I Married a Ranger Part 8

The first few miles led through forests of pinon and pine. Gradually rising, we reached the desert, where only cactus, sagebrush, and yucca grew. As far as we could see the still, gray desert lay brooding under the sun's white glare. Surely no living thing could exist in that alkali waste. But look! An ashen-colored lizard darts across the trail, a sage rabbit darts behind a yucca bush, and far overhead a tireless buzzard floats in circles. Is he keeping a death watch on the grizzled old "Desert Rat" we pa.s.s a little later? His face burned and seamed with the desert's heat and storms, the old prospector cheerfully waved at us, as he shared his beans and sour dough with a diminutive burro, which bore his master's pack during the long search through the trackless desert for the elusive gold. For us it would be suicide to leave the blazed trail. The chances are that the circling buzzard and hungry coyotes will be the only mourners present at his funeral.

Now and then we pa.s.sed a twisted, warped old juniper that was doubtless digging for a foothold while Christ walked on earth. The Chief said these old junipers vie with the Sequoias in age. Nothing else broke the monotony of the heat and sand, until we came to the first water hole.

It was dry now, for the summer rains were long overdue, and bogged firmly in the red adobe mud was a gaunt long-horned cow. The Chief was too tender-hearted to shoot her and drive on, as he knew he should.

Instead he stopped the car and got out to see if he could possibly "extract" her. Failing to frighten her into pulling herself out, he goaded her into a frenzy by throwing sharp stinging rocks at her. One landed on her tender flank and she tossed her horns and struggled. The Chief stooped, with his back to her, for another rock, just as she pulled out.

"Look out. She's coming for you!" I yelled.

Straight at her rescuer she charged with an angry rumble. Round and round a stunted pinon they raced, hot and angry. I was too helpless with mirth to be of any aid, and the Chief's gun was in the car. Still, an angry range cow on the prod is no joke, and it began to look serious. At last the impromptu marathon ended by the Chief making an extra sprint and rolling into the Ford just as her sharp horns raked him fore and aft.

"Well!" he exploded, and glared at me while I wiped the tears out of my eyes.

"Shall we drive on?" I inquired meekly. We drove on.

A few miles along the way a piteous bawling reached us. Since even Arizona cattle must drink sometimes, a cow had hidden her baby while she went to a distant water hole. Three coyotes had nosed him out and were preparing to fill up on unwilling veal. He bobbed about on his unsteady little legs and protested earnestly. The sneaking beasts scattered at our approach, and we drove on thinking the calf would be all right.

Looking back, however, we saw that the coyotes had returned and pulled him down. This time the Chief's forty-five ended the career of one, and the other two shifted into high, getting out of range without delay. The trembling calf was loaded into the machine and we dropped him when the main herd was reached. Here he would be safe from attack, but I have often wondered if the mother found her baby again. At the next water hole a lean lynx circled warily around with his eye fixed hungrily on some wild ducks swimming too far from sh.o.r.e for him to reach. It seemed that the sinister desert mothered cruel breeds.

We had reached the "Indian Pasture" now, where the Indians kept their ponies. A score of Supai bucks were digging a shallow ditch. Upon being questioned they said the ditch was a mile long and would carry water to the big dam in their pasture when the rains fell. They were finishing the ditch just in time, for the first of the season's storms was closing down upon us. There was an ominous stillness, then the black cloud was rent with tongues of flame. And the rains descended--more than descended. They beat and dashed and poured until it seemed that the very floodgates of heaven had opened over our unfortunate heads. It was impossible to stay in the glue-and-gumbo road, so we took to the open prairie. Since this part of the country is well ventilated with prairie-dog holes, we had anything but smooth sailing.

"Stop," I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the roar of the storm.

"No time to stop now," was the answer.

We pulled under a sheltering juniper and slowed up.

"What did you want to stop there for? Don't you know we have to keep on moving if we reach a shelter tonight?" inquired the pilot of our ship.

He had evidently been brooding over my unseemly mirth at the mad cow episode.

"Oh, all right," I agreed, "but the bedding-roll bounced out and I thought you might want to pick it up." The fugitive bedding recovered, we resumed our journey.

The storm ended as suddenly as everything else happens in that topsy-turvy land and in the eastern sky hung a double quivering rainbow.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It _was_ double! The Chief explained that this was due to a mirage, but I placed it to the credit of alt.i.tude, like all other Arizona wonders.

At Hilltop we found Indian guides with trail ponies to take us the rest of the way. They had been waiting two days for us, they said. Strolling to the Canyon's brink I encountered a fearful odor. "What in the world is that?" I asked Wattahomigie (which by the way means "Good Watchful Indian"). "Him pony," was the stolid reply. "But--?" "Buck and fall over trail," explained my Indian brave. I fled to the Chief for comfort and change of air. He investigated and found that when Wattahomigie had brought the ponies up from the village one had become unruly and pitched over the Rim, landing squarely across the trail a hundred feet below. It was the only trail, but it never occurred to the n.o.ble Red Man to remove the dead horse. No indeed! If it proved impossible to get around the obstacle, why, stay off the trail until Providence cleared the way. In other words let Nature take its course. The Chief procured a few pounds of TNT from the Government warehouse located there, and with the aid of that soon cleared the trail.

"That good way to clear trail," approved Wattahomigie. "No pull, no dig, no nothin'." I hoped no TNT would be left roaming at large for promiscuous experiments by Wattahomigie while we were natives of his village.

We camped there at Hilltop that night, and after a supper of fried sage-rabbit, corn cakes, and coffee, I rolled into the blankets and fell asleep without worrying about the morrow. Something awakened me. I certainly _had_ heard something. Inch by inch I silently lifted myself from the blankets and peered into the shadows. Standing there like a graven image was a beautiful doe with twin fawns playing around her.

Curiosity had conquered caution and she was investigating our camp. Just then a coyote's wild cry sounded from the distance. She lifted her sensitive nose and sniffed the air, then wheeled and glided into the deep shadows. Other coyote voices swelled the chorus. Hundreds it seemed were howling and shrieking like mad, when I dropped to sleep to dream I was listening to grand opera at the Metropolitan.

Morning dawned clear and crisp. "Will it rain today?" I asked an Indian.

"No rain; three sleeps, then rain," he told me; and this proved correct.

Wattahomigie had provided a long-legged race horse for me to ride. "Will he carry her all right?" the Chief asked him. Wattahomigie looked me over carefully and one could almost see him comparing me mentally with a vision of his fat squaw, Dottie. His white teeth flashed a smile: "Sure, my squaw him all time ride that pony." That settled the matter. "Him squaw" weighs a good two hundred pounds and is so enveloped in voluminous skirts that the poor horse must feel completely submerged.

This trail does not gradually grow steeper--it starts that way. I had been told that all other trails we had traveled were boulevards compared to this one, and it was well that I had been warned beforehand. My place was near the center of the caravan, and I was divided between the fear that I should slide down on top of the unwary Indian riding ahead and the one that the Chief's horse directly behind would b.u.mp me off the trail. It was a cheerful situation. The Canyon walls closed in upon us, and the trail grew worse, if that could be possible. The firm rock gave way to shale that slipped and slid under the feet of the horses. It was so narrow that one slip of a hoof would send the horse crashing on the rocks hundreds of feet beneath. Still this is the only path it has been possible to make down to the Indian retreat. It was carved out by a past generation when they crept down into the valley far below to make their last futile stand.

We rounded a point and came out near a sparkling pool of clear, inviting water fed by a stream bursting out of what appeared to be solid rock. I knelt to drink, but was jerked to my feet sharply by a watchful Indian.

The water is unfit to drink on account of the a.r.s.enic it contains. I noticed that none of the hot, tired horses even dipped their dusty noses into the pool. Safely away from this unhealthy spot we came into Rattlesnake Canyon, so named for obvious reasons, where the riding was much easier. Twelve miles onward and two thousand feet farther down found us among bubbling springs and magnificent cotton woods. This is where the Thousand Springs come into the sunlight after their rushing journey through many miles of underground caverns. New springs broke out from the roots of the trees and along the banks of the stream until it was a rushing little river.

We were evidently expected, for when we reached the village the natives all turned out to see and be seen: brown children as innocent of clothing as when they first saw the light; fat, greasy squaws with babies on their backs; old men and women--all stared and gibbered at us.

"Big Jim" and "Captain Burros" headed what seemed to be the committee of welcome. Big Jim was clad in a full-dress suit and silk hat donated to him by Albert, King of the Belgians, and with that monarch's medal of honor pinned to his front, Jim was, speaking conservatively, a startling vision. Captain Burros wore the white shirt of ceremony which he dons only for special occasions, with none of the whiteness dimmed by being tucked into his trousers.

Big Jim welcomed us gravely, asking the Chief: "Did you bring my _fermit_?" This permit, a paper granting Big Jim a camping location on Park grounds, having been duly delivered, Jim invited us to share his hewa, but after one look at the surroundings we voted unanimously to camp farther up the stream among the cottonwoods. We chose a level spot near the ruins of an old hewa.

While supper was being prepared an aged squaw tottered into camp and sat down. She wailed and beat her breast and finally was persuaded to tell her troubles. It seemed that she and her husband had lived in this hewa until his death a year or two before. Then the hewa was thrown open to the sky and abandoned, as is their custom. She disliked to mention his name because he might hear it in the spirit world and come back to see what was being said about him.

"Don't you want him to come back?" I asked idly, thinking to tease her.

Her look of utter terror was answer enough and shamed me for my thoughtlessness. These Indians have a most exaggerated fear of death.

When one dies he and his personal belongings are taken to a wild spot and there either cremated or covered with stones. No white man has ever been permitted to enter this place of the dead. Any hour of the day or night that a white man approaches, an Indian rises apparently from out of the earth and silently waves him away. Until a few years ago the best horse of the dead Indian was strangled and sent into the Happy Hunting Ground with its owner, but with the pa.s.sing of the older generation this custom has been abandoned.

From a powerful and prosperous tribe of thousands this nation has dwindled down to less than two hundred wretched weaklings. Driven to this canyon fastness from their former dwelling-place by more warlike tribes, they have no coherent account of their wanderings or their ancestors. About all they can tell is that they once lived in cliff dwellings; that other Indians drove them away; and that then Spaniards and grasping whites pushed them nearer and nearer the Canyon until they descended into it, seeking refuge. They are held in low esteem by all other Indian tribes and never marry outside of their own people.

Ridiculous and unreasonable tales about their savage customs have kept timid explorers at a safe distance, and thus little has been learned about them. This last fragment will pa.s.s away within a few years and all trace will be lost. Tuberculosis claims a dozen yearly; the children are weaklings from diseased parents and the result of intermarriage, so they fall victims of comparatively harmless ailments. A few years ago an epidemic of measles swept through the tribe. Poor ignorant creatures, trying to cool the burning fever they spent hours bathing in the cold waters of the stream flowing through the village. More than eighty died in one week from the effects, and others that lived through it are invalids. This was almost too much for their superst.i.tious minds. They were for fleeing from that accursed place, but the old men said: "Where can we go? We have no other place but this. Let us wait here for death."

So they spent hours in dancing and ceremonies to appease the angry G.o.ds.

They have no favoring G.o.ds, only evil spirits which they must outwit or bribe with dances. The Peach Dance which we had gone to see was for the purpose of celebrating good crops of melons, corn, and other products and to implore the mercy of harmful powers during the winter months.

After the sun was out of sight we followed Wattahomigie to the scene of the dance. There was no other light than that of the brush fires. A huge circle of howling, chanting Indians had formed a wide ring in which a dozen or more bucks and as many squaws were gathered. There seemed to be no prearranged procedure. When one of the dancers would feel so inclined, he, or she, would start a wild screeching and leaping about.

This would continue until the singer ran out of breath. Occasionally a squaw would grow so enthused she would be quite overcome with emotion and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. No notice would be taken except to grab her by the hair and drag her to the edge of the circle.

The dance lasted until the gray dawn and was the most ghastly and weird experience I ever went through. All I can compare it to is the nightmare I used to have after too much mince pie.

Safely back at our camp with a brisk fire crackling under a pot of coffee, I began to throw off the shivering sensation, and by the time the coffee pot was empty I was ready for new adventures. Word had gone forth that I would buy all the baskets the squaws brought to me. I hoped in this way to get some first-hand information about the feminine side of affairs. Squaws and baskets and information poured in. Baskets of all sizes and shapes were brought, some good, some bad, but I bought them all. If I hesitated a moment over one the owner put the price down to a few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time has no value to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in the world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins.

These they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted blankets. How they do love to gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws--anything and everything changes hands under the spell of the magic cards. Even the squaws and children gamble for beads and bright-colored calico. When a few pieces of real money are at stake, all is wild excitement. How the black eyes snap, and how taut is every nerve!

Their hewas are merely shelters of willow, and there is absolutely no privacy about anything. Yet they are neither immoral nor unmoral. The girls all marry very young. At the age of twelve or thirteen the girl is chosen by some brave, who bargains with the father for her. A pony or its value in buckskin will buy almost any father's favorite daughter.

But the girl is not forced to go with a lover whom she does not approve.

The marriage ceremony is not elaborate; after all preliminaries are disposed of, the would-be bridegroom takes his blanket and moves into the hewa of the girl's people. If two or three moons pa.s.s without any quarrels between the young people, they move into a hewa of their own, and thus it is known that they are married. Divorce is just as simple; he merely sends her back to her father. An Indian brave of the Supai tribe can have as many wives as he can buy according to the tribal law.

But since there is only about one squaw to every three braves, a man is lucky to have any wife, and divorce is rare. When two or more braves center their affections on one fair damsel, things are likely to happen.

But three Indian judges solemnly sit in council and settle the question.

Their solution is usually final, although two or three disgruntled braves have journeyed to our home at El Tovar sixty miles away to appeal to White Mountain for aid.

The valley is fertile, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables thrive. In fact the natives live on what they raise in their haphazard way. They have a rude system of irrigation which carries water to every little garden. One other thing grows in abundance there--dogs! Such a flock of surly, mangy mongrels one would have to travel far to find. I don't know what they live on, for I never saw one of them being fed.

"Big sing tonight," said one of the squaws squatting by our campfire.

"What is a sing, Dottie?"

"Much sing and dance. Medicine man drive away bad spirit from blind man."

Of course we were present at the "sing," although I would never have called it that. An old half-blind Indian afflicted with granulated eyelids was the victim. The night was chilly, but he was clothed only in a look of resignation. The medicine man had a shot-filled gourd, a bunch of dried herbs, and an unlimited capacity for howling. First of all the patient was given a "sweat bath." He was put into a little teepee made of willows closely covered with burlap. Hot rocks were introduced and a pan of water thrown on them. More rocks and more water went inside until the poor Indian could stand it no longer. He came forth choking and gasping with the perspiration running from him. Buckets of cold water were then dashed over him and the medicine man got busy beating him over the head with the bunch of herbs, keeping up an unearthly screeching.

This would last until morning, they said, but my interest flagged just about the time the priest found his second wind, and I retired.

Five beautiful waterfalls are scattered down the valley, and I was most anxious to visit these. For some reason Wattahomigie hung back and we had trouble in persuading him to take us there. He reluctantly accompanied us when he saw we intended to go either with him or without.

His att.i.tude was explained when we were well along the trail; some freak of formation has made great sounding boxes of the Canyon, and these gather the noises of the water and the wind and return them again in shrieks of demoniacal laughter, barking of dogs, and sounds of talking and singing. It is startling to say the least, and no amount of explaining would convince Wattahomigie that it is not the revel hall of departed Indian spirits. The sun is lost there at midday, and darkness settles down soon after.

We camped at Mooney Falls that night, so called on account of an adventurous prospector of that name losing his life by falling over the ledge there. It took ten months for his comrades to get equipment together and recover his body, which they buried at the foot of the falls. This place naturally holds no attraction for our Indian friends, and we had literally to push them from under our feet. They almost sat in the campfire, so determined were they to stay near us.

The next day we started to Hilltop, with Big Jim and his squaw with us as an escort of honor. Jim rode serenely along, while Mary trudged after on foot.