Shadow on the Trail

by Zane Grey

  Wade rode up over the Mogollon Rim and lost himself in the wonderful woodlands of silver spruce and scarlet maple and golden aspen, gloomed over by the great yellow pines. These woods were ranged by cattle herds, and riders Wade took care not to encounter.

  November found him tired of a meat and salt diet, though he was loath to leave that magnificent forest. He found a winter’s berth at Concha where he chopped wood and milked cows for an old widow woman who was glad to give him lodging.

  Spring came again. It had a trick of surprising Wade. He counted the seasons on his fingers. Five. Five years that seemed ages since he had taken flight with Simm Bell out of Mercer!

  “You’re one of them sad-eyed, trail-ridin’, guntotin’ cowboys,” averred the old woman, as he looked down upon her from his horse. “An’ it’s a pity. Such a nice sober quiet man! You should find yourself a woman an’ settle down. If you don’t, Tex Brandon, you’ll come to a bad end.”

  Wade rode into a country that fascinated so greatly that he often checked his horse and sat at gaze. One vista succeeded another, with all of Arizona’s multiple charms. Valleys of purple sage, watered by streams, bordered by pine forests yielded to a range of low foothills, grassy under the trees. Vast prairies of gray cedar flats stretched to the south, across which painted buttes and bluffs wavered in the air. Deep rock-walled, green-ledged canyons opened under his feet, from which the mellow song of waterfall floated upward. A wandering wall of purple rock held his gaze for long; spurs of red crags, like huge beasts, stood up out of the level. Dominating all was a group of white-spiked, black-belted mountains. And most illusive and calling of all was the vague mirage above the painted mesas, higher farther steppes of the desert, mystic and beckoning with their ghostly tracery.

  “Howdy, rider. Get down an’ come in,” was the cowman’s greeting, gray eyes scanning Wade from spur to sombrero.

  It was the open sesame of the range. There was no place to go in. But the invitation was obvious. The cowboys stood or squatted or sat about with steaming tin plates and cups. The cook, a jovial fellow of uncertain age, thrust upon Wade more food and drink than he had had in days. This outfit appeared to be a friendly one of half a dozen riders and the two older men. They looked prosperous. Boots and garb, pack saddles and saddles, chuck wagon and utensils,—all bore testimony to a rancher not out-at-elbows.

  “Have a smoke?” asked the boss, after Wade had finished a hearty meal.

  “Thanks. Don’t care if I do.”

  “Ridin’ a grub-line?” asked the other, with interest. Wade always made a good impression.

  “I reckon. But I can pay for what I eat.”

  “Never heard of that on an Arizona range. . . . Where you headin’?”

  “I don’t know. Just riding.”

  “Know this country?”

  “I should say not. If I had ever seen this country, I’d not have left it.”

  “Good!” laughed the cowman. “Yes, It’s God’s country. Just now rich in beef an’ long in rustlers. . . . What’s your handle, stranger?”

  “Tex Brandon.”

  “Heard of you, somewhere. From the Lone Star State, eh?’

  “Yes. But I’m not a born Texan.”

  “I reckoned that. Are you lookin’ for a job?”

  “Yes, if I could get on with a clean-looking outfit like yours.”

  “Sorry, we’re full up. Besides my boss is leery of these lone riders. He hires only boys he knows. Takes them young an’ raises them. . . . Let me see. You could get on with Driscoll. But his outfit razzes the devil out of any new rider. Mason’s foreman, Stewart, is hell to work for. Drill is always open, but pays poor wages. That leaves only Pencarrow an’ he can’t pay anythin’.”

  “Pencarrow?” repeated Wade, blankly. Then suddenly a bolt seemed to shoot back within his mind and memory trooped out with long forgotten names and places.

  “Yes, Pencarrow. He’s a Texan,” went on the cowman. “Salt of the earth. He dropped in on this range four or five years ago. He had plenty of money. Bought Band Drake’s place—a wonderful range. Finest view in Arizona. An’ he built a ranch house that hasn’t a beat anywhere. . . . Wal, before Pencarrow learned the ropes on this Cedar Range he throwed in twenty thousand head of cattle an’ a couple hundred fine hosses. He had the grass, the water, an’ he started big. Arizona shore gave Pencarrow a dirty deal. We’re all ashamed of it. But he never asked our advice or help. . . . They cleaned him. So now he can’t—”

  “Who cleaned him?” interrupted Wade.

  “Wal, the rustlers an’ robbers an’ hoss thieves. The Hash Knife got theirs. So did Bullon’s Diamond B. An’ every outfit of low-down riders in the country.”

  “You think Pencarrow would give me a job?”

  “He would, if you trust him for wages.”

  “I can ride and shoot,” said Wade, as if to himself.

  “Wal, you look it, Brandon,” returned the cowman, dryly. “But at that you haven’t the cut of a cowboy. You wasn’t bom on a hoss.”

  “I’m no good with a rope or following tracks, and I can’t cook worth a damn. But I reckon I’ll ask him anyhow.”

  One of the cowboys spoke up quizzically. “Stranger, how air you on milkin’ cows an’ diggin’ post holes an’ cleanin’ out the barn?”

  Wade’s affirmative elicited a merry laugh from the group. They liked Wade’s look and the simplicity that contrasted so markedly with it.

  “Brandon, you can tell Pencarrow I reckoned he might take you on,” added the cowman more seriously.

  “Thanks. And who’re you?”

  “I’m Lawsford, foreman of Aulsbrook’s three outfits.”

  “Aulsbrook! ”

  “Yes. An’ he’s another Texan, by the way.”

  Wade dropped his eyes to hide the flash that must have been there. What had his wandering ride led him to?

  “Has this cattleman—Pen—Pen—carrow, I think you said—has he any family?”

  “That’s the hell of it. He’s got a big family—the finest folk who ever came to Arizona. Good southern blood. Educated. Mother, grown daughter, boy and girl of fourteen. They’re twins. An’ two more born since Pencarrow came out here. An’ from ever ’ luxury they’re reduced almost to want.”

  “Tough!” ejaculated Wade, thoughtfully, as he tightened his belt, an action singular with him in that it preceded action. “Is the grown daughter married?”

  “No. But that’s not the fault of the range. She could marry any man jack of us. Fact is Jacqueline Pencarrow has upset this range. There’s been more fights over her than over stock. But she can’t see any cowboy or rancher. She’s devoted to her father an’ mother, an’ the kids.”

  “Lawsford, how can I find this Pencarrow ranch?”

  “Wal, let’s see. Squat down here an’ I’ll draw you a map. . . . Take a beeline across this sage flat. Go through that belt of timber, keepin’ straight for the bald-faced mesa yonder. Keep round that to the left. You’ll strike a canyon, runnin’ south. Follow along till you come to a trail. Go down, then turn an’ go up this canyon until it opens out. You’ll sure know when you get there.”

  “How far?”

  “Reckon close to thirty mile. You’d better lay out with us here tonight an’ then you could start early in the mornin’.”

  “That would be better. Much obliged,” said Wade, preoccupied with thoughts too swift and changing to be grasped.

  “Better let him go tonight, boss,” drawled one of the cowboys with a look of deviltry. “Because Ben here might tell him how tumble pretty Jacque Pencarrow is an’ thet there’s no show on Gawd’s green earth for a cowboy with her.”

  Wade said nothing. The blood beat in his ears. All at once he saw a ghost. A slim form under a shadowed tent—a light shining between the flaps—a sweet earnest face—and great dark midnight eyes!

  “Say, Ben, you tell us jest how purty thet girl is,” spoke up another rider. “I ain’t never seen her. An’ I’m powerful curious.”

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sp; “Hell, there ain’t no way to tell you thet. You gotta see Jacque Pencarrow,” declared Ben, evidently an unsuccessful lover still loyal. “But she’s tall, only not too tall. An’ what a shape! You never seen such laigs. I seen Jacque once in a ball dress. Shoulders, arms, neck all bare! Lovely, boys, jest lovely, an’ no sight for fancy-free cowpunchers, believe me. Her face is like no flower I ever seen, but it makes a fellar think of one. Red lips any man would die to kiss! An’ eyes—Aw! like starlit deep wells!”

  “Ben, you didn’t like Jacque much atall, did you?” observed the prompter of this eloquent tribute.

  Wade led his horse out upon the grass and removed saddle and bridle. He spread his saddle blanket and sat down to think. He lighted a cigarette that he did not smoke. It burned until it scorched his fingers, when he cast it away. Sunset, twilight, dusk passed while he sat there. The cowboys sang songs and told merry jests ; the hobbled horses thumped over the grass; coyotes yelped from the cedar ridges; and night came with its trains of stars.

  Pencarrow, Aulsbrook, the dark-eyed girl, never forgotten, had given rise to whirling thoughts out of which Wade at length achieved coherence and sanity. The latter thundered at him the cardinal necessity to ride on, never to risk being recognized by Pencarrow and Aulsbrook, never to let that dark-eyed girl see him. The instant realization did not result in instant decision. Something obstructed his reaction to intelligence. Pencarrow had never seen him and Aulsbrook would not recognize him. It did not matter if the girl did, though Wade preferred she would not. She had befriended him; she had been his good angel. And she was in trouble. Her father, a bighearted Texan, openhanded and trusting had been imposed upon by the riffraff of Arizona. His family was suffering because of that. Jacqueline—the grown daughter, Lawsford had called her—she was helping her father in his extremity.

  Suddenly there came a flashing light into Wade’s clouded mind. It shot clear across the perplexed field of his consciousness. Like a bursting thunderbolt clarifying the murky atmosphere it burned away the little thoughts and fears. He had found his place. This wild corner of Arizona had called through the years. The opportunity to pay his incalculable debt to Jacqueline Pencarrow had come. What her father needed was a man, keen, ruthless, incorruptible. Only such a man as Wade knew himself to be could cope with that lawless element. Wade had the answer to the old futile queries—why had he been born the son of a man not his mother’s husband? Why had he loved and cleaved to Simm Bell, robber and outlaw? Why had his life since boyhood been one of violence, flight, vigilance, hate and fear? Why had the footsteps of his horse led him to this Cedar Range? Why had he made that irrevocable promise to his father who had implored it with his dying breath?

  All blessings in disguise, he thought in exaltation. “All to fit me for this big job. All to make me a man. . . . All for that dark-eyed girl!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  WADE sat his horse on the canyon rim and tried to see clearly, reasonably, when he knew his emotions were at a higher and different pitch than he had ever experienced. He wanted to make sure that the color, the glamour, the glory of this wild Arizona was not illusion.

  The wonderful bright light came from a morning sun and a rarified atmosphere. But though they deceived him as to distance they were true to form and hue.

  All the way across the desert—for despite its warmth and luxuriance it was desert—Wade had been led by revealing steps from one beauty to another, each varying and increasing its charm, until he halted awed and rapt on the edge of this blue abyss that Lawsford had called Doubtful Canyon.

  Wade wondered at the name, which at first seemed rather ridiculous. How impossible to doubt its immense depth, its sheer red-gold walls, its hundreds of green-foliaged ledges where only eagles could light, its white cascades and shining pools, its murmuring melody of water and wind, its black dense thicketed floor, so far down, its many rugged-mouthed branching canyons, apparently as deep and large as the main one! Wade remembered Smoky Hollow back in Texas, which once had seemed such a safe retreat for robbers, and he smiled at the comparison. Smoky Hollow could have been lost and never found in Doubtful Canyon. But for its beauty, this gorge should have been called Centipede Canyon because of its many arms. This led him to the observation that all the branding canyons he could see were on the west side.

  Wade’s first calculation appraised the depth at over a thousand feet and the width more than a mile. But he did not trust his judgment. The Redwalled, blue-smoked rent in the earth grew on him the more he gazed. Then he began to understand why it was called Doubtful Canyon.

  But where was Pencarrow’s ranch? The Tonto Basin supported ranches, but interspersed among its gorges and ridges were many valleys and bare flats and meadows where grass grew abundantly. Wade could not see an opening in the timbered bottom of Doubtful Canyon, except where the winding stream shone.

  North toward the grand mountains, towering black and white above the desert, he discerned a broad belt of sage, of cedar, apparently level for many leagues, then gradually sloping to the irregular black line. He judged distance to the range, then multiplied it by three. Those calling mountains were over a hundred miles away.

  In that direction the canyon widened and at the same time climbed toward the open country. The stream and the walls and the timber had their source somewhere in that distance, perhaps in that wide jumble of purple rocks which bordered the broad belt of desert.

  Wade rode along the rim toward the south. When he could see the canyon, deepening, narrowing, thickening its rough features in that direction, he gazed spellbound. When the rough nature of the rim entailed detours he grew impatient to get back again, where he could look into the blue depths.

  At length he came to a trail leading down. It was well defined and evidently much traveled. But like most Arizona trails it was steep and rough, full of loose rock, and zig-zagged down weathered slopes that groaned and slid under his horse. It followed along the shady base of cliffs, dipped over descents where Wade had to dismount and sheered down and down to the thick forest of pines and maples.

  What had appeared level from the rim proved to be red hills and green swales, all supporting a dense growth of various kinds of timber. It was a dark cool fragrant jungle. The trail led into a large thicket that followed the stream in both directions. Wade turned to the north. The stream was really a river, clear, amber, eddying in pools, rushing among rocks, falling over ledges. Deer crashed into the brush; bear tracks crossed the trail; squirrels and jays scolded at this intrusion on their haunts. Every turn held a new surprise for Wade and when he came to a fan-shaped waterfall, from which the deeper note of falling water had arisen, he saw big dark trout lying along the pebbled bottom of the pool and all his pleasure seemed enhanced. The great sycamore trees gleamed white among the dark green; in sunny patches ferns and lilies and columbine nodded with the lazy floating of the air.

  Three times trails left the main one he was following to cross the stream. But he met with none that turned off on his right. The red rims which he caught sight of infrequently, towered far toward the blue sky. Long before Wade reached a gradual ascent, a climbing of the trail among huge mossy sections of cliff, he had succumbed to the beauty and fascination of Doubtful Canyon.

  At length a different kind of roaring stream arrested Wade’s attention. It did not appear to come from falling and rushing water. It had a strange boiling, bubbling sound. He climbed presently to a lighter part of the canyon, marked by fewer and larger pines and spruces, and a low fern-greened bluff. In another moment the trail led out upon a gigantic pool from which came that strange gurgling sound. The stream ended there. This gigantic pool was a spring, fifty feet wide, clear as crystal, mirroring the trees and the rocks and boiling, bubbling in glorious abundance from under the bluff. This fountain, with its margin of ferns and flowers and mossy rocks, its leaping amber-glancing outlet, its green canopy of foliage pierced by rays of sun and gleam of blue, took precedence in Wade’s memory over all other beautiful places he had see
n.

  He rode on and up. The trail divided, the right leading higher toward a no-longer-visible rim, the left winding gradually into open parklike country where straggling pines and gray rocks vied with purple sage flats, and timbered knolls led Wade’s gaze out across the rolling grassy range toward the magnificent peaks. He had emerged from Doubtful Canyon and this must be Pencarrow’s range. It satisfied even Wade’s avid anticipations. And presently when he crossed a brook and rode around a clump of trees, horses appeared in the fields and he espied a long, yellow log cabin set among straggling pines on a low knoll, with the compelling panorama beyond.

  The sun hung overhead5 white ships of clouds sailed the blue; the desert brooded; a sage-sweet tang pervaded the air. But these did not overwhelm Wade. He sensed out of the elements a claim that no other place had ever made on him.

  All that the past had taught Wade would be called upon here at the scene of Pencarrow’s folly and ruin. There must be no half measures, no reluctance to employ a ruthless hand. Nothing but submission to his few gifts—an intuitive recognition of evil thought and nature in men, a clairvoyant and magnifying eye, a terrible skill with guns!

  Wade settled that while he gazed upon this run-down ranch, still showing signs of past munificence. All the multiple and unknown angles of the Pencarrow tragedy must come with time. Wade’s incentive was great. It equalled the vow to his father. In those moments of slow riding toward the ranch house Wade felt the last bolt of culminating change with which the years had rent him.

  He reached the knoll. A gravel road circled it and climbed it at both front and back. To the rear, out among the scattered pines, had been erected a bewildering array of sheds, cribs, corrals dominated by a huge barn opening with wide doors through the middle. Wade followed the road toward the front.

  It developed that this side of the knoll sloped but slightly and boasted open grassy lawn to the very sage. A wide porch ran the length of the front of the ranch house. Saddled horses stood bridles down. Harsh angry voices greeted Wade’s eager ears. A white-haired man with gestures in which Wade read passion and despair, faced booted and belted riders, several of whose lean, taut forms and bent hawklike heads brought instant corroboration of Lawsford’s story.