The Enchanted Canyon

by Honoré Willsie Morrow

  "You're crazy, Na-che! I'm telling you the boss won't never marry."

  "How do you know what's in your boss's mind?" demanded Na-che.

  "I know all right. And I know he thinks a lot of Miss Diana, too, but I know he won't marry her. He won't marry anybody."

  "But why?" urged the Indian woman, sadly, "Why should things be so wrong? When he loves her and she loves him and they were made for each other!"

  "How come you to think she loves him?" demanded Jonas.

  "Don't I know the mind of my Diana? Isn't she my little child, even if her mother did bear her. Don't I see her kiss that little picture she has of him in her locket every night when she says her prayers?"

  "Well--" began Jonas, but he was interrupted by a call from Curly.

  "Whoever's minding the stew might be interested in knowing that it's boiling over!"

  "Coming! Coming!" cried Jonas and Na-che.

  Darkness had now settled on the river. Enoch lay motionless until they called him in to supper. When he entered the cabin where the table was set, Curly cried, "Hello, Judge! Where've you been? I swear you look as if you'd been walking with a ghost."

  "Perhaps I have," Enoch replied, grimly, as he took his seat.

  Harden and Forrester, none too energetic, but shaven and in order, were at the table, where their story was eagerly picked from them.

  Forrester had slept the first night in the cavern Enoch had noted. Harden never even saw the cavern but had spent the night crawling steadily toward the rim. At dawn, Forrester had made his way to the top of the butte by the same route Enoch had followed, and had seen Harden, a black speck moving laboriously on the southern horizon. He had not recognized him, and set out to overtake him. It was not until noon that he had done so. Even after he realized whom he was pursuing, he had not given up, for by that time he was rueing bitterly his hasty and ill-equipped departure.

  None of the auditors of the two men needed detailed description either of the ardors of that trip nor of the embarrassment of the meeting. Nor did Forrester or Harden attempt any. After they had met they tried to keep a course that moved southwest. There were no trails. For endless miles, fissures and buttes, precipices to be scaled, mountains to be climbed, canyons to be crossed. For one day they were without water, but the morning following they found a pot hole, full of water. Weakness from lack of food added much to the peril of the trip, one cottontail being the sole contribution of the gun to their larder. They did not strike the trail until the day previous to their arrival in the camp.

  "Have you had enough desert to last you the rest of your life?" asked Curly as Harden ended the tale.

  "Not I!" said Forrester, "nor Canyon either! I'm going to find some method of getting Milt to let me finish the trip with him."

  "Me too," added Harden.

  "How much quarreling did you do?" asked Milton, abruptly, from the bunk.

  Neither man answered for a moment, then Forrester, flushing deeply, said, "All we ask of you, Milt, is to give us a trial. Set us ashore if you aren't satisfied with us."

  Milton grunted and Diana said, quickly, "What are you people going to do until Mr. Milton gets well?"

  All of the crew looked toward the leader's bunk. "Wait till we get the doctor's report," said Milton. "Hard, you were going to show Curly a placer claim around here, weren't you?"

  "Yes, if I can be spared for a couple of days. We can undertake that, day after to-morrow."

  "You're on!" exclaimed Curly. "Judge, don't forget you and I are due to have a little conversation before we separate."

  "I haven't forgotten it," replied Enoch.

  "Sometime to-morrow then. To-night I've got to get my revenge on Agnew. He's a wild cat, that's what he is. Must have been born in a gambling den. Sit in with us, Judge or anybody!"

  "Not I," said Enoch, shortly.

  "Still disapprove, don't you, Judge!" gibed Curly. "How about the rest of you? Diana, can you play poker?"

  "Thanks, Curly! My early education in that line was neglected." Diana smiled and turned to Enoch. "Judge, do you think you'll feel up to starting to-morrow afternoon? There's a spring five miles west that we could make if we leave here at two o'clock and I'd like to feel that I'd at least made a start, to-morrow. My father is going to be very much worried about me. I'm nearly a week overdue, now."

  "I'll be ready whenever you are, Diana. How about you, Jonas?"

  "I'm always on hand, boss. Mr. Milton, can I have the broken oar blade we kept to patch the Ida with?"

  "What do you want it for, Jonas?" asked Milton.

  "I'm going to have it framed. And Mr. Harden and Mr. Agnew, don't forget those fillums!"

  "Lucky for you the films were stored in the Ida, Jonas!" exclaimed Agnew. "I'll develop some of those in the morning, and see what sort of a show you put up."

  Diana rose. "Well, good night to you all! Mr. Milton, is there anything Na-che or I can do for you?"

  "No, thank you, Miss Allen, I think I'm in good hands."

  Enoch rose to open the door for Diana. "Thank you, Judge," she said, "Good night!"

  "Diana," said Enoch, under cover of the conversation at the table, "before we start to-morrow, will you give me half an hour alone with you?"

  There was pain and determination both in Enoch's voice. Diana glanced at him a little anxiously as she answered, "Yes, I will, Enoch."

  "Good night, Diana," and Enoch retired to his bunk, where he lay wide awake long after the card game was ended and the room in darkness save for the dull glow of the fire.

  He made no attempt the next day to obtain the half hour Diana had promised him. He helped Jonas with their meager preparations for the trip, then took a gun and started along the trail which led up the Ferry canyon to the desert. But he had not gone a hundred yards, when Diana called.

  "Wait a moment, Judge! I'll go with you."

  She joined him shortly with her gun and game bag. "We'll have Na-che cook us a day's supply of meat before we start," she said. "The hunting is apt to be poor on the trail we're to take home."

  Enoch nodded but said nothing. Something of the old grim look was in his eyes again. He paused at the point where the canyon gave place to the desert. Here a gnarled mesquite tree and an old half-buried log beneath it, offered mute evidence of a gigantic flooding of the river.

  "Let's sit here for a little while, Diana," he said.

  They put their guns against the mesquite tree and sat down facing the distant river.

  "Diana," Enoch began abruptly, "in spite of what your father and John Seaton believed and wanted me to believe, the things that the Brown papers said about my mother are true. Only, Brown did not tell all. He did not give the details of her death. I suppose even Luigi hesitated to tell that because I almost beat him to death the last time he tried it.

  "Seaton and I never talked much about the matter. He tried to ferret out facts, but had no luck. By the time I was seventeen or eighteen I realized that no man with a mother like mine had a right to marry. But I missed the friendship of women, I suppose, for when I was perhaps eighteen or nineteen I made a discovery. I found that somewhere in my heart I was carrying the image of a girl, a slender girl, with braids of light brown hair wrapped round her head, a girl with the largest, most intelligent, most tender gray eyes in the world, and a lovely curving mouth, with deep corners. I named her Lucy, because I'd been reading Wordsworth and I began to keep a diary to her. I've kept it ever since.

  "You can have no idea, how real, how vivid, how vital a part of my life Lucy became to me. She was in the very deepest truth my better self, for years. And then this summer, a miracle occurred! Lucy walked into my office! Beauty, serenity, intelligence, sweetness, gaiety, and gallantry--these were Lucy's in the flesh as I could not even dream for Lucy of the spirit. Only in one particular though had I made an actual error. Her name was not Lucy, it was Diana! Diana! the little girl of Bright Angel who had entered my turbulent boyish heart, all unknown to me, never to leave it! . . . Diana! Lucy! I lov
e you and God help me, I must not marry!"

  Enoch, his nails cutting deep into his palms turned from the river, at which he had been staring steadily while speaking, to Diana. Her eyes which had been fastened on Enoch's profile, now gazed deep into his, pain speaking to pain, agony to agony.

  "If," Enoch went on, huskily, "there is no probability of your growing to care for me, then I think our friendship can endure. I can crowd back the lover and be merely your friend. But if you might grow to care, even ever so little, then, I think at the thought of your pain, my heart would break. So, I thought before it is too late--"

  Suddenly Diana's lips which had grown white, trembled a little. "It is too late!" she whispered. "It is too late!" and she put her slender, sunburned hands over her face.

  "Don't! Oh, don't!" groaned Enoch. He took her hands down, gently. Diana's eyes were dry. Her cheeks were burning. Enoch looked at her steadily, his breath coming a little quickly, then he rose and with both her hands in his lifted her to her feet.

  "Do you love me, Diana?" he whispered.

  She looked up into his eyes. "Yes, Enoch! Oh, yes!" she answered, brokenly.

  "How much do you love me, dear?" he persisted.

  She smiled with a tragic beauty in droop of lips and anguish of eyes. "With all there is in me to give to love, Enoch."

  "Then," said Enoch, "this at least may be mine," and he laid his lips to hers.

  When he lifted his head, he smoothed her hair back from her face. "Remember, I am not deceiving myself, Diana," he said huskily. "I have acted like a selfish, unprincipled brute. If I had not, in Washington, let you see that I cared, you would have escaped all this."

  "I did not want to escape it, Enoch," she said, smiling again while her lips quivered. "Yet I thought I would have strength enough to go away, without permitting you to tell me about it. But I was not strong enough. However," stepping away from Enoch, "now we both understand, and I'll go home. And we must never see each other again, Enoch."

  "Never see each other again!" he repeated. Then his voice deepened. "Go about our day's work year after year, without even a memory to ease the gnawing pain. God, Diana, do you think we are machines to be driven at will?"

  Diana drew a long breath and her voice was very steady as she answered. "Don't let's lose our grip on ourselves, Enoch. It only makes a hard situation harder. Now that we understand each other, let us kiss the cross, and go on."

  Enoch, arms folded on his chest, great head bowed, walked up and down under the trees slowly for a moment. When he paused before her, it was to speak with his customary calm and decision, though his eyes smoldered.

  "Diana, I want to take the trip with you, just as we planned, and go down Bright Angel with your father and you. I want those few days in the desert with you to carry me through the rest of my life. You need not fear, dear, that for one moment I will lose grip on myself."

  Diana looked at him as if she never had seen him before. She looked at the gaunt, strong features, the massive chin, the sensitive, firm mouth, the lines of self-control and purposefulness around eyes and lips, and over all the deep-seated sadness that made Enoch's face unforgettable. Slowly she turned from him to the desert, and after a moment, as if she had gathered strength from the far horizon, she answered him, still with the little note of steadiness in her voice:

  "I think we'll have to have those last few days, together, Enoch."

  Enoch heaved a deep sigh then smiled, brilliantly. "And now," he said, "I dare not go back to camp without at least discharging my gun, do you?"

  "No, Judge!" replied Diana, picking up her gun, with a little laugh.

  "Don't call me Judge, when we're alone!" protested Enoch.

  Diana with something sweeter than tenderness shining in her great eyes, touched his hand softly with hers.

  "No, dear!" she whispered.

  Enoch looked at her, drew a deep breath, then put his gun across his arm and followed Diana to the yucca thicket where quail was to be found. They were very silent during the hour of hunting. They bagged a pair of cottontails and a number of quail, and when they did speak, it was only regarding the hunt or the preparations for the coming exodus. They reached camp, just before dinner, Diana disappearing into the tent, and Enoch tramping prosaically and wearily into the cabin to throw himself down on his bunk. He had not yet recovered from the last days in the Canyon.

  "You shouldn't have tackled that tramp this morning, Judge," said Milton. "You should have saved yourself for this afternoon."

  "You saw who his side pardner was, didn't you?" asked Curly.

  "Yes," replied Milton, grinning.

  "Then why make foolish comments?"

  "I am a fool!" agreed Milton.

  "Judge," asked Curly, "how about you and me having our conflab right after dinner?"

  "That will suit me," replied Enoch, "if you can drag yourself from Agnew and poker that long."

  "I'll make a superhuman effort," returned Curly.

  The conference, which took place under the cedar near the Ida, did not last long.

  "Curly," said Enoch, lighting his pipe, "I haven't made up my mind yet, whether I want you to give me the information about Fowler and Brown or not."

  "What's the difficulty?" demanded Curly.

  "Well, there's a number of personal reasons that I don't like to go into. But I've a suggestion to make. You say you're trying to get money together with which to retain a lawyer and carry out a campaign, so you aren't in a hurry, anyway. Now you write down in a letter all that you know about the two men, and send the letter to me, I'll treat it as absolutely confidential, and will return the material to you without reading it if I decide not to use it."

  Curly puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. "That's fair enough, Judge. As you say there's no great hurry and I always get het up, anyhow, when I talk about it. I'd better put it down in cool black and white. Where can I reach you?"

  "No. 814 Blank Avenue, Washington, D. C.," replied Enoch.

  Curly pulled an old note book out of his hip pocket and set down the address:

  "All right, Judge, you'll hear from me sometime in the next few weeks. I'll go back now and polish Agnew off."

  And he hurried away, leaving Enoch to smoke his pipe thoughtfully as he stared at the Ida.

  CHAPTER XIV

  LOVE IN THE DESERT

  "While I was teaching my boy obedience, I would teach him his next great obligation, service. So only could his manhood be a full one."--_Enoch's Diary_.

  Shortly after two o'clock, Diana announced that she was ready to start. But the good-bys consumed considerable time and it was nearly three before they were really on their way. Enoch's eyes were a little dim as he shook hands with Milton.

  "Curly has my address, Milton," he said, "drop me a line once in a while. I shall be more deeply interested in your success than you can realize."

  "I'll do it, Judge, and when I get back East, I'll look you up. You're a good sport, old man!"

  "You're more than that, Milton! Good-by!" and Enoch hurried out in response to Jonas' call.

  They were finally mounted and permitted to go. Na-che rode first, leading a pack mule, Jonas second, leading two mules, Diana followed, Enoch bringing up the rear. Much to Jonas' satisfaction, Enoch had been obliged to abandon the overalls and flannel shirt which he had worn into the Canyon. Even the tweed suit was too ragged and shrunk to be used again. So he was clad in the corduroy riding breeches and coat that Jonas had brought. But John Red Sun's boots were still doing notable service and the soft hat, faded and shapeless, was pulled down over his eyes in comfort if not in beauty.

  There was a vague trail to the spring which lay southwest of the Ferry. It led through the familiar country of fissures and draws that made travel slow and heavy. The trail rose, very gradually, wound around a number of multi-colored peaks and paused at last at the foot of a smooth-faced, purple butte. Here grew a cottonwood, sheltering from sun and sand a lava bowl, eroded by time and by the tiny stream of water that
dripped into it gently. There was little or no view from the spring, for peaks and buttes closely hemmed it in. The November shadows deepened early on the strange, winding, almost subterranean trail, and although when they reached the cottonwood, it was not sundown, they made camp at once. Diana's tent was set up in the sand to the right of the spring. Enoch collected a meager supply of wood and before five o'clock supper had been prepared and eaten.

  For a time, after this was done, Enoch and Diana sat before the tiny eye of fire, listening to the subdued chatter with which Jonas and Na-che cleared up the meal.

  Suddenly, Enoch said, "Diana, how brilliant the stars are, to-night! Why can't we climb to the top of the butte for a little while? I feel smothered here. It's far worse than the river bottom."

  "Aren't you too tired?" asked Diana.

  "Not too tired for as short a climb as that, unless you are feeling done up!"

  "I!" laughed Diana. "Why, Na-che will vouch for it that I've never had such a lazy trip before! Na-che, the Judge and I are going up the butte. Just keep a little glow of fire for us, will you, so that we can locate the camp easily."

  "Yes, Diana, and don't be frightened if you hear noises. I'm going to teach Jonas a Navajo song."

  "We'll try not to be," replied Diana, laughing as she rose.

  It was an ascent of several hundred feet, but easily made and the view from the top more than repaid them for the effort. In all his desert nights, Enoch never had seen the stars so vivid. For miles about them the shadowy peaks and chasms were discernible. And Diana's face was delicately clear cut as she seated herself on a block of stone and looked up at him.

  "Diana," said Enoch, abruptly, "you make me wish that I were a poet, instead of a politician."

  "But you aren't a politician!" protested Diana. "You shall not malign yourself so."

  "A pleasant comment on our American politics!" exclaimed Enoch. "Well, whatever I am, words fail me utterly when I try to describe the appeal of your beauty."