TREASURE TROVE
The storm ceased with the same suddenness as it began. Hardly an hour
had torrential waters lashed the cinder wastes of Pinacate when the
black pall over the heavens broke away and the sun came out to suck
hungrily at pools in the rocks. There was a headiness of wine in the
air, a smell of wet soil mingled with spicy emanations from greasewood
and _palo verde_. The desert’s sparse growing things exulted in the
breaking of long drought.
For a long time Grant and Benicia on their side of the gorge and Bim
in his retreat opposite lay hidden, awaiting possible renewal of the
attack which the storm had scattered. But the torrent that still raged
down the bottom of the gorge had washed clean every vestige of an
enemy. Quelele on his high post saw four scattered horsemen rushing
pell-mell for the gateway onto the desert--last vestige of Urgo’s
rurales force, each man of which gave thanks to his patron saint that
he had come out of the hell in the mountain cul-de-sac with a whole
skin.
Quelele also saw several specks dropping earthward from the clear
blue; specks which rapidly grew from the size of gnats to the spread
of small aeroplanes. King condors they, who had smelled a feast from
afar--loathsome birds with a wing spread covering the span of thirteen
feet. The coming of one of these foul creatures to his particular
banquet even the sharp eye of a Papago watcher could not discern, for
the scene was hidden from him by a shoulder of the cañon wall.
A stunted _palo verde_ tree nearly stripped of its verdure by the whips
of the rain hung half-uprooted over the rapidly diminishing stream in
the wash. One branch had caught and held some flotsam from the high
flood, now clear of the water. Just a shapeless bundle of clothes,
lolling head, arms askew where broken bones had let inert flesh sag to
the current. Just a grim caricature of something which so recently had
walked in the pride of his imaginings.
The condor flopped clumsily to a branch stub six feet distant from
the bundle of clothes, folded his great wings with a dry rustling of
feathers, blinked the red lids of his eyes to focus his vision for
expert inspection and studied the hank of cloth and flesh suspended
in the tree crotch. The thing which flood waters had brought stirred
slightly; eyes opened with a flutter. They met the critical gaze of the
feathered pariah on the stub. The condor acknowledged this unexpected
show of life on his banquet table by disturbed bobbings of the naked
yellow head--the skin on his poll was wrinkled as an old man’s--and
a bringing of his off eye to bear around his sabre beak with the
skew-like movement of a hen sighting a worm.
The wreck in the bundle of clothes opened his lips to scream but the
ghost of a groan came instead. It tried to lift a fending arm against
the abomination so near; the muscles tugged at broken bones.
The condor appraised these manifestations of life carefully, weighed
them by contrast with his experiences with crippled sheep and helpless
calves. His talons stirred restlessly on the branch. First one, then
the other lifted from the bark, stretched and flexed. The king of the
higher airs was impatient. He spread his wings to balance him and
clumsily hopped a few feet nearer, craning his wattled neck anxiously.
A shadow passed swiftly over the _palo verde_ tree. A quick upward
twist of the head gave the condor view of a putative and too-anxious
fellow guest at the bounty spread there. Greediness pushed him. He
spread his wings and hopped again--
Then the desert exacted with cruelty recompense for the cruelties
of Colonel Hamilcar Urgo. Abomination of his passing was meted him
according to the abominations of his own devising.
An hour after the last rain drop the flood waters in the gorge had
dropped to permit of reunion between the erstwhile defenders of the
pass. Grant waded waist deep with Benicia in his arms; Bim, all smiles,
was stretching out a hand from the off-side rocks.
“Well, folks all, looks like a pleasant time was enjoyed by all and
one!” The big Arizonan’s spirits would permit of no more concrete
thanksgiving for a crisis passed. It was his way to find laughter
the only vehicle for suppressed emotions and whimsicalities the best
conveyance for thoughts which might sound “high-falutin’.” The three
stood mute, their eyes telling one another things which might have come
flattened and blunted in speech.
“See me welcome an old visitor just before the curtain went up on the
first act?” Bim turned to Grant, his eyes shining excitement. “Who
d’you think? Ole Doc Stooder!” Grant gasped in surprise. His pal’s grin
faded as he added seriously:
“Just about the end of his string, too. The rain sure saved
him--couldn’t have lasted another hour--one chance in a thousand
brought him here where they’s folks to look out for him--a friend,
even, to coddle him back to health.”
“No, not one chance in a thousand,” Benicia caught him up with deep
seriousness in her voice. “It is the desert way--to play with destiny,
I mean, and seem to cause miracles.--But let me go to him if he needs
attention.” She started forward, but Bim put out a staying hand.
“I wouldn’t, ma’am. The Doc’s not a purty sight right now. His body’s
just drinkin’ in all the water that landed on him an’ he’s sorta
in a daze--doesn’t say much of anything that makes sense. A little
food which I’m goin’ to brew if I can find some dry sticks of wood
anywhere’s round--” Simple charity dictated that Bim say no word of
conjecture as to what brought Stooder to the desert. He guessed full
well.
El Doctor Coyote Belly seemed to be materialized from the rocks so
noiselessly had he approached the group. The old man’s face was ashen;
unguessable terrors he had fought with and hardly conquered since last
the three had seen him standing in the yellow storm glare before the
cave of Elder Brother.
“If my daughter will come now to the house of Iitoi,” he said to the
girl in his native tongue, “she may take what Iitoi gives. The god has
expressed his displeasure by the storm--but he will give.”
Benicia turned and put a wordless question to Grant. They started
together to climb the precipitous rock ladder up the side of the gorge
wall, El Doctor leading. Thirty minutes’ exhaustive effort brought them
to the approach of a high-roofed cavern into which the westering sun
laid a broad carpet of light. There in the shale before the cave mouth
were El Doctor’s pitiful presents to the god--the arrow and prayer
stick wedged upright, the beads and tobacco in a small basket. The
whole ground about was littered with the shards of sacrificial pottery
and scraps of basketry.
Benicia motioned to El Doctor to lead the way into the cave, but he
shook his head in emphatic negative. Then she gave Grant a strange
smile, almost that of a child who awaits revelation of a mystery. He
saw in deep pools of her eyes a transcendent joy made almost pain by
this moment of hope achieved. She held out her hand for him to take and
they entered the cave.
When their eyes had become accustomed to the sudden transition from
glaring sunlight into gloom a faint glimmering at the far end of the
sunlight path guided them. Ankle-deep in the dust of ages they groped.
The glimmer waxed stronger. Suddenly Benicia stopped with a catching
of the breath. Grant stooped and lifted a heavy object from a niche of
rock, bringing it into the filtered stream of radiance.
It was a golden monstrance, dust coated. Faint twinkles of light glowed
like firefly lamps from jewels set in the radii of a glory. A great
diamond above the crystal box caught fire from the sun.
As Grant hastily bent to replace the sacred vessel his hand tipped the
edge of a shallow basket. From it rolled a stream of moonbeam fire out
into the zone of sunshine. Liquid globules of moon-glow, round and
pellucid as ice crystals, seductive as the shadowed whiteness of a
woman’s throat: the green pearls of the Virgin stripped by the impiety
of El Rojo from the shrine of the Four Evangelists!
Benicia slowly sank to her knees, words of prayer whispered from her
lips. Prayer of thankfulness and dedication of the lost treasure to the
sanctity of the Church.
Grant felt his presence in this solemn moment was an intrusion. He
tip-toed back to the mouth of the cave and stood looking out. All the
wildness and the savagery of Altar’s secret fane of the desert god lay
burning and glistening with wetness in the westering sun. The waning
torrent, sardonic gesture of plenty in this ultimate citadel of thirst,
splashed jewels against the lancing light. Here was a world of the
primordial--Creation arrested in its first hour.
A hand touched his arm lightly. He turned to find Benicia standing
beside him. The sun wove an aura of vivid fire about her head. Her eyes
raised to his were swimming.
“Now, heart of my heart,” she whispered. And all the love fire in her
flamed from her lips.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
--Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
--A Table of Contents has been provided for the convenience of the
reader.
--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
--Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
--Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
--The author’s em-dash and punctuation/endquote styles have been
retained.
End of Project Gutenberg's Dust of the Desert, by Robert Welles Ritchie