The Deer Stalker

by Zane Grey

  “We’ll soon have a good test of what we can do,” declared Eburne.

  “Looks so,” called Blakener without enthusiasm or confidence.

  McKay and his men had mounted the rugged slope, some of them as high as half a mile from the base. They were yelling, pointing, waving their hats, riding up and down as the exigencies of the rough ground demanded. Straggling lines of deer were moving in front of the Indians; and for a while it appeared that the drive was succeeding. As the Indians and riders forged ahead, the number of deer increased. But bucks, does and fawns, trios and sextets of deer, lines and groups, began to close in on one another; and presently Thad calculated there must be five hundred in sight.

  “It’s now or never!” yelled Eburne to the men within hearing of his voice.

  The Indians at this upper end of the line seemed to realize that the test was about to come, as was evinced by the increase in volume and tone of their yells. Excitement gripped the riders. Even the horses caught the spirit of the drive. McKay’s giant voice could be heard booming and echoing along the hills.

  Now the wide-spread gray lines of deer were moving as if in unison and seemed about to mass. Suddenly they broke into a run, heading off the sage flat toward the slope. Indians and riders let out a yell. The sudden clamor roused the horses and frightened the deer. Reaching the slope, they bounded up and raced across the snow.

  “Head ’em off!” pealed out McKay’s stentorian voice.

  The riders responded with a daring and speed that for a few moments augured well for the success of the movement. But the fleetness of the deer outdistanced the horsemen. Two thirds of that herd of deer streamed up the slope, one long bobbing line of gray and white, to pass beyond the riders; and wheeling back along the ridge, they flashed, leaped, darted in magnificent silhouette against the pale sky.

  The other third, which consisted of the rear section of the herd, stampeded down the slope and straight at the riders. Eburne saw three horses narrowly escape being run down before the close-pressed mass of deer disintegrated. Blakener yelled a shrill warning to Thad and wheeled his horse. Then the ranger saw a line of antlers, heads, and ears, sharp-pointed above gray, sleek breasts and twinkling feet, bear swiftly down upon him. The sight was wild and beautiful, and he greeted the stampede with shrill yells of exultation.

  “You won’t trap! You won’t drive! Run, oh! You deer! Run over the men who would steal your liberty!”

  His horse became panic-stricken and, getting the bit between his teeth, he bolted and plunged forward in front of the deer. But swiftly as he ran, they soon caught and passed him. One old buck, with a forest of antlers on his head—horns with at least twenty points—passed so close to Eburne as to graze his stirrup. Then deer sped by him on both sides, bounding higher than his head, frantic to gain their freedom. For a few moments, deer appeared as thick as a herd of cattle. Then they passed on, gray rumps vanishing among the cedars. Eburne pulled his horse to a halt.

  “By gum!” he panted. “That was—great—even if it was—bad for McKay.”

  Thad rode back to take his place in the line again. They rode on as before, McKay and his riders far up the slope, the Indians lost down among the cedars. This time the line advanced more slowly, more quietly, to flush in the next mile another troop of deer, and again to meet signal failure to drive them fifty rods consistently in the same direction. Another mile showed a like result. The deer ran up, down, through, but never before, that yelling line of men.

  Gradually the Indians dropped behind the riders. There had never been a solid front presented to the deer. If there had been, it was Eburne’s solemn conviction, the deer would have charged it, with perhaps serious results to the drivers.

  “They are wild deer. They will not drive,” he declared to Blakener, his voice ringing with finality.

  But McKay drove his Indians and men to their limit; and at sunset it was a weary and disgusted cavalcade that made its way back to camp.

  “We didn’t do it right,” roared McKay, his face black and seamed, his eyes glowing like furnaces. “We didn’t keep in line an’ close together. Tomorrow we’ll drive them, shore as I’m a born sinner!”

  Sometime late in the night Thad awoke. There was a moan out in the cedars, low, whining, mournful. The wind! The deer stalker had lain awake thousands of times listening to the music of the wind through the trees—soughing, sighing, rustling. But this was different. He raised his head and listened. It came again, accompanied by a tiny pattering on the tent. Tiny steely pellets of sleet! That wind was the storm-king of winter and it bore a menace.

  Eburne had long ago resigned himself to the utter failure of McKay’s drive. But because it had been such a wonderful idea, and because it might even have been accomplished with adequate preparation and a thousand Indians and cowboys, he had clung to a hope of at least partial success. That wind was now a death knell to any chance of driving a great herd. Poor McKay! He was already deeply in debt, and every day now would add to his burden.

  Sleep would not come again. It was two o’clock in the morning. The wind lulled at intervals and then always returned a little stronger, with the strange irregular pattering of sleet or snow, and the desolate moans that were becoming higher and higher in pitch.

  Toward morning he heard the Indians moving about, splitting dead wood. They knew. And the horses came back to camp, thudding under the cedars. They knew.

  Eburne crawled out of his blankets in the gray of a winter dawn. It was bitter cold. His boots were like ice. He shook his comrade Tine rather unceremoniously.

  “Wake up, you lazy deer driver,” he said.

  Tine sat up with sleepy eyes half opened. But in another moment his keen outdoor susceptibilities had grasped the change in the weather. “Storm, by golly! Winter has come an’ the flowers lie in their graves!—Thad, my dreamy-eyed, locoed chevalier of the tall timbers—me for Flagstaff!”

  “Tine, this seems to be a rare instance of your mind operating at an early hour,” replied Thad grimly.

  They bundled up in their heavy sheepskin-lined coats and went out. A cold wind was blowing in gusts, carrying fine snow, as sharp and cutting as particles of ice. The top of Buckskin Mountain was hidden in a gray pall of cloud. Far down on the desert, beyond the edge of this storm cloud, the sun was shining, and the golds and reds and bronzes were more brilliant by constrast.

  Eburne stirred around while Nels, who had slept under a cedar, and Tine cooked breakfast. Some of the more friendly Navajos answered the deer stalker’s greeting with an expressive gesture and the words: “No weyno!” The prospects indeed were no good.

  McKay’s men sat or squatted or stood around their fire, eating breakfast, which appeared to Thad to be rather meager. They were not a cheerful lot.

  “Mac, this is what I was afraid of,” said Eburne briefly. “What we might have done I suppose we’ll never know, but now we’re too late.”

  “Aw, this little squall won’t matter,” returned McKay gruffly.

  “I know this Buckskin. You don’t. Winter has come. We’re in for a blizzard and then zero weather.”

  “Wal, I’ve seen nice weather here right up to Christmas.”

  “Yes, down in the canyon, and even out on the desert. But we’re high up here. If it snows hard tonight—and I’ll gamble it will—you can’t get these trucks out. We haven’t grub supplies enough to stand being snowed in. The Indians haven’t any grub left at all.”

  McKay seemed silenced by the ranger’s deliberate statements. He kicked the campfire with a heavy boot.

  “The situation is serious,” went on Eburne. “You’ve got these Indians here on your hands. The motion picture trucks brought them. Not your trucks. Out of the nine you expected, you’ve got one. It’s imperative that you think quick and hard, or some of us will have to do it for you.”

  McKay was a stubborn man. He did not seem to realize the plight of the Indians. His face was black as a thundercloud.

  “We’re goin’ to drive deer, stor
m or no storm,” he boomed.

  Thad turned on his heel, pity and sorrow in his heart for McKay. Presently he was joined by Mobray and the missionary. They were inclined to be impressed by the ranger’s size-up of the situation; and together they interviewed the young manager of the motion picture company. He saw at once the predicament of the Indians.

  “Bet your life we’ll get the Indians out,” he declared. “We had hay and grain, supplies and boxes in those trucks. Most all gone now. And we can throw away a lot of stuff to make room. We’re ready to pack whenever you say.”

  The generous attitude of the movie people relieved the situation as far as the Indians were concerned. Then Eburne trudged from one camp to another, finding, as he had expected there would be, a quick exodus of tourists, natives, and forest service men. Already they were packing. Cassell with his party had left right after breakfast.

  Meanwhile it snowed intermittently. Riders and Indians stood around the campfires, or moved from one camp to another, as if to see what the other people were going to do. McKay finally had the horses brought up from the corrals and saddled.

  About nine o’clock the clouds broke, the sun came through, and the snow ceased. McKay rallied Indians and men for another drive, this time toward the Saddle. Eburne marveled at the man’s indomitable spirit and also at his stupidity and lack of consideration for those he had gotten into this mess. The lull in the storm, the warm sunshine, and the glimpse of blue sky were only short-lived. That heavy black pall hung over Buckskin like a mantle. Even the Saddle was no longer visible. Eburne knew that even halfway up to the Saddle the blizzard was raging now.

  Nevertheless he mounted his horse, together with Tine, Nels, and Blakener, and made ready to join McKay’s forces.

  By the time the Indians and riders had received more elaborate instructions than those given yesterday, the blue sky had clouded over and a hard, thin, driving snow was falling. McKay strung his riders up the slope toward the foothills and the Indians down among the cedars. And so the second day of the drive began.

  Southward from camp and toward the Saddle, the lay of the ground was uphill and cut by draws and ravines that soon deepened into V-shaped canyons. It was utterly absurd and simply impossible to drive deer over such country on such a day. Nevertheless the drive started.

  As riders and Indians climbed, the storm increased, so that within a mile Eburne no longer heard the yells of the riders or bells of the Indians. It was significant that the Indians did not yell as enthusiastically as yesterday.

  The snow now lay a foot deep on the slope, deeper in the hollows. Deer tracks were as plentiful as horse tracks in a corral. Whenever Thad raised his face against the bitter cold wind, with its stinging snow, he saw gray forms standing or walking or running. When he reached the edge of a canyon and sought momentary shelter behind a cedar, he could see them more clearly. Everywhere he looked deer were moving. Groups paused to look back and listen. They could see and hear what was beyond Eburne’s ears. He saw a troop of over a hundred running along below him on their way up the canyon. Smaller groups appeared in open places, gray-spotting the white snow. Shadowy forms flashed across openings in the forest. The higher he climbed, the deeper grew the snow, the thicker the brush and trees, the harder and colder blew the wind, the more numerous were the deer.

  He passed some of the picture men turning back, muffled up in storm coats, bending over their pommels, stiff with the cold. Eburne’s face and ears and hands began to feel numb.

  At length he reached the rim of the third canyon he had encountered. It was wide, deep, but not rocky, and the slopes were open. Across this canyon the snow came driving down from the gray heights with an icy, stinging velocity that was impossible to face. The ranger decided it was time to seek shelter. He believed he had gotten ahead of the line of riders and Indians. The roar of the storm drowned out all other sounds. It would be folly to cross this canyon. The Indians would never even reach it. He waited and watched the deer, there were perhaps a thousand milling up and down in the canyon. He drank his fill of that beautiful wild spectacle, because he knew he would never see it again. He doubted if such a sight would ever be seen by any man again. Another winter would find most of these deer dead.

  Blakener, Nels, and Tine joined him there, having met while crossing the last canyon.

  “The Indians are quittin’,” yelled Blakener in his ear. “Poor fellows nearly froze. Some of them almost barefoot.”

  Nels had information of similar import: “Seen some riders turnin’ back at that second canyon.”

  They waited there an hour. Part of that time was spent huddled over a little fire in the lee of a cedar clump. No riders appeared up the white-patched canyon slope, nor Indians from the opposite direction. Up here, five miles from camp, the snow was too deep for easy travel. It was still four miles farther up to where the trail crossed the Saddle. They could see that the blizzard was raging all along the Saddle. Eburne would have felt sorry for rider and horse essaying to make that pass today.

  “Thad, old top,” drawled Nels, his lips close to Eburne’s ear. “I’m an easy-goin’ cuss, but this is a wild goose chase. An’ I’m hankerin’ for Sue an’ that cosy little parlor with the open fire. Am I talkin’, pard?”

  “Lead the way back to camp, you horse-tracking cowboy,” shouted Thad, as if shouting would hide or quell the tremendous thrill which Nels’s subtle speech had stirred in his heart.

  It was a long, tough ride going back, even though the wind was behind them. Nels lived up to his reputation as a rider. The most striking circumstance of the return trip was the fact that Eburne saw more deer than he had seen going out. This, perhaps, might have been because the driving snow had made clear vision difficult. They drove deer out of cedar clumps and juniper thickets; they met deer at every turn; and, as always, these deer were moving in every direction. Thad saw them run off a hundred yards and halt. Drive these deer? It would have taken an army of men.

  As the riders came down off the heights, out of the fury of the storm, they began to meet Indians, some resting, others standing undecided, and still more going back. A mile from camp, Eburne met an Indian who was limping. One of his tracks showed bloodstains. His moccasins were worn through. The ranger welcomed a chance to walk, so he gave his horse to the Indian.

  Upon arriving at camp, he found all the picture men back, sitting comfortably around their campfire, and most of McKay’s riders as well. None of the Indians, except the one Eburne had brought in on his horse, had returned. Six inches of snow had fallen, and the storm was reaching down off the mountain. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Thad gave Conroy word to get his car ready and then busied himself rolling his bed and packing his effects. He could get some of the Flagstaff cowboys to fetch his horse and outfit in with theirs.

  Tine and Nels cooked a quick meal, after which Eburne had them carry most of their food supplies over to the camps of the Indians. Presently McKay strode up.

  “Wal, Thad, I’m licked,” he said, extending a huge hand. “But the storm did it…. Much obliged for your help. I won’t forget it.”

  He had lost the sullen vehemence, the indomitable passion, the blind confidence that he had exhibited earlier in the day. McKay had finally realized that he was whipped, and he took his defeat like a man. Just one more vicissitude of life had left him bloody but unbowed.

  When, a little later, Eburne looked out of the car to take a last glimpse at Warm Springs ranger post, he happened to espy a pile of bales of wire that had been thrown under the cedars. McKay’s wire for his fences! They had arrived two days before the drive; and McKay had forgotten them or just plain neglected to use them.

  An hour later, looking down the slope from the edge of the cedars, Thad saw where the white snow line failed and the gray dry desert began, where the storm cloud broke off above and the sunlight streamed down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Two days’ ride across the red barren lands brought Eburne’s party to the summit of a ridge from
which the San Francisco Range could be seen rising from a swelling desert tableland, its magnificent black bulk partly concealed in angry storm clouds.

  At two o’clock that afternoon Eburne viewed the range again, from another ridge, this time against a mass of purple and gray cloud, dropping silver veils of snow. He began to grow a little apprehensive about crossing the divide. Behind his car were seven other cars and one truck. If the snow on the divide was not too deep they might make it.

  When they reached Dead Man’s Flat at five o’clock, they found themselves in a whirling snowstorm, and when the pines were reached, the cavalcade ran into a howling blizzard.

  Conroy knew where the road ought to lie, and somehow he managed to keep on it. One foot of snow on a level did not halt him, but in the drifts the men had to get out and shovel, wade, stamp through, then return to shove the cars, one after another. Night fell shortly after they had left Dead Man’s Flat. The gale of wind blew the dry powdery snow in blinding sheets. The air grew piercing cold. It took two hours of exceedingly hard toil to cross the divide. Then downgrade helped. But the last series of drifts had worn out the endurance of the men; and it was fortunate that a high-centered road was reached, which soon led into the main highway.

  Thad had never been so glad in his life as when the lights of Flagstaff gleamed through the whirling sheets of snow.

  “Conroy, you’re a magnificent driver,” exclaimed Eburne gratefully, as he and his comrades limped out of the car in front of the hotel.

  Nels tugged at Thad’s sleeve. He was a ludicrous-looking snow man, with icicles on his beard.

  “Thad, I’m goin’ in the hotel for a little,” he said. “You run around to Sue’s an’ get the first crack at that open fire. Tell Sue I’ll be there pronto.”