The Heart of the Desert

by Honoré Morrow

  CHAPTER XIII

  AN INTERLUDE

  Late in the afternoon, Rhoda woke. Kut-le stood beside her. Hisexpression was half eager, half tender.

  "How do you feel now?" he asked.

  "Quite well," answered Rhoda. "Will you call Marie? I want to dress."

  "You must rest in bed today," replied the Indian. "Tomorrow will besoon enough for you to get up."

  Rhoda looked at the young man with irritation.

  "Can't you learn that I am not a squaw? That it maddens me to beordered about? That every time you do you alienate me more, ifpossible?"

  "You do foolish stunts," said Kut-le calmly, "and I have to put youright."

  Rhoda moaned.

  "Oh, how long, how long must I endure this! How could they be sostupid as to let you slip through their fingers so!"

  Kut-le's mouth became a narrow seam.

  "As soon as I can get you into the Sierra Madre, I shall marry you.You are practically a well woman now. But I am not going to hurryovermuch. You are going to love me first and you are going to lovethis life first. Then we will go to Paris until the storm has passed."

  Rhoda did not seem to hear him. She tossed her arms restlessly.

  "Please send Marie to me," she said finally. "You will permit me toeat something perhaps?"

  Kut-le left the room at once. In a short time he returned with Marie,who bore a steaming bowl which he himself flanked with a dish ofluscious melon. The woman propped Rhoda adroitly to a sitting positionand Kut-le gravely balanced the bowl against the girl's knees. Thestew which the bowl contained was delicious, and Rhoda ate it to thelast drop. She ate in silence, while Kut-le watched her withunspeakable longing in his eyes. The room was almost dark when thesimple meal was finished. Marie brightened the fire and smoothedRhoda's blankets.

  "Kut-le go now," said the Pueblo woman. "You rest. In morning, Mariebring white squaw some clothes."

  Rhoda was glad to pillow her head on her arm but it was long before sheslept. She tried to piece together her faint and distortedrecollection of the occurrences since the morning when the mesa hadrisen through the dawn. But her only clear picture was of JohnDeWitt's wild face as she disappeared into the fissure. She recalledits look of agony and sobbed a little to herself as she realized whattorture he and the Newmans must have endured since her disappearance.And yet she was very hopeful. If her friends could come as close toher as they did before the mesa, they must be learning Kut-le'smethods. Surely the next time luck would not play so well for theIndian.

  Rhoda woke in the morning to the sound of song. Marie knelt on theground before a sloping slab of stone and patiently kneeded corn with asmaller stone. Her song, a quaint repetition of short mellow syllablespleased Rhoda's sensitive ear and she lay listening. When Marie sawRhoda's wide eyes she came to the girl's side.

  "You feel good now?" she queried.

  "Yes, much better. I want to get up."

  The Indian woman nodded.

  "Marie clean white squaw's clothes. White squaw wear Marie's. NowMarie help you wash."

  Rhoda smiled.

  "You are not an Apache if you want me to bathe!"

  Marie answered indignantly.

  "Marie is Pueblo squaw!"

  The clothes that Marie brought, Rhoda thought very attractive. Therewas a soft wool underdress of creamiest tint. Over this Marie pulled,fastening it at one shoulder, a gay, many-colored overdress which, likethe one she herself wore, reached to the knees. Rhoda pulled on herown high laced boots which had been neatly mended. Then the two turnedtheir attention to the neglected braid of hair.

  When it was loosened and hung in tangled masses nearly to Rhoda'sknees, Marie's delight in its loveliness knew no expression. Shefetched a queer battered old comb which she washed and then proceededwith true feminine rapture to comb the wonderful waving locks. In themidst of this Kut-le entered. He gazed on Rhoda's new disguise withdelight. Indeed her delicate face, above the many-hued garment, waslike a harebell growing in a gaudy nasturtium bed.

  "We can only let you on the roof," said Kut-le, who was carryingRhoda's sombrero.

  Rhoda made no reply but when Marie had plaited her hair in a ripplingbraid she followed Kut-le up the short ladder. Her sense ofcleanliness after the weeks of disorder was delightful. As she steppedon the flat-topped roof and the sweet clear air filled her lungs shefelt as if reborn. With Navajo blankets, Kut-le had contrived anawning that not only made a bit of shade but precluded view from below.The rich tints of the blankets were startlingly picturesque against theyellow gray of the adobe. Rhoda, dropped luxuriantly to the heap ofblankets and turned her face toward the mountain, many-colored and baretoward the base, deep-cloaked with pinon, oak and Juniper on theuplands. From its base flowed the little river, gurgling over itsshallow bed of stone and rich with green along its flat banks. Closebeside the river was the Pueblo village, the many-terraced buildings,on one of the roofs of which Rhoda sat.

  Kut-le, stretched on the roof near by, smoked cigarette after cigaretteas he watched the girl's quiet face, but he did not speak. For threeor four hours the two sat thus in silence. Just as the sun sank behindthe mountain, a bell clanged and then fell to tolling softly. ThenKut-le broke his silence.

  "That's the bell of the old mission. Some one has been buried, Iguess. We can look. There are no tourists now."

  There was a sound of wailing: a deep mournful sound that caught Rhoda'sheart to her throat and blanched her face. It was the sound of thegrief of primitive man, the cry of the forlorn and broken-hearted,uncloaked by convention. It touched a primitive chord of response inRhoda that set her to trembling. Surely, when the world was young shetoo had wept so. Surely she too had voiced a poignant, unbearable lossin just such a wild outpouring of grief!

  They moved to the edge of the terrace and looked below into the street.Down the rocky way a line of Indians was bearing hand-mills and jarsand armloads of ornaments.

  "They will take those to the 'killing place' and break them that thedead owner may have them afterward," explained Kut-le softly. "Italways makes me think of a verse in the Bible. I can't recall thewords exactly though."

  Rhoda glanced up into the dark face with a look of appreciation.

  "'And the grinders shall cease because they are few!'" she said, "'andthose that look out of the windows be darkened. And the doors shall beshut in the street when the sound of the grinding is low, because mangoeth to his long home and mourners go about the street.'"

  "And there is something else," murmured Kut-le, "about 'the silvercord.'"

  "'Or ever the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken or thepitcher be broken at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern.Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit to Godwho gave it.'"

  They stood in silence again. The wailing died into the distance. Thesun touched to molten gold the heavy shadows of the mountain arroyos.Rhoda was deeply moved by the scene below her. She felt as if she hadbeen thrust back through the ages to look upon the sorrow of somelittle Judean town. The little rocky street, the vivid robes, theweird, dying wail, the broken ornaments and utensils that some foldedtired hands would use no more, and, above all, the simple unquestioningfaith, roused in her a sudden longing for a life that she never hadknown. For a long time she stood in thought. As darkness fell sheroused herself.

  "Let me go back to my room," she said.

  As they turned, neither noticed that Rhoda's little handkerchief, whichshe had carried through all her experiences, fluttered from her sleeveto the street.

  Again it was long before Rhoda slept. Through her window there floatedthe sound of song, the evening singing of Indian lads in the villagestreet. There was a vibrant quality in their voices that Rhoda couldliken only to the music of stringed instruments. There was neither themellow smoothness of the negro voice nor the flute-like sweetness ofthe white, yet the voices compassed all the mystical appealing qualityof violin notes. />
  The music woke in Rhoda a longing for she knew not what. It seemed toher as if she were peering past a misty veil into the childhood of theworld to whose simple beauty and delights civilization had made heralien. The vibrating voices chanted slower and slower. Rhoda stirreduneasily. To be free again as these voices were free! Not to long forthe civilization she had left but for open skies and trails! To befree again!

  As the voices melted into silence, a guitar was touched softly underRhoda's window and Kut-le's voice rose in _La Golondrina_:

  "Whither so swiftly flies the timid swallow? What distant bourne seeks her untiring wing? To reach her nest what needle does she follow When darkness wraps the poor wee storm-tossed thing?"

  Rhoda stirred restlessly and threw her arms above her head.

  "To build her nest near to my couch I'll call her! Why go so far dark and strange skies to seek? Safe would she be, no evil should befall her, For I'm an exile sad, too sad to weep!"

  Mist-like floated across Rhoda's mind a memory of the trail with voiceof mating bird at dawn, with stars and the night wind and the open way.And going before, always Kut-le--Kut-le of the unfathomable eyes, ofthe merry smile, of the gentle touch. The music merged itself intoRhoda's dreams.

  She spent the following day on the roof. Curled on her Navajo shewatched the changing tones on the mountains and listened to the softvoices of the Pueblo women in the street below. Naked brown babiesclimbed up and down the ladders and paddled in the shallow river Indianwomen with scarlet shawls across their shoulders filled their ollas atthe river and stood gossiping, the brimming ollas on their heads. Inthe early morning the men had trudged to the alfalfa and melon fieldsand returned at sundown to be greeted joyfully by the women andchildren.

  Kut-le spent the day at Rhoda's side. They talked but little, thoughRhoda had definitely abandoned her rule of silence toward the Indian.Her mind during most of the day was absorbed in wondering why she soenjoyed watching the life in this Indian town and why she was not moreimpatient to be gone.

  As the sun dropped behind the mountain Marie appeared on the roof, herblack eyes very bright.

  "Half-breed Philip find white squaw's handkerchief. Give to white men,maybe! Marie see Philip get handkerchief from little girl."

  Kut-le gave Rhoda an inscrutable look, but she did not tell him thatshe shared his surprise.

  "Well," said Kut-le calmly, "maybe we had better mosey along."

  They descended to find Marie hastily doing up a bundle of bread andfruit. While Kut-le went for blankets Rhoda, at Marie's request,donned her old clothing of the trail. She had been wearing the squaw'sholiday outfit. Very shortly, with a hasty farewell to Marie, theywere in the dusky street. "Shall I gag you," asked Kut-le, "or willyou give me your word of honor to give neither sign nor sound until weget to the mountain, and to keep your face covered with your Navajo?"

  Rhoda sighed.

  "Very well, I promise," she said.

  In a very short time they had reached the end of the little street andwere climbing an arroyo up into the mountain. When they reached thepinons Kut-le gave the coyote call. It thrilled Rhoda with the miseryof the night of her capture. Almost immediately there was an answeringcall and close in the shadow of the pinon they found Alchise and thetwo squaws. Molly ran to Rhoda with a squeal of joy and patted thegirl's hand but Alchise and Cesca gave no heed to her greeting.

  The ponies were ready and Rhoda swung herself to her saddle, with athrill at the touch of the muscular little horse. And once more sherode after Kut-le with the mystery of the night trail before her.

  The sound of water falling, the cheep of wakening birds, the subtleodor of moisture-drenched soil roused Rhoda from her half sleep on thehorse's back at the end of the night's journey. The trail had not beenhard, through an endless pine forest for the most part. Kut-le drewrein beside a little waterfall deep in the mountain fastness. Rhodasaw a chaos of rock masses huge and distorted, as if an inconceivablycruel and gigantic hand had juggled with weights seemingly immovable;about these the loveliness of vine and shrub; above them the toweringjunipers dwarfed by the rocks they shaded; and falling softly over theharsh brown rifts of rock, the liquid green and white of a mountainbrook which, as it reached the level, rushed away in a roar of foam.

  Rhoda's horse drank thirstily and she stood beside him watching themystical gray of the dawn lift to the riotous rose of the sunrise. Shewondered at the quick throb of her pulse. It was very different fromits wonted soft beat. Then she threw herself on her blanket to sleep.

  When Rhoda woke, late in the day, Kut-le had spread Marie's cakes andfruit on leaves which he had washed in the brook.

  "They are quite clean, I think," he said a little anxiously. "At leastthe squaws haven't touched them."

  Rhoda and Kut-le sat on a rock and ate hungrily. When she had finishedRhoda clasped her hands about her knees. She looked singularly boyish,with her sombrero pushed back from her face and short locks of damphair curling from beneath the crown.

  "Isn't it queer," she said, "that you elude Jack and John DeWitt soeasily?"

  "The trouble is," said Kut-le, "that you don't appreciate the prowessof your captors."

  "Humph!" sniffed Rhoda.

  "Listen!" cried Kut-le with sudden enthusiasm. "Once in my boyhoodGeronima and about twenty warriors, with twice as many squaws andchildren, fled to the mountains. They never drew rein until they wereone hundred and twenty miles from the reservation. Then for six monthsthey were pursued by two thousand American soldiers and they never losta man!"

  "How many whites were killed?" asked Rhoda.

  "About a hundred!"

  "I don't understand yet," Rhoda shook her head, "how savages couldoutwit whites for so long a time."

  "But it's not a contest of brains. Whites must travel like whites,with food and rests. The Apache travels like the coyote, living offthe country. Your ancestors have been training your brain for athousand years. Mine have spent centuries of days, twenty-four hours aday, training the body to endure hardships. You have had a glimpse ofwhat the hardships of this country might mean to a white!"

  As Kut-le talked, Rhoda sat with her eyes fastened on the rough face ofa distant rock. As she watched she saw a thick, leafy bush move up tothe rock. Rhoda caught her breath, glanced at the unconscious Kut-le,then back at the bush. It moved slowly back among the trees and aftera moment Rhoda saw the undergrowth far beyond move as with a passingbreeze. She glanced at the nodding Alchise and the squaws, then smiledand turned to Kut-le.

  "Go on with your boasting, Kut-le. It's your one weakness, I think."

  Kut-le grinned.

  "Well now, honestly, what do you think that a lot of Caucasians can dowith an enemy whose existence has always been a fist to fist fight withnature at her cruelest? We have fought with our bare hands and we havewon," he continued, half to himself. "No white man or any number ofwhites can capture me on my own ground!"

  "Boaster!" laughed Rhoda.

  Just beyond the falls an aspen quivered. John DeWitt stepped intoview. Haggard and wild-eyed, he stared at Rhoda. She raised herfinger to her lips, but too late. Kut-le too looked up, and raised hisgun. Rhoda hurled herself toward him and struck up the barrel. Kut-ledropped the gun and caught Rhoda in his arms.

  "The woods are full of them!" he grunted. With one hand across Rhoda'smouth, he ran around the falls and dropped six feet to a narrow backtrail.

  "My own ground!" Rhoda heard him chuckle.