Book: The Rainbow Trail

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Rainbow Trail




"We climbed up and up and into dark canyon and wound in and out. Then
there was the narrow white trail, straight up, with the little cut
steps and the great, red, ruined walls. I looked down over Uncle Jim's
shoulder. I saw Mother Jane dragging herself up. Uncle Jim's blood
spotted the trail. He reached a flat place at the top and fell with
me. Mother Jane crawled up to us.

"Then she cried out and pointed. Tull was 'way below, climbing the
trail. His men came behind him. Uncle Jim went to a great, tall rock
and leaned against it. There was a bloody hole in his hand. He pushed
the rock. It rolled down, banging the loose walls. They crashed and
crashed--then all was terrible thunder and red smoke. I couldn't hear
--I couldn't see.

"Uncle Jim carried me down and down out of the dark and dust into a
beautiful valley all red and gold, with a wonderful arch of stone over
the entrance.

"I don't remember well what happened then for what seemed a long, long
time. I can feel how the place looked, but not so clear as it is now
in my dreams. I seem to see myself with the dogs, and with Mother
Jane, learning my letters, marking with red stone on the walls.

"But I remember now how I felt when I first understood we were shut in
for ever. Shut in Surprise Valley where Venters had lived so long. I
was glad. The Mormons would never get me. I was seven or eight years
old then. From that time all is clear in my mind.

"Venters had left supplies and tools and grain and cattle and burros,
so we had a good start to begin life there. He had killed off the
wildcats and kept the coyotes out, so the rabbits and quail multiplied
till there were thousands of them. We raised corn and fruit, and
stored what we didn't use. Mother Jane taught me to read and write
with the soft red stone that marked well on the walls.

"The years passed. We kept track of time pretty well. Uncle Jim's
hair turned white and Mother Jane grew gray. Every day was like the
one before. Mother Jane cried sometimes and Uncle Jim was sad because
they could never be able to get me out of the valley. It was long
before they stopped looking and listening for some one. Venters would
come back, Uncle Jim always said. But Mother Jane did not think so.

"I loved Surprise Valley. I wanted to stay there always. I remembered
Cottonwoods, how the children there hated me, and I didn't want to go
back. The only unhappy times I ever had in the valley were when Ring
and Whitie, my dogs, grew old and died. I roamed the valley. I
climbed to every nook upon the mossy ledges. I learned to run up the
steep cliffs. I could almost stick on the straight walls. Mother Jane
called me a wild girl. We had put away the clothes we wore when we got
there, to save them, and we made clothes of skins. I always laughed
when I thought of my little dress--how I grew out of it. I think Uncle
Jim and Mother Jane talked less as the years went by. And after I'd
learned all she could teach me we didn't talk much. I used to scream
into the caves just to hear my voice, and the echoes would frighten me.

"The older I grew the more I was alone. I was always running round the
valley. I would climb to a high place and sit there for hours, doing
nothing. I just watched and listened. I used to stay in the cliff-
dwellers' caves and wonder about them. I loved to be out in the wind.
And my happiest time was in the summer storms with the thunder echoes
under the walls. At evening it was such a quiet place--after the night
bird's cry, no sound. The quiet made me sad but I loved it. I loved
to watch the stars as I lay awake.

"So it was beautiful and happy for me there till--till . . .

"Two years or more ago there was a bad storm, and one of the great
walls caved. The walls were always weathering, slipping. Many and
many a time have I heard the rumble of an avalanche, but most of them
were in other canyon. This slide in the valley made it possible, Uncle
Jim said, for men to get down into the valley. But we could not climb
out unless helped from above. Uncle Jim never rested well after that.
But it never worried me.

"One day, over a year ago, while I was across the valley, I heard
strange shouts, and then screams. I ran to our camp. I came upon
men with ropes and guns. Uncle Jim was tied, and a rope was round
his neck. Mother Jane was lying on the ground. I thought she was
dead until I heard her moan. I was not afraid. I screamed and flew
at Uncle Jim to tear the ropes off him. The men held me back. They
called me a pretty cat. Then they talked together, and some were for
hanging Lassiter--that was the first time I ever knew any name for him
but Uncle Jim--and some were for leaving him in the valley. Finally
they decided to hang him. But Mother Jane pleaded so and I screamed
and fought so that they left off. Then they went away and we saw
them climb out of the valley.

"Uncle Jim said they were Mormons, and some among them had been born
in Cottonwoods. I was not told why they had such a terrible hate for
him. He said they would come back and kill him. Uncle Jim had no guns
to fight with.

"We watched and watched. In five days they did come back, with more
men, and some of them wore black masks. They came to our cave with
ropes and guns. One was tall. He had a cruel voice. The others ran
to obey him. I could see white hair and sharp eyes behind the mask.
The men caught me and brought me before him.

"He said Lassiter had killed many Mormons. He said Lassiter had
killed his father and should be hanged. But Lassiter would be let
live and Mother Jane could stay with him, both prisoners there in the
valley, if I would marry the Mormon. I must marry him, accept the
Mormon faith, and bring up my children as Mormons. If I refused they
would hang Lassiter, leave the heretic Jane Withersteen alone in the
valley, and take me and break me to their rule.

"I agreed. But Mother Jane absolutely forbade me to marry him. Then
the Mormons took me away. It nearly killed me to leave Uncle Jim and
Mother Jane. I was carried and lifted out of the valley, and rode a
long way on a horse. They brought me here, to the cabin where I live,
and I have never been away except that--that time--to--Stonebridge.
Only little by little did I learn my position. Bishop Kane was kind,
but stern, because I could not be quick to learn the faith.

"I am not a sealed wife. But they're trying to make me one. The
master Mormon--he visited me often--at night--till lately. He
threatened me. He never told me a name--except Saint George. I
don't--know him--except his voice. I never--saw his face--in the
light!"

. . . . . . . . . . .

Fay Larkin ended her story. Toward its close Shefford had grown
involuntarily restless, and when her last tragic whisper ceased
all his body seemed shaken with a terrible violence of his joy. He
strode to and fro in the dark shadow of the stone. The receding
blood left him cold, with a pricking, sickening sensation over his
body, but there seemed to be an overwhelming tide accumulating deep
in his breast--a tide of passion and pain. He dominated the passion,
but the ache remained. And he returned to the quiet figure on the
stone.

"Fay Larkin!" he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief that the
secret was disclosed. "So you're not a wife! . . . You're free!
Thank Heaven! But I felt it was sacrifice. I knew there had been
a crime. For crime it is. You child! You can't understand what
crime. Oh, almost I wish you and Jane and Lassiter had never been
found. But that's wrong of me. One year of agony--that shall not
ruin your life. Fay, I will take you away."

"Where?" she whispered.

"Away from this Mormon country--to the East," he replied, and he spoke
of what he had known, of travel, of cities, of people, of happiness
possible for a young girl who had spent all her life hidden between
the narrow walls of a silent, lonely valley--he spoke swiftly and
eloquently till he lost his breath.

There was an instant of flashing wonder and joy on her white face, and
then the radiance paled, the glow died. Her soul was the darker for
that one strange, leaping glimpse of a glory not for such as she.

"I must stay here," she said, shudderingly.

"Fay!--How strange to SAY Fay aloud to YOU!--Fay, do you know the way
to Surprise Valley?"

"I don't know where it is, but I could go straight to it," she replied.

"Take me there. Show me your beautiful valley. Let me see where you
ran and climbed and spent so many lonely years."

"Ah, how I'd love to! But I dare not. And why should you want me to
take you? We can run and climb here."

"I want to--I mean to save Jane Withersteen and Lassiter," he declared.

She uttered a little cry of pain. "Save them?"

"Yes, save them. Get them out of the valley, take them out of the
country, far away where they and YOU--"

"But I can't go," she wailed. "I'm afraid. I'm bound. It CAN'T be
broken. If I dared--if I tried to go they would catch me. They would
hang Uncle Jim and leave Mother Jane alone there to starve."

"Fay, Lassiter and Jane both will starve--at least they will die there
if we do not save them. You have been terribly wronged. You're a
slave. You're not a wife."

"They--said I'll be burned in hell if I don't marry him. . . . Mother
Jane never taught me about God. I don't know. But HE--he said God was
there. I dare not break it."

"Fay, you have been deceived by old men. Let them have their creed.
But YOU mustn't accept it."

"John, what is God to you?"

"Dear child, I--I am not sure of that myself," he replied, huskily.
"When all this trouble is behind us, surely I can help you to
understand and you can help me. The fact that you are alive--that
Lassiter and Jane are alive--that I shall save you all--that lifts
me up. I tell you--Fay Larkin will be my salvation."

"Your words trouble me. Oh, I shall be torn one way and another. . . .
But, John, I daren't run away. I will not tell you where to find
Lassiter and Mother Jane."

"I shall find them--I have the Indian. He found you for me. Nas Ta
Bega will find Surprise Valley."

"Nas Ta Bega! . . . Oh, I remember. There was an Indian with the
Mormons who found us. But he was a Piute."

"Nas Ta Bega never told me how he learned about you. That he learned
was enough. And, Fay, he will find Surprise Valley. He will save
Uncle Jim and Mother Jane."

Fay's hands clasped Shefford's in strong, trembling pressure; the
tears streamed down her white cheeks; a tragic and eloquent joy
convulsed her face.

"Oh, my friend, save them! But I can't go. . . . Let them keep me!
Let him kill me!"

"Him! Fay--he shall not harm you," replied Shefford in passionate
earnestness.

She caught the hand he had struck out with.

"You talk--you look like Uncle Jim when he spoke of the Mormons," she
said. "Then I used to be afraid of him. He was so different. John,
you must not do anything about me. Let me be. It's too late. He--and
his men--they would hang you. And I couldn't bear that. I've enough
to bear without losing my friend. Say you won't watch and wait--for--
for him."

Shefford had to promise her. Like an Indian she gave expression to
primitive feeling, for it certainly never occurred to her that,
whatever Shefford might do, he was not the kind of man to wait in
hiding for an enemy. Fay had faltered through her last speech and
was now weak and nervous and frightened. Shefford took her back to
the cabin.

"Fay, don't be distressed," he said. "I won't do anything right away.
You can trust me. I won't be rash. I'll consult you before I make a
move. I haven't any idea what I could do, anyway. . . . You must bear
up. Why, it looks as if you're sorry I found you."

"Oh! I'm glad!" she whispered.

"Then if you're glad you mustn't break down this way again. Suppose
some of the women happened to run into us."

"I won't again. It's only you--you surprised me so. I used to think
how I'd like you to know--I wasn't really dead. But now--it's
different. It hurts me here. Yet I'm glad--if my being alive makes
you--a little happier."

Shefford felt that he had to go then. He could not trust himself any
further.

"Good night, Fay," he said.

"Good night, John," she whispered. "I promise--to be good to-morrow."

She was crying softly when he left her. Twice he turned to see the
dim, white, slender form against the gloom of the cabin. Then he went
on under the pinyons, blindly down the path, with his heart as heavy
as lead. That night as he rolled in his blanket and stretched wearily
he felt that he would never be able to sleep. The wind in the cedars
made him shiver. The great stars seemed relentless, passionless, white
eyes, mocking his little destiny and his pain. The huge shadow of the
mountain resembled the shadow of the insurmountable barrier between
Fay and him.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Her pitiful, childish promise to be good was in his mind when he went
to her home on the next night. He wondered how she would be, and he
realized a desperate need of self-control.

But that night Fay Larkin was a different girl. In the dark, before
she spoke, he felt a difference that afforded him surprise and relief.
He greeted her as usual. And then it seemed, though not at all
clearly, that he was listening to a girl, strangely and unconsciously
glad to see him, who spoke with deeper note in her voice, who talked
where always she had listened, whose sadness was there under an
eagerness, a subdued gaiety as new to her, as sweet as it was
bewildering. And he responded with emotion, so that the hour passed
swiftly, and he found himself back in camp, in a kind of dream, unable
to remember much of what she had said, sure only of this strange
sweetness suddenly come to her.

Upon the following night, however, he discovered what had wrought this
singular change in Fay Larkin. She loved him and she did not know it.
How passionately sweet and sad and painful was that realization for
Shefford! The hour spent with her then was only a moment.

He walked under the stars that night and they shed a glorious light
upon him. He tried to think, to plan, but the sweetness of remembered
word or look made mental effort almost impossible. He got as far as
the thought that he would do well to drift, to wait till she learned
she loved him, and then, perhaps, she could be persuaded to let him
take her and Lassiter and Jane away together.

And from that night he went at his work and the part he played in the
village with a zeal and a cunning that left him free to seek Fay when
he chose.

Sometimes in the afternoon, always for a while in the evening, he was
with her. They climbed the walls, and sat upon a lonely height to look
afar; they walked under the stars, and the cedars, and the shadows of
the great cliffs. She had a beautiful mind. Listening to her, he
imagined he saw down into beautiful Surprise Valley with all its weird
shadows, its colored walls and painted caves, its golden shafts of
morning light and the red haze at sunset; and he felt the silence that
must have been there, and the singing of the wind in the cliffs, and
the sweetness and fragrance of the flowers, and the wildness of it
all. Love had worked a marvelous transformation in this girl who had
lived her life in a canyon. The burden upon her did not weigh heavily.
She could not have an unhappy thought. She spoke of the village, of
her Mormon companions, of daily happenings, of Stonebridge, of many
things in a matter-of-fact way that showed how little they occupied
her mind. She even spoke of sealed wives in a kind of dreamy
abstraction. Something had possession of her, something as strong
as the nature which had developed her, and in its power she, in her
simplicity, was utterly unconscious, a watching and feeling girl. A
strange, witching, radiant beauty lurked in her smile. And Shefford
heard her laugh in his dreams.

The weeks slipped by. The black mountain took on a white cap of snow;
in the early mornings there was ice in the crevices on the heights and
frost in the valley. In the sheltered canyon where sunshine seemed to
linger it was warm and pleasant, so that winter did not kill the
flowers.

Shefford waited so long for Fay's awakening that he believed it would
never come, and, believing, had not the heart to force it upon her.
Then there was a growing fear with him. What would Fay Larkin do when
she awakened to the truth? Fay was indeed like that white and fragile
lily which bloomed in the silent, lonely canyon, but the same nature
that had created it had created her. Would she droop as the lily would
in a furnace blast? More than that, he feared a sudden flashing into
life of strength, power, passion, hate. She did not hate yet because
she did not yet realize love. She was utterly innocent of any wrong
having been done her. More and more he began to fear, and a foreboding
grew upon him. He made up his mind to broach the subject of Surprise
Valley and of escaping with Lassiter and Jane; still, every time he
was with Fay the girl and her beauty and her love were so wonderful
that he put off the ordeal till the next night. As time flew by he
excused his vacillation on the score that winter was not a good time
to try to cross the desert. There was no grass for the mustangs,
except in well-known valleys, and these he must shun. Spring would
soon come. So the days passed, and he loved Fay more all the time,
desperately living out to its limit the sweetness of every moment with
her, and paying for his bliss in the increasing trouble that beset him
when once away from her charm.

. . . . . . . . . . .

One starry night, about ten o'clock, he went, as was his custom, to
drink at the spring. Upon his return to the cedars Nas Ta Bega, who
slept under the same tree with him, had arisen, with his blanket
hanging half off his shoulder.

"Listen," said the Indian.

Shefford took one glance at the dark, somber face, with its inscrutable
eyes, now so strange and piercing, and then, with a kind of cold
excitement, he faced the way the Indian looked, and listened. But
he heard only the soft moan of the night wind in the cedars.

Nas Ta Bega kept the rigidity of his position for a moment, and then
he relaxed, and stood at ease. Shefford knew the Indian had made a
certainty of what must have been a doubtful sound. And Shefford leaned
his ear to the wind and strained his hearing.

Then the soft night breeze brought a faint patter--the slow trot of
horses on a hard trail. Some one was coming into the village at a
late hour. Shefford thought of Joe Lake. But Joe lay right behind
him, asleep in his blankets. It could not be Withers, for the trader
was in Durango at that time. Shefford thought of Willetts and Shadd.

"Who's coming?" he asked low of the Indian.

Nas Ta Bega pointed down the trail without speaking.

Shefford peered through the white dim haze of starlight and presently
he made out moving figures. Horses, with riders--a string of them--
one--two--three--four--five--and he counted up to eleven. Eleven
horsemen riding into the village! He was amazed, and suddenly keenly
anxious. This visit might be one of Shadd's raids.

"Shadd's gang!" he whispered.

"No, Bi Nai," replied Nas Ta Bega, and he drew Shefford farther into
the shade of the cedars. His voice, his action, the way he kept a
hand on Shefford's shoulder, all this told much to the young man.

Mormons come on a night visit! Shefford realized it with a slight
shock. Then swift as a lightning flash he was rent by another
shock--one that brought cold moisture to his brow and to his heart
a flame of hell.

He was shaking when he sank down to find the support of a log. Like
a shadow the Indian silently moved away. Shefford watched the eleven
horses pass the camp, go down the road, to disappear in the village.
They vanished, and the soft clip-clops of hoofs died away. There was
nothing left to prove he had not dreamed.

Nothing to prove it except this sudden terrible demoralization of his
physical and spiritual being! While he peered out into the valley,
toward the black patch of cedars and pinyons that hid the cabins,
moments and moments passed, and in them he was gripped with cold and
fire.

Was the Mormon who had abducted Fay--the man with the cruel voice--
was he among those eleven horsemen? He might not have been. What a
torturing hope! But vain--vain, for inevitably he must be among them.
He was there in the cabin already. He had dismounted, tied his horse,
had knocked on her door. Did he need to knock? No, he would go in,
he would call her in that cruel voice, and then . . .

Shefford pulled a blanket from his bed and covered his cold and
trembling body. He had sunk down off the log, was leaning back upon
it. The stars were pale, far off, and the valley seemed unreal. He
found himself listening--listening with sick and terrible earnestness,
trying to hear against the thrum and beat of his heart, straining to
catch a sound in all that cold, star-blanched, silent valley. But he
could hear no sound. It was as if death held the valley in its perfect
silence. How he hated that silence! There ought to have been a
million horrible, bellowing demons making the night hideous. Did the
stars serenely look down upon the lonely cabins of these exiles? Was
there no thunderbolt to drop down from that dark and looming mountain
upon the silent cabin where tragedy had entered? In all the world,
under the sea, in the abysmal caves, in the vast spaces of the air,
there was no such terrible silence as this. A scream, a long cry, a
moan--these were natural to a woman, and why did not one of these
sealed wives, why did not Fay Larkin, damn this everlasting acquiescent
silence? Perhaps she would fly out of her cabin, come running along
the path. Shefford peered into the bright patches of starlight and
into the shadows of the cedars. But he saw no moving form in the
open, no dim white shape against the gloom. And he heard no sound--
not even a whisper of wind in the branches overhead.

Nas Ta Bega returned to the shade of the cedars and, lying down on
his blankets, covered himself and went to sleep. The fact seemed
to bring bitter reality to Shefford. Nothing was going to happen.
The valley was to be the same this night as any other night. Shefford
accepted the truth. He experienced a kind of self-pity. The night
he had thought so much about, prepared for, and had forgotten had now
arrived. Then he threw another blanket round him, and, cold, dark,
grim, he faced that lonely vigil, meaning to sit there, wide-eyed, to
endure and to wait.

Jealousy and pain, following his frenzy, abided with him long hours,
and when they passed he divined that selfishness passed with them.
What he suffered then was for Fay Larkin and for her sisters in
misfortune. He grew big enough to pity these fanatics. The fiery,
racing tide of blood that had made of him only an animal had cooled
with thought of others. Still he feared that stultifying thing which
must have been hate. What a tempest had raged within him! This blood
of his, that had received a stronger strain from his desert life, might
in a single moment flood out reason and intellect and make him a
vengeful man. So in those starlit hours that dragged interminably he
looked deep into his heart and tried to fortify himself against a dark
and evil moment to come.

Midnight--and the valley seemed a tomb! Did he alone keep wakeful?
The sky was a darker blue, the stars burned a whiter fire, the peaks
stood looming and vast, tranquil sentinels of that valley, and the
wind rose to sigh, to breathe, to mourn through the cedars. It was
a sad music. The Indian lay prone, dark face to the stars. Joe Lake
lay prone, sleeping as quietly, with his dark face exposed to the
starlight. The gentle movement of the cedar branches changed the
shape of the bright patches on the grass where shadow and light met.
The walls of the valley waved upward, dark below and growing paler,
to shine faintly at the rounded rims. And there was a tiny, silvery
tinkle of running water over stones.

Here was a little nook of the vast world. Here were tranquillity,
beauty, music, loneliness, life. Shefford wondered--did he alone keep
watchful? Did he feel that he could see dark, wide eyes peering into
the gloom? And it came to him after a time that he was not alone in
his vigil, nor was Fay Larkin alone in her agony. There was some one
else in the valley, a great and breathing and watchful spirit. It
entered into Shefford's soul and he trembled. What had come to him?
And he answered--only added pain and new love, and a strange strength
from the firmament and the peaks and the silence and the shadows.

The bright belt with its three radiant stars sank behind the western
wall and there was a paler gloom upon the valley.

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