THE FORGOTTEN CITY
Up this tortuous trail Rhoda staggered, closely followed by DeWitt. At
a level spot the girl paused.
"Water, John! Water!" she cried.
The two threw themselves down and drank of the bubbling spring until
they could hold no more. Then Rhoda lay down on the sun-warmed rocks
and sleep overwhelmed her.
She opened her eyes to stare into a yellow moon that floated liquidly
above her. Whether she had slept through a night and a day or whether
but a few hours had elapsed since she had staggered to the spring
beside which she lay, she could not tell. She lay looking up into the
sky languidly, but with clear mind. A deep sigh roused her. DeWitt
sat on the other side of the spring, rubbing his eyes.
"Hello!" he said in a hoarse croak. "How did we land here?"
"I led us here sometime in past ages. When or how, _quién sabe_?"
answered Rhoda. "John, we must find food somehow."
"Drink all the water you can, Rhoda." said DeWitt; "it helps some, and
I'll pot a rabbit. What a fool I am. You poor girl! More hardships
for you!"
Rhoda dipped her burning face into the water, then lifted it, dripping.
"If only you won't be delirious, John, I can stand the hardships."
DeWitt looked at the girl curiously.
"Was I delirious? And you were alone, leading me across that Hades out
there? Rhoda dear, you make me ashamed of myself!"
"I don't see how you were to blame," answered Rhoda stoutly. "Think
what you have been doing for me!"
John rose stiffly.
"Do you feel equal to climbing this trail with me, to find where we
are, or had you rather stay here?"
"I don't want to stay here alone," answered Rhoda.
Very slowly and weakly they started up the trail. The spring was on a
broad stone terrace. Above it rose another terrace weathered and
disrupted until in the moonlight it looked like an impregnable castle
wall, embattled and embuttressed. But clinging to the seemingly
invulnerable fortress was the trail, a snake-like shadow in the
moonlight.
"Perhaps we had better stay at the spring until morning," suggested
Rhoda, her weak legs flagging.
"Not with the hope of shelter a hundred feet above us," answered John
firmly. "This trail is worn six inches into the solid rock. My guess
is that there are some inhabitants here. It's queer that they haven't
discovered us."
Slowly and without further protest, Rhoda followed DeWitt up the trail.
Deep-worn and smooth though it was, they accomplished their task with
infinite difficulty. Rhoda, stumbling like a sleep-sodden child,
wondered if ever again she was to accomplish physical feats with the
magical ease with which Kut-le had endowed her.
"If he were here, I'd know I was to tumble into a comfortable camp,"
she thought. Then with a remorseful glance at DeWitt's patient back,
"What a selfish beast you are, Rhoda Tuttle!"
She reached John's side and together they paused at the top of the
trail. Black against the sky, the moon crowning its top with a
frost-like radiance, was a huge flat-topped building. Night birds
circled about it. From black openings in its front owls hooted. But
otherwise there was neither sight nor sound of living thing. The
desert far below and beyond lay like a sea of death. Rhoda
unconsciously drew nearer to DeWitt.
"Where are the dogs? At Chira the dogs barked all night. Indians
always have dogs!"
"It must be very late," whispered DeWitt. "Even the dogs are asleep!"
"And at Chira," went on Rhoda, whispering as did DeWitt, "owls didn't
hoot from the windows."
"Let's go closer," suggested John.
Rhoda thrust cold little fingers into his hand.
The doors were empty and forlorn. The terraced walls, built with the
patient labor of the long ago, were sagged and decayed. Riot of
greasewood crowned great heaps of débris. A loneliness as of the end
of the world came upon the two wanderers. Sick and dismayed, they
stood in awe before this relic of the past.
"_Whoo_! _Whoo_!" an owl's cry sounded from the black window openings.
DeWitt spoke softly.
"Rhoda, it's one of the forgotten cities!"
"Let's go back! Let's go back to the spring!" pleaded Rhoda. "It is
so uncanny in the dark!"
"No!" DeWitt rubbed his aching head wearily. "I must contrive some
sort of shelter for you. Almost anything is better than another night
in the open desert. Come on! We will explore a little."
"Let's wait till morning," begged Rhoda. "I'm so cold and shivery."
"Dear sweetheart, that's just the point. You will be sick if you don't
have some sort of shelter. You have suffered enough. Will you sit
here and let me look about?"
"No! No! I don't want to be left alone."
Rhoda followed John closely up into the mass of fallen rock.
DeWitt smiled. It appealed to the tenderest part of his nature that
the girl who had led him through the terrible experiences of the desert
should show fear now that a haven was reached.
"Come on, little girl," he said.
Painfully, for they both were weak and dizzy, they clambered to a gaunt
opening in the gray wall. Rhoda clutched John's arm with a little
scream as a bat whirred close by them. Within the opening DeWitt
scratched one of his carefully hoarded matches. The tiny flare
revealed a small adobe-walled room, quite bare save for broken bits of
pottery on the floor. John lighted a handful of greasewood and by its
brilliant light they examined the floor and walls.
"What a clean, dry little room!" exclaimed Rhoda. "Oh, I am so tired
and sleepy!"
"Let's look a little farther before we stop. What's on the other side
of this broken wall?"
They picked their way across the litter of pottery and peered into
another room, the duplicate of the first.
"How will these do for our respective sleeping-rooms?" asked DeWitt.
Rhoda stared at John with horror in her eyes.
"I'd as soon sleep in a tomb! Let's make a fire outside and sleep
under the stars. I'd rather have sleep than food just now."
"It will have to be just a tiny smudge, up behind this débris, where
Kut-le can't spot it," answered DeWitt. "I won't mind having a red eye
of fire for company. It will help to keep me awake."
"But you must sleep," protested Rhoda.
"But I mustn't," answered John grimly. "I've played the baby act on
this picnic as much as I propose to. It is my trick at the wheel."
Too weary to protest further, Rhoda threw herself down with her feet
toward the fire and pillowed her head on her arm. DeWitt filled his
pipe and sat puffing it, with his arms folded across his knees. Rhoda
watched him for a moment or two. She found herself admiring the full
forehead, the lines of refinement about the lips that the beard could
not fully conceal.
"He's not as handsome as Kut-le," she thought wearily, "but
he's--he's--" but before her thought was completed she was asleep.
Rhoda woke at dawn and lay waiting for the stir of the squaws about the
morning meal. Then with a start she rose and looked soberly about her.
Suddenly she smiled.
"Tenderfoot!" she murmured.
DeWitt lay fast asleep by the ashes of the fire.
"If Kut-le," she thought. Then she stopped abruptly and stamped her
foot. "You are not even to think of Kut-le any more!" And with her
cleft chin very firm she descended the trail to the spring. When she
returned, DeWitt was rising stiffly to his feet.
"Hello!" he cried. "I was good this time. I never closed my eyes till
dawn. I'm so hungry I could eat greasewood. How do you feel?"
"Weak with hunger but otherwise very well. Go wash your face, Johnny."
DeWitt grinned and started down the trail obediently. But Rhoda laid a
detaining hand on his arm. The sun was but a moment high. All the
mesa front lay in purple shadows, though farther out the desert glowed
with the yellow light of a new day.
"I think animals come to the spring to drink," said Rhoda. "There were
tiny wet footmarks there when I went down to wash my face."
"Bully!" exclaimed John. "Wait now, let's watch."
The two dropped to the ground and peered over the edge of the upper
terrace. The spring bubbled forth serenely, followed its shallow
trough a short distance, then disappeared into the insatiable floor of
the desert. For several moments the two lay watching until at last
Rhoda grew restless. DeWitt laid a detaining hand on her arm.
"Hush!" he whispered.
A pair of jack-rabbits loped up the trail, sniffed the air tentatively,
then with forelegs in the water drank greedily. DeWitt's right arm
stiffened, there were two puffs of smoke and the two kicking rabbits
rolled into the spring.
"I'm beginning to have a little self-respect as the man of the party,"
said DeWitt, as he blew the smoke from his Colt.
Rhoda ran down to the spring and lifted the two wet little bodies.
John took them from her.
"If you'll find some place for a table, I'll bring these up in no time."
When DeWitt came up from the spring with the dressed rabbits, he found
a little fire glowing between two rocks. Near by on a big flat-topped
stone were set forth two earthen bowls, with a brown water-jar in the
center. As he stared, Rhoda came out of the building with interested
face.
"Look, John! See what I found on a little corner shelf!" She held in
her outstretched hand a tiny jar no bigger than a wine-glass. It was
of an exquisitely polished black. "Not even an explorer can have been
here, or nothing so perfect as this would have been left! What hands
do you suppose made this!"
But DeWitt did not answer her question.
"Now, look here, Rhoda, you aren't to do anything like starting a fire
and lugging these heavy jars again! You're not with the Indians now.
You've got a man to wait on you!"
Rhoda looked at him curiously.
"But I've learned to like to do it!" she protested. "Nobody can roast
a rabbit to suit me but myself," and in spite of DeWitt's protests she
spitted the rabbits and would not let him tend the fire which she said
was too fine an art for his untrained hands. In a short time the rich
odor of roasting flesh rose on the air and John watched the pretty cook
with admiration mingled with perplexity. Rhoda insisting on cooking a
meal! More than that, Rhoda evidently enjoying the job! The idea left
him speechless.
An hour after Rhoda had spitted the game, John sighed with contentment
as he looked at the pile of bones beside his earthen bowl.
"And they say jacks aren't good eating!" he said. "Why if they had
been salted they would have been better than any game I ever ate!"
"You never were so hungry before," said Rhoda. "Still, they were well
roasted, now weren't they?"
"Your vanity is colossal, Miss Tuttle," laughed John, "but I will admit
that I never saw better roasting." Then he said soberly, "I believe we
had better not try the trail again today, Rhoda dear. We don't know
where to go and we've no supplies. We'd better get our strength up,
resting here today, and tomorrow start in good shape."
Rhoda looked wistfully from the shade of the pueblo out over the
desert. She had become very, very tired of this endless fleeing.
"I wish the Newman ranch was just over beyond," she said. "John, what
will you do if Kut-le comes on us here?"
DeWitt's forehead burned a painful red.
"I have a shot left in my revolver," he said.
Rhoda walked ever to John and put one hand on his shoulder as he sat
looking up at her with somber blue eyes.
"John," she said, "I want you to promise me that you will fire at
Kut-le only in the last extremity to keep him from carrying me off, and
that you will shoot only as Porter did, to lame and not to kill."
John's jaws came together and he returned the girl's scrutiny with a
steel-like glance.
"Why do you plead for him?" he asked finally.
"He saved my life," she answered simply.
John rose and walked up and down restlessly.
"Rhoda, if a white man had done this thing I would shoot him as I would
a dog. What do I care for a law in a case like this! We were men long
before we had laws. Why should this Indian be let go when he has done
what a white would be shot for?"
Rhoda looked at him keenly.
"You talk as if in your heart you knew you were going to kill him
because he is an Indian and were trying to justify yourself for it!"
He turned on the girl a look so haunted, so miserable, yet so
determined, that her heart sank. For a time there was silence, each
afraid to speak. At last Rhoda said coolly:
"Will you get fresh water while I bank in the fire?"
DeWitt's face relaxed. He smiled a little grimly.
"I'll do anything for you but that one thing--promise not to kill the
Indian."
"The desert has changed us both, John," said Rhoda. "It has taken the
veneer off both of us!"
"Maybe so," replied DeWitt. "I only know that that Apache must pay for
the hell you and I have lived through."
"Look at me, John!" cried Rhoda. "Can't you realize that the good
Kut-le has done me has been far greater than his affront to me? Do you
see how well I am, how strong? Oh, if I could only make you see what a
different world I live in! You would have been tied to an invalid,
John, if Kut-le hadn't stolen me! Think now of all I can do for you!
Of the home I can make, of the work I can do!"
DeWitt answered tersely.
"I'm mighty glad you're well, but only for your own sake and because I
can have you longer. I don't want you to work for me. I'll do all the
working that's done in our family!"
"But," protested Rhoda, "that's just keeping me lazy and selfish!"
"You couldn't be selfish if you tried. You pay your way with your
beauty. When I think of that Apache devil having the joy of you all
this time, watching you grow back to health, taking care of you,
carrying you, it makes me feel like a cave man. I could kill him with
a club! Thank heaven, the lynch law can hold in this forsaken spot!
And there isn't a man in the country but will back me up, not a jury
that would find me guilty!"
Rhoda sat in utter consternation. The power of the desert to lay bare
the human soul appalled her. This was a DeWitt that the East never
could have shown her. It sickened her as she realized that no words of
hers could sway this man; to realize that she was trying to stay with
her feeble feminine hands passions that were as old a world-force as
love itself. All her new-found strength seemed inadequate to solve
this new problem.