War Comes to the Big Bend

by Zane Grey

  “Mister Anderson, I’d like to settle all this right now,” he said. “I want it off my mind.”

  “Go ahead, son, an’ settle,” replied Anderson thickly. He heaved a big sigh and then sat down, fumbling for a match to light his cigar. When he got it lit, he drew in a big breath and with it manifestly a great draught of consoling smoke.

  “I want to make over the . . . the land . . . in fact, all the property . . . to you . . . to settle mortgage and interest,” went on Dorn earnestly, and then paused.

  “All right. I expected that,” returned Anderson as he emitted a cloud of smoke.

  “The only thing is”—here Dorn hesitated, evidently with difficult speech—“the property is worth more than the debt.”

  “Sure. I know,” said Anderson encouragingly.

  “I promised our neighbors big money to harvest our wheat. You remember you told me to offer it. Well, they left their own wheat and barley fields to burn, and they saved ours. And then they harvested it and hauled it to the railroad . . . I owe Andrew Olsen fifteen thousand dollars for himself and the men who worked with him . . . If I could pay that . . . I’d . . . almost be happy . . . Do you think my property is worth that much more than the debt?”

  “I think it is . . . just about,” replied Anderson. “We’ll mail the money to Olsen . . . Lenore, write out a check to Andrew Olsen for fifteen thousand.”

  Lenore’s hand trembled as she did as her father directed. It was the most poorly written check she had ever drawn. Her heart seemed too big for her breast just then. How cool and calm her father was. Never had she loved him quite so well as then. When she looked up from her task, it was to see a change in Kurt Dorn that suddenly dimmed her eyes.

  “There, send this to Olsen,” said Anderson. “We’ll run into town in a day or so an’ file the papers.”

  Lenore had to turn her gaze away from Dorn. She heard him in broken, husky accents try to express his gratitude.

  “Ah-huh! Sure . . . sure,” interrupted Anderson hastily. “Now listen to me. Things ain’t so bad as they look . . . For instance, we’re goin’ to fool the IWW down here in the valley.”

  “How can you? There are so many,” returned Dorn.

  “You’ll see. We’re just waitin’ a chance.”

  “I saw hundreds of IWW men between here and Dayton.”

  “Can you tell an IWW from any other farmhand?” asked Anderson.

  “Yes, I can,” replied Dorn grimly.

  “Wal, I reckon we need you ’round here powerful much,” said the rancher dryly. “Dorn, I’ve got a big proposition to put up to you.”

  Lenore, thrilling at her father’s words, turned once more. Dorn appeared more composed.

  “Have you?” he inquired in surprise.

  “Sure. But there’s no hurry about tellin’ you. Suppose we put it off.”

  “I’d rather hear it now. My stay here must be short. I . . . I . . . you know . . .”

  “M-m-m. Sure I know . . . Wal then, it’s this . . . will you go in business with me? Want you to work that Big Bend wheat farm of yours for me . . . on half shares . . . More particular I want you to take charge of Many Waters. You see, I’m . . . not so spry as I used to be. It’s a big job, an’ I’ve a lot of confidence in you. You’ll live here, of course, an’ run to an’ fro with one of my cars. I’ve some land-development schemes . . . an’, to cut it short, there’s a big place waitin’ for you in the Northwest.”

  “Mister Anderson!” cried Dorn in a kind of rapturous amaze. Red burned out the white of his face. “That’s great! It’s too great to come true. You’re good. If I’m lucky enough to come back from the war . . .”

  “Son, you’re not goin’ to war,” interposed Anderson.

  “What!” exclaimed Dorn blankly. He stared as if he had not heard aright.

  Anderson calmly repeated his assertion. He was smiling. He looked kind, but underneath that showed the will that had made him what he was.

  “But I am!” flashed the young man as if he had been misunderstood.

  “Listen. You’re like all boys . . . hot-headed an’ hasty. Let me talk a little,” resumed Anderson. And he began to speak of the future of the Northwest. He painted that in the straight talk of a farmer who knew, but what he predicted seemed like a fairy tale. Then he passed to the needs of the government and the armies, and lastly the people of the nation. All depended upon the farmer. Wheat was indeed the staff of life and of victory. Young Dorn was one of the farmers who could not be spared. Patriotism was a noble thing. Fighting, however, did not alone constitute a duty and loyalty to the nation. This was an economic war, a war of peoples, and the nation that was the best fed would last longest. Adventure and the mistaken romance of war called indeed to all red-blooded young Americans. It was good that they did call. But they should not call the young farmer from his wheat fields.

  “But I’ve been drafted,” Dorn spoke with agitation. He seemed bewildered by Anderson’s blunt eloquence. His intelligence evidently accepted the elder man’s argument, but something instinctive revolted.

  “There’s an exemption, my boy. Easy in your case,” replied Anderson.

  “An exemption?” echoed Dorn, and a dark tide of blood rose to his temples. “I wouldn’t . . . I couldn’t ask for that.”

  “You don’t need to,” said the rancher. “Dorn, do you recollect that Washington official who called on you some time ago?”

  “Yes,” replied Dorn slowly.

  “Did he say anythin’ about an exemption?”

  “No. He asked me if I wanted it, that’s all.”

  “Wal, you had it right then. I took it upon myself to get an exemption for you. That government official heartily approved of my recommendin’ an exemption for you. An’ he gave it.”

  “Anderson! You took . . . it upon . . . yourself . . .” gasped Dorn, slowly rising. If he had been white-faced before, he was ghastly now.

  “Sure I did. . . Good Lord, Dorn, don’t imagine I ever questioned your nerve . . . It’s only you’re not needed . . . or rather, you’re needed more at home . . . I let my son Jim go to war. That’s enough for one family.”

  But Dorn did not grasp the significance of Anderson’s reply. “How dared you? What right had you?” he demanded passionately.

  “No right at all, lad,” replied Anderson. “I just recommended it an’ the official approved it.”

  “But I refuse!” cried Dorn with ringing fury. “I won’t accept an exemption.”

  “Talk sense now, even if you are mad,” returned Anderson, rising. “I’ve paid you a high compliment, young man, an’ offered you a lot. More’n you see, I guess. Why won’t you accept an exemption?”

  “I’m going to war,” was the grim, hard reply.

  “But you’re needed here. You’d be more of a soldier here. You could do more for your country than if you gave a hundred lives. Can’t you see that?”

  “Yes, I can,” assented Dorn, as if forced.

  “You’re no fool, an’ you’re a loyal American. Your duty is to stay home an’ raise wheat.”

  “I’ve a duty to myself,” returned Dorn darkly.

  “Son, your fortune stares you right in the face . . . here. Are you goin’ to turn from it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to get in that war? You’ve got to fight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah-huh!” Anderson threw up his hands in surrender. “Got to kill some Germans, hey? Why not come out to my harvest fields an’ hog-stick a few of them German IWWs?”

  Dorn had no reply for that.

  “Wal, I’m dog-gone’ sorry,” resumed Anderson. “I see it’s a tough place for you, though I can’t understand. You’ll excuse me for mixin’ in your affairs . . . An’ now, considerin’ other ways I’ve really helped you, I hope you’ll stay at my home for a few days. We all owe you a good deal. My family wants to make up to you. Will you stay?”

  “Thank you . . . yes . . . for a few days,” replied Dorn.

 
“Good! That’ll help some. Mebbe, after runnin’ around Many Waters with Le- . . . with the girls . . . you’ll begin to be reasonable. I hope so.”

  “You think me ungrateful!” exclaimed Dorn, shrinking.

  “I don’t think nothin’,” replied Anderson. “I turn you over to Lenore.” He laughed as he pronounced Dorn’s utter defeat. And his look at Lenore was equivalent to saying the issue now depended upon her, and that he had absolutely no doubt of its outcome. “Lenore, take him in to meet mother an’ the girls, an’ entertain him. I’ve got work to do.”

  Lenore felt the blushes in her cheeks and was glad Dorn did not look at her. He seemed locked in somber thought. As she touched him and bade him come, he gave a start, then he followed her into the hall. Lenore closed her father’s door, and the instant she stood alone with Dorn a wonderful calmness came to her.

  “Miss Anderson, I’d rather not . . . not meet your mother and sisters tonight,” said Dorn. “I’m upset. Won’t it be all right to wait till tomorrow?”

  “Surely. But I think they’ve gone to bed,” replied Lenore as she glanced into the dark sitting room. “So they have . . . Come, let us go into the parlor.”

  Lenore turned on the shaded lights in the beautiful room. How inexplicable was the feeling of being alone with him, yet utterly free of the torment that had possessed her before. She seemed to have divined an almost insurmountable obstacle in Dorn’s will. She did not have her father’s assurance. It made her tremble to realize her responsibility—that her father’s earnest wishes and her future of love or woe depended entirely upon what she said and did. But she felt that indeed she had become a woman. And it would take a woman’s wit and charm and love to change this tragic boy.

  “Miss . . . Anderson,” he began brokenly, with restraint let down, “your father . . . doesn’t understand. I’ve got to go . . . And even if I am spared . . . I couldn’t ever come back . . . to work for him . . . all the time in love with you . . . I couldn’t stand it. He’s so good. I know I could care for him, too . . . Oh, I thought I was bitterly resigned . . . hard . . . inhuman. But all this makes it . . . so . . . so much worse.” He sat down heavily, and, completely unnerved, he covered his face with his hands. His shoulders heaved and short, strangled sobs broke from him.

  Lenore had to overcome a rush of tenderness. It was all she could do to keep from dropping to her knees beside him and slipping her arms around his neck. In her agitation she could not decide whether that would be womanly or not; only, she must make no mistakes. A hot, sweet flush went over her when she thought that always, as a last resort, she could reveal her secret and use her power. What would he do when he discovered she loved him?

  “Kurt, I understand,” she said softly, and put a hand on his shoulder. And she stood thus beside him, sadly troubled, vaguely divining that her presence was helpful, until he recovered his composure. As he raised his head and wiped tears from his eyes, he made no excuses for his weakness, nor did he show any shame.

  “Miss Anderson . . .” he began.

  “Please call me Lenore. I feel so . . . so stiff when you are formal. My friends call me Lenore,” she said.

  “You mean . . . you consider me your friend?” he queried.

  “Indeed I do,” she replied, smiling.

  “I . . . I’m afraid I misunderstood your asking me to visit you,” he said. “I thank you. I’m proud and glad that you call me your friend. It will be splendid to remember . . . when I am over there.”

  “I wonder if we could talk of anything except trouble and war,” replied Lenore plaintively. “If we can’t, then let’s look at the bright side.”

  “Is there a bright side?” he asked with his sad smile. “Every cloud, you know . . . For instance, if you go to war . . .”

  “Not if. I am going,” he interrupted.

  “Oh, so you say,” returned Lenore softly. And she felt deep in her the inception of a tremendous feminine antagonism. It stirred along her pulse. “Have your own way, then. But I say, if you go, think how fine it will be for me to get letters from you at the front . . . and to write you!”

  “You’d like to hear from me? You would answer?” he asked breathlessly.

  “Assuredly. And I’ll knit socks for you.”

  “You’re . . . very good,” he said with strong feeling.

  Lenore again saw his eyes dim. How strangely sensitive he was. If he exaggerated such a little kindness as she had suggested, if he responded to it with such emotion, what would he do when the great and marvelous truth of her love was flung in his face? The very thought made Lenore weak.

  “You’ll go to training camp,” went on Lenore, “and, because of your wonderful physique and your intelligence, you will get a commission. Then you’ll go to . . . France.” Lenore faltered a little in her imagined prospect. “You’ll be in the thick of the great battles. You’ll give and take. You’ll kill some of those . . . those . . . Germans. You’ll be wounded and you’ll be promoted . . . Then the Allies will win. Uncle Sam’s grand Army will have saved the world . . . Glorious! You’ll come back . . . home to us . . . to take the place Dad offered you . . . There . . . that is the bright side.”

  Indeed, the brightness seemed reflected in Dorn’s face. “I never dreamed you could be like this,” he said wonderingly.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know just what I mean. Only you’re different from my . . . my fancies. Not cold or . . . or proud.”

  “You’re beginning to get acquainted with me, that’s all. After you’ve been here a while . . .”

  “Please don’t make it so hard for me,” he interrupted appealingly. “I can’t stay.”

  “Don’t you want to?” she asked.

  “Yes. And I will stay a couple of days. But no longer. It’ll be hard enough to go then.”

  “Perhaps I . . . we’ll make it so hard for you that you can’t go.”

  Then he gazed piercingly at her, as if realizing a will opposed to his, a conviction not in sympathy with his.

  “You’re going to keep this up . . . this trying to change my mind?”

  “I surely am,” she replied both wistfully and willfully.

  “Why? I should think you’d respect my sense of duty.”

  “Your duty is more here than at the front. The government man said so. Father believes it. So do I . . . You have some other . . . other thing you think duty.”

  “I hate Germans!” he burst out with a dark and terrible flash.

  “Who does not?” she flashed back at him, and she rose, feeling as if drawn by a powerful current. She realized then that she must be prepared any moment to be overwhelmed by the inevitable climax of this meeting. But she prayed for a little more time. She fought her emotions. She saw him tremble.

  “Lenore, I’d better run off in the night,” he said.

  Instinctively, with swift, soft violence, she grasped his hands. Perhaps the moment had come. She was not afraid, but the suddenness of her extremity left her witless.

  “You would not! That would be unkind . . . not like you at all . . . To run off without giving me a chance . . . without good bye! Promise me you will not.”

  “I promise,” he replied wearily, as if nonplussed by her attitude. “You said you understood me. But I can’t understand you.”

  She released his hands and turned away. “I promise . . . that you shall understand . . . very soon.”

  “You feel sorry for me. You pity me. You think I’ll only be cannon fodder for the Germans. You want to be nice, kind, sweet to me . . . to send me away with better thoughts . . . Isn’t that what you think?”

  He was impatient, almost angry. His glance blazed at her. All about him, his tragic face, his sadness, his defeat, his struggle to hold onto his manliness and to keep his faith in nobler thoughts—these challenged Lenore’s compassion, her love, and her woman’s combative spirit to save and to keep her own. She quivered again on the brink of betraying herself. And it was panic alone that held her back.

&n
bsp; “Kurt . . . I think . . . presently I’ll give you the surprise of your life,” she replied, and summoned a smile.

  How obtuse he was. How blind! Perhaps the stress of his emotion, the terrible sense of his fate, left him no keenness, no outward penetration. He answered her smile, as if she were a child whose determined kindness made him both happy and sad.

  “I dare say you will,” he replied. “You Andersons are full of surprises . . . But I wish you would not do any more for me. I am like a dog. The kinder you are to me the more I love you . . . How dreadful to go away to war . . . to violence and blood and death . . . to all that’s brutalizing . . . with my heart and mind full of love for a noble girl like you. If I come to love you any more, I’ll not be a man.”

  To Lenore he looked very much of a man, so tall and lithe and white-faced, with his eyes of fire, his simplicity, and his tragic refusal of all that was for most men the best of life. Whatever his ideal, it was magnificent. Lenore had her chance then, but she was absolutely unable to grasp it. Her blood beat thick and hot. If she could only have been sure of herself. Or was it that she still cared too much for herself? The moment had not come. And in her tumult there was a fleeting fury at Dorn’s blindness, at his reverence of her, that he dare not touch her hand. Did he imagine she was stone?

  “Let us say good night,” she said. “You are worn out. And I am . . . not just myself. Tomorrow we’ll be . . . good friends . . . Father will take you to your room.”

  Dorn pressed the hand she offered, and, saying good night, he followed her to the hall.

  Lenore tapped on the door of her father’s study, then opened it. “Good night, Dad. I’m going up,” she said. “Will you look after Kurt?”

  “Sure. Come in, son,” replied her father.

  Lenore felt Dorn’s strange, intent gaze upon her as she passed him. Lightly she ran upstairs and turned at the top. The hall was bright and Dorn stood full in the light, his face upturned. It still wore the softer expression of those last few moments. Lenore waved her hand, and he smiled. The moment was natural. Youth to youth. Lenore felt it. She marveled that he did not. A sweet devil of willful coquetry possessed her.