The Spirit of the Border and the Last Trail

by Zane Grey

  The old life was dead and buried. She was going to be happy here. As for the present, it was enough to think of the little border village, now her home; of her girl friends; of the quiet borderman; and, for the moment, that the twilight was somber and beautiful.

  High up on the wooded bluff rising so gloomily over the village, she saw among the trees something silver-bright. She watched it rise slowly from behind the trees, now hidden, now white through rifts in the foliage, until it soared lovely and grand above the black horizon. The ebony shadows of night seemed to lift, as might a sable mantle moved by invisible hands. But dark shadows, safe from the moon-rays, lay under the trees, and a pale, misty vapor hung below the brow of the bluff.

  Mysterious as had grown the night before darkness yielded to the moon, this pale, white light flooding the still valley, was even more soft and strange. To one of Helen’s temperament no thought was needed; to see was enough. Yet her mind was active. She felt with haunting power the beauty of all before her; in fancy transporting herself far to those silver-tipped clouds, and peopling with dells and shady nooks under the hills with spirits and fairies, maidens and valiant knights. To her the day was as a far-off dream. The great watch stars grew wan before the radiant moon; it reigned alone. The immensity of the world with its glimmering rivers, pensive valleys, and deep, gloomy forests lay revealed under the glory of the clear light.

  Absorbed in this contemplation Helen remained a long time gazing with dreamy ecstasy at the moonlit valley until a slight chill disturbed her happy thoughts. She knew she was not alone. Trembling, she stood up to see, easily recognizable in the moonlight, the tall buckskin-garbed figure of Jonathan Zane.

  “Well, sir,” she called, sharply, yet with a tremor in her voice.

  The borderman came forward and stood in front of her. Somehow he appeared changed. The long, black rifle, the dull, glinting weapons made her shudder. Wilder and more untamable he looked than ever. The very silence of the forest clung to him; the fragrance of the grassy plains came faintly from his buckskin garments.

  ’‘Evenin’, lass,” he said in his slow, cool manner.

  “How did you get here?” asked Helen presently, because he made no effort to explain his presence at such a late hour.

  “I was able to walk.”

  Helen observed, with a vaulting spirit, one ever ready to rise in arms, that Master Zane was disposed to add humor to his penetrating mysteriousness. She flushed hot and then paled. This borderman certainly possessed the power to vex her, and, reluctantly she admitted, to chill her soul and rouse her fear. She strove to keep back sharp words, because she had learned that this singular individual always gave good reason for his odd actions.

  “I think in kindness to me,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “you might tell me why you appear so suddenly, as if you had sprung out of the ground.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes. Father is in bed; so is Mabel, and Will has not yet come home. Why?”

  “Has no one else been here?”

  “Mr. Brandt came, as did some others; but wishing to be alone, I did not see them,” replied Helen in perplexity.

  “Have you seen Brandt since?”

  “Since when?”

  “The night I watched by the lilac bush.”

  “Yes, several times,” replied Helen. Something in his tone made her ashamed. “I couldn’t very well escape when he called. Are you surprised because after he insulted me I’d see him?”

  “Yes.”

  Helen felt more ashamed.

  “You don’t love him?” he continued.

  Helen was so surprised she could only look into the dark face above her. Then she dropped her gaze, abashed by his searching eyes. But, thinking of his question, she subdued the vague stirrings of pleasure in her breast, and answered coldly:

  “No, I do not; but for the service you rendered me I should never have answered such a question.”

  “I’m glad, an’ hope you care as little for the other five men who were here that night.”

  “I declare, Master Zane, you seem exceedingly interested in affairs of a young woman whom you won’t visit, except as you have come to-night.”

  He looked at her with his piercing eyes.

  “You spied upon my guests,” she said, in no wise abashed now that her temper was high. “Did you care so very much?”

  “Care?” he asked slowly.

  “Yes; you were interested to know how many of my admirers were here, what they did, and what they said. You even hint disparagingly of them.”

  “True, I wanted to know,” he replied; “but I don’t hint about any man.”

  “You are so interested you wouldn’t call on me when I invited you,” said Helen, with poorly veiled sarcasm. It was this that made her bitter; she could never forget that she had asked this man to come to see her, and he had refused.

  “I reckon you’ve mistook me,” he said calmly.

  “Why did you come? Why do you shadow my friends? This is twice you have done it. Goodness knows how many times you’ve been here! Tell me.”

  The borderman remained silent.

  “Answer me,” commanded Helen, her eyes blazing. She actually stamped her foot. “Borderman or not, you have no right to pry into my affairs. If you are a gentleman, tell me why you came here?”

  The eyes Jonathan turned on Helen stilled all the angry throbbing of her blood.

  “I come here to learn which of your lovers is the dastard who plotted the abduction of Mabel Lane, an’ the thief who stole our hosses. When I find the villain I reckon Wetzel an’ I’ll swing him to some tree.”

  The borderman’s voice rang sharp and cold, and when he ceased speaking she sank back upon the step, shocked, speechless, to gaze up at him with staring eyes.

  “Don’t look so, lass; don’t be frightened,” he said, his voice gentle and kind as it had been hard. He took her hand in his. “You nettled me into replyin’. You have a sharp tongue, lass, and when I spoke I was thinkin’ of him. I’m sorry.”

  “A horse-thief and worse than murderer among my friends!” murmured Helen, shuddering, yet she never thought to doubt his word.

  “I followed him here the night of your company.”

  “Do you know which one?”

  “No.”

  He still held her hand, unconsciously, but Helen knew it well. A sense of his strength came with the warm pressure, and comforted her. She would need that powerful hand, surely, in the evil days which seemed to darken the horizon.

  “What shall I do?” she whispered, shuddering again.

  “Keep this secret between you an’ me.”

  “How can I? How can I?”

  “You must.” His voice was deep and low. “If you tell your father, or any one, I might lose the chance to find this man, for, lass, he’s desperate cunnin’. Then he’d go free to rob others, an’ mebbe help make off with other poor girls. Lass, keep my secret.”

  “But he might try to carry me away,” said Helen in fearful perplexity.

  “Most likely he might,” replied the borderman with the smile that came so rarely.

  “Oh! Knowing all this, how can I meet any of these men again? I’d betray myself.”

  “No; you’ve got too much pluck. It so happens you are the one to help me an’ Wetzel rid the border of these hell-hounds, an’ you won’t fail. I know a woman when it comes to that.”

  “I—I help you and Wetzel?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Gracious!” cried Helen, half-laughing, half-crying. “And poor me with more trouble coming on the next boat.”

  “Lass, the colonel told me about the Englishman. It’ll be bad for him to annoy you.”

  Helen thrilled with the depth of meaning in the low voice. Fate surely was weaving a bond between her and this borderman. She felt it in his steady, piercing gaze; in her own tingling blood.

  Then as her natural courage dispelled all girlish fears, she faced him, white, resolute, with a look in her
eyes that matched his own.

  “I will do what I can,” she said.

  CHAPTER VII

  Westward from Fort Henry, far above the eddying river, Jonathan Zane slowly climbed a narrow, hazel-bordered, mountain trail. From time to time he stopped in an open patch among the thickets and breathed deep of the fresh, wood-scented air, while his keen gaze swept over the glades nearby, along the wooded hillsides, and above at the timber-strewn woodland.

  This June morning in the wild forest was significant of nature’s brightness and joy. Broad-leaved poplars, dense foliage oaks, and vine-covered maples shaded cool, mossy banks, while between the trees the sunshine streamed in bright spots. It shone silver on the glancing silver-leaf, and gold on the colored leaves of the butternut tree. Dewdrops glistened on the ferns; ripples sparkled in the brooks; spiderwebs glowed with wondrous rainbow hues, and the flower of the forest, the sweet, pale-faced daisy, rose above the green like a white star.

  Yellow birds flitted among the hazel bushes caroling joyously, and catbirds sang gaily. Robins called; blue jays screeched in the tall, white oaks; woodpeckers hammered in the dead hardwoods, and crows cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffled grouse rose with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the wilder scream of an eagle.

  Wilderness music such as all this fell harmoniously on the borderman’s ear. It betokened the gladsome spirit of his wild friends, happy in the warm sunshine above, or in the cool depths beneath the fluttering leaves, and everywhere in those lonely haunts unalarmed and free.

  Familiar to Jonathan, almost as the footpath near his home, was this winding trail. On the height above was a safe rendezvous, much frequented by him and Wetzel. Every lichen-covered stone, mossy bank, noisy brook, and giant oak on the way up this mountainside, could have told, had they spoken their secrets, stories of the bordermen. The fragile ferns and slender-bladed grasses peeping from the gray and amber mosses, and the flowers that hung from craggy ledges, had wisdom to impart. A borderman lived under the green treetops, and, therefore, all the nodding branches of sassafras and laurel, the grassy slopes and rocky cliffs, the stately ash trees, kingly oaks, and dark, mystic pines, together with the creatures that dwelt among them, save his deadly red-skinned foes, he loved. Other affection as close and true as this, he had not known. Hearkening thus with single heart to nature’s teachings, he learned her secrets. Certain it was, therefore, that the many hours he passed in the woods apart from savage pursuits, were happy and fruitful.

  Slowly he pressed on up the ascent, at length coming into open light upon a small plateau marked by huge, rugged, weather-chipped stones. On the eastern side was a rocky promontory, and close to the edge of this cliff, a hundred feet in sheer descent, rose a gnarled, time and tempest-twisted chestnut tree. Here the borderman laid down his rifle and knapsack, and, half-reclining against the tree, settled himself to rest and wait.

  This craggy point was the lonely watchtower of eagles. Here on the highest headland for miles around where the bordermen were wont to meet, the outlook was far-reaching and grand.

  Below the gray, splintered cliffs sheered down to meet the waving treetops, and then hill after hill, slope after slope, waved and rolled far, far down to the green river. Open grassy patches, bright little islands in that ocean of dark green, shone on the hillsides. The rounded ridges ran straight, curved, or zigzag, but shaped their graceful lines in the descent to make the valley. Long, purple-hued, shadowy depressions in the wide expanse of foliage marked deep clefts between ridges where dark, cool streams bounded on to meet the river. Lower, where the land was level, in open spaces could be seen a broad trail, yellow in the sunlight, winding along with the curves of the watercourse. On a swampy meadow, blue in the distance, a herd of buffalo browsed. Beyond the river, high over the green island, Fort Henry lay peaceful and solitary, the only token of the works of man in all that vast panorama.

  Jonathan Zane was as much alone as if one thousand miles, instead of five, intervened between him and the settlement. Loneliness was to him a passion. Other men loved home, the light of woman’s eyes, the rattle of dice or the lust of hoarding; but to him this wild, remote promontory, with its limitless view, stretching away to the dim hazy horizon, was more than all the arching joys of civilization.

  Hours here, or in the shady valley, recompensed him for the loss of home comforts, the soft touch of woman’s hands, the kiss of baby lips, and also for all he suffered in his pitiless pursuits, the hard fare, the steel and blood of a borderman’s life.

  Soon the sun shone straight overhead, dwarfing the shadow of the chestnut on the rock.

  During such a time it was rare that any connected thought came into the borderman’s mind. His dark eyes, now strangely luminous, strayed lingeringly over those purple, undulating slopes. This intense watchfulness had no object, neither had his listening. He watched nothing; he hearkened to the silence. Undoubtedly in this state of rapt absorption his perceptions were acutely alert; but without thought, as were those of the savage in the valley below, or the eagle in the sky above.

  Yet so perfectly trained were these perceptions that the least unnatural sound or sight brought him wary and watchful from his dreamy trance.

  The slight snapping of a twig in the thicket caused him to sit erect, and reach out toward his rifle. His eyes moved among the dark openings in the thicket. In another moment a tall figure pressed the bushes apart. Jonathan let fall his rifle, and sank back against the tree once more. Wetzel stepped over the rocks toward him.

  “Come from Blue Pond?” asked Jonathan as the newcomer took a seat beside him.

  Wetzel nodded as he carefully laid aside his long, black rifle.

  “Any Injun sign?” continued Jonathan, pushing toward his companion the knapsack of eatables he had brought from the settlement.

  “Nary Shawnee track west of this divide,” answered Wetzel, helping himself to bread and cheese.

  “Lew, we must go eastward, over Bing Legget’s way, to find the trail of the stolen horses.”

  “Likely, an’ it’ll be a long, hard tramp.”

  “Who’s in Legget’s gang now beside Old Horse, the Chippewa, an’ his Shawnee pard, Wildfire? I don’t know Bing; but I’ve seen some of his Injuns an’ they remember me.”

  “Never seen Legget but onct,” replied Wetzel, “an’ that time I shot half his face off. I’ve been told by them as have seen him since, that he’s got a nasty scar on his temple an’ cheek. He’s a big man an’ knows the woods. I don’t know who all’s in his gang, nor does anybody. He works in the dark, an’ for cunnin’ he’s got some on Jim Girty, Deerin’, an’ several more renegades we know of lyin’ quiet back here in the woods. We never tackled as bad a gang as his’n; they’re all experienced woodsmen, old fighters, an’ desperate, outlawed as they be by Injuns an’ whites. It would surprise me to find that it’s him an’ his gang who are runnin’ this hoss-thievin’; but bad or no, we’re goin’ after ’em.”

  Jonathan told of his movements since he had last seen his companion.

  “An’ the lass Helen is goin’ to help us,” said Wetzel, much interested. “It’s a good move. Women are keen. Betty put Miller’s schemin’ in my eye long ’afore I noticed it. But girls have chances were men’d never got.”

  “Yes, an’ she’s like Betts, quicker’n lightnin’. She’ll find out this hoss-thief in Fort Henry; but Lew, when we do get him we won’t be much better off. Where do them hosses go? Who’s disposin’ of ’em fo this fellar?”

  “Where’s Brandt from?” asked Wetzel.

  “Detroit; he’s a French-Canadian.”

  Wetzel swung sharply around, his eyes glowing like wakening furnaces.

  “Bing Legget’s a French-Canadian, an’ from Detroit. Metzar was once thick with him down Fort Pitt way ’afore he murdered a man an’ became an outlaw. We’re on the trail, Jack.”

  “Brandt an’ Metzar, with Legget back
in’ them, an’ the horses go overland to Detroit?”

  “I calkilate you’ve hit the mark.”

  “What’ll we do?” asked Jonathan.

  “Wait; that’s best. We’ve no call to hurry. We must know the truth before makin’ a move, an’ as yet we’re only suspicious. This lass’ll find out more in a week than we could in a year. But Jack, have a care she don’t fall into any snare. Brandt ain’t any too honest a lookin’ chap, an’ them renegades is hell for women. The scars you wear prove that well enough. She’s a rare, sweet, bloomin’ lass, too. I never seen her equal. I remember how her eyes flashed when she said she knew I’d avenged Mabel. Jack, they’re wonderful eyes; an’ that girl, however sweet an’ good as she must be, is chain-lightnin’ wrapped up in a beautiful form. Aren’t the boys at the fort runnin’ arter her!”

  “Like mad; it’d make you laugh to see ’em,” replied Jonathan calmly.

  “There’ll be some fights before she’s settled for, an’ mebbe arter thet. Have a care for her, Jack, an’ see that she don’t ketch you.”

  “No more danger than for you.”

  “I was ketched onct,” replied Wetzel.

  Jonathan Zane looked up at his companion. Wetzel’s head was bowed; but there was no merriment in the serious face exposed to the borderman’s scrutiny.

  “Lew, you’re jokin’.”

  “Not me. Some day, when you’re ketched good, an’ I have to go back to the lonely trail, as I did afore you an’ me become friends, mebbe then, when I’m the last borderman, I’ll tell you.”

  “Lew, ’cordin’ to the way settlers are comin’, in a few more years there won’t be any need for a borderman. When the Injuns are all gone where’ll be our work!”

  “’Tain’t likely either of us’ll ever see them times,” said Wetzel, “an’ I don’t want to. Wal, Jack, I’m off now, an’ I’ll meet you here every other day.”