Books: The Last Trail
Z >>
Zane Grey >> The Last Trail
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17
"How, most wonderful brother?"
"Easy as pie. Tell Jack that Helen is dying of love for him, and tell
her that Jack loves----"
"But, dear Eb, that latter part is not true," interposed Betty.
"True, of course it's true, or would be in any man who wasn't as blind
as a bat. We'll tell her Jack cares for her; but he is a borderman
with stern ideas of duty, and so slow and backward he'd never tell his
love even if he had overcome his tricks of ranging. That would settle
it with any girl worth her salt, and this one will fetch Jack in ten
days, or less."
"Eb, you're a devil," said Betty gaily, and then she added in a more
sober vein, "I understand, Eb. Your idea is prompted by love of Jack,
and it's all right. I never see him go out of the clearing but I think
it may be for the last time, even as on that day so long ago when
brother Andrew waved his cap to us, and never came back. Jack is the
best man in the world, and I, too, want to see him happy, with a wife,
and babies, and a settled occupation in life. I think we might weave a
pretty little romance. Shall we try?"
"Try? We'll do it! Now, Betts, you explain it to both. You can do it
smoother than I, and telling them is really the finest point of our
little plot. I'll help the good work along afterwards. He'll be out
presently. Nail him at once."
Jonathan, all unconscious of the deep-laid scheme to make him happy,
soon came out on the porch, and stretched his long arms as he breathed
freely of the morning air.
"Hello, Jack, where are you bound?" asked Betty, clasping one of his
powerful, buckskin-clad knees with her arm.
"I reckon I'll go over to the spring," he replied, patting her dark,
glossy head.
"Do you know I want to tell you something, Jack, and it's quite
serious," she said, blushing a little at her guilt; but resolute to
carry out her part of the plot.
"Well, dear?" he asked as she hesitated.
"Do you like Helen?"
"That is a question," Jonathan replied after a moment.
"Never mind; tell me," she persisted.
He made no answer.
"Well, Jack, she's--she's wildly in love with you."
The borderman stood very still for several moments. Then, with one
step he gained the lawn, and turned to confront her.
"What's that you say?"
Betty trembled a little. He spoke so sharply, his eyes were bent on
her so keenly, and he looked so strong, so forceful that she was
almost afraid. But remembering that she had said only what, to her
mind, was absolutely true, she raised her eyes and repeated the words:
"Helen is wildly'in love with you."
"Betty, you wouldn't joke about such a thing; you wouldn't lie to me,
I know you wouldn't."
"No, Jack dear."
She saw his powerful frame tremble, even as she had seen more than one
man tremble, during the siege, under the impact of a bullet.
Without speaking, he walked rapidly down the path toward the spring.
Colonel Zane came out of his hiding-place behind the porch and, with a
face positively electrifying in its glowing pleasure, beamed upon
his sister.
"Gee! Didn't he stalk off like an Indian chief!" he said, chuckling
with satisfaction. "By George! Betts, you must have got in a great
piece of work. I never in my life saw Jack look like that."
Colonel Zane sat down by Betty's side and laughed softly but heartily.
"We'll fix him all right, the lonely hill-climber! Why, he hasn't a
ghost of a chance. Wait until she sees him after hearing your story! I
tell you, Betty--why--damme! you're crying!"
He had turned to find her head lowered, while she shaded her face with
her hand.
"Now, Betty, just a little innocent deceit like that--what harm?" he
said, taking her hand. He was as tender as a woman.
"Oh, Eb, it wasn't that. I didn't mind telling him. Only the flash in
his eyes reminded me of--of Alfred."
"Surely it did. Why not? Almost everything brings up a tender memory
for some one we've loved and lost. But don't cry, Betty."
She laughed a little, and raised a face with its dark cheeks flushed
and tear-stained.
"I'm silly, I suppose; but I can't help it. I cry at least once every
day."
"Brace up. Here come Helen and Will. Don't let them see you grieved.
My! Helen in pure white, too! This is a conspiracy to ruin the peace
of the masculine portion of Fort Henry."
Betty went forward to meet her friends while Colonel Zane continued
talking, but now to himself. "What a fatal beauty she has!" His eyes
swept over Helen with the pleasure of an artist. The fair richness of
her skin, the perfect lips, the wavy, shiny hair, the wondrous
dark-blue, changing eyes, the tall figure, slender, but strong and
swelling with gracious womanhood, made a picture he delighted in and
loved to have near him. The girl did not possess for him any of that
magnetism, so commonly felt by most of her admirers; but he did feel
how subtly full she was of something, which for want of a better term
he described in Wetzel's characteristic expression, as "chain-lightning."
He reflected that as he was so much older, that she, although always
winsome and earnest, showed nothing of the tormenting, bewildering
coquetry of her nature. Colonel Zane prided himself on his
discernment, and he had already observed that Helen had different
sides of character for different persons. To Betty, Mabel, Nell, and
the children, she was frank, girlish, full of fun and always lovable;
to her elders quiet and earnestly solicitous to please; to the young
men cold; but with a penetrating, mocking promise haunting that
coldness, and sometimes sweetly agreeable, often wilful, and
changeable as April winds. At last the colonel concluded that she
needed, as did all other spirited young women, the taming influence of
a man whom she loved, a home to care for, and children to soften and
temper her spirit.
"Well, young friends, I see you count on keeping the Sabbath," he said
cheerily. "For my part, Will, I don't see how Jim Douns can preach
this morning, before this laurel blossom and that damask rose."
"How poetical! Which is which?" asked Betty.
"Flatterer!" laughed Helen, shaking her finger.
"And a married man, too!" continued Betty.
"Well, being married has not affected my poetical sentiment, nor
impaired my eyesight."
"But it has seriously inconvenienced your old propensity of making
love to the girls. Not that you wouldn't if you dared," replied Betty
with mischief in her eye.
"Now, Will, what do you think of that? Isn't it real sisterly regard?
Come, we'll go and look at my thoroughbreds," said Colonel Zane.
"Where is Jonathan?" Helen asked presently. "Something happened at
Metzar's yesterday. Papa wouldn't tell me, and I want to ask
Jonathan."
"Jack is down by the spring. He spends a great deal of his time there.
It's shady and cool, and the water babbles over the stones."
"How much alone he is," said Helen.
Betty took her former position on the steps, but did not raise her
eyes while she continued speaking. "Yes, he's more alone than ever
lately, and quieter, too. He hardly ever speaks now. There must be
something on his mind more serious than horse-thieves."
"What?" Helen asked quickly.
"I'd better not tell--you."
A long moment passed before Helen spoke.
"Please tell me!"
"Well, Helen, we think, Eb and I, that Jack is in love for the first
time in his life, and with you, you adorable creature. But Jack's a
borderman; he is stern in his principles, thinks he is wedded to his
border life, and he knows that he has both red and white blood on his
hands. He'd die before he'd speak of his love, because he cannot
understand that would do any good, even if you loved him, which is, of
course, preposterous."
"Loves me!" breathed Helen softly.
She sat down rather beside Betty, and turned her face away. She still
held the young woman's hand which she squeezed so tightly as to make
its owner wince. Betty stole a look at her, and saw the rich red blood
mantling her cheeks, and her full bosom heave.
Helen turned presently, with no trace of emotion except a singular
brilliance of the eyes. She was so slow to speak again that Colonel
Zane and Will returned from the corral before she found her voice.
"Colonel Zane, please tell me about last night. When papa came home to
supper he was pale and very nervous. I knew something had happened.
But he would not explain, which made me all the more anxious. Won't
you please tell me?"
Colonel Zane glanced again at her, and knew what had happened. Despite
her self-possession those tell-tale eyes told her secret.
Ever-changing and shadowing with a bounding, rapturous light, they
were indeed the windows of her soul. All the emotion of a woman's
heart shone there, fear, beauty, wondering appeal, trembling joy, and
timid hope.
"Tell you? Indeed I will," replied Colonel Zane, softened and a little
remorseful under those wonderful eyes.
No one liked to tell a story better than Colonel Zane. Briefly and
graphically he related the circumstances of the affair leading to the
attack on Helen's father, and, as the tale progressed, he became quite
excited, speaking with animated face and forceful gestures.
"Just as the knife-point touched your father, a swiftly-flying object
knocked the weapon to the floor. It was Jonathan's tomahawk. What
followed was so sudden I hardly saw it. Like lightning, and flexible
as steel, Jonathan jumped over the table, smashed Case against the
wall, pulled him up and threw him over the bank. I tell you, Helen, it
was a beautiful piece of action; but not, of course, for a woman's
eyes. Now that's all. Your father was not even hurt."
"He saved papa's life," murmured Helen, standing like a statue.
She wheeled suddenly with that swift bird-like motion habitual to her,
and went quickly down the path leading to the spring.
* * * * *
Jonathan Zane, solitary dreamer of dreams as he was, had never been in
as strange and beautiful a reverie as that which possessed him on this
Sabbath morning.
Deep into his heart had sunk Betty's words. The wonder of it, the
sweetness, that alone was all he felt. The glory of this girl had
begun, days past, to spread its glamour round him. Swept irresistibly
away now, he soared aloft in a dream-castle of fancy with its painted
windows and golden walls.
For the first time in his life on the border he had entered the little
glade and had no eye for the crystal water flowing over the pebbles
and mossy stones, or the plot of grassy ground inclosed by tall, dark
trees and shaded by a canopy of fresh green and azure blue. Nor did he
hear the music of the soft rushing water, the warbling birds, or the
gentle sighing breeze moving the leaves.
Gone, vanished, lost to-day was that sweet companionship of nature.
That indefinable and unutterable spirit which flowed so peacefully to
him from his beloved woods; that something more than merely affecting
his senses, which existed for him in the stony cliffs, and breathed
with life through the lonely aisles of the forest, had fled before the
fateful power of a woman's love and beauty.
A long time that seemed only a moment passed while he leaned against a
stone. A light step sounded on the path.
A vision in pure white entered the glade; two little hands pressed
his, and two dark-blue eyes of misty beauty shed their light on him.
"Jonathan, I am come to thank you."
Sweet and tremulous, the voice sounded far away.
"Thank me? For what?"
"You saved papa's life. Oh! how can I thank you?"
No voice answered for him.
"I have nothing to give but this."
A flower-like face was held up to him; hands light as thistledown
touched his shoulders; dark-blue eyes glowed upon him with all
tenderness.
"May I thank you--so?"
Soft lips met his full and lingeringly.
Then came a rush as of wind, a flash of white, and the patter of
flying feet. He was alone in the glade.
CHAPTER X
June passed; July opened with unusually warm weather, and Fort Henry
had no visits from Indians or horse-thieves, nor any inconvenience
except the hot sun. It was the warmest weather for many years, and
seriously dwarfed the settlers' growing corn. Nearly all the springs
were dry, and a drouth menaced the farmers.
The weather gave Helen an excuse which she was not slow to adopt. Her
pale face and languid air perplexed and worried her father and her
friends. She explained to them that the heat affected her
disagreeably.
Long days had passed since that Sunday morning when she kissed the
borderman. What transports of sweet hope and fear were hers then! How
shame had scorched her happiness! Yet still she gloried in the act. By
that kiss had she awakened to a full consciousness of her love. With
insidious stealth and ever-increasing power this flood had increased
to full tide, and, bursting its bonds, surged over her with
irresistible strength.
During the first days after the dawning of her passion, she lived in
its sweetness, hearing only melodious sounds chiming in her soul. The
hours following that Sunday were like long dreams. But as all things
reach fruition, so this girlish period passed, leaving her a
thoughtful woman. She began to gather up the threads of her life where
love had broken them, to plan nobly, and to hope and wait.
Weeks passed, however, and her lover did not come. Betty told her that
Jonathan made flying trips at break of day to hold council with
Colonel Zane; that he and Wetzel were on the trail of Shawnees with
stolen horses, and both bordermen were in their dark, vengeful,
terrible moods. In these later days Helen passed through many stages
of feeling. After the exalting mood of hot, young love, came reaction.
She fell into the depths of despair. Sorrow paled her face, thinned
her cheeks and lent another shadow, a mournful one, to her great eyes.
The constant repression of emotion, the strain of trying to seem
cheerful when she was miserable, threatened even her magnificent
health. She answered the solicitude of her friends by evasion, and
then by that innocent falsehood in which a sensitive soul hides its
secrets. Shame was only natural, because since the borderman came not,
nor sent her a word, pride whispered that she had wooed him,
forgetting modesty.
Pride, anger, shame, despair, however, finally fled before affection.
She loved this wild borderman, and knew he loved her in return
although he might not understand it himself. His simplicity, his lack
of experience with women, his hazardous life and stern duty regarding
it, pleaded for him and for her love. For the lack of a little
understanding she would never live unhappy and alone while she was
loved. Better give a thousand times more than she had sacrificed. He
would return to the village some day, when the Indians and the thieves
were run down, and would be his own calm, gentle self. Then she would
win him, break down his allegiance to this fearful border life, and
make him happy in her love.
While Helen was going through one of the fires of life to come out
sweeter and purer, if a little pensive and sad, time, which waits not
for love, nor life, nor death, was hastening onward, and soon the
golden fields of grain were stored. September came with its fruitful
promise fulfilled.
Helen entered once more into the quiet, social life of the little
settlement, taught her class on Sundays, did all her own work, and
even found time to bring a ray of sunshine to more than one sick
child's bed. Yet she did not forget her compact with Jonathan, and
bent all her intelligence to find some clew that might aid in the
capture of the horse-thief. She was still groping in the darkness. She
could not, however, banish the belief that the traitor was Brandt. She
blamed herself for this, because of having no good reasons for
suspicion; but the conviction was there, fixed by intuition. Because a
man's eyes were steely gray, sharp like those of a cat's, and capable
of the same contraction and enlargement, there was no reason to
believe their owner was a criminal. But that, Helen acknowledged with
a smile, was the only argument she had. To be sure Brandt had looked
capable of anything, the night Jonathan knocked him down; she knew he
had incited Case to begin the trouble at Metzar's, and had seemed
worried since that time. He had not left the settlement on short
journeys, as had been his custom before the affair in the bar-room.
And not a horse had disappeared from Fort Henry since that time.
Brandt had not discontinued his attentions to her; if they were less
ardent it was because she had given him absolutely to understand that
she could be his friend only. And she would not have allowed even so
much except for Jonathan's plan. She fancied it was possible to see
behind Brandt's courtesy, the real subtle, threatening man. Stripped
of his kindliness, an assumed virtue, the iron man stood revealed,
cold, calculating, cruel.
Mordaunt she never saw but once and then, shocking and pitiful, he lay
dead drunk in the grass by the side of the road, his pale, weary,
handsome face exposed to the pitiless rays of the sun. She ran home
weeping over this wreck of what had once been so fine a gentleman. Ah!
the curse of rum! He had learned his soft speech and courtly bearing
in the refinement of a home where a proud mother adored, and gentle
sisters loved him. And now, far from the kindred he had disgraced, he
lay in the road like a log. How it hurt her! She almost wished she
could have loved him, if love might have redeemed. She was more kind
to her other admirers, more tolerant of Brandt, and could forgive the
Englishman, because the pangs she had suffered through love had
softened her spirit.
During this long period the growing friendship of her cousin for Betty
had been a source of infinite pleasure to Helen. She hoped and
believed a romance would develop between the young widow and Will, and
did all in her power, slyly abetted by the matchmaking colonel, to
bring the two together.
One afternoon when the sky was clear with that intense blue peculiar
to bright days in early autumn, Helen started out toward Betty's,
intending to remind that young lady she had promised to hunt for
clematis and other fall flowers.
About half-way to Betty's home she met Brandt. He came swinging round
a corner with his quick, firm step. She had not seen him for several
days, and somehow he seemed different. A brightness, a flash, as of
daring expectation, was in his face. The poise, too, of the man
had changed.
"Well, I am fortunate. I was just going to your home," he said
cheerily. "Won't you come for a walk with me?"
"You may walk with me to Betty's," Helen answered.
"No, not that. Come up the hillside. We'll get some goldenrod. I'd
like to have a chat with you. I may go away--I mean I'm thinking of
making a short trip," he added hurriedly.
"Please come."
"I promised to go to Betty's."
"You won't come?" His voice trembled with mingled disappointment and
resentment.
"No," Helen replied in slight surprise.
"You have gone with the other fellows. Why not with me?" He was white
now, and evidently laboring under powerful feelings that must have had
their origin in some thought or plan which hinged on the acceptance of
his invitation.
"Because I choose not to," Helen replied coldly, meeting his glance
fully.
A dark red flush swelled Brandt's face and neck; his gray eyes gleamed
balefully with wolfish glare; his teeth were clenched. He breathed
hard and trembled with anger. Then, by a powerful effort, he conquered
himself; the villainous expression left his face; the storm of rage
subsided. Great incentive there must have been for him thus to repress
his emotions so quickly. He looked long at her with sinister, intent
regard; then, with the laugh of a desperado, a laugh which might have
indicated contempt for the failure of his suit, and which was fraught
with a world of meaning, of menace, he left her without so much as
a salute.
Helen pondered over this sudden change, and felt relieved because she
need make no further pretense of friendship. He had shown himself to
be what she had instinctively believed. She hurried on toward Betty's,
hoping to find Colonel Zane at home, and with Jonathan, for Brandt's
hint of leaving Fort Henry, and his evident chagrin at such a slip of
speech, had made her suspicious. She was informed by Mrs. Zane that
the colonel had gone to a log-raising; Jonathan had not been in for
several days, and Betty went away with Will.
"Where did they go?" asked Helen.
"I'm not sure; I think down to the spring."
Helen followed the familiar path through the grove of oaks into the
glade. It was quite deserted. Sitting on the stone against which
Jonathan had leaned the day she kissed him, she gave way to tender
reflection. Suddenly she was disturbed by the sound of rapid
footsteps, and looking up, saw the hulking form of Metzar, the
innkeeper, coming down the path. He carried a bucket, and meant
evidently to get water. Helen did not desire to be seen, and, thinking
he would stay only a moment, slipped into a thicket of willows behind
the stone. She could see plainly through the foliage. Metzar came into
the glade, peered around in the manner of a man expecting to see some
one, and then, filling his bucket at the spring, sat down on
the stone.
Not a minute elapsed before soft, rapid footsteps sounded in the
distance. The bushes parted, disclosing the white, set face and gray
eyes of Roger Brandt. With a light spring he cleared the brook and
approached Metzar.
Before speaking he glanced around the glade with the fugitive,
distrustful glance of a man who suspects even the trees. Then,
satisfied by the scrutiny he opened his hunting frock, taking forth a
long object which he thrust toward Metzar.
It was an Indian arrow.
Metzar's dull gaze traveled from this to the ominous face of Brandt.
"See there, you! Look at this arrow! Shot by the best Indian on the
border into the window of my room. I hadn't been there a minute when
it came from the island. God! but it was a great shot!"
"Hell!" gasped Metzar, his dull face quickening with some awful
thought.
"I guess it is hell," replied Brandt, his face growing whiter and
wilder.
"Our game's up?" questioned Metzar with haggard cheek.
"Up? Man! We haven't a day, maybe less, to shake Fort Henry."
"What does it mean?" asked Metzar. He was the calmer of the two.
"It's a signal. The Shawnees, who were in hiding with the horses over
by Blueberry swamp, have been flushed by those bordermen. Some of them
have escaped; at least one, for no one but Ashbow could shoot that
arrow across the river."
"Suppose he hadn't come?" whispered Metzar hoarsely.
Brandt answered him with a dark, shuddering gaze.
A twig snapped in the thicket. Like foxes at the click of a trap,
these men whirled with fearsome glances.
"Ugh!" came a low, guttural voice from the bushes, and an Indian of
magnificent proportions and somber, swarthy features, entered
the glade.
CHAPTER XI
The savage had just emerged from the river, for his graceful,
copper-colored body and scanty clothing were dripping with water. He
carried a long bow and a quiver of arrows.
Brandt uttered an exclamation of surprise, and Metzar a curse, as the
lithe Indian leaped the brook. He was not young. His swarthy face was
lined, seamed, and terrible with a dark impassiveness.
"Paleface-brother-get-arrow," he said in halting English, as his eyes
flashed upon Brandt. "Chief-want-make-sure."
The white man leaned forward, grasped the Indian's arm, and addressed
him in an Indian language. This questioning was evidently in regard to
his signal, the whereabouts of others of the party, and why he took
such fearful risks almost in the village. The Indian answered with one
English word.
"Deathwind!"
Brandt drew back with drawn, white face, while a whistling breath
escaped him.
"I knew it, Metz. Wetzel!" he exclaimed in a husky voice.
The blood slowly receded from Metzar's evil, murky face, leaving it
haggard.
"Deathwind-on-Chief's-trail-up-Eagle Rock," continued the Indian.
"Deathwind-fooled-not-for-long. Chief-wait-paleface-brothers at
Two Islands."
The Indian stepped into the brook, parted the willows, and was gone as
he had come, silently.
"We know what to expect," said Brandt in calmer tone as the daring
cast of countenance returned to him. "There's an Indian for you! He
got away, doubled like an old fox on his trail, and ran in here to
give us a chance at escape. Now you know why Bing Legget can't
be caught."
"Let's dig at once," replied Metzar, with no show of returning courage
such as characterized his companion.
Brandt walked to and fro with bent brows, like one in deep thought.
Suddenly he turned upon Metzar eyes which were brightly hard, and
reckless with resolve.
"By Heaven! I'll do it! Listen. Wetzel has gone to the top of Eagle
Mountain, where he and Zane have a rendezvous. Even he won't suspect
the cunning of this Indian; anyway it'll be after daylight to-morrow
before he strikes the trail. I've got twenty-four hours, and more, to
get this girl, and I'll do it!"
"Bad move to have weight like her on a march," said Metzar.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17