“Was shore thinkin’ thet same,” said the other man. “An’, say, didn’t
thet last shot sound too sharp fer Somers’s forty-five?”
“Come to think of it, I reckon it did,” replied Greaves.
“Wal, I’ll go around over thar an’ see.”
The dark form of the rustler slipped out of sight over the embankment.
“Better go slow an’ careful,” warned Greaves. “An’ only go close
enough to call Somers.... Mebbe thet damn half-breed Isbel is comin’
some Injun on us.”
Jean heard the soft swish of footsteps through wet grass. Then all was
still. He lay flat, with his cheek on the sand, and he had to look
ahead and upward to make out the dark figure of Greaves on the bank.
One way or another he meant to kill Greaves, and he had the will power
to resist the strongest gust of passion that had ever stormed his
breast. If he arose and shot the rustler, that act would defeat his
plan of slipping on around upon the other outposts who were firing at
the cabins. Jean wanted to call softly to Greaves, “You’re right about
the half-breed!” and then, as he wheeled aghast, to kill him as he
moved. But it suited Jean to risk leaping upon the man. Jean did not
waste time in trying to understand the strange, deadly instinct that
gripped him at the moment. But he realized then he had chosen the most
perilous plan to get rid of Greaves.
Jean drew a long, deep breath and held it. He let go of his rifle. He
rose, silently as a lifting shadow. He drew the bowie knife. Then with
light, swift bounds he glided up the bank. Greaves must have heard a
rustling—a soft, quick pad of moccasin, for he turned with a start.
And that instant Jean’s left arm darted like a striking snake round
Greaves’s neck and closed tight and hard. With his right hand free,
holding the knife, Jean might have ended the deadly business in just
one move. But when his bared arm felt the hot, bulging neck something
terrible burst out of the depths of him. To kill this enemy of his
father’s was not enough! Physical contact had unleashed the savage
soul of the Indian. Yet there was more, and as Jean gave the straining
body a tremendous jerk backward, he felt the same strange thrill, the
dark joy that he had known when his fist had smashed the face of Simm
Bruce. Greaves had leered—he had corroborated Bruce’s vile
insinuation about Ellen Jorth. So it was more than hate that actuated
Jean Isbel.
Greaves was heavy and powerful. He whirled himself, feet first, over
backward, in a lunge like that of a lassoed steer. But Jean’s hold
held. They rolled down the bank into the sandy ditch, and Jean landed
uppermost, with his body at right angles with that of his adversary.
“Greaves, your hunch was right,” hissed Jean. “It’s the half-breed....
An’ I’m goin’ to cut you—first for Ellen Jorth—an’ then for Gaston
Isbel!”
Jean gazed down into the gleaming eyes. Then his right arm whipped the
big blade. It flashed. It fell. Low down, as far as Jean could
reach, it entered Greaves’s body.
All the heavy, muscular frame of Greaves seemed to contract and burst.
His spring was that of an animal in terror and agony. It was so
tremendous that it broke Jean’s hold. Greaves let out a strangled yell
that cleared, swelling wildly, with a hideous mortal note. He wrestled
free. The big knife came out. Supple and swift, he got to his, knees.
He had his gun out when Jean reached him again. Like a bear Jean
enveloped him. Greaves shot, but he could not raise the gun, nor twist
it far enough. Then Jean, letting go with his right arm, swung the
bowie. Greaves’s strength went out in an awful, hoarse cry. His gun
boomed again, then dropped from his hand. He swayed. Jean let go.
And that enemy of the Isbels sank limply in the ditch. Jean’s eyes
roved for his rifle and caught the starlit gleam of it. Snatching it
up, he leaped over the embankment and ran straight for the cabins.
From all around yells of the Jorth faction attested to their excitement
and fury.
A fence loomed up gray in the obscurity. Jean vaulted it, darted
across the lane into the shadow of the corral, and soon gained the
first cabin. Here he leaned to regain his breath. His heart pounded
high and seemed too large for his breast. The hot blood beat and
surged all over his body. Sweat poured off him. His teeth were
clenched tight as a vise, and it took effort on his part to open his
mouth so he could breathe more freely and deeply. But these physical
sensations were as nothing compared to the tumult of his mind. Then the
instinct, the spell, let go its grip and he could think. He had avenged
Guy, he had depleted the ranks of the Jorths, he had made good the brag
of his father, all of which afforded him satisfaction. But these
thoughts were not accountable for all that he felt, especially for the
bittersweet sting of the fact that death to the defiler of Ellen Jorth
could not efface the doubt, the regret which seemed to grow with the
hours.
Groping his way into the woodshed, he entered the kitchen and, calling
low, he went on into the main cabin.
“Jean! Jean!” came his father’s shaking voice.
“Yes, I’m back,” replied Jean.
“Are—you—all right?”
“Yes. I think I’ve got a bullet crease on my leg. I didn’t know I had
it till now.... It’s bleedin’ a little. But it’s nothin’.”
Jean heard soft steps and some one reached shaking hands for him. They
belonged to his sister Ann. She embraced him. Jean felt the heave and
throb of her breast.
“Why, Ann, I’m not hurt,” he said, and held her close. “Now you lie
down an’ try to sleep.”
In the black darkness of the cabin Jean led her back to the corner and
his heart was full. Speech was difficult, because the very touch of
Ann’s hands had made him divine that the success of his venture in no
wise changed the plight of the women.
“Wal, what happened out there?” demanded Blaisdell.
“I got two of them,” replied Jean. “That fellow who was shootin’ from
the ridge west. An’ the other was Greaves.”
“Hah!” exclaimed his father.
“Shore then it was Greaves yellin’,” declared Blaisdell. “By God, I
never heard such yells! Whad ’d you do, Jean?”
“I knifed him. You see, I’d planned to slip up on one after another.
An’ I didn’t want to make noise. But I didn’t get any farther than
Greaves.”
“Wal, I reckon that ’ll end their shootin’ in the dark,” muttered
Gaston Isbel. “We’ve got to be on the lookout for somethin’
else—fire, most likely.”
The old rancher’s surmise proved to be partially correct. Jorth’s
faction ceased the shooting. Nothing further was seen or heard from
them. But this silence and apparent break in the siege were harder to
bear than deliberate hostility. The long, dark hours dragged by. The
men took turns watching and resting, but none of them slept. At last
the blackness paled and gray dawn stole out of the east. The sky turned
rose over the distant range and daylight came.
The children awoke hungry and noisy, having slept away their fears. The
women took advantage of the quiet morning hour to get a hot breakfast.
“Maybe they’ve gone away,” suggested Guy Isbel’s wife, peering out of
the window. She had done that several times since daybreak. Jean saw
her somber gaze search the pasture until it rested upon the dark, prone
shape of her dead husband, lying face down in the grass. Her look
worried Jean.
“No, Esther, they’ve not gone yet,” replied Jean. “I’ve seen some of
them out there at the edge of the brush.”
Blaisdell was optimistic. He said Jean’s night work would have its
effect and that the Jorth contingent would not renew the siege very
determinedly. It turned out, however, that Blaisdell was wrong.
Directly after sunrise they began to pour volleys from four sides and
from closer range. During the night Jorth’s gang had thrown earth
banks and constructed log breastworks, from behind which they were now
firing. Jean and his comrades could see the flashes of fire and
streaks of smoke to such good advantage that they began to return the
volleys.
In half an hour the cabin was so full of smoke that Jean could not see
the womenfolk in their corner. The fierce attack then abated somewhat,
and the firing became more intermittent, and therefore more carefully
aimed. A glancing bullet cut a furrow in Blaisdell’s hoary head,
making a painful, though not serious wound. It was Esther Isbel who
stopped the flow of blood and bound Blaisdell’s head, a task which she
performed skillfully and without a tremor. The old Texan could not sit
still during this operation. Sight of the blood on his hands, which he
tried to rub off, appeared to inflame him to a great degree.
“Isbel, we got to go out thar,” he kept repeating, “an’ kill them all.”
“No, we’re goin’ to stay heah,” replied Gaston Isbel. “Shore I’m
lookin’ for Blue an’ Fredericks an’ Gordon to open up out there. They
ought to be heah, an’ if they are y’u shore can bet they’ve got the
fight sized up.”
Isbel’s hopes did not materialize. The shooting continued without any
lull until about midday. Then the Jorth faction stopped.
“Wal, now what’s up?” queried Isbel. “Boys, hold your fire an’ let’s
wait.”
Gradually the smoke wafted out of the windows and doors, until the room
was once more clear. And at this juncture Esther Isbel came over to
take another gaze out upon the meadows. Jean saw her suddenly start
violently, then stiffen, with a trembling hand outstretched.
“Look!” she cried.
“Esther, get back,” ordered the old rancher. “Keep away from that
window.”
“What the hell!” muttered Blaisdell. “She sees somethin’, or she’s
gone dotty.”
Esther seemed turned to stone. “Look! The hogs have broken into the
pasture!... They’ll eat Guy’s body!”
Everyone was frozen with horror at Esther’s statement. Jean took a
swift survey of the pasture. A bunch of big black hogs had indeed
appeared on the scene and were rooting around in the grass not far from
where lay the bodies of Guy Isbel and Jacobs. This herd of hogs
belonged to the rancher and was allowed to run wild.
“Jane, those hogs—” stammered Esther Isbel, to the wife of Jacobs.
“Come! Look!... Do y’u know anythin’ about hogs?”
The woman ran to the window and looked out. She stiffened as had
Esther.
“Dad, will those hogs—eat human flesh?” queried Jean, breathlessly.
The old man stared out of the window. Surprise seemed to hold him. A
completely unexpected situation had staggered him.
“Jean—can you—can you shoot that far?” he asked, huskily.
“To those hogs? No, it’s out of range.”
“Then, by God, we’ve got to stay trapped in heah an’ watch an awful
sight,” ejaculated the old man, completely unnerved. “See that break
in the fence!... Jorth’s done that.... To let in the hogs!”
“Aw, Isbel, it’s not so bad as all that,” remonstrated Blaisdell,
wagging his bloody head. “Jorth wouldn’t do such a hell-bent trick.”
“It’s shore done.”
“Wal, mebbe the hogs won’t find Guy an’ Jacobs,” returned Blaisdell,
weakly. Plain it was that he only hoped for such a contingency and
certainly doubted it.
“Look!” cried Esther Isbel, piercingly. “They’re workin’ straight up
the pasture!”
Indeed, to Jean it appeared to be the fatal truth. He looked blankly,
feeling a little sick. Ann Isbel came to peer out of the window and
she uttered a cry. Jacobs’s wife stood mute, as if dazed.
Blaisdell swore a mighty oath. “— — —! Isbel, we cain’t stand heah
an’ watch them hogs eat our people!”
“Wal, we’ll have to. What else on earth can we do?”
Esther turned to the men. She was white and cold, except her eyes,
which resembled gray flames.
“Somebody can run out there an’ bury our dead men,” she said.
“Why, child, it’d be shore death. Y’u saw what happened to Guy an’
Jacobs.... We’ve jest got to bear it. Shore nobody needn’t look
out—an’ see.”
Jean wondered if it would be possible to keep from watching. The thing
had a horrible fascination. The big hogs were rooting and tearing in
the grass, some of them lazy, others nimble, and all were gradually
working closer and closer to the bodies. The leader, a huge, gaunt
boar, that had fared ill all his life in this barren country, was
scarcely fifty feet away from where Guy Isbel lay.
“Ann, get me some of your clothes, an’ a sunbonnet—quick,” said Jean,
forced out of his lethargy. “I’ll run out there disguised. Maybe I
can go through with it.”
“No!” ordered his father, positively, and with dark face flaming. “Guy
an’ Jacobs are dead. We cain’t help them now.”
“But, dad—” pleaded Jean. He had been wrought to a pitch by Esther’s
blaze of passion, by the agony in the face of the other woman.
“I tell y’u no!” thundered Gaston Isbel, flinging his arms wide.
“I WILL GO!” cried Esther, her voice ringing.
“You won’t go alone!” instantly answered the wife of Jacobs, repeating
unconsciously the words her husband had spoken.
“You stay right heah,” shouted Gaston Isbel, hoarsely.
“I’m goin’,” replied Esther. “You’ve no hold over me. My husband is
dead. No one can stop me. I’m goin’ out there to drive those hogs
away an’ bury him.”
“Esther, for Heaven’s sake, listen,” replied Isbel. “If y’u show
yourself outside, Jorth an’ his gang will kin y’u.”
“They may be mean, but no white men could be so low as that.”
Then they pleaded with her to give up her purpose. But in vain! She
pushed them back and ran out through the kitchen with Jacobs’s wife
following her. Jean turned to the window in time to see both women run
out into the lane. Jean looked fearfully, and listened for shots. But
only a loud, “Haw! Haw!” came from the watchers outside. That coarse
laugh relieved the tension in Jean’s breast. Possibly the Jorths were
not as black as his father painted them. The two women entered an open
shed and came forth with a shovel and spade.
“Shore they’ve got to hurry,” burst out Gaston Isbel.
Shifting his gaze, Jean understood the import of his father’s speech.
The leader of the hogs had no doubt scented the bodies. Suddenly he
espied them and broke into a trot.
“Run, Esther, run!” yelled Jean, with all his might.
That urged the women to flight. Jean began to shoot. The hog reached
the body of Guy. Jean’s shots did not reach nor frighten the beast.
All the hogs now had caught a scent and went ambling toward their
leader. Esther and her companion passed swiftly out of sight behind a
corral. Loud and piercingly, with some awful note, rang out their
screams. The hogs appeared frightened. The leader lifted his long
snout, looked, and turned away. The others had halted. Then they,
too, wheeled and ran off.
All was silent then in the cabin and also outside wherever the Jorth
faction lay concealed. All eyes manifestly were fixed upon the brave
wives. They spaded up the sod and dug a grave for Guy Isbel. For a
shroud Esther wrapped him in her shawl. Then they buried him. Next
they hurried to the side of Jacobs, who lay some yards away. They dug
a grave for him. Mrs. Jacobs took off her outer skirt to wrap round
him. Then the two women labored hard to lift him and lower him. Jacobs
was a heavy man. When he had been covered his widow knelt beside his
grave. Esther went back to the other. But she remained standing and
did not look as if she prayed. Her aspect was tragic—that of a woman
who had lost father, mother, sisters, brother, and now her husband, in
this bloody Arizona land.
The deed and the demeanor of these wives of the murdered men surely
must have shamed Jorth and his followers. They did not fire a shot
during the ordeal nor give any sign of their presence.
Inside the cabin all were silent, too. Jean’s eyes blurred so that he
continually had to wipe them. Old Isbel made no effort to hide his
tears. Blaisdell nodded his shaggy head and swallowed hard. The women
sat staring into space. The children, in round-eyed dismay, gazed from
one to the other of their elders.
“Wal, they’re comin’ back,” declared Isbel, in immense relief. “An’ so
help me—Jorth let them bury their daid!”
The fact seemed to have been monstrously strange to Gaston Isbel. When
the women entered the old man said, brokenly: “I’m shore glad.... An’ I
reckon I was wrong to oppose you ... an’ wrong to say what I did aboot
Jorth.”
No one had any chance to reply to Isbel, for the Jorth gang, as if to
make up for lost time and surcharged feelings of shame, renewed the
attack with such a persistent and furious volleying that the defenders
did not risk a return shot. They all had to lie flat next to the
lowest log in order to keep from being hit. Bullets rained in through
the window. And all the clay between the logs low down was shot away.
This fusillade lasted for more than an hour, then gradually the fire
diminished on one side and then on the other until it became desultory
and finally ceased.
“Ahuh! Shore they’ve shot their bolt,” declared Gaston Isbel.
“Wal, I doon’t know aboot that,” returned Blaisdell, “but they’ve shot
a hell of a lot of shells.”
“Listen,” suddenly called Jean. “Somebody’s yellin’.”
“Hey, Isbel!” came in loud, hoarse voice. “Let your women fight for
you.”
Gaston Isbel sat up with a start and his face turned livid. Jean
needed no more to prove that the derisive voice from outside had
belonged to Jorth. The old rancher lunged up to his full height and
with reckless disregard of life he rushed to the window. “Jorth,” he
roared, “I dare you to meet me—man to man!”
This elicited no answer. Jean dragged his father away from the window.
After that a waiting silence ensued, gradually less fraught with
suspense. Blaisdell started conversation by saying he believed the
fight was over for that particular time. No one disputed him.
Evidently Gaston Isbel was loath to believe it. Jean, however,
watching at the back of the kitchen, eventually discovered that the
Jorth gang had lifted the siege. Jean saw them congregate at the edge
of the brush, somewhat lower down than they had been the day before. A
team of mules, drawing a wagon, appeared on the road, and turned toward
the slope. Saddled horses were led down out of the junipers. Jean saw
bodies, evidently of dead men, lifted into the wagon, to be hauled away
toward the village. Seven mounted men, leading four riderless horses,
rode out into the valley and followed the wagon.
“Dad, they’ve gone,” declared Jean. “We had the best of this fight....
If only Guy an’ Jacobs had listened!”
The old man nodded moodily. He had aged considerably during these two
trying days. His hair was grayer. Now that the blaze and glow of the
fight had passed he showed a subtle change, a fixed and morbid sadness,
a resignation to a fate he had accepted.
The ordinary routine of ranch life did not return for the Isbels.
Blaisdell returned home to settle matters there, so that he could
devote all his time to this feud. Gaston Isbel sat down to wait for
the members of his clan.
The male members of the family kept guard in turn over the ranch that
night. And another day dawned. It brought word from Blaisdell that
Blue, Fredericks, Gordon, and Colmor were all at his house, on the way
to join the Isbels. This news appeared greatly to rejuvenate Gaston
Isbel. But his enthusiasm did not last long. Impatient and moody by
turns, he paced or moped around the cabin, always looking out,
sometimes toward Blaisdell’s ranch, but mostly toward Grass Valley.
It struck Jean as singular that neither Esther Isbel nor Mrs. Jacobs
suggested a reburial of their husbands. The two bereaved women did not
ask for assistance, but repaired to the pasture, and there spent
several hours working over the graves. They raised mounds, which they
sodded, and then placed stones at the heads and feet. Lastly, they
fenced in the graves.
“I reckon I’ll hitch up an’ drive back home,” said Mrs. Jacobs, when
she returned to the cabin. “I’ve much to do an’ plan. Probably I’ll
go to my mother’s home. She’s old an’ will be glad to have me.”
“If I had any place to go to I’d sure go,” declared Esther Isbel,
bitterly.
Gaston Isbel heard this remark. He raised his face from his hands,
evidently both nettled and hurt.
“Esther, shore that’s not kind,” he said.
The red-haired woman—for she did not appear to be a girl any
more—halted before his chair and gazed down at him, with a terrible
flare of scorn in her gray eyes.
“Gaston Isbel, all I’ve got to say to you is this,” she retorted, with
the voice of a man. “Seein’ that you an’ Lee Jorth hate each other,
why couldn’t you act like men?... You damned Texans, with your bloody
feuds, draggin’ in every relation, every friend to murder each other!
That’s not the way of Arizona men.... We’ve all got to suffer—an’ we
women be ruined for life—because YOU had differences with Jorth. If
you were half a man you’d go out an’ kill him yourself, an’ not leave a
lot of widows an’ orphaned children!”
Jean himself writhed under the lash of her scorn. Gaston Isbel turned
a dead white. He could not answer her. He seemed stricken with
merciless truth. Slowly dropping his head, he remained motionless, a
pathetic and tragic figure; and he did not stir until the rapid beat of
hoofs denoted the approach of horsemen. Blaisdell appeared on his
white charger, leading a pack animal. And behind rode a group of men,
all heavily armed, and likewise with packs.
“Get down an’ come in,” was Isbel’s greeting. “Bill—you look after
their packs. Better leave the hosses saddled.”
The booted and spurred riders trooped in, and their demeanor fitted
their errand. Jean was acquainted with all of them. Fredericks was a
lanky Texan, the color of dust, and he had yellow, clear eyes, like
those of a hawk. His mother had been an Isbel. Gordon, too, was
related to Jean’s family, though distantly. He resembled an
industrious miner more than a prosperous cattleman. Blue was the most
striking of the visitors, as he was the most noted. A little, shrunken
gray-eyed man, with years of cowboy written all over him, he looked the
quiet, easy, cool, and deadly Texan he was reputed to be. Blue’s Texas
record was shady, and was seldom alluded to, as unfavorable comment had
turned out to be hazardous. He was the only one of the group who did
not carry a rifle. But he packed two guns, a habit not often noted in
Texans, and almost never in Arizonians.
Colmor, Ann Isbel’s fiance, was the youngest member of the clan, and
the one closest to Jean. His meeting with Ann affected Jean
powerfully, and brought to a climax an idea that had been developing in
Jean’s mind. His sister devotedly loved this lean-faced, keen-eyed
Arizonian; and it took no great insight to discover that Colmor
reciprocated her affection. They were young. They had long life before
them. It seemed to Jean a pity that Colmor should be drawn into this
war. Jean watched them, as they conversed apart; and he saw Ann’s
hands creep up to Colmor’s breast, and he saw her dark eyes, eloquent,
hungry, fearful, lifted with queries her lips did not speak. Jean
stepped beside them, and laid an arm over both their shoulders.
“Colmor, for Ann’s sake you’d better back out of this Jorth-Isbel
fight,” he whispered.
Colmor looked insulted. “But, Jean, it’s Ann’s father,” he said. “I’m
almost one of the family.”
“You’re Ann’s sweetheart, an’, by Heaven, I say you oughtn’t to go with
us!” whispered Jean.
“Go—with—you,” faltered Ann.
“Yes. Dad is goin’ straight after Jorth. Can’t you tell that? An’
there ’ll be one hell of a fight.”
Ann looked up into Colmor’s face with all her soul in her eyes, but she
did not speak. Her look was noble. She yearned to guide him right,
yet her lips were sealed. And Colmor betrayed the trouble of his soul.
The code of men held him bound, and he could not break from it, though
he divined in that moment how truly it was wrong.
“Jean, your dad started me in the cattle business,” said Colmor,
earnestly. “An’ I’m doin’ well now. An’ when I asked him for Ann he
said he’d be glad to have me in the family.... Well, when this talk of
fight come up, I asked your dad to let me go in on his side. He
wouldn’t hear of it. But after a while, as the time passed an’ he made
more enemies, he finally consented. I reckon he needs me now. An’ I
can’t back out, not even for Ann.”
“I would if I were you,” replied jean, and knew that he lied.
“Jean, I’m gamblin’ to come out of the fight,” said Colmor, with a
smile. He had no morbid fears nor presentiments, such as troubled jean.
“Why, sure—you stand as good a chance as anyone,” rejoined Jean. “It
wasn’t that I was worryin’ about so much.”
“What was it, then?” asked Ann, steadily.
“If Andrew DOES come through alive he’ll have blood on his hands,”
returned Jean, with passion. “He can’t come through without it....
I’ve begun to feel what it means to have killed my fellow men.... An’
I’d rather your husband an’ the father of your children never felt
that.”
Colmor did not take Jean as subtly as Ann did. She shrunk a little.
Her dark eyes dilated. But Colmor showed nothing of her spiritual
reaction. He was young. He had wild blood. He was loyal to the
Isbels.
“Jean, never worry about my conscience,” he said, with a keen look.
“Nothin’ would tickle me any more than to get a shot at every damn one
of the Jorths.”
That established Colmor’s status in regard to the Jorth-Isbel feud.
Jean had no more to say. He respected Ann’s friend and felt poignant
sorrow for Ann.
Gaston Isbel called for meat and drink to be set on the table for his
guests. When his wishes had been complied with the women took the
children into the adjoining cabin and shut the door.
“Hah! Wal, we can eat an’ talk now.”
First the newcomers wanted to hear particulars of what had happened.
Blaisdell had told all he knew and had seen, but that was not
sufficient. They plied Gaston Isbel with questions. Laboriously and
ponderously he rehearsed the experiences of the fight at the ranch,
according to his impressions. Bill Isbel was exhorted to talk, but he
had of late manifested a sullen and taciturn disposition. In spite of
Jean’s vigilance Bill had continued to imbibe red liquor. Then Jean was
called upon to relate all he had seen and done. It had been Jean’s
intention to keep his mouth shut, first for his own sake and, secondly,
because he did not like to talk of his deeds. But when thus appealed
to by these somber-faced, intent-eyed men he divined that the more
carefully he described the cruelty and baseness of their enemies, and
the more vividly he presented his participation in the first fight of
the feud the more strongly he would bind these friends to the Isbel
cause. So he talked for an hour, beginning with his meeting with
Colter up on the Rim and ending with an account of his killing Greaves.
His listeners sat through this long narrative with unabated interest
and at the close they were leaning forward, breathless and tense.
“Ah! So Greaves got his desserts at last,” exclaimed Gordon.
All the men around the table made comments, and the last, from Blue,
was the one that struck Jean forcibly.
“Shore thet was a strange an’ a hell of a way to kill Greaves. Why’d
you do thet, Jean?”
“I told you. I wanted to avoid noise an’ I hoped to get more of them.”
Blue nodded his lean, eagle-like head and sat thoughtfully, as if not
convinced of anything save Jean’s prowess. After a moment Blue spoke
again.
“Then, goin’ back to Jean’s tellin’ aboot trackin’ rustled Cattle, I’ve
got this to say. I’ve long suspected thet somebody livin’ right heah
in the valley has been drivin’ off cattle an’ dealin’ with rustlers.
An’ now I’m shore of it.”
This speech did not elicit the amaze from Gaston Isbel that Jean
expected it would.
“You mean Greaves or some of his friends?”
“No. They wasn’t none of them in the cattle business, like we are.
Shore we all knowed Greaves was crooked. But what I’m figgerin’ is
thet some so-called honest man in our settlement has been makin’
crooked deals.”
Blue was a man of deeds rather than words, and so much strong speech
from him, whom everybody knew to be remarkably reliable and keen, made
a profound impression upon most of the Isbel faction. But, to Jean’s
surprise, his father did not rave. It was Blaisdell who supplied the
rage and invective. Bill Isbel, also, was strangely indifferent to
this new element in the condition of cattle dealing. Suddenly Jean
caught a vague flash of thought, as if he had intercepted the thought
of another’s mind, and he wondered—could his brother Bill know
anything about this crooked work alluded to by Blue? Dismissing the
conjecture, Jean listened earnestly.
“An’ if it’s true it shore makes this difference—we cain’t blame all
the rustlin’ on to Jorth,” concluded Blue.
“Wal, it’s not true,” declared Gaston Isbel, roughly. “Jorth an’ his
Hash Knife Gang are at the bottom of all the rustlin’ in the valley for
years back. An’ they’ve got to be wiped out!”
“Isbel, I reckon we’d all feel better if we talk straight,” replied
Blue, coolly. “I’m heah to stand by the Isbels. An’ y’u know what
thet means. But I’m not heah to fight Jorth because he may be a
rustler. The others may have their own reasons, but mine is this—you
once stood by me in Texas when I was needin’ friends. Wal, I’m
standin’ by y’u now. Jorth is your enemy, an’ so he is mine.”
Gaston Isbel bowed to this ultimatum, scarcely less agitated than when
Esther Isbel had denounced him. His rabid and morbid hate of Jorth had
eaten into his heart to take possession there, like the parasite that
battened upon the life of its victim. Blue’s steely voice, his cold,
gray eyes, showed the unbiased truth of the man, as well as his
fidelity to his creed. Here again, but in a different manner, Gaston
Isbel had the fact flung at him that other men must suffer, perhaps
die, for his hate. And the very soul of the old rancher apparently
rose in Passionate revolt against the blind, headlong, elemental
strength of his nature. So it seemed to Jean, who, in love and pity
that hourly grew, saw through his father. Was it too late? Alas!
Gaston Isbel could never be turned back! Yet something was altering
his brooding, fixed mind.
“Wal,” said Blaisdell, gruffly, “let’s get down to business.... I’m for
havin’ Blue be foreman of this heah outfit, an’ all of us to do as he
says.”
Gaston Isbel opposed this selection and indeed resented it. He intended
to lead the Isbel faction.
“All right, then. Give us a hunch what we’re goin’ to do,” replied
Blaisdell.
“We’re goin’ to ride off on Jorth’s trail—an’ one way or another—kill
him—KILL HIM!... I reckon that’ll end the fight.”
What did old Isbel have in his mind? His listeners shook their heads.
“No,” asserted Blaisdell. “Killin’ Jorth might be the end of your
desires, Isbel, but it ’d never end our fight. We’ll have gone too
far.... If we take Jorth’s trail from heah it means we’ve got to wipe
out that rustier gang, or stay to the last man.”
“Yes, by God!” exclaimed Fredericks.
“Let’s drink to thet!” said Blue. Strangely they turned to this Texas
gunman, instinctively recognizing in him the brain and heart, and the
past deeds, that fitted him for the leadership of such a clan. Blue
had all in life to lose, and nothing to gain. Yet his spirit was such
that he could not lean to all the possible gain of the future, and
leave a debt unpaid. Then his voice, his look, his influence were
those of a fighter. They all drank with him, even Jean, who hated
liquor. And this act of drinking seemed the climax of the council.
Preparations were at once begun for their departure on Jorth’s trail.
Jean took but little time for his own needs. A horse, a blanket, a
knapsack of meat and bread, a canteen, and his weapons, with all the
ammunition he could pack, made up his outfit. He wore his buckskin
suit, leggings, and moccasins. Very soon the cavalcade was ready to
depart. Jean tried not to watch Bill Isbel say good-by to his
children, but it was impossible not to. Whatever Bill was, as a man,
he was father of those children, and he loved them. How strange that
the little ones seemed to realize the meaning of this good-by? They
were grave, somber-eyed, pale up to the last moment, then they broke
down and wept. Did they sense that their father would never come back?
Jean caught that dark, fatalistic presentiment. Bill Isbel’s convulsed
face showed that he also caught it. Jean did not see Bill say good-by
to his wife. But he heard her. Old Gaston Isbel forgot to speak to
the children, or else could not. He never looked at them. And his
good-by to Ann was as if he were only riding to the village for a day.
Jean saw woman’s love, woman’s intuition, woman’s grief in her eyes. He
could not escape her. “Oh, Jean! oh, brother!” she whispered as she
enfolded him. “It’s awful! It’s wrong! Wrong! Wrong!... Good-by!...
If killing MUST be—see that y’u kill the Jorths!... Good-by!”
Even in Ann, gentle and mild, the Isbel blood spoke at the last. Jean
gave Ann over to the pale-faced Colmor, who took her in his arms. Then
Jean fled out to his horse. This cold-blooded devastation of a home
was almost more than he could bear. There was love here. What would be
left?
Colmor was the last one to come out to the horses. He did not walk
erect, nor as one whose sight was clear. Then, as the silent, tense,
grim men mounted their horses, Bill Isbel’s eldest child, the boy,
appeared in the door. His little form seemed instinct with a force
vastly different from grief. His face was the face of an Isbel.
“Daddy—kill ’em all!” he shouted, with a passion all the fiercer for
its incongruity to the treble voice.
So the poison had spread from father to son.