The Enchanted Canyon

by Honoré Willsie Morrow

  "What solitary trip was Wee-tah undertaking?" asked Enoch. "Or mustn't I inquire?"

  "On one of the buttes in the canyon country," replied Diana, "Wee-tah's grandfather, a great chief, was killed, years ago. Wee-tah is going up to that butte to pray for his little son who has never been born."

  "Ah!" said Enoch, and fell silent. Diana, in her favorite attitude, hands clasping her knees, watched the fire. At last Enoch roused himself.

  "Shall you come to Washington this winter, Diana?"

  "I ought to, but I may not. I may go into the Havesupai country for two months, after you go East, and put Washington off until late spring."

  "Don't fear that I shall disturb you, when you come, dear." Enoch looked at Diana with troubled eyes.

  She looked at him, but said nothing, and again there was silence. Enoch emptied his pipe and put it in his pocket.

  "After you have finished this work for the President, then what, Diana?"

  She shook her head. "There is plenty of time to plan for that. If I go into the angle of the children's games and their possible relations to religious ceremonies, there's no telling when I shall wind up! Then there are their superstitions that careful study might separate clearly from their true spiritism. The great danger in work like mine is that it is apt to grow academic. In the pursuit of dry ethnological facts one forgets the artistry needed to preserve it and present it to the world."

  "Whew!" sighed Enoch. "I'm afraid you're a fearful highbrow, Diana! Hello, Jonas, what can I do for you?"

  "We all are going down the desert a piece with Wee-tah. They's a charm down there he knows about. They think we'll be gone about an hour. But don't worry about us."

  "Don't let the ghosts get you, old man,", said Enoch. "After all you've lived through, that would be too simple."

  Jonas grinned, and followed the Indians out into the darkness.

  "Now," inquired Enoch, "is that tact or superstition?"

  "Both, I should say," replied Diana. "We'll have to agree that Na-che and Jonas are doing all they can to make the match. I gather from what Na-che says that they're working mostly on love charms for us."

  "More power to 'em," said Enoch grimly. "Diana, let's walk out under the stars for a little while. The fire dims them."

  They rose, and Enoch put his arm about the girl and said, with a tenderness in his beautiful voice that seemed to Diana a very part of the harmony of the glowing stars:

  "Diana! Oh, Diana! Diana!"

  She wondered as they moved slowly away from the fire, if Enoch had any conception of the beauty of his voice. It seemed to her to express the man even more fully than his face. All the sweetness, all the virility, all the suffering, all the capacity for joy that was written in Enoch's face was expressed in his voice, with the addition of a melodiousness that only tone could give. Although she never had heard him make a speech she knew how even his most commonplace sentence must wing home to the very heart of the hearer.

  They said less, in this hour alone together, than they said in any evening of their journey. And yet they both felt as if it was the most nearly perfect of their hours.

  Perhaps it was because the sky was more magnificent than it had been before; the stars larger and nearer and the sky more deeply, richly blue.

  Perhaps it was because after the dusk and heat of the day, the uproar of the sand and wind, the cool silence was doubly impressive and thrice grateful.

  And perhaps it was because of some wordless, intangible reason, that only lovers know, which made Diana seem more beautiful, more pure, her touch more sacred, and Enoch stronger, finer, tenderer than ever before.

  At any rate, walking slowly, with their arms about each other, they were deeply happy.

  And Enoch said, "Diana, I know now that not one moment of the loneliness and the bitterness of the years, would I part with. All of it serves to make this moment more perfect."

  And suddenly Diana said, "Enoch, hold me close to you again, here, under the stars, so that I may never again look at them, when I'm alone in the desert, without feeling your dear arms about me, and your dear cheek against mine."

  And when they were back by the fire again, Enoch once more leaned against Diana's knee and felt the soft touch of her hand on his hair and forehead.

  The three magic-makers returned, chanting softly, as magic-makers should. Faint and far across the desert sounded the intriguing rhythm long before the three dark faces were caught by the firelight. When they finally appeared, Jonas was bearing an eagle's feather.

  "Miss Diana," he said solemnly, "will you give me one of your long hairs?"

  Quite as solemnly, Diana plucked a long chestnut spear and Jonas wrapped it round the stem of the feather. Then he joined the other two at the water hole. Enoch and Diana looked at each other with a smile.

  "Do you think it will work, Diana?" asked Enoch.

  "Eagle feather magic is strong magic," replied Diana. "I shall go to sleep believing in it. Good night, Enoch."

  "Good night, Diana."

  Wee-tah left them after breakfast, cantering away briskly on his pony, his long hair blowing, Na-che and Jonas shouting laughingly after him.

  It was a brisk, clear morning, with ribbons of mist blowing across the distant ranges. By noon, their way was leading through scattered growths of stunted cedar and juniper with an occasional gnarled, undersized oak in which grew mistletoe thick-hung with ivory berries. Bear grass and bunch grass dotted the sand. Orioles and robins sang as they foraged for the blue cedar berry. All the afternoon the trees increased in size and when they made camp at night, it was under a giant pine whose kindred stretched in every direction as far as the eye could pierce through the dusk. There was water in a tiny rivulet near by.

  "It's heavenly, Diana!" exclaimed Enoch, as he returned from hobbling the horses. "We must be getting well up as to elevation. There is a tang to the air that says so."

  Diana nodded a little sadly. "One night more, after this, then you'll sleep at El Tovar, Enoch."

  "I'm not thinking even of to-morrow, Diana. This moment is enough. Are you tired?"

  "Tired? No!" but the eyes she lifted to Enoch's were faintly shadowed. "Perhaps," she suggested, "I'm not living quite so completely in the present as you are."

  "Necessity hasn't trained you during the years, as it has me," said Enoch. "If the trail had not been so bad to-day and I could have ridden beside you, I think I could have kept your thoughts here, sweetheart."

  "I think you could have, Enoch," agreed Diana, with a wistful smile.

  The hunting had been good that day. Amongst them, the travelers had bagged numerous quail and cottontails, and Jonas had brought in at noon a huge jack rabbit. This they could not eat but its left hind foot, Jonas claimed, would make a sensation in Washington. Supper was a festive meal, Na-che producing a rabbit soup, and Jonas broiling the quail, which he served with hot biscuit that the most accomplished chef might have envied.

  After the meal was finished and Enoch and Diana were standing before the fire, debating the feasibility of a walk under the pines, Jonas and Na-che approached them solemnly.

  Jonas cleared his throat. "Boss and Miss Diana, Na-che and me, we want you to do something for us. We know you all trust us both and so we don't want you to ask the why or the wherefore, but just go ahead and do it."

  "What is it, Jonas?" asked Diana.

  "Well, up ahead a spell in these woods, there's a round open space and in the middle of it under a big rock an Injun and his sweetheart is buried. Something like a million years ago he stole her from over yonder from the--" he hesitated, and Na-che said softly:

  "Hopis."

  "Yes, the Hopis. And her tribe come lickety-cut after her, and overtook 'em at that spot yonder, and her father give her the choice of coming back or both of 'em dying right there. They chose to die, and there they are. Wee-tah and Na-che and all the Injuns believe--"

  Na-che pulled at his sleeve.

  "Oh, I forgot! We ain't going to tell you what they b
elieve, because whites don't never have the right kind of faith. Let me alone, Na-che. How come you think I can't tell this story? But what we ask of you is, will you and Miss Allen, boss, go up to that stone yonder, and lay this eagle's feather beside it, then sit on the stone until a star falls."

  Enoch and Diana looked at each other, half smiling.

  "Don't say no," urged Na-che. "You want to take a walk, anyhow."

  "And what happens, if the star falls?" asked Diana.

  "Something mighty good," replied Jonas.

  "It's pretty cold for sitting still so long, isn't Jonas?" asked Enoch.

  "You can take a blanket to wrap round yourselves. Do it, boss! You know you and Miss Diana don't care where you are as long as you get a little time alone together."

  Enoch laughed. "Come along, Diana! Who knows what Indian magic might do for us!"

  "That's right," Na-che nodded approval. "There's an old trail to it, see!" she led Diana beyond the camp pine, and pointed to the faint black line, that was traceable in the sand under the trees. The pine forest was absolutely clear of undergrowth.

  "Come on, Enoch," laughed Diana, and Enoch, chuckling, joined her, while the two magicians stood by the fire, interest and satisfaction showing in every line of their faces.

  Diana had little difficulty following the trail. To Enoch's unaccustomed eyes and feet, the ease with which she led the way was astonishing. She walked swiftly under the trees for ten minutes, then paused on the edge of a wide amphitheater, rich in starlight. In the center lay a huge flat stone. They made their way through the sand to this. Dimly they could discern that the sides of the rock were covered with hieroglyphics. Diana laid the eagle's feather in a crevice at the end of the rock.

  "See!" exclaimed Enoch. "Other lovers have been here before!" He pointed to feathers at different points in the rock. "It must indeed be strong magic!"

  He folded one blanket for a seat, another he pulled over their shoulders, for in spite of the brisk walk, they both were shivering with the cold.

  "What do you suppose the world at large would say," chuckled Diana, "if it would see the Secretary of the Interior, at this moment."

  "I think it would say that as a human being, it was beginning to have hope of him," replied Enoch.

  Then they fell silent. The great trees that widely encircled them were motionless. The heavens seemed made of stars. Enoch drew Diana close against him, and leaned his cheek upon her hair. Slowly a jack rabbit loped toward the ancient grave, stopped to gaze with burning eyes at the two motionless figures, twitched his ears and slowly hopped away. Shortly a cottontail deliberately crossed the circle, then another and another. Suddenly Diana touched Enoch's hand softly.

  "In the trees, opposite!" she breathed.

  Two pairs of fiery eyes moved slowly out until the starlight revealed two tiny antelope, gray, graceful shadows of the desert night. The pair stared motionless at the ancient grave, then gently trotted away. Now came a long interval in which neither sound nor motion was perceptible in the silvery dusk. Then like little gray ghosts with glowing eyes half a dozen antelope moved tranquilly across the amphitheater. Enoch and Diana watched breathlessly but for many moments more there was no sign of living creature. And suddenly a great star flashed across the radiant heavens.

  "The magic!" whispered Diana, "the desert magic!"

  "Diana," murmured Enoch in reply, "this is as near heaven as mortals may hope to reach."

  "Desert magic!" repeated Diana softly. "Come, dear, we must go back to camp."

  Enoch rose reluctantly and put his hands on Diana's shoulders. "Those lovers, long ago," he said, his deep voice tender and wistful, "those lovers long ago were not far wrong in their decision. I'm sure, in the years to come, when I think of this evening, and this journey, I shall feel so."

  Diana touched his cheek softly with her hand. "I love you, Enoch," was all she said, and they returned in silence to the camp.

  "We saw the star fall!" exclaimed Jonas, waiting by the fire with Na-che.

  Enoch nodded and, after a glance at his face, Jonas said nothing more.

  All the next day they penetrated deeper and deeper into the mighty forest. All day long the trail lifted gradually, the air growing rarer and colder as they went.

  It was biting cold when they made their night camp deep in the woods. But a glorious fire before a giant tree trunk made the last evening on the trail one of comfort. Na-che and Jonas had run out of excuses for leaving the lovers alone, but nothing daunted, after supper was cleared off they made their own camp fire at a distance and sat before it, singing and laughing even after Diana had withdrawn to her tent.

  "Enoch," said Diana, "I have something that I want to say to you, but I'll admit that it takes more courage than I've been able to gather together until now. But this is our last evening and I must relieve my mind."

  Enoch, surprised by the earnestness of Diana's voice, laid down his pipe and put his hand over hers. "I don't see why you need courage to say anything under heaven to me!"

  "But I do on this subject," returned Diana, raising wide, troubled eyes to his. "Enoch, you have made me love you and then have told me that you cannot marry me. I think that I have the right to tell you that you are abnormal toward marriage. You are spoiling our two lives and I am entering a most solemn protest against your doing so."

  "But, Diana--" began Enoch.

  "No!" interrupted Diana. "You must hear me through in silence, Enoch. I remember my father telling me that Seaton believed that you had been made the victim of almost hypnotic suggestion by that beast, Luigi. Not that Luigi knew anything about auto-suggestion or anything of the sort! He simply wanted to enslave a boy who was a clever gambler. And so he planted the vicious suggestion in your mind that you were necessarily bad because your mother was. And all these years, that suggestion has held, not to make you bad but to make you fear that your children would be or that disease, mental or physical, is latent in you which marriage would uncover. Enoch, have you never talked your case over with a psychologist?"

  "No!" replied Enoch. "I've always felt that I was perfectly normal and I still feel so. Moreover, I've wanted to bury my mother's history a thousand fathoms deep. Consider too, that I've never wanted to marry any woman till I met you."

  "And having met me," said Diana bitterly, "you allow a preconceived idea to wreck us both. You astonish me almost as much as you make me suffer. Enoch, did you ever try to trace your father?"

  "Diana, what chance would I have of finding my father when you consider what my mother was? Nevertheless, I have tried." And Enoch told in detail both Seaton's and the Police Commissioner's efforts in his behalf.

  Diana rose and paced restlessly up and down before the fire. Enoch rose with her and stood leaning against the tree trunk, watching her with tragic eyes. Finally Diana said:

  "I'm not clever at argument, but every woman has a right to fight for her mate. I insist that your reasons for not marrying are chimeras. And if I'm willing to risk marrying the man who may or may not be the son of Luigi's mistress, he should be willing to risk marrying me."

  "But, you see, you do admit it's a risk!" exclaimed Enoch.

  "No more a risk than marriage always is," declared Diana, with a smile that had no humor in it. "Enoch, let's not be cowardly. Let's 'set the slug horn dauntless to our lips.'"

  Enoch covered his eyes with his hands. Cold sweat stood on his brow. All the ugly, menacing suggestions of thirty years crowded his answer to his lips.

  "Diana, we must not!" he groaned.

  Diana drew a quick breath, then said, "Enoch, I cannot submit tamely to such a decision. I have a friend in Boston who is one of the great psycho-analysts of the country. When I return to Washington in the spring I shall go to see him."

  "God! Shall I never be able to bury Minetta Lane?" cried Enoch.

  "Not until you dig the grave yourself, my dear! Yours has been a case for a mind specialist, all these years, not a detective. I, for one, refuse to let Minetta Lane ha
g ride me if it is possible to escape it." Suddenly she smiled again. "I'll admit I'm not at all Victorian in my attitude."

  "You couldn't be anything that was not fine," returned Enoch sadly. "But I cannot bear to have you buoy yourself with false hopes."

  "A drowning woman grasps at straws, I suppose," said Diana, a little brokenly. "Good night, my dearest," and Diana went into the tent, leaving Enoch to ponder heavily over the fire until the cold drove him to his blankets.

  Breaking camp the next morning was dreary and arduous enough. Snow was still falling, the mules were recalcitrant and a bitter wind had piled drifts in every direction. The four travelers were in a subdued mood, although Enoch heartened himself considerably by urging Diana to remember that they had still to look forward to the trip down Bright Angel.

  They floundered through the snow for two heavy hours before Diana looked back at Enoch to say,

  "We're only a mile from the cabin now, Enoch!"

  "Only a mile!" exclaimed Enoch. "Diana, I wonder what your father will say when he sees me!"

  "He thinks you are two thousand miles from here!" laughed Diana. "We'll see what he will say."

  "And so," murmured Enoch to himself, "any perfect journey is ended."

  * * *

  BOOK IV

  THE PHANTASM DESTROYED

  CHAPTER XV

  THE FIRING LINE AGAIN

  "When I shall have given you up, Diana, I shall love my own solitude as never before. For you will dwell there and he who has lovely thoughts is never lonely."--_Enoch's Diary_.

  The cabin was built of cedar logs. Frank had added to it as necessity arose or his means permitted, and it sprawled pleasantly under the pines, as if it belonged there and enjoyed being there. Na-che gave her peculiar, far-carrying call, some moments before the cabin came into view, and when the little cavalcade jingled up to the door, it was wide open, a ruddy faced, white-haired man standing before it.

  "Hello, Diana!" he shouted. "Where in seven thunders have you been! You're a week late!"