Lost Pueblo (1992)

by Grey, Zane

  When she got about halfway to him, however, she had to halt. She was getting in trouble and faced inclines that made even a girl of her bravery quail. So she sank down to rest and gaze.

  The canyon opened wide. It was much vaster and wilder than that part of Beckyshibeta where Randolph had pitched the camp. Janey felt something pull at her heartstrings. Was not this desert fastness simply marvelous? But to look down now made her shiver. She had been aware of the gradual height she had attained. Below, a hundred feet or more, spread a slope of talus, a jumble of broken rock that fell roughly down to the green thicket. She almost forgot Randolph and her mission in a realizing worship.

  Randolph's pick, ringing steel on stone, brought Janey back. She discovered a ledge above her where no doubt Randolph had crossed to the wide area beyond. Coming to a narrowed point, she got on hands and knees, and began to crawl out. She knocked some loose rocks off the ledge. They rattled down. Janey swore. Randolph heard the rattling and turned to look up.

  Flinging aside his pick he ran forward to the end of the bench.

  "Stop!" he shouted.

  Janey obeyed, more from suggestion than anything else. She gazed across the void at Randolph.

  "Howdy, Phil," she called, gaily. "Didn't I tell you not to follow me?" he said, angrily.

  "I don't remember."

  "Yes you do."

  "All right, then I do."

  "You turn round very carefully and go back," he ordered. "Be careful... You'll turn my hair gray!"

  "That'd make you very handsome and distinguished looking," replied Janey.

  "Go back!" he shouted, sternly.

  "Not on your life!" retorted Janey, and started to crawl again. She was approaching the narrowed part. It might have daunted her before, but now she could have managed a more hazardous place.

  "Stop! Turn back!" thundered Randolph. This was pouring oil upon the flame. "You go to the devil!" cried Janey, and kept on crawling. She passed the risky point without a tremor or a slip, and presently, reaching the bench, she stood up before Randolph in cool triumph.

  "If you do that again, I'll I'll--" he choked.

  "That was a cinch," replied Janey, coolly. "My stockings are thin, though, and the rock hurt my knees."

  She rubbed them ruefully, quite unabashed by Randolph's staring.

  "You'll fall and kill yourself," he stormed.

  "No, nix, never, not little Janey. I did tumbling in my class at college. That little jaunt across there was just an exercise in coordination, that's all."

  "I tell you it was extremely dangerous," expostulated Randolph.

  "We'll always disagree, Phil. I imagine life together for us will be one long sweet hell."

  "No it won't. I might have entertained such an idiotic idea once, but it's dispelled."

  "We needn't discuss the future now. I've begun to reconcile my--myself to this and you. Don't spoil it... Did you have a nice dig this morning?"

  "Come. I'll help you back over this ledge. Then you go to camp and stay there," he said, peremptorily.

  "No, I won't. I want to be with you."

  "Very sorry, but I don't want you here."

  "Why? I'll sit still and watch you, and be quiet."

  "No!"

  "Please, Phil," she pleaded.

  "I couldn't work with your big eyes mocking me. You make me remember I'm only a poor struggling archaeologist."

  "But you brought me here."

  "Yes, and I'd--I'm damned sorry for it. Someday I'll tell you why I did it."

  "Are you repudiating your--your, well, your interest in me?" she queried, with hauteur.

  "Call spades, spades," he returned. "You mean my love for you. No, I don't repudiate that. I'm not ashamed of it, though it has made me a fool."

  "Oh! Then there's another reason why you brought me to Beckyshibeta?" she went on, gravely. It seemed to Janey that there was no use in trying to stall off the inevitable. Things tumbled over one another in a hurry to drive her. Pretty soon she would get sore and face them.

  "Yes, there's another, and of that I am ashamed. But come, get out of here and leave me in peace."

  "Mr. Randolph," said Janey, now haughtily. "Has it occurred to you that I ought not to be left alone--entirely aside from my loneliness?"

  "No, it hasn't," he returned, clenching his hands, and gazing helplessly down at the river.

  "Well, you're rather dense. Some Indian or desperado--anybody might come. They could get across now, I think."

  "No one ever comes here. At least, very seldom, and then I know they're coming. You're quite safe. And certainly you don't want my society."

  "It is rather dreadful. But I'll stand it awhile. I'll stay here until you get ready to go back to camp," replied Janey, airily, and she promptly sat down.

  Randolph took her hand and pulled at her. "Come," he said, trying to control his temper.

  "Let go, or we'll have another fight," she warned. "The other time I didn't hit below the belt or bite."

  He gave up. "Very well, if you're that mulish, stay. But look here, you spoiled brat if you cross this dangerous place again you'll be sorry."

  "Why will I?" asked Janey, immensely interested.

  "Because you'll get what you should have had--long ago and many a time."

  "And what's that, teacher?"

  "A damned good spanking."

  Janey could not believe him serious, yet he looked amazingly so. But that was only temper--a bluff to rout her utterly. It was so preposterous that she laughed in his face.

  "Mr. Randolph, pardon my laughing, but you are so crude--so original," she said, and here the Janey Endicott of Long Island spoke in spite of her.

  Perhaps nothing else she could have said would have stung him so bitterly.

  "I have no doubt of it. All the same, I meant what I said. We are in Arizona now. And if you can't see the difference between real life and modern froth, I'm sorry for you. Most of America is too far gone for a good, healthy spanking. It has, I might say, a vastly different kind of interest in a young woman's anatomy. But among the few pioneers left in the West, thank God, there are parents who are still old-fashioned. I'm not a parent. All the same I can make myself into one, and give you damn well what you need."

  He strode away to his work leaving Janey for once at a loss for words. It took some moments for Janey to recover her egotism. Randolph must be having hallucinations. She would put him to the test presently.

  Sauntering closer to the middle of the wide bench, where he was plying his pick, she found as restful a seat as appeared available. It would tantalize him to have her so near, watching, as he called it, with her mocking eyes. She confessed to herself, however, that her interest in his work was growing keenly sincere. She truly wanted him to find Beckyshibeta.

  "Phillip, how will you know when you strike this buried pueblo?" she asked, suddenly. "What will it be like?"

  "I'd know the instant I struck my pick in it," he replied, with surprising animation. Randolph evidently was quick to recover from anger or slight.

  "You would, of course, but how would I know?"

  He gave her a depreciating glance.

  "Well, judging by the intelligence you've shown lately, you never would know a pueblo. Not if you fell into a kiva!"

  "Ah--huh! Gee, I'm a bright girl... What's a kiva?"

  "It's a deep circular hole in the ground, covered by a roof, with an entrance. Used by the cliff dwellers--"

  Janey interrupted him. All she had to do was to ask a question of an archaeological nature and he forgot everything else.

  "Then if you disappear suddenly I'm to search for your remains in a kiva? Very appropriate end for you, I'd say."

  Randolph went back to work and though Janey pestered him with questions he apparently did not hear them. She grew provocative. He gave no heed. Then she called him mummy hunter, grave robber, bone digger and like names. Finally, she resorted to "cradle snatcher," but that glanced off his thick hide, too.

  "Say," sh
e concluded in disgust, "if I offered to kiss you, would you talk?"

  "Yes," he flashed, swiftly facing her with a gleam in his eye.

  "Oh! Well, I withhold the offer, but I'm glad you're not altogether a dead one."

  "Janey Endicott, you're an unmitigated fraud," he returned. "Also, you are a teaser."

  "I don't like the sound of that last word. Where did you hear that?"

  "It's a term I heard in New York. I gathered that it was applicable to a young woman who enticed with false smiles and words and suggestions. Who allured with all feminine--I should say female powers--and never gave a single thing she promised."

  "Philip, you are calling a turn on all women from Eve to Mata Hari... Say," she burst out suddenly, "I'll bet you a new saddle to a pair of gauntlets that I make you swallow your slight."

  "You're on, Miss Endicott," he declared. "I'll enjoy riding that saddle, and remembering this winter, while you are back in New York--"

  "Doing what?" she interposed, as he hesitated.

  But he dropped his head and returned to his interrupted digging.

  "I'll finish it for you," she added with scorn. "While I am idling, flirting, dancing, sleeping away the beautiful sunrise hours, wasting money, drinking--and worse!"

  She saw him flinch, then his jaw set, but that was all the satisfaction she got. Janey had an unreasonable longing to hear him passionately deny at least some of these vices for her. But he did not. He believed them--perhaps now thought the very worst of her. This was what she had desired, yet most inconsistently, she would have preferred him to defend her as he had to her father.

  Janey let him alone for a while, although her contemplative gaze often returned from the lofty crags and wonderful walls to his strong, stooping figure, and his tireless labor.

  When the enchantment of the canyon began once more to lay hold of her, with its transforming magic, she had recourse to a very devil of perversity and provocation. Studying the ledges and slopes of all this great section of ruined wall she at last noted a narrow strip where even a goat might have had difficulties. It led toward another projecting corner of red wall, beyond which another and larger level beckoned with a strange spell. Janey studied the place a long time. She had reason to believe that Randolph had not worked any farther than where he now stood. She yielded to an unaccountable impulse to gain that level.

  Rising, she took occasion to stroll around in front of Randolph, then up to the edge of the amphitheater and in the direction of a rounded wall which led toward the objective point.

  The ring of Randolph's pick ceased. Janey missed it with infinite satisfaction.

  "Janey, where are you going?" he demanded. "Didn't I--"

  She crossed the rim of curved wall and gained the near end of the narrow strip. How fearful the depth below looked.

  "Hold on!" yelled Randolph, his boots thudding over the rock.

  Then Janey turned. "Don't dare come another step!" she cried, more than defiantly.

  Randolph halted short, perhaps a matter of fifty steps from her.

  "Please, come back."

  "I'm going across to the next bench."

  "Janey! That is worse than this other place. I have never risked beyond where you are now. Honest. It is more treacherous than it looks."

  "I don't care."

  "My God, girl, if you should slip! Have you no sense?"

  "You'll have only yourself to blame."

  Randolph struggled as if resisting a temptation to leap. He was silent a full moment. Janey saw his expression and color change.

  "You damned little fool!" he roared, at last. "Come back!"

  "Nothing doing, Phil," she taunted. "Come back!" The stentorian voice only inflamed Janey the more.

  "Say, how'd you get like that?"

  Randolph started for her and strode halfway round the curved rim wall before he halted. Janey backed upon the narrow strip, an exceedingly risky move, but her blood was up and she had no fear. He saw and stopped as if struck.

  "Janey, darling," he called, with an importuning, almost hopeless, gesture.

  This, strangely, came near being Janey's undoing. She wanted to obey him. Never could she be driven, but she was not tenderness-proof. Her sudden incomprehensible weakness roused her to fury.

  "Philly, sweetheart, you've kidnaped the wrong woman!" she screamed at him.

  Randolph deliberately wheeled and went back to the bench. Facing her then he called out: "Go and be damned. You'll find out you can't fly. And you'd better stay over there, for if you ever come back, you'll pay for this."

  Thus inspired, Janey turned to the narrow strip. It would not have frightened her if it had been a beanpole across Niagara. Sure as a mountain sheep she stepped, and never got down on hands and knees until she reached the knifelike edge. Over this she crawled like a monkey. She stood up again and ran the rest of the way. Gaining the bench she went for a peep round the vast corner of wall. The most wonderful of all the caverns opened before her. It was stupendous, overpowering. How marvelous to come back again and explore! Whereupon she retraced her steps.

  Randolph remained as motionless as a statue watching her. On the return, Janey exercised coolness where at first she had been daring. She crawled most of the way and never looked down into the abyss once. Breathless and hot she rested a moment before taking to the rim wall, then walked across that to where Randolph stood waiting. She saw that he was white to the lips, but he wheeled before she could get a second look at his face. It seemed silly to follow him, but she did, wondering what he would do or say. He led the way back toward camp.

  Janey had not anticipated this. Had she gone too far? Had she hurt him irretrievably? And now that it was over she reproached herself. What a spiteful vengeful little fool she was! Still this was the part she had set herself to play.

  She had difficulty in keeping up with Randolph. She kept up on the easy level ground, but over the rock slides she fell behind. It seemed a long way back to camp. Excitement and exertion had told on her. When the last corner of wall had been passed Janey thought she was pretty well all in.

  Randolph had his back to her. How square his shoulders--rigid! He pivoted on his heels, to disclose terrible eyes.

  "Janey Endicott, do you remember what I told you?" he demanded.

  Swift as his words came a sensation of sickening weakness. Like a stroke of lightning it had come. She imagined she had been prepared, but she was not. She had misjudged him, underestimated his courage. Her subtle mind grasped at straws.

  "Re-member?" she faltered, trying to smile. "About being--mad about me?"

  "Mad at you!" he replied, grimly.

  Then he seized her before she could move a hand. Surprise and fear inhibited her natural fighting instinct. Randolph lifted her--carried her.

  Suddenly he sat down on the flat rock and flung her over his knees, face down. All her body went rigid. A terror of realization and horror of expectation clamped her mind. He spanked her with such stunning force that it seemed every bone in her body broke to the blow. The pain to her flesh was hot, stinging, fierce. The shock to her mind exceeded the sum of all shocks Janey had ever sustained. She sank limp over his knees. Smack! Harder this time. Her head and feet jerked up. Her teeth jarred in their sockets. Again! Again! Again!

  Janey all but fainted. Intense fury saved her that. She rolled off his knees to the ground and bounded up like a cat. A bursting tearing gush of hot blood ran riot in her breast.

  "I'll--kill you!" she panted, low and deep.

  Randolph was somewhat shaken at her fury, when she blazed so fiercely, her fists clenched, her breast swelling.

  "Once in your life, Miss Endicott!" he said, huskily. "It's done. You can't change that. And I did it. I shall have that unique distinction among your acquaintances."

  Janey tried to fly at him, to scratch his eyes out, to beat him before murdering him. But she let him pass. She felt her legs sag under her. Blindly then she groped and crawled up to her bed, sank under the blankets and covered
her face. The tension of her body relaxed. She stretched limp, palpitating, quivering. That numb dead sensation gradually gave place to burning smarting pain. The physical suffering at first had precedence over the chaos of her mind. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. And she lay there panting, slowly succumbing, her spirit subservient to her tortured flesh.

  It was dark when she had to uncover her head to keep from suffocating. The bright shadows of a campfire flickered on the stone above her.

  "Janey, child," called Randolph, like a fond parent, "wash your face and hands and come to supper."

  Her blood leaped and boiled again. Rising on her hand, she was about to give passionate vent to all the profanity she had ever heard, but as she saw Randolph moving round the fire she stilled the impulse. She sank back under a compulsion she had never known. Was she beaten--whipped--cowed? No! She had only been preposterously shamed and humiliated by an educated ruffian. Her pride had been laid low. Her vanity was bleeding to death. Janey writhed in her bed, only to be made painfully aware again of the maltreated part of her anatomy. The instant there was a possibility of her returning to the old Janey Endicott, that burning pain had to recur. What a strangely subduing thing! Her mind had no control over it or the whirling thoughts it engendered.

  She composed herself at last, in as comfortable a position as she could find. Again Randolph called her to supper. Eat! She would starve to death before she would eat anything he had prepared. How terribly she hated him! The revenge she had planned seemed nothing to her wild ragings now. Mere killing would not be enough. Death ended all sufferings. He must be made most horribly wretched. He must grovel at her feet and bite the very dust.

  These bitter thoughts had their sway. They did not have permanence. All of a sudden Janey discovered she was crying. To realize that, to fight it and fail, added to her breakdown. She cried herself to sleep.

  Her eyes opened upon azure blue sky and gold-tipped wall. Consciousness came as quickly as sight. Her impulse was to shut out the beautiful light of day. She was ashamed to face it. But slowly she moved the blanket aside. Listening, she soon ascertained that Randolph was not in camp. Peeping over the rock she saw a smoldering fire, and the steaming coffeepot and oven on it.