by Zane Grey
“Janey, darling,” he called, with an importuning, almost hopeless, gesture.
This, strangely, came near being Janey’s undoing. She wanted to obey him. Never could she be driven, but she was not tenderness-proof. Her sudden incomprehensible weakness roused her to fury.
“Philly, sweetheart, you’ve kidnaped the wrong woman!” she screamed at him.
Randolph deliberately wheeled and went back to the bench. Facing her then he called out: “Go and be damned. You’ll find out you can’t fly. And you’d better stay over there, for if you ever come back, you’ll pay for this.”
Thus inspired, Janey turned to the narrow strip. It would not have frightened her if it had been a beanpole across Niagara. Sure as a mountain sheep she stepped, and never got down on hands and knees until she reached the knifelike edge. Over this she crawled like a monkey. She stood up again and ran the rest of the way. Gaining the bench she went for a peep round the vast corner of wall. The most wonderful of all the caverns opened before her. It was stupendous, overpowering. How marvelous to come back again and explore! Whereupon she retraced her steps.
Randolph remained as motionless as a statue watching her. On the return, Janey exercised coolness where at first she had been daring. She crawled most of the way and never looked down into the abyss once. Breathless and hot she rested a moment before taking to the rim wall, then walked across that to where Randolph stood waiting. She saw that he was white to the lips, but he wheeled before she could get a second look at his face. It seemed silly to follow him, but she did, wondering what he would do or say. He led the way back toward camp.
Janey had not anticipated this. Had she gone too far? Had she hurt him irretrievably? And now that it was over she reproached herself. What a spiteful vengeful little fool she was! Still this was the part she had set herself to play.
She had difficulty in keeping up with Randolph. She kept up on the easy level ground, but over the rock slides she fell behind. It seemed a long way back to camp. Excitement and exertion had told on her. When the last corner of wall had been passed Janey thought she was pretty well all in.
Randolph had his back to her. How square his shoulders — rigid! He pivoted on his heels, to disclose terrible eyes.
“Janey Endicott, do you remember what I told you?” he demanded.
Swift as his words came a sensation of sickening weakness. Like a stroke of lightning it had come. She imagined she had been prepared, but she was not. She had misjudged him, underestimated his courage. Her subtle mind grasped at straws.
“Re-member?” she faltered, trying to smile. “About being — mad about me?”
“Mad at you!” he replied, grimly.
Then he seized her before she could move a hand. Surprise and fear inhibited her natural fighting instinct. Randolph lifted her — carried her.
Suddenly he sat down on the flat rock and flung her over his knees, face down. All her body went rigid. A terror of realization and horror of expectation clamped her mind. He spanked her with such stunning force that it seemed every bone in her body broke to the blow. The pain to her flesh was hot, stinging, fierce. The shock to her mind exceeded the sum of all shocks Janey had ever sustained. She sank limp over his knees. Smack! Harder this time. Her head and feet jerked up. Her teeth jarred in their sockets. Again! Again! Again!
Janey all but fainted. Intense fury saved her that. She rolled off his knees to the ground and bounded up like a cat. A bursting tearing gush of hot blood ran riot in her breast.
“I’ll — kill you!” she panted, low and deep.
Randolph was somewhat shaken at her fury, when she blazed so fiercely, her fists clenched, her breast swelling.
“Once in your life, Miss Endicott!” he said, huskily. “It’s done. You can’t change that. And I did it. I shall have that unique distinction among your acquaintances.”
Janey tried to fly at him, to scratch his eyes out, to beat him before murdering him. But she let him pass. She felt her legs sag under her. Blindly then she groped and crawled up to her bed, sank under the blankets and covered her face. The tension of her body relaxed. She stretched limp, palpitating, quivering. That numb dead sensation gradually gave place to burning smarting pain. The physical suffering at first had precedence over the chaos of her mind. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. And she lay there panting, slowly succumbing, her spirit subservient to her tortured flesh.
It was dark when she had to uncover her head to keep from suffocating. The bright shadows of a campfire flickered on the stone above her.
“Janey, child,” called Randolph, like a fond parent, “wash your face and hands and come to supper.”
Her blood leaped and boiled again. Rising on her hand, she was about to give passionate vent to all the profanity she had ever heard, but as she saw Randolph moving round the fire she stilled the impulse. She sank back under a compulsion she had never known. Was she beaten — whipped — cowed? No! She had only been preposterously shamed and humiliated by an educated ruffian. Her pride had been laid low. Her vanity was bleeding to death. Janey writhed in her bed, only to be made painfully aware again of the maltreated part of her anatomy. The instant there was a possibility of her returning to the old Janey Endicott, that burning pain had to recur. What a strangely subduing thing! Her mind had no control over it or the whirling thoughts it engendered.
She composed herself at last, in as comfortable a position as she could find. Again Randolph called her to supper. Eat! She would starve to death before she would eat anything he had prepared. How terribly she hated him! The revenge she had planned seemed nothing to her wild ragings now. Mere killing would not be enough. Death ended all sufferings. He must be made most horribly wretched. He must grovel at her feet and bite the very dust.
These bitter thoughts had their sway. They did not have permanence. All of a sudden Janey discovered she was crying. To realize that, to fight it and fail, added to her breakdown. She cried herself to sleep.
Her eyes opened upon azure blue sky and gold-tipped wall. Consciousness came as quickly as sight. Her impulse was to shut out the beautiful light of day. She was ashamed to face it. But slowly she moved the blanket aside. Listening, she soon ascertained that Randolph was not in camp. Peeping over the rock she saw a smoldering fire, and the steaming coffeepot and oven on it.
Janey got up. If she had needed anything to remind her of the insufferable outrage she had sustained, she had it in sudden pains, more excruciating than any she had yet endured. The ape! He had not realized his strength. Maybe he had, though. How coldly and calmly he had gone about the beating! To wait until they had come all the way back to camp! In the light of another day his offense seemed greater.
There was her breakfast on the fire. Janey remembered that she had sworn she would starve before she would touch Randolph’s food again, but she did not see any sense in that now. As a cook she was not a genius.
“If there was a mantelpiece here it’s a cinch I’d eat my breakfast off it this morning,” she said, mirthlessly.
Dark, brooding thoughts attended the slow meal. Afterward it occurred to Janey to wash the few utensils Randolph had left for her use. There was a pan of hot water at hand. This she did and not without an almost conscious gratification. Then she stared awhile into the fading red coals of the fire. Next she walked in the sun, and could not shut out a sense of its warmth, of the sweet songs of wild birds, of the fragrance of sage and canyon thicket, of the glorious light under the walls.
What was she going to do? There were a thousand things. But first, and of absolutely paramount importance, was the fact dawning upon her that she had to repeat the foolhardy act of yesterday. A new vague sweet self raised soft voice against it, but was howled down by Janey Endicott proper. She had to show Randolph that this so-called cave-man dominance of the past, as well as the masculine superiority of the present, were things abolished, obsolete, blazed out of the path by modern woman. This was no part she was playing. She had ceased to be an actress. That fun, that desi
re to turn the tables upon her father and Randolph had vanished in the night.
Randolph was at work higher up than the day before and close to the amphitheater around which Janey had crossed to the next bench.
She walked right past him, casually glancing in his direction. How could he guess that her heart was beating fast and that contending tides of emotion warred within her?
If she ever saw a man surprised it was then. The last thing Randolph would imagine was that she would come back. What sweet healing balm to Janey’s crushed vanity! He leaned on his pick and watched her. Would he order her back? Would he plead with her again?
Janey was not foolish enough to underestimate the risk of this slanting narrow trail. This time, her nerve and caution, and lightness of foot, balanced the audacity of yesterday. She crossed without a slip.
Randolph stood leaning on his pick, watching. Not a word had come from him! She could guess, of course, that he was completely routed, and probably furious. But was he disappointed? That she was an irresponsible child! Janey tossed her head. What did she care? Something hot seared her and she accepted it as hate.
Once round the huge buttress of wall, out of Randolph’s sight, she forgot him. Here was an amphitheater that dwarfed the Coliseum at Rome, and it was set against a background of magnificent forbidding walls. How silent! Janey felt that she was alone in a sepulcher. Her steps led her high, so high she marveled and thrilled, and trembled sometimes at the gigantic fissures and the leaning cliffs.
Suddenly she spotted what appeared to be little steps cut in the rock. She was astounded, could not believe her eyes. But there they were, one after another, worn, scarcely distinguishable in the smooth stone. They had been cut by hand. Intensely absorbed, Janey mounted them, forgetting the fear of high places and crumbling walls.
Presently she lost the little steps. She halted, breathless and flushed. Evidently she had climbed far. Before her spread a level bench most wonderful in its location and isolation. To look back and down made her gasp. How would she ever descend?
Her quick eye grasped at once that this wide protected bench could be reached only by the slope up which she had climbed. Suddenly it dawned upon her that the predominating feature of this place was its inaccessibility. These little steps had been cut by cliff dwellers! Her heart beat faster than ever. She had discovered something. If Randolph had known of this place surely he would have told her.
Janey began to explore. In the smooth rock she found round polished holes where grain had been ground centuries before. She found the stone pestles lying as if a hand had laid them aside only yesterday. She found the edge of a wall buried in debris. Little red stones, neatly cut and cemented! High up she sighted a cliff dwelling pasted like a mud wasp’s nest against the shelf of rock. She had thought this amphitheater level, but it was not. It began to look as if a great space had been buried by avalanche or the weathering processes of ages. It would take days to explore it.
Janey stepped into a hole up to her knee. It appeared to her the ground had given way under her. Pulling her leg out she was overcome to discover that she had stepped through a roof over something. Carefully she brushed aside the dirt and dust. She found poles of wood, close together, and as rotten as punk.
“Ah — huh! That’s something,” she ejaculated.
The hole made by her foot stared at her like a black eye. It spoke. Janey began to thrill and shake. She dropped a little stone in it. No sound! She tried a large stone. She heard it strike far down. Then this was a kiva. Well? Then Janey’s mind bristled into action. “Beckyshibeta!” she whispered, in awe.
She sat down, suddenly overcome. She had discovered the ancient pueblo for which Randolph had been searching so diligently. It stunned her. How strange! What luck! There seemed a destiny in the willfulness that had led her to this place. It must be more than chance.
Then she remembered boasting to Randolph that she would find Beckyshibeta for him. She had done so. She had not a single doubt. And suddenly her joy equaled her amazement and transcended it. What a perfectly wonderful thing for Randolph. She was so happy she laughed and cried at once. It was not a delusion. Here opened the black mysterious eye of a kiva.
Janey was consumed with only one desire. To tell Randolph! She climbed, she ran. The little steps cut in the stone slope had no terror for her now. In bad places she sat down and slid, unmindful of her dress or skin. Yet how long it took to get down. Once on the bench below she could not go fast. It was too rough. And at that she got more than one knock from a rock. At last she got round the last corner of wall, out of breath, panting so that she had to rest a moment.
Randolph was there, digging, digging, digging. Presently he would have something to dig for. With her breast heaving, Janey watched him. The moment was somehow rich, sweet, beautiful, far reaching and inscrutable. Then she cupped her hands and called through them piercingly.
“Mr. — Randolph.”
He heard her, for he straightened up, looked, and then resumed work with his pick.
“Come! Come over!” called Janey. He looked again, but did not reply.
“Phillip. Come over!”
Here he quit his labors and leaned upon his pick, evidently nonplussed.
“Phil! Please come!” shrilled Janey.
“No. Not. Never. Nix!” he called, imitating her.
“Phil, I want you,” she went on. “Nothing doing.”
“If you come over — you — you — you’ll have the surprise of your life.”
“I don’t care for your kind of surprises, Miss Endicott,” he replied after a jarring pause.
“But you will, I tell you.”
“Not on your life!”
“Honest. Only come,” she called, now pleadingly.
No answer. Randolph stood like a statue. Janey could hardly contain herself any longer. He was making it so perfectly wonderful for her. What a climax! She must lead him to her discovery. In her excitement she was quite capable of going to unheard-of limits to accomplish her purpose. Beckyshibeta had changed the world for Janey. She had no time to stop to analyze the transformation.
“I’ll make you happy, Phil,” she trilled, persuadingly.
“You’ve got another guess coming, Miss Endicott,” he said.
What a stubborn creature a man could be anyway! And this one with his dream of ambition waiting for him! Janey had a wild notion that she might include herself in the finding of Beckyshibeta. Assuredly there was need of her discovering herself now.
“Phillip, dear. Come,” she called, despairingly.
“I told you not to go over there,” he answered. “Now you can get back by yourself.”
“I’m terribly scared, Phillip. I — I’ve sort of found out — something.”
“Fly over,” he replied, mockingly. “Is that nice — when I want you?” “Janey Endicott, every word you utter is a lie.”
“No. I’ve stopped lying. Come and see.”
“I tell you I’m as unmovable as these rocks,” he shouted, in a tone that signified considerable strain.
He just imagined he was, thought Janey, but still he might carry his stubbornness to a point of spoiling her little plan. Nevertheless, if she could not move him now, she would have the pleasure of keeping it secret longer.
“Phil, dearest,” she called.
“You go to the devil!” he yelled, using her very words, but his tone was vastly different.
“My darling!” cried Janey, at the end of her rope. If that did not fetch him!
Randolph desperately jumped into the hole he had been digging. She could see his pick move up and down, with speed that implied tremendous effort. Janey realized that her plan was useless for the time being, so she decided she had better husband her resources and attack him later. What she could not accomplish at such long range would be easy enough by close contact.
Whereupon she stepped out on the narrow strip. As she did so her eye, for the first time, caught the perilous depth and the jagged rocks far beneat
h. Janey stepped back with a sudden cold sensation. Life might have grown singularly full all at once, but death was still only a step away. But she was not one to lose her head during excitement. She crossed this dangerous bridge with coolness and courage, taking no chances, and unmindful of her sore knees. She made it successfully.
Randolph’s back was turned. She approached and hiding behind a large rock, peeped out at him. For what seemed long moments he did not look. But at last he straightened up and gazed around evidently to see where she had gone. Janey took good care to keep hidden. She was tingling all over. He concluded that she had passed him and gone on out of sight. Then he sat down on the edge of the hole, removed his sombrero and wiped his face. He sat there idle, lost in thought. How sad his expression! His trouble in this unguarded moment was there to read. Janey conquered her impulse to rush out and tell him there were at least a couple of reasons why he should be tickled to death. But the moment gave her a glimpse into his heart. And it stirred Janey so deeply, so strangely, that she wished to escape being seen by Randolph. At length, wearily and without hope, he looked again in the direction he supposed Janey had taken, and then resumed his work. Janey slipped away noiselessly and rounded the corner of wall without being seen.
Soon she yielded to a desire to sit down and think about herself. What had happened? She went over it all. Where had vanished the delight, the inexplicable joy she had anticipated? Randolph’s sad face had checked her, changed the direction of her thoughts. She felt so sorry for him that she wanted to weep. Resuming her journey back to camp she went on a little way, then stopped again. Something was wrong. Her breast seemed oppressed, her heart too full. She felt it pound. Surely she had not exerted herself enough for that. No — the commotion was emotional. She had sustained an unaccountable transition. She was no longer the old Janey Endicott. A last time she sat down to fight it out — to face her soul. After all how easy! Only to be honest! For the first time in her life, she was honestly, deeply, truly in love. No need of wild wonderings, of whirling repudiations! She had fallen in love with this adventure, with the glorious desert, with the lonely soul- transforming canyons, and with Phillip Randolph.
