Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 692
Carley turned from the mountain kingdom and faced her future with the profound and sad and far-seeing look that had come with her lesson. She knew what to give. Sometime and somewhere there would be recompense. She would hide her wound in the faith that time would heat it. And the ordeal she set herself, to prove her sincerity and strength, was to ride down to Oak Creek Canyon.
Carley did not wait many days. Strange how the old vanity held her back until something of the havoc in her face should be gone!
One morning she set out early, riding her best horse, and she took a sheep trail across country. The distance by road was much farther. The June morning was cool, sparkling, fragrant. Mocking birds sang from the topmost twig of cedars; doves cooed in the pines; sparrow hawks sailed low over the open grassy patches. Desert primroses showed their rounded pink clusters in sunny places, and here and there burned the carmine of Indian paint-brush. Jack rabbits and cotton-tails bounded and scampered away through the sage. The desert had life and color and movement this June day. And as always there was the dry fragrance on the air.
Her mustang had been inured to long and consistent travel over the desert. Her weight was nothing to him and he kept to the swinging lope for miles. As she approached Oak Creek Canyon, however, she drew him to a trot, and then a walk. Sight of the deep red-walled and green-floored canyon was a shock to her.
The trail came out on the road that led to Ryan’s sheep camp, at a point several miles west of the cabin where Carley had encountered Haze Ruff. She remembered the curves and stretches, and especially the steep jump-off where the road led down off the rim into the canyon. Here she dismounted and walked. From the foot of this descent she knew every rod of the way would be familiar to her, and, womanlike, she wanted to turn away and fly from them. But she kept on and mounted again at level ground.
The murmur of the creek suddenly assailed her ears — sweet, sad, memorable, strangely powerful to hurt. Yet the sound seemed of long ago. Down here summer had advanced. Rich thick foliage overspread the winding road of sand. Then out of the shade she passed into the sunnier regions of isolated pines. Along here she had raced Calico with Glenn’s bay; and here she had caught him, and there was the place she had fallen. She halted a moment under the pine tree where Glenn had held her in his arms. Tears dimmed her eyes. If only she had known then the truth, the reality! But regrets were useless.
By and by a craggy red wall loomed above the trees, and its pipe-organ conformation was familiar to Carley. She left the road and turned to go down to the creek. Sycamores and maples and great bowlders, and mossy ledges overhanging the water, and a huge sentinel pine marked the spot where she and Glenn had eaten their lunch that last day. Her mustang splashed into the clear water and halted to drink. Beyond, through the trees, Carley saw the sunny red-earthed clearing that was Glenn’s farm. She looked, and fought herself, and bit her quivering lip until she tasted blood. Then she rode out into the open.
The whole west side of the canyon had been cleared and cultivated and plowed. But she gazed no farther. She did not want to see the spot where she had given Glenn his ring and had parted from him. She rode on. If she could pass West Fork she believed her courage would rise to the completion of this ordeal. Places were what she feared. Places that she had loved while blindly believing she hated! There the narrow gap of green and blue split the looming red wall. She was looking into West Fork. Up there stood the cabin. How fierce a pang rent her breast! She faltered at the crossing of the branch stream, and almost surrendered. The water murmured, the leaves rustled, the bees hummed, the birds sang — all with some sad sweetness that seemed of the past.
Then the trail leading up West Fork was like a barrier. She saw horse tracks in it. Next she descried boot tracks the shape of which was so well-remembered that it shook her heart. There were fresh tracks in the sand, pointing in the direction of the Lodge. Ah! that was where Glenn lived now. Carley strained at her will to keep it fighting her memory. The glory and the dream were gone!
A touch of spur urged her mustang into a gallop. The splashing ford of the creek — the still, eddying pool beyond — the green orchards — the white lacy waterfall — and Lolomi Lodge!
Nothing had altered. But Carley seemed returning after many years. Slowly she dismounted — slowly she climbed the porch steps. Was there no one at home? Yet the vacant doorway, the silence — something attested to the knowledge of Carley’s presence. Then suddenly Mrs. Hutter fluttered out with Flo behind her.
“You dear girl — I’m so glad!” cried Mrs. Hutter, her voice trembling.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” said Carley, bending to receive Mrs. Hutter’s embrace. Carley saw dim eyes — the stress of agitation, but no surprise.
“Oh, Carley!” burst out the Western girl, with voice rich and full, yet tremulous.
“Flo, I’ve come to wish you happiness,” replied Carley, very low.
Was it the same Flo? This seemed more of a woman — strange now — white and strained — beautiful, eager, questioning. A cry of gladness burst from her. Carley felt herself enveloped in strong close clasp-and then a warm, quick kiss of joy, It shocked her, yet somehow thrilled. Sure was the welcome here. Sure was the strained situation, also, but the voice rang too glad a note for Carley. It touched her deeply, yet she could not understand. She had not measured the depth of Western friendship.
“Have you — seen Glenn?” queried Flo, breathlessly.
“Oh no, indeed not,” replied Carley, slowly gaining composure. The nervous agitation of these women had stilled her own. “I just rode up the trail. Where is he?”
“He was here — a moment ago,” panted Flo. “Oh, Carley, we sure are locoed. . . . Why, we only heard an hour ago — that you were at Deep Lake. . . . Charley rode in. He told us. . . . I thought my heart would break. Poor Glenn! When he heard it. . . . But never mind me. Jump your horse and run to West Fork!”
The spirit of her was like the strength of her arms as she hurried Carley across the porch and shoved her down the steps.
“Climb on and run, Carley,” cried Flo. “If you only knew how glad he’ll be that you came!”
Carley leaped into the saddle and wheeled the mustang. But she had no answer for the girl’s singular, almost wild exultance. Then like a shot the spirited mustang was off down the lane. Carley wondered with swelling heart. Was her coming such a wondrous surprise — so unexpected and big in generosity — something that would make Kilbourne as glad as it had seemed to make Flo? Carley thrilled to this assurance.
Down the lane she flew. The red walls blurred and the sweet wind whipped her face. At the trail she swerved the mustang, but did not check his gait. Under the great pines he sped and round the bulging wall. At the rocky incline leading to the creek she pulled the fiery animal to a trot. How low and clear the water! As Carley forded it fresh cool drops splashed into her face. Again she spurred her mount and again trees and walls rushed by. Up and down the yellow bits of trail — on over the brown mats of pine needles — until there in the sunlight shone the little gray log cabin with a tall form standing in the door. One instant the canyon tilted on end for Carley and she was riding into the blue sky. Then some magic of soul sustained her, so that she saw clearly. Reaching the cabin she reined in her mustang.
“Hello, Glenn! Look who’s here!” she cried, not wholly failing of gayety.
He threw up his sombrero.
“Whoopee!” he yelled, in stentorian voice that rolled across the canyon and bellowed in hollow echo and then clapped from wall to wall. The unexpected Western yell, so strange from Glenn, disconcerted Carley. Had he only answered her spirit of greeting? Had hers rung false?
But he was coming to her. She had seen the bronze of his face turn to white. How gaunt and worn he looked. Older he appeared, with deeper lines and whiter hair. His jaw quivered.
“Carley Burch, so it was you?” he queried, hoarsely.
“Glenn, I reckon it was,” she replied. “I bought your Deep Lake ranch site. I came back too late . . . . But it is never too late for some things. . . . I’ve come to wish you and Flo all the happiness in the world — and to say we must be friends.”
The way he looked at her made her tremble. He strode up beside the mustang, and he was so tall that his shoulder came abreast of her. He placed a big warm hand on hers, as it rested, ungloved, on the pommel of the saddle.
“Have you seen Flo?” he asked.
“I just left her. It was funny — the way she rushed me off after you. As if there weren’t two—”
Was it Glenn’s eyes or the movement of his hand that checked her utterance? His gaze pierced her soul. His hand slid along her arm to her waist — around it. Her heart seemed to burst.
“Kick your feet out of the stirrups,” he ordered.
Instinctively she obeyed. Then with a strong pull he hauled her half out of the saddle, pellmell into his arms. Carley had no resistance. She sank limp, in an agony of amaze. Was this a dream? Swift and hard his lips met hers — and again — and again. . . .
“Oh, my God! — Glenn, are — you — mad?” she whispered, almost swooning.
“Sure — I reckon I am,” he replied, huskily, and pulled her all the way out of the saddle.
Carley would have fallen but for his support. She could not think. She was all instinct. Only the amaze — the sudden horror — drifted — faded as before fires of her heart!
“Kiss me!” he commanded.
She would have kissed him if death were the penalty. How his face blurred in her dimmed sight! Was that a strange smile? Then he held her back from him.
“Carley — you came to wish Flo and me happiness?” he asked.
“Oh, yes — yes. . . . Pity me, Glenn — let me go. I meant well. . . . I should — never have come.”
“Do you love me?” he went on, with passionate, shaking clasp.
“God help me — I do — I do! . . . And now it will kill me!”
“What did that damned fool Charley tell you?”
The strange content of his query, the trenchant force of it, brought her upright, with sight suddenly cleared. Was this giant the tragic Glenn who had strode to her from the cabin door?
“Charley told me — you and Flo — were married,” she whispered.
“You didn’t believe him!” returned Glenn.
She could no longer speak. She could only see her lover, as if transfigured, limned dark against the looming red wall.
“That was one of Charley’s queer jokes. I told you to beware of him. Flo is married, yes — and very happy. . . . I’m unutterably happy, too — but I’m not married. Lee Stanton was the lucky bridegroom. . . . Carley, the moment I saw you I knew you had come back to me.”
THE END
Wild Horse Mesa
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERY AND insurmountable nature of Wild Horse Mesa had usurped many a thoughtful hour of Chane Weymer’s lonely desert life in Utah. Every wandering rider had a strange story to tell about this vast tableland. But Chane had never before seen it from so lofty and commanding a height as this to which Toddy Nokin, the Piute, had led him; nor had there ever before been so impelling a fascination as that engendered by the Indian.
For the Piute claimed that it was the last refuge of the great wild stallion, Panquitch, and his band.
Panquitch! He had been chased out of Nevada by wild-horse wranglers, of whom Chane was not the last; Mormons had driven the stallion across Utah, where in the canyoned fastnesses south of the Henry Mountains he had disappeared.
Chane’s gaze left the mesa to fall upon the swarthy lineaments of his companion. Could he place credence in Toddy Nokin? The Piutes loved fine horses and were not given to confiding in white hunters. It occurred to Chane, however, that he had befriended this Indian.
“Toddy — you sure Panquitch — on Wild Horse Mesa?” queried Chane, in his labored mixture of Piute and Navajo.
The Indian had the solemn look of one whose confidence had not been well received.
“How you know?” went on Chane, eagerly.
Toddy Nokin made a slow, sweeping gesture toward the far northern end of Wild Horse Mesa, almost lost in dim purple distance. The motion of arm and hand had a singular character, never seen in gesture save that of an Indian. It suggested deviations of trail, deep canyons to cross, long distance to cover. Then Toddy Nokin spoke in his own tongue, with the simplicity of a chief whose word was beyond doubt. Chane’s interpretation might not have been wholly correct, but it made the blood dance in his veins. Panquitch had been seen to lead his band up over the barren trailless rock benches that led to the towering wall of the unscalable mesa. These wild horses left no tracks. They had not returned. Keen-eyed Piutes had watched the only possible descents over the red benches. Panquitch was on top of the mesa, free with the big-horn sheep and the eagles. The fact wrung profound respect and admiration from Chane Weymer, yet fired him with passionate resolve. For a long time that wild mesa had haunted him. The reason for it, the alluring call of the wandering lofty wall, now seemed easily understood.
“Panquitch, I’ve got track of you at last!” he exclaimed, exultantly.
There awoke in Chane then something of abandon to what he had always longed for — a wild freedom without work or restraint or will other than his own wandering fancies. Indeed, his range life had been rough and hard enough, but up until the last year he had been under obligation to his father and other employers, and always there had been a powerful sense of duty and a love for his younger brother. Chess. These had acted as barriers to his natural instincts. Chess was eighteen now and considered himself very much of a man, so much so that he resented Chane’s guardianship.
“Boy Blue doesn’t need his big brother any more,” soliloquized Chane, half sadly, remembering Chess’s impatience at being watched over. Time, indeed, had passed swiftly. Chess was almost a man. It seemed only a short while since he had been a baby boy, back there in Colorado, where he had been born. Chane reflected on his own age — thirty-four, and on those past years when this beloved brother had been a little child. Those early days in Colorado had been happy ones. The Weymers were a family of close ties. Chane’s father had been a ranchman, cattleman, and horse- dealer. It had been on the prairie slopes of Colorado, under the eastern shadows of the Rockies, that Chane had learned what was now his calling — the hunting of wild horses. In time he sought wilder country — Nevada, Utah — and his brother Chess, true to childish worship, had followed him. There had been a couple of years in which the boy had been amenable; then had come the inevitable breaking out. Not that Chess had been bad, Chane reflected, but just that he wanted to be his own boss. Chane had left him, several weeks ago, back across the rivers and the stony brakes of that Utah wilderness, in the little Mormon town of St. George. Chess had begged to go on this expedition to the Piute country, where Chane had come to buy a bunch of Indian mustangs. Here Chane’s musings and reflections were interrupted by Toddy Nokin, who said he would go down to his camp.
“No want leave daughter alone,” he added, significantly. Chane was reminded that one of the horse-wranglers who had fallen in with him — Manerube by name — was not a man he would care to trust.
The Indian’s moccasined feet padded softly on the rocks. Presently Chane was left to himself, and his gaze and mind returned to the object that had caused him to scale the heights — Wild Horse Mesa.
This early September day had been one of storm, clearing toward late afternoon, leaving cloud pageants in the sky to west and north. At the moment there seemed no promise of color — something which Chane always looked for in the sky. All the northland was obscured in paling clouds, leaden in hue.
Chane was at loss to understand the spell which had fascinated him since his first sight of Wild Horse Mesa. It was as if he had been arrested by a prophetic voice that bade him give heed. He could not grasp the vague intimation as a warning; it was rather a call which urged him to come, to seek, to labor, to find. Chane thought of the wild stallion, Panquitch, and though he thrilled, he could not satisfy himself that pursuit of the great horse wholly accounted for this strange beckoning.
A broken mass of gray storm cloud had lodged against the west end of the mesa, where the precipitous red wall towered above the waved area of wind-worn rock. Apparently the cloud hung there, as if against an obstruction, yet it appeared to change form. Chane gazed as he had a thousand times, in idle or wondering moments, yet there was a subtle difference now, either in the aspect of this mesa or in himself. That made him keen-eyed as an Indian and unusually thoughtful.
But it seemed only a vast landscape, grand because of outline and distance, yet at the moment dull and somber. Still, was it not hiding something? The lower edge of the broken mass of cloud extended far down the wall; in some places the top of the mesa was obscured; above the cloud and all to the west was clear. The sun had gone under the huge dark slope that climbed from the undulating canyon country to the mountain.
