When the leading team of mules swung around the sandy butte, Ali turned
Ben Akbar away from the road. It was somehow different from the numerous
times he'd swung to one side or the other, so that wagons might pass
without the panic that always resulted when livestock met a camel. This
time there would be no turning back.
Ali and his mount were swallowed up in a pine forest before anyone saw
them. Except for the leading mule team, that spooked when they smelled
Ben Akbar's fresh tracks, nobody in the whole train suspected that a
camel had been here.
Riding due south, Ali did not look around even once. Again he was
fleeing, but this time he knew why. At one time, the wagon road had
offered everything he wanted. Now it offered nothing.
The wagons lined up and awaiting their turn on the ferry at Beale's
Crossing had seemed an overwhelming multitude only because there had
been no basis for comparison. After nineteen days on the wagon road, Ali
was able to fit them into their proper niche, one small ripple in a
surging tide. He still did not know how this had come about, although he
could not have believed unless he saw it. Two short years after the
camels had composed the first organized caravan to come this way,
everybody seemed to be following.
Besides an endless stream of wagons on the road, there were ranches
beside it. The flocks and herds that were sure to come some time seemed
to have grown overnight, as though they were mushrooms. There were
homes, villages, towns, even the cities that, Ali had once thought,
might arise after several generations.
Swimming Ben Akbar across the Colorado at Hud Perkins' house, Ali
circled to come back on the road well east of Beale's Crossing--and
found more people. Unwilling to believe what became increasingly evident
and hoping to find even one place that was as it had been, he rode east.
Hope died when he found a village in the very heart of the desert where
the expedition had been lost. The village's source of water was the same
water hole from which Ben Akbar had stampeded the Indians. He rode on
only to find a better place for leaving the road, and now he had left
it.
When he finally halted Ben Akbar and made camp, Ali knew that he had
acted wisely. Once again he was at peace, for, even though the old trail
was closed, nothing was ever lost as long as a new one beckoned. The
next morning, he resumed his southward journey.
The pine forest was long behind him, the desert all about, when Ben
Akbar mounted a hill from whose summit Ali finally saw the Gila River.
He dismounted, standing a bit in front of the big _dalul_ and holding
the camel's rein lightly as he studied that which he had come so far to
see.
Here in the desert, the Gila was sluggish, lazy and silt-laden. It had
nothing in common with the clear and sparkling streams that have
inspired poet and artist alike, but it belonged in this hot desert, even
as the others fitted their rugged valleys. Who could not see beauty in
the Gila, could not see.
For no special reason, Ali glanced at the rein in his hand and a vast
mortification swept over him. While working for the Army, he had never
even thought about certain essential needs because Army pay and rations
provided all he needed. Now he had neither, though food was still no
problem because everybody in this land was happy to share whatever food
he might have. But man could not live by bread alone.
True, not a great deal more was necessary and Ali attached little
importance to his own threadbare clothing and battered shoes. But his
very soul revolted when he looked at Ben Akbar's worn rein, a sorry
thing, unfitted for even the poorest baggage camel. Ali must somehow
contrive to earn some money. But the peace that had come to him when he
finally turned from the wagon road did not desert him when he remounted.
He had come to the Gila with a plan. He would find and catch the
abandoned camels and hire out as packer--and surely packers were
needed. All would be well.
Two days later, in a delightful little haven where the Gila periodically
overflowed its banks and ample water brought luxurious growth, Ali found
the camels. He smiled with happiness when he noted Amir, an old friend
from Camp Verde, and two more old acquaintances in a pair of the young
Camp Verde females. The herd numbered seven and not five, as Hud Perkins
had told him, but Ali remembered that the old man had come this way two
years ago. All five camels he'd seen must have been from Camp Verde. Two
had been killed by something or other--Hud had mentioned Indians--and
the four were Amir's daughters and son.
They watched nervously--and probably would have run if approached by
anyone else. Ali, who knew how to converse with camels, advanced slowly,
talking as he did so.
Amir himself finally trotted forward to renew old friendship.
* * * * *
Riding Ben Akbar and trailed by his string of camels, there were eleven
now, Ali did not look back. The eleven would follow, just as they always
followed him. Nor were they at fault because their sorry rewards had
never equalled their unswerving devotion and loyalty.
Maybe nothing was really at fault, but the mine owners to whom Ali had
offered his services and that of his camels were either too poor to hire
any packer; or so rich that they might hire what they chose, and they
chose mules. There was no use in going even near the ranches, camels
terrified cattle, too. Finally, reduced to packing water, Ali found that
those whose need was most desperate were almost never able to pay.
Unable to go on because of maximum expense and minimum income, Ali must
now do the best he could for his baggage animals.
When he came to the meadow on the Gila where he had found the original
seven, he led his herd far into it. Then, still not looking behind, he
whirled Ben Akbar and was off at top speed. Though they would still try
to follow, the baggage camels could not match Ben Akbar's speed for very
long and must soon fall behind.
There must be another journey along a new trail. Ben Akbar's rein was no
longer even a rein, but a piece of rope found at a water hole. His
saddle was falling apart and Ali must do something, but this time he
would.
He had heard of much gold in the northern desert.