Riders of the Purple Sage

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER IX. SILVER SPRUCE AND ASPENS

  The rest of that night seemed to Venters only a few moments ofstarlight, a dark overcasting of sky, an hour or so of gray gloom, andthen the lighting of dawn.

  When he had bestirred himself, feeding the hungry dogs and breakinghis long fast, and had repacked his saddle-bags, it was clear daylight,though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in the east. He concludedto make the climb and descent into Surprise Valley in one trip. To thatend he tied his blanket upon Ring and gave Whitie the extra lasso andthe rabbit to carry. Then, with the rifle and saddle-bags slung upon hisback, he took up the girl. She did not awaken from heavy slumber.

  That climb up under the rugged, menacing brows of the broken cliffs,in the face of a grim, leaning boulder that seemed to be weary of itsage-long wavering, was a tax on strength and nerve that Ventersfelt equally with something sweet and strangely exulting in itsaccomplishment. He did not pause until he gained the narrow divide andthere he rested. Balancing Rock loomed huge, cold in the gray lightof dawn, a thing without life, yet it spoke silently to Venters: "I amwaiting to plunge down, to shatter and crash, roar and boom, to buryyour trail, and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!"

  On the descent of the other side Venters had easy going, but wassomewhat concerned because Whitie appeared to have succumbed totemptation, and while carrying the rabbit was also chewing on it. AndRing evidently regarded this as an injury to himself, especially as hehad carried the heavier load. Presently he snapped at one end of therabbit and refused to let go. But his action prevented Whitie fromfurther misdoing, and then the two dogs pattered down, carrying therabbit between them.

  Venters turned out of the gorge, and suddenly paused stock-still,astounded at the scene before him. The curve of the great stone bridgehad caught the sunrise, and through the magnificent arch burst aglorious stream of gold that shone with a long slant down into thecenter of Surprise Valley. Only through the arch did any sunlightpass, so that all the rest of the valley lay still asleep, dark green,mysterious, shadowy, merging its level into walls as misty and soft asmorning clouds.

  Venters then descended, passing through the arch, looking up at itstremendous height and sweep. It spanned the opening to Surprise Valley,stretching in almost perfect curve from rim to rim. Even in his hurryand concern Venters could not but feel its majesty, and the thought cameto him that the cliff-dwellers must have regarded it as an object ofworship.

  Down, down, down Venters strode, more and more feeling the weight of hisburden as he descended, and still the valley lay below him. As allother canyons and coves and valleys had deceived him, so had this deep,nestling oval. At length he passed beyond the slope of weathered stonethat spread fan-shape from the arch, and encountered a grassy terracerunning to the right and about on a level with the tips of the oaks andcottonwoods below. Scattered here and there upon this shelf were clumpsof aspens, and he walked through them into a glade that surpassed inbeauty and adaptability for a wild home, any place he had ever seen.Silver spruces bordered the base of a precipitous wall that roseloftily. Caves indented its surface, and there were no detached ledgesor weathered sections that might dislodge a stone. The level ground,beyond the spruces, dropped down into a little ravine. This was onedense line of slender aspens from which came the low splashing of water.And the terrace, lying open to the west, afforded unobstructed view ofthe valley of green treetops.

  For his camp Venters chose a shady, grassy plot between the silverspruces and the cliff. Here, in the stone wall, had been wonderfullycarved by wind or washed by water several deep caves above the level ofthe terrace. They were clean, dry, roomy.

  He cut spruce boughs and made a bed in the largest cave and laid thegirl there. The first intimation that he had of her being aroused fromsleep or lethargy was a low call for water.

  He hurried down into the ravine with his canteen. It was a shallow,grass-green place with aspens growing up everywhere. To his delighthe found a tiny brook of swift-running water. Its faint tinge of amberreminded him of the spring at Cottonwoods, and the thought gave him alittle shock. The water was so cold it made his fingers tingle as hedipped the canteen. Having returned to the cave, he was glad to see thegirl drink thirstily. This time he noted that she could raise her headslightly without his help.

  "You were thirsty," he said. "It's good water. I've found a fine place.Tell me--how do you feel?"

  "There's pain--here," she replied, and moved her hand to her left side.

  "Why, that's strange! Your wounds are on your right side. I believeyou're hungry. Is the pain a kind of dull ache--a gnawing?"

  "It's like--that."

  "Then it's hunger." Venters laughed, and suddenly caught himself with aquick breath and felt again the little shock. When had he laughed? "It'shunger," he went on. "I've had that gnaw many a time. I've got it now.But you mustn't eat. You can have all the water you want, but no foodjust yet."

  "Won't I--starve?"

  "No, people don't starve easily. I've discovered that. You must lieperfectly still and rest and sleep--for days."

  "My hands--are dirty; my face feels--so hot and sticky; my boots hurt."It was her longest speech as yet, and it trailed off in a whisper.

  "Well, I'm a fine nurse!"

  It annoyed him that he had never thought of these things. But then,awaiting her death and thinking of her comfort were vastly differentmatters. He unwrapped the blanket which covered her. What a slender girlshe was! No wonder he had been able to carry her miles and pack her upthat slippery ladder of stone. Her boots were of soft, fine leather,reaching clear to her knees. He recognized the make as one of aboot-maker in Sterling. Her spurs, that he had stupidly neglected toremove, consisted of silver frames and gold chains, and the rowels,large as silver dollars, were fancifully engraved. The boots slipped offrather hard. She wore heavy woollen rider's stockings, half length, andthese were pulled up over the ends of her short trousers. Venters tookoff the stockings to note her little feet were red and swollen. Hebathed them. Then he removed his scarf and bathed her face and hands.

  "I must see your wounds now," he said, gently.

  She made no reply, but watched him steadily as he opened her blouse anduntied the bandage. His strong fingers trembled a little as he removedit. If the wounds had reopened! A chill struck him as he saw the angryred bullet-mark, and a tiny stream of blood winding from it down herwhite breast. Very carefully he lifted her to see that the wound in herback had closed perfectly. Then he washed the blood from her breast,bathed the wound, and left it unbandaged, open to the air.

  Her eyes thanked him.

  "Listen," he said, earnestly. "I've had some wounds, and I've seen many.I know a little about them. The hole in your back has closed. If you liestill three days the one in your breast will close and you'll be safe.The danger from hemorrhage will be over."

  He had spoken with earnest sincerity, almost eagerness.

  "Why--do you--want me--to get well?" she asked, wonderingly.

  The simple question seemed unanswerable except on grounds of humanity.But the circumstances under which he had shot this strange girl, theshock and realization, the waiting for death, the hope, had resulted ina condition of mind wherein Venters wanted her to live more than he hadever wanted anything. Yet he could not tell why. He believed the killingof the rustler and the subsequent excitement had disturbed him. For howelse could he explain the throbbing of his brain, the heat of his blood,the undefined sense of full hours, charged, vibrant with pulsatingmystery where once they had dragged in loneliness?

  "I shot you," he said, slowly, "and I want you to get well so I shallnot have killed a woman. But--for your own sake, too--"

  A terrible bitterness darkened her eyes, and her lips quivered.

  "Hush," said Venters. "You've talked too much already."

  In her unutterable bitterness he saw a darkness of mood that could nothave been caused by her present weak and feverish state. She hated thelife she had led, that she probably had been compelled to le
ad. Shehad suffered some unforgivable wrong at the hands of Oldring. With thatconviction Venters felt a shame throughout his body, and it marked therekindling of fierce anger and ruthlessness. In the past long year hehad nursed resentment. He had hated the wilderness--the loneliness ofthe uplands. He had waited for something to come to pass. It had come.Like an Indian stealing horses he had skulked into the recesses of thecanyons. He had found Oldring's retreat; he had killed a rustler; he hadshot an unfortunate girl, then had saved her from this unwitting act,and he meant to save her from the consequent wasting of blood, fromfever and weakness. Starvation he had to fight for her and for himself.Where he had been sick at the letting of blood, now he remembered it ingrim, cold calm. And as he lost that softness of nature, so he lost hisfear of men. He would watch for Oldring, biding his time, and he wouldkill this great black-bearded rustler who had held a girl in bondage,who had used her to his infamous ends.

  Venters surmised this much of the change in him--idleness had passed;keen, fierce vigor flooded his mind and body; all that had happened tohim at Cottonwoods seemed remote and hard to recall; the difficultiesand perils of the present absorbed him, held him in a kind of spell.

  First, then, he fitted up the little cave adjoining the girl's roomfor his own comfort and use. His next work was to build a fireplace ofstones and to gather a store of wood. That done, he spilled the contentsof his saddle-bags upon the grass and took stock. His outfit consistedof a small-handled axe, a hunting-knife, a large number of cartridgesfor rifle or revolver, a tin plate, a cup, and a fork and spoon,a quantity of dried beef and dried fruits, and small canvas bagscontaining tea, sugar, salt, and pepper. For him alone this supply wouldhave been bountiful to begin a sojourn in the wilderness, but he was nolonger alone. Starvation in the uplands was not an unheard-of thing;he did not, however, worry at all on that score, and feared only hispossible inability to supply the needs of a woman in a weakened andextremely delicate condition.

  If there was no game in the valley--a contingency he doubted--it wouldnot be a great task for him to go by night to Oldring's herd and packout a calf. The exigency of the moment was to ascertain if there weregame in Surprise Valley. Whitie still guarded the dilapidated rabbit,and Ring slept near by under a spruce. Venters called Ring and went tothe edge of the terrace, and there halted to survey the valley.

  He was prepared to find it larger than his unstudied glances had made itappear; for more than a casual idea of dimensions and a hasty conceptionof oval shape and singular beauty he had not had time. Again thefelicity of the name he had given the valley struck him forcibly. Aroundthe red perpendicular walls, except under the great arc of stone, rana terrace fringed at the cliff-base by silver spruces; below that firstterrace sloped another wider one densely overgrown with aspens, and thecenter of the valley was a level circle of oaks and alders, with theglittering green line of willows and cottonwood dividing it in half.Venters saw a number and variety of birds flitting among the trees.To his left, facing the stone bridge, an enormous cavern opened in thewall; and low down, just above the tree-tops, he made out a long shelfof cliff-dwellings, with little black, staring windows or doors. Likeeyes they were, and seemed to watch him. The few cliff-dwellings he hadseen--all ruins--had left him with haunting memory of age and solitudeand of something past. He had come, in a way, to be a cliff-dwellerhimself, and those silent eyes would look down upon him, as if insurprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded the valley.Venters felt sure that he was the only white man who had ever walkedunder the shadow of the wonderful stone bridge, down into that wonderfulvalley with its circle of caves and its terraced rings of silver spruceand aspens.

  The dog growled below and rushed into the forest. Venters ran down thedeclivity to enter a zone of light shade streaked with sunshine. Theoak-trees were slender, none more than half a foot thick, and they grewclose together, intermingling their branches. Ring came running backwith a rabbit in his mouth. Venters took the rabbit and, holding thedog near him, stole softly on. There were fluttering of wings among thebranches and quick bird-notes, and rustling of dead leaves and rapidpatterings. Venters crossed well-worn trails marked with fresh tracks;and when he had stolen on a little farther he saw many birds and runningquail, and more rabbits than he could count. He had not penetrated theforest of oaks for a hundred yards, had not approached anywhere near theline of willows and cottonwoods which he knew grew along a stream. Buthe had seen enough to know that Surprise Valley was the home of manywild creatures.

  Venters returned to camp. He skinned the rabbits, and gave the dogs theone they had quarreled over, and the skin of this he dressed and hungup to dry, feeling that he would like to keep it. It was a particularlyrich, furry pelt with a beautiful white tail. Venters remembered thatbut for the bobbing of that white tail catching his eye he would nothave espied the rabbit, and he would never have discovered SurpriseValley. Little incidents of chance like this had turned him hereand there in Deception Pass; and now they had assumed to him thesignificance and direction of destiny.

  His good fortune in the matter of game at hand brought to his mind thenecessity of keeping it in the valley. Therefore he took the axe and cutbundles of aspens and willows, and packed them up under the bridge tothe narrow outlet of the gorge. Here he began fashioning a fence, bydriving aspens into the ground and lacing them fast with willows. Tripafter trip he made down for more building material, and the afternoonhad passed when he finished the work to his satisfaction. Wildcats mightscale the fence, but no coyote could come in to search for prey, and norabbits or other small game could escape from the valley.

  Upon returning to camp he set about getting his supper at ease, around afine fire, without hurry or fear of discovery. After hard work thathad definite purpose, this freedom and comfort gave him peculiarsatisfaction. He caught himself often, as he kept busy round thecamp-fire, stopping to glance at the quiet form in the cave, and atthe dogs stretched cozily near him, and then out across the beautifulvalley. The present was not yet real to him.

  While he ate, the sun set beyond a dip in the rim of the curved wall. Asthe morning sun burst wondrously through a grand arch into this valley,in a golden, slanting shaft, so the evening sun, at the moment ofsetting, shone through a gap of cliffs, sending down a broad red burstto brighten the oval with a blaze of fire. To Venters both sunrise andsunset were unreal.

  A cool wind blew across the oval, waving the tips of oaks, and whilethe light lasted, fluttering the aspen leaves into millions of facets ofred, and sweeping the graceful spruces. Then with the wind soon camea shade and a darkening, and suddenly the valley was gray. Night camethere quickly after the sinking of the sun. Venters went softly to lookat the girl. She slept, and her breathing was quiet and slow. He liftedRing into the cave, with stern whisper for him to stay there onguard. Then he drew the blanket carefully over her and returned to thecamp-fire.

  Though exceedingly tired, he was yet loath to yield to lassitude, butthis night it was not from listening, watchful vigilance; it was froma desire to realize his position. The details of his wild environmentseemed the only substance of a strange dream. He saw the darkening rims,the gray oval turning black, the undulating surface of forest, like arippling lake, and the spear-pointed spruces. He heard the flutterof aspen leaves and the soft, continuous splash of falling water. Themelancholy note of a canyon bird broke clear and lonely from the highcliffs. Venters had no name for this night singer, and he had never seenone, but the few notes, always pealing out just at darkness, were asfamiliar to him as the canyon silence. Then they ceased, and the rustleof leaves and the murmur of water hushed in a growing sound that Ventersfancied was not of earth. Neither had he a name for this, only it wasinexpressibly wild and sweet. The thought came that it might be a moanof the girl in her last outcry of life, and he felt a tremor shake him.But no! This sound was not human, though it was like despair. He beganto doubt his sensitive perceptions, to believe that he half-dreamed whathe thought he heard. Then the sound swelled with the strengtheningof t
he breeze, and he realized it was the singing of the wind in thecliffs.

  By and by a drowsiness overcame him, and Venters began to nod, halfasleep, with his back against a spruce. Rousing himself and callingWhitie, he went to the cave. The girl lay barely visible in the dimness.Ring crouched beside her, and the patting of his tail on the stoneassured Venters that the dog was awake and faithful to his duty. Venterssought his own bed of fragrant boughs; and as he lay back, somehowgrateful for the comfort and safety, the night seemed to steal away fromhim and he sank softly into intangible space and rest and slumber.

  Venters awakened to the sound of melody that he imagined was only thehaunting echo of dream music. He opened his eyes to another surpriseof this valley of beautiful surprises. Out of his cave he saw theexquisitely fine foliage of the silver spruces crossing a round spaceof blue morning sky; and in this lacy leafage fluttered a number ofgray birds with black and white stripes and long tails. They weremocking-birds, and they were singing as if they wanted to burst theirthroats. Venters listened. One long, silver-tipped branch dropped almostto his cave, and upon it, within a few yards of him, sat one of thegraceful birds. Venters saw the swelling and quivering of its throatin song. He arose, and when he slid down out of his cave the birdsfluttered and flew farther away.

  Venters stepped before the opening of the other cave and looked in. Thegirl was awake, with wide eyes and listening look, and she had a hand onRing's neck.

  "Mocking-birds!" she said.

  "Yes," replied Venters, "and I believe they like our company."

  "Where are we?"

  "Never mind now. After a little I'll tell you."

  "The birds woke me. When I heard them--and saw the shiny trees--and theblue sky--and then a blaze of gold dropping down--I wondered--"

  She did not complete her fancy, but Venters imagined he understood hermeaning. She appeared to be wandering in mind. Venters felt her face andhands and found them burning with fever. He went for water, and was gladto find it almost as cold as if flowing from ice. That water was theonly medicine he had, and he put faith in it. She did not want to drink,but he made her swallow, and then he bathed her face and head and cooledher wrists.

  The day began with the heightening of the fever. Venters spent the timereducing her temperature, cooling her hot cheeks and temples. He keptclose watch over her, and at the least indication of restlessness, thathe knew led to tossing and rolling of the body, he held her tightly, sono violent move could reopen her wounds. Hour after hour she babbled andlaughed and cried and moaned in delirium; but whatever her secret wasshe did not reveal it. Attended by something somber for Venters, the daypassed. At night in the cool winds the fever abated and she slept.

  The second day was a repetition of the first. On the third he seemed tosee her wither and waste away before his eyes. That day he scarcely wentfrom her side for a moment, except to run for fresh, cool water; and hedid not eat. The fever broke on the fourth day and left her spent andshrunken, a slip of a girl with life only in her eyes. They hung uponVenters with a mute observance, and he found hope in that.

  To rekindle the spark that had nearly flickered out, to nourish thelittle life and vitality that remained in her, was Venters's problem.But he had little resource other than the meat of the rabbits and quail;and from these he made broths and soups as best he could, and fed herwith a spoon. It came to him that the human body, like the human soul,was a strange thing and capable of recovering from terrible shocks. Foralmost immediately she showed faint signs of gathering strength. Therewas one more waiting day, in which he doubted, and spent long hours byher side as she slept, and watched the gentle swell of her breast riseand fall in breathing, and the wind stir the tangled chestnut curls. Onthe next day he knew that she would live.

  Upon realizing it he abruptly left the cave and sought his accustomedseat against the trunk of a big spruce, where once more he let hisglance stray along the sloping terraces. She would live, and the sombergloom lifted out of the valley, and he felt relief that was pain. Thenhe roused to the call of action, to the many things he needed to doin the way of making camp fixtures and utensils, to the necessity ofhunting food, and the desire to explore the valley.

  But he decided to wait a few more days before going far from camp,because he fancied that the girl rested easier when she could see himnear at hand. And on the first day her languor appeared to leave her ina renewed grip of life. She awoke stronger from each short slumber; sheate greedily, and she moved about in her bed of boughs; and always, itseemed to Venters, her eyes followed him. He knew now that her recoverywould be rapid. She talked about the dogs, about the caves, the valley,about how hungry she was, till Venters silenced her, asking her to putoff further talk till another time. She obeyed, but she sat up in herbed, and her eyes roved to and fro, and always back to him.

  Upon the second morning she sat up when he awakened her, and would notpermit him to bathe her face and feed her, which actions she performedfor herself. She spoke little, however, and Venters was quick tocatch in her the first intimations of thoughtfulness and curiosity andappreciation of her situation. He left camp and took Whitie out tohunt for rabbits. Upon his return he was amazed and somewhat anxiouslyconcerned to see his invalid sitting with her back to a corner of thecave and her bare feet swinging out. Hurriedly he approached, intendingto advise her to lie down again, to tell her that perhaps she mightovertax her strength. The sun shone upon her, glinting on the littlehead with its tangle of bright hair and the small, oval face with itspallor, and dark-blue eyes underlined by dark-blue circles. She lookedat him and he looked at her. In that exchange of glances he imaginedeach saw the other in some different guise. It seemed impossible toVenters that this frail girl could be Oldring's Masked Rider. It flashedover him that he had made a mistake which presently she would explain.

  "Help me down," she said.

  "But--are you well enough?" he protested. "Wait--a little longer."

  "I'm weak--dizzy. But I want to get down."

  He lifted her--what a light burden now!--and stood her upright besidehim, and supported her as she essayed to walk with halting steps. Shewas like a stripling of a boy; the bright, small head scarcely reachedhis shoulder. But now, as she clung to his arm, the rider's costume shewore did not contradict, as it had done at first, his feeling of herfemininity. She might be the famous Masked Rider of the uplands, shemight resemble a boy; but her outline, her little hands and feet, herhair, her big eyes and tremulous lips, and especially a something thatVenters felt as a subtle essence rather than what he saw, proclaimed hersex.

  She soon tired. He arranged a comfortable seat for her under the sprucethat overspread the camp-fire.

  "Now tell me--everything," she said.

  He recounted all that had happened from the time of his discovery of therustlers in the canyon up to the present moment.

  "You shot me--and now you've saved my life?"

  "Yes. After almost killing you I've pulled you through."

  "Are you glad?"

  "I should say so!"

  Her eyes were unusually expressive, and they regarded him steadily; shewas unconscious of that mirroring of her emotions and they shone withgratefulness and interest and wonder and sadness.

  "Tell me--about yourself?" she asked.

  He made this a briefer story, telling of his coming to Utah, hisvarious occupations till he became a rider, and then how the Mormons hadpractically driven him out of Cottonwoods, an outcast.

  Then, no longer able to withstand his own burning curiosity, hequestioned her in turn.

  "Are you Oldring's Masked Rider?"

  "Yes," she replied, and dropped her eyes.

  "I knew it--I recognized your figure--and mask, for I saw you once.Yet I can't believe it!... But you never were really that rustler, as weriders knew him? A thief--a marauder--a kidnapper of women--a murdererof sleeping riders!"

  "No! I never stole--or harmed any one--in all my life. I only rode androde--"

  "But why--why?" he burst out. "W
hy the name? I understand Oldring madeyou ride. But the black mask--the mystery--the things laid to yourhands--the threats in your infamous name--the night-riding creditedto you--the evil deeds deliberately blamed on you and acknowledged byrustlers--even Oldring himself! Why? Tell me why?"

  "I never knew that," she answered low. Her drooping head straightened,and the large eyes, larger now and darker, met Venters's with a clear,steadfast gaze in which he read truth. It verified his own conviction.

  "Never knew? That's strange! Are you a Mormon?"

  "No."

  "Is Oldring a Mormon?"

  "No."

  "Do you--care for him?"

  "Yes. I hate his men--his life--sometimes I almost hate him!"

  Venters paused in his rapid-fire questioning, as if to brace him self toask for a truth that would be abhorrent for him to confirm, but which heseemed driven to hear.

  "What are--what were you to Oldring?"

  Like some delicate thing suddenly exposed to blasting heat, the girlwilted; her head dropped, and into her white, wasted cheeks crept thered of shame.

  Venters would have given anything to recall that question. It seemedso different--his thought when spoken. Yet her shame established in hismind something akin to the respect he had strangely been hungering tofeel for her.

  "D--n that question!--forget it!" he cried, in a passion of pain for herand anger at himself. "But once and for all--tell me--I know it, yet Iwant to hear you say so--you couldn't help yourself?"

  "Oh no."

  "Well, that makes it all right with me," he went on, honestly. "I--Iwant you to feel that... you see--we've been thrown together--and--and Iwant to help you--not hurt you. I thought life had been cruel to me, butwhen I think of yours I feel mean and little for my complaining. Anyway,I was a lonely outcast. And now!... I don't see very clearly what it allmeans. Only we are here--together. We've got to stay here, for long,surely till you are well. But you'll never go back to Oldring. And I'msure helping you will help me, for I was sick in mind. There's somethingnow for me to do. And if I can win back your strength--then get youaway, out of this wild country--help you somehow to a happier life--justthink how good that'll be for me!"