To The Last Man

Z >> Zane Grey >> To The Last Man

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Sometime during the night she awoke. Coyotes were yelping, and from
that sound she concluded it was near dawn. Her body ached; her mind
seemed dull. Drowsily she was sinking into slumber again when she
heard the rapid clip-clop of trotting horses. Startled, she raised
her head to listen. The men were coming back. Relief and dread
seemed to clear her stupor.

The trotting horses stopped across the lane from her cabin, evidently
at the corral where she had left Spades. She heard him whistle.
>From the sound of hoofs she judged the number of horses to be six or
eight. Low voices of men mingled with thuds and cracking of straps
and flopping of saddles on the ground. After that the heavy tread
of boots sounded on the porch of the cabin opposite. A door creaked
on its hinges. Next a slow footstep, accompanied by clinking of spurs,
approached Ellen's door, and a heavy hand banged upon it. She knew
this person could not be her father.

"Hullo, Ellen!"

She recognized the voice as belonging to Colter. Somehow its tone,
or something about it, sent a little shiver clown her spine. It acted
like a revivifying current. Ellen lost her dragging lethargy.

"Hey, Ellen, are y'u there?" added Colter, louder voice.

"Yes. Of course I'm heah," she replied. What do y'u want?"

"Wal--I'm shore glad y'u're home," he replied. "Antonio's gone with
his squaw. An' I was some worried aboot y'u."

"Who's with y'u, Colter?" queried Ellen, sitting up.

"Rock Wells an' Springer. Tad Jorth was with us, but we had to leave
him over heah in a cabin."

"What's the matter with him?"

"Wal, he's hurt tolerable bad," was the slow reply.

Ellen heard Colter's spurs jangle, as if he had uneasily shifted his feet.

"Where's dad an' Uncle Jackson?" asked Ellen.

A silence pregnant enough to augment Ellen's dread finally broke to
Colter's voice, somehow different. "Shore they're back on the trail.
An' we're to meet them where we left Tad."

"Are yu goin' away again?"

"I reckon. . . . An', Ellen, y'u're goin' with us."

"I am not," she retorted.

"Wal, y'u are, if I have to pack y'u," he replied, forcibly. "It's not
safe heah any more. That damned half-breed Isbel with his gang are on
our trail."

That name seemed like a red-hot blade at Ellen's leaden heart.
She wanted to fling a hundred queries on Colter, but she could
not utter one.

"Ellen, we've got to hit the trail an' hide," continued Colter,
anxiously. "Y'u mustn't stay heah alone. Suppose them Isbels would
trap y'u! . . . They'd tear your clothes off an' rope y'u to a tree.
Ellen, shore y'u're goin'. . . . Y'u heah me! "

"Yes--I'll go," she replied, as if forced.

"Wal--that's good," he said, quickly. "An' rustle tolerable lively.
We've got to pack."

The slow jangle of Colter's spurs and his slow steps moved away out of
Ellen's hearing. Throwing off the blankets, she put her feet to the
floor and sat there a moment staring at the blank nothingness of the
cabin interior in the obscure gray of dawn. Cold, gray, dreary,
obscure--like her life, her future! And she was compelled to do what
was hateful to her. As a Jorth she must take to the unfrequented trails
and hide like a rabbit in the thickets. But the interest of the moment,
a premonition of events to be, quickened her into action.

Ellen unbarred the door to let in the light. Day was breaking with an
intense, clear, steely light in the east through which the morning star
still shone white. A ruddy flare betokened the advent of the sun.
Ellen unbraided her tangled hair and brushed and combed it. A queer,
still pang came to her at sight of pine needles tangled in her brown
locks. Then she washed her hands and face. Breakfast was a matter
of considerable work and she was hungry.

The sun rose and changed the gray world of forest. For the first time
in her life Ellen hated the golden brightness, the wonderful blue of sky,
the scream of the eagle and the screech of the jay; and the squirrels
she had always loved to feed were neglected that morning.

Colter came in. Either Ellen had never before looked attentively at
him or else he had changed. Her scrutiny of his lean, hard features
accorded him more Texan attributes than formerly. His gray eyes were
as light, as clear, as fierce as those of an eagle. And the sand gray
of his face, the long, drooping, fair mustache hid the secrets of his
mind, but not its strength. The instant Ellen met his gaze she sensed
a power in him that she instinctively opposed. Colter had not been so
bold nor so rude as Daggs, but he was the same kind of man, perhaps the
more dangerous for his secretiveness, his cool, waiting inscrutableness.

"'Mawnin', Ellen!" he drawled. "Y'u shore look good for sore eyes."

"Don't pay me compliments, Colter," replied Ellen. "An' your eyes
are not sore."

"Wal, I'm shore sore from fightin' an' ridin' an' layin' out,"
he said, bluntly.

"Tell me--what's happened," returned Ellen.

"Girl, it's a tolerable long story," replied Colter. "An' we've no
time now. Wait till we get to camp."

"Am I to pack my belongin's or leave them heah?" asked Ellen.

"Reckon y'u'd better leave--them heah."

"But if we did not come back--"

"Wal, I reckon it's not likely we'll come--soon, " he said, rather
evasively.

"Colter, I'll not go off into the woods with just the clothes I have
on my back."

"Ellen, we shore got to pack all the grab we can. This shore ain't
goin' to be a visit to neighbors. We're shy pack hosses. But y'u
make up a bundle of belongin's y'u care for, an' the things y'u'll
need bad. We'll throw it on somewhere."

Colter stalked away across the lane, and Ellen found herself dubiously
staring at his tall figure. Was it the situation that struck her with
a foreboding perplexity or was her intuition steeling her against this
man? Ellen could not decide. But she had to go with him. Her prejudice
was unreasonable at this portentous moment. And she could not yet feel
that she was solely responsible to herself.

When it came to making a small bundle of her belongings she was in a
quandary. She discarded this and put in that, and then reversed the
order. Next in preciousness to her mother's things were the long-hidden
gifts of Jean Isbel. She could part with neither.

While she was selecting and packing this bundle Colter again entered and,
without speaking, began to rummage in the corner where her father kept
his possessions. This irritated Ellen.

"What do y'u want there?" she demanded.

"Wal, I reckon your dad wants his papers--an' the gold he left heah--
an' a change of clothes. Now doesn't he?" returned Colter, coolly.

"Of course. But I supposed y'u would have me pack them."

Colter vouchsafed no reply to this, but deliberately went on rummaging,
with little regard for how he scattered things. Ellen turned her back
on him. At length, when he left, she went to her father's corner and
found that, as far as she was able to see, Colter had taken neither
papers nor clothes, but only the gold. Perhaps, however, she had been
mistaken, for she had not observed Colter's departure closely enough
to know whether or not he carried a package. She missed only the gold.
Her father's papers, old and musty, were scattered about, and these she
gathered up to slip in her own bundle.

Colter, or one of the men, had saddled Spades, and he was now tied to
the corral fence, champing his bit and pounding the sand. Ellen wrapped
bread and meat inside her coat, and after tying this behind her saddle
she was ready to go. But evidently she would have to wait, and,
preferring to remain outdoors, she stayed by her horse. Presently,
while watching the men pack, she noticed that Springer wore a bandage
round his head under the brim of his sombrero. His motions were slow
and lacked energy. Shuddering at the sight, Ellen refused to conjecture.
All too soon she would learn what had happened, and all too soon,
perhaps, she herself would be in the midst of another fight. She
watched the men. They were making a hurried slipshod job of packing
food supplies from both cabins. More than once she caught Colter's
gray gleam of gaze on her, and she did not like it.

"I'll ride up an' say good-by to Sprague," she called to Colter.

"Shore y'u won't do nothin' of the kind," he called back.

There was authority in his tone that angered Ellen, and something else
which inhibited her anger. What was there about Colter with which she
must reckon? The other two Texans laughed aloud, to be suddenly silenced
by Colter's harsh and lowered curses. Ellen walked out of hearing and
sat upon a log, where she remained until Colter hailed her.

"Get up an' ride," he called.

Ellen complied with this order and, riding up behind the three mounted
men, she soon found herself leaving what for years had been her home.
Not once did she look back. She hoped she would never see the squalid,
bare pretension of a ranch again.

Colter and the other riders drove the pack horses across the meadow,
off of the trails, and up the slope into the forest. Not very long
did it take Ellen to see that Colter's object was to hide their tracks.
He zigzagged through the forest, avoiding the bare spots of dust, the
dry, sun-baked flats of clay where water lay in spring, and he chose the
grassy, open glades, the long, pine-needle matted aisles. Ellen rode at
their heels and it pleased her to watch for their tracks. Colter
manifestly had been long practiced in this game of hiding his trail,
and he showed the skill of a rustler. But Ellen was not convinced that
he could ever elude a real woodsman. Not improbably, however, Colter
was only aiming to leave a trail difficult to follow and which would
allow him and his confederates ample time to forge ahead of pursuers.
Ellen could not accept a certainty of pursuit. Yet Colter must have
expected it, and Springer and Wells also, for they had a dark, sinister,
furtive demeanor that strangely contrasted with the cool, easy manner
habitual to them.

They were not seeking the level routes of the forest land, that was sure.
They rode straight across the thick-timbered ridge down into another
canyon, up out of that, and across rough, rocky bluffs, and down again.
These riders headed a little to the northwest and every mile brought
them into wilder, more rugged country, until Ellen, losing count of
canyons and ridges, had no idea where she was. No stop was made at
noon to rest the laboring, sweating pack animals.

Under circumstances where pleasure might have been possible Ellen would
have reveled in this hard ride into a wonderful forest ever thickening
and darkening. But the wild beauty of glade and the spruce slopes and
the deep, bronze-walled canyons left her cold. She saw and felt, but
had no thrill, except now and then a thrill of alarm when Spades slid
to his haunches down some steep, damp, piny declivity.

All the woodland, up and down, appeared to be richer greener as they
traveled farther west. Grass grew thick and heavy. Water ran in all
ravines. The rocks were bronze and copper and russet, and some had
green patches of lichen.

Ellen felt the sun now on her left cheek and knew that the day was
waning and that Colter was swinging farther to the northwest. She
had never before ridden through such heavy forest and down and up
such wild canyons. Toward sunset the deepest and ruggedest canyon
halted their advance. Colter rode to the right, searching for a place
to get down through a spruce thicket that stood on end. Presently he
dismounted and the others followed suit. Ellen found she could not
lead Spades because he slid down upon her heels, so she looped the end
of her reins over the pommel and left him free. She herself managed to
descend by holding to branches and sliding all the way down that slope.
She heard the horses cracking the brush, snorting and heaving. One pack
slipped and had to be removed from the horse, and rolled down. At the
bottom of this deep, green-walled notch roared a stream of water.
Shadowed, cool, mossy, damp, this narrow gulch seemed the wildest place
Ellen had ever seen. She could just see the sunset-flushed, gold-tipped
spruces far above her. The men repacked the horse that had slipped his
burden, and once more resumed their progress ahead, now turning up this
canyon. There was no horse trail, but deer and bear trails were
numerous. The sun sank and the sky darkened, but still the men
rode on; and the farther they traveled the wilder grew the aspect
of the canyon.

At length Colter broke a way through a heavy thicket of willows and
entered a side canyon, the mouth of which Ellen had not even descried.
It turned and widened, and at length opened out into a round pocket,
apparently inclosed, and as lonely and isolated a place as even pursued
rustlers could desire. Hidden by jutting wall and thicket of spruce
were two old log cabins joined together by roof and attic floor, the
same as the double cabin at the Jorth ranch.

Ellen smelled wood smoke, and presently, on going round the cabins,
saw a bright fire. One man stood beside it gazing at Colter's party,
which evidently he had heard approaching.

"Hullo, Queen!" said Colter. How's Tad?"

"He's holdin' on fine," replied Queen, bending over the fire,
where he turned pieces of meat.

"Where's father?" suddenly asked Ellen, addressing Colter.

As if he had not heard her, he went on wearily loosening a pack.

Queen looked at her. The light of the fire only partially shone on
his face. Ellen could not see its expression. But from the fact that
Queen did not answer her question she got further intimation of an
impending catastrophe. The long, wild ride had helped prepare her for
the secrecy and taciturnity of men who had resorted to flight. Perhaps
her father had been delayed or was still off on the deadly mission that
had obsessed him; or there might, and probably was, darker reason for
his absence. Ellen shut her teeth and turned to the needs of her horse.
And presently. returning to the fire, she thought of her uncle.

"Queen, is my uncle Tad heah?" she asked.

"Shore. He's in there," replied Queen, pointing at the nearer cabin.

Ellen hurried toward the dark doorway. She could see how the logs of
the cabin had moved awry and what a big, dilapidated hovel it was.
As she looked in, Colter loomed over her--placed a familiar and somehow
masterful hand upon her. Ellen let it rest on her shoulder a moment.
Must she forever be repulsing these rude men among whom her lot was cast?
Did Colter mean what Daggs had always meant? Ellen felt herself weary,
weak in body, and her spent spirit had not rallied. Yet, whatever Colter
meant by his familiarity, she could not bear it. So she slipped out
from under his hand.

"Uncle Tad, are y'u heah?" she called into the blackness. She heard
the mice scamper and rustle and she smelled the musty, old, woody odor
of a long-unused cabin.

"Hello, Ellen!" came a voice she recognized as her uncle's, yet it
was strange. "Yes. I'm heah--bad luck to me! . . . How 're y'u
buckin' up, girl?"

"I'm all right, Uncle Tad--only tired an' worried. I--"

"Tad, how's your hurt?" interrupted Colter.

"Reckon I'm easier," replied Jorth, wearily, "but shore I'm in bad shape.
I'm still spittin' blood. I keep tellin' Queen that bullet lodged in my
lungs-but he says it went through."

"Wal, hang on, Tad!" replied Colter, with a cheerfulness Ellen sensed
was really indifferent.

"Oh, what the hell's the use!" exclaimed Jorth. "It's all--up
with us--Colter!"

"Wal, shut up, then," tersely returned Colter. "It ain't doin'
y'u or us any good to holler."

Tad Jorth did not reply to this. Ellen heard his breathing and it did
not seem natural. It rasped a little--came hurriedly--then caught in
his throat. Then he spat. Ellen shrunk back against the door.
He was breathing through blood.

"Uncle, are y'u in pain?" she asked.

"Yes, Ellen--it burns like hell," he said.

"Oh! I'm sorry. . . . Isn't there something I can do?"

"I reckon not. Queen did all anybody could do for me--now--
unless it's pray."

Colter laughed at this--the slow, easy, drawling laugh of a Texan.
But Ellen felt pity for this wounded uncle. She had always hated him.
He had been a drunkard, a gambler, a waster of her father's property;
and now he was a rustler and a fugitive, lying in pain, perhaps
mortally hurt.

"Yes, uncle--I will pray for y'u," she said, softly.

The change in his voice held a note of sadness that she had been
quick to catch.

"Ellen, y'u're the only good Jorth--in the whole damned lot," he said.
"God! I see it all now. . . . We've dragged y'u to hell!"

"Yes, Uncle Tad, I've shore been dragged some--but not yet--to hell,"
she responded, with a break in her voice.

"Y'u will be--Ellen--unless--"

"Aw, shut up that kind of gab, will y'u?" broke in Colter, harshly.

It amazed Ellen that Colter should dominate her uncle, even though he
was wounded. Tad Jorth had been the last man to take orders from anyone,
much less a rustler of the Hash Knife Gang. This Colter began to loom
up in Ellen's estimate as he loomed physically over her, a lofty figure,
dark motionless, somehow menacing.

"Ellen, has Colter told y'u yet--aboot--aboot Lee an' Jackson?"
inquired the wounded man.

The pitch-black darkness of the cabin seemed to help fortify Ellen
to bear further trouble.

"Colter told me dad an' Uncle Jackson would meet us heah," she rejoined,
hurriedly.

Jorth could be heard breathing in difficulty, and he coughed and
spat again, and seemed to hiss.

"Ellen, he lied to y'u. They'll never meet us--heah!"

"Why not?" whispered Ellen.

"Because--Ellen-- " he replied, in husky pants, "your dad an'--uncle
Jackson--are daid--an' buried!"

If Ellen suffered a terrible shock it was a blankness, a deadness,
and a slow, creeping failure of sense in her knees. They gave way
under her and she sank on the grass against the cabin wall. She did
not faint nor grow dizzy nor lose her sight, but for a while there was
no process of thought in her mind. Suddenly then it was there--the
quick, spiritual rending of her heart--followed by a profound emotion
of intimate and irretrievable loss--and after that grief and bitter
realization.

An hour later Ellen found strength to go to the fire and partake of
the food and drink her body sorely needed.

Colter and the men waited on her solicitously, and in silence, now and
then stealing furtive glances at her from under the shadow of their
black sombreros. The dark night settled down like a blanket. There
were no stars. The wind moaned fitfully among the pines, and all about
that lonely, hidden recess was in harmony with Ellen's thoughts.

"Girl, y'u're shore game," said Colter, admiringly. "An' I reckon
y'u never got it from the Jorths."

"Tad in there--he's game," said Queen, in mild protest.

"Not to my notion," replied Colter. "Any man can be game when he's
croakin', with somebody around. . . . But Lee Jorth an' Jackson--they
always was yellow clear to their gizzards. They was born in Louisiana
--not Texas. . . . Shore they're no more Texans than I am. Ellen heah,
she must have got another strain in her blood.

To Ellen their words had no meaning. She rose and asked,
"Where can I sleep?"

"I'll fetch a light presently an' y'u can make your bed in there by
Tad," replied Colter.

"Yes, I'd like that."

"Wal, if y'u reckon y'u can coax him to talk you're shore wrong,
"declared Colter, with that cold timbre of voice that struck like
steel on Ellen's nerves. "I cussed him good an' told him he'd keep
his mouth shut. Talkin' makes him cough an' that fetches up the blood.
. . Besides, I reckon I'm the one to tell y'u how your dad an' uncle
got killed. Tad didn't see it done, an' he was bad hurt when it
happened. Shore all the fellars left have their idee aboot it.
But I've got it straight."

"Colter--tell me now," cried Ellen.

"Wal, all right. Come over heah, "he replied, and drew her away from
the camp fire, out in the shadow of gloom. "Poor kid! I shore feel
bad aboot it." He put a long arm around her waist and drew her against
him. Ellen felt it, yet did not offer any resistance. All her faculties
seemed absorbed in a morbid and sad anticipation.

"Ellen, y'u shore know I always loved y'u--now don't y 'u?" he asked,
with suppressed breath.

"No, Colter. It's news to me--an' not what I want to heah."

"Wal, y'u may as well heah it right now," he said. "It's true.
An' what's more--your dad gave y'u to me before he died."

"What! Colter, y'u must be a liar."

"Ellen, I swear I'm not lyin'," he returned, in eager passion. "I was
with your dad last an' heard him last. He shore knew I'd loved y'u for
years. An' he said he'd rather y'u be left in my care than anybody's."

"My father gave me to y'u in marriage!" ejaculated Ellen, in bewilderment.

Colter's ready assurance did not carry him over this point. It was
evident that her words somewhat surprised and disconcerted him for
the moment.

"To let me marry a rustler--one of the Hash Knife Gang!" exclaimed Ellen,
with weary incredulity.

"Wal, your dad belonged to Daggs's gang, same as I do," replied Colter,
recovering his cool ardor.

"No!" cried Ellen.

"Yes, he shore did, for years," declared Colter, positively.
"Back in Texas. An' it was your dad that got Daggs to come to Arizona."

Ellen tried to fling herself away. But her strength and her spirit
were ebbing, and Colter increased the pressure of his arm. All at
once she sank limp. Could she escape her fate? Nothing seemed left
to fight with or for.

"All right--don't hold me--so tight," she panted. "Now tell me how
dad was killed . . . an' who--who--"

Colter bent over so he could peer into her face. In the darkness Ellen
just caught the gleam of his eyes. She felt the virile force of the
man in the strain of his body as he pressed her close. It all seemed
unreal--a hideous dream--the gloom, the moan of the wind, the weird
solitude, and this rustler with hand and will like cold steel.

"We'd come back to Greaves's store," Colter began. "An' as Greaves
was daid we all got free with his liquor. Shore some of us got drunk.
Bruce was drunk, an' Tad in there--he was drunk. Your dad put away
more 'n I ever seen him. But shore he wasn't exactly drunk. He got
one of them weak an' shaky spells. He cried an' he wanted some of us
to get the Isbels to call off the fightin'. . . . He shore was ready
to call it quits. I reckon the killin' of Daggs--an' then the awful
way Greaves was cut up by Jean Isbel--took all the fight out of your
dad. He said to me, 'Colter, we'll take Ellen an' leave this heah
country--an' begin life all over again--where no one knows us.'"

"Oh, did he really say that? . . . Did he--really mean it?" murmured
Ellen, with a sob.

"I'll swear it by the memory of my daid mother," protested Colter.
"Wal, when night come the Isbels rode down on us in the dark an' began
to shoot. They smashed in the door--tried to burn us out--an' hollered
around for a while. Then they left an' we reckoned there'd be no more
trouble that night. All the same we kept watch. I was the soberest one
an' I bossed the gang. We had some quarrels aboot the drinkin'. Your
dad said if we kept it up it 'd be the end of the Jorths. An' he planned
to send word to the Isbels next mawnin' that he was ready for a truce.
An' I was to go fix it up with Gaston Isbel. Wal, your dad went to bed
in Greaves's room, an' a little while later your uncle Jackson went in
there, too. Some of the men laid down in the store an' went to sleep.
I kept guard till aboot three in the mawnin'. An' I got so sleepy I
couldn't hold my eyes open. So I waked up Wells an' Slater an' set
them on guard, one at each end of the store. Then I laid down on the
counter to take a nap."

Colter's low voice, the strain and breathlessness of him, the agitation
with which he appeared to be laboring, and especially the simple,
matter-of-fact detail of his story, carried absolute conviction to
Ellen Jorth. Her vague doubt of him had been created by his attitude
toward her. Emotion dominated her intelligence. The images, the scenes
called up by Colter's words, were as true as the gloom of the wild gulch
and the loneliness of the night solitude--as true as the strange fact
that she lay passive in the arm of a rustler.

"Wall, after a while I woke up," went on Colter, clearing his throat.
"It was gray dawn. All was as still as death. . . . An' somethin' shore
was wrong. Wells an' Slater had got to drinkin' again an' now laid daid
drunk or asleep. Anyways, when I kicked them they never moved. Then I
heard a moan. It came from the room where your dad an' uncle was. I
went in. It was just light enough to see. Your uncle Jackson was layin'
on the floor--cut half in two--daid as a door nail. . . . Your dad lay
on the bed. He was alive, breathin' his last. . . . He says, 'That
half-breed Isbel--knifed us--while we slept!' . . . The winder shutter
was open. I seen where Jean Isbel had come in an' gone out. I seen
his moccasin tracks in the dirt outside an' I seen where he'd stepped
in Jackson's blood an' tracked it to the winder. Y'u shore can see
them bloody tracks yourself, if y'u go back to Greaves's store. . . .
Your dad was goin' fast. . . . He said, 'Colter--take care of Ellen,'
an' I reckon he meant a lot by that. He kept sayin', 'My God! if I'd
only seen Gaston Isbel before it was too late!' an' then he raved a
little, whisperin' out of his haid. . . . An' after that he died. . . .
I woke up the men, an' aboot sunup we carried your dad an' uncle out of
town an' buried them. . . . An' them Isbels shot at us while we were
buryin' our daid! That's where Tad got his hurt. . . . Then we hit
the trail for Jorth's ranch. . . . An now, Ellen, that's all my story.
Your dad was ready to bury the hatchet with his old enemy. An' that
Nez Perce Jean Isbel, like the sneakin' savage he is, murdered your
uncle an' your dad. . . . Cut him horrible--made him suffer tortures
of hell--all for Isbel revenge!"

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