Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  Not the kiss, which she really meant, but the word, which she felt was untrue, sent the blood surging to her temples. Chess gave her a radiant smile, and ploughing through the water, soon reached the dry rocks, where he set her upon her feet. She had meant to upbraid him severely, once she was safe on terra firma, but his happiness disarmed her.

  “If Chane only knew! Wouldn’t he just die?... Come, sis, we’re having a jolly adventure,” he babbled, and taking her hand he led her on down the canyon.

  “Chess, it’s getting fearful,” murmured Sue, gazing up the dark, almost perpendicular walls to the narrow flowing stream of blue sky overhead.

  “What? Roaming round with me this way?”

  “No. I mean the canyon. Isn’t it just wonderful? Look! I see golden sunlight far ahead.”

  “Sure is a place for sweethearts,” replied Chess, knowingly.

  “Chess, you’ve got girls and sweethearts and — love on the brain.”

  “Sure have. But it’s stopped my drinking and fighting.”

  He could always turn her flippancy into thoughtful silence. She thought she would try not answering him at all. So they walked and waded on down the canyon, inspired now by its alluring mystery and beauty. Presently they entered an enlargement of the canyon, so remarkably and abruptly a contrast that they halted in their tracks, hands locked and eyes roving everywhere. It was a great red-wall oval, open on the right, with a most stupendous waving slope that apparently lifted to the clouds. One side of the huge oval was bathed in golden sunlight and the other was deep shadowed in shade. Sand bars gleamed in the sun like gold. Gravelly beds shone white. Here the stream had disappeared underground. Grassy benches were colorful flower gardens. Cottonwood trees straggled along, growing more numerous, until they bunched in a beautiful grove, with fluttering leaves half yellow and half green. The hollow murmur of swift water down the canyon made dreamy music. Canyon swifts glinted gold in the sun, blue in the shade, and their wild twitterings were in harmony with the place. Yet silence brooded there, and the strange fragrance of deep canyons permeated the air.

  Like two children Sue and Chess explored the benches, the grove, and the caverns under the wall. Then, upon going across toward the waved slope Chess discovered horse tracks in the sand.

  “I’m a son-of-a-gun! Wild-horse tracks!” he exclaimed, in amaze. “Sue, can you beat that? Here, way down in this canyon!... Look at that slope. Wild horses could climb it.... Oh, Sue, I believe Chane knew there were wild horses down in here. He wasn’t like himself. But I haven’t seen any sign of Brutus’s tracks. I’ll look.”

  He went all over the sand and gravel bars, to return to Sue with a puzzled shake of his head.

  “Got me buffaloed,” he said. “We trailed Chane so far down this very canyon. Then we lost his tracks. We must have missed some place he went up. But I’ll gamble on one thing sure. He’s got some big idea.”

  “Panquitch!” cried Sue, thrillingly.

  Chess cracked his fist in his palm.

  “It might be. He raved about this side of Wild Horse Mesa. Then, when we wanted to come, all of a sudden he was mum.... Sue, it’s early yet. Let’s climb up this slope. We can’t get lost. All we’ve got to be careful about is to get down and past that deep water before dark.”

  “Come on, brother,” cried Sue, carried away by the thrill of his words.

  “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Now, Chess, the moment I — I try to be nice you spoil everything.”

  He took her hand again and led her toward where the yellow sand met the red slant of the rock.

  “Be honest, Sue dear,” he went on, suddenly tender and deep- voiced, in an earnestness that drew Sue against her will. “I mean — you do love Chane? You haven’t gone back on him? Tell me.”

  They reached the slope and began to climb, Sue hanging her head, and Chess leaning to see her face.

  “You’ve kept my secret?” she asked.

  “I cross my heart, yes. And it’s been hard,” he replied.

  “You’ll still keep it? Remember, Chess, if you betray me I’ll hate you forever.”

  “I’ll never tell what you say to me,” he answered. “But don’t think I’ll not move heaven and earth to fetch you two to your senses.”

  “Then — once more — the last time — I’ll tell you,” she said, very low and solemnly, and she looked up at him. “I love your brother with my whole heart and soul.”

  Chess took her avowal differently from the way she expected. Instead of breaking out into robust gladness he took it in poignant silence; his face worked, his eyes filled, and he squeezed her hand so hard it hurt her. Then he drew her on up the slope.

  The rock was soft brown sandstone which crumbled under the nails of Chess’s boots. The tracks of wild horses could be followed by slow and careful scrutiny. Climbing was easy, compared with the steep trail Sue had essayed that early morning. Moreover, it was exhilarating. Sue and Chess played a game of picking out direction, safe ascents, easy inclines, détours, not yet paying any particular attention to the lofty summit above.

  As they ascended, however, they found that difficulties began to face them, and to increase. It grew to be perilous and strenuous work, and therefore the more thrilling. Something drew them onward and upward. They climbed to and fro much farther than straight up. The red stone gave place to a zone of yellow, and then to light green, almost as soft as chalk. At their backs the wall appeared higher than the one they were ascending, and it obstructed their view in that quarter. In other directions knobs and domes of bare stone loomed up, growing larger as Sue and Chess climbed higher.

  There came a time when Sue could look round over a remarkably large area of slopes, mounds, pits, bowls, slants, and curves, as naked and bare as tombstones. Gradually they worked to the base of lofty lemon-colored crags, and to the right of them, keeping always to the easiest travel. This sometimes drew them off a straight course to the height they could see, and were surely attaining.

  What little talk Sue and Chess indulged in was devoted to the exigencies of their task. Sue’s emotion grew to be an exultation. This climb was strange. Not only physical! Not only was it an adventure of sport and achievement. A voice seemed to call from the heights.

  Blue sky only showed above the wavy horizon line so long unattainable. But as they had almost reached it suddenly the grand black-fringed gold-walled level of Wild Horse Mesa rose above the horizon into the blue. It seemed so close as to be overpowering. Then the last few rods of that climb turned the backs of Sue and Chess to the mesa, so when they finally gained their objective point, and stood on the height of the slope, they found themselves gazing down into a tremendous enlargement of the canyon, a valley of marvelous shapes and hues, clear and open in the sunlight, seemingly close, yet far below. Like that of a colossal octopus the dark green body and arms seemed to float on a sea of opal. There were no clouds or sunset to confuse the eye. Nevertheless, there was an impression of many colors, all pale, imperceptibly shading into one another.

  Beautiful as Sue found that valley, the instant she turned she forgot it. Awe possessed her. Chess drew a deep hard breath. Wild Horse Mesa loomed before and above them, its great western cape a magnificent promontory, running toward the westering sun. Its inaccessibility seemed more paramount than ever, yet from this height Sue conceived a haunting sense that it was indeed the abode of wild horses.

  “Sue, sit down and rest,” said Chess. “I’ve got something to tell you — soon as I can breathe — and talk. This is the place.”

  Absorbed in her own feelings, Sue did not want particularly to hear Chess, but gazed and watched and felt with an intense delight. Presently Chess gripped her hand.

  “Sue — my brother loves you,” he said.

  The absence of his old teasing tone or any semblance of fun, the direct simplicity of his assertion, robbed Sue of power to ridicule, or retreat in anger. She could only look at Chess.

  “He loves you terribly,” went on Chess, with
swift eloquence. “He dreams of you. He talks of you in his sleep. He keeps me awake.”

  Sue covered her burning face with her hands, and bent over, shot through and through with a tumultuous bliss that all her morbid and hateful doubts could not quell. There was truth in Chess’s voice. It had lain at the root of all his teasing.

  “But you’ve got to do some big thing to square yourself for believing Manerube’s lies,” went on Chess. “That hurt Chane. He’s never been the same, not even to me. But I’ve watched him close. I know he worships you. But he’ll never tell you unless you break him down. He’ll never forgive you unless you make him.”

  “Chess, if you force me to believe he — he loves me — when he doesn’t — I could never stand it,” she whispered.

  “No fear. I know.”

  “Then what on earth can I do?”

  “I’ve no idea, unless you’ve the nerve to do something desperate. Telling him wouldn’t be enough. You’ve got to do something. And, Sue, you must do it quick. Only last night he told me he reckoned he’d be on the go soon.”

  “Oh — he means to leave us?”

  “Sure he does. I’m afraid he can’t stand it longer. But you mustn’t let him go. His happiness, yours, and mine, too, all depend on you, little girl.”

  “Oh — what — what—” choked Sue, overcome by the sudden onslaught of amaze, joy, love, and fear, all in rapid succession.

  “Find him alone,” whispered Chess, tensely. “On this trip, before we get back. Throw your arms round his neck!”

  “I — I could not,” cried Sue, starting up wildly. “Are you mad, Chess? Have you no — no—”

  “It’s a desperate case, Sue,” he interrupted, hurriedly, in the persuasive tones of the tempter. “He adores you. If you can only make him see you love him — quick — throw him off his balance! Chane’s the proudest of all the Weymers I ever knew. He’d freeze you to death if you tried any ordinary way to make up with him. Storm him, Sue, storm him!”

  Suddenly, before Sue’s whirling mind could meet that last insidious speech, Chess grasped her arm so violently as to jerk her upright.

  “Look! Look!” he shouted, in a frenzy of excitement, pointing down and across the waving hollow bowl. “Wild horses! A whole string of them!”

  Sue leaped erect with excitement thrilling out her agitation. Wildly she gazed down, trying to follow where Chess pointed.

  “Oh, I can’t see them. Where?”

  “Far across and down,” he replied, swiftly. “On the other side of this ridge. Not the slope we climbed. Over the yellow, down on the red, among the cedars.... Sue, sure as we’re alive they’ve come down from Wild Horse Mesa and are working round to go down into the canyon we came up. Maybe for water.”

  At last Sue espied them, a file of horses, long-maned and long-tailed, unmistakably wild, passing through some dwarf scattered cedars. Looking toward the head of that file Sue saw a horse the sight of which made her start. Even at that distance he seemed to embody extraordinary beauty and wildness. He was tawny in color, with mane like a black flame, and tail as black that swept the stones. How proudly he stepped! How he moved his wild head to right and left!

  “Chess. Look at the leader,” called Sue, in delight.

  Then Chess burst out, “PANQUITCH!... Sue, we’re looking at the greatest wild stallion Utah and Nevada ever knew. Oh, the color of him! Look at that mane!... I told you Chane had something up his sleeve. Sue, he’s after Panquitch. But, oh, where is he now?”

  CHAPTER XV

  CHANE RODE BRUTUS down the dark-walled portal into the rocky maze of the canyon country.

  This he meant to be the first of an exhaustive exploration of every possible place that could be an exit or egress of the wild horses to and from Wild Horse Mesa; yet, as it was by no means uncertain that he might not meet Panquitch at any time, he was prepared for such momentous event. He carried two lassoes on his saddle. Presently he dismounted, and taking several burlap sacks he had brought with him, he cut them up, and folded them thick, and tied them securely round the big hoofs of Brutus. Chane did not want to make noise going down the canyon, or leave any tracks. Brutus looked on rather impatiently while this was being done, as if he would like to know what was wrong with his hoofs. Then Chane mounted again and rode on.

  It was still early in the day, for now and then the white sun shone above in the narrow gap between the lofty rims. Chane felt that he would have leisure today and the following days to explore every nook and cranny under the mysterious wall of the great mesa. Brutus walked noiselessly over the rocks and left no trace. Chane avoided the sand bars. If the wild horses were out on top and should come down to see horse tracks in the sand of their secret passageway to and from the mesa, they might, under the leadership of Panquitch, at once turn back. Chane remembered wonderful instances of the intelligence, almost reasoning power, of wild stallions. The longer a stallion was hunted the keener and wilder he became. Panquitch had outwitted a hundred wild- horse wranglers. But that had been in open country. Here, deep in these narrow canyons, with their abrupt turns and deep waterways, he would be decidedly at a disadvantage. Chane had not in the least been tempted to bring Alonzo to help him, though he acknowledged the superiority of the vaquero. Chane had the wild-horse hunter’s strange ambition, so far as a great stallion was concerned: he would corner and rope Panquitch unaided.

  As Chane progressed down the canyon he paid strict attention to only those places where a crack in the wall, a branch canyon, or a wide enlargement might hide a possible means of exit to the rim above. It was astonishing what careful investigation brought to light. Chane found places where he might have climbed out on foot, but where Brutus, agile as he was, could not follow.

  At length he reached the big park-like oval, the expansion of the canyon, where in his memorable flight across the rivers and out of this labyrinth he had encountered Panquitch with his band. Near the upper end of this huge oval Chane dismounted to walk along the stones at the edge of the sandy bars, and worked back to where the water disappeared. He found horse tracks, made, he was sure, the day before. They came to the water and went back toward the low rise of red slope. This point was not where he had encountered Panquitch. That, Chane remembered, was a beautiful constriction of this enlargement of the canyon, a bowl-like place, full of cottonwoods and willows, and characterized by a more wonderful slope than this one.

  Chane studied the whole opposite wall, as far as he could see. He could see perhaps a mile of this oval. Just opposite where he stood a wide break in the wall came down to the sand. It was smooth and worn rock, widening like a fan toward the wavy summit of yellow ridges. These he knew were the round knolls so marked when one gazed down upon the canyon country from the rims. Beyond and above, of course, rose Wild Horse Mesa, but Chane could not get a glimpse of it. He noted how the wavy red rock spread beyond and behind bulges of the wall, that to the left and right of him sheered down perpendicularly to his level.

  That one to the right of him held his studious attention because he believed it hid much from his gaze. This huge frowning section of canyon wall lay between the slope opposite him and the one below where he had watched Panquitch climb. It looked to Chane as if the wild horses could come down one slope and go up the other. Then he remembered the narrow gleaming walls and the long deep pools of water. Surely the wild horses could not swim these except when on the way out to the upland country above, or when they were returning to their mysterious abode. Chane decided that it would take days to get a clear map in his mind of this maze.

  Returning to Brutus, he rode on down the oval, keeping to the curve of wall, far from the center. As he rode he got higher, and farther back, so that his view of the slope opposite was better. Soon, however, the bulge of intervening wall shut out his view entirely of that slope. Then he attended more keenly to what lay ahead.

  The oval park ended in a constriction like the neck of a bottle. The sunlight came down from a marvelous slope of red rock, waved and billowed
, resembling a sea on end. This slope he recalled so well that he felt a thrill. Here was where he had watched Panquitch climb out. A dark cleft, V-shaped, split the ponderous bulk of the cliff at the end of the oval. It was still far off, but Chane recognized it. Down in there was where he hoped some day to meet Panquitch. His hope was merely a dream, he knew, for the chances were a thousand to one that he never would have such luck.

  “Reckon I’ll leave Brutus and climb that slope,” soliloquized Chane.

  Whereupon he rode on down past the break in the wall toward the grove of cottonwoods. Here there was shade and patches of green grass. As Chane dismounted Brutus lifted his head and shot up his ears, in the action that was characteristic of him when he heard something unusual.

  “Hey! what’d you hear, old boy?” queried Chane, suddenly tense.

  A distant hollow sound seemed to be filling Chane’s ears. But it might have been just the strangeness of the canyon wind, like the roar of the sea in a cave. Chane waited, slowly losing his tensity. But he observed that Brutus lost nothing of attentiveness. Chane trusted the horse, and desiring to get under cover he drew Brutus in among the cottonwoods, and selected a place where he could see in all directions without being seen, and have at least one hidden exit, that down into the V-shaped cleft. Chane remembered Manerube and Bud McPherson.

  Brutus turned so that he could head up the canyon, and only Chane’s hand and low voice kept him still. The keener ears or nose of the horse had reacted to something Chane could not yet detect.

  All at once a weird, horrid blast pealed out, not far from Chane, and higher than where he stood. The echoes bellowed from wall to wall. Chane, seeing that Brutus was about to neigh, clasped his muzzle with strong pressure.

  “Keep still,” whispered Chane, fiercely.

  He had never heard a sound so uncanny and fearful. It made his blood creep, and for a second he sustained a shock. Then his quick mind solved the realization that in this country nothing but a horse could peal out such a cry. Therefore, when it was followed by light quick clatter of hoofs, Chane was not at all surprised.