Zane Grey (20 page)

"Hare, your nose is on a blood scent, like a wolf's. I can see—I've
always seen—well, remember, it's man to man between you now."

During this talk they were winding under Echo Cliffs, gradually climbing,
and working up to a level with the desert, which they presently attained
at a point near the head of the canyon. The trail swerved to the left
following the base of the cliffs. The tracks of Noddle and Wolf were
plainly visible in the dust. Hare felt that if they ever led out into
the immense airy space of the desert all hope of finding Mescal must be
abandoned.

They trailed the tracks of the dog and burro to Bitter Seeps, a shallow
spring of alkali, and there lost all track of them. The path up the
cliffs to the Navajo ranges was bare, time-worn in solid rock, and showed
only the imprint of age. Desertward the ridges of shale, the washes of
copper earth, baked in the sun, gave no sign of the fugitives' course.
August Naab shrugged his broad shoulders and pointed his horse to the
cliff. It was dusk when they surmounted it.

They camped in the lee of an uplifting crag. When the wind died down the
night was no longer unpleasantly cool; and Hare, finding August Naab
uncommunicative and sleepy, strolled along the rim of the cliff, as he
had been wont to do in the sheep-herding days. He could scarcely
dissociate them from the present, for the bitter-sweet smell of tree and
bush, the almost inaudible sigh of breeze, the opening and shutting of
the great white stars in the blue dome, the silence, the sense of the
invisible void beneath him—all were thought-provoking parts of that past
of which nothing could ever be forgotten. And it was a silence which
brought much to the ear that could hear. It was a silence penetrated by
faint and distant sounds, by mourning wolf, or moan of wind in a
splintered crag. Weird and low, an inarticulate voice, it wailed up from
the desert, winding along the hollow trail, freeing itself in the wide
air, and dying away. He had often heard the scream of lion and cry of
wildcat, but this was the strange sound of which August Naab had told
him, the mysterious call of canyon and desert night.

Daylight showed Echo Cliffs to be of vastly greater range than the sister
plateau across the river. The roll of cedar level, the heave of craggy
ridge, the dip of white-sage valley gave this side a diversity widely
differing from the two steps of the Vermillion tableland. August Naab
followed a trail leading back toward the river. For the most part thick
cedars hid the surroundings from Hare's view; occasionally, however, he
had a backward glimpse from a high point, or a wide prospect below, where
the trail overlooked an oval hemmed-in valley.

About midday August Naab brushed through a thicket, and came abruptly on
a declivity. He turned to his companion with a wave of his hand.

"The Navajo camp," he said. "Eschtah has lived there for many years.
It's the only permanent Navajo camp I know. These Indians are nomads.
Most of them live wherever the sheep lead them. This plateau ranges for
a hundred miles, farther than any white man knows, and everywhere, in the
valleys and green nooks, will be found Navajo hogans. That's why we may
never find Mescal."

Hare's gaze travelled down over the tips of cedar and crag to a pleasant
vale, dotted with round mound-like white-streaked hogans, from which lazy
floating columns of blue smoke curled upward. Mustangs and burros and
sheep browsed on the white patches of grass. Bright-red blankets blazed
on the cedar branches. There was slow colorful movement of Indians,
passing in and out of their homes. The scene brought irresistibly to
Hare the thought of summer, of long warm afternoons, of leisure that took
no stock of time.

On the way down the trail they encountered a flock of sheep driven by a
little Navajo boy on a brown burro. It was difficult to tell which was
the more surprised, the long-eared burro, which stood stock-still, or the
boy, who first kicked and pounded his shaggy steed, and then jumped off
and ran with black locks flying. Farther down Indian girls started up
from their tasks, and darted silently into the shade of the cedars.
August Naab whooped when he reached the valley, and Indian braves
appeared, to cluster round him, shake his hand and Hare's, and lead them
toward the centre of the encampment.

The hogans where these desert savages dwelt were all alike; only the
chief's was larger. From without it resembled a mound of clay with a few
white logs, half imbedded, shining against the brick red. August Naab
drew aside a blanket hanging over a door, and entered, beckoning his
companion to follow. Inured as Hare had become to the smell and smart of
wood-smoke, for a moment he could not see, or scarcely breathe, so thick
was the atmosphere. A fire, the size of which attested the desert
Indian's love of warmth, blazed in the middle of the hogan, and sent part
of its smoke upward through a round hole in the roof. Eschtah, with
blanket over his shoulders, his lean black head bent, sat near the fire.
He noted the entrance of his visitors, but immediately resumed his
meditative posture, and appeared to be unaware of their presence.

Hare followed August's example, sitting down and speaking no word. His
eyes, however, roved discreetly to and fro. Eschtah's three wives
presented great differences in age and appearance. The eldest was a
wrinkled, parchment-skinned old hag who sat sightless before the fire;
the next was a solid square squaw, employed in the task of combing a
naked boy's hair with a comb made of stiff thin roots tied tightly in a
round bunch. Judging from the youngster's actions and grimaces, this
combing process was not a pleasant one. The third wife, much younger,
had a comely face, and long braids of black hair, of which, evidently,
she was proud. She leaned on her knees over a flat slab of rock, and
holding in her hands a long oval stone, she rolled and mashed corn into
meal. There were young braves, handsome in their bronze-skinned way,
with bands binding their straight thick hair, silver rings in their ears,
silver bracelets on their wrists, silver buttons on their moccasins.
There were girls who looked up from their blanket-weaving with shy
curiosity, and then turned to their frames strung with long threads.
Under their nimble fingers the wool-carrying needles slipped in and out,
and the colored stripes grew apace. Then there were younger boys and
girls, all bright-eyed and curious; and babies sleeping on blankets.
Where the walls and ceiling were not covered with buckskin garments,
weapons and blankets, Hare saw the white wood-ribs of the hogan
structure. It was a work of art, this circular house of forked logs and
branches, interwoven into a dome, arched and strong, and all covered and
cemented with clay.

At a touch of August's hand Hare turned to the old chief; and awaited his
speech. It came with the uplifting of Eschtah's head, and the offering
of his hand in the white man's salute. August's replies were slow and
labored; he could not speak the Navajo language fluently, but he
understood it.

"The White Prophet is welcome," was the chief's greeting. "Does he come
for sheep or braves or to honor the Navajo in his home?"

"Eschtah, he seeks the Flower of the Desert," replied August Naab.
"Mescal has left him. Her trail leads to the bitter waters under the
cliff, and then is as a bird's."

"Eschtah has waited, yet Mescal has not come to him."

"She has not been here?"

"Mescal's shadow has not gladdened the Navajo's door."

"She has climbed the crags or wandered into the canyons. The white
father loves her; he must find her."

"Eschtah's braves and mustangs are for his friend's use. The Navajo will
find her if she is not as the grain of drifting sand. But is the White
Prophet wise in his years? Let the Flower of the Desert take root in the
soil of her forefathers."

"Eschtah's wisdom is great, but he thinks only of Indian blood. Mescal
is half white, and her ways have been the ways of the white man. Nor
does Eschtah think of the white man's love."

"The desert has called. Where is the White Prophet's vision? White
blood and red blood will not mix. The Indian's blood pales in the white
man's stream; or it burns red for the sun and the waste and the wild.
Eschtah's forefathers, sleeping here in the silence, have called the
Desert Flower."

"It is true. But the white man is bound; he cannot be as the Indian; he
does not content himself with life as it is; he hopes and prays for
change; he believes in the progress of his race on earth. Therefore
Eschtah's white friend smelts Mescal; he has brought her up as his own;
he wants to take her home, to love her better, to trust to the future."

"The white man's ways are white man's ways. Eschtah understands. He
remembers his daughter lying here. He closed her dead eyes and sent word
to his white friend. He named this child for the flower that blows in
the wind of silent places. Eschtah gave his granddaughter to his friend.
She has been the bond between them. Now she is flown and the White
Father seeks the Navajo. Let him command. Eschtah has spoken."

Eschtah pressed into Naab's service a band of young braves, under the
guidance of several warriors who knew every trail of the range, every
waterhole, every cranny where even a wolf might hide. They swept the
river-end of the plateau, and working westward, scoured the levels,
ridges, valleys, climbed to the peaks, and sent their Indian dogs into
the thickets and caves. From Eschtah's encampment westward the hogans
diminished in number till only one here and there was discovered, hidden
under a yellow wall, or amid a clump of cedars. All the Indians met with
were sternly questioned by the chiefs, their dwellings were searched, and
the ground about their waterholes was closely examined. Mile after mile
the plateau was covered by these Indians, who beat the brush and
penetrated the fastnesses with a hunting instinct that left scarcely a
rabbit-burrow unrevealed. The days sped by; the circle of the sun arched
higher; the patches of snow in high places disappeared; and the search
proceeded westward. They camped where the night overtook them, sometimes
near water and grass, sometimes in bare dry places. To the westward the
plateau widened. Rugged ridges rose here and there, and seared crags
split the sky like sharp sawteeth. And after many miles of wild
up-ranging they reached a divide which marked the line of Eschtah's
domain.

Naab's dogged persistence and the Navajos' faithfulness carried them into
the country of the Moki Indians, a tribe classed as slaves by the proud
race of Eschtah. Here they searched the villages and ancient tombs and
ruins, but of Mescal there was never a trace.

Hare rode as diligently and searched as indefatigably as August, but he
never had any real hope of finding the girl. To hunt for her, however,
despite its hopelessness, was a melancholy satisfaction, for never was
she out of his mind.

Nor was the month's hard riding with the Navajos without profit. He made
friends with the Indians, and learned to speak many of their words. Then
a whole host of desert tricks became part of his accumulating knowledge.
In climbing the crags, in looking for water and grass, in loosing
Silvermane at night and searching for him at dawn, in marking tracks on
hard ground, in all the sight and feeling and smell of desert things he
learned much from the Navajos. The whole outward life of the Indian was
concerned with the material aspect of Nature—dust, rock, air, wind,
smoke, the cedars, the beasts of the desert. These things made up the
Indians' day. The Navajos were worshippers of the physical; the sun was
their supreme god. In the mornings when the gray of dawn flushed to rosy
red they began their chant to the sun. At sunset the Navajos were
watchful and silent with faces westward. The Moki Indians also, Hare
observed, had their morning service to the great giver of light. In the
gloom of early dawn, before the pink appeared in the east, and all was
whitening gray, the Mokis emerged from their little mud and stone huts
and sat upon the roofs with blanketed and drooping heads.

One day August Naab showed in few words how significant a factor the sun
was in the lives of desert men.

"We've got to turn back," he said to Hare. "The sun's getting hot and
the snow will melt in the mountains. If the Colorado rises too high we
can't cross."

They were two days in riding back to the encampment. Eschtah received
them in dignified silence, expressive of his regret. When their time of
departure arrived he accompanied them to the head of the nearest trail,
which started down from Saweep Peak, the highest point of Echo Cliffs.
It was the Navajos' outlook over the Painted Desert.

"Mescal is there," said August Naab. "She's there with the slave Eschtah
gave her. He leads Mescal. Who can follow him there?"

The old chieftain reined in his horse, beside the time-hollowed trail,
and the same hand that waved his white friend downward swept up in slow
stately gesture toward the illimitable expanse. It was a warrior's
salute to an unconquered world. Hare saw in his falcon eyes the still
gleam, the brooding fire, the mystical passion that haunted the eyes of
Mescal.

"The slave without a tongue is a wolf. He scents the trails and the
waters. Eschtah's eyes have grown old watching here, but he has seen no
Indian who could follow Mescal's slave. Eschtah will lie there, but no
Indian will know the path to the place of his sleep. Mescal's trail is
lost in the sand. No man may find it. Eschtah's words are wisdom.
Look!"

To search for any living creatures in that borderless domain of colored
dune, of shifting cloud of sand, of purple curtain shrouding mesa and
dome, appeared the vainest of all human endeavors. It seemed a
veritable rainbow realm of the sun. At first only the beauty stirred
Hare—he saw the copper belt close under the cliffs, the white beds of
alkali and washes of silt farther out, the wind-ploughed canyons and
dust-encumbered ridges ranging west and east, the scalloped slopes of the
flat tableland rising low, the tips of volcanic peaks leading the eye
beyond to veils and vapors hovering over blue clefts and dim line of
level lanes, and so on, and on, out to the vast unknown. Then Hare
grasped a little of its meaning. It was a sun-painted, sun-governed
world. Here was deep and majestic Nature eternal and unchangeable. But
it was only through Eschtah's eyes that he saw its parched slopes, its
terrifying desolateness, its sleeping death.