The Water Hole

by Zane Grey

  She walked to the campfire and held her hands to the blaze. The night air had begun to have a little chill. The hot fire felt pleasant.

  “You got your hair wet,” said Heftral disapprovingly.

  “So I did,” Cherry replied with her hand to her head.

  “Well, there isn’t very much of it, so it’ll dry quickly…You must have had beautiful hair once.”

  “Once?”

  “Yes, once. Women have sacrificed for fad and comfort. The grace, the glamour, the exquisite something natural to women disappeared with their long hair. It’s a pity. In your case it fills me with despair. Why did you want to look like a man?”

  “Gracious. I never did.”

  “Why did you cut your hair then?”

  “To be honest I don’t know. My reasons would sound silly to you. But as a matter of fact women are slaves to fashion. They used to be slaves to many things…men, for instance. But we’ve eliminated that.”

  “I wonder if women are eliminating love, also?” he inquired gloomily.

  “They probably are, until men are worthy of it.”

  Heftral stalked off into the darkness, and stayed so long that Cherry began to grow anxious. Surely he would not leave her alone. It was pitch dark now; the rain and wind were augmenting; the solitude of the place seemed accentuated. Cherry gazed out into the dark void, and then back at the caverned cliff. There might be all kinds of wild animals. Snakes and other reptiles. It was delightful for a woman to be alone on occasions, but here was one when there seemed need of a man. To her relief Heftral emerged from the gloom, packing another load of firewood.

  “Are you going to stay up all night?” he asked. “Tomorrow will be the hardest day you ever had. You need sleep and rest.”

  “Where am I supposed to get them?”

  “I made your bed up there,” said Heftral, pointing to a ledge. “It’s easy to climb up from this end. You’ll be dry…I’ll spread my tarp and blankets here by the fire.”

  Cherry did not show any inclination to retire at once. She was tired enough, but did not choose to be sent to bed like a child. She stood by the fire until she was thoroughly dry. Then she sat down on a stone just the right distance from the red crackling logs. Heftral stood on the other side, looking down, with his hands outstretched. He seemed to have the burden of the world upon his shoulders. Then he turned his back to the fire, and stood that way for a long time. The wind whipped in under the shelving rock, cool and damp; the rain pattered steadily outside; the fire sputtered and cracked; the fragrant smoke blew this way and that. At last Heftral turned again to face the fire. And he looked more troubled than ever.

  “Mister Heftral, you seem gravely thoughtful for a man who has accomplished his purpose,” observed Cherry.

  “I was just thinking,” he replied, giving her a strange glance, “how jolly a picnic would be…if we were good friends.”

  “Yes, wouldn’t it?” Cherry returned flippantly.

  “Very unreasonable of me, I know. I didn’t and couldn’t expect you to enjoy being dragged off this way. But being here made me think how…how wonderful it would be if…if…”

  He did not conclude the sentence and his closing words were full of regret. Quite evidently he felt that he had sacrificed a great deal to her father’s whim. Cherry had an uneasy consciousness that sooner or later he would betray her father and explain this unheard of proceeding. She did not want Heftral to do this and must prevent it coming about. The only way, she repeated to herself, was to give him such impression of her that he would carry the thing out through sheer anger and disgust. As an afterthought Cherry reflected that she could correct the terrible impression she was likely to give him. But suppose she could not? She dismissed that as absurd.

  “I’d prefer you had kidnaped me in a limousine,” she said lightly. “I’m used to being whisked off…and kept parked in some outlandish place.”

  “Good God!” he ejaculated. “I’ve begun to believe your father!”

  “What did he say?”

  “Never you mind. But it was enough…And…will you oblige me by keeping your…your habits to yourself.”

  Cherry tittered. “If that isn’t just like a man. A lot of thanks I get for trying to make it easy for you.”

  “Make what easy?” he asked belligerently.

  “Why, this stunt of yours…Now you’ve got me off on your old desert, I should think you’d be glad to find I’m not…well, an innocent and unsophisticated little dame.”

  “Cherry Winters, you’re a liar!” he almost shouted at her, starting up, bristling. Then with a pale face he wheeled and strode off into the darkness along the cliff wall.

  He left Cherry with a heart beating high. In spite of her bald remarks he was struggling to keep alive his ideal of her. Cherry thought she might go too far and stab it to death. But the truth was that her father had grossly misrepresented her, and that she had aided and abetted it by falsehood. Love was not easily killed, certainly not by a few fibs. She would carry on. And the revelation of her true self to Heftral would be all the sweeter. Gazing into the opal heart of the campfire, Cherry lost herself momentarily in a dream, from which she awakened with a start. A coyote had wailed his dismal wild cry. It made Cherry shiver.

  She left the campfire, and climbed up the slanting rough rock to the ledge where Heftral had made her bed. What a nice snug rock, high and dry. Cherry would feel reasonably safe when Heftral came back. She sat down on the tarpaulin covering her bed, and her sensation roused the conception that it would not be a featherbed or a hair mattress by an exceedingly long shot. Suddenly she realized she would have to sleep in her clothes for the first time in her life. How funny. Then without more ado she took off her coat, made a pillow of it, and, removing her shoes, she slipped down into the blankets, stretched out, and lay still.

  The bed consisted of two thicknesses of blankets and the canvas under and over them. Hard as a board under her. Yet what a relief, warmth, and comfort the bed afforded. The fire cast flickering fantastic shadows upon the roof of this strange habitation. Gusts of wind brought cool raindrops to her fevered face and the smell of wood smoke. Above the steady downpour of rain she heard a renewed crackling of the fire. Rising on her elbow, she saw Heftral replenishing it with substantial logs. The night afforded Cherry satisfaction. She dropped back, laughing inwardly. Stephen Heftral was in quite a serious predicament.

  Cherry settled herself comfortably to think it all over. But she did not seem to be able to control her mind as usual. Her eyelids drooped heavily and though she opened them often they would go shut again, until finally they stuck fast. A pleasant warmth and sense of drowsy rest were stealing over her aching body. She had a vague feeling of anxiety about snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, but it passed. She was being slowly possessed by something vastly stronger than her mind. The rainfall seemed to lessen. And her last lingering consciousness had to do with the fragrance of smoke.

  Cherry half awoke several times during the night, in which she rolled over to try to find a softer place in her bed. But when she thoroughly awoke it was daylight. The rain had ceased. Sunrise was a stormy one of red and black, with a little blue sky in between. When she sat up with a groan and tried to straighten, she thought every bone in her body was broken. She sat on her bed and combed her hair, and slyly cleaned her sunburned face with cold cream. Over the edge of rock she espied Heftral, brisk and whistling around the campfire. Whistling! Cherry listened while she put on her shoes. Then she got to her knees. Never had she had so many sore muscles. The arm Heftral had wrenched was the worst.

  “Hey, down there!” called Cherry. “What was the name of that robber baron who ran off with Mary Tudor?”

  Heftral stared up at her, almost laughing. “Bothwell, I believe,” he replied constrainedly.

  “Well, good morning, Mister Bothwell,” added Cherry.

  He returned her gr
eeting with the air of a man who had almost forgotten something unpleasant. He did not whistle any more, and eyed Cherry dubiously as she limped and crawled down the slope to a level.

  “How are the eats?” she asked brightly.

  “I was just about to call you,” he said. “Breakfast will be ready soon as the coffee boils.”

  “What kind of a day is it going to be?”

  “Bad, I fear. It’s let up raining, but I think there’ll be more.”

  “Gee, how sore I am. You nearly broke my arm. And that slab-stone bed finished me.”

  “I hope the internal injury is better,” he rejoined dryly.

  “Oh, that. I guess that was hunger, or else a terrible pang of disappointment to find you such a monster. Call me when you’re ready to give me something to eat.”

  Cherry walked about to stretch her limbs. The overhanging sky was leaden and gray, except where a pale brightness had succeeded the ruddy sunrise. She heard a roar down in the cañon and concluded it was running water. Little muddy streams were coursing down the shallow ditches. Beyond the cliff she saw water in sheets running off the rocks above. The cedars were green and fresh, and the sage had an exquisite hue of purple. Cherry ventured to the edge of the cedar grove, and saw down into the cañon where a red torrent swirled and splashed. She recalled hearing the trader tell of sudden floods pouring down the dry washes. This was one of them, and she understood now why heavy storms impeded desert travel.

  A shout turned Cherry’s footsteps campward. Heftral had breakfast ready, and it was equally as appetizing as the supper the night before.

  “Evidently you’re not going to starve me into submission, anyway,” she observed.

  “I don’t know about submission, but you’ll be starved into something, all right,” he declared.

  “Do we have to cross this cañon?”

  “We do, and pronto, or we won’t cross at all.”

  “Why, there’s a regular torrent.”

  “It’s not bad yet.”

  “Then we must hurry?”

  “Yes. If we rustle along…and are lucky…we may make Beckyshibeta tonight.”

  Not for worlds would Cherry have importuned Heftral to turn back. But the serious nature of desert travel under unfavorable conditions now dawned upon her, and her mood of levity suffered a sidetracking. She had no more to say. Hurrying through breakfast, she proceeded to assist Heftral with the camp chores. He objected, but she paid no attention to him.

  “Where are the horses?” she asked suddenly.

  “They’ll be near somewhere. They’re hobbled, you know, and wouldn’t stray from good grass. I’ll fetch them in.”

  He was absent so long that Cherry began to worry.

  At last he showed up, riding his horse bareback, and leading the other two. Surefoot looked fat. Cherry undertook the job of saddling him. As she swung up the heavy saddle, she observed Heftral watching her out of the corner of his eye. When her horse was ready, she turned to Heftral. He was loading the pack animal. Cherry had watched the cowboys throw what they called the diamond hitch—an intricate figure-eight knot that held the pack on—and she now saw Heftral was as expert as any of them. Nevertheless some assistance from her was welcome to him. He made only one remark, which was about the way she pulled on the rope. When the pack was on tight, Heftral saddled his own horse.

  “I’ve left my chaps out for you to wear,” he said, indicating a pair of worn leather chaps lying on a rock.

  “How can I wear chaps in this dress?” queried Cherry.

  “I don’t know. Stuff your skirt down in them. Reckon there’s not much to stuff.”

  Cherry overlooked his facetiousness, and, picking up the chaps, she stepped into them. They were too long and too large. From the expression on Heftral’s face she gathered that she must be a funny-looking object.

  It was when Cherry essayed mounting her horse that she came to grief. The chaps were stiff and heavy, and she could not reach the stirrup with her foot. Heftral offered to lift her up, but she declined. Finally she made a violent effort, a sort of spring. She missed the pommel with her hand and the stirrup with her foot, and fell flat. Cherry scrambled up, quite enraged. If there was anything she hated it was to look clumsy.

  Heftral’s face had a strained look. He was holding in his laughter. “I…I suggest you try to mount from the rock there,” he said.

  “I’ll get up here or die,” replied Cherry furiously.

  Next time she lifted her left foot with both hands and got it in the stirrup. Then she leaped, sprung from her right foot, and, catching pommel and cantle, she dragged herself up into the saddle.

  “Not so bad for a tenderfoot,” observed Heftral. Whereupon he rode off, leading the pack horse.

  Cherry followed down the slope of wet red earth, by some scrawled rocks, into the cañon. They rounded a corner to come upon the muddy swift stream. It was silent here, but from below came up a dull roar. Cherry had never seen such heavy-looking water. It was half silt. What a terrifying place to venture in.

  Heftral crossed a flat sandbar, and urged his horse into the water. He spurred, and yelled, and dragged at the pack animal. They set up a great muddy splashing. Cherry gathered that the more speed used here, the easier and safer the crossing. Her heart simply leaped to her throat. Heftral’s horse went in to his flanks. What a tremendous floundering the two horses made. Cherry almost lost sight of them in the splashing. They reached shallow water, heaved up, and waded out safely on the bar opposite. Heftral halted his horse and turned to look. For a moment he merely looked.

  “Well, Central Park!” he called in a tone that challenged Cherry.

  “Coming, fossil hunter!” she replied defiantly.

  Surefoot naturally would rather have turned back. Cherry had to kick him to start him at all. And then she could not make him go fast enough. He splashed in to his knees, slowed up, and began to flounder.

  “Come hard!” yelled Heftral.

  Cherry urged her horse with all her might. It was too late for good results. Surefoot struck the deep water at too slow a gait, and the current carried him off his feet. Cherry’s distended eyes saw the red flood well to her hips. How cold, angry, strong. Heftral rode madly down along the opposite bank, yelling she knew not what. In the presence of real peril Cherry’s sense and nerve rose to combat her terror. She kept her seat in the saddle. She pulled Surefoot diagonally downstream. He was half swimming and half wading. Fifty yards below where Heftral had crossed, Cherry’s horse struck shallow water and harder bottom and made shore just above a place where the stream constricted between steep banks, and began to get rough.

  Heftral had waded his horse in to meet hers.

  “You should have ridden in fast,” he said almost harshly. But the fact that his face was white caused Cherry to forgive his rudeness.

  “You told me a little late,” replied Cherry coolly.

  “I apologize. I…I thought you would follow suit,” he returned with an effort.

  Cherry did not need to be told what a narrow escape it had been. She effectively concealed her real feelings.

  “Pray don’t apologize. I didn’t expect much courtesy from you,” she said evenly.

  The blood leaped to Heftral’s pale cheek and he stifled a retort. Then he rode back to the pack animal and took up the halter again. Cherry rode on behind him, pondering over the possibilities of this eventful day.

  Six

  Five hours later, and fifteen miles farther on over this awful desert, Cherry had experienced sensations never before known to her except by hearsay.

  She had been wet to the skin for hours. It was not rain but a deluge. She had forded so many gutters and wastes and gorges that she could no longer remember the number. She had fallen off her horse into the mud. She had been compelled to dismount and climb up steep wet sand slopes, where every step seemed the last on
e before she flopped down to die. She had been pulled across raging creeks by Heftral, and rescued from certain death at least twice. And the wonder of it all was that she had kept the true state of her misery and terror from her captor. She vowed nothing would ever make her show yellow and crawl—to give this man and her father the satisfaction they craved. She would prove one thing anyhow—that a modern girl could have more nerve than all the old-fashioned dames together. Lastly she was unable to decide whether she would end by passionately hating Heftral or loving him. Certainly he could not have planned such opportunities as had come up. He treated her almost precisely as if she had been a young man. Indeed it was because of this in two instances that she had nearly drowned. Yet he was amazingly cool, indifferent to her and danger as well. But when necessary he had the quickness, the judgment, and the strength to drag her to safety.

  The rain let up now and then, so that Cherry could see the desert. If it had ever been level, it was no longer so. It was turned on end, broken into ragged pieces, upheaved and monumental, a wild world of walls, cliffs, rocks, cañons, and water. Cherry thought it had probably rained likewise for Noah and the ark.

  There was not a dry stitch on her, and she appeared to be red mud from head to toe. Sand and water were mixed inside her shoes. When Heftral trotted his horse, or dismounted to descend into some gully and climb out, Cherry grew hot and breathless from the unusual exercise. When they rode slowly, which fortunately was not often, she grew cold. And now she began to get hungry.

  She remembered she had wrapped up a piece of meat and a biscuit, and deposited it in her pocket. With dismay she found the biscuit wet and soggy. But she ate it anyhow. Then the piece of meat. She had never before known anything to taste so good. And she reflected on how little she had ever appreciated food. A person must starve to realize that.