by Zane Grey
“Longing!” exclaimed Marian, almost with passion, carried out of self- control by this woman’s penetrating power to thrill her. “I–I don’t know what it is. But I think under my fair skin–I’m a savage!”
“And you have some money?”
“Oh, I’m not rich, but then I’m not poor, either.”
“And you love Nophaie–as you’re sure you could never love another man–a white man?”
“I–I love him terribly,” whispered Marian. “How can I foretell the future–any possible love–again? But I hate the very thought. Oh, I had it put to me often enough lately–marriage for money or convenience–for a home–for children–for anything but love? No. No! Not for me.”
“And will you marry Nophaie?” added Mrs. Withers.
Marian uttered a little gasp. Again it was not shame that sent the prickling hot blood to her cheeks, but a liberation of emotion she had restrained. This blunt and honest woman called to her very depths.
“Nophaie is an Indian,” Mrs. Withers went on. “But he’s a man. I never saw a finer man–white or red.... I think you’re a fortunate girl. To love and be loved–to live in this desert–to see its wildness and grandeur–to learn of it from an Indian–to devote your energies to a noble cause! I hope you see the truth!”
“I don’t see very clearly, but I believe you,” replied Marian. “You express something vague and deep in me–that wants to come out.... I ought not forget to tell you–Nophaie never asked me to–to marry him.”
“Well, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to, believe me,” returned the older woman. “I’ve seen some lovelorn Indians in my day, but Nophaie beats them all.... What do you think you’ll do–send for him or ride out to his home?”
“I–I’d rather meet him out–away–somewhere in the desert,” replied Marian, in thoughtful perplexity. “But would that be–be all right? It’s so unheard of–this thing I’m doing. I want to do it. The strongest feelings in me sanction it. But I’m sensitive–I don’t want people to know. Oh, it’s the cowardice and deceit of my kind.”
“Certainly it’ll be all right. John will take you to meet Nophaie,” rejoined Mrs. Withers, warmly. “And no one, except John and me, will be in the secret. We’ll tell the men and everyone who happens along that you’ve come out to work among the Indians.”
“Thank you. That will make it easier for me until I find myself.... I was brazen enough when I started out. But my courage seems oozing away.”
“I reckon these first days will be hard for you. But don’t get blue. All will be well. You’re young, healthy, strong. You have a mind. You’ll have a wonderful experience out here and be the better, if not the happier for it.”
At that juncture Withers came tramping into the room.
“Say, you look like you’d be good medicine,” he said heartily, as he stood gazing, somewhat surprised and wholly delighted. “What the desert will do to that complexion!... Well, miss, a Pahute Indian just rode in. He saw Nophaie this morning and talked with him. I thought you’d be glad to hear that.”
“Oh–to-day! So near!” exclaimed Marian.
“Shore can’t call it near–if you mean where Nophaie is. Nigh on to a hundred miles.”
“What did he tell you?” queried Marian, eagerly.
“Not much, I just asked if he’d seen Nophaie. He said he had, at sunup this morning. Nophaie was with the sheep. It’s lambing time out there. Nophaie was a great shepherd boy. I’ve heard before how he goes with the sheep. This Pahute laughed and said, ‘Nophaie forgets his white mind and goes back to the days of his youth.’ I think all the Indians feel joy over Nophaie’s renunciation of the white man’s life.”
“May I take a look at this Pahute?” asked Marian.
“Come on. I’ll introduce you,” replied Withers, with a laugh.
“Yes, go out with him,” interposed Mrs. Withers. “I must see about dinner.”
“I don’t want to be introduced or have this Pay–Pahute see I’m interested,” said Marian to Withers, as they passed out of the house. “I think it’s a matter of sentiment. I just want to–to look at the Indian who saw Nophaie this very day.”
“I was only joking, Miss Warner,” returned Withers, seriously. “This Pahute is a bad Indian. He’s got a record, I’m sorry to say. He’s killed white men and Indians both.”
“Oh! I’ve heard or read that fights and bloodshed were things of the past.”
“Shore you have,” said Withers, with a grim note in his voice. “But you heard or read what’s not true. Of course the frontier isn’t wild and bad, as it was forty years ago, when I was a boy. Nor anything so tough as fifteen years ago when the Indians killed my brother. But this border is yet a long way from tame.”
He led Marian through the back of the gray stone house into the store. The center of this large room was a stone-floored square, walled off from the spacious and crowded shelves by high counters. Indians were leaning against these counters. Marian saw locks of raven black hair straggling from under dusty crumpled black sombreros. She saw the flash of silver buckles and ornaments. She heard the clink of silver money and low voices, in which the syllable predominating sounded like toa and taa. All these Indians had their backs turned to Marian and appeared to be making purchases of the white man behind the counter. Piles of Indian blankets covered the ends of the counters. Back of them on the shelves were a variety of colored dry goods and canned foods and boxes and jars. From the ceiling hung saddles, bridles, lanterns, lassos–a numberless assortment of articles salable to Indians.
“Here’s your Pahute,” said Withers, pointing from the doorway out into the open. “Not very pretty, is he?”
Marian peeped out from behind the trader to see a villainous-looking little Indian, black almost, round-faced, big-nosed, with the boldest, hardest look she had ever seen on a human being’s face. He wore a high-crowned conical- shaped sombrero, with a wide stiff brim. It was as black as his hair and ornamented with bright beads. His garb consisted of a soiled velvet or corduroy shirt, and trousers of blue jeans. His silver-dotted belt held a heavy gun. A shiny broad silver bracelet circled a sinewy wrist, from which hung a leather quirt. Altogether this Indian was not a pleasant and reassuring sight for the eyes of a city girl, new on the desert. Yet he fascinated Marian.
“Well, what do you think of him?” asked Withers, smiling.
“I’m not especially taken with him,” replied Marian, with a grimace. “I prefer to see him at a distance. But he looks–like–”
“Like the real thing. You bet he is. But to give the devil his due, this Pahute hasn’t done a mean or vicious thing since Nophaie came back. The Indians tell me Nophaie has talked good medicine to him.”
“What is this medicine?” asked Marian.
“The Indians make medicine out of flowers, roots, bark, herbs, and use it for ills the same as white people do. But medicine also means prayer, straight talk, mystic power of the medicine men of the tribe and their use of sand paintings.”
“What are they?”
“When the medicine man comes to visit a sick Indian he makes paintings on a flat rock with different colored sands. He paints his message to the Great Spirit. These paintings are beautiful and artistic. But few white people have ever seen them. And the wonderful thing is that the use of them nearly always cures the sick Indian.”
“Then Nophaie has begun to help his people?”
“He shore has.”
“I am very glad,” said Marian, softly. “I remember he always believed he could not do any good.”
“We’re glad, too. You see, Miss Warner, though we live off the Indians, we’re honestly working for them.”
“The trader at Mesa said much the same, and that traders were the only friends the Indians had. Is it true?”
“We believe so. But I’ve known some missionaries who were honest-to-God men–who benefited the Indians.”
“Don’t they all work for the welfare of the Indians?”
The tra
der gave her a keen, searching look, as if her query was one often put to him, and which required tact in answering.
“Unfortunately they do not,” he replied, bluntly. “Reckon in every walk of life there are men who betray their calling. Naturally we don’t expect that of missionaries. But in Morgan and Friel we find these exceptions. They are bad medicine. The harm they do, in many cases, is counteracted by the efforts of missionaries who work sincerely for the good of the Indian. As a matter of fact some of the missionaries don’t last long out here, unless they give in to Morgan’s domination.”
“Why, that seems strange!” said Marian, wonderingly. “Has this Morgan power to interfere with really good missionaries?”
“Has he?” replied Withers, with grim humor. “I reckon. He tries to get rid of missionaries he can’t rule, or, for that matter, anybody.”
“How in the world can he do that?” demanded Marian, with spirit.
“Nobody knows, really. But we who have been long on the reservation have our ideas. Morgan’s power might be politics or it might be church–or both. Shore he stands ace high with the Mission Board in the East. There’s no doubt about the Mission Board being made up of earnest churchmen who seek to help and Christianize the Indians. I met one of them–the president. He would believe any criticism of Morgan to be an attack from a jealous missionary or a religious clique of another church. The facts never get to this mission board. That must be the cause of Morgan’s power. Some day the scales will fall from their eyes and they’ll dismiss him.”
“How very different–this missionary work–from what we read and hear!” murmured Marian, dreamily thinking of Nophaie’s letter.
“I reckon it is,” said Withers. “Take, for instance, the case of young Ramsdell, the cowboy missionary. Ramsdell’s way of work ruffled Morgan. This cowboy preacher first got the Indians to like and trust him. Morgan and his ally feared Ramsdell was getting influence. He worked with the Indians digging ditches, plowing, planting, and building. Ramsdell was a good mechanic and he tried to teach things to the Indians. Then he did not thrust his religion down their throats. Hell’s fire and all such things had no place in his talks. More significant, perhaps, to the Indians, was the fact that Ramsdell never had anything to do with Indian women. He was a rough diamond, a hard-riding parson. Well, Morgan called one of his investigations, his tribunals. He and Friel and the agent Blucher constituted themselves the Mission Board out here. They brought Ramsdell to their court and accused him of being a leader in heathenism. This charge was based on the fact that he dressed in Indian costume for the entertainment of Indian children. Another charge was that he was too friendly with us traders to be a true missionary. He was dismissed. So rolls on the Christian Juggernaut! Sometimes I do not wonder at the utter incredulity and scorn of the Indians.”
Withers seemed suddenly conscious of the profound shock his statements had given Marian. Then, just as earnestly, though not so forcefully, he talked further. He explained that many of the missionaries sent out there had been misfits in other walks of life. Some of them had not been preachers. Many of them had been weak men, who found themselves far from civilization and practically in control of a defenceless race. They yielded to temptation. They were really less to blame for evil consequences than the combination of forces that had sent them out there to the bleak, wild desert. Lastly, Withers claimed that it was this system which was wrong–the system that ignorantly and arbitrarily sent inferior men to attempt to teach Christianity to Indians.
Marian sensed poignantly the subtle and complex nature of this question of the missionary work. The Paxtons had given the same impression. Again she remembered Nophaie’s letter, which she had reread only the day before, and now began to acquire her own objective impressions of what must be a tremendous issue. And suddenly she realized that she was no longer at sea in regard to her motive or intention–she had fixed and settled her determination to stay out there on the desert.
“Miss Warner, do you want me to send a message or letter to Nophaie by this Pahute?” inquired Withers. “He’ll ride out to-morrow.”
“No. I’d rather go myself,” replied Marian. “Mrs. Withers said you’d take me. Will you be so kind?”
“I shore’ll take you,” he rejoined. “I’ve got some sheep out that way, and other interests. It’s a long ride for a tenderfoot. How are you on a horse?”
“I’ve ridden some, and this last month I went to a riding school three times a week. I’m pretty well hardened. But of course I can’t really ride. I can learn, though.”
“It’s well you broke in a little before coming West. Because these Nopah trails are rough riding, and you’ll have all you can stand. When would you like to start?”
“Just as soon as you can.”
“Day after to- morrow, then. But don’t set your heart on surprising Nophaie. It can’t be done.”
“Why? If we tell no one?”
“Things travel ahead of you in this desert. It seems the very birds carry news. Some Indian will see us on the way, ride past us, or tell another Indian. And it’ll get to Nophaie before we do.”
“What will get to Nophaie?”
“Word that trader Withers is riding west with Benow di cleash. Shore, won’t that make Nophaie think?”
“He’ll know,” said Marian, tensely.
“Shore. And he’ll ride to meet you. I’ll take you over the Pahute trail. You’ll be the first white person except myself ever to ride it. You must have nerve, girl.”
“Must I? Oh, my vaunted confidence! My foolish little vanity! Mr. Withers, I’m scared of it all–the bigness, the strangeness of this desert–of what I must do.”
“Shore you are. That’s only natural. Begin right now. Use your eyes and sense. Don’t worry. Take things as they come. Make up your mind to stand them. All will be well.”
At a call from the interior of the store Withers excused himself and left Marian to her own devices. So, not without dint of will power, Marian put hesitation and reserve away from her and stepped out among the soft-footed nosing dogs and the shaggy, wild-eyed ponies and the watchful, lounging Indians. She managed to walk among them without betraying her true sensations. The ordeal, so far as the Indians were concerned, gradually became easier, but she could not feel at ease among those pale-eyed sheep-dogs, and she did not lose her fear of being kicked by one of the ponies. The wool freighters interested her. They piled on the enormous brown sacks until the load stood fifteen feet above the wagon bed. Marian wondered if they intended to start off at this late hour. Presently the coarse odor of sheep grew a little too much for her and she strolled away, past the group of Indians toward the gate of the yard. Then from the doorway Mrs. Withers called her to supper.
CHAPTER V
Twenty-four hours at Kaidab were for Marian exceedingly full and prolific of new sensation.
A sunset over the deep notch between the red rampart and the black mesa to the west–trailing transparent clouds of purple and rose and white rimmed by golden fire; a strange, sad twilight, deepening into desert night with the heavens dark blue and radiant with a million stars; a walk out into the lonely melancholy silent emptiness; a wonderful hour with this woman who loved and knew the souls and lives of Indians; a sinking to sweet rest with eyelids seemingly touched by magic; a broken moment of slumber when the dead stillness awakened to wild staccato yelps and mournful cries; a cold, keen, invigorating dawn; and then a day of thrills, not the least of which was a horseback ride out across the sandy, green-dotted plain with an Indian boy–these somehow augmented the process of change in Marian’s heart, and clarified her mind, and established the strange fact of love for the desert. It seemed like the evolution of long period. Out of these hours grew realization of the unlimited possibilities of life and joy and labor. Never before had she divined the meaning of the words, “The world is so full of a number of things.”
That evening in another and more important council with Mrs. Withers, the matter of Marian’s work was discusse
d. They both agreed that a beginning should be made at Mesa, in whatever connection might be available at the Indian school. It was decided that in case Marian’s overtures there were futile she could come back to Kaidab and go about her work among the Indians on her own initiative. Nophaie’s possible wishes and suggestions were taken into consideration. Neither Mrs. Withers nor Marian, however, anticipated anything but approval from him. What he might have to tell Marian could only inspire her or drive her to greater efforts. As for the language, Marian decided she would be quick to learn enough of that to get along with the Indians, and proficiency would come with time.
Next morning Marian arose at five o’clock. Did the cold desert air have all to do with her exhilaration? How strange the long black horizon line with its sharp silhouettes against the pure pale golden flare of sky! Marian’s heart swelled and beat high. What sweetness life held! She was grateful for this new significance. The water had a touch of ice and made her fingers tingle. It was with real pleasure that she donned her rough warm outdoor garb–blouse of flannel, riding trousers and boots. She had coat and sweater and heavy gloves to go with them. But somehow the hat she had brought did not now seem suitable. It was too jaunty, too small. Still, she would have to wear it, for she had nothing else. Other necessities she packed in a small duffle bag.
When she got outdoors the sun had risen and appeared to be losing its brightness. A gray haze of cloud overspread the sky. The wind was cold, gusty, and whipped at Marian’s hair. Indians were riding in to the post, and already the work of the day was under way. Withers, bareheaded and coatless as usual, was directing the packing of two mules. Manifestly he did not wholly approve of the way the men were roping on the huge canvas rolls, for he jerked a loop loose and called out, derisively, “That’s no diamond hitch.” And he proceeded to do it in a style that suited him. Marian could not follow the intricate looping, but she certainly saw Withers and his man stand on opposite sides of the mule, and place a foot on him while they both leaned back and pulled with all their might. No wonder the poor mule heaved and laid back his ears and looked around as if in protest. Marian thought it was strange the animal did not burst. Presently Withers espied her. Then he halted in his task.
