The Water Hole

by Zane Grey

  These bitter thoughts had their sway. They did not have permanence. All of a sudden Cherry discovered she was crying. To realize that, to fight it and fail, added to her breakdown. She cried herself to sleep.

  Nine

  Her eyes opened upon azure blue sky and gold-tipped wall. Consciousness came as quickly as sight. Her impulse was to shut out the beautiful light of day. She was ashamed to face it. But slowly she moved the blanket aside. Listening, she soon ascertained that Heftral was not in camp. Peeping over the rock, she saw a smoldering fire, and the steaming coffee pot and oven on it.

  Cherry got up. If she had needed anything to remind her of the insufferable outrage she had sustained, she had it in sudden pains, more excruciating than any she had yet endured. The brute! He had not realized his strength. Maybe he had, though. How coldly and calmly he had gone about the chastisement. To wait until they had come all the way back to camp. In the light of another day his offense seemed greater.

  There was her breakfast on the fire. Cherry remembered that she had sworn she would starve before she would touch Heftral’s food again, but she did not see any sense in that now. As a cook she was not a genius.

  “If there was a mantelpiece here, it’s a cinch I’d eat my breakfast off it this morning,” she said mirthlessly.

  Dark, brooding thoughts attended the slow meal. Afterward it occurred to Cherry to wash the few utensils Heftral had left for her use. There was a pan of hot water at hand. This she did and not without an almost conscious gratification. Then she stared a while into the fading red coals of the fire. Next she walked in the sun, and could not shut out a sense of its warmth, of the sweet songs of wild birds, of the fragrance of sage and cañon thicket, of the glorious light under the walls.

  What was she going to do? There were a thousand things. But first, and of absolutely paramount importance, was the fact dawning upon her that she had to repeat the foolhardy act of yesterday. A new, vague, sweet self raised soft voice against it, but was howled down by Cherry Winters proper. She had to show Heftral that this so-called cave-man dominance of the past, as well as the masculine superiority of the present, were things abolished, obsolete, blazed out of the path by modern woman. This was no part she was playing. She had ceased to be an actress. That fun, that desire to turn the tables upon her father and Heftral had vanished in the night.

  * * * * *

  Heftral was at work higher up than the day before and close to the amphitheater around which Cherry had crossed to the next bench.

  She walked right past him, casually glancing in his direction. How could he guess that her heart was beating fast and that contending tides of emotion warred within her?

  If she ever saw a man surprised it was then. The last thing Heftral would imagine was that she would come back. What sweet healing balm to Cherry’s crushed vanity. He leaned on his pick and watched her. Would he order her back? Would he plead with her again?

  Cherry was not foolish enough to underestimate the risk of this slanting narrow trail. She had accomplished it under high power by which almost she could have run on the air. This time, her nerve and caution, and lightness of foot, balanced the audacity of yesterday. She crossed without a slip.

  Heftral stood leaning on his pick, watching. Not a word had come from him. Cherry would have given considerable for his thoughts. She could guess, of course, that he was completely routed, and probably most exceedingly furious. But was he disappointed? That she was an irresponsible child! Cherry tossed her head. What did she care? Something hot seared her and she accepted it as hate.

  Once around the huge buttress of wall, out of Heftral’s sight, she forgot him. Here was an amphitheater that dwarfed the Coliseum at Rome, and it was set against a background of magnificent forbidding walls. How silent! Cherry felt that she was alone in a sepulcher. Her steps led her high, so high she marveled and thrilled, and trembled sometimes at the gigantic fissures and the leaning cliffs.

  Suddenly she espied what appeared to be little steps cut in the rock. She was astounded, could not believe her eyes. But there they were, one after another, worn, scarcely distinguishable in the smooth stone. They had been cut by hand. Intensely absorbed, Cherry followed them, forgetting the fear of high places and crumbling walls.

  Presently she lost the little steps. She halted, breathless and flushed. Evidently she had climbed far. Before her spread a level bench most wonderful in its location and isolation. To look back and down made her gasp. How would she ever descend?

  Her quick eye grasped at once that this wide protected bench could be reached only by the slope up which she had climbed. All at once it dawned upon her that the predominating feature of this place was its inaccessibility. These little steps had been cut by cliff-dwellers. Her heart beat faster than ever. She had discovered something. If Heftral had known of this place, surely he would have told her.

  Cherry began to explore. In the smooth rock she found round polished holes where grain had been ground centuries before. She found the stone pestles lying as if a hand had laid them aside only yesterday. She found the edge of a wall buried in débris. Little red stones neatly cut and cemented. High up she sighted a cliff dwelling pasted like a mud wasp’s nest against the shelf of rock. She had thought this amphitheater level, but it was anything but that. It began to look as if a great space had been buried by avalanche or the weathering processes of ages. It would take days to explore it.

  Cherry stepped into a hole up to her knee. It appeared to her the ground had given way under her. Pulling her leg out, she was overcome to discover that she had stepped through a roof over something. Carefully she brushed aside the dirt and dust. She found poles of wood, close together, and as rotten as punk.

  “Ah-huh! That’s something,” she ejaculated.

  The hole made by her foot stared at her like a black eye. It spoke. Cherry began to thrill and shake. She dropped a little stone in it. No sound. She tried a large stone. She heard it strike far down. Then this was a kiva. Well? Then Cherry’s mind bristled into action. “Beckyshibeta,” she whispered in awe.

  She sat down, suddenly overcome. She had discovered the ancient pueblo Heftral had been searching for so diligently. It stunned her. How strange! What luck! There seemed a destiny in the willfulness that had led her to this place. It must be more than chance.

  Then she remembered boasting to Heftral that she would find Beckyshibeta for him. She had done so. She had not a single doubt. And suddenly her joy equaled her amazement and transcended it. What a perfectly wonderful thing for Heftral. She was so happy she laughed and cried at once. It was not a delusion. Here opened the black mysterious eye of a kiva.

  Cherry was consumed with only one desire. To tell Heftral. She climbed, she ran. The little steps cut in the stone slope had no terror for her now. In bad places she sat down and slid, unmindful of her dress or skin. Yet how long it took to get down. Once on the bench below she could not go fast. It was too rough. And at that she got more than one knock from a rock. At last she got around the last corner of wall, out of breath, panting so that she had to rest a moment.

  Heftral was there, digging, digging, digging. Presently he would have something to dig for. With her breast heaving, Cherry watched him. The moment was somehow rich, sweet, beautiful, far-reaching, and inscrutable. Then she cupped her hands and called through them piercingly.

  “Mister Heftral!”

  He heard her, for he straightened up, looked, and then resumed work with his pick.

  “Come! Come over!” called Cherry. He looked again, but did not reply. “Stephen. Come over!”

  Here he quit his labors and leaned upon his pick, evidently nonplussed.

  “Stephen! Please come!” shrilled Cherry.

  “No. Not. Never. Nix!” he called, imitating her.

  “Stephen, I want you,” she went on.

  “Nothing doing.”

  “If you come over…you…yo
u…you’ll have the surprise of your life.”

  “I don’t care for your kind of surprises, Miss Winters,” he replied after a jarring pause.

  “But you will, I tell you.”

  “Not on your life!”

  “Honest. Only come!” she called now pleadingly.

  No answer. Heftral stood like a statue. Cherry could hardly contain herself any longer. He was making it so perfectly wonderful for her. What a climax! She must get him across there somehow and make a pretext to lead him to her discovery. In her extremity she was quite capable of going to unheard-of limits to accomplish her purpose. Beckyshibeta had changed the world for Cherry. She had no time to stop to analyze the transformation.

  “I’ll make you happy, Stephen,” she trilled persuadingly.

  “You’ve got another guess coming, Miss Winters,” he said.

  What a mulish creature a man could be anyway. And this one with his heart’s desire waiting for him! Cherry had a wild notion that she might include herself in the finding of Beckyshibeta. Assuredly there was need of her discovering herself now.

  “Stephen, dear. Come!” she called despairingly.

  “I told you not to go over there,” he answered. “Now you can get back by yourself.”

  “I’m terribly scared, Stephen. I…I’ve sort of found out…something.”

  “Fly over,” he replied mockingly.

  “Is that nice…when I want you?”

  “Cherry Winters, every word you utter is a lie.”

  “No. I’ve stopped lying. Come and see.”

  “I tell you I’m as unmovable as these rocks!” he shouted in a tone that signified considerable strain.

  He just imagined he was, thought Cherry, but still he might carry his stubbornness to a point of spoiling her little plan. Nevertheless, if she could not move him now, she would have the pleasure of keeping it secret longer.

  “Stephen, dearest!” she called.

  “You go to the devil!” he yelled, using her very words, but his tone was vastly different.

  “My darling!” cried Cherry at the end of her rope. If that did not fetch him!

  Heftral rather desperately jumped into the hole he had been digging. She could see his pick move up and down, with speed that implied tremendous effort. Cherry realized that her plan was useless for the time being, so she decided she had better husband her resources and attack him later. What she could not accomplish at such long range would be easy enough by close contact.

  Whereupon she stepped out on the narrow strip. As she did so, for the first time, her eye caught the perilous depth and the jagged rocks far beneath. Cherry stepped back with a sudden cold sensation. Life might have grown singularly full all at once, but death was still only a step away. But she was not one to lose her head during excitement.

  She crossed this dangerous bridge with coolness and courage, taking no chances, and unmindful of her sore knees. She made it successfully.

  Heftral’s back was turned. She approached and, hiding behind a large rock, peeped out at him. For what seemed long moments he did not look. But at last he straightened up and gazed around evidently to see where she had gone. Cherry took good care to keep hidden. She was tingling all over. He concluded that she had passed him and gone on out of sight. Then he sat down on the edge of the hole, removed his sombrero, and wiped his face. It was a most serious one. He sat there idle, lost in thought. How sad his expression. His trouble in this unguarded moment was there to read. Cherry conquered her impulse to rush out and tell him there were at least a couple of reasons why he should be tickled to death. But the moment gave her a glimpse into his heart. And it stirred Cherry so deeply, so strangely, that she wished to escape being seen by Heftral. At length, wearily and without hope, he looked again in the direction he supposed Cherry had taken, and then resumed his work. Cherry slipped away noiselessly and rounded the corner of wall without being seen.

  Soon she yielded to a desire to sit down and think about herself. What had happened? She went over it all. Where had vanished the delight, the inexplicable joy she had anticipated? Heftral’s sad face had checked her, changed the direction of her thoughts. She felt so sorry for him that she wanted to weep. Resuming her journey back to camp, she went on a little way, then stopped again. Something was wrong. Her breast seemed oppressed, her heart too full. She felt it pound. Surely she had not exerted herself enough for that. No—the commotion was emotional. She had sustained an unaccountable transition. She was no longer the old Cherry Winters. A last time she sat down to fight it out—to face her soul. After all—how easy. Only to be honest. For the first time in her life, she was honestly, deeply, truly in love. No need of wild wonderings, of whirling repudiations. She had fallen in love with this adventure, with the glorious desert, with the lonely soul-transforming cañons, and with Stephen Heftral.

  The instant the solution flashed out of her brooding mind she knew it was the truth. It seemed annihilation of self-catastrophe, yet it held a paralyzing sweetness. Cherry received the blow to her consciousness, like a soldier, full in the face, while she was gazing down the cañon, now magnifying its gold and purple, its wonderful speaking cliffs.

  Then she heard the thud of hoofs. A horse! Startled, she turned the corner of the wall that separated her from camp. Her alarm vanished in amazement at sight of a dudish young man dismounting from a pinto mustang as flashy as its rider. He wore a ten-gallon white sombrero that appeared to make him top heavy, white moleskin riding trousers, tight at the knees, high shiny boots and enormous spurs that tripped him as he walked. Cherry then recognized this young man, Chauncey Sarland, the darling of many weekend parties, a slick, dark, dapper youth just out of college. Also she heard more thuds of hoofs and voices coming. Anathematizing the luck, Cherry slipped in behind a section of rock that had split from the cliff, and ran along it to the far end, where she crouched down to peep through a crack.

  Ten

  Cherry was amazed, curious, resentful at this rude disruption of her rapture. Chauncey was a nice kid, but to meet him here! Where she was alone with Heftral.

  Two riders appeared above the bulge of the bench, off to the left. One was an Indian, leading a pack horse. Presently Cherry made out the second rider to be a woman. Mrs. Sarland! No human creature could have looked more out of place, or uncomfortable, or ridiculous. Mrs. Sarland’s marked characteristic had been dressing and playing a part to improve the family fortunes. Here, if Cherry had not been suddenly furious, she could have shrieked. They approached camp. The Indian dismounted and began to slip the pack. Chauncey went to his mother’s assistance. Manifestly it was no joke to get her off a horse. She was heavy, and looked as if her bones had stiffened.

  “Oh mercy! My muscles…my flesh!” she wailed.

  “Cheer up, Mother. We’re here at last,” Chauncey replied with satisfaction.

  “This is the place then?” she asked, peering around in disgust.

  “Beckyshibeta.”

  “It looks like it sounds. I don’t see much of a camp. Mister Winters said his daughter was here with some friends.”

  “Perhaps this is the guide’s camp. We’ll look around and find them. My word! It’ll be good to see Cherry.”

  “Chauncey, our Indian is riding away!” Mrs. Sarland exclaimed in alarm.

  “I understood he was going to see his family.”

  “Suppose he doesn’t come back? Suppose we don’t find Miss Winters and party. Here we are in a god-forsaken hole a hundred and ninety miles from a railroad. Nothing but a lot of wild Indians around. We may get scalped.”

  “You needn’t worry, Mother,” returned Chauncey. “You’d never get scalped. You can take off your hair and hand it over. I’m the one to worry.”

  “Chauncey Sarland! How dare you talk that way? You ought at least be respectful after my being good enough to let you drag me out here.”

  “Pardon, Moth
er,” the youth said contritely. “I’m sore. This beastly trip through all that beastly desert. And no sign of comfort here. It’s most annoying.”

  “Whose fault is it?” queried Mrs. Sarland as she carefully looked around a rock to see if there were snakes or bugs present. Then very wearily she sat down.

  “Yours,” young Sarland returned, looking at his drooping horse. “I suppose I’ll have to remove that beastly saddle.”

  “My fault? You miserable boy!” exclaimed his mother, highly indignant. “You know I’m doing it all for you. Chasing this worthless Winters girl! I’ve suffered agonies on this ride. And that horrid place where we tried to sleep last night! Will I ever forget it? And this awful sunburn!”

  “Cherry isn’t quite worthless, Mother dear,” rejoined Chauncey complacently. “Her dad has several millions. And Cherry is pretty well fixed. You know that’s why you’re here.”

  “There’s gratitude for you,” Mrs. Sarland declared witheringly. “Here I am trying to make it easy for you. You who’ve gone through most of your father’s money. Now you make it appear I’m doing this for myself.”

  “All right. All right,” Chauncey said impatiently. “But don’t blame me for bringing you on this particular wild-goose chase. I didn’t like the idea, believe me. I told you in New York that Winters was taking Cherry to a tourist hotel. That’s what I believed then.”

  “Didn’t you say Cherry told you her father was taking her into one of the loneliest places in the world?”

  “I sure did. Mother, Arizona looks to me to be about half of the United States. And it’s lonely all right. Imagine fine-combing this desert all to hunt up a girl. That fellow who charged a hundred dollars for a car ride that scrambled my insides. I’d like to get hold of him. Mother, I’ve an idea Winters and that trader Linn were laughing at us up their sleeves.”