Following the Grass Read online

  Angel could afford to smile at this.

  “You with twenty sheep say that to me with thirty thousand head? I have corralled more sheep in one day than you have in all your time. You can not put those ewes inside without help.

  Joseph did not reply to this challenge but without further ado opened the gate and marched into the enclosure. Without a word from him, the sheep followed, fighting each other in their eagerness to get within the corral.

  A great dust arose, but Joseph made no effort to leave. The old man heard him crooning some strange melody. One by one the sheep began to lie down. Within ten minutes the entire flock had bedded for the night.

  It passed belief. More than a hundred times Angel had watched his sons struggle for the better part of an hour to corral a flock no larger than this. They had always had dogs to aid them.

  But here was this boy, single-handed, not only putting the flock inside the corral, but gentling it for the night. And all that in less than ten minutes!

  Angel was awed. He trembled as he saw Joseph close the gate. What manner of person was this?

  “In all Spain there is not such a one as he,” the old man gasped. “It is as he says—he is a shepherd. See! They lick his hand as he passes.”

  And now as Joseph walked away, one ewe stuck her head through the brush and bleated, and although Angel had heard thousands of sheep call, he had never heard before such a cry as reached his ears now. This long drawn “Ba-a-a-a-a!” was sad, plaintive, almost human in its pleading.

  “They love him,” Angel grumbled to himself. “Look at him! He walks as though he owned this rancho. And his eyes—” Angel shivered. “What is this power he has over men and beasts? Can it be that the hand of God is upon him? Has he come here to haunt me?”

  He knew that he feared Joseph. With an effort he tried to shut from his mind the memories that came surging over him, but even as he steeled himself Grimm, the crow, brushed past him, laughing rather than cawing, and Angel shrank back.

  He was glad to see one of his grandchildren, a lad of fifteen, come running now. Angel ordered him to get the salt for Joseph. Grimm had perched himself upon the boy's shoulder, and the Basque eyed the ominous crow fearfully, but he invited Joseph to enter.

  “You—are welcome to stay here the night,” Angel said when they were inside. “Shall I have a bed made ready for you?”

  “No,” Joseph answered.

  “At least, you will eat at my table—you will break bread with me?” Angel urged. The Basque was holding true to a custom as old as his race—that whoever came under his roof should be asked to break bread and eat his salt. He hoped Joseph would refuse, for he was anxious to see the boy gone. He had determined within the last ten minutes that he must devise some means of getting him away from Paradise, and he wanted to be at it immediately.

  Joseph understood the reasons that prompted the man’s offer of hospitality, and he answered accordingly.

  “I will let my friend decide that,” said he, nodding to Grimm who had perched himself upon the mantel above the fireplace. “Come! What is your answer? Is this house for us to-night? Can we share this man’s food?”

  The crow blinked wisely at Joseph for a moment and then tapped his way across the mantel until he stood almost directly above Angel. The Basque heard him stop, and he flung his head back as if fearful that Grimm would light upon him. But the crow only peered into Angel’s eyes, apparently probing them for the truth, and as his malignant, questioning orbs scrutinized the old Basque, Angel shook. Joseph could see that the man suffered.

  Suddenly, Grimm lowered his head and a blood-curdling: “Caw-w-w, caw-w-w” broke the evening stillness which had settled over the silent house. Angel's jaw sagged as if his muscles had lost their vitality.

  With hands upraised, he backed away, and he did not stop until he brought up against the dining-room table. Grimm fluttered to the floor and with a series of angry caws marched out of the room with never a backward glance.

  “The answer is plain,” Joseph announced; “our place is not here. I will pay you for the salt, and go.”

  Angel drew the air back into his lungs and with his foot he closed the door lest the crow might return.

  “Put the money on the table,” he said to Joseph, his voice shaking. “And never let that crow come here again. It is a thing of the devil. Why is it always with you?”

  “We are friends,” Joseph answered.

  “Friends?” Angel asked, the word drawn out. “A scavenger bird!” He put all of the contempt and bitterness he could command into his voice. Tempting fate, he rushed to add:

  “And you—with your power over animals and fools—why have you come to Paradise?”

  Joseph did not answer at once and even before he spoke Angel regretted his question, because what he saw in the boy’s eyes told him that his worst fears were to be realized—that Joseph had come back to avenge his father and mother.

  One wonders if Joseph sensed what went on in the old Basque’s mind. When he spoke, his words confirmed the other’s fear:

  “I believe you know why I am here.”

  Angel heard him drop a piece of silver upon the table as he went out, but the old man did not look up until the sheep bleated as Joseph passed the corral. He went to the window and peered out at them. Two or three of the ewes had thrust their heads through the corral fence, and they called and called as Joseph disappeared in the dusk.

  Angel threw up his hands impotently and, although he was not a profane man, a curse escaped him. The sheep kept up their bleating, and in a growing rage, he rang a bell for his men to come and stop them.

  The following hour found him resolved to erase Joseph at any cost. He had thought himself done with the curse the Gaults had put on him, but here it was again. All he had suffered; the lengths to which he had gone—had it been for nothing?

  CHAPTER XVI.

  “I AM NOT AFRAID.”

  MIDNIGHT came, but Angel sat slouched down in his chair. His thoughts were chaotic. Wearily he cast about for some way to get rid of the boy, and out of the welter of his thoughts Necia Dorr appeared before him. She was young and lovely. He had seen her eyes melt at sight of Joseph. And the boy had not been blind to her charms. He had fallen back, humble before her.

  Thus a plan matured in Angel’s mind. Morning found him closeted with old Thad at the Circle-Z.

  “He must go,” Angel insisted. “It does not rain. My people tremble before him. He is in league with the devil—that crow, that coyote—they make my flesh crawl! You saw how your girl greeted him. He is a romantic figure to her. You are not going to risk having him win her from you, eh, señor?”

  “Ain’t no danger of that,” Thad declared, somewhat injured.

  “But they are of an age,” Angel argued, ignoring Thad’s indifference. “Do not forget that this boy has an education. He is no fool. In every way, he is her equal. She will turn to him—it is inevitable.

  “Why—it took them the better part of an hour to wrap a rag around that lamb’s leg the other night—what do you imagine kept them so long? It was like meeting like. I tell you education sets men and women apart. Those two feel a common bond between them already. Where did your granddaughter ride to yesterday?”

  Angel was taking a chance on this, but it hit the mark.

  “She went up the mountain,” Thad had to admit.

  Angel threw up his hands, inviting Thad to draw his own conclusion.

  “But she don’t know who he is,” the old cattleman went on presently. “When I tell her that he is Joe Gault’ s boy, she’ll cut him dead.”

  Angel shook his head, pitying Thad for his denseness.

  “No,” he muttered. “You will drive her into his arms if you tell her that. She’ll look on him as a persecuted man. Don’t bring up the past. We can get rid of the boy.

  “If she is interested in him, she will be anxious to warn him that he must leave—that people are threatening him already, blaming him for the drought. My friend—you do
not want to see her married to such a man. No! Nor will you stand idle while she rushes headlong into an affair that can only break her heart. We must act.”

  Horror at what Angel pictured grew on Thad.

  “I thought I was through with everythin’ of the name of Gault,” he ground out dully. “To think that I had to wait for some one to tell me what I ought to have seen myself. God!” He snapped erect in his chair suddenly. “What am I gain’ to tell her?” he demanded.

  “That the Basques are making threats; that men are talking of nothing but him; that they blame him for the plague that has come upon us—that they will destroy him if he stays.”

  Thad got up and called Necia, but he shook his head as if doubting his ability to convince her. His excitement was immediately communicated to the girl, and she listened with growing apprehension to what her grandfather had to say.

  When he had finished she sank into a chair and gazed from one to the other. Anger flashed in her eyes for a moment as she began to comprehend what they proposed. Disgust, and pity for their clumsy trickery, followed.

  “So you fear him so much,” she murmured. “No, no; grandfather, I am not fooled. This boy is in no danger. Both of you trembled before him the other evening. For some reason, he is in your way. I will not be a party to your scheming.”

  “You will obey me!” Thad thundered. “What is your interest in this man? You’re not in love with him, be you ?”

  “Love?” Necia echoed, shaking her head at the word. “No—hardly love, grandfather. But when I listened to him, I knew that I heard—truth. Peace came to me. I—I wanted to lift up my head and sing.”

  Thad and Angel stared at her as she stood before them with eyes half closed, her lips parted. Her grandfather needed no urging now, reading into her naïve confession the very thing which Angel had warned him of.

  “Think what you will,” he roared, “you will ask him to go!”

  “No—no, I will not, grandfather,” Necia declared without wavering.

  “You defy me?” Thad snapped. “In all things you have had your way, but this once you will do my biddin’ !—or you will leave.”

  Horror transfixed Necia’s face as she heard this ultimatum.

  “Grandfather—you—you do not mean that.”

  “I do!” Thad cried. “Will you obey me?”

  Minutes passed before Necia moved. Slowly then, she nodded her head. In a voice so low that the two men had to bend forward to catch it, she said:

  “I will go.”

  Without another word she turned and left them. Thad and Angel sat without speaking for some time. Later, they heard Necia ride away. They stared doubtfully at each other.

  “She is gone,” Angel finally said in a low tone.

  “Yes—she is gone,” Thad answered dully.

  Could he have seen the light which shone in Necia’s eyes as she sent her horse up the mountain-side, he would have had good cause to regret his decision. The day before she had ridden this very trail, and now she let her horse have his head whenever the way opened before her.

  A sublimity that comes to but few wreathed her face. In the last half hour, she had made the first great decision of her life.

  Slippy-foot scented her before she reached the coulee, and in answer to the coyote’s bark, Joseph arose and scanned the trail. He recognized her while she was still some distance away. The speed at which she rode filled him with a vague sense of fear, and he caught her hand as she brought her horse to a stop in front of him. Her excitement and the long ride had put color into her checks, and Joseph trembled as he gazed at her, so fair and so much a part of the pink and white morning. Necia’s eyes betrayed her agitation.

  “You are in trouble?” Joseph asked, his voice heavy with anxiety. “Tell me what has happened !”

  “It is hard for me to put it into words,” Necia answered. “But it must be told. I have come here to warn you. Angel Irosabal is at the Circle-Z. My grandfather and he have determined to get rid of you. To hear them, your life is not safe. The Basques have united to drive you away. The drought continues and they curse you for it. . . . That my grandfather could stoop to this—”

  “They can not hurt me,” Joseph assured her.

  “But you do not understand!” Necia exclaimed as she swung down from her saddle. Leaning against her horse, she said :

  “This story is a lie. The Basques have not organized against you, nor have the other ranchers. My grandfather and Angel Irosabal are the only ones who have joined hands to get rid of you. For some reason they fear you. This tale was manufactured for my benefit. They hoped to trade on my expressed liking for you to get me to come up here and plead with you to leave. I refused to come on those terms. My grandfather gave me my choice—either do as he said, or leave his roof.”

  Joseph’s eyes glittered as he listened to Thad’s threat against Necia.

  “But you ate here?” he queried.

  “As your friend,” Necia replied bravely, her eyes meeting his without wavering.

  “My friend,” Joseph echoed, “my friend. I hope you will never have cause to regret calling me friend. But Angel Irosabal and your grandfather—they do only what I had expected them to do. And this is but the beginning. Wait until another month has passed.

  “It—it may be too late,” Necia murmured. “Your life is in danger.”

  “I am not afraid,” Joseph declared. “I fear no man. Need I tell you that I shall stay?”

  “No, it is not necessary. I knew this would not affect you. I am glad it is so. I—would not have you go.”

  “But you must go back at once,” Joseph urged. “I will not forget your kindness. Tell your grandfather that I thank him for his interest in my behalf, but that his sympathy is wasted. My place is here, and I shall remain.”

  “I—I am sorry,” Necia murmured, looking away that he might not see her emotion. “I can not carry that message.”

  Joseph saw her body become stiffly erect as she paused.

  “I am not going back to the Circle-Z,” she said then, her voice only a whisper.

  Joseph was startled. As he grasped her meaning, he shook his head gravely. Necia raised her hand entreatingly as he hurriedly sought to urge her to change her mind.

  “Please—” she murmured. “I have quite made up my mind to that. I am not going back. I will not be used as a pawn. That Basque, with his grinning death’s-head, has bewitched my grandfather—I hate Angel Irosabal.”

  “So, you hate him, eh?” Joseph asked, a grim smile fleeting across his face. “Yet hardly a week ago, you chided me for no more—I wonder what you would say now, if you knew what Irosabal owes me.”

  Light came to Necia. No wonder the old Basque wanted Joseph run off!

  “So, it is he who has wronged you!” she exclaimed. “I guessed as much the night you came with the lamb.” Unconsciously her voice became grave as she went on. “Don’t think that his threat is an empty one. He will gather the Basques about him to get rid of you. My grandfather will help him. If the drought continues others will join them. They will stop at nothing.”

  “I am not afraid,” Joseph declared again.

  “Oh, I know you are not. I think that is why I have faith in you. You, above all others, could bring happiness to this valley. But they will not have it—

  “Well, you will uot have to face them alone. My grandfather drove me here—and here I shall remain! I came to warn you and I shall stay to help you.”

  Grimm, the crow, stood nearby with the gravity of an ambassador. Then—his penetrating, black eyes fixed on Necia’s face—he spread his wings, arose a. little way—and slowly, gently, settled at her feet.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  “MY PLACE IS WITH YOU.”

  EVENING came on. All afternoon long Joseph had momentarily expected Necia’s grandfather to appear and demand that she return with him.

  Joseph wondered what went on in the valley; for the fact that old Thad delayed his coming, only augured that he was organizing his
strength. Surely the man could no longer believe that Necia had spent these many hours in trying to convince him that he must leave Buckskin.

  Or was it Thad’s plan to stay away until morning, thereby forging a weapon out of Necia’s being there over night with him that could be used with telling effect in the valley? Armed with the tale that he had kept the girl a prisoner, Necia’s grandfather might well hope to arouse his neighbors so that they would not hesitate at anything.

  Prisoner she might have been throughout the day without arousing any neighbor’s wrath, but over night?—No! Just why the friendly night should make such a difference in men’s eyes it is hard to say. It was true, nevertheless.

  Necia caught Joseph’s thought.

  “I—I understand,” she murmured. “Night is at hand. But—I am not afraid to be here with you.”

  The desire to have her stay was born on the instant in Joseph. He gazed at her long and earnestly before he said:

  “No—you have nothing to fear. If you will stay—you will stay. But there is one thing that I have left unsaid that must be told now.”

  “It can make no difference to me,” Necia declared.

  “It may,” Joseph paused. “I am Joseph Gault—the son of the man who is supposed to have killed your father.”

  “Joseph Gault!” Necia’s whisper was unsteady. He saw her draw herself up, her eyes closing. “Joseph Gault!” she whispered his name again, conjuring what pictures she alone knew.

  “You see,” he said gently, “it—it does make a difference. As you have said to me—I understand. You are free to go.”

  “No, Joseph,” Necia answered, and her eyes sought his beseechingly, “I was not thinking of going. I haven’t forgotten what you told me that night you came to the ranch. I do not accuse your father. I—I was just thinking how strange it is that you and I should be here together.”

  Her voice trailed away with her thoughts. Joseph grew silent, too. He could appreciate what she inferred. Their being there together was strange, indeed. Tabor Kincaid would not have believed that such a day would come. Joseph wondered what his mother would say if she could look down and see the two of them there, the night closing about them.