by Zane Grey
“I went to Oregon. There I married soon, an’ there Bill an’ Guy were born. Their mother did not live long. An’ next I married your mother, Jean. She had some Indian blood, which, for all I could see, made her only the finer. She was a wonderful woman an’ gave me the only happiness I ever knew. You remember her, of course, an’ those home days in Oregon. I reckon I made another great blunder when I moved to Arizona. But the cattle country had always called me. I had heard of this wild Tonto Basin an’ how Texans were settlin’ there. An’ Jim Blaisdell sent me word to come—that this shore was a garden spot of the West. Wal, it is. An’ your mother was gone—
“Three years ago Lee Jorth drifted into the Tonto. An’, strange to me, along aboot a year or so after his comin’ the Hash Knife Gang rode up from Texas. Jorth went in for raisin’ sheep. Along with some other sheepmen he lives up in the Rim canyons. Somewhere back in the wild brakes is the hidin’ place of the Hash Knife Gang. Nobody but me, I reckon, associates Colonel Jorth, as he’s called, with Daggs an’ his gang. Maybe Blaisdell an’ a few others have a hunch. But that’s no matter. As a sheepman Jorth has a legitimate grievance with the cattlemen. But what could be settled by a square consideration for the good of all an’ the future Jorth will never settle. He’ll never settle because he is now no longer an honest man. He’s in with Daggs. I cain’t prove this, son, but I know it. I saw it in Jorth’s face when I met him that day with Greaves. I saw more. I shore saw what he is up to. He’d never meet me at an even break. He’s dead set on usin’ this sheep an’ cattle feud to ruin my family an’ me, even as I ruined him. But he means more, Jean. This will be a war between Texans, an’ a bloody war. There are bad men in this Tonto—some of the worst that didn’t get shot in Texas. Jorth will have some of these fellows…. Now, are we goin’ to wait to be sheeped off our range an’ to be murdered from ambush?”
“No, we are not,” replied Jean, quietly.
“Wal, come down to the house,” said the rancher, and led the way without speaking until he halted by the door. There he placed his finger on a small hole in the wood at about the height of a man’s head. Jean saw it was a bullet hole and that a few gray hairs stuck to its edges. The rancher stepped closer to the door-post, so that his head was within an inch of the wood. Then he looked at Jean with eyes in which there glinted dancing specks of fire, like wild sparks.
“Son, this sneakin’ shot at me was made three mawnin’s ago. I recollect movin’ my haid just when I heard the crack of a rifle. Shore was surprised. But I got inside quick.”
Jean scarcely heard the latter part of this speech. He seemed doubled up inwardly, in hot and cold convulsions of changing emotion. A terrible hold upon his consciousness was about to break and let go. The first shot had been fired and he was an Isbel. Indeed, his father had made him ten times an Isbel. Blood was thick. His father did not speak to dull ears. This strife of rising tumult in him seemed the effect of years of calm, of peace in the woods, of dreamy waiting for he knew not what. It was the passionate primitive life in him that had awakened to the call of blood ties.
“That’s aboot all, son,” concluded the rancher. “You understand now why I feel they’re goin’ to kill me. I feel it heah.” With solemn gesture he placed his broad hand over his heart. “An’, Jean, strange whispers come to me at night. It seems like your mother was callin’ or tryin’ to warn me. I cain’t explain these queer whispers. But I know what I know.”
“Jorth has his followers. You must have yours,” replied Jean, tensely.
“Shore, son, an’ I can take my choice of the best men heah,” replied the rancher, with pride. “But I’ll not do that. I’ll lay the deal before them an’ let them choose. I reckon it’ll not be a long-winded fight. It’ll be short an bloody, after the way of Texans. I’m lookin’ to you, Jean, to see that an Isbel is the last man!”
“My God—dad! is there no other way? Think of my sister Ann—of my brothers’ wives—of—of other women! Dad, these damned Texas feuds are cruel, horrible!” burst out Jean, in passionate protest.
“Jean, would it be any easier for our women if we let these men shoot us down in cold blood?”
“Oh no—no, I see, there’s no hope of—of…. But, dad, I wasn’t thinkin’ about myself. I don’t care. Once started I’ll—I’ll be what you bragged I was. Only it’s so hard to-to give in.”
Jean leaned an arm against the side of the cabin and, bowing his face over it, he surrendered to the irresistible contention within his breast. And as if with a wrench that strange inward hold broke. He let down. He went back. Something that was boyish and hopeful—and in its place slowly rose the dark tide of his inheritance, the savage instinct of self-preservation bequeathed by his Indian mother, and the fierce, feudal blood lust of his Texan father.
Then as he raised himself, gripped by a sickening coldness in his breast, he remembered Ellen Jorth’s face as she had gazed dreamily down off the Rim—so soft, so different, with tremulous lips, sad, musing, with far-seeing stare of dark eyes, peering into the unknown, the instinct of life still unlived. With confused vision and nameless pain Jean thought of her.
“Dad, it’s hard on—the—the young folks,” he said, bitterly. “The sins of the father, you know. An’ the other side. How about Jorth? Has he any children?”
What a curious gleam of surprise and conjecture Jean encountered in his father’s gaze!
“He has a daughter. Ellen Jorth. Named after her mother. The first time I saw Ellen Jorth I thought she was a ghost of the girl I had loved an’ lost. Sight of her was like a blade in my side. But the looks of her an’ what she is—they don’t gibe. Old as I am, my heart—Bah! Ellen Jorth is a damned hussy!”
Jean Isbel went off alone into the cedars. Surrender and resignation to his father’s creed should have ended his perplexity and worry. His instant and burning resolve to be as his father had represented him should have opened his mind to slow cunning, to the craft of the Indian, to the development of hate. But there seemed to be an obstacle. A cloud in the way of vision. A face limned on his memory.
Those damning words of his father’s had been a shock—how little or great he could not tell. Was it only a day since he had met Ellen Jorth? What had made all the difference? Suddenly like a breath the fragrance of her hair came back to him. Then the sweet coolness of her lips! Jean trembled. He looked around him as if he were pursued or surrounded by eyes, by instincts, by fears, by incomprehensible things.
“Ahuh! That must be what ails me,” he muttered. “The look of her—an’ that kiss—they’ve gone hard me. I should never have stopped to talk. An’ I’m to kill her father an’ leave her to God knows what.”
Something was wrong somewhere. Jean absolutely forgot that within the hour he had pledged his manhood, his life to a feud which could be blotted out only in blood. If he had understood himself he would have realized that the pledge was no more thrilling and unintelligible in its possibilities than this instinct which drew him irresistibly.
“Ellen Jorth! So—my dad calls her a damned hussy! So—that explains the—the way she acted—why she never hit me when I kissed her. An’ her words, so easy an’ cool-like. Hussy? That means she’s bad—bad! Scornful of me—maybe disappointed because my kiss was innocent! It was, I swear. An’ all she said: ‘Oh, I’ve been kissed before.’”
Jean grew furious with himself for the spreading of a new sensation in his breast that seemed now to ache. Had he become infatuated, all in a day, with this Ellen Jorth? Was he jealous of the men who had the privilege of her kisses? No! But his reply was hot with shame, with uncertainty. The thing that seemed wrong was outside of himself. A blunder was no crime. To be attracted by a pretty girl in the woods—to yield to an impulse was no disgrace, nor wrong. He had been foolish over a girl before, though not to such a rash extent. Ellen Jorth had stuck in his consciousness, and with her a sense of regret.
Then swiftly rang his father’s bitter words, the revealing: “But the looks of her an’ what she is—they don’
t gibe!” In the import of these words hid the meaning of the wrong that troubled him. Broodingly he pondered over them.
“The looks of her. Yes, she was pretty. But it didn’t dawn on me at first. I—I was sort of excited. I liked to look at her, but didn’t think.” And now consciously her face was called up, infinitely sweet and more impelling for the deliberate memory. Flash of brown skin, smooth and clear; level gaze of dark, wide eyes, steady, bold, unseeing; red curved lips, sad and sweet; her strong, clean, fine face rose before Jean, eager and wistful one moment, softened by dreamy musing thought, and the next stormily passionate, full of hate, full of longing, but the more mysterious and beautiful.
“She looks like that, but she’s bad,” concluded Jean, with bitter finality. “I might have fallen in love with Ellen Jorth if—if she’d been different.”
But the conviction forced upon Jean did not dispel the haunting memory of her face nor did it wholly silence the deep and stubborn voice of his consciousness. Later that afternoon he sought a moment with his sister.
“Ann, did you ever meet Ellen Jorth?” he asked.
“Yes, but not lately,” replied Ann.
“Well, I met her as I was ridin’ along yesterday. She was herdin’ sheep,” went on Jean, rapidly. “I asked her to show me the way to the Rim. An’ she walked with me a mile or so. I can’t say the meetin’ was not interestin’, at least to me…. Will you tell me what you know about her?”
“Sure, Jean,” replied his sister, with her dark eyes fixed wonderingly and kindly on his troubled face. “I’ve heard a great deal, but in this Tonto Basin I don’t believe all I hear. What I know I’ll tell you. I first met Ellen Jorth two years ago. We didn’t know each other’s names then. She was the prettiest girl I ever saw. I liked her. She liked me. She seemed unhappy. The next time we met was at a round-up. There were other girls with me and they snubbed her. But I left them and went around with her. That snub cut her to the heart. She was lonely. She had no friends. She talked about herself—how she hated the people, but loved Arizona. She had nothin’ fit to wear. I didn’t need to be told that she’d been used to better things. Just when it looked as if we were goin’ to be friends she told me who she was and asked me my name. I told her. Jean, I couldn’t have hurt her more if I’d slapped her face. She turned white. She gasped. And then she ran off. The last time I saw her was about a year ago. I was ridin’ a short-cut trail to the ranch where a friend lived. And I met Ellen Jorth ridin’ with a man I’d never seen. The trail was overgrown and shady. They were ridin’ close and didn’t see me right off. The man had his arm round her. She pushed him away. I saw her laugh. Then he got hold of her again and was kissin’ her when his horse shied at sight of mine. They rode by me then. Ellen Jorth held her head high and never looked at me.”
“Ann, do you think she’s a bad girl?” demanded Jean, bluntly.
“Bad? Oh, Jean!” exclaimed Ann, in surprise and embarrassment.
“Dad said she was a damned hussy.”
“Jean, dad hates the Jorths.”
“Sister, I’m askin’ you what you think of Ellen Jorth. Would you be friends with her if you could?”
“Yes.”
“Then you don’t believe she’s bad.”
“No. Ellen Jorth is lonely, unhappy. She has no mother. She lives alone among rough men. Such a girl can’t keep men from handlin’ her and kissin’ her. Maybe she’s too free. Maybe she’s wild. But she’s honest, Jean. You can trust a woman to tell. When she rode past me that day her face was white and proud. She was a Jorth and I was an Isbel. She hated herself—she hated me. But no bad girl could look like that. She knows what’s said of her all around the valley. But she doesn’t care. She’d encourage gossip.”
“Thank you, Ann,” replied Jean, huskily. “Please keep this—this meetin’ of mine with her all to yourself, won’t you?”
“Why, Jean, of course I will.”
Jean wandered away again, peculiarly grateful to Ann for reviving and upholding something in him that seemed a wavering part of the best of him—a chivalry that had demanded to be killed by judgment of a righteous woman. He was conscious of an uplift, a gladdening of his spirit. Yet the ache remained. More than that, he found himself plunged deeper into conjecture, doubt. Had not the Ellen Jorth incident ended? He denied his father’s indictment of her and accepted the faith of his sister. “Reckon that’s aboot all, as dad says,” he soliloquized. Yet was that all? He paced under the cedars. He watched the sun set. He listened to the coyotes. He lingered there after the call for supper; until out of the tumult of his conflicting emotions and ponderings there evolved the staggering consciousness that he must see Ellen Jorth again.
CHAPTER IV
Ellen Jorth hurried back into the forest, hotly resentful of the accident that had thrown her in contact with an Isbel.
Disgust filled her—disgust that she had been amiable to a member of the hated family that had ruined her father. The surprise of this meeting did not come to her while she was under the spell of stronger feeling. She walked under the trees, swiftly, with head erect, looking straight before her, and every step seemed a relief.
Upon reaching camp, her attention was distracted from herself. Pepe, the Mexican boy, with the two shepherd dogs, was trying to drive sheep into a closer bunch to save the lambs from coyotes. Ellen loved the fleecy, tottering little lambs, and at this season she hated all the prowling beast of the forest. From this time on for weeks the flock would be besieged by wolves, lions, bears, the last of which were often bold and dangerous. The old grizzlies that killed the ewes to eat only the milk-bags were particularly dreaded by Ellen. She was a good shot with a rifle, but had orders from her father to let the bears alone. Fortunately, such sheep-killing bears were but few, and were left to be hunted by men from the ranch. Mexican sheep herders could not be depended upon to protect their flocks from bears. Ellen helped Pepe drive in the stragglers, and she took several shots at coyotes skulking along the edge of the brush. The open glade in the forest was favorable for herding the sheep at night, and the dogs could be depended upon to guard the flock, and in most cases to drive predatory beasts away.
After this task, which brought the time to sunset, Ellen had supper to cook and eat. Darkness came, and a cool night wind set in. Here and there a lamb bleated plaintively. With her work done for the day, Ellen sat before a ruddy camp fire, and found her thoughts again centering around the singular adventure that had befallen her. Disdainfully she strove to think of something else. But there was nothing that could dispel the interest of her meeting with Jean Isbel. Thereupon she impatiently surrendered to it, and recalled every word and action which she could remember. And in the process of this meditation she came to an action of hers, recollection of which brought the blood tingling to her neck and cheeks, so unusually and burningly that she covered them with her hands. “What did he think of me?” she mused, doubtfully. It did not matter what he thought, but she could not help wondering. And when she came to the memory of his kiss she suffered more than the sensation of throbbing scarlet cheeks. Scornfully and bitterly she burst out, “Shore he couldn’t have thought much good of me.”
The half hour following this reminiscence was far from being pleasant. Proud, passionate, strong-willed Ellen Jorth found herself a victim of conflicting emotions. The event of the day was too close. She could not understand it. Disgust and disdain and scorn could not make this meeting with Jean Isbel as if it had never been. Pride could not efface it from her mind. The more she reflected, the harder she tried to forget, the stronger grew a significance of interest. And when a hint of this dawned upon her consciousness she resented it so forcibly that she lost her temper, scattered the camp fire, and went into the little teepee tent to roll in her blankets.
Thus settled snug and warm for the night, with a shepherd dog curled at the opening of her tent, she shut her eyes and confidently bade sleep end her perplexities. But sleep did not come at her invitation. She found herself wide awake, keenly sensit
ive to the sputtering of the camp fire, the tinkling of bells on the rams, the bleating of lambs, the sough of wind in the pines, and the hungry sharp bark of coyotes off in the distance. Darkness was no respecter of her pride. The lonesome night with its emphasis of solitude seemed to induce clamoring and strange thoughts, a confusing ensemble of all those that had annoyed her during the daytime. Not for long hours did sheer weariness bring her to slumber.
Ellen awakened late and failed of her usual alacrity. Both Pepe and the shepherd dog appeared to regard her with surprise and solicitude. Ellen’s spirit was low this morning; her blood ran sluggishly; she had to fight a mournful tendency to feel sorry for herself. And at first she was not very successful. There seemed to be some kind of pleasure in reveling in melancholy which her common sense told her had no reason for existence. But states of mind persisted in spite of common sense.
“Pepe, when is Antonio comin’ back?” she asked.
The boy could not give her a satisfactory answer. Ellen had willingly taken the sheep herder’s place for a few days, but now she was impatient to go home. She looked down the green-and-brown aisles of the forest until she was tired. Antonio did not return. Ellen spent the day with the sheep; and in the manifold task of caring for a thousand new-born lambs she forgot herself. This day saw the end of lambing-time for that season. The forest resounded to a babel of baas and bleats. When night came she was glad to go to bed, for what with loss of sleep, and weariness she could scarcely keep her eyes open.
The following morning she awakened early, bright, eager, expectant, full of bounding life, strangely aware of the beauty and sweetness of the scented forest, strangely conscious of some nameless stimulus to her feelings.
Not long was Ellen in associating this new and delightful variety of sensations with the fact that Jean Isbel had set today for his ride up to the Rim to see her. Ellen’s joyousness fled; her smiles faded. The spring morning lost its magic radiance.