by Zane Grey
“It really is great work!” he was saying eagerly. “It seems to me that a civil engineer has tremendous opportunities to do really big things. Some of Kipling’s stories of them are bully.”
“Aren’t they!” answered Rhoda sympathetically.
“There is a big thing in my favor too. The whites make no discrimination against an Indian in the professions. In fact every one gives him a boost in passing!”
“Why shouldn’t they? You have as good a brain and are as attractive as any man of my acquaintance!”
The young man drew a quick breath.
“Do you really mean that?”
“Of course! Why shouldn’t I? Isn’t the moonlight uncanny on the desert?”
But Kut-le did not heed her attempt to change the subject.
“There are unlimited opportunities for me to make good, now that the government is putting up so many dams. I believe that I can go to the top with any man, don’t you, Miss Rhoda?”
“I do, indeed!” replied Rhoda sincerely.
“Well, then, Miss Rhoda, will you marry me?”
Rhoda raised her head in speechless amazement.
Kut-le’s glowing eyes contracted.
“You are not surprised!” he exclaimed a little fiercely, “You must have seen how it has been with me ever since you came. And you have been so—so bully to me!”
Rhoda looked helplessly into the young man’s face. She was so fragile that she seemed but an evanescent part of the moonlight.
“But,” she said slowly, “you must know that this is impossible. I couldn’t think of marrying you, Kut-le!”
There was a moment’s silence. An owl called from the desert. The night wind swept from the fragrant orchard. When he spoke again, Kut-le’s voice was husky.
“Is it because I am an Indian?”
“Yes,” answered Rhoda, “partly. But I don’t love you, anyhow.”
“But,” eagerly, “if you did love me, would my being an Indian make any difference? Isn’t my blood pure? Isn’t it old?”
Rhoda stood still. The pain in Kut-le’s voice was piercing through to the shadow world in which she lived. Her voice was troubled.
“But I don’t love you, so what’s the use of considering the rest? If I ever marry any one it will be John DeWitt.”
“But couldn’t you,” insisted the tragically deep voice, “couldn’t you ever love me?”
Rhoda answered wearily. One could not, it seemed, even die in peace!
“I can’t think of love or marriage any more. I am a dying woman. Let me go into the mist, Kut-le, without a pang for our friendship, with just the pleasant memory of your goodness to me. Surely you cannot love me as I am!”
“I love you for the wonderful possibilities I see in you. I love you in spite of your illness. I will make you well before I marry you. The Indian in me has strength to make you well. And I will cherish you as white men cherish their wives.”
Rhoda raised her hand commandingly and in her voice was that boundless vanity of the white, which is as old as the race.
“No! No! Don’t speak of this again! You are an Indian but one removed from savagery. I am a white! I couldn’t think of marrying you!” Then her tender heart failed her and her voice trembled. “But still I am your friend, Kut-le. Truly I am your friend.”
The Indian was silent so long that Rhoda was a little frightened. Then he spoke slowly.
“Yes, you are white and I am red. But before all that, you are a woman of exquisite possibilities and I am a man who by all of nature’s laws would make a fitting mate for you. You can love me, when you are well, as you could love no other man. And I—dear one, I love you passionately! I love you tenderly! I love you enough to give up my race for you. I am an Indian, Rhoda, but first of all I am a man. Rhoda, will you marry me?”
A thrill, poignant, heart-stirring, beat through Rhoda’s veins. For one unspeakable moment there swept through her spirit a vision of strength, of beauty, of gladness, too wild and sweet for words. Then came the old sense of race distaste and she looked steadily into the young man’s face.
“I cannot marry you, Kut-le,” she said.
Kut-le said nothing more. He stood staring at the far desert, his fine face somber and with a look of determination in the contracted eyes and firm-set lips that made Rhoda shiver, even while her heart throbbed with pity. Tall, slender, inscrutable, as alien to her understanding as the call of the desert wind or the moon-drenched desert haze, she turned away and left him standing there alone.
She made her slow way to the ranch-house. Kut-le did not follow. Rhoda went to bed at once. Yet she could not sleep, for through the silence Kut-le’s deep voice beat on her ears.
“I love you passionately! I love you tenderly! I am an Indian, but first of all I am a man!”
The next day and for the three or four days following, Kut-le was missing. The Newmans were worried. The ditch needed its engineer and never before had Kut-le been known to neglect his work. Once a year he went on a long hunt with chosen friends of his tribe, but never until his work was finished.
Rhoda confided in no one regarding her last interview with the Indian. She missed Kut-le, but DeWitt was frankly relieved. For the first time since Porter’s warning he relaxed his vigilance. On the fifth evening after Kut-le’s disappearance, Jack and DeWitt rode over to a neighboring ranch. Katherine was lazy with a headache. So Rhoda took her evening stroll alone. For once, she left the orchard and wandered out into the open desert, moved by an uncanny desire to let the full horror of the desert mystery sweep over her.
How long she sat on a rock, gazing into infinity, she did not know. It seemed to her that her whole shivering, protesting body was being absorbed into the strange radiance of the afterglow. At last she rose. As she did so, a tall figure loomed silently before her. Rhoda was too startled to scream. The figure was that of an Indian, naked save for high moccasins and a magnificently decorated loin-cloth. The man looked down at her with the smile of good fellowship that she knew so well. It was Kut-le, standing like a young bronze god against the faint pink of the afterglow.
“Hello!” he said nonchalantly. “I’ve been watching for you.”
“What do you want!” gasped Rhoda. “What do you mean by coming before me in—in—”
“You mean when I’m dressed as a chief on the warpath? Well, you said you’d be keen about me this way; so here I am. I tried all the white methods I knew to win you and failed. Now the only thing left is the Indian method.”
Rhoda moved uneasily.
Kut-le went on:
“As a white man I can no longer pester you. As an Indian I can steal you and marry you.”
Rhoda struggled to make him and his words seem real to her.
“You aren’t going to be so absurd as to try to steal me, I hope!” she tried to laugh.
“That’s just what I’m going to do!” answered Kut-le. “If I steal as a white would steal, I would be caught at once. If I use Apache methods, no white on earth can catch me.”
Rhoda gasped as the Indian’s evident sincerity sank in on her.
“But,” she pleaded, fighting for time, “you can’t want to marry me by force! Don’t you know that I shall grow to loathe you?”
“No! No!” answered the Indian earnestly. “Not after I’ve shown you life as I have seen it.”
“Nonsense!” cried Rhoda. “Don’t you realize that the whole county will be after you by morning?”
Kut-le laughed, deliberately walked up to the girl and lifted her in his arms as he had on the morning of their meeting. Rhoda gave one scream and struggled frantically. He slid a hand over her lips and tightened his hold. For a moment Rhoda lay motionless in abject fear, then, with a muffled cry of utter helplessness, a cry that would have driven a white man mad with pity,
she slipped into unconsciousness. Kut-le walked on for a short distance to a horse. He put Rhoda in the saddle and fastened her there with a blanket. He slipped off the twisted bandana that bound his short black hair, fillet wise, and tied it carefully over Rhoda’s mouth. Then with one hand steadying the quiet shoulders, he started the horse on through the dusk.
CHAPTER IV
THE INDIAN WAY
It was some time before the call of a coyote close beside her penetrated Rhoda’s senses. At its third or fourth repetition, she sighed and opened her eyes. Night had come, the luminous lavender night of the desert. Her first discovery was that she was seated on a horse, held firmly by a strong arm across her shoulders. Next she found that her uneasy breathing was due to the cloth tied round her mouth. With this came realization of her predicament and she tossed her arms in a wild attempt to free herself.
The arm about her tightened, the horse stopped, and the voice went on repeating the coyote call, clearly, mournfully. Rhoda ceased her struggling for a moment and looked at the face so close to her own. In the starlight only the eyes and the dim outline of the features were visible, and the eyes were as dark and menacing to her as the desert night that shut her in.
Mad with fear, Rhoda strained at the rigid arm. Kut-le dropped the reins and held her struggling hands, ceased his calling and waited. Off to the left came an answering call and Kut-le started the pony rapidly toward the sound. In a few moments Rhoda saw a pair of horsemen. Utterly exhausted, she sat in terror awaiting her fate. Kut-le gave a low-voiced order. One of the riders immediately rode forward, leading another horse. Kut-le slipped another blanket from this and finished binding Rhoda to her saddle so securely that she scarcely could move a finger. Then he mounted his horse, and he and one of the Indians started off, leading Rhoda’s horse between them and leaving the third Indian standing silently behind them.
Rhoda was astride of the pony, half sitting, half lying along his neck. The Indians put the horses to a trot and immediately the discomfort of her position was made agony by the rough motion. But the pain cleared her mind.
Her first thought was that she never would recover from the disgrace of this episode. Following this thought came fury at the man who was so outraging her. It only he would free her hands for a moment she would choke him! Her anger would give her strength for that! Then she fought against her fastenings. They held her all but motionless and the sense of her helplessness brought back the fear panic. Utterly helpless, she thought! Flying through darkness to an end worse than death! In the power of a naked savage! Her fear almost robbed her of her reason.
After what seemed to her endless hours, the horses were stopped suddenly. She felt her fastenings removed. Then Kut-le lifted her to the ground where she tumbled, helpless, at his feet. He stooped and took the gag from her mouth. Immediately with what fragment of strength remained to her, she screamed again and again. The two Indians stood stolidly watching her for a time, then Kut-le knelt in the sand beside her huddled form and laid his hand on her arm.
“There, Rhoda,” he said, “no one can hear you. You will only make yourself sick.”
Rhoda struck his hand feebly.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried hoarsely. “Don’t touch me, you beast! I loathe you! I am afraid of you! Don’t you dare to touch me!”
At this Kut-le imprisoned both her cold hands in one of his warm palms and held them despite her struggles, while with the other hand he smoothed her tumbled hair from her eyes.
“Poor frightened little girl,” he said, in his rich voice. “I wish I might have done otherwise. But there was no other way. I don’t know that I believe much in your God but I guess you do. So I tell you, Rhoda, that by your faith in Him, you are absolutely safe in my hands!”
Rhoda caught her breath in a childlike sob while she sstill struggled to recover her hands.
“I loathe you!” she panted. “I loathe you! I loathe you!”
But Kut-le would not free the cold little hands.
“But do you fear me, too? Answer me! Do you fear me?”
The moon had risen and Rhoda looked into the face that bent above hers. This was a naked savage with hawk-like face. Yet the eyes were the ones that she had come to know so well, half tragic, somber, but clear and, toward her, tender, very, very tender. With a shuddering sigh, Rhoda looked away. But against her own volition she found herself saying:
“I’m not afraid now! But I loathe you, you Apache Indian!”
Something very like a smile touched the grim mouth of the Apache.
“I don’t hate you, you Caucasian!” he answered quietly.
He chafed the cold hands for a moment, in silence. Then he lifted her to her saddle. But Rhoda was beyond struggle, beyond even clinging to the saddle. Kut-le caught her as she reeled.
“Don’t tie me!” she panted. “Don’t tie me! I won’t fight! I won’t even scream, if you won’t tie me!”
“But you can’t sit your saddle alone,” replied Kut-le. “I’ll have to tie you.”
Once more he lifted her to the horse. Once more with the help of his silent companion he fastened her with blankets. Once more the journey was begun. For a little while, distraught and uncertain what course to pursue, Rhoda endured the misery of position and motion in silence. Then the pain was too much and she cried out in protest. Kut-le brought the horses to a walk.
“You certainly have about as much spunk as a chicken with the pip!” he said contemptuously. “I should think your loathing would brace you up a little!”
Stung by the insult to a sudden access of strength, as the Indian had intended her to be, Rhoda answered, “You beast!” but as the horses swung into the trot she made no protest for a long hour. Then once more her strength failed her and she fell to crying with deep-drawn sobs that shook her entire body. After a few moments of this, Kut-le drew close to her.
“Don’t!” he said huskily. “Don’t!” And again he laid his hand on her shoulder.
Rhoda shuddered but could not cease her sobs. Kut-le seemed to hesitate for a few moments. Then he reached over, undid Rhoda’s fastenings and lifted her limp body to the saddle before him, holding her against his broad chest as if he were coddling a child. Then he started the horses on. Too exhausted to struggle, Rhoda lay sobbing while the young Indian sat with his tragic eyes fastened steadily on the mysterious distances of the trail. Finally Rhoda sank into a stupor and, seeing this, Kut-le doubled the speed of the horses.
It was daylight when Rhoda opened her eyes. For a time she lay at ease listening to the trill of birds and the trickle of water. Then, with a start, she raised her head. She was lying on a heap of blankets on a stone ledge. Above her was the boundless sapphire of the sky. Close beside her a little spring bubbled from the blank wall of the mountain. Rhoda lay in helpless silence, looking about her, while the appalling nature of her predicament sank into her consciousness.
Against the wall squatted two Indian women. They were dressed in rough short skirts, tight-fitting calico waists and high leather moccasins. Their black hair was parted in the middle and hung free. Their swarthy features were well cut but both of the women were dirty and ill kept. The younger, heavier squaw had a kindly face, with good eyes, but her hair was matted with clay and her fingers showed traces of recent tortilla making. The older woman was lean and wiry, with a strange gleam of maliciousness and ferocity in her eyes. Her forehead was elaborately tattooed with symbols and her toothless old jaws were covered with blue tribal lines.
Kut-le and his friend of the night lounged on a heap of rock at the edge of the ledge. The strange Indian was well past middle age, tall and dignified. He was darker than Kut-le. His face was thin and aquiline. His long hair hung in elf locks over his shoulders. His toilet was elaborate compared with that of Kut-le, for he wore a pair of overalls and a dilapidated flannel shirt, unbelted and fluttering its ends in the mornin
g breeze. As if conscious of her gaze, Kut-le turned and looked at Rhoda. His magnificent height and proportions dwarfed the tall Indian beside him.
“Good-morning, Rhoda!” he said gravely.
The girl looked at the beautiful naked body and reddened.
“You beast!” she said clearly.
Kut-le looked at her with slightly contracted eyes. Then he spoke to the fat squaw. She rose hastily and lifted a pot from the little fire beside the spring. She dipped a steaming cup of broth from this and brought it to Rhoda’s side. The girl struck it away. Kut-le walked slowly over, picked up the empty cup at which the squaw stood staring stupidly and filled it once more at the kettle. Then he held it out to Rhoda. His nearness roused the girl to frenzy. With difficulty she brought her stiffened body to a sitting position. Her beautiful gray eyes were black with her sense of outrage.
“Take it away, beast!” she panted.
Kut-le held her gaze.
“Drink it, Rhoda!” he said quietly.
The girl returned his look for a moment then, hating herself for her weakness, she took the cup and drained it. Kut-le tossed the cup to the squaw, pushed Rhoda back to her blankets and covered her very gently. Then he went back to his boulder. The girl lay staring up at the sky. Utterly merciless it gleamed above her. But before she could more than groan she was asleep.
She slept as she had not slept for months. The slanting rays of the westering sun wakened her. She sat up stiffly. The squaws were unpacking a burlap bag. They were greasy and dirty but they were women and their nearness gave Rhoda a vague sense of protection. They in turn gazed at the tangled glory of her hair, at the hopeless beauty of her eyes, at the pathos of the drooping mouth, with unfeigned curiosity.