Wanderer of the Wasteland

by Grey, Zane

  He drove his burros down the sandy aisle. A glimpse of an old adobe wall, grey through the mesquites, stopped his heart. He went on. The house of Arallanes was a roofless ruin, the vacant windows and doors staring darkly, the walls crumbling to the sands. The shed where Adam had slept was now half hidden by mesquites. The ocatilla poles were bleached and rotten, and the brush was gone from the roof; but the sandy floor looked as clean and white as the day Adam had spread his blankets there. Fourteen years! Silent he stood, and the low, mournful wind was a knell. The past could never be undone.

  He went back to the lane and to the open. Old stone walls were all that appeared left of houses he expected to see. Over the trees, far up the slope, he espied the ruins of the dismantled mill. Unreal it looked there, out of place, marring the majestic sweep of the slope.

  His keen desert nostrils detected smoke before he saw blue columns rising through the green. He passed a plot of sand-mounded graves. Had they been there? How fierce a pang pierced his heart! Rude stones marked the graves, and on one a single wooden cross, crude and weathered, slanted away. Adam peered low at the lettering—M.A. And swiftly he swung erect.

  There was a cluster of houses farther on, low and squat, a few of them new, but most of them Adam remembered. A post-office sign marked this village of Picacho. The stone-fronted store looked just the same, and the loungers there might never have moved from their tracks in fourteen years. But the faces were strange.

  A lean old man, grey and peaked, detached himself from the group and tottered toward Adam with his cane in the sand.

  “Wal, stranger, howdy! You down from upriver?”

  His voice twanged a chord of memory. Merryvale. Slowly the tide of emotion rose in Adam’s breast. He peered down into the grey old face, with its narrow, half-shut eyes and its sunken cheeks. Yes, it was Merryvale.

  “Howdy, friend!” replied Adam. “Yes, I come from up the river.”

  “Strange in these parts, I reckon?”

  “Yes. But I—I was here years ago.”

  “Wal, I knowed you was strange because you come in by the river. Travelers nowadays go around the mountain. Prospectors never come anymore. The glory of Picacho has faded.”

  “Aren’t they working the mill?” queried Adam, quickly.

  “Haw! Haw! The mill will never grind with ore that is gone! No work these last five years. The mill has rusted out—fallen to ruin. And the gold of old Picacho is gone. But, stranger, she hummed while she lasted. Millions in gold—millions in gold!”

  He wagged his lean old head and chuckled.

  “I knew a man here once by the name of Arallanes. What has become of him?

  “Arallanes? Wall, I do recollect him. I was watchman at the mill an’ he was boss of the gang. His daughter was knifed by a greaser named Felix … Arallanes left here these ten years ago, an’ he’s never been back.”

  “His—daughter! … Is that her grave back there—the sunken mound of sand—with the wooden cross?”

  “I reckon that’s Margarita’s grave. She was a pretty wench—mad about men—an’ there’s some who said she got her just deserts.”

  The broad river gleamed yellow through the breaks in the Mesquites. Ponderous and swirling, it glided on round the bend. Adam’s gaze then sought the peak. The vast, stormy, purple mass, like a mountain of cloud, shone with sunset crown of silver.

  Somewhere near, hidden by the trees, a Mexican broke the stillness with song—wild, sensuous, Spanish love, in its haunting melody.

  “I knew another man here,” began Adam, with the words a sonorous knell in his ear. “His name was Collishaw … What’s become of him?”

  “Collishaw? Never will forgit him!” declared the old man, grimly. “Last I heard he was cheatin’ Injuns out of water rights over here at Walters—an’ still lookin’ fer somebody to hang … Haw! Haw! That Collishaw was a Texas sheriff.”

  Suddenly Adam bent lower, so that his face was on a level with Merryvale’s.

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “Wal, I shore don’t, stranger,” declared the other. “I’ve been nigh fifty years in the West an’ never seen your like yet. If I had I ’d never forget.”

  “Merryvale, do you remember a lad who shot off your fishing line one day? Do you remember how you took interest in him—told him of Western ways—that he must be a man?”

  “Shore I remember that lad!” exclaimed Merryvale, bluntly. He was old, but he was still keen. “How’d you know about him?”

  “I am Adam Larey!”

  The old man’s eyes grew piercing. Intensely he gazed, bending closer, strong and thrilling now, with the zest of earlier experience sharp in his expression.

  “I know you now. It’s Adam. I’da knowed them eyes among a thousand, if I ’d only looked. Eagle’s eyes, Adam, once seen never forgot! … An’ look at the giant of him! Wal, you make me feel young again … Adam, lad, I ain’t never forgot ye—never! Shake hands with old Merryvale.”

  Agitated, with tremulous voice and shaking hands, he grasped Adam, almost embracing him, his grey old face alight with gladness.

  “It’s good to see you, Merryvale—to learn you’ve not forgotten me—all these years.”

  “Lad, you was like my own! … But who’d ever know you now? You’ve white hair, Adam, an’—ah! I see the desert in your face.”

  “Old friend, did you ever hear of Wansfell?”

  “Wansfell? You mean thet wanderer the prospectors tell about? … Shore, I’ve been hearin’ tales of him these many years.”

  “I am Wansfell,” replied Adam.

  “So help me God! … Wansfell? … You, Adam, the kindly lad! … Didn’t I tell you what a hell of a man you’d be when you grew up?”

  Adam drew Merryvale aside from the curiously gathering loungers.

  “Old friend, you are responsible for Wansfell … And now, before we tell—before I go—I want you to take me to—to—my—my brother’s grave?”

  Merryvale stared.

  “What?” he ejaculated, and again his keen old eyes searched Adam’s.

  “Yes. The grave—of my brother—Guerd,” whispered Adam.

  “Say, man! … You think Guerd Larey’s buried here? … That’s why you come back?”

  Astonishment seemed to dominate Merryvale, to hold in check other emotions.

  “My friend,” replied Adam, “I came to see his grave—to make my peace with him and God—and to give myself up to the law.”

  “Give yourself—up—to the law!” gasped Merryvale. “Have you gone desert mad?”

  “No. I’m right in my mind,” returned Adam, patiently. “I owe it to my conscience, Merryvale … Fourteen years of torture! Any punishment I may suffer here, compared with those long years, will be as nothing … It will be happiness to give myself up.”

  Merryvale’s lean jaw quivered as the astonishment and concern left his face. A light of divination began to dawn there.

  “But what do you want to give yourself up for?” he demanded.

  “I told you. My conscience. My need to stand right with myself. To pay!”

  “I mean—what’d you do? … What for?”

  “Old friend, you’ve grown thick of wits,” rejoined Adam. “Because of my crime.”

  “An’ what was thet, Adam Larey?” queried Merryvale, sharply.

  “The crime of Cain,” replied Adam sadly. “Come, friend—take me to my brother’s grave.”

  Merryvale seemed galvanized from age to youth.

  “Your brother’s grave! … Guerd Larey’s grave? By heaven! I wish I could take you to it! … Adam, you’re out of your head. You are desert mad … Bless you, lad, you’ve made a terrible mistake! You’re not what you think you are. You’ve hid in the desert fourteen years—you’ve gone through hell—you’ve become Wansfell—all for nothin’! … My God! to think of thet! … Adam, you’re no murderer. Your brother is not dead. He wasn’t even bad hurt. No— no—Guerd Larey’s alive—alive—alive!”

  >
 

  Grey, Zane, Wanderer of the Wasteland