Grey, Zane - Novel 27

by Wild-Horse Mesa

  “Get on and ride,” called Chane.

  The bare red rock sloped up gently in the direction Chane and her father were leading. Sue trotted her horse to catch up with them. To her left the stone slanted gradually, growing broken, and at length merged in the deceiving irregularity of the desert. She felt a mounting curiosity to see what lay beyond the close horizon. As for the wall of the mesa to her right, that somehow staggered her.

  Chane and her father halted with the pack horses just as Sue reached them. Then for Sue the very world of stone upon which she stood seemed to have dropped away before her transfixed gaze.

  The southwest country, the canyon country, lay beneath her, as if by some incredible magic, within the grasp of her vision. Waving gently, bare and red, the rock beneath her sloped down and down, until it seemed to be lost in the gleaming abyss.

  Sue did not need to be told that the first terrible gap in the terraced stone was the Grand Canyon. She saw the granite walls, almost black, and under them the swirling red river. Dark and menacing, this canyon wound in rugged sweeps through the leagues of bare stone, meeting lines of cleavage that were other can» yons, emptying into it. Between and beyond rolled the endless waves, knolls, ridges, domes of red and yellow rock; and dark cleats, thin, wandering, showed deep in every rounded surface. It was a grand and stunning spectacle. Dimly across this waste of canyon-cut stone rose a flat land, purple in color, overtopped by a round black mountain. The west seemed all closed by the bulk of Wild Horse Mesa. It ranged away, an unscalable wall, for many miles, regular and clear-cut at single glance, but discovering to long study a mountain of seamed and creviced stone, with millions of irregularities, sheering down to the base of bare stone that appeared to be its foundation. This mesa rose from a tableland that in itself towered above the canyon country. The far end of Wild Horse Mesa stood up in supreme isolation and grandeur, bright-walled in the morning sun.

  If Chane expected those whom he had brought here to exclaim with rapture their impressions of this spectacle, he had reckoned falsely. Chess was the only one to speak, and his exclamations proved the natural tendency of some persons to be funny when they mean to be impressive. Sue wanted intensely to get off by herself; she gazed no more because her faculties seemed to have become dwarfed.

  Chane rode down over the waving stone, to enter a curving-walled break, that soon became a canyon in itself and swallowed them up. It opened at length into a loftier walled canyon, where clear water ran, and the richest of green grass and most exquisite of flowers, white, yellow, lavender, made verdure on the narrow benches. Cottonwood trees showed foliar just beginning to turn gold.

  “Here’s a good place to camp,” said Chane. “Grass, water, and wood. And we can explore in four directions.”

  ‘Wal, I reckon we’d better hang up right heah,” declared Melberne. “Because, I’ll be darned, if you show me any more pretty places I’ll get discontented with my homestead.”

  “Melberne, did you see any tracks on the way across the bench above?” asked Chane as he swung out of his saddle.

  “Tracks! On that bare rock? I shore didn’t,” replied Melberne.

  “Well, I did, and some of them were fresh, made by shod horses. They were headed west along the bench. The Piute boys rode up this way yesterday, but their ponies were not shod. I’m inclined to believe Manerube and his outfit made those tracks.”

  “Ahuh! Wal, what if they did?” demanded the other.

  “No matter, I reckon. They’re leaving us alone,” rejoined Chane, thoughtfully. “But it bothers me—the idea they maybe trying to climb Wild Horse Mesa. They’re on the wrong track down that bench, for about ten or twelve miles down there’s an impassable break which runs square up to the wall. That’ll turn them back.”

  “How far have we come down heah?”

  “Two or three miles, I should say.”

  “Wal, I’ll take it afoot an’ go back, keepin’ an eye peeled for them. Shore I’d just as lief do that as go further into these canyons. I want to climb where I can see. What’ll you do?”

  “Melberne, I don’t mind telling you I think I can get on top of the mesa.”

  “Good! You make shore,” he replied, with satisfaction. “An’, Chess, you an’ Sue prowl around to please yourselves, only don’t work back up the way we come. Now let’s make camp quick, have a bite to eat, an’ then be free till dark.”

  Sue and Chess, more in spirit of fun than for any other reason, had trailed Chane down the canyon until they lost his tracks.

  “Dog-gone him! Has he turned into a bird?” complained Chess.

  “He’s an angel,” said Sue, who had responded strangely to this growing adventure.

  The canyon had grown to be a remarkable one, narrow, lofty-walled, full of golden gleams and hollow echoes. It drew Sue on and on. Chess gathered flowers, caught frogs and butterflies for her, helped her over the boulders.

  “Do you suppose he climbed out?” inquired Sue.

  “Who?”

  “Chane, of course, silly.”

  “So-ho! You’re just toddling along with me because of him. Sue Melberne, I’d be ashamed.”

  “I am,” confessed Sue, boldly. “But then you’re nice at times. And when you are I like to be with you.”

  “I don’t see how we could have missed any place where Chane could have gone up with Brutus. It sure is queer. But, Sue, we’ve come mostly over bare wet rock and granite boulders. I’m not so bad following tracks. Still, with a distractingly sweet girl like you, I couldn’t track an elephant in the mud.”

  “Chess, you can shore spout,” replied Sue, merrily. Presently the canyon narrowed until all the space was covered with water. It ran swift in places, and appeared shallow.

  “Looks like we’re stumped,” observed Sue, ruefully.

  “Us stumped? Never. I’ll carry you,” said Chess, gayly, and without more ado he gathered her up, as easily as Chane had once, and splashed into the stream. The water began to rise above his knees. Chess slipped, then caught his balance. Sue cried out:

  “Don’t you dare fall with me, Chess Weymer.” Suddenly he halted in the middle of the canyon, with roguish eyes on hers. Sue recognized the gleam of deviltry.

  “That gives me a wonderful idea,” he said.

  “Does it? All right. But hurry and get me out of this.”

  “Not at all. That isn’t the idea. I suddenly thought just how much love Chane and I have wasted on you.”

  “Oh! Have you? Well, you needn’t waste any more. Hurry, I tell you.”

  Chess hugged her a little and laughed down at her. “Sue, you kiss me or I’ll be sure to slip and fall.”

  “I will not. Chess, this isn’t fun,” she said, hurriedly.

  “It’s great. I never had such a chance. I’m sure Chane won’t miss one little kiss. Come—”

  “Shut up!” interrupted Sue. “I declare you are no—no gentleman.”

  “You don’t appreciate me. I’m fighting you for your happiness and for Chane’s. You love each other and you’re a couple of fools.”

  “I am, yes. But not he. . . . Chess, don’t hold me here—jibbering that way—like an idiot.”

  “Kiss me, then, and call me brother,” he went on, shaking her gently.

  “You—you—” began Sue, and ended abruptly. There did not appear to be any other way out of the dilemma. Chess seemed just a little different today. Yet the look of him was the same as always when he teased her, only now it held something sweet, possessive. “Very well, Little Boy Blue,” she went on, and raised her face to his, to kiss his cheek. “Brother!” Not the kiss, which she really meant, but the word, which she felt was untrue, sent the blood surging to ter temples. Chess gave her a radiant smile, and ploughing through the water, soon reached the dry rocks, where he set her upon her feet. She had meant to upbraid him severely, once she was safe on terra firma, but his happiness disarmed her.

  “If Chane only knew! Wouldn’t he just die? . . . Come, sis, we’re having a jolly adventu
re,” he babbled, and taking her hand he led her on down the canyon.

  “Chess, it’s getting fearful,” murmured Sue, gazing up the dark, almost perpendicular walls to the narrow flowing stream of blue sky overhead.

  “What? Roaming round with me this way?”

  “No. I mean the canyon. Isn’t it just wonderful? Look! I see golden sunlight far ahead.”

  “Sure is a place for sweethearts,” replied Chess, knowingly.

  “Chess, you’ve got girls and sweethearts and—love on the brain.”

  “Sure have. But it’s stopped my drinking and fighting.”

  He could always turn her flippancy into thoughtful silence. She thought she would try not answering him at all. So they walked and waded on down the canyon, inspired now by its alluring mystery and beauty. Presently they entered an enlargement of the canyon, so remarkably and abruptly a contrast that they halted in their tracks, hands locked and eyes roving everywhere. It was a great red-wall oval, open on the right, with a most stupendous waving slope that apparently lifted to the clouds. One side of the huge oval was bathed in golden sunlight and the other was deep shadowed in shade. Sand bars gleamed in the sun like gold. Gravelly beds shone white. Here the stream had disappeared underground. Grassy benches were colorful flower gardens. Cottonwood trees straggled along, growing more numerous, until they bunched in a beautiful grove, with fluttering leaves half yellow and half green. The hollow murmur of swift water down the canyon made dreamy music. Canyon swifts glinted gold in the sun, blue in the shade, and their wild twitterings were in harmony with the place. Yet silence brooded there, and the strange fragrance of deep canyons permeated the air.

  Like two children Sue and Chess explored the benches, the grove, and the caverns under the wall.

  Then, upon going across toward the waved slope Chess discovered horse tracks in the sand.

  “I’m a son-of-a-gun! Wild-horse tracks!” he exclaimed, in amaze. “Sue, can you beat that? Here, way down in this canyon! . . . Look at that slope. Wild horses could climb it. . . . Oh, Sue, I believe Chane knew there were wild horses down in here. He wasn’t like himself. But I haven’t seen any sign of Brutus’s tracks. I’ll look.”

  He went all over the sand and gravel bars, to return to Sue with a puzzled shake of his head.

  “Got me buffaloed,” he said. “We trailed Chane so far down this very canyon. Then we lost his tracks. We must have missed some place he went up. But I’ll gamble on one thing sure. He’s got some big idea.”

  “Panquitch!” cried Sue, thrillingly.

  Chess cracked his fist in his palm.

  “It might be. He raved about this side of Wild Horse Mesa. Then, when we wanted to come, all of a sudden he was mum. . . . Sue, it’s early yet. Let’s climb up this slope. We can’t get lost. What we’ve got to be careful about is to get down and past that deep water before dark.”

  “Come on, brother,” cried Sue, carried away Sy the thrill of his words.

  “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Now, Chess, the moment I—I try to be nice you spoil everything.”

  He took her hand again and led her toward where the yellow sand met the red slant of the rock.

  “Be honest, Sue dear,” he went on, suddenly tender and deep-voiced, in an earnestness that drew Sue against her will. “I mean—you do love Chane? You haven’t gone back on him? Tell me.”

  They reached the slope and began to climb, Sue hanging her head, and Chess leaning to see her face.

  “You’ve kept my secret?” she asked.

  “I cross my heart, yes. And it’s been hard,” he replied.

  “You’ll still keep it? Remember, Chess, if you betray me I’ll hate you forever.”

  “I’ll never tell what you say to me,” he answered. “But don’t think I’ll not move heaven and earth to fetch you two to your senses.”

  “Then—once more—the last time—I’ll tell you,” she said, very low and solemnly, and she looked up at him. “I love your brother with my whole heart and soul.”

  Chess took her avowal differently from the way she expected. Instead of breaking out into robust gladness he took it in poignant silence; his face worked, his eyes filled, and he squeezed her hand so hard it hurt her. Then he drew her on up the slope.

  The rock was soft brown sandstone which crumbled under the nails of Chess’s boots. The tracks of wild horses could be followed by slow and careful scrutiny. Climbing was easy, compared with the steep trail Sue had essayed that early morning. Moreover, it was exhilarating. Sue and Chess played a game of picking out direction, safe ascents, easy inclines, detours, not yet paying any particular attention to the lofty summit above.

  As they ascended, however, they found that difficulties began to face them, and to increase. It grew to be perilous and strenuous work, and therefore the more thrilling. Something drew them onward and upward. They climbed to and fro much farther than straight up. The red stone gave place to a zone of yellow, and then to light green, almost as soft as chalk. At their backs the wall appeared higher than the one they were ascending, and it obstructed their view in that quarter. In other directions knobs and domes of bare stone loomed up, growing larger as Sue and Chess climbed higher.

  There came a time when Sue could look round over a remarkably large area of slopes, mounds, pits, bowls, slants, and curves, as naked and bare as tombstones. Gradually they worked to the base of lofty lemon-colored crags, and to the right of them, keeping always to the easiest travel. This sometimes drew them off a straight course to the height they could see, and were surely attaining.

  What little talk Sue and Chess indulged in was devoted to the exigencies of their task. Sue’s emotion grew to be an exultation. This climb was strange. Not only physical! Not only was it an adventure of sport and achievement. A voice seemed to call from the heights.

  Blue sky only showed above the wavy horizon line so long unattainable. But as they had almost reached It suddenly the grand black-fringed gold-walled level of Wild Horse Mesa rose above the horizon into the blue. It seemed so close as to be overpowering. Then the last few rods of that climb turned the backs of Sue and Chess to the mesa, so when they finally gained their objective point, and stood on the height of the slope, they found themselves gazing down into a tremendous enlargement of the canyon, a valley of marvelous shapes and hues, clear and open in the sunlight, seemingly close, yet far below. Like that of a colossal octopus the dark green body and arms seemed to float on a sea of opal. There were no clouds or sunset to confuse the eye. Nevertheless, there was an impression of many colors, all pale, imperceptibly shading into one another.

  Beautiful as Sue found that valley, the instant she turned she forgot it. Awe possessed her. Chess drew a deep hard breath. Wild Horse Mesa loomed before and above them, its great western cape a magnificent promontory, running toward the westering sun. Its inaccessibility seemed more paramount than ever, yet from this height Sue conceived a haunting sense that it was indeed the abode of wild horses.

  “Sue, sit down and rest,” said Chess. “I’ve got something to tell you—soon as I can breathe—and talk. This is the place.”

  Absorbed in her own feelings, Sue did not want particularly to hear Chess, but gazed and watched and felt with an intense delight. Presently Chess gripped her hand.

  “Sue—my brother loves you,” he said.

  The absence of his old teasing tone or any semblance of fun, the direct simplicity of his assertion, robbed Sue of power to ridicule, or retreat in anger. She could only look at Chess.

  “He loves you terribly,” went on Chess, with swift eloquence. “He dreams of you. He talks of you in his sleep. He keeps me awake.”

  Sue covered her burning face with her hands, and bent over, shot through and through with a tumultuous bliss that all her morbid and hateful doubts could not quell. There was truth in Chess’s voice. It had lain at the root of all his teasing.

  “But you’ve got to do some big thing to square yourself for believing Manerube’s lies,”
went on Chess. “That hurt Chane. He’s never been the same, not even to me. But I’ve watched him close. I know he worships you. But he’ll never tell you unless you break him down. He’ll never forgive you unless you make him.”

  “Chess, if you force me to believe he—he loves me—when he doesn’t—I could never stand it,” she whispered.

  “No fear. I know.”

  “Then what on earth can I do?”

  “I’ve no idea, unless you’ve the nerve to do something desperate. Telling him wouldn’t be enough. You’ve got to do something. And, Sue, you must do it quick. Only last night he told me he reckoned he’d be on the go soon.”

  “Oh—he means to leave us?”

  “Sure he does. I’m afraid he can’t stand it longer. But you mustn’t let him go. His happiness yours, and mine, too, all depend on you, little girl.”

  “Oh—what—what—” choked Sue, overcome by the sudden onslaught of amaze, joy, love, and fear, all in rapid succession.

  “Find him alone,” whispered Chess, tensely. “On this trip, before we get back. Throw your arms round his neck!”

  “I—I could not,” cried Sue, starting up wildly. “Are you mad, Chess? Have you no—no—”

  “It’s a desperate case, Sue,” he interrupted, hur- riedly, in the persuasive tones of the tempter. “He adores you. If you can only make him see you love him—quick—throw him off his balance! Chane’s the proudest of all the Weymers I ever knew. He’d freeze you to death if you tried any ordinary way to make up with him. Storm him, Sue, storm him !”

  Suddenly, before Sue’s whirling mind could meet that last insidious speech, Chess grasped her arm so violently as to jerk her upright.

  “Look! Look!” he shouted, in a frenzy of excitement, pointing down and across the waving hollow bowl. “Wild horses! A whole string of them!”

  Sue leaped erect with excitement thrilling out her agitation. Wildly she gazed down, trying to follow where Chess pointed.

  “Oh, I can’t see them. Where?”

  “Far across and down,” he replied, swiftly. “On the other side of this ridge. Not the slope we climbed. Over the yellow, down on the red, among the cedars. . . Sue, sure as we’re alive they’ve come down from Wild Horse Mesa and are working round to go down into the canyon we came up. Maybe for water.”