by Zane Grey
“Did he go—alone?” asked Rock, gazing away out of the window at the distant pine slopes.
“No. His three grown sons were with him. All slicked up. Shore is an adventure for them. Looked to me they didn’t care much. At thet, there’s darned little gossip. The rest of the Prestons are in town, but I haven’t seen them. Funny Thiry doesn’t run in to see me. I met Sam Whipple’s wife. She saw Thiry an’ Alice, who are stayin’ at Farrell’s. She said she couldn’t see much sign of Thiry’s takin’ Ash’s death very hard. Thet shore stumped me. But Thiry is game.”
“Reckon she—they’ll all be leavin’ soon,” returned Rock.
“Don’t know, but I’ll find out pronto. If they did leave, like the old man, without seein’ you, or at least one word of thanks—wal, I’ll change my idee of them.”
“Sol, you can’t expect them to thank me for—depletin’ their family somewhat.”
“I didn’t mean thet. . . . Wal, I’ll go out an’ do some work around the barn. First off, though, I’d better shave your whiskers. There’s likely to be callers, an’ shore Amy, ’cause she said so.”
“Sol, I don’t want to see anybody,” replied Rock, hastily.
“Wal, I’m shore sorry, but I’ll be darned if you won’t have to. Suppose, for instance, Thiry would call!”
“You’re loco—Sol,” choked Rock. “She couldn’t stand sight of me. . . . Please—don’t——”
“Son, I may be loco, at thet,” replied Winter, with remorse, and evidently he controlled desires to argue the point.
He went out, leaving Rock prey to rediscovered emotions, stronger, darker for the sad resignation. He had sacrificed his love to save Thiry’s father, and therefore her, from ignominy. The thing could not have been helped. It had from the very first, that day in the corral here at Wagontongue, been fixed, and as fateful as the beautiful passion Thiry had roused in him. He had no regret. He would not have changed it, at cost to her. But with the accepted catastrophe faced now, there came pangs that dwarfed those of gunshot wounds. His heart would not break, because he had wonderful assurance of her love, of the sacrifice she had tried to make for him. How that memory stung and vibrated over him! His sluggish blood stirred to swift heat. She would go away with her family, and in some other state recover from this disaster, forget, and touch happiness, perhaps with some fortunate man who might win her regard. But she owed that to him. And he realized that when the poignancy of first grief had softened, he would find melancholy consolation in the memory of the service he had rendered her.
Who was Trueman Rock, to aspire to the possession of Thiry Preston? Who was he but a lonely man, a rider that had always been and ever would be a rolling stone, good only to use his fatal gift in summary justice on some worthless scoundrel of the range?
“Son, lady to see you,” announced Winter, not long after he had made Rock presentable.
“Who?” asked Rock, with a start that seemed to rend his healing wounds.
“No one but Amy.”
“Tell her I’m sleepin’ or—or somethin’,” implored Rock.
“Like hob he will,” replied a gay voice from behind the door. And Amy entered, pretty and stylish, just a little fearful and pale, despite her nerve.
“Well, how do, Amy?” said Rock, and then he laughed. Amy’s presence was always difficult to deny gladly.
“Trueman, are you all right?” she asked, timidly, staring at his long shape under the coverlet.
“Pretty good, Amy, thanks. But it was a close shave, the doctor says. . . . One inch one way for one bullet—and my artery would have been severed. And two inches lower for the other bullet—well, Amy, my heart would never have broken again.”
“Don’t—don’t talk so,” she cried, shuddering, as she sat down near him, and took his hand. Her face appeared singularly white, almost pearly. “Oh, Trueman, I’ve been in a horrible state ever since I came home.”
“Well! I’m sorry, Amy. How so?”
“I hate to tell you, but I’ve got to,” she replied. “For it was my last, miserable, horrible trick! . . . Trueman, the day I got back I met Ash Preston on the street. I told him you—you were Señor del Toro. He laughed in my face—called me a jealous liar. Wanted to kill Thiry’s partner! . . . But afterward I began to fear he’d believe me and I fell to worrying. It grew worse as I realized—until I finally suffered the tortures of the damned. You cannot imagine what I felt when they fetched you here—all shot up. . . . Trueman, I don’t want to abase myself utterly in your sight, but—well, I am a chastened woman.”
“You wildcat!” stormed Rock, stern eyes on her.
“Forgive me, Trueman. After all, he didn’t kill you—as I hoped in my madness. And out of evil, good has come.”
“It was wicked, Amy.”
“Don’t I know? . . . It made me merciless to myself. It opened my eyes. I told my husband, and since then we’ve grown closer than we ever were.”
“Then, Amy, I forgive you.”
Quick as a bird she pecked at his cheek, to lift a flushing, radiant face. “There! The first sisterly one I ever gave you. . . . Trueman, I am the bearer of good news. You are a big man now. Yes, sir, in spite of—or perhaps because of—that awful gun of yours. But your honesty has gone farther with John and Tom Lincoln. I have the pleasure of telling you that you’ve been chosen to run the Sunset Pass Ranch for them. On shares.”
“Never, Amy, never!” cried Rock, shivering. “I shall leave Wagontongue again—soon as I can walk.”
“Not if we all know it,” she retorted, as she rose, with inscrutable eyes on him. “You’ve got more friends than you think. . . . Now I’ll go. I’ve excited you enough today. But I’ll come again soon. Good-bye.”
Winter came in, upon Mrs. Dabb’s departure, with humorous remarks that in no wise deceived Rock. His friends were all very good and kind, but they left him indifferent.
“May I come in?” asked a girl’s high voice, with an accompanying tap on the open door.
“Wal, he looks powerful ferocious, but I reckon you can risk comin’,” said Winter.
Whereupon Alice Preston entered, gayly gowned, and far brighter of eye than Rock would have expected to see her that day.
“Señor, may one pay one’s respects?” she asked, coming to his side.
“Allie, you—well, I almost said, darlin’,” replied Rock, suddenly warmed by surprise and gratitude.
“Trueman, you’re just a day late,” she said, roguishly. “I became engaged yesterday.”
“Allie—Preston!” ejaculated Rock. “You—only sixteen years old!”
“Mother said the same thing. But Dad didn’t know anything about it.”
“Who’s the lucky boy?”
“Charlie Farrell.”
“Allie dear, I don’t know that I ought to allow this,” said Rock, gravely, “but seein’ I’m crippled an’ can’t very well stop it, I’ll say bless you, my child.”
She sat down on the bed and took his hand in both hers.
“Trueman, I think you’d make a good dad at that. . . . Does my news cheer you up?”
“Sure does, Allie—for you. . . . I can never cheer up again for myself.”
“Pooh!” she exclaimed, in sweet derision. Indeed, she was wholly amazing and inexplicable to Rock. He wondered if she had any other news. He wondered at a hint of suppressed excitement behind her smiling, talkative manner.
“Are you leavin’ Wagontongue soon?” he queried.
“Me? I guess not. Do you think——”
But a squeak of the door and a deep expulsion of breath from some one entering checked her. Rock gave such a start that his stiff injured leg actually reminded him of its condition. Thiry had entered. She leaned against the wall. She was bareheaded, and her soft hat dropped from nerveless hands.
Alice gave Rock’s hand a thrilling squeeze and jumped up. “Reckon this is no place for sister Allie!” and she beat a precipitous retreat, closing the door behind her.
“Thiry!—how goo
d—of you!”
Haltingly she approached, as if the impelling force that drew her was only slightly stronger than something which held her back.
“Trueman, are you—all right?” she asked, apparently awed at the helpless length of him there on the bed. She, too, sat down beside him, and her eyes, black with thought and pain, followed her reaching hand, to rest on the coverlet over his knee.
“Reckon I’m ’most all right—now,” he replied, sensitive to her touch.
“Mr. Winter told me everything,” she went on, “but seeing you is so strange. . . . Can you move?”
“Sure. All but my left leg.”
“Was that broken?”
“No, I’m glad to tell you.”
“Then you can ride again?”
“Some day.”
“And the other hurt—was that here?” she asked, pale, almost reverent, as she laid a soft hand high upon his left shoulder.
“Lower down—Thiry.”
Fascinated, she gently slipped her hand down over the bandage.
“Here?”
“Still lower.”
Then she felt the throbbing of his heart. “But, Trueman—it couldn’t be there.”
“You bet it is.”
“What?”
“The hurt you asked about.”
“I was speaking of your latest wounds,” she replied Then she looked him squarely in the face, which she had failed to do before. How tragic, deep with sorrow, yet soul-searching that gaze! It changed. “I had to fight myself to come,” she said. “There was a cold, dead, horrible something inside me. . . . But it’s leaving! . . . Trueman, you’re so white and thin. So helpless lying there! I—I want to nurse you. I should have [illegible]come. . . . Have you suffered?”
“A little—I reckon,” he replied, unsteadily. “But it’s—gone now.”
“Has Amy Dabb been here?” she asked, jealously.
“Yes. Today. She was very nice.”
“Nice! . . . Because she wheedled John Dabb to offer you the running of Sunset Pass Ranch?”
“Oh no—I mean, just kind,” returned Rock, uncertainly. He was of half a mind to believe this delirium.
“Trueman, you will accept that offer?” she queried, earnestly. “I don’t care what Amy says. I know it was my father’s advice to Dabb.”
“Me ever go to—Sunset Pass—again? Never in this world.”
“Trueman, you would not leave this country?” she asked, in quick alarm.
“Soon as I can walk.”
“But I do not want to leave Sunset Pass,” she returned, with spirit.
“I’m glad you don’t. Reckon that’s a surprise, Thiry. . . . It’s very beautiful—out there. Perhaps, somehow, it can be arranged for you. Allie is engaged to [illegible]young Farrell. Isn’t that fine? . . . Some one, of course, will take the place. . . . Is your mother leavin’ soon?”
“She is terribly angry with Dad,” replied Thiry, seriously. “You see, mother was not in the secret. . . . But I think some day she’ll get over it—when Dad makes a new home—and go back to him.”
“She ought to.”
She edged a little closer, grave and sweet, and suddenly bent over to kiss his knee where the bandage made a lump, and then she moved up to lay her cheek over his heart, with a long low sigh.
“Trueman, did you think I’d—hate you for killing Ash?” she whispered.
He could not speak.
“I thought I would. And it was a sickening, terrible blow. . . . But before that same night was over I knew I couldn’t hate you. . . . And I believe, even if I hadn’t learned what changed it all, I would have forgiven you—some day.”
“What—changed—all?” burst out Rock, in insupportable suspense.
“What Dad told me.”
“Thiry—have mercy!”
“Ash was not my brother,” she said, in smothered voice, and her hand sought his cheek.
That dear bright head on his breast seemed to be lifting his heart rather than pressing against it. A thousand thoughts tried to pierce to clarity.
Rising, Thiry slipped to the floor on her knees, and leaned upon her elbows, clasping his hands, regarding him with remorseful tenderness.
“My brother Range beat the others home that night, with the news of the fight. I stole to my room. Allie stayed with me. Afterward she told me I raged I was going out to kill you. But that was only madness. . . . I had my terrible black hours. Thank God they are past. . . . I knew we were ruined—that Ash in some way had brought it about. Perhaps my love for him turned then. Allie begged and pleaded and prayed with me. How she hated Ash! And what a friend she was to you! . . . But I want you to know that even then believing Ash my brother I’d have forgiven you in time. I know it. After the agony was spent I was learning how deathlessly I loved you. . . . Sometime in the night late Dad came to me. Never had I seen him gentle, sad, defeated, yet something better for that. . . . He told me not to take it too hard—not to visit the sins of others upon your head. You had been driven to kill Ash. Some one had to do it, for the good of all, and no one but you could. He told me how he had inflamed Ash. Then the fight! . . . Ah, God, he did—not—spare me. . . . Then came the story, torn from his most secret heart. Ash was not his son, but the illegitimate son of a girl who he had loved long ago, who, abandoned and dying, gave him her child. That child was Ash. And Dad said he was what his father had been. . . . I was not yet born. But when I came, Ash was my playmate. I remember when we were children. He was always vicious to everyone except me. And so I grew up loving him, perhaps for that. . . . Next day I went to mother, and she corroborated Dad’s story. It seemed I was delivered from hellish bonds.”
“Thiry darlin’—there must be somethin’ in prayer,” cried Rock, fervently.
“I was to learn how you had bought Slagle’s silence—how you persuaded Dabb and Lincoln to force Hesbitt to settle out of court—oh, how from the very beginning you had meant good by all of us! Yet I could not drag myself to you. It took time. I had such dreadful fear of seeing you lying in danger of death, bloody, pale, with awful eyes that would have accused me. . . . Oh, I suffered! . . . But now I’m here—on my knees.”
“Please get up?” asked Rock, lifting her to a seat beside him.
“Now will you accept Dabb’s offer and take me back to Sunset Pass?” she asked, bending to him.
“Yes, Thiry, if you will have it so,” he replied. “If you love me that well.”
She gave him awakening passionate proof of that. “Dear, I understand better. Dad told me you were one of the marked men of the ranges. Our West is in the making. Such men as Ash—and those others you——”
Sol Winter came in upon them.
“Wal, I knocked twice, an’ then I says I’d better go in.” He beamed down upon them. “Son an’ lass, I’m glad to see you holdin’ each other thet way—as if now you’d never let go. For I’ve grown old on the frontier, an’ I’ve seen but little of the love you have for each other. We Westerners are a hard pioneerin’ outfit. I see in you, an’ Allie, an’ some more of our young friends, a leanin’ more to finer, better things.”
THE END
