Desert Heritage

by Zane Grey

  From the ridge below the spring he descried Silvermane miles ahead of him out on the valley. This day seemed shorter than the foregoing one; it passed while he watched Silvermane grow smaller and smaller and disappear on the looming slope of Coconina. Hare’s fear that Mescal would run into the riders Holderness had expected from his ranch grew less and less after she had reached the cover of the cedars. That she would rest the stallion at the Navajo pool on the mountain he made certain. Later in the night he got to the camping spot and found no trace to prove that she had halted there even to let Silvermane drink. So he tied the tired mustang and slept until daylight.

  He crossed the plateau and began the descent. Before he was halfway down, the warm bright sun had cleared the valley of vapor and shadow. Far along on the winding white trail shone a speck. It was Silvermane almost out of sight.

  “Ten miles . . . fifteen, more maybe,” said Hare. “Mescal will soon be in the village.”

  Again hours of travel flew by as winged moments. Thoughts of time, distance, monotony, fatigue, purpose were excluded from his mind. A rushing kaleidoscopic dance of images filled his consciousness, but they were all of Mescal. Safety for her had liberated happiness.

  It was near sundown when he rode Black Bolly into White Sage, and took the back road and the pasture lane to Bishop Caldwell’s cottage. John, one of the bishop’s sons, was in the barnyard and ran to open the gate.

  “Mescal?” cried Hare.

  “Safe,” replied the Mormon.

  “Have you hidden her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “She’s in a secret cave, a Mormon hiding place for women. Only a few men know of its existence. Rest easy, for she’s absolutely safe.”

  “Thank God . . . then that’s settled.” Hare drew a long, deep breath.

  “Mescal told us what happened . . . how she got caught at the sand strip and escaped from Holderness at Silver Cup. Was Dene hurt?”

  “Silvermane killed him.”

  “Good God! How things come about! I saw you run Dene down that time here in White Sage. It must have been written. Did Holderness shoot Snap Naab?”

  “Yes.”

  “What of old Naab? Won’t he come down here now to lead us Mormons against the rustlers?”

  “He called the Navajos across the river. He meant to take the trail alone and kill Holderness, keeping the Indians back four days. If he failed to return, then they were to ride out on the rustlers. But his plan must be changed, for I came ahead of him.”

  “For what? Mescal?”

  “No. For Holderness.”

  “You’ll kill him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’ll be coming soon? When?”

  “Tomorrow . . . possibly by daylight. He wants Mescal. There’s a chance Naab may have gotten to Silver Cup before Holderness left, but I doubt it.”

  “May I know your plan?” The Mormon hesitated while his strong brown face flashed with daring inspiration. “I . . . I’ve a good reason.”

  “Plan? Yes. Hide Bolly and Silvermane in the little arbor down in the orchard. I’ll stay outside tonight, sleep a little . . . for I’m dead tired . . . and watch in the morning. Holderness will come here with his men, perhaps not openly at first, to drag Mescal away. He’ll mean to use strategy. I’ll meet him when he comes . . . that’s all.”

  “It’s well. I ask you not to mention this to my father. Come in, now. You need food and rest. Later I’ll hide Bolly and Silvermane in the arbor.”

  Hare met the bishop and his family with composure, but his advent, following so closely upon Mescal’s, increased their agitation. They seemed repelled yet fascinated by his face. Hare ate in silence. John Caldwell did not come in to supper; his brothers mysteriously left the table before finishing the meal. A subdued murmur of voices floated in at the open window.

  Darkness found Hare wrapped in a blanket under the trees. He needed sleep that would loose the strange deadlock of his thoughts, clear the blur from his eyes, ease the pain in his head and weariness of limbs—all these weaknesses of which he had suddenly become conscious. Time and again he had almost wooed slumber to him when soft footsteps on the gravel paths, low voices, steps on the porch, whisperings, the gentle closing of the gate, brought him back to the unreal listening wakefulness. The sounds continued late into the night, and, when he did fall asleep, he dreamed of them.

  He awoke to a dawn clearer than the light from the noonday sun. He seemed to feel the piercing power of his eyes. In his ears was the ringing of a bell. He could not stand still, and his movements were subtle and swift. His hands took a peculiar, tenacious hold of everything he chanced to touch. He paced his hidden walk behind the arbor, at every turn taking sharp glances up and down the road. Thoughts came to him clearly, yet in submission to an obsessing one. The morning was strangely quiet, the goings-on of the little village were strangely absent, the sons of the bishop had strangely disappeared—these perceptions were realized through a great crowding sense of imminent catastrophe.

  A band of horsemen closely grouped turned into the road and trotted their horses forward. Some of the men wore black masks. Holderness rode at the front, his red-gold beard shining in the sunlight. The steady clip-clop of hoofs and clinking of iron stirrups broke the morning quiet. Holderness, with two of his men, dismounted before the bishop’s gate; the others of the band trotted on down the road. The ring of Holderness’s laugh preceded the snap of the gate latch.

  Hare now stood calmly and coldly behind his green covert watching the three men stroll up the garden path. Holderness removed a cigarette from his lips as he neared the porch and blew out rings of white smoke. Bishop Caldwell tottered from the cottage, rapping the porch floor with his cane.

  “Good morning, Bishop,” greeted Holderness blandly, baring his head.

  “To you, sir,” quavered the old man, with his wavering blue eyes fixed on the spurred, belted rustler.

  Holderness stepped out in front of his companions, a superb man, smiling, at ease, with something courteous softening his sure boldness. “I rode in to . . . .”

  Hare leaped from his hiding place.

  “Holderness!”

  The rustler pivoted on whirling heels. “Dene’s spy!” he exclaimed, aghast. Lightning-swift changes swept his mobile features. Fear had risen before he faced his foe, then came amaze with recognition, a glint of amusement, dark anger, shock, and the terrible instinct of death in this meeting.

  “Naab’s trick!” hissed Hare, with hand high. The suggestion in his words, the meaning in his look, held the three rustlers transfixed. The surprise was his strength.

  In Holderness’s amber eyes shone his desperate calculation of chances. Hare’s fateful glance, impossible to elude, his strong form slightly crouched, his cold waiting deliberate mention of August Naab’s trick with a gun, and particularly the poise of the quivering hand, drove the rustler with a terror that racked his lofty form as might have a convulsion. He had been bidden to draw and he could not summon the force.

  “Naab’s trick!” repeated Hare mockingly.

  Suddenly Holderness wrestled shoulder and arm into rapid action.

  Hare’s hand flashed like a white streak. Gleam of blue—spurt of red—crash!

  Holderness swayed with blond head swinging backward; the amber of his eyes suddenly darkened; the life in them glazed; like a log he fell, clutching the weapon he had half drawn.

  Chapter Twenty

  Take Holderness away . . . quick!” ordered Hare. A thin curl of blue smoke floated from the muzzle of his extended weapon.

  The rustlers jerked out of their statue-like immobility and, lifting their dead leader, dragged him down the garden path with his spurs clinking on the gravel and plowing little furrows.

  “Bishop, go in now. They may return,” said Hare, hurrying up the steps to place his arm around the tottering old man.

  “Was that Holderness?”

  “Yes,” replied Hare.

  “The dee
ds of the wicked return unto them. God’s will.”

  Hare led the bishop indoors. The sitting room was full of wailing women and crying children. None of the young men was present. Again Hare made note of their inexplicable absence. He spoke soothingly to the frightened family. The little boys and girls yielded readily to his persuasion, but the women took no heed of him.

  “Where are your sons?” asked Hare.

  “I don’t know,” replied the bishop. “They should be here to stand by you. It’s strange. I don’t understand. Last night my sons were visited by many men, coming and going in twos and threes till late. They didn’t sleep in their beds. I know not what to think.”

  Hare remembered John Caldwell’s enigmatic face.

  “Have the rustlers really come?” asked a young woman, whose eyes were red and cheeks tear stained.

  “They have. Nineteen in all. I counted them,” answered Hare.

  The young woman burst out weeping afresh, and the wailing of the others gathered new impetus. Pondering upon this peculiar aspect of the case, Hare left the cottage and returned to his post behind the arbor. He picked up his rifle and hurriedly went down through the orchard to the hiding place of the horses. Silvermane pranced and snorted his gladness at sight of his master. The desert king was fit for a grueling race right on the moment. Black Bolly quietly cropped the long grass. Hare saddled the stallion to have him in instant readiness, and then returned to the front of the yard.

  He heard the dull hollow bang of a gun down the road, then another, and several shots following in quick succession. Wherever these shots came from they were fired indoors. Perhaps the rustlers were at their old tricks in the village saloon. A distant angry murmuring and trampling of many feet drew Hare to the gate. Riderless mustangs were galloping down the road; several frightened boys were fleeing across the square; not a man was in sight. Three more shots cracked, this time clear and sharp. The low murmur and trample augmented into a hoarse uproar. Hare had heard that sound before; it was the tumult of mob violence. A black dense throng of men appeared crowding into the main street, crossing toward the square. The procession had some order; it was led and flanked by mounted men, but the upflinging of many arms, the craning of necks, and the leaping of men on the outskirts of the mass, the pressure inward, and the hideous roar made it a wild march, reigned by wild rule.

  “By heaven!” cried Hare. “The Mormons have risen against the rustlers. I understand now. John Caldwell spent last night in rousing his neighbors. In secret. They have surprised the rustlers. Now what?”

  Hare vaulted the fence and ran down the road. A compact mob of men, a hundred or more, had halted in the village under the wide-spreading cottonwoods. Hare suddenly grasped the terrible significance of those reaching, rugged branches, and out of the thought grew another that made him run at bursting breakneck speed.

  “Open up! Let me in!” he yelled to the thickly thronged circle. Right and left he flung men. “Make way!” His piercing voice stilled the angry murmur. Fierce men with weapons held aloft fell back from his face.

  “Dene’s spy!” they cried.

  The circle opened and closed upon him. He saw bound rustlers under armed guard. Four still forms were on the ground. Holderness lay outstretched, a dark-red blot staining his gray shirt. Flint-faced Mormons, ruthless now as they had once been mild, surrounded the rustlers. John Caldwell stood foremost, with ashen lips breaking bitterly into speech.

  “Mormons, this is Dene’s spy, the man who killed Holderness!”

  They burst into the short stern shout of men proclaiming a leader in war.

  “What’s the game?” demanded Hare.

  “A fair trial for the rustlers, then a rope,” replied John Caldwell. The low ominous murmur swelled through the crowd again.

  “There are two men here who have helped me, befriended me. I won’t see them hanged.”

  “Pick them out!” A strange ripple of emotion made a fleeting break in John Caldwell’s hard face.

  Hare eyed the prisoners. “Nebraska, step out here,” he said.

  “I reckon you’re mistaken,” replied the rustler, his blue eyes intently on Hare. “I never seen you before. An’ I ain’t the kind of a feller to cheat the man you mean.”

  “I saw you untie the girl’s hands.”

  “You did? Well, damn me!”

  “Nebraska, if I save your life, will you quit rustling cattle? You weren’t cut out for a thief.”

  “Will I? Damn me! I’ll be straight an’ decent. I’ll take a job ridin’ for you, stranger, an’ prove it.”

  “Cut him loose from the others,” said Hare. He scrutinized the line of rustlers. Several were masked in black. “Off with those masks!”

  “No! These men go to their graves masked.” Again the strange breaking, almost a twinge of pain, crossed John Caldwell’s face.

  “Ah! I begin to see!” exclaimed Hare. Then quickly: “I couldn’t recognize the other man anyhow . . . I don’t know him. But Mescal can tell. He saved her and I’ll save him. But how?”

  Every rustler, except the masked ones standing stern and silent, clamored that he was the fortunate man.

  “Hurry back home,” said Caldwell in Hare’s ear. “Tell them to fetch Mescal. Find out and hurry back. Time presses. The Mormons are wavering. You’ve got a few minutes.”

  Hare slipped out of the crowd and sped up the road, jumped the fence on the run, and burst in upon the bishop and his family.

  “No danger . . . don’t be alarmed . . . all’s well,” he panted. “The rustlers are captured. I want Mescal. Quick! Where is she? Fetch her, somebody.”

  One of the women glided from the room. Hare caught the clicking of a latch, the closing of a door, hollow footsteps descending on stone, then strange, indistinct sounds dying away under the cottage. They rose again in reverse order, ending in swiftly pattering footsteps. Like a whirlwind Mescal came through the hall, black hair flying, dark eyes beaming, with the same look, the same inarticulate cry of joy as when he had found her in Thunder River Cañon.

  “My darling!” Oblivious of the Mormons he swung her up and held her in his arms. “Mescal! Mescal . . . .” When he raised his face from the tumbling mass of her black hair, the bishop and his family had left the room.

  “Listen, Mescal. Be calm. I’m safe. The rustlers are prisoners . . . one of them released you from Holderness’s clutches. Tell me which one?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Mescal. “I’ve tried to think. I didn’t see his face . . . I can’t remember his voice.”

  “Think! Think! He’ll be hanged if you don’t recall something to identify him. He deserves to be given a chance. Holderness’s crowd are thieves, murderers. But two men were not all bad. That showed the night you were at Silver Cup. I saved Nebraska . . . .”

  “Were you at Silver Cup? Jack . . . !”

  “Hush . . . don’t interrupt me. We must save this man who saved you. Think, Mescal! Think!”

  “Oh, I can’t. What . . . how shall I remember?”

  “Something about him. Think of his coat, his sleeve. You must remember something. Did you see his hands?”

  “Yes, I did . . . when he was loosing the cords,” said Mescal eagerly. “Long, strong fingers. I felt them, too. He has a sharp rough wart on one hand . . . I don’t know which. He wears a leather wristband.”

  “Enough!” Hare bounded out upon the garden walk and raced back to the crowded square. The uneasy circle stirred and swept open for him to enter. He stumbled over a pile of lassoes that had not been there when he left. The stony Mormons waited; the rustlers coughed and shifted their feet. John Caldwell turned a gray face. Hare bent over the three dead rustlers lying with Holderness, and after a moment of anxious scrutiny he rose to confront the line of prisoners.

  “Hold out your hands.”

  One by one they complied. The sixth rustler in the line, a tall fellow, completely masked, refused to do as he was bidden. Twice Hare spoke. The rustler twisted his bound hands under his coat.


  “Let’s see them,” said Hare quickly. He grasped the fellow’s arm and received a violent push that almost knocked him over. Grappling the rustler then, he pulled up the bound hands, in spite of fierce resistance, and there were the long fingers, the sharp wart, the laced wristband. “Here’s my man,” he said.

  “No,” hoarsely mumbled the rustler. Streams of sweat ran down his corded neck; his breast heaved convulsively.

  “You fool!” cried Hare, dumbfounded and resentful. “I recognized you. Would you rather hang than live? What mystery is here?”

  Hare snatched off the black mask. The bishop’s eldest son stood revealed. “Good God!” ejaculated Hare, stepping back from a livid, convulsed face.

  “Brother . . . oh, I feared this,” groaned John Caldwell.

  The rustlers broke out into curses and loud guffaws.

  “God damn you Mormons! See him! Paul Caldwell! Son of a bishop! Thought he was shepherdin’ sheep? Haw! Haw!”

  “Damn you, Hare!” shouted the denounced Mormon in passionate fury and shame. “Why didn’t you hang me? Why didn’t you bury me unknown?”

  “Caldwell, this is hell,” replied Hare, slowly coming out of his stupefaction. “To think you . . . why it’s unbelievable! But you don’t hang. Here, let me cut your bonds . . . . Come out of the crowd. Make way, men!”

  The silent crowd of Mormons with lowered and averted eyes made passage for Hare and Caldwell. Then cold, stern voices in authoritative questions and orders pronounced the opening of the grim lynch law trial. Leading the bowed and stricken Mormon, Hare drew off to the side of the town hall and turned his back upon the crowd. The continuous trampling of many feet, the harsh medley of many voices swelled into one dreadful sound. It passed away, and a long hush ensued in expressive contrast. This in turn split to a shrill, alarming outcry: “The Navajos! The Navajos!”