Sunset Pass

by Zane Grey

  The wind was strong in his face. It carried more than heat, and as he gained his objective point, he both smelled and saw dust in the air. Then something faint, but raw, an odor that was tainted!

  Eagerly Rock came up behind a cedar, and from this cover he peered out and down. The slope on that side sheered steep and rough, down to an open draw, up which his keen sight roved. This draw appeared pale green, with a dry winding wash in the center. It led up to a wide pocket, where yellow water gleamed. Cows were bawling. White objects flashed in the sunlight, drawing Rock’s gaze the quicker. Then he discerned a cabin and corral, covered with white spots, also men on horses, and some on foot.

  Rock slipped to his knees, and crawling to a low thick cedar bush he half buried himself in it, and peered out. The good, or perhaps bad, luck that had always attended him on the range was operating now. Likewise were his sharp eyes and the keen brain behind them.

  The white objects were cowhides, thrown over the corral fence, and nailed on the cabin, hair side down. There were seven riders, several still sitting their saddles, the others walking around. Voices floated up faintly to Rock as he crouched there, suddenly covered with cold sweat. Bunch of cowboys snooping around! Many and many the time Rock had been a party to just this thing. Curiosity was a characteristic of any cowboy on a range where cattle mysteriously disappeared.

  The cabin was very old, with roof caved in, and door and window vacant—like black eyes. The corral fence was down in places. Rock thought he remembered having once visited this deserted homesteader’s ranch.

  One of the cowboys, a tall fellow wearing a red scarf, turned some of the cowhides over to look at the under side. Presently he and the others on foot collected in a group round their mounted comrades, and talked. What would Rock not have given to have heard them! For there might have been nothing unusual about this, and on the other hand it might have been a serious colloquy. Watching like a hawk, Rock convinced himself that these riders were curious about Preston’s butchering business. Nothing inimical to the Prestons manifested itself. A riding outfit might drop down anywhere. On that hundred square miles of open range there were many thousand head of cattle under different brands, and therefore a number of cowboys under different management. Judging by the past, these outfits were not likely to be particularly friendly toward one another. They all looked upon one another with suspicion. That was simply the life of the range.

  Rock strained his eyes to take in all details of that red-scarfed rider’s appearance, so he might recognize him some day. But the distance was pretty far, even for his sharp eyes, and he could not be sure. Presently the mounted riders galloped off, and those on foot took to their horses and followed. They rode up the ridge, westward from the cabin. The fellow with the red scarf, following last, halted on the brink of that pocket and took final survey of the scene. Was there something on his mind? Finally he rolled a cigarette. Rock saw a puff of bluish smoke. Then the rider followed after his comrades, who had disappeared over the ridge.

  “Dog-gone!” muttered Rock, rolling out of his uncomfortable covert and wiping his perspiring face. “What to make of that? Maybe means nothin’ an’ then again—”

  He counted the cowhides in sight. Thirteen! It was not a lucky number. But there might be several more hides on the far side of the log cabin. Even so, that was rather a small number, if the hides in sight represented all the beeves killed by Preston on this occasion. Preston had gone to town with three large wagons, one of which Rock had helped load with hides. The other two, of course, had been loaded with beeves. How many? That was something Rock wanted to know—and meant to find out.

  He resisted the impulse to go down into that draw. This could wait until a more favorable hour. Instead, he retraced his way to his horse, racking his brain the while.

  “Aw, hell!” blurted out Rock, in disgust. “If it was anyone but Thiry’s people I’d know. I do know, only I keep hopin’ I’m wrong.”

  No doubt at all was there that the cowhides in plain sight over in the draw bore one of several of Preston’s brands. If other stock besides Preston’s had been butchered, which Rock did not doubt in the least, the hides with their telltale brands had of course been well hidden. Heads were easier to dispose of, and the risk of discovery through them was negligible. Three or four riders, taking as many heads, and riding out at night into rough places, could throw a good many into holes and brush, where not one in a hundred would ever come to light. And small matter if they did! What was the head of a steer on that vast cattle range? Hides, however, were branded to protect the owners. But if hides ripped from stolen beeves were carefully hidden, as Rock believed was true in the matter of Slagle’s well, the chances were very few that the theft could ever be detected. Preston was safe for the time being if he relied on Slagle’s well to conceal his thefts. For Rock could never betray him. The best that Rock felt he might do—in case he proved his suspicions—was to tell Preston and scare him from any further crooked work. The nucleus of that, indeed, was forming in Rock’s mind.

  Straddling Egypt once more, Rock rode down the hill toward Wagontongue. Should he go on into town or only so far as Pringle’s? It struck him that he might be in a little too brooding a state of mind to stop over with his homesteader friend. He might ask too many questions.

  Cedars and brush grew densely at the foot of this slope, where the road crossed a culvert over a deep wash. Rock’s eyes, bent on the ground, suddenly espied the heel imprint of a rider’s boot. It stopped Rock. If he ever had occasion to study a track of any kind it became photographed on his mind. He had seen that heel track before. Slipping out of the saddle, Rock bent to scrutinize it. And he experienced a queer little cold chill.

  The impression of the heel was well defined, but the toe part was dim. It pointed off the road. Rock found another, like it, though not so plain. But for his trained eyes the trail might as well have been made in snow. Whoever had made it, though, had stepped lightly. It led into the coarse white grass, down over the bank, to the edge of the culvert, where it vanished.

  There was no doubt in Rock’s mind that this imprint was identical with the one near Slagle’s well. He had the little sticks with which he had measured that track. Taking them out, Rock was about to go back and measure, when his instinct prompted him to take a look at the culvert, now that he was down there. He walked on, stepping on stones.

  The culvert was not the handiwork of masons. The aperture was large, to take care of a considerable flow of water during the wet season. Crude walls of heavy stone had been laid about ten feet high and the same distance apart. Logs and brush had been placed across the top. Above this a heavy layer of earth formed the road.

  When Rock stepped into the mouth of the culvert he saw a lumpy floor, which at first glance he thought consisted of rocks lying on dried mud.

  A foot track, the one he was trailing, brought a low exclamation from his lips. Bending quickly, with his little sticks he tried them. They fitted perfectly. Moreover, this one had been made recently.

  When Rock rose from that track he knew what he was going to find. The tunnel appeared about a hundred feet long, with light shining in at both ends, and the middle dark. The numerous stones on the floor were of uniform size and shape, and he noted that the first of these lay back several yards from the opening of the culvert.

  Rock kicked one. It was soft. Bending to feel of it and to look at it more closely, he ascertained that it was a burlap sack tied round something. He laughed sardonically.

  “Cowhide,” he said, and went on, kicking to right and left. These stone-like objects were all hides tied up in burlap sacks. They were old. Some of them were rotting. Then toward the middle of the culvert, where the bags were thickest, he found that those in sight were lying on a bed of bags, flat, decomposed. Altogether, hundreds, perhaps thousands of hides had been destroyed there. He detected a dry, musty odor, but it was not strong.

  Rock went back to the point where he had found the boot track. It was useless to att
empt to conceal his own trail. He reflected that in a few days now the rains would come, and with water running through the culvert all traces of his having been there would be obliterated.

  If fresh cowhides had lately been deposited in this hiding-place where were they? Rock searched the ground more carefully. Back from the opening it was difficult to see well. Nevertheless, he trailed the heel track a third of the length of the culvert, toward its center.

  Naturally then he reached up to feel where he could not see. He had to put his toes in crevices between the stones to climb up and reach over the top of the wall. The thick logs placed across from wall to wall, and far apart, left considerable room along the top.

  When Rock’s groping hand came in contact with a sack he felt no surprise. This one was not soft. It appeared to hold heat. Grasping it firmly, Rock dropped to the ground and hurried with it to the light. He ripped it open. Quicklime, hot and moist! A fresh cowhide, wrapped with hair inside!

  With hands that actually shook Rock unfolded the hide. No slight thing was this proof of somebody’s guilt—about to be disclosed! The brand was clear—a half moon. Rock had never heard of it. He certainly knew all the old brands of that range.

  He rolled up the hide, stuffed it in the sack, with the little quicklime he had spilled. And he put it back where he had found it. Then he struck a match. By the dim light he saw rows of burlap sacks, neatly stowed away.

  Rock sneaked out of that culvert and into the cedars and round and up to his horse as if indeed he were the guilty one himself. Not until he was riding away down the road, positive that he had been unseen, did he recover his equanimity. To ferret out rustler tricks, trail stolen cattle and horses, and discover evidence of thieving practices on the range, had been part of Rock’s long experience. It was all in the day’s work. How vastly another thing here! That boot track had been made by Ash Preston. Rock knew it. Gage Preston was growing rich by butchering other ranchers’ cattle. The very least implication Rock accorded to Thiry Preston was that she shared the secret, and therefore indirectly the guilt. And Rock loved her—loved her terribly now, in view of her extremity. When he got to that confession he seemed unable to escape from the tumult and terror it roused in his mind.

  Egypt, left to choose his gait, had started off on his fast trot. He had many gaits, but this was his favorite, and it covered distance rapidly. He held to it steadily, except on the hills, when he slowed to a walk.

  Rock scarcely saw the beautiful rangeland. He rode past Pringle’s place before noon, scarcely aware of it. He was in no mood for friends. But in due time his emotion spent itself upon the resolve to save Thiry if he had to die to do it.

  After that he gradually rounded to a coherent, if not a logically connected, sequence of thoughts. When cattle disappeared off the range, any range, in more than a negligible number, it always led, sooner or later, to speculation and private suspicion by every outfit, and usually investigation, also private, by the outfit that had suffered most. Rock recalled cases where quite extensive rustling had never been cleared up. Ranchers worked slowly in this regard. They might step on some one’s toes. Generally when the perpetrators of crooked work were unearthed, it was accomplished by the cowboys rather than the ranchers.

  Rock had no idea how far this extraordinary dealing of the Prestons had gone. It would take considerable time to find that out, if it were possible at all. But it had proceeded far enough to be extremely hazardous for them, and in fact for any riders connected with them. The situation would certainly become a delicate one for Rock, unless he betrayed Preston at once. This was unthinkable. Rock knew his own reputation had always been above reproach, as far as honesty was concerned. It would still hold good with the old cattlemen who knew him. But that could scarcely apply to new ranchers, new outfits, who had come into the Wagontongue range of late years.

  Rock believed that before another year was out, if the Prestons kept up this amazing and foolhardy stealing, they would be found out. Why could not Preston see this? He certainly did not lack intelligence. One remark he had made to Thiry had been thought-provoking. It might well be true that Ash Preston, having led or forced his father into criminal practice, dominated him wholly. Ash Preston struck Rock as a man without fear or conscience, and even without a heart, except where Thiry was concerned.

  Rock’s mind rejected solutions to this problem as fast as it created them. There was not any solution, at least at this hour of the game. Rock must know more, and if possible everything, before he could formulate any plan to stop Preston and save Thiry. If there were other suspecting riders, besides Rock, on the range, that fact could not be helped. Any moment one of them might stumble upon signs which would lead to discovery and exposure. Still, the possibility was remote. Slagle’s well was known to none save old riders of the range, and they, no doubt, were gone. Then who would ever look under an innocent and open culvert along the road? No doubt in the world that there were other places as cunning! Rock did not want to find any more. Whenever he came to a bridged wash, he wondered if it, too, harbored sacks and hides, but he did not get off to investigate. The last and only proof he required was to see one of Ash Preston’s boot tracks. That would prove what Rock was already sure of. Afterward he would wait until events shaped themselves to decide his future actions.

  As the hours passed, Rock reviewed the whole knotty question again, without further enlightenment. He strove to bring reason and intelligence to bear, instead of a mounting antipathy for Ash Preston.

  Late in the afternoon Rock encountered the first rain of the summer. It was only a shower, in the locality through which he rode, and while the glistening drops pattered down the sun continued to shine behind him. To the east, over the desert, a low far-spreading vivid rainbow stood out against a background of purple cloud. The odor of dust permeated the air, and the glistening sagebrush seemed conscious of refreshment. There appeared to be heavy rain off to the eastward. Rock felt the cool drops soak through the sleeves of his shirt. He took off his sombrero and let them wet his hair and splash his hot face. But soon the shower passed on.

  It was long past dark when Rock arrived at Wagontongue. Upon inquiring of a Mexican, he found a stable where Egypt would be well looked after. Next he hunted up a restaurant to appease his own hunger, and then he went to the hotel and to bed. The long ride and the long hours of emotional and mental conflict had exhausted him. Not for years had he been so sunk in gloom. The urge to drink came upon him, and he laughed it away. He had need of stimulant, yes, but not that false kind. It was well that he fell asleep at once.

  The sawmill whistle disrupted his deep slumber at six o’clock, but he enjoyed the luxury of the soft bed and linen sheets awhile before rising. Rested and fresh again, and with the bright gold sunrise shining in his window, Rock felt far removed from the brooding, fagged rider of the night before. He would find a way. He dared to pit himself against Ash Preston in anything. Least of all did he consider Ash particularly dangerous to face in fair gun-play. He was several years younger than Rock, and had been only five on the range. Calculating on that, and his own long experience, his instinct for divining an opponent’s intent, and his swift hand, Rock felt a certainty of his power to beat Ash Preston to a gun and kill him. That question, not before deliberately thought out and faced, seemed settled. Indeed, it had arisen involuntarily, presupposing that Rock’s subconscious mind had accepted the meeting as inevitable and had dealt with it. Rock resisted this strange thing, repudiated any certainty of conflict, and swore he would avoid that, but all the same the possible issue had been met in his consciousness, and without his consent had been decided upon.

  “Cheerful way to begin the day,” thought Rock, yawning and stretching. “Well, now I’ve got to do a lot of things. And sure I mustn’t forget that masquerade rig. . . . But I’m not goin’. . . . I sure oughtn’t to. . . . Would it be very risky—if I went for a little while—and kept disguised?”

  After breakfast, which Rock partook of rather late, he went ro
und to see Sol Winter. And meanwhile he had subdued himself to some semblance of the old order of cool insouciance, which state really had been natural before the fair face of Thiry Preston had disturbed his equilibrium forever.

  Winter was sweeping out the store, his back to the door, and he did not see or hear Rock.

  “Hands up!” said Rock, in harsh disguised voice, as he gave Winter a hard dig in the back with his forefinger, to imitate the prod of a gun. “Money or your life!”

  “O Lord!” ejaculated Winter, swiftly dropping the broom and elevating his hands high. He had once been held up by a robber.

  “Turn around,” ordered Rock.

  Stiff as a poker the storekeeper obeyed, white and tight of face. Suddenly he became transformed most ludicrously.

  “Rock! . . . You—dod-blasted—son of a sea-cook!” he gasped out, dropping his hands, the right of which he extended shakily to meet Rock’s. “Scared me—most to death!—Same old cowboy! My, you look good! All browned-up. . . . Dog-gone, I’m glad to see you!”

  “Same here, old-timer,” replied Rock, heartily. “Reckon you look a little brighter, Sol.”

  “I’ve less worry, son, an’ at my age worry tells. Fact is, I’m doin’ fine again. Since payin’ my debts, I’ve laid in more stock an’ advertised it. We’re goin’ to make money, pardner.”

  “Fine. I’m sure tickled. Reckon I’ll need a pile one of these days. . . . Any news, Sol?”

  “Not much. Everybody comin’ in for the Fourth. Amy Dabb’s givin’ the biggest dance ever held in these parts. Masquerade. Won’t that be a new one on the punchers? You ain’t goin’ to miss it, True?”

  “I might drop in to look on a minute,” returned Rock, casually.

  “Did you get an invite?”

  “Sure. Amy sent me one by Preston.”