Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  “Shore. Most all the boys have quit. So you won’t be lonesome.”

  “Mac, is thet so?” queried Jones, plainly impressed and bewildered.

  “It shure is,” replied MacKinney, blandly. “Arizonie quit, an’ then Slim an’ me an’ all the fellars who sat in on the little show yestidday. You missed it, Brick. We’re loafin’ around now, waitin’ fer a new boss.”

  “Grieve sold out or suthin’, huh? By golly! I sort of felt there was a mystery.”

  “Haw! Haw!”

  “Brick, you hit it plumb center,” put in Slim Blue. “Grieve is sold out!”

  “I’m gettin’ a hunch an’ I reckon I need to be gettin’ in out of the wet. . . . Hyar, Arizonie, if you’ll shake on it, I’ll ride up to Nielsen’s tomorrer, lay thet damn fence flat, an’ tell Mrs. Nielsen I was a low-down conceited jackass of a cowpuncher.”

  * * * * *

  That night Ames went to bed early. The day had been warm and fine, and the cool wind from the heights had not yet blown down to waft away the sultry air and silence the melodious trilling of the frogs.

  The window was open. Little did Crow Grieve dream the use to which windows in bunk-houses might be put when he amazed the range by their installation. Ames’ ear, developed in the backwoods, caught a faint swish of grass on a woman’s skirt. Then a soft footfall outside. He was slipping off the bed when a light tap-tap sounded on the window frame. He knelt and whispered, “Who’s there?”

  The night under a clouded sky was dark, but he made out a darker form moving from one side.

  “It’s Amy,” came a low whisper.

  “Good Lord! — What is it?”

  Cold hands caught his as they rested on the sill. But they did not tremble.

  “I’ve been barred — in my room, all — day,” she whispered, catching her breath twice, “or I’d have — got you word. Grieve went out before daylight — this morning. I didn’t think till late today — to look for his rifle. It was gone. Then I realized he was out hiding somewhere, waiting for you. He just came in. I heard him stamping — and swearing in the kitchen. He was hungry. So I slipped out of my window — —”

  “Amy, you’re shore a brave kid,” he whispered, fervently, squeezing her hands. “But you shouldn’t have taken such a risk. Run back now.”

  “Is Lany here?” she asked, in eager, thrilling whisper.

  “No. He hasn’t come in yet.”

  “Give him this.” She loosened one hand and drew a letter from her bosom.

  “Arizona, for God’s sake — watch out!” she ended, in an eloquent, broken whisper. Then like a noiseless shadow she stole away in the gloom to vanish.

  Ames gazed at the letter to assure himself of reality. “Shore she’s a game kid!” he muttered. “Takin’ a chance with that black devil — to warn me! An’ to fetch a love letter to Lany.”

  Ames laid the letter on Lany’s pillow, and unbarring the door he went out, and bent slow steps up and down the lane. Presently he reëntered and carried out his pack and saddle, which he deposited just round the corner of the cabin. Then leisurely he proceeded in the direction of the pasture where he kept his horse.

  * * * * *

  The gray gloomy hour before dawn found Ames stealing under the pines toward the ranch house. At the first streak of daylight he was in the shadow of the trees, opposite the wide gate of the courtyard. Imperceptibly the light brightened. A faint rose color appeared in the east, out beyond the misty sleeping range.

  A door shut somewhere. Ames bent like a watching, listening deer. Then slowly he straightened and stiffened, as if to spring.

  The bulky form of Grieve appeared in the gateway. Under his arm he carried a rifle. He moved cautiously, without noise, like a hunter. He looked up and down the lane, waited a moment. Then swiftly he started across for the shelter of the pines.

  Ames stepped out, his gun leaping up.

  “Mawnin’, Grieve!” he drawled.

  Grieve jerked in terrific shock. An instant he froze. Then as the mad blaze of his eyes set on Ames he shrieked a curse of terror and hate. Up he swept the rifle. Ames’ shot broke the action. The rifle burst red and boomed, then appeared to spin in the air, while the heavy bullet spanged among the branches.

  Grieve took short steps, falling all the time, to plunge like a stricken bull. He struck the ground hard, and such was his tremendous muscular energy that his bent body stretched with the rapidity of a released spring. His black hat bounced and rolled. He flopped to his back with a loud expulsion of breath.

  Ames stooped over the ghastly face. In a last black flash of consciousness Grieve’s eyes rolled on his foe, changed their appalling frenzy, grew blank and set.

  * * * * *

  A few minutes later Ames rode down the lane, past the silent bunk-houses, out toward the range, which was awakening to rosy beauty in the morning light. He did not look back. At the turn in the road he dropped his bridle over the pommel and bent his head to light a cigarette.

  “Well, Cappy,” he drawled to the horse, that shot up his ears, “reckon this ought to feel familiar to you. So go along. We’ll shake the dust of Wyomin’. . . . I shore hope Nesta never hears aboot it.”

  CHAPTER IX

  IT WAS SUMMER down under the glaring red cliffs — that strangest of desert formations, Hurricane Ledge. Hot, windy, dusty, it seemed hell to the lonely lost rider who faced it.

  From the Grand Canyon this irregular and lofty upheaval of rocks, yellow and gray and red, with its black specks of timber, extended north across the Arizona line into Utah.

  In all Ames’ long ten years of wandering from range to range he had never seen the like of this sublime and desolate Utah. And he was glad that circumstances had driven him to ride into it. How strangely and tremendously a contrast to his beloved Tonto Basin! In his mind’s eye he could see the pine-black ridges, the rushing amber brooks deep down between, the sycamores shining in the sun, the floating golden maple leaves, the purple-berried junipers, the craggy slopes rising to the Rim, gold and black against the blue. He could see the deep Rock Pool of Tonto Creek, that eddying dark hole from which he had rescued Nesta — now so long ago, yet so vividly remembered. Dear old sweet Nesta, with her hair like sunlight and the twin blue-star eyes! It would have been worth a great deal to see her again — this last had been the third attempt in ten years — but there were men still living who waited and watched for his return. It would have been sheer wild joy to give them satisfaction, but such a move would not have been for her happiness. She was happy, the last letter had said — two years and more ago — and Sam was prosperous, and the twins well. Little Rich was big and sturdy and took after his uncle, loving the forest trails and the brown brooks.

  “Shore I’d like to see that lad,” mused Ames, and he wondered if he ever would. At every turn it seemed that risks and hardships multiplied for him. He had entered Arizona again from New Mexico by way of the White Mountains, and at last, when he reached the Cibeque a camp-fire chat with a chance rider had turned him north again on the long trail.

  He stopped at Williams, a lumber camp, where he bought supplies and traded one of his horses for a pack-mule. Venturing into a saloon, something he seldom had done of late years, he had been recognized by one of four gambling men. “Arizona Ames!”

  Ames did not know the fellow, who was evidently a rider, and neither an enemy nor a friend. Ames said, “Howdy!” and passed on. At the corral Ames addressed the lad who had taken care of his horse. “Hey, sonny, where’n the devil would you go if you wanted to lose yourself?”

  “‘Crost the canyon,” replied the lad, with bright shrewd glance. “Utah an’ the Mormons. You’ll never be found or knowed there.”

  “I’ll take your hunch an’ you take this,” said Ames, flipping his last dollar.

  The ride down Havasupi Trail into the great gorge, the swimming of the Rio Colorado, river of red silt, the climb up the perilous Shinumo, and out through the wilderness of the Siwash — two weeks of tremendous effort fou
nd Ames without pack-horse or supplies, hungry and worn, lost somewhere over the Utah line.

  It did not worry Ames to be lost. Nothing mattered very much. Everything save death had happened to him — death and love, the former of which had been ever a step back upon his trail, and the latter something which had strangely escaped him. But he felt always that Nesta had filled this need, ever since he could remember the little bright-haired twin sister.

  Nowhere in all the West that he knew or had heard of could he have ridden with such growing pleasure as here in this stark region of purple depths, of hot barren wastes, of bold-colored windy heights. If the Mormons prospered here they were indeed wonderful people. One sweeping glance over a vast sage-dotted level, or down into a wild rock-and-brush-choked canyon, or up an endless yellow slope that climbed to the bleak heights of red dome and ragged peak, was sufficient to acquaint Ames with the meager nature of this country.

  He rode on, hoping to run across a sheep trail, a cattle trail, or a horse track, that might lead to camp or ranch or hamlet. He had salt and deer meat in his saddle-bags, and he had been nearer starvation than now, but he felt a continual gnawing in his stomach.

  The spotted sage plain glared under the noonday sun; yellow whirling dust-devils spread aloft like colossal funnels riding inverted across the desert; sheets of sand sifted along the ground, rustling at the brush; low down on level glaring flats deceitful mirages appeared as if by magic, only to vanish; and the wide distance showed isolated mesas and long promontories running out from the hazy horizon, and walls of pale red rock and saw-toothed pink cliffs rising against the copper sky.

  Hurricane Ledge blocked the west from Ames’ searching view. Far down at its southern end showed the dim zigzag line of the canyon, dark and somber and mystic.

  Ames rode on. There was nothing else to do. He headed north as nearly as he could judge by the sun, and this direction would take him across the brow of Hurricane Ledge. It would, he grimly muttered, unless the gale blew him and his horse off their course. The hot blast appeared to be rushing up from the canyon, and obstructed by the Ledge, it whined and moaned harder and fiercer over the desert of sand and sage. He did not see enough grass to nourish a goat. And the hour came when he let his intelligent horse choose the way, while he protected his eyes from dust and his face from stinging sand. No doubt this hurricane wind rose with the sun, increased all day, and died out in the evening. It was incumbent upon him to let the horse seek shelter.

  Toward the middle of the afternoon the horse left the sand for rocks. Ames ascertained that he had crossed a trail and turning into it was going down. Soon low walls shut off the wind and dust — a welcome change. Ames wiped his wet face and smarting eyes. Another relief followed closely — he rode down into shade.

  He had entered a narrow rough gulch that rapidly grew deeper and wider. Ames discovered that his horse was following fresh tracks in the trail. Ames dismounted to see what he could make of these tracks, soon calculating that four shod horses had passed by, some hours before.

  Whereupon he mounted again, to ride on with growing interest in this canyon. Ames believed he had descended some thousands of canyons, never one of which resembled this. A mile from where he had entered it the walls were a thousand feet high, and in another like distance they had doubled their height. Moreover, they were insurmountable. Broken in places, splintered, caverned, grandly sculptured, with blank vacant spaces, and again overhanging ledges, nowhere did they offer opportunity for man or horse to climb out. The floor was level, except where slopes of talus and ruins of avalanche reached out from the walls. A dry wash, with low banks, wound down the center of this gorge. What little grass there was appeared to have been scorched by the sun. The sage had suffered the same blight. The only green that enlivened this glaring rent in the rocks came from a cactus here and there.

  It was the nature of canyons, even in the desert, to slope gradually down to where water ran and grass grew. Ames would have been satisfied to take this chance, irrespective of the horse tracks he was following.

  Time and again his quick eye had caught sight of striking marks on the cliffs, mostly in the shadow of ledges. Presently the trail passed close by a cavern, on the yellow walls of which showed vividly a number of blood-red hands. Ames stopped.

  “Dog-gone my hide!” he said, plaintively. “Am I seein’ things?”

  He got off to investigate. The blood-red hands were of paint, perhaps deposited there in centuries past by aborigines or cliff-dwellers. They were small in size, perfect in shape, the fingers spread wide. These hands had been dipped in red paint and pressed against the wall. Who placed them there? What did they signify?

  “Funny old world,” he soliloquized. “‘Most as bad now as it was then, I reckon. Shore any darn fool would savvy what they meant then. But I’m just wonderin’. Maybe this is a hunch for me to back-trail. . . . Tough on me to have a lot of bloody hands stuck in my face. But my conscience is clear.”

  Ames rode on, and from that cavern every few rods of this remarkable gorge gave evidence of prehistoric habitation. Hieroglyphics in black and yellow, crude figures of birds, snakes, animals, of which Ames recognized deer and bear, spotted level walls in every protected place. But no more in red!

  Likewise the gorge gave evidence that it had been used as a burial-ground. Small graves low down along the base of the walls consisted of stones cemented by some red substance harder than rock. These graves were short and narrow, and all of them had been broken into. After a while, however, Ames noted that there were many sealed graves, like mud-wasp nests, high up above his head. And these had not been despoiled. That excited his speculation, and presently he concluded that during the years or centuries since the upper graves had been cemented, the canyon floor had eroded down to the level upon which he now rode. They had once been at the base of the wall.

  Sunset and then twilight put an end to Ames’ diversion. It was about time for him to find a place to camp. Patches of grass had begun to show along the walls, and thickets of scrub-oak, and in rocky recesses of the stream-bed gleamed pools of water. A little farther down, Ames concluded, there would be a good place for him and his horse to spend the night.

  He did not, however, get much farther. The canyon made a turn, opened wide, with a break in the right wall, where under the bulge of rock a camp fire flickered out of the shadow. Presently it disappeared behind huge sections of cliff that had tumbled down. The trail led round them. Ames expected to be hailed, yet kept his horse at a natural trot.

  “Hands up!” rang out a harsh command.

  With one action Ames reined his horse and elevated his hands.

  “Shore. Up they are,” he replied, peering behind an obstructing rock.

  A tall man, bareheaded, in his shirt sleeves, stepped out with gun leveled.

  “Who air you?” he demanded.

  “I’m nobody to hold up, you can shore bet on that,” answered Ames, with a dry laugh.

  “What you want?”

  “Well, most particular I yearn for a cup of hot coffee an’ a hot biscuit.”

  His drawling cool speech in the face of the extended gun had evident effect.

  “An’ then what?”

  “Bed, by gosh! if it’s only hard rock,” declared Ames, fervently.

  “Face round . . . now get off,” ordered the man, curtly.

  Ames was extremely careful to comply with this command.

  “Keep your hands up an’ go on ahead.”

  “Which way? Reckon I see two trails,” said Ames.

  “To the right.”

  Ames complied, and after a few steps passed an obstructing rock to be greeted by a bright camp fire. The dark forms of three men stood expectantly. Packs and saddles were scattered around under a projecting ledge of rock, the smoke-blackened roof of which afforded evidence of many camp fires. As Ames drew closer, he caught sight of unrolled beds, from which he deduced that this was a camp of some permanence.

  “Heady, look this fellar over,�
� spoke up Ames’ captor.

  Ames halted at a significant touch from behind. He stood in the firelight. A lanky man in ragged garb stepped up, and aside, so as not to block the light. Ames looked into cadaverous face and gray hawk eyes.

  “Steele, I never seen him in my life,” said this man, called Heady. “He ain’t no Mormon.”

  Whereupon Ames’ captor stepped round in front, to disclose to Ames a swarthy crafty face, eyes like bright beads, and the tight-lipped mouth and hard jaw of a man who kept his own secrets.

  “Wal, so much fer thet,” he said, slowly, and he lowered the gun. “Amos, what you an’ Noggin make of him?”

  The other two of the quartet half circled Ames, the first a ruddy giant, bearded and unkempt, and the second a lean little man, past middle age, with a face like a ferret.

  “Steele, he’s a Gentile cowpuncher,” said Amos, “an’ you scared the hell out of us fer nuthin’. Haw! Haw!”

  Whatever the ferret-faced individual thought he kept to himself.

  “Wal, give an account of yourself,” continued Steele.

  Ames realized that he had, as often before, fallen into bad company. Slowly and easily he lowered his hands, and replied with manner that suited his movement.

  “Shore. Short an’ sweet. For reasons of my own I haided across the canyon, down Havasupi. Lost my pack-mule an’ supplies swimmin’ the river. Climbed out by the Shinumo Trail. Then I got lost. Natural enough, for this heah’s bran’-new country to me. I kept haidin’ north. When I hit this gulch the dust was blowin’ fierce, an’ I started down. Never saw your tracks till I got to the bottom. That’s all. . . . Quit raggin’ me an’ give me somethin’ to eat an’ drink.”

  “Wal, we all have reason of our own fer things. I ain’t over-inquisitive. But what’s your name?”

  “Ames, if that’s any good to you.”

  “Ames? I don’t know. Sounds queer.”

  “Reckon that’s because it’s my right name. They call me Arizona Ames.”