Adam lingered in his travel through the beautiful Palo Verde Valley,
and at last reached the long swell of desert slope that led down to the
Rio Colorado.
Tranquil and sad was his gaze on the majestic river as it swirled red
and sullen between its wide green borders toward the upflung wilderness
of colored peaks he remembered so well.
All day he strode behind his faithful burros, here high on the river
bank where he could see the somber flood rolling to the south, and
there low in the willow-shaded trail. And though he had an eye for the
green, dry coverts and the wide, winding valley, he seemed to see most
vividly the scenes of boyhood and of home. And the memory revived the
love he had borne his brother Guerd. High on the grassy hill at the
old village school--he was there once again, wild and gay, playing the
games, tagging at the heels of his idol.
The miles slipped by under his tireless stride. Hour by hour he had
quickened his pace. And when sunset caught him with its call to camp,
he could see the grand purple bulk of old Picacho looming in the sky.
Twilight and dusk and night, and the lonely camp fire! He heard the
sullen gurgle of the river in the weeds and he saw the trains of stars
reflected along its swirling surface. A killdeer, most mournful of
birds, pealed his plaintive, lonely cry. Across the blue-black sky
gleamed a shooting star. The wind stirred in the leaves, gently and
low, and fanned the glowing embers, and bore the white ashes away into
the darkness. Shadows played from the flickering blaze, fantastic and
weird, like dancing specters in the gloom. Adam watched the gleaming
river rolling on to its grave in the Gulf. Like all things, it died,
was dispersed, and had rebirth in other climes. Then he watched the
stars at their grand and blazing task.
* * * * *
On the afternoon of the third day he turned under the red bluff into
the basin of Picacho. Long the trail had been overgrown and dim, and
cattle tracks were scarce. The wide willow and mesquite flat, with its
groves of cottonwoods, had grown denser, wilder, no more crisscrossed
by trails. Adam had slowed down now, and he skirted the edge of the
thicket till he reached the bank of bronze rock that had flowed down
from the peaks in ages past. The _ocatillas_, so pearly gray, softly
green, and vividly scarlet, grew there just the same as long ago when
he had plucked a flower for the dusky hair of Margarita. He welcomed
sight of them, for they were of the past.
And here, side by side, stood the crucifixion tree and the _palo verde_
under which Margarita had told him their legends. The years had made
no change that Adam could discern. The smoke tree and the green tree
raised their delicate, exquisite, leafless foliage against the blue of
sky, beautiful and soft, hiding from the eye the harsh law of their
desert nature.
Adam tarried here. His wandering steps were nearing their end. And he
gazed across the river at the wilderness of Arizona peaks. It seemed he
knew every one. Had he seen them yesterday or long ago?
The sculptured turrets of Picacho were taking on a crown of gold, and
from the sheer, ragged bluffs of the purple mass shadows and hazes and
rays were streaming down into the valley. One golden streak slanted
from the wind-worn hole in the rim. Solemn and noble the castled
mountain towered in the sky. In its lonely grandeur there was strength.
One moment longer Adam watched and listened, absorbing the color and
glory and wildness, stung to the depths of his heart by his farewell to
loneliness. He retrograded one last instant to the savage who sensed
but did not think. He thrilled to the old, mysterious, fading instinct.
Then, as in answer to a sonorous call in his ear, he measured slow and
laboring strides through the aisles to the river.
His burros scratched their packs on the thorny mesquites to get down to
the arrowweed and willow. Where once had been open bank, now all was
green, except for a narrow sandy aisle. The dock was gone. A sunken
barge lay on a bar, and moored to its end were two leaky skiffs.
Traffic and trade had departed from the river landing. Adam remembered
a prospector had told him that the mill had been moved from the river
up to the mine under the peak. So now, he thought, supplies and traffic
must come and go by way of Yuma.
He drove his burros down the sandy aisle. A glimpse of an old adobe
wall, gray through the mesquites, stopped his heart. He went on. The
house of Arallanes was a roofless ruin, the vacant windows and doors
staring darkly, the walls crumbling to the sands. The shed where Adam
had slept was now half hidden by mesquites. The _ocatilla_ poles were
bleached and rotten and the brush was gone from the roof; but the sandy
floor looked as clean and white as the day Adam had spread his blankets
there. Fourteen years! Silent he stood, and the low, mournful wind was
a knell. The past could never be undone.
He went back to the lane and to the open. Old stone walls were all that
appeared left of houses he expected to see. Over the trees, far up the
slope, he espied the ruins of the dismantled mill. Unreal it looked
there, out of place, marring the majestic sweep of the slope.
His keen desert nostrils detected smoke before he saw blue columns
rising through the green. He passed a plot of sand-mounded graves.
Had they been there? How fierce a pang pierced his heart! Rude stones
marked the graves, and on one a single wooden cross, crude and
weathered, slanted away. Adam peered low at the lettering--M. A. And
swiftly he swung erect.
There was a cluster of houses farther on, low and squat, a few of them
new, but most of them Adam remembered. A post-office sign marked this
village of Picacho. The stone-fronted store looked just the same, and
the loungers there might never have moved from their tracks in fourteen
years. But the faces were strange.
A lean old man, gray and peaked, detached himself from the group and
tottered toward Adam with his cane in the sand.
“Wal, stranger, howdy! You down from upriver?”
His voice twanged a chord of memory. Merryvale! Slowly the tide of
emotion rose in Adam’s breast. He peered down into the gray old face,
with its narrow, half-shut eyes and its sunken cheeks. Yes, it was
Merryvale.
“Howdy, friend!” replied Adam. “Yes, I come from up the river.”
“Strange in these parts, I reckon?”
“Yes. But I--I was here years ago.”
“Was, I knowed you was strange because you come in by the river.
Travelers nowadays go round the mountain. Prospectors never come any
more. The glory of Picacho has faded.”
“Aren’t they working the mill?” queried Adam, quickly.
“Haw! Haw! The mill will never grind with ore that is gone! No work
these last five years. The mill has rusted out--fallen to ruin. And
the gold of old Picacho is gone. But, stranger, she hummed while she
lasted. Millions in gold--millions in gold!”
He wagged his lean old head and chuckled.
“I knew a man here once by the name of Arallanes. What has become of
him?”
“Arallanes? Wal, I do recollect him. I was watchman at the mill an’
he was boss of the gang. His daughter was knifed by a greaser named
Felix.... Arallanes left here these ten years ago an’ he’s never been
back.”
“His--daughter!... Is that her grave back there--the sunken mound of
sand--with the wooden cross?”
“I reckon that’s Margarita’s grave. She was a pretty wench--mad about
men--an’ there’s some who said she got her just deserts.”
The broad river gleamed yellow through the breaks in the mesquites.
Ponderous and swirling, it glided on round the bend. Adam’s gaze then
sought the peak. The vast, stormy, purple mass, like a mountain of
cloud, shone with sunset crown of silver.
Somewhere near, hidden by the trees, a Mexican broke the stillness with
song--wild, sensuous, Spanish love, in its haunting melody.
“I knew another man here,” began Adam, with the words a sonorous knell
in his ear. “His name was Collishaw.... What’s become of him?”
“Collishaw? Never will forgit _him_!” declared the old man, grimly.
“Last I heard he was cheatin’ Injuns out of water rights over here at
Walters--an’ still lookin’ fer somebody to hang.... Haw! Haw! That
Collishaw was a Texas sheriff.”
Suddenly Adam bent lower, so that his face was on a level with
Merryvale’s.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Wal, I shore don’t, stranger,” declared the other. “I’ve been nigh
fifty years in the West an’ never seen your like yet. If I had I’d
never forgot.”
“Merryvale, do you remember a lad who shot off your fishing line one
day? Do you remember how you took interest in him--told him of Western
ways--that he must be a man?”
“Shore I remember that lad!” exclaimed Merryvale, bluntly. He was old,
but he was still keen. “How’d you know about him?”
“I am Adam Larey!”
The old man’s eyes grew piercing. Intensely he gazed, bending closer,
strong and thrilling now, with the zest of earlier experience sharp in
his expression.
“I know you now. It’s Adam. I’d knowed them eyes among a thousand, if
I’d only looked. Eagle’s eyes, Adam, once seen never forgot!... An’
look at the giant of him! Wai, you make me feel young again.... Adam,
lad, I ain’t never forgot ye--never! Shake hands with old Merryvale.”
Agitated, with tremulous voice and shaking hands, he grasped Adam,
almost embracing him, his gray old face alight with gladness.
“It’s good to see you, Merryvale--to learn you’ve not forgotten me--all
these years.”
“Lad, you was like my own!... But who’d ever know you now? You’ve white
hair, Adam, an’--ah! I see the desert in your face.”
“Old friend, did you ever hear of Wansfell?”
“Wansfell? You mean thet wanderer the prospectors tell about?... Shore,
I’ve been hearin’ tales of him these many years.”
“I am Wansfell,” replied Adam.
“_So help me God!_... Wansfell?... You, Adam, the kindly lad!... Didn’t
I tell you what a hell of a man you’d be when you grew up?”
Adam drew Merryvale aside from the curiously gathering loungers.
“Old friend, you are responsible for Wansfell.... And now, before we
tell--before I go--I want you to take me to--to--my--my brother’s
grave?”
Merryvale stared.
“_What?_” he ejaculated, and again his keen old eyes searched Adam’s.
“Yes. The grave--of my brother--Guerd,” whispered Adam.
“Say, man!... You think Guerd Larey’s buried _here_?... Thet’s why you
come back?”
Astonishment seemed to dominate Merryvale, to hold in check other
emotions.
“My friend,” replied Adam, “I came to see his grave--to make my peace
with him and God--and to give myself up to the law.”
“Give yourself--up--to the law!” gasped Merryvale. “Have you gone
desert mad?”
“No. I’m right in my mind,” returned Adam, patiently. “I owe it to my
conscience, Merryvale.... Fourteen years of torture! Any punishment I
may suffer here, compared with those long years, will be as nothing....
It will be happiness to give myself up.”
Merryvale’s lean jaw quivered as the astonishment and concern left his
face. A light of divination began to dawn there.
“But what do you want to give yourself up for?” he demanded.
“I told you. My conscience. My need to stand right with myself. To pay!”
“I mean--what’d you do?... _What for?_”
“Old friend, you’ve grown thick of wits,” rejoined Adam. “Because of my
crime.”
“An’ what was thet, Adam Larey?” queried Merryvale, sharply.
“The crime of Cain,” replied Adam, sadly. “Come, friend--take me to my
brother’s grave.”
Merryvale seemed galvanized from age to youth.
“Your brother’s grave!... Guerd Larey’s grave? By heaven! I wish I
could take you to it!... Adam, you’re out of your head. You _are_
desert mad.... Bless you, lad, you’ve made a terrible mistake!
You’re not what you think you are. You’ve hid in the desert fourteen
years--you’ve gone through hell--you’ve become Wansfell--all for
nothin’!... My God! to think of thet!... Adam, you’re no murderer. Your
brother is not dead. He wasn’t even bad hurt. No--no--Guerd Larey’s
alive--alive--alive!”
Press of The Hunter-Rose Company, Limited
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaired quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unpaired.
Table of Contents added by Transcriber.
Redundant book hemi-title pages have been deleted.
Page 87: “you’ll grow like it” was printed that way.
Page 128: “But there were others hours.” was printed that way.
Page 141: “gettin’ oneasy” was printed that way; should be “uneasy”.