by Zane Grey
Hare thrilled to that cry and his wheeling glance fixed upon the eastern end of the village road where a wide line of mounted Indians, four abreast, was streaming toward the square.
“Naab and his Indians!” yelled Hare. “Naab and his Indians! No fear!” His call was very needful, for the inflamed Mormons, ignorant of Naab’s pursuit, fearful of hostile Navajos, were running about with drawn weapons.
“August Naab! August Naab!” went pealing out.
Onward came the band, Naab in the lead on his spotted roan. The mustangs were spent and lashed with foam. Naab reined in his charger and the Painted Desert-eyed Navajos closed in behind him.
The old Mormon’s eagle glance passed over the dark forms dangling from the cottonwoods to the files of waiting men. “Where is he?”
“There!” answered John Caldwell, pointing to the long, still form on the ground.
“Who robbed me of my vengeance? Who killed the rustler?” Naab’s stentorian voice rolled over the listening multitude. In it was a hunger of thwarted hate that held men mute. He bent a long downward gaze at the dead Holderness as if to make sure of the ghastly reality. Then he seemed to rise in his saddle, and his broad chest to expand. “I know . . . I saw it all . . . blind I was not to believe my own eyes. Where is he? That wild boy! Hare! Hare!”
Someone pointed Hare out. Naab swung from his saddle and scattered the men before him as if they had been sheep. His shaggy gray head and massive shoulders reached above the tallest there.
Hare experienced the cold inward sinking sensation of fear; he grew weak in all his being. He reeled when the gray shaggy giant spread a huge hand on his shoulder and with one pull dragged him close. Was this the kind Mormon, this craggy-faced man with the awful eyes?
“You killed Holderness?” roared Naab.
“Yes,” whispered Hare’s lips.
“You heard me say I’d go alone? You forestalled me? You took upon yourself my work? Speak.”
“I . . . did.”
“By what right?”
“My debt . . . duty . . . your family . . . Dave!”
“Boy! Boy! You’ve robbed me.” Naab waved his arm from the gaping crowd to the swinging rustlers. “You’ve led these white-livered Mormons to do my work. How can I avenge my sons . . . seven sons?”
His was the rage of the old desert lion. He loosed Hare, and strode in magnificent wrath over Holderness and raised his brawny fists. His face was the color of his waving hair. The fire of gloom in his eyes was that of the insane.
“Eighteen years I prayed for wicked men,” he rolled out. “One by one I buried my sons. I gave my springs and my cattle. Then I yielded to the lust for blood. I renounced my religion. I paid my soul to everlasting hell for the life of my foe. But he’s dead! Killed by a wild boy! I sold myself to the devil for nothing!”
August Naab raved out his unnatural rage amid awed silence. His revolt was the flood of years undammed at the last. The ferocity of the desert spirit spoke silently in the hanging rustlers, in the ruthlessness of the vigilantes who had destroyed them, but it spoke truest in the sonorous roll voicing the old Mormon’s ungovernable rage. For it had the weight of years. It had the raucous sting of evil supplanting good, the recoil of a trampled snake, the evolution of a leaf into a thorn, the bitter poisoned sap of life blood—all terrible attributes of the desert. It was death in life.
“August, young Hare saved two of the rustlers,” spoke up an old friend, hoping to divert the Mormon. “Paul Caldwell there, he was one of them. The other’s gone.”
Naab loomed over him. “What!” he roared. His friend edged away, repeating his words and jerking his thumb backward toward the bishop’s son.
“Judas Iscariot!” thundered Naab. “False to thyself, thy kin, and thy God! Thrice traitor . . .! Why didn’t you get yourself killed? Why are you left? Ah-h, for me . . . a rustler for me to kill . . . with my own hands! A rope there . . . a rope . . . a rope!”
“I wanted them to hang me,” hoarsely cried Caldwell, writhing in Naab’s grasp.
Hare threw all his weight and strength upon the Mormon’s iron arm. “Naab! Naab! For God’s sake, hear! He saved Mescal. This man, thief, traitor, false Mormon . . . whatever he is . . . he saved Mescal.”
August Naab’s protruding eyes were now bloodshot. One shake of his great body flung Hare off. He dragged Paul Caldwell across the grass toward the cottonwood as easily as if he were handling an empty grain sack.
Hare suddenly darted after him. “August! August . . . look, look!” he cried. He pointed a shaking finger down the square. The old bishop came tottering over the grass, leaning on his cane, shading his eyes with his hand. “August. See, the bishop’s coming. Paul’s father! Do you hear?”
Hare’s cunning use of his opportunity pierced Naab’s bloodclogged brain. The Mormon elder saw his old bishop pause and stare at the dark shapes suspended from the cottonwoods and hold up his hands in horror. By one accord the watching Mormons closed up the gap in the crowd, hiding the ghastly evidence from the bishop’s gaze. August Naab unclenched his hold on Paul. His frame seemed wrenched by the passing of an evil spirit, by the recoiling from a glimpse of a fiendish world. The human had begun its reflux upon the lion’s rage. The love he had given his first-born, the agony he had endured for that son’s fall and degradation resurged in his heart, uplifting him to divine understanding. The reaction left August Naab’s face transfigured.
“Paul, it’s your father, the bishop,” he said brokenly. “Brace up. Be a man. He must never know.” Naab spread wide his arms to the crowd. “Men, listen,” he said. “Of us Mormons I have lost most, suffered most. Then hear me. Bishop Caldwell must never know of his son’s guilt. He would sink under it. Keep the secret. Paul will rise again. He will conquer evil. I know. I see. For, Mormons, August Naab has the gift of revelation!”
Chapter Twenty-One
Summer gleams of golden sunshine swam under the glistening red walls of the oasis. Shadows from white clouds, like sails on a deepblue sea, darkened the broad fields of alfalfa and moved across them majestically to climb the cliff. Circling columns of smoke wafted far above the cottonwoods and floated in the still air. The desert-red color of Navajo blankets brightened the grove.
Half-naked, bronze-bodied Indians lolled in the shade, lounged on the cabin porches, and stood about the sunny glade in idle groups. The war paint had been washed from their brown skins; a single black-tipped white eagle feather waved above the band binding each black head. They watched the merry children tumble around the playground. Silvermane browsed where he listed under the shady trees, and many a sinewy red hand caressed his long, silvery, flowing mane. Black Bolly neighed her jealous displeasure from the corral, and the other mustangs trampled and kicked and whistled defiance across the bars. The peacocks preened their gorgeous plumage and uttered their clarion calls. The belligerent turkey gobblers sidled about ruffling their feathers. The blackbirds and swallows sang and twittered their happiness to find old nests in the branches and under the eaves. Over all boomed the thick, dull roar of the Colorado in flood.
It was the morning of Mescal’s wedding day.
August Naab, for once without a task, sat astride a peeled log of driftwood in the lane, and Hare stood beside him.
“Five thousand steers, lad. Why do you refuse them? They’re worth ten dollars a head today in Salt Lake City. A good start for a young man.”
“No. I’m still in your debt.”
“Then share alike with my sons in work and profit?”
“Yes, I can accept that.”
“Good! Jack, I see happiness and prosperity for you. Do you remember that night on the White Sage trail? Ah! Well, the worst is over. We can look forward to better times. It’s not likely the rustlers will ride into Utah again. But this desert will never be free from strife. There’ll be strife of some kind. We Mormons first fought drought and famine, the fierce wolves, then the Indians, then the rustlers . . . now will come something better, perhaps honest men seeking a livelihood. We mus
t lend a helping hand where we can, yet be ever watchful of our ranges and springs. Even good and honest men must be pushed back . . . I see that will come in the future. Maybe it’s only the nature of the desert. But I’m afraid it’s true of human life.”
“Tell me of Mescal,” said Hare.
“Ah! Yes, I’m coming to that.” Naab bent his great head over the log and chipped off little pieces with his knife. “Jack, will you come into the Mormon Church?”
Long had Hare shrunk from this question that he felt must inevitably come, and now he met it as bravely as he could, knowing he would deal pain to his friend.
“No, August, I cannot,” he replied. “I feel . . . differently from Mormons about . . . about women. If it wasn’t for that . . . . I look upon you as a father. I’ll do anything for you, except that. No one could pray to be a better man than you. Your work, your religion, your life . . . why, I’ve no words to express what I feel. Teach me what little you can of them, August, but don’t ask me . . . that.”
“Well, well,” sighed Naab. The gray clearness of his eagle eyes grew shadowed and his worn face was sad. It seemed the look of a strong wise man who began to listen to doubt and failure knocking at the gate of his creed. His gift of revelation betrayed some flow in his ruling passion. But he loved life too well to be unhappy; he saw it too clearly not to know there was nothing wholly good, wholly perfect, wholly without error. The shade passed from his face like the cloud shadow from the sunlit lane.
“You ask about Mescal,” he mused. “There’s little more to tell. I’ve lied a few times in my life, Jack, and one of my lies was about Mescal’s father. I said that I married him to Mescal’s Indian mother. It’s untrue. But no one dreams of the truth. Mescal has no name.”
“It matters not at all to me. But she must never find out.”
“I’ve deceived even Eschtah, who’s a wise old Indian. The secret is mine and yours Jack. Let it die with us.”
“Yes. Her father, can you tell me more of him?”
“Little more than I’ve already told. He was a gentleman, a man of quality. I suspected that he ruined his life somehow and became an adventurer. His health was shattered when I brought him here, but he got well after a year or so. He was a splendid, handsome fellow. He spoke very seldom, and I don’t remember ever seeing him smile. His favorite walk was the river trail. I came upon him there one day and found him dying. He asked me to have a care of Mescal. And he died muttering a Spanish word, a woman’s name, I think.”
“I’ll cherish Mescal the more,” said Hare.
“Cherish her, yes. My Bible will this day give her a name. She has blue blood, perhaps . . . we know she has the blood of a great chief. Beautiful she is and good. I raised her for the Mormon Church, but God disposes after all, and I . . . .”
A shrill screeching sound split the warm stillness, the long drawnout bray of a burro.
“Jack, look down the lane. If it isn’t Noddle!”
Under the shady line of the red wall a little gray burro came trotting leisurely along with one long brown ear standing straight up, the other hanging down over his nose.
“By George, it is Noddle!” exclaimed Hare. “He’s climbed out of the cañon. Won’t this please Mescal?”
“Hey, Mother Mary!” called Naab toward the cabin, “Send Mescal out. Here’s a wedding present.”
With laughing wonder the womenfolk flocked out into the yard. Mescal hung back, shy-eyed, roses dyeing the brown of her cheeks, curious with the magic of a word.
“Mescal’s wedding present from Thunder River. Just arrived!” called Naab cheerily, yet deep-voiced with happiness he knew he would give. “A dusty, dirty, shaggy, starved, lop-eared, lazy burro . . . Noddle!”
Mescal flew out into the lane, and with a strange broken cry of joy that was half a sob she fell upon her knees and clasped the little burro’s neck. Noddle wearily flapped his long brown ears, wearily nodded his white nose, and, evidently considering the incident closed, went lazily to sleep.
“Noddle. Dear old Noddle,” murmured Mescal, with far-seeing, thought-mirroring eyes. “For you to come back today from our cañon . . . . Oh! The long dark nights with the thunder of the river and the lonely voices . . . they come back to me . . . . Wolf, Wolf, here’s Noddle, the same faithful old Noddle!”
August Naab married Mescal and Hare at noon under the shade of the cottonwoods. Eschtah, magnificent in robes of state, stood up with them. The many members of Naab’s family and the grave Navajos formed an attentive circle around them. The ceremony was brief. At its close the Mormon lifted his face and arms in characteristic invocation.
“Almighty God, we entreat Thy blessing upon this marriage. Many and inscrutable are Thy ways . . . strange are the workings of Thy will . . . wondrous the purpose with which Thou hast brought this man and this woman together. Watch over them in the new path they are to tread, help them in the trials to come . . . and in Thy good time, when they have reached the fullness of days, when they have known the joy of life and rendered their service, gather them to Thy bosom in that eternal home where we all pray to meet Thy chosen ones of good . . . yea, and the evil ones purified in Thy mercy. Amen.”
Happy congratulations of the Mormon family, a merry romp of children flinging flowers, marriage dance of singing Navajos—these, with the feast spread under the cottonwoods, filled the warm noon hours of the day.
Then the chief Eschtah raised his lofty form, and turned his eyes upon the bride and groom.
“Eschtah’s hundred summers smile in the face of youth. The arm of the White Chief is strong . . . the kiss of the Flower of the Desert is sweet. Let Mescal and Jack rest their heads on one pillow, and sleep under the trees, and chant when the dawn brightens in the east. Out of his wise years the Navajo bids them love while they may. Daughter of my race, take the blessing of the Navajo.”
Jack lifted Mescal upon Black Bolly and mounted Silvermane. Paiute grinned till he shook his earrings and started the pack burros toward the plateau trail. Wolf pattered on before, turning his white head, impatient of delay. Amid tears and waving of hands and cheers they began the zigzag ascent.
When they reached the old camp on the plateau, the sun was setting behind the Painted Desert. With hands closely interwoven they watched the color fade and the mustering of purple shadows.
Twilight fell. Paiute raked the red coals from the glowing center of the campfire. Wolf crouched all his long white length, his sharp nose on his paws, watching Mescal. Hare watched her, too. The night shone in her eyes, the light of the fire, the old brooding mystic desert spirit, and something more. The thump of Silvermane’s hobbled hoofs was heard in the darkness; Bolly’s bell jangled musically. The sheep were bleating. A lonesome coyote barked. The white stars blinked out of the blue and the night breeze whispered softly among the cedars.
About the Author
Zane Grey was born Pearl Zane Gray at Zanesville, Ohio in 1872. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1896 with a degree in dentistry. He practiced in New York City while striving to make a living by writing. He married Lina Elise Roth in 1905 and with her financial assistance he published his first novel himself, Betty Zane (1903). Closing his dental office, the Greys moved into a cottage on the Delaware River, near Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. Grey took his first trip to Arizona in 1907 and, following his return, wrote The Heritage of the Desert (1910). The profound effect that the desert had had on him was so vibrantly captured that it still comes alive for a reader. Grey couldn’t have been more fortunate in his choice of a mate. Trained in English at Hunter College, Lina Grey proofread every manuscript Grey wrote, polished his prose, and later she managed their financial affairs. Grey’s early novels were serialized in pulp magazines, but by 1918 he had graduated to the slick magazine market. Motion picture rights brought in a fortune and, with 109 films based on his work, Grey set a record yet to be equaled by any other author. Zane Grey was not a realistic writer, but rather one who charted the interiors of the soul through encou
nters with the wilderness. He provided characters no less memorable than one finds in Balzac, Dickens, or Thomas Mann, and they have a vital story to tell. “There was so much unexpressed feeling that could not be entirely portrayed,” Loren Grey, Grey’s younger son and a noted psychologist, once recalled, “that, in later years, he would weep when re-reading one of his own books.” Perhaps, too, closer to the mark, Zane Grey may have wept at how his attempts at being truthful to his muse had so often been essentially altered by his editors, so that no one might ever be able to read his stories as he had intended them. It may be said of Zane Grey that, more than mere adventure tales, he fashioned psycho-dramas about the odyssey of the human soul. If his stories seem not always to be of the stuff of the mundane world, without what his stories do touch, the human world has little meaning—which may go a long way to explain the hold he has had on an enraptured reading public ever since his first Western novel in 1910.
