Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (best novels in english txt) š
- Author: Zane Grey
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āLassiter, you knew him? Tell me, is he Mormon or Gentile?ā
āI canāt say. Iāve knowed Mormons who pretended to be Gentiles.ā
āNo Mormon ever pretended that unless he was a rustler,ā declared Venters.
āMebbe so.ā
āItās a hard country for any one, but hardest for Gentiles. Did you ever know or hear of a Gentile prospering in a Mormon community?ā
āI never did.ā
āWell, I want to get out of Utah. Iāve a mother living in Illinois. I want to go home. Itās eight years now.ā
The older manās sympathy moved Venters to tell his story. He had left Quincy, run off to seek his fortune in the gold fields had never gotten any farther than Salt Lake City, wandered here and there as helper, teamster, shepherd, and drifted southward over the divide and across the barrens and up the rugged plateau through the passes to the last border settlements. Here he became a rider of the sage, had stock of his own, and for a time prospered, until chance threw him in the employ of Jane Withersteen.
āLassiter, I neednāt tell you the rest.ā
āWell, itād be no news to me. I know Mormons. Iāve seen their womenās strange love enā patience enā sacrifice anā silence enā whet I call madness for their idea of God. Anā over against that Iāve seen the tricks of men. They work hand in hand, all together, anā in the dark. No man can hold out against them, unless he takes to packinā guns. For Mormons are slow to kill. Thatās the only good I ever seen in their religion. Venters, take this from me, these Mormons aināt just right in their minds. Else could a Mormon marry one woman when he already has a wife, anā call it duty?ā
āLassiter, you think as I think,ā returned Venters.
āHowād it come then that you never throwed a gun on Tull or some of them?ā inquired the rider, curiously.
āJane pleaded with me, begged me to be patient, to overlook. She even took my guns from me. I lost all before I knew it,ā replied Venters, with the red color in his face. āBut, Lassiter, listen. Out of the wreck I saved a Winchester, two Colts, and plenty of shells. I packed these down into Deception Pass. There, almost every day for six months, I have practiced with my rifle till the barrel burnt my hands. Practised the drawāthe firing of a Colt, hour after hour!ā
āNow thatās interestinā to me,ā said Lassiter, with a quick uplift of his head and a concentration of his gray gaze on Venters. āCould you throw a gun before you began that practisinā?ā
āYes. And now...ā Venters made a lightning-swift movement.
Lassiter smiled, and then his bronzed eyelids narrowed till his eyes seemed mere gray slits. āYouāll kill Tull!ā He did not question; he affirmed.
āI promised Jane Withersteen Iād try to avoid Tull. Iāll keep my word. But sooner or later Tull and I will meet. As I feel now, if he even looks at me Iāll draw!ā
āI reckon so. Thereāll be hell down there, presently.ā He paused a moment and flicked a sage-brush with his quirt. āVenters, seeinā as youāre considerable worked up, tell me Milly Erneās story.ā
Ventersās agitation stilled to the trace of suppressed eagerness in Lassiterās query.
āMilly Erneās story? Well, Lassiter, Iāll tell you what I know. Milly Erne had been in Cottonwoods years when I first arrived there, and most of what I tell you happened before my arrival. I got to know her pretty well. She was a slip of a woman, and crazy on religion. I conceived an idea that I never mentionedāI thought she was at heart more Gentile than Mormon. But she passed as a Mormon, and certainly she had the Mormon womanās locked lips. You know, in every Mormon village there are women who seem mysterious to us, but about Milly there was more than the ordinary mystery. When she came to Cottonwoods she had a beautiful little girl whom she loved passionately. Milly was not known openly in Cottonwoods as a Mormon wife. That she really was a Mormon wife I have no doubt. Perhaps the Mormonās other wife or wives would not acknowledge Milly. Such things happen in these villages. Mormon wives wear yokes, but they get jealous. Well, whatever had brought Milly to this countryālove or madness of religionāshe repented of it. She gave up teaching the village school. She quit the church. And she began to fight Mormon upbringing for her baby girl. Then the Mormons put on the screwsāslowly, as is their way. At last the child disappeared. āLostā was the report. The child was stolen, I know that. So do you. That wrecked Milly Erne. But she lived on in hope. She became a slave. She worked her heart and soul and life out to get back her child. She never heard of it again. Then she sank.... I can see her now, a frail thing, so transparent you could almost look through herāwhite like ashesāand her eyes!... Her eyes have always haunted me. She had one real friendāJane Withersteen. But Jane couldnāt mend a broken heart, and Milly died.ā
For moments Lassiter did not speak, or turn his head.
āThe man!ā he exclaimed, presently, in husky accents.
āI havenāt the slightest idea who the Mormon was,ā replied Venters; ānor has any Gentile in Cottonwoods.ā
āDoes Jane Withersteen know?ā
āYes. But a red-hot running-iron couldnāt burn that name out of her!ā
Without further speech Lassiter started off, walking his horse and Venters followed with his dogs. Half a mile down the slope they entered a luxuriant growth of willows, and soon came into an open space carpeted with grass like deep green velvet. The rushing of water and singing of birds filled their ears. Venters led his comrade to a shady bower and showed him Amber Spring. It was a magnificent outburst of clear, amber water pouring from a dark, stone-lined hole. Lassiter knelt and drank, lingered there to drink again. He made no comment, but Venters did not need words. Next to his horse a rider of the sage loved a spring. And this spring was the most beautiful and remarkable known to the upland riders of southern Utah. It was the spring that made old Withersteen a feudal lord and now enabled his daughter to return the toll which her father had exacted from the toilers of the sage.
The spring gushed forth in a swirling torrent, and leaped down joyously to make its swift way along a willow-skirted channel. Moss and ferns and lilies overhung its green banks. Except for the rough-hewn stones that held and directed the water, this willow thicket and glade had been left as nature had made it.
Below were artificial lakes, three in number, one above the other in banks of raised earth, and round about them rose the lofty green-foliaged shafts of poplar trees. Ducks dotted the glassy surface of the lakes; a blue heron stood motionless on a water-gate; kingfishers darted with shrieking flight along the shady banks; a white hawk sailed above; and from the trees and shrubs came the song of robins and cat-birds. It was all in strange contrast to the endless slopes of lonely sage and the wild rock environs beyond. Venters thought of the woman who loved the birds and the green of the leaves and the murmur of the water.
Next on the slope, just below the third and largest lake, were corrals and a wide stone barn and open sheds and coops and pens. Here were clouds of dust, and cracking sounds of hoofs, and romping colts and heehawing burros. Neighing horses trampled to the corral fences. And on the little windows of the barn projected bobbing heads of bays and blacks and sorrels. When the two men entered the immense barnyard, from all around the din increased. This welcome, however, was not seconded by the several men and boys who vanished on sight.
Venters and Lassiter were turning toward the house when Jane appeared in the lane leading a horse. In riding-skirt and blouse she seemed to have lost some of her statuesque proportions, and looked more like a girl rider than the mistress of Withersteen. She was brightly smiling, and her greeting was warmly cordial.
āGood news,ā she announced. āIāve been to the village. All is quiet. I expectedāI donāt know what. But thereās no excitement. And Tull has ridden out on his way to Glaze.ā
āTull gone?ā inquired Venters, with surprise. He was wondering what could have taken Tull away. Was it to avoid another meeting with Lassiter that he went? Could it have any connection with the probable nearness of Oldring and his gang?
āGone, yes, thank goodness,ā replied Jane. āNow Iāll have peace for a while. Lassiter, I want you to see my horses. You are a rider, and you must be a judge of horseflesh. Some of mine have Arabian blood. My father got his best strain in Nevada from Indians who claimed their horses were bred down from the original stock left by the Spaniards.ā
āWell, maāam, the one youāve been ridinā takes my eye,ā said Lassiter, as he walked round the racy, clean-limbed, and fine-pointed roan.
āWhere are the boys?ā she asked, looking about. āJerd, Paul, where are you? Here, bring out the horses.ā
The sound of dropping bars inside the barn was the signal for the horses to jerk their heads in the windows, to snort and stamp. Then they came pounding out of the door, a file of thoroughbreds, to plunge about the barnyard, heads and tails up, manes flying. They halted afar off, squared away to look, came slowly forward with whinnies for their mistress, and doubtful snorts for the strangers and their horses.
āComeācomeācome,ā called Jane, holding out her hands. āWhy, BellsāWrangle, where are your manners? Come, Black Starācome, Night. Ah, you beauties! My racers of the sage!ā
Only two came up to her; those she called Night and Black Star. Venters never looked at them without delight. The first was soft dead black, the other glittering black, and they were perfectly matched in size, both being high and long-bodied, wide through the shoulders, with lithe, powerful legs. That they were a womanās pets showed in the gloss of skin, the fineness of mane. It showed, too, in the light of big eyes and the gentle reach of eagerness.
āI never seen their like,ā was Lassiterās encomium, āanā in my day Iāve seen a sight of horses. Now, maāam, if you was wantinā to make a long anā fast ride across the sageāsay to elopeāā
Lassiter ended there with dry humor, yet behind that was meaning. Jane blushed and made arch eyes at him.
āTake care, Lassiter, I might think that a proposal,ā she replied, gaily. āItās dangerous to propose elopement to a Mormon woman. Well, I was expecting you. Now will be a good hour to show you Milly Erneās grave. The day-riders have gone, and the night-riders havenāt come in. Bern, what do you make of that? Need I worry? You know I have to be made to worry.ā
āWell, itās not usual for the night shift to ride in so late,ā replied Venters, slowly, and his glance sought Lassiterās. āCattle are usually quiet after dark. Still, Iāve known even a coyote to stampede your white herd.ā
āI refuse to borrow trouble. Come,ā said Jane.
They mounted, and, with Jane in the lead, rode down the lane, and, turning off into a cattle trail, proceeded westward. Ventersās dogs trotted behind them. On this side of the ranch the outlook was different from that on the other; the immediate foreground was rough and the sage more rugged and less colorful; there were no dark-blue lines of caƱons to hold the eye, nor any uprearing rock walls. It was a long roll and slope into gray obscurity. Soon Jane left the trail and rode into the sage, and presently she dismounted and threw her bridle. The men did likewise. Then, on foot, they followed her, coming out at length on the rim of a low escarpment. She passed by several little ridges of earth to halt before a faintly defined mound. It lay in the shade of a sweeping sage-brush close to the edge of the promontory; and a rider could have jumped his horse over it without recognizing a grave.
āHere!ā
She looked sad as she spoke, but she offered no explanation for the neglect of an unmarked, uncared-for grave. There was a little bunch of pale, sweet lavender daisies, doubtless planted there by Jane.
āI only come here to remember and
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