Shadow on the Trail

by Zane Grey

  Jacqueline must have seen it, too, for as she came forward her glance followed Rona’s.

  “Rona, come with Dad,” she said, her rich voice unsteady. “Mother has hysterics. . . . Brandon, wait please.”

  They went down the porch toward the living rooms. Wade turned to the stricken cowboy, and if he had ever felt grim humor and compassion and a feeling of brotherliness it was then.

  “Hogue, come out of your trance,” he said, “and go fall in the watering trough.”

  Hogue jerked up without a word and hobbling to his horse he took up the bridle and went plodding toward the bank. Wade sat down on the porch as if his legs had given way under him. What had he done? Then Hal Pencarrow plumped down beside him to save him from chaotic thoughts.

  “Tex, what you think? I drove that new team and wagon Dad bought all the way from Holbrook,” announced the youth, proudly.

  “Hello, Hal. . . . You did? Well, by golly! I’ll want to hear all about that drive.”

  “It shore was hell. Took us four days. I’ll tell you—and I shore want to heah about your cattle drive. When you get rested, Tex. Dad thought you was a niggah. Wasn’t that funny? But no wonder. . . . Did you see Jacque’s face when she stood up in the buckboard?”

  “Not distinctly, Hal. Reckon I couldn’t see very well. . . . Why?”

  “She knew you, and don’t you forget it, Tex. I never saw Jacque look so much like that. We’re all kinda dumb Texans— Dad all over again. But not Jacque. She’s part Spanish. And if you do something that pleases her—something hard to do—Oh! what you get!”

  “Hal, did you have—a good time in town?” asked Wade, catching his breath. He was not in any physical condition to face what Hal intimated.

  “Did we? My—gosh!” ejaculated the lad. “I heahed Jacque say Dad didn’t owe near so much money as he thought. He was so happy he just beamed. Rona said he was like our old Dad, when we was kids. Rona and me—we just went loco. We got sick from eating stuff, but that made no difference. I coaxed Dad out of a cowboy outfit. Guess? You bet. A 44 Winchester and a Colt 45. Dad was tickled when I told him I’d have to ride with you. But when Ma saw the guns she went into a conniption fit. But right then I cut my apron string. Mebbe Jacque helped. Oh, she was just grand. We’d have gone hawg-wild but for her. At that we stayed ten days in town, bought out all the stores, made lots of friends—Gosh! the way these western fellows tumbled before my sister!—and we came away leaving two thousand odd dollars in the bank. I heahed Jacque tell Dad. She handled the money. And I’m darned if saving that didn’t please her more than all the clothes she got. . . . Tex, we owe this trip and all to you. . . . If I cain’t tell you how we feel, by gosh! Jacque can.”

  Light quick steps behind Wade and the sense of a dynamic presence sent his blood surging.

  “Hal, drive the buckboard down to the bar,” said his sister, matter-of-factly. “Then hurry back to unpack the new wagon. Rona and I will help. After that long slow ride we shore need exercise. The old wagon can wait till mawnin’.”

  “I’ll be back pronto,” chirped Hal, leaping up to run to the buckboard.

  “Miss Pencarrow, let me help,” said Wade, rising as if his legs were no longer dead.

  “Brandon, in the future we will dispense with the miss,” replied Jacqueline, and she came close to him to look up with soft glad eyes, impossible to meet, and to try to shake the dust off his scarf which she found caked stiff. “I didn’t dream cowboy work could be so hard. But of course you magnify it. . . . Your beard is all matted. You must be daid on your feet.”

  “I reck—I was,” replied Wade, unsteadily. Her proximity bereft him of all save a masklike exterior.

  “You must go to your cabin and clean up. I’ll send some supper over to you. We fetched back a cook and a maid. Fancy that, Texas Brandon!—A nice fat Mexican woman and her daughter. Oh, we are on the road back to the proud Pencarrows. It worries me.”

  “That is just fine, Miss Pen—”

  “Jacqueline,” she interrupted.

  “Oh, yes. . . Jac—que—line. . . . It’s not so easy to say. . . . Please don’t send me any supper. I’m too tired to eat.”

  “Some hot soup. You must have some nourishment. Dad will want you to drink mint juleps with him. But I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “I am through with drink.”

  “That adds to my gladness. But heah I selfishly keep you. Go now. I’ll fetch the hot soup myself. . . . You’ll have plenty of time to remove all this grime and dust. . . . Do you remember the woman of the Scriptures who used her hair for that purpose? I feel I could do that for you.”

  “Don’t—don’t talk so—so wildly,” returned Wade, hastily, stung to poignant speech. “You overrate my—my service. It was my duty—my work. Westerners are that way. What else have I done?”

  “What have you done?” she flashed, and taking hold of the dusty lapels of his coat she gave him a little pull that was a shake as well, while she leaned to gaze up at him. Her breast just touched his, but enough for him to feel the quick swell of hers. It was not a mad weak moment for Wade. Nothing could have made him forget himself. Nevertheless it was terrible in that he shook like a leaf in the wind, that he had no quick barrier against this girl’s gratitude, no sudden strength to hide the spell of her loveliness.

  “Yes, what have you done?” she went on, after a long pause, during which she gave him a royal benefit of eyes that would have wrought havoc in him if they had not already done so. But they were close now, out in the open light, surrendering with all a woman’s heart of simplicity and truth, gloriously dark hazel mirrors of a strong, sweet passionate soul.

  “Dad is in there crying like a baby—unmanned as I never saw his misfortunes unman him. ‘Eight thousand haid of cattle,’ he repeats, ‘an’ cattle sellin’ at thirty dollars, an’ goin’ to forty. An’ I reckoned I was ruined.’ . . . Mother is crying with him—happy for him and for us children. We kids had so joyous a time in town that I wept for them. . . . You saw Rona look at that cowboy. Oh, what have you done? She invested him with all the glamour of this day. . . . You saw Hal. That sensitive lad, melancholy, burdened by his troubles, transformed in a few days to a wild dauntless, gay youth, ready to fight for us. . . . And as for me— upon whom this splendid thing you’ve begun falls heaviest— because I feel that you have saved my loved ones. . . . Oh, Tex Brandon, what haven’t you done!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WADE crossed the green to the cabin in the afterglow of sunset. He lingered on his porch, wondering if that golden light was not unreal, if the strange buoyant elation that had dispelled his fatigue was not another illusion. But he was wide awake; the cattle were lowing in the distant pasture; the pines above his cabin swished in the cold night breeze; and the dark clear sky to the east proved that he was in Arizona.

  Jacqueline Pencarrow, even more than her father, was generous and impulsive. She was still only a girl, and the visit to town, so long after isolation, with its rapture for the children, had stirred her deeply. Then to return home—find thousands of the Pencarrow cattle back on the range, to see her father break down,—these were enough to make any girl forget herself. She was doomed to radiate infinitely more than she intended. A smile, a word of rich feeling, a glance from her devastating eyes—these Wade felt must not be taken as intimate, as something peculiarly intended for him, because he had made her happy. Then he tried to dismiss the rebellious ecstatic sensations she had aroused in him.

  For the rest he was happier than he had ever been in all his life. He marveled that he could stand there, watching the golden light fade, and feel so wonderfully warm—deep down in his heart. It was God, it was blessed; and he clasped the proof of it, and the stem ruthless past that had made it possible, to his soul.

  A rustling step arrested his thought. “Agua caliente, señor,” came in soft accents, and a Mexican maid set a pail upon the step. Wade went in to take a hot bath, a luxury he had not indulged in for so long. His mind seemed gradually to
lose its whirling activity and to slow toward oblivion. He was asleep almost before he got under his blanket.

  When Wade awakened, the afternoon sun shone through the door he had forgotten to close. On the table stood a tray with dishes. This puzzled him until he recalled that Jacqueline had told him she would bring something for him to eat. She had come. She had entered his cabin to place the tray there, and she had found him in a dead slumber. The deduction had an unaccountable effect upon Wade. In a moment that uneasy rapturous trouble stirred within him.

  “Boss, are you gonna wake up?” called Kinsey’s slow voice. “You’ve slept seventeen hours.”

  “Devil I have! . . . Come in, Hogue, I sure was dead to the world.”

  The cowboy entered, his lean young face smooth and glistening.

  “We all slept late. But thet was comin’ to us,” he said. “Cattle was pretty tired. They’re still layin’ down. Pencarrow was out tryin’ to count them.”

  “Hogue, hand me that tray,” said Wade, sitting up. “I’ll eat my last night’s supper for breakfast. . . . What’s on your mind cowboy?”

  “Boss, I shore hate to be a quitter,” replied Hogue with difficulty. “But I’m askin’ you to let me go.”

  “Hell no, Hogue! Couldn’t think of it. You’re my right-hand man, the best of the hardest riding bunch I ever saw. . . . But what’s the matter?”

  “I’m ashamed to tell you,” rejoined Kinsey.

  “Never be ashamed to tell me anything. I’ll understand. And I’ll help you.”

  “Who was thet towhaided girl with the big eyes?”

  “Last night, you mean. . . . Hogue, that was Rona Pencarrow.”

  “Did you see her look at me? . . . Did you hear what she said to her dad?”

  “Yes. She’s only a kid for all her height. Hogue, she was grateful, half beside herself. She said she thought you were wonderful. Well, so do I. It was a big thing to do, springing that on Pencarrow. I’m sure glad. All’s clear ahead of you, Hogue.”

  “Will you let me go?”

  “No!—Hogue, for heavens’ sake, what’s eating you? To flunk on a job like this! You’re loco.”

  “Shore I’m loco. Thet’s why I’m askin’. . . . But boss, don’t— don’t think me unfeelin’. My Gawd, I’d love to stay on here—to ride an’ fight for thet—for them. Only I oughn’t do it.”

  “Hogue!—I savvy. You hadn’t met Rona when you came clean to Pencarrow—admitted you had been a thief?—Then, seeing that swell kid, hearing her defend you—it kind of shamed you?”

  “I reckon thet’s it—boss,” replied the cowboy. “I’d turned my back on girls. . . . Thet last night—kinda jarred me.”

  “Small wonder. But you could not have done a finer thing. You can stand up now, and look any man in the eye—or any girl, even as fine a one as Rona Pencarrow. For in that act you got back all you had lost.”

  “Brandon, you make me see things clear,” replied the cowboy, ponderingly. “An’ I’m beholdin’ to you. I’ll deserve what you think of me or die tryin’. . . . But don’t forget I asked you to let me go.”

  “I will forget it,” rejoined Wade, earnestly. “Rustle back to the bam and round up the boys. I’ll be there pronto.”

  “Boss, I forgot to tell you thet Lightfoot has been lookin’ over the herd we drove in. Where does he come in?”

  “Good chap, and sure a friend of ours. Cotton to him, Hogue.”

  After the cowboy stalked out with his clinking step, Wade sat gazing through the open door. “Doggone,” he soliloquized. “That boy is a straight shooter. . . . It must be just as I feared last night. Rona is a powder magazine and Hogue is a flint, ready to spark. What will come of that? Jacqueline said, ‘What have’t you done?’. . . . I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve troubles of my own. Troubles I wouldn’t miss for all the world.”

  Later Elwood Lightfoot met Wade to tell him bluntly: “Good job. We’ll loosen hell on this range. Those rustlers have it so easy an’ are so rich they can afford to hold cattle for fattenin’. I never heard the like of thet in all my ranchin’. . . . Brandon, act pronto now. Cut out all the steers in thet herd—upward of two thousand an’ all out on the range, an’ drive them to Holbrook an’ sell. Thirty dollars a head is worth more than two birds in the bush.”

  “Gee! that’s an idea,” ejaculated Wade. “Steers don’t build up a herd. They’re just fodder for rustlers. Old-timer, thanks for your second hunch. I’ll pull that trick this very week.”

  “Pencarrow ’pears like he used to be. An’ the twins! My Gawd, how they’ve bloomed over night! . . . Brandon, you ought to feel good.”

  “I do. I feel clean loco. I’m stuck on my job.”

  “Wal, it’s one hell of a job, son. But you’ve started wonderful. You’ve struck lire from these boys. Didn’t I tell you Hogue Kinsey was some hombre in the makin’? Thet cowboy will be great. His outfit will tear this crooked range wide open. But you will be a target for all the sneakin’ riders Drake an’ Harrobin have. Never forget thet. Keep in the open. The timber an’ canyon trails mean death to you. If they can’t kill you pronto, they’ll sic a gunman on you.”

  “Have they any of those in their outfits?”

  “Hard-shootin’ riders, yes. But Band Drake is thick with the only real gunman in eastern Arizona. His name is Kent. He’s a bad man. Hangs out at Holbrook. Brandon, you must be a hawk an’ a wolf in one. Thet is to see an’ smell danger. Your doin’s are already sweepin’ the range. But no one knows who or what you are. We haven’t the time to let events build you a reputation. We’ve got to give you a terrible one an’ set tongues to waggin’. I’ll do thet. I can ride in on every outfit an’ talk. An’ I’ll claim to have known you back in Kansas when times would make riding this range a picnic. All to throw the fear of death into these rustlin’ hombres.”

  “Go as far as you like. Don’t forget I shot my way out of Tombstone before I got here. But shooting would be too good for men like Harrobin. He’s a thief here and pretends to be an honest cattleman at Mariposa, and no doubt other places. . . . Lightfoot, I’m going to hang Harrobin.”

  “Wal, by thunder! Thet’s an idee. The old Wyomin’ an’ Nebraska law with cattle an’ hoss thieves. I’ll swear it’d do more to scare rustlers on this range than all the shootin’ your outfit can do.”

  “Kinsey picked the tree for me,” said Wade, significantly.

  “Thet big cottonwood outside of Pine Mound?” ejaculated the homesteader.

  “Yep. Sure a beautiful tree. Pity to desecrate it with a hangman’s rope!”

  “Right in their stronghold! . . . Wal, more power to you, Tex Brandon. I’ll be ridin’ home now.—See you soon, mebbe tomorrow. I want to give you a long talk about the open range. Kinsey swears you’re shore at home in the woods.”

  “What about buying more cattle—that new stock to build up our herd. . . . But never mind now. Think it over. So long, Elwood.”

  Wade went out to take up the work at hand—so many tasks beside the great one, care of the herd. Pencarrow ordered the cowboys to report at the kitchen for their meals. He asked Wade to eat with the family, saying the invitation came at Jacqueline’s suggestion.

  “Thanks, indeed. But I had better eat with my outfit,” replied Wade, soberly.

  Early and late he drove the cowboys, and the harder he drove them, the better they liked it. The drama of this new range situation had seized upon their adventure-loving imaginations. They sensed events, stirring and dire enough for the wildest riders, out of which they would emerge heroes. They took avidly to Wade’s plan to develop a notorious outfit.

  The morning arrived when they were to start the big drive to Holbrook. Wade designated Jerry and Rain Carter to remain on the ranch and to keep the cattle out of the brush. Hal Pencarrow had been given his first job for Wade—to drive the wagon. With a gun at his belt and a rifle on the wagonseat the lad was in a transport. But he affected a studied pose of sang-froid.

  Wade had seen the girls every day, thou
gh seldom to speak to. This morning before mounting his horse he approached Jacqueline, whose intent eyes kept him restlessly aware of her presence. She stood at the living room door with Rona, who had begged to go with Hal and looked brokenhearted at being laughed at by her father.

  “Some day I’ll take you, Rona,” said Wade. “Wait till I learn the ropes. . . . Promise me you will not ride while we are away or stray far from the house.”

  “Yes, I promise. But why?”

  “There will be risk from now on.”

  “Of what?”

  “Bad riders hanging around the ranch.”

  Rona did not seem impressed. Her dreamy gaze had fixed on the lithe riders down the lane. It did not occur to her that she ran some risk from one of them, but that thought was in Wade’s mind. He turned to Jacqueline, and as always when he looked at her squarely, he was shot through and through with the magnetic charm of her.

  “Jacqueline, you will not ride while I am gone—and stay close to the house,” he said.

  “Is that an order or a request?” she queried with a tilt of her chin.

  “I am—just telling you,” replied Wade, frozen by her cool query. He divined the only possible way he could have offended, and that was to refuse the invitation to eat with the family.

  “Are you my master?” she asked, with somber, unfathomable gaze upon him—a woman’s look, to the wonder and peril of which he had never been subjected till then. He felt a quick strange shock.

  “Jacqueline, it would not be safe,” he replied hurriedly.

  “Why not? I hate to be cooped in. I love to ride.”

  “Because I have enraged these rustlers who lived off this range. Lightfoot told me they will hang around in the woods. They might kidnap you or Rona. Think how awful that would be! I told your father, but he left it to me.”

  “Indeed. How sweet of Dad! . . . And what are you going to do about it?” she challenged.