Zane Grey (18 page)

Suddenly the remorseless binding embraces—the hot and savage
kisses—fell away from her. Isbel had let go. She saw him throw up
his hands, and stagger back a little, all the while with his piercing
gaze on her. His face had been dark purple: now it was white.

"No—Ellen Jorth," he panted, "I don't—want any of you—that way." And
suddenly he sank on the log and covered his face with his hands. "What
I loved in you—was what I thought—you were."

Like a wildcat Ellen sprang upon him, beating him with her fists,
tearing at his hair, scratching his face, in a blind fury. Isbel made
no move to stop her, and her violence spent itself with her strength.
She swayed back from him, shaking so that she could scarcely stand.

"Y'u—damned—Isbel!" she gasped, with hoarse passion. "Y'u insulted
me!"

"Insulted you?..." laughed Isbel, in bitter scorn. "It couldn't be
done."

"Oh! ... I'll KILL y'u!" she hissed.

Isbel stood up and wiped the red scratches on his face. "Go ahead.
There's my gun," he said, pointing to his saddle sheath. "Somebody's
got to begin this Jorth-Isbel feud. It'll be a dirty business. I'm
sick of it already.... Kill me! ... First blood for Ellen Jorth!"

Suddenly the dark grim tide that had seemed to engulf Ellen's very soul
cooled and receded, leaving her without its false strength. She began
to sag. She stared at Isbel's gun. "Kill him," whispered the
retreating voices of her hate. But she was as powerless as if she were
still held in Jean Isbel's giant embrace.

"I—I want to—kill y'u," she whispered, "but I cain't.... Leave me."

"You're no Jorth—the same as I'm no Isbel. We oughtn't be mixed in
this deal," he said, somberly. "I'm sorrier for you than I am for
myself.... You're a girl.... You once had a good mother—a decent home.
And this life you've led here—mean as it's been—is nothin' to what
you'll face now. Damn the men that brought you to this! I'm goin' to
kill some of them."

With that he mounted and turned away. Ellen called out for him to take
his horse. He did not stop nor look back. She called again, but her
voice was fainter, and Isbel was now leaving at a trot. Slowly she
sagged against the tree, lower and lower. He headed into the trail
leading up the canyon. How strange a relief Ellen felt! She watched
him ride into the aspens and start up the slope, at last to disappear
in the pines. It seemed at the moment that he took with him something
which had been hers. A pain in her head dulled the thoughts that
wavered to and fro. After he had gone she could not see so well. Her
eyes were tired. What had happened to her? There was blood on her
hands. Isbel's blood! She shuddered. Was it an omen? Lower she sank
against the tree and closed her eyes.

Old John Sprague did not return. Hours dragged by—dark hours for
Ellen Jorth lying prostrate beside the tree, hiding the blue sky and
golden sunlight from her eyes. At length the lethargy of despair, the
black dull misery wore away; and she gradually returned to a condition
of coherent thought.

What had she learned? Sight of the black horse grazing near seemed to
prompt the trenchant replies. Spades belonged to Jean Isbel. He had
been stolen by her father or by one of her father's accomplices.
Isbel's vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast. Her
father was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, a
consort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang. Ellen well remembered
the ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago. Her father
had gotten in with this famous band of rustlers to serve his own
ends—the extermination of the Isbels. It was all very plain now to
Ellen.

"Daughter of a horse thief an' rustler!" she muttered.

And her thoughts sped back to the days of her girlhood. Only the very
early stage of that time had been happy. In the light of Isbel's
revelation the many changes of residence, the sudden moves to unsettled
parts of Texas, the periods of poverty and sudden prosperity, all
leading to the final journey to this God-forsaken Arizona—these were
now seen in their true significance. As far back as she could remember
her father had been a crooked man. And her mother had known it. He
had dragged her to her ruin. That degradation had killed her. Ellen
realized that with poignant sorrow, with a sudden revolt against her
father. Had Gaston Isbel truly and dishonestly started her father on
his downhill road? Ellen wondered. She hated the Isbels with
unutterable and growing hate, yet she had it in her to think, to
ponder, to weigh judgments in their behalf. She owed it to something
in herself to be fair. But what did it matter who was to blame for the
Jorth-Isbel feud? Somehow Ellen was forced to confess that deep in her
soul it mattered terribly. To be true to herself—the self that she
alone knew—she must have right on her side. If the Jorths were
guilty, and she clung to them and their creed, then she would be one of
them.

"But I'm not," she mused, aloud. "My name's Jorth, an' I reckon I have
bad blood.... But it never came out in me till to-day. I've been
honest. I've been good—yes, GOOD, as my mother taught me to be—in
spite of all.... Shore my pride made me a fool.... An' now have I any
choice to make? I'm a Jorth. I must stick to my father."

All this summing up, however, did not wholly account for the pang in
her breast.

What had she done that day? And the answer beat in her ears like a
great throbbing hammer-stroke. In an agony of shame, in the throes of
hate, she had perjured herself. She had sworn away her honor. She had
basely made herself vile. She had struck ruthlessly at the great heart
of a man who loved her. Ah! That thrust had rebounded to leave this
dreadful pang in her breast. Loved her? Yes, the strange truth, the
insupportable truth! She had to contend now, not with her father and
her disgrace, not with the baffling presence of Jean Isbel, but with
the mysteries of her own soul. Wonder of all wonders was it that such
love had been born for her. Shame worse than all other shame was it
that she should kill it by a poisoned lie. By what monstrous motive
had she done that? To sting Isbel as he had stung her! But that had
been base. Never could she have stopped so low except in a moment of
tremendous tumult. If she had done sore injury to Isbel what bad she
done to herself? How strange, how tenacious had been his faith in her
honor! Could she ever forget? She must forget it. But she could
never forget the way he had scorned those vile men in Greaves's
store—the way he had beaten Bruce for defiling her name—the way he
had stubbornly denied her own insinuations. She was a woman now. She
had learned something of the complexity of a woman's heart. She could
not change nature. And all her passionate being thrilled to the
manhood of her defender. But even while she thrilled she acknowledged
her hate. It was the contention between the two that caused the pang in
her breast. "An' now what's left for me?" murmured Ellen. She did not
analyze the significance of what had prompted that query. The most
incalculable of the day's disclosures was the wrong she had done
herself. "Shore I'm done for, one way or another.... I must stick to
Dad.... or kill myself?"

Ellen rode Spades back to the ranch. She rode like the wind. When she
swung out of the trail into the open meadow in plain sight of the ranch
her appearance created a commotion among the loungers before the cabin.
She rode Spades at a full run.

"Who's after you?" yelled her father, as she pulled the black to a
halt. Jorth held a rifle. Daggs, Colter, the other Jorths were there,
likewise armed, and all watchful, strung with expectancy.

"Shore nobody's after me," replied Ellen. "Cain't I run a horse round
heah without being chased?"

Jorth appeared both incensed and relieved.

"Hah! ... What you mean, girl, runnin' like a streak right down on us?
You're actin' queer these days, an' you look queer. I'm not likin' it."

"Reckon these are queer times—for the Jorths," replied Ellen,
sarcastically.

"Daggs found strange horse tracks crossin' the meadow," said her
father. "An' that worried us. Some one's been snoopin' round the
ranch. An' when we seen you runnin' so wild we shore thought you was
bein' chased."

"No. I was only trying out Spades to see how fast he could run,"
returned Ellen. "Reckon when we do get chased it'll take some running
to catch me."

"Haw! Haw!" roared Daggs. "It shore will, Ellen."

"Girl, it's not only your runnin' an' your looks that's queer,"
declared Jorth, in dark perplexity. "You talk queer."

"Shore, dad, y'u're not used to hearing spades called spades," said
Ellen, as she dismounted.

"Humph!" ejaculated her father, as if convinced of the uselessness of
trying to understand a woman. "Say, did you see any strange horse
tracks?"

"I reckon I did. And I know who made them."

Jorth stiffened. All the men behind him showed a sudden intensity of
suspense.

"Who?" demanded Jorth.

"Shore it was Jean Isbel," replied Ellen, coolly. "He came up heah
tracking his black horse."

"Jean—Isbel—trackin'—his—black horse," repeated her father.

"Yes. He's not overrated as a tracker, that's shore."

Blank silence ensued. Ellen cast a slow glance over her father and the
others, then she began to loosen the cinches of her saddle. Presently
Jorth burst the silence with a curse, and Daggs followed with one of
his sardonic laughs.

"Wal, boss, what did I tell you?" he drawled.

Jorth strode to Ellen, and, whirling her around with a strong hand, he
held her facing him.

"Did y'u see Isbel?"

"Yes," replied Ellen, just as sharply as her father had asked.

"Did y'u talk to him?"

"Yes."

"What did he want up heah?"

"I told y'u. He was tracking the black horse y'u stole."

Jorth's hand and arm dropped limply. His sallow face turned a livid
hue. Amaze merged into discomfiture and that gave place to rage. He
raised a hand as if to strike Ellen. And suddenly Daggs's long arm
shot out to clutch Jorth's wrist. Wrestling to free himself, Jorth
cursed under his breath. "Let go, Daggs," he shouted, stridently. "Am
I drunk that you grab me?"

"Wal, y'u ain't drunk, I reckon," replied the rustler, with sarcasm.
"But y'u're shore some things I'll reserve for your private ear."

Jorth gained a semblance of composure. But it was evident that he
labored under a shock.

"Ellen, did Jean Isbel see this black horse?"

"Yes. He asked me how I got Spades an' I told him."

"Did he say Spades belonged to him?"

"Shore I reckon he, proved it. Y'u can always tell a horse that loves
its master."

"Did y'u offer to give Spades back?"

"Yes. But Isbel wouldn't take him."

"Hah! ... An' why not?"

"He said he'd rather I kept him. He was about to engage in a dirty,
blood-spilling deal, an' he reckoned he'd not be able to care for a
fine horse.... I didn't want Spades. I tried to make Isbel take him.
But he rode off.... And that's all there is to that."

"Maybe it's not," replied Jorth, chewing his mustache and eying Ellen
with dark, intent gaze. "Y'u've met this Isbel twice."

"It wasn't any fault of mine," retorted Ellen.

"I heah he's sweet on y'u. How aboot that?"

Ellen smarted under the blaze of blood that swept to neck and cheek and
temple. But it was only memory which fired this shame. What her
father and his crowd might think were matters of supreme indifference.
Yet she met his suspicious gaze with truthful blazing eyes.

"I heah talk from Bruce an' Lorenzo," went on her father. "An' Daggs
heah—"

"Daggs nothin'!" interrupted that worthy. "Don't fetch me in. I said
nothin' an' I think nothin'."

"Yes, Jean Isbel was sweet on me, dad ... but he will never be again,"
returned Ellen, in low tones. With that she pulled her saddle off
Spades and, throwing it over her shoulder, she walked off to her cabin.

Hardly had she gotten indoors when her father entered.

"Ellen, I didn't know that horse belonged to Isbel," he began, in the
swift, hoarse, persuasive voice so familiar to Ellen. "I swear I
didn't. I bought him—traded with Slater for him.... Honest to God, I
never had any idea he was stolen! ... Why, when y'u said 'that horse
y'u stole,' I felt as if y'u'd knifed me...."

Ellen sat at the table and listened while her father paced to and fro
and, by his restless action and passionate speech, worked himself into
a frenzy. He talked incessantly, as if her silence was condemnatory
and as if eloquence alone could convince her of his honesty. It seemed
that Ellen saw and heard with keener faculties than ever before. He had
a terrible thirst for her respect. Not so much for her love, she
divined, but that she would not see how he had fallen!

She pitied him with all her heart. She was all he had, as he was all
the world to her. And so, as she gave ear to his long, illogical
rigmarole of argument and defense, she slowly found that her pity and
her love were making vital decisions for her. As of old, in poignant
moments, her father lapsed at last into a denunciation of the Isbels
and what they had brought him to. His sufferings were real, at least,
in Ellen's presence. She was the only link that bound him to long-past
happier times. She was her mother over again—the woman who had
betrayed another man for him and gone with him to her ruin and death.

"Dad, don't go on so," said Ellen, breaking in upon her father's rant.
"I will be true to y'u—as my mother was.... I am a Jorth. Your place
is my place—your fight is my fight.... Never speak of the past to me
again. If God spares us through this feud we will go away and begin
all over again, far off where no one ever heard of a Jorth.... If we're
not spared we'll at least have had our whack at these damned Isbels."