The Heritage of the Desert: A Novel
Page 12
moaned its last in the cedars, and swept
away, a sheeted pall. Out over the Canyon it floated, trailing long
veils of white that thinned out, darkened, and failed far above the
golden desert. The winding columns of snow merged into straight lines of
leaden rain; the rain flowed into vapory mist, and the mist cleared in
the gold-red glare of endless level and slope. No moisture reached the
parched desert.
Jack marched into camp with a snowy burden over his shoulder. He flung
it down, disclosing a small deer; then he shook the white mantle from
his coat, and whistling, kicked the fire-logs, and looked abroad at the
silver cedars, now dripping under the sun, at the rainbows in the
settling mists, at the rapidly melting snow on the ground.
"Got lost in that squall. Fine! Fine!" he exclaimed, and threw wide his
arms.
"Jack!" said Mescal. "Jack!" Memory had revived some forgotten thing.
The dark olive of her skin crimsoned; her eyes dilated and shadowed with
a rare change of emotion.
"Jack," she repeated.
"Well?" he replied, in surprise.
"To look at you!--I never dreamed--I'd forgotten--"
"What's the matter with me?" demanded Jack.
Wonderingly, her mind on the past, she replied: "You were dying when we
found you at White Sage."
He drew himself up with a sharp catch in his breath, and stared at her
as if he saw a ghost.
"Oh--Jack! You're going to get well!"
Her lips curved in a smile.
For an instant Jack Hare spent his soul in searching her face for truth.
While waiting for death he had utterly forgotten it; he remembered now,
when life gleamed in the girl's dark eyes. Passionate joy flooded his
heart.
"Mescal--Mescal!" he cried, brokenly. The eyes were true that shed this
sudden light on him; glad and sweet were the lips that bade him hope and
live again. Blindly, instinctively he kissed them--a kiss unutterably
grateful; then he fled into the forest, running without aim.
That flight ended in sheer exhaustion on the far rim of the plateau. The
spreading cedars seemed to have eyes; and he shunned eyes in this hour.
"God! to think I cared so much," he whispered. "What has happened?" With
time relief came to limbs, to labored breast and lungs, but not to mind.
In doubt that would not die, he looked at himself. The leanness of arms,
the flat chest, the hollows were gone. He did not recognize his own
body. He breathed to the depths of his lungs. No pain--only
exhilaration! He pounded his chest--no pain! He dug his trembling
fingers into the firm flesh over the apex of his right lung--the place
of his torture--no pain!
"I wanted to live!" he cried. He buried his face in the fragrant
juniper; he rolled on the soft brown mat of earth and hugged it close;
he cooled his hot cheeks in the primrose clusters. He opened his eyes to
new bright green of cedar, to sky of a richer blue, to a desert,
strange, beckoning, enthralling as life itself. He counted backward a
month, two months, and marvelled at the swiftness of time. He counted
time forward, he looked into the future, and all was beautiful--long
days, long hunts, long rides, service to his friend, freedom on the wild
steppes, blue-white dawns upon the eastern crags, red-gold sunsets over
the lilac mountains of the desert. He saw himself in triumphant health
and strength, earning day by day the spirit of this wilderness, coming
to fight for it, to live for it, and in far-off time, when he had won
his victory, to die for it.
Suddenly his mind was illumined. The lofty plateau with its healing
breath of sage and juniper had given back strength to him; the silence
and solitude and strife of his surroundings had called to something deep
within him; but it was Mescal who made this wild life sweet and
significant. It was Mescal, the embodiment of the desert spirit. Like a
man facing a great light Hare divined his love. Through all the days on
the plateau, living with her the natural free life of Indians, close to
the earth, his unconscious love had ripened. He understood now her charm
for him; he knew now the lure of her wonderful eyes, flashing fire,
desert-trained, like the falcon eyes of her Indian grandfather. The
knowledge of what she had become to him dawned with a mounting desire
that thrilled all his blood.
Twilight had enfolded the plateau when Hare traced his way back to camp.
Mescal was not there. His supper awaited him; Piute hummed a song; the
peon sat grimacing at the fire. Hare told them to eat, and moved away
toward the rim.
Mescal was at her favorite seat, with the white dog beside her; and she
watched the desert where the last glow of sunset gilded the mesas. How
cold and calm was her face! How strange to him in this new character!
"Mescal, I didn't know I loved you--then--but I know it now."
Her face dropped quickly from its level poise, hiding the brooding eyes;
her hand trembled on Wolf's head.
"You spoke the truth. I'll get well. I'd rather have had it from your
lips than from any in the world. I mean to live my life here where these
wonderful things have come to me. The friendship of the good man who
saved me, this wild, free desert, the glory of new hope, strength, life-
-and love."
He took her hand in his and whispered, "For I love you. Do you care for
me? Mescal! It must be complete. Do you care--a little?"
The wind blew her dusky hair; he could not see her face; he tried gently
to turn her to him. The hand he had taken lay warm and trembling in his,
but it was not withdrawn. As he waited, in fear, in hope, it became
still. Her slender form, rigid within his arm, gradually relaxed, and
yielded to him; her face sank on his breast, and her dark hair loosened
from its band, covered her, and blew across his lips. That was his
answer.
The wind sang in the cedars. No longer a sigh, sad as thoughts of a past
forever flown, but a song of what had come to him, of hope, of life, of
Mescal's love, of the things to be!
VII. SILVERMANE
LITTLE dew fell on the night of July first; the dawn brightened without
mists; a hot sun rose; the short summer of the plateau had begun.
As Hare rose, refreshed and happy from his breakfast, his whistle was
cut short by the Indian.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Piute, lifting a dark finger. Black Bolly had thrown
her nose-bag and slipped her halter, and she moved toward the opening in
the cedars, her head high, her black ears straight up.
"Bolly!" called Mescal. The mare did not stop.
"What the deuce?" Hare ran forward to catch her.
"I never knew Bolly to act that way," said Mescal. "See--she didn't eat
half the oats. Well, Bolly--Jack! look at Wolf!"
The white dog had risen and stood warily shifting his nose. He sniffed
the wind, turned round and round, and slowly stiffened with his head
pointed toward the eastern rise of the plateau.
"Hold, Wolf, hold!" called Mescal, as the dog appeared to be about to
dash away.
"Ugh!" grunted Piute.
"Hear what?"
"Listen."
The warm breeze came down in puffs from the crags; it rustled in the
cedars and blew fragrant whiffs of camp-fire smoke into his face; and
presently it bore a low, prolonged whistle. He had never before heard
its like. The sound broke the silence again, clearer, a keen, sharp
whistle.
"What is it?" he queried, reaching for his rifle.
"Wild mustangs," said Mescal.
"No," corrected Piute, vehemently shaking his head. "Clea, Clea."
"Jack, he says 'horse, horse.' It's a wild horse."
A third time the whistle rang down from the ridge, splitting the air,
strong and