Zane Grey (2 page)

At dawn he rolled out of his blankets and, pulling on his boots, began
the day with a zest for the work that must bring closer his calling
future. White, crackling frost and cold, nipping air were the same
keen spurs to action that he had known in the uplands of Oregon, yet
they were not wholly the same. He sensed an exhilaration similar to
the effect of a strong, sweet wine. His horse and mule had fared well
during the night, having been much refreshed by the grass and water of
the little canyon. Jean mounted and rode into the cedars with gladness
that at last he had put the endless leagues of barren land behind him.

The trail he followed appeared to be seldom traveled. It led,
according to the meager information obtainable at the last settlement,
directly to what was called the Rim, and from there Grass Valley could
be seen down in the Basin. The ascent of the ground was so gradual
that only in long, open stretches could it be seen. But the nature of
the vegetation showed Jean how he was climbing. Scant, low, scraggy
cedars gave place to more numerous, darker, greener, bushier ones, and
these to high, full-foliaged, green-berried trees. Sage and grass in
the open flats grew more luxuriously. Then came the pinyons, and
presently among them the checker-barked junipers. Jean hailed the
first pine tree with a hearty slap on the brown, rugged bark. It was a
small dwarf pine struggling to live. The next one was larger, and
after that came several, and beyond them pines stood up everywhere
above the lower trees. Odor of pine needles mingled with the other dry
smells that made the wind pleasant to Jean. In an hour from the first
line of pines he had ridden beyond the cedars and pinyons into a slowly
thickening and deepening forest. Underbrush appeared scarce except in
ravines, and the ground in open patches held a bleached grass. Jean's
eye roved for sight of squirrels, birds, deer, or any moving creature.
It appeared to be a dry, uninhabited forest. About midday Jean halted
at a pond of surface water, evidently melted snow, and gave his animals
a drink. He saw a few old deer tracks in the mud and several huge bird
tracks new to him which he concluded must have been made by wild
turkeys.

The trail divided at this pond. Jean had no idea which branch he ought
to take. "Reckon it doesn't matter," he muttered, as he was about to
remount. His horse was standing with ears up, looking back along the
trail. Then Jean heard a clip-clop of trotting hoofs, and presently
espied a horseman.

Jean made a pretense of tightening his saddle girths while he peered
over his horse at the approaching rider. All men in this country were
going to be of exceeding interest to Jean Isbel. This man at a
distance rode and looked like all the Arizonians Jean had seen, he had
a superb seat in the saddle, and he was long and lean. He wore a huge
black sombrero and a soiled red scarf. His vest was open and he was
without a coat.

The rider came trotting up and halted several paces from Jean

"Hullo, stranger!" he said, gruffly.

"Howdy yourself!" replied Jean. He felt an instinctive importance in
the meeting with the man. Never had sharper eyes flashed over Jean and
his outfit. He had a dust-colored, sun-burned face, long, lean, and
hard, a huge sandy mustache that hid his mouth, and eyes of piercing
light intensity. Not very much hard Western experience had passed by
this man, yet he was not old, measured by years. When he dismounted
Jean saw he was tall, even for an Arizonian.

"Seen your tracks back a ways," he said, as he slipped the bit to let
his horse drink. "Where bound?"

"Reckon I'm lost, all right," replied Jean. "New country for me."

"Shore. I seen thet from your tracks an' your last camp. Wal, where
was you headin' for before you got lost?"

The query was deliberately cool, with a dry, crisp ring. Jean felt the
lack of friendliness or kindliness in it.

"Grass Valley. My name's Isbel," he replied, shortly.

The rider attended to his drinking horse and presently rebridled him;
then with long swing of leg he appeared to step into the saddle.

"Shore I knowed you was Jean Isbel," he said. "Everybody in the Tonto
has heerd old Gass Isbel sent fer his boy."

"Well then, why did you ask?" inquired Jean, bluntly.

"Reckon I wanted to see what you'd say."

"So? All right. But I'm not carin' very much for what YOU say."

Their glances locked steadily then and each measured the other by the
intangible conflict of spirit.

"Shore thet's natural," replied the rider. His speech was slow, and
the motions of his long, brown hands, as he took a cigarette from his
vest, kept time with his words. "But seein' you're one of the Isbels,
I'll hev my say whether you want it or not. My name's Colter an' I'm
one of the sheepmen Gass Isbel's riled with."

"Colter. Glad to meet you," replied Jean. "An' I reckon who riled my
father is goin' to rile me."

"Shore. If thet wasn't so you'd not be an Isbel," returned Colter,
with a grim little laugh. "It's easy to see you ain't run into any
Tonto Basin fellers yet. Wal, I'm goin' to tell you thet your old man
gabbed like a woman down at Greaves's store. Bragged aboot you an' how
you could fight an' how you could shoot an' how you could track a hoss
or a man! Bragged how you'd chase every sheep herder back up on the
Rim.... I'm tellin' you because we want you to git our stand right.
We're goin' to run sheep down in Grass Valley."

"Ahuh! Well, who's we?" queried Jean, curtly.

"What-at? ... We—I mean the sheepmen rangin' this Rim from Black Butte
to the Apache country."

"Colter, I'm a stranger in Arizona," said Jean, slowly. "I know little
about ranchers or sheepmen. It's true my father sent for me. It's
true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an'
blow. An' he's old now. I can't help it if he bragged about me. But
if he has, an' if he's justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I'm
goin' to do my best to live up to his brag."

"I get your hunch. Shore we understand each other, an' thet's a
powerful help. You take my hunch to your old man," replied Colter, as
he turned his horse away toward the left. "Thet trail leadin' south is
yours. When you come to the Rim you'll see a bare spot down in the
Basin. Thet 'll be Grass Valley."

He rode away out of sight into the woods. Jean leaned against his
horse and pondered. It seemed difficult to be just to this Colter, not
because of his claims, but because of a subtle hostility that emanated
from him. Colter had the hard face, the masked intent, the turn of
speech that Jean had come to associate with dishonest men. Even if Jean
had not been prejudiced, if he had known nothing of his father's
trouble with these sheepmen, and if Colter had met him only to exchange
glances and greetings, still Jean would never have had a favorable
impression. Colter grated upon him, roused an antagonism seldom felt.

"Heigho!" sighed the young man, "Good-by to huntin' an' fishing'! Dad's
given me a man's job."

With that he mounted his horse and started the pack mule into the
right-hand trail. Walking and trotting, he traveled all afternoon,
toward sunset getting into heavy forest of pine. More than one snow
bank showed white through the green, sheltered on the north slopes of
shady ravines. And it was upon entering this zone of richer, deeper
forestland that Jean sloughed off his gloomy forebodings. These
stately pines were not the giant firs of Oregon, but any lover of the
woods could be happy under them. Higher still he climbed until the
forest spread before and around him like a level park, with thicketed
ravines here and there on each side. And presently that deceitful
level led to a higher bench upon which the pines towered, and were
matched by beautiful trees he took for spruce. Heavily barked, with
regular spreading branches, these conifers rose in symmetrical shape to
spear the sky with silver plumes. A graceful gray-green moss, waved
like veils from the branches. The air was not so dry and it was
colder, with a scent and touch of snow. Jean made camp at the first
likely site, taking the precaution to unroll his bed some little
distance from his fire. Under the softly moaning pines he felt
comfortable, having lost the sense of an immeasurable open space
falling away from all around him.

The gobbling of wild turkeys awakened Jean, "Chuga-lug, chug-a-lug,
chug-a-lug-chug." There was not a great difference between the gobble
of a wild turkey and that of a tame one. Jean got up, and taking his
rifle went out into the gray obscurity of dawn to try to locate the
turkeys. But it was too dark, and finally when daylight came they
appeared to be gone. The mule had strayed, and, what with finding it
and cooking breakfast and packing, Jean did not make a very early
start. On this last lap of his long journey he had slowed down. He was
weary of hurrying; the change from weeks in the glaring sun and
dust-laden wind to this sweet coot darkly green and brown forest was
very welcome; he wanted to linger along the shaded trail. This day he
made sure would see him reach the Rim. By and by he lost the trail.
It had just worn out from lack of use. Every now and then Jean would
cross an old trail, and as he penetrated deeper into the forest every
damp or dusty spot showed tracks of turkey, deer, and bear. The amount
of bear sign surprised him. Presently his keen nostrils were assailed
by a smell of sheep, and soon he rode into a broad sheep, trail. From
the tracks Jean calculated that the sheep had passed there the day
before.

An unreasonable antipathy seemed born in him. To be sure he had been
prepared to dislike sheep, and that was why he was unreasonable. But
on the other hand this band of sheep had left a broad bare swath,
weedless, grassless, flowerless, in their wake. Where sheep grazed
they destroyed. That was what Jean had against them.

An hour later he rode to the crest of a long parklike slope, where new
green grass was sprouting and flowers peeped everywhere. The pines
appeared far apart; gnarled oak trees showed rugged and gray against
the green wall of woods. A white strip of snow gleamed like a moving
stream away down in the woods.

Jean heard the musical tinkle of bells and the baa-baa of sheep and the
faint, sweet bleating of lambs. As he road toward these sounds a dog
ran out from an oak thicket and barked at him. Next Jean smelled a
camp fire and soon he caught sight of a curling blue column of smoke,
and then a small peaked tent. Beyond the clump of oaks Jean
encountered a Mexican lad carrying a carbine. The boy had a swarthy,
pleasant face, and to Jean's greeting he replied, "BUENAS DIAS." Jean
understood little Spanish, and about all he gathered by his simple
queries was that the lad was not alone—and that it was "lambing time."

This latter circumstance grew noisily manifest. The forest seemed
shrilly full of incessant baas and plaintive bleats. All about the
camp, on the slope, in the glades, and everywhere, were sheep. A few
were grazing; many were lying down; most of them were ewes suckling
white fleecy little lambs that staggered on their feet. Everywhere
Jean saw tiny lambs just born. Their pin-pointed bleats pierced the
heavier baa-baa of their mothers.

Jean dismounted and led his horse down toward the camp, where he rather
expected to see another and older Mexican, from whom he might get
information. The lad walked with him. Down this way the plaintive
uproar made by the sheep was not so loud.

"Hello there!" called Jean, cheerfully, as he approached the tent. No
answer was forthcoming. Dropping his bridle, he went on, rather
slowly, looking for some one to appear. Then a voice from one side
startled him.

"Mawnin', stranger."

A girl stepped out from beside a pine. She carried a rifle. Her face
flashed richly brown, but she was not Mexican. This fact, and the
sudden conviction that she had been watching him, somewhat disconcerted
Jean.

"Beg pardon—miss," he floundered. "Didn't expect, to see a—girl....
I'm sort of lost—lookin' for the Rim—an' thought I'd find a sheep
herder who'd show me. I can't savvy this boy's lingo."

While he spoke it seemed to him an intentness of expression, a strain
relaxed from her face. A faint suggestion of hostility likewise
disappeared. Jean was not even sure that he had caught it, but there
had been something that now was gone.

"Shore I'll be glad to show y'u," she said.

"Thanks, miss. Reckon I can breathe easy now," he replied,

"It's a long ride from San Diego. Hot an' dusty! I'm pretty tired.
An' maybe this woods isn't good medicine to achin' eyes!"

"San Diego! Y'u're from the coast?"

"Yes."

Jean had doffed his sombrero at sight of her and he still held it,
rather deferentially, perhaps. It seemed to attract her attention.

"Put on y'ur hat, stranger.... Shore I can't recollect when any man
bared his haid to me." She uttered a little laugh in which surprise
and frankness mingled with a tint of bitterness.

Jean sat down with his back to a pine, and, laying the sombrero by his
side, he looked full at her, conscious of a singular eagerness, as if
he wanted to verify by close scrutiny a first hasty impression. If
there had been an instinct in his meeting with Colter, there was more
in this. The girl half sat, half leaned against a log, with the shiny
little carbine across her knees. She had a level, curious gaze upon
him, and Jean had never met one just like it. Her eyes were rather a
wide oval in shape, clear and steady, with shadows of thought in their
amber-brown depths. They seemed to look through Jean, and his gaze
dropped first. Then it was he saw her ragged homespun skirt and a few
inches of brown, bare ankles, strong and round, and crude worn-out
moccasins that failed to hide the shapeliness, of her feet. Suddenly
she drew back her stockingless ankles and ill-shod little feet. When
Jean lifted his gaze again he found her face half averted and a stain
of red in the gold tan of her cheek. That touch of embarrassment
somehow removed her from this strong, raw, wild woodland setting. It
changed her poise. It detracted from the curious, unabashed, almost
bold, look that he had encountered in her eyes.