Читать книгу The Untamed Ben Ide - Zane Grey - Страница 8

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Ben mounted his gray horse, and splashing across Forlorn River, he headed north, his mind teeming with poignant thoughts. He timed this ride to get him into Hammell late in the afternoon, but the gray was not a slow traveler, and Ben, lost in vain regrets and hopeless longings, forgot to hold him to a walk.

At noon, from the divide between the sage mountains Ben looked back and down at Clear Lake, shining like a green jewel set in the gray-purple of sage, and far across to the dot that was his cabin home. “What a country! I’d hate to see it settled. But that’ll come, and my chance to get possession of Forlorn River Valley.”

Northward down the other side of the pass spread the vast level range land of California and Oregon, green and gold, square-patched in brown, threaded by bright ribbons of water, bordered by the black lava beds and buttes. Far beyond glittered snow-clad Shasta, solemn and white in the sky. Survey of both east and west was blocked by the bulk of the gray mountains.

It was Ben’s habit to look and think while he rode along the trails; and this day his sensorial perceptions were abnormally active while grief, resolve, hope, dream, and doubt possessed his heart in turn. That part of Hettie’s letter referring to Ina Blaine recurred and recurred despite stern effort to dismiss it. Hettie was faithful, brother-worshiping, and she had allowed her imagination to run riot. Ben gave no credence to her wild beliefs. Yet what smothering sweetness overcame him! Madness lay in mere dreaming of what Hettie suggested. No, Ina Blaine was not for a poor lonely wild-horse hunter.

Ben rode into Hammell ahead of the hour he had set, and tying the gray to the hitching rail in front of Ketcham’s big store he went in. How good to feel free of debt! Ketcham’s greeting was cordial enough to please even Ben. He exchanged bits of news with the genial merchant, and then crossed the wide street to the high board-faced saloon. He found welcome here, too, from Smatty McGill and his bartender, to loungers, cowboys, gamblers, most of whom knew Ben.

“Soft drinks only for me, fellows,” he said, inviting them all to the bar. “But have what you like on me. And tell me all that’s going on around.”

He spent an hour there, hearing again all Nevada had told him, and more besides. He had worked with one of the cowboys. When Ben was about through with his pertinent questions, Strobel, the county sheriff, strolled in. Ben knew him well and was sure of his stand with this lean-jawed, narrow-eyed officer.

“Howdy, Ben!” replied Strobel, to Ben’s greeting. “Haven’t laid eye on you for a year. Tell me aboot yourself.”

It was then that Ben realized the subtle transition which had taken place in his affairs. All in one day! Ben had to draw upon Nevada’s queer ideas and auguries about the future. When spoken out, frankly, Ben felt that they became fact.

“Wal, Ben, I feel I ought to tell you there’s queer talk floatin’ around aboot you,” drawled Strobel, confidentially, and he proceeded to acquaint Ben with some unsavory gossip.

“Charlie, they’re the dirtiest kind of lies,” declared Ben, with sincere heat. “You’ve known me since I was a kid. Don’t you ask me to deny I’m a horse thief.”

“Wal, I reckon I never took much stock in it, far as you’re concerned,” went on Strobel. “But how aboot your pards? That Modoc had a bad name before he went to ridin’ fer you. An’ Less Setter swears Nevada is a thief an’ a gun-fighter of note in other parts.”

“I knew about Modoc,” replied Ben, earnestly. “But I know as little about Nevada before he came to this country as you do. Since they’ve been with me they’ve been straight, Charlie. They couldn’t do anything crooked without me finding out. What’s more, I intend to live this talk down.”

“Wal, Ben, I’m dog-gone glad to hear you say that,” responded the sheriff. “I always felt close to your father till he fell into a gold mine. It’s my idee he was hard on you. Now don’t go blowin’ aboot it, but you can count on Charlie Strobel.”

“You bet that makes me proud, Charlie,” responded Ben, feelingly.

“Wal, keep this under your hat. I’ve been jacked up considerable lately ’cause I can’t lay my hands on this thievin’ outfit back in the sage hills. An’ I’m het up aboot it. Your father an’ Hart Blaine both are on the Council. Reckon you know what that means. Now, Ben, come over to my office an’ I’ll swear you in as a deputy, secret of course. Then you keep your eye peeled out in the hills an’ if you run acrost any fellers you’re not sure of you can arrest them on the spot.”

“Thanks for your trust, Charlie, but I can’t bind myself. I’ll keep my eye peeled, though, and post you in no time.”

“Good. I’ll take it as a favor, Ben.”

“Wait a minute, Charlie,” added Ben, as the sheriff shook hands with him. “Tell me, who is this Less Setter?”

“Wal, come to think of it, darn if I know,” rejoined Strobel, musingly. “He hails from east of the range somewhere. Talks big. Spends lots of money. Makin’ deals all the time—cattle, hosses, land. Particular friend of Hart Blaine’s now.”

“Sounds like a whole lot,” returned Ben, thoughtfully in turn. “All the same, Charlie, I’m giving you a hunch. Watch this Less Setter. Dig quietly into his deals. It can’t do any harm and it may surprise you.”

“Ben, you’ve got your nerve,” said Strobel, his narrow eyes like slits over blue fire. “But I’m a son-of-a-gun if you haven’t hit me plumb center.”

They parted at the door, Strobel plodding thoughtfully down the road, and Ben, wrapped in a profound study, starting to cross to where he had tied his horse. As he approached the hitching rail he saw a buckboard and a spirited team in front of the store. He heard the gay voices of young people. Untying his horse, he was about to step into the saddle when he remembered he wanted matches. So, leading the gray, he walked toward the steps.

Some one, a girl in blue, came tripping down. Ben saw her trim feet halt. Then he looked up into a face that was an older, sweeter image of the one cherished in his heart. Ina Blaine, tall, slim, stood gazing at him with the velvety dark eyes that had been her greatest charm.

After the shock of recognition whirling thoughts and feelings crowded Ben’s mind.

“Ben Ide! Don’t you know me?” she asked. The gladness, the reproach in look and voice, upheld him from utter confusion. He became aware of people in front of the store, of those in the buckboard. Before them he must not be awkward; and that, with the spur of her undoubted intention to meet him as an old friend, inspired him to cool, easy dignity.

“It’s Ina,” he said, meeting her outstretched hand.

“Oh, Ben—how you’ve grown!” she exclaimed, running an appraising glance from his boots to his bare bead. “Why, you’re a man! . . . Older, Ben, and—” She studied his face with dark eyes growing troubled. “But I knew you. Are you well, Ben, and—and all right?”

“I reckon I was both until about a minute ago,” he replied.

“Same old Ben,” she said, gaily, yet she blushed.

With that, restraint seemed to seize upon them both. Ben tried to break it. “You look wonderful, Ina. I hope your home-coming made you happy.”

“Ben, it did, and then it didn’t,” she rejoined. “I’ve so much to tell you. And we can’t talk here. When can you see me?”

“That’s for you to say, Ina,” he answered, his eyes on hers.

She looked away, hesitated, and then as if with a happy thought turned to him: “I’m to meet your sister to-night at eight o’clock, in the lane between the house and the road. Won’t you come?”

“Ina, I’m on my way to see Hettie and mother. I’m afraid you’d risk a good deal, meeting me.”

“Risk? In what way, Ben?”

“People would gossip if they saw you with me. Then your father—”

“I’ll welcome the risk, Ben. Say you’ll come with Hettie to meet me.”

“If you really—wish it—yes—I’ll—” he replied, thickly, halting over the last words.

“Thank you. Good-by till eight,” said Ina, and turned away.

Ben strode up the steps, passing men whose faces blurred, on into the store where with difficulty he remembered what it was he wanted to purchase. His mind was in a whirl.

“That was young McAdam in the Blaine buckboard,” announced Ketcham, confidentially, as he waited for Ben to make known his wants.

“Didn’t see him. McAdam? Who’s he?” returned Ben.

“Father’s a big merchant in Klamath. This boy Sewell is a high-stepper. He’s runnin’ after Ina pretty keen, an’ folks say Hart Blaine would like him as son-in-law.”

Ben moved away as quickly as possible from a radius of such gossip. He scouted it with strange savage intensity, but that did not assuage the hurt. Then he recalled what Nevada had said about this fellow McAdam.

Ben, suffering a division of mood, went outside, and led his horse to a livery stable to get him grain and water. Then he bethought himself of his own needs, though hunger seemed far from him. But he headed toward a restaurant. The hour was near sunset. A cool wind came down from the hills. Wild geese were honking overhead.

Dusk had fallen over the Tule Lake basin when Ben Ide rode into the lane that had once known the imprint of his bare feet. Over the distant range a brightness attested to the rising of the moon. Halfway down the lane, in the shadow of a clump of trees, Ben halted his horse and proceeded to walk.

The smell of freshly plowed earth filled the cool air. A sadness, fitting the gloaming hour, pervaded the level land.

All Ben’s boyhood flooded back in swift memories. It seemed long past. None of it could ever return. He was an outcast, sneaking home in the absence of his father. Yet with the shame of it burned a righteous wrath. Somehow the fault had not been all his.

As he turned off the lane toward a gate, indistinct in the shade, the figure of a girl approached him noiselessly.

“Ben?” she called, in shrill whisper.

“Yes, I’m here,” he replied.

She ran into his arms and held him closely, crying low and incoherently. He returned the embrace instinctively. Of course it was his sister. But she was tall, a woman grown, firm and strong of build, and a stranger, except in her voice.

“Why, Hettie!” he whispered, deeply touched.

“Oh, Ben—I’m just—glad to see you,” she replied, moving back from him yet clinging to his arm. “How big you are! It was good of you to come—at once. I owe that Nevada cowboy something. He’s nice. . . . Ben, I want you to slip in with me and see mother. She’s alone. But somebody might come any minute. You and I can talk afterward. I hope the surprise will not hurt mother. But I just believe it’s what she needs. Come. You’re clumsy, Ben, and your spurs jingle.”

“Hettie, I can’t get over how tall you are,” whispered Ben, permitting himself to be led under the dark trees toward the lighted window of the kitchen. They reached the porch. She cautioned him not to make noise. How tightly she gripped his hand! Ben’s heart throbbed high. The past flashed back stingingly—the many times he had come home in the dark, after a day of running wild against his father’s command, to be protected by his mother. His feet seemed leaden and his spurs clanged. Hettie opened the door. The kitchen was empty. Ben slipped in behind her. Nothing had changed. His father’s new riches were not proclaimed in this homely kitchen. The ticking of the old clock suddenly seemed to smother him. It had ticked like that when his little brother Jude lay dying. So many years ago!

Then Hettie turned toward him in the bright light, her face pale, her eyes bright, a prayer on her lips.

“Mother,” called Hettie, in a voice low and broken, “here’s somebody to see you.”

“Well, child, fetch somebody in,” replied her mother, complacently, from the sitting room.

“No, you’re requested to come out here,” returned Hettie.

There was a moment’s silence, Ben’s heart kept time with the clock. Hettie moved toward the door of the sitting room. Ben heard the sound of a chair pushed back, then slow footsteps, almost feeble, he thought; a shadow crossed the light that shone in this room. Then Ben saw his mother’s face and it seemed all the riot of his heart suddenly ceased.

“Mother!” called Ben, unable to keep silent longer. Two strides brought him into the glare of the lamp. She saw him, recognized him. The grief, the care, the age of her sweet face vanished marvelously.

“Ben! My son—oh, my son!” she cried, holding out her arms.

A little while later Hettie led him out through the yard, now moonlit in places, shadowed in others, to the gate.

“Let’s wait here. I’m expecting some one you might like to see,” said Hettie, drawing him to a bench in the shade. “Oh, Ben! . . . my prayers are answered. Somehow I knew what mother needed was to see you—and find out what I always felt—that these stories about you are lies. You convinced her. She is a changed woman. Oh, it will all come out well, now. Father can’t help coming round.”

“Humph! He’d never forgive me in a million years,” returned Ben.

“Little you know him! If you made a success of the very thing he hates he’d sing a different tune. Father worships industry, success, money. Too much! Ben, before I forget let me tell you that he and Mr. Setter are going to buy up homesteads out in Forlorn River country. Prick up your ears, Ben. If there’s to be a boom in land and cattle out in your wild-horse range get in on it yourself.”

“Nevada had the same hunch,” replied Ben, thoughtfully. “We each have a homestead, and we can buy up three more. How many acres is five times one sixty?”

“Why, you dunce, eight hundred acres, of course!”

“Whew! That’s a lot of land. But I’ll risk it. I’ll sign up for those three homesteads to-morrow. Moore and Sims are sick of the long dry spell. Want to sell quick and cheap. But I’ve got mighty little money. It may ruin me.”

“It will be the making of you,” declared Hettie, vigorously. “Be sure you have those homesteads when father and Mr. Setter ride out there to buy. I’d like to see their faces. . . . Ben, I wrote you I didn’t like Mr. Setter. He tried to be too—too familiar with me.”

“That’s something else and worse against Less Setter,” muttered Ben, grimly.

“He is to blame for most of this new talk about you, Ben. For the life of me I can’t see why he should lie about you. He gives me a creepy feeling. But father thinks he’s a big booster for Tule Lake, and he’s thicker than hops with Mr. Blaine.”

“Don’t bother about Setter, but keep out of his way,” said Ben. “I’ve a hunch this summer will surprise some folks. Hettie, now I’ve seen you again, it’ll go harder with me to lose you for a long time.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” declared Hettie, hugging his arm. “Oh, I’m an archplotter, and I’ve got somebody wonderful to help. We’re going to keep sight of you and Nevada.”

“We! Who’s the other archplotter?’

“Ina Blaine,” whispered Hettie.

“You talk—like—like a book,” said Ben, incredulously. Yet he thrilled all over. The circumstances of the last twenty-four hours were too much for his hardened bitterness. He had softened. He could not resist Nevada and Hettie and Ina Blaine, if they persisted in this talk.

“Just you wait till you see Ina,” went on Hettie, forcibly.

“Hettie, I have seen her. I met her to-day in Hammell. She asked me to meet her here when she comes to see you.”

“Well, I never! Of all the luck! Doesn’t it prove what I hinted?”

“Hettie, it proves nothing except that Ina is as sweet, kind, good as ever. She’s heard about my downfall. She’d risk her reputation to show she still believed in her old friend.”

“Friend, nothing!” scouted Hettie, warmly. “You and Ina were sweethearts. I tell you she loves you, Ben. I know it, if no one else does.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Hettie, don’t talk nonsense!” burst out Ben, passionately. “You’ll drive me mad.”

“Don’t you love Ina still?” queried his sister, inexorably.

“Love her! Never thought—of that,” returned Ben, huskily. “No—of course not. How’d I dare? Hettie, you forget I’m a poor horse hunter, disowned by my family, disgraced, branded as an outcast and thief.”

“Hush! Here comes Ina now,” whispered Hettie. “Marvie is with her. He’s true blue, Ben, and worships you. Talk to Ina as you did to mother.”

Rising, she left Ben and went out into the moonlit lane to meet two dark figures approaching. Ben crouched there, fighting a strange wildness that threatened to master him. His mother! Hettie! They had unnerved, uplifted him. And he trembled at the approach of that slim tall figure in the moonlight.

Hettie met Ina and Marvie in the lane and led them through the gate. Ben could see clearly, himself unseen. Ina stood bareheaded, her hair waving in the slight breeze. How fair her face! She seemed intent upon Hettie’s whispers. The boy clung to her. Then Hettie said: “Come, Marvie, walk with me a little.”

Ina came slowly out of the white moonlight into the black shade. She walked as if into obscurity, holding out her hands. She bumped into the bench.

“Ben,” she whispered, breathlessly.

“Ina,” he replied.

“I was afraid you might not wait,” she went on, seating herself beside him. “I’m late.”

She bent closer to look at him, evidently with her eyes still affected by coming suddenly out of the bright moonlight. But Ben saw her eyes clearly enough. Too clearly for the composure he struggled to attain! How dark, eloquent, wonderful they shone out of her white face.

“Hettie said you saw your mother—left her better, happier. Ben, I’m so glad I—I could cry. . . . You denied all this vile talk?”

“Yes,” muttered Ben.

“You swore it was false? Made her believe you? Vowed you’d outlive it? You were honest, you’d be honest. You’d work, you’d keep sober, you’d save money, you’d show your hard old father that he’d have to be proud of you in the end. Come to you on his knees!”

“Yes, Ina, I’m afraid I committed myself to all you’ve mentioned,” replied Ben, hoarsely. “But though I meant it all, I’m afraid it’s too much. Hettie’s faith, mother’s love, made me weak. I’d have sworn anything.”

“Ben, it was the best in you speaking. You must live up to it. . . . Not Hettie, nor even your mother, believes in you any more than I do.”

“Ina! Don’t talk—nonsense,” stammered Ben. “What do you know of me now—after all my wandering years out there?”

“Has your heart changed?” she asked, softly.

“No, by Heaven! it hasn’t,” he muttered, dropping his head.

“Have you wronged anyone since you became a wild-horse hunter?”

“No,” he declared, “unless it was a wrong to mother not to obey father. But, Ina, I couldn’t stick to farm work. Father always gave me plowing, milking, digging, fencing, errands—anything except the work of a cowboy or range rider. He wanted to kill my love for the open country. But he only made it worse.”

Stirred by these few full utterances, Ben burst into a swift, tense story of his free lonely life on Forlorn River—of his faithful friends and dumb companions, of the wild horses shining on the hills, of the glory of California Red as he raced like a flame through high grass, of the dawns and sunsets at Clear Lake, of the geese and deer and wolves, of all that made his home among the sage slopes something that he could not forsake.

“Ben, if your father was human he’d recognize the opportunity for you in the country you love,” replied Ina, gravely. “And he would help you. But he is as hard as the lava out yonder. You must go it alone, Ben. . . . My father is more set in his mind than yours. Then wealth and dreams of more have turned his head. I was wildly happy to get home. But gradually it dawned on me that home was not what I had left. It was no longer a home. Mother is out of place and does not understand. She has no sense of humor. She is obsessed with the vast change in our circumstances. She is absent-minded. She forgets that she must not churn butter. Oh, it is pathetic. Kate has been affected differently. She has become a snob, and she’s engaged to a city man who I sadly fear has his eye on her prospects. My older brothers are no longer cowboys. They lean cityward, and Tule Lake Ranch will surely lose them. Marvie and Dall are still kids. They are my consolation. I’ll stand by them and fight for them. Father and I clash. And the first time, by the way, was through a man named Less Setter, one of father’s stock partners. This Setter accused you of being a horse thief, and I told him he lied. I also told him that if I had not forgotten Ben Ide he would have to prove what he said.”

“Ina, you stuck up for me that way, before your father?” queried Ben, huskily.

“I did. And that was the cause of our first quarrel. We’ve had others since. I believe, though, that after he gets over his anger he has a sneaking admiration for me. I hear him championing me to Kate. My older sister doesn’t like my looks, my ideas, my clothes. We don’t get along at all. But mother and I, when we’re alone, do better all the time. I’m helping mother, Ben, and I shall stick for her sake and the youngsters’.”

“I never thought you’d have trouble at home. Aw, what a shame! These old farm hands grown rich! . . . But Hart Blaine will marry you to some partner of his, like Setter, or—or that nincompoop McAdam I hear so much about.”

Ben’s feelings, flowing and augmenting with the outburst of his words, ended in misery. It confounded him with a possible revelation of the true state of his heart, of an appalling trouble that he dared not face.

“You flatter me, Ben,” returned Ina, with something keen edging into the softness of her tone. “You’ve forgotten me—and many things.”

“No—no. . . . Forgive me, Ina. It’s you who forget. I’ve lived a lonely hard life since we—since you left. Straight, I swear to God, but nothing to help me toward your level. . . . Only don’t you dare say I’ve forgotten you.”

“I understand you, Ben,” she said, in sweet earnestness. “You’ve suffered. You think you’re bitter, hopeless, no good. Oh, Ben, what a blunder! You’re hurt because of the infamy which has been heaped upon you. Because you imagine you’re an outcast from your father’s house. Because you must meet me, your old playmate, in secret. You’re proud. I would not have you any different, except to see things clearly.”

“I don’t understand you. I can’t follow you, Ina. I’m only a poor stumbling fool. Even your kindness amazes me. We were schoolmates—playmates, childish sweethearts—and I’ve never had another in any sense, but that’s all past. It’s over, done, buried. I’m a poor wild-horse hunter, to say the least. . . . You’ve come home a lovely girl, educated. You’re the pride of a rich old farmer who wants to hobnob with city folks. . . . That’s how I see it. And I’d far rather——”

She rose abruptly and standing over him, her face finding a ray of moonlight that penetrated the leafy foliage, she placed a hand on each of his shoulders. Ben’s instinct was to sink under that touch, but some magic in it or her look caught his spirit, and he seemed to be uplifted.

Before she could speak Hettie came running to them, panting and excited.

“Ben—father is driving—down the lane,” she said. “I must be with mother—when he comes. Good-by. Send Nevada for letters. Good night, Ina. You and Marvie better slip through the field.”

Ben had risen while Hettie was speaking, and as she hurried away he noticed a boy standing near.

“Hello, Marvie! Take care my father doesn’t see Ina here,” he whispered. “Come out to Forlorn River and fish with me.”

“You bet I will,” replied Marvie.

Above the clatter of rhythmic hoofbeats Ben heard the sound of his father’s voice. It turned him cold. Ina stood there calm, white, as if all the cruel fathers in the world could not concern her. Ben felt, as he leaned toward her, that the great dark eyes would haunt him.

“You’ll never know my gratitude,” he whispered “I’ll try to live up to—try to be . . . Good-by, Ina.”

“Not good-by, Ben,” she returned.

He touched her extended hand, then leaped away into the dark shade of the yard and ran on until he reached the fence that bordered the field. As he paused he heard the clatter of hoofs pass up the driveway to the house.

Like a fugitive Ben stole along the shadow of the fence to where he had tethered his horse, and he rode away from the Ide Ranch as if he were being pursued. He was pursued by remorse, by resolves that mocked him, by an unknown emotion he could not stifle and feared to face.

Clouds covered the moon, and as he began to climb out of the basin he drew away from the pin-pointed lights in farmers’ houses and from the barking of dogs. At last he mounted the rough slope of the basin rim, leaving the low country behind out of sight. He felt safer then; he breathed freer; he could think. A terrible sense of havoc confounded him. He rode on through the dark cool spring night, immeasurably glad for the lonely melancholy silence, the smell of sage, the looming domes of the mountains. But would these ever again suffice for his happiness? Happiness was nothing save a dream word. He did not want that or need it, or anything unless it was the something about his wild horses, his little cabin, his Forlorn River that made life there sweet.

Coyotes barked from the sage slopes. Wild geese honked overhead. The rhythmic hoofbeats of the tireless horse thudded softly on the dusty trail. Ben rode round the western bulge of the mountain and soon felt the sweep of wind from the great depression of land from the bottom of which Clear Lake gleamed pale and obscure. Some time after midnight he reached his homestead, and turning the horse into the corral he walked wearily to his cabin. Nevada and Modoc would not have returned from their scouting trip back in the direction of Silver Meadow. Ben sat down on the porch. Sleep seemed to be something impossible.

Hours of intense thought and feeling had followed his first wild state when he had fled from the Ide Ranch. He no longer hated his father. It had come to him how to overcome that dour individual. Remorse for the grief he had caused his mother and Hettie had turned away with the realization that he could make up for it all. As he gazed out over the dark river and lake he grew conscious of how these things pertaining to his family had changed, lessened, faded in the tremendous might of Ina Blaine’s place in his life.

He worshiped her. He would never have run away to be a wild-horse hunter if she had stayed at home.

“What did she mean? What was she going to say when she put her hands on my shoulders?” he whispered aloud what he had thought a thousand times in agony during that ride. “I believed it just bighearted Ina’s way. She would not forget an old schoolmate. She would never listen to gossip or care what people said. . . . But the look of her—those lovely eyes—the tremble in her voice—the straight noble talk! Was that merely friendship? I’d be a fool to think so. She doesn’t know yet, but the old feeling has grown along with her to womanhood. . . . She didn’t know, but she was waiting for me to take her into my arms. My God! If I’d guessed that, no thought of my honor or her good name would have stopped me. But I didn’t see. . . . Oh, the sweetness of her! Ina, my little sweetheart—a woman, fine, strong, splendid, sensible. Just to think of her raises me out of the dust.——But I must not let her go any farther. She would be ruined, disgraced. Her heart would break. . . . Yet, it might be that——Oh, it’ll take me years to clear my name. Years in which she’d have to wait for me and suffer the scorn of her people, the gibes of friends. And I—consumed by longing, jealousy! No, it can’t be. Ina Blaine is not for me. I will not see her again. So best can I prove worthy her faith.”