The Heart of the Desert

by Honoré Morrow

  CHAPTER VII

  THE FIRST LESSON

  After crawling on her hands and knees for several yards, Rhoda rose andstarted on a run down the long slope to the open desert. But after afew steps she found running impossible, for the slope was a wildernessof rock, thickly grown with cholla and yucca with here and there athicker growth of cat's-claw.

  Almost at once her hands were torn and bleeding and she thoughtgratefully for the first time of her buckskin trousers which valiantlyresisted all detaining thorns. The way dropped rapidly and after herfirst wild spurt Rhoda leaned exhausted and panting against a boulder.She had not the vaguest idea of where she was going or of what she wasgoing to do, except that she was going to lose herself so thoroughlythat not even Kut-le could find her. After that she was quite willingto trust to fate.

  After a short rest she started on, every sense keen for the sound ofpursuit, but none came. As the silent minutes passed Rhoda becameelated. How easy it was! What a pity that she had not tried before!At the foot of the slope, she turned up the arroyo. Here her coursegrew heavier. The arroyo was cut by deep ruts and gullies down whichthe girl slid and tumbled in mad haste only to find rock masses overwhich she crawled with utmost difficulty. Now and again the stoutvamps of her hunting boots were pierced by chollas and, half frantic inher haste, she was forced to stop and struggle to pull out the thorns.

  It was not long before the girl's scant strength was gone, and whenafter a mad scramble she fell from a boulder to the ground, she was toodone up to rise. She lay face to the stars, half sobbing withexcitement and disappointment. After a time, however, the sobs ceasedand she lay thinking. She knew now that until she was inured to thedesert and had a working knowledge of its ways, escape was impossible.She must bide her time and wait for her friends to rescue her. She hadno idea how far she had come from the Indian camp. Whether or notKut-le could find her again she could not guess. If he did not, thenunless a white stumbled on her she must die in the desert. Well then,let it be so! The old lethargy closed in on her and she lay motionlessand hopeless.

  From all sides she heard the night howls of the coyote packs circlingnearer and nearer. Nothing could more perfectly interpret the horribledesolation of the desert, Rhoda thought, than the demoniacal,long-drawn laughter of the coyote. How long she lay she neither knewnor cared. But just as she fancied that the coyotes had drawn so nearthat she could hear their footsteps, a hand was laid on her arm.

  "Have you had enough, Rhoda?" asked Kut-le.

  "No!" shuddered Rhoda. "I'd rather die here!"

  The Indian laughed softly as he lifted her from the ground.

  "A good hater makes a good lover, Rhoda," he said. "I wish I'd hadtime to let you learn your lesson more thoroughly. I haven't beentwenty-five feet away from you since you left the camp. I wanted youto try your hand at it just so you'd realize what you are up against.But you've tired yourself badly."

  Rhoda lay mute in the young man's arms. She was not thinking of hiswords but of the first time that the Indian had carried her. She sawJohn DeWitt's protesting face, and tears of weakness and despair ransilently down her cheeks. Kut-le strode rapidly and, unhesitatinglyover the course she had followed so painfully and in a few moments theywere among the waiting Indians.

  Kut-le put Rhoda in her saddle, fastened her securely and put a Navajoabout her shoulders. The night's misery was begun. Whether they wentup and down mountains, whether they crossed deserts, Rhoda neither knewnor cared. The blind purpose of clinging to the saddle was the one aimof the dreadful night. She was a little light-headed at times and withher head against the horse's neck, she murmured John DeWitt's name, orsitting erect she called to him wildly. At such times Kut-le's fingerstightened and he clinched his teeth, but he did not go to her. When,however, the frail figure drooped silently and inertly against thewaist strap he seemed to know even in the darkness. Then and then onlyhe lifted her down, the squaws massaged her wracked body, and she wasput in the saddle again. Over and over during the night this wasrepeated until at dawn Rhoda was barely conscious that after beinglifted to the ground she was not remounted but was covered carefullyand left in peace.

  It was late in the afternoon again when Rhoda woke. She pushed asideher blankets and tried to get up but fell back with a groan. Thestiffness of the previous days was nothing whatever to the misery thatnow held every muscle rigid. The overexertion of three nights in thesaddle which the massaging had so far mitigated had asserted itself andevery muscle in the girl's body seemed acutely painful. To lift herhand to her hair, to draw a long breath, to turn her head, was almostimpossible.

  Rhoda looked dismally about her. The camp this time was on the side ofa mountain that lay in a series of mighty ranges, each separated fromthe other by a narrow strip of desert. White and gold gleamed thesnow-capped peaks. Purple and lavender melted the shimmering desertinto the lifting mesas. Rhoda threw her arm across her eyes to hidethe hateful sight, and moaned in pain at the movement.

  Molly ran to her side.

  "Your bones heap sick? Molly rub 'em?" she asked eagerly.

  "O Molly, if you would!" replied Rhoda gratefully, and she wondered atthe skill and gentleness of the Indian woman who manipulated the achingmuscles with such rapidity and firmness that in a little while Rhodastaggered stiffly to her feet.

  "Molly," she said, "I want to wash my face."

  Molly puckered up her own face in her effort to understand, andscratched her head.

  "Don't _sabe_ that," she said.

  "Wash my face!" repeated Rhoda in astonishment. "Of course youunderstand."

  Molly laughed.

  "No! You no wash! No use! You just get cold--heap cold!"

  "Molly!" called Kut-le's authoritative voice.

  Molly went flying toward the packs, from which she returned with acanteen and a tiny pitch-smeared basket. Kut-le followed with a towel.He grinned at Rhoda.

  "Molly is possessed with the idea that anything as frail as you wouldbe snuffed out like a candle by a drop of water. You and I eachpossess a lone lorn towel which we must wash out ourselves till the endof the trip. The squaws don't know when a thing is clean."

  Rhoda took the towel silently, and the young Indian, after waiting aminute as if in hope of a word from her, left the girl to her difficulttoilet. When Rhoda had finished she picked up the field-glasses thatKut-le had left on her blankets and with her back to the Indians satdown on a rock to watch the desert.

  The sordid discomforts of the camp seemed to her unbearable. She hatedthe blue haze of the desert below and beyond her. She hated the veryponies that Alchise was leading up from water. It was the fourth daysince her abduction. Rhoda could not understand why John and theNewmans were so slow to overtake her. She knew nothing as yet of theskill of her abductors. She was like an ignorant child placed in a newworld whose very ABC was closed to her. After always having been caredfor and protected, after never having known a hardship, the girlsuddenly was thrust into an existence whose savage simplicity wassufficient to try the hardiest man.

  Supper was eaten in silence, Kut-le finally giving up his attempts tomake conversation. It was dusk when they mounted and rode up themountain. Near the crest a whirling cloud of mist enveloped them. Itbecame desperately cold and Rhoda shivered beneath her Navajo butKut-le gave no heed to her. He led on and on, the horses slipping, thecold growing every minute more intense. At last there appeared beforethem a dim figure silhouetted against a flickering light. Kut-lehalted his party and rode forward; Rhoda saw the dim figure risehastily and after a short time Kut-le called back.

  "Come ahead!"

  The little camp was only an open space at the canon edge, with asheepskin shelter over a tiny fire. Beside the fire stood asheep-herder, a swarthy figure wrapped from head to foot in sheepskins.Over in the darkness by the mountain wall were the many nameless soundsthat tell of animals herding for the night. The shepherd greeted themwith the perfect courtesy of the Mexican.

&nb
sp; "Senors, the camp is yours!"

  Kut-le lifted the shivering Rhoda from her horse. The rain waslessening but the cold was still so great that Rhoda huddled gratefullyby the little fire under the sheepskin shelter. Kut-le refused theMexican's offer of tortillas and the man sat down to enjoy theirsociety. He eyed Rhoda keenly.

  "Ah! It is a senorita!" Then he gasped. "It is perhaps the SenoritaRhoda Tuttle!"

  Rhoda jumped to her feet.

  "Yes! Yes! How did you know?"

  Kut-le glared at the herder menacingly, but the little fellow did notsee. He spoke up bravely, as if he had a message for Rhoda.

  "Some people told me yesterday. They look for her everywhere!"

  Rhoda's eyes lighted joyfully.

  "Who? Where?" she cried.

  Kut-le spoke concisely:

  "You know nothing!" he said.

  The Mexican looked into the Apache's eyes and shivered slightly.

  "Nothing, of course, Senor," he replied.

  But Rhoda was not daunted.

  "Who were they?" she repeated. "What did they say? Where did they go?"

  The herder glanced at Rhoda and shook his head.

  "_Quien sabe_?"

  Rhoda turned to Kut-le in anger.

  "Don't be more brutal than you have to be!" she cried. "What harm canit do for this man to give me word of my friends?"

  Kut-le's eyes softened.

  "Answer the senorita's questions, amigo," he said.

  The Mexican began eagerly.

  "There were three. They rode up the trail one day ago. They calledthe dark man Porter, the big blue-eyed one DeWitt, and theyellow-haired one Newman."

  Rhoda clasped her hands with a little murmur of relief.

  "The blue-eyed one acted as if locoed. They cursed much at a name,Kut-le. But otherwise they talked little. They went that way,"pointing back over the trail. "They had found a scarf with a stonetied in it--"

  "What's that?" interrupted Kut-le sharply.

  Rhoda's eyes shone in the firelight.

  "'Not an overturned pebble escapes his eye,'" she said serenely.

  "Bully for you!" exclaimed Kut-le, smiling at Rhoda in understanding."However, I guess we will move on, having gleaned this interestingnews!"

  He remounted his little party. Rhoda reeled a little but she made noprotest. As they took to the trail again the sheep-herder stood by thefire, watching, and Rhoda called to him:

  "If you see them again tell them that I'm all right but that they musthurry!"

  Rhoda felt new life in her veins after the meeting with thesheep-herder and finished the night's trail in better shape than shehad done before. Yet not the next day nor for many days did they sightpursuers. With ingenuity that seemed diabolical, Kut-le laid hiscourse. He seldom moved hurriedly. Indeed, except for the fact thatthe traveling was done by night, the expedition had every aspect ofunlimited leisure.

  As the days passed, Rhoda forced herself to the calm of desperation.Slowly she realized that she was in the hands of the masters of the artof flight, an art that the very cruelty of the country abetted. But toher utter astonishment her delirium of physical misery began to lift.Saddle stiffness after the first two weeks left her. Though Kut-lestill fastened her to the saddle by the waist strap and rested her fora short time every hour or so during the night's ride, the hours in thesaddle ceased to tax her strength. She was surprised to find that shecould eat--eat the wretched cooking of the squaws!

  At last she laid out a definite course for herself. Every night on thetrail and at every camp she tried to leave some mark for the whites--ascratch on pebble or stone, a bit of marked yucca or a twistedcat's-claw. She ceased entirely to speak to Kut-le, treating him witha contemptuous silence that was torture to the Indian though he gave nooutward sign.

  Molly was her devoted friend and Rhoda derived great comfort from thisfaithful servitor. Rhoda sat in the camp one afternoon with the twosquaws while Kut-le and Alchise were off on a turkey hunt. Some of thegirl's pallor had given way to a delicate tan. The dark circles abouther eyes had lightened a little. Molly was busily pounding grass-seedsbetween two stones. Rhoda watched her idly. Suddenly a new idea sentthe blood to her thin cheeks.

  Why shouldn't she learn to make seed meal, to catch and cook rabbits,to distinguish edible cactus from inedible? Then indeed she would beable to care for herself on the trail! To Rhoda, who never had workedwith her hands, who indeed had come to look on manual labor asbelonging to inferiors, the idea was revolutionary. For a long timeshe turned it over in her mind, watching Molly the while. The mostviolent housewifely task that Rhoda ever had undertaken had been theconcocting of chafing-dish messes at school.

  "Molly," she said suddenly, "teach me how to do that!"

  Molly paused and grinned delightedly.

  "All right! You come help poor Molly!"

  With Cesca looking on sardonically, Molly poured fresh seeds on herrude metate and showed Rhoda the grinding roll that flattened and brokethe little grains. Despite her weak fingers Rhoda took to the workeasily. As she emptied out the first handful of meal, a curious senseof pleasure came to her. Squatting before the metate, she looked atthe little pile of bruised seeds with the utmost satisfaction. Mollypoured more seeds on the metate and Rhoda began again. She was hard ather task, her cheeks flushed with interest, when Kut-le returned.Rhoda did not see the sudden look of pleasure in his eyes.

  "You will tire yourself," he said.

  Rhoda did not answer, but poured another handful of seed on the metate.

  "You'll begin to like the life," he went on, "by the time you areeducated enough to leave us." He turned teasingly to Cesca. "Youthink the white squaw can cross the desert soon by herself?"

  Cesca spat disdainfully.

  "No! White squaw no good! All time sit, sit, no work! Kut-le heapfool!"

  "Oh, Cesca," cried Rhoda, "I'm too sick to work! And see this mealI've made! Isn't it good?"

  Cesca glanced disdainfully at the little heap of meal Rhoda had bruisedout so painfully.

  "Huh!" she grunted. "Feed 'em to the horses. Injuns no eat 'em!"

  Rhoda looked from the meal to her slender, tired fingers. Cesca'scontempt hurt her unaccountably. In her weakness her cleft chinquivered. She turned to Molly.

  "Do you think it's so bad, Molly?"

  That faithful friend grunted with rage and aimed a vicious kick atCesca. Then she put a protecting arm about Rhoda.

  "It's heap fine! Cesca just old fool. You love Molly. Let Cesca goto hell!"

  Kut-le had been watching the little scene with tender eyes. Now hestooped and lifted Rhoda to her feet, then he raised one of thedelicate hands and touched it softly with his lips.

  "Leave such work to the squaws, dear! You aren't built for it. Cesca,you old lobster, you make me tired! Go fix the turkeys!"

  Cesca rose with dignity, flipped away her cigarette and walked with asniff over to the cooking-pot. Rhoda drew her hands from the youngIndian's clasp and walked to the edge of the camp. The hot pulse thatthe touch of Kut-le's lips sent through her body startled her.

  "I hate him!" she said to herself. "I hate him! I hate him!"

  The trail that night was unusually difficult and Rhoda had to be restedfrequently. At each stop, Kut-le tried to talk to her but shemaintained her silence. They paused at dawn in a pocket formed by themeeting of three divergent canons. Far, far above the desert as theywere, still farther above them stretched the wonderful barren ridges,snow-capped and silent. As Rhoda stood waiting for the squaws tospread her blankets the peaks were lighted suddenly by the rays of thestill unseen sun. For one unspeakable instant their snow crownsflashed a translucent scarlet that trembled, shimmered, then melted toa pink, then to a white so pure, so piercing that Rhoda trembled withsudden awe. Then as she looked, the sun rolled into view, blinding hereyes, and she turned to her waiting blankets.

  She had slept for several hours when she was wakened by a soft tap onher
shoulder. She opened her eyes and would have risen but a voicewhispered:

  "Hush! Don't move!"