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Upton Sinclair - "The Profits of Religion"

Amelia E. Barr - "Remember the Alamo "

Wilkie Collins - "The Legacy of Cain"

Lucy Maud Montgomery - "Anne's House of Dreams"

Desert Gold

Z >> Zane Grey >> Desert Gold




Blanco Sol walked or jog-trotted six miles to the hour. At that
gait fifty miles would not have wet or turned a hair of his dazzling
white coat. Gale, bearing in mind the ever-present possibility of
encountering more raiders and of being pursued, saved the strength
of the horse. Once out of sight of Papago Well, Gale dismounted
and walked beside the horse, steadying with one firm hand the
helpless, dangling Yaqui.

The sun cleared the eastern ramparts, and the coolness of morning
fled as if before a magic foe. The whole desert changed. The grays
wore bright; the mesquites glistened; the cactus took the silver
hue of frost, and the rocks gleamed gold and red. Then, as the
heat increased, a wind rushed up out of the valley behind Gale,
and the hotter the sun blazed down the swifter rushed the wind.
The wonderful transparent haze of distance lost its bluish hue for
one with tinge of yellow. Flying sand made the peaks dimly outlined.

Gale kept pace with his horse. He bore the twinge of pain that
darted through his injured hip at every stride. His eye roved
over the wide, smoky prospect seeking the landmarks he knew.
When the wild and bold spurs of No Name Mountains loomed through
a rent in flying clouds of sand he felt nearer home. Another hour
brought him abreast of a dark, straight shaft rising clear from a
beetling escarpment. This was a monument marking the international
boundary line. When he had passed it he had his own country under
foot. In the heat of midday he halted in the shade of a rock, and,
lifting the Yak down, gave him a drink. Then, after a long,
sweeping survey of the surrounding desert, he removed Sold's saddle
and let him roll, and took for himself a welcome rest and a bite
to eat.

The Yak was tenacious of life. He was still holding his own.
For the first time Gale really looked at the Indian to study him.
He had a large head nobly cast, and a face that resembled a
shrunken mask. It seemed chiseled in the dark-red, volcanic lava
of his Sooner wilderness. The Indian's eyes were always black
and mystic, but this Yak's encompassed all the tragic desolation
of the desert. They were fixed on Gale, moved only when he moved.
The Indian was short and broad, and his body showed unusual
muscular development, although he seemed greatly emaciated from
starvation or illness.

Gale resumed his homeward journey. When he got through the pass
he faced a great depression, as rough as if millions of gigantic
spikes had been driven by the hammer of Thorn into a seamed and
cracked floor. This was Altar Valley. It was a chaos of array's,
canyons, rocks, and ridges all mantled with cactus, and at its
eastern end it claimed the dry bed of Forlorn River and water
when there was any. With a wounded, helpless man across the saddle,
this stretch of thorny and contorted desert was practically impassable.
Yet Gale headed into it unflinchingly. He would carry the Yaqui as
far as possible, or until death made the burden no longer a duty.
Blanco Sol plodded on over the dragging sand, up and down the
steep, loose banks of washes, out on the rocks, and through the
rows of white-toothed choyas.

The sun sloped westward, bending fiercer heat in vengeful, parting
reluctance. The wind slackened. The dust settled. And the bold,
forbidding front of No Name Mountains changed to red and gold.
Gale held grimly by the side of the tireless, implacable horse,
holding the Yaqui on the saddle, taking the brunt of the merciless
thorns. In the end it became heartrending toil. His heavy chaps
dragged him down; but he dared not go on without them, for,
thick and stiff as they were, the terrible, steel-bayoneted spikes
of the choyas pierced through to sting his legs.

To the last mile Gale held to Blanco Sol's gait and kept
ever-watchful gaze ahead on the trail. Then, with the low, flat
houses of Forlorn River shining red in the sunset, Gale flagged
and rapidly weakened. The Yaqui slipped out of the saddle and
dropped limp in the sand. Gale could not mount his horse. He
clutched Sol's long tail and twisted his hand in it and staggered on.

Blanco Sol whistled a piercing blast. He scented cool water and
sweet alfalfa hay. Twinkling lights ahead meant rest. The
melancholy desert twilight rapidly succeeded the sunset. It
accentuated the forlorn loneliness of the gray, winding river of
sand and its grayer shores. Night shadows trooped down from the
black and looming mountains.



VII



White Horses

"A crippled Yaqui! Why the hell did you saddle yourself with him?"
roared Belding, as he laid Gale upon the bed.

Belding had grown hard these late, violent weeks.

"Because I chose," whispered Gale, in reply. "Go after him--he
dropped in the trail--across the river--near the first big saguaro."

Belding began to swear as he fumbled with matches and the lamp;
but as the light flared up he stopped short in the middle of a word.

"You said you weren't hurt?" he demanded, in sharp anxiety, as he
bent over Gale.

"I'm only--all in....Will you go--or send some one--for the Yaqui?"

"Sure, Dick, sure," Belding replied, in softer tones. Then he
stalked out; his heels rang on the flagstones; he opened a door
and called: "Mother--girls, here's Dick back. He's done up....Now
--no, no, he's not hurt or in bad shape. You women!...Do what
you can to make him comfortable. I've got a little job on hand."

There were quick replies that Gale's dulling ears did not
distinguish. Then it seemed Mrs. Belding was beside his bed, her
presence so cool and soothing and helpful, and Mercedes and Nell,
wide-eyed and white-faced, were fluttering around him. He drank
thirstily, but refused food. He wanted rest. And with their faces
drifting away in a kind of haze, with the feeling of gentle hands
about him, he lost consciousness.

He slept twenty hours. then he arose, thirsty, hungry, lame,
overworn, and presently went in search of Belding and the business
of the day.

"Your Yaqui was near dead, but guess we'll pull him through," said
Belding. "Dick, the other day that Indian came here by rail and
foot and Lord only knows how else, all the way from New Orleans!
He spoke English better than most Indians, and I know a little
Yaqui. I got some of his story and guessed the rest. The Mexican
government is trying to root out the Yaquis. A year ago his tribe
was taken in chains to a Mexican port on the Gulf. The fathers,
mothers, children, were separated and put in ships bound for
Yucatan. There they were made slaves on the great henequen
plantations. They were driven, beaten, starved. Each slave had
for a day's rations a hunk of sour dough, no more. Yucatan is low,
marshy, damp, hot. The Yaquis were bred on the high, dry Sonoran
plateau, where the air is like a knife. They dropped dead in the
henequen fields, and their places were taken by more. You see,
the Mexicans won't kill outright in their war of extermination of
the Yaquis. They get use out of them. It's a horrible
thing....Well, this Yaqui you brought in escaped from his captors,
got aboard ship, and eventually reached New Orleans. Somehow
he traveled way out here. I gave him a bag of food, and he went
off with a Papago Indian. He was a sick man then. And he must
have fallen foul of some Greasers."

Gale told of his experience at Papago Well.

"That raider who tried to grind the Yaqui under a horse's hoofs--he
was a hyena!" concluded Gale, shuddering. "I've seen some blood
spilled and some hard sights, but that inhuman devil took my nerve.
Why, as I told you, Belding, I missed a shot at him--not twenty
paces!"

"Dick, in cases like that the sooner you clean up the bunch the
better," said Belding, grimly. "As for hard sights--wait till
you've seen a Yaqui do up a Mexican.

Bar none, that is the limit! It's blood lust, a racial hate, deep
as life, and terrible. The Spaniards crushed the Aztecs four or
five hundred years ago. That hate has had time to grow as deep
as a cactus root. The Yaquis are mountain Aztecs. Personally, I
think they are noble and intelligent, and if let alone would be
peaceable and industrious. I like the few I've known. But they
are a doomed race. Have you any idea what ailed this Yaqui before
the raider got in his work?"

"No, I haven't. I noticed the Indian seemed in bad shape; but I
couldn't tell what was the matter with him."

"Well, my idea is another personal one. Maybe it's off color. I
think that Yaqui was, or is, for that matter, dying of a broken
heart. All he wanted was to get back to his mountains and die.
There are no Yaquis left in that part of Sonora he was bound for."

"He had a strange look in his eyes," said Gale, thoughtfully.

"Yes, I noticed that. But all Yaquis have a wild look. Dick, if
I'm not mistaken, this fellow was a chief. It was a waste of
strength, a needless risk for you to save him, pack him back here.
but, damn the whole Greaser outfit generally, I'm glad you did!"

Gale remembered then to speak of his concern for Ladd.

"Laddy didn't go out to meet you," replied Belding. "I knew you
were due in any day, and, as there's been trouble between here
and Casita, I sent him that way. Since you've been out our friend
Carter lost a bunch of horses and a few steers. Did you get a good
look at the horses those raiders had at Papago Well?"

Dick had learned, since he had become a ranger, to see everything
with keen, sure, photographic eye; and, being put to the test so
often required of him, he described the horses as a dark-colored
drove, mostly bays and blacks, with one spotted sorrel.

"Some of Carter's--sure as you're born!" exclaimed Belding. "His
bunch has been split up, divided among several bands of raiders.
He has a grass ranch up here in Three Mile Arroyo. It's a good
long ride in U. S. territory from the border."

"Those horses I saw will go home, don't you think?" asked Dick.

"Sure. They can't be caught or stopped."

"Well, what shall I do now?"

"Stay here and rest," bluntly replied Belding. "You need it. Let
the women fuss over you--doctor you a little. When Jim gets back
from Sonoyta I'll know more about what we ought to do. By Lord!
it seems our job now isn't keeping Japs and Chinks out of the U. S.
It's keeping our property from going into Mexico."

"Are there any letters for me?" asked Gale.

"Letters! Say, my boy, it'd take something pretty important to
get me or any man here back Casita way. If the town is safe these
days the road isn't. It's a month now since any one went to
Casita."

Gale had received several letters from his sister Elsie, the last of
which he had not answered. There had not been much opportunity
for writing on his infrequent returns to Forlorn River; and,
besides, Elsie had written that her father had stormed over what
he considered Dick's falling into wild and evil ways.

"Time flies," said Dick. "George Thorne will be free before long,
and he'll be coming out. I wonder if he'll stay here or try to take
Mercedes away?"

"Well, he'll stay right here in Forlorn River, if I have any say,"
replied Belding. "I'd like to know how he'd ever get that Spanish
girl out of the country now, with all the trails overrun by rebels
and raiders. It'd be hard to disguise her. Say, Dick, maybe we
can get Thorne to stay here. You know, since you've discovered
the possibility of a big water supply, I've had dreams of a future
for Forlorn River....If only this war was over!

Dick, that's what it is--war--scattered war along the northern
border of Mexico from gulf to gulf. What if it isn't our war?
We're on the fringe. No, we can't develop Forlorn River until
there's peace."

The discovery that Belding alluded to was one that might very
well lead to the making of a wonderful and agricultural district
of Altar Valley. While in college Dick Gale had studied
engineering, but he had not set the scientific world afire with his
brilliance. Nor after leaving college had he been able to satisfy
his father that he could hold a job. Nevertheless, his smattering
of engineering skill bore fruit in the last place on earth where
anything might have been expected of it--in the desert. Gale had
always wondered about the source of Forlorn River. No white man
or Mexican, or, so far as known, no Indian, had climbed those
mighty broken steps of rock called No Name Mountains, from which
Forlorn River was supposed to come. Gale had discovered a long,
narrow, rock-bottomed and rock-walled gulch that could be dammed
at the lower end by the dynamiting of leaning cliffs above. An
inexhaustible supply of water could be stored there. Furthermore,
he had worked out an irrigation plan to bring the water down for
mining uses, and to make a paradise out of that part of Altar Valley
which lay in the United States. Belding claimed there was gold in
the arroyos, gold in the gulches, not in quantities to make a
prospector rejoice, but enough to work for. And the soil on the
higher levels of Altar Valley needed only water to make it grow
anything the year round. Gale, too, had come to have dreams of
a future for Forlorn River.

On the afternoon of the following day Ladd unexpectedly appeared
leading a lame and lathered horse into the yard. Belding and Gale,
who were at work at the forge, looked up and were surprised out
of speech. The legs of the horse were raw and red, and he seemed
about to drop. Ladd's sombrero was missing; he wore a bloody scarf
round his head; sweat and blood and dust had formed a crust on his
face; little streams of powdery dust slid from him; and the lower
half of his scarred chaps were full of broken white thorns.

"Howdy, boys," he drawled. "I shore am glad to see you all."

"Where'n hell's your hat?" demanded Belding, furiously. It was a
ridiculous greeting. But Belding's words signified little. The
dark shade of worry and solicitude crossing his face told more
than his black amaze.

The ranger stopped unbuckling the saddle girths, and, looking
at Belding, broke into his slow, cool laugh.

"Tom, you recollect that whopper of a saguaro up here where
Carter's trail branches off the main trail to Casita? Well, I
climbed it an' left my hat on top for a woodpecker's nest."

"You've been running--fighting?" queried Belding, as if Ladd had
not spoken at all.

"I reckon it'll dawn on you after a while," replied Ladd, slipping
the saddle.

"Laddy, go in the house to the women," said Belding. "I'll tend to
your horse."

"Shore, Tom, in a minute. I've been down the road. An' I found
hoss tracks an' steer tracks goin' across the line. But I seen no
sign of raiders till this mornin'. Slept at Carter's last night.
That raid the other day cleaned him out. He's shootin' mad. Well,
this mornin' I rode plumb into a bunch of Carter's hosses, runnin'
wild for home. Some Greasers were tryin' to head them round an'
chase them back across the line. I rode in between an' made
matters embarrassin'. Carter's hosses got away. Then me an' the
Greasers had a little game of hide an' seek in the cactus. I was on
the wrong side, an' had to break through their line to head toward
home. We run some. But I had a closer call than I'm stuck on
havin'."

"Laddy, you wouldn't have any such close calls if you'd ride one
of my horses," expostulated Belding. "This broncho of yours
can run, and Lord knows he's game. But you want a big,
strong horse, Mexican bred, with cactus in his blood.
Take one of the bunch--Bull, White Woman, Blanco Jose."

"I had a big, fast horse a while back, but I lost him," said Ladd.
"This bronch ain't so bad. Shore Bull an' that white devil with
his Greaser name--they could run down my bronch, kill him in
a mile of cactus. But, somehow, Tom, I can't make up my mind to
take one of them grand white hosses. Shore I reckon I'm kinda
soft. An' mebbe I'd better take one before the raiders clean up
Forlorn River."

Belding cursed low and deep in his throat, and the sound resembled
muttering thunder. The shade of anxiety on his face changed to
one of dark gloom and passion. Next to his wife and daughter there
was nothing so dear to him as those white horses. His father and
grandfather--all his progenitors of whom he had trace--had been
lovers of horses. It was in Belding's blood.

"Laddy, before it's too late can't I get the whites away from the
border?"

"Mebbe it ain't too late; but where can we take them??

"To San Felipe?"

"No. We've more chance to hold them here.?

"To Casita and the railroad?"

"Afraid to risk gettin' there. An' the town's full of rebels who
need hosses."

"Then straight north?"

"Shore man, you're crazy. Ther's no water, no grass for a hundred
miles. I'll tell you, Tom, the safest plan would be to take the
white bunch south into Sonora, into some wild mountain valley.
Keep them there till the raiders have traveled on back east. Pretty
soon there won't be any rich pickin' left for these Greasers. An'
then they'll ride on to new ranges."

"Laddy, I don't know the trails into Sonora. An' I can't trust a
Mexican or a Papago. Between you and me, I'm afraid of this
Indian who herds for me."

"I reckon we'd better stick here, Tom....Dick, it's some good to
see you again. But you seem kinda quiet. Shore you get quieter
all the time. Did you see any sign of Jim out Sonoyta way?"

Then Belding led the lame horse toward the watering-trough,
while the two rangers went toward the house, Dick was telling
Ladd about the affair at Papago Well when they turned the corner
under the porch. Nell was sitting in the door. She rose with a
little scream and came flying toward them.

"Now I'll get it," whispered Ladd. "The women'll make a baby of
me. An' shore I can't help myself."

"Oh, Laddy, you've been hurt!" cried Nell, as with white cheeks
and dilating eyes she ran to him and caught his arm.

"Nell, I only run a thorn in my ear."

"Oh, Laddy, don't lie! You've lied before. I know you're hurt.
Come in to mother."

"Shore, Nell, it's only a scratch. My bronch throwed me."

"Laddy, no horse every threw you." The girl's words and accusing
eyes only hurried the ranger on to further duplicity.

"Mebbe I got it when I was ridin' hard under a mesquite, an' a
sharp snag--"

"You've been shot!...Mama, here's Laddy, and he's been shot!....Oh,
these dreadful days we're having! I can't bear them! Forlorn River
used to be so safe and quiet. Nothing happened. But now! Jim
comes home with a bloody hole in him--then Dick--then Laddy!....Oh,
I'm afraid some day they'll never come home."



The morning was bright, still, and clear as crystal. The heat waves
had not yet begun to rise from the desert.

A soft gray, white, and green tint perfectly blended lay like a
mantle over mesquite and sand and cactus. The canyons of distant
mountain showed deep and full of lilac haze.

Nell sat perched high upon the topmost bar of the corral gate. Dick
leaned beside her, now with his eyes on her face, now gazing out
into the alfalfa field where Belding's thoroughbreds grazed and
pranced and romped and whistled. Nell watched the horses. She
loved them, never tired of watching them. But her gaze was too
consciously averted from the yearning eyes that tried to meet hers
to be altogether natural.

A great fenced field of dark velvety green alfalfa furnished a rich
background for the drove of about twenty white horses. Even without
the horses the field would have presented a striking contrast to the
surrounding hot, glaring blaze of rock and sand. Belding had bred a
hundred or more horses from the original stock he had brought up
from Durango. His particular interest was in the almost
unblemished whites, and these he had given especial care. He made
a good deal of money selling this strain to friends among the
ranchers back in Texas. No mercenary consideration, however, could
have made him part with the great, rangy white horses he had gotten
from the Durango breeder. He called them Blanco Diablo (White
Devil), Blanco Sol (White Sun), Blanca Reina (White Queen), Blanca
Mujer (White Woman), and El Gran Toro Blanco (The Big White Bull).
Belding had been laughed at by ranchers for preserving the
sentimental Durango names, and he had been unmercifully ridiculed
by cowboys. The the names had never been changed.

Blanco Diablo was the only horse in the field that was not free to
roam and graze where he listed. A stake and a halter held him to
one corner, where he was severely let alone by the other horses.
He did not like this isolation. Blanco Diablo was not happy unless
he was running, or fighting a rival. Of the two he would rather fight.
If anything white could resemble a devil, this horse surely did. He had
nothing beautiful about him, yet he drew the gaze and held it. The look
of him suggested discontent, anger, revolt, viciousness. When he
was not grazing or prancing, he held his long, lean head level,
pointing his nose and showing his teeth. Belding's favorite was
almost all the world to him, and he swore Diablo could stand more
heat and thirst and cactus than any other horse he owned, and
could run down and kill any horse in the Southwest. The fact that
Ladd did not agree with Belding on these salient points was a great
disappointment, and also a perpetual source for argument. Ladd and
Lash both hated Diablo; and Dick Gale, after one or two narrow
escapes from being brained, had inclined to the cowboys' side of
the question.

El Gran Toro Blanco upheld his name. He was a huge, massive,
thick-flanked stallion, a kingly mate for his full-bodied, glossy
consort, Blanca Reina. The other mare, Blanca Mujer, was dazzling
white, without a spot, perfectly pointed, racy, graceful, elegant,
yet carrying weight and brawn and range that suggested her relation
to her forebears.

The cowboys admitted some of Belding's claims for Diablo, but they
gave loyal and unshakable allegiance to Blanco Sol. As for Dick, he
had to fight himself to keep out of arguments, for he sometimes
imagined he was unreasonable about the horse. Though he could not
understand himself, he knew he loved Sol as a man loved a friend,
a brother. Free of heavy saddle and the clumsy leg shields, Blanco
Sol was somehow all-satisfying to the eyes of the rangers. As long
and big as Diablo was, Sol was longer and bigger. Also, he was
higher, more powerful. He looked more a thing for action--speedier.

At a distance the honorable scars and lumps that marred his muscular
legs were not visible. He grazed aloof from the others, and did not
cavort nor prance; but when he lifted his head to whistle, how wild
he appeared, and proud and splendid! The dazzling whiteness of the
desert sun shone from his coat; he had the fire and spirit of the desert
in his noble head, its strength and power in his gigantic frame.

"Belding swears Sol never beat Diablo," Dick was saying.

"He believes it," replied Nell. "Dad is queer about that horse."

"But Laddy rode Sol once--made him beat Diablo. Jim saw the race."

Nell laughed. "I saw it, too. For that matter, even I have made
Sol put his nose before Dad's favorite."

"I'd like to have seen that. Nell, aren't you ever going to ride
with me?"

"Some day--when it's safe."

"Safe!"

"I--I mean when the raiders have left the border."

"Oh, I'm glad you mean that," said Dick, laughing.

"Well, I've often wondered how Belding ever came to give Blanco Sol
to me."

"He was jealous. I think he wanted to get rid of Sol."

"No? Why, Nell, he'd give Laddy or Jim one of the whites any day."

"Would he? Not Devil or Queen or White Woman. Never in this
world! But Dad has lots of fast horses the boys could pick from.
Dick, I tell you Dad wants Blanco Sol to run himself out--lose his
speed on the desert. Dad is just jealous for Diablo."

"Maybe. He surely has strange passion for horses. I think I
understand better than I used to. I owned a couple of racers
once. They were just animals to me, I guess. But Blanco Sol!"

"Do you love him?" asked Nell; and now a warm, blue flash of eyes
swept his face.

"Do I? Well, rather."

"I'm glad. Sol has been finer, a better horse since you
owned him. He loves you, Dick. He's always watching for you.
See him raise his head. That's for you. I know as much about
horses as Dad or Laddy any day. Sol always hated Diablo, and
he never had much use for Dad."

Dick looked up at her.

"It'll be--be pretty hard to leave Sol--when I go away."

Nell sat perfectly still.

"Go away?" she asked, presently, with just the faintest tremor in
her voice.

"Yes. Sometimes when I get blue--as I am to-day--I think I'll go.
But, in sober truth, Nell, it's not likely that I'll spend all my
life here."

There was no answer to this. Dick put his hand softly over hers;
and, despite her half-hearted struggle to free it, he held on.

"Nell!"

Her color fled. He saw her lips part. Then a heavy step on the
gravel, a cheerful, complaining voice interrupted him, and made
him release Nell and draw back. Belding strode into view round
the adobe shed.

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