Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 966
She strolled away. She stood watching the white sails in the sky. Her hands drooped idly. She saw nothing — heard nothing. Then the cloud-rimmed mountain peaks gave her a pang. She must go up to her shrine at Emerald Lake. There would be strength in the solitude and sublimity of the heights. But she could not go until ——
The beauty and mystery of the day stung her. Of what avail to live, to be young, healthy, handsome, longing — to look back at sadness, and fear a gray uncertainty of future?
It had been only of late, though, Virginia reflected, that she could find no peace, no occupation. There had been incalculable happiness, upon her return from Georgia, in deeding Cottonwoods to its rightful owners — the Forrests. That had been no easy task — not for her to surrender, but for Clay Forrest to accept. In the end she had won him. “You girl — you Lundeen,” he had said, brokenly. “First my son — then his mother! An’ now I, too, must love you!”
With hatred overcome, and the recovery of his beloved Cottonwoods, Forrest became a transformed man. The years of his exile were as if they had never been. To do him full justice, though, Virginia had been compelled, and gladly, to admit she could never have won him to accept her sacrifice had she not told him that the estate in the south left by Lundeen had enriched her far beyond and outside Cottonwoods. It had been her whim to bind Forrest to secrecy for the present.
She had gone back to the old adobe home in the cottonwood grove, and asked no more than for Clifton to seek her out there. But would he? How endlessly long these last weeks! Was he dead? Her prophetic and loving heart could not abide that possibility. She knew, and the torture was only fear that he might not want her. Where had gone the old vain coquetries and audacities?
Virginia dragged herself back into the house, to try to take interest in the work of creating beauty and comfort there. For a while she shared the efforts of her two Mexican women servants, but soon she grew listless again. Her little room claimed her for hours by day as well as by night. It had been Clifton’s room, too. The few things he had left there had never been moved, or touched, except with reverence, for they were relics of his boyhood, his brief days at college, and of the war. She had made no change in this room. She trembled whenever she lay down on that old bed. The hard hair mattress had the same sag in the middle as when she was a girl. It used to hurt her back. As long as she could remember it had been there. And Clifton had lain there night after night, his mother had told her, sleepless and racked with pain, staring into the blackness, listening to the patter of the leaves outside and the murmuring water.
“I’ll be all right when he’s back, even if he doesn’t come to see me,” she sighed, and clenched her hands, and gazed up at the blank, dark wall.
And next day, Jake, returning from an errand to San Luis, informed Virginia that Clifton Forrest had come back with her sheep.
“My sheep!” cried Virginia, in rapture, and silent gratitude to God. But she was thinking of her shepherd.
“Eight hundred lambs, ole Lopez said,” went on Jake, grinning. “He shore was sore for sellin’. Thet was a plumb good buy of yours, lady. An’ with sheep jumpin’ on the market you’re settin’ pretty.”
“Did — did Lopez say how — how Clifton was?” asked Virginia, tremulously.
“Never nuthin’. Lopez is a talky ole cuss, too, but he was shore stumped about them eight hundred lambs.”
Virginia rushed away to the green covert of the cottonwoods, where she felt unseen even by the eyes of birds. And there she wept for joy, and raged at her weakness, and paced the walled aisle, and whispered to herself, and at the sound of her voice betrayed herself utterly.
“Oh, he’s back — he’s back! Thank God!...It was time. I’d soon have died...He must be well again. Seven months on the desert! Alone! Ill and weak when he left! O God! Poor brave boy! And I could not help him! — Oh, how I love him! He must know!...But if he doesn’t know — if he doesn’t want me — his wife! — what can I do? I can’t crawl to him, like a dog to lick his feet. But I want to — I want to.”
She felt the better for her outburst, for the facing of her soul. That he was alive — strong enough to toil as a sheep-herder for over half a year — that he had come home — was near her — only a few short miles across the hills! — these facts mastered her selfish longings and stilled the troubled depths of her.
Virginia decided there was no understanding human nature. First she had prayed that if only Clifton would live, she would be forever grateful and satisfied. Then it was for his return. And now that he was home, she yearned irresistibly to see him. How little she divined the complexities of love! What would she want — nay, more terrifying, what would she do when she met him?
The following morning she drove to Las Vegas to meet Ethel, who was coming on the early train, and timed her arrival so that she would have but few moments to wait at the station. Since her return from Atlanta, and the change in her fortunes, she had avoided town and people as much as possible. There had been many a nine days’ wonder over the Lundeen-Forrest feud, but her relinquishing of Cottonwoods had made her the subject of endless gossip. She did not care to run the gauntlet of acquaintances just yet.
When the train pulled in, Virginia scanned the Pullman vestibules with eager eyes. Soon she saw Ethel appear on the step, trim, dainty, like a butterfly in her spring finery. She looked anxiously up and down the platform, and did not espy Virginia coming toward her from the parking place. There were other passengers, trainmen, and loungers present. Ethel pointed out her several pieces of baggage to the porter, which momentary lapse enabled Virginia to slip up behind her and put both hands over her eyes. She felt Ethel shake and whirl. Otherwise the meeting was the only solemn one they had ever had.
After the porter lifted the baggage into the back of the car Ethel, still holding to Virginia and piercing her with hungry eyes, opened the dammed gateway of her speech.
“Oh!...you perfectly stunning Virginia!” she burst out. “You lovely marble thing!...Where’s your old tan — and the red of your cheeks? You’re pale. You’ve thinned out. And that’s all you needed to beat Helen Andrews two ways for Sunday...But your sad, sad eyes! Poor darling! if you haven’t had the rottenest deal!...Oh, Virginia, I’m so glad to see you, I’ll cry my eyes out.”
“So will I, honey, but let’s wait till we get out home,” replied Virginia, conscious of a sudden sweet and wonderful warmth. It had not occurred to her that Ethel would be the best medicine in the world. Now she knew it. She took her seat in at the wheel, and Ethel got in beside her.
“Just one word, darling, and a question,” said Ethel, “after that it’s all you.”
“I think I can guess,” replied Virginia.
“But you’re not smiling...Virginia, I’m to be married in June.”
“Marvelous! I congratulate you. I’ll be happy with you.”
“Will you come to my wedding?”
“I surely will. How could you be married without me?”
“I couldn’t. That’s why you’ve had me guessing. Virginia, do you know I’ve had only two letters and one telegram from you in seven months?...Seven months!”
“But, honey, how could I write, even to you?” implored Virginia.
“It would have been better for you. But you always were a strange, close-mouthed creature. I think I understand and I forgive you.”
Virginia drove out of town on the San Luis road, which was far from being a thoroughfare.
“I’ll make up for my neglect,” returned Virginia, humbly. “I’ll talk you deaf and dumb and blind.”
“I had your letters, as I said, and of course I read what was in the papers. You need not rake up that horrible — —”
“But I shall,” interrupted Virginia as her friend hesitated. “It will do me good to talk.”
“I met Mr. Jarvis yesterday. He asked all about you. I told him I didn’t know much, but I would soon.”
“How is he now?”
“Oh, he’s completely recovered.”
“I am very glad,” said Virginia.
“Virginia, were you hurt in — in that fight?” asked Ethel, anxiously.
“I should say I was. Scratched — beaten black and blue! He even bit me! Uggh!...I’ll tell you all about it some day.”
Virginia could see that her faithful friend was repressing all kinds of explosives in consideration for her feelings. But Virginia would not have minded anything now. The ice was broken. She had been too long choked by her own inhibitions.
“Say, this is a swell road, if you don’t know it. Where are we going?” remarked Ethel.
“Home.”
“But this isn’t the way to Cottonwoods.”
“I don’t live at Cottonwoods any longer.”
“Oh, I see!” rejoined Ethel, bursting with curiosity. “Is your mother with you?”
“No. I left her in Atlanta.”
“How is she?”
“Pretty well. I spent three months with her. I don’t think she will ever come back to the West. She likes her old home best and has better health there. My grandfather and grandmother have a fine plantation just out of Atlanta. I like it there, too — for a visit. But give me the desert.”
“Well, dearie, it’s better news than I expected. I was afraid your mother would sink under that calamity.”
“No, she didn’t. Of course she never heard any but the barest details.”
When they crossed the lower end of the valley below San Luis the whole wonderful triangle of green led up beautifully to the impressive white-and-red mansion on the bluff. Cottonwoods shone clear and stately in the sunlight. Virginia saw it without a pang. She had never been happy there.
“It’s so lovely — everything, I mean,” murmured Ethel. “I don’t blame you, though, for not living at Cottonwoods just yet.”
“I gave Cottonwoods back to the Forrests,” said Virginia, quite casually.
“Virginia!” cried Ethel, and with a flop sank back in her seat. She had been prepared for revelations, but this was too much. For the time being she was crushed by the catastrophe.
They drove out of the valley, through the sleepy little town of San Luis, past the spot where the blackened walls of Clifton’s store still stood, and up the shaded, dusty country road where nothing had changed. And at length under the old weatherbeaten Spanish gate and into the green-gold grove where the vine-covered adobe house stood, surely in Ethel’s eyes memorable of Clifton Forrest and inseparable from his story. Virginia’s heart was full. It was strangely sweet to bring her dearest friend here. Ethel was pale, her eyes were wide and brimming with tears.
“You live here?”
“Yes, honey.”
“Alone?”
“I have two servants. Jake and Con have a cabin below.”
“It is — lovely,” concluded Ethel, with trembling lips.
“I like it better than Cottonwoods. Come. We can carry your bags in. You take the lighter ones.”
The room into which Virginia led Ethel had once been her mother’s and later Mrs. Forrest’s. It was light and fairly large. Virginia had furnished it most comfortably, in harmony with the old-fashioned walls and beams, the open fireplace and the Spanish windows.
“One wouldn’t think it was so nice — from the outside,” murmured Ethel, as she divested herself of gloves and hat, and fussed with her pretty blond hair before the mirror, significantly keeping her back to Virginia. Presently she turned a convulsed little face and eyes streaming with tears.
“Gin — ia, I’m going — to bawl.”
“So am — I,” choked Virginia, and spread wide her arms.
A little while later, after donning comfortable clothes, in fact the same in which they had run and romped and climbed in Colorado, they went outdoors.
“I’m from Missouri,” said Ethel, slangily. “You gotta show me. How big is this jungle?”
“About ten acres of grove, some valley meadowland, and fifty acres running up over the range.”
“Not so poor, for Bertha, the Sewing-machine Girl.”
Eventually they wound up tired and hot and happy on a shady knoll under a giant cottonwood that spread its wide branches on the edge of the valley. The view was open and the mountains stood out splendidly and close. But Cottonwoods could not be seen for trees. The irrigation ditch flowed down here, and by reason of the little slope, made swift gurgling sound. There were innumerable bees humming over the stream, among the blossoms of a flowery vine.
Ethel gazed out over the meadow at the graceful, glistening horses. “Oh, what horses! You must take me riding every day. I miss riding so much at home in Denver. Sure we’re Western, but a horse is rare these days...There’s Calliope and Moses and Calamity...Oh, I see your grand black Sirius. Some horse! If only I could straddle that stallion!...And there’s Dumpy — the little pinto that threw me, darn his dusty hide!...Virginia, you can’t be so awful poor, or you couldn’t take care of those horses.”
“I’m not so very poor that I can’t give you a ride occasionally — and a wedding present in June,” returned Virginia.
“You darling! Now if you go blow yourself on me I’ll never forgive you. But it seems strange for you to be poor at all.” Ethel fell back with a sigh, her head in Virginia’s lap. “Tell me your story backward.”
“You mean from present to past?...Well, to begin with — Clifton is back,” rejoined Virginia, averting her face.
“Back? Where’d he go?”
“When his father turned him out he became a sheep-herder.”
“What! Cliff Forrest a sheep-herder? You mean a shepherd?”
“Yes,” replied Virginia, dreamily.
“But isn’t that a poor job for a white man — a college man — a soldier?”
“Poor, yes, in a matter of wages. But Cliff had no choice, and besides I think he went for his health.”
“Say, angel-face, turn round here and look at me,” said Ethel.
Virginia complied.
“Oh,” cried Ethel, “then all is not well between you and Cliff?”
“It is — for my part. But I’ve never seen him since that time — nor heard from him. He drove the sheep south...Upon my return from visiting you, I heard that Malpass was dickering with Don Lopez to buy the flock Clifton was driving. Malpass’ motive was not solely a business one. He wanted to acquire possession of Lopez’s flock so he could send a herder out to Guadaloupe and throw Cliff out of his job. Leave him all that distance to come back alone and without supplies.”
Ethel swore. “I’m sure going to get a kick out of your story of how your dad killed that hombre.”
“It was horrible!” said Virginia, her flesh creeping and tears coming into her eyes. “Malpass shot father I don’t recall how many times. Five bullet holes, I think, the inquest reported...But father broke Malpass’ arm — nearly tore it off — and then cracked his neck...dropped him off the high trestle.”
“Served him right,” replied Ethel, fiercely. “But never mind that now. Tell me more about Cliff.”
“There’s very little more. I borrowed money and bought the sheep from Lopez. And Cliff drove on to Guadaloupe never knowing.”
“You amazing girl! — All the time, then — for it was early last fall when you left me — Cliff has been working for you?”
“Yes. It’s funny.”
“Funny! It’s great. Shepherd of his wife’s flock! And never knowing. Say, if that isn’t a romance, I don’t know the real thing...Say, darling, sure you raised his wages?”
“Don’t giggle,” entreated Virginia. “I’m scared to death...You see, Clifton has just come back. He must know now that all the winter — seven months — he has worked for me...Sheep-herders are poor. He’ll need his wages. And if he doesn’t come for them — what on earth shall I do?”
“Goose! Take them to him.”
“Ethel, I absolutely couldn’t do that,” expostulated Virginia. Then she felt a tender hand stealing up her arm, along her neck to her cheek.
“Look down at me, dearest,” said Ethel, softly.
Virginia surrendered then and betrayed herself to the wide, shrewd, loving eyes of her friend.
“You love Cliff still?”
“Still! What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re an angel...Then you love him more?”
“I don’t know how much it was, but it’s killing me now.”
“Virginia! — Why, for Heaven’s sake? You ought to be tickled pink! It’s something to be able to love a man these modern days. Ask me...Dear, are you concealing more from me?”
“I don’t think so. Anyway, if I am it’ll come out soon. You’d get blood out of a stone...I’m just scared, Ethel...It has been a long agony for me, since last fall. I’m all right now, except — I — he — oh, well, I want him, I want him — and if he doesn’t want me — I — I’ll drown myself in the ditch here.”
“It’s a cinch,” yelped Ethel, ecstatically.
Virginia wiped the dimness from her eyes and stared down at this galvanizing scion of modern feminism.
“Cinch?” she echoed, stupidly.
“That’s what I said, Desdemona. You’re so modest you make me sick. Good Heavens! Girl, I’ll bet he went off on that sheep-herder job just to think and dream about you. Of course you never had the nerve to give him a hint you loved him.”
“I was so afraid I would — it made me queer, cold...But I led him on. And he asked me to marry him because he thought I wanted to use him as a convenience. To save me from father’s machinations with Malpass...No, poor fellow, he never dreamed I was crazy to be his wife.”
Ethel let out a peal of silvery, happy laughter.
“Oh, it’s rich! I’d love to be in your boots. Think of how glorious it’ll be to tell him! I’d have had it done by now.”
