by Zane Grey
“What did I come to this country for?” he asked, suddenly, in ringing, powerful voice.
“To find a girl,” she whispered.
“I’ve found her!”
She began to shake. He saw a white hand go to her breast.
“Where is Surprise Valley?… How were you taken from Jane Withersteen and Lassiter?… I know they’re alive. But where?”
She seemed to turn to stone.
“Fay!—Fay Larkin!… I know you!” he cried, brokenly.
She slipped off the stone to her knees, swayed forward blindly with her hands reaching out, her head falling back to let the moon fall full upon the beautiful, snow-white, tragically convulsed face.
CHAPTER XIII
THE STORY OF SURPRISE VALLEY
“… Oh, I remember so well! Even now I dream of it sometimes. I hear the roll and crash of falling rock—like thunder.… We rode and rode. Then the horses fell. Uncle Jim took me in his arms and started up the cliff. Mother Jane climbed close after us. They kept looking back. Down there in the gray valley came the Mormons. I see the first one now. He rode a white horse. That was Tull. Oh, I remember so well! And I was five or six years old.
“We climbed up and up and into dark canyon and wound in and out. Then there was the narrow white trail, straight up, with the little cut steps and the great, red, ruined walls. I looked down over Uncle Jim’s shoulder. I saw Mother Jane dragging herself up. Uncle Jim’s blood spotted the trail. He reached a flat place at the top and fell with me. Mother Jane crawled up to us.
“Then she cried out and pointed. Tull was ’way below, climbing the trail. His men came behind him. Uncle Jim went to a great, tall rock and leaned against it. There was a bloody hole in his hand. He pushed the rock. It rolled down, banging the loose walls. They crashed and crashed—then all was terrible thunder and red smoke. I couldn’t hear—I couldn’t see.
“Uncle Jim carried me down and down out of the dark and dust into a beautiful valley all red and gold, with a wonderful arch of stone over the entrance.
“I don’t remember well what happened then for what seemed a long, long time. I can feel how the place looked, but not so clear as it is now in my dreams. I seem to see myself with the dogs, and with Mother Jane, learning my letters, marking with red stone on the walls.
“But I remember now how I felt when I first understood we were shut in for ever. Shut in Surprise Valley where Venters had lived so long. I was glad. The Mormons would never get me. I was seven or eight years old then. From that time all is clear in my mind.
“Venters had left supplies and tools and grain and cattle and burros, so we had a good start to begin life there. He had killed off the wildcats and kept the coyotes out, so the rabbits and quail multiplied till there were thousands of them. We raised corn and fruit, and stored what we didn’t use. Mother Jane taught me to read and write with the soft red stone that marked well on the walls.
“The years passed. We kept track of time pretty well. Uncle Jim’s hair turned white and Mother Jane grew gray. Every day was like the one before. Mother Jane cried sometimes and Uncle Jim was sad because they could never be able to get me out of the valley. It was long before they stopped looking and listening for someone. Venters would come back, Uncle Jim always said. But Mother Jane did not think so.
“I loved Surprise Valley. I wanted to stay there always. I remembered Cottonwoods, how the children there hated me, and I didn’t want to go back. The only unhappy times I ever had in the valley were when Ring and Whitie, my dogs, grew old and died. I roamed the valley. I climbed to every nook upon the mossy ledges. I learned to run up the steep cliffs. I could almost stick on the straight walls. Mother Jane called me a wild girl. We had put away the clothes we wore when we got there, to save them, and we made clothes of skins. I always laughed when I thought of my little dress—how I grew out of it. I think Uncle Jim and Mother Jane talked less as the years went by. And after I’d learned all she could teach me we didn’t talk much. I used to scream into the caves just to hear my voice, and the echoes would frighten me.
“The older I grew the more I was alone. I was always running round the valley. I would climb to a high place and sit there for hours, doing nothing. I just watched and listened. I used to stay in the cliff-dwellers’ caves and wonder about them. I loved to be out in the wind. And my happiest time was in the summer storms with the thunder echoes under the walls. At evening it was such a quiet place—after the night bird’s cry, no sound. The quiet made me sad but I loved it. I loved to watch the stars as I lay awake.
“So it was beautiful and happy for me there till—till…
“Two years or more ago there was a bad storm, and one of the great walls caved. The walls were always weathering, slipping. Many and many a time have I heard the rumble of an avalanche, but most of them were in other canyon. This slide in the valley made it possible, Uncle Jim said, for men to get down into the valley. But we could not climb out unless helped from above. Uncle Jim never rested well after that. But it never worried me.
“One day, over a year ago, while I was across the valley, I heard strange shouts, and then screams. I ran to our camp. I came upon men with ropes and guns. Uncle Jim was tied, and a rope was round his neck. Mother Jane was lying on the ground. I thought she was dead until I heard her moan. I was not afraid. I screamed and flew at Uncle Jim to tear the ropes off him. The men held me back. They called me a pretty cat. Then they talked together, and some were for hanging Lassiter—that was the first time I ever knew any name for him but Uncle Jim—and some were for leaving him in the valley. Finally they decided to hang him. But Mother Jane pleaded so and I screamed and fought so that they left off. Then they went away and we saw them climb out of the valley.
“Uncle Jim said they were Mormons, and some among them had been born in Cottonwoods. I was not told why they had such a terrible hate for him. He said they would come back and kill him. Uncle Jim had no guns to fight with.
“We watched and watched. In five days they did come back, with more men, and some of them wore black masks. They came to our cave with ropes and guns. One was tall. He had a cruel voice. The others ran to obey him. I could see white hair and sharp eyes behind the mask. The men caught me and brought me before him.
“He said Lassiter had killed many Mormons. He said Lassiter had killed his father and should be hanged. But Lassiter would be let live and Mother Jane could stay with him, both prisoners there in the valley, if I would marry the Mormon. I must marry him, accept the Mormon faith, and bring up my children as Mormons. If I refused they would hang Lassiter, leave the heretic Jane Withersteen alone in the valley, and take me and break me to their rule.
“I agreed. But Mother Jane absolutely forbade me to marry him. Then the Mormons took me away. It nearly killed me to leave Uncle Jim and Mother Jane. I was carried and lifted out of the valley, and rode a long way on a horse. They brought me here, to the cabin where I live, and I have never been away except that—that time—to—Stonebridge. Only little by little did I learn my position. Bishop Kane was kind, but stern, because I could not be quick to learn the faith.
“I am not a sealed wife. But they’re trying to make me one. The master Mormon—he visited me often—at night—till lately. He threatened me. He never told me a name—except Saint George. I don’t—know him—except his voice. I never—saw his face—in the light!”
* * * *
Fay Larkin ended her story. Toward its close Shefford had grown involuntarily restless, and when her last tragic whisper ceased all his body seemed shaken with a terrible violence of his joy. He strode to and fro in the dark shadow of the stone. The receding blood left him cold, with a pricking, sickening sensation over his body, but there seemed to be an overwhelming tide accumulating deep in his breast—a tide of passion and pain. He dominated the passion, but the ache remained. And he returned to the quiet figure on th
e stone.
“Fay Larkin!” he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief that the secret was disclosed. “So you’re not a wife!… You’re free! Thank Heaven! But I felt it was sacrifice. I knew there had been a crime. For crime it is. You child! You can’t understand what crime. Oh, almost I wish you and Jane and Lassiter had never been found. But that’s wrong of me. One year of agony—that shall not ruin your life. Fay, I will take you away.”
“Where?” she whispered.
“Away from this Mormon country—to the East,” he replied, and he spoke of what he had known, of travel, of cities, of people, of happiness possible for a young girl who had spent all her life hidden between the narrow walls of a silent, lonely valley—he spoke swiftly and eloquently till he lost his breath.
There was an instant of flashing wonder and joy on her white face, and then the radiance paled, the glow died. Her soul was the darker for that one strange, leaping glimpse of a glory not for such as she.
“I must stay here,” she said, shudderingly.
“Fay!—How strange to say Fay aloud to you!—Fay, do you know the way to Surprise Valley?”
“I don’t know where it is, but I could go straight to it,” she replied.
“Take me there. Show me your beautiful valley. Let me see where you ran and climbed and spent so many lonely years.”
“Ah, how I’d love to! But I dare not. And why should you want me to take you? We can run and climb here.”
“I want to—I mean to save Jane Withersteen and Lassiter,” he declared.
She uttered a little cry of pain. “Save them?”
“Yes, save them. Get them out of the valley, take them out of the country, far away where they and you—”
“But I can’t go,” she wailed. “I’m afraid. I’m bound. It can’t be broken. If I dared—if I tried to go they would catch me. They would hang Uncle Jim and leave Mother Jane alone there to starve.”
“Fay, Lassiter and Jane both will starve—at least they will die there if we do not save them. You have been terribly wronged. You’re a slave. You’re not a wife.”
“They—said I’ll be burned in hell if I don’t marry him.… Mother Jane never taught me about God. I don’t know. But he—he said God was there. I dare not break it.”
“Fay, you have been deceived by old men. Let them have their creed. But you mustn’t accept it.”
“John, what is God to you?”
“Dear child, I—I am not sure of that myself,” he replied, huskily. “When all this trouble is behind us, surely I can help you to understand and you can help me. The fact that you are alive—that Lassiter and Jane are alive—that I shall save you all—that lifts me up. I tell you—Fay Larkin will be my salvation.”
“Your words trouble me. Oh, I shall be torn one way and another.… But, John, I daren’t run away. I will not tell you where to find Lassiter and Mother Jane.”
“I shall find them—I have the Indian. He found you for me. Nas Ta Bega will find Surprise Valley.”
“Nas Ta Bega!… Oh, I remember. There was an Indian with the Mormons who found us. But he was a Piute.”
“Nas Ta Bega never told me how he learned about you. That he learned was enough. And, Fay, he will find Surprise Valley. He will save Uncle Jim and Mother Jane.”
Fay’s hands clasped Shefford’s in strong, trembling pressure; the tears streamed down her white cheeks; a tragic and eloquent joy convulsed her face.
“Oh, my friend, save them! But I can’t go.… Let them keep me! Let him kill me!”
“Him! Fay—he shall not harm you,” replied Shefford in passionate earnestness.
She caught the hand he had struck out with.
“You talk—you look like Uncle Jim when he spoke of the Mormons,” she said. “Then I used to be afraid of him. He was so different. John, you must not do anything about me. Let me be. It’s too late. He—and his men—they would hang you. And I couldn’t bear that. I’ve enough to bear without losing my friend. Say you won’t watch and wait—for—for him.”
Shefford had to promise her. Like an Indian she gave expression to primitive feeling, for it certainly never occurred to her that, whatever Shefford might do, he was not the kind of man to wait in hiding for an enemy. Fay had faltered through her last speech and was now weak and nervous and frightened. Shefford took her back to the cabin.
“Fay, don’t be distressed,” he said. “I won’t do anything right away. You can trust me. I won’t be rash. I’ll consult you before I make a move. I haven’t any idea what I could do, anyway.… You must bear up. Why, it looks as if you’re sorry I found you.”
“Oh! I’m glad!” she whispered.
“Then if you’re glad you mustn’t break down this way again. Suppose some of the women happened to run into us.”
“I won’t again. It’s only you—you surprised me so. I used to think how I’d like you to know—I wasn’t really dead. But now—it’s different. It hurts me here. Yet I’m glad—if my being alive makes you—a little happier.”
Shefford felt that he had to go then. He could not trust himself any further.
“Good night, Fay,” he said.
“Good night, John,” she whispered. “I promise—to be good tomorrow.”
She was crying softly when he left her. Twice he turned to see the dim, white, slender form against the gloom of the cabin. Then he went on under the pinyons, blindly down the path, with his heart as heavy as lead. That night as he rolled in his blanket and stretched wearily he felt that he would never be able to sleep. The wind in the cedars made him shiver. The great stars seemed relentless, passionless, white eyes, mocking his little destiny and his pain. The huge shadow of the mountain resembled the shadow of the insurmountable barrier between Fay and him.
* * * *
Her pitiful, childish promise to be good was in his mind when he went to her home on the next night. He wondered how she would be, and he realized a desperate need of self-control.
But that night Fay Larkin was a different girl. In the dark, before she spoke, he felt a difference that afforded him surprise and relief. He greeted her as usual. And then it seemed, though not at all clearly, that he was listening to a girl, strangely and unconsciously glad to see him, who spoke with deeper note in her voice, who talked where always she had listened, whose sadness was there under an eagerness, a subdued gaiety as new to her, as sweet as it was bewildering. And he responded with emotion, so that the hour passed swiftly, and he found himself back in camp, in a kind of dream, unable to remember much of what she had said, sure only of this strange sweetness suddenly come to her.
Upon the following night, however, he discovered what had wrought this singular change in Fay Larkin. She loved him and she did not know it. How passionately sweet and sad and painful was that realization for Shefford! The hour spent with her then was only a moment.
He walked under the stars that night and they shed a glorious light upon him. He tried to think, to plan, but the sweetness of remembered word or look made mental effort almost impossible. He got as far as the thought that he would do well to drift, to wait till she learned she loved him, and then, perhaps, she could be persuaded to let him take her and Lassiter and Jane away together.
And from that night he went at his work and the part he played in the village with a zeal and a cunning that left him free to seek Fay when he chose.
Sometimes in the afternoon, always for a while in the evening, he was with her. They climbed the walls, and sat upon a lonely height to look afar; they walked under the stars, and the cedars, and the shadows of the great cliffs. She had a beautiful mind. Listening to her, he imagined he saw down into beautiful Surprise Valley with all its weird shadows, its colored walls and painted caves, its golden shafts of morning light and the red haze at sunset; and he felt the silence that must have been there, and
the singing of the wind in the cliffs, and the sweetness and fragrance of the flowers, and the wildness of it all. Love had worked a marvelous transformation in this girl who had lived her life in a canyon. The burden upon her did not weigh heavily. She could not have an unhappy thought. She spoke of the village, of her Mormon companions, of daily happenings, of Stonebridge, of many things in a matter-of-fact way that showed how little they occupied her mind. She even spoke of sealed wives in a kind of dreamy abstraction. Something had possession of her, something as strong as the nature which had developed her, and in its power she, in her simplicity, was utterly unconscious, a watching and feeling girl. A strange, witching, radiant beauty lurked in her smile. And Shefford heard her laugh in his dreams.
The weeks slipped by. The black mountain took on a white cap of snow; in the early mornings there was ice in the crevices on the heights and frost in the valley. In the sheltered canyon where sunshine seemed to linger it was warm and pleasant, so that winter did not kill the flowers.
Shefford waited so long for Fay’s awakening that he believed it would never come, and, believing, had not the heart to force it upon her. Then there was a growing fear with him. What would Fay Larkin do when she awakened to the truth? Fay was indeed like that white and fragile lily which bloomed in the silent, lonely canyon, but the same nature that had created it had created her. Would she droop as the lily would in a furnace blast? More than that, he feared a sudden flashing into life of strength, power, passion, hate. She did not hate yet because she did not yet realize love. She was utterly innocent of any wrong having been done her. More and more he began to fear, and a foreboding grew upon him. He made up his mind to broach the subject of Surprise Valley and of escaping with Lassiter and Jane; still, every time he was with Fay the girl and her beauty and her love were so wonderful that he put off the ordeal till the next night. As time flew by he excused his vacillation on the score that winter was not a good time to try to cross the desert. There was no grass for the mustangs, except in well-known valleys, and these he must shun. Spring would soon come. So the days passed, and he loved Fay more all the time, desperately living out to its limit the sweetness of every moment with her, and paying for his bliss in the increasing trouble that beset him when once away from her charm.
