by Zane Grey
Nophaie rode out into the desert on his mission, and few were the hogans he missed. It would be impossible for him to cover all of the reservation, and he did not have many weeks before he must report for service. But he rode fast, far, and late. Most of the Nopahs in that vicinity now had heard of his stand and were ready to listen to him. Every name added to his list strengthened his cause. Slowly the list grew and with it his influence. If only he could have forestalled the German! Nophaie thrilled to his heart. He could have led a regiment of Nopahs — strong, young, fierce, hard-riding desert-bred Indians to war. The thought of being too late was sickening. It goaded him on to ride faster and farther to find Nopahs who had not been deceived.
One after another, as the days passed swiftly, he found young braves who would be guided by him. He gave these instructions and knew they would keep their word. Of the hundreds of Nopahs he approached, only one here and there would listen. Those who yielded to his persuasion were mostly free young men, sick of reservation life and restriction. Grateful for their falling in line to swell his list, Nophaie rode on and on. Many a mustang he left spent at a hogan in exchange for another willingly lent him. Never a Nopah but accorded him welcome at nightfall. His quest was that of a warrior and a chieftain, even though his people could not follow him.
Thus as time flew by, fleet as the hoofs of Nophaie’s mustangs, he gradually worked into territory new to him, far across the great mesa to the east, where he was not known. Here he had less trouble to find converts, but the country was more sparsely inhabited. The active propaganda had not taken root among these Nopahs.
One afternoon near sunset Nophaie reached a small trading post kept by a squaw man. The last Indian Nophaie had interrogated had bidden him ride in haste to this post. Mustangs exceeding a score in number were standing haltered and loose before the squat red-stone house. But no Indians were in sight. Dismounting, Nophaie went to the door and looked in. He saw the backs and black- banded sombreros of a crowd of Indians all attentive to the presence of a white man sitting on the high counter. That white man was Jay Lord.
Nophaie stole in unobserved and kept behind the Indians. He listened. Lord was lighting a cigarette. Evidently he had either paused in his harangue or had not yet begun. The careless air of the erstwhile Jay Lord seemed wanting. Nonchalance did not rest upon his round, dark face this day. Indeed, Nophaie was quick to grasp a weary and furtive irritation. And the strain that showed in all white men’s eyes these days was not wanting in Lord’s.
“Indians, listen,” began Lord, in fluent Nopah. “Blucher has sent me out all over the reservation to tell you not to register. Don’t put your names or thumb marks on any paper. If you do your horses and cattle will be taken and you will have to go to war. There’s no law to compel Indians to fight. You can’t be forced to go. But if you sign papers — if you register — the government will have you bound. Then you’ve got to go. This register order is not what it seems. It’s an old government trick to fool you. You’ve been fooled before. Listen to your real friends and don’t register.”
When he concluded his harangue there followed an impressive silence. Then an old Nopah, lean and wrinkled and somber, addressed the speaker.
“Let the white man tell why Blucher sends him. If the government lies to the Indians — to make warriors of them — then Blucher lies too, for he is the government.”
“Blucher is a friend of the Nopahs,” replied Lord. “He does not think the registration is honest. The government has made a law to drive young white men to war. It does not hesitate to cheat the Indians for the same reason.”
The ensuing silence of a moment seemed pregnant with the conviction of the Indians. Presently another of them moved forward. He leaped on the counter. He too was old, a scar-faced Indian, with fierce, dark mien. He shook a sinewy hand at the young men before him.
“Hagoie will kill any Nopah here who registers!” he thundered.
That appeared to end the speech-making, for all the Indians began to jabber excitedly. Nophaie took advantage of the moment to slip outdoors. Twilight had fallen. He walked to a corral near the house and sat down out of sight to wait for darkness and to think. He did not intend to let Lord get away from that post without being confronted. He had noticed that he was packing a gun. Therefore it would be policy to surprise him. Nophaie argued dispassionately that he had good cause to kill Lord aside from the possibility of self- defense.
In twos and threes the Indians came out of the trading post to mount their horses and ride away into the gloom of the desert. Soon Nophaie felt that he could venture close to the house. At an opportune moment he approached and leaned in the shadow of the stone wall. More Indians came out, until there appeared only a few left. Then, as Nophaie had hoped for, Jay Lord came out the door with the squaw-man. The latter was speaking. Evidently Lord was going to see about his horse.
“I’m married to a Nopah squaw — shore,” said the trader, with a hint of wrath, “but I ain’t no Indian — nor fool, either. I didn’t like your talk about this register order.”
“Ahuh! Wal, be damn good and certain you keep your dislikes to yourself,” growled Lord. “Otherwise you won’t last long here.”
The squaw-man retired into his house and Lord strode toward his horse.
Nophaie glided after him. Then just as Lord reached for his bridle he must have heard something, for he stiffened. Nophaie pressed his gun against Lord’s side and said low and sharp.
“Don’t move your hands. If you do I’ll kill you.”
“Nophay?” ejaculated Lord, hoarsely.
“Yes — Nophaie.”
“Wal — what you want?”
“Listen.... I heard your talk to the Indians. I know now what has influenced them all over the reservation. It’s German propaganda — and you’re Blucher’s mouthpiece. You’re no better than a German yourself. You’re a traitor. Do you hear me?”
“Hell! I ain’t deaf,” growled Lord, straining to hold himself stiff. His face now made a pale blotch in the gloom.
“Lord, this talk of yours is treason,” went on Nophaie, “Do you have to be told that by an Indian?... If I had time I could get Nopahs, and white men too, who’d help me prove your guilt. But I want all my time left to undo your dirty work. I’m going to war — to fight for your country.... Now here, if you don’t quit spreading these propaganda lies for Blucher I’ll ride to Flagerstown and enlist. Then I’ll come back on the reservation. I’ll be an American soldier, outside the law. Blucher can’t touch me or hold me.... And I’ll kill you — Lord — I swear I will!... Do you believe me?”
“Wal, I reckon I do,” replied Lord, gruffly. “An’ if you want to know, I’ll give you a hunch I’m damn glad to be scared off this job.”
“Just the same — get on that horse and keep your back to me,” ordered Nophaie.
In another moment Lord, cursing under his breath, was in the saddle. A hard, leathery thud and jangle attested to his use of spurs. The horse plunged away to be enveloped by the darkness.
Nophaie stayed at the squaw-man’s house for two days, and all his earnest talks to the Indians who visited the post failed signally to overcome the insidious poison spread by Jay Lord.
To Nophaie’s dismay he found that the farther he penetrated into this part of the reservation the colder were the Nopahs to his solicitations.
Hot weather came. The desert summer lay like a blanket over sage and mesa and sand. All the mornings dawned cool and pleasant, with the sky clear and blue, the sun a glorious burst of gold, and the desert a rolling open land of color. But as soon as the sun tipped the eastern mesa the heat veils began to rise from the sand. Toward noon white, creamy clouds rose above the horizon, to mushroom and spread and grow dark, eventually to let down the gray winding curtains of rain. Each thunderstorm had its rainbow, and there were times when Nophaie rode down a vast shingle of desert with rainbows and storms on the horizon all around him while upon his head the hot sun fell. Many a storm he weathered, grateful for t
he gray wet pall out of which he emerged drenched to the skin.
At length Nophaie headed his horse back toward the west and the country he knew best. One whole day he rode along the rim of a deep blue canyon, before he could cross. Many a day he went hungry, and slept where night overtook him.
At the Indian hogans east and south of Mesa Nophaie ran into conditions not heretofore experienced by him. As the taint of white civilization began to be more pronounced here, so was the agitation incident to the war. Nophaie did not find the groups of excited Indians sympathetic to his cause. These Nopahs close to the borders of civilization and the railroad were markedly different from the Nopahs far to the north. Rumors had been spread all over that section — enforcement of the draft, confiscation of stock and wool, seizing of all firearms. Blucher’s minions had done their underhand job well. Nophaie saw more drunken Indians in little time than he had ever seen before in all his rides over the reservation. Many were selling wool to the traders, in a hurry to dispose of it. Prosperity was at its peak. But an ominous shadow lowered over the desert. The Indians seemed to feel it. Their work was neglected. Crowds of Indians rode into Flagerstown, to return with their minds chaotic. The fever of the whites communicated itself to the red men. The medicine men predicted dire troubles for the Nopahs.
Nophaie’s passionate dream of leading thousands of Indians to war had to be dispelled. His tireless labors resulted in upward of two score of Nopahs signing their thumb marks to his paper. Word came to him from various sources that Indians were enlisting in the army, but he could not verify this until he got out of the desert. A terrible bitterness at the government worked on him. In war time what was the secret of holding a German spy to an important post, where he could undermine the faith of thousands of Indians who would have made great soldiers? What stolid ignorance and blindness on the part of government officials! Blucher was guilty of treachery and treason. He had been just keen enough to grasp the fact that these Nopahs could and would fight for America. And he had deceived them, adding to their already weary disgust at falsehood and falsehood. Nophaie saw the truth in all its appalling nakedness. He realized what might have been possible with the proud fierce young Nopahs. A great page of American history — an Indian army joining the white man in battle for liberty — would never be written. Nophaie had the vision. He loved his people. He knew their wonderful qualities for war. They might have made — they would have made — a glorious record, and have paid the government good for evil. Heroism for injustice! They would have earned citizenship in the United States. What magnificent opportunity lost! Lost! Nophaie’s heart burned with hatred for the German who had ruined the noblest opportunity that had ever confronted his people.
“I should have killed Blucher,” muttered Nophaie. “No service I can render now will ever be one-thousandth as great as that would have been.”
Nophaie rode into Mesa, there to take farewell of Marian. Long he had dreaded this and thrust it from his mind. But now with his work ended, and the near approach of the date set for him and his Nopahs to enlist, he had to think of her.
Much as he yearned to see Marian, he was greatly relieved to learn from Paxton that she was in Flagerstown and would expect him there. She had left Nophaie a short note, telling him where to find her, and she entreated him not to tarry long at Mesa.
Nophaie had need of that entreaty. Never in his life before had he been the victim of the dark and terrible mood now fastened upon him. The wrath roused in him by the murder of Do etin and his ambushment by the Noki, and the tragedy of poor little Gekin Yashi, had not been the same as this, now so murky and hot in his soul. The idea of war had liberated something deep and latent in Nophaie. The menace to the fair seaboard of the United States, which he remembered so well, the encroachment of an utterly unscrupulous enemy, had stung and roused in him the instinctive savageness of his nature.
It was in this mood that Nophaie reached Mesa, and the pathos of Marian’s letter and the proximity of Blucher and Morgan only added fuel to the smoldering fire.
Nophaie made no effort to hide. He was in reality an American soldier. He had ridden thousands of miles in the service of the army. No reservation jail, no jail at Flagerstown, could hold him now. Freely he mingled with the Indians at the trading post. An unusual number were there, some drunk, all excited, and a few were bound for Flagerstown, on the same errand as Nophaie. The mail carrier had two of them engaged as passengers, and readily agreed to take Nophaie. It was a five-hour run by automobile. Nophaie thrilled to his depths. Five hours only — then Benow di cleash! He gazed from the stone step of the trading post, out across the sand and brush of the mesa, away over the stark and painted steppes of the desert to the unflung black-peaked range of mountains. Benow di cleash would be there. Already the sun had begun its western slant, and when it touched the horizon rim he would see the white girl.
Ought he not see Gekin Yashi? The thought flayed him. No! That would be the last straw added to the burden of his hate for Morgan and Blucher.
Nophaie took no part in the jabbering of the Indians around him, but sat back behind them on the stone steps, his sombrero pulled down to hide his face. There he smoked his cigarette in silence, brooding and dark in his mind. When school recess time came and the Indian boys ran to and fro like blue- ginghamed little automatons, Nophaie watched them from under the brim of his sombrero. What would be their future? And then when beyond them, through the fence he espied the brown-faced black-haired little Indian girls, each of them a Gekin Yashi for some Nopah, he looked no more.
An automobile thrummed up the road from Copenwashie and stopped before the trading post. Two white men beside the driver occupied it. One of them was Blucher. Had that round bullet face thinned out? Nophaie felt the leap of his blood. Blucher and his companion got out of the car and climbed the stone steps, in earnest conversation not distinguishable to Nophaie. But as the superintendent passed to enter the trading post Nophaie could have reached out a long arm to touch him.
Kill him now! The whisper ran through Nophaie’s being. It was a flame. Almost it precluded thought. Could he serve his America or his own people in any better way than to kill this German? No! All Nophaie’s intelligence justified his passion. What matter if civilization beyond the confines of the desert knew nothing of this man’s iniquity? Nophaie knew. What matter if the callous and mighty government machine never knew — or knowing would not care — or blindly wound in its red-tape and infinite ignorance — hanged Nophaie for his deed? Nophaie knew. There were things outside of reason or self-interest. But the face of Benow di cleash rose in Nophaie’s reddening sight, and he was again master of himself.
Presently Blucher and his attendant came out, accompanied by Paxton, who appeared to be talking about flour he had exchanged for wool. Blucher stood for a moment at the doorstep. Again Nophaie could have reached him. And all the burning fires of hell in Nophaie’s heart were smothered into abeyance of his love for a white woman. Just to save her pain he sacrificed the supreme and only savage lust of his life. Once he was all Indian. How easy to kill this man! What inexplicable emotion quivered to the thought! To rise — to fling his sombrero — to thrust a gun into this traitor’s abdomen — to eye him with the eye of Indian ruthlessness and white man scorn — to free passion in the utterance: “Look, German! It is Nophaie! And your last vile moment of life has come!”
But Nophaie gave no outward sign of the storm within him. It passed, like a wind of death. And he marveled at the strange chances of life. Here stood this Blucher, utterly unaware of the presence of the Indian who had no fear of anything, who had waived murder by the breadth of a hair. Evil men there had been and still were in the world — men who knew the perils of life and had the nerve to gamble with them — but Blucher was not one of these. Morgan was a stronger man, as he was a greater villain, yet he too was as blind as a bat. Dead to something righteous and terrible in the souls of some men! The agent of the government and the missionary of the church were but little and mise
rable destroyers, vermin of the devil, with all their twisted and deformed mentality centered upon self.
Before sunset that day Nophaie was in Flagerstown and had dispatched a note to Marian. Before he started to meet her he had enlisted at the recruiting station and was a soldier of the United States army.
At the end of a street near the outskirts of town Nophaie found the number he was looking for. And as he mounted the porch of the little cottage Marian opened the door. Fair golden flash of face and hair! He did not see clearly, stumbling as he went in. Her voice sounded strange. Then they were alone in a little room with vague walls. Dread he had felt at prospect of this meeting, but he had not understood. He only wanted to spare her pain. This woman now, holding his hands, gazing with strained dark eyes of agony up at him, was remembered by her beloved fair face, but something in it was strange to him.
“Benow di cleash!” he said, unsteadily.
“Nophaie — lover — my Indian!... You are going to war,” she whispered, and threw her arms round his neck.
Even as Nophaie bent to her white face and to her lips, he grasped at the meaning of her singular abandon. One word had been enough. War! And he pitied her, and loved her as never before, and understood her, and clasped her close, and kissed her until she sank against him, pale and spent. To him her kisses, with all their sweetness of fire, called to his own lips only an austerity of farewell. Long ago, in his Canyon of Silent Walls, he had fought his battle against love. Here he was as strong, tranquil, grave as she was weak and passionate.
“Nophaie — when do you — go away?” she whispered.
“To-night at ten.”
“Oh! — So soon? — But you go first to training camp?” she queried, breathlessly.
“Yes.”
“You might not be sent abroad.”
“Benow di cleash, do not have false hopes. You want me to go to France. I’m fit now to fight. And it will not take long to make soldiers of my Nopahs.”