by Zane Grey
Jean’s swift-roving eye reverted to the men, three of whom were absorbed in the greasy checkerboard. The fourth man was the one who had spoken and he now deigned to look at Jean. Not much flesh was there stretched over his bony, powerful physiognomy. He stroked a lean chin with a big mobile hand that suggested more of bridle holding than familiarity with a bucksaw and plow handle. It was a lazy hand. The man looked lazy. If he spoke at all it would be with lazy speech, yet Jean had not encountered many men to whom he would have accorded more potency to stir in him the instinct of self-preservation.
“Shore,” drawled this gaunt-faced Texan, “old Gass lives aboot a mile down heah.” With slow sweep of the big hand he indicated a general direction to the south; then, appearing to forget his questioner, he turned his attention to the game.
Jean muttered his thanks and, striding out, he mounted again, and drove the pack mule down the road. “Reckon I’ve ran into the wrong folds today,” he said. “If I remember dad right he was a man to make an’ keep friends. Somehow I’ll bet there’s goin’ to be hell.” Beyond the store were some rather pretty and comfortable homes, little ranch houses back in the coves of the hills. The road turned west and Jean saw his first sunset in the Tonto Basin. It was a pageant of purple clouds with silver edges, and background of deep rich gold. Presently Jean met a lad driving a cow. “Hello, Johnny!” he said, genially, and with a double purpose. “My name’s Jean Isbel. By Golly! I’m lost in Grass Valley. Will you tell me where my dad lives?”
“Yep. Keep right on, an’ y’u cain’t miss him,” replied the lad, with a bright smile. “He’s lookin’ fer y’u.”
“How do you know, boy?” queried Jean, warmed by that smile.
“Aw, I know. It’s all over the valley thet y’u’d ride in ter-day. Shore I wus the one thet tole yer dad an’ he give me a dollar.”
“Was he glad to hear it?” asked Jean, with a queer sensation in his throat.
“Wal, he plumb was.”
“An’ who told you I was goin’ to ride in today?”
“I heerd it at the store,” replied the lad, with an air of confidence. “Some sheepmen was talkin’ to Greaves. He’s the storekeeper. I was settin’ outside, but I heerd. A Mexican come down off the Rim ter-day an’ he fetched the news.” Here the lad looked furtively around, then whispered. “An’ thet greaser was sent by somebody. I never heerd no more, but them sheepmen looked pretty plumb sour. An’ one of them, comin’ out, give me a kick, darn him. It shore is the luckedest day fer us cowmen.”
“How’s that, Johnny?”
“Wal, that’s shore a big fight comin’ to Grass Valley. My dad says so an’ he rides fer yer dad. An’ if it comes now y’u’ll be heah.”
“Ahuh!” laughed Jean. “An’ what then, boy?”
The lad turned bright eyes upward. “Aw, now, yu’all cain’t come thet on me. Ain’t y’u an Injun, Jean Isbel? Ain’t y’u a hoss tracker thet rustlers cain’t fool? Ain’t y’u a plumb dead shot? Ain’t y’u wuss’ern a grizzly bear in a rough-an’-tumble? … Now ain’t y’u, shore?”
Jean bade the flattering lad a rather sober good day and rode on his way. Manifestly a reputation somewhat difficult to live up to had preceded his entry into Grass Valley.
Jean’s first sight of his future home thrilled him through. It was a big, low, rambling log structure standing well out from a wooded knoll at the edge of the valley. Corrals and barns and sheds lay off at the back. To the fore stretched broad pastures where numberless cattle and horses grazed. At sunset the scene was one of rich color. Prosperity and abundance and peace seemed attendant upon that ranch; lusty voices of burros braying and cows bawling seemed welcoming Jean. A hound bayed. The first cool touch of wind fanned Jean’s cheek and brought a fragrance of wood smoke and frying ham.
Horses in the Pasture romped to the fence and whistled at these newcomers. Jean espied a white-faced black horse that gladdened his sight. “Hello, Whiteface! I’ll sure straddle you,” called Jean. Then up the gentle slope he saw the tall figure of his father—the same as he had seen him thousands of times, bareheaded, shirt sleeved, striding with long step. Jean waved and called to him.
“Hi, You Prodigal!” came the answer. Yes, the voice of his father—and Jean’s boyhood memories flashed. He hurried his horse those last few rods. No—dad was not the same. His hair shone gray.
“Here I am, dad,” called Jean, and then he was dismounting. A deep, quiet emotion settled over him, stilling the hurry, the eagerness, the pang in his breast.
“Son, I shore am glad to see you,” said his father, and wrung his hand. “Wal, wal, the size of you! Shore you’ve grown, any how you favor your mother.”
Jean felt in the iron clasp of hand, in the uplifting of the handsome head, in the strong, fine light of piercing eyes that there was no difference in the spirit of his father. But the old smile could not hide lines and shades strange to Jean.
“Dad, I’m as glad as you,” replied Jean, heartily. “It seems long we’ve been parted, now I see you. Are You well, dad, an’ all right?”
“Not complainin’, son. I can ride all day same as ever,” he said. “Come. Never mind your hosses. They’ll be looked after. Come meet the folks…. Wal, wal, you got heah at last.”
On the porch of the house a group awaited Jean’s coming, rather silently, he thought. Wide-eyed children were there, very shy and watchful. The dark face of his sister corresponded with the image of her in his memory. She appeared taller, more womanly, as she embraced him. “Oh, Jean, Jean, I’m glad you’ve come!” she cried, and pressed him close. Jean felt in her a woman’s anxiety for the present as well as affection for the past. He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill’s wife, Kate, was a stout, comely little woman, mother of three of the children. The other wife was young, a strapping girl, red headed and freckled, with wonderful lines of pain and strength in her face. Jean remembered, as he looked at her, that someone had written him about the tragedy in her life. When she was only a child the Apaches had murdered all her family. Then next to greet Jean were the little children, all shy, yet all manifestly impressed by the occasion. A warmth and intimacy of forgotten home emotions flooded over Jean. Sweet it was to get home to these relatives who loved him and welcomed him with quiet gladness. But there seemed more. Jean was quick to see the shadow in the eyes of the women in that household and to sense a strange reliance which his presence brought.
“Son, this heah Tonto is a land of milk an’ honey,” said his father, as Jean gazed spellbound at the bounteous supper.
Jean certainly performed gastronomic feats on this occasion, to the delight of Aunt Mary and the wonder of the children. “Oh, he’s starv-ved to death,” whispered one of the little boys to his sister. They had begun to warm to this stranger uncle. Jean had no chance to talk, even had he been able to, for the meal-time showed a relaxation of restraint and they all tried to tell him things at once. In the bright lamplight his father looked easier and happier as he beamed upon Jean.
After supper the men went into an adjoining room that appeared most comfortable and attractive. It was long, and the width of the house, with a huge stone fireplace, low ceiling of hewn timbers and walls of the same, small windows with inside shutters of wood, and home-made table and chairs and rugs.
“Wal, Jean, do you recollect them shootin’-irons?” inquired the rancher, pointing above the fireplace. Two guns hung on the spreading deer antlers there. One was a musket Jean’s father had used in the war of the rebellion and the other was a long, heavy, muzzle-loading flintlock Kentucky, rifle with which Jean had learned to shoot.
“Reckon I do, dad,” replied Jean, and with reverent hands and a rush of memory h
e took the old gun down.
“Jean, you shore handle thet old arm some clumsy,” said Guy Isbel, dryly. And Bill added a remark to the effect that perhaps Jean had been leading a luxurious and tame life back there in Oregon, and then added, “But I reckon he’s packin’ that six-shooter like a Texan.”
“Say, I fetched a gun or two along with me,” replied Jean, jocularly. “Reckon I near broke my poor mule’s back with the load of shells an’ guns. Dad, what was the idea askin’ me to pack out an arsenal?”
“Son, shore all shootin’ arms an’ such are at a premium in the Tonto,” replied his father. “An’ I was givin’ you a hunch to come loaded.”
His cool, drawling voice seemed to put a damper upon the pleasantries. Right there Jean sensed the charged atmosphere. His brothers were bursting with utterance about to break forth, and his father suddenly wore a look that recalled to Jean critical times of days long past. But the entrance of the children and the women folk put an end to confidences. Evidently the youngsters were laboring under subdued excitement. They preceded their mother, the smallest boy in the lead. For him this must have been both a dreadful and a wonderful experience, for he seemed to be pushed forward by his sister and brother and mother, and driven by yearnings of his own. “There now, Lee. Say, ‘Uncle Jean, what did you fetch us?’ The lad hesitated for a shy, frightened look at Jean, and then, gaining something from his scrutiny of his uncle, he toddled forward and bravely delivered the question of tremendous importance.
“What did I fetch you, hey?” cried Jean, in delight, as he took the lad up on his knee. “Wouldn’t you like to know? I didn’t forget, Lee. I remembered you all. Oh! the job I had packin’ your bundle of presents…. Now, Lee, make a guess.”
“I dess you fetched a dun,” replied Lee.
“A dun!—I’ll bet you mean a gun,” laughed Jean. “Well, you four-year-old Texas gunman! Make another guess.”
That appeared too momentous and entrancing for the other two youngsters, and, adding their shrill and joyous voices to Lee’s, they besieged Jean.
“Dad, where’s my pack?” cried Jean. “These young Apaches are after my scalp.”
“Reckon the boys fetched it onto the porch,” replied the rancher.
Guy Isbel opened the door and went out. “By golly! heah’s three packs,” he called. “Which one do you want, Jean?”
“It’s a long, heavy bundle, all tied up,” replied Jean.
Guy came staggering in under a burden that brought a whoop from the youngsters and bright gleams to the eyes of the women. Jean lost nothing of this. How glad he was that he had tarried in San Francisco because of a mental picture of this very reception in far-off wild Arizona.
When Guy deposited the bundle on the floor it jarred the room. It gave forth metallic and rattling and crackling sounds.
“Everybody stand back an’ give me elbow room,” ordered Jean, majestically. “My good folks, I want you all to know this is somethin’ that doesn’t happen often. The bundle you see here weighed about a hundred pounds when I packed it on my shoulder down Market Street in Frisco. It was stolen from me on shipboard. I got it back in San Diego an’ licked the thief. It rode on a burro from San Diego to Yuma an’ once I thought the burro was lost for keeps. It came up the Colorado River from Yuma to Ehrenberg an’ there went on top of a stage. We got chased by bandits an’ once when the horses were gallopin’ hard it near rolled off. Then it went on the back of a pack horse an’ helped wear him out. An’ I reckon it would be somewhere else now if I hadn’t fallen in with a freighter goin’ north from Phoenix to the Santa Fe Trail. The last lap when it sagged the back of a mule was the riskiest an’ full of the narrowest escapes. Twice my mule bucked off his pack an’ left my outfit scattered. Worst of all, my precious bundle made the mule top heavy comin’ down that place back here where the trail seems to drop off the earth. There I was hard put to keep sight of my pack. Sometimes it was on top an’ other times the mule. But it got here at last…. An’ now I’ll open it.”
After this long and impressive harangue, which at least augmented the suspense of the women and worked the children into a frenzy, Jean leisurely untied the many knots round the bundle and unrolled it. He had packed that bundle for just such travel as it had sustained. Three cloth-bound rifles he laid aside, and with them a long, very heavy package tied between two thin wide boards. From this came the metallic clink. “Oo, I know what dem is!” cried Lee, breaking the silence of suspense. Then Jean, tearing open a long flat parcel, spread before the mute, rapt-eyed youngsters such magnificent things, as they had never dreamed of—picture books, mouth-harps, dolls, a toy gun and a toy pistol, a wonderful whistle and a fox horn, and last of all a box of candy. Before these treasures on the floor, too magical to be touched at first, the two little boys and their sister simply knelt. That was a sweet, full moment for Jean; yet even that was clouded by the something which shadowed these innocent children fatefully born in a wild place at a wild time. Next Jean gave to his sister the presents he had brought her—beautiful cloth for a dress, ribbons and a bit of lace, handkerchiefs and buttons and yards of linen, a sewing case and a whole box of spools of thread, a comb and brush and mirror, and lastly a Spanish brooch inlaid with garnets. “There, Ann,” said Jean, “I confess I asked a girl friend in Oregon to tell me some things my sister might like.” Manifestly there was not much difference in girls. Ann seemed stunned by this munificence, and then awakening, she hugged Jean in a way that took his breath. She was not a child any more, that was certain. Aunt Mary turned knowing eyes upon Jean. “Reckon you couldn’t have pleased Ann more. She’s engaged, Jean, an’ where girls are in that state these things mean a heap…. Ann, you’ll be married in that!” And she pointed to the beautiful folds of material that Ann had spread out.
“What’s this?” demanded Jean. His sister’s blushes were enough to convict her, and they were mightily becoming, too.
“Here, Aunt Mary,” went on Jean, “here’s yours, an’ here’s somethin’ for each of my new sisters.” This distribution left the women as happy and occupied, almost, as the children. It left also another package, the last one in the bundle. Jean laid hold of it and, lifting it, he was about to speak when he sustained a little shock of memory. Quite distinctly he saw two little feet, with bare toes peeping out of worn-out moccasins, and then round, bare, symmetrical ankles that had been scratched by brush. Next he saw Ellen Jorth’s passionate face as she looked when she had made the violent action so disconcerting to him. In this happy moment the memory seemed farther off than a few hours. It had crystallized. It annoyed while it drew him. As a result he slowly laid this package aside and did not speak as he had intended to.
“Dad, I reckon I didn’t fetch a lot for you an’ the boys,” continued Jean. “Some knives, some pipes an’ tobacco. An’ sure the guns.”
“Shore, you’re a regular Santa Claus, Jean,” replied his father. “Wal, wal, look at the kids. An’ look at Mary. An’ for the land’s sake look at Ann! Wal, wal, I’m gettin’ old. I’d forgotten the pretty stuff an’ gimcracks that mean so much to women. We’re out of the world heah. It’s just as well you’ve lived apart from us, Jean, for comin’ back this way, with all that stuff, does us a lot of good. I cain’t say, son, how obliged I am. My mind has been set on the hard side of life. An’ it’s shore good to forget—to see the smiles of the women an’ the joy of the kids.”
At this juncture a tall young man entered the open door. He looked a rider. All about him, even his face, except his eyes, seemed old, but his eyes were young, fine, soft, and dark.
“How do, y’u-all!” he said, evenly.
Ann rose from her knees. Then Jean did not need to be told who this newcomer was.
“Jean, this is my friend, Andrew Colmor.”
Jean knew when he met Colmor’s grip and the keen flash of his eyes that he was glad Ann had set her heart upon one of their kind. And his second impression was something akin to the one given him in the road by the admiring lad. Colmor�
��s estimate of him must have been a monument built of Ann’s eulogies. Jean’s heart suffered misgivings. Could he live up to the character that somehow had forestalled his advent in Grass Valley? Surely life was measured differently here in the Tonto Basin.
The children, bundling their treasures to their bosoms, were dragged off to bed in some remote part of the house, from which their laughter and voices came back with happy significance. Jean forthwith had an interested audience. How eagerly these lonely pioneer people listened to news of the outside world! Jean talked until he was hoarse. In their turn his hearers told him much that had never found place in the few and short letters he had received since he had been left in Oregon. Not a word about sheepmen or any hint of rustlers! Jean marked the omission and thought all the more seriously of probabilities because nothing was said. Altogether the evening was a happy reunion of a family of which all living members were there present. Jean grasped that this fact was one of significant satisfaction to his father.
“Shore we’re all goin’ to live together heah,” he declared. “I started this range. I call most of this valley mine. We’ll run up a cabin for Ann soon as she says the word. An’ you, Jean, where’s your girl? I shore told you to fetch her.”
“Dad, I didn’t have one,” replied Jean.
“Wal, I wish you had,” returned the rancher. “You’ll go courtin’ one of these Tonto hussies that I might object to.”
“Why, father, there’s not a girl in the valley Jean would look twice at,” interposed Ann Isbel, with spirit.
Jean laughed the matter aside, but he had an uneasy memory. Aunt Mary averred, after the manner of relatives, that Jean would play havoc among the women of the settlement. And Jean retorted that at least one member of the Isbels; should hold out against folly and fight and love and marriage, the agents which had reduced the family to these few present. “I’ll be the last Isbel to go under,” he concluded.