CHAPTER XII
DESERT SECRETS
Consider now the interesting activities of Doc Stooder, fallen angel ofAEsculapius:
On a March evening of sunset splendour the worthy doctor descendedfrom the single combination coach and baggage car which asuffering locomotive drags once daily from a junction point on thetranscontinental line south through naked battalions of mountains tothe ghost town of Cuprico. Once Cuprico was famous; once when primitivesteam shovels nibbled at solid mountains of copper up back of MainStreet Cuprico roared with a life that was dizzy and vaunted itself therip-roarin'est copper camp in all the Southwest. But the glory that wasCuprico passed, even as that of Rome; to-day they tell of the town thatwhen its mayor fell dead on the post office steps his body remainedundiscovered for three days.
No romantic craving for revisiting scenes of his youth had promptedthe Doc to his journey Cupricoward--he had been its premier studplayer in a day of glory fifteen years before. No, a far more materialurge had ended a period of fretting in Arizora by shunting him on awestward-wending train. For a week Bim Bagley, his partner in a secretenterprise, had been absent on his quest of El Doctor Coyote Belly andthe New York engineer, Bim's friend, who was reported to be woundedand under the care of the Papago medicine man. Ten days prior toBagley's excursion into Sonora had been frittered away in groping forinformation concerning this vanished engineer. All precious time wasted!
It has, perhaps, become apparent that Doc Stooder was not enthusiasticover the inclusion of Grant Hickman, the Easterner, in his goldenscheme of treasure trove in desert sands. The stubborn refusal ofBim Bagley to move without this fellow Hickman's being party to theenterprise had prevented a start on the expedition for the Mission ofthe Four Evangelists six weeks before. The canny physician--whose sharein the joint endeavour was to be his exclusive information concerningthe whereabouts of the Lost Mission--possessed in large degree thatsense of divination bestowed upon folk of the desert which gives theirimagination wings over the horizon of time. Each day of delay he reada day to the advantage of Don Padraic O'Donoju, certain sure as he wasthat the master of the desert oasis had come by knowledge of his owntreasure hunt intent through mysterious desert channels.
The vision of gold and pearls Doc Stooder had seen in the depths ofraw alcohol on a night of dreaming in his office had become a goad.So he came to Cuprico, the ghost town not seventy miles away from thesupposed site of the buried mission; his intent was to pick up hisPapago informant, who lived midway between Cuprico and the Border, and,as Stooder happily phrased his purpose, "give things a look-see." Ifhis luck was with him and he should stumble onto the mission duringthis solo game so much the better. Conscience nor maxims of fair playwere any part of the doctor's moral anatomy.
The Doc upon his arrival did not pervade Cuprico's centres of eveningsociety--the Golden Star pool hall and soft drinks emporium and theback room of Garcia's drug store--for reasons sufficiently potent tomerit a paragraph of explanation.
Years before, when he was a resident of the mining camp and had money,Doc Stooder took unto himself a Mexican wife who had a passion fordiamonds. Mrs. Apolinaria Stooder had a way with her which seemedto win deep into the atrophied heart of her spouse, and he showeredher with the stones of her choice. No woman from Yuma to Tucson--solegend still recites--"packed so much ice" as Doc Stooder's. Then inan epidemic of typhoid, which the Doc combated with the heroism of asaint, Apolinaria died.
Alone and with his own hands her sorrowing widower gave her sepulchresomewhere amid the gaunt hills surrounding the town. He let it becomeknown after the interment that since Apolinaria loved her diamonds sohe had buried them with her, adding for good measure of gossip that hefigured their total value at round $5000. Immediately and for severalyears thereafter all the prospectors for fifty miles about gave uptheir search for dip and strike and prospected for Mrs. ApolinariaStooder. Failing to find so much as a "colour" of her diamonds, theprofession drew the conclusion that Doc Stooder was a monumental liar.His popularity waned accordingly.
Shadows were lengthening when Stooder tooled a rented desert skimmerout of Cuprico's single garage and brought it to a stop before thegeneral store. Into the wagon box behind the seat went his bed roll,brought from Arizora and containing certain glassware whose contentswere more precious to their owner than life itself; boxes of grocerystaples; extra cans of oil and gasoline. Two big canteens on therunning board were filled. Plugs of chewing tobacco heavy and broad asslate shingles were stowed in the tool box. In all this preparationthe doctor's long legs calipered themselves from counter to car withremarkable efficiency.
"Goin' on a little prospecting trip?" the storekeeper had volunteeredwhen the Doc first commenced his stowing. No answer.
"Figgerin' on a little _pasear_ down 'crost the Line?" hopefully fromthat worthy as he helped noose the tarpaulin over the dunnage. TheDoc's head was buried above the ears among the engine's naked cylindersand he professed not to hear. When Stooder was seated at the wheeland the storekeeper had the edge of the final pail of water over theradiator vent he feebly flung out his last grappling hook:
"Reckon you might be selling Bibles to the Papagoes."
"Come here, friend," sternly from the doctor. "Now I give you the wayinside if you'll promise to keep it mum." The storekeeper hoppedaround to lean his ear over the wheel in gleeful anticipation.
"I'm a-goin' south from here to give a Chinese lady a lesson on theocarina. So long!"
When the Doc skittered down the brief Main Street and out onto thethread of grey caliche that was the road to the mysterious southall of the west was a-roil with the final palette scrapings of thesunset--umber, pale lemon and, high above the mountains standing blackas obsidian, cirrus clouds dyed a fugitive cherry. Ahead showed theragged gate into the valley of El Infiernillo--the Little Hell--placeof bleak distances between mountain ranges bare as sheet iron; placeof unimaginable thirst when summer sun hurls reflected heat back fromburning walls. Beyond El Infiernillo just a hint of peaks like fretworkspires marked destination for the doctor; there at the foot of theGrowler range and where the Desert of Altar washes across the imaginaryline between two nations, lay the land of his desire. Somewhere onthe Road of the Dead Men passing through that savage waste perchancea nubbin of weathered 'dobe wall lifted a few inches above the sandto mark treasure of gold and pearls below; maybe naught but a charredtimber end concealed by a patch of greasewood and crying a secret tothe ears of the searcher.
Gold and pearls--pearls and gold! The Doc's rapt eye caught the coloursof sacred treasure in the dyes of the sunset and read them for aportent of success.
"Me, I'm a-goin' just slosh around in wealth! Doc Stooder, the man withthe _dinero_--that's me!" The gaunt head behind the wheel of the desertskimmer was tilted back and A. Stooder, M.D., carolled his expectationsat the new stars. Then he reined in his gas snorter long enough tofumble with his bed roll in the wagon box. Out came a square bottle offluid fire, such as passes currency with the international bootleggersin the Southwest. The Doc drank heartily to the promise spread acrossthe western heavens. The bottle was tucked in a handy coat pocket forfuture reference.
Nights in the desert along the Line are psychic. They are not of theworld of arc lights, elevated trains and the winking jewels of whiteways. In that world man has so completely surrounded himself with thetinsels of his own making, the noise of his own multiplied squeakingsand chatterings, that he comes to accept the vault above him as underthe care of the city parks department. His little tent of night isno higher than the towers of his skyscrapers. But in the desert it isdifferent.
Emptiness of day is increased an hundred fold at dark because itleaps up to lose its frontiers behind the stars. Silence of the dayis intensified to such a degree that the inner ear catches a hummingof supernal machinery in the heavens. The eye measures perspectivesbetween the near and far planets. And the soul of man hearkens tostrange voices; sighings from the pale mouths of the desert scrubs,born to a servitude of thirst; whisperings
passed from mountain top tomountain top; faint stirrings of the earth relaxed from the torsion ofthe sun.
Doc Stooder, desert familiar as he was, never could blunt his sensesto this emptiness of night in the wastes. It awed him, left himitching under half-perceived conceptions of the infinite. Hence thebottle carried handily in his pocket. From time to time as he careeredover the road faintly marked by the feeble sparks of his headlightshe braked down to have a swig. The more he felt lifted above sombreunrealities about him the greater his impulse to break into song. Theiron gate of El Infiernillo heard his roundelay.
Miles unreeled behind him. Dim shapes of mountains dissolved to newcontours and were left behind. The Doc came to a sharp eastward turningof the road but kept straight ahead out over the untracked flats tosouthward. He knew his way; the packed sand gave him as good tractionas the road. Down and down into the unpeopled wilderness of sandhillsand buttes bored the twin sparks of the little car.
Another shift of direction and the Doc was teetering up a narrow canyonbetween high mountain walls. His course was a dry wash, boulder strewn.Only instinct of a desert driver saved him from piling up on some roughblock of detritus. Sand traps forced him to shove the engine into low,and the snarling of the exhaust was multiplied from the canyon walls.
A light flickered far ahead. A dog barked. The car wallowed andsnuffled out of the wash to come to a halt before several silhouettesof huts. People, roused from sleep by the car's clamour, stood ringedabout in curiosity; one held a torch of reeds.
"Ho, Guadalupe!" Doc Stooder bellowed. A solid looking Indian with amat of tousled iron-grey hair stood out under the torch light, grinninga welcome to "El Doctor."
"Show me a place to sleep," commanded the visitor, and the one calledGuadalupe carried the doctor's bed-roll to his own hut, of whichsquaw and children were speedily dispossessed. So the good doctorfrom Arizora slept the rest of the night in the rancheria of the SandPeople, last remnant of that Papago family for which the Mission ofthe Four Evangelists was reared to save souls. In five hours the Dochad covered by gasoline what it would have cost Guadalupe of the SandPeople as many days in painful plodding.
Morning saw the rancheria in a ferment of excitement and Doc Stooderviciously tyrannical in reaction from his accustomed alcoholic night.Guadalupe found himself in a difficult position. Once in a momentof gratitude when the white doctor had snatched his squaw from thetortures of asthma--the miracle had occurred in Guadalupe's summercamp near Arizora--the Indian had babbled his knowledge of the buriedmission, its treasure. But he had not counted upon this unexpectedappearance of the white doctor, demanding to be led to the place ofwealth. It is common with all the Southwestern Indians to believenaught but ill luck can follow any revelation to a white man of thedesert's hidden gold; some say the early padres, themselves consistenthoarders, inculcated this lesson. With the eyes of his fellow villagersdisapprovingly upon him, Guadalupe first attempted evasion.
Stooder in an ominous quiet heard him through. Then without a wordhe opened a small medicine chest he carried in his bed-roll and tooktherefrom two tightly folded pieces of paper--blue and white. WhileGuadalupe and the rest watched, round-eyed, the doctor made quickpasses with each bit of paper over the mouth of a small water _olla_.The surface of the water sizzed and boiled.
Guadalupe, two shades whiter, babbled his willingness to go at once tothe place where the mission lay hidden.
"Prime cathartic for the mind," grunted the Doc, and he tuned hisengine for the trip.
They were off down the canyon and into the yellow basin of ElInfiernillo. Guadalupe, riding for the first time in the white man'ssmell-wagon, gripped his seat with the delicious fear of a child ona merry-go-round. He watched the movements of the doctor's foot onthe gear-shift, marvelling that the beast concealed in pipes and rodsanswered each downward thrust with a roar. Earth spun under him as ifElder Brother himself, master of all created things, had a hold on itand were pulling it all one way.
Down and down into the untracked miles of Altar. A single iron post ona hill marking the Line. The sierra of Pinacate cinder-red in the southfor a beacon. Right and left sheet iron ranges with stipples of rustwhere the _camisa_ grew. Mirage quivering into nothingness just as itsfalse waters were ready to be parted by the car's wheels.
They came upon an east-and-west track in the sand--the Road of theDead Men--and turned westward upon it. Away off to the north and easta spiral dust cloud walked across the wastes along the skirts of themountains. Guadalupe pointed to it with an ejaculation in his owntongue. A sign--a sign! There was the place of the mission!
The Doc felt his internals quiver in expectation. Prickles ofexcitement played in fingers that gripped the wheel. Automatically hebegan to hum an ancient bar-room ditty.
The Papago indicated where he should turn off the road in the directionof a great gap in the mountains, into which the desert flowed as a sea.Here the mesquite lifted from its crouch and flourished in a five-footgrowth--true index of hidden waters. The car made hard going, whatwith brittle twigs that caught at its tires and the _cholla_ creepinglike a spined snake to threaten punctures. At his guide's word DocStooder stopped. Both scrambled out.
Before moving a step the Doc must have a ceremonial drink, apreliminary he did not deem necessary to share with Guadalupe. Theman's big hands trembled as he raised the bottle to his lips; his eyeswere shining with gold lust.
Guadalupe stood for several minutes slowly swinging his head fromlandmark to landmark, his eyes following calculated lines through thescrub. Then he commenced a slow pacing through the close-set aisles ofthe greasewood and cactus, bearing in a wide circle. He peered intothe core of each shrub, kicked at every naked stub of root and branchappearing above the surface. The Doc, cursing and humming alternately,was right at his shoulder.
An hour passed--two. The sun, now high, burned mercilessly. StillGuadalupe pursued a narrowing circle through the scrub. Of a sudden theIndian gurgled and dropped to his knees beside a salt-bush. He whippedout his knife and began hacking at the tough stubs of branches nearthe soil. The Doc, slavering in his excitement, dropped beside him andlooked into the heart of the salt-bush. He saw nothing but a roundedslab of rock.
Guadalupe finished his knife work and started to dig with his hands.Terrier-like he pawed a hole away from what Stooder had taken for arock. The smooth black surface began to curve outward in a form toosymmetrical for nature's work; it was rounded and gradually flaring.
Guadalupe dug on. Blood pounded in the Doc's ears. Snatches of songtrickled from his lips.
Suddenly patience exploded. Stooder pushed the Papago to his haunchesand threw his own body full length into the hole dug. His arms embraceda flaring shape of metal. His eyes fell upon faint ridges and lines,like lettering. He spat upon the spot and rubbed it clean of clingingsoil.
GLORIA DEI ET MUND---- PHILLIPUS REX ANNO DOM.----XXIV
"The bell! The mission bell!" screamed the Doc.
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