THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD
For many hurrying minutes, Rhoda saw only the passing tree branches
black against the evening sky as she lay across Kut-le's breast. The
pursuers had made no sound nor had Kut-le broken a single twig. The
entire incident might have been a pantomime, with every actor
tragically intent.
Having long learned the futility of struggling, Rhoda lay quietly
enough, her ears keen to catch the sound of pursuit. Kut-le did not
remove his hand from her mouth. But as he dropped rapidly and
skilfully down the mountainside he whispered:
"My own ground, you see! It will take them a good while in the dusk to
find that back trail. Only a few Indians know it."
But Rhoda's heart was beating high. Let Kut-le boast as he would, she
was sure that Jack and John DeWitt were learning to follow the trail.
The most vivid picture in her mind was of the utter weariness of John's
face. In the past weeks Rhoda had learned how fearful had been the
hardships that would bring such weariness to a human face. Tears came
to her eyes. No one so weak, so useless as herself, she felt, could be
worth such travail.
Silently they moved through the dusk. Rhoda knew that the other
Indians must be close behind them, yet no sound betrayed their
presence. After a half-hour or so she struggled to be set down. But
Kut-le only tightened his hold and it was fully two hours later that he
set her on her feet.
"Don't move," he said. "We are on a cañon edge."
Rhoda swung her blanket to her shoulders, for the night was stinging
sharp. She was not afraid. She had grown so accustomed to the night
trail that she moved unhesitatingly along black rims that had at first
paralyzed her with fear.
"Now," said Kut-le, "I'm not going to travel on foot. The only horses
within easy distance are some that a bunch of Navajos have in the cañon
below here. So we will go down and get them. We will go together
because I can't risk coming back for you. We will have to hike
_pronto_ after we get 'em. Just remember that you are contaminated by
the company you are keeping and that if you make any noise, the Navajos
will shoot you up, with the rest of us! Keep right behind me."
The little group moved carefully down the cañon trail. In a short time
they reached a growth of trees. They stole through these, the only
sound Rhoda's panting breaths. Suddenly Kut-le stopped.
"Wait here!" he breathed in Rhoda's ear, and he and Alchise disappeared.
A hand was laid on her arm and Rhoda knew that Molly and Cesca were
guarding her. Almost immediately the soft thud of hoofs was upon them.
Kut-le seized Rhoda and tossed her to a pony's back.
"It was dead easy!" he whispered. "They were all asleep! I even took
a saddle for you! Now hike!"
Rhoda gripped her pony with her knees as the little fellow cantered
unerringly through the darkness after Kut-le. She felt a sudden pride
and exultation in the security she had developed in the saddle during
the travail of her night rides. She knew that no man of her
acquaintance could ride a horse as she could now. And with the
exultation she was trembling with excitement. She knew that none of
them could expect mercy if the Navajos discovered their loss in time to
take up the chase. All the eagerness of the gambler who stakes his
life on a throw of the dice; all the wild thrill of the chase; all the
trembling of the panting, woodland things that hunt and are hunted,
were Rhoda's as the night wind rushed past her face. The apathy of
illness was gone. Tonight she was as wild a thing as the night's birds
that brushed across their trail on sweeping wing.
When they made camp at dawn Rhoda tumbled into her blanket and was
asleep before Alchise finished covering their trail. When she woke she
found that they were camped in a strange eerie. They were high up on a
mountain on a shelf that gave back into a shallow cave. In front,
facing the desert, was a heap of rock that formed a natural rampart. A
tiny spring bubbled from the cave floor. Here the little party would
seem as secure in their dizzy seclusion as eagles of the Andes.
It was barely noon and the mountain air was sweet and exhilarating.
Kut-le sat against the rampart, smoking a cigarette, while Molly and
Cesca worked over the fire. Rhoda lunched on the tortillas to which
Molly had clung through all the vicissitudes of flight.
"Where are the horses?" she asked Kut-le.
"Oh, Alchise took them back. We must stay here a while till your mob
of friends disperses. I couldn't feed them and I wanted to pacify the
Navajos and get some supplies from them. Alchise will fix it up with
them."
And here on this dizzy brink of the desert Kut-le did pause as if for a
long, long holiday. The wisdom of the proceeding did not trouble him
at all. The call of the desert was an allurement to which he yielded
unresistingly, trusting to elude capture through his skill and
unfailing good fortune.
To Rhoda the pause was welcome. She still had faith that the longer
they camped in one spot the surer would be the pursuers to stumble upon
them. Kut-le began to devote himself entirely to Rhoda's amusement.
He knew all the plant and animal life of the desert, not only as an
Indian but as a college man who had loved biology. By degrees Rhoda's
good brain began to respond to his vivid interest and the girl in her
stay on the mountain shelf learned the desert as has been given to few
whites to learn it. Besides what she learned from the men Rhoda became
expert in camp work under Molly's patient teaching. She could kindle
the tiny, smokeless fire. She could concoct appetizing messes from the
crude food. She could detect good water from bad and could find forage
for horses. The crowning pride of her achievements was learning to
weave the dish basketry.
They had lived in the mountain niche some three weeks when Alchise and
Kut-le left the camp one afternoon, Alchise on a turkey hunt, Kut-le on
one of his mysterious trips for supplies. Alchise returned at dusk
with a beautiful bird which Rhoda and Molly roasted with enthusiasm.
But Kut-le did not appear at supper time as he had promised. When the
meal was almost spoiled from waiting, Rhoda and the Indians ate. As
the evening wore on, Alchise grew uneasy, but he dared not disobey
Kut-le's orders and leave the camp unguarded at night.
Rhoda speculated, torn between hope and fear. Perhaps the searchers
had captured Kut-le at last. Perhaps he had given up hope of winning
her love and had gone for good. Perhaps, somewhere or other, he was
lying badly hurt! The little group sat up much later than usual, Cesca
silently smoking her endless cigarettes, Alchise and Molly talking now
in Apache, now in English. Rhoda was convinced that they were puzzled
and worried.
Even after she had lain down on her blankets Rhoda could not sleep.
With Kut-le gone her sense of the camp's security was gone. She rose
finally and sat beside Alchise who, rifle in hand, guarded the ledge.
There was no moon but the stars were very large and near. Rhoda was
growing to know the stars. They were remote in the East; in the desert
they become a part of one's existence. The sense of stupendous
distance was greater at night than in the daytime. The infinite
heavens, stretching depth beyond depth, the faint far spaces of the
desert, were as if one looked on the Great Mystery itself.
When dawn came, Alchise wakened Cesca, put the rifle into her hands,
and hurried back up over the mountain. The purple shadows had
lightened to gray when Rhoda saw Kut-le staggering up the trail from
the desert. Rhoda gave a little cry and ran down to meet him.
"Kut-le! What happened to you? We were so worried!"
There was a bloody rag tied just below the young Indian's knee. He
paused, supporting himself against a rock. Across his eyes, drawn and
haggard with pain, flashed a look of joy that Rhoda, eying the bandage,
did not see.
"I was late starting back," he said briefly. "In the darkness a bit of
the trail gave way, dropped me into a cañon and laid my leg open. I
was unconscious a long time and lost a lot of blood, so it has taken me
the rest of the night to get here. Would you mind getting Alchise to
help me up the trail?"
"Alchise has gone to look for you. Lean on me," said Rhoda simply.
Despite his weakness, the dark blood flushed the young man's face,
while Rhoda's utter unconsciousness of her changed manner brought a
smile to his set lips. Not if the torture of dragging himself up the
trail were to be ten times greater would he now have availed himself of
help from Alchise.
"If you will let me put my arm across your shoulder we can make it," he
said as quietly as though his heart were not leaping.
Rhoda's squaring of her slender shoulders was distractingly boyish.
Utterly heedless of the pain which each step cost him, Kut-le made his
way slowly to the ledge, ordering back the flustered squaws and leaning
on Rhoda only enough to feel the tender girlish shoulders beneath the
worn blue blouse.
In the camp, Rhoda assumed command while Kut-le lay on his blanket
watching her in silent content. She put one of Alchise's two calico
shirts on to boil over the breakfast fire. She washed out the nasty
cut and bandaged it with strips from the sterilized shirt. She brought
Kut-le's breakfast and her own to his blanket side and coaxed the young
man to eat, he assuming great indifference merely for the happiness of
being urged. Rhoda was so energetic and efficient that the sun was
just climbing from behind the far peaks when Kut-le finished his bacon
and coffee. The girl stood looking at him, hands on hips, head on one
side, with that look in her eyes of superiority, maternity and
complacent tenderness which a woman can assume only when she has
ministered to the needs of a helpless masculine thing.
"There!" she said with a sigh of satisfaction.
"Rhoda," said Kut-le, hoping that the heavy thumping of his heart did
not shake his whole broad chest, "how long ago was it that you were a
helpless, dying little girl without strength to cut up your own food?
How long since you have served any one but yourself?"
Rhoda drew a quick breath. She stood staring from the Indian to the
desert, to her slender body, and back again. She held out her hands
and looked at them. They were scratched and brown and did not tremble.
Then she looked at the young Indian and he never was to forget the
light in her eyes.
"Kut-le!" she cried. "Kut-le! I am well again! I am well again!"
She paced back and forth along the ledge. Through the creamy tan her
cheeks flushed richly crimson. Finally she stopped before the Apache.
"You have outraged all my civilized instincts," she said slowly, "yet
you have saved my life and given me health. Whatever comes, Kut-le, I
never shall forget that!"
"I have changed more than that," said Kut-le quietly. "Where is your
old hatred of the desert?"
Rhoda turned to look. At the edge of the distant ranges showed a rim
of red. Crimson spokes of fire flashed to the zenith. The sky grew
brighter, more translucent, the ranges melted into molten gold. The
sun, hot and scarlet, rolled into view. Into Rhoda's heart flooded a
sense of infinite splendor, infinite beauty, infinite peace.
"Why!" she gasped to Kut-le, "it is beautiful! It's not terrible!
It's unadorned beauty!"
The Indian nodded but did not speak. Rhoda never was to forget that
day. Long years after she was to catch the afterglow of that day of
her rebirth. Suddenly she realized that never could a human have found
health in a setting more marvelous. The realization was almost too
much. Kut-le, with sympathy for which she was grateful, did not talk
to her much. Once, however, as she brought him a drink and
mechanically smoothed his blanket he said softly:
"You who have been served and demanded service all your life, why do
you do this?"
Rhoda answered slowly.
"I'm not serving you. I'm trying to pay up some of the debt of my
life."
Kut-le was about in a day or so and by the end of the week he was quite
himself. He resumed the daily expeditions with Rhoda and Alchise which
provided text for the girl's desert learning. Rhoda's old despondency,
her old agony of prayer for immediate rescue had given way to a strange
conflict of desires. She was eager for rescue, was conscious of a
constant aching desire for her own people, and yet the old sense of
outrage, of grief, of hopelessness was gone.
Of a sudden she found herself pausing, thrusting back the problems that
confronted her while she drank to the full this strange mad joy of life
which she felt must leave her when she left the desert. She knew only
that the fear of death was gone. That hours of fever and pain were no
more. That her mind had found its old poise but with an utterly new
view-point of life. Her blood ran red. Her lungs breathed deep. Her
eyes saw distances too big for their conception, beauties so deep that
her spirit had to expand to absorb them.
The silent nights of stars, the laborious crests that tossed sudden and
unspeakable views before the eyes, the eternal cañons that led beneath
ranges of surpassing majesty, roused in her a passion of delight that
could find expression only in her growing physical prowess. She lived
and ate like a splendid boy. Day after day she scaled the ranges with
Kut-le and Alchise; tenderly reared creature of an ultracivilization as
she was, she learned the intricate lore of the aborigines, learned what
students of the dying people would give their hearts to know.
Kut-le wakened Rhoda at dawn one day. She prepared the breakfast of
coffee, bacon and tortilla. Alchise shared this eagerly with Rhoda and
Kut-le, though already he had eaten with the squaws. The day was still
gray when the three set out on a long day's trip in search of game.
The way this morning led up a cañon deep and quiet, with the night
shadows still dark and cool within it. The air was that of a northern
day of June.
Rhoda tramped bravely, up and up, from cactus to bear grass, from bear
grass to stunted cedar, from cedar to pines that at last rose
triumphant at the crest of a great ridge. Here Rhoda and Kut-le flung
themselves to the ground to rest while Alchise prowled about
restlessly. Across a hundred miles of desert rose faint snow-capped
peaks.
Kut-le watched Rhoda's rapt face for a time. Then, as if unable to
keep back the words, he said softly:
"Rhoda! Stay here, always! Marry me and stay here always!"
Rhoda looked at the beautiful pleading eyes. She stirred restlessly;
but before she could frame an answer Alchise appeared, followed by a
lean old Indian all but toothless who wore a pair of tattered overalls
and a gauze shirt. The two Indians stopped before Kut-le, and Alchise
jerked a thumb at the stranger.
"_Sabe_ no white talk," he said.
Kut-le passed the stranger a cigarette, which he accepted without
comment. A rapid conversation followed between the three Indians.
"He is an Apache," explained Kut-le, finally, to Rhoda. "His name is
Injun Tom. He says that Newman and Porter hired him to trail us but he
is tired of the job. They foolishly advanced him five dollars. He
says they are camping in the valley right below here."
Rhoda sprang to her feet.
"Where are you going?" smiled Kut-le. "He says they are going to shoot
me on sight!"
Under her tan Rhoda's face whitened.
"Would they shoot you, Kut-le, even if I told them not to?"
At the sight of the paling face the young man murmured, "You dear!"
under his breath. Then aloud, "Not if I were your husband."
"How can I marry a savage?" cried Rhoda.
Kut-le put his hand under the cleft chin and lifted the sweet face till
it looked directly into his. His gaze was very deep and clear.
"Am I nothing but a naked savage, Rhoda?" he said. "Am I?"
Rhoda's eyes did not leave his.
"No!" she said softly, under her breath.
Kut-le's eyes deepened. He turned and picked up his rifle.
"Bring your friend back to dinner, Alchise," he said. "Our little
holiday must end right here."
They reached the camp at noon and while the squaws made ready for
breaking camp, Rhoda sat deep in thought. Before her were the burning
sky and desert, with hawk and buzzard circling in the clear blue.
Where had the old hatred of Kut-le gone? Whence came this new trust
and understanding, this thrill at his touch? Kut-le, who had been
watching her adoringly, rose and came to her side. The rampart hid the
two from the others. Kut-le took one of Rhoda's hands in his firm
fingers and laid his lips against her palm. Rhoda flushed and drew her
hand away. But Kut-le again put his hand beneath her cleft chin and
lifted her face to his.
Just as the brown face all but touched hers a voice sounded from behind
the rampart:
"Hello, you! Where's Kut-le?"