Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 910
She had no time for her own thoughts. Marvie rushed in upon her, in the kitchen, to be followed by Rose, shy, sweet, modest as the wildflower for which she was named. Already they had been out in the woods and now they were as hungry as bears. Mrs. Ide looked upon them with wonder and favor. They wanted to go to Winthrop. Would Hettie go? Rose must have clothes and books and things. How Marvie’s face glowed under his freckles! And Rose was in a transport. Had she forgotten that sordid home down in the brakes?
“Not to-day,” replied Hettie, to their importunities. “To-morrow, maybe, if Ben consents.”
“What has that Ben Ide to do with my affairs?” demanded Marvie, loftily. “I’d like to have you know I can ride for Franklidge or Tom Day or any other big rancher in Arizona.”
Hettie sensed trouble for Ben when he came to attempt reconciliation with Marvie. Ben would surely need her aid.
“Marv, boy, of course I know,” she said. “But you must use some sense. Rose is to have a home with me. And I shall take her to San Diego for the winter. I should think you would want to be near her this fall, and also go to San Diego, at least for a while.”
Marvie wilted under that. What a master-stroke, thought Hettie.
“Well, if Ben crawls to me I’ll consider comin’ back,” replied Marvie, condescendingly.
After breakfast Tom Day came over to pay his respects to Hettie and her mother. How bluff and genial and substantial he was!
“Wal, lass,” he said at parting, “I reckon the Ides an’ the Days can go back to ranchin’ again, thanks to thet Texas Jack of ours. Shore, we’ll have rustlin’ bees again an’ mebbe for years to come. But there’ll be a spell now, like these Indian-summer days. Folks can sleep an’ be happy. An’ you youngsters can make love. Haw! Haw! . . . Hettie lass, I’ve been a-wonderin’ aboot you. I’m shore a keen old fox. Wal, adios, an’ God bless you.”
Later in the morning Ben came to her so utterly abject that he was funny.
“Now what?” queried Hettie. “You needn’t come to me for sympathy.”
“Aw, Hettie, that’s what Ina said, an’ she stuck to it,” said Ben. “But I’ve got to tell somebody. An’ Nevada is moonstruck or somethin’. He never heard me.”
“All right, Bennie,” smiled Hettie, relenting.
“You know I fired Raidy — well, of course I had to go to him an’ ask him to come back. Reckon the old fellow was hurt deep. He didn’t rub it in, but he was sure cold. For a long while I apologized, made excuses, swore, an’ did about everythin’ before he would take back the old job. But at that he was nothin’ compared to Marvie Blaine.”
“Indeed! Yes, I remember you fired Marvie, too,” said Hettie.
“You would have died laughin’ to see that kid,” went on Ben, ruefully. “I sent for him. Did he come? Not much. He sent word back by my messenger that if I wanted to talk to him I could hunt him up. So I had to. An’ I’m darned if I don’t believe he watched me an’ kept dodgin’ me. Well, anyway, I found him at last an’ asked him to forget our difference. Whew! . . . Say, he’s expanded in this Arizona air. He had an argument that floored me. It was logic, though I wouldn’t admit it. He made me crawl. By George! You know I love Marvie an’ I could never let him leave Ina an’ me till he’s grown up. He had more dignity than Judge Franklidge an’ more conceit than any cowboy I ever saw. He swelled up like that Sheriff Macklin. Well, after he got his job back at a higher salary he put on the screws some more. He actually hit me for the reward I offered for any clue leadin’ to the apprehension of the Pine Tree outfit. That reward was a thousand dollars. Marvie claimed Rose was his clue. The cheeky little rooster! But Nevada backed him up. An’ as a matter of fact, ‘most everythin’ came through Rose. So I promised it to him. . . . Now what do you say?”
Hettie leaped up gladly. “Good for Marv! Now, Ben, run over and crawl to Inaa. Then we — you all can be happy again!”
“Ahuh! I get the hunch that ‘you’ aren’t included. I’ll bet before this day ends you’ll be as crazy as Marv an’ as mum as his little wood mouse, Rose.”
Still Hettie was not to have any of the solitude she craved. No sooner had Ben gone than Judge Franklidge appeared.
“I’ve come over to bid you and Mrs. Ide good-by,” he said, in his kindly way. “It has been a rather staggering time. But we’re on our feet again, and ‘ridin’ pretty,’ as the cowboys say.”
Then leaning closer to Hettie he continued in lower tone: “You recall one day at my home — when you said somethin’ mysterious to me then, but pertinent now. It was about — Nevada.”
“I remember — Judge Franklidge,” murmured Hettie, trembling.
“Well, would I be correct if I — sort of put two and two together — or perhaps I should say one and one? . . . Nevada and Hettie, for instance?”
His persuasive voice, deep with understanding, and his linking together the two names, quite subdued her poor and rebellious resistance. She dropped her head, murmuring a faint affirmative.
“I’m glad I hit upon the truth,” he said, with eagerness. “I watched you yesterday and I believe I saw then something of your ordeal. And I see now in your face the havoc that tells of your pain. It is my earnest hope to soothe that pain, Hettie Ide, and I know I can do so. Listen. It has been a terrible shock for you to find in your Texas Jack — or Nevada, as you call him — no other than the infamous or famous Jim Lacy. This is natural, but it is all wrong. There need be no shame, no fear, no shrinking in your acceptance of this fact. I’ve met and trusted no finer man than this same Jim Lacy. But I did not come to eulogize him. . . . I want to make clear in your mind just what such men as Jim Lacy mean to me. I have lived most of my life on the frontier and I know what its wilderness has been, and still is. There are bad men and bad men. It is a distinction with a vast difference. I have met or seen many of the noted killers. Wild Bill, Wess Hardin, Kingfisher, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, an’ a host of others. These men are not bloody murderers. They are a product of the times. The West could never have been populated without them. They strike a balance between the hordes of ruffians, outlaws, strong evil characters like Dillon, and the wild life of a wild era. It is the West as any Westerner knows it now. And as such we could not be pioneers, we could not progress without this violence. Without the snuffing out of dissolute and desperate men such as Dillon, Cedar Hatt, Stillwell, and so on. The rub is that only hard iron-nerved youths like Billy the Kid, or Jim Lacy, can meet such men on their own ground. That is all I wanted you to know. And also, that if my daughter cared for Jim Lacy I would be proud to give her to him.”
“Thank you, Judge Franklidge,” replied Hettie, lifting her head to look straight into his eyes. “But you misunderstand my — my case. I do not mind — that Nevada has been Jim Lacy.”
“For Heaven’s sake! Then, why all this — this — I don’t know what?” burst out the judge, in smiling amaze.
Hettie glanced away, out into the green black-striped forest.
“I scorned him. I believed him lost to — to . . . I failed in faith. And I fear he will never forgive.”
“Hettie Ide,” returned Franklidge, with solemn finality, “this Texas Jack won’t even know he has anything to forgive.”
Before Hettie could recover from this ultimatum Marvie waylaid her. Full of importance and authority, added to something of mystery, he hauled Hettie off the porch and out under the trees.
“Hettie,” he whispered in her ear, “I fixed it for you.”
“Marvie! . . . Are you — Oh, if you—”
“Keep in the saddle,” he interrupted, shaking her. “Nevada just told me he was dyin’ of love for you. . . . There now, Hettie, don’t look like that. I’m dead serious. Honest to God! Cross my heart! . . . Didn’t you make my Rose happy? Why, I’d go to hell for you. An’ Nevada knows it. He’s sufferin’. He thinks you ought to send for him, if you can forgive him for bein’ Jim Lacy.”
Hettie could only cling mutely to this glad-eyed boy who was torturing her.
“So I fixed it. You run out there across the bench,” he went on, pointing with eager, trembling finger. “You know. There among the pines where I always find you. Go now. Nevada is watchin’. He’ll come. I swore I’d get you there if I had to pack you. An’ I will.”
Hettie kissed his brown lean cheek, then ran wildly into the shelter of the pines. First she meant only to escape Marvie and all of them. But an irresistible magnet drew her to the secluded nook where she went so often alone to gaze out under the low cover of green to the purple sage and the changing radiance of the desert.
Nevada was there — somehow the Nevada of old. Hettie ran into his arms.
“I — love — you! I love you!” she cried, imploringly. “Forgive me. It was my one failure. I was the weak one — not you.”
Hours passed and sunset again widened its golden effulgence down over the sage hills to the rolling slopes. Purple clouds like ships sailed in a sea of gold and rose.
Hettie and Nevada sat with their backs to the great pine tree, their cheeks together, their hands clinging.
“Ben sprung somethin’ on me,” Nevada was saying. “Why not all of us rustle down to San Diego! Shore, it floored me. . . . But I’d like you to get away from heah just now, for a little. . . . So, darlin’ Hettie, would I be askin’ too much if — if—”
“No. Ask me anything,” murmured Hettie.
“If I’d ask you to marry me?”
“If! . . . Do you?”
“Shore. I reckon I’m darin’ to.”
“No,” said Hettie.
He accepted that in startled silence.
“I mean no — you are not asking too much. . . . Oh, Nevada! Yes! Yes!”
The last golden flare of sunset burned from over the darkening range.
“Arizona is smilin’ at us,” said Nevada, gazing at the sunset glow upon her rapt face.
“Nevada is smiling down upon me,” she replied, dreamily.
THE END
Avalanche
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER I
NOT MANY YEARS after General Crook drove out the last wild remnant of the Apache Indian tribe, the old Apache trail from the Mogollons across the Tonto Basin to the Four Peaks country had become a wagon road for the pioneer cattlemen and sheepmen who were drifting into the country.
Jacob Dunton and his family made camp one day at the crossing of the Verde. The country began to have a captivating look for this Kansas farmer. From the rim top his keen eyes had sighted a brook meandering through grassy clearings in the dark green forest below. His wife Jane and Jake, their six-year-old boy, were tired from the long journey, and a few days rest would be good for them… While they recuperated in camp Jacob rode up toward the rim, finding the magnificent forest, the deep canyons and grassy swales, the abundance of game, much to his liking.
Upon his return one day he found Jake playing with a handsome, curly-haired lad, perhaps a year older than himself.
“Hullo, whose kid is thet?” he asked his pioneer wife, who was still young, buxom, and comely.
“I don’t know,” she replied anxiously. “There have been several wagon trains passing by today. They stopped, of course, for water.”
“Reckon this boy got lost an’ hasn’t been missed yet.” replied Dunton. “There’ll be someone ridin’ back for him.”
But no inquiring rider visited the Dunton camp that day, nor the next, nor the day following.
“Jake, what’s your new pard’s name?” Dunton had inquired of his son.
“I dunno. He won’t tell,” replied Jake. Name obviously did not matter to this youngster. He was too happy with his playmate to care about superficials.
Mrs. Dunton managed to elicit from the lost boy the name Dodge, but she could not be sure whether that was a family name or one belonging to a place. The lad was exceedingly shy and strange. A most singular thing appeared to be his fear of grown people.
Dunton had decided to homestead in a beautiful valley up the creek, yet he was in no hurry to move. By the wagon trains and travelers who passed his campground he sent on word of the lost boy, Dodge. No one, however, returned to claim him.
“Jane, I’ve a hunch his people, if he had any, don’t want him back,” said Dunton seriously to his wife one day.
“Oh, no! Not such a pretty, dear little boy!” she remonstrated.
“Wal, you can never tell. Mebbe he didn’t have no folks. I don’t know just what to do about it. I cain’t go travelin’ all over the country lookin’ for a lost boy’s people. It’s gettin time for me to locate an’ run up a cabin.”
“We can keep him until somebody does come after him,” said Jane. “He and Jake sure have cottoned to each other. An’ you know our Jake was always a stand-offish boy.”
“Suits me,” replied the pioneer, and forthwith he fashioned a rude sign upon which he cut the words LOST BOY, and an arrow pointing up the creek. This he nailed upon a tree close to where the creek crossed the road. With this duty accomplished he addressed himself to the arduous task of getting his family and outfit up to the site he had chosen for a homestead.
Little Jake called his new playmate Verde, and the name stuck. No anxious father came to claim Verde. In time, and for long after the rude sign had rotted away, the crossing by the road was known as Lost Boy Ford.
The years passed. Ranches began to dot the vast, timbered Tonto Basin, though relatively few in number, owing to the widely scattered bits of arable land with available water. A few settlements, even far more widely separated, sprang up in advantageous places. Wagon trains ceased to roll down over the purple rim and on down through the endless forest to the open country beyond the ranges. The pioneers from the Middle West came no more.
The Tonto remained almost as isolated as before its domain had been invaded. In one way it was as wild as ever it had been in the heyday of Geronimo and his fierce Apaches; and this was because of the rustler bands that found a rendezvous in the almost inaccessible canyons under the rim. They preyed upon the cattlemen and sheepmen, who would have waxed prosperous but for their depredations. Jacob Dunton was one of the ranchers who was kept poor by these cattle-stealing marauders. But despite his losses he could see that the day of the rustler was waning. In fact, the tragic Pleasant Valley War, which was heralded throughout the West as a battle between cattlemen and sheepmen, was really between the ranchers and the rustlers, and it forever broke the stranglehold of the livestock thieves. Slowly the Tonto began to recover, and it began to hold promise for the far future.
Jake and Verde were raised together in a log cabin that nestled under the towering gold and yellow craggy rim. The brook that passed their home roared in spring with the melting snows and sang musically all during the other seasons.
The boys grew up with the deer and the bear and the wild turkeys which ranged their pasture land with the calves and colts. They learned how to track animals as other boys learned to play games. It was to be part of their lives. They hunted and trapped before they even know how to read. In fact, the few summers’ schooling they managed to get did not come until they were between twelve and sixteen years old.
Both of them grew into the rangy, long-limbed type peculiar to the region. The Tonto type was a composite of rider and hunter, wood chopper and calf brander, with perhaps more of the backwoods stamp than that of the range.
Jake, at twenty-two, was a lithe, narrow-hipped, wide shouldered young giant, six feet tall, with as rugged and homely a face as the bark of one of the pines under which he had grown to manhood. He had a mat of coarse hair, beetling brows, a huge nose, and a wide mouth. But his eyes, if closely looked into, made up for his other possible defects. They were clear gray, intent and piercing, even beautiful in their latent light.
Verde, at twenty-three, was a couple of inches shorter than Jake, a little heavier, yet of the same supple, lithe build, fair and curly-haired, ruddy-cheeked, with eyes of flashing blue, handsome as a young woodland god.
And these two, from the day of their strange meeting at Lost Boy Ford to the years of their manhood, had been inseparable. No real blood brothers could have been closer.
Jake liked hunting best of all work or play, while Verde inclined to horses. Being a born horse-man, naturally he gravitated toward riding the range. Jake was the most proficient with rifle and six-shooter, as he was also with everything pertaining to trapping wild animals. Verde had no peer in the use of a lasso. He could rope and throw and tie a steer in record time. Jake’s father called Verde the champion “bulldogger” of the Tonto. Verde was not so good with an ax as Jake, but he could mow his way down a field of sorghum far ahead of Jake.
Thus the two of them, with their opposite tastes and abilities, made a team for Jacob Dunton that Thus the two of them, with their opposite tastes and abilities, made a team for Jacob Dunton that could not have been equaled in all of the Tonto Basin. Long ago Dunton had abandoned any hope of ever learning Verde’s parentage. In fact, he did not want to. Verde was as his own son. And Verde had all but forgotten the mystery behind his boyhood.
The Duntons had no other children; and the great herd of cattle they hoped to amass someday would belong equally to Jake and Verde.
In spring, after the roundup, which was a long arduous task, owing to the wild timberland and rough canyons where the cattle ranged, there would be the plowing and the planting, the clearing of more land, the building of fences. In the fall would come the harvesting, which time, of all seasons, these backwoods pioneers loved best. They had their husking bees and bean picking parties and sorghum-cutting rivalries — and their dances, which were the very heart of their lives. In late fall they killed pigs and beeves and deer for their winter meat; and from then on to spring again they chopped wood and toasted their shins before the open fireplace.
