Ta Bega did not put in an appearance. He observed that the three strange
Indians, whom he took for Piutes, kept to themselves, and, so far as he
knew, had no intercourse with any one at the camp. This would not have
seemed unusual, considering the taciturn habit of Indians, had he not
remembered seeing Willetts speak to the trio. What had he to do with
them? Shefford was considering the situation with vague doubts when, to
his relief, the three strangers rode off into the twilight. Then he went
to bed.
He was awakened by violence. It was the gray hour before dawn. Dark
forms knelt over him. A cloth pressed down hard over his mouth: Strong
hands bound it while other strong hands held him. He could not cry out.
He could not struggle. A heavy weight, evidently a man, held down his
feet. Then he was rolled over, securely bound, and carried, to be thrown
like a sack over the back of a horse.
All this happened so swiftly as to be bewildering. He was too astounded
to be frightened. As he hung head downward he saw the legs of a horse
and a dim trail. A stirrup swung to and fro, hitting him in the face.
He began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable, with a rush of blood to his
head, and cramps in his arms and legs. This kept on and grew worse for
what seemed a long time. Then the horse was stopped and a rude hand
tumbled him to the ground. Again he was rolled over on his face. Strong
fingers plucked at his clothes, and he believed he was being searched.
His captors were as silent as if they had been dumb. He felt when they
took his pocketbook and his knife and all that he had. Then they cut,
tore, and stripped off all his clothing. He was lifted, carried a few
steps, and dropped upon what seemed a soft, low mound, and left lying
there, still tied and naked. Shefford heard the rustle of sage and the
dull thud of hoofs as his assailants went away.
His first sensation was one of immeasurable relief. He had not been
murdered. Robbery was nothing. And though roughly handled, he had not
been hurt. He associated the assault with the three strange visitors
of the preceding day. Still, he had no proof of that. Not the slightest
clue remained to help him ascertain who had attacked him.
It might have been a short while or a long one, his mind was so filled
with growing conjectures, but a time came when he felt cold. As he lay
face down, only his back felt cold at first. He was grateful that he
had not been thrown upon the rocks. The ground under him appeared soft,
spongy, and gave somewhat as he breathed. He had really sunk down a
little in this pile of soft earth. The day was not far off, as he could
tell by the brightening of the gray. He began to suffer with the cold,
and then slowly he seemed to freeze and grow numb. In an effort to roll
over upon his back he discovered that his position, or his being bound,
or the numbness of his muscles was responsible for the fact that he
could not move. Here was a predicament. It began to look serious. What
would a few hours of the powerful sun do to his uncovered skin? Somebody
would trail and find him: still, he might not be found soon.
He saw the sky lighten, turn rosy and then gold. The sun shone upon him,
but some time elapsed before he felt its warmth. All of a sudden a pain,
like a sting, shot through his shoulder. He could not see what caused
it; probably a bee. Then he felt another upon his leg, and about
simultaneously with it a tiny, fiery stab in his side. A sickening
sensation pervaded his body, slowly moving, as if poison had entered
the blood of his veins. Then a puncture, as from a hot wire, entered the
skin of his breast. Unmistakably it was a bite. By dint of great effort
he twisted his head to see a big red ant on his breast. Then he heard
a faint sound, so exceedingly faint that he could not tell what it was
like. But presently his strained ears detected a low, swift, rustling,
creeping sound, like the slipping rattle of an infinite number of
tiny bits of moving gravel. Then it was a sound like the seeping of
wind-blown sand. Several hot bites occurred at once. And then with his
head twisted he saw a red stream of ants pour out of the mound and spill
over his quivering flesh.
In an instant he realized his position. He had been dropped
intentionally upon an ant-heap, which had sunk with his weight, wedging
him between the crusts. At the mercy of those terrible desert ants! A
frantic effort to roll out proved futile, as did another and another.
His violent muscular contractions infuriated the ants, and in an instant
he was writhing in pain so horrible and so unendurable that he nearly
fainted. But he was too strong to faint suddenly. A bath of vitriol,
a stripping of his skin and red embers of fire thrown upon raw flesh,
could not have equaled this. There was fury in the bites and poison in
the fangs of these ants. Was this an Indian's brutal trick or was it the
missionary's revenge? Shefford realized that it would kill him soon. He
sweat what seemed blood, although perhaps the blood came from the bites.
A strange, hollow, buzzing roar filled his ears, and it must have been
the pouring of the angry ants from their mound.
Then followed a time that was hell--worse than fire, for fire would
have given merciful death--agony under which his physical being began
spasmodically to jerk and retch--and his eyeballs turned and his breast
caved in.
A cry rang through the roar in his ears. “Bi Nai! Bi Nai!”
His fading sight seemed to shade round the dark face of Nas Ta Bega.
Then powerful hands dragged him from the mound, through the grass
and sage, rolled him over and over, and brushed his burning skin with
strong, swift sweep.
IX. IN THE DESERT CRUCIBLE
That hard experience was but the beginning of many cruel trials for John
Shefford.
He never knew who his assailants were, nor their motive other than
robbery; and they had gotten little, for they had not found the large
sum of money sewed in the lining of his coat. Joe Lake declared it was
Shadd's work, and the Mormon showed the stern nature that lay hidden
under his mild manner. Nas Ta Bega shook his head and would not tell
what he thought. But a somber fire burned in his eyes.
The three started with a heavily laden pack-train and went down the
mountain slope into West Cañon. The second day they were shot at from
the rim of the walls. Lake was wounded, hindering the swift flight
necessary to escape deeper into the cañon. Here they hid for days,
while the Mormon recovered and the Indian took stealthy trips to try to
locate the enemy. Lack of water and grass for the burros drove them
on. They climbed out of a side cañon, losing several burros on a rough
trail, and had proceeded to within half a day's journey of Red Lake
when they were attacked while making camp in a cedar grove. Shefford
sustained an exceedingly painful injury to his leg, but, fortunately,
the bullet went through without breaking a bone. With that burning pain
there came to Shefford the meaning of fight, and his rifle grew hot in
his hands. Night alone saved the trio from certain fatality. Under the
cover of darkness the Indian helped Shefford to escape. Joe Lake looked
out for himself. The pack-train was lost, and the mustangs, except
Nack-yal.
Shefford learned what it meant to lie out at night, listening for
pursuit, cold to his marrow, sick with dread, and enduring frightful
pain from a ragged bullet-hole. Next day the Indian led him down into
the red basin, where the sun shone hot and the sand reflected the heat.
They had no water. A wind arose and the valley became a place of flying
sand. Through a heavy, stifling pall Nas Ta Bega somehow got Shefford to
the trading-post at Red Lake. Presbrey attended to Shefford's injury
and made him comfortable. Next day Joe Lake limped in, surly and somber,
with the news that Shadd and eight or ten of his outlaw gang had gotten
away with the pack-train.
In short time Shefford was able to ride, and with his companions went
over the pass to Kayenta. Withers already knew of his loss, and all he
said was that he hoped to meet Shadd some day.
Shefford showed a reluctance to go again to the hidden village in the
silent cañon with the rounded walls. The trader appeared surprised, but
did not press the point. And Shefford meant sooner or later to tell him,
yet never quite reached the point. The early summer brought more work
for the little post, and Shefford toiled with the others. He liked the
outdoor tasks, and at night was grateful that he was too tired to think.
Then followed trips to Durango and Bluff and Monticello. He rode fifty
miles a day for many days. He knew how a man fares who packs light and
rides far and fast. When the Indian was with him he got along well,
but Nas Ta Bega would not go near the towns. Thus many mishaps were
Shefford's fortune.
Many and many a mile he trailed his mustang, for Nack-yal never forgot
the Sagi, and always headed for it when he broke his hobbles. Shefford
accompanied an Indian teamster in to Durango with a wagon and four wild
mustangs. Upon the return, with a heavy load of supplies, accident put
Shefford in charge of the outfit. In despair he had to face the hardest
task that could have been given him--to take care of a crippled Indian,
catch, water, feed, harness, and drive four wild mustangs that did not
know him and tried to kill him at every turn, and to get that precious
load of supplies home to Kayenta. That he accomplished it proved to hint
the possibilities of a man, for both endurance and patience. From that
time he never gave up in the front of any duty.
In the absence of an available Indian he rode to Durango and back in
record time. Upon one occasion he was lost in a cañon for days, with no
food and little water. Upon another he went through a sand-storm in the
open desert, facing it for forty miles and keeping to the trail; When he
rode in to Kayenta that night the trader, in grim praise, said there
was no worse to endure. At Monticello Shefford stood off a band of
desperadoes, and this time Shefford experienced a strange, sickening
shock in the wounding of a man. Later he had other fights, but in none
of them did he know whether or not he had shed blood.
The heat of midsummer came, when the blistering sun shone, and a hot
blast blew across the sand, and the furious storms made floods in the
washes. Day and night Shefford was always in the open, and any one who
had ever known him in the past would have failed to recognize him now.
In the early fall, with Nas Ta Bega as companion, he set out to the
south of Kayenta upon long-neglected business of the trader. They
visited Red Lake, Blue Cañon, Keams Cañon, Oribi, the Moki villages,
Tuba, Moencopie, and Moen Ave. This trip took many weeks and gave
Shefford all the opportunity he wanted to study the Indians, and the
conditions nearer to the border of civilization. He learned the truth
about the Indians and the missionaries.
Upon the return trip he rode over the trail he had followed alone to
Red Lake and thence on to the Sagi, and it seemed that years had passed
since he first entered this wild region which had come to be home, years
that had molded him in the stern and fiery crucible of the desert.
X. STONEBRIDGE
In October Shefford arranged for a hunt in the Cresaw Mountains with Joe
Lake and Nas Ta Bega. The Indian had gone home for a short visit, and
upon his return the party expected to start. But Nas Ta Bega did not
come back. Then the arrival of a Piute with news that excited Withers
and greatly perturbed Lake convinced Shefford that something was wrong.
The little trading-post seldom saw such disorder; certainly Shefford
had never known the trader to neglect work. Joe Lake threw a saddle on
a mustang he would have scorned to notice in an ordinary moment, and
without a word of explanation or farewell rode hard to the north on the
Stonebridge trail.
Shefford had long since acquired patience. He was curious, but he did
not care particularly what was in the wind. However, when Withers came
out and sent an Indian to drive up the horses Shefford could not refrain
from a query.
“I hate to tell you,” replied the trader.
“Go on,” added Shefford, quickly.
“Did I tell you about the government sending a Supreme Court judge out
to Utah to prosecute the polygamists?”
“No,” replied Shefford.
“I forgot to, I reckon. You've been away a lot. Well, there's been hell
up in Utah for six months. Lately this judge and his men have worked
down into southern Utah. He visited Bluff and Monticello a few weeks
ago.... Now what do you think?”
“Withers! Is he coming to Stonebridge?”
“He's there now. Some one betrayed the whereabouts of the hidden village
over in the cañon. All the women have been arrested and taken to
Stonebridge. The trial begins to-day.”
“Arrested!” echoed Shefford, blankly. “Those poor, lonely, good women?
What on earth for?”
“Sealed wives!” exclaimed Withers, tersely. “This judge is after the
polygamists. They say he's absolutely relentless.”
“But--women can't be polygamists. Their husbands are the ones wanted.”
“Sure. But the prosecutors have got to find the sealed wives--the second
wives--to find the law-breaking husbands. That'll be a job, or I don't
know Mormons.... Are you going to ride over to Stonebridge with me?”
Shefford shrank at the idea. Months of toil and pain and travail had not
been enough to make him forget the strange girl he had loved. But he had
remembered only at poignant intervals, and the lapse of time had made
thought of her a dream like that sad dream which had lured him into the
desert. With the query of the trader came a bitter-sweet regret.
“Better come with me,” said Withers. “Have you forgotten the Sago Lily?
She'll be put on trial.... That girl--that child!... Shefford, you know
she hasn't any friends. And now no Mormon man are protect her, for fear
of prosecution.”
“I'll go,” replied Shefford, shortly.
The Indian brought up the horses. Nack-yal was thin from his long
travel during the hot summer, but he was as hard as iron, and the way he
pointed his keen nose toward the Sagi showed how he wanted to make for
the upland country, with its clear springs and valleys of grass. Withers
mounted his bay and with a hurried farewell to his wife spurred the
mustang into the trail. Shefford took time to get his weapons and the
light pack he always carried, and then rode out after the trader.
The pace Withers set was the long, steady lope to which these Indian
mustangs had been trained all their lives. In an hour they reached the
mouth of the Sagi, and at sight of it it seemed to Shefford that the
hard half-year of suffering since he had been there had disappeared.
Withers, to Shefford's regret, did not enter the Sagi. He turned off to
the north and took a wild trail into a split of the red wall, and wound
in and out, and climbed a crack so narrow that the light was obscured
and the cliffs could be reached from both sides of a horse.
Once up on the wild plateau, Shefford felt again in a different world
from the barren desert he had lately known. The desert had crucified
him and had left him to die or survive, according to his spirit and his
strength. If he had loved the glare, the endless level, the deceiving
distance, the shifting sand, it had certainly not been as he loved this
softer, wilder, more intimate upland. With the red peaks shining up into
the blue, and the fragrance of cedar and pinyon, and the purple sage
and flowers and grass and splash of clear water over stones--with these
there came back to him something that he had lost and which had haunted
him.
It seemed he had returned to this wild upland of color and cañon and
lofty crags and green valleys and silent places with a spirit gained
from victory over himself in the harsher and sterner desert below. And,
strange to him, he found his old self, the dreamer, the artist, the
lover of beauty, the searcher for he knew not what, come to meet him on
the fragrant wind.
He felt this, saw the old wildness with glad eyes, yet the greater part
of his mind was given over to the thought of the unfortunate women he
expected to see in Stonebridge.
Withers was harder to follow, to keep up with, than an Indian. For one
thing he was a steady and tireless rider, and for another there were
times when he had no mercy on a horse. Then an Indian always found
easier steps in a trail and shorter cuts. Withers put his mount to some
bad slopes, and Shefford had no choice but to follow. But they crossed
the great broken bench of upland without mishap, and came out upon a
promontory of a plateau from which Shefford saw a wide valley and the
dark-green alfalfa fields of Stonebridge.
Stonebridge lay in the center of a fertile valley surrounded by pink
cliffs. It must have been a very old town, certainly far older than
Bluff or Monticello, though smaller, and evidently it had been built to
last. There was one main street, very wide, that divided the town and
was crossed at right angles by a stream spanned by a small natural stone
bridge. A line of poplar-trees shaded each foot-path. The little log
cabins and stone houses and cottages were half hidden in foliage now
tinted with autumn colors. Toward the center of the town the houses and
stores and shops fronted upon the street and along one side of a
green square, or plaza. Here were situated several edifices, the
most prominent of which was a church built of wood, whitewashed, and
remarkable, according to Withers, for the fact that not a nail had been
used in its construction. Beyond the church was a large, low structure
of stone, with a split-shingle roof, and evidently this was the town
hall.
Shefford saw, before he reached the square, that this day in Stonebridge
was one of singular action and excitement for a Mormon village. The town
was full of people and, judging from the horses hitched everywhere and
the big canvas-covered wagons, many of the people were visitors. A
crowd surrounded the hall--a dusty, booted, spurred, shirt-sleeved and
sombreroed assemblage that did not wear the hall-mark Shefford had come
to associate with Mormons. They were riders, cowboys, horse-wranglers,
and some of them Shefford had seen in Durango. Navajos and Piutes were
present, also, but they loitered in the background.
Withers drew Shefford off to the side where, under a tree, they hitched
their horses.
“Never saw Stonebridge full of a riffraff gang like this to-day,” said
Withers. “I'll bet the Mormons are wild. There's a tough outfit
from Durango. If they can get anything to drink--or if they've got
it--Stonebridge will see smoke to-day!... Come on. I'll get in that
hall.”
But before Withers reached the hall he started violently and pulled
up short, then, with apparent unconcern, turned to lay a hand upon
Shefford. The trader's face had blanched and his eyes grew hard and
shiny, like flint. He gripped Shefford's arm.
“Look! Over to your left!” he whispered. “See that gang of Indians
there--by the big wagon. See the short Indian with the chaps. He's got a
face big as a ham, dark, fierce. That's Shadd!... You ought to know him.
Shadd and his outfit here! How's that for nerve? But he pulls a rein
with the Mormons.”
Shefford's keen eye took in a lounging group of ten or twelve Indians
and several white men. They did not present any great contrast to
the other groups except that they were isolated, appeared quiet and
watchful, and were all armed. A bunch of lean, racy mustangs, restive
and spirited, stood near by in charge of an Indian. Shefford had to take
a second and closer glance to distinguish the half-breed. At once he
recognized in Shadd the broad-faced squat Indian who had paid him a
threatening visit that night long ago in the mouth of the Sagi. A fire
ran along Shefford's veins and seemed to concentrate in his breast.
Shadd's dark, piercing eyes alighted upon Shefford and rested there.
Then the half-breed spoke to one of his white outlaws and pointed at
Shefford. His action attracted the attention of others in the gang, and
for a moment Shefford and Withers were treated to a keen-eyed stare.
The trader cursed low. “Maybe I wouldn't like to mix it with that damned
breed,” he said. “But what chance have we with that gang? Besides,
we're here on other and more important business. All the same, before I
forget, let me remind you that Shadd has had you spotted ever since you
came out here. A friendly Piute told me only lately. Shefford, did
any Indian between here and Flagstaff ever see that bunch of money you
persist in carrying?”
“Why, yes, I suppose so--'way back in Tuba, when I first came out,”
replied Shefford.
“Huh! Well, Shadd's after that.... Come on now, let's get inside the
hall.”
The crowd opened for the trader, who appeared to be known to everybody.
A huge man with a bushy beard blocked the way to a shut door.
“Hello, Meade!” said Withers. “Let us in.”
The man opened the door, permitted Withers and Shefford to enter, and
then closed it.
Shefford, coming out of the bright glare of sun into the hall, could not
see distinctly at first. His eyes blurred. He heard a subdued murmur
of many voices. Withers appeared to be affected with the same kind of
blindness, for he stood bewildered a moment. But he recovered sooner
than Shefford. Gradually the darkness shrouding many obscure forms
lifted. Withers drew him through a crowd of men and women to one side
of the hall, and squeezed along a wall to a railing where progress was
stopped.
Then Shefford raised his head to look with bated breath and strange
curiosity.
The hall was large and had many windows. Men were in consultation upon a
platform. Women to the number of twenty sat close together upon benches.
Back of them stood another crowd. But the women on the benches held
Shefford's gaze. They were the prisoners. They made a somber group. Some
were hooded, some veiled, all clad in dark garments except one on the
front bench, and she was dressed in white. She wore a long hood that
concealed her face. Shefford recognized the hood and then the slender
shape. She was Mary--she whom her jealous neighbors had named the Sago
Lily. At sight of her a sharp pain pierced Shefford's breast. His eyes
were blurred when he forced them away from her, and it took a moment for
him to see clearly.
Withers was whispering to him or to some one near at hand, but Shefford
did not catch the meaning of what was said. He paid more attention;
however, Withers ceased speaking. Shefford gazed upon the crowd back
of him. The women were hooded and it was not possible to see what they
looked like. There were many stalwart, clean-cut, young Mormons of Joe
Lake's type, and these men appeared troubled, even distressed and at a
loss. There was little about them resembling the stern, quiet, somber
austerity of the more matured men, and nothing at all of the strange,
aloof, serene impassiveness of the gray-bearded old patriarchs. These
venerable men were the Mormons of the old school, the sons of the
pioneers, the ruthless fanatics. Instinctively Shefford felt that it was
in them that polygamy was embodied; they were the husbands of the sealed
wives. He conceived an absorbing curiosity to learn if his instinct was
correct; and hard upon that followed a hot, hateful eagerness to see
which one was the husband of Mary.
“There's Bishop Kane,” whispered Withers, nudging Shefford. “And there's
Waggoner with him.”
Shefford saw the bishop, and then beside him a man of striking presence.
“Who's Waggoner?” asked Shefford, as he looked.
“He owns more than any Mormon in southern Utah,” replied the trader.
“He's the biggest man in Stonebridge, that's sure. But I don't know his
relation to the Church. They don't call him elder or bishop. But I'll
bet he's some pumpkins. He never had any use for me or any Gentile. A
close-fisted, tight-lipped Mormon--a skinflint if I ever saw one! Just
look him over.”
Shefford had been looking, and considered it unlikely that he would ever
forget this individual called Waggoner. He seemed old, sixty at least,
yet at that only in the prime of a wonderful physical life. Unlike most
of the others, he wore his grizzled beard close-cropped, so close that
it showed the lean, wolfish line of his jaw. All his features were of
striking sharpness. His eyes, of a singularly brilliant blue, were yet
cold and pale. The brow had a serious, thoughtful cast; long furrows
sloped down the cheeks. It was a strange, secretive face, full of a
power that Shefford had not seen in another man's, full of intelligence
and thought that had not been used as Shefford had known them used
among men. The face mystified him. It had so much more than the strange
aloofness so characteristic of his fellows.
“Waggoner had five wives and fifty-five children before the law went
into effect,” whispered Withers. “Nobody knows and nobody will ever know
how many he's got now. That's my private opinion.”