Grey, Zane - Novel 27

by Wild-Horse Mesa

  “Well, Brutus--------- ” began Chane, with impulse to burst out in gratitude and love. But they were too deep. He did not even lay a caressing hand on the tangled wet black mane. But he was thinking hard. He had no possession save this horse. Again he was a poor wrangler. Yet was he not rich? Chane’s one thought of regret concerned the wounding of Toddy Nokin’s son.

  Brutus had a bloody welt across the side of his broad breast.

  “Horn’s shot—that last one,” concluded Chane, angrily. Removing the saddle, he wrung out the wet blankets and replaced them. His coat and bag of food bad remained intact, though somewhat the worse for muddy water. Chane led Brutus along the base of the cove, round to the far side where the trail started up. He climbed to the first step, a half circle of stone, worn smooth by water. From here he looked across the river.

  Slack had joined McPherson, and sat astride his horse, while the latter stamped up and down the beach. Then Slack, espying Chane, drew McPherson’s attention. The horse thief stood like a statue, gazing across the river; and it seemed to Chane that the gaze was one of baffled longing for Brutus. Chane shook a menacing fist at McPherson and called aloud, as if the man could hear above that roaring water, “Bud, we may meet again!”

  With that Chane turned to the ascent and straightway forgot his enemies and his loss. He was far from being safe. He had crossed the San Juan, but the Colorado ran between him and the security beyond. If the Colorado, too, was in flood, Chane felt there would be grave risk. He did not know whether or not a trail led from this ford up the river to Bluff. His food supply was too short for anything except straight travel toward the Mormon country, and even then he was going to experience hunger.

  The trail wound across the first circular ledge, zigzagged up smooth rock to the next ledge, back across that to the opposite side of this strange break in the nliff, and so on by a succession of steps to the top of the red wall that had appeared insurmountable to Chane.

  He found himself among the yellow wind-worn hills of stone that he had seen for days. The trail led through winding defiles and at last up over the smooth soft sandstone. Like a yellow swelling sea the rock waved away toward the north. Chane rode Brutus at a swift walk up and down these slopes and across the rounded summits, and at last down into a narrow break that grew in all dimensions as he descended. All indeed was stone, except for the narrow strip of blue sky above, but this canyon had little in common with the ones Chane had lately traversed. There were no great slopes of talus, no splintered heaps of ruined cliff, no toppling rim-walls, ready to crash down. It was a smooth, clear-cut, well-defined canyon, growing to noble proportions. So deep it went down that the light of day became gloom, almost of dusk.

  At length this somber shade brightened and Chane rode round a corner of wall, suddenly to be confronted by open space and sunshine, the silent swift roll of the Colorado River, and the stupendous walls of the Grand Canyon. Across this sullen red river opened the Hole in the Wall, and to Chane it did not belie its reputation.

  The river was scarcely any wider than the ford of the San Juan, but it ran deep, swift, strange, somehow tremendous and terrific in flood. But Chane was not daunted. He knew Brutus could swim that tide. What concerned Chane was to what distance the current .would carry the horse downstream. It was not possible to get Brutus very far along the bank up this side; otherwise Chane would have had little concern about the crossing. On the other side, however, the break in the great wall was considerable. Brutus might drift a goodly way downstream and still come out within reach of the Hole in the Wall. Far down other breaks showed, canyon mouths, and dark clefts, just mere shadowy lines.

  “Bratus, I reckon we don’t want to hang around long,” muttered Chane as he dismounted. “We’ve got to cross.”

  Then leading the horse upstream as far as the rugged bank permitted, he looped the bridle over the pommel.

  “Go on, boy,” he called, with deep expulsion of breath; and as Bratus plunged into the water Chane grasped his tail and held on. A few steps took Brutus over his depth and compelled him to swim. Chane merely held on to his tail.

  It developed that Brutus was as powerful at swimming as he was in other kinds of action. He headed straight across for fifty yards before the current made any perceptible change in his course. Gradually after that he drifted downstream. Chane realized that the current had more weight and volume than had been apparent. No man or beast could have resisted it. But as the river was not very wide and Brutus swam rapidly, Chane did not despair of reaching the break in the canyon wall.

  The river made no noise. Brutus seemed to be swimming in oil. The water felt cool, thick, weighted. Chane realized that he could not have held up very long in it. The next time he raised his head to look Brutus had drifted past the center of the Hole in the Wall, and as he was not yet halfway across, there seemed little hope of his making the mark. Indeed, the current grew swifter. Before Brutus had achieved two-thirds of the distance he had drifted beyond the line where he could climb out. Chane had difficulty in keeping his hold. He appeared a leaden weight, at which the water tugged.

  When Brutus saw that he was going to run into the frowning blank wall he grew frightened, and tried to turn round to swim back. But Chane, letting go his tail, in several strong strokes reached the bridle. He headed the horse downstream and quartering across, talked to him. Brutus allowed himself to be led, and as in the other river, helped by the current, he made better time. Chane let go of the bridle and dropped back to catch the floating tail. He missed it. Then with a second lunge he secured it, and held on grimly.

  Thus horse and man drifted rapidly down the river, while slowly making for the opposite wall. Brutus was in no distress. And Chane saw that the cleft he had aimed for was enlarging into a canyon mouth, and that Brutus would make it with room to spare. But when they reached the rocky bank it was too steep and slippery for Brutus to climb out. He lunged again and again, wasting his energy. The current here swirled and chafed at the shore. Above loomed the dark towering walls, split by the sinister canyon. Chane got hold of the bridle and made the shore. But he could not help Brutus. It was impossible to get him ud that steep bank. He floundered along, hanging to the bridle, calling to encourage the horse. They passed down yard after yard and the bank appeared to grow steeper.

  Chane resolved to go on down the river with Brutus if he could not get him out here. But that moment was a desperate one. The silent river had a horrible repellant force; the walls of rock seemed barriers lifted against him.

  They reached the extreme end of that canyon break in the wall. Chane leaped over a jutting point of bank, to keep even with Brutus, and was about to plunge back into the water, when he saw the horse find bottom. Brutus had fastened those powerful hoofs on solid foundation. He snorted and blew spray all over Chane. He lunged to get hold with his hind feet. Another lunge brought him half out of the water. Then with a magnificent leap, crashing out, he landed on the slippery ledge. Chane had to be quick to get out of his way. Brutus was off his balance. He was quivering when Chane dragged hard on the bridle, helping him to make the step that meant safety.

  Brutus blew a great blast of a snort that appeared to get rid of both his fright and the dirty sandy water. As for Chane, he fell in his tracks and lay still a few moments.

  “We’re across,” he said, presently, as if that fact ended the hazard. But this canyon mouth was far below the Hole in the Wall. It might have no outlet; it might end in boxed walls. Urged by these considerations, he got up and led Brutus away from the river.

  The canyon presented no difficulties of travel that Chane could see. The ascent was gradual, the floor for the most part covered with boulders. The walls were so high and so close that he could scarcely see the sky. The gloom down there was almost dark as night.

  Gradually the canyon widened and lightened. Chane mounted Brutus arid rode on at a trot wherever possible, impatient to see if he were trapped. But as he progressed, the nature of the canyon appeared to favor his ultimate
escape from its confines. The hoofs of Brutus rang off the boulders and struck hollow on the black ledges. Some narrow places required slowing up, but for the most part Brutus had no difficulty. The walls began to shade from red to gray; water appeared running over gravelly beds; grass and vines and flowers made color on the ledges.

  Chane rode on for what he considered several miles, always gradually up hill, and meeting with no insurmountable obstacles. This canyon ran north, which was the general direction favorable to him. If he had not been greatly concerned about the possibility of being trapped he would have enjoyed this changing canyon. It narrowed and widened by turns; its walls had an endless variety of blank spaces, caves, bulges, slopes. But, in vast contrast to San Juan Canyon, it had no jumbled heaps of rock. All the debris along that winding lane had been washed down with water at flood time.

  Presently Chane rode round into a long wide stretch that permitted him to see afar, both north and south. And he was amazed and thrilled to discover far above and back of his position the unmistakable southern end of Wild Horse Mesa. He could not mistake that majestic fluted wall of gold and red, with the black line of timber fringing the level rim. Like a grand bold-faced mountain it towered above him. This canyon that had engulfed him apparently ran along the eastern base of the mesa. Chane, studying all he could see of the lofty cape, concluded that Wild Horse Mesa sheered down perpendicularly, then spread out great flanges of surrounding escarpment that in turn sheered down to lend its base to winding canyons.

  Chane rode on. The hot sun soon dried his clothes. He began to feel the pangs of hunger, but desisted from breaking in upon his slender store of food. The farther up this strange canyon he traveled the more he became prey to apprehension. At any moment he might turn a bend and face an insurmountable wall. Chane could stand to go long on scant ration, but, Brutus had to have grass. Therefore Chane lost no time working toward the head of this canyon.

  The first sight of cottonwood trees, still beautifully green, cheered him to hopefulness. Brutus could browse on cottonwood leaves if no better offered. Other trees met his trail, and then a grassy bench, a strip of willow bank. It was still summer down here, dreamy, lulled to repose, free from frost and wind, the very heart of the deep canyons.

  Again the walls converged and there followed a long stretch bare of green growth or glint of water. At the end of this lane, insulated by its gray walls, Chane saw a sunlit space, and he gave a sudden start, believing that the canyon headed out there into open country. But an instant’s thought scouted this idea. He was still in the depths of the rocky fastnesses. Nevertheless, he quickened to the beautiful vista ahead.

  All at once Brutus halted. His long ears shot up. He had seen or scented something that was alive.

  “What’s up, old boy?” queried Chane, patting him and peering keenly ahead. He had no fear of what lay before him in the shape of living creature. His enemies were behind. Still, he was intensely curious. Urging Brutus on, Chane kept a sharp outlook.

  To his amaze, the canyon aisle led into the most wonderful place Chane had ever beheld. It was an enlargement of the canyon, green and gold and silvery, fragrant and sweet, walled on his right by a cliff that reached to the skies, and on the left by a strange slanting area, a falling of the wall, to a gradual slope of bare yellow stone, dotted by cedar trees growing out of niches in the rock.

  Chane’s swift gaze had just time to take this all in when Brutus jumped to a halt and whistled an alarm.

  Following that came the swift padding of hoofs on soft ground. Chane had heard that sound too often ever to mistake it.

  “Wild horses, by gum!” he ejaculated, with the old thrill of his boyhood.

  Then out of the cottonwoods trooped a band of wild horses, bays and blacks, sleek, shiny, with hanging manes and switching tails and keen wild heads erect. They faced Chane.

  Brutus neighed now, more with welcome than affright. These were creatures of his kind. His neigh was answered by a piercing whistle that rang like a bugle down the canyon.

  “Say, that’s a stallion!” exclaimed Chane.

  Then out of the green pranced the most beautiful and wildest horse Chane had ever seen. He recognized him, though he had only sighted him once, and that afar.

  “Panquitch!” gasped Chane, in bewildered ecstasy. His heart leaped to his throat and he shook in the saddle.

  The king of wild stallions was the color of a lion except for black mane and tail. This quivering mane seemed to stand erect like an arched wave, and fall almost to the sand. He had the points of a racehorse, with the weight and muscle gained from wild life on the desert. But his symmetry and grace, his remarkable beauty, were dwarfed by his spirit. His black eyes shot fire. His nostrils dilated to send forth another piercing blast. Wild, proud, fierce, he was a creature to stop the heart of a wild-horse hunter.

  Then with a backward spring, like that of a deer, he wheeled to race into the green. He disappeared, and his band of bays and blacks raced after him. Chane thought they would run up the canyon. No! The sharp click, click, click of bone hoofs on rock told him they had taken to the slope. Above the green of cotton- woods they appeared, Panquitch leading on a run uphill. . What a torturing thrill the sight gave Chane! For his first instinct had been one to capture.

  Panquitch slowed to a trot, and led his band up and down the waves of slope until Chane lost sight of them. He sat there astride Brutus and marveled. Then he galloped Brutus through the open, and the grove, to the slope. Here he dismounted and took to climbing. As he got up his range of vision widened. Climbing until he was breathless, he halted to look.

  He could see north over the waving slope, to the far height where the spreading flange of Wild Horse Mesa met this rising plane of yellow rock. But there was no sign of the wild horses. Thereupon Chane climbed less violently, until he had passed the zone of straggling cedars growing out of the bare rock and mounted high enough to command the prospect. A canyon split the escarpment to the north. Panquitch could not cross there, nor climb to the towering rim of Wild Horse Mesa from that side.

  Chane waited. At last, far above, he espied the tawny stallion now driving his band ahead of him. Manes and tails tossed wildly on the summit of a yellow ridge, and vanished. Then Panquitch stood silhouetted against the red of the mesa wall, far beyond. His mane waved in the wind. Every line of his magnificent frame seemed instinct with freedom. There was something about him that made Chane ache. Wild and grand he stood outlined there on the height, Then he vanished.

  Chane looked long at the place where- he had disappeared. Not easy was it to resist following. But as he was not equipped to chase wild horses, he gave up. Then he studied every line of the heights above, thrilling under the favorable position that had fallen to him through sheer luck.

  “Toddy Nokin had it figured wrong,” decided Chane, at length. “Panquitch gets on top the mesa round this end and not to the north. He comes down this canyon to climb up here. Somewhere above he has found a trail to the rim. But—if he comes down this canyon, why hasn’t he been trailed? I’ll find out.”

  Chane descended to Brutus and rode on out of the beautiful colored oval. As he had expected, he found fresh horse tracks in the sand, headed toward him. Keen on the trail, he kept on and did not look up until the perceptible darkening of the light demanded his attention.

  The canyon had narrowed to a V-shaped cleft, with gleaming walls slanting almost straight up to the sky. How weird and strange! This pass of gleams narrowed and widened as Chane traveled on.

  He came to pools of water over beds of gravel, then boulders almost blocking passage. But the trail of the wild horses led Chane on. He heard the gurgle of running water and saw where a stream disappeared under the cliff. He came to a pool that Brutus waded, clean, clear, beautiful green water. Beyond this was bare stone which showed no hoof marks. Then came sand again and the telltale tracks.

  Looking ahead, Chane was utterly astounded to see the cliffs come closer and closer together. This cleft grew gloomy and
somber. Chane kept on. He was sure of exit now. The wild horses had come down here, and his escape was certain. Besides, he would learn how Panquitch eluded his trailers.

  Boulders had to be clambered over, and more pools traversed. The water now was running swift and deep in places. Brutus had trouble keeping his footing. The converging walls took on a darker, weirder gleam. Chane could touch both walls at the same time. The floor of this strange canyon was bare solid rock, with the stream covering most of it.

  Chane came to a pool that was twenty feet deep. Brutus swam it. No horse tracks showed now on the granite floor. Even the iron hoofs of Brutus left no 'race. The sand was gone.

  Pool after pool of deep water Chane had to drive Brutus to swim. And the last was a hundred yards long. Chane could see the green depths under him. Beyond that the canyon widened and the stream rushed shallowly over a granite bed. No intersecting canyons broke these tremendous walls. The trail of the wild horses had come down that stone-floored stream.

  Chane remembered the canyon he had marked bisecting the eastern flange of the mesa. Soon he must come to where that opened into this one, unless both were one and the same. He traveled a tortuous mile oi more before he reached it. But one glance was sufficient to prove to him that Panquitch had never come down there. It was impassable. Chane kept to the winding lane of denuded rock until at last it opened out into bright space. A stone slope that dwarfed the one below greeted Chane’s expectant gaze. The canyon pierced it and ended in a cleft.

  Brutus carried Chane up that long slope and out on a wide desert bench which fell away from the mesa and merged on the seamed and cracked canyon country below. The bench with its scant bits of green appeared rock as far as eye could see. Everywhere along its rim slanted rugged bare declivities of stone, any one of which might lead into a canyon. Chane had marked the place where he had climbed out. He meant to come back. Panquitch’s access to Wild Horse Mesa was no longer a mystery to Chane. He could trap that great stallion.