Riders of the Purple Sage

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER VIII. SURPRISE VALLEY

  Back in that strange canyon, which Venters had found indeed a valley ofsurprises, the wounded girl's whispered appeal, almost a prayer, not totake her back to the rustlers crowned the events of the last few dayswith a confounding climax. That she should not want to return to themstaggered Venters. Presently, as logical thought returned, her appealconfirmed his first impression--that she was more unfortunate thanbad--and he experienced a sensation of gladness. If he had known beforethat Oldring's Masked Rider was a woman his opinion would have beenformed and he would have considered her abandoned. But his firstknowledge had come when he lifted a white face quivering in a convulsionof agony; he had heard God's name whispered by blood-stained lips;through her solemn and awful eyes he had caught a glimpseof her soul. And just now had come the entreaty to him,"Don't--take--me--back--there!"

  Once for all Venters's quick mind formed a permanent conception of thispoor girl. He based it, not upon what the chances of life had made her,but upon the revelation of dark eyes that pierced the infinite, upon afew pitiful, halting words that betrayed failure and wrong and misery,yet breathed the truth of a tragic fate rather than a natural leaning toevil.

  "What's your name?" he inquired.

  "Bess," she answered.

  "Bess what?"

  "That's enough--just Bess."

  The red that deepened in her cheeks was not all the flush of fever.Venters marveled anew, and this time at the tint of shame in her face,at the momentary drooping of long lashes. She might be a rustler's girl,but she was still capable of shame, she might be dying, but she stillclung to some little remnant of honor.

  "Very well, Bess. It doesn't matter," he said. "But this matters--whatshall I do with you?"

  "Are--you--a rider?" she whispered.

  "Not now. I was once. I drove the Withersteen herds. But I lost myplace--lost all I owned--and now I'm--I'm a sort of outcast. My name'sBern Venters."

  "You won't--take me--to Cottonwoods--or Glaze? I'd be--hanged."

  "No, indeed. But I must do something with you. For it's not safe forme here. I shot that rustler who was with you. Sooner or later he'llbe found, and then my tracks. I must find a safer hiding-place where Ican't be trailed."

  "Leave me--here."

  "Alone--to die!"

  "Yes."

  "I will not." Venters spoke shortly with a kind of ring in his voice.

  "What--do you want--to do--with me?" Her whispering grew difficult, solow and faint that Venters had to stoop to hear her.

  "Why, let's see," he replied, slowly. "I'd like to take you some placewhere I could watch by you, nurse you, till you're all right."

  "And--then?"

  "Well, it'll be time to think of that when you're cured of your wound.It's a bad one. And--Bess, if you don't want to live--if you don't fightfor life--you'll never--"

  "Oh! I want--to live! I'm afraid--to die. But I'd rather--die--than goback--to--to--"

  "To Oldring?" asked Venters, interrupting her in turn.

  Her lips moved in an affirmative.

  "I promise not to take you back to him or to Cottonwoods or to Glaze."

  The mournful earnestness of her gaze suddenly shone with unutterablegratitude and wonder. And as suddenly Venters found her eyes beautifulas he had never seen or felt beauty. They were as dark blue as the skyat night. Then the flashing changed to a long, thoughtful look, in whichthere was a wistful, unconscious searching of his face, a look thattrembled on the verge of hope and trust.

  "I'll try--to live," she said. The broken whisper just reached his ears."Do what--you want--with me."

  "Rest then--don't worry--sleep," he replied.

  Abruptly he arose, as if words had been decision for him, and with asharp command to the dogs he strode from the camp. Venters was consciousof an indefinite conflict of change within him. It seemed to be avague passing of old moods, a dim coalescing of new forces, a moment ofinexplicable transition. He was both cast down and uplifted. He wantedto think and think of the meaning, but he resolutely dispelled emotion.His imperative need at present was to find a safe retreat, and thiscalled for action.

  So he set out. It still wanted several hours before dark. This trip heturned to the left and wended his skulking way southward a mile or moreto the opening of the valley, where lay the strange scrawled rocks. Hedid not, however, venture boldly out into the open sage, but clung tothe right-hand wall and went along that till its perpendicular linebroke into the long incline of bare stone.

  Before proceeding farther he halted, studying the strange character ofthis slope and realizing that a moving black object could be seen faragainst such background. Before him ascended a gradual swell of smoothstone. It was hard, polished, and full of pockets worn by centuriesof eddying rain-water. A hundred yards up began a line of grotesquecedar-trees, and they extended along the slope clear to its mostsoutherly end. Beyond that end Venters wanted to get, and he concludedthe cedars, few as they were, would afford some cover.

  Therefore he climbed swiftly. The trees were farther up than hehad estimated, though he had from long habit made allowance for thedeceiving nature of distances in that country. When he gained the coverof cedars he paused to rest and look, and it was then he saw how thetrees sprang from holes in the bare rock. Ages of rain had run down theslope, circling, eddying in depressions, wearing deep round holes.There had been dry seasons, accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds, andcedars rose wonderfully out of solid rock. But these were not beautifulcedars. They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions, as if growthwere torture, dead at the tops, shrunken, gray, and old. Theirs hadbeen a bitter fight, and Venters felt a strange sympathy for them. Thiscountry was hard on trees--and men.

  He slipped from cedar to cedar, keeping them between him and the openvalley. As he progressed, the belt of trees widened and he kept to itsupper margin. He passed shady pockets half full of water, and, as hemarked the location for possible future need, he reflected that therehad been no rain since the winter snows. From one of these shady holes arabbit hopped out and squatted down, laying its ears flat.

  Venters wanted fresh meat now more than when he had only himself tothink of. But it would not do to fire his rifle there. So he broke offa cedar branch and threw it. He crippled the rabbit, which started toflounder up the slope. Venters did not wish to lose the meat, andhe never allowed crippled game to escape, to die lingeringly in somecovert. So after a careful glance below, and back toward the canyon, hebegan to chase the rabbit.

  The fact that rabbits generally ran uphill was not new to him. Butit presently seemed singular why this rabbit, that might have escapeddownward, chose to ascend the slope. Venters knew then that it had aburrow higher up. More than once he jerked over to seize it, only invain, for the rabbit by renewed effort eluded his grasp. Thus the chasecontinued on up the bare slope. The farther Venters climbed the moredetermined he grew to catch his quarry. At last, panting and sweating,he captured the rabbit at the foot of a steeper grade. Laying his rifleon the bulge of rising stone, he killed the animal and slung it from hisbelt.

  Before starting down he waited to catch his breath. He had climbedfar up that wonderful smooth slope, and had almost reached the baseof yellow cliff that rose skyward, a huge scarred and cracked bulk. Itfrowned down upon him as if to forbid further ascent. Venters bent overfor his rifle, and, as he picked it up from where it leaned against thesteeper grade, he saw several little nicks cut in the solid stone.

  They were only a few inches deep and about a foot apart. Venters beganto count them--one--two--three--four--on up to sixteen. That numbercarried his glance to the top of his first bulging bench of cliff-base.Above, after a more level offset, was still steeper slope, and the lineof nicks kept on, to wind round a projecting corner of wall.

  A casual glance would have passed by these little dents; if Venters hadnot known what they signified he would never have bestowed upon them thesecond glance. But he knew they had been cut there by hand, and,though age-worn, he recogn
ized them as steps cut in the rock by thecliff-dwellers. With a pulse beginning to beat and hammer away hiscalmness, he eyed that indistinct line of steps, up to where thebuttress of wall hid further sight of them. He knew that behindthe corner of stone would be a cave or a crack which could never besuspected from below. Chance, that had sported with him of late, nowdirected him to a probable hiding-place. Again he laid aside his rifle,and, removing boots and belt, he began to walk up the steps. Like amountain goat, he was agile, sure-footed, and he mounted the first benchwithout bending to use his hands. The next ascent took grip of fingersas well as toes, but he climbed steadily, swiftly, to reach theprojecting corner, and slipped around it. Here he faced a notch in thecliff. At the apex he turned abruptly into a ragged vent that split theponderous wall clear to the top, showing a narrow streak of blue sky.

  At the base this vent was dark, cool, and smelled of dry, musty dust.It zigzagged so that he could not see ahead more than a few yards at atime. He noticed tracks of wildcats and rabbits in the dusty floor. Atevery turn he expected to come upon a huge cavern full of little squarestone houses, each with a small aperture like a staring dark eye. Thepassage lightened and widened, and opened at the foot of a narrow,steep, ascending chute.

  Venters had a moment's notice of the rock, which was of the samesmoothness and hardness as the slope below, before his gaze wentirresistibly upward to the precipitous walls of this wide ladder ofgranite. These were ruined walls of yellow sandstone, and so split andsplintered, so overhanging with great sections of balancing rim, soimpending with tremendous crumbling crags, that Venters caught hisbreath sharply, and, appalled, he instinctively recoiled as if a stepupward might jar the ponderous cliffs from their foundation. Indeed, itseemed that these ruined cliffs were but awaiting a breath of windto collapse and come tumbling down. Venters hesitated. It would be afoolhardy man who risked his life under the leaning, waiting avalanchesof rock in that gigantic split. Yet how many years had they leaned therewithout falling! At the bottom of the incline was an immense heap ofweathered sandstone all crumbling to dust, but there were no huge rocksas large as houses, such as rested so lightly and frightfully above,waiting patiently and inevitably to crash down. Slowly split from theparent rock by the weathering process, and carved and sculptured by agesof wind and rain, they waited their moment. Venters felt how foolishit was for him to fear these broken walls; to fear that, after they hadendured for thousands of years, the moment of his passing should be theone for them to slip. Yet he feared it.

  "What a place to hide!" muttered Venters. "I'll climb--I'll see wherethis thing goes. If only I can find water!"

  With teeth tight shut he essayed the incline. And as he climbed he benthis eyes downward. This, however, after a little grew impossible; he hadto look to obey his eager, curious mind. He raised his glance and sawlight between row on row of shafts and pinnacles and crags that stoodout from the main wall. Some leaned against the cliff, others againsteach other; many stood sheer and alone; all were crumbling, cracked,rotten. It was a place of yellow, ragged ruin. The passage narrowed ashe went up; it became a slant, hard for him to stick on; it was smoothas marble. Finally he surmounted it, surprised to find the walls stillseveral hundred feet high, and a narrow gorge leading down on the otherside. This was a divide between two inclines, about twenty yards wide.At one side stood an enormous rock. Venters gave it a second glance,because it rested on a pedestal. It attracted closer attention. It waslike a colossal pear of stone standing on its stem. Around the bottomwere thousands of little nicks just distinguishable to the eye. Theywere marks of stone hatchets. The cliff-dwellers had chipped and chippedaway at this boulder till it rested its tremendous bulk upon a merepin-point of its surface. Venters pondered. Why had the little stone-menhacked away at that big boulder? It bore no semblance to a statue or anidol or a godhead or a sphinx. Instinctively he put his hands on itand pushed; then his shoulder and heaved. The stone seemed to groan, tostir, to grate, and then to move. It tipped a little downward and hungbalancing for a long instant, slowly returned, rocked slightly, groaned,and settled back to its former position.

  Venters divined its significance. It had been meant for defense. Thecliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, hadcunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to bedislodged by strong hands. Just below it leaned a tottering crag thatwould have toppled, starting an avalanche on an acclivity where nosliding mass could stop. Crags and pinnacles, splintered cliffs, andleaning shafts and monuments, would have thundered down to block foreverthe outlet to Deception Pass.

  "That was a narrow shave for me," said Venters, soberly. "A balancingrock! The cliff-dwellers never had to roll it. They died, vanished,and here the rock stands, probably little changed.... But it might serveanother lonely dweller of the cliffs. I'll hide up here somewhere, if Ican only find water."

  He descended the gorge on the other side. The slope was gradual, thespace narrow, the course straight for many rods. A gloom hung betweenthe up-sweeping walls. In a turn the passage narrowed to scarce a dozenfeet, and here was darkness of night. But light shone ahead; anotherabrupt turn brought day again, and then wide open space.

  Above Venters loomed a wonderful arch of stone bridging the canyon rims,and through the enormous round portal gleamed and glistened a beautifulvalley shining under sunset gold reflected by surrounding cliffs. Hegave a start of surprise. The valley was a cove a mile long, halfthat wide, and its enclosing walls were smooth and stained, and curvedinward, forming great caves. He decided that its floor was far higherthan the level of Deception Pass and the intersecting canyons. No purplesage colored this valley floor. Instead there were the white of aspens,streaks of branch and slender trunk glistening from the green of leaves,and the darker green of oaks, and through the middle of this forest,from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which markedthe course of cottonwoods and willows.

  "There's water here--and this is the place for me," said Venters. "Onlybirds can peep over those walls, I've gone Oldring one better."

  Venters waited no longer, and turned swiftly to retrace his steps. Henamed the canyon Surprise Valley and the huge boulder that guarded theoutlet Balancing Rock. Going down he did not find himself attended bysuch fears as had beset him in the climb; still, he was not easy inmind and could not occupy himself with plans of moving the girl and hisoutfit until he had descended to the notch. There he rested a moment andlooked about him. The pass was darkening with the approach of night. Atthe corner of the wall, where the stone steps turned, he saw a spur ofrock that would serve to hold the noose of a lasso. He needed no moreaid to scale that place. As he intended to make the move under coverof darkness, he wanted most to be able to tell where to climb up. So,taking several small stones with him, he stepped and slid down to theedge of the slope where he had left his rifle and boots. He placed thestones some yards apart. He left the rabbit lying upon the bench wherethe steps began. Then he addressed a keen-sighted, remembering gaze tothe rim-wall above. It was serrated, and between two spears of rock,directly in line with his position, showed a zigzag crack that at nightwould let through the gleam of sky. This settled, he put on his beltand boots and prepared to descend. Some consideration was necessary todecide whether or not to leave his rifle there. On the return, carryingthe girl and a pack, it would be added encumbrance; and after debatingthe matter he left the rifle leaning against the bench. As he wentstraight down the slope he halted every few rods to look up at his markon the rim. It changed, but he fixed each change in his memory. When hereached the first cedar-tree, he tied his scarf upon a dead branch, andthen hurried toward camp, having no more concern about finding his trailupon the return trip.

  Darkness soon emboldened and lent him greater speed. It occurred to him,as he glided into the grassy glade near camp and head the whinny of ahorse, that he had forgotten Wrangle. The big sorrel could not be gotteninto Surprise Valley. He would have to be left here.

  Venters determined at once to lead the other horses out thro
ugh thethicket and turn them loose. The farther they wandered from this canyonthe better it would suit him. He easily descried Wrangle through thegloom, but the others were not in sight. Venters whistled low for thedogs, and when they came trotting to him he sent them out to search forthe horses, and followed. It soon developed that they were not in theglade nor the thicket. Venters grew cold and rigid at the thought ofrustlers having entered his retreat. But the thought passed, for thedemeanor of Ring and Whitie reassured him. The horses had wandered away.

  Under the clump of silver spruces a denser mantle of darkness, yet notso thick that Venter's night-practiced eyes could not catch the whiteoval of a still face. He bent over it with a slight suspension of breaththat was both caution lest he frighten her and chill uncertainty offeeling lest he find her dead. But she slept, and he arose to renewedactivity.

  He packed his saddle-bags. The dogs were hungry, they whined abouthim and nosed his busy hands; but he took no time to feed them nor tosatisfy his own hunger. He slung the saddlebags over his shoulders andmade them secure with his lasso. Then he wrapped the blankets closerabout the girl and lifted her in his arms. Wrangle whinnied and thumpedthe ground as Venters passed him with the dogs. The sorrel knew he wasbeing left behind, and was not sure whether he liked it or not. Venterswent on and entered the thicket. Here he had to feel his way in pitchblackness and to wedge his progress between the close saplings. Timemeant little to him now that he had started, and he edged along withslow side movement till he got clear of the thicket. Ring and Whitiestood waiting for him. Taking to the open aisles and patches of thesage, he walked guardedly, careful not to stumble or step in dust orstrike against spreading sage-branches.

  If he were burdened he did not feel it. From time to time, when hepassed out of the black lines of shade into the wan starlight, heglanced at the white face of the girl lying in his arms. She had notawakened from her sleep or stupor. He did not rest until he cleared theblack gate of the canyon. Then he leaned against a stone breast-high tohim and gently released the girl from his hold. His brow and hairand the palms of his hands were wet, and there was a kind of nervouscontraction of his muscles. They seemed to ripple and string tense. Hehad a desire to hurry and no sense of fatigue. A wind blew the scentof sage in his face. The first early blackness of night passed with thebrightening of the stars. Somewhere back on his trail a coyote yelped,splitting the dead silence. Venters's faculties seemed singularly acute.

  He lifted the girl again and pressed on. The valley better travelingthan the canyon. It was lighter, freer of sage, and there were no rocks.Soon, out of the pale gloom shone a still paler thing, and that was thelow swell of slope. Venters mounted it and his dogs walked beside him.Once upon the stone he slowed to snail pace, straining his sight toavoid the pockets and holes. Foot by foot he went up. The weird cedars,like great demons and witches chained to the rock and writhing in silentanguish, loomed up with wide and twisting naked arms. Venters crossedthis belt of cedars, skirted the upper border, and recognized the treehe had marked, even before he saw his waving scarf.

  Here he knelt and deposited the girl gently, feet first and slowly laidher out full length. What he feared was to reopen one of her wounds.If he gave her a violent jar, or slipped and fell! But the supremeconfidence so strangely felt that night admitted no such blunders.

  The slope before him seemed to swell into obscurity to lose its definiteoutline in a misty, opaque cloud that shaded into the over-shadowingwall. He scanned the rim where the serrated points speared the sky, andhe found the zigzag crack. It was dim, only a shade lighter than thedark ramparts, but he distinguished it, and that served.

  Lifting the girl, he stepped upward, closely attending to the nature ofthe path under his feet. After a few steps he stopped to mark his linewith the crack in the rim. The dogs clung closer to him. While chasingthe rabbit this slope had appeared interminable to him; now, burdened ashe was, he did not think of length or height or toil. He rememberedonly to avoid a misstep and to keep his direction. He climbed on, withfrequent stops to watch the rim, and before he dreamed of gaining thebench he bumped his knees into it, and saw, in the dim gray light, hisrifle and the rabbit. He had come straight up without mishap or swervingoff his course, and his shut teeth unlocked.

  As he laid the girl down in the shallow hollow of the little ridge withher white face upturned, she opened her eyes. Wide, staring black, atonce like both the night and the stars, they made her face seem stillwhiter.

  "Is--it--you?" she asked, faintly.

  "Yes," replied Venters.

  "Oh! Where--are we?"

  "I'm taking you to a safe place where no one will ever find you. I mustclimb a little here and call the dogs. Don't be afraid. I'll soon comefor you."

  She said no more. Her eyes watched him steadily for a moment and thenclosed. Venters pulled off his boots and then felt for the little stepsin the rock. The shade of the cliff above obscured the point he wantedto gain, but he could see dimly a few feet before him. What he hadattempted with care he now went at with surpassing lightness. Buoyant,rapid, sure, he attained the corner of wall and slipped around it. Herehe could not see a hand before his face, so he groped along, found alittle flat space, and there removed the saddle-bags. The lasso he tookback with him to the corner and looped the noose over the spur of rock.

  "Ring--Whitie--come," he called, softly.

  Low whines came up from below.

  "Here! Come, Whitie--Ring," he repeated, this time sharply.

  Then followed scraping of claws and pattering of feet; and out of thegray gloom below him swiftly climbed the dogs to reach his side and passbeyond.

  Venters descended, holding to the lasso. He tested its strength bythrowing all his weight upon it. Then he gathered the girl up, and,holding her securely in his left arm, he began to climb, at every fewsteps jerking his right hand upward along the lasso. It sagged at eachforward movement he made, but he balanced himself lightly during theinterval when he lacked the support of a taut rope. He climbed as if hehad wings, the strength of a giant, and knew not the sense of fear. Thesharp corner of cliff seemed to cut out of the darkness. He reachedit and the protruding shelf, and then, entering the black shade of thenotch, he moved blindly but surely to the place where he had left thesaddle-bags. He heard the dogs, though he could not see them. Once morehe carefully placed the girl at his feet. Then, on hands and knees,he went over the little flat space, feeling for stones. He removed anumber, and, scraping the deep dust into a heap, he unfolded the outerblanket from around the girl and laid her upon this bed. Then he wentdown the slope again for his boots, rifle, and the rabbit, and, bringingalso his lasso with him, he made short work of that trip.

  "Are--you--there?" The girl's voice came low from the blackness.

  "Yes," he replied, and was conscious that his laboring breast madespeech difficult.

  "Are we--in a cave?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, listen!... The waterfall!... I hear it! You've brought me back!"

  Venters heard a murmuring moan that one moment swelled to a pitch almostsoftly shrill and the next lulled to a low, almost inaudible sigh.

  "That's--wind blowing--in the--cliffs," he panted. "You're far fromOldring's--canyon."

  The effort it cost him to speak made him conscious of extreme lassitudefollowing upon great exertion. It seemed that when he lay down and drewhis blanket over him the action was the last before utter prostration.He stretched inert, wet, hot, his body one great strife of throbbing,stinging nerves and bursting veins. And there he lay for a long whilebefore he felt that he had begun to rest.

  Rest came to him that night, but no sleep. Sleep he did not want. Thehours of strained effort were now as if they had never been, and hewanted to think. Earlier in the day he had dismissed an inexplicablefeeling of change; but now, when there was no longer demand on hiscunning and strength and he had time to think, he could not catch theillusive thing that had sadly perplexed as well as elevated his spirit.

  Above him, through a V-sha
ped cleft in the dark rim of the cliff, shonethe lustrous stars that had been his lonely accusers for a long, longyear. To-night they were different. He studied them. Larger, whiter,more radiant they seemed; but that was not the difference he meant.Gradually it came to him that the distinction was not one he saw, butone he felt. In this he divined as much of the baffling change as hethought would be revealed to him then. And as he lay there, with thesinging of the cliff-winds in his ears, the white stars above the dark,bold vent, the difference which he felt was that he was no longer alone.