The Zane Grey Megapack, page 624
“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.
TO THE LAST MAN [Part 3]
CHAPTER IX
Half a mile from the Isbel ranch the cavalcade passed the log cabin of Evarts, father of the boy who had tended sheep with Bernardino.
It suited Gaston Isbel to halt here. No need to call! Evarts and his son appeared so quickly as to convince observers that they had been watching.
“Howdy, Jake!” said Isbel. “I’m wantin’ a word with y’u alone.”
“Shore, boss, git down an’ come in,” replied Evarts.
Isbel led him aside, and said something forcible that Jean divined from the very gesture which accompanied it. His father was telling Evarts that he was not to join in the Isbel-Jorth war. Evarts had worked for the Isbels a long time, and his faithfulness, along with something stronger and darker, showed in his rugged face as he stubbornly opposed Isbel. The old man raised his voice: “No, I tell you. An’ that settles it.”
They returned to the horses, and, before mounting, Isbel, as if he remembered something, directed his somber gaze on young Evarts.
“Son, did you bury Bernardino?”
“Dad an’ me went over yestiddy,” replied the lad. “I shore was glad the coyotes hadn’t been round.”
“How aboot the sheep?”
“I left them there. I was goin’ to stay, but bein’ all alone—I got skeered…. The sheep was doin’ fine. Good water an’ some grass. An’ this ain’t time fer varmints to hang round.”
“Jake, keep your eye on that flock,” returned Isbel. “An’ if I shouldn’t happen to come back y’u can call them sheep yours…. I’d like your boy to ride up to the village. Not with us, so anybody would see him. But afterward. We’ll be at Abel Meeker’s.”
Again Jean was confronted with an uneasy premonition as to some idea or plan his father had not shared with his followers. When the cavalcade started on again Jean rode to his father’s side and asked him why he had wanted the Evarts boy to come to Grass Valley. And the old man replied that, as the boy could run to and fro in the village without danger, he might be useful in reporting what was going on at Greaves’s store, where undoubtedly the Jorth gang would hold forth. This appeared reasonable enough, therefore Jean smothered the objection he had meant to make.
The valley road was deserted. When, a mile farther on, the riders passed a group of cabins, just on the outskirts of the village, Jean’s quick eye caught sight of curious and evidently frightened people trying to see while they avoided being seen. No doubt the whole settlement was in a state of suspense and terror. Not unlikely this dark, closely grouped band of horsemen appeared to them as Jorth’s gang had looked to Jean. It was an orderly, trotting march that manifested neither hurry nor excitement. But any Western eye could have caught the singular aspect of such a group, as if the intent of the riders was a visible thing.
