I'll talk. It'll be Nas Ta Bega who makes the plan out of it all.”
Shefford launched himself so swiftly that he scarcely talked coherently.
But he made clear the points that he must save Fay, get her away from
the village, let her lead him to Surprise Valley, rescue Lassiter and
Jane Withersteen, and take them all out of the country.
Joe Lake dubiously shook his head. Manifestly the Surprise Valley part
of the situation presented a new and serious obstacle. It changed the
whole thing. To try to take the three out by way of Kayenta and Durango
was not to be thought of, for reasons he briefly stated. The Red Lake
trail was the only one left, and if that were taken the chances were
against Shefford. It was five days over sand to Red Lake--impossible to
hide a trail--and even with a day's start Shefford could not escape the
hard-riding men who would come from Stonebridge. Besides, after reaching
Red Lake, there were days and days of desert-travel needful to avoid
places like Blue Cañon, Tuba, Moencopie, and the Indian villages.
“We'll have to risk all that,” declared Shefford, desperately.
“It's a fool risk,” retorted Joe. “Listen. By tomorrow noon all of
Stonebridge, more or less, will be riding in here. You've got to get
away to-night with the girl--or never! And to-morrow you've got to find
that Lassiter and the woman in Surprise Valley. This valley must be
back, deep in the cañon country. Well, you've got to come out this
way again. No trail through here would be safe. Why, you'd put all your
heads in a rope!... You mustn't come through this way. It'll have to be
tried across country, off the trails, and that means hell--day-and-night
travel, no camp, no feed for horses--maybe no water. Then you'll have
the best trackers in Utah like hounds on your trail.”
When the Mormon ceased his forceful speech there was a silence fraught
with hopeless meaning. He bowed his head in gloom. Shefford, growing
sick again to his marrow, fought a cold, hateful sense of despair.
“Bi Nai!” In his extremity he called to the Indian.
“The Navajo has heard,” replied Nas Ta Bega, strangely speaking in his
own language.
With a long, slow heave of breast Shefford felt his despair leave him.
In the Indian lay his salvation. He knew it. Joe Lake caught the subtle
spirit of the moment and looked up eagerly.
Nas Ta Bega stretched an arm toward the east, and spoke in Navajo.
But Shefford, owing to the hurry and excitement of his mind, could not
translate. Joe Lake listened, gave a violent start, leaped up with all
his big frame quivering, and then fired question after question at the
Indian. When the Navajo had replied to all, Joe drew himself up as if
facing an irrevocable decision which would wring his very soul. What did
he cast off in that moment? What did he grapple with? Shefford had no
means to tell, except by the instinct which baffled him. But whether the
Mormon's trial was one of spiritual rending or the natural physical
fear of a perilous, virtually impossible venture, the fact was he was
magnificent in his acceptance of it. He turned to Shefford, white, cold,
yet glowing.
“Nas Ta Bega believes he can take you down a cañon to the big
river--the Colorado. He knows the head of this cañon. Nonnezoshe Boco
it's called--cañon of the rainbow bridge. He has never been down it.
Only two or three living Indians have ever seen the great stone bridge.
But all have heard of it. They worship it as a god. There's water runs
down this cañon and water runs to the river. Nas Ta Bega thinks he can
take you down to the river.”
“Go on,” cried Shefford breathlessly, as Joe paused.
“The Indian plans this way. God, it's great!... If only I can do my
end!... He plans to take mustangs to-day and wait with them for you
to-night or to-morrow till you come with the girl. You'll go get
Lassiter and the woman out of Surprise Valley. Then you'll strike east
for Nonnezoshe Boco. If possible, you must take a pack of grub. You may
be days going down--and waiting for me at the mouth of the cañon, at
the river.”
“Joe! Where will you be?”
“I'll ride like hell for Kayenta, get another horse there, and ride
like hell for the San Juan River. There's a big flatboat at the Durango
crossing. I'll go down the San Juan in that--into the big river. I'll
drift down by day, tie up by night, and watch for you at the mouth of
every cañon till I come to Nonnezoshe Boco.”
Shefford could not believe the evidence of his ears. He knew the
treacherous San Juan River. He had heard of the great, sweeping,
terrible red Colorado and its roaring rapids.
“Oh, it seems impossible!” he gasped. “You'll just lose your life for
nothing.”
“The Indian will turn the trick, I tell you. Take my hunch. It's nothing
for me to drift down a swift river. I worked a ferry-boat once.”
Shefford, to whom flying straws would have seemed stable, caught the
inflection of defiance and daring and hope of the Mormon's spirit.
“What then--after you meet us at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco?” he
queried.
“We'll all drift down to Lee's Ferry. That's at the head of Marble
Cañon. We'll get out on the south side of the river, thus avoiding
any Mormons at the ferry. Nas Ta Bega knows the country. It's open
desert--on the other side of these plateaus. He can get horses from
Navajos. Then you'll strike south for Willow Springs.”
“Willow Springs? That's Presbrey's trading-post,” said Shefford.
“Never met him. But he'll see you safe out of the Painted Desert. ...
The thing that worries me most is how not to miss you all at the mouth
of Nonnezoshe. You must have sharp eyes. But I forget the Indian. A bird
couldn't pass him.... And suppose Nonnezoshe Boco has a steep-walled,
narrow mouth opening into a rapids!... Whew! Well, the Indian will
figure that, too. Now, let's put our heads together and plan how to turn
this end of the trick here. Getting the girl!”
After a short colloquy it was arranged that Shefford would go to Ruth
and talk to her of the aid she had promised. Joe averred that this aid
could be best given by Ruth going in her somber gown and hood to the
school-house, and there, while Joe and Shefford engaged the guards
outside, she would change apparel and places with Fay and let her come
forth.
“What'll they do to Ruth?” demanded Shefford. “We can't accept her
sacrifice if she's to suffer--or be punished.”
“Reckon Ruth has a strong hunch that she can get away with it. Did you
notice how strange she said that? Well, they can't do much to her. The
bishop may damn her soul. But--Ruth--”
Here Lake hesitated and broke off. Not improbably he had meant to say
that of all the Mormon women in the valley Ruth was the least likely to
suffer from punishment inflicted upon her soul.
“Anyway, it's our only chance,” went on Joe, “unless we kill a couple of
men. Ruth will gladly take what comes to help you.”
“All right; I consent,” replied Shefford, with emotion. “And now after
she comes out--the supposed Ruth--what then?”
“You can be natural-like. Go with her back to Ruth's cabin. Then stroll
off into the cedars. Then climb the west wall. Meanwhile Nas Ta Bega
will ride off with a pack of grub and Nack-yal and several other
mustangs. He'll wait for you or you'll wait for him, as the case may be,
at some appointed place. When you're gone I'll jump my horse and hit the
trail for Kayenta and the San Juan.”
“Very well; that's settled,” said Shefford, soberly. “I'll go at once to
see Ruth. You and Nas Ta Bega decide on where I'm to meet him.”
“Reckon you'd do just as well to walk round and come up to Ruth's from
the other side--instead of going through the village,” suggested Joe.
Shefford approached Ruth's cabin in a roundabout way; nevertheless, she
saw him coming before he got there and, opening the door, stood pale,
composed, and quietly bade him enter. Briefly, in low and earnest voice,
Shefford acquainted her with the plan.
“You love her so much,” she said, wistfully, wonderingly.
“Indeed I do. Is it too much to ask of you to do this thing?” he asked.
“Do it?” she queried, with a flash of spirit. “Of course I'll do it.”
“Ruth, I can't thank you. I can't. I've only a faint idea what you're
risking. That distresses me. I'm afraid of what may happen to you.”
She gave him another of the strange glances. “I don't risk so much as
you think,” she said, significantly.
“Why?”
She came close to him, and her hands clasped his arms and she looked up
at him, her eyes darkening and her face growing paler. “Will you swear
to keep my secret?” she asked, very low.
“Yes, I swear.”
“I was one of Waggoner's sealed wives!”
“God Almighty!” broke out Shefford, utterly overwhelmed.
“Yes. That's why I say I don't risk so much. I will make up a story to
tell the bishop and everybody. I'll tell that Waggoner was jealous, that
he was brutal to Mary, that I believed she was goaded to her mad deed,
that I thought she ought to be free. They'll be terrible. But what can
they do to me? My husband is dead... and if I have to go to hell to keep
from marrying another married Mormon, I'll go!”
In that low, passionate utterance Shefford read the death-blow to the
old Mormon polygamous creed. In the uplift of his spirit, in the joy at
this revelation, he almost forgot the stern matter at hand. Ruth and Joe
Lake belonged to a younger generation of Mormons. Their nobility in this
instance was in part a revolt at the conditions of their lives. Doubt
was knocking at Joe Lake's heart, and conviction had come to this young
sealed wife, bitter and hopeless while she had been fettered, strong and
mounting now that she was free. In a flash of inspiration Shefford saw
the old order changing. The Mormon creed might survive, but that part of
it which was an affront to nature, a horrible yoke on women's necks,
was doomed. It could not live. It could never have survived more than a
generation or two of religious fanatics. Shefford had marked a different
force and religious fervor in the younger Mormons, and now he understood
them.
“Ruth, you talk wildly,” he said. “But I understand. I see. You are free
and you're going to stay free.... It stuns me to think of that man of
many wives. What did you feel when you were told he was dead?”
“I dare not think of that. It makes me--wicked. And he was good to
me.... Listen. Last night about midnight he came to my window and woke
me. I got up and let him in. He was in a terrible state. I thought he
was crazy. He walked the floor and called on his saints and prayed. When
I wanted to light a lamp he wouldn't let me. He was afraid I'd see his
face. But I saw well enough in the moonlight. And I knew something
had happened. So I soothed and coaxed him. He had been a man as
close-mouthed as a stone. Yet then I got him to talk.... He had gone
to Mary's, and upon entering, thought he heard some one with her. She
didn't answer him at first. When he found her in her bedroom she was
like a ghost. He accused her. Her silence made him furious. Then he
berated her, brought down the wrath of God upon her, threatened her with
damnation. All of which she never seemed to hear. But when he tried to
touch her she flew at him like a she-panther. That's what he called her.
She said she'd kill him! And she drove him out of her house.... He was
all weak and unstrung, and I believe scared, too, when he came to me.
She must have been a fury. Those quiet, gentle women are furies when
they're once roused. Well, I was hours up with him and finally he
got over it. He didn't pray any more. He paced the room. It was just
daybreak when he said the wrath of God had come to him. I tried to keep
him from going back to Mary. But he went.... An hour later the women ran
to tell me he had been found dead at Mary's door.”
“Ruth--she was mad--driven--she didn't know what she--was doing,” said
Shefford, brokenly.
“She was always a strange girl, more like an Indian than any one I
ever knew. We called her the Sago Lily. I gave her the name. She was so
sweet, lovely, white and gold, like those flowers.... And to think!
Oh, it's horrible for her! You must save her. If you get her away there
never will be anything come of it. The Mormons will hush it up.”
“Ruth, time is flying,” rejoined Shefford, hurriedly. “I must go back
to Joe. You be ready for us when we come. Wear something loose, easily
thrown off, and don't forget the long hood.”
“I'll be ready and watching,” she said. “The sooner the better, I'd
say.”
He left her and returned toward camp in the same circling route by which
he had come. The Indian had disappeared and so had his mustang. This
significant fact augmented Shefford's hurried, thrilling excitement.
But one glance at Joe's face changed all that to a sudden numbness, a
sinking of his heart.
“What is it?” he queried.
“Look there!” exclaimed the Mormon.
Shefford's quick eye caught sight of horses and men down the valley. He
saw several Indians and three or four white men. They were making camp.
“Who are they?” demanded Shefford.
“Shadd and some of his gang. Reckon that Piute told the news. By
to-morrow the valley will be full as a horse-wrangler's corral.... Lucky
Nas Ta Bega got away before that gang rode in. Now things won't look
as queer as they might have looked. The Indian took a pack of grub, six
mustangs, and my guns. Then there was your rifle in your saddle-sheath.
So you'll be well heeled in case you come to close quarters. Reckon
you can look for a running fight. For now, as soon as your flight is
discovered, Shadd will hit your trail. He's in with the Mormons. You
know him--what you'll have to deal with. But the advantage will all be
yours. You can ambush the trail.”
“We're in for it. And the sooner we're off the better,” replied
Shefford, grimly.
“Reckon that's gospel. Well--come on!”
The Mormon strode off, and Shefford, catching up with him, kept at his
side. Shefford's mind was full, but Joe's dark and gloomy face did not
invite communication. They entered the pinyon grove and passed the
cabin where the tragedy had been enacted. A tarpaulin had been stretched
across the front porch. Beal was not in sight, nor were any of the
women.
“I forgot,” said Shefford, suddenly. “Where am I to meet the Indian?”
“Climb the west wall, back of camp,” replied Joe. “Nas Ta Bega took the
Stonebridge trail. But he'll leave that, climb the rocks, then hide the
outfit and come back to watch for you. Reckon he'll see you when you top
the wall.”
They passed on into the heart of the village. Joe tarried at the window
of a cabin, and passed a few remarks to a woman there, and then he
inquired for Mother Smith at her house. When they left here the Mormon
gave Shefford a nudge. Then they separated, Joe going toward the
school-house, while Shefford bent his steps in the direction of Ruth's
home.
Her door opened before he had a chance to knock. He entered. Ruth, white
and resolute, greeted him with a wistful smile.
“All ready?” she asked.
“Yes. Are you?” he replied, low-voiced.
“I've only to put on my hood. I think luck favors you. Hester was here
and she said Elder Smith told some one that Mary hadn't been offered
anything to eat yet. So I'm taking her a little. It'll be a good excuse
for me to get in the school-house to see her. I can throw off this dress
and she can put it on in a minute. Then the hood. I mustn't forget to
hide her golden hair. You know how it flies. But this is a big hood....
Well, I'm ready now. And--this 's our last time together.”
“Ruth, what can I say--how can I thank you?”
“I don't want any thanks. It'll be something to think of always--to make
me happy.... Only I'd like to feel you--you cared a little.”
The wistful smile was there, a tremor on the sad lips, and a shadow of
soul-hunger in her eyes. Shefford did not misunderstand her. She did
not mean love, although it was a yearning for real love that she mutely
expressed.
“Care! I shall care all my life,” he said, with strong feeling. “I shall
never forget you.”
“It's not likely I'll forget you.... Good-by, John!”
Shefford took her in his arms and held her close. “Ruth--good-by!” he
said, huskily.
Then he released her. She adjusted the hood and, taking up a little tray
which held food covered with a napkin, she turned to the door. He opened
it and they went out.
They did not speak another word.
It was not a long walk from Ruth's home to the school-house, yet if it
were to be measured by Shefford's emotion the distance would have been
unending. The sacrifice offered by Ruth and Joe would have been noble
under any circumstances had they been Gentiles or persons with no
particular religion, but, considering that they were Mormons, that Ruth
had been a sealed-wife, that Joe had been brought up under the strange,
secret, and binding creed, their action was no less than tremendous in
its import. Shefford took it to mean vastly more than loyalty to him
and pity for Fay Larkin. As Ruth and Joe had arisen to this height,
so perhaps would other young Mormons, have arisen. It needed only the
situation, the climax, to focus these long-insulated, slow-developing
and inquiring minds upon the truth--that one wife, one mother of
children, for one man at one time was a law of nature, love, and
righteousness. Shefford felt as if he were marching with the whole
younger generation of Mormons, as if somehow he had been a humble
instrument in the working out of their destiny, in the awakening that
was to eliminate from their religion the only thing which kept it from
being as good for man, and perhaps as true, as any other religion.
And then suddenly he turned the corner of school-house to encounter Joe
talking with the Mormon Henninger. Elder Smith was not present.
“Why, hello, Ruth!” greeted Joe. “You've fetched Mary some dinner. Now
that's good of you.”
“May I go in?” asked Ruth.
“Reckon so,” replied Henninger, scratching his head. He appeared to be
tractable, and probably was good-natured under pleasant conditions. “She
ought to have somethin' to eat. An' nobody 'pears--to have remembered
that--we're so set up.”
He unbarred the huge, clumsy door and allowed Ruth to pass in.
“Joe, you can go in if you want,” he said. “But hurry out before Elder
Smith comes back from his dinner.”
Joe mumbled something, gave a husky cough, and then went in.
Shefford experienced great difficulty in presenting to this mild Mormon
a natural and unagitated front. When all his internal structure seemed
to be in a state of turmoil he did not see how it was possible to keep
the fact from showing in his face. So he turned away and took aimless
steps here and there.
“'Pears like we'd hev rain,” observed Henninger. “It's right warm an'
them clouds are onseasonable.”
“Yes,” replied Shefford. “Hope so. A little rain would be good for the
grass.”
“Joe tells me Shadd rode in, an' some of his fellers.”
“So I see. About eight in the party.”
Shefford was gritting his teeth and preparing to endure the ordeal of
controlling his mind and expression when the door opened and Joe stalked
out. He had his sombrero pulled down so that it hid the upper half of
his face. His lips were a shade off healthy color. He stood there with
his back to the door.
“Say, what Mary needs is quiet--to be left alone,” he said. “Ruth says
if she rests, sleeps a little, she won't get fever.... Henninger, don't
let anybody disturb her till night.”
“All right, Joe,” replied the Mormon. “An' I take it good of Ruth an'
you to concern yourselves.”
A slight tap on the inside of the door sent Shefford's pulses to
throbbing. Joe opened it with a strong and vigorous sweep that meant
more than the mere action.
“Ruth--reckon you didn't stay long,” he said, and his voice rang clear.
“Sure you feel sick and weak. Why, seeing her flustered even me!”
A slender, dark-garbed woman wearing a long black hood stepped
uncertainly out. She appeared to be Ruth. Shefford's heart stood still
because she looked so like Ruth. But she did not step steadily, she
seemed dazed, she did not raise the hooded head.
“Go home,” said Joe, and his voice rang a little louder. “Take her home,
Shefford. Or, better, walk her round some. She's faintish .... And see
here, Henninger--”
Shefford led the girl away with a hand in apparent carelessness on her
arm. After a few rods she walked with a freer step and then a swifter.
He found it necessary to make that hold on her arm a real one, so as
to keep her from walking too fast. No one, however, appeared to observe
them. When they passed Ruth's house then Shefford began to lose his
fear that this was not Fay Larkin. He was far from being calm or
clear-sighted. He thought he recognized that free step; nevertheless,
he could not make sure. When they passed under the trees, crossed
the brook, and turned down along the west wall, then doubt ceased in
Shefford's mind. He knew this was not Ruth. Still, so strange was his
agitation, so keen his suspense, that he needed confirmation of ear, of
eye. He wanted to hear her voice, to see her face. Yet just as strangely
there was a twist of feeling, a reluctance, a sadness that kept off the
moment.
They reached the low, slow-swelling slant of wall and started to ascend.
How impossible not to recognize Fay Larkin now in that swift grace and
skill on the steep wall! Still, though he knew her, he perversely clung
to the unreality of the moment. But when a long braid of dead-gold hair
tumbled from under the hood, then his heart leaped. That identified
Fay Larkin. He had freed her. He was taking her away. Then a sadness
embittered his joy.
As always before, she distanced him in the ascent to the top. She went
on without looking back. But Shefford had an irresistible desire to took
again and the last time at this valley where he had suffered and loved
so much.
XVI. SURPRISE VALLEY
From the summit of the wall the plateau waved away in red and yellow
ridges, with here and there little valleys green with cedar and pinyon.
Upon one of these ridges, silhouetted against the sky, appeared
the stalking figure of the Indian. He had espied the fugitives. He
disappeared in a niche, and presently came again into view round a
corner of cliff. Here he waited, and soon Shefford and Fay joined him.
“Bi Nai, it is well,” he said.
Shefford eagerly asked for the horses, and Nas Ta Bega silently pointed
down the niche, which was evidently an opening into one of the shallow
cañon. Then he led the way, walking swiftly. It was Shefford, and
not Fay, who had difficulty in keeping close to him. This speed caused
Shefford to become more alive to the business, instead of the feeling,
of the flight. The Indian entered a crack between low cliffs--a very
narrow cañon full of rocks and clumps of cedars--and in a half-hour or
less he came to where the mustangs were halted among some cedars. Three
of the mustangs, including Nack-yal, were saddled; one bore a small
pack, and the remaining two had blankets strapped on their backs.
“Fay, can you ride in that long skirt?” asked Shefford. How strange
it seemed that his first words to her were practical when all his
impassioned thought had been only mute! But the instant he spoke he
experienced a relief, a relaxation.
“I'll take it off,” replied Fay, just as practically. And in a twinkling
she slipped out of both waist and skirt. She had worn them over the
short white-flannel dress with which Shefford had grown familiar.
As Nack-yal appeared to be the safest mustang for her to ride, Shefford
helped her upon him and then attended to the stirrups. When he had
adjusted them to the proper length he drew the bridle over Nack-yal's
head and, upon handing it to her, found himself suddenly looking into
her face. She had taken off the hood, too. The instant there eyes met he
realized that she was strangely afraid to meet his glance, as he was to
meet hers. That seemed natural. But her face was flushed and there were
unmistakable signs upon it of growing excitement, of mounting happiness.
Save for that fugitive glance she would have been the Fay Larkin of
yesterday. How he had expected her to look he did not know, but it was
not like this. And never had he felt her strange quality of simplicity
so powerfully.
“Have you ever been here--through this little cañon?” he asked.
“Oh yes, lots of times.”
“You'll be able to lead us to Surprise Valley, you think?”
“I know it. I shall see Uncle Jim and Mother Jane before sunset!”
“I hope--you do,” he replied, a little shakily. “Perhaps we'd better not
tell them of the--the--about what happened last night.”