The Heritage of the Desert

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Heritage of the Desert

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That night Hare endeavored to see Mescal alone for a few moments, to see
her once more with unguarded eyes, to whisper a few words, to say
good-bye; but it was impossible.On the morrow he rode out of the red
cliff gate with Dave and the pack-horses, a dull ache in his heart; for
amid the cheering crowd of children and women who bade them good-bye he
had caught the wave of Mescal's hand and a look of her eyes that would be
with him always. What might happen before he returned, if he ever did
return! For he knew now, as well as he could feel Silvermane's easy
stride, that out there under the white glare of desert, the white gleam
of the slopes of Coconina, was wild life awaiting him. And he shut his
teeth, and narrowed his eyes, and faced it with an eager joy that was in
strange contrast to the pang in his breast.

That morning the wind dipped down off the Vermillion Cliffs and whipped
west; there was no scent of river-water, and Hare thought of the fatality
of the sheep-drive, when, for one day out of the year, a moistened dank
breeze had met the flock on the narrow bench. Soon the bench lay far
behind them, and the strip of treacherous sand, and the maze of
sculptured cliff under the Blue Star, and the hummocky low ridges beyond,
with their dry white washes. Silvermane kept on in front. Already Hare
had learned that the gray would have no horse before him. His pace was
swift, steady, tireless. Dave was astride his Navajo mount, an
Indian-bred horse, half mustang, which had to be held in with a firm
rein. The pack train strung out far behind, trotting faithfully along,
with the white packs, like the humps of camels, nodding up and down.
Jack and Dave slackened their gait at the foot of the stony divide. It
was an ascent of miles, so long that it did not appear steep. Here the
pack-train caught up, and thereafter hung at the heels of the riders.

>From the broad bare summit Jack saw the Silver Cup valley -range with
eyes which seemed to magnify the winding trail, the long red wall, the
green slopes, the dots of sage and cattle. Then he made allowance for
months of unobstructed vision; he had learned to see; his eyes had
adjusted themselves to distance and dimensions.

Silver Cup Spring lay in a bright green spot close under a break in the
rocky slope that soon lost its gray cliff in the shaggy cedared side of
Coconina.

The camp of the brothers was situated upon this cliff in a split between
two sections of wall. Well sheltered from the north and west winds was a
grassy plot which afforded a good survey of the valley and the trails.
Dave and Jack received glad greetings from Zeke and George, and
Silvermane was an object of wonder and admiration. Zeke, who had often
seen the gray and chased him too, walked round and round him, stroking
the silver mane, feeling the great chest muscles, slapping his flanks.

"Well, well, Silvermane, to think I'd live to see you wearing a saddle
and bridle! He's even bigger than I thought. There's a horse, Hare!
Never will be another like him in this desert. If Dene ever sees that
horse he'll chase him to the Great Salt Basin. Dene's crazy about fast
horses. He's from Kentucky, somebody said, and knows a horse when he
sees one."

"How are things?" queried Dave.

"We can't complain much," replied Zeke, "though we've wasted some time on
old Whitefoot. He's been chasing our horses. It's been pretty hot and
dry. Most of the cattle are on the slopes; fair browse yet. There's a
bunch of steers gone up on the mountain, and some more round toward the
Saddle or the canyon."

"Been over Seeping Springs way?"

"Yes. No change since your trip. Holderness's cattle are ranging in the
upper valley. George found tracks near the spring. We believe somebody
was watching there and made off when we came up."

"We'll see Holderness's men when we get to riding out," put in George.
"And some of Dene's too. Zeke met Two-Spot Chance and Culver below at the
spring one day, sort of surprised them."

"What day was that?"

"Let's see, this's Friday. It was last Monday."

"What were they doing over here?"

"Said they were tracking a horse that had broken his hobbles. But they
seemed uneasy, and soon rode off."

"Did either of them ride a horse with one shoe shy?"

"Now I think of it, yes. Zeke noticed the track at the spring."

"Well, Chance and Culver had been out our way," declared Dave." I saw
their tracks, and they filled up the Blue Star waterhole--and cost us
three thousand sheep."

Then he related the story of the drive of the sheep, the finding of the
plugged waterhole, the scent of the Colorado, and the plunge of the sheep
into the canyon.

"We've saved one, Mescal's belled lamb," he concluded.

Neither Zeke nor George had a word in reply. Hare thought their silence
unnatural. Neither did the mask-like stillness of their faces change.
But Hare saw in their eyes a pointed clear flame, vibrating like a
compass-needle, a mere glimmering spark.

"I'd like to know," continued Dave, calmly poking the fire, "who hired
Dene's men to plug the waterhole. Dene couldn't do that. He loves a
horse, and any man who loves a horse couldn't fill a waterhole in this
desert."

Hare entered upon his new duties as a range-rider with a zeal that almost
made up for his lack of experience; he bade fair to develop into a
right-hand man for Dave, under whose watchful eye he worked. His natural
qualifications were soon shown; he could ride, though his seat was awk-
ward and clumsy compared to that of the desert rangers, a fault that Dave
said would correct itself as time fitted him close to the saddle and to
the swing of his horse. His sight had become extraordinarily keen for a
new-comer on the ranges, and when experience had taught him the land-
marks, the trails, the distances, the difference between smoke and dust
and haze, when he could distinguish a band of mustangs from cattle, and
range-riders from outlaws or Indians; in a word, when he had learned to
know what it was that he saw, to trust his judgment, he would have
acquired the basic feature of a rider's training. But he showed no gift
for the lasso, that other essential requirement of his new calling.

"It's funny," said Dave, patiently, "you can't get the hang of it. Maybe
it's born in a fellow. Now handling a gun seems to come natural for some
fellows, and you're one of them. If only you could get the rope away as
quick as you can throw your gun!"

Jack kept faithfully at it, unmindful of defeats, often chagrined when he
missed some easy opportunity. Not improbably he might have failed
altogether if he had been riding an ordinary horse, or if he had to try
roping from a fiery mustang. But Silvermane was as intelligent as he was
beautiful and fleet. The horse learned rapidly the agile turns and
sudden stops necessary, and as for free running he never got enough. Out
on the range Silvermane always had his head up and watched; his life had
been spent in watching; he saw cattle, riders, mustangs, deer, coyotes,
every moving thing. So that Hare, in the chasing of a cow, had but to
start Silvermane, and then he could devote himself to the handling of his
rope. It took him ten times longer to lasso the cow than it took
Silvermane to head the animal. Dave laughed at some of Jack's exploits,
encouraged him often, praised his intent if not his deed; and always
after a run nodded at Silvermane in mute admiration.

Branding the cows and yearlings and tame steers which watered at Silver
Cup, and never wandered far away, was play according to Dave's version.
"Wait till we get after the wild steers up on the mountain and in the
canyons," he would say when Jack dropped like a log at supper. Work it
certainly was for him. At night he was so tired that he could scarcely
crawl into bed; his back felt as if it were broken; his legs were raw,
and his bones ached. Many mornings he thought it impossible to arise,
but always he crawled out, grim and haggard, and hobbled round the
camp-fire to warm his sore and bruised muscles. Then when Zeke and
George rode in with the horses the day's work began. During these weeks
of his "hardening up," as Dave called it, Hare bore much pain, but he
continued well and never missed a day. At the most trying time when for
a few days he had to be helped on and off Silvermane--for he insisted
that he would not stay in camp--the brothers made his work as light as
possible. They gave him the branding outfit to carry, a running-iron and
a little pot with charcoal and bellows; and with these he followed the
riders at a convenient distance and leisurely pace.

Some days they branded one hundred cattle. By October they had August
Naab's crudely fashioned cross on thousands of cows and steers. Still
the stock kept coming down from the mountain, driven to the valley by
cold weather and snow-covered grass. It was well into November before
the riders finished at Silver Cup, and then arose a question as to
whether it would be advisable to go to Seeping Springs or to the canyons
farther west along the slope of Coconina. George favored the former, but
Dave overruled him.

"Father's orders," he said." He wants us to ride Seeping Springs last
because he'll be with us then, and Snap too. We're going to have trouble
over there."

"How's this branding stock going to help the matter any, I'd like to
know?" inquired George."We Mormons never needed it."

"Father says we'll all have to come to it. Holderness's stock is
branded. Perhaps he's marked a good many steers of ours. We can't tell.
But if we have our own branded we'll know what's ours. If he drives our
stock we'll know it; if Dene steals, it can be proved that he steals."

"Well, what then? Do you think he'll care for that, or Holderness
either?"

"No, only it makes this difference: both things will then be barefaced
robbery. We've never been able to prove anything, though we boys know;
we don't need any proof. Father gives these men the benefit of a doubt.
We've got to stand by him. I know, George, your hand's begun to itch for
your gun. So does mine. But we ve orders to obey."

Many gullies and canyons headed up on the slope of Coconina west of
Silver Cup, and ran down to open wide on the flat desert. They contained
plots of white sage and bunches of rich grass and cold springs. The
steers that ranged these ravines were wild as wolves, and in the tangled
thickets of juniper and manzanita and jumbles of weathered cliff they
were exceedingly difficult to catch.

Well it was that Hare had received his initiation and had become inured
to rough, incessant work, for now he came to know the real stuff of which
these Mormons were made. No obstacle barred them. They penetrated the
gullies to the last step; they rode weathered slopes that were difficult
for deer to stick upon; they thrashed the bayonet-guarded manzanita
copses; they climbed into labyrinthine fastnesses, penetrating to every
nook where a steer could hide. Miles of sliding slope and
marble-bottomed streambeds were ascended on foot, for cattle could climb
where a horse could not. Climbing was arduous enough, yet the hardest
and most perilous toil began when a wild steer was cornered. They roped
the animals on moving slopes of weathered stone, and branded them on the
edges of precipices.

The days and weeks passed, how many no one counted or cared. The circle
of the sun daily lowered over the south end of Coconina; and the black
snow-clouds crept down the slopes. Frost whitened the ground at dawn,
and held half the day in the shade. Winter was close at the heels of the
long autumn.

As for Hare, true to August Naab's assertion, he had lost flesh and
suffered, and though the process was heartbreaking in its severity, he
hung on till he hardened into a leather lunged, wire-muscled man, capable
of keeping pace with his companions.

He began his day with the dawn when he threw off the frost-coated
tarpaulin; the icy water brought him a glow of exhilaration; he drank in
the spiced cold air, and there was the spring of the deer-hunter in his
step as he went down the slope for his horse. He no longer feared that
Silvermane would run away. The gray's bell could always be heard near
camp in the mornings, and when Hare whistled there came always the
answering thump of hobbled feet. When Silvermane saw him striding
through the cedars or across the grassy belt of the valley he would neigh
his gladness. Hare had come to love Silvermane and talked to him and
treated him as if he were human.

When the mustangs were brought into camp the day's work began, the same
work as that of yesterday, and yet with endless variety, with
ever-changing situations that called for quick wits, steel arms, stout
hearts, and unflagging energies. The darkening blue sky and the
sun-tipped crags of Vermillion Cliffs were signals to start for camp.
They ate like wolves, sat for a while around the camp-fire, a ragged,
weary, silent group; and soon lay down, their dark faces in the shadow of
the cedars.

In the beginning of this toil-filled time Hare had resolutely set himself
to forget Mescal, and he had succeeded at least for a time, when he was
so sore and weary that he scarcely thought at all. But she came back to
him, and then there was seldom an hour that was not hers. The long
months which seemed years since he had seen her, the change in him
wrought by labor and peril, the deepening friendship between him and
Dave, even the love he bore Silvermane--these, instead of making dim the
memory of the dark-eyed girl, only made him tenderer in his thought of
her.

Snow drove the riders from the canyon-camp down to Silver Cup, where they
found August Naab and Snap, who had ridden in the day before.

"Now you couldn't guess how many cattle are back there in the canyons,"
said Dave to his father.

"I haven't any idea," answered August, dubiously.

"Five thousand head."

"Dave!" His father's tone was incredulous.

"Yes. You know we haven't been back in there for years. The stock has
multiplied rapidly in spite of the lions and wolves. Not only that, but
they're safe from the winter, and are not likely to be found by Dene or
anybody else."

"How do you make that out?"

"The first cattle we drove in used to come back here to Silver Cup to
winter. Then they stopped coming, and we almost forgot them. Well,
they've got a trail round under the Saddle, and they go down and winter
in the canyon. In summer they head up those rocky gullies, but they
can't get up on the mountain. So it isn't likely any one will ever
discover them. They are wild as deer and fatter than any stock on the
ranges."

"Good! That's the best news I've had in many a day. Now, boys, we'll
ride the mountain slope toward Seeping Springs, drive the cattle down,
and finish up this branding. Somebody ought to go to White Sage. I'd
like to know what's going on, what Holderness is up to, what Dene is
doing, if there's any stock being driven to Lund."

"I told you I'd go," said Snap Naab.

"I don't want you to," replied his father."I guess it can wait till
spring, then we'll all go in. I might have thought to bring you boys out
some clothes and boots. You're pretty ragged. Jack there, especially,
looks like a scarecrow. Has he worked as hard as he looks?"

"Father, he never lost a day," replied Dave, warmly, "and you know what
riding is in these canyons."

August Naab looked at Hare and laughed. "It'd be funny, wouldn't it, if
Holderness tried to slap you now? I always knew you'd do, Jack, and now
you're one of us, and you'll have a share with my sons in the cattle."

But the generous promise failed to offset the feeling aroused by the
presence of Snap Naab. With the first sight of Snap's sharp face and
strange eyes Hare became conscious of an inward heat, which he had felt
before, but never as now, when there seemed to be an actual flame within
his breast. Yet Snap seemed greatly changed; the red flush, the swollen
lines no longer showed in his face; evidently in his absence on the
Navajo desert he had had no liquor; he was good-natured, lively, much
inclined to joking, and he seemed to have entirely forgotten his ani-
mosity toward Hare. It was easy for Hare to see that the man's evil
nature was in the ascendancy only when he was under the dominance of
drink. But he could not forgive; he could not forget. Mescal's dark,
beautiful eyes haunted him. Even now she might be married to this man.
Perhaps that was why Snap appeared to be in such cheerful spirits.
Suspense added its burdensome insistent question, but he could not bring
himself to ask August if the marriage had taken place. For a day he
fought to resign himself to the inevitability of the Mormon custom, to
forget Mescal, and then he gave up trying. This surrender he felt to be
something crucial in his life, though he could not w holly understand it.
It was the darkening of his spirit; the death of boyish gentleness; the
concluding step from youth into a forced manhood. The desert
regeneration had not stopped at turning weak lungs, vitiated blood, and
flaccid muscles into a powerful man; it was at work on his mind, his
heart, his soul. They answered more and more to the call of some
outside, ever-present, fiercely subtle thing.

Thenceforth he no longer vexed himself by trying to forget Mescal; if she
came to mind he told himself the truth, that the weeks and months had
only added to his love. And though it was bitter-sweet there was relief
in speaking the truth to himself. He no longer blinded himself by
hoping, striving to have generous feelings toward Snap Naab; he called
the inward fire by its real name--jealousy--and knew that in the end it
would become hatred.

On the third morning after leaving Silver Cup the riders were working
slowly along the slope of Coconina; and Hare having driven down a bunch
of cattle, found himself on an open ridge near the temporary camp.
Happening to glance up the valley he saw what appeared to be smoke
hanging over Seeping Springs.

"That can't be dust," he soliloquized. "Looks blue to me."

He studied the hazy bluish cloud for some time, but it was so many miles
away that he could not be certain whether it was smoke or not, so he
decided to ride over and make sure. None of the Naabs was in camp, and
there was no telling when they would return, so he set off alone. He
expected to get back before dark, but it was of little consequence
whether he did or not, for he had his blanket under the saddle, and grain
for Silvermane and food for himself in the saddle-bags.

Long before Silvermane's easy trot had covered half the distance Hare
recognized the cloud that had made him curious. It was smoke. He
thought that range-riders were camping at the springs, and he meant to
see what they were about. After three hours of brisk travel he reached
the top of a low rolling knoll that hid Seeping Springs. He remembered
the springs were up under the red wall, and that the pool where the
cattle drank was lower down in a clump of cedars. He saw smoke rising in
a column from the cedars, and he heard the lowing of cattle.

"Something wrong here," he muttered. Following the trail, he rode
through the cedars to come upon the dry hole where the pool had once
been. There was no water in the flume. The bellowing cattle came from
beyond the cedars, down the other side of the ridge. He was not long in
reaching the open, and then one glance made all clear.

A new pool, large as a little lake, shone in the sunlight, and round it a
jostling horned mass of cattle were pressing against a high corral. The
flume that fed water to the pool was fenced all the way up to the
springs.

Jack slowly rode down the ridge with eyes roving under the cedars and up
to the wall. Not a man was in sight.

When he got to the fire he saw that it was not many hours old and was
surrounded by fresh boot and horse tracks in the dust. Piles of slender
pine logs, trimmed flat on one side, were proof of somebody's intention
to erect a cabin. In a rage he flung himself from the saddle. It was
not many moments' work for him to push part of the fire under the fence,
and part of it against the pile of logs. The pitch-pines went off like
rockets, driving the thirsty cattle back.

"I'm going to trail those horse-tracks," said Hare.

He tore down a portion of the fence enclosing the flume, and gave
Silvermane a drink, then put him to a fast trot on the white trail. The
tracks he had resolved to follow were clean-cut. A few inches of snow
had fallen in the valley, and melting, had softened the hard ground.
Silvermane kept to his gait with the tirelessness of a desert horse.
August Naab had once said fifty miles a day would be play for the
stallion. All the afternoon Hare watched the trail speed toward him and
the end of Coconina rise above him. Long before sunset he had reached
the slope of the mountain and had begun the ascent. Half way up he came
to the snow and counted the tracks of three horses. At twilight he rode
into the glade where August Naab had waited for his Navajo friends.
There, in a sheltered nook among the rocks, he unsaddled Silvermane,
covered and fed him, built a fire, ate sparingly of his meat and bread,
and rolling up in his blanket, was soon asleep.

He was up and off before sunrise, and he came out on the western slope of
Coconina just as the shadowy valley awakened from its misty sleep into
daylight. Soon the Pink Cliffs leaned out, glimmering and vast, to
change from gloomy gray to rosy glow, and then to brighten and to redden
in the morning sun.

The snow thinned and failed, but the iron-cut horsetracks showed plainly
in the trail. At the foot of the mountain the tracks left the White Sage
trail and led off to the north toward the cliffs. Hare searched the red
sagespotted waste for Holderness's ranch. He located it, a black patch
on the rising edge of the valley under the wall, and turned Silvermane
into the tracks that pointed straight toward it.

The sun cleared Cocomna and shone warm on his back; the Pink Cliffs
lifted higher and higher before him. From the ridge-tops he saw the
black patch grow into cabins and corrals. As he neared the ranch he came
into rolling pasture-land where the bleached grass shone white and the
cattle were ranging in the thousands. This range had once belonged to
Martin Cole, and Hare thought of the bitter Mormon as he noted the snug
cabins for the riders, the rambling, picturesque ranch-house, the large
corrals, and the long flume that ran down from the cliff. There was a
corral full of shaggy horses, and another full of steers, and two lines
of cattle, one going into a pond-corral, and one coming out. The air was
gray with dust. A bunch of yearlings were licking at huge lumps of brown
rock-salt. A wagonful of cowhides stood before the ranch-house.

Hare reined in at the door and helloed.

A red-faced ranger with sandy hair and twinkling eyes appeared.

"Hello, stranger, get down an' come in," he said.

"Is Holderness here?" asked Hare.

"No. He's been to Lund with a bunch of steers. I reckon he'll be in
White Sage by now. I'm Snood, the foreman. Is it a job ridin' you
want?"

"No."

"Say! thet hoss--" he exclaimed. His gaze of friendly curiosity had
moved from Hare to Silvermane. "You can corral me if it ain't thet
Sevier range stallion!"

"Yes," said Hare.

Snood's whoop brought three riders to the door, and when he pointed to
the horse, they stepped out with good-natured grins and admiring eyes.

"I never seen him but onc't," said one.

"Lordy, what a boss!" Snood walked round Silvermane. "If I owned this
ranch I'd trade it for that stallion. I know Silvermane. He an' I bed
some chases over in Nevada. An', stranger, who might you be?"

"I'm one of August Naab's riders."

"Dene's spy!" Snood looked Hare over carefully, with much interest, and
without any show of ill-will." I've heerd of you. An' what might one of
Naab's riders want of Holderness?"

"I rode in to Seeping Springs yesterday," said Hare, eying the foreman.
"There was a new pond, fenced in. Our cattle couldn't drink. There were
a lot of trimmed logs. Somebody was going to build a cabin. I burned
the corrals and logs--and I trailed fresh tracks from Seeping Springs to
this ranch."

"The h--l you did!" shouted Snood, and his face flamed. "See here,
stranger, you're the second man to accuse some of my riders of such dirty
tricks. That's enough for me. I was foreman of this ranch till this
-minute. I was foreman, but there were things gain' on thet I didn't
know of. I kicked on thet deal with Martin Cole. I quit. I steal no
man's water. Is thet good with you?"

Snood's query was as much a challenge as a question. He bit savagely at
his pipe. Hare offered his hand.

"Your word goes. Dave Naab said you might be Holderness's foreman, but
you weren't a liar or a thief. I'd believe it even if Dave hadn't told
me."

"Them fellers you tracked rode in here yesterday. They're gone now.
I've no more to say, except I never hired them.'

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