Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 870
“Then about the way Ben whipped him?”
“Nope. All I think about that is Setter deserved it good an’ plenty,” he returned, somewhat grimly.
“Oh, Dad!” Ina had to bite her lips to restrain impulsive and perhaps self-betraying utterance. “Then — doesn’t it make you thoughtful — the way Setter lied?”
“Lass, I’m afraid to think,” said Blaine, bluntly. “I’m up to my neck in deals with Setter. He has my paper for thousands. I can’t back out. I must go on.... Now, about the fight I’ll say this. I knowed there’d be one. I advised Setter. What surprises me an’ does make me thoughtful is that Ben Ide didn’t kill him.”
“Dad, I think I know why,” murmured Ina, and then she fled to hide her face.
From the safe sanctity of her tent she heard Marvie’s shrill voice in protest:
“Dad, what’re you lickin’ me for?”
“Reckon for runnin’ off when I told you to stay home,” was the stern rejoinder.
Then followed sundry slaps and cracks, and shuffling sounds, pierced by Marvie’s wail: “I’ll never — do it — no more!”
CHAPTER IX
INA’S FATHER LEFT for Klamath Falls and was absent four days, during which period Mr. Setter did not show himself, at least away from the ranch.
Marvie took his whipping more as a disgrace than a punishment, and appeared more rebellious than ever. He coaxed Ina to ride with him over to Forlorn River, and never guessed that her calm refusal hid a tremendous tumult of temptation. Ina yearned to see Ben Ide, but she could not yet bring herself to go to him, though she knew he was not likely to approach her without invitation.
Mr. Blaine returned from his trip accompanied by Sheriff Strobel of Hammell. Ina was filled with consternation and alarm. Her father proved evasive and stern: perhaps something untoward had happened in Klamath or Hammell. Ina determined to find out. Sheriff Strobel was a tall, rangy man with a big, sandy moustache and keen, grey eyes. He wore a huge black sombrero and did not appear to own a coat. Ina took his measure in one intuitive survey, and watching her chance, she contrived to meet him alone, in her father’s office.
“Mr. Strobel, will you talk to me a little?” she asked, earnestly, with her most appealing smile.
“Now, Miss Ina, I’d be de-lighted,” he replied in kindly interest and humour. “I’d like to make these young buck cowboys jealous.”
“I’m terribly serious. Your coming here — frightens me,” she said, gravely looking up into his clear grey eyes. “Did my father fetch you here?”
“No. Reckon I come on my own invitation,” he returned. “Father told you of that — that terrible fight?” she went on, hurriedly.
“Yes, but not till we were on the way out.”
“Oh — that relieves me.... Please tell me why you came.”
“Wal, Miss Ina, the ranchers round Hammell, your dad an’ Amos Ide in particular, want this cattle-stealin’ band broke up. I sent deputies roundabout through the hills, an’ I’m goin’ on to Silver Meadow. There’s one gang of rustlers operatin’ up that way.”
“Silver Meadow. Is that near the lava beds?”
“No. Silver Meadow is straight up Forlorn River forty miles, I reckon. The lava beds are west of Tule Lake.”
His searching eyes inspired Ina with trust. He seemed curious, respectful, sympathetic.
“Mr. Strobel,” she began, eloquently, “Ben Ide and I were once schoolmate friends. I have come home after four years’ absence to find him an outcast. Lying tongues have made him out a — a thief. It’s criminal. Ben loves wild life — the chasing of horses, particularly. But he’s honest. I know, Mr. Strobel. This is no silly girl sentiment.... I’ve talked with Ben and I’m going to stand by him.”
“Wal, wal, Miss Ina, ‘pears like Ben ain’t so bad off for friends,” replied Strobel, his penetrating gaze on her. He spoke constrainedly, but there seemed to be something behind his speech.
Swiftly then Ina told the story of Setter’s visit to Ben and the fight exactly as she had heard it related by Bill Sneed. Roused as she was, with faculties intensely keen, she was quick to see a subtle effect of the narrative upon the sheriff.
“Your dad didn’t tell it that way,” he said, quietly.
“No, I dare say he wouldn’t. But I’ve told you word for word,” replied Ina, forcibly. “Get hold of Bill Sneed. Hear it from him. Setter will swear Bill is in with Ben. But Bill never saw Ben Ide until the other day. He’s straight. Setter couldn’t corrupt him.”
“Wal, now, Miss Ina, I reckon I’m to understand you’re a secret deputy of mine?” he queried, with a droll, shrewd smile.
Ina’s heart bounded at the significance of his words. “I am — if you’ll have me,” she replied, in breathless surprise.
“Wal, we’ll shake on that.... Reckon I’m proud to have you. An’ I’m not underratin’ your value. A smart woman beats a man all hollow for figgerin’ things you can’t see. Now give me your angle on this Less Setter. Remember any confidences will never pass me.”
“Very well, then. First I’ll give you my personal angle, as you call it,” returned Ina, warmly. “Less Setter is a bad man, morally I mean. I felt that before I knew it. He insulted Hettie Ide once — frightened her terribly another time. Where women are concerned he is brazen, unscrupulous, treacherous. His advances toward me were at first smooth, flattering. Then when he found he made no headway with me, so to speak, he changed his tactics. Briefly, he made violent love to me — waylaid me on all possible occasions. It wasn’t safe for me to go anywhere alone.”
“Miss Ina!” exclaimed the sheriff, incredulously. “You mean — he would have laid hold of you?”
“My dear Mr. Strobel,” replied Ina, almost impatiently, “I’m telling you as plainly as I know how. He did lay hold of me, more than once. But I’m strong — and, well, I got away from him.”
She thought no less of this man that his bronze face grew like iron and he cursed under his breath.
“Lately Setter’s attitude toward me has changed somewhat,” went on Ina. “There’s a hint of possession in it. I think he means marriage now. At first that never entered his mind.”
Strobel’s mute acceptance of these statements left no doubt in Ina’s mind that she had been wise to confide in him. Intuitively she felt more of his stand than he realised on the moment.
“Now as to what I think,” she hurried on, “you must take for what it’s worth. Dad’s sudden rise from hard times if not actual poverty — his opportunities to make money have gone to his head. Dad knows farming and that’s all. He’s simple, trusting, enthusiastic as a boy. Setter has gotten around him. They’re in all kinds of deals. Dad has furnished money, paper, collateral, and Setter has furnished the brains. No doubt to his own profit! It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Setter has dad involved in really crooked deals. Certainly he’s got dad tied up. Pretty soon he’s going to try to make dad force me to marry him.”
“An’ that will be funny, won’t it?” blurted out Strobel, suddenly revealing his depth of warmth.
“It certainly will,” laughed Ina, spiritedly.
“Wal, I’m sure thankin’ you, Miss Ina,” he said. “You’ve given me a different angle to work on. You’re a smart girl. Reckon I’d rather be in Ben’s boots right now than in your dad’s.”
His smile, his tone seemed an unmasking of an aloof and unresponsive character. Ina began to quiver with a fear that she was hoping too much.
“You don’t mean — on account — of me?” she queried, falteringly.
“No, just on the face of things, as they look now,” he replied, thoughtfully. “Still, you can never tell. I represent the law hereabouts, but if I don’t round up these rustlers this summer I’ll lose my job. Amos Ide, your dad. Setter, an’ other ranchers on the board have given me that hunch. An’ if they fetch officers from Redlands, or Klamath, it might result in trouble for Ben. They’re after him. Even Ben’s own father says he ought to be run out of the country.... But as for me — wal, even before I had this talk with you I’d have had to ketch Ben Ide stealin’ cattle before I’d arrest him.”
Toward the close Strobel had spoken ringingly, the force and content of which words quite overcame Ina. She could only stare up at this tall sheriff in speechless gratitude.
“An’ here’s why, Miss Ina,” he concluded, smiling down at her. “I’ve known Ben Ide since he was a kid. I taught him to fish. He’s no more a cattle an’ hoss thief than I am.”
That was too much for Ina’s dignity and reserve, already sadly decimated by her success in propitiating this sheriff. She answered only to joyous impulse. She wanted to give him all she owned; she could have bestowed a fortune upon him, had she possessed one. But she had nothing to give a man — except gratitude, admiration, affection. His smile was understanding though wistful. Suddenly Ina reached up and warmly kissed his brown cheek. Then she sank down, abashed and scarlet of face, yet laughing at the spectacle of this matured man standing as if petrified.
“There, Mr. Strobel, that’s not from your deputy — but from your friend — for ever,” she said, with a gaiety full of depth, and then she fled out of the office.
Next day Sheriff Strobel rode away down the lake trail toward Forlorn River. No doubt he intended to visit Ben Ide on his way south. At first the idea pleased Ina, then on second thought it frightened her. Surely Strobel would mention her tremendous interest in Ben and his fortunes. That might be all right and then again it might not. It depended upon how Strobel had interpreted her interest and upon what he told. Big-hearted, simple man, he might take for granted that Ben knew she loved him! Most assuredly she had betrayed that love to Strobel. She didn’t mind his knowing. But Ben! Ina suffered an incomprehensible attack of fright, dread, wonder and horror, shame and glory, all inextricably mixed together. She had a bad hour, and when she came out of it she was downcast and thoughtful all the rest of the day. At supper-time Marvie brought news that ordinarily would have been sufficient to make her happy.
“Setter drove off fer Klamath,” announced Marvie, with fine satisfaction. “Heerd him say he’d be gone a week on business. But Bill Sneed said Setter was goin’ to a dentist to have the teeth put back that Ben Ide knocked out.”
Marvie had other news which he reserved for Ina’s private ear when, after supper, she lay in her hammock watching the sunset. Some of the cowboys had been at Forlorn River that day. Ben Ide had come home again. He had a pasture full of the finest wild horses ever captured in that country. In another few days Ben’s partner and the Indian would get back with the last of the horses caught at the lava beds, and then they would make a prolonged stay at the ranch.
“An’ you bet I’m ridin’ over to see Ben soon as dad’s gone,” averred Marvie. “You knew. Sis, didn’t you, about dad’s goin’?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied Ina, sitting up with interest. “When? Where?”
“To-morrow, the boys said. I’m sure gettin’ up early so I’ll be away when dad leaves. Then he can’t tell me not to do nothin’. He’s goin’ with the chuck wagon an’ outfit of cowboys to one of his ranches near Silver Meadow. Lots of talk among the men about this Silver Meadow. I’m darned curious, fer they always shut up when they see me.”
“Why don’t you keep out of sight, then?” asked Ina.
“I forget sometimes. Say, Ina, this’ll be a good chance for you to ride over to Forlorn River with me,” returned Marvie, lowering his voice.
“Oh, Marvie!” murmured Ina. “I — I couldn’t think of it now.”
“Why, sure, you could,” whispered the tempter. “Are you afraid of dad an’ old Pop-eyes?”
“It’s not on their account,” said Ina. “No — Marvie, I can’t.”
“Aw, you said you would. What ails you now? Ben will be tickled stiff. He’ll show us that spring hole under the bank which the boys say is chuck-full of trout. We won’t let anybody see us an’ dad’ll never know.... Ina, I’d go anywheres with you.”
She was weak, she was helpless, she was won. Marvie did not need to discourse so eloquently, had he but known.
“All right, I’ll go — some day,” she replied, trying to pretend it was his persuasion and not her longing that prompted the reconsideration. What a relief when Marvie went whooping and bounding away! She could sink back in the hammock unseen, and relax, and be herself, communing with her traitor heart.
Nevertheless, the hammock did not hold her long. A restless mood came upon her. To and fro under the junipers she walked, until action and reason had restored a semblance to calm thought. Meanwhile the sun had sunk behind the grey sage mountains. The light, however, still shone on the far slopes of the basin and the uplands beyond leading to the black ranges and the crowning clouds of gold and rose.
Ina found her favourite seat on a rock at the extreme point of the elevated bench, out of sight from the tents and affording unrestricted view in all other directions.
“I can’t go to Forlorn River,” she soliloquised. “I want to see Ben — oh, how I want to!... I love him. And perhaps — probably — surely he doesn’t love me.... I didn’t seem to feel he did. My heart would have told me.... I mustn’t go to him. Still, I’ll fight for him — just the same.”
The golden sunlight receded from the wooded cape and little cabin across the lake where Ben Ide lived; and to Ina, there seemed to be a similarity between that passing and her mood of the moment. She changed every day, every hour. She was growing toward something — perhaps a great sadness.
The spectacle before her was sad as well as grand. Twilight was stealing out from under the sage mountains behind her, down across the basin, dark and melancholy in its barrenness, while there was still a mantle of gold and rose, turning purple, on the vast reaches of open country leading up to the heavy cloud banks in the sky. The day had been hot and that country, rendered a desert by the years of drought, showed the ghastly lifelessness of sun-baked earth and seared sage. Forlorn River wound away between the hills, a thread of fire growing pale, dying out in the dim purple. Soon it would be lost in the sands. Narrow strips of black lined some of the deep valleys. A stillness, an austerity, pervaded the scene, filling Ina with a sense of the magnitude of the earth and the inscrutableness of nature. She was only a living, palpitating atom in all that immensity.
She realised fully now how this wild country had taken hold of her imagination and heart. She wanted to stay there most of the time, if it was livable. She felt that she preferred strife with the elements, with a hard, lonely wilderness, to misunderstanding and dependence, to the dislikes and hatreds of people, to life such as she imagined her sister Kate had embraced.
“I have pioneer blood, so Uncle Charlie always said,” she mused. “All I need is the pioneer!”
She laughed at this, but not mirthfully. All that was necessary to round out her life, make it full and happy and productive, was for Ben Ide to come over here and take her back as his wife to that little grey cabin facing the west. As she looked, the last glow of light receded from it. Was Ben there gazing across the lake? Surely he knew she was at this newest of the Blaine ranches.
“Oh, I must not dream this way,” she whispered, rousing herself. “It’s madness. He’ll never know — and if he did he’d never come.”
Next day she had the same struggle all over again, and so it went on for days, augmented by the loyal and loving Marvie, who nagged at her to come with him to see Ben. She was driven to impatience with him.
“Aw, say, I’d a crazy notion you liked Ben,” he retorted, in a huff. “Stay home. Play with Dali. You’re no pardner for a man. You don’t know your mind one darned little minnit. I’ll go alone, an’ what I’ll tell Ben will be aplenty.”
That fired Ina with panic-stricken wrath.
“Don’t you dare,” she flashed.
“Geewhiz! Ina, you’re gettin’ to be a myst’ry,” complained Marvie. “I’ve a hunch you’ll tell dad I run off again.”
“You bet I will, unless you promise,” added Ina, grasping her opportunity.
“All right, I promise to say only what you tell me to,” capitulated Marvie rather lamely. “I can’t go to see Ben an’ tell him nothin’.”
“Why can’t you?”
“‘Cause I’ll have to tell Ben somethin’ you said. We’re on his side of the fence. He knows that. Wasn’t you nice to him over at Hettie Ide’s? Say, it looked so to me. Have you quit all of a sudden? Do you want to be yellow an’ hurt his feelings? There’s that fight he had with Setter. We was tickled to death. Don’t you want him to know it?”
“Wait, Marvie!” implored Ina, succumbing before this bombardment of logic, scorn, and loyalty. The boy was perfectly right. Ben would misunderstand silence. She must send a message — something as kind, as trusting as had been her words to him that night at the Ide ranch. But what? She needed time to think and there stood Marvie eyeing her with strange disfavour.
“Give Ben my regards,” she began, with misgivings as to where spoken words might lead her. “Tell him I’m glad about the great catch of wild horses. Tell him Sheriff Strobel is —
No, never mind—”
“Gee! is that all?” queried Marvie, as she floundered. “Fine lot of guff!”
“Oh, shut up, you — you little devil!” she cried, wildly, driven to desperation. “Tell Ben I was tickled to death when I saw Setter — and knew who’d beaten him. There!” But the momentum and emotion of her words, with the sudden glad light on Marvie’s face, proved her utter undoing. “And tell him — to come over.”
“Now you’re talkin’, Sis,” replied Marvie, suddenly radiant. “I knew you’d come around. But, gosh! you had me guessin’. I’ll leave for Ben’s as soon as I can fork a horse.”
After Marvie had gone and the reaction from her feelings had set in, Ina was sure she would be unhappy, ill, miserable; but she was nothing of the kind. Indeed, she did not know herself. What burn in her cheeks! She wanted to run, sing, dance. How ridiculous to deny youth, hope, love! She was happy for the first time for days because pride and vanity had fallen down before the truth of her heart — happy because she had asked Ben Ide to come to see her. He might not come, but that did not change the fact of her frank invitation. To be sure, she would rather he did not come very soon — at least until she had gained some control over this incorrigibly strange Ina Blaine.
