, are you home?” asked her father.
“Always to you, dad. Come in,” she replied, untying the tent flaps.
He entered and closed the flaps after him. Then throwing his sombrero on the bed, with the gesture of a man come to stay awhile, he faced Sue with an unusual expression, which to her meant sympathy, perplexity, remorse, and something beyond her at the moment.
“Lass, if you want to see a locoed daddy, just look at me,” he said.
“I’m looking — and, well, you don’t seem quite so bad as you say,” replied Sue, with a nervous little laugh. “What is the matter?”
“Wal, a lot of things, but mostly I’m a damn fool.”
“Have you had more words with Loughbridge?” queried Sue, anxiously.
“He’s all words. He’s been houndin’ me again aboot money. But I’ll settle him shortly. It’s not Loughbridge who’s botherin’ me now.”
“Who, then?”
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sp; Her father sat down on the bed, and Sue, with heart beginning to misbehave, dropped to her knees before him. If he had not seemed so kind, and somehow protective, Sue would have been frightened.
“Who’s bothering you, dad?” she went on.
Then he met her eyes. Behind the smile in his there was sadness.
“This heah Chane Weymer,” he said.
“Oh, — dad, don’t say you’ve quarrelled with him!” she exclaimed wildly.
He studied Sue closely, peering deep into her eyes. “Wal, what’d you do if I said me an’ Weymer was goin’ to fight?”
“Fight? Oh, my Heaven! no — no! Dad, I’d never let you fight him,” she cried, suddenly clinging to him.
“Ahuh! I had a hunch you wouldn’t, my lass,” he returned, shrewdly. “Wal, I was just tryin’ to scare you. Fact is there’s no quarrel.”
Sue sank against his shoulder and hid her telltale face, while the awful panic that had threatened slowly subsided in her breast. She grew aware of her father’s arm round her, tenderly and closely holding her.
“Lass, you an’ me are in a devil of a hole.”
“You mean about the horses?”
“No. Aboot Chane.”
“Chane!” she echoed, blankly.
“Yes, Chane. You’re not bright this mawnin’. Wal, I don’t wonder. But haven’t you a hunch what the trouble is?”
“Your trouble with Ch — with him? No, dad.”
“Wal, I shore hate to tell you. Yet, I’m more glad than sorry.... Lass, we’ve done Chane Weymer wrong. I felt it days ago. Now I know. He’s the finest man I ever met in all my life. Manerube is a dirty liar. He’s what Chess called him that night. He’s just exactly what he made out to us Chane was.”
Sue felt as if she had been stabbed. Then joy welled up out of her agony. She sank into her father’s arms, blinded with tears.
“Lass, you love Chane?” he whispered.
The query, the simple spoken words, the tremendous meaning of them in another’s voice, made Sue shake like a leaf. She could speak no answer. She had betrayed herself. Yet it was not the revealing of her secret that held her mute.
“Wal, you needn’t give yourself away,” continued her father, gently. “But I reckon I know. I seen you look at Chane once — the way your mother use to look at me.”
After that he held her in silence for a long while, until Sue recovered in sufficient measure to sit up and wipe her eyes and face the situation.
“Dad, you can’t guess how glad I was to hear you say that about Chane. Never mind now why. Just tell me — how you know.”
“I shore will,” replied her father, earnestly. “These heah Piutes an’ Navajos are friends of Chane’s. They have a bunch of mustangs for Chane to sell, an’ I’ve bought them. Wal, when the old Indian — Toddy Nokin — saw Manerube he just grabbed for his rifle. He shore was goin’ to do for that rider. But Chane got hold of the gun, took it away from him, an’ talked. Toddy Nokin was shore a mad Indian. He couldn’t understand Chane. Neither did I then. But you can bet I was keen to find out. It seems this Piute is a chief an’ a man of dignity an’ intelligence. He speaks some English. He says he thinks Manerube is a horse thief, in with Bud McPherson, but he can’t prove that. But he an’ Chane caught Manerube carryin’ off the little Indian girl, Sosie. You remember how Manerube’s face was all black an’ blue when he came to us? How he bragged we ought to see the other fellow! Wal, Chane beat Manerube soundly an’ drove him off. You remember, Sue, how Manerube said he did just that to Chane?”
“Remember! Can I ever forget I believed it?” cried Sue, shrinking.
“Wal, Manerube is the one with the bad name among the Indians. Not Chane! We talked with the Navajo, too. He said Chane was never a squaw man. Then I got hold of the girl Sosie. Shore I had the surprise of my life. Sue, she’s educated. Talks as well as you! An’ what she said aboot Manerube was aplenty. I’ll gamble the Piutes kill that rider.... Wal, Sosie said Chane was the kind of man among the Indians the missionaries ought to be but wasn’t.”
“Oh, I knew it, in my heart,” wailed Sue. “But I was a jealous cat.”
“Wal, lass, Chane said as much aboot me,” went on her father, breathing heavily. “I went to him an’ I up like a man an’ told him I’d wronged him an’ was sorry. An’ the darned fellow asked me what aboot. I told him I’d believed Manerube’s gossip. An’, Sue, what do you think he said?”
“I’ve no idea,” murmured Sue.
“He said, ‘Melberne, you’re a damn liar. You knew that wasn’t true. Now shut up aboot it an’ let’s be friends.’... Wal, Chane has stumped me more than once. But that was the last straw. Funny, too, because he was right. I knew he was a man. But this horse-wranglin’ had upset me, sort of locoed me.”
“So he forgave you?” queried Sue, dreamily. “Will he ever forgive me?”
“Shore. Why, that fellow’s heart is as tender as your mother’s.”
“Dad, it’s different in my case.... I shall go straight to him, presently, and confess I wronged him.... I can tell him I’m — I’m little, miserable, but I couldn’t ask his forgiveness.”
“Huh! You won’t need to. The fellow’s crazy about you. He — —”
“Dad, please don’t,” whispered Sue, dropping her head.
“Lass, never mind my bluntness. I’m rough an’ thick. Don’t fret over the turn of affairs. It’s sort of tough, but I’m glad, an’ shore you’ll be glad, too.”
“I’m glad now. But it’s terribly worse for me.”
“Wal, lass, fight it out your own way,” he responded, with a sigh. “I know things will work out right. They always do.”
“What’ll you do about Loughbridge and Manerube?” inquired Sue, remembering other issues at stake.
“Get rid of them,” her father replied, tersely. “Then we’ll strike for Wild Horse Mesa.”
“To catch more wild horses?”
“Yes, but in an honest way. Mebbe I’ll have the luck to catch Panquitch. If I do he’s yours. But Chane says the man doesn’t live who can beat him to that stallion.”
“Then — Chane is going with us?” asked Sue, veiling her eyes.
“Shore. An’ he’s goin’ to take us to Nightwatch Spring, which he swears is the most beautiful place for a ranch in Utah.”
LATER Sue sat on the cottonwood log with Chess and Ora, assuredly the most absorbingly interested one in the Piute girl, Sosie. Sue had bravely sauntered forth on what seemed a severe ordeal for her, yet so curious was she to see and hear this Indian maiden that she would have endured anything to satisfy herself. Besides curiosity, disgust had been her most prominent feeling.
Sue found herself in line to be as surprised as was her father. At first she regarded Sosie as an alien creature, unsexed, a wild little savage. Her impressions having been formed long before had become fixed.
Sosie evidently liked the opportunity to be with young white people. Chess soon overcame what little shyness she had felt and inspired her to tell them about herself. Never in her life had Sue listened to so fascinating and tragic a story. Sosie told about her childhood, tending goats and sheep on the desert, how she had been forced to go to the government school, and later to a school in California, how she had learned the language and the habits of white people. The religion of the Indians had been schooled and missionaried out of her. Then when she had advanced as far as possible she was given a choice of becoming a servant or returning to her own people. She chose the latter, hoping her education would enable her to teach her family better ways of living. But her efforts resulted in failure and misunderstanding. Her people believed the white education had made her think she was above them. She could no longer accept the religion of the Indian tribe and she would not believe in the white man’s. She had to abandon her habits of cleanliness, of comfort, of eating, and return to the crude ways of her people. Lastly, she had been importuned to marry. Her father, her mother, every relative nagged her to marry one of her own color. Finally she had yielde
d and had married one of the braves of her tribe, a young chief who had also received an education at the government schools. He and she had this much in common, that they understood each other and the fatality of the situation. The future held nothing for them, except life in the open, which, somehow, seemed best for the Indian.
An hour after this Indian girl had begun to talk Sue had shifted from disgust and intolerance to amaze and sorrow. Sosie was not what she had expected. The girl was a little beauty. Her small proud head, her shining black hair, like night, her piquant face lighted by great dusky eyes, her red lips and white teeth, her slender form adorned in faded velveteen and ornamented with silver and beads, her little moccasined feet — all these features fascinated and captivated Sue. A white man might have been excused, certainly forgiven, for being attracted to this girl. It was hard for Sue to believe she was an Indian.
At length Ora coaxed Chess to go with her on some errand, and this circumstance left Sue alone with Sosie, which was the opportunity she craved. Sue felt it in her heart to be kind and good to this unfortunate girl. How Sue despised her hasty judgments! The white people, the civilization to which she belonged, had made this Indian girl what she was. But first of all, Sue strangely and passionately longed to hear Sosie speak of Manerube as he had spoken of Chane.
“My dad says you knew Manerube — over there across the rivers?” began Sue, driven to this issue.
“Yes, I knew Bent Manerube,” replied Sosie, frankly, but without rancor. “He made love to me. You know Indian girls like white men to do that. Manerube got me to run off with him. But my father and Chane Weymer caught us.”
“Then — then what — happened?” questioned Sue, faltering in her eagerness.
Sosie laughed, showing her little white teeth. “Chane ordered me off the horse. Then he made Manerube confess he didn’t mean to marry me. They fought, and Chane whipped Manerube. I enjoyed that. I wanted to see him kill the liar.”
“Did you — love Manerube?” continued Sue, desperately. How almost impossible it was to ask these questions! Only Sosie’s simplicity, her lack of sophistication, the something about her that was not white, strengthened Sue to go on with this interrogation.
