Following the Grass Read online

  “Together . . . and friends,” Joseph murmured half aloud. Necia gazed at him tenderly.

  “And friends,” she barely whispered. Her voice seemed to break, and Joseph looked up quickly—puzzled.

  “We—are friends, Necia,” he said rather sharply, alarmed at what he believed was a note of indecision in her voice. Necia looked away, and Joseph caught her hand impulsively and gripped it as if hoping by the force of his fingers to make her face him again. He felt her tremble.

  “I—I am your friend, Joseph,” she whispered, but she held her head turned away.

  The vagrant night wind sent a strand of her hair against his lips. Joseph winced, but he did not release her hand. A mad desire to sweep her up into his arms and crush her to him almost overcame him as he gazed at her, so fair and so lovely.

  2"You—you are hurting me, Joseph,” Necia murmured.

  Hurting her? Could love hurt? Was this wild singing in his veins, this tumultuous pounding of his heart—was this love? A moment ago he had stood before her calm, poised, the master of himself; but that fleeting moment had been swept back into a dim past—lost—forgotten!

  Had he been blind—dumb—that he had not felt the witchery of her beauty, the magnificence of her spiritual self, eating into his consciousness like fire? When he had fallen back before her, that night at the Circle-Z, had he asked himself why?

  His spirit had bowed to hers then. He knew as much now. He had found her beautiful, her eyes lighted with a radiance truly sublime. This day had only further revealed the true nobility of her.

  And she had come to him! Out of the welter of his thoughts he grasped that sustaining fact—she had come to him! What mattered it that it was night; that Thad Taylor and old Angel were doubtless rousing the valley against him?

  Down through the ages, from the time when his ancestors had clothed themselves with the skins of savage beasts, the strain that was in him had been unafraid. They had taken their mates and held them—fought for them, fended off evil, died for them when circumstance demanded.

  He knew that he was not the first of his strain who had stood at bay on the mountain-top, with the woman of his choosing at his side, defying the world. His own father had done no less.

  He bent over and gazed into Necia’s eyes. Mists swam in them. A cry escaped his lips. He released her hand only to reach out and draw her close to him.

  “Look at me, Necia,” he pleaded. “Tell me—are you afraid?”

  Necia lifted her head, her eyes closed, her lips moving tremulously.

  “No—I am not afraid with you, my Joseph,” she said softly, her head shaking ever so slightly.

  “You know that your place is here?”

  Again she nodded.

  “I—know,” she whispered.

  Transformed, exalted, he held her. The seconds passed, but neither moved. In one mighty rush of wings Joseph had been lifted to a seat with the gods.

  He felt himself unworthy and he could but wonder what he had done to deserve such implicit faith as Necia had in him. He searched his soul for an answer, and whatever of dross there was in him was burnt up, fluxed, lost, through love of her.

  Necia’s head was thrown back and her lips were close to his; a divine temptation. From the very depths of his being the urge to press his lips against hers, to drink in their loveliness—a holy communion of her soul and his—welled up in him. He trembled in his ecstasy.

  He drew her closer still—so close that her breath fanned his lips. If he held back now, it was not because he hoped to whip his thirst for her to a still whiter heat. This moment could never come again. It was to be saved, treasured. From it life must date. And now to stab him came a fear for her.

  It was not of the past or of the present, but of the future—of the Unknown. Like lightning there flashed across his mind the memory of what his mother had sacrificed for love. He had seen her lonely, unhappy, cut off from her people. She had loved his father none the less, but she had suffered and died for love of him.

  Could he ask this girl to do as much? She had left the roof that sheltered her, had turned her back on her own, to come to him, to share his poverty, to stand with him against his enemies. All that a girl of her years might be expected to hold dear she was willing to sacrifice for him.

  Could he ask it of her?—dared he accept it? And yet here she was in his arms and ready to seal the bargain with her lips! A groan of utter misery broke from him.

  “Necia! Necia!” he exclaimed. “Open your eyes. Tell me—why are you here—why have you done this?”

  “Oh, Joseph, do not put me away from you!” she cried. “Would you drag the truth from me. You—you know why I am here!”

  “I do,I do! But you see me in rags, in poverty; your grandfather is against me. What have I to offer you?—what but the misery my father offered my mother?”

  “No, no, Joseph. I am not afraid of that,” Necia answered, her voice full and clear in the deepening twilight. “My faith in you lifts me beyond the need of material things. I have no need of wealth, so long as I have you. There can be no unhappiness where love is—no unhappiness that can last.

  “I make no sacrifice. My place is with you. Where you lead—I follow. There is no life for me without you.

  “I have longed—waited for your coming. My heart recognized you before you had spoken. My grandfather knew it—Angel Irosabal guessed as much. Only you have been blind, my Joseph.”

  “Necia—” The pent-up longing of his heart and soul cried out as he held her off, marveling at her innocence, her honesty.

  “Does it matter that our fathers were enemies?—or our grandfathers? They had no just quarrel. Nothing has mattered here but money and greed and hate. No one has cared for this land. You—are going to change all that, mv loved one.”

  “I?”

  “Yes—you, Joseph.”

  He could only look at her, amazed at the heights to which love of him had carried her.

  “From the first,” he heard her whisper, “I knew you had come for a great purpose—”

  “My mother—” he started to say.

  “No, Joseph. Your purpose is greater—far greater than that. You are here to show all men the way to something better than what they have known. Maybe it is my task to show you how, Joseph.”

  How sweetly she said that! How patient! Her lips were parted—poised as if lingering upon his name. A whippoorwill flashed by them. Its plaintive call floated back. From afar came the lowing of cattle.

  He drew her close. Something of the infinite transfigured her face. He felt her arms stealing about his neck. Life was brief—fleeting; happiness a will-o’-the-wisp.

  To attain it—to live—he must achieve her. The friendly stars bent down. In tones far too faint to be called a whisper, he heard her say:

  “Joseph—kiss me. I am yours. Tell me—tell me, my love,that you—”

  His lips stopped her words. Again and again he kissed her. Exalted—on high with her he left the little world of men.

  Grimm, the crow, circled about them unseen, unnoticed. The rustling of the young cedars in the rising wind went unheard.

  Soft as the night was the velvet of her cheeks. She stirred in his arms, her breast rising and falling. He poured love words into her ear—strange phrases of his own making.

  Necia smiled up at him. Life was good!

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  TWIN FIRES.

  TIME often proves itself incapable of gauging life. It was so with Joseph and Necia. Neither knew how long they had stood there enthralled.

  Slippy-foot, baying the moon, had called them back. Food must be cooked, the fires built up—matters little in keeping with romance, but vital, nevertheless.

  It became Necia’s task to contrive supper from such meager supplies as the dug-out held. She was supremely happy as she hurried about, Slippy-foot at her heels. She could see Joseph gathering dry sage. By the time she called him he had ready two great piles of it—one to warm the dugout and the other for the w
atch fire at the edge of the coulee.

  Necia did not realize the purpose of the two piles of brush at first—one hers, the other his—and Joseph guessed as much.

  “They tell their own story,” he said, “two fires where there has been but one. Your grandfather will be scanning Buckskin. He will see our fires.He may come soon. When we have eaten you can fasten the dug-out door. I will sleep on the coulee.”

  Necia smiled at him tenderly.

  “My Joseph,” she murmured, “there is no need of a locked door.”

  Joseph put his arm around her and caressed her.

  “No,” he said slowly, “there is no need of one. If your grandfather comes—”

  “If he comes he will take me away only by force,” she exclaimed.

  Joseph shook his head.“No, Necia, he will not take you away from me. You may change your mind—it may be advisable under certain circumstances—you may want to go. That is always your privilege. But grandfather or not, he will not take you. I swear it.”

  Necia did not ask from whence his surety sprang, neither did she question it. She knew that when he spoke, truth flowed from his lips.

  The fare she had set out for him was coarse, but she had invested it with a rare flavor. If the spoons were of tin, the cups cracked, neither cared nor noticed. What mattered it so long as they were together?

  The spell of youth was on both of them, and the firelight danced in their eyes as they smiled and laughed. Joseph told her about his boyhood there on Buckskin, of his mother and of Tabor Kincaid. Last of all, he spoke of his father.

  “I have been very near him many times,” he said, “but he does not know me. He was in Mexico when Kincaid spread his story of my death. The news did not reach him for months.He had no reason to doubt it. It made him only more determined to come back and crush my grandfather. And he will accomplish no less, and soon, too.

  “My father struggled for years before fortune smiled on hlm. He might have been a rich man to-day had he chosen, but he has squandered his money for the favors it would buy. Every move he has made has been to one end. Angel Irosabal and every other Basque in the valley will be forced out of Paradise before winter comes.”

  Necia put down her cup slowly. His tone left no room for her to doubt that he meant what he said.

  “Joseph!” she exclaimed, her eyes suddenly serious, “are you going to permit this to happen? An entire people must not be made to suffer for the wrongdoing of one man.”

  “And yet it is almost certain that they will. I—I know, Necia, that my father has been guaranteed that early this fall the State Forester will issue an order closing the Reserve to sheep. Long before then the drought will have burned up the ranges. When the order comes no one will question the wisdom of it. It would have been issued notwithstanding. The drought helps my father’s plans, but it has had no place in them. It can end only one way, Necia. The sheepmen will have to go.”

  “But there will be no place for them to go.Stockmen will be needing every bit of range they possess—cattlemen I mean—in another month.”

  “Nothing could be truer. They will find themselves helpless. They will try Idaho—the Malheur Lake country—but it will avail them nothing. My father has options on many square miles of range there. They will have to go to him—or sell their flocks.”

  Joseph’s tone betrayed his satisfaction with the prospect. Necia sat back dismayed, shaken.

  “You—you know this and do nothing to prevent it?” she demanded, getting to her feet. “Do you think it just?”

  Joseph caught her excitement and he arose and faced her.

  “In many ways it is,” he said.“The Basques have done my grandfather’s bidding. They have followed him without question. You know my score against him is heavy. If I had nothing but the memory of what he did to my mother to turn me against him, I could not forgive him.She suffered because of him. My father suffered, and I have, too.

  “And yet when I learned what my father planned I came back here—came as you see me now, ragged, poor, the friend of whoever would accept me, ready to do all that lay in my power to help others, asking nothing, willing to put aside my own ends. And why—? Because I hoped to find that my grandfather had repented, that he might show me by some sign that he had relented and made his peace with his God.

  “I did not come asking amends. I wanted only to see that he knew his mistake. I was prepared to go to my father and dissuade him—”

  Joseph shook his head as he paused.

  “I—I expected too much,” he went on, his voice grown sad.“I left this mountain a boy; I came back to it a man. Oh, I was eager to be back, Necia. I wonder if you can realize the feeling that gripped me as I crossed this very spot. Things that only a boy remembers came back to haunt me.

  “A dozen times that day as I climbed the mountain I closed my eyes to picture my old home. Why I should have expected to find it still standing, I know not. A boy needs little reason for such a hope.”

  Joseph’s voice trembled as he looked away.

  “It seemed that I had left it but yesterday”, he murmured. “I saw it so clearly—the bench outside the door where I had sat with my father, listening to tales fashioned for my ears alone; the old red Bayeta blanket—red as fire—that had covered me; my mother’s chair before the fire place—how often I had been rocked to sleep in that chair—

  “I dropped my pack and ran. It was evening. Nothing was changed.Even the old smells were recognizable. But the cabin was gone—not a sign left to mark the place where it had stood. I searched the draw bewildered.

  “I even wondered if I had come to the wrong place. If the cabin had fallen to ruins some sign must remain of it. But there was nothing left—not even a stick or stone.

  “It had been torn down—expunged—so that no man could say where my father and mother had lived. Later, I found this old door which hangs on the dug-out. It had been hidden away in the malpais. I should have known then that I had received my answer.

  “Tabor Kincaid had placed a monument over my mother’s grave. Together, he and I had built a picket fence around it. They were gone—erased as the cabin had been. My grandfather had left nothing to remind men that Joseph and Margarida Gault had ever lived.

  “The desire to kill him welled up in me. I raised my hands to God asking for some sign that would stay me, and out of the shadows Slippy-foot came. She had not forgotten—old Slippy-foot!”

  Necia slipped her hand into his as he stood looking down at the coyote.

  “No wonder they love you,” she murmured, nestling her head against him. His arm tightened about her and they stood without speaking for a minute. Necia broke the spell that held them.

  “Joseph—do not think that I fail to appreciate what you have suffered, or that I am suggesting that your grandfather should not pay for what he has done. My thought is far from that. He must pay, but the only coin in which he can do so, that will be of any value to you, will not be forced from him by what your father proposes.

  “I grew up in a home where the Basque was always reviled. And yet I have found them quite like other men. They have their leaders just as we do. Your grandfather failed them. Prove that, Joseph. It will be enough.”

  He caught her hands and wheeled her about so that she faced him.

  “No, Necia!” he exclaimed, “it will not be enough! What you suggest will be proved. The message my mother left me made that certain. My grandfather has known from the first that my father was guilty of no wrong. But to shield his own son he accused my father.”

  “His son?—one of his sons killed—”

  “One of his sons; yes. Even now the man is plotting against you as well as me. Do not ask me to be satisfied with humbling him. That day has passed. He can not be excused. He knew the truth and withheld it; condemned my father, broke my mother’s heart.... He will not harm you, Necia.

  “I hold his honorable name in my hand. At will, I can cast it into the mire. And the things he has slaved for—his riches, his crop
s and his sheep! You know what faces him there. He will have no hay. His wheat is burning up in the fields. His sheep will become a millstone about his neck.

  “And best of all the day comes when his people will see that it is because of him that they suffer. He knows who I am. He does not acknowledge me, but he knows. He trembles when he faces me. I alone can intercede for him, yet he hopes to drive me away. He is to be pitied.”

  “His people are to be pitied. They are the ones to suffer. It must not be, Joseph—it must not be—even if it means forgiving your grandfather.”

  “But that is more than I can do. Do not ask it of me. I go on—to the end, Necia. My grandfather meets a just fate richly deserved. I will not raise my hand to stay it.”

  “And yet—you will!” Necia exclaimed, her head thrown back, a rare smile on her lips. Joseph gazed at her wonderingly, troubled by her confidence.

  “It would be a God-like thing to do,” she went on. “Jesus of Nazareth said: ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do.’ You, my Joseph, will say no less. The day will come when the people of Paradise will know how you have been wronged. They will know that you forgave them when you held them in your power. Your reward will be great.”

  She closed her eyes as Joseph stared at her. “I see you leading them,” she murmured. “They recognize you.”

  “Oh, stop! Necia! Stop!” Joseph cried, trembling as he fell back before her. “How can you say that to me, knowing what is in my heart? You are more precious than life to me, but I serve you best only as long as I am true to myself. If I could forgive him as you do; if I could rise with you, if I possessed the nobility that governs you, I might do as you ask. But my feet are of clay. You inspire me, Necia, as nothing else has, but I must go on.”

  “And yet you love me?”

  “Madly. You are as my life to me. This must not come between us. My way is your way even as your way must be mine. In all things I would follow you, but in this I can not. Do not draw away from me, Necia. Let me take you in my arms. God’s hand is in this. The drought is of His making. You must see that it is so.”