Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  All at once Lucinda ceased her work to gaze out up the forested canyon. No differing sounds had caused this. She was puzzled. The brook murmured on, the soft wind moaned on, a stillness pervaded the canyon. The sun was directly overhead, as she ascertained by the shadows of the pines. Something had checked her actions, stopped her train of thought. It did not come from outside.

  Suddenly a stentorian yell burst the silence.

  “Waa-hoo-oo!”

  That was Logan’s hunting-yell. Had he gone mad? Lucinda became rooted to the spot. Then her ears strung to the swift, hard hoof-beats of a running horse. Who was riding in? What had happened? Logan’s whoop to a visiting cowboy? It seemed unnatural. The charged moment augmented unnaturally. How that horse was running! His hoofs rang on the hard trail up the bench. A grind of iron on stone, a sliding scrape and a pattering of gravel — then a thud of jangling boots!

  “Bab, old girl — here I am!” called a trenchant voice, deep and rich and sweet.

  Lucinda recognized it; and her frightened heart leaped pulsingly to her throat.

  Barbara’s piercing shriek followed. It had the same wild note that had characterized Logan’s, and above and beyond 434 a high-keyed exquisite rapture which could only have burst from recognition.

  “Abe!...Abe!”

  “Yes, darling. It’s Abe. Alive and well. Didn’t you get my telegram from New York?...My God, I — I expected to see you...but not — not so thin, so white. Dad must be okay — the way he yelled. And...Aw, my boy!...So this is little Abe? He has your eyes, Barbara...Brace up, honey. I’m home. It’ll all be jake pronto.”

  “Abe!...You’ve come back — to me,” cried Barbara, in solemn bewilderment.

  Lucinda heard Abe’s kisses, but not his incoherent words. She lost all sensation from her head down. Her body seemed stone. She could not move. Abe had come home, and the shock had restored Barbara’s mind. Lucinda felt that she was dying: joy had saved, but joy could also kill.

  “Mother!” cried Abe. “Come out!”

  If Lucinda had been on the verge of death itself his call at that moment would have drawn her back, imbued her through arid through with revivifying life. She rushed out. There stood Abe in uniform, splendid as she had never seen him, bronzed and changed, with one arm clasping Barbara and the boy, the other outstretched for her, and his grey eyes marvellously alight.

  “Doggone! Here we are again,” Logan kept saying.

  It was an hour later. The incredible and insupportable transport of the reunion had yielded to some semblance of deep, calm joy. Logan seemed utterly carried out of his apathetic self. Barbara had recovered her reason; there was no doubt of that. Spent and white, she lay back against Abe, but her eyes shone with a wondrous love and gratitude and intelligence. Lucinda knew herself to be the weakest of the four. She had just escaped collapse. The hope of this resurrection, though she had not divined it, had been upholding her for weeks.

  “Some day — not soon — I’ll tell you about George and Grant,” Abe was saying gently. “When you hear what they did — what their buddies and officers thought of them — you won’t feel their loss so terribly...My case was simple. I had shell-shock and lay weeks in the hospital unidentified. When I came to my senses I proved who I was and got invalided home. I was in bad shape then. Once started homeward I got well pronto. That’s all. The Germans are licked. They’ll never last another winter.”

  “Abe, I reckon you smoked ’em up,” said Logan, intensely.

  “Dad — I knew you’d ask me that,” replied Abe, a grey convulsion distorting his face, ageing and changing it horribly. “Yes, I did. At first I had a savage joy in my skill...It was sheer murder for me to shoot at those poor devils. A hard-nosed thirty Government bullet would get right through their metal helmets...But in time I grew sick of it...And now — well, let’s bury it for ever.”

  “Sorry, son. Just the same, it’s good for me to know. I’m holding on by an eyelash.”

  “Abe, did anyone in Flagg or on the way out tell you what happened to your father?” asked Lucinda.

  “No. I got in late, borrowed a horse and came araring...What happened?”

  “He sold out to the army cattle-buyers. Thirty thousand and nine hundred, at twenty-eight dollars a head...They swindled him. Not one dollar did he ever receive of that money.”

  “Good God!” exclaimed Abe, furiously.

  It was for Logan then to confess shamefacedly his monstrous carelessness and trust.

  “Aw, Dad! — Then we’re back in the old rut again?”

  “Poor as Job’s turkey, son,” replied Logan, huskily.

  “I don’t care on my own account,” said Abe, dubiously. “But for mother and Bab — it’ll be tough to begin all over again.”

  “Darling, I needed only you,” whispered Barbara.

  “Dad, I forgot to tell you,” went on Abe, brightening. “You’ll never believe it. Cattle are selling at fifty dollars a head, and going up.”

  “For the land’s sake!...Who’s buying?”

  “Kansas City and Chicago.”

  “Did I ever hear the like of that!...My Gawd, why didn’t I wait!” ejaculated Logan, with a spasm working his visage.

  “Never mind, Dad,” returned Abe, slowly. “We’re not licked yet.”

  Abe’s return acted miraculously not alone upon Barbara. Logan hung around him as if fascinated; as if he could not believe the evidence of his senses. Lucinda knew they were all saved. The war had not impaired Abe physically. And spiritually she thought he was finer, stronger. Abe was of the wilderness. The old potent loneliness and solitude, the trails and trees, the cliff walls, and home with Barbara and his boy — these would soon blot out whatever horror it was that haunted him.

  The family sat together for hours until late afternoon.

  “By gum, I forgot to unsaddle that nag,” said Abe. “Bab, if you’ll let go of me for a spell I’ll ride down the old trail a ways.”

  “Abe, are you really home?” she asked, eloquently. “What do you say, sweet?”

  “This is not a dream? You are not among the missing?” Abe stood upright to swing her aloft and clasp her endearingly.

  “Bab, I’ve caught you looking at me — I believe you’ve been a little loco. Dad seems kind of daffy, too. But I am home. I’m well. I’m so happy I — I — ...there’s no words to express how I feel.”

  He strode across the garden to the field where the horse was grazing, dragging its bridle; and mounting with the old incomparable cowboy step into the saddle he rode down the canyon.

  They all watched him disappear around the jutting corner. “Gosh, Luce,” ejaculated Logan, coming out of a trance, “must rustle some firewood. I don’t want Abe knowing...” He shook his head ponderingly and slowly made for the empty space around the chopping-block.

  “Hurry. I must get supper. Abe will be starved,” called Lucinda.

  “Just as little Abe is this moment,” declared Barbara, as she took up the crying boy.

  Verily, thought Lucinda with fervent thanksgiving, the return of the lost soldier had reclaimed that family.

  Barbara watched for Abe from her old waiting-place on the porch. The afternoon waned, the sun set in golden splendour, the purple shadows fell, and twilight came with its lingering after-glow.

  “He’s coming, Mother,” Barbara called joyfully from outside, and she ran down the path to meet him. Presently they came in, with arms around each other. Barbara’s face was flushed and rosy.

  “Maw, I’m starved,” yelped Abe, at sight of the steaming Pots.

  “Come and get it, boy,” she replied happily.

  “Dad, just wait till I eat, and I’ll sure take a fall out of you,” declared Abe, as he straddled the bench. “I’ve a swell joke on you.”

  “You have, huh?” said Logan. “Wal, son, if you can make anythin’ in this God-forsaken world of mine look like a joke, come out with it pronto.”

  “Wal, I shore can, old-timer,” drawled Abe.

  It was no
t a bountiful supper, to Lucinda’s regret; she had been caught unprepared. But never wider that cabin roof, where Abe had grown to manhood, where he had sat hundreds of times after a gruelling drive or two days’ hunt, had he eaten so ravenously. Lucinda waited on him, Barbara hung over him, Logan watched him, and they all forgot their own suppers. Their feelings transcended happiness.

  “How about that joke?” demanded Logan, impatiently.

  “I’m afraid I’m too full to talk,” declared Abe, as he threw off the snug-fitting khaki jacket and unloosened his belt. His powerful shoulders had lost their brawn. “Dad, you were telling me this afternoon how poor we are. One team, one wagon, a few tools, no horses, no help — and only a little money left. Wasn’t that it?”

  “Yes, son. I wish to heaven I didn’t have to confess it. But we’re as bad off as ever in our lives.”

  “Dad, you sure are a rotten cattleman,” went on Abe, with a smile and a fine flash of eyes upon his father.

  Logan took that amiss. Manifestly it hurt him deeply, for I he crushed his big hands between his knees and almost rocked double. That was one of the moments when Lucinda could not look at him.

  “Dad!...I was talking in fun. That’s my joke,” cried Abe, contritely.

  “Wal, I can’t see it — son.”

  “Listen. And you will darned pronto...Do you remember Three Spring Wash?”

  “I reckon so. Why?” rejoined Logan, lifting his head.

  “Do you remember the time we trapped the wild horses there?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Oh, Abe, I remember that,” cried Barbara, wonderingly.

  “Well, Dad, do you remember we had a bunch of cattle running in there before the big drive?”

  “I reckon we had, same as in those other side canyons.”

  “Do you remember that Grant and I, with the help of some Indians, had the job of tearing down that fence in Three Springs and driving the cattle out into the main herd?”

  “I remember that, too,” declared Logan.

  “We didn’t tear it down.”

  “Huh!” grunted Logan, stupidly.

  “Grant forgot, and I missed that job on purpose. I knew there were more than thirty thousand head in the main canyons. So I left that bunch in Three Springs. We never tore the fence down. Nobody tore it down for that drive. It has not been torn down since.”

  “My Gawd, son — what you — sayin’?”

  “Dad, the fence is there still...And I counted around fifteen hundred head of cattle, all fine and fat. And you can bet that’s a short count, for I didn’t ride up in the oak draws and pine swales.”

  Logan’s big square jaw wobbled and dropped over a query he could not enunciate.

  “That’s my joke on you, Dad. And I think it’s a peach.”

  “Abe!” cried Barbara.

  “You sure are a locoed old cattleman. Here you’ve been moping around Sycamore, heart-broke and pocket-broke, when you’ve got sixteen or eighteen hundred head of cattle worth fifty dollars a head.”

  “For God’s sake, son, you wouldn’t play a joke — like that — on your poor old Dad?” implored Logan.

  “I wouldn’t if it were a lie, Dad, but this is true. Absolutely true. I’ll show you to-morrow.”

  It seemed to Lucinda that while she watched with beating heart and bated breath, a slow change worked in her husband. He stared into the fire. A rumbling cough issued from his broad breast. Then he stood up, apparently seeing straight through the cabin wall. He expanded. His shoulders squared. His grey eyes began to kindle and gleam, and all the slack lines and leaden shades vanished ruddily from his visage. When Logan reached for the old black pipe and the little buckskin bag, and’ began to stuff tobacco in the bowl, then Lucinda realized she was witness to a miracle. She stifled a sob which only Barbara heard, for she came swiftly to Lucinda, whispering the very truth that seemed so beautiful and so distracting. Logan bent down to pick up a half-burnt ember, which he placed upon his pipe. Then he puffed huge clouds of smoke, out of which presently stood his shaggy, erect head, his shining face, his eagle look. Lucinda saw her old Logan Huett with something infinite and indescribable added.

  “Wal, son,” he drawled in his old, cool, easy way. “You Can’t never tell about this here cattle business. Quien sabe? as Al used to say...I reckon I was kinda sick in my gizzard...Now let me see. A few cattle makes a hell of a difference. Say we got fifteen or sixteen hundred head. All right. You’ll rustle some cowboys and cut out all except the youngest stock. I reckon that’d be half, say eight hundred head. You’ll drive them to Flagg and sell...Eight hundred at fifty? — Forty thousand dollars, son!...You’ll bank that money. You’ll buy a truck and a car — and all you can think of — and Luce can think of — and Bab can think of — and new guns for me. Aghh!...Then you rustle the cars and all that stuff home...Abe, we’ll begin cattle-raising again. And we’ll bring little Abe up to know the game. We’ll never make the mistakes I Made...The ways of God are inscrutable. I reckon I’ll never forget again...And after all I’ll never miss that thirty thousand head.”

  THE END

  The Wilderness Trek

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 1

  ACROSS THE BLUE Tasman Sea, smooth and heaving on that last day, the American adventurers eagerly watched the Australian horizon line grow bold and rugged.

  “Red, it’s land — land,” said Sterl, his gray eyes dim from watching and remembrance of other land like that, from which he must forever be an exile. “The mate told me that was Sydney Heads over there.”

  “Shore, pard, I seen it long ago,” replied Red. “This heah sea gettin’ level an’ that sight just about saved my life...Sterl, no more ridin’ ships for Red Krehl.”

  “But Red, I begged you not to come,” replied Hazelton.

  “What kind of talk is thet? Do you think I’d ever let you go to hell alone? Pard, this heah Australia begins to loom up kinda big, at thet. But it’s English — an’ whoever heerd of an English gurl lookin’ at a cowboy?”

  “Red, someday you’ll get enough girl to do you for good and all, as I got.”

  “Shore I can stand a lot, Sterl...Say, if I’d had a bottle on this ship I wouldn’t be near daid now...Sterl, let’s have one orful drunk before we hunt for jobs.”

  “Sounds good, but it’s no sense.”

  “But we never had no sense nohow,” protested Red. “You takin’ the blame for thet gunplay! An’ me fool enough to let you!”

  This time Sterling Hazelton did not reprove his friend. — The pang was still there in his breast. — Nan Halbert had loved him as well as his cousin, Ross Haight — Ross, lovable and sweet-tempered except in his cups, the only child of an ailing father with lands and herds to bequeath — Ross, who had shot a man who certainly deserved it. Sterl had taken upon himself that guilt, which to him was not guilt. His family had been gone so long that he hardly remembered them, except his schoolteacher mother who had loved and taught him. There had been only Nan. And what could he have done for her, compared with what Ross could do? It all rolled back in poignant memory to the scene where Ross had confronted him and Red that last night.

  “But Sterl!” he had rung out, “Nan will believe y
ou killed this man!...And everybody else. How can I stand that?”

  “For her sake! She loves you best...Go straight, Ross...Good-by!”

  And Sterl had raced away into the blackness of the Arizona night, followed by the loyal Red.

  “Red, you remember the package that Ross forced upon you to give me?” Hazelton said suddenly.

  “Shore I remember,” replied Red, looking up with interest. “I had a hunch it was money...”

  “Yes — money. Ten thousand dollars!”

  “Holy mavericks!” ejaculated Red, astounded. “Where’d Ross get it?”

  “Must have told his father. Red, I’m asking you to take half of this money and go back home.”

  “Yeah! The hell you air?” retorted Red.

  “Yes, pard, I’m begging you.”

  “An’ why for?” queried Red. “‘Cause you don’t want me with you?”

  “No — no. It’d be grand to have you — but for your sake!”

  “Wal, if it’s for my sake don’t insult me no more. Would you leave me if you was me an’ I you? Honest Injun, Sterl? Wal, what’s eatin’ you then?”

  “All right, I apologize. Stay with me, Red. God knows I’ll need you...Boy, we’re getting somewhere. Look. There’s a big ship steaming along under the left wall, from the west.”

  “Gosh, they shore look grand. I never seen ships atall till we got to Frisco...This Sydney must be a real man-sized burg, huh?”

  “Big city, Red, and I’m going to take you out of it ‘muy pronto.’”

  “Suits me, pard. But what air we gonna do? We don’t know nuthin’ but hosses, guns an’ cattle.”

  “I read that Australia is going to be a big cattle country.”

  “If thet’s a fact we’re ridin’ pretty,” returned Red, with satisfaction.

  They lapsed into one of their frequent silences while the ship sailed on, her yards and booms creaking. Soon the mile-wide gateway to Australia offered the sailing ship a lonely entrance. Australia’s far-famed harbor opened up to Sterl’s sight, a long curving bay with many arms cutting into the land. Miles inland, around a broad turn where ships rode at anchor, the city of Sydney stood revealed, foreign and stately, gray-walled, red-roofed.