The Shepherd of Guadaloupe

by Zane Grey

  “Forrest, I didn’t come heah to fight. But I’m packin’ somethin’ that’ll hit you harder’n any bullet.”

  “Is Malpass dead?”

  “No. But shore he’s darn near it. That war-crazy son of yours jumped him with a bull-whacker’s whip.”

  “Lundeen, it was a plumb good job. An’ I wish it’d been better. Reckon you ain’t acquainted with facts. Malpass started the fight, an’ when it got too hot he throwed a gun. Shot Cliff, as you can see for yourself.”

  Obviously that was astounding to Lundeen, and he required the confirmation of his own penetrating eyes. His regard, however, was one of icy indifference to the established fact. He had no word for Clifton.

  “I’m inquirin’ if the other man Malpass shot is dead?” continued Forrest.

  “Did he shoot someone else?” demanded Lundeen, hotly.

  “Yes, by accident,” interposed Clifton. “He was aiming at me.”

  “Fine chance that half-breed would have if a Westerner threw a gun on him instead of a whip,” added the older Forrest, scornfully.

  “Malpass was aboot out of his haid. Maybe that accounts for his omissions. He raved an’ cursed.”

  “Wal, Lundeen, if that’s all you’ve butted in here to say——”

  “I came sayin’ there was hell to pay, didn’t I?” interrupted Lundeen, harshly. “An’ there shore is. This slick son of yours, with his crippled-soldier sympathy bluff, is goin’ to pay it, too.”

  “Leave out what you think my son is. It ain’t safe. . . . What more has he done?”

  “He married my girl, by God! That’s what!”

  Forrest turned a dead white. “Say, you’re drunk, or crazier’n your crooked pardner. No son of mine would give the name Forrest to a Lundeen.”

  “Ha! But he did, an’ though my Virginia takes the blame, the disgrace of it is just that. My lass has become a Forrest.”

  “It’s a lie. Another of your plots,” shouted Forrest, his neck bulging purple. “An’ if it was so I’d swear the disgrace was suffered by the Forrests. But it’s an infernal lie.”

  “Ask him.”

  Forrest whirled a distorted face toward his son. “You hear him. Why don’t you nail his lyin’ talk?”

  “Dad, it’s true,” replied Clifton.

  Sudden death could scarcely have caused a ghastlier change in a strong man’s features and body. This was the last straw. The end of pride! The conclusive stab to bleeding vanity. Forrest fell into a chair, so abject, so beaten, that Clifton could look no more at him.

  “Forrest, that’s why I’m heah,” said Lundeen, acidly. “Because it’s true, an’ I can’t change it. My daughter is of age. It couldn’t be kept secret an’ Virginia refused to hear of a divorce. She took the blame. She led your son on. Marriage with him was an escape from Malpass. I wanted a match between him an’ her. But she’d have none of him, an’ to keep out of it she aboot asked your son to marry. She knew he wasn’t long for this world, but long enough, maybe, to serve her turn. . . . He’s dirt under her feet! She cared nothin’ on earth for him! You understand?”

  “Lundeen, I reckon I do,” returned Forrest, hoarsely. “But I wouldn’t believe your oath on your knees before God. . . . Clifton, is that last true?”

  “Is what true?” echoed Clifton, his voice failing huskily.

  “That this Lundeen woman thinks you’re dirt under her feet.”

  “Dad, I don’t believe that. She’s too big for hate. She’s kind. But I think she cared nothing for me.”

  “You think!” returned Lundeen, dark in passion. “You need to be damn shore you know, young man. I’m tellin’ you. I choked it out of her. If she’d confessed to love of you I’d have killed her with my own hands.”

  Clifton slowly sank back against the wall. And the brutal speech that crushed his tired heart had an opposite effect upon his father, who rose in a single upheaval, and towered erect.

  “Tell this man Lundeen you had no use for his daughter! You did a manly act to save her from a schemin’ half-breed! No more. Tell him quick!”

  Clifton had seen his mother open the door part way, to disclose a terrified face. It steadied him. He must prevent bloodshed here, and if the quarrel between these blinded foes went farther it would end in tragedy. He would have perjured his soul to save his mother any more agony.

  “Dad is right, Mr. Lundeen, I just wanted—to help Virginia.”

  “That’s good, then, on both sides, if any good could come out of an impossible relation,” replied Lundeen, a visible break in his relentlessness. “Forrest, I gave my daughter a choice: either to divorce your son or get out of my house.”

  “Ahuh,” muttered Forrest.

  “She chose to get out,” concluded Lundeen, thickly.

  “Wal, they never fooled me,” rejoined Forrest, in an acrid melancholy tone. “An’ I’m not givin’ my son any choice.”

  “Shore you’re not,” retorted his enemy, with strong sarcasm. “You’re bankin’ on him gettin’ money through Virginia. An’ you’ll die hopin’.”

  “Lundeen, you always was low-down white trash from the South. You couldn’t savvy a Westerner. My son gets no choice. He gets out.”

  Both fathers, gray with passion, implacable, clutched in the vise of their hate, turned a haggard gaze upon Clifton.

  He rose to take his father’s pronouncement.

  “Young man, you’re no more son of mine. Get out!” thundered Forrest, and the gray shaded black.

  “Dad!” cried Clifton.

  But the outcry was involuntary. And an instant afterward Clifton had a revulsion of emotion. His sluggish blood regurgitated to his cold veins.

  “You’re a couple of fine fathers,” he lashed out, pitilessly on fire. “If you had any guts you’d play the game like men. You fight, and impose your hate upon two innocent young people who have the misfortune to be of your blood. . . . Lundeen, it’s no wonder Virginia sought the protection of even a poor, crippled, and now homeless man. You’re no father. You’re no better than the greaser dog you’d give her to. For money and greed! . . . Now I’ve one more word. You and Malpass stay clear of me.”

  Then Clifton vented the climax of his accumulated wrath upon his ashen-faced parent.

  “I’ll get out. And I’ll never come back. You’re not only wicked, but a doddering old idiot. Locked in your insane hate of anything Lundeen! If you ever were a Forrest you’ve lost the thing that made you one. You, not I, have brought the name down.”

  Clifton stalked to the door of the hall leading to his room, and stepped up. But the white heat of his anger demanded more. He faced them again.

  “I lied to you. I love Virginia with all my heart and soul. And it’d be retribution for you both if she came to love me the same way. I pray to God she will. . . . I’ll not die! I’ll live so that she may! . . . Now, you cowards, go out and kill yourselves!”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE fortification of secret marriage far exceeded Virginia’s vacillating hopes. For while making up her mind to this grave and uncertain step, she had been both inspired and frightened. It turned out, however, that in her most sanguine moments she had not realized its true portent. She was saved from the peril of a despicable alliance. She had only to safeguard herself from being shamed again by physical violence.

  Therefore she gained a tranquility of mind she had not experienced since her arrival home. She laid clever plans to avoid Malpass and adhered to them, while waiting for the end of August, at which time she was to visit Ethel in Denver. She took her meals to suit the convenience of her mother. When she went to Watrous to get her horses, and on rides thereafter, she made sure to be accompanied by Con and Jake. She avoided the living-room and the porch except when her father or mother was present. She was always careful to lock herself in her rooms.

  Thus, when Malpass approached, she had him at a disadvantage. He knew it was intentional and chafed under the restrictions. Sometimes, even before her father, he would attempt to further his suit,
but Virginia found countering these advances interesting if not stimulating. She mystified the vain courtier, whose Latin blood boiled at restraint. On several occasions she amused her father, who gradually grew less hearty in his championship of Malpass. She deceived both men, in that she did not seem to be absolutely unattainable. Evidently Lundeen had wearily retrenched to a wearing down process. But Malpass labored under not only the hot impatience of a lover, but also the growing doubts of a man whose intelligence had begun to operate against his vanity. Now and then Virginia caught a veiled gleam in his eyes that caused her to bless Clifton Forrest and to renew her unending vigilance. Malpass was capable of resorting to anything.

  Several weeks went by. Mrs. Lundeen’s health did not improve, and plans were effected to send her to Atlanta for the winter, to visit her old home and relatives. Virginia approved of this, but it meant that she must prolong her own absence from Cottonwoods. Still, the immediate present was all that she could meet adroitly. The future would take care of itself.

  Her attitude of mind toward Clifton was something over which she had no control. The meeting with him that night, her monstrous deceit, the calm, barefaced carrying-out of an apparent marriage of convenience when she loved him more every moment—these thrilling things could not be barred from consciousness, never by day and seldom by night. She resisted numberless temptations to drive here or there in the hope of accidentally seeing him. Her woman’s heart told her that he was big and fine and good, that he would win his battle against any odds of health or fortune, that when the differences of the Lundeens and Forrests were settled—as some day they must be—she might find his love.

  One morning Virginia, with her cowboy escorts, started out to see the silver mine which had played such an important and mystifying part in the affairs of Forrest, Lundeen, and Malpass.

  Virginia had ridden up there often, especially in early years when it was merely an abandoned mine, picturesquely located and romantically significant with Spanish legend. Con had seen it. But Jake, range-rider though he was, had never been there since the rediscovery of silver.

  Now it chanced that Jake, according to his own version, was something of an authority on minerals. He had prospected, on and off, while riding the range, all over that section of the country. This information had come in answer to Virginia’s queries, which had been instigated by a thought-provoking remark of Jake’s. “Wal, I’m from Missouri an’ I gotta be showed. Never took much stock in thet Padre Mine.”

  Added to this was the significance of the fact that Malpass had lately ceased to have the Padre worked. Once more it had become an abandoned mine. Any move whatever of Malpass’ roused distrust in Virginia. Her father had been considerably upset by the assurance that the mine had “petered out,” as Malpass called it. After the first large profit, the several others had been considerably smaller, and dwindling. Virginia was interested to get the keen range-rider’s opinion of the late operations at Padre.

  The morning was glorious. Early fall on the slope of New Mexico was a time to conjure with. High up, the frost had tinted the vines in the hollows, the brush along the gray rocky defiles, the aspens at timber line above. Against these, and the bleached white of the old grass, the cedars and piñons stood out in their straggling isolation. Above it all loomed the great black-belted bulk of rock, raggedly sharp against the sky.

  Virginia, as she rode up the trail, did not look back. Time enough for that heart-stirring risk on the return trip! Cottonwood Valley must already be exposed from this height, a glowing, multi-colored level set down amid the range slopes; and the rambling Spanish house, with its white and red, its trellises and arches, must be looking up at her, reminding her that she dare not love it more; and then, far down to the west, along the fringed line where the yellowing cottonwoods met the gray sage rise of ground, her old adobe home which now sheltered one grown strangely precious.

  She was riding Dusk, not one of her spirited racers, but treasured because of his easy gait and sure foot and gentle disposition. Virginia was not running wildly over the range these days. Getting thrown upon her head might have meant a swift and merciful termination of her troubles, but for reasons she did not confess to herself life had become suddenly un-familiarly sweet, full, marvelous, all-pervading.

  In due time they arrived at Padre Mine, to find, to Virginia’s disappointment, that its former picturesque charm had given place to sordid ugliness. A hideous slash had been cut in the beautiful grove of juniper, piñon, and cedar. High up the slope the brook had been choked into a rough chute, now broken and down in places. The willows that once had graced the little pool, where legend recorded the padres were wont to drink, were gone along with the glancing water. Flowers and sage were not. Tracks and trestles, dumps of clay and rock, seepings of russet-colored water from denuded banks, bleak sheds with galvanized iron roofs, and rusting machinery littered around, and piles of tar-coated pipe attested to the approach and desertion of destructive men.

  “Wal, wouldn’t the old padres turn over in their graves?” asked Jake, with a mirthless grin, as he surveyed the scene.

  “They surely would,” returned Virginia, ruefully. “Now, Jake, we’ll play that I am a prospective buyer with very little cash and you are an expert adviser.”

  “Shure it looks loike a dump outside of Noo Yoark,” put in Con.

  “Miss Virginia, I reckon you’d better find a shady place an’ wait,” advised Jake.

  “But I want to poke around,” she replied, dismounting. “You boys needn’t bother about me. I’ll not crawl in any holes or walk out on a trestle.”

  “Con, bring your flashlight,” directed Jake. “It’ll be dark in the tunnel.”

  “If you don’t moind, I’ll sthay out,” returned Con as he clambered down after the business-like Jake.

  Virginia was left to her own resources. On previous occasions she had ridden up by the trail, merely casting curious and disgusted glances at the jumble of wood, iron, and earth, trying to piece them together into the idea of silver production. This time she followed an intuitive prompting which seemed at once both strong and illusive. She was on a tour of inspection. Her father had informed her lately that the failure of this mine had killed extravagant hopes. Her own large income had formerly come from this source. Virginia’s opinion was that Lundeen, after running cattle all his life, was no judge of mining ventures.

  She inspected every place she could get at, and did not mind exertion or rust or dirt. And after she had thoroughly tired herself she concluded this mine, once famous in legend if never in productiveness, was nothing but a conglomeration of clapboards, old iron, tracks and trestles, and various shades of drab naked earth. She repaired to the only shade tree on the bench, and there sat down to rest. From here the valley below was not in sight, but the distant range spread out to the dim mountains, compelling and beautiful.

  Her reverie and gaze might have been more pleasant if she had been far removed from this spot desecrated and despoiled by Malpass. She could not quite forget it and that an insistent and insatiable distrust of the man had led her there. She was glad when she espied the cowboys emerge from under the brow of a slanting bank of clay and climb back to the horses. Their faces were hot and their clothes, especially their knees, had come in contact with something like chalk, and their boots were splashed with red mud. Seeing Virginia under the tree, they led the horses up to her.

  “Wal, Miss Virginia, shore an Irishman is scared more of the dark than a nigger,” observed Jake, complacently, as he dropped the bridles and sat down to remove his sombrero.

  “Oi’m sayin’ no nigger would ever have follered you where I went,” responded Con.

  “You both look spooky,” laughed Virginia.

  “Miss, I’m plumb curious,” went, on Jake, now serious. “Did Mr. Lundeen ever employ any white men on this minin’ job?”

  “Father never employed anybody. Malpass did all that. I remember there used to be complaints on father’s part. Malpass hired none but Me
xicans. And as I understood it, the work suffered for this reason. Inefficient boys running engines, and—oh, I can’t recall much. I do remember that no consistent work was carried on, much to father’s annoyance.”

  “Wal, between you an’ me an’ Con here I don’t believe there ever was any work carried on.”

  “What!” ejaculated Virginia, sitting up with a jerk. “Why, Jake, it appears to me endless work went on here! Look! At the sheds, the tracks, the old cars, the trestles, the piles of pipe, the flumes, and hills after hills of rock, gravel, clay, all dug out of the ground.”

  “Shore it took work to do thet, an’ a mighty sight of it, but what I’m alludin’ to is miners’ work. All this packin’ an’ buildin’ an’ diggin’ was done for nothin’”

  “But, Jake, many thousands of dollars came out of that hole,” asserted Virginia, emphatically.

  “Then, by gosh! it was shore planted there beforehand,” returned Jake, bluntly.

  “What an extraordinary statement!” ejaculated Virginia, her receptive mind whirling with conjectures and imaginings.

  “It is—sort of,” admitted Jake, scratching his close-cropped head. “But doggone me—thet’s my idee. . . . Miss Virginia, I’ve seen a heap of mines. I spent some years over around Silver City. An’ I’ve been in Colorado. I know how mines are worked. I’d bet a million there was never an ounce of silver came out of this hole.”

  “Jake, on what do you base that positive opinion?”

  “Because I couldn’t find a single trace of silver. But look here!”

  He opened his huge palm, in which had been crumpled a bit of paper. When he carefully unfolded and smoothed it out Virginia’s astonished sight recorded a number of grains and specks of gold.

  “Gold!—Where on earth did they come from?” demanded Virginia, much mystified.

  “Where! Haw! Haw! Wal, they came out of the earth an’ not from on it.”

  “Jake, I know I’m stupid, but please explain.”

  “Wal, back in the mine there are holes thet were made by blasts. Some heavy ones shore. I’ll bet no miners were inside when they shot them. Must have clogged up the shaft. I ought to have told you how a number of shafts run off from the main tunnel. No sense or reason in them, accordin’ to my figgerin’, except to make more shafts. . . . Wal, I thought of somethin’, an’ I crawled into one of the biggest blast holes, higher’n my head an’ wide as a room. I filled an old pan I found with loose earth an’ shale. Fetchin’ it out to the light, I shook an’ blew the heavy parts away. We used to call this dry pannin’. When I got out of wind Con took a turn, an’ shore he’s windy enough to be a glass-blower. Result was we got down to these few grains of gold.”