Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 531
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.”
