Free Nevada (1995) by Zane Grey Page A

answered.
    So Hettie was left alone in the Ide homestead with little Blain e and the two women servants. She rather welcomed the solitude. Sh e found how much her mother had taken of time and thought. Part o f the day she had the servants take care of Blaine while she devote d herself to the many set tasks at hand and the new ones alway s arising. After supper, when Blaine had been put to bed, she ha d hours to be alone and think before her own rest claimed her.
    The running of the ranch had at first seemed something that woul d be pleasure, rather than work. She discovered presently that i t was not only work, but an extremely embarrassing and exasperatin g task. There were eighteen hands employed on the lake ranch, and a s many more out in the hills. Most of these employees were young me n of the valley, unmarried, and very desirous of changing that stat e of single blessedness. Some had been schoolmates of Hettie's. An d there were several riders, long, lean, rangy fellows from th e South, with whom Hettie grew most annoyed. They continually foun d reasons to ride in to the ranch. Some of the excuses wer e ridiculous in the extreme. These droll boys of the open range pai d court to her, wholly oblivious of her rebuffs. In two weeks' tim e the whole contingent was in love with Hettie or trying to make he r believe so. And the plowing, the planting, the movement of stock , the hauling of supplies, the herding of cattle, in fact all task s pertaining to the operation of Ben Ide's ranches, had to be talke d over elaborately with the temporary mistress.
    Hettie had fun out of it, except in the case of the several lean- f aced, quiet-eyed riders from the hills. They made love to her.
    Moreover, they reminded her of Nevada, and that inflamed he r lonely, hungry heart.
    If Nevada had come to mind often in the past, what did he do no w but haunt every hour? She saw him in every one of the rang e riders. Yet how incomparably he bestrode a horse! Hettie saw hi s lean, fine still face, so clean cut and brown, with the sleepy eye s that yet could wake to flame and also smile with a light she ha d never seen in any other. His old black sombrero, with bullet hole s in the crown, when laid aside had appeared a disreputable thing , but on his head it had seemed picturesque and beautiful. His ol d silk scarf with the checks of red, the yellow vest with the strin g of a little tobacco pouch always hanging out of a pocket, the wor n leather wristbands, the high top-boots with their scalloped edges , and their long bright jingling spurs--how well she remembered them , how vividly they were limned in the eye of her memory! Then, a s something inevitable at the end of reminiscence, something tha t seemed an inseparable part of Nevada, she recalled the dark an d heavy gun he had always worn. It had bumped against her as sh e walked beside him. When he had taken her in his arms, even in th e sweet madness of that moment, she had felt the gun hard and col d against her.
    The years had brought Hettie stronger and deeper love for Nevada.
    As she looked back now she remembered her open aversion to his gun , and to the something about him that hinted of its deadly use. Sh e had been a callow, sentimental girl, sickened at the thought o f bloodshed, hostile toward the spirit and skill that had eventuall y saved her brother from ruin and perhaps herself from the villainou s Setter.
    She had lived and suffered during the four years since Nevada ha d ridden away, leaving death and calamity behind him. She was a woman now. She saw differently. She divined what she had been t o him--how her friendship and love had uplifted him. How great an d enduring had her own love become! She was his alone. Separatio n could never change her.
    "What did it matter who Nevada was or what he was before he came t o Ben and me?" she mused, sitting by the open window in the dark , listening to the last sleepy honks of wild geese and the melanchol y peep-peep of spring frogs.