Zane Grey (14 page)

SOON the shepherds were left to a quiet unbroken by the whistle of wild
mustangs, the whoop of hunters, the ring of iron-shod hoofs on the
stones. The scream of an eagle, the bleating of sheep, the bark of a
coyote were once more the only familiar sounds accentuating the silence
of the plateau. For Hare, time seemed to stand still. He thought but
little; his whole life was a matter of feeling from without. He rose at
dawn, never failing to see the red sun tip the eastern crags; he glowed
with the touch of cold spring-water and the morning air; he trailed
Silvermane under the cedars and thrilled when the stallion, answering his
call, thumped the ground with hobbled feet and came his way, learning day
by day to be glad at sight of his master. He rode with Mescal behind the
flock; he hunted hour by hour, crawling over the fragrant brown mats of
cedar, through the sage and juniper, up the grassy slopes. He rode back
to camp beside Mescal, drove the sheep, and put Silvermane to his
fleetest to beat Black Bolly down the level stretch where once the gray,
even with freedom at stake, had lost to the black. Then back to camp and
fire and curling blue smoke, a supper that testified to busy Piute's
farmward trips, sunset on the rim, endless changing desert, the wind in
the cedars, bright stars in the blue, and sleep—so time stood still.

Mescal and Hare were together, or never far apart, from dawn to night.
Until the sheep were in the corral, every moment had its duty, from
camp-work and care of horses to the many problems of the flock, so that
they earned the rest on the rim-wall at sundown. Only a touch of hands
bridged the chasm between them. They never spoke of their love, of
Mescal's future, of Jack's return to hearth; a glance and a smile,
scarcely sad yet not altogether happy, was the substance of their dream.
Where Jack had once talked about the canyon and desert, he now seldom
spoke at all. From watching Mescal he had learned that to see was
enough. But there were moments when some association recalled the past
and the strangeness of the present faced him. Then he was wont to
question Mescal.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked, curiously, interrupting their
silence. She leaned against the rocks and kept a changeless, tranquil,
unseeing gaze on the desert. The level eyes were full of thought, of
sadness, of mystery; they seemed to look afar.

Then she turned to him with puzzled questioning look and enigmatical
reply. "Thinking?" asked her eyes. "I wasn't thinking," were her words.

"I fancied—I don't know exactly what," he went on. "You looked so
earnest. Do you ever think of going to the Navajos?"

"No."

"Or across that Painted Desert to find some place you seem to know, or
see?"

"No."

"I don't know why, but, Mescal, sometimes I have the queerest ideas when
I catch your eyes watching, watching. You look at once happy and sad.
You see something out there that I can't see. Your eyes are haunted.
I've a feeling that if I'd look into them I'd see the sun setting, the
clouds coloring, the twilight shadows changing; and then back of that the
secret of it all—of you—Oh! I can't explain, but it seems so."

"I never had a secret, except the one you know," she answered. "You ask
me so often what I think about, and you always ask me when we're here."
She was silent for a pause. "I don't think at all till you make me.
It's beautiful out there. But that's not what it is to me. I can't tell
you. When I sit down here all within me is—is somehow stilled. I
watch—and it's different from what it is now, since you've made me
think. Then I watch, and I see, that's all."

It came to Hare afterward with a little start of surprise that Mescal's
purposeless, yet all-satisfying, watchful gaze had come to be part of his
own experience. It was inscrutable to him, but he got from it a fancy,
which he tried in vain to dispel, that something would happen to them out
there on the desert.

And then he realized that when they returned to the camp-fire they
seemed freed from this spell of the desert. The blaze-lit circle was
shut in by the darkness; and the immensity of their wild environment,
because for the hour it could not be seen, lost its paralyzing effect.
Hare fell naturally into a talkative mood. Mescal had developed a
vivacity, an ambition which contrasted strongly with her silent moods;
she became alive and curious, human like the girls he had known in the
East, and she fascinated him the more for this complexity.

The July rains did not come; the mists failed; the dews no longer
freshened the grass, and the hot sun began to tell on shepherds and
sheep. Both sought the shade. The flowers withered first—all the
blue-bells and lavender patches of primrose, and pale-yellow lilies, and
white thistle-blossoms. Only the deep magenta of cactus and vermilion of
Indian paint-brush, flowers of the sun, survived the heat. Day by day
the shepherds scanned the sky for storm-clouds that did not appear. The
spring ran lower and lower. At last the ditch that carried water to the
corral went dry, and the margin of the pool began to retreat. Then
Mescal sent Piute down for August Naab.

He arrived at the plateau the next day with Dave and at once ordered the
breaking up of camp.

"It will rain some time," he said, "but we can't wait any longer. Dave,
when did you last see the Blue Star waterhole?"

"On the trip in from Silver Cup, ten days ago. The waterhole was full
then."

"Will there be water enough now?"

"We've got to chance it. There's no water here, and no springs on the
upper range where we can drive sheep; we've got to go round under the
Star."

"That's so," replied August. His fears needed confirmation, because his
hopes always influenced his judgment till no hope was left. "I wish I had
brought Zeke and George. It'll be a hard drive, though we've got Jack
and Mescal to help."

Hot as it was August Naab lost no time in the start. Piute led the train
on foot, and the flock, used to following him, got under way readily.
Dave and Mescal rode along the sides, and August with Jack came behind,
with the pack-burros bringing up the rear. Wolf circled them all,
keeping the flanks close in, heading the lambs that strayed, and, ever
vigilant, made the drive orderly and rapid.

The trail to the upper range was wide and easy of ascent, the first of it
winding under crags, the latter part climbing long slopes. It forked
before the summit, where dark pine trees showed against the sky, one fork
ascending, the other, which Piute took, beginning to go down. It
admitted of no extended view, being shut in for the most part on the
left, but there were times when Hare could see a curving stream of sheep
on half a mile of descending trail. Once started down the flock could
not be stopped, that was as plain as Piute's hard task. There were times
when Hare could have tossed a pebble on the Indian just below him, yet
there were more than three thousand sheep, strung out in line between
them. Clouds of dust rolled up, sheets of gravel and shale rattled down
the inclines, the clatter, clatter, clatter of little hoofs, the steady
baa-baa-baa filled the air. Save for the crowding of lambs off the
trail, and a jamming of sheep in the corners, the drive went on without
mishap. Hare was glad to see the lambs scramble back bleating for their
mothers, and to note that, though peril threatened at every steep turn,
the steady down-flow always made space for the sheep behind. He was
glad, too, when through a wide break ahead his eye followed the face of a
vast cliff down to the red ground below, and he knew the flock would soon
be safe on the level.

A blast as from a furnace smote Hare from this open break in the wall.
The air was dust-laden, and carried besides the smell of dust and the
warm breath of desert growths, a dank odor that was unpleasant.

The sheep massed in a flock on the level, and the drivers spread to their
places. The route lay under projecting red cliffs, between the base and
enormous sections of wall that had broken off and fallen far out. There
was no weathering slope; the wind had carried away the smaller stones and
particles, and had cut the huge pieces of pinnacle and tower into
hollowed forms. This zone of rim merged into another of strange
contrast, the sloping red stream of sand which flowed from the wall of
the canyon.

Piute swung the flock up to the left into an amphitheatre, and there
halted. The sheep formed a densely packed mass in the curve of the wall.
Dave Naab galloped back toward August and Hare, and before he reached
them shouted out: "The waterhole's plugged!"

"What?" yelled his father.

"Plugged, filled with stone and sand."

"Was it a cave-in?"

"I reckon not. There's been no rain."

August spurred his roan after Dave, and Hare kept close behind them, till
they reined in on a muddy bank. What had once been a waterhole was a red
and yellow heap of shale, fragments of stones, gravel, and sand. There
was no water, and the sheep were bleating. August dismounted and climbed
high above the hole to examine the slope; soon he strode down with giant
steps, his huge fists clinched, shaking his gray mane like a lion.

"I've found the tracks! Somebody climbed up and rolled the stones,
started the cave-in. Who?"

"Holderness's men. They did the same for Martin Cole's waterhole at
Rocky Point. How old are the tracks?"

"Two days, perhaps. We can't follow them. What can be done?"

"Some of Holderness's men are Mormons, and others are square fellows.
They wouldn't stand for such work as this, and somebody ought to ride in
there and tell them."

"And get shot up by the men paid to do the dirty work. No. I won't hear
of it. This amounts to nothing; we seldom use this hole, only twice a
year when driving the flock. But it makes me fear for Silver Cup and
Seeping Springs."

"It makes me fear for the sheep, if this wind doesn't change."

"Ah! I had forgotten the river scent. It's not strong to-night. We
might venture if it wasn't for the strip of sand. We'll camp here and
start the drive at dawn."

The sun went down under a crimson veil; a dull glow spread, fan-shaped,
upward; twilight faded to darkness with the going down of the wind.
August Naab paced to and fro before his tired and thirsty flock.

"I'd like to know," said Hare to Dave, "why those men filled up this
waterhole."

"Holderness wants to cut us off from Silver Cup Spring, and this was a
half-way waterhole. Probably he didn't know we had the sheep upland, but
he wouldn't have cared. He's set himself to get our cattle range and
he'll stop at nothing. Prospects look black for us. Father never gives
up. He doesn't believe yet that we can lose our water. He prays and
hopes, and sees good and mercy in his worst enemies."

"If Holderness works as far as Silver Cup, how will he go to work to
steal another man's range and water?"

"He'll throw up a cabin, send in his men, drive in ten thousand steers."

"Well, will his men try to keep you away from your own water, or your
cattle?"

"Not openly. They'll pretend to welcome us, and drive our cattle away in
our absence. You see there are only five of us to ride the ranges, and
we'd need five times five to watch all the stock."

"Then you can't stop this outrage?"

"There's only one way," said Dave, significantly tapping the black handle
of his Colt. "Holderness thinks he pulls the wool over our eyes by
talking of the cattle company that employs him. He's the company
himself, and he's hand and glove with Dene."

"And I suppose, if your father and you boys were to ride over to
Holderness's newest stand, and tell him to get off there would be a
fight."

"We'd never reach him now, that is, if we went together. One of us alone
might get to see him, especially in White Sage. If we all rode over to
his ranch we'd have to fight his men before we reached the corrals. You
yourself will find it pretty warm when you go out with us on the ranges,
and if you make White Sage you'll find it hot. You're called 'Dene's
spy' there, and the rustlers are still looking for you. I wouldn't worry
about it, though."

"Why not, I'd like to know?" inquired Hare, with a short laugh.

"Well, if you're like the other Gentiles who have come into Utah you
won't have scruples about drawing on a man. Father says the draw comes
natural to you, and you're as quick as he is. Then he says you can beat
any rifle shot he ever saw, and that long-barrelled gun you've got will
shoot a mile. So if it comes to shooting—why, you can shoot. If you
want to run—who's going to catch you on that white-maned stallion? We
talked about you, George and I; we're mighty glad you're well and can
ride with us."

Long into the night Jack Hare thought over this talk. It opened up a
vista of the range-life into which he was soon to enter. He tried to
silence the voice within that cried out, eager and reckless, for the long
rides on the windy open. The years of his illness returned in fancy, the
narrow room with the lamp and the book, and the tears over stories and
dreams of adventure never to be for such as he. And now how wonderful
was life! It was, after all, to be full for him. It was already full.
Already he slept on the ground, open to the sky. He looked up at a wild
black cliff, mountain-high, with its windworn star of blue; he felt
himself on the threshold of the desert, with that subtle mystery waiting;
he knew himself to be close to strenuous action on the ranges, companion
of these sombre Mormons, exposed to their peril, making their cause his
cause, their life his life. What of their friendship, their confidence?
Was he worthy? Would he fail at the pinch? What a man he must become to
approach their simple estimate of him! Because he had found health and
strength, because he could shoot, because he had the fleetest horse on
the desert, were these reasons for their friendship? No, these were only
reasons for their trust. August Naab loved him. Mescal loved him; Dave
and George made of him a brother. "They shall have my life," he muttered.