Riders of the Purple Sage (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by Zane Grey

  If by some means I can keep him here a few days, a week... he will never kill another Mormon, she mused. Lassiter: I shudder when I think of that name, of him. But when I look at the man, I forget who he is... I almost like him. I remember only that he saved Bern. He has suffered. I wonder what it was... did he love a Mexican woman once? How splendidly he championed us poor misunderstood souls! Somehow he knows... much.

  Jane Withersteen joined her guests and bade them to her board. Dismissing her woman, she waited upon them with her own hands. It was a beautiful supper and a strange company. On her right sat the ragged and half-starved Venters, and, although blind eyes could have seen what he counted for in the sum of her happiness, yet he looked the gloomy outcast his allegiance had made him, and about him there was the shadow of the ruin presaged by Tull. On her left sat the blackleather garbed Lassiter, looking like a man in a dream. Hunger was not in him, or composure, or speech, and, when he twisted in frequent, unquiet movements, the heavy guns that he had not removed knocked against the table legs. If it had been otherwise possible to forget the presence of Lassiter, those telling little jars would have rendered it unlikely. Jane Withersteen talked and smiled and laughed with all the dazzling play of lips and eyes that a beautiful, daring woman could summon to her purpose.

  When the meal ended, and the men pushed back their chairs, she leaned closer to Lassiter and looked squarely into his eyes. "Why did you come to Cottonwoods?"

  Her question seemed to break a spell. The rider arose as if he had just remembered himself and had tarried longer than his wont. "Ma'am, I have hunted all over southern Utah and Nevada for... somethin'. An' through your name I learned where to find it... here in Cottonwoods."

  "My name! Oh, I remember. You did know my name when you first spoke. Well, tell me where you heard it and from whom?"

  "At the little village... Glaze, I think it's called... some fifty miles or more west of here. An' I heard it from a Gentile, a rider who said you'd know where to tell me to find...."

  "What?" she demanded imperiously, as Lassiter broke off.

  "Milly Erne's grave," he answered lowly, and the words came with a wrench.

  Venters wheeled in his chair to regard Lassiter in amazement, and Jane slowly raised herself in white, still wonder.

  "Milly Erne's grave," she echoed in a whisper. "What do you know of Milly Erne, my best-beloved friend... who died in my arms? What were you to her?"

  "Did I claim to be anythin'?" he inquired. "I know people... relatives... who have long wanted to know where she's buried. That's all."

  "Relatives? She never spoke of relatives, except a brother who was shot in Texas. Lassiter, Milly Erne's grave is a secret burying ground on my property."

  "Will you take me there? You'll be offendin' Mormons worse than by breakin' bread with me."

  "Indeed, yes, I'll do it. Only we must go unseen. Tomorrow, perhaps."

  "Thank you, Jane Withersteen," replied the rider, and he bowed to her and stepped backward out of the court.

  "Will you not stay... sleep under my roof?" she asked.

  "No, ma'am, an' thanks again. I never sleep indoors. An' even if I did, there's that gatherin' storm in the village below. No, no. I'll go to the sage. I hope you won't suffer none for your kindness to me."

  "Lassiter," said Venters with a half-bitter laugh, "my bed, too, is the sage. Perhaps we may meet out there."

  "Mebbe so. But the sage is wide an' I won't be near. Good night."

  At Lassiter's low whistle the black horse whinnied, and carefully picked his blind way out of the grove. The rider did not bridle him, but walked beside him, leading him by touch of hand, and together they passed slowly into the shade of the cottonwoods.

  "Jane, I must be off soon," said Venters. "Give me my guns. If I'd had my 55guns....

  "Either my friend or the elder of my church would be lying dead," she interposed.

  "Tull would be... surely."

  "Oh, you fierce-blooded, savage youth! Can't I teach you forbearance, mercy? Bern, it's divine to forgive your enemies. `Let not the sun go down upon my wrath."'

  "Hush! Talk to me no more of mercy or religion... after today. Today this strange coming of Lassiter left me still a man, and now I'll die a man! Give me my guns."

  Silently she went into the house, to return with a heavy cartridge belt and gun-filled sheath and a long rifle. These she handed to him, and, as he buckled on the belt, she stood before him in silent eloquence.

  "Jane," he said in a gentler voice, "don't look so. I'm not going out to murder your churchman. I'll try to avoid him and all his men. But can't you see I've reached the end of my rope? Jane, you're a wonderful woman. Never was there a woman so unselfish and good. Only you're blind in one way... listen!"

  From behind the grove came the clicking sound of horses in a rapid trot.

  "Some of your riders," he continued. "It's getting time for the night shift. Let us go out to the bench in the grove and talk there."

  It was still daylight in the open, but under the spreading cottonwoods shadows were obscuring the lanes. Venters drew Jane off from one of these into a shrublined trail, just wide enough for the two to walk abreast, and in a roundabout way led her far from the house to a knoll on the edge of the grove. Here, in a secluded nook, was a bench from which, through an opening in the tree tops, could be seen the sage slope and the wall of rock and the dim lines of canons. Jane had not spoken since Venters had shocked her with his first harsh speech, but all the way she had clung to his arm, and now, as he stopped and laid his rifle against the bench, she still clung to him.

  "Jane, I'm afraid I must leave you."

  "Bern!" she cried.

  "Yes, it looks that way. My position is not a happy one... I can't feel right... I've lost all."

  "I'll give you anything you...."

  "Listen, please. When I say loss, I don't mean what you think. I mean loss of good will, good name... that which would have enabled me to stand up in this village without bitterness. Well, it's too late. Now, as to the future, I think you'd do best to give me up. Tull is implacable. You ought to see from his intention today that... but you can't see. Your blindness... your damned religion! Jane, forgive me... I'm sore within and something rankles. Well, I fear that invisible hand will turn its hidden work to your ruin."

  "Invisible hand? Bern!"

  "I mean your bishop." Venters said it deliberately and would not release her as she started back. "He's the law. The edict went forth to ruin me. Well, look at me! It'll now go forth to compel you to the will of the church."

  "You wrong Bishop Dyer. Tull is hard, I know. But then he has been in love with me for years."

  "Oh, your faith and your excuses! You can't see what I know... and, if you did see it, you'd not admit it to save your life. That's the Mormon of you. These elders and bishops will do absolutely any deed to go on building up the power and wealth of their church, their empire. Think of what they've done to the Gentiles here, to me... think of Milly Erne's fate!"

  "What do you know of her story?"

  "I know enough... all, perhaps, except the name of the Mormon who brought her here. But I must stop this kind of talk."

  She pressed his hand in response. He helped her to a seat beside him on the bench, and he respected a silence that he divined was full of woman's deep emotion beyond his understanding. It was the moment when the last ruddy rays of the sunset brightened momentarily before yielding to twilight. For Venters the outlook before him was in some sense similar to a feeling of his future, and with searching eyes he studied the beautiful purple, barren waste of sage. Here was the unknown and the perilous. The whole scene impressed Venters as a wild, austere, and mighty manifestation of nature. As it somehow reminded him of his prospect in life, so it suddenly resembled the woman near him, only in her there were greater beauty and peril, a mystery more unsolvable, and something nameless that numbed his heart and dimmed his eye.

  "Look! A rider!" exclaimed Jane, breaking the silence. "Can that
be Lassiter?"

  Venters moved his glance once more to the west. A horseman showed darkly on the skyline, then merged into the color of the sage.

  "It might be. But I think not... that fellow was coming in. One of your riders, more likely. Yes, I see him clearly now. And there's another."

  "I see them, too."

  "Jane, your riders seem as many as the bunches of sage. I ran into five yesterday 'way down near the trail to Deception Pass. They were with the white herd."

  "You still go to that canon? Bern, I wish you wouldn't. Oldring and his rustlers live somewhere down there."

  "Well, what of that?"

  "Tull has already hinted of your frequent trips into Deception Pass."

  "I know." Venters uttered a short laugh. "He'll make a rustler of me next. But, Jane, there's no water for fifty miles after I leave here, and that nearest is in the canon. I must drink and water my horse. There! I see more riders. They are going out."

  "The red herd is on the slope, toward Deception Pass."

  Twilight was fast falling. A group of horsemen crossed the dark line of low ground to become more distinct as they climbed the slope. The silence broke to a clear call from an incoming rider and, almost like the peal of a hunting horn, floated back the answer. The outgoing riders moved swiftly, came sharply into sight as they topped a bridge to show wild and black above the horizon, and then passed down, dimming into the purple of the sage.

  "I hope they don't meet Lassiter," said Jane.

  "So do I," replied Venters. "By this time the riders of the night shift know what happened today. But Lassiter will likely keep out of their way."

  "Bern, who is Lassiter? He's only a name to me... a terrible name."

  "Who is he? I don't know, Jane. Nobody I ever met knows him. He talks a little like a Texan, like Milly Erne. Did you note that?"

  "Yes. How strange of him to know of her! And she lived here ten years and has been dead two. Bern, what do you know of Lassiter? Tell me what he has done... why you spoke of him to Tull... threatening to become another Lassiter yourself?"

  "Jane, I only heard things, rumors, stories, most of which I disbelieved. At Glaze his name was known, but none of the riders or ranchers I knew there ever met him. At Stone Bridge I never heard him mentioned. But at Sterling and villages north of there he was spoken of often. I've never been in a village that he had been known to visit. There were many conflicting stories about him and his doings. Some said he had shot up this and that Mormon village, and others denied it. I'm in clined to believe he has, and you know how Mormons hide the truth. But there was one feature about Lassiter upon which all agree... that he was what riders in this country call a gunman. He's a man with marvelous quickness and accuracy in the use of a Colt. And now that I've seen him, I know more. Lassiter was born without fear. I watched him with eyes that saw him my friend. I'll never forget the moment I recognized him from what had been told me of his crouch before the draw. It was then I yelled his name. I believe that yell saved Tull's life. At any rate, I know this: Between Tull and death then there was not the breadth of the littlest hair. If he or any of his men had moved a finger downward...

  Venters left his meaning unspoken, but at the suggestion Jane shuddered.

  The pale afterglow in the west darkened with the merging of twilight into night. The sage now spread out, black and gloomy. One dim star glimmered in the southwest sky. The sound of trotting horses had ceased, and there was silence broken only by a faint, dry pattering of cottonwood leaves in the soft night wind. Into this peace and calm suddenly broke the high-keyed yelp of a coyote, and from far off in the darkness came the faint answering note of a trailing mate.

  "Hello, the sage dogs are barking," said Venters.

  "I don't like to hear them," replied Jane. "At night, sometimes, when I lie awake, listening to the long mourning or breaking bark or wild howl, I think of you asleep somewhere in the sage, and my heart aches."

  "Jane, you couldn't listen to sweeter music, nor could I have a better bed."

  "Just think! Men like Lassiter and you have no home, no comfort, no rest, no place to lay your weary heads. Well, let us be patient. Tull's anger may cool, and time may help us. You might do some service to the village... who can tell? Suppose you discovered the long unknown hiding place of Oldring and his band, and told it to my riders? That would disarm Tull's ugly hints and put you in favor. For years my riders have trailed the tracks of stolen cattle. You know as well as I how dearly we've paid for our ranges in this wild country. Oldring drives our cattle down into that network of deceiving canons, and somewhere far to the north or east he drives them up and out to Utah markets. If you will spend time in Deception Pass, try to find the trails."

  "Jane, I've thought of that. I'll try."

  "I must go now. And it hurts, for now I'll never be sure of seeing you again. But tomorrow, Bern?"

  "Tomorrow surely. I'll watch for Lassiter and ride in with him."

  "Good night."

  Then she left him and moved away, a white, gliding shape that soon vanished in the shadows.

  Venters waited until the faint slam of a door assured him she had reached the house, and then, taking up his rifle, he noiselessly slipped through the bushes, down the knoll, and on under the dark trees to the edge of the grove. The sky was now turning from gray to blue, stars had begun to lighten the earlier blackness, and from the wide, flat sweep before him blew a cool wind, fragrant with the breath of sage. Keeping close to the edge of the cottonwoods, he went swiftly and silently westward. The grove was long, and he had not reached the end when he heard something that brought him to a halt. Low padded thuds told him horses were coming his way. He sank down in the gloom, waiting, listening. Much before he had expected, judging from sound, to his amazement he descried horsemen near at hand. They were riding along the border of the sage, and instantly he knew the hoofs of the horses were muffled. Then the pale starlight afforded him indistinct sight of the riders. But his eyes were keen and used to the dark, and by peering closely he recognized the huge bulk and black-bearded visage of Oldring and the lithe, supple form of the rustler's lieutenant, the Masked Rider. They passed on; the darkness swallowed them. Then, farther out on the sage, a dark, compact body of horsemen went by, almost without sound, almost like specters, and they, too, melted into the night.

  No unusual circumstance was it for Oldring and some of his men to visit Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the dark with the hoofs of his horses snuffled meant that mischief was brewing. Moreover, to Venters the presence of the Masked Rider with Oldring seemed especially ominous. For about this man there was mystery; he seldom rode through the village, and, when he did ride through, it was swiftly; riders seldom met him by day on the sage, but wherever he rode, there always followed deeds as dark and mysterious as the mask he wore. Oldring's band did not confine themselves to the rustling of cattle.

  Venters lay low in the shade of the cottonwoods, pondering this chance meeting, and not for many moments did he consider it safe to move on. Then, with sudden impulse, he turned the other way and went back along the grove. When he reached the path leading to Jane's home, he decided to go down to the village. So he hurried onward with quick, soft steps. Once beyond the grove he entered the one and only street. It was wide, lined with tall poplars, and under each row of trees, inside the foot path, were ditches where ran the water from Jane Withersteen's spring.

  Between the trees twinkled lights of cottage candles, and far down flared bright windows of the village stores. When Venters got closer to these, he saw knots of men standing together in earnest conversation. The usual lounging in the corners and benches and steps was not in evidence. Keeping in the shadow, Venters went closer and closer until he could hear voices, but he could not distinguish what was said. He recognized many Mormons and looked hard for Tull and his men, but looked in vain. Venters concluded that the rustlers had not passed along the village street. No doubt these earnest men were discussing Lass
iter's coming. Venters felt positive that Tull's intention toward him that day had not been, and would not be, revealed.

  So Venters, seeing there was little for him to learn, began retracing his steps. The church was dark, Bishop Dyer's home next to it was also dark, and likewise Tull's cottage. Upon almost any night at this hour there would be lights here, and Venters marked the unusual omission.

  As he was about to pass out of the street to skirt the grove, he once more slunk down at the sound of trotting horses. Presently he descried two mounted men riding toward him. He hugged the shadow of a tree. Again the starlight, brighter now, aided him, and he made out Tull's stalwart figure, and beside him the short, frog-like shape of the rider, Jerry. They were silent, and they rode on to disappear.

  Venters went his way with busy, gloomy mind, revolving events of the day, trying to reckon those brooding in the night. His thoughts overwhelmed him. Up in that dark grove dwelt a woman who had been his friend, and he had skulked about her home, gripping a gun stealthily as an Indian, a man without place or people or purpose. Above her hovered the shadow of grim, hidden, secret power. No queen could have given more royally out of a bounteous store than Jane Withersteen gave her people, and likewise to those unfortunates her people hated. She asked only the divine right of all women-freedom, to love and to live as her heart willed. Yet prayer and her hope were vain.

  For years I've seen a storm clouding over her and the village of Cottonwoods, mused Venters as he strode on. Soon it'll all burst. I don't like the prospect. That night the villagers whispered in the street-and night-riding rustlers muffled their horses-and Tull was at work in secret-and out there in the sage hid a man who meant something terrible-Lassiter!

  Venters passed the black cottonwoods and, entering the sage, climbed the gradual slope. He kept his direction in line with a western star. From time to time he stopped to listen and heard only the usual familiar bark of coyote and sweep of wind and rustle of sage. Presently a low jumble of rocks loomed up darkly somewhat to his right, and, turning that way, he whistled softly. Out of the rocks glided a dog that leaped and whined about him. He climbed over rough, broken rock, picking his way carefully, and then went down. Here it was darker and sheltered from the wind. A white object guided him. It was another dog, and this one was asleep, curled up between a saddle and a pack. Venters placed the saddle for a pillow, rolled in his blankets, with his face upward to the stars. The white dog snuggled close to him. The other whined and pattered a few yards to the rise of ground, and there crouched on guard. In that wild covert Venters shut his eyes under the great white stars and intensely vaulted blue, bitterly comparing their loneliness to his own, and fell asleep.