Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (best novels in english txt) š
- Author: Zane Grey
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āBeen under the knife? Youāve a fine knife-wielder hereāone Tull, I believe!... Maybe youāve all had your tongues cut out?ā
This passionate sarcasm of Venters brought no response, and the stony calm was as oil on the fire within him.
āI see some of you pack guns, too!ā he added, in biting scorn. In the long, tense pause, strung keenly as a tight wire, he sat motionless on Black Star. āAll right,ā he went on. āThen let some of you take this message to Tull. Tell him Iāve seen Jerry Card! ... Tell him Jerry Card will never return!ā
Thereupon, in the same dead calm, Venters backed Black Star away from the curb, into the street, and out of range. He was ready now to ride up to Withersteen House and turn the racers over to Jane.
āHello, Venters!ā a familiar voice cried, hoarsely, and he saw a man running toward him. It was the rider Judkins who came up and gripped Ventersās hand. āVenters, I could hev dropped when I seen them hosses. But thet sight aināt a marker to the looks of you. Whatās wrong? Hev you gone crazy? You must be crazy to ride in here this wayāwith them hossesātalkieā thet way about Tull enā Jerry Card.ā
āJud, Iām not crazyāonly mad clean through,ā replied Venters.
āWal, now, Bern, Iām glad to hear some of your old self in your voice. Fer when you come up you looked like the corpse of a dead rider with fire fer eyes. You hed thet crowd too stiff fer throwinā guns. Come, weāve got to hev a talk. Letās go up the lane. We aināt much safe here.ā
Judkins mounted Bells and rode with Venters up to the cottonwood grove. Here they dismounted and went among the trees.
āLetās hear from you first,ā said Judkins. āYou fetched back them hosses. Thet is the trick. Anā, of course, you got Jerry the same as you got Horne.ā
āHorne!ā
āSure. He was found dead yesterday all chewed by coyotes, enā heād been shot plumb center.ā
āWhere was he found?ā
āAt the split down the trailāyou know where Oldringās cattle trail runs off north from the trail to the pass.ā
āThatās where I met Jerry and the rustlers. What was Horne doing with them? I thought Horne was an honest cattle-man.ā
āLordāBern, donāt ask me thet! Iām all muddled now tryinā to figure things.ā
Venters told of the fight and the race with Jerry Card and its tragic conclusion.
āI knowed it! I knowed all along that Wrangle was the best hoss!ā exclaimed Judkins, with his lean face working and his eyes lighting. āThet was a race! Lord, Iād like to hev seen Wrangle jump the cliff with Jerry. Anā thet was good-by to the grandest hoss anā rider ever on the sage!... But, Bern, after you got the hosses whyād you want to bolt right in Tullās face?ā
āI want him to know. Anā if I can get to him Iāllāā
āYou canāt get near Tull,ā interrupted Judkins. āThet vigilante bunch hev taken to beinā bodyguard for Tull anā Dyer, too.ā
āHasnāt Lassiter made a break yet?ā inquired Venters, curiously.
āNaw!ā replied Judkins, scornfully. āJane turned his head. Heās mad in love over herāfollers her like a dog. He aināt no more Lassiter! Heās lost his nerve, he doesnāt look like the same feller. Itās village talk. Everybody knows it. He hasnāt thrown a gun, anā he wonāt!ā
āJud, Iāll bet he does,ā replied Venters, earnestly. āRemember what I say. This Lassiter is something more than a gun-man. Jud, heās bigāheās great!... I feel that in him. God help Tull and Dyer when Lassiter does go after them. For horses and riders and stone walls wonāt save them.ā
āWal, hev it your way, Bern. I hope youāre right. Natārully Iāve been some sore on Lassiter fer gittinā soft. But I aināt denyinā his nerve, or whateverās great in him thet sort of paralyzes people. No later ān this morninā I seen him saunterinā down the lane, quiet anā slow. Anā like his guns he comes blackāblack, thetās Lassiter. Wal, the crowd on the corner never batted an eye, enā Iāll gamble my hoss thet there wasnāt one who hed a heartbeat till Lassiter got by. He went in Snellās saloon, anā as there wasnāt no gun play I had to go in, too. Anā there, darn my pictures, if Lassiter wasnāt standinā to the bar, drinking enā talkinā with Oldrinā.ā
āOldring!ā whispered Venters. His voice, as all fire and pulse within him, seemed to freeze.
āLet go my arm!ā exclaimed Judkins. āThetās my bad arm. Sure it was Oldrinā. What the hellās wrong with you, anyway? Venters, I tell you somethinās wrong. Youāre whiter ān a sheet. You canāt be scared of the rustler. I donāt believe youāve got a scare in you. Wal, now, jest let me talk. You know I like to talk, anā if Iām slow I allus git there sometime. As I said, Lassiter was talkieā chummy with Oldrinā. There wasnāt no hard feelinās. Anā the gang wasnāt payinā no perticālar attention. But like a cat watchinā a mouse I hed my eyes on them two fellers. It was strange to me, thet confab. Iām gittinā to think a lot, fer a feller who doesnāt know much. Thereās been some queer deals lately anā this seemed to me the queerest. These men stood to the bar alone, anā so close their big gun-hilts butted together. I seen Oldrinā was some surprised at first, anā Lassiter was cool as ice. They talked, anā presently at somethinā Lassiter said the rustler bawled out a curse, anā then he jest fell up against the bar, anā sagged there. The gang in the saloon looked around anā laughed, anā thetās about all. Finally Oldrinā turned, and it was easy to see somethinā hed shook him. Yes, sir, thet big rustlerāyou know heās as broad as he is long, anā the powerfulest build of a manāyes, sir, the nerve had been taken out of him. Then, after a little, he began to talk anā said a lot to Lassiter, anā by anā by it didnāt take much of an eye to see thet Lassiter was gittinā hit hard. I never seen him anyway but cooler ān iceātill then. He seemed to be hit harder ān Oldrinā, only he didnāt roar out thet way. He jest kind of sunk in, anā looked anā looked, anā he didnāt see a livinā soul in thet saloon. Then he sort of come to, anā shakinā handsāmind you, shakinā hands with Oldrināāhe went out. I couldnāt help thinkinā how easy even a boy could hev dropped the great gun-man then!... Wal, the rustler stood at the bar fer a long time, enā he was seeinā things far off, too; then he come to anā roared fer whisky, anā gulped a drink thet was big enough to drown me.ā
āIs Oldring here now?ā whispered Venters. He could not speak above a whisper. Judkinsās story had been meaningless to him.
āHeās at Snellās yet. Bern, I hevnāt told you yet thet the rustlers hev been raisinā hell. They shot up Stone Bridge anā Glaze, anā fer three days theyāve been here drinkinā anā gamblinā anā throwinā of gold. These rustlers hev a pile of gold. If it was gold dust or nugget gold Iād hev reason to think, but itās new coin gold, as if it had jest come from the United States treasury. Anā the coinās genuine. Thetās all been proved. The truth is Oldrinās on a rampage. A while back he lost his Masked Rider, anā they say heās wild about thet. Iām wonderinā if Lassiter could hev told the rustler anythinā about thet little masked, hard-ridinā devil. Ride! He was most as good as Jerry Card. Anā, Bern, Iāve been wonderinā if you knowāā
āJudkins, youāre a good fellow,ā interrupted Venters. āSome day Iāll tell you a story. Iāve no time now. Take the horses to Jane.ā
Judkins stared, and then, muttering to himself, he mounted Bells, and stared again at Venters, and then, leading the other horses, he rode into the grove and disappeared.
Once, long before, on the night Venters had carried Bess through the caƱon and up into Surprise Valley, he had experienced the strangeness of faculties singularly, tinglingly acute. And now the same sensation recurred. But it was different in that he felt cold, frozen, mechanical incapable of free thought, and all about him seemed unreal, aloof, remote. He hid his rifle in the sage, marking its exact location with extreme care. Then he faced down the lane and strode toward the center of the village. Perceptions flashed upon him, the faint, cold touch of the breeze, a cold, silvery tinkle of flowing water, a cold sun shining out of a cold sky, song of birds and laugh of children, coldly distant. Cold and intangible were all things in earth and heaven. Colder and tighter stretched the skin over his face; colder and harder grew the polished butts of his guns; colder and steadier became his hands as he wiped the clammy sweat from his face or reached low to his gun-sheaths. Men meeting him in the walk gave him wide berth. In front of Bevinās store a crowd melted apart for his passage, and their faces and whispers were faces and whispers of a dream. He turned a corner to meet Tull face to face, eye to eye. As once before he had seen this man pale to a ghastly, livid white so again he saw the change. Tull stopped in his tracks, with right hand raised and shaking. Suddenly it dropped, and he seemed to glide aside, to pass out of Ventersās sight. Next he saw many horses with bridles downāall clean-limbed, dark bays or blacksārustlersā horses! Loud voices and boisterous laughter, rattle of dice and scrape of chair and clink of gold, burst in mingled din from an open doorway. He stepped inside.
With the sight of smoke-hazed room and drinking, cursing, gambling, dark-visaged men, reality once more dawned upon Venters.
His entrance had been unnoticed, and he bent his gaze upon the drinkers at the bar. Dark-clothed, dark-faced men they all were, burned by the sun, bow-legged as were most riders of the sage, but neither lean nor gaunt. Then Ventersās gaze passed to the tables, and swiftly it swept over the hard-featured gamesters, to alight upon the huge, shaggy, black head of the rustler chief.
āOldring!ā he cried, and to him his voice seemed to split a bell in his ears.
It stilled the din.
That silence suddenly broke to the scrape and crash of Oldringās chair as he rose; and then, while he passed, a great gloomy figure, again the thronged room stilled in silence yet deeper.
āOldring, a word with you!ā continued Venters.
āHo! Whatās this?ā boomed Oldring, in frowning scrutiny.
āCome outside, alone. A word for youāfrom your Masked Rider!ā
Oldring kicked a chair out of his way and lunged forward with a stamp of heavy boot that jarred the floor. He waved down his muttering, rising men.
Venters backed out of the door and waited, hearing, as no sound had ever before struck into his soul, the rapid, heavy steps of the rustler.
Oldring appeared, and Venters had one glimpse of his great breadth and bulk, his gold-buckled belt with hanging guns, his high-top boots with gold spurs. In that moment Venters had a strange, unintelligible curiosity to see Oldring alive. The rustlerās broad brow, his large black eyes, his sweeping beard, as dark as the wing of a raven, his enormous width of shoulder and depth of chest, his whole splendid presence so wonderfully charged with vitality and force and strength, seemed to afford Venters an unutterable fiendish joy because for that magnificent manhood and life he meant cold and sudden death.
āOldring, Bess is alive! But sheās dead to youādead to the life you made her leadādead as you will be in one second!ā
Swift as lightning Ventersās glance dropped from Oldringās rolling eyes to his hands. One of them, the right, swept out, then toward his gunāand Venters shot him through the heart.
Slowly Oldring sank to his knees, and the hand, dragging at the gun, fell away. Ventersās strangely acute faculties grasped the meaning of that limp arm, of the swaying hulk, of the gasp and heave, of the quivering beard. But was that awful spirit in the black eyes only one of vitality?
āManāwhyādidnātāyouāwait? Bessāwasāā Oldringās whisper died under his beard, and with a heavy lurch he fell forward.
Bounding swiftly away, Venters fled around the corner, across the street, and, leaping a hedge, he ran through yard, orchard, and garden to the sage. Here, under cover of the tall brush, he turned west and ran on to the place where he had hidden his rifle. Securing that, he again set out into a run, and, circling through the sage, came up behind Jane Withersteenās stable and corrals. With laboring,
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