Zane Grey (3 page)

"Reckon you're from Texas," said Jean, presently.

"Shore am," she drawled. She had a lazy Southern voice, pleasant to
hear. "How'd y'u-all guess that?"

"Anybody can tell a Texan. Where I came from there were a good many
pioneers an' ranchers from the old Lone Star state. I've worked for
several. An', come to think of it, I'd rather hear a Texas girl talk
than anybody."

"Did y'u know many Texas girls?" she inquired, turning again to face
him.

"Reckon I did—quite a good many."

"Did y'u go with them?"

"Go with them? Reckon you mean keep company. Why, yes, I guess I
did—a little," laughed Jean. "Sometimes on a Sunday or a dance once
in a blue moon, an' occasionally a ride."

"Shore that accounts," said the girl, wistfully.

"For what?" asked Jean.

"Y'ur bein' a gentleman," she replied, with force. "Oh, I've not
forgotten. I had friends when we lived in Texas.... Three years ago.
Shore it seems longer. Three miserable years in this damned country!"

Then she bit her lip, evidently to keep back further unwitting
utterance to a total stranger. And it was that biting of her lip that
drew Jean's attention to her mouth. It held beauty of curve and
fullness and color that could not hide a certain sadness and
bitterness. Then the whole flashing brown face changed for Jean. He
saw that it was young, full of passion and restraint, possessing a
power which grew on him. This, with her shame and pathos and the fact
that she craved respect, gave a leap to Jean's interest.

"Well, I reckon you flatter me," he said, hoping to put her at her ease
again. "I'm only a rough hunter an' fisherman-woodchopper an' horse
tracker. Never had all the school I needed—nor near enough company of
nice girls like you."

"Am I nice?" she asked, quickly.

"You sure are," he replied, smiling.

"In these rags," she demanded, with a sudden flash of passion that
thrilled him. "Look at the holes." She showed rips and worn-out
places in the sleeves of her buckskin blouse, through which gleamed a
round, brown arm. "I sew when I have anythin' to sew with.... Look at
my skirt—a dirty rag. An' I have only one other to my name.... Look!"
Again a color tinged her cheeks, most becoming, and giving the lie to
her action. But shame could not check her violence now. A dammed-up
resentment seemed to have broken out in flood. She lifted the ragged
skirt almost to her knees. "No stockings! No Shoes! ... How can a
girl be nice when she has no clean, decent woman's clothes to wear?"

"How—how can a girl..." began Jean. "See here, miss, I'm beggin' your
pardon for—sort of stirrin' you to forget yourself a little. Reckon I
understand. You don't meet many strangers an' I sort of hit you
wrong—makin' you feel too much—an' talk too much. Who an' what you
are is none of my business. But we met.... An' I reckon somethin' has
happened—perhaps more to me than to you.... Now let me put you
straight about clothes an' women. Reckon I know most women love nice
things to wear an' think because clothes make them look pretty that
they're nicer or better. But they're wrong. You're wrong. Maybe it 'd
be too much for a girl like you to be happy without clothes. But you
can be—you axe just as nice, an'—an' fine—an', for all you know, a
good deal more appealin' to some men."

"Stranger, y'u shore must excuse my temper an' the show I made of
myself," replied the girl, with composure. "That, to say the least,
was not nice. An' I don't want anyone thinkin' better of me than I
deserve. My mother died in Texas, an' I've lived out heah in this wild
country—a girl alone among rough men. Meetin' y'u to-day makes me see
what a hard lot they are—an' what it's done to me."

Jean smothered his curiosity and tried to put out of his mind a growing
sense that he pitied her, liked her.

"Are you a sheep herder?" he asked.

"Shore I am now an' then. My father lives back heah in a canyon. He's
a sheepman. Lately there's been herders shot at. Just now we're short
an' I have to fill in. But I like shepherdin' an' I love the woods,
and the Rim Rock an' all the Tonto. If they were all, I'd shore be
happy."

"Herders shot at!" exclaimed Jean, thoughtfully. "By whom? An' what
for?"

"Trouble brewin' between the cattlemen down in the Basin an' the
sheepmen up on the Rim. Dad says there'll shore be hell to pay. I tell
him I hope the cattlemen chase him back to Texas."

"Then— Are you on the ranchers' side?" queried Jean, trying to
pretend casual interest.

"No. I'll always be on my father's side," she replied, with spirit.
"But I'm bound to admit I think the cattlemen have the fair side of the
argument."

"How so?"

"Because there's grass everywhere. I see no sense in a sheepman goin'
out of his way to surround a cattleman an' sheep off his range. That
started the row. Lord knows how it'll end. For most all of them heah
are from Texas."

"So I was told," replied Jean. "An' I heard' most all these Texans got
run out of Texas. Any truth in that?"

"Shore I reckon there is," she replied, seriously. "But, stranger, it
might not be healthy for y'u to, say that anywhere. My dad, for one,
was not run out of Texas. Shore I never can see why he came heah. He's
accumulated stock, but he's not rich nor so well off as he was back
home."

"Are you goin' to stay here always?" queried Jean, suddenly.

"If I do so it 'll be in my grave," she answered, darkly. "But what's
the use of thinkin'? People stay places until they drift away. Y'u
can never tell.... Well, stranger, this talk is keepin' y'u."

She seemed moody now, and a note of detachment crept into her voice.
Jean rose at once and went for his horse. If this girl did not desire
to talk further he certainly had no wish to annoy her. His mule had
strayed off among the bleating sheep. Jean drove it back and then led
his horse up to where the girl stood. She appeared taller and, though
not of robust build, she was vigorous and lithe, with something about
her that fitted the place. Jean was loath to bid her good-by.

"Which way is the Rim?" he asked, turning to his saddle girths.

"South," she replied, pointing. "It's only a mile or so. I'll walk
down with y'u.... Suppose y'u're on the way to Grass Valley?"

"Yes; I've relatives there," he returned. He dreaded her next
question, which he suspected would concern his name. But she did not
ask. Taking up her rifle she turned away. Jean strode ahead to her
side. "Reckon if you walk I won't ride."

So he found himself beside a girl with the free step of a Mountaineer.
Her bare, brown head came up nearly to his shoulder. It was a small,
pretty head, graceful, well held, and the thick hair on it was a shiny,
soft brown. She wore it in a braid, rather untidily and tangled, he
thought, and it was tied with a string of buckskin. Altogether her
apparel proclaimed poverty.

Jean let the conversation languish for a little. He wanted to think
what to say presently, and then he felt a rather vague pleasure in
stalking beside her. Her profile was straight cut and exquisite in
line. From this side view the soft curve of lips could not be seen.

She made several attempts to start conversation, all of which Jean
ignored, manifestly to her growing constraint. Presently Jean, having
decided what he wanted to say, suddenly began: "I like this adventure.
Do you?"

"Adventure! Meetin' me in the woods?" And she laughed the laugh of
youth. "Shore you must be hard up for adventure, stranger."

"Do you like it?" he persisted, and his eyes searched the half-averted
face.

"I might like it," she answered, frankly, "if—if my temper had not
made a fool of me. I never meet anyone I care to talk to. Why should
it not be pleasant to run across some one new—some one strange in this
heah wild country?"

"We are as we are," said Jean, simply. "I didn't think you made a fool
of yourself. If I thought so, would I want to see you again?"

"Do y'u?" The brown face flashed on him with surprise, with a light he
took for gladness. And because he wanted to appear calm and friendly,
not too eager, he had to deny himself the thrill of meeting those
changing eyes.

"Sure I do. Reckon I'm overbold on such short acquaintance. But I
might not have another chance to tell you, so please don't hold it
against me."

This declaration over, Jean felt relief and something of exultation. He
had been afraid he might not have the courage to make it. She walked
on as before, only with her head bowed a little and her eyes downcast.
No color but the gold-brown tan and the blue tracery of veins showed in
her cheeks. He noticed then a slight swelling quiver of her throat;
and he became alive to its graceful contour, and to how full and
pulsating it was, how nobly it set into the curve of her shoulder.
Here in her quivering throat was the weakness of her, the evidence of
her sex, the womanliness that belied the mountaineer stride and the
grasp of strong brown hands on a rifle. It had an effect on Jean
totally inexplicable to him, both in the strange warmth that stole over
him and in the utterance he could not hold back.

"Girl, we're strangers, but what of that? We've met, an' I tell you it
means somethin' to me. I've known girls for months an' never felt this
way. I don't know who you are an' I don't care. You betrayed a good
deal to me. You're not happy. You're lonely. An' if I didn't want to
see you again for my own sake I would for yours. Some things you said
I'll not forget soon. I've got a sister, an' I know you have no
brother. An' I reckon ..."

At this juncture Jean in his earnestness and quite without thought
grasped her hand. The contact checked the flow of his speech and
suddenly made him aghast at his temerity. But the girl did not make
any effort to withdraw it. So Jean, inhaling a deep breath and trying
to see through his bewilderment, held on bravely. He imagined he felt
a faint, warm, returning pressure. She was young, she was friendless,
she was human. By this hand in his Jean felt more than ever the
loneliness of her. Then, just as he was about to speak again, she
pulled her hand free.

"Heah's the Rim," she said, in her quaint Southern drawl. "An' there's
Y'ur Tonto Basin."

Jean had been intent only upon the girl. He had kept step beside her
without taking note of what was ahead of him. At her words he looked
up expectantly, to be struck mute.

He felt a sheer force, a downward drawing of an immense abyss beneath
him. As he looked afar he saw a black basin of timbered country, the
darkest and wildest he had ever gazed upon, a hundred miles of blue
distance across to an unflung mountain range, hazy purple against the
sky. It seemed to be a stupendous gulf surrounded on three sides by
bold, undulating lines of peaks, and on his side by a wall so high that
he felt lifted aloft on the run of the sky.

"Southeast y'u see the Sierra Anchas," said the girl pointing. "That
notch in the range is the pass where sheep are driven to Phoenix an'
Maricopa. Those big rough mountains to the south are the Mazatzals.
Round to the west is the Four Peaks Range. An' y'u're standin' on the
Rim."

Jean could not see at first just what the Rim was, but by shifting his
gaze westward he grasped this remarkable phenomenon of nature. For
leagues and leagues a colossal red and yellow wall, a rampart, a
mountain-faced cliff, seemed to zigzag westward. Grand and bold were
the promontories reaching out over the void. They ran toward the
westering sun. Sweeping and impressive were the long lines slanting
away from them, sloping darkly spotted down to merge into the black
timber. Jean had never seen such a wild and rugged manifestation of
nature's depths and upheavals. He was held mute.

"Stranger, look down," said the girl.

Jean's sight was educated to judge heights and depths and distances.
This wall upon which he stood sheered precipitously down, so far that
it made him dizzy to look, and then the craggy broken cliffs merged
into red-slided, cedar-greened slopes running down and down into gorges
choked with forests, and from which soared up a roar of rushing waters.
Slope after slope, ridge beyond ridge, canyon merging into canyon—so
the tremendous bowl sunk away to its black, deceiving depths, a
wilderness across which travel seemed impossible.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Jean.

"Indeed it is!" murmured the girl. "Shore that is Arizona. I reckon I
love THIS. The heights an' depths—the awfulness of its wilderness!"

"An' you want to leave it?"

"Yes an' no. I don't deny the peace that comes to me heah. But not
often do I see the Basin, an' for that matter, one doesn't live on
grand scenery."

"Child, even once in a while—this sight would cure any misery, if you
only see. I'm glad I came. I'm glad you showed it to me first."

She too seemed under the spell of a vastness and loneliness and beauty
and grandeur that could not but strike the heart.

Jean took her hand again. "Girl, say you will meet me here," he said,
his voice ringing deep in his ears.

"Shore I will," she replied, softly, and turned to him. It seemed then
that Jean saw her face for the first time. She was beautiful as he had
never known beauty. Limned against that scene, she gave it life—wild,
sweet, young life—the poignant meaning of which haunted yet eluded
him. But she belonged there. Her eyes were again searching his, as if
for some lost part of herself, unrealized, never known before.
Wondering, wistful, hopeful, glad-they were eyes that seemed surprised,
to reveal part of her soul.

Then her red lips parted. Their tremulous movement was a magnet to
Jean. An invisible and mighty force pulled him down to kiss them.
Whatever the spell had been, that rude, unconscious action broke it.