Grey, Zane - Novel 27

by Wild-Horse Mesa

  “Ugh!” he grunted.

  Chane saw Manerube ride into sight, coming at a good trot and leading a pack horse. Behind Manerube bobbed a black head, now in view, then disappearing. Presently Chane got a better look at it.

  “Sosie! Well, I’m a son-of-a-gun!” he ejaculated, in amaze and dismay.

  The Indian girl was riding behind Manerube, and she had both arms round him. At the moment her gold-bronze face flashed in the sunlight. Chane watched intently, standing motionless until Manerube had ridden within one hundred feet of the cedar that concealed Chane and Toddy. Sosie’s face bobbed out to the side of Manerube’s shoulder. Most assuredly it was not the face of an unwillingly abducted girL

  It wore a smile. The wide dark eyes gleamed. Her white teeth showed.

  Chane’s rush of anger was almost as much against her as Manerube. Jerking his rifle from its saddle- sheath, he cocked it and stepped out to level it at Manerube.

  “Stop! Quick! Hands up!” he ordered.

  The approaching horse snorted and jumped. Manerube hauled it to a halt. Then as his hands shot aloft his ruddy face paled.

  “Up they are!” he said, hoarsely, in rage and discomfiture.

  Chane strode forward, and he heard the padding of Toddy’s moccasined feet close behind him.

  “Sosie—get off that horse,” called Chane, sharply.

  The Indian girl almost fell off in the hurry that actuated her. There was no radiance now on her face, nor any of the stoical Indian courage which should have been an heritage. Her big eyes were distended.

  “Manerube, I’ve a mind to shoot you,” declared Chane, with the rifle steadily leveled.

  “What for? I’ve not done you any dirt,” replied the other, thickly. “You’ve no call to kill me on this little hussy’s account.”

  “I’m not so sure. You’ve made her pan off with you,” retorted Chane.

  “Made nothing. She wants to go.”

  Toddy Nokin shuffled round to the side of Chant; and approached his daughter. He swung his quirt. Chane saw Sosie shrink and her eyes dilate.

  “Hold on, Toddy!” called Chane, and then, step ping aside so that he had the girl in line with Manerube, he addressed her: “Sosie, were you willing to go with him"?”

  “Yes,” she answered, sullenly. “But it was because he says he’ll marry me.”

  “Manerube, you hear what Sosie said. Is it true? You’re talking to a white man now.”

  “No, you damn fool!” shouted Manerube. “I wouldn’t marry a squaw.”

  Chane eyed Manerube in silence for a moment. The man had no sense of guilt, and he was not afraid to tell the truth.

  “Well, I reckon you’d better sit tight and keep your hands high,” went on Chane. “Toddy, you take his gun.”

  The Piute advanced upon Manerube, and quickly jerking his gun from its holster, he stepped back. Then Chane strode round Manerube to see if he had another weapon.

  “Get off your horse,” ordered Chane, and handed both his rifle and his short gun to the Indian.

  Manerube stared, without complying. At the outset of this encounter he had showed fear, but now, as there seemed no certainty of a fatal issue for him, the color was returning to his face.

  Chane wasted no more words. Laying a powerful hold on Manerube, he jerked him from the saddle to the ground, where he sprawled hard.

  “Get up, before I kick you!” went on Chane, yielding to an anger that grew hot.

  Manerube got to his feet, with astonishment giving way to fury. Chane rushed him and knocked him flat. He raised on his elbow, then on his hand, while he extended the other, now shaking with passion. A reddening lump appeared on his face.

  “I’ll kill you!” he hissed.

  “Aw, get up and fight!” retorted Chane, derisively, and he kicked Manerube, not with violence, but hard enough to elicit a solid thump. It served to make Manerube leap erect and plunge at Chane. They fought all over the place, dealing each other blow for blow. Manerube was no match for Chane at that game, and manifestly saw it, for he tried to close in. Failing that, he maneuvered until he was near enough Toddy to snatch at one of the guns Toddy held. The Indian showed surprising agility in leaping aside.

  “Manerube—you’re just—what I said—you were,” panted Chane, hoarsely. Rushing at Manerube and battering him down, Chane did not let him rise, but beat him soundly until he was most thoroughly whipped. Then Chane got up, to wipe sweat and blood and dust from his face.

  “Take your gun—and your horses—and rustle,” ordered Chane, jerking the weapons from Toddy. He threw Manerube’s gun at his feet. Then with rifle leveled low Chane watched the man sit up, draw the gun to him by the barrel, and rise with his back to Chane. He shoved the gun into its holster, and strode, staggering a little, toward where his horses had moved. Chane kept close watch on him, ready for another show of treachery. But Manerube mounted and took up She halter of the pack animal, not looking back until he had started to ride off. Then his pallid discolored face expressed a passion that boded ill to Chane. He rode out of sight among the cedars. Chane turned to the Indians. Toddy Nokin had in no wise lost anything of his dignity, at least in his attitude toward Chane. He returned the small gun Chane had handed him. Sosie had quite recovered from what fright she had sustained, and was now regarding her champion with dusky eyes alight Not before had the fragility of her, nor the prettiness, and something half tame, half wild, struck Chane so forcibly. But his sympathy and her appeal both went down before his anger.

  “Sosie, you’re no good,” he declared.

  Instantly she grew sullen, defiant.

  “I’m what white men have made me,” she responded.

  Chane had not adequate reply for that, and indeed felt helpless.

  Toddy Nokin yelled something in Piute at his wayward daughter, and as she whirled he aimed a swing of the quirt and likewise a kick at her, both of which fell short. Like a flash the supple figure moved out of reach. She screeched back at them. Chane could not decide whether it was the wild-cat cry of an Indian squaw or the passionate expression of her white learning. Perhaps it was both.

  Chapter Three

  SUE MELBERNE’S father would never have allowed her to come on this wild-horse hunting expedition if he had not calculated on finding- a new -country where he could homestead. Back there at St. George she had heard her father say to Loughbridge, his partner in this venture, “You know, Jim, I’ve shore got to take root in new soil.”

  This significant remark had remained in Sue’s mind, like others that had struck her strangely since her return from school in Silver City. Her father was always looking for some one to come unexpectedly, so it seemed. There had been some reason for him to leave the south, then Silver City, then Vegas, and lastly St. George. Sue did not want to dwell on the meaning of this. She had been born in Texas and she had lived long enough in the West to know Westerners.

  The pursuit of wild horses had a remarkable fascination for Sue, but she hated the brutality. She loved to see and watch wild horses, not to capture them. Then the camp life, the riding and packing from place to place, the days in the open country—Utah in its beautiful, wild, carved-stone majesty—coming aftet her four years at school in a bustling town, had irresistible appeal for her.

  There had been a chance for her to remain at St. George, teaching a school where most of the children were Mormons. She did not dislike Mormons particularly, but she had no wish to live alone among them.

  On the other hand, the prospect held out by her father had not at first struck Sue as alluring. It would be, sooner or later, no less than hard pioneer life. But she had decided to try it, to be with her father and younger brother. Sue’s mother was dead, and her father had married again while she was attending school, a circumstance she had not hailed with joy. It had turned out, however, that her stepmother was a clever and lovable woman, who had certainly been good for her father.

  Therefore, Sue, who had undertaken the trip out of love for father and brother, and a lon
ging for experience in the desert, found in a few weeks that she was fitting admirably and happily into this nomad life of wild-horse wrangling. She was young, healthy, strong; she could ride a horse and cook a meal over a camp fire; she found in herself a surprising response to all that was characteristic of primitive life in the open. Still she held most tenaciously to her few worldly possessions—dresses, pictures, books—things that had been a part of her development at school. Many a time, on the journey east from St. George, she had ridden on the wagon-seat with Jake, just to keep him from driving recklessly over some of the fearful places along the road. She did not want to see that wagon wrecked, with her precious chest of belongings.

  Melbeme’s outfit was not a large one, as wild-horsehunting outfits were considered, but as he and hi$ partner, Loughbridge, had brought their women folk and the necessary teamsters, wagons, camp equipment, supplies, all together they made quite a party. If a desirable country were found, with abundant grass and Water, Loughbridge would be willing to homestead a ranch, along with Melberne. Their main idea, then, Was really not alone the capturing and marketing of wild horses. In the interest, however, of that pursuit it was necessary to keep within one day’s travel of the railroad. Melberne was shipping car-loads of unbroken horses to St. Louis. In considerable numbers, at thirteen dollars a head, he could make money. But he was not striking any country rich in ranching possibilities.

  It was on an afternoon of September that the Melberne outfit halted at the head of Stark Valley, which was thirty miles from the railroad.

  Sue had heard the men talking about this valley, and all the ride down from the divide to the welcome grove of cottonwood trees below she had gazed and gazed. Utah had been strikingly beautiful with its pink cliffs, wide plains of white sage, rugged black mountains, and then the colorful stone-monumented desert. She had marked that as they traveled eastward the scale and ruggedness and wild beauty had appeared to magnify. This valley was something to make her catch her breath.

  She had grown capable of judging the colorful distances, the deceiving purple shadows, the long sweeping lines of the desert. Here she saw a valley which she estimated to be twenty miles wide and eighty long. Really it seemed small, set down in a vast panorama with a ragged black range of mountains on one side, an endless waving green rise of land sweeping to a horizon on the other. Far beyond the long length of this valley stood what appeared a flat mountain, very lofty, with red walls now sunlit, and a level black top. It was so different from any landmark Sue had ever seen that she was forcibly struck with it. How far away! How isolated! It had a strange, impelling beauty.

  “Dad, what’s that mountain?” asked Sue, pointing.

  Her father, a stalwart bearded man, turned from his task of unhitching a team, to answer Sue. He had gray, penetrating, tired eyes that held a smile for her.

  “Shore I don’t know,” he replied as he glanced in the direction Sue was pointing. “Wal, no wonder it caught your eye! See heah, Alonzo, what’s that flat mountain yonder?”

  Alonzo was a half-breed Mexican vaquero, guide to the outfit, and reputed to be the best wrangler in Utah, He was a slim, lithe rider, very light of build yet muscular, and he had a sharp, smooth, dark face, and eyes of piercing black He gazed a moment down the valley.

  “Wild Horse Mesa,” he replied, briefly.

  “Reckon I ought to have known, considerin’ all I’ve heard,” said Melbeme. “Sue, that’s not a mountain, but a mesa. Biggest mesa in Utah. It’s a refuge for wild horses, so the Mormons say, an’ no white men have set foot on it.”

  “Wild Horse Mesa!” exclaimed Sue. “How beautiful—and wild! So far away. . . . It’s good there’s a place where horses are safe.”

  “Wal lass, there’ll shore be a lot of wild horses safe for a long time,” said her father as he surveyed the valley. “This country is full of them. Look! I see hundreds of wild horses now.”

  Sue focused her dreamy gaze, and was surprised and thrilled to see bands of horses dotting the valley. They appeared to be of all colors, and grew in numbers until they faded in the gray haze.

  “They’ll shore be the devil to catch,” continued Melberne as his keen eye swept the valley. It was a vast green hollow, treeless, stoneless, with its monotony broken only by the bands of horses and pale gleams of winding streams.

  “Dad, we’re to make permanent camp here, didn’t you say?” asked Sue.

  “Yep, an’ right glad I am,” he rejoined, heartily. “We’ve shore been on the go, with no chance to make you womenfolk comfortable. Heah we can make a fine camp. Plenty of grass, water, wood, an’ meat. This grove is in a protected place, too. We’ll be heah days, an’ maybe weeks. I’m shore goin’ to trap a great bunch 'of wild horses.”

  “Dad, you mean trap them at one time?”

  “That’s my idea. Jim doesn’t agree, but he’ll come to my way of thinkin’.”

  “If you’d only keep the wild horses you do catch and tame them!” protested Sue.

  “Tame wild horses at thirteen dollars a head!” ejaculated her father, with a laugh. “Child, it can’t be done.”

  “Some of the horses I’ve seen, if properly broken, .would be worth hundreds of dollars,” replied Sue.

  Melberne scratched his grizzled face and pondered thoughtfully; then he shook his head as if the problem was beyond him, and returned to his task.

  Many experienced hands made short work of pitching camp. Before the sun set tents were up, fires were blazing, blue smoke was curling upward through the golden-green leaves of the cottonwoods; the fragrant steam of hot biscuits, venison and coffee permeated the cool air.

  “I refuse to call out that cowboy slogan,” announced Mrs. Melberne, cheerfully, “but I say come to supper.”

  She was a short, stout, pleasant-faced little woman, just now ruddy from the fire heat. Her helper, Mrs. Loughbridge, afforded a marked contrast, in both appearance and manner.

  Young Chess Weymer, who was always offering gallant little courtesies to Sue and Ora Loughbridge, lifted a seat from one of the wagons and placed it conveniently out of line of the blowing camp-fire smoke.

  “There, girls, have a seat,” he said, in his rich bass voice.

  Sue complied with a nod of thanks, and seated her self with burdened tin plate in one hand and a cup in the other. But Ora did not get up from where she squatted on the ground. She was a dark-eyed handsome girl, and just now rather sullen of face.

  “Come have a seat, Ora,” called Chess.

  She flashed him an illuminating look. “Chess, I wouldn’t deprive you of such a chance,” she said, with sarcasm.

  “Oh, well, if you won’t, I will,” replied Chess, and seated himself beside Sue.

  Sue rather enjoyed the situation. Ora had been, plainly captivated by this good-looking boy, who showed a preference for Sue’s society. He was a clean- cut lad of eighteen, brown of face and eye, and possessed of a fine frank countenance, singularly winning. At St. George, where he had joined the caravan, he had appeared to be a wild, happy youngster, not above drinking and fighting, and utterly unable to resist the girls. Sue liked his company so long as he did not grow over-sentimental. She was two years older than Chess, and in her mind vastly more mature. She had condescended to regard him with sisterly favor until the Loughbridges joined the party, when Ora had taken most of the pleasure, as well as Chess’s society.

  Everybody was hungry after the long ride, and ate without conversing. Sue’s appetite was as healthy as any. It took considerably less time to dispose of the supper than it had required to prepare it. This meal hour, and the camp-fire hour afterward, were about the only opportunities Sue had to observe the men all together, and she made the most of them.

  The wranglers of the outfit were a continual source of delight to her. There were six of these employed by her father, and they worked in every capacity that such travel and strenuous activity demanded.

  Alonzo, the half-breed, was the most fascinating, by reason of the knowledge he could impart. Ut
ah, a wild-horse wrangler, was probably a Mormon, though he never admitted that—a sharp-featured, stone-faced young man, long, slim, bow-legged, hard as rock, and awkward on his feet. He somehow resembled the desert. Tway Miller appeared to be a cowboy who had abandoned cattle-riding because he hated wire fences. He complained that there were no great ranges left, and when taken to task about this, he showed his idea of a range to be the whole southwest. Tway was a tough, wiry little rider, dusty always, ragged and shiny, and he had a face like the bark of a tree. He got his name Tway from a habit he had of stuttering, something his comrades took fiendish glee in making him do. Bonny was a stalwart Irishman, sandy bearded and haired, freckle-faced, and he possessed a wonderful deep bass voice, the solemnity of which suited his big light-blue eyes. His age was about thirty, and he had been ten years in America. His one dislike, it appeared, was anything in the shape of a town. Jake, a man of years and experience, possessed a heavy square frame that had begun to show the wear of time. He was bald. His round brown face was a wrinkled record of all the vicissitudes of life, not one of which had embittered him. Everything ill had happened to Jake. He had once had wife, children, home, prosperity, position, all of which had gone with the years. Yet he was the most cheerful and unselfish and helpful of men. If anyone wanted a service he ran to Jake. And Jake would say: “Why, sure! I’ll be glad to do it.” Jake had been engaged, as had the others, to chase wild horses, and betweentimes help at all jobs. But it turned out that his active riding days were past. It tortured him, racked his bones, to ride all day even on a trotting horse. As teamster, however, cook, and handy man around camp he was incomparable. The last of this sextet so interesting to Sue was a tenderfoot they had named Captain Bunk. The sea to him had been what the desert was to the riders. Somehow he had drifted to Utah. His talk about boats, engines, ships, his bunk-mates, had earned him the sobriquet of Captain Bunk. He had a face as large as a ham, bright red, an enormous nose that never got over sunburn, and eyes and lips that always showed the effect of the dry winds of the desert.