Zane Grey (21 page)

Twice Bill Isbel came through the kitchen to whisper to Jean. The
strain in the large room, from which the rustlers could not be seen,
must have been great. Jean told him all he had seen and what he
thought about it. "Eatin' an' drinkin'!" ejaculated Bill. "Well, I'll
be—! That 'll jar the old man. He wants to get the fight over.

"Tell him I said it'll be over too quick—for us—unless are mighty
careful," replied Jean, sharply.

Bill went back muttering to himself. Then followed a long wait,
fraught with suspense, during which Jean watched the rustlers regale
themselves. The day was hot and still. And the unnatural silence of
the cabin was broken now and then by the gay laughter of the children.
The sound shocked and haunted Jean. Playing children! Then another
sound, so faint he had to strain to hear it, disturbed and saddened
him—his father's slow tread up and down the cabin floor, to and fro,
to and fro. What must be in his father's heart this day!

At length the rustlers rose and, with rifles in hand, they moved as one
man down the slope. They came several hundred yards closer, until
Jean, grimly cocking his rifle, muttered to himself that a few more
rods closer would mean the end of several of that gang. They knew the
range of a rifle well enough, and once more sheered off at right angles
with the cabin. When they got even with the line of corrals they
stooped down and were lost to Jean's sight. This fact caused him
alarm. They were, of course, crawling up on the cabins. At the end of
that line of corrals ran a ditch, the bank of which was high enough to
afford cover. Moreover, it ran along in front of the cabins, scarcely
a hundred yards, and it was covered with grass and little clumps of
brush, from behind which the rustlers could fire into the windows and
through the clay chinks without any considerable risk to themselves. As
they did not come into sight again, Jean concluded he had discovered
their plan. Still, he waited awhile longer, until he saw faint, little
clouds of dust rising from behind the far end of the embankment. That
discovery made him rush out, and through the kitchen to the large
cabin, where his sudden appearance startled the men.

"Get back out of sight!" he ordered, sharply, and with swift steps he
reached the door and closed it. "They're behind the bank out there by
the corrals. An' they're goin' to crawl down the ditch closer to
us.... It looks bad. They'll have grass an' brush to shoot from. We've
got to be mighty careful how we peep out."

"Ahuh! All right," replied his father. "You women keep the kids with
you in that corner. An' you all better lay down flat."

Blaisdell, Bill Isbel, and the old man crouched at the large window,
peeping through cracks in the rough edges of the logs. Jean took his
post beside the small window, with his keen eyes vibrating like a
compass needle. The movement of a blade of grass, the flight of a
grasshopper could not escape his trained sight.

"Look sharp now!" he called to the other men. "I see dust.... They're
workin' along almost to that bare spot on the bank.... I saw the tip of
a rifle ... a black hat ... more dust. They're spreadin' along behind
the bank."

Loud voices, and then thick clouds of yellow dust, coming from behind
the highest and brushiest line of the embankment, attested to the truth
of Jean's observation, and also to a reckless disregard of danger.

Suddenly Jean caught a glint of moving color through the fringe of
brush. Instantly he was strung like a whipcord.

Then a tall, hatless and coatless man stepped up in plain sight. The
sun shone on his fair, ruffled hair. Daggs!

"Hey, you — — Isbels!" he bawled, in magnificent derisive boldness.
"Come out an' fight!"

Quick as lightning Jean threw up his rifle and fired. He saw tufts of
fair hair fly from Daggs's head. He saw the squirt of red blood. Then
quick shots from his comrades rang out. They all hit the swaying body
of the rustler. But Jean knew with a terrible thrill that his bullet
had killed Daggs before the other three struck. Daggs fell forward,
his arms and half his body resting over, the embankment. Then the
rustlers dragged him back out of sight. Hoarse shouts rose. A cloud of
yellow dust drifted away from the spot.

"Daggs!" burst out Gaston Isbel. "Jean, you knocked off the top of his
haid. I seen that when I was pullin' trigger. Shore we over heah
wasted our shots."

"God! he must have been crazy or drunk—to pop up there—an' brace us
that way," said Blaisdell, breathing hard.

"Arizona is bad for Texans," replied Isbel, sardonically. "Shore it's
been too peaceful heah. Rustlers have no practice at fightin'. An' I
reckon Daggs forgot."

"Daggs made as crazy a move as that of Guy an' Jacobs," spoke up Jean.
"They were overbold, an' he was drunk. Let them be a lesson to us."

Jean had smelled whisky upon his entrance to this cabin. Bill was a
hard drinker, and his father was not immune. Blaisdell, too, drank
heavily upon occasions. Jean made a mental note that he would not
permit their chances to become impaired by liquor.

Rifles began to crack, and puffs of smoke rose all along the embankment
for the space of a hundred feet. Bullets whistled through the rude
window casing and spattered on the heavy door, and one split the clay
between the logs before Jean, narrowly missing him. Another volley
followed, then another. The rustlers had repeating rifles and they
were emptying their magazines. Jean changed his position. The other
men profited by his wise move. The volleys had merged into one
continuous rattling roar of rifle shots. Then came a sudden cessation
of reports, with silence of relief. The cabin was full of dust,
mingled with the smoke from the shots of Jean and his companions. Jean
heard the stifled breaths of the children. Evidently they were
terror-stricken, but they did not cry out. The women uttered no sound.

A loud voice pealed from behind the embankment.

"Come out an' fight! Do you Isbels want to be killed like sheep?"

This sally gained no reply. Jean returned to his post by the window and
his comrades followed his example. And they exercised extreme caution
when they peeped out.

"Boys, don't shoot till you see one," said Gaston Isbel. "Maybe after
a while they'll get careless. But Jorth will never show himself."

The rustlers did not again resort to volleys. One by one, from
different angles, they began to shoot, and they were not firing at
random. A few bullets came straight in at the windows to pat into the
walls; a few others ticked and splintered the edges of the windows; and
most of them broke through the clay chinks between the logs. It dawned
upon Jean that these dangerous shots were not accident. They were well
aimed, and most of them hit low down. The cunning rustlers had some
unerring riflemen and they were picking out the vulnerable places all
along the front of the cabin. If Jean had not been lying flat he would
have been hit twice. Presently he conceived the idea of driving pegs
between the logs, high up, and, kneeling on these, he managed to peep
out from the upper edge of the window. But this position was awkward
and difficult to hold for long.

He heard a bullet hit one of his comrades. Whoever had been struck
never uttered a sound. Jean turned to look. Bill Isbel was holding
his shoulder, where red splotches appeared on his shirt. He shook his
head at Jean, evidently to make light of the wound. The women and
children were lying face down and could not see what was happening.
Plain is was that Bill did not want them to know. Blaisdell bound up
the bloody shoulder with a scarf.

Steady firing from the rustlers went on, at the rate of one shot every
few minutes. The Isbels did not return these. Jean did not fire again
that afternoon. Toward sunset, when the besiegers appeared to grow
restless or careless, Blaisdell fired at something moving behind the
brush; and Gaston Isbel's huge buffalo gun boomed out.

"Wal, what 're they goin' to do after dark, an' what 're WE goin' to
do?" grumbled Blaisdell.

"Reckon they'll never charge us," said Gaston.

"They might set fire to the cabins," added Bill Isbel. He appeared to
be the gloomiest of the Isbel faction. There was something on his mind.

"Wal, the Jorths are bad, but I reckon they'd not burn us alive,"
replied Blaisdell.

"Hah!" ejaculated Gaston Isbel. "Much you know aboot Lee Jorth. He
would skin me alive an' throw red-hot coals on my raw flesh."

So they talked during the hour from sunset to dark. Jean Isbel had
little to say. He was revolving possibilities in his mind. Darkness
brought a change in the attack of the rustlers. They stationed men at
four points around the cabins; and every few minutes one of these
outposts would fire. These bullets embedded themselves in the logs,
causing but little anxiety to the Isbels.

"Jean, what you make of it?" asked the old rancher.

"Looks to me this way," replied Jean. "They're set for a long fight.
They're shootin' just to let us know they're on the watch."

"Ahuh! Wal, what 're you goin' to do aboot it?"

"I'm goin' out there presently."

Gaston Isbel grunted his satisfaction at this intention of Jean's.

All was pitch dark inside the cabin. The women had water and food at
hand. Jean kept a sharp lookout from his window while he ate his
supper of meat, bread, and milk. At last the children, worn out by the
long day, fell asleep. The women whispered a little in their corner.

About nine o'clock Jean signified his intention of going out to
reconnoitre.

"Dad, they've got the best of us in the daytime," he said, "but not
after dark."

Jean buckled on a belt that carried shells, a bowie knife, and
revolver, and with rifle in hand he went out through the kitchen to the
yard. The night was darker than usual, as some of the stars were hidden
by clouds. He leaned against the log cabin, waiting for his eyes to
become perfectly adjusted to the darkness. Like an Indian, Jean could
see well at night. He knew every point around cabins and sheds and
corrals, every post, log, tree, rock, adjacent to the ranch. After
perhaps a quarter of an hour watching, during which time several shots
were fired from behind the embankment and one each from the rustlers at
the other locations, Jean slipped out on his quest.

He kept in the shadow of the cabin walls, then the line of orchard
trees, then a row of currant bushes. Here, crouching low, he halted to
look and listen. He was now at the edge of the open ground, with the
gently rising slope before him. He could see the dark patches of cedar
and juniper trees. On the north side of the cabin a streak of fire
flashed in the blackness, and a shot rang out. Jean heard the bullet
bit the cabin. Then silence enfolded the lonely ranch and the darkness
lay like a black blanket. A low hum of insects pervaded the air. Dull
sheets of lightning illumined the dark horizon to the south. Once Jean
heard voices, but could not tell from which direction they came. To
the west of him then flared out another rifle shot. The bullet
whistled down over Jean to thud into the cabin.

Jean made a careful study of the obscure, gray-black open before him
and then the background to his rear. So long as he kept the dense
shadows behind him he could not be seen. He slipped from behind his
covert and, gliding with absolutely noiseless footsteps, he gained the
first clump of junipers. Here he waited patiently and motionlessly for
another round of shots from the rustlers. After the second shot from
the west side Jean sheered off to the right. Patches of brush, clumps
of juniper, and isolated cedars covered this slope, affording Jean a
perfect means for his purpose, which was to make a detour and come up
behind the rustler who was firing from that side. Jean climbed to the
top of the ridge, descended the opposite slope, made his turn to the
left, and slowly worked up behind the point near where he expected to
locate the rustler. Long habit in the open, by day and night, rendered
his sense of direction almost as perfect as sight itself. The first
flash of fire he saw from this side proved that he had come straight up
toward his man. Jean's intention was to crawl up on this one of the
Jorth gang and silently kill him with a knife. If the plan worked
successfully, Jean meant to work round to the next rustler. Laying
aside his rifle, he crawled forward on hands and knees, making no more
sound than a cat. His approach was slow. He had to pick his way, be
careful not to break twigs nor rattle stones. His buckskin garments
made no sound against the brush. Jean located the rustler sitting on
the top of the ridge in the center of an open space. He was alone.
Jean saw the dull-red end of the cigarette he was smoking. The ground
on the ridge top was rocky and not well adapted for Jean's purpose. He
had to abandon the idea of crawling up on the rustler. Whereupon, Jean
turned back, patiently and slowly, to get his rifle.

Upon securing it he began to retrace his course, this time more slowly
than before, as he was hampered by the rifle. But he did not make the
slightest sound, and at length he reached the edge of the open ridge
top, once more to espy the dark form of the rustler silhouetted against
the sky. The distance was not more than fifty yards.

As Jean rose to his knee and carefully lifted his rifle round to avoid
the twigs of a juniper he suddenly experienced another emotion besides
the one of grim, hard wrath at the Jorths. It was an emotion that
sickened him, made him weak internally, a cold, shaking, ungovernable
sensation. Suppose this man was Ellen Jorth's father! Jean lowered
the rifle. He felt it shake over his knee. He was trembling all over.
The astounding discovery that he did not want to kill Ellen's
father—that he could not do it—awakened Jean to the despairing nature
of his love for her. In this grim moment of indecision, when he knew
his Indian subtlety and ability gave him a great advantage over the
Jorths, he fully realized his strange, hopeless, and irresistible love
for the girl. He made no attempt to deny it any longer. Like the
night and the lonely wilderness around him, like the inevitableness of
this Jorth-Isbel feud, this love of his was a thing, a fact, a reality.
He breathed to his own inward ear, to his soul—he could not kill Ellen
Jorth's father. Feud or no feud, Isbel or not, he could not
deliberately do it. And why not? There was no answer. Was he not
faithless to his father? He had no hope of ever winning Ellen Jorth.
He did not want the love of a girl of her character. But he loved her.
And his struggle must be against the insidious and mysterious growth of
that passion. It swayed him already. It made him a coward. Through
his mind and heart swept the memory of Ellen Jorth, her beauty and
charm, her boldness and pathos, her shame and her degradation. And the
sweetness of her outweighed the boldness. And the mystery of her
arrayed itself in unquenchable protest against her acknowledged shame.
Jean lifted his face to the heavens, to the pitiless white stars, to
the infinite depths of the dark-blue sky. He could sense the fact of
his being an atom in the universe of nature. What was he, what was his
revengeful father, what were hate and passion and strife in comparison
to the nameless something, immense and everlasting, that he sensed in
this dark moment?