Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 845
“Suppose we tell Elliot to go where it’s hot,” suggested Janey.
“I wish I could. But I must have bread and butter, and some clean clothes occasionally,” he returned.
“Phillip, do you always expect to be poor?” she asked.
“I hope not. I have my dream. But I suppose I really always will be.”
“Too bad. But I don’t know. Money is a curse, they say. Personally, I don’t see it... Do you know I am rich?”
“No. Your father, of course. But are you, too?”
“Yes, disgustingly rich. My mother left me several hundred thousand dollars when she died.”
“Good Lord!” ejaculated Randolph. “Your father never told me that.”
“Well, it’s true. And Dad tells me it has nearly doubled. You see I can’t touch the whole principle until I’m twenty-five. I have only the income from it — fifty thousand or so a year — and I confess, I’m broke half the time. I’m always borrowing from Dad.”
“Janey, are you honest, now?”
“Assuredly. I certainly wouldn’t string you about money.”
“Damn him, anyway,” declared Randolph, forcefully, with a violent gesture.
“Who? Dad?” she asked, innocently.
But Randolph did not answer and there was an immediate change in his demeanor. He prepared supper in silence, and remained glum during the eating of it. She partook heartily of the good meal, and then left Randolph to himself. By this time the early twilight was creeping under the walls and it would soon be night. Janey strolled a little on the edge of the bank. She saw one lone star come wondrously out of the paling pink. Fair as a star when only one was shining in the sky! She had read that somewhere. Wordsworth, perhaps. What would he or Tennyson or Ruskin make out of Beckyshibeta? There was nothing in Europe to compare with the canyon country. Janey felt proud of that.
As it grew dark she returned to the campfire. Randolph had disappeared. She looked into the opal heart of the embers and saw beautiful disturbing visions there. Then she climbed up the rock to her bed.
As she sat down on it she was surprised to find it high and soft. Upon examination she discovered a foot layer of cedar boughs under it. How fragrant! Randolph must have done that right after supper. He was a paradox. He had handled her roughly, had driven her to the limit of endurance, yet he was thoughtful of her comfort. But the new bed certainly was a relief and a joy. Janey sighed for some soft woolly pajamas. But she had to sleep in her clothes. After removing her shoes, she decided she would take off her stockings, too.
She crawled in between the blankets, and knew in her heart she would not have exchanged them for silk sheets. Weary, aching as she was, she could not wish it otherwise. She had never actually experienced rest. She had never been sufficiently aware of comfort, ease. They had been habits, with no reason for them. Here they served a wonderful blessing, a reward.
Where had Randolph gone? It had upset him to learn she was rich. Janey could not figure out just why. No one would take him for a fortune hunter. It would be more embarrassing, of course, to compromise a wealthy girl than a poor one, simply because marriage would not have such a sacrificial look. Every hour of this adventure had enhanced its romance, augmented its possibilities for delight as well as pain. What would the new day bring?
CHAPTER 8
JANEY HAD BEEN alone all morning. For several hours she had welcomed the solitude. She had not seen Randolph, who had called to her that he was leaving her breakfast on the fire. If anything she was more stiff and sore than ever, but the pangs wore off more quickly with the use of her muscles. About noon she began to feel relief.
She simply could not get over Randolph leaving her to her own devices. Beckyshibeta was more to him than she was. That both irritated and pleased Janey. But of course she would not stand for it. So she set out to hunt him up.
The day was lovely, although when she emerged into full sunshine, which was seldom, it was hot. The fragrant smells of summer wafted down into the canyon, mingling the sweetness of sage with wild flowers and fresh green verdure. The creek had run down and was no longer a roaring torrent. Janey thought she could wade in it if she wanted to. It would have been nothing for a horse.
When she walked away from camp under these magnificent walls, she became somebody else. She grew pensive, dreamy, absorbed and happy. No use to deny her feelings! Only she did not want Randolph to see them. A confusing thing, too, was the fact that under their spell she had to force herself to be true to her old inclinations. Therefore she refused to realize, or at least to seek to understand, the elevating power of this strange canyon wilderness. She could not help sensation. She had to see, to feel, to smell the place, and even to taste the sweetness of the dry desert air.
By the time she had worked her way round the second jutting wall, where Randolph had been digging, she was warmed by the exertion and free of stiff joints. In truth she felt fine. Randolph had abandoned this cavern. So Janey went on, to encounter the most difficult and hazardous climbing over rocks that the kidnaping escapade had led her to.. There was a thrill in it. How gratified she felt to surmount the last rock pile! She discerned Randolph about on a level with her. But the canyon jumped off deep below him and zigzagged in wonderful hair-raising ledges beyond.
Randolph did not see Janey. She had opportunity to approach him by way of a dangerous ledge before he would be aware of her presence. High places did not bother Janey. She was level-headed and cool, and reveled in taking risks.
When she got about halfway to him, however, she had to halt. She was getting in trouble and faced inclines that made even a girl of her bravery quail. So she sank down to rest and gaze.
The canyon opened wide. It was much vaster and wilder than that part of Beckyshibeta where Randolph had pitched the camp. Janey felt something pull at her heartstrings. Was not this desert fastness simply marvelous? But to look down now made her shiver. She had been aware of the gradual height she had attained. Below, a hundred feet or more, spread a slope of talus, a jumble of broken rock that fell roughly down to the green thicket. She almost forgot Randolph and her mission in a realizing worship.
Randolph’s pick, ringing steel on stone, brought Janey back. She discovered a ledge above her where no doubt Randolph had crossed to the wide area beyond. Coming to a narrowed point, she got on hands and knees, and began to crawl out. She knocked some loose rocks off the ledge. They rattled down. Janey swore. Randolph heard the rattling and turned to look up.
Flinging aside his pick he ran forward to the end of the bench.
“Stop!” he shouted.
Janey obeyed, more from suggestion than anything else. She gazed across the void at Randolph.
“Howdy, Phil,” she called, gaily. “Didn’t I tell you not to follow me?” he said, angrily.
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes you do.”
“All right, then I do.”
“You turn round very carefully and go back,” he ordered. “Be careful... You’ll turn my hair gray!”
“That’d make you very handsome and distinguished looking,” replied Janey.
“Go back!” he shouted, sternly.
“Not on your life!” retorted Janey, and started to crawl again. She was approaching the narrowed part. It might have daunted her before, but now she could have managed a more hazardous place.
“Stop! Turn back!” thundered Randolph. This was pouring oil upon the flame. “You go to the devil!” cried Janey, and kept on crawling. She passed the risky point without a tremor or a slip, and presently, reaching the bench, she stood up before Randolph in cool triumph.
“If you do that again, I’ll I’ll—” he choked.
“That was a cinch,” replied Janey, coolly. “My stockings are thin, though, and the rock hurt my knees.”
She rubbed them ruefully, quite unabashed by Randolph’s staring.
“You’ll fall and kill yourself,” he stormed.
“No, nix, never, not little Janey. I did tumbling in my class at college. That little jaunt across there was just an exercise in coordination, that’s all.”
“I tell you it was extremely dangerous,” expostulated Randolph.
“We’ll always disagree, Phil. I imagine life together for us will be one long sweet hell.”
“No it won’t. I might have entertained such an idiotic idea once, but it’s dispelled.”
“We needn’t discuss the future now. I’ve begun to reconcile my — myself to this and you. Don’t spoil it... Did you have a nice dig this morning?”
“Come. I’ll help you back over this ledge. Then you go to camp and stay there,” he said, peremptorily.
“No, I won’t. I want to be with you.”
“Very sorry, but I don’t want you here.”
“Why? I’ll sit still and watch you, and be quiet.”
“No!”
“Please, Phil,” she pleaded.
“I couldn’t work with your big eyes mocking me. You make me remember I’m only a poor struggling archaeologist.”
“But you brought me here.”
“Yes, and I’d — I’m damned sorry for it. Someday I’ll tell you why I did it.”
“Are you repudiating your — your, well, your interest in me?” she queried, with hauteur.
“Call spades, spades,” he returned. “You mean my love for you. No, I don’t repudiate that. I’m not ashamed of it, though it has made me a fool.”
“Oh! Then there’s another reason why you brought me to Beckyshibeta?” she went on, gravely. It seemed to Janey that there was no use in trying to stall off the inevitable. Things tumbled over one another in a hurry to drive her. Pretty soon she would get sore and face them.
“Yes, there’s another, and of that I am ashamed. But come, get out of here and leave me in peace.”
“Mr. Randolph,” said Janey, now haughtily. “Has it occurred to you that I ought not to be left alone — entirely aside from my loneliness?”
“No, it hasn’t,” he returned, clenching his hands, and gazing helplessly down at the river.
“Well, you’re rather dense. Some Indian or desperado — anybody might come. They could get across now, I think.”
“No one ever comes here. At least, very seldom, and then I know they’re coming. You’re quite safe. And certainly you don’t want my society.”
“It is rather dreadful. But I’ll stand it awhile. I’ll stay here until you get ready to go back to camp,” replied Janey, airily, and she promptly sat down.
Randolph took her hand and pulled at her. “Come,” he said, trying to control his temper.
“Let go, or we’ll have another fight,” she warned. “The other time I didn’t hit below the belt or bite.”
He gave up. “Very well, if you’re that mulish, stay. But look here, you spoiled brat if you cross this dangerous place again you’ll be sorry.”
“Why will I?” asked Janey, immensely interested.
“Because you’ll get what you should have had — long ago and many a time.”
“And what’s that, teacher?”
“A damned good spanking.”
Janey could not believe him serious, yet he looked amazingly so. But that was only temper — a bluff to rout her utterly. It was so preposterous that she laughed in his face.
“Mr. Randolph, pardon my laughing, but you are so crude — so original,” she said, and here the Janey Endicott of Long Island spoke in spite of her.
Perhaps nothing else she could have said would have stung him so bitterly.
“I have no doubt of it. All the same, I meant what I said. We are in Arizona now. And if you can’t see the difference between real life and modern froth, I’m sorry for you. Most of America is too far gone for a good, healthy spanking. It has, I might say, a vastly different kind of interest in a young woman’s anatomy. But among the few pioneers left in the West, thank God, there are parents who are still old-fashioned. I’m not a parent. All the same I can make myself into one, and give you damn well what you need.”
He strode away to his work leaving Janey for once at a loss for words. It took some moments for Janey to recover her egotism. Randolph must be having hallucinations. She would put him to the test presently.
Sauntering closer to the middle of the wide bench, where he was plying his pick, she found as restful a seat as appeared available. It would tantalize him to have her so near, watching, as he called it, with her mocking eyes. She confessed to herself, however, that her interest in his work was growing keenly sincere. She truly wanted him to find Beckyshibeta.
“Phillip, how will you know when you strike this buried pueblo?” she asked, suddenly. “What will it be like?”
“I’d know the instant I struck my pick in it,” he replied, with surprising animation. Randolph evidently was quick to recover from anger or slight.
“You would, of course, but how would I know?”
He gave her a depreciating glance.
“Well, judging by the intelligence you’ve shown lately, you never would know a pueblo. Not if you fell into a kiva!”
“Ah — huh! Gee, I’m a bright girl... What’s a kiva?”
“It’s a deep circular hole in the ground, covered by a roof, with an entrance. Used by the cliff dwellers—”
Janey interrupted him. All she had to do was to ask a question of an archaeological nature and he forgot everything else.
“Then if you disappear suddenly I’m to search for your remains in a kiva? Very appropriate end for you, I’d say.”
Randolph went back to work and though Janey pestered him with questions he apparently did not hear them. She grew provocative. He gave no heed. Then she called him mummy hunter, grave robber, bone digger and like names. Finally, she resorted to “cradle snatcher,” but that glanced off his thick hide, too.
“Say,” she concluded in disgust, “if I offered to kiss you, would you talk?”
“Yes,” he flashed, swiftly facing her with a gleam in his eye.
“Oh! Well, I withhold the offer, but I’m glad you’re not altogether a dead one.”
“Janey Endicott, you’re an unmitigated fraud,” he returned. “Also, you are a teaser.”
“I don’t like the sound of that last word. Where did you hear that?”
“It’s a term I heard in New York. I gathered that it was applicable to a young woman who enticed with false smiles and words and suggestions. Who allured with all feminine — I should say female powers — and never gave a single thing she promised.”
“Philip, you are calling a turn on all women from Eve to Mata Hari... Say,” she burst out suddenly, “I’ll bet you a new saddle to a pair of gauntlets that I make you swallow your slight.”
“You’re on, Miss Endicott,” he declared. “I’ll enjoy riding that saddle, and remembering this winter, while you are back in New York—”
“Doing what?” she interposed, as he hesitated.
But he dropped his head and returned to his interrupted digging.
“I’ll finish it for you,” she added with scorn. “While I am idling, flirting, dancing, sleeping away the beautiful sunrise hours, wasting money, drinking — and worse!”
She saw him flinch, then his jaw set, but that was all the satisfaction she got. Janey had an unreasonable longing to hear him passionately deny at least some of these vices for her. But he did not. He believed them — perhaps now thought the very worst of her. This was what she had desired, yet most inconsistently, she would have preferred him to defend her as he had to her father.
Janey let him alone for a while, although her contemplative gaze often returned from the lofty crags and wonderful walls to his strong, stooping figure, and his tireless labor.
When the enchantment of the canyon began once more to lay hold of her, with its transforming magic, she had recourse to a very devil of perversity and provocation. Studying the ledges and slopes of all this great section of ruined wall she at last noted a narrow strip where even a goat might have had difficulties. It led toward another projecting corner of red wall, beyond which another and larger level beckoned with a strange spell. Janey studied the place a long time. She had reason to believe that Randolph had not worked any farther than where he now stood. She yielded to an unaccountable impulse to gain that level.
Rising, she took occasion to stroll around in front of Randolph, then up to the edge of the amphitheater and in the direction of a rounded wall which led toward the objective point.
The ring of Randolph’s pick ceased. Janey missed it with infinite satisfaction.
“Janey, where are you going?” he demanded. “Didn’t I—”
She crossed the rim of curved wall and gained the near end of the narrow strip. How fearful the depth below looked.
“Hold on!” yelled Randolph, his boots thudding over the rock.
Then Janey turned. “Don’t dare come another step!” she cried, more than defiantly.
Randolph halted short, perhaps a matter of fifty steps from her.
“Please, come back.”
“I’m going across to the next bench.”
“Janey! That is worse than this other place. I have never risked beyond where you are now. Honest. It is more treacherous than it looks.”
“I don’t care.”
“My God, girl, if you should slip! Have you no sense?”
“You’ll have only yourself to blame.”
Randolph struggled as if resisting a temptation to leap. He was silent a full moment. Janey saw his expression and color change.
“You damned little fool!” he roared, at last. “Come back!”
“Nothing doing, Phil,” she taunted. “Come back!” The stentorian voice only inflamed Janey the more.
“Say, how’d you get like that?”
Randolph started for her and strode halfway round the curved rim wall before he halted. Janey backed upon the narrow strip, an exceedingly risky move, but her blood was up and she had no fear. He saw and stopped as if struck.
