The Heart of the Desert Read online

  THE HEART OF THE DESERT

  (Kut-Le of the Desert)

  by

  HONORE WILLSIE

  Author of "Still Jim"

  With Frontispiece in Colors by V. Herbert Dunton

  A. L. Burt Company, Publishers114-120 East Twenty-third Street ---- New YorkPublished by Arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company

  1913

  [Frontispiece: Side by side, they rode off into the desert sunset.]

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I THE VALLEY OF THE PECOS II THE CAUCASIAN WAY III THE INDIAN AND CAUCASIAN IV THE INDIAN WAY V THE PURSUIT VI ENTERING THE DESERT KINDERGARTEN VII THE FIRST LESSON VIII A BROADENING HORIZON IX TOUCH AND GO X A LONG TRAIL XI THE TURN IN THE TRAIL XII THE CROSSING TRAILS XIII AN INTERLUDE XIV THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD XV AN ESCAPE XVI ADRIFT IN THE DESERT XVII THE HEART'S OWN BITTERNESS XVIII THE FORGOTTEN CITY XIX THE TRAIL AGAIN XX THE RUINED MISSION XXI THE END OF THE TRAIL

  The Heart of the Desert

  CHAPTER I

  THE VALLEY OF THE PECOS

  Rhoda hobbled through the sand to the nearest rock. On this she sankwith a groan, clasped her slender foot with both hands and looked abouther helplessly.

  She felt very small, very much alone. The infinite wastes of yellowdesert danced in heat waves against the bronze-blue sky. The girl sawno sign of living thing save a buzzard that swept lazily across thezenith. She turned dizzily from contemplating the vast emptiness abouther to a close scrutiny of her injured foot. She drew off her thinsatin house slipper painfully and dropped it unheedingly into a bunchof yucca that crowded against the rock. Her silk stocking followed.Then she sat in helpless misery, eying her blue-veined foot.

  In spite of her evident invalidism, one could but wonder why she madeso little effort to help herself. She sat droopingly on the rock,gazing from her foot to the far lavender line of the mesas. A tiny,impotent atom of life, she sat as if the eternal why which the deserthurls at one overwhelmed her, deprived her of hope, almost ofsensation. There was something of nobility in the steadiness withwhich she gazed at the melting distances, something of pathos in herevident resignation, to her own helplessness and weakness.

  The girl was quite unconscious of the fact that a young man wastramping up the desert behind her. He, however, had spied the whitegown long before Rhoda had sunk to the rock and had laid his coursedirectly for her. He was a tall fellow, standing well over six feetand he swung through the heavy sand with an easy stride that covereddistance with astonishing rapidity. As he drew near enough to perceiveRhoda's yellow head bent above her injured foot, he quickened his pace,swung round the yucca thicket and pulled off his soft felt hat.

  "Good-morning!" he said. "What's the matter?"

  Rhoda started, hastily covered her foot, and looked up at the tallkhaki-clad figure. She never had seen the young man before, but thedesert is not formal.

  "A thing like a little crayfish bit my foot," she answered; "and youdon't know how it hurts!"

  "Ah, but I do!" exclaimed the young man. "A scorpion sting! Let mesee it!"

  Rhoda flushed.

  "Oh, never mind that!" she said. "But if you will go to the Newmanranch-house for me and ask them to send the buckboard I'll be verygrateful. I--I feel dizzy, you know."

  "Gee whiz!" exclaimed the young man. "There's no time for me to runabout the desert if you have a scorpion sting in your foot!"

  "Is a scorpion sting dangerous?" asked Rhoda. Then she added,languidly, "Not that I mind if it is!"

  The young man gave her a curious glance. Then he pulled a small casefrom his pocket, knelt in the sand and lifted Rhoda's foot in oneslender, strong, brown hand. The instep already was badly swollen.

  "Hold tight a minute!" said the young man.

  And before Rhoda could protest he had punctured the red center of theswelling with a little scalpel, had held the cut open and had filled itwith a white powder that bit. Then he pulled a clean handkerchief fromhis pocket and tore it in two. With one half he bound the ankle abovethe cut tightly. With the other he bandaged the cut itself.

  "Are you a doctor?" asked Rhoda faintly.

  "Far from it," replied the young man with a chuckle, tightening theupper bandage until Rhoda's foot was numb. "But I always carry thislittle outfit with me; rattlers and scorpions are so thick over on theditch. Somebody's apt to be hurt anytime. I'm Charley Cartwell, JackNewman's engineer."

  "Oh!" said Rhoda understandingly. "I'm so dizzy I can't see you verywell. This is very good of you. Perhaps now you'd go on and get thebuckboard. Tell them it's for Rhoda, Rhoda Tuttle. I just went outfor a walk and then--"

  Her voice trailed into nothingness and she could only steady herswaying body with both hands against the rock.

  "Huh!" grunted young Cartwell. "I go on to the house and leave youhere in the boiling sun!"

  "Would you mind hurrying?" asked Rhoda.

  "Not at all," returned Cartwell.

  He plucked the stocking and slipper from the yucca and dropped theminto his pocket. Then he stooped and lifted Rhoda across his broadchest. This roused her.

  "Why, you can't do this!" she cried, struggling to free herself.

  Cartwell merely tightened his hold and swung out at a pace that washalf run, half walk.

  "Close your eyes so the sun won't hurt them," he said peremptorily.

  Dizzily and confusedly, Rhoda dropped her head back on the broadshoulder and closed her eyes, with a feeling of security that later onwas to appall her. Long after she was to recall the confidence of thismoment with unbelief and horror. Nor did she dream how many weary daysand hours she one day was to pass with this same brazen sky over her,this same broad shoulder under her head.

  Cartwell looked down at the delicate face lying against his breast, atthe soft yellow hair massed against his sleeve. Into his black eyescame a look that was passionately tender, and the strong brown handthat supported Rhoda's shoulders trembled.

  In an incredibly short time he was entering the peach orchard thatsurrounded the ranch-house. A young man in white flannels jumped froma hammock in which he had been dozing.

  "For heaven's sake!" he exclaimed. "What does this mean?"

  Rhoda was too ill to reply. Cartwell did not slack his giant stridetoward the house.

  "It means," he answered grimly, "that you folks must be crazy to letMiss Tuttle take a walk in clothes like this! She's got a scorpionsting in her foot."

  The man in flannels turned pale. He hurried along beside Cartwell,then broke into a run.

  "I'll telephone to Gold Rock for the doctor and tell Mrs. Newman."

  He started on ahead.

  "Never mind the doctor!" called Cartwell. "I've attended to the sting.Tell Mrs. Jack to have hot water ready."

  As Cartwell sprang up the porch steps, Mrs. Newman ran out to meet him.She was a pretty, rosy girl, with brown eyes and curly brown hair.

  "Rhoda! Kut-le!" she cried. "Why didn't I warn her! Put her on thecouch here in the hall, Kut-le. John, tell Li Chung to bring thehot-water bottles. Here, Rhoda dear, drink this!"

  For half an hour the three, with Li Chung hovering in the background,worked over the girl. Then as they saw her stupor change to a naturalsleep, Katherine gave a sigh that was almost a sob.

  "She's all right!" she said. "O Kut-le, if you hadn't come at thatmoment!"

  Cartwell shook his head.

  "It might have gone hard with her, she's so delicate. Gee, I'm glad Iran out of tobacco this morning and thought a two-mile tramp across thedesert for it worth while!"

  The three were on the porch now. The young man in flannels, who hadsaid little but had obey
ed orders explicitly eyed Cartwell curiously.

  "You're Newman's engineer, aren't you?" he asked. "My name's DeWitt.You've put us all under great obligations, this morning."

  Cartwell took the extended hand.

  "Well, you know," he said carefully, "a scorpion sting may or may notbe serious. People have died of them. Mrs. Jack here makes no more ofthem than of a mosquito bite, while Jack goes about like a drunkensailor with one for a day, then forgets it. Miss Tuttle will be allright when she wakes up. I'm off till dinner time, Mrs. Jack. Jackwill think I've reverted!"

  DeWitt stood for a moment watching the tall, lithe figure move throughthe peach-trees. He was torn by a strange feeling, half of aversion,half of charm for the dark young stranger. Then:

  "Hold on, Cartwell," he cried. "I'll drive you back in the buckboard."

  Katherine Newman, looking after the two, raised her eyebrows, shook herhead, then smiled and went back to Rhoda.

  It was mid-afternoon when Rhoda woke. Katherine was sitting near bywith her sewing.

  "Well!" said Rhoda wonderingly. "I'm all right, after all!"

  Katherine jumped up and took Rhoda's thin little hand joyfully.

  "Indeed you are!" she cried. "Thanks to Kut-le!"

  "Thanks to whom?" asked Rhoda. "It was a tall young man. He said hisname was Charley Cartwell."

  "Yup!" answered Katherine. "Charley Cartwell! His other name isKut-le. He'll be in to dinner with Jack, tonight. Isn't hegood-looking, though!"

  "I don't know. I was so dizzy I couldn't see him. He seemed verydark. Is he a Spaniard?"

  "Spaniard! No!" Katherine was watching Rhoda's languid eyes halfmischievously. "He's part Mescallero, part Pueblo, part Mohave!"

  Rhoda sat erect with flaming face.

  "You mean that he's an Indian and I let him carry me! Katherine!"

  The mischief in Katherine's brown eyes grew to laughter.

  "I thought that would get a rise out of you, you blessed tenderfoot!What difference does that make? He rescued you from a seriouspredicament; and more than that he's a fine fellow and one of Jack'sdearest friends."

  Rhoda's delicate face still was flushed.

  "An Indian! What did John DeWitt say?"

  "Oh!" said Katherine, carelessly, "he offered to drive Kut-le back tothe ditch, and he hasn't got home yet. They probably will be verycongenial, John being a Harvard man and Kut-le a Yale!"

  Rhoda's curved lips opened, then closed again. The look of interestdied from her eyes.

  "Well," she said in her usual weary voice, "I think I'll have a glassof milk, if I may. Then I'll go out on the porch. You see I'm beingall the trouble to you, Katherine, that I said I would be."

  "Trouble!" protested Katherine. "Why, Rhoda Tuttle, if I could justsee you with the old light in your eyes I'd wait on you by inches on myknees. I would, honestly."

  Rhoda rubbed a thin cheek against the warm hand that still held hers,and the mute thanks said more than words.

  The veranda of the Newman ranch-house was deep and shaded by greenvines. From the hammock where she lay, a delicate figure amid thevivid cushions, Rhoda looked upon a landscape that combined all theperfection of verdure of a northern park with a sense of illimitablebreathing space that should have been fairly intoxicating to her. Twohuge cottonwoods stood beside the porch. Beyond the lawn lay the peachorchard which vied with the bordering alfalfa fields in fragrance andcolor. The yellow-brown of tree-trunks and the white of grazing sheepagainst vegetation of richest green were astonishing colors for Rhodato find in the desert to which she had been exiled, and in the few dayssince her arrival she had not ceased to wonder at them.

  DeWitt crossed the orchard, quickening his pace when he saw Rhoda. Hewas a tall fellow, blond and well built, though not so tall and litheas Cartwell. His dark blue eyes were disconcertingly clear and direct.

  "Well, Rhoda dear!" he exclaimed as he hurried up the steps. "If youdidn't scare this family! How are you feeling now?"

  "I'm all right," Rhoda answered languidly. "It was good of you all tobother so about me. What have you been doing all day?"

  "Over at the ditch with Jack and Cartwell. Say, Rhoda, the youngfellow who rescued you is an Indian!"

  DeWitt dropped into a big chair by the hammock. He watched the girlhopefully. It was such a long, long time since she had been interestedin anything! But there was no responsive light in the deep gray eyes.

  "Katherine told me," she replied. Then, after a pause, as if she feltit her duty to make conversation, "Did you like him?"

  DeWitt spoke slowly, as if he had been considering the matter.

  "I've a lot of race prejudice in me, Rhoda. I don't like niggers orChinamen or Indians when they get over to the white man's side of thefence. They are well enough on their own side. However, this Cartwellchap seems all right. And he rescued you from a beastly serioussituation!"

  "I don't know that I'm as grateful for that as I ought to be," murmuredRhoda, half to herself. "It would have been an easy solution."

  Her words stung DeWitt. He started forward and seized the small thinhands in both his own.

  "Rhoda, don't!" he pleaded huskily. "Don't give up! Don't lose hope!If I could only give you some of my strength! Don't talk so! It justabout breaks my heart to hear you."

  For a time, Rhoda did not answer. She lay wearily watching the eager,pleading face so close to her own. Even in her illness, Rhoda was verylovely. The burnished yellow hair softened the thinness of the facethat was like delicately chiseled marble. The finely cut nose, theexquisite drooping mouth, the little square chin with its cleft, andthe great gray eyes lost none of their beauty through her weakness.

  "John," she said at last, "why won't you look the truth in the face? Inever shall get well. I shall die here instead of in New York, that'sall. Why did you follow me down here? It only tortures you. And,truly it's not so bad for me. You all have lost your realness to me,somehow. I shan't mind going, much."

  DeWitt's strong face worked but his voice was steady.

  "I never shall leave you," he said simply. "You are the one woman inthe world for me. I'd marry you tomorrow if you'd let me."

  Rhoda shook her head.

  "You ought to go away, John, and forget me. You ought to go marry somefine girl and have a home and a family. I'm just a sick wreck."

  "Rhoda," and DeWitt's earnest voice was convincing, "Rhoda, I'd pass upthe healthiest, finest girl on earth for you, just sick you. Why,can't you see that your helplessness and dependence only deepen yourhold on me? Who wants a thing as fragile and as lovely as you are tomake a home! You pay your way in life just by living! Beauty andsweetness like yours is enough for a woman to give. I don't want youto do a thing in the world. Just give yourself to me and let me takecare of you. Rhoda, dear, dear heart!"

  "I can't marry unless I'm well," insisted Rhoda, "and I never shall bewell again. I know that you all thought it was for the best, bringingme down to the desert, but just as soon as I can manage it withouthurting Katherine's and Jack's feelings too much, I'm going back to NewYork. If you only knew how the big emptiness of this desert countryadds to my depression!"

  "If you go back to New York," persisted DeWitt, "you are going back asmy wife. I'm sick of seeing you dependent on hired care. Why, Rhodadear, is it nothing to you that, when you haven't a near relative inthe world, I would gladly die for you?"

  "Oh!" cried the girl, tears of weakness and pity in her eyes, "you knowthat it means everything to me! But I can't marry any one. All I wantis just to crawl away and die in peace. I wish that that Indian hadn'tcome upon me so promptly. I'd just have gone to sleep and neverwakened."

  "Don't! Don't!" cried DeWitt. "I shall pick you up and hold youagainst all the world, if you say that!"

  "Hush!" whispered Rhoda, but her smile was very tender. "Some one iscoming through the orchard."

  DeWitt reluctantly released the slender hands and leaned back in hischair. Th
e sun had crossed the peach orchard slowly, breathlessly. Itcast long, slanting shadows along the beautiful alfalfa fields andturned the willows by the irrigating ditch to a rosy gray. As the sunsank, song-birds piped and lizards scuttled along the porch rail. Theloveliest part of the New Mexican day had come.

  The two young Northerners watched the man who was swinging through theorchard. It was Cartwell. Despite his breadth of shoulder, the youngIndian looked slender, though it was evident that only panther strengthcould produce such panther grace. He crossed the lawn and stood at thefoot of the steps; one hand crushed his soft hat against his hip, andthe sun turned his close-cropped black hair to blue bronze. For aninstant none of the three spoke. It was as if each felt the import ofthis meeting which was to be continued through such strangevicissitudes. Cartwell, however, was not looking at DeWitt but atRhoda, and she returned his gaze, surprised at the beauty of his face,with its large, long-lashed, Mohave eyes that were set well apart andset deeply as are the eyes of those whose ancestors have lived much inthe open glare of the sun; with the straight, thin-nostriled nose; withthe stern, cleanly modeled mouth and the square chin, below. Andlooking into the young Indian's deep black eyes, Rhoda felt withinherself a vague stirring that for a second wiped the languor from hereyes.

  Cartwell spoke first, easily, in the quiet, well-modulated voice of theIndian.

  "Hello! All safe, I see! Mr. Newman will be here shortly." He seatedhimself on the upper step with his back against a pillar and fannedhimself with his hat. "Jack's working too hard. I want him to go tothe coast for a while and let me run the ditch. But he won't. He's aspig-headed as a Mohave."

  "Are the Mohaves so pig-headed then?" asked DeWitt, smiling.

  Cartwell returned the smile with a flash of white teeth.

  "You bet they are! My mother was part Mohave and she used to say thatonly the Pueblo in her kept her from being as stiff-necked as yucca.You're all over the dizziness, Miss Tuttle?"

  "Yes," said Rhoda. "You were very good to me."

  Cartwell shook his head.

  "I'm afraid I can't take special credit for that. Will you two ride tothe ditch with me tomorrow? I think Miss Tuttle will be interested inJack's irrigation dream, don't you, Mr. DeWitt?"

  DeWitt answered a little stiffly.

  "It's out of the question for Miss Tuttle to attempt such a trip, thankyou."

  But to her own as well as DeWitt's astonishment Rhoda spokeprotestingly.

  "You must let me refuse my own invitations, John. Perhaps the ditchwould interest me."

  DeWitt replied hastily, "Good gracious, Rhoda! If anything willinterest you, don't let me interfere."

  There was protest in his voice against Rhoda's being interested in anIndian's suggestion. Both Rhoda and Cartwell felt this and there wasan awkward pause. This was broken by a faint halloo from the corraland DeWitt rose abruptly.

  "I'll go down and meet Jack," he said.

  "We'll do a lot of stunts if you're willing," Cartwell said serenely,his eyes following DeWitt's broad back inscrutably. "The desert islike a story-book if one learns to read it. If you would be interestedto learn, I would be keen to teach you."

  Rhoda's gray eyes lifted to the young man's somberly.

  "I'm too dull these days to learn anything," she said. "But I--Ididn't used to be! Truly I didn't! I used to be so alive, so strong!I believed in everything, myself most of all! Truly I did!" Shepaused, wondering at her lack of reticence.

  Cartwell, however, was looking at her with something in his gaze soquietly understanding that Rhoda smiled. It was a slow smile thatlifted and deepened the corners of Rhoda's lips, that darkened her grayeyes to black, an unforgetable smile to the loveliness of which Rhoda'sfriends never could accustom themselves. At the sight of it, Cartwelldrew a deep breath, then leaned toward her and spoke with curiousearnestness.

  "You make me feel the same way that starlight on the desert makes mefeel."

  Rhoda replied in astonishment, "Why, you mustn't speak that way to me!It's not--not--"

  "Not conventional?" suggested Cartwell. "What difference does thatmake, between you and me?"

  Again came the strange stirring in Rhoda in response to Cartwell'sgaze. He was looking at her with something of tragedy in the darkyoung eyes, something of sternness and determination in the clean-cutlips. Rhoda wondered, afterward, what would have been said ifKatherine had not chosen this moment to come out on the porch.

  "Rhoda," she asked, "do you feel like dressing for dinner? Hello,Kut-le, it's time you moved toward soap and water, seems to me!"

  "Yessum!" replied Cartwell meekly. He rose and helped Rhoda from thehammock, then held the door open for her. DeWitt and Newman emergedfrom the orchard as he crossed to Katherine's chair.

  "Is she very sick, Mrs. Jack?" he asked.

  Katherine nodded soberly.

  "Desperately sick. Her father and mother were killed in a railroadwreck a year ago. Rhoda wasn't seriously hurt but she has never gottenover the shock. She has been failing ever since. The doctor fearedconsumption and sent her down here. But she's just dying by inches.Oh, it's too awful! I can't believe it! I can't realize it!"

  Cartwell stood in silence for a moment, his lips compressed, his eyesinscrutable.

  Then, "I've met her at last," he said. "It makes me believe in Fate."

  Katherine's pretty lips parted in amazement.

  "Goodness! Are you often taken this way!" she gasped.

  "Never before!" replied Cartwell serenely. "Jack said she'd broken herengagement to DeWitt because of her illness, so it's a fair war!"

  "Kut-le!" exclaimed Katherine. "Don't talk like a yellow-backed novel!It's not a life or death affair."

  "You can't tell as to that," answered Cartwell with a curious littlesmile. "You mustn't forget that I'm an Indian."

  And he turned to greet the two men who were mounting the steps.