Shadow on the Trail

by Zane Grey

  “Only twenty thousand cattle on a range that’d support half a million! With the price bound to climb! . . . Pencarrow, you can make a fortune here in five years.”

  “I could have. Damn me, suh, I could have,” bellowed the rancher, touched on a sore spot. “I saw it. But I’ve been deceived, outfigured an’ robbed.”

  “If you have two or three thousand head left we can double them in a couple of years. And double that in two more.”

  “But I haven’t got so many left, an’ I’d need more cows, new bulls, an’ riders.”

  “Of course. I’ve worked on ranches at different times, enough to learn something about the cattle business.”

  From that moment, Wade began to think too deeply to ask more questions or even to attend strictly to Pencarrow’s further statements. Upon their return, they unsaddled at the barn. Hal turned the horses loose in the long lane that led to the pasture. Pencarrow told Hal to show Wade to his cabin and then left for the house.

  “Mr. Brandon, I’m doggone glad you came to Cedar Ranch,” said the boy, heartily. “So is Rona, and I’ve a hunch Jacque is, too, for all she’s so sick of riders.”

  “Well, Hal, I’m pretty glad myself,” replied Wade, warmed by the lad. “Suppose you cut out the mister and call me Tex.”

  “Tex? For Texas. I like that. We’re getting along first-rate, aren’t we? Will you take me riding with you?”

  “Say, boy, your lessons begin tomorrow.”

  “Lessons? Gosh!—I have one hour a day with Jacque in summer and three in winter,” complained Hal.

  “Fine. But I mean lessons in riding, roping, branding, tracking—and handling guns.”

  “Oh, Mist . . . Tex! You mean it?” ejaculated Hal, rapturously.

  “I shore do.”

  “Whoopee!” yelled Hal.

  They had reached the little cabin at the edge of the first pine-dad knoll. Jacqueline emerged from the open door to confront them on the porch.

  “What are you whooping about?” she asked, severely.

  “Tex is gonna make a cowboy out of me.”

  “Tex?”

  “Yes. Mr. Brandon. But he won’t let me call him mister.”

  “Oh, was that it. Well, Tex has taken another hard job on his hands,” replied the girl, demurely. “Mr. Brandon, heah are your quarters. Will you step in?”

  “I’m gonna run an’ tell Rona,” said Hal.

  “All right lad. While you’re at it, ask Rona if she’d like to be a cowgirl.”

  Hal ran toward the house whooping for his sister. Jacqueline stood in the door of the cabin, bidding Wade enter.

  “Cowgirl?” she asked, with a smile.

  “Yes. And that goes for you too, Miss Pencarrow.”

  “How thrilling! . . . Dad built this cabin for his foreman. But it never was occupied by just one man. . . . Mother and I fixed it up in a hurry. It’s quite nice, don’t you think? Cozy and light. Running water and open fireplace. There’s a shed full of cedar and juniper wood through that back door. Table and lamp are still to come.”

  Wade took one survey of the interior with its pine-wood furniture, its colored blankets and Indian rugs, its big stone fireplace, its several pictures and shelf of books, and then he laughed outright.

  “For me, Miss Pencarrow! This wonderful little cabin? . . . It is far too good. If you could see the holes I’ve lived and slept in!”

  “All the more reason why you should have some little comfort heah.”

  “If you say I must. . . . But I fear I’ll not fit it very well, with my dust and rags.”

  “You are rather ragged and travel-stained,” she said, surveying him from mud-caked boots to his dusty sombrero. “But clothes do not make the man in Arizona.”

  “What does make him? A horse and gun?”

  “I admit their importance. . . . You took a shine to Hal at once, didn’t you?”

  “I sure did.”

  “I never saw Hal so happy. He’s excited, of course, as we all are. Your introduction was upsetting. Dad insulted you and I—well, I took you for another of these loose range Romeos.”

  “You had reason to take me for worse.”

  “No! That was fear. I should have felt you were the—the man I prayed for—to come—to help Dad.”

  “Did you pray? Well, now,” replied Wade, weakly, as he sought for words to hide a sudden bursting flood of emotion. He tossed his sombrero on the bed and would have made some movement to break the spell. But she held him with a look, grateful and wondering, and an unfathomable darkness of eyes that struck at his heart.

  “I did pray. Many and many a time. I never gave up, but I lost hope. . . . I’m ashamed that I didn’t recognize the moment—the meeting—the significance of it all. But hard as this Arizona life has been, I had not seen death and blood.”

  Her speech was low and full of emotion, propelled by the intensity that seemed a part of her every thought and action. These would have been eloquent and persuasive from the plainest of girls. But from Jacqueline Pencarrow, endowed as she was with spirit and beauty, it proved Wade’s undoing. That was the peril in her. He recognized it, even at the birth of a first and overmastering love. Most men would have misunderstood her, have been blind to the fact that a wish of hers, a persuasive request was magnified a thousandfold by the beauty of her person and the intensity of her being.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’ve come, Tex Brandon,” she cried, suddenly glowing scarlet. “And before this day is done—when I recover from this cold sickness—heah—” she pressed a brown spread hand over her hearty “I shall have had my first happy hour in years.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WADE was alone at Cedar Ranch.

  He had seen all the Pencarrows, in wagon and buck-board, drive off for Holbrook, a transformed and happy family. He had watched them go with a deep conviction of the good that would come to a man if he had faith and hope enough. At the turn of the road, where it climbed over a gray ridge, one of the girls had waved a scarf the last time. Rona’s had been red. This one was yellow, if his keen sight had not been dimmed.

  They were to be gone six days or a week. Wade had lent Pencarrow close to seven thousand dollars, money he had earned through mining and won by games of chance. The rancher was to pay his long-due debts and buy food supplies, ranch tools, saddle equipment, rifles and shells, and many things for his needy family. Wade could picture Hal in a store where guns were sold, and the girls shopping for the first time in five years. It was for this that Wade had clung tenaciously to his money.

  When they were out of sight, Wade barred his door, and cur open his worn leather vest and coat to get out the ill-gotten fortuns that had been a burden all these years. His intention had been to count the rolls and packets of currency. He unstrapped his father’s heavy wallet, as he had with a similar intention once before, but the act brought such a storm of poignant memories that he closed it. What must he do with many thousands of dollars stolen from express trains and banks?

  First he must hide the money. What a relief to be free of the feel and the awareness of that burden! Temporarily he hid the wallet and rolls and packets in the woodshed. For a permanent hiding place he concluded to make a strong tight box and bury it tinder the cabin floor.

  Wade pondered his peculiar reaction to the sight of this large sum of stolen money. He did not want to face a guilty conscience at this regenerating period. And with the money off his person, securely hidden, he found it easy to forget.

  Leaving the cabin, Wade packed a rifle he had borrowed from Pencarrow, the last of a dozen Winchesters the rancher had brought with him. Wade constructed a makeshift sheath for the rifle and tied it on his saddle. He also carried pencil and notebook he had obtained from Jacqueline. Thus equipped he set out to ride the range, vigilant and hawk-eyed, stern with the earnestness of his purpose. If he encountered any queer-acting riders, he meant to shoot first and see about it afterward.

  He rode west to West Canyon and along that rim for a mile, clear to whe
re it headed out upon the range; and he sighted a good many cattle, of which he jotted down an estimated count. Then he rode in a circle along the edge of the slope where the purple sage met the green timber. The ride itself would have been all-satisfying without his search for cattle and study of the range. He covered fifty miles that day, and was well pleased with the stock he had seen in the canyon and among the brushy thickets. Rustlers had, no doubt, driven large numbers of cattle off the open range and then made away with herds as occasion demanded.

  Wade cooked his own supper that evening, out under the pines, and he failed to remember when campfare had been more appetizing or place as singularly fascinating. The fragrance, the color, the wildness of Arizona were getting into his blood. He sat there and watched the sunset gold steal over the gray sage, and that gorgeous salmon pink peculiar to Arizona emblazoned on the clouds.

  Later he sat in the dusk in his cabin door. Pencarrow’s ranch house showed dark through the trees. The upper story, an addition built later, just rose to the tops of the pines, some of which brushed against and shadowed the little balcony. Through an opening gleamed a window with a white curtain. This cupola-like story contained two rooms and a porch for Jacqueline and Rona. The rancher had built that addition, he told Wade, after an attack one night by raiders or abductors who had almost succeeded in snatching Jacqueline out of the open window of her bedroom on the ground floor. This happened when she was seventeen years old.

  Wade thought darkly about that attempt at kidnapping. Pencarrow should never have brought his family to this isolated range. Jacqueline, and presently Rona too, would work havoc among honest cowboys and other young Arizonans, to say nothing of rousing hot passion and bad blood among the raw and lawless element which rode this section.

  Next day Wade turned to the east and covered even more territory, with as gratifying result. He mapped the distinctive landmarks and got the lay of the land, tasks that came as easily to him as if he had been a cowboy all his days.

  On the third day he rode the vast gray rolling tableland between Cedar Canyon and the desert. He gained an eminence from which he could see all over the range, down into the canyon, and out upon the desert, a remarkable lookout point on the summit of a pine knoll. With a good field glass he could cover the whole range. Here was a place three hours’ hard ride from the ranch house from which he could command all the west side of Cedar Range. It was also an all-satisfying stand from which to see the unfolding panorama of this strange and beautiful Arizona.

  On the return, Wade rode around one of the many knolls to encounter at some distance three horsemen whose appearance tallied with riders of Urba’s ilk, and whose actions upon being discovered proved that their business at the range looked doubtful. At sight of Wade they sheered off toward the canyon.

  Wade dismounted, and jerking his rifle out he began to shoot. The range was too far for good marksmanship, but he could see where his bullets cut up the dust in open patches in front of the horses. From a lope these riders broke into a dead run and were soon out of range. They halted at the slope of a knoll and watched Wade.

  He reloaded the Winchester and then, leading his horse, he walked to the spot where the riders had so quickly halted at sight of him. He knelt and measured the tracks of their horses and studied each minutely.

  “Watch, you hombres!” he said aloud, as he saw how the three riders had studied his movements as earnestly as had he their tracks. “Now, where in hell can they be? . . . I’ve just got to go slow and learn to know the men of this range.”

  He backtracked the riders for several miles, until he was satisfied that they must have come up out of the big canyon. Then Wade made for the ranch house, arriving there after dark.

  Next day he set off early, meaning first to call on Pencarrow’s nearest neighbor, a homesteader named Elwood Lightfoot, who had located in a big brake of Cedar Canyon on the west side and adjoining the land claimed by Aulsbrook. Wade was particularly interested in this homesteader because Hal and Rona claimed he was their one friend, and because Pencarrow said Aulsbrook had been unable to drive or buy him off. Secondly, this plot of one hundred and sixty acres made a productive little ranch watered from a sister spring to that in Cedar Canyon.

  Once Wade found the trail he came out upon the brake in short order. It was a shallow valley walled by red rock, level and green, bisected by a shining brook, and jumping off into the green void below. Wade exclaimed aloud in sheer delight. Arizona hid little Gardens of Eden in its wide gray timber-belted and stone-walled range. What a farm for alfalfa! It seemed to Wade that this ranch should be kept out of Aulsbrook’s hands.

  Wade rode down. The homesteader’s log cabin stood in the open, at the north end, no doubt built there to get the southern exposure and shelter from the northern winds in winter. The cabin was small, crude in structure, with a yellow chimney built outside and a roof of earth from which weeds and sunflowers grew. There was an open-sided sun shelter, with workbench and couch, and a store of traps and tools and rusty farm implements, also a red earthen oven, and many more things Wade had no time to look at.

  Rabbits, quail, chickens, deer and burros appeared to have the run of the ranch at that end. The barking of chained hounds announced Wade’s arrival. Then a man, no doubt the homesteader, emerged from the cabin. He appeared to be a lean gray old fellow whose eyes were light blue and keen as a whip.

  “Howdy. Are you the fellar Hal was tellin’ me about the other day?”

  “Howdy yourself. Yes, I’m Tex Brandon. And you’re Elwood Lightfoot.”

  “Pile off. I’m achin’ to shake yore hand. . . . By Gawd, I shore am glad to meet you. An’ that Pencarrow’s got a man at Cedar Ranch at last.”

  “Let’s get in the shade and talk. . . . I’m sure as glad to meet you. The Pencarrows have gone to Holbrook for a much-needed trip.”

  “So Hal told me they was goin’. But he jest rushed hyar an’ left in the same breath. . . . What’d they go for?”

  “Pencarrow had debts to pay and supplies to buy. And it was a chance for his family.”

  “Doggone! I’m shore glad. An’ tumble curious. Where’d the money come from?”

  “I lent some to Pencarrow. I made a lucky gold strike at Tombstone and doubled it by gambling. In any event I’d have lent that money to Pencarrow. But I reckon it is good business. That’s the finest ranch I ever saw. He still has some stock left, mostly out in the brush and canyon. I’ve taken count of nearly four thousand head, which is twice as many as he thinks he has left. There’s big money to be made on this range. And I’m going to help him.”

  “Wal, if you don’t mind me sayin’ it, your killin’ Urba an’ his pard was a helluva good start,” remarked the homesteader, his penetrating gaze hard on Wade. “I heahed about it thet same day. It’s gone over the range like fire in grass, an’ it’s seepin’ down into the brakes to the dens of rustlers an’ hawse thieves an’ bad eggs.”

  “Good news,” replied Wade, waving that aside. “Hal and Ron? swear by you. Their only friend! Are you Pencarrow’s friend?”

  “I shore am, more’n he reckons. I’ve had hell keepin’ their homestead, which I’d sold long ago but for his two kids.”

  “That’s straight from the shoulder. Pencarrow has two friends now. And two working together are far stronger than one. . . . Will you take me on Pencarrow’s recommendation?”

  “Brandon, I’d taken you on Hal’s an’ Rona’s. Hal said Rona was so glad you came thet she cried. You could never fool thet sharp-eyed lass. She’s been brought up to see only trouble in men.”

  “Good. We’re for Pencarrow and his youngsters, then?”

  “I’ll go as far as you can,” retorted the homesteader. “I’ve been on the point of borin’ one of these hombres for a long time.”

  “Band Drake, I’ll bet.”

  “You bet. But I’ve never had a chance thet couldn’t be laid at my door. I’ve got it in for Drake on more’n one score. Most though I hate him because I used to see Miss Jacq
ue often. She’d ride down to visit me. She’s afeared to come any more.”

  “Ahuh. We’ll get around to Drake later. Tell me, Lightfoot. Do you own this homestead?”

  “I shore do.”

  “You have the patent?”

  “Yes. I proved up on the land three years ago. But didn’t get any patent until last fall.”

  “Looks like a productive ranch?”

  “Say, Brandon, things grow heah as if by magic. I cain’t get rid of the peaches an’ grapes an’ melons an’ corn an’ vegetables. Tons of them rot on the ground. I used to get good pay from Pencarrow, an’ I still furnish them all they eat except beef.”

  “What was your original idea when you homesteaded this land?”

  “I saw the value of the water. Then I wanted to farm the land, ’specially alfalfa, an’ run cattle up on the range. Been heah nine years, an’ am poorer now than when I started. The rustlers got my stock, so I quit raisin’ alfalfa.”

  “How much alfalfa could you raise here?”

  “A hundred tons a summer, an’ never hurt my garden or orchard.”

  “Whew! . . . No wonder Aulsbrook has been trying to get your place.”

  “He’s set on thet, by fair means or foul.”

  “Aulsbrook better be careful. Tell him next time he approaches you. . . . Now, Lightfoot, here’s a most particular question. Do you know cattle?”

  “Do I? Wal! From A to Z. Thar’s not a cattleman in Arizona thet could hold a candle to me. I’ve worked cattle for forty years an’ have lost half a million. But thet wasn’t because I didn’t know how to breed, raise, drive an’ sell cattle.”

  Wade got up from his comfortable seat on the couch, and scarcely able to contain himself he stalked to and fro under the shelter.

  “Wal, you ’pear mighty tickled about my brag, an’ my bad luck,” added the homesteader, plainly nonplused.

  “Lightfoot, you’ve just told me Pencarrow’s fortune is made, and you and I are trailing along behind.”

  “Man alive! No wonder Hal raved about you. Thet quick? the lad said. But Brandon, how’n hell do you figger thet?”