Tappan's Burro, and Other Stories. Zane Grey
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a hundred years. The rock of the promontory was covered with soft brown mats of pine needles. A juniper tree, with its bright green foliage and lilac-colored berries, grew near the pine, and helped to form a secluded little nook, fragrant and somehow haunting. The woman’s dark head was close to Tappan, as she sat with her elbows on her knees, gazing down into the basin. Tappan saw the strained tensity of her posture, the heaving of her full bosom. He wondered, while his own emotions, so long darkened, roused to the suspense of that hour.
Suddenly she flung herself into Tappan’s arms. The act amazed him. It seemed to have both the passion of a woman and the shame of a girl. Before she hid her face on Tappan’s breast he saw how the rich brown had paled, and then flamed.
“Tappan! … Take me away. … Take me away from here—from that life down there,” she cried, in smothered voice.
“Madge, you mean take you away—and marry you?” he replied.
“Oh, yes—yes—marry me, if you love me. … I don’t see how you can—but you do, don’t you?—Say you do.”
“I reckon that’s what ails me, Madge,” he replied, simply.
“Say so, then,” she burst out.
“All right, I do,” said Tappan, with heavy breath. “Madge, words don’t come easy for me. … But I think you’re wonderful, an’ I want you. I haven’t dared hope for that, till now. I’m only a wanderer. But it’d be heaven to have you—my wife—an’ make a home for you.”
“Oh—Oh!” she returned, wildly, and lifted herself to cling round his neck, and to kiss him. “You give me joy. … Oh, Tappan, I love you. I never loved any man before. I know now. … An’ I’m not wonderful—or good. But I love you.”
The fire of her lips and the clasp of her arms worked havoc in Tappan. No woman had ever loved him, let alone embraced him. To awake suddenly to such rapture as this made him strong and rough in his response. Then all at once she seemed to collapse in his arms and to begin to weep. He feared he had offended or hurt her, and was clumsy in his contrition. Presently she replied:
“Pretty soon—I’ll make you—beat me. It’s your love—your honesty—that’s shamed me. … Tappan, I was party to a trick to—sell you a worthless ranch. … I agreed to—try to make you love me—to fool you—cheat you. … But I’ve fallen in love with you.—An’ my God, I care more for your love—your respect—than for my life. I can’t go on with it. I’ve double-crossed Jake, an’ all of them. … Now, am I worth lovin’? Am I worth havin’?”
“More than ever, dear,” he said.
“You will take me away?”
“Anywhere—any time, the sooner the better.”
She kissed him passionately, and then, disengaging herself from his arms, she knelt and gazed earnestly at him. “I’ve not told all. I will some day. But I swear now on my soul—I’ll be what you think me.”
“Madge, you needn’t say all that. If you love me—it’s enough. More than I ever dreamed of.”
“You’re a man. Oh, why didn’t I meet you when I was eighteen instead of now—twenty-eight, an’ all that between. … But enough. A new life begins here for me. We must plan.”
“You make the plans an’ I’ll act on them.”
For a moment she was tense and silent, head bowed, hands shut tight. Then she spoke:
“To-night we’ll slip away. You make a light pack, that’ll go on your saddle. I’ll do the same. We’ll hide the horses out near where the trail crosses the brook. An’ we’ll run off—ride out of the country.”
Tappan in turn tried to think, but the whirl of his mind made any reason difficult. This dark-eyed, full-bosomed woman loved him, had surrendered herself, asked only his protection. The thing seemed marvelous. Yet she knelt there, those dark eyes on him, infinitely more appealing than ever, haunting with some mystery of sadness and fear he could not divine.
Suddenly Tappan remembered Jenet.
“I must take Jenet,” he said.
That startled her. “Jenet—Who’s she?”
“My burro.”
“Your burro. You can’t travel fast with that pack beast. We’ll be trailed, an’ we’ll have to go fast. … You can’t take the burro.”
Then Tappan was startled. “What! Can’t take Jenet?—Why, I—I couldn’t get along without her.”
“Nonsense. What’s a burro? We must ride fast—do you hear?”
“Madge, I’m afraid I—I must take Jenet with me,” he said, soberly.
“It’s impossible. I can’t go if you take her. I tell you I’ve got to get away. If you want me you’ll have to leave your precious Jenet behind.”
Tappan bowed his head to the inevitable. After all, Jenet was only a beast of burden. She would run wild on the ridges and soon forget him and have no need of him. Something strained in Tappan’s breast. He did not see clearly here. This woman was worth more than all else to him.
“I’m stupid, dear,” he said. “You see I never before ran off with a beautiful woman. … Of course my burro must be left behind.”
Elopement, if such it could be called, was easy for them. Tappan did not understand why Madge wanted to be so secret about it. Was she not free? But then, he reflected, he did not know the circumstances she feared. Besides, he did not care. Possession of the woman was enough.
Tappan made his small pack, the weight of which was considerable owing to his bags of gold. This he tied on his saddle. It bothered him to leave most of his new outfit scattered around his camp. What would Jenet think of that? He looked for her, but for once she did not come in at meal time. Tappan thought this was singular. He could not remember when Jenet had been far from his camp at sunset. Somehow Tappan was glad.
After he had his supper, he left his utensils and supplies as they happened to be, and strode away under the trees to the trysting-place where he was to meet Madge. To his surprise she came before dark, and, unused as he was to the complexity and emotional nature of a woman, he saw that she was strangely agitated. Her face was pale. Almost a fury burned in her black eyes. When she came up to Tappan, and embraced him, almost fiercely, he felt that he was about to learn more of the nature of womankind. She thrilled him to his depths.
“Lead out the horses an’ don’t make any noise,” she whispered.
Tappan complied, and soon he was mounted, riding behind her on the trail. It surprised him that she headed down country, and traveled fast. Moreover, she kept to a trail that continually grew rougher. They came to a road, which she crossed, and kept on through darkness and brush so thick that Tappan could not see the least sign of a trail. And at length anyone could have seen that Madge had lost her bearings. She appeared to know the direction she wanted, but traveling upon it was impossible, owing to the increasingly cut-up and brushy ground. They had to turn back, and seemed to be hours finding the road. Once Tappan fancied he heard the thud of hoofs other than those made by their own horses. Here Madge acted strangely, and where she had been obsessed by desire to hurry she now seemed to have grown weary. She turned her horse south on the road. Tappan was thus enabled to ride beside her. But they talked very little. He was satisfied with the fact of being with her on the way out of the country. Some time in the night they reached an old log shack by the roadside. Here Tappan suggested they halt, and get some sleep before dawn. The morrow would mean a long hard day.
“Yes, to-morrow will be hard,” replied Madge, as she faced Tappan in the gloom. He could see her big dark eyes on him. Her tone was not one of a hopeful woman. Tappan pondered over this. But he could not understand, because he had no idea how a woman ought to act under such circumstances. Madge Beam was a creature of moods.