Stairs Of Sand

Front matter

Popular by ZANE GREY

Zane Grey, in this novel, reaches the height of his power for emotional story-telling, for portrayal of the overwhelming effect that the desert has on man, and for colorful, fast-moving drama.

It is the story of fiery Ruth Virey, of her struggle against the desert and her clash with Adam Wansfell, her husband’s brother — and his murderer. Excitement rises to a smashing t climax when, in their fight to retain possession of a [priceless desert i water-hole, Ruth and Adam come face to face with the law and the man they both believed to be dead.

Chapter Three

Botu Ruth’s listeners maintained a profound silence. She was aware of Wansfell pressing her hand so tightly that it pained. The camp fire had burned down to ruddy embers. A lonesome desert owl hooted dismally down the darkening canyon. Ruth experienced an incomprehensible relief.

“Wal, Ruth,” said Merryvale, at last breaking the silence, “I've seen forty ‘years of desert life. An’ I reckon your little time heah hasn’t been so bad.”

“It could have been vastly worse,” added Wansfell, in voice which seemed full of relief. “IT expected worse. Have you told us everything?”

“Yes, everything vital. I held back his name because I hate to speak it.”

“There is no need. It doesn’t matter who your—the man is. What does matter is the need for you to learn a lesson from the past.” Merryvale spoke in terms of the physical. Most desert people do that. Only in rare cases does a man or woman grow spiritually on the desert. It is too hard, too fierce, too relentless, too bound by the elements. Desert creatures all, particularly human beings, concentrate on survival. A fight go for life! . . . “Ruth, you have neglected your spiritual side.” .

“Are you preaching to me?” queried Ruth, almost mockingly.

“No. I want to wake you to facts that are outside your thinking. You imagine you've suffered terribly. But you have not—as we desert folk know suffering.”

“My heart is broken,” said Ruth.

“No,” he contradicted, and placed his great hands on her shoulders, bending to look into her eyes. “I believe that hearts can break. And on this desert I have met many persons with broken hearts and ruined lives. But you are not one of them, Ruth.”

“Tf I think I am, doesn’t that make it so?” she asked, stubbornly.

“Yes, for the time being, until you find the truth.”

“The truthP Youre beyond me, Adam. I never understood you back there at Santa Ysabel. Much less can I now. You—you seem to make light of my situation.”

“Indeed, I do not. It is sad enough. But the desert, for all your hatred, has not yet betrayed you. I see it has given you more wonderful health and beauty. You are not broken—lost. And now you will not be.”

He drew back from her and stood erect, towering and dark. Merryvale gave her a kindly touch, as if to express something he could not voice; then he stole away into the shadow of the wall.

“Not broken—lost!” repeated Ruth. “And now I never will be . . . Why?”

“Because I have found you,” he said, simply.

She could not reply to that, though it astounded and irritated, and somehow warmed her cold gratitude.

“Go to bed and rest,” he said. “Tomorrow we will decide what to do.”

He moved away into the gloom, his slow footfalls padding on the sand. Ruth roused herself, and groping for the blankets she sat down to remove her shoes and outer garments. Slipping down between the blankets she covered herself and lay still. It was a hard bed, yet such was her fatigue, something to be grateful for. She would rest and think, but not sleep.

As she endeavored to settle down to regulate her disordered thoughts she saw the gloom of the canyon lightening. This silvering of the shadows and the walls did not come from the cold radiant stars, for they were losing their brilliance under the influence of a stronger luminary. The moon had risen. Every moment. afterward the canyon grew lighter.

What would Stone tell her husband, Guerd? He had wit enough to know that if he told the truth, Guerd would kill him. He would lie, and somehow twist the affair to Ruth’s further discredit. She did not care what his machinations might be, and dismissed him with a sickening wonder at her rashness.

She lingered longer in reflection about her grandfather. Somehow the resentment she had labored under for so long had lessened. Almost, she had hated him for dragging her into the desert. But it had been a matter of life for him, and otherwise he had been most kind and loving. Remorse stirred in her. What would become of him now? Guerd Larey and Collishaw, with their hirelings, would devour him as wolves a sheep. She had been the power that had held these hardened men leashed. The irony of fate for Larey had been that the greater grew her loathing, the more he desired her. More than once he had threatened to carry her off to some lonely oasis and bend her to his will.

She knew her husband would try it. And she would kill him. That alone was enough to keep her from going back. But there were many other reasons. No, her grandfather would have to go on alone. Poor old man! The desert would claim him, as it had claimed her mother and father. But never would it destroy herl

She would not return to Lost Lake. The decision sent a tingling all over her body. To get away from the heat, the copper sky, the blazing sun, the insulating ridged waste of changing sand—what joyous prospect! How good not to be ogled by sloe-eyed Mexicans, not to be watched by silent stealthy Indians, not to live among hard men, in color and action and mood like the desert! What sweetness there could be in verdant green surroundings, by the cool seaside, in the vineyards and groves of the coast!

Ruth had clung tenaciously to the money given her by her parents when they left her. She had spent less and less of it as time went by on the desert. Some day she would need that money, and now the time had come. She remembered she had confided in Stone.

or

Had that actuated him in any measure? More than once he had tried to find out how much it was, and where she kept it. Ruth, making sure she had not lost the money, went on dreaming of travel, change, work, a new life.

Suddenly a footstep on the sand broke her brooding meditation. She had closed her eyes, and forgotten for the moment the night, the canyon, and the men who were there.

The moon stood above the gateway of the canyon, full and resplendent, flooding the desert with silver light. Far out there Ruth saw her stairs of sand, beautiful, illusive, mystic, climbing away to the starry heavens. Her heart sank. She had been dreaming. The desert was there, illimitable and encompassing. Could she ever climb out of it?

Another footstep caused her to raise her head. A tall dark form moved in the moonlight. Wansfell! He walked by her, down the middle of the canyon a few rods, his hands folded behind him. How lofty his stature! Turning back he retraced his steps, walked up the canyon a like distance, then faced round to repeat the performance. He passed scarcely a dozen yards from Ruth, and in the white moonlight she could see him distinctly. She watched him patrol this beat.

His bare head had the cast of a striking eagle. He walked erect, with free step, though he gave an impression of a man burdened. What was on his mind that he did not rest and sleep? Ruth knew, and she could not control womanly emotions. A sense of proeo tection suddenly struck her. Never a night had she lain down in her desert home without dread! But this night the sombre shadow of mind had not retumed. No man, not even Guerd Larey, could harm her now, while that giant stalked out there. And the difference became incalculable in its far-reaching influence.

Genie Linwood returned clearer than ever before to Ruth. She recalled how Genie had talked about this man.—He was like Tanquitch the mountain God of the Indians. His face was like the sun. . . . Genie’s mother had prayed for someone to find them—when they were starving. And the day came when desert robbers stole Genie away. But Adam met and killed them. How terrible he was! . . . Genie’s mother had said her prayer had been answered. And she died leaving Genie to him.

Ruth’s heart swelled high in her breast. The thing that this desert man had done for a child could not be mistaken or underestimated. Moreover Genie had dwelt vaguely on hints she had gotten from the Indians. Had they called him Eagle only for his shape of head and gray lightning of eyes? White men had named him the Wanderer.

To think that this strange man had fallen in love with her at Genie’s—four years past—had fled from her because he believed he had murdered his brother. ... And now he had found her. What did it mean? What would it lead to?

She felt that she must flee from him before he found her to be even a shallower creature than she had confessed herself. But Adam had known her mother, loved her, no doubt, as all men had loved her. Ruth recalled the times of her girlhood that had been darkened by her father’s jealousy of her mother. It was hardly possible for Ruth to go away from Wansfell without learning all he knew about her mother and the tragedy of her end in Death Valley. Yet Ruth, much as she longed to hear it, dreaded it even more. It might be a link in a chain which bound her to Wansfell.

Was there not a chain? She had been ready to fall in love with him four years ago. She wanted to now. . . . Oh, that overwhelming craving to love and be loved! To love someone! That was the awful thing the desert had magnified in Ruth. She could not deny it... . But she was a woman now. It would be like the raging flood or the desert sun. . . . Not Genie’s Eagle! She must not love him, for he soared on the heights.

As long as Wansfell paced to and fro, Ruth lay wide awake, prey to changeful thought and emotion. At last she saw him lie down on his bed between her and the gateway of the canyon. Utter silence settled down then, brooding, inscrutable. The moon sank behind the rim of the nearer wall, and once again dark shadows encroached upon the silver. Desert night enfolded her, and the protection of these companions who had so strangely sought and found her. Closing heavy eyelids, Ruth surrendered to a drowsiness that gradually dulled her thought, and at length she fell asleep.

A voice pierced Ruth’s slumbers. She awoke in a rosy cool dawn. The sun had not risen. The wall in front of her was not that of her adobe room at home, but the wall of a cliff. She remembered with a shock.

“Adam, I tell you that son-of-a-gun of a mule has stood right there in his tracks all night,” Merryvale was saying. “Shore beats me for a balky beast.”

“Merryvale, you know burros, but not mules,” replied Adam. “Old Butch’s performance is unusual, but not extraordinary.”

“Old Butch? Do you know this old gray long-eared cuss?”

“I guess. I drove him eight years ago up in the Mohave. He was noted then for balking. The packers at the mine where I worked couldn’t drive him. They shot him more than once.”

“Wal, he shore ain’t any the worse, for all I can see.”

“Butch shows the wear and tear of the desert, same as we do. I wonder how he got way down here in the sand dunes. It'll be funny when he wakes up and recognizes me.”

“See, heah, Adam, shore you ain't tryin’ to make me believe that mule will know you after eight years?”

“You bet he will. Merryvale, I'm the only man who could fetch Butch out of a balk. I'll bet you he'll walk right out of that and lay his head on my shoulder.”

“Humph! I ain’t bettin’ you. But I'll say he'll have to grow lots taller. An’ I’m curious to know just how you handle him.”

“Wait and see,” replied Wansfell. “Let's rustle some wood.”

“It ain't very plenty, onless my eyes are pore.”

The men parted, and left camp without being aware that Ruth had awakened. She got up, dressed, and found water in one of Stone’s canteens, which he had left in the wagon. Old Butch never flicked an eyelash.

“You reprobate,” said Ruth, eyeing the mule. “I'm as curious as Merryvale to see how Wansfell will make you move.”

Ruth took advantage of the opportunity to walk to and fro, and back into recesses of the canyon which she had not noticed yesterday. She found a nervous strain disturbing the calm in which she had awakened. Her mind had been made up and now it seemed to be wavering, to what end she had no inkling. This was another day, and it was different.

“I won't go back to Lost Lake,” she announced aloud, as if to fortify herself.

Upon returning to camp, she found Merryvale there, breaking up a meagre supply of wood.

“Mawnin’, Ruth,” he greeted her, with a smile. “Strikes me you look like the break of day.”

“Good morning,” replied Ruth. “I don’t feel quite so bright, for all your compliment.”

“Wal, I've learned things an’ people are what they look like. They can’t help it. Take Adam for instance. . . « Wal, heah he comes, an’ I reckon I’d better wait till some other time.”

“Make a time then, Merryvale, for I want to know all about him,” replied Ruth, earnestly.

Adam arrived with an armful of brush and dead cactus, which he dropped upon the sand.

“It's a glorious morning, Ruth,” he declared. “The sun is stepping red down over the sand dunes. Aren't you glad to be alive, young, so good to look at, with all the world before you?”

“Buenos dias, senor, V'd like to say I'm not glad, but I'm afraid I am a little.”

“Ruth, youre not going home?” he queried, with gray flash of glance at her.

“How did you guess?”

“It came to me,” he returned, simply.

“When?”

“Just now.”

“Adam, you don’t approve?”

“Tm afraid not. Well, let’s have breakfast. Then Tl tackle the job.”

“You mean changing Old Butch and me? Two mules with but a single thought!”

He laughed, the first time she had heard him do so. It was a mellow sound, ringing pleasantly upon the air. Then while he fell to helping Merryvale she watched him with studious, critical eyes. If she remembered him perfectly, there was a little more gray above his temples, but she could formulate no other change. He was so tall that his massive shoulders did not get correct estimate at first glance. Yet he was not heavy. His muscles rippled and bulged when he moved, yet appeared to sink in when he was still. He looked neither young nor middle-aged nor old. There was a lithe magnificence in his action. His hands were huge yet shapely, indicating good birth. But it was the mould of his head, the contour of his face that fascinated Ruth. Seen in profile it was clear, sharp, cruel, almost ruthless, yet singularly beautiful in its likness to a bird of prey.

His attire was that of the desert prospector—a ragged shirt the color of sand, through rents in which gleamed the brown muscles, frayed and stained corduroys stuck in the rough heavy worn boots of a miner, his belt, one of wide dark leather, shiny and thin from long service.

While Ruth scrutinized Adam, she suddenly experienced a sensation that was familiar. It was undeniably a warmth of interest and kindness and wondering pity; and beyond that something deeper, vaguer, becomirg lost in the recesses of feeling. Stone had awakened this in her, in some degree—a fact which she remembered now with disdain. Other men in the past had roused it, fleetingly. It never lasted. Here it came again, stronger than ever before, somehow changed—sweet and thrilling, until she deliberately beat it down.

Ruth strolled away then, beset again by the complexity of herself. But she did not begrudge this sentiment, or whatever it was. She thought it was singular that she would fight it, resist it, in Adam’s case, when in regard to other men, she had rather encouraged it. What an ingrate she would be not to feel greatly touched at this man’s regard for her.

“Wal, Ruth, come to the festal board,” invited Merryvale. “What with the grub in your basket there, we'll shore make out a breakfast fit for the gods.”

It was Merryvale who did all the talking during the meal. He appeared to be a loquacious old man, as spry of wit and ‘humor as he was on his feet. His attachment for Adam showed markedly. Ruth received strengthening of the impression that Merryvale regarded her as long associated with Adam and himself. She began to like him, to feel that he could be trusted.

“Shore, you folks ain’t very hungry this mawnin’,” he remarked, slyly.

“Indeed I was—for me,” replied Ruth, smiling.

Adam rose without comment, and his first task was to roll up Ruth’s bed, which he threw into the wagon. Old Butch twitched his ears. Adam gave the mule a glance which promised much. Then he set about other tasks of packing.

“Wal, Ruth, it'll be a better day for travelin’ than yesterday,” said Merryvale.

“Thank goodness. I hate the sand.”

“I used to, when I first took up this wanderin’ life with Adam. But I got used to it, an’ now it’s home.”

“Used to it?” queried Ruth, restlessly. “Why, this waste of sand doesn’t stay the same long enough for that.”

“Wal, it’s all in the way you feel,” replied Merryvale, placidly. “If you loved the desert you'd understand.”

“Love this hell of sand and stone and solitude!” exclaimed Ruth, shudderingly.

“Young woman, you may live to love what makes you suffer most,” said the old man, nodding sagely.

Adam approached from behind.

“Merryvale, are you about cleaned up?”

“Jest about. Im shore waitin’ to see you wake up Butch.”

“So am I,” added Ruth, rising.

“That'll take only a minute,” said Adam.

“See heah, Adam,” rejoined Merryvale plaintively, “{d shore like to see you get stuck on some job once.”

“It won't be on this mule, Merryvale. But you may have your satisfaction soon,” said Adam, with serious glance at Ruth. “Are you ready to talk over what you want to do?”

“Quite ready,” answered Ruth, with a lightness that was not genuine.

Adam drew her back to a seat on the flat rock. “Well, then, what is it?”

“I want to go out of this desert,” announced Ruth, and the expression of her yearning broke her calm.

“Where to?”

“To the coast. Or anywhere, for that matter, away from the sand and heat—this endless open space.”

“What would you do?”

“Find work somewhere.”

“Could you do any kind of work that would make you self-supporting?”

“T don’t know. I never vould keep house for grandpa, that’s certain. But I'd have to work at something, I’ve some money to start with. But it wouldn’t last forever.”

“Ruth, this plan won’t do,” said Adam, gravely.

“Tve made up my mind,” she returned, stubbornly. “You can’t change it.”

“Yes, I can. But let me reason with you.”

“I'm afraid I’m not one to listen to reason. I never was.”

“Isn't it selfish of you to leave your grandfather?”

“Yes, of course it is,” she replied, in impatient regret. “But I can’t help that.”

“You could make this a turning point in your life. To go back to him, to your obligations, to overcome your loathing of the desert, to endure and to serve— that would make you a real woman. If you run off alone, footloose and reckless and beautiful as you are, it will be only to ruin.”

“Mr. Wansfell, are you suggesting that I go back to my husband?” she queried, with sarcasm.

“No. If he is truly what you say, it’s right that you never go. But your grandfather—what you owe him, and more, what you owe yourself

“I owe myself freedom from this desert hell.”

“Ruth, it was hell to me once,” he replied, gently. “But not now. In conquering the desert I have conquered myself.”

“I am a woman,” she returned, bitterly. It roused her anger that already his look, his tone, his thought for her had begun to work upon her.

“Do you deny the risk you run, if you persist in going?”

“Risk—of what?”

“Of hardship, of trouble—of ruin?”

“Deny risk of all that?” she flashed. “No, I don't. But the same thing holds if I remain and at least Id have a chance. Here I’m absolutely sure of ruin, sooner or later... or death!”

Adam rose perturbed and paced before her, as she had seen him in the moonlight. Yes, there was a burden upon him.

“If I let you go, I shall go too,” he said, halting before her.

“Of course,” replied Ruth, eagerly. “How else could I? I expect and hope you will take me out and set me upon my feet somewhere.”

“And then?”

“Why, why, you could leave me to my fate.”

“No. What of my promise to your mother?” he returned, sternly.

“My—mother?” echoed Ruth, falteringly. “I—I didn’t know you mt

“You shall know presently. But know now that I wouldn't leave you whether you go or stay.”

Ruth vibrated to that with an emotion that held back her rising antagonism.

“You need someone just as badly as ever Genie Linwood did,” went on Adam.

“God knows I do,” returned Ruth, poignantly. She mastered her feeling, and continued. “Very well, then, you go with me. I can’t drive you away. I—I believe I'm glad—glad, though I’m not worthy of your devotion.”

“Ruth, it’s not a question of my devotion,” he said impatiently. “I would do this for you if P’'d never heard of you until now.”

“How can you expect me to believe that?” she demanded, despising herself for a doubt she could not help.

“Well, you're right. I shouldn’t have expected you to. Your husband, and the desert men you've met, and this boy Stone, according to your story, if it’s ttue—”

“Do you accuse me of lying?” interrupted Ruth, sharply.

“Ruth, look me straight in the eyes. There. .”. . You have no call for fury. Tell me, have you always been truthful?”

“No. I suppose I lied to Stone—and the rest,” she burst out, as if compelled. “But I told you the truth.”

“I believe you, and that helps,” he said. “But to get back to the main issue. . . . I don’t think it womanly or right for you to abandon your grandfather.”

“Right or wrong, I must,” she rejoined.

“His home is your home, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry to oppose you, but I'll have to take you back,” he replied, conclusively.

Ruth felt the blood rush hot to her cheeks.

“You shall not!” she retorted, passionately. “Unless you resort to force as Stone did. In which case I shall have merely leaped out of the frying pan into the fire.”

He did not seem quickly to comprehend her bitter speech. When he did it was if she had struck him.

46 Stairs of Sand “Forgive me, Adam,” she said, cooling. “I didn’t mean that last. I am a cat, you see. I fear I'm not even woman enough to appreciate you—your kindness— what you believe your duty. . . . But I did mean you are not going to take me home.”

“Indeed I am.”

“No!” she cried, wildly, driven to desperation by a consciousness of weakness.

“Ruth, I want to spare you pain,” he said, bending over her. “At least until you're home, recovered from this mad jaunt.”

“Spare me pain? You're not doing it. What do you mean?”

“Will you take my word, until some time later, that I have the power now to make you change your mind?”

“No, I won't.”

“You will not trust me?”

“I can't. I don’t believe. . .. There’s not anyone who can change me.”

“You refuse to go home?”

“Absolutely.”

“You are disappointing me terribly. I hoped to find you more of a woman. At least one in whom earnestness and nobility had not wholly died.”

“I don’t care what you hoped for me—or have found in me,” she returned, in heated bitterness, averting her gaze from the gray pitying storm of eyes she could not meet. “I’m no good. Or if I am it'll not be for long, Take me to the first settlement, and leave me.”

“No. You go home,” he thundered at her. Then turning his back he appeared to be fumbling at his blouse. She heard a musical clink of gold coins. Then he wheeled, strangely pale, and forced something into her hand.

“Look inside,” he said, huskily.

The object was an oval locket, large and heavy, of dull gold worn smooth. With trembling fingers Ruth essayed to open it. The blood receded to her heart. Suddenly the locket flew open and lay flat in her palm, disclosing two faces done in miniature.

“Mother . .. and I!” gasped Ruth.

Adam made no reply. As she stared down, her mother’s lovely face stared up at her. And opposite was the youthful portrait of herself. What a proud petulant looking child! She had been fourteen when this was painted in Philadelphia. Oh, so long ago! Her look returned to the beloved features of this mother she had lost. Her eyes dimmed so that she could not see, and at last her hot tears fell upon the open locket.

“Adam, where did you get this?” she whispered.

“Your mother gave it to me,” he replied.

“When?”

“This is May. . . . It will be eight years ago in July.”

“How did she—come to give it?” went on Ruth, drying her eyes, and striving for self-control.

“That is your mother’s story.”

“Ah! ... Tell me now.”

He dropped down beside her, so that his eyes were on a level with hers.

“Years ago an old prospector friend of mine, Dismukes by name, told me about a man and woman living in Death Valley under strange circumstances. They were gentle folk, he said, not inured to the hardship of desert life, and death surely awaited them there. It was my way to help people whom the desert had fettered one way or another. So I went to Death Valley.

“Eventually I found this couple living in a comfortless shack, under the shadow of the most terrible slope of weathered rock in all that valley of destruction. The woman was exceedingly beautiful and frail—your mother, Magdalene Virey. And the man was her husband.”

“My father,” murmured Ruth, with eager parting lips.

“I saw at once that I was not wanted there, but I decided to stay to try and help your mother. Virey was beyond me. He was half mad, I think. Anyway he had brought her there to the nakedest, and loneliest and most forbidding desolate spot on earth, away from the world of men. He loved her so madly that he hated her. It was jealousy of men, terrible jealousy that had brought this about. Your mother had never loved Virey and she admitted to me that she had been unfaithful to him. She had come willingly to Death Valley to suffer any privation or torture that he chose to inflict. She had a great spirit. But she was a wordly woman, with a mocking doubt of man and herself and God.

“Well, here I found the cruelest and most hopeless task the desert had ever given me. I could not persuade your mother to leave Death Valley. She vowed she would perish there as Virey wished. No woman can live through a summer in that valley of buming days and midnight blasting winds of fire. I feared she was doomed, but I fought with all my strength. She had a wonderful mind, and I interested her in Death Valley. Gradually she improved in health and strength. She came to love the grandeur and sublimity of that appalling place. Virey looked on, distrustful of me, and he listened to the falling, rolling, ringing rocks that all hours heralded the avalanche to come. I would have killed him, but for your mother.

“All that I had suffered I told your mother. All I knew of the desert. In the end it saved her soul. Then July came, with its infernal heat.”

Ruth, gazing spellbound, with hands locked like a vise, saw a sombre change pass over Adam’s face. She seemed to be peering through a mask, at dim shadows and lines of torture.

“July came with its torrid sun by day and those awful winds by night. Then I had to fight death itself. One morning, after a night when for hours I believed your mother was dying, she took this locket from her bosom and gave it to me, with a sacred trust, which I will tell you last.

“The day came when I could endure her agony no longer. I decided to kill Virey, or leave him there to a worse fate, and take your mother away. So that morning I went in search of my burros. Upon my return I heard the cracking of rocks. It had an ominous sound. I ran. There was Virey high on the slope rolling rocks down. I hac to dodge great boulders as I ran to get your mother from the shack. Suddenly the avalanche started with a crash. Your mother came running out. But it was too late. I could not save her. I climbed a high rock just in the nick of time. The avalanche that was carrying Virey to destruction rolled down with terrific bellowing roar. The gray mass of stones and dust, like a cloud, enveloped your mother, carried her away—buried her forever.”