Читать книгу The Arizona Clan - Zane Grey - Страница 4

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Morning, however, found Dodge Mercer in a different mood. He decided he would not wander far from this valley.

He had breakfast early with the lad Tom and accompanied him to the barn to saddle Baldy.

“Air you ridin’ on through, mister?” inquired the lad.

“Well, Tom, I reckon not, if I can find a job,” replied Mercer.

“Aw, jobs air easy hyarabouts. You jest ride oot to Rock Lilley’s an’ hit him.”

“Ahuh. An’ why’re you recommending him?”

“Wal, it’s whar I’d go if I was big. I’ve hunted wild turkeys out thar. Wonderfullest place, jest between the Rock Rim an’ the Bald Ridges.”

“What else besides wild turkeys?”

“Laws, all kinds of game. An’ peaches, watermelons, cabbage as big at thet, an’ beans. Wait till you pile into a mess of beans Mrs. Lilley cooks!”

“Anything more, Tom? You got my mouth watering now.”

“Wal, if I’m any judge of fellars you’d shore never pass up all that an’ Nan Lilley, too.”

“Ah, I see,” replied Dodge casually. “Tom, here’s a dollar. You’re a boy after my own heart. And who’s Nan Lilley?”

“Nan’s one of old Rock’s dotters,” whispered Tom excitedly. “She’s jest come back from Texas. I was too little when she went away. But she remembers me. Says she was fond of me. An’, Mister, Nan’s in a peck of trouble. I jest wisht you was a feller who’d follered her up from Texas.”

Shrewd, bright, calculating eyes took stock of Mercer and somehow made him noncommittal.

“Trouble? Seems like I’ve heard that word somewhere. What’s your girl friend’s particular brand?”

“I don’t know shore, mister. An’ I’m scared to say what I think. But I’ll take a chanct on you. I’ve a hunch Nan’s trouble comes from white mule an’ Buck Hathaway.”

“One at a time, lad. What’s this white mule?”

“You’ll find out pronto. I’m not a squealer. But Buck Hathaway is the meanest fellar in this valley. He beats hosses an’ kicks kids. He gambles an’ he’s a shooter, too, as everyone knows. The onliest thing he don’t do is drink. Wal, Buck sort of took Nan Lilley to hisself, so they say. The fust dance after she got back he seen her an’ he licked three fellars an’ shot another—Jim Snecker, a cousin of mine. Crippled him. They say—these old wimmen hyar—that Nan is sweet on Buck. But I don’t believe it. I seen Nan twice in town an’ onct out to her home, in the woods, an’ she cried an’ cried. Ole Rock sets a heap o’ store on Buck Hathaway. An’ mebbe he means Nan fer Buck.”

“Boy, how do you know Nan isn’t sweet on Hathaway?” queried Dodge severely.

“Wal, I jest feel it. Don’t you give me away, mister. I only had a hunch aboot you, too.”

“Suppose you take me out to see her.”

“Laws, I wisht I could. But I’ve gotta work. An’ Pop’s been drinkin’.”

“How’ll I find this Lilley ranch?”

“It’s easy, mister, onct you’re told. You cain’t miss it. Take this road oot hyar—thet way—an’ turn off fust road left. Go on till you come to the end. Thar’s an ole log cabin an’ two trails. Take the left agin an’ keep on. It crosses the crick a lot of times, but you cain’t miss findin’ it. After a while you come to Rock’s place.”

“That’s clear. But how’ll I know your friend Nan?”

“Oh, lud, mister! You’d know her if you found her with a hundred gurls. She’s jest lovely.”

“All right, Tom, I’ll take you up,” replied Mercer, half-amused and half-earnest. “See you don’t give me away.”

“Laws, I won’t never,” rejoined the lad, his freckles standing out on his pale face and his eyes glowing. He hovered around Dodge while the saddle and bridle went on. And when Dodge mounted he concluded: “Ride oot the back way, mister. Folks is awful curious hyar. You kin hit the road by turnin’ off where the pasture fence ends. Tell Nan I sent you.”

Mercer bade the lad good-by and headed off as directed, making the road without having seen the town or any of its denizens by daylight. He had embarked on too many adventures not to recognize this as one. In any event, however, he would have called on both the Lilleys and the Hathaways before leaving the valley.

The morning was cool, with the air keen and sweet. Clear sky gave promise of another hot day. Colts were romping in a pasture and somewhere a burro let out his clarion blast. Mercer passed some cabins, and at length a ranch house back under a ridge pleasantly located amid corrals and fields. The sun had not yet topped the black-fringed plateau in the east. For the main part, however, Mercer could see only the black tips of dim mountains to the south and a level fringed black line of a lofty horizon-wide plateau to the north.

More ranches failed to materialize, although cattle trails led from the road on both sides. He concluded that what few ranches there were held to widely separated favorable levels in the valley. The sun soon came up, gold and hot, making away with the morning coolness. Flies and bees buzzed by. Some five miles or more from Ryeson came the first turn for Mercer, and it led to an old, rough, weedy road that had seldom felt a wagon wheel. It wound into the round oak-thicketed hills, and gradually climbed. Mercer welcomed the first pine tree. He loved trees because he had seen so few of them during his range riding. Those hills were dense with brush, cedar and piñon, and after a while the beautiful checker-barked junipers and more pines. All the foliage was dun-colored with dust. It had been many a week since rain had fallen on these lowlands. Every sandy wash between the hills was bone dry. Now and then, when he looked back, he caught glimpses of the blue range to the south, and received the impression that he was getting high.

He passed a clearing that contained an ancient tumbledown log cabin of the most primitive make. It had a look that thrilled Mercer. What had happened there? Below this cabin was a rocky gully where mud-caked holes and myriads of cattle tracks proved that water ran here at some season. He climbed a long ascent through a forest of mixed timber, nothing large, though thickly matted. Rotting logs, leaves, and pine needles gave off an intoxicating odor, a woody tang, sweet and dry, and hot as the wind from a fire. Mercer inhaled deeply of that new and strange air. It seemed to exhilarate him.

When he gained the summit and turned into a bare hilltop he halted Baldy and gazed spellbound.

Rolling hills of green, like colossal waves of a slanted sea, rose to meet a black and red and gray mountain front, bold and wild, running from east to west as far as he could see, gashed by many canyons, with a magnificent broad belt of rock, gold in the sun, that zigzagged under the level, timber-fringed rim. This undoubtedly was what the lad Tom had called Rock Rim. Mercer reveled in the sight. How wonderful to a plainsman, whose eyes had grown seared with the monotony of the endless sun-blasted prairie! The air was still and hot. He heard the dreamy hum of falling water, and that seemed the only thing needed to make this wilderness scene perfect.

Then Mercer shifted his gaze and looked down more to his right than directly behind. And he was struck with amazement. He appeared to be high enough to look down upon a region of winding rounded ridges, like silver-backed, green-spotted snakes, between which yawned forest-choked gorges from which cliffs of bronze and crags of gray stood out. These ridges were miles long and they sloped down into a dark blue rent in the wildest cut-up bit of earth Mercer had ever looked upon. Beyond the bold, far wall of that canyon stood up a hummocky sea of domes and peaks, shaggy and black, remote and apparently inaccessible.

“Say, what have I hit on!” he ejaculated in delight. He had crossed the Rocky Mountains on horseback, but no colorful scene comparable to this had rewarded his searching sight. Mercer had to fight back the old reoccurrence of a boyish dream of the rainbow end. He had better not be too ecstatic.

Then, loath to leave, he rode on wonderingly. Soon he passed into the shade again, and that was welcome. He had begun a long slant down this high hill. It was getting on toward noon, which indicated that he had put many miles behind him. Soon the murmur of a tumbling stream filled his ears. The forest thickened, the trees grew higher, the shade darker. At length he reached the bottom of the slope to enter a wild clearing bright with golden flowers and colored sumach. A log cabin, with vacant gaping door, stood at the far end. To the left of this Mercer found the trail he was seeking.

It led down into the woods from whence came that drowsy, dreamy hum of a stream. Baldy felt the urge of the place and would have made short work of the remaining rough descent but for a strong hand on the bridle. Then the trail leveled across a sunlit shadow-barred glade to turn under great white-barked, green-leafed sycamores shading mossy boulders and a swift, amber-colored stream. No sign of drouth here! Mercer had left behind the hot, dusty, seared dry lands.

He got off to drink. The range rider’s love of clear, cold water had been ingrained in him. And here it was satisfied to the utmost. He drank and drank, and gorged himself like a famished desert deer.

“Baldy, if we kill ourselves, we’ll drink!” he ejaculated. “Snow water, or I’m a living sinner! To think of some of the stuff I’ve had to drink!”

He led Baldy across and sat on a boulder. The swift water had come up beyond his knees, and as if by magic had dispelled the heat of his person. Next to a horse he liked best a running stream. This one outdid even his dreams. It must head in some mountain fastness, perhaps that great tableland of which he had had a glimpse. Nature saw to it that there were inexhaustible supplies of water in rare and chosen wildernesses.

Mercer found the trail on that side and rode on, soon to ford the stream again. The trail followed it, and all the conditions that had made his introduction to this water-course so pleasant magnified as he journeyed on. Often he would rein in the contented horse to listen. The place seemed an endless solitude. No living creature crossed his path or gave sound to disturb the serenity. At length he ceased to count the times he had to ford the stream. And in truth such were the peace and beauty of the forest land, and the ever-growing pleasure in the amber stream that he forgot his adventurous errand until his reverie was rudely disrupted by the distant bark of a hound.

This was a signal for Mercer to dismount and walk. After a few moments he smelled wood smoke, and it gave him poignant recollection of burning leaves and autumn in his boyhood. It was his intention to go directly to this mountain home of the Lilleys and introduce himself. But now that the time appeared close at hand he lagged somewhat, pondering in mind aspects of the situation that he had neglected to consider.

The stream brawled less and meandered more, as though reluctant to leave this cool, moss-bouldered mountainside for the rough, barren country below. Several times Mercer caught glimpses, through rifts in the trees, of hot gray ridges below. Probably the Lilley homestead nestled at the edge of the timber where this stream struck into the open.

Mercer came presently to the most beautiful spot he had ever seen. A bend of the stream encircled a bank an acre or more in extent, overcast by lofty pines and a marvelous silver-foliaged tree unfamiliar to him. Under these the wide-branched sycamores spread their contrasting limbs and leaves. A green-gold light appeared to swim in the drowsy summer air. Mercer left Baldy to nibble at a patch of grass and strolled on as if enchanted. Great rocks overhung the stream, all lichened in gray and russet and covered with lacy ferns and amber moss. In still, clear pools Mercer caught glimpses of huge trout lying motionless. This was almost the last straw. He crawled out on a rock as large and flat as a log cabin. A soft mat of pine needles covered it. Above stood out level spear-pointed branches of the silver-foliaged species of evergreen, unknown to him, and above that leaned the colored canopy of a great sycamore. It was a covert such as delighted his heart, at that moment returned to youthful pursuits, and he availed himself of the opportunity to spy upon the trout. But no sooner had he crawled to the desired position, feeling hidden and secure under the low-spreading branches, and certain of a sweet rest and watch there in the dreamy stillness of the summer-locked forest, when his keen ears, acutely attuned in this hour, caught a disturbing sound.

Mercer glanced up from the still, dark pool. A faint sigh came from the treetops, and it mingled with the soft tinkle and babble of the brook. A squirrel might have dislodged a pine cone. He listened, and at length caught a swishy sound, as of a body moving against brush. This came from the right of where he had been gazing and almost opposite him. He saw then that the trail led up a break in the cliff. A moment later a girl appeared with a wooden bucket swinging from her hand.