by Zane Grey
“I can raise any kind of fruit in such abundance that it can’t be used. My garden is prodigal. But we get little benefit, except for our own use, for we cannot transport things across the desert.”
The water which was the prime factor in all this richness came from a small stream which Naab, by making a dam and tunnelling a corner of cliff, had diverted from its natural course into his oasis.
Between the fence and the red wall there was a wide bare plain which stretched to the house. At its farthest end was a green enclosure, which Hare recognized as the cemetery mentioned by Snap. Hare counted thirty graves, a few with crude monuments of stone, the others marked by wooden headpieces.
“I’ve the reputation of doctoring the women, and letting the men die,” said Naab, with a smile. “I hardly think it’s fair. But the fact is no women are buried here. Some graves are of men I fished out of the river; others of those who drifted here, and who were killed or died keeping their secrets. I’ve numbered those unknown graves and have kept a description of the men, so, if the chance ever comes, I may tell someone where a father or brother lies buried. Five sons of mine, not one of whom died a natural death, found graves here—God rest them! Here’s the grave of Mescal’s father, a Spaniard. He was an adventurer. I helped him over in Nevada when he was ill; he came here with me, got well, and lived nine years, and he died without speaking one word of himself or telling his name.”
“What strange ends men come to!” mused Hare. Well, a grave was a grave, wherever it lay. He wondered if he would come to rest in that quiet nook, with its steady light, its simple dignity of bare plain graves fitting the brevity of life, the littleness of man.
“We break wild mustangs along this stretch,” said Naab, drawing Hare away. “It’s a fine run. Wait till you see Mescal on Black Bolly tearing up the dust! She’s a Navajo for riding.”
Three huge corrals filled a wide curved space in the wall. In one corral were the teams that had hauled the wagons from White Sage; in another upward of thirty burros, drooping, lazy little fellows, half asleep; in the third a dozen or more mustangs and some horses which delighted Hare. Snap Naab’s cream pinto, a bay, and a giant horse of mottled white attracted him most.
“Our best stock is out on the range,” said Naab. “The white is Charger, my saddle-horse. When he was a yearling he got away and ran wild for three years. But we caught him. He’s a weight-carrier and he can run some. You’re fond of a horse—I can see that.”
“Yes,” returned Hare, “but I—I’ll never ride again.” He said it brightly, smiling the while; still the look in his eyes belied the cheerful resignation.
“I’ve not the gift of revelation, yet I seem to see you on a big gray horse with a shining mane.” Naab appeared to be gazing far away.
The cottonwood grove, at the western curve of the oasis, shaded the five log huts where August’s grown sons lived with their wives, and his own cabin, which was of considerable dimensions. It had a covered porch on one side, an open one on the other, a shingle roof, and was a roomy and comfortable habitation.
Naab was pointing out the school-house when he was interrupted by childish laughter, shrieks of glee, and the rush of little feet.
“It’s recess-time,” he said.
A frantic crowd of tousled-headed little ones were running from the log school-house to form a circle under the trees. There were fourteen of them, from four years of age up to ten or twelve. Such sturdy, glad-eyed children Hare had never seen. In a few moments, as though their happy screams were signals, the shady circle was filled with hounds, and a string of puppies stepping on their long ears, and ruffling turkey-gobblers, that gobbled and gobbled, and guinea-hens with their shrill cries, and cackling chickens and a lame wild goose that hobbled along alone. Then there were shiny peafowls screeching clarion calls from the trees overhead, and flocks of singing blackbirds, and pigeons hovering over and alighting upon the house. Last to approach were a woolly sheep that added his baa-baa to the din, and a bald-faced burro that walked in his sleep. These two became the center of clamor. After many tumbles four chubby youngsters mounted the burro; and the others, with loud acclaim, shouting, “Noddle, Noddle, getup getup!” endeavored to make him go. But Noodle nodded and refused to awaken or budge. Then an ambitious urchin of six fastened his hands in the fur of the sheep and essayed to climb to his back. Willing hands assisted him. “Ride him, Billy, ride him. Getup, Navvy, getup!”
Navvy evidently had never been ridden, for he began a fair imitation of a bucking broncho. Billy held on, but the smile vanished and the corners of his mouth drew down.
“Hang on, Billy, hang on,” cried August Naab, in delight. Billy hung on a moment longer, and then Navvy, bewildered by the pestering crowd about him, launched out and, butting into Noddle, spilled the four youngsters and Billy also into a wriggling heap.
This recess-time completed Hare’s introduction to the Naabs. There were Mother Mary, and Judith and Esther, whom he knew, and Mother Ruth and her two daughters, very like their sisters. Mother Ruth, August’s second wife, was younger than Mother Mary, more comely of face, and more sad and serious of expression. The wives of the five sons, except Snap Naab’s frail bride, were stalwart women, fit to make homes and rear children.
“Now, Jack, things are moving all right,” said August. “For the present you must eat and rest. Walk some, but don’t tire yourself. We’ll practice shooting a little every day; that’s one thing I’ll spare time for. I’ve a trick with a gun to teach you. And if you feel able, take a burro and ride. Anyway, make yourself at home.”
Hare found eating and resting to be matters of profound enjoyment. Before he had fallen in with these good people it had been a year since he had sat down to a full meal; longer still since he had eaten wholesome food. And now he had come to a “land overflowing with milk and honey,” as Mother Ruth smilingly said. He could not choose between roast beef and chicken, and so he waived the question by taking both; and what with the biscuits and butter, apple-sauce and blackberry jam, cherry pie and milk like cream, there was danger of making himself ill. He told his friends that he simply could not help it, which shameless confession brought a hearty laugh from August and beaming smiles from his women-folk.
For several days Hare was remarkably well, for an invalid. He won golden praise from August at the rifle practice, and he began to take lessons in the quick drawing and rapid firing of a Colt revolver. Naab was wonderfully proficient in the use of both firearms; and his skill in drawing the smaller weapon, in which his movement was quicker than the eye, astonished Hare. “My lad,” said August, “it doesn’t follow because I’m a Christian that I don’t know how to handle a gun. Besides, I like to shoot.”
In these few days Hare learned what conquering the desert made of a man. August Naab was close to threescore years; his chest was wide as a door, his arm like the branch of an oak. He was a blacksmith, a mechanic, a carpenter, a cooper, a potter. At his forge and in his shop, everywhere were crude tools, wagons, farming implements, sets of buckskin harness, odds and ends of nameless things, eloquent and pregnant proof of the fact that necessity is the mother of invention. He was a mason; the levee that buffeted back the rage of the Colorado in flood, the wall that turned the creek, the irrigation tunnel, the zigzag trail cut on the face of the cliff—all these attested his eye for line, his judgment of distance, his strength in toil. He was a farmer, a cattle-man, a grafter of fruit-trees, a breeder of horses, a herder of sheep, a preacher, a physician. Best and strangest of all in this wonderful man was the instinct and the heart to heal. “I don’t combat the doctrine of the Mormon church,” he said, “but I administer a little medicine with my healing. I learned that from the Navajos.” The children ran to him with bruised heads, and cut fingers, and stubbed toes; and his blacksmith’s hands were as gentle as a woman’s. A mustang with a lame leg claimed his serious attention; a sick sheep gave him an anxious look; a steer with a gored skin sent him running for a bucket of salve. He could not pass by a crippl
ed quail. The farm was overrun by Navajo sheep which he had found strayed and lost on the desert. Anything hurt or helpless had in August Naab a friend. Hare found himself looking up to a great and luminous figure, and he loved this man.
As the days passed Hare learned many other things. For a while illness confined him to his bed on the porch. At night he lay listening to the roar of the river and watching the stars. Twice he heard a distant crash and rumble heavy as thunder, and he knew that somewhere along the cliffs avalanches were slipping. By day he watched the cotton snow down upon him and listened to the many birds and waited for the merry show at recess-time. After a short time the children grew less shy and came readily to him. They were the most wholesome children he had ever known. Hare wondered about it, and decided it was not so much Mormon teaching as isolation from the world. These children had never been out of their cliff-walled home, and civilization was for them as if it were not. He told them stories, and after school hours they would race to him and climb on his bed and beg for more.
He exhausted his supply of fairy-stories and animal-stories; and had begun to tell about the places and cities which he had visited when the eager-eyed children were peremptorily called within by Mother Mary. This pained him and he was at a loss to understand it. Enlightenment came, however, in the way of an argument between Naab and Mother Mary which he overheard. The elder wife said that the stranger was welcome to the children, but she insisted that they hear nothing of the outside world, and that they be kept to the teachings of the Mormon geography—which made all the world outside Utah an untrodden wilderness. August Naab did not hold to the letter of the Mormon law; he argued that if the children could not be raised as Mormons with a full knowledge of the world, they would only be lost in the end to the Church.
Other developments surprised Hare. The house of this good Mormon was divided against itself. Precedence was given to the first and elder wife—Mother Mary; Mother Ruth’s life was not without pain. The men were out on the ranges all day, usually two or more of them for several days at a time, and this left the women alone. One daughter taught the school, the other daughters did all the chores about the house, from feeding the stock to chopping wood. The work was hard, and the girls would rather have been in White Sage or Lund. They disliked Mescal, and said things inspired by jealousy. Snap Naab’s wife was vindictive, and called Mescal “that Indian!”
It struck him on hearing this gossip that he had missed Mescal. What had become of her? Curiosity prompting him, he asked little Billy about her.
“Mescal’s with the sheep,” piped Billy.
That she was a shepherdess pleased Hare, and he thought of her as free on the open range, with the wind blowing her hair.
One day when Hare felt stronger he took his walk round the farm with new zest. Upon his return to the house he saw Snap’s cream pinto in the yard, and Dave’s mustang cropping the grass near by. A dusty pack lay on the ground. Hare walked down the avenue of cottonwoods and was about to turn the corner of the old forge when he stopped short.
“Now mind you, I’ll take a bead on this white-faced spy if you send him up there.”
It was Snap Naab’s voice, and his speech concluded with the click of teeth characteristic of him in anger.
“Stand there!” August Naab exclaimed in wrath. “Listen. You have been drinking again or you wouldn’t talk of killing a man. I warned you. I won’t do this thing you ask of me till I have your promise. Why won’t you leave the bottle alone?”
“I’ll promise,” came the sullen reply.
“Very well. Then pack and go across to Bitter Seeps.”
“That job’ll take all summer,” growled Snap.
“So much the better. When you come home I’ll keep my promise.”
Hare moved away silently; the shock of Snap’s first words had kept him fast in his tracks long enough to hear the conversation. Why did Snap threaten him? Where was August Naab going to send him? Hare had no means of coming to an understanding of either question. He was disturbed in mind and resolved to keep out of Snap’s way. He went to the orchard, but his stay of an hour availed nothing, for on his return, after threading the maze of cottonwoods, he came face to face with the man he wanted to avoid.
Snap Naab, at the moment of meeting, had a black bottle tipped high above his lips.
With a curse he threw the bottle at Hare, missing him narrowly. He was drunk. His eyes were bloodshot.
“If you tell Father you saw me drinking I’ll kill you!” he hissed, and, rattling his Colt in its holster, he walked away.
Hare walked back to his bed, where he lay for a long time with his whole inner being in a state of strife. It gradually wore off as he strove for calm. The playground was deserted; no one had seen Snap’s action, and for that he was glad. Then his attention was diverted by a clatter of ringing hoofs on the road; a mustang and a cloud of dust were approaching.
“Mescal and Black Bolly!” he exclaimed, and sat up quickly. The mustang turned in the gate, slid to a stop, and stood quivering, restive, tossing its thoroughbred head, black as a coal, with freedom and fire in every line. Mescal leaped off lightly. A gray form flashed in at the gate, fell at her feet, and rose to leap about her. It was a splendid dog, huge in frame, almost white, wild as the mustang.
This was the Mescal whom he remembered, yet somehow different. The sombre homespun garments had given place to fringed and beaded buckskin.
“I’ve come for you,” she said.
“For me?” he asked, wonderingly, as she approached with the bridle of the black over her arm.
“Down, Wolf!” she cried to the leaping dog. “Yes. Didn’t you know? Father Naab says you’re to help me tend the sheep. Are you better? I hope so— You’re quite pale.”
“I—I’m not so well,” said Hare.
He looked up at her, at the black sweep of her hair under the white band, at her eyes, like jet; and suddenly realized, with a gladness new and strange to him, that he liked to look at her, that she was beautiful.
CHAPTER V
Black Sage and Juniper
August Naab appeared on the path leading from his fields.
“Mescal, here you are,” he greeted. “How about the sheep?”
“Piute’s driving them down to the lower range. There are a thousand coyotes hanging about the flock.”
“That’s bad,” rejoined August. “Jack, there’s evidently some real shooting in store for you. We’ll pack to-day and get an early start to-morrow. I’ll put you on Noddle; he’s slow, but the easiest climber I ever owned. He’s like riding … What’s the matter with you? What’s happened to make you angry?”
One of his long strides spanned the distance between them.
“Oh, nothing,” said Hare, flushing.
“Lad, I know of few circumstances that justify a lie. You’ve met Snap.”
Hare might still have tried to dissimulate; but one glance at August’s stern face showed the uselessness of it. He kept silent.
“Drink makes my son unnatural,” said Naab. He breathed heavily as one in conflict with wrath. “We’ll not wait till to-morrow to go up on the plateau; we’ll go at once.”
Then quick surprise awakened for Hare in the meaning in Mescal’s eyes; he caught only a fleeting glimpse, a dark flash, and it left him with a glow of an emotion half pleasure, half pain.
“Mescal,” went on August, “go into the house, and keep out of Snap’s way. Jack, watch me pack. You need to learn these things. I could put all this outfit on two burros, but the trail is narrow, and a wide pack might bump a burro off. Let’s see, I’ve got all your stuff but the saddle; that we’ll leave till we get a horse for you. Well, all’s ready.”
Mescal came at his call and, mounting Black Bolly, rode out toward the cliff wall, with Wolf trotting before her. Hare bestrode Noddle. August, waving good-bye to his women-folk, started the train of burros after Mescal.
How they would be able to climb the face of that steep cliff puzzled Hare. Upon nearer view he
discovered the yard-wide trail curving upward in corkscrew fashion round a projecting corner of cliff. The stone was a soft red shale and the trail had been cut in it at a steep angle. It was so steep that the burros appeared to be climbing straight up. Noddle pattered into it, dropped his head and his long ears, and slackened his pace to patient plodding. August walked in the rear.
The first thing that struck Hare was the way the burros in front of him stopped at the curves in the trail, and turned in a space so small that their four feet were close together; yet as they swung their packs they scarcely scraped the wall. At every turn they were higher than he was, going in the opposite direction, yet he could reach out and touch them. He glanced up to see Mescal right above him, leaning forward with her brown hands clasping the pommel. Then he looked out and down; already the green cluster of cottonwoods lay far below. After that sensations pressed upon him. Round and round, up and up, steadily, surely, the beautiful mustang led the train; there were sounds of rattling stones, and click of hoofs, and scrape of pack. On one side towered the iron-stained cliff, not smooth or glistening at close range, but of dull, dead, rotting rock. The trail changed to a zigzag along a seamed and cracked buttress where ledges leaned outward waiting to fall. Then a steeper incline, where the burros crept upward warily, led to a level ledge heading to the left.