Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  There were times when John feared that High-Lo had stopped breathing altogether, and there were anxious moments when his own breath came hard. He knew he could not stand to have High-Lo go. He found himself measuring the boy’s worth against many more fortunate men he had known. All High-Lo’s failings passed away before the vision of the struggle the boy had made to abandon his old way of life for things clean and wholesome. If the young cowboy had been born into happier circumstances, with possibilities of education and the right discipline for his willfulness, he would have made a leader of men. At Black Mesa he became the favorite of family and guests alike by reason of his lovableness and happy nature.

  In time John became aware that Topsy was mincing along behind, which made him reflect that High-Lo was the only cowboy who had ever been able to elicit any service from the stubborn mule. Did she in her dumb-brute way surrender because she was somehow aware of her master’s presence, or did she follow because she sensed that High-Lo, the once mighty, was now in trouble? Mules were strange beasts, stupid judging from appearance and conduct common to them, yet capable on occasion of demonstrating shrewd intelligence. Right then and there John formed a lasting attachment for Topsy.

  Never had the ride from the cave to the pass seemed so interminable; the six miles between, to be sure, were generous cowboy miles. The valley was cool with the shadows of late afternoon before the rim of the canyon showed. The arm that held High-Lo in the saddle was numb, and riding the trail that wound in and out of the canyon was a difficult thing under the circumstances. It took all of Curry’s power of strength and will to keep High-Lo from shifting in the saddle. Topsy still followed along.

  While riding through the cedars of the pass John’s attention was arrested by the beat of hoofs, and watching intently in the direction from which the sound came, he descried the shadowy forms of a horse and rider approaching. In another moment he identified the rider as a woman. There was something so familiar about her and her mount that he sensed immediately that the rider was Magdaline. Yet hours earlier he had left Magdaline with the Westons at Black Mesa trading post. An unjustified irritation arose in John.

  Though the girl was aware of his approach she gave no sign of greeting until she dismounted several yards away and came to him on foot, running. John checked his horse and swayed uncomfortably in the saddle. Topsy at once trotted off to a shady place under the cedars.

  “What’s — the matter — with High-Lo?” Magdaline panted, her eyes wide with fear.

  “He’s been hurt. Badly, I’m afraid. Maybe you can help.”

  “How far have you come?”

  “Six miles down the valley.”

  “I see. I wondered why you were so long. Better let him down a while. I can ride like the wind to the post and send back a car. Are you not glad I came to meet you, John Curry?”

  “I’m glad you happened to be here,” John returned gruffly.

  “Get down while I hold him,” the girl commanded.

  John dismounted heavily. A minute later he had High-Lo in his arms and was staggering to a place under a tree which Magdaline indicated.

  “How long has he been unconscious?” she asked. Her manner was different now. She was impersonal and aloof.

  “About two hours or more that I know of. He was unconscious when I found him.”

  “You go back to the canyon and get some cold fresh water,” Magdaline ordered. “You need the exercise. I will work over High-Lo for a while. As soon as you come back I will ride to the post. I think you ought to wait here. I would not move High-Lo now. You may be making him worse.”

  She might have been an Indian princess from the manner in which she assumed command. Her dark eyes flashed proudly and her hand moved imperatively with that no-loss-of-motion grace peculiar to the Navahos. And she wasted no more time in foolish questioning; her desire to help was stronger than her curiosity. John warmed toward her, and acted on the advice she gave. He left them together, High-Lo’s head resting on her thigh.

  Quickly John dispatched his errand, and the weariness left him as Magdaline had said it would. When he came riding through the cedars again, he saw at once that High-Lo’s position had changed, his face was turned away and an arm was flung over his head.

  An assuring smile from Magdaline gladdened his return. “He moved and he spoke,” she said. “But he has not his senses yet. He acts like a tired little boy.”

  There was something ineffably sweet about the Indian girl at that moment. She was a mother with a child, a Mary of another race, moved by instincts common to all womankind. She had opened High-Lo’s blouse and exposed his breast, and now her hand moved slowly up and down along his side.

  “I’m afraid he is hurt here worse than his head,” she said. “Here is where his hand went to when he groaned.”

  John stooped over High-Lo and forced the canteen against his lips. Magdaline, to assist, tilted High-Lo’s chin, and her action more than the water, which largely spattered down his cheek and breast, brought a sign of life from the boy. He writhed and his face screwed up in pain as simultaneously his arm came down in weak protest against her hand. Then he sank back with a groan and his eyelids fluttered in successive attempts to lift. Finally they held in a wide stare.

  “Where am I?” High-Lo’s question was accompanied by a sigh. He breathed in irregular jerks and each breath seemed to bring pain. “Where are those dirty sons-of-guns? ... Quit pressin’ my side, you idiot!” Not once while he spoke did his eyes leave John’s face, but there was no recognition in the stony stare.

  “Don’t you know me, High-Lo?” John asked. “It’s John.”

  High-Lo did not answer. His eyes followed Magdaline’s arm and on up to her face, then returned to John. His brows knit in a perplexed frown. “Why is she here if you’re John?”

  “Come on, buddy,” said John gently. “Try to think! This is your pal, John Curry. You ran away yesterday. I trailed you. I found you in a cave.”

  Just then Topsy brayed vociferously. Suddenly the first gleam of intelligence showed in High-Lo’s eyes.

  “Oh, shore, the cave!” he managed to articulate. “And that damn mule brayin’ all the time.... Oh, my God, my side!” His hand went quickly to his side, the train of his thought broken. “John ... John might come,” he muttered after a while. His eyes traveled aimlessly until they met John’s again. “You say John did come? Oh, yes, so you did.”

  Magdaline was a silent, pitying witness, but now she spoke. “He’s coming out of it. Make him drink.”

  “Take a swallow, son,” urged John, offering the canteen.

  High-Lo gave a wry smile. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  He wanted the water, but it seemed to hurt him to swallow, and after a few gulps he pushed it away.

  “Someone said something about the cave,” he pursued, as if revived by the little water he had taken, and plainly endeavoring to collect his wits. “Shore, I was in the cave. How did I get here?”

  “I brought you,” said John. “But don’t try to think about it now. Magdaline’s going to the post for a car. We’ll get you home as fast as we can.”

  “Magdaline ... home,” repeated High-Lo. “Yes, and make it quick, cowboy. I think some of my ribs are broke.”

  “I was thinking that,” said Magdaline. “You come here and take my place and get his shirt off.”

  “We’ve got to bind him with something,” John insisted.

  “Yes, I know,” Magdaline returned. “You do what I say.”

  She left them and disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back she waved a white petticoat.

  “This will make good bandage,” she called.

  In no time she prepared strips and presented them to John. “Not too tight.... There! I’m going now. I’ll send Hicks back too. Mrs. Weston says he can set broken bones.”

  She walked to her horse, mounted and rode away. One minute John saw a flash of a gingham dress, the next minute it was gone. Magdaline, true to her word, would race like the wind to th
e post.

  John turned to High-Lo again and found the boy studying him intently.

  “Good old John, so it is you,” High-Lo said in glad recognition. “Things are comin’ back to me now. I’ll be able to tell you all about it soon.”

  “Let me finish this job first,” John suggested. “And be sure you’re up to it. It can wait, you know.”

  John had to knot the strips of cloth together to make his bandage effective, and he took infinite care that the knots came where they were least annoying.

  “They’re broke all right,” winced High-Lo. “Careful of — that left side.”

  Next John unsaddled his horse to use the saddle and blanket as a prop for High-Lo’s head.

  “Wonder where my horse is,” High-Lo said.

  It was a question that had baffled John too, but he had long ago committed it to his ignorance of events.

  “We won’t worry about your horse,” John returned. “He’ll find his way home unless someone rustles him.”

  He settled down beside High-Lo and lit a cigarette.

  “Cricket may be a mighty pore horse when he does get home,” High-Lo reflected. “Let me tell you about it now.”

  John hesitated to encourage High-Lo, but the boy’s impatience was proof of his normal activity of mind, so he capitulated with a warning to him against overexertion.

  “Might as well begin from the beginnin’, buddy,” High-Lo declared. “It goes back a few days. Remember, we had words about that Blakely girl an’ me drinkin’? That starts it. I did like her honest and fine for a bit till I got wonderin’ how she could stand Hanley and how it come she knew him before she come to the reservation. I had a hunch about Hanley that I wasn’t tellin’ to no one. I’m naturally trustin’ and when that fails me I’m always sure there’s suthin’ wrong. Well, the mornin’ of the first day I went ridin’ with Miss Blakely I comes sudden on to her an’ Hanley, and before they see me I hear Hanley say, ‘You needn’t be worryin’ none. Newton’s got a good excuse for comin’ on the reservation. You an’ your sister skip. The rest’s easy.’

  “That sounded to me like business and the kind of business I’ve been suspectin’. I didn’t let on I seen them until after I heard. I let ’em think they saw me first. Right then I got awful anxious to go ridin’ with that girl, an’ I got what I wanted, an’ I had to shave Stub’s head to do it.

  “I told you what happened — about her offerin’ me a drink. I didn’t get that far in my calcerlations, I didn’t think she had any use for booze herself. I honest was staggered. An’ I took the drink cause I wanted her ter think I was as cheap as herself — that I’d think her pert an’ smart an’ considerin’ of me. I was aimin’ for her to get confidential. It got as far as this — that she could get me some of the stuff awful easy an’ she could get it to me soon. I took her up quick like I wanted it. But she didn’t know the hombre she was buckin’. The next day, after you an’ me locked horns, I took her ridin’ again. I was after more information, but all I got was booze an’ a glad eye. But I was layin’ for Newton to come pretty soon, an’ he did. I had an idea of follerin’ up what was goin’ on, an’ you had to bust it by comin’ along that mornin’ sayin’ I had to go along on the trail. That’s where the row come in. I was goin’ to tell you everythin’, but you made me bullheaded.

  “Well, after Newton come — the girls keepin’ away from him like they didn’t want to know him better — I knew I had to trail him an’ Hanley, an’ where I’d find the one bad egg the other’d be in the same nest. It come to me it was just as well I didn’t tell you things. You’d been afraid to let me go, an’ you’d gone yourself, so I tried the goin’ in Stuffy’s place idea just to get away from the post alone. I’d of gone a piece with them an’ then quit the outfit flat, an’ you wouldn’t of known or been worryin’. I was desperate to make a killin’ all by myself. You see, John, I’ve never done nothing worth while in my life before.

  “I knew shore as mules kickin’ when Newton headed out for Sage Brush Springs he’d no intention of goin’ there. I could see him trailin’ back around that other mesy an’ goin’ round about to Cedar Pass. I lay to make a getaway early, but them fool Blakely girls put off goin’ until late an’ I couldn’t risk them passin’ me on the trail. It just come dark when I got to the pass. I tied Cricket this side of where we camp, an’ was goin’ ahead on foot when I heard a horse neighin’ down toward the canyon. I’d of killed Cricket if he answered. Guess he was too busy nippin’ brush. Anyway he didn’t answer an’ I almost bust my eardrums listenin’. There were two horses makin’ that canyon trail. I could hear their hoofs against the stones. I let ’em have the canyon to themselves, but I brought my horse over near to the rim. When them fellers got down into the canyon I could make out the sound of ’em clear as a bell. I give ’em lots of rope. I took my time startin’ after, an’ when I did I made my own trail way down the near side of the pass. When I come out the other side of the canyon I saw a fire about three miles down. An’ it wasn’t no squaw fire. Lucky, I knew every rock of the country clear to our cave. I picked my own trail way over toward the hills. Then I tied Cricket in a gully about a mile from that campfire an’ I put out on foot.

  “I didn’t have to get too near the place. Hanley and Newton must’ve had a few drinks in them an’ were talkin’ loud. I heard all I needed in a short time. An’ boilin’ it down, it’s this. They’re in a liquor-runnin’ deal with that Mormon horse wrangler, Tim Wake, over to Gallup, to sell booze to the Indians. An’ they was on their way to meet Wake at Canyon Bonito. Seems they was early an’ had to waste time, Newton havin’ to come when his boss sent him. Ain’t he the skunk, stealin’ time from MacDonald? An’ say — the way I heard ’em talkin’ about the Blakely girls who are mixed up in the buyin’ end of the rot-gut booze an’ of other women in general made me mad enough to shoot ’em down right there. John, I’ve heard men talk plenty dirty about women, but never nothing like that. An’, believe it or not, John, they tell me that feller Newton has a mighty sweet wife, pretty as a picture and as good as she’s pretty!”

  A pang tore through Curry’s breast. “Yes, I know. I’ve met her.... Go on with your story, High-Lo, and make it short. You’re tiring yourself.”

  “Shore that they were stayin’ the night,” High-Lo continued, “I made camp a mile back where I’d left Cricket. I ate a bar of stale chocolate an’ some crackers. It was the only grub I’d brought with me. Next mornin’ I was up ‘fore it was really light an’ sittin’ in a cedar I watched fer smoke from Hanley’s camp. It come, but late. They was takin’ their time. After a while they went on. I had to keep to the hills because they’d see me in that open country. I kept a good mile an’ a half between us, an’ that made me just about below the cave when they reached that narrer pass into the next valley. They was lopin’ their horses then, an’ I figured to do the same an’ make even better time for fear they’d cut over the rocks an’ disappear. I took straight down to the trail an’ set Cricket scootin’.

  “Then pretty soon I got mine. It was in that very narrer place where you pass between two cedars. Just as I made it Cricket done the funniest flop I ever seen, an’ throwed me like a bullet so that I was wedged in a place between two rocks. I sort of remember Cricket comin’ to her feet an’ tearin’ away like she was loco. Then I must of passed clean out. I come to pretty dizzy an’ with an awful pain in my head an’ side. I whistled for Cricket, but Lord knows where he went to. Then I walked over to the cedars, an’ I’m tellin’ you, I cussed! Hanley an’ Newton had fouled me. They must of got wind that someone was follerin’, an’ hurryin’ to the pass they stretched a len’th of bobwire across the trail from tree to tree about three feet from the ground. It was so cussed gray there in the shade that it didn’t show. By Judas, when I think of what that damn bobwire must of done to Cricket’s legs! An’ it like to killed me besides. Now just suppose I’d been an innocent son-of-a-gun Indian? I thought of that when I took the blame wire down. I cached it near the tree. May
be I’ll find use for it someday.

  “I knew’d I was pretty bad hurt an’ sick to my stomach, an’ in a devil of a hole at that. It come to me that someone would be cachin’ grain today, an’ then, too, I got a crazy notion you might be comin’ with it a-purpose, so I dragged myself to that cave. I must of been out of my head ‘fore I got there. I remember singin’ goin’ over them rocks. ‘The old sow,’ I guess I was singin’, an’ a mule hee-hawed back at me an’ kept keepin’ on. I figure I must of fainted in the cave with that infernal hee-hawin’ buzzin’ in my ears.”

  As High-Lo talked, John had been connecting the liquor episode at Oraibi with Hanley’s and Newton’s present activities.

  “So that’s their game,” he muttered. “And they might have killed you and the next fellow who came that way with their barbwire trap. Someday we’ll tie those fellows up with their own wire and turn them over to the sheriff in Flaggerston. I never dreamed that fool Newton would have the guts to stage such an outrage, but I guess he’s pretty much of a slave to Hanley’s whims.”

  Curry noticed then that High-Lo’s head had slipped from the saddle. The boy seemed too tired and weak to care, now that his story had ended.

  “Let me make you a little more comfortable, son. You’ve exhausted yourself talking,” John said, as he lifted High-Lo’s head to the rolled-up blanket. “It will be getting cool with that sun going down so I’d better rustle some wood.”

  High-Lo winced when John moved him, but declared with a grin that he was lucky to be alive. “It’ll take consid’able killin’ to finish me,” he said between clenched teeth.