War Comes to the Big Bend

by Zane Grey

  Anderson gave this order, which was complied with. Then Dorn disappeared around or under the big machine.

  “Lenore, I’ll bet he tells us somethin’ in a minute,” said Anderson to her. “These new claptraps are beyond me. I’m no mechanic.”

  “Dad, I don’t like the looks of your harvest hands,” whispered Lenore.

  “Wal, this is a sample of the lot I hired. No society for you, my lass.”

  “I’m going to stay now,” she replied.

  Dorn appeared to be raising a racket somewhere out of sight under or inside the huge harvester. Rattling and rasping sounds, creaks and cracks, attested to his strong and impatiently seeking hands. Presently he appeared. His white shirt had been soiled by dust and grease. There was chaff in his fair hair. In one grimy hand he held a large monkey wrench. What struck Lenore most was the piercing intensity of his gaze as he fixed it upon her father.

  “Anderson, I knew right where to find it,” he said in a sharp, hard voice. “This monkey wrench was thrown upon the platform, carried to the elevator into the thresher . . . Your machine is torn to pieces inside . . . out of commission.”

  “Ah-huh!” exclaimed Anderson, as if the truth was a great relief.

  “Where’d that monkey wrench come from?” asked the foreman, aghast. “It’s not ours. I don’t buy that kind.”

  Anderson made a slight, significant motion to the cowboys. They lined up beside him, and, like him, they looked dangerous.

  “Come here, Kurt,” he said, and then, putting Lenore before him, he moved a few steps aside, out of earshot of the shifty-footed harvest hands. “Say, you called the turn right off, didn’t you?”

  “Anderson, I’ve had a hard experience, all in one harvest time,” replied Dorn. “I’ll bet you I can find out who threw this wrench into your harvester.”

  “I don’t doubt you, my lad. But how?”

  “It had to be thrown by one of these men near the machine. That harvester hasn’t run twenty feet from where the trick was done . . . Let these men face me. I’ll find the guilty one.”

  “Wait till we get Lenore out of the way,” replied Anderson.

  “Boss, me an’ Bill can answer fer thet outfit as it stands, an’ no risks fer nobody,” put in Jake coolly.

  Anderson’s reply was cut short by a loud explosion. It frightened Lenore. She imagined one of the steam engines had blown up.

  “That thresher’s on fire!” shouted Dorn, pointing toward a big machine that was attached by an endless driving belt to an engine.

  The workmen, uttering yells and exclamations, ran toward the scene of the new accident, leaving Anderson, his daughter, and the foreman behind. Smoke was pouring out of the big harvester. The harvest hands ran wildly around, shouting and calling, evidently unable to do anything. The line of wagons full of wheat sheaves broke up; men dragged at the plunging horses. Then flame followed the smoke out of the thresher.

  “I’ve heard of threshers catchin’ fire,” said Anderson as if dumbfounded, “but I never seen one . . . Now how on earth did that happen?”

  “Another trick, Anderson,” replied Dorn. “Some IWW has stuffed a handful of matches into a wheat sheaf. Or maybe a small bomb.”

  “Ah-huh! Come on, let’s go over an’ see my money burn up . . . Kurt, I’m gettin’ some new education these days.”

  Dorn appeared to be unable to restrain himself. He hurried on ahead of the others. And Anderson whispered to Lenore: “I’ll bet somethin’s comin’ off.”

  This alarmed Lenore, yet it also thrilled her.

  The threshing machine burned like a house of cards. Farmhands came running from all over the field. But nothing, manifestly, could be done to save the thresher. Anderson, holding his daughter’s arm, calmly watched it burn. There was excitement all around; it had not been communicated, however, to the rancher. He looked thoughtful. The foreman darted among the groups of watchers and his distress was very plain. Dorn had gotten out of sight. Lenore still held his coat and wondered what he was doing. She was thoroughly angry and marveled at her father’s composure. The big thresher was reduced to a blazing, smoking hulk in short order.

  Dorn came striding up. His face was pale and his mouth set. “Mister Anderson, you’ve got to make a strong stand . . . and quick,” he said deliberately.

  “I reckon. An’ I’m ready, if it’s the right time,” replied the rancher. “But what can we prove?”

  “That’s proof,” declared Dorn, pointing at the ruined thresher. “Do you know all your honest hands?”

  “Yes, an’ I’ve got enough to clean up this outfit in no time. We’re only waitin’.”

  “What for?”

  “Wal, I reckon for what’s just come off.”

  “Don’t let them go any farther . . . Look at these fellows. Can’t you tell the IWWs from the others?”

  “No, I can’t unless I count all the new harvest hands IWWs.”

  “Everyone you don’t know here is in with that gang,” declared Dorn, and he waved a swift hand at the groups. His eyes swept piercingly over, and apparently through, the men nearest at hand.

  At this juncture Jake and Bill, with two other cowboys, strode up to Anderson. “Another accident, boss,” said Jake sarcastically. “Ain’t it about time we corralled some of this outfit?”

  Anderson did not reply. He had suddenly imitated Lenore, who had become solely bent upon Dorn’s look. That indeed was cause for interest. It was directed at a member of the nearest group—a man in rough garb, with slouch hat pulled over his eyes. As Lenore looked, she saw this man, suddenly becoming aware of Dorn’s scrutiny, hastily turn and walk away.

  “Hold on!” called Dorn, his voice a ringing command. It halted every moving person on that part of the field. Then Dorn actually bounded across the intervening space.

  “Come on, boys,” said Anderson, “get in this. Dorn’s spotted someone, an’ now that’s all we want . . . Lenore, stick close behind me. Jake, you keep near her.”

  They moved hastily to back up Dorn, who had already reached the workman he had halted. Anderson took out a whistle and blew such a shrill blast that it deafened Lenore, and must have been heard all over the harvest field. Not improbably that was a signal agreed upon between Anderson and his men. Lenore gathered that all had been in readiness for a concerted movement and that her father believed Dorn’s action had brought the climax.

  “Haven’t I seen you before?” queried Dorn sharply.

  The man shook his head and kept it bent a little, and then he began to edge back nearer to the stragglers, who slowly closed into a group behind him. He seemed nervous, shifty.

  “He can’t speak English,” spoke up one of them gruffly.

  Dorn looked aggressive and stern. Suddenly his hand flashed out to snatch off the slouch hat that hid the fellow’s face. Amazingly, a gray wig came with it. This man was not old. He had fair thick hair. For a moment Dorn gazed at the slouch hat and wig. Then with a fierce action he threw them down and swept a clutching hand for the man. The fellow dodged, and, straightening up, he reached for a gun. But Dorn lunged upon him. Then followed a hard grappling sound and a hoarse yell. Something bright glinted in the sun. It made a sweeping circle, belched fire and smoke. The report stunned Lenore. She shut her eyes and clung to her father. She heard cries, a scuffling, sodden blows.

  “Jake! Bill!” called Anderson. “Hold on! No gun play yet! Dorn’s makin’ hash out of that fellow . . . But watch the others sharp!”

  Then Lenore looked again. Dorn had twisted the man around and was in the act of stripping off the further disguise of beard, disclosing the pale and convulsed face of a comparatively young man.

  “Glidden!” burst out Dorn. His voice had a terrible ring of furious amaze. His whole body seemed to gather as in a knot and then to spring. The man called Glidden went down before that onslaught, and his gun went flying aside.

  Three of Glidden’s group started for it. The cowboy Bill leaped forward, a gun in each hand. “Hyar! Back!” he yel
led. And then all except the two struggling principals grew rigid.

  Lenore’s heart was burning in her throat. The movements of Dorn were too swift for her sight. But Glidden she saw handled as if by a giant. Up and down he seemed thrown, with bloody face, flinging arms, while he uttered hoarse bawls. Dorn’s form grew more distinct. It plunged and swung in frenzied energy. Lenore heard men running and yells from all around. Her father spread wide his arm before her, so that she had to bend low to see. He shouted a warning. Jake was holding a gun thrust forward.

  “Boss, he’s goin’ to kill Glidden,” said the cowboy, in a low tone.

  Anderson’s reply was incoherent, but its meaning was plain.

  Lenore’s lips and tongue almost denied her utterance. “Oh . . . don’t let him.”

  The crowd behind the wrestling couple swayed back and forth, and men changed places here and there. Bill strode across the space, guns leveled. Evidently this action was due to the threatening movements of several workmen who crouched as if to leap on Dorn as he whirled in his fight with Glidden.

  “Wal, it’s about time!” yelled Anderson, as a number of lean, rangy men, rushing from behind, reached Bill’s side, there to present an armed and threatening front.

  All eyes now centered on Dorn and Glidden. Lenore, seeing clearly for the first time, suffered a strange, hot paroxysm of emotion never before experienced by her. It left her weak. It seemed to stultify the cry that had been trying to escape her. She wanted to scream that Dorn must not kill the man. Yet there was a ferocity in her that froze the cry. Glidden’s coat and blouse were half torn off; blood covered him; he strained and flung himself weakly in that iron clutch. He was beaten and bent back. His tongue hung out, bloody, fluttering with strangled cries. A ghastly face, appalling in its fear of death.

  Lenore broke her mute spell of mingled horror and passion. “For God’s sake, don’t let Dorn kill him!” she implored.

  “Why not?” muttered Anderson. “That’s Glidden. He killed Dorn’s father . . . burned his wheat . . . ruined him.”

  “Dad . . . for my . . . sake!” she cried brokenly.

  “Jake, stop him!” yelled Anderson. “Pull him off!”

  As Lenore saw it, with eyes again half failing her, Jake could not separate Dorn from his victim.

  “Leggo, Dorn!” he yelled. “You’re cheatin’ the gallows! Hey, Bill, he’s a bull! Help, hyar . . . quick.”

  Lenore did not see the resulting conflict, but she could tell by something that swayed the crowd when Glidden had been freed.

  “Hold up this outfit!” yelled Anderson to his men. “Come on, Jake, drag him along.” Jake appeared, leading the disheveled and wild-eyed Dorn. “Son, you did my heart good, but there was some around here who didn’t want you to spill blood. An’ that’s well. For I am seein’ red . . . Jake, you take Dorn an’ Lenore a piece toward the house, then hurry back.”

  Lenore felt that she had hold of Dorn’s arm and she was listening to Jake without understanding a word he said, while she did hear her father’s yell of command: “Line up there, you IWWs!”

  Jake walked so swiftly that Lenore had to run to keep up. Dorn stumbled. He spoke incoherently. He tried to stop. At this Lenore clasped his arm and cried: “Oh, Kurt, come home with me!”

  They hurried down the slope. Lenore kept looking back. The crowd appeared bunched now, with little motion. That relieved her. There was no more fighting.

  Presently Dorn appeared to go more willingly. He had relaxed. “Let go, Jake,” he said. “I’m . . . all right . . . now. That arm hurts.”

  “Wal, you’ll excuse me, Dorn, for handlin’ you rough . . . Mebbe you don’t remember punchin’ me one when I got between you an’ Glidden?”

  “Did I? I couldn’t see, Jake,” said Dorn. His voice was weak and had a spent ring of passion in it. He did not look at Lenore, but kept his face turned toward the cowboy.

  “I reckon this’s fur enough,” rejoined Jake, halting and looking back. “No one comin’. An’ there’ll be hell to pay out there. You go on to the house with Miss Lenore . . . Will you?”

  “Yes,” replied Dorn.

  “Rustle along, then . . . An’ you, Miss Lenore, don’t you worry none about us.”

  Lenore nodded, and, holding Dorn’s arm closely, she walked as fast as she could down the lane. “I . . . I kept your coat,” she said, “though I never thought of it . . . till just now.”

  She was trembling all over, hot and cold by turns, afraid to look up at him, yet immensely proud of him, with a strange, sickening dread. He walked rather dejectedly now, or else bent somewhat from weakness. She stole a quick glance at his face. It was white as a sheet. Suddenly she felt something wet and warm trickle from his arm down into her hand. Blood! She shuddered, but did not lose her hold. After a faintish instant there came a change in her.

  “Are you . . . hurt?” she asked.

  “I guess . . . not. I don’t know,” he said.

  “But the . . . the blood,” she faltered.

  He held up his hands. His knuckles were bloody and it was impossible to tell whether from injury to them or not. But his left forearm was badly cut. “The gun cut me . . . And he bit me, too,” said Dorn. “I’m sorry you were there . . . What a beastly spectacle for you.”

  “Never mind me,” she murmured. “I’m all right now. But, oh . . .” She broke off eloquently.

  “Was it you who had the cowboys pull me off him? Jake said, as he broke me loose . . . ‘For Miss Lenore’s sake.’”

  “It was Dad who sent them. But I begged him to.”

  “That was Glidden, the IWW agitator and German agent . . . He . . . just the same as murdered my father . . . He burned my wheat . . . lost my all.”

  “Yes, I . . . I know, Kurt,” whispered Lenore.

  “I meant to kill him.”

  “That was easy to tell . . . Oh, thank God, you did not. Come, don’t let us stop.” She could not face the piercing, gloomy eyes that went through her.

  “Why should you care? Someone will have to kill Glidden.”

  “Oh, do not talk so,” she implored. “Surely now you’re glad you did not?”

  “I don’t understand myself. But I’m certainly sorry you were there. There’s a beast in men . . . in me. I had a gun in my pocket. But do you think I’d have used it? I wanted to feel his flesh tear, his bones break, his blood spurt . . .”

  “Kurt!”

  “Yes . . . that was the Hun in me,” he declared in sudden bitter passion.

  “Oh, my friend, do not talk so!” she cried. “You make me . . . Oh, there is no Hun in you.”

  “Yes, by God, that’s what ails me.”

  “There is not!” she flashed back, roused to passion. “You had been made desperate. You acted as any wronged man. You fought. He tried to kill you. I saw the gun. No one could blame you . . . I had my own reason for begging Dad to keep you from killing him . . . a selfish woman’s reason. But I tell you I was so furious . . . so wrought up . . . that if it had been any man but you . . . he should have killed him!”

  “Lenore, you’re beyond my understanding,” replied Dorn with emotion. “But I thank you . . . for excusing me . . . for standing up for me.”

  “It was nothing . . . Oh, how you bleed. Doesn’t that hurt?”

  “I’ve no pain . . . no feeling at all . . . except a sort of dying down in me of what must have been hell.”

  They reached the house and went in. No one was there, which fact relieved Lenore.

  “I’m glad Mother and the girls won’t see you,” she said hurriedly. “Go up to your room. I’ll bring bandages.”

  He complied without any comment. Lenore searched for what she needed to treat a wound and ran upstairs. Dorn was sitting on a chair in his room, holding his arm from which blood dripped to the floor. He smiled at her. “You would be a pretty Red Cross nurse,” he said.

  Lenore placed a bowl of water on the floor and, kneeling beside Dorn, took his arm and began to bathe it. He winced. The blood
covered her fingers.

  “My blood on your hands!” he exclaimed morbidly. “German blood.”

  “Kurt, you’re out of your head,” retorted Lenore hotly. “If you dare to say that again I’ll . . .” She broke off.

  “What will you do?”

  Lenore faltered. What would she do? A revelation must come, sooner or later, and the strain had begun to wear upon her. She was stirred to her depths, and instincts there were leaping. No sweet, gentle, kindly sympathy would avail with this tragic youth. He must be carried by storm. Something of the violence he had shown with Glidden seemed necessary to make him forget himself. All his whole soul must be set in one direction. He could not see that she loved him, when she had looked it, acted it, almost spoken it. His blindness was not to be endured.

  “Kurt Dorn, don’t dare to . . . to say that again.” She ceased bathing his arm, and looked up at him suddenly quite pale.

  “I apologize. I am only bitter,” he said. “Don’t mind what I say . . . It’s so good of you . . . to do this.” Then in silence Lenore dressed his wound, and if her heart did beat unwontedly, her fingers were steady and deft. He thanked her, with moody eyes seeing far beyond her.

  “When I lie over there . . . with . . .”

  “If you go,” she interrupted. He was indeed hopeless. “I advise you to rest a little.”

  “I’d like to know what becomes of Glidden,” he said.

  “So should I. That worries me.”

  “Weren’t there a lot of cowboys with guns?”

  “So many that there’s no need for you to go out . . . and start another fight.”

  “I did start it, didn’t I?”

  “You surely did.” She left him then, turning in the doorway to ask him please to be quiet and let the day go by without seeking those excited men again. He smiled, but he did not promise.

  For Lenore the time dragged between dread and suspense. From her window she saw a motley crowd pass down the lane to the main road. No harvesters were working. At the noon meal only her mother and the girls were present. Word had come that the IWW men were being driven from Many Waters. Mrs. Anderson worried, and Lenore’s sisters for once were quiet. All afternoon the house was lifeless. No one came or left. Lenore listened to every little sound. It relieved her that Dorn had remained in his room. Her hope was that the threatened trouble had been averted, but something told her that the worst was yet to come.