by Zane Grey
“Sir, your voice startled me,” replied the woman, with a gasp. “But it’s a voice I trust. The looks of men in this hard country deceive me sometimes — but never their voices...Sir, if you will help us in our extremity, you will have the gratitude of a dying woman — of a mother.”
The darkness was intense inside the hut, and Adam leaning at the door, could see nothing. The girl touched his arm, timidly, almost appealingly, as Adam hesitated over his reply.
“You can — trust me,” he said, presently. “My name is Wansfell. I’m just a desert wanderer. If I may — I’ll stay here — look after your little girl till her uncle comes.”
“At last — God has answered my — prayer!” exclaimed the woman, pantingly.
Adam unpacked his burros a half dozen rods from the hut, under a spreading cottonwood and near the juncture of two little streams of water that flowed down out of the gloom, one on each side of the great corner of mountain. And Adam’s big hands made short shift of camp tasks that night. The hut appeared to be substantial and well made, with upright poles and thatch, covered by a thatched roof of palm leaves. The girl came out and watched him, and Adam had never seen hungrier eyes even in an Indian.
“It’d be fun to watch you — you’re so quick — if I wasn’t starved,” said Genie.
What a slender, almost flat slip of a girl! Her dress was in tatters, showing bare brown flesh in places. The pinched little face further stirred Adam’s pity. And there waved over him a strange pride in his immense strength, his wonderful hands, his desert knowledge that now could be put to the greatest good ever offered him in his wanderings.
“Genie, when you’re starved you must eat very slowly — and only a little.”
“I know. I’ve known all about people starving and thirsting. But I’m not that badly off. I’ve had a little to eat.”
“Honest Injun?” he queried.
She had never heard that expression, so he changed it to another of like meaning.
“I wouldn’t lie,” she replied, with direct simplicity that indeed reminded Adam of an Indian.
Never had Adam prepared so good a camp dinner in such short time. And then, hungry as Genie was, she insisted that her mother should be served first. She took a lighted candle Adam gave her and led the way into the hut, while he followed, carrying food and drink that he believed best for a woman so weak and starved. The hut had two rooms, the first being a kitchen with stone floor and well furnished with camp utensils. The second room contained two rude cots made of poles and palm leaves, upon one of which Adam saw a pale shadow of a woman whose eyes verified the tragic words she had spoken.
Despite the way Adam stooped as he entered, his lofty head brushed the palm-leafed roof. Genie laughed when he bumped against a cross-beam.
“Mother, he’s the tallest man!” exclaimed the girl. “He could never live in our hut...Now sit up, mother dear...Doesn’t it all smell good. Oooooo! The Indian fairy has come.”
“Genie, will you hold the candle so I can see the face of this kind man?” asked the woman, when she had been propped up in bed.
The girl complied, with another little laugh. Adam had not before been subjected to a scrutiny like the one he bore then. It seemed to come from beyond this place and time. “Sir, you are a man such as I have never seen,” she said, at length.
Plain it was to Adam that the sincerity, or whatever she saw in him, meant more to her than the precious food of which she stood in such dire need. Her hair was straggly and grey, her brow lined by pain and care, her burning eyes were sunk deep in dark hollows, and the rest of her features seemed mere pale shadows.
“I’m glad for your confidence,” he said. “But never mind me. Try to eat some now.”
“Mother, there’s plenty,” added Genie, with soft eagerness. “You can’t fib to me about this. Oh, smell that soup! And there’s rice — clean white rice with sugar and milk!”
“Child, if there’s plenty, go and eat...Thank you, sir, I can help myself.”
Adam followed Genie out, and presently the look of her, as she sat on the sand, in ravenous bewilderment of what to eat first, brought back poignantly to him the starvation days of his earlier experience. How blessed to appreciate food! Indeed, Genie would have made a little glutton of herself had not Adam wisely obviated that danger for her.
Later, when she and her mother were asleep, he strolled under the cottonwoods along the murmuring stream where the bright stars shone reflected in the dark water. The place had the fragrance of spring, of fresh snow water, of green growths and blossoming flowers. Frogs were trilling from the gloom, a sweet, melodious music seldom heard by Adam. A faint, soft night breeze rustled in the palm leaves. The ragged mountain-side rose precipitously, a slanted mass of huge rocks, their shining surfaces alternating with the dark blank spaces. Above spread the sky, a wonderful deep blue, velvety, intense, from which blazed magnificent white stars, and countless trains and groups of smaller stars.
Rest and thought came to him then. Destiny had dealt him many parts to play on the desert. So many violent, harsh, and bitter tasks! But this was to be different. Not upon evil days had he fallen! Nor had his wandering steps here taken hold of hell! The fragrance under the shadow of this looming mountain was the fragrance of an oasis. And in that silent shadow slept a child who would soon be an orphan. Adam had his chance to live awhile in one of the desert’s fruitful and blossoming spots. Only a desert man could appreciate the rest, the ease, the joy, the contrast of that opportunity. He could befriend an unfortunate child. But as refreshing and splendid as were these things, they were as naught compared to the blessing that would be breathed upon his head by a dying mother. Adam, lifting up his face to the starlight, felt that all his intense and passionate soul could only faintly divine what the agony of that mother had been, what now would be her relief. She knew. Her prayer had been answered. And Adam pondered and pondered over the meaning of her prayer and the significance of his wandering steps. He seemed to feel the low beat of a mighty heart, the encompassing embrace of a mighty and invisible spirit.
CHAPTER XXIII
DAYLIGHT SHOWED TO Adam the cottonwood oasis as he had it pictured in memory, except for the palm-thatched hut.
He was hard at camp duties when Genie came out: The sun was rising, silver and ruddy and gold, and it shone upon her, played around her glossy head as she knelt on the grass beside the running water. While she bathed there, splashing diamond drops of water in the sunshine, she seemed all brightness and youth. But in the merciless light of day her face was too small, too thin, too pinched to have any comeliness. Her shining hair caught all the beauty of the morning. In one light it was auburn and in another a dark brown, and in any light it had glints and gleams of gold. It waved and curled rebelliously, a rich, thick, rippling mass falling to her shoulders. When, presently, she came over to Adam, to greet him and offer to help, then he had his first look at her eyes by day. Gazing into them, Adam hardly saw the small unattractive, starved face. Like her hair, her eyes shone dark brown, and the lighter gleams were amber. The expression was of a straight-forward soul, unconscious of unutterable sadness, gazing out at incomprehensible life, that should have been beautiful for her, but was not.
“Good morning, Genie,” said Adam, cheerily. “Of course you can help me. There’s heaps of work. And when you help me with that I’ll play with you.”
“Play!” she murmured, dreamily. She had never had a playmate.
Thus began the business of the day for Adam. When breakfast was over and done with he set to work to improve that camp, and especially with an eye to the comfort of the invalid. Adam knew the wonderful curative qualities of desert air, if it was wholly trusted and lived in. On the shady side of the hut he erected a wide porch with palm-thatched roof that cut off the glare of the sky. With his own canvases, and others he found at the camp, he put up curtains that could be rolled up or let down as occasion required. Then he constructed two beds, one at each end of the porch, and instead of palm
leaves he use thick layers of fragrant sage and greasewood. Mrs. Linwood, with the aid of Genie, managed to get out to her new quarters. Her pleasure at the change showed in her wan face. The porch was shady, cool, fragrant. She could look right out upon the clean, brown, beautiful streams where they met, and at the camp fire where Adam and Genie would be engaged, and at night she could see it blaze and glow, and burn down red. The low-branching cottonwoods were full of humming birds and singing birds, and always the innumerable bees. The clean white sand, the mesquites bursting into green, the nodding flowers in the grassy nooks under the great iron-rusted stones, the rugged, upheaved slope of mountain, and to the east an open vista between the trees where the desert stretched away grey and speckled and monotonous, down to the dim mountains over which the sun would rise; these could not but be pleasant and helpful. Love of life could not be separated from such things.
“Mrs. Linwood, sleeping outdoors is the most wonderful experience,” said Adam, earnestly. “You feel the night wind. The darkness folds around you. You look up through the leaves to the dark-blue sky and shining stars. You smell the dry sand and the fresh water and the flowers and the spicy desert plants. Every breath you draw is new, untainted. Living outdoors, by day and night, is the secret of my strength.”
“Alas! We always feared the chill night air,” sighed Mrs. Linwood. “Life teaches so many lessons — too late.”
“It is never too late,” returned Adam.
Then he set himself to further tasks, and soon that day was ended. Other days like it passed swiftly, and each one brought more hope of prolonging Mrs. Linwood’s life. Adam feared she could not live, yet he worked and hoped for a miracle. Mrs. Linwood improved in some mysterious way that seemed of spirit rather than of flesh. As day after day went by and Adam talked with her, an hour here, an hour there, she manifestly grew stronger. But was it not only in mind? The sadness of her changed. The unhappiness of her vanished. The tragic cast and pallor of her face remained the same, but the spirit that shone from her eyes and trembled in her voice was one of love, gratitude, hope. Adam came at length to understand that the improvement was only a result of the inception of faith she had in him. With terrible tenacity she had clung to life, even while starving herself to give food to her child; and now that succour had come, her spirit in its exaltation triumphed over her body. Happiness was more powerful than the ravages of disease. But if that condition, if that mastery of mind over body, had continued, it would have been superhuman. The day came at last in which Mrs. Linwood sank back into the natural and inevitable state where the fatality of life ordered the imminence of death.
When she was convulsed with the spasms of coughing, which grew worse every day, Adam felt that if he could pray to the God she believed in, he would pray for her sufferings to be ended. He hated this mystery of disease, this cruelty of nature. It was one of the things that operated against his acceptance of her God. Why was life so cruel? Was life only nature? Nature was indeed cruel. But if life was conflict, if life was an endless progress toward unattainable perfection, toward greater heights of mind and soul, then was life God, and in eternal conflict with nature? How hopelessly and impotently he pondered these distressing questions! Pain he could endure himself, and he had divined that in enduring it he had enlarged his character. But to suffer as this poor woman was suffering — to be devoured by millions of infinitesimal and rapacious animals feasting on blood and tissue — how insupportably horrible! What man could endure that — what man of huge frame and physical might — of intense and pulsing life? Only a man in whom intellect was supreme, who could look upon life resignedly as not the ultimate end, who knew not the delights of sensation, who had no absorbing passion for the grey old desert or the heaving sea, or the windy heights and the long purple shadows, who never burned and beat with red blood running free — only a martyr living for the future, or a man steeped in religion, could endure this blight of consumption. When Adam considered life in nature, he could understand this disease. It was merely a matter of animals fighting to survive. Let the fittest win! That was how nature worked toward higher and stronger life. But when he tried to consider the God this stricken woman worshipped, Adam could not reconcile himself to her agony. Why? The eternal Why was flung at him. She was a good woman. She had lived a life of sacrifice. She had always been a Christian. Yet she was not spared this horrible torture. Why?
What hurt Adam more than anything else was the terror in Genie’s mute lips and the anguish in her speaking eyes.
One day, during an hour when Mrs. Linwood rested somewhat easily, she called Adam to her. It happened to be while Genie was absent, listening to the bees or watching the flow of water.
“Will you stay here — take care of Genie — until her uncle comes back?” queried the woman, with her low, panting breaths.
“I promised you. But I think you should not want me to keep her here too long,” replied Adam, earnestly. “Suppose he does not come back in a year or two?”
“Ah! I hadn’t thought of that. What, then, is your idea?”
“Well, I’d wait here a good long time,” said Adam, soberly. “Then if Genie’s uncle didn’t come, I’d find a home for her.”
“A home — for Genie!...Wansfell, have you considered? That would take money — to travel — to buy Genie — what she ought to — have.”
“Yes, I suppose so. That part need not worry you. I have money. I’ll look out for Genie. I’ll find a home for her.”
“You’d do — all that?” whispered the woman.
“I promise you. Now, Mrs. Linwood, please don’t distress yourself. It’ll be all right.”
“It is all right. I’m not — in distress,” she replied, with something tremulous and new in her voice. “Oh, thank God — my faith — never failed!”
Adam was not sure what she meant by this, but as revolved it in his mind, hearing again the strange ring of joy which had been in her voice, he began to feel that somehow he represented a fulfilment and a reward to her.
“Wansfell — listen,” she whispered, with more force. “I — I should have told you...Genie is not poor. No!...She’s rich!...Her father found gold — over in the mountains...He slaved at digging...That killed him. But he found gold. It’s hidden inside the hut — under the floor — where I used to lie...Bags of gold! Wansfell, my child will be rich!”
“Well!...Oh, but I’m glad!” exclaimed Adam.
“Yes. It sustains me...But I’ve worried so...My husband expected me — to take Genie out of the desert...I’ve worried about that money. Genie’s uncle — John Shaver is his name — he’s a good man. He loved her. He used to drink — but I hope the desert cured him of that. I think — he’ll be a father to Genie.”
“Does he know about the gold that will be Genie’s?”
“No. We never told him. My husband didn’t trust John — in money matters...Wansfell, if you’ll say you’ll go with Genie — when her uncle comes — and invest the money — until she’s of age — I will have no other prayer except for her happiness...I will die in peace.”
“I promise. I’ll do my best,” he declared.
The next time she spoke to him was that evening at dusk. Frogs were trilling, and a belated mocking bird was singing low, full-throated melodies. Yet these beautiful sounds only accentuated the solemn desert stillness.
“Wansfell — you remember — once we talked of God,” she said, very low.
“Yes, I remember,” replied Adam.
“Are you just where you were — then?”
“About the same, I guess.”
“Are you sure you understand yourself?”
“Sure? Oh no. I change every day.”
“Wansfell, what do you call the thing in you — the will to tarry here? The manhood that I trusted?...The forgetfulness of self?...What do you call this strength of yours that fulfilled my faith — that gave me to God utterly — that enables me to die happy — that will be the salvation of my child?”
“Manhood? Stren
gth?” echoed Adam, in troubled perplexity. “I’m just sorry for you — for the little girl.”
“Ah yes, sorry! Indeed you are! But you don’t know yourself...Wansfell, there was a presence beside my bed — just a moment before I called you. Something neither light nor shadow in substance — something neither life nor death...It is gone now. But when I am dead it will come to you. I will come to you — like that...Somewhere out in the solitude and loneliness of your desert — at night when it is dark and still — and the heavens look down — there you will face your soul...You’ll see the divine in man...you’ll realise that the individual dies, but the race lives...You’ll have thundered at you from the silence, the vast, lonely land you love, from the stars and the infinite beyond — that your soul is immortal...That this Thing in you is God!”
When the voice ceased, so vibrant and full at the close, so more than physical, Adam bowed his head, and plodded over the soft sand out to the open desert where mustering shadows inclosed him, and he toiled to and fro in the silence — a man bent under the Atlantean doubt and agony and mystery of the world.
The next day Genie’s mother died.
Long before sunrise of a later day Adam climbed to the first bulge of the mountain wall. On lofty heights his mind worked more slowly — sometimes not at all. The eye of an eagle sufficed him. Down below on the level, during these last few days, while Genie sat mute, rigid, stricken, Adam had been distracted. The greatest problem of his desert experience confronted him. Always a greater problem — always a greater ordeal — that was his history of the years. Perhaps on the heights might come inspiration. The eastern sky was rosy. The desert glowed soft and grey and beautiful. Grey lanes wound immeasurably among bronze and green spots, like islands in a monotonous sea. The long range of the Bernardinos was veiled in the rare lilac haze of the dawn, and the opposite range speared the deep blue of sky with clear black-fringed and snowy peaks. Far down the vast valley, over the dim ridge of the Chocolates, there concentrated a bright rose and yellow and silver. This marvellous light intensified, while below the wondrous shadows deepened. Then the sun rose like liquid silver, bursting to flood the desert world.