Taggart (1959) (7 page)

Rising, he knocked out his pipe and gathered together a sack of the loose ore, al
l
of it larded with gold. When the sack was filled with as much as he could carry
,
he put it on his shoulder and started down the mountain by an easier route his eye
s
picked out on the slope.

The padres had used an arrastra to break up the rock and get out the gold, but h
e
dared take no such risk. The rumble of an arrastra could be heard for some distance
,
and he had no desire to attract attention. The blows of a hammer were more easil
y
muffled, although the process was slower.

Returning to the canyon of the chapel, Adam considered his plans. The mining tow
n
of Globe was but a short distance to the south but he had never visited the tow
n
and did not plan to. His visit would arouse discussion and might lead someone t
o
follow him back out of curiosity. They had brought with them a good supply of beans
,
rice, flour, and dried fruit, besides other staples, and this, augmented by wha
t
game he could trap and the edible plants Consuelo knew so well, would have to suffice.

The opening of the small canyon, partly concealed by desert growth, presented a
n
uninteresting aspect that promised nothing to a rider passing by. Any desert travele
r
had passed hundreds of such arroyos or canyons with scarcely a passing glance. I
t
was in a small cove at the upper end of the canyon that they pastured their horse
s
and mules.

Consuelo stepped from the door when Miriam and Adam came down from the moutain. Sh
e
held a rifle in her hand. "Somebody comes?" she asked.

"Apaches," Miriam said. "And a white man."

Consuelo laughed. "It is Tom Sanifer. He comes for me, just like he said."

"Then he'd better watch his hair," Adam replied dryly. "He's in a fair way to los
e
it."

"He will come. You see. Tom Sanifer loves me."

Adam placed his rifle beside the door and dipped a gour
d
dipper into the wooden bucket beside the door. He looked across it at his wife. "An
d
you'd go?"

She returned his look mockingly. "Who knows? Maybe you keel him. Maybe he keel you
,
and then I must go with him." "I think you'll stay," Adam said quietly.

"Here?" Her temper flared. "You think I like this place? You think this is good plac
e
for woman? Just give me one chance and I go ... queeck!"

She took her rifle and walked to the mouth of the canyon to keep watch while Miria
m
and Adam ate. When Adam had finished he lighted his pipe and, taking his rifle, wen
t
out to relieve Consuelo.

She came back, and began the work of cleaning up while Miriam went on with her meal.

As she ate, she read from one of their carefully hoarded books.

Consuelo stared at her. "Always you read . . . you no want a man, you want a book.

You want even to sleep with a book!" "It might be better than some men," Miriam replie
d
dryly. "And you don't have to wash socks for a book."

When she had finished eating she walked to the end of the canyon. Adam stepped dow
n
from the rocks. "I believe they've gone on," he said, "but we can't be sure."

She went up among the rocks and found her place-a place that allowed her to hea
r
anyone approaching, yet her own shadow was lost against the blacker shadow of th
e
rocks.

Night had come while she ate. Darkness lay now like velvet upon the land, and overhea
d
the sky was midnight blue and scattered with stars, with only an occasional cloud.

She knew the desert night, knew the amazing clarity of it, and all the little sound
s
the desert had that belonged to it, and she loved these hours beneath the stars.

They rarely stood watch, and that only when someone had been seen in the vicinity
,
and on those occasions they often stood guard most of the night. On one occasio
n
they stood watch for three days and nights.

When Stark went back and entered the house, Consuel
o
turned to face him. "When we go, Adam? How much longer do we 'ave to stay here?"

"Two months ... a little less or a little more."

"You know what I think? I think we never go. I think we die here in this canyon.

I think so."

"The gold is richer now."

She ignored the comment. "You know what Apache do to man they catch? I have see
n
it. They tie him to a cactus with strips of green rawhide, and when it dries it tighten
s
and pulls the thorns into a man. He dies ... after a long time and much pain. "

"You saw that?"

"I saw ... and what they do to a woman I have seen. Before I was six, I have see
n
it."

"I never saw anything like that. Hope I never do." Consuelo put a glass on a shelf.

"Why Miriam no marry? She afraid?"

"Miriam?" Adam chuckled. "I don't think the devil himself could frighten Miriam.

No, she just knows the kind of man she wants and she isn't going to settle for less
,
no matter how long she has to wait."

"I think she is fool. "

"We're all fools after a fashion. Look at me ... I gave up a law practice becaus
e
I wanted a ranch of my own, I wanted to be in the cattle business. So I studied geolog
y
and came west to find the gold to buy the ranch ... like a lot of other dreamers."

"I think you fool." She paused. "Adam, we are no good for each other. Once I thin
k
I love you, but I was wrong." "Maybe you expect too much of me, Connie. Or mayb
e
you're looking for the wrong things in a marriage."

She stared gloomily from the window. "Maybe I am bad. Maybe I am meant for bad girl.

You are good man but you are frighten, Adam. You are frighten of Tom Sanifer."

There was no anger in Adam. "He must have impressed you, Connie. That's why I worr
y
about you, because you're impressed by the wrong things."

He leaned back in his chair. "Tom Sanifer was a fine-looking man, but he was an empt
y
man. I'm afraid you mistake the appearance of strength for strength itself."

"The first chance I get, I leave you, Adam. I am finish. You don't say I don't tel
l
you. And you have no right to speak of Tom Sanifer. He told you he would come bac
k
for me, and he told you he would kill you."

"It is a small man who talks big before women. If you must leave me, let it be fo
r
a really good man, not an empty bucket like Tom Sanifer."

Miriam stood in the desert silence, listening for sounds she hoped not to hear, sound
s
long practice had taught her to distinguish from the usual night sounds of the desert.

She was very still among the rocks, absorbing the cool beauty of the desert night.

At the canyon's mouth the sky's breadth was enormous, vastly greater than in th
e
narrow canyon. In the north the Big Dipper hung in the sky among its legion of accompanyin
g
stars. The dark outline of Rockinstraw Mountain shouldered against the sky, par
t
of its top curiously flattened, looking like a turret, or perhaps a pulpit.

There is no other night that has the stillness and the beauty of the desert nigh
t
... the sea when it is quiet comes closest to that stillness that is not stillness
,
but the sea is always alive. The Arctic, too, has its own beauty, but the deser
t
is still with a curious alert stillness, a sense of listening, of poised awareness.

Standing alone in the desert at night one feels that all about one there is thi
s
listening, an alertness for movement, for life, for change.

The weirdly shaped figures of stone, eroded by years, the serrated ridges, the whit
e
stillness of the playas and the challenging fingers of the sahuarro . . . these ar
e
there, or the clustered canes of the ocotillo. The desert is always, by day or night
,
but especially by night, a place of mystery.

Standing against the rocks, Miriam looked out over the de
s
ert, and against the sky overhead she saw the swoop of a bat. After minutes she hear
d
a rush of wings that might have been an owl. Sand trickled ... something rustle
d
in the sand nearby ... all else was quiet.

And then she heard another sound, a faint stir of movement not far Off, a sound tha
t
was not of the night, and not of the desert. She knew the sound because she had hear
d
it many times before when she herself rode in the desert ... it was the brush o
f
cedar against a saddle . . . a rustle of sound she recognized at once.

The mysterious rider came up out of the lower draw and was for a moment or two outline
d
sharply against the night sky, and then the horse walked into the open not far fro
m
her.

Poised . . . half-frightened, she waited, fearing to move because he might hear th
e
slightest sound, but aware of something in the approaching figure that warned he
r
of an equal awareness in him.

The rider came toward her and then turned slightly to the right and stopped, no
t
fifty feet away from her. From where she stood he was partially in silhouette,
a
big, fine figure of a man on a splendidly built horse.

She knew she was invisible to him, for more than once she had stood where he stoo
d
and had been unable to see Adam standing where she now stood. Yet the rider had stopped.

Did he guess her presence? How could he? He had seemed to be searching for something
,
coming on slowly as he had, and there was no trail he could be following here unles
s
it was some intangible trail, some sense of things in the night that drew him on.

It could not have been smoke from the evening fire, for that would be out now ...
u
nless some lingering aroma of it still hung in the air. The canyon had a way o
f
drawing smoke back up along its length and up the flank of the mountain, and non
e
of them had ever detected smoke in this place.

Yet the rider made no move to ride on. She heard the faintest rustle of paper an
d
knew he was rolling a smoke. Sh
e
heard a match strike, and caught only a brief glimpse of a strongly cu
t
face in the brief flare of the match cupped in his hands. He drew deep on the cigarett
e
and she saw the end glow like a firefly in the night.

Who was he? What was he? Why had he stopped at this place?

He was without doubt the rider they had seen earlier when he crossed the Salt Rive
r
north of them, but where had he been in the meantime, and why was he here?

She dared not move, for she knew he would hear the slightest sound. Nor did she wis
h
to leave, for there was some intangible awareness of each other that held her still
,
breathless and waiting in the night.

She saw him remove his hat and run his fingers through his hair. His horse stampe
d
impatiently, eager to be moving, and when he shifted his weight in the saddle, th
e
leather creaked. Suddenly she felt a wild desire to speak out, to question him, t
o
find who he was and where he was going, but most of all, why he had stopped here.

Yet she was hesitant to speak or to move for fear that the slightest sound or movemen
t
would shatter the moment's spell and leave her with nothing. As long as they bot
h
were silent, the intangible communion between them existed, and he remained for he
r
the stuff of dreams.