by Zane Grey
Rhoda passed the monastery, where she thought she saw men among the olive-trees. But she did not stop. She gradually worked out into an easy trail that led toward the open desert.
The little camp at the cañon’s mouth was preparing to move when Jack Newman jumped excitedly to his feet. Coming toward them through the sand was a boyish figure that moved with a beautiful stride, tireless and swift. As the newcomer drew nearer they saw that she was erect and lithe, slender but full-chested and that her face—
“Rhoda!” shouted John DeWitt.
In a moment, Jack was grasping one of her hands and John DeWitt the other, while Billy Porter and Carlos shook each other’s hands excitedly.
“Gee whiz!” cried Jack. “John said you were in superb condition, but I didn’t realize that it meant this! Why, Rhoda, if it wasn’t for your hair and eyes and the dimple in your chin, I wouldn’t know you!”
“Are you all right?” asked DeWitt anxiously. “Where in the world did you come from? Where have you been?”
“Were you hurt much in the fight?” cried Rhoda. “Oh!” looking about at the eager listeners, “that was the most awful thing I ever saw, that fight! And Billy Porter, you are all right, I see. How shall I ever repay you all for what you have done for me!”
“Gosh!” exclaimed Porter. “I’m repaid just by looking at you! If that pison Piute hasn’t made monkeys of us all, I’d like to know who has! How did you get away from him?”
“He let me go,” answered Rhoda simply.
The men gasped.
“What was the matter with him!” ejaculated Porter, “Was he sick or dying?”
“No,” said Rhoda mechanically; “I guess he saw that it was useless.”
“And he dropped you in the desert without water or food or horse!” cried DeWitt. “Oh, that Apache cur!”
“No! No!” exclaimed Rhoda. “He dropped me not far from here. We saw the camp and he sent me to it.”
The men looked at each other incredulously. Jack Newman’s face was puzzled. He knew Kut-le and it was hard to believe that he would give up what he already had won. DeWitt spoke excitedly.
“Then he’s still within our reach! Hurry up, friends!”
Rhoda turned swiftly to the gaunt-faced man. Then she spoke very distinctly, with that in her deep gray eyes that stirred each listener with a vague sense of loss and yearning.
“I don’t want Kut-le harmed! I shan’t tell you anything that will help you locate him. He did me no harm. On the contrary, he made me a well woman, physically and mentally. If I can forgive his effrontery in stealing me, surely you all will grant me this favor to top all that you have done for me.”
Porter’s under lip protruded with the old obstinate look.
“That fellow’s got to be made an example of, Miss Rhoda,” he said. “No white that’s a man can stand for what he’s done. He’s bound to be hunted down, you know. If we don’t, others will!”
Rhoda turned impatiently to DeWitt.
“John, after all our talk, you must understand! You know what good Kut-le has done me and how big it was of him to let me go. Make them promise to let him alone!”
But there was no answering look of understanding in DeWitt’s worn face.
“Rhoda, you haven’t any idea what you’re asking! It isn’t a question of forgiveness! You don’t get the point of view that you ought! Why, the whole country is worked up over this thing! The newspapers are full of it. Just as Porter says, the Apache’s got to be made an example of. We will hunt him down, if it takes a year!”
So far Jack Newman had said nothing. Rhoda looked at him as if he were her last hope.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried. “He was your friend, your dearest friend! And he sent me back! Why, you never would have got me if he hadn’t voluntarily let me go! He is wonderful on the trail!”
“So we found!” said DeWitt grimly.
But Rhoda was watching Jack.
“Rhoda,” Jack said at last, “I know how you feel. I know what a bully chap Kut-le is. This just about does me up. But what he’s done can’t be let go. We’ve got to punish him!”
“‘Punish him!’” repeated Rhoda. “Just what do you mean by that?”
“We mean,” answered DeWitt, “that when we find him, I’ll shoot him!”
“No!” cried Rhoda. “No! Why he sent me back!”
The three men looked at Rhoda uncomfortably and at each other wonderingly. A woman’s magnanimity is never to be understood by a man!
“Are you tired, Rhoda?” asked DeWitt abruptly. “Do you feel able to take to the saddle at once?”
“I’m all right!” exclaimed Rhoda impatiently. “What are your plans?”
DeWitt pointed out across the sand to the cañon wall. A line of slender footprints led through the level wastes as plainly as if on new-fallen snow.
“We will follow your trail,” he said.
There was silence for an instant in the little camp while the men eyed the girlish face, flushed and vivid beneath the tan. As it had come when DeWitt had rescued her, the old sense of the appalling nature of her experience was returning to her again. With sickening clarity she was getting the men’s view-point. The old Rhoda would have protested, would have fought desperately and blindly. The new Rhoda had lived through hours of hopeless battle with circumstance. She had learned the desert’s lesson of patience.
“I have thought,” she said slowly, “so much of the joy of my return to you! God only knows how the picture of it has kept me alive from day to day. All your joy seems swallowed up in your thirst for revenge. All right, my friends. Only, wherever you go, I go too!”
Billy Porter shook his head with a muttered “Gosh!” as if the ways of women were quite beyond him.
“I think you had better ride on to the ranch with Carlos,” said DeWitt, “while we take up Kut-le’s trail. This will be no trip for a woman.”
“You’re foolish!” exclaimed Jack. “We’ll not let her out of our sight again. You can’t tell what stunt Kut-le is up to!”
“That’s right!” said Porter. “It’ll be hard on her, but she’d better come with us.”
“Don’t trouble to discuss the matter,” said Rhoda coolly. “I am coming with you. Katherine probably sent some clothing for me, didn’t she?”
“Why, yes!” exclaimed Jack. “That was one of the first things she thought of. She sent her own riding things for you. She spoke of the little silk dress you had on and said you hadn’t anything appropriate in your trunks for the rough trip you might have to take after we found you.”
Jack was talking rapidly, as if to relieve the tension of the situation. He undid a pack that he had kept tied to his saddle during all the long weeks of pursuit.
“We can rig up a dressing-room of blankets in no time,” he went on, putting a bundle into Rhoda’s hands.
Rhoda stood holding the bundle in silence while all hands set to rigging up her dressing-room. She felt suddenly cool-headed and resourceful. Her mind was forced away from her own sorrow to the solution of another heavy problem. In the little blanket tent she unrolled the bundle and smiled tenderly at the evidence of Katherine’s thoughtfulness. There were underwear, handkerchiefs, toilet articles and Katherine’s own pretty corduroy divided skirt and Norfolk jacket with a little blouse and Ascot scarf.
Rhoda took off her buckskins and tattered blue shirt slowly, with lips that would quiver. This was the last, the very last of Kut-le! She dressed herself in Katherine’s clothes, then folded up the buckskins and shirt. She would keep them, always! When she came out from the tent she stepped awkwardly, for the skirts bothered her, and Jack, waiting nearby, smiled at her. At another time Rhoda would have joined in his amusement, but now she asked soberly:
“Which horse is for me?”
“Rhoda!” c
ried DeWitt, “I really wouldn’t know you! I thought I never could want you anything but ethereal, but—Jack! Isn’t she wonderful!”
Jack grinned. Rhoda, tanned and oval-cheeked, and straight of back and shoulder, was not to be compared with the invalid Rhoda.
“Gee!” he said. “Wait till Katherine sees her!”
Rhoda shrugged her shoulders.
“My pleasure in all that is swallowed up by this savage obsession of yours.”
John DeWitt led out Rhoda’s pony.
“You don’t understand, dear,” he said. “You can’t doubt my heavenly joy at having you safe. But the outrage of it all— That Apache devil!”
“I do understand, John,” answered Rhoda wearily. “Don’t try to explain again. I know just how you all feel. Only, I will not have Kut-le killed.”
“Rhoda,” said DeWitt hoarsely, “I shall kill him as I would a yellow dog!”
Rhoda turned away. The line of march was quickly formed. Porter led. Carlos closed the rear. DeWitt and Newman rode on either side of Rhoda. They were not long in reaching the trail down the cañon wall. Here they paused, for the rough ascent was impossible for the horses. The men looked questioningly at Rhoda but she volunteered no information. She believed that Kut-le had left the camp at the top long since. If for any reason he had delayed his going, she knew that he had watched every movement in the white camp and could protect himself easily.
“We can leave Carlos with the horses,” said Porter, “while we climb up and see where the trail leads.”
Rhoda dismounted, still silent, and followed Porter and DeWitt up the trail. Jack following her. The trail had been difficult to descend and was very hard to ascend. There was a dumb purposefulness about the men’s movements that sickened Rhoda. She had seen too much of men in this mood of late and she feared them, She knew that all the amenities of civilization had been stripped from them and that she was only pitting her feeble strength against a world-old instinct.
Her heart was beating heavily as they neared the top, but not from the hard climb. She was inured to difficult trails. There was a sheer pull, shoulder high, at the top. The four accomplished it in one breathless group, then stood as if paralyzed.
Sunlight flickered through the pines. Molly and Cesca prepared the trail packs. And Kut-le sat beside the spring, eying his visitors grimly. He looked very cool and well groomed in comparison with his trail-worn adversaries.
DeWitt pulled out his Colt.
“I think I have you, this time,” he said.
“Yes?” asked Kut-le, without stirring. “And what are you going to do with me?”
“I’m going to take about a minute to tell you what I think of you, and give you another minute in which to offer up some sort of an Indian prayer. Then I’m going to shoot you!”
Kut-le glanced from DeWitt to Rhoda, thence to Porter and Newman. Porter’s under lip protruded. Jack looked sick. Both the men had their hands on their guns. Rhoda moistened her lips to speak, but Kut-le was before her.
“Are you a good shot, DeWitt?” he asked. “Because I know that Jack and Porter are sure in their aim.”
“You’ll never know whether I am or not,” replied DeWitt. “You’d better be thankful that we are shooting you instead of hanging you, as you deserve, you cur! You’d better be glad you’re dying! You haven’t a white friend left in the country! All your ambition and hard work have come to this because you couldn’t change your Indian hide, after all! Now then, say your prayers! Rhoda, cover up your eyes!”
Kut-le rose slowly. The whites noticed with a little pang of shame that he made no attempt to touch his gun which lay on the ground beside him.
“You’d better let Jack and Billy shoot with you,” he said quietly. “You won’t like to think about the shot that killed me, afterward. It isn’t nice, I’ve heard, the memory of killing a man!”
“I’m shooting an Indian, not a man!” said DeWitt. “Say your prayers!”
The spell of fear that had paralyzed Rhoda snapped. Before Jack or Billy could detain her she ran to DeWitt’s side and grasped his arm.
“John! John! Listen to me, one moment! Look at me! In spite of all, look, see what he’s made of me, for you to reap the harvest! Look at me! I beg of you, do not shoot him! Let him go! Make him promise to leave the country. Make him promise anything! He keeps promises because he is an Indian! But if you have any love for me, if you care anything for my happiness, don’t kill Kut-le! I tell you I will never marry you with his blood on your hands!”
A look curiously hard, curiously suspicious, came to DeWitt’s eyes. Without lowering his gun or looking at the girl, he answered:
“You plead too well, Rhoda! I want this Indian to pay for more torture of mine than you can dream of! Get back out of the way! Are you ready, Kut-le?”
Rhoda’s slender body was rigid. She moved away from DeWitt until she could encompass the four men in her glance. With arms folded across her arching chest she spoke with a richness in her voice that none of her hearers ever could forget.
“Remember, friends, you have forced me to this! You had me safe, but you thought more of revenge than you did of my safety! John, if you kill Kut-le you will kill the man that I love with all the passion of my soul!”
DeWitt gasped as if he had been struck. Newman and Porter stared dizzily. Only Kut-le stood composed. His eyes with the old look of tragic tenderness were fastened on the girl.
“Are you going to shoot him now, John?”
“Rhoda!” cried DeWitt fiercely. “Rhoda! Do you realize what you are saying?”
“Yes,” said Rhoda steadily. “I realize that a force greater than race pride, greater than self love, greater than intelligence or fear, is gripping me! John, I love this man! He and I have lived through experiences together too great for words. He had me in the hollow of his hand but he sent me back to you, his enemy. You say that you love me. But you would not listen to my pleading, you would not grant me the only favor I ever asked you, the granting of which could not have harmed you.”
Her listeners did not stir. Rhoda moistened her lips.
“Kut-le—— Think what he sacrificed for me. He gave up his dearest friendships. He gave up his honor and his country and risked his life, for me. And then when he thought the sacrifice would prove too great on my part, he gave me up! I ask you to give him his life, for me. Because, John, and Billy Porter, and Jack, I tell you that I love him!”
“My God!” panted DeWitt. “Rhoda, don’t! You don’t know what you’re saying! Rhoda!”
Rhoda looked off where the afternoon sun lay like the very glory of God upon the chaos of range and desert. Almost—almost the secret of life itself seemed to bare itself to the girl’s wide eyes. The white men watched her aghast. There was a desperate, hunted look in DeWitt’s tired face. Rhoda turned back.
“I know what I’m saying,” she replied. “But I tell you that this thing is bigger than I am! I have fought it, defied it, ignored it. It only grows the stronger! I know that this comes to humans but rarely. Yet it has come to me! It is the greatest force in the world! It is what makes life persist! To most people it comes only in small degree and they call that love! To me, in this boundless country, it has come boundlessly. It is greater than what you know as love. It is greater than I am. I don’t know what sorrow or what joy my decision may bring me but—John, I want you to let Kut-le live that I may marry him!”
DeWitt’s arm dropped as if dead.
“Rhoda,” he repeated, agonizedly, “you don’t know what you are saying!”
“Don’t I?” asked Rhoda steadily. “Have I fought my fight without coming to know the risk? Don’t I know what atavism means, and race alienation, and hunger for my own? But this which has come to me is stronger than all these. I love Kut-le, John, and I ask you to give his life to me!”
Still Kut-le stood motionless, as did Jack and Porter. DeWitt, without taking his eyes from Rhoda’s, slowly, very slowly, slipped his Colt back into his belt. For a long moment he gazed at the wonder of the girl’s exalted face. Then he passed his hands across his eyes.
“I give up!” he said quietly. Then he turned, walked slowly to the cañon edge, and clambered deliberately down the trail.
Jack and Billy stood dazed for a moment longer, then Porter cleared his throat.
“Miss Rhoda, don’t do this! Now don’t you! Come with us back to the ranch. Just for a month till you get away from this Injun’s influence! Come back and talk to Mrs. Newman. Come back and get some other woman’s ideas! For God’s sake, Miss Rhoda, don’t ruin your life this way!”
“When Katherine knows it all, she’ll understand and agree with me,” replied Rhoda. “Jack, try to remember everything I said, to tell Katherine.”
“I tell her!” cried Jack. “Why can’t you tell her yourself? What are you planning to do?”
“That is for Kut-le to say,” answered Rhoda.
“Rhoda,” said Jack, and his voice shook with earnestness, “listen! Listen to me, your old playmate! I know how fascinating Kut-le is. Lord help us, girl, he’s been my best friend for years! And in spite of everything, he’s my friend still. But, Rhoda, it won’t do! It won’t work out right. He’s a fine man for men. But as a husband to a white woman, he’s still an Indian; and after the first, that must always come between you! Think again, Rhoda! I tell you, it won’t do!”
Rhoda’s voice still was clear and high, still bore the note of exaltation.
