The Heart of the Desert

by Honoré Morrow

  CHAPTER XI

  THE TURN IN THE TRAIL

  The little group, trudging the long difficult trail along the mountainwas a rich study in degrees: Rhoda, the fragile Caucasian, a product ofcenturies of civilization; and Kut-le, the Indian, with the keenness,the ferocious courage, the cunning of the Indian leavened inextricablywith the thousand softening influences of a score of years' contactwith civilization; then Cesca, the lean and stoical product of anancient and terrible savagery; and Alchise, her mate. FinallyMolly--squat, dirty Molly--the stupid, squalid aborigine, as distinctfrom Cesca's type as is the brown snail from the stinging wasp.

  Alchise, striding after his chief, was smitten with a sudden idea.After ruminating on it for some time, he communicated it to his squaw.Cesca shook her head with a grunt of disapproval. Alchise insisted andthe squaw looked at Kut-le cunningly.

  "_Quien sabe_?" she said at last.

  At this Alchise hurried forward and touched Kut-le on the shoulder.

  "Take 'em squaw to Reservation. Medicine dance. Squaw heap sick._Sabe_?"

  "Reservation's too far away," replied Kut-le, shifting Rhoda's head tolie more easily on his arm. "I'm making for Chira."

  Alchise shook his head vigorously.

  "Too many mens! We go Reservation. Alchise help carry sick squaw."

  "Nope! You're way off, Alchise. I'm going where I can get some whiteman's medicine the quickest. I'm not so afraid of getting caught as Iam of her getting a bad run of fever. I have friends at Chira."

  Alchise fell back, muttering disappointment. White man's medicine wasno good. He cared little about Rhoda but he adored Kut-le. It wasnecessary therefore that the white squaw be saved, since his chiefevidently was quite mad about her. All the rest of the day Alchise wasvery thoughtful. Late at night the next halt was made. High up in themountain on a sheltered ledge Kut-le laid down his burden.

  "Keep her quiet till I get back," he said, and disappeared.

  Rhoda was in a stupor and lay quietly unconscious with the starsblinking down on her, a limp dark heap against the mountain wall. Thethree Indians munched mule meat, then Molly curled herself on theground and in three minutes was snoring. Alchise stood erect and stillon the ledge for perhaps ten minutes after Kut-le's departure. Then hetouched Cesca on the shoulder, lifted Rhoda in his arms and, followedby Cesca, left the sleeping Molly alone on the ledge.

  Swiftly, silently, Alchise strode up the mountainside, Rhoda makingneither sound nor motion. For hours, with wonderful endurance the twoIndians held the pace. They moved up the mountain to the summit, whichthey crossed, then dropped rapidly downward. Just at dawn Alchisestopped at a gray _campos_ under some pines and called. A voice fromthe hut answered him. The canvas flap was put back and an old Indianbuck appeared, followed by several squaws and young bucks, yawning andstaring.

  Alchise laid Rhoda on the ground while he spoke rapidly to the Indian.The old man protested at first but on the repeated use of Kut-le's namehe finally nodded and Alchise carried Rhoda into the _campos_. A squawkindled a fire which, blazing up brightly, showed a huge, dark room,canvas-roofed and dirt-floored, quite bare except for the soiledblankets on the floor.

  Rhoda was laid in the center of the hut. The old buck knelt besideher. He was very old indeed. His time-ravaged features were lean andascetic. His clay-matted hair was streaked with white; his black eyeswere deep-sunk and his temples were hollow. But there was a fine sortof dignity about the old medicine-man, despite his squalor. He gazedon Rhoda in silence for some time. Alchise and Cesca sat on the floor,and little by little they were joined by a dozen other Indians whoformed a circle about the girl. The firelight flickered on the dark,intent faces and on Rhoda's delicate beauty as she lay passing rapidlyfrom stupor to delirium.

  Suddenly the old man raised his lean hand, shaking a gourd filled withpebbles, and began softly to chant. Instantly the other Indians joinedhim and the _campos_ was filled with the rhythm of a weird song. Rhodatossed her arms and began to cough a little from the smoke. The chantquickened. It was but the mechanical repetition of two notes fallingalways from high to low. Yet it had an indescribable effect ofmelancholy, this aboriginal song. It was as hopeless and melancholy asall of nature's chants: the wail of the wind, the sob of the rain, thebeat of the waves.

  Rhoda sat erect, her eyes wild and wide. The old buck, without ceasinghis song, attempted to thrust her back with one lean brown claw, butRhoda struck him feebly.

  "Go away!" she cried. "Be quiet! You hurt my head! Don't make thatdreadful noise!"

  The chant quickened. The medicine-man now rocked back and forth on hisknees, accenting the throb of the song by beating his bare feet on theearth. He seemed by some strange suppleness to flatten his insteppaddle-wise and to bring the entire leg from toe to knee at one blowagainst the ground. Never did his glowing old eyes leave Rhoda's face.

  The girl, thrown into misery and excitement by the insistence of thechant, began to wring her hands. The words said nothing to her but therhythmic repetition of the notes told her a story as old as lifeitself: that life passes swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and withouthope; that our days are as grass and as the clouds that are consumedand are no more; that the soul sinks to the land of darkness and of theshadow of death. Rhoda struggled, with horror in her eyes, to rise;but the old man with a hand on her shoulder forced her back on theblanket.

  "Oh, what is it!" wailed Rhoda, clutching at the mass of yellow-brownhair about her face. "Where am I? What are you doing? Have I died?Where is Kut-le? Kut-le!" she screamed. "Kut-le!"

  The medicine-man held her to the blanket and for a time she satquiescent. Then as the Indian lifted his hand from her shoulder thebewilderment of her gray eyes changed to the wildness of delirium. Shelooked toward the doorway where the dawn light made but little headwayagainst the dark interior. With one blue-veined hand on her pantingbreast she slowly, stealthily gathered herself together, and withunbelievable swiftness she sprang for the square of dawn light. Sheleaped almost into the arms of a young buck who sat near the door. Hebore her back to her place while the chant continued withoutinterruption.

  Exhausted, Rhoda lay listening to the song. Gradually it began toexert its hypnotic influence over her. Its sense of melancholyenveloped her drug-like. She lay prone, the tears coursing down hercheeks, her twitching hands turned upward beside her. Slowly shefloated outward upon a dark sea whose waves beat a ceaseless requiem ofanguish on her ears. It seemed to her that she was enduring all thesorrows of the ages; that she was brain-tortured by the death agoniesof all humanity; that all the uselessness, all the meaninglessness, allthe utter weariness of the death-ridden world pressed upon her,suffocating her, forcing her to stillness, slowing the beating of herheart, the intake of her breath. Slowly her white lids closed, yetwith one last conscious cry for life:

  "Kut-le!" she wailed. "Kut-le!"

  A quick shadow filled the doorway.

  "Here, Rhoda! Here!"

  Kut-le bounded into the room, upsetting the medicine-man, and liftedRhoda in his arms. She clung to him wildly.

  "Take me away, Kut-le! Take me away!"

  He soothed her with great tenderness.

  "Dear one!" he murmured. "Dear one!" and she closed her eyes quietly.

  During this time the Indians sat silent and watchful. Kut-le turned toAlchise.

  "You cursed fool!" he said.

  "She get well now," replied Alchise anxiously. "Alchise save her foryou. Molly tell you where come."

  For a moment Kut-le stared at Alchise; then, as if realizing thefutility of speech, "Come!" he said, and ignoring the other Indians, hestrode from the _campos_. Alchise and Cesca followed him, and outsidethe anxious Molly seized Rhoda's limp hand with a little cry of joy.Kut-le led the way to a quiet spot among the pines. Here he laid Rhodaon a sheepskin and covered her with a tattered blanket, the spoils ofhis previous night's trip.

  About the middle of the morning Rhoda opened her eyes.
As she stirred,Kut-le came to her.

  "I've had such horrible dreams, Kut-le. You won't go and leave me tothe Indians again?"

  This appeal from Rhoda in her weakness almost overcame Kut-le but heonly smoothed her tangled hair and answered:

  "No, dear one!"

  "Where are we now?" she asked feebly.

  Kut-le smiled.

  "In the Rockies."

  "I think I am very sick," continued Rhoda. "Do you think we can stayquiet in one place today?"

  Kut-le shook his head.

  "I am going to get you to some quinine as quick as I can. There issome about twenty-four hours from here."

  Rhoda's eyes widened.

  "Shall I be with white people?"

  "Don't bother. You'll have good care."

  The light faded from Rhoda's eyes.

  "It's hard for me, isn't it?" she said, as if appealing to the collegeman of the ranch.

  "Rhoda! Rhoda!" whispered Kut-le, "your suffering kills me! But Imust have you, I must!"

  Rhoda moved her head impatiently, as if the Indian's tense, handsomeface annoyed her. She refused food but drank deeply of the tepid waterand shortly they were again on the trail.

  For several hours Rhoda lay in Kut-le's arms, weak and ill but withlucid mind. They were making their way up a long canon. It was verynarrow. Rhoda could see the individual leaves of the aspens on theopposite wall as they moved close in the shadow of the other. Thefloor, watered by a clear brook, was level and green. On either sidethe walls were murmurous with delicately quivering aspens and sighingpines.

  Suddenly Cesca gave a grunt of warning. Far down the valley asheep-herder was approaching with his flocks. Kut-le turned to theright and Alchise sprang to his aid. In the shelter of the trees,Kut-le twisted a handkerchief across Rhoda's mouth; and in reply to heroutraged eyes, he said:

  "I don't mind single visitors as a rule but I haven't time to fuss withone now."

  Together the two men carried Rhoda up the canon-side. They lifted herfrom trunk to trunk, now a root-hold, now a jutting bit of rock, tillfar up the sheer wall. Rhoda lay at last on a little ledge heaped withpine-needles. By the time the Indians were settled on the rock Rhodawas delirious again. The fever had returned twofold and Molly's entireefforts were toward keeping the tossing form on the ledge.

  Slowly, very slowly, the herder, a sturdy ragged Mexican, moved up thecanon, pausing now and again to scratch his head. He was whistling _LaPaloma_. The Indians' black eyes did not leave him and after hisflute-like notes had melted into the distance they still crouched incramped stillness on the ledge.

  But shortly Kut-le freed Rhoda's mouth, gave Alchise a swift look, andwith infinite care the descent was begun. Kut-le did not liketraveling in the daylight, for many reasons. Carefully, swiftly theymoved up the canon, always hugging the wall. Late in the afternoonthey emerged on an open mesa. All the wretched day Rhoda had traveledin a fearsome world of her own, peopled with uncanny figures, alightwith a glare that seared her eyes, held in a vice that gripped heruntil she screamed with restless pain. The song that the shepherd hadwhistled tortured her tired brain.

  "The day that I left my home for the rolling sea, I said, 'Mother dear, O pray to thy God for me!' But e'er we set sail I went a fond leave to take--"

  Over and over she sang the three lines, ending each time with afrightened stare up into Kut-le's face.

  "Whom did I say good-by to? Whom? But they don't care!"

  Then again the tired voice:

  "The day that I left my home for the rolling sea--"

  Night came and the weary, weary crossing of a craggy, heavily woodedmountain. Kut-le did not relinquish his burden. He seemed not to tireof the weight of the slender body that lay now in helpless stupor. Ifthe squaws or Alchise felt fatigue or impatience as Kut-le held them toa pace on the tortuous trail that would nearly have exhausted aCaucasian athlete, they gave no sign. All the endless night Kut-le ledthe way under the midnight blackness of the pinon or the violet lightof the stars, until the lifting light of the dawn found them across theranges and standing at the edge of a little river.

  In the dim light there lifted a terraced adobe building with laddersfaintly outlined on the terraces. There was no sound save the barkingof a dog and the ripple of the river. With a muttered admonition,Kut-le left Rhoda to the others and climbed one of the ladders. Hereturned with a blanketed figure that gazed on Rhoda non-committally.At a sign, Kut-le lifted Rhoda, and the little group moved noiselesslytoward the dwelling, clambered up a ladder, and disappeared.

  Rhoda opened her eyes with a sense of physical comfort that confusedher. She was lying on the floor of a long, gray-walled room. In onecorner was a tiny adobe fire-place from which a tinier fire threw a jetof flame color on the Navajo that lay before the hearth. Along thewalls were benches with splendid Navajos rolled cushion-wise upon them.Above the benches hung several rifles with cougarskin quivers beneaththem. A couple of cheap framed mirrors were hung with silver necklacesof beautiful workmanship. In a corner a table was set with heavy butshining china dishes.

  Rhoda stared with increasing wonder. She was very weak and spent buther head was clear. She lifted her arms and looked at them. She waswearing a loose-fitting gray garment of a strange weave. She fingeredit, more and more puzzled.

  "You wake now?" asked a low voice.

  Coming softly down the room was an Indian woman of comely face andstrange garb. Over a soft shirt of cut and weave such as Rhoda had on,she wore a dark overdress caught at one shoulder and reaching only tothe knees. A many-colored girdle confined the dress at the waist. Herlegs and feet were covered with high, loose moccasins. Her black hairhung free on her shoulders.

  "You been much sick," the woman went on, "much sick," stooping tostraighten Rhoda's blanket.

  "Where am I?" asked Rhoda.

  "At Chira. You eat breakfast?"

  Rhoda caught the woman's hand.

  "Who are you?" she asked. "You have been very good to me."

  "Me Marie," replied the woman.

  "Where are Kut-le and the others?"

  "Kut-le here. Others in mountain. You much sick, three days."

  Rhoda sighed. Would this kaleidoscope of misery never end!

  "I am very tired of it all," she said. "I think it would have beenkinder if you had let me die. Will you help me to get back to my whitefriends?"

  Marie shook her head.

  "Kut-le friend. We take care Kut-le's squaw."

  Rhoda turned wearily on her side.

  "Go away and let me sleep," she said.