by Zane Grey
Somewhere near, hidden by the trees, a Mexican broke the stillness with song — wild, sensuous, Spanish love, in its haunting melody.
“I knew another man here,” began Adam, with the words a sonorous knell in his ear. “His name was Collishaw...What’s become of him?”
“Collishaw? Never will forgit him!” declared the old man, grimly. “Last I heard he was cheatin’ Injuns out of water rights over here at Walters — an’ still lookin’ fer somebody to hang...Haw! Haw! That Collishaw was a Texas sheriff.”
Suddenly Adam bent lower, so that his face was on a level with Merryvale’s.
“Don’t you recognise me?”
“Wal, I shore don’t, stranger,” declared the other. “I’ve been nigh fifty years in the West an’ never seen your like yet. If I had I’d never forget.”
“Merryvale, do you remember a lad who shot off your fishing line one day? Do you remember how you took interest in him — told him of Western ways — that he must be a man?”
“Shore I remember that lad!” exclaimed Merryvale, bluntly. He was old, but he was still keen. “How’d you know about him?”
“I am Adam Larey!”
The old man’s eyes grew piercing. Intensely he gazed, bending closer, strong and thrilling now, with the zest of earlier experience sharp in his expression.
“I know you now. It’s Adam.. I’d’ knowed them eyes among a thousand, if I’d only looked. Eagle’s eyes, Adam, once seen never forgot!...An’ look at the giant of him! Wal, you make me feel young again...Adam, lad, I ain’t never forgot ye — never! Shake hands with old Merryvale.”
Agitated, with tremulous voice and shaking hands, he grasped Adam, almost embracing him, his grey old face alight with gladness.
“It’s good to see you, Merryvale — to learn you’ve not forgotten me — all these years.”
“Lad, you was like my own!...But who’d ever know you now? You’ve white hair, Adam, an’ — ah! I see the desert in your face.”
“Old friend, did you ever hear of Wansfell?”
“Wansfell? You mean thet wanderer the prospectors tell about?...Shore, I’ve been hearin’ tales of him these many years.”
“I am Wansfell,” replied Adam.
“So help me God!...Wansfell?...You, Adam, the kindly lad!...Didn’t I tell you what a hell of a man you’d be when you grew up?”
Adam drew Merryvale aside from the curiously gathering loungers.
“Old friend, you are responsible for Wansfell...And now, before we tell — before I go — I want you to take me to — to — my — my brother’s grave?”
Merryvale stared.
“What?” he ejaculated, and again his keen old eyes searched Adam’s.
“Yes. The grave — of my brother — Guerd,” whispered Adam.
“Say, man!...You think Guerd Larey’s buried here?...That’s why you come back?”
Astonishment seemed to dominate Merryvale, to hold in check other emotions.
“My friend,” replied Adam, “I came to see his grave — to make my peace with him and God — and to give myself up to the law.”
“Give yourself — up — to the law!” gasped Merryvale. “Have you gone desert mad?”
“No. I’m right in my mind,” returned Adam, patiently. “I owe it to my conscience, Merryvale...Fourteen years of torture! Any punishment I may suffer here, compared with those long years, will be as nothing...It will be happiness to give myself up.”
Merryvale’s lean jaw quivered as the astonishment and concern left his face. A light of divination began to dawn there.
“But what do you Want to give yourself up for?” he demanded.
“I told you. My conscience. My need to stand right with myself. To pay!”
“I mean — what ‘d you do?...What for?”
“Old friend, you’ve grown thick of wits,” rejoined Adam. “Because of my crime.”
“An’ what was thet, Adam Larey?” queried Merryvale, sharply.
“The crime of Cain,” replied Adam sadly. “Come, friend — take me to my brother’s grave.”
Merryvale seemed galvanised from age to youth.
“Your brother’s grave!...Guerd Larey’s grave? By heaven! I wish I could take you to it!...Adam, you’re out of your head. You are desert mad...Bless you lad, you’ve made a terrible mistake! You’re not what you think you are. You’ve hid in the desert fourteen years — you’ve gone through hell — you’ve become Wansfell — all for nothin’!...My God! to think of thet!...Adam, you’re no murderer. Your brother is not dead. He wasn’t even bad hurt. No — no — Guerd Larey’s alive — alive — alive!”
THE END
Code of the West
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER I
OF THE MANY problems that had beset Mary Stockwell during her two years of teaching school in the sparsely settled Tonto Basin of Arizona, this last one was the knottiest, the one that touched her most keenly. For it involved her little sister, Georgiana May, who was on her way to Arizona to be cured, the letter from their mother disclosed, of a slight tendency toward tuberculosis, and a very great leaning toward indiscriminate flirtation.
This day Mary was unusually tired. She had walked all the way up to the little log school-house on Tonto Creek — six miles — and back again to the Thurman ranch at Green Valley, where she boarded. Her eighteen pupils, ranging from six-year-old Mytie Thurman to sixteen-year-old Richard, had broken all records that day for insubordination. Then the hot sun of the September afternoon and the thick dust of the long dry road through brush and forest had taxed her to extreme weariness. Consequently she was not at her best to receive such a shock as her mother’s letter had given her.
“Well, there’s no help for it,” she thought wearily, taking up the letter again. “Georgiana is on her way — will arrive in Globe on the ninth. Let me see. Goodness, that’s tomorrow — Tuesday. The mail stage leaves Globe on Wednesday. She’ll get to Ryson about five o’clock. And I can’t get away. I’ll have to send someone to meet her.... Dear little golden-haired Georgie!”
Miss Stockwell seemed divided between distress at this sudden vexatious responsibility, and a reviving tender memory of her sister. What would she do with her? How would the Thurmans take this visit? Georgiana had looked very much like an angel, but she most assuredly had belied her appearance. Taking up the letter again, the perplexed schoolmistress hurried to that part which had so shocked her and scattered her wits:
...Dr. Smith says Georgie’s right lung is affected, but Dr. Jones, whom father swears by, says Georgie had just danced and gadded herself into a run-down condition. But I think Dr. Smith is right. I never could bear that man Jones. You remember Mrs. Jones — what airs she put on. Anyway, Georgie is in a bad way, besides being possessed of a variety of devils.
Daughter, you’ve been away from home going on six years, and part of the time you’ve been living in the backwoods. You’ve been better off, thank Heavens, but you’re buried alive as far as knowing what’s come over the world. Since you left we’ve had the Great War, and then after-the-war, which was worse. I’m sure I don’t know how to explain what has happened. At least I can give you some idea of Georgiana. She is now seventeen, and pretty. She knows more than you, who are twice her age. She knows more than I do. Whatever the modern girl has developed, Georgie has it. It seems to me that no one can help loving her. This is not a mother’s foolish vanity. It’s based on what I see and hear. All our friends love Georgie. And as for the boys — the young men — they are wild about her, and she does her b
est to keep them that way. I hate to admit it, but Georgie is an outrageous flirt.
But to come to the point — Georgiana absolutely will have her own way. All these modern girls are alike in this respect. They say we parents are “out of date,” “we do not understand.” — Perhaps they are right. Father thinks Georgie has not been held back by any restraint or anything we have tried to teach her. But worried and sick and frightened as I am about Georgie, I can’t believe she is really bad. I realize, though, that this may be merely a mother’s faith or blindness or vanity.
Georgiana has graduated from high school. We want her to work. But she will never work in Erie, and perhaps any hard application now — if Georgie could perform such a miracle — might be worse for her health.
Friends of ours, the Wayburns, are motoring to California, and offered to take Georgie West with them. You may be sure we grasped desperately and hopefully at the idea of sending her. That thrilled her. We are not so well off as formerly. But we made sacrifices and got Georgie all she wanted, and we will arrange to pay her board indefinitely out there. Maybe the West you tell so wonderfully about will cure her and be her salvation. Most assuredly her coming will be a trial for you. But, daughter, we beg of you — accept it, and do your best — for Georgie’s sake.
The second perusal of that amazing letter left Miss Stockwell saddened and thoughtful, but free of her former perplexity and worry. Her mother had done her best. If Georgiana could stand the rugged, virile, wild Tonto Basin, she would not only regain her health, but she would grow away from the falseness and over-sophistication that followed the war. Buried in the wilderness as Miss Stockwell had been, nevertheless she had kept up an active interest in the outside world. And all that periodicals could supply of information concerning news and progress of the times she had assimilated. Not improbably, she understood better that precocious new American type — the modern girl — than did her mother. She welcomed the coming of her sister. It might be difficult for her, but that did not matter. It could not help but be good for Georgiana.
Then suddenly she was confronted with another aspect of the case — the effect Georgiana would have on this environment, on the Thurmans, and all these good simple primitive people who must come in contact with her sister. She had grown fond of the Tonto and its rugged simplicity. She had long been conscious of how she was helping the children, and through them their parents. Was there not a deeper and more personal reason why she had become content with life there? A warmth tingled in her cheeks as she shirked the query. But in regard to Georgiana — there was bound to be an upheaval at Green Valley. Georgiana might pursue the audacious tenor of her frivolous life back there in Erie, but she could not do it in Arizona. Miss Stockwell vaguely realized how impossible it would be, though she could not then tell just why.
But the thought brought home to her a true appreciation of the boys and young men with whom she had become acquainted. The sons of the three Thurman families she knew especially well, for she had lived a year in their homes. Young men all, mostly in their early twenties, they were; though Enoch Thurman was over thirty, and Serge, his cousin, was a few years younger. All of them were hard riders of the high bare ranges of the Tonto. Only one of them had a wife. And sweethearts were so scarce that the boys were always fighting over one. They drove cattle in all seasons, helping one another, hewed timber, tilled and harvested fields of corn and sorghum, hunted the bears and lions that preyed on their stock. And the money they earned, which was not much, they gave to their mother. Seldom did any of them ride farther from their homesteads than Ryson. The lure of city life had not penetrated here. Several of the Thurmans had been in the training-camps during the war, and one of them, Boyd Thurman, the best rider, roper, axman, and hunter of the lot, had seen service in France. He had returned uninjured, and seemingly unchanged by all he had gone through. That fact, more than any Miss Stockwell could name, marked the individuality of the Thurmans and the character of the Tonto. Old Henry Thurman was wont to brag: “Nary a black mark ag’in’ Boyd — in camp or war!”
During her years of teaching in the Tonto, Miss Stockwell had never seen a Thurman, or any of their relatives, under the influence of liquor. They did not lie. If they made a promise it would be kept. Clean, fine, virile, manly young giants they all seemed to her. They smoked cigarettes, of their own making, and they would fight at the drop of a sombrero. They were cool, easy, tranquil, contented young backwoodsmen, strong and resourceful in the open, full of a latent fire and reserve force seldom called upon. They loved jokes, tricks, and dances. Among these hardy and daring young mountaineers a girl of Georgiana’s kind would be like a firebrand in the grass of the prairie.
The sharp clip-clop of trotting horses outside on the road interrupted Miss Stockwell’s meditations. The riders were returning from the range. She thought it would be well for her to go out at once and make arrangements with one of the boys to go to Ryson next day to meet the stage.
“I wonder what Georgie will think of this ranch,” mused Miss Stockwell, as she went out.
The old ranch house, part logs and part frame, moss-covered and weather-beaten, with its rambling additions shaded by trees, had grown to be a picturesque and satisfying sight to her. But at first it had struck her, as had almost everything, as crude and primitive, and suggestive of raw pioneer life.
She walked back of the house, through the yard, where chickens and calves and dogs had free access, to the corrals. They were huge round pens, made of bare poles, growing old and dilapidated now. The gates were made of roughly sawed yellow-pine boards from Henry’s sawmill. Enoch’s white mule, old Wise, came toward her. He was a famous mule in Arizona, past his prime now, but still vigorous. His color was a speckled white, and he was far from beautiful. But he had a keen well-formed head and most intelligent eyes. Old Wise was renowned for many things, but especially for his kick. But he would not kick anyone he liked, and he certainly adored Miss Stockwell. This day, however, she had no sugar or candy for him, and passed the old beast by with a pat and a pull of his long ears.
The adjoining corral was large, and always, in spite of its space, had been a bewildering place to Miss Stockwell. One corner was heaped full of old wagons, buggies, farm implements, and worn-out autos, so that it was merely a junkheap. A long rambling barn ran the whole length of the corral, and in fact constituted the barrier on that side. Like the house, additions had been built to it from time to time, so that it seemed a jumble of peaks, roofs, lofts, and wide-open doors showing broken stalls. The corral was crowded with dusty rolling horses. These features, perhaps, were what usually bewildered Miss Stockwell, though she liked to see the sweaty horses roll. They manifestly enjoyed it so hugely. They would bend their legs, lie down on one side, and groan and heave and strain until they rolled clear over. Then they would lunge, snorting, to their feet, and with a violent wrestling shake of their bodies send off the dust in a cloud. Their next move was to make a bee line for the open gate to the wide green pasture that gave the valley its name.
Miss Stockwell found the riders, nine of them, grouped before one of the wide doors of the barn. She had a singular feeling that these young Westerners had suddenly become more important and significant to her.
In a group these boys all looked strangely alike. It was necessary to pick one out and study him individually to see where he differed from his comrades. They were all tall, lean, rangy, with the round powerful limbs, the small hips, the slightly bowed legs of the born horseman. If they were of different complexions it could not be discerned then, for each of them was black from dust and brush. They wore huge sombreros, mostly black, some of them gray, and all were old, slouched, and grimy. Blue jeans, jumpers, and overalls seemed the favorite garb. Several had discarded their chaps, to reveal trousers stuffed into high-topped, high-heeled boots, shiny and worn, bearing long spurs with huge rowels.
They responded to Miss Stockwell’s greeting with the slow, drawling Texas speech that never failed to please her.
“Boys, I want one of you to do me an especial favor,” she said.
Enoch Thurman came from behind the group. He was the chief of this clan, a lofty-statured rider, the very sight of whom had always fascinated her.
“Wal, Miss Mary, if it’s takin’ you to the dance, I’m shore puttin’ up my bid,” he drawled. He had wonderfully clear light-gray eyes, and the piercing quality of their gaze was now softened by a twinkle. A smile, too, changed the rigidity of the dark lean face.
It occurred to Miss Stockwell that from the date of Georgiana’s arrival she would have to attend the dances. The prospect was alarming. The few functions of this kind in which she had participated had rendered her somewhat incapable for teaching the next day. For these boys had kept her dancing unremittingly from dark till dawn.
“I accept your kind invitation, Enoch, but that’s not the favor I mean,” she said, with a smile.
Then Boyd Thurman lunged up, smiling. He was stalwart, big-shouldered, of strong rugged face, hard as bronze, and his blue eyes were as frank as a child’s. He tipped back his sombrero, showing a shock of tow-colored hair.
“Teacher, what is this heah favor?” he inquired.
“Reckon we’re all a-rarin’ to do you any favor,” said Wess Thurman. He was a cousin of Boyd’s and Enoch’s, twenty-two, with the Thurman stature and wide-open eyes.
“It’s to go to Ryson tomorrow to meet my sister,” responded Miss Stockwell.
The announcement was not a trivial one in its content. Indeed, it seemed of tremendous importance. The boys reacted slowly to its significance.
“Tomorrow,” spoke up Enoch, regretfully. “Wal, I’m shore sorry. But I can’t go, Miss Mary. We rode Mescal Ridge today, an’ I drove some yearlin’s inside our drift fence. They belong to that Bar XX outfit, an’ shore there’s no love lost between us. I’m drivin’ them off our range tomorrow.”