Riders of the Purple Sage

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER XIX. FAY

  At the home of Jane Withersteen Little Fay was climbing Lassiter's knee.

  "Does oo love me?" she asked.

  Lassiter, who was as serious with Fay as he was gentle and loving,assured her in earnest and elaborate speech that he was her devotedsubject. Fay looked thoughtful and appeared to be debating the duplicityof men or searching for a supreme test to prove this cavalier.

  "Does oo love my new muvver?" she asked, with bewildering suddenness.

  Jane Withersteen laughed, and for the first time in many a day she felta stir of her pulse and warmth in her cheek.

  It was a still drowsy summer of afternoon, and the three were sittingin the shade of the wooded knoll that faced the sage-slope. Little Fay'sbrief spell of unhappy longing for her mother--the childish, mysticgloom--had passed, and now where Fay was there were prattle and laughterand glee. She had emerged from sorrow to be the incarnation of joy andloveliness. She had grown supernaturally sweet and beautiful. For JaneWithersteen the child was an answer to prayer, a blessing, a possessioninfinitely more precious than all she had lost. For Lassiter, Janedivined that little Fay had become a religion.

  "Does oo love my new muvver?" repeated Fay.

  Lassiter's answer to this was a modest and sincere affirmative.

  "Why don't oo marry my new muvver an' be my favver?"

  Of the thousands of questions put by little Fay to Lassiter this was thefirst he had been unable to answer.

  "Fay--Fay, don't ask questions like that," said Jane.

  "Why?"

  "Because," replied Jane. And she found it strangely embarrassing to meetthe child's gaze. It seemed to her that Fay's violet eyes looked throughher with piercing wisdom.

  "Oo love him, don't oo?"

  "Dear child--run and play," said Jane, "but don't go too far. Don't gofrom this little hill."

  Fay pranced off wildly, joyous over freedom that had not been grantedher for weeks.

  "Jane, why are children more sincere than grown-up persons?" askedLassiter.

  "Are they?"

  "I reckon so. Little Fay there--she sees things as they appear on theface. An Indian does that. So does a dog. An' an Indian an' a dog aremost of the time right in what they see. Mebbe a child is always right."

  "Well, what does Fay see?" asked Jane.

  "I reckon you know. I wonder what goes on in Fay's mind when she seespart of the truth with the wise eyes of a child, an' wantin' to knowmore, meets with strange falseness from you? Wait! You are false in away, though you're the best woman I ever knew. What I want to say isthis. Fay has taken you're pretendin' to--to care for me for the thingit looks on the face. An' her little formin' mind asks questions. An'the answers she gets are different from the looks of things. So she'llgrow up gradually takin' on that falseness, an' be like the rest of thewomen, an' men, too. An' the truth of this falseness to life is provedby your appearin' to love me when you don't. Things aren't what theyseem."

  "Lassiter, you're right. A child should be told the absolute truth.But--is that possible? I haven't been able to do it, and all my lifeI've loved the truth, and I've prided myself upon being truthful. Maybethat was only egotism. I'm learning much, my friend. Some of thoseblinding scales have fallen from my eyes. And--and as to caring for you,I think I care a great deal. How much, how little, I couldn't say. Myheart is almost broken, Lassiter. So now is not a good time to judge ofaffection. I can still play and be merry with Fay. I can still dream.But when I attempt serious thought I'm dazed. I don't think. I don'tcare any more. I don't pray!... Think of that, my friend! But in spite ofmy numb feeling I believe I'll rise out of all this dark agony a betterwoman, with greater love of man and God. I'm on the rack now; I'msenseless to all but pain, and growing dead to that. Sooner or later Ishall rise out of this stupor. I'm waiting the hour."

  "It'll soon come, Jane," replied Lassiter, soberly. "Then I'm afraid foryou. Years are terrible things, an' for years you've been bound.Habit of years is strong as life itself. Somehow, though, I believe asyou--that you'll come out of it all a finer woman. I'm waitin', too. An'I'm wonderin'--I reckon, Jane, that marriage between us is out of allhuman reason?"

  "Lassiter!... My dear friend!... It's impossible for us to marry!"

  "Why--as Fay says?" inquired Lassiter, with gentle persistence.

  "Why! I never thought why. But it's not possible. I am Jane, daughter ofWithersteen. My father would rise out of his grave. I'm of Mormonbirth. I'm being broken. But I'm still a Mormon woman. And you--you areLassiter!"

  "Mebbe I'm not so much Lassiter as I used to be."

  "What was it you said? Habit of years is strong as life itself! Youcan't change the one habit--the purpose of your life. For you still packthose black guns! You still nurse your passion for blood."

  A smile, like a shadow, flickered across his face.

  "No."

  "Lassiter, I lied to you. But I beg of you--don't you lie to me. I'vegreat respect for you. I believe you're softened toward most, perhapsall, my people except--But when I speak of your purpose, your hate, yourguns, I have only him in mind. I don't believe you've changed."

  For answer he unbuckled the heavy cartridge-belt, and laid it with theheavy, swing gun-sheaths in her lap.

  "Lassiter!" Jane whispered, as she gazed from him to the black, coldguns. Without them he appeared shorn of strength, defenseless, a smallerman. Was she Delilah? Swiftly, conscious of only one motive--refusal tosee this man called craven by his enemies--she rose, and with blunderingfingers buckled the belt round his waist where it belonged.

  "Lassiter, I am a coward."

  "Come with me out of Utah--where I can put away my guns an' be a man,"he said. "I reckon I'll prove it to you then! Come! You've got BlackStar back, an' Night an' Bells. Let's take the racers an' little Fay,en' race out of Utah. The hosses an' the child are all you have left.Come!"

  "No, no, Lassiter. I'll never leave Utah. What would I do in the worldwith my broken fortunes and my broken heart? I'll never leave thesepurple slopes I love so well."

  "I reckon I ought to 've knowed that. Presently you'll be livin' downhere in a hovel, en' presently Jane Withersteen will be a memory. I onlywanted to have a chance to show you how a man--any man--can be better 'nhe was. If we left Utah I could prove--I reckon I could prove thisthing you call love. It's strange, an' hell an' heaven at once, JaneWithersteen. 'Pears to me that you've thrown away your big heart onlove--love of religion an' duty an' churchmen, an' riders an' poorfamilies an' poor children! Yet you can't see what love is--how itchanges a person!... Listen, an' in tellin' you Milly Erne's story I'llshow you how love changed her.

  "Milly an' me was children when our family moved from Missouri to Texas,an' we growed up in Texas ways same as if we'd been born there. We hadbeen poor, an' there we prospered. In time the little village where wewent became a town, an' strangers an' new families kept movin' in. Millywas the belle them days. I can see her now, a little girl no bigger 'na bird, an' as pretty. She had the finest eyes, dark blue-black when shewas excited, an' beautiful all the time. You remember Milly's eyes! An'she had light-brown hair with streaks of gold, an' a mouth that everyfeller wanted to kiss.

  "An' about the time Milly was the prettiest an' the sweetest, along camea young minister who began to ride some of a race with the other fellersfor Milly. An' he won. Milly had always been strong on religion, an'when she met Frank Erne she went in heart an' soul for the salvation ofsouls. Fact was, Milly, through study of the Bible an' attendin' churchan' revivals, went a little out of her head. It didn't worry the oldfolks none, an' the only worry to me was Milly's everlastin' prayin' an'workin' to save my soul. She never converted me, but we was the bestof comrades, an' I reckon no brother an' sister ever loved each otherbetter. Well, Frank Erne an me hit up a great friendship. He was astrappin' feller, good to look at, an' had the most pleasin' ways. Hisreligion never bothered me, for he could hunt an' fish an' ride an' be agood feller. After buffalo once, he come pretty near to savin' my life.W
e got to be thick as brothers, an' he was the only man I ever seen whoI thought was good enough for Milly. An' the day they were married I gotdrunk for the only time in my life.

  "Soon after that I left home--it seems Milly was the only one who couldkeep me home--an' I went to the bad, as to prosperin' I saw some prettyhard life in the Pan Handle, an' then I went North. In them days Kansasan' Nebraska was as bad, come to think of it, as these days right hereon the border of Utah. I got to be pretty handy with guns. An'there wasn't many riders as could beat me ridin'. An' I can say allmodest-like that I never seen the white man who could track a hoss or asteer or a man with me. Afore I knowed it two years slipped by, an' allat once I got homesick, en' purled a bridle south.

  "Things at home had changed. I never got over that homecomin'. Motherwas dead an' in her grave. Father was a silent, broken man, killedalready on his feet. Frank Erne was a ghost of his old self, throughwith workin', through with preachin', almost through with livin', an'Milly was gone!... It was a long time before I got the story. Father hadno mind left, an' Frank Erne was afraid to talk. So I had to pick upwhet 'd happened from different people.

  "It 'pears that soon after I left home another preacher come to thelittle town. An' he an' Frank become rivals. This feller was differentfrom Frank. He preached some other kind of religion, and he was quickan' passionate, where Frank was slow an' mild. He went after people,women specially. In looks he couldn't compare to Frank Erne, but he hadpower over women. He had a voice, an' he talked an' talked an' preachedan' preached. Milly fell under his influence.. She became mightilyinterested in his religion. Frank had patience with her, as was his way,an' let her be as interested as she liked. All religions were devoted toone God, he said, an' it wouldn't hurt Milly none to study a differentpoint of view. So the new preacher often called on Milly, an' sometimesin Frank's absence. Frank was a cattle-man between Sundays.

  "Along about this time an incident come off that I couldn't get muchlight on. A stranger come to town, an' was seen with the preacher. Thisstranger was a big man with an eye like blue ice, an' a beard of gold.He had money, an' he 'peered a man of mystery, an' the town went tobuzzin' when he disappeared about the same time as a young womanknown to be mightily interested in the new preacher's religion. Then,presently, along comes a man from somewheres in Illinois, en' he up an'spots this preacher as a famous Mormon proselyter. That riled Frank Erneas nothin' ever before, an' from rivals they come to be bitter enemies.An' it ended in Frank goin' to the meetin'-house where Millywas listenin', en' before her en' everybody else he called thatpreacher--called him, well, almost as hard as Venters called Tull heresometime back. An' Frank followed up that call with a hosswhippin', en'he drove the proselyter out of town.

  "People noticed, so 'twas said, that Milly's sweet disposition changed.Some said it was because she would soon become a mother, en' otherssaid she was pinin' after the new religion. An' there was women whosaid right out that she was pinin' after the Mormon. Anyway, one mornin'Frank rode in from one of his trips, to find Milly gone. He had no realnear neighbors--livin' a little out of town--but those who was nearestsaid a wagon had gone by in the night, an' they thought it stopped at herdoor. Well, tracks always tell, an' there was the wagon tracks an' hosstracks an' man tracks. The news spread like wildfire that Milly had runoff from her husband. Everybody but Frank believed it an' wasn't slow intellin' why she run off. Mother had always hated that strange streak ofMilly's, takin' up with the new religion as she had, an' she believedMilly ran off with the Mormon. That hastened mother's death, an' shedied unforgivin'. Father wasn't the kind to bow down under disgrace ormisfortune but he had surpassin' love for Milly, an' the loss of herbroke him.

  "From the minute I heard of Milly's disappearance I never believed shewent off of her own free will. I knew Milly, an' I knew she couldn'thave done that. I stayed at home awhile, tryin' to make Frank Erne talk.But if he knowed anythin' then he wouldn't tell it. So I set out to findMilly. An' I tried to get on the trail of that proselyter. I knew if Iever struck a town he'd visited that I'd get a trail. I knew, too, thatnothin' short of hell would stop his proselytin'. An' I rode from townto town. I had a blind faith that somethin' was guidin' me. An' as theweeks an' months went by I growed into a strange sort of a man, I guess.Anyway, people were afraid of me. Two years after that, way over in acorner of Texas, I struck a town where my man had been. He'd jest left.People said he came to that town without a woman. I back-trailed my manthrough Arkansas an' Mississippi, an' the old trail got hot again inTexas. I found the town where he first went after leavin' home. An' hereI got track of Milly. I found a cabin where she had given birth to herbaby. There was no way to tell whether she'd been kept a prisoner ornot. The feller who owned the place was a mean, silent sort of a skunk,an' as I was leavin' I jest took a chance an' left my mark on him. ThenI went home again.

  "It was to find I hadn't any home, no more. Father had been dead a year.Frank Erne still lived in the house where Milly had left him. I stayedwith him awhile, an' I grew old watchin' him. His farm had gone to weed,his cattle had strayed or been rustled, his house weathered till itwouldn't keep out rain nor wind. An' Frank set on the porch and whittledsticks, an' day by day wasted away. There was times when he ranted aboutlike a crazy man, but mostly he was always sittin' an' starin' with eyesthat made a man curse. I figured Frank had a secret fear that I neededto know. An' when I told him I'd trailed Milly for near three years an'had got trace of her, an' saw where she'd had her baby, I thought hewould drop dead at my feet. An' when he'd come round more natural-likehe begged me to give up the trail. But he wouldn't explain. So I let himalone, an' watched him day en' night.

  "An' I found there was one thing still precious to him, an' it was alittle drawer where he kept his papers. This was in the room where heslept. An' it 'peered he seldom slept. But after bein' patient I got thecontents of that drawer an' found two letters from Milly. One was a longletter written a few months after her disappearance. She had been boundan' gagged an' dragged away from her home by three men, an' she namedthem--Hurd, Metzger, Slack. They was strangers to her. She was takento the little town where I found trace of her two years after. But shedidn't send the letter from that town. There she was penned in. 'Pearedthat the proselytes, who had, of course, come on the scene, was notrunnin' any risks of losin' her. She went on to say that for a timeshe was out of her head, an' when she got right again all that kepther alive was the baby. It was a beautiful baby, she said, an' all shethought an' dreamed of was somehow to get baby back to its father, an'then she'd thankfully lay down and die. An' the letter ended abrupt, inthe middle of a sentence, en' it wasn't signed.

  "The second letter was written more than two years after the first. Itwas from Salt Lake City. It simply said that Milly had heard her brotherwas on her trail. She asked Frank to tell her brother to give up thesearch because if he didn't she would suffer in a way too horribleto tell. She didn't beg. She just stated a fact an' made the simplerequest. An' she ended that letter by sayin' she would soon leave SaltLake City with the man she had come to love, en' would never be heard ofagain.

  "I recognized Milly's handwritin', an' I recognized her way of puttin'things. But that second letter told me of some great change in her.Ponderin' over it, I felt at last she'd either come to love that felleran' his religion, or some terrible fear made her lie an' say so. Icouldn't be sure which. But, of course, I meant to find out. I'll sayhere, if I'd known Mormons then as I do now I'd left Milly to her fate.For mebbe she was right about what she'd suffer if I kept on her trail.But I was young an' wild them days. First I went to the town where she'dfirst been taken, an' I went to the place where she'd been kept. I gotthat skunk who owned the place, an' took him out in the woods, an' madehim tell all he knowed. That wasn't much as to length, but it was purehell's-fire in substance. This time I left him some incapacitated forany more skunk work short of hell. Then I hit the trail for Utah.

  "That was fourteen years ago. I saw the incomin' of most of the Mormons.It was a wild c
ountry an' a wild time. I rode from town to town, villageto village, ranch to ranch, camp to camp. I never stayed long in oneplace. I never had but one idea. I never rested. Four years went by, an'I knowed every trail in northern Utah. I kept on an' as time went by,an' I'd begun to grow old in my search, I had firmer, blinder faith inwhatever was guidin' me. Once I read about a feller who sailed the sevenseas an' traveled the world, an' he had a story to tell, an' whenever heseen the man to whom he must tell that story he knowed him on sight. Iwas like that, only I had a question to ask. An' always I knew the manof whom I must ask. So I never really lost the trail, though for manyyears it was the dimmest trail ever followed by any man.

  "Then come a change in my luck. Along in Central Utah I rounded up Hurd,an' I whispered somethin' in his ear, an' watched his face, an' thenthrowed a gun against his bowels. An' he died with his teeth so tightshut I couldn't have pried them open with a knife. Slack an' Metzgerthat same year both heard me whisper the same question, an' neitherwould they speak a word when they lay dyin'. Long before I'd learnedno man of this breed or class--or God knows what--would give up anysecrets! I had to see in a man's fear of death the connections withMilly Erne's fate. An' as the years passed at long intervals I wouldfind such a man.

  "So as I drifted on the long trail down into southern Utah my namepreceded me, an' I had to meet a people prepared for me, an' ready withguns. They made me a gun-man. An' that suited me. In all this time signsof the proselyter an' the giant with the blue-ice eyes an' the goldbeard seemed to fade dimmer out of the trail. Only twice in ten yearsdid I find a trace of that mysterious man who had visited the proselyterat my home village. What he had to do with Milly's fate was beyond allhope for me to learn, unless my guidin' spirit led me to him! As forthe other man, I knew, as sure as I breathed en' the stars shone en' thewind blew, that I'd meet him some day.

  "Eighteen years I've been on the trail. An' it led me to the last lonelyvillages of the Utah border. Eighteen years!... I feel pretty old now. Iwas only twenty when I hit that trail. Well, as I told you, back here aways a Gentile said Jane Withersteen could tell me about Milly Erne an'show me her grave!"

  The low voice ceased, and Lassiter slowly turned his sombrero round andround, and appeared to be counting the silver ornaments on the band.Jane, leaning toward him, sat as if petrified, listening intently,waiting to hear more. She could have shrieked, but power of tongue andlips were denied her. She saw only this sad, gray, passion-worn man, andshe heard only the faint rustling of the leaves.

  "Well, I came to Cottonwoods," went on Lassiter, "an' you showed meMilly's grave. An' though your teeth have been shut tighter 'n them ofall the dead men lyin' back along that trail, jest the same you told methe secret I've lived these eighteen years to hear! Jane, I said you'dtell me without ever me askin'. I didn't need to ask my question here.The day, you remember, when that fat party throwed a gun on me in yourcourt, an'--"

  "Oh! Hush!" whispered Jane, blindly holding up her hands.

  "I seen in your face that Dyer, now a bishop, was the proselyter whoruined Milly Erne."

  For an instant Jane Withersteen's brain was a whirling chaos and sherecovered to find herself grasping at Lassiter like one drowning. And asif by a lightning stroke she sprang from her dull apathy into exquisitetorture.

  "It's a lie! Lassiter! No, no!" she moaned. "I swear--you're wrong!"

  "Stop! You'd perjure yourself! But I'll spare you that. You poor woman!Still blind! Still faithful!... Listen. I know. Let that settle it. An' Igive up my purpose!"

  "What is it--you say?"

  "I give up my purpose. I've come to see an' feel differently. I can'thelp poor Milly. An' I've outgrowed revenge. I've come to see I can beno judge for men. I can't kill a man jest for hate. Hate ain't the samewith me since I loved you and little Fay."

  "Lassiter! You mean you won't kill him?" Jane whispered.

  "No."

  "For my sake?"

  "I reckon. I can't understand, but I'll respect your feelin's."

  "Because you--oh, because you love me?... Eighteen years! You were thatterrible Lassiter! And now--because you love me?"

  "That's it, Jane."

  "Oh, you'll make me love you! How can I help but love you? My heart mustbe stone. But--oh, Lassiter, wait, wait! Give me time. I'm not what Iwas. Once it was so easy to love. Now it's easy to hate. Wait! My faithin God--some God--still lives. By it I see happier times for you, poorpassion-swayed wanderer! For me--a miserable, broken woman. I loved yoursister Milly. I will love you. I can't have fallen so low--I can't beso abandoned by God--that I've no love left to give you. Wait! Let usforget Milly's sad life. Ah, I knew it as no one else on earth! There'sone thing I shall tell you--if you are at my death-bed, but I can'tspeak now."

  "I reckon I don't want to hear no more," said Lassiter.

  Jane leaned against him, as if some pent-up force had rent its wayout, she fell into a paroxysm of weeping. Lassiter held her in silentsympathy. By degrees she regained composure, and she was rising,sensible of being relieved of a weighty burden, when a sudden start onLassiter's part alarmed her.

  "I heard hosses--hosses with muffled hoofs!" he said; and he got upguardedly.

  "Where's Fay?" asked Jane, hurriedly glancing round the shady knoll. Thebright-haired child, who had appeared to be close all the time, was notin sight.

  "Fay!" called Jane.

  No answering shout of glee. No patter of flying feet. Jane saw Lassiterstiffen.

  "Fay--oh--Fay!" Jane almost screamed.

  The leaves quivered and rustled; a lonesome cricket chirped in thegrass, a bee hummed by. The silence of the waning afternoon breathedhateful portent. It terrified Jane. When had silence been so infernal?

  "She's--only--strayed--out--of earshot," faltered Jane, looking atLassiter.

  Pale, rigid as a statue, the rider stood, not in listening, searchingposture, but in one of doomed certainty. Suddenly he grasped Jane withan iron hand, and, turning his face from her gaze, he strode with herfrom the knoll.

  "See--Fay played here last--a house of stones an' sticks.... An' here'sa corral of pebbles with leaves for hosses," said Lassiter, stridently,and pointed to the ground. "Back an' forth she trailed here.... See,she's buried somethin'--a dead grasshopper--there's a tombstone... hereshe went, chasin' a lizard--see the tiny streaked trail... she pulledbark off this cottonwood... look in the dust of the path--the letters youtaught her--she's drawn pictures of birds en' hosses an' people.... Look,a cross! Oh, Jane, your cross!"

  Lassiter dragged Jane on, and as if from a book read the meaning oflittle Fay's trail. All the way down the knoll, through the shrubbery,round and round a cottonwood, Fay's vagrant fancy left records of hersweet musings and innocent play. Long had she lingered round a bird-nestto leave therein the gaudy wing of a butterfly. Long had she playedbeside the running stream sending adrift vessels freighted with pebblycargo. Then she had wandered through the deep grass, her tiny feetscarcely turning a fragile blade, and she had dreamed beside some oldfaded flowers. Thus her steps led her into the broad lane. The littledimpled imprints of her bare feet showed clean-cut in the dust they wenta little way down the lane; and then, at a point where they stopped, thegreat tracks of a man led out from the shrubbery and returned.