The Westerners

by Zane Grey

  Monty Price’s Nightingale

  Around campfires they cursed him in hearty cowboy fashion and laid upon him the bane of their ill will. They said that Monty Price had no friend—that no foreman or rancher ever trusted him—that he never spent a dollar—that he would not keep a job—that there must be something crooked about a fellow who bunked and worked alone, who quit every few months to ride away, no one knew where, and who returned to the ranges, haggard and thin and shaky, hunting for another place.

  He had been drunk somewhere, and the wonder of it was that no one in the Tonto forest ranges had ever seen him drink a drop. Red Lake and Gallatin and Bellville knew him, but no more of him than the ranges. He went farther afield, they said, and hinted darker things than a fling at faro or a fondness for red liquor.

  But there was no rancher, no cowboy from one end of the vast range country to another who did not admit Monty Price’s preeminence in those peculiar attributes of his calling. He was a magnificent rider; he had an iron and cruel hand with a horse, yet he never killed or crippled his mount; he possessed the Indian’s instinct for direction; he never failed on the trail of lost stock; he could ride an outlaw and brand a wild steer and shoe a vicious mustang as bragging cowboys swore they could; and supreme test of all he would endure, without complaint, long toilsome hours in the piercing wind and freezing sleet and blistering sun.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said old Abe Somers. “I’ve ranched from the Little Big Horn to the Pecos, an’ I’ve seen a sight of cowpunchers in my day. But Monty Price’s got ’em all skinned. It shore is too bad he’s unreliable . . . packin’ off the way he does, jest when he’s the boy most needed. Some mystery about Monty.”

  The extra duty, the hard task, the problem with stock or tools or harness—these always fell to Monty. His most famous trick was to offer to take a comrade’s night shift. So it often happened that while the cowboys lolled round their campfire, Monty Price, after a hard day’s riding, would stand out the night guard, in rain and snow. But he always made a bargain. He sold his service. And the boys were wont to say that he put his services high.

  Still they would never have grumbled at that if Monty had ever spent a dollar. He saved his money. He never bought any fancy boots or spurs or bridles or scarves or chaps; and his cheap jeans and saddles were the jest of his companions. Nevertheless, in spite of Monty’s shortcomings, he rode in the Tonto on and off for five years before he made an enemy.

  There was a cowboy named Bart Muncie who had risen to be a foreman and who eventually went to ranching on a small scale. He acquired a range up in the forest country where grassy valleys and parks lay between the wooden hills, and here in a wild spot among the pines he built a cabin for his wife and baby.

  It came about that Monty went to work for Muncie and rode for him for six months. Then, in a dry season, with Muncie short of help and with long drives to make, Monty quit in his inexplicable way and left the rancher in dire need. Muncie lost a good deal of stock that fall, and he always blamed Monty for it. Some weeks later it chanced that Muncie was in Bellville the very day Monte returned from his latest mysterious absence. And the two met in a crowded store.

  Monty appeared vastly different from the lean-jawed, keen-eyed, hard-riding cowboy of a month back. He was haggard and thin and shaky and spiritless and somber.

  “See here, Monty Price,” said Muncie with stinging scorn, “I reckon you’ll spare me a minute of your precious time.”

  “I reckon so,” replied Monty.

  Muncie used up more than the allotted minute in calling Monte every bad name known to the range.

  “An’ the worst of all you are is that you’re a liar!” concluded the rancher passionately. “I relied on you an’ you failed me. You lost me a herd of stock. Put me back a year! An’ for what? God only knows what! We ain’t got you figgered here . . . not that way. But after this trick you turned me, we all know you’re not square. An’ I go on record callin’ you as you deserve. You’re no good. You’ve got a streak of yellow. An’ you sneak off now an’ then to indulge it. An’ most of all you’re a liar! Now, if it ain’t all so . . . flash your gun!”

  But Monty Price did not draw.

  The scorn and abuse of the cowboys might never have been, for all the effect it had on Monty. He did not see or feel it. He found employment with a rancher named Wentworth and went at his work in the old, inimitable manner, that was at once the admiration and despair of his fellows. He rolled out of his blankets in the gray dawn, and he was the last to roll in at night.

  In a week all traces of his weakened condition had vanished, and he grew strong and dark and hard, once more like iron. And then again he was up to his old tricks, more intense than ever, eager and gruff at bargaining his time, obsessed by the one idea—to make money.

  To Monty the long, hot, dusty, blasting days of summer were as moments. Time flew for him. The odd jobs, the rough trails, the rides without water or food, the long stands in the cold rain, the electric storms when the lightning played around and cracked in his horse’s mane, and the uneasy herd bawled and milled—all these things that were the everlasting torment of his comrades were as nothing to Monty Price.

  And when the first payday came and Monty tucked away a little roll of greenbacks inside his vest and kept adding to it as one by one his comrades paid him for some bargained service—then in Monty Price’s heart began the low and insistent and sweetly alluring call of the thing that had ruined him. Thereafter, sleeping or waking, he lived in a dream with that music in his heart, and the hours were fleeting.

  On the mountain trails, in the noonday heat of the dusty ranges, in the dark, sultry nights with their thunderous atmosphere, he was always listening to that song of his nightingale. To his comrades he seemed a silent, morose, greedy cowboy, a demon for work, with no desire for friendship, no thought of home or kin, no love of a woman or a horse or anything, except money. To Monty himself, his whole inner life grew rosier and mellower and richer as day by day his nightingale sang sweeter and louder.

  And that song was a song of secret revel—far away—where he gave up to this wind of flame that burned within him—where a passionate and irresistible strain in his blood found its outlet—where wanton red lips whispered, and wanton eyes, wine dark and seductive, lured him, and wanton arms twined around him.

  The rains failed to come that summer. The grama grass bleached on the open ranges and turned yellow up in the parks. But there was plenty of grass and water to last out the fall. It was fire the ranchers feared. And it came.

  One morning above the low, gray-stoned, and black-fringed mountain range rose clouds of thick, creamy smoke. There was fire on the other side of the mountain. But unless the wind changed and drew fire in over the pass, there was no danger on that score. The wind was right; it seldom changed at that season, although sometimes it blew a gale. Still the ranchers grew more anxious. The smoke clouds rolled up and spread and hid the top of the mountain and then lifted slow, majestic columns of white and yellow toward the sky.

  On the day that Wentworth, along with other alarmed ranchers, sent men up to fight the fire in the pass, Monty Price quit his job and rode away. He did not tell anybody. He just took his little pack and his horse, and in the confusion of the hour he rode away. For days he had felt that his call might come at any moment, and finally it had come. It did not occur to him that he was quitting Wentworth at a most critical time. It would not have made any difference to him if it had occurred to him.

  He rode away with bells in his heart. He felt like a boy at the prospect of a wonderful adventure. He felt like a man who had toiled and slaved, whose ambition had been supreme, and who had reached the pinnacle where his longing would be gratified.

  His road led to the right, away from the higher ground and the timber. To his left the other road wound down the ridge to the valley below and stretched on through straggling pines and clumps of cedar toward the slopes and the forests. Monty had ridden that road a thousand times. For
it led to Muncie’s range. And as Monty’s keen eye swept on over the parks and the thin wedges of pine to the black mass of timber beyond, he saw something that made him draw up with a start. Clearly defined against the blue-black swelling slope was a white-and-yellow cloud of smoke. It was moving. At thirty miles’ distance, that it could be seen to move at all, was proof of the great speed with which it was traveling.

  “She’s caught!” he ejaculated. “’Way down on this side. An’ she’ll burn over. Nothin’ can save the range!” He watched, and those keen, practiced eyes made out the changing, swelling columns of smoke, the widening path, the creeping dim red. “Reckon that’ll surprise Wentworth’s outfit,” soliloquized Monty thoughtfully. “It doesn’t surprise me none. An’ Muncie, too. His cabin’s up there in the valley.”

  It struck Monty suddenly that the wind blew hard in his face. It was sweeping down the valley toward him. It was bringing that fire. Swiftly on the wind!

  “One of them sudden changes of wind!” he said. “Veered right around! An’ Muncie’s range will go. An’ his cabin!”

  Straightway Monty grew darkly thoughtful. He had remembered seeing Muncie with Wentworth’s men on die way to the pass. In fact, Muncie was the leader of this fire-fighting brigade.

  “Sure he’s fetched down his wife an’ the baby,” he muttered. “I didn’t see them. But sure he must have.”

  Monty’s sharp gaze sought the road for tracks. No fresh track showed! Muncie must have taken his family over the short-cut trail. Certainly he must have! Monty remembered Muncie’s wife and child. The woman had hated him. But little Del with her dancing golden curls and her blue eyes—she had always had a ready smile for him.

  It came to Monty then suddenly, strangely, that little Del would have loved him if he had let her. Where was she now? Safe at Wentworth’s, without a doubt. But then she might not be. Muncie had certainly no fears of fire in the direction of home, not with the wind in the north and no prospect of change. It was quite possible—it was probable that the rancher had left his family at home that morning.

  Monty experienced a singular shock. It had occurred to him to ride down to Muncie’s cabin and see if the woman and child had been left. And whether or not he found them there the matter of getting back was a long chance. That wind was strong—that fire was sweeping down. How murky, red, sinister the slow-moving cloud!

  “I ain’t got a lot of time to decide,” he said. His face turned pale and beads of sweat came out upon his brow.

  That sweet little golden-haired Del, with her blue eyes and her wistful smile! Monty saw her as if she had been there. Then like lightning flashed back the thought that he was on his way to his revel. And the fires of hell burst in his veins. And more deadly sweet than any siren music rang the song of his nightingale in his heart. Neither honor nor manliness had ever stood before him and his fatal passion.

  He was in a swift, golden dream, with the thick fragrance of wine, and the dark, mocking, luring eyes on him. All this that was more than life to him—to give it up—to risk it—to put it off for an hour! He felt the wrenching pang of something deeply hidden in his soul, beating its way up, torturing him. But it was strange and mighty. In that terrible moment it decided for him; and the smile of a child was stronger than the unquenchable and blasting fire of his heart.

  Monty untied his saddle pack and threw it aside, and then, with tight-shut jaw, he rode down the steep descent to the level valley. His horse was big and strong and fast. He was fresh, too, and in superb condition.

  Once down on the hard-packed road he broke into a run, and it took an iron arm to hold him from extending himself. Monty calculated on saving the horse for the run back. He had no doubt that would be a race with fire. And he had been in forest fires more than once. . . .

  Muncie’s cabin was a structure of logs and clapboards, standing in a little clearing, with the great pines towering all around. Monty saw the child, little Del, playing in the yard with a dog. He called. The child heard and, being frightened, ran into the cabin. The dog came barking toward Monty. He was a big, savage animal, a trained watchdog. But he recognized Monty.

  Hurrying forward, Monty went to the open door and called Mrs. Muncie. There was no response. He called again. And while he stood there waiting, listening, above the roar of the wind he heard a low, dull, thundering sound, like a waterfall in a flooded river. It sent the blood rushing back to his heart, leaving him cold. He had not a single instant to lose.

  “Missus Muncie,” he called louder. “Come out! Bring the child! It’s Monty Price. There’s forest fire! Hurry!”

  He stepped into the cabin. There was no one in the big room—or the kitchen. He grew hurried now. The child was hiding. Finally he found her in the clothespress, and he pulled her out. She was frightened. She did not recognize him.

  “Del, is your mother home?” he asked.

  The child shook her head.

  With that Monty picked her up along with a heavy shawl he saw, and, hurrying out, he ran down to the corral. Muncie’s horses were badly frightened now. Monty set little Del down, threw the shawl into a watering trough, and then he let down the bars of the gate.

  The horses pounded out in a cloud of dust. Monty’s horse was frightened, too, and almost broke away. There was now a growing roar on the wind. It seemed right upon him. Yet he could not see any fire or smoke. The dog came to him, whining and sniffing.

  With swift hands Monty soaked the shawl thoroughly in the water and then, wrapping it round little Del and holding her tightly, he mounted. The horse plunged and broke and plunged again—then leaped out straight and fast down the road. And Monty’s ears seemed pierced and filled by a terrible, thundering roar.

  He had to race with fire. He had to beat the wind of flame to the open parks. Ten miles of dry forest, like powder! Though he had never seen it, he knew fire backed by heavy wind could rage through dry pine faster than a horse could run. Yet something in Monty Price welcomed this race. He goaded the horse. Then he looked back.

  Through the aisles of the forest he saw a strange, streaky, murky something, moving, alive, shifting up and down, never an instant the same. It must have been the wind, the heat before the fire. He seemed to see through it, but there was nothing beyond, only opaque, dim, mustering clouds.

  Ahead of him, down the road, low under the spreading trees, floated swiftly some kind of a medium, like a transparent veil. It was neither smoke nor air. It carried pin points of light, sparks, that resembled atoms of dust floating in sunlight. It was a wave of heat propelled before the storm of fire. Monty did not feel pain, but he seemed to be drying up, parching. All was so strange and unreal—the swift flight between the pines, now growing ghostly in the dimming light—the sense of rushing, overpowering force—and yet absolute silence. But that light burden against his breast—the child—was not unreal.

  He must have been insane, he thought, not to be overcome in spirit. But he was not. He felt loss of something, some kind of sensation he ought to have had. But he rode that race keener and better than any race he had ever before ridden. He had but to keep his saddle—to dodge the snags of the trees—to guide the maddened horse. No horse ever in the world had run so magnificent a race.

  He was outracing wind and fire. But he was running in terror. For miles he held that long, swift, tremendous stride without a break. He was running to his death whether he distanced the fire or not. For nothing could stop him now except a bursting heart. Already he was blind, Monty thought.

  And then, it appeared to Monty, although his steed kept fleeting on faster and faster, that the wind of flame was gaining. The air was too thick to breathe. It seemed ponderous—not from above but from behind. It had irresistible weight. It pushed Monty and his horse onward in their flight—straws on the crest of a cyclone.

  Ahead there was light through the forest. He made out a white, open space of grass. A park! And the horse, like a demon, hurtled onward, with his smoothness of action gone, beginning to break.

&nb
sp; A wave of wind, blasting in its heat, like a blanket of fire, rolled over Monty. He saw the lashing tongues of flame above him in the pines. The storm had caught him. It forged ahead. He was riding under a canopy of fire. Burning pine cones, like torches, dropped all around him, upon him.

  A terrible blank sense of weight, of agony, of suffocation—of the air turning to fire! He was drooping, withering, when he flashed from the pines out into the open park. The horse broke and plunged and went down, reeking, white, in convulsions, killed on his feet. There was fire in his mane. Monty fell with him and lay in the grass, the child in his arms.

  Fire in the grass—fire at his legs roused him. He got up. The park was burning over. It was enveloped in a pall of smoke. But he could see. Drawing back a fold of the wet shawl, he looked at the child. She appeared unharmed. Then he set off, running away from the edge of the forest. It was a big park, miles wide. Near the middle there was bare ground. He recognized the place, got his bearings, and made for the point where a deep ravine headed out of the park.

  Beyond the bare circle there was more fire, burning sage and grass. His feet were blistered through his boots, and then it seemed he walked on red-hot coals. His clothes caught fire, and he beat it out with bare hands.

  Then he stumbled into the rocky ravine. Smoke and blaze above him—the rocks hot—the air suffocating—it was all unendurable. But he kept on. He knew that his strength failed as the conditions bettered. He plunged down, always saving the child when he fell. His sight grew red. Then it grew dark. All was black, or else night had come. He was losing all pain, all sense when he stumbled into water. That saved him. He stayed there. A long time passed till it was light again. His eyes had a thick film over them. Sometimes he could not see at all.

  But when he could, he kept on walking, on and on. He knew when he got out of the ravine. He knew where he ought to be. But the smoky gloom obscured everything. He traveled the way he thought he ought to go and went on and on, endlessly. He did not suffer any more. The weight of the child bore him down. He rested, went on, rested again, went on again till all sense, except a dim sight, failed him. Through that, as in a dream, he saw moving figures, men looming up in the gray fog, hurrying to him.