by Zane Grey
“Malpass, I’ve got the goods on you. You or your tools planted this mine with every grain of gold that has been taken out. The silver mining was a bluff. There was silver ore here once, but it played out long ago. . . . You’re a cheat, a thief—if you’re not worse, and I can prove it.”
“You could, but you won’t,” replied Malpass, bitingly cold, and pulling an automatic gun he deliberately leveled it at Jarvis.
He shot three times in quick succession. Virginia heard the bullets strike something, the last with a soft sickening spat.
“My God! he’s shot me!” huskily whispered Jarvis, in immense surprise. His hand fell away from his breast dripping with blood. His face changed, and then he crumpled in a heap on the floor.
Terror-stricken and mute, Virginia wrenched her starting gaze from Jarvis to Malpass. He was in the act of pocketing the smoking gun. Striding to the door, he guardedly looked out, to left and right. He stood there a moment, and nodded, as if to convince himself that Jarvis was the only man about the mine; then like a cat in his movements, he made again at Virginia.
“Murderer!” What her voice lacked in strength it made up in horror. She extended shaking hands at full length to ward him off.
“Do you want me to kill you, too?” he demanded, halting before her, his face pasty white, his eyes inhuman.
“Merciful God! . . . Would you—murder me, too?”
“I’ll do worse unless you swear you’ll hide what’s happened here.”
“Worse!” she echoed, and live fire seemed to touch her every raw nerve.
“You know what I mean,” he rejoined, thick with passion, as he tore his tight collar loose from a black bulging neck.
Virginia understood him. The man stood revealed in all his monstrous baseness. The very hideousness of him probably was the one thing alone which could have shocked her from horror into savage and hot hate, into the spirit of self-preservation that was the most powerful instinct in her.
“Malpass, you’ll have to kill me!” she cried, her voice rising.
“No, by God!” he shot at her. “I’ll treat you like a peon slave! . . . You’ll never lift your face again! . . . Then I’ll make your father believe this Jarvis did it—and I killed him—because of that!”
“Insane monster!” flamed Virginia, and then she screamed with all the power of her lungs—a piercing sound that rent the air.
As Malpass lunged she darted away from the table, but too late to escape him, for he caught the sleeve of her coat. Whirling out of the coat, she left it in his grasp and ran for the door. She reached it, too, and the porch before he pounced upon her and dragged her back.
Virginia saved her breath. No use to scream again! If no one had heard the last, she could not hope another would bring succor. She had to fight for life and more than life. His intent and his soiling hands had made a frenzied woman of her, a tigress who would rend and tear.
But she eluded him. She got the stove between him and her. She preferred flight to fight, for she believed if she got out she could run away from him, at least down the road far enough to alarm the chauffeur.
Malpass kicked the stove down and leaped over it. He got her, but could not keep his hold. She left part of her waist in his grasp. She ran, with him close after her, always between her and the door.
His reaching hand clutched her shoulder, checking her, dragging her off her balance. Then like a beast he had her again. A terrific struggle ensued. She was as strong as he, and actuated by a passion as great. She came out of that struggle with her upper clothing torn to shreds, her bare arms bleeding from scratches, her white shoulders blackened by his sweating, dust-begrimed hands.
“You—hellcat!” he hissed. “The more you fight—the more joy I’ll get—out of you.”
Virginia was past words. She was in the grip of something terrible. No fear of this beast! No more flight! She awaited his next attack, panting, disheveled, crouching, like a cornered tigress.
He came on, and as ever, his intent was to hold, to weaken, to master her. And she beat and clawed at his face, and kicked. But Malpass broke through this rain and closed with her. His arms folded her back on the table and his weight augmented his advantage.
Virginia did not surrender or lose her wits. She was momentarily at a disadvantage. She ceased her struggles. Then her assailant, with a hoarse utterance, fell to kissing her face. He thought she was beaten.
She took that vile unguarded moment to fasten both hands in his hair, and dragged with all the strength left her. Like a dog he howled. Her right hand, the stronger, came away full of hair.
Then the table collapsed, letting them down and breaking his hold. Virginia rolled out of his reach. She had heard the ring of the iron poker on the floor. If she could get her hand on that!
But as she bounded up Malpass grasped her leg, tripped her, pulled her down into his arms. It had been his weight, however, that had handicapped her. Without that he simply could not master her. The whistle of his breath told that he was more winded than she. Not for nothing had Virginia taken those long climbs in Colorado! She fought more fiercely, and while her arms were free, with tight pounding fists. Then when he got her head down under his arm, pressing her helpless, choking her, she opened her mouth and like a wolf at bay she fastened her teeth in it.
Cursing horribly, he released her and she dropped to the floor. She rolled away. She felt the poker. Swift as light she snatched it. Leaped up! Malpass was on his knees. Bloody, bedraggled, dirty, holding the arm she had bitten, with distorted face expressing a fiend’s defeat, with basilisk eyes betraying murder now, where before they had burned only with lust, he roused all that was virile and primal in Virginia.
She swung the poker. He ducked, but she hit him a glancing blow that rang off his skull. He toppled over with a thump that jarred the house.
Virginia heard other thumps. Heavy boots on the porch! In vain she tried to scream, but only a dry, thin sound issued from her lips.
A huge frame hurled itself into the room.
Lundeen! Like a black-maned lion he glared. Virginia staggered back. The wall stopped her. And with legs buckling she slid to the floor. Her sight almost failed.
“GOD ALMIGHTY!” thundered her father.
Chapter Seventeen
VIRGINIA by supreme effort fought off faintness.
Lundeen stamped into the middle of the room. It appeared to the girl then that the squirming, groaning Jarvis halted her father. Jarvis was not dead.
“Who’s this man?” boomed Lundeen, his great eyes popping half out of his head. “Virginia! . . . Malpass! . . . What the hell?”
Slowly Virginia gathered what force was left her. Deliverance had come, but the reaction of it gave her a deathly sickness, a sense that her flesh wanted to succumb and a consciousness that her spirit refused.
Malpass rose to his feet, a spectacle to make any observer blink. But he was not in as bad bodily shape as he looked. He moved easily, warily. He was thinking hard. Trapped, he still seemed to have latent power. His eyes narrowed to black daggers.
“Answer me,” commanded Lundeen. “What’s come off? Who shot this man?”
“I did,” replied Malpass.
“He’s dyin’. Why’d you do it?”
“I caught him trying to outrage Virginia.”
“Huh?” ejaculated Lundeen, in blank stupidity.
Malpass repeated his assertion in stronger terms. Lundeen’s jaw dropped as he stared at his partner, and then at Virginia.
“How come?” he asked, hoarsely.
Virginia bided her time. She would let Malpass have his say and then destroy him.
Malpass swallowed hard, and that part of his face not bloody or black showed ghastly white. He was at the end of his rope.
“I saw a car from town crossing the bench below,” he said, hurriedly. “I jumped my horse and rode up here . . . found Virginia wrestling this man. Think he’d got the best of her! . . . He—he beat me up before I could pull my gun, but finally I
shot him.”
Suddenly Jarvis sat up quickly as if propelled, like a corpse revived to life, his eyes awful to behold.
“He lies!” The gasping voice was just distinguishable. “I caught him—assaulting her.” He fell back and seemed to expire.
“Crazed by a bullet,” said Malpass through ashen lips. “I’ve seen men act like that.”
“More’n one crazy heah,” muttered Lundeen, gropingly. The fact that he stepped so as to place his bulk before the door attested to the gradual trend of his thought.
“I tell you that’s what happened,” went on Malpass, sharply. “I’m all bunged up. . . . I want to get out of here—to a doctor.”
He made as if to pass Lundeen, but was thrust violently backward.
“Stand back!” roared Lundeen. “Are you shore it’s a doctor you need?”
“Lundeen, you’ll cross me for the last time,” returned Malpass, with threat in tone and mien.
“If I do, you can bet it will be the last time! Malpass, this heah deal looks queer. Keep your loud mouth shut or I’ll knock your white teeth down your throat.”
Malpass sank against the wall, quivering all over.
“Daughter, come heah,” went on Lundeen.
“Dad, I can’t. I’m too weak. And I’m torn to pieces.”
“Ahuh. So I see. Wal, you’re able to talk. . . . Are you hurt—the way he said?”
“No. He lied. I’m beaten and bruised, but I’m all right otherwise.”
“Who stripped you half naked—an’ blackened an’ bloodied you up this heah way?”
“Señor Malpass,” declared Virginia, ringingly. She saw her father’s huge form swell, but he kept himself well in hand.
“How come?”
“Dad, last summer my cowboy, Jake, found signs of a salted mine here,” replied Virginia, swiftly flowing to this denunciation she had prayed for. “When I went to Denver I consulted a mining engineer, an expert. Mr. Jarvis . . . Oh, I fear I’ve been his death! . . . Upon my return I wired for him. This morning he arrived. We drove out at once. Left the car below. We——”
“All a damned lie,” interrupted Malpass, wildly.
Lundeen made a threatening gesture. “If you don’t shut up I’ll fix you so you won’t heah nothin’. Didn’t you have your say? Let her have hers.”
Virginia rushed on. “We climbed up here. Mr. Jarvis went to investigate the mine while I waited. . . . Presently Malpass rode up. He came in. He was astonished and scared. He had reason to be. I refused to answer his questions. He grew furious—tried to choke me into explaining. . . . Then Mr. Jarvis came back—caught Malpass mauling me—knocked him down. . . . He told Malpass the mine had been planted. That every grain of gold coming out of there had been planted before! The clumsiest cheat Jarvis had ever seen. . . . Then Malpass shot him! . . . After that he tried to frighten me into lying to protect him. Then, dad, on my honor, Malpass swore he’d degrade me—blame it on to Jarvis—give that as an excuse for shooting him. . . . Then we fought. Oh, I fought him. I wasn’t afraid of him. He would have had to kill me. . . . But, dad, he couldn’t master me. . . . He gave up that . . . he meant more murder. . . . I hit—him with—the poker! . . . And then—you came.”
Lundeen gradually crouched, as a huge bat that meant to spring. His bushy hair rose upon his head. His arms lifted and bowed—his large hands crooked like claws.
“You—planted—THAT—MINE!” he bellowed in slow-swelling, awful voice. “YOU MANHANDLED MY DAUGHTER!”
“Yes, and I’ll plant you!” Malpass thrust out the gun. It was steady. He had accepted the issue. There was only one way out. And the little gun began to crack—crack—crack spitefully.
But the bullets, though staggering Lundeen, did not stop him. Like a bull, lowering and blood-lustful, he plunged on. Malpass shot again, missing for the very reason that he aimed at Lundeen’s head. One sweep of Lundeen’s giant arm sent him spinning. But up he sprang, cat-like, to fire again. This bullet rang off Lundeen’s skull to thud into the ceiling.
Virginia’s ears filled with her father’s mad roar. She saw him sway, beating the air, and fall with a crash. Malpass stepped over his body toward the door. Then Lundeen kicked with terrific force, knocking Malpass’ legs from under him, and when he struck the floor the gun went flying across the room. Lundeen hunched himself with spasmodic full-length hops toward the gun, but Malpass beat him to it. And he shot again as Lundeen half rose to clutch his arm. There came a snapping of bones—an awful cry of agony.
Consciousness gradually faded from Virginia. But though her sight was dark, that horror filled her ears and beat upon her brain, until she fainted.
When she came to, the combatants were gone from the room. Jarvis lay with suggestive limpness. What had happened? She was too weak to rise. Had it all been a fearful nightmare? No—there was the man who had befriended her, prone on the floor.
From outside came sounds of scuffling—then again her father’s roar, hoarser now, strangling in his throat.
Virginia crawled across the room and out on the porch, and fell flat as if she had been deprived of movement. Yet she could still see what had paralyzed her.
They were out on the trestle. Malpass’ right arm hung broken. In his left hand he held a short club which he was swinging ineffectually on Lundeen’s head, shouting maledictions in Spanish. Lundeen was not only being dragged, but he held on to Malpass like the grim death he meant and would not relinquish.
There was a branch trestle leading across the ravine. Not improbably Malpass had sought to escape by this. His struggles indicated that. When he reached it, however, he could not shake Lundeen off. He beat frantically, weakly with the club, until it bounced off Lundeen’s head and flew out of his hand.
Then they wrestled and fought all the way to the tottering end of the trestle. It was broken there. The floor consisted of a few beams on rickety poles. It shook and rattled under them.
Malpass’ fighting ceased, all his efforts bent to escape. His shrill wild cries attested to the doom he realized. Lundeen dragged him down, like a wolf at a crippled deer, on the swaying verge of the trestle. He knelt on him, and bent his head back over a beam—farther—until there came sudden, horrible break in that stiff strain.
Then Lundeen let go. Malpass slipped off the rafters and turned over to fall a hundred feet and thud soddenly on the rocks below.
Lundeen peered down. His shaggy head bowed, his broad shoulders sagged and sank, and his legs flopped over the beam that sustained them. He slipped and it appeared he would follow his adversary. But the weight of his upper body held him there.
Virginia got to her knees—then to her feet. Yes—he still hung there. How long had she watched? She held desperately to the porch post. They had destroyed one another. Awful retribution! She must keep on her feet—think of something to do. A gray cloud filmed her eyes—cleared away. There was an icy gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She could not unrivet her gaze from that still form on the trestle, hanging limp. What was the thin, shiny, dark stream dropping, wavering at the will of the wind?
A groan freed her—quickened her. Jarvis must still be alive. She staggered back into the house—to the prostrate form—knelt beside it. He was living—conscious. He knew her. His lips moved, but no sound came. She thought he wanted water. His life might yet be saved. That thought lifted Virginia out of the abyss that had weighted her down.
She picked up her coat, and putting it on, started out, needing the support of wall and door and the porch posts. Leaving them for the open road, she fell, but got up again. Action responded to her spirit. She could make it down to the car. And she dragged herself on.
She was crawling again, dragging herself round a bend in the road, when the chauffeur’s cry roused her failing senses.
“My Heavens, Miss, what’s happened?”
“Murder!—But I’m all right,” she whispered. “Go quick. . . . Up the road. . . . Take water—whisky if you have it. . . . The last—house—door open—one man—s
till alive——”
Then she slipped into darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
IT WAS a rare and remarkable phenomenon of nature that definitely decided Clifton Forrest to spend his life on the desert.
At least this singular experience had clinched the matter. The process by which he had developed to such decision had been a long and gradual one, covering an extraordinary range of consciousness, from supreme agony of body to supreme ecstasy of soul. But it was sight of a comet or bursting falling star that at last won him forever to the desert and the lonely, free life of a shepherd.
The incident happened on the night of the thirty-sixth day—according to Julio’s count—of their return trip from Guadaloupe Valley. Spring had come to the higher range, for this was in late April. They had reached the one dangerous stretch for sheep on all the long trail—a twelve-mile arid belt of lava, rock, and cactus, with only one waterhole, and that situated about halfway.
Clifton and Julio had arrived there at sundown, after a continuous drive on a day as hot as any in summer. If it had been a wind-blowing, sand-and-dust-storm day, many sheep would have perished. But it chanced to be still.
There had been no grazing that day, and for this reason the sheep were difficult to move. They strayed in search of something to nibble, and in that desolate region seldom found anything green which was not either poisonous or sharp. They bleated incessantly. The lambs also slowed the day’s journey. They tired early. Through all the hot hours Clifton and Julio had packed a lamb, and often two lambs, to give them a little rest. Some puny and exhausted ones they had to kill. It was hard, but the lambs could not be left behind alive, nor could the flock wait. The shepherds would carry this one, then that one, put it down to take up one weaker. So that when they reached the end of this most trying link of the whole long chain of days it was not a moment too soon.
The thirsty, parched sheep baa-baaed and drank; the lambs tumbled into the water. Then many rested while the others went to grazing. The place was a wide hollow in black lava, through which a stream ran during the rains, and in dry weather clear pools remained in the deeper holes. There were grass and weeds enough for the sheep, but they had to be ranged for far and wide. The region was infested with coyotes, foxes, wildcats, which collected around a waterhole because of easy prey. There would be no sleep for the shepherds and their dogs that night.
