When he came to the California bank of the Colorado River, Ali halted
Ben Akbar and surrendered to complete astonishment. Reason told him he
had been this way before, but so drastic were the changes and so little
was as he remembered it, that he challenged reason itself. Ali took a
deep breath and tried vainly to assure himself that this really was
Beale's Crossing where, two years ago and fifty days out of Fort
Defiance, the expedition's work had been successfully completed.
Ali and Lieutenant Beale, on Ben Akbar and Sied, had reached the river
on the seventeenth of October. They were met by a horde of Indians, all
of whom were so deliriously excited at their first sight of camels that
any English they might have known was submerged in the shock. Two days
later, Ali had proved that camels can swim by swimming Ben Akbar across
the Colorado. The rest of the expedition had followed. Some horses and
mules, which the Indians promptly retrieved and ate, were drowned. All
the camels had crossed safely.
Ali's dazed mind strove to reconcile that scene of the past and this
one.
On the opposite bank, where the Indians had grown their corn and melons,
covered wagons with canvas tops that billowed in the little wind that
stirred were lined up as far as the eye could see. Horses, mules and
oxen rested in the traces while awaiting their turn on a ferry that was
presently in mid-river, its cargo a wagon and a six-mule team. Adults
gossiped and children played about the waiting wagons. There was a
barking of dogs, a cackling of fowl, a lowing of cattle, all the noises
that accompany a nation on the march.
Transfixed, Ali could not move. Then the spell that gripped him was
broken by a shout.
"Hey you! Move that blasted camel!"
Glancing toward the ferry, Ali saw the six mules dancing skittishly and
two men trying to quiet them. Ali moved downriver. In some ways, all had
changed and in some, nothing had; camels still panicked livestock.
Presently, Ali halted and turned back to watch, appalled by this monster
that he had somehow helped to spawn. The road had seemed a good thing,
but all the people who would ever use it, or so Ali thought, were not
half as many as the multitude awaiting the ferry.
For a while he sat entranced as a wild deer that cannot turn its eyes
from some fascinating thing, then his flight was sudden as the deer's
when the intriguing but unknown object is abruptly recognized as a
dreaded enemy. Wheeling Ben Akbar, Ali rode downriver at top speed. He
did not dare look around, and he did not think of slackening the pace
until even Ben Akbar could no longer maintain it and slowed of his own
accord. Instantly contrite, Ali drew his mount to a halt.
"I'm sorry, oh brother, that I could let you run so far and fast," he
apologized. "Great fear stole my senses. Perhaps I am becoming craven."
The panting Ben Akbar nosed his arm and accepted and ate a lump of
sugar. Ali dared look back up the river. He heaved a mighty sigh of
relief.
Not only had Ben Akbar run far beyond the sight of any wagons, but far
beyond hearing. Here was only the peaceful river, its tule-lined banks
disturbed by nothing except a horde of waterfowl and an occasional
ripple that marked the wake of a great fish hunting smaller ones in the
shallows.
Ali grinned sheepishly. Certainly there had been no real danger; he had
fled from shadows. Tongues would wag along many caravan routes if it
were known that Hadji Ali had run away from nothing. Just the same, Ali
liked this better. He decided to ride farther down the riverbank before
crossing.
The farther he went, the lonelier it became and the better he liked it.
Presently, his wild flight seemed more amusing than otherwise, and Ali
chuckled throatily, but he had no thought of going back up the river. He
rounded a bend and saw a dwelling.
Built of driftwood and roofed with adobe, it was a one-room affair.
Glassless windows had been cut in such a manner as to admit the morning
sun. An adobe fireplace was built against an outside wall and an adobe
chimney rose a little above the flat roof.
Ali halted Ben Akbar. He was no longer afraid. There had never been
anything about such houses to frighten him. However, if there was any
livestock about, he would avoid argument by circling around. If not, it
was safe to go directly past.
Then a man came from the house and hailed him, "Come on, stranger! Come
on an' light!"
Ali rode ahead to meet a wiry, fierce-eyed man whose uncut hair and long
beard were snow-white, but who fought the advancing years as furiously
as he had once battled advancing Indians. Everything about him, from
his buckskins to the way he had built his house, marked him for what he
was. Here was one of the wild men, who had gone where he wished and done
as he pleased, and never fretted about anything if he had a gun in his
hands and a knife at his belt. Grown too old for such a life, he had
chosen to spend the rest of his days here in this isolated spot.
Ali dismounted and the old man extended his hand. "I'm Hud Perkins an'
you're welcome."
"I'm Hi Jolly." Ali gave the Americanized version of his name.
Hud Perkins said, "I looked out an' saw a man comin' on a camel, I
couldn't believe it! Of course, lots of men come, hardly a week passes
but what somebody goes up or down river, but not on camels. Is he tame?"
"Tamer than he was at one time," Ali answered. "He has been among so
many people that almost anybody can pet him now."
Hud Perkins said, "Don't know as I'd hold with pettin' him, but such a
critter sure makes a man think. On my way out here, I run across a
passel of 'em."