by Zane Grey
“Same old devil with the girls, eh?”
“Not exactly.”
“Bah! Don’t try to kid me. Who was she?”
“Which one do you mean?” countered Keven, absolutely powerless to tell her what he should have told her. “Was it the—the blonde?”
“No. She was dark. And jealous as I am, I’ve got to hand the laurel to her.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, you matched her for looks, if you ask me…. Kev, where can I see you, quick? I’ll run down to the hotel…. Don’t try to stop me, Kev Bell. So long.”
Keven fell away from the telephone, to gaze in consternation at the grinning Minton.
“Rosamond Brandeth! What do you know about that?”
“It’s great. It tickles me pink.”
“But it doesn’t tickle me. It scares me limp…. Mint, she wants to make up with me.”
“Let her want. It’ll do her good. But to be square with Rosamond, I’m bound to tell you she gave Atwell the gate last spring, and she’s running pretty decent—for her.”
Suddenly Keven felt the very roots of his hair stiffen and freeze.
“My Lord! If she happened to meet Beryl! She’d cook my goose.”
“Not with that little lady, I’ll gamble. Buck up, Kev. Hang round here with me till after six. That’ll dodge her. Of course you’ll run into her while you’re in town. You ought to be glad to. And make a point of having Beryl with you…. Now let’s get back to guns and things. I advise a 30 Gov’t 1906 Winchester for that mountain country. You want a high-power rifle, with, flat trajectory and long range. The 30 takes several grades of shells.”
In the interest of his requirements, Keven recovered his equilibrium and his gay spirits. He spent an hour with Minton and, finally making his choice, he paid the bill and asked that the articles be sent to the hotel. Whereupon he left, promising to see Minton on the morrow. Among the cars parked in front of the hotel was a beautiful little roadster of a make unknown to Keven. As he came abreast of it a smartly dressed young woman came out of the lobby. In one flash Keven recognized Rosamond, the same attractive dashing creature she had always been.
He halted to meet her, hat in hand, sure of himself before the watching idlers.
“How do you do, Rosamond?” he said, bowing, and he met the hand she extended.
“Well, Kev Bell! Hello, you lost soldier,” she replied, with apparent cordiality, and drew him to the edge of the pavement where the bright car was parked. There she looked reproachfully at him. “I went into the lobby here and asked for Keven Bell. They sent down your wife…. Why didn’t you tell me you were married and not let me make a damn fool of myself?”
“You didn’t give me a chance?” protested Keven, deeply embarrassed.
“Bunk! You didn’t have the nerve,” she returned scornfully. “But I can take my medicine. Serves me right. I didn’t appreciate you when I had you. She’s a peach, Kev. I wish you joy.”
She shut the door and drove away, leaving Keven standing there, bareheaded and stricken. Remembering Beryl, he ran into the hotel and up the stairs. He found Beryl lying across the bed face down. A moment he stood aghast, conscience-stricken. Then all the sense and wit and nerve he ever possessed rushed to his aid. This was the crisis of his life. He turned the key in the lock.
“Beryl,” he called, bending over the bed. She was not weeping. Her body appeared stiff. He shook her, then lifted her to a sitting position. Light from the window fell upon her face. It was white. And her eyes, at sight of him, became blue-black blazing orbs, so fierce with the primitive passion of her blood inheritance that he almost quailed.
“Flirt! Liar! Leave me, before I kill you,” she cried, with indescribable bitterness.
Keven reproached himself. Why had he not told her? But staggered as he was, he did not weaken. This was the hour when he must win or lose, and he swore he would never lose. That would be too horrible. It would be no less than death. Still he never knew what guided him. Falling on his knees, he gripped her hands.
“Beryl, what did she tell you?” he asked.
“She asked when I had met you,” replied Beryl, in a low voice. “I told her…. Then she informed me you made love to her—engaged yourself to marry her—after you left me at Solitude…. I told her she lied. She laughed in my face…. Oh, God, she could afford to laugh…. Keven, you are free to go back to her. She wants you. I felt it… And I—I don’t.”
“Darling, don’t——”
“How dare you call me that?” she cried furiously, as if stung.
“Well, you are—my darling wife,” he said, in earnest simplicity.
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That you—you made up to her after the week you spent with me—four years and more ago—at Solitude?”
“Beryl, to my shame it is true,” he replied hurriedly. “I——”
“Then go. I hate you!”
“But listen. Surely you will hear my excuse—if it be one…. I fished with you at Solitude that week long ago—played with you—made love to you—oh, I took liberties with you. And then like the wild, careless, crazy boy I was I rode away and forgot you. I became infatuated with Rosamond Brandeth. In the excitement of leaving to go to training camp, I—I proposed to her. And she accepted me. Then I went away. As I might have expected—with her, out of sight out of mind. She never wrote. Then I was injured. I lay between life and death for months. Two years I spent in hospitals. Then I was mustered out—sent home—you know the rest. I became an outcast here in my home town. I assaulted Atwell and fled. You remember when I passed through Solitude on my way to Gold Beach. There——”
“Oh, I do remember!” she moaned. “But I didn’t know why you would not stop.”
She rocked to and fro on the bed, her hands clinging to his, her eyes dilating.
“There I went from—bad to worse,” continued Keven shudderingly, yet he gathered hope with the sense of his power over her. “You know how Garry and I were nagged and cheated, our labor made useless. Atwell was back of that. Then came the night when I killed Mulligan and thought Garry was lost. I fled up the river, my one resolve to shoot Atwell before they caught me…. You met me at Solitude. You stopped me there. You saved me…. But you know it all. Memory slowly came back—and hope and faith and health. Love, too, Beryl. I had never loved Rosamond Brandeth. I was only a boy. It was nothing—at least nothing—a candle flame before the sun, compared to my love for you. Once or twice, late in the summer I felt that I should have told you. But I didn’t. I just didn’t. It was cowardly of me. But I hated to hurt you. That’s all, Beryl. You and Solitude saved me—changed me. I couldn’t go on without you. If you can’t—forgive me—I’ll walk straight out—into the river.”
He ended brokenly, beseechingly. Beryl loosened his hold of her hands. Suddenly she drew his head to her breast.
“I believe you, Kev, I forgive,” she sobbed. “But, oh, how could you do it!”
Next morning they sought out Garry Lord. They had located his shop, a stall-like little compartment between two stores just off the main street. They were waiting for Garry to open up, watching from a doorway. Promptly at eight o’clock an ice wagon stopped before the place and unloaded ice on the sidewalk. Soon after that, the sturdy market fisherman appeared, ice tongs in his hand, and dragged in the cakes of ice.
“Now, Beryl,” said Keven eagerly, “you go first. Walk right in on Garry. Tell him you want to buy some steelhead. Say your husband loves steelhead and won’t eat anything else in the fish line. Look at Garry’s big sign, ‘Terms Cash.’ That’s like Garry. Well, after he wraps up the steelhead you tell him you haven’t any money and ask him to trust you. You’ll get some kick out of this. Then I’ll amble in.”
Keven went down the opposite side of the narrow street and watched Beryl enter the store to accost Garry. She was a capable actress, and evidently her appearance struck Garry as Keven had calculated it would. Then Keven crossed the street. W
hen he entered the open door of the spick-and-span little shop Garry was behind the counter, his weather-beaten face shining, and he was wrapping up fish.
“I had a pard once who loved steelhead like this husband of yours,” Garry was saying. “I’m sorry he’s hard up. But you shore don’t look it. All the same, lady, I’d trust you for anythin’.”
“Oh, thank you, so much,” murmured Beryl, and very likely she was making eyes at the hypnotized Garry. “I knew you were a gentleman and a good sport.”
“You did? How’d you know that?”
“I had only to see you once.”
Garry fell. He looked it. Blushing like a girl, he replied: “Lady, I—I’m a married man—but——”
Just then Keven picked up a small trout from the window shelf and threw it at Garry with a whoop. Garry looked up to see the missile at the same instant he saw Keven.
Bam! The fish took him squarely in the middle. Garry doubled up and froze in that position.
“Say, you upriver salmon ketcher,” yelled Keven, “are you trying to make a date with my girl?”
Beryl tolled out her merry laugh. But for Garry the situation held no humor.
“My—Gawd! … Who’re you?” he gasped, shaking like a leaf. His dark rugged countenance turned a greenish white.
The fun of it for Keven suddenly ceased. The agony of appeal in Garry’s faithful blue eyes was too much to bear.
“Pard. Don’t—you know me?” he asked huskily.
Garry began to jump and yell like a maniac. “Mary! Mary! I got ’em again. I knowed I laid off the bottle too quick…. Mary!”
A door at the back of the shop quickly opened to disclose a buxom young woman, whose ruddy pleasant face wore a look of concern.
“What ails you, man?” she demanded severely.
“I swear I ain’t had nothin’, sweetie,” replied Garry, who reacted significantly to her presence. “But I either got ’em again or the dead has come to life. Look at that feller. Is he there, Mary, or am I seein’ things?”
Keven stepped forward. “Garry, old pard, it is Kev. Come back to life in more ways than one. And this is Beryl, my wife.”
Then for Keven, and surely for the two watching women, there dawned the realization that for some of the grief and longing in life there was recompense.
On the long ride over the mountain ridges, above the flaming canyons, Keven and Beryl lived over their three wonderful days in Grant’s Pass. Dreams had come true. Hopes that had seemed vain were fulfilled. They hardly exchanged a word until they came abruptly out of the forest, upon the open mountainside above Winkle Bar.
In the sunset flush of gold and red the shining, singing river was revealed, as a promise fulfilled, as a goal reached. They sat long on their horses watching, listening, while the sun sank. Then when they started down the trail Keven raved and Beryl babbled.
Darkness overtook them when they were about abreast of Missouri Bar. By the time they reached Mule Creek Canyon they were talked out. Thereafter they rode on in blissful silence, always aware of their river.
It was eleven o’clock when they arrived at Solitude. Old Moze gave tongue, and his deep rolling bay awoke the echoes of the steep slopes. The other hounds chimed in, making the welkin ring.
“Hyar, you prodigals,” called Aard from his window. “All well with you?”
“All well, Daddy,” sang Beryl, in tired happy tones. “Ten pack mules on the trail, due tomorrow.”
“All well, indeed,” rang out Keven, hoarsely, and that ended the strength of his voice for this never-to-be-forgotten day.
They slept in Keven’s cabin. When Keven awoke the sun was up, and a golden-purple glory poured in door and windows. Beryl lay asleep, her dark pure profile and black hair outlined against the pillow. Keven hovered over her, possessed of a longing to kiss her awake. But he tiptoed out, to encounter Aard in the yard.
“Wal, bless my stars, son! You look made over new. Honeymoons must agree with you.”
“My Lord, but it’s been great,” exclaimed Keven. “But I’ll let Beryl have the joy of telling you…. Now Aard, it’s enough for me to say I’ve thanked God a thousand times for guiding me to Beryl and you…. Give me work. I owe Beryl a lot of money. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to pay her back. But I must get on the job. Only she won’t let me help you trap fur. I’m sorry, but I can’t go against her wishes.”
“I reckoned she wouldn’t. Wal, it ain’t so important. Any hurry about this hyar job?”
“Hurry? I guess yes. Right now I want it settled. What with your accumulating stock and the growing orchards there’s plenty of work. Then I’ll branch out for myself, some way or other.”
“Wal, son, I’m glad you’re so keen about it,” replied Aard, his piercing eyes on Keven. “I’ve a job you haven’t reckoned on. Come along.”
Wonderingly Keven followed the trapper out of the yard, past the first orchard, and up the creek trail to the heavily wooded bench. Aard crossed the gully on the boulders, and taking to a fallen fir tree he walked its long length, presently to step down into another trail, well defined and deep. It led to a shallow gully, out of which a tiny brook ran to leap down the mountainside. The timber was heavy here, forming thick shade. They proceeded up the brook, soon to come to banks of reddish-yellow earth, where there were unmistakable evidences of placer mining. Keven’s curious groping mind began to be illumined.
“Son, this claim pays about five dollars a day, workin’ six hours,” said Aard quietly. “I never work it in summer, because packers or prospectors ridin’ the trail would see muddy water an’ get curious. But it’s safe from November till April.”
Keven had no voice to answer. But he was thinking this must solve the mystery of the Aards. Presently Aard drew some brush carefully from in front of a hole in the slope of the ridge above the brook. It was a tunnel—a shaft like hundreds he had seen up and down the river.
“This is another claim of mine,” went on Aard. “I’ve only dug in about sixty feet. Average cleanup a day from ten to fifteen dollars. I’m bound to admit it gets a little richer the farther I go in. There’s a chance of runnin’ into a pocket of gold. In which case—wal, enough said. But there’s moderate work hyar for years. Good wages, an’ shore the chance of a strike. Though I never gamble on that.”
Keven found it convenient to sit down on a stone. His legs wobbled and there was a riot in his breast.
“Aard—your trapping is only a blind?” he queried.
“Sure is. But I like the woods. When I was a boy, huntin’ an’ trappin’ got into me…. I find it advisable to keep them up. Years ago, as you know, there was a big company placer minin’ across the river. They gave this place the name Solitude. But that company was crooked. Prospectors have dug around hyar some since, mostly pannin’ down by the river. They never struck anythin’ good. So I’ve had this all to myself. An’ I’ve worked to keep it so. Shore these claims are on my land. I proved up on this land years ago an’ someday will get my patent from the government. So we’re safe. But, son, we don’t want the peace of Solitude broken.”
“No—indeed,” said Keven thickly.
“So, son, this is your job, an’ I reckon you needn’t worry none about your debt to Beryl.”
“Oh, that girl! She drove me near crazy. Every little while, when I was distracted about our expenses, our extravagances, she’d laugh and dig up more money. If only she had told me!”
“Well, she had her way. An’ that was to surprise you. Now, Kev, you’re in the family. Hyar’s your job. But don’t get gold-mad an’ spoil it. Don’t work too much. Wintertime is enough, when the rain an’ snow fall to keep the ground wet. Our wants are reasonable. Shore you’ll need to take Beryl out a month or so every year. I’m right glad you’ve come back to us, for my sake same as the lass’.”
Keven was deeply moved. “Aard, what can I say—what can I do?” he queried.
“Wal, you needn’t say nothin’,” returned the trapper. “An’ shore you see wha
t there is to do. Make my lass happy. I know you can. I’ve seen that ever since you got well. Before, I had my doubts. Beryl is like her mother. Just love her, Kev. That’s all. An’ Solitude will be—wal, Solitude for many years to come.”
They worked their way back to the creek trail and began the descent. Keven halted at the open spots to look. Indian summer had fallen on the valley. He felt that he might be seeing it through magnified and glory-hued glasses. But the colors were really there. Black sheered up the dense slopes of firs, without a break, clear to the blue sky. But that was straight across the valley to the vast mountain wall. On Keven’s side it was a broken slope, not at all forbidding. And here Indian summer reigned. No eye could take in all that color without being blinded to actualities. But by limiting his sight to this slope or that bench, to canyon and ridge and ravine, to open oak knolls and stretches of madroña, to any of a thousand vistas. Keven made some approach to appreciation of the glory of Solitude. He seemed surrounded by bright areas. Gold now encroached upon the green, and both were slashed by red, by cerise, by flame, by. magenta, by scarlet. Winding bands of yellow bordered the river, their continuity broken by gray amber-mossed, brown-ferned, red-vined rocks. A drowsy warm sultry air mantled the valley, and far up, near the bend, the smoky haze began, deepening to purple.
Once more in the enclosure Keven espied Beryl sitting on the porch of his cabin, her dark head bent. He saw the glint of a fishing rod.
Aard drew Keven into his living room and directed his attention to a rude bookcase built along one of the logs.
“See anythin’ queer?” he asked.
“No,” replied Keven wonderingly.
Aard shoved the books to one end of the shelf. This disclosed a section of log, apparently identical with the other timbers of the cabin. But Aard inserted his finger in a knothole and shoved aside a cunningly concealed slide. The log was partly hollow. Inside reposed a number of gray buckskin bags, neatly tied and tagged, and significantly bulging. Aard removed one.
“Heft it,” he directed Keven.
