by Zane Grey
In that moment of revelation he knew he was free, for like a keen blade of fate the thought sheared him from allegiance to the daughter of Withersteen. One twinge shot through him-regret, reproach that he must hurt her, then came relief that to give her up was infinitely better for her. He had been unjust to cheat her.
"It's best... she will want to be free. Our intimacy was a mistake from the beginning," he soliloquized. "So I often said. Now it's ended. I'm free... yet bound till I tell her. Now what to think... to plan... to do!"
Reviving memory of Jane Withersteen and thought of the complications of the present amazed him with proof of how far he had drifted from his old life. He discovered that he hated to take up the broken threads, to delve into dark problems and difficulties. In this beautiful valley he had been living a beautiful dream. Tranquility had come to him-and the joy of solitudeand interest in all the wild creatures and crannies of this incomparable valley-and love. Under the shadow of the great stone bridge God had revealed himself to Venters.
"The world seems very far away," he muttered, "but it's there... and I'm not yet done with it. Perhaps I never shall be. Only... how glorious it would be to live here always and never think again!"
Whereupon the resurging reality of the present, as if in irony of his wish, steeped him instantly in contending thought. Out of it all he presently evolved these things-he must off to Cottonwoods-he must break off with Jane Withersteen-he must bring supplies back to Surprise Valley-he must cultivate the soil, and raise corn, and stock-and, most imperative of all, he must decide the future of the girl who loved him and who he loved. These things required tremendous effort, but the last one, concerning Bess, seemed simply and naturally easy of accomplishment. He would marry her. Suddenly, as from roots of poisonous fire, flamed up the forgotten truth concerning her. It seemed to wither and shrivel up all his joy in its hot, tearing way to his heart. She had been Oldring's Masked Rider. To Venters's question-"What were you to Oldring?"-she had answered with scarlet shame and drooping head.
What do I care who she is or what she was! he thought passionately. And he knew it was not his old self speaking. It was this softer, gentler man who had awakened to new thoughts in the quiet valley. Tenderness, masterful in him now, watched the absence of joy and blunted the knife edge of entering jealousy. Strong and passionate effort of will, surprising to him, held back the poison from piercing his soul.
Wait... wait! he cried to himself, as if calling. His hand pressed his breast, and he might have called to the pang there. Wait! It's all so strange... so wonderful. Anything can happen. Who am I to judge her? I'll glory in my love for her. But I can't tell it... can't give up to it.
Certain it was that he could not then decide her future. Marrying her was impossible in Surprise Valley, and in any village south of Sterling. Even without the mask she had once worn, she would easily have been recognized as Oldring's rider. No man who had ever seen her would forget her, regardless of his ignorance as to her sex. Then, more poignant than all other arguments, was the fact that he did not want to take her away from Surprise Valley. He resisted all thought of that. He had brought her to this most beautiful and wildest place of the uplands-he had saved her-nursed her back to strength-watched her bloom as one of the valley lilies-he knew her life there to be pure and sweet-she belonged to him, and he loved her. Still these were not all the reasons why he did not want to take her away. Where could they go? He feared the rustlers-he feared the riders-he feared the Mormons. And if he should ever succeed in getting Bess safely away from these immediate perils, he feared the sharp eyes of women and their tongues, the big outside world with its problems of existence. He must wait to decide her future, which after all was deciding his own. But between her future and his something hung impending. Balancing Rock, which waited darkly over the steep gorge ready to close forever the outlet to Deception Pass, that nameless thing, as certain yet intangible as fate, must fall and close forever all doubts and fears of the future.
I've dreamed, mused Venters, as he rose. Well, why not? To dream is happiness! But let me just once see this clearly, wholly... then I can go on dreaming till the thing falls. I've got to tell Jane Witbercteen. I've dangerous trips to take. I've work here to make comfort for this girl. She's mine. I'll fight to keep her safe from that old life. I've already seen her forget it. I love her. And, if a beast ever rises in me, I'll burn my hand off before I lay it on her with shameful intent. By God, sooner or later I'll kill the man who hid her and kept her in Deception Pass!
As he mused, the west wind softly blew in his face. It seemed to soothe his passion. Dark thoughts slunk deeply into the innermost recesses of his mind and, like dogs clinking their chains, lay down in slumber. That west wind was fresh, cool, fragrant, and it carried sweet, strange burden of far-off things-tidings of life in other climes-of sunshine asleep on other walls-of other places where reigned peace. It carried, too, sad truth of humble hearts and mystery of promise and hope unquenchable. Surprise Valley was only a little niche in the wide world whence blew that burdened wind. Bess was only one of millions at the mercy of unknown motive in nature and life. Content had come to Venters in the valley. Happiness had breathed in the slow, warm air, love, as bright as light, had hovered over the walls and descended to him, and now on the west wind came a whisper of the eternal triumph of faith over doubt.
How much better I am for what has come to me! he exclaimed to himself. I'll let the future take care of itself. Whatever falls I'll be ready.
Venters retraced his steps along the terrace back to camp and found Bess in the old familiar seat, waiting and watching for his return.
"I went off by myself to think a little," he explained.
"You never looked that way before. What... what is it? Won't you tell me?"
"Well, Bess, the fact is I've been dreaming a lot. This valley makes a fellow dream. So I forced myself to think. We can't live this way much longer. Soon I'll simply have to go to Cottonwoods. We need a whole pack train of supplies. I can get...
"Can you go safely?" she interrupted.
"Why, I'm sure of it. I'll ride through the pass at night. I haven't any fear that Wrangle isn't where I left him and once on him... Bess, just wait till you see that horse!"
"Oh, I want to see him... to ride him... but... but Bern, this is what troubles me," she said. "Will... will you come back?"
"Give me four days. If I'm not back in four days, you'll know... I'm dead. For only that shall keep me!"
"Oh!"
"Bess, I'll come back. There's danger... I wouldn't lie to you... but I can take care of myself."
"Bern, I'm sure... oh, I'm sure of it. All my life I've watched hunted men. I can tell what's in them. And I believe you can ride and shoot and see with any rider of the sage. It's not... not that I fear."
"Well, what is it then?"
"Why... why... why should you come back at all?"
"I couldn't leave you here alone."
"You might change your mind when you get to the village... among old friends...
"I won't change my mind. As for old friends...." He uttered a short, expressive laugh.
"Then... there... there must be a... a woman!" Dark red mantled the clear tan of temple and cheek and neck. Her eyes were eyes of shame upheld a long moment by intense, straining search for the verification of her fear. Suddenly they drooped, her head fell to her knees, her hands flew to her hot cheeks.
"Bess... look here," said Venters with a sharpness due to the violence with which he checked his quick surging emotion.
As if compelled against her will-answering to an irresistible voice-Bess raised her bowed head, looked at him with sad, dark eyes, and tried to whisper with tremulous lips.
"There's no woman," went on Venters deliberately, holding her glance with his. "Nothing on earth, barring the chances of life, can keep me away."
Her face flashed and flushed with the glow of a leaping joy, but like the vanishing of a gleam it disappeared to leave her as he had never
beheld her-cold and hard.
"I am nothing... I am lost... I am nameless!"
"Do you want me to come back?" he asked with sudden, stern coldness. "Maybe you want to go back to Oldring?"
That brought her erect, trembling and ashy pale, with dark, proud eyes and mute lips refuting his insinuation.
"Bess... I 'beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said that. But you angered me. I intend to work, to make a home for you here... to be a... a brother to you as long as ever you need me. And you must forget what you are... were, I mean... and be happy. When you remember that old life, you are bitter, and it hurts me."
"I was happy... I shall be very happy. Oh! You're so good that... that it kills me. If I think, I can't believe it. I grow sick with wondering why. I'm only a... let me say it... only a lost, nameless... girl of the rustlers. Oldring's girl, they called me. That you should save me... be so good and kind... want to make me happy, why, it's beyond belief. No wonder I'm wretched at the thought of your leaving me. But I'll be wretched and bitter no more. I promise you. If only I could repay you even a little....
"You've repaid me a hundredfold. Will you believe me?"
"Believe you! I couldn't do else."
"Then, listen. Saving you, I saved myself. Living here in this valley with you, I've found myself. I've learned to think while I was dreaming. I never troubled myself about God. But God... or some wonderful spirit... has whispered to me here. I absolutely deny the truth of what you say about yourself. I can't explain it. There are things too deep to tell. Whatever the terrible wrongs you've suffered, God holds you blameless. I see that... feel that in you every moment you are near me. I've a mother and a sister 'way back in Illinois. If I could, I'd take you to them... tomorrow."
"If it were true! Oh, I might... I might lift my head!" she cried.
"Lift it, then... you child! For I swear it's true."
She did lift her head with the singular, wild grace always part of her actions, with that old unconscious intimation of innocence that always tortured Venters, but now with something more-a spirit rising from the depths-that linked itself to his brave words. "I've been thinking... too," she said with quivering smile and swelling breast. "I've discovered myself... too. I'm young... I'm alive... I'm so fully... oh!... I'm a woman!"
"Bess, I believe I can claim credit of that last discovery... before you," Venters said, and laughed.
"Oh, there's more... there's something I must tell you."
"Tell it then."
"When will you go to Cottonwoods?"
"As soon as the storms are past, or the worst of them."
"I'll tell you before you go. I can't now. I don't know how I shall then. But it must be told. I'd never let you leave me without knowing. For in spite of what you say, there's a chance you mightn't come back."
Day after day the west wind blew across the valley. Day after day the clouds clustered gray and purple and black. The cliffs sang and the caves rang with Oldring's Knell, and the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled, the echoes crashed and crashed, and the rains flooded the valley. Wildflowers sprang up everywhere, swaying with the lengthening grass on the terraces, smiling wanly from shady nooks, peeping wondrously from year-dry crevices of the walls. The valley bloomed into a paradise. Every single moment, from the breaking of the gold bar through the bridge at dawn on to the reddening of rays over the western wall, was one of colorful change. The valley swam in thick, transparent haze, golden at dawn, warm and white at noon, purple in the twilight. At the end of every storm a rainbow curved down into the leaf-bright forest to shine and fade, and leave lingeringly some faint essence of its rosy iris in the air.
Venters walked with Bess, once more in a dream, and watched the lights change on the walls, and faced the wind from out of the west. Always it brought softly to him strange, sweet tidings of far-off things. It blew from a place that was old and whispered of youth. It blew down the grooves of time. It brought a story of the passing hours. It breathed low of fighting men and praying women. It sang clearly the songs of love. That ever was the burden of its tidings-youth in the shady woods-waders through the wet meadows-boy and girl at the hedgerow stile-bathers in the booming surf-sweet, idle hours on grassy, windy hills-long strolls down moonlit lanes-everywhere in far-off lands, fingers locked and bursting hearts and longing lips-from all the world tidings of unquenchable love.
Often, in these hours of dreams, he watched the girl, and asked himself-of what was she dreaming? For the changing light of the valley reflected its gleam and its color and its meaning in the changing light of her eyes. He saw in them infinitely more than he saw in his dreams. He saw thought and soul and nature-strong vision of life. All tidings the west wind blew from distance and age he found, deep in those dark blue depths, and found them mysteries solved. Under their wistful shadow he softened, and in the softening felt himself grow a sudden and wiser and a better man.
While the west wind blew-its tidings, filling his heart full, teaching him a man's part the days passed, the purple clouds changed to white, and the storms were over for that summer.
"I must go now," he said.
"When?" she asked.
"At once... tonight."
"I'm glad the time has come. It dragged at me. Go... for you'll come back the sooner."
Late in the afternoon, as the ruddy sun split its last flame on the ragged notch of the western wall, Bess walked with Venters along the eastern terrace, up the long, weathered slope, under the great stone bridge. They entered the narrow gorge to climb around the fence long before built there by Venters. Farther than this she had never been. Twilight had already fallen in the gorge. It brightened to waning shadow in the wider ascent. He showed her Balancing Rock, of which he had often told her, and explained its sinister leaning over the outlet. Shuddering, she looked down the long, pale incline with its closed-in, toppling walls.
"What an awful trail! Did you carry me up here?"
"I did surely," he replied.
"It frightens me somehow. Yet I never was afraid of trails. I'd ride anywhere a horse could go, and climb where he couldn't. But there's something fearful here. I feel as... as if the place was watching me."
"Look at this rock. It's balanced here... balanced perfectly. You know I told you the cliff-dwellers cut the rock... and why. But they're gone and the rock waits. Can't you see... feel how it waits here? I moved it once, and I'll never dare again. A strong heave would start it. Then it could fall and bang and smash that crag, and jar the walls, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass."
"Ah! When you come back, I'll steal up here, and push and push with all my might to roll the rock and close forever the outlet to the pass!" She said it lightly, but in the undercurrent of her voice was a heavier note, a ring deeper than any ever given mere play of words.
"Bess... you can't dare me! Wait till I come back with supplies... then roll the stone!"
"I... was... in... fun." Her voice now throbbed low. "Always you must be free to go where you will. Go now. This place presses on me... stifles me."
"I'm going... but you had something to tell me?"
"Yes.... Will you... come back?"
"I'll come if I live."
"But... but you mightn't come?"
"That's possible, of-course. It'll take a good deal to kill me. A man couldn't have a faster horse or keener dog. And Bess, I've guns, and I'll use them, if I'm pushed. But don't worry."
"I've faith in you. I'll not worry until after four days. Only... because you mightn't come... I must tell you...." She lost her voice. Her pale face, her great glowing, earnest eyes, seemed to stand alone out of the gloom of the gorge. The dog whined, breaking the silence. "I must tell you... because you mightn't come back," she whispered. "You must know what... what I think of your goodness... of you. Always I've been tongue-tied. I seemed not to be grateful. It... was deep in my heart. Even now... if I were... other than I am... I couldn't tell you. But I'm nothing... only a rustler's girl... nameless... infamous. You've saved me.
.. and I'm... I'm yours to do with as you like. With all my heart and soul... I love you!"
In the cloudy, threatening, waning summer days, shadows lengthened down the sage slope and Jane Withersteen likened them to the shadows gathering and closing in around her life. Mrs. Larkin died, and little Fay was left an orphan, with no known relative. Jane's love redoubled. It was the saving brightness of a darkening hour. Fay turned now to Jane in childish worship, and Jane at last found full expression for the mother longing in her heart. Upon Lassiter, too, Mrs. Larkin's death had some subtle reaction. Before, he had often, without explanation, advised Jane to send Fay back to any Gentile family that would take her in. Passionately and reproachfully and wonderingly Jane had refused even to entertain such an idea. And now Lassiter never advised it again, grew sadder and quieter in his contemplation of the child, and infinitely more gentle and loving. Sometimes Jane had a cold, inexplicable sensation of dread when she saw Lassiter watching Fay. What did the rider see in the future? Why did he, day by day, grow more silent, calmer, cooler, yet sadder in prophetic assurance of something to be?
No doubt, Jane thought, the rider in his almost superhuman power of foresight saw behind the horizon the dark, lengthening shadows that were soon to crowd and gloom over him, and her, and little Fay. Jane Withersteen awaited the long-deferred breaking of the storm with a courage and embittered calm that had come to her in her extremity. Hope had not died. Doubt and fear, subservient to her will, no longer gave her sleepless nights and tortured days. Love remained. All that she had loved she now loved the more. She seemed to feel that she was defiantly flinging the wealth of her love in the face of misfortune and of hate. No day passed but she prayed for all-and most fervently for her enemies. It troubled her that she had lost, or had never gained, the whole control of her mind. In some measure reason and wisdom and decision were locked in a chamber of her brain awaiting a key. Power to think of some things was taken from her. Meanwhile-abiding a day of judgment-she fought ceaselessly to deny the bitter drops in her cup, to tear back the slow-the intangibly slow-growth of a hot, corrosive lichen eating into her heart.
