Shefford halted his tired horse and gazed with slowly realizing
eyes.
A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red
Lake, a dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the
desert, a lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken
upland beyond.
All day Shefford had plodded onward with the clear horizon-line
a thing unattainable; and for days before that he had ridden the
wild bare flats and climbed the rocky desert benches. The great
colored reaches and steps had led endlessly onward and upward
through dim and deceiving distance.
A hundred miles of desert travel, with its mistakes and lessons
and intimations, had not prepared him for what he now saw. He
beheld what seemed a world that knew only magnitude. Wonder and awe
fixed his gaze, and thought remained aloof. Then that dark and
unknown northland flung a menace at him. An irresistible call had
drawn him to this seamed and peaked border of Arizona, this broken
battlemented wilderness of Utah upland; and at first sight they
frowned upon him, as if to warn him not to search for what lay
hidden beyond the ranges. But Shefford thrilled with both fear and
exultation. That was the country which had been described to him.
Far across the red valley, far beyond the ragged line of black mesa
and yellow range, lay the wild canyon with its haunting secret.
Red Lake must be his Rubicon. Either he must enter the unknown
to seek, to strive, to find, or turn back and fail and never know
and be always haunted. A friend's strange story had prompted his
singular journey; a beautiful rainbow with its mystery and promise
had decided him. Once in his life he had answered a wild call to
the kingdom of adventure within him, and once in his life he had
been happy. But here in the horizon-wide face of that up-flung and
cloven desert he grew cold; he faltered even while he felt more
fatally drawn.
As if impelled Shefford started his horse down the sandy trail,
but he checked his former far-reaching gaze. It was the month of
April, and the waning sun lost heat and brightness. Long shadows
crept down the slope ahead of him and the scant sage deepened its
gray. He watched the lizards shoot like brown streaks across the
sand, leaving their slender tracks; he heard the rustle of
pack-rats as they darted into their brushy homes; the whir of a
low-sailing hawk startled his horse.
Like ocean waves the slope rose and fell, its hollows choked
with sand, its ridge-tops showing scantier growth of sage and grass
and weed. The last ridge was a sand-dune, beautifully ribbed and
scalloped and lined by the wind, and from its knife-sharp crest a
thin wavering sheet of sand blew, almost like smoke. Shefford
wondered why the sand looked red at a distance, for here it seemed
almost white. It rippled everywhere, clean and glistening, always
leading down.
Suddenly Shefford became aware of a house looming out of the
bareness of the slope. It dominated that long white incline. Grim,
lonely, forbidding, how strangely it harmonized with the
surroundings! The structure was octagon-shaped, built of uncut
stone, and resembled a fort. There was no door on the sides exposed
to Shefford's gaze, but small apertures two-thirds the way up
probably served as windows and port-holes. The roof appeared to be
made of poles covered with red earth.
Like a huge cold rock on a wide plain this house stood there on
the windy slope. It was an outpost of the trader Presbrey, of whom
Shefford had heard at Flagstaff and Tuba. No living thing appeared
in the limit of Shefford's vision. He gazed shudderingly at the
unwelcoming habitation, at the dark eyelike windows, at the sweep
of barren slope merging into the vast red valley, at the bold,
bleak bluffs. Could any one live here? The nature of that sinister
valley forbade a home there, and the, spirit of the place hovered
in the silence and space. Shefford thought irresistibly of how his
enemies would have consigned him to just such a hell. He thought
bitterly and mockingly of the narrow congregation that had proved
him a failure in the ministry, that had repudiated his ideas of
religion and immortality and God, that had driven him, at the age
of twenty-four, from the calling forced upon him by his people. As
a boy he had yearned to make himself an artist; his family had made
him a clergyman; fate had made him a failure. A failure only so far
in his life, something urged him to add—for in the lonely days and
silent nights of the desert he had experienced a strange birth of
hope. Adventure had called him, but it was a vague and spiritual
hope, a dream of promise, a nameless attainment that fortified his
wilder impulse.
As he rode around a corner of the stone house his horse snorted
and stopped. A lean, shaggy pony jumped at sight of him, almost
displacing a red long-haired blanket that covered an Indian saddle.
Quick thuds of hoofs in sand drew Shefford's attention to a corral
made of peeled poles, and here he saw another pony.
Shefford heard subdued voices. He dismounted and walked to an
open door. In the dark interior he dimly descried a high counter, a
stairway, a pile of bags of flour, blankets, and silver-ornamented
objects, but the persons he had heard were not in that part of the
house. Around another corner of the octagon-shaped wall he found
another open door, and through it saw goat-skins and a mound of
dirty sheep-wool, black and brown and white. It was light in this
part of the building. When he crossed the threshold he was
astounded to see a man struggling with a girl—an Indian girl. She
was straining back from him, panting, and uttering low guttural
sounds. The man's face was corded and dark with passion. This scene
affected Shefford strangely. Primitive emotions were new to
him.
Before Shefford could speak the girl broke loose and turned to
flee. She was an Indian and this place was the uncivilized desert,
but Shefford knew terror when he saw it. Like a dog the man rushed
after her. It was instinct that made Shefford strike, and his blow
laid the man flat. He lay stunned a moment, then raised himself to
a sitting posture, his hand to his face, and the gaze he fixed upon
Shefford seemed to combine astonishment and rage.
"I hope you're not Presbrey," said Shefford, slowly. He felt
awkward, not sure of himself.
The man appeared about to burst into speech, but repressed it.
There was blood on his mouth and his hand. Hastily he scrambled to
his feet. Shefford saw this man's amaze and rage change to shame.
He was tall and rather stout; he had a smooth tanned face, soft of
outline, with a weak chin; his eyes were dark. The look of him and
his corduroys and his soft shoes gave Shefford an impression that
he was not a man who worked hard. By contrast with the few other
worn and rugged desert men Shefford had met this stranger stood out
strikingly. He stooped to pick up a soft felt hat and, jamming it
on his head, he hurried out. Shefford followed him and watched him
from the door. He went directly to the corral, mounted the pony,
and rode out, to turn down the slope toward the south. When he
reached the level of the basin, where evidently the sand was hard,
he put the pony to a lope and gradually drew away.
"Well!" ejaculated Shefford. He did not know what to make of
this adventure. Presently he became aware that the Indian girl was
sitting on a roll of blankets near the wall. With curious interest
Shefford studied her appearance. She had long, raven-black hair,
tangled and disheveled, and she wore a soiled white band of cord
above her brow. The color of her face struck him; it was dark, but
not red nor bronzed; it almost had a tinge of gold. Her profile was
clear-cut, bold, almost stern. Long black eyelashes hid her eyes.
She wore a tight-fitting waist garment of material resembling
velveteen. It was ripped along her side, exposing a skin still more
richly gold than that of her face. A string of silver ornaments and
turquoise-and-white beads encircled her neck, and it moved gently
up and down with the heaving of her full bosom. Her skirt was some
gaudy print goods, torn and stained and dusty. She had little feet,
incased in brown moccasins, fitting like gloves and buttoning over
the ankles with silver coins.
"Who was that man? Did he hurt you?" inquired Shefford, turning
to gaze down the valley where a moving black object showed on the
bare sand.
"No savvy," replied the Indian girl.
"Where's the trader Presbrey?" asked Shefford.
She pointed straight down into the red valley.
"Toh," she said.
In the center of the basin lay a small pool of water shining
brightly in the sunset glow. Small objects moved around it, so
small that Shefford thought he saw several dogs led by a child. But
it was the distance that deceived him. There was a man down there
watering his horses. That reminded Shefford of the duty owing to
his own tired and thirsty beast. Whereupon he untied his pack, took
off the saddle, and was about ready to start down when the Indian
girl grasped the bridle from his hand.
"Me go," she said.
He saw her eyes then, and they made her look different. They
were as black as her hair. He was puzzled to decide whether or not
he thought her handsome.
"Thanks, but I'll go," he replied, and, taking the bridle again,
he started down the slope. At every step he sank into the deep,
soft sand. Down a little way he came upon a pile of tin cans; they
were everywhere, buried, half buried, and lying loose; and these
gave evidence of how the trader lived. Presently Shefford
discovered that the Indian girl was following him with her own
pony. Looking upward at her against the light, he thought her
slender, lithe, picturesque. At a distance he liked her.
He plodded on, at length glad to get out of the drifts of sand
to the hard level floor of the valley. This, too, was sand, but
dried and baked hard, and red in color. At some season of the year
this immense flat must be covered with water. How wide it was, and
empty! Shefford experienced again a feeling that had been novel to
him—and it was that he was loose, free, unanchored, ready to veer
with the wind. From the foot of the slope the water hole had
appeared to be a few hundred rods out in the valley. But the small
size of the figures made Shefford doubt; and he had to travel many
times a few hundred rods before those figures began to grow. Then
Shefford made out that they were approaching him.
Thereafter they rapidly increased to normal proportions of man
and beast. When Shefford met them he saw a powerful, heavily built
young man leading two ponies.
"You're Mr. Presbrey, the trader?" inquired Shefford.
"Yes, I'm Presbrey, without the Mister," he replied.
"My name's Shefford. I'm knocking about on the desert. Rode from
beyond Tuba to-day."
"Glad to see you," said Presbrey. He offered his hand. He was a
stalwart man, clad in gray shirt, overalls, and boots. A shock of
tumbled light hair covered his massive head; he was tanned, but not
darkly, and there was red in his cheeks; under his shaggy eyebrows
were deep, keen eyes; his lips were hard and set, as if occasion
for smiles or words was rare; and his big, strong jaw seemed
locked.
"Wish more travelers came knocking around Red Lake," he added.
"Reckon here's the jumping-off place."
"It's pretty—lonesome," said Shefford, hesitating as if at a
loss for words.
Then the Indian girl came up. Presbrey addressed her in her own
language, which Shefford did not understand. She seemed shy and
would not answer; she stood with downcast face and eyes. Presbrey
spoke again, at which she pointed down the valley, and then moved
on with her pony toward the water-hole.
Presbrey's keen eyes fixed on the receding black dot far down
that oval expanse.
"That fellow left—rather abruptly," said Shefford,
constrainedly. "Who was he?"
"His name's Willetts. He's a missionary. He rode in to-day with
this Navajo girl. He was taking her to Blue Canyon, where he lives
and teaches the Indians. I've met him only a few times. You see,
not many white men ride in here. He's the first white man I've seen
in six months, and you're the second. Both the same day! … Red
Lake's getting popular! It's queer, though, his leaving. He
expected to stay all night. There's no other place to stay. Blue
Canyon is fifty miles away."
"I'm sorry to say—no, I'm not sorry, either—but I must tell you
I was the cause of Mr. Willetts leaving," replied Shefford.
"How so?" inquired the other.
Then Shefford related the incident following his arrival.
"Perhaps my action was hasty," he concluded, apologetically. "I
didn't think. Indeed, I'm surprised at myself."
Presbrey made no comment and his face was as hard to read as one
of the distant bluffs.
"But what did the man mean?" asked Shefford, conscious of a
little heat. "I'm a stranger out here. I'm ignorant of Indians—how
they're controlled. Still I'm no fool… . If Willetts didn't mean
evil, at least he was brutal."
"He was teaching her religion," replied Presbrey. His tone held
faint scorn and implied a joke, but his face did not change in the
slightest.
Without understanding just why, Shefford felt his conviction
justified and his action approved. Then he was sensible of a slight
shock of wonder and disgust.
"I am—I was a minister of the Gospel," he said to Presbrey.
"What you hint seems impossible. I can't believe it."
"I didn't hint," replied Presbrey, bluntly, and it was evident
that he was a sincere, but close-mouthed, man. "Shefford, so you're
a preacher? … Did you come out here to try to convert the
Indians?"
"No. I said I WAS a minister. I am no longer. I'm just a—a
wanderer."
"I see. Well, the desert's no place for missionaries, but it's
good for wanderers… . Go water your horse and take him up to the
corral. You'll find some hay for him. I'll get grub ready."
Shefford went on with his horse to the pool. The water appeared
thick, green, murky, and there was a line of salty crust extending
around the margin of the pool. The thirsty horse splashed in and
eagerly bent his head. But he did not like the taste. Many times he
refused to drink, yet always lowered his nose again. Finally he
drank, though not his fill. Shefford saw the Indian girl drink from
her hand. He scooped up a handful and found it too sour to swallow.
When he turned to retrace his steps she mounted her pony and
followed him.
A golden flare lit up the western sky, and silhouetted dark and
lonely against it stood the trading-post. Upon his return Shefford
found the wind rising, and it chilled him. When he reached the
slope thin gray sheets of sand were blowing low, rising, whipping,
falling, sweeping along with soft silken rustle. Sometimes the gray
veils hid his boots. It was a long, toilsome climb up that
yielding, dragging ascent, and he had already been lame and tired.
By the time he had put his horse away twilight was everywhere
except in the west. The Indian girl left her pony in the corral and
came like a shadow toward the house.
Shefford had difficulty in finding the foot of the stairway. He
climbed to enter a large loft, lighted by two lamps. Presbrey was
there, kneading biscuit dough in a pan.
"Make yourself comfortable," he said.
The huge loft was the shape of a half-octagon. A door opened
upon the valley side, and here, too, there were windows. How
attractive the place was in comparison with the impressions gained
from the outside! The furnishings consisted of Indian blankets on
the floor, two beds, a desk and table, several chairs and a couch,
a gun-rack full of rifles, innumerable silver-ornamented belts,
bridles, and other Indian articles upon the walls, and in one
corner a wood-burning stove with teakettle steaming, and a great
cupboard with shelves packed full of canned foods.
Shefford leaned in the doorway and looked out. Beneath him on a
roll of blankets sat the Indian girl, silent and motionless. He
wondered what was in her mind, what she would do, how the trader
would treat her. The slope now was a long slant of sheeted moving
shadows of sand. Dusk had gathered in the valley. The bluffs loomed
beyond. A pale star twinkled above. Shefford suddenly became aware
of the intense nature of the stillness about him. Yet, as he
listened to this silence, he heard an intermittent and immeasurably
low moan, a fitful, mournful murmur. Assuredly it was only the
wind. Nevertheless, it made his blood run cold. It was a different
wind from that which had made music under the eaves of his Illinois
home. This was a lonely, haunting wind, with desert hunger in it,
and more which he could not name. Shefford listened to this
spirit-brooding sound while he watched night envelop the valley.
How black, how thick the mantle! Yet it brought no comforting sense
of close-folded protection, of walls of soft sleep, of a home.
Instead there was the feeling of space, of emptiness, of an
infinite hall down which a mournful wind swept streams of murmuring
sand.
"Well, grub's about ready," said Presbrey.
"Got any water?" asked Shefford.
"Sure. There in the bucket. It's rain-water. I have a tank
here."
Shefford's sore and blistered face felt better after he had
washed off the sand and alkali dust.
"Better not wash your face often while you're in the desert. Bad
plan," went on Presbrey, noting how gingerly his visitor had gone
about his ablutions. "Well, come and eat."
Shefford marked that if the trader did live a lonely life he
fared well. There was more on the table than twice two men could
have eaten. It was the first time in four days that Shefford had
sat at a table, and he made up for lost opportunity.
His host's actions indicated pleasure, yet the strange, hard
face never relaxed, never changed. When the meal was finished
Presbrey declined assistance, had a generous thought of the Indian
girl, who, he said, could have a place to eat and sleep
down-stairs, and then with the skill and despatch of an
accomplished housewife cleared the table, after which work he
filled a pipe and evidently prepared to listen.
It took only one question for Shefford to find that the trader
was starved for news of the outside world; and for an hour Shefford
fed that appetite, even as he had been done by. But when he had
talked himself out there seemed indication of Presbrey being more
than a good listener.
"How'd you come in?" he asked, presently.
"By Flagstaff—across the Little Colorado—and through
Moencopie."
"Did you stop at Moen Ave?"
"No. What place is that?"
"A missionary lives there. Did you stop at Tuba?"
"Only long enough to drink and water my horse. That was a
wonderful spring for the desert."
"You said you were a wanderer… . Do you want a job? I'll give
you one."
"No, thank you, Presbrey."
"I saw your pack. That's no pack to travel with in this country.
Your horse won't last, either. Have you any money?"
"Yes, plenty of money."
"Well, that's good. Not that a white man out here would ever
take a dollar from you. But you can buy from the Indians as you go.
Where are you making for, anyhow?"
Shefford hesitated, debating in mind whether to tell his purpose
or not. His host did not press the question.
"I see. Just foot-loose and wandering around," went on Presbrey.
"I can understand how the desert appeals to you. Preachers lead
easy, safe, crowded, bound lives. They're shut up in a church with
a Bible and good people. When once in a lifetime they get
loose—they break out."
"Yes, I've broken out—beyond all bounds," replied Shefford,
sadly. He seemed retrospective for a moment, unaware of the
trader's keen and sympathetic glance, and then he caught himself.
"I want to see some wild life. Do you know the country north of
here?"
"Only what the Navajos tell me. And they're not much to talk.
There's a trail goes north, but I've never traveled it. It's a new
trail every time an Indian goes that way, for here the sand blows
and covers old tracks. But few Navajos ride in from the north. My
trade is mostly with Indians up and down the valley."
"How about water and grass?"
"We've had rain and snow. There's sure to be, water. Can't say
about grass, though the sheep and ponies from the north are always
fat… . But, say, Shefford, if you'll excuse me for advising
you—don't go north."
"Why?" asked Shefford, and it was certain that he thrilled.
"It's unknown country, terribly broken, as you can see from
here, and there are bad Indians biding in the canyon. I've never
met a man who had been over the pass between here and Kayenta. The
trip's been made, so there must be a trail. But it's a dangerous
trip for any man, let alone a tenderfoot. You're not even packing a
gun."
"What's this place Kayenta?" asked Shefford.
"It's a spring. Kayenta means Bottomless Spring. There's a
little trading-post, the last and the wildest in northern Arizona.
Withers, the trader who keeps it, hauls his supplies in from
Colorado and New Mexico. He's never come down this way. I never saw
him. Know nothing of him except hearsay. Reckon he's a nervy and
strong man to hold that post. If you want to go there, better go by
way of Keams Canyon, and then around the foot of Black Mesa. It'll
be a long ride—maybe two hundred miles."
"How far straight north over the pass?"
"Can't say. Upward of seventy-five miles over rough trails, if
there are trails at all… . I've heard rumors of a fine tribe of
Navajos living in there, rich in sheep and horses. It may be true
and it may not. But I do know there are bad Indians, half-breeds
and outcasts, hiding in there. Some of them have visited me here.
Bad customers! More than that, you'll be going close to the Utah
line, and the Mormons over there are unfriendly these days."
"Why?" queried Shefford, again with that curious thrill.
"They are being persecuted by the government."
Shefford asked no more questions and his host vouchsafed no more
information on that score. The conversation lagged. Then Shefford
inquired about the Indian girl and learned that she lived up the
valley somewhere. Presbrey had never seen her before Willetts came
with her to Red Lake. And this query brought out the fact that
Presbrey was comparatively new to Red Lake and vicinity. Shefford
wondered why a lonely six months there had not made the trader old
in experience. Probably the desert did not readily give up its
secrets. Moreover, this Red Lake house was only an occasionally
used branch of Presbrey's main trading-post, which was situated at
Willow Springs, fifty miles westward over the mesa.
"I'm closing up here soon for a spell," said Presbrey, and now
his face lost its set hardness and seemed singularly changed. It
was a difference, of light and softness. "Won't be so lonesome over
at Willow Springs… . I'm being married soon."
"That's fine," replied Shefford, warmly. He was glad for the
sake of this lonely desert man. What good a wife would bring into a
trader's life!
Presbrey's naive admission, however, appeared to detach him from
his present surroundings, and with his massive head enveloped by a
cloud of smoke he lived in dreams.
Shefford respected his host's serene abstraction. Indeed, he was
grateful for silence. Not for many nights had the past impinged so
closely upon the present. The wound in his soul had not healed, and
to speak of himself made it bleed anew. Memory was too poignant;
the past was too close; he wanted to forget until he had toiled
into the heart of this forbidding wilderness—until time had gone by
and he dared to face his unquiet soul. Then he listened to the
steadily rising roar of the wind. How strange and hollow! That wind
was freighted with heavy sand, and he heard it sweep, sweep, sweep
by in gusts, and then blow with dull, steady blast against the
walls. The sound was provocative of thought. This moan and rush of
wind was no dream—this presence of his in a night-enshrouded and
sand-besieged house of the lonely desert was reality—this adventure
was not one of fancy. True indeed, then, must be the wild, strange
story that had led him hither. He was going on to seek, to strive,
to find. Somewhere northward in the broken fastnesses lay hidden a
valley walled in from the world. Would they be there, those lost
fugitives whose story had thrilled him? After twelve years would
she be alive, a child grown to womanhood in the solitude of a
beautiful canyon? Incredible! Yet he believed his friend's story
and he indeed knew how strange and tragic life was. He fancied he
heard her voice on the sweeping wind. She called to him, haunted
him. He admitted the improbability of her existence, but lost
nothing of the persistent intangible hope that drove him. He
believed himself a man stricken in soul, unworthy, through doubt of
God, to minister to the people who had banished him. Perhaps a
labor of Hercules, a mighty and perilous work of rescue, the saving
of this lost and imprisoned girl, would help him in his trouble.
She might be his salvation. Who could tell? Always as a boy and as
a man he had fared forth to find the treasure at the foot of the
rainbow.