by Zane Grey
“Take yourself off then, out of sight,” he continued harshly, and turned to come toward Heftral and Cherry, his gun low, but unmistakably menacing. Lorenzo, Mojave, Zoroaster, and Tay-Tay came striding after him. The musical jingling of their spurs did not harmonize with their demeanor.
Wess fixed Cherry with a cold penetrating stare. She realized that for him, as a glorious entity—a girl to worship—she had ceased to exist. This job of Heftral’s had ruined her with Wess beyond redemption. Cherry was afraid to look in the faces of the others, for fear she would see the same condemnation. It was a sickening conception. It added fuel to the fire of her roused wrath at the perpetrator of this situation.
“You beat it,” Wess ordered with a slight motion of his gun, signifying that Cherry was to get out.
“What for?” she asked sharply.
“This heah ain’t no place for a…a woman,” he replied. He was going to say lady. Cherry saw the word forming on his lips, but he changed it. She was no longer an object of respect, even to these crude cowboys. Her spirit flamed at them, at herself, at Heftral.
“After what I’ve gone through, I can stand anything. I’ll stay,” she said heatedly.
He gave her a strange glance. What eyes he had—like hot blades! No man had ever dared to look at her with such unveiled disillusion.
“Heftral, stand up an’ stick out your hands,” ordered Wess.
The archaeologist looked up, disclosing a dark set face and eyes that matched the cowboy’s. “You go to hell,” he replied coolly.
“Fellars, jerk him up off thet pack an’ tie his hands behind him.”
This order was carried out nearly as quickly as it was said. Heftral was a bound man. The sight seemed to add a raw fierce something to Cherry’s mood. She was answering here to unfamiliar feelings.
“Thanks,” returned Wess, “but I ain’t aimin’ to go where you belong…We don’t care pertickler to heah your musical voice, either, but if you’re any kind of man, you’ll say whether you kidnaped Miss Winters or not.”
“Certainly I did, you knuckle-headed cowpuncher,” retorted Heftral.
“You heah thet, boys?” Wess called imperiously.
“We shore heerd him!” yelled the others as one man.
Cherry’s augmenting excitation almost precluded her usual observations and calculations. Her own position had been so unreal that it was hard to judge anything else without bias or doubt. These cowboys, particularly Wess, were most singularly unlike any men Cherry had come to know. Was it that she had been struck by a rawness and hardness in them—traits that had not been brought out before—or were they just a little too…too something to be absolutely genuine? But despite these thoughts, she began to feel hot and cold by turns.
“Fetch a lasso,” ordered Wess, dragging Heftral forward. “An’ look fer a cedar high enough to hang this guy.”
They moved off in a body toward the cedars, leaving Cherry almost paralyzed. She saw them stop under one of the first trees. They were talking in low tones. Evidently Heftral spoke. The cowboys guffawed in ridicule. Then Mrs. Sarland and Chauncey hurried up to Cherry.
“What are they going to do?” Mrs. Sarland panted.
“Hang him,” whispered Cherry in awe.
“Serve him quite right,” declared the woman, nodding in great satisfaction. “If only they had that dirty Black Dick, too.”
Cherry broke from her trance and ran the short distance to the group. She heard the Sarlands following. Cherry would have been at her wit’s end without the fright that had inhibited her. Certainly she would have to do something. If she gave way to a growing idea that the situation was beyond her—what might not happen? She gathered there had been an argument between Wess and the cowboys, for she heard sharp words on each side, and then suddenly at her approach they were silent. Heftral appeared less upset than any of them. The look of Wess gave Cherry an icy chill. She had not been much frightened at Black Dick. But this lean-faced cowboy! All in a flash her hatred of Heftral and her unworthy passion for revenge were as if they had never been. She seemed as vacillating as a wind-vane.
“Wess…wh-what are you going to do to him?” she asked, struggling to control her voice.
“We’re goin’ to make it the last time this fake scientist kidnaps a girl,” replied Wess.
“But…that rope! You can’t really hang a man for so little. Why, you’d hang, too, if you did such a thing. There’d be an investigation.”
“Real kind of you, miss, to worry aboot us,” Wess returned ironically. “Duty and the law are one and the same in Arizona. By hangin’ this fellar, we save the government expenses of keepin’ him in jail.”
“But he didn’t do anything so…so very terrible,” Cherry went on, still struggling.
“Look heah, young woman,” Wess said, sharp and dark. “Heftral kidnaped you, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” admitted Cherry.
“Wal, thet’s aplenty. But it shore wasn’t all…now, was it?” questioned the cowboy, his piercing suspicious eyes on hers. Wess was not to be deceived. His jealousy probed the secret and his naturally primitive mind made deductions.
Cherry blushed a burning scarlet. It was a hateful thing to feel before those keen-eyed boys who had revered her. It had as much to do with an upflashing of furious shame as the recollection of Heftral’s one unforgivable indignity.
“Fellars, look at her face. Red as a beet!” ejaculated Wess passionately.
“Aw, Wess, cut it,” burst out Mojave.
“Ain’t you overdoin’ it, Wess?” Zoroaster asked darkly.
“Y-y-y-y-you…,” Tay-Tay stuttered in unmistakable protest. But he never achieved coherent speech.
“Damn you all! Shut up!” Wess hissed in a deadly wrath. If his comrades meant to intercede on Cherry’s behalf, at least to save her from insult, he certainly intimidated them for the time being.
“Miss Winters, you can’t say honest that Heftral didn’t mistreat you,” asserted rather than asked Wess. He was a hard man to face and Cherry, strangely agitated, yet still not roused, was not equal to it. Besides, his words were like stinging salt in a raw wound.
“No matter what he did…you can’t hang him,” burst out Cherry.
Wess turned a purple. The other cowboys subtly changed.
“Wal, for gawd’s sake!” bawled out Wess. “Ain’t thet jest like a woman?”
“An’ he stole my hoss, too,” Mojave added darkly.
“But, Mojave, my father would buy you a hundred horses,” Cherry spoke up eagerly.
“Say, miss, what’s your father got to do with this?” demanded Wess. “He didn’t steal the hoss. Heftral did. An’ thet’s as bad as stealin’ you. ’Course Arizona has quit hangin’ hoss thieves. But when you put the two together, why it’s shore a hangin’ case. Miss Winters, your friend Heftral ain’t only a villain. He’s a coward.”
“I’m beginning to think a lot of things about you,” retorted Cherry hotly. “And one of them is…you’re a liar.”
Wess flinched as if he had been lashed with a whip. His eyes burned and his face became like flint. “Wal, I ain’t no kidnaper of girls…whether they’re innocent or not,” he said coarsely.
Heftral turned half around to look at the circle of cowboys behind him. “Fellows, I’ll be perfectly willing to be hanged if you’ll grant me one request.”
“You talk to me,” ground out Wess. “I’m boss of this rodeo. What you want?”
“I’d like my hands untied so I can beat your dirty loud mouth shut,” replied Heftral ringingly.
Wess completely lost control of himself, and, lunging out, he struck Heftral a sounding blow, knocking him flat.
“Oh, you dirty coward!” cried Cherry. “To strike a man whose hands are tied!”
Mrs. Sarland screamed: “They’re all outlaws, blacklegs, murderers!”
It was Tay-Tay who assisted Heftral to rise to his feet. Blood was flowing from his mouth.
“Mebbe thet’ll keep your mug shet,” declared Wess. He was proof against the withering scorn in Heftral’s look.
“Say, Wess, this ain’t gettin’ us anywheres,” interposed Mojave. “Mebbe we’re far enough.”
“Move along, Heftral,” Wess ordered, shoving his gun into Heftral’s side. He forced the archaeologist to walk on to a point under a high-branched cedar. “Somebody throw a rope over thet limb.”
But nobody complied with this order. Again Cherry intuitively guessed that this situation had not been what it looked on the face. The cowboys were a divided group. Wess was deadly, implacable. No doubting his real intention! Cherry had sensed his jealousy and now realized his brutality. But another sharp scrutiny of the other faces convinced Cherry that with them it had been a well-acted jest, which Wess was trying to drive to earnest. But he would never succeed. Cherry racked her brain for some expedient to circumvent him.
Wess snatched the lasso from Mojave and threw the noose end over the branch, pulled it down, and with the skillful dexterity of a cowboy tossed the loop over Heftral’s head.
“Thar’s your necktie, Mister Kidnaper,” he said with fiendish satisfaction.
Mojave seemed to pull himself together. Cherry caught his quick significant glance at Lorenzo, and she took her cue from that.
“Wal, I’m pullin’ the rope,” announced Mojave, stepping forward.
“Nothin’ doin’…I’m the little hombre who hangs this gent. It’s my rope,” replied Zoroaster.
“I weel pull the rope,” Lorenzo said impressively.
“W-w-w-wh-where do I come in?” stammered Tay-Tay, evidently offended.
Cherry was now almost certain of her ground, except for the silent Wess. “Gentlemen, let me decide which of you shall have the honor of being the first to crack Heftral’s neck,” Cherry interrupted, with entire change of front.
They gaped at her, nonplussed. Wess’s tense face relaxed to a slight sardonic grin. Cherry feared him. The majority would rule here. Besides, she had an idea.
“Let me decide, please,” she continued.
“F-f-f-fair enough,” said Tay-Tay.
“Pick me, Miss Cherry. I’m the strongest,” entreated Mojave, who seemed to be returning to his natural self.
The others, excepting Wess, loudly acclaimed their especial fittingness for the job.
“I can’t show any favoritism among you boys,” went on Cherry. “Lay down your guns. Then blindfold me. I’ll pick one of them up and whoever owns that gun shall have the first pull.”
“Fine idee,” declared Mojave, and then deposited his gun at Cherry’s feet. One by one the others gravely complied, until it came to Wess. He held the lasso in one hand and his gun in the other. Cherry feared he would block her daring scheme, which was to get possession of all the guns and hold up the cowboys.
“Chauncey!” gasped Mrs. Sarland. “She’s a barbarian! A fit consort for the likes of them! To think I ever allowed you to anticipate marrying such an impossible creature!”
“That’ll be aboot all from you, madam,” Wess retorted threateningly.
“Come, Wess, your gun!” Cherry called in a nervous hurry. “Who’ll lend me a scarf?”
“You’re smart, but you can’t fool me,” rejoined Wess darkly. “I don’t lay down my gun fer no woman. I’m onto you, miss…Now you easy-mark cowpunchers, jest step back. Stop! Never mind pickin’ up them guns.”
Slowly the cowboys edged back, and Cherry with them. At that moment Wess was infinitely more calculated to inspire fear than had been Black Dick. Wess had this game beaten and knew it. He exchanged rope and gun from one hand to the other. With a quick pull he tightened the noose hard around Heftral’s neck, straining his body, lifting him a little.
“Reckon it’s a doubtful honor, but I’ll have it myself,” he said, his cold eyes on Cherry.
“My God! Wess, you don’t mean to go on with it?” cried Cherry, finding her voice.
“I shore do. I’ve got the goods on Heftral. You accused him, an’ he confessed. Everybody present heard you both. An’ there ain’t a court in Arizona that’d hold me fer a day.”
He was triumphant and malignant. Fierce jealousy had brought out the evil in him. Cherry had a terrible realization of her guilt—for she had flirted with this hot-headed cowboy. She had looked upon him with caressing eyes; she had listened to his sentimental talk and let him hold her hand. What an idiot she had been! Vain as a peacock, detestably bent on conquest—heartless, wrong. Wess resembled a devil and he certainly had overwhelming odds in his favor. Cherry seemed to be sinking in stupefied terror. Almost blindly she stepped out.
“Wess, for God’s sake…don’t…don’t add murder to this…this thing,” she implored.
“So! You’re intercedin’ fer a man you swore treated you out-rag-eous?” sneered Wess.
“Yes. I beg of you. Don’t let your…your…whatever actuates you…go any further. Cool down. Think!”
“I’ve been thinkin’ all right,” he rejoined with brooding intimation.
“Heftral did not kidnap me,” spoke up Cherry, gathering strength. “I came with him willingly.”
“What’s thet?” snarled Wess, almost crouching.
Heftral responded with his first show of perturbation. “Wess, don’t you believe a word she says. She’s trying to clear me by implicating herself.”
“Wal, she’s a liar all right, but mebbe this is straight,” Wess said somberly. “Say, gurl, if you come willin’…what was it fer?”
“One reason was I wanted to get a kick out of it,” replied Cherry coolly. “I was sort of blasé. Tired of ordinary life. I wanted something new, different.”
“Ah-huh. An’ how aboot this heah out-rag-eous treatment?” Wess asked gruffly.
To have saved Heftral’s life Cherry could not have stayed the coursing flame of red that burned from neck to face. But her spirit flamed likewise.
“I disobeyed him,” she confessed bravely. “He…he chastised me…I deserved it.”
“Haw! Haw!” Wess guffawed loudly, mirthlessly. That laugh contained bitter doubt, scorn, hate.
“Wess, I’m afeared I hear hosses,” interrupted Mojave sharply.
“So, you come willin’, huh?” he questioned with terrible eyes on Cherry. “Liked to be treated out-rag-eous, huh? Wanted a new different kick, huh? Wal, now watch your lover kick!”
Wess was a bully and a brute. But he did not know the fiber of the girl he had so grossly insulted. That was all Cherry required to find herself. As Wess bent down to stretch the lasso over his hip, dragging Heftral to the tip of his toes, she sprang forward. She grasped the tightening rope above Heftral’s head and pulled it loose. Then she confronted Wess.
“Stop, you madman!” she cried imperiously. “Don’t you dare…If you do I’ll kill you!”
“Wal, fer gawd’s sake!” ejaculated Wess, surprised into his usual expression, and he momentarily slackened the lasso.
Quick as a flash Cherry seized the noose and flipped it from Heftral’s neck. “Listen, cowboy!” she said. “What business is it of yours? If Heftral and I wanted to come out here to Beckyshibeta and lie about it that was our business. But it’s gone too far for jokes now.” Cherry backed up against Heftral and took his arm.
“Shore it’s gone too far!” Wess returned furiously, recovering from his amaze. “An’ you haven’t give me one reason why he shouldn’t hang.”
“Very well, I’ll try another,” Cherry said with calm proud exterior, while inwardly she was in a state of exaltation. “I love him. Can you understand that? I love him.”
For a long moment all her hearers seemed petrified. Wess looked shocked into incredulous defeat. Then he choked out: “You white-faced hussy!”
“Shet up!” Mojave
yelled sternly. “Heah comes Linn an’ some Indians. Mister Winters, too. All ridin’ like hell. Cool down, Wess, or you’ll get yours.”
Thirteen
The instant Cherry had a close scrutiny of her father’s face, which was when he reined his horse before the group, she knew his gay greeting and nonchalant survey of them had no depth. He had always been a capital actor, but he could not deceive his daughter.
“Hello, Cherry!” he had called out, before reaching them. “How are you? Little white, aren’t you, for a modern Amazon?”
Cherry’s emotion, whatever its great extent, suffered a swift transition to fury. Nevertheless she had wit enough to remember that this was no time to play against her father. Her cue was to be miserable and happy at one and the same time. At that she need only be natural.
“Howdy, Stephen,” Winters said genially, sitting his horse at ease and gazing down upon the center of this motionless group. “Bet you’re glad I arrived. Sorry we are rather late. But that darned storm turned us back.”
Cherry removed herself from such close proximity to Heftral. What had she said and done? She did not regret it, but the lofty spirit that had prompted it was failing. Heftral stood there, pale, with gleaming eyes and bloody lips, his hands still bound behind him. The noose that Cherry had thrown off dangled not far above his head. The cowboys stood on uneasy feet. Wess still held his gun, and it was manifest that a dim realization of his part in this farce had dawned upon him. He was sweating now. The guns of the other cowboys lay where they had deposited them.
Winters surveyed this scene with the air of a Westerner of long experience. He was very cool. Then he espied the Sarlands, and doffed his sombrero.
“Good day, Missus Sarland. Hello, Chauncey. I hope you have had a nice little visit with Cherry and her fiancé.”
If anything could have struck fire from Mrs. Sarland that speech might have done so, but she was beyond words. But Chauncey, now that danger had passed, showed an ugly temper.
“We’ve had a rotten visit, if you want to know,” he howled. “We’ve been deceived, insulted, beaten, and robbed.”
