War Comes to the Big Bend

by Zane Grey

  The slope was hot and still, with only a rustling of leaves in the wind. The air was dry. Kurt missed the sweet fragrance of wheat. What odor there was seemed to be like that of burning weeds. The great, undulating open of the Big Bend extended on three sides. His parents had spent the best of their lives there and had now been taken to the bosom of the soil they loved. It seemed natural. Many were the last resting places of toilers of the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had gone back to the earth from which they had sprung. The dwelling places of men were beautiful; it was only life that was sad. In this poignant, revealing hour Kurt could not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy slope. It was not for any man to understand to the uttermost the meaning of life.

  When he left, he made his way across some of the fallow land and some of the stubble fields that had yielded, alas, so futilely, such abundant harvest. His boyhood days came back to him, when he used to crush down the stubble with his bare feet. Every rod of the way revealed some memory. He went into the barn and climbed into the huge, airy loft. It smelled of straw and years of dust and mice. The swallows darted in and out, twittering. How friendly they were. Year after year they had returned to their nests—the young birds returning to the homes of the old. Home even for birds was a thing of first and vital importance.

  It was a very old barn that had not many more useful years to stand. Kurt decided that he would advise that it be strengthened. There were holes in the rough shingling and boards were off the sides. In the corners and on the rafters was an accumulation of grain dust as thick as snow. Mice ran in and out, almost as tame as the swallows. He seemed to be taking leave of them. He recalled that he used to chase and trap mice with all a boy’s savage ingenuity. But that boyish instinct, along with so many things so potential then, was gone now.

  Best of all he loved the horses. Most of these were old and had given faithful service for many years. Indeed, there was one—Old Badge—that had carried Kurt when he was a boy. Once, he and a neighbor boy had gone to the pasture to fetch home the cows. Old Badge was there, and nothing would do but that they ride him. From the fence Kurt mounted to his broad back. Then the neighbor boy, full of the devil, had struck Old Badge with a stick. The horse set off at a gallop for home with Kurt, frantically holding on, bouncing up and down on his back. That had been the ride of Kurt’s life. His father had whipped him, too, for the adventure.

  How strangely vivid and thought-compelling were these ordinary adjuncts to his life there on the farm. It was only upon giving them up that he discovered their real meaning. The hills of bare fallow and of yellow slope, the old barn with its horses, swallows, mice, and odorous loft, the cows and chickens—these appeared to Kurt, in the illuminating light of farewell, in their true relation to him. For they, and the labor of them, had made him what he was.

  Slowly he went back to the old house and climbed the stairs. Only three rooms were there, upstairs, and one of these, his mother’s, had not been opened for a long time. It seemed just the same as when he used to go to her with his stubbed toes and his troubles. She had died in that room. And now he was a man, going out to fight for his country. How strange. Why? In his mother’s room he could not answer that puzzling question. It stung him, and with a last look, a good bye, and a word of prayer on his lips, he turned to his own little room.

  He entered and sat down on the bed. It was small, with the slope of the roof running down so low that he had learned to stoop when close to the wall. There was no ceiling. Bare yellow rafters and dark old shingles showed. He could see light through more than one little hole. The window was small, low, and without glass. How many times he had sat there, leaning out in the hot dusk of summer nights, dreaming dreams that were never to come true. Alas for the hopes and illusions of boyhood. So long as he could remember, this room was most closely associated with his actions and his thoughts. It was a part of him. He almost took it into his confidence as if it were human. Never had he become what he had dared to dream he would, yet, somehow, at that moment he was not ashamed. It struck him then what few belongings he really had. But he had been taught to get along with little.

  Living in that room was over for him. He was filled with unutterable sadness. Yet he would not have had it any different. Bigger, and selfless things called to him. He was bidding farewell to his youth and all that it related to. A solemn procession of beautiful memories passed through his mind, born of the nights there in that room of his boyhood, with the wind at the eaves and the rain pattering on the shingles. What strong and vivid pictures. No grief, no pain, no war could rob him of this best heritage from the past.

  He got up to go. And then a blinding rush of tears burned his eyes. This room seemed dearer than all the rest of his home. It was hard to leave. His last look was magnified, transformed. “Good bye,” he whispered with a swelling constriction in his throat. At the head of the dark old stairway he paused a moment, and then with bowed head he slowly descended.

  Chapter Seventeen

  An August twilight settled softly down over Many Waters while Lenore Anderson dreamily gazed from her window out over the darkening fields so tranquil now after the day’s harvest toil.

  Of late, in thoughtful hours such as this, she had become conscious of strain, of longing. She had fought out a battle with herself, had confessed her love for Kurt Dorn, and, surrendering to the enchantment of that truth, had felt her love grow with every thought of him and every beat of a thrilling pulse. In spite of a longing that amounted to pain and a nameless dread she could not deny, she was happy. And she waited, with a woman’s presaging sense of events, for a crisis that was coming.

  Presently she heard her father downstairs, his heavy tread and hearty voice. These strenuous harvest days left him little time for his family. And Lenore, having lost herself in her dreams, had not, of late, sought him out in the fields. She was waiting, and, besides, his keen eyes, at once so penetrating and so kind, had confused her. Few secrets had she ever kept from her father.

  “Where’s Lenore?” she heard him ask, down in the dining room.

  “Lenorry’s mooning,” replied Kathleen with a giggle.

  “Ah-huh. Well, whereabouts is she moonin’?” went on Anderson.

  “Why, in her room,” retorted the child. “And you can’t get a word out of her with a crowbar.”

  Anderson’s laugh rang out with a jingle of tableware. He was eating his supper. Then Lenore heard her mother and Rose and Kathleen all burst out with news of a letter come that day from Jim, away training to be a soldier. It was Rose who read this letter aloud to her father, and outside of her swift, soft voice the absolute silence attested to the attention of the listeners. Lenore’s heart shook as she distinguished a phrase here and there, for Jim’s letter had been wonderful for her. He had gained weight. He was getting husky enough to lick his father. He was feeling great. There was not a boy in the outfit who could beat him to a stuffed bag of a German soldier. And he sure could make some job with that old bayonet. So ran Jim’s message to the loved ones at home. Then a strange pride replaced the quake in Lenore’s heart. Not now would she have had Jim stay home. She had sacrificed him. Something subtler than thought told her she would never see him again. And, oh, how dear he had become.

  Then Anderson roared his delight in that letter and banged the table with his fist. The girls excitedly talked in unison. But the mother was significantly silent. Lenore forgot them presently and went back to her dreaming. It was just about dark when her father called.

  “Lenore!”

  “Yes, Father,” she replied.

  “I’m comin’ up,” he said, and his heavy tread sounded in the hall. It was followed by the swift patter of little feet. “Say, you kids, go back. I want to talk to Lenore.”

  “Daddy,” came Kathleen’s shrill, guilty whisper, “I was only in fun . . . about her mooning.”

  The father
laughed again and slowly mounted the stairs. Lenore reflected uneasily that he seldom came to her room. Also, when he was most concerned with trouble, he usually sought her.

  “Hello . . . All in the dark?” he said as he came in. “May I turn on the light?”

  Lenore assented, though not quite readily. But Anderson did not turn on the light. He bumped into things on the way to where she was curled up in her window seat, and he dropped wearily into Lenore’s big armchair.

  “How are you, Daddy?” she inquired.

  “Dog tired, but feelin’ fine,” he replied. “I’ve got a meetin’ at eight an’ I need a rest. Reckon I’d like to smoke . . . an’ talk to you . . . if you don’t mind.”

  “I’d sure rather listen to my dad than anyone,” she replied softly. She knew he had come with news or trouble or need of help. He always began that way. She could measure his mood by the preliminaries before his disclosure. And she fortified herself.

  “Wasn’t that a great letter from the boy?” began Anderson as he lit a cigar. By the flash of the match Lenore got a glimpse of his dark and unguarded face. Indeed, she did well to fortify herself.

  “Fine! He wrote it to me. I laughed. I swelled with pride. It sent my blood racing. It filled me with fight . . . Then I sneaked up here to cry.”

  “Ah-huh!” exclaimed Anderson with a loud sigh. Then for a moment of silence the end of his cigar alternately paled and glowed. “Lenore, did you get any . . . any kind of a hunch from Jim’s letter?”

  “I don’t exactly understand what you mean,” replied Lenore.

  “Did somethin’ . . . strange an’ different come to you?” queried Anderson haltingly, as if words were difficult to express what he meant.

  “Why, yes . . . I had many strange feelings.”

  “Jim’s letter was just like he talks. But to me it said somethin’ he never meant an’ didn’t know . . . Jim will never come back.”

  “Yes, Dad . . . I divined just that,” whispered Lenore.

  “Strange about that,” mused Anderson, with a pull on his cigar.

  And then followed a silence. Lenore felt how long ago her father had made his sacrifice. There did not seem to be any need for more words about Jim. But there seemed a bigness in the bond of understanding between her and her father. A cause united them, and they were sustained by unfaltering courage. The great thing was the divine spark in the boy who could not have been held back. Lenore gazed out into the darkening shadows. The night was very still, except for the hum of insects, and the cool air felt sweet on her face. The shadows, the silence, the sleeping atmosphere hovering over Many Waters seemed charged with a quality of present sadness, of the inexplicable great world moving to its fate.

  “Lenore, you haven’t been around much lately,” resumed Anderson. “Sure you’re missed. An’ Jake swears a lot more than usual.”

  “Father, you told me to stay at home,” she replied.

  “So I did. An’ I reckon it’s just as well. But when did you ever before mind me?”

  “Why, I always obey you,” replied Lenore with her low laugh.

  “Ah-huh. Not so I’d notice it . . . Lenore, have you seen the big clouds of smoke driftin’ over Many Waters these last few days?”

  “Yes. And I’ve smelled smoke, too . . . From forest fire, is it not?”

  “There’s fire in some of the timber, but the wind’s wrong for us to get smoke from the foothills.”

  “Then where does the smoke come from?” queried Lenore quickly.

  “Some of the Big Bend wheat country’s been burned over.”

  “Burned! You mean the wheat?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh! What part of the Big Bend?”

  “I reckon it’s what you called young Dorn’s desert of wheat.”

  “Oh, what a pity! Have you had word?”

  “Nothin’ but rumors yet. But I’m fearin’ the worst an’ I’m sorry for our young friend.”

  A sharp pain shot through Lenore’s breast, leaving behind an ache. “It will ruin him,” she whispered.

  “Aw, no, not that bad,” declared Anderson, and there was a red streak in the dark where evidently he waved his cigar in quick, decisive action. “It’ll only be tough on him an’ sort of embarrassin’ for me . . . an’ you. That boy’s proud . . . I’ll bet he raised hell among them IWWs, if he got to them.” And Anderson chuckled with the delight he always felt in the Western appreciation of summary violence justly dealt.

  Lenore felt the rising tide of her anger. She was her father’s daughter, yet always had been slow to wrath. That was her mother’s softness and gentleness tempering the hard spirit of her father. But now her blood ran hot, beating and bursting about her throat and temples. And there was a leap and quiver to her body.

  “Dastards! Father, those foreign IWW devils should be shot!” she cried passionately. “To ruin those poor, heroic farmers! To ruin that . . . that boy. It’s a crime! And, oh, to burn his beautiful field of wheat . . . with all his hopes. Oh, what shall I call that.”

  “Wal, lass, I reckon it’d take stronger speech than any you know,” responded Anderson. “An’ I’m usin’ that same.”

  Lenore sat there trembling, with hot tears running down her cheeks, with her fists clenched so tight that her nails cut into her palms. Rage only proved to her how impotent she was to avert catastrophe. How bitter and black were some trials. She shrank with a sense of acute pain at thought of the despair there must be in the soul of Kurt Dorn.

  “Lenore,” began Anderson slowly—his tone was stronger, vibrant with feeling—“you love this young Dorn.”

  A tumultuous shock shifted Lenore’s emotions. She quivered as before, but this was a long, shuddering thrill shot over her by that spoken affirmation. What she had whispered shyly and fearfully to herself when alone and hidden—what had seemed a wonderful and forbidden secret—her father had spoken out. Lenore gasped. Her anger fled as if it had never been. Even in the dark she hid her face and tried to grasp the wild, whirling thoughts and emotions now storming her. He had not asked. He had affirmed. He knew. She could not deceive him even if she would. And then for a moment she was weak, at the mercy of contending tides.

  “Sure I seen he was in love with you,” Anderson was saying. “Seen that right off, an’ I reckon I’d not thought much of him if he hadn’t been . . . But I wasn’t sure of you till the day Dorn saved you from Ruenke an’ fetched you back. Then I seen. An’ I’ve been waitin’ for you to tell me.”

  “There’s . . . nothing . . . to tell,” faltered Lenore.

  “I reckon there is,” he replied. Leaning over, he threw his cigar out of the window and took hold of her.

  Lenore had never felt him so impelling. She was not proof against the strong, warm pressure of his hand. She felt in its clasp, as she had when a little girl, a great and sure safety. It drew her irresistibly. She crept into his arms and buried her face on his shoulder, and she had a feeling that, if she could not relieve her heart, it would burst.

  “Oh, D-Dad,” she whispered with a soft, hushed voice that broke tremulously at her lips, “I . . . I love him. I do love him . . . It’s terrible. I knew it . . . that last time you took me to his home . . . when he said he was going to war . . . And, oh, now you know.”

  Anderson held her tight against his broad breast that lifted her with its great heave. “Ah-huh. Reckon that’s some relief. I wasn’t so darn’ sure,” said Anderson. “Has he spoken to you?”

  “Spoken! What do you mean?”

  “Has Dorn told you he loved you?”

  Lenore lifted her face. If that confession of hers had been relief to her father it had been more so to her. What had seemed terrible began to feel natural. Still, she was all intense, vibrating, internally convulsed.

  “Yes, he has,” she replied shyly. “But such a confession. He told it as if to explain what he thought was boldness on his part. He had fallen in love with me at first sight. And then meeting me was too much for him. He wanted me to know. He was
going away to war. He asked nothing . . . He seemed to apologize for . . . for daring to love me. He asked nothing. And he has absolutely not the slightest idea I care for him.”

  “Wal, I’ll be dog-goned!” ejaculated Anderson. “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Dad, he is proud,” replied Lenore dreamily. “He’s had a hard struggle out there in his desert of wheat. They’ve always been poor. He imagines there’s a vast distance between an heiress of Many Waters and a farmer boy. Then, more than all, I think, the war has fixed a morbid trouble in his mind. God knows it must be real enough. A house divided against itself is what he called his home. His father is German. He is American. He worshiped his mother, who was a native of the United States. He has become estranged from his father. I don’t know . . . I’m not sure . . . but I felt that he was obsessed by a calamity in his German blood. I divined that was the great reason for his eagerness to go to war.”

  “Wal, Kurt Dorn’s not goin’ to war,” replied her father. “I fixed that all right.”

  An amazing and rapturous start thrilled over Lenore. “Daddy,” she cried, leaping up in his arms, “what have you done?”

  “I got an exemption for him, that’s what,” replied Anderson with great satisfaction.

  “An exemption!” exclaimed Lenore in bewilderment.

  “Don’t you remember the government official from Washington? You met him in Spokane. He was out West to inspire the farmers to raise more wheat. There are many young farmers needed a thousand times more on the wheat fields than on the battlefields. An’ Kurt Dorn is one of them. That boy will make the biggest sower of wheat in the Northwest. I recommended an exemption for Dorn. An’ he’s exempted an’ doesn’t know it.”

  “Doesn’t know . . . He’ll never accept an exemption,” declared Lenore.

  “Lass, I’m some worried myself,” rejoined Anderson. “Reckon you’ve explained Dorn to me . . . that somethin’ queer about him . . . But he’s sensible. He can be told things. An’ he’ll see how much more he’s needed to raise wheat than to kill Germans.”