"Nat'rully I looked back to see what hed acted so powerful
strange on the judge. An' there,
half-way up the room, in the
middle of the wide aisle, stood Lassiter! All white an' black he
looked, an' I can't think of anythin' he resembled, onless it's
death. Venters made thet same room some still an'
chilly when he
called Tull; but this was different. I give my word, Miss
Withersteen, thet I went cold to my very
marrow. I don't know
why. But Lassiter had a way about him thet's awful. He spoke a
word--a name--I couldn't understand it, though he spoke clear as
a bell. I was too excited, mebbe. Judge Dyer must hev understood
it, an' a lot more thet was
mystery to me, for he pitched forrard
out of his chair right onto the platform.
"Then them five riders, Dyer's bodyguards, they jumped up, an'
two of them thet I found out afterward were the strangers from
Stone Bridge, they piled right out of a winder, so quick you
couldn't catch your
breath. It was plain they wasn't Mormons.
"Jengessen, Carter, an' Wright eyed Lassiter, for what must hev
been a second an' seemed like an hour, an' they went white en'
strung. But they didn't
weaken nor lose their nerve.
"I hed a good look at Lassiter. He stood sort of stiff, bendin' a
little, an' both his arms were
crooked an' his hands looked like
a hawk's claws. But there ain't no tellin' how his eyes looked. I
know this, though, an' thet is his eyes could read the mind of
any man about to throw a gun. An' in watchin' him, of course, I
couldn't see the three men go fer their guns. An' though I was
lookin' right at Lassiter--lookin' hard--I couldn't see how he
drawed. He was quicker 'n eyesight--thet's all. But I seen the
red spurtin' of his guns, en' heard his shots jest the very
littlest
instant before I heard the shots of the riders. An' when
I turned, Wright an' Carter was down, en' Jengessen, who's tough
like a steer, was pullin' the
trigger of a wabblin' gun. But it
was plain he was shot through, plumb center. An' sudden he fell
with a crash, an' his gun clattered on the floor.
"Then there was a hell of a silence. Nobody
breathed. Sartin I
didn't, anyway. I saw Lassiter slip a smokin' gun back in a belt.
But he hadn't throwed either of the big black guns, an' I thought
thet strange. An' all this was happenin' quick--you can't imagine
how quick.
"There come a scrapin' on the floor an' Dyer got up, his face
like lead. I wanted to watch Lassiter, but Dyer's face, onct I
seen it like thet, glued my eyes. I seen him go fer his gun--why,
I could hev done better, quicker--an' then there was a thunderin'
shot from Lassiter, an' it hit Dyer's right arm, an' his gun went
off as it dropped. He looked at Lassiter like a cornered
sage-wolf, an' sort of howled, an' reached down fer his gun. He'd
jest picked it off the floor an' was raisin' it when another
thunderin' shot almost tore thet arm off--so it seemed to me. The
gun dropped again an' he went down on his knees, kind of
flounderin' after it. It was some strange an' terrible to see his
awful
earnestness. Why would such a man cling so to life? Anyway,
he got the gun with left hand an' was raisin' it, pullin'
triggerin his
madness, when the third thunderin' shot hit his left arm,
an' he dropped the gun again. But thet left arm wasn't useless
yet, fer he grabbed up the gun, an' with a shakin' aim thet would
hev been
pitiful to me--in any other man--he began to shoot. One
wild
bullet struck a man twenty feet from Lassiter. An' it killed
thet man, as I seen afterward. Then come a bunch of thunderin'
shots--nine I calkilated after, fer they come so quick I couldn't
count them--an' I knew Lassiter hed turned the black guns loose
on Dyer.
"I'm tellin' you straight, Miss Withersteen, fer I want you to
know. Afterward you'll git over it. I've seen some soul-rackin'
scenes on this Utah border, but this was the awfulest. I remember
I closed my eyes, an' fer a minute I thought of the strangest
things, out of place there, such as you'd never dream would come
to mind. I saw the sage, an' runnin' hosses--an' thet's the
beautfulest sight to me--an' I saw dim things in the dark, an'
there was a kind of hummin' in my ears. An' I remember
distinctly--fer it was what made all these things whirl out of my
mind an' opened my eyes--I remember
distinctly it was the smell
of gunpowder.
"The court had about adjourned fer thet judge. He was on his
knees, en' he wasn't prayin'. He was gaspin' an' tryin' to press
his big, floppin', crippled hands over his body. Lassiter had
sent all those last thunderin' shots through his body. Thet was
Lassiter's way.
"An' Lassiter spoke, en' if I ever forgit his words I'll never
forgit the sound of his voice.
"'Proselyter, I
reckon you'd better call quick on thet God who
reveals Hisself to you on earth, because He won't be visitin' the
place you're goin' to!"
"An' then I seen Dyer look at his big, hangin' hands thet wasn't
big enough fer the last work he set them to. An' he looked up at
Lassiter. An' then he stared
horrible at somethin' thet wasn't
Lassiter, nor anyone there, nor the room, nor the branches of
purple sage peepin' into the winder. Whatever he seen, it was
with the look of a man who discovers somethin' too late. Thet's a
terrible look!...An' with a
horrible understandin' cry he slid
forrard on his face."
Judkins paused in his
narrative,
breathing heavily while he wiped
his perspiring brow.
"Thet's about all," he concluded. "Lassiter left the
meetin'-house an' I
hurried to catch up with him. He was bleedin'
from three gunshots, none of them much to
bother him. An' we come
right up here. I found you layin' in the hall, an' I hed to work
some over you."
Jane Withersteen offered up no prayer for Dyer's soul.
Lassiter's step sounded in the hall--the familiar soft,
silver-clinking step--and she heard it with thrilling new
emotions in which was a vague joy in her very fear of him. The
door opened, and she saw him, the old Lassiter, slow, easy,
gentle, cool, yet not exactly the same Lassiter. She rose, and
for a moment her eyes blurred and swam in tears.
"Are you--all--all right?" she asked, tremulously.
"I
reckon."
"Lassiter, I'll ride away with you. Hide me till danger is
past--till we are forgotten--then take me where you will. Your
people shall be my people, and your God my God!"
He kissed her hand with the
quaint grace and
courtesy that came
to him in rare moments.
"Black Star an' Night are ready," he said, simply.
His quiet mention of the black racers spurred Jane to action.
Hurrying to her room, she changed to her rider's suit, packed her
jewelry, and the gold that was left, and all the woman's apparel
for which there was space in the saddle-bags, and then returned
to the hall. Black Star stamped his iron-shod hoofs and tossed
his beautiful head, and eyed her with
knowing eyes.
"Judkins, I give Bells to you," said Jane. "I hope you will
always keep him and be good to him."
Judkins mumbled thanks that he could not speak fluently, and his
eyes flashed.
Lassiter strapped Jane's saddle-bags upon Black Star, and led the
racers out into the court.
"Judkins, you ride with Jane out into the sage. If you see any
riders comin' shout quick twice. An', Jane, don't look back! I'll
catch up soon. We'll get to the break into the Pass before
midnight, an' then wait until mornin' to go down."
Black Star bent his
graceful neck and bowed his noble head, and
his broad shoulders yielded as he knelt for Jane to mount.
She rode out of the court beside Judkins, through the grove,
across the wide lane into the sage, and she realized that she was
leaving Withersteen House forever, and she did not look back. A
strange,
dreamy, calm peace pervaded her soul. Her doom had
fallen upon her, but, instead of
finding life no longer worth
living she found it
doublysignificant, full of
sweetness as the
western
breeze, beautiful and unknown as the sage-slope
stretching its
purplesunset shadows before her. She became aware
of Judkins's hand
touching hers; she heard him speak a husky
good-by; then into the place of Bells shot the dead-black, keen,
racy nose of Night, and she knew Lassiter rode beside
her.
"Don't--look--back!" he said, and his voice, too, was not
clear.
Facing straight ahead,
seeing only the waving,
shadowy sage, Jane
held out her gauntleted hand, to feel it enclosed in strong
clasp. So she rode on without a
backward glance at the beautiful
grove of Cottonwoods. She did not seem to think of the past of
what she left forever, but of the color and
mystery and wildness
of the sage-slope leading down to Deception Pass, and of the
future. She watched the shadows
lengthen down the slope; she felt
the cool west wind
sweeping by from the rear; and she wondered at
low, yellow clouds sailing
swiftly over her and beyond.
"Don't look--back!" said Lassiter.
Thick-driving belts of smoke
traveled by on the wind, and with it
came a strong, pungent odor of burning wood.
Lassiter had fired Withersteen House! But Jane did not look back.
A misty veil obscured the clear, searching gaze she had kept
steadfastly upon the
purple slope and the dim lines of canyons.
It passed, as passed the rolling clouds of smoke, and she saw the
valley deepening into the shades of
twilight. Night came on,
swift as the fleet racers, and stars peeped out to
brighten and
grow, and the huge, windy, eastern heave of sage-level paled
under a rising moon and turned to silver. Blanched in moonlight,
the sage yet seemed to hold its hue of
purple and was infinitely
more wild and
lonely. So the night hours wore on, and Jane
Withersteen never once looked back.
CHAPTER XXI. BLACK STAR AND NIGHT
The time had come for Venters and Bess to leave their retreat.
They were at great pains to choose the few things they would be
able to carry with them on the journey out of Utah.
"Bern,
whatever kind of a pack's this, anyhow?" questioned Bess,
rising from her work with reddened face.
Venters, absorbed in his own task, did not look up at all, and in
reply said he had brought so much from Cottonwoods that he did
not
recollect the half of it.
"A woman packed this!" Bess exclaimed.
He scarcely caught her meaning, but the
peculiar tone of her
voice caused him
instantly to rise, and he saw Bess on her knees
before an open pack which he recognized as the one given him by
Jane.
"By George!" he ejaculated, guiltily, and then at sight of Bess's
face he laughed outright.
"A woman packed this," she
repeated, fixing woeful,
tragic eyes
on him.
"Well, is that a crime?'
"There--there is a woman, after all!"
"Now Bess--"
"You've lied to me!"
Then and there Venters found it
imperative to
postpone work for
the present. All her life Bess had been isolated, but she had
inherited certain elements of the
eternal feminine.
"But there was a woman and you did lie to me," she kept
repeating, after he had explained.
"What of that? Bess, I'll get angry at you in a moment. Remember
you've been pent up all your life. I
venture to say that if you'd
been out in the world you d have had a dozen sweethearts and have
told many a lie before this."
"I wouldn't anything of the kind," declared Bess,
indignantly.
"Well--perhaps not lie. But you'd have had the sweethearts--You
couldn't have helped that--being so pretty."