12. The Road
When he came to the California bank of the Colorado River, Ali haltedBen Akbar and surrendered to complete astonishment. Reason told him hehad been this way before, but so drastic were the changes and so littlewas as he remembered it, that he challenged reason itself. Ali took adeep breath and tried vainly to assure himself that this really wasBeale's Crossing where, two years ago and fifty days out of FortDefiance, the expedition's work had been successfully completed.
Ali and Lieutenant Beale, on Ben Akbar and Sied, had reached the riveron the seventeenth of October. They were met by a horde of Indians, allof whom were so deliriously excited at their first sight of camels thatany English they might have known was submerged in the shock. Two dayslater, Ali had proved that camels can swim by swimming Ben Akbar acrossthe Colorado. The rest of the expedition had followed. Some horses andmules, which the Indians promptly retrieved and ate, were drowned. Allthe camels had crossed safely.
Ali's dazed mind strove to reconcile that scene of the past and thisone.
On the opposite bank, where the Indians had grown their corn and melons,covered wagons with canvas tops that billowed in the little wind thatstirred were lined up as far as the eye could see. Horses, mules andoxen rested in the traces while awaiting their turn on a ferry that waspresently in mid-river, its cargo a wagon and a six-mule team. Adultsgossiped and children played about the waiting wagons. There was abarking of dogs, a cackling of fowl, a lowing of cattle, all the noisesthat accompany a nation on the march.
Transfixed, Ali could not move. Then the spell that gripped him wasbroken by a shout.
"Hey you! Move that blasted camel!"
Glancing toward the ferry, Ali saw the six mules dancing skittishly andtwo men trying to quiet them. Ali moved downriver. In some ways, all hadchanged and in some, nothing had; camels still panicked livestock.
Presently, Ali halted and turned back to watch, appalled by this monsterthat he had somehow helped to spawn. The road had seemed a good thing,but all the people who would ever use it, or so Ali thought, were nothalf as many as the multitude awaiting the ferry.
For a while he sat entranced as a wild deer that cannot turn its eyesfrom some fascinating thing, then his flight was sudden as the deer'swhen the intriguing but unknown object is abruptly recognized as adreaded enemy. Wheeling Ben Akbar, Ali rode downriver at top speed. Hedid not dare look around, and he did not think of slackening the paceuntil even Ben Akbar could no longer maintain it and slowed of his ownaccord. Instantly contrite, Ali drew his mount to a halt.
"I'm sorry, oh brother, that I could let you run so far and fast," heapologized. "Great fear stole my senses. Perhaps I am becoming craven."
The panting Ben Akbar nosed his arm and accepted and ate a lump ofsugar. Ali dared look back up the river. He heaved a mighty sigh ofrelief.
Not only had Ben Akbar run far beyond the sight of any wagons, but farbeyond hearing. Here was only the peaceful river, its tule-lined banksdisturbed by nothing except a horde of waterfowl and an occasionalripple that marked the wake of a great fish hunting smaller ones in theshallows.
Ali grinned sheepishly. Certainly there had been no real danger; he hadfled from shadows. Tongues would wag along many caravan routes if itwere known that Hadji Ali had run away from nothing. Just the same, Aliliked this better. He decided to ride farther down the riverbank beforecrossing.
The farther he went, the lonelier it became and the better he liked it.Presently, his wild flight seemed more amusing than otherwise, and Alichuckled throatily, but he had no thought of going back up the river. Herounded a bend and saw a dwelling.
Built of driftwood and roofed with adobe, it was a one-room affair.Glassless windows had been cut in such a manner as to admit the morningsun. An adobe fireplace was built against an outside wall and an adobechimney rose a little above the flat roof.
Ali halted Ben Akbar. He was no longer afraid. There had never beenanything about such houses to frighten him. However, if there was anylivestock about, he would avoid argument by circling around. If not, itwas safe to go directly past.
Then a man came from the house and hailed him, "Come on, stranger! Comeon an' light!"
Ali rode ahead to meet a wiry, fierce-eyed man whose uncut hair and longbeard were snow-white, but who fought the advancing years as furiouslyas he had once battled advancing Indians. Everything about him, fromhis buckskins to the way he had built his house, marked him for what hewas. Here was one of the wild men, who had gone where he wished and doneas he pleased, and never fretted about anything if he had a gun in hishands and a knife at his belt. Grown too old for such a life, he hadchosen to spend the rest of his days here in this isolated spot.
Ali dismounted and the old man extended his hand. "I'm Hud Perkins an'you're welcome."
"I'm Hi Jolly." Ali gave the Americanized version of his name.
Hud Perkins said, "I looked out an' saw a man comin' on a camel, Icouldn't believe it! Of course, lots of men come, hardly a week passesbut what somebody goes up or down river, but not on camels. Is he tame?"
"Tamer than he was at one time," Ali answered. "He has been among somany people that almost anybody can pet him now."
Hud Perkins said, "Don't know as I'd hold with pettin' him, but such acritter sure makes a man think. On my way out here, I run across apassel of 'em."
Ali's interest quickened. "You did? Where?"
"On the Heely River," Hud Perkins stated, "an' there wasn't rightly apassel. There was five, but five such critters look like a passel. Willyours stay about or do you picket him?"
"He'll stay."
"Then take his gear off an' let him fill up. Plenty of grass hereaboutsan' nary a critter to eat it most times."
Ali removed Ben Akbar's saddle and bridle and the big _dalul_ padded outto forage. Intrigued by his host's reference to five camels on the HeelyRiver, Ali straightened to ask for more information and found HudPerkins staring at Ben Akbar.
He turned to Ali. "What's wrong with him?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is he good's a horse or mule?"
"Much better," Ali stated.
The old man shook a puzzled head. "That don't hardly jibe with thosecamels on the Heely. Wasn't nobody payin' them no mind, 'cept someheathen Papagoes that was fixin' to eat 'em. I was tempted to ketch onean' see how it rode, but a cowboy said they wasn't worth ketchin'. TheArmy fetched 'em from some place in Texas, he said, an' turned 'em looseon the Heely on account they was more fuss than worth."
Ali's heart sank at this first news in more than two years of the camelsleft behind at Camp Verde, but he told himself that he should haveexpected nothing else. He drew some comfort from a quick assurance thatneither Mimico nor Major Wayne could possibly have accompanied anyexpedition that would abandon camels. Whoever had loosed those five inthe Arizona desert, where they would certainly find conditions to theirliking, knew nothing of camels and cared less.
Ali said, "Who left those camels did not know what he was doing."
"Might be I ought to have caught me one anyway, eh?"
"You'd have found it worth your while," Ali assured him.
"Well, I didn't an' I don't know as it would of been doin' me or thecamel any favor if I did. Ridin' anythin' don't set like it used to.Come on in, Hi. I'll rouse up some rations."
Ali walked with the old man to his house and sat down on a wooden benchwhile Hud Perkins busied himself preparing fish from the river andvegetables from his garden. He queried, "If I might ask, where ye been?"
Ali answered, "For the past two years, I've been here in California."
"_Hmm-ph._ Didn't know they landed any such critters out thisaway."
"They didn't," Ali informed him. "Lieutenant Beale brought twenty-fivecamels with him when he surveyed the wagon road from Fort Defiance."
"_Wagh!_" Hud Perkins ejaculated. "Then 'tis so!"
"What's so?"
"I heard tell of such when I was leavin' Santa Fe to come here," hishost informed him. "Some fool, '
twas said, was goin' from Fort Defianceto Californy, usin' camels to lay out a road. Not many believed it. Ofthem as did, nobody thought the camels would get a pistol shot from FortDefiance."
"It's true," Ali said. "I was with the expedition."
"Well tie that one!" Hud Perkins marveled. "So camels did come toCaliforny! What happened to 'em?"
Ali had no immediate answer, for after reaching California, nothingworthwhile had happened. The camels had been shown in various places,including Los Angeles, and had attracted the usual onlookers and sparkedthe usual stampedes. A few months after arriving, Lieutenant Beale tookfourteen of the animals and started back along the surveyed road.
The rest of the herd, with Ali as keeper, had been sent to and was stillat Fort Tejon, where Army brass amused itself by putting camels throughthe usual meaningless paces. Seeing no opportunity for a change, andwith all he could stomach of Fort Tejon, Ali had taken Ben Akbar anddeparted.
Ali answered his host, "They're at Fort Tejon."
Hud Perkins snorted. "Don't blame you for leavin', got no use for Armyposts myself. You goin' east?"
"Not all the way," Ali said. "Too far east is no better than too farwest. I think I'll go back along the road. I saw a lot of free countrythere."
Hud Perkins was silent for a long while, then he said quietly, "You sawit two years ago."
"But--" Ali was startled. "It isn't all taken?"
"I don't know," Hud Perkins spoke as a bewildered old man who no longerknew about anything. "Was a time when I figgered the West'd never settlean' a man would always find room. But--Anyhow it's two years since Icome out."
Ali asked gravely, "Have there really been so many others?"
His host answered moodily, "I've seen a passel of wagon roads opened up.Whenever there was one, people boiled along it like water pours out of abusted beaver dam."
The specter Ali had seen lurking behind the wagons at Beale's Crossingwas again present and again threatened panic.
"Perhaps," he said doubtfully, "I'd better go somewhere else."
"If you can still find such a place," Hud Perkins replied. "Still, likeI said, it's two years since I come out. I could be wrong. Why not findout?"
"How?" Ali asked.
"Ride back along the road," Hud Perkins advised him. "See for yourselfif it's what you think it is. It's the one way you'll ever know."
Ali said, "I'll do it."
When the leading team of mules swung around the sandy butte, Ali turnedBen Akbar away from the road. It was somehow different from the numeroustimes he'd swung to one side or the other, so that wagons might passwithout the panic that always resulted when livestock met a camel. Thistime there would be no turning back.
Ali and his mount were swallowed up in a pine forest before anyone sawthem. Except for the leading mule team, that spooked when they smelledBen Akbar's fresh tracks, nobody in the whole train suspected that acamel had been here.
Riding due south, Ali did not look around even once. Again he wasfleeing, but this time he knew why. At one time, the wagon road hadoffered everything he wanted. Now it offered nothing.
The wagons lined up and awaiting their turn on the ferry at Beale'sCrossing had seemed an overwhelming multitude only because there hadbeen no basis for comparison. After nineteen days on the wagon road, Aliwas able to fit them into their proper niche, one small ripple in asurging tide. He still did not know how this had come about, although hecould not have believed unless he saw it. Two short years after thecamels had composed the first organized caravan to come this way,everybody seemed to be following.
Besides an endless stream of wagons on the road, there were ranchesbeside it. The flocks and herds that were sure to come some time seemedto have grown overnight, as though they were mushrooms. There werehomes, villages, towns, even the cities that, Ali had once thought,might arise after several generations.
Swimming Ben Akbar across the Colorado at Hud Perkins' house, Alicircled to come back on the road well east of Beale's Crossing--andfound more people. Unwilling to believe what became increasingly evidentand hoping to find even one place that was as it had been, he rode east.Hope died when he found a village in the very heart of the desert wherethe expedition had been lost. The village's source of water was the samewater hole from which Ben Akbar had stampeded the Indians. He rode ononly to find a better place for leaving the road, and now he had leftit.
When he finally halted Ben Akbar and made camp, Ali knew that he hadacted wisely. Once again he was at peace, for, even though the old trailwas closed, nothing was ever lost as long as a new one beckoned. Thenext morning, he resumed his southward journey.
The pine forest was long behind him, the desert all about, when BenAkbar mounted a hill from whose summit Ali finally saw the Gila River.He dismounted, standing a bit in front of the big _dalul_ and holdingthe camel's rein lightly as he studied that which he had come so far tosee.
Here in the desert, the Gila was sluggish, lazy and silt-laden. It hadnothing in common with the clear and sparkling streams that haveinspired poet and artist alike, but it belonged in this hot desert, evenas the others fitted their rugged valleys. Who could not see beauty inthe Gila, could not see.
For no special reason, Ali glanced at the rein in his hand and a vastmortification swept over him. While working for the Army, he had nevereven thought about certain essential needs because Army pay and rationsprovided all he needed. Now he had neither, though food was still noproblem because everybody in this land was happy to share whatever foodhe might have. But man could not live by bread alone.
True, not a great deal more was necessary and Ali attached littleimportance to his own threadbare clothing and battered shoes. But hisvery soul revolted when he looked at Ben Akbar's worn rein, a sorrything, unfitted for even the poorest baggage camel. Ali must somehowcontrive to earn some money. But the peace that had come to him when hefinally turned from the wagon road did not desert him when he remounted.He had come to the Gila with a plan. He would find and catch theabandoned camels and hire out as packer--and surely packers wereneeded. All would be well.
Two days later, in a delightful little haven where the Gila periodicallyoverflowed its banks and ample water brought luxurious growth, Ali foundthe camels. He smiled with happiness when he noted Amir, an old friendfrom Camp Verde, and two more old acquaintances in a pair of the youngCamp Verde females. The herd numbered seven and not five, as Hud Perkinshad told him, but Ali remembered that the old man had come this way twoyears ago. All five camels he'd seen must have been from Camp Verde. Twohad been killed by something or other--Hud had mentioned Indians--andthe four were Amir's daughters and son.
They watched nervously--and probably would have run if approached byanyone else. Ali, who knew how to converse with camels, advanced slowly,talking as he did so.
Amir himself finally trotted forward to renew old friendship.
* * * * *
Riding Ben Akbar and trailed by his string of camels, there were elevennow, Ali did not look back. The eleven would follow, just as they alwaysfollowed him. Nor were they at fault because their sorry rewards hadnever equalled their unswerving devotion and loyalty.
Maybe nothing was really at fault, but the mine owners to whom Ali hadoffered his services and that of his camels were either too poor to hireany packer; or so rich that they might hire what they chose, and theychose mules. There was no use in going even near the ranches, camelsterrified cattle, too. Finally, reduced to packing water, Ali found thatthose whose need was most desperate were almost never able to pay.Unable to go on because of maximum expense and minimum income, Ali mustnow do the best he could for his baggage animals.
When he came to the meadow on the Gila where he had found the originalseven, he led his herd far into it. Then, still not looking behind, hewhirled Ben Akbar and was off at top speed. Though they would still tryto follow, the baggage camels could not match Ben Akbar's speed for verylong and must soon fall behind.
There must be anoth
er journey along a new trail. Ben Akbar's rein was nolonger even a rein, but a piece of rope found at a water hole. Hissaddle was falling apart and Ali must do something, but this time hewould.
He had heard of much gold in the northern desert.