by Zane Grey
‘The horrid cat,’ she said.
Sanchia began pouring out a torrent of confused words which Howard’s curt speech interrupted. As he lifted his hat his eyes were for Helen alone: she flashed him a scornful look and turned away from him. Then he turned to Longstreet.
‘Mr. Longstreet,’ he said sharply, ‘I want you to know my position in this matter. As I was starting Mrs. Murray came to the ranch. I was naturally astonished when she said that she was on her way to see you. I had thought, from what has happened, that you would be the last man in the world whom she would care to meet. She said, however, that she must speak with you and that she hoped she could do something to right matters. When she asked for a fresh horse I loaned her one. That,’ he concluded harshly, ‘is all that I have to do with Sanchia Murray and all that I want to do with her. The rest is up to you.’
The spite in Sanchia’s quick sidelong look was for Howard alone.
‘Alan is rather hard on me, I think,’ she said quite simply as she turned her eyes upon the three at the cabin door. ‘Especially,’ and again she gave him that look for him alone, ‘after what has been between us. But I must not think of that now. Oh, Mr. Longstreet, if you only knew how this thing has nearly killed me——’
She broke off, hiding her face in her hands, her body swaying in the saddle as though surely she would fall. Longstreet looked concerned.
‘Get down and come in,’ he exclaimed. ‘You are utterly exhausted. Helen, my dear, a cup of coffee, quick. This poor lady looks as though she hadn’t slept or rested or eaten since we saw her last.’
‘How could I eat or rest or sleep?’ cried Sanchia brokenly. ‘After all that has happened? Oh, I wish I were dead!’
Helen did not budge for the coffee. Her eyes were blazing. Sanchia slid down from the saddle and came to the door. Longstreet hastened to her side and the two went in together. Helen, without looking toward Howard, followed, determined that she would hear whatever it was that Sanchia Murray had to say.
‘Come in, Howard,’ Longstreet remembered to say. ‘We’re having supper. Both you and Mrs. Murray will eat with us.’
Sanchia bathed her eyes and they all sat down. When Howard looked toward Helen she ignored him. Outside Carr had demanded, ‘What in hell’s name made you bring that woman here?’ and Alan had rejoined, ‘I couldn’t stop her coming, could I?’ And now the two had nothing to say to each other. Longstreet, nervous and impatient for whatever explanations were coming, fidgeted constantly until Sanchia began speaking.
‘When I learned what had happened,’ she said, ‘I thought at first that I could not live to endure it. I could have shrieked; I could have killed myself. To think that I had been the cause of it all. Oh, it was hideous! But then I knew that I must live and that I must seek somehow to make reparation. All of my life, as long as I live, I shall hope and try and work to undo what I have done.’
She was watching them all through her handkerchief, which she was using to dab her eyes; of Longstreet she never for an instant lost sight. She saw the eagerness in his eyes and knew that it was an eagerness to believe in her. She saw Helen’s anger and contempt; she saw Carr’s black looks; she saw, too, how Howard kept his eyes always on Helen’s face, and she read what was so easy to read in them. It was her business, her chief affair in life just now, to keep her two eyes wide open; hence she saw, too, the look which Helen had flashed at the cattleman. And while she observed all of this she was speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, as though her one concern lay in the tragic error she had made. Had she been less than a very clever woman who had long lived, and lived well, by her wits, she must have found the situation too much for her. But no one of her hearers, excepting possibly the one chiefly interested, failed to do Sanchia Murray justice for her cleverness. As it was, she did not fear the outcome from the outset.
She told how she had been so overjoyed at Longstreet’s news; how, for that dear child Helen’s sake, she had rejoiced; how she had for a little felt less lonely in sharing a secret meant for a wonderful birthday surprise; how she had yearned to help in this glowing hour of happiness. She had tried to help Mr. Longstreet with Mr. Harkness at the court-house; she had learned that he was out of town; she had been told that his assistant was at the Montezuma House. In spite of her abhorrence of going to such a place she had gone, carried away by the high tide of excitement. And there she had been tricked into introducing Mr. Longstreet to no less a terrible creature than Monte Devine. She hastened to add that she told Mr. Longstreet that she did not know this man; he would bear her out in this; she too had been tricked. But she would never, never forgive herself.
‘Nor,’ said Helen’s voice coldly, ‘will I ever forgive you. Nor am I the fool to believe all these tales. Maybe you can make a fool of my father, but——’
‘Helen, Helen,’ expostulated Longstreet sternly, ‘you are being hasty. At times like this one should seek to be kind and just.’
Again Helen’s sniff was audible and eloquent.
‘Do you mean,’ she demanded, ‘that you believe all of this nonsense?’
‘I mean, my dear, that one should be deliberate. Mrs. Murray has made an explanation, she is plainly sick with grief at what has occurred. She has ridden straight to us. What more could one do? When you are older, my dear, and have seen more of life you will know that the world sometimes makes terrible mistakes.’
‘You are so great-hearted!’ sobbed Sanchia. ‘So wonderful! There is not another man in the world who would be even tolerant at a time like this. And to think that it is you—you whom I have hurt.’ Her sobs overcame her.
Helen flung herself angrily to her feet.
‘Papa,’ she cried, ‘can’t you see, can’t you understand that this woman is determined to make a fool of you again? Hasn’t she done it once already? Oh, are you going to be just a little baby in her hands?’
Sanchia lowered her handkerchief for a swift glance at Helen and then at the other faces in the room. The sternness on Howard’s and Carr’s faces did not greatly concern her, for she saw written across Longstreet’s countenance just about what she had counted on. And Helen’s words had simply succeeded in drawing his indignation toward his daughter. Hence, wisely, Sanchia was content to be silent for a spell. Matters seemed to be going well enough left alone.
Helen had meant to run out of doors, to close her ears to this maddening discussion. She felt that it was either that or deliberately slap Sanchia Murray’s face. Now, however, she sat down again, deciding with a degree of acumen that Sanchia would prefer nothing to a tête-à-tête with Longstreet.
‘After all,’ said Helen more quietly and with a look which was hard as it flashed across Sanchia’s face to Howard’s and then on, ‘threshing all this over is valueless. Forgive her, father,’ she went on contemptuously, ‘if either of you will feel better for it, and don’t detain her. We are going back East in a few days, anyway.’
Howard stared at her wonderingly as Carr nodded his approval of the speech. But Longstreet spoke with considerable emphasis.
‘Aren’t you rather premature in your announcement, my dear? I am not going back East at all.’
There might have been no discussion of the matter had he ended there. But seeing the various expressions called by his words to the faces about the table, he added the challenge:
‘Why should I go? Haven’t I already demonstrated that I know what I am doing? Isn’t this the place for me?’
Helen answered him first and energetically. He should go, she cried hotly, because he had demonstrated nothing at all save that he was a lamb in a den of wolves. He was a university man and not a mountaineer or desert Indian; he knew books and he did not know men; it was his duty to himself and to his daughter to return home. The girl’s colour deepened and grew hot with her rapid speech, and Sanchia, sitting back, watching and listening, lost never a word. Before Longst
reet could shape a reply John Carr added his voice to Helen’s plea. He said all that he had said once before to-day; he elaborated his argument, which to him appeared unanswerable. When he had done, always speaking quietly, he turned to Howard.
‘Don’t you think I am right, Al?’ he asked.
‘No!’ replied Howard emphatically. ‘I don’t. Mr. Longstreet does know his business. He has located one mine in this short time. It was not chance; it was science. There is more gold left in these hills. Give him time and a free swing, and he’ll find it.’
Carr appeared amazed.
‘I can’t imagine what makes you talk like that, Al,’ he said shortly. ‘It’s rather a serious thing with the Longstreets which way they move now. You are deliberately encouraging him to buck a game which he ought to leave to another type of man.’
‘Deliberately is the right word,’ said Howard. ‘And I can’t quite understand what makes you seek to discourage him and pack him off to the East again.’
Carr was silent. Sanchia’s eyes, very bright, grew brighter with a keen look of understanding. Very innocently she spoke.
‘Are you thinking of going East, too, Mr. Carr?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ snapped Carr. ‘I am. What of it?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Sanchia. But she laughed. Then as Longstreet was opening his mouth to make his own statement, she cut in, turning to him, speaking directly to him, in some subtle way giving the impression that she was quite oblivious of anyone but of him and herself.
‘You mustn’t go,’ she said softly. She studied his face and then put a light hand on his arm. Helen stiffened. ‘How shall I say all that I feel here?’ She gave an effective gesture as she pressed the other hand against her own bosom. ‘You have come into a land of nothing but ignorance and into it you have brought the brain of a scholar. You said, “I will find gold,” and they laughed at you—and you found it! It was not chance; Alan was right. It was the act of a man who knew. This land has many kinds of men, Mr. Longstreet. It has no other man like you. It needs you. You must stay!’
‘Oh,’ said Helen. It was scarcely more than a gasp, and yet it bespoke profound disgust. The woman was insufferable. Here, upon the top of her treachery, was most palpable flattery. Surely her father would not fail to see now the woman’s true character; surely he must baulk at such talk as this. But he was beaming again as though the clouds of a storm had passed and the sunlight were streaming upon him; he rubbed his hands together and spoke cheerfully.
‘Sanchia is right; Alan is right. These two understand me. I shall show to the world that they have not misjudged me. I know my own limitations. I am no superman. I have made blunders in my time. But I do know my own work, and I am the only man here who does! In a way Sanchia is right when she says that this country needs me. It does. And I need it. We are going to stay, my dear.’
Sanchia flashed Helen a look of triumph; her eyes, passing on to Howard, held briefly a sparkle of malice.
‘Alan and I are very grateful to have your approval,’ she said sweetly. ‘Aren’t we, Alan?’ and again her look was for Helen and was triumphant.
Helen pushed her plate away and for a second time rose abruptly.
‘I’ll choke if I stay in here,’ she said. And, with breast heaving, she went to the door and out into the fading afternoon. Sanchia’s glance followed her and then returned placidly to the men.
‘The dear child is high-strung, and Heaven knows she has been through enough to upset anyone,’ she said condoningly. Then, ‘Mr. Carr and you, Alan, don’t seem to be hungry any more. I would like a word with Mr. Longstreet, and if you two went out to Helen perhaps you might soothe her. Remember she is only a child after all.’
Glad of the excuse to be gone, both men rose. As they went out they saw how Sanchia was already leaning toward Longstreet, how her hand had again found its way to his arm. Then they lost sight of her and saw Helen standing upon the cliff edge looking off to the lowlands of the south. In silence they joined her.
‘I don’t know whether I love this country or hate it most,’ Helen said without withdrawing her troubled eyes from the expanse of Desert Valley. The sun was down, the distances were veiled in tender shades, pale greens of the meadowlands, dusky greys of the hills. ‘If it were only all like that; if there were only the glorious valley and the peace of it instead of this hideous life up here!’
It was in Alan Howard’s heart to cry out to her, ‘Come down into the peace of it; it is all mine. Come down to live there with me.’ It may have been in John Carr’s heart to whisper: ‘It is mine until the last cent is paid on it; if you love it so, there may still be the way to get it back for you.’ But neither man spoke his thought. The three stood close together, the girl with troubled eyes standing between the two friends, and all of their eyes searched into the mystery of the coming dusk.
From the cabin came the sound of a laugh. It was Longstreet’s, and it was like a pleased child’s.
CHAPTER XX
Two Friends and a Girl
Howard and Carr rode down into the darkening valley side by side. The silence of the coming dusk was no deeper than that silence which had crept about them while the three stood upon the cliff’s edge. Longstreet’s laugh had whipped up the colour into Helen’s cheeks and had lighted a battle fire in her eyes. She had whisked away from them and gone straight back to the cabin, meaning to save her father from his own artlessness and from the snare of a designing widow. She had remembered to call out a breathless ‘Good-night’ without turning her head. They had taken their dismissal together, understanding Helen’s tortured mood. Each man grave and taciturn, like two automatons they buckled on their spurs, mounted and reined toward the trail.
Then Howard had said merely: ‘Come down to the ranch-house, John. I want to talk with you.’ And Carr had nodded and acquiesced. Thereafter they were silent again for a long time.
The coming of night is a time of vague veilings, of grotesque transformations, of remoulding and steeping in new dyes. Matter-of-fact objects, clear-cut during the day, assume fantastic shapes; a bush may appear a crouching mountain cat; a rock may masquerade as a mastodon. This is an hour of uncertainties. And doubtings and questionings and uncertainties were other shadow shapes thronging the demesnes of two men’s souls. Silence and dim dusk without, dim dusk and silence within.
Once Howard, the lighter spirited of the two, sought to laugh the constraint away.
‘Something seems to have come over us, John,’ he said. But as he spoke he knew that what he should have said was that something had come between them. Further, he knew that Carr would have amended his words thus in his own mind and that that was why he did not reply. He recalled vividly how they three had stood on the cliff, he on Helen’s left, John on her right. He and John were friends; in the desert lands friendship is sacred. Further, it is mighty, stalwart, godly, and all but indomitable. They had shared together, fought together. One friend would do to the uttermost for the other, would die for him. He would rush into the other’s fight, asking no questions, and if he went down the chill of coming death would be warmed by the glow of conscious sacrifice. The friendship of Howard and Carr had stood the many tests of time. But only now had the supreme test come. Until to-day, either of them in the generousness of his spirit would have stepped gladly aside for the other. But now? A girl is not a cup of water that one man, dying of thirst, may say of her to his friend: ‘Take her.’ Their friendship was not changed; simply it was no longer the greatest thing in life. The love of a man for a man, though it be strengthened by ten thousand ties, is less than the love of a man for his chosen mate, though to the other eyes and minds that love may be inexplicable. Set any Damon and Pythias upon an isolated desert island, then into their lives bring the soft eyes of a girl, and inevitably the day will dawn when those eyes will look upon the death of a friendship. This knowledge had at last become
a part of the understandings of Alan Howard and John Carr.
‘You are going East, John?’ asked Howard when at length his spirit sought a second time to shake off the oppression of the hour.
Even these words came with something of an effort. He tried to speak naturally. But behind his words were troops of confused thoughts; Carr was going East, and had said nothing to him; if Carr left, what then of Helen? Carr had tried to persuade the Longstreets to go with him.
And to Carr the query sounded more careless, more lightly casual than Howard had intended. His own thoughts were quick to respond though his reply came after a noticeable hesitation. Alan did not appear to care whether he went away or remained; he had not asked if this were to be a brief absence or an indefinite sojourn.
‘Yes,’ Carr’s answer at last was short and blunt; ‘I have business there.’
Carr thought that if Alan were interested he would ask naturally, as one friend had always asked the other, to know more. Howard thought that if Carr cared to speak of his own personal affairs he would do so. Hence, while both waited, neither spoke. Perhaps both were hurt. Certainly the constraint between them thickened and deepened in step with the engulfing night; they could not see each other’s faces, they could not glimpse each other’s souls. Both were baffled and into the temper of each came a growing irritation. One thing alone they appeared to have in common—the desire to come to the end of the ride. Their spurs dipped and they raced along wordlessly.
When Howard dismounted at the home corrals and began unsaddling, Carr rode on to the house.
