by Zane Grey
“I’ll go,” decided Clifton, with a zest. “They can’t steal my sheep without a run for it.”
He must travel light, and he sifted the necessities down to his rifle, with a box of shells, and a bag containing hard biscuits, meat and salt, and some parched corn. It would not be necessary to pack a canteen, because the Indians dared not go far from water on account of the sheep. He took matches, a small hand-ax, which he stuck in his belt, and set out.
The trail of the sheep was easy to follow, for their sharp little hoofs cut into even the baked adobe soil, but it took discerning eyes to find imprints of moccasins. He had never had experience enough on the range to become an expert tracker, which fortunately was not required in this instance.
The trail led east, toward the shortest way out of the basin. No doubt the raiders would turn south when they got through the walls. It took Clifton three hours of steady tramping to reach the walls. They loomed like mountains of smooth red walls, straight up, with rims weathered, broken, splintered into crags, turrets, crumbled ruins of rock, where green growths found lodgment in the niches.
Clifton had seen these irregular escarpments from a distance of twelve or fifteen miles, and therefore had underestimated their size. He passed through the break where the sheep tracks led, and found himself in an astounding world of walls, monuments, shafts, and rocks, all rising sheer out of level red ground, with aisles and lanes between, with hollows, caves, and caverns under the gigantic cliffs, water-worn perhaps, in an age when this region had been inundated. It was the most weird, colorful, and fascinating place he had ever visited. Guadaloupe Springs had not been an unknown name to Clifton, years before, but nothing had ever been told of these marvelous rock formations. They were scarcely three hundred miles from Las Vegas, south by west. It thrilled him to realize that many wonders and beauties of the desert were still unknown to all save a few wanderers.
A glamour of color and silence seemed to enfold the regions of these upstanding ledges of rock. The sunlight appeared to be a reflection of the dark red, almost purple hue of the walls, and the gold-green of the desert floor. There was no sound except the silken rustle of swallows, so swift in flight that Clifton could not see them until they had darted by.
He traveled cautiously, expecting to come in sight of the Indians around any corner. Between the great walls he sometimes had a glimpse of the open desert beyond, and the sight made him catch his breath. From the heights the land sloped away into a measureless and ghastly void of white and gray that seemed to have no end, that was lost in sky.
At last he got through the labyrinthine maze. Then far down the gradual incline he caught sight of moving dots. They were miles away, but he doubted not that they were his quarry. Clifton followed, moving out of a direct line toward a slight eminence, from which he hoped to sight the stolen sheep.
When he surmounted this vantage-point he made out a line of white specks that he instantly recognized as sheep, perhaps to the number of fifty. Behind moved the larger dots, dark in color. These were the Indians on foot, and they were heading down and toward the west.
Clifton sat down to eat, and to ponder over the situation. He wanted only to recover the sheep, and that might not be easy unless he surprised the thieves. They were heading surely toward a dark green fringe, which probably marked a waterhole. If he could stalk them into camp, and fire a few shots to frighten them, the recovery of the sheep would present no great difficulty. On the other hand, however, if they sighted him in pursuit they might kill, or surely scatter the sheep, and probably ambush him.
Therefore he waited until they had passed on out of sight, and then completing his simple repast, he headed to the west, aiming to get back under the protection of the walls. In this manner he lost ground in the pursuit, but still did not sheer far from the general direction of the raiders.
By the middle of the afternoon Clifton had begun to tire. He had traveled far, at a rather brisk walk. Still he kept on, until he arrived at a point opposite the green patch that he believed the Indians were making for. Here he rested again and watched sharply for reappearance of the drivers and the sheep. They did not come in sight. Therefore, much concerned that he might have miscalculated, he pressed on straight down the slope.
At sundown he was within five miles of the patch of green, that proved to be trees, among which something pale caught the last light of the sun. It was water or sand.
A bulge of ground to Clifton’s left had long concealed any extensive view of the lay of the desert in that direction. He devoted all his searching gaze there, and as the shadows thickened he grew bolder and trusted more to the sparse growths for cover. Suddenly he heard a sharp sound that brought him startled and crouching to his knees behind a bush. He listened. Presently it rang out again — the bark of a dog.
The Indians were probably just below the dip of ground ahead. He crawled noiselessly a few yards, then again listened. He thought he heard faint voices, but could not be certain. Presently he stole on farther, soon to attain a position where he could command the level below. And half a mile out he espied four Indians driving two score and more of sheep. He watched them. Just as the dusk was about to swallow them they entered the grove.
Clifton pressed on then, under cover of the gathering darkness, and in half an hour the line of trees showed black against the horizon, and low down flickered a camp fire. This afforded him much satisfaction, but the further problem was what to do, now that he had caught up with the thieves.
He had not noticed that they carried guns. But on the other hand this was probably their encampment, and there might be others. He circled, and entered the grove at its upper end, where trees stood far apart, yet the underbrush was thick. He slipped down into a dry wash, with sandy floor, and following it to a point he judged somewhat in proximity to the camp, he crawled up on the bank and under the bushes to reconnoiter.
He came abruptly upon a huge jumble of rocks, where he halted to listen. He heard running water, but no other sound. Even the leaves were still.
Whereupon he considered the situation. If he could not light a fire he was in for an uncomfortable night. The four Indians he had seen did not present any great obstacle, and if they had not joined others at this camp, he thought it just as well to rout them at once, instead of waiting for daylight. He wanted to be certain, however, before he alarmed the dogs. He had heard one and there would certainly be more. So with extreme caution he set out to circle the rocks.
It struck him presently, however, that he could not have been any cooler. He remembered the excitement caused by disturbances with the Indians years before, when he was a boy. A situation approaching this would have stopped his heart. But he had done this sort of thing under cannon fire that was like terrific thunder. He had done it alone, and in company with hundreds of men.
This was vaguely amusing, but at length it roused him. The night, the desert loneliness, the presence of unseen Indians, the stalking as of big game, contributed to a quickening of pulse and a tightening of his skin. It was action that created excitement.
A break in the bank of rock afforded him a place to enter and climb up to where he could see a glow of fire. But there was brush or cover on the flat top, so he slipped down on the right side, and worked around that way.
Presently he saw the firelight; and moving dark figures, more, he was sure, than those of the Indians he had tracked. Carefully picking the best covert from which to watch them, he stole stealthily on, sank to his hands and knees, and halted in shadow.
With the first clear look his grimness turned to amazement. There were a dozen figures, perhaps, before him, but not one of them was an Indian. They were Mexicans, and indeed a poor, ragged, starved lot. One woman held a baby to her breast, and it did not look many days old. They were cooking a sheep, which task was manifestly of profound importance. They jabbered gaily, and some of them performed antics not unlike dancing. The idea of pursuit was the remotest from their minds. Half a dozen gaunt dogs crouched before the fir
e. No doubt the only scent they could catch then was that of roast sheep.
They had no horses, Clifton could see, and only the most meager of camp equipment. If there was a gun in the party, Clifton could not spy it out. The dark lean faces, the wild eyes, and straggling black hair, the brown bodies showing through rents in their clothes, the mouths opening and shutting, the tiny baby and the tender mother who looked hungry as a wolf herself — these stirred Clifton to pity.
A few rifle-shots would have scattered that group like a fox running among a covey of quail. They were going to have a feast. Clifton felt that he would not lift a hand to prevent it. Silently he crawled back, and rising behind the brush to shoulder his rifle he strode away across the desert.
“Poor peons!” muttered Clifton. “I wonder if God knows how full the world is of misery...Old Don Lopez can afford to lose those sheep. If he can’t, I’ll pay for them.”
He headed for the dark walls that appeared to shed luster from the stars. Weary though he was, he did not slacken his pace until he was several miles up the slope, and then he chose a secluded spot rich in sage and hemmed round by outcropping rocks.
It amused Clifton to consider this protected nook, which would insure him comfort for part of the night at least, as a reward for his generous act. There was abundance of dead sage all around, which, broken into bits, would burn like coals. He collected a goodly supply, then built a little fire against a rock. He roasted pieces of meat on a sharpened stick, and did not fare ill. He fancied, though, that he would be thirsty on the morrow, before he found water.
With his hand-ax he cut enough live sage brush to make a soft bed. That done, he sat cross-legged before the little white-and-gold fire, and divided his gaze between that and the stars. Both were intimate tonight. He was no longer alone. He, who had been so utterly wretched a few months earlier, now experienced sweet sensations in extreme fatigue. He did not desire to be anywhere else. College, the war, government, friends, and family had all repudiated him, cast him out, like the mother fox the black cub in her litter. Bitterness had gone from his heart. There were things on the earth no one had ever dreamed of. What man needed was silence, loneliness, to be helpless in agony, to accept death while fighting for life, to be in contact with the earth and the elements. There was something infinite in the stars. Here the stars that once had been pitiless now spoke to him.
He put more fuel on the fire. How it sparkled, crackled, burst into tiny flames! He recalled a fire he had once sat over in a trench, with a stinking dead man lying on the ice a yard away. Fire, man, and ice had left him unmoved. Here, however, he was thankful in his soul. He had erected a temple.
The desert wind sprang up. It moaned over the tops of the rocks and the tips of the sage. He was snug there. He toasted his palms and heated the soles of his boots. Fire-worshiper by night, sun-worshiper by day! They gave birth to such beautiful thoughts. He marveled no more at Julio, who could sit all day and look, and be happy; nor at the range-rider who never forsook the range, nor the lonely prospector his hunt for gold. They could never lose. Because it was the seeing, the searching, that brought joy.
He lay down, and his heavy eyelids refused to open again. He fell asleep. When he awoke stars and sky had changed, dimmed, grayed over. His fire was dead ashes. He rebuilt it, and warmed himself again. The night was ghostly now, strange, with a wailing wind, and the coyotes seemed like lost spirits.
Once he nodded and fell asleep over the fire, and awakening with a start he stacked on all his store of wood, and stretched himself upon the sage.
In February the cottonwoods shed their leaves, carpeting the ground with gold. Clifton and Julio were returning from a visit to other shepherds in the valley. Some of these got supplies from the border, and readily shared them. Clifton carried two sacks, and Julio one. Clifton laughed when he reached camp. What was a heavy burden to him? Daily for two months he had packed logs of firewood to camp. He was stronger than ever before in his life. He gazed at his brown arms and hands as if they belonged to a stranger. He felt his powerful legs, hard as iron. The wounds he had sustained were as if they had never been.
What little winter Guadaloupe Springs ever knew in the run of the seasons had passed. The dawns were cold, crisp, but no longer did ice film over the still pools. Day by day the frost lessened, until that morning came when there was no glistening white on the logs.
It was getting time to think of the long return trip back to San Luis. The sheep were full and fat and lazy. Lambing season was near at hand, a little while after which, when the lambs were able to travel, the journey north would begin. Clifton was jubilant over prospects of a large number of lambs. How pleased old Don Lopez would be! He had predicted a poor season for reasons quite beyond Clifton.
More than once Clifton recalled the news given him by the three sheepmen who had told him Malpass was negotiating with Lopez for this flock of sheep. Whenever Clifton thought of this, it rankled. But somehow he had a conviction that he would never again clash with Malpass. Still many of his instincts had faded here in this red-walled solitude. Where was the crippled, embittered, hopeless, and atheistic soldier of last year? Clifton was confronted with the surety of a future, but he shirked the thought of it. He loved this nomad life. And upon his return to civilization, if he found the same things that he had contended with before his recovery, he would come back to life in the open. It was impossible now and then not to wonder about his mother, but he did not waste any feeling upon his other parent. Virginia had become a sad and beautiful memory, seldom recalled now. It had hurt to think of her, and gradually he had overcome the habit. By this time she would have divorced him.
Lambing season was late, but Clifton had the satisfaction of counting a thousand new sheep. What good business it would have been if he could have purchased this flock from Lopez.
“Grande! grande!” cried Julio, clapping his hands.
Clifton shared his enthusiasm, and he enjoyed the sight of the little lambs. It seemed absurd, but no two lambs looked alike. At least Julio claimed they did not. Clifton, however, would not have cared for the responsibility of the mothers in this regard. The lambs were some variety of white and brown and black. Wholly black ones were rare indeed in this family. A few days after birth they were as lively as crickets. Clifton never tired of playing with them. One evening in camp he had a number he had picked out. There was a black one, with only the tail white. There was a white one with a brown and a black ear, a brown one with white face, and another with black feet. Some of them looked as if they were painted, especially one with a brown leg, a white leg, a black leg, and all the rest of him a combination of the three colors.
Clifton lingered at Guadaloupe because he was loath to leave the beautiful lonely place, and because the longer he stayed the stronger the lambs would be. Fortunately, he did not need to worry about grass and water. At first he would travel a day and then camp a day.
This planning somehow seemed to break his tranquillity, for when he once turned his steps northward, every step would bring him nearer to San Luis, to home, and to Virginia Lundeen.
But soon now he must return. The long two-month journey would seem short. Clifton pondered whether or not to give up this sheep-herding for Lopez. He did not like the thought of driving sheep near San Luis and Cottonwoods. On the other hand, however, he had grown to love both the flock and the free life in the open. At some future day he might accumulate a flock of his own.
The sheep range back of San Luis was open to automobilists and horsemen. He would always run the chance of meeting them, and that was not a pleasant anticipation. Clifton Forrest — returned soldier! One of the principals of the Lundeen-Forrest secret marriage! Cast off by his father! A herder of sheep! Divorced by Virginia Lundeen! He hated the idea of being the butt of such scandal. Especially the last! But for that certainty he might find the return bearable. Yet it was so utterly ridiculous for him to resent a divorce. What wild dreams he had entertained!
It was not conceivable
that he could stay away permanently from his mother. Not during her lifetime! That was the strongest magnet to draw him back. So there was no use to deceive himself with false hopes of avoiding the embarrassment which would result. Sooner or later he would meet Malpass again; and he did not trust himself. He was now physically twice the man he had been when he went to war. He felt like flint charged with latent fire.
He had no illusions about Virginia’s being permanently forbidden her father’s house. As soon as Lundeen came to his senses and found out Virginia was her own mistress, then he would implore her to return to Cottonwoods. Nothing else was conceivable. To be sure, he would insist that Virginia divorce her undesirable husband. And Virginia could purchase freedom from persecution by breaking this marriage. Clifton could not think these thoughts without discovering that the ghost of his old self hung upon his steps like a shadow.
As he and Julio had been the last shepherds to come to Guadaloupe, so they were the last to leave. Julio became anxious and alarmed. “Mucho malo!” he would say, pointing to the sheep and the north.
“Mañana,” always replied Clifton, and at last realized he must start on the morrow.
That night there happened to be a full moon. The air was almost balmy, like spring at home. The valley was flooded with silver light. Clifton could only force himself to leave by promising himself that he would come back. He walked under the cottonwoods, listening to the soft ba-ba of the lambs and the tinkle of the bells, and the music of water flowing over the stones.
He tried to gauge the change, the growth in himself, the transformation that had been wrought. But it was impossible. He recalled the war with only pity for those who had caused it and for those who had endured it. His late ordeal of physical agony seemed like a hideous nightmare, gradually fading. He conceived that he might one day think of it without horror. He confessed to himself that it was love of Virginia Lundeen as much as the magic medicine of the desert that had worked a miracle. They were inseparable.