by Zane Grey
“I sure did. Blazes — with saddle, blanket, bridle — is yours.”
“Oh, Cal! — Mine?” she cried, rapturously.
“Sure is,” replied Cal, beginning to shake. Her face had changed as if by magic. If he had expected to see it joyous, his imagination had failed him. Smile, flash, light — these were ecstatic, and as he gazed spellbound by her loveliness, the golden rosy radiance paled to a singular degree.
“You darling!” she cried, and she bent swiftly to kiss him full on the lips.
Cal sustained a shock. For an instant all around him seemed to reel and his heart labored high in his breast. Presently the green canopy of the friendly piñon became as formerly, and the Tonto yawned beneath him, deep, lonely, wild, with its murmuring waters. And the everlasting rocks seemed to share something of life and eternity with him. Georgiana had flown to where the horses were tied, and Cal could now hear her laughing and crying out her joy of her precious possession. Then he heard her quick light footsteps returning. He got up and turned to face her.
“Cal, I’ll say you’re a regular fellow,” she said, with hand outstretched, and she came right up to him where he now leaned against the big branch of the piñon.
Cal took her in his arms. She did not draw back, rather leaned to him, with glad face uplifted and the little gloved hand going to his shoulder.
“Georgie — you shouldn’t — have kissed me,” he said, huskily.
“Why not? You sure deserved it. And I wanted to.... I’ll do it again if you think it wasn’t enough.”
“I didn’t want thanks,” he replied, unsteadily. “I just wanted to make you happy.”
“You succeeded, boy, and I’ll never forget this day.”
“But, Georgie — I — I love you,” he burst out.
“Well — all the more reason I should kiss you,” she declared.
“No. No . . . unless you love me.”
“Of course I love you, Cal — that is — I think — —”
Cal clasped her tight, lifting her slender form, and bent to her upturned, glowing face. A bewilderment of sudden joy overwhelmed him and his restraint went to the winds. He kissed her hair, her cheeks, and then her mouth. And realization of her response suddenly made him blind — strong — rough in the expression of his love. But he knew when she cried out in laughing protest and forcibly drew back from him. Still, she did not wholly slip out of his arms.
“Cal! — You don’t want a homestead. You want a cave. You’re some little caveman I’ll tell the world.”
“Georgie — forgive me — if I was — —”
“Cal, where did you ever learn to kiss like that?” she interrupted, with mock or arch jealousy. Her face was rosy, her sombrero had fallen off, her hair was disheveled. It took all Cal’s will power to refrain from enveloping her again. Probably he would have yielded to it but for her strange question.
“Why, Georgie . . . I didn’t learn — it’s only because I love you,” he protested.
“Now don’t you try to kid me, Cal Thurman,” she replied, shaking a finger in his face. “I’ve half a mind to think you a regular lady-killer of the Tonto. No fellow could come across with kisses like yours unless — —”
“Georgie, I swear to Heaven I never kissed but two girls — an’ that was long ago — when I was a mere boy.”
“I’m the only girl you ever loved?” she demanded, half in earnest, and yet half mockingly.
“Why, of course,” he said, simply.
“All right, I believe you,” she rejoined, after a long look into his eyes. “But it was a close shave.... Now I think we had better start home before you get gay on my hands again.”
“Wait, Georgie,” he returned, detaining her, “I — I haven’t said all — what I must ask.... Georgie, will you marry me?”
“Now you’re going to spoil it,” protested Georgiana, plaintively. “Couldn’t you be satisfied with all I’ve said and done?”
“Satisfied, yes. Wonderfully happy an’ grateful. But that only made it right an’ necessary for me to ask you again.... Georgie, I’m crazy about you an’ dead in earnest. Won’t you be engaged to me?”
“No, I won’t,” she replied, frankly. “Not now; maybe sometime.... Cal, I’m not sure of myself. Today I love you a little — and I did want to kiss you — I did like your kisses; but tomorrow I might feel differently.”
“You’ll break my heart,” he said, desperately.
“Hearts don’t break so easily.”
“Mine would,” he returned, eying her darkly.
“Cal, why won’t you cut the marriage stuff and just be my good pal? Let me have my way. You’ll have to, anyhow. But I do like you best. We can have such spiffy times.”
“Georgie, you want to hang on to me, an’ still have what you call spiffy times with the other boys, don’t you?”
Again her gay frank laughter trilled out. “Caught with the goods! Cal, you’re a wiz. — That’s just what I want.”
“Georgie, you’ll not have any trouble hangin’ on to me,” he said, bluntly. “But you’ll have a hell of a lot of trouble if your spiffy times with the other boys get as — as far — as what you did to me.”
“Oh, is that so?” she replied, haughtily. “If that isn’t just like a man! . . . Cal, when any one tries to boss me I always do the thing I’m forbidden.”
“Georgie, let’s not say any more,” he said, resignedly. “I didn’t mean I would give you trouble. You don’t savvy these Tonto fellows.... Let’s be rustlin’ back home. It’s nine miles, an’ uphill most of the way.”
Sunset caught Cal on the brow of the high slope that overhung Green Valley. The lights were beautiful, the gold on the bold-faced Rim and the purple of the wooded ridges and the rose on the crests of the foothills. Green Valley lay peaceful and lonely, set down in the wilderness of wild nature.
“Careful now, Georgie,” said he to the weary girl sagging in her saddle. “Hang on a little while longer. You can ride all the way down.”
He put his horse to the steep descent, and held him in so that the girl could keep close to him. And all the way down he had a watchful eye on her in the bad places. When they reached the ranch, twilight had mantled the valley. The bright lights from the windows of the house were cheering. The air was cold with a breath of frost in it. Somewhere a coyote was yelping wildly. There was no one in the corral. In the gloom Georgiana looked down upon Cal as he stepped to the side of her horse.
“The end of a perfect day,” she said, with a deep sigh. “Lift me off.”
Wearily, and with a low moan, she essayed to move out of her saddle, and almost sank a dead weight in his arms.
“Poor kid! I was afraid it’d be too much for you,” said Cal, solicitously, as he placed her on her feet. “I told you, Georgie. That was too much of a ride for a girl. But you made it, an’ I’m handin’ you a compliment even Tonto girls don’t often get.”
“Oh-h-h-h! I’m all broken bones and blisters,” she said, ruefully. “I’ll be a dead one tomorrow. But I wouldn’t have missed that ride for anything.... Cal, I owe you for the very happiest day of my whole life. — If you just hadn’t — —”
Without completing what she had intended to say, she turned away and slowly limped toward the house. Cal watched the slight form merge into the gloom. There was a pang in his breast. Yet the day had been for him what she had confessed it had been for her. Standing there with a hand on the hot flank of the horse he had given to Georgiana, he received a strange strengthening intimation of faith to go on and stand by his love and his hope.
CHAPTER VIII
SEPTEMBER GAVE WAY to October, and all the uplands of the Tonto augmented their autumn colors.
Down in the foothills the bright golds and reds were limited to isolated bits set like gems in the dark green of the brushland. Here and there a grove of walnut trees still held enough leaves to make a contrast; and down in the winding ravines, between the foothills where water ran, there were clumps of sycamores still holding
their foliage, growing more colorful and beautiful as the October frosts advanced. On sunny southern slopes there were little patches of sumac, growing red, and some of the ledges of rock showed crimson and bronze vines. But in the low hills the prevailing hue of the season was the dark gray-green of mingled oak, juniper, cedar, and manzanita.
Toward the Rim, however, the long slopes ended in a glory of brilliance. The yellow crags and the zigzag path of the red belt of rock that characterized the long, irregular face of the Great Mesa were subdued and dulled by the more vivid colors of the foliage. The leagues of pine forests that sloped up to the Rim were invariably dark rich green until they reached the foot of this huge mountain wall. Here they ended, except in dark clefts of gorges and canyons that cut into the rock. Most compelling to the gaze were the clumps of maple trees under the ledges at the apex of canyons. Here was riot of color. Magenta and cerise and blood-scarlet vied with an exquisite purple for dominance of beauty. Lone trees of maple, full-foliaged, seemed more like live fire than colored leaves. Farther up the great slopes, where the notches of canyons were black with pine and spruce, began the gleam of gold of the aspens. They were as gold as the pure golden lightening in the west after sunset. Above this stood out the broken battlements of the Rim, crowned by the fringe of pine forest.
One evening at Green Valley when the cattle count was over, and the round-up not far off, Henry Thurman called his riders together.
“Boys, thet ‘air sorghum share ought to be cut,” he said. “It’ll only take a few days. Gard is sendin’ his boys down tomorrow. So you pack an outfit up to Boyd’s homestead an’ rustle thet job.”
“Suits us,” replied Wess. “Reckon it’ll take all of three days. — An’, Uncle Henry, after the round-up who’s drivin’ the cattle to Winslow?”
“Wal, reckon you’d better see Enoch aboot thet. You cain’t nary all go. Cal’s daid set on homesteadin’ Rock Spring, an’ some of us will hev to cut an’ haul logs.”
“Say, boy, what you-all rarin’ aboot?” drawled Wess, turning to Cal.
“I wasn’t in a hurry until I got a hunch Hatfield has an eye on Rock Spring Mesa.”
“Oho! He has. Who told you?”
“Father got it straight from Uncle Gard.”
The old pioneer nodded confirmation of this and told the boys how Hatfield had long known of Cal’s interest in Rock Spring, and that it would never do to let the Bar XX outfit get a wedge into their upland cattle range. Then in the serious discussion which followed, the fact came to light that there was evidence of the Thurmans losing cattle. Rustling on a large scale was a thing of the past, but the loss of unbranded calves had grown to be more than the mere mistakes natural to cattlemen of a wild range. Some one was deliberately driving Thurman calves from the cows, before they should have been separated, and was branding them.
“Serge Thurman marked some calves last month,” said the rancher, “an’ he done it so slick no one but him could tell. Wal, Serge has missed a couple of them calves, an’ he’s shore lookin’ fer them.”
“Humph! What good will it do if he finds the Bar XX put their iron on them? We can’t prove any one knowed our unbranded stock from theirs,” replied Wess.
“Wal, I reckon not,” admitted Henry.
“Shore it’ll only make wuss blood between Enoch an’ Bloom. Reckon thet’s bad enough right now.”
“All I can say, boys, is fer you to keep your mouths shut an’ yore eyes open. — I’ll lay off at the mill an’ fetch Tuck Merry up to Boyd’s to help you fellars cut the sorghum. An’ I’m willin’ to bet you-all thet he’ll cut more an’ carry more than any of you.”
“Thet limber-legged galoot beat me at rustlin’ sorghum!” ejaculated Wess, in high dudgeon at the suggestion. Wess had long enjoyed the preëminence at this Tonto game of sorghum-harvesting, and he was extremely tenacious of his record.
“Wess, nary you or any of the boys figger my sawmill hand correct,” drawled Henry, with his dry chuckle. “Shore I’ve told you how he beat you-all holler in the sawmill. Best hand I ever hed.”
Wess was disgruntled. His supremacy had been questioned, and that by a tenderfoot from outside. Naturally, the other boys made it worse by backing up Henry and offering to make bets on their own opinions. Cal capped the climax by offering to wager a horse against one of Wess’s that Tuck Merry could beat him.
“Aw, ain’t you gamblin’ a little free with yore hosses?” queried Wess, sarcastically. “You bet yore best hoss you’d lick Tim inside of a year. An’ Cal, time’s a-flyin’. Then you give Miss Georgie yore pinto — which it ain’t hard to calkilate how you was gamblin’ there an’ how you’ll lose. — Now you’ve gall enough to bet me yore last good hoss. I hate to take advantage, Cal, considerin’ yore failin’ intelleck, but yore on.”
Cal surveyed his cousin with considerable disfavor.
“Say, Wess,” he said, loftily, “you’re so darn smart. I’ll give you odds I win all three bets.”
“What’ll you bet?” snapped Wess, and he slapped his knee with a broad hand.
Cal began with a deliberate enumeration of the last two of his horses, his Winchester, and his lasso, also his silver-mounted spurs, which Wess had always coveted, and his only saddle, and he was about to add fifty dollars to the list when his father interrupted.
“Cal, shore thar must be some truth in Wess’s hunch aboot yore bein’ plumb loco,” he drawled. “You jest cut out any more bets. If you homestead Rock Spring you’ll shore need airy darn hoss an’ sich you own.”
Next morning, when the first gray light in the east heralded the coming of the dawn, Enoch Thurman stalked out of the house and yelled in stentorian voice that penetrated to the very sleepiest brain there:
“The day’s busted!”
Enoch was the chief of the Thurman clan, and his call was a signal for all to rouse. By daylight breakfast was steaming on the long kitchen table, and by sunrise saddles and packs were being strapped, and soon after the riders were on their way to the sorghum ranch.
It was a flat piece of land about three miles from Green Valley, toward the Rim, and suffered greatly by contrast with the lower fertile ranch. Boyd Thurman had founded his homestead here, and eighty of the one hundred and sixty acres were under cultivation. These eighty acres comprised one great level field of sorghum, a yellowing plain somewhat resembling corn or cane, though not so high. Weeds and wild flowers grew quite as thickly as the stalks. Little cultivation had been given this field since the planting of the sorghum. A rude fence of poles and rails, and in some places wire, surrounded the inclosure to keep out cattle and horses and deer. Dozens of dead trees, some of them quite large pines, stood in the field, sordid and ghastly specters of what had once been forest land.
A stream-bed ran along the western border of the field, as did also the dusty road leading to the school-house up in the woods, and the cabins and ranches of the other Thurmans farther up toward the Rim. This stream was surface water only, and was now dry except for a few pools in rocky places. At the lower end of the clearing stood a couple of cabins and a barn, all weathered and in bad state of repair. Since proving up on his homestead, Boyd Thurman had lived mostly at his father’s. And this immense field of sorghum was the property of all the Thurmans. Jointly they had planted it, and jointly they would harvest and divide it.
While the boys from Green Valley were unsaddling and unpacking their outfit, and pitching camp under the trees near the cabins, the other contingent of Thurmans hove in sight, nine riders strong, with more than that number of pack-horses. They whistled and they sang, between cigarettes, as they worked with the dexterity of long practice, and innumerable were the jests and banterings they flung at one another. At nine o’clock they were sitting or standing round the pine tree which marked Enoch’s camp, and all were sharpening their knives on the little whetstones each carried with him. In all they numbered seventeen workers, not including Henry Thurman. Despite his years, he could work along with most of the boys, when it pleased hi
m to do so.
“Wal, fellars,” spoke up Enoch, as he tested his knife-blade with a broad thumb, “one man to a row an’ pack all he can.”
“Enoch, I got a bet on heah an’ I’m rarin’,” growled Wess.
“Ahuh! An’ what’re you bettin’, an’ who?” replied Enoch with great interest.
Wess told his version of the matter forced upon him, and his tone was at once grieved and flamboyant; and then Cal poured oil upon the fire by his boastful confidence in Tuck Merry; and lastly Cal’s father added the last straw to Wess’s burden.
“Wal, is airy one of you fellars achin’ to bet me? I’m shore a-backin’ my sawmill hand.”
Whereupon an animated discussion, rather heated on Wess’s part, took place, and various and incredible bets were placed. Finally the gamblers had apparently exhausted resources, and the conditions were put up to Enoch.
“Wal, dog-gone me!” he ejaculated. “Shore it ain’t a square deal. Wess was cuttin’ sorghum when he was knee-high to a grasshopper, an’ I reckon our long-legged pard Merry never seen a sorghum field till he hit the Tonto.”
“Right-o,” declared Tuck. “I’ll do my darndest to win for you who’re backing me, but don’t fail to notice I’m not betting any myself.”
“Be a sport, Tuck,” spoke up Cal, and he winked at his friend. “I’m goin’ to win another bet today beside this one on you. So let’s plunge.”
“Oh, if that’s the dope, I’ll kick in,” responded Tuck, with a meaning twinkle in his eye as he returned Cal’s look. “Wess, I’ll lay you ten I’ll beat you cuttin’ this junk and another ten that I can carry more of it.”
“Ten what?” demanded Wess, belligerently.
“Ten bucks — ten good old U. S. simoleons — ten cartwheels,” replied Tuck, jingling silver in his pocket.
“Wess, you big dumbhead, he means ten dollars,” explained Cal.
“Aw, I’ll take double thet,” responded Wess, grandly.
“That’s my limit, Wess, and I’m making you a present of it,” said Tuck.