Wanderer Of the Wasteland (1982)

by Grey, Zane

  "Exactly. Well, Genie, they wanted to be together because they loved each other. They married because they fell in love with each other. Didn't you ever have Indians camp here, and learn from them?"

  "Oh, yes, different tribes have been here. But I didn't see any Indians falling in love. If a chief wanted a wife he took any maiden or squaw he wanted. Some chiefs had lots of wives. And if a brave wanted a wife he bought her."

  "Not much falling in love there," confessed Adam, with a laugh. "But, Genie, you mustn't think Indians can't love each other. For they can."

  "I believe I've seen birds falling in love," went on Genie, seriously. "I've watched them when they come to drink and wash. Quail and road runners, now--they often come in pairs, and they act funny. At least one of each pair acted funny. But it was the pretty one--the one with a topknot that did all the falling in love. Why?"

  "Well, Genie, the male, or the man-bird, so to speak, always has brighter colours and crests and the like, and he--he sorts of shines up to the other, the female, and shows off before her."

  "Why doesn't she do the same thing?" queried Genie. "That's not fair. It's all one-sided."

  "Child, how you talk! Of course love isn't one-sided," declared Adam, getting bewildered.

  "Yes, it is. She ought to show off before him. But I'll tell you what--after they began to build a nest I never saw any more falling in love. It's a shame. It ought to last always. I've heard mother say things to father I couldn't understand. But now I believe she meant that after he got her--married her--he wasn't like he was before."

  Adam had to laugh. The old discontent of life, the old mystery of the sexes, the old still, sad music of humanity spoken by the innocent and unknowing lips of this child How feminine! The walls of the inclosing desert, like those of an immense cloister, might hide a woman all her days from the illuminating world, but they could, never change her nature.

  "Genie, I must be honest with you," replied Adam. "I've got to be parents, brother, sister, friend, everybody to you. And I'll fall short sometimes in spite of my intentions. But I'll be honest...And the fact is, it seems to be a sad truth that men and man-birds, and man-creatures generally, are all very much alike. If they want anything, they want it badly. And when they fall in love they do act funny. They will do anything. They show off, beg, bully, quarrel, are as nice and sweet as--as sugar; and they'll fight, too, until they get their particular wives. Then they become natural--like they were before. It's my idea, Genie, that all the wives of creation should demand always the same deportment which won their love. Don't you agree with me?"

  "I do, you bet. That's what I'll have...But will I ever be falling in love?"

  The eyes that looked into Adam's then were to him as the wonder of the world.

  "Of course you will. Some day, when you grow up."

  "With you?" she asked, in dreamy speculation.

  "Oh, Genie! not me. Why--I--I'm too old!" he ejaculated. "I'm old enough to be your daddy."

  "You're not old," she replied, with a finality that admitted of no question. "But if you were--and still like you are, what difference would it make?"

  "Like I am! Well, Genie, how's that?" he queried, curiously.

  "Oh, so big and strong! You can do so much with those hands. And your voice sort of--of quiets something inside me. When I lie down to sleep, knowing you're there under the cottonwood, I'm not afraid of the dark...And your eyes are just like an eagle's. Oh, you needn't laugh! I've seen eagles. An Indian here once had two. I used to love to watch them look. But then their eyes were never kind like yours...I think when I get big I'll go falling in love with you."

  "Well, little girl, that's a long way off," said Adam, divided between humour and pathos. "But, let's get back to natural history. A while ago you mentioned a bird called a road runner. That's not as well known a name among desert men as chaparral cock. You know out in the desert there are no roads. This name road runner comes from a habit--and it's a friendly habit--of the bird running along the road ahead of a man or wagon. Now the road runner is the most wonderful bird of the desert. That is saying a great deal. Genie, tell me all you know about him."

  "Oh, I know all about him," declared Genie, brightly. "There's one lives in the mesquite there. I see him every day, lots of times. Before you came he was very tame. I guess now he's afraid. But not so afraid as he was...Well, he's a long bird, with several very long feathers for a tail. It's a funny tail, for when he walks he bobs it up and down. His colour is speckled--grey and brown and white. I've seen dots of purple on him, too. He has a topknot that he can put up and lay down, as he has a mind to. When it's up it shows some gold colour, almost red underneath. And when it's up he's mad. He snaps his big bill like--like--oh, I don't know what like, but it makes you shiver. I've never seen him in the water, but I know he goes in, because he shakes out his feathers, picks himself, and sits in the sun. He can fly, only he doesn't fly much. But, oh, how he can run! Like a streak! I see him chase lizards across the sand. You know how a lizard can run! Well, no lizard ever gets away from a road runner. There's a race--a fierce little tussle in the sand--a snap! snap!--and then old killer road runner walks proudly back, carrying the lizard in his bill. If it wasn't for the way he kills and struts I could love him. For he was very tame. He used to come right up Ito me. But I never cared for him as I do for other birds."

  "Genie, you've watched a road runner, all right. I didn't imagine you knew so much. Yes, he's a killer, a murderer. But no worse than other desert birds. They all kill. They're all fierce. And if they weren't they'd die...Now I want to tell you the most wonderful thing a road runner does. He'll fight and kill and eat a rattlesnake!"

  "No! Honest Injun?" cried Genie.

  "Yes. I've watched many a battle between a road runner and a rattlesnake, and n,-Arly all of those battles were won by the birds. But that is not the most wonderful thing a road runner does. I'll tell you. I've never seen this thing myself, but a friend of mine, an old prospector named Dismukes, swears it's true. He knows more about the desert than any man I ever met and he wouldn't tell a lie. Well, here's what it is. He says he saw a road runner come upon a sleeping rattlesnake. But he didn't pounce upon the snake. It happened to be that the snake slept on the sand near some bushes of cholla cactus. You know how the dead cones fall off and lie around. This wonderful bird dragged these loose pieces of cactus and laid them close together in a circle, all around the rattlesnake. Built a fence around him Penned him in! Now I can vouch for how a rattlesnake hates cactus...Then the fierce bird flew up and pounced down upon the snake. Woke him up! The rattlesnake tried to slip away, but everywhere he turned was a cactus which stuck into him, and over him the darting, picking bird. So round and round he went, striking as best he could. But he was unable to hit the bird, and every pounce upon him drew the blood. You've heard the snap of that big long beak. Well, the rattlesnake grew desperate and began to bite himself. And what with his own bites and those of his enemy he was soon dead...And then the beautiful, graceful, speckled bird proceeded to tear and devour him."

  "I'll bet it's true!" ejaculated Genie. "A road runner could and would do just that."

  "Very likely. It's strange, and perhaps true. Indeed, the desert is the place for things impossible anywhere else."

  "Why do birds and beasts kill and eat each other?" asked Genie.

  "It is nature, Genie."

  "Nature could have done better. Why don't people eat each other? They do kill each other. And they eat animals. But isn't that all?"

  "Genie, some kinds of people--cannibals in the South Seas--and savages--do kill and eat men. It is horrible to believe. Dismukes told me that he came upon a tribe of Indians on the west coast of Sonora in Mexico. That's not more than four hundred miles from here. He went down there prospecting for gold. He thought these savages--the Seri Indians they're called--were descended from cannibals and sometimes ate man flesh themselves. No one knows but that they do it often. I've met prospectors and travellers who scouted the idea of
the Seris being cannibals. But I've heard some bad stories about them. Dismukes absolutely believed that in a poor season for meat, if chance offered, they would kill and eat a white man. Prospectors have gone into that country never to return."

  "Ugh! I've near starved, but I'd never get that hungry. I'd die. Wouldn't you?"

  "Indeed I would, child."

  And so, during the leisure hours, that grew more and longer as the hot summer season advanced, Adam led Genie nearer to nature, always striving with his observations to teach the truth, however stern, and to instruct and stimulate her growing mind. All was not music of birds and perfume of flowers and serene summer content at the rosy dawns and the golden sunsets. The desert life was at work. How hard to reconcile the killing with the living! But when Adam espied an eagle swooping down from the mountain heights, its wings bowed, and its dark body shooting so wondrously, then he spoke of the freedom of the lonely king of birds, and the grace of his flight, and the noble spirit of his life.

  Likewise when Adam heard the honk of wild geese he made haste to have Genie see them winging wide and triangular flight across the blue sky, to the north. He told her how they lived all the winter in the warm south, and when spring came a wonderful instinct bade them rise and fly far northward, to the reedy banks of some lonely lake, and there gobble and honk and feed and raise their young.

  On another day, and this was in drowsy June when all the air seemed still, he was roused from his siesta by cries of delight from Genie. She knelt before him on the sand, and in one hand she held a beautiful horned toad, and the other hand she stretched out to Adam.

  "Look! Oh, look!" she cried, ecstatically, and her eyes then rivalled the jewelled eyes of the desert reptile. Some dark-red drops of bright liquid showed against the brown of Genie's hand. "There! It's blood. I picked him up as I had all the others, so many hundreds of times. Only this time I felt something warm and wet. I looked at my hand. There! He had squirted the drops of blood! And, oh, I was quick to look at his eyes! One was still wet, bloody. I know he squirted the drops of blood from his eyes!"

  Thus Adam had confirmed for him one of the mysteries of the desert. Dismukes had been the first to tell Adam about the strange habit of horned toads ejecting blood from their eyes. One other desert man, at least, had corroborated Dismukes. But Adam, who had seldom passed a horned toad without picking it up to gaze at the wondrous colouration, and to see it swell and puff, had never come upon the peculiar phenomenon. And horned toads on his trails had been many. To interest Genie, he built her a corral of flat stones in the sand, and he scoured the surrounding desert for horned toads. What a miscellaneous collection he gathered! They all had the same general scalloped outlines and tiny horns, but the colour and design seemed to partake of the physical characteristics of the spot where each was found. If they squatted in the sand and lay still, it was almost impossible to see them, so remarkable was their protective colouration. Adam turned the assortment over to Genie with instruction to feed them, and play with them, and tease them in the hope that one might sometime eject drops of blood from his eyes. When it actually happened, Genie's patience was rewarded.

  Adam's theory that the reward of the faithful desert watcher would always come was exemplified in more than one way. Genie had never seen or heard of a tarantula wasp. She had noticed big and little tarantulas, but of the fierce, winged, dragon-fly hawk of the desert--the tarantula wasp--she had no knowledge. Adam, therefore, had always kept a keen lookout for one.

  They were up in the canyon on a hot June day, resting in the shade of the rustling palms. A stream babbled and splashed over the stones, and that was the only sound to break the dreaming silence of the canyon. All at once Adam heard a low whirr like the hum of tiny wings. As he turned his head the sound became a buzz. Then he espied a huge tarantula wasp. Quickly he called to Genie, and they watched. It flew around and around about a foot from the ground, a fierce-looking, yet beautiful creature, with yellow body and blue gauzy wings. It was fully two inches and more long.

  "He sees a tarantula. Now watch!" whispered Adam.

  Suddenly the wasp darted down to the edge of a low bush, into some coarse grass that grew there. Instantly came a fierce whiz of wings, like the buzz of a captured bumblebee, only much louder and more vibrant. Adam saw the blades of grass tumble. A struggle to the death was going on there. Adam crawled over a few yards, drawing Genie with him; and they saw the finish of a terrific battle between the wasp and a big hairy tarantula.

  "There! It's over, and the tarantula is dead," said Adam. "Genie, I used to watch this kind of a desert fight, and not think much more about it. But one day I made a discovery. I had a camp over here, and I watched a tarantula wasp kill a tarantula. I didn't know it then, but this wasp was a female, ready to lay her eggs. Well, she rolled, the big spider around until she found a place that suited her. Then she dug a hole, rolled him into it, covered him over, and flew away. I wondered then why she did that. I went away from that camp, and after a while I came back. Then one day I remembered about the wasp burying the tarantula. And so, just for fun and curiosity, I found the grave--it was near the end of a stone--and I opened it up. What do you think I discovered?"

  "Tell me!" exclaimed Genie, breathlessly.

  "I found the tarantula almost eaten up by a lot of tiny wasps, as much like worms as wasps! Then I understood. That tarantula wasp had killed the tarantula, laid her eggs inside his body, tumbled him into his grave and covered him over. By and by those eggs hatched, and the little wasps ate the tarantula--lived and grew, and after a while came out full-fledged tarantula wasps like their mother."

  Chapter XXIV

  Time passed. The days slipped by to make weeks, and weeks merged into months. Summer with its hot midday hours, when man and beast rested or slept, seemed to shorten its season by half. No human creature ever entered a desert oasis without joy, nor left it without regret. As time went fleeting by Adam now and then remembered Dismukes, and these memories were full of both gladness and pathos. He tried to visualise the old prospector in the new role of traveller, absorber of life, spendthrift, and idler. Nevertheless, Adam could never be sure in his heart that Dismukes would find what he sought.

  But for the most part of the still, hot, waking hours, Adam, when he was not working or sleeping, devoted himself to Genie. The girl changed every day--how, he was unable to tell. Most wondrous of all in nature was human life, and beyond all sublimity was the human soul!

  Every morning at sunrise Genie knelt by her mother's grave with bowed head and clasped hands, and every evening at sunset or in the golden dusk of twilight she again knelt in prayer.

  "Genie, why do you kneel there--now?" asked Adam once, unable to contain his curiosity. "You did not use to do it. Only the last few weeks or month."

  "I forgot I'd promised mother," she replied. "Besides, could I pray when I wanted to die?"

  "No, I suppose not. It would be hard," replied Adam, gravely. "Please don't think me curious. Tell me, Genie, what do you pray for?"

  "I used to pray 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' as mother taught me when I was little. But now I make up my own prayers. I ask God to keep the souls of mother and father in heaven. I pray I may be good and happy, so when they look down and see me they will be glad. I pray for you, and then for every one in the world."

  Slow, strong unrest, the endless moving of contending tides, heaved in Adam's breast.

  "So you pray for me, Genie?...Well, it is good of you. I hope I'm worthy...But, why do you pray?"

  She pondered the question. Thought was developing in Genie. "Before mother died I prayed because she taught me. Since then--lately--it--it lifts me up--it takes away the sorrow here." And she put a hand over her heart.

  "Genie, then you believe in God--the God who is supposed to answer your prayers?"

  "Yes. And He is not a god like Taquitch--or the beasts and rocks that the Indians worship. My God is all around me, in the sunshine, in the air, in the humming bees and whispering leaves and m
urmuring water. I feel him everywhere, and in me, too!"

  "Genie, tell me one prayer, just one of yours or your mother's that was truly answered," appealed Adam, with earnest feeling.

  "We prayed for some one to come. I know mother prayed for some one to save me from being alone--from starving. And I prayed for some one to come and help her--to relieve her terrible dread about me...And you came!"

  Adam was silenced. What had he to contend with here? Faith and fact were beyond question, as Genie represented them. What little he knew! He could not even believe that a divine guidance had been the spirit of his wandering steps. But he was changing. Always the future--always the unknown calling--always the presentiment of sterner struggle, of larger growth, of ultimate fulfilment! His illusion, his fetish, his phantasmagoria rivalled the eternal and inexplicable faith of his friend Dismukes.

  Andreas Canyon was far from the camp under the cottonwoods, but Adam and Genie, having once feasted their eyes upon its wildness and beauty and grandeur, went back again and again, so that presently the distance in the hot sun was no hindrance, and the wide area of white, glistening, terrible cholla cactus was no obstacle.

  For that matter the cactus patch was endurable because of its singular beauty. Adam could not have told why cholla fascinated him, and, though Genie admitted she liked to look at the frosty silver-lighted cones and always had an impulse to prick her fingers on the cruel thorns, she could not explain why.

  "Genie, the Yaqui Indians in Sonora love this cholla," said Adam. "Love it as they hate Mexicans. They will strip a Mexican naked, tear the skin off the soles of his feet, and drive him through the cholla until he's dead. It wouldn't take long!...All prospectors hate cholla. I hate it, yet I--I guess I'm a little like the Yaquis. I often prick my finger on cholla just to feel the sting, the burn, the throb. The only pain I could ever compare to that made by cholla is the sting of the sharp horn of a little catfish back in Ohio Oh! I'll never forget that! A poison, burning sting!...But cholla is terrible because the thorns stick in your flesh. When you jerk to free yourself the thorns leave the cones. Each thorn has an invisible barb and it works deeper and deeper into flesh."