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The Heritage of the Desert: A Novel

Page 12

by Zane Grey

moaned its last in the cedars, and swept

  away, a sheeted pall. Out over the Canyon it floated, trailing long

  veils of white that thinned out, darkened, and failed far above the

  golden desert. The winding columns of snow merged into straight lines of

  leaden rain; the rain flowed into vapory mist, and the mist cleared in

  the gold-red glare of endless level and slope. No moisture reached the

  parched desert.

  Jack marched into camp with a snowy burden over his shoulder. He flung

  it down, disclosing a small deer; then he shook the white mantle from

  his coat, and whistling, kicked the fire-logs, and looked abroad at the

  silver cedars, now dripping under the sun, at the rainbows in the

  settling mists, at the rapidly melting snow on the ground.

  "Got lost in that squall. Fine! Fine!" he exclaimed, and threw wide his

  arms.

  "Jack!" said Mescal. "Jack!" Memory had revived some forgotten thing.

  The dark olive of her skin crimsoned; her eyes dilated and shadowed with

  a rare change of emotion.

  "Jack," she repeated.

  "Well?" he replied, in surprise.

  "To look at you!--I never dreamed--I'd forgotten--"

  "What's the matter with me?" demanded Jack.

  Wonderingly, her mind on the past, she replied: "You were dying when we

  found you at White Sage."

  He drew himself up with a sharp catch in his breath, and stared at her

  as if he saw a ghost.

  "Oh--Jack! You're going to get well!"

  Her lips curved in a smile.

  For an instant Jack Hare spent his soul in searching her face for truth.

  While waiting for death he had utterly forgotten it; he remembered now,

  when life gleamed in the girl's dark eyes. Passionate joy flooded his

  heart.

  "Mescal--Mescal!" he cried, brokenly. The eyes were true that shed this

  sudden light on him; glad and sweet were the lips that bade him hope and

  live again. Blindly, instinctively he kissed them--a kiss unutterably

  grateful; then he fled into the forest, running without aim.

  That flight ended in sheer exhaustion on the far rim of the plateau. The

  spreading cedars seemed to have eyes; and he shunned eyes in this hour.

  "God! to think I cared so much," he whispered. "What has happened?" With

  time relief came to limbs, to labored breast and lungs, but not to mind.

  In doubt that would not die, he looked at himself. The leanness of arms,

  the flat chest, the hollows were gone. He did not recognize his own

  body. He breathed to the depths of his lungs. No pain--only

  exhilaration! He pounded his chest--no pain! He dug his trembling

  fingers into the firm flesh over the apex of his right lung--the place

  of his torture--no pain!

  "I wanted to live!" he cried. He buried his face in the fragrant

  juniper; he rolled on the soft brown mat of earth and hugged it close;

  he cooled his hot cheeks in the primrose clusters. He opened his eyes to

  new bright green of cedar, to sky of a richer blue, to a desert,

  strange, beckoning, enthralling as life itself. He counted backward a

  month, two months, and marvelled at the swiftness of time. He counted

  time forward, he looked into the future, and all was beautiful--long

  days, long hunts, long rides, service to his friend, freedom on the wild

  steppes, blue-white dawns upon the eastern crags, red-gold sunsets over

  the lilac mountains of the desert. He saw himself in triumphant health

  and strength, earning day by day the spirit of this wilderness, coming

  to fight for it, to live for it, and in far-off time, when he had won

  his victory, to die for it.

  Suddenly his mind was illumined. The lofty plateau with its healing

  breath of sage and juniper had given back strength to him; the silence

  and solitude and strife of his surroundings had called to something deep

  within him; but it was Mescal who made this wild life sweet and

  significant. It was Mescal, the embodiment of the desert spirit. Like a

  man facing a great light Hare divined his love. Through all the days on

  the plateau, living with her the natural free life of Indians, close to

  the earth, his unconscious love had ripened. He understood now her charm

  for him; he knew now the lure of her wonderful eyes, flashing fire,

  desert-trained, like the falcon eyes of her Indian grandfather. The

  knowledge of what she had become to him dawned with a mounting desire

  that thrilled all his blood.

  Twilight had enfolded the plateau when Hare traced his way back to camp.

  Mescal was not there. His supper awaited him; Piute hummed a song; the

  peon sat grimacing at the fire. Hare told them to eat, and moved away

  toward the rim.

  Mescal was at her favorite seat, with the white dog beside her; and she

  watched the desert where the last glow of sunset gilded the mesas. How

  cold and calm was her face! How strange to him in this new character!

  "Mescal, I didn't know I loved you--then--but I know it now."

  Her face dropped quickly from its level poise, hiding the brooding eyes;

  her hand trembled on Wolf's head.

  "You spoke the truth. I'll get well. I'd rather have had it from your

  lips than from any in the world. I mean to live my life here where these

  wonderful things have come to me. The friendship of the good man who

  saved me, this wild, free desert, the glory of new hope, strength, life-

  -and love."

  He took her hand in his and whispered, "For I love you. Do you care for

  me? Mescal! It must be complete. Do you care--a little?"

  The wind blew her dusky hair; he could not see her face; he tried gently

  to turn her to him. The hand he had taken lay warm and trembling in his,

  but it was not withdrawn. As he waited, in fear, in hope, it became

  still. Her slender form, rigid within his arm, gradually relaxed, and

  yielded to him; her face sank on his breast, and her dark hair loosened

  from its band, covered her, and blew across his lips. That was his

  answer.

  The wind sang in the cedars. No longer a sigh, sad as thoughts of a past

  forever flown, but a song of what had come to him, of hope, of life, of

  Mescal's love, of the things to be!

  VII. SILVERMANE

  LITTLE dew fell on the night of July first; the dawn brightened without

  mists; a hot sun rose; the short summer of the plateau had begun.

  As Hare rose, refreshed and happy from his breakfast, his whistle was

  cut short by the Indian.

  "Ugh!" exclaimed Piute, lifting a dark finger. Black Bolly had thrown

  her nose-bag and slipped her halter, and she moved toward the opening in

  the cedars, her head high, her black ears straight up.

  "Bolly!" called Mescal. The mare did not stop.

  "What the deuce?" Hare ran forward to catch her.

  "I never knew Bolly to act that way," said Mescal. "See--she didn't eat

  half the oats. Well, Bolly--Jack! look at Wolf!"

  The white dog had risen and stood warily shifting his nose. He sniffed

  the wind, turned round and round, and slowly stiffened with his head

  pointed toward the eastern rise of the plateau.

  "Hold, Wolf, hold!" called Mescal, as the dog appeared to be about to

  dash away.

  "Ugh!" grunted Piute.
/>   "Listen, Jack; did you hear?" whispered the girl.

  "Hear what?"

  "Listen."

  The warm breeze came down in puffs from the crags; it rustled in the

  cedars and blew fragrant whiffs of camp-fire smoke into his face; and

  presently it bore a low, prolonged whistle. He had never before heard

  its like. The sound broke the silence again, clearer, a keen, sharp

  whistle.

  "What is it?" he queried, reaching for his rifle.

  "Wild mustangs," said Mescal.

  "No," corrected Piute, vehemently shaking his head. "Clea, Clea."

  "Jack, he says 'horse, horse.' It's a wild horse."

  A third time the whistle rang down from the ridge, splitting the air,

  strong and

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