The Man of the Forest - Zane Grey (white hot kiss txt) 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
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statement.
“Talk’s cheap anywhere, an’ in the West talk ain’t much at
all,” continued Beasley. “I’m no talker. I jest want to tell
my case an’ make a deal if you’ll have it. I can prove more
in black an’ white, an’ with witness, than you can. Thet’s
my case. The deal I’d make is this… . Let’s marry an’
settle a bad deal thet way.”
The man’s direct assumption, absolutely without a qualifying
consideration for her woman’s attitude, was amazing,
ignorant, and base; but Helen was so well prepared for it
that she hid her disgust.
“Thank you, Mr. Beasley, but I can’t accept your offer,” she
replied.
“Would you take time an’ consider?” he asked, spreading wide
his huge gloved hands.
“Absolutely no.”
Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or
chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and,
slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only
redeeming quality he showed.
“Thet means I’ll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or
put you off,” he said.
“Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so
enormous a sum? I don’t owe it. And I certainly won’t be put
off my property. You can’t put me off.”
“An’ why can’t I” he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.
“Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it,”
declared Helen, forcibly.
“Who ‘re you goin’ to prove it to — thet I’m dishonest?”
“To my men — to your men — to the people of Pine — to
everybody. There’s not a person who won’t believe me.”
He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet
fascinated by her statement or else by the quality and
appearance of her as she spiritedly defended her cause.
“An’ how ‘re you goin’ to prove all thet?” he growled.
“Mr. Beasley, do you remember last fall when you met Snake
Anson with his gang up in the woods — and hired him to make
off with me?” asked Helen, in swift, ringing words.
The dark olive of Beasley’s bold face shaded to a dirty
white.
“Wha-at?” he jerked out, hoarsely.
“I see you remember. Well, Milt Dale was hidden in the loft
of that cabin where you met Anson. He heard every word of
your deal with the outlaw.”
Beasley swung his arm in sudden violence, so hard that he
flung his glove to the floor. As he stooped to snatch it up
he uttered a sibilant hiss. Then, stalking to the door, he
jerked it open, and slammed it behind him. His loud voice,
hoarse with passion, preceded the scrape and crack of hoofs.
Shortly after supper that day, when Helen was just
recovering her composure, Carmichael presented himself at
the open door. Bo was not there. In the dimming twilight
Helen saw that the cowboy was pale, somber, grim.
“Oh, what’s happened?” cried Helen.
“Roy’s been shot. It come off in Turner’s saloon But he
ain’t dead. We packed him over to Widow Cass’s. An’ he said
for me to tell you he’d pull through.”
“Shot! Pull through!” repeated Helen, in slow, unrealizing
exclamation. She was conscious of a deep internal tumult and
a cold checking of blood in all her external body.
“Yes, shot,” replied Carmichael, fiercely.
“An’, whatever he says, I reckon he won’t pull through.”
“O Heaven, how terrible!” burst out Helen. “He was so good
— such a man! What a pity! Oh, he must have met that in my
behalf. Tell me, what happened? Who shot him?”
“Wal, I don’t know. An’ thet’s what’s made me hoppin’ mad. I
wasn’t there when it come off. An’ he won’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know thet, either. I reckoned first it was because
he wanted to get even. But, after thinkin’ it over, I guess
he doesn’t want me lookin’ up any one right now for fear I
might get hurt. An’ you’re goin’ to need your friends.
Thet’s all I can make of Roy.”
Then Helen hurriedly related the event of Beasley’s call on
her that afternoon and all that had occurred.
“Wal, the half-breed son-of-a-greaser!” ejaculated
Carmichael, in utter confoundment. “He wanted you to marry
him!”
“He certainly did. I must say it was a — a rather abrupt
proposal.”
Carmichael appeared to be laboring with speech that had to
be smothered behind his teeth. At last he let out an
explosive breath.
“Miss Nell, I’ve shore felt in my bones thet I’m the boy
slated to brand thet big bull.”
“Oh, he must have shot Roy. He left here in a rage.”
“I reckon you can coax it out of Roy. Fact is, all I could
learn was thet Roy come in the saloon alone. Beasley was
there, an’ Riggs —”
“Riggs!” interrupted Helen.
“Shore, Riggs. He come back again. But he’d better keep out
of my way… . An’ Jeff Mulvey with his outfit. Turner
told me he heard an argument an’ then a shot. The gang
cleared out, leavin’ Roy on the floor. I come in a little
later. Roy was still layin’ there. Nobody was doin’ anythin’
for him. An’ nobody had. I hold that against Turner. Wal, I
got help an’ packed Roy over to Widow Cass’s. Roy seemed all
right. But he was too bright an’ talky to suit me. The
bullet hit his lung, thet’s shore. An’ he lost a sight of
blood before we stopped it. Thet skunk Turner might have
lent a hand. An’ if Roy croaks I reckon I’ll —”
“Tom, why must you always be reckoning to kill somebody?”
demanded Helen, angrily.
“‘Cause somebody’s got to be killed ‘round here. Thet’s
why!” he snapped back.
“Even so — should you risk leaving Bo and me without a
friend?” asked Helen, reproachfully.
At that Carmichael wavered and lost something of his sullen
deadliness.
“Aw, Miss Nell, I’m only mad. If you’ll just be patient with
me — an’ mebbe coax me… . But I can’t see no other way
out.”
“Let’s hope and pray,” said Helen, earnestly. “You spoke of
my coaxing Roy to tell who shot him. When can I see him?”
“Tomorrow, I reckon. I’ll come for you. Fetch Bo along with
you. We’ve got to play safe from now on. An’ what do you say
to me an’ Hal sleepin’ here at the ranch-house?”
“Indeed I’d feel safer,” she replied. “There are rooms.
Please come.”
“Allright. An’ now I’ll be goin’ to fetch Hal. Shore wish I
hadn’t made you pale an’ scared like this.”
About ten o’clock next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo
into Pine, and tied up the team before Widow Cass’s cottage.
The peach and apple-trees were mingling blossoms of pink
and white; a drowsy hum of bees filled the fragrant air;
rich, dark-green alfalfa covered the small orchard flat; a
wood fire sent up a lazy column of blue smoke; and birds
were singing sweetly.
Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquillity
a man lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had
been somber and reticent enough to rouse the gravest fears.
Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn,
but cheerful old woman whom Helen had come to know as her
friend.
“My land! I’m thet glad to see you, Miss Helen,” she said.
“An’ you’ve fetched the little lass as I’ve not got
acquainted with yet.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Cass. How — how is Roy?” replied Helen,
anxiously scanning the wrinkled face.
“Roy? Now don’t you look so scared. Roy’s ‘most ready to git
on his hoss an’ ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was
a-comin’. An’ he made me hold a lookin’-glass for him to
shave. How’s thet fer a man with a bullet-hole through him!
You can’t kill them Mormons, nohow.”
She led them into a little sitting-room, where on a couch
underneath a window Roy Beeman lay. He was wide awake and
smiling, but haggard. He lay partly covered with a blanket.
His gray shirt was open at the neck, disclosing bandages.
“Mornin’ — girls,” he drawled. “Shore is good of you, now,
comin’ down.”
Helen stood beside him, bent over him, in her earnestness,
as she greeted him. She saw a shade of pain in his eyes and
his immobility struck her, but he did not seem badly off. Bo
was pale, round-eyed, and apparently too agitated to speak.
Carmichael placed chairs beside the couch for the girls.
“Wal, what’s ailin’ you this nice mornin’?” asked Roy, eyes
on the cowboy.
“Huh! Would you expect me to be wearin’ the smile of a
fellar goin’ to be married?” retorted Carmichael.
“Shore you haven’t made up with Bo yet,” returned Roy.
Bo blushed rosy red, and the cowboy’s face lost something of
its somber hue.
“I allow it’s none of your d — darn bizness if SHE ain’t
made up with me,” he said.
“Las Vegas, you’re a wonder with a hoss an’ a rope, an’ I
reckon with a gun, but when it comes to girls you shore
ain’t there.”
“I’m no Mormon, by golly! Come, Ma Cass, let’s get out of
here, so they can talk.”
“Folks, I was jest a-goin’ to say thet Roy’s got fever an’
he oughtn’t t’ talk too much,” said the old woman. Then she
and Carmichael went into the kitchen and closed the door.
Roy looked up at Helen with his keen eyes, more kindly
piercing than ever.
“My brother John was here. He’d just left when you come. He
rode home to tell my folks I’m not so bad hurt, an’ then
he’s goin’ to ride a bee-line into the mountains.”
Helen’s eyes asked what her lips refused to utter.
“He’s goin’ after Dale. I sent him. I reckoned we-all sorta
needed sight of thet doggone hunter.”
Roy had averted his gaze quickly to Bo.
“Don’t you agree with me, lass?”
“I sure do,” replied Bo, heartily.
All within Helen had been stilled for the moment of her
realization; and then came swell and beat of heart, and
inconceivable chafing of a tide at its restraint.
“Can John — fetch Dale out — when the snow’s so deep?” she
asked, unsteadily.
“Shore. He’s takin’ two hosses up to the snow-line. Then, if
necessary, he’ll go over the pass on snow-shoes. But I bet
him Dale would ride out. Snow’s about gone except on the
north slopes an’ on the peaks.”
“Then — when may I — we expect to see Dale?”
“Three or four days, I reckon. I wish he was here now… .
Miss Helen, there’s trouble afoot.”
“I realize that. I’m ready. Did Las Vegas tell you about
Beasley’s visit to me?”
“No. You tell me,” replied Roy.
Briefly Helen began to acquaint him with the circumstances
of that visit, and before she had finished she made sure Roy
was swearing to himself.
“He asked you to marry him! Jerusalem! … Thet I’d never
have reckoned. The — lowdown coyote of a greaser! …
Wal, Miss Helen, when I met up with Senor Beasley last night
he was shore spoilin’ from somethin’; now I see what thet
was. An’ I reckon I picked out the bad time.”
“For what? Roy, what did you do?”
“Wal, I’d made up my mind awhile back to talk to Beasley the
first chance I had. An’ thet was it. I was in the store when
I seen him go
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