CHAPTER VIII
A BROADENING HORIZON
Rhoda lay stiffly, her heart beating wildly. Kut-le and the squaws,each a muffled, blanketed figure, lay sleeping some distance away. OldAlchise stood on solitary guard at the edge of the camp with his backto her.
"Make as if you wanted to shift your blankets toward the cat's-clawbush behind you!" went on the whispered voice.
Obediently, Rhoda sat erect. Alchise turned slowly to light acigarette out of the wind. Rhoda yawned, rose sleepily, looked underher blanket and shook her, head irritably, then dragged her blanketstoward the neighboring cat's-claw. Again she settled herself to sleep.Alchise turned back to his view of the desert.
"I'm behind the bush here," whispered the voice. "I'm a prospector.Saw you make camp. I don't know where any of the search parties arebut if you can crawl round to me I'll guarantee to get you to 'emsomehow. Slip out of your blankets and leave 'em, rounded up as if youwas still under 'em. Quick now and careful!"
Rhoda, her eyes never leaving Alchise's impassive back, drew herselfsilently and swiftly from her blankets and with a clever touch or tworounded them. Then she crept around the cat's-claw, where a mansquatted, his eyes blazing with excitement. He put up a sinewy, handto pull her from sight when, without warning, Rhoda sneezed.
Instantly there was the click of a rifle and Alchise shouted:
"Stop!"
"Confound it!" growled the man, rising to full view, "why didn't youswallow it!"
"I couldn't!" replied Rhoda indignantly. "You don't suppose I wantedto!"
She turned toward the camp. Alchise was standing stolidly coveringthem with his rifle. Kut-le was walking coolly toward them, while thesquaws sat gaping.
"Well!" exclaimed Kut-le. "What can we do for you, Jim?"
The stranger, a rough tramp-like fellow in tattered overalls, wiped hisface, on which was a week's stubble.
"I'd always thought you was about white, Cartwell," he said, "but I seeyou're no better than the rest of them. What are you going to do withme?"
Kut-le eyed his unbidden guest speculatively.
"Well, we'll have something to eat first. I don't like to think on anempty stomach. Come over to my blanket and sit down, Jim."
Ignoring Rhoda, who was watching him closely, Kut-le seated himself onhis blanket beside Jim and offered him a cigarette, which was refused.
"I don't want no favors from you, Cartwell." His voice was surly.There was something more than his rough appearance that Rhoda dislikedabout the man but she didn't know just what it was. Kut-le's eyesnarrowed, but he lighted his own cigarette without replying. "You'reup to a rotten trick and you know it, Cartwell," went on Jim. "Youtake my advice and let me take the girl back to her friends and youmake tracks down into Mexico as fast as the Lord'll let you."
Kut-le shifted the Navajo that hung over his naked shoulders. He gavea short laugh that Rhoda had never heard from him before.
"Let her go with you, Jim Provenso! You know as well as I do that sheis safer with an Apache! Anything else?"
"Yes, this else!" Jim's voice rose angrily. "If ever we get a chanceat you, we'll hang you sky high, see? This may go with Injuns but notwith whites, you dirty pup!"
Suddenly Kut-le rose and, dropping his blanket, stood before the whiteman in his bronze perfection.
"Provenso, you aren't fit to look at a decent woman! Don't put on dogjust because you belong to the white race. You're disreputable, andyou know it. Don't speak to Miss Tuttle again; you are too rotten!"
The prospector had risen and stood glaring at Kut-le.
"I'll kill you for that yet, you dirty Injun!" he shouted.
"Shucks!" sniffed the Indian. "You haven't the nerve to injureanything but a woman!"
Jim's face went purple.
"For two bits I'd knock your block off, right now."
"There isn't a cent in the camp." Kut-le turned to Rhoda. "You get thepoint of the conversation, I hope?"
Rhoda's eyes were blazing. She had gotten the point, and yet--Jim wasa white man! Anything white was better than an Indian.
"I'd take my chances with Mr. Provenso," she said, joyfully consciousthat nothing could have hurt Kut-le more than this reply.
Kut-le's lips stiffened.
"Lunch is ready," he said.
"None of _your_ grub for mine," remarked Jim. "What are you going todo with me?"
"Alchise!" called Kut-le. "Eat something, then take this fellow outand lose him. Take the rest of the day to it. You know the next camp!"
Then he folded his arms across his chest and waited for Alchise tofinish his meal. Jim stood in sullen silence for a minute. Then heseated himself on a nearby rock.
"No, you don't," he said. "If you get me out of here, you'll have touse force."
Kut-le shrugged his shoulders.
"A gun at your back will move you!"
Rhoda was looking at the white man's face with a great longing. He wasrough and ugly, but he was of her own breed. Suddenly the longing forher own that she was beginning to control surged to her lips.
"I can't bear this!" she cried. "I'm going mad! I'm going mad!"
All the camp turned startled faces toward the girl, and Rhoda recoveredher self-possession. She ran to Kut-le and laid her hand on his arm,lifting a lovely, pleading face to his.
"O Kut-le! Kut-le!" in the tone that she had used to Cartwell. "Can'tyou see that it's no use? He is white, Kut-le! Let me go with him!Let me go back to my own people! O Kut-le, let me go! O let me go!"
Kut-le looked down at the hand on his arm. Rhoda was too excited tonotice that his whole body shook at this unwonted touch. His voice wascaressing but his face remained inscrutable.
"Dear girl," he answered, "he is not your kind! He might originallyhave been of your color, but now he's streaked with yellow. Let himgo. You are safer here with me!"
Rhoda turned from him impatiently.
"It's quite useless," she said to Jim; "no pleading or threat will movehim. But I do thank you--" her voice breaking a little. "Go back withAlchise and tell them to come for me quickly!"
Some responsive flash of sympathy came to Jim's bleared eyes.
Rhoda stood watching Alchise marshall him out of the camp. She moanedhelplessly:
"O my people, my own people!" and Kut-le eyed her with unfathomablegaze.
As soon as lunch was finished, camp was broken. All the rest of theday and until toward midnight they wound up a wretched trail thatcircled the mountain ranges, For hours, Kut-le did not speak to Rhoda.These days of Rhoda's contempt were very hard on him. The touch of herhand that morning, the old note in her voice, still thrilled him. Atmidnight as they watched the squaws unroll her blankets, he touched hershoulder.
"Dear," he said, in his rich voice, "it is in you to love me if only Iam patient. And--God, but it's worth all the starvation in themeantime! Won't you say good-night to me, Rhoda?"
Rhoda looked at the stalwart figure in the firelight. The young eyesso tragic in their youth, the beautiful mouth, sad in its firm curves,were strangely appealing. Just for an instant the horrors of the pastweeks vanished.
"Good-night!" said Rhoda. Then she rolled herself in her blankets andslept. By the next morning, however, the old repulsion had returnedand she made no response to Kut-le's overtures.
Day succeeded day now, until Rhoda lost all track of time. Endlesslythey crossed desert and mountain ridges. Endlessly they circledthrough dusky canon and sun-baked arroyo. Always Rhoda looked forwardto each new camping-place with excitement. Here, the rescuers mightstumble upon them! Always she started at each unexpected shadow alongthe trail. Always she thrilled at a wisp of smokelike cloud beyond thecanon edge. Always she felt a quiver of certainty at sudden break oftwig or fall of stone. But the days passed and gradually hope changedto desperation.
The difficulties of the camp life would have been unbearable to her hadnot her natural fortitude and her intense pride come to he
r rescue.The estimate of her that Kut-le had so mercilessly presented to her thefirst day of her abduction returned to her more and more clearly as thedays wore on. At first she thought of them only with scorn. Then asher loneliness increased and she was forced back upon herself she grewto wonder what in her had given the Indian such an opinion. There wassomething in the nakedness of the desert, something in its piercingausterity that forced her to truthfulness with herself. Little bylittle she found herself trying to acquire Kut-le's view of her.
Her liking for Molly grew. She spent long afternoons with the squaw,picking up desert lore.
"Do you like to work, Molly?" she asked the squaw one afternoon, as shesorted seed for Molly to bruise.
"What else to do?" asked Molly. "Sit with hands folded on stomach, so?No! Still hands make crazy head. Now you work with your hands you noso sorry in head, huh?"
Rhoda thought for a moment. There was a joy in the rude camp tasksthat she had assumed that she never had found in golf or automobiling.She nodded, then said wistfully:
"You think I'm no good at all, don't you, Molly?"
Molly shrugged her shoulders.
"Me not got papooses. You not got papooses. Molly and you no good!Molly is heap strong. What good is that? When she die she no hasgiven her strength to tribe, no done any good that will last. You areheap beautiful. What good is that? You no give your face to yourtribe. What good are you? Molly and you might as well die tomorrow.Work, have papooses, die. That all squaws are for. Great Spirit saysso. Squaw's own heart says so."
Rhoda sat silently looking at the squaw's squat figure, thetoil-scarred fingers, the good brown eyes out of which looked a woman'ssoul. Vaguely Rhoda caught a point of view that made her old idealsseem futile. She smoothed the Indian woman's hands.
"I sometimes think you are a bigger woman than I am, Molly," she saidhumbly.
"You are heap good to look at." Molly spoke wistfully. "Molly heaphomely. You think that makes any difference to the Great Spirit?"
Rhoda's eyes widened, a little. Did it make any difference? Afterall, what counted with the Great Spirit? She stared at the barrenranges that lifted mute peaks to the silent heavens. Always, alwaysthe questions and so vague the answers! Suddenly Rhoda knew that herbeauty had counted greatly with her all her life, had given her hersense of superiority to the rest of the world. Rhoda squirmed. Shehated this faculty of the Indians and the desert to make her seemsmall. She never had felt so with her own kind. Her own kind! Wouldshe never again know the deference, the gentleness, the lovingtenderness of her own people? Rhoda forgot Molly's wistful question.
"O Molly!" she cried. "I can't stand this! I want my own people! Iwant my own people!"
Molly's eyes filled with tears.
"No! No cry, little Sun-streak!" she pleaded, putting an arm aroundRhoda and holding her to her tenderly. "Any peoples that loves you isyour own peoples. Kut-le loves you. Molly loves you. We your peoplestoo!"
"No! No! Never!" sobbed Rhoda. "Molly, if you love me, take me backto my own kind! You shall never leave me, Molly! I do love you. Youare an Indian but somehow I have a feeling for you I never had for anyone else."
A sudden light of passionate adoration burned in Molly's eyes, a lightthat never was to leave them again when they gazed on Rhoda. But sheshook her head.
"You ask Molly to give up her peoples but you don't want to give upyours. You stay with Molly and Kut-le. Learn what desert say 'boutlife, 'bout people. When you _sabe_ what the desert say 'bout that you_sabe_ almost much as Great Spirit!"
"Molly, listen! When Kut-le and Alchise go off on one of their huntsand Cesca goes to sleep, you and I will steal off and hide until night,and you will show me how to get home again. O Molly, I'll be very goodto you if you will do this for me! Don't you see how foolish Kut-leis? I can never, never marry him! His ways are not my ways. My waysare not his! Always I will be white and he Indian. He will get overthis craze for me and want one of his own kind. Molly, listen to yourheart! It must tell you white to the white, Indian to the Indian.Dear, dear Molly, I want to go home!"
"No! No! Molly promise Kut-le to keep his white squaw for him.Injuns they always keep promises. And Molly _sabe_ some day when youlearn more you be heap glad old Molly keep you for Kut-le."
Rhoda turned away with a sigh at the note of finality in Molly's voice.Kut-le was climbing the trail toward the camp with a little pile ofprovisions. So far he had not failed to procure when needed some sortof rations--bacon, flour and coffee--though since her abduction Rhodahad seen no human habitation, Cesca was preparing supper. She waspounding a piece of meat on a flat stone, muttering to herself when apiece fell to the ground. Sometimes she wiped the sand from the fallenbit on her skirt. More often she flung it into the stew-pot unwiped.
"Cesca!" cried Rhoda, "do keep the burro out of the meat!" The burrothat Kut-le recently had acquired was sniffing at the meat.
Cesca gave no heed except to murmur, "Burro heap hungry!"
"I am going to begin to cook my own meals, Molly," said Rhoda. "I amstrong enough now, and Cesca is so dirty!"
Kut-le entered the camp in time to hear Rhoda's resolution.
"Will you let me eat with you?" he asked courteously. "I don't enjoydirt, myself!"
Rhoda stared at the young man. The calm effrontery of him, thecleverness of him, to ask a favor of her! She turned from him to thedistant ranges. She did not realize how much she turned from theroughness of the camp to the far desert views! Brooding, aloof, howbig the ranges were, how free, how calm! For the first time herkeeping Kut-le in Coventry seemed foolish to her. Of what avail washer silence, except to increase her own loneliness? Suddenly shesmiled grimly. The game was a good one. Perhaps she could play it aswell as the Indian.
"If you wish, you may," she said coldly.
Then she ignored the utter joy and astonishment in the young man's faceand set about roasting the rabbit that Molly had dressed. She tossedthe tortillas as Molly had taught her and baked them over the coals.She set forth the cans and baskets that formed the camp dinner-set andserved the primitive meal. Kut-le watched the preparations silently.When the rabbit was cooked the two sat down on either side of the flatrock that served as a table while the other three squatted aboutCesca's stew-pot near the fire.
It was the first time that Rhoda and Kut-le had eaten tete-a-tete.Hitherto Rhoda had taken her food off to a secluded corner and eaten italone. There was an intimacy in thus sitting together at the mealRhoda had prepared, that both felt.
"Are you glad you did this for me, Rhoda?" asked Kut-le.
"I didn't do it for you!" returned Rhoda. "I did it for my owncomfort!"
Something in her tone narrowed the Indian's eyes.
"Why should you speak as a queen to a poor devil of a subject? By whatparticular mark of superiority are you exempt from work? For a timeyou have had the excuse of illness, but you no longer have that. Ishould say that making tortillas was better than sitting in sloth whilethey are made for you! Do you never have any sense of shame that youare forever taking and never giving?"
Rhoda answered angrily.
"I'm not at all interested in your opinions."
But the young Apache went on.
"It makes me tired to hear the white women of your class talk of theirequality to men! You don't do a thing to make you equal. You live offsome one else. You don't even produce children. Huh! No wondernature kicks you out with all manner of illness. You are mere cloggersof the machinery. For heaven's sake, wake up, Rhoda! Except for yourlatent possibilities, you aren't in it with Molly!"
"You have some touchstone, I suppose," replied Rhoda contemptuously,"by which you are made competent to sit in judgment on mankind?"
"I sure have!" said Kut-le. "It is that you so live that you diespiritually richer than you were born. Life is a simple thing, afterall. To keep one's body and soul healthy, to bear children, to givemore than we take. And I believ
e that in the end it will seem to havebeen worth while."
Rhoda made no answer. Kut-le ate on in silence for a time, then hesaid wistfully:
"Don't you enjoy this meal with me, just a little?"
Rhoda glanced from Kut-le's naked body to her own torn clothing, thenat the crude meal.
"I don't enjoy it, no," she answered quietly.
Something in the quiet sincerity of the voice caused Kut-le to riseabruptly and order the Indians to break camp. But on the trail thatnight he rode close beside her whenever the way permitted and talked toher of the beauty of the desert. At last, lashed to desperation by herindifference, he cried:
"Can't you see that your silence leads to nothing--that it maddens me!"
"That is what I want it to do," returned Rhoda calmly. "I shall be soglad if I can make you suffer a touch of what I am enduring!"
Kut-le did not reply for a moment, then he began slowly:
"You imagine that I am not suffering? Try to put yourself in my placefor a moment! Can't you see how I love you? Can't you see that mystealing was the only thing that I could do, loving you so? Wouldn'tyou have done the same in my place? If I had been a white man Iwouldn't have been driven to this. I would have had an equal chancewith DeWitt and could have won easily. But I had all the prejudiceagainst my alien race to fight. There was but one thing to do: to takeyou to the naked desert where you would be forced to see life as I seeit, where you would be forced to see me, the man, far from any falsestandards of civilization."
Rhoda would have replied but Kut-le gave her no chance.
"I know what white conventions demand of me. But, I tell you, my loveis above them. I, not suffer! Rhoda! To see you in pain! To seeyour loathing of me! To have you helpless in my arms and yet to keepyou safe! Rhoda! Rhoda! Do you believe I do not suffer?"
Anger died out of Rhoda. She saw tragedy in the situation, tragedythat was not hers. She saw herself and Kut-le racially, notindividually. She saw Kut-le suffering all the helpless grief of racealienation, saw him the victim of passions as great as the desires ofthe alien races for the white always must be. Rhoda forgot herself.She laid a slender hand on Kut-le's.
"I am sorry," she said softly. "I think I begin to understand. But,Kut-le, it can never, never be! You are fighting a battle that waslost when the white and Indian races were created. It can never, neverbe, Kut-le."
The strong brown hand had closed over the small white one instantly.
"It must be!" he said hoarsely. "I put my whole life on it! It mustbe!"
Rhoda pulled her hand away gently.
"It never, never can be!"
"It shall be! Love like this comes but seldom to a human. It is themost potent thing in the world. It shall--"
"Kut-le!" Alchise rode forward, pointing to the right.
Rhoda followed his look. It was nearly dawn. At the right was thesheer wall of a mesa as smooth and impregnable to her eyes as a wall ofglass. Moving toward them, silent as ghosts in the veil-like dawn, andcutting them from the mesa, was a group of horsemen.