The village of Quartzite was never calculated to overwhelm with
metropolitan sweep or impress with architectural grandeur. Completely
surrounded by the Arizona desert, sometimes it was oddly like a captive
village, a prisoner of the desert. But in a very real sense Quartzite
was a true monument, a tribute to the human beings who first had the
courage to trespass in such a forbidding land and then dared build homes
and live there.
The men gathered at a Quartzite inn varied in various ways, but all bore
the stamp of the desert. Tiny wrinkles etched the eyes of each man, and,
though none were aware of it, even here in the cool and shaded inn,
they squinted. That was something they learned in the desert, where they
faced a blazing sun for hours on end and squinted to shield their eyes,
until the habit became so ingrained that they never forgot to practice
it. The door opened and another man entered. One of those present
greeted him with, "Welcome, stranger!"
The newcomer grinned. "Thought I'd best have me a look at civilization,
been away so long that the other day I found myself talkin' with a pack
rat. Saw the darndest thing when I walked in."
"What?"
"A camel." At once the newcomer was the center of interest. "A big red
camel."
"Go on!" his friend exclaimed.
"It's true," the newcomer insisted. "He's right where Boney Wash crosses
Skull Canyon. Layin' down, he is, like he might be sick or hurt. But
he's there."
The only man present who did not gather around the speaker had been
sitting alone and unnoticed. He rose. An old man with snow-white hair
and beard, there was that about him which spoke of many burdens carried,
and yet he bore the weight of his years with a certain assurance. When
he walked to and opened the door and slipped into the overcast early
spring afternoon, his absence went as unnoticed as his presence had
been.
Ali closed the door behind him. Safe from prying eyes, he quivered with
excitement.
The last arrival was a prospector, one of many original optimists who
constantly roamed the desert, engaged in prodigious labors that were
seldom granted the smallest reward and never once doubted that they had
only to keep on and all the desert's dazzling riches would be yielded up
to them. Recently, he'd been working in hills to the north, and his best
way to Quartzite would be down Skull Canyon.
A red camel, the man had said, lay at the junction of Skull Canyon and
Boney Wash. Ali couldn't remember how many times his own prospecting
trips had taken him up Skull Canyon. He left the village and started to
run, but his legs were no longer capable of running far, so he dropped
back to a walk. The increasingly cooler evening wind, one of various
reasons why Ali had finally turned his back on the desert to live with
generous friends at Quartzite, he scarcely noticed.
He had gone to live at Quartzite six years ago, three years before the
turn of the century and a few days before his seventieth birthday. Ben
Akbar was old too, but even if he'd been welcome in Quartzite, he
wouldn't have been happy there. Ali's last trip into the desert had been
for the sole purpose of taking Ben Akbar to the most isolated spot he
knew--and no man knew more than Ali about the wildest and most
inaccessible areas--and leaving him there.
Escorting camels into the desert and turning them loose was nothing new.
Twenty times in years gone by Ali had thus disposed of beasts he was no
longer able to support. Invariably, however, he either went and got them
again or found some new herd for some new venture. Though not one other
person in the entire Southwest shared his conviction that camels would
eventually triumph--Ali's faith never flickered.
He'd loosed all the camels in the best places he knew. Ben Akbar,
however, was a special case.
Though camels thrived in the desert and might have multiplied, as far as
anyone knew, only camel ghosts had come to the water holes in recent
years. Finding them gentle and easy to approach, Indians and white men
alike killed them for food, and sometimes merely for killing's sake.
Many had been captured and were with various circuses or zoos. Ben Akbar
was both the last to have been in any active and useful service and the
last American camel not in confinement.
There were still rumors of desert-roaming camels, but all such were born
in somebody's imagination and there were no reliable reports. Nor had
there been since Ali loosed Ben Akbar, which might mean that Ali had
succeeded in taking him so far away that nobody had yet found him. Or it
might mean that he was no longer to be found; passing years had
probably not spared the camel any more than the master.
Just before nightfall, the wind lulled and then died down. A bright moon
rode high, lighting the path but softening harsh angles and shadowing
into gentle harmlessness all that was seen as hard and harsh under the
sun's pitiless glare. Presently, every cactus was bedecked in a sparkle
of rare jewels as moonlight glanced from frosty branches. Ali's thoughts
went to a snug cave he knew, plenty big enough for a camel who was no
longer as restless as he once had been.
Ali walked on, resentful of both his necessarily slow pace and a growing
skepticism that came over him as he drew farther from the town and
deeper into the desert. A red camel, the prospector had said, but there
had been several red camels with the herd and there was still seventy
miles of desert to cross before reaching the place where Ben Akbar was
freed. Though there had been a time when seventy miles would have meant
no more than a pleasant jaunt, could an aging Ben Akbar walk so far?
Then Ali came to the junction of Skull Canyon and Boney Wash. He
stopped--and instantly he knew!
At this point, Skull Canyon was about fifty yards from the base of one
rocky wall to the foot of another. Boney Wash had been born when
torrential rains crumbled a rift in the east wall. The flood that had
poured through then had ripped a ragged ditch in the canyon floor.
Above the ditch, the canyon was level, for the most part pebble-strewn,
but here and there was a boulder or copse of cactus. Under the gentle
moonlight, the canyon became gentle.
All four legs curled beneath him and head cushioned against his flank,
apparently Ben Akbar had been on his way down the canyon and had lain
down to rest when forbidding Boney Wash gaped before him. Ali's eyes
softened, for it seemed no accident that on this night the moon should
glow in such a fashion. The Ben Akbar Ali had last seen had shown the
sunken cheeks, shriveled neck, worn teeth and stiffened joints of the
aging. Under the magic moon, the Ben Akbar he met might have been the
proud young _dalul_ he had rescued from the Druse and who, in turn, had
rescued him. Even the many hairs that were no longer red, but white,
could have been sparkling with frost.
Ali went a step nearer and crooned, "I greet thee, oh prince among
_dalul_."
There was a ripple along flanks and ribs, but only after a marked
interval was Ben Akbar able to raise his head. Ali dropped beside him
and eased the proud head into his lap. He stroked it gently.
"We meet again, oh, brother," he murmured. "It is well."
He continued to caress Ben Akbar, and, under the soft moon, a thoughtful
expression came over his face. There had been a very long time and a
very long journey since he had boarded the _Supply_. Now he sat in the
desert, comforting the last remaining camel of all that were brought to
America. How could such an auspicious beginning lead to this end?
The failure could not be charged to the camels. Lieutenant Beale himself
had declared that any one of them was worth any six mules. Then who, or
what, was to blame? Ali considered various explanations that had been
advanced.
Some declared that the entire experiment was fore-doomed by anonymous
but invincible forces interested in perpetuating large profits derived
from horse and mule trading. Their combined strength overwhelmed the
advocates of camel transport. These reports were partly right, Ali
conceded, but not entirely so. He could not imagine Major Wayne or
Lieutenant Beale yielding to the combined power of anything. Anyhow, it
went without saying that these forces had done all they could to prevent
the importation of camels in the first place. They had not succeeded.
It was true that neither Major Wayne nor Lieutenant Beale had been
active in the Camel Corps for years, and Jefferson Davis no longer
mattered after the Confederacy he headed lost the War between the
States. But adverse influence alone had never defeated the camels.
Many contended that the War itself was responsible. Nobody had time for
camels while the battles raged and nobody was interested when peace
came. Another part truth, Ali decided, but by no means a whole truth. To
say that the War between the States doomed camels was as absurd as
declaring it doomed railroads.
Even the popular refusal to accept camels--that sometimes mounted to
flaring resentment against them--was not to blame for their downfall.
That which has practical worth cannot forever remain unnoticed and
camels had proved themselves superior to any other beast of burden.
Ali bent his head and crooned softly in Ben Akbar's ear. The big _dalul_
sighed softly and pressed his chin hard against his friend's knee. Ali
resumed caressing the camel.
What ill wind, he wondered, had blown the day these camels were finally
aboard and the _Supply_ set sail? They had come and they had proven
themselves, but far from any conquest they had found only oblivion. Why?
Ali straightened unconsciously as he thought of the day Lieutenant
Beale's expedition had left Fort Defiance and started west. His mind
became a screen upon which appeared a complete review of every single
day that had followed. Ali lived again, as he had before, the whole
exciting caravan into unknown wilderness.
Then, skipping his two years in California, Ali rode Ben Akbar back to
the Colorado and the massed wagons awaiting ferry transport. There
followed, in complete detail, his return ride over the road. Again he
saw the burgeoning civilization that had overrun a virgin wilderness.
Finally, he knew the right answer, and knowing, must question no more.
The camels had not yielded to any petty thing, but had bowed to a force
so powerful that nothing could stand against it. All the armies of all
the world could bring human progress to no more than a temporary halt,
and not even the swiftest _dalul_ could hope to keep pace with the
breathtaking march of civilization as America knew it. If the camels had
been imported fifty years sooner, or if America had been satisfied to
wait fifty years longer to develop her wilderness, then indeed would all
Americans know the true worth of camels.
As the course was run, most Americans would know camels only as
legendary ships of the desert or exotic imports whose proper abode was
the circus or zoo. Those few who did learn about the Camel Corps, might
hear of it as a glaring example of the hare-brained schemes that may be
dreamed up by scatter-brained people. Nevertheless, Ali was suddenly
happy and again knew a complete peace.
He and Ben Akbar were reunited never to be parted again, and he, at
least, knew the true story of the Camel Corps. Nothing anyone might say
or do could change in the smallest detail what had already been done.
The people who spilled over Lieutenant Beale's wagon road might never
know that the pillars of their churches, the foundations of their
schools, their homes, their very way of life, were anchored on
long-forgotten camel tracks. But they would not be there if camels had
not led the way.
Given only one real opportunity, the camels had contributed more than
their full share. Ali knew finally that, if he might return over the
years and once more look at camels being taken aboard the _Supply_, and
if he might also look ahead and see all the future, he would again do as
he had done and come to America.
The journey had not been in vain. What had seemed to be heartbreaking
failure showed its true colors under the correct light. Triumph was
complete.
Ali stood up. "Rise," he said.
Slowly, Ben Akbar rose to his feet and the two started along the silvery
path together.