by Various
Beyond this wide area of curved lines rose another wall, dwarfing the lower, dark, red, horizon-long, magnificent in frowning boldness, and because of its limitless deceiving surfaces incomprehensible to the gaze of man. Away to the eastward began a winding, ragged, blue line, looping back upon itself, and then winding away again, growing wider and bluer. This line was San Juan Cañon. I followed that blue line all its length, a hundred miles, down toward the west where it joined a dark, purple, shadowy cleft. And this was the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. My eye swept along with that winding mark, farther and farther to the west, until the cleft, growing larger and closer, revealed itself as a wild and winding cañon. Still farther westward it split a vast plateau of red peaks and yellow mesas. Here the cañon was full of purple smoke. It turned, it closed, it gaped, it lost itself and showed again in that chaos of a million cliffs. And then it faded, a mere purple line, into deceiving distance.
I imagined there was no scene in all the world to equal this. The tranquility of lesser spaces was here not manifest. This happened to be a place where so much of the desert could be seen, and the effect was stupendous. Sound, movement, life seemed to have no fitness here. Ruin was there and desolation and decay. The meaning of the ages was flung at me. A man became nothing. But when I gazed across that sublime and majestic wilderness, in which the Grand Cañon was only a dim line, I strangely lost my terror, and something came to me across the shining spaces.
Then Nas Ta Bega and Wetherill began the descent of the slope, and the rest of us followed. No sign of a trail showed where the base of the slope rolled out to meet the green plain. There was a level bench a mile wide, then a ravine, and then an ascent, and after that rounded ridge and ravine, one after the other, like huge swells of a monstrous sea. Indian paint brush vied in its scarlet hue with the deep magenta of cactus. There was no sage. Soap weed and meager grass and a bunch of cactus here and there lent the green to that barren, and it was green only at a distance.
Nas Ta Bega kept on at a steady gait. The sun climbed. The wind rose and whipped dust from under the mustangs. There is seldom much talk on a ride of this nature. It is hard work and everybody for himself. Besides, it is enough just to see, and that country is conducive to silence. I looked back often, and the farther out on the plain we rode, the higher loomed the plateau we had descended. As I faced ahead again, the lower sank the red-domed and castled horizon to the fore.
It was a wild place we were approaching. I saw piñon patches under the circled walls. I ceased to feel the dry wind in my face. We were already in the lee of a wall. I saw the rock squirrels scampering to their holes. Then the Indian disappeared between two rounded corners of cliff.
I rode around the corner into a widening space thick with cedars. It ended in a bare slope of smooth rock. Here we dismounted to begin the ascent. It was smooth and hard, although not slippery. There was not a crack. I did not see a broken piece of stone. Nas Ta Bega and Wetherill climbed straight up for a while, and then wound around a swell, to turn this way and that, always going up. I began to see similar mounds of rock all around me, of every shape that could be called a curve. There were yellow domes far above and small red domes far below. Ridges ran from one hill of rock to another. There were no abrupt breaks, but holes and pits and caves were everywhere, and occasionally deep down an amphitheatre green with cedar and piñon. We found no vestige of trail on those bare slopes.
Our guides led to the top of the wall, only to disclose to us another wall beyond, with a ridged, bare, and scalloped depression between. Here footing began to be precarious for both man and beast. Our mustangs were not shod, and it was wonderful to see their slow, short, careful steps. They knew a great deal better than we what the danger was. It has been such experiences as this that have made me see in horses something besides beasts of burden. In the ascent of the second slope it was necessary to zigzag up, slowly and carefully, taking advantage of every bulge and depression.
Then before us twisted and dropped and curved the most dangerous slopes I had ever seen. We had reached the height of the divide, and many of the drops on this side were perpendicular and too steep for us to see the bottom.
At one bad place Wetherill and Nas Ta Bega, with Joe Lee, a Mormon cowboy with us, were helping one of the pack horses, named Chub. On the steepest part of this slope Chub fell and began to slide. His momentum jerked the rope from the hands of Wetherill and the Indian. But Joe Lee held on. Joe was a giant, and being a Mormon he could not let go of anything he had. He began to slide with the horse, holding back with all his might.
It seemed that both man and beast must slide down to where the slope ended in a yawning precipice. Chub was snorting or screaming in terror. Our mustangs were frightened and rearing. It was not a place to have trouble with horses.
I had a moment of horrified fascination, in which Chub turned clear over. Then he slid into a little depression that, with Joe's hold on the lasso, momentarily checked his descent. Quick as thought Joe ran sidewise and down to the bulge of rock and yelled for help. I got to him a little ahead of Wetherill and Nas Ta Bega, and together we pulled Chub up out of danger. At first we thought he had been choked to death. But he came to, and got up, a bloody, skinned horse, but alive and safe. I have never seen a more magnificent effort than Joe Lee's. Those fellows are built that way. Wetherill has lost horses on those treacherous slopes, and that risk is the only thing about the trip that is not splendid.
We got over that bad place without further incident, and presently came to a long swell of naked stone that led down to a narrow green split. This one had straight walls and wound away out of sight. It was the head of a cañon.
"Nonnezoshe Boco," said the Indian.
This, then, was the Cañon of the Rainbow Bridge. When we got down into it, we were a happy crowd. The mode of travel here was a selection of the best levels, the best places to cross the brook, the best places to climb, and it was a process of continual repetition. There was no trail ahead of us, but we certainly left one behind. And as Wetherill picked out the course and the mustangs followed him, I had all freedom to see and feel the beauty, color, wildness, and changing character of Nonnezoshe Boco.
My experiences in the desert did not count much in the trip down this strange, beautiful, lost cañon. All cañons are not alike. This one did not widen, although the walls grew higher. They began to lean and bulge, and the narrow strip of sky above resembled a flowing blue river. Huge caverns had been hollowed out by water or wind. And when the brook ran close under one of these overhanging places, the running water made a singular, indescribable sound. A crack from a hoof on a stone rang like a hollow bell and echoed from wall to wall. And the croak of a frog--the only living creature I noted in the cañon--was a weird and melancholy thing.
"We're sure gettin' deep down," said Joe Lee.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Here are the pink and yellow sego lilies. Only the white ones are found above."
I dismounted to gather some of these lilies. They were larger than the white ones of higher altitudes, of a most exquisite beauty and fragility, and of such rare pink and yellow hues as I had never seen.
"They bloom only where it's always summer," explained Joe.
That expressed their nature. They were the orchids of the summer cañons. They stood up everywhere star-like out of the green. It was impossible to prevent the mustangs treading them under foot. And as the cañon deepened, and many little springs added their tiny volume to the brook, every grassy bench was dotted with lilies, like a green sky star-spangled. And this increasing luxuriance manifested itself in the banks of purple moss and clumps of lavender daisies and great mounds of yellow violets. The brook was lined by blossoming buck brush; the rocky corners showed the crimson and magenta of cactus; and there were ledges of green with shining moss that sparkled with little white flowers. The hum of bees filled the fragrant, dreamy air.
But by and by this green and colorful and verdant beauty, the almost level floor of
the cañon, the banks of soft earth, the thickets and clumps of cottonwood, the shelving caverns and bulging walls--these features were gradually lost, and Nonnezoshe began to deepen in bare red and white stone steps. The walls sheered away from one another, breaking into sections and ledges, and rising higher and higher, and there began to be manifested a dark and solemn concordance with the nature that had created this old rent in the earth.
There was a stretch of miles where steep steps in hard red rock alternated with long levels of round boulders. Here, one by one, the mustangs went lame, and we had to walk. And we slipped and stumbled along over these loose, treacherous stones. The hours passed; the toll increased; the progress diminished; one of the mustangs failed and was left. All the while the dimensions of Nonnezoshe Boco were magnified and its character changed. It became a thousand-foot walled cañon, leaning, broken, threatening, with great yellow slides, blocking passage, with huge sections split off from the main wall, with immense dark and gloomy caverns. Strangely it had no intersecting cañons. It jealously guarded its secret. Its unusual formations of cavern and pillar and half arch led me to expect any monstrous stone shape left by avalanche or cataclysm.
Down and down we toiled. And now the streambed was bare of boulders and the banks of earth. The floods that had rolled down that cañon had here borne away every loose thing. All the floor, in places, was bare red and white stone, polished, glistening, slippery, affording treacherous foothold. And the time came when Wetherill abandoned the streambed to take to the rock-strewn and cactus-covered ledges above.
The cañon widened ahead into a great, ragged, iron-lined amphitheatre, and then apparently turned abruptly at right angles. Sunset rimmed the walls.
I had been tired for a long time, and now I began to limp and lag. I wondered what on earth would make Wetherill and the Indians tired. It was with great pleasure that I observed the giant Joe Lee plodding slowly along. And when I glanced behind at my straggling party, it was with both admiration for their gameness and glee for their disheveled and weary appearance. Finally I got so that all I could do was to drag myself onward with eyes down on the rough ground. In this way I kept on until I heard Wetherill call me. He had stopped--was waiting for me. The dark and silent Indian stood beside him, looking down the cañon.
I saw past the vast jutting wall that had obstructed my view. A mile beyond, all was bright with the colors of sunset, and spanning the cañon in the graceful shape and beautiful hues of the rainbow was a magnificent natural bridge.
"Nonnezoshe," said Wetherill simply.
This Rainbow Bridge was the one great natural phenomenon, the one grand spectacle that I had ever seen that did not at first give vague disappointment, a confounding of reality, a disenchantment of contrast with what the mind had conceived.
This thing was glorious. It absolutely silenced me. My body and brain, weary and dull from the toil of travel, received a singular and revivifying freshness. I had a strange, mystic perception that this rosy-hued, tremendous arch of stone was a goal I had failed to reach in some former life, but had now found. Here was a rainbow magnified even beyond dreams, a thing not transparent and ethereal, but solidified, a work of ages, sweeping up majestically from the red walls, its iris-hued arch against the blue sky.
Then we plodded on again. Wetherill worked around to circle the huge amphitheatre. The way was a steep slant, rough and loose and dragging. The rocks were as hard and jagged as lava, and cacti hindered progress. Soon the rosy and golden lights had faded. All the walls turned pale and steely, and the bridge loomed darkly.
We were to camp that night under the bridge. Just before we reached it, Nas Ta Bega halted with one of his singular motions. He was saying his prayer to this stone god. Then he began to climb straight up the steep slope. Wetherill told me the Indian would not pass under the arch.
When we got to the bridge and unsaddled and unpacked the lame mustangs, twilight had fallen. The horses were turned loose to fare for what scant grass grew on bench and slope. Firewood was even harder to find than grass. When our simple meal had been eaten, there was gloom gathering in the cañon, and stars had begun to blink in the pale strip of blue above the lofty walls. The place was oppressive, and we were mostly silent.
Presently I moved away into the strange, dark shadow cast by the bridge. It was a weird black belt, where I imagined I was invisible, but out of which I could see. There was a slab of rock upon which I composed myself, to watch, to feel.
A stiffening of my neck made me aware that I had been continually looking up at the looming arch. I found that it never seemed the same any two moments. Near at hand it was too vast a thing for immediate comprehension. I wanted to ponder on what had formed it-- to reflect upon its meaning as to age and force of nature. Yet it seemed that all I could do was to see. White stars hung along the dark, curved line. The rim of the arch appeared to shine. The moon was up there somewhere. The far side of the cañon was now a blank black wall. Over its towering rim showed a pale glow. It brightened. The shades in the cañon lightened, then a white disk of moon peeped over the dark line. The bridge turned to silver.
It was then that I became aware of the presence of Nas Ta Bega. Dark, silent, statuesque, with inscrutable face uplifted, with all that was spiritual of the Indian suggested by a somber and tranquil knowledge of his place there, he represented to me that which a solitary figure of human life represents in a great painting. Nonnezoshe needed life, wild life, life of its millions of years-- and here stood the dark and silent Indian.
Long afterward I walked there alone, to and fro, under the bridge. The moon had long since crossed the streak of star-fired blue above, and the cañon was black in shadow. At times a current of wind, with all the strangeness of that strange country in its moan, rushed through the great stone arch. At other times there was silence such as I imagined might have dwelt deep in the center of the earth. And again an owl hooted, and the sound was nameless. It had a mocking echo. An echo of night, silence, gloom, melancholy, death, age, eternity!
The Indian lay asleep with his dark face upturned, and the other sleepers lay calm and white in the starlight. I seemed to see in them the meaning of life and the past--the illimitable train of faces that had shone under the stars. There was something nameless in that cañon, and whether or not it was what the Indian embodied in the great Nonnezoshe, or the life of the present, or the death of the ages, or the nature so magnificently manifested in those silent, dreaming, waiting walls--the truth was that there was a spirit.
I did sleep a few hours under Nonnezoshe, and, when I awoke, the tip of the arch was losing its cold darkness and beginning to shine. The sun had just risen high enough over some low break in the wall to reach the bridge. I watched. Slowly, in wondrous transformation, the gold and blue and rose and pink and purple blended their hues, softly, mistily, cloudily, until once more the arch was a rainbow.
I realized that long before life had evolved upon the earth this bridge had spread its grand arch from wall to wall, black and mystic at night, transparent and rosy in the sunrise, at sunset a flaming curve limned against the heavens. When the race of man had passed, it would, perhaps, stand there still. It was not for many eyes to see. The tourist, the leisurely traveler, the comfort- loving motorist would never behold it. Only by toil, sweat, endurance, and pain could any man ever look at Nonnezoshe. It seemed well to realize that the great things of life had to be earned. Nonnezoshe would always be alone, grand, silent, beautiful, unintelligible; and as such I bade it a mute, reverent farewell.
Contents
TAPPAN'S BURRO
By Zane Grey
I
Tappan gazed down upon the newly-born little burro with something of pity and consternation. It was not a vigorous offspring of the redoubtable Jennie, champion of all the numberless burros he had driven in his desert-prospecting years. He could not leave it there to die. Surely it was not strong enough to follow its mother. And to kill it was beyond him.
"Poor little devil," sol
iloquized Tappan. "Reckon neither Jennie nor I wanted it to be born. . . . I'll have to hold up in this camp a few days. You can never tell what a burro will do. It might fool us an' grow strong all of a sudden."
Whereupon Tappan left Jennie and her tiny, gray, lop-eared baby to themselves, and leisurely set about making permanent camp. The water at this oasis was not much to his liking, but it was drinkable, and he felt he must put up with it. For the rest the oasis was desirable enough as a camping site. Desert wanderers like Tappan favored the lonely water holes. This one was up under the bold brow of the Chocolate Mountains, where rocky wall met the desert sand, and a green patch of palo verdes and mesquites proved the presence of water. It had a magnificent view down a many- leagued slope of desert growths, across the dark belt of green and, the shining strip of red that marked the Rio Colorado, and on to the upflung Arizona land, range lifting to range until the saw- toothed peaks notched the blue sky.
Locked in the iron fastnesses of these desert mountains was gold. Tappan, if he had any calling, was a prospector. But the lure of gold did not bind him to this wandering life any more than the freedom of it. He had never made a rich strike. About the best he could ever do was to dig enough gold to grubstake himself for another prospecting trip into some remote corner of the American desert. Tappan knew the arid Southwest from San Diego to the Pecos River and from Picacho on the Colorado to the Tonto Basin. Few prospectors had the strength and endurance of Tappan. He was a giant in build, and at thirty-five had never yet reached the limit of his physical force.