Heritage of the Desert Part 3

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 subst.i.tuted: "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 sc.r.a.pe 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 la.s.soes. 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 s.p.a.ce where several men leaned on a counter.

"h.e.l.lo, Abe," said Naab; "seen anything of Snap?"

"h.e.l.lo, 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 b.u.t.ts 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 La.r.s.en."

"Never mind La.r.s.en. 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 circ.u.mstance which caused Hare instantly to a.s.sociate 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 coa.r.s.e-sighted and coa.r.s.e-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 a.s.sorting 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."