The Heritage of the Desert
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Zane Grey >> The Heritage of the Desert
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The splintered desert-floor merged into an area of sand. Wolf slowed his
trot, and Silvermane's hoofs sunk deep. Dismounting Hare labored beside
him, and felt the heat steal through his boots and burn the soles of his
feet. Hare plodded onward, stopping once to tie another moccasin on
Wolf's worn paw, this time the left one; and often he pulled the stopper
from the water-bag and cooled his parching lips and throat. The waves of
the sand-dunes were as the waves of the ocean. He did not look backward,
dreading to see what little progress he had made. Ahead were miles on
miles of graceful heaps, swelling mounds, crested ridges, all different,
yet regular and rhythmical, drift on drift, dune on dune, in endless
waves. Wisps of sand were whipped from their summits in white ribbons
and wreaths, and pale clouds of sand shrouded little hollows. The
morning breeze, rising out of the west, approached in a rippling lines
like the crest of an inflowing tide.
Silvermane snorted, lifted his ears and looked westward toward a yellow
pall which swooped up from the desert.
"Sand-storm," said Hare, and calling Wolf he made for the nearest rock
that was large enough to shelter them. The whirling sand-cloud
mushroomed into an enormous desert covering, engulfing the dunes,
obscuring the light. The sunlight failed; the day turned to gloom. Then
an eddying fog of sand and dust enveloped Hare.,. His last glimpse be-
fore he covered his face with a silk handkerchief was of sheets of sand
streaming past his shelter. The storm came with a low, soft, hissing
roar, like the sound in a sea-shell magnified. Breathing through the
handkerchief Hare avoided inhaling the sand which beat against his face,
but the finer dust particles filtered through and stifled him. At first
he felt that he would suffocate, and he coughed and gasped; but
presently, when the thicker sand-clouds had passed, he managed to get air
enough to breathe. Then he waited patiently while the steady seeping
rustle swept by, and the band of his hat sagged heavier, and the load on
his shoulders had to be continually shaken off, and the weighty trap
round his feet crept upward. When the light, fine touch ceased he
removed the covering from his face to see himself standing nearly to his
knees in sand, and Silvermane's back and the saddle burdened with it.
The storm was moving eastward, a dull red now with the sun faintly
showing through it like a ball of fire.
"Well, Wolf, old boy, how many storms like that will we have to weather?"
asked Hare, in a cheery tone which he had to force. He knew these
sand-storms were but vagaries of the desert-wind. Before the hour closed
he had to seek the cover of a stone and wait for another to pass. Then
he was caught in the open, with not a shelter in sight. He was compelled
to turn his back to a third storm, the worst of all, and to bear as best
he could the heavy impact of the first blow, and the succeeding rush and
flow of sand. After that his head drooped and he wearily trudged beside
Silvermane, dreading the interminable distance he must cover before once
more gaining hard ground. But he discovered that it was useless to try
to judge distance on the desert. What had appeared miles at his last
look turned out to be only rods.
It was good to get into the saddle again and face clear air. Far away
the black spur again loomed up, now surrounded by groups of mesas with
sage-slopes tinged with green. That surely meant the end of this long
trail; the faint spots of green lent suggestion of a desert waterhole;
there Mescal must be, hidden in some shady canyon. Hare built his hopes
anew.
So he pressed on down a plain of bare rock dotted by huge bowlders; and
out upon a level floor of scant sage and greasewood where a few living
creatures, a desert-hawk sailing low, lizards darting into holes, and a
swiftly running ground-bird, emphasized the lack of life in the waste.
He entered a zone of clay-dunes of violet and heliotrope hues; and then a
belt of lava and cactus. Reddish points studded the desert, and here and
there were meagre patches of white grass. Far away myriads of cactus
plants showed like a troop of distorted horsemen. As he went on the
grass failed, and streams of jagged lava- flowed downward. Beds of
cinders told of the fury of a volcanic fire. Soon Hare had to dismount
to make moccasins for Wolf's hind feet; and to lead Silvermane carefully
over the cracked lava. For a while there were strips of ground bare of
lava and harboring only an occasional bunch of cactus, but soon every
foot free of the reddish iron bore a projecting mass of fierce spikes and
thorns. The huge barrel-shaped cacti, and thickets of slender dark-green
rods with bayonet points, and broad leaves with yellow spines, drove Hare
and his sore-footed fellow-travellers to the lava.
Hare thought there must be an end to it some time, yet it seemed as
though he were never to cross that black forbidding inferno. Blistered
by the heat, pierced by the thorns, lame from long toil on the lava, he
was sorely spent when once more he stepped out upon the bare desert. On
pitching camp he made the grievous discovery that the water-bag had
leaked or the water had evaporated, for there was only enough left for
one more day. He ministered to thirsty dog and horse in silence, his
mind revolving the grim fact of his situation.
His little fire of greasewood threw a wan circle into the surrounding
blackness. Not a sound hinted of life. He longed for even the bark of a
coyote. Silvermane stooped motionless with tired head. Wolf stretched
limply on the sand. Hare rolled into his blanket and stretched out with
slow aching relief.
He dreamed he was a boy roaming over the green hills of the old farm,
wading through dewy clover-fields, and fishing in the Connecticut River.
It was the long vacationtime, an endless freedom. Then he was at the
swimming-hole, and playmates tied his clothes in knots, and with shouts
of glee ran up the bank leaving him there to shiver.
When he awakened the blazing globe of the sun had arisen over the eastern
horizon, and the red of the desert swathed all the reach of valley.
Hare pondered whether he should use his water at once or dole it out.
That ball of fire in the sky, a glazed circle, like iron at white heat,
decided for him. The sun would be hot and would evaporate such water as
leakage did not claim, and so he shared alike with Wolf, and gave the
rest to Silvermane.
For an hour the mocking lilac mountains hung in the air and then paled in
the intense light. The day was soundless and windless, and the
heat-waves rose from the desert like smoke. For Hare the realities were
the baked clay flats, where Silvermane broke through at every step; the
beds of alkali, which sent aloft clouds of powdered dust; the deep
gullies full of round bowlders; thickets of mesquite and prickly thorn
which tore at his legs; the weary detour to head the canyons; the climb
to get between two bridging mesas; and always the haunting presence of
the sad-eyed dog. His unrealities were the shimmering sheets of water in
every low place; the baseless mountains floating in the air; the green
slopes rising close at hand; beautiful buttes of dark blue riding the
open sand, like monstrous barks at sea; the changing outlines of desert
shapes in pink haze and veils of purple and white lustre--all illusions,
all mysterious tricks of the mirage.
In the heat of midday Hare yielded to its influence and reined in his
horse under a slate -bank where there was shade. His face was swollen
and peeling, and his lips had begun to dry and crack and taste of alkali.
Then Wolf pattered on; Silvermane kept at his heels; Hare dozed in the
saddle. His eyes burned in their sockets from the glare, and it was a
relief to shut out the barren reaches. So the afternoon waned.
Silvermane stumbled, jolting Hare out of his stupid lethargy. Before him
spread a great field of bowlders with not a slope or a ridge or a mesa or
an escarpment. Not even a tip of a spur rose in the background. He
rubbed his sore eyes. Was this another illusion?
When Silvermane started onward Hare thought of the Navajos' custom to
trust horse and dog in such an emergency. They were desert-bred; beyond
human understanding were their sight and scent. He was at the mercy now
of Wolf's instinct and Silvermane's endurance. Resignation brought him a
certain calmness of soul, cold as the touch of an icy hand on fevered
cheek. He remembered the desert secret in Mescal's eyes; he was about to
solve it. He remembered August Naab's words: "It's a man's deed!" If so,
he had achieved the spirit of it, if not the letter. He remembered
Eschtah's tribute to the wilderness of painted wastes: "There is the
grave of the Navajo, and no one knows the trail to the place of his
sleep!" He remembered the something evermore about to be, the unknown
always subtly calling; now it was revealed in the stone-fettering grip of
the desert. It had opened wide to him, bright with its face of danger,
beautiful with its painted windows, inscrutable with its alluring call.
Bidding him enter, it had closed behind him; now he looked upon it in its
iron order, its strange ruins racked by fire, its inevitable
remorselessness.
XV
DESERT NIGHT
The gray stallion, finding the rein loose on his neck, trotted forward
and overtook the dog, and thereafter followed at his heels. With the
setting of the sun a slight breeze stirred, and freshened as twilight
fell, rolling away the sultry atmosphere. Then the black desert night
mantled the plain.
For a while this blackness soothed the pain of Hare's sun-blinded eyes.
It was a relief to have the unattainable horizon line blotted out. But
by-and-by the opaque gloom brought home to him, as the day had never
done, the reality of his solitude. He was alone in this immense place of
barrenness, and his dumb companions were the world to him. Wolf pattered
onward, a silent guide; and Silvermane followed, never lagging,
sure-footed in the dark, faithful to his master. All the love Hare had
borne the horse was as nothing to that which came to him on this desert
night. In and out, round and round, ever winding, ever zigzagging,
Silvermane hung close to Wolf, and the sandy lanes between the bowlders
gave forth no sound. Dog and horse, free to choose their trail, trotted
onward miles and miles into the night.
A pale light in the east turned to a glow, then to gold, and the round
disc of the moon silhouetted the black bowlders on the horizon. It
cleared the dotted line and rose, an oval orange-hued strange moon, not
mellow nor silvery nor gloriously brilliant as Hare had known it in the
past, but a vast dead-gold melancholy orb, rising sadly over the desert.
To Hare it was the crowning reminder of lifelessness; it fitted this
world of dull gleaming stones.
Silvermane went lame and slackened his trot, causing Hare to rein in and
dismount. He lifted the right forefoot, the one the horse had favored,
and found a stone imbedded tightly in the cloven hoof. He pried it out
with his knife and mounted again. Wolf shone faintly far ahead, and
presently he uttered a mournful cry which sent a chill to the rider's
heart. The silence had been oppressive before; now it was terrible. It
was not a silence of life. It had been broken suddenly by Wolf's howl,
and had closed sharply after it, without echo; it was a silence of death.
Hare took care not to fall behind Wolf again, he had no wish to hear that
cry repeated. The dog moved onward with silent feet; the horse wound
after him with hoofs padded in the sand; the moon lifted and the desert
gleamed; the bowlders grew larger and the lanes wider. So the night wore
on, and Hare's eyelids grew heavy, and his whole weary body cried out for
rest and forgetfulness. He nodded until he swayed in the saddle; then
righted himself, only to doze again The east gave birth to the morning
star. The whitening sky was the harbinger of day. Hare could not bring
himself to face the light and heat, and he stopped at a wind-worn cave
under a shelving rock. He was asleep when he rolled out on the
sand-strewn floor. Once he awoke and it was still day, for his eyes
quickly shut upon the glare. He lay sweltering till once more slumber
claimed him.The dog awakened him, with cold nose and low whine. Another
twilight had fallen. Hare crawled out, stiff and sore, hungry and
parching with thirst. He made an attempt to eat, but it was a failure.
There was a dry burning in his throat, a dizzy feeling in his brain, and
there were red flashes before his eyes. Wolf refused meat, and Silver-
mane turned from the grain, and lowered his head to munch a few blades of
desert grass.
Then the journey began, and the night fell black. A cool wind blew from
the west, the white stars blinked, the weird moon rose with its ghastly
glow. Huge bowlders rose before him in grotesque shapes, tombs and
pillars and statues of Nature's dead, carved by wind and sand. But some
had life in Hare's disordered fancy. They loomed and towered over him,
and stalked abroad and peered at him with deep-set eyes.
Hare fought with all his force against this mood of gloom. Waif eras not
a phantom; he trotted forward with unerring instinct; and he would find
water, and that meant life. Silvermane, desert-steeled, would travel to
the furthermost corner of this hell of sand-swept stone. Hare tried to
collect all his spirit, all his energies, but the battle seemed to be
going against him. All about him was silence, breathless silence,
insupportable silence of ages. Desert spectres danced in the darkness.
The worn-out moon gleamed golden over the worn-out waste. Desolation
lurked under the sable shadows.
Hare rode on into the night, tumbled from his saddle in the gray of dawn
to sleep, and stumbled in the twilight to his drooping horse. His eyes
were blind now to the desert shapes, his brain burned and his tongue
filled his mouth.Silvermane trod ever upon Wolf's heels; he had come into
the kingdom of his desert-strength; he lifted his drooping head and
lengthened his stride; weariness had gone and he snorted his welcome to
something on the wind. Then he passed the limping dog and led the way.
Hare held to the pommel and bent dizzily forward in the saddle.
Silvermane was going down, step by step, with metallic clicks upon flinty
rock. Whether he went down or up was all the same to Hare; he held on
with closed eyes and whispered to himself. Down and down, step by step,
cracking the stones with iron-shod hoofs, the gray stallion worked his
perilous way, sure-footed as a mountain-sheep. Then he stopped with a
great slow heave and bent his head.
The black bulge of a canyon rim blurred in Hare's hot eyes. A trickling
sound penetrated his tired brain. His ears had grown like his eyes--
false. Only another delusion! As he had been tortured with the sight of
lake and stream now he was to be tortured with the sound of running
water. Yet he listened, for it was sweet even in its mockery. What a
clear musical tinkle, like silver bells tossing on the wind! He listened.
Soft murmuring flow, babble and gurgle, little hollow fall and splash!
Suddenly Silvermane, lifting his head, broke the silence of the canyon
with a great sigh of content. It pierced the dull fantasy of Hare's
mind; it burst the gloomy spell. The sigh and the snort which followed
were Silvermane's triumphant signals when he had drunk his fill.
Hare fell from the saddle. The gray dog lay stretched low in the
darkness. Hare crawled beside him and reached out with his hot hands.
Smooth cool marble rock, growing slippery, then wet, led into running
water. He slid forward on his face and wonderful cold thrills quivered
over his burning skin. He drank and drank until he could drink no more.
Then he lay back upon the rock; the madness of his brain went out with
the light of the stars, and he slept.
When he awoke red canyon walls leaned far above him to a gap spanned by
blue sky. A song of rushing water murmured near his ears. He looked
down; a spring gushed from a crack in the wall; Silvermane cropped green
bushes, and Wolf sat on his haunches waiting, but no longer with sad eyes
and strange mien. Hare raised himself, looking again and again, and
slowly gathered his wits. The crimson blur had gone from his eyes and
the burning from his skin, and the painful swelling from his tongue.
He drank long and deeply, and rising with clearing thoughts and thankful
heart, he kissed Wolf's white head, and laid his arms round Silvermane's
neck. He fed them, and ate himself, not without difficulty, for his lips
were puffed and his tongue felt like a piece of rope. When he had eaten,
his strength came back.
At a word Wolf, with a wag of his tail, splashed into the gravelly stream
bed. Hare followed on foot, leading Silvermane. There were little beds
of pebbles and beaches of sand and short steps down which the water
babbled. The canyon was narrow and tortuous; Hare could not see ahead or
below, for the projecting red cliffs, growing higher as he descended,
walled out the view. The blue stream of sky above grew bluer and the
light and shade less bright. For an hour he went down steadily without a
check, and the farther down the rougher grew the way. Bowlders wedged in
narrow places made foaming waterfalls. Silvermane clicked down
confidently.
The slender stream of water, swelled by seeping springs and little rills,
gained the dignity of a brook; it began to dash merrily and hurriedly
downward. The depth of the falls, the height of cliffs, and the size of
the bowlders increased in the descent. Wolf splashed on unmindful; there
was a new spirit in his movements; and when he looked back for his
laboring companions there was friendly protest in his eyes. Silvermane's
mien plainly showed that where a dog could go he could follow.
Silvermane's blood was heated; the desert was an old story to him; it had
only tired him and parched his throat; this canyon of downward steps and
falls, with ever-deepening drops, was new to him, and roused his mettle;
and from his long training in the wilds he had gained a marvellous
sure-footedness.
The canyon narrowed as it deepened; the jutting walls leaned together,
shutting out the light; the sky above was now a ribbon of blue, only to
be seen when Hare threw back his head and stared straight up.
"It'll be easier climbing up, Silvermane," he panted--"if we ever get
the chance."
The sand and gravel and shale had disappeared; all was bare clean-washed
rock. In many places the brook failed as a trail, for it leaped down in
white sheets over mossy cliffs. Hare faced these walls in despair. But
Wolf led on over the ledges and Silvermane followed, nothing daunted. At
last Hare shrank back from a hole which defied him utterly. Even Wolf
hesitated. The canyon was barely twenty feet wide; the floor ended in a
precipice; the stream leaped out and fell into a dark cleft from which no
sound arose. On the right there was a shelf of rock; it was scarce half
a foot broad at the narrowest and then apparently vanished altogether.
Hare stared helplessly up at the slanting shut-in walls.
While he hesitated Wolf pattered out upon the ledge and Silvermane
stamped restlessly. With a desperate fear of losing his beloved horse
Hare let go the bridle and stepped upon the ledge. He walked rapidly,
for a slow step meant uncertainty and a false one meant death. He heard
the sharp ring of Silvermane's shoes, and he listened in agonized
suspense for the slip, the snort, the crash that he feared must come.
But it did not come. Seeing nothing except the narrow ledge, yet feeling
the blue abyss beneath him, he bent all his mind to his task, and finally
walked out into lighter space upon level rock. To his infinite relief
Silvermane appeared rounding a corner out of the dark passage, and was
soon beside him.
Hare cried aloud in welcome.
The canyon widened; there was a clear demarcation where the red walls
gave place to yellow; the brook showed no outlet from its subterranean
channel. Sheer exhaustion made Hare almost forget his mission; the
strength of his resolve had gone into mechanical toil; he kept on,
conscious only of the smart of bruised hands and feet and the ache of
laboring lungs.
Time went on and the sun hung in the midst of the broadening belt of blue
sky. A long slant of yellow slope led down to a sage-covered level,
which Hare crossed, pleased to see blooming cacti and wondering at their
slender lofty green stems shining with gold flowers. He descended into a
ravine which became precipitous. Here he made only slow advance. At the
bottom he found himself in a wonderful lane with an almost level floor;
here flowed a shallow stream bordered by green willows. Wolf took the
direction of the flowing water. Hare's thoughts were all of Mescal, and
his hopes began to mount, his heart to beat high.
He gazed ahead with straining eyes. Presently there was not a break in
the walls. A drowsy hum of falling water came to Hare, strange reminder
of the oasis, the dull roar of the Colorado, and of Mescal.
His flagging energies leaped into life with the canyon suddenly opening
to bright light and blue sky and beautiful valley, white and gold in
blossom, green with grass and cottonwood. On a flower-scented wind
rushed that muffled roar again, like distant thunder.
Wolf dashed into the cottonwoods. Silvermane whistled with satisfaction
and reached for the long grass.
For Hare the light held something more than beauty, the breeze something
more than sweet scent of water and blossom. Both were charged with
meaning--with suspense.
Wolf appeared in the open leaping upon a slender brown-garbed form.
"Mescal!" cried Hare.
With a cry she ran to him, her arms outstretched, her hair flying in the
wind, her dark eyes wild with joy.
XVI
THUNDER RIVER
For an instant Hare's brain reeled, and Mescal's broken murmurings were
meaningless Then his faculties grew steady and acute; he held the girl as
if he intended never to let her go. Mescal clung to him with a wildness
that gave him anxiety for her reason; there was something almost fierce
in the tension of her arms, in the blind groping for his face.
"Mescal! It's Jack, safe and well," he said. "Let me look at you."
At the sound of his voice all her rigid strength changed to a yielding
weakness; she leaned back supported by his arms and looked at him. Hare
trembled before the dusky level glance he remembered so well, and as
tears began to flow he drew her head to his shoulder. He had forgotten
to prepare himself for a different Mescal. Despite the quivering smile
of happiness, her eyes were strained with pain. The oval contour, the
rich bloom of her face had gone; beauty was there still, but it was the
ghost of the old beauty.
"Jack--is it--really you?" she asked.
He answered with a kiss.
She slipped out of his arms breathless and scarlet. "Tell me all--"
"There's much to tell, but not before you kiss me. It has been more than
a year."
"Only a year! Have I been gone only a year?"
"Yes, a year. But it's past now. Kiss me, Mescal. One kiss will pay
for that long year, though it broke my heart."
Shyly she raised her hands to his shoulders and put her lips to his.
"Yes, you've found me, Jack, thank God! just in time!"
"Mescal! What's wrong? Aren't you well?"
"Pretty well. But if you had not come soon I should have starved."
"Starved? Let me get my saddle-bags--I have bread and meat."
"Wait. I'm not so hungry now. I mean very soon I should not have had
any food at all."
"But your peon--the dumb Indian? Surely he could find something to eat.
What of him? Where is he?"
"My peon is dead. He has been dead for months, I don't know how many."
"Dead! What was the matter with him?"
"I never knew. I found him dead one morning and I buried him in the
sand."
Mescal led Hare under the cottonwoods and pointed to the Indian's grave,
now green with grass. Farther on in a circle of trees stood a little
hogan skilfully constructed out of brush; the edge of a red blanket
peeped from the door; a burnt-out fire smoked on a stone fireplace, and
blackened earthen vessels lay near. The white seeds of the cottonwoods
were flying light as feathers; plum-trees were pink in blossom; there
were vines twining all about; through the openings in the foliage shone
the blue of sky and red of cliff Patches of blossoming Bowers were here
and there lit to brilliance by golden shafts of sunlight. The twitter of
birds and hum of bees were almost drowned in the soft roar of water.
"Is that the Colorado I hear?" asked Hare.
"No, that's Thunder River. The Colorado is farther down in the Grand
Canyon."
"Farther down! Mescal, I must have come a mile from the rim. Where are
we?"
"We are almost at the Colorado, and directly under the head of Coconina.
We can see the mountain from the break in the valley below."
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