CHAPTER XIV
THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD
For many hurrying minutes, Rhoda saw only the passing tree branchesblack against the evening sky as she lay across Kut-le's breast. Thepursuers had made no sound nor had Kut-le broken a single twig. Theentire incident might have been a pantomime, with every actortragically intent.
Having long learned the futility of struggling, Rhoda lay quietlyenough, her ears keen to catch the sound of pursuit. Kut-le did notremove his hand from her mouth. But as he dropped rapidly andskilfully down the mountainside he whispered:
"My own ground, you see! It will take them a good while in the dusk tofind that back trail. Only a few Indians know it."
But Rhoda's heart was beating high. Let Kut-le boast as he would, shewas sure that Jack and John DeWitt were learning to follow the trail.The most vivid picture in her mind was of the utter weariness of John'sface. In the past weeks Rhoda had learned how fearful had been thehardships that would bring such weariness to a human face. Tears cameto her eyes. No one so weak, so useless as herself, she felt, could beworth such travail.
Silently they moved through the dusk. Rhoda knew that the otherIndians must be close behind them, yet no sound betrayed theirpresence. After a half-hour or so she struggled to be set down. ButKut-le only tightened his hold and it was fully two hours later that heset her on her feet.
"Don't move," he said. "We are on a canon edge."
Rhoda swung her blanket to her shoulders, for the night was stingingsharp. She was not afraid. She had grown so accustomed to the nighttrail that she moved unhesitatingly along black rims that had at firstparalyzed her with fear.
"Now," said Kut-le, "I'm not going to travel on foot. The only horseswithin easy distance are some that a bunch of Navajos have in the canonbelow here. So we will go down and get them. We will go togetherbecause I can't risk coming back for you. We will have to hike_pronto_ after we get 'em. Just remember that you are contaminated bythe company you are keeping and that if you make any noise, the Navajoswill shoot you up, with the rest of us! Keep right behind me."
The little group moved carefully down the canon trail. In a short timethey reached a growth of trees. They stole through these, the onlysound Rhoda's panting breaths. Suddenly Kut-le stopped.
"Wait here!" he breathed in Rhoda's ear, and he and Alchise disappeared.
A hand was laid on her arm and Rhoda knew that Molly and Cesca wereguarding her. Almost immediately the soft thud of hoofs was upon them.Kut-le seized Rhoda and tossed her to a pony's back.
"It was dead easy!" he whispered. "They were all asleep! I even tooka saddle for you! Now hike!"
Rhoda gripped her pony with her knees as the little fellow canteredunerringly through the darkness after Kut-le. She felt a sudden prideand exultation in the security she had developed in the saddle duringthe travail of her night rides. She knew that no man of heracquaintance could ride a horse as she could now. And with theexultation she was trembling with excitement. She knew that none ofthem could expect mercy if the Navajos discovered their loss in time totake up the chase. All the eagerness of the gambler who stakes hislife on a throw of the dice; all the wild thrill of the chase; all thetrembling of the panting, woodland things that hunt and are hunted,were Rhoda's as the night wind rushed past her face. The apathy ofillness was gone. Tonight she was as wild a thing as the night's birdsthat brushed across their trail on sweeping wing.
When they made camp at dawn Rhoda tumbled into her blanket and wasasleep before Alchise finished covering their trail. When she woke shefound that they were camped in a strange eerie. They were high up on amountain on a shelf that gave back into a shallow cave. In front,facing the desert, was a heap of rock that formed a natural rampart. Atiny spring bubbled from the cave floor. Here the little party wouldseem as secure in their dizzy seclusion as eagles of the Andes.
It was barely noon and the mountain air was sweet and exhilarating.Kut-le sat against the rampart, smoking a cigarette, while Molly andCesca worked over the fire. Rhoda lunched on the tortillas to whichMolly had clung through all the vicissitudes of flight.
"Where are the horses?" she asked Kut-le.
"Oh, Alchise took them back. We must stay here a while till your mobof friends disperses. I couldn't feed them and I wanted to pacify theNavajos and get some supplies from them. Alchise will fix it up withthem."
And here on this dizzy brink of the desert Kut-le did pause as if for along, long holiday. The wisdom of the proceeding did not trouble himat all. The call of the desert was an allurement to which he yieldedunresistingly, trusting to elude capture through his skill andunfailing good fortune.
To Rhoda the pause was welcome. She still had faith that the longerthey camped in one spot the surer would be the pursuers to stumble uponthem. Kut-le began to devote himself entirely to Rhoda's amusement.He knew all the plant and animal life of the desert, not only as anIndian but as a college man who had loved biology. By degrees Rhoda'sgood brain began to respond to his vivid interest and the girl in herstay on the mountain shelf learned the desert as has been given to fewwhites to learn it. Besides what she learned from the men Rhoda becameexpert in camp work under Molly's patient teaching. She could kindlethe tiny, smokeless fire. She could concoct appetizing messes from thecrude food. She could detect good water from bad and could find foragefor horses. The crowning pride of her achievements was learning toweave the dish basketry.
They had lived in the mountain niche some three weeks when Alchise andKut-le left the camp one afternoon, Alchise on a turkey hunt, Kut-le onone of his mysterious trips for supplies. Alchise returned at duskwith a beautiful bird which Rhoda and Molly roasted with enthusiasm.But Kut-le did not appear at supper time as he had promised. When themeal was almost spoiled from waiting, Rhoda and the Indians ate. Asthe evening wore on, Alchise grew uneasy, but he dared not disobeyKut-le's orders and leave the camp unguarded at night.
Rhoda speculated, torn between hope and fear. Perhaps the searchershad captured Kut-le at last. Perhaps he had given up hope of winningher love and had gone for good. Perhaps, somewhere or other, he waslying badly hurt! The little group sat up much later than usual, Cescasilently smoking her endless cigarettes, Alchise and Molly talking nowin Apache, now in English. Rhoda was convinced that they were puzzledand worried.
Even after she had lain down on her blankets Rhoda could not sleep.With Kut-le gone her sense of the camp's security was gone. She rosefinally and sat beside Alchise who, rifle in hand, guarded the ledge.There was no moon but the stars were very large and near. Rhoda wasgrowing to know the stars. They were remote in the East; in the desertthey become a part of one's existence. The sense of stupendousdistance was greater at night than in the daytime. The infiniteheavens, stretching depth beyond depth, the faint far spaces of thedesert, were as if one looked on the Great Mystery itself.
When dawn came, Alchise wakened Cesca, put the rifle into her hands,and hurried back up over the mountain. The purple shadows hadlightened to gray when Rhoda saw Kut-le staggering up the trail fromthe desert. Rhoda gave a little cry and ran down to meet him.
"Kut-le! What happened to you? We were so worried!"
There was a bloody rag tied just below the young Indian's knee. Hepaused, supporting himself against a rock. Across his eyes, drawn andhaggard with pain, flashed a look of joy that Rhoda, eying the bandage,did not see.
"I was late starting back," he said briefly. "In the darkness a bit ofthe trail gave way, dropped me into a canon and laid my leg open. Iwas unconscious a long time and lost a lot of blood, so it has taken methe rest of the night to get here. Would you mind getting Alchise tohelp me up the trail?"
"Alchise has gone to look for you. Lean on me," said Rhoda simply.
Despite his weakness, the dark blood flushed the young man's face,while Rhoda's utter unconsciousness of her changed manner brought asmile to his set lips. Not if the torture of dragging himself up thetrail were to be ten times gr
eater would he now have availed himself ofhelp from Alchise.
"If you will let me put my arm across your shoulder we can make it," hesaid as quietly as though his heart were not leaping.
Rhoda's squaring of her slender shoulders was distractingly boyish.Utterly heedless of the pain which each step cost him, Kut-le made hisway slowly to the ledge, ordering back the flustered squaws and leaningon Rhoda only enough to feel the tender girlish shoulders beneath theworn blue blouse.
In the camp, Rhoda assumed command while Kut-le lay on his blanketwatching her in silent content. She put one of Alchise's two calicoshirts on to boil over the breakfast fire. She washed out the nastycut and bandaged it with strips from the sterilized shirt. She broughtKut-le's breakfast and her own to his blanket side and coaxed the youngman to eat, he assuming great indifference merely for the happiness ofbeing urged. Rhoda was so energetic and efficient that the sun wasjust climbing from behind the far peaks when Kut-le finished his baconand coffee. The girl stood looking at him, hands on hips, head on oneside, with that look in her eyes of superiority, maternity andcomplacent tenderness which a woman can assume only when she hasministered to the needs of a helpless masculine thing.
"There!" she said with a sigh of satisfaction.
"Rhoda," said Kut-le, hoping that the heavy thumping of his heart didnot shake his whole broad chest, "how long ago was it that you were ahelpless, dying little girl without strength to cut up your own food?How long since you have served any one but yourself?"
Rhoda drew a quick breath. She stood staring from the Indian to thedesert, to her slender body, and back again. She held out her handsand looked at them. They were scratched and brown and did not tremble.Then she looked at the young Indian and he never was to forget thelight in her eyes.
"Kut-le!" she cried. "Kut-le! I am well again! I am well again!"
She paced back and forth along the ledge. Through the creamy tan hercheeks flushed richly crimson. Finally she stopped before the Apache.
"You have outraged all my civilized instincts," she said slowly, "yetyou have saved my life and given me health. Whatever comes, Kut-le, Inever shall forget that!"
"I have changed more than that," said Kut-le quietly. "Where is yourold hatred of the desert?"
Rhoda turned to look. At the edge of the distant ranges showed a rimof red. Crimson spokes of fire flashed to the zenith. The sky grewbrighter, more translucent, the ranges melted into molten gold. Thesun, hot and scarlet, rolled into view. Into Rhoda's heart flooded asense of infinite splendor, infinite beauty, infinite peace.
"Why!" she gasped to Kut-le, "it is beautiful! It's not terrible!It's unadorned beauty!"
The Indian nodded but did not speak. Rhoda never was to forget thatday. Long years after she was to catch the afterglow of that day ofher rebirth. Suddenly she realized that never could a human have foundhealth in a setting more marvelous. The realization was almost toomuch. Kut-le, with sympathy for which she was grateful, did not talkto her much. Once, however, as she brought him a drink andmechanically smoothed his blanket he said softly:
"You who have been served and demanded service all your life, why doyou do this?"
Rhoda answered slowly.
"I'm not serving you. I'm trying to pay up some of the debt of mylife."
Kut-le was about in a day or so and by the end of the week he was quitehimself. He resumed the daily expeditions with Rhoda and Alchise whichprovided text for the girl's desert learning. Rhoda's old despondency,her old agony of prayer for immediate rescue had given way to a strangeconflict of desires. She was eager for rescue, was conscious of aconstant aching desire for her own people, and yet the old sense ofoutrage, of grief, of hopelessness was gone.
Of a sudden she found herself pausing, thrusting back the problems thatconfronted her while she drank to the full this strange mad joy of lifewhich she felt must leave her when she left the desert. She knew onlythat the fear of death was gone. That hours of fever and pain were nomore. That her mind had found its old poise but with an utterly newview-point of life. Her blood ran red. Her lungs breathed deep. Hereyes saw distances too big for their conception, beauties so deep thather spirit had to expand to absorb them.
The silent nights of stars, the laborious crests that tossed sudden andunspeakable views before the eyes, the eternal canons that led beneathranges of surpassing majesty, roused in her a passion of delight thatcould find expression only in her growing physical prowess. She livedand ate like a splendid boy. Day after day she scaled the ranges withKut-le and Alchise; tenderly reared creature of an ultracivilization asshe was, she learned the intricate lore of the aborigines, learned whatstudents of the dying people would give their hearts to know.
Kut-le wakened Rhoda at dawn one day. She prepared the breakfast ofcoffee, bacon and tortilla. Alchise shared this eagerly with Rhoda andKut-le, though already he had eaten with the squaws. The day was stillgray when the three set out on a long day's trip in search of game.The way this morning led up a canon deep and quiet, with the nightshadows still dark and cool within it. The air was that of a northernday of June.
Rhoda tramped bravely, up and up, from cactus to bear grass, from beargrass to stunted cedar, from cedar to pines that at last rosetriumphant at the crest of a great ridge. Here Rhoda and Kut-le flungthemselves to the ground to rest while Alchise prowled aboutrestlessly. Across a hundred miles of desert rose faint snow-cappedpeaks.
Kut-le watched Rhoda's rapt face for a time. Then, as if unable tokeep back the words, he said softly:
"Rhoda! Stay here, always! Marry me and stay here always!"
Rhoda looked at the beautiful pleading eyes. She stirred restlessly;but before she could frame an answer Alchise appeared, followed by alean old Indian all but toothless who wore a pair of tattered overallsand a gauze shirt. The two Indians stopped before Kut-le, and Alchisejerked a thumb at the stranger.
"_Sabe_ no white talk," he said.
Kut-le passed the stranger a cigarette, which he accepted withoutcomment. A rapid conversation followed between the three Indians.
"He is an Apache," explained Kut-le, finally, to Rhoda. "His name isInjun Tom. He says that Newman and Porter hired him to trail us but heis tired of the job. They foolishly advanced him five dollars. Hesays they are camping in the valley right below here."
Rhoda sprang to her feet.
"Where are you going?" smiled Kut-le. "He says they are going to shootme on sight!"
Under her tan Rhoda's face whitened.
"Would they shoot you, Kut-le, even if I told them not to?"
At the sight of the paling face the young man murmured, "You dear!"under his breath. Then aloud, "Not if I were your husband."
"How can I marry a savage?" cried Rhoda.
Kut-le put his hand under the cleft chin and lifted the sweet face tillit looked directly into his. His gaze was very deep and clear.
"Am I nothing but a naked savage, Rhoda?" he said. "Am I?"
Rhoda's eyes did not leave his.
"No!" she said softly, under her breath.
Kut-le's eyes deepened. He turned and picked up his rifle.
"Bring your friend back to dinner, Alchise," he said. "Our littleholiday must end right here."
They reached the camp at noon and while the squaws made ready forbreaking camp, Rhoda sat deep in thought. Before her were the burningsky and desert, with hawk and buzzard circling in the clear blue.Where had the old hatred of Kut-le gone? Whence came this new trustand understanding, this thrill at his touch? Kut-le, who had beenwatching her adoringly, rose and came to her side. The rampart hid thetwo from the others. Kut-le took one of Rhoda's hands in his firmfingers and laid his lips against her palm. Rhoda flushed and drew herhand away. But Kut-le again put his hand beneath her cleft chin andlifted her face to his.
Just as the brown face all but touched hers a voice sounded from behindthe rampart:
"Hello, you! Where's Kut-le?"