The Heritage of the Desert: A Novel
Page 27
desert in advance of him, because he'll
trail her like a hound. It would be better to marry her to him than to
see her dead."
"I'm not so sure of that."
"Hare, your nose is on a blood scent, like a wolf's. I can see--I've
always seen--well, remember, it's man to man between you now."
During this talk they were winding under Echo Cliffs, gradually
climbing, and working up to a level with the desert, which they
presently attained at a point near the head of the canyon. The trail
swerved to the left following the base of the cliffs. The tracks of
Noddle and Wolf were plainly visible in the dust. Hare felt that if they
ever led out into the immense airy space of the desert all hope of
finding Mescal must be abandoned.
They trailed the tracks of the dog and burro to Bitter Seeps, a shallow
spring of alkali, and there lost all track of them. The path up the
cliffs to the Navajo ranges was bare, time-worn in solid rock, and
showed only the imprint of age. Desertward the ridges of shale, the
washes of copper earth, baked in the sun, gave no sign of the fugitives'
course. August Naab shrugged his broad shoulders and pointed his horse
to the cliff. It was dusk when they surmounted it.
They camped in the lee of an uplifting crag. When the wind died down the
night was no longer unpleasantly cool; and Hare, finding August Naab
uncommunicative and sleepy, strolled along the rim of the cliff, as he
had been wont to do in the sheep-herding days. He could scarcely
dissociate them from the present, for the bitter-sweet smell of tree and
bush, the almost inaudible sigh of breeze, the opening and shutting of
the great white stars in the blue dome, the silence, the sense of the
invisible void beneath him--all were thought-provoking parts of that
past of which nothing could ever be forgotten. And it was a silence
which brought much to the ear that could hear. It was a silence
penetrated by faint and distant sounds, by mourning wolf, or moan of
wind in a splintered crag. Weird and low, an inarticulate voice, it
wailed up from the desert, winding along the hollow trail, freeing
itself in the wide air, and dying away. He had often heard the scream of
lion and cry of wildcat, but this was the strange sound of which August
Naab had told him, the mysterious call of canyon and desert night.
Daylight showed Echo Cliffs to be of vastly greater range than the
sister plateau across the river. The roll of cedar level, the heave of
craggy ridge, the dip of white-sage valley gave this side a diversity
widely differing from the two steps of the Vermillion tableland. August
Naab followed a trail leading back toward the river. For the most part
thick cedars hid the surroundings from Hare's view; occasionally,
however, he had a backward glimpse from a high point, or a wide prospect
below, where the trail overlooked an oval hemmed-in valley.
About midday August Naab brushed through a thicket, and came abruptly on
a declivity. He turned to his companion with a wave of his hand.
"The Navajo camp," he said. "Eschtah has lived there for many years.
It's the only permanent Navajo camp I know. These Indians are nomads.
Most of them live wherever the sheep lead them. This plateau ranges for
a hundred miles, farther than any white man knows, and everywhere, in
the valleys and green nooks, will be found Navajo hogans. That's why we
may never find Mescal."
Hare's gaze travelled down over the tips of cedar and crag to a pleasant
vale, dotted with round mound-like white-streaked hogans, from which
lazy floating columns of blue smoke curled upward. Mustangs and burros
and sheep browsed on the white patches of grass. Bright-red blankets
blazed on the cedar branches. There was slow colorful movement of
Indians, passing in and out of their homes. The scene brought
irresistibly to Hare the thought of summer, of long warm afternoons, of
leisure that took no stock of time.
On the way down the trail they encountered a flock of sheep driven by a
little Navajo boy on a brown burro. It was difficult to tell which was
the more surprised, the long-eared burro, which stood stock-still, or
the boy, who first kicked and pounded his shaggy steed, and then jumped
off and ran with black locks flying. Farther down Indian girls started
up from their tasks, and darted silently into the shade of the cedars.
August Naab whooped when he reached the valley, and Indian braves
appeared, to cluster round him, shake his hand and Hare's, and lead them
toward the centre of the encampment.
The hogans where these desert savages dwelt were all alike; only the
chief's was larger. From without it resembled a mound of clay with a few
white logs, half imbedded, shining against the brick red. August Naab
drew aside a blanket hanging over a door, and entered, beckoning his
companion to follow. Inured as Hare had become to the smell and smart of
wood-smoke, for a moment he could not see, or scarcely breathe, so thick
was the atmosphere. A fire, the size of which attested the desert
Indian's love of warmth, blazed in the middle of the hogan, and sent
part of its smoke upward through a round hole in the roof. Eschtah, with
blanket over his shoulders, his lean black head bent, sat near the fire.
He noted the entrance of his visitors, but immediately resumed his
meditative posture, and appeared to be unaware of their presence.
Hare followed August's example, sitting down and speaking no word. His
eyes, however, roved discreetly to and fro. Eschtah's three wives
presented great differences in age and appearance. The eldest was a
wrinkled, parchment-skinned old hag who sat sightless before the fire;
the next was a solid square squaw, employed in the task of combing a
naked boy's hair with a comb made of stiff thin roots tied tightly in a
round bunch. Judging from the youngster's actions and grimaces, this
combing process was not a pleasant one. The third wife, much younger,
had a comely face, and long braids of black hair, of which, evidently,
she was proud. She leaned on her knees over a flat slab of rock, and
holding in her hands a long oval stone, she rolled and mashed corn into
meal. There were young braves, handsome in their bronze-skinned way,
with bands binding their straight thick hair, silver rings in their
ears, silver bracelets on their wrists, silver buttons on their
moccasins. There were girls who looked up from their blanket-weaving
with shy curiosity, and then turned to their frames strung with long
threads. Under their nimble fingers the wool-carrying needles slipped in
and out, and the colored stripes grew apace. Then there were younger
boys and girls, all bright-eyed and curious; and babies sleeping on
blankets. Where the walls and ceiling were not covered with buckskin
garments, weapons and blankets, Hare saw the white wood-ribs of the
hogan structure. It was a work of art, this circular house of forked
logs and branches, interwoven into a dome, arched and strong, and all
covered and cemented with clay.
At a touch of August's hand Hare turned to the old
chief; and awaited
his speech. It came with the uplifting of Eschtah's head, and the
offering of his hand in the white man's salute. August's replies were
slow and labored; he could not speak the Navajo language fluently, but
he understood it.
"The White Prophet is welcome," was the chief's greeting. "Does he come
for sheep or braves or to honor the Navajo in his home?"
"Eschtah, he seeks the Flower of the Desert," replied August Naab.
"Mescal has left him. Her trail leads to the bitter waters under the
cliff, and then is as a bird's."
"Eschtah has waited, yet Mescal has not come to him."
"She has not been here?"
"Mescal's shadow has not gladdened the Navajo's door."
"She has climbed the crags or wandered into the canyons. The white
father loves her; he must find her."
"Eschtah's braves and mustangs are for his friend's use. The Navajo will
find her if she is not as the grain of drifting sand. But is the White
Prophet wise in his years? Let the Flower of the Desert take root in the
soil of her forefathers."
"Eschtah's wisdom is great, but he thinks only of Indian blood. Mescal
is half white, and her ways have been the ways of the white man. Nor
does Eschtah think of the white man's love."
"The desert has called. Where is the White Prophet's vision? White blood
and red blood will not mix. The Indian's blood pales in the white man's
stream; or it burns red for the sun and the waste and the wild.
Eschtah's forefathers, sleeping here in the silence, have called the
Desert Flower."
"It is true. But the white man is bound; he cannot be as the Indian; he
does not content himself with life as it is; he hopes and prays for
change; he believes in the progress of his race on earth. Therefore
Eschtah's white friend smelts Mescal; he has brought her up as his own;
he wants to take her home, to love her better, to trust to the future."
"The white man's ways are white man's ways. Eschtah understands. He
remembers his daughter lying here. He closed her dead eyes and sent word
to his white friend. He named this child for the flower that blows in
the wind of silent places. Eschtah gave his granddaughter to his friend.
She has been the bond between them. Now she is flown and the White
Father seeks the Navajo. Let him command. Eschtah has spoken."
Eschtah pressed into Naab's service a band of young braves, under the
guidance of several warriors who knew every trail of the range, every
waterhole, every cranny where even a wolf might hide. They swept the
river-end of the plateau, and working westward, scoured the levels,
ridges, valleys, climbed to the peaks, and sent their Indian dogs into
the thickets and caves. From Eschtah's encampment westward the hogans
diminished in number till only one here and there was discovered, hidden
under a yellow wall, or amid a clump of cedars. All the Indians met with
were sternly questioned by the chiefs, their dwellings were searched,
and the ground about their waterholes was closely examined. Mile after
mile the plateau was covered by these Indians, who beat the brush and
penetrated the fastnesses with a hunting instinct that left scarcely a
rabbit-burrow unrevealed. The days sped by; the circle of the sun arched
higher; the patches of snow in high places disappeared; and the search
proceeded westward. They camped where the night overtook them, sometimes
near water and grass, sometimes in bare dry places. To the westward the
plateau widened. Rugged ridges rose here and there, and seared crags
split the sky like sharp sawteeth. And after many miles of wild up-
ranging they reached a divide which marked the line of Eschtah's domain.
Naab's dogged persistence and the Navajos' faithfulness carried them
into the country of the Moki Indians, a tribe classed as slaves by the
proud race of Eschtah. Here they searched the villages and ancient tombs
and ruins, but of Mescal there was never a trace.
Hare rode as diligently and searched as indefatigably as August, but he
never had any real hope of finding the girl. To hunt for her, however,
despite its hopelessness, was a melancholy satisfaction, for never was
she out of his mind.
Nor was the month's hard riding with the Navajos without profit. He made
friends with the Indians, and learned to speak many of their words. Then
a whole host of desert tricks became part of his accumulating knowledge.
In climbing the crags, in looking for water and grass, in loosing
Silvermane at night and searching for him at dawn, in marking tracks on
hard ground, in all the sight and feeling and smell of desert things he
learned much from the Navajos. The whole outward life of the Indian was
concerned with the material aspect of Nature--dust, rock, air, wind,
smoke, the cedars, the beasts of the desert. These things made up the
Indians' day. The Navajos were worshippers of the physical; the sun was
their supreme god. In the mornings when the gray of dawn flushed to rosy
red they began their chant to the sun. At sunset the Navajos were
watchful and silent with faces westward. The Moki Indians also, Hare
observed, had their morning service to the great giver of light. In the
gloom of early dawn, before the pink appeared in the east, and all was
whitening gray, the Mokis emerged from their little mud and stone huts
and sat upon the roofs with blanketed and drooping heads.
One day August Naab showed in few words how significant a factor the sun
was in the lives of desert men.
"We've got to turn back," he said to Hare. "The sun's getting hot and
the snow will melt in the mountains. If the Colorado rises too high we
can't cross."
They were two days in riding back to the encampment. Eschtah received
them in dignified silence, expressive of his regret. When their time of
departure arrived he accompanied them to the head of the nearest trail,
which started down from Saweep Peak, the highest point of Echo Cliffs.
It was the Navajos' outlook over the Painted Desert.
"Mescal is there," said August Naab. "She's there with the slave Eschtah
gave her. He leads Mescal. Who can follow him there?"
The old chieftain reined in his horse, beside the time-hollowed trail,
and the same hand that waved his white friend downward swept up in slow
stately gesture toward the illimitable expanse. It was a warrior's
salute to an unconquered world. Hare saw in his falcon eyes the still
gleam, the brooding fire, the mystical passion that haunted the eyes of
Mescal.
"The slave without a tongue is a wolf. He scents the trails and the
waters. Eschtah's eyes have grown old watching here, but he has seen no
Indian who could follow Mescal's slave. Eschtah will lie there, but no
Indian will know the path to the place of his sleep. Mescal's trail is
lost in the sand. No man may find it. Eschtah's words are wisdom. Look!"
To search for any living creatures in that borderless domain of colored
dune, of shifting cloud of sand, of purple curtain shrouding mesa and
dome, appeared the vainest of all human endeavors. It seemed a veritable
the copper belt close under the cliffs, the white beds of alkali and
washes of silt farther out, the wind-ploughed canyons and dust-
encumbered ridges ranging west and east, the scalloped slopes of the
flat tableland rising low, the tips of volcanic peaks leading the eye
beyond to veils and vapors hovering over blue clefts and dim line of
level lanes, and so on, and on, out to the vast unknown. Then Hare
grasped a little of its meaning. It was a sun-painted, sun-governed
world. Here was deep and majestic Nature eternal and unchangeable. But
it was only through Eschtah's eyes that he saw its parched slopes, its
terrifying desolateness, its sleeping death.
When the old chieftain's lips opened Hare anticipated the austere
speech, the import that meant only pain to him, and his whole inner
being seemed to shrink.
"The White Prophet's child of red blood is lost to him," said Eschtah.
"The Flower of the Desert is as a grain of drifting sand."
XIII. THE SOMBRE LINE
AUGUST NAAB hoped that Mescal might have returned in his absence; but to
Hare such hope was vain. The women of the oasis met them with gloomy
faces presaging bad news, and they were reluctant to tell it. Mescal's
flight had been forgotten in the sterner and sadder misfortune that had
followed.
Snap Naab's wife lay dangerously ill, the victim of his drunken frenzy.
For days after the departure of August and Jack the man had kept himself
in a stupor; then his store of drink failing, he had come out of his
almost senseless state into an insane frenzy. He had tried to kill his
wife and wreck his cottage, being prevented in the nick of time by Dave
Naab, the only one of his brothers who dared approach him. Then he had
ridden off on the White Sage trail and had not been heard from since.
The Mormon put forth all his skill in surgery and medicine to save the
life of his son's wife, but he admitted that he had grave misgivings as
to her recovery. But these in no manner affected his patience,
gentleness, and cheer. While there was life there was hope, said August
Naab. He bade Hare, after he had rested awhile, to pack and ride out to
the range, and tell his sons that he would come later.
It was a relief to leave the oasis, and Hare started the same day, and
made Silver Cup that night. As he rode under the low-branching cedars
toward the bright camp-fire he looked about him sharply. But not one of
the four faces ruddy in the glow belonged to Snap Naab.
"Hello, Jack," called Dave Naab, into the dark. "I knew that was you.
Silvermane sure rings bells when he hoofs it down the stones. How're you
and dad? and did you find Mescal? I'll bet that desert child led you
clear to the Little Colorado."
Hare told the story of the fruitless search.
"It's no more than we expected," said Dave. "The man doesn't live who
can trail the peon. Mescal's like a captured wild mustang that's slipped
her halter and gone free. She'll die out there on the desert or turn
into a stalk of the Indian cactus for which she's named. It's a pity,
for she's a good girl, too good for Snap."
"What's your news?" inquired Hare.
"Oh, nothing much," replied Dave, with a short laugh. "The cattle
wintered well. We've had little to do but hang round and watch. Zeke and
I chased old Whitefoot one day, and got pretty close to Seeping Springs.
We met Joe Stube, a rider who was once a friend of Zeke's. He's with
Holderness now, and he said that Holderness had rebuilt the corrals at
the spring; also he has put up a big cabin, and he has a dozen riders
there. Stube told us Snap had been shooting up White Sage. He finished
up by killing Snood. They got into an argument about you."
"About me!"
"Yes, it seems that Snood took your part, and Snap wouldn't stand for
it. Too bad! Snood was a good fellow. There's no use talking, Snap's
going too far--he is--" Dave did not conclude his remark, and the
silence was more significant than any utterance.
"What will the Mormons in White Sage say about Snap's killing Snood?"
"They've said a lot. This even-break business goes all right among gun-
fighters, but the Mormons call killing murder. They've outlawed Culver,
and Snap will be outlawed next."
"Your father hinted that Snap would find the desert too small for him
and me?"
"Jack, you can't be too careful. I've wanted to speak to you about it.
Snap will ride in here some day and then--" Dave's pause was not
reassuring.
And it was only on the third day after Dave's remark that Hare, riding
down the mountain with a deer he had shot, looked out from the trail and
saw Snap's cream pinto trotting toward Silver Cup. Beside Snap rode a
tall man on a big bay. When Hare reached camp he reported to George and
Zeke what he had seen, and learned in reply that Dave had already caught
sight of the horsemen, and had gone down to the edge of the cedars.
While they were speaking Dave hurriedly ran up the trail.
"It's Snap and Holderness," he called out, sharply. "What's Snap doing
with Holderness? What's he bringing him here for?"
"I don't like the looks of it," replied Zeke, deliberately.
"Jack, what'll you do?" asked Dave, suddenly.
"Do? What can I do? I'm not going to run out of camp because of a visit
from men who don't like me."
"It might be wisest."
"Do you ask me to run to avoid a meeting with your brother?"
"No." The dull red came to Dave's cheek. "But will you draw on him?"
"Certainly not. He's August Naab's son and your brother."
"Yes, and you're my friend, which Snap won't think of. Will you draw on
Holderness, then?"
"For the life of me, Dave, I can't tell you," replied Hare, pacing the
trail. "Something must break loose in me before I can kill a man. I'd
draw, I suppose, in self-defence. But what good would it do me to pull
too late? Dave, this thing is what I've feared. I'm not afraid of Snap
or Holderness, not that way. I mean I'm not ready. Look here, would
either of them shoot an unarmed man?"
"Lord, I hope not; I don't think so. But you're packing your gun."
Hare unbuckled his cartridge-belt, which held his Colt, and hung it over
the pommel of his saddle; then he sat down on one of the stone seats
near the camp-fire.
"There they come," whispered Zeke, and he rose to his feet, followed by
George.
"Steady, you fellows," said Dave, with a warning glance. "I'll do the
talking."
Holderness and Snap appeared among the cedars, and trotting out into the
glade reined in their mounts a few paces from the fire. Dave Naab stood
directly before Hare, and George and Zeke stepped aside.
"Howdy, boys?" called out Holderness, with a smile, which was like a
gleam of light playing on a frozen lake. His amber eyes were steady,
their gaze contracted into piercing yellow points. Dave studied the
cattle-man with cool scorn, but refusing to speak to him, addressed his
brother.
"Snap, w
hat do you mean by riding in here with this fellow?"
"I'm Holderness's new foreman. We're just looking round," replied Snap.
The hard lines, the sullen shade, the hawk-beak cruelty had returned
tenfold to his face and his glance was like a living, leaping flame.
"New foreman!" exclaimed Dave. His jaw dropped and he stared in
amazement. "No--you can't mean that--you're drunk!"
"That's what I said," growled Snap.
"You're a liar!" shouted Dave, a crimson blot blurring with the brown on
his cheeks. He jumped off the ground in his fury.
"It's true, Naab; he's my new foreman," put in Holderness, suavely. "A
hundred a month--in gold--and I've got as good a place for you."
"Well, by G--d!" Dave's arms came down and his face blanched to his
lips. "Holderness!"
"I know what you'd say," interrupted the ranchman.
"But stop it. I know you're game. And what's the use of fighting? I'm
talking business. I'll--"
"You can't talk business or anything else to me," said Dave Naab, and he
veered sharply toward his brother. "Say it again, Snap Naab. You've
hired out to ride for this man?"
"That's it."
"You're going against your father, your brothers, your own flesh and
blood?"
"I can't see it that way."
"Then you're a drunken, easily-led fool. This man's no rancher. He's a
rustler. He ruined Martin Cole, the father of your first wife. He's
stolen our cattle; he's jumped our water-rights. He's trying to break
us. For God's sake, ain't you a man?"
"Things have gone bad for me," replied Snap, sullenly, shifting in his
saddle. "I reckon I'll do better to cut out alone for myself."
"You crooked cur! But you're only my half-brother, after all. I always
knew you'd come to something bad, but I never thought you'd disgrace the
Naabs and break your father's heart. Now then, what do you want here? Be
quick. This's our range and you and your boss can't ride here. You can't
even water your horses. Out with it!"
At this, Hare, who had been so absorbed as to forget himself, suddenly
felt a cold tightening of the skin of his face, and a hard swell of his
breast. The dance of Snap's eyes, the downward flit of his hand seemed
instantaneous with a red flash and loud