The Vanishing American

by Zane Grey

  “Shore that’s fine, Nophaie,” declared Wolterson. “I’m giving you a hunch, I’ll need them.”

  Nothing was said about Gekin Yashi. Wolterson spoke of his plans for dipping sheep over the ranges as far as Etenia’s place. Nophaie and the Pahutes of that upland country must drive their flocks down there. Grass on the lowlands had begun to grow, so that the Nopahs would not have to range so far. Then Wolterson informed Nophaie that the government was going to instigate a blood test of cattle and horses, as the latter especially showed evidence of tuberculosis.

  “Any horse or steer that has become infected will have to be shot,” said Wolterson, seriously. “Now isn’t it going to be hard to convince the Indians of the necessity of this?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it can’t be done,” replied Nophaie. “Is there a real necessity of testing stock for this disease?”

  “I think so. I have sent my approval to Washington. But I dislike the prospect of trouble with the Indians.... Nophaie, would you be willing to help me by explaining this test to your people?”

  “I will, if you can convince me of its need.”

  “Well, when the order comes I’ll ride first to your range, and you shall see me make tests. Has Etenia many cattle?”

  “Not a great many. They are all healthy.”

  “Nophaie, they may look healthy and still have tuberculosis.”

  At this juncture the little Indian boys and girls began to pour out of the big red dormitory like a stream of blue gingham. Nophaie noted that only the children from three years to five or six years of age appeared to be in evidence. They were a scampering, silent little horde, playing without the noise characteristic of white children. They spread over the playground to the number of several hundred, making a scene of color and animation. Several little boys came along to peer through the wire fence at Nophaie. They looked healthy and well cared for, and certainly were cleaner than any Indian boys he had seen. How stolid they seemed! They gazed at Wolterson with blank black eyes, and at Nophaie with scarcely more of interest.

  Nophaie also observed that two of the school teachers were out on the grounds with the children, but did not approach near enough for Nophaie to recognize them. Then Mrs. Wolterson appeared, coming into the garden, wearing gloves and carrying a trowel. She was a striking young woman, dark as an Indian, beginning to show the effect of desert wind and heat. She had a pleasant greeting for Nophaie. He saw her glance run over the three Indian boys and beyond to the playground, as if she were looking for some one.

  “Here comes Marian with Evangeline,” she said, as if pleased.

  It was then Nophaie saw Marian leading a little Indian girl toward them, and he got the impression that this meeting was not as accidental or casual as might appear to others. The two teachers were watching Marian. And Nophaie, with his sharp eyes, caught a glimpse of a woman’s face in a window of a house across the avenue. This appeared a busier thoroughfare now. Indians were riding out toward the desert. Some of the older schoolboys were playing ball. Three Indian workmen passed by, carrying long shovels over their shoulders.

  “Shore,” drawled Wolterson, with eyes on the avenue, “and here comes the champion liar of the reservation.”

  “Bob, don’t say that,” said Mrs. Wolterson, quickly. “Somebody might hear you. The very trees have ears, not to speak of these Indian boys.”

  Nophaie saw a heavily built young man, roughly clad, typically Western in corduroys and boots and sombrero, swinging with rider’s gait up the avenue. Upon sighting the group in the garden he swerved and, tilting back his sombrero, he lounged against the gate-post. His face was brown and broad, rather coarse, with thick lips and prominent eyes, wine dark in color.

  “Howdy folks!” he said, with a slow grin. “You ain’t really workin’?”

  “Howdy, Jay!” responded Wolterson. “I don’t get much time except of evenings.”

  “Why, you seem to have all the time there is,” returned the other, dryly, with satire. “And look who’s here–the handsome Mrs. Bob. I calculate to find me a wife like her.”

  This was the first time Nophaie had ever seen Jay Lord. Careless, easy, cool, with his air of devilish insouciance, this leering Westerner did not enhance Nophaie’s respect for the white men. Sight of him, so palpably other than the good-natured friend his familiarity assumed, roused something latent and dormant in Nophaie.

  “Jay Lord, you’re a sad flatterer,” observed Mrs. Wolterson.

  “Sad? I reckon not. I’m gay,” he replied, and sauntered into the garden. His bold gaze fell upon Nophaie, and he addressed him in Nopah.

  “Say, ain’t this the college Injun?” he inquired of Wolterson, seeing that Nophaie paid no attention to him.

  “Who’s that?” drawled Wolterson.

  “Aw, come off,” retorted Lord, in disgust. “I mean college–where this redskin went. You know as well as anybody.”

  “Jay, shore, I don’t know anything.”

  “Right. You spoke wisdom for once. An’ I reckon the less you know the safer, hey?”

  Then Lord espied Marian, who had come up to the fence, leading the little Indian girl. Mrs. Wolterson went over to them, answering Marian’s greeting. Lord doffed his sombrero and waved it low, crude in his assumption of a dignified salute, yet dauntless in his admiration.

  “I reckon I’ll hang round awhile,” he said, as he approached the fence and hung over it. “Why, who’s this here little girl? Aren’t you an Injun?”

  “I’m not,” piped up the little girl, in astonishingly good English, “I’m Miss Evangeline Warner.”

  “Ho! Ho! Listen to the little Injun girl,” replied Lord, with a loud laugh.

  “Jay, please don’t tease Eva,” asked Mrs. Wolterson, appealingly. “All the men tease her, just because she’s so bright. But you will spoil her.”

  Nophaie had heard of this three- year-old prodigy. Her Indian mother had been glad to get rid of her, yet showed great pride in Eva’s fame. For some strange reason the child, who was a full- blooded Indian, had taken remarkably to the white people’s language and ways, and after two years hated the very name of Indian. She was a sturdy child, with heavy round face and black staring eyes and straggling black hair, in neither appearance nor expression any different from the other little Indian girls. Nophaie roused to a strong interest in Eva.

  “No, I’m not–I’m not,” declared Eva vehemently, and she kicked at the wire fence.

  “Never mind, Eva,” said Mrs. Wolterson, as she knelt down to take the little girl’s hand. “Say your go-to-bed prayer for us.”

  Evangeline appeared wholly devoid of the shyness characteristic of Indian children.

  “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I should worry!” Jay Lord roared with laughter, and Wolterson, too, enjoyed a laugh.

  “Why–why, goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Wolterson, divided between horror and mirth. “Evangeline, where did you learn those last words?”

  “From one of the men, that’s sure,” said Marian. “I never heard her say it that way before.” Then she stooped to Evangeline and, peering into the little dark face, she shook her gently. “Eva, you will get spanked. Say your prayer over again–the right way. Remember... you will get spanked.”

  Very soberly the little Indian miss eyed her teacher:

  “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, You will get spanked!” Before Marian could protest or even before the men could laugh, a loud voice, of peculiar timber, rang out from behind:

  “Shut that brat’s mouth!”

  Nophaie knew before he wheeled that the speaker was Morgan. And he had closer view of this man than ever before.

  “Come Eva,” said Marian, hurriedly, and, rising, she led the child away.

  “That sounded a heap like the Old Book, now didn’t it?” rasped out Morgan, glaring about him.

  Nophaie saw a matured man of medium height, thick-bodied,
with something slack in his physical make-up. He had a smooth face the striking features of which were pale eyes the color of ice and a long, thin-lipped, tight-shut mouth. He had a big nose, somewhat of a reddish hue, and his complexion was an olive tan, rather than the healthy bronze peculiar to the desert. Morgan seemed not to be an outdoor man. His was a strange, strong face with an intense cast of thought or will, a deeply lined face, especially in the furrowed, frowning brow. He was magnetic, but it seemed a magnetism of strife of mind, a dynamic energy of brain, a tremendous mental equipment. All about him breathed of intolerance.

  Jay Lord was the first to answer Morgan. “Sounds like one of them schoolmarms, to me.”

  “Mr. Morgan, I’m sure Marian could never have taught Eva that,” interposed Mrs. Wolterson. “Why, she was shocked! So was I.”

  The missionary might not have heard her, for all the sign he gave.

  “Wolterson, the agent tells me you drove Gekin Yashi home this morning.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the stockman, leaning on his shovel and slowly lifting his gaze.

  “How come?” jerked out Morgan.

  “Wal,” drawled the Texan, “if you mean what did I have to do with it– Blucher gave Gekin Yashi permission to visit her father. I am dipping sheep out at Do etin’s. Had to haul supplies this morning. Gekin Yashi rode on the wagon. That’s all.”

  “Humph! When’s she coming back?”

  “I don’t know. She said she hoped her father would keep her home.”

  When Morgan’s restless glance fell upon Nophaie it became fixed. Nophaie met that glance. One of the qualities he had not absorbed from his long association with white people was their habit of dissimulation or deceit. Something emanating from this man called to the depths of Nophaie. Not the old racial hatred of red man for white foe! It was a subtle, complex instinct, born of the moment. Leisurely Nophaie rose to his tall stature, and folding his arms he gave Morgan eye for eye.

  “Are you the college Indian?”

  Nophaie did not feel that he was required to answer.

  “Sure he’s the one,” put in Jay Lord. “They call him Nophay or somethin’ like.”

  “Can’t you speak English?” demanded Morgan, sharply. “Let’s hear some of your Eastern lingo.”

  “I would not have to speak English very well to do it better than you,” replied Nophaie, in his low, level tones, perfectly enunciated.

  “Wha-at?” blurted out Morgan.

  Nophaie eyed him with inscrutable meaning and did not vouchsafe any more.

  “Have you ever been to my church?” went on Morgan.

  “No.”

  “Well, then, I want you to come.”

  “What for?” queried Nophaie.

  “To hear me preach. If you speak English as well as you brag, you can carry the word of God–of Christianity–home to your heathen tribe. Teach them how to get to heaven.”

  “We have no desire to go to your heaven,” returned Nophaie. “If there really is such a paradise as you preach about, all the land there will be owned by missionaries. And the Indians would have none to grow their corn and hay.”

  “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” snarled Morgan.

  “Morgan, the most stupid Indian on this reservation is smart enough to see through you.”

  “Bah! Your tribe of gut-eaters are too ignorant to see anything, let alone the white man’s religion.”

  “The Indian’s own religion is infinitely better for him than the white man’s.”

  “Humph!” fumed Morgan. “Did you learn that at college?”

  “No. I learned it upon my return to my people. What is more, I learned there is not one single real Christian Indian on the reservation, and it is your own fault.”

  “That’s a damned lie,” shouted Morgan, growing purple in the face.

  “What do you know of the Indians out there?” demanded Nophaie, pointing to the desert. “You have never been out there in the desert.”

  Slowly the color left Morgan’s face and there was visible a contraction that suggested a powerful effort of will to control fury and amaze. When he had himself in hand, amazement still was his predominant expression. He had encountered an Indian beyond his widest experience. That sudden check, that sudden restraint, showed Morgan’s depth. He could retrench. Nophaie read his craftiness. Also he received subtle intuition that this missionary must be a composite of knave and fanatic, an unscrupulous usurper who had no illusions as to his honesty, yet was a visionary zealot who believed himself an apostle.

  “What do you think you know of me?” he demanded.

  “Only what the Indians say–and what I can see,” returned Nophaie, in subtle scorn.

  “I have been missionary here for over fifteen years. The Nopahs are harsh. They are slow to appreciate my work.”

  “No, Mr. Morgan,” retorted Nophaie, “you have it wrong. My tribe has been swift to appreciate your work. Don’t try any of your religious talk on me. It is all bunk. You are not a true missionary.”

  “Insolent heathen!” ejaculated Morgan, choking so that the thick folds of flesh on his fat neck worked up and down.

  “A missionary is a man sent out by church to propagate religion in the faith that an alien race will be saved,” continued Nophaie. “It is not altogether a mistaken sincerity. The churches are sincere, and most of the missionaries are noble men. The government, too, is sincere, and trusts such men as you and Blucher. That must be the reason why you have been able to hang on here so long. If you were a real man you might help the poor Indians like a real missionary would do. You might teach them better ways to build, cook, harvest, irrigate, shear their sheep and store their corn. You might teach them sanitary laws. By improving their physical condition, you might raise their moral standards. You might, by example, show them how a white man works with his hands. But you do not work. Your hands, I see, are softer than Mrs. Wolterson’s–if she will permit that doubtful compliment.... No, Mr. Morgan, you are not a builder. You are a destroyer, and not only of the Indians’ faith, but of the toil and sacrifice of true missionaries of God.”

  Morgan’s egotism was stronger than his restraint–his outraged sovereignty could not all in a moment be silenced.

  “I–I’ll put you in jail,” he said, with hard expulsion of breath.

  “What for? Telling the truth?” rejoined Nophaie, in lofty scorn. “This is a free country. I am an American. An honest Indian!”

  “I’ll haul you up for this,” he threatened, lifting a shaking hand.

  Swift as light Nophaie leaped out of his statuesque posture, so suddenly that both Morgan and Lord recoiled, as if from attack. Certain it was that Morgan’s face paled.

  “Haul me into court!” returned Nophaie, piercingly. “Haul me before your investigation committee! I would like nothing better. I will have Indians there, and real white men to listen.... Do you get that, Mr. Morgan?”

  But Morgan shirked an answer, and with somber glance sweeping away he drew Lord with him and passed out of the gate, down the avenue. Lord’s voice, low and hoarse, came back on the breeze.

  Thereupon Nophaie turned to Wolterson and his wife. The Texan’s habitual calm appeared to have been broken.

  “Shore, you gave him hell,” he said, breathing deep. “You could have knocked him down with a feather–and me, too.... About the happiest few minutes I ever passed in Mesa!”

  But Mrs. Wolterson appeared pale and distressed.

  “Oh, he was furious!” she whispered.

  “Shore, I never saw Mr. Morgan upset like that,” returned her husband, with a slow grin. “He just couldn’t believe his ears.... Nophaie, take a hunch from a Texan. Somehow and some way Morgan will injure you. He has had to suffer an unparalleled affront before other people. Besides, he actually was afraid of you–amazed–furious–then afraid. I felt it. I’ve long studied this man. And I can’t prove much, but I feel he is capable of anything.”

  “Morgan is a coward and liar. I wonder that some Indian ha
s not killed him long ago,” said Nophaie. “It proves the patience and the restraint of my people.”

  “Nophaie, I’ve lived among violent men,” rejoined the Texan, soberly. “Don’t underrate Morgan. He was a rough Westerner when first he came here. He’s been long in power. He’s arrogant–malicious. I’d put nothing beyond him.”

  “Well, to be forearmed is half the battle,” replied Nophaie, as he turned to his horse. “I’ll not ride to Mesa any more in daylight, nor let Morgan know I’m ever here.”

  It was long past dark when Nophaie reached the hogan of Do etin. A fire still burned and in its flickering light sat the father of Gekin Yashi, a man little beyond middle age, stalwart, deep-chested, with massive head and great rolling eyes like those of an ox.

  Nophaie saw that he had been expected. Bread and meat and drink were tendered him. While he ate hungrily his host smoked in silence. Do etin was not rich in horses and sheep, as were most of his neighbors, nor was he a chief. Yet he occupied a position of respect and dignity in the tribe, by reason of his intelligence. Gekin Yashi was his only child. Do etin’s range had long been a grassy flat in a shallow canyon watered by a never-failing spring. Nophaie looked round in the shadows of the hogan for Gekin Yashi and her mother, but they were not there. Perhaps Do etin waited upon him to go into council, and had sent his women to a hogan of relatives near at hand.

  By and by Do etin broke his silence. He gave his consent for Gekin Yashi to go with Nophaie and approved of that procedure. But he doubted it would be possible to hide his daughter for long. Nophaie should not at once incur risk of government punishment by marrying Gekin Yashi or letting it be found out that he had hidden her away. Do etin believed the white man’s education good for the Indian boys and girls. It taught them to help their parents in new and better ways of living. But the religion forced upon them was not acceptable, and the ruin of Indian girls by white men employed on the reservation was the basest and blackest crime of the many crimes the white race had perpetrated upon the red.