LASSITER’S WAY
Footprints told the story of little Fay’s abduction. In anguish Jane
Withersteen turned speechlessly to Lassiter, and, confirming her fears,
she saw him gray-faced, aged all in a moment, stricken as if by a
mortal blow.
Then all her life seemed to fall about her in wreck and ruin.
“It’s all over,” she heard her voice whisper. “It’s ended. I’m
going—I’m going—”
“Where?” demanded Lassiter, suddenly looming darkly over her.
“To—to those cruel men—”
“Speak names!” thundered Lassiter.
“To Bishop Dyer—to Tull,” went on Jane, shocked into obedience.
“Well—what for?”
“I want little Fay. I can’t live without her. They’ve stolen her as
they stole Milly Erne’s child. I must have little Fay. I want only her.
I give up. I’ll go and tell Bishop Dyer—I’m broken. I’ll tell him I’m
ready for the yoke—only give me back Fay—and—and I’ll marry Tull!”
“_Never!_” hissed Lassiter.
His long arm leaped at her. Almost running, he dragged her under the
cottonwoods, across the court, into the huge hall of Withersteen House,
and he shut the door with a force that jarred the heavy walls. Black
Star and Night and Bells, since their return, had been locked in this
hall, and now they stamped on the stone floor.
Lassiter released Jane and like a dizzy man swayed from her with a
hoarse cry and leaned shaking against a table where he kept his rider’s
accoutrements. He began to fumble in his saddlebags. His action brought
a clinking, metallic sound—the rattling of gun-cartridges. His fingers
trembled as he slipped cartridges into an extra belt. But as he buckled
it over the one he habitually wore his hands became steady. This second
belt contained two guns, smaller than the black ones swinging low, and
he slipped them round so that his coat hid them. Then he fell to swift
action. Jane Withersteen watched him, fascinated but uncomprehending
and she saw him rapidly saddle Black Star and Night. Then he drew her
into the light of the huge windows, standing over her, gripping her arm
with fingers like cold steel.
“Yes, Jane, it’s ended—but you’re not goin’ to Dyer!... _I’m goin’
instead!_”
Looking at him—he was so terrible of aspect—she could not comprehend
his words. Who was this man with the face gray as death, with eyes that
would have made her shriek had she the strength, with the strange,
ruthlessly bitter lips? Where was the gentle Lassiter? What was this
presence in the hall, about him, about her—this cold, invisible
presence?
“Yes, it’s ended, Jane,” he was saying, so awfully quiet and cool and
implacable, “an’ I’m goin’ to make a little call. I’ll lock you in
here, an’ when I get back have the saddle-bags full of meat an bread.
An’ be ready to ride!”
“Lassiter!” cried Jane.
Desperately she tried to meet his gray eyes, in vain, desperately she
tried again, fought herself as feeling and thought resurged in torment,
and she succeeded, and then she knew.
“No—no—no!” she wailed. “You said you’d foregone your vengeance. You
promised not to kill Bishop Dyer.”
“If you want to talk to me about him—leave off the Bishop. I don’t
understand that name, or its use.”
“Oh, hadn’t you foregone your vengeance on—on Dyer?”
“Yes.”
“But—your actions—your words—your guns—your terrible looks!... They
don’t seem foregoing vengeance?”
“Jane, now it’s justice.”
“You’ll—kill him?”
“If God lets me live another hour! If not God—then the devil who drives
me!”
“You’ll kill him—for yourself—for your vengeful hate?”
“No!”
“For Milly Erne’s sake?”
“No.”
“For little Fay’s?”
“No!”
“Oh—for whose?”
_“For yours!”_
“His blood on my soul!” whispered Jane, and she fell to her knees. This
was the long-pending hour of fruition. And the habit of years—the
religious passion of her life—leaped from lethargy, and the long months
of gradual drifting to doubt were as if they had never been. “If you
spill his blood it’ll be on my soul—and on my father’s. Listen.” And
she clasped his knees, and clung there as he tried to raise her.
“Listen. Am I nothing to you?”
“Woman—don’t trifle at words! I love you! An’ I’ll soon prove it.”
“I’ll give myself to you—I’ll ride away with you—marry you, if only
you’ll spare him?”
His answer was a cold, ringing, terrible laugh.
“Lassiter—I’ll love you. Spare him!”
“No.”
She sprang up in despairing, breaking spirit, and encircled his neck
with her arms, and held him in an embrace that he strove vainly to
loosen. “Lassiter, would you kill me? I’m fighting my last fight for
the principles of my youth—love of religion, love of father. You don’t
know—you can’t guess the truth, and I can’t speak ill. I’m losing all.
I’m changing. All I’ve gone through is nothing to this hour. Pity
me—help me in my weakness. You’re strong again—oh, so cruelly, coldly
strong! You’re killing me. I see you—feel you as some other Lassiter!
My master, be merciful—spare him!”
His answer was a ruthless smile.
She clung the closer to him, and leaned her panting breast on him, and
lifted her face to his. “Lassiter, _I do love you!_ It’s leaped out of
my agony. It comes suddenly with a terrible blow of truth. You are a
man! I never knew it till now. Some wonderful change came to me when
you buckled on these guns and showed that gray, awful face. I loved you
then. All my life I’ve loved, but never as now. No woman can love like
a broken woman. If it were not for one thing—just one thing—and yet! I
_can’t_ speak it—I’d glory in your manhood—the lion in you that means
to slay for me. Believe me—and spare Dyer. Be merciful—great as it’s in
you to be great.... Oh, listen and believe—I have nothing, but I’m a
woman—a beautiful woman, Lassiter—a passionate, loving woman—and I love
you! Take me—hide me in some wild place—and love me and mend my broken
heart. Spare him and take me away.”
She lifted her face closer and closer to his, until their lips nearly
touched, and she hung upon his neck, and with strength almost spent
pressed and still pressed her palpitating body to his.
“Kiss me!” she whispered, blindly.
“No—not at your price!” he answered. His voice had changed or she had
lost clearness of hearing.
“Kiss me!... Are you a man? Kiss me and save me!”
“Jane, you never played fair with me. But now you’re blisterin’ your
lips—blackenin’ your soul with lies!”
“By the memory of my mother—by my Bible—no! No, I _have_ no Bible! But
by my hope of heaven I swear I love you!”
Lassiter’s gray lips formed soundless words that meant even her love
could not avail to bend his will. As if the hold of her arms was that
of a child’s he loosened it and stepped away.
“Wait! Don’t go! Oh, hear a last word!... May a more just and merciful
God than the God I was taught to worship judge me—forgive me—save me!
For I can no longer keep silent!... Lassiter, in pleading for Dyer I’ve
been pleading more for my father. My father was a Mormon master, close
to the leaders of the church. It was my father who sent Dyer out to
proselyte. It was my father who had the blue-ice eye and the beard of
gold. It was my father you got trace of in the past years. Truly, Dyer
ruined Milly Erne—dragged her from her home—to Utah—to Cottonwoods.
_But it was for my father!_ If Milly Erne was ever wife of a Mormon
that Mormon was my father! I never knew—never will know whether or not
she was a wife. Blind I may be, Lassiter—fanatically faithful to a
false religion I may have been but I know justice, and my father is
beyond human justice. Surely he is meeting just punishment—somewhere.
Always it has appalled me—the thought of your killing Dyer for my
father’s sins. So I have prayed!”
“Jane, the past is dead. In my love for you I forgot the past. This
thing I’m about to do ain’t for myself or Milly or Fay. It’s not
because of anythin’ that ever happened in the past, but for what is
happenin’ right _now. It’s for you!_... An’ listen. Since I was a boy
I’ve never thanked God for anythin’. If there is a God—an’ I’ve come to
believe it—I thank Him now for the years that made me Lassiter!... I
can reach down en’ feel these big guns, en’ know what I can do with
them. An’, Jane, only one of the miracles Dyer professes to believe in
can save him!”
Again for Jane Withersteen came the spinning of her brain in darkness,
and as she whirled in endless chaos she seemed to be falling at the
feet of a luminous figure—a man—Lassiter—who had saved her from
herself, who could not be changed, who would slay rightfully. Then she
slipped into utter blackness.
When she recovered from her faint she became aware that she was lying
on a couch near the window in her sitting-room. Her brow felt damp and
cold and wet, some one was chafing her hands; she recognized Judkins,
and then saw that his lean, hard face wore the hue and look of
excessive agitation.
“Judkins!” Her voice broke weakly.
“Aw, Miss Withersteen, you’re comin’ round fine. Now jest lay still a
little. You’re all right; everythin’s all right.”
“Where is—he?”
“Who?”
“Lassiter!”
“You needn’t worry none about him.”
“Where is he? Tell me—instantly.”
“Wal, he’s in the other room patchin’ up a few triflin’ bullet holes.”
_“Ah!... Bishop’ Dyer?”_
“When I seen him last—a matter of half an hour ago, he was on his
knees. He was some busy, _but_ he wasn’t prayin’!”
“How strangely you talk! I’ll sit up. I’m—well, strong again. Tell me.
Dyer on his knees! What was he doing?”
“Wal, beggin’ your pardon fer blunt talk, Miss Withersteen, Dyer was on
his knees an’ _not_ prayin’. You remember his big, broad hands? You’ve
seen ’em raised in blessin’ over old gray men an’ little curly-headed
children like—like Fay Larkin! Come to think of thet, I disremember
ever hearin’ of his liftin’ his big hands in blessin’ over a _woman_.
Wal, when I seen him last—jest a little while ago—he was on his knees,
_not_ prayin’, as I remarked—an’ he was pressin’ his big hands over
some bigger wounds.”
“Man, you drive me mad! Did Lassiter kill Dyer?”
“Yes.”
“Did he kill Tull?”
“No. Tull’s out of the village with most of his riders. He’s expected
back before evenin’. Lassiter will hev to git away before Tull en’ his
riders come in. It’s sure death fer him here. An’ wuss fer you, too,
Miss Withersteen. There’ll be some of an uprisin’ when Tull gits back.”
“I shall ride away with Lassiter. Judkins, tell me all you saw—all you
know about this killing.” She realized, without wonder or amaze, how
Judkins’s one word, affirming the death of Dyer—that the catastrophe
had fallen—had completed the change whereby she had been molded or
beaten or broken into another woman. She felt calm, slightly cold,
strong as she had not been strong since the first shadow fell upon her.
“I jest saw about all of it, Miss Withersteen, an’ I’ll be glad to tell
you if you’ll only hev patience with me,” said Judkins, earnestly. “You
see, I’ve been pecooliarly interested, an’ nat’rully I’m some excited.
An’ I talk a lot thet mebbe ain’t necessary, but I can’t help thet.
“I was at the meetin’-house where Dyer was holdin’ court. You know he
allus acts as magistrate an’ judge when Tull’s away. An’ the trial was
fer tryin’ what’s left of my boy riders—thet helped me hold your
cattle—fer a lot of hatched-up things the boys never did. We’re used to
thet, an’ the boys wouldn’t hev minded bein’ locked up fer a while, or
hevin’ to dig ditches, or whatever the judge laid down. You see, I
divided the gold you give me among all my boys, an’ they all hid it,
en’ they all feel rich. Howsomever, court was adjourned before the
judge passed sentence. Yes, ma’m, court was adjourned some strange an’
quick, much as if lightnin’ hed struck the meetin’-house.
“I hed trouble attendin’ the trial, but I got in. There was a good many
people there, all my boys, an’ Judge Dyer with his several clerks. Also
he hed with him the five riders who’ve been guardin’ him pretty close
of late. They was Carter, Wright, Jengessen, an’ two new riders from
Stone Bridge. I didn’t hear their names, but I heard they was handy men
with guns an’ they looked more like rustlers than riders. Anyway, there
they was, the five all in a row.
“Judge Dyer was tellin’ Willie Kern, one of my best an’ steadiest
boys—Dyer was tellin’ him how there was a ditch opened near Willie’s
home lettin’ water through his lot, where it hadn’t ought to go. An’
Willie was tryin’ to git a word in to prove he wasn’t at home all the
day it happened—which was true, as I know—but Willie couldn’t git a
word in, an’ then Judge Dyer went on layin’ down the law. An’ all to
onct he happened to look down the long room. An’ if ever any man turned
to stone he was thet man.
“Nat’rully I looked back to see what hed acted so powerful strange on
the judge. An’ there, half-way up the room, in the middle of the wide
aisle, stood Lassiter! All white an’ black he looked, an’ I can’t think
of anythin’ he resembled, onless it’s death. Venters made thet same
room some still an’ chilly when he called Tull; but this was different.
I give my word, Miss Withersteen, thet I went cold to my very marrow. I
don’t know why. But Lassiter had a way about him thet’s awful. He spoke
a word—a name—I couldn’t understand it, though he spoke clear as a
bell. I was too excited, mebbe. Judge Dyer must hev understood it, an’
a lot more thet was mystery to me, for he pitched forrard out of his
chair right onto the platform.
“Then them five riders, Dyer’s bodyguards, they jumped up, an’ two of
them thet I found out afterward were the strangers from Stone Bridge,
they piled right out of a winder, so quick you couldn’t catch your
breath. It was plain they wasn’t Mormons.
“Jengessen, Carter, an’ Wright eyed Lassiter, for what must hev been a
second an’ seemed like an hour, an’ they went white en’ strung. But
they didn’t weaken nor lose their nerve.
“I hed a good look at Lassiter. He stood sort of stiff, bendin’ a
little, an’ both his arms were crooked an’ his hands looked like a
hawk’s claws. But there ain’t no tellin’ how his eyes looked. I know
this, though, an’ thet is his eyes could read the mind of any man about
to throw a gun. An’ in watchin’ him, of course, I couldn’t see the
three men go fer their guns. An’ though I was lookin’ right at
Lassiter—lookin’ hard—I couldn’t see how he drawed. He was quicker’n
eyesight—thet’s all. But I seen the red spurtin’ of his guns, en’ heard
his shots jest the very littlest instant before I heard the shots of
the riders. An’ when I turned, Wright an’ Carter was down, en’
Jengessen, who’s tough like a steer, was pullin’ the trigger of a
wabblin’ gun. But it was plain he was shot through, plumb center. An’
sudden he fell with a crash, an’ his gun clattered on the floor.
“Then there was a hell of a silence. Nobody breathed. Sartin I didn’t,
anyway. I saw Lassiter slip a smokin’ gun back in a belt. But he hadn’t
throwed either of the big black guns, an’ I thought thet strange. An’
all this was happenin’ quick—you can’t imagine how quick.
“There come a scrapin’ on the floor an’ Dyer got up, his face like
lead. I wanted to watch Lassiter, but Dyer’s face, onct I seen it like
thet, glued my eyes. I seen him go fer his gun—why, I could hev done
better, quicker—an’ then there was a thunderin’ shot from Lassiter, an’
it hit Dyer’s right arm, an’ his gun went off as it dropped. He looked
at Lassiter like a cornered sage-wolf, an’ sort of howled, an’ reached
down fer his gun. He’d jest picked it off the floor an’ was raisin’ it
when another thunderin’ shot almost tore thet arm off—so it seemed to
me. The gun dropped again an’ he went down on his knees, kind of
flounderin’ after it. It was some strange an’ terrible to see his awful
earnestness. Why would such a man cling so to life? Anyway, he got the
gun with left hand an’ was raisin’ it, pullin’ trigger in his madness,
when the third thunderin’ shot hit his left arm, an’ he dropped the gun
again. But thet left arm wasn’t useless yet, fer he grabbed up the gun,
an’ with a shakin’ aim thet would hev been pitiful to me—in any other
man—he began to shoot. One wild bullet struck a man twenty feet from
Lassiter. An’ it killed thet man, as I seen afterward. Then come a
bunch of thunderin’ shots—nine I calkilated after, fer they come so
quick I couldn’t count them—an’ I knew Lassiter hed turned the black
guns loose on Dyer.
“I’m tellin’ you straight, Miss Withersteen, fer I want you to know.
Afterward you’ll git over it. I’ve seen some soul-rackin’ scenes on
this Utah border, but this was the awfulest. I remember I closed my
eyes, an’ fer a minute I thought of the strangest things, out of place
there, such as you’d never dream would come to mind. I saw the sage,
an’ runnin’ hosses—an’ thet’s the beautfulest sight to me—an’ I saw dim
things in the dark, an’ there was a kind of hummin’ in my ears. An’ I
remember distinctly—fer it was what made all these things whirl out of
my mind an’ opened my eyes—I remember distinctly it was the smell of
gunpowder.
“The court had about adjourned fer thet judge. He was on his knees, en’
he wasn’t prayin’. He was gaspin’ an’ tryin’ to press his big,
floppin’, crippled hands over his body. Lassiter had sent all those
last thunderin’ shots through his body. Thet was Lassiter’s way.
“An’ Lassiter spoke, en’ if I ever forgit his words I’ll never forgit
the sound of his voice.
“‘_Proselyter_, I reckon you’d better call quick on thet God who
reveals Hisself to you on earth, because He won’t be visitin’ the place
you’re goin’ to!’
“An’ then I seen Dyer look at his big, hangin’ hands thet wasn’t big
enough fer the last work he set them to. An’ he looked up at Lassiter.
An’ then he stared horrible at somethin’ thet wasn’t Lassiter, nor
anyone there, nor the room, nor the branches of purple sage peepin’
into the winder. Whatever he seen, it was with the look of a man who
_discovers_ somethin’ too late. Thet’s a terrible look!... An’ with a
horrible _understandin’_ cry he slid forrard on his face.”
Judkins paused in his narrative, breathing heavily while he wiped his
perspiring brow.
“Thet’s about all,” he concluded. “Lassiter left the meetin’-house an’
I hurried to catch up with him. He was bleedin’ from three gunshots,
none of them much to bother him. An’ we come right up here. I found you
layin’ in the hall, an’ I hed to work some over you.”
Jane Withersteen offered up no prayer for Dyer’s soul.
Lassiter’s step sounded in the hall—the familiar soft, silver-clinking
step—and she heard it with thrilling new emotions in which was a vague
joy in her very fear of him. The door opened, and she saw him, the old
Lassiter, slow, easy, gentle, cool, yet not exactly the same Lassiter.
She rose, and for a moment her eyes blurred and swam in tears.
“Are you—all—all right?” she asked, tremulously.
“I reckon.”
“Lassiter, I’ll ride away with you. Hide me till danger is past—till we
are forgotten—then take me where you will. Your people shall be my
people, and your God my God!”
He kissed her hand with the quaint grace and courtesy that came to him
in rare moments.
“Black Star an’ Night are ready,” he said, simply.
His quiet mention of the black racers spurred Jane to action. Hurrying
to her room, she changed to her rider’s suit, packed her jewelry, and
the gold that was left, and all the woman’s apparel for which there was
space in the saddle-bags, and then returned to the hall. Black Star
stamped his iron-shod hoofs and tossed his beautiful head, and eyed her
with knowing eyes.
“Judkins, I give Bells to you,” said Jane. “I hope you will always keep
him and be good to him.”
Judkins mumbled thanks that he could not speak fluently, and his eyes
flashed.
Lassiter strapped Jane’s saddle-bags upon Black Star, and led the
racers out into the court.
“Judkins, you ride with Jane out into the sage. If you see any riders
comin’ shout quick twice. An’, Jane, _don’t look back!_ I’ll catch up
soon. We’ll get to the break into the Pass before midnight, an’ then
wait until mornin’ to go down.”
Black Star bent his graceful neck and bowed his noble head, and his
broad shoulders yielded as he knelt for Jane to mount.
She rode out of the court beside Judkins, through the grove, across the
wide lane into the sage, and she realized that she was leaving
Withersteen House forever, and she did not look back. A strange,
dreamy, calm peace pervaded her soul. Her doom had fallen upon her,
but, instead of finding life no longer worth living she found it doubly
significant, full of sweetness as the western breeze, beautiful and
unknown as the sage-slope stretching its purple sunset shadows before
her. She became aware of Judkins’s hand touching hers; she heard him
speak a husky good-by; then into the place of Bells shot the
dead-black, keen, racy nose of Night, and she knew Lassiter rode beside
her.
“_Don’t—look—back!_” he said, and his voice, too, was not clear.
[Illustration: “Don’t—look—back!”]
Facing straight ahead, seeing only the waving, shadowy sage, Jane held
out her gauntleted hand, to feel it enclosed in strong clasp. So she
rode on without a backward glance at the beautiful grove of
Cottonwoods. She did not seem to think of the past of what she left
forever, but of the color and mystery and wildness of the sage-slope
leading down to Deception Pass, and of the future. She watched the
shadows lengthen down the slope; she felt the cool west wind sweeping
by from the rear; and she wondered at low, yellow clouds sailing
swiftly over her and beyond.
“_Don’t look—back!_” said Lassiter.
Thick-driving belts of smoke traveled by on the wind, and with it came
a strong, pungent odor of burning wood.
Lassiter had fired Withersteen House! But Jane did not look back.
A misty veil obscured the clear, searching gaze she had kept
steadfastly upon the purple slope and the dim lines of cañons. It
passed, as passed the rolling clouds of smoke, and she saw the valley
deepening into the shades of twilight. Night came on, swift as the
fleet racers, and stars peeped out to brighten and grow, and the huge,
windy, eastern heave of sage-level paled under a rising moon and turned
to silver. Blanched in moonlight, the sage yet seemed to hold its hue
of purple and was infinitely more wild and lonely. So the night hours
wore on, and Jane Withersteen never once looked back.