by Zane Grey
Clint murmured an apology and stepped aside. But he did not leave the store. He wandered around, and presently from the background he looked again at this latest acquisition to the Texas group. He did not quite realize that something unfamiliar possessed him.
Soon he espied the girl again. She wore a little bonnet that was tied under her chin, and a flowing blue gown, full and long, yet which appeared unable to hide her grace. She had lustrous brown hair. She did not concern herself with making purchases, and evidently was simply accompanying the others. The Texan hung rather close to her, with an evident air of proprietorship, which to Clint did not seem to be a matter of delight to the girl.
Her cheek was of a golden-tan hue with a hint of rose. Her profile was delicately drawn. Clint hoped she would turn so that he could see her eyes again. She was looking at the people all around, and in time she moved, giving Clint a full view of her face. It was not only very pretty, but somehow, in a vague and incredible way, strangely familiar, like that of a girl he might have seen in a dream.
After a moment Clint decided he was only silly and sentimental. He had not talked to a girl for years. He moved away again, but was conscious of a haunting power in that face. He desired powerfully to look at it again, and closer. That annoyed Clint, and in arguing with himself he became a little nettled. What was a pretty girl to him?
Still, he did not leave immediately, and when he stole another glance, quite instinctively, the intervening people had thinned and the young girl was staring at him. Her red lips were parted. Caught in the act, her cheeks took on the hue of her lips. Her glance wavered and fell. But swiftly it came up again. She was not smiling.
Clint lost, in some inexplicable manner, his eagerness to rush out of the store. His moccasins might have contained lead. His glance roved away casually, to fly back as if drawn by a magnet. She was still looking at him, differently now. Her color had fled. Her gaze had a strange, perplexed eagerness, wondering, wistful. Clint caught his breath. Something tugged at his heart-strings. This girl was not regarding him as had the other young women.
She seemed about to come toward Clint, when her companion checked her impulse. Clint saw then that the Texan was evidently talking rather forcefully to her, and his slight gesture seemed to indicate Clint. The girl did not take this submissively. Her head went up, her chin tilted; and whatever her reply was, Clint would have liked to hear it. He took an instant and unreasonable dislike to this Texan. Probably the girl was his sister.
Clint reacted to this situation in a way perfectly incomprehensible to him. He knew what he was doing when he stepped forward leisurely and approached the group, but he had not the slightest idea why. If this girl looked at him again it would be astounding, and Clint felt that he could not answer for the consequences.
She did look again. Clint was now close enough to catch the strained, piercing intensity of eyes that seemed to search him through.
Just then one of Couch’s freighters, Sam Black, swaggered by her on his way out of the store. Plainly the girl accosted him. Then the Texan grasped her arm.
“Let go,” she said, distinctly and with spirit. She freed herself and spoke to the freighter. Clint did not catch what she said, but he guessed it had to do with him, and all the unaccountable sensations in him coalesced to a tremendous uncertainty.
Black heard her, and turned with a grin, to look where she pointed.
“Miss, you mean thet young fellar in buckskin?” he queried, in a voice easily heard all around.
She nodded eagerly and the scarlet suffused her cheek.
“Shore I know him. Haw! Haw! Reckon I ought to, miss. He belongs to my outfit. Thet’s Buff Belmet.”
The girl uttered a little cry, her hand going up too late to stifle it. Her eyes widened, darkened, and seemed fixed on Clint with a gaze he could not understand, yet which made his heart quake.
She glided toward Clint. She came close, closer, to peer up at him with lustrous eyes soft under which shone hope and rapture and terror.
“Buff—Belmet! . . . Who are you?” she asked in a whisper.
“Buff’s a—nickname,” stammered Clint. “My name’s—Clint.”
She put out a trembling little hand as if to touch him, to feel if he were flesh and blood, but it hovered back to her breast. The flush receded from her face, leaving it as white as pearl.
“Clint—don’t you—know me?” she whispered, tremulously.
“Your eyes! Your voice!” gasped Clint, incredulously.
“Oh, you do remember!” she cried, and a rush of tears dimmed the rapture in her eyes.
“Miss—you’re like some one—” burst out Clint, hoarsely, “but, oh, my God!—you couldn’t be ——”
“Yes, I could,” she flashed. “I am May Bell!”
Chapter Eleven
CLINT never knew how it came that May was in his arms. But when he felt her there he hugged her close and his heart pounded against hers as he bent his face over her. It touched her hair and then her tear-wet cheek.
There was something wrong with his sight, but he felt her clinging to him, straining at his shoulders.
“Clint! Clint! Oh, thank God! I knew you were alive!” she cried out.
“An’ I thought you dead!” murmured Clint, as if in a trance.
“I’m the livest girl you ever saw,” she whispered against his cheek, and then her lips pressed softly, warm and quivering, in a kiss.
Clint’s bliss was short-lived. A hard hand clutched his shoulders, and tore him so violently from the girl that but for a stack of boxes he would have fallen. That instant saw the end of his blurred sight. It was burned clear.
The Texan had thrust him back. Clint caught a blaze of blue-flashing eyes. Then that hard hand, open-palmed, smote him across the mouth, staggering him again. Clint leaned against the boxes, in need of their support. Pain, suddenly added to these other bewildering sensations, hindered his faculties.
A man’s burly form stalked in front of him, facing the Texan.
“Hyar! What’d you hit thet boy for?” he shouted, his voice loud in anger.
Clint recognized Couch. And following Couch the tall form of Maxwell interposed itself into the scene.
“I am Maxwell,” he said, in cold, cutting accents. “This lad is my guest. Explain why you struck him.”
The Texan was neither intimidated nor impressed. He eyed the men in cool disdain.
“If it’s any of your business, I slapped his pretty face ——”
But Couch interrupted him by knocking him down. It was then that Couch evidently saw the girl for the first time. Pale, with dilating eyes, she gazed from him to Clint, and at the fallen Texan, and then back to Clint. The big store had grown silent, except for footsteps crowding closer.
Couch stared at the girl and bent lower to peer closely.
“Lass, was it ’cause of you?” he queried, with gesture indicating Clint.
“Yes—sir,” she faltered.
“Say, don’t I know you?” he asked, suddenly excited.
“Perhaps you do, sir,” she returned. “I know you. Mister Jim Couch.”
“For the land’s sake!” exploded Couch as he took the hands she held out. “I know you. . . . Your voice goes with your eyes. I never forget people. . . . You’re thet little big-eyed kid who left my train at Council Grove. Years ago. . . . Jim Bell’s little girl.”
“Yes. I am May Bell,” she replied, with smile half sad.
“Little May Bell come to life again—after we thought you was dead or worse. Growed to be a young woman an’ a mighty pretty one. . . . Wal, I never was so glad in my life.”
Meanwhile the Texan had gotten rather groggily to his feet, and it was evident that he had no liking for the turn of events.
Maxwell accosted him again: “Stranger, you haven’t explained your action.”
The Texan’s handsome face was marred by an expression of extreme malignity, most of which appeared centered upon Clint. But he shouldered his way through the circl
e of curious onlookers and left without a word.
“Maxwell, here’s one of the few an’ glorious surprises of the West,” announced Couch, drawing May toward the rancher. “This girl’s father joined my outfit at Independence years ago. The same year Buff an’ his father started with me. . . . Bell left us at Council Grove, an’ later started back east. His outfit was massacred to a man an’ we heard his daughter was taken captive. . . . But here she is, little May Bell thet was.”
Maxwell made the girl a courtly bow and warmly pressed her hand in both of his. “Miss Bell, I sure am happy to meet you. Indeed, it isn’t often the frontier gives us as sweet an’ glorious surprises as this.”
“Thank you, sir,” returned the girl, shyly.
“Buff, come out of it,” interposed Couch, heartily. And as Clint shuffled forward, white and red by turns, the freighter went on. “Boy, I take it you an’ May seen each other an’ just sort of—of ——”
Couch failed of adequate words. Clint stood tongue-tied, shifting from one foot to the other. Maxwell laughed as if he understood, and he placed his arm round Clint’s shoulders. Then May Bell came to his rescue.
“I—I first saw Clint outside,” she began to explain, eagerly, blushing rosily, yet brave in her anxiety to place him right before his friends. “I wondered. . . . Then I saw him here—in the store. I recognized him—yet I didn’t dare believe my eyes. I—I kept looking. And I think he was curious about me. Then I asked a freighter—if he knew him. He did—he called him ‘Buff Belmet.’ . . . Then I ran to Clint. . . . I—I don’t know just what happened—but Lee separated us—and struck Clint.”
“Ahuh. Wal, now, thet begins to straighten things out. I’m sorry I hit this Lee fellar. But considerin’—an’ anyway I never saw you. If I had, I reckon I’d had better—Wal, no! he hit Buff an’ Buff is like a son to me.”
Couch was plainly at a loss. Clint’s embarrassment amounted almost to shame. The girl had paled again, as if at the mute query in Clint’s eyes. Maxwell saw the crux of the situation and he bent to May, asking low: “It was natural for you an’ Buff to be glad to see each other. But had this man Lee any right to—to separate you—an’ strike Buff?”
“No!” she returned, and the single clear word had a ring. On the instant then she averted her gaze from Clint while a wave of scarlet obliterated the pale earnestness of her face.
“Wal, now,” breathed Couch, in deep-chested relief. “Seein’ thet’s settled, tell us who you’re with.”
“Dear good friends. They have been—everything to me,” replied May, turning to look for them.
The crowd stirred and broke its interested calm. A buxom motherly woman, ruddy and smiling of face, evidently was waiting for this moment.
“Heah we are, May,” she said in a hearty voice, and with a plump elbow she nudged the tall man beside her.
May slipped away from the freighter to the unmistakable embrace of this kindly-faced woman.
“This is Mister Couch,” began May, radiantly, “and his friend Mister Maxwell, I think . . . and this is Clint.”
“Gentlemen, I’m Sarah Clement, an’ shore am glad to meet you all. . . . Jim Couch, I’ve heard your name these many years. An’ Lew Maxwell, I know you. . . . An’ so this boy was May’s playmate across the plains? . . . Clint Belmet.” She gave her hand to Clint and searched his features with the shrewd, penetrating gaze of a woman who had known men. “You’re not the boy she has talked aboot all these years. You’re a man. But I like your face.”
Clint mumbled he knew not what.
Maxwell ejaculated: “Sarah Clement! . . . Could you by any chance be related to Hall Clement, who served with me in the Mexican War an’ later was a Texas Ranger?”
The tall Texan stepped out and tilted back his huge black sombrero, to expose a remarkable visage that no one could ever have forgotten.
“Howdy, Cap!” he said, laconically, and leisurely extended a long arm.
“By all that’s holy!—Hall Clement! . . . The Lord is good,” broke out Maxwell, sonorously, and he fell upon Clement with an onslaught unusual in so cool a Westerner. The meeting was one that well might have made the onlookers wonder.
“Jim—Buff,” said Maxwell, turning to the others, his eyes alight. “Shake hands with my old pard, Hall Clement. An’ Kit Carson’s pard, too, in those old Texas days. Them was the days! . . . Well, folks, it’s almost too good to be true. You’ll all come to dinner with me. Ask your friends. We’ll make it a party.”
“Wal, we won’t have to be axed twice,” boomed Couch, and again he possessed himself of May’s yielding hand. “Forgive me, lass, but I’m oncommon keen to know what happened to you.”
“It’s not much of a story,” replied May, her eyes shadowing. “When the Indians attacked us it was night. I ran over the bank—hid under brush. . . . They never found me. . . . When day came I crawled out. The camp was silent—all dead—the wagons burned. . . . I wandered away, half crazy. A caravan came along. They took me to Texas. . . . And there people were good to me. Mrs. Clement gave me a home—became a mother to me. . . . I went to school—grew up—and here I am.”
“Ahuh! If it ain’t a fairy story old Jim Couch never heard one,” replied the freighter. “An’ now, lass, one more question. Who’s this feller Lee?”
“His name is Murdock,” said May. “I did not know him in Texas.”
Mrs. Clement manifestly considered it her duty to interfere. “Couch, this man Murdock joined us in the Pan Handle. He’s not a freighter. He claimed he was goin’ West to buy pelts. Like every other man you meet on the trail, he didn’t tell much aboot himself. An’ we didn’t ask. He was good company an’ attentive to us women. I liked him. An’ I reckon May did too. But Hall didn’t. You can talk to him. . . . Murdock got sweet on May, which was only what every one of the young bucks did, an’ he was all-fired jealous of her. Thet shore accounts for his actions here.”
Clint found himself walking beside May, behind the older folk, who were being led by Maxwell to the house. Once out of the store, free of the curious crowd, Clint began to recover from his shame and humiliation, though the creeping paralysis of his tongue loosened its grip only slowly.
May walked beside Clint, her head reaching to his shoulder. That seemed the most astounding thing. She had been so little, and the picture of her in his memory was far removed from May Bell in the flesh today. He stole a glance at her, to find that she held her gaze straight ahead. Her color was high. As they walked along she spoke of the weather, the Indians passing, the ranch, the West. And Clint replied without in the least knowing what she said.
They were, in fact, strangers to each other, and though in the poignant emotion of reunion the link of childhood held, now they were beginning to realize.
Clint, having stolen one glance at her, ventured another. She averted her eyes and the quick blood darkened the rich golden tan of her cheek. This somehow mitigated Clint’s shyness and he began to do battle with the chaos of his mind. He had been making a stupid ass out of himself, when he should have been proving that he was a freighter now, a plainsman. Nevertheless, this argument did not at once restore his equilibrium.
May had started out to talk with wild enthusiasm, but that or her stock of expressions wore out. Clint floundered in vain; he could not make conversation. They were saved from something disastrous by their arrival at the ranch house.
“Let’s set out on the porch till it gets cool,” suggested Maxwell.
That, for the time being, ended the constraint between Clint and May. She, with Hall Clement, and his august wife, became the center of attention. Maxwell beamed upon them. It was evident that his meeting with an old ranger comrade had recalled associations which must have been pleasant, thrilling, perhaps filled, too, with regret. He introduced the Clement party to army officers, scouts, hunters and trappers, and even to several Indian chiefs.
One of these, Lone Wolf, of the Utes, a superb warrior, always friendly to the whites, took most dignified note of May. M
axwell spoke to him in Indian language. The chief raised a slow deprecatory hand in expressive gesture that did not need words. It signified: Alas for the injustice done to the red man and the injury to the white man.
Lone Wolf offered his hand to May, who hesitatingly placed hers in it.
“How do,” he said, in a deep, not unpleasant voice. He was very tall and bent his feathered head. The minute wary lines of his face indicated his age. He had fine eyes.
May acknowledged his greeting. Evidently it was an ordeal, yet she saw that this Ute was a friend of Maxwell’s, and no doubt worthy of respect.
“Father—mother—gone?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied May.
“How old you?”
“Sixteen.”
“You married?”
“Oh no,” returned May, surprised out of her reserve.
“White man slow,” said the chief. “You like marry big chief?”
Maxwell led the shout of laughter. Lone Wolf’s serious visage did not change, yet it seemed plain that he had a sense of humor.
“Are you proposing to me, Lone Wolf?” asked May, smiling in her confusion.
“Me like white squaw.”
“Thank you. I—I must—say no.”
The chieftain let go her hand and spoke to Maxwell in his own tongue, and then passed on with slow moccasined tread.
“There, May, you’ve had an offer at last,” said Mrs. Clement, gayly.
“Mr. Maxwell, of course he wasn’t in earnest?” queried May, bright-eyed and laughing.
“Lone Wolf was in fun, but he meant it, too,” replied Maxwell. “That old Indian is the salt of the earth. If only they were all like him. . . . He paid you a compliment, lass. Said you were a pretty young woman an’ that the white boys would be fightin’ for you.”
“Indeed, he flatters me,” said May.
“Wal, I reckon Buff will have somethin’ to say about thet,” put in Couch, calling the gay attention to his young charge.
Clint responded to this with so deep and inward a thrill that his confusion seemed checked.
