by Zane Grey
Ellen could not release her hand.
“I scratched myself,” she said.
“Where?… All that blood!” And suddenly he flung her hand back with fierce gesture, and the gleams of his yellow eyes were like the points of leaping flames. They pierced her—read the secret falsity of her. Slowly he stepped backward, guardedly his hand moved to his gun, and his glance circled and swept the interior of the cabin. As if he had the nose of a hound and sight to follow scent, his eyes bent to the dust of the ground before the door. He quivered, grew rigid as stone, and then moved his head with exceeding slowness as if searching through a microscope in the dust—farther to the left—to the foot of the ladder—and up one step—another—a third—all the way up to the loft. Then he whipped out his gun and wheeled to face the girl.
“Ellen, y’u’ve got your half-breed heah!” he said, with a terrible smile.
She neither moved nor spoke. There was a suggestion of collapse, but it was only a change where the alluring softness of her hardened into a strange, rapt glow. And in it seemed the same mastery that had characterized her former aspect. Herein the treachery of her was revealed. She had known what she meant to do in any case.
Colter, standing at the door, reached a long arm toward the ladder, where he laid his hand on a rung. Taking it away he held it palm outward for her to see the dark splotch of blood.
“See?”
“Yes, I see,” she said, ringingly.
Passion wrenched him, transformed him. “All that—aboot leavin’ heah—with me—aboot givin’ in—was a lie!”
“No, Colter. It was the truth. I’ll go—yet—now—if y’u’ll spare—him!” She whispered the last word and made a slight movement of her hand toward the loft. “Girl!” he exploded, incredulously. “Y’u love this half-breed—this Isbel! … Y’u love him!”
“With all my heart! … Thank God! It has been my glory…. It might have been my salvation…. But now I’ll go to hell with y’u—if y’u’ll spare him.”
“Damn my soul!” rasped out the rustler, as if something of respect was wrung from that sordid deep of him. “Y’u—y’u woman! … Jorth will turn over in his grave. He’d rise out of his grave if this Isbel got y’u.”
“Hurry! Hurry!” implored Ellen. “Springer may come back. I think I heard a call.”
“Wal, Ellen Jorth, I’ll not spare Isbel—nor y’u,” he returned, with dark and meaning leer, as he turned to ascend the ladder.
Jean Isbel, too, had reached the climax of his suspense. Gathering all his muscles in a knot he prepared to leap upon Colter as he mounted the ladder. But, Ellen Jorth screamed piercingly and snatched her rifle from its resting place and, cocking it, she held it forward and low.
“Colter!”
Her scream and his uttered name stiffened him.
“Y’u will spare Jean Isbel!” she rang out. “Drop that gun-drop it!”
“Shore, Ellen…. Easy now. Remember your temper…. I’ll let Isbel off,” he panted, huskily, and all his body sank quiveringly to a crouch.
“Drop your gun! Don’t turn round…. Colter!—I’ll kill y’u!”
But even then he failed to divine the meaning and the spirit of her.
“Aw, now, Ellen,” he entreated, in louder, huskier tones, and as if dragged by fatal doubt of her still, he began to turn.
Crash! The rifle emptied its contents in Colter’s breast. All his body sprang up. He dropped the gun. Both hands fluttered toward her. And an awful surprise flashed over his face.
“So—help—me—God!” he whispered, with blood thick in his voice. Then darkly, as one groping, he reached for her with shaking hands. “Y’u—y’u white-throated hussy!… I’ll …”
He grasped the quivering rifle barrel. Crash! She shot him again. As he swayed over her and fell she had to leap aside, and his clutching hand tore the rifle from her grasp. Then in convulsion he writhed, to heave on his back, and stretch out—a ghastly spectacle. Ellen backed away from it, her white arms wide, a slow horror blotting out the passion of her face.
Then from without came a shrill call and the sound of rapid footsteps. Ellen leaned against the wall, staring still at Colter. “Hey, Jim—what’s the shootin’?” called Springer, breathlessly.
As his form darkened the doorway Jean once again gathered all his muscular force for a tremendous spring.
Springer saw the girl first and he appeared thunderstruck. His jaw dropped. He needed not the white gleam of her person to transfix him. Her eyes did that and they were riveted in unutterable horror upon something on the ground. Thus instinctively directed, Springer espied Colter.
“Y’u—y’u shot him!” he shrieked. “What for—y’u hussy? … Ellen Jorth, if y’u’ve killed him, I’ll…”
He strode toward where Colter lay.
Then Jean, rising silently, took a step and like a tiger he launched himself into the air, down upon the rustler. Even as he leaped Springer gave a quick, upward look. And he cried out. Jean’s moccasined feet struck him squarely and sent him staggering into the wall, where his head hit hard. Jean fell, but bounded up as the half-stunned Springer drew his gun. Then Jean lunged forward with a single sweep of his arm—and looked no more.
Ellen ran swaying out of the door, and, once clear of the threshold, she tottered out on the grass, to sink to her knees. The bright, golden sunlight gleamed upon her white shoulders and arms. Jean had one foot out of the door when he saw her and he whirled back to get her blouse. But Springer had fallen upon it. Snatching up a blanket, Jean ran out.
“Ellen! Ellen! Ellen!” he cried. “It’s over!” And reaching her, he tried to wrap her in the blanket.
She wildly clutched his knees. Jean was conscious only of her white, agonized face and the dark eyes with their look of terrible strain.
“Did y’u—did y’u…” she whispered.
“Yes—it’s over,” he said, gravely. “Ellen, the Isbel-Jorth feud is ended.”
“Oh, thank—God!” she cried, in breaking voice. “Jean—y’u are wounded… the blood on the step!”
“My arm. See. It’s not bad…. Ellen, let me wrap this round you.” Folding the blanket around her shoulders, he held it there and entreated her to get up. But she only clung the closer. She hid her face on his knees. Long shudders rippled over her, shaking the blanket, shaking Jean’s hands. Distraught, he did not know what to do. And his own heart was bursting.
“Ellen, you must not kneel—there—that way,” he implored.
“Jean! Jean!” she moaned, and clung the tighter.
He tried to lift her up, but she was a dead weight, and with that hold on him seemed anchored at his feet.
“I killed Colter,” she gasped. “I had to—kill him! … I offered—to fling myself away….”
“For me!” he cried, poignantly. “Oh, Ellen! Ellen! the world has come to an end! … Hush! don’t keep sayin’ that. Of course you killed him. You saved my life. For I’d never have let you go off with him …. Yes, you killed him…. You’re a Jorth an’ I’m an Isbel … We’ve blood on our hands—both of us—I for you an’ you for me!”
His voice of entreaty and sadness strengthened her and she raised her white face, loosening her clasp to lean back and look up. Tragic, sweet, despairing, the loveliness of her—the significance of her there on her knees—thrilled him to his soul.
“Blood on my hands!” she whispered. “Yes. It was awful—killing him…. But—all I care for in this world is for your forgiveness—and your faith that saved my soul!”
“Child, there’s nothin’ to forgive,” he responded. “Nothin’… Please, Ellen…”
“I lied to y’u!” she cried. “I lied to y’u!”
“Ellen, listen—darlin’.” And the tender epithet brought her head and arms back close-pressed to him. “I know—now,” he faltered on. “I found out today what I believed. An’ I swear to God—by the memory of my dead mother—down in my heart I never, never, never believed what they—what y’u tried to make me believe. N
ever!”
“Jean—I love y’u—love y’u—love y’u!” she breathed with exquisite, passionate sweetness. Her dark eyes burned up into his.
“Ellen, I can’t lift you up,” he said, in trembling eagerness, signifying his crippled arm. “But I can kneel with you! …”
THE DAY OF THE BEAST (1922) [Part 1]
DEDICATION
Herein is embodied my tribute to the American men who gave themselves to the service in the great war, and my sleepless and eternal gratitude for what they did for me.
—ZANE GREY.
CHAPTER I
His native land! Home!
The ship glided slowly up the Narrows; and from its deck Daren Lane saw the noble black outline of the Statue of Liberty limned against the clear gold of sunset. A familiar old pang in his breast—longing and homesickness and agony, together with the physical burn of gassed lungs—seemed to swell into a profound overwhelming emotion.
“My own—my native land!” he whispered, striving to wipe the dimness from his eyes. Was it only two years or twenty since he had left his country to go to war? A sense of strangeness dawned upon him. His home-coming, so ceaselessly dreamed of by night and longed for by day, was not going to be what his hopes had created. But at that moment his joy was too great to harbor strange misgivings. How impossible for any one to understand his feelings then, except perhaps the comrades who had survived the same ordeal!
The vessel glided on. A fresh cool spring breeze with a scent of land fanned Lane’s hot brow. It bore tidings from home. Almost he thought he smelled the blossoms in the orchard, and the damp newly plowed earth, and the smoke from the wood fire his mother used to bake over. A hundred clamoring thoughts strove for dominance over his mind—to enter and flash by and fade. His sight, however, except for the blur that returned again and again, held fast to the entrancing and thrilling scene—the broad glimmering sun-track of gold in the rippling channel, leading his eye to the grand bulk of America’s symbol of freedom, and to the stately expanse of the Hudson River, dotted by moving ferry-boats and tugs, and to the magnificent broken sky-line of New York City, with its huge dark structures looming and its thousands of windows reflecting the fire of the sun.
It was indeed a profound and stirring moment for Daren Lane, but not quite full, not all-satisfying. The great city seemed to frown. The low line of hills in the west shone dull gray and cold. Where were the screaming siren whistles, the gay streaming flags, the boats crowded with waving people, that should have welcomed disabled soldiers who had fought for their country? Lane hoped he had long passed by bitterness, but yet something rankled in the unhealed wound of his heart.
Some one put a hand in close clasp upon his arm. Then Lane heard the scrape of a crutch on the deck, and knew who stood beside him.
“Well, Dare, old boy, does it look good to you?” asked a husky voice.
“Yes, Blair, but somehow not just what I expected,” replied Lane, turning to his comrade.
“Uhuh, I get you.”
Blair Maynard stood erect with the aid of a crutch. There was even a hint of pride in the poise of his uncovered head. And for once Lane saw the thin white face softening and glowing. Maynard’s big brown eyes were full of tears.
“Guess I left my nerve as well as my leg over there,” he said.
“Blair, it’s so good to get back that we’re off color,” returned Lane. “On the level, I could scream like a madman.”
“I’d like to weep,” replied the other, with a half laugh.
“Where’s Red? He oughtn’t miss this.”
“Poor devil! He sneaked off from me somewhere,” rejoined Maynard. “Red’s in pretty bad shape again. The voyage has been hard on him. I hope he’ll be well enough to get his discharge when we land. I’ll take him home to Middleville.”
“Middleville!” echoed Lane, musingly. “Home!… Blair, does it hit you—kind of queer? Do you long, yet dread to get home?”
Maynard had no reply for that query, but his look was expressive.
“I’ve not heard from Helen for over a year,” went on Lane, more as if speaking to himself.
“My God, Dare!” exclaimed his companion, with sudden fire. “Are you still thinking of her?”
“We—we are engaged,” returned Lane, slowly. “At least we were. But I’ve had no word that she——”
“Dare, your childlike faith is due for a jar,” interrupted his comrade, with bitter scorn. “Come down to earth. You’re a crippled soldier—coming home—and damn lucky at that.”
“Blair, what do you know—that I do not know? For long I’ve suspected you’re wise to—to things at home. You know I haven’t heard much in all these long months. My mother wrote but seldom. Lorna, my kid sister, forgot me, I guess.… Helen always was a poor correspondent. Dal answered my letters, but she never told me anything about home. When we first got to France I heard often from Margie Henderson and Mel Iden—crazy kind of letters—love-sick over soldiers.… But nothing for a long time now.”
“At first they wrote! Ha! Ha!” burst out Maynard. “Sure, they wrote love-sick letters. They sent socks and cigarettes and candy and books. And they all wanted us to hurry back to marry them.… Then—when the months had gone by and the novelty had worn off—when we went against the hell of real war—sick or worn out, sleepless and miserable, crippled or half demented with terror and dread and longing for home—then, by God, they quit!”
“Oh, no, Blair—not all of them,” remonstrated Lane, unsteadily.
“Well, old man, I’m sore, and you’re about the only guy I can let out on,” explained Maynard, heavily. “One thing I’m glad of—we’ll face it together. Daren, we were kids together—do you remember?—playing on the commons—straddling the old water-gates over the brooks—stealing cider from the country presses—barefoot boys going to school together. We played Post-Office with the girls and Indians with the boys. We made puppy love to Dal and Mel and Helen and Margie—all of them.… Then, somehow the happy thoughtless years of youth passed.… It seems strange and sudden now—but the war came. We enlisted. We had the same ideal—you and I.—We went to France—and you know what we did there together.… Now we’re on this ship—getting into port of the good old U.S.—good as bad as she is!—going home together. Thank God for that. I want to be buried in Woodlawn.… Home! Home?… We feel its meaning. But, Dare, we’ll have no home—no place.… We are old—we are through—we have served—we are done.… What we dreamed of as glory will be cold ashes to our lips, bitter as gall.… You always were a dreamer, an idealist, a believer in God, truth, hope and womanhood. In spite of the war these somehow survive in you.… But Dare, old friend, steel yourself now against disappointment and disillusion.”
Used as Lane was to his comrade’s outbursts, this one struck singularly home to Lane’s heart and made him mute. The chill of his earlier misgiving returned, augmented by a strange uneasiness, a premonition of the unknown and dreadful future. But he threw it off. Faith would not die in Lane. It could not die utterly because of what he felt in himself. Yet—what was in store for him? Why was his hope so unquenchable? There could be no resurgam for Daren Lane. Resignation should have brought him peace—peace—when every nerve in his shell-shocked body racked him—when he could not subdue a mounting hope that all would be well at home—when he quivered at thought of mother, sister, sweetheart!
The ship glided on under the shadow of America’s emblem—a bronze woman of noble proportions, holding out a light to ships that came in the night—a welcome to all the world. Daren Lane held to his maimed comrade while they stood bare-headed and erect for that moment when the, ship passed the statue. Lane knew what Blair felt. But nothing of what that feeling was could ever be spoken. The deck of the ship was now crowded with passengers, yet they were seemingly dead to anything more than a safe arrival at their destination. They were not crippled American soldiers. Except these two there were none in service uniforms. There across the windy space of water loomed the many-eyed bui
ldings, suggestive of the great city. A low roar of traffic came on the breeze. Passengers and crew of the liner were glad to dock before dark. They took no notice of the rigid, erect soldiers. Lane, arm in arm with Blair, face to the front, stood absorbed in his sense of a nameless sublimity for them while passing the Statue of Liberty. The spirit of the first man who ever breathed of freedom for the human race burned as a white flame in the heart of Lane and his comrade. But it was not so much that spirit which held them erect, aloof, proud. It was a supreme consciousness of immeasurable sacrifice for an ideal that existed only in the breasts of men and women kindred to them—an unutterable and never-to-be-spoken glory of the duty done for others, but that they owed themselves. They had sustained immense loss of health and happiness; the future seemed like the gray, cold, gloomy expanse of the river; and there could never be any reward except this white fire of their souls. Nameless! But it was the increasing purpose that ran through the ages.
The ship docked at dark. Lane left Blair at the rail, gloomily gazing down at the confusion and bustle on the wharf, and went below to search for their comrade, Red Payson. He found him in his stateroom, half crouched on the berth, apparently oblivious to the important moment. It required a little effort to rouse Payson. He was a slight boy, not over twenty-two, sallow-faced and freckled, with hair that gave him the only name his comrades knew him by. Lane packed the boy’s few possessions and talked vehemently all the time. Red braced up, ready to go, but he had little to say and that with the weary nonchalance habitual with him. Lane helped him up on deck, and the exertion, slight as it was, brought home to Lane that he needed help himself. They found Maynard waiting.
“Well, here we are—the Three Musketeers,” said Lane, in a voice he tried to make cheerful.
“Where’s the band?” inquired Maynard, sardonically.
“Gay old New York—and me broke!” exclaimed Red Payson, as if to himself.
Then the three stood by the rail, at the gangplank, waiting for the hurried stream of passengers to disembark. Down on the wharf under the glaring white lights, swarmed a crowd from which rose a babel of voices. A whistle blew sharply at intervals. The whirr and honk of taxicabs, and the jangle of trolley cars, sounded beyond the wide dark portal of the dock-house. The murky water below splashed between ship and pier. Deep voices rang out, and merry laughs, and shrill glad cries of welcome. The bright light shone down upon a motley, dark-garbed mass, moving slowly. The spirit of the occasion was manifest.
