by Zane Grey
“Haven’t you got something to drink?” Jack asked of his companions.
“Nope. Whar’d we git it?” replied Jim.
Belllounds evidently forgot, for presently he repeated the query. The cowboys shook their heads. Wade knew they were lying, for they did have liquor in the cabin. It occurred to him, then, to offer to go to his own cabin for some, just to see what this young man would say. But he refrained.
The luck went against Belllounds and so did the gambling. He was not a lamb among wolves, by any means, but the fleecing he got suggested that. According to Wade he was getting what he deserved. No cowboys, even such good-natured and fine fellows as these, could be expected to be subjects for Belllounds’s cupidity. And they won all he had.
“I’ll borrow,” he said, with feverish impatience. His face was pale, clammy, yet heated, especially round the swollen bruises; his eyes stood out, bold, dark, rolling and glaring, full of sullen fire. But more than anything else his mouth betrayed the weakling, the born gambler, the self-centered, spoiled, intolerant youth. It was here his bad blood showed.
“Wal, I ain’t lendin’ money,” replied Lem, as he assorted his winnings. “Wade, here’s what you staked me, an’ much obliged.”
“I’m out, an’ I can’t lend you any,” said Jim.
Bludsoe had a good share of the profits of that quick game, but he made no move to lend any of it. Belllounds glared impatiently at them.
“Hell! you took my money. I’ll have satisfaction,” he broke out, almost shouting.
“We won it, didn’t we?” rejoined Lem, cool and easy. “An’ you can have all the satisfaction you want, right now or any time.”
Wade held out a handful of money to Belllounds.
“Here,” he said, with his deep eyes gleaming in the dim room. Wade had made a gamble with himself, and it was that Belllounds would not even hesitate to take money.
“Come on, you stingy cowpunchers,” he called out, snatching the money from Wade. His action then, violent and vivid as it was, did not reveal any more than his face.
But the cowboys showed amaze, and something more. They fell straightway to gambling, sharper and fiercer than before, actuated now by the flaming spirit of this son of Belllounds. Luck, misleading and alluring, favored Jack for a while, transforming him until he was radiant, boastful, exultant. Then it changed, as did his expression. His face grew dark.
“I tell you I want drink,” he suddenly demanded. “I know damn well you cowpunchers have some here, for I smelled it when I came in.”
“Jack, we drank the last drop,” replied Jim, who seemed less stiff than his two bunk-mates.
“I’ve some very old rye,” interposed Wade, looking at Jim but apparently addressing all. “Fine stuff, but awful strong an’ hot!… Makes a fellow’s blood dance.”
“Go get it!” Belllounds’s utterance was thick and full, as if he had something in his mouth.
Wade looked down into the heated face, into the burning eyes; and through the darkness of passion that brooked no interference with its fruition he saw this youth’s stark and naked soul. Wade had seen into the depths of many such abysses.
“See hyar, Wade,” broke in Jim, with his quiet force, “never mind fetchin’ thet red-hot rye to-night. Some other time, mebbe, when Jack wants more satisfaction. Reckon we’ve got a drop or so left.”
“All right, boys,” replied Wade, “I’ll be sayin’ good night.”
He left them playing and strode out to return to his cabin. The night was still, cold, starlit, and black in the shadows. A lonesome coyote barked, to be answered by a wakeful hound. Wade halted at his porch, and lingered there a moment, peering up at the gray old peak, bare and star-crowned.
“I’m sorry for the old man,” muttered the hunter, “but I’d see Jack Belllounds in hell before I’d let Columbine marry him.”
* * *
October first was a holiday at White Slides Ranch. It happened to be a glorious autumn day, with the sunlight streaming gold and amber over the grassy slopes. Far off the purple ranges loomed hauntingly.
Wade had come down from Wilson Moore’s cabin, his ears ringing with the crippled boy’s words of poignant fear.
Fox favored his master with unusually knowing gaze. There was not going to be any lion-chasing or elk-hunting this day. Something was in the wind. And Fox, as a privileged dog, manifested his interest and wonder.
Before noon a buckboard with team of sweating horses halted in the yard of the ranch-house. Besides the driver it contained two women whom Belllounds greeted as relatives, and a stranger, a pale man whose dark garb proclaimed him a minister.
“Come right in, folks,” welcomed Belllounds, with hearty excitement.
It was Wade who showed the driver where to put the horses. Strangely, not a cowboy was in sight, an omission of duty the rancher had noted. Wade might have informed him where they were.
The door of the big living-room stood open, and from it came the sound of laughter and voices. Wade, who had returned to his seat on the end of the porch, listened to them, while his keen gaze seemed fixed down the lane toward the cabins. How intent must he have been not to hear Columbine’s step behind him!
“Good morning, Ben,” she said.
Wade wheeled as if internal violence had ordered his movement.
“Lass, good mornin’,” he replied. “You sure look sweet this October first—like the flower for which you’re named.”
“My friend, it is October first—my marriage day!” murmured Columbine.
Wade felt her intensity, and he thrilled to the brave, sweet resignation of her face. Hope and faith were unquenchable in her, yet she had fortified herself to the wreck of dreams and love.
“I’d seen you before now, but I had some job with Wils, persuadin’ him that we’d not have to offer you congratulations yet awhile,” replied Wade, in his slow, gentle voice.
“Oh!” breathed Columbine.
Wade saw her full breast swell and the leaping blood wave over her pale face. She bent to him to see his eyes. And for Wade, when she peered with straining heart and soul, all at once to become transfigured, that instant was a sweet and all-fulfilling reward for his years of pain.
“You drive me mad!” she whispered.
The heavy tread of the rancher, like the last of successive steps of fate in Wade’s tragic expectancy, sounded on the porch.
“Wal, lass, hyar you are,” he said, with a gladness deep in his voice. “Now, whar’s the boy?”
“Dad—I’ve not—seen Jack since breakfast,” replied Columbine, tremulously.
“Sort of a laggard in love on his weddin’-day,” rejoined the rancher. His gladness and forgetfulness were as big as his heart. “Wade, have you seen Jack?”
“No—I haven’t,” replied the hunter, with slow, long-drawn utterance. “But—I see—him now.”
Wade pointed to the figure of Jack Belllounds approaching from the direction of the cabins. He was not walking straight.
Old man Belllounds shot out his gray head like a striking eagle.
“What the hell?” he muttered, as if bewildered at this strange, uneven gait of his son. “Wade, what’s the matter with Jack?”
Wade did not reply. That moment had its sorrow for him as well as understanding of the wonder expressed by Columbine’s cold little hand trembling in his.
The rancher suddenly recoiled.
“So help me Gawd—he’s drunk!” he gasped, in a distress that unmanned him.
Then the parson and the invited relatives came out upon the porch, with gay voices and laughter that suddenly stilled when old Belllounds cried, brokenly: “Lass—go—in—the house.”
But Columbine did not move, and Wade felt her shaking as she leaned against him.
The bridegroom approached. Drunk indeed he was; not hilariously, as one who celebrated his good fortune, but sullenly, tragically, hideously drunk.
Old Belllounds leaped off the porch. His gray hair stood up like the mane of a lion. Lik
e a giant’s were his strides. With a lunge he met his reeling son, swinging a huge fist into the sodden red face. Limply Jack fell to the ground.
“Lay there, you damned prodigal!” he roared, terrible in his rage. “You disgrace me—an’ you disgrace the girl who’s been a daughter to me!… If you ever have another weddin’-day it’ll be me who sets it!”
CHAPTER 12
November was well advanced before there came indications that winter was near at hand.
One morning, when Wade rode up to Moore’s cabin, the whole world seemed obscured in a dense gray fog, through which he could not see a rod ahead of him. Later, as he left, the fog had lifted shoulder-high to the mountains, and was breaking to let the blue sky show. Another morning it was worse, and apparently thicker and grayer. As Wade climbed the trail up toward the mountain-basin, where he hunted most these days, he expected the fog to lift. But it did not. The trail under the hoofs of the horse was scarcely perceptible to him, and he seemed lost in a dense, gray, soundless obscurity.
Suddenly Wade emerged from out the fog into brilliant sunshine. In amaze he halted. This phenomenon was new to him. He was high up on the mountain-side, the summit of which rose clear-cut and bold into the sky. Below him spread what resembled a white sea. It was an immense cloud-bank, filling all the valleys as if with creamy foam or snow, soft, thick, motionless, contrasting vividly with the blue sky above. Old White Slides stood out, gray and bleak and brilliant, as if it were an island rock in a rolling sea of fleece. Far across this strange, level cloud-floor rose the black line of the range. Wade watched the scene with a kind of rapture. He was alone on the heights. There was not a sound. The winds were stilled. But there seemed a mighty being awake all around him, in the presence of which Wade felt how little were his sorrows and hopes.
Another day brought dull-gray scudding clouds, and gusts of wind and squalls of rain, and a wailing through the bare aspens. It grew colder and bleaker and darker. Rain changed to sleet and sleet to snow. That night brought winter.
Next morning, when Wade plodded up to Moore’s cabin, it was through two feet of snow. A beautiful glistening white mantle covered valley and slope and mountain, transforming all into a world too dazzlingly brilliant for the unprotected gaze of man.
When Wade pushed open the door of the cabin and entered he awakened the cowboy.
“Mornin’, Wils,” drawled Wade, as he slapped the snow from boots and legs. “Summer has gone, winter has come, an’ the flowers lay in their graves! How are you, boy?”
Moore had grown paler and thinner during his long confinement in bed. A weary shade shone in his face and a shadow of pain in his eyes. But the spirit of his smile was the same as always.
“Hello, Bent, old pard!” replied Moore. “I guess I’m fine. Nearly froze last night. Didn’t sleep much.”
“Well, I was worried about that,” said the hunter. “We’ve got to arrange things somehow.”
“I heard it snowing. Gee! how the wind howled! And I’m snowed in?”
“Sure are. Two feet on a level. It’s good I snaked down a lot of fire-wood. Now I’ll set to work an’ cut it up an’ stack it round the cabin. Reckon I’d better sleep up here with you, Wils.”
“Won’t Old Bill make a kick?”
“Let him kick. But I reckon he doesn’t need to know anythin’ about it. It is cold in here. Well, I’ll soon warm it up.… Here’s some letters Lem got at Kremmlin’ the other day. You read while I rustle some grub for you.”
Moore scanned the addresses on the several envelopes and sighed.
“From home! I hate to read them.”
“Why?” queried Wade.
“Oh, because when I wrote I didn’t tell them I was hurt. I feel like a liar.”
“It’s just as well, Wils, because you swear you’ll not go home.”
“Me? I should smile not.… Bent—I—I—hoped Collie might answer the note you took her from me.”
“Not yet. Wils, give the lass time.”
“Time? Heavens! it’s three weeks and more.”
“Go ahead an’ read your letters or I’ll knock you on the head with one of these chunks,” ordered Wade, mildly.
The hunter soon had the room warm and cheerful, with steaming breakfast on the red-hot coals. Presently, when he made ready to serve Moore, he was surprised to find the boy crying over one of the letters.
“Wils, what’s the trouble?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing. I—I—just feel bad, that’s all,” replied Moore.
“Ahuh! So it seems. Well, tell me about it?”
“Pard, my father—has forgiven me.”
“The old son-of-a-gun! Good! What for? You never told me you’d done anythin’.”
“I know—but I did—do a lot. I was sixteen then. We quarreled. And I ran off up here to punch cows. But after a while I wrote home to mother and my sister. Since then they’ve tried to coax me to come home. This letter’s from the old man himself. Gee!… Well, he says he’s had to knuckle. That he’s ready to forgive me. But I must come home and take charge of his ranch. Isn’t that great?… Only I can’t go. And I couldn’t—I couldn’t ever ride a horse again—if I did go.”
“Who says you couldn’t?” queried Wade. “I never said so. I only said you’d never be a bronco-bustin’ cowboy again. Well, suppose you’re not? You’ll be able to ride a little, if I can save that leg.… Boy, your letter is damn good news. I’m sure glad. That will make Collie happy.”
The cowboy had a better appetite that morning, which fact mitigated somewhat the burden of Wade’s worry. There was burden enough, however, and Wade had set this day to make important decisions about Moore’s injured foot. He had dreaded to remove the last dressing because conditions at that time had been unimproved. He had done all he could to ward off the threatened gangrene.
“Wils, I’m goin’ to look at your foot an’ tell you things,” declared Wade, when the dreaded time could be put off no longer.
“Go ahead.… And, pard, if you say my leg has to be cut off—why just pass me my gun!”
The cowboy’s voice was gay and bantering, but his eyes were alight with a spirit that frightened the hunter.
“Ahuh!… I know how you feel. But, boy, I’d rather live with one leg an’ be loved by Collie Belllounds than have nine legs for some other lass.”
Wilson Moore groaned his helplessness.
“Damn you, Bent Wade! You always say what kills me!… Of course I would!”
“Well, lie quiet now, an’ let me look at this poor, messed-up foot.”
Wade’s deft fingers did not work with the usual precision and speed natural to them. But at last Moore’s injured member lay bare, discolored and misshapen. The first glance made the hunter quicker in his movements, closer in his scrutiny. Then he yelled his joy.
“Boy, it’s better! No sign of gangrene! We’ll save your leg!”
“Pard, I never feared I’d lose that. All I’ve feared was that I’d be club-footed.… Let me look,” replied the cowboy, and he raised himself on his elbow. Wade lifted the unsightly foot.
“My God, it’s crooked!” cried Moore, passionately. “Wade, it’s healed. It’ll stay that way always! I can’t move it!… Oh, but Buster Jack’s ruined me!”
The hunter pushed him back with gentle hands. “Wils, it might have been worse.”
“But I never gave up hope,” replied Moore, in poignant grief. “I couldn’t. But now!… How can you look at that—that club-foot, and not swear?”
“Well, well, boy, cussin’ won’t do any good. Now lay still an’ let me work. You’ve had lots of good news this mornin’. So I think you can stand to hear a little bad news.”
“What! Bad news?” queried Moore, with a start.
“I reckon. Now listen.… The reason Collie hasn’t answered your note is because she’s been sick in bed for three weeks.”
“Oh no!” exclaimed the cowboy, in amaze and distress.
“Yes, an’ I’m her doctor,” replied Wade, with pride
. “First off they had Mrs. Andrews. An’ Collie kept askin’ for me. She was out of her head, you know. An’ soon as I took charge she got better.”
“Heavens! Collie ill and you never told me!” cried Moore. “I can’t believe it. She’s so healthy and strong. What ailed her, Bent?”
“Well, Mrs. Andrews said it was nervous breakdown. An’ Old Bill was afraid of consumption. An’ Jack Belllounds swore she was only shammin’.”
The cowboy cursed violently.
“Here—I won’t tell you any more if you’re goin’ to cuss that way an’ jerk around,” protested Wade.
“I—I’ll shut up,” appealed Moore.
“Well, that puddin’-head Jack is more’n you called him, if you care to hear my opinion.… Now, Wils, the fact is that none of them know what ails Collie. But I know. She’d been under a high strain leadin’ up to October first. An’ the way that weddin’-day turned out—with Old Bill layin’ Jack cold, an’ with no marriage at all—why, Collie had a shock. An’ after that she seemed pale an’ tired all the time an’ she didn’t eat right. Well, when Buster Jack got over that awful punch he’d got from the old man he made up to Collie harder than ever. She didn’t tell me then, but I saw it. An’ she couldn’t avoid him, except by stayin’ in her room, which she did a good deal. Then Jack showed a streak of bein’ decent. He surprised everybody, even Collie. He delighted Old Bill. But he didn’t pull the wool over my eyes. He was like a boy spoilin’ for a new toy, an’ he got crazy over Collie. He’s sure terribly in love with her, an’ for days he behaved himself in a way calculated to make up for his drinkin’ too much. It shows he can behave himself when he wants to. I mean he can control his temper an’ impulse. Anyway, he made himself so good that Old Bill changed his mind, after what he swore that day, an’ set another day for the weddin’. Right off, then, Collie goes down on her back.… They didn’t send for me very soon. But when I did get to see her, an’ felt the way she grabbed me—as if she was drownin’—then I knew what ailed her. It was love.”
“Love!” gasped Moore, breathlessly.
“Sure. Jest love for a dog-gone lucky cowboy named Wils Moore!… Her heart was breakin’, an’ she’d have died but for me! Don’t imagine, Wils, that people can’t die of broken hearts. They do. I know. Well, all Collie needed was me, an’ I cured her ravin’ and made her eat, an’ now she’s comin’ along fine.”
