Panguitch

by Zane Grey

  The river made no noise. Brutus seemed to be swimming in oil. The water felt cool, thick, weighted. Chane realized that he could not have held up very long in it. The next time he raised his head to look, Brutus had drifted past the center of the Hole-in-the-Wall, and as he was not yet halfway across, there seemed little hope of his making the mark. Indeed, the current grew swifter. Before Brutus had achieved two-thirds of the distance he had drifted beyond the line where he could climb out. Chane had difficulty in keeping his hold. He appeared a leaden weight, at which the water tugged.

  When Brutus saw that he was going to run into the frowning blank wall, he grew frightened and tried to turn around to swim back. But Chane, letting go his tail, in several strong strokes reached the bridle. He headed the horse downstream and, quartering across, talked to him. Brutus allowed himself to be led, and as in the other river, helped by the current, he made better time. Chane let go of the bridle and dropped back to catch the floating tail. He missed it. Then with a second lunge he secured it, and held on grimly.

  Thus horse and man drifted rapidly down the river, while slowly making for the opposite wall. Brutus was in no distress. And Chane saw that the cleft he had aimed for was enlarging into a cañon mouth, and that Brutus would make it with room to spare. But when they reached the rocky bank it was too steep and slippery for Brutus to climb out. He lunged again and again, wasting his energy. The current here swirled and chafed at the shore. Above loomed the dark towering walls, split by the sinister cañon. Chane got hold of the bridle and made the shore. But he could not help Brutus. It was impossible to get him up that steep bank. He floundered along, hanging to the bridle, calling to encourage the horse. They passed down yard after yard and the bank appeared to grow steeper.

  Chane resolved to go on down the river with Brutus if he could not get him out here. But that moment was a desperate one. The silent river had a horrible repellant force; the walls of rock seemed barriers lifted against him.

  They reached the extreme end of that cañon break in the wall. Chane leaped over a jutting point of bank, to keep even with Brutus, and was about to plunge back into the water, when he saw the horse find bottom. Brutus had fastened those powerful hoofs on solid foundation. He snorted and blew spray all over Chane. He lunged to get hold with his hind hoofs. Another lunge brought him half out of the water. Then with a magnificent leap, crashing out, he landed on the slippery ledge. Chane had to be quick to get out of his way. Brutus was off his balance. He was quivering when Chane dragged hard on the bridle, helping him to make the step that meant safety.

  Brutus blew a great blast of a snort that appeared to get rid of both his fright and the dirty sandy water. As for Chane, he fell in his tracks and lay still a few moments.

  “We’re across,” he said presently, as if that fact ended the hazard. But this cañon mouth was far below the Hole-in-the-Wall. It might have no outlet; it might end in boxed walls. Urged by these considerations, he got up and led Brutus away from the river.

  The cañon presented no difficulties of travel that Chane could see. The ascent was gradual, the floor for the most part covered with boulders. The walls were so high and so close that he could scarcely see the sky. The gloom down there was almost dark as night.

  Gradually the cañon widened and lightened. Chane mounted Brutus and rode on at a trot wherever possible, impatient to see if he were trapped. But as he progressed, the nature of the cañon appeared to favor his ultimate escape from its confines. The hoofs of Brutus rang off the boulders and struck hollow on the black ledges. Some narrow places required slowing up, but for the most part Brutus had no difficulty. The walls began to shade from red to gray; water appeared running over gravelly beds; grass and vines and flowers made color on the ledges.

  Chane rode on for what he considered several miles, always gradually uphill, and meeting with no insurmountable obstacles. This cañon ran north, which was the general direction favorable to him. If he had not been greatly concerned about the possibility of being trapped, he would have enjoyed this changing cañon. It narrowed and widened by turns; its walls had an endless variety of blank spaces, caves, bulges, slopes. But, in vast contrast to San Juan Cañon, it had no jumbled heaps of rock. All the debris along that winding lane had been washed down with water at flood time.

  Presently Chane rode around into a long wide stretch that permitted him to see afar, both north and south. And he was amazed and thrilled to discover far above and back of his position the unmistakable southern end of Wild Horse Mesa. He could not mistake that majestic fluted wall of gold and red, with the black line of timber fringing the level rim. Like a grand bold-faced mountain it towered above him. This cañon that had engulfed him apparently ran along the eastern base of the mesa. Chane, studying all he could see of the lofty cape, concluded that Wild Horse Mesa sheered down perpendicularly, then spread out great flanges of surrounding escarpment that in turn sheered down to lend its base to winding cañons.

  Chane rode on. The hot sun soon dried his clothes. He began to feel the pangs of hunger, but desisted from breaking in upon his slender store of food. The farther up this strange cañon he traveled the more he became prey to apprehension. It was such a remarkable cañon that at any moment he might turn a bend and face an insurmountable wall. But the wall began to slope back, wonderfully smooth and bare. Chane could stand to go long on scant ration, but Brutus had to have grass. Therefore Chane lost no time working toward the head of this cañon.

  The first sight of cottonwood trees, still beautifully green, cheered him to hopefulness. Brutus could browse on cottonwood leaves if no better offered. Other trees met his trail, and then a grassy bench, a strip of willow bank. It was still summer down here, dreamy, lulled to repose, free from frost and wind, the very heart of the deep cañons.

  Again the walls converged and there followed a long stretch bare of green growth or glint of water. At the end of this lane, insulated by its gray walls, Chane saw a sunlit space, and he gave a sudden start, believing that the cañon headed out there into open country. But an instant’s thought scouted this idea. He was still in the depths of the rocky fastnesses. Nevertheless, he quickened to the beautiful vista ahead.

  All at once Brutus halted. His long ears shot up. He had seen or scented something that was alive.

  “What’s up, old boy?” queried Chane, patting him and peering keenly ahead. He had no fear of what lay before him in the shape of living creature. His enemies were behind. Still, he was intensely curious. Urging Brutus on, Chane kept a sharp outlook.

  To his amaze, the cañon aisle led into the most wonderful place Chane had ever beheld. It was an enlargement of the cañon, green and gold and silvery, fragrant and sweet, walled on his right by a cliff that reached to the skies, and on the left by a strange slanting area, a falling of the wall, to a gradual slope of bare yellow stone, dotted by cedar trees growing out of niches in the rock.

  Chane’s swift gaze had just time to take this all in when Brutus jumped to a halt and whistled an alarm.

  Following that came the swift padding of hoofs on soft ground. Chane had heard that sound too often ever to mistake it.

  “Wild horses, by gum!” he ejaculated with the old thrill of his boyhood.

  Then out of the cottonwoods trooped a band of wild horses, bays and blacks, sleek, shiny, with hanging manes and switching tails and keen wild heads erect. They faced Chane.

  Brutus neighed now, more with welcome than affright. These were creatures of his kind. His neigh was answered by a piercing whistle that rang like a bugle down the cañon.

  “Say, that’s a stallion!” exclaimed Chane.

  Then out of the green pranced the most beautiful and wildest horse Chane had ever seen. He recognized him, though he had only sighted him once, and that afar.

  “Panguitch!” Chane gasped in bewildered ecstasy. His heart leaped to his throat and he shook in the saddle.

  The king of wild sta
llions was the color of a lion except for black mane and tail. This quivering mane seemed to stand erect like an arched wave, and fall almost to the sand. He had the points of a race horse, with the weight and muscle gained from wild life on the desert. But his symmetry and grace, his remarkable beauty, were dwarfed by his spirit. His black eyes shot fire. His nostrils dilated to send forth another piercing blast. Wild, proud, fierce, he was a creature to stop the heart of a wild horse hunter.

  Then with a backward spring, like that of a deer, he wheeled to race into the green. He disappeared, and his band of bays and blacks raced after him. Chane thought they would run up the cañon. No! The sharp click, click, click of bone hoofs on rock told him they had taken to the slope. Above the green of cottonwoods they appeared, Panguitch leading on a run uphill. What a torturing thrill the sight gave Chane! For his first instinct had been one to capture.

  Panguitch slowed to a trot, and led his band up and down the waves of slope until Chane lost sight of them. He sat there astride Brutus and marveled. Then he galloped Brutus through the open, and the grove, to the slope. Here he dismounted and took to climbing. As he got up his range of vision widened. Climbing until he was breathless, he halted to look.

  He could see north over the waving slope, to the far height where the spreading flange of Wild Horse Mesa met this rising plane of yellow rock. But there was no sign of the wild horses. Thereupon Chane climbed less violently, until he had passed the zone of straggling cedars growing out of the bare rock and mounted high enough to command the prospect. A cañon split the escarpment to the north. Panguitch could not cross there, nor climb to the towering rim of Wild Horse Mesa from that side.

  Chane waited. At last, far above, he espied the tawny stallion now driving his band ahead of him. Manes and tails tossed wildly on the summit of a yellow ridge, and vanished. Then Panguitch stood silhouetted against the red of the mesa wall, far beyond. His mane waved in the wind. Every line of his magnificent frame seemed instinct with freedom. There was something about him that made Chane ache. Wild and grand he stood outlined there on the height. Then he vanished.

  Chane looked long at the place where he had disappeared. Not easy was it to resist following. But as he was not equipped to chase wild horses, he gave up. Then he studied every line of the heights above, thrilling under the favorable position that had fallen to him through sheer luck.

  “Toddy Nokin had it figured wrong,” Chane decided at length. “Panguitch gets on top the mesa around this end and not to the north. He comes down this cañon to climb up here. Somewhere above he has found a trail to the rim. But … if he comes down this cañon, why hasn’t he been trailed? I’ll find out.”

  Chane descended to Brutus and rode on out of the beautiful colored oval. As he had expected, he found fresh horse tracks in the sand, headed toward him. Keen on the trail, he kept on and did not look up until the perceptible darkening of the light demanded his attention.

  The cañon had narrowed to a V-shaped cleft, with gleaming walls slanting almost straight up to the sky. How weird and strange! This pass of gleams narrowed and widened as Chane traveled on.

  He came to pools of water over beds of gravel, then boulders almost blocking passage. But the trail of the wild horses led Chane on. He heard the gurgle of running water and saw where a stream disappeared under the cliff. He came to a pool that Brutus waded, clean, clear, beautiful green water. Beyond this was bare stone that showed no hoof marks. Then came sand again and the telltale tracks.

  Looking ahead, Chane was utterly astounded to see the cliffs come closer and closer together. This cleft grew gloomy and somber. Chane kept on. He was sure of exit now. The wild horses had come down here, and his escape was certain. Besides, he would learn how Panguitch eluded his trailers.

  Boulders had to be clambered over, and more pools traversed. The water now was running swift and deep in places. Brutus had trouble keeping his footing. The converging walls took on a darker, weirder gleam. Chane could touch both walls at the same time. The floor of this strange cañon was bare solid rock, with the stream covering most of it.

  Chane came to a pool that was twenty feet deep. Brutus swam it. No horse tracks showed now on the granite floor. Even the iron hoofs of Brutus left no trace. The sand was gone.

  Pool after pool of deep water Chane had to drive Brutus to swim. And the last was a hundred yards long. Chane could see the green depths under him. Beyond that the cañon widened and the stream rushed shallowly over a granite bed. No intersecting cañons broke these tremendous walls. The trail of the wild horses had come down that stone-floored stream.

  Chane remembered the cañon he had marked bisecting the eastern flange of the mesa. Soon he must come to where that opened into this one, unless both were one and the same. He traveled a tortuous mile or more before he reached it. But one glance was sufficient to prove to him that Panguitch had never come down there. It was impassable. Chane kept to the winding lane of denuded rock until at last it opened out into bright space. A stone slope that dwarfed the one below greeted Chane’s expectant gaze. The cañon pierced it and ended in a cleft.

  Brutus carried Chane up that long slope and out on a wide desert bench that fell away from the mesa and merged on the seamed and cracked cañon country below. The bench with its scant bits of green appeared rock as far as the eye could see. Everywhere along its rim slanted rugged bare declivities of stone, any one of which might lead into a cañon. Chane had marked the place where he had climbed out. He meant to come back. Panguitch’s access to Wild Horse Mesa was no longer a mystery to Chane. He could trap that great stallion.

  But what a baffling country was that eastern lower escarpment of the mesa. It appeared endless. To the right stretched the sea of carved rock, lined by its cañon rims, and ending only in the dim rise of purple upland. All on the other side of Chane the towering fluted wall of red wandered northward. Chane’s senses of appreciation had been overwhelmed, yet he gazed on and on with tired eyes.

  Fifty miles and more Wild Horse Mesa stretched its level black-fringed horizon line toward the Henry Mountains. Chane rode until sunset without seeing another horse track or a living creature of any species.

  Darkness overtook him and he decided to rest for the night.

  “Brutus, there’s no grass for you, so I’ll go hungry myself,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll have better luck.”

  He made his bed in the lee of a rock, and, tying Brutus with his lasso, he lay down. What amazing good fortune had been his! He thought of the horse thieves and of his miraculous escape. The cold night wind swept mournfully down this bench; the colossal black wall loomed back of him; white stars burned through the blue sky. Wild horse hunter though he was, and with the secret of Panguitch revealed, Chane thought last of Brutus, and prayed he could get him safely across the barren land.

  Chapter Seven

  Sue Melberne missed Chess so much that she was surprised, and compelled to admit appreciation of the lad’s many little acts of thoughtfulness and service, not to mention the interest aroused by his personality. She missed the pleasing sight of him, his cheery voice, his whistling, and the fun it created for her to watch him with Ora.

  Chess and Jake had taken the big wagon, drawn by two teams, and had driven off to the railroad to fetch back a load of barbed wire. Sue had overheard Manerube’s talk with her father about how easily a trap to catch wild horses could be constructed in the valley, and despite her own pleadings not to use so cruel a method, and Alonzo’s disapproval, and Utah’s silence, he had listened to Manerube, who was strongly backed by Loughbridge. Therefore he had dispatched Jake and Chess to fetch the wire.

  This incident had marked in Sue a definite attitude of mind toward Manerube. Her first impressions had not been favorable, yet these had not kept her from feeling an inexplicable fascination when the man was in her presence. Sue had experienced it when near Mormons she had met in St. George, though not so powerfully. Moreover, she ne
ver felt it except when she could see or hear Manerube. But after he had successfully put through a plan to catch wild horses with barbed wire, Sue thought she despised him. Nevertheless, she was inconsistent about it, for only when alone was she conscious of active dislike. The fact seemed that Manerube’s coming had precipitated a strange sort of crisis in Sue’s life, and she could not understand it any more than welcome it. But she grew convinced that it was owing to her loneliness and to the vague gathering forces of her heart. Once she found herself wishing she could love Chess. This not only amazed her, but made her angry. Moreover, it focused her mind on a bewildering possibility, and that was that her mental unrest had something to do with love.

  Three days after Chess had left, Manerube had apparently ousted him from his place in Ora’s fickle affections. Ora certainly was not proof against the virile fascination Manerube seemed to exert. She babbled to Sue about Manerube, utterly forgetting that she had babbled almost as fervently about Chess.

  “Ora, listen,” Sue said, finally driven to irritation. “I feel bound to tell you Benton Manerube has tried the same kind of talk on me.”

  “Wha-at! Why, Sue?” faltered Ora, suddenly confronted with realities.

  “Yes, I mean what I say. It’s not nice to tell things, but if you’re going to be a little fool … To be blunt about it, he has tried to make love to me.”

  “What did he say?” asked Ora with curiosity that approached jealousy.

  “Oh, I … I don’t remember,” replied Sue, blushing. “But soft flattery, you know. About my pretty face … how sweet I am … that he never saw anyone like me. Then he makes eyes … and more than once he has got hold of my hand. Does that sound familiar, Ora?”