by Zane Grey
It was barely noon and the mountain air was sweet and exhilarating. Kut-le sat against the rampart, smoking a cigarette, while Molly and Cesca worked over the fire. Rhoda lunched on the tortillas to which Molly had clung through all the vicissitudes of flight.
“Where are the horses?” she asked Kut-le.
“Oh, Alchise took them back. We must stay here a while till your mob of friends disperses. I couldn’t feed them and I wanted to pacify the Navajos and get some supplies from them. Alchise will fix it up with them.”
And here on this dizzy brink of the desert Kut-le did pause as if for a long, long holiday. The wisdom of the proceeding did not trouble him at all. The call of the desert was an allurement to which he yielded unresistingly, trusting to elude capture through his skill and unfailing good fortune.
To Rhoda the pause was welcome. She still had faith that the longer they camped in one spot the surer would be the pursuers to stumble upon them. Kut-le began to devote himself entirely to Rhoda’s amusement. He knew all the plant and animal life of the desert, not only as an Indian but as a college man who had loved biology. By degrees Rhoda’s good brain began to respond to his vivid interest and the girl in her stay on the mountain shelf learned the desert as has been given to few whites to learn it. Besides what she learned from the men Rhoda became expert in camp work under Molly’s patient teaching. She could kindle the tiny, smokeless fire. She could concoct appetizing messes from the crude food. She could detect good water from bad and could find forage for horses. The crowning pride of her achievements was learning to weave the dish basketry.
They had lived in the mountain niche some three weeks when Alchise and Kut-le left the camp one afternoon, Alchise on a turkey hunt, Kut-le on one of his mysterious trips for supplies. Alchise returned at dusk with a beautiful bird which Rhoda and Molly roasted with enthusiasm. But Kut-le did not appear at supper time as he had promised. When the meal was almost spoiled from waiting, Rhoda and the Indians ate. As the evening wore on, Alchise grew uneasy, but he dared not disobey Kut-le’s orders and leave the camp unguarded at night.
Rhoda speculated, torn between hope and fear. Perhaps the searchers had captured Kut-le at last. Perhaps he had given up hope of winning her love and had gone for good. Perhaps, somewhere or other, he was lying badly hurt! The little group sat up much later than usual, Cesca silently smoking her endless cigarettes, Alchise and Molly talking now in Apache, now in English. Rhoda was convinced that they were puzzled and worried.
Even after she had lain down on her blankets Rhoda could not sleep. With Kut-le gone her sense of the camp’s security was gone. She rose finally and sat beside Alchise who, rifle in hand, guarded the ledge. There was no moon but the stars were very large and near. Rhoda was growing to know the stars. They were remote in the East; in the desert they become a part of one’s existence. The sense of stupendous distance was greater at night than in the daytime. The infinite heavens, stretching depth beyond depth, the faint far spaces of the desert, were as if one looked on the Great Mystery itself.
When dawn came, Alchise wakened Cesca, put the rifle into her hands, and hurried back up over the mountain. The purple shadows had lightened to gray when Rhoda saw Kut-le staggering up the trail from the desert. Rhoda gave a little cry and ran down to meet him.
“Kut-le! What happened to you? We were so worried!”
There was a bloody rag tied just below the young Indian’s knee. He paused, supporting himself against a rock. Across his eyes, drawn and haggard with pain, flashed a look of joy that Rhoda, eying the bandage, did not see.
“I was late starting back,” he said briefly. “In the darkness a bit of the trail gave way, dropped me into a cañon and laid my leg open. I was unconscious a long time and lost a lot of blood, so it has taken me the rest of the night to get here. Would you mind getting Alchise to help me up the trail?”
“Alchise has gone to look for you. Lean on me,” said Rhoda simply.
Despite his weakness, the dark blood flushed the young man’s face, while Rhoda’s utter unconsciousness of her changed manner brought a smile to his set lips. Not if the torture of dragging himself up the trail were to be ten times greater would he now have availed himself of help from Alchise.
“If you will let me put my arm across your shoulder we can make it,” he said as quietly as though his heart were not leaping.
Rhoda’s squaring of her slender shoulders was distractingly boyish. Utterly heedless of the pain which each step cost him, Kut-le made his way slowly to the ledge, ordering back the flustered squaws and leaning on Rhoda only enough to feel the tender girlish shoulders beneath the worn blue blouse.
In the camp, Rhoda assumed command while Kut-le lay on his blanket watching her in silent content. She put one of Alchise’s two calico shirts on to boil over the breakfast fire. She washed out the nasty cut and bandaged it with strips from the sterilized shirt. She brought Kut-le’s breakfast and her own to his blanket side and coaxed the young man to eat, he assuming great indifference merely for the happiness of being urged. Rhoda was so energetic and efficient that the sun was just climbing from behind the far peaks when Kut-le finished his bacon and coffee. The girl stood looking at him, hands on hips, head on one side, with that look in her eyes of superiority, maternity and complacent tenderness which a woman can assume only when she has ministered to the needs of a helpless masculine thing.
“There!” she said with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Rhoda,” said Kut-le, hoping that the heavy thumping of his heart did not shake his whole broad chest, “how long ago was it that you were a helpless, dying little girl without strength to cut up your own food? How long since you have served any one but yourself?”
Rhoda drew a quick breath. She stood staring from the Indian to the desert, to her slender body, and back again. She held out her hands and looked at them. They were scratched and brown and did not tremble. Then she looked at the young Indian and he never was to forget the light in her eyes.
“Kut-le!” she cried. “Kut-le! I am well again! I am well again!”
She paced back and forth along the ledge. Through the creamy tan her cheeks flushed richly crimson. Finally she stopped before the Apache.
“You have outraged all my civilized instincts,” she said slowly, “yet you have saved my life and given me health. Whatever comes, Kut-le, I never shall forget that!”
“I have changed more than that,” said Kut-le quietly. “Where is your old hatred of the desert?”
Rhoda turned to look. At the edge of the distant ranges showed a rim of red. Crimson spokes of fire flashed to the zenith. The sky grew brighter, more translucent, the ranges melted into molten gold. The sun, hot and scarlet, rolled into view. Into Rhoda’s heart flooded a sense of infinite splendor, infinite beauty, infinite peace.
“Why!” she gasped to Kut-le, “it is beautiful! It’s not terrible! It’s unadorned beauty!”
The Indian nodded but did not speak. Rhoda never was to forget that day. Long years after she was to catch the afterglow of that day of her rebirth. Suddenly she realized that never could a human have found health in a setting more marvelous. The realization was almost too much. Kut-le, with sympathy for which she was grateful, did not talk to her much. Once, however, as she brought him a drink and mechanically smoothed his blanket he said softly:
“You who have been served and demanded service all your life, why do you do this?”
Rhoda answered slowly.
“I’m not serving you. I’m trying to pay up some of the debt of my life.”
Kut-le was about in a day or so and by the end of the week he was quite himself. He resumed the daily expeditions with Rhoda and Alchise which provided text for the girl’s desert learning. Rhoda’s old despondency, her old agony of prayer for immediate rescue had given way to a strange conflict of desires. She was eager for rescue, was consciou
s of a constant aching desire for her own people, and yet the old sense of outrage, of grief, of hopelessness was gone.
Of a sudden she found herself pausing, thrusting back the problems that confronted her while she drank to the full this strange mad joy of life which she felt must leave her when she left the desert. She knew only that the fear of death was gone. That hours of fever and pain were no more. That her mind had found its old poise but with an utterly new view-point of life. Her blood ran red. Her lungs breathed deep. Her eyes saw distances too big for their conception, beauties so deep that her spirit had to expand to absorb them.
The silent nights of stars, the laborious crests that tossed sudden and unspeakable views before the eyes, the eternal cañons that led beneath ranges of surpassing majesty, roused in her a passion of delight that could find expression only in her growing physical prowess. She lived and ate like a splendid boy. Day after day she scaled the ranges with Kut-le and Alchise; tenderly reared creature of an ultracivilization as she was, she learned the intricate lore of the aborigines, learned what students of the dying people would give their hearts to know.
Kut-le wakened Rhoda at dawn one day. She prepared the breakfast of coffee, bacon and tortilla. Alchise shared this eagerly with Rhoda and Kut-le, though already he had eaten with the squaws. The day was still gray when the three set out on a long day’s trip in search of game. The way this morning led up a cañon deep and quiet, with the night shadows still dark and cool within it. The air was that of a northern day of June.
Rhoda tramped bravely, up and up, from cactus to bear grass, from bear grass to stunted cedar, from cedar to pines that at last rose triumphant at the crest of a great ridge. Here Rhoda and Kut-le flung themselves to the ground to rest while Alchise prowled about restlessly. Across a hundred miles of desert rose faint snow-capped peaks.
Kut-le watched Rhoda’s rapt face for a time. Then, as if unable to keep back the words, he said softly:
“Rhoda! Stay here, always! Marry me and stay here always!”
Rhoda looked at the beautiful pleading eyes. She stirred restlessly; but before she could frame an answer Alchise appeared, followed by a lean old Indian all but toothless who wore a pair of tattered overalls and a gauze shirt. The two Indians stopped before Kut-le, and Alchise jerked a thumb at the stranger.
“Sabe no white talk,” he said.
Kut-le passed the stranger a cigarette, which he accepted without comment. A rapid conversation followed between the three Indians.
“He is an Apache,” explained Kut-le, finally, to Rhoda. “His name is Injun Tom. He says that Newman and Porter hired him to trail us but he is tired of the job. They foolishly advanced him five dollars. He says they are camping in the valley right below here.”
Rhoda sprang to her feet.
“Where are you going?” smiled Kut-le. “He says they are going to shoot me on sight!”
Under her tan Rhoda’s face whitened.
“Would they shoot you, Kut-le, even if I told them not to?”
At the sight of the paling face the young man murmured, “You dear!” under his breath. Then aloud, “Not if I were your husband.”
“How can I marry a savage?” cried Rhoda.
Kut-le put his hand under the cleft chin and lifted the sweet face till it looked directly into his. His gaze was very deep and clear.
“Am I nothing but a naked savage, Rhoda?” he said. “Am I?”
Rhoda’s eyes did not leave his.
“No!” she said softly, under her breath.
Kut-le’s eyes deepened. He turned and picked up his rifle.
“Bring your friend back to dinner, Alchise,” he said. “Our little holiday must end right here.”
They reached the camp at noon and while the squaws made ready for breaking camp, Rhoda sat deep in thought. Before her were the burning sky and desert, with hawk and buzzard circling in the clear blue. Where had the old hatred of Kut-le gone? Whence came this new trust and understanding, this thrill at his touch? Kut-le, who had been watching her adoringly, rose and came to her side. The rampart hid the two from the others. Kut-le took one of Rhoda’s hands in his firm fingers and laid his lips against her palm. Rhoda flushed and drew her hand away. But Kut-le again put his hand beneath her cleft chin and lifted her face to his.
Just as the brown face all but touched hers a voice sounded from behind the rampart:
“Hello, you! Where’s Kut-le?”
CHAPTER XV
AN ESCAPE
Rhoda sprang away from Kut-le and they both ran to the other side of the rampart. Billy Porter, worn and tattered but still looking very well able to hold his own, stood staring into the cave where the squaws eyed him open-mouthed and Alchise, his hand on his rifle, scowled at him aggressively. Porter’s eye fell on Injun Tom.
“U-huh! You pison Piute, you! I just nacherally snagged your little game, didn’t I?”
“Billy!” cried Rhoda. “O Billy Porter!”
Porter jumped as if at a blow. Rhoda stood against the rock in her boyish clothes, her beautiful braid sweeping her shoulder, her face vivid.
“My God! Miss Rhoda!” cried Billy hoarsely, as he ran toward her with outstretched hands. “Why, you are well! What’s happened to you!”
Here Kut-le stepped between the two.
“Hello, Mr. Porter,” he said.
Billy stepped back and a look of loathing and anger took the place of the joy that had been in his eyes before.
“You Apache devil!” he growled. “You ain’t as smart as you thought you were!”
Rhoda ran forward and would have taken Porter’s hand but Kut-le restrained her with his hand on her shoulder.
“Where did you come from, Billy?” cried Rhoda. “Where are the others?”
Billy’s face cleared a little at the sound of the girl’s voice.
“They are right handy, Miss Rhoda.”
“I’ll give you a few details, Rhoda,” said Kut-le coolly. “You see he is without water and his mouth is black with thirst. He started to trail Injun Tom but got lost and stumbled on us.”
Rhoda gave a little cry of pity and running into the cave she brought Billy a brimming cup of water.
“Is that true, Billy?” she asked. “Are the others near here?”
Billy nodded then drained the cup and held it out for more.
“They are just around the corner!” with a glance at Kut-le, who smiled skeptically.
“Oh!” exclaimed Rhoda. “What terrible trouble I have made you all!”
“You made!” said Porter. “Well that’s good! Still, that Apache devil doesn’t seem to have harmed you. Just the same, he’ll get his! If I shot him now, the other Injuns would get me and God knows what would happen to you!”
“Whom do you call an Apache devil?” asked Kut-le. Rhoda never had seen him show such evident anger.
“You, by Judas!” replied Porter, looking into the young Indian’s face.
For a strained moment the two eyed each other, hatred glaring at hatred, until Rhoda put a hand on Kut-le’s arm. His face cleared at once.
“So that’s my reputation now, is it?” he said lightly.
“That’s your reputation!” sneered Billy. “Do you think that’s all? Why, don’t you realize that you can’t live in your own country again? Don’t you know that the whites will hunt you out like you was a rat? Don’t you realize that the folks that believed in you and was fond of you has had to give up their faith in you? Don’t you understand that you’ve lost all your white friends? But I suppose that don’t mean anything to an Injun!”
A look of sadness passed over Kut-le’s face.
“Porter,” he said very gently, “I counted on all of that before I did this thing. I thought that the sacrifice was worth while, and I still think so. I’m sorry, for yo
ur sake, that you stumbled on us here. We are going to start on the trail shortly and I must send you out to be lost again. I’ll let Alchise help you in the job. As you say, I have sacrificed everything else in life; I can’t afford to let anything spoil this now. You can rest for an hour. Eat and drink and fill your canteen. Take a good pack of meat and tortillas. You are welcome to it all.”
The Indian spoke with such dignity, with such tragic sincerity, that Porter gave him a look of surprise and Rhoda felt hot tears in her eyes. Kut-le turned to the girl.
“You can see that I can’t let you talk alone with Porter, but go ahead and say anything you want to in my hearing. Molly, you bring the white man some dinner and fix him some trail grub. Hurry up, now!”
He seated himself on the rampart and lighted a cigarette. Porter sat down meditatively, with his back against the mountain wall. He was discomfited. Kut-le had guessed correctly as to the circumstances of his finding the camp. He had no idea where his friends might have gone in the twenty-four hours since he had left them. When he stumbled on to Kut-le he had had a sudden hope that the Indian might take him captive. The Indian’s quiet reception of him nonplussed him and roused his unwilling admiration.
Rhoda sat down beside Porter.
“How is John?” she asked.
“He is pretty good. He has lasted better than I thought he would.”
“And Katherine and Jack?” Rhoda’s voice trembled as she uttered the names. It was only with the utmost difficulty that she spoke coherently. All her nerves were on the alert for some unexpected action on the part of either Billy or the Indians.