Collected Works of Zane Grey

by Zane Grey

  The death of Laigs Mason had changed Brazos Keene. He grieved for months, and when he got over that the boyish, fun-loving, devilish glee had apparently gone for ever. Brazos drank a good deal, and drifted toward that fiery, untamed, passionate spirit that had heretofore flared up only seldom and fleetingly. Nevertheless he failed in nothing else.

  The tragic end of Talman and Trinidad, as well as Mason’s, had likewise worked stern havoc in the devil-may-care minds of the other cowboys. A fatal carelessness which had once marked them almost totally disappeared. They gambled, they drank, they played tricks, but they were changed. They had become cemented in comradeship. Holly Ripple’s faith, the spell of Brazos Keene’s loss, the creed of Laigs Mason, the example of Renn Frayne — these laid their inscrutable and ineradicable hold upon their primitive minds.

  Best of all, and in spite of many adverse conditions, Holly Ripple was happy. Britt, stifling his conscience, hugged that to his bosom. As Holly’s twenty-first birthday approached, she grew lovelier than she had ever been, more of a woman, though still capable of girlish fits of temper and pouts of wilfulness. In those winter months, while confined mostly to the house, she had lost her tan and something of the robustness that had come with a summer’s riding, to gain again that pearl whiteness of face and black brilliance of eye for which her Spanish mother had been noted.

  Holly Ripple was happy. And Britt knew he dared take the glory of that fact to himself. He had betrayed Frayne’s secret.

  Britt often ruminated over the occasion of his faithlessness to Frayne. When he had an idle hour in the dusk beside the fire he often saw Holly’s glorious eyes of rapture in the heart of the coals. Frayne would know some day and bless him for it. He had played fair, he had kept faith as long as he could, and that had been until Holly’s beart was breaking. Weeks and months of Frayne’s strange aloofness, his cold, stem avoidance of her, his inexplicable reaction to that kiss of gratitude she had given him — these had at last paled her cheeks and shamed her into seclusion, and would have destroyed her but for Britt’s revelation.

  Christmas Eve he had found Holly alone, weeping before her fire, prey to the old memories of her father and to the hopeless despair of the future.

  “Holly lass, I have a Christmas gift for you,” he said, taking her hands.

  “Oh, Cappy — I — I don’t want — any gifts.”

  “Not anythin’ from me, or Brazos, or the boys?”

  “You are dears — to — to remember me — but I can’t care...”

  “Not anythin’ from Renn?”

  A little shock went through Holly, and the fire-bent eyes gazed up hungrily.

  “From Renn?” she whispered.

  “I reckon.”

  “Did he send me — ?”

  “No, not directly. It has come through me.”

  “I don’t want it, then,” she replied, moodily.

  “Wal, you can heah aboot it, cain’t you?” he went on, persuasively, his heart warming, stirring his courage to this momentous and dangerous revelation.

  “If it pleases you, Cappy dear.”

  “Wal, I’ll pull up this chair an’ set heah beside you.... Nice fire, Holly. Cedarwood burns so pretty. You see pictures in the coals. An’ it’s snowin’ oot an’ gettin’ darker’n the ace of spades. The boys air all in, comfortable as bugs in a holler log, an’ comparin’ the presents you gave them.... All except Frayne. He’s by the fire, lonesomer’n ever, with eyes you cain’t look into.”

  “Sad! Lonely! — He might be here — with me,” cried Holly, passionately.

  “So he might. Wal, if you still care, be patient.”

  “Still care? — It is killing me,” she murmured, hollowvoiced.

  “Holly, our friend might be rememberin’ his youth — a good home — a lovin’ mother — a nice sister. Shore he bad them once.

  ... Lass, I like the fight Renn’s makin’.”

  She did not answer, but her hands clung to his, and her head inclined to his shoulder.

  “Listen, lass.... Do you remember the day last summer when Frayne got back from Las Animas?”

  “Remember! It haunts me.”

  “You kissed him!”

  “Oh-h!” Holly let out a smothered cry. “How did you know?”

  “Renn told me.”

  “Oh — I thought better of him.”

  “Wait. I was on the lookout. He came down an’ I waylaid him. Renn was not himself. He was dazed. He was like a man between rapture an’ despair. Shore I took advantage of this weakness. An’ I pumped him, nagged him, till he told me you’d kissed him. He misunderstood thet, Holly. He reckoned you was jest grateful. But thet kiss wrecked him. An’ when I cussed him fer not carin’ aboot you — then I thought he was goin’ to slay me. His eyes were terrible. An’ it all come oot in a flood. Love you? Thet was nothin’ atall. He worshipped you. Aw, it was all there, in his white face an’ burnin’ eyes. Then he said: ‘Now I’ve got to go oot an’ get myself shot!’”

  Holly was on Britt’s breast, beating at him, hiding her scarlet face, crying incoherently: “Cappy — darling! — I — oh! — if you’re lying — it’ll kill me.”

  “True as gospel, Holly. He made me swear not to tell you. An’ I’ve kept it. Now be a woman. It’ll all turn oot right. This man Frayne comes from fine people. He has good instincts.

  Honour! Give him time, lass. Time to prove himself. Time to find himself worthy. Thet day he said if you ever kissed him again he’d fall on his knees. So you can bide that time, long as it may be. Always remember thet you can end it when you choose. Be happy, Holly Ripple — an’ wait.”

  Britt was off at dawn one May morning, bound for Grey Hill, to do some field-glass scouting for his own outfit.

  The morning was of that exquisite New Mexican kind which even the old dyed-in-the-wool Texan felt bound to admire. Frost-diamonds glistened on the sage and the blades of grass resembled spears of crystal. The air had an exhilarating tang, cold as ice, and sweet. The sunlight, coming from behind, and just up over the rim of the world, cast long grotesque shadows of himself and his horse ahead over the rippling sage. The cottonwoods along the creek showed a fresh green; the range was black and red with cattle; the hills sloped up bleached grey to the fuzzy dark summits; far off black timbers belted the mountains up to the dazzling snow. But it was the range that fascinated Britt — the lap of earth which the cowmen designated as rangeland — level reach on reach and rolling ridge, swale and coulee, the purple vastness on to the dim distance that was obscurity.

  At the ranch Britt had left Frayne, Jim, Tennessee and Flinty, Handsome Gaines and Rebel Sloan, all pleasantly engaged in keeping an eye on a herd working westward. The otber cowboys were out at the other end of the herd with a scout on the top of Grey Hill.

  Disturbing news had initiated this early season vigilance. A stage-coach driver, on the run from Santa Fe to Las Animas, had brought Britt some interesting reminders of the anticipated feud due Between the McCoy and the Ripple factions.

  McCoy, with some of his men, notably Rankin, had accosted Doane, the rancher, in Blade’s Saloon at San Marcos, and had shot him for alleged accusations reflecting upon McCoy’s honesty as a cattleman. “Somebody tell Cap Britt that he’ll get the same if he shows up in San Marcos,” McCoy had loudly proclaimed, standing with smoking gun before the spectators. And the stage-driver repeated another remark, untraceable, to the effect that if Renn Frayne did not untie Holly Ripple’s apron-strings from his neck and come to town like a man he might have to face Jeff Rankin on the porch of the Ripple bunk-house.

  Thus the opening gun of the season, fired at an unarmed and defenceless rancher, had to be chalked up in black against the McCoy-Slaughter faction. The cowboys had almost to rope Skylark to keep him home. Brazos rolled his gun with an incredible swiftness. The other cowboys, usually noisy, resentful, volatile, took the news in silence.

  Britt rode his fast bay at a swinging lope along the inside trail under the lee of the slope, watchful always. And
while he rode his mind was active. This information from San Marcos was three days old. With Russ Slaughter’s gang down from the hills, like wolves long famished, and McCoy’s outfit in town, it would follow as night the day that a cattle raid might be expected. Britt was well-nigh as eager for a rustler raid as his cowboys. The failure of other range cattlemen to side with Britt had given offence, and the gibes of the Slaugh-ter-McCoy riders rankled deep. In all his career as a Texas Ranger, as a Trail Driver on the Chisholm Trail, as a foreman of hard cattle outfits, Britt had never faced a crisis like the one impending. His Ripple band numbered some of the wildest cowboys and vaqueros Texas ever produced, and this did not count the outlaw and gunman Frayne. Brazos Keene was the only one well known to the New Mexico range, though Rebel Sloan’s coup the preceding fall had earned him notoriety. But as a matter of fact, Britt’s hard outfit had not been tried out. A hard reputation had to be sustained on the frontier. Britt knew the nature of his men. He knew that their tendency to drink, gamble, steal, to ride into town looking for trouble, to run true to their class, had been changed by the extraordinary relation Holly Ripple had given them to her and to the West. Therefore, the cattlemen and rustlers and the desperadoes of — eastern New Mexico had come to the conclusion that Cap Britt’s outfit had been over-rated. Certain it was that they would be tried out to the limit this summer.

  The trail Britt rode branched at Sage Creek, and the left fork wound up in the hills. He followed it to emerge on a long hog-back that dipped to a deep saddle, and then rose to climb Grey Hill. Britt rode two miles of open sage country, up and down, before getting on to the slope he wanted. As he had not been up there before he was not quite sure of his way. At length he espied a landmark he was looking for, a huge split rock standing alone, and from there he soon climbed to the cedars of Grey Hill.

  This hill was the highest of the lower foothills, and stood out somewhat isolated, projecting with steep grey bluff over the range below. It had been a favourite lookout for Apaches while waylaying the caravans along the Old Trail, which could be plainly seen, a white road winding over the grassy rolling land. Britt entered the fringy patch of stunted cedars. Presently his horse threw up its ears and whinnied. Britt soon espied a wiry mustang which he took to be Jackson’s. Dismounting to tie his horse, he went on. The cedars played out into scrubby brush, at the end of which he found the negro.

  “Boss, I seen yu comin’.”

  “Howdy, Ride-’Em. I don’t see how a jack-rabbit could get by you heah.”

  “He sho couldn’t. No suh.”

  “What’s doin’?”

  “A lot of bad things doin’, boss. A whole lot,” replied Jackson, rolling his big ox eyes. He wore a field-glass slung on a leather strap round his neck. He had one of the new -44 Winchesters, and packed his old Colt as well as the new one. And his belt was studded with brass shells. The black vaquero did not appear to Britt to be a desirable person to encounter on a lonely hill-top, unless he was friendly.

  “Ah-huh. Wal, Jack, let me ketch my breath before you knock me oot,” replied Britt.

  “Keep yu haid low, boss. Yu can set on my coat. An’ I won’t spliflicate yu till yu’re ready.”

  This vantage-point was the highest from which Britt had surveyed the range. The outlook was grand indeed. He could see across the tops of the uplands to the south and west, which had the effect of shrinking the range below into a three-cornered valley, in shape resembling the ace of clubs. Over to his right the Maxwell grant, consisting of a million and a half acres, resembled a purple sage flat of no great proportions. Cottonwood Basin was a speckled bowl, from which ran a green-lined thread of water. The thirty miles of Ripple range was a hollow in the hand of the vast scene. But the cattle appeared to be too numerous for the space.

  The perspective of this immediate valley, which appeared boundless from below, was distorted and reduced by the magnificence and enormous reach of New Mexico to the southwest. The day was clear and bright, rendering visibility perfect. Britt saw the arid breaks running down to the south, a wilderness that amply presaged the termination in the Llano Estacado, the Seven Rivers country, and the grey palisades of the Pecos, and farther around the Blood of Christ Mountains, until at length the great white wall of the Rockies loomed south of Las Vegas. Britt had full appreciation then of why New Mexico could graze so many cattle and hide so many rustlers. He made a promise to himself to fetch Holly up there and show her why her father had given up Texas for New Mexico. The strip of Texas here visible was desert, shining far down across the rugged black breaks. Britt disliked to prove traitor to his beloved state, but this vast land of fertile ranges, valleys, hills and plains could not be denied.

  Reluctantly the foreman wrenched his gaze from that glorious spectacle to cast it below, on the ten-mile grey strip between the hills and the creek. Cattle were thick down there, thinning out to the west toward the Basin, where in the dim haze they belted the grey with black.

  “Wal, Jack, shoot,” said Britt, finally.

  “Boss, I sho will, befo yu leave dis hill.”

  Britt flashed a sharp inquiring glance upon his black companion. Jackson had spoken casually, though with conviction. On the moment he had the field-glass fixed upon a point near where Cottonwood Creek sheered toward the hills. Britt saw dust clouds there.

  “I ben heah tree days, all de whole day long. Fust day two riders com oot from San Marcos an’ stop ober dere on dat yaller ridge. An’ dey watch till sundown.... Second day de same two com again, an’ dis time dey rode ten miles down de crick till I seen dem no mo. Bos, dey wuz scouts lookin’ out fer riders. An’ sho dey seen dem down whar our cattle is grazin’ thick.”

  “Ah-huh. An’ how aboot this mawnin’, Jack?” queried Britt, gruffly, as the negro paused.

  “Dere’s ten rustlers down dere inside de bend, roundin’ up a fat bunch of our steers. Plumb pertickler dey air, dis mawnin’, boss.”

  “Hell you say! — Where?”

  “Take de glass, boss.... Locate de bend of de crick. An’ den com oot dis way to dat green swale whar yu see dust pilin’.

  ... See dat black patch on de west side of de swale. Dere’s a low bluff—”

  “Got ‘em, Jack. Wal, by — !” interrupted Britt. “Of all the gall!”

  The clear magnified circle had showed successively the green border of cottonwoods, the shining pools and grey rocks of the creek, the rolling grassy levels and hollows, and then riders in couples driving cattle down to the natural corral where a goodly herd had already been collected. Britt swore under his breath, and moved the glass back over the same ground to make a count. The rustlers were working in couples. They appeared bold and unhurried. He counted four couples making the round-up. The distance was less than ten miles.

  “Thought you said ten riders,” said Britt. “I can locate only eight.”

  “Two lookouts, boss. One on dat little knoll above the swale, an’ the other a mile down on dis high ridge. Dat hombre is botherin’ Brazos, yu can sho bet yore last dollah on dat.”

  Britt was silent until he had located both scouts. Both straddled their horses in any way but that of tense and vigilant spies. The whole procedure had an air of a leisurely execution of well-laid plans.

  “Where is Brazos?”

  “Aboot half-way between de bend of de crick an’ whar dat fardest scout is forkin’ his hawse. Dey’s hid under de bank in dat clump of cottonwoods. Ben campin’ right dere dese tree days. I rides oot before sunup an’ rides in after sundown. Tree whole long days, boss. But de time is aboot up.”

  “Jack, air the boys all together in thet place?”

  “Sho. Dey’s bunched dere.”

  “Brazos — Skylark — Santone — Blue — Tex — Cherry — Mex?” muttered Britt, significantly. “An’ they’re waitin’ to see how many steers thet thievin’ ootfit will take an’ where they’d haid fer.”

  “Boss, not so much dat as gibbin’ dem time to tire oot dere hosses. I heahed Brazos plan dat. It won’t be long now til
l dem hosses will hev dere edge wored off. An’ Brazos’ hosses hevn’t run fer tree days.... Boss, if dat bunch don’t scatter like a covey of quail dey air gonna be snuffed oot pronto.”

  “Jack, they won’t scatter.... But if I was Brazos I’d bust loose on them soon. — I reckon, though, it’ll be better to let them line up fer the drive. Which way will they haid?”

  “We wuz bettin’ on dat de odder night. An’ I says dey’d drive square up under dis hill, same as dat McCoy ootfit last fall.”

  “Jack, you’re aboot correct, if we judge by the lay of thet swale. There’s low ground all the way to the hill — By George, thet would fetch them right heah.”

  “Boss, if any of dem rustlers run up dat draw dey’ll meet hell’n blazes at de top.’Cause Ride-’Em Jackson will be dere. He sho will!”

  “Jack, take the glass an’ swing round in a circle, far back an’ work closer.”

  “Nuttin’ dere on San Marcos side,” returned the negro, presently. And he gave a like report of a survey down the Cottonwood to the east. But when he searched the west he was so long in speaking that Britt grew suspicious and worried.

  “Boss, I seen riders come up oot of de crick way far ober. Behind dat scout on de ridge.... Den I lost ‘em.... Day didn’t ride like more rustlers. No suh! — Tree ob dem. Must hev dropped in a wash.... Dere! — Boss, I see Brazos on his white hoss. As sho as Gawd made little apples! — Two riders wid him. Cherry. I know his hoss.... Dere stealin’ up behind.... Boss, I’se sho sweatin’ blood. Brazos is cute. De idee is to rush dem rustlers from de souf an’ de west. Dey’ll make fo de hills, boss. An’ heah we is, waitin’, plumb chuck full ob bullets.”

  “I’m sweatin’ some myself, Jack,” agreed Britt. It was a wonderful and exciting thing to watch from this high hill, to know what the rustlers did not dream of, to wait for the charge and the fight. Britt had a grim sense of its deadliness.