The Vanishing American

by Zane Grey

  The Indians were climbing on foot, leading their mustangs. The mules were bobbing the packs up a zigzag trail. Withers likewise began the ascent. Marian followed, confident and eager, with eyes roving everywhere. What struck her singularly was the fact that, though the immense ascent appeared to be perpendicular, there was really foothold upon its slope. Whenever she halted to catch her breath she gazed at the Indians. They did not rest. Nor did the mules. How wonderfully that trail had been worked out, zigzagging the first long slope, then taking to ledge and crack, and then worming from side to side up a break between two craggy capes! It made Marian dizzy to look high at the rim. The Indians passed out of her sight and so did the mules, while Withers slowly got far ahead of her. Marian did not particularly like this aspect of the case, and discovered that Buckskin did not, either. She became extremely hampered and hindered by the horse climbing too fast behind her. He bumped her with his shoulder, nearly knocking her over, and he stepped upon her heels. Marian had to keep ahead of him, and on the increasingly steeper bits of trail this grew almost too much for her. Buckskin either could not or would not climb slowly; and at length Marian became aware that he had to expend considerable effort to make the grade. Thus Marian was hard put to it herself.

  “Look out below. Dodge the rocks,” yelled Withers from far above her.

  The zigzags of the trail had placed him directly over her, and evidently his horse had loosened stones. Marian heard them clattering down, and quickly she chose a shelving portion of wall for protection. The sliding stones passed below her, gathering momentum and more stones on the way, until the sound augmented into rattling roar. Then it ceased.

  Marian resumed the climb, with most of her confidence gone and all of her breath. People back East never saw a hill! She thought of a friend who used to refuse to walk on a level, let alone upgrade. And soon the sensations of warmth and breathlessness passed to those of fire and pain. A burden pressed upon her chest and her legs felt dead. She learned that to rest long was worse almost than no rest at all. For it grew too wonderfully good, if she halted more than a moment. So she staggered along and upward, panting laboriously, hot and wet, trying to avoid Buckskin and to keep from looking down into the void that had become awful. The light grew brighter over her. She heard the trader’s cheery call of encouragement. How endless that last steep zigzag to the top!

  “Fine! Shore, you’re there as a climber. But it’s nothing to Pahute Canyon,” Withers was saying.

  “O–h!” panted Marian, as she dragged herself up to fall upon a stone seat. She could not talk. Her breast seemed as if it were caved in. The trader’s compliment fell upon most doubting and scornful ears.

  “Rest a little,” said Withers, kindly. “And then look around. We’re on the rim of Nophaie’s country.”

  That roused Marian to a renewed interest. First she looked back at the lowlands from which she had climbed. How far below! Straight down the trail sheered, yet she had ascended it. The Valley of Gods rose prominently out of the vast stretch of desert, now visible to the eye; and the crowns of the monuments were on a level with the great wall from which Marian gazed. They belonged to the same strata of red sandstone. All that space below and between had weathered away. Worn by wind and sand and frost! The fact was plain to Marian, yet incredible. What of the ages! This land of mystery and beauty bade fair to transform her. Far away these red stone gods stood up, aloof, stupendous, and grand. She watched them for moments, and gradually her composure and strength returned.

  “Shore, I’m glad to see you take to the look of this desert,” observed Withers, seriously. “Most people don’t. Though of course very few ever have the luck to get such a view as this. What I mean is, all we have here is wonderful country. Indians, horses, birds–what few living things there really are seem absolutely not to exist because we seldom see them. So there’s nothing to look at but the vastness–nothing to think of. That is why an Indian is great. He’s like his surroundings.”

  “I don’t–know what I feel–and couldn’t tell–if I did,” replied Marian. “I want days and months here.... Yet afterward–could I ever be happy again?”

  “Places have more to do with happiness than people,” rejoined Withers. “Well, let’s be drifting. We’ve only climbed the first step up this stairway.”

  And then Marian dreaded to look toward the west. Yet she was impelled. Huge and beetling, wild with fringe of green trees, another wall obstructed the sky. It was close, and northward it broke off abruptly. Withers was riding off through a forest of cedar trees. Marian got on her horse, not without some sharp pains, and followed the trader, deeming it best to keep him in sight. The trail was dim. On that bare ground, however, Marian believed she could have followed the fresh tracks of the horses in the lead.

  This bench of fragrant green forest soon led to the base of a rocky rise where Withers waited for her.

  “Just let Buckskin have free rein,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on you. And say, I saw where an Indian horse’s tracks cut in on this trail. I’ll bet our Pahute you admired has gotten ahead of us. If so Nophaie will be on his way to meet us before sundown this day.”

  Marian tried to drive thought of such a contingency out of her mind. It stormed her and left nothing of sense to meet the ever-increasing requirements of this ride. She wanted to see all, and not dream the hours away. She yearned for this meeting with Nophaie, yet dreaded it.

  Withers held back now and accommodated his progress to Marian’s. She felt relieved to have him near, though she did not want to talk. Withers, however, had little to say, considering time and distance. They began a long climb up over bare yellow rock, wavy, hummocky, ridgy, with hills and holes, that somehow permitted a labyrinthine travel toward the summit. Not wholly bare was it, for Marian saw dwarfed cedars growing in niches where dust and water had given growth to a seed. Half a mile this strange slope ascended, at length reaching the level of the huge abutment of stone she had first noted from the rim below. She seemed now on the very summit of the uplands. Yet this was not true. There were farther and higher points to the westward. To the north the view offered wide contrast with long black ranges of mountains rising to peaks of white.

  “Look back and down!” exclaimed Withers, with a ring in his voice. “I’ve been here only once, yet I never could forget that–and never will.”

  From this height Marian found the spectacle to be immense and baffling– league on league of gray-green desert–the red ramparts on each side of the portal to the Valley of Gods–and between these wide sentinels the pinnacles of grandeur and mystery and light–sacred to the Indian. She felt the uplifting of her spirit. Could any soul be dead to this? What was nature if not eternal? There were moments of life transcendent in revelation to the roused mind. Nophaie had made gift to her of this sublimity and never would she be the same as she had been. Soon she would behold him–the Indian she loved–through whom had come deep thoughts and stirrings of her heart, and now the birth of nobler understanding. Nature flung its immortal task in her face and she learned her first lesson in humility.

  CHAPTER VI

  From that vantage point of exceedingly wide range Withers led away to the west, ascending one step of the bold corner of bluff, and then traveling along at the base of a shelving wall, in the shade of which were rich green growths. Damp, cold atmosphere here assailed Marian. The cause of this appeared to be banks of snow filling the hollows under the wall. A crusting of red dust covered the snow.

  Marian reveled in riding the kind of trail here presented. It was soft red earth, without rocks or deep washes, and it wound along the bold corners of the wall, under the looming shade, through thick piñions and cedars, with always a changing scene out across the wild uplands. The last quarter- circle round that widened wall sent the creeping cold sensations over Marian, for the overhanging sections of crumbling cliff above and the abrupt opening of an abyss below, a sinister chasm, a thousand feet deep, made this part of the trail a perilous one.

  Th
en once more Marian rode out into the sunlight, with level open desert ahead. The Indians and pack-mules were in sight, going into a dark-green forest of cedars and piñions, larger and richer than those below. Mile after mile this forest rolled westward, rising to plain of purple sage. Beyond the horizon of deep color rose a black-and-white dome of a mountain that Marian believed she recognized as Nothsis Ahn, the first sight of which she had obtained at Red Sandy. As she rode westward this mountain top dropped below the horizon.

  Marian began to find the saddle and stirrups and motion most uncomfortable things. The easy gait of Buckskin very likely had saved her up to this hour. But now the riding had commenced to tell upon her. Grateful indeed was she for the stretch of good country, for she feared bad trails more than growing discomfort. Indeed, she rather gloried in her aches and pains. Despite a hot sun the air was cold. And it grew to hold such dry sweet fragrance that Marian felt in it a kind of intoxication. By and by all the landmarks of stone dropped out of sight. There appeared to be only undulating forest of green interspersed with patches of purple. Nevertheless there was a gradual ascent in size of trees and green of foliage and fragrance of sage.

  The sun climbed high and burned hot. A warm breeze, burdened with the sweet incense of the desert, blew in Marian’s face. She rode on, losing track of time. No weariness nor pangs could deaden her enthusiasm or interest, nor that haunting and recurring surety of the growing nearness of Nophaie. There were live creatures to watch on this endless rolling plateau–dark blue jays that uttered singular piercing cries, and lizards that darted across the red bare earth, and hawks that sailed low, looking for prey, and rabbits that scurried away in the sage.

  It was hunger that reminded Marian of the passing hours and discovered to her that she had ridden until noon. Five hours of steady riding! At four miles an hour, she had in all covered twenty miles. She wondered if Buckskin was tired. He paced on, steadfast and leisurely, as if distance or time or sun were nothing to him. Marian had recourse to her sandwich and a bit of chocolate, and a drink from her canteen, therein to be rendered grateful and thoughtful for such simple things. It was the need of anything that made it precious. When before in her life had a dusty black-crusted biscuit seemed at once a pleasure and a blessing? How often had she no taste for chocolate! And as for water and its wonderful refreshing power she had known nothing. There must be a time then for food, for drink, to mean a great deal. And if for these, why not for all things?

  So Marian rode on, pondering thoughts thus evolved. All at once she looked up to see a tremendous gash in the green-forested earth ahead. Withers, on foot, was waiting for her on the brink of a chasm. Far across Marian saw the opposite rim, a red-gold, bare-faced cliff, sheering downward. She was amazed. The very earth seemed to have opened. As she rode up to Withers the chasm deepened to astonishing depths and still she could not see the bottom. The trader halted her before she got to the rim.

  “Pahute Canyon,” he said. “And it’s bad medicine. You’ve got to walk fast. Because the horses can’t go slow and I’ll have to lead them. Be sure to keep me in sight, otherwise you might lose the trail.”

  Marian dismounted, and handing her bridle to the trader she walked to the rim. A ghastly and naked glaring canyon yawned beneath her, tremendously wide and deep, bare of vegetation and blazing with its denuded and colored slopes.

  “White people don’t get to see Pahute Canyon,” said Withers, as he gazed from beside her. “It’s the wildest and most beautiful spot in the West. Reckon it’ll be shore a spell before automobile tourists will drive in and out of her, eh?”

  He laughed grimly, with some note of gratification in his voice. Marian felt speech difficult. She was astounded. Pictures of grand canyons could not convey any adequate conception of what was given by actual sight.

  “Wonderful!... Fearful!” exclaimed Marian, feeling the strange drawing power of the depths. “Oh! it seems impossible even to–to slidedown there.”

  “Well, let me get down a ways with the horses before you start, so you won’t roll on me,” said the trader. “Then you’d shore better come a-sliding, if you want to see Nophaie to-day. We’ve got to rustle to make the other rim before dark.”

  “Do–do you really believe–he’ll meet us?” queried Marian.

  “I’d gamble on it.... Be careful you don’t sprain your ankle on these loose stones.”

  With that Withers looped the bridle of Marian’s horse over the pommel, and started him down. Buckskin sent the stones cracking. Then the trader followed, leading his own horse. Marian watched him for a moment. Assuredly they had to descend rapidly or lose their equilibrium. From farther down in the depths soared up the mellow voices of the Indians, evidently calling to the mules. Cracking of rocks and sliding rattles attested to the nature of that descent far below.

  Marian took one long thrilling gaze at the opposite rim where she had been assured Nophaie might meet her. It seemed a most fitting place for this meeting so fraught with significance for her. A green-fringed red-gold canyon rim, bold and beautiful, lofty and lonely as the crag of eagles–it was indeed an outlook wherefore the Indian might watch and wait. When Marian let her gaze slowly wander down from that rim she was struck with the stupendous height and massive formation of the canyon wall. Five miles distant it was, yet it looked so high and sheer and immense that she could not repress a cry. If she had to climb that to see Nophaie this day! The idea seemed absurd. She did not possess wings. How beyond comprehension were these Westerners, red men and white men, who conquered the obstacles of nature!

  Under the colossal wall lay a flat of yellow sand through which a bright winding stream, like a white thread, meandered along shining under the sun. The stark nudity of that canyon floor was relieved by several clumps of trees, richly green in foliage. It was a light green, proving these trees to be other than evergreens, and that summer had come down in those depths.

  Then Marian’s gaze returned to the declivity at her feet. The angle was forty- five degrees and the trail was a narrow line of loose rocks. Marian drew a deep breath and essayed the start. But, loath to take the plunge that would permit of no more gaze at length and breadth of this wonderful canyon, she halted to satisfy herself and make the spectacle hers forever. The declivity was almost straight down, rough, bowlder strewn, and far below apparently shelved out into a zone of colored earths, worn into corrugations. Northward the canyon widened into a vast amphitheater of exceedingly wild nature, with slopes and walls and benches and lines of strata and slides of rock, and numberless fan-shaped facets of clay, forming a mosaic of red, yellow, purple, gray, and violet, glaring bare and bright under the sun.

  Pahute Canyon had all that made the Valley of Gods an unforgettable memory picture, and moreover it had the strangeness of desolation and decay and death. Nature had its moods and here was ruthless despoliation of the face of the earth. Marian could not see any reason why the beautiful plateau of cedar and piñon should have been riven by this catastrophe of time. Yet what else could have uncovered those intense mineral colors, which at the very least had served to charm the Indian’s eye and furnish his paints.

  Reluctantly Marian turned away from this vista of canyon beauty. She had not taken half a dozen steps before she forgot all about the scenery. She became suddenly and violently aware of the treachery of loose rocks and of the hard nature of contact with them. The first fall hurt her considerably, especially bruising her elbow; but it also hurt her vanity. She started anew, more carefully, and soon found herself wildly clutching at the air and balancing on rolling stones. This time she saved herself. But she had a good scare. Caution would not do on this trail. She had to step lightly and swiftly, to be off a loose stone before it could turn with her. There was a thrill in this descent, and she began to grow reckless. Action liberated her spirit, and the faster she progressed the less she felt fear. At sight of the worst places, long slants of loose rock on a bed of soft earth, she halted long enough to select a line of rocks, and then she tripped down,
faster and faster, growing more surefooted with practice. Once she saw the horses and Withers far below, working out over ridged red earth. As she went down, either the trail grew easier or she did better; and despite sundry knocks and several slips she began to get fun out of it. The race for her was to keep her balance. Down and down she zigzagged, growing out of breath. The slope of bowlders sheered out, affording less precipitous descent. Stones as large as houses lay everywhere. Presently Marian ran out of this bowlder zone upon red earth, still steep but affording safer and easier going. When she gazed upward, to see the red rim far above, she could scarcely believe her eyes. Little steps, but many of them, made short work of distance! It was an achievement that she felt proud of as she ruefully rubbed her bruises. Then she ran on down the easy stages over soft ground, soon to find Buckskin standing, bridle dragging in the trail. Withers waited a little way ahead. Marian mounted, then became conscious that excitement had kept her from realizing both pain and fatigue. She rode on to meet Withers.

  “You’re no tenderfoot,” he said, gayly.

  “That’s all you know,” retorted Marian. “My feet appear to be intact, but I assure you I have some tender places.”

  “Did you slide some?”

  “I did... and I could surely give pointers to some baseball players I’ve seen.”

  “Get on and ride now. Don’t be scared of the jump-off places in the trail below. Just hang on.”

  “Do you know, Mr. Withers, you have the most wonderful and easy solution to these trail problems?... Just hang on!”

  The trader laughed and turned his horse to the descent. Marian let Buckskin have free rein. The clay slopes below presented a strange variegated appearance and seemingly stood on end. Red succeeded to yellow, and yellow to violet, and that to pale chocolate. The horses slid down places so steep that Marian could scarcely keep her seat in the saddle. Some places Buckskin just slipped down. These always meant a deep wash to cross, with a climb up the opposite side. Buckskin would not climb leisurely. He usually jumped the washes, and before Marian could establish herself properly in the saddle again he was loping up the bank. The result was mortifying to her, and sometimes painful and not wholly without panic. Wither’s admonition was faithfully acted upon by Marian, though not always without frantic and violent measures. Nevertheless, she had moments of thrill and pleasure, intermingled with the other sensations. It seemed she was descending into the very bowels of the earth. How deep this canyon! Though early in the afternoon, the sun just tipped the western wall. Marian grew extremely tired just holding on, and was indeed glad when the last incline led down to a sandy wash, that in turn opened out into the canyon floor.