Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  Consciousness gradually faded from Virginia. But though her sight was dark, that horror filled her ears and beat upon her brain, until she fainted.

  When she came to, the combatants were gone from the room. Jarvis lay with suggestive limpness. What had happened? She was too weak to rise. Had it all been a fearful nightmare? No — there was the man who had befriended her, prone on the floor.

  From outside came sounds of scuffling — then again her father’s roar, hoarser now, strangling in his throat.

  Virginia crawled across the room and out on the porch, and fell flat as if she had been deprived of movement. Yet she could still see what had paralyzed her.

  They were out on the trestle. Malpass’ right arm hung broken. In his left hand he held a short club which he was swinging ineffectually on Lundeen’s head, shouting maledictions in Spanish. Lundeen was not only being dragged, but he held on to Malpass like the grim death he meant and would not relinquish.

  There was a branch trestle leading across the ravine. Not improbably Malpass had sought to escape by this. His struggles indicated that. When he reached it, however, he could not shake Lundeen off. He beat frantically, weakly with the club, until it bounced off Lundeen’s head and flew out of his hand.

  Then they wrestled and fought all the way to the tottering end of the trestle. It was broken there. The floor consisted of a few beams on rickety poles. It shook and rattled under them.

  Malpass’ fighting ceased, all his efforts bent to escape. His shrill wild cries attested to the doom he realized. Lundeen dragged him down, like a wolf at a crippled deer, on the swaying verge of the trestle. He knelt on him, and bent his head back over a beam — farther — until there came sudden, horrible break in that stiff strain.

  Then Lundeen let go. Malpass slipped off the rafters and turned over to fall a hundred feet and thud soddenly on the rocks below.

  Lundeen peered down. His shaggy head bowed, his broad shoulders sagged and sank, and his legs flopped over the beam that sustained them. He slipped and it appeared he would follow his adversary. But the weight of his upper body held him there.

  Virginia got to her knees — then to her feet. Yes — he still hung there. How long had she watched? She held desperately to the porch post. They had destroyed one another. Awful retribution! She must keep on her feet — think of something to do. A gray cloud filmed her eyes — cleared away. There was an icy gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She could not unrivet her gaze from that still form on the trestle, hanging limp. What was the thin, shiny, dark stream dropping, wavering at the will of the wind?

  A groan freed her — quickened her. Jarvis must still be alive. She staggered back into the house — to the prostrate form — knelt beside it. He was living — conscious. He knew her. His lips moved, but no sound came. She thought he wanted water. His life might yet be saved. That thought lifted Virginia out of the abyss that had weighted her down.

  She picked up her coat, and putting it on, started out, needing the support of wall and door and the porch posts. Leaving them for the open road, she fell, but got up again. Action responded to her spirit. She could make it down to the car. And she dragged herself on.

  She was crawling again, dragging herself round a bend in the road, when the chauffeur’s cry roused her failing senses.

  “My Heavens, Miss, what’s happened?”

  “Murder! — But I’m all right,” she whispered. “Go quick...Up the road...Take water — whisky if you have it...The last — house — door open — one man — still alive — —”

  Then she slipped into darkness.

  Chapter Eighteen

  IT WAS A rare and remarkable phenomenon of nature that definitely decided Clifton Forrest to spend his life on the desert.

  At least this singular experience had clinched the matter. The process by which he had developed to such decision had been a long and gradual one, covering an extraordinary range of consciousness, from supreme agony of body to supreme ecstasy of soul. But it was sight of a comet or bursting falling star that at last won him forever to the desert and the lonely, free life of a shepherd.

  The incident happened on the night of the thirty-sixth day — according to Julio’s count — of their return trip from Guadaloupe Valley. Spring had come to the higher range, for this was in late April. They had reached the one dangerous stretch for sheep on all the long trail — a twelve-mile arid belt of lava, rock, and cactus, with only one waterhole, and that situated about halfway.

  Clifton and Julio had arrived there at sundown, after a continuous drive on a day as hot as any in summer. If it had been a wind-blowing, sand-and-dust-storm day, many sheep would have perished. But it chanced to be still.

  There had been no grazing that day, and for this reason the sheep were difficult to move. They strayed in search of something to nibble, and in that desolate region seldom found anything green which was not either poisonous or sharp. They bleated incessantly. The lambs also slowed the day’s journey. They tired early. Through all the hot hours Clifton and Julio had packed a lamb, and often two lambs, to give them a little rest. Some puny and exhausted ones they had to kill. It was hard, but the lambs could not be left behind alive, nor could the flock wait. The shepherds would carry this one, then that one, put it down to take up one weaker. So that when they reached the end of this most trying link of the whole long chain of days it was not a moment too soon.

  The thirsty, parched sheep baa-baaed and drank; the lambs tumbled into the water. Then many rested while the others went to grazing. The place was a wide hollow in black lava, through which a stream ran during the rains, and in dry weather clear pools remained in the deeper holes. There were grass and weeds enough for the sheep, but they had to be ranged for far and wide. The region was infested with coyotes, foxes, wildcats, which collected around a waterhole because of easy prey. There would be no sleep for the shepherds and their dogs that night.

  After supper Clifton had taken one side of the wide wash and Julio the other. The dogs were down among the sheep. Well those shepherd dogs knew their responsibility! The larger danger would be during the early hours of the evening, when beasts of prey were prowling about and sheep were ravenous. Ever and anon there would come a tiny bleat, wild and sharp on the air, suddenly quenched. That told a tragic story. One or the other of the shepherds always fired his rifle on these occasions.

  Clifton’s beat was a high wall of black lava, broken in many sections, resembling huge blocks of granite, mostly rough and difficult to walk over. He had to keep going all the time and maintain a vigilant lookout. A mile or more to the eastward this hollow closed, and here under the cliff there was always water, even during the anno seco of the Mexicans. Feed, however, did not flourish hereabout, because there was very little soil. The sheep would work up as far as this, and turn back, one bunch after another. Westward the hollow spread out into the bleak bare desert. Here was the greatest danger of losing sheep at night, because the opening was wide and rough.

  On the whole the shepherds were very fortunate, for the reason that the bad hours passed with little loss, and toward midnight the sheep, weary and sleepy, and fairly well fed, massed in an open spot.

  Clifton perched on a high section of the broken wall, in a seat he had occupied on the trip down. It resembled an armchair, and the only drawback was that it induced slumber. Julio was down among the flock with his dogs. Clifton could see the slight dark figure moving to and fro, seldom resting. Clifton had learned to love Julio. The taint of peon blood did not signify anything to Clifton. The lad was honest, simple, true; he loved the sheep and he loved the life. Many and many a time Clifton had caught him absorbed in contemplation of the heavens.

  Clifton had long ago learned to study them himself. But seldom indeed did he have opportunity at midnight.

  The night or the hour seemed portentous. There was no wind, yet Clifton heard a faint moan out of any direction to which he turned a keen ear. The rocks and blocks of lava still held the heat of the day’s sun. For some o
ccult reason the desert coolness had not set in. Clifton’s brow was moist; he did not wear his sombrero, and he sat on his coat. The metal of his rifle was hot to the touch.

  It seemed to him that the air was drying up. League-long strips of black cloud, strangely weird, lined the sky; and between them wan, pale stars shone. All objects near at hand looked opaque. There was an invisible mantle over the desert, and upon it pressed the sultry atmosphere.

  The season was early for heat lightning, yet far to the north, where the range heaved, fitful flares lighted the bold black horizon, and faded away, leaving an impression of the vastness of the desert and the infinity beyond.

  Suddenly Clifton became aware that the darkness was lessening. It amazed him. There was no moon. The clouds had not moved away across the sky to leave it open. Yet there was light all around. He heard Julio cry out to his saints.

  Then came a sound like the low rush of wind in high grass. It increased. So did the light. Clifton whirled to see the approach of a cornet or a falling star. He sat transfixed, with all functions but that of sight in abeyance.

  How inconceivably swift its flight, its brightening radiance, its strange increasing roar! All in a second the desert became whiter than a noon of the clearest day. The rushing body crackled like particles of dry splintering ice. It passed by, a blue-white streak like the air-blown molten iron in a blast furnace, leaving a diminishing tail as long as the distance it had come. Suddenly it exploded into immense blue-white stars that fell, faded, vanished. The long tail, like that left by a rocket, lived for a moment, paled and died.

  It was when Clifton recovered from this spectacle that his decision to remain on the desert crystallized.

  After the decision came his brooding, pondering thought. The desert had made him a thinker. Solitude and loneliness inspired the mind. Cities, people, noise were inimical to the harvest of quiet thinking.

  From midnight to dawn Clifton thought — of his boyhood, his early family life, his school days, his brief college career with its misadventure, the war. Of his travail, his love of mother, father, Virginia and his fight for their sake, of catastrophe — and then the desert!

  What he might be at this moment, of course, he owed to all that had happened; nevertheless, the desert and its thousandfold mysteries had been his salvation. He could never become a normal useful member of society as the thing was taught in school and business, and harangued from pulpits, from benches and editors’ chairs.

  He needed to sit down alone with the elements. What he had gone through had left no bitterness now, no hate, no unrest, no scorn for the selfish, the ignorant, the brutal. He had seen behind a veil, caught just a glimpse of the infinite from which man had come and where he must go.

  Clifton watched the gray dawn lighten. A rose bloomed over the eastern ramparts of the desert. Wisps of clouds grew shell-pink and burned to silver. Then a glory of red and gold stole over the lifeless reaches of the naked earth. He had eyes to see and a mind to think; and there the sheep bleated and the wide trail wound away. When he slid down from his perch he was whistling. It was good to be grateful, to have chosen irrevocably.

  On the march northward that day he saw Old Baldy stick a white, round dome up over the rim of the world. It had the unreality of a mirage — the illusion that it seemed soon attainable. But for days the strange blue medium between Clifton and the peak that loomed over his home remained the same. It was distance on the desert, and it had never deceived him.

  The closer Clifton came to San Luis the more proof he had of his tranquillity. Far back along the sheep-herders’ trail he had left that phantom of himself — the frail, suffering, tormented past. He had rebuilt his soul on the rocks of the desert.

  About the 1st of May the shepherds reached their permanent camp on the range behind Don Lopez’ ranch, a few miles back of San Luis.

  Julio had missed count of days, so that Clifton could only guess at the date. However, the cottonwoods said it was spring on the uplands and summer below. Clifton found cactus blooming and bunches of daisies. The sage appeared gray and forlorn after the long winter and needed rain that would come soon.

  The summer range for Lopez’ sheep consisted of valleys and ridges as far from Sycamore as the herders could graze the flock and get back the same day. Since the decline and almost total failure of cattle this range had been a boon to sheepmen. There had been snow during the winter, and the grass was coming out fresh and green.

  Sycamore was the name of the camp at the head of one of the large bottle-necked valleys characteristic of this region. Water flowed from a narrow gorge. A few distorted old sycamore trees, pale white and brown, with many dead branches, and green leaves just starting, gave the spot its name.

  The sheep knew they were home. Almost they rolled in the green grass. But they avoided the corrals and long chutes that led to the dipping-troughs. All except the lambs, and they had yet to learn of sheep-dip.

  Clifton liked the place well. Years before, with boys from town, he had come here to shoot rabbits. Cottontails were more plentiful now than then, which was owing to the depletion of foxes and coyotes.

  It was in Clifton’s mind to start a flock of his own, however small it might be. Lopez, after the manner of sheepmen, would sell that fall. Clifton had seven months’ pay coming, which, little as it was, would purchase a few sheep. He laughed at his wardrobe, which was on his back, a patchwork of his own mending. He would require a new outfit, for Sycamore was far removed from Guadaloupe. It would be fun, however, to let his mother — and anyone else, for that matter — see him in his present shepherd’s garb.

  Julio went singing away across the valley, taking the trail to San Luis. He was to stop at the ranch and report to Lopez, then go on to San Luis to see his people and return with supplies.

  Clifton remained with the sheep. They had made Sycamore early in the afternoon, and Clifton, meaning this camp to be his home during the summer, pitched his tent with an idea of permanence. Up the gorge there was abundance of cedar brush, some of which he cut for his bed. He built a fireplace, and packed down a quantity of wood. His tasks this day, however, were broken by desultory spells, in which he gazed raptly over the hill. Three miles from San Luis — five from home — six from Cottonwoods! Incredible! He could not keep from wondering, longing, hoping. These were emotions which must abide with him the rest of his life. He wondered about those he loved, he longed to see them, he hoped for their well-being and happiness.

  All afternoon he alternated between long periods of labor and short ones of idle speculation. But the sum of his work resulted in a most comfortable, picturesque camp.

  Sunset and evening star! Always different, always the same! He ate supper beside his lonely camp fire. Always the sheep-herder would be lonely, no matter where. The lambs were bleating, but the dogs were quiet. All was well with the flock. And with him.

  He went to bed early. The cedar fragrance in his tent was sweet, and he thought how pleasant it was to stretch out and lie still. He was not haunted by the proximity of kith and kin. And when, with the closing of his eyes, he dropped to sleep, it was not to be untroubled by dreams. Nor did the sheep-herder who walked all day in the open, in sun and wind, wake before the dawn.

  While Clifton ate breakfast, which was an apology for a meal, and later than usual that morning, the dogs set up a clamorous barking, so unusual that it startled him.

  He espied Don Lopez riding across the green flat toward his camp. Then a rush of blood throbbed to Clifton’s temples, which, slowly receding, left him cold. He had been absent seven months. A long time in the life of elderly people! Fateful and mutable lapse of days for a girl in her twenties!

  “Don Lopez!” he murmured, gladly, yet with reluctance. “He will tell me everything — if only I can understand him!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE SELFSAME HOUR that Clifton Forrest arrived at Sycamore that golden early May day, Virginia rushed out of the house, possessed by she knew not what. Indeed, she had been posse
ssed ever since she had taken up her abode in the old home where as a girl she had played and wept and dreamed her girlhood away.

  She could not stay indoors, despite the work that had fallen to her hands. The day was gorgeous, lovely, like one of the amber-tinted, white-clouded, pageanted June days in the East. The cottonwoods, fresh and thinly green with their new leaves, called to her in an unknown potent tongue. There was something in the air, beyond her ken.

  Virginia had been distraught for long, waiting for him she called her shepherd to come home. But it had been a wholesome counter-irritant. Only lately had the aftermath of the tragedy of her father’s end left her to take up the threads of the future she prayed for and dreamed of. Sorrow would always abide with her, and remorse. For though her father had been the tool of an unscrupulous villain, he had at the last been true to the blood of the Lundeens.

  Every day had been a little easier to bear. Summer was coming. It would not be long now until —— And she would try to still her aching, throbbing heart. Ethel would be coming soon — after what seemed ages of separation.

  She wandered restlessly under the cottonwoods, catching at the white thistledown cotton that floated from above, as if it bore hopes to clasp to her bosom. She kept out of sight of Jake and Con, who were working round the barn. She did not even glance out into the green valley where the last and best of her horses grazed. She sat by the irrigation ditch and trailed her hand in the cool clay-colored water that came sliding and gurgling along under the grassy banks. A few violets lifted wistful purple faces out of the green. She could not linger there long; the music of the water and the melody of birds grew unbearable. She dared not venture back into the garden, to that secluded corner by the broken wall where she had lured Clifton to ask her to marry him. She had gone there only once since coming to live here.