by Zane Grey
“Ruth, I can’t thank you. I can’t. I’ve only a faint idea what you’re risking. That distresses me. I’m afraid of what may happen to you.”
She gave him another of the strange glances. “I don’t risk so much as you think,” she said, significantly.
“Why?”
She came close to him, and her hands clasped his arms and she looked up at him, her eyes darkening and her face growing paler. “Will you swear to keep my secret?” she asked, very low.
“Yes, I swear.”
“I was one of Waggoner’s sealed wives!”
“God Almighty!” broke out Shefford, utterly overwhelmed.
“Yes. That’s why I say I don’t risk so much. I will make up a story to tell the bishop and everybody. I’ll tell that Waggoner was jealous, that he was brutal to Mary, that I believed she was goaded to her mad deed, that I thought she ought to be free. They’ll be terrible. But what can they do to me? My husband is dead… and if I have to go to hell to keep from marrying another married Mormon, I’ll go!”
In that low, passionate utterance Shefford read the death-blow to the old Mormon polygamous creed. In the uplift of his spirit, in the joy at this revelation, he almost forgot the stern matter at hand. Ruth and Joe Lake belonged to a younger generation of Mormons. Their nobility in this instance was in part a revolt at the conditions of their lives. Doubt was knocking at Joe Lake’s heart, and conviction had come to this young sealed wife, bitter and hopeless while she had been fettered, strong and mounting now that she was free. In a flash of inspiration Shefford saw the old order changing. The Mormon creed might survive, but that part of it which was an affront to nature, a horrible yoke on women’s necks, was doomed. It could not live. It could never have survived more than a generation or two of religious fanatics. Shefford had marked a different force and religious fervor in the younger Mormons, and now he understood them.
“Ruth, you talk wildly,” he said. “But I understand. I see. You are free and you’re going to stay free.… It stuns me to think of that man of many wives. What did you feel when you were told he was dead?”
“I dare not think of that. It makes me—wicked. And he was good to me.… Listen. Last night about midnight he came to my window and woke me. I got up and let him in. He was in a terrible state. I thought he was crazy. He walked the floor and called on his saints and prayed. When I wanted to light a lamp he wouldn’t let me. He was afraid I’d see his face. But I saw well enough in the moonlight. And I knew something had happened. So I soothed and coaxed him. He had been a man as close-mouthed as a stone. Yet then I got him to talk.… He had gone to Mary’s, and upon entering, thought he heard someone with her. She didn’t answer him at first. When he found her in her bedroom she was like a ghost. He accused her. Her silence made him furious. Then he berated her, brought down the wrath of God upon her, threatened her with damnation. All of which she never seemed to hear. But when he tried to touch her she flew at him like a she-panther. That’s what he called her. She said she’d kill him! And she drove him out of her house.… He was all weak and unstrung, and I believe scared, too, when he came to me. She must have been a fury. Those quiet, gentle women are furies when they’re once roused. Well, I was hours up with him and finally he got over it. He didn’t pray any more. He paced the room. It was just daybreak when he said the wrath of God had come to him. I tried to keep him from going back to Mary. But he went.… An hour later the women ran to tell me he had been found dead at Mary’s door.”
“Ruth—she was mad—driven—she didn’t know what she—was doing,” said Shefford, brokenly.
“She was always a strange girl, more like an Indian than anyone I ever knew. We called her the Sago Lily. I gave her the name. She was so sweet, lovely, white and gold, like those flowers.… And to think! Oh, it’s horrible for her! You must save her. If you get her away there never will be anything come of it. The Mormons will hush it up.”
“Ruth, time is flying,” rejoined Shefford, hurriedly. “I must go back to Joe. You be ready for us when we come. Wear something loose, easily thrown off, and don’t forget the long hood.”
“I’ll be ready and watching,” she said. “The sooner the better, I’d say.”
He left her and returned toward camp in the same circling route by which he had come. The Indian had disappeared and so had his mustang. This significant fact augmented Shefford’s hurried, thrilling excitement. But one glance at Joe’s face changed all that to a sudden numbness, a sinking of his heart.
“What is it?” he queried.
“Look there!” exclaimed the Mormon.
Shefford’s quick eye caught sight of horses and men down the valley. He saw several Indians and three or four white men. They were making camp.
“Who are they?” demanded Shefford.
“Shadd and some of his gang. Reckon that Piute told the news. By tomorrow the valley will be full as a horse-wrangler’s corral.… Lucky Nas Ta Bega got away before that gang rode in. Now things won’t look as queer as they might have looked. The Indian took a pack of grub, six mustangs, and my guns. Then there was your rifle in your saddle-sheath. So you’ll be well heeled in case you come to close quarters. Reckon you can look for a running fight. For now, as soon as your flight is discovered, Shadd will hit your trail. He’s in with the Mormons. You know him—what you’ll have to deal with. But the advantage will all be yours. You can ambush the trail.”
“We’re in for it. And the sooner we’re off the better,” replied Shefford, grimly.
“Reckon that’s gospel. Well—come on!”
The Mormon strode off, and Shefford, catching up with him, kept at his side. Shefford’s mind was full, but Joe’s dark and gloomy face did not invite communication. They entered the pinon grove and passed the cabin where the tragedy had been enacted. A tarpaulin had been stretched across the front porch. Beal was not in sight, nor were any of the women.
“I forgot,” said Shefford, suddenly. “Where am I to meet the Indian?”
“Climb the west wall, back of camp,” replied Joe. “Nas Ta Bega took the Stonebridge trail. But he’ll leave that, climb the rocks, then hide the outfit and come back to watch for you. Reckon he’ll see you when you top the wall.”
They passed on into the heart of the village. Joe tarried at the window of a cabin, and passed a few remarks to a woman there, and then he inquired for Mother Smith at her house. When they left here the Mormon gave Shefford a nudge. Then they separated, Joe going toward the school-house, while Shefford bent his steps in the direction of Ruth’s home.
Her door opened before he had a chance to knock. He entered. Ruth, white and resolute, greeted him with a wistful smile.
“All ready?” she asked.
“Yes. Are you?” he replied, low-voiced.
“I’ve only to put on my hood. I think luck favors you. Hester was here and she said Elder Smith told someone that Mary hadn’t been offered anything to eat yet. So I’m taking her a little. It’ll be a good excuse for me to get in the school-house to see her. I can throw off this dress and she can put it on in a minute. Then the hood. I mustn’t forget to hide her golden hair. You know how it flies. But this is a big hood.… Well, I’m ready now. And—this ’s our last time together.”
“Ruth, what can I say—how can I thank you?”
“I don’t want any thanks. It’ll be something to think of always—to make me happy.… Only I’d like to feel you—you cared a little.”
The wistful smile was there, a tremor on the sad lips, and a shadow of soul-hunger in her eyes. Shefford did not misunderstand her. She did not mean love, although it was a yearning for real love that she mutely expressed.
“Care! I shall care all my life,” he said, with strong feeling. “I shall never forget you.”
“It’s not likely I’ll forget you.… Good-by, John!”
Shefford took her in his arms and held her close. “Ruth—good-by!” he said, huskily.
Then he released her. She adjusted the hood and, taking up a l
ittle tray which held food covered with a napkin, she turned to the door. He opened it and they went out.
They did not speak another word.
It was not a long walk from Ruth’s home to the school-house, yet if it were to be measured by Shefford’s emotion the distance would have been unending. The sacrifice offered by Ruth and Joe would have been noble under any circumstances had they been Gentiles or persons with no particular religion, but, considering that they were Mormons, that Ruth had been a sealed-wife, that Joe had been brought up under the strange, secret, and binding creed, their action was no less than tremendous in its import. Shefford took it to mean vastly more than loyalty to him and pity for Fay Larkin. As Ruth and Joe had arisen to this height, so perhaps would other young Mormons, have arisen. It needed only the situation, the climax, to focus these long-insulated, slow-developing and inquiring minds upon the truth—that one wife, one mother of children, for one man at one time as a law of nature, love, and righteousness. Shefford felt as if he were marching with the whole younger generation of Mormons, as if somehow he had been a humble instrument in the working out of their destiny, in the awakening that was to eliminate from their religion the only thing which kept it from being as good for man, and perhaps as true, as any other religion.
And then suddenly he turned the corner of school-house to encounter Joe talking with the Mormon Henninger. Elder Smith was not present.
“Why, hello, Ruth!” greeted Joe. “You’ve fetched Mary some dinner. Now that’s good of you.”
“May I go in?” asked Ruth.
“Reckon so,” replied Henninger, scratching his head. He appeared to be tractable, and probably was good-natured under pleasant conditions. “She ought to have somethin’ to eat. An’ nobody ’pears—to have remembered that—we’re so set up.”
He unbarred the huge, clumsy door and allowed Ruth to pass in.
“Joe, you can go in if you want,” he said. “But hurry out before Elder Smith comes back from his dinner.”
Joe mumbled something, gave a husky cough, and then went in.
Shefford experienced great difficulty in presenting to this mild Mormon a natural and unagitated front. When all his internal structure seemed to be in a state of turmoil he did not see how it was possible to keep the fact from showing in his face. So he turned away and took aimless steps here and there.
“’Pears like we’d hev rain,” observed Henninger. “It’s right warm an’ them clouds are onseasonable.”
“Yes,” replied Shefford. “Hope so. A little rain would be good for the grass.”
“Joe tells me Shadd rode in, an’ some of his fellers.”
“So I see. About eight in the party.”
Shefford was gritting his teeth and preparing to endure the ordeal of controlling his mind and expression when the door opened and Joe stalked out. He had his sombrero pulled down so that it hid the upper half of his face. His lips were a shade off healthy color. He stood there with his back to the door.
“Say, what Mary needs is quiet—to be left alone,” he said. “Ruth says if she rests, sleeps a little, she won’t get fever.… Henninger, don’t let anybody disturb her till night.”
“All right, Joe,” replied the Mormon. “An’ I take it good of Ruth an’ you to concern yourselves.”
A slight tap on the inside of the door sent Shefford’s pulses to throbbing. Joe opened it with a strong and vigorous sweep that meant more than the mere action.
“Ruth—reckon you didn’t stay long,” he said, and his voice rang clear. “Sure you feel sick and weak. Why, seeing her flustered even me!”
A slender, dark-garbed woman wearing a long black hood stepped uncertainly out. She appeared to be Ruth. Shefford’s heart stood still because she looked so like Ruth. But she did not step steadily, she seemed dazed, she did not raise the hooded head.
“Go home,” said Joe, and his voice rang a little louder. “Take her home, Shefford. Or, better, walk her round some. She’s faintish.… And see here, Henninger—”
Shefford led the girl away with a hand in apparent carelessness on her arm. After a few rods she walked with a freer step and then a swifter. He found it necessary to make that hold on her arm a real one, so as to keep her from walking too fast. No one, however, appeared to observe them. When they passed Ruth’s house then Shefford began to lose his fear that this was not Fay Larkin. He was far from being calm or clear-sighted. He thought he recognized that free step; nevertheless, he could not make sure. When they passed under the trees, crossed the brook, and turned down along the west wall, then doubt ceased in Shefford’s mind. He knew this was not Ruth. Still, so strange was his agitation, so keen his suspense, that he needed confirmation of ear, of eye. He wanted to hear her voice, to see her face. Yet just as strangely there was a twist of feeling, a reluctance, a sadness that kept off the moment.
They reached the low, slow-swelling slant of wall and started to ascend. How impossible not to recognize Fay Larkin now in that swift grace and skill on the steep wall! Still, though he knew her, he perversely clung to the unreality of the moment. But when a long braid of dead-gold hair tumbled from under the hood, then his heart leaped. That identified Fay Larkin. He had freed her. He was taking her away. Then a sadness embittered his joy.
As always before, she distanced him in the ascent to the top. She went on without looking back. But Shefford had an irresistible desire to took again and the last time at this valley where he had suffered and loved so much.
CHAPTER XVI
SURPRISE VALLEY
From the summit of the wall the plateau waved away in red and yellow ridges, with here and there little valleys green with cedar and pinon.
Upon one of these ridges, silhouetted against the sky, appeared the stalking figure of the Indian. He had espied the fugitives. He disappeared in a niche, and presently came again into view round a corner of cliff. Here he waited, and soon Shefford and Fay joined him.
“Bi Nai, it is well,” he said.
Shefford eagerly asked for the horses, and Nas Ta Bega silently pointed down the niche, which was evidently an opening into one of the shallow canyon. Then he led the way, walking swiftly. It was Shefford, and not Fay, who had difficulty in keeping close to him. This speed caused Shefford to become more alive to the business, instead of the feeling, of the flight. The Indian entered a crack between low cliffs—a very narrow canyon full of rocks and clumps of cedars—and in a half-hour or less he came to where the mustangs were halted among some cedars. Three of the mustangs, including Nack-yal, were saddled; one bore a small pack, and the remaining two had blankets strapped on their backs.
“Fay, can you ride in that long skirt?” asked Shefford. How strange it seemed that his first words to her were practical when all his impassioned thought had been only mute! But the instant he spoke he experienced a relief, a relaxation.
“I’ll take it off,” replied Fay, just as practically. And in a twinkling she slipped out of both waist and skirt. She had worn them over the short white-flannel dress with which Shefford had grown familiar.
As Nack-yal appeared to be the safest mustang for her to ride, Shefford helped her upon him and then attended to the stirrups. When he had adjusted them to the proper length he drew the bridle over Nack-yal’s head and, upon handing it to her, found himself suddenly looking into her face. She had taken off the hood, too. The instant there eyes met he realized that she was strangely afraid to meet his glance, as he was to meet hers. That seemed natural. But her face was flushed and there were unmistakable signs upon it of growing excitement, of mounting happiness. Save for that fugitive glance she would have been the Fay Larkin of yesterday. How he had expected her to look he did not know, but it was not like this. And never had he felt her strange quality of simplicity so powerfully.
“Have you ever been here—through this little canyon?” he asked.
“Oh yes, lots of times.”
“You’ll be able to lead us to Surprise Valley, you think?”
“I know i
t. I shall see Uncle Jim and Mother Jane before sunset!”
“I hope—you do,” he replied, a little shakily. “Perhaps we’d better not tell them of the—the—about what happened last night.”
Her beautiful, grave, and troubled glance returned to meet his, and he received a shock that he considered was amaze. And after more swift consideration he believed he was amazed because that look, instead of betraying fear or gloom or any haunting shadow of darkness, betrayed apprehension for him—grave, sweet, troubled love for him. She was not thinking of herself at all—of what he might think of her, of a possible gulf between them, of a vast and terrible change in the relation of soul to soul. He experienced a profound gladness. Though he could not understand her, he was happy that the horror of Waggoner’s death had escaped her. He loved her, he meant to give his life to her, and right then and there he accepted the burden of her deed and meant to bear it without ever letting her know of the shadow between them.
“Fay, we’ll forget—what’s behind us,” he said. “Now to find Surprise Valley. Lead on. Nack-yal is gentle. Pull him the way you want to go. We’ll follow.”
Shefford mounted the other saddled mustang, and they set off, Fay in advance. Presently they rode out of this canyon up to level cedar-patched, solid rock, and here Fay turned straight west. Evidently she had been over the ground before. The heights to which he had climbed with her were up to the left, great slopes and looming promontories. And the course she chose was as level and easy as any he could have picked out in that direction.
When a mile or more of this up-and-down travel had been traversed Fay halted and appeared to be at fault. The plateau was losing its rounded, smooth, wavy characteristics, and to the west grew bolder, more rugged, more cut up into low crags and buttes. After a long, sweeping glance Fay headed straight for this rougher country. Thereafter from time to time she repeated this action.
“Fay, how do you know you’re going in the right direction?” asked Shefford, anxiously.
“I never forget any ground I’ve been over. I keep my eyes close ahead. All that seems strange to me is the wrong way. What I’ve seen, before must be the right way, because I saw it when they brought me from Surprise Valley.”
