Zane Grey (6 page)

"Jack, no man knows how old this cup is, or anything about it. We named
the spring after it—Silver Cup. The strange thing is that the cup has
never been lost nor stolen. But—could any desert man, or outlaw, or
Indian, take it away, after drinking here?"

The cup was nicked and battered, bright on the sides, moss-green on the
bottom. When Hare drank from it he understood.

That evening there was rude merriment around the campfire. Snap Naab
buzzed on his jews'-harp and sang. He stirred some of the younger braves
to dancing, and they stamped and swung their arms, singing, "hoya-heeya-
howya," as they moved in and out of the firelight.

Several of the braves showed great interest in Snap's jews'-harp and
repeatedly asked him for it. Finally the Mormon grudgingly lent it to a
curious Indian, who in trying to play it went through such awkward
motions and made such queer sounds that his companions set upon him and
fought for possession of the instrument. Then Snap, becoming solicitous
for its welfare, jumped into the fray. They tussled for it amid the
clamor of a delighted circle. Snap, passing from jest to earnest, grew
so strenuous in his efforts to regain the harp that he tossed the Navajos
about like shuttle-cocks. He got the harp and, concealing it, sought to
break away. But the braves laid hold upon him, threw him to the ground,
and calmly sat astride him while they went through his pockets. August
Naab roared his merriment and Hare laughed till he cried. The incident
was as surprising to him as it was amusing. These serious Mormons and
silent Navajos were capable of mirth.

Hare would have stayed up as late as any of them, but August's saying to
him, "Get to bed: to-morrow will be bad!" sent him off to his blankets,
where he was soon fast asleep. Morning found him well, hungry, eager to
know what the day would bring.

"Wait," said August, soberly.

They rode out of the gray pocket in the ridge and began to climb. Hare
had not noticed the rise till they were started, and then, as the horses
climbed steadily he grew impatient at the monotonous ascent. There was
nothing to see; frequently it seemed that they were soon to reach the
summit, but still it rose above them. Hare went back to his comfortable
place on the sacks.

"Now, Jack," said August.

Hare gasped. He saw a red world. His eyes seemed bathed in blood. Red
scaly ground, bare of vegetation, sloped down, down, far down to a vast
irregular rent in the earth, which zigzagged through the plain beneath.
To the right it bent its crooked way under the brow of a black-timbered
plateau; to the left it straightened its angles to find a V-shaped vent
in the wall, now uplifted to a mountain range. Beyond this earth-riven
line lay something vast and illimitable, a far-reaching vision of white
wastes, of purple plains, of low mesas lost in distance. It was the
shimmering dust-veiled desert.

"Here we come to the real thing," explained Naab. "This is Windy Slope;
that black line is the Grand Canyon of Arizona; on the other side is the
Painted Desert where the Navajos live; Coconina Mountain shows his flat
head there to the right, and the wall on our left rises to the Vermillion
Cliffs. Now, look while you can, for presently you'll not be able to
see."

"Why?"

"Wind, sand, dust, gravel, pebbles—watch out for your eyes!"

Naab had not ceased speaking when Hare saw that the train of Indians
trailing down the slope was enveloped in red clouds. Then the white
wagons disappeared. Soon he was struck in the back by a gust which
justified Naab's warning. It swept by; the air grew clear again; once
more he could see. But presently a puff, taking him unawares, filled his
eyes with dust difficult of removal. Whereupon he turned his back to the
wind.

The afternoon grew apace; the sun glistened on the white patches of
Coconina Mountain; it set; and the wind died.

"Five miles of red sand," said Naab. "Here's what kills the horses.
Getup."

There was no trail. All before was red sand, hollows, slopes, levels,
dunes, in which the horses sank above their fetlocks. The wheels
ploughed deep, and little red streams trailed down from the tires. Naab
trudged on foot with the reins in his hands. Hare essayed to walk also,
soon tired, and floundered behind till Naab ordered him to ride again.
Twilight came with the horses still toiling.

"There! thankful I am when we get off that strip! But, Jack, that
trailless waste prevents a night raid on my home. Even the Navajos shun
it after dark. We'll be home soon. There's my sign. See? Night or
day we call it the Blue Star."

High in the black cliff a star-shaped, wind-worn hole let the blue sky
through.

There was cheer in Naab's "Getup," now, and the horses quickened with it.
Their iron-shod hoofs struck fire from the rosy road. "Easy, easy—
soho!" cried Naab to his steeds. In the pitchy blackness under the
shelving cliff they picked their way cautiously, and turned a corner.
Lights twinkled in Hare's sight, a fresh breeze, coming from water,
dampened his cheek, and a hollow rumble, a long roll as of distant
thunder, filled his ears.

"What's that?" he asked.

"That, my lad, is what I always love to hear. It means I'm home. It's
the roar of the Colorado as she takes her first plunge into the Canyon."

AUGUST NAAB'S oasis was an oval valley, level as a floor, green with leaf
and white with blossom, enclosed by a circle of colossal cliffs of vivid
vermilion hue. At its western curve the Colorado River split the red
walls from north to south. When the wind was west a sullen roar, remote
as of some far-off driving mill, filled the valley; when it was east a
dreamy hollow hum, a somnolent song, murmured through the cottonwoods;
when no wind stirred, silence reigned, a silence not of serene plain or
mountain fastness, but shut in, compressed, strange, and breathless.
Safe from the storms of the elements as well as of the world was this
Garden of Eschtah.

Naab had put Hare to bed on the unroofed porch of a log house, but routed
him out early, and when Hare lifted the blankets a shower of
cotton-blossoms drifted away like snow. A grove of gray-barked trees
spread green canopy overhead, and through the intricate web shone crimson
walls, soaring with resistless onsweep up and up to shut out all but a
blue lake of sky.

"I want you to see the Navajos cross the river," said Naab.

Hare accompanied him out through the grove to a road that flanked the
first rise of the red wall; they followed this for half a mile, and
turning a corner came into an unobstructed view. A roar of rushing
waters had prepared Hare, but the river that he saw appalled him. It was
red and swift; it slid onward like an enormous slippery snake; its
constricted head raised a crest of leaping waves, and disappeared in a
dark chasm, whence came a bellow and boom.

"That opening where she jumps off is the head of the Grand Canyon," said
Naab. "It's five hundred feet deep there, and thirty miles below it's
five thousand. Oh, once in, she tears in a hurry! Come, we turn up the
bank here."

Hare could find no speech, and he felt immeasurably small. All that he
had seen in reaching this isolated spot was dwarfed in comparison. This
"Crossing of the Fathers," as Naab called it, was the gateway of the
desert. This roar of turbulent waters was the sinister monotone of the
mighty desert symphony of great depths, great heights, great reaches.

On a sandy strip of bank the Navajos had halted. This was as far as they
could go, for above the wall jutted out into the river. From here the
head of the Canyon was not visible, and the roar of the rapids was
accordingly lessened in volume. But even in this smooth water the river
spoke a warning.

"The Navajos go in here and swim their mustangs across to that sand bar,"
explained Naab. "The current helps when she's high, and there's a
three-foot raise on now."

"I can't believe it possible. What danger they must run—those little
mustangs!" exclaimed Hare.

"Danger? Yes, I suppose so," replied Naab, as if it were a new idea.
"My lad, the Mormons crossed here by the hundreds. Many were drowned.
This trail and crossing were unknown except to Indians before the Mormon
exodus."

The mustangs had to be driven into the water. Scarbreast led, and his
mustang, after many kicks and reluctant steps, went over his depth,
wetting the stalwart chief to the waist. Bare-legged Indians waded in
and urged their pack-ponies. Shouts, shrill cries, blows mingled with
snorts and splashes.

Dave and George Naab in flat boats rowed slowly on the down-stream side
of the Indians. Presently all the mustangs and ponies were in, the
procession widening out in a triangle from Scarbreast, the leader. The
pack-ponies appeared to swim better than the mounted mustangs, or else
the packs of deer-pelts made them more buoyant. When one-third way
across the head of the swimming train met the current, and the line of
progress broke. Mustang after mustang swept down with a rapidity which
showed the power of the current. Yet they swam steadily with flanks
shining, tails sometimes afloat, sometimes under, noses up, and riders
holding weapons aloft. But the pack-ponies labored when the current
struck them, and whirling about, they held back the Indians who were
leading them, and blocked those behind. The orderly procession of the
start became a broken line, and then a rout. Here and there a Navajo
slipped into the water and swam, leading his mustang; others pulled on
pack-ponies and beat their mounts; strong-swimming mustangs forged ahead;
weak ones hung back, and all obeyed the downward will of the current.

While Hare feared for the lives of some of the Navajos, and pitied the
laden ponies, he could not but revel in the scene, in its vivid action
and varying color, in the cries and shrill whoops of the Indians, and the
snorts of the frightened mustangs, in Naab's hoarse yells to his sons,
and the ever-present menacing roar from around the bend. The wildness of
it all, the necessity of peril and calm acceptance of it, stirred within
Hare the call, the awakening, the spirit of the desert.

August Naab's stentorian voice rolled out over the river. "Ho! Dave—the
yellow pinto—pull him loose—George, back this way—there's a pack
slipping—down now, downstream, turn that straggler in—Dave, in that
tangle—quick! There's a boy drowning—his foot's caught—he's been
kicked— Hurry! Hurry!— pull him in the boat— There's a pony under—
Too late, George, let that one go—let him go, I tell you!"

So the crossing of the Navajos proceeded, never an instant free from
danger in that churning current. The mustangs and ponies floundered
somewhat on the sand-bar and then parted the willows and appeared on a
trail skirting the red wall. Dave Naab moored his boat on that side of
the river, and returned with George.

"We'll look over my farm," said August, as they retraced their steps. He
led Hare through fields of alfalfa, in all stages of growth, explaining
that it yielded six crops a year. Into one ten-acre lot pigs and cows
had been turned to feed at will. Everywhere the ground was soggy; little
streams of water trickled down ditches. Next to the fields was an
orchard, where cherries were ripe, apricots already large, plum-trees
shedding their blossoms, and apple-trees just opening into bloom. Naab
explained that the products of his oasis were abnormal; the ground was
exceedingly rich and could be kept always wet; the reflection of the sun
from the walls robbed even winter of any rigor, and the spring, summer,
and autumn were tropical. He pointed to grape-vines as large as a man's
thigh and told of bunches of grapes four feet long; he showed sprouting
plants on which watermelons and pumpkins would grow so large that one man
could not lift them; he told of one pumpkin that held a record of taking
two men to roll it.

"I can raise any kind of fruit in such abundance that it can't be used.
My garden is prodigal. But we get little benefit, except for our own
use, for we cannot transport things across the desert."

The water which was the prime factor in all this richness came from a
small stream which Naab, by making a dam and tunnelling a corner of
cliff, had diverted from its natural course into his oasis.

Between the fence and the red wall there was a wide bare plain which
stretched to the house. At its farthest end was a green enclosure, which
Hare recognized as the cemetery mentioned by Snap. Hare counted thirty
graves, a few with crude monuments of stone, the others marked by wooden
head-pieces.

"I've the reputation of doctoring the women, and letting the men die,"
said Naab, with a smile. "I hardly think it's fair. But the fact is no
women are buried here. Some graves are of men I fished out of the river;
others of those who drifted here, and who were killed or died keeping
their secrets. I've numbered those unknown graves and have kept a
description of the men, so, if the chance ever comes, I may tell some one
where a father or brother lies buried. Five sons of mine, not one of
whom died a natural death, found graves here—God rest them! Here's the
grave of Mescal's father, a Spaniard. He was an adventurer. I helped
him over in Nevada when he was ill; he came here with me, got well, and
lived nine years, and he died without speaking one word of himself or
telling his name."

"What strange ends men come to!" mused Hare. Well, a grave was a grave,
wherever it lay. He wondered if he would come to rest in that quiet
nook, with its steady light, its simple dignity of bare plain graves
fitting the brevity of life, the littleness of man.

"We break wild mustangs along this stretch," said Naab, drawing Hare
away. "It's a fine run. Wait till you see Mescal on Black Bolly tearing
up the dust! She's a Navajo for riding."