The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕
"Old Al won't listen to me," pondered Dale. "An' even if he did, he wouldn't believe me. Maybe nobody will. . . . All the same, Snake Anson won't get that girl."
With these last words Dale satisfied himself of his own position, and his pondering ceased. Taking his rifle, he descended from the loft and peered out of the door. The night had grown darker, windier, cooler; broken clouds were scudding across the sky; only a few stars showed; fine rain was blowing from the northwest; and the forest seemed full of a low, dull roar.
"Reckon I'd better hang up here," he said, and turned to the fire. The coals were red now. From the depths of his hunting-coat he procured a little bag of salt and some strips of dried meat. These strips he laid for a moment on the hot embers, until they began to sizzle and curl; then with a sharpened stick he removed them and ate like a hungry hunter grateful for little
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dark. Beasley an’ Riggs an’ Mulvey an’ some more were
drinkin’ an’ powwowin’. So I just braced him right then.”
“Roy! Oh, the way you boys court danger!”
“But, Miss Helen, thet’s the only way. To be afraid MAKES
more danger. Beasley ‘peared civil enough first off. Him an’
me kept edgin’ off, an’ his pards kept edgin’ after us, till
we got over in a corner of the saloon. I don’t know all I
said to him. Shore I talked a heap. I told him what my old
man thought. An’ Beasley knowed as well as I thet my old
man’s not only the oldest inhabitant hereabouts, but he’s
the wisest, too. An’ he wouldn’t tell a lie. Wal, I used all
his sayin’s in my argument to show Beasley thet if he didn’t
haul up short he’d end almost as short. Beasley’s
thick-headed, an’ powerful conceited. Vain as a peacock! He
couldn’t see, an’ he got mad. I told him he was rich enough
without robbin’ you of your ranch, an’ — wal, I shore put
up a big talk for your side. By this time he an’ his gang
had me crowded in a corner, an’ from their looks I begun to
get cold feet. But I was in it an’ had to make the best of
it. The argument worked down to his pinnin’ me to my word
that I’d fight for you when thet fight come off. An’ I shore
told him for my own sake I wished it ‘d come off quick… .
Then — wal — then somethin’ did come off quick!”
“Roy, then he shot you!” exclaimed Helen, passionately.
“Now, Miss Helen, I didn’t say who done it,” replied Roy,
with his engaging smile.
“Tell me, then — who did?”
“Wal, I reckon I sha’n’t tell you unless you promise not to
tell Las Vegas. Thet cowboy is plumb off his head. He thinks
he knows who shot me an’ I’ve been lyin’ somethin’
scandalous. You see, if he learns — then he’ll go gunnin’.
An’, Miss Helen, thet Texan is bad. He might get plugged as
I did — an’ there would be another man put off your side
when the big trouble comes.”
“Roy, I promise you I will not tell Las Vegas,” replied
Helen, earnestly.
“Wal, then — it was Riggs!” Roy grew still paler as he
confessed this and his voice, almost a whisper, expressed
shame and hate. “Thet four-flush did it. Shot me from behind
Beasley! I had no chance. I couldn’t even see him draw. But
when I fell an’ lay there an’ the others dropped back, then
I seen the smokin’ gun in his hand. He looked powerful
important. An’ Beasley began to cuss him an’ was cussin’ him
as they all run out.”
“Oh, coward! the despicable coward!” cried Helen.
“No wonder Tom wants to find out!” exclaimed Bo, low and
deep. “I’ll bet he suspects Riggs.”
“Shore he does, but I wouldn’t give him no satisfaction.”
“Roy, you know that Riggs can’t last out here.”
“Wal, I hope he lasts till I get on my feet again.”
“There you go! Hopeless, all you boys! You must spill
blood!” murmured Helen, shudderingly.
“Dear Miss Helen, don’t take on so. I’m like Dale — no man
to hunt up trouble. But out here there’s a sort of unwritten
law — an eye for an eye — a tooth for a tooth. I believe
in God Almighty, an’ killin’ is against my religion, but
Riggs shot me — the same as shootin’ me in the back.”
“Roy, I’m only a woman — I fear, faint-hearted and unequal
to this West.”
“Wait till somethin’ happens to you. ‘Supposin’ Beasley
comes an’ grabs you with his own dirty big paws an’, after
maulin’ you some, throws you out of your home! Or supposin’
Riggs chases you into a corner!”
Helen felt the start of all her physical being — a violent
leap of blood. But she could only judge of her looks from
the grim smile of the wounded man as he watched her with his
keen, intent eyes.
“My friend, anythin’ can happen,” he said. “But let’s hope
it won’t be the worst.”
He had begun to show signs of weakness, and Helen, rising at
once, said that she and Bo had better leave him then, but
would come to see him the next day. At her call Carmichael
entered again with Mrs. Cass, and after a few remarks the
visit was terminated. Carmichael lingered in the doorway.
“Wal, Cheer up, you old Mormon!” he called.
“Cheer up yourself, you cross old bachelor!” retorted Roy,
quite unnecessarily loud. “Can’t you raise enough nerve to
make up with Bo?”
Carmichael evacuated the doorway as if he had been spurred.
He was quite red in the face while he unhitched the team,
and silent during the ride up to the ranch-house. There he
got down and followed the girls into the sitting room. He
appeared still somber, though not sullen, and had fully
regained his composure.
“Did you find out who shot Roy?” he asked, abruptly, of
Helen.
“Yes. But I promised Roy I would not tell,” replied Helen,
nervously. She averted her eyes from his searching gaze,
intuitively fearing his next query.
“Was it thet — Riggs?”
“Las Vegas, don’t ask me. I will not break my promise.”
He strode to the window and looked out a moment, and
presently, when he turned toward Bo, he seemed a stronger,
loftier, more impelling man, with all his emotions under
control.
“Bo, will you listen to me — if I swear to speak the truth
— as I know it?”
“Why, certainly,” replied Bo, with the color coming swiftly
to her face.
“Roy doesn’t want me to know because he wants to meet thet
fellar himself. An’ I want to know because I want to stop
him before he can do more dirt to us or our friends. Thet’s
Roy’s reason an’ mine. An’ I’m askin’ YOU to tell me.”
“But, Tom — I oughtn’t,” replied Bo, haltingly.
“Did you promise Roy not to tell?”
“No.”
“Or your sister?”
“No. I didn’t promise either.”
“Wal, then you tell me. I want you to trust me in this here
matter. But not because I love you an’ once had a wild dream
you might care a little for me —”
“Oh — Tom!” faltered Bo.
“Listen. I want you to trust me because I’m the one who
knows what’s best. I wouldn’t lie an’ I wouldn’t say so if I
didn’t know shore. I swear Dale will back me up. But he
can’t be here for some days. An’ thet gang has got to be
bluffed. You ought to see this. I reckon you’ve been quick
in savvyin’ Western ways. I couldn’t pay you no higher
compliment, Bo Rayner… . Now will you tell me?”
“Yes, I will,” replied Bo, with the blaze leaping to her
eyes.
“Oh, Bo — please don’t — please don’t. Wait!” implored
Helen.
“Bo — it’s between you an’ me,” said Carmichael.
“Tom, I’ll tell you,” whispered Bo. “It was a lowdown,
cowardly trick… . Roy was surrounded — and shot from
behind Beasley — by that four-flush Riggs!”
The memory of a woman had ruined Milt Dale’s peace, had
confounded his philosophy of self-sufficient, lonely
happiness in the solitude of the wilds, had forced him to
come face to face with his soul and the fatal significance
of life.
When he realized his defeat, that things were not as they
seemed, that there was no joy for him in the coming of
spring, that he had been blind in his free, sensorial,
Indian relation to existence, he fell into an inexplicably
strange state, a despondency, a gloom as deep as the silence
of his home. Dale reflected that the stronger an animal, the
keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater
must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought
of himself as a high order of animal whose great physical
need was action, and now the incentive to action seemed
dead. He grew lax. He did not want to move. He performed his
diminishing duties under compulsion.
He watched for spring as a liberation, but not that he could
leave the valley. He hated the cold, he grew weary of wind
and snow; he imagined the warm sun, the park once more green
with grass and bright with daisies, the return of birds and
squirrels and deer to heir old haunts, would be the means
whereby he could break this spell upon him. Then he might
gradually return to past contentment, though it would never
be the same.
But spring, coming early to Paradise Park, brought a fever
to Dale’s blood — a fire of unutterable longing. It was
good, perhaps, that this was so, because he seemed driven to
work, climb, tramp, and keep ceaselessly on the move from
dawn till dark. Action strengthened his lax muscles and kept
him from those motionless, senseless hours of brooding. He
at least need not be ashamed of longing for that which could
never be his — the sweetness of a woman — a home full of
light, joy, hope, the meaning and beauty of children. But
those dark moods were sinkings into a pit of hell.
Dale had not kept track of days and weeks. He did not know
when the snow melted off three slopes of Paradise Park. All
he knew was that an age had dragged over his head and that
spring had come. During his restless waking hours, and even
when he was asleep, there seemed always in the back of his
mind a growing consciousness that soon he would emerge from
this trial, a changed man, ready to sacrifice his chosen
lot, to give up his lonely life of selfish indulgence in
lazy affinity with nature, and to go wherever his strong
hands might perform some real service to people.
Nevertheless, he wanted to linger in this mountain fastness
until his ordeal was over — until he could meet her, and
the world, knowing himself more of a man than ever before.
One bright morning, while he was at his campfire, the tame
cougar gave a low, growling warning. Dale was startled. Tom
did not act like that because of a prowling grizzly or a
straying stag. Presently Dale espied a horseman riding
slowly out of the straggling spruces. And with that sight
Dale’s heart gave a leap, recalling to him a divination of
his future relation to his kind. Never had he been so glad
to see a man!
This visitor resembled one of the Beemans, judging from the
way he sat his horse, and presently Dale recognized him to
be John.
At this juncture the jaded horse was spurred into a trot,
soon reaching the pines and the camp.
“Howdy, there, you ole b’ar-hunter!” called John, waving his
hand.
For all his hearty greeting his appearance checked a like
response from Dale. The horse was mud to his flanks and John
was mud to his knees, wet, bedraggled, worn, and white. This
hue of his face meant more than fatigue.
“Howdy, John?” replied Dale.
They shook hands. John wearily swung his leg over the
pommel, but did not at once dismount. His clear gray eyes
were wonderingly riveted upon the hunter.
“Milt — what ‘n hell’s wrong?” he queried.
“Why?”
“Bust me if you ain’t changed so I hardly knowed you. You’ve
been sick — all alone
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