The Heritage of the Desert: A Novel
Page 32
breathless silence,
insupportable silence of ages. Desert spectres danced in the darkness.
The worn-out moon gleamed golden over the worn-out waste. Desolation
lurked under the sable shadows.
Hare rode on into the night, tumbled from his saddle in the gray of dawn
to sleep, and stumbled in the twilight to his drooping horse. His eyes
were blind now to the desert shapes, his brain burned and his tongue
filled his mouth. Silvermane trod ever upon Wolf's heels; he had come
into the kingdom of his desert-strength; he lifted his drooping head and
lengthened his stride; weariness had gone and he snorted his welcome to
something on the wind. Then he passed the limping dog and led the way.
Hare held to the pommel and bent dizzily forward in the saddle.
Silvermane was going down, step by step, with metallic clicks upon
flinty rock. Whether he went down or up was all the same to Hare; he
held on with closed eyes and whispered to himself. Down and down, step
by step, cracking the stones with iron-shod hoofs, the gray stallion
worked his perilous way, sure-footed as a mountain-sheep. Then he
stopped with a great slow heave and bent his head.
The black bulge of a canyon rim blurred in Hare's hot eyes. A trickling
sound penetrated his tired brain. His ears had grown like his eyes--
false. Only another delusion! As he had been tortured with the sight of
lake and stream now he was to be tortured with the sound of running
water. Yet he listened, for it was sweet even in its mockery. What a
clear musical tinkle, like silver bells tossing on the wind! He
listened. Soft murmuring flow, babble and gurgle, little hollow fall and
splash!
Suddenly Silvermane, lifting his head, broke the silence of the canyon
with a great sigh of content. It pierced the dull fantasy of Hare's
mind; it burst the gloomy spell. The sigh and the snort which followed
were Silvermane's triumphant signals when he had drunk his fill.
Hare fell from the saddle. The gray dog lay stretched low in the
darkness. Hare crawled beside him and reached out with his hot hands.
Smooth cool marble rock, growing slippery, then wet, led into running
water. He slid forward on his face and wonderful cold thrills quivered
over his burning skin. He drank and drank until he could drink no more.
Then he lay back upon the rock; the madness of his brain went out with
the light of the stars, and he slept.
When he awoke red canyon walls leaned far above him to a gap spanned by
blue sky. A song of rushing water murmured near his ears. He looked
down; a spring gushed from a crack in the wall; Silvermane cropped green
bushes, and Wolf sat on his haunches waiting, but no longer with sad
eyes and strange mien. Hare raised himself, looking again and again, and
slowly gathered his wits. The crimson blur had gone from his eyes and
the burning from his skin, and the painful swelling from his tongue.
He drank long and deeply, and rising with clearing thoughts and thankful
heart, he kissed Wolf's white head, and laid his arms round Silvermane's
neck. He fed them, and ate himself, not without difficulty, for his lips
were puffed and his tongue felt like a piece of rope. When he had eaten,
his strength came back.
At a word Wolf, with a wag of his tail, splashed into the gravelly
stream bed. Hare followed on foot, leading Silvermane. There were little
beds of pebbles and beaches of sand and short steps down which the water
babbled. The canyon was narrow and tortuous; Hare could not see ahead or
below, for the projecting red cliffs, growing higher as he descended,
walled out the view. The blue stream of sky above grew bluer and the
light and shade less bright. For an hour he went down steadily without a
check, and the farther down the rougher grew the way. Bowlders wedged in
narrow places made foaming waterfalls. Silvermane clicked down
confidently.
The slender stream of water, swelled by seeping springs and little
rills, gained the dignity of a brook; it began to dash merrily and
hurriedly downward. The depth of the falls, the height of cliffs, and
the size of the bowlders increased in the descent. Wolf splashed on
unmindful; there was a new spirit in his movements; and when he looked
back for his laboring companions there was friendly protest in his eyes.
Silvermane's mien plainly showed that where a dog could go he could
follow. Silvermane's blood was heated; the desert was an old story to
him; it had only tired him and parched his throat; this canyon of
downward steps and falls, with ever-deepening drops, was new to him, and
roused his mettle; and from his long training in the wilds he had gained
a marvellous sure-footedness.
The canyon narrowed as it deepened; the jutting walls leaned together,
shutting out the light; the sky above was now a ribbon of blue, only to
be seen when Hare threw back his head and stared straight up.
"It'll be easier climbing up, Silvermane," he panted--"if we ever get
the chance."
The sand and gravel and shale had disappeared; all was bare clean-washed
rock. In many places the brook failed as a trail, for it leaped down in
white sheets over mossy cliffs. Hare faced these walls in despair. But
Wolf led on over the ledges and Silvermane followed, nothing daunted. At
last Hare shrank back from a hole which defied him utterly. Even Wolf
hesitated. The canyon was barely twenty feet wide; the floor ended in a
precipice; the stream leaped out and fell into a dark cleft from which
no sound arose. On the right there was a shelf of rock; it was scarce
half a foot broad at the narrowest and then apparently vanished
altogether. Hare stared helplessly up at the slanting shut-in walls.
While he hesitated Wolf pattered out upon the ledge and Silvermane
stamped restlessly. With a desperate fear of losing his beloved horse
Hare let go the bridle and stepped upon the ledge. He walked rapidly,
for a slow step meant uncertainty and a false one meant death. He heard
the sharp ring of Silvermane's shoes, and he listened in agonized
suspense for the slip, the snort, the crash that he feared must come.
But it did not come. Seeing nothing except the narrow ledge, yet feeling
the blue abyss beneath him, he bent all his mind to his task, and
finally walked out into lighter space upon level rock. To his infinite
relief Silvermane appeared rounding a corner out of the dark passage,
and was soon beside him.
Hare cried aloud in welcome.
The canyon widened; there was a clear demarcation where the red walls
gave place to yellow; the brook showed no outlet from its subterranean
channel. Sheer exhaustion made Hare almost forget his mission; the
strength of his resolve had gone into mechanical toil; he kept on,
conscious only of the smart of bruised hands and feet and the ache of
laboring lungs.
Time went on and the sun hung in the midst of the broadening belt of
blue sky. A long slant of yellow slope led down to a sage-covered level,
which Hare crossed, pleased to see blooming cacti and wondering at their
slender lofty green s
tems shining with gold flowers. He descended into a
ravine which became precipitous. Here he made only slow advance. At the
bottom he found himself in a wonderful lane with an almost level floor;
here flowed a shallow stream bordered by green willows. Wolf took the
direction of the flowing water. Hare's thoughts were all of Mescal, and
his hopes began to mount, his heart to beat high.
He gazed ahead with straining eyes. Presently there was not a break in
the walls. A drowsy hum of falling water came to Hare, strange reminder
of the oasis, the dull roar of the Colorado, and of Mescal.
His flagging energies leaped into life with the canyon suddenly opening
to bright light and blue sky and beautiful valley, white and gold in
blossom, green with grass and cottonwood. On a flower-scented wind
rushed that muffled roar again, like distant thunder.
Wolf dashed into the cottonwoods. Silvermane whistled with satisfaction
and reached for the long grass.
For Hare the light held something more than beauty, the breeze something
more than sweet scent of water and blossom. Both were charged with
meaning--with suspense.
Wolf appeared in the open leaping upon a slender brown-garbed