Zane Grey (16 page)

"Wal," broke in Bruce, sullenly. "You-all can take it daid straight or
not. I don't give a damn. But you've shore got my hunch thet Nez
Perce Isbel is liable to handle any of you fellars jest as he did me,
an' jest as easy. What's more, he's got Greaves figgered. An' you-all
know thet Greaves is as deep in—"

"Shut up that kind of gab," demanded Jorth, stridently. "An' answer
me. Was the row in Greaves's barroom aboot sheep?"

"Aw, hell! I said so, didn't I?" shouted Bruce, with a fierce uplift
of his distorted face.

Ellen strode out from the shadow of the tall men who had obscured her.

"Bruce, y'u're a liar," she said, bitingly.

The surprise of her sudden appearance seemed to root Bruce to the spot.
All but the discolored places on his face turned white. He held his
breath a moment, then expelled it hard. His effort to recover from the
shock was painfully obvious. He stammered incoherently.

"Shore y'u're more than a liar, too," cried Ellen, facing him with
blazing eyes. And the rifle, gripped in both hands, seemed to declare
her intent of menace. "That row was not about sheep.... Jean Isbel
didn't beat y'u for anythin' about sheep.... Old John Sprague was in
Greaves's store. He heard y'u. He saw Jean Isbel beat y'u as y'u
deserved.... An' he told ME!"

Ellen saw Bruce shrink in fear of his life; and despite her fury she
was filled with disgust that he could imagine she would have his blood
on her hands. Then she divined that Bruce saw more in the gathering
storm in her father's eyes than he had to fear from her.

"Girl, what the hell are y'u sayin'?" hoarsely called Jorth, in dark
amaze.

"Dad, y'u leave this to me," she retorted.

Daggs stepped beside Jorth, significantly on his right side. "Let her
alone Lee," he advised, coolly. "She's shore got a hunch on Bruce."

"Simm Bruce, y'u cast a dirty slur on my name," cried Ellen,
passionately.

It was then that Daggs grasped Jorth's right arm and held it tight,
"Jest what I thought," he said. "Stand still, Lee. Let's see the kid
make him showdown."

"That's what jean Isbel beat y'u for," went on Ellen. "For slandering
a girl who wasn't there.... Me! Y'u rotten liar!"

"But, Ellen, it wasn't all lies," said Bruce, huskily. "I was half
drunk—an' horrible jealous.... You know Lorenzo seen Isbel kissin'
you. I can prove thet."

Ellen threw up her head and a scarlet wave of shame and wrath flooded
her face.

"Yes," she cried, ringingly. "He saw Jean Isbel kiss me. Once! ... An'
it was the only decent kiss I've had in years. He meant no insult. I
didn't know who he was. An' through his kiss I learned a difference
between men.... Y'u made Lorenzo lie. An' if I had a shred of good
name left in Grass Valley you dishonored it.... Y'u made him think I
was your girl! Damn y'u! I ought to kill y'u.... Eat your words
now—take them back—or I'll cripple y'u for life!"

Ellen lowered the cocked rifle toward his feet.

"Shore, Ellen, I take back—all I said," gulped Bruce. He gazed at the
quivering rifle barrel and then into the face of Ellen's father.
Instinct told him where his real peril lay.

Here the cool and tactful Daggs showed himself master of the situation.

"Heah, listen!" he called. "Ellen, I reckon Bruce was drunk an' out of
his haid. He's shore ate his words. Now, we don't want any cripples
in this camp. Let him alone. Your dad got me heah to lead the Jorths,
an' that's my say to you.... Simm, you're shore a low-down lyin'
rascal. Keep away from Ellen after this or I'll bore you myself....
Jorth, it won't be a bad idee for you to forget you're a Texan till you
cool off. Let Bruce stop some Isbel lead. Shore the Jorth-Isbel war
is aboot on, an' I reckon we'd be smart to believe old Gass's talk
aboot his Nez Perce son."

From this hour Ellen Jorth bent all of her lately awakened intelligence
and will to the only end that seemed to hold possible salvation for
her. In the crisis sure to come she did not want to be blind or weak.
Dreaming and indolence, habits born in her which were often a comfort
to one as lonely as she, would ill fit her for the hard test she
divined and dreaded. In the matter of her father's fight she must
stand by him whatever the issue or the outcome; in what pertained to
her own principles, her womanhood, and her soul she stood absolutely
alone.

Therefore, Ellen put dreams aside, and indolence of mind and body
behind her. Many tasks she found, and when these were done for a day
she kept active in other ways, thus earning the poise and peace of
labor.

Jorth rode off every day, sometimes with one or two of the men, often
with a larger number. If he spoke of such trips to Ellen it was to
give an impression of visiting the ranches of his neighbors or the
various sheep camps. Often he did not return the day he left. When he
did get back he smelled of rum and appeared heavy from need of sleep.
His horses were always dust and sweat covered. During his absences
Ellen fell victim to anxious dread until he returned. Daily he grew
darker and more haggard of face, more obsessed by some impending fate.
Often he stayed up late, haranguing with the men in the dim-lit cabin,
where they drank and smoked, but seldom gambled any more. When the men
did not gamble something immediate and perturbing was on their minds.
Ellen had not yet lowered herself to the deceit and suspicion of
eavesdropping, but she realized that there was a climax approaching in
which she would deliberately do so.

In those closing May days Ellen learned the significance of many things
that previously she had taken as a matter of course. Her father did
not run a ranch. There was absolutely no ranching done, and little
work. Often Ellen had to chop wood herself. Jorth did not possess a
plow. Ellen was bound to confess that the evidence of this lack
dumfounded her. Even old John Sprague raised some hay, beets, turnips.
Jorth's cattle and horses fared ill during the winter. Ellen
remembered how they used to clean up four-inch oak saplings and aspens.
Many of them died in the snow. The flocks of sheep, however, were
driven down into the Basin in the fall, and across the Reno Pass to
Phoenix and Maricopa.

Ellen could not discover a fence post on the ranch, nor a piece of salt
for the horses and cattle, nor a wagon, nor any sign of a
sheep-shearing outfit. She had never seen any sheep sheared. Ellen
could never keep track of the many and different horses running loose
and hobbled round the ranch. There were droves of horses in the woods,
and some of them wild as deer. According to her long-established
understanding, her father and her uncles were keen on horse trading and
buying.

Then the many trails leading away from the Jorth ranch—these grew to
have a fascination for Ellen; and the time came when she rode out on
them to see for herself where they led. The sheep ranch of Daggs,
supposed to be only a few miles across the ridges, down in Bear Canyon,
never materialized at all for Ellen. This circumstance so interested
her that she went up to see her friend Sprague and got him to direct
her to Bear Canyon, so that she would be sure not to miss it. And she
rode from the narrow, maple-thicketed head of it near the Rim down all
its length. She found no ranch, no cabin, not even a corral in Bear
Canyon. Sprague said there was only one canyon by that name. Daggs
had assured her of the exact location on his place, and so had her
father. Had they lied? Were they mistaken in the canyon? There were
many canyons, all heading up near the Rim, all running and widening
down for miles through the wooded mountain, and vastly different from
the deep, short, yellow-walled gorges that cut into the Rim from the
Basin side. Ellen investigated the canyons within six or eight miles of
her home, both to east and to west. All she discovered was a couple of
old log cabins, long deserted. Still, she did not follow out all the
trails to their ends. Several of them led far into the deepest,
roughest, wildest brakes of gorge and thicket that she had seen. No
cattle or sheep had ever been driven over these trails.

This riding around of Ellen's at length got to her father's ears. Ellen
expected that a bitter quarrel would ensue, for she certainly would
refuse to be confined to the camp; but her father only asked her to
limit her riding to the meadow valley, and straightway forgot all about
it. In fact, his abstraction one moment, his intense nervousness the
next, his harder drinking and fiercer harangues with the men, grew to
be distressing for Ellen. They presaged his further deterioration and
the ever-present evil of the growing feud.

One day Jorth rode home in the early morning, after an absence of two
nights. Ellen heard the clip-clop of, horses long before she saw them.

"Hey, Ellen! Come out heah," called her father.

Ellen left her work and went outside. A stranger had ridden in with
her father, a young giant whose sharp-featured face appeared marked by
ferret-like eyes and a fine, light, fuzzy beard. He was long, loose
jointed, not heavy of build, and he had the largest hands and feet
Ellen bad ever seen. Next Ellen espied a black horse they had
evidently brought with them. Her father was holding a rope halter. At
once the black horse struck Ellen as being a beauty and a thoroughbred.

"Ellen, heah's a horse for you," said Jorth, with something of pride.
"I made a trade. Reckon I wanted him myself, but he's too gentle for
me an' maybe a little small for my weight."

Delight visited Ellen for the first time in many days. Seldom had she
owned a good horse, and never one like this.

"Oh, dad!" she exclaimed, in her gratitude.

"Shore he's yours on one condition," said her father.

"What's that?" asked Ellen, as she laid caressing hands on the restless
horse.

"You're not to ride him out of the canyon."

"Agreed.... All daid black, isn't he, except that white face? What's
his name, dad?

"I forgot to ask," replied Jorth, as he began unsaddling his own horse.
"Slater, what's this heah black's name?"

The lanky giant grinned. "I reckon it was Spades."

"Spades?" ejaculated Ellen, blankly. "What a name! ... Well, I guess
it's as good as any. He's shore black."

"Ellen, keep him hobbled when you're not ridin' him," was her father's
parting advice as he walked off with the stranger.

Spades was wet and dusty and his satiny skin quivered. He had fine,
dark, intelligent eyes that watched Ellen's every move. She knew how
her father and his friends dragged and jammed horses through the woods
and over the rough trails. It did not take her long to discover that
this horse had been a pet. Ellen cleaned his coat and brushed him and
fed him. Then she fitted her bridle to suit his head and saddled him.
His evident response to her kindness assured her that he was gentle, so
she mounted and rode him, to discover he had the easiest gait she had
ever experienced. He walked and trotted to suit her will, but when
left to choose his own gait he fell into a graceful little pace that
was very easy for her. He appeared quite ready to break into a run at
her slightest bidding, but Ellen satisfied herself on this first ride
with his slower gaits.

"Spades, y'u've shore cut out my burro Jinny," said Ellen, regretfully.
"Well, I reckon women are fickle."

Next day she rode up the canyon to show Spades to her friend John
Sprague. The old burro breeder was not at home. As his door was open,
however, and a fire smoldering, Ellen concluded he would soon return.
So she waited. Dismounting, she left Spades free to graze on the new
green grass that carpeted the ground. The cabin and little level
clearing accentuated the loneliness and wildness of the forest. Ellen
always liked it here and had once been in the habit of visiting the old
man often. But of late she had stayed away, for the reason that
Sprague's talk and his news and his poorly hidden pity depressed her.

Presently she heard hoof beats on the hard, packed trail leading down
the canyon in the direction from which she had come. Scarcely likely
was it that Sprague should return from this direction. Ellen thought
her father had sent one of the herders for her. But when she caught a
glimpse of the approaching horseman, down in the aspens, she failed to
recognize him. After he had passed one of the openings she heard his
horse stop. Probably the man had seen her; at least she could not
otherwise account for his stopping. The glimpse she had of him had
given her the impression that he was bending over, peering ahead in the
trail, looking for tracks. Then she heard the rider come on again,
more slowly this time. At length the horse trotted out into the
opening, to be hauled up short. Ellen recognized the buckskin-clad
figure, the broad shoulders, the dark face of Jean Isbel.

Ellen felt prey to the strangest quaking sensation she had ever
suffered. It took violence of her new-born spirit to subdue that
feeling.

Isbel rode slowly across the clearing toward her. For Ellen his
approach seemed singularly swift—so swift that her surprise, dismay,
conjecture, and anger obstructed her will. The outwardly calm and cold
Ellen Jorth was a travesty that mocked her—that she felt he would
discern.

The moment Isbel drew close enough for Ellen to see his face she
experienced a strong, shuddering repetition of her first shock of
recognition. He was not the same. The light, the youth was gone.
This, however, did not cause her emotion. Was it not a sudden
transition of her nature to the dominance of hate? Ellen seemed to
feel the shadow of her unknown self standing with her.

Isbel halted his horse. Ellen had been standing near the trunk of a
fallen pine and she instinctively backed against it. How her legs
trembled! Isbel took off his cap and crushed it nervously in his bare,
brown hand.