with a dark and leaping blush.
“We'll be married as soon as we get out of the desert,” he went on. “And
we'll forget--all--all that's happened. You're so young. You'll forget.”
“I'd forgotten already, till this difference came in you. And pretty
soon--when I can say something more to you--I'll forget all except
Surprise Valley--and my evenings in the starlight with you.”
“Say it then--quick!”
She was leaning against him, holding his hands in her strong clasp,
soulful, tender, almost passionate.
“You couldn't help it.... I'm to blame.... I remember what I said.”
“What?” he queried in amaze.
“'YOU CAN KILL HIM!'... I said that. I made you kill him.”
“Kill--whom?” cried Shefford.
“Waggoner. I'm to blame.... That must be what's made you different.
And, oh, I've wanted you to know it's all my fault.... But I wouldn't be
sorry if you weren't.... I'm glad he's dead.”
“YOU--THINK--I--” Shefford's gasping whisper failed in the shock of
the revelation that Fay believed he had killed Waggoner. Then with the
inference came the staggering truth--her guiltlessness; and a paralyzing
joy held him stricken.
A powerful hand fell upon Shefford's shoulder, startling him. Nas Ta
Bega stood there, looking down upon him and Fay. Never had the Indian
seemed so dark, inscrutable of face. But in his magnificent bearing, in
the spirit that Shefford sensed in him, there were nobility and power
and a strange pride.
The Indian kept one hand on Shefford's shoulder, and with the other
he struck himself on the breast. The action was that of an Indian,
impressive and stern, significant of an Indian's prowess.
“My God!” breathed Shefford, very low.
“Oh, what does he mean?” cried Fay.
Shefford held her with shaking hands, trying to speak, to fight a way
out of these stultifying emotions.
“Nas Ta Bega--you heard. She thinks--I killed Waggoner!”
All about the Navajo then was dark and solemn disproof of her belief.
He did not need to speak. His repetition of that savage, almost boastful
blow on his breast added only to the dignity, and not to the denial, of
a warrior.
“Fay, he means he killed the Mormon,” said Shefford. “He must have, for
_I_ did not!”
“Ah!” murmured Fay, and she leaned to him with passionate, quivering
gladness. It was the woman--the human--the soul born in her that came
uppermost then; now, when there was no direct call to the wild and
elemental in her nature, she showed a heart above revenge, the instinct
of a saving right, of truth as Shefford knew them. He took her into his
arms and never had he loved her so well.
“Nas Ta Bega, you killed the Mormon,” declared Shefford, with a voice
that had gained strength. No silent Indian suggestion of a deed would
suffice in that moment. Shefford needed to hear the Navajo speak--to
have Fay hear him speak. “Nas Ta Bega, I know I understand. But tell
her. Speak so she will know. Tell it as a white man would!”
“I heard her cry out,” replied the Indian, in his slow English. “I
waited. When he came I killed him.”
A poignant why was wrenched from Shefford. Nas Ta Bega stood silent.
“BI NAI!” And when that sonorous Indian name rolled in dignity from his
lips he silently stalked away into the gloom. That was his answer to the
white man.
Shefford bent over Fay, and as the strain on him broke he held her
closer and closer and his tears streamed down and his voice broke in
exclamations of tenderness and thanksgiving. It did not matter what she
had thought, but she must never know what he had thought. He clasped
her as something precious he had lost and regained. He was shaken with
a passion of remorse. How could he have believed Fay Larkin guilty of
murder? Women less wild and less justified than she had been driven to
such a deed, yet how could he have believed it of her, when for two days
he had been with her, had seen her face, and deep into her eyes? There
was mystery in his very blindness. He cast the whole thought from him
for ever. There was no shadow between Fay and him. He had found her.
He had saved her. She was free. She was innocent. And suddenly, as he
seemed delivered from contending tumults within, he became aware that it
was no unresponsive creature he had folded to his breast.
He became suddenly alive to the warm, throbbing contact of her bosom, to
her strong arms clinging round his neck, to her closed eyes, to the rapt
whiteness of her face. And he bent to cold lips that seemed to receive
his first kisses as new and strange; but tremulously changed, at last to
meet his own, and then to burn with sweet and thrilling fire.
“My darling, my dream's come true,” he said. “You are my treasure. I
found you here at the foot of the rainbow!... What if it is a stone
rainbow--if all is not as I had dreamed? I followed a gleam. And it's
led me to love and faith!”
. . . . . . . . . . .
Hours afterward Shefford walked alone to and fro under the bridge. His
trouble had given place to serenity. But this night of nights he must
live out wide-eyed to its end.
The moon had long since crossed the streak of star-fired blue above and
the cañon was black in shadow. At times a current of wind, with all the
strangeness of that strange country in its hollow moan, rushed through
the great stone arch. At other times there was silence such as Shefford
imagined dwelt deep under this rocky world. At still other times an owl
hooted, and the sound was nameless. But it had a mocking echo that
never ended. An echo of night, silence, gloom, melancholy death, age,
eternity!
The Indian lay asleep with his dark face upturned, and the other
sleepers lay calm and white in the starlight.
Shefford saw in them the meaning of life and the past--the illimitable
train of faces that had shone the stars. There was a spirit in the
cañon, and whether or not it was what the Navajo embodied in the great
Nonnezoshe, or the life of this present, or the death of the ages, or
the nature so magnificently manifested in those silent, dreaming waiting
walls--the truth for Shefford was that this spirit was God.
Life was eternal. Man's immortality lay in himself. Love of a woman was
hope--happiness. Brotherhood--that mystic and grand “Bi Nai!” of the
Navajo--that was religion.
XIX. THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO
The night passed, the gloom turned gray, the dawn stole cool and pale
into the cañon. When Nas Ta Bega drove the mustangs into camp the
lofty ramparts of the walls were rimmed with gold and the dark arch of
Nonnezoshe began to lose its steely gray.
The women had rested well and were in better condition to travel. Jane
was cheerful and Fay radiant one moment and in a dream the next. She was
beginning to live in that wonderful future. They talked more than usual
at breakfast, and Lassiter made droll remarks. Shefford, with his great
and haunting trouble ended for ever, with now only danger to face ahead,
was a different man, but thoughtful and quiet.
This morning the Indian leisurely made preparations for the start. For
all the concern he showed he might have known every foot of the cañon
below Nonnezoshe. But, for Shefford, with the dawn had returned anxiety,
a restless feeling of the need of hurry. What obstacles, what impassable
gorges, might lie between this bridge and the river! The Indian's
inscrutable serenity and Fay's trust, her radiance, the exquisite glow
upon her face, sustained Shefford and gave him patience to endure and
conceal his dread.
At length the flight was resumed, with Nas Ta Bega leading on foot, and
Shefford walking in the rear. A quarter of a mile below camp the Indian
led down a declivity into the bottom of the narrow gorge, where the
stream ran. He did not gaze backward for a last glance at Nonnezoshe;
nor did Jane or Lassiter. Fay, however, checked Nack-yal at the rim of
the descent and turned to look behind. Shefford contrasted her tremulous
smile, her half-happy good-by to this place, with the white stillness
of her face when she had bade farewell to Surprise Valley. Then she rode
Nack-yal down into the gorge.
Shefford knew that this would be his last look at the rainbow bridge. As
he gazed the tip of the great arch lost its cold, dark stone color and
began to shine. The sun had just arisen high enough over some low break
in the wall to reach the bridge. Shefford watched. Slowly, in wondrous
transformation, the gold and blue and rose and pink and purple blended
their hues, softly, mistily, cloudily, until once again the arch was a
rainbow.
Ages before life had evolved upon the earth it had spread its grand arch
from wall to wall, black and mystic at night, transparent and rosy in
the sunrise, at sunset a flaming curve limned against the heavens. When
the race of man had passed it would, perhaps, stand there still. It was
not for many eyes to see. Only by toil, sweat, endurance, blood, could
any man ever look at Nonnezoshe. So it would always be alone, grand,
silent, beautiful, unintelligible.
Shefford bade Nonnezoshe a mute, reverent farewell. Then plunging down
the weathered slope of the gorge to the stream below, he hurried forward
to join the others. They had progressed much farther than he imagined
they would have, and this was owing to the fact that the floor of the
gorge afforded easy travel. It was gravel on rock bottom, tortuous, but
open, with infrequent and shallow downward steps. The stream did not now
rush and boil along and tumble over rock-encumbered ledges. In corners
the water collected in round, green, eddying pools. There were patches
of grass and willows and mounds of moss. Shefford's surprise equaled his
relief, for he believed that the violent descent of Nonnezoshe Boco had
been passed. Any turn now, he imagined, might bring the party out upon
the river. When he caught up with them he imparted this conviction,
which was received with cheer. The hopes of all, except the Indian,
seemed mounting; and if he ever hoped or despaired it was never
manifest.
Shefford's anticipation, however, was not soon realized. The fugitives
traveled miles farther down Nonnezoshe Boco, and the only changes were
that the walls of the lower gorge heightened and merged into those above
and that these upper ones towered ever loftier. Shefford had to throw
his head straight back to look up at the rims, and the narrow strip of
sky was now indeed a flowing stream of blue.
Difficult steps were met, too, yet nothing compared to those of the
upper cañon. Shefford calculated that this day's travel had advanced
several hours; and more than ever now he was anticipating the mouth
of Nonnezoshe Boco. Still another hour went by. And then came striking
changes. The cañon narrowed till the walls were scarcely twenty paces
apart; the color of stone grew dark red above and black down low; the
light of day became shadowed, and the floor was a level, gravelly,
winding lane, with the stream meandering slowly and silently.
Suddenly the Indian halted. He turned his ear down the cañon lane. He
had heard something. The others grouped round him, but did not hear a
sound except the soft flow of water and the heave of the mustangs. Then
the Indian went on. Presently he halted again. And again he listened.
This time he threw up his head and upon his dark face shone a light
which might have been pride.
“Tse ko-n-tsa-igi,” he said.
The others could not understand, but they were impressed.
“Shore he means somethin' big,” drawled Lassiter.
“Oh, what did he say?” queried Fay in eagerness.
“Nas Ta Bega, tell us,” said Shefford. “We are full of hope.”
“Grand Cañon,” replied the Indian.
“How do you know?” asked Shefford.
“I hear the roar of the river.”
But Shefford, listen as he might, could not hear it. They traveled on,
winding down the wonderful lane. Every once in a while Shefford lagged
behind, let the others pass out of hearing, and then he listened. At
last he was rewarded. Low and deep, dull and strange, with some quality
to incite dread, came a roar. Thereafter, at intervals, usually at turns
in the cañon, and when a faint stir of warm air fanned his cheeks, he
heard the sound, growing clearer and louder.
He rounded an abrupt corner to have the roar suddenly fill his ears, to
see the lane extend straight to a ragged vent, and beyond that, at some
distance, a dark, ragged, bulging wall, like iron. As he hurried forward
he was surprised to find that the noise did not increase. Here it kept
a strange uniformity of tone and volume. The others of the party passed
out of the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco in advance of Shefford, and when
he reached it they were grouped upon a bank of sand. A dark-red cañon
yawned before them, and through it slid the strangest river Shefford had
ever seen. At first glance he imagined the strangeness consisted of the
dark-red color of the water, but at the second he was not so sure. All
the others, except Nas Ta Bega, eyed the river blankly, as if they did
not know what to think. The roar came from round a huge bulging wall
downstream. Up the cañon, half a mile, at another turn, there was a
leaping rapid of dirty red-white waves and the sound of this, probably,
was drowned in the unseen but nearer rapid.
“This is the Grand Cañon of the Colorado,” said Shefford. “We've come
out at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco.... And now to wait for Joe Lake!”
They made camp on a dry, level sand-bar under a shelving wall. Nas Ta
Bega collected a pile of driftwood to be used for fire, and then he took
the mustangs back up the side cañon to find grass for them. Lassiter
appeared unusually quiet, and soon passed from weary rest on the sand
to deep slumber. Fay and Jane succumbed to an exhaustion that manifested
itself the moment relaxation set in, and they, too, fell asleep.
Shefford patrolled the long strip of sand under the wall, and watched
up the river for Joe Lake. The Indian returned and went along the river,
climbed over the jutting, sharp slopes that reached into the water, and
passed out of sight up-stream toward the rapid.
Shefford had a sense that the river and the cañon were too magnificent
to be compared with others. Still, all his emotions and sensations had
been so wrought upon, he seemed not to have any left by which he might
judge of what constituted the difference. He would wait. He had a grim
conviction that before he was safely out of this earth-riven crack
he would know. One thing, however, struck him, and it was that up the
cañon, high over the lower walls, hazy and blue, stood other walls,
and beyond and above them, dim in purple distance, upreared still other
walls. The haze and the blue and the purple meant great distance, and,
likewise, the height seemed incomparable.
The red river attracted him most. Since this was the medium by which he
must escape with his party, it was natural that it absorbed him, to
the neglect of the gigantic cliffs. And the more he watched the
river, studied it, listened to it, imagined its nature, its power, its
restlessness, the more he dreaded it. As the hours of the afternoon
wore away, and he strolled along and rested on the banks, his first
impressions, and what he realized might be his truest ones, were
gradually lost. He could not bring them back. The river was changing,
deceitful. It worked upon his mind. The low, hollow roar filled his ears
and seemed to mock him. Then he endeavored to stop thinking about it,
to confine his attention to the gap up-stream where sooner or later
he prayed that Joe Lake and his boat would appear. But, though he
controlled his gaze, he could not his thought, and his strange,
impondering dread of the river augmented.
The afternoon waned. Nas Ta Bega came back to camp and said any
likelihood of Joe's arrival was past for that day. Shefford could not
get over an impression of strangeness--of the impossibility of the
reality presented to his naked eyes. These lonely fugitives in the
huge-walled cañon waiting for a boatman to come down that river!
Strange and wild--those were the words which, inadequately at best,
suited this country and the situations it produced.
After supper he and Fay walked along the bars of smooth, red sand. There
were a few moments when the distant peaks and domes and turrets were
glorified in changing sunset hues. But the beauty was fleeting. Fay
still showed lassitude. She was quiet, yet cheerful, and the sweetness
of her smile, her absolute trust in him, stirred and strengthened anew
his spirit. Yet he suffered torture when he thought of trusting Fay's
life, her soul, and her beauty to this strange red river.
Night brought him relief. He could not see the river; only the low roar
made its presence known out there in the shadows. And, there being no
need to stay awake, he dropped at once into heavy slumber. He was
roused by hands dragging at him. Nas Ta Bega bent over him. It was
broad daylight. The yellow wall high above was glistening. A fire
was crackling and pleasant odors were wafted to him. Fay and Jane and
Lassiter sat around the tarpaulin at breakfast. After the meal suspense
and strain were manifested in all the fugitives, even the imperturbable
Indian being more than usually watchful. His eyes scarcely ever left
the black gap where the river slid round the turn above. Soon, as on the
preceding day, he disappeared up the ragged, iron-bound shore. There was
scarcely an attempt at conversation. A controlling thought bound that
group into silence--if Joe Lake was ever going to come he would come
to-day.
Shefford asked himself a hundred times if it were possible, and his
answer seemed to be in the low, sullen, muffled roar of the river. And
as the morning wore on toward noon his dread deepened until all chance
appeared hopeless. Already he had begun to have vague and unformed
and disquieting ideas of the only avenue of escape left--to return up
Nonnezoshe Boco--and that would be to enter a trap.
Suddenly a piercing cry pealed down the cañon. It was followed by
echoes, weird and strange, that clapped from wall to wall in mocking
concatenation. Nas Ta Bega appeared high on the ragged slope. The cry
had been the Indian's. He swept an arm out, pointing up-stream, and
stood like a statue on the iron rocks.
Shefford's keen gaze sighted a moving something in the bend of the
river. It was long, low, dark, and flat, with a lighter object upright
in the middle. A boat and a man!
“Joe! It's Joe!” yelled Shefford, madly. “There!... Look!”
Jane and Fay were on their knees in the sand, clasping each other, pale
faces toward that bend in the river.
Shefford ran up the shore toward the Indian. He climbed the jutting
slant of rock. The boat was now full in the turn--it moved faster--it
was nearing the smooth incline above the rapid. There! it glided
down--heaved darkly up--settled back--and disappeared in the frothy,
muddy roughness of water. Shefford held his breath and watched. A dark,
bobbing object showed, vanished, showed again to enlarge--to take the
shape of a big flatboat--and then it rode the swift, choppy current out
of the lower end of the rapid.
Nas Ta Bega began to make violent motions, and Shefford, taking his cue,
frantically waved his red scarf. There was a five-mile-an-hour current
right before them, and Joe must needs see them so that he might sheer
the huge and clumsy craft into the shore before it drifted too far down.
Presently Joe did see them. He appeared to be half-naked; he raised
aloft both arms, and bellowed down the cañon. The echoes boomed from
wall to wall, every one stronger with the deep, hoarse triumph in the
Mormon's voice, till they passed on, growing weaker, to die away in the
roar of the river below. Then Joe bent to a long oar that appeared to
be fastened to the stern of the boat, and the craft drifted out of the
swifter current toward the shore. It reached a point opposite to where
Shefford and the Indian waited, and, though Joe made prodigious efforts,
it slid on. Still, it also drifted shoreward, and half-way down to the
mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco Joe threw the end of a rope to the Indian.
“Ho! Ho!” yelled the Mormon, again setting into motion the fiendish
echoes. He was naked to the waist; he had lost flesh; he was haggard,
worn, dirty, wet. While he pulled on a shirt Nas Ta Bega made the rope
fast to a snag of a log of driftwood embedded in the sand, and the boat
swung to shore. It was perhaps thirty feet long by half as many wide,
crudely built of rough-hewn boards. The steering-gear was a long pole
with a plank nailed to the end. The craft was empty save for another
pole and plank, Joe's coat, and a broken-handled shovel. There were
water and sand on the flooring. Joe stepped ashore and he was gripped
first by Shefford and then by the Indian. He was an unkempt and gaunt
giant, yet how steadfast and reliable, how grimly strong to inspire
hope!
“Reckon most of me's here,” he said in reply to greetings. “I've had
water aplenty. My God! I've had WATER!” He rolled out a grim laugh. “But
no grub for three days.... Forgot to fetch some!”
How practical he was! He told Fay she looked good for sore eyes, but
he needed a biscuit most of all. There was just a second of singular
hesitation when he faced Lassiter, and then the big, strong hand of the
young Mormon went out to meet the old gunman's. While they fed him and
he ate like a starved man Shefford told of the flight from the village,
the rescuing of Jane and Lassiter from Surprise Valley, the descent from
the plateau, the catastrophe to Shadd's gang--and, concluding, Shefford,
without any explanation, told that Nas Ta Bega had killed the Mormon
Waggoner.
“Reckon I had that figured,” replied Joe. “First off. I didn't think
so.... So Shadd went over the cliff. That's good riddance. It beats me,
though. Never knew that Piute's like with a horse. And he had some grand
horses in his outfit. Pity about them.”
Later when Joe had a moment alone with Shefford he explained that during
his ride to Kayenta he had realized Fay's innocence and who had been
responsible for the tragedy. He took Withers, the trader, into his
confidence, and they planned a story, which Withers was to carry to
Stonebridge, that would exculpate Fay and Shefford of anything more
serious than flight. If Shefford got Fay safely out of the country at
once that would end the matter for all concerned.
“Reckon I'm some ferry-boatman, too--a FAIRY boatman. Haw! Haw!” he
added. “And we're going through.... Now I want you to help me rig this
tarpaulin up over the bow of the boat. If we can fix it up strong it'll
keep the waves from curling over. They filled her four times for me.”
They folded the tarpaulin three times, and with stout pieces of split
plank and horseshoe nails from Shefford's saddle-bags and pieces of rope
they rigged up a screen around bow and front corners.
Nas Ta Bega put the saddles in the boat. The mustangs were far up
Nonnezoshe Boco and would work their way back to green and luxuriant
canyons. The Indian said they would soon become wild and would never
be found. Shefford regretted Nack-yal, but was glad the faithful little
mustang would be free in one of those beautiful canyons.
“Reckon we'd better be off,” called Joe. “All aboard!” He placed Fay
and Jane in a corner of the bow, where they would be spared sight of the
rapids. Shefford loosed the rope and sprang aboard. “Pard,” said Joe,
“it's one hell of a river! And now with the snow melting up in the
mountains it's twenty feet above normal and rising fast. But that's well
for us. It covers the stones in the rapids. If it hadn't been in flood
Joe would be an angel now!”
The boat cleared the sand, lazily wheeled in the eddying water, and
suddenly seemed caught by some powerful gliding force. When it swept
out beyond the jutting wall Shefford saw a quarter of a mile of sliding
water that appeared to end abruptly. Beyond lengthened out the gigantic
gap between the black and frowning cliffs.
“Wow!” ejaculated Joe. “Drops out of sight there. But that one
ain't much. I can tell by the roar. When you see my hair stand up
straight--then watch out!... Lassiter, you look after the women.
Shefford, you stand ready to bail out with the shovel, for we'll sure
ship water. Nas Ta Bega, you help here with the oar.”