Читать книгу "Nevada" - Zane Grey - Страница 7

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It was springtime in northern California. Old Mt. Shasta stood up grandly and took the morning light, his vast snowslopes beginning to be ridged by black. From the Tule Lake depression the land waved upward in wide belts, brown and gray, and at last green as emerald.

Honk! Honk! Honk! The wild geese were coming from the south. Great flocks in triangle formation, led by huge old honking ganders, came flying over the sage hills, to circle the grain fields and drop down among their fellows.

The wide acres of the Ide ranch, mostly lake-bottom land that the draining of Tule Lake had made available, spread rich and fertile along the southern shore. The squares of brown soil but recently ploughed, the fields beginning to show a tinge of green, the pasture lands, running far up on the gray sage slopes, the droves of horses and herds of cattle, the hedge fences, the orchards, young and old, the neat sheds and the rambling red-roofed barn, and the white house half hidden in a grove of maples and pines--all these amply testified to the prosperity of the Ides.

Hettie Ide had awakened this morning twenty years old. The wild geese that she had loved since childhood had come back from their pilgrimage to the south, and were honking as if they knew it was her birthday and that on this beautiful May day she must be joyous with young life.

But Hettie had a secret sorrow, which she hid deep in her heart, while she ministered to her ailing mother, and shared with her brother Ben the one bitter drop in his cup of happiness.

It wanted an hour yet before breakfast. As Hettie tripped down the stairs she heard Ina shrieking with laughter, no doubt at little Blaine's pranks. How happy they were and how blessed by God! But Hettie had no envy in her heart this birthday morning. She was closer to Ben than ever, and she loved Ina and the child as if indeed they were her own flesh and blood.

Hettie went outdoors. What a glorious morning! Bright and warm was the sun; the birds were singing in the maples; violets lifted their sweet faces out of the green; the wild-lilac buds were bursting into pink.

She knew where to find Ben. Down in the hedge-lined lane to the corrals she strolled, her heart full, yet with the old pang keener, listening to the hum of bees and the honk of wild geese, the bawl of calves and the twittering of the swallows.

Above all these sounds, so sweet to her listening ears, she heard the shrill whistle of Ben's great wild stallion, California Red. He was trooping across the pasture in defiance of Ben, or venting his displeasure at the corral bars.

Hettie found Ben sitting on top of the corral fence. California Red was inside, and indeed he did not like it. Hettie halted to peep through at him. She loved this wonderful horse, too, for his beauty, his spirit, and for another reason which only Ben would ever have suspected.

California Red had been in captivity four years. He had been broken, yet never had lost his spirit. It took a halter to make him lower his ears and stop rolling his fine dark eyes. Red was never gentle, but, on the other hand, he had not one mean trait. He shone red, glossy, silken, beautiful, and his long mane was a flame. He was a big horse, yet so perfectly proportioned that most observers would not have judged his size. High and rangy, with body round as a barrel, a wonderful deep wide chest, legs powerful, yet not heavy, and an arching neck and noble head, he looked indeed what he had been for years, the wild stallion king of the sage hills of northern California.

Hettie climbed to a seat beside her brother.

"Mawnin', pard," she drawled, mimicking the Southern accent of one neither of them ever forgot.

Ben gave a little start. He had been gazing out over the red stallion, over the corrals and fields and the sage slopes, to something beyond. Hettie did not often take such liberty with her brother. But this was her birthday and she meant to recall something of the past that might hurt them both.

"Wal, howdy there, old girl!" replied Ben, surprising her with his answering drawl. Beneath the humor in his voice lay deep feeling. But as he reached for her with his gloved hand he did not look at her.

"What're you doing, Ben?" she asked, brightly, as she took his hand in both hers.

"I was just coaxing that red son-of-a-gun," he replied, nodding at the stallion.

"Red doesn't seem to obey you very well."

"I'd have to rope him before he'd lay down those ears."

"Ben, you mustn't expect him to grow tame."

"Tame? No, I only want him to love me."

"Perhaps love was left out of Red's makeup," laughed Hettie. "Or perhaps he can't forgive you for taking him from his sage hills. I certainly wouldn't love you, if I were Red."

"It's four years now," said Ben, thoughtfully. "What a long time! I couldn't ask a finer, gamer horse. Sure there isn't one in all California that can touch him. But I--I always seem to want something from Red--I never get."

"Ben dear," replied Hettie, pressing his hand, "what you want is something--some one to tame Red."

"I reckon. . . . The only man who ever could tame Red," muttered Ben, more to himself than to her.

"Your old pard, Nevada," she whispered, leaning closer.

Ben dropped his head, and his gloved hand closed tight on Hettie's.

Not for a long time had Hettie dared to broach this subject and now that she had, she meant to follow it up in a way to help her, and perhaps Ben, too.

"Ben, this is my birthday," she spoke up, softly.

"Well, so it is," replied her brother, starting out of his reverie. "I plumb forgot. But I reckon I can dig you up a present of some kind. . . . Let's see, you must be eighteen--nineteen."

"Twenty," she added, gravely.

"How time flies! Why, you're a grown woman, and a darned fine handsome one, too. But you always seem my kid sister."

And as he turned to kiss her cheek she saw tears in his dark eyes. There were threads of gray, too, in the hair over Ben's temples. That shocked Hettie. He, so young and strong and virile! But Ben, all those long years exiled from his home, outcast and wild-horse hunter, had led a lonely and hard life. It was Nevada who had saved him. And now, as so often in the past, she prayed God to bless Nevada, and keep him good and clean and brave as when she had known him.

"Ben," she spoke up, "I don't want any present on my twentieth birthday. But I ask this. If I'm a woman now I'm old enough to be listened to. Let me talk to you as I want--as I need to."

"Hettie, I'm sorry you had to ask me that," he returned, contritely. "But you hurt so. . . . And I thought you just a--a sentimental girl--that you'd forget."

"Forget him? Never," she whispered. "Have you forgotten?"

"If I ever do may God forgive me," replied Ben, poignantly.

"Ben, I know your secret, and I think Ina knows, too," went on Hettie, earnestly. "We are dear friends--nay, we're sisters. She's so good--so lovable. . . . We have talked often. You remember when Ina came home from college--when you were a poor wild-horse hunter of the hills and father almost hated you--remember how Ina and I plotted for you and Nevada. How we fought for you!"

"Ah, Hettie--I do remember," said Ben, dreamily.

"Well, Ina and I know what ails you. It's loss of your pard, Nevada!"

"No, Hettie dear, not all loss of mine," burst out Ben, passionately. "I'm not so selfish as that. I could stand loss. But what has grieved and shamed me--and, well, broken my heart--is that Nevada saved me, made all my good fortune, my happiness, possible, by sacrificing himself. Father forgave me, took me back home to mother and you. Hart Blaine was proud to give me--me, the lonely wild-horse hunter--his talented and beautiful daughter, the richest girl in all this valley of rich ranchers. I had fame, family, home, love, happiness beyond belief. Then father died, leaving me rich. I should say leaving us rich, for half of all this wonderful ranch is yours, Hettie. Next little Blaine came to bless me--my boy! . . . And Nevada went back to where he came from. God only knows where that is. I've spent a lot of money searching the West for a lean-faced rider who drawled his Texas accent--and answered to the name Nevada. And I can't find him."

"Some day you will, Ben," she whispered, thrillingly.

"Always I believed I would," went on Ben, whose tongue, once loosed, seemed in haste to unburden itself. "I lived on that hope. But it's four years now. Four years. And that Forlorn River Ranch of ours is now worth a fortune. Half of that is Nevada's. Half of the Mule Deer Flat Ranch is Nevada's. He's worth money. . . . Why didn't he come back? The whole country rose up to bless him for killing Less Setter and his two accomplices. Why didn't he ever write? Just a line--a word to let me know he was alive and hadn't forgotten. Oh, damn him--damn him!"

"Hush--Ben," returned Hettie, almost faltering. "You don't mean to damn Nevada. . . . Don't you understand that the reason he disappeared like that, and became as one dead to you, was not because he feared the law might hold him for killing those wicked men who had trapped you. No! But because he feared we would find out who he really was. Oh, I know, Ben. That was it. Nevada had been bad. How bad I dare not imagine. . . . Don't you remember that day when he rode so furiously into the crowd to face Setter? How the mere sight of him froze them with terror. . . . Oh, Ben, I fear Nevada had been some great and terrible gunman. . . . That gentle, soft-voiced boy who was afraid to touch me with his little finger! Oh, the mystery, the pity of it!"

"Gunman?" queried Ben, almost harshly. "I reckon so. I think I guessed it, he was so strange with guns. He handled a gun so marvellously. But what was that to me? . . . He could be Billy the Kid, or Plummer, or Wess Hardin, or Kingfisher, or Jim Lacy, or any other desperado I ever heard the name of--and what would I care?"

"Ben, dear, you quite overlooked something," rejoined Hettie, bravely, while she felt the hot blood mount to cheek and temple. "Nevada loved not only you--but me too . . . and I--I loved him."

"Well, now, Hettie," replied Ben, strangely softened, "I reckon that's no news, though you never declared it so--so openly. But even though that was true, why should it make such a difference?"

"The boy came of a good family," replied Hettie. "He had fine instincts. And one of them was an instinct to disappear when there was danger of my learning who he really was. There can be no other reason. He had pride. And he loved me so--so well, he couldn't bear to shame me."

"Damn him, anyway!" burst out Ben, again. "He's broken your heart, too."

"Not yet," replied Hettie, in strong vibrating tones.

"Hettie, did that son-of-a-gun make love to you?" queried Ben, struggling with his resentment and remorse.

"Did--he?" murmured she, with a little broken laugh. "Ben, when he found out I cared--he--he made the most terrible love to me. . . . Oh, I can never forget--never get over it!"

"Well!" ejaculated her brother, amazed out of his own pain. "How and when did he ever get the chance?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" asked Hettie, archly.

"And you--my little sixteen-year-old sister! . . . Who can ever tell about a girl?"

"Ben, didn't Ina Blaine love you when she was five years old--and ten--and fourteen?" queried Hettie. "And at eighteen after she'd been away from you four years?"

"Thank the Lord, she did. I've never begun to understand it. But it's beautiful, wonderful. . . . Did my pard, Nevada, ever know you, too, had that strange, glorious thing--woman's love--for him?"

"Yes, Nevada knew," replied Hettie, eloquently. "He knew he had my faith, too. . . . And, Ben, that is why I've never lost him. I know. It's the way a woman feels. Nevada is not dead. He is not false to me--to what I believed he had become. And somewhere, somehow, he will come back to me--to us."

"My God! that's good to hear!" exclaimed Ben, with fervent emotion. "You strike me right in the heart, Hettie."

"I'm glad. I've wanted to speak for long," replied Hettie, simply. "And there's another thing that touches us closely."

"What's that?" he asked, anxiously, as she gazed solemnly up at him, and hesitated.

"Mother is failing. Haven't you noticed it?"

Ben nodded his head sorrowfully. "I reckon I try not to see, but I do."

"She has brightened up since spring came," went on Hettie. "Mother loves the sun, the trees, the flowers, the birds. She likes to be outdoors. Winter is long and cold here. It rains and snows and sleets. She dreads the icy wind. Honestly, Ben, I don't think it's grief for father. She has gotten over that. I believe this valley is bad for her. It's bad for me, too, in winter."

"I've been afraid of that very thing," declared her brother, thoughtfully. "But there's a possibility of some organic disease."

"Mother's not old," said Hettie. "She ought to live many years yet. But we must do something to help her. Ben, I suggest you take her to San Francisco. Get the opinion and advice of some up-to-date physician. Take Ina with you. Blaine will be safe with me. I'll run the ranch, never fear."

"By George! it's a great idea," declared Ben, with amazing enthusiasm. He leaped down off the corral fence, then turned to help Hettie. "Ina will be tickled. She'll get her brother Marvie to stay with you."

"Ben, I actually believe you've decided already," replied Hettie, suddenly feeling radiant.

"Reckon I have, and I'll bet you Ina squeals with joy. Let's go tell her this minute."

Hettie peeped through the corral fence at California Red.

"Good-by, you beautiful, stand-off wild thing!" she cried. "Some day some one will come and he'll tame you to eat out of my hand."

With arms locked, Hettie and Ben hurried down the lane, eager with the import of new hopes, happier than they had been for a long time. It was Ben now who talked, while Hettie kept silent. She thrilled with the consciousness that she had roused Ben from a creeping sad abstraction that had grown more noticeable of late. Ben not only missed his old friend, Nevada, but also the wild-horse-hunting life which had been his sole occupation for years before his marriage, and which had been the cause of the alienation from his father.

Ina was in the yard, gathering violets, which certainly matched the blue of her spring dress and the color of her eyes. Little Blaine babbled at sight of his father and ran as fast as his short fat legs could carry him.

"Well, good-mawnin', you-all!" said Ina, gayly. "Say, you look excited." . . . Then she kissed Hettie and continued, "Many happy, happy returns of the day."

Ben snatched the boy up and, holding him on his arm, he confronted Ina with a smile that held great portent.

"How soon can you get ready for a trip to San Francisco?" he asked, quite naturally, as if he were in the habit of speaking so every day.

"What! Oh, I knew something was up," she cried, the color flashing to her beautiful face. "How soon? . . . Fifteen minutes!"

"Ha! Ha! I thought you'd hit the saddle and ride that idea pronto," said Ben, happily. "But you needn't be so swift as that."

"Ben, are you really going to take me to Frisco?" asked Ina, eagerly.

"Yes. It's all settled. But--"

"You darling," she cried, kissing him. "I wanted to go somewhere. The winter has been so long, so confining. Klamath Falls was my hope. But San Francisco! Oh!"

"Ina, I'm sorry I don't think of such things," replied Ben, ruefully. "I guess I'd fallen into a rut. You must thank Hettie."

Whereupon Ina most heartily embraced Hettie, and then, coming down to earth, she said: "Let's go in to breakfast. You can tell me there all about this grand idea."

"We'll tell you now," said Ben. "The trip to Frisco is on mother's account and we mustn't discuss it before her. The fact is, Ina, mother is failing. Something wrong with her. Hettie suggested we take her to San Francisco to see a competent physician. Blaine will be safe with Hettie and so will the ranch. What do you say, dearest?"

"I say it's a happy and wise suggestion," returned Ina, with a nod of commendation toward Hettie. "This damp cold Tule Lake does not agree with mother."

The only hitch in the plans formulated by Ben and Hettie concerned the coming of Marvie Blaine to stay at the Ide ranch. Hart Blaine would not allow his son to go.

"That boy can't run a mowin' machine, let alone a ranch," old Blaine had said to Ben.

There was trouble between Marvie and his father, for which, in Ben's opinion, both were equally to blame.

"Sure reminds me of my scrap with dad," remarked Ben to Hettie. "Only I was right and dad was wrong. Marvie refused to go to college. Reckon he's not so different from me. He likes horses and the open country."

"Some day Marvie will run off just as you did, Ben Ide," Hettie had answered.

So Hettie was left alone in the Ide homestead with little Blaine and the two women servants. She rather welcomed the solitude. She found how much her mother had taken of time and thought. Part of the day she had the servants take care of Blaine while she devoted herself to the many set tasks at hand and the new ones always arising. After supper, when Blaine had been put to bed, she had hours to be alone and think before her own rest claimed her.

The running of the ranch had at first seemed something that would be pleasure, rather than work. She discovered presently that it was not only work, but an extremely embarrassing and exasperating task. There were eighteen hands employed on the lake ranch, and as many more out in the hills. Most of these employees were young men of the valley, unmarried, and very desirous of changing that state of single blessedness. Some had been schoolmates of Hettie's. And there were several riders, long, lean, rangy fellows from the South, with whom Hettie grew most annoyed. They continually found reasons to ride in to the ranch. Some of the excuses were ridiculous in the extreme. These droll boys of the open range paid court to her, wholly oblivious of her rebuffs. In two weeks' time the whole contingent was in love with Hettie or trying to make her believe so. And the plowing, the planting, the movement of stock, the hauling of supplies, the herding of cattle, in fact all tasks pertaining to the operation of Ben Ide's ranches, had to be talked over elaborately with the temporary mistress.

Hettie had fun out of it, except in the case of the several lean-faced, quiet-eyed riders from the hills. They made love to her. Moreover, they reminded her of Nevada, and that inflamed her lonely, hungry heart.

If Nevada had come to mind often in the past, what did he do now but haunt every hour? She saw him in every one of the range riders. Yet how incomparably he bestrode a horse! Hettie saw his lean, fine still face, so clean cut and brown, with the sleepy eyes that yet could wake to flame and also smile with a light she had never seen in any other. His old black sombrero, with bullet holes in the crown, when laid aside had appeared a disreputable thing, but on his head it had seemed picturesque and beautiful. His old silk scarf with the checks of red, the yellow vest with the string of a little tobacco pouch always hanging out of a pocket, the worn leather wristbands, the high top-boots with their scalloped edges, and their long bright jingling spurs--how well she remembered them, how vividly they were limned in the eye of her memory! Then, as something inevitable at the end of reminiscence, something that seemed an inseparable part of Nevada, she recalled the dark and heavy gun he had always worn. It had bumped against her as she walked beside him. When he had taken her in his arms, even in the sweet madness of that moment, she had felt the gun hard and cold against her.

The years had brought Hettie stronger and deeper love for Nevada. As she looked back now she remembered her open aversion to his gun, and to the something about him that hinted of its deadly use. She had been a callow, sentimental girl, sickened at the thought of bloodshed, hostile toward the spirit and skill that had eventually saved her brother from ruin and perhaps herself from the villainous Setter.

She had lived and suffered during the four years since Nevada had ridden away, leaving death and calamity behind him. She was a woman now. She saw differently. She divined what she had been to him--how her friendship and love had uplifted him. How great and enduring had her own love become! She was his alone. Separation could never change her.

"What did it matter who Nevada was or what he was before he came to Ben and me?" she mused, sitting by the open window in the dark, listening to the last sleepy honks of wild geese and the melancholy peep-peep of spring frogs. "But he could not see that. Yet he must have known it would not matter to me, so long as he kept himself the Nevada we knew and loved. . . . Would he ever fall to rustling cattle, if that had once been his crime? No! Would he ever drink again? No! Could he sink to the embrace of some bad woman? Never! . . . Will he use again that terrible gun? . . . Ah, he will! I feel it. If not for himself, then for some one. . . . He was flame and lightning to destroy!"