by Zane Grey
“Too old an’ tough, Fox,” explained the hunter to the anxious dog. But perhaps that was not all Wade’s motive in sparing him.
Once more mounted, Wade turned his attention to the burned district. It was a dreary, hideous splotch, a blackened slash in the green cover of the mountain. It sloped down into a wide hollow and up another bare slope. The ground was littered with bleached logs, trees that had been killed first by fire and then felled by wind. Here and there a lofty, spectral trunk still withstood the blasts. Across the hollow sloped a considerable area where all trees were dead and still standing—a melancholy sight. Beyond, and far round and down to the left, opened up a slope of spruce and bare ridge, where a few cedars showed dark, and then came black, spear-tipped forest again, leading the eye to the magnificent panorama of endless range on range, purple in the distance.
Wade found patches of grass where beds had been recently occupied.
“Mountain-sheep, by cracky!” exclaimed the hunter. “An’ fresh tracks, too!… Now I wonder if it wouldn’t do to kill a sheep an’ tell Bellounds I couldn’t find any elk.”
The hunter had no qualms about killing mountain-sheep, but he loved the lordly stags and would have lied to spare them. He rode on, with keen gaze shifting everywhere to catch a movement of something in this wilderness before him. If there was any living animal in sight it did not move. Wade crossed the hollow, wended a circuitous route through the upstanding forest of dead timber, and entered a thick woods that skirted the rim of the mountain. Presently he came out upon the open rim, from which the depths of green and gray yawned mightily. Far across, Old White Slides loomed up, higher now, with a dignity and majesty unheralded from below.
Wade found fresh sheep tracks in the yellow clay of the rim, small as little deer tracks, showing that they had just been made by ewes and lambs. Not a ram track in the group!
“Well, that lets me out,” said Wade, as he peered under the bluff for sight of the sheep. They had gone over the steep rim as if they had wings. “Beats hell how sheep can go down without fallin’! An’ how they can hide!”
He knew they were near at hand and he wasted time peering to spy them out. Nevertheless, he could not locate them. Fox waited impatiently for the word to let him prove how easily he could rout them out, but this permission was not forthcoming.
“We’re huntin’ elk, you Jack-of-all-dogs,” reprovingly spoke the hunter to Fox.
So they went on around the rim, and after a couple of miles of travel came to the forest, and then open heads of hollows that widened and deepened down. Here was excellent pasture and cover for elk. Wade left the rim to ride down these slow-descending half-open ridges, where cedars grew and jack-pines stood in clumps, and little grassy-bordered brooks babbled between. He saw tracks where a big buck deer had crossed ahead of him, and then he flushed a covey of grouse that scared the horses, and then he saw where a bear had pulled a rotten log to pieces. Fox did not show any interest in these things.
By and by Wade descended to the junction of these hollows, where three tiny brooklets united to form a stream of pure, swift, clear water, perhaps a foot deep and several yards wide.
“I reckon this’s the head of the Troublesome,” said Wade. “Whoever named this brook had no sense.… Yet here, at its source, it’s gatherin’ trouble for itself. That’s the way of youth.”
The grass grew thickly and luxuriantly and showed signs of recent grazing. Elk had been along the brook that morning. There were many tracks, like cow tracks, only smaller, deeper, and more oval; and there were beds where elk had lain, and torn-up places where bulls had plowed and stamped with heavy hoofs.
Fox trailed the herd to higher ground, where evidently they had entered the woods. Here Wade tied his horses, and, whispering to Fox, he proceeded stealthily through this strip of spruce. He came out to an open point, taking care, however, to keep well screened, from which he had a glimpse of a parklike hollow, grassy and watered. Working round to better vantage, he soon espied what had made Fox stand so stiff and bristling. A herd of elk were trooping up the opposite slope, scarcely a hundred yards distant. They had heard or scented him, but did not appear alarmed. They halted to look back. The hunter’s quick estimate credited nearly two dozen to the herd, mostly cows. A magnificent bull, with wide-spreading antlers, and black head and shoulders and gray hind quarters, stalked out from the herd, and stood an instant, head aloft, splendidly significant of the wild. Then he trotted into the woods, his antlers noiselessly spreading the green. Others trotted off likewise. Wade raised his rifle and looked through the sight at the bull, and let him pass. Then he saw another over his rifle, and another. Reluctant and forced, he at last aimed and pulled trigger. The heavy Henry boomed out in the stillness. Fox dashed down with eager barks. When the smoke cleared away Wade saw the opposite slope bare except for one fallen elk.
Then he returned to his horses, and brought them back to where Fox perched beside the dead quarry.
“Well, Fox, that stag’ll never bugle any more of a sunrise,” said Wade. “Strange how we’re made so we have to eat meat! I’d ’a’ liked it otherwise.”
He cut up the elk, and packed all the meat the horse could carry, and hung the best of what was left out of the reach of coyotes. Mounting once more, he ascended to the rim and found a slope leading down to the west. Over the basin country below he had hunted several days. This way back to the ranch was longer, he calculated, but less arduous for man and beast. His pack-horse would have hard enough going in any event. From time to time Wade halted to rest the burdened pack-animal. At length he came to a trail he had himself made, which he now proceeded to follow. It led out of the basin, through burned and boggy ground and down upon the forest slope, thence to the grassy and aspened uplands. One aspen grove, where he had rested before, faced the west, and, for reasons hard to guess, had suffered little from frost. All the leaves were intact, some still green, but most of them a glorious gold against the blue. It was a large grove, sloping gently, carpeted with yellow grass and such a profusion of purple asters as Wade had never seen in his flower-loving life. Here he dismounted and sat against an aspen-tree. His horses ruthlessly cropped the purple blossoms.
Nature in her strong prodigality had outdone herself here. Pale white the aspen-trees shone, and above was the fluttering, quivering canopy of gold tinged with green, and below clustered the asters, thick as stars in the sky, waving, nodding, swaying gracefully to each little autumn breeze, lilac-hued and lavender and pale violet, and all the shades of exquisite purple.
Wade lingered, his senses predominating. This was one of those moments that colored his lonely wanderings. Only to see was enough. He would have shut out the encroaching thoughts of self, of others, of life, had that been wholly possible. But here, after the first few moments of exquisite riot of his senses, where fragrance of grass and blossom filled the air, and blaze of gold canopied the purple, he began to think how beautiful the earth was, how Nature hid her rarest gifts for those who loved her most, how good it was to live, if only for these blessings. And sadness crept into his meditations because all this beauty was ephemeral, all the gold would soon be gone, and the asters, so pale and pure and purple, would soon be like the glory of a dream that had passed.
Yet still followed the saving thought that frost and winter must again yield to sun, and spring, summer, autumn would return with the flowers of their season, in that perennial birth so gracious and promising. The aspen leaves would quiver and slowly gild, the grass would wave in the wind, the asters would bloom, lifting star-pale faces to the sky. Next autumn, and every year, and forever, as long as the sun warmed the earth!
It was only man who would not always return to the haunts he loved.
CHAPTER XI
When Bent Wade desired opportunities they seemed to gravitate to him.
Upon riding into the yard of White Slides Ranch he espied Jack Bellounds sitting in idle, moping posture on the porch. Something in his dejected appearance roused Wade’s pity. No
one else was in sight, so the hunter took advantage of the moment.
“Hey, Bellounds, will you give me a lift with this meat?” called Wade.
“Sure,” replied Jack, readily enough, and he got up. Wade led the pack-horse to the door of the store-cabin, which stood back of the kitchen and was joined to it by a roof. There, with Jack’s assistance, he unloaded the meat and hung it up on pegs. This done, Wade set to work with knife in hand.
“I reckon a little trimmin’ will improve the looks of this carcass,” observed Wade.
“Wade, we never had anyone round except dad who could cut up a steer or elk,” said Jack. “But you’ve got him beat.”
“I’m pretty handy at most things.”
“Handy!… I wish I could do just one thing as well as you. I can ride, but that’s all. No one ever taught me anything.”
“You’re a young fellow yet, an’ you’ve time, if you only take kindly to learnin’. I was past your age when I learned most I know.”
The hunter’s voice and his look, and that fascination which subtly hid in his presence, for the first time seemed to find the response of interest in young Bellounds.
“I can’t stick, dad says, and he swears at me,” replied Bellounds. “But I’ll bet I could learn from you.”
“Reckon you could. Why can’t you stick to anythin’?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been as enthusiastic over work as over riding mustangs. To ride came natural, but in work, when I do it wrong, then I hate it.”
“Ahuh! That’s too bad. You oughtn’t to hate work. Hard work makes for what I reckon you like in a man, but don’t understand. As I look back over my life—an’ let me say, young fellar, it’s been a tough one—what I remember most an’ feel best over are the hardest jobs I ever did, an’ those that cost the most sweat an’ blood.”
As Wade warmed to his subject, hoping to sow a good seed in Bellounds’s mind, he saw that he was wasting his earnestness. Bellounds did not keep to the train of thought. His mind wandered, and now he was examining Wade’s rifle.
“Old Henry forty-four,” he said. “Dad has one. Also an old needle-gun. Say, can I go hunting with you?”
“Glad to have you. How do you handle a rifle?”
“I used to shoot pretty well before I went to Denver,” he replied. “Haven’t tried since I’ve been home.… Suppose you let me take a shot at that post?” And from where he stood in the door he pointed to a big hitching-post near the corral gate.
The corral contained horses, and in the pasture beyond were cattle, any of which might be endangered by such a shot. Wade saw that the young man was in earnest, that he wanted to respond to the suggestion in his mind. Consequences of any kind did not awaken after the suggestion.
“Sure. Go ahead. Shoot low, now, a little below where you want to hit,” said Wade.
Bellounds took aim and fired. A thundering report shook the cabin. Dust and splinters flew from the post.
“I hit it!” he exclaimed, in delight. “I was sure I wouldn’t, because I aimed ’way under.”
“Reckon you did. It was a good shot.”
Then a door slammed and Old Bill Bellounds appeared, his hair upstanding, his look and gait proclaiming him on the rampage.
“Jack! What’n hell are you doin’?” he roared, and he stamped up to the door to see his son standing there with the rifle in his hands. “By Heaven! If it ain’t one thing it’s another!”
“Boss, don’t jump over the traces,” said Wade. “I’ll allow if I’d known the gun would let out a bellar like that I’d not have told Jack to shoot. Reckon it’s because we’re under the open roof that it made the racket. I’m wantin’ to clean the gun while it’s hot.”
“Ahuh! Wal, I was scared fust, harkin’ back to Indian days, an’ then I was mad because I figgered Jack was up to mischief.… Did you fetch in the meat?”
“You bet. An’ I’d like a piece for myself,” replied Wade.
“Help yourself, man. An’ say, come down an’ eat with us fer supper.”
“Much obliged, boss. I sure will.”
Then the old rancher trudged back to the house.
“Wade, it was bully of you!” exclaimed Jack, gratefully. “You see how quick dad’s ready to jump me? I’ll bet he thought I’d picked a shooting-scrape with one of the cowboys.”
“Well, he’s gettin’ old an’ testy,” replied Wade. “You ought to humor him. He’ll not be here always.”
Bellounds answered to that suggestion with a shadowing of eyes and look of realization, affection, remorse. Feelings seemed to have a quick rise and play in him, but were not lasting. Wade casually studied him, weighing his impressions, holding them in abeyance for a sum of judgment.
“Bellounds, has anybody told you about Wils Moore bein’ bad hurt?” abruptly asked the hunter.
“He is, is he?” replied Jack, and to his voice and face came sudden change. “How bad?”
“I reckon he’ll be a cripple for life,” answered Wade, seriously, and now he stopped in his work to peer at Bellounds. The next moment might be critical for that young man.
“Club-footed!… He won’t lord it over the cowboys any more—or ride that white mustang!” The softer, weaker expression of his face, that which gave him some title to good looks, changed to an ugliness hard for Wade to define, since it was neither glee, nor joy, nor gratification over his rival’s misfortune. It was rush of blood to eyes and skin, a heated change that somehow to Wade suggested an anxious, selfish hunger. Bellounds lacked something, that seemed certain. But it remained to be proved how deserving he was of Wade’s pity.
“Bellounds, it was a dirty trick—your jumpin’ Moore,” declared Wade, with deliberation.
“The hell you say!” Bellounds flared up, with scarlet in his face, with sneer of amaze, with promise of bursting rage. He slammed down the gun.
“Yes, the hell I say,” returned the hunter. “They call me Hell-Bent Wade!”
“Are you friends with Moore?” asked Bellounds, beginning to shake.
“Yes, I’m that with every one. I’d like to be friends with you.”
“I don’t want you. And I’m giving you notice—you won’t last long at White Slides.”
“Neither will you!”
Bellounds turned dead white, not apparently from fury or fear, but from a shock that had its birth within the deep, mysterious, emotional reachings of his mind. He was utterly astounded, as if confronting a vague, terrible premonition of the future. Wade’s swift words, like the ring of bells, had not been menacing, but prophetic.
“Young fellar, you need to be talked to, so if you’ve got any sense at all it’ll get a wedge in your brain,” went on Wade. “I’m a stranger here. But I happen to be a man who sees through things, an’ I see how your dad handles you wrong. You don’t know who I am an’ you don’t care. But if you’ll listen you’ll learn what might help you.… No boy can answer to all his wild impulses without ruinin’ himself. It’s not natural. There are other people—people who have wills an’ desires, same as you have. You’ve got to live with people. Here’s your dad an’ Miss Columbine, an’ the cowboys, an’ me, an’ all the ranchers, so down to Kremmlin’ an’ other places. These are the people you’ve got to live with. You can’t go on as you’ve begun, without ruinin’ yourself an’ your dad an’ the—the girl.… It’s never too late to begin to be better. I know that. But it gets too late, sometimes, to save the happiness of others. Now I see where you’re headin’ as clear as if I had pictures of the future. I’ve got a gift that way.… An’, Bellounds, you’ll not last. Unless you begin to control your temper, to forget yourself, to kill your wild impulses, to be kind, to learn what love is—you’ll never last!… In the very nature of things, one comin’ after another like your fights with Moore, an’ your scarin’ of Pronto, an’ your drinkin’ at Kremmlin’, an’ just now your r’arin’ at me—it’s in the very nature of life that goin’ on so you’ll sooner or later meet with hell! You’ve got to change, Bellounds. No h
alf-way, spoiled-boy changin’, but the straight right-about-face of a man!… It means you must see you’re no good an’ have a change of heart. Men have revolutions like that. I was no good. I did worse than you’ll ever do, because you’re not big enough to be really bad, an’ yet I’ve turned out worth livin’.… There, I’m through, an’ I’m offerin’ to be your friend an’ to help you.”
Bellounds stood with arms spread outside the door, still astounded, still pale; but as the long admonition and appeal ended he exploded stridently. “Who the hell are you?… If I hadn’t been so surprised—if I’d had a chance to get a word in—I’d shut your trap! Are you a preacher masquerading here as hunter? Let me tell you, I won’t be talked to like that—not by any man. Keep your advice an’ friendship to yourself.”
“You don’t want me, then?”
“No,” Bellounds snapped.
“Reckon you don’t need either advice or friend, hey?”
“No, you owl-eyed, soft-voiced fool!” yelled Bellounds.
It was then Wade felt a singular and familiar sensation, a cold, creeping thing, physical and elemental, that had not visited him since he had been at White Slides.
“I reckoned so,” he said, with low and gloomy voice, and he knew, if Bellounds did not know, that he was not acquiescing with the other’s harsh epithet, but only greeting the advent of something in himself.
Bellounds shrugged his burly shoulders and slouched away.
Wade finished his dressing of the meat. Then he rode up to spend an hour with Moore. When he returned to his cabin he proceeded to change his hunter garb for the best he owned. It was a proof of his unusual preoccupation that he did this before he fed the hounds. It was sunset when he left his cabin. Montana Jim and Lem hailed as he went by. Wade paused to listen to their good-natured raillery.
“See hyar, Bent, this ain’t Sunday,” said Lem.