Grey, Zane - Novel 27

  The moment came when the vaquero launched his black into the race. Sue, who had seen racehorses leave the post, could not but recognize the superiority of Alonzo’s black. All in a second he seemed wild, too. The band of horses broke and ran, in a way to make their former running seem slow. They stretched out to the east, and the fleetest forged to the front. The red leader had two rivals for supremacy, and these three drew away from the others, though not far.

  Alonzo did not appear to gain. He kept to the north of his quarry. His reason for this was obvious. For perhaps half a mile eastward this position was maintained, then shots from Chane’s gun acted like a wall upon the running wild horses. They sheered in abrupt curve toward the open, and were turned by Chess back toward the west. Here the wonderful race began.

  The vaquero had now only to head directly toward them to gain the distance that he had been behind. If the fleetness of those wild horses was something thrillingly incredible, that of Alonzo’s black was even more so, because he carried weight. No doubt the vaquero meant this particular race to be short, or perhaps this was his method. At any rate he closed in on the rear of that band, and began to pass mustang after mustang. He wanted to rope one of the best and fleetest.

  Wild horses and pursuer were now racing back toward where Sue and her father waited, and the line on which they would pass, if they kept straight, was scarcely two hundred yards.

  “Oh, dad, they’ll come close,” cried Sue.

  “You bet. Reckon I’ll shoot to scare them if they head closer. . . . Say, Sue, look at that half-breed ride!”

  The stretched-out band did head closer toward Melberne’s stand, and probably would have broken through the line had he not fired his gun. That made the leaders swerve a little north. It also enabled Sue to get a perfect view of the race. The rhythmic thud of flying hoofs thrilled her ears. Thin puffs of dust shot up. The lean, swift wild mustangs rushed on apace. The very action of them suggested wildness, fleetness, untamableness—spirits in harmony with their wonderful flight. But to Sue they did not seem frightened.

  As they came on the Mexican gained foot by foot upon the leaders. He could have roped his pick of those behind. But plain it was he wanted one of the three. Sue had only admiration for Alonzo, and something greater for his horse, yet her heart was with the wild mustangs.

  “Run! Oh, you beauties, run!” she cried, wildly. “He can’t keep up long.”

  “Go it, Alonzo,” roared her father, in stentorian voice. “Ketch me that red mare.”

  But Melberne’s ambition was not to be, and Sue’s hopes were only half fulfilled. The black racer was running so terribly that soon he must fall or break his stride. Yet he could only hold the place he had gained. He could not run down the fleet leaders; and as they passed, a wild and beautiful sight to a lover of horses, Sue saw them begin to draw a little away from Alonzo. He saw it, too. The long looped lasso began to swing found his head and he closed in on the horses behind the leaders. Then, at this full speed, he cast the rope. It shone in the sunlight; it streaked out, and fell.

  “He’s got one. Whoop!” yelled Melbeme.

  Sue was not so sure. Presently, however, she saw Alonzo’s horse break his stride, sway and sag, catch himself to go on slower and slower. The band of wild horses swept on and beyond, to disclose one of their number madly plunging and fighting Alonzo’s rope. Then it ran wild, dragging the black. Alonzo appeared to be running with this mustang, yet at the same time holding back. They went a mile or more north, turned to the west, and then faced back again.

  Meanwhile Sue and Melbeme watched. “Oh, I’m glad, but I’m sorry, too,” said Sue.

  "Haw! Haw! You’ll shore make a fine horse wrangler’s wife.”

  “Dad!” expostulated Sue.

  “Wal, there’s no cowboy to marry, or school-teacher or preacher out heah,” declared her father. “You shore gotta marry somebody some day.”

  The subject did not appeal to Sue and she rode a little way to meet Alonzo, who appeared to have gained some control over the lassoed mustang. She saw the original band of wild horses halt far to the west, and turn about to see if they were still being chased. Chane galloped up to join Melberne, and Chess appeared to be coming.

  In a few moments more Sue saw a captured mustang at close quarters, and one that she could gaze at in pleasure, without seeing any evidence of the things that had alienated her.

  The mustang was a beautiful animal, a gray-blue in color, with extremely long mane and tail, black as a raven. Alonzo’s rope had gone over its head and one foreleg, so that the noose had come taut around its shoulders and between its forelegs at the breast.

  “Wal, he couldn’t have done better with his hands,” declared Melberne. “No chokin’ round the neck, no breakin’ legs.”

  “He’s a wonder,” replied Chane. “By golly! I thought once he’d get in reach of the red mare. Say, there’s a horse.”

  “What’ll we do now with this heah one?” inquired Melberne.

  “We’ll throw him, tie his feet, and let him lay a little while. Alonzo is good for another race on his black. Then I’d like him to ride Brutus. I’ll be darned if I don’t believe he can rope that red mare off Brutus.”

  That evening at sunset Melberne’s outfit were a happy, merry party. The environment perhaps had something to do with satisfaction, and then the day had been gratifying. Alonzo had roped three wild mustangs, and one of them was the red mare, which had fallen prey to the vaquero’s unerring lasso and to the fleetness of Brutus.

  This occasion was the first time Sue had ever seen Chane Weymer happy. He was more of a boy than Chess. The victory of his horse over the wild mustang must have been the very keenest of joys. His dark face, clean-shaven and bronzed, shone in the sunset glow, and his eyes sparkled. He even had a bright look and nod for Sue.

  There was one thing forced home to Sue, perhaps, she reflected at the moment when Chane condescended to observe that she was still on the earth. This was, that after the wonderful day, and now facing in mute rapture a sunset of extraordinary glory of gold and rose and purple, seeing for the first time the phenomenon told by Chane about the lilac and lavender haze on Wild Horse Mesa, she could not call herself unhappy.

  “Melberne, I reckon I see two of Toddy Nokin’s Piutes riding down the trail,” observed Chane, shading his eyes from the last golden glare of the sun.

  “Ahuh! I see them,” replied Melberne. “Ridin’ in for supper, hey?”

  Chane looked thoughtful, and, watching the Indians, he shook his head ponderingly, as if he could not just quite understand their coming. Presently two little mustangs, with the wild-appearing riders unmistakably Indian, rode out of the cedars and came across the level in a long swinging lope.

  “One of them is Sosie’s brother,” said Chane, peering hard down the bench. “And, by golly! the other one is her husband.”

  With that Chane strode down to meet them, and at the foot of the bench he detained them in conversation for some minutes. Presently they dismounted and, slipping the saddles and bridles, they let the mustangs go, and accompanied Chane up to the camp fire.

  Sue had seen Sosie’s brother, but not her husband. He was a slender Indian, with lean, dark handsome face and somber eyes. He did not smile or talk, as did his comrade. He carried a shiny carbine which he rested on the instep of his moccasined foot.

  “Jake, rustle some grub,” called Chane, and then he turned to Melberne. “Some news, Melberne. Though I’m not surprised. Loughbridge and Manerube, with five men and no women, are camped back on the rim about five miles.”

  “Five men now, an’ no womenfolk!” ejaculated Melberne. “Huh! that’s kind of funny. How’d they get rid of Ora and her mother?”

  “They’re packing their outfit. They haven’t the wagon you gave Loughbridge. Reckon that’s gone to Wund with the girl and Mrs. Loughbridge.”

  “Wal, that’s where Jim Loughbridge ought to be, I’m thinkin’. But shore I’m not carin’ where he is.”

  “Wo
uld you mind if he packed down here?” inquired Chane.

  “Huh! I shore would,” declared the other, bluntly. “I just wouldn’t let him. This is my range.”

  Chane threw up his hands as if he had understood before he asked. “That talk is as old as the West, Melberne. You can hold the water rights of Nightwatch Spring. But that’s all.”

  “I reckon it’s enough. What’s your idee aboot it?”

  “Water is power here. We might be in for trouble if Manerube has control. I’m just wondering if those extra men could be Bud McPherson and his cronies.”

  “Wal, I don’t know, that’s shore,” declared Melberne. “But your wonderin’ aboot it makes me think.” Chane bent lower toward Melberne, so that none but he and Sue who sat with him, could hear.

  “It’s got a funny look. Both ways,” whispered Chane. “Especially Sosie’s brother and husband trailing along when I supposed them over the rivers. Do you get my hunch?”

  “Ahuh!” ejaculated Melberne, seriously.

  Chapter Fourteen

  OCTOBER ended, but Indian summer still lingered down under the zigzag walls of Wild Horse Mesa.

  Melberne, along with wild-horse chasing, had thrown up a two-room log cabin of peeled spruce. Utah and Miller had returned with two wagon-loads of supplies, not the least of which was a plough Melberne regarded with the pride of a pioneer. In the spring he meant to drive in cows for domestic use, and cattle to range the grassy reaches.

  Loughbridge’s threat that Melberne had not seen the last of their deal was far from being forgotten. Nevertheless, as the days passed without any sign of him or the riders with whom he had chosen to consort, gradually expectation dwindled. Perhaps in the swift rush of the full days, if it had not been for the two Piute Indians riding into camp now and then, without any apparent reason for remaining in the vicinity of Wild Horse Mesa, Melberne and Chane would not have felt any further concern. But the presence of the brother and husband of Sosie Nokin was proof to Chane at least that Manerube still hovered on the trail of the Melberne outfit. Whatever anxiety Chane betrayed, however, appeared to be in the interest of the Indians. Often he was seen in earnest conversation with the Piutes, particularly Sosie5s husband, but he did not di- yulge what transpired between them.

  In the two weeks of their stay there Alonzo had roped close to fifty wild horses, which was about as many as Melberne felt he could handle that fall. The Mexican was now at the harder and longer task of breaking them. Sometimes the Piutes would help him, to Chane’s satisfaction, for they were skilled in that regard. It had been decided a better plan to build a fence of cedar posts and spruce poles all the way across the canyon instead of attempting to drive the wild horses out. More and more horses showed up down in the canyon as the days went by. As yet Chane had not been able to find where they entered. This elongated and walled box was called canyon only for want of a better name. A month of hard riding would be needed to explore the nooks and crannies of the western wall, and thus far Chane had devoted his efforts only to the Wild Horse Mesa side.

  He would return at sunset, sometimes on foot, at others riding Brutus, with stories of his vain attempts to find a way up over the wall to the first escarpment of the great mesa.

  “I’m sure one of these cracks in the wall can be climbed,” he said. “But I’ve not hit it yet. It’d take days to go up our trail and under the Henry Mountains and round west through the canyons. I want to get up right at this end and save seventy-five miles’ travel.”

  “Wal, keep huntin’,” replied Melberne. “I shore want to know all aboot Wild Horse Mesa. Reckon I’ll run cattle up there some day.”

  November ushered in days as still and mellow and golden as had been those of October. The only difference Sue could see was a gradual increase in the nipping morning air, a deepening of the autumn purple and gold and red, and an almost imperceptible southward trend of the setting sun.

  One afternoon Chane came back to camp ragged and dusty of garb, beaming of face, and bursting with news.

  “By golly! I’ve found a way out on top,” he ejaculated, happily. “Funny how easy, after I found it. Took me right under the sharp bluff of the mesa. Grandest view in all the world! Now I can explore the great wall all along this side. And on the other I’ll be right on the bare rock benches that slope down into the canyon country. Fact is I was close to the place where I worked up from the rivers.”

  Sue, watching Chane and listening to him, was inclined to believe Chess’s whisper—that Chane had something up his sleeve. “Sue, the son-of-a-gun is on the track of Panquitch,” added Chess, in her ear. Anything concerning Chane had power to interest and excite Sue, and this time she was fascinated. Under his physical weariness and the contrasting enthusiasm of his talk there seemed a deep suppressed emotion. Could Chane care so much about the capture of a wild horse? It was just the intensity of his nature.

  “Wal, I’ll tell you what,” interposed Melberne. “I’ll go with you. We’ll take a packhorse an’ explore for a few days.”

  Chane did not exhibit his usual happy acceptance of any plan by which he could serve.

  “Dad, I want to go and I’m going,” declared Sue, with sudden positiveness.

  “You couldn’t keep me from going if you hawg-tied me,” spoke up Chess.

  “Say, is this a picnic I’m to be scout for?” queried Chane.

  “Shore it’s a picnic,” replied Melberne. “We’ll take the kids, Chane. They can look after themselves. I’ll do the same. That’ll leave you free to carry out your own explorations. But well have a camp we’ll all come back to.”

  Sue suddenly realized that she was staring at Chane, caught off her guard. The guilty blood warmed her cheek. What did he mean by his penetrating, almost stern gaze? The days had passed by until the Stark Valley episode seemed dim and far away, yet Chane had not changed. She was nothing to him.

  “All—right,” drawled Chane, with returning good nature, “if you can keep up with me.”

  “Huh! Thought you said it was an easy climb,” retorted Melberne.

  “Boss, the talk of this brother of mine is a delusion and a snare,” averred Chess. “But we don’t care what his easy means. Hey, Sue?”

  “We don’t care in the least what Chane—thinks,” rejoined Sue, demurely, with eyes cast down.

  Chess let out a merry peal of laughter, Melberne looked wise, and Chane retreated within himself.

  Next morning in the cold dark clearness of dawn Sue rode out of camp with Chess, following her father and Chane, who were driving two pack horses. The adventure to Sue had an alluringly bright face.

  “Well, sister dear,” began Chess, “this little trip will be Chane’s finish. The big stiff of an iceberg!”

  “Chess, I declare, if you begin to tease me about—about him—I-—I’ll not go,” replied Sue.

  “Not go? You’re crazy. This’ll be the chance we want. But I know you’re bluffing. You just couldn’t keep from going.”

  How well he knew her! Indeed, Sue could not have imagined on the moment anything that could have kept her back. Chess seemed unusually happy, brotherly, protective, and yet more devilish than ever. He absolutely could not be trusted, so far as his verbosity to her was concerned. Sue no longer had control over Chess. Since that moment of anguish when she had confessed her love for Chane—that it was killing her— Chess had made her completely his own, in a boyish, masterly, brotherly way. She could do nothing with him. He had closed her protesting lips with a kiss. When she slapped him, with no slight hand, he had offered the other cheek. She was afraid to be alone with him, because of this propensity to torture her; yet, strange paradox, his presence, his laughing eyes, his never-ending habit of yoking her name with Chane’s, her future with Chane’s, caused her as much ecstasy as torment.

  Sue followed Chess into one of the many mouths of the cracked wall, finding it identical with others she had visited. Presently they passed the zone of fer* tility, to go into a narrowing gulch where riding soon became imposs
ible. Climbing on foot, however, had one relieving virtue—Chess had to save his breath and so could not tantalize her.

  The fissure in the wall narrowed, zigzagged, grew steeper and more choked with rock and shale, until Sue gladly welcomed those intervals when Chane and her father worked to make a trail, cracking with sledge hammer, heaving the stones. There were places where the pack horses had to squeeze through. It was slow, hot, laborsome work, and Sue felt so confined and restricted by the winding upward passage that she had no pleasure in this part of the day’s adventure.

  An hour was consumed on the last devious steep ascent of the split in the wall.

  “Ea—sy! That—son-of-a-gun said—easy,” panted Chess, as he surmounted the rim. “Come on—Sue.” Sue’s leaden boots could barely be lifted; they seemed riveted to the trail. At length she made it, and raising her eyes was almost staggered by a colossal red corner of wall, cracked, seamed, stained, sheering up so high that she had almost to unjoint her neck to bend back her head to see the top.

  “What’s—that?” she asked, huskily.

  “Reckon it’s Wild Horse Mesa. Isn’t Chane an awful liar? Easy to get on top, he said. Why, we’ve only climbed one step of a stairway to the sky.”

  The bulging red corner hid whatever lay to east and south. In the other direction the view showed the country back upon which Sue had so often gazed— desert upland, sweeping away, grass and ridge and range, to the distant black mountains. Suddenly she gazed down. The gray canyon yawned at her feet, not unlike when she had first seen it from the other rim. Her father’s labors seemed lost in the vastness of gray and green. Only the column of blue smoke proved that the homestead was a reality.