To The Last Man
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Zane Grey >> To The Last Man
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Greaves was heavy and powerful. He whirled himself, feet first,
over backward, in a lunge like that of a lassoed steer. But Jean's
hold held. They rolled down the bank into the sandy ditch, and Jean
landed uppermost, with his body at right angles with that of his adversary.
"Greaves, your hunch was right," hissed Jean. "It's the half-breed.
. . . An' I'm goin' to cut you--first for Ellen Jorth--an' then for
Gaston Isbel! "
Jean gazed down into the gleaming eyes. Then his right arm whipped
the big blade. It flashed. It fell. Low down, as far as Jean could
reach, it entered Greaves's body.
All the heavy, muscular frame of Greaves seemed to contract and burst.
His spring was that of an animal in terror and agony. It was so
tremendous that it broke Jean's hold. Greaves let out a strangled
yell that cleared, swelling wildly, with a hideous mortal note. He
wrestled free. The big knife came out. Supple and swift, he got to
his, knees. He had his gun out when Jean reached him again. Like a
bear Jean enveloped him. Greaves shot, but he could not raise the gun,
nor twist it far enough. Then Jean, letting go with his right arm,
swung the bowie. Greaves's strength went out in an awful, hoarse cry.
His gun boomed again, then dropped from his hand. He swayed. Jean
let go. And that enemy of the Isbels sank limply in the ditch.
Jean's eyes roved for his rifle and caught the starlit gleam of it.
Snatching it up, he leaped over the embankment and ran straight for
the cabins. From all around yells of the Jorth faction attested to
their excitement and fury.
A fence loomed up gray in the obscurity. Jean vaulted it, darted
across the lane into the shadow of the corral, and soon gained the
first cabin. Here he leaned to regain his breath. His heart pounded
high and seemed too large for his breast. The hot blood beat and
surged all over his body. Sweat poured off him. His teeth were
clenched tight as a vise, and it took effort on his part to open
his mouth so he could breathe more freely and deeply. But these
physical sensations were as nothing compared to the tumult of his mind.
Then the instinct, the spell, let go its grip and he could think.
He had avenged Guy, he bad depleted the ranks of the Jorths, he had
made good the brag of his father, all of which afforded him satisfaction.
But these thoughts were not accountable for all that be felt, especially
for the bittersweet sting of the fact that death to the defiler of Ellen
Jorth could not efface the doubt, the regret which seemed to grow with
the hours.
Groping his way into the woodshed, he entered the kitchen and,
calling low, he went on into the main cabin.
"Jean! Jean!" came his father's shaking voice.
"Yes, I'm back," replied Jean.
"Are--you--all right?"
"Yes. I think I've got a bullet crease on my leg. I didn't know I
had it till now. . . . It's bleedin' a little. But it's nothin'."
Jean heard soft steps and some one reached shaking hands for him.
They belonged to his sister Ann. She embraced him. Jean felt the
heave and throb of her breast.
"Why, Ann, I'm not hurt," he said, and held her close. "Now you
lie down an' try to sleep."
In the black darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner
and his heart was full. Speech was difficult, because the very touch
of Ann's hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in
no wise changed the plight of the women.
"Wal, what happened out there?" demanded Blaisdell.
"I got two of them," replied Jean. "That fellow who was shootin'
from the ridge west. An' the other was Greaves."
"Hah!" exclaimed his father.
"Shore then it was Greaves yellin'," declared Blaisdell. "By God,
I never heard such yells! Whad 'd you do, Jean?"
"I knifed him. You see, I'd planned to slip up on one after another.
An' I didn't want to make noise. But I didn't get any farther than
Greaves."
"Wal, I reckon that 'll end their shootin' in the dark," muttered
Gaston Isbel. "We've got to be on the lookout for somethin' else--
fire, most likely."
The old rancher's surmise proved to be partially correct. Jorth's
faction ceased the shooting. Nothing further was seen or heard from
them. But this silence and apparent break in the siege were harder
to bear than deliberate hostility. The long, dark hours dragged by.
The men took turns watching and resting, but none of them slept.
At last the blackness paled and gray dawn stole out of the east.
The sky turned rose over the distant range and daylight came.
The children awoke hungry and noisy, having slept away their fears.
The women took advantage of the quiet morning hour to get a hot breakfast.
"Maybe they've gone away," suggested Guy Isbel's wife, peering out of
the window. She had done that several times since daybreak. Jean saw
her somber gaze search the pasture until it rested upon the dark, prone
shape of her dead husband, lying face down in the grass. Her look
worried Jean.
"No, Esther, they've not gone yet," replied Jean. "I've seen some of
them out there at the edge of the brush."
Blaisdell was optimistic. He said Jean's night work would have its
effect and that the Jorth contingent would not renew the siege very
determinedly. It turned out, however, that Blaisdell was wrong.
Directly after sunrise they began to pour volleys from four sides
and from closer range. During the night Jorth's gang had thrown
earth banks and constructed log breastworks, from behind which they
were now firing. Jean and his comrades could see the flashes of fire
and streaks of smoke to such good advantage that they began to return
the volleys.
In half an hour the cabin was so full of smoke that Jean could not see
the womenfolk in their corner. The fierce attack then abated somewhat,
and the firing became more intermittent, and therefore more carefully
aimed. A glancing bullet cut a furrow in Blaisdell's hoary head,
making a painful, though not serious wound. It was Esther Isbel who
stopped the flow of blood and bound Blaisdell's head, a task which
she performed skillfully and without a tremor. The old Texan could
not sit still during this operation. Sight of the blood on his hands,
which he tried to rub off, appeared to inflame him to a great degree.
"Isbel, we got to go out thar," he kept repeating, "an' kill them all."
"No, we're goin' to stay heah," replied Gaston Isbel. "Shore I'm
lookin' for Blue an' Fredericks an' Gordon to open up out there.
They ought to be heah, an' if they are y'u shore can bet they've
got the fight sized up. "
Isbel's hopes did not materialize. The shooting continued without
any lull until about midday. Then the Jorth faction stopped.
"Wal, now what's up?" queried Isbel. "Boys, hold your fire an'
let's wait."
Gradually the smoke wafted out of the windows and doors, until the
room was once more clear. And at this juncture Esther Isbel came
over to take another gaze out upon the meadows. Jean saw her suddenly
start violently, then stiffen, with a trembling hand outstretched.
"Look!" she cried.
"Esther, get back," ordered the old rancher. "Keep away from that
window."
"What the hell!" muttered Blaisdell. "She sees somethin', or she's
gone dotty."
Esther seemed turned to stone. "Look! The hogs have broken into
the pasture! . . . They'll eat Guy's body!"
Everyone was frozen with horror at Esther's statement. Jean took a
swift survey of the pasture. A bunch of big black hogs had indeed
appeared on the scene and were rooting around in the grass not far
from where lay the bodies of Guy Isbel and Jacobs. This herd of hogs
belonged to the rancher and was allowed to run wild.
"Jane, those hogs--" stammered Esther Isbel, to the wife of Jacobs.
"Come! Look! . . . Do y'u know anythin' about hogs?"
The woman ran to the window and looked out. She stiffened as had Esther.
"Dad, will those hogs--eat human flesh? " queried Jean, breathlessly.
The old man stared out of the window. Surprise seemed to hold him.
A completely unexpected situation had staggered him.
"Jean--can you--can you shoot that far?" he asked, huskily.
"To those hogs? No, it's out of range."
Then, by God, we've got to stay trapped in heah an' watch an awful
sight," ejaculated the old man, completely unnerved. "See that break
in the fence! . . Jorth's done that. . . . To let in the hogs!"
"Aw, Isbel, it's not so bad as all that," remonstrated Blaisdell,
wagging his bloody head. "Jorth wouldn't do such a hell-bent trick."
"It's shore done."
"Wal, mebbe the hogs won't find Guy an' Jacobs," returned Blaisdell,
weakly. Plain it was that he only hoped for such a contingency and
certainly doubted it.
"Look!" cried Esther Isbel, piercingly. They're workin' straight up
the pasture!"
Indeed, to Jean it appeared to be the fatal truth. He looked blankly,
feeling a little sick. Ann Isbel came to peer out of the window and
she uttered a cry. Jacobs's wife stood mute, as if dazed.
Blaisdell swore a mighty oath. "-- -- --! Isbel, we cain't stand
heah an' watch them hogs eat our people!"
"Wal, we'll have to. What else on earth can we do?"
Esther turned to the men. She was white and cold, except her eyes,
which resembled gray flames.
"Somebody can run out there an' bury our dead men," she said.
"Why, child, it'd be shore death. Y'u saw what happened to Guy an'
Jacobs. . . . We've jest got to bear it. Shore nobody needn't look
out--an' see."
Jean wondered if it would be possible to keep from watching. The
thing had a horrible fascination. The big hogs were rooting and
tearing in the grass, some of them lazy, others nimble, and all were
gradually working closer and closer to the bodies. The leader, a huge,
gaunt boar, that had fared ill all his life in this barren country, was
scarcely fifty feet away from where Guy Isbel lay.
"Ann, get me some of your clothes, an' a sunbonnet--quick," said Jean,
forced out of his lethargy. "I'll run out there disguised. Maybe I
can go through with it."
"No!" ordered his father, positively, and with dark face flaming.
"Guy an' Jacobs are dead. We cain't help them now."
"But, dad--" pleaded Jean. He had been wrought to a pitch by Esther's
blaze of passion, by the agony in the face of the other woman.
"I tell y'u no!" thundered Gaston Isbel, flinging his arms wide.
"I WILL GO!" cried Esther, her voice ringing.
"You won't go alone!" instantly answered the wife of Jacobs, repeating
unconsciously the words her husband had spoken.
"You stay right heah," shouted Gaston Isbel, hoarsely.
"I'm goin'," replied Esther. "You've no hold over me. My husband is
dead. No one can stop me. I'm goin' out there to drive those hogs
away an' bury him."
"Esther, for Heaven's sake, listen," replied Isbel. "If y'u show
yourself outside, Jorth an' his gang will kin y'u."
"They may be mean, but no white men could be so low as that."
Then they pleaded with her to give up her purpose. But in vain!
She pushed them back and ran out through the kitchen with Jacobs's
wife following her. Jean turned to the window in time to see both
women run out into the lane. Jean looked fearfully, and listened
for shots. But only a loud, "Haw! Haw!" came from the watchers
outside. That coarse laugh relieved the tension in Jean's breast.
Possibly the Jorths were not as black as his father painted them.
The two women entered an open shed and came forth with a shovel
and spade.
"Shore they've got to hurry," burst out Gaston Isbel.
Shifting his gaze, Jean understood the import of his father's speech.
The leader of the hogs had no doubt scented the bodies. Suddenly he
espied them and broke into a trot.
"Run, Esther, run!" yelled Jean, with all his might.
That urged the women to flight. Jean began to shoot. The hog reached
the body of Guy. Jean's shots did not reach nor frighten the beast.
All the hogs now had caught a scent and went ambling toward their
leader. Esther and her companion passed swiftly out of sight behind
a corral. Loud and piercingly, with some awful note, rang out their
screams. The hogs appeared frightened. The leader lifted his long
snout, looked, and turned away. The others had halted. Then they,
too, wheeled and ran off.
All was silent then in the cabin and also outside wherever the Jorth
faction lay concealed. All eyes manifestly were fixed upon the brave
wives. They spaded up the sod and dug a grave for Guy Isbel. For a
shroud Esther wrapped him in her shawl. Then they buried him. Next
they hurried to the side of Jacobs, who lay some yards away. They
dug a grave for him. Mrs. Jacobs took off her outer skirt to wrap
round him. Then the two women labored hard to lift him and lower him.
Jacobs was a heavy man. When he had been covered his widow knelt
beside his grave. Esther went back to the other. But she remained
standing and did not look as if she prayed. Her aspect was tragic--
that of a woman who had lost father, mother, sisters, brother, and now
her husband, in this bloody Arizona land.
The deed and the demeanor of these wives of the murdered men surely
must have shamed Jorth and his followers. They did not fire a shot
during the ordeal nor give any sign of their presence.
Inside the cabin all were silent, too. Jean's eyes blurred so that he
continually had to wipe them. Old Isbel made no effort to hide his
tears. Blaisdell nodded his shaggy head and swallowed hard. The
women sat staring into space. The children, in round-eyed dismay,
gazed from one to the other of their elders.
"Wal, they're comin' back," declared Isbel, in immense relief.
"An' so help me--Jorth let them bury their daid!"
The fact seemed to have been monstrously strange to Gaston Isbel.
When the women entered the old man said, brokenly: "I'm shore glad.
. . . An' I reckon I was wrong to oppose you . . . an' wrong to say
what I did aboot Jorth."
No one had any chance to reply to Isbel, for the Jorth gang, as if
to make up for lost time and surcharged feelings of shame, renewed
the attack with such a persistent and furious volleying that the
defenders did not risk a return shot. They all had to lie flat next
to the lowest log in order to keep from being hit. Bullets rained in
through the window. And all the clay between the logs low down was
shot away. This fusillade lasted for more than an hour, then gradually
the fire diminished on one side and then on the other until it became
desultory and finally ceased.
"Ahuh! Shore they've shot their bolt," declared Gaston Isbel.
"Wal, I doon't know aboot that," returned Blaisdell, "but they've shot
a hell of a lot of shells."
"Listen," suddenly called Jean. "Somebody's yellin'."
"Hey, Isbel!" came in loud, hoarse voice. "Let your women fight
for you."
Gaston Isbel sat up with a start and his face turned livid. Jean
needed no more to prove that the derisive voice from outside had
belonged to Jorth. The old rancher lunged up to his full height
and with reckless disregard of life he rushed to the window.
"Jorth," he roared, "I dare you to meet me--man to man!"
This elicited no answer. Jean dragged his father away from the window.
After that a waiting silence ensued, gradually less fraught with
suspense. Blaisdell started conversation by saying he believed the
fight was over for that particular time. No one disputed him.
Evidently Gaston Isbel was loath to believe it. Jean, however,
watching at the back of the kitchen, eventually discovered that the
Jorth gang had lifted the siege. Jean saw them congregate at the edge
of the brush, somewhat lower down than they had been the day before.
A team of mules, drawing a wagon, appeared on the road, and turned
toward the slope. Saddled horses were led down out of the junipers.
Jean saw bodies, evidently of dead men, lifted into the wagon, to be
hauled away toward the village. Seven mounted men, leading four
riderless horses, rode out into the valley and followed the wagon.
"Dad, they've gone," declared Jean. "We had the best of this fight.
. . . If only Guy an' Jacobs had listened!"
The old man nodded moodily. He had aged considerably during these two
trying days. His hair was grayer. Now that the blaze and glow of the
fight had passed he showed a subtle change, a fixed and morbid sadness,
a resignation to a fate he had accepted.
The ordinary routine of ranch life did not return for the Isbels.
Blaisdell returned home to settle matters there, so that he could
devote all his time to this feud. Gaston Isbel sat down to wait for
the members of his clan.
The male members of the family kept guard in turn over the ranch that
night. And another day dawned. It brought word from Blaisdell that
Blue, Fredericks, Gordon, and Colmor were all at his house, on the way
to join the Isbels. This news appeared greatly to rejuvenate Gaston
Isbel. But his enthusiasm did not last long. Impatient and moody by
turns, he paced or moped around the cabin, always looking out, sometimes
toward Blaisdell's ranch, but mostly toward Grass Valley.
It struck Jean as singular that neither Esther Isbel nor Mrs. Jacobs
suggested a reburial of their husbands. The two bereaved women did not
ask for assistance, but repaired to the pasture, and there spent several
hours working over the graves. They raised mounds, which they sodded,
and then placed stones at the heads and feet. Lastly, they fenced in
the graves.
"I reckon I'll hitch up an' drive back home," said Mrs. Jacobs, when
she returned to the cabin. "I've much to do an' plan. Probably I'll
go to my mother's home. She's old an' will be glad to have me."
"If I had any place to go to I'd sure go," declared Esther Isbel,
bitterly.
Gaston Isbel heard this remark. He raised his face from his hands,
evidently both nettled and hurt.
"Esther, shore that's not kind," he said.
The red-haired woman--for she did not appear to be a girl any more--
halted before his chair and gazed down at him, with a terrible flare
of scorn in her gray eyes.
"Gaston Isbel, all I've got to say to you is this," she retorted, with
the voice of a man. "Seein' that you an' Lee Jorth hate each other,
why couldn't you act like men? . . . You damned Texans, with your bloody
feuds, draggin' in every relation, every friend to murder each other!
That's not the way of Arizona men. . . . We've all got to suffer--an'
we women be ruined for life--because YOU had differences with Jorth.
If you were half a man you'd go out an' kill him yourself, an' not leave
a lot of widows an' orphaned children!"
Jean himself writhed under the lash of her scorn. Gaston Isbel turned
a dead white. He could not. answer her. He seemed stricken with
merciless truth. Slowly dropping his head, he remained motionless,
a pathetic and tragic figure; and he did not stir until the rapid beat
of hoofs denoted the approach of horsemen. Blaisdell appeared on his
white charger, leading a pack animal. And behind rode a group of men,
all heavily armed, and likewise with packs.
"Get down an' come in," was Isbel's greeting. "Bill--you look after
their packs. Better leave the hosses saddled."
The booted and spurred riders trooped in, and their demeanor fitted
their errand. Jean was acquainted with all of them. Fredericks was
a lanky Texan, the color of dust, and he had yellow, clear eyes, like
those of a hawk. His mother had been an Isbel. Gordon, too, was
related to Jean's family, though distantly. He resembled an industrious
miner more than a prosperous cattleman. Blue was the most striking of
the visitors, as he was the most noted. A little, shrunken gray-eyed
man, with years of cowboy written all over him, he looked the quiet,
easy, cool, and deadly Texan he was reputed to be. Blue's Texas record
was shady, and was seldom alluded to, as unfavorable comment had turned
out to be hazardous. He was the only one of the group who did not carry
a rifle. But he packed two guns, a habit not often noted in Texans, and
almost never in Arizonians.
Colmor, Ann Isbel's fiance, was the youngest member of the clan, and
the one closest to Jean. His meeting with Ann affected Jean powerfully,
and brought to a climax an idea that had been developing in Jean's mind.
His sister devotedly loved this lean-faced, keen-eyed Arizonian; and it
took no great insight to discover that Colmor reciprocated her affection.
They were young. They had long life before them. It seemed to Jean a
pity that Colmor should be drawn into this war. Jean watched them, as
they conversed apart; and he saw Ann's hands creep up to Colmor's breast,
and he saw her dark eyes, eloquent, hungry, fearful, lifted with queries
her lips did not speak. Jean stepped beside them, and laid an arm over
both their shoulders.
"Colmor, for Ann's sake you'd better back out of this Jorth-Isbel fight,"
he whispered.
Colmor looked insulted. "But, Jean, it's Ann's father," he said.
"I'm almost one of the family."
"You're Ann's sweetheart, an', by Heaven, I say you oughtn't to go
with us!" whispered Jean.
"Go--with--you," faltered Ann.
"Yes. Dad is goin' straight after Jorth. Can't you tell that? An'
there 'll be one hell of a fight."
Ann looked up into Colmor's face with all her soul in her eyes, but she
did not speak. Her look was noble. She yearned to guide him right,
yet her lips were sealed. And Colmor betrayed the trouble of his soul.
The code of men held him bound, and he could not break from it, though
he divined in that moment how truly it was wrong.
"Jean, your dad started me in the cattle business," said Colmor,
earnestly. "An' I'm doin' well now. An' when I asked him for Ann
he said he'd be glad to have me in the family. . . . Well, when this
talk of fight come up, I asked your dad to let me go in on his side.
He wouldn't hear of it. But after a while, as the time passed an' he
made more enemies, he finally consented. I reckon he needs me now.
An' I can't back out, not even for Ann."
"I would if I were you," replied jean, and knew that he lied.
"Jean, I'm gamblin' to come out of the fight," said Colmor, with a smile.
He had no morbid fears nor presentiments, such as troubled jean.
"Why, sure--you stand as good a chance as anyone," rejoined Jean.
"It wasn't that I was worryin' about so much."
"What was it, then?" asked Ann, steadily.
"If Andrew DOES come through alive he'll have blood on his hands,"
returned Jean, with passion. "He can't come through without it. . . .
I've begun to feel what it means to have killed my fellow men. . . .
An' I'd rather your husband an' the father of your children never
felt that."
Colmor did not take Jean as subtly as Ann did. She shrunk a little.
Her dark eyes dilated. But Colmor showed nothing of her spiritual
reaction. He was young. He had wild blood. He was loyal to the Isbels.
"Jean, never worry about my conscience," he said, with a keen look.
"Nothin' would tickle me any more than to get a shot at every damn
one of the Jorths."
That established Colmor's status in regard to the Jorth-Isbel feud.
Jean had no more to say. He respected Ann's friend and felt poignant
sorrow for Ann.
Gaston Isbel called for meat and drink to be set on the table for his
guests. When his wishes had been complied with the women took the
children into the adjoining cabin and shut the door.
"Hah! Wal, we can eat an' talk now."
First the newcomers wanted to hear particulars of what had happened.
Blaisdell had told all he knew and had seen, but that was not
sufficient. They plied Gaston Isbel with questions. Laboriously
and ponderously he rehearsed the experiences of the fight at the
ranch, according to his impressions. Bill Isbel was exhorted to
talk, but he had of late manifested a sullen and taciturn disposition.
In spite of Jean's vigilance Bill had continued to imbibe red liquor.
Then Jean was called upon to relate all he had seen and done. It had
been Jean's intention to keep his mouth shut, first for his own sake
and, secondly, because he did not like to talk of his deeds. But when
thus appealed to by these somber-faced, intent-eyed men he divined that
the more carefully he described the cruelty and baseness of their
enemies, and the more vividly he presented his participation in the
first fight of the feud the more strongly he would bind these friends
to the Isbel cause. So he talked for an hour, beginning with his
meeting with Colter up on the Rim and ending with an account of his
killing Greaves. His listeners sat through this long narrative with
unabated interest and at the close they were leaning forward, breathless
and tense.
"Ah! So Greaves got his desserts at last," exclaimed Gordon.
All the men around the table made comments, and the last, from Blue,
was the one that struck Jean forcibly.
"Shore thet was a strange an' a hell of a way to kill Greaves.
Why'd you do thet, Jean?"
"I told you. I wanted to avoid noise an' I hoped to get more of them."
Blue nodded his lean, eagle-like head and sat thoughtfully, as if not
convinced of anything save Jean's prowess. After a moment Blue spoke
again.
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