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WILDFIRE

by ZANE GREY




CHAPTER I

For some reason the desert scene before Lucy Bostil awoke varying emotions--a
sweet gratitude for the fullness of her life there at the Ford, yet a haunting
remorse that she could not be wholly content--a vague loneliness of soul--a
thrill and a fear for the strangely calling future, glorious, unknown.

She longed for something to happen. It might be terrible, so long as it was
wonderful. This day, when Lucy had stolen away on a forbidden horse, she was
eighteen years old. The thought of her mother, who had died long ago on their
way into this wilderness, was the one drop of sadness in her joy. Lucy loved
everybody at Bostil's Ford and everybody loved her. She loved all the horses
except her father's favorite racer, that perverse devil of a horse, the great
Sage King.

Lucy was glowing and rapt with love for all she beheld from her lofty perch:
the green-and-pink blossoming hamlet beneath her, set between the beauty of
the gray sage expanse and the ghastliness of the barren heights; the swift
Colorado sullenly thundering below in the abyss; the Indians in their bright
colors, riding up the river trail; the eagle poised like a feather on the air,
and a beneath him the grazing cattle making black dots on the sage; the deep
velvet azure of the sky; the golden lights on the bare peaks and the lilac
veils in the far ravines; the silky rustle of a canyon swallow as he shot
downward in the sweep of the wind; the fragrance of cedar, the flowers of the
spear-pointed mescal; the brooding silence, the beckoning range, the purple
distance.

Whatever it was Lucy longed for, whatever was whispered by the wind and
written in the mystery of the waste of sage and stone, she wanted it to happen
there at Bostil's Ford. She had no desire for civilization, she flouted the
idea of marrying the rich rancher of Durango. Bostil's sister, that stern but
lovable woman who had brought her up and taught her, would never persuade her
to marry against her will. Lucy imagined herself like a wild horse--free,
proud, untamed, meant for the desert; and here she would live her life. The
desert and her life seemed as one, yet in what did they resemble each
other--in what of this scene could she read the nature of her future?

Shudderingly she rejected the red, sullen, thundering river, with its swift,
changeful, endless, contending strife--for that was tragic. And she rejected
the frowning mass of red rock, upreared, riven and split and canyoned, so grim
and aloof--for that was barren. But she accepted the vast sloping valley of
sage, rolling gray and soft and beautiful, down to the dim mountains and
purple ramparts of the horizon. Lucy did not know what she yearned for, she
did not know why the desert called to her, she did not know in what it
resembled her spirit, but she did know that these three feelings were as one,
deep in her heart. For ten years, every day of her life, she had watched this
desert scene, and never had there been an hour that it was not different, yet
the same. Ten years--and she grew up watching, feeling--till from the desert's
thousand moods she assimilated its nature, loved her bonds, and could never
have been happy away from the open, the color, the freedom, the wildness. On
this birthday, when those who loved her said she had become her own mistress,
she acknowledged the claim of the desert forever. And she experienced a deep,
rich, strange happiness.

Hers always then the mutable and immutable desert, the leagues and leagues of
slope and sage and rolling ridge, the great canyons and the giant cliffs, the
dark river with its mystic thunder of waters, the pine-fringed plateaus, the
endless stretch of horizon, with its lofty, isolated, noble monuments, and the
bold ramparts with their beckoning beyond! Hers always the desert seasons: the
shrill, icy blast, the intense cold, the steely skies, the fading snows; the
gray old sage and the bleached grass under the pall of the spring sand-storms;
the hot furnace breath of summer, with its magnificent cloud pageants in the
sky, with the black tempests hanging here and there over the peaks, dark veils
floating down and rainbows everywhere, and the lacy waterfalls upon the
glistening cliffs and the thunder of the red floods; and the glorious golden
autumn when it was always afternoon and time stood still! Hers always the
rides in the open, with the sun at her back and the wind in her face! And hers
surely, sooner or later, the nameless adventure which had its inception in the
strange yearning of her heart and presaged its fulfilment somewhere down that
trailless sage-slope she loved so well!

Bostil's house was a crude but picturesque structure of red stone and white
clay and bleached cottonwoods, and it stood at the outskirts of the cluster of
green-inclosed cabins which composed the hamlet. Bostil was wont to say that
in all the world there could hardly be a grander view than the outlook down
that gray sea of rolling sage, down to the black-fringed plateaus and the
wild, blue-rimmed and gold-spired horizon.

One morning in early spring, as was Bostil's custom, he ordered the racers to
be brought from the corrals and turned loose on the slope. He loved to sit
there and watch his horses graze, but ever he saw that the riders were close
at hand, and that the horses did not get out on the slope of sage. He sat back
and gloried in the sight. He owned bands of mustangs; near by was a field of
them, fine and mettlesome and racy; yet Bostil had eyes only for the blooded
favorites. Strange it was that not one of these was a mustang or a broken wild
horse, for many of the riders' best mounts had been captured by them or the
Indians. And it was Bostil's supreme ambition to own a great wild stallion.
There was Plume, a superb mare that got her name from the way her mane swept
in the wind when she was on the ran; and there was Two Face, like a coquette,
sleek and glossy and running and the huge, rangy bay, Dusty Ben; and the black
stallion Sarchedon; and lastly Sage King, the color of the upland sage, a
racer in build, a horse splendid and proud and beautiful.

"Where's Lucy?" presently asked Bostil.

As he divided his love, so he divided his anxiety.

Some rider had seen Lucy riding off, with her golden hair flying in the wind.
This was an old story.

"She's up on Buckles?" Bostil queried, turning sharply to the speaker.

"Reckon so," was the calm reply.

Bostil swore. He did not have a rider who could equal him in profanity.

"Farlane, you'd orders. Lucy's not to ride them hosses, least of all Buckles.
He ain't safe even for a man."

"Wal, he's safe fer Lucy."

"But didn't I say no?"

"Boss, it's likely you did, fer you talk a lot," replied Farlane. "Lucy pulled
my hat down over my eyes--told me to go to thunder--an' then, zip! she an'
Buckles were dustin' it fer the sage."

"She's got to keep out of the sage," growled Bostil. "It ain't safe for her
out there. . . . Where's my glass? I want to take a look at the slope. Where's
my glass?"

The glass could not be found.

"What's makin' them dust-clouds on the sage? Antelope? . . . Holley, you used
to have eyes better 'n me. Use them, will you?"

A gray-haired, hawk-eyed rider, lean and worn, approached with clinking spurs.

"Down in there," said Bostil, pointing.

"Thet's a bunch of hosses," replied Holley.

"Wild hosses?"

"I take 'em so, seein' how they throw thet dust."

"Huh! I don't like it. Lucy oughtn't be ridin' round alone."

"Wal, boss, who could catch her up on Buckles? Lucy can ride. An' there's the
King an' Sarch right under your nose--the only hosses on the sage thet could
outrun Buckles."

Farlane knew how to mollify his master and long habit had made him proficient.
Bostil's eyes flashed. He was proud of Lucy's power over a horse. The story
Bostil first told to any stranger happening by the Ford was how Lucy had been
born during a wild ride--almost, as it were, on the back of a horse. That, at
least, was her fame, and the riders swore she was a worthy daughter of such a
mother. Then, as Farlane well knew, a quick road to Bostil's good will was to
praise one of his favorites.

"Reckon you spoke sense for once, Farlane," replied Bostil, with relief. "I
wasn't thinkin' so much of danger for Lucy. . . . But she lets thet
half-witted Creech go with her."

"No, boss, you're wrong," put in Holley, earnestly. "I know the girl. She has
no use fer Joel. But he jest runs after her."

"An' he's harmless," added Farlane.

"We ain't agreed," rejoined Bostil, quickly. "What do you say, Holley?"

The old rider looked thoughtful and did not speak for long.

"Wal, Yes an' no," he answered, finally. "I reckon Lucy could make a man out
of Joel. But she doesn't care fer him, an' thet settles thet. . . . An' maybe
Joel's leanin' toward the bad."

"If she meets him again I'll rope her in the house," declared Bostil.

Another clear-eyed rider drew Bostil's attention from the gray waste of
rolling sage.

"Bostil, look! Look at the King! He's watchin' fer somethin'. . . . An' so's
Sarch."

The two horses named were facing a ridge some few hundred yards distant, and
their heads were aloft and ears straight forward. Sage King whistled shrilly
and Sarchedon began to prance.

"Boys, you'd better drive them in," said Bostil. "They'd like nothin' so well
as gettin' out on the sage. . . . Hullo! what's thet shootin' up behind the
ridge?"

"No more 'n Buckles with Lucy makin' him run some," replied Holley, with a
dry laugh.

"If it ain't! . . . Lord! look at him come!"

Bostil's anger and anxiety might never have been. The light of the upland
rider's joy shone in his keen gaze. The slope before him was open, and almost
level, down to the ridge that had hidden the missing girl and horse. Buckles
was running for the love of running, as the girl low down over his neck was
riding for the love of riding. The Sage King whistled again, and shot off with
graceful sweep to meet them; Sarchedon plunged after him; Two Face and Plume
jealously trooped down, too, but Dusty Ben, after a toss of his head, went on
grazing. The gray and the black met Buckles and could not turn in time to stay
with him. A girl's gay scream pealed up the slope, and Buckles went lower and
faster. Sarchedon was left behind. Then the gray King began to run as if
before he had been loping. He was beautiful in action. This was play--a
game--a race--plainly dominated by the spirit of the girl. Lucy's hair was a
bright stream of gold in the wind. She rode bareback. It seemed that she was
hunched low over Buckles with her knees high on his back--scarcely astride
him at all. Yet her motion was one with the horse. Again that wild, gay scream
pealed out--call or laugh or challenge. Sage King, with a fleetness that made
the eyes of Bostil and his riders glisten, took the lead, and then sheered off
to slow down, while Buckles thundered past. Lucy was pulling him hard, and had
him plunging to a halt, when the rider Holley ran out to grasp his bridle.
Buckles was snorting and his ears were laid back. He pounded the ground and
scattered the pebbles.

"No use, Lucy," said Bostil. "You can't beat the King at your own game, even
with a runnin' start."

Lucy Bostil's eyes were blue, as keen as her father's, and now they flashed
like his. She had a hand twisted in the horse's long mane, and as, lithe and
supple, she slipped a knee across his broad back she shook a little gantleted
fist at Bostil's gray racer.

"Sage King, I hate you!" she called, as if the horse were human. "And I'll
beat you some day!"

Bostil swore by the gods his Sage King was the swiftest horse in all that wild
upland country of wonderful horses. He swore the great gray could look back
over his shoulder and run away from any broken horse known to the riders.

Bostil himself was half horse, and the half of him that was human he divided
between love of his fleet racers and his daughter Lucy. He had seen years of
hard riding on that wild Utah border where, in those days, a horse meant all
the world to a man. A lucky strike of grassy upland and good water south of
the Rio Colorado made him rich in all that he cared to own. The Indians, yet
unspoiled by white men, were friendly. Bostil built a boat at the Indian
crossing of the Colorado and the place became known as Bostil's Ford. From
time to time his personality and his reputation and his need brought
horse-hunters, riders, sheep-herders, and men of pioneer spirit, as well as
wandering desert travelers, to the Ford, and the lonely, isolated hamlet
slowly grew. North of the river it was more than two hundred miles to the
nearest little settlement, with only a few lonely ranches on the road; to the
west were several villages, equally distant, but cut off for two months at a
time by the raging Colorado, flooded by melting snow up in the mountains.
Eastward from the Ford stretched a ghastly, broken, unknown desert of canyons.
Southward rolled the beautiful uplands, with valleys of sage and grass, and
plateaus of pine and cedar, until this rich rolling gray and green range broke
sharply on a purple horizon line of upflung rocky ramparts and walls and
monuments, wild, dim, and mysterious.

Bostil's cattle and horses were numberless, and many as were his riders, he
always could use more. But most riders did not abide long with Bostil, first
because some of them were of a wandering breed, wild-horse hunters themselves;
and secondly, Bostil had two great faults: he seldom paid a rider in money,
and he never permitted one to own a fleet horse. He wanted to own all the fast
horses himself. And in those days every rider, especially a wild-horse hunter,
loved his steed as part of himself. If there was a difference between Bostil
and any rider of the sage, it was that, as he had more horses, so he had more
love.

Whenever Bostil could not get possession of a horse he coveted, either by
purchase or trade, he invariably acquired a grievance toward the owner. This
happened often, for riders were loath to part with their favorites. And he had
made more than one enemy by his persistent nagging. It could not be said,
however, that he sought to drive hard bargains. Bostil would pay any price
asked for a horse.

Across the Colorado, in a high, red-walled canyon opening upon the river,
lived a poor sheep-herder and horse-trader named Creech. This man owned a
number of thoroughbreds, two of which he would not part with for all the gold
in the uplands. These racers, Blue Roan and Peg, had been captured wild on the
ranges by Ute Indians and broken to racing. They were still young and getting
faster every year. Bostil wanted them because he coveted them and because he
feared them. It would have been a terrible blow to him if any horse ever beat
the gray. But Creech laughed at all offers and taunted Bostil with a boast
that in another summer he would see a horse out in front of the King.

To complicate matters and lead rivalry into hatred young Joel Creech, a great
horseman, but worthless in the eyes of all save his father, had been heard to
say that some day he would force a race between the King and Blue Roan. And
that threat had been taken in various ways. It alienated Bostil beyond all
hope of reconciliation. It made Lucy Bostil laugh and look sweetly mysterious.
She had no enemies and she liked everybody. It was even gossiped by the women
of Bostil's Ford that she had more than liking for the idle Joel. But the
husbands of these gossips said Lucy was only tender-hearted. Among the riders,
when they sat around their lonely camp-fires, or lounged at the corrals of the
Ford, there was speculation in regard to this race hinted by Joel Creech.
There never had been a race between the King and Blue Roan, and there never
would be, unless Joel were to ride off with Lucy. In that case there would be
the grandest race ever run on the uplands, with the odds against Blue Roan
only if he carried double. If Joel put Lucy up on the Roan and he rode Peg
there would be another story. Lucy Bostil was a slip of a girl, born on a
horse, as strong and supple as an Indian, and she could ride like a burr
sticking in a horse's mane. With Blue Roan carrying her light weight she might
run away from any one up on the King--which for Bostil would be a double
tragedy, equally in the loss of his daughter and the beating of his
best-beloved racer. But with Joel on Peg, such a race would end in heartbreak
for all concerned, for the King would outrun Peg, and that would bring riders
within gunshot.

It had always been a fascinating subject, this long-looked-for race. It grew
more so when Joel's infatuation for Lucy became known. There were fewer riders
who believed Lucy might elope with Joel than there were who believed Joel
might steal his father's horses. But all the riders who loved horses and all
the women who loved gossip were united in at least one thing, and that was
that something like a race or a romance would soon disrupt the peaceful,
sleepy tenor of Bostil's Ford.

In addition to Bostil's growing hatred for the Creeches, he had a great fear
of Cordts, the horse-thief. A fear ever restless, ever watchful. Cordts hid
back in the untrodden ways. He had secret friends among the riders of the
ranges, faithful followers back in the canyon camps, gold for the digging,
cattle by the thousand, and fast horses. He had always gotten what he wanted
--except one thing. That was a certain horse. And the horse was Sage King.

Cordts was a bad man, a product of the early gold-fields of California and
Idaho, an outcast from that evil wave of wanderers retreating back over the
trails so madly traveled westward. He became a lord over the free ranges. But
more than all else he was a rider. He knew a horse. He was as much horse as
Bostil. Cordts rode into this wild free-range country, where he had been
heard to say that a horse-thief was meaner than a poisoned coyote.
Nevertheless, he became a horse-thief. The passion he had conceived for the
Sage King was the passion of a man for an unattainable woman. Cordts swore
that he would never rest, that he would not die, till he owned the King. So
there was reason for Bostil's great fear.



CHAPTER II

Bostil went toward the house with his daughter, turning at the door to call a
last word to his riders about the care of his horses.

The house was a low, flat, wide structure, with a corridor running through the
middle, from which doors led into the adobe-walled rooms. The windows were
small openings high up, evidently intended for defense as well as light, and
they had rude wooden shutters. The floor was clay, covered everywhere by
Indian blankets. A pioneer's home it was, simple and crude, yet comfortable,
and having the rare quality peculiar to desert homes it was cool in summer and
warm in winter.

As Bostil entered with his arm round Lucy a big hound rose from the hearth.
This room was immense, running the length of the house, and it contained a
huge stone fireplace, where a kettle smoked fragrantly, and rude home-made
chairs with blanket coverings, and tables to match, and walls covered with
bridles, guns, pistols, Indian weapons and ornaments, and trophies of the
chase. In a far corner stood a work-bench, with tools upon it and horse
trappings under it. In the opposite corner a door led into the kitchen. This
room was Bostil's famous living-room, in which many things had happened, some
of which had helped make desert history and were never mentioned by Bostil.

Bostil's sister came in from the kitchen. She was a huge person with a severe
yet motherly face. She had her hands on her hips, and she cast a rather
disapproving glance at father and daughter.

"So you're back again?" she queried, severely.

"Sure, Auntie," replied the girl, complacently.

"You ran off to get out of seeing Wetherby, didn't you?"

Lucy stared sweetly at her aunt.

"He was waiting for hours," went on the worthy woman. "I never saw a man in
such a stew. . . . No wonder, playing fast and loose with him the way you do."

"I told him No!" flashed Lucy.

"But Wetherby's not the kind to take no. And I'm not satisfied to let you mean
it. Lucy Bostil, you don't know your mind an hour straight running. You've
fooled enough with these riders of your Dad's. If you're not careful you'll
marry one of them. . . . One of these wild riders! As bad as a Ute
Indian! . . . Wetherby is young and he idolizes you. In all common sense
why don't you take him?"

"I don't care for him," replied Lucy.

"You like him as well as anybody. . . . John Bostil, what do you say? You
approved of Wetherby. I heard you tell him Lucy was like an unbroken colt and
that you'd--"

"Sure, I like Jim," interrupted Bostil; and he avoided Lucy's swift look.

"Well?" demanded his sister.

Evidently Bostil found himself in a corner between two fires. He looked
sheepish, then disgusted.

"Dad!" exclaimed Lucy, reproachfully.

"See here, Jane," said Bostil, with an air of finality, "the girl is of age
to-day--an' she can do what she damn pleases!"

"That's a fine thing for you to say," retorted Aunt Jane. "Like as not she'll
be fetching that hang-dog Joel Creech up here for you to support."

"Auntie!" cried Lucy, her eyes blazing.

"Oh, child, you torment me--worry me so," said the disappointed woman. "It's
all for your sake. . . . Look at you, Lucy Bostil! A girl of eighteen who
comes of a family! And you riding around and going around as you are now--in a
man's clothes!"

"But, you dear old goose, I can't ride in a woman's skirt," expostulated Lucy.
"Mind you, Auntie, I can RIDE!"

"Lucy, if I live here forever I'd never get reconciled to a Bostil woman in
leather pants. We Bostils were somebody once, back in Missouri."

Bostil laughed. "Yes, an' if I hadn't hit the trail west we'd be starvin' yet.
Jane, you're a sentimental old fool. Let the girl alone an' reconcile yourself
to this wilderness."

Aunt Jane's eyes were wet with tears. Lucy, seeing them, ran to her and hugged
and kissed her.

"Auntie, I will promise--from to-day--to have some dignity. I've been free as
a boy in these rider clothes. As I am now the men never seem to regard me as a
girl. Somehow that's better. I can't explain, but I like it. My dresses are
what have caused all the trouble. I know that. But if I'm grown up--if it's so
tremendous--then I'll wear a dress all the time, except just WHEN I ride.
Will that do, Auntie?"

"Maybe you will grow up, after all," replied Aunt Jane, evidently surprised
and pleased.

Then Lucy with clinking spurs ran away to her room.

"Jane, what's this nonsense about young Joel Creech?" asked Bostil, gruffly.

"I don't know any more than is gossiped. That I told you. Have you ever asked
Lucy about him?"

"I sure haven't," said Bostil, bluntly.

"Well, ask her. If she tells you at all she'll tell the truth. Lucy'd never
sleep at night if she lied."

Aunt Jane returned to her housewifely tasks, leaving Bostil thoughtfully
stroking the hound and watching the fire. Presently Lucy returned--a different
Lucy--one that did not rouse his rider's pride, but thrilled his father's
heart. She had been a slim, lithe, supple, disheveled boy, breathing the wild
spirit of the open and the horse she rode. She was now a girl in the graceful
roundness of her slender form, with hair the gold of the sage at sunset, and
eyes the blue of the deep haze of distance, and lips the sweet red of the
upland rose. And all about her seemed different.

"Lucy--you look--like--like she used to be," said Bostil, unsteadily.

"My mother!" murmured Lucy.

But these two, so keen, so strong, so alive, did not abide long with sad
memories.

"Lucy, I want to ask you somethin'," said Bostil, presently. "What about this
young Joel Creech?"

Lucy started as if suddenly recalled, then she laughed merrily. "Dad, you old
fox, did you see him ride out after me?"

"No. I was just askin' on--on general principles."

"What do you mean?"

"Lucy, is there anythin' between you an' Joel?" he asked, gravely.

"No," she replied, with her clear eyes up to his.

Bostil thought of a bluebell. "I'm beggin' your pardon," he said, hastily.

"Dad, you know how Joel runs after me. I've told you. I let him till lately. I
liked him. But that wasn't why. I felt sorry for him--pitied him."

"You did? Seems an awful waste," replied Bostil.

"Dad, I don't believe Joel is--perfectly right in his mind," Lucy said,
solemnly.

"Haw! haw! Fine compliments you're payin' yourself."

"Listen. I'm serious. I mean I've grown to see---looking back--that a slow,
gradual change has come over Joel since he was kicked in the head by a
mustang. I'm sure no one else has noticed it."

"Goin' batty over you. That's no unusual sign round this here camp. Look at--"

"We're talking about Joel Creech. Lately he has done some queer things.
To-day, for instance. I thought I gave him the slip. But he must have been
watching. Anyway, to my surprise he showed up on Peg. He doesn't often get Peg
across the river. He said the feed was getting scarce over there. I was dying
to race Buckles against Peg, but I remembered you wouldn't like that."

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