by Anya Seton
She glanced unconsciously to the cliff dwelling down the canyon. The frozen city hung there as aloof and separate as the moon, withdrawn again into the perfect quiet which they had violated.
He skinned the rabbit in silence for a moment. “We must face it all soon, though,” he said at last very low. “There’s much to be said between us.”
“Not now,” she cried, “not until you’re strong enough.”
He raised his head and looked at her. There was sadness and question in his eyes. “You saved my life, Andy,” he said, “I’m still helpless without you. How can I deny anything you ask?”
She rose impulsively. She would have gone to him, telling him that when there is love there is no debt on either side, that she did not wish him humbled and uncertain, that his pride was now as dear to her as her own. But a wiser instinct stopped her. Too often in the past she had assaulted the citadel of his personality, battering her way with coarse and blunted weapons, trying to hurry him, trying to change him to a preconceived mold. She knew how painful, how deep a dislocation of all his character was the admission he had just made, and that she must take no advantage of it.
She sank back again, and picked up a handful of green shoots from off a tin plate. “I’m too hungry for deep discussion,” she said lightly, as though she had not heard him. “Shall I fry these wild onions in the bacon grease with the rabbit?—And you go back to bed now, that’s quite enough exertion for a convalescent.”
Dart gave her a puzzled look, but he finished preparing the rabbit, and did as she suggested. His body would not obey his commands. He loathed the waves of blank exhaustion and the dizziness which still swept over him, and which he could not ignore as he did the pain in his healing wounds, as he had always ignored the few discomforts and ailments of his healthy lifetime. He lay down on his blankets and just as sleep overpowered him he heard Amanda singing softly out by the campfire, a plaintive waltz tune.
Her voice was small and low and pure, it lulled him and gave him pleasure. Yet he had never heard her sing before. He had not known she ever sang.
Five more days passed in the enchanted valley, and except for the stiffness of his wounds, Dart was nearly well. He could walk the length of the canyon now, he had managed to shoot for them another smaller and more tender wild turkey. He had bathed in the waterfall, and duly shaven off his beard. During these days of his returning strength when she no longer nursed him, they had been oddly shy with each other, like the shyness of early courtship. They spoke little and left sentences unfinished, an unexpected touch on hand or arm left them both confused and stammering. And like a golden current a newborn tenuous magic flowed between them. It was as though they had never known each other, or been together before.
On the ninth evening since the tragedy in the cave, they sat beside their campfire having dined on fried turkey breasts, stewed greens, coffee, and a whole panful of sourdough bread topped with wild honey discovered by Dart in a hollow tree when he shot the turkey.
There were no stars tonight studding the narrow strip of sky above the canyon, great mounded clouds floated and caught on the overhanging rim, and a waxing moon peered through the clouds fitfully.
“Thunder in the air,” said Dart, lighting a cigarette. “We’re about due for a storm.”
“Yes,” she said. There was a hot tension in the still air.
Dart got up and fastened her poncho over the top of the shelter. He had already woven and fortified the pine-bough roof. “At least we won’t get drenched in there when it comes,” he said, returning to the fire.
They were both silent, both smoking and staring at the flames.
Then Dart stretched out his long legs, leaned back against a tree trunk, and deliberately gazed up at the cliff city. It shone tonight not by its own phosphorescence but by the wan light of the fitful moon.
“We’ve got to face it, Andy,” he said. “We’ve got to talk about Hugh.”
She sat up straight, clenching her hands. “Hugh!” she repeated on a breaking voice. “He was evil—horrible. He tried to kill you.”
Dart shook his head, his face turned upwards to the cliff city. “He wasn’t altogether sane. He tried to kill the thing he thought stood between him and—and his last chance.”
The last chance, the fabulous wealth that wasn’t there, and if it had been, Hugh must have known in his soul that it would not buy back his wife; no gold would have reversed the long disintegration, or given him self-respect.
“But he was your friend,” cried Amanda violently. “That was one thing I always felt, was sure of.”
“Yes,” answered Dart sighing. “And yet I was no friend. I gave him nothing. There were times way back when I might have listened to him. He tried once to tell me about his wife. I was embarrassed and I shut him out.”
She was silent, wondering. What had they three found in the Lost Valley? Nothing that they had set out for. Ugliness and murder and the smell of blood and death had hidden in the bright beckoning flower, but beyond that there had been a bridge for two of them leading out of fear and into gentleness and pity.
“The Mountain Spirits had mercy on us,” she said at last. “We two were protected—and, I think, forgiven.”
He had been going on to speak of other things pertaining to Hugh, to speak of plans and arrangements they must face in the world beyond the valley, but hearin her low dreaming voice he could not. He looked across the firelight at her, seeing the beauty and the strength which he had so long denied. Not boyish, not a pretty child’s face under bright curls, but the face of a warm and understanding woman.
He got up and came around the fire beside her, and he knelt by her gazing up into her wide and darkening eyes. “Am I too forgiven...?” he whispered. “For I cannot live without you now.”
Her breath came through her lips and touched his cheek as gently as the first fluttering of the storm wind in the pines. She leaned close to him, “There’s no thought of forgiveness between us, Dart. There’s only love.”
He picked her up in his arms and carried her into the pine-bough bed. The storm came. The thunder and the lightning roared and flashed in the canyon, but for the two inside the shelter there was no fear. The majesty of the storm mingled with the awe of their own fulfillment. Not only the union of their bodies in passion and release as it had been before, but the deeper union of the spirit as it had never been; the blinding bliss of communication when two beings for the brief, unbearable instant that is allowed, merge into one.
The storm passed, and the moon came out unhindered, flooding the canyon with silver. Silver darkened to gray, and dawn filled the canyon with murmurous mist. The birds awoke, and pale cinnamon light seeped through the leafy roof over the two who lay in each other’s arms.
Amanda stirred, she raised herself on her elbow and looked down at him. His eyes were open as she had known they would be. They looked into each other’s souls with recognition and deep awareness, and they smiled at each other. The smile was more beautiful than the ecstatic merging of their bodies had been.
She dropped her head and kissed his naked arm. He held her hard against his body and they listened together to the music of the dawn. They were one with the mystery of all creation, and there was peace.
A mountain thrush called his clear song from the summit of a great yellow pine, and the great symphony to which they had listened diminished as it always must into quieter, simpler melody.
Ah, stay with us forever—but it may not stay, yet it will leave behind an echo of vibration, never silenced, though sometimes in the deafening crashes of the outer life it may go unheard. And then there is still the thrush’s song.
The sun mounted the overhanging cliffs and burst in redgold challenge through the doorway of their shelter, bringing even to the enchanted canyon inexorable return to system, to the exigencies of the material world.
Amanda and Dart rose together and she shivered a little in the chill mountain air. She looked at his big, lean, hardmuscled body and she cried, in contrition an
d in tender laughter, “Oh, my darling—I had forgotten your wounds.”
He glanced down at his left shoulder and laughed. “So had I.”
“Do they hurt?” She touched the bandage anxiously.
“No, they don’t hurt, silly one.” He pulled her to him and kissed her softly on the mouth. “Here,” he said, “you’re cold—” He picked up a blanket and wrapped it around her. “I’ll make the fire while you get dressed.” He pulled on his pants and a sweater, and she heard him whistling as he laid their breakfast fire.
After breakfast they bathed together in the waterfall, and they laughed much, scrubbing their glowing bodies with the remnants of their soap, swimming in the tiny pool, splashing beneath the icy spray, and all the time beneath the love and the laughter a shadow deepened, and the knowledge of the question that she dreaded.
She voiced it at last after they had dressed again. She sat down on a rock beside the little pool, and gazing down the sunny valley towards their camp, she said, “When, Dart?”
The pain and the yearning in her heart were reflected in his own eyes. He touched her shining hair, but he answered with quiet firmness. “Tomorrow.”
“If we could stay—” she said, her voice faint above the sound of the waterfall, “if we could stay a little while...” “No, Andy. Very soon the snows will come. But anyway, we could not stay. You know that.”
She bowed her head. “Yes, I know that.”
“This isn’t life,” he said. “This is the lost valley of the Ancient Ones. It’s a dream that we forced ourselves into and where we found both tragedy and great beauty. But it’s not enough. It could never be,enough.”
“No,” she said. “I know.”
“You must wonder what we’re going back to.” His tone hardened. “It’s better to speak of these things now, here—while we are still—protected.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I know now that we have each other, and we always will, our love will give us both strength—” He stopped.
But love is not all, she thought. There are other needs. For a man like Dart there is work, his profession, and honor. And this must be so, it was inherent in his virility, in the tough masculinity which she no longer wished to soften or to cloy.
“I have no job,” he said. “I was fired under circumstances of—of peculiar ignominy. Made to look a fool. An incompetent, exhibitionistic fool.”
“No. No,” she cried. “It isn’t true.”
“You didn’t believe it?” he asked, looking at her suddenly with startled eyes.
“Of course, I didn’t believe it. I thought Big Ruby knew something that would help. I went to her. I went to Calise—on the day before the baby ... but it didn’t do any good.”
Dart shut his eyes. He raised the soft, brown little hand he held and put it against his cheek. “My dear—” he said. “I didn’t know. In everything that had to do with you I was a fool.”
“And I was a grasping, spoiled brat.—Oh, Dart, you talk of the hard things out beyond this valley, but they still seem far away and unimportant. When we get back we can forget Lodestone forever. Wipe it off the slate.”
“Perhaps we might,” said Dart slowly. “Except for one thing. I’ll have to report Hugh’s death—. To Mr. Tyson first, I suppose.”
At first she did not understand the meaning of his words, and then shock spiralled through her, and a terrified recoil—
“No, Dart—no. They didn’t believe you before, they might think——” She shuddered. “You don’t have to tell anything. Nobody cared what happened to Hugh.”
“Hush—darling,” he said, and the endearment she had never heard from him cut through her panic. She listened, knowing that he spoke the truth. “His death must be reported. Tyson must know who should be notified. The thing happened, and we can’t pretend that it’s never been. I was responsible for Hugh on this expedition and I must see it through.”
Yes, it was for this of many reasons that she loved him. She would not let fear strike down into her heart again, not yet.... Not while they were yet cradled in the enchantment, not while the sun shone through the pines, and the cascade rippled out its music.
“We still have today—” she whispered, and Dart, understanding, smiled and jumped up. “Come let’s search for the lotus-eating burro. I’ll bet by this time he thinks he’s Oberon disguised, with myrtle and with roses twined. You’ll have to be Titania and lure him.”
“He doesn’t lure easy,” she said with a choking laugh. They ran together down the pine-scented trail into the canyon, still guarded by the magic of the lost valley.
The next day at seven they stood again upon the ledge beside the crevice in the rock which led outside, and they looked back for the last time at the green valley, fairyland of whispering trees and cool, life-giving waters. There was nothing left to show that they had been there. Dart had taken down the shelter and scattered the pine boughs back amongst the primeval carpet with their fellows. The ashes of their fires were buried under clean, sweet earth where the grass would soon grow. And they had taken nothing from the valley except the onyx and silver crucifix which had belonged to the Spanish padre.
All was as though they had never dared the forbidden journey, except that something of their spirits would remain with the other spirits of the long-ago and happy people who had once lived there.
They raised their eyes to the Pueblo Encantado. The frozen little city of stone floated blue and still in its shadowed eastern cave, hushed in mystery, guarding one more of the quiet and passionless dead.
Amanda’s heart whispered farewell, her eyes burned, but the compassion and the yearning were too deep for tears.
She heard Dart’s quivering breath as he stood beside her, and knew that it was the same for him.
They turned together and walked through the darkness of the little tunnel, leading their burro, back to the sharp, cruel light of the barren waste of rocks—the malpais.
They traveled fast, down, ever downward over the trail they had so painfully struggled up, as Dart’s unerring memory retraced their steps. They found the hollow pit in the lava, and the store of cans they had had to leave behind to traverse the terrible country beyond with the lame burro.
Dart saw at a glance that three of the cans were gone, and on the edge of the lava pit there was a pile of interlocking small stones.
“What’s that?” asked Amanda. “It wasn’t here before.”
“No,” he said quietly. “John Whitman stopped here. He must have left this message for me.” He bent over and examined the position of the stones.
“What does it say, Dart?”
He straightened up, his mouth constricted. “It says ‘Friend.’ He left it here in case we should ever get away alive. It’s the Apache stone language we learned together as boys.”
She asked no further questions. He must always do as he thought right, and her love for him accepted him now as he was, with many things she would never entirely understand, though always she could trust his sense of justice. But what was justice in the case of John Whitman? She thought of John at the rancheria at San Carlos—of Rowena and the baby, and the kindness they all had shown her. She thought of the cruel Apache face in the Cave of the Dead, vindictive, sneering, as he kicked the body of the man he had shot. But then he had shown mercy according to his code. He had spared the two he might also have slaughtered, leaving them to the dispositions of fate. He had killed not from blood lust but for the preservation of an ideal. And yet he had murdered—And she did not know what Dart would do.
As they descended the mountains and the canyons she felt their troubles crowding up to meet them ever thicker and more dense. They never spoke of it, it was not necessary to speak of it, but when at last they descended the easy trail from Deadman’s Creek towards the Verde, and saw in the distance the smoke of Payson Pete’s General Store at Staghorn, she saw what awaited them with a cold and unshrinking clarity.
They had no money and no job, and in this year of 1933 jobs would be hard to fi
nd for a young engineer who had been fired in disgrace. Moreover, they must report a murder under circumstances which would probably not be believed. Her spirit quailed, and she tried not to think ahead.
Payson Pete waddled forth to meet them when he heard the tinkle of the burro’s bell through the trees. “Howdy, folks,” he called, waving his fat arm. “D’you have a nice outing? Molly and me was kinda gettin’ to wonderin’ how you was makin’ out. Been gone so long.”
He surveyed them shrewdly. Nice-looking pair for all they were grown lean and tough as a couple of young lions. The fellow’s dark hair was longer and he moved easy and lithe like an Indian runner Pete had known in his youth. He might almost have been an Indian with that iron-quiet look about him that you knew there was a lot going on inside you’d never find out—except he was so tall and his eyes were gray. As for the girl, she was prettier than ever with a kind of glow in her pink cheeks under the tan. There was something straight and shining about the two of them hadn’t been there before, when they took off. The mountains did that sometimes, changed people one way or the other.
Pete glanced back up the trail behind Amanda and Dart. “Where’s the other fellow?” he asked, leaning over the burro to help Dart untie the pack rope.
Dart did not answer at once, and Amanda spoke in the brief silence. “He went—by another way.”
Dart glanced at her quickly. She saw doubt in his eyes, then he accepted her decision. This inquisitive old storekeeper was not the proper authority.
“You don’t say,” said Pete quizzically. He had no doubt they’d had a fight over the girl and the other man had had to clear out. Which was okay. He and Molly hadn’t liked the other guy anyhow. “D’you make any lucky strikes?” he asked chuckling. While he helped Dart unhitch he had managed to feel over the nearly empty packs, just in case. And there sure wasn’t any ore in them any place.
“No, we didn’t,” said Dart smiling. “But we certainly hit some rough country, as you said.” He smiled, but there was a cool dignity about him which made it impossible for Pete to question further. So he acquiesced cheerfully, saying, “You bet. Them Matazals’re rough as hell,” and added, “What’re you aimin’ to do with the burro? I’ll buy him back for six bits.” Pete might be curious about the few wayfarers that turned up at Staghorn, but he was also an old-timer bred to a country where everybody’s business was his own, and it wasn’t polite to get too nosy.