by Zane Grey
“What you aimin’ at, Adam?” asked Rock, with a laugh.
“I ain’t aimin’, True. I’m tellin’ you. It’s thet tow-headed lass of Preston’s.”
“Well, considerin’ we’re old friends, I won’t take offense, drawled Rock. “How you doin’?”
“Been on my feet these two years,” returned Pringle, with satisfaction. “Been raisin’ turnips an’ potatoes an’ some corn. Got three thousand haid of stock. An’ sellin’ eight hundred haid this fall.”
“Bully! I’m sure tickled. Losin’ much stock?”
“Some. But not enough to rare aboot. Though I’m agreed with cattlemen who know the range that there’s more rustlin’ than for some years past.”
“Is that so?”
“Queer rustlin’, too. You lose a few haid of steers an’ then you never hear of anyone seein’ hide nor hair of them again.”
“Nothin’ queer about that, Adam. Rustled cattle are seldom seen again,” returned Adam, for the sake of argument. But there was something unusual about it. Pringle, however, did not press the point.
“Many new cattlemen?” went on Rock.
“Not too many. The range is healthy an’ improvin’.”
“How’s Jess Slagle? I used to ride for Jess, and want to see him.”
“Humph! Didn’t nobody tell you aboot Slagle?”
“Nope. And I forgot to ask. You see, I only got to town yesterday.”
“Jess Slagle couldn’t make it go in Sunset Pass after the Prestons come.”
“Why not? It’s sure big enough country for ten outfits.”
“Wal, there’s only one left, an’ thet’s Preston’s. Ask Slagle?”
“I sure will. Is he still located in the Pass?”
“No. He’s ten miles this side. Stone cabin. You’ll remember it.”
“If I do, that’s no ranch for Jess Slagle. Marshland, what there was of it fit to graze cattle, salty water, mostly rocks and cedars.”
“Your memory’s good, Rock. Drop in to see Slagle. An’ don’t miss callin’ heah when you come out.”
“Which you’re thinkin’ won’t be so very long. Huh, Adam?”
“Wal, I’m not thinkin’, but if it was anyone else I’d give him three days—aboot,” replied Pringle, with a guffaw.
Rock’s misgivings grew in proportion to the increasing warmth and pleasure of this ride toward old haunts. The fact that nothing was spoken openly detrimental to the Prestons was a singular feature that he had encountered once or twice before. The real Westerner, such as Leslie or Pringle, was a man of few words. This reticence sprang from a consciousness that he was not wholly free from blame himself, and that to be loose with the tongue entailed considerable risk. Rock could not prevent his growing curiosity and interest, but he succeeded in inhibiting any suspicions. He wanted to believe that Thiry’s people, including the redoubtable Ash, were the very salt of the earth.
Toward sundown he reached the south slope of the valley and entered the zone of the cedars. These gray-sheathed trees, fragrant, with their massed green foliage and grotesque dead branches, seemed as much a part of a cowboy’s life as grass or rocks or cactus. Rock halted for camp near a rugged little creek, where clear water ran trickling over the stones. He went off the road and threw his pack in a clump of cedars where he could not readily be seen. How long since he had camped in the open, as in his earlier days on the range!
Then he unsaddled the white, and hobbled both horses, and watched them thump out in search of grass. He unrolled his tarp under a low-branching cedar, and opened his pack, conscious of pleasurable sensations. It had been years since he had done this sort of thing. In Texas he had ridden out from a comfortable house, and back again, sooner or later, as he liked. But this was the real life for a rider. When the dead cedar branches burst into a crackling fire he seemed magically to find his old dexterity at camp tasks. And the hour flew by.
After sunset, sky and cloud and valley were illumined by a golden ethereal light. Twilight stole from some invisible source, and night followed, a mellow warm summer night, with hum of insects and croak of frogs, and the melancholy music a cowboy found inseparable from his lonely vigil—the staccato cry of coyotes. Rock lingered beside his dying red cedar fire, listening, feeling, realizing that the years had brought him much until now never divined, and that something as mystical in the future called to his being. Not by chance merely, nor because of a longing to return to this range, nor impelled by the restless wanderlust of a cowboy, had he journeyed hither. Around every thought, almost, seemed to hover the intangible shadow of Thiry Preston. But he would not make of her a deliberate object of conjecture, of reality. That would come later, when he had found her again, and understood himself.
The night darkened, the air cooled, the camp fire flickered out. Rock crawled into his blankets under the widespread cedar. The soft feel of wool, the hard ground, the smell of cedar, the twinkle of a star through the branches, the moan of rising night wind, the lonesome coyote bark, and the silence—how good they were and how they recalled other days!
Rock was awakened at dawn by the thump of hoofs. The white horse had come into camp, which was something horses seldom did.
“You early-risin’ son-of-a-gun,” called Rock, as he rolled out of bed. “Want your oats, huh? I just figured you’d want a snookful of oats, so I fetched some.”
He was on his way before sunrise, and in an hour or so had reached Cedar Creek, with its green banks and clusters of trees, its little flat where stood a cabin new to Rock. It was locked. He could not see in. But in the sand before the door he saw little boot tracks that surely had been made by Thiry Preston. This was the halfway house used by the Prestons, going to and from town.
From there the road circled a ridge to the west, and a well-defined trail led up the slope. Rock knew the trail, and believed that the road would come back to it over the hill. He took the short cut, and almost it seemed that he had ridden the trail only yesterday.
When he achieved the summit, the sky had become overcast with heavy white and black clouds, darkening the day. From here he gazed over into country that deserved its repute. Wide and far away it flung defiance, menace, and call to the long-absent rider. Below him spread a white-and-green checkerboard of grass and cedar, leading with striking boldness up into leagues and leagues of black timber, mesas with crowned walls of gray limestone, cliffs of red rock, fringed by pine, all mere steps up to the mountain kingdom into which the great gap of Sunset Pass yawned, purple and dim and forbidding.
About noon Rock halted before the stone cabin that he knew must belong to his old friend and employer, Jess Slagle. Rock rode into what was a sorry excuse for a yard, where fences were down and dilapidated wagons, long out of use, stood around amid a litter of stones and wood, and all kinds of débris characteristic of a run-down range. The corral in the back was a makeshift, and the log barn would have shamed a poor homesteader. It amazed and shocked Rock, though he had seen many cattlemen start well and never finish.
Dismounting, Rock went to the door and knocked. He heard steps inside. The door opened half a foot to disclose a red-haired, homely woman, in dirty garb, more like a sack than a dress.
“Does Jess Slagle live here?” asked Rock.
“Yes. He’s out round the barn somewheres,” she replied, with a swift flash of beady eyes that took him in.
As Rock thanked her and turned away he saw that she was barefooted. So Jess Slagle had come to squalor and poverty. Who was the woman? Rock certainly had no remembrance of her. Presently he heard the sound of hammer or ax blows on wood, and he came upon Slagle at work on a pen beside the barn.
“Howdy, Rock! I knew you were in town. Range Preston rode by this mornin’ an’ passed the news.”
This gaunt man was Slagle, changed vastly, no doubt like his fortunes. He showed no surprise or gladness. The grasp of his hand was rough, hard, but lacked warmth or response. Rock remembered him as a heavy, florid Westerner, with clear eyes, breezy manner, smooth o
f face, and without a gray hair.
“Jess, I’m sure surprised and plumb sorry to find you—your condition so—so different,” began Rock, a little uncertain.
“Reckon that’s natural. Not much like when you rode for me, years ago,” replied Slagle, with the bitterness of the defeated.
“What happened, Jess?”
“About everythin’, I reckon.”
“Sheeped off the range?” went on Rock, hazarding a query.
“Hell no! There’s no sheep on this side, an’ never will be, so long as Preston lives.”
“How’d you lose out?”
“Well, Rock, I had hard luck. Two bad years for water and grass. Then Dabb shut down on me. I held the little end of a deal with him. Next I sold some cattle, put the money in a bank, an’ it busted. Then Preston moved into the country—an’ here I am.”
“How in the devil did you get here?” demanded Rock, bluntly, spreading his hands significantly.
“Right off I made a mistake,” returned Slagle, nodding his head. “Preston was keen about my ranch in the Pass. He made me a good offer. I refused. He kept after me. I had some hard words with his son, Ash, an’ it all led to a breach. They kept edgin’ my stock down out of the Pass an’ I didn’t have the riders to drive it back. That way, then, an’ in others I fell more in debt. No banks would give me credit. An’ as I said before, here I am.”
“It’s a tough story, Jess. I’m sorry. But it doesn’t explain how you lost your ranch in the Pass.”
“I forgot to tell you, I had finally to sell for about nothin’.”
“To Preston?”
“Sure. No one on the lower range would take it as a gift. It was a poor location, if any other outfit rode the Pass.”
“Ahuh! Then as it stands, Preston about ruined you?”
“No, Rock, I couldn’t claim that. My deal with Dabb hurt me most—started me downhill. Gage Preston never did me any dirt that I actually know. When I went to him an’ told him his outfit was drivin’ my stock off grass an’ water, he raised the very old Ned with his sons, in particular Ash Preston, who’s sure rotten enough to taint the whole other twelve Prestons.”
“So this Ash Preston is rotten?” queried Rock, deliberately, glad to find one man not afraid to voice his convictions.
“Rock, I don’t talk behind any cattleman’s back,” returned Slagle, forcefully. “I told Gage Preston this, an’ I told Ash to his face.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, the old man stalled off a shootin’ match, I reckon.”
“Have you ever met since?”
“Lots of times. But I’ve never had the nerve to draw on Ash. I know he’d kill me. He knows it, too.”
“What you mean by rotten?”
“Mebbe it’s a poor word. But I know what I mean. Did you ever see a slick, cold, shiny rattlesnake, just after sheddin’ his skin, come slippin’ out, no more afraid of you than hell, sure of himself, an’ ready to sting you deep?”
“Reckon I have, Jess.”
“Well, that’s Ash Preston.”
“Ahuh! And that’s all you mean?”
“Reckon it is, Rock. I’ve lost cattle the last five years, some hundreds in all. But so has Preston an’ other ranchers, all the way from Red Butte to the sand. There’s rustlin’, more perhaps than when you helped us clean out the Hartwell outfit. But sure as I am alive I never laid any of it to Ash Preston.”
“I see,” rejoined Rock, studying the other’s masklike face. “Glad to get your angle. I’m goin’ to ask Preston for a job.”
“I had a hunch you were. I’m wishin’ you luck.”
“Walk out with me and see my horse, Jess,” rejoined Rock, turning. “Do you aim to hang on here?”
“Thank God, I don’t,” replied Slagle, with a first show of feeling. “My wife—she’s my second wife, by the way—has had a little money an’ a farm left her, in Missouri. We’re leavin’ before Winter sets in.”
“Glad to hear you’ve had a windfall, Jess. . . . Now what do you think of that white horse?”
Rock had been two hours leisurely climbing the imperceptible slope up to the mouth of Sunset Pass. It was mid-afternoon. The clouds had broken somewhat and already there were tinges of gold and purple against the blue sky.
At last he entered the wide portal of the Pass, and had clear view of its magnificent reach and bold wild beauty. The winding Sunset Creek came down like a broken ribbon, bright here and dark there, to crawl at last into a gorge on Rock’s left. The sentinel pines seemed to greet him. They stood as he remembered, first one, isolated and stately, then another, and next two, and again one, and so on that way until at the height of the Pass they grew in numbers, yet apart, lording it over the few cedars on the level bench, and the log cabins strange to Rock, that he knew must be the home of the Prestons.
Many and many a time had he camped there, realizing and loving the beauty of that lovely aloof spot, yet never had he imagined it as a site for a ranch. But it was indeed the most perfect situation of any he had ever seen. And it was Thiry Preston’s home.
Rock was still a mile or more distant. Slowly he approached, holding in the white horse that scented water and grass. The ascent here was gradual, as was the constriction of the Pass. The breath of sage blew strong, sweet, heavy on the breeze that came through from the west. Already the sun hung low, directly in the center of the great V-shaped gap which appeared to split the very heart of the mountain range. And the gold was growing vivid. Preston’s ranch, at least the six cabins, occupied the divide, which hid the lower and the larger end of the Pass from Rock’s eager gaze. He remembered it so well that he could scarcely wait.
Slowly he rode up and entered the beautiful open park. It was just naturally beautiful, level, with white grass surrounding the patches of brown mats of needles under the pines. The road cut through the center and went down the other side. Rock had a glimpse of gardens, corrals, fields, and then the purple pass threaded with winding white.
There were no rocks, no brush, no fallen logs or dead timber. The few cedars and piñons and pines stood far apart, as if distributed by a mighty landscape artist. Some of the cabins were weathered and gray, with more green on the split shingles. They had wide eaves and sturdy gray chimneys built outside, and glass windows. Other cabins were new, especially a little one, far over under the overhanging green slope and near a thin pile of white water falling from mossy rock. The largest of the pines marked this little cabin, and towered over it protectingly. The only living things in sight were two deer, standing with long ears erect, a horse and a colt, and a jack-rabbit, bounding away across the waving grass.
Just then a hound bayed, deep and hollow, no doubt announcing the advent of a stranger in the Pass. Rock, having come abreast of the first cabin, halted his horse.
The door of this cabin opened. A tall, lithe, belted and booted man stalked out, leisurely, his eagle-like head bare, his yellow hair waving in the wind—Ash Preston.
CHAPTER
FOUR
ROCK felt that seldom indeed had he been looked over as he now was by this Ash Preston. No hint of recognition in that live blue gaze!
“Howdy, stranger! Are you off the trail?”
The omission of the invariable Western “Get down and come in,” was not lost on Rock.
“Howdy to you!” he returned. “Is this Gage Preston’s ranch?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m on the right track. I want to see him.”
“Who’re you, stranger?”
“I’m Trueman Rock, late of Texas.”
“Rock. . . . Are you the Rock who used to ride here before we came?”
“Reckon I am.”
Ash Preston measured Rock again, a long penetrating look that was neither insolent nor curious, but which added something to his first impression. It was impossible to tell what he thought. He was hard to reach, aloof and cold. Like every meeting Rock ever had with anyone, this one made its own reaction. He could not be
other than himself, even though most desirous of being agreeable.
“You can tell me what you want with Preston. I’m his son Ash.”
“Glad to meet you,” said Rock, pleasantly, and that was true, even if he had to feign the pleasure. “Do you run Preston’s business?”
“I’m foreman here.”
“Reckon my call’s nothin’ important,” returned Rock, easily. “But when I do call on a cattleman I want to see him.”
“Are you shore it’s my father you want to see most?” asked Ash, without the slightest change in tone or expression.
“Well, I’m callin’ on Miss Thiry, too, for that matter,” rejoined Rock, with a laugh. “But I’d like to see your father first.”
According to Western custom it was natural and courteous for a rider to call upon any rancher, if he chose to; and in most cases he would be received hospitably. And it was permissable for him to pay his respects to a young unmarried woman. Rock let it be assumed that there was no reason why the Prestons of Sunset Pass were any different from other Western people.
“Miss Thiry ain’t seein’ every rider who comes along,” said Preston.
“No? Well, that’s unlucky for some,” rejoined Rock.
“An’ dad ain’t home.”
That would have made the matter conclusive for most men confronting Ash Preston.
“You mean you say he isn’t home to me?” queried Rock, deliberately.
“Wal, I didn’t expect you to take it that way, but since you do we’ll let it go at that.”
Here was the first hitch in the situation. It had to be met. Rock accepted the inevitable. Harmony, let alone even agreeable acquaintance, was utterly impossible between Preston and himself.
“Excuse me, Preston, if I can’t let it go at that,” he returned, coolly. “Would you mind tellin’ me if any of the other ten Prestons are home?”
There the gauntlet went in the face of Ash Preston. Still he did not show surprise. The intense blue of his eyes, steady on Rock, changed only with a flare. Whatever he might be when drunk, when sober as now, he was slow, cold, complex, cunning. He was flint, singularly charged with fire. Rock would have felt easier in mind if Preston had shown less strength and perception. But he gave Rock the same status that Rock gave him. It augured ill for the future.