Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 954
Virginia invented excuses to call at the county clerk’s office and upon the new minister, a Western man with a charming wife. In both cases she extended herself to be gracious and winning. Upon leaving, she thought of Ethel, and giggled in imitation of that young lady bent upon some deep scheme. Virginia had a plot of her own, which she believed transcended any Ethel had ever concocted.
Following these errands she shopped for an hour, then went to the Castaneda for dinner, a procedure that evidently invited conjecture from a party of townspeople present.
Dusk was gathering when she drove out of Las Vegas, taking a road that skirted the lower spread of Cottonwood Valley, and then turned north under the bank to San Luis. A few pin-points of light flickered out of the lonesome darkness of the little town. From this point she drove slowly, and in due time arrived at a level spot near the Forrest garden. How much more familiar were these surroundings than those where she lived! Driving off the road against a thicket of young cottonwoods, she extinguished the car lights and got out.
The night was warm and sultry, with a slow wind off the desert. Frogs trilled and crickets chirped out of the deep low hum of insects. Thousands of bright stars seemed to watch her, winking out of a deep blue sky. A thin crescent moon shone weirdly, low down through the cottonwoods.
She glided silently along the trail, knowing her way in the gloom under the trees. A small animal rustled away into the brush. Coming to a fallen tree, she sat down, conscious of suspense and dammed emotion. Whatever her motive or deceit, she knew in her heart that the truth which made this tryst unutterably sweet and fearful was her love for Clifton Forrest. And listening to the merciless voice that was her conscience, she confessed her motive was not only to save herself from Malpass. Somehow she justified it. Yet what a monstrous thing she had to pretend! If his actual presence did not still her mounting agitation she would be lost. Then she put a hand to her breast. How it swelled! How her heart beat, beat, beat! Her blood was throbbing and thrilling through her veins.
The giant cottonwood that she knew so well stood near the corner of the wall. She had hidden in its capacious hollow as a child. Its dark spreading foliage gave forth a low rustle of many leaves. Beyond, other cottonwoods stood spectrally.
It seemed simple and inevitable that the crowning adventure of her life should begin here, in the familiar solitude of this old home and in the lonely gloaming hour. The wind off the desert fanned her moist brow. Black and bold loomed the great mountains. This was her West. No arch plotter could drive her from it or kill her joy in it. Riches were superficial and, if ill-gotten, wholly destructive to such happiness as appealed to her.
Presently she moved on, though reluctantly. The little wait had only accelerated her thrills and starts. She gained the break in the old wall. Again she paused, and leaned against the corner, to peer into the vague shadows. She quivered as if she had expected to meet a lover and leap into his arms. She was mad. Quíen sabe? In making her his wife, Clifton might be getting back the fortunes of the Forrests.
She went on, feeling her way. How black the garden corner! She peered on all sides. Nothing moved except the gentle leaves. The section of wall where she had talked with Clifton was vacant. She whispered his name. No answer! Suddenly she sank down on the wall. He had not come.
Chapter Nine
“CLIFF, I’M DAMN good an’ glad they burned you out,” Clay Forrest averred to his son as they sat in the shade of the cottonwoods. It was a day in July, hot and still. The cicadas were in shrill blast.
“Dad, you make me tired,” returned Clifton, with good-humored patience. “Why do you always say that? I think the store just caught on fire. Spontaneous combustion, or something.”
“Huh! Somethin’. You bet. An’ that somethin’ was a greaser in the pay of Jed Lundeen.”
“Oh no, dad! You’re hipped on the Lundeen stuff. You lay everything to the Lundeens. If it were anyone it might have been Malpass. I didn’t tell you before. He was in my store the day that Eastern crowd of young folks bought me out. And, well, we had some sharp words.”
“What’d it lead to?”
“Nothing on my part. He struck me. Knocked me over...It was just as well I didn’t have a gun handy. I’ve got sort of used to one.”
“Cliff Forrest! You never told me...I’ll beat that Malpass half to death.”
“Dad, I’d rather you waited till I get strong enough to do it myself,” replied Clifton, grimly.
“Humph! An’ how soon will that be?”
“Not so very long. I’m gaining pretty fast now. Mother says I’ll eat her out of house and home. Besides, it wouldn’t take much of a man to lick Malpass.”
“That greaser will have a knife about him somewhere. Wal, I’ll tell you, son. You an’ Ma have kept my hands off that Lundeen outfit too long. An’ the longer I wait the harder it’ll go with them.”
“Revenge is natural, dad. But is it anything to give in to here? Suppose you went to horsewhip Lundeen and Malpass? You know how hate works if you give in to it. You might end in killing one or both of them. You’d go to prison. Then what of mother?”
“Hell, son, your arguments are unanswerable. Long ago I seen that...A fight would end in blood-spillin’. All the same I don’t believe any court in New Mexico would convict me.”
“Don’t you fool yourself,” retorted Clifton. “What did that Las Vegas court do to you? It was fixed, no doubt. Well, Lundeen could fix it again.”
“He couldn’t hang any jury if he was dead. An’ neither could Malpass,” returned Forrest, thoughtfully.
“On the level now, dad, you’ve had it in your mind to do these two men?”
“Why, son, I was brought up in the West!” replied his father, as if apologizing for Clifton.
“You’ve been brooding over this wrong for years. That’s why you’ve quit. You could have begun life all over again. You’re only fifty-odd. But you putter around the garden. You idle and feed that hate in your heart. You’re breaking mother’s heart. She never minded the loss of Cottonwoods. That’s all you think of. You are making yourself old. Worse, you’re not helping me very much to take care of mother.”
Forrest dropped his head a moment. “Wal, it does seem that way, son,” he replied, resignedly. “An’ that’s the hell of it. I know just as well as you if I keep on mullin’ over this trouble much longer I’m done for.”
“Dad, if you do keep it up I’m done for, too.”
“What you mean?”
“I mean a lot...I’ve had more of a fight here than I had in France. To fight the hate you’ve given in to! And to fight my tired, tortured body into carrying on! I’ve got an even break now. If I can keep it up I’ll get well. But I’d just as lief chuck the chance and beat you to Lundeen and Malpass.”
“You’d forestall me! Kill that outfit!” burst out Forrest, dreadfully.
“If you don’t give up that idea right now, for good and all, I’ll go after them,” declared Clifton, in cold ruthlessness. This was not a bluff, though he actually hoped he could intimidate his father. In his dark hours that ghastly desire had often abided with him.
“But, my Gawd! son, think of your mother!” ejaculated Forrest, appealing with his huge outstretched hands. “It nearly killed her when you were over there. An’ now that she’s got you back...Aw, Cliff, it’s not to be thought of for you!”
“Sure it isn’t,” rejoined Clifton, eagerly seizing upon victory. “That’s why I say you can’t think of it, either. One or the other of us — it’s all the same to mother.”
“All right, son, I crawl,” said Forrest, huskily, and covered his face with his hands.
A step on the leaves and a clink of spurs arrested Clifton’s thankful response to his father’s surrender. It was a victorious, happy moment. Clifton turned to see the red-faced cowboy from Cottonwoods.
“Howdy!” he said, genially, and handed Clifton a note. It was a square white envelope upon which was inscribed his name in a clear handwriting Clifton had never seen. But instantly he recognized the faint fragrance that came with the missive. Clifton felt the hot blood leap to his face. He did not want to open the letter, but as the cowboy stood expectantly he had to do so. And he read it.
Clifton’s head seemed to swim. He tried to appear unconcerned, but if his confusion showed outwardly he must be making a sorry mess of it.
“All right. No answer,” he said to the cowboy. “How are things up on the hill?”
“Shure slow now with the hosses gone an’ no worrk.”
“Gone?”
“Shure. Malpass was afther sindin’ thim over to Watrous.”
Whereupon Clifton’s father evinced signs not wholly lost upon the cowboy.
“I sympathize with you,” said Clifton, with an understanding laugh. “I’m looking for a job myself.”
“Shure they’re scarce. Good day, sor,” replied the other, and strode away.
“Cliff, who was that?” queried Forrest, a peculiar glint coming to his big eyes.
“Con something or other. He used to come into the store for cigarettes.”
“But he’s employed by Malpass!” exclaimed the father.
“I think not, dad. It runs in my mind the young lady up there is his boss.”
“Lundeen’s girl! Was that letter from her?” asked Forrest, in a tragic voice.
“Yes, dad.”
“Hand it over. Let me read it.”
“See here, dad, it’s not polite to ask. And sure I wouldn’t let anyone read a private note. At that it doesn’t amount to much.”
“Cliff, you’re carryin’ on with Lundeen’s girl.”
“I am not.”
“You’re a liar! I can see it in your face. You got red as a beet. You acted queer. Now you’re white...By Gawd! if this ain’t the last straw!”
“Father!...I’m not a liar,” retorted Clifton, both hurt and angered. “There’s nothing between Virginia Lundeen and me. I can’t help it — if she asks me to do something for her. Believe me, that girl has her troubles.”
Forrest lumbered to his feet, his face blotched, his eyes like burned holes in a blanket.
“Wal, if all you came back home for was to get sweet on Lundeen’s girl — I wish you’d never come.”
He stalked away under the cottonwoods. Clifton was so stricken with mortification and fury that he could not call his father back. Little good that would have done! What a bull-headed old fool he was, anyhow! The mere mention of the name Lundeen made him see red.
Clifton reread the note and that was sufficient to relegate his father, and everybody else except Virginia, to oblivion. He guessed her trouble. But what could she want of him? Clifton felt suddenly weak. If she broached again the persecution to which Malpass and her father had subjected her, Clifton would ask her to marry him. Never could he resist that insidious, beautiful, terrible temptation again. To know that Virginia Lundeen was his wife! Even the conviction that she would only be using him as a checkmate against an unscrupulous wooer could not deprive the idea of its allurement.
The afternoon passed with Clifton in a trance. Every now and then, when a practical flash illumined his dreamy mind, he was amused at the romantic trend of his thoughts. He built a little drama in which he was the central figure. But he soon discovered that Virginia Lundeen played no small part in his imagined destiny. What a foolish dreamer he was!
When darkness came he went to his room, apparently to go to bed. He did not trust his father’s surly observance. Then he had to climb out of his window, no slight task for him, as the casement was narrow, and the distance to the ground considerable. But with the aid of a vine, and by careful labored work he accomplished it.
The hum of a motor car down the road had ceased. It had not occurred to Clifton that Virginia would come any other way than on horseback. He had forgotten about her horses being taken away. Another of Malpass’ scurvy tricks! Clifton hurried noiselessly under the cottonwoods. It was some distance to the corner of the wall.
Clifton did not want to be discovered by his father, for Virginia’s sake as well as his own. So he stopped to listen and look back. All was dark and still in the direction of the house. But he waited a moment longer to insure safety. What a wonderful summer night! The stars blazed, the breeze sighed, the insects hummed, the frogs sent high trills tremulously out into the drowsy air.
Hurrying on again, Clifton soon began to draw close to the corner. His footsteps made no sound. Under the cottonwoods the shadow was impenetrable, but in the open a new moon and the starlight painted a pale silver against the black background. When he reached the spot he was out of breath, but his exertion was not responsible for the throbbing of his heart in his throat.
“Virginia,” he called, very low, trying to pierce the strange shadows.
“Oh — Cliff!” she cried, in almost a gasp. “I was afraid — you weren’t coming.”
He could almost have touched her, and in two more steps his groping hand found her.
“Sorry I’m late,” he whispered. “But I was afraid of dad. He was with me when the cowboy brought your note...I had to climb out of my window like a girl sneaking to meet her lover.”
“You did? How funny! Yet it’s great,” she replied, thrillingly, and she squeezed his hand. “Which room is yours? Oh, maybe I don’t remember that old house!”
“I sleep in the little room you used to have.”
“Oh, Cliff — how strange!” she murmured, after a pause. “But how did you ever get out of that little window and down?”
“I managed somehow, but it was a squeeze.”
“You might have hurt yourself!”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“How many, many times I stole out of that little room!”
“Not to meet boys, I hope?”
“No, never that. But just to get out — to be free and wild in the moonlight under the cottonwoods.”
“Virginia, let’s get away from this trail,” he said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than to have my dad catch us.”
“Except to have my dad do it,” she returned. Her laugh was rich and deep, with a note of defiance.
Clifton led her away from the corner, under the giant hollow cottonwood to the wall, where he had to feel his way to a seat he well knew.
“Here we’re safe, at least from our dads,” he said, responding to her mood. “Sit down, Virginia. It’s dry and soft. You can lean against the wall.”
She complied, but she was significantly slow about letting go of his hand; and after that she was silent so long that he wondered. But he had no desire to break the silence.
“Cliff, how would it be if our fathers did not hate each other?”
“How would what be?”
“You are surely unromantic, Cliff Forrest,” she retorted.
“I dare say. I had it knocked out of me. But if you mean our — our queer friendship — I’d say it wouldn’t have any kick.”
“Has this a kick for you?” she asked, challengingly.
“It will have, darn pronto, if dad catches us,” he laughed.
“No! Would that great hulking brute dare kick you?”
“I should smile...Virginia, would your nice, loving, angel dad dare — well, let us say, spank you?”
“He would not,” she retorted, and there the levity ended.
Clifton’s eyes had become used to the darkness and could see her clearly, though mystically softened and paled by the moonlight. She removed her hat.
“Were you surprised to get my note?” she added, presently.
“I’d have been surprised in any case, but with dad there watching me read it I was sure flabbergasted.”
“First, Cliff, I want to tell you that I know Malpass burned your store, or had it done.”
“How do you know?”
“I accused him — sprung it on him by surprise. And he might just as well have confessed it.”
“You don’t say! Virginia, you don’t lack nerve...Well, I had a hunch myself that Malpass put some greaser at that job.”
“Was your loss considerable?” asked Virginia, sympathetically.
“For me, it surely was. Do you know, Virginia, I’d have made good in that store. Of course the big sale I made to your friends and Malpass would have been responsible. I invested all the money in new stock; filled the store, and had a lot of grub left over, which fortunately I stored here in the house. I’ll bet it’ll come handy this winter.”
“Cliff, I’m broke, except for a few dollars, and at the end of my rope,” announced Virginia.
“Good Lord! You broke? Why, I heard in town that you spent barrels of money.”
“I did, and now I wish I’d hid some of it in a barrel...Cliff, father and Malpass together have made away with my fortune. They’ve taken my horses back to Watrous. I learned only recently that the ranch over there belongs to Malpass. It wouldn’t surprise me to find I couldn’t recover my horses.”
“Well, the dirty crooks!” replied Clifton, coolly. “I reckon they’re trying to break you to Malpass’ harness.”
“Indeed they are. Father is desperate. Swears he’ll have to kill Malpass unless I give in. And Malpass — well, he has insulted me outrageously.”
“How?” queried Clifton, feeling the hot blood rush to his head.
“We were alone at breakfast. This was after his return with dad from town. Malpass must have put on the screws during this absence. Anyway, when I cut him short he showed the cloven hoof. He could throw dad in jail and would do it. I think among other things I called him a greaser...It ended in his seizing me. Oh, he was a beast. I was paralyzed with disgust and surprise. He kissed me a number of times before I could break loose.”
“My God! Virginia, that’s terrible! Somebody ought to kill him. Your father should — —”
“Father has lost every semblance to manhood.”
