Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 729
Presently the foreground of the post became a place of color and action. Groups of horses and mules, neighing and hee-hawing, manifesting their rebellious spirits. The cowboys moved among them shouting, “Yo! ... Hold ’em, cowboy! ... Blast that lop-eared mule!” These and like exclamations came to John above the stamp of hoofs and the clink of spurs. Everywhere flashed the colorful designs of saddle blankets. On the edge of the scene Navahos in gay-colored tunics lolled about indolently.
John directed disposal of the piles of goods stacked outside the store — rolls of bedding, duffle bags, food supplies, Dutch ovens, pots and pans. Suddenly he became conscious of watchful eyes. He looked up to see Magdaline standing near and caught her warm glance and the gleam of her perfect white teeth. Her bronze face, unlike so many of her kin, was delicately molded.
“You, John Curry! You hide from me!”
John caught the coquetry in her lowered lashes. The whole charm of her was evident in that look, and in the fashionable cut of her cheap gingham dress.
“I’ve been busy,” returned John in a matter-of-fact manner. “How are you, Magdaline?”
“Lonesome to see my friends,” Magdaline replied, striving to woo his attention.
John met her words with silence.
“My friend High-Lo, no sooner I see him than he goes away,” she persisted. “Why did he ride so fast?”
Her question startled John into immediate attention. “You saw him leave?”
“Yes. But he didn’t see me. He went so like a thief that first I thought he was stealing a horse.”
“What time did he go?”
“Four o’clock maybe. I was up on the ridge sitting by a mound waiting to jump out on you should you come that way. Then, too far away to speak, I saw High-Lo leading a horse. He stopped where a saddle was cached, saddled the horse, and rode away so quick the dust covered him.”
“Which way?” queried John above her last words.
“Toward Four Mile Wash and maybe to the pass.”
“Maybe to the pass,” John repeated aloud. “Thank you, Magdaline.”
“Then you didn’t know at the time that he went. You didn’t know why or where,” Magdaline remarked thoughtfully.
John reflected that Magdaline’s wits needed no sharpening. “Don’t bother me just now,” he returned. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“I wish you liked me as much as you like High-Lo,” the girl went on stubbornly.
John, busy with new thoughts, was irritated by her perseverance. “Please run along, Magdaline,” he said.
As she walked away, John heard one of the boys call her name. A merry response followed immediately. Tom, Dick, Harry — all were alike to her!
Magdaline’s insinuation that High-Lo’s goal was the pass provoked a surmise in John’s mind which involved Hanley. He could conceive a desire on High-Lo’s part to frustrate Hanley’s plans, whatever they might be, by forcing his company on him; and he knew High-Lo would attempt such folly without thought of consequences. For this theory John disregarded his earlier ones wherein the Blakely girls had figured, but he failed to convince himself that he did so more from reasoning than from wishful thinking. His meditations led to a decision to follow High-Lo. Should his latest conjecture be wrong, a good half-day’s ride lay between them, and High-Lo’s destination and purpose would remain as uncertain as before. Someone had to cache grain in Noname Valley, miles beyond the pass. John decided that there was no reason why he could not undertake the mission himself. He would make no pretense about it. He would explain the twofold purpose of his journey to Mr. Weston. And if Mr. Weston protested, he would have to leave the man’s employ. High-Lo’s safety was worth that much to him.
He propounded the issue as soon as the outfit had departed and received prompt permission from his employer. Mr. Weston, too, demonstrated a steadfast affection for the troublesome but likeable High-Lo.
“Give yourself time. Hunt up the young scamp if you can,” Mr. Weston said. “Don’t worry about the post. Hicks will take care of things while you’re away.”
John moved with alacrity as he prepared his pack and loaded the string of pack mules with grain. The mules had to be driven and they would retard his progress; but better that his journey seem business-like to whomever he might meet on the way.
Less than an hour after the others had left, John was driving the mules over the ridge. Then he turned his back upon the tracks the others had made, and followed the trail to Four Mile Wash. The spirited animal in the lead set a brisk trot for the others to follow, which John encouraged with an occasional shout. They moved through the wide sweep of valley, along the interminable wall of Black Mesa on the left, hummocky red mountains and great jagged red peaks on the right, along a trail that cut through greasewood, green near by, gray-green in the distance toward the cedared flank of the mesa.
It was good to be alone. The beat of hoofs was music to John’s ears. His nostrils welcomed the warm, fragrant breeze and his eyes watched its course through the brush. He looked up toward the mountains, thrilled by their majestic height. A pile of Navaho prayer rocks rose like a spiral of red flame on a distant promontory. John imagined a Navaho there looking down in peace over the land he loved, whispering the benediction his prayer bestowed:
Now all is well, Now all is well.
But behind his meditations stirred uneasy thoughts of High-Lo, Hanley, the Blakely girls, and Newton, who, like disembodied spirits, remained in his consciousness. Then, the others fading before her, Mary Newton came to him, flooding his senses with her beauty and serenity. What comfort would come to him if he could only speak to her now, tell her about High-Lo, attempt to explain his devotion to the irresponsible but lovable boy! He could see the deepening serious look she would wear, hear her voice soften with sympathy and understanding. What a mother she would make for a boy like High-Lo! He could see Mary’s black head bent over a fair one, reasoning patiently with such defiance as High-Lo must have shown when young. He could see her looking up from the child with a gentle confidence in her power, and a smile for him. Intimate, personal became Curry’s thought, and a tender yearning possessed him. Unconsciously all the dreams of his youth were revived, and into them Mary had slipped, as the mother of his son, as his wife, into a place heretofore possessed only by an elusive, changing form and face. John felt hot blood mount upward through his throat.
“I’m loco,” he muttered to his horse. “She’s married. She belongs to another man. I swear to God I don’t covet her. But I can’t help seeing what she is. I can’t help what my heart. ... And I can’t let High-Lo go. I’ve got to have someone to take care of.”
The leader of the mules, taking advantage of John’s silence, had slowed down, but a single shout set him to trotting again and his lazy fellows mechanically fell into step.
John tried to evade the issue into which his thoughts had just betrayed him, but the dream persisted. There was no cause for shame. He loved where love was most needed. What had happened to High-Lo in his starved childhood was happening to Mary in young womanhood. Both had ill return for what they so freely gave. That, no doubt, was the thing that drew him to them most. Yet no word of Mary’s had betrayed to him the things he knew. Newton’s actions spoke for themselves. That day at the Snake Dance when for a moment he held her in his arms should have been a revelation to him. Why had it taken more than a week for him to recall the supreme joy of a moment now gone forever? Had the knowledge of her unattainableness come between him and the rapture of that moment? He owed thanks to the Almighty that it had. For John Curry, though he acknowledged his love of Mary Newton, in no way would stop to betray another man.
“Make every experience in your life count for good,” his mother had said to him when as a boy a terrible disappointment had threatened his peace; and he had tried ever since to inculcate in his will the spirit of her words. He would make his love for Mary Newton count in that way. He would be a better man for having known her.
“Make me worthy to love her,” he whispered, his eyes on the pile of prayer rocks. And forthwith to his heart came the knowledge that already the leaven of love was working for his good.
John came upon Four Mile Wash suddenly, so engrossed was he with his thoughts. The storm that had by-passed Black Mesa had made a turgid stream where normally only a dry bed showed. The mules declared their disapproval of the unexpected crossing by halting at the top of the steep declivity which led down into the wash, and refusing stubbornly to budge from their stand. John coaxed, urged, and at last resorted to his quirt. Failing in his efforts, he gathered some sharp stones and drove the animals forward with stinging blows. The wash was so familiar to him that a glance was enough to assure him that no more than three feet of water were passing through. He knew the mules could make it easily.
The Blakely girls’ car had dug deep ruts where they had driven their way out of the wash the day before. And some half-baked horseshoe prints present there had probably been made by High-Lo’s horse a little later in the day. These signs assured Curry that he was on the right trail, even though High-Lo’s and the Blakely girls’ trails seemed to be identical.
The mules’ hoofs scattered dust over their wet thighs in their prodigious labor to gain the sunlight again. Gaining the top of the grade at last, they came to a panting stop. John favored their mood with a few minutes of rest, then sent them forward with a shout.
For a few miles the trail continued as level as a table top, and then began to climb. The rise was so imperceptible that only the distant acclivity could testify to the change. John always anticipated the change in altitude by watching for scrubby cedars and taller greasewood bushes. It was five miles to the pass from the place where the cedars first showed! New uplands bisected Black Mesa and the country of rolling rocks, and these uplands met far ahead where they formed the defile through which John must pass to reach Noname Valley. The trail led slightly to the left for a couple of miles, and Black Mesa seemed more remote the closer the intercepting highlands came. What seemed a mere angular junction viewed from the ridge above Black Mesa trading post became a huge arena encircled by massive walls of terraced red rock on which dwarf cedars grew.
Soon the leader mule was plodding up the steep part of the trail which wound around and over hillocks on its toilsome way up the mountain. From the higher level, where John again halted the pack animals for a rest, the country took on a new aspect. Black Mesa, for a while lost to view, now appeared again, grander, more indomitable than ever. The mountains of red rock were crowned with massive bald hummocks, and they turned aside to form the mouth of Noname Valley, across which cut a wonderful canyon, red-throated and marked with the green of cedar and greasewood. John continued the climb. The trail widened. Above the receding mountains of rock he saw golden spires, new red walls and startling eminences. Presently he was descending to a parklike opening bound on one side by the canyon, on the other by slopes of piñon and cedar. He had reached the camp site of Cedar Pass. Not for a moment did John entertain the thought that Hanley had camped in the open, or that he would be there now. Therefore he dismounted to reconnoiter.
He followed the hoofprints of a shod horse to a nestlike site hidden from the trail by a cluster of cedars and high brush. This place bore convincing evidence of a recent camp. Freshly opened cans, with fragments of their contents still moist, and the charred coals of a recent fire were conclusive proofs. Hoofprints of unshod horses showed on the rise above the camp, likely made by the Indians who had reported Hanley’s presence in the pass. John made a careful survey of the immediate ground. Other and larger tracks showing from another direction proved that a second shod horse had ridden that way. The first tracks mingled with these others and led away in the direction from which the second horse had come. All these tracks had been made since the last rain. High-Lo, an unbidden guest at that camp, had ridden away with his host.
Straightway John went down the hillside, following the progress of the two riders. They had crossed to the sloping wall of the canyon and passed down the canyon trail. Either they were headed somewhere along the canyon or they had crossed over the valley. Curry sat motionless for several long moments, trying to determine which route the two riders had taken and why they had taken it together.
In short order he was on the move again. A broad sheet of water collected from the storms of the week had saturated the floor of the canyon, and made tracking through the adobe mud an easy thing. A bright stream wound its noisy way down the canyon. John watered his animals there. Forward across the canyon led the tracks of the two horsemen Curry was following. What a happy coincidence that they were heading for the valley! His plan of procedure was simple enough now. It was only six miles to the cave in which he intended to cache the grain. Once relieved of his load he could hobble the mules and turn them loose, and be free to go his own way.
With the canyon behind him, John followed the familiar trail between a deep wash and the more remote hummocky hills at the foot of the billowing swells of red rock. Cedar and piñon were plentiful, and high up on the slopes were stubby pines. Noname Valley actually was a succession of valleys, wide in sweep and colorful, opening one upon another at the very places where they seemed shut off by the abutments of the red mountains that encircled them. The trail soon led away from the wash toward the foothills and the nearest defile. Midway into the foothills was the cave John sought, and his practiced eye, keen though it was, often searched and re-searched the slopes before he could locate the cleverly concealed hiding place. There was no trail. The way led over bare rocks. A clump of trees marked the place where his detour began.
Arriving there, John dismounted for a careful study of the tracks he was about to leave. To his surprise he found prints of the shod hoofs of a third horse. At times they came between the other prints, at times they completely blotted them out. The third rider was not an Indian — that was certain. Could he be following the other two? Then it might not have been High-Lo who had joined Hanley at his camp! If not, who had? And where did this third party, if it was High-Lo, cut in? John upbraided himself for being so sure of the second rider’s identity in the first instance. A little doubt would have made him observe the trail more closely.
Caching the grain was a task quickly dispatched, and John did not linger to brood over his mistake or to analyze the new complication. He mounted his horse and drove the reluctant mules over the bald surfaces of the low foothills. There was no sign of life about. The breeze had died out completely. A vast silence was suspended from the blue arch of the sky to the motionless physical features about him. Nothing moved. Only the click of his horse’s hoofs against the rock broke the deep silence. Yet John’s ear was inclined for other sounds, a trained ear waiting to receive. He had a strange apprehension that he was not as completely alone as appearances indicated. Suddenly a sharp crack sounded. Something struck a rock behind the ridge he was mounting. Crack, crack, crack, came the sound again. John, intent on the direction from which the sound had come, leaned forward in his saddle. The mules halted and John rode ahead to the top of the ridge. Then he relaxed with a laugh. On the other side of the ridge was the outlaw mule, Topsy, standing with stupidly inquisitive eyes, one ear erect, one flopping down, nonchalantly rapping her tail against the brush. Topsy was trying to find the oft-trodden way to the cave. She fell into line with a meekness that would have made the boys at the post stare open-mouthed. Her truancy had ended.
John had to rest the mules several times before he reached the cave. But once he arrived, every motion he made counted to bridge time between him and High-Lo. Cedars protected the mouth of the cave and darkened its interior. It was short of five feet in height, but extended back for quite a distance, and it kept the grain secure from any kind of exposure. John had to bend low to enter. The cave was supposed to be cleared of grain, but he could see in the semidarkness that something was stacked against the wall. Immediately unburdening himself of the pack he carried, he crawled back to investigate. He reached out against the bulk before him and withdrew with a shudder of revulsion. He had touched the form of a man that was huddled like a sack against the wall. The thought of an Indian sleeping there came as soon as the momentary horror was dispelled; but he realized at once that this was no Indian. Could it be — John’s breath was held suspended by the terrible thought. Quickly and none too gently he reached for the man and dragged him to the light. Then a terrible helplessness took possession of him.
“My God! It is High-Lo!” he muttered.
There was blood on John’s hand where he supported the boy’s head.
“Foul play!” he said aloud. “Damn them, they’ll pay for this!”
He backed out of the cave, drawing High-Lo with him. High-Lo, it soon was revealed, was not dead; his heart beat a low irregular rhythm and his pulse fluttered weakly. John was conscious of a strange rush of joy electrifying his shaken body. He could see that the blood which matted High-Lo’s curly hair came from a wound near the crown of his head. It was not a bullet wound. He had been struck with something sharp, perhaps from behind. Curry could see that even in his unconsciousness the boy’s lips were drawn tight in pain. No amount of cold water applications to his face and forehead served to revive him, so John set about cleaning the wound and binding it with strips from his cotton undershirt. Then he hobbled the mules, stacked the balance of the grain in the cave, slung High-Lo over his shoulder, and leading his horse by the reins walked with them down the slick mounds of rock to the clump of cedars that marked the trail. Eighteen miles to the post, and High-Lo unconscious — how long unconscious, only God knew! And he might never come out of it! That thought alone was staggering to John.
At the cedars he forced High-Lo into the saddle and mounted behind where he could brace the sagging form with his arms and body. Nugget was a good horse with a good trot, and John loved him more for the service he was about to render. But to trot even with the very best of horses was dangerous to anyone in High-Lo’s condition. John saw at once that High-Lo’s body, limp as a rag, registered each motion like a shock and realized that the banging contact of the boy’s head and his shoulder must be avoided. Therefore he slowed Nugget to a walk. He estimated that it was close to three o’clock when they got started, and trusted that they would make the post before nine.
