by Zane Grey
The young man’s naïveté completely disarmed Rhoda.
“Don’t be silly!” she said. “Go get your famous top-buggy and I’ll be ready in a minute.”
In a short time Rhoda and Cartwell, followed by many injunctions from Katherine, started off toward the irrigating ditch. At a slow pace they drove through the peach orchard into the desert. As they reached the open trail, thrush and to-hee fluttered from the cholla. Chipmunk and cottontail scurried before them. Overhead a hawk dipped in its reeling flight. Cartwell watched the girl keenly. Her pale face was very lovely in the brilliant morning light, though the somberness of her wide, gray eyes was deepened. That same muteness and patience in her trouble which so touched other men touched Cartwell, but he only said:
“There never was anything bigger and finer than this open desert, was there?”
Rhoda turned from staring at the distant mesas and eyed the young Indian wonderingly.
“Why!” she exclaimed, “I hate it! You know that sick fear that gets you when you try to picture eternity to yourself? That’s the way this barrenness and awful distance affects me. I hate it!”
“But you won’t hate it!” cried Cartwell. “You must let me show you its bigness. It’s as healing as the hand of God.”
Rhoda shuddered.
“Don’t talk about it, please! I’ll try to think of something else.”
They drove in silence for some moments. Rhoda, her thin hands clasped in her lap, resolutely stared at the young Indian’s profile. In the unreal world in which she drifted, she needed some thought of strength, some hope beyond her own, to which to cling. She was lonely—lonely as some outcast watching with sick eyes the joy of the world to which he is denied. As she stared at the stern young profile beside her, into her heart crept the now familiar thrill.
Suddenly Cartwell turned and looked at her quizzically.
“Well, what are your conclusions?”
Rhoda shook her head.
“I don’t know, except that it’s hard to realize that you are an Indian.”
Cartwell’s voice was ironical.
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian, you know. I’m liable to break loose any time, believe me!”
Rhoda’s eyes were on the far lavender line where the mesa melted into the mountains.
“Yes, and then what?” she asked.
Cartwell’s eyes narrowed, but Rhoda did not see.
“Then I’m liable to follow Indian tradition and take whatever I want, by whatever means!”
“My! My!” said Rhoda, “that sounds bludgy! And what are you liable to want?”
“Oh, I want the same thing that a great many white men want. I’m going to have it myself, though!” His handsome face glowed curiously as he looked at Rhoda.
But the girl was giving his words small heed. Her eyes still were turned toward the desert, as though she had forgotten her companion. Sand whirls crossed the distant levels, ceaselessly. Huge and menacing, they swirled out from the mesa’s edge, crossed the desert triumphantly, then, at contact with rock or cholla thicket, collapsed and disappeared. Endless, merciless, hopeless the yellow desert quivered against the bronze blue sky. For the first time dazed hopelessness gave way in Rhoda to fear. The young Indian, watching the girl’s face, beheld in it what even DeWitt never had seen there—beheld deadly fear. He was silent for a moment, then he leaned toward her and put a strong brown hand over her trembling little fists. His voice was deep and soft.
“Don’t,” he said, “don’t!”
Perhaps it was the subtle, not-to-be-fathomed influence of the desert which fights all sham; perhaps it was that Rhoda merely had reached the limit of her heroic self-containment and that, had DeWitt or Newman been with her, she would have given way in the same manner; perhaps it was that the young Indian’s presence had in it a quality that roused new life in her. Whatever the cause; the listless melancholy suddenly left Rhoda’s gray eyes and they were wild and black with fear.
“I can’t die!” she panted. “I can’t leave my life unlived! I can’t crawl on much longer like a sick animal without a soul. I want to live! To live!”
“Look at me!” said Cartwell. “Look at me, not at the desert!” Then as she turned to him, “Listen, Rhoda! You shall not die! I will make you well! You shall not die!”
For a long minute the two gazed deep into each other’s eyes, and the sense of quickening blood touched Rhoda’s heart. Then they both woke to the sound of hoof-beats behind them and John DeWitt, with a wildcat thrown across his saddle, rode up.
“Hello! I’ve shouted one lung out! I thought you people were petrified!” He looked curiously from Rhoda’s white face to Cartwell’s inscrutable one. “Do you think you ought to have attempted this trip, Rhoda?” he asked gently.
“Oh, we’ve taken it very slowly,” answered the Indian. “And we are going to turn back now.”
“I don’t think I’ve overdone,” said Rhoda. “But perhaps we have had enough.”
“All right,” said Cartwell. “If Mr. DeWitt will change places with me, I’ll ride on to the ditch and he can drive you back.”
DeWitt assented eagerly and, the change made, Cartwell lifted his hat and was gone. Rhoda and John returned in a silence that lasted until DeWitt lifted Rhoda from the buggy to the veranda. Then he said:
“Rhoda, I don’t like to have you go off alone with Cartwell. I wish you wouldn’t.”
Rhoda smiled.
“John, don’t be silly! He goes about with Katherine all the time.”
John only shook his head and changed the subject. That afternoon, however, Billy Porter buttonholed DeWitt in the corral where the New Yorker was watching the Arizonian saddle his fractious horse. When the horse was ready at the post, “Look here, DeWitt,” said Billy, an embarrassed look in his honest brown eyes, “I don’t want you to think I’m buttin’ in, but some one ought to watch that young Injun. Anybody with one eye can see he’s crazy about Miss Rhoda.”
John was too startled to be resentful.
“What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “Cartwell is a great friend of the Newmans’.”
“That’s why I came to you. They’re plumb locoed about the fellow, like the rest of the Easterners around here.”
“Do you know anything against him?” insisted DeWitt.
“Why, man, he’s an Injun, and half Apache at that! That’s enough to know against him!”
“What makes you think he’s interested in Miss Tuttle?” asked John.
Porter flushed through his tan.
“Well,” he said sheepishly, “I seen him come down the hall at dawn this morning. Us Westerners are early risers, you know, and when he reached Miss Turtle’s door, he pulled a little slipper out of his pocket and kissed it and put it in front of the sill.”
DeWitt scowled, then he laughed.
“He’s no worse than the rest of us that way! I’ll watch, him, though perhaps it’s only your prejudice against Indians and not really a matter to worry about.”
Porter sighed helplessly.
“All right! All right! Just remember, DeWitt, I warned you!”
He mounted, then held in his horse while the worried look gave place to one so sad, yet so manly, that John never forgot it.
“I hope you appreciate that girl, DeWitt. She—she’s a thoroughbred! My God! When you think of a sweet thing like that dying and these Injun squaws living! I hope you’ll watch her, DeWitt. If anything happens to her through you not watching her, I’ll come back on you for it! I ain’t got any rights except the rights that any living man has got to take care of any white thing like her. They get me hard when they’re dainty like that. And she’s the daintiest I ever seen!”
He rode away, shaking his head ominously.
CHAPTER III
INDIAN AND
CAUCASIAN
DeWitt debated with himself for some time as to whether or not he ought to speak to Jack of Porter’s warning. Finally he decided that Porter’s suspicions would only anger Jack, who was intensely loyal to his friends. He determined to keep silence until he had something more tangible on which to found his complaint than Billy’s bitter prejudice against all Indians. He had implicit faith in Rhoda’s love for himself. If any vague interest in life could come to her through the young Indian, he felt that he could endure his presence. In the meantime he would guard Rhoda without cessation.
In the days that followed, Rhoda grew perceptibly weaker, and her friends went about with aching hearts under an assumed cheerfulness of manner that deceived Rhoda least of any one. Rhoda herself did not complain and this of itself added a hundredfold to the pathos of the situation. Her unfailing sweetness and patience touched the healthy, hardy young people who were so devoted to her more than the most justifiable impatience on her part.
Time and again Katherine saw DeWitt and Jack leave the girl’s side with tears in their eyes. But Cartwell watched the girl with inscrutable gaze.
Rhoda still hated the desert. The very unchanging loveliness of the days wearied her. Morning succeeded morning and noon followed noon, with always the same soft breeze stirring the orchard, always the clear yellow sunlight burning and dazzling her eyes, always the unvarying monotony of bleating sheep and lowing herds and at evening the hoot of owls. The brooding tenderness of the sky she did not see. The throbbing of the great, quiet southern stars stirred her only with a sense of helpless loneliness that was all but unendurable. And still, from who knows what source, she found strength to meet the days and her friends with that unfailing sweetness that was as poignant as the clinging fingers of a sick child.
Jack, Katherine, DeWitt, Cartwell, all were unwearying in their effort to amuse her. And yet for some reason. Cartwell alone was able to rouse her listless eyes to interest. Even DeWitt found himself eagerly watching the young Indian, less to guard Rhoda than to discover what in the Apache so piqued his curiosity. He had to admit, however reluctantly, that Kut-le, as he and Rhoda now called him with the others, was a charming companion.
Neither DeWitt nor Rhoda ever before had known an Indian. Most of their ideas of the race were founded on childhood reading of Cooper. Kut-le was quite as cultured, quite as well-mannered and quite as intelligent as any of their Eastern friends. But in many other qualities he differed from them. He possessed a frank pride in himself and his blood that might have belonged to some medieval prince who would not take the trouble outwardly to underestimate himself. Closely allied to this was his habit of truthfulness. This was not a blatant bluntness that irritated the hearer but a habit of valuing persons and things at their intrinsic worth, a habit of mental honesty as bizarre to Rhoda and John as was the young Indian’s frank pride.
His attitude toward Rhoda piqued her while it amused her. Since her childhood, men had treated her with deference, had paid almost abject tribute to her loveliness and bright charm. Cartwell was delightfully considerate of her. He was uniformly courteous to her. But it was the courtesy of noblesse oblige, without a trace of deference in it.
One afternoon Kut-le sat alone on the veranda with Rhoda.
“Do you know,” he said, rumpling his black hair, “that I think DeWitt has decided that I will bear watching!”
“Well,” answered Rhoda idly, “and won’t you?”
Kut-le chuckled.
“Would you prefer that I show the lurking savage beneath this false shell of good manners?”
Rhoda smiled back at him.
“Of course you are an Indian, after all. It’s rather too bad of you not to live up to any of our ideals. Your manners are as nice as John DeWitt’s. I’d be quite frantic about you if you would drop them and go on the war-path.”
Kut-le threw back his head and laughed.
“Oh, you ignorant young thing! It’s lucky for you—and for me—that you have come West to grow up and complete your education! But DeWitt needn’t worry. I don’t need watching yet! First, I’m going to make you well. I know how and he doesn’t. After that is done, he’d better watch!”
Rhoda’s eyebrows began to go up. Kut-le never had recalled by word or look her outburst in the desert the morning of their first ride together, though they had taken several since. Rhoda seldom mentioned her illness now and her friends respected her feeling. But now Kut-le smiled at her disapproving brows.
“I’ve waited for the others to get busy,” he said, “but they act foolish. Half the trouble with you is mental. You need a boss. Now, you don’t eat enough, in spite of the eggs and beef and fruit that that dear Mrs. Jack sets before you. See how your hands shake this minute!”
Rhoda could think of no reply sufficiently crushing for this forward young Indian. While she was turning several over in her mind, Kut-le went into the house and returned with a glass of milk.
“I wish you’d drink this,” he said.
Rhoda’s brows still were arched haughtily.
“No, thank you,” she said frigidly; “I don’t wish you to undertake the care of my health.”
Kut-le made no reply but held the glass steadily before her. Involuntarily, Rhoda looked up. The young Indian was watching her with eyes so clear, so tender, with that strange look of tragedy belying their youth, with that something so compelling in their quiet depths, that once more her tired pulses quickened. Rhoda looked from Kut-le out to the twisting sand-whirls, then she took the glass of milk and drank it. She would not have done this for any of the others and both she and Kut-le knew it. Thereafter, he deliberately set himself to watching her and it seemed as if he must exhaust his ingenuity devising means for her comfort. Slowly Rhoda acquired a definite interest in the young Indian.
“Are you really civilized, Kut-le?” she asked one afternoon when the young man had brought a little white desert owl to her hammock for her inspection.
Kut-le tossed the damp hair from his forehead and looked at the sweet wistful face against the crimson pillows. For a moment Rhoda felt as if his young strength enveloped her like the desert sun.
“Why?” he asked at last. “You said the other day that I was too much civilized.”
“I know, but—” Rhoda hesitated for words, “I’m too much civilized myself to understand, but sometimes there’s a look in your eyes that something, I suppose it’s a forgotten instinct, tells me means that you are wild to let all this go—” she waved a thin hand toward cultivated fields and corral—“and take to the open desert.”
Kut-le said nothing for a moment, though his face lighted with joy at her understanding. Then he turned toward the desert and Rhoda saw the look of joy change to one so full of unutterable longing that her heart was stirred to sudden pity. However, an instant later, he turned to her with the old impassive expression.
“Right beneath my skin,” he said, “is the Apache. Tell me, Miss Rhoda, what’s the use of it all?”
“Use?” asked Rhoda, staring at the blue sky above the peach-trees. “I am a fit person to ask what is the use of anything! Of course, civilization is the only thing that lives. I can’t get your point of view at all.”
“Huh!” sniffed Kut-le. “It’s too bad Indians don’t write books! If my people had been putting their internal mechanism on paper for a thousand years, you’d have no more trouble getting my point of view than I do yours.”
Rhoda’s face as she eyed the stern young profile was very sympathetic. Kut-le, turning to her, surprised upon her face that rare, tender smile for which all who knew her watched. His face flushed and his fine hands clasped and unclasped.
“Tell me about it, Kut-le, if you can.”
“I can’t tell you. The desert would show you its own power if you would give it a chance. No one can describe the call to you. I suppose if I answered it and we
nt back, you would call it retrogression?”
“What would you call it?” asked Rhoda.
“I don’t know. It would depend on my mood. I only know that the ache is there.” His eyes grew somber and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “The ache to be there—free in the desert! To feel the hot sun in my face as I work the trail! To sleep with the naked stars in my face! To be— Oh, I can’t make you understand, and I’d rather you understood than any one in the world! You could understand, if only you were desert-taught. When you are well and strong—”
“But why don’t you go back?” interrupted Rhoda.
“Because,” replied Kut-le slowly, “the Indian is dying. I hope that by living as a white, I may live. Up till recently I have worked blindly and hopelessly, but now I see light.”
“Do you?” asked Rhoda with interest. “What have you found?”
“It isn’t mine yet.” Kut-le looked at the girl exultantly and there was a triumphant note in his voice. “But it shall be mine! I will make it mine! And it is worth the sacrifice of my race.”
A vague look of surprise crossed Rhoda’s face but she spoke calmly:
“To sacrifice one’s race is a serious thing. I can’t think of anything that would make that worth while. Here comes Mr. DeWitt. It must be dinner time. John, come up and see a little desert owl at close range. Kut-le has all the desert at his beck and call!”
Kut-le persuaded Rhoda to change the morning rides, which seemed only to exhaust her, to the shortest of evening strolls. Nearly always DeWitt accompanied them. Sometimes they went alone, though John was never very far distant.
One moonlit night Kut-le and Rhoda stood alone at the corral bars. The whole world was radiant silver moonlight on the desert, on the undulating alfalfa; moonlight filtering through the peach-trees and shimmering on Rhoda’s drooping head as she leaned against the bars in the weary attitude habitual to her. Kut-le stood before her, erect and strong in his white flannels. His handsome head was thrown back a little, as was his custom when speaking earnestly. His arms were folded across his deep chest and he stood so still that Rhoda could see his arms rise and fall with his breath.