by Zane Grey
“Don’t—look—back!” he said, and his voice, too, was not clear.
Facing straight ahead, seeing only the waving, shadowy sage, Jane held out her gauntleted hand, to feel it enclosed in strong clasp. So she rode on without a backward glance at the beautiful grove of Cottonwoods. She did not seem to think of the past of what she left forever, but of the color and mystery and wildness of the sage-slope leading down to Deception Pass, and of the future. She watched the shadows lengthen down the slope; she felt the cool west wind sweeping by from the rear; and she wondered at low, yellow clouds sailing swiftly over her and beyond.
“Don’t look—back!” said Lassiter.
Thick-driving belts of smoke traveled by on the wind, and with it came a strong, pungent odor of burning wood.
Lassiter had fired Withersteen House! But Jane did not look back.
A misty veil obscured the clear, searching gaze she had kept steadfastly upon the purple slope and the dim lines of canyons. It passed, as passed the rolling clouds of smoke, and she saw the valley deepening into the shades of twilight. Night came on, swift as the fleet racers, and stars peeped out to brighten and grow, and the huge, windy, eastern heave of sage-level paled under a rising moon and turned to silver. Blanched in moonlight, the sage yet seemed to hold its hue of purple and was infinitely more wild and lonely. So the night hours wore on, and Jane Withersteen never once looked back.
CHAPTER XXI
BLACK STAR AND NIGHT
The time had come for Venters and Bess to leave their retreat. They were at great pains to choose the few things they would be able to carry with them on the journey out of Utah.
“Bern, whatever kind of a pack’s this, anyhow?” questioned Bess, rising from her work with reddened face.
Venters, absorbed in his own task, did not look up at all, and in reply said he had brought so much from Cottonwoods that he did not recollect the half of it.
“A woman packed this!” Bess exclaimed.
He scarcely caught her meaning, but the peculiar tone of her voice caused him instantly to rise, and he saw Bess on her knees before an open pack which he recognized as the one given him by Jane.
“By George!” he ejaculated, guiltily, and then at sight of Bess’s face he laughed outright.
“A woman packed this,” she repeated, fixing woeful, tragic eyes on him.
“Well, is that a crime?’
“There—there is a woman, after all!”
“Now Bess—”
“You’ve lied to me!”
Then and there Venters found it imperative to postpone work for the present. All her life Bess had been isolated, but she had inherited certain elements of the eternal feminine.
“But there was a woman and you did lie to me,” she kept repeating, after he had explained.
“What of that? Bess, I’ll get angry at you in a moment. Remember you’ve been pent up all your life. I venture to say that if you’d been out in the world you d have had a dozen sweethearts and have told many a lie before this.”
“I wouldn’t anything of the kind,” declared Bess, indignantly.
“Well—perhaps not lie. But you’d have had the sweethearts—You couldn’t have helped that—being so pretty.”
This remark appeared to be a very clever and fortunate one; and the work of selecting and then of stowing all the packs in the cave went on without further interruption.
Venters closed up the opening of the cave with a thatch of willows and aspens, so that not even a bird or a rat could get in to the sacks of grain. And this work was in order with the precaution habitually observed by him. He might not be able to get out of Utah, and have to return to the valley. But he owed it to Bess to make the attempt, and in case they were compelled to turn back he wanted to find that fine store of food and grain intact. The outfit of implements and utensils he packed away in another cave.
“Bess, we have enough to live here all our lives,” he said once, dreamily.
“Shall I go roll Balancing Rock?” she asked, in light speech, but with deep-blue fire in her eyes.
“No—no.”
“Ah, you don’t forget the gold and the world,” she sighed.
“Child, you forget the beautiful dresses and the travel—and everything.”
“Oh, I want to go. But I want to stay!”
“I feel the same way.”
They let the eight calves out of the corral, and kept only two of the burros Venters had brought from Cottonwoods. These they intended to ride. Bess freed all her pets—the quail and rabbits and foxes.
The last sunset and twilight and night were both the sweetest and saddest they had ever spent in Surprise Valley. Morning brought keen exhilaration and excitement. When Venters had saddled the two burros, strapped on the light packs and the two canteens, the sunlight was dispersing the lazy shadows from the valley. Taking a last look at the caves and the silver spruces, Venters and Bess made a reluctant start, leading the burros. Ring and Whitie looked keen and knowing. Something seemed to drag at Venters’s feet and he noticed Bess lagged behind. Never had the climb from terrace to bridge appeared so long.
Not till they reached the opening of the gorge did they stop to rest and take one last look at the valley. The tremendous arch of stone curved clear and sharp in outline against the morning sky. And through it streaked the golden shaft. The valley seemed an enchanted circle of glorious veils of gold and wraiths of white and silver haze and dim, blue, moving shade—beautiful and wild and unreal as a dream.
“We—we can—th—think of it—always—re—remember,” sobbed Bess.
“Hush! Don’t cry. Our valley has only fitted us for a better life somewhere. Come!”
They entered the gorge and he closed the willow gate. From rosy, golden morning light they passed into cool, dense gloom. The burros pattered up the trail with little hollow-cracking steps. And the gorge widened to narrow outlet and the gloom lightened to gray. At the divide they halted for another rest. Venters’s keen, remembering gaze searched Balancing Rock, and the long incline, and the cracked toppling walls, but failed to note the slightest change.
The dogs led the descent; then came Bess leading her burro; then Venters leading his. Bess kept her eyes bent downward. Venters, however, had an irresistible desire to look upward at Balancing Rock. It had always haunted him, and now he wondered if he were really to get through the outlet before the huge stone thundered down. He fancied that would be a miracle. Every few steps he answered to the strange, nervous fear and turned to make sure the rock still stood like a giant statue. And, as he descended, it grew dimmer in his sight. It changed form; it swayed it nodded darkly; and at last, in his heightened fancy, he saw it heave and roll. As in a dream when he felt himself falling yet knew he would never fall, so he saw this long-standing thunderbolt of the little stone-men plunge down to close forever the outlet to Deception Pass.
And while he was giving way to unaccountable dread imaginations the descent was accomplished without mishap.
“I’m glad that’s over,” he said, breathing more freely. “I hope I’m by that hanging rock for good and all. Since almost the moment I first saw it I’ve had an idea that it was waiting for me. Now, when it does fall, if I’m thousands of miles away, I’ll hear it.”
With the first glimpses of the smooth slope leading down to the grotesque cedars and out to the Pass, Venters’s cool nerve returned. One long survey to the left, then one to the right, satisfied his caution. Leading the burros down to the spur of rock, he halted at the steep incline.
“Bess, here’s the bad place, the place I told you about, with the cut steps. You start down, leading your burro. Take your time and hold on to him if you slip. I’ve got a rope on him and a half-hitch on this point of rock, so I can let him down safely. Coming up here was a killing job. But it’ll be easy going down.”
Both burros passed down the difficult stairs cut by the cliff-dwellers, and did it without a misstep. After that the descent down the slope and over the mile of scra
wled, ripped, and ridged rock required only careful guidance, and Venters got the burros to level ground in a condition that caused him to congratulate himself.
“Oh, if we only had Wrangle!” exclaimed Venters. “But we’re lucky. That’s the worst of our trail passed. We’ve only men to fear now. If we get up in the sage we can hide and slip along like coyotes.”
They mounted and rode west through the valley and entered the canyon. From time to time Venters walked, leading his burro. When they got by all the canyons and gullies opening into the Pass they went faster and with fewer halts. Venters did not confide in Bess the alarming fact that he had seen horses and smoke less than a mile up one of the intersecting canyons. He did not talk at all. And long after he had passed this canyon and felt secure once more in the certainty that they had been unobserved he never relaxed his watchfulness. But he did not walk any more, and he kept the burros at a steady trot. Night fell before they reached the last water in the Pass and they made camp by starlight. Venters did not want the burros to stray, so he tied them with long halters in the grass near the spring. Bess, tired out and silent, laid her head in a saddle and went to sleep between the two dogs. Venters did not close his eyes. The canyon silence appeared full of the low, continuous hum of insects. He listened until the hum grew into a roar, and then, breaking the spell, once more he heard it low and clear. He watched the stars and the moving shadows, and always his glance returned to the girl’s dimly pale face. And he remembered how white and still it had once looked in the starlight. And again stern thought fought his strange fancies. Would all his labor and his love be for naught? Would he lose her, after all? What did the dark shadow around her portend? Did calamity lurk on that long upland trail through the sage? Why should his heart swell and throb with nameless fear? He listened to the silence and told himself that in the broad light of day he could dispel this leaden-weighted dread.
At the first hint of gray over the eastern rim he awoke Bess, saddled the burros, and began the day’s travel. He wanted to get out of the Pass before there was any chance of riders coming down. They gained the break as the first red rays of the rising sun colored the rim.
For once, so eager was he to get up to level ground, he did not send Ring or Whitie in advance. Encouraging Bess to hurry pulling at his patient, plodding burro, he climbed the soft, steep trail.
Brighter and brighter grew the light. He mounted the last broken edge of rim to have the sun-fired, purple sage-slope burst upon him as a glory. Bess panted up to his side, tugging on the halter of her burro.
“We’re up!” he cried, joyously. “There’s not a dot on the sage We’re safe. We’ll not be seen! Oh, Bess—”
Ring growled and sniffed the keen air and bristled. Venters clutched at his rifle. Whitie sometimes made a mistake, but Ring never. The dull thud of hoofs almost deprived Venters of power to turn and see from where disaster threatened. He felt his eyes dilate as he stared at Lassiter leading Black Star and Night out of the sage, with Jane Withersteen, in rider’s costume, close beside them.
For an instant Venters felt himself whirl dizzily in the center of vast circles of sage. He recovered partially, enough to see Lassiter standing with a glad smile and Jane riveted in astonishment.
“Why, Bern!” she exclaimed. “How good it is to see you! We’re riding away, you see. The storm burst—and I’m a ruined woman!… I thought you were alone.”
Venters, unable to speak for consternation, and bewildered out of all sense of what he ought or ought not to do, simply stared at Jane.
“Son, where are you bound for?” asked Lassiter.
“Not safe—where I was. I’m—we’re going out of Utah—back East,” he found tongue to say.
“I reckon this meetin’s the luckiest thing that ever happened to you an’ to me—an’ to Jane—an’ to Bess,” said Lassiter, coolly.
“Bess!” cried Jane, with a sudden leap of blood to her pale cheek.
It was entirely beyond Venters to see any luck in that meeting.
Jane Withersteen took one flashing, woman’s glance at Bess’s scarlet face, at her slender, shapely form.
“Venters! is this a girl—a woman?” she questioned, in a voice that stung.
“Yes.”
“Did you have her in that wonderful valley?”
“Yes, but Jane—”
“All the time you were gone?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t tell—”
“Was it for her you asked me to give you supplies? Was it for her that you wanted to make your valley a paradise?”
“Oh—Jane—”
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you liar!” And with these passionate words Jane Withersteen succumbed to fury. For the second time in her life she fell into the ungovernable rage that had been her father’s weakness. And it was worse than his, for she was a jealous woman—jealous even of her friends.
As best he could, he bore the brunt of her anger. It was not only his deceit to her that she visited upon him, but her betrayal by religion, by life itself.
Her passion, like fire at white heat, consumed itself in little time. Her physical strength failed, and still her spirit attempted to go on in magnificent denunciation of those who had wronged her. Like a tree cut deep into its roots, she began to quiver and shake, and her anger weakened into despair. And her ringing voice sank into a broken, husky whisper. Then, spent and pitiable, upheld by Lassiter’s arm, she turned and hid her face in Black Star’s mane.
Numb as Venters was when at length Jane Withersteen lifted her head and looked at him, he yet suffered a pang.
“Jane, the girl is innocent!” he cried.
“Can you expect me to believe that?” she asked, with weary, bitter eyes.
“I’m not that kind of a liar. And you know it. If I lied—if I kept silent when honor should have made me speak, it was to spare you. I came to Cottonwoods to tell you. But I couldn’t add to your pain. I intended to tell you I had come to love this girl. But, Jane I hadn’t forgotten how good you were to me. I haven’t changed at all toward you. I prize your friendship as I always have. But, however it may look to you—don’t be unjust. The girl is innocent. Ask Lassiter.”
“Jane, she’s jest as sweet an’ innocent as little Fay,” said Lassiter. There was a faint smile upon his face and a beautiful light.
Venters saw, and knew that Lassiter saw, how Jane Withersteen’s tortured soul wrestled with hate and threw it—with scorn doubt, suspicion, and overcame all.
“Bern, if in my misery I accused you unjustly, I crave forgiveness,” she said. “I’m not what I once was. Tell me—who is this girl?”
“Jane, she is Oldring’s daughter, and his Masked Rider. Lassiter will tell you how I shot her for a rustler, saved her life—all the story. It’s a strange story, Jane, as wild as the sage. But it’s true—true as her innocence. That you must believe.”
“Oldring’s Masked Rider! Oldring’s daughter!” exclaimed Jane “And she’s innocent! You ask me to believe much. If this girl is—is what you say, how could she be going away with the man who killed her father?”
“Why did you tell that?” cried Venters, passionately.
Jane’s question had roused Bess out of stupefaction. Her eyes suddenly darkened and dilated. She stepped toward Venters and held up both hands as if to ward off a blow.
“Did—did you kill Oldring?”
“I did, Bess, and I hate myself for it. But you know I never dreamed he was your father. I thought he’d wronged you. I killed him when I was madly jealous.”
For a moment Bess was shocked into silence.
“But he was my father!” she broke out, at last. “And now I must go back—I can’t go with you. It’s all over—that beautiful dream. Oh, I knew it couldn’t come true. You can’t take me now.”
“If you forgive me, Bess, it’ll all come right in the end!” implored Venters.
“It can’t be right. I’ll go back. After all, I loved him. He was good to
me. I can’t forget that.”
“If you go back to Oldring’s men I’ll follow you, and then they’ll kill me,” said Venters, hoarsely.
“Oh no, Bern, you’ll not come. Let me go. It’s best for you to forget me. I’ve brought you only pain and dishonor.”
She did not weep. But the sweet bloom and life died out of her face. She looked haggard and sad, all at once stunted; and her hands dropped listlessly; and her head drooped in slow, final acceptance of a hopeless fate.
“Jane, look there!” cried Venters, in despairing grief. “Need you have told her? Where was all your kindness of heart? This girl has had a wretched, lonely life. And I’d found a way to make her happy. You’ve killed it. You’ve killed something sweet and pure and hopeful, just as sure as you breathe.”
“Oh, Bern! It was a slip. I never thought—I never thought!” replied Jane. “How could I tell she didn’t know?”
Lassiter suddenly moved forward, and with the beautiful light on his face now strangely luminous, he looked at Jane and Venters and then let his soft, bright gaze rest on Bess.
“Well, I reckon you’ve all had your say, an’ now it’s Lassiter’s turn. Why, I was jest praying for this meetin’. Bess, jest look here.”
Gently he touched her arm and turned her to face the others, and then outspread his great hand to disclose a shiny, battered gold locket.
“Open it,” he said, with a singularly rich voice.
Bess complied, but listlessly.
“Jane—Venters—come closer,” went on Lassiter. “Take a look at the picture. Don’t you know the woman?”
Jane, after one glance, drew back.
“Milly Erne!” she cried, wonderingly.
Venters, with tingling pulse, with something growing on him, recognized in the faded miniature portrait the eyes of Milly Erne.
“Yes, that’s Milly,” said Lassiter, softly. “Bess, did you ever see her face—look hard—with all your heart an’ soul?”
