Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 752
To see everything was Marian’s resolve. Yet just sight of these colorfully clad Indians and the bobbing pack-mules made her forget to look anywhere else. She felt the cold puff of wind, she smelled the dust, she rode easily without any strain whatever. Then the mustangs and mules ahead suddenly went out of sight. The trail had led down over a steep bank. Presently Marian reached it. She was amazed to see a deep red gash in the earth, with crumbling walls, and a muddy, noisy stream. Mules and mustangs were edging foot by foot down a declivity right at the edge of the water. The Indians rode fast into the stream, making mud and water fly. They yelled at the mules. Marian felt her skin begin to prickle and her heart to beat unwontedly. This horse of hers manifestly had no more regard for perpendicular places than for levels. He went right down! Marian had no easy time holding on. And though not looking directly at the mules, she seemed aware of the sudden shortening of their legs. Also she heard a noise behind her.
“That’s quicksand,” called Withers from above. “Safe, but you need to hurry Buckskin.”
Marian had no time even to make up her mind. Buckskin piled off the bank and floundered into the quicksand. Marian had her first fright. She felt one of his legs go in deep, then another, and another. But he kept moving. He did not let two hoofs sink at once. And once well started, he crossed that muddy stream at a sharp gait, and climbed a sandy steep trail to the top of the bank. There Marian got her foot back in the stirrup and regained some semblance of her composure before Withers reached her side.
“How do you like Buckskin?” queried he. Not a word about that awful place!
“I — I guess I like him a lot,” she replied.
“Shore thought you would. He’s a pacer. You’ll ride him where you’d fall off another horse. Just let him go. He knows the trail and he’ll keep up. Afraid we’re in for some squalls of wind.”
Withers rode ahead to the pack-mules and quickened their pace. The Indians jogged on in the lead. And Marian appeared to be left to her horse and the trail and the encompassing scenery. Ahead bare hills of yellow stone loomed up high toward the overcast sky. Behind, the desert across the wash yawned wide, with level brown floor leading away to the trading post and then swelling to bolder heave, swept away to meet the irregular mesa wall, black against the sky.
“This — this is just not happening to me,” murmured Marian to herself. She would not have changed places with anyone in the world. She was free to let herself feel.
The trail led into a defile through the hills of rock. Slanting surfaces rose on both sides of her and gradually lifted to imposing heights. In pockets and niches grew stunted cedar trees, with roots growing out of the solid rock. The wind did not strike her here, a fact she found relieving. Buckskin held to a pace that kept him within sight of the horses ahead. On rocky places of the trail he appeared as surefooted as in the sand. Marian began to appreciate why Withers had chosen him for her. Slowly the slopes closed in, grew higher, and the trail led uphill. Marian could not see far. She now felt comfortably warm. Perhaps half an hour of a gradual climb brought Marian out on top of a ridge from which she soon saw into the distance. How splendid a scene greeted her! Withers had waited for her, evidently anticipating her delight.
“Thought you’d like this ten-mile strip,” he said. “The big black rock standing out of the plain is called ‘the Captain.’ And the Indians call that sharp monument you see ‘Slim Rock that stands High.’ It’s twice as high as your Washington soldier monument.”
Long and green and broad appeared the level hollow of desert that led to these upstanding figures, lonely and sentinel-like in the distance. Ten miles! It did not seem a third of that. Yet Marian, riding on and on, always watching these statues of rock, soon discovered how deceiving was the distance. For a whole hour these desert monuments did not change shape or size or color. In another hour Marian rode between them, to gaze up in awe, to marvel at the black granite grandeur of the Captain and the red sandstone splendor of Slim Rock that stands High. And these were outposts to the gateway of desert land, beyond Marian’s comprehension. She could only look and look, and ask Withers questions, and ride on and on, slowly to grow, hour after hour, into realization of the deceit of distance, the marvel of color, the immensity of these uplands, and the weird, fantastic, and sublime nobility of sculptured shafts of stone.
Cold wind, and overshadowing clouds, and frequent gusts of flying dust, and brief squalls of pelting sleet, passed by over Marian with no more effect than if they had never been. Something great was entering her soul. Was this the home of Indians? What did white people realize of the nature and wildness and loneliness that had created these children of the desert? What must dwell in the minds of a race living in this land of enchantment?
Then, toward mid-afternoon, what Withers had feared and predicted came to pass. “Sandstorm,” he said. “But not bad. It won’t last long. Get on your glasses, and cover your mouth and nose with your scarf.”
A pall of yellow swooped down out of the west. Dark and weird, magenta in hue, the sun shone through this wall of dust. The wonderful landmarks ahead were blotted out. The sweep of this desert storm seemed fierce and swift, swallowing up the monuments and the plains, and moving down upon Marian with a majestic and inevitable precision. Then it enveloped her.
Marian imagined she grew suddenly blind. And she began to choke and suffocate. She had to breathe through the scarf, which seemed a thick band and permitted no air to pass. There was not enough air. Her lungs lifted and heaved. The smell of dust seemed as stifling as the substance of it. She felt the fine, thin, stinging particles on face and neck. And when that heavy front of the storm passed by Marian emerged just in time to escape acute distress. Riding was disagreeable still, but gradually the gusts of whirling dust lessened, until the storm blew away toward the eastward, enveloping the uplands there as it had in the west. The sun came out, most pleasantly warming Marian’s cold hands and face and lighting the desert. Soon there came the best hour of that day, close to sunset, warmer and without wind.
Again Withers waited for her.
“We’re getting somewhere. I didn’t tell you before. This is the sage flat where Nophaie used to shepherd his sheep. Here he was stolen.... Yonder, under that red mesa, is the place where the thieves drove his flock. We’ll camp near it. Way over here — that great break in the red wall — is the pass into the Valley of Gods. Nophaie was born there.”
Withers rode on. Marian stared after him and then down at the gray sage. She reined in her horse. Here! Nophaie, the little Indian boy, lonely shepherd, here stolen! A wave of emotion swelled Marian’s breast. Tears dimmed her eyes, so that the gray soft color beneath her grew blurred and misty. She wiped her eyes. There appeared to be no mark of stone within the circle of her vision. A wide gray-green, gently rolling plain of sage led everywhere toward the upstanding rocks, the closest of which was the red mesa Withers had signified. Marian dismounted and, gathering a bit of the fragrant sage, she placed it in the pocket of her blouse, and meant to treasure it always. Then with a hand on her horse she gazed away across the plain toward the uplands where Nophaie had been born. It meant much to her, to tread on the earth that had known Nophaie’s boyhood feet, to see the wild rock towers that had shadowed his birthplace. Magnificent monuments, pillars and columns and shafts, all reflecting the gold and red of the sunset, far away and infinitely lonely, speared the horizon line and the white clouds. Valley of Gods!
Marian mounted and did not look back. Her heart was full. To the fore stretched the trail, winding through the sage. It led her under the shadow of the ponderous red mesa, a massive butte with columns like an organ, standing out alone in the desert, far from the main wall of the uplands. Upon a grassy bench Withers had made camp. Already a fire was burning. The horses were rolling. The Indians were unpacking the mules.
“Get down and come in,” said Withers, cheerily. “Find a seat and rest yourself. We’ll soon have supper.”
Marian became conscious of aching bones and tired muscles. She was glad to rest. All that pertained to this trip was of extreme interest to her, but just now seemed subservient to the personal haunting thoughts in connection with Nophaie. She forced herself to watch Withers at his camp tasks. He did not appear to be in a hurry, yet results multiplied magically, and all in a few minutes, apparently, there was supper steaming fragrantly, and a little tent stretched over a roll of blankets for her bed. Camping out was not entirely new to Marian. She had sat round camp fires in Maine and the Adirondacks. But this was different, just as the Dutch oven was a strange and fascinating cooking utensil in her sight. It was a black iron pot with a lid. Withers had thrown the lid into the fire. The pot sat upon a bed of red coals, raked to one side. Withers deposited the hand-modeled biscuits in the oven, lifted the lid out of the fire with a stick and set it on the pot. Then he piled red-hot coals over the lid, and apparently forgot this part of his task. Marian was curious to see what happened.
“Come and get it,” presently spoke up Withers, in his hearty voice.
“Get what?” queried Marian.
“That speech is the Western call to eat.”
“Oh... and what’s to become of the biscuits in that black pot?”
“Young lady, after you eat some of my biscuits you will never be happy again,” replied the trader, laughing, and forthwith proceeded to knock the lid off the oven. Marian could scarcely believe her eyes. Next moment she was sitting cross- legged before a strip of canvas upon which Withers spread the repast. The odor that assailed her suddenly awakened a ravishing hunger. And Marian began her first meal out on the desert, with an appreciation and relish never before experienced in her life. Withers served her, then the Indians, who stood by with eager eyes, and then himself. Marian’s acute senses fixed the reality of that hour — the picturesque Indians, the Western trader, forceful and wholesome and kindly, the fragrance of bacon and coffee and hot biscuits, the penetrating cold wind that swept in and blew the pungent smoke in her face, the pleasant heat of the fire on her back, and outside of that camp circle the vague sage-plain environed by looming walls.
“Shore there’s nothing wrong with your appetite,” remarked Withers, in his quaint way.
“I’m ashamed of myself, Mr. Withers,” replied Marian. “But my excuse is that I never was so hungry nor did I taste such good things to eat. Your boast about your biscuits was not an idle one.”
The trader evidently enjoyed Marian’s hearty appetite and her praise. Later, too, when she insisted upon doing some little share of the after-supper tasks, he seemed amused. Marian began to associate the simplicity of this Westerner with the bold ruggedness of force that characterized him.
Marian found she needed her heavy coat, but in lieu of that she wrapped a blanket round her and strolled away from the camp for a while. The afterglow of sunset came out on the distant walls, as if for her especial benefit. How delicate and exquisite the softness of rose and gold! They faded while she watched. Twilight seemed to last long, but at length night fell. Marian felt alone in the desert. The place where Nophaie had been captive with his flock was infinitely lonely and sad. The cold wind chilled her and swept by her, strangely soundless. There was absolutely no break in the silence. She felt that she could not have borne such silence for long. Great white stars fired the blue sky above the black walls. Thought and emotion and loneliness, such as Marian had then, would soon have driven her back to camp. But beyond these she was growing very cold, and the strange dead darkness roused fear, and she was worn out from the long ride. So she turned toward the flare of light and the red blaze which marked camp.
Upon near approach Marian had a picture etched upon her mind’s eye — the bright glow of camp fire, emphasizing the black windy hall of the desert, with the Indians sitting before the ruddy blaze and Withers standing with back to the heat. Rough bold figures, singularly typical of all that pertained to Western color and life, they stood out in sharp relief.
“Shore, I was just going to call you,” said the trader. “You mustn’t stray far at night, or any time. Reckon you’d better turn in. To-morrow we hit that Pahute trail.”
Marian crawled into the little tent, that was so low it touched her head as she sat upon her bed, and, making a pillow of sweater and coat, she wearily unlaced her boots and slipped gratefully down under the heavy woolen blankets. She tried to think some more, to realize all that had happened, to ponder and dream over the future, but at once she was claimed by sleep.
In the morning Withers called her, and when she crawled out of the little tent it was into a wonderful gray of dawn, cold and pure, stingingly sweet with its perfume of desert, with the great mesa standing clear and sharp and black against the eastern gold of sky.
“To-day we climb out on top,” was one of the trader’s droll remarks.
An hour after starting, Marian appreciated what he meant, though she was utterly at a loss to see how they could ever surmount the tremendous red wall toward which they were riding. It looked the scarred, blunt face of a mountain. The slant of broken rock that leaned against its base might be surmountable, but it did not extend far up. For the hundredth time Marian learned that what she saw at a distance was vastly different at close range.
Marks that had appeared to be scars turned out to be ledges and lines of broken cleavage and slopes of talus and masses of broken rock, through and over which it at last seemed barely possible to climb. The close approach to this lofty barrier was not without excitement for Marian. And when Withers led off the well-defined trail that kept to the lowlands, to take a dim rough trail which turned straight for the wall, she felt a deep thrill. This must be the Indian trail never traveled by white people.
“Here’s our Pahute trail,” said Withers, as he dismounted. “It heads in from cross country.... I’m sorry to say you’ll have to walk. Climb slow — rest often — and in bad places keep on the up side of your horse.”
The Indians were climbing on foot, leading their mustangs. The mules were bobbing the packs up a zigzag trail. Withers likewise began the ascent. Marian followed, confident and eager, with eyes roving everywhere. What struck her singularly was the fact that, though the immense ascent appeared to be perpendicular, there was really foothold upon its slope. Whenever she halted to catch her breath she gazed at the Indians. They did not rest. Nor did the mules. How wonderfully that trail had been worked out, zigzagging the first long slope, then taking to ledge and crack, and then worming from side to side up a break between two craggy capes! It made Marian dizzy to look high at the rim. The Indians passed out of her sight and so did the mules, while Withers slowly got far ahead of her. Marian did not particularly like this aspect of the case, and discovered that Buckskin did not, either. She became extremely hampered and hindered by the horse climbing too fast behind her. He bumped her with his shoulder, nearly knocking her over, and he stepped upon her heels. Marian had to keep ahead of him, and on the increasingly steeper bits of trail this grew almost too much for her. Buckskin either could not or would not climb slowly; and at length Marian became aware that he had to expend considerable effort to make the grade. Thus Marian was hard put to it herself.
“Look out below. Dodge the rocks,” yelled Withers from far above her.
The zigzags of the trail had placed him directly over her, and evidently his horse had loosened stones. Marian heard them clattering down, and quickly she chose a shelving portion of wall for protection. The sliding stones passed below her, gathering momentum and more stones on the way, until the sound augmented into rattling roar. Then it ceased.
Marian resumed the climb, with most of her confidence gone and all of her breath. People back East never saw a hill! She thought of a friend who used to refuse to walk on a level, let alone upgrade. And soon the sensations of warmth and breathlessness passed to those of fire and pain. A burden pressed upon her chest and her legs felt dead. She learned that to rest long was worse almost than no rest at all. For it grew too wonderfully good, if she halted more than a moment. So she staggered along and upward, panting laboriously, hot and wet, trying to avoid Buckskin and to keep from looking down into the void that had become awful. The light grew brighter over her. She heard the trader’s cheery call of encouragement. How endless that last steep zigzag to the top!
“Fine! Shore, you’re there as a climber. But it’s nothing to Pahute Canyon,” Withers was saying.
“O — h!” panted Marian, as she dragged herself up to fall upon a stone seat. She could not talk. Her breast seemed as if it were caved in. The trader’s compliment fell upon most doubting and scornful ears.
“Rest a little,” said Withers, kindly. “And then look around. We’re on the rim of Nophaie’s country.”
That roused Marian to a renewed interest. First she looked back at the lowlands from which she had climbed. How far below! Straight down the trail sheered, yet she had ascended it. The Valley of Gods rose prominently out of the vast stretch of desert, now visible to the eye; and the crowns of the monuments were on a level with the great wall from which Marian gazed. They belonged to the same strata of red sandstone. All that space below and between had weathered away. Worn by wind and sand and frost! The fact was plain to Marian, yet incredible. What of the ages! This land of mystery and beauty bade fair to transform her. Far away these red stone gods stood up, aloof, stupendous, and grand. She watched them for moments, and gradually her composure and strength returned.
“Shore, I’m glad to see you take to the look of this desert,” observed Withers, seriously. “Most people don’t. Though of course very few ever have the luck to get such a view as this. What I mean is, all we have here is wonderful country. Indians, horses, birds — what few living things there really are seem absolutely not to exist because we seldom see them. So there’s nothing to look at but the vastness — nothing to think of. That is why an Indian is great. He’s like his surroundings.”
“I don’t — know what I feel — and couldn’t tell — if I did,” replied Marian. “I want days and months here.... Yet afterward — could I ever be happy again?”
