The Heritage of the Desert: A Novel

by Zane Grey

supper. Mescal arose and stepped across the threshold of

  the cabin door.

  "Hold on!" ordered Snap, as he approached with swift strides. "Stick out

  your hands!"

  Some of the rustlers grumbled; and one blurted out: "Aw no, Snap, don't

  tie her up--no!"

  "Who says no?" hissed the Mormon, with snapping teeth. As he wheeled

  upon them his Colt seemed to leap forward, and suddenly quivered at

  arm's-length, gleaming in the ruddy fire-rays.

  Holderness laughed in the muzzle of the weapon. "Go ahead, Snap, tie up

  your lady love. What a tame little wife she's going to make you! Tie her

  up, but do it without hurting her."

  The rustlers growled or laughed at their leader's order. Snap turned to

  his task. Mescal stood in the doorway and shrinkingly extended her

  clasped hands. Holderness whirled to the fire with a look which betrayed

  his game. Snap bound Mescal's hands securely, thrust her inside the

  cabin, and after hesitating for a long moment, finally shut the door.

  "It's funny about a woman, now, ain't it?" said Nebraska,

  confidentially, to a companion. "One minnit she'll snatch you bald-

  headed; the next, she'll melt in your mouth like sugar. An' I'll be

  darned if the changeablest one ain't the kind to hold a feller longest.

  But it's h--l. I was married onct. Not any more for mine! A pal I had

  used to say thet whiskey riled him, thet rattlesnake pisen het up his

  blood some, but it took a woman to make him plumb bad. D--n if it ain't

  so. When there's a woman around there's somethin' allus comin' off."

  But the strain, instead of relaxing, became portentous. Holderness

  suddenly showed he was ill at ease; he appeared to be expecting arrivals

  from the direction of Seeping Springs. Snap Naab leaned against the side

  of the door, his narrow gaze cunningly studying the rustlers before him.

  More than any other he had caught a foreshadowing. Like the desert-hawk

  he could see afar. Suddenly he pressed back against the door, half

  opening it while he faced the men.

  "Stop!" commanded Holderness. The change in his voice was as if it had

  come from another man. "You don't go in there!"

  "I'm going to take the girl and ride to White Sage," replied Naab, in

  slow deliberation.

  "Bah! You say that only for the excuse to get into the cabin with her.

  You tried it last night and I blocked you. Shut the door, Naab, or

  something'll happen."

  "There's more going to happen than ever you think of, Holderness. Don't

  interfere now, I'm going."

  "Well, go ahead--but you won't take the girl!"

  Snap Naab swung off the step, slamming the door behind him.

  "So-ho!" he exclaimed, sneeringly. "That's why you've made me foreman,

  eh?" His claw-like hand moved almost imperceptibly upward while his pale

  eyes strove to pierce the strength behind Holderness's effrontery. The

  rustler chief had a trump card to play; one that showed in his sardonic

  smile.

  "Naab, you don't get the girl."

  "Maybe you'll get her?" hissed Snap.

  "I always intended to."

  Surely never before had passion driven Snap's hand to such speed. His

  Colt gleamed in the camp-fire light. Click! Click! Click! The hammer

  fell upon empty chambers.

  "H--l!" he shrieked.

  Holderness laughed sarcastically.

  "That's where you're going!" he cried. "Here's to Naab's trick with a

  gun--Bah!" And he shot his foreman through the heart.

  Snap plunged upon his face. His hands beat the ground like the shuffling

  wings of a wounded partridge. His fingers gripped the dust, spread

  convulsively, straightened, and sank limp.

  Holderness called through the door of the cabin. "Mescal, I've rid you

  of your would-be husband. Cheer-up!" Then, pointing to the fallen man,

  he said to the nearest bystanders: "Some of you drag that out for the

  coyotes."

  The first fellow who bent over Snap happened to be the Nebraska rustler,

  and he curiously opened the breech of the six-shooter he picked up. "No

  shells!" he said. He pulled Snap's second Colt from his belt, and

  unbreeched that. "No shells! Well, d--n me!" He surveyed the group of

  grim men, not one of whom had any reply.

  Holderness again laughed harshly, and turning to the cabin, he fastened

  the door with a lasso.

  It was a long time before Hare recovered from the startling revelation

  of the plot which had put Mescal into Holderness's power. Bad as Snap

  Naab had been he would have married her, and such a fate was infinitely

  preferable to the one that now menaced her. Hare changed his position

  and settled himself to watch and wait out the night. Every hour

  Holderness and his men tarried at Silver Cup hastened their approaching

  doom. Hare's strange prescience of the fatality that overshadowed these

  men had received its first verification in the sudden taking off of Snap

  Naab. The deep-scheming Holderness, confident that his strong band meant

  sure protection, sat and smoked and smiled beside the camp-fire. He had

  not caught even a hint of Snap Naab's suggested warning. Yet somewhere

  out on the oasis trail rode a man who, once turned from the saving of

  life to the lust to kill, would be as immutable as death itself. Behind

  him waited a troop of Navajos, swift as eagles, merciless as wolves,

  desert warriors with the sunheated blood of generations in their veins.

  As Hare waited and watched with all his inner being cold, he could

  almost feel pity for Holderness. His doom was close. Twice, when the

  rustler chief had sauntered nearer to the cabin door, as if to enter,

  Hare had covered him with the rifle, waiting, waiting for the step upon

  the threshold. But Holderness always checked himself in time, and Hare's

  finger eased its pressure upon the trigger.

  The night closed in black; the clouded sky gave forth no starlight; the

  wind rose and moaned through the cedars. One by one the rustlers rolled

  in their blankets and all dropped into slumber while the camp-fire

  slowly burned down. The night hours wore on to the soft wail of the

  breeze and the wild notes of far-off trailing coyotes.

  Hare, watching sleeplessly, saw one of the prone figures stir. The man

  raised himself very cautiously; he glanced at his companions, and looked

  long at Holderness, who lay squarely in the dimming light. Then he

  softly lowered himself. Hare wondered what the rustler meant to do.

  Presently he again lifted his head and turned it as if listening

  intently. His companions were motionless in deep-breathing sleep. Gently

  he slipped aside his blankets and began to rise. He was slow and guarded

  of movement; it took him long to stand erect. He stepped between the

  rustlers with stockinged feet which were as noiseless as an Indian's,

  and he went toward the cabin door.

  He softly edged round the sleeping Holderness, showing a glinting six-

  shooter in his hand. Hare's resolve to kill him before he reached the

  door was checked. What did it mean, this rustler's stealthy movements,

  his passing by Holderness with his drawn weapon! Again doom hovered over

  the rustler chief. If he stirred!-
-Hare knew instantly that this softly

  stepping man was a Mormon; he was true to Snap Naab, to the woman

  pledged in his creed. He meant to free Mescal.

  If ever Hare breathed a prayer it was then. What if one of the band

  awakened! As the rustler turned at the door his dark face gleamed in the

  flickering light. He unwound the lasso and opened the door without a

  sound.

  Hare whispered: "Heavens! if he goes in she'll scream! that will wake

  Holderness--then I must shoot--I must!"

  But the Mormon rustler added wisdom to his cunning and stealth.

  "Hist!" he whispered into the cabin. "Hist!"

  Mescal must have been awake; she must have guessed instantly the meaning

  of that low whisper, for silently