Wanderer Of the Wasteland (1982)

by Grey, Zane

  Grey dawn found Adam many miles closer to the mountain range. Yet it was still far and his former dread returned. On every side what interminable distances!

  A deepening rose colour over the eastern horizon appeared to be reflected upon the mountain peaks, and this glow crept down the dark slopes. Grey dawn changed to radiant morning with an ethereal softness of colour. When the blazing disc of the sun shone over the ramparts of the east all that desert world underwent a wondrous transfiguration. The lord of day had arisen and this was his empire. Red was the hue of his authority, emblazoned in long vivid rays over the ranges and the wastelands. Then the great orb of fire cleared the horizon and the desert seemed aflame.

  One moment Adam gave to the marvel and glory of the sunrise, and then he looked no more. That brief moment ended in a consciousness of the gravity of his flight. For the first touch of sun on face and hands burned hot, as if it suddenly aggravated a former burn that the night had soothed.

  "Got to reach--river soon," he muttered, thickly, "or never will."

  He walked on while the sun climbed.

  Desert vegetation increased. Adam toiled on, breathing hard, careless now of the reaching thorns and heedless of the rougher ground.

  He was perfectly conscious of a subtle changing of his spirit, but because it seemed a drifting farther and farther from thought he could not comprehend it. Courage diminished as fear augmented. More and more his will and intelligence gave way to sensorial perceptions. More and more he felt the urge to hurry, and, though reason warned against the folly of this, it was not strong enough to compel him to resist. He did hurry more and stumbled along. Like breath of a furnace the heat rose from the rocky, sandy soil; and from above there seemed to bear down the weight of the leaden fire.

  His skin became as dry as dust and began to shrivel. It did not blister. The pain now came from burn of the flesh underneath. He felt that his blood was drying up. A stinging sensation as of puncture by a thousand thorns throbbed in his face and neck. The heat burned through his clothes, and the soles of his boots were coals of fire. Doggedly he strove forward. A whistle accompanied his panting breaths. Most intolerable of all was thirst--the bitter, astringent taste in the scant saliva that became pasty and dry, the pain in his swelling tongue, the parched constriction in his throat.

  At last he reached the base of a low rocky ridge which for long had beckoned to him and mocked him. It obstructed sight of the slope to the mountain range. Surely between that ridge and the slope ran the river. The hope spurred him upward.

  As he climbed he gazed up into the coppery sky, but his hot and tired eyes could not endure the great white blaze that was the sun. Halfway up he halted to rest, and from here he had measureless view of the desert. Then his dull brain revived to a final shock. For he seemed to see a thousand miles of green-grey barrenness, of lifting heat veils like transparent smoke, of wastes of waved sand, and of ranges of upheaved rock. How terribly it confronted him! Pitiless mockery of false distances on all sides A sun-blasted world not meant for man!

  Then Adam ascended to the summit of the ridge. A glaring void seemed flung at him. His chocolate-hued mountain range was not far away. From this height he could see all the grey-green level of desert between him and the range. He stared. Again there seemed flung in his face a hot glare of space. There was no river.

  "Where, where's--the river?" gasped Adam, mistrusting his eyesight.

  But the wonderful Rio Colorado, the strange, red river beloved by desert wanderers, did not flow before him--or to either side--or behind. It must have turned to flow on the other slope of this insurmountable range.

  "God has--forsaken me!" cried Adam, in despair, and he fell upon the rocks.

  But these rocks, hot as red-hot plates of iron, permitted of no contact, even in a moment of horror. Adam was burned to stagger up, to plunge and run and fall down the slope, out upon the level, to the madness that awaited him.

  He must rush on to the river--to drink and drink--to bathe in the cool water that flowed down from the snow-fed lakes of the north. Thoughts about water possessed his mind--pleasant, comforting, hurrying him onward. Memory of the great river made pictures in his mind, and there flowed the broad red waters, sullen and eddying and silent. All the streams and rivers and lakes Adam had known crowded their images across his inward eve, and this recall of the past was sweet. He remembered the brook near his old home--the clear green water full of bright minnows and gold-sided sunfish; how it used to flow swiftly under the willow banks where, violets hid by mossy stones, and how it tarried in deep dark pools under shelving banks, green and verdant and sweet smelling; how the ferns used to bend over in graceful tribute and the lilies float white and gold, with great green-hacked frogs asleep upon the broad leaves. The watering trough on the way to school, many and many a time, in the happy days gone by, had he drunk there and splashed his brother Guerd. Guerd, who hated water and had to be made to wash, when they were little boys! The old well on Madden's farm with its round cobblestoned walls where the moss and lichen grew, and where the oaken bucket, wet and dark and green, use to come up bumping and spilling, brimful of clear cold water--how vividly he remembered that His father had called it granite water, and the best, because it flowed through the cold subterranean caverns of granite rock. Then there was the spring in the orchard, sweet, soft water that his mother used to send him after, and as he trudged home, burdened by the huge bucket, he would spill some upon his bare feet.

  Yes, as Adam staggered on, aimlessly now, he was haunted more and more by memories of water. That dear, unforgetable time of boyhood when he used to love the water, to swim like a duck and bask like a turtle--it seemed far back in the past, across some terrible interval of pain, vague now, yet hateful. Where was he--and where was Guerd? Something like a blade pierced his heart.

  Suddenly Adam was startled out of this pleasant reminiscence by something blue and bright that danced low down along the desert floor. A lake! He halted with an inarticulate cry. There was a lake of blue water, glistening, exquisitely clear, with borders of green. He could not help but rush forward. The lake shimmered, thinned, shadowed, and vanished. Adam halted and, rubbing his eyes, peered hard ahead and all around. Behind him shone a strip of blue, streaked up and down by desert plants, and it seemed to be another lake, larger, bluer, clearer, with a delicate vibrating quiver, as if exquisitely rippled by a gentle breeze. Green shores were marvellously reflected in the blue. Adam gaped at this. Had he waded through a lake? He had crossed the barren flat of greasewood to reach the spot upon which he now stood. Almost he was forced to run back. But this must be a deceit of the desert or a madness of his sight. He bent low, and the lake of blue seemed to lift and quiver upon a thin darkling line of vapour or transparent shadow. Adam took two strides back--and the thing vanished I Desert magic! A deception of nature! A horrible illusion to a lost man growing crazed by thirst!

  "Mirage!" whispered Adam, hoarsely. "Blue water! Ha-ha!...Damned lie--it shan't fool me!"

  But as clear perception failed these mirages of the desert did deceive him. All objects took on a hazy hue, tinged by the red of blood in his eyes, and they danced in the heat-veiled air. Shadows, glares, cactus, and brush stood as immovable as the rocks of ages. Only the illusive and ethereal mirages gleamed as if by magic and shimmered and moved in that midday trance of the sun-blasted desert.

  The time came when Adam plunged toward every mirage that floated so blue and serene and mystical in the deceiving atmosphere, until hope and despair and magnified sight finally brought on a mental state bordering on the madness sure to come.

  Then, as he staggered toward this green-bordered pond and that crystal-blue lake, already drinking and laving in his mind, he began to hear the beautiful sounds of falling rain, of gurgling brooks, of lapping waves, of roaring rapids, of gentle river currents, of water--water--water sweetly tinkling and babbling, of wind-laden murmur of a mountain stream. And he began to wander in a circle.

  Chapter VIII

>   Consciousness returned to Adam. He was lying under an ironwood tree, over branches of which a canvas had been stretched, evidently to shade him from the sun. The day appeared to be far spent.

  His head seemed to have been relieved of a hot metal band; his tongue was no longer bursting in his mouth; the boil of his blood had subsided. His skin felt moist.

  Then he heard the rough voice of a man talking to animals, apparently burros. Movement of body was difficult and somewhat painful; however, he managed to sit up and look around. Hide-covered boxes and packsaddles, with duffle and utensils of a prospector, were littered about, and conspicuous among the articles near him were three large canvas-covered canteens, still wet. Upon the smouldering embers of a camp fire steamed a black iron pot. A little beyond the first stood a very short, broad man, back turned; and he was evidently feeding choice morsels of some kind to five eager and jealous burros.

  "Spoiled--every darn one of you!" he was saying, and the kindness of his voice belied its roughness. "Why, I used to have burros that could lick labels off tin cans an' call it a square meal!"

  Then he turned and espied Adam watching him.

  "Hullo! You've come to," he said, with interest.

  Adam's gaze encountered an extraordinary-looking man. He could not have been taller than five and a half feet, and the enormous breadth of him made him appear as wide as he was long. He was not fat. His immense bulk was sheer brawn, betokening remarkable strength. His dusty, ragged clothes were patched like a crazy-quilt. He had an immense head, a shock of shaggy hair beginning to show streaks of grey, and a broad face tanned dark as an Indian's, the lower half of which was covered with a scant grizzled beard. His eyes, big, dark, rolling, resembled those of an ox. His expression seemed to be one of set tranquillity--the impressiveness of bronze.

  Adam's voice was a husky whisper: "Where am--I? Who are you?"

  "Young man, my name's Dismukes," came the reply, "an' you're ninety miles from anywhere--an' alive, which's more than I'd bet on yesterday."

  The words brought Adam a shock of memory. Out there the desert smoked, sweltering in the spent heat of the setting sun. Slowly Adam lay back upon the blanket and bundle that had been placed under him for a bed. The man sat down on one of the hide-covered boxes, fastening his great eyes upon Adam.

  "Am I--all right?" whispered Adam.

  "Yes, but it was a close shave," replied the other.

  "You said--something about yesterday. Tell me."

  Dismukes fumbled in his patched vest and, fetching forth a stumpy pipe, he proceeded to fill it. It was noticeable that he had to use his little finger to press down the tobacco into the bowl, as the other fingers of his enormous hands were too large. Adam had never before seen such scarred calloused hands.

  "It was day before yesterday I run across you," began Dismukes, after a comfortable pull at his pipe. "My burro Jinny has the best eyes of the pack outfit. When I seen her ears go up I got to lookin' hard, an' presently spied you staggerin' in a circle. I'd seen men do that before. Sometimes you'd run, an' again you'd wag along, an' then you'd fall an' crawl. I caught you an' had to tie you with my rope. You were out of your head. An' you looked hard--all dried up--tongue black an' hangin' out. I thought you were done for. I poured a canteen of water over your head an' then packed you over here where there's wood an' water. You couldn't make a sound, but all the same I knew you were ravin' fur water. I fed you water a spoonful at a time, an' every little while I emptied a canteen over you. Was up all night with you that night. You recovered awful slow. Yesterday I'd not have gambled much on your chances. But to-day you came round. I got you to swallow some soft grub, an' I guess you'll soon be pretty good. You'll be weak, though. You're awful thin. I'm curious about how much you weighed. You look as if you might have been a husky lad."

  "I was," whispered Adam. "Hundred and eighty-five--or ninety."

  "So I thought. You'll not go over one hundred an' twenty now. You've lost about seventy pounds...Oh, it's a fact! You see, the body is 'most all water, an' on this desert in summer a man just dries up an' blows away."

  "Seventy--pounds!" exclaimed Adam, incredulously. But when he glanced at his shrunken hands be believed the incomprehensible fact. "I must be skin--and bones."

  "Mostly bones. But they're long, heavy bones, an' if you ever get any flesh on them you'll be a darned big man. I'm glad they're not goin' to bleach white on the desert, where I've seen so many these last ten years."

  "You saved my life?" suddenly queried Adam.

  "Boy, there's no doubt of that," returned the other. "Another hour would have finished you."

  "I--I thank you...But--so help me God--I wish you hadn't," whispered Adam, poignantly.

  Dismukes spent a strange gaze upon Adam.

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  Adam halted over the conviction that he could never reveal his identity; and there leaped to his lips the name the loquacious Regan had given him.

  "Wansfell," he replied.

  Dismukes averted his gaze. Manifestly he divined that Adam had lied. "Well, it's no matter what a man calls himself in this country," he said. "Only everybody an' everything has to have a name."

  "You're a prospector?"

  "Yes. But I'm more a miner. I hunt for gold. I don't waste time tryin' to sell claims. Years ago I set out to find a fortune in gold. My limit was five hundred thousand dollars. I've already got a third of it--in banks an' hid away safe."

  "When you get it--your fortune--what then?" inquired Adam, with thrilling curiosity.

  "I'll enjoy life. I have no ties--no people. Then I'll see the world," replied the prospector, in deep and sonorous voice.

  A wonderful passion radiated from him. Adam saw a quiver, run over the huge frame. This Dismukes evidently was as extraordinary in character as in appearance. Adam felt the man's strangeness, his intelligence, and the inflexible will and fiery Yet all at once Adam felt steal over him an emotion of pity that he could not understand. How strange men were!

  At this juncture the prospector was compelled to drive the burros out of camp. Then he attended to his cooking over the fire, and presently brought a bowl of steaming food to Adam.

  "Eat this slow--with a spoon," he said gruffly. "Never forget that a man starved for grub or water can kill himself quick."

  During Adam's long drawn-out meal the sun set and the mantle of heat seemed to move away for the coming of shadows. Adam found that his weakness was greater than he had supposed, rendering the effort of sitting up one he was glad to end. He lay back on the blankets, wanting to think over his situation rather than fall asleep, but he found himself very drowsy, and his mind vaguely wandered until it was a blank. Upon awakening he saw the first grey dawn arch the sky. He felt better, almost like his old self, except for that queer sensation of thinness and lightness, most noticeable when he lifted his hand. Dismukes was already astir, and there, a few rods from camp, stood the ludicrous burros, as if they had not moved all night. Adam got up and stretched his limbs, pleased to find that he appeared to be all right again, except for a little dizziness.

  Dismukes evinced gladness at the fact of Adam's improvement. "Good!" he exclaimed. "You'd be strong enough to ride a burro to-day. But it's goin' to be hot, like yesterday. We'd better not risk travellin'."

  "How do you know it's going to be as hot as yesterday? inquired Adam.

  "I can tell by the feel an' smell of the air, an' mostly that dull lead coloured haze you see over the mountains."

  Adam thought the air seemed cool and fresh, but he did see a dull pall over the mountains. Farther toward the east, where the sunrise lifted an immense and wondrous glow, this haze was not visible.

  The remark of Dismukes anent the riding of a burro disturbed Adam. This kindly prospector meant to take him on to his destination. Impossible! Adam had fled to the desert to hide, and the desert must hide him, alive or dead. The old, thick, clamouring emotions knocked at his heart. Adam felt gratitude toward Dismukes for not questioning him, and
that forbearance made him want to tell something of his story. Yet how reluctant he was to open his lips on that score! He helped Dismukes with the simple morning meal, and afterward with odds and ends of tasks, all the time cheerful and questioning, putting off what he knew was inevitable. The day did come on hot--so hot that life was just bearable for men and beasts in the shade of the big ironwood tree. Adam slept some of the hours away. He awoke stronger, with more active mind. Of the next meal Dismukes permitted Adam to eat heartily. And later, while Dismukes smoked and Adam sat before the camp fire, the moment of revelation came, quite unexpectedly.

  "Wansfell, you'll not be goin' to Yuma with me to-morrow," asserted Dismukes quietly.

  The words startled Adam. He dropped his head. "No--no! Thank you--I won't--I can't go," he replied, trembling. The sound of his voice agitated him further.

  "Buy, tell me or not, just as you please. But I'm a man you can trust."

  The kindliness and a nameless power invested in this speech broke down what little restraint remained with Adam.

  "I--I can't go...I'm an outcast...I must hide--hide in the--desert," burst out Adam, covering his face with his hands.

  "Was that why you came to the desert?"

  "Yes--yes."

  "But, boy, you came without a canteen or grub or burro or gun--or anythin'. In all my years on the desert I never saw the like of that before. An' only a miracle saved your life. That miracle was Jinny's eyes. You owe your life to a long-eared, white-faced burro. Jinny has eyes like a mountain sheep. She saw you--miles off. An' such luck won't be yours twice. You can't last on this desert without the things to sustain life...How did it happen that I found you here alone--without anythin'?"