Voice of the Intangible, XXVI

Voice of the Intangible

BY ALBERT R. LYMAN

Chapter XXVI. —When the Idols Moved

The day of delivery was a hard one. Late in the afternoon,

hungry and thirsty and g'ray with dust, Ben loped into Green-

water and took a heavy drink from the spring. The deal was

finished in all its details, and the Rojer brand belonged to West

& Co. They had already hired Juan for the home drive.

Ben might go whenever he pleased; he had the munificent

check in his pocket. All hands expected him to start after supper

for Clay Hill, and Juan's mouth became a half-moon of astonish-

ment when young Rojer asked the outfit to take Mike and his

horses along with them, at the same time announcing his own

intention of going back towards the lake, and out by way of Bull

Valley. West's men agreed it was a stupid thing to do, and tried

to talk him out of the notion. He met their theories and opinions

with a firm refusal to go down Clay Hill, and when they promised

to care for his horses and his dog, he prepared three lunches in

a sack and three feeds of grain in a nose-bag.

With the first break of day. West started his brawling- herd

for Clay Hill Pass, and Ben rattled his spurs and sent Deut on

a brisk trot down Castle Gulch. He crossed Castle Hill when

the desert sun began to beat fiercely clown on the sand, and turned

abruptly out of the trail, and off among the scattering cedars and

rock-knolls to the south.

At ten o'clock he halted on a lime-stone peak, and scanned

the country all around. He felt lonesome and depressed. Three

miles farther on he recognized the hill up which he loped old

Buck in a frenzy of fear, on that day when Stripes staid with

Bowse in camp. Something of that same old feeling came back

from the stillness around, and resolved itself into the words of

dear old Tennyson:

"Oh weary life! Oh weary death !

Oh spirit and heart made desolate!"

Bull Valley came in sight at noon: a quiet, narrow, heated

gulch-bottom, winding far down along the base of two ragged

cliffs. Young "Rojer took one long look into the still depths. No

sound, no motion, no summer breeze to stir upward from those

gleaming sand-hills and whisper a word or a name. All the same

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 629

Ben turned away, suddenly aware that he had ridden miles and

miles contrary to his strong-

est impressions. He would

not venture into Bull Valley,

itlooked like a death-trap.

We may never know

what danger crouched in

the rocks by young Rojer's

intended trail but while he

;

turned his uncertain course

towards Pagahrit, he felt

sure that two snaky fe-

male eyes would scan the trail

in vain, and two hawk tal-

loned hands would weary of

gripping a murderous old

forty-five-ninety. He hid

escaped through that valley

once the trick would not bear

;

repetition.

Of the hazy distance on

all sides, the south-west alone

beckoned the wanderer on-

ward and while he turned

;

reluctantly towards it, a cloud

of doubt settled blackly

around him. He doubted the

wisdom of his course, he

doubted himself, he "doubted 'The rocks by young Rojer's in-

truth to be a liar." "Is there tended trail."

really any voice besides my

own fear and prejudice?" he demanded of himself. "Have

I one solid excuse for coming like a fool down among these

dangerous rocks? I'm like Montana, running from some imag-

inary thing, and I'm running straight towards the junction where

I'll have to stop and meet 'em, or jump off the cliff."

He looked at his glittering revolver and his saddle-gun, and

fancying himself another Montana indeed, he reined Deut around

and started for Castle Hill. But if ever the Intangible yelled a

protest with reverbrating silence from the bald rock-knolls of

Pagahrit, it was then. It wouldn't do and young Rojer turned

;

again towards the rock-ribbed junction, though a sickening sense

of fear passed over him like a shiver, and the vision of the rock-

knoll rose as an unrelenting spectre before his mind.

"By George! I am alone for it at last," he whispered in

despair, "not even old Mike."

: "

630 IM I'ROVKMEXT I'.RA

He looked once more at the danger-gloom on the hills to-

wards Castle Wash, and held resolutely to his course. The after-

noon hung heavy with forebodings; the lunch sack jolted about

untouched on the dusty saddle. From every hill-top he searched the

surrounding country with its

doubtful distant scars and

specks, and scowled at the

heat-legions for the tricks

they might play upon him.

He rode on the lope to

dispel the gloom he slowed ;

down to a walk in his efforts

to become his wonted self and

hear comfort from the Intan-

gible. Then he tried a song,

but the first half-tolerable

burst dwindled into a dream-

ing drivel

"In the hazy distance, hidden

from view,

Close by the trail I am waiting

for you.

Waiting in

and low

— ambush, crouching

At this juncture he

roused himself and turned

over the old cut-off to the old

camp-ground above the lake.

A SUSPICIOS-LOOKING SCAR ON A Down over the rock he rode,

SMOOTH SAND-STONE. and up instinctively to a tree

below his cave. He threw the reins over a limb, climbed the hill,

and was anticipating some form of relief, when his eye met the

glare of a spitting wild-cat cornered in the back of the cavern,

and all but. ready to spring upon him. He must kill the cat or

leave the cave, and not liking to hazzard the noise of a shot,

he staggered back down the hill. With his hand on the saddle-

horn, he looked earnestly and imploringly all around, kneeled

on the dry willows by Deut's hoofs, and then, almost to his —

own disappointment, and contrary to all he might explain, rode

briskly out of the gulch and on towards the impassible barrier,

where the gorge of the San Juan opens at an acute angle into the

gorge of the Colorado.

When the sun sank out of sight, and the dim moon-light fell

again on the sand-hills, he still rode on, wearily into the night,

up and down, over hill and rock veering now to the right to pass

;

a rough ledge, turning now to the left to avoid a bald, smooth

knoll.'

a

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 631

The moon went down and the hills became strange, —

strange, dark, frowning, lonesome world. All afternoon he had

steered straight for the perilous corner, but now all directions

were dark and uncertain alike, and he drew rein, lowered himself

from the saddle, and kneeled on the warm sand.

"Oh Heaven!" he cried, looking up at the distant glitter of

—

stars, " 'having eyes, see not, and ears, hear not' if ever I should

see and hear it is now, and I am stupid and blind, and lost in

this dreary wilderness."

The words choked in his thirsty throat, and lowering his

face on his wrists, he sobbed like the little Ben Rojer who loped

Buck frantically up the sand-hill. In those days he heard no re-

sponse to his grief, but now to his sobs and his tears, came tender

answer from somewhere in the dark expanse. A soothing some-

—

thing seemed to draw caressingly near, to hover above his

weary, kneeling self, and speak in a strange, comforting language.

He loathed the thought of food because of his feverish

thirst, but he gave Deut a feed of grain, hobbled him closely and

stretched full length on the warm sand. If he might judge by

sound, he and his brown horse were the only living creatures on

earth; why not sleep? the atmosphere whispered temporary se-

curity. Feeling no further fear, and no reason for a continuous

vigil, Ben dropped his head on his wrists, and the perils of his

situation vanished in the dream of a cool spring, from which

he drank without quenching his thirst.

Several times in the night he awakened, and made sure that

the brown horse was not wandering too far away. Towards

morning the sand became uncomfortably cool, and before the

first doubtful nimbus crowned the eastern horizon, Deut stood

saddled and ready to act, as soon as the daylight should indicate

what that action ought to be.

Gradually the distorted face of nature assumed its old-time

expression. Slick Rock materialized on the right, and off to the

left, towards the lake and the sun, The Idols, little Ben Rojer's

"Egyptian idols," stood up side by side on their hump-backed

pyramid of sand and rock. But even before the sun came up be-

hind them into that clear sky, spreading out a morning as fair

as Paradise might desire, —

even when the light preceding the

sun itself, shone so mildly and softly over and between those

idols, that Ben could look straight towards them, silhouetted

against the glory of infant-day, they had an unnatural appear-

ance. Of course, the eastern desert horizon is peculiarly liable

to mirage in the morning, and it might be mirage that lent the

idols their perverted shape.

At all events they were not as Ben remembered them, and

once or twice, if his eyes did not deceive him, they grew tall and

short, fat and lean, in a manner truly remarkable, —

and more re-

!

632 IML'kOVKMKNT ERA

markable because the surrounding country retained its familiar

shape. But he had seen idols grow fat and lean before, he had

seen the dancing spirit-legions of heat transform themselves into

the real, copper-faced Soorowits, in the days when Toorah's

charred remains lingered fresh in his recollection. In those

days every tree and rock refused to be anything but Soorowits,

till young Rojer drew tremblingly near and made them ac-

knowledge their identity. Now, in his weight of apprehension,

he could expect nothing better from the morning mirage at

;

least he thought so, as the blazing sun rose up behind those

doubtful figures, out-dazzling his efforts to watch them. He

could not afford to become a Don Quixote, and quake before

every tree and rock as he used to do and looking on to the west

;

he saw the cotton-woods above Maverick Tank, which suggested

the possibility of a drink.

As he rode down the last sand-hill towards the verdure of the

shallow gulch and the trees, the word and the feeling leaped

back and forth on his nerves, "spotted." He was no more con-

scious of his raging thirst, than of the fact that human eyes

watched his course down each draw, and over each unavoidable

raise between him and the coveted water.

As he rode down the last sand-hill towards the verdure of the

gulch, the very trees were full of still voices, and from the

jungle of oak and bull-berry on the hill-side, arose a hushing

sigh as when a congregation draws a long breath of dreadful

expectancy. The soft morning breeze up the gulch, became a

multitude of whispered questions and answers ;and the limbs

nodded their affirmative, or swayed their negative answers to the

—

matted growth by the low cliff. It was of tragedy of death. It

was that awe and terror of the human heart, when the blood of

life is about to be spilled

Ben rode straight to the water. The fever of his thirst and

the faintness from his hunger, led him on among the voices like

a man in a spell. He heard them all, 'tis true, but the mind in

time of heated action may not dwell unduly on one thing it ;

must take prompt account of the whole situation.

When the bit was removed from Deut's mouth, young Rojer

sprawled on the sand and lowered his own face to the water

within three feet of the brown horse's nose. While that great

brown horse still drank, in his slow, swallow-at-a-time fashion,

Ben dropped the reins and climbed to the brow of the opposite

cliff. The idols towered in full view, the same familiar shapes

which had stood for years on that hill, but below them on the

sand, two specks came racing pell-mell.

—

"Well I'll be " he checked a long gasp of surprise, "that's

what they build 'em for. Come you ! I won't run a

step farther."

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 633

The vision of the rock-knoll found no place In his crowded

brain at that moment, though he knew one of those specks was

Soorowits coming from the distance, and he knew that he himself

was very much alone. This latter thought occupied small place

in his mind, however it was crowded out by the furious pulse of

;

a gnashing desire for blood, —a passionate eagerness to riddle

those beings who followed wolf-like on his track.

He came down the cliff as he had gone up it, like a squir-

rel, bridled Deut and looked around. Fifty yards up the gulch,

a big cool patch of shade spread over a forest of weeds and

grass, sloping down on two sides to the bottom of the crooked

sand-wash. From the weed-slope, with his eye, he followed the

eastern cliff back to where it was concealed by the jungle of bull-

berry and wood-bine just above him.

Then he sprang to the saddle, loped up to the shade and the

weeds, writhed his jumper from his shoulders, and putting it

with his wide black hat, improvised what appealed to be his own

self asleep on his wrists, his lower limbs and all but his shoulders

and hat, hidden by a short thick growth of sun-flowers. When he

had made sure it lay in full view, and natural enough for a fifty-

yard scrutiny, he mounted again, bare-headed and in his shirt-

sleeves, and rode back along the cliff and into the brush.

The brush being tall and in bunches, Ben found no difficulty

in concealing himself and his horse from any possible view-

point, and soon selected the forks of a limb through which to

rest his saddle-gun for a dead shot.

But Duet might whinney and spoil the whole plan Ben's —

hand flew to his pocket for a string. There was no string in

it, so he cut one from the saddle, and tied it firmly around the

brown upper lip. The kind horse-eyes looked wonderingly at

his master in this performance ; but soon that upper-lip began

to twist and twitch in the very discomfort young Rojer had hoped

to produce.

One more item of uncertainty would those two specks fol-

:

low his tracks up the gulch as he had supposed, or would they

ride cautiously along on the top and look in ? They might choose

the latter course —

he would anticipate it. Ten steps brought him

to the ledge, which, at this particular place, presented a broken,

shattered surface up which a horse might possibly go. Still

warily screening himself, young Rojer peeped out at the sand-

hill over which they must come, and on the side of which they

would undoubtedly veer from his tracks if they preferred the

cliff-brow to^ the gulch-bottom.

Time had begun to drag and fill the lone watchman with

many uneasy misgivings, when, over the hill, came two speck-

like two wolves on a fresh trail. They were no longer specks,

however, but wild men on tired cayuses, and they held to the

—

634 IMPROVEMENT ERA

tracks straight for the water. He waited only long enough to

make sure of their course, before cat-footing it back to the bull-

berries and pushing his Winchester through the accommodating

forks. His position commanded almost a full view of the situa-

tion, and he moved the muzzle of his gun from side to side, to

ascertain whether any stray limb would limit his range on the

right or the left.

A cold chill of terror passed over Ben Rojer as he recognized

the faces of Soorowits and Buhhre, in spite of their stripes of

red and yellow paint reaching from ear to ear. No sooner did

they see the dummy in the weeds, than both dismounted, dropping

the reins carelessly to the sand; and glided forward, guns in

hand, with all the noiseless ease of a snake in the grass.

That he had reached the supreme moment of years, Ben felt

in every tissue, —drawing all the time a finer bead on one of

Soorowit's greasy shirt-buttons. How still! how infinitely still

that lonely gulch! and, as if the mighty hush had stayed the

wheels of time, a hundred thoughts found passage through his

brain, and a hundred scenes moved vision-like before him.

Yet he never lost sight of that bead on his rifle, nor of that

black, murderous eye, now fairly beaming with anticipation of

long-sought revenge. He missed no item of their dress, nor one

movement telling of the pitiless hearts with which they might

be sneaking "on a sleeping rabbit. He never overlooked the face

of the ''smiling, damned villain" ebhind, though on the breast

in front he held an aim surprisingly sure to himself. They

seemed to wear the same tattered clothes they had worn at Pea

vine years before, only now there was a strata of blood and

grease to represent each killing and each feast since that time.

Even the tread of their poorly-moccasined feet seemed to strike

sharply on Ben's ears.

—

And still he listened and waited as if in a trance, listened

through the long moments it took those wild men to take a step,

listened as if to the voices of eternity, with his finger on the

trigger, the hammer raised, and the leaden contents of his rifle

aimed with deadly precision at a human heart.

The great intangible Something of desert and mountain,

hovered over that gulch and spoke clear and strong like a soul

—

alarmed. It echoed the past it echoed the words of lips made

still by death or by distance. Even in the tree-tops and behind

him and around him a pleading sound:

"Oh my son! My son!"

"Oh kid, I done it I done it I can't forget it I hear it

! ! !

in the winds of the night, an' I'm weak as a

woman."

It takes my slumbering pen long to tell these things, but

they happened in a brief, tense moment.

"But what shall I do?" called Ben in the same silent voice,

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 635

thinking instinctively of the broken hill behind him. It offered

a "ghost of a show" for a horse to get up, especially a sharp-shod

horse with the nerve of old Deut.

Quietly, ever so quietly he lowered the hammer to half-cock,

withdrew the gun from its rest and sprang to the saddle. A

kind touch to the brown neck, a mere motion of the spurs, and

the steel-shod hoofs struck fire from the rocks, and sent their

sharp clattering sound up and down the gulch.

Ben had no time to pick the best way up the hill, and he

sent the brown horse full drive on a slick sidling rock, where he

half fell and caught himself, and reached the top by the merest

chance against great odds. Also on the top he came for a moment

in full view of the wild men below, and a second later their

guns rang out in loud report but whether they thought the horse

;

riderless, and with that opinion fired at the unoffending coat

and jumper, or whether they saw young Rojer and tried to bore

him in the back, he could not tell. He knew only that on the top

the very sun shone brighter, and the voices of sorrow changed to

tones of joy, cheering him wildly onward, and assuring him of

triumph.

He drove straight for the nearest hollow, and doubtless

would have reached it before the first black heads peeped up be-

hind, if the two cayuses, frightened with the noise of the guns,

had not come charging up the sand-hill at right angles towards

him. Even then he was all but ready to pass them as things too

dispicable for notice, when something in the lively influence all

around, suggested that they were lawful contraband of war. He

acted quick on the suggestion, and his long-offensive six-shooter

became for once useful while he slowed up just enough to empty

the six chambers into those foaming mustangs, leaving them

kicking and struggling on the sand.

The smoke of the last act in this pony-killing performance

had not passed away, when young Rojer caught sight of the first

Pahute to poke his gun-muzzle over the hill-top from the gulch.

He "socked" his spurs with a vengeance into Dent's cinch, all the

time keepng his eye on that gun behind, and when the little cloud

the

of smoke appeared, he threw himself quickly to one side in

quick-

saddle, at the same time turning the brown horse with a

ness which knew no mercy.

Though the ball sang idly by, it told the brown horse the

full peril of the situation,— a situation he knew by experience.

Before they reached the hollow, he "tacked" twice of his own

violence as almost

accord, each time with such suddenness and

to throw Ben sprawling. A

last look before they plunged over the

bank showed two dupes full length on the hill, guns at shoul-

bullets missed him by

der, and young Rojer felt that one of their

about the breadth' of a gnat's heel.

636 IMPROVEMENT < \

Dent burnt the earth around the first and second turn of that

sand-draw, and then gradually yielded to the rein. Still there

flashed in his eye the eagerness and power which had no doubt

saved Montana, as it now saved Ben, from firing pursuers.

A mile and a half up the draw, young Rojer turned straight

for the lake, steering purposely over a hill-top, from which he

saw two specks moving forlornly over the sand behind him.

'

'Walk, you suckers, walk,' " he said, beginning at the same

time to untie his lunch-sack, for which he felt a gnawing desire.

And while he ate with ravenous appetite, he fancied two cayuses

puffing up like baking-powder biscuits in the sun, and four poorly-

moccasined feet sinking ankle-deep in the soft, hot sank But

they would never overtake him, and wherever the snake-eyes and

hawk-tallons might be, they were not between him and Castle

Hill for the country beamed with light and invitation the gloom

; ;

of yesterday had gone.

Young Rojer ate heartily without stopping. The nodding

flowers invited him onward, the voices from all around bade him

make good time, and he obeyed them. He passed the lake by

the cut-off, and at length on Castle Hill halted for a last look at

the heated regions behind.

"This chapter's closing fast," he mused, "Deut's tracks'll

blow full of sand, and the rain'll wash 'em off the earth. It'll

wear out Alec's bones, and maybe the date on the wall, too."

Pagahrit would again be the home of the outlaw, and the Intan-

gible would sing its pleading dirge, and call from the bald knoll

to ears dull of hearing. Also the heat-legions of seraphs would

soar to and fro over the heated waste, but from the old crossing

to Little Mountain, and from Slick Rock to Castle Hill, they

would pass no human eyes that could see.

("Adios" is the title of the next and last chapter of this story.)