by Zane Grey
Straggling bits of forest—yellow pines, the driver called the trees—began to encroach upon the burned-over and arid barren land. To Carley these groves, by reason of contrast and proof of what once was, only rendered the landscape more forlorn and dreary. Why had these miles and miles of forest been cut? By money grubbers, she supposed, the same as were devastating the Adirondacks. Presently, when the driver had to halt to repair or adjust something wrong with the harness, Carley was grateful for a respite from cold inaction. She got out and walked. Sleet began to fall, and when she resumed her seat in the vehicle she asked the driver for the blanket to cover her. The smell of this horse blanket was less endurable than the cold. Carley huddled down into a state of apathetic misery. Already she had enough of the West.
But the sleet storm passed, the clouds broke, the sun shone through, greatly mitigating her discomfort. By and by the road led into a section of real forest, unspoiled in any degree. Carley saw large gray squirrels with tufted ears and white bushy tails. Presently the driver pointed out a flock of huge birds, which Carley, on second glance, recognized as turkeys, only these were sleek and glossy, with flecks of bronze and black and white, quite different from turkeys back East. “There must be a farm near,” said Carley, gazing about.
“No, ma’am. Them’s wild turkeys,” replied the driver, “an’ shore the best eatin’ you ever had in your life.”
A little while afterwards, as they were emerging from the woodland into more denuded country, he pointed out to Carley a herd of gray white-rumped animals that she took to be sheep.
“An’ them’s antelope,” he said. “Once this desert was overrun by antelope. Then they nearly disappeared. An’ now they’re increasin’ again.”
More barren country, more bad weather, and especially an exceedingly rough road reduced Carley to her former state of dejection. The jolting over roots and rocks and ruts was worse than uncomfortable. She had to hold on to the seat to keep from being thrown out. The horses did not appreciably change their gait for rough sections of the road. Then a more severe jolt brought Carley’s knee in violent contact with an iron bolt on the forward seat, and it hurt her so acutely that she had to bite her lips to keep from screaming. A smoother stretch of road did not come any too soon for her.
It led into forest again. And Carley soon became aware that they had at last left the cut and burned-over district of timberland behind. A cold wind moaned through the treetops and set the drops of water pattering down upon her. It lashed her wet face. Carley closed her eyes and sagged in her seat, mostly oblivious to the passing scenery. “The girls will never believe this of me,” she soliloquized. And indeed she was amazed at herself. Then thought of Glenn strengthened her. It did not really matter what she suffered on the way to him. Only she was disgusted at her lack of stamina, and her appalling sensitiveness to discomfort.
“Wal, hyar’s Oak Creek Canyon,” called the driver.
Carley, rousing out of her weary preoccupation, opened her eyes to see that the driver had halted at a turn of the road, where apparently it descended a fearful declivity.
The very forest-fringed earth seemed to have opened into a deep abyss, ribbed by red rock walls and choked by steep mats of green timber. The chasm was a V-shaped split and so deep that looking downward sent at once a chill and a shudder over Carley. At that point it appeared narrow and ended in a box. In the other direction, it widened and deepened, and stretched farther on between tremendous walls of red, and split its winding floor of green with glimpses of a gleaming creek, bowlder-strewn and ridged by white rapids. A low mellow roar of rushing waters floated up to Carley’s ears. What a wild, lonely, terrible place! Could Glenn possibly live down there in that ragged rent in the earth? It frightened her—the sheer sudden plunge of it from the heights. Far down the gorge a purple light shone on the forested floor. And on the moment the sun burst through the clouds and sent a golden blaze down into the depths, transforming them incalculably. The great cliffs turned gold, the creek changed to glancing silver, the green of trees vividly freshened, and in the clefts rays of sunlight burned into the blue shadows. Carley had never gazed upon a scene like this. Hostile and prejudiced, she yet felt wrung from her an acknowledgment of beauty and grandeur. But wild, violent, savage! Not livable! This insulated rift in the crust of the earth was a gigantic burrow for beasts, perhaps for outlawed men—not for a civilized person—not for Glenn Kilbourne.
“Don’t be scart, ma’am,” spoke up the driver. “It’s safe if you’re careful. An’ I’ve druv this manys the time.”
Carley’s heartbeats thumped at her side, rather denying her taunted assurance of fearlessness. Then the rickety vehicle started down at an angle that forced her to cling to her seat.
CHAPTER II
Carley, clutching her support, with abated breath and prickling skin, gazed in fascinated suspense over the rim of the gorge. Sometimes the wheels on that side of the vehicle passed within a few inches of the edge. The brakes squeaked, the wheels slid; and she could hear the scrape of the iron-shod hoofs of the horses as they held back stiff legged, obedient to the wary call of the driver.
The first hundred yards of that steep road cut out of the cliff appeared to be the worst. It began to widen, with descents less precipitous. Tips of trees rose level with her gaze, obstructing sight of the blue depths. Then brush appeared on each side of the road. Gradually Carley’s strain relaxed, and also the muscular contraction by which she had braced herself in the seat. The horses began to trot again. The wheels rattled. The road wound around abrupt corners, and soon the green and red wall of the opposite side of the canyon loomed close. Low roar of running water rose to Carley’s ears. When at length she looked out instead of down she could see nothing but a mass of green foliage crossed by tree trunks and branches of brown and gray. Then the vehicle bowled under dark cool shade, into a tunnel with mossy wet cliff on one side, and close-standing trees on the other.
“Reckon we’re all right now, onless we meet somebody comin’ up,” declared the driver.
Carley relaxed. She drew a deep breath of relief. She had her first faint intimation that perhaps her extensive experience of motor cars, express trains, transatlantic liners, and even a little of airplanes, did not range over the whole of adventurous life. She was likely to meet something, entirely new and striking out here in the West.
The murmur of falling water sounded closer. Presently Carley saw that the road turned at the notch in the canyon, and crossed a clear swift stream. Here were huge mossy boulders, and red walls covered by lichens, and the air appeared dim and moist, and full of mellow, hollow roar. Beyond this crossing the road descended the west side of the canyon, drawing away and higher from the creek. Huge trees, the like of which Carley had never seen, began to stand majestically up out of the gorge, dwarfing the maples and white-spotted sycamores. The driver called these great trees yellow pines.
At last the road led down from the steep slope to the floor of the canyon. What from far above had appeared only a green timber-choked cleft proved from close relation to be a wide winding valley, tip and down, densely forested for the most part, yet having open glades and bisected from wall to wall by the creek. Every quarter of a mile or so the road crossed the stream; and at these fords Carley again held on desperately and gazed out dubiously, for the creek was deep, swift, and full of bowlders. Neither driver nor horses appeared to mind obstacles. Carley was splashed and jolted not inconsiderably. They passed through groves of oak trees, from which the creek manifestly derived its name; and under gleaming walls, cold, wet, gloomy, and silent; and between lines of solemn wide-spreading pines. Carley saw deep, still green pools eddying under huge massed jumble of cliffs, and stretches of white water, and then, high above the treetops, a wild line of canyon rim, cold against the sky. She felt shut in from the world, lost in an unscalable rut of the earth. Again the sunlight had failed, and the gray gloom of the canyon oppressed her. It struck Carley as singular that she could not help being affected by mer
e weather, mere heights and depths, mere rock walls and pine trees, and rushing water. For really, what had these to do with her? These were only physical things that she was passing. Nevertheless, although she resisted sensation, she was more and more shot through and through with the wildness and savageness of this canyon.
A sharp turn of the road to the right disclosed a slope down the creek, across which showed orchards and fields, and a cottage nestling at the base of the wall. The ford at this crossing gave Carley more concern than any that had been passed, for there was greater volume and depth of water. One of the horses slipped on the rocks, plunged up and on with great splash. They crossed, however, without more mishap to Carley than further acquaintance with this iciest of waters. From this point the driver turned back along the creek, passed between orchards and fields, and drove along the base of the red wall to come suddenly upon a large rustic house that had been hidden from Carley’s sight. It sat almost against the stone cliff, from which poured a white foamy sheet of water. The house was built of slabs with the bark on, and it had a lower and upper porch running all around, at least as far as the cliff. Green growths from the rock wall overhung the upper porch. A column of blue smoke curled lazily upward from a stone chimney. On one of the porch posts hung a sign with rude lettering: “Lolomi Lodge.”
“Hey, Josh, did you fetch the flour?” called a woman’s voice from inside.
“Hullo I Reckon I didn’t forgit nothin’,” replied the man, as he got down. “An’ say, Mrs. Hutter, hyar’s a young lady from Noo Yorrk.”
That latter speech of the driver’s brought Mrs. Hutter out on the porch. “Flo, come here,” she called to someone evidently near at hand. And then she smilingly greeted Carley.
“Get down an’ come in, miss,” she said. “I’m sure glad to see you.”
Carley, being stiff and cold, did not very gracefully disengage herself from the high muddy wheel and step. When she mounted to the porch she saw that Mrs. Hutter was a woman of middle age, rather stout, with strong face full of fine wavy lines, and kind dark eyes.
“I’m Miss Burch,” said Carley.
“You’re the girl whose picture Glenn Kilbourne has over his fireplace,” declared the woman, heartily. “I’m sure glad to meet you, an’ my daughter Flo will be, too.”
That about her picture pleased and warmed Carley. “Yes, I’m Glenn Kilbourne’s fiancee. I’ve come West to surprise him. Is he here.… Is—is he well?”
“Fine. I saw him yesterday. He’s changed a great deal from what he was at first. Most all the last few months. I reckon you won’t know him.… But you’re wet an’ cold an’ you look fagged. Come right in to the fire.”
“Thank you; I’m all right,” returned Carley.
At the doorway they encountered a girl of lithe and robust figure, quick in her movements. Carley was swift to see the youth and grace of her; and then a face that struck Carley as neither pretty nor beautiful, but still wonderfully attractive.
“Flo, here’s Miss Burch,” burst out Mrs. Hutter, with cheerful importance. “Glenn Kilbourne’s girl come all the way from New York to surprise him!”
“Oh, Carley, I’m shore happy to meet you!” said the girl, in a voice of slow drawling richness. “I know you. Glenn has told me all about you.”
If this greeting, sweet and warm as it seemed, was a shock to Carley, she gave no sign. But as she murmured something in reply she looked with all a woman’s keenness into the face before her. Flo Hutter had a fair skin generously freckled; a mouth and chin too firmly cut to suggest a softer feminine beauty; and eyes of clear light hazel, penetrating, frank, fearless. Her hair was very abundant, almost silver-gold in color, and it was either rebellious or showed lack of care. Carley liked the girl’s looks and liked the sincerity of her greeting; but instinctively she reacted antagonistically because of the frank suggestion of intimacy with Glenn.
But for that she would have been spontaneous and friendly rather than restrained.
They ushered Carley into a big living room and up to a fire of blazing logs, where they helped divest her of the wet wraps. And all the time they talked in the solicitous way natural to women who were kind and unused to many visitors. Then Mrs. Hutter bustled off to make a cup of hot coffee while Flo talked.
“We’ll shore give you the nicest room—with a sleeping porch right under the cliff where the water falls. It’ll sing you to sleep. Of course you needn’t use the bed outdoors until it’s warmer. Spring is late here, you know, and we’ll have nasty weather yet. You really happened on Oak Creek at its least attractive season. But then it’s always—well, just Oak Creek. You’ll come to know.”
“I dare say I’ll remember my first sight of it and the ride down that cliff road,” said Carley, with a wan smile.
“Oh, that’s nothing to what you’ll see and do,” returned Flo, knowingly. “We’ve had Eastern tenderfeet here before. And never was there a one of them who didn’t come to love Arizona.”
“Tenderfoot! It hadn’t occurred to me. But of course—” murmured Carley.
Then Mrs. Hutter returned, carrying a tray, which she set upon a chair, and drew to Carley’s side. “Eat an’ drink,” she said, as if these actions were the cardinally important ones of life. “Flo, you carry her bags up to that west room we always give to some particular person we want to love Lolomi.” Next she threw sticks of wood upon the fire, making it crackle and blaze, then seated herself near Carley and beamed upon her.
“You’ll not mind if we call you Carley?” she asked, eagerly.
“Oh, indeed no! I—I’d like it,” returned Carley, made to feel friendly and at home in spite of herself.
“You see it’s not as if you were just a stranger,” went on Mrs. Hutter. “Tom—that’s Flo’s father—took a likin’ to Glenn Kilbourne when he first came to Oak Creek over a year ago. I wonder if you all know how sick that soldier boy was.… Well, he lay on his back for two solid weeks—in the room we’re givin’ you. An’ I for one didn’t think he’d ever get up. But he did. An’ he got better. An’ after a while he went to work for Tom. Then six months an’ more ago he invested in the sheep business with Tom. He lived with us until he built his cabin up West Fork. He an’ Flo have run together a good deal, an’ naturally he told her about you. So you see you’re not a stranger. An’ we want you to feel you’re with friends.”
“I thank you, Mrs. Hutter,” replied Carley, feelingly. “I never could thank you enough for being good to Glenn. I did not know he was so—so sick. At first he wrote but seldom.”
“Reckon he never wrote you or told you what he did in the war,” declared Mrs. Hutter.
“Indeed he never did!”
“Well, I’ll tell you some day. For Tom found out all about him. Got some of it from a soldier who came to Flagstaff for lung trouble. He’d been in the same company with Glenn. We didn’t know this boy’s name while he was in Flagstaff. But later Tom found out. John Henderson. He was only twenty-two, a fine lad. An’ he died in Phoenix. We tried to get him out here. But the boy wouldn’t live on charity. He was always expectin’ money—a war bonus, whatever that was. It didn’t come. He was a clerk at the El Tovar for a while. Then he came to Flagstaff. But it was too cold an’ he stayed there too long.”
“Too bad,” rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. This information as to the suffering of American soldiers had augmented during the last few months, and seemed to possess strange, poignant power to depress Carley. Always she had turned away from the unpleasant. And the misery of unfortunates was as disturbing almost as direct contact with disease and squalor. But it had begun to dawn upon Carley that there might occur circumstances of life, in every way affronting her comfort and happiness, which it would be impossible to turn her back upon.
At this juncture Flo returned to the room, and again Carley was struck with the girl’s singular freedom of movement and the sense of sure poise and joy that seemed to emanate from her presence.
“I’ve made a fire in your little stove,” she
said. “There’s water heating. Now won’t you come up and change those traveling clothes. You’ll want to fix up for Glenn, won’t you?”
Carley had to smile at that. This girl indeed was frank and unsophisticated, and somehow refreshing. Carley rose.
“You are both very good to receive me as a friend,” she said. “I hope I shall not disappoint you.… Yes, I do want to improve my appearance before Glenn sees me.… Is there any way I can send word to him—by someone who has not seen me?”
“There shore is. I’ll send Charley, one of our hired boys.”
“Thank you. Then tell him to say there is a lady here from New York to see him, and it is very important.”
Flo Hutter clapped her hands and laughed with glee. Her gladness gave Carley a little twinge of conscience. Jealously was an unjust and stifling thing.
Carley was conducted up a broad stairway and along a boarded hallway to a room that opened out on the porch. A steady low murmur of falling water assailed her ears. Through the open door she saw across the porch to a white tumbling lacy veil of water falling, leaping, changing, so close that it seemed to touch the heavy pole railing of the porch.
This room resembled a tent. The sides were of canvas. It had no ceiling. But the rough-hewn shingles of the roof of the house sloped down closely. The furniture was home made. An Indian rug covered the floor. The bed with its woolly clean blankets and the white pillows looked inviting.
“Is this where Glenn lay—when he was sick?” queried Carley.
“Yes,” replied Flo, gravely, and a shadow darkened her eyes. “I ought to tell you all about it. I will some day. But you must not be made unhappy now.… Glenn nearly died here. Mother or I never left his side—for a while there—when life was so bad.”