The Desert Valley Part 15

'Not too far,' he said. 'Two big high mountain, some tree, water there. Maybe twenty-five mile.'

'Good G.o.d!' exclaimed Howard. 'Twenty-five miles! Might as well be a thousand!'

The Indian did not answer. He was breathing regularly, his lips were closed. For five minutes Howard stood looking down upon him and then he tiptoed a few yards away; Kish Taka was evidently asleep. Howard set his canteen down in the shade of a bush, found another bush for himself, and lay as the Indian was lying, on his back, relaxing his body. He did not regret having shared his water with an Indian, but he wondered why his destiny at this time of need had sent to him another thirsty mouth. Further, he allowed himself to wonder soberly if he would ever see his green fields again. He measured his chances with a steady mind, and in the end his mouth grew sterner.

'If I've got to cash in this way,' he muttered as his own sort of prayer, 'I hope I can be as game about it as Kish Taka.'

It struck him that in one thing the Indian was wise. It was as well to rest now until after sunset and then to start on again in what coolness the evening might afford. Further, it was not in him now to get up and sling his canteen on his back and go on, leaving the fellow wayfarer whom his fate had given him. He would try to sleep a little, though he had little enough hope of coaxing the blissful condition of rest and unconsciousness to him. But, physically tired, lulled by the great stillness, it was but a few minutes when he, too, slept heavily.

He woke and sat up. The day had gone, the stars were out, the air was cool against his cheek. He got to his feet and went to the spot where he had left the Indian, half expecting to find the man dead. Instead he found no man at all. He looked about him; there was light enough to see objects at a considerable distance. The desert seemed, as it had seemed all day, empty. He called and got no answer. It was obvious enough that Kish Taka had rested, waked, gone on.

'Got thirsty,' grunted Howard, 'and just trotted over to a spring only twenty-five miles off for a drink! That's the Indian for you.'

His own thirst sprang out upon him, clutching him by the throat. He stepped to the bush where he had left his canteen and groped for it.

When he did not find it, he looked elsewhere, supposing that he had made a mistake in the bush. When the truth dawned upon him his whole body grew rigid, he stood motionless, even for a little his lungs suspended their function. His hands clenched; for some reason and apparently without any act of his will, they were lifted slowly until they were above his head. Then they came down slowly until they were at his sides, still clenched hard. It was his only gesture. He did not speak aloud. Again he stood still. But through his heart and soul and brain, sweeping upward and upward, came such a flood of rage as he had never known. And with it, born of it, came rushing the frenzied craving to kill. At last came his dry whisper:

'I am going to last long enough to kill you, Kish Taka, and may G.o.d d.a.m.n your soul!'

One hand took up his little bundle of food; the, other dropped to the b.u.t.t of his revolver. He went swiftly to the spot where he had left the Indian whom he had thought half dead. He estimated again and with great care the direction which the lean leathery hand had indicated as the direction of water. Then, walking swiftly, he struck out into the desert. Here was not the way to Desert Valley, not the way to Quigley.

But here was the path for one man to follow when he sought another man who had wronged him. The fact that his chances of coming up with the Indian were few did not deter the cattleman; the obscurity of night on the desert did not give him halt or hesitation. The name of his wrath burned high and hot in his brain and in its lurid light he saw his desire fulfilled. Had one tried at the moment to reason with him, Howard would have cursed him and gone on. His anger had spurted up in a brain already mad with the torture of thirst.

And yet that brain was clear enough to guide him in the way he would go. He studied the stars, found the north and set his course painstakingly. Presently he began to walk less hurriedly, bent savagely upon reserving his strength. When there was some object ahead set visibly against the skyline, a hillock or a clump of bushes, he laid his course by it, checking again and again by the stars. When he had walked an hour he stopped and rested, lighting a match to look at his watch. He allowed himself exactly five minutes and floundered up and went on again. Doggedly he sought to shut his mind to the pain stabbing through his weary feet, to the constriction of his throat, to the ache of his body so sorely and so long punished. When, had matters been different, he might have cried out: 'G.o.d, for a drink!' he now muttered dully, 'G.o.d, put him into my two hands !'

The fine, delicate machinery of a human brain, like any man-made mechanism of great nicety, may readily be thrown into confusion, its exquisite balance disturbed, its functioning confounded. Thirst, near-exhaustion, severe bodily distress and, on top of all, blood-l.u.s.t anger made Alan Howard over into another man. He was possessed, obsessed. As the night wore on endlessly he created for himself visions; he came a thousand times upon the Indian; he sank his fingers and thumbs into a corded throat; he beat with his fists at the pulp of a face. He grew accustomed to his own voice, muttering ceaselessly.

He heard himself praying as another man; the burden of his prayers was always the same: 'Deliver him, O Lord, into mine hands.' He was half mad for water and he cursed Kish Taka; he drove his body on when the agonized muscles rebelled and, driving mercilessly, he cursed Kish Taka.

Somehow the night pa.s.sed and through it he staggered on. He fell as he had seen the Indian fall; he recalled that the Indian had arisen and he rose. Each time that he failed in something that he tried to do it was as though an imp jeered and taunted him, calling to him: 'Ho! The Indian is a better man. He is off there in the darkness, laughing at you!'

There came a time when he stumbled at every step, when he pitched forward frequently and lay inert and had to gather his strength to get up; when he wondered if he was going mad or if already he had gone mad; when his thirst was a killing agony and he knew that it was in truth killing him; when he crawled on his hands and knees up slight slopes; when the stars danced and he frowned at them stupidly, seeking the North Star, seeking to know which way led to Kish Taka. When the first faint glint of dawn sweetened the air he was lying on his back; he felt, rather than saw, that a new day was blossoming. He collected his wandering faculties, fought with the la.s.situde which stole upon him whenever his senses were not on the alert and sat up. And he would have cried out aloud at what he saw were not his throat and mouth and lips so dry that he was beyond calling out. For yonder, a blurred moving shape came toward him. The shape was a man's, and he knew that it was Kish Taka.

Somehow he got to his feet, somehow he dragged his revolver out of its holster, somehow he took a dozen tottering steps forward. He saw that Kish Taka had seen him and had stopped; that the Indian carried his canteen; that he was moving again. Howard lifted his gun, holding it in both hands. He was afraid that even now his quarry would escape him, that Kish Taka would run and that he could not follow. His fingers found the trigger and pressed it as he sought to hold the wavering muzzle steady. There was a loud report that seemed to tear his brain to broken shreds, his arms dropped lax at his sides, the revolver fell, its muzzle burying itself in the sand. His knees sagged and he went down, settling slowly. As he fell he saw that Kish Taka was running--but not away from him. Running like a deer was Kish Taka, running straight to the fallen man.

For the first time in his life, Howard fainted, The pink dawn went black in his eyes, his brain reeled, the booming as of a distant surf filled his ears and then unconsciousness engulfed him. When he, knew anything at all it was that he was sitting up, that two thin brown arms were about his body, that water was trickling down his throat.

Chapter XIV

The Hate of the Hidden People

When Alan Howard fully understood, he felt his face go red with shame.

There was in his soul something akin to timidity as he put his hand forth for the hand of Kish Taka. And when the Indian nodded gravely and gave his own hand, the white man's fingers locked about it hard.

Still East was East and West was West, and again had two strong men met from the ends of earth.

'I have horses and cows and houses and corn,' said Howard, speaking slowly and simply that the Indian might understand clearly. 'What I have is my brother's. When Kish Taka wants a friend, let him come down into Desert Valley and call to Alan Howard.'

The beady, bird-like eyes were void of expression as Kish Taka regarded him steadily. The Indian did not so much as nod again. Like the desert that had mothered him and his progenitors, he had the tricks of silence and of inscrutability.

From the few words which the Indian had spoken and from his own suddenly altered estimate of his new companion, Howard came to understand fully the amazing act which Kish Taka had performed during the night. The Indian had been near the limits of his strength and endurance when the white man had given him generously of his water.

Kish Taka had drank sparingly and, because he was desert-bred and because the stock from which he was sprung was desert-bred, his bodily strength had returned to him. He slept; Howard slept. But the Indian woke, somewhat refreshed, in half an hour. He understood that in the canteen there was not water for both. He promptly drank one of the two remaining cupfuls, slung the canteen over his shoulder and struck off swiftly for the twenty-five-mile-distant spring.

Again, had he been other than a Hopi, less than the superb creature that he was, the thing could not have been done. Down in Oraibi to-day an Indian boy will run eighty miles in a day for ten dollars, and on his return will run races for fun. The American desert has made him just as it has made the thirstless cactus and the desert wolf. He is a special creation, and Kish Taka was but doing the thing he knew. On the run he drained the canteen; at the end of it he stopped and drank and rested briefly. Then with full canteen he turned back to succour and save the man who had befriended and saved him. So it came about that he found Howard in time.

All of that long hot day they sought to rest, lying inert in what scant shade they could find, eating a few bits of dried beef, drinking their water now and then. By the time that the first hint of coming coolness crept into the air Howard sat up, somewhat refreshed and again eager to be moving. He turned to the Indian with a question on his lips, for a thought had come to him.

'Do you know Jim Courtot?' he asked sharply.

Kish Taka's eyes were veiled.

'What man, Jeem Cour'?' he demanded expressionlessly. Then, with the navete of a child: 'Him your frien'?'

Howard tapped the sagging holster at his hip.

'For Jim Courtot I carry this.' he returned quietly. 'He wants to kill me.'

'Then,' said Kish Taka, and through the veils in his eyes fire flashed and was gone, 'him better be quick! Me, Kish Taka, I kill Jeem Cour'

d.a.m.n quick pretty soon.'

Howard looked at him curiously, wondering just how the trails of the gambler and the desert man had crossed and what wrong Courtot had done the other. For he did not doubt that the sin had been Courtot's.

'You have a big dog,' he said, still looking probingly into the beady eyes. 'Big dog, big head, big shoulders, teeth like a wolf. Where is he?'

If Kish Taka wondered at his knowledge, no sign evidenced the fact.

His own teeth, white and strong as a wolf's, showed fleetingly, and into his expression came merely a look of pride.

'You my frien'--See!' With a swift gesture he whipped from his side his long knife, p.r.i.c.ked his arm so that a drop of blood came, set his forefinger to the ruby drop and, leaning closer, touched the finger point in the palm of Howard's hand. 'Kish Taka tell you true. No other dog like the dog of Kish Taka! He run with Kish Taka, fight with Kish Taka, hunt with Kish Taka--kill for Kish Taka! He smell out the trail of the man not the frien' of Kish Taka. Now, Kish Taka say, "Dog, go home." And he gone. Yonder.' He swept his long arm out toward the north.

'Far?'

'Running,' answered Kish Taka, 'he go three day and night. Running he come back, other three day and night.'

From other added fragments Howard gathered something of a story: Kish Taka and his brother, the dog with them, had come from 'where they lived' far off to the north, seeking Jim Courtot. Yesterday Kish Taka had sent his dog back across the wastes, carrying a message. The message was in the form of a feather from his belt tied with a lock of hair dipped in blood. The feather was grey, from a dove's wing, and grey is symbolical of the Underworld with the Hopi; the hair was from the head of Kish Taka's brother. The meaning was plain. The explanation came stoically: Kish Taka pointed to the wound upon his own head. Jim Courtot, more cunning than they had thought, had surprised his pursuers, had even come out into the desert to take them unawares.

He had killed the other Indian from ambush, had wounded Kish Taka and had fled. Now Kish Taka's tribesmen would understand and another runner would come to take the place of him who had fallen.

That the dog would understand to make the return across the desert to 'where they lived' was also explained. Each man there had his dog, each man had his friend. These two men, kind to their two dogs, caressed them, fed them, sheltered them. All other men in the tribe abused these two beasts on sight, stoned them, drove them away. Hence every dog had two masters whom he loved with all of the loyalty of a dog heart and all other men he distrusted and feared and hated. Now, in the desert, Kish Taka had but to drive his dog from him, shouting at him, casting a stone at him, and the big brute to whom similar experiences had come before out of as clear a sky, knew that he had a friend in the distant camp, one friend only in the world, and as straight as a dart made off to find him. In three days' time he would be leaping and fawning upon his other master, sure of food and kind words. And, when in turn that other master turned upon him and seized a stick with which to beat him, he would know that Kish Taka would take him into his arms and give him meat and water. For such things had he known since he was a roly-poly puppy.

There was but one matter further about which Howard wondered, and he asked his question point-blank. Point-blank Kish Taka answered it.

Jim Courtot, with lies in his mouth, had come to these desert folk several months ago. He had tarried with them long, swearing that he hated all white men, that he had killed a white and that the whites would kill him, that he would spend his life with the Indians, teaching them good things. In time they came to trust him. He learned of them their secrets, he found where they hid the gold they used now and then to barter with the white men in their towns, he saw their hidden turquoises. Further, he wronged a maiden who was one day to come to the _kiva_ of the headman, the Hawk Man, Kish Taka. The maiden now was dead by her own hand; Courtot that night, full-handed with his thievings, had fled; and always and always, until the end came, Kish Taka would follow him.

Howard heard and looked away through the growing dusk and saw, not the scope of a dimming landscape, but something of the soul of Kish Taka.

He understood that the Indian had given his confidence freely and he knew that it was, no doubt, the first and last time in his life that he would so speak with a _bahana_. And it was because Howard had shared his last water with him and was, therefore, 'brother.' Kish Taka was an implacable hater; he would follow Jim Courtot until one of them was dead. Kish Taka was a loyal friend, for the Hopi who will bare his heart to a man will bare his breast for him.

Further questions Howard did not ask, feeling that he had penetrated already further into the man's own personal matters than he should have done. He had heard tales such as all men hear when they come into the influence of the desert south-west, wild tales like those he had recounted about Superst.i.tion Pool to Helen and her father, wilder tales about a people who dwelt on in the more northern and more bleak parts of the desert. Lies, for the most part, he judged them, such lies as men tell of an unknown country and other men repeat and embroider.

There were men whom he knew who maintained stoutly that the old Seven Cities of Cibola were no dead myth but a living reality; that there were a Hidden People; that they had strange customs and worshipped strange G.o.ds and bowed the knee in particular to a young and white G.o.ddess, named Yohoya; that they hunted with monster dogs, that they had hidden cities scooped out centuries ago in mountain cliffs and that they were incredibly rich in gold and turquoises. Lies, perhaps. And yet a lie may be based upon truth. Here was a high-type Indian who called himself Kish Taka, the Hawk Man; he hunted with such a dog; he camped on the trail of a _bahana_ who had betrayed and robbed his people. That _bahana_ was Jim Courtot. What had taken Jim Courtot into that country? And now that he was back, Jim Courtot was flush.

And, when Sandy Weaver had mentioned certain tracks to him, he had stared over his shoulder and turned white! Truly, there were many questions to ask; but Howard refrained from asking them.