by Zane Grey
Lucinda lay awake long hours that night, praying to bear up, hoping the dawn would never arrive. But it did come — a grey, cold breaking of day at the window.
She heard trotting horses and whistling cowboys go by, and the creak of wagon wheels and hum of motors. The business of the world did not halt for heart-broken mothers.
At breakfast Logan talked about the cattle market. Lucinda at last, in desperation, turned upon him.
“Logan Huett, are you mad about cattle?...Good God, man, don’t you realize your sons are leaving to-day for the war?”
“Why, Luce!...What the hell?...Aw, don’t be so cut up. Sure the boys are going to enlist. And it’s the proudest day of my life. But it doesn’t faze me, wife. You women jump at conclusions. America will never get in this war. Once our army reaches Europe, if it ever does, those Germans will quit like yellow dogs. They’re licked right now. Well, then, what of that? Our boys will get some military work — a good thing in itself — they’ll see some of the U.S. if not France, and they’ll come back all the better for service. We’ll have our new house then, and a couple of nice girls picked out for George and Grant.”
Thus the practical cattleman dismissed the dreadful thing, which, like a poisonous lichen, was eating into Lucinda’s heart. For a while after Logan was gone, Lucinda attended to the housework, and she derived some comfort from his deductions. But this did not last long under the pitiless light of her intuition. She was a woman — a mother — and she could not explain what she knew. There seemed to be a sixth sense in her, an intelligence that had not yet clarified for her its subtlety.
Barbara came at noon, transformed into a woman, her face lovely with its pale pearl colour, her eyes shadowed, the exquisite violet dark and dim.
“Mother — he — they leave at two,” she sobbed. “It’s a special train — westbound...They go to some place in Washington State — a training camp for soldiers...I’ve had my last moment alone with Abe. He’s rushed to get through. But they accepted him pronto...Dad is down there bragging about how many Germans my — my husband will kill...Yes, Dad is, Mother. He’s smoking a big cigar, his chest swelled out, his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. Oh, it’s disgusting!...It’s terrible! Dad can’t see. George is drinking and doesn’t care. Grant is on fire with some strange passion that I think is false...But Abe, he is different — his heart is breaking, too.”
“Then why does he go?” asked Lucinda, stern in her judgment.
“He’d have to go, anyway. But Abe wants to. Down street he pointed out a war poster on the billboard. It was a picture of a gorilla making off with a white woman. It said in big black letters: ‘Save your sweetheart from the Huns!’ Abe wants to go because of that. Oh, Mother, I — I can’t endure it!” She seemed on the verge of collapse.
“You must, Barbara. At least until after they go. We must not let them carry away memories of miserable faces. Our woman’s lot is harder. Men fight and women weep, you know.”
At two o’clock that day, when the special train pulled into the station, all the people of Flagg and its environs were present. Banners and flags waved from the windows. Young faces, keen, tanned, somehow raw and primitive, flashed upon the spectators. These young men joked and made witty remarks to the girls present.
Lucinda’s little party was only one of a dozen such groups. They could not be alone, even if they thought of such a thing. The crowd was loud in its good cheer, its well-wishing, its farewell to its youthful champions. All along the front of that line Lucinda saw the wet eyes of women. They were all mothers, all sisters, all sweethearts of these boys going away to war. That light of glory in their eyes, dimmed by tears, told the secret of that sacrifice. This woman acclaim of the soldier was in the race.
“All aboard!” yelled the conductor.
Grant put his arms around Barbara and Lucinda. Tears coursed down his cheeks.
“Good-bye, Bab...Good-bye, Mother...Don’t take it — hard. Ten to one we’ll never get to France...So long, Dad! Good luck with the herd!” He snatched up his luggage and ran to board the train.
Abe stood aside to let George at Barbara. The parting had sobered him. His farewell was a kiss and a gallant smile. “Barbara, if I make a good soldier, I’ll owe it to you.” And he turned to Lucinda: “Mother!” That was all he said, but he clasped her close. As he kissed her, Lucinda suffered the ghastly illumination of her dark forebodings. George would never come back to her. But he, young, physical, elemental, never divined that awful truth. He broke from her, wrung Logan’s hand, and rushed away. The train was moving. Abe let go of his mother, pressed Barbara’s rapt face to his breast, then followed his brothers. Logan ran along the car-step from which Abe was waving.
“Son,” he shouted huskily, “you gotta be at that turkey shootin’ at Pine!”
The long, sustained cheer of the watchers died into a strange sobbing breath as the train pulled out and left them standing there.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HUETT MET HIS old friend Al Doyle in the bank. As a young man Al had helped build the Union Pacific Railroad and the Santa Fe. He had been pioneer, cattleman, lumberman, teamster, and guide. If there was one Arizonian who knew the West it was Doyle. Of late years Doyle had been guiding geologists and archaeologists into the canyon country, and hunters down over the Tonto Rim.
“Howdy, Al,” said Huett.
“Wal, hullo, old-timer,” replied Doyle. “What do you hear from your sons?”
“Not much lately. Letters few and far between, and all cut up. Makes me tired. Abe’s at the front. They shoved him along pronto. George and Grant among the reserves.”
“They’ll smoke up that Boche outfit before the snow flies. Hell of a war, Logan! We got in just in time to save France and England. With Hindenburg falling back and the Yanks arriving by shiploads it won’t be long now.”
“Al, I haven’t sold out my cattle yet.”
“Say, old timer, you don’t have to tell me that. You’ve ootfiggered all the big blokes who reckoned they was smart. But, Logan, don’t be a hawg. Don’t wait too long. There’s bound to be a slump when winter sets in. On the q.t. I’ll give you a tip from Charteris. The Government has ordered cattle from the Argentine.”
“You don’t say!” ejaculated Huett, astonished and impressed.
“If the war ended in November, say, you fellows who’re hanging on to your cattle would be left holding the sack. After the war the bottom will drop out of everything. I went through the Civil War, Logan; I know. If we had hard times after that Civil War, what’ll we have after this World War?”
“Hard times! Why, Al, that’s not conceivable. Take Flagg. The place is lousy with money. You see money sticking round loose. No one would stop to pick up a greenback from the gutter.”
“Shore. And that’s just why, Logan. This war has made the U.S. enormously rich. Seventeen thousand new millionaires! Everybody is rich. The value of money has been lost sight of. An orgy of spending, gambling, wasting will follow this. And then just you wait!”
“Al, are you giving me a tip or a hunch?” queried Logan, good-humouredly, though he began to take the old westerner seriously.
“Both...How’s your stock making oot? It’s a dry season.”
“They’re okay. I sent some cowboys down last month to keep tab on them. If everything wasn’t jake I’d have heard.”
“Best canyon ranges in Arizona. And you’re running thirty thousand head?”
“Thereabouts. Some over that, George counted.”
“Huett, are you getting dotty in your old age? Cattle selling now at forty dollars on the hoof! Good God, what do you want?”
“I been holding out. Was offered forty-two a while back. Reckon I can get more from Mitchell, the Government buyer.”
“Wal, Logan, if I was you I’d take what I could get while the army is shelling oot greenbacks by the car-load. It won’t last. Not in the face of Argentine cattle! Shore, the price might and probably will go up. But don’t take the risk. Anyway, you
and your family will have more money than you can spend all the rest of your lives...Logan, yours has been a long, hard, uphill pull. You’ve done great...It’s thirty-three years ago since I met you at Payson, while you were soldiering with Crook, and tipped you off about Sycamore Canyon. Remember?”
“You bet I do, Al. And there’s been a hundred times in that thirty-three years when I wanted to murder you.”
“Ha! ha!...Wal, all’s well that ends well. I shore gave you a good hunch. Thirty thousand head at forty or over?...Lord, I can’t figure it up.”
“One good hunch deserves another. Maybe I can return it some day.”
“Huett, have you reckoned what a hell of a mess Mitchell will make of that drive up from Sycamore?” queried Al, seriously.
“Have I? Well, I should smile. But I reckon I can make this deal without delivery at the railroad.”
“All the same you don’t want a thousand head lamed and lost. Mitchell will make some kind of a count.”
“That’s what George advised. I’d better have some say in the drive.”
“You want a lot of say. Those cattle will be fat. They mustn’t be drove hard. You’re lucky that no herds have come up from the Tonto all summer. Grass will be enough, Water scarce. Drive ten days — six miles a day. And fifty good cowboys, old timer, red rookies from the camp. There were a lot turned down. Failed to qualify. And that’s funny, Logan.. Where’s the cowboy who never broke a bone?”
“Damn if I know. Al, what’ll I do about such a big outfit?”
“Wal, reckon we’d better get my son Lee on the job. Mitchell won’t swiggle at five dollars a day. And that’ll be easy picking for a lot of boys. Let me see. Joe Arbell, Jack Ray, Hal McDonald, Con Sullivan, Bill Smith, all the Rider boys, except Al, who went to France. And Wetherill would let his son fetch a bunch of Navajos...Logan, that ootfit, with some other riders thrown in, can do the job okay.”
“Fine...Al, by gosh, I reckon you’ve pushed me off. I was tilting on the fence. Will you make an offer to Lee for me?”
“Shore will. I can almost guarantee it a go.”
“I’ll look you up to-night...Now, what’n hell did I come in here for?”
“Money, same as me, I’ll bet. There’s still some left. While we’ve been talking here I’ve seen stacks of long-green pass out that window. Beats me where it comes from...So long, Logan. Don’t get weak-kneed now. Sell!”
Logan finally remembered that his errand in the bank was to draw money for Lucinda and Barbara. He wrote out a cheque and noted the amount of his balance had dropped below ten thousand dollars. He had had much more than that, the accumulation from years of sales of small herds. Where had so much money gone? Cashing the cheque Logan wended his way home.
All through late spring and summer, since the boys had gone, Lucinda and Barbara had worried Logan more and more. Lucinda had altered, broken, greatly. She suffered under a hallucination that her sons would never come back from the war. She was queer sometimes. She wept at night when she thought he lay asleep. Barbara, mentally at least, appeared to be worse than Lucinda. Losing Abe with no certainty of his return had proved a terrific strain. Logan could only judge of her state of mind by her pale face, her great burning eyes, her courage, her restless energy and insatiate passion for all forms of war relief service.
Both she and Lucinda had plunged into work with all the other women of Flagg, and particularly those who had sons, brothers, sweethearts, cousins, friends who had gone to France, or to the training-camps. They organized bazaars, concerts, socials, knitting-circles. They were persistent and relentless about raising money for their soldier boys, for relief work, particularly the Red Cross. Logan swore he had contributed a pretty penny to that cause. He had come to fume a little about all this crazy obsession. From morning till late at night his womenfolk ran and worked and harangued themselves until they were so tired, so nervous, so upset that they could not sleep.
But when Logan got home to lunch, to see Lucinda’s sad face and Barbara’s strained eyes, he reproached himself for his impatience and irritation. When all was said, his women were the least carried away by this infernal war mania. At least Lucinda did not quite make a fool of herself and Barbara did not forget that she was the wife of Abe Huett.
“Any news, Dad?” asked Barbara.
“About the same, Bab. The bulletin said ‘All quiet on the Western Front.’”
“All quiet! Oh, the liars! I get so sick reading that line.”
“Why sick, my dear?”
“Because it’s false. Just think how hideous! You read that down town — and Mrs. Hardy reads a wire from Washington that Joe has been killed in action. Crashed over the German lines! Cited for bravery!...Oh-h! — poor Joe! That boy, who loved machines...He couldn’t fight!”
“Aw!...That’s a punch below the belt...That’s real...I’m sorry — awful sorry, I’ll drop in to see Mrs. Hardy.”
“Logan, did you remember to get the money?”
“Yes, Luce, I did — finally. Here...Folks, we’ve been spending a lot of money somehow.”
“Money doesn’t mean anything these days,” said Lucinda.
“I reckon not. But it took a long time to earn some...I’m not kicking, Maw. I was just telling you.”
“Dad, could you let me have a — a hundred?” asked Barbara, hesitatingly.
“I reckon so — if you promise to rest once in a while, and stop that damned knitting. Every time I come home, even at meals, you knit, knit, knit. It’s getting on my nerves, honey.”
“It’s not the knitting, Dad. But I’ll have to quit for a while. My fingers are raw.”
“Well, after all, I have got some news,” declared Logan, sitting down and slapping a big hand on each knee. “I reckon I’ll sell out.”
“Your cattle?” cried Barbara eagerly.
“Logan, how often you’ve said that,” added his wife incredulously.
“I reckon I’ll sell at forty. Might get more, if I stuck it out. But Al Doyle called me a hawg, and darn me if he wasn’t near right.”
“Daddy! Sell at forty! And you have thirty thousand head?...Why, that’s over a million!”
“Sure. And if I waited to get one dollar more a head — why, that’d be five thousand more for each of the Huetts. Can you see now why I’ve hung on so tight?”
“Oh, Dad! — It’s too good to be true!”
“Not much. It is true...Set out some lunch, Luce, and the sooner I’ll mozy down town while I’m in this humour.”
“Mother, think how we can help the Red Cross,” murmured Barbara.
Logan grunted forcibly. “Yes, my girl, but there’ll be a limit. The war has got you both hipped.”
Mitchell, buyer for the Government, suavely welcomed Logan into his office and moved a chair for him. Mitchell was a man over forty, with stern, smooth face and shrewd, cold eyes.
“Good day, Huett. You certainly have taken your time about giving me an answer.”
Logan returned his greeting and drawled: “I’m never in a hurry with cattle deals.”
“You’d have done well if you had been in a hurry,” returned Mitchell, curtly. “The price of cattle went up. You cattlemen lost your heads. You could have sold once for forty dollars a head — then thirty-eight. When it was thirty-two I warned you — advised you to close. But you knew it all. Yesterday I bought the last of Babbitt’s for twenty-eight. To-day I wouldn’t give you twenty-five.”
Huett took that for a crafty, greedy bluff. Nevertheless it added to his concern. Doyle had been right — he had waited too long.
“I can sell to Kansas City buyers for more than that.”
“Go out and try it. The stockyards there are flooded.”
Huett got up slowly and clapped on his sombrero. “Good day, Mitchell,” he said gruffly, and stamped out.
Mitchell called after him: “Your family will suffer for your pig-headedness!”
That surprising sally added anger to Huett’s amazed concern. It happened to hit an ex
tremely sore spot. In the next hour he was to learn that the market for cattle had closed, so far as it pertained to Flagg. Babbitt, Charteris, Wilson, Little, all the cattle barons confirmed this, and admitted frankly that they had gambled for too high stakes. But Huett could not be convinced. A man who had thirty thousand head of cattle to sell held a fortune in his hands. The boom might be past, but beef and hides represented gold more or less. He wired to Kansas City for an offer, and then hunted up Doyle.
“Let’s have a drink, old-timer,” suggested Al. “We need it.”
“Don’t care if I do...Mitchell turned me down cold. Wouldn’t give me twenty-five!”
“Logan, I don’t like that girl-chasin’ dude,” replied the old Arizonian, bluntly. “I just had a talk with my son Lee. He was keen about your offer, and he can get a dozen or more good cowboys and fifty Navvies.”
“Humph! If I can’t sell I can’t drive.”
“Sell? Of course you can sell. It’s tough to come down, but you must reckon on the large number of cattle in your herd. The three thousand head sold here since early May averaged only twenty dollars a head. Some went for thirty and most of them for fifteen or less.”
“So I reckoned. Just wired to Kansas City.”
“Logan, Lee thinks this buyer is hot after Barbara. It’s pretty well known, Lee says, among the young people. Mitchell has been playing high jinks among the Flagg girls. But Barbara snubbed him, which made him mad about her.”
“Most young men and older ones too fall for Barbara. She had to give up the dances because of the fights over her.”
“Shore. But this is different, Logan,” rejoined Al, seriously. “In war-time women are not responsible. Or else they’re inspired about somethin’. I remember during the Civil War that officers in uniform just played hell with women. It’s worse now, for this is a hell of a war.”
“But Al...my God, Barbara is—”
“Just like all the other young women, thrown off her balance. My daughter is only fifteen, but she’s loco. She despises cowboys that were not accepted for draft. To sum it up, women are not themselves nowadays. Wal, war plays hell with men, too...The hunch I want to make about Barbara is this. You can’t keep her out of this war-relief work, but you can keep her away from Mitchell.”
