The Shepherd of Guadaloupe

by Zane Grey

  “You’re mysterious, dear,” smiled her mother. “But I’m so glad you will come that I’ll agree to anything.”

  Virginia experienced a rush of unusual tenderness for her mother. She was tempted to tell her everything, but decided that there might be the chance that her mother would get away to Atlanta without being the wiser, and would therefore have a quieter mind. Mrs. Lundeen lingered talking for some time, and bade her good-by without being any the wiser as to the catastrophe of the day.

  Spurred on and cheered, Virginia finished her packing. Then hurriedly dressing, she was soon ready for departure, and as she had seen her mother, she felt that she could leave without overpowering regrets. But a perverse devil of self tempted her to drive down on the Forrest side of the valley. She was proof against weakness. Nevertheless, as she passed a point opposite the little red adobe house, she could not refrain from looking across. “Well, Cliff, my soldier man,” she soliloquized, “wonder what your dad said about your marrying a Lundeen?”

  Arriving in town, she left her luggage at the station, and sent the car back, and also a truck with express order to fetch her trunks speedily. Then, after securing her railroad accommodations and telegraphing Ethel, she decided she would wait in the station, as at that hour some of her town acquaintances would probably be at the Castaneda. She wanted to think.

  Three hours later Virginia was aboard the train. While in the dining-car she had a last glimpse of the slope above Cottonwoods, and the dark spot that was the Padre Mine.

  Strange now to consider the events of the day. Not the gratifying downfall of Malpass, not her father’s rage and her expulsion from home, not the crystallizing sense of melancholy in Clifton’s disloyalty, but the astounding developments at Padre Mine dominated her thought.

  Virginia went back to her Pullman, and leaning at her window she watched the end of that eventful day darken over the ranges.

  The more she pondered over Jake’s discovery at the mine, the stronger grew her conviction that deception and dishonesty on a large scale had been perpetrated there. Padre Mine bore the earmarks of having been the keystone of some gigantic plot of Malpass’, through which he had made a fortune. Virginia was interested only in the deception. The question hammered at her—if she could prove Jake’s contention would she not have power to break the hold of Malpass upon her father?

  Doubts and misgivings faded like misty clouds before the sun. The matter clarified with analysis. Once upon coming back home from school, four years and more ago, she had been elated by the wonderful development of the mine. Her father was soaring to the clouds. She rode up to the mine, to find there hordes of Mexican laborers, dust, noise, and confusion, every indication of a marvelous strike. Money appeared to be as abundant as the sage. This was the period when her father had bought her all the fine horses available.

  Two years later, upon another of her infrequent visits home, she was astounded to hear that the Padre Mine had failed. It was a subject about which no one risked speaking to her father. Virginia knew him well enough to be sure that he had suffered poignant disappointment, the more as he had allowed himself to become obsessed and confident. His reaction had not been to questionable dealing. Jed Lundeen might be deceived once by one man, but never again. No matter what his subjection to a shrewder intellect, and notwithstanding the fact that he had driven hard bargains himself, he would never stand to be cheated.

  Hope of reinstating herself in her father’s regard came as an afterthought, following the first and passionate desire to circumvent Malpass, and then it was more for her mother’s than her own sake.

  Presently the porter brought her a telegram, which he informed her had been given the conductor as the train pulled out of Las Vegas. It was from Ethel. She said she would be “piflicated with joy” to see Virginia, that she should have her baggage put off at Colorado Springs, and meet her at the station there. This appeared to be more good fortune for Virginia. The quiet of the resort would be preferable to Denver. Virginia had her berth made up, and went to bed dreaming before she fell asleep.

  Next day the hours grew tedious. Virginia had to change trains at La Junta, and at length arrived at Colorado Springs. As the train pulled in, Virginia espied Ethel through the window. How the bright eager little face warmed her! True friends were rare. She had come to a juncture of her life when she could appreciate their value.

  Then presently the porter was handing her down the step to the platform. Ethel let out a squeal of rapture and rushed to embrace her. Certain it was that Virginia returned it in full measure.

  “You darling—lovely, gorgeous thing!” cried Ethel, between kisses.

  “Oh, Ethel—I never was so glad to see you,” returned Virginia, fervently. She was released at last, and Ethel condescended to remember baggage, trunk checks, cars, and other practical necessities. And soon they were speeding to the hotel where Ethel explained she had brought her mother for a rest.

  “Ginia dearest, you look strange—now I can see you,” said Ethel.

  “Do I? How so? I surely feel strange,” laughed Virginia.

  Ethel studied her face with the keenness of loving, remembering eyes from which nothing could escape. “You’ve lost your bloom and your round schoolgirl cheeks. You’re pale, honey. There’s something dark in your eyes. It’s not my old roguish Virginia. . . . Yes, you’re older. You’ve changed, and oh, how it becomes you! . . . You used to be handsome. But good night! Now you’re a sweet, sad, lovely woman.”

  “I shore reckon I needed you,” murmured Virginia, fighting a perfectly silly and almost irresistible longing to cry.

  But before she dared yield to the luxury and whole-someness of such relaxation there was the hotel to reach, and the gauntlet to run of idle guests to whom a newcomer was an event, and the gracious Mrs. Wayne and her friends to meet, and moment after moment to endure.

  Ethel’s room at last! Cozy, comfortable, light, and colorful, looking out upon the green-sloped, graycliffed, white-peaked Rockies, it seemed haven for Virginia.

  “Lock the door—savior,” cried Virginia, her voice rich and full and breaking. She threw her gloves, her coat, she tossed her hat, and all the while she avoided the wondering, dreading eyes of her friend.

  “Virginia! You scare me stiff. What has happened?”

  “I am—an outcast,” sobbed Virginia, but with Ethel’s arm around her.

  At length the paroxysm was over, and Virginia felt the better for it.

  “When have I cried like that?” she asked, raising her flushed and wet face from Ethel’s shoulder.

  “Never since I knew you,” replied Ethel, still awed and shaken. “It broke my heart, Virginia. But how happy it makes me to know you’ve come to me in your trouble! . . . Now, tell it, darling. I’m a punk fair-weather friend, but try me in storm.”

  “I’m an outcast,” replied Virginia, mournfully, and wiping her tear-splashed eyes she faced Ethel bravely and yet with shame.

  “Outcast!” ejaculated her friend, bewildered.

  “Yes. My father turned me out. I have no home and very little money. I sent my horses away to try to save them. I’ve got my clothes and jewels. And here I am, Ethel.”

  “Tell me—a little at a time,” rejoined Ethel, gasping. “Turned you out!—The damned old hard-shelled crab!—Because you wouldn’t marry Malpass?”

  “No. Because I—I married someone else,” whispered Virginia, hanging her head. It was not easy to confess, even to gentle, worshipful Ethel.

  “Virginia!” And Ethel plumped down to her knees, rapt and wild, her eyes starting, her hands clasping Virginia’s, her whole being shot through and through with vitalizing current.

  “Married!—Married to whom? . . . I’d die if it were anyone but Clifton!”

  “It was Clifton, dear.”

  “Oh, thank Heaven! I liked that boy as if—as if he were ten brothers of mine all in one. . . . Dear old sad-eyed, silent suffering Cliff! He was a hero. . . . And to think you’ve been and gone and done what
I prayed for! It’s just marvelous. You’re the most satisfactory girl in all the world. You keep romance alive. What’s all this bunk about modern girls and money, luxury, jazz, and loveless marriage? . . . And that old buzzard father of yours threw you out?”

  “Almost. He said the Lundeens were through with me.”

  “Humph! And what did Mr. Slick-haired, goofy-eyed Malpass say to your marrying Cliff? I’ll bet he threw a fit.”

  “It was he who told father. He raved. He foamed at the mouth. Oh, he was not human! . . . Ethel, he had to be brought home—carried in. Cliff had beaten him with a whip. His clothes were slashed to ribbons. Bloody! Black and blue! Ugh!—Cliff beat him nearly to death.”

  “Virginia Lundeen! You tell me!” screamed Ethel, frantically.

  Thus inspired and impelled, Virginia, without realizing it in the least, fell to a Homeric recital of her story. She was to learn quickly, however, that her powers of narrative were supreme. Ethel quivered and shivered and wept over that rendezvous with Clifton in the garden; she went into ecstasies over the secret marriage; and when the sordid sequel ended—the passionate, vivid description of Malpass’ denunciation—he would drag her through the mud! and her father’s brutal hands at her throat, to prove which Virginia had but to show the discolorations on her neck, Ethel became a clenching-fisted, blazing-eyed little fury.

  She launched out into an incoherent tirade that did not lose force until she lost her breath. And then she burst into tears. Virginia in turn ministered gentle consolation.

  “And now what?” queried Ethel, recovering belligerently.

  “Well, as I said before, here I am,” replied Virginia, smiling.

  “Of course, for the present. And it’s great for me. But what are you going to do?”

  “Ethel, I haven’t any idea. Except I intend to investigate the Padre Mine failure,” rejoined Virginia, and she gave Ethel minute details of her trip to the mine with the cowboys, and Jake’s discovery.

  “You bet!” exclaimed Ethel, her eyes wide and shining. “When we get to Denver you must consult a mining engineer. And if he gives you any encouragement, take him back to Las Vegas. I’ll come with you. We’ll put it over on Mr. Malpass. Gee! wouldn’t it be great if we could prove he’s crooked? In court, I mean. Wouldn’t we make your father crawl?”

  “I don’t care about that, though it would be a satisfaction,” continued Virginia. “I just want to free him from Malpass.”

  “Strikes me one’s as bad as the other,” said Ethel, bluntly. “What you want is to see justice done. To yourself and your mother—and the Forrests.”

  “Father has been led or forced into dishonest dealing. But even if he gets out of the clutches of Malpass, I doubt that he would ever square up with the Forrests.”

  “That’ll be left for you, Virginia. And I should think you’d get much joy out of it.”

  “I would indeed. But you know Clifton refused assistance from me.”

  “That’s different. He couldn’t refuse now.”

  “Couldn’t he? Much you know Cliff!”

  “But you’re his wife.”

  “Yes,” mused Virginia.

  “Don’t you love him?” went on this indefatigable and relentless romancer.

  “Terribly.”

  “Well then, it’s perfect. Cottonwoods will belong to both of you. And I shall spend half my time there.”

  “Ethel, come down to earth. . . . Clifton doesn’t care for me.”

  “Bunk!”

  “But I tell you he doesn’t. He sympathized with me. Was sorry. Wanted to help me out of my plight. I’m sure he doesn’t believe he’ll live long. It didn’t matter to him. So he asked me to marry him.”

  “Listen to her! . . . So he was very kind and practical. No sentiment. Just made himself convenient for a damsel in distress. Jollied you a little about dying soon, huh? . . . And you let him get away with it?”

  Virginia stared at her volatile friend, on the verge of both shock and anger.

  Ethel laughed at her. “Couldn’t you see poor, proud Cliff was madly in love with you?”

  “No, you incorrigible little match-maker, I couldn’t.”

  “You were as blind as a bat. Cliff didn’t want you to know. Why, I’ll bet right now he’s hugging you to his breast—figuratively speaking.”

  “Ethel! You’re a crazy, lovesick schoolgirl!” cried Virginia, in desperation.

  “You bet your life I am. That’s why I know things. . . . Didn’t I see Clifton Forrest looking at you when you didn’t know it?”

  “I don’t dare believe you,” protested Virginia.

  “Suit yourself. But I could save you a lot of agony.”

  “You’ll only make agony for me. Suppose I listened to you—believed you, and then it turned out you were mistaken?”

  “You’d never be. I’m sure death on these affairs of the heart. Have seen so many, then had one of my own. But for the sake of argument, to salve your wounded feelings, we’ll assume I am wrong. We’ll assume a lot of rot. Clifton home, broken in body and spirit. Haunted by the war. Penniless and unable to do a man’s work. Occupied with his pangs and his lonely soul. Turgid ebb and flow of misery stuff. Too sick to be lovesick! . . . Do you follow me, darling?”

  “I—I think so, though it is a bewildering process.”

  “Very well. The rest is simple. You’ll stay with me in Colorado for a while, until that scandal blows over. Then go back home and waylay Cliff at every turn.”

  “Waylay him? But I couldn’t. . . . Even if I could what use would it be?”

  “O Lord! . . . Well, maybe that’s why I love you so.—Virginia, you don’t have to do anything to make people love you. All that is necessary is for you to happen across their horizon. Once ought to be enough. If not once, then twice. Three times would be an avalanche. And after that we’d only have burials.”

  “You might help me if you could be serious,” returned Virginia, plaintively.

  “I may be slangy, honey, but I’m in dead earnest.”

  “You’re very blind and loyal, Ethel. It’s well for me that I can keep my head. . . . Now let’s forget my troubles and plan to have a good time.”

  Virginia spent three weeks with Ethel at Colorado Springs and did not know where the days fled.

  There were few social exactions. They passed most of the daylight hours outdoors, hiking, motoring, climbing the foothills, playing golf. Saddle horses were to be had for the asking, but Virginia could not be induced to ride.

  She enjoyed most an afternoon in the Garden of the Gods. A motor car was not available at the hour, so the girls, bent on a lark, hired an old relic of a Westerner, a driver of a dilapidated open vehicle with a horse that matched both man and hack. He took them for tourists and proceeded to acquaint them with himself.

  “My name air Josh Smith an’ I hail from Indianer. Fust come West in ’sixty-eight. Was a lad then an’ the redskins made me an orphan. Reckon thet everythin’ the West could give I got—’cept six feet of ground, an’ I near got thet a hundred times. I be’n teamster on the plains, helped to build the Santa Fé, freighter, scout, cowboy, miner, gambler, an’ ’most everythin’.”

  “My, Mr. Smith, but you’ve seen a lot!” said Ethel, with a mischievous wink at Virginia.

  “Right smart, though I’ve knowed fellars who’d seen more.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Reckon I don’t know. But I’m over eighty.”

  “Were you ever married?”

  “Haw! Haw! Lots of times, on an’ off,” he replied, plying his whip to the almost motionless horse.

  “Well, that’s fine. Then you didn’t find marriage a failure, like so many people of today?”

  “No, indeedee. Marriage is all right, if you kin change often enough.”

  “That’s an original idea,” went on Ethel, unmindful of a dig from Virginia’s elbow.

  “Air you married?”

  “Oh dear, yes! At least I was. And I’ve four children. My hu
sband deserted us, and now I have to—to travel around and write for newspapers to make a living.”

  “You’re purty young-lookin’. No one would guess thet. . . . An’ your quiet friend hyar—is she married, too?”

  “Oh dear, no! She’s deaf and dumb and doesn’t care much for men. She’s very rich. I’m her traveling companion. She pays me for it.”

  “Wal, by golly! Deaf an’ dumb? I’ll never grow too old to get a stumper. Who’d have thunk it?”

  “Isn’t she handsome?” went on this incorrigible little devil, despite sundry covert kicks and cuffs. “Oh, you can say what you like about her. She can’t hear and I won’t tell.”

  “Handsomest gal I’ve seen this summer, an’ thar’s some peaches hyar durin’ July an’ August. I ain’t seen one, though, with the shape your friend’s got. Te-he, te-he, te-he! She’d drive any young buck to drink. I shore wish I was young again.”

  Ethel by this time was bursting with glee, and Virginia, too, could scarcely contain herself; but their arrival in the Garden of the Gods changed the direction of the old Westerner’s mind to the natural spectacles of the wondrous rock formation out of which he made his living.

  “See thet rock?” he queried, becoming professional. “Thet’s the Elephant. Thar’s the bulk of the body, haid an’ ears, an’ the trunk. One tusk missin’.”

  “Oh, it’s a perfect elephant!” declared Ethel, clapping her hands. As a matter of fact it did not resemble an elephant more than any other of the many rocks near at hand.

  Next came the Tomcat, and close to him the Mud Turtle. Following them in succession was a remarkable assortment of animals, evidently, to this old man, admirable stone statues of the creatures he named.

  “An’ thar’s Apollonaris Belvedeerie,” he announced, grandly, waving his whip at a huge red crag, fluted and draped, and, without a distorting name, a beautiful thing to gaze upon.

  “But last summer you told me that one was Ajax defying the Lightning,” rejoined Ethel, in demure amaze.

  “What? Was you out hyar with me last summer?” he queried, sharply.