Desert Heritage

by Zane Grey

  Next day Mescal drove the sheep eastward toward the crags, and about the middle of the afternoon reached the edge of the slope. Grass grew luxuriantly and it was easy to keep the sheep in. Moreover, that part of the forest had fewer trees and scarcely any sage or thickets, so that the lambs were safer, barring danger that might lurk in the seamed and cracked cliffs overshadowing the open grassy plots. Paiute’s task at the moment was to drag dead coyotes to the rim, near at hand, and throw them over. Mescal rested on a stone, and Wolf reclined at her feet.

  Jack presently found a fresh deer track, and trailed it into the cedars, then up the slope to where the huge rocks massed.

  Suddenly a cry from Mescal halted him, another, a piercing scream of mortal fright, sent him flying down the slope. He bounded out of the cedars into the open.

  The white, well-bunched flock had spread, and streams of jumping sheep fled frantically from an enormous silver-backed bear.

  As the bear struck right and left, a brute engine of destruction, Jack sent a bullet into him at long range. Stung, the grizzly whirled, bit at his side, and then reared with a roar of fury. But he did not see Jack. He dropped down and launched his huge bulk for Mescal. The blood rushed back to Jack’s heart and his empty veins seemed to freeze.

  The grizzly hurdled the streams of sheep. Terror for Mescal dominated Jack; if he had possessed wings, he could not have flown quickly enough to head the bear. Checking himself with a suddenness that fetched him to his knees, he leveled the rifle. It waved as if it were a stick of willow. The bead sight described a blurred curve around the bear. Yet he shot—in vain—again—in vain.

  Above the bleat of sheep and trample of many hoofs rang out Mescal’s cry, despairing.

  She had turned, her hands over her breast. Wolf spread his legs before her and crouched to spring, mane erect, jaws wide.

  By some lightning flash of memory, August Naab’s words steadied Jack’s shaken nerves. He aimed low and ahead of the running bear. Down the beast went in a sliding sprawl with a muffled roar of rage. Up he sprang, dangling a useless leg, yet leaping swiftly forward. One blow sent the attacking dog aside. Jack fired again. The bear became a wrestling, fiery demon, death-stricken, but full of savage fury. Jack aimed low and shot again.

  Slowly now the grizzly reared, his frosted coat blood flecked, his great head swaying. Another shot. There was one wide sweep of the huge paw, and then the bear sank forward, drooping slowly, and stretched all his length as if to rest.

  Mescal, recalled to life, staggered backward. Between her and the outstretched paw was the distance of one short stride.

  Jack, bounding up, made sure the bear was dead before he looked at Mescal. She was faint. Wolf whined about her. Paiute came running from the cedars. Mescal’s eyes were still fixed in a look of fear.

  “I couldn’t run . . . I couldn’t move,” she said, shuddering. A blush drove the white from her cheeks as she raised her face to Jack. “He’d soon have reached me.”

  Paiute added his encomium: “Damn . . . heap big bear . . . Jack kill ’um . . . big chief !”

  Hare laughed away his own fear, and the three then turned their attention to the stampeded sheep. It was dark before they got the flock together again, and they never knew whether they had found them all. Suppertime was unusually quiet that night. Paiute was jovial, but no one appeared willing to talk save the peon, and he could only grimace. The reaction of feeling following Mescal’s escape had robbed Jack of strength of voice; he could scarcely whisper. Mescal spoke no word; her black lashes hid her eyes; she was silent, but there was that in her silence that was eloquent. Wolf, always indifferent save to Mescal, reacted to the subtle change and, as if to make amends, laid his head on Jack’s knees. The quiet hour around the campfire passed, and sleep claimed them. Another day dawned, awakening them fresh, faithful to their duties, regardless of what had gone before.

  So the days slipped by. June came, with more leisure for the shepherds, better grazing for the sheep, heavier dews, lighter frosts, snow squalls half rain, and bursting blossoms on the prickly thorns, wild primrose patches in every shady spot, and bluebells lifting wan azure faces to the sun.

  The last snowstorm of June threatened all one morning, hung menacingly over the yellow crags, in dull lead clouds waiting for the wind. Then like ships heaving anchor to a single command they sailed down off the heights, and the cedar forest became the center of a blinding, eddying storm. The flakes were as large as feathers, moist, almost warm. The low cedars changed to mounds of white; the sheep became drooping curves of snow; the little lambs were lost in the color of their own pure fleece. Although the storm had been long in coming, it was brief in passing. Wind driven toward the desert, it moaned its last in the cedars, and swept away, a sheeted pall. Out over the cañon it floated, trailing long veils of white that thinned out, darkened, and failed far above the golden desert. The winding columns of snow merged into straight lines of leaden rain; the rain flowed into vapory mist, and the mist cleared in the goldred glare of endless level and slope. No moisture reached the parched desert.

  Jack marched into camp with a snowy burden over his shoulder. He flung it down, disclosing a small deer, then he shook the white mantle from his coat, and, whistling, kicked the fire logs, and looked abroad at the silver cedars, now dripping under the sun, at the rainbows in the settling mists, at the rapidly melting snow on the ground.

  “Got lost in that squall. Fine! Fine!” he exclaimed, and threw wide his arms.

  “Jack!” said Mescal. “Jack!” Memory had revived some forgotten thing. The dark olive of her skin crimsoned; her eyes dilated and shadowed with a rare change of emotion.

  “Jack,” she repeated.

  “Well?” he replied in surprise.

  “To look at you . . . I never dreamed . . . I’d forgotten . . . .”

  “What’s the matter with me?” demanded Jack.

  Wonderingly, her mind on the past, she replied: “You were dying when we found you at White Sage.”

  He drew himself up with a sharp catch in his breath, and stared at her as if he saw a ghost.

  “Oh . . . Jack! You’re going to get well!” Her lips curved in a smile.

  For an instant Jack Hare spent his soul in searching her face for truth. While waiting for death, he had utterly forgotten it; he remembered now, when life gleamed in the girl’s dark eyes. Passionate joy flooded his heart.

  “Mescal . . . Mescal!” he cried brokenly. The eyes were true that shed this sudden light on him; glad and sweet were the lips that bade him hope and live again. Blindly, instinctively he kissed them—a kiss unutterably grateful, then he fled into the forest, running without aim.

  That flight ended in sheer exhaustion on the far rim of the plateau. The spreading cedars seemed to have eyes, and he shunned eyes in this hour. “God . . . to think I cared so much,” he whispered. “What has happened?” With time relief came to limbs, to labored breast and lungs, but not to mind. In doubt that would not die, he looked at himself. The leanness of arms, the flat chest, the hollows were gone. He did not recognize his own body. He breathed to the depth of his lungs. No pain—only exhilaration! He pounded his chest—no pain! He dug his trembling fingers into the firm flesh over the apex of his right lung—the place of his torture—no pain!

  “I wanted to live!” he cried. He buried his face in the fragrant juniper; he rolled on the soft brown mat of earth and hugged it close; he cooled his hot cheeks in the primrose clusters. He opened his eyes to new bright green of cedar, to sky of a richer blue, to a desert, strange, beckoning, enthralling as life itself. He counted backward a month, two months, and marveled at the swiftness of time. He counted time forward, he looked into the future, and all was beautiful—long days, long hunts, long rides, service to his friend, freedom on the wild steppes, blue-white dawns upon the eastern crags, red-gold sunsets over the lilac mountains of the desert. He saw himself in triumphant health and strength, earning day by day the spirit of this wilderness, coming to fight for it, t
o live for it, and in far-off time, when he had won his victory, to die for it.

  Suddenly his mind was illumined. The lofty plateau with its healing breath of sage and juniper had given back strength to him; the silence and solitude and strife of his surroundings had called to something deep within him, but it was Mescal who made this wild life sweet and significant. It was Mescal, the embodiment of the desert spirit. Like a man facing a great light, Hare divined his love. Through all the days on the plateau, living with her the natural free life of Indians, close to the earth, his unconscious love had ripened. He understood now her charm for him; he knew now the lure of her wonderful eyes, flashing fire, desert trained, like the falcon eyes of her Indian grandfather. The knowledge of what she had become to him dawned with a mounting desire that thrilled all his blood.

  Twilight had enfolded the plateau when Hare traced his way back to camp. Mescal was not there. His supper awaited him; Paiute hummed a song; the peon sat, grimacing at the fire. Hare told them to eat, and moved away toward the rim.

  Mescal was at her favorite seat, with the white dog beside her, and she watched the desert where the last glow of sunset gilded the mesas. How cold and calm was her face. How strange to him in this new character!

  “Mescal, I didn’t know I loved you . . . then . . . but I know it now.”

  Her face dropped quickly from its level poise, hiding the brooding eyes; her hand trembled on Wolf ’s head.

  “You spoke the truth. I’ll get well. I’d rather have had it from your lips than from any in the world. I mean to live my life here where these wonderful things have come to me. The friendship of the good man who saved me, this wild, free desert, the glory of new hope, strength, life . . . and love.”

  He took her hand in his and whispered: “For I love you. Do you care for me? Mescal! It must be complete. Do you care . . . a little?”

  The wind blew her dusky hair; he could not see her face; he tried gently to turn her to him. The hand he had taken lay warm and trembling in his, but it was not withdrawn. As he waited, in fear, in hope, it became still. Her slender form, rigid within his arm, gradually relaxed and yielded to him; her face sank on his breast, and her dark hair loosened from its band, covered her, and blew across his lips. That was his answer.

  The wind sang in the cedars. No longer a sigh, sad as thoughts of a past forever flown, but a song of what had come to him, of hope, of life, of Mescal’s love, of the things to be!

  Chapter Seven

  Little dew fell on the night of July 1st; the dawn brightened without mists; a hot sun rose; the short summer of the plateau had begun.

  As Hare rose, refreshed and happy, from his breakfast, his whistle was cut short by the Indian.

  “Ugh!” exclaimed Paiute, lifting a dark finger. Black Bolly had thrown her nose-bag and slipped her halter, and she moved toward the opening in the cedars, her head high, her black ears straight up.

  “Bolly!” called Mescal. The mare did not stop.

  “What the deuce?” Hare ran forward to catch her.

  “I never knew Bolly to act that way,” said Mescal. “See . . . she didn’t eat half the oats. Well, Bolly . . . . Jack look at Wolf !”

  The white dog had risen and stood warily shifting his nose. He sniffed the wind, turned around and around, and slowly stiffened with his head pointed toward the eastern rise of the plateau.

  “Hold, Wolf, hold!” called Mescal, as the dog appeared to be about to dash away.

  “Ugh!” grunted Paiute.

  “Listen, Jack. Did you hear?” whispered the girl.

  “Hear what?”

  “Listen.”

  The warm breeze came down in puffs from the crags; it rustled in the cedars and blew fragrant whiffs of campfire smoke into his face, and presently it bore a low, prolonged whistle. He had never before heard its like. The sound broke the silence again, clearer, a keen, sharp whistle.

  “What is it?” he queried, reaching for his rifle.

  “Wild mustangs,” said Mescal.

  “No,” corrected Paiute, vehemently shaking his head. “Clea . . . clea.”

  “Jack, he says ‘horse, horse.’ It’s a wild horse.”

  A third time the whistle rang down from the ridge, splitting the air, strong and trenchant, the fiery, shrill challenge of a stallion.

  Black Bolly reared straight up

  Jack ran to the rise of ground above the camp, and looked over the cedars. “Oh!” he cried, and beckoned for Mescal. She ran to him, and Paiute, tying Black Bolly, hurried after. “Look . . . look!” cried Jack. He pointed to a ridge rising to the left of the yellow crags. On the bare summit stood a splendid stallion clearly silhouetted against the ruddy morning sky. He was an iron-gray, wild and proud, with long silver-white mane waving in the wind.

  “Silvermane! Silvermane!” exclaimed Mescal.

  “What a magnificent animal!” Jack stared at the splendid picture for the moment before the horse moved back along the ridge and disappeared. Other horses, blacks and bays, showed above the sage for a moment, and they, too, passed out of sight.

  “He’s got some of his band with him,” said Jack, thrilled with excitement. “Mescal, they’re down off the upper range, and grazing along easy. The wind favors us. That whistle was just plain fight, judging from what Naab told me of wild stallions. He came to the hilltop, and whistled down defiance to any horse, wild or tame, that might be below. I’ll slip around through the cedars, and block the trail leading up to the other range, and you and Paiute close the gate of our trail at this end. Then send Paiute down to tell Naab we’ve got Silvermane.”

  Jack chose the lowest edge of the plateau rim where the cedars were thickest for his detour to get behind the wild band; he ran from tree to tree, avoiding the open places, taking advantage of the thickets, keeping away from the ridge. He had never gone so far as the gate, but, knowing where the trail led into a split in the crags, he climbed the slope, and threaded a way over masses of fallen cliff, until he reached the base of the wall. The tracks of the wild-horse band were very fresh and plain in the yellow trail. Four stout posts guarded the opening, and a number of bars lay ready to be pushed into place. He put them up, making a gate ten feet high, an impregnable barrier. This done, he hurried back to camp.

  “Jack, Bolly will need more watching today than the sheep, unless I let her loose. Why, she pulls and strains so she’ll break that halter.”

  “She wants to go with the band. Isn’t that it?”

  “I don’t like to think so. But Father Naab doesn’t trust Bolly, though she’s the best mustang he ever broke.”

  “Better keep her in,” replied Jack, remembering Naab’s warning. “I’ll hobble her, so if she does break loose, she can’t go far.”

  When Mescal and Jack drove in the sheep that afternoon, rather earlier than usual, Paiute had returned with August Naab, Dave, and Billy, a string of mustangs, and a pack train of burros.

  “Hello, Mescal!” cheerily called August as they came into camp. “Well, Jack . . . bless me! Why, my lad, how fine and brown . . . and, yes, how you’ve filled out.” He crushed Jack’s hand in his broad palm, and his gray eyes beamed. “I’ve not the gift of revelation . . . but, Jack, you’re going to get well.”

  “Yes, I . . . .” He had difficulty with his enunciation, but he thumped his breast significantly and smiled.

  “Black sage and juniper!” exclaimed August. “In this air if a man doesn’t go off quickly with pneumonia, he’ll get well. I never had a doubt for you, Jack . . . and thank God.”

  He questioned Paiute and Mescal about the sheep, and was greatly pleased with their report. He shook his head when Jack spread out the grizzly pelt, and asked for the story of the killing. Jack made a poor showing with the tale and slighted his share in it, but Mescal told it as it actually happened. And Naab’s great hand resounded from Jack’s shoulder. Then, catching sight of the pile of coyote skins under the stone shelf, he gave vent to his surprise and delight. Then he came back to the object of his tri
p upon the plateau.

  “So you’ve corralled Silvermane? Well, Jack, if he doesn’t jump over the cliff, he’s ours. He can’t get off any other way. How many horses with him?”

  “We had no chance to count. I saw at least twelve.”

  “Good! He’s out with his picked band. Weren’t they all blacks and bays?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jack, the history of that stallion wouldn’t make you proud of him. We’ve corralled him by a lucky chance. If I don’t miss my guess, he’s after Bolly. He has been a lot of trouble to ranchers all the way from the Nevada line across Utah. The stallions he’s killed, the mares he’s led off. Well, Dave, shall we thirst him out, or line up a long corral?”

  “Better have a look around tomorrow,” replied Dave. “It’ll take a lot of chasing to run him down, but there’s not a spring on the bench where we can throw up a trap corral. We’ll have to chase him.”

  “Mescal, has Bolly been good since Silvermane came down?”

  “No, she hasn’t,” declared Mescal, and told of the circumstance.

  “Bolly’s all right,” said Billy Naab. “Any mustang will do that. Keep her belled and hobbled.”

  “Silvermane would care a lot about that, if he wanted Bolly, wouldn’t he?” queried Dave in quiet scorn. “Keep her roped and haltered, I say.”

  “Dave’s right,” said August. “You can’t trust a wild mustang any more than a wild horse.”

  August was right. Black Bolly broke her halter about midnight and escaped into the forest, hobbled as she was. The Indian heard her first, and he awoke August, who aroused the others.

  “Don’t make any noise,” he said, as Jack came up, throwing on his coat. “There’s likely to be some fun here presently. Bolly’s loose, broke her rope, and I think Silvermane is close. Listen sharp now.”

  The slight breeze favored them, the campfire was dead, and the night was clear and starlit They had not been quiet many moments when the shrill neigh of a mustang rang out. The Naabs raised themselves and looked at one another in the starlight.