Shadow on the Trail

by Zane Grey

  “Brandon, I’m ashamed to admit thet I cain’t pay my bills in town let alone wages,” said the rancher.

  “Never mind wages,” rejoined Wade, hastily. “I’ve saved a little money. I had good luck at Tombstone. Struck a rich gold pocket and dug up a few thousand. Then I was forced off my claim. I gambled a little—and won. I’ll lend that money to you.”

  “See heah, Brandon. The boot is on the other foot now. You don’t know me,” said Pencarrow, red in the face, and visibly agitated.

  “Mr. Brandon!” exclaimed Jacqueline. “How could we accept anything like that!”

  “You must be the judge of that. But give me a little chance— a little time. Shooting those two hombres was no particular recommendation for me.”

  “Brandon, you just came heah—a wanderin’ rider, eh?” queried the rancher. “You have no home, no kin—nothin’ to hold you. An’ it went against yore grain to heah of a decent Texan bein’ bamboozled an’ robbed—an’ a family of nice women an’ kids sufferin’ because of thet. An’ you ride over heah to catch some of these dirty skunks in the act. . . . An’ by God you shot them!”

  Wade, at a loss how to reply, did not answer.

  “I’ve heahed of thet sort of thing,” went on Pencarrow. “I could have done the same when I was young. But I never even hoped it’d happen to me. . . . See heah, now. You look over my ranch. See what’s left. Figure if I have any chance on earth to retrieve. An’ if you think I have, I’ll accept the loan of yore money an’ give you the job I see you’re fitted for an’ which is what I need more than money or stock or riders.”

  “Thanks, Pencarrow. I’ll do my best.”

  “Heah’s my hand.”

  Wade felt in his powerful grip a sincerity and liking that boded well for the future.

  CHAPTER TEN

  PENCARROW paced the floor like a man coming out of a daze. “Brandon, I’d lost my faith in my fellow men,” he said, “an’ God, too, I reckon.”

  “I’ve had a hard life,” replied Wade, “and I’ve felt that way often. But in every dark hour something saved me.”

  “Dark hour? . . . I may be a bloody old Texan, hampered by a squeamish wife, and bound by lovin’ ties to beat down my real nature, but when you killed those men it was as if lightnin’ struck through the blackness of my despair. I never felt such joy.”

  “Oh—Dad,” cried Jacqueline, tremulously. “We mustn’t grow savage.”

  “We cain’t live in Arizona an’ turn our other cheeks to every blow. . . . Jackie, I’ll go tell Mother thet the first blood spilled on our ranch has turned the tide. . . . You talk to Brandon.”

  Wade, left alone with the girl, found himself staring at the floor, conscious of a sweeping tide of emotion. She was silent. He felt her eyes upon him. He fought to convince himself that he was no guilty wretch before his judge—that he had never been driven by as exalted a motive—that even if she did recognize him she would not betray him to her father. So much reasoned out. But that did not give him strength.

  “Mr. Brandon, did you lie to Dad?” Jacqueline asked, her voice low.

  “No,” he answered, abruptly, shocked out of the inhibited spell, and for the first time he met her gaze fully. Her great dark eyes searched his with all a woman’s gifts of penetration.

  “Then you—you did not come heah—because of me?”

  “Yes. And your father—all of you. . . . I have no ties. Your plight appealed to me.”

  “You explained it that way. But I—I doubted you. I have been deceived so often. . . . Tell me frankly—wasn’t it because of me?. . . Because of the vile range gossip—the name these wild riders have given me—that I’m a—a—heah for the taking?”

  Wade burned with the shame and the earnestness of her question. She did not blush. Her face was pearl white. Only a very strong incentive could have overcome her antipathy to interrogation of such a nature.

  “Wait,” she began again, hurriedly, when he would have spoken. “Whatever your motive, you have saved Dad from God only knows what. . . . You have given him hope again. And for that I am deeply indebted. But I want to know. . . . I could not blame you for what you heahed. Only I want to put you right . . . then if you stayed to—to help us—it’d be almost too good to be true.”

  “Miss Pencarrow, please—” burst out Wade as soon as he could find his tongue—“you don’t need to tell me—”

  “You deny it?” she interrupted, with a magnificent blaze in her eyes.

  “Absolutely. I made up my mind to come before Lawsford’s cowboys mentioned you. Then, to be fair to them, they did not speak insultingly . . . they talked only of your charms, as cowboys do round the camp fire.”

  “Thank you. That makes all the difference in the world,” she returned, fervently, and then a scarlet wave did blot out the creaminess of her throat and face. She hid it a moment in her hands, like a young girl, and then again looked up bravely. “You’ll understand—I’m sure, when I tell you that I’ve had a hideous ordeal heah in Arizona. I was sixteen when we took up this ranch. I’m twenty-one now. That five years has been a nightmare. Dad’s first outfit of riders had to be discharged one after the other for their—their attentions to me. To tell the truth, they were hounds. Band Drake was the worst—he was the cattleman Dad bought our land from—gave me an undeserved name on this range. That, and the fact I have the misfortune to be pretty, drew riders heah like swarms of bees. A few of them were nice cowboys. The rest, like Urba and his riders. . . . I must confess—when you shot him—I was glad, glad—. But Oh! I’ve been torn apart heah!”

  “How in the world did you come to stay?” asked Wade, incredulously.

  “That’s the strange thing. We all love this Arizona. It wasn’t only that all we had was sunk heah. We were very happy at first. The youngsters went wild—and I guess I did too.”

  “Who is Band Drake?”

  “He pretended to be many things he wasn’t. Dad fell in with him at Holbrook, where we lived a while. Drake sold us this land which he and his gang had homesteaded, but had never proved up on it. He ran Dad’s outfit and ran off most of the cattle in the bargain. He made life miserable for me. Dad had to drive him away. And I haven’t taken any horseback rides since, except near the ranch house.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Tall, fair, rather good-looking. He must be under forty. Claims to come from Texas. But enough about him. . . . Mr. Brandon, haven’t I met you before?”

  “What!” ejaculated Wade with a start, and for the first time he really looked fully at her.

  “You seem strangely familiar—somehow,” she went on. “I went to school at Houston. Have you ever been there?”

  “No. I’ve been in southwest Texas, but never in the civilized parts. . . . You must be mistaken. Perhaps I remind you of some one.”

  “Perhaps. I cain’t remember. . . . It struck me a moment ago. You know the vague groping sensations one has trying to remember a name or a face. It’s gone now. I guess I’m a little out of my haid.”

  Wade experienced intense relief. A tumult stilled within him. She did not recognize him. And he was able to look at her, smiling as if at her mistake. She flushed slightly and averted her eyes. How beautiful she seemed! He had no contrasts, no remembrance of beautiful girls with which to compare her. Since he was sixteen he had not seen any girls of her class. So her vivid charm struck him overpoweringly. Her hair was wavy, between brown and chestnut in hue, with glints of gold; her face a lovely oval with wide low level brows, magnificent eyes that looked black, but were deep dark velvet hazel, a straight clear-cut profile and strong sweet lips, curved and red, haunted by mystery and sadness. Her slenderness, perhaps, exaggerated the rounded outlines of her body, as her singularly sensitive and intense vitality drew attention to them. She appeared to Wade a wonderful breath-taking creature, fine, high-spirited, intelligent.

  She caught Wade in his absorbed survey of her and it disturbed her to the extent of restlessness. She got up to walk to the door
, then hurriedly left it as if the scene outside brought back the tragedy. She had a lithe grace that the cotton gown and apron failed entirely to hide. Her sleeves were rolled above the elbows of round brown arms, and her shapely hands, supple and strong, showed traces of flour.

  “I was baking when the four range cavaliers rode up,” she said with a smile.

  Wade grasped that his study of her had not displeased her, but was being prolonged too far.

  “Miss Pencarrow, forgive me for—for staring,” he said, hastily. “I forgot my manners. . . . But you are so wonderful looking.”

  “Thank you. But wait till you see Rona!”

  “Your sister?”

  “Yes. Hal’s twin. She has not a trace of Spanish. My mother was a Castilian. I resemble her somewhat. But Rona favors Dad’s side of the family.”

  “Hal looked about fourteen,” said Wade, thoughtfully. “If she is as pretty as you—”

  “Pretty!” exclaimed Jacqueline, as Wade hesitated for words. “Rona is the prettiest girl I ever saw. She looks sixteen, too. She has the famous towhaid of the Pencarrows. Which is a Texas characteristic. And such eyes! Like light-colored violets. The strangest shade.”

  “Then I’m afraid I’ve tackled the most terrible job any rider ever wished on himself.”

  “Oh, true—indeed you have!” she replied, eloquently, with a tinge of regret. “But you wouldn’t shirk it, would you? Just because these wild Arizonans flock heah?”

  “No. I won’t shirk it for that or any other reason,” he rejoined, soberly. “Nor will you or your sister ever be—be offended by me.”

  “There! I’m the one that has offended,” she rejoined hastily. “Of late I’ve thought—” she broke off and did not continue her thought. “But, oh Mr. Brandon, the sight of a rider has become hateful to me. Please try to understand.”

  “I’m not offended,” said Wade. “Women have not entered my life since I was a boy. Then it was only my mother and sister.”

  “You never had a wife?”

  “Me! Good heavens, no! Nor a sweetheart—nor anything. I’ve never had a woman friend.”

  “Mr. Brandon, can you expect me to believe that?” she asked, incredulously. If he had been a liar her eyes would have discovered it. “You are young, handsome. You have the deference for women so seldom met with in this uncouth West.”

  “No matter what I have or haven’t. It’s the simple truth.”

  “Then you’ve lived a strange lonely life where there weren’t any women.”

  “Yes. For years I’ve known only the wilderness and rough men. What little time I’ve spent in towns, I was too busy just staying alive to think of other things.”

  “You’re what Dad calls a gunman?”

  “Yes. And that will help in the work I have to do for him.”

  “My uncle Glenn was a gunman. He was a hero in this family, except with mother. He was driven to fight for his life. . . . That must apply to you?”

  “It does. I’ve been a hunted man.”

  “Mr. Brandon, that will never stand in the way of your being respected and—and liked in this family. Ever since I was a little girl my sympathy went out to Uncle Glenn, and men like him, who had no home, no loved ones, no comfort, no rest—nothing hut a gun and a terrible skill with it.”

  “That is well for me,” returned Wade, with emotion. “But please do not talk about me any more.”

  “It was necessary. I wanted to know a little about you.”

  “Some day, maybe, I’ll tell you my story. . . . But let us get back to the reasons I am here. . . . It seemed to me that your father and Aulsbrook were not good friends.”

  “Indeed they are not,” she retorted quickly. “And it’s not Dad’s fault. Out heah, if not in Texas, Dad has seen the necessity of being on good terms with neighbors. But Aulsbrook hated him in Texas and hates him worse heah.”

  “Why?”

  “They both loved the same girl. My mother.”

  “Oh, I see. What bad luck they should choose the same range! Has Aulsbrook been a square neighbor?”

  “Hardly. He is a shrewd man. Dad has not the haid for any business, much less raising cattle. Aulsbrook took advantage of that.”

  “Was he crooked?” queried Wade, sharply.

  “Morally, yes. But not in the way a court would see it.”

  “I will want to know all about that. . . . How much stock has your father left?”

  “We don’t know. Not much compared to what we started with. We have left about a hundred haid of horses, some very fine stock. And perhaps a few thousand haid of cattle.”

  “Have you been living off them?”

  “Yes. And off the ranch. We raise everything we eat. We have a wonderful farm down in the canyon. Snow never lies there. So warm and sunny. And water! There never was such water in Texas.”

  “I rode by the big spring. That must be on Pencarrow’s range.”

  “It is. And has caused us much trouble. Aulsbrook claims it. Has threatened Dad with suit in Phoenix. It’s that sort of thing—and debts—pressing debts, which have troubled Dad even more than the rustlers. Sometimes we never know of a cattle steal until long afterward. All our riders are gone.”

  “I take it you look after your father’s books.”

  “Yes. And I’m ashamed to look in them.”

  “You must go over them with me presently.”

  They were then interrupted by the entrance of Pencarrow, leading a dark woman who had once been very handsome and still had distinction. Following her came the boy Hal with a tall girl unmistakedly his sister. She had an abundance of hair so light as to almost be silver, and like Jacqueline she had eyes that would have made any face beautiful, and of a shade of blue that Wade had never seen. When Pencarrow introduced Wade, both the mother and daughter welcomed him, the former shrinkingly as if he were a bloody monster, and the latter gladly as if he were a savior. That was an embarrassing moment for Wade.

  “Rona saw the whole show,” piped up Hal, “and then she keeled over.”

  “Mr. Brandon, I never fainted before,” said the girl, apologetically. “I listened before you came and I was furious. Then when you rode up, somehow I guessed you’d take Dad’s part. I saw it in your eye. And I was tickled to death when you jumped at that Urba. But the bang of your gun and that other fellow’s awful face—and the blood—I just got sick and dizzy, and everything went black.”

  “Don’t talk any more about it,” ordered Pencarrow. “Your mother is still sick and dizzy—an’ she only heahed the fight. . . . Brandon, we’ll have some lunch, an’ then Hal can ride about with you while the womenfolks fix up one of the cabins for you. . . . Hal, fetch his hawse around.”

  The Pencarrows had no servants, which lack certainly had not been anticipated when the master built that house, judging by its size and spaciousness. The dining room, like the living room, looked out upon both sides of the house. The furnishings and tableware further attested to Pencarrow’s prosperous days. Some one of the family, and Wade suspected it was Jacqueline, was a very capable housekeeper. Wade ate heartily despite the aftermath of the tragedy. But he was glad to get outdoors again. He found that he could hardly keep his eyes off Jacqueline, and Rona watched him as if utterly fascinated.

  The ranch buildings had been erected too recently to be run down, but they showed the lack of use. Bunkhouses and cabins were empty, as were the cribs and other sheds. The huge barn was a superb structure with twenty-five stalls on each side of the wide space that ran from end to end. There did not appear to be any hay or grain on the place. The corrals had not been used for a long time.

  At a whistle from Hal, a score or more of horses came trooping up the pasture field. They took Wade’s eye. He believed himself to be a judge of horseflesh. These were pips, a ragged, fat, long-maned and lazy bunch of thoroughbreds. Pencarrow claimed to know horses better than cattle.

  When Wade rode out with the rancher and Hal he felt the same thrill as when he had emerged from the canyon
to get his first view of the ranch. No wilder or more beautiful setting could have been found. Its fragrance of sage, its gray and green vastness, its many pine-crowned knolls, its grand mountain wall on the north, and its gateway, like a window opening out upon the painted desert—these were largely responsible for the hold the country had on the Pencarrows. There was something different about Arizona. The wind in the cedars, the waving grass and the purple sage, the zestful tang in the air, the bigness of everything, and the freedom, appeared to belong only to Arizona. Then Wade remembered the canyon not far away, yet invisible from the range above, and he surrendered himself to the spell of the finest country he had seen. As he had told himself already, his wandering rides had ended at Cedar Range.

  Wade saw perhaps two thousand head of cattle, and was of the opinion that Pencarrow had more stock left than he supposed. With the cattle business waning in Texas, past its prime in Kansas and Nebraska and Colorado, badly disrupted by the disastrous Lincoln County War in New Mexico, Arizona had a marvelous opportunity. Wade recognized it. He asked about the winter climate, to be satisfied that the cold and snow offered no serious obstacle to successful ranching.

  “There’s a big open canyon over heah where you could throw more cattle than I ever owned,” Pencarrow said.

  “How far to the railroad?”

  “Five days herd-drivin’ an’ good grass an’ water all the way.”

  “Any ranchers along that route?”

  “Not one. An’ a queer thing, too.”

  “How many cattlemen living off this Cedar Range?”

  “Aulsbrook, Driscoll, Mason, Drill, an’ a few homesteaders.”

  “This range is big. But how big?”

  “Thunderin’ big, you bet. I never knew exactly. It’s more than a hundred miles long an’ half as wide. Thet’s not countin’ the canyons, an’ they’re a whole range in themselves.”

  “Any idea how much stock?”

  “Yes. Aulsbrook claims he’s runnin’ ten thousand haid. An’ the other three ranchers might throw together all their cattle into thet big a herd.”