Book: The Rainbow Trail

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Rainbow Trail



This e-text was created by Doug Levy, _littera scripta manet_








Transcriber's note:

In the original text the words "canyon" and "pinyon" are
spelled in the Spanish form, "canon" and "pinon", with
tildes above the center "n"s. Since the plain text format
precludes the use of tildes, I've changed these words to
the more familiar spelling to make them easier to read.
--D.L.






THE RAINBOW TRAIL, a Romance.

by ZANE GREY.



CONTENTS.


FOREWORD


CHAPTER.

I. RED LAKE.

II. THE SAGI.

III. KAYENTA.

IV. NEW FRIENDS.

V. ON THE TRAIL.

VI. IN THE HIDDEN VALLEY.

VII. SAGO-LILIES.

VIII. THE HOGAN OF NAS TA BEGA.

IX. IN THE DESERT CRUCIBLE.

X. STONEBRIDGE.

XI. AFTER THE TRIAL.

XII. THE REVELATION.

XIII. THE STORY OF SURPRISE VALLEY.

XIV. THE NAVAJO.

XV. WILD JUSTICE.

XVI. SURPRISE VALLEY.

XVII. THE TRAIL TO NONNEZOSHE.

XVIII. AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.

XIX. THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO.

XX. WILLOW SPRINGS.


EPILOGUE




FOREWORD


The spell of the desert comes back to me, as it always will come.
I see the veils, like purple smoke, in the canyon, and I feel the
silence. And it seems that again I must try to pierce both and
to get at the strange wild life of the last American wilderness--
wild still, almost, as it ever was.


While this romance is an independent story, yet readers of "Riders
of the Purple Sage" will find in it an answer to a question often
asked.

I wish to say also this story has appeared serially in a different
form in one of the monthly magazines under the title of "The Desert
Crucible."
ZANE GREY.
June, 1915.




THE RAINBOW TRAIL



I. RED LAKE


Shefford halted his tired horse and gazed with slowly realizing eyes.

A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red Lake, a
dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a
lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond.

All day Shefford had plodded onward with the clear horizon-line a
thing unattainable; and for days before that he had ridden the wild
bare flats and climbed the rocky desert benches. The great colored
reaches and steps had led endlessly onward and upward through dim and
deceiving distance.

A hundred miles of desert travel, with its mistakes and lessons and
intimations, had not prepared him for what he now saw. He beheld what
seemed a world that knew only magnitude. Wonder and awe fixed his
gaze, and thought remained aloof. Then that dark and unknown northland
flung a menace at him. An irresistible call had drawn him to this
seamed and peaked border of Arizona, this broken battlemented
wilderness of Utah upland; and at first sight they frowned upon him,
as if to warn him not to search for what lay hidden beyond the ranges.
But Shefford thrilled with both fear and exultation. That was the
country which had been described to him. Far across the red valley,
far beyond the ragged line of black mesa and yellow range, lay the
wild canyon with its haunting secret.

Red Lake must be his Rubicon. Either he must enter the unknown to
seek, to strive, to find, or turn back and fail and never know and be
always haunted. A friend's strange story had prompted his singular
journey; a beautiful rainbow with its mystery and promise had decided
him. Once in his life he had answered a wild call to the kingdom of
adventure within him, and once in his life he had been happy. But
here in the horizon-wide face of that up-flung and cloven desert he
grew cold; he faltered even while he felt more fatally drawn.

As if impelled Shefford started his horse down the sandy trail, but he
checked his former far-reaching gaze. It was the month of April, and
the waning sun lost heat and brightness. Long shadows crept down the
slope ahead of him and the scant sage deepened its gray. He watched
the lizards shoot like brown streaks across the sand, leaving their
slender tracks; he heard the rustle of pack-rats as they darted into
their brushy homes; the whir of a low-sailing hawk startled his horse.

Like ocean waves the slope rose and fell, its hollows choked with sand,
its ridge-tops showing scantier growth of sage and grass and weed. The
last ridge was a sand-dune, beautifully ribbed and scalloped and lined
by the wind, and from its knife-sharp crest a thin wavering sheet of
sand blew, almost like smoke. Shefford wondered why the sand looked
red at a distance, for here it seemed almost white. It rippled
everywhere, clean and glistening, always leading down.

Suddenly Shefford became aware of a house looming out of the bareness
of the slope. It dominated that long white incline. Grim, lonely,
forbidding, how strangely it harmonized with the surroundings! The
structure was octagon-shaped, built of uncut stone, and resembled a
fort. There was no door on the sides exposed to Shefford's gaze, but
small apertures two-thirds the way up probably served as windows and
port-holes. The roof appeared to be made of poles covered with red
earth.

Like a huge cold rock on a wide plain this house stood there on the
windy slope. It was an outpost of the trader Presbrey, of whom
Shefford had heard at Flagstaff and Tuba. No living thing appeared
in the limit of Shefford's vision. He gazed shudderingly at the
unwelcoming habitation, at the dark eyelike windows, at the sweep
of barren slope merging into the vast red valley, at the bold, bleak
bluffs. Could any one live here? The nature of that sinister valley
forbade a home there, and the, spirit of the place hovered in the
silence and space. Shefford thought irresistibly of how his enemies
would have consigned him to just such a hell. He thought bitterly and
mockingly of the narrow congregation that had proved him a failure in
the ministry, that had repudiated his ideas of religion and immortality
and God, that had driven him, at the age of twenty-four, from the
calling forced upon him by his people. As a boy he had yearned to make
himself an artist; his family had made him a clergyman; fate had made
him a failure. A failure only so far in his life, something urged him
to add--for in the lonely days and silent nights of the desert he had
experienced a strange birth of hope. Adventure had called him, but
it was a vague and spiritual hope, a dream of promise, a nameless
attainment that fortified his wilder impulse.

As he rode around a corner of the stone house his horse snorted and
stopped. A lean, shaggy pony jumped at sight of him, almost displacing
a red long-haired blanket that covered an Indian saddle. Quick thuds
of hoofs in sand drew Shefford's attention to a corral made of peeled
poles, and here he saw another pony.

Shefford heard subdued voices. He dismounted and walked to an open
door. In the dark interior he dimly descried a high counter, a
stairway, a pile of bags of flour, blankets, and silver-ornamented
objects, but the persons he had heard were not in that part of the
house. Around another corner of the octagon-shaped wall he found
another open door, and through it saw goat-skins and a mound of dirty
sheep-wool, black and brown and white. It was light in this part of
the building. When he crossed the threshold he was astounded to see
a man struggling with a girl--an Indian girl. She was straining back
from him, panting, and uttering low guttural sounds. The man's face
was corded and dark with passion. This scene affected Shefford
strangely. Primitive emotions were new to him.

Before Shefford could speak the girl broke loose and turned to flee.
She was an Indian and this place was the uncivilized desert, but
Shefford knew terror when he saw it. Like a dog the man rushed after
her. It was instinct that made Shefford strike, and his blow laid the
man flat. He lay stunned a moment, then raised himself to a sitting
posture, his hand to his face, and the gaze he fixed upon Shefford
seemed to combine astonishment and rage.

"I hope you're not Presbrey," said Shefford, slowly. He felt awkward,
not sure of himself.

The man appeared about to burst into speech, but repressed it. There
was blood on his mouth and his hand. Hastily he scrambled to his feet.
Shefford saw this man's amaze and rage change to shame. He was tall
and rather stout; he had a smooth tanned face, soft of outline, with a
weak chin; his eyes were dark. The look of him and his corduroys and
his soft shoes gave Shefford an impression that he was not a man who
worked hard. By contrast with the few other worn and rugged desert
men Shefford had met this stranger stood out strikingly. He stooped
to pick up a soft felt hat and, jamming it on his head, he hurried out.
Shefford followed him and watched him from the door. He went directly
to the corral, mounted the pony, and rode out, to turn down the slope
toward the south. When he reached the level of the basin, where
evidently the sand was hard, he put the pony to a lope and gradually
drew away.

"Well!" ejaculated Shefford. He did not know what to make of this
adventure. Presently he became aware that the Indian girl was sitting
on a roll of blankets near the wall. With curious interest Shefford
studied her appearance. She had long, raven-black hair, tangled and
disheveled, and she wore a soiled white band of cord above her brow.
The color of her face struck him; it was dark, but not red nor bronzed;
it almost had a tinge of gold. Her profile was clear-cut, bold, almost
stern. Long black eyelashes hid her eyes. She wore a tight-fitting
waist garment of material resembling velveteen. It was ripped along
her side, exposing a skin still more richly gold than that of her face.
A string of silver ornaments and turquoise-and-white beads encircled
her neck, and it moved gently up and down with the heaving of her full
bosom. Her skirt was some gaudy print goods, torn and stained and
dusty. She had little feet, incased in brown moccasins, fitting like
gloves and buttoning over the ankles with silver coins.

"Who was that man? Did he hurt you?" inquired Shefford, turning to
gaze down the valley where a moving black object showed on the bare
sand.

"No savvy," replied the Indian girl.

"Where's the trader Presbrey?" asked Shefford.

She pointed straight down into the red valley.

"Toh," she said.

In the center of the basin lay a small pool of water shining brightly
in the sunset glow. Small objects moved around it, so small that
Shefford thought he saw several dogs led by a child. But it was the
distance that deceived him. There was a man down there watering his
horses. That reminded Shefford of the duty owing to his own tired and
thirsty beast. Whereupon he untied his pack, took off the saddle, and
was about ready to start down when the Indian girl grasped the bridle
from his hand.

"Me go," she said.

He saw her eyes then, and they made her look different. They were as
black as her hair. He was puzzled to decide whether or not he thought
her handsome.

"Thanks, but I'll go," he replied, and, taking the bridle again, he
started down the slope. At every step he sank into the deep, soft
sand. Down a little way he came upon a pile of tin cans; they were
everywhere, buried, half buried, and lying loose; and these gave
evidence of how the trader lived. Presently Shefford discovered that
the Indian girl was following him with her own pony. Looking upward
at her against the light, he thought her slender, lithe, picturesque.
At a distance he liked her.

He plodded on, at length glad to get out of the drifts of sand to the
hard level floor of the valley. This, too, was sand, but dried and
baked hard, and red in color. At some season of the year this immense
flat must be covered with water. How wide it was, and empty! Shefford
experienced again a feeling that had been novel to him--and it was
that he was loose, free, unanchored, ready to veer with the wind.
From the foot of the slope the water hole had appeared to be a few
hundred rods out in the valley. But the small size of the figures
made Shefford doubt; and he had to travel many times a few hundred
rods before those figures began to grow. Then Shefford made out
that they were approaching him.

Thereafter they rapidly increased to normal proportions of man and
beast. When Shefford met them he saw a powerful, heavily built young
man leading two ponies.

"You're Mr. Presbrey, the trader?" inquired Shefford.

"Yes, I'm Presbrey, without the Mister," he replied.

"My name's Shefford. I'm knocking about on the desert. Rode from
beyond Tuba to-day."

"Glad to see you," said Presbrey. He offered his hand. He was a
stalwart man, clad in gray shirt, overalls, and boots. A shock of
tumbled light hair covered his massive head; he was tanned, but not
darkly, and there was red in his cheeks; under his shaggy eyebrows
were deep, keen eyes; his lips were hard and set, as if occasion for
smiles or words was rare; and his big, strong jaw seemed locked.

"Wish more travelers came knocking around Red Lake," he added.
"Reckon here's the jumping-off place."

"It's pretty--lonesome," said Shefford, hesitating as if at a loss
for words.

Then the Indian girl came up. Presbrey addressed her in her own
language, which Shefford did not understand. She seemed shy and
would not answer; she stood with downcast face and eyes. Presbrey
spoke again, at which she pointed down the valley, and then moved
on with her pony toward the water-hole.

Presbrey's keen eyes fixed on the receding black dot far down that
oval expanse.

"That fellow left--rather abruptly," said Shefford, constrainedly.
"Who was he?"

"His name's Willetts. He's a missionary. He rode in to-day with this
Navajo girl. He was taking her to Blue Canyon, where he lives and
teaches the Indians. I've met him only a few times. You see, not
many white men ride in here. He's the first white man I've seen in
six months, and you're the second. Both the same day! . . . Red Lake's
getting popular! It's queer, though, his leaving. He expected to
stay all night. There's no other place to stay. Blue Canyon is fifty
miles away."

"I'm sorry to say--no, I'm not sorry, either--but I must tell you I
was the cause of Mr. Willetts leaving," replied Shefford.

"How so?" inquired the other.

Then Shefford related the incident following his arrival.

"Perhaps my action was hasty," he concluded, apologetically. "I didn't
think. Indeed, I'm surprised at myself."

Presbrey made no comment and his face was as hard to read as one of
the distant bluffs.

"But what did the man mean?" asked Shefford, conscious of a little
heat. "I'm a stranger out here. I'm ignorant of Indians--how they're
controlled. Still I'm no fool. . . . If Willetts didn't mean evil, at
least he was brutal."

"He was teaching her religion," replied Presbrey. His tone held faint
scorn and implied a joke, but his face did not change in the slightest.

Without understanding just why, Shefford felt his conviction justified
and his action approved. Then he was sensible of a slight shock of
wonder and disgust.

"I am--I was a minister of the Gospel," he said to Presbrey. "What you
hint seems impossible. I can't believe it."

"I didn't hint," replied Presbrey, bluntly, and it was evident that
he was a sincere, but close-mouthed, man. "Shefford, so you're a
preacher? . . . Did you come out here to try to convert the Indians?"

"No. I said I WAS a minister. I am no longer. I'm just a--a
wanderer."

"I see. Well, the desert's no place for missionaries, but it's good
for wanderers. . . . Go water your horse and take him up to the corral.
You'll find some hay for him. I'll get grub ready."

Shefford went on with his horse to the pool. The water appeared thick,
green, murky, and there was a line of salty crust extending around the
margin of the pool. The thirsty horse splashed in and eagerly bent his
head. But he did not like the taste. Many times he refused to drink,
yet always lowered his nose again. Finally he drank, though not his
fill. Shefford saw the Indian girl drink from her hand. He scooped up
a handful and found it too sour to swallow. When he turned to retrace
his steps she mounted her pony and followed him.

A golden flare lit up the western sky, and silhouetted dark and lonely
against it stood the trading-post. Upon his return Shefford found the
wind rising, and it chilled him. When he reached the slope thin gray
sheets of sand were blowing low, rising, whipping, falling, sweeping
along with soft silken rustle. Sometimes the gray veils hid his boots.
It was a long, toilsome climb up that yielding, dragging ascent, and
he had already been lame and tired. By the time he had put his horse
away twilight was everywhere except in the west. The Indian girl left
her pony in the corral and came like a shadow toward the house.

Shefford had difficulty in finding the foot of the stairway. He
climbed to enter a large loft, lighted by two lamps. Presbrey was
there, kneading biscuit dough in a pan.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said.

The huge loft was the shape of a half-octagon. A door opened upon the
valley side, and here, too, there were windows. How attractive the
place was in comparison with the impressions gained from the outside!
The furnishings consisted of Indian blankets on the floor, two beds,
a desk and table, several chairs and a couch, a gun-rack full of
rifles, innumerable silver-ornamented belts, bridles, and other Indian
articles upon the walls, and in one corner a wood-burning stove with
teakettle steaming, and a great cupboard with shelves packed full of
canned foods.

Shefford leaned in the doorway and looked out. Beneath him on a roll
of blankets sat the Indian girl, silent and motionless. He wondered
what was in her mind, what she would do, how the trader would treat
her. The slope now was a long slant of sheeted moving shadows of sand.
Dusk had gathered in the valley. The bluffs loomed beyond. A pale
star twinkled above. Shefford suddenly became aware of the intense
nature of the stillness about him. Yet, as he listened to this
silence, he heard an intermittent and immeasurably low moan, a fitful,
mournful murmur. Assuredly it was only the wind. Nevertheless, it
made his blood run cold. It was a different wind from that which had
made music under the eaves of his Illinois home. This was a lonely,
haunting wind, with desert hunger in it, and more which he could not
name. Shefford listened to this spirit-brooding sound while he watched
night envelop the valley. How black, how thick the mantle! Yet it
brought no comforting sense of close-folded protection, of walls of
soft sleep, of a home. Instead there was the feeling of space, of
emptiness, of an infinite hall down which a mournful wind swept
streams of murmuring sand.

"Well, grub's about ready," said Presbrey.

"Got any water?" asked Shefford.

"Sure. There in the bucket. It's rain-water. I have a tank here."

Shefford's sore and blistered face felt better after he had washed off
the sand and alkali dust.

"Better not wash your face often while you're in the desert. Bad
plan," went on Presbrey, noting how gingerly his visitor had gone
about his ablutions. "Well, come and eat."

Shefford marked that if the trader did live a lonely life he fared
well. There was more on the table than twice two men could have eaten.
It was the first time in four days that Shefford had sat at a table,
and he made up for lost opportunity.

His host's actions indicated pleasure, yet the strange, hard face
never relaxed, never changed. When the meal was finished Presbrey
declined assistance, had a generous thought of the Indian girl, who,
he said, could have a place to eat and sleep down-stairs, and then
with the skill and despatch of an accomplished housewife cleared the
table, after which work he filled a pipe and evidently prepared to
listen.

It took only one question for Shefford to find that the trader was
starved for news of the outside world; and for an hour Shefford fed
that appetite, even as he had been done by. But when he had talked
himself out there seemed indication of Presbrey being more than a
good listener.

"How'd you come in?" he asked, presently.

"By Flagstaff--across the Little Colorado--and through Moencopie."

"Did you stop at Moen Ave?"

"No. What place is that?"

"A missionary lives there. Did you stop at Tuba?"

"Only long enough to drink and water my horse. That was a wonderful
spring for the desert."

"You said you were a wanderer. . . . Do you want a job? I'll give
you one."

"No, thank you, Presbrey."

"I saw your pack. That's no pack to travel with in this country. Your
horse won't last, either. Have you any money?"

"Yes, plenty of money."

"Well, that's good. Not that a white man out here would ever take a
dollar from you. But you can buy from the Indians as you go. Where
are you making for, anyhow?"

Shefford hesitated, debating in mind whether to tell his purpose or
not. His host did not press the question.

"I see. Just foot-loose and wandering around," went on Presbrey. "I
can understand how the desert appeals to you. Preachers lead easy,
safe, crowded, bound lives. They're shut up in a church with a Bible
and good people. When once in a lifetime they get loose--they break
out."

"Yes, I've broken out--beyond all bounds," replied Shefford, sadly.
He seemed retrospective for a moment, unaware of the trader's keen
and sympathetic glance, and then he caught himself. "I want to see
some wild life. Do you know the country north of here?"

"Only what the Navajos tell me. And they're not much to talk. There's
a trail goes north, but I've never traveled it. It's a new trail every
time an Indian goes that way, for here the sand blows and covers old
tracks. But few Navajos ride in from the north. My trade is mostly
with Indians up and down the valley."

"How about water and grass?"

"We've had rain and snow. There's sure to be, water. Can't say about
grass, though the sheep and ponies from the north are always fat. . . .
But, say, Shefford, if you'll excuse me for advising you--don't go
north."

"Why?" asked Shefford, and it was certain that he thrilled.

"It's unknown country, terribly broken, as you can see from here, and
there are bad Indians biding in the canyon. I've never met a man who
had been over the pass between here and Kayenta. The trip's been made,
so there must be a trail. But it's a dangerous trip for any man, let
alone a tenderfoot. You're not even packing a gun."

"What's this place Kayenta?" asked Shefford.

"It's a spring. Kayenta means Bottomless Spring. There's a little
trading-post, the last and the wildest in northern Arizona. Withers,
the trader who keeps it, hauls his supplies in from Colorado and New
Mexico. He's never come down this way. I never saw him. Know nothing
of him except hearsay. Reckon he's a nervy and strong man to hold that
post. If you want to go there, better go by way of Keams Canyon, and
then around the foot of Black Mesa. It'll be a long ride--maybe two
hundred miles."

"How far straight north over the pass?"

"Can't say. Upward of seventy-five miles over rough trails, if there
are trails at all. . . . I've heard rumors of a fine tribe of Navajos
living in there, rich in sheep and horses. It may be true and it may
not. But I do know there are bad Indians, half-breeds and outcasts,
hiding in there. Some of them have visited me here. Bad customers!
More than that, you'll be going close to the Utah line, and the Mormons
over there are unfriendly these days."

"Why?" queried Shefford, again with that curious thrill.

"They are being persecuted by the government."

Shefford asked no more questions and his host vouchsafed no more
information on that score. The conversation lagged. Then Shefford
inquired about the Indian girl and learned that she lived up the
valley somewhere. Presbrey had never seen her before Willetts came
with her to Red Lake. And this query brought out the fact that
Presbrey was comparatively new to Red Lake and vicinity. Shefford
wondered why a lonely six months there had not made the trader old in
experience. Probably the desert did not readily give up its secrets.
Moreover, this Red Lake house was only an occasionally used branch of
Presbrey's main trading-post, which was situated at Willow Springs,
fifty miles westward over the mesa.

"I'm closing up here soon for a spell," said Presbrey, and now his
face lost its set hardness and seemed singularly changed. It was a
difference, of light and softness. "Won't be so lonesome over at
Willow Springs. . . . I'm being married soon."

"That's fine," replied Shefford, warmly. He was glad for the sake of
this lonely desert man. What good a wife would bring into a trader's
life!

Presbrey's naive admission, however, appeared to detach him from his
present surroundings, and with his massive head enveloped by a cloud
of smoke he lived in dreams.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.