Zane Grey (9 page)

Absorbed in this contemplation Helen remained a long time gazing with
dreamy ecstasy at the moonlit valley until a slight chill disturbed
her happy thoughts. She knew she was not alone. Trembling, she stood
up to see, easily recognizable in the moonlight, the tall
buckskin-garbed figure of Jonathan Zane.

"Well, sir," she called, sharply, yet with a tremor in her voice.

The borderman came forward and stood in front of her. Somehow he
appeared changed. The long, black rifle, the dull, glinting weapons
made her shudder. Wilder and more untamable he looked than ever. The
very silence of the forest clung to him; the fragrance of the grassy
plains came faintly from his buckskin garments.

"Evenin', lass," he said in his slow, cool manner.

"How did you get here?" asked Helen presently, because he made no
effort to explain his presence at such a late hour.

"I was able to walk."

Helen observed, with a vaulting spirit, one ever ready to rise in
arms, that Master Zane was disposed to add humor to his penetrating
mysteriousness. She flushed hot and then paled. This borderman
certainly possessed the power to vex her, and, reluctantly she
admitted, to chill her soul and rouse her fear. She strove to keep
back sharp words, because she had learned that this singular
individual always gave good reason for his odd actions.

"I think in kindness to me," she said, choosing her words carefully,
"you might tell me why you appear so suddenly, as if you had sprung
out of the ground."

"Are you alone?"

"Yes. Father is in bed; so is Mabel, and Will has not yet come home.
Why?"

"Has no one else been here?"

"Mr. Brandt came, as did some others; but wishing to be alone, I did
not see them," replied Helen in perplexity.

"Have you seen Brandt since?"

"Since when?"

"The night I watched by the lilac bush."

"Yes, several times," replied Helen. Something in his tone made her
ashamed. "I couldn't very well escape when he called. Are you
surprised because after he insulted me I'd see him?"

"Yes."

Helen felt more ashamed.

"You don't love him?" he continued.

Helen was so surprised she could only look into the dark face above
her. Then she dropped her gaze, abashed by his searching eyes. But,
thinking of his question, she subdued the vague stirrings of pleasure
in her breast, and answered coldly:

"No, I do not; but for the service you rendered me I should never have
answered such a question."

"I'm glad, an' hope you care as little for the other five men who were
here that night."

"I declare, Master Zane, you seem exceedingly interested in the
affairs of a young woman whom you won't visit, except as you have come
to-night."

He looked at her with his piercing eyes.

"You spied upon my guests," she said, in no wise abashed now that her
temper was high. "Did you care so very much?"

"Care?" he asked slowly.

"Yes; you were interested to know how many of my admirers were here,
what they did, and what they said. You even hint disparagingly
of them."

"True, I wanted to know," he replied; "but I don't hint about any
man."

"You are so interested you wouldn't call on me when I invited you,"
said Helen, with poorly veiled sarcasm. It was this that made her
bitter; she could never forget that she had asked this man to come to
see her, and he had refused.

"I reckon you've mistook me," he said calmly.

"Why did you come? Why do you shadow my friends? This is twice you
have done it. Goodness knows how many times you've been here!
Tell me."

The borderman remained silent.

"Answer me," commanded Helen, her eyes blazing. She actually stamped
her foot. "Borderman or not, you have no right to pry into my affairs.
If you are a gentleman, tell me why you came here?"

The eyes Jonathan turned on Helen stilled all the angry throbbing of
her blood.

"I come here to learn which of your lovers is the dastard who plotted
the abduction of Mabel Lane, an' the thief who stole our hosses. When
I find the villain I reckon Wetzel an' I'll swing him to some tree."

The borderman's voice rang sharp and cold, and when he ceased speaking
she sank back upon the step, shocked, speechless, to gaze up at him
with staring eyes.

"Don't look so, lass; don't be frightened," he said, his voice gentle
and kind as it had been hard. He took her hand in his. "You nettled me
into replyin'. You have a sharp tongue, lass, and when I spoke I was
thinkin' of him. I'm sorry."

"A horse-thief and worse than murderer among my friends!" murmured
Helen, shuddering, yet she never thought to doubt his word.

"I followed him here the night of your company."

"Do you know which one?"

"No."

He still held her hand, unconsciously, but Helen knew it well. A sense
of his strength came with the warm pressure, and comforted her. She
would need that powerful hand, surely, in the evil days which seemed
to darken the horizon.

"What shall I do?" she whispered, shuddering again.

"Keep this secret between you an' me."

"How can I? How can I?"

"You must," his voice was deep and low. "If you tell your father, or
any one, I might lose the chance to find this man, for, lass, he's
desperate cunnin'. Then he'd go free to rob others, an' mebbe help
make off with other poor girls. Lass, keep my secret."

"But he might try to carry me away," said Helen in fearful perplexity.

"Most likely he might," replied the borderman with the smile that came
so rarely.

"Oh! Knowing all this, how can I meet any of these men again? I'd
betray myself."

"No; you've got too much pluck. It so happens you are the one to help
me an' Wetzel rid the border of these hell-hounds, an' you won't fail.
I know a woman when it comes to that."

"I—I help you and Wetzel?"

"Exactly."

"Gracious!" cried Helen, half-laughing, half-crying. "And poor me with
more trouble coming on the next boat."

"Lass, the colonel told me about the Englishman. It'll be bad for him
to annoy you."

Helen thrilled with the depth of meaning in the low voice. Fate surely
was weaving a bond between her and this borderman. She felt it in his
steady, piercing gaze; in her own tingling blood.

Then as her natural courage dispelled all girlish fears, she faced
him, white, resolute, with a look in her eyes that matched his own.

"I will do what I can," she said.

Westward from Fort Henry, far above the eddying river, Jonathan Zane
slowly climbed a narrow, hazel-bordered, mountain trail. From time to
time he stopped in an open patch among the thickets and breathed deep
of the fresh, wood-scented air, while his keen gaze swept over the
glades near by, along the wooded hillsides, and above at the
timber-strewn woodland.

This June morning in the wild forest was significant of nature's
brightness and joy. Broad-leaved poplars, dense foliaged oaks, and
vine-covered maples shaded cool, mossy banks, while between the trees
the sunshine streamed in bright spots. It shone silver on the glancing
silver-leaf, and gold on the colored leaves of the butternut tree.
Dewdrops glistened on the ferns; ripples sparkled in the brooks;
spider-webs glowed with wondrous rainbow hues, and the flower of the
forest, the sweet, pale-faced daisy, rose above the green like a
white star.

Yellow birds flitted among the hazel bushes caroling joyously, and
cat-birds sang gaily. Robins called; bluejays screeched in the tall,
white oaks; wood-peckers hammered in the dead hard-woods, and crows
cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffed grouse rose
with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the
leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the
wilder scream of an eagle.

Wilderness music such as all this fell harmoniously on the borderman's
ear. It betokened the gladsome spirit of his wild friends, happy in
the warm sunshine above, or in the cool depths beneath the fluttering
leaves, and everywhere in those lonely haunts unalarmed and free.

Familiar to Jonathan, almost as the footpath near his home, was this
winding trail. On the height above was a safe rendezvous, much
frequented by him and Wetzel. Every lichen-covered stone, mossy bank,
noisy brook and giant oak on the way up this mountain-side, could have
told, had they spoken their secrets, stories of the bordermen. The
fragile ferns and slender-bladed grasses peeping from the gray and
amber mosses, and the flowers that hung from craggy ledges, had wisdom
to impart. A borderman lived under the green tree-tops, and,
therefore, all the nodding branches of sassafras and laurel, the
grassy slopes and rocky cliffs, the stately ash trees, kingly oaks and
dark, mystic pines, together with the creatures that dwelt among them,
save his deadly red-skinned foes, he loved. Other affection as close
and true as this, he had not known. Hearkening thus with single heart
to nature's teachings, he learned her secrets. Certain it was,
therefore, that the many hours he passed in the woods apart from
savage pursuits, were happy and fruitful.

Slowly he pressed on up the ascent, at length coming into open light
upon a small plateau marked by huge, rugged, weather-chipped stones.
On the eastern side was a rocky promontory, and close to the edge of
this cliff, an hundred feet in sheer descent, rose a gnarled, time and
tempest-twisted chestnut tree. Here the borderman laid down his rifle
and knapsack, and, half-reclining against the tree, settled himself to
rest and wait.

This craggy point was the lonely watch-tower of eagles. Here on the
highest headland for miles around where the bordermen were wont to
meet, the outlook was far-reaching and grand.

Below the gray, splintered cliffs sheered down to meet the waving
tree-tops, and then hill after hill, slope after slope, waved and
rolled far, far down to the green river. Open grassy patches, bright
little islands in that ocean of dark green, shone on the hillsides.
The rounded ridges ran straight, curved, or zigzag, but shaped their
graceful lines in the descent to make the valley. Long, purple-hued,
shadowy depressions in the wide expanse of foliage marked deep clefts
between ridges where dark, cool streams bounded on to meet the river.
Lower, where the land was level, in open spaces could be seen a broad
trail, yellow in the sunlight, winding along with the curves of the
water-course. On a swampy meadow, blue in the distance, a herd of
buffalo browsed. Beyond the river, high over the green island, Fort
Henry lay peaceful and solitary, the only token of the works of man in
all that vast panorama.

Jonathan Zane was as much alone as if one thousand miles, instead of
five, intervened between him and the settlement. Loneliness was to him
a passion. Other men loved home, the light of woman's eyes, the rattle
of dice or the lust of hoarding; but to him this wild, remote
promontory, with its limitless view, stretching away to the dim hazy
horizon, was more than all the aching joys of civilization.

Hours here, or in the shady valley, recompensed him for the loss of
home comforts, the soft touch of woman's hands, the kiss of baby lips,
and also for all he suffered in his pitiless pursuits, the hard fare,
the steel and blood of a borderman's life.

Soon the sun shone straight overhead, dwarfing the shadow of the
chestnut on the rock.

During such a time it was rare that any connected thought came into
the borderman's mind. His dark eyes, now strangely luminous, strayed
lingeringly over those purple, undulating slopes. This intense
watchfulness had no object, neither had his listening. He watched
nothing; he hearkened to the silence. Undoubtedly in this state of
rapt absorption his perceptions were acutely alert; but without
thought, as were those of the savage in the valley below, or the eagle
in the sky above.

Yet so perfectly trained were these perceptions that the least
unnatural sound or sight brought him wary and watchful from his
dreamy trance.

The slight snapping of a twig in the thicket caused him to sit erect,
and reach out toward his rifle. His eyes moved among the dark openings
in the thicket. In another moment a tall figure pressed the bushes
apart. Jonathan let fall his rifle, and sank back against the tree
once more. Wetzel stepped over the rocks toward him.

"Come from Blue Pond?" asked Jonathan as the newcomer took a seat
beside him.

Wetzel nodded as he carefully laid aside his long, black rifle.

"Any Injun sign?" continued Jonathan, pushing toward his companion the
knapsack of eatables he had brought from the settlement.

"Nary Shawnee track west of this divide," answered Wetzel, helping
himself to bread and cheese.

"Lew, we must go eastward, over Bing Legget's way, to find the trail
of the stolen horses."

"Likely, an' it'll be a long, hard tramp."

"Who's in Legget's gang now beside Old Horse, the Chippewa, an' his
Shawnee pard, Wildfire? I don't know Bing; but I've seen some of his
Injuns an' they remember me."

"Never seen Legget but onct," replied Wetzel, "an' that time I shot
half his face off. I've been told by them as have seen him since, that
he's got a nasty scar on his temple an' cheek. He's a big man an'
knows the woods. I don't know who all's in his gang, nor does anybody.
He works in the dark, an' for cunnin' he's got some on Jim Girty,
Deerin', an' several more renegades we know of lyin' quiet back here
in the woods. We never tackled as bad a gang as his'n; they're all
experienced woodsmen, old fighters, an' desperate, outlawed as they be
by Injuns an' whites. It wouldn't surprise me to find that it's him
an' his gang who are runnin' this hoss-thievin'; but bad or no, we're
goin' after 'em."

Jonathan told of his movements since he had last seen his companion.