“Certainly,” she said. “It couldn’t have been anything else — but I grubstaked him.”
“You what? — Grubstaked him for what, in heaven’s name?”
“To go to this land of his dreams. It was to the south and east. He said he’d know the place when he came to it. It wasn’t far — only a three or four weeks’ march.”
I stared at her. “You grubstaked a man to go and find a dream?” I demanded. “What chance did you think you stood?”
“I didn’t think I stood any. It was purely for his sake. He was old, and those dreams had been haunting him. Since he got older and had been banished from the tribe, those dreams had become more vivid. I got him a couple of burros and gave him some of the surplus provisions from the restaurant. He started out with those, and was happy.”
“How long ago?” I asked her.
“Two years.”
“Ever heard from him? — No, you wouldn’t. Two years — grubstake a dream... No, you wouldn’t hear.”
She reached under the counter, took out something and slid it across to me. “Yes,” she said. “I got that from the other Indian who was just in here. It was sent to me with a message to come to Cameron and wait.”
I picked the object up. It was virgin gold, a bracelet that had been hammered and carved with the cunning of the Indian craftsman. It was studded with turquoises, and there were a couple of stones in it that looked like rubies. I had never seen anything quite like it. It was old, I could swear to that.
“Cameron?” I said, fingering the heavy bracelet. “That’s in Arizona, over in the Painted Desert.”
She nodded.
“He could have made this himself, of course,” was my comment. “Does he want any more money?”
She shook her head impatiently. “He simply sent this with the message that I should come to Cameron, and that I should bring my young man with me.”
I thought of Ed Kaplin, a quiet, softspoken man of the desert. He was young, about her own age, maybe a year or two older. He’d lived in the desert and knew its moods. He and Bessie were interested in each other — the sort of an interest that’s quiet and deep-founded.
“Well?” I said.
“And somehow or other, I wanted you to go along, too, Bob Zane,” she said, softly.
“Why, Bess?”
“Because you know the desert.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I don’t know. I feel funny about it all. It’s weird and uncanny. I grubstaked this man because I thought he was hitting the last trail. I never expected to see him again. I didn’t think he’d last out the grub I gave him. It was just because he was an old Indian who had been banished from the tribe... But it’s got me guessing.”
She busied herself with the dishes.
I sat and thought. The flies droned about the sun-swept shack, attracted by the odor of the food. The glare of the light on the sandy street was so intense that it made the eyes ache. — And, in the background was the desert, a great expanse of sweeping sand and cacti, of Joshua palm and greasewood, sage and rock.
“I’ll go,” I told her abruptly.
She looked up then. “We start at midnight,” she said. “I’ve already hired some one to run the place for a week or two.”
I nodded. Then I got up and walked out. I’d have work to do — getting my flivver ready with provisions, sleeping bags, shoulder packs, and canteens would take some time. Then I’d have to get some sleep.
II. Strangers in the Night
At midnight I swung the car around to the lunch shack. Kaplin was there, waiting with Bess.
“You’re tired,” I told them. “Try and get some sleep while I drive.”
They crawled into the car. The engine roared, and the desert miles began to unreel. The stars marched in silent procession; the headlights showed the same monotonous ribbon of winding, sandy road. The flivver rattled and swayed. Bess sat dozing on the front seat, at my side. Ed Kaplin was over on the roped-in pile of dunnage.
Toward dawn we struck the main road running to Needles. The sun came up over the desert, illuminating the barren mountains, plunging the gray sand almost at once into torturing heat that started the horizon to dancing. We stopped by the side of the road, got out some of the camp stuff and had grub.
We crossed the Colorado below Needles, crossed some level country, and then started climbing. Bess took a trick at the wheel, then I relieved her in the afternoon. We got into Flagstaff — up where it was cold, in the high, dry air, with the pines giving tang to the atmosphere and the jagged silhouettes blotting out star segments.
Then we swung off the main highway and headed for the Painted Desert. I heaved a sigh of relief. No more civilization, no more tourist cars, no more roadside hot dog stands, no more fool questions. Just the night — silence — and the desert.
We camped for the night out where the big pines gave way to the stunted cedars, out where the desert began to reach out with an arid hand and claim its own. The wind began to make the sand whisper against the stunted trees. I fell asleep listening to those sand whispers, indescribably soft and seductive, the crooning lullaby of the desert — to the men who sleep on her bosom.
Daylight found us astir. Shortly after the sun was up, we dropped down to the Painted Desert and to Cameron. It was just a little trading post with a few Indians about, and a man who had hard, twinkling eyes — eyes that saw a lot. He looked us over. The Indians looked us over. We camped and waited. Hoste-Ne-Bega was to have met us, or if not, to have left a message.
We didn’t ask any questions, and no one asked questions of us. We were in the real desert now, where a man may do as he pleases.
Toward afternoon we moved camp. All around us were the vivid reds and blues of the Painted Desert, rock walls with brilliant colored strata, stretching above the sea of sand like petrified rainbows, held there by some secret process of nature.
We didn’t talk much. The desert doesn’t make for lengthy conversation. We camped and waited.
At night the sand whispered again. This time we heard the most subtle sand whisperings of all, the sound of sand slithering along on sand, or hissing against some jutting promontory of sand-carved rock.
In the morning we rolled up the things, lashed them into place, and went back to Cameron. We sat around. The sun crawled up in the hot blue of the cloudless sky. About the time the shadows shortened into almost nothing, Ed Kaplin came over toward me.
He had a piece of paper and a strange story. He’d taken a little walk, and a Navajo had appeared from behind a rock, standing very erect and dignified, as though he’d sent some mental messenger for Kaplin, and had just been waiting for him.
Ed had pieced together the story from what the Indian had said, and from signs.
The man was a friend of Hoste-Ne-Bega. He knew we were coming. But Hoste-Ne-Bega had expected to meet us in person. In the event something happened so that he couldn’t, he had commissioned this Indian to give us a map. The Indian had seen us yesterday. He’d waited, however, expecting Hoste-Ne-Bega to show up. Then, when nothing happened, he’d delivered his message, and then gone.
We studied over the map, checked it with that knowledge we had of the Painted Desert. We figured that some of the way we could go in the car. The rest would be with shoulder packs.
We started out, following the map. The car had to be abandoned after the first ten miles. We stripped the very bare essentials out of the pack stuff, and made shoulder packs. Then we started out on the long hike.
Every section of the desert has an individuality of its own. Sometimes you’ll find one section that’s something like another section, but the resemblance is more or less superficial. A man who really knows the desert can be put down in any section of it, walk for a few miles, and come pretty close to telling where he is.