Zane Grey (3 page)

"Mother Mary, the lad's hungry. Judith, Esther, where are your wits?
Help your mother. Mescal, wait on him, see to his comfort."

Mescal brought a little table and a pillow, and the other girls soon
followed with food and drink; then they hovered about, absorbed in caring
for him.

"They said I fell among thieves," mused Hare, when he was once more
alone. "I've fallen among saints as well." He felt that he could never
repay this August Naab. "If only I might live!" he ejaculated. How
restful was this cottage garden! The green sward was a balm to his eyes.
Flowers new to him, though of familiar springtime hue, lifted fresh faces
everywhere; fruit-trees, with branches intermingling, blended the white
and pink of blossoms. There was the soft laughter of children in the
garden. Strange birds darted among the trees. Their notes were new, but
their song was the old delicious monotone—the joy of living and love of
spring. A green-bowered irrigation ditch led by the porch and unseen
water flowed gently, with gurgle and tinkle, with music in its hurry.
Innumerable bees murmured amid the blossoms.

Hare fell asleep. Upon returning drowsily to consciousness he caught
through half-open eyes the gleam of level shafts of gold sunlight low
down in the trees; then he felt himself being carried into the house to
be laid upon a bed. Some one gently unbuttoned his shirt at the neck,
removed his shoes, and covered him with a blanket. Before he had fully
awakened he was left alone, and quiet settled over the house. A
languorous sense of ease and rest lulled him to sleep again. In another
moment, it seemed to him, he was awake; bright daylight streamed through
the window, and a morning breeze stirred the faded curtain.

The drag in his breathing which was always a forerunner of a
coughing-spell warned him now; he put on coat and shoes and went outside,
where his cough attacked him, had its sway, and left him.

"Good-morning," sang out August Naab's cheery voice. "Sixteen hours of
sleep, my lad!"

"I did sleep, didn't I? No wonder I feel well this morning. A
peculiarity of my illness is that one day I'm down, the next day up."

"With the goodness of God, my lad, we'll gradually increase the days up.
Go in to breakfast. Afterward I want to talk to you. This'll be a busy
day for me, shoeing the horses and packing supplies. I want to start for
home to-morrow."

Hare pondered over Naab's words while he ate. The suggestion in them,
implying a relation to his future, made him wonder if the good Mormon
intended to take him to his desert home. He hoped so, and warmed anew to
this friend. But he had no enthusiasm for himself; his future seemed
hopeless.

Naab was waiting for him on the porch, and drew him away from the cottage
down the path toward the gate.

"I want you to go home with me."

"You're kind—I'm only a sort of beggar—I've no strength left to work my
way. I'll go—though it's only to die."

"I haven't the gift of revelation—yet somehow I see that you won't die
of this illness. You will come home with me. It's a beautiful place, my
Navajo oasis. The Indians call it the Garden of Eschtah. If you can get
well anywhere it'll be there."

"I'll go but I ought not. What can I do for you?

"No man can ever tell what he may do for another. The time may come—
well, John, is it settled?" He offered his huge broad hand.

"It's settled—I—" Hare faltered as he put his hand in Naab's. The
Mormon's grip straightened his frame and braced him. Strength and
simplicity flowed from the giant's toil-hardened palm. Hare swallowed
his thanks along with his emotion, and for what he had intended to say he
substituted: "No one ever called me John. I don't know the name. Call
me Jack."

"Very well, Jack, and now let's see. You'll need some things from the
store. Can you come with me? It's not far."

"Surely. And now what I need most is a razor to scrape the alkali and
stubble off my face."

The wide street, bordered by cottages peeping out of green and white
orchards, stretched in a straight line to the base of the ascent which
led up to the Pink Cliffs. A green square enclosed a gray church, a
school-house and public hall. Farther down the main thoroughfare were
several weather-boarded whitewashed stores. Two dusty men were riding
along, one on each side of the wildest, most vicious little horse Hare
had ever seen. It reared and bucked and kicked, trying to escape from
two lassoes. In front of the largest store were a number of mustangs all
standing free, with bridles thrown over their heads and trailing on the
ground. The loungers leaning against the railing and about the doors
were lank brown men very like Naab's sons. Some wore sheepskin "chaps,"
some blue overalls; all wore boots and spurs, wide soft hats, and in
their belts, far to the back, hung large Colt's revolvers.

"We'll buy what you need, just as if you expected to ride the ranges for
me to-morrow," said Naab. "The first thing we ask a new man is, can he
ride? Next, can he shoot?"

"I could ride before I got so weak. I've never handled a revolver, but I
can shoot a rifle. Never shot at anything except targets, and it seemed
to come natural for me to hit them."

"Good. We'll show you some targets—lions, bears, deer, cats, wolves.
There's a fine forty-four Winchester here that my friend Abe has been
trying to sell. It has a long barrel and weighs eight pounds. Our
desert riders like the light carbines that go easy on a saddle. Most of
the mustangs aren't weight-carriers. This rifle has a great range; I've
shot it, and it's just the gun for you to use on wolves and coyotes.
You'll need a Colt and a saddle, too."

"By-the-way," he went on, as they mounted the store steps, "here's the
kind of money we use in this country." He handed Hare a slip of blue
paper, a written check for a sum of money, signed, but without register
of bank or name of firm. "We don't use real money," he added. "There's
very little coin or currency in southern Utah. Most of the Gentiles
lately come in have money, and some of us Mormons have a bag or two of
gold, but scarcely any of it gets into circulation. We use these checks,
which go from man to man sometimes for six months. The roundup of a check
means sheep, cattle, horses, grain, merchandise or labor. Every man gets
his real money's value without paying out an actual cent."

"Such a system at least means honest men," said Hare, laughing his
surprise.

They went into a wide door to tread a maze of narrow aisles between boxes
and barrels, stacks of canned vegetables, and piles of harness and dry
goods; they entered an open space where several men leaned on a counter.

"Hello, Abe," said Naab; "seen anything of Snap?"

"Hello, August. Yes, Snap's inside. So's Holderness. Says he rode in
off the range on purpose to see you." Abe designated an open doorway from
which issued loud voices. Hare glanced into a long narrow room full of
smoke and the fumes of rum. Through the haze he made out a crowd of men
at a rude bar. Abe went to the door and called out: "Hey, Snap, your dad
wants you. Holderness, here's August Naab."

A man staggered up the few steps leading to the store and swayed in. His
long face had a hawkish cast, and it was gray, not with age, but with the
sage-gray of the desert. His eyes were of the same hue, cold yet burning
with little fiery flecks in their depths. He appeared short of stature
because of a curvature of the spine, but straightened up he would have
been tall. He wore a blue flannel shirt, and blue overalls; round his
lean hips was a belt holding two Colt's revolvers, their heavy, dark
butts projecting outward, and he had on high boots with long, cruel
spurs.

"Howdy, father?" he said.

"I'm packing to-day," returned August Naab. "We ride out to-morrow. I
need your help."

"All-l right. When I get my pinto from Larsen."

"Never mind Larsen. If he got the better of you let the matter drop."

"Jeff got my pinto for a mustang with three legs. If I hadn't been drunk
I'd never have traded. So I'm looking for Jeff."

He bit out the last words with a peculiar snap of his long teeth, a
circumstance which caused Hare instantly to associate the savage clicking
with the name he had heard given this man. August Naab looked at him with
gloomy eyes and stern shut mouth, an expression of righteous anger,
helplessness and grief combined, the look of a man to whom obstacles had
been nothing, at last confronted with crowning defeat. Hare realized that
this son was Naab's first-born, best-loved, a thorn in his side, a black
sheep.

"Say, father, is that the spy you found on the trail?" Snap's pale eyes
gleamed on Hare and the little flames seemed to darken and leap.

"This is John Hare, the young man I found. But he's not a spy."

"You can't make any one believe that. He's down as a spy. Dene's spy!
His name's gone over the ranges as a counter of unbranded stock. Dene
has named him and Dene has marked him. Don't take him home, as you've
taken so many sick and hunted men before. What's the good of it? You
never made a Mormon of one of them yet. Don't take him—unless you want
another grave for your cemetery. Ha! Ha!"

Hare recoiled with a shock. Snap Naab swayed to the door, and stepped
down, all the time with his face over his shoulder, his baleful glance on
Hare; then the blue haze swallowed him.

The several loungers went out; August engaged the storekeeper in
conversation, introducing Hare and explaining their wants. They
inspected the various needs of a range-rider, selecting, in the end, not
the few suggested by Hare, but the many chosen by Naab. The last
purchase was the rifle Naab had talked about. It was a beautiful weapon,
finely polished and carved, entirely out of place among the plain
coarse-sighted and coarse-stocked guns in the rack.

"Never had a chance to sell it," said Abe. "Too long and heavy for the
riders. I'll let it go cheap, half price, and the cartridges also, two
thousand."

"Taken," replied Naab, quickly, with a satisfaction which showed he liked
a bargain.

"August, you must be going to shoot some?" queried Abe. "Something
bigger than rabbits and coyotes. Its about time—even if you are an
Elder. We Mormons must—" he broke off, continuing in a low tone: "Here's
Holderness now."

Hare wheeled with the interest that had gathered with the reiteration of
this man's name. A new-comer stooped to get in the door. He out-topped
even Naab in height, and was a superb blond-bearded man, striding with
the spring of a mountaineer.

"Good-day to you, Naab," he said. "Is this the young fellow you picked
up?"

"Yes. Jack Hare," rejoined Naab.

"Well, Hare, I'm Holderness. You'll recall my name. You were sent to Lund
by men interested in my ranges. I expected to see you in Lund, but
couldn't get over."

Hare met the proffered hand with his own, and as he had recoiled from
Snap Naab so now he received another shock, different indeed but
impelling in its power, instinctive of some great portent. Hare was
impressed by an indefinable subtlety, a nameless distrust, as colorless
as the clear penetrating amber lightness of the eyes that bent upon him.

"Holderness, will you right the story about Hare?" inquired Naab.

"You mean about his being a spy? Well, Naab, the truth is that was his
job. I advised against sending a man down here for that sort of work.
It won't do. These Mormons will steal each other's cattle, and they've
got to get rid of them; so they won't have a man taking account of stock,
brands, and all that. If the Mormons would stand for it the rustlers
wouldn't. I'll take Hare out to the ranch and give him work, if he
wants. But he'd do best to leave Utah."

"Thank you, no," replied Hare, decidedly.

"He's going with me," said August Naab.

Holderness accepted this with an almost imperceptible nod, and he swept
Hare with eyes that searched and probed for latent possibilities. It was
the keen intelligence of a man who knew what development meant on the
desert; not in any sense an interest in the young man at present. Then
he turned his back.

Hare, feeling that Holderness wished to talk with Naab, walked to the
counter, and began assorting his purchases, but he could not help hearing
what was said.

"Lungs bad?" queried Holderness.

"One of them," replied Naab.

"He's all in. Better send him out of the country. He's got the name of
Dene's spy and he'll never get another on this desert. Dene will kill
him. This isn't good judgment, Naab, to take him with you. Even your
friends don't like it, and it means trouble for you."

"We've settled it," said Naab, coldly.

"Well, remember, I've warned you. I've tried to be friendly with you,
Naab, but you won't have it. Anyway, I've wanted to see you lately to
find out how we stand."

"What do you mean?"

"How we stand on several things—to begin with, there Mescal."

"You asked me several times for Mescal, and I said no."

"But I never said I'd marry her. Now I want her, and I will marry her."

"No," rejoined Naab, adding brevity to his coldness.

"Why not?" demanded Holderness. "Oh, well, I can't take that as an
insult. I know there's not enough money in Utah to get a girl away from
a Mormon. . . . About the offer for the water-rights—how do we stand?
I'll give you ten thousand dollars for the rights to Seeping Springs and
Silver Cup."

"Ten thousand!" ejaculated Naab. "Holderness, I wouldn't take a hundred
thousand. You might as well ask to buy my home, my stock, my range,
twenty years of toil, for ten thousand dollars!"

"You refuse? All right. I think I've made you a fair proposition," said
Holderness, in a smooth, quick tone. "The land is owned by the
Government, and though your ranges are across the Arizona line they
really figure as Utah land. My company's spending big money, and the
Government won't let you have a monopoly. No one man can control the
water-supply of a hundred miles of range. Times are changing. You want
to see that. You ought to protect yourself before it's too late."