War Comes to the Big Bend

by Zane Grey

  “But, Father . . . suppose he wants to kill Germans?” asked Lenore earnestly. How strangely she felt things about Dorn that she could not explain.

  “Then, by George, it’s up to you, my girl,” replied her father grimly. “Understand me. I’ve no sentiment about Dorn in this matter. One good wheat raiser is worth a dozen soldiers. To win the war . . . to feed our country after the war . . . why, only a man like me knows what it’ll take. It means millions of bushels of wheat. I’ve sent my own boy. He’ll fight with the best or the worst of them. But he’s never been a man to raise wheat. All Jim ever raised is hell. An’ his kind is needed now. So let him go to war. But Dorn must be kept home. An’ that’s up to Lenore Anderson.”

  “Me! Oh . . . how?” cried Lenore faintly.

  “Woman’s wiles, Daughter,” said Anderson with his frank laugh. “When Dorn comes, let me try to show him his duty. The Northwest can’t spare young men like him. He’ll see that. If he has lost his wheat, he’ll come down here to make me take the land in payment of the debt. I’ll accept it. Then he’ll say he’s goin’ to war, an’ then I’ll say he ain’t . . . We’ll have it out. I’ll offer him such a chance here an’ in the Big Bend that he’d have to be crazy to refuse. But if he has got a twist in his mind . . . if he thinks he’s got to go out an’ kill Germans . . . then you’ll have to change him.”

  “But, Dad, how on earth can I do that?” implored Lenore, distracted between hope and joy and fear.

  “You’re a woman now. An’ women are in this war up to their eyes. You’ll be doin’ more to keep him home than if you let him go. He’s moony about you. You can make him stay. An’ it’s your future . . . your happiness . . . Child, no Anderson ever loves twice.”

  “I cannot throw myself into his arms,” whispered Lenore, very low.

  “Reckon I didn’t mean you to,” returned Anderson gruffly.

  “Then . . . if . . . if he does not ask me to . . . to marry him . . . how can I . . .?”

  “Lenore, no man on earth could resist you if you just let yourself be sweet . . . as sweet as you are sometimes. Dorn could never leave you.”

  “I’m not so sure of that, Daddy,” she murmured.

  “Then take my word for it,” he replied, and he got up from the chair, though still holding her. “I’ll have to go now . . . But I’ve shown my hand to you. Your happiness is more to me than anythin’ else in this world. You love that boy. He loves you. An’ I never met a finer lad. Wal, here’s the point. He need be no slacker to stay home. He can do more good here. Then, outside of bein’ a wheat man for his Army an’ his country, he can be one for me. I’m growin’ old, my lass. Here’s the biggest ranch in Washington to look after, an’ I want Kurt Dorn to look after it . . . Now, Lenore, do we understand each other?”

  She put her arms around his neck. “Dear old Daddy, you’re the wonderfulest father any girl ever had. I would do my best . . . I would obey even if I did not love Kurt Dorn . . . To hear you speak so of him . . . oh, it’s sweet! It . . . chokes me. Now, good night . . . Hurry, before I . . .”

  She kissed him and gently pushed him out of the room. Then before the sound of his slow footfalls had quite passed out of hearing she lay prone upon her bed, her face buried in the pillow, her hands clutching the coverlet, utterly surrendered to a breaking storm of emotion. Terrible indeed had come that presaged crisis of her life. Love of her wild brother Jim, gone to atone forever for the errors of his youth; love of her father, confessing at last the sad fear that haunted him; love of Dorn, that stalwart clear-eyed lad who set his face so bravely toward a hopeless, tragic fate—these were the burden of the flood of her passion, and all they involved, rushing her from girlhood into womanhood, calling to her with imperious desires, with deathless loyalty.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After Lenore’s paroxysm of emotion had subsided and she lay quietly in the dark, she became aware of soft, hurried footfalls passing along the path below her window. At first she paid no particular heed to them, but at length the steady steps became so different in number, and so regular in passing every few moments, that she was interested to go to her window and look out. Watching there a while, she saw a number of men, whispering and talking low, come from the road, pass under her window, and disappear down the path into the grove. Then no more came. Lenore feared at first these strange visitors might be prowling IWW men. She concluded, however, that they were neighbors and farmhands, come for secret conference with her father.

  Important events were pending, and her father had not taken her into his confidence. It must be, then, something that he did not wish her to know. Only a week ago, when the IWW menace had begun to be serious, she had asked him how he intended to meet it, and particularly how he would take sure measures to protect himself. Anderson had laughed down her fears, and Lenore, absorbed in her own tumult, had been easily satisfied. But now, with her curiosity there returned a twofold dread.

  She put on a cloak and went downstairs. The hour was still early. She heard the girls with her mother in the sitting-room. As Lenore slipped out, she encountered Jake. He appeared to loom right out of the darkness and he startled her.

  “Howdy, Miss Lenore,” he said. “Where might you be goin’?”

  “Jake, I’m curious about the men I heard passing by my window,” she replied. Then she observed that Jake had a rifle under his arm, and she added: “What are you doing with that gun?”

  “Wal, I’ve sort of gone back to packin’ a Winchester,” replied Jake.

  Lenore missed his smile, ever ready for her. Jake looked somber. “You’re on guard!” she exclaimed.

  “I reckon. There’s four of us boys around the house. You’re not goin’ off thet step, Miss Lenore.”

  “Oh, ah-huh,” replied Lenore, imitating her father, and bantering Jake, more for the fun of it than from any intention of disobeying him. “Who’s going to keep me from it?”

  “I am. Boss’s orders, Miss Lenore. I’m dog-gone’ sorry. But you sure oughtn’t to be outdoors this far,” replied Jake.

  “Look here, my cowboy dictator. I’m going to see where those men went,” said Lenore, and forthwith she stepped down to the path.

  Then Jake deliberately leaned his rifle against a post and, laying hold of her with no gentle hands, he swung her in one motion back upon the porch. The broad light streaming out of the open door showed that, whatever his force meant, it had paled his face to exercise it.

  “Why, Jake . . . to handle me that way!” cried Lenore in pretended reproach. She meant to frighten or coax the truth out of him. “You hurt me!”

  “I’m beggin’ your pardon if I was rough,” said Jake. “Fact is, I’m a little upset an’ I mean bizness.”

  Whereupon Lenore stepped back to close the door, and then, in the shadow, she returned to Jake and whispered: “I was only in fun. I would not think of disobeying you. But you can trust me. I’ll not tell, and I’ll worry less if I know what’s what . . . Jake, is Father in danger?”

  “I reckon. But the best we could do was to make him stand fer a guard. There’s four of us cowpunchers with him all day, an’ at night he’s surrounded by guards. There ain’t much chance of his gittin’ hurt. So you needn’t worry about thet.”

  “Who are these men I heard passing? Where are they from?”

  “Farmers, ranchers, cowboys from all over this side of the river.”

  “There must have been a lot of them,” said Lenore curiously.

  “Reckon you never heerd the quarter of what’s come to attend Anderson’s meetin’.”

  “What for? Tell me, Jake.”

  The cowboy hesitated. Lenore heard his big hand slap around the rifle stock. “We’ve orders not to tell thet,” he replied.

  “But, Jake, you can tell me. You always tell me secrets. I’ll not breathe it.”

  Jake came closer to her, and his tall head reached to a level with hers, where she stood on the porch. Lenore saw his dark, set face, his gleaming eyes. “Wal, it’s jest this her
e,” he whispered hoarsely. “Your dad has organized vigilantes, like he belonged to in the early days . . . An’ it’s the vigilantes thet will attend to this IWW outfit.”

  Those were thrilling words to Jake, as was attested by his emotion, and they surely made Lenore’s knees knock together. She had heard many stories from her father of that famous old vigilante band . . . secret, making the law where there was no law.

  “Oh, I might have expected that of Dad,” she murmured.

  “Wal, it’s sure the trick out here. An’ your father’s the man to deal it. There’ll be dog-goned little wheat burned in this valley, you can gamble on thet.”

  “I’m glad. I hate the very thought . . . Jake, you know about Mister Dorn’s misfortune?”

  “No, I ain’t heerd about him. But I knowed the Big Bend was burnin’ over, an’ of course I reckoned Dorn would lose his wheat. Fact is, he had the only wheat up there worth savin’. Wal, these IWWs an’ their German bosses hev put it all over the early days when rustlin’ cattle, holdin’ up stagecoaches, an’ jest plain cussedness was stylish.”

  “Jake, I’d rather have lived back in the early days,” mused Lenore.

  “Me, too, though I ain’t no youngster,” he replied. “Reckon you’d better go in now, Miss Lenore. Don’t you worry none or lose any sleep.”

  Lenore bade the cowboy good night and went to the sitting room. Her mother sat preoccupied, with sad and thoughtful face. Rose was writing many pages to Jim. Kathleen sat at the table, surreptitiously eating while she was pretending to read.

  “My, but you look funny, Lenorry!” she cried.

  “Why don’t you laugh, then?” retorted Lenore.

  “You’re white. Your eyes are big and purple. You took like a starved cannibal . . . If that’s what it’s like to be in love, excuse me . . . I’ll never fall for any man.”

  “You ought to be in bed. Mother, I recommend the baby of the family be sent upstairs.”

  “Yes, child, it’s long past your bedtime,” said Mrs. Anderson.

  “Aw, no!” wailed Kathleen.

  “Yes,” ordered her mother.

  “But you’d never thought of it . . . if Lenorry hadn’t said so,” replied Kathleen.

  “You should obey Lenore,” reprovingly said Mrs. Anderson.

  “What? Me! Mind her!” burst out Kathleen hotly, as she got up to go. “Well, I guess not.” Kathleen backed to the door and opened it. Then making a frightful face at Lenore, most expressive of ridicule and revenge, she darted upstairs.

  “My dear, will you write to your brother?” inquired Mrs. Anderson.

  “Yes,” replied Lenore. “I’ll send mine with Rose’s.”

  Mrs. Anderson bade the girls good night and left the room. After that, nothing was heard for a while except the scratching of pens.

  It was late when Lenore retired, yet she found sleep elusive. The evening had made subtle, indefinable changes in her. She went over in mind all that had been said to her and which she felt, with the result that one thing remained to torment and perplex and thrill her—to keep Kurt Dorn from going to war.

  * * * * *

  Next day Lenore did not go out to the harvest fields. She expected Dorn might arrive at any time, and she wanted to be there when he came. Yet she dreaded the meeting. She had to keep her hands active that day, so in some measure to control her mind. A thousand times she felt herself on the verge of thrilling and flushing. Her fancy and imagination seemed wonderfully active. The day was more than usually golden, crowned with an azure blue, like the blue of the Pacific. She worked in her room, helped her mother, took up her knitting, and sewed upon a dress, and even lent a hand in the kitchen. But action could not wholly dull the song in her heart. She felt unutterably young, as if life had just opened, with haunting, limitless, beautiful possibilities. Never had the harvest time been so sweet.

  Anderson came in early from the fields that day. He looked like a farmhand, with his sweaty shirt, his dusty coat, his begrimed face. And when he kissed Lenore, he left a great smear on her cheek.

  “That’s a harvest kiss, my lass,” he said with his big laugh. “Best of the whole year!”

  “It sure is, Dad,” she replied. “But I’ll wait till you wash your face before I return it. How’s the harvest going?”

  “We had trouble today,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothin’ much, but it was annoyin’. We had some machines crippled, an’ it took most of the day to fix them . . . We’ve got a couple of hundred hands at work. Some of them are IWWs, that’s sure. But they all swear they are not an’ we have no way to prove it. An’ we couldn’t catch them at their tricks . . . All the same, we’ve got half your big wheat field cut. A thousand acres, Lenore! Some of the wheat’ll go forty bushels to the acre, but mostly under that.”

  “Better than last harvest,” Lenore replied gladly. “We are lucky . . . Father, did you hear any news from the Big Bend?”

  “Sure did,” he replied, and patted her head. “They sent me a message up from Vale . . . Young Dorn wired from Dayton he’d be here today.”

  “Today!” echoed Lenore, and her heart showed a tendency to act strangely.

  “Yep. He’ll be here soon,” said Anderson cheerfully. “Tell your mother. Mebbe he’ll come for supper. An’ have a room ready for him.”

  “Yes, Father,” replied Lenore.

  “Wal, if Dorn sees you as you look now . . . sleeves rolled up, apron on, flour on your nose . . . a regular farmer girl . . . an’ sure huggable, as Jake says . . . you won’t have no trouble winnin’ him.”

  “How you talk!” exclaimed Lenore with burning cheeks. She ran to her room and made haste to change her dress.

  But Dorn did not arrive in time for supper. Eight o’clock came without his appearing, after which, with keen disappointment, Lenore gave up expecting him that night. She was in her father’s study, helping him with the harvest notes and figures, when Jake knocked and entered.

  “Dorn’s here,” he announced.

  “Good. Fetch him in,” replied Anderson.

  “Father, I . . . I’d rather go,” whispered Lenore.

  “You stay right along by your dad,” was his reply, “an’ be a real Anderson.”

  When Lenore heard Dorn’s step in the hall the fluttering ceased in her heart and she grew calm. How glad she would be to see him. It had been the suspense of waiting that had played havoc with her feelings.

  Then Dorn entered with Jake. The cowboy set down a bag and went out. He seemed strange to Lenore and very handsome in his gray flannel suit. As he stepped forward in greeting, Lenore saw how white he was, how tragic his eyes. There had come a subtle change in his face. It hurt her.

  “Miss Anderson, I’m glad to see you,” he said, and a flash of red stained his white cheeks. “How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you,” she replied, offering her hand. “I’m glad to see you.”

  They shook hands, while Anderson boomed out: “Hello, son! I sure am glad to welcome you to Many Waters.”

  No doubt as to the rancher’s warm and hearty greeting. It warmed some of the coldness out of Dorn’s face.

  “Thank you. It’s good to come . . . yet it’s . . . it’s hard.”

  Lenore saw his throat swell. His voice seemed low and full of emotion.

  “Bad news to tell,” said Anderson. “Wal, forget it . . . Have you had supper?”

  “Yes. At Huntsville. I’d have been here sooner, but we punctured a tire. My driver said the IWW was breaking bottles on the roads.”

  “IWW? Now where’d I ever hear that name?” asked Anderson quizzically. “Bustin’ bottles, hey? Wal, they’ll be bustin’ their heads presently . . . Sit down, Dorn. You look fine, only you’re sure pale.”

  “I lost my father,” said Dorn.

  “What! Your old man? Dead? Aw, that’s tough.”

  Lenore felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to go to Dorn. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “That is a sur
prise,” went on Anderson rather huskily. “My Lord! But it’s only ’round the corner for every man . . . Come on, tell us all about it, an’ the rest of the bad news . . . Get it over. Then, mebbe Lenore an’ me . . .”

  But Anderson did not conclude his last sentence. Dorn’s face began to work as he began to talk, and his eyes were dark and deep, burning with gloom.

  “Bad news it is, indeed . . . Mister Anderson, the IWW marked us. . . You’ll remember your suggestion about getting my neighbors to harvest our wheat in a rush. I went all over, and almost all of them came. We had been finding phosphorus everywhere. Then, on the hot day, fires broke out all around. My neighbors left their own burning fields to save ours. We fought fire. We fought fire all around us, late into the night . . . My father had grown furious, maddened at the discovery of how he had been betrayed by Glidden. You remember the . . . the plot, in which some way my father was involved. He would not believe the IWW meant to burn his wheat. And when the fires broke out, he worked like a madman . . . It killed him! I was not with him when he died. But Jerry, our foreman, was . . . And my father’s last words were . . . ‘Tell my son I was wrong.’ Thank God he sent me that message. I think in that he confessed the iniquity of the Germans . . . Well, my neighbor, Olsen, managed the harvest. He sure rushed it. I’d have given a good deal for you and Miss Anderson to have seen all those big combines at work on one field. It was great. We harvested over thirty-eight thousand bushels and got all the wheat safely to the elevators at the station . . . And that night the IWW burned the elevators!”

  Anderson’s face turned purple. He appeared about to explode. There was a deep rumbling within his throat that Lenore knew to be profanity restrained on account of her presence. As for her own feelings, they were a strange mixture of sadness for Dorn and pride in her father’s fury, and something unutterably sweet in the revelation about to be made to this unfortunate boy. But she could not speak a word just then, and it appeared that her father was in the same state.

  Evidently the telling of his story had relieved Dorn. The strain relaxed in his white face and it lost a little of its stern fixity. He got up, and, opening his bag, he took out some papers.