The Heart of the Desert Part 6

"I can't tell you. The desert would show you its own power if you would give it a chance. No one can describe the call to you. I suppose if I answered it and went back, you would call it retrogression?"

"What would you call it?" asked Rhoda.

"I don't know. It would depend on my mood. I only know that the ache is there." His eyes grew somber and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. "The ache to be there--free in the desert! To feel the hot sun in my face as I work the trail! To sleep with the naked stars in my face! To be-- Oh, I can't make you understand, and I'd rather you understood than any one in the world! You could understand, if only you were desert-taught. When you are well and strong--"

"But why don't you go back?" interrupted Rhoda.

"Because," replied Kut-le slowly, "the Indian is dying. I hope that by living as a white, I may live. Up till recently I have worked blindly and hopelessly, but now I see light."

"Do you?" asked Rhoda with interest. "What have you found?"

"It isn't mine yet." Kut-le looked at the girl exultantly and there was a triumphant note in his voice. "But it shall be mine! I will make it mine! And it is worth the sacrifice of my race."

A vague look of surprise crossed Rhoda's face but she spoke calmly:

"To sacrifice one's race is a serious thing. I can't think of anything that would make that worth while. Here comes Mr. DeWitt. It must be dinner time. John, come up and see a little desert owl at close range.

Kut-le has all the desert at his beck and call!"

Kut-le persuaded Rhoda to change the morning rides, which seemed only to exhaust her, to the shortest of evening strolls. Nearly always DeWitt accompanied them. Sometimes they went alone, though John was never very far distant.

One moonlit night Kut-le and Rhoda stood alone at the corral bars. The whole world was radiant silver moonlight on the desert, on the undulating alfalfa; moonlight filtering through the peach-trees and shimmering on Rhoda's drooping head as she leaned against the bars in the weary att.i.tude habitual to her. Kut-le stood before her, erect and strong in his white flannels. His handsome head was thrown back a little, as was his custom when speaking earnestly. His arms were folded across his deep chest and he stood so still that Rhoda could see his arms rise and fall with his breath.

"It really is great work!" he was saying eagerly. "It seems to me that a civil engineer has tremendous opportunities to do really big things.

Some of Kipling's stories of them are bully."

"Aren't they!" answered Rhoda sympathetically.

"There is a big thing in my favor too. The whites make no discrimination against an Indian in the professions. In fact every one gives him a boost in pa.s.sing!"

"Why shouldn't they? You have as good a brain and are as attractive as any man of my acquaintance!"

The young man drew a quick breath.

"Do you really mean that?"

"Of course! Why shouldn't I? Isn't the moonlight uncanny on the desert?"

But Kut-le did not heed her attempt to change the subject.

"There are unlimited opportunities for me to make good, now that the government is putting up so many dams. I believe that I can go to the top with any man, don't you, Miss Rhoda?"

"I do, indeed!" replied Rhoda sincerely.

"Well, then, Miss Rhoda, will you marry me?"

Rhoda raised her head in speechless amazement.

Kut-le's glowing eyes contracted.

"You are not surprised!" he exclaimed a little fiercely, "You must have seen how it has been with me ever since you came. And you have been so--so bully to me!"

Rhoda looked helplessly into the young man's face. She was so fragile that she seemed but an evanescent part of the moonlight.

"But," she said slowly, "you must know that this is impossible. I couldn't think of marrying you, Kut-le!"

There was a moment's silence. An owl called from the desert. The night wind swept from the fragrant orchard. When he spoke again, Kut-le's voice was husky.

"Is it because I am an Indian?"

"Yes," answered Rhoda, "partly. But I don't love you, anyhow."

"But," eagerly, "if you did love me, would my being an Indian make any difference? Isn't my blood pure? Isn't it old?"

Rhoda stood still. The pain in Kut-le's voice was piercing through to the shadow world in which she lived. Her voice was troubled.

"But I don't love you, so what's the use of considering the rest? If I ever marry any one it will be John DeWitt."

"But couldn't you," insisted the tragically deep voice, "couldn't you ever love me?"

Rhoda answered wearily. One could not, it seemed, even die in peace!

"I can't think of love or marriage any more. I am a dying woman. Let me go into the mist, Kut-le, without a pang for our friendship, with just the pleasant memory of your goodness to me. Surely you cannot love me as I am!"

"I love you for the wonderful possibilities I see in you. I love you in spite of your illness. I will make you well before I marry you.

The Indian in me has strength to make you well. And I will cherish you as white men cherish their wives."

Rhoda raised her hand commandingly and in her voice was that boundless vanity of the white, which is as old as the race.

"No! No! Don't speak of this again! You are an Indian but one removed from savagery. I am a white! I couldn't think of marrying you!" Then her tender heart failed her and her voice trembled. "But still I am your friend, Kut-le. Truly I am your friend."

The Indian was silent so long that Rhoda was a little frightened. Then he spoke slowly.

"Yes, you are white and I am red. But before all that, you are a woman of exquisite possibilities and I am a man who by all of nature's laws would make a fitting mate for you. You can love me, when you are well, as you could love no other man. And I--dear one, I love you pa.s.sionately! I love you tenderly! I love you enough to give up my race for you. I am an Indian, Rhoda, but first of all I am a man.

Rhoda, will you marry me?"

A thrill, poignant, heart-stirring, beat through Rhoda's veins. For one unspeakable moment there swept through her spirit a vision of strength, of beauty, of gladness, too wild and sweet for words. Then came the old sense of race distaste and she looked steadily into the young man's face.

"I cannot marry you, Kut-le," she said.

Kut-le said nothing more. He stood staring at the far desert, his fine face somber and with a look of determination in the contracted eyes and firm-set lips that made Rhoda shiver, even while her heart throbbed with pity. Tall, slender, inscrutable, as alien to her understanding as the call of the desert wind or the moon-drenched desert haze, she turned away and left him standing there alone.

She made her slow way to the ranch-house. Kut-le did not follow.

Rhoda went to bed at once. Yet she could not sleep, for through the silence Kut-le's deep voice beat on her ears.

"I love you pa.s.sionately! I love you tenderly! I am an Indian, but first of all I am a man!"

The next day and for the three or four days following, Kut-le was missing. The Newmans were worried. The ditch needed its engineer and never before had Kut-le been known to neglect his work. Once a year he went on a long hunt with chosen friends of his tribe, but never until his work was finished.

Rhoda confided in no one regarding her last interview with the Indian.