by Grey, Zane
With this gang split and depleted, if merely of its leaders, there would nevertheless be a let-up in rustling for a long time.
Chapter FOURTEEN.
It was an evening in fall when the warmth of the Indian summer day and the pervading melancholy stillness of the season lingered long after darkness mantled the canyon.
George and Grant had returned from Flagg bursting with news of the war in Europe, which was now beginning its third year. At first it had hardly touched them, remote in their canyon. But as time went on and America seemed to become more and more involved, they discussed it with quickening interest.
Lucinda could not quite grasp why a war in far-off Europe held such interest for her sons and husband.
"It's because they're men, Barbara," she said to the listening young woman, who stood with great eyes like midnight gulfs fixed upon Abe.
"It's even got Abe fascinated... Men would rather fight than eat."
"But listen, Mother," replied Barbara.
Huett looked up from the newspaper he had spread over his knees. His grey eyes had the old keen flash. Lucinda noted that it was not the front page of the paper which had interested him.
"Cattle, wheat, cotton, corn--all keep going up," he boomed.
"Well, as to that, I'd forgotten," replied George. "Business all over the U. S. has had a tremendous boom. If the war keeps on we'll all get rich."
"Keeps on? Humph, when it started we thought it would last a few months, and now it's in its third year... Cattle at twenty-two dollars! Big price.
What're the Babbitts doing?"
"They're holding on, Dad. Running eighty thousand head."
"That's what I'll do," declared the rancher, ponderingly.
"You'd have to, even if you wanted to sell. Too late this fall, Paw," said George, shortly, as if the matter of cattle was a secondary consideration. "Take a look at the front page of that paper."
"I don't read so well as I used to, son. And the war itself doesn't interest me. I reckon they're all crazy."
Grant interposed earnestly: "But, Dad, it's spreading. It might involve the whole world. Even America!"
"Shucks! That's ridiculous. Let 'em kill each other off over there. But the U. S. must keep out of it."
"Suppose Germany sinks American ships with her submarines?"
That query arrested Huett.
"Tell us more, George," put in Abe, quietly. He showed no excitement, but he was sombre.
"The Germans have got the bit between their teeth," declared George, with pale face and flashing eyes. "And you bet they'll keep coming. It looks bad for France and England."
"Suppose Germany licks France and England. What'll she do then?" asked Abe.
"God only knows. But that outfit would sure be swelled... If they tried to make a clean sweep, and tackled the U. S.----"
"Hell! You boys are loco. That's not conceivable," interrupted Huett.
"There are a lot of brainy men who say it is possible," said Grant.
"Bab, I've a piece of news that will flabbergast you," went on George.
She did not encourage him. Evidently Barbara had come across a thought she could not surmount or get around.
"You know how loco Joe Hardy was over airplanes. First it was: cars and then planes. Joe sure was a rotten horseman. Well, Joe has left for France, where he's going in the air service."
"Doggone!" ejaculated Huett. "I've seen the day I'd have jumped at that.
I was in the army three years."
"I'd want mine on foot," said Abe. "Never savvied what held those airplanes up."
"They don't all stay up, so I read," rejoined George. "Dad, I wish you'd been in town. You'd have found out there are more places in the world than Sycamore. And more things to think about than we ever dreamed of. I declare I felt like a hick. Mr. Little said if Teddy Roosevelt had been President he'd kept Europe from going to war. And the Kaiser warns the United States that if we send contraband goods abroad he'll sink the ships."
"That would be right," spoke up Abe, stoutly.
"Sure! But what if these grafters had power to get their contraband on passenger ships? And the Germans sunk them with Americans on board? What a hell of a mess that would make!"
"Americans should stay home," interposed Huett, with finality.
"Dad, haven't you taken sides yet?" asked Grant.
"No, I haven't. But if you press me I am for England. And France fought for the United States during the Revolution. That shouldn't be forgotten."
Lucinda went back to the neglected housework, but Barbara stood behind Abe; her hand on his shoulder, and listened. It was a new and strange kind of talk in that cabin. It troubled Lucinda. She tried to dismiss the vague unrest with an acceptance of Logan's failure to see aught for them to worry about, but she could not do it. Logan's thoughts revolved around cattle. Her sons were backwoods cowboys, but they had intelligence, education, and intense patriotism. Logan had patriotism, too; Lucinda used to think it the only religion he had. But during the long years of his struggle that had been relegated to oblivion. It would take a shock to wake up Logan. The boys, however, were quick to grasp how a great war, even far beyond the Atlantic shores, must affect all Americans. That was the realization which troubled Lucinda. Her--consciousness refused to face the thought that had darkened Barbara's beautiful eyes. She hoped that with the hunting season nearer, and winter to follow, there would be no more news about war, and her loved ones would forget.
But when this most desirable thing had almost happened, Logan and Abe met a party of hunters just in from town, and they stirred anew the curious fire of interest. Snow fell in early December, assuring a white Christmas. Owing to increased automobile traffic from Flagg and Winslow to Phoenix:--and points south, the road was kept open. Occasionally one of the Huetts ran into travellers to hear more news. There came a respite, however, during the later months of winter and early spring. Lucinda's menfolk heard no more to augment their excitement, and it gradually subsided.
But the nameless something that had troubled Lucinda did not subside. It seemed to be a shadow without substance, a premonition of a vague and undefined trial of the future. She drove it away, but it continually returned. Lucinda feared the years of toil and worry had made her morbid.
She divined, however, that this intangible recurring emotion was not morbidness. It was deep, primitive, mystic--a something inherited from the mother of the race, a whisper from the beyond.
Logan was reluctant to start for Flagg that spring. Lucinda and Barbara backed him up, overcoming the eagerness of the young men. They decided, however, that when they did go George would drive the car with Lucinda and Barbara, while Logan would go in the wagon with Abe and Grant. Logan wanted to finish a stone-walled corral before they left. It had long been his intention to utilize the hundreds of rocks that had rolled down from the bluff on the west side of the canyon. They lay everywhere near the corrals and the shed for horses and cattle to stumble over.
"Dad, it's too big a job," complained George, when they had one wall half laid. "We'll never get it done."
Huett shook his shaggy grey head obstinately. "We've more time now that we don't have to guard the cattle."
One sunny spring day, when the wet slopes Were drying up and the turkeys had begun to gobble, Lucinda went out with Barbara to see the men. Abe had prevailed upon Barbara to coax Lucinda to make Logan leave off the stone-wall work and go to town.
"We'll go," declared Lucinda. "A little more of this uncertain dread will finish me."
"Mother! What uncertain dread?" asked Barbara anxiously.
"I don't know." Lucinda untied her apron and laid it aside.
As she left the cabin with Barbara she saw the sunflowers sprouting green from the brown soil and bladed grass showing along the log wall. How many years had she tended that garden with its homely flowers! Some association full of sweet and pervading melancholy attended the observance.
When they arrived at the scene of Logan's new enterp
rise, George and Grant were loading a sled with rocks from the slope, and Abe and Logan were working on the wall.
"Look who's here!" boomed Logan, and Abe, after a steady glance at Barbara, slowly laid down the stone he had been about to set in place.
"Logan, we want to start at once for town," announced Lucinda.
"Doggone my pictures! George and Grant have pestered me. And now you womenfolk! Now what's..."
"Hello!--Riders coming lickitty cut down the road," interrupted Abe.
"Luke Flesher and that cowboy who used to ride for Mooney."
"Yes, that's Luke... Something is up," rejoined Logan.
The horsemen reached the corral and reined their sweaty mounts. Lucinda knew Flesher to be a neighbour down the road. He doffed his sombrero to her and Barbara. The cowboy hung back a little, shy and silent.
"Howdy, Huett, an' you fellers," called Flesher, with flashing, tawny eyes upon them. His sallow visage showed strong excitement "Bet you my house you haven't heahed the news."
"Howdy, Luke... What makes you reckon we haven't heard the news?" returned Huett, curiously.
Abe leaned over the wall. George and Grant came striding up.
"Wal, if you had you'd shore not be layin' that wall," retorted Flesher, with a short laugh.
"No? It takes a heap to throw me off a job."
"Huett, cattle are sellin' at forty dollars on the hoof, an' going up."
"What?" boomed the rancher, his tanned face suddenly going red.
"Yes, what! But that ain't nothin' at all... United States has declared war on Germany!"
In the blank pregnant silence that ensued Flesher lighted a cigarette, while his keen, hard eyes studied the effect of his terrible announcement. For an instant Lucinda was concerned with a blinding shock to her consciousness. Then she saw Logan sit back utterly confounded.
Under Abe's dark, clear skin worked a miracle of change. George greeted the news with a ringing whoop. Grant stood transfixed and quivering.
Barbara's strong, sweet face turned pearly white.
"That was three days ago," went on Flesher. "I was in town before the wires came. Course everybody was het-up about the Boches sinkin' the Lusitania with hundreds of Americans on board. France is licked. England is licked. An' if the good old U. S. don't step in, to hell with democracy an' freedom! Germany shore has her eye on America. All the same, when the news came, Flagg went loco. Arizona is buzzin' like a nest of mad yellow-jackets. The draft is cumin' for able-bodied young men between twenty-one and thirty."
"Draft!... What's that?" queried Logan, huskily.
"Government order forcin' all fit young men to train for war... But a good many cowboys an' other fellers are not waitin' on the draft. They're enlistin'. Jack Campbell was the first."
That information appeared to sting Logan. He might as well have boomed out that if his sons had known, they would have been the first.
"My sons will not wait for the draft," he said stiffly.
"Good! There'll shore be a hell of a lot of speculation on how many Huns yore Abe will bore. Haw! haw! haw!... Arizona will send a regiment of riders an' shots that couldn't be beat nowhere... Wal, Huett, heah's the papers I was commissioned to give you. I've been ridin' all over to the outlyin' ranchers in the woods. Don't like the job. Shore falls tough on women. I'm sorry, Mrs. Huett, to have to tell you an' Miss Barbara. But it strikes into every home... We must be mozyin' on."
"Wait," called Logan, as Flesher gathered up his reins.
"Are the Babbitts holding on to their stock?"
"They are not--an' cussin' themselves blue in the face. Sold out for thirty-three dollars a haid."
"Well!--Who's buying?"
"Stockmen in Kansas City and Chicago. Speculators. Big cattle barons.
Stock movin' this last ten days. Santa Fe have wired for all available freight cars. Everybody figurin' that the Government will begin to buy beef an' hides."
"They'll shove the price up?"
"Sky-high, Huett. You want to be in on this. How much stock you runnin'?"
"I reckon--thirty thousand head," returned Logan, swallowing hard.
"Dad, the count will be more this spring," interposed George.
"My Gawd!" ejaculated the astonished Flesher. "Ain't you settin' pretty?
Hang on, Huett, but not too long."
Then the visitors wheeled their horses and made off up the road at a gallop. The Huetts did not soon rouse out of their trance. Lucinda felt herself to be a part of the stone wall upon which she leaned, numb, halted, dead except in her consciousness which was a maelstrom of conflicting thoughts.
Logan tumbled the stone off his knee that he had forgotten was there.
"Sons, we'll never finish this corral," he said, loud and clear. "We leave for town at once... George, get out your car. Luce, you and Bab pack pronto. Abe, you and Grant rustle with the wagon."
Grant ran off with thudding boots. But Abe had not heard. He fixed a strained, soft gaze from his wonderful grey eyes upon Barbara. She saw only him.
"Bab, will you--marry me--at once?" he asked trenchantly.
"Oh--yes--Abe!" she cried. A radiant transfixed face attested to joy that overcame grief. Abe took her hand and put an arm around her. They forgot the others. Lucinda walked behind, leaving Logan by his unfinished stone corral.
Lucinda's perceptions magnified to startling clear and vivid reactions.
She saw that a profound and tremendous excitement had seized upon her family, stultifying, inhibiting, blinding them to the incredible and insupportable truth. Her husband, after thirty years of the poverty and toil of a galley-slave, saw suddenly the grand rainbow of his dreams looming before him in an arch of gold. His sons would not wait to be drafted! Those sons, reared in the wilderness, red-blooded and virile as savages, to whom the world and cities and ships and armies had been but names, had rudely been shocked into a passion of patriotism, had had flashed before their serene vision the kaleidoscopic train of great scenes, of brilliant images, of the glory of adventure, of the romance of war. As for Barbara, she had been staggered, and before her sensitive soul had grasped the significance of this catastrophe, love with its fulfilment, with the wifehood delayed so long, closed her mind for the time to all but the tumultuous truth.
But upon Lucinda descended the doom of the mother. She thought of her sons. She remembered the travail of their birth. She saw them from the beautiful moment to this fatal hour. They were a part of her flesh and blood, of her spirit; the inexplicable dread that had weighed upon her for months gathered strength, yet never clarified its sinister meaning.
The tall pines, black and old, moaned with the old voice that had been a bane to her all her life there; the looming walls, grey and silent, looked down upon her in pitiless knowledge of her plight.
Presently entering the cabin with this burden, Lucinda was plunged into the vortex of her family's wild excitement. Logan was a young man again.
George and Grant raved like two boys upset by prospect of an adventure too grand to grasp. Abe had got no farther than his marriage to Barbara.
And Barbara, her eyes like stars, her thought and emotion meeting those of her lifelong playmate and sweetheart, ran and packed and laughed without realizing her eyes were wet with tears.
"Folks, pack all your things and throw them into the wagon," said Logan.
"We're leaving Sycamore for good. I'll keep the ranch... We'll come back for a visit every fall, when the leaves colour and the deer take on their blue coats... At last--by God!... Thirty thousand head and more!... Forty dollars and going up!"
George drove the old Ford at a speed that would have appalled Lucinda during a less poignant time. She sat in the front seat with Barbara and held on tightly. The back of the car was loaded full with their baggage.
Every familiar landmark along the road gave Lucinda a pang. Barbara laughed at every bump. She saw something beautiful, but not along the road. It never crossed George's absorbed mind that he might be passing the entra
nce to Sycamore Canyon for the last time, and Turkey Flat and Cedar Ridge. He never saw them at all.
For once the Huetts did not stop at Mormon Lake. Lucinda saw with pity the run-down ranch of the Holberts, and she thought sadly of their disintegration, and the old man still living there, waiting for the prodigal son who would never come back.
It was dark when George ended the drive with a grand rattling flourish in front of Wetherington's Hotel. He engaged rooms, stored the baggage, and took Lucinda and Barbara to supper. Afterwards they went out. The main street was bright with lights and thronged with people. Cowboys in groups jangled their spurs along the sidewalks. They had heated faces and eyes that flashed.
"Kinda like July Fourth, circus day, fiesta, and Saturday night all messed up," said George. "Everybody going some place but don't know where!"
"Take us to the motion-pictures," entreated Barbara.
They went. The big, barnlike hall was crowded with a noisy, motley crowd of cowboys and lumbermen. When Lucinda's eyes grew accustomed to the dim light she saw a sprinkling of girls all over the theatre. It seemed full of a charged atmosphere. Before the regular picture came on there were shown comic features, and then a kind of bulletin of war news and Government propaganda, the first of which elicited roars of mirth from the audience, and the second drew a fearful din of stamping boots, shrill whistles, and wild whoops. Lucinda felt the surge of feeling that was rampant. She wept over a screen drama which at a normal hour would have been as nauseous as sawdust.
After the show they squeezed out of the theatre, merging with the stream of excited humanity. Cowboys sidled up to Barbara and made bold advances.
One of them said: "Sweetheart, I'm goin' to fight the Huns for you. Come out an' play with me." Barbara appeared bewildered, but not angry. George laughed at the cowboys, and placed Barbara between him and Lucinda.
"Town wide open. Everything goes. Bab, I reckon you'd better not run around alone."
"Oh, I can take care of myself. I like it."
But Lucinda probed deeper. She guessed a laxity, a levity, a hurried, audacious, haunting something in the crowd of young people. She had never known there were so many girls in and around Flagg. She had never seen them so unreserved, so silly, giggling, flirting, brazen. The old-time western girls, except the dance-hall type and the street-walkers, had been noted for their poise, their dignity, but these virtues seemed gone.
