The morning star, large, intensely blue-white, magnificent in its
dominance of the clear night sky, hung over the dim, dark valley
ramparts. The moon had gone down and all the other stars were wan, pale
ghosts.
Presently the strained vacuum of Jean’s ears vibrated to a low roar of
many hoofs. It came from the open valley, along the slope to the
south. Shepp acted as if he wanted the word to run. Jean laid a hand
on the dog. “Hold on, Shepp,” he whispered. Then hauling on his boots
and slipping into his coat Jean took his rifle and stole out into the
open. Shepp appeared to be well trained, for it was evident that he
had a strong natural tendency to run off and hunt for whatever had
roused him. Jean thought it more than likely that the dog scented an
animal of some kind. If there were men prowling around the ranch
Shepp, might have been just as vigilant, but it seemed to Jean that the
dog would have shown less eagerness to leave him, or none at all.
In the stillness of the morning it took Jean a moment to locate the
direction of the wind, which was very light and coming from the south.
In fact that little breeze had borne the low roar of trampling hoofs.
Jean circled the ranch house to the right and kept along the slope at
the edge of the cedars. It struck him suddenly how well fitted he was
for work of this sort. All the work he had ever done, except for his
few years in school, had been in the open. All the leisure he had ever
been able to obtain had been given to his ruling passion for hunting
and fishing. Love of the wild had been born in Jean. At this moment
he experienced a grim assurance of what his instinct and his training
might accomplish if directed to a stern and daring end. Perhaps his
father understood this; perhaps the old Texan had some little reason
for his confidence.
Every few paces Jean halted to listen. All objects, of course, were
indistinguishable in the dark-gray obscurity, except when he came close
upon them. Shepp showed an increasing eagerness to bolt out into the
void. When Jean had traveled half a mile from the house he heard a
scattered trampling of cattle on the run, and farther out a low
strangled bawl of a calf. “Ahuh!” muttered Jean. “Cougar or some
varmint pulled down that calf.” Then he discharged his rifle in the
air and yelled with all his might. It was necessary then to yell again
to hold Shepp back.
Thereupon Jean set forth down the valley, and tramped out and across
and around, as much to scare away whatever had been after the stock as
to look for the wounded calf. More than once he heard cattle moving
away ahead of him, but he could not see them. Jean let Shepp go,
hoping the dog would strike a trail. But Shepp neither gave tongue nor
came back. Dawn began to break, and in the growing light Jean searched
around until at last he stumbled over a dead calf, lying in a little
bare wash where water ran in wet seasons. Big wolf tracks showed in
the soft earth. “Lofers,” said Jean, as he knelt and just covered one
track with his spread hand. “We had wolves in Oregon, but not as big
as these.... Wonder where that half-wolf dog, Shepp, went. Wonder if
he can be trusted where wolves are concerned. I’ll bet not, if there’s
a she-wolf runnin’ around.”
Jean found tracks of two wolves, and he trailed them out of the wash,
then lost them in the grass. But, guided by their direction, he went
on and climbed a slope to the cedar line, where in the dusty patches he
found the tracks again. “Not scared much,” he muttered, as he noted
the slow trotting tracks. “Well, you old gray lofers, we’re goin’ to
clash.” Jean knew from many a futile hunt that wolves were the wariest
and most intelligent of wild animals in the quest. From the top of a
low foothill he watched the sun rise; and then no longer wondered why
his father waxed eloquent over the beauty and location and luxuriance
of this grassy valley. But it was large enough to make rich a good
many ranchers. Jean tried to restrain any curiosity as to his father’s
dealings in Grass Valley until the situation had been made clear.
Moreover, Jean wanted to love this wonderful country. He wanted to be
free to ride and hunt and roam to his heart’s content; and therefore he
dreaded hearing his father’s claims. But Jean threw off forebodings.
Nothing ever turned out so badly as it presaged. He would think the
best until certain of the worst. The morning was gloriously bright,
and already the frost was glistening wet on the stones. Grass Valley
shone like burnished silver dotted with innumerable black spots. Burros
were braying their discordant messages to one another; the colts were
romping in the fields; stallions were whistling; cows were bawling. A
cloud of blue smoke hung low over the ranch house, slowly wafting away
on the wind. Far out in the valley a dark group of horsemen were
riding toward the village. Jean glanced thoughtfully at them and
reflected that he seemed destined to harbor suspicion of all men new
and strange to him. Above the distant village stood the darkly green
foothills leading up to the craggy slopes, and these ending in the Rim,
a red, black-fringed mountain front, beautiful in the morning sunlight,
lonely, serene, and mysterious against the level skyline. Mountains,
ranges, distances unknown to Jean, always called to him—to come, to
seek, to explore, to find, but no wild horizon ever before beckoned to
him as this one. And the subtle vague emotion that had gone to sleep
with him last night awoke now hauntingly. It took effort to dispel the
desire to think, to wonder.
Upon his return to the house, he went around on the valley side, so as
to see the place by light of day. His father had built for permanence;
and evidently there had been three constructive periods in the history
of that long, substantial, picturesque log house. But few nails and
little sawed lumber and no glass had been used. Strong and skillful
hands, axes and a crosscut saw, had been the prime factors in erecting
this habitation of the Isbels.
“Good mawnin’, son,” called a cheery voice from the porch. “Shore
we-all heard you shoot; an’ the crack of that forty-four was as welcome
as May flowers.”
Bill Isbel looked up from a task over a saddle girth and inquired
pleasantly if Jean ever slept of nights. Guy Isbel laughed and there
was warm regard in the gaze he bent on Jean.
“You old Indian!” he drawled, slowly. “Did you get a bead on anythin’?”
“No. I shot to scare away what I found to be some of your lofers,”
replied Jean. “I heard them pullin’ down a calf. An’ I found tracks
of two whoppin’ big wolves. I found the dead calf, too. Reckon the
meat can be saved. Dad, you must lose a lot of stock here.”
“Wal, son, you shore hit the nail on the haid,” replied the rancher.
“What with lions an’ bears an’ lofers—an’ two-footed lofers of another
breed—I’ve lost five thousand dollars in stock this last year.”
“Dad! You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Jean, in astonishment. To him that
sum represented a small fortune.
“I shore do,” answered his father.
Jean shook his head as if he could not understand such an enormous loss
where there were keen able-bodied men about. “But that’s awful, dad.
How could it happen? Where were your herders an’ cowboys? An’ Bill an’
Guy?”
Bill Isbel shook a vehement fist at Jean and retorted in earnest,
having manifestly been hit in a sore spot. “Where was me an’ Guy, huh?
Wal, my Oregon brother, we was heah, all year, sleepin’ more or less
aboot three hours out of every twenty-four—ridin’ our boots off—an’
we couldn’t keep down that loss.”
“Jean, you-all have a mighty tumble comin’ to you out heah,” said Guy,
complacently.
“Listen, son,” spoke up the rancher. “You want to have some hunches
before you figure on our troubles. There’s two or three packs of
lofers, an’ in winter time they are hell to deal with. Lions thick as
bees, an’ shore bad when the snow’s on. Bears will kill a cow now an’
then. An’ whenever an’ old silvertip comes mozyin’ across from the
Mazatzals he kills stock. I’m in with half a dozen cattlemen. We all
work together, an’ the whole outfit cain’t keep these vermints down.
Then two years ago the Hash Knife Gang come into the Tonto.”
“Hash Knife Gang? What a pretty name!” replied Jean. “Who’re they?”
“Rustlers, son. An’ shore the real old Texas brand. The old Lone Star
State got too hot for them, an’ they followed the trail of a lot of
other Texans who needed a healthier climate. Some two hundred Texans
around heah, Jean, an’ maybe a matter of three hundred inhabitants in
the Tonto all told, good an’ bad. Reckon it’s aboot half an’ half.”
A cheery call from the kitchen interrupted the conversation of the men.
“You come to breakfast.”
During the meal the old rancher talked to Bill and Guy about the day’s
order of work; and from this Jean gathered an idea of what a big cattle
business his father conducted. After breakfast Jean’s brothers
manifested keen interest in the new rifles. These were unwrapped and
cleaned and taken out for testing. The three rifles were forty-four
calibre Winchesters, the kind of gun Jean had found most effective. He
tried them out first, and the shots he made were satisfactory to him
and amazing to the others. Bill had used an old Henry rifle. Guy did
not favor any particular rifle. The rancher pinned his faith to the
famous old single-shot buffalo gun, mostly called needle gun. “Wal,
reckon I’d better stick to mine. Shore you cain’t teach an old dog new
tricks. But you boys may do well with the forty-fours. Pack ’em on
your saddles an’ practice when you see a coyote.”
Jean found it difficult to convince himself that this interest in guns
and marksmanship had any sinister propulsion back of it. His father
and brothers had always been this way. Rifles were as important to
pioneers as plows, and their skillful use was an achievement every
frontiersman tried to attain. Friendly rivalry had always existed
among the members of the Isbel family: even Ann Isbel was a good shot.
But such proficiency in the use of firearms—and life in the open that
was correlative with it—had not dominated them as it had Jean. Bill
and Guy Isbel were born cattlemen—chips of the old block. Jean began
to hope that his father’s letter was an exaggeration, and particularly
that the fatalistic speech of last night, “they are goin’ to kill me,”
was just a moody inclination to see the worst side. Still, even as Jean
tried to persuade himself of this more hopeful view, he recalled many
references to the peculiar reputation of Texans for gun-throwing, for
feuds, for never-ending hatreds. In Oregon the Isbels had lived among
industrious and peaceful pioneers from all over the States; to be sure,
the life had been rough and primitive, and there had been fights on
occasions, though no Isbel had ever killed a man. But now they had
become fixed in a wilder and sparsely settled country among men of
their own breed. Jean was afraid his hopes had only sentiment to
foster them. Nevertheless, be forced back a strange, brooding, mental
state and resolutely held up the brighter side. Whatever the evil
conditions existing in Grass Valley, they could be met with
intelligence and courage, with an absolute certainty that it was
inevitable they must pass away. Jean refused to consider the old,
fatal law that at certain wild times and wild places in the West
certain men had to pass away to change evil conditions.
“Wal, Jean, ride around the range with the boys,” said the rancher.
“Meet some of my neighbors, Jim Blaisdell, in particular. Take a look
at the cattle. An’ pick out some hosses for yourself.”
“I’ve seen one already,” declared Jean, quickly. “A black with white
face. I’ll take him.”
“Shore you know a hoss. To my eye he’s my pick. But the boys don’t
agree. Bill ‘specially has degenerated into a fancier of pitchin’
hosses. Ann can ride that black. You try him this mawnin’.... An’,
son, enjoy yourself.”
True to his first impression, Jean named the black horse Whiteface and
fell in love with him before ever he swung a leg over him. Whiteface
appeared spirited, yet gentle. He had been trained instead of being
broken. Of hard hits and quirts and spurs he had no experience. He
liked to do what his rider wanted him to do.
A hundred or more horses grazed in the grassy meadow, and as Jean rode
on among them it was a pleasure to see stallions throw heads and ears
up and whistle or snort. Whole troops of colts and two-year-olds raced
with flying tails and manes.
Beyond these pastures stretched the range, and Jean saw the gray-green
expanse speckled by thousands of cattle. The scene was inspiring.
Jean’s brothers led him all around, meeting some of the herders and
riders employed on the ranch, one of whom was a burly, grizzled man
with eyes reddened and narrowed by much riding in wind and sun and
dust. His name was Evans and he was father of the lad whom Jean had met
near the village. Everts was busily skinning the calf that had been
killed by the wolves. “See heah, y’u Jean Isbel,” said Everts, “it
shore was aboot time y’u come home. We-all heahs y’u hev an eye fer
tracks. Wal, mebbe y’u can kill Old Gray, the lofer thet did this job.
He’s pulled down nine calves as’ yearlin’s this last two months thet I
know of. An’ we’ve not hed the spring round-up.”
Grass Valley widened to the southeast. Jean would have been backward
about estimating the square miles in it. Yet it was not vast acreage
so much as rich pasture that made it such a wonderful range. Several
ranches lay along the western slope of this section. Jean was informed
that open parks and swales, and little valleys nestling among the
foothills, wherever there was water and grass, had been settled by
ranchers. Every summer a few new families ventured in.
Blaisdell struck Jean as being a lionlike type of Texan, both in his
broad, bold face, his huge head with its upstanding tawny hair like a
mane, and in the speech and force that betokened the nature of his
heart. He was not as old as Jean’s father. He had a rolling voice,
with the same drawling intonation characteristic of all Texans, and
blue eyes that still held the fire of youth. Quite a marked contrast
he presented to the lean, rangy, hard-jawed, intent-eyed men Jean had
begun to accept as Texans.
Blaisdell took time for a curious scrutiny and study of Jean, that,
frank and kindly as it was, and evidently the adjustment of impressions
gotten from hearsay, yet bespoke the attention of one used to judging
men for himself, and in this particular case having reasons of his own
for so doing.
“Wal, you’re like your sister Ann,” said Blaisdell. “Which you may
take as a compliment, young man. Both of you favor your mother. But
you’re an Isbel. Back in Texas there are men who never wear a glove on
their right hands, an’ shore I reckon if one of them met up with you
sudden he’d think some graves had opened an’ he’d go for his gun.”
Blaisdell’s laugh pealed out with deep, pleasant roll. Thus he planted
in Jean’s sensitive mind a significant thought-provoking idea about the
past-and-gone Isbels.
His further remarks, likewise, were exceedingly interesting to Jean.
The settling of the Tonto Basin by Texans was a subject often in
dispute. His own father had been in the first party of adventurous
pioneers who had traveled up from the south to cross over the Reno Pass
of the Mazatzals into the Basin. “Newcomers from outside get
impressions of the Tonto accordin’ to the first settlers they meet,”
declared Blaisdell. “An’ shore it’s my belief these first impressions
never change, just so strong they are! Wal, I’ve heard my father say
there were men in his wagon train that got run out of Texas, but he
swore he wasn’t one of them. So I reckon that sort of talk held good
for twenty years, an’ for all the Texans who emigrated, except, of
course, such notorious rustlers as Daggs an’ men of his ilk. Shore
we’ve got some bad men heah. There’s no law. Possession used to mean
more than it does now. Daggs an’ his Hash Knife Gang have begun to
hold forth with a high hand. No small rancher can keep enough stock to
pay for his labor.”
At the time of which Blaisdell spoke there were not many sheepmen and
cattlemen in the Tonto, considering its vast area. But these, on
account of the extreme wildness of the broken country, were limited to
the comparatively open Grass Valley and its adjacent environs.
Naturally, as the inhabitants increased and stock raising grew in
proportion the grazing and water rights became matters of extreme
importance. Sheepmen ran their flocks up on the Rim in summer time and
down into the Basin in winter time. A sheepman could throw a few
thousand sheep round a cattleman’s ranch and ruin him. The range was
free. It was as fair for sheepmen to graze their herds anywhere as it
was for cattlemen. This of course did not apply to the few acres of
cultivated ground that a rancher could call his own; but very few
cattle could have been raised on such limited area. Blaisdell said
that the sheepmen were unfair because they could have done just as
well, though perhaps at more labor, by keeping to the ridges and
leaving the open valley and little flats to the ranchers. Formerly
there had been room enough for all; now the grazing ranges were being
encroached upon by sheepmen newly come to the Tonto. To Blaisdell’s
way of thinking the rustler menace was more serious than the
sheeping-off of the range, for the simple reason that no cattleman knew
exactly who the rustlers were and for the more complex and significant
reason that the rustlers did not steal sheep.
“Texas was overstocked with bad men an’ fine steers,” concluded
Blaisdell. “Most of the first an’ some of the last have struck the
Tonto. The sheepmen have now got distributin’ points for wool an’
sheep at Maricopa an’ Phoenix. They’re shore waxin’ strong an’ bold.”
“Ahuh!... An’ what’s likely to come of this mess?” queried Jean.
“Ask your dad,” replied Blaisdell.
“I will. But I reckon I’d be obliged for your opinion.”
“Wal, short an’ sweet it’s this: Texas cattlemen will never allow the
range they stocked to be overrun by sheepmen.”
“Who’s this man Greaves?” went on Jean. “Never run into anyone like
him.”
“Greaves is hard to figure. He’s a snaky customer in deals. But he
seems to be good to the poor people ’round heah. Says he’s from
Missouri. Ha-ha! He’s as much Texan as I am. He rode into the Tonto
without even a pack to his name. An’ presently he builds his stone
house an’ freights supplies in from Phoenix. Appears to buy an’ sell a
good deal of stock. For a while it looked like he was steerin’ a
middle course between cattlemen an’ sheepmen. Both sides made a
rendezvous of his store, where he heard the grievances of each. Laterly
he’s leanin’ to the sheepmen. Nobody has accused him of that yet. But
it’s time some cattleman called his bluff.”
“Of course there are honest an’ square sheepmen in the Basin?” queried
Jean.
“Yes, an’ some of them are not unreasonable. But the new fellows that
dropped in on us the last few year—they’re the ones we’re goin’ to
clash with.”
“This—sheepman, Jorth?” went on Jean, in slow hesitation, as if
compelled to ask what he would rather not learn.
“Jorth must be the leader of this sheep faction that’s harryin’ us
ranchers. He doesn’t make threats or roar around like some of them.
But he goes on raisin’ an’ buyin’ more an’ more sheep. An’ his herders
have been grazin’ down all around us this winter. Jorth’s got to be
reckoned with.”
“Who is he?”
“Wal, I don’t know enough to talk aboot. Your dad never said so, but I
think he an’ Jorth knew each other in Texas years ago. I never saw
Jorth but once. That was in Greaves’s barroom. Your dad an’ Jorth met
that day for the first time in this country. Wal, I’ve not known men
for nothin’. They just stood stiff an’ looked at each other. Your dad
was aboot to draw. But Jorth made no sign to throw a gun.”
Jean saw the growing and weaving and thickening threads of a tangle
that had already involved him. And the sudden pang of regret he
sustained was not wholly because of sympathies with his own people.
“The other day back up in the woods on the Rim I ran into a sheepman
who said his name was Colter. Who is he?
“Colter? Shore he’s a new one. What’d he look like?”
Jean described Colter with a readiness that spoke volumes for the
vividness of his impressions.
“I don’t know him,” replied Blaisdell. “But that only goes to prove my
contention—any fellow runnin’ wild in the woods can say he’s a
sheepman.”
“Colter surprised me by callin’ me by my name,” continued Jean. “Our
little talk wasn’t exactly friendly. He said a lot about my bein’ sent
for to run sheep herders out of the country.”
“Shore that’s all over,” replied Blaisdell, seriously. “You’re a
marked man already.”
“What started such rumor?”
“Shore you cain’t prove it by me. But it’s not taken as rumor. It’s
got to the sheepmen as hard as bullets.”
“Ahuh! That accunts for Colter’s seemin’ a little sore under the
collar. Well, he said they were goin’ to run sheep over Grass Valley,
an’ for me to take that hunch to my dad.”
Blaisdell had his chair tilted back and his heavy boots against a post
of the porch. Down he thumped. His neck corded with a sudden rush of
blood and his eyes changed to blue fire.
“The hell he did!” he ejaculated, in furious amaze.
Jean gauged the brooding, rankling hurt of this old cattleman by his
sudden break from the cool, easy Texan manner. Blaisdell cursed under
his breath, swung his arms violently, as if to throw a last doubt or
hope aside, and then relapsed to his former state. He laid a brown
hand on Jean’s knee.
“Two years ago I called the cards,” he said, quietly. “It means a
Grass Valley war.”
Not until late that afternoon did Jean’s father broach the subject
uppermost in his mind. Then at an opportune moment he drew Jean away
into the cedars out of sight.
“Son, I shore hate to make your home-comin’ unhappy,” he said, with
evidence of agitation, “but so help me God I have to do it!”
“Dad, you called me Prodigal, an’ I reckon you were right. I’ve
shirked my duty to you. I’m ready now to make up for it,” replied
Jean, feelingly.
“Wal, wal, shore thats fine-spoken, my boy.... Let’s set down heah an’
have a long talk. First off, what did Jim Blaisdell tell you?”
Briefly Jean outlined the neighbor rancher’s conversation. Then Jean
recounted his experience with Colter and concluded with Blaisdell’s
reception of the sheepman’s threat. If Jean expected to see his father
rise up like a lion in his wrath he made a huge mistake. This news of
Colter and his talk never struck even a spark from Gaston Isbel.
“Wal,” he began, thoughtfully, “reckon there are only two points in
Jim’s talk I need touch on. There’s shore goin’ to be a Grass Valley
war. An’ Jim’s idea of the cause of it seems to be pretty much the
same as that of all the other cattlemen. It ’ll go down a black blot
on the history page of the Tonto Basin as a war between rival sheepmen
an’ cattlemen. Same old fight over water an’ grass!... Jean, my son,
that is wrong. It ’ll not be a war between sheepmen an’ cattlemen. But
a war of honest ranchers against rustlers maskin’ as sheep-raisers!...
Mind you, I don’t belittle the trouble between sheepmen an’ cattlemen
in Arizona. It’s real an’ it’s vital an’ it’s serious. It ’ll take law
an’ order to straighten out the grazin’ question. Some day the
government will keep sheep off of cattle ranges.... So get things right
in your mind, my son. You can trust your dad to tell the absolute
truth. In this fight that ’ll wipe out some of the Isbels—maybe all
of them—you’re on the side of justice an’ right. Knowin’ that, a man
can fight a hundred times harder than he who knows he is a liar an’ a
thief.”
The old rancher wiped his perspiring face and breathed slowly and
deeply. Jean sensed in him the rise of a tremendous emotional strain.
Wonderingly he watched the keen lined face. More than material worries
were at the root of brooding, mounting thoughts in his father’s eyes.
“Now next take what Jim said aboot your comin’ to chase these
sheep-herders out of the valley.... Jean, I started that talk. I had my
tricky reasons. I know these greaser sheep-herders an’ I know the
respect Texans have for a gunman. Some say I bragged. Some say I’m an
old fool in his dotage, ravin’ aboot a favorite son. But they are
people who hate me an’ are afraid. True, son, I talked with a purpose,
but shore I was mighty cold an’ steady when I did it. My feelin’ was
that you’d do what I’d do if I were thirty years younger. No, I
reckoned you’d do more. For I figured on your blood. Jean, you’re
Indian, an’ Texas an’ French, an’ you’ve trained yourself in the Oregon
woods. When you were only a boy, few marksmen I ever knew could beat
you, an’ I never saw your equal for eye an’ ear, for trackin’ a hoss,
for all the gifts that make a woodsman.... Wal, rememberin’ this an’
seein’ the trouble ahaid for the Isbels, I just broke out whenever I
had a chance. I bragged before men I’d reason to believe would take my
words deep. For instance, not long ago I missed some stock, an’,
happenin’ into Greaves’s place one Saturday night, I shore talked loud.
His barroom was full of men an’ some of them were in my black book.
Greaves took my talk a little testy. He said. ‘Wal, Gass, mebbe you’re
right aboot some of these cattle thieves livin’ among us, but ain’t
they jest as liable to be some of your friends or relatives as Ted
Meeker’s or mine or any one around heah?’ That was where Greaves an’
me fell out. I yelled at him: ‘No, by God, they’re not! My record heah
an’ that of my people is open. The least I can say for you, Greaves,
an’ your crowd, is that your records fade away on dim trails.’ Then he
said, nasty-like, ‘Wal, if you could work out all the dim trails in the
Tonto you’d shore be surprised.’ An’ then I roared. Shore that was
the chance I was lookin’ for. I swore the trails he hinted of would be
tracked to the holes of the rustlers who made them. I told him I had
sent for you an’ when you got heah these slippery, mysterious thieves,
whoever they were, would shore have hell to pay. Greaves said he hoped
so, but he was afraid I was partial to my Indian son. Then we had hot
words. Blaisdell got between us. When I was leavin’ I took a partin’
fling at him. ‘Greaves, you ought to know the Isbels, considerin’
you’re from Texas. Maybe you’ve got reasons for throwin’ taunts at my
claims for my son Jean. Yes, he’s got Indian in him an’ that ’ll be
the worse for the men who will have to meet him. I’m tellin’ you,
Greaves, Jean Isbel is the black sheep of the family. If you ride down
his record you’ll find he’s shore in line to be another Poggin, or
Reddy Kingfisher, or Hardin’, or any of the Texas gunmen you ought to
remember.... Greaves, there are men rubbin’ elbows with you right heah
that my Indian son is goin’ to track down!’”
Jean bent his head in stunned cognizance of the notoriety with which
his father had chosen to affront any and all Tonto Basin men who were
under the ban of his suspicion. What a terrible reputation and trust
to have saddled upon him! Thrills and strange, heated sensations
seemed to rush together inside Jean, forming a hot ball of fire that
threatened to explode. A retreating self made feeble protests. He saw
his own pale face going away from this older, grimmer man.
“Son, if I could have looked forward to anythin’ but blood spillin’ I’d
never have given you such a name to uphold,” continued the rancher.
“What I’m goin’ to tell you now is my secret. My other sons an’ Ann
have never heard it. Jim Blaisdell suspects there’s somethin’ strange,
but he doesn’t know. I’ll shore never tell anyone else but you. An’
you must promise to keep my secret now an’ after I am gone.”
“I promise,” said Jean.
“Wal, an’ now to get it out,” began his father, breathing hard. His
face twitched and his hands clenched. “The sheepman heah I have to
reckon with is Lee Jorth, a lifelong enemy of mine. We were born in
the same town, played together as children, an’ fought with each other
as boys. We never got along together. An’ we both fell in love with
the same girl. It was nip an’ tuck for a while. Ellen Sutton belonged
to one of the old families of the South. She was a beauty, an’ much
courted, an’ I reckon it was hard for her to choose. But I won her an’
we became engaged. Then the war broke out. I enlisted with my brother
Jean. He advised me to marry Ellen before I left. But I would not.
That was the blunder of my life. Soon after our partin’ her letters
ceased to come. But I didn’t distrust her. That was a terrible time
an’ all was confusion. Then I got crippled an’ put in a hospital. An’
in aboot a year I was sent back home.”
At this juncture Jean refrained from further gaze at his father’s face.
“Lee Jorth had gotten out of goin’ to war,” went on the rancher, in
lower, thicker voice. “He’d married my sweetheart, Ellen.... I knew
the story long before I got well. He had run after her like a hound
after a hare.... An’ Ellen married him. Wal, when I was able to get
aboot I went to see Jorth an’ Ellen. I confronted them. I had to know
why she had gone back on me. Lee Jorth hadn’t changed any with all his
good fortune. He’d made Ellen believe in my dishonor. But, I reckon,
lies or no lies, Ellen Sutton was faithless. In my absence he had won
her away from me. An’ I saw that she loved him as she never had me. I
reckon that killed all my generosity. If she’d been imposed upon an’
weaned away by his lies an’ had regretted me a little I’d have
forgiven, perhaps. But she worshiped him. She was his slave. An’ I,
wal, I learned what hate was.
“The war ruined the Suttons, same as so many Southerners. Lee Jorth
went in for raisin’ cattle. He’d gotten the Sutton range an’ after a
few years he began to accumulate stock. In those days every cattleman
was a little bit of a thief. Every cattleman drove in an’ branded
calves he couldn’t swear was his. Wal, the Isbels were the strongest
cattle raisers in that country. An’ I laid a trap for Lee Jorth,
caught him in the act of brandin’ calves of mine I’d marked, an’ I
proved him a thief. I made him a rustler. I ruined him. We met once.
But Jorth was one Texan not strong on the draw, at least against an
Isbel. He left the country. He had friends an’ relatives an’ they
started him at stock raisin’ again. But he began to gamble an’ he got
in with a shady crowd. He went from bad to worse an’ then he came back
home. When I saw the change in proud, beautiful Ellen Sutton, an’ how
she still worshiped Jorth, it shore drove me near mad between pity an’
hate.... Wal, I reckon in a Texan hate outlives any other feelin’.
There came a strange turn of the wheel an’ my fortunes changed. Like
most young bloods of the day, I drank an’ gambled. An’ one night I run
across Jorth an’ a card-sharp friend. He fleeced me. We quarreled.
Guns were thrown. I killed my man.... Aboot that period the Texas
Rangers had come into existence.... An’, son, when I said I never was
run out of Texas I wasn’t holdin’ to strict truth. I rode out on a
hoss.
“I went to Oregon. There I married soon, an’ there Bill an’ Guy were
born. Their mother did not live long. An’ next I married your mother,
Jean. She had some Indian blood, which, for all I could see, made her
only the finer. She was a wonderful woman an’ gave me the only
happiness I ever knew. You remember her, of course, an’ those home
days in Oregon. I reckon I made another great blunder when I moved to
Arizona. But the cattle country had always called me. I had heard of
this wild Tonto Basin an’ how Texans were settlin’ there. An’ Jim
Blaisdell sent me word to come—that this shore was a garden spot of
the West. Wal, it is. An’ your mother was gone—
“Three years ago Lee Jorth drifted into the Tonto. An’, strange to me,
along aboot a year or so after his comin’ the Hash Knife Gang rode up
from Texas. Jorth went in for raisin’ sheep. Along with some other
sheepmen he lives up in the Rim canyons. Somewhere back in the wild
brakes is the hidin’ place of the Hash Knife Gang. Nobody but me, I
reckon, associates Colonel Jorth, as he’s called, with Daggs an’ his
gang. Maybe Blaisdell an’ a few others have a hunch. But that’s no
matter. As a sheepman Jorth has a legitimate grievance with the
cattlemen. But what could be settled by a square consideration for the
good of all an’ the future Jorth will never settle. He’ll never settle
because he is now no longer an honest man. He’s in with Daggs. I
cain’t prove this, son, but I know it. I saw it in Jorth’s face when I
met him that day with Greaves. I saw more. I shore saw what he is up
to. He’d never meet me at an even break. He’s dead set on usin’ this
sheep an’ cattle feud to ruin my family an’ me, even as I ruined him.
But he means more, Jean. This will be a war between Texans, an’ a
bloody war. There are bad men in this Tonto—some of the worst that
didn’t get shot in Texas. Jorth will have some of these fellows....
Now, are we goin’ to wait to be sheeped off our range an’ to be
murdered from ambush?”
“No, we are not,” replied Jean, quietly.
“Wal, come down to the house,” said the rancher, and led the way
without speaking until he halted by the door. There he placed his
finger on a small hole in the wood at about the height of a man’s head.
Jean saw it was a bullet hole and that a few gray hairs stuck to its
edges. The rancher stepped closer to the door-post, so that his head
was within an inch of the wood. Then he looked at Jean with eyes in
which there glinted dancing specks of fire, like wild sparks.
“Son, this sneakin’ shot at me was made three mawnin’s ago. I
recollect movin’ my haid just when I heard the crack of a rifle. Shore
was surprised. But I got inside quick.”
Jean scarcely heard the latter part of this speech. He seemed doubled
up inwardly, in hot and cold convulsions of changing emotion. A
terrible hold upon his consciousness was about to break and let go. The
first shot had been fired and he was an Isbel. Indeed, his father had
made him ten times an Isbel. Blood was thick. His father did not
speak to dull ears. This strife of rising tumult in him seemed the
effect of years of calm, of peace in the woods, of dreamy waiting for
he knew not what. It was the passionate primitive life in him that had
awakened to the call of blood ties.
“That’s aboot all, son,” concluded the rancher. “You understand now
why I feel they’re goin’ to kill me. I feel it heah.” With solemn
gesture he placed his broad hand over his heart. “An’, Jean, strange
whispers come to me at night. It seems like your mother was callin’ or
tryin’ to warn me. I cain’t explain these queer whispers. But I know
what I know.”
“Jorth has his followers. You must have yours,” replied Jean, tensely.
“Shore, son, an’ I can take my choice of the best men heah,” replied
the rancher, with pride. “But I’ll not do that. I’ll lay the deal
before them an’ let them choose. I reckon it ’ll not be a long-winded
fight. It ’ll be short an bloody, after the way of Texans. I’m
lookin’ to you, Jean, to see that an Isbel is the last man!”
“My God—dad! is there no other way? Think of my sister Ann—of my
brothers’ wives—of—of other women! Dad, these damned Texas feuds are
cruel, horrible!” burst out Jean, in passionate protest.
“Jean, would it be any easier for our women if we let these men shoot
us down in cold blood?”
“Oh no—no, I see, there’s no hope of—of.... But, dad, I wasn’t
thinkin’ about myself. I don’t care. Once started I’ll—I’ll be what
you bragged I was. Only it’s so hard to-to give in.”
Jean leaned an arm against the side of the cabin and, bowing his face
over it, he surrendered to the irresistible contention within his
breast. And as if with a wrench that strange inward hold broke. He let
down. He went back. Something that was boyish and hopeful—and in its
place slowly rose the dark tide of his inheritance, the savage instinct
of self-preservation bequeathed by his Indian mother, and the fierce,
feudal blood lust of his Texan father.
Then as he raised himself, gripped by a sickening coldness in his
breast, he remembered Ellen Jorth’s face as she had gazed dreamily down
off the Rim—so soft, so different, with tremulous lips, sad, musing,
with far-seeing stare of dark eyes, peering into the unknown, the
instinct of life still unlived. With confused vision and nameless pain
Jean thought of her.
“Dad, it’s hard on—the—the young folks,” he said, bitterly. “The
sins of the father, you know. An’ the other side. How about Jorth?
Has he any children?”
What a curious gleam of surprise and conjecture Jean encountered in his
father’s gaze!
“He has a daughter. Ellen Jorth. Named after her mother. The first
time I saw Ellen Jorth I thought she was a ghost of the girl I had
loved an’ lost. Sight of her was like a blade in my side. But the
looks of her an’ what she is—they don’t gibe. Old as I am, my
heart—Bah! Ellen Jorth is a damned hussy!”
Jean Isbel went off alone into the cedars. Surrender and resignation
to his father’s creed should have ended his perplexity and worry. His
instant and burning resolve to be as his father had represented him
should have opened his mind to slow cunning, to the craft of the
Indian, to the development of hate. But there seemed to be an
obstacle. A cloud in the way of vision. A face limned on his memory.
Those damning words of his father’s had been a shock—how little or
great he could not tell. Was it only a day since he had met Ellen
Jorth? What had made all the difference? Suddenly like a breath the
fragrance of her hair came back to him. Then the sweet coolness of her
lips! Jean trembled. He looked around him as if he were pursued or
surrounded by eyes, by instincts, by fears, by incomprehensible things.
“Ahuh! That must be what ails me,” he muttered. “The look of her—an’
that kiss—they’ve gone hard me. I should never have stopped to talk.
An’ I’m to kill her father an’ leave her to God knows what.”
Something was wrong somewhere. Jean absolutely forgot that within the
hour he had pledged his manhood, his life to a feud which could be
blotted out only in blood. If he had understood himself he would have
realized that the pledge was no more thrilling and unintelligible in
its possibilities than this instinct which drew him irresistibly.
“Ellen Jorth! So—my dad calls her a damned hussy! So—that explains
the—the way she acted—why she never hit me when I kissed her. An’
her words, so easy an’ cool-like. Hussy? That means she’s bad—bad!
Scornful of me—maybe disappointed because my kiss was innocent! It
was, I swear. An’ all she said: ‘Oh, I’ve been kissed before.’”
Jean grew furious with himself for the spreading of a new sensation in
his breast that seemed now to ache. Had he become infatuated, all in a
day, with this Ellen Jorth? Was he jealous of the men who had the
privilege of her kisses? No! But his reply was hot with shame, with
uncertainty. The thing that seemed wrong was outside of himself. A
blunder was no crime. To be attracted by a pretty girl in the
woods—to yield to an impulse was no disgrace, nor wrong. He had been
foolish over a girl before, though not to such a rash extent. Ellen
Jorth had stuck in his consciousness, and with her a sense of regret.
Then swiftly rang his father’s bitter words, the revealing: “But the
looks of her an’ what she is—they don’t gibe!” In the import of these
words hid the meaning of the wrong that troubled him. Broodingly he
pondered over them.
“The looks of her. Yes, she was pretty. But it didn’t dawn on me at
first. I—I was sort of excited. I liked to look at her, but didn’t
think.” And now consciously her face was called up, infinitely sweet
and more impelling for the deliberate memory. Flash of brown skin,
smooth and clear; level gaze of dark, wide eyes, steady, bold,
unseeing; red curved lips, sad and sweet; her strong, clean, fine face
rose before Jean, eager and wistful one moment, softened by dreamy
musing thought, and the next stormily passionate, full of hate, full of
longing, but the more mysterious and beautiful.
“She looks like that, but she’s bad,” concluded Jean, with bitter
finality. “I might have fallen in love with Ellen Jorth if—if she’d
been different.”
But the conviction forced upon Jean did not dispel the haunting memory
of her face nor did it wholly silence the deep and stubborn voice of
his consciousness. Later that afternoon he sought a moment with his
sister.
“Ann, did you ever meet Ellen Jorth?” he asked.
“Yes, but not lately,” replied Ann.
“Well, I met her as I was ridin’ along yesterday. She was herdin’
sheep,” went on Jean, rapidly. “I asked her to show me the way to the
Rim. An’ she walked with me a mile or so. I can’t say the meetin’ was
not interestin’, at least to me.... Will you tell me what you know
about her?”
“Sure, Jean,” replied his sister, with her dark eyes fixed wonderingly
and kindly on his troubled face. “I’ve heard a great deal, but in this
Tonto Basin I don’t believe all I hear. What I know I’ll tell you. I
first met Ellen Jorth two years ago. We didn’t know each other’s names
then. She was the prettiest girl I ever saw. I liked her. She liked
me. She seemed unhappy. The next time we met was at a round-up.
There were other girls with me and they snubbed her. But I left them
and went around with her. That snub cut her to the heart. She was
lonely. She had no friends. She talked about herself—how she hated
the people, but loved Arizona. She had nothin’ fit to wear. I didn’t
need to be told that she’d been used to better things. Just when it
looked as if we were goin’ to be friends she told me who she was and
asked me my name. I told her. Jean, I couldn’t have hurt her more if
I’d slapped her face. She turned white. She gasped. And then she ran
off. The last time I saw her was about a year ago. I was ridin’ a
short-cut trail to the ranch where a friend lived. And I met Ellen
Jorth ridin’ with a man I’d never seen. The trail was overgrown and
shady. They were ridin’ close and didn’t see me right off. The man
had his arm round her. She pushed him away. I saw her laugh. Then he
got hold of her again and was kissin’ her when his horse shied at sight
of mine. They rode by me then. Ellen Jorth held her head high and
never looked at me.”
“Ann, do you think she’s a bad girl?” demanded Jean, bluntly.
“Bad? Oh, Jean!” exclaimed Ann, in surprise and embarrassment.
“Dad said she was a damned hussy.”
“Jean, dad hates the Jorths.”
“Sister, I’m askin’ you what you think of Ellen Jorth. Would you be
friends with her if you could?”
“Yes.”
“Then you don’t believe she’s bad.”
“No. Ellen Jorth is lonely, unhappy. She has no mother. She lives
alone among rough men. Such a girl can’t keep men from handlin’ her
and kissin’ her. Maybe she’s too free. Maybe she’s wild. But she’s
honest, Jean. You can trust a woman to tell. When she rode past me
that day her face was white and proud. She was a Jorth and I was an
Isbel. She hated herself—she hated me. But no bad girl could look
like that. She knows what’s said of her all around the valley. But she
doesn’t care. She’d encourage gossip.”
“Thank you, Ann,” replied Jean, huskily. “Please keep this—this
meetin’ of mine with her all to yourself, won’t you?”
“Why, Jean, of course I will.”
Jean wandered away again, peculiarly grateful to Ann for reviving and
upholding something in him that seemed a wavering part of the best of
him—a chivalry that had demanded to be killed by judgment of a
righteous woman. He was conscious of an uplift, a gladdening of his
spirit. Yet the ache remained. More than that, he found himself
plunged deeper into conjecture, doubt. Had not the Ellen Jorth
incident ended? He denied his father’s indictment of her and accepted
the faith of his sister. “Reckon that’s aboot all, as dad says,” he
soliloquized. Yet was that all? He paced under the cedars. He watched
the sun set. He listened to the coyotes. He lingered there after the
call for supper; until out of the tumult of his conflicting emotions
and ponderings there evolved the staggering consciousness that he must
see Ellen Jorth again.