Tisdale had dropped his knife. He stooped to pick it up. “That's where you made your mistake,” he said.
The woman drew a step nearer, watching his face; tense, breathless. Clearly he had turned her thoughts from the fence, and he slipped the knife in farther and continued to pry and twist the wire loose. “How do you know it was a mistake?” she asked at last.
Tisdale laid the second wire down. “Well, wasn't it? To punish yourself like this, to cheat yourself out of the best years of your life, when you knew how much Banks thought of you. But you seem to have overlooked his side. Do you think, when he knows how you crucified yourself, it's going to make him any happier? He carried a great spirit bottled in that small, wiry frame, but he got to seeing himself through your eyes. He was ashamed of his failures—he had always been a little sensitive about his size—and it wasn't the usual enthusiasm that started him to Alaska; he was stung into going. It was like him to play his poor joke gamily, at the last, and pretend he didn't care. A word from you would have held him—you must have known that—and a letter from you afterwards, when you needed him, would have brought him back. Or you might have joined him up there and made a home for him all these years, but you chose to bury yourself here in the desert of the Columbia, starving your soul, wasting your best on these goats.” He paused with the last loosened wire in his hands and stood looking at her with condemning eyes. “What made you?” he added, and his voice vibrated softly. “What made you?”
The woman's features worked; tears filled her eyes.
They must have been the first in many months, for they came with the gush that follows a probe. “You know him,” she said brokenly. “You've seen him lately, up there in Alaska.”
“I think so, yes. The Johnny Banks I knew in the north told me something about a girl he left down in Oregon. But she was a remarkably pretty girl, with merry black eyes and a nice color in her cheeks. Seems to me she used to wear a pink gown sometimes, and a pink rose in her black hair, and made a picture that the fellows busy along the new railroad came miles on Sundays to see.”
A bleak smile touched the woman's mouth. “Dad always liked to see me wear nice clothes. He said it advertised the store.” Then her glance fell to her coarse, wretched skirt, and the contrast struck poignantly.
Tisdale moved the wires back, clearing a space for the bays to pass. “There was one young engineer,” he went on, as though she had not spoken; “a big, handsome fellow, who came oftener than the rest. Banks thought it was natural she should favor him. The little man believes yet that when he was out of the way she married that engineer.”
The woman was beyond speech. Tisdale had penetrated the last barrier of her fortitude. The bitterness, pent so long, fostered in solitude, filled the vent and surged through. Her shoulders shook, she stumbled a few steps to the poplar and, throwing up her arm against the bole, buried her face, sobbing, in her sleeve.
Tisdale looked back across the field. Miss Armitage was holding the team in readiness at the wicket. “I am going now,” he said. “You will have to watch your goats until I get the horses through. But if you will write that letter, madam, while I'm at work, I'll be glad to mail it for you.”
The woman looked up. A sudden hope transfigured her face. “I wish I dared to. But he wouldn't know me now; I've changed so. Besides, I don't know his address.”
“That's so.” Tisdale met her glance thoughtfully. “But leave it to me. I think I can get into touch with him when I am back in Seattle.”
Miss Armitage watched him as he came swiftly across the field. “Oh,” she cried, when he reached the waiting team, “how did you accomplish it? Are you a magician?”
Hollis shook his head. “I only tried to play a little on her heart-strings, to gain time, and struck an unexpected chord. But it's all right. It's going to do her good.”
CHAPTER XI. THE LOOPHOLE
The afternoon sun shone hot in that pocket; the arid slopes reflected the glare; heat waves lifted; the snow-peak was shut out, and when a puff of wind found the gap it was a breath from the desert. Miss Armitage, who had trailed pluckily after Tisdale through the sage-brush and up the steep face of the bench, rested on the level, while he hurried on to find the easiest route to the high plateau and the spring. He had left her seated on a flat rock in the shade of a sentinel pine tree, looking over the vale to Cerberus and the distant bit of the Wenatchee showing beyond the mouth, but as he came back along the ridge, he saw she had turned her shoulder on the crouching mountain. At his far “Hello!” she waved her hand to him and rose to start across the bench to meet him. He was descending a broken stairway below two granite pillars that topped a semi-circular bluff and, springing from a knob to avoid a dry runnel, he shaped his way diagonally to abridge the distance. He moved with incredible swiftness, swinging by his hands to drop from a ledge, sliding where he must, and the ease and expediency with which he accomplished it all brought the admiration sparkling to her eyes.
“I am sorry,” he said, as he drew near, “but there isn't any easy way. It's too bad to have traveled so far and miss the spring, for the whole project hinges on it; but the climb is impossible for you in this heat.”
“Then you found the spring?” she asked quickly. “It was all the plans promised?”
“Yes.” He began to walk on across the bench, suiting his steps to hers. “And Weatherbee had put in a small dam there to create his first reservoir. I found his old camp, too; a foundation of logs, open now to the sky, with a few tatters left of the canvas that had roofed it over.” There was a silent moment, then he added, with the emotion still playing gently in his voice: “I wish I could show you that place; the pool is crystal clear and cool, rimmed in pines, like a basin of opals.”
When they reached the flat rock in the shade of the pine tree, he took the reclamation plan from his inner pocket and seated himself beside her. “This is Weatherbee's drawing,” he said. “See how carefully he worked in the detail. This is the spring and that upper reservoir, and this lower one is a natural dry basin up there under that bluff, a little to the left of those granite chimneys; you can see its rocky rim. All it needs is this short flume sketched in here to bring the water down, and a sluice-gate to feed the main canal that follows this bench we are on. Spillways would irrigate a peach orchard along this slope below us and seep out through this level around us to supply home gardens and lawn. Just imagine it!” He paused, while her glance followed his brief comparisons, moving from the plan to the surface of the bench and down over the slope to the vale. “Imagine this tract at the end of four years; a billowing sea of green; with peach trees in bearing on this mountainside; apples, the finest Jonathans, Rome Beauties if you will, beginning to make a showing down there. Water running, seeping everywhere; strawberries carpeting the ground between the boles; alfalfa, cool and moist, filling in; and even Cerberus off there losing his sinister shape in vineyards.”
“Then it is feasible,” she exclaimed softly, and the sparkles broke subdued in her eyes. “And the price, Mr. Tisdale; what would you consider a fair price for the property as it stands now, unimproved?” Tisdale rose. He paused to fold the drawing and put it away, while his glance moved slowly down over the vale to the goat-keeper's cabin and her browsing flock. “You must see, Miss Armitage,” he said then, “that idea of Mr. Morganstein's to plat this land into five-acre tracts for the market couldn't materialize. It is out of range of the Wenatchee valley projects; it is inaccessible to the railroad for the small farmer. Only the man with capital to work it on a large scale could make it pay. And the property is Mrs. Weatherbee's last asset; she is in urgent need of ready money. You should be able to make easy terms with her, but I warn you, if it comes to bidding, I am prepared to offer seven thousand dollars.”
He turned, frowning a little, to look down at her and, catching those covert sparkles of her side-glance, smiled.
“You may have it,” she said.
“Wait. Think it over,” he answered. “I am going down to the gap
now to find the surveyor's monument and trace the section line back to the top of the plateau. Rest here, where it's cooler, and I will come down this way for you when I am through. Think the project over and take my word for the spring; it's well worth the investment.”
Doubtless Miss Armitage followed his suggestion, for she sat thoughtfully, almost absently, watching him down the slope. At the foot of the vale, the goat-woman joined him, and it was clear he again used his magic art, for presently he had her chaining for him and holding an improvised flag, while he estimated the section line. But finally, when they left the bed of the pocket and began to cross-cut up the opposite mountainside, the girl rose and looked in the direction of the spring. It was cooler; a breeze was drawing down from the upper ridge; a few thin clouds like torn gauze veiled the sky overhead; the blue lost intensity. She began to walk across the bench towards the granite chimneys. In a little while she found the dry reservoir, walled, where the plateau lifted, in the semi-circular bluff; then she stopped at the foot of an arid gully that rose between this basin and a small shoulder which supported the first needle. This was the stairway she had seen Tisdale descend, and presently she commenced to climb it slowly, grasping bunches of the tenacious sage or jutting points of rock to ease her weight.
The stairs ended in a sharp incline covered with debris from the decomposing pillars; splinters of granite shifted under her tread; she felt the edges cutting through her shoes. Fragments began to rattle down; one larger rock crashed over the bluff into the dry basin. Then, at last, she was on the level, fighting for breath. She turned, trembling, and braced herself against the broken chimney to look back. She shrank closer to the needle and shook her head. It was as though she said: “I never could go back alone.”
But when her glance moved to the opposite mountainside, Tisdale was no longer in sight. And that shoulder was very narrow; it presented a sheer front to the vale, like the base of a monument, so that between the chimney and the drop to the gully there was little room in which to stand. She began to choose a course, picking her foothold cautiously, zigzagging as she had seen Hollis do on the slope above. Midway another knob jutted, supporting a second pillar and a single pine tree, but as she came under the chimney she was forced to hurry. Loose chippings of granite started at every step. They formed little torrents, undermining, rushing, threatening to sweep her down; and she reached the ledge in a panic. Then she felt the stable security of the pine against her body and for a moment let herself go, sinking to the foot of the tree and covering her eyes with her hands.
Up there a stiff wind was blowing, and presently she saw the snow-peak she had missed in the vale. The ridge lifted less abruptly from this second spur, and in a little while she rose and pushed on, lagging sometimes, stumbling, to the level of the plateau. The Wenatchee range, of which it was a part, stretched bleak and forbidding, enclosing all those minor arid gulfs down to the final, long, scarred headland set against the Columbia desert. She was like a woman stranded, the last survivor, on an inhospitable coast. Turning to look across the valley of the Wenatchee, she saw the blue and glaciered crests of the Chelan mountains, and behind her, over the neck of a loftier height, loomed other white domes. And there yesterday's thunder-caps, bigger and blacker, with fringed edges, drove along the sky line. One purplish mass was streaming like a sieve. For an interval the sun was obscured, and her glance came back to the vale below where Cerberus reclined, watchful, his tawny head lifted slightly between two advanced paws. Suddenly the lower clouds grew brilliant, and shafts of light breaking through changed the mountain before her to a beast of brass.
She turned and began to pick her way through grease brush and insistent sage towards a grove of pines. In a little while she saw water shining through the trees. She hesitated—it was as though she had come to the threshold of a sanctuary—then went on under the boughs to the opal pool.
She remained in the grove a long time. When she reappeared, the desert eastward was curtained in a gray film. Torn breadths of it, driven by some local current of air, formed tented clouds along the promontory. It was as though yesterday's army was marshalled against other hosts that held the Chelan heights. A twilight indistinctness settled over the valley between. Rain, a downpour, was near. She hurried on to the brow of the plateau, but she dared not attempt to go down around those crumbling chimneys alone. And Tisdale had said he would come back this side of the vale. Any moment he might appear. She turned to go back to the shelter of the pines. It was then a first electrical flash, like a drawn sword, challenged the opposite ridge. Instantly a searchlight from the encamped legions played over the lower plain. She turned again, wavering, and began to run on over the first dip of the slope and along to the first pillar. There she stopped, leaning on the rock, trembling, yet trying to force down her fear. It was useless; she could not venture over that stream of shifting granite. She started back, then stopped, wavering again. After a moment she lifted her voice in a clear, long call: “Mr. Tis—da—le!”
“I'm coming!” The answer rang surprisingly close, from the gully above the basin. Soon she discovered him and, looking up, he saw her standing clear-cut against a cavernous, dun-colored cloud, which, gathering all lesser drift into its gulf, drove low towards the plateau. She turned her face, watching it, and it seemed to belch wind like a bellows, for her skirt stiffened, and the loosened chiffon veil, lifting from her shoulders, streamed like the drapery of some aerial figure, poised there briefly on its flight through space. Then began cannonading. Army replied to army. The advancing film from the desert, grown black, became an illuminated scroll; thin ribbons of gold were traced on it, bowknots of tinsel. The pattern changed continually. The legions repeated their fire; javelins, shafts, flew. Lightning passed in vertical bolts, in sheets from ridge to ridge. Then the cloud approaching the plateau spoke, and the curtain moving from the Columbia became a wall of doom, in which great cracks yawned, letting the light of eternity through.
The girl was flying down the slope to meet Tisdale. She came with bent head, hands to her ears, skimming the pitfalls. Under her light tread the loose debris hardly stirred. Then, as he rounded the pillar, her pace slackened. “I am afraid,” she said and stumbled. “I am afraid.” And her trembling body sank against his arm; she buried her face in his coat. “Take me away from this terrible place.”
Her impact had started the splintered granite moving, but Hollis swung instantly and set his back to the crumbling chimney, clinging there, staying her with his arm, until the slide stopped.
“See here,” he said, and his voice vibrated its soft undernote, “you mustn't lose your grip. It's all right. Old Mother Nature is just having one of her scolding fits. She has to show the woman in her once in a while. But it's going to end, any minute, in tears.”
She lifted her face, and he paused, knitting his brows, yet smiling a little, mastering the terror in her eyes with his quiet, compelling gaze. “Come, Miss Armitage,” he said, “we must hurry. You will be wet through.”
He took her hand and began to lead her quickly down the rugged staircase. “Be careful,” he admonished, “this granite is treacherous.” But she gave little heed to her steps; she looked back continually over her shoulder, watching the dun cloud. Presently she tripped. Hollis turned to steady her, and, himself looking up beyond her, caught her in his arms and ran, springing, out of the gully.
The ledge he reached formed the rim of the natural reservoir and, measuring the distance with a swift glance, he let himself over, easing the drop with one hand on the rocky brink, while the other arm supported her. Midway, on a jutting knob, he gathered momentary foothold, then swung to the bottom of the basin.
It was all done surely but with incredible haste, while the cavernous cloud drew directly overhead. The next instant, from its brazen depths, it spoke again. The whole mountain seemed to heave. Then something mighty crashed down. The basin suddenly darkened as though a trap door had closed, and Tisdale, still shielding his companion, stood looking up, listening, w
hile the reverberations rang from slope to slope and filled the vale. Then silence came.
Miss Armitage drew erect, though her hand rested unconsciously on Tisdale's sleeve. The thing that roofed the basin was black, impenetrably thick; in it she saw no possible loophole of escape. “This time,” she faltered, “Fate is against you.”
Her breast rose and fell in deep, hurried breaths; in the twilight of the basin her eyes, meeting his, shone like twin stars. Tisdale's blood began to race; it rose full tide in his veins, “Fate is with me,” he answered, and bent and kissed her mouth.
She shrank back, trembling, against the rocky wall; she glanced about her with the swift, futile manner of a creature helplessly trapped, then she pressed her fingers an instant to her eyes and straightened. “You never will forgive yourself,” she said; not in anger, not in judgment, but in a tone so low, so sad, it seemed to express not only regret but finality.
Tisdale was silent. After a moment he turned to the lower side of the basin, which afforded better foothold than the wall he had descended, and began to work up from niche to ledge, grasping a chance bunch of sage, a stunted bush of chaparral that grew in a cranny, to steady himself. And the girl stood aloof, watching him. Finally he reached a shelf that brought him, in touch with the obstruction overhead and stopped to take out his pocketknife, with which he commenced to create a loophole. Little twigs rained down; a larger branch fell, letting the daylight through. The roof was a mesh of pine boughs.
At last he closed his knife and, taking firm hold on a fixed limb, leaned to reach his other palm down to her. “Come,” he said, “set your foot in that first niche—no, the left one. Now, give me your hand.”
She obeyed as she must, and Hollis pushed backward through the aperture he had made, getting the bough under one armpit. “Now, step to that jagged little spur; it's solid. The right one, too; there's room.” She gained the upper ledge and waited, hugging the wall pluckily while he worked out on the rim of the basin and, stretching full length, with the stem of the tree under his waist, reached his arms down to her. “You will have to spring a little,” he directed, “and grip my shoulders hard. Now, come!”
The Rim of the Desert Page 14