Rainbow Trail

Zane Grey

Description

This sequel to Zane Grey's enormously popular Riders of the Purple Sage picks up ten years after the events of the previous novel. Tragedy has befallen the community of Surprise Valley, and changing views among the largely Mormon populace have begun to create rifts in the community. The Rainbow Trail includes plenty of the adventure and romance that fans of Zane Grey's work have come to love.

Sujets

• Westerns
• Western (genre)
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775452911
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE RAINBOW TRAIL
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ZANE GREY
 
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The Rainbow Trail First published in 1915 ISBN 978-1-775452-91-1 © 2011 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Foreword 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
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The spell of the desert comes back to me, as it always will come. I seethe veils, like purple smoke, in the cañon, and I feel the silence. Andit seems that again I must try to pierce both and to get at the strangewild life of the last American wilderness—wild still, almost, as itever was.
While this romance is an independent story, yet readers of "Riders ofthe 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 differentform in one of the monthly magazines under the title of "The DesertCrucible."
ZANE GREY.
June, 1915.
I - Red Lake
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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 dryred basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a lonely anddesolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond.
All day Shefford had plodded onward with the clear horizon-line a thingunattainable; and for days before that he had ridden the wild bare flatsand climbed the rocky desert benches. The great colored reaches andsteps had led endlessly onward and upward through dim and deceivingdistance.
A hundred miles of desert travel, with its mistakes and lessons andintimations, had not prepared him for what he now saw. He beheld whatseemed a world that knew only magnitude. Wonder and awe fixed his gaze,and thought remained aloof. Then that dark and unknown northland flunga menace at him. An irresistible call had drawn him to this seamed andpeaked border of Arizona, this broken battlemented wilderness of Utahupland; and at first sight they frowned upon him, as if to warn him notto search for what lay hidden beyond the ranges. But Shefford thrilledwith both fear and exultation. That was the country which had beendescribed to him. Far across the red valley, far beyond the ragged lineof black mesa and yellow range, lay the wild cañon with its hauntingsecret.
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 alwayshaunted. A friend's strange story had prompted his singular journey; abeautiful rainbow with its mystery and promise had decided him. Once inhis life he had answered a wild call to the kingdom of adventurewithin him, and once in his life he had been happy. But here in thehorizon-wide face of that up-flung and cloven desert he grew cold; hefaltered even while he felt more fatally drawn.
As if impelled Shefford started his horse down the sandy trail, but hechecked his former far-reaching gaze. It was the month of April, and thewaning sun lost heat and brightness. Long shadows crept down the slopeahead of him and the scant sage deepened its gray. He watched thelizards shoot like brown streaks across the sand, leaving their slendertracks; he heard the rustle of pack-rats as they darted into theirbrushy 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. Thelast ridge was a sand-dune, beautifully ribbed and scalloped and linedby the wind, and from its knife-sharp crest a thin wavering sheet ofsand blew, almost like smoke. Shefford wondered why the sand looked redat 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 barenessof the slope. It dominated that long white incline. Grim, lonely,forbidding, how strangely it harmonized with the surroundings! Thestructure was octagon-shaped, built of uncut stone, and resembled afort. There was no door on the sides exposed to Shefford's gaze, butsmall apertures two-thirds the way up probably served as windows andport-holes. The roof appeared to be made of poles covered with redearth.
Like a huge cold rock on a wide plain this house stood there on thewindy slope. It was an outpost of the trader Presbrey, of whom Sheffordhad heard at Flagstaff and Tuba. No living thing appeared in thelimit of Shefford's vision. He gazed shudderingly at the unwelcominghabitation, at the dark eyelike windows, at the sweep of barren slopemerging into the vast red valley, at the bold, bleak bluffs. Could anyone live here? The nature of that sinister valley forbade a home there,and the spirit of the place hovered in the silence and space. Sheffordthought irresistibly of how his enemies would have consigned him tojust such a hell. He thought bitterly and mockingly of the narrowcongregation that had proved him a failure in the ministry, that hadrepudiated his ideas of religion and immortality and God, that haddriven him, at the age of twenty-four, from the calling forced upon himby his people. As a boy he had yearned to make himself an artist; hisfamily had made him a clergyman; fate had made him a failure. A failureonly so far in his life, something urged him to add—for in the lonelydays and silent nights of the desert he had experienced a strange birthof hope. Adventure had called him, but it was a vague and spiritualhope, a dream of promise, a nameless attainment that fortified hiswilder impulse.
As he rode around a corner of the stone house his horse snorted andstopped. A lean, shaggy pony jumped at sight of him, almost displacinga red long-haired blanket that covered an Indian saddle. Quick thudsof hoofs in sand drew Shefford's attention to a corral made of peeledpoles, 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, apile of bags of flour, blankets, and silver-ornamented objects, but thepersons he had heard were not in that part of the house. Around anothercorner of the octagon-shaped wall he found another open door, andthrough it saw goat-skins and a mound of dirty sheep-wool, black andbrown and white. It was light in this part of the building. When hecrossed the threshold he was astounded to see a man struggling witha girl—an Indian girl. She was straining back from him, panting, anduttering low guttural sounds. The man's face was corded and dark withpassion. This scene affected Shefford strangely. Primitive emotions werenew to him.
Before Shefford could speak the girl broke loose and turned to flee. Shewas an Indian and this place was the uncivilized desert, but Sheffordknew terror when he saw it. Like a dog the man rushed after her. It wasinstinct that made Shefford strike, and his blow laid the man flat. Helay stunned a moment, then raised himself to a sitting posture, hishand to his face, and the gaze he fixed upon Shefford seemed to combineastonishment 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. Therewas 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 andrather stout; he had a smooth tanned face, soft of outline, with a weakchin; his eyes were dark. The look of him and his corduroys and his softshoes 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 hadmet this stranger stood out strikingly. He stooped to pick up a softfelt hat and, jamming it on his head, he hurried out. Shefford followedhim 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 washard, he put the pony to a lope and gradually drew away.
"Well!" ejaculated Shefford. He did not know what to make of thisadventure. Presently he became aware that the Indian girl was sitting ona roll of blankets near the wall. With curious interest Shefford studiedher appearance. She had long, raven-black hair, tangled and disheveled,and she wore a soiled white band of cord above her brow. The color ofher face struck him; it was dark, but not red nor bronzed; it almosthad a tinge of gold. Her profile was clear-cut, bold, almost stern. Longblack eyelashes hid her eyes. She wore a tight-fitting waist garment ofmaterial resembling velveteen. It was ripped along her side, exposinga skin still more richly gold than that of her face. A string of silverornaments and turquoise-and-white beads encircled her neck, and it movedgently up and down with the heaving of her full bosom. Her skirt wassome gaudy print goods, torn and stained and dusty. She had little feet,incased in brown moccasins, fitting like gloves and buttoning over theankles with silver coins.
"Who was that man? Did he hurt you?" inquired Shef