Wanderer Of the Wasteland (1982)

by Grey, Zane

  "No time. I--I had to run!" panted Adam.

  "What'd you do? Don't be afraid to tell me. The desert is a place for secrets, and it's a lonely place where a man learns to read the souls of men--when he meets them. You're not vicious. You're no----But never mind--tell me without wastin' more words. Maybe I can help you."

  "No one can--help me," cried Adam.

  "That's not so," quickly spoke up Dismukes, his voice deep and rolling. "Some one can help you--an' maybe it's me."

  Here Adam completely broke down. "I--I did--something--awful!"

  "No crime boy--say it was no crime," earnestly returned the prospector.

  "0 my God! Yes--yes! It was--a crime!" sobbed Adam, shuddering. "But, man--I swear, horrible as it was--I'm innocent! I swear that. Believe me. I was driven--driven by wrongs, by hate, by taunts. If I'd stood them longer I'd have been a white-livered coward. But I was driven and half drunk."

  "Well--well!" ejaculated Dismukes, shaking his shaggy head. "It's bad. But I believe you an' you needn't tell me any more. Life is hell! I was young once...An' now you've got to hide away from men--to live on the desert--to be one of us wanderers of the wastelands?"

  "Yes. I must hide. And I want--I need to live--to suffer--to atone!"

  "Boy, do you believe in God?" asked the prospector.

  "I don't know. I think so," replied Adam, lifting his head and striving for composure. "My mother was religious. But my father was not."

  "Well--well, if you believed in God your case would not be hopeless. But some men--a few out of the many wanderers--find God out here in these wilds. Maybe you will...Can you tell me what you think you want to do?"

  "Oh--to go alone--into the loneliest place--to live there for years--for ever," replied Adam, with passion.

  "Alone. That is my way. An' I understand how you feel--what you need. Are you going to hunt gold?"

  "No--no."

  "Have you any money?"

  "Yes. More than I'll ever need. I'd like to throw it all away--or give it to you. But it--it was my mother's...And I promised her I'd not squander it--that I'd try to save."

  "Boy, never mind--an' I don't want your money," interrupted Dismukes. "An' don't do any fool trick with it. You'll need it to buy outfits. You can always trust Indians to go to the freightin' posts for you. But never let any white men in this desert know you got money. That's a hard comparison, an' it's justified."

  "I'm already sick with the love men have for money," said Adam bitterly.

  "An' now to figure out an' make good all that brag of mine," went on Dismukes, reflectively. "I'll need only two days' grub to get to Yuma. There's one sure water hole. I can give you one of my canteens an' Jinny, the burro that saved your life. She's tricky, but a blamed good burro. An' by making up enough bread I can spare ray oven. So, all told, I guess I can outfit you good enough for you to reach a canyon up here to the west where Indians live. I know them. They're good. You can stay with them until the hot weather passes. No danger of any white men runnin' across you there."

  "But you mustn't let me have all your outfit," protested Adam.

  "I'm not. It's only the grub an' one burro."

  "Won't you run a risk--with only two days' rations?"

  "Wansfell, every move you can make on this desert is a risk," replied Dismukes, seriously. "Learn that right off. But I'm sure. Only accidents or unforeseen circumstances ever make risks for me now. I'm what they call a desert rat."

  "You're most kind," said Adam, choking up again, "to help a stranger--this way."

  "Boy, I don't call that help," declared Dismukes. "That's just doin' for a man as I'd want to be done by. When I talked about help I meant somethin' else."

  "What? God knows I need it. I'll be grateful. I'll do as you tell me," replied Adam, with a strange thrill stirring in him.

  "You are a boy--no matter if you're bigger than most men. You've got the mind of a boy. What a damn pity you've got to do this hidin' game!" Under strong feeling the prospector got up, and, emptying his pipe, he began to take short strides to and fro in the limited shade cast by the ironwood tree. The indomitable forces of the man showed in his step, in the way he carried himself. Presently he turned to Adam and the great ox eves burned intensely. "Wansfell, if you were a man, I'd never feel the way I do. But you're only a youngster--you're not bad--you've had bad luck--an' for you I can break my rule--an' I'll do it if you're in earnest. I've never talked about the desert--about its secrets--what it's taught me. But I'll tell you what the desert is--how it'll be your salvation--how to be a wanderer of the wasteland is to be strong, free, happy--if you are honest, if you're big enough for it."

  "Dismukes, I swear I'm honest--and I'll be big, by God or I'll die trying," declared Adam, passionately.

  The prospector gave Adam a long, steady stare, a strange gaze such as must have read his soul.

  "Wansfell, if you can live on the desert you'll grow like it," lie said, solemnly, as if he were pronouncing a benediction.

  Adam gathered from this speech that Dismukes meant to unbosom himself of many secrets of this wonderful wasteland. Evidently, however, the prospector was not then ready to talk further. With thoughtful mien and plodding gait he resumed his short walk to and fro. It struck Adam then that his appearance was almost as ludicrous as that of his burros, yet at the same time his presence somehow conveyed a singular sadness. Years of loneliness burdened the wide bowed shoulders of this desert man. Adam divined then, in a gust of gratitude, that this plodding image of Dismukes would always remain in his mind as a picture, a symbol of the actual good in human nature.

  The hot day closed without Adam ever venturing out of the shade of the tree. Once or twice he had put his hand in a sunny spot to feel the heat, and it had burned. The night mantled down with its tense silence, all-embracing, and the stars began to glow white. As Dismukes sat down near Adam in the glow of the camp fire it was manifest from the absence of his pipe, and the penetrating, possession-taking power in his eyes, that he was under the dominance of a singular passion.

  "Wansfell," he began, in low, deep voice, "it took me many years to learn how to live on the desert. I had the strength an' the vitality of ten ordinary men. Many time in those desperate years was I close to death from thirst--from starvation--from poison water--from sickness--from bad men--and last, though not least--from loneliness. If I had met a man like myself, as I am now, I might have been spared a hell of sufferin'. I did meet desert men who could have helped me. But they passed me by. The desert locks men's lips. Let every man save his own life--find his own soul. That's the unwritten law of the wastelands of the world. I've broken it for you because I want to do by you as I'd have liked to be done by. An' because I see somethin' in you."

  Dismukes paused here to draw a long breath. In the flickering firelight he seemed a squatting giant immovable by physical force, and of a will unquenchable while life lasted.

  "Men crawl over the desert like ants whose nests have been destroyed an' who have become separated from one another," went on Dismukes. "They all know the lure of the desert. Each man has his own idea of why the desert claims him. Mine was gold--is gold--so that some day I can travel over the world, rich an' free, an' see life. Another man's will be the need to hide--or the longin' to forget--or the call of adventure--or hate of the world--or love of a woman. Another class is that of bad men. Robbers, murderers. They are many. There are also many men, an' a few women, who just drift or wander or get lost in the desert. An' out of all these, if they stay in the desert, but few survive. They die or they are killed. The Great American Desert is a. vast place an' it is covered by unmarked graves an' bleached bones. I've seen so many--so many."

  Dismukes paused again while his broad breast heaved with a sigh.

  "I was talkin' about what men think the desert means to them. In my case I say gold, an' I say that as the other man will claim he loves the silence or the colour or the loneliness. But I'm wrong, an' so is he. The great reason why the desert holds men lies deeper. I
feel that. But I've never had the brains to solve it. I do know, however, that life on this wasteland is fierce an' terrible. Plants, reptiles, beasts, birds, an' men all have to fight for life far out of proportion to what's necessary in fertile parts of the earth. You will learn that early, an' if you are a watcher an' a thinker you will understand it.

  "The desert is no place for white men. An oasis is fit for Indians. They survive there. But they don't thrive. I respect the Indians. It will be well for you to live a while with Indians...Now what I most want you to know is this."

  The speaker's pause this time was impressive, and he raised one of his huge hands, like a monstrous claw, making a gesture at once eloquent and strong.

  "When the desert claims men it makes most of them beasts. They sink to that fierce level in order to live. They are trained by the eternal strife that surrounds them. A man of evil nature survivin' in the desert becomes more terrible than a beast. He is a vulture On the other hand. there are men whom the desert makes like it. Yes--fierce an' elemental an' terrible, like the heat an' the storm an' the avalanche, but greater in another sense--greater through that eternal strife to live--beyond any words of mine to tell. What such men have lived--the patience, the endurance, the toil--the fights with men an' all that makes the desert--the wanderin's an' perils an' tortures--the horrible loneliness that must be fought hardest, by mind as well as action--all these struggles are beyond ordinary comprehension an' belief. But I know. I've met a few such men, an' if it's possible for the divinity of God to walk abroad on earth in the shape of mankind, it was invested in them. The reason must be that in the development by the desert, in case of these few men who did not retrograde, the spiritual kept pace with the physical. It means these men never forgot, never reverted to mere unthinking instinct, never let the hard, fierce, brutal action c f survival of the desert kill their souls. Spirit was stronger than body. I've learned this of these men, though I never had the power to attain it. It takes brains. I was only fairly educated. An' though I've studied all my years on the desert, an' never gave up, I wasn't big enough to climb as high as I can see. I tell you all this, Wansfell, because it may be your salvation. Never give up to the desert or to any of its minions! Never cease to fight! You must fight to live--an' so make that fight equally for your mind an' your soul! Thus you will repent for your crime, whatever that was. Remember--the secret is never to forget your hold on the past--your memories--an' through thinkin' of them to save your mind an' apply it to all that faces you out there."

  Rising from his seat, Dismukes made a wide, sweeping gesture, symbolical of a limitless expanse. "An' the gist of all this talk of mine--this hope of mine to do for you as I'd have been done by--is that if you fight an' think together like a man meanin' to repent of his sin--somewhere out there in the loneliness an' silence you will find God!"

  With that he abruptly left the camp fire to stride off into the darkness: and the sonorous roll of his last words seemed to linger on the quiet air.

  Every one of his intense words had been burned into Adam's sensitive mind in characters and meanings never to be forgotten. Dismukes had found eager and fertile soil for the planting of the seeds of his toil-earned philosophy. The effect upon Adam was profound, and so wrought upon his emotions that the black and hateful consciousness which had returned to haunt him was as but a shadow of his thought. Adam stared out into the night where Dismukes had vanished. Something great had happened. Was the man Dismukes a fanatic, a religious wanderer of the wasteland who imagined he had found in Adam an apt pupil, or who had preached a sermon because the opportunity presented? No! The prospector had the faith to give out of his lesson of life on the desert. His motive was the same as when he had risked much to follow Adam, staggering blindly across the hot sands to his death. And as Adam felt the mounting passion of conviction, of gratitude, his stirred mind seemed suddenly to burst into a radiant and scintillating inspiration of resolve to be the man Dismukes had described, to fight and to think and to remember as had no one ever before done on the desert. It was all that seemed left for him. Repentance! Expiation True to himself at the last in spite of a horrible and fatal blunder!

  "Oh, Guerd! Guerd, my brother!" he cried, shuddering at the whisper of that name. "Wherever you are in spirit--hear me!...I'll rise above wrongs and hate and revenge I'll remember our boyhood--how I loved you! I'll atone for my crime! I'll never forget...I'll fight and think to save my soul--and pray for yours! Hear me and forgive--you who drove me out into the wastelands!"

  Chapter IX

  Adam lay awake for some length of time, waiting for Dismukes to return, but he did not come. Adam at length succumbed to drowsiness. It was Dismukes's call that awakened him. The sun already tipped the eastern range, rosy red, and all the open land lay fresh and colourful in, the morning light. Adam felt no severe effects from his hard experience, except an inordinate hunger, which Dismukes was more disposed to appease. Still he cautioned Adam not to eat too much.

  "Now, Wansfell, you must learn all about burros," began Dismukes. "The burro is the most important part of your outfit. This desert would still be a blank waste, unknown to white man, if it had not been for those shaggy, lazy, lop-eared little donkeys. Whenever you get sore at one an' feel inclined to kill him for some trick or other, just remember that you could not get along without him.

  "Most burros are alike. They hang near camp, as you see mine, hopin' they can steal a bite of somethin' if you don't give it to them. They'll eat paper, or 'most anythin' except greasewood. They love paper off bacon. I had one once that ate my overalls. They never get homesick an' seem contented in the most desolate places. I had a burro that was happy in Death Valley, which's the hell hole of this wasteland. Burros are seldom responsive to affection. They'll stand great abuse. Never expect any thanks. Always patient. They are usually easy to catch. But they must know you. Only way to catch them is to head them off. Then they stop. Young burros are easily broke, an' will follow others. They must be driven. Never knew but one that I could lead. Don't forget this. They have the most wonderful endurance--never stumble or fall--an' can exist on practically nothin'. When you turn them loose they'll nibble around a while, then stop an' stand like rocks, never movin' for hours and hours, as if they were wrapped in prehistoric thought. In the mornin' when you start off on your day's travel the burros are fresh an' they drive fine. But in the afternoon, when they get tired, they think of tricks. They'll lie down--roll over on a pack--knock against a rock or tree. They'll get together in a bunch and tangle the packs. When a burro intends to lie down he humps his back an' wriggles his tail. It's hard to get burros across streams. Scared of water! Strange, isn't that? I've had to carry my burros many a time. But they'll climb or go down the steepest, roughest mountain trail without fear. They can slide down a steep slope that a man will not stick on. Burros have more patience and good qualities, an' also cussedness, than any other beasts. They pick out pardners an' stick together all the time. A big bunch of burros will pair off regardless of sex. Never give each other up! They bray at night--an awful sound till you get used to it. Remember this quick some night when you're lifted out of a sleep by a terrible unearthly roar...Well, I guess that's an introduction to desert burros. It's all serious fact, Wansfell, as you'll learn, an' to your cost, unless you remember."

  How singular for Adam to have the closing words of Dismukes reveal the absorbing interest of this simple and practical talk about burros! It amazed Adam to find that he had even been amused, ready to laugh.

  "I'll remember," he asserted, with conviction.

  "Dare say you will," replied Dismukes, "but the idea is you must remember before you get into trouble, not after. I can't tell you when to know a burro is goin' to trick you. I'm just givin' you facts as to the nature of burros in general. You must study and learn them yourself. A man could spend his life studyin' burros an' then have lots to learn. Most prospectors lose half their time trackin' their burros. It's tryin' to find burros that has cost many a desert man his life.
An' this is why, if you've chosen the desert to live in, you must learn the habits of the burro. He's the camel of this Sahara."

  With that the prospector appeared to have talked himself out for the present, and he devoted his efforts to a selection of parts of his outfit that manifestly he meant to turn over to Adam. At length having made the selection to his satisfaction, he went out to wake up the burro Jinny. As he led Jinny into camp all the other burros trooped along.

  "Watch me pack an' then you try your hand on Jinny," he said.

  Adam was all eyes while the prospector placed in position the old ragged pads of skins and blankets, and the pack-saddles over them, to be buckled carefully. It was all comparatively easy until it came to tying the pack on with a rope in what Dismukes called a hitch. However after Dismukes had accomplished it on three of the other burros, Adam believed he could make a respectable showing. To this end he began to pack Jinny, and did very well indeed till he got to the hitch, which was harder to tie than it looked. After several attempts he succeeded. During this procedure Jinny stood with one long ear up and the other down, as if nothing on earth mattered to her.

  "Carry the canteen of water yourself," said Dismukes, as he led Adam out from under the tree and pointed west. "See where that long, low, sharp ridge comes down to the desert?...Well, that's fifty miles. Around that point lies a wide canyon. Indians live up that canyon. They are good people. Stay with them--work for them till you learn the desert...Now as to gettin' there. Go slow. Rest often in the shade of ironwoods like this one. Take a good rest durin' the middle of the day. As long as you sweat you're in no danger. But if your skin gets dry you need to get out of the sun an' to drink. There are several springs along the base of this range. Chocolate Mountains, they're called. By keepin' a sharp eye for patches of bright-green brush you'll see where the water is. An' don't ever forget that water is the same as life blood."