Stairs of Sand

by Zane Grey

  “My home is there,” announced Ruth, pointing to an earth-colored adobe structure, visible through the trees, above the spring.

  “What shall we do with the wagon and mules?” asked Adam, as he deposited her baggage on the ground.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you had better look after them, until we see. Come with me.”

  Adam followed, carrying her bags, while Merryvale led the mules to the watering-trough, where the thirsty burros already had their noses submerged.

  Once inside the hedge Ruth slackened her pace. The dank warm smell of the rush-pond below the spring assailed her nostrils. Bees hummed in the palo verdes; rabbits scurried into the thicket of green rushes. She espied the dark stolid visage of her grandfather’s Indian servant. There was no sound except a tinkle of running water. The adobe house was long and low, with a porch running its length.

  “Here—we are—Adam,” announced Ruth, breathlessly. “Look what you’ve brought me back to—for all my life.”

  Adam’s keen eyes surveyed the scene, lingering upon the little pond with its green moss and rushes. Then his gaze swept out over the hedge upon the tremendous vista of desert.

  “I’m afraid you don’t see truly,” he replied, with a smile. “This is an oasis. And I would never tire of the view.”

  “Gracious!” exclaimed Ruth, impatiently. “I don’t see grandfather,” she called walking along the porch. “He must be at the post, unless he’s gone off to Yuma in search of me…. Sit down, Adam. This porch was not made for your height. My room is at this end of the house.”

  Ruth walked down and pushed open the gray weathered door.

  “Oh, dear,” she sighed. Had it been only thirty-six hours since she left? It seemed so long. Evidently the little room had not been entered during her absence. Her bed was as she had hastily left it, with coverlet and sheet half on the floor. This room had the only window in the house. Ruth gazed around at the colored walls, the Indian blankets, the spare furniture, the curtained niche where her few dresses hung; and a sickening leaden sensation momentarily weighed upon her. Then she saw the letter she had left for her grandfather. It had not been found. She took it and went outside.

  “Adam, this letter I left has not been opened,” she said. “Grandfather must be greatly alarmed. He would not know what has become of me.”

  “Let me go find him,” replied Adam.

  “Yes. I’ll go with you.”

  But they had scarcely started when Ruth caught sight of the old man entering the hedge gate.

  “Wait, Adam. Here he comes.”

  Upon nearing the porch her grandfather looked up to disclose a worn troubled face, which instantly lightened with amaze and gladness. He hurried forward—a slight man, gray of hair, and rather stoop-shouldered.

  “Ruth!” he burst out, quaveringly. “Where in the world have you been?”

  “Hello, Grandad,” she returned, kissing his cheek. “Don’t you know where I’ve been?”

  “No. At lunch yesterday Marta said you were not in your room. I began to worry then. Last night I feared you’d run off to Yuma, as you’ve threatened often. Where have you been, and who is this stranger?”

  Adam had arisen, to stand with head bent under the low ceiling.

  “Grandad, this is an old friend, Adam Wansfell…. Adam, my grandfather, Caleb Hunt.”

  The men shook hands and exchanged greetings.

  “Wansfell? … Wansfell,” added the elder, reflectively. “Well, sir, I never saw you before. I’d never forget such a man as you. But I’ve heard your name.”

  “No doubt. It’s pretty well known on the desert. I’ve traveled far and wide,” replied Adam.

  “Grandad, what did Hal Stone tell you?” interrupted Ruth, eager to have explanations over.

  “Ruth, I haven’t seen Stone,” returned Hunt, in surprise. “Some one saw him just a little while ago, limping by the post.”

  “I ran off with Stone yesterday,” went on Ruth, hurriedly.

  “Good heavens! You ran off—eloped with Hal Stone?” ejaculated her grandfather. “Your husband will shoot him!”

  “Not when I explain. It was all my fault, grandad.—Well, we got within ten miles of the mountains, when the gray mule, Old Butch, balked. We could not go on. Stone said we must camp there. Then, when I repulsed his—his advances he got ugly. Adam happened along with Merryvale, and rescued me. He sent Stone away last night. We made camp there and this morning started back.”

  “Sir, I thank you indeed,” said Hunt, courteously and warmly to Adam, extending a nervous hand. “Perhaps this will be a lesson to my granddaughter.”

  “Grandad, I’ll never run off again,” murmured Ruth, mournfully.

  “Well! Something has come over my lass,” declared Hunt, affectionately placing an arm around Ruth. “It is very welcome, but rather perplexing. How did you bring about this change? Ruth is as hard to change as Old Butch. And, by the way, how’d you ever move him?”

  “Butch and I are old pards,” answered Adam. “I drove him eight years ago, up on the Mohave.”

  “Grandad—listen,” interrupted Ruth, tremulously. “Adam had no trouble changing me…. He knew mother. He was with her—and father—the last weeks of their lives…. In Death Valley! … Oh! such a terrible story—but you must hear it.”

  “What—what is this? Ruth! … ” he burst out, in great emotion. “Wansfell, did you know my daughter Magdalene—this girl’s mother?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunt. I knew her—during the last tragic weeks of her life in Death Valley,” replied Adam, sombrely.

  “This is most extraordinary. After all these years! Thank God, we have come to know at last…. Did Magdalene give you any message for us?”

  “The locket, Adam. Let him see that,” said Ruth, eagerly.

  Adam’s big brown hand slipped inside his worn blouse and appeared to jerk to a stop.

  “Who is that man?” he whispered in so low and tense a voise that Ruth gazed in startled change of feeling up at him. His eagle eyes, fixed upon the path, held a quivering steely light.

  Ruth’s swift glance following their direction, saw a man striding up the walk. She laughed outright.

  “That is my husband,” she said, and rose, conscious of a sudden tingling heat along her veins.

  She heard Adam utter a husky stifled exclamation, incoherent; and out of the corner of her eyes she saw him rise and step quickly into the open door. His voice and action gave her a queer feeling. Her grandfather likewise stepped into the room.

  Ruth had awaited Guerd Larey’s approach many a time with mingled emotions, but never with the poise and certainty of this moment. Fear had left her. She watched him come—a magnificent man, tall and stalwart, booted and belted, without coat or hat, the sunset light glinting on his thick fair hair and his handsome dissolute face.

  “Ruth!” he exclaimed, and he strode to the very edge of the porch where she stood, and bent to search her face with his great hungry green eyes. Joy, relief, suspicion, anger all strove there.

  “You’re back,” he asserted, offering his hand, which she appeared not to notice.

  “So you see,” she replied.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

  “None of your business,” she returned, coldly. “Guerd, don’t speak to me in that tone. You have nothing whatever to do with my actions, nor can you bully me.”

  “But I’ve been frightened. I can’t help but love you,” he replied, harshly.

  “That’s your misfortune, if it’s true,” said Ruth. “But you never really loved me. Please let us have an end of that. You nag me to death with your protestations of love—when all the time I know what your life is.”

  “You’ll never believe that you could have changed my life?” he queried, with bitter passion.

  “Never. You are a slave to your selfish desires,” she returned scornfully. “In love—in business—in everything. You were a gambler and a cheat even when you married me.”

  “Ruth,
I swear to God I’ll—I’ll mend my ways—if you’ll be my wife, really,” he implored, with a pathos that was almost savage. “I’ll give the freight business back to Hunt. We’ll leave this cursed desert.”

  “It’s impossible, Guerd,” she replied, wondering why she could not feel pity for him. Surely he believed himself. “And if that’s what you came to say, please—”

  “Hell, that only came out when I saw you,” he flashed, with passionate gesture. Then the eloquence and dark radiance of him faded. “This young Stone is bragging around he eloped with you. I want to hear what you’ve got to say before I—”

  “Guerd, don’t kill Stone,” interrupted Ruth, in distress. “Don’t even strike him. He’s been punished enough. It was all my fault.”

  “It’s true, then?”

  “Yes. I ran off with him. I encouraged him—let him make love to me—let him think…. Oh, there’s no excuse for me, Guerd. It seemed lately I couldn’t stand this place any longer. I just had to get out.”

  “Damn you!” he retorted, white to the lips. “You’d go with anyone—even a Mexican—rather than with me…. Well, what happened? Stone’s face is all smashed. He said Old Butch kicked him. But that’s a lie. Some man’s fist did it. Who was he—and what for?”

  Ruth divined the imminence of peril for the boy she had led to such extremes. “Guerd, we couldn’t reach the Indian settlement,” she began, impulsively. “Old Butch balked. There was nothing to do but camp. Stone wanted to make love to me. I wouldn’t let him. He had a perfect right to expect that—and more…. To my shame I confess it. He grew violent then, and during a struggle between us two men came up—and ended it.”

  “One of them struck Stone?”

  “Yes, indeed he did. But—”

  “Who did it?”

  “Adam Wansfell, an old friend whom I knew from years ago at Santa Ysabel.”

  “Wansfell! I know that name. I’ve heard about one Wansfell. Was he a big man—as big as I am?”

  “Taller, I think, but not so heavy,” replied Ruth.

  “He’s a desert tramp,” returned Larey, reflectively. “Wanders around doing all kinds of queer tricks. And you knew him in Santa Ysabel? … Well, he can hardly be the Wansfell I mean.”

  “He brought me back home. You may learn for yourself who and what he is.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Did you tell me this young Stone had a perfect right to expect love from you—and more?”

  “Guerd, it’s only fair to him to confess that.” returned Ruth, feeling her face burn. “I didn’t realize till today how—how wild and irresponsible I’ve been.”

  “You let Stone kiss you?” he queried, darkly.

  She averted her face from the jealous blaze of his eyes. How earnestly she wanted to meet them and lie! But she could not do it.

  “And you never let me kiss you!” he rasped.

  Ruth had likewise no reply to that poignant accusation. But when he wheeled away she found voice to call him back. He paid no attention. Rapidly he stalked down the path and through the hedge gate.

  Then Ruth’s grandfather came out of the house, his worn face working, his hands trembling.

  “Ruth, he’ll kill that poor boy or horsewhip him within an inch of his life.”

  “I’m afraid, grandad,” replied Ruth, fearfully. “Won’t you go after him—fetch him back?”

  “I’ll go, but it won’t be any use.”

  Suddenly Ruth remembered Adam and there was strong shift of alarm and remorse on behalf of Stone, to an unaccountable curiosity and distress for Adam.

  “Adam, did—did you hear it all? Why did you go in? You’ll have to meet him some time.”

  Receiving no response Ruth went hurriedly into the room. At first glance she did not locate Adam. Could he have gone out the back door? Then she heard a long shuddering breath. Adam lay on her grandfather’s couch, his face buried, his great hands clutching the pillows. The wide shoulders strained as if in convulsion. With contracting heart Ruth ran to the couch.

  “Why—why—Adam!” she called, and put a faltering hand on his shoulder. “What in the world…. Oh, what could make you this way? It was only my husband. You must have heard….”

  “It’s not dead—it’ll never die,” interrupted Adam, in a smothered voice.

  “What?” cried Ruth.

  “My love.”

  “For me?—Oh, Adam, I’m glad it’ll never die. Glad! It want you to love me.”

  “No, Ruth, not for you. But for him.”

  He lifted a face of agony that made Ruth sink to her knees in front of him.

  “No—not him! Not Guerd Larey!” she gasped wildly.

  “Yes, Ruth.”

  “Oh, my God!—Don’t tell me—don’t tell me what—I fear—what I feel…. Adam, I am bound to love you. My mother did…. I do now. It comes tearing my heart. Oh, don’t tell me he is the vile brother who ruined your life. I couldn’t bear it, Adam. I couldn’t bear for you to find me his—his——”

  “Ruth, it is true,” he replied, brokenly. “He is my brother. My right name is not Wansfell. I am Adam Larey.”

  Chapter Five

  LOST LAKE slumbered at noontide under a June sun The vast desert sky, like a copper lid, shut down close, hiding the limits of the wasteland in the haze of obscurity. The heat veils waved up from the sand like transparent smoke. An Indian stood motionless in the shade of an adobe wall. The wind whipped puffs of sand across the open square before the post. The desert brooded, as if forbidding life and movement.

  Merryvale awoke from his siesta. He had taken up lodgings in an abandoned Indian shack, which was no more than a shed of ocatilla poles, open on two sides, and sheltered by palo verdes. It was situated on the outskirts of the post, and suited Merryvale well. Adam had taken the burros that first night and gone into the rocky recesses of the canyons above Lost Lake. Ruth had implored him to go—not to meet Guerd Larey—for reasons Merryvale guessed easily enough. Adam had returned once, at night, for a meeting with him and Ruth, and he was due again on the night of this day.

  Merryvale pondered while he folded his bed neatly on the brush mattress. He was always in a brown study these days, absorbed in his loyalty to Adam and Ruth, and the fateful tangle of their lives. Merryvale had been forty years on the desert. He loved it even as Adam, but he did not dwell on the heights. It was the people of the desert that interested Merryvale and he saw them clearly, in the raw, elemental, physical—answering to the law of this barren, hot, lonely, and fierce environment.

  While he sat there thinking he heard the freighting wagons lumber by. It reminded him that the stages were due, one from Yuma going north and the other coming south. Lost Lake was an important post, because it possessed the only abundant water on a hundred mile stretch of desert, the whole northern fifty miles of which was below sea level.

  Merryvale went out and encountered Indian Jim, a native with whom he had taken pains to make friends. This Coalmila Indian had once owned the waterhole, which had long been familiar to prospectors under the name of Indian Wells. Jim and his people had been prosperous before they sold the spring which was a mecca for all desert travelers. But they had squandered their fortune and now eked out a beggarly existence, bitter against the owners of the freighting-post and especially Hunt.

  “How many wagons come?” asked Merryvale, of the Indian.

  He held up eight fingers, then pointed out into the sandy void.

  “Ugh. Stage come,” he said.

  Far down on the mottled gray expanse moved a black object under a cloud of dust.

  “Hot day, Jim.”

  “No,” replied the Indian.

  Merryvale sauntered on toward the post where the freighters had hauled up. Passing under the palo verdes to an adobe house, Merryvale halted to address a Mexican woman, who sat in the shade, busy with bright colored clothes. A half naked child, dusky-haired and with skin like brown ivory, played in the sand at her feet.

  “Buenas tardes, Senora,” Merryvale gr
eeted her. “May I look in?” And he indicated the open door.

  “Si, Senor,” she replied, showing her white teeth.

  Merryvale entered. Upon a bed under the window lay a young man, haggard of face, with uncut beard and hollowed eyes.

  “Wal, Stone, how are you today?” inquired Merryvale.

  “Oh, God, it’s hell lyin’ here,” returned Stone, wearily, as he rolled his head from side to side.

  “Are you still in pain?”

  “No. That’s most gone, I guess. It’s just the infernal heat. My face and hands sweat. And the damned flies stick.”

  “Wal, boy, you’re gettin’ better fast,” said Merryvale, cheerfully. “Say, when I dropped in heah first your eyelids were fly-blown. I wiped out the eggs myself, an’ you didn’t know it.”

  “Yes, I must be,” replied Stone, hopefully. “Ruth was here this mornin’. She said so.”

  “Ahuh! An’ Ruth was down? Wal, that was shore good of her.”

  “Oh, she’s kind. She took all the blame for Larey’s shooting me. But I don’t want her kindness.”

  “Reckon she wasn’t all to blame, Stone. You talked aboot Ruth, so I’m told. Larey shore meant to kill you for that an’ not for runnin’ off with her. He damn near done for you, too. Lucky that doctor was passin’ through on the stage or you’d been fodder for the vultures.”

  “I’m not thankin’ anybody, Merryvale,” returned the young man, sullenly.

  “So I see,” drawled Merryvale, with a little coldness creeping into his voice. “What’s you goin’ to do when you get on your feet again?”

  “What’d I do before I stopped these bullets?” snapped Stone.

  “Wal, you sold hosses an’ gambled some an’ looked at red liquor more’n you ought, an’ you ran after a young woman heah,” replied Merryvale, in his lazy drawl.

  “Yes, and that’s what I’ll do again.”

  “Not as regards the last, Stone,” said Merryvale, with some sharpness. “You’d show sense to leave Lost Lake. But if you won’t, then take advice an’ leave Ruth alone. She may have led you on, flirtin’, even bein’ soft an’ sweet to you, as women always did an’ always will. But she couldn’t go through with the deal as you wanted, an’ when she got back heah she took the blame. She squared you with everyone, and tried to with Guerd Larey. At that, hard as Larey is, he wouldn’t have shot you if you’d kept your mouth shut. Ruth did a big thing throwin’ shame upon herself to save you. An’ you ought to appreciate it by leavin’ her alone.”