The Rainbow Trail by Zane Grey (best sales books of all time txt) 📗

red wall where a vast, dark, wonderful cavern yawned, with its rust-colored streaks of stain on the wall, and the queer little houses of the cliff-dwellers, with their black, vacant, silent windows speaking so weirdly of the unknown past.

Shefford passed a place where the ground had been cultivated, but not as recently as the last six months. There was a scant shock of corn and many meager standing stalks. He became aware of a low, whining hum and a fragrance overpowering in its sweetness. And there round another corner of wall he came upon an orchard all pink and white in blossom and melodious with the buzz and hum of innumerable bees.

He crossed a little stream that had been dammed, went along a pond, down beside an irrigation-ditch that furnished water to orchard and vineyard, and from there he strode into a beautiful cove between two jutting corners of red wall. It was level and green and the spruces stood gracefully everywhere. Beyond their dark trunks he saw caves in the wall.

Suddenly the fragrance of blossom was overwhelmed by the stronger fragrance of smoke from a wood fire. Swiftly he strode under the spruces. Quail fluttered before him as tame as chickens. Big gray rabbits scarcely moved out of his way. The branches above him were full of mockingbirds. And then—there before him stood three figures.

Fay Larkin was held close to the side of a magnificent woman, barbarously clad in garments made of skins and pieces of blanket. Her face worked in noble emotion. Shefford seemed to see the ghost of that fair beauty Venters had said was Jane Withersteen's. Her hair was gray. Near her stood a lean, stoop-shouldered man whose long hair was perfectly white. His gaunt face was bare of beard. It had strange, sloping, sad lines. And he was staring with mild, surprised eyes.

The moment held Shefford mute till sight of Fay Larkin's tear-wet face broke the spell. He leaped forward and his strong hands reached for the woman and the man.

“Jane Withersteen!... Lassiter! I have found you!”

“Oh, sir, who are you?” she cried, with rich and deep and quivering voice. “This child came running—screaming. She could not speak. We thought she had gone mad—and escaped to come back to us.”

“I am John Shefford,” he replied, swiftly. “I am a friend of Bern Venters—of his wife Bess. I learned your story. I came west. I've searched a year. I found Fay. And we've come to take you away.”

“You found Fay? But that masked Mormon who forced her to sacrifice herself to save us!... What of him? It's not been so many long years—I remember what my father was—and Dyer and Tull—all those cruel churchmen.”

“Waggoner is dead,” replied Shefford.

“Dead? She is free! Oh, what—how did he die?”

“He was killed.”

“Who did it?”

“That's no matter,” replied Shefford, stonily, and he met her gaze with steady eyes. “He's out of the way. Fay was never his wife. Fay's free. We've come to take you out of the country. We must hurry. We'll be tracked—pursued. But we've horses and an Indian guide. We'll get away.... I think it better to leave here at once. There's no telling how soon we'll be hunted. Get what things you want to take with you.”

“Oh—yes—Mother Jane, let us hurry!” cried Fay. “I'm so full—I can't talk—my heart hurts so!”

Jane Withersteen's face shone with an exceedingly radiant light, and a glory blended with a terrible fear in her eyes.

“Fay! my little Fay!”

Lassiter had stood there with his mild, clear blue eyes upon Shefford.

“I shore am glad to see you—all,” he drawled, and extended his hand as if the meeting were casual. “What'd you say your name was?”

Shefford repeated it as he met the proffered hand.

“How's Bern an' Bess?” Lassiter inquired.

“They were well, prosperous, happy when last I saw them.... They had a baby.”

“Now ain't thet fine?... Jane, did you hear? Bess has a baby. An', Jane, didn't I always say Bern would come back to get us out? Shore it's just the same.”

How cool, easy, slow, and mild this Lassiter seemed! Had the man grown old, Shefford wondered? The past to him manifestly was only yesterday, and the danger of the present was as nothing. Looking in Lassiter's face, Shefford was baffled. If he had not remembered the greatness of this old gun-man he might have believed that the lonely years in the valley had unbalanced his mind. In an hour like this coolness seemed inexplicable—assuredly would have been impossible in an ordinary man. Yet what hid behind that drawling coolness? What was the meaning of those long, sloping, shadowy lines of the face? What spirit lay in the deep, mild, clear eyes? Shefford experienced a sudden check to what had been his first growing impression of a drifting, broken old man.

“Lassiter, pack what little you can carry—mustn't be much—and we'll get out of here,” said Shefford.

“I shore will. Reckon I ain't a-goin' to need a pack-train. We saved the clothes we wore in here. Jane never thought it no use. But I figgered we might need them some day. They won't be stylish, but I reckon they'll do better 'n these skins. An' there's an old coat thet was Venters's.”

The mild, dreamy look became intensified in Lassiter's eyes.

“Did Venters have any hosses when you knowed him?” he asked.

“He had a farm full of horses,” replied Shefford, with a smile. “And there were two blacks—the grandest horses I ever saw. Black Star and Night! You remember, Lassiter?”

“Shore. I was wonderin' if he got the blacks out. They must be growin' old by now.... Grand hosses, they was. But Jane had another hoss, a big devil of a sorrel. His name was Wrangle. Did Venters ever tell you about him—an' thet race with Jerry Card?”

“A hundred times!” replied Shefford.

“Wrangle run the blacks off their legs. But Jane never would believe thet. An' I couldn't change her all these years.... Reckon mebbe we'll get to see them blacks?”

“Indeed, I hope—I believe you will,” replied Shefford, feelingly.

“Shore won't thet be fine. Jane, did you hear? Black Star an' Night are livin' an' we'll get to see them.”

But Jane Withersteen only clasped Fay in her arms, and looked at Lassiter with wet and glistening eyes.

Shefford told them to hurry and come to the cliff where the ascent from the valley was to be made. He thought best to leave them alone to make their preparations and bid farewell to the cavern home they had known for so long.

Then he strolled back along the wall, loitering here to gaze into a cave, and there to study crude red paintings in the nooks. And sometimes he halted thoughtfully and did not see anything. At length he