Zane Grey (34 page)

“Oh! Lassiter, we must run—we must run!”

He looked back, saying nothing. The bandage had blown from his head, and blood trickled down his face. He was bowing under the strain of injuries, of the ride, of his burden. Yet how cool and gray he looked—how intrepid!

The horses walked, trotted, galloped, ran, to fall again to walk. Hours sped or dragged. Time was an instant—an eternity. Jane Withersteen felt hell pursuing her, and dared not look back for fear she would fall from her horse.

“Oh, Lassiter! Is he coming?”

The grim rider looked over his shoulder, but said no word. Little Fay's golden hair floated on the breeze. The sun shone; the walls gleamed; the sage glistened. And then it seemed the sun vanished, the walls shaded, the sage paled. The horses walked—trotted— galloped—ran—to fall again to walk. Shadows gathered under shelving cliffs. The cañon turned, brightened, opened into long, wide, wall-enclosed valley. Again the sun, lowering in the west, reddened the sage. Far ahead round, scrawled stones appeared to block the Pass.

“Bear up, Jane, bear up!” called Lassiter. “It's our game, if you don't weaken.”

“Lassiter! Go on—
alone!
Save little Fay!”

“Only with you!”

“Oh!—I'm a coward—a miserable coward! I can't fight or think or hope or pray! I'm lost! Oh, Lassiter, look back! Is he coming? I'll not— hold out—”

“Keep your breath, woman, an' ride not for yourself or for me, but for Fay!”

A last breaking run across the sage brought Lassiter's horse to a walk.

“He's done,” said the rider.

“Oh, no—no!” moaned Jane.

“Look back, Jane, look back. Three—four miles we've come across this valley, an' no Tull yet in sight. Only a few miles more!”

Jane looked back over the long stretch of sage, and found the narrow gap in the wall, out of which came a file of dark horses with a white horse in the lead. Sight of the riders acted upon Jane as a stimulant. The weight of cold, horrible terror lessened. And, gazing forward at the dogs, at Lassiter's limping horse, at the blood on his face, at the rocks growing nearer, last at Fay's golden hair, the ice left her veins, and slowly, strangely, she gained hold of strength that she believed would see her to the safety Lassiter promised. And, as she gazed, Lassiter's horse stumbled and fell.

He swung his leg and slipped from the saddle.

“Jane, take the child,” he said, and lifted Fay up. Jane clasped her with arms suddenly strong. “They're gainin',” went on Lassiter, as he watched the pursuing riders. “But we'll beat 'em yet.”

Turning with Jane's bridle in his hand, he was about to start when he saw the saddle-bag on the fallen horse.

“I've jest about got time,” he muttered, and with swift fingers that did not blunder or fumble he loosened the bag and threw it over his shoulder. Then he started to run, leading Jane's horse, and he ran, and trotted, and walked, and ran again. Close ahead now Jane saw a rise of bare rock. Lassiter reached it, searched along the base, and, finding a low place dragged the weary horse up and over round, smooth stone. Looking backward, Jane saw Tull's white horse not a mile distant, with riders strung out in a long line behind him. Looking forward, she saw more valley to the right, and to the left a towering cliff. Lassiter pulled the horse and kept on.

Little Fay lay in her arms with wide open eyes—eyes which were still shadowed by pain, but no longer fixed, glazed in terror. The golden curls blew across Jane's lips; the little hands feebly clasped her arm; a ghost of a troubled, trustful smile hovered round the sweet lips. And Jane Withersteen awoke to the spirit of a lioness.

Lassiter was leading the horse up a smooth slope toward cedar-trees of twisted and bleached appearance. Among these he halted.

“Jane, give me the girl an' get down,” he said. As if it wrenched him he unbuckled the empty black guns with a strange air of finality. He then received Fay in his arms and stood a moment looking backward. Tull's white horse mounted the ridge of round stone, and several bays or blacks followed. “I wonder what he'll think when he sees them empty guns. Jane, bring your saddle-bag and climb after me.”

A glistening, wonderful bare slope, with little holes, swelled up and up to lose itself in a frowning yellow cliff. Jane closely watched her steps and climbed behind Lassiter. He moved slowly. Perhaps he was only husbanding his strength. But she saw drops of blood on the stone, and then she knew. They climbed and climbed without looking back. Her breast labored; she began to feel as if little points of fiery steel were penetrating her side into her lungs. She heard the panting of Lassiter, and the quicker panting of the dogs.

“Wait—here,” he said.

Before her rose a bulge of stone, nicked with little cut steps, and above that a corner of yellow wall, and overhanging that a vast, ponderous cliff.

The dogs pattered up, disappeared round the corner. Lassiter mounted the steps with Fay, and he swayed like a drunken man, and, he too, disappeared. But instantly he returned alone, and half ran, half slipped down to her.

Then from below pealed up hoarse shouts of angry men. Tull and several of his riders had reached the spot where Lassiter had parted with his guns.

“You'll need that breath—mebbe!” said Lassiter, facing downward, with glittering eyes.

“Now, Jane, the last pull,” he went on. “Walk up them little steps. I'll follow an' steady you. Don't think. Jest go. Little Fay's above. Her eyes are open. She jest said to me, ‘Where's muvver Jane?' ”

Without a fear or a tremor or a slip or a touch of Lassiter's hand Jane Withersteen walked up that ladder of cut steps.

He pushed her round the corner of wall. Fay lay, with wide staring eyes, in the shade of a gloomy wall. The dogs waited. Lassiter picked up the child and turned into a dark cleft. It zigzagged. It widened. It opened. Jane was amazed at a wonderfully smooth and steep incline leading up between ruined, splintered, toppling walls. A red haze from the setting sun filled this passage. Lassiter climbed with slow, measured steps, and blood dripped from him to make splotches on the white stone. Jane tried not to step in his blood, but was compelled, for she found no other footing. The saddle-bag began to drag her down; she gasped for breath; she thought her heart was bursting. Slower, slower yet the rider climbed, whistling as he breathed. The incline widened. Huge pinnacles and monuments of stone stood alone, leaning fearfully. Red sunset haze shone through cracks where the wall had split. Jane did not look high, but she felt the overshadowing of broken rims above. She felt that it was a fearful, menacing place. And she climbed on in heartrending effort. And she fell beside Lassiter and Fay at the top of the incline on a narrow, smooth divide.

He staggered to his feet—staggered to a huge, leaning rock that rested on a small pedestal. He put his hand on it—the hand that had been shot through—and Jane saw blood drip from the ragged hole. Then he fell.

“Jane—I—can't—do—it!” he whispered.

“What?”

“Roll the—stone! . . . All my—life I've loved—to roll stones—an' now I—can't!”

“What of it? You talk strangely. Why roll that stone?”

“I planned to—fetch you here—to roll this stone. See! It'll smash the crags—loosen the walls—close the outlet!”

As Jane Withersteen gazed down that long incline, walled in by crumbling cliffs, awaiting only the slightest jar to make them fall asunder, she saw Tull appear at the bottom and begin to climb. A rider followed him—another—and another.

“See! Tull! The riders!”

“Yes—they'll get us—now.”

“Why? Haven't you strength left to roll the stone?”

“Jane—it ain't that—I've lost my nerve!”

“
You!
. . . Lassiter!”

“I wanted to roll it—meant to—but I—can't. Venters's valley is down behind here. We could—live there. But if I roll the stone—we're shut in for always. I don't dare. I'm thinkin' of you!”

“Lassiter! Roll the stone!” she cried.

He arose, tottering, but with set face, and again he placed the bloody hand on the Balancing Rock. Jane Withersteen gazed from him down the passageway. Tull was climbing. Almost, she thought, she saw his dark, relentless face. Behind him more riders climbed. What did they mean for Fay—for Lassiter—for herself?

“Roll the stone! . . . Lassiter, I love you!”

Under all his deathly pallor, and the blood, and the iron of seared cheek and lined brow, worked a great change. He placed both hands on the rock and then leaned his shoulder there and braced his powerful body.

“ROLL THE STONE!”

It stirred, it groaned, it grated, it moved; and with a slow grinding, as of wrathful relief, began to lean. It had waited ages to fall, and now was slow in starting. Then, as if suddenly instinct with life, it leaped hurtlingly down to alight on the steep incline, to bound more swiftly into the air, to gather momentum, to plunge into the lofty leaning crag below. The crag thundered into atoms. A wave of air—a splitting shock! Dust shrouded the sunset red of shaking rims; dust shrouded Tull as he fell on his knees with uplifted arms. Shafts and monuments and sections of wall fell majestically.

From the depths there rose a long-drawn rumbling roar. The outlet to Deception Pass closed forever.

NOTES

1.
Gentile:
While Mormons consider themselves Gentiles who have been adopted into the House of Israel,
Gentile
was a term Mormons commonly used from the nineteenth century until the 1970s for all non-Mormons, including Jews.

2.
elder:
the first, or lowest, and thus most common ecclesiastical order of the Melchizedek lay priesthood of adult men in the Mormon church. The term also referred generally to anyone in that priesthood, and is often used as a form of greeting.

3.
Bishop:
the head of a local Mormon congregation, or “ward.” In the nineteenth century, the bishop was also in charge of all secular affairs in the community, often serving as arbitrator in disputes.

4.
“Whence cometh my help!”:
from Psalm 121:1, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

5.
a black sombrero:
A sombrero is a broad-brimmed Spanish or Mexican hat.

6.
“Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath”:
from Ephesians 4:26, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”

7.
the power and wealth of their church, their empire:
Venters here repeats a common characterization of Mormon power in the nineteenth century, given the fact that the Mormons were economically self-sufficient, had colonized a vast portion of the West, and had for a time their own standing militia.

8.
the hoofs of the horses were muffled:
To muffle the sound of horses' hooves and thus to escape detection, Oldring and his rustlers wrap the hooves in cloth.

9.
quirt:
a riding whip.

10.
the toll which her father had exacted:
This is anachronistic. Water rights in the 1870s were communal in Mormon settlements among practicing Mormons. The water “master,” who was usually the bishop, apportioned the water, without charging a toll.

11.
escarpment:
the abrupt, steep face of a hill or mountain.

12.
“Twenty-five hundred head”:
Cattle are counted in the plural as “head.”

13.
sorrel:
a reddish-brown horse.

14.
bit:
the metal mouthpiece of a bridle (see below), which serves to control and direct a horse or other animal.

15.
bridle:
a harness fitted about a horse's head with which the rider guides the horse.

16.
Piñon pines:
Piñons (or pinyons) are pine trees with edible nuts found in the American West.

17.
a hundred rods wide:
a rod is equivalent to five and a half yards or sixteen and a half feet. The canyon is thus a third of a mile wide.

18.
acclivity:
the ascending slope of a hill.

19.
hummocky rock:
A hummock is a low mound or ridge of earth.

20.
hobble-bell of a horse:
a bell that is attached to a cord loosely binding a horse's forelegs so that it cannot stray or kick and can be located by sound when not in sight.

21.
shallow swale:
A swale is a low tract of land, especially moist or marshy ground; the word can also mean “shade.”

22.
Poor, fettered, and sealed Hagars:
Genesis 16:1–16, 21:9–21, 25:12. Hagar is a bondservant of Sarah, wife of Abraham. Sarah arranges to have Hagar bear Abraham a son, Ishmael. Later, Sarah has a son, Isaac, and she banishes Hagar and Ishmael to the wilderness.

23.
draw a bead:
to take aim with a gun.

24.
everybody vamoosed:
“Vamoose” derives from the Spanish
vamos,
“let's go”; it means “to leave hurriedly.”

25.
Was she Delilah?:
from Judges 16. Delilah's Israelite lover, Samson, reveals to her that his long hair is the source of his strength. In league with her people, the Philistines, with whom Samson has been at war, Delilah betrays his trust and has a man cut his hair while he is asleep to weaken him. He is imprisoned and blinded; after his hair has grown longer he tears down pillars of the house where he has been taken and kills more Philistines than he had killed previously—and in the process kills himself.

26.
“Your people shall be my people, and your God my God!”:
from Ruth 1:16. Ruth, a widow, accompanies her newly widowed mother-in-law, Naomi, who wishes to return to Bethlehem after living ten years in the country of Moab, which is Ruth's home. Naomi tells Ruth that she should return to Moab, but Ruth follows her back to Bethlehem, saying, “whither thou goest, I will go . . . thy people shall be my people, and thy god my God.”

27. “don't look back!”: an allusion to Genesis 19:15–26. Fleeing from the burning cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot warns his wife not to look back at the cities; she does anyway and is turned into a pillar of salt.