COTTONWOODS
Venters appeared too deeply moved to speak the gratitude his face
expressed. And Jane turned upon the rescuer and gripped his hands. Her
smiles and tears seemingly dazed him. Presently as something like
calmness returned, she went to Lassiter’s weary horse.
“I will water him myself,” she said, and she led the horse to a trough
under a huge old cottonwood. With nimble fingers she loosened the
bridle and removed the bit. The horse snorted and bent his head. The
trough was of solid stone, hollowed out, moss-covered and green and wet
and cool, and the clear brown water that fed it spouted and splashed
from a wooden pipe.
“He has brought you far to-day?”
[Illustration: “He has brought you far to-day?”]
“Yes, ma’am, a matter of over sixty miles, mebbe seventy.”
“A long ride—a ride that—Ah, he is blind!”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Lassiter.
“What blinded him?”
“Some men once roped an’ tied him, an’ then held white-iron close to
his eyes.”
“Oh! Men? You mean devils.... Were they your enemies—Mormons?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“To take revenge on a horse! Lassiter, the men of my creed are
unnaturally cruel. To my everlasting sorrow I confess it. They have
been driven, hated, scourged till their hearts have hardened. But we
women hope and pray for the time when our men will soften.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am—that time will never come.”
“Oh, it will!... Lassiter, do you think Mormon women wicked? Has your
hand been against them, too?”
“No. I believe Mormon women are the best and noblest, the most
long-sufferin’, and the blindest, unhappiest women on earth.”
“Ah!” She gave him a grave, thoughtful look. “Then you will break bread
with me?”
Lassiter had no ready response, and he uneasily shifted his weight from
one leg to another, and turned his sombrero round and round in his
hands. “Ma’am,” he began, presently, “I reckon your kindness of heart
makes you overlook things. Perhaps I ain’t well known hereabouts, but
back up North there’s Mormons who’d rest uneasy in their graves at the
idea of me sittin’ to table with you.”
“I dare say. But—will you do it, anyway?” she asked.
“Mebbe you have a brother or relative who might drop in an’ be
offended, an’ I wouldn’t want to—”
“I’ve not a relative in Utah that I know of. There’s no one with a
right to question my actions.” She turned smilingly to Venters. “You
will come in, Bern, and Lassiter will come in. We’ll eat and be merry
while we may.”
“I’m only wonderin’ if Tull an’ his men’ll raise a storm down in the
village,” said Lassiter, in his last weakening stand.
“Yes, he’ll raise the storm—after he has prayed,” replied Jane. “Come.”
She led the way, with the bridle of Lassiter’s horse over her arm. They
entered a grove and walked down a wide path shaded by great
low-branching cottonwoods. The last rays of the setting sun sent golden
bars through the leaves. The grass was deep and rich, welcome contrast
to sage-tired eyes. Twittering quail darted across the path, and from a
tree-top somewhere a robin sang its evening song, and on the still air
floated the freshness and murmur of flowing water.
The home of Jane Withersteen stood in a circle of cottonwoods, and was
a flat, long, red-stone structure with a covered court in the center
through which flowed a lively stream of amber-colored water. In the
massive blocks of stone and heavy timbers and solid doors and shutters
showed the hand of a man who had builded against pillage and time; and
in the flowers and mosses lining the stone-bedded stream, in the bright
colors of rugs and blankets on the court floor, and the cozy corner
with hammock and books and the clean-linened table, showed the grace of
a daughter who lived for happiness and the day at hand.
Jane turned Lassiter’s horse loose in the thick grass. “You will want
him to be near you,” she said, “or I’d have him taken to the alfalfa
fields.” At her call appeared women who began at once to bustle about,
hurrying to and fro, setting the table. Then Jane, excusing herself,
went within.
She passed through a huge low ceiled chamber, like the inside of a
fort, and into a smaller one where a bright wood-fire blazed in an old
open fireplace, and from this into her own room. It had the same
comfort as was manifested in the home-like outer court; moreover, it
was warm and rich in soft hues.
Seldom did Jane Withersteen enter her room without looking into her
mirror. She knew she loved the reflection of that beauty which since
early childhood she had never been allowed to forget. Her relatives and
friends, and later a horde of Mormon and Gentile suitors, had fanned
the flame of natural vanity in her. So that at twenty-eight she
scarcely thought at all of her wonderful influence for good in the
little community where her father had left her practically its
beneficent landlord, but cared most for the dream and the assurance and
the allurement of her beauty. This time, however, she gazed into her
glass with more than the usual happy motive, without the usual slight
conscious smile. For she was thinking of more than the desire to be
fair in her own eyes, in those of her friend; she wondered if she were
to seem fair in the eyes of this Lassiter, this man whose name had
crossed the long, wild brakes of stone and plains of sage, this
gentle-voiced, sad-faced man who was a hater and a killer of Mormons.
It was not now her usual half-conscious vain obsession that actuated
her as she hurriedly changed her riding-dress to one of white, and then
looked long at the stately form with its gracious contours, at the fair
face with its strong chin and full firm lips, at the dark-blue, proud,
and passionate eyes.
“If by some means I can keep him here a few days, a week—he will never
kill another Mormon,” she mused. “Lassiter!... I shudder when I think
of that name, of him. But when I look at the man I forget who he is—I
almost like him. I remember only that he saved Bern. He has suffered. I
wonder what it was—did he love a Mormon woman once? How splendidly he
championed us poor misunderstood souls! Somehow he knows—much.”
Jane Withersteen joined her guests and bade them to her board.
Dismissing her woman, she waited upon them with her own hands. It was a
bountiful supper and a strange company. On her right sat the ragged and
half-starved Venters; and though blind eyes could have seen what he
counted for in the sum of her happiness, yet he looked the gloomy
outcast his allegiance had made him, and about him there was the shadow
of the ruin presaged by Tull. On her left sat black-leather-garbed
Lassiter looking like a man in a dream. Hunger was not with him, nor
composure, nor speech, and when he twisted in frequent unquiet
movements the heavy guns that he had not removed knocked against the
table-legs. If it had been otherwise possible to forget the presence of
Lassiter those telling little jars would have rendered it unlikely. And
Jane Withersteen talked and smiled and laughed with all the dazzling
play of lips and eyes that a beautiful, daring woman could summon to
her purpose.
When the meal ended, and the men pushed back their chairs, she leaned
closer to Lassiter and looked square into his eyes.
“Why did you come to Cottonwoods?”
Her question seemed to break a spell. The rider arose as if he had just
remembered himself and had tarried longer than his wont.
“Ma’am, I have hunted all over the southern Utah and Nevada
for—somethin’. An’ through your name I learned where to find it—here in
Cottonwoods.”
“My name! Oh, I remember. You did know my name when you spoke first.
Well, tell me where you heard it and from whom?”
“At the little village—Glaze, I think it’s called—some fifty miles or
more west of here. An’ I heard it from a Gentile, a rider who said
you’d know where to tell me to find—”
“What?” she demanded, imperiously, as Lassiter broke off.
“Milly Erne’s grave,” he answered low, and the words came with a
wrench.
Venters wheeled in his chair to regard Lassiter in amazement, and Jane
slowly raised herself in white, still wonder.
“Milly Erne’s grave?” she echoed, in a whisper. “What do you know of
Milly Erne, my best-beloved friend—who died in my arms? What were you
to her?”
“Did I claim to be anythin’?” he inquired. “I know people—relatives—who
have long wanted to know where she’s buried, that’s all.”
“Relatives? She never spoke of relatives, except a brother who was shot
in Texas. Lassiter, Milly Erne’s grave is in a secret burying-ground on
my property.”
“Will you take me there?... You’ll be offendin’ Mormons worse than by
breakin’ bread with me.”
“Indeed yes, but I’ll do it. Only we must go unseen. To-morrow,
perhaps.”
“Thank you, Jane Withersteen,” replied the rider, and he bowed to her
and stepped backward out of the court.
“Will you not stay—sleep under my roof?” she asked.
“No, ma’am, an’ thanks again. I never sleep indoors. An’ even if I did
there’s that gatherin’ storm in the village below. No, no. I’ll go to
the sage. I hope you won’t suffer none for your kindness to me.”
“Lassiter,” said Venters, with a half-bitter laugh, “my bed too, is the
sage. Perhaps we may meet out there.”
“Mebbe so. But the sage is wide an’ I won’t be near. Good night.”
At Lassiter’s low whistle the black horse whinnied, and carefully
picked his blind way out of the grove. The rider did not bridle him,
but walked beside him, leading him by touch of hand and together they
passed slowly into the shade of the cottonwoods.
“Jane, I must be off soon,” said Venters. “Give me my guns. If I’d had
my guns—”
“Either my friend or the Elder of my church would be lying dead,” she
interposed.
“Tull would be—surely.”
“Oh, you fierce-blooded, savage youth! Can’t I teach you forebearance,
mercy? Bern, it’s divine to forgive your enemies. ‘Let not the sun go
down upon thy wrath.’”
“Hush! Talk to me no more of mercy or religion—after to-day. To-day
this strange coming of Lassiter left me still a man, and now I’ll die a
man!... Give me my guns.”
Silently she went into the house, to return with a heavy cartridge-belt
and gun-filled sheath and a long rifle; these she handed to him, and as
he buckled on the belt she stood before him in silent eloquence.
“Jane,” he said, in gentler voice, “don’t look so. I’m not going out to
murder your churchman. I’ll try to avoid him and all his men. But can’t
you see I’ve reached the end of my rope? Jane, you’re a wonderful
woman. Never was there a woman so unselfish and good. Only you’re blind
in one way.... Listen!”
From behind the grove came the clicking sound of horses in a rapid
trot.
“Some of your riders,” he continued. “It’s getting time for the night
shift. Let us go out to the bench in the grove and talk there.”
It was still daylight in the open, but under the spreading cottonwoods
shadows were obscuring the lanes. Venters drew Jane off from one of
these into a shrub-lined trail, just wide enough for the two to walk
abreast, and in a roundabout way led her far from the house to a knoll
on the edge of the grove. Here in a secluded nook was a bench from
which, through an opening in the tree-tops, could be seen the
sage-slope and the wall of rock and the dim lines of cañons. Jane had
not spoken since Venters had shocked her with his first harsh speech;
but all the way she had clung to his arm, and now, as he stopped and
laid his rifle against the bench, she still clung to him.
“Jane, I’m afraid I must leave you.”
“Bern!” she cried.
“Yes, it looks that way. My position is not a happy one—I can’t feel
right—I’ve lost all—”
“I’ll give you anything you—”
“Listen, please. When I say loss I don’t mean what you think. I mean
loss of good-will, good name—that which would have enabled me to stand
up in this village without bitterness. Well, it’s too late.... Now, as
to the future, I think you’d do best to give me up. Tull is implacable.
You ought to see from his intention to-day that—But you can’t see. Your
blindness—your damned religion!... Jane, forgive me—I’m sore within and
something rankles. Well, I fear that invisible hand will turn its
hidden work to your ruin.”
“Invisible hand? Bern!”
“I mean your Bishop.” Venters said it deliberately and would not
release her as she started back. “He’s the law. The edict went forth to
ruin me. Well, look at me! It’ll now go forth to compel you to the will
of the Church.”
“You wrong Bishop Dyer. Tull is hard, I know. But then he has been in
love with me for years.”
“Oh, your faith and your excuses! You can’t see what I know—and if you
did see it you’d not admit it to save your life. That’s the Mormon of
you. These elders and bishops will do absolutely any deed to go on
building up the power and wealth of their church, their empire. Think
of what they’ve done to the Gentiles here, to me—think of Milly Erne’s
fate!”
“What do you know of her story?”
“I know enough—all, perhaps, except the name of the Mormon who brought
her here. But I must stop this kind of talk.”
She pressed his hand in response. He helped her to a seat beside him on
the bench. And he respected a silence that he divined was full of
woman’s deep emotion beyond his understanding.
It was the moment when the last ruddy rays of the sunset brightened
momentarily before yielding to twilight. And for Venters the outlook
before him was in some sense similar to a feeling of his future, and
with searching eyes he studied the beautiful purple, barren waste of
sage. Here was the unknown and the perilous. The whole scene impressed
Venters as a wild, austere, and mighty manifestation of nature. And as
it somehow reminded him of his prospect in life, so it suddenly
resembled the woman near him, only in her there were greater beauty and
peril, a mystery more unsolvable, and something nameless that numbed
his heart and dimmed his eye.
“Look! A rider!” exclaimed Jane, breaking the silence. “Can that be
Lassiter?”
Venters moved his glance once more to the west. A horseman showed dark
on the sky-line, then merged into the color of the sage.
“It might be. But I think not—that fellow was coming in. One of your
riders, more likely. Yes, I see him clearly now. And there’s another.”
“I see them, too.”
“Jane, your riders seem as many as the bunches of sage. I ran into five
yesterday ’way down near the trail to Deception Pass. They were with
the white herd.”
“You still go to that cañon? Bern, I wish you wouldn’t. Oldring and his
rustlers live somewhere down there.”
“Well, what of that?”
“Tull has already hinted to your frequent trips into Deception Pass.”
“I know.” Venters uttered a short laugh. “He’ll make a rustler of me
next. But, Jane, there’s no water for fifty miles after I leave here,
and the nearest is in the cañon. I must drink and water my horse.
There! I see more riders. They are going out.”
“The red herd is on the slope, toward the Pass.”
Twilight was fast falling. A group of horsemen crossed the dark line of
low ground to become more distinct as they climbed the slope. The
silence broke to a clear call from an incoming rider, and, almost like
the peal of a hunting-horn, floated back the answer. The outgoing
riders moved swiftly, came sharply into sight as they topped a ridge to
show wild and black above the horizon, and then passed down, dimming
into the purple of the sage.
“I hope they don’t meet Lassiter,” said Jane.
“So do I,” replied Venters. “By this time the riders of the night shift
know what happened to-day. But Lassiter will likely keep out of their
way.”
“Bern, who is Lassiter? He’s only a name to me—a terrible name.”
“Who is he? I don’t know, Jane. Nobody I ever met knows him. He talks a
little like a Texan, like Milly Erne. Did you note that?”
“Yes. How strange of him to know of her! And she lived here ten years
and has been dead two. Bern, what do you know of Lassiter? Tell me what
he has done—why you spoke of him to Tull—threatening to become another
Lassiter yourself?”
“Jane, I only heard things, rumors, stories, most of which I
disbelieved. At Glaze his name was known, but none of the riders or
ranchers I knew there ever met him. At Stone Bridge I never heard him
mentioned. But at Sterling and villages north of there he was spoken of
often. I’ve never been in a village which he had been known to visit.
There were many conflicting stories about him and his doings. Some said
he had shot up this and that Mormon village, and others denied it. I’m
inclined to believe he has, and you know how Mormons hide the truth.
But there was one feature about Lassiter upon which all agree—that he
was what riders in this country call a gun-man. He’s a man with a
marvelous quickness and accuracy in the use of a Colt. And now that
I’ve seen him I know more. Lassiter was born without fear. I watched
him with eyes which saw him my friend. I’ll never forget the moment I
recognized him from what had been told me of his crouch before the
draw. It was then I yelled his name. I believe that yell saved Tull’s
life. At any rate, I know this, between Tull and death then there was
not the breadth of the littlest hair. If he or any of his men had moved
a finger downward—”
Venters left his meaning unspoken, but at the suggestion Jane
shuddered.
The pale afterglow in the west darkened with the merging of twilight
into night. The sage now spread out black and gloomy. One dim star
glimmered in the southwest sky. The sound of trotting horses had
ceased, and there was silence broken only by a faint, dry pattering of
cottonwood leaves in the soft night wind.
Into this peace and calm suddenly broke the high-keyed yelp of a
coyote, and from far off in the darkness came the faint answering note
of a trailing mate.
“Hello! the sage-dogs are barking,” said Venters.
“I don’t like to hear them,” replied Jane. “At night, sometimes when I
lie awake, listening to the long mourn or breaking bark or wild howl, I
think of you asleep somewhere in the sage, and my heart aches.”
“Jane, you couldn’t listen to sweeter music, nor could I have a better
bed.”
“Just think! Men like Lassiter and you have no home, no comfort, no
rest, no place to lay your weary heads. Well!... Let us be patient.
Tull’s anger may cool, and time may help us. You might do some service
to the village—who can tell? Suppose you discovered the long-unknown
hiding-place of Oldring and his band, and told it to my riders? That
would disarm Tull’s ugly hints and put you in favor. For years my
riders have trailed the tracks of stolen cattle. You know as well as I
how dearly we’ve paid for our ranges in this wild country. Oldring
drives our cattle down into the network of deceiving cañons, and
somewhere far to the north or east he drives them up and out to Utah
markets. If you will spend time in Deception Pass try to find the
trails.”
“Jane, I’ve thought of that. I’ll try.”
“I must go now. And it hurts, for now I’ll never be sure of seeing you
again. But to-morrow, Bern?”
“To-morrow surely. I’ll watch for Lassiter and ride in with him.”
“Good night.”
Then she left him and moved away, a white, gliding shape that soon
vanished in the shadows.
Venters waited until the faint slam of a door assured him she had
reached the house, and then, taking up his rifle, he noiselessly
slipped through the bushes, down the knoll, and on under the dark trees
to the edge of the grove. The sky was now turning from gray to blue;
stars had begun to lighten the earlier blackness; and from the wide
flat sweep before him blew a cool wind, fragrant with the breath of
sage. Keeping close to the edge of the cottonwoods, he went swiftly and
silently westward. The grove was long, and he had not reached the end
when he heard something that brought him to a halt. Low padded thuds
told him horses were coming this way. He sank down in the gloom,
waiting, listening. Much before he had expected, judging from sound, to
his amazement he descried horsemen near at hand. They were riding along
the border of the sage, and instantly he knew the hoofs of the horses
were muffled. Then the pale starlight afforded him indistinct sight of
the riders. But his eyes were keen and used to the dark, and by peering
closely he recognized the huge bulk and black-bearded visage of Oldring
and the lithe, supple form of the rustler’s lieutenant, a masked rider.
They passed on; the darkness swallowed them. Then, farther out on the
sage, a dark, compact body of horsemen went by, almost without sound,
almost like specters, and they, too, melted into the night.