The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

>gray-faced man — Dale.

 

“Howdy, Roy! Glad to see you up,” said Dale. How the quiet

voice steadied Helen! She beheld Bo. Bo, looking the same,

except a little pale and disheveled! Then Bo saw her and

leaped at her, into her arms.

 

“Nell! I’m here! Safe — all right! Never was so happy in my

life… . Oh-h! talk about your adventures! Nell, you dear

old mother to me — I’ve had e-enough forever!”

 

Bo was wild with joy, and by turns she laughed and cried.

But Helen could not voice her feelings. Her eyes were so dim

that she could scarcely see Dale when he loomed over her as

she held Bo. But he found the hand she put shakily out.

 

“Nell! … Reckon it’s been harder — on you.” His voice

was earnest and halting. She felt his searching gaze upon

her face. “Mrs. Cass said you were here. An’ I know why.”

 

Roy led them all indoors.

 

“Milt, one of the neighbor boys will take care of thet

hoss,” he said, as Dale turned toward the dusty and weary

Ranger. “Where’d you leave the cougar?”

 

“I sent him home,” replied Date.

 

“Laws now, Milt, if this ain’t grand!” cackled Mrs. Cass.

“We’ve worried some here. An’ Miss Helen near starved

a-hopin’ fer you.”

 

“Mother, I reckon the girl an’ I are nearer starved than

anybody you know,” replied Dale, with a grim laugh.

 

“Fer the land’s sake! I’ll be fixin’ supper this minit.”

 

“Nell, why are you here?” asked Bo, suspiciously.

 

For answer Helen led her sister into the spare room and

closed the door. Bo saw the baggage. Her expression changed.

The old blaze leaped to the telltale eyes.

 

“He’s done it!” she cried, hotly.

 

“Dearest — thank God. I’ve got you — back again!” murmured

Helen, finding her voice. “Nothing else matters! … I’ve

prayed only for that!”

 

“Good old Nell!” whispered Bo, and she kissed and embraced

Helen. “You really mean that, I know. But nix for yours

truly! I’m back alive and kicking, you bet… . Where’s my

— where’s Tom?”

 

“Bo, not a word has been heard of him for five days. He’s

searching for you, of course.”

 

“And you’ve been — been put off the ranch?”

 

“Well, rather,” replied Helen, and in a few trembling words

she told the story of her eviction.

 

Bo uttered a wild word that had more force than elegance,

but it became her passionate resentment of this outrage done

her sister.

 

“Oh! … Does Tom Carmichael know this?” she added,

breathlessly.

 

“How could he?”

 

“When he finds out, then — Oh, won’t there be hell? I’m

glad I got here first… . Nell, my boots haven’t been off

the whole blessed time. Help me. And oh, for some soap and

hot water and some clean clothes! Nell, old girl, I wasn’t

raised right for these Western deals. Too luxurious!”

 

And then Helen had her ears filled with a rapid-fire account

of running horses and Riggs and outlaws and Beasley called

boldly to his teeth, and a long ride and an outlaw who was a

hero — a fight with Riggs — blood and death — another

long ride — a wild camp in black woods — night — lonely,

ghostly sounds — and day again — plot — a great actress

lost to the world — Ophelia — Snakes and Ansons —

hoodooed outlaws — mournful moans and terrible cries —

cougar — stampede — fight and shots, more blood and death

— Wilson hero — another Tom Carmichael — fallen in love

with outlaw gun-fighter if — black night and Dale and horse

and rides and starved and, “Oh, Nell, he WAS from Texas!”

 

Helen gathered that wonderful and dreadful events had hung

over the bright head of this beloved little sister, but the

bewilderment occasioned by Bo’s fluent and remarkable

utterance left only that last sentence clear.

 

Presently Helen got a word in to inform Bo that Mrs. Cass

had knocked twice for supper, and that welcome news checked

Bo’s flow of speech when nothing else seemed adequate.

 

It was obvious to Helen that Roy and Dale had exchanged

stories. Roy celebrated this reunion by sitting at table the

first time since he had been shot; and despite Helen’s

misfortune and the suspended waiting balance in the air the

occasion was joyous. Old Mrs. Cass was in the height of her

glory. She sensed a romance here, and, true to her sex, she

radiated to it.

 

Daylight was still lingering when Roy got up and went out on

the porch. His keen ears had heard something. Helen fancied

she herself had heard rapid hoof-beats.

 

“Dale, come out!” called Roy, sharply.

 

The hunter moved with his swift, noiseless agility. Helen

and Bo followed, halting in the door.

 

“Thet’s Las Vegas,” whispered Dale.

 

To Helen it seemed that the cowboy’s name changed the very

atmosphere.

 

Voices were heard at the gate; one that, harsh and quick,

sounded like Carmichael’s. And a spirited horse was pounding

and scattering gravel. Then a lithe figure appeared,

striding up the path. It was Carmichael — yet not the

Carmichael Helen knew. She heard Bo’s strange little cry, a

corroboration of her own impression.

 

Roy might never have been shot, judging from the way he

stepped out, and Dale was almost as quick. Carmichael

reached them — grasped them with swift, hard hands.

 

“Boys — I jest rode in. An’ they said you’d found her!”

 

“Shore, Las Vegas. Dale fetched her home safe an’ sound… .

There she is.”

 

The cowboy thrust aside the two men, and with a long stride

he faced the porch, his piercing eyes on the door. All that

Helen could think of his look was that it seemed terrible.

Bo stepped outside in front of Helen. Probably she would

have run straight into Carmichael’s arms if some strange

instinct had not withheld her. Helen judged it to be fear;

she found her heart lifting painfully.

 

“Bo!” he yelled, like a savage, yet he did not in the least

resemble one.

 

“Oh — Tom!” cried Bo, falteringly. She half held out her

arms.

 

“You, girl?” That seemed to be his piercing query, like the

quivering blade in his eyes. Two more long strides carried

him close up to her, and his look chased the red out of Bo’s

cheek. Then it was beautiful to see his face marvelously

change until it was that of the well remembered Las Vegas

magnified in all his old spirit.

 

“Aw!” The exclamation was a tremendous sigh. “I shore am

glad!”

 

That beautiful flash left his face as he wheeled to the men.

He wrung Dale’s hand long and hard, and his gaze confused

the older man.

 

“RIGGS!” he said, and in the jerk of his frame as he whipped

out the word disappeared the strange, fleeting signs of his

kindlier emotion.

 

“Wilson killed him,” replied Dale.

 

“Jim Wilson — that old Texas Ranger! … Reckon he lent

you a hand?”

 

“My friend, he saved Bo,” replied Dale, with emotion. “My

old cougar an’ me — we just hung ‘round.”

 

“You made Wilson help you?” cut in the hard voice.

 

“Yes. But he killed Riggs before I come up an’ I reckon he’d

done well by Bo if I’d never got there.”

 

“How about the gang?”

 

“All snuffed out, I reckon, except Wilson.”

 

“Somebody told me Beasley hed ran Miss Helen off the ranch.

Thet so?”

 

“Yes. Four of his greasers packed her down the hill — most

tore her clothes off, so Roy tells me.”

 

“Four greasers! … Shore it was Beasley’s deal clean

through?”

 

“Yes. Riggs was led. He had an itch for a bad name, you

know. But Beasley made the plan. It was Nell they wanted

instead of Bo.”

 

Abruptly Carmichael stalked off down the darkening path, his

silver heel-plates ringing, his spurs jingling.

 

“Hold on, Carmichael,” called Dale, taking a step.

 

“Oh, Tom!” cried Bo.

 

“Shore folks callin’ won’t be no use, if anythin would be,”

said Roy. “Las Vegas has hed a look at red liquor.”

 

“He’s been drinking! Oh, that accounts! … he never —

never even touched me!”

 

For once Helen was not ready to comfort Bo. A mighty tug at

her heart had sent her with flying, uneven steps toward

Dale. He took another stride down the path, and another.

 

“Dale — oh — please stop!” she called, very low.

 

He halted as if he had run sharply into a bar across the

path. When he turned Helen had come close. Twilight was deep

there in the shade of the peach-trees, but she could see his

face, the hungry, flaring eyes.

 

“I — I haven’t thanked you — yet — for bringing Bo home,”

she whispered.

 

“Nell, never mind that,” he said, in surprise. “If you must

— why, wait. I’ve got to catch up with that cowboy.”

 

“No. Let me thank you now,” she whispered, and, stepping

closer, she put her arms up, meaning to put them round his

neck. That action must be her self-punishment for the other

time she had done it. Yet it might also serve to thank him.

But, strangely, her hands got no farther than his breast,

and fluttered there to catch hold of the fringe of his

buckskin jacket. She felt a heave of his deep chest.

 

“I — I do thank you — with all my heart,” she said,

softly. “I owe you now — for myself and her — more than I

can ever repay.”

 

“Nell, I’m your friend,” he replied, hurriedly. “Don’t talk

of repayin’ me. Let me go now — after Las Vegas.”

 

“What for?” she queried, suddenly.

 

“I mean to line up beside him — at the bar — or wherever

he goes,” returned Dale.

 

“Don’t tell me that. I know. You’re going straight to meet

Beasley.”

 

“Nell, if you hold me up any longer I reckon I’ll have to

run — or never get to Beasley before that cowboy.”

 

Helen locked her fingers in the fringe of his jacket —

leaned closer to him, all her being responsive to a bursting

gust of blood over her.

 

“I’ll not let you go,” she said.

 

He laughed, and put his great hands over hers. “What ‘re you

sayin’, girl? You can’t stop me.”

 

“Yes, I can. Dale, I don’t want you to risk your life.”

 

He stared at her, and made as if to tear her hands from

their hold.

 

“Listen — please — oh — please!” she implored. “If you go

deliberately to kill Beasley — and do it — that will be

murder… . It’s against my religion… . I would be

unhappy all my life.”

 

“But, child, you’ll be ruined all your life if Beasley is

not dealt with — as men of his breed are always dealt with

in the West,” he remonstrated, and in one quick move he had

freed himself from her clutching fingers.

 

Helen, with a move as swift, put her arms round his neck and

clasped her hands tight.

 

“Milt, I’m finding myself,” she said. “The other day, when I

did — this — you made an excuse for me… . I’m not

two-faced now.”

 

She meant to keep him from killing Beasley if she sacrificed

every last shred of her pride. And she stamped the look of

his face on her heart of hearts to treasure always. The

thrill, the beat of her pulses, almost obstructed her

thought of purpose.