Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 722
Wilbur cleared his throat. “Couldn’t get me in somehow on this load?” A frown accompanied his question.
“Not very well. Running board packed with bedding, and valises stacked in back. We’ll be riding three to the front seat as it is, and that narrow back seat is none too comfortable now. Got to consider my party some. They’re paying for this. And crossing Canyon Diablo with an overloaded car is pretty bad business.”
“You’re shore to send someone back?” drawled Wilbur.
“Sure as a decent man’s word,” Curry retorted.
Katharine was aware that a man like Curry could not take Wilbur’s insolence easily. Suddenly a daring idea stimulated her. “Oh, Mr. Curry,” she said in her most affable manner. “Mr. Newton was suggesting before that we had plenty of supper for an additional small party. I’m sure you folks are hungry.”
“Now, that’s sure fine of you, Newton. Like to sit down with you, but my party’s counting on a big layout at Leupp. They ate lunch late — not powerful hungry yet. You ladies go and get it. My engine needs a little cooling off. Meanwhile I’ll look at that carburetor.”
Wilbur was silent through the hurried meal. He had specific silences for specific occasions. This one bore like a heavy hand. Later, Wilbur’s too emphatic words, supposed to be for Mary’s ears alone, carried to Katharine where she stood brushing crumbs from her skirt.
“Mind me! You let Katharine sit next to thet man. I won’t have you squeezin’ close to him. Better leave the conversation to her, too. She’s got enough tongue to do for two women.”
CHAPTER I I
THE PEOPLE IN Curry’s party, a professor from the University of Chicago and his maiden sisters, made the girls welcome. They were glad to be of service. It all only went to show, they explained piecemeal between them, that nothing man could devise would ever conquer the desert. What good was a car? Had the girls been marooned in a more remote part of the desert, they might have starved to death!
Katharine wanted to tell them about desert magic, how the Indians who kept watch might be saviors under such a circumstance, but she always hated to repeat information just received. Unfortunately Mary seemed too preoccupied to enlighten them.
“A horse is the thing for this country,” spoke up Curry. “When a fellow’s car’s broken down on the road and Indians ride up and look on from their saddles, you know sure as life they’re figuring they have the best of the bargain. And they have. A horse can get where a car can’t. Sure, he may break a leg when he’s traveling, but if he’s your own you’d just as soon starve to death right there anyway.”
“You know how that hurts, don’t you, Mr. Curry?” said Mary softly.
“You bet I do!”
For a moment Katharine was perplexed. There was a strange import in the look that flashed between her seatmates on their exchange of words, an incident that led her to believe they shared something more than a casual acquaintance — an experience, perhaps. Her conjecture seemed trivial, but she wanted to justify their amity. It came to Katharine then that the imperturbable Wilbur had been stirred to an unusual vehemence of speech when he mentioned Curry to his wife.
Katharine fell suddenly thoughtful. She stared out into the dusk. A mellow glow pervaded. There would be no severe blackness such as she had experienced early in her visit at Taho. The desert was a pale-tinted opal in moonlight, gently tenacious of the radiance of day. Everywhere shadows were fleeing before the goddess of the night. One lone star twinkled above the blue-black rim of the world. Katharine found herself listening to silence — an intense silence that seemed to muffle the sound of the car. Was it through such a silence as this that one could hear the voice of God? She thought of the prophets of old who went to the wilderness to commune with God. How terrifying to think of one small soul alone with the Creator — not alone as in prayer, but mute, voiceless, waiting for His word! Did anyone really ever seek such an experience? She, herself, would have fled from it. She was grateful not to be alone in this silence, so alone that there would be only God.... She stole furtive glances at her companions. Suppose they could read her thoughts! How puerile they would seem! ... Nothing could change the silence — it hovered heavily over the desert night. Her companions, too, had become part of it.
Finally Curry spoke, breaking a long lull. “You’ll be a little skeery crossing Canyon Diablo, Miss Winfield. We make automobiles do funny things in this country. We’ve got to.”
“Scare me if you can!” said Katharine. “Bring on your old canyon!”
Curry laughed so heartily that one of the ladies burst out with a nervous “What was that?”
“We have a young lady along who’s sure enthusiastic about that canyon I was hoping we’d make before sunset,” explained Curry. “She’s all primed for a fight.”
“For a fright, you mean,” retorted Katharine. “I don’t feel as brave as I sound.”
“Better grit your teeth then, she’s a-comin’!”
“Where? I don’t see anything.”
“You will as soon as we cover this rise.”
Katharine studied the trail. Could it be that close beyond the gentle rise of ground a canyon yawned? She leaned forward expectantly. They sped along through the silent, mysterious night — pale night, yellow night, ghostly night. Star-gleam ahead, and the canyon! They came upon it soon, a jagged black gulf, a pit of darkness over which they seemed to hang. Light caught slantwise from the moon penetrated part way down the opposite wall, and below was naked gloom. Devil’s Canyon, indeed!
“We’re going down into that — with this car!” exclaimed Katharine incredulously.
“We are, or we’ll never make Leupp till bridge builders get out here!” replied Curry stoutly. “You’ll get shaken up some.”
Katharine braced her feet, a perilous performance in itself, with the emergency brake so close, and spread her arms behind Curry and Mary to get a strong hold from the rear. Mary sat in perfect relaxation. Canyons had no terrors for her.
Strong headlights made the tortuous trail visible over a short area, but below yawned the bottomless black pit. And black walls loomed suddenly before them. From these, they turned and rode on through their shadows, only to meet others, leaning, towering. The automobile pitched and swung and shook, and brakes groaned. Katharine felt as if she were falling, slipping down into the dark abyss. They rode at a perilous angle, fretting their way between rock and boulder in perilous descent. They were subjected to about fifteen minutes of this before the car swung around with a tremendous shake and slid out on a level place where Curry shut down hard on the brakes. A gasp of relief escaped Katharine.
“And now that we’ve come this far, what are we going to do?” she asked.
“Climb out, goose,” returned Mary.
“You can get out of the car and stretch, if you like,” Curry informed her. “I’m walking up a little way to look over a piece of that trail. Sometimes it’s in a poor way. I might have to build it up some.” With what equanimity this strong desert man talked of Herculean things! Katharine smiled on him in admiration.
“May Mrs. Newton and I come along?”
“Sure, anybody can come.”
The ladies and gentleman from Chicago declined; they were still breathing hard from the already too adventuresome excursion. But Mary would miss no chance to explore. She and Katharine toiled up the trail together, following the gleam of Curry’s flashlight. The sandy basin of the canyon was narrow and gorgelike and they came quickly to the precipitous trail up the far wall. Katharine looked up. Dim lavender light sifted down through the rent, and far beyond the jagged purple rim a long, narrow welt of sky gleamed like darkened steel. Yellow stars shone though the blue void, still and cold. The all-pervading silence was almost frightening.
“Isn’t it too awesome for words!” Katharine managed to murmur to her companions. “As if we’d found the gateway to Dante’s Inferno!”
“Night makes the setting more somber,” said Mary. “Day is kinder and doesn’t show the canyon in such a terrifying aspect. This is like being buried alive in a tomb.”
The place Curry was examining was not more than two hundred feet up the trail; still they felt the strain of their climb over the rock-strewn slope. Katharine could see at once how narrow the roadway was at this point. A stout log and jammed rocks built up the edge wide enough to assure the passage of the car.
“We’ve got the world by the tail!” announced Curry. “Someone’s put in a good job here. We can buck right over her!”
“I wonder how often this part of the trail has been rebuilt,” said Katharine thoughtfully.
“As often as there comes a good rain,” Curry replied.
The New York girl looked at him in amazement.
“Every break in that rim becomes a waterfall then,” Mary explained, “and a torrent of water roars through the canyon. Look straight up to that break which looks like a cross-canyon.... Can’t you imagine the water pouring over that ledge? All the dirt beneath that pile of rocks would be washed away, and it would be impossible to cross the trail here.”
“Well, I should say so!” declared Katharine, while deploring in her mind such destruction by the elements of the fruits of men’s labors. “The desert must be unconquerable. That might explain its charm.”
“How do you like our canyon?” queried Curry.
“Yours and the devil’s, you mean,” said Katharine before she could curb her unruly tongue. “As people in Taho would say, ‘I like it fine.’ But heaven forbid that I ever have to cross it on a dark and stormy night! I want the moon.”
“Next time you come through, I’ll see you have a moon. I’ll fix it up with the government agent at Leupp. He’s an obliging cuss.”
“You’re both incorrigible!” Mary declared, laughing as she spoke.
Immediately upon their return to the automobile, two timorous passengers questioned them about the safety in venturing farther over the terrible road.
Curry told them there would be no trouble. “We’ll eat it up. The place I was worrying about is in perfect condition.”
Thus assured, the ladies lapsed into silence, and soon the automobile was moving again, gasping and grinding up the grade. Once when the motor went dead, Katharine’s heart stopped too. Only after Curry recovered control and regained the few feet they had slid could she find breath or voice.
At last they gained the canyon rim and the car shot out upon the desert. Mary clapped her hands in approval of Curry’s masterly handling of the car. One of the ladies quavered, “Well, I never!” a sentiment which the Eastern girl heartily endorsed.
“I’ll let the old nag cool off a bit and then I’ll stick my spurs in her and make her run,” said Curry. “It’s a pretty even stretch now all the way to Leupp. We ought to make it in a half-hour.”
* * * * *
Katharine’s impression of Leupp from a distance was of a treeless community of toy buildings set haphazardly on pale yellow cardboard. But the buildings, which surrounded a formal walk, took substantial proportions as they approached. Several were dark, vacant structures.
“School buildings and dormitories,” Curry informed them, indicating the largest of the group. “No youngsters here now. Vacation. Teachers gone too, I guess. Leupp’s sure a dead place in summer.”
They drove by the buildings and on toward a square brick house where a light shone. There they stopped.
“Hey!” yelled Curry. “Anybody home?”
“You betcher!” bellowed a voice from the doorway. A man of giant stature strode out to greet them. He was grizzled and desert-worn, and had a homely good-natured face.
“Howdy, everybody!” he said in thundering tones. “Want a lodging for the night?”
Mr. Curry introduced the man to his party. His name was Jenkins. He was the government agent at Leupp.
“Aw, shaw! And to think Mrs. Jenkins is in Taho when there’s ladies to entertain!” His disappointment was so genuine that Katharine could not help sharing it.
“Miss Winfield and I are from Taho,” spoke up Mary. “Sorry I haven’t met Mrs. Jenkins there. Guess she’s newly arrived.”
“Yes, she shore is. But if you ain’t away for long you’ll have lots of time to be good to her. She’s to spend a month there with the Burnhams. You know ’em, I guess. You can’t live in Taho and not know everybody.”
“Indeed I do know Mrs. Burnham. It’s certain we’ll meet your wife.”
While the ladies accepted Jenkins’ invitation to “step out and shake your skirts,” Curry explained Wilbur Newton’s plight.
“Shore. I’ll pull him out,” agreed Jenkins. “Likely he’s diggin’ a pair of spurs into a rock somewheres. Ain’t he the dandy? Arizona couldn’t support two of him.”
Curry’s effort to stop the man before he had his full say was futile. Half-whispered words passed between them; then Katharine caught, “Well I’ll be damned! I didn’t get it that she was the missus. Now, ain’t some men lucky, and some women fools!”
Mary was serene through it all, as if she had not heard.
Their arrival had interrupted a card game in which sat a professor from Harvard University and two students, all of archeological bent. This information came unsolicited with the introductions. Jenkins was proud of his guests.
After professor had met professor, no one could separate them, and much to the consternation of the students it became their lot to decide who should accompany Jenkins on his relief expedition. It was obvious that they preferred the company of the ladies. Katharine did not wonder at it, marooned as they were in this remote place where they likely had not seen a girl for many weeks. Finally, in heroic brothers-in-arms fashion they agreed that they both would go.
Jenkins turned the house over to the ladies. They were to do with it what they pleased. There was a kitchen stocked with any amount of canned food. They could cook, play the victrola — at this the students exchanged despairing glances — look through his albums and guest book, or anything else that took their fancy. When it came to sleeping time they could send the men folks to the dormitories where they would find a dozen beds apiece. There were three bedrooms for which the ladies could draw. He wanted them to be sure to “make themselves to home.”
Guided by their host’s suggestion, Mary and Katharine explored the rooms as soon as he left. No small home could have been more complete than the Jenkins’ desert place. And it was spotlessly neat. In the kitchen the girls found Curry, sleeves rolled above his elbow, laying out food supplies he had brought in from the car.
“You’ve had no supper,” said Mary. “You and your party must be starved!”
“Just watch me rustle some grub!” Curry grinned happily.
“Let us do it!” Katharine begged.
“Not while I’ve got legs to stand on.”
“Then let us help,” chimed in Mary. “It will hurry things.”
Curry swung one arm high in surrender. “That’s putting it too straight for me. Dip in if you want to.”
If it had been a competition, Katharine would have had difficulty in deciding whether Curry or Mary were the better cook. While she herself awkwardly carried out the tasks they directed her to do, Mary and Curry were talking as they worked and yet accomplished twice as much. Between the three the work was dispatched quickly.
Mary and Katharine waited table against the protest of the others. Attention of this kind, they declared, would spoil them forever.
Never had Katharine felt such joy in service; never had people seemed so necessary to each other, their interdependence been more clearly established, than here, far from the civilized world. The desert had a power over men, linking their destinies or pulling them far asunder. People met as friends or enemies. There was no intermediate bond.
After supper the maiden ladies retired to their room. They much preferred the room with a double bed to the separate rooms and single beds. The desert seemed to have made them conscious of their impotence, and they clung to each other for strength. Youth had greater vigor and less fear.
Katharine stepped out into the pale yellow night. The droning voices of the two professors came to her. She wanted to hear their interesting conversation on the subject of archeology. But even more than this she wanted the moonlight of the desert and its strange impelling silence; so she walked down the barren path that led to the trail.
This desert solitude was the storehouse of unlived years, the hush of the world at the hour of its creation. It was solemn, grand, incorruptible. It did something to one, something inexplicable; it drew one’s narrow soul from out oneself, and poured in something big, so big it was almost too great to bear. It set one’s heart beating faster. Tears came too, and a strange yearning. Was it the desire to be in tune with the Infinite? Was it self trying to meet God? Was it God trying to storm her soul? Had Mary surrendered to this force, this power, this unnamable magic, that she could find in the desert infinite peace? ... “Come unto me all ye who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” ... It must be that Mary meant that God had received her in the desert, that she too could find Him there. But Katharine was too unsure. This vast, solemn, ageless sepulcher was voiceless and fearsome, and too merciless in aspect. The stars looked down coldly, and the moon. The Eastern girl found companionship in her shadow; and watching it before her, she returned slowly to the house.
Curry and Mary were alone on the porch; he sat against a pillar; she, at the far end of the steps, seemingly unconscious of his presence, was wrapped in deep meditation. Neither was aware of Katharine’s approach until her voice brought them to their feet.
“I didn’t mean to run off. I simply couldn’t resist it.”
“The desert has a way of wooing all its own,” said Mary. “However, I knew you weren’t far.”
“It’s wonderful and so terrifying! Do you ever feel that way about it, Mr. Curry?” Katharine asked.
“I’ve lived on it for years, and I don’t savvy it yet,” Curry returned.
