The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey (historical books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
Book online «The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey (historical books to read TXT) 📗». Author Zane Grey
And jealousy, stronger than all except fear, wore Neale out of his exaltation, out of his dream, out of his old disposition to work. He could persist in courage if not in joy. But jealous longing would destroy him—he felt that. It was so powerful, so wonderful that it brought back to him words and movements which until then he had been unable to recall.
And he lived over the past. Much still baffled him, yet gradually more and more of what had happened became clear specifically in his memory. He could not think from the present back over the past. He had to ponder the other way. One day, leaning on his sledge, Neale’s torturing self, morbid, inquisitive, growing by what it fed on, whispered another question to his memory.
“What were some of the last words she spoke to me?” And there, limned white on the dark background of his mind, the answer appeared, “NEALE, I FORGIVE YOU!”
He recalled her face, the tragic eyes, the outstretched arms.
“Forgive me! For what?” Neale muttered, dazed and troubled. He dropped his sledge and remained standing there, though the noon whistle called the gang to dinner. Looking out across the hot, smoky, arid desert he saw again that scene where he had appealed to Allison Lee.
The picture was etched out vividly, and again he lived through those big moments of emotion.
The room full of men—Lee’s cold acceptance of fact, his thanks, his offer, his questions, his refusal—General Lodge’s earnest solicitation—the rapid exchange of passionate words between them—the query put to Neale and his answer—the sudden appearance of Allie, shocking his heart with rapture—her sweet, wild words—and so the end! How vivid now—how like flashes of lightning in his mind!
“Lee thought I’d killed Stanton,” muttered Neale, in intense perplexity. “But she—she told them Larry did it.... What a strange idea Lee had—and General Lodge, too. He defended me.... Ah!”
Suddenly Neale drew from his pocket the little leather note-book that had been Stanton’s, and which contained her letter to him. With trembling hands he opened it. Again this letter was to mean a revelation.
General Lodge had said his engineer had read aloud only the first of that message to Neale; and from this Allison Lee and all the listeners had formed their impressions.
Neale read these first lines.
“No wonder they imagined I killed her!” he exclaimed. “She accuses me. But she never meant what they imagined she meant. Why, that evidence could hang me!... Allie told them she saw Larry do it. And it’s common knowledge now—I’ve heard it here.... What, then, had Allie to forgive—to forgive with eyes that will haunt me to my grave?”
Then the truth burst upon him with merciless and stunning force.
“My God! Allie believed what they all believed—what I must have blindly made seem true!... That I was Beauty Stanton’s lover!”
34
The home to which Allie Lee was brought stood in the outskirts of Omaha upon a wooded bank above the river.
Allie watched the broad, yellow Missouri swirling by. She liked best to be alone outdoors in the shade of the trees. In the weeks since her arrival there she had not recovered from the shock of meeting Neale only to be parted from him.
But the comfort, the luxury of her home, the relief from constant dread, such as she had known for years, the quiet at night—these had been so welcome, so saving, that her burden of sorrow seemed endurable. Yet in time she came to see that the finding of a father and a home had only added to her bitterness.
Allison Lee’s sister, an elderly woman of strong character, resented the home-bringing of this strange, lost daughter. Allie had found no sympathy in her. For a while neighbors and friends of the Lees’ flocked to the house and were kind, gracious, attentive to Allie. Then somehow her story, or part of it, became gossip. Her father, sensitive, cold, embittered by the past, suffered intolerable shame at the disgrace of a wife’s desertion and a daughter’s notoriety. Allie’s presence hurt him; he avoided her as much as possible; the little kindnesses that he had shown, and his feelings of pride in her beauty and charm, soon vanished. There was no love between them. Allie had tried hard to care for him, but her heart seemed to be buried in that vast grave of the West. She was obedient, dutiful, passive, but she could not care for him. And there came a day when she realized that he did not believe she had come unscathed through the wilds of the gold-fields and the vileness of the construction camps. She bore this patiently, though it stung her. But the loss of respect for her father did not come until she heard men in his study, loud-voiced and furious, wrangle over contracts and accuse him of double-dealing.
Later he told her that he had become involved in financial straits, and that unless he could raise a large sum by a certain date he would be ruined.
And it was this day that Allie sat on a bench in the little arbor and watched the turbulent river. She was sorry for her father, but she could not help him. Moreover, alien griefs did not greatly touch her. Her own grief was deep and all-enfolding. She was heart-sick, and always yearning—yearning for that she dared not name.
The day was hot, sultry; no birds sang, but the locusts were noisy; the air was full of humming bees.
Allie watched the river. She was idle because her aunt would not let her work. She could only remember and suffer. The great river soothed her. Where did it come from and where did it go? And what was to become of her? Almost it would have been better—
A servant interrupted her. “Missy, heah’s a gennelman to see yo’,” announced the Negro girl.
Allie looked. She thought she saw a tall, buckskin-clad man carrying a heavy pack. Was she dreaming or had she lost her mind? She got up, shaking in every limb. This tall man moved; he seemed real; his bronzed face beamed. He approached; he set the pack down on the bench. Then his keen, clear eyes pierced Allie.
“Wal, lass,” he said, gently.
The familiar voice was no dream, no treachery of her mind. Slingerland! She could not speak. She could hardly see. She swayed into his arms. Then when she felt the great, strong clasp and the softness of buckskin on her face and the odor of pine and sage—and desert dust, she believed
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