Desert Heritage

by Zane Grey

  “Eschtah’s wisdom is great, but he thinks only of Indian blood. Mescal is half white, and her ways have been the ways of the white man. Nor does Eschtah think of the white man’s love.”

  “The desert has called. Where is the White Prophet’s vision? White blood and red blood will not mix. The Indian’s blood pales in the white stream . . . or it burns red for the sun and the waste and the wild. Eschtah’s forefathers, sleeping here in the silence, have called the Desert Flower.”

  “It is true. But the white man is bound . . . he cannot be as the Indian . . . he does not content himself with life as it is . . . he hopes and prays for change . . . he believes in the progress of his race on earth. Therefore Eschtah’s white friend seeks Mescal . . . he has brought her up as his own . . . he wants to take her home, to love her better, to trust to the future.”

  “The white man’s ways are white man’s ways. Eschtah respects these. He speaks out of his years. He remembers his daughter lying here . . . he watched her give birth to this white woman-child. Eschtah remembers. He closed her dead eyes and sent word to his white friend. He named this child for the flower that rises slender and straight, and blows in the wind of silent places. He named her for this flower that is sweet to the Indian and thickens his blood. Eschtah gave his granddaughter to his friend. She has been the bond between them. Now she is flown and the white father seeks the Navajo. Let him command. Eschtah has spoken.”

  Eschtah pressed into Naab’s service a band of young braves, under the guidance of several warriors who knew every trail of the range, every water hole, every cranny where even a wolf might hide. They swept the river end of the plateau and, working westward, scoured the levels, ridges, valleys, climbed to the peaks, and sent their Indian dogs into the thickets and caves. From Eschtah’s encampment westward the hogans diminished in number till only one here and there was discerned, hidden under a yellow wall, or amid a clump of cedars. All the Indians met with were sternly questioned by the chiefs, their dwellings were searched, and the ground about their water holes was closely examined. Mile on mile the plateau was covered by these Indians, who beat the brush and penetrated the fastnesses with a hunting instinct that left scarcely a rabbit burrow unrevealed. The days sped by; the circle of the sun arched higher; the patches of snow in high places disappeared, and the search proceeded westward. They camped where the night overtook them, sometimes near water and grass, sometimes in bare dry places. To the westward the plateau widened, heaved in more rugged ridges, and its seared crags split the sky like sharp saw-teeth. And after many miles of wild upranging it reached a divide that marked the line of Eschtah’s domain.

  Naab’s dogged persistence and the Navajos’ faithfulness carried them into the country of the Moki Indians, a tribe classed as slaves by the proud race of Eschtah. Here they searched the villages and ancient tombs and ruins, but of Mescal there was never a trace.

  Hare rode as diligently and searched as indefatigably as August, but he never had any real hope of finding the girl. To hunt for her, however, despite its hopelessness, was a melancholy sort of happiness, for seldom was she out of his mind.

  Nor was the month’s hard riding with the Navajos without profit. He made friends with the Indians, and learned to speak many of their words. Then a whole host of desert tricks became part of his accumulating knowledge. In climbing the crags, in looking for water and grass, in loosing Silvermane at night and searching for him at dawn, in marking tracks on hard ground, in all the sight and feeling and smell of desert things he learned much from the Navajos. The whole outward life of the Indian was concerned with the material aspect of Nature—dust, rock, air, wind, smoke, and the mustangs, the cedars, the beasts of the desert. These things made up the Indians’ day. From all Hare could tell these made up his inward life. The Navajos were worshippers of the physical; the sun was their supreme god. In the mornings when the gray of dawn flushed to rosy red they began their chant to the sun. To Hare this song was beautiful. It was indescribably wild, sad, strange, and remindful of the differing beliefs of life. At sunset the Navajos were watchful and silent with faces westward. The Moki Indians, also, Hare observed, had their morning service to the great giver of light. In the gloom of early dawn, before the pink appeared in the east, and all was whitening gray, the Mokis emerged from their little mud and stone huts and sat upon the roofs with blanketed and drooping heads.

  One day August Naab showed in few words how significant a factor the sun was in the lives of desert men.

  “We’ve got to turn back,” he said to Hare. “The sun’s getting hot and the snow will melt in the mountains. If the Colorado rises too high, we can’t cross.”

  They were two days in riding back to the encampment. Eschtah received them in dignified silence, expressive of his regret. When their time of departure arrived, he accompanied them to the head of the nearest trail, which started down from Saweep Peak, the highest point of Echo Cliffs. It was the Navajos’ outlook over the Painted Desert.

  “Mescal is there,” said August Naab. “She’s there with the slave Eschtah gave her. He leads Mescal. Who can follow him there?”

  The old chieftain reined beside the time-hollowed trail, and the hand that waved his white friend downward swept up to a long, slow stately gesture toward the illimitable expanse. It was a warrior’s salute to an unconquered world. Hare saw in his falcon eyes the still gleam, the brooding fire, the mystical passion that haunted the eyes of Mescal.

  “The slave without a tongue is a wolf. He scents the trails and the waters. Eschtah’s eyes have grown old watching here, but he has seen no Indian who could follow Mescal’s slave. Look! There is the Navajo’s grave! Eschtah will lie there, but no Indian will know the trail to the place of his sleep. Can the White Prophet see? Does he know why the Ghost Mountains follow the Indian when he goes, and retreat when he comes? Let him know then. Mescal’s trail is lost in the sand. No man may find it. Eschtah’s words are wisdom. He loves his friend. Look!”

  To search for any living creature in that borderless domain of colored dune, of shifting cloud of sand, of purple curtain shrouding mesa and dome, seemed the vainest of all human endeavors. It was as if it were a shimmering rainbow realm of the sun. At first only the beauty stunned Hare—he saw the copper belt close under the cliffs, the white beds of alkali and washes of silt farther out, the wind-plowed cañons and dust-encumbered ridges ranging west and east, the strange scalloped slopes of the long, flat tableland rising low, the black tips of volcanic peaks leading the eye beyond to veils and vapors hovering over indistinct blue clefts and dim, dark line of level lanes, and so on, out to the unreal, vast unknown of deceiving light. Then Hare grasped a little of its meaning. What a sun-painted, sun-governed world! What white blinding luster! What storm scars of ages! Here was deep and majestic Nature in its principle of eternal change. But it was only through Eschtah’s eyes that he saw its parched lifeless slopes, its terrifying desolateness, its still silent sleeping death, its decay.

  When the old chieftain’s lips opened, Hare anticipated the austere speech, the import that meant only pain to him, and his whole inner being seemed to shrink.

  “The White Prophet’s child of red blood is lost to him,” said Eschtah. “The Flower of the Desert is as a grain of drifting sand.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  August Naab expressed a hope that Mescal might have returned home during his absence, but it was a cheerless one that Hare could not delude himself into holding. The women of the oasis met them with gloomy faces presaging bad news, and they were reluctant to tell it. Mescal’s flight had been forgotten in the sterner and sadder misfortune.

  Snap Naab’s wife lay dangerously ill, the victim of his drunken frenzy. For days after the departure of August and Jack the man had kept himself in a stupor, then, his store of drink failing, he had come out of his almost senseless state into one that bordered on the maniacal. He had tried to kill his wife and wreck his cottage, being prevented in the nick of time by Dave Naab, the only brother who
dared approach him. Then he had ridden off on the White Sage trail and had not been heard from since.

  The Mormon put forth all his skill in surgery and medicine to save the life of his son’s wife, however he admitted that he had misgivings as to her recovery. But these in no manner affected his patience, gentleness, and cheer. While there was life, there was hope, said August Naab. He bade Hare, after he had rested a while, to pack and ride out to the range, and tell his sons that he would come later.

  Nothing better than to leave the oasis, where inaction caused constant thought of Mescal, Hare departed the same day, and made Silver Cup that night. As he rode under the low-branching cedars toward the bright campfire, he looked about him sharply for Snap Naab. But not one of the four ruddy faces in the glow belonged to Snap.

  “Hello, Jack!” called Dave Naab, into the dark. “I knew that was you. Silvermane sure rings bells when he hoofs it down the stones. How’re you and Dad, and did you find Mescal? I’ll bet that wild Navajo kid led you clear to the Little Colorado.”

  Hare related the story of the fruitless search.

  “It’s no more than we expected,” said Dave. “The man doesn’t live who can trail the peon. Mescal’s like a captured wild mustang that’s slipped her halter and gone free. She’ll die out there on the desert or dry up into a stalk of the Indian cactus for which she’s named. It’s a pity, for she was a sweet girl and a good girl, too good for Snap.”

  “What’s your news?” inquired Hare.

  “Oh, nothing much,” replied Dave, with his short laugh. “The cattle wintered well. There was enough snow fell on the range to make fine browse this spring. We’ve had little to do but hang around and watch. Zeke and I chased old Whitefoot one day, and got pretty close to Seeping Springs. We met Joe Stube, a rider who was once a friend of Zeke’s. He’s with Holderness now, and he said that Holderness had rebuilt the corrals at the spring, also put up a big cabin, and has a dozen riders there. Stube told us Snap had been shooting up White Sage. He finished up by killing Snood. They got into an argument about you.”

  “About me!”

  “Yes, seems that Snood took your part, and Snap wouldn’t stand for it. Too bad! Snood was a good fellow. There’s no use talking, Snap’s going too far . . . he is . . . .” Dave did not conclude his remark, and the silence was more significant than any utterance.

  “What will the Mormons in White Sage say about Snap’s killing Snood?”

  “They’ve said a lot. This even break business goes all right among gunfighters, but the Mormons call killing murder. They’ve outlawed Culver, and Snap will be outlawed next.”

  “Your father hinted that Snap would find the desert too small for him and me?”

  “Jack, you can’t be too careful. I’ve wanted to speak to you about it. Snap will ride in here someday and then . . . .” Dave’s pause was not reassuring.

  And it was only on the third day after Dave’s remark that Hare, riding down the mountain with a deer he had shot, looked out from the trail and saw Snap’s cream pinto trotting toward Silver Cup. Beside Snap rode a tall man on a big bay. When Hare reached camp, he reported to George and Zeke what he had seen, and learned in reply that Dave had already caught sight of the horsemen, and had gone down to the edge of the cedars. While they were speaking, Dave hurriedly ran up the trail.

  “It’s Snap and Holderness!” he called out sharply. “What’s Snap doing with Holderness? What’s he bringing him here for?”

  “I don’t like the looks of it,” replied Zeke deliberately.

  “Jack, what’ll you do?” asked Dave suddenly.

  “Do? What can I do? I’m not going to run out of camp because of a visit from men who don’t like me.”

  “It might be wisest.”

  “Do you ask me to run to avoid a meeting with your brother?”

  “No.” The dull red came to Dave’s cheek. “But will you draw on him?”

  “Certainly not. He’s August Naab’s son and your brother.”

  “Yes, and you’re my friend, which Snap won’t think of. Will you draw on Holderness, then?”

  “For the life of me, Dave, I can’t tell you,” replied Hare, pacing the trail. “Something must break loose in me before I can kill a man. I’d draw, I suppose, in self-defense. But what good would it do me to pull too late? Dave, this thing is what I’ve feared. I’m not afraid of Snap or Holderness, not that way. I mean I’m not ready. Look here, would either of them shoot an unarmed man?”

  “Lord, I hope not . . . I don’t think so. But you’re packing your gun.”

  Hare unbuckled his cartridge belt, which held his Colt, and hung it over the pommel of his saddle, and then he sat down on one of the stone seats near the campfire.

  “There they come,” whispered Zeke, and he rose to his feet, followed by George.

  “Steady, you fellows,” said Dave, with a warning glance. “I’ll do the talking.”

  Holderness and Snap appeared among the cedars and, trotting out into the glade, reined in their mounts a few paces from the fire. Dave Naab stood directly before Hare, and George and Zeke stepped aside.

  “Howdy, boys!” called out Holderness, with his genial smile. It was like the gleam of light playing on a cold surface. His amber eyes were as steady as a rock, their gaze contracted into piercing yellow points. Dave studied the cattleman with cool scorn and, deigning him no reply, addressed himself to his brother.

  “Snap, what do you mean by riding in here with this fellow?”

  “I’m Holderness’s new foreman. We’re just looking around,” replied Snap. The hard lines, the sullen shade, the hawk-beak cruelty had returned tenfold to his face, and his glance was like a living, leaping flame.

  “New foreman!” exclaimed Dave. His jaw dropped and he stared in amazement. “No . . . you can’t mean that . . . you’re drunk!”

  “That’s what I said,” growled Snap.

  “You’re a liar!” shouted Dave, a crimson blot blurring with the brown on his cheeks. He jumped off the ground in his fury.

  “It’s true, Naab, he’s my new foreman,” put in Holderness suavely. “A hundred a month . . . in gold . . . and I’ve got as good a place for you.”

  “Well, by God!” Dave’s arms came down and he grew still while his face blanched to his lips. “Holderness!”

  “I know what you’d say,” interrupted the ranchman. “But slow it all. I know you’re game. And what’s the use for us to fight? I’m talking business. I’ll . . . .”

  “You can’t talk business or anything else to me,” said Dave Naab, and he veered sharply toward his brother. “Say it again, Snap Naab. You’ve hired out to ride for this man?”

  “That’s it.”

  “You’re going against your father, your brothers, your own flesh and blood?”

  “I can’t see it that way.”

  “Then you’re a drunken, easily led fool. This man’s no rancher. He’s a rustler. He ruined Martin Cole, the father of your first wife. He has stolen our cattle . . . he has usurped our water rights. He seeks to ruin us. For God’s sake, where’s your manhood?”

  “Things have gone bad for me,” replied Snap sullenly, shifting in his saddle. “I reckon I’ll do better to cut out alone for myself.”

  “You crooked cur! But you’re only my half-brother, after all. I always knew you’d come to something bad, but I never thought you’d disgrace the Naabs and break your father’s heart. Now then, what do you want here? Be quick. This is our range, and you and your boss can’t ride here. You can’t even water your horses. Out with it!”

  At this, Hare, who had been hanging on the words, so absorbed as to forget himself, suddenly experienced a cold tightening of the skin of his face, and a hard swell of his breast, as if it were about to burst. The dance of Snap’s eyes, the downward flit of his hand seemed instantaneous with a red flash and loud report. Instinctively Hare dipped down under the powdery stream, and the light impact of something like a puff of air gave place to a tearing hot agony. Then he slip
ped down, back to the stone, upright with a bloody hand fumbling at his breast.

  Dave leaped with tigerish agility and, knocking up the leveled Colt, held Snap as in a vise. George Naab gave Holderness’s horse a sharp kick that made the mettlesome beast jump so suddenly that his rider was nearly unseated. Zeke ran to Hare and laid him back against the stone.

  “Cool down, there,” ordered Zeke. “He’s done for.”

  “My God . . . my God!” cried Dave, in a broken voice. “Not . . . not dead?”

  “Shot through the heart!”

  Dave Naab flung Snap backward, almost off his horse. “Damn you! Run or not for Christ himself will hold my hand! And you, Holderness! Remember! If we ever meet again . . . you draw!” He tore a branch from a cedar and slashed both horses. They plunged out of the glade and, clattering over the stones, brushing the cedars, disappeared. Dave groped blindly back toward his brothers.

  “Zeke, this’s awful. Another murder by Snap! And my friend! Who’s to tell Father?”

  Then Hare sat up, leaning against the stone, his shirt open and his bare shoulder bloody; his face was pale, but his eyes were smiling. “Cheer up, Dave. I’m not dead yet.”

  “Sure he’s not,” said Zeke. “He ducked none too soon, or too late, and caught the bullet high up in the shoulder.”

  Dave sat down very quietly without a word, and the hand he laid on Hare’s knee shook a very little.

  “When I saw George go for his gun,” went on Zeke, “I knew there’d be a lively time in a minute if it wasn’t stopped, so I just said Jack was dead.”

  “Do you think they came over to get me?” asked Hare.

  “No doubt of it in the world,” replied Dave, lifting his face and wiping the sweat from his brow. “I knew that from the first, but I was so paralyzed by Snap’s treachery in going over to Holderness that I couldn’t keep my wits or temper. And I didn’t mark Snap edging over till too late.”

  “Listen, I hear horses,” said Zeke, looking up from his task over Hare’s wound.