by Zane Grey
“Gone! Free! Oh, heaven, what have I done?” she gasped.
It dawned on her then, the wrong she had done her father in being true to something as deep and wild in her as the instinct the horses had showed—for love of life and freedom. For a long time Sue sat there, overcome by the consciousness of the accomplished deed.
At length she saw how imperative it was to get back to camp. It was a long ride, and already the sun had gone far on its slant to the west.
Twilight had fallen when Sue rode into the eastern end of the cottonwood grove and on to the encampment. Jake was not in sight. The women were busy at their tasks. Sue unsaddled and freed her horse, and reached the security of her tent without being seen. There she fell upon her bed in a state of exhaustion and agitation unparalleled in her experience. Her body burned and ached. The injury to her knee seemed renewed. And her thoughts and emotions were mostly in harmony with her physical ills. A few moments of utter relaxation, and then a little rest enabled her to find composure, so that when she was called to supper she felt she could safely go out. Mrs. Melberne had evidently no idea when Sue returned to camp, and her chief concern was because she had been late in cooking supper. In the shadow around the campfire neither sharp-eyed Ora nor kindly attentive Jake saw anything unusual about Sue. The truth was, however, that Sue could just drag herself back to bed.
During the night she was roused out of heavy slumber. She heard horses, then deep voices of men. The riders had returned. Recognition of Chane Weymer’s voice seemed to lift her heart. Soft thud of hoofs and rustle of leaves passed her tent.
“Brutus, old pard, the day’s done. I wish there was no tomorrow.”
His voice sounded low and sad, full of weariness of effort and of life, yet strong in love for that noble horse. Sue felt a tide of feeling wave over her. What would she not have given to hear that note in Chane Weymer’s voice for her? In the pitch blackness of her tent she could speak to her lonely and aching heart. The day made her false.
Sue fell asleep, and did not awaken again until morning, and then she lay for hours, it seemed, before she rose. What would this day bring forth? When she went out, she was politely informed by Mrs. Loughbridge that she could get her own breakfast. This eminently pleased Sue, for she wanted to be around the campfire, yet with some task to cloak her intense curiosity. While she was eating, the different members of Melberne’s outfit rode singly and in groups into camp. Sight of them roused Sue’s audacity. She had outwitted them. Yet, presently, when her father rode up, Sue could not find it in her to face him.
“Wal, lass, is it breakfast or lunch?” he asked cheerfully, and bent to kiss her cheek. It flashed over Sue that he was like his old self this morning. That delighted while it pained her.
“Why, Dad … back so soon?” she replied, raising her eyes.
“Shore. An’ I’m a tired dad,” he said.
“I … I thought you were to drive horses to Lund today,” she managed to say, despising her deceit.
“Haw! Haw! Were is good. Yes, I were! But, Sue, the horses broke out of the corral gates or somebody let them out. They’re gone. An’ the only hide an’ hair of ’em is left on the barbed wire.”
“Oh!” cried Sue. It was an outburst of emotion. That it seemed relief to Sue instead of a natural exclamation of wonder or amaze or regret was something assuredly beyond her father’s ken.
He bent down to her ear and whispered hoarsely, “Never was so damn glad aboot anythin’ in my life.”
“Dad!” cried Sue, springing up so suddenly as to spill what remained of her breakfast. The joy in this word was not feigned. She kissed him. She felt on the verge of tears. “You … you won’t use barbed wire again … ever?”
“Huh! I shore won’t. Sue, there ain’t a cowman in this heah West who hates barbed wire more than me. An’ I’ll tell you real cowmen, the old Texas school where cowmen came from, all hate wire fences.”
“Dad, I … I’m very … happy,” faltered Sue. “I hope you haven’t lost money.”
“Broke just even, Sue. An’ I’m square with Loughbridge an’ the riders. But listen, don’t you let on I’m glad aboot this busted deal.”
“Dad dear, I’ve secrets of my own,” replied Sue with a laugh. Someday she would dare to tell him one of them, at least.
Loughbridge roughly called Melberne to join the group beyond the campfire. Manerube was there, with two strange riders that no doubt had come from Lund. Sue did not like their looks. The rest of Melberne’s outfit stood back in a half circle. Excitement attended that gathering, emanating from the Loughbridge group. Sue, in response to a wave of her father’s hand, moved back some steps to the big cottonwood stump, where she halted. Unless absolutely forbidden to stay, she meant to hear and see what the issue was.
“Melberne, somebody in this camp let out them wild horses,” declared Loughbridge forcefully.
“You still harpin’ on that? Wal, Jim, I’m a tired man an’ your voice ain’t soothin’.”
“All the same, you gotta hear me,” replied Loughbridge hotly. “Manerube swears he can prove it.”
“Huh! Prove what?” snorted Melberne, his manner changing.
“Thet somebody from this camp opened them corral gates an’ let loose our horses.”
“Say, talk sense. Nobody but Jake an’ our women were heah,” retorted Melberne.
“Some of your outfit rode into camp before eleven last night,” went on Loughbridge. “Between then and daylight there was plenty of time for a rider to do the trick.”
“Wal, I reckon that might be so,” drawled Melberne. “Is Manerube accusin’ any rider who got heah early last night?”
“No, he ain’t. Not yet.”
“A-huh! All right. I shore hope you tell me before he begins his accusin’, because I’m too dog tired to go dodgin’ around. I want somethin’ to get behind.”
Loughbridge fumed over this slow, sarcastic speech, and he regarded his former partner with some doubt and much disfavor. Then he burst out with redoubled vehemence.
“If Manerube does prove it, you’ll have to pay me half the money we’d earned for two more days’ drive.”
“Loughbridge, you’re plumb locoed,” rejoined Melberne in a voice that had gathered might. “You’re as crazy as I was when I made a partnership with you or when I listened to Manerube.”
“Crazy, am I?” shouted the other hoarsely. “But you’ll pay me just the same.”
“Crazy, shore. An’ as for Manerube provin’ that, why I’m tellin’ you he couldn’t prove anythin’ under this heah sun to me.”
“Hell! I’m not carin’ what you think or what you tell. I’m talkin’ business. Money!”
“Wal, you’ve shore got your last dollar from me, Jim Loughbridge. An’ if you think so little of my talk … mebbe you’d listen to bullets!”
The sharp, quick, cold voice ceased and there was a silence that proved the effect of the sudden contrast in Melberne’s tone and manner.
“What!” bellowed Loughbridge, his red face turning ashen.
“Reckon I’ve learned patience from Mormons. But I was born in Texas,” Melberne replied with more dignity than passion. Still, the menace of his voice and eye had not disappeared.
“Melberne, here we split,” said Loughbridge. “I want half this outfit.”
“Wal, you’re welcome … when you pay me for it. Not before,” rejoined the leader, and with a gesture of finality he strode toward the tents.
Loughbridge drew Manerube and the two strange riders aside, where they took up a low and earnest conversation.
Sue, nervously recovering from the shock of the encounter between her father and Loughbridge, was about to move away when Chane Weymer confronted her. The smile in his dark eyes disarmed Sue for the moment. Certain it was that her heart turned traitor to her will.
“Sue, you’re a dandy brave girl,” Ch
ane said, very low. Never before had he addressed her by her first name, let alone paid her a compliment.
“Indeed?” returned Sue impertinently. But she knew she was going to blush unless fury or something rushed to her rescue.
“You have such dainty little feet. Your riding boots make such pretty tracks,” went on Chane, still low-voiced, still smiling down into her eyes. But now his words held strange significance. Sue felt a cold shiver run over her.
“You … think so,” she faltered.
Chane glanced around, apparently with casual manner, but Sue saw the piercing keenness of his eyes. He was deep. He was kind. She trembled as she realized that somehow again he was helping her. Suddenly he bent lower.
“Manerube must have seen your boot tracks down by the corral gates,” he said swiftly. “But he can’t prove it. I found them later, and I stepped them out in the dust. They’re gone.”
“Ah,” breathed Sue, lifting her hands to her breast.
“You did a fine thing. You’ve courage, girl. I wanted to free those wild horses.”
Sue could not answer, not because she did not want to thank him for both service and compliment, but for the reason that the look in his eyes, the depths she had never seen before, rendered her mute. He was gazing down at her wonderingly, as if she presented a new character, one that stirred admiration, and he was going to speak again when something interrupted. Sue heard voices and the patter of light hoofs on the leaves. Chane straightened up to look. His dark face lighted with gladness.
“Paiutes! By golly! My friend Toddy Nokin has come with my mustangs,” he ejaculated, and he ran toward an Indian rider just entering camp.
Sue saw a small squat figure astride a shaggy pony. Chane rushed to greet him. The Paiute’s face, like a mask of bronze, suddenly wreathed and wrinkled into a beautiful smile. He extended a lean sinewy hand that Chane grasped and wrung. Sue could not distinguish the words of their greeting, but it was one between friends.
A drove of clean-limbed, long-maned mustangs had entered the grove, surrounded by Indian riders, picturesque with their high-crowned sombreros, their beads and silver. How supple and lithe their figures! With what ease and grace they rode!
When Sue’s gaze reverted to Chane and the Paiute, she was amazed to see an Indian girl ride up to them. She was bareheaded. Her raven-black hair glinted in the sunlight. She was young. Her small piquant face, her slight, graceful form, the white band of beads she wore around her head, the silver buttons and ornaments bright against her velveteen blouse—these facts of sight flashed swiftly on Sue, just a second ahead of a strange dammed-up force, vague, powerful, yet ready to burst.
Chane shouted something in Indian to this girl—perhaps her name—for she smiled as had the old Paiute, and that smile gave a flashing beauty to the dusky face. It broke the barrier to Sue’s strange emotion. Her blood left her heart to confound pulse and vein. The might of that blood was stinging, searing jealousy. Pride and scorn and shame, bitter as they were, could not equal the other. Sue tortured herself one moment longer, with a woman’s perversity, and in it she saw Chane greet the Indian girl. That sufficed for her. Averting her gaze, Sue walked slowly toward her tent and upheld herself with apparent inattention. But when she had once closed and tied the flaps behind her, the pretense vanished and she sank to her knees in misery and shame.
* * * * *
Sue did not answer the call to the midday meal. She remained in her tent, fighting for the fortitude she would need to carry her through the inevitable worst to come. She welcomed the fact that it appeared she had been forgotten. The camp was much livelier than ever before, and Sue’s ears were continually assailed by low voices passing her tent, by loud laughter of the riders, by the movement of horses. Anxious as she was over the break between her father and Loughbridge, she did not long dwell upon it. Her personal trouble was paramount.
A heavy clinking step outside her tent brought Sue up, excited and thrilling.
“Sue, are you home?” asked her father.
“Always to you, Dad. Come in,” she replied, untying the tent flaps.
He entered and closed the flaps after him. Then throwing his sombrero on the bed, with the gesture of a man come to stay a while, he faced Sue with an unusual expression, which to her meant sympathy, perplexity, remorse, and something beyond her at the moment.
“Lass, if you want to see a locoed daddy, just look at me,” he said.
“I’m looking … and, well, you don’t seem quite so bad as you say,” replied Sue with a nervous little laugh. “What is the matter?”
“Wal, a lot of things, but mostly I’m a damn fool.”
“Have you had more words with Loughbridge?” queried Sue anxiously.
“He’s all words. He’s been houndin’ me again aboot money. But I’ll settle him shortly. It’s not Loughbridge who’s botherin’ me now.”
“Who, then?”
Her father sat down on the bed, and Sue, with heart beginning to misbehave, dropped to her knees before him. If he had not seemed so kind, and somehow protective, Sue would have been frightened.
“Who’s bothering you, Dad?” she went on.
Then he met her eyes. Behind the smile in his there was sadness. “This heah Chane Weymer,” he said.
“Oh … Dad, don’t say you’ve quarreled with him!” she exclaimed wildly.
He studied Sue closely, peering deep into her eyes. “Wal, what’d you do if I said me an’ Weymer was goin’ to fight?”
“Fight? Oh, my heaven, no … no! Dad, I’d never let you fight him,” she cried, suddenly clinging to him.
“A-huh! I had a hunch you wouldn’t, my lass,” he returned shrewdly. “Wal, I was just tryin’ to scare you. Fact is there’s no quarrel.”
Sue sank against his shoulder and hid her telltale face, while the awful panic that had threatened slowly subsided in her breast. She grew aware of her father’s arm around her, tenderly and closely holding her.
“Lass, you an’ me are in a devil of a hole.”
“You mean about the horses?”
“No. Aboot Chane.”
“Chane?” she echoed blankly.
“Yes, Chane. You’re not bright this mawnin’. Wal, I don’t wonder. But haven’t you a hunch what the trouble is?”
“Your trouble with Ch – … with him? No, Dad.”
“Wal, I shore hate to tell you. Yet, I’m more glad than sorry … Lass, we’ve done Chane Weymer wrong. I felt it days ago. Now I know. He’s the finest man I ever met in all my life. Manerube is a dirty liar. He’s what Chess called him that night. He’s just exactly what he made out to us Chane was.”
Sue felt as if she had been stabbed. Then joy welled up out of her agony. She sank into her father’s arms, blinded with tears.
“Lass, you love Chane?” he whispered.
The query, the simple spoken words, the tremendous meaning of them in another’s voice, made Sue shake like a leaf. She could speak no answer. She had betrayed herself. Yet it was not the revealing of her secret that held her mute.
“Wal, you needn’t give yourself away,” continued her father gently. “But I reckon I know. I seen you look at Chane once … the way your mother use to look at me.”
After that he held her in silence for a long while, until Sue recovered in sufficient measure to sit up and wipe her eyes and face the situation.
“Dad, you can’t guess how glad I was to hear you say that about Chane. Never mind now why. Just tell me … how you know.”
“I shore will,” replied her father earnestly. “These heah Paiutes an’ Navajos are friends of Chane’s. They have a bunch of mustangs for Chane to sell, an’ I’ve bought them. Wal, when the old Indian … Toddy Nokin … saw Manerube he just grabbed for his rifle. He shore was goin’ to do for that rider. But Chane got hold of the gun, took it away from him, an’ talked. Toddy Nokin was shore a ma
d Indian. He couldn’t understand Chane. Neither did I then. But you can bet I was keen to find out. It seems this Paiute is a chief an’ a man of dignity an’ intelligence. He speaks some English. He says he thinks Manerube is a horse thief, in with Bud McPherson, but he can’t prove that. But he an’ Chane caught Manerube carryin’ off the little Indian girl, Sosie. You remember how Manerube’s face was all black an’ blue when he came to us? How he bragged we ought to see the other fellow. Wal, Chane beat Manerube soundly an’ drove him off. You remember, Sue, how Manerube said he did just that to Chane?”
“Remember! Can I ever forget I believed it?” cried Sue, shrinking.
“Wal, Manerube is the one with the bad name among the Indians. Not Chane! We talked with a Navajo, too. He said Chane was never a squaw man. Then I got hold of the girl, Sosie. Shore I had the surprise of my life. Sue, she’s educated. Talks as well as you. An’ what she said aboot Manerube was aplenty. I’ll gamble the Paiutes kill that rider … Wal, Sosie said Chane was the kind of man among the Indians the missionaries ought to be but wasn’t.”
“Oh, I knew it, in my heart,” wailed Sue. “But I was a jealous cat.”
“Wal, lass, Chane said as much aboot me,” went on her father, breathing heavily. “I went to him an’ I up like a man an’ told him I’d wronged him an’ was sorry. An’ the darned fellow asked me what aboot. I told him I’d believed Manerube’s gossip. An’, Sue, what do you think he said?”
“I’ve no idea,” murmured Sue.
“He said … ‘Melberne, you’re a damn liar. You knew that wasn’t true. Now shut up aboot it an’ let’s be friends.’ Wal, Chane has stumped me more than once. But that was the last straw. Funny, too, because he was right. I knew he was a man. But this horse wranglin’ had upset me, sort of locoed me.”
“So he forgave you?” queried Sue dreamily. “Will he ever forgive me?”
“Shore. Why, that fellow’s heart is as tender as your mother’s.”
