by Zane Grey
“Shure, I follered them,” said Bonny, “an’ loike as not I’d soon have hit one. But I saw a bear! He walked roight out of a thicket … a gray furry brute, big as a steer … an’ thot’s all I rimimber.”
“Say, mate, didn’t you heave a shot at him?” queried Captain Bunk.
“My horse run, an’ I thot I’d better run after him,” Bonny replied seriously.
“Haw! Haw!” roared the seafaring man.
* * * * *
Sue’s father rode in just before dark, dusty and weary, but so elated over his day’s experience that, like Chess, he had to talk before he could eat. He had seen thousands of wild horses that apparently had never been chased, so tame were they.
“If there were only trees or brush down in the valley we could cut them and drag them into long fences leadin’ to a trap!” he ejaculated. “What a haul we’d make! But there’s not a tree in this heah valley, so far as we rode … Sue, I saw a sorrel today … the finest piece of horseflesh I ever beheld. He was light color, not red or brown, but something between. A stallion with mane and tail that almost swept the ground. He had a whole bunch of bays and blacks. As we rode toward them he drove them on. They shore wasn’t bad scared. He whistled like a bugle note.”
“Dad, you may give him to me,” replied Sue, thrilled by his excitement.
Utah’s report appeared equally interesting to the men. Some ten miles or more down the slope of the valley he had come upon a cañon that he thought it well to explore. At the head of this he encountered a wild, broken-up section of ridges, all sloping down from two converging walls that met above. He discovered fine grass and water, and a drove of wild mules. They were in a natural trap, and it was Utah’s opinion they could be caught in one day.
“Wal, shore that’s fine,” declared Melberne. “We’re going to be busy around heah.”
Miller was the last to come in, and he had his supper by the light of the campfire. Manifestly he had unusual and good reports to make, but unfortunately it happened to be a time when his fatal stuttering affected him most. Once he nearly got launched into clear speech, but Utah, who seemed peculiarly irritated by his rider comrade’s failing, yelled out, “Whistle it, you Chinese poll parrot!”
That was too much for the exhausted wrangler. Casting a baleful glance at Utah he subsided into silence.
Long and earnestly the other wild horse hunters talked. It was an interesting evening around the campfire. Sue, inspired by Jake’s kind words, deliberately sought out Ora Loughbridge and persistently made herself agreeable. At first Ora was stiff and what Chess had called snippy. But she was not proof against Sue’s kindliness, and gradually she thawed. Somehow during that hour Sue got an impression of Ora’s really deep attachment to Chess. She was about Chess’ age, and a romantic girl of strong emotions. Sue noted that Ora could scarcely keep her eyes from wandering in his direction, yet at the same time she was trying to hide her secret. Her state of mind seemed no longer trivial and amusing. Indeed, Sue found that by exerting herself to be kind she had roused her own sympathy for the girl.
Sue divided the mornings between her own tasks and helping her stepmother. In the afternoons she was free to idle or ride or read. The men had not yet completed their reconnaissance of the surrounding country, nor had her father hit upon a satisfactory plan to trap a large number of wild horses.
The first frosts had begun to tint the foliage of the deciduous trees, and this added fresher beauty and contrast to the evergreens. The cottonwood grove was half gold, half green; the oak brush of the cañons began to take on a bronze and russet hue; the vines overgrowing the ledges of rock back of camp showed red against the gray; up in the cañons bright spots of scarlet stood out strikingly.
Sue liked colors. Blue was most becoming to her fair complexion and chestnut hair, but she was not partial to it. Red caught her eye, held her, thrilled her with something nameless, but it was purple that she loved. And it appeared that on the Indian summer afternoons the whole sweep of valley and stone barriers beyond slumbered under a haze of purple, ethereal and mysterious and close at hand, dark and heavy and enveloping in the distance.
The autumn season had halted for the present and all Nature seemed to slumber. Even the birds showed the spell, banding in flocks, seldom taking wing, twittering plaintively. Down on the valley floor the wild horses moved almost imperceptibly.
Sue rode far and high one afternoon, accompanied by Ora and Chess, who, however, were more concerned with other things than scenery or Indian summer. Chess had been complimented on his successful hunting and was eager to win more commendation. Ora was mostly concerned with Chess, and liked the hunting only because it furnished means to ride with him. They left Sue on a high open point, back of which was a big country of ridges and ravines, all thickly covered with brush and trees. Here the young hunters disappeared.
Dismounting to await their return, Sue found a comfortable seat and gave herself up to the solitude and loneliness of the surrounding hills, and the wonder of the purple open beneath her. The cottonwood grove that hid the camp appeared a golden patch on the edge of the green valley; the wild horses were but dim specks; the valley itself was only an oval basin lost in a country as wide as the horizons.
What lay and upreared and hid beyond that level range land was the thing that drew and chained Sue’s gaze. It was the cañon country of Utah. Long had she heard of it, and now it seemed to spread out before her, a vast shadowy region of rock—domes, spurs, peaks, bluffs, reaching escarpments, lines of cleavage, endless scalloped marching rocks, and rising grandly out of that chaos of colored rock the red-walled, black-tipped, flat-topped mountain that was Wild Horse Mesa. Here Sue could see a magnificent panorama of the cañon country, above which the great mesa towered a sentinel. If it had earned Sue’s interest from the valley far below, it now fascinated her. Indeed, the rock wilderness emphasized by this isolated tableland called forth feelings that were strange and unintelligible to Sue. Was it just the beauty, the loneliness, and the majesty of Nature that had come to arrest her thought and trouble her soul? What was she going to meet out here in wild Utah? Of late her working hours, her idle hours, even her dreams, her walks and rides and rests, had been vaguely haunted by the shadow of a mood that did not wholly break upon her consciousness.
“Something’s wrong,” sighed Sue, and her practical common sense did not drive away the conception. It was in the very solitude of her surroundings, and she could not grasp its meaning. But she divined that much as this new life in the open had come to mean, color and landscape and action, the fun afforded by the riders, and the interest of Ora’s love affair—these were not the secret of her subjection.
At last Sue confessed to her heart that she must be in love. It was one of the most secret of confessions, one of dreams almost, unaccepted by intelligence. But as the vague idea grew it developed out of that deep unconscious sphere where she had hidden her girlish fancies and ideals. It became a thought, amazing, ridiculous, inconceivable. It could not be supported by any facts. With whom could she be in love? Not Chess or Utah or any of the riders! Could it be with herself or life or this magnificent wilderness, or the Nature that brooded there so solemnly? Sue tried to recall the dream hero, knight, lover that had been an evolution of her fairy tale days, but he did not suit her new and masterful image. The new one seemed like this country, hard, rough, wild, untamed, exacting, dominating.
“But it’s only an idea,” burst out Sue, ashamed, astounded. Her cheeks were hot. Her blood ran strong from her heart. She felt it beat, beat, beat. Then there flashed into her mind what the boy Chess Weymer had said about his brother Chane: You can’t help but love him!
Sue at once laughed away the absurdity of any connection between the boy’s loyal worship of his brother and her own undivined yearnings. Yet there was something, and to strike a compromise with herself she acknowledged that any girl would have an interest in this wild horse hunte
r who had such a great love for his brother and called him Boy Blue. There was enough romance in any girl for that, and if not romance, then a mother feeling.
“I’ve no work,” soliloquized Sue. “It’s this wandering, idle life, like an Indian’s. I think too much. But … there’s the other side to it. How beautiful the earth. I’ve learned to know the sunset, night, the stars, the moon, the sunrise, day … storm and cloud and rain, and now this purple summer. The birds, the animals … horses I love. I love the smell of the cedars, the pines, the earth, the grass. I love the feel of the rocks. Oh, something has come into my life. There’s a step on my trail!”
Sue waited long for Ora and Chess, and at length they appeared riding under the trees, close together, without any game. Sue had a suspicion that they were holding hands just as they rode out of the timber, but she could not be certain. A further glance told her that they were no longer quarreling, which had been decidedly the case on the way up. Sue mounted her pony and started down the winding descent of the ridge.
About halfway down to camp, Ora and Chess caught up with her, and both appeared to overdo their excuse for such long absence.
“Were you gone long?” inquired Sue. “I hadn’t noticed that.”
Chess’ account of their hunt did not ring like those of former occasions, when he had found game. This time there was not a deer on the mountainside.
“My brave hunter boy, I’m sure you found one dear,” Sue said tantalizingly. She felt a tiny feminine twinge of pique. Chess had not long resisted the propinquity of the other girl.
“Aw, Sue, I reckon you are a lot older and wiser than me. There’s no fooling you,” declared Chess, half in regret and half resignedly.
This allusion to her proudly maintained maturity did not please Sue. It was all right for her to think it, but for Chess to accept it all of a sudden somehow irritated Sue. But she reflected that she was in a strange mood and not so kindly disposed as usual. She decided to let them do the talking.
Ora was overdoing it more than Chess. She was enthusiastic about the ride, and the cañon up there, and about a great deal in general, and nothing in particular. Ora’s big dark eyes were unusually bright, her cheeks were redder than seemed natural for slow riding, and her hair was disheveled. There was a singular radiance, a glow in her face, that contrasted markedly with the sullen shade that had characterized it recently. Sue concluded that this rascal Chess had really been making love to Ora.
“Sue, isn’t it just perfectly gorgeous?” murmured Ora dreamily.
“What?” asked Sue rather bluntly.
“Oh, everything … the bright colors, the sweet, sleepy something, the horses, riding out this way, this camp life,” babbled Ora.
“I think I know what you’re raving about, Ora,” replied Sue. “I’m glad you’ve come to feel it. Not long ago you were disgusted with the desert, Utah, wild horses, wranglers, and yourself.”
“Yes, I know, Sue,” Ora said, somewhat dampened, “but I … I’m not now.”
There appeared to be a humility in Ora, at this moment, that Sue had never observed before. It strengthened Sue’s conviction as to the cause. Then Chess, who was riding half a horse’s length behind Ora, caught Sue’s eye and winked mysteriously, with a hint of deviltry. Almost it seemed that he was telling Sue that if he could not have her, he could have Ora. Sue flashed him a very scornful and accusing glance, and did not deign to notice him again. A little later, however, she could have laughed. She was beginning to understand why this boy’s brother believed he needed looking after.
“Some stranger in camp,” spoke up Chess quickly, as they rode into the back of the cottonwood grove. Whereupon he trotted on ahead of Sue and Ora. Sue sustained a little shock of excitement that made her conscious of her own interest in a strange rider. What if it might be Chane Weymer? She saw a muddy, weary pack horse sagging under a bedraggled pack. But trees obstructed her view of the rider.
Ora headed her horse for the quarters of the Loughbridges and Sue turned for her tent. When she dismounted, Chess rode up at a lope and leaped off. One glance at his face told Sue that the newcomer was not Chane. Sue felt a sudden relief and vague disappointment. This annoyed her and made her resentful toward Chess.
“Doggone it! I thought maybe Chane had come and I’d get even with you,” Chess said as he began to unsaddle her horse.
“Get even with me. What for?” queried Sue, exasperated.
“Well, I reckon I’d call it lack of reci-pro-city,” declared Chess cheerfully.
“Chess, you’re not very witty … and please explain how the possible arrival of your brother would enable you to get even with me, as you call it.”
“You’re sure likely to fall in love head over heels, and you might get the cold shoulder, as I got it.”
“Chess, you’re adding rudeness to your many other faults,” retorted Sue haughtily.
“Aw, Sue, I beg pardon,” Chess said contritely as he slid her saddle and blankets to the ground. “I’m only sore. But I’ll get over it … And listen. Chane’d never give you a cold shoulder. Now remember what I tell you. He’ll fall terribly in love with you.”
Suddenly a hot blush burned Sue’s neck and face. Ashamed, furious with her ungovernable and conflicting emotions, she turned away from Chess. “Don’t talk … non-nonsense,” she replied hastily. “Who is the stranger?”
“When I saw he wasn’t Chane, I just rode back,” returned Chess. “But soon as I tend to the horses I’ll find out for you.”
Chess mounted and went off whistling, leading Sue’s mount toward Ora’s tent. Sue kicked off her spurs and chaps and went inside her tent to change her masculine garb. It might have been that she paid the least bit more attention than usual to her appearance. Still, though she liked the more serviceable and comfortable garb of men for riding or roughing it, she had always, when possible, given preference to feminine dress. Sue sat down to await the supper call, quite aware of an eager appetite, which, however, did not prevent her from reflection. Presently there came a rustling footfall outside.
“Sue, I yelled once supper is ready!” called Chess. “I’ll bet my horse to your spurs that you’ve been doing the same as Ora.”
“What’s that?” Sue asked as she spread the flaps of her tent and came forth.
“Aw, Sue!” he ejaculated, staring at her. His handsome boyish face expressed both delight and regret. “I never saw you … so … so sweet … All for the benefit of the stranger! Ora primped up, too. Sue, you women are all alike.”
“Why, of course! Aren’t men all alike?” returned Sue archly.
“Not by a darn sight,” he denied, “and you’ll find out someday.”
“Well, who’s the stranger?” demanded Sue with undue interest, just to torment Chess.
“A-huh! Well, his name’s Manerube … Bent Manerube. How’s that for a handle? He’s a horse wrangler from Nevada. Husky, good-looking chap. He’s just in from the Paiute country, across the cañons. Sure looked like he’d been riding rough.”
“That’s the country I saw today from up high. Wild Horse Mesa! He can tell us about it, can’t he?”
“I reckon. But see here, Sue,” went on Chess, and as he faced about to walk with her toward the campfire, he took her arm gently and firmly. “Don’t forget you’re to be Chane’s sweetheart … and my sister.”
“Little Boy Blue, I’ll not be won by proxy,” rejoined Sue.
Whereupon he let go her arm and maintained a rather lofty silence. Sue stole a glance at him out of the tail of her eye. His face seemed different, somehow. Then they reached the campfire and the supper table. Manifestly the men were all waiting.
“Hello, lass!” called her father. “Shore you an’ Ora have held up the festal board … Sue, meet Mister Benton Manerube of Nevada. This my daughter. Now, everybody, let’s eat.”
Sue saw a tall man standing beside her fath
er and she bowed in acknowledgment of the introduction. He had gleaming eyes that seemed to leap at sight of her and absorb her. Sue dropped her own. Chess, as usual, was promptly on hand with a seat for her and Ora, and in a moment they were supplied with bountifully laden plates.
“Sue, isn’t he handsome?” whispered Ora.
“Who?” queried Sue.
“Mister Manerube, of course. Did you think I meant Chess?”
“Why, I hadn’t noticed.”
“‘Well, he’s noticed you, and I’m jealous,” declared Ora.
“Yes, you acted like it on the ride back to camp … But I’m hungry.”
Some moments later Sue covertly stole a glance at the newcomer, who sat opposite, between her father and Loughbridge. Ora had not been mistaken about the man’s looks, despite a discolored bruise on his face. His hair glinted in the sunset glow, and his complexion, though browned by exposure, was still so fair that it made the other riders look like Indians.
Sue, perhaps following Ora’s example, rather prolonged the eating of her supper. One by one the riders got up from around the tarpaulin tablecloth and clinked away to the tasks necessary before dark. Chess remained sitting, cross-legged, beside Ora, while Jake, always helpful, began to gather up the plates and cups. Sue’s father, having finished his supper, rose to his feet and threw some wood on the fire. Loughbridge got up and said something in a low tone to Melberne. They were both interested in the newcomer. Naturally this quickened Sue’s perceptions. Finally Manerube stood up, showing the superb figure of a rider and the worn, soiled garb of one who had surely been in contact with hard country. He wore a belt that swung low on his right hip with the weight of a gun. His blouse was a heavy, checkered woolen garment, made by the Mormons, Sue thought, and as he wore no coat or vest, his broad shoulders and deep chest showed strikingly. His unshaven beard, of days’ growth, was so fair that it did not detract from the fresh ruddy virility of his face.