Zane Grey (12 page)

Mescal's love for the mustang shone in her eyes while she smoothed out
the crumpled mane, and petted the slender neck.

"Bolly, to think you'd do it!" And Bolly dropped her head as though
really ashamed.

When darkness fell they gathered on the rim to watch the signals. A fire
blazed out of the black void below, and as they waited it brightened and
flamed higher.

"Ugh!" said Piute, pointing across to the dark line of cliffs.

"Of course he'd see it first," laughed Naab. "Dave, have you caught it
yet? Jack, see if you can make out a fire over on Echo Cliffs."

"No, I don't see any light, except that white star. Have you seen it?"

"Long ago," replied Naab. "Here, sight along my finger, and narrow your
eyes down."

"I believe I see it—yes, I'm sure."

"Good. How about you, Mescal?"

"Yes," she replied.

Jack was amused, for Dave insisted that he had been next to the Indian,
and Billy claimed priority to all of them. To these men bred on the
desert keen sight was preeminently the chief of gifts.

"Jack, look sharp!" said August. "Peon is blanketing his fire. See the
flicker? One, two—one, two—one. Now for the answer."

Jack peered out into the shadowy space, star-studded above, ebony below.
Far across the depths shone a pinpoint of steady light. The Indian
grunted again, August vented his "ha!" and then Jack saw the light blink
like a star, go out for a second, and blink again.

"That's what I like to see," said August. "We're answered. Now all's
over but the work."

Work it certainly was, as Jack discovered next day. He helped the
brothers cut down cedars while August hauled them into line with his
roan. What with this labor and the necessary camp duties nearly a week
passed, and in the mean time Black Bolly recovered from her lameness.

Twice the workers saw Silvermane standing on open high ridges, restive
and suspicious, with his silver mane flying, and his head turned over his
shoulder, watching, always watching.

"It'd be worth something to find out how long that stallion could go
without water," commented Dave. "But we'll make his tongue hang out
to-morrow. It'd serve him right to break him with Black Bolly."

Daylight came warm and misty; veils unrolled from the desert; a purple
curtain lifted from the eastern crags; then the red sun burned.

Dave and Billy Naab mounted their mustangs, and each led another mount by
a halter.

"We'll go to the ridge, cut Silvermane out of his band and warm him up;
then we'll drive him down to this end."

Hare, in his eagerness, found the time very tedious while August delayed
about camp, punching new holes in his saddle-girth, shortening his
stirrups, and smoothing kinks out of his lasso. At last he saddled the
roan, and also Black Bolly. Mescal came out of her tent ready for the
chase; she wore a short skirt of buckskin, and leggings of the same
material. Her hair, braided, and fastened at the back, was bound by a
double band closely fitting her black head. Hare walked, leading two
mustangs by the halters, and Naab and Mescal rode, each of them followed
by two other spare mounts. August tied three mustangs at one point along
the level stretch, and three at another. Then he led Mescal and Jack to
the top of the stone wall above the corral, where they had good view of a
considerable part of the plateau.

The eastern rise of ground, a sage and juniper slope, was in plain sight.
Hare saw a white flash; then Silvermane broke out of the cedars into the
sage. One of the brothers raced him half the length of the slope, and
then the other coming out headed him off down toward the forest. Soon
the pounding of hoofs sounded through the trees nearer and nearer.
Silvermane came out straight ahead on the open level. He was running
easily.

"He hasn't opened up yet," said August.

Hare watched the stallion with sheer fascination; He ran seemingly
without effort. What a stride he had. How beautifully his silver mane
waved in the wind! He veered off to the left, out of sight in the brush,
while Dave and Billy galloped up to the spot where August had tied the
first three mustangs. Here they dismounted, changed saddles to fresh
horses, and were off again.

The chase now was close and all down-hill for the watchers. Silvermane
twinkled in and out among the cedars, and suddenly stopped short on the
rim. He wheeled and coursed away toward the crags, and vanished. But
soon he reappeared, for Billy had cut across and faced him about. Again
he struck the level stretch. Dave was there in front of him. He shot
away to the left, and flashed through the glades beyond. The brothers
saved their steeds, content to keep him cornered in that end of the
plateau. Then August spurred his roan into the scene of action.
Silvermane came out on the one piece of rising ground beyond the level,
and stood looking backward toward the brothers. When the great roan
crashed through the thickets into his sight he leaped as if he had been
stung, and plunged away.

The Naabs had hemmed him in a triangle, Dave and Billy at the broad end,
August at the apex, and now the real race began. August chased him up
and down, along the rim, across to the long line of cedars, always in the
end heading him for the open stretch. Down this he fled with flying
mane, only to be checked by the relentless brothers. To cover this broad
end of the open required riding the like of which Hare had never dreamed
of. The brothers, taking advantage of the brief periods when the
stallion was going toward August, changed their tired mustangs for fresh
ones.

"Ho! Mescal!" rolled out August's voice. That was the call for Mescal to
put Black Bolly after Silvermane. Her fleetness made the other mustangs
seem slow. All in a flash she was round the corral, with Silvermane
between her and the long fence of cedars. Uttering a piercing snort of
terror the gray stallion lunged out, for the first time panic-stricken,
and lengthened his stride in a wonderful way. He raced down the stretch
with his head over his shoulder watching the little black. Seeing her
gaining, he burst into desperate headlong flight. He saved nothing; he
had found his match; he won that first race down the level but it had
cost him his best. If he had been fresh he might have left Black Bolly
far behind, but now he could not elude her.

August Naab let him run this time, and Silvermane, keeping close to the
fence, passed the gate, ran down to the rim, and wheeled. The black
mustang was on him again, holding him in close to the fence, driving him
back down the stretch.

The brothers remorselessly turned him, and now Mescal, forcing the
running, caught him, lashed his haunches with her whip, and drove him
into the gate of the corral.

August and his two sons were close behind, and blocked the gate.
Silvermane's race was nearly run.

"Hold here, boys," said August. "I'll go in and drive him round and
round till he's done, then, when I yell, you stand aside and rope him as
he comes out."

Silvermane ran round the corral, tore at the steep scaly walls, fell back
and began his weary round again and yet again. Then as sense and courage
yielded gradually to unreasoning terror, he ran blindly; every time he
passed the guarded gateway his eyes were wilder, and his stride more
labored.

"Now!" yelled August Naab.

Mescal drew out of the opening, and Dave and Billy pulled away, one on
each side, their lassoes swinging loosely.

Silvermane sprang for the opening with something of his old speed. As he
went through, yellow loops flashed in the sun, circling, narrowing, and
he seemed to run straight into them. One loop whipped close round his
glossy neck; the other caught his head. Dave's mustang staggered under
the violent shock, went to his knees, struggled up and held firmly.
Bill's mount slid on his haunches and spilled his rider from the saddle.
Silvermane seemed to be climbing into the air. Then August Naab, darting
through the gate in a cloud of dust, shot his lasso, catching the right
foreleg. Silvermane landed hard, his hoofs striking fire from the
stones; and for an instant strained in convulsive struggle; then fell
heaving and groaning. In a twinkling Billy loosened his lasso over a
knot, making of it a halter, and tied the end to a cedar stump.

The Naabs stood back and gazed at their prize.

Silvermane was badly spent; he was wet with foam, but no fleck of blood
marred his mane; his superb coat showed scratches, but none cut into the
flesh. After a while he rose, panting heavily, and trembling in every
muscle. He was a beaten horse; the noble head was bowed; yet he showed
no viciousness, only the fear of a trapped animal. He eyed Black Bolly
and then the halter, as though he had divined the fatal connection
between them.

FOR a few days after the capture of Silvermane, a time full to the brim
of excitement for Hare, he had no word with Mescal, save for morning and
evening greetings. When he did come to seek her, with a purpose which
had grown more impelling since August Naab's arrival, he learned to his
bewilderment that she avoided him. She gave him no chance to speak with
her alone; her accustomed resting-place on the rim at sunset knew her no
more; early after supper she retired to her tent.

Hare nursed a grievance for forty-eight hours, and then, taking advantage
of Piute's absence on an errand down to the farm, and of the Naabs'
strenuous day with four vicious wild horses in the corral at one time, he
walked out to the pasture where Mescal shepherded the flock.

"Mescal, why are you avoiding me?" he asked. "What has happened?"

She looked tired and unhappy, and her gaze, instead of meeting his,
wandered to the crags.

"Nothing," she replied.

"But there must be something. You have given me no chance to talk to
you, and I wanted to know if you'd let me speak to Father Naab."

"To Father Naab? Why—what about?"

"About you, of course—and me—that I love you and want to marry you."

She turned white. "No—no!"

Hare paused blankly, not so much at her refusal as at the unmistakable
fear in her face.

"Why—not?" he asked presently, with an odd sense of trouble. There was
more here than Mescal's habitual shyness.

"Because he'll be terribly angry."

"Angry—I don't understand. Why angry?"

The girl did not answer, and looked so forlorn that Hare attempted to
take her in his arms. She resisted and broke from him.

"You must never—never do that again."

Hare drew back sharply.

"Why not? What's wrong? You must tell me, Mescal."

"I remembered." She hung her head.

"Remembered—what?"

"I am pledged to marry Father Naab's eldest son."

For a moment Hare did not understand. He stared at her unbelievingly.

"What did you say?" he asked, slowly.

Mescal repeated her words in a whisper.

"But—but Mescal—I love you. You let me kiss you," said Hare stupidly,
as if he did not grasp her meaning. "You let me kiss you," he repeated.

"Oh, Jack, I forgot," she wailed. "It was so new, so strange, to have
you up here. It was like a kind of dream. And after—after you kissed
me I—I found out—"

"What, Mescal?"

Her silence answered him.

"But, Mescal, if you really love me you can't marry any one else," said
Hare. It was the simple persistence of a simple swain.

"Oh, you don't know, you don't know. It's impossible!"

"Impossible!" Hare's anger flared up. "You let me believe I had won you.
What kind of a girl are you? You were not true. Your actions were
lies."

"Not lies," she faltered, and turned her face from him.

With no gentle hand he grasped her arm and forced her to look at him.
But the misery in her eyes overcame him, and he roughly threw his arms
around her and held her close.

"It can't be a lie. You do care for me—love me. Look at me." He drew
her head back from his breast. Her face was pale and drawn; her eyes
closed tight, with tears forcing a way out under the long lashes; her
lips were parted. He bowed to their sweet nearness; he kissed them again
and again, while the shade of the cedars seemed to whirl about him. "I
love you, Mescal. You are mine—I will have you—I will keep you—I will
not let him have you!"

She vibrated to that like a keen strung wire under a strong touch. All
in a flash the trembling, shame-stricken girl was transformed. She
leaned back in his arms, supple, pliant with quivering life, and for the
first time gave him wide-open level eyes, in which there were now no
tears, no shyness, no fear, but a dark smouldering fire.

"You do love me, Mescal?"

"I—I couldn't help it."

There was a pause, tense with feeling.

"Mescal, tell me—about your being pledged," he said, at last.

"I gave him my promise because there was nothing else to do. I was
pledged to—to him in the church at White Sage. It can't be changed.
I've got to marry—Father Naab's eldest son."

"Eldest son?" echoed Jack, suddenly mindful of the implication. "Why!
that's Snap Naab. Ah! I begin to see light. That—Mescal—"

"I hate him."

"You hate him and you're pledged to marry him! . . . God! Mescal, I'd
utterly forgotten Snap Naab already has a wife."

"You've also forgotten that we're Mormons."

"Are you a Mormon?" he queried bluntly.

"I've been raised as one."

"That's not an answer. Are you one? Do you believe any man under God's
sky ought to have more than one wife at a time?"

"No. But I've been taught that it gave woman greater glory in heaven.
There have been men here before you, men who talked to me, and I doubted
before I ever saw you. And afterward—I knew."

"Would not Father Naab release you?"