Riders of the Purple Sage (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by Zane Grey

  "What's up?" queried Venters sharply.

  "Rustlers sloped off with the red herd."

  "Where are my riders?" demanded Jane.

  "Miss Withersteen, I was alone all night with the herd. At daylight this mornin' the rustlers rode down. They began to shoot at me on sight. They chased me hard an' far, burnin' powder all the time, but I got away."

  "Jud, they meant to kill you," declared Venters.

  "Now I wonder," returned Judkins. "They wanted me bad. An' it ain't regular for rustlers to waste time chasin' one rider."

  "Thank heaven you got away," said Jane. "But my riders... where are they?"

  "I don't know. The night riders weren't there last night when I rode down, an' this mornin' I met no day riders."

  "Bern, they've been set upon... killed by Oldring's men!"

  "I don't think so," replied Venters decidedly. "Jane, your riders haven't gone out in the sage."

  "Bern, what do you mean?" Jane Withersteen turned deathly pale.

  "You remember what I said about the unseen hand?"

  "Oh... impossible!"

  "I hope so. But I fear...." Venters finished with a shake of his head.

  "Bern, you're bitter, but that's only natural. We'll wait to see what's happened to my riders. Judkins, come to the house with me. Your wound must be attended to."

  "Jane, I'll find out where Oldring drives the herd," vowed Venters.

  "No, no! Bern, don't risk it now... when the rustlers are in such a shooting mood."

  "I'm going. Jud, how many cattle in that red herd?"

  "Twenty-five hundred head."

  "Whew! What on earth can Oldring do with so many cattle? Why, a hundred head is a big steal. I've got to find out."

  "Don't go," implored Jane.

  "Bern, you want a hoss that can run. Miss Withersteen, if its not too bold of me to advise, make him take a fast hors or don't let him go."

  "Yes, yes, Judkins. He must ride a horse that can't be caught. Which one... Black Star... Night?"

  "Jane, I won't take either," said Venters emphatically. "I wouldn't risk losing one of your favorites."

  "Wrangle, then?"

  "Thet's the hoss," replied Judkins. "Wrangle can outrun Black Star an' Night. You'd never believe it, Miss Withersteen, but I know. Wrangle's the biggest an' fastest hoss on the sage."

  "Oh, no, Wrangle can't beat Black Star. But, Bern, take Wrangle, if you will go. Ask Jerd for anything you need. Oh, be watchful, careful... God speed you!"

  She clasped his hand, turned quickly away, and went down the lane with the rider.

  Venters rode to the barn and, leaping off, shouted for Jerd. The boy came running. Venters sent him for meat, bread, and dried fruits to be packed in saddlebags. His own horse he turned loose into the nearest corral. Then he went for Wrangle. The giant sorrel had earned his name for a trait the opposite of amiability. He came readily out of the barn, but once in the yard he broke from Venters, and plunged about with ears laid back. Venters had to rope him, and then he kicked down a section of fence, stood on his hind legs, crashed down, and fought the rope. Jerd returned to lend a hand.

  "Wrangle don't get enough work," said Jerd as the big saddle went on. "He's unruly when he's corralled an' wants to run. Wait till he smells the sage!"

  "Jerd, this horse is an iron-jawed devil. I never straddled him but once. Run? Say, he's swift as wind!"

  When Venters's boot touched the stirrup, the sorrel bolted, giving him the rider's flying mount. The swing of this fiery horse recalled to Venters days that were not really long past, when he rode into the sage as the leader of Jane Withersteen's riders. Wrangle pulled hard on a tight rein. He galloped out of the lane, down the shady border of the grove, and hauled up at the watering trough, where he pranced and champed his bit. Venters got off and filled his canteen while the horse drank. The dogs, Ring and Whitie, came trotting up for their drink. Then Venters remounted and turned Wrangle toward the sage.

  A wide, white trail wound away down the slope. One keen, swooping glance told Venters that there was neither man nor horse or steer within the limit of his vision, unless they were lying down in the sage. Ring loped in the lead and Whitie loped in the rear. Wrangle settled gradually into an easy, swinging canter, and Venters's thoughts, now that the rush and flurry of the start were past and the long miles stretched before him, reverted to a calm reckoning of late singular coincidences.

  There was the night ride of Tull's that, viewed in the light of subsequent events, had a look of covert machinations; Oldring and his Masked Rider and his rustlers riding muffled horses; the report that Tull had ridden out that morning with his man, Jerry, on the trail to Glaze; the strange disappearance of Jane Withersteen's riders; the unusually determined attempt to kill the one Gentile still in her employ, an intention frustrated, no doubt, only byJudkins's magnificent riding of her racer; lastly the driving of the red herd. These events, to Venters's color of mind, had a dark relationship. Remembering Jane's accusation of bitterness, he tried hard to put aside his rancor in judging Tull. But it was bitter knowledge that made him see the truth. He had felt the shadow of an unseen hand, had watched till he saw its dim outline, and then he had traced it to a man's hate, to the rivalry of a Mormon elder, to the power of a bishop, to the long, far-reaching arm of a terrible creed. That unseen hand had made its first move against Jane Withersteen. Her riders had been called in, leaving her without help to herd 7,000 head of cattle. But to Venters it seemed extraordinary that the power that had called in these riders had left so many cattle to be driven by rustlers and harried by wolves. For hand in glove with that power was an insatiate greed; they were one and the same.

  What can Oldring do with twenty-five hundred head of cattle? wondered Venters. Is he a Mormon? Did he meet Tull last night? It looks like a black plot to me. But Tull and his churchmen wouldn't ruin Jane Withersteen unless the church was to profit by that ruin. Where does Oldring come in? I'm going to find out about these things.

  Wrangle did twenty-five miles in three hours and walked little of the way. When he had gotten warmed up, he had been allowed to choose his own gait. The afternoon had well advanced when Venters struck the trail of the red herd and found where it had grazed the night before. Then Venters rested the horse and used his eyes. Near at hand were a cow and a calf and several yearlings, and farther out in the sage some straggling steers. He caught a glimpse of coyotes skulking near the cattle. The slow, sweeping gaze of the rider failed to find other living things within the field of sight. The sage about him was breast-high to his horse, oversweet with its warm, fragrant breath, gray where it waved to the light, darker where the wind left it still, and beyond, the wonderful haze-purple lent by distance. Far across that wide waste began the slow lift of uplands through which Deception Pass cut its tortuous, many-canoned way.

  Venters raised the bridle of his horse and followed the broad cattle trail. The crushed sage resembled the path of a monster snake. In a few miles of travel he passed several cows and calves that had escaped the drive. Then he stood on the last high bench of the slope with the floor of the valley beneath. The opening of the canon showed in a break of the sage, and the cattle trail paralleled it as far as he could see. That trail led to an undiscovered point where Oldring drove cattle into the pass, and many a rider who had followed it had never returned. Venters satisfied himself that the rustlers had not deviated from their usual course, and then he turned at right angles off the cattle trail and made for the head of the pass.

  The sun lost its heat and wore down to the western horizon, where it changed from white to gold and rested like a huge ball about to roll on its golden shadows down the slope. Venters watched the lengthening of the rays and bars, and marveled at his own leaguelong shadow. The sun sank. There was instant shading of brightness about him, and he saw a kind of cold purple bloom creep ahead of him to cross the canon, to mount the opposite slope and chase and darken and bury the last golden flare of sunlight.

  Venters rode into a t
rail that he always took to get down into the canon. He dismounted and found no tracks but his own made several days previously. Nevertheless he sent the dog Ring ahead and waited. In a little while Ring returned. Whereupon Venters led his horse on to the break in the ground.

  The opening into Deception Pass was one of the remarkable natural phenomena in a country remarkable for vast slopes of sage, uplands insulated by gigantic red walls, and deep canons of mysterious source and outlet. Here the valley floor was level, and here opened a narrow chasm, a ragged vent in yellow walls of stone. The trail down the 500 feet of sheer depth always tested Venters's nerve. It was bad going for even a burro. But Wrangle, as Venters led him, snorted defiance or disgust rather than fear, and, like a hobbled horse on the jump, lifted his ponderous iron-shod forehoofs and crashed down over the first rough step. Venters warmed to greater admiration of the sorrel, and, giving him a loose bridle, he stepped down foot by foot. Oftentimes the stones and shale started by Wrangle buried Venters to his knees; again he was hard put to it to dodge a rolling boulder; there were times when he could not see Wrangle for dust, and once he and the horse rode a sliding shelf of yellow, weathered cliff. It was a trail on which there could be no stops, and, therefore, if perilous, it was at least one that did not take long in the descent.

  Venters breathed lighter when that was over, and felt a sudden assurance in the success of his enterprise. For at first it had been a reckless determination to achieve something at any cost, and now it resolved itself into an adventure worthy of all his reason and cunning, and keenness of eye and ear. Pinon pines clustered in little clumps along the level floor of the pass. Twilight had gathered under the walls. Venters rode into the trail and up the canon. Gradually the trees and caves and objects low down turned black, and this blackness moved up the walls till night enfolded the pass, while day still lingered above. The sky darkened and stars began to show, at first pale and then bright. Sharp notches of the rim wall, biting like teeth into the blue, were landmarks by which Venters knew where his camping site lay. He had to feel his way through a thicket of slender oaks to a spring where he watered Wrangle and drank himself. Here he unsaddled and turned Wrangle loose, having no fear that the horse would leave the thick, cool grass adjacent to the spring. Next he satisfied his own hunger, fed Ring and Whitie, and, with them curled beside him, composed himself to await sleep.

  There had been a time when night in the high altitude of these Utah uplands had been satisfying to Venters, but that was before the oppression of enemies had made the change in his mind. As a rider guarding the herd he had never thought of the night's wildness and loneliness; as an outcast now, when the full silence set in and the deep darkness, and trains of radiant stars shone cold and calm, he lay with an ache in his heart. For a year he had lived as a black fox, driven from his kind. He longed for the sound of a voice, the touch of a hand. In the daytime there was riding from place to place, and the gun practice to which something drove him, and other tasks that at least necessitated action. At night, before he won sleep, there was strife in his soul. He yearned to leave the endless sage slopes, the wilderness of canons; and it was in the lonely night that this yearning grew unbearable. It was then that he reached forth to feel Ring or Whitie, immeasurably grateful for the love and companionship of two dogs.

  On this night the same old loneliness beset Venters, the old habit of sad thought and burning unquiet had its way. But from it evolved a conviction that his useless life had undergone a subtle change. He had sensed it first when Wrangle swung him up to the high saddle; he knew it now when he lay in the gateway of Deception Pass. He had no thrill of adventure, rather a gloomy perception of great hazard, perhaps death. He meant to find Oldring's retreat. The rustlers had fast horses, but none that could catch Wrangle. Venters knew no rustler could creep upon him at night when Ring and Whitie guarded his hiding place. For the rest, he had eyes and ears, and a long rifle and an unerring aim, which he meant to use. Strangely his foreshadowing of change did not hold a thought of the killing of Tull. It related only to what was to happen to him in Deception Pass, and he could no more lift the veil of that mystery than tell where the trails led to in that unexplored canon. Moreover, he did not care. At length, tired out by stress of thought, he fell asleep.

  When his eyes unclosed, day had come again, and he saw the rim of the opposite wall tipped with the gold of sunrise. A few moments sufficed for the morning's simple camp duties. Near at hand he found Wrangle, and to his surprise the horse came to him. Wrangle was one of the horses that left his viciousness in the home corral. What he wanted was to be free of mules and burros and steers, to roll in dust patches, and then to run down the wide, open, windy sage plains, and at night browse and sleep in the cool wet grass of a spring hole. Jerd knew the sorrel when he said of him: "Wait till he smells the sage!"

  Venters saddled and led him out of the oak thicket and, leaping astride, rode up the canon, with Ring and Whitie trotting behind. An old grass-grown trail followed the course of a shallow wash where flowed a thin stream of water. The canon was 100 rods wide; its yellow walls were perpendicular; it had abundant sage and a scant growth of oak and pinon. For five miles it held to a comparatively straight bearing, and then began a heightening of rugged walls and a deepening of the floor. Beyond this point of sudden change in the character of the canon Venters had never explored, and here was the real door to the intricacies of Deception Pass.

  He reined Wrangle to a walk, halted now and then to listen, and then proceeded cautiously with a shifting and alert gaze. The canon assumed proportions that dwarfed those of its first ten miles. Venters rode on and on, not losing in the interest of his wide surroundings any of his caution or keen search for tracks or sight of living thing. If there ever had been a trail here, he could not find it. He rode through sage and clumps of pinon trees and grassy plots where longpetaled, purple lilies bloomed. He rode through a dark constriction of the pass no wider than the lane in the grove at Cottonwoods, and he came out into a great amphitheater into which jutted huge towering corners of a confluence of intersecting canons.

  Venters sat his horse and, with a rider's eye, studied this wild cross-cut of huge stone gullies. Then he went on, guided by the course of running water. If it had not been for the main stream of water flowing north, he would never have been able to tell which of those many openings was a continuation of the pass. In crossing this amphitheater he went by the mouths of five canons, fording little streams that flowed into the larger one. Gaining the outlet that he took to be the pass, he rode on again under overhanging walls. One side was dark in shade, the other light in sun. This narrow passageway turned and twisted and opened into a valley that amazed Venters.

  Here again was a sweep of purple sage, richer than upon the higher levels. The valley was miles long, several wide, and enclosed by unscalable walls. But it was the background of this valley that so forcibly struck him. Across the sage flat rose a strange upflinging of yellow rocks. He could not tell which were close and which were distant. Scrawled mounds of stone, like mountain waves, seemed to roll up to steep bare slopes and towers.

  In this plain of sage Venters flushed birds and rabbits, and, when he had proceeded about a mile, he caught sight of the bobbing white tails of a herd of running antelope. He rode along the edge of the stream that wound toward the western end of the slowly looming mounds of stone. The high slope retreated out of sight behind the nearer projection. To Venters the valley appeared to have been filled in by a mountain of melted stone that had hardened in strange shapes of rounded outline. He followed the stream till he lost it in a deep cut. Therefore Venters quit the dark slit that baffled further search in this direction, and rode out along the curved edge of stone where it met the sage. It was not long before he came to a low place, and here Wrangle readily climbed up.

  All about him was ridge-like roll of wind-smoothed, rain-washed rock. Not a tuft of grass or a bunch of sage colored the dull rust-yellow. He saw where, to the right, this uneven flow of stone
ended in a blunt wall. Leftward, from the hollow that lay at his feet, mounted a gradual slow-swelling slope to a great height topped by leaning, cracked, and ruined crags. Not for some time did he grasp the wonder of that acclivity. It was no less than a mountainside, glistening in the sun like polished granite, with cedar trees springing as if by magic out of the denuded surface. Winds had swept it clear of weathered shale and rains had washed it free of dust. Far up the curved slope its beautiful lines broke to meet the vertical rim wall, to lose its grace in a different order and color of rock, a stained yellow cliff of cracks and caves and seamed crags. Straight before Venters was a scene less striking but more significant to his keen survey. For beyond a mile of the bare, hummocky rock began the valley of sage, and the mouths of canons, one of which surely was another gateway into the pass.

  He got off his horse, and, giving the bridle to Ring to hold, he commenced a search for the cleft where the stream ran. He was not successful and concluded the water dropped into an underground passage. Then he returned to where he had left Wrangle, and led him down off the stone to the sage. It was a short ride to the opening canons. There was no reason for a choice of which one to enter. The one he rode into was a clear, sharp shaft in yellow stone 1,000 feet deep, with wonderful wind-worn caves low down and high above buttressed and turreted ramparts. Farther on, Venters came into a region where deep indentations marked the line of canon walls. These were huge, cove-like blind pockets extending back to a sharp corner with a dense growth of underbrush and trees.

  Venters penetrated into one of these offshoots, and, as he had hoped, he found abundant grass. He had to bend the oak saplings to get his horse through. Deciding to make this a hiding place, if he could find water, he worked back to the limit of the shelving walls. In a little cluster of silver spruces he found a spring. This enclosed nook seemed an ideal place to leave his horse and to camp at night, and from which to make stealthy trips on foot. The thick grass hid his trail; the dense growth of oaks in the opening would serve as a barrier to keep Wrangle in, if, indeed, the luxuriant browse would not suffice for that. So Venters, leaving Whitie with the horse, called Ring to his side and, rifle in hand, worked his way out to the open. A careful photographing in mind of the formation of the bold outlines of rim rock assured him he would be able to return to his retreat even in the dark.