by Zane Grey
“I can’t understand that, either,” Cherry replied soberly.
“He must have guessed it and hoped I’d rescue you,” went on Chauncey. “Or else he saw you were gone beyond redemption.”
“That probably is it, Chauncey,” Cherry said with sweet meekness.
Heftral appeared the most uncomfortable of the four, although Mrs. Sarland was getting ready to explode.
“Anyway, it’s too late,” concluded Sarland with bitterness. “Heftral, you told me you were not married. ‘Certainly not,’ you said.”
“Yes, I…did,” Heftral returned haltingly, as if his mind was not working.
“There! Cherry, you swore you were Missus Stephen Heftral, didn’t you?” went on the accuser, bolder as he recognized he had the whip hand.
“Yes, I did,” Cherry returned, bending terrible eyes upon Stephen.
“Miss Winters!” burst out Mrs. Sarland in accents of horror. “You’re here with this man alone?”
“Yes, but not willingly, Missus Sarland,” Cherry answered with profound sorrow. “He kidnaped me.”
“Kidnaped you? Good heavens! Then he isn’t what he pretends to be?”
“Indeed he isn’t.”
“Desperado…Wild West villain sort of man?” she whispered huskily.
“Worse than that.”
Chauncey had turned pale at this revelation. His distended eyes, fast upon Heftral, denoted both fear and anger. “Your name isn’t Heftral?” he queried apprehensively.
“Looks as if my name is Dennis,” Heftral returned, coming out of his stupefaction.
“Chauncey, the truth is he is Black Dick, a notorious character hereabouts,” explained Cherry.
“Black Dick! I…I heard about him from the driver,” rejoined Sarland apprehensively. “But, Cherry, why did you try to deceive me about yourself? Why didn’t you tell me in the first place who this man was?”
“It was the shame…the ignominy of it all, Chauncey,” she said, enjoying Heftral’s discomfort. “I knew he’d drive you off and I thought I could get away with that story. I’d rather have died out here than have anyone know.”
“And he actually kidnaped you?”
“Well, I just guess he did. Ambushed me when I was in camp with friends on the way here. He caught me alone. Seems he followed all the way from the post where he’d been watching me. He grabbed me. I fought with all my might. But he was too much for me. Tied me on a horse. Oh, it was awful! Look at these black-and-blue marks. These are nothing to others I have that I…I can’t very well show you. I had to ride a whole day and night in the most terrible storm. When we got here, I was more dead than alive.”
“By Jove, it’s like a book!” ejaculated Chauncey. “Kidnaped you for ransom? Heard about your dad’s wealth, of course?”
“No, Chauncey, it isn’t money he’s after,” declared Cherry. “I imagined that at first. And I offered to give him everything from ten to a hundred thousand dollars. But the brute would only laugh and kiss me again. Swears the minute he saw me at the post he went mad over me.”
Chauncey’s consternation and fright were strong, but he laughed—hysterically—nonetheless. He rocked to and fro. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! It was coming to you…Cherry Winters! Drove him mad? Ha! Ha! He’s only one of many. Prefers kissing you to a hundred thousand bucks! By golly, you’ve finally got the kick you were always longing for!”
“Chauncey, I deserve all I’m getting,” Cherry rejoined, sadly resigned.
“Why didn’t your father get word of this? What is the matter with your friends?”
“I think they must have been captured by Black Dick’s outfit and are being held.”
“My God! And…and where is Heftral, the archaeologist? They said he was here.”
Cherry managed a convincing moan. “There was a Mister Heftral, a wonderful man, but now he’s…he’s gone, and there’s nobody but this vicious desperado left.”
Chauncey turned white. “You mean…?”
“Hush!” Cherry almost screamed. “Don’t remind me!”
All this time Heftral had been standing near, gazing at them and absorbing the fantastic dialogue. He had assumed a most ferocious aspect, and Cherry, after a second glance, thought it was genuine. At this juncture, the Indian guide who had brought the Sarlands appeared riding through the cedars. Heftral strode to intercept him and spoke some Indian words in very loud and authoritative tones. The rider wheeled his horse and disappeared the way he had come.
“Look,” whispered Cherry. “I told you. He’s driven off your guide.”
“Cherry, I’ll beat it and fetch a horse back to save you,” Chauncey whispered, breathless with the excitement of the idea, and he made for his horse.
“Chauncey! Don’t leave me!” screamed Mrs. Sarland, who had been listening, pale and mute up to this minute.
Heftral also espied Sarland, and vigorously called him to come back. But Chauncey only went the faster. Whereupon Heftral pulled his gun and fired in the air.
Bang! Bang!
“Come hyar,” roared Heftral, “or I’ll make a sieve out of you!”
Mrs. Sarland gave a loud squawk and promptly fainted. Chauncey ran back, very wobbly and livid.
“D-don’t kill me…Mister Dick,” he implored. Plain it was the two shots had brought him realization.
“All right then, but no monkey business,” Heftral growled, flipping up the gun and returning it to his belt. “You better look after your mother. I reckon being strong-headed doesn’t run in the family.”
Whereupon Heftral strode in the direction of Cherry. She saw him coming and went in the opposite direction. Heftral caught up with her at the corner of the wall.
“Something of a mess, isn’t it?” he said quietly as he detained her.
Cherry sat down upon a flat rock and fastened solemn eyes upon him. There did not seem to be need of further pretense, for she was really distressed, yet she not only welcomed the facts of the case but also meant to keep on accentuating them.
“Stephen, you have ruined me,” she said tragically.
“Oh, Cherry, it can’t be as bad as all that,” he protested.
“Why didn’t you acknowledge me as your wife?” she asked.
“My God! How could I ever dream you’d say that? Sarland asked me if I was married. And I said certainly not. He suspected, of course, and I was fool enough to fall into his trap.”
“Chauncey knows many of my friends. He will tell.”
“But he said you were engaged to marry him!” ejaculated Heftral.
“Piffle! I never was. How could you believe it?”
“I’m afraid I could believe almost anything of you,” he returned in bitter doubt.
“That has been evident all along,” she replied, aloof and cold. “But it does not mitigate your offense…It might be possible to keep Chauncey from talking. But not Missus Sarland. She’s an old gossip. This little escapade of ours will kill her ambition to see me Chauncey’s wife. She will get it through her thick head that it always was impossible. And she’ll take her vindictiveness out on me. She’ll ruin my reputation.”
“How can she?” Heftral asked miserably. “I thought modern girls didn’t have reputations to lose.”
“That’s an hallucination of yours and my father’s. Granted a certain freedom and license of modern life, it’s true all the same that there are still limits. We’ve transgressed the most vital one.”
“Not you, Cherry. I’m to blame.”
“That’ll do me a lot of good, I don’t think,” rejoined Cherry dismally.
“But maybe we can carry out this idea of me being Black Dick. He’s well-known on the reservation. Travels around with a half-breed Paiute. They’ve been known to hold up tourists. Perhaps I can carry the bluff through.”
“You can try, surely. But in my opinion it’s a
forlorn hope. Besides, the cowboys will trail us. You heard what Missus Sarland said. The cowboys evidently changed their plans.”
“Your father…er…or something may put them off the track,” Heftral said lamely.
“Father? Why, man alive, he’ll send the cowboys after me!” exclaimed Cherry. “I declare I don’t know where your wits are.”
“If I ever had any, they vanished when you appeared on my horizon. So did my peace. And now, I may add, my character, too, is gone.”
“Rubbish! What is disgrace nowadays to a man?” Cherry retorted with supreme contempt. “You ran off with a girl! It’ll never hurt you. It’d make you more attractive…after I divorce you!”
“Divorce me?” Heftral echoed feebly.
“Certainly. You’ll have to marry me, at least, to make this stunt of yours halfway decent. Then I’ll get a divorce.”
“But if the Black Dick bluff should go over?” he asked with a ray of hope.
“OK for the Sarlands,” replied Cherry. “But I was thinking of the cowboys and the Linns, after the Sarlands go. We can’t fool those sharp-eyed Westerners. However, they may hang you. And I suppose that would save my reputation, if not the notoriety.”
“Hang me! I wish to God they’d come and do it,” returned Heftral. “I’m surely at the end of a rope right now.”
“No such luck,” sighed Cherry. “You may come out of it scotfree. The woman pays.”
“I…I’m most desperately sorry,” Heftral said, wringing his hands. “I’d like to have…somebody…here to choke. But it can’t be so bad. We’ll fool or muzzle these Sarlands. As for the Westerners…well, they’re not so free at gossip and Arizona is a long way from New York. You will…”
“Stephen, don’t jolly yourself,” interposed Cherry. “You’ve ruined me irretrievably.”
Cherry wished to drive this point home. Truthfully she did not consider he had done anything of the kind, although this escapade had the closest call to ugliness of any Cherry had ever experienced. She might be clear enough to get around it. For the present, however, she worked to make it appear very black and hopeless to Heftral. She appeared to be having fair success, for he swore under his breath, and, sitting down, he covered his face with his hands.
“You’re a fine brave kidnaper and desperado,” said Cherry. “Don’t let the Sarlands see you look like that.”
He took no heed of her banter. “I’ve ruined you…and…and what am I? When Elliott’s word reaches headquarters, I’ll be done for.”
“Well, suppose you are fired. You can go on your own. Wouldn’t it be better for you to discover Beckyshibeta now than when you were employed by the government?”
“You talk like a child,” he replied wearily.
“Why?” Cherry inquired in lofty surprise. “I think I’m pretty gracious, considering.”
“What do I care about Beckyshibeta?” he burst out with sullen passion. “When you step out of my life, there will be nothing left.”
This was sweet incense to Cherry. Almost it made her softer and yield to the clamoring voice within.
“That is sad…if true,” she returned with proper pity and constraint. “But you have only yourself to blame.”
“Bah!”
“I respected you once…liked you,” went on Cherry in merciless sweetness. “Now you have made me…hate you.”
“I could expect nothing else,” he said, lifting his head with dignity. “I am not asking your pity…or even your forgiveness.”
“Oh, as to that, of course I could never forgive. One thing you’ve done, an angel herself could not forgive…though I don’t quite fit into that category.”
“Not quite,” he responded dryly, and stood up, hard and stern. “But what’s to be done? We’re up against these confounded friends of yours.”
“It’ll be best to keep them here,” replied Cherry. “Until something turns up. Carry on the Black Dick bluff. Let’s see what an actor you can be.”
“I’m no actor. I couldn’t deceive a child.”
“You deceived me,” protested Cherry. “I imagined you gentle, kind…the very opposite to what you are. Be natural now. Be a brute to me, like you were. I’ll play up to it. And make these Sarlands pay for butting in on our…what shall I call it?…our cañon paradise. Be a monster to Missus Sarland, and scare the everlasting daylights out of that fortune-hunting young sheik.”
“That last will be easy,” Heftral replied grimly.
Eleven
Heftral’s preoccupation with himself interfered with his acting a part. But that very grim aloofness made him the more convincing and mysterious to the Easterners.
Chauncey was a picture of astonishment when he espied Cherry staggering into camp under a load of firewood.
“Don’t you do it, Cherry,” he said. “I’ll get the wood.” And leaving his mother, who importuned him to stay, he started off with Cherry.
“Hyar, girl, don’t go traipsing out of my sight with that jackass,” growled Heftral in so natural a tone that Cherry knew he was not masquerading.
Then while Chauncey went off alone, Cherry approached Mrs. Sarland.
“I’ve money and jewelry on my person,” stated that lady nervously. “Isn’t that ruffian liable to steal them?”
“Sure. He’ll search you presently,” affirmed Cherry.
“Search me!” gasped Mrs. Sarland.
“I should smile,” replied Cherry cheerfully.
“Has he searched you?”
“Not yet. But anyone could see I couldn’t hide anything. I’ve so little on.”
“If he does I’ll…I’ll expire in my tracks,” Mrs. Sarland declared, and she looked it.
Heftral yelled for Cherry to come back to the fire.
“Does he mean me, too?” asked Mrs. Sarland.
“You’ll know when he means you. And for heaven’s sake, obey him quick. He’s an awful brute. Nothing for him to give you a good sound cuff.”
“The unspeakable monster! Of all acts…to strike a lady. He should be flayed alive…He strikes you, then?”
“Oh, often. I’ve learned to mind him promptly, and to keep my eye on him when he isn’t occupied.”
“What a horrible situation!” exclaimed Mrs. Sarland. “I see him eyeing me now. My crimes have found me out!”
“Girl, come hyar!” yelled Stephen loudly.
Cherry hurried back to Heftral, who continued, still in a loud voice: “What’re you plotting with that old dame?”
“I was only sympathizing with her,” replied Cherry.
Chauncey appeared, carrying a few sticks of firewood, and in a manner to avoid soiling his moleskin riding breeches.
Heftral noted this and glared. “Huh! ’Fraid of dirtying your pants,” he snorted, and he snatched up a blackened frying pan and wiped it brusquely on Chauncey’s breeches.
That, for the present, however, appeared to be the limit of Heftral’s duplicity. He forgot again and lapsed into silence. Cherry helped him get supper. She was having the time of her life, with only one trouble, and that was to hide this fact. She found it no easy matter to look dejected and frightened when she felt actually the opposite. She certainly could stand this situation for a while. It would only grow more absorbingly funny and thrilling as time wore on. The Sarlands were completely taken in. They were scared out of their wits. Cherry realized that for the time being her reputation had been saved. But what if the cowboys came? Or anybody who really knew Heftral? Cherry groaned at the very idea. She was somewhat dubious about the reaction of the cowboys, especially Wess, to this kidnaping stunt of Heftral’s. But so long as they did not resort to violence, she imagined their advent would heighten the interest. Cowboys, however, were an unknown quantity to her. It was quite possible that even she could not stop them in dealing what they might believe was summary justice to an offender of the desert
creed.
“Come and get it,” called Heftral most unwelcomingly.
“Get…what?” asked Mrs. Sarland, startled. The suggestion in those words and tone did not strike her happily.
“Grub…you tenderfoot!”
Heftral’s mood had not hindered his capacities as a good cook, a fact to which the Sarlands, once set down to the meal, amply attested. For Cherry, aside from satisfying honest hunger, the meal was otherwise a considerable success. Conversation was lacking until toward the end of supper, Heftral told Mrs. Sarland she would probably starve to death and have her bones picked by coyotes.
“I opened your pack,” he added by way of explanation. “You must have been going on a day’s picnic.”
“That Indian ate most of ours,” ventured Chauncey.
“We can always get sheep,” Heftral said to himself.
After supper he ordered the Sarlands to make their beds at the foot of the rock slope. Chauncey asked and obtained permission to cut some cedar brush to lay under their blankets. Heftral gathered firewood, while Cherry rested aside, dreaming and watching. When the shadows of the cañon twilight stole down, accentuating the loneliness, Heftral stalked away.
“What a strange desperado!” exclaimed Mrs. Sarland. “I think he must have been someone very different once. That fellow has breeding. A woman can always tell.”
“Black Dick is the most gentlemanly outlaw in these parts,” replied Cherry. “Despite his habit of cuffing,” she added hastily.
“Cherry, I apologize for all the nasty remarks I made,” said Chauncey. “If we get out of this alive…why, everything can be as it was before.”
“Ah-huh,” returned Cherry dreamily. Nothing could ever be the same again. The future and the world had been transfigured prodigiously. But she wanted the present to last, even if she were compelled to stand for more love-making from Chauncey Sarland. The young man, however, was still a little too perturbed over Black Dick to grow sentimental.
“Where does he sleep?” Mrs. Sarland asked anxiously.
“Black Dick? Oh, when he sleeps at all, it’s right here by the fire. But he’s an owl.”
