Riders of the Purple Sage

“But I’m sick of seeing this fellow Venters hang around you. I’m going to put a stop to it. You’ve so much love to throw away on these beggars of Gentiles that I’ve an idea you might love Venters.”

Tull shows his motive for seeking out Jane and Venters in his expressed fear that Jane is in love with Venters. This leads to the revelation that Tull wants Jane to marry him instead, but it also shows the attitude of the Mormon leaders against the non-Mormon people that have come to settle in Cottonwood. This also shows Jane’s defiance against the Mormon leaders in that she chooses to spend time with and help the non-Mormon people despite the Mormon dislike of the outsiders.

“‘I’ll take it here—if I must,’ said Venters. ‘But by God!—Tull you’d better kill me outright. That’ll be a dear whipping for you and your praying Mormons. You’ll make me another Lassiter!’”

Venters’s mention of Lassiter introduces the character as someone who wouldn’t allow such behavior as this punishment for Venters’s relationship with Jane to take place. While Venters doesn’t reveal Lassiter’s full reputation, he suggests that Lassiter is a danger to the Mormon men. This will be built upon when Lassiter himself appears.

“When I say loss I don’t mean what you think. I mean loss of good-will, good name—that which would have enabled me to stand up in this village without bitterness. Well, it’s too late….Now, as to the future, I think you’d do best to give me up. Tull is implacable. You ought to see from his intention to-day that—But you can’t see. Your blindness—your damned religion!...Jane, forgive me—I’m sore within and something rankles. Well, I fear that invisible hand will turn its hidden work to your ruin.”

Venters shows his character as a kind and moral man who understands the power Tull has over the community by asking Jane to end their friendship. Venters is the first to point out how Jane’s belief in religion prevents her from seeing the darkness inside some of the Mormon men.

“She gave up teaching the village school. She quit the church. And she began to fight Mormon upbringing for her baby girl. Then the Mormons put on the screws—slowly, as is their way. At last the child disappeared. ‘Lost’ was the report. The child was stolen, I know that. So do you. That wrecked Milly Erne. But she lived on in hope. She became a slave. She worked her heart and soul and life out to get back her child. She never heard of it again.”

Venters’s story of Milly Erne mentions the child taken away from Milly and shows the lengths the Mormon leaders will go to to control a woman. Milly’s child was stolen from her because she was defiant. This foreshadows Jane’s attempts to return to obedience and it does nothing to stop Tull’s war against her.

“And, from what he had learned in the last few days, a belief began to form in Venters’s mind that Oldring’s intimidations of the villages and the mystery of the Masked Rider, with his alleged evil deeds, and the fierce resistance offered any trailing riders and the rustling of cattle—these things were only the craft of the rustler-chief to conceal his real life and purpose and work in Deception Pass.”

Upon discovering the masked rider is a woman, Venters begins to understand that most of the rumors about Oldring are a falsehood meant to fool outsiders. This foreshadows Venters’s learning that Oldring makes his hideaway in Deception Pass to prospect for gold. It also plants the seeds of the masked rider being more innocent than anyone could have guessed.

“They hadn’t no say in the matter. They looked as if their bein’ unfaithful to you was bein’ unfaithful to a higher duty, An’ there’s the secret. Why it’s as plain as—as sight of my gun here.”

Judkins tells Jane that her riders have been told by the Mormon leaders not to help her, underscoring the truth that Venters suspected before leaving for Deception Pass. Jane struggles to believe her moral Mormon leaders would do such a thing, touching on the theme of Morality Versus Virtue Signaling. This is the first clue for Jane that Tull is behind the absence of her riders and the theft of her red herd.

“Was Tull what he appeared to be? The question flung itself involuntarily over Jane Withersteen’s inhibitive habit of faith without question. And she refused to answer it.”

Jane reflects on what she has been told about Tull’s actions and she cannot allow herself to contemplate it, because it will cause her to question her faith. This touches on the theme of Religious Conflict in that this question forces her to consider the tenets of her religion in regard to Tull’s actions.

“The cliff-dwellers had chipped and chipped away at this boulder till it rested its tremendous bulk upon a mere pin-point of its surface. Venters pondered. Why had the little stone-men hacked away at that big boulder? It bore no semblance to a statue or an idol or a godhead or a sphinx. Instinctively he put his hands on it and pushed; then his shoulder and heaved. The stone seemed to groan, to stir, to grate, and then to move. It tipped a little downward and hung balancing for a long instant, slowly returned, rocked slightly, groaned, and settled back to its former position. Venters divined its significance. It had been meant for defense. The cliff-dwellers, driven by dreaded enemies to this last stand, had cunningly cut the rock until it balanced perfectly, ready to be dislodged by strong hands.”

Venters finds the rock at the entrance to Surprise Valley and reflects both on the history of the people who placed it there and the purpose. This is the first introduction to the rock, but Venters’s assessment of its purpose will play an important role in the novel as he and Bess come to live in Surprise Valley. The introduction of this rock reveals information about the history of the area.

“‘What are—what were you to Oldring?’ Like some delicate thing suddenly exposed to blasting heat, the girl wilted; her head dropped, and into her white, wasted cheeks crept the red of shame.”

Bess’s reaction to Venters’s question about Oldring gives him the impression that Bess was Oldring’s lover. This causes a great deal of trouble for Venters because he struggles to fall in love with a girl who is not virtuous. At the same time, he worries how outsiders might accept her if they were to learn the truth. This moment is a direct motivation to Venters’s killing Oldring.

“Venters trembled, and then swiftly turned his gaze from her face—from her eyes. He knew what she had only half divined—that she loved him.”

Venters hasn’t been able to believe that Bess could love him. However, in this moment, he knows she does love him, and it changes the way he views her, as well as their situation. It is this realization that causes Venters to debate between taking Bess away from Surprise Valley and locking them away inside there to hide from all of society.

“Then he turned to Fay and smiled in a way that made Jane doubt her sense of the true relation of things. How could Lassiter smile so at a child when he had made so many children fatherless? But he did smile, and to the gentleness she had seen a few times he added something that was infinitely sad and sweet. Jane’s intuition told her that Lassiter had never been a father, but if life ever so blessed him he would be a good one.”

Jane sees the gentleness inside of Lassiter that reveals he has not always been a hard gunslinger but was once a good man. This moment also shows the connection that will come between Lassiter and Fay, the lengths he will go to to protect Fay, and the decision he will make at the end of the novel to protect both Jane and Fay.

“‘After all, Jane, mebbe you’re only blind—Mormon blind. That only can explain what’s close to selfishness—’ ‘I’m not selfish. I despise the very word. If I were free—’ ‘But you’re not free. Not free of Mormonism. An’ in playin’ this game with me you’ve been unfaithful.’”

Like Venters, Lassiter accuses Jane of being blind because of her religion. This argument again emphasizes the novel’s theme of Religious Conflict as it forces Jane to look at her motives and decide if her religion really is making her ignorant.

“Jane, you’re watched. There’s no single move of yours, except when you’re hid in your house, that ain’t seen by sharp eyes. The cottonwood grove’s full of creepin’, crawlin’ men.”

Lassiter reveals to Jane the extent to which Tull goes to in order to continue his war against her. This touches on the theme of Gender Dominance and Dynamics as Tull uses his authority as a leader in the Mormon faith to exert his power over Jane. At the same time, this moment shows that Lassiter has been aware of this danger for a while and has been careful to protect Jane from it, exerting his own kind of dominance, but doing it in an attempt to protect Jane.

“No more did he listen to the rush and roar of the thunder-storm. For with the touch of clinging hands and the throbbing bosom he grew conscious of an inward storm—the tingling of new chords of thought, strange music of unheard, joyous bells sad dreams dawning to wakeful delight, dissolving doubt, resurging hope, force, fire, and freedom, unutterable sweetness of desire. A storm in his breast—a storm of real love.”

During a thunderstorm, Venters holds a fearful Bess, and it leads him to acknowledge that he truly is in love with her. Bess’s fear again reveals her childlike innocence, but Venters continues to be blind to how deep her innocence goes, showing that he, too, has a blindness when it comes to morality.

“I love her. And if a beast ever rises in me I’ll burn my hand off before I lay it on her with shameful intent. And, by God! sooner or later I’ll kill the man who hid her and kept her in Deception Pass!”

Venters’s morals about sex and virtuousness are revealed again, and he connects it to the man who hid her in Deception Pass, the man he believes took her virtue, creating a motive for murder. This moment foreshadows Venters’s growing hatred of Oldring for his actions against Bess and his desire to murder Oldring.

“Like the saint of old who mortified his flesh, Jane Withersteen had in her the temper for heroic martyrdom, if by sacrificing herself she could save the soul of others. But here the damnable verdict blistered her that the more she sacrificed herself the blacker grew the souls of her churchmen. There was something terribly wrong with her soul, something terribly wrong with her churchmen and her religion. In the whirling gulf of her though there was yet one shining light to guide her, to sustain her in her hope; and it was that, despite her errors and her frailties and her blindness, she had one absolute and unfaltering hold on ultimate and supreme justice. That was love.”

Illustrating the theme of religious contemplation, Jane reflects on her own religion and finally accepts that her Mormon leaders are not as moral as she once believed. However, Jane finds a part of her religion that she can still believe in: love. Jane holds on to the tenet of loving her enemies, and this inspires her to continue to resist Venters and Lassiter’s instincts to fight her enemies with violence. Jane continues to hold on to hope that Tull will relent out of a sense of love.

“He heard Oldring whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million bellowing, thundering voices—gunshots of conscience, thunderbolts of remorse—dinned horribly in his ears. He had killed Bess’s father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed—Oldring’s knell.”

Venters learns the truth about Bess’s relationship with Oldring and he is crushed with regret and guilt. Venters has removed Oldring from Bess’s life in an attempt to protect her.

“Fay has taken you’re pretendin’ to—to care for me for the thing it looks on the face. An’ her little formin’ mind asks questions. An’ the answers she gets are different from the looks of things. So she’ll grow up gradually takin’ on that falseness, an’ be like the rest of the women, an’ men, too. An’ the truth of this falseness to life is proved by your appearin’ to love me when you don’t. Things aren’t what they seem.”

Shortly after Jane concludes that she must cling to the idea of love fixing everything, she is chastised by Lassiter for faking her love for him in front of Fay and teaching Fay that it is okay to lie to people and hide true emotions. This moment causes Jane to reexamine her feelings for Lassiter, but it also causes her to reexamine her thoughts on love and how her love for her enemies is not going to end this war against her. It also causes Jane to confront her religion once more in her desire to not teach Fay these things that her religion and her upbringing have taught her.

“Eighteen years I’ve been on the trail. An’ it led me to the last lonely villages of the Utah border. Eighteen years!...I feel pretty old now. I was only twenty when I hit that trail.”

As Lassiter finishes up telling Jane his story about Milly Erne, he reveals his loneliness and the revenge that drove him. This underscores his love for Jane and how profoundly his love for her changed him. It also expresses his motivation for wanting to protect Jane because she finally showed him a life that he never believed he could have.

“I’m fighting my last fight for the principles of my youth—love of religion, love of father. You don’t know—you can’t guess the truth, and I can’t speak ill. I’m losing all. I’m changing. All I’ve gone through is nothing to this hour. Pity me—help me in my weakness. You’re strong again—oh, so cruelly, coldly strong! You’re killing me. I see you—feel you as some other Lassiter! My master, be merciful—spare him!”

This marks the moment that Jane lets go of her religious beliefs and accepts the truth of what is happening around her. This moment also shows a change in Jane as she reaches a point where she is ready to reveal her true motive in helping the non-Mormon people as well as Lassiter.

“It was my father you got trace of in the past years. Truly, dyer ruined Milly Erne—dragged her from her home—to Utah—to Cottonwoods. But it was for my father! If Milly Erne was ever wife of a Mormon that Mormon was my father! I never knew—never will know whether or not she was a wife. Blind I may be, Lassiter—fanatically faithful to a false religion I may have been but I know justice, and my father is beyond human justice. Surely he is meeting just punishment—somewhere. Always it has appalled me—the thought of your killing Dyer for my father’s sins.”

Jane reveals the truth about her father, and in doing this, she reveals the motive for her friendships with the non-Mormon people and her open dislike of certain tenets of the Mormon faith. She also shows that she has struggled with the guilt and shame of her father’s behavior, and the knowledge that he was as immoral as a man like Oldring. This parallel between Jane’s relationship with her father and Bess’s shame in her relationship with Oldring shows how morality ruled behavior in the time of this novel and how it could shape people’s actions.

“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 describes the moment of Dyer’s death, suggesting something beyond the mortal world that Dyer suddenly saw and understood in that moment. This touches again on the religious themes of the novel, but it also supports Jane’s idea that her father is suffering punishment in the afterworld. This moment also marks a change in Jane when she decides she cannot offer up a prayer for Dyer’s soul, demonstrating that her determination to cling to her religion has changed.

“Tenderness and sympathy were fast hiding traces of her agitation. Venters read her mind—felt the reaction of her noble heart—saw the joy she was beginning to feel at the happiness of others. And suddenly blinded, choked by his emotions, he turned from her also. He knew what she would do presently; she would give some manifestation of her love; probably all in a moment, as she had loved Milly Erne, so would she love Elizabeth Erne.”

In the aftermath of learning the truth about Bess, Venters witnesses a transformation on Jane’s face and realizes what she will do. Despite Tull on their trail, Jane will give Venters and Bess her Arabians, and this is a sacrifice that could lead to her and Lassiter’s deaths. This sums up Jane’s character as she is still willing to sacrifice herself for others.