XVI. SURPRISE VALLEY
From the summit of the wall the plateau waved away in red and yellowridges, with here and there little valleys green with cedar and pinyon.
Upon one of these ridges, silhouetted against the sky, appearedthe stalking figure of the Indian. He had espied the fugitives. Hedisappeared in a niche, and presently came again into view round acorner of cliff. Here he waited, and soon Shefford and Fay joined him.
"Bi Nai, it is well," he said.
Shefford eagerly asked for the horses, and Nas Ta Bega silently pointeddown the niche, which was evidently an opening into one of the shallowcanyon. Then he led the way, walking swiftly. It was Shefford, andnot Fay, who had difficulty in keeping close to him. This speed causedShefford to become more alive to the business, instead of the feeling,of the flight. The Indian entered a crack between low cliffs--a verynarrow canyon full of rocks and clumps of cedars--and in a half-hour orless he came to where the mustangs were halted among some cedars. Threeof the mustangs, including Nack-yal, were saddled; one bore a smallpack, and the remaining two had blankets strapped on their backs.
"Fay, can you ride in that long skirt?" asked Shefford. How strangeit seemed that his first words to her were practical when all hisimpassioned thought had been only mute! But the instant he spoke heexperienced a relief, a relaxation.
"I'll take it off," replied Fay, just as practically. And in a twinklingshe slipped out of both waist and skirt. She had worn them over theshort white-flannel dress with which Shefford had grown familiar.
As Nack-yal appeared to be the safest mustang for her to ride, Sheffordhelped her upon him and then attended to the stirrups. When he hadadjusted them to the proper length he drew the bridle over Nack-yal'shead and, upon handing it to her, found himself suddenly looking intoher face. She had taken off the hood, too. The instant there eyes met herealized that she was strangely afraid to meet his glance, as he was tomeet hers. That seemed natural. But her face was flushed and there wereunmistakable signs upon it of growing excitement, of mounting happiness.Save for that fugitive glance she would have been the Fay Larkin ofyesterday. How he had expected her to look he did not know, but it wasnot like this. And never had he felt her strange quality of simplicityso powerfully.
"Have you ever been here--through this little canyon?" he asked.
"Oh yes, lots of times."
"You'll be able to lead us to Surprise Valley, you think?"
"I know it. I shall see Uncle Jim and Mother Jane before sunset!"
"I hope--you do," he replied, a little shakily. "Perhaps we'd better nottell them of the--the--about what happened last night."
Her beautiful, grave, and troubled glance returned to meet his, andhe received a shock that he considered was amaze. And after more swiftconsideration he believed he was amazed because that look, instead ofbetraying fear or gloom or any haunting shadow of darkness, betrayedapprehension for him--grave, sweet, troubled love for him. She was notthinking of herself at all--of what he might think of her, of a possiblegulf between them, of a vast and terrible change in the relation ofsoul to soul. He experienced a profound gladness. Though he could notunderstand her, he was happy that the horror of Waggoner's death hadescaped her. He loved her, he meant to give his life to her, and rightthen and there he accepted the burden of her deed and meant to bear itwithout ever letting her know of the shadow between them.
"Fay, we'll forget--what's behind us," he said. "Now to find SurpriseValley. Lead on. Nack-yal is gentle. Pull him the way you want to go.We'll follow."
Shefford mounted the other saddled mustang, and they set off, Fayin advance. Presently they rode out of this canyon up to levelcedar-patched, solid rock, and here Fay turned straight west. Evidentlyshe had been over the ground before. The heights to which he had climbedwith her were up to the left, great slopes and looming promontories. Andthe course she chose was as level and easy as any he could have pickedout in that direction.
When a mile or more of this up-and-down travel had been traversed Fayhalted and appeared to be at fault. The plateau was losing its rounded,smooth, wavy characteristics, and to the west grew bolder, more rugged,more cut up into low crags and buttes. After a long, sweeping glance Fayheaded straight for this rougher country. Thereafter from time to timeshe repeated this action.
"Fay, how do you know you're going in the right direction?" askedShefford, anxiously.
"I never forget any ground I've been over. I keep my eyes close ahead.All that seems strange to me is the wrong way. What I've seen, beforemust be the right way, because I saw it when they brought me fromSurprise Valley."
Shefford had to acknowledge that she was following an Indian's instinctfor ground he had once covered.
Still Shefford began to worry, and finally dropped back to question NasTa Bega.
"Bi Nai, she has the eye of a Navajo," replied the Indian. "Look!Iron-shod horses have passed here. See the marks in the stone?"
Shefford indeed made out faint cut tracks that would have escaped hisown sight. They had been made long ago, but they were unmistakable.
"She's following the trail by memory--she must remember the stones,trees, sage, cactus," said Shefford in surprise.
"Pictures in her mind," replied the Indian.
Thereafter the farther she progressed the less at fault she appeared andthe faster she traveled. She made several miles an hour, and aboutthe middle of the afternoon entered upon the more broken region of theplateau. View became restricted. Low walls, and ruined cliffs of redrock with cedars at their base, and gullies growing into canyon andcanyon opening into larger ones--these were passed and crossed andclimbed and rimmed in travel that grew more difficult as the goingbecame wilder. Then there was a steady ascent, up and up all the time,though not steep, until another level, green with cedar and pinyon, wasreached.
It reminded Shefford of the forest near the mouth of the Sagi. It was sodense he could not see far ahead of Fay, and often he lost sight of herentirely. Presently he rode out of the forest into a strip of purplesage. It ended abruptly, and above that abrupt line, seemingly far away,rose a long, red wall. Instantly he recognized that to be the oppositewall of a canyon which as yet he could not see.
Fay was acting strangely and he hurried forward. She slipped offNack-yal and fell, sprang up and ran wildly, to stand upon a promontory,her arms uplifted, her hair a mass of moving gold in the wind, herattitude one of wild and eloquent significance.
Shefford ran, too, and as he ran the red wall in his eager sight seemedto enlarge downward, deeper and deeper, and then it merged into a stripof green.
Suddenly beneath him yawned a red-walled gulf, a deceiving gulf seenthrough transparent haze, a softly shining green-and-white valley,strange, wild, beautiful, like a picture in his memory.
"Surprise Valley!" he cried, in wondering recognition.
Fay Larkin waved her arms as if they were wings to carry her swiftlydownward, and her plaintive cry fitted the wildness of her manner andthe lonely height where she leaned.
Shefford drew her back from the rim.
"Fay, we are here," he said. "I recognize the valley. I miss only onething--the arch of stone."
His words seemed to recall her to reality.
"The arch? That fell when the wall slipped, in the great avalanche. See!There is the place. We can get down there. Oh, let us hurry!"
The Indian reached the rim and his falcon gaze swept the valley. "Ugh!"he exclaimed. He, too, recognized the valley that he had vainly soughtfor half a year.
"Bring the lassos," said Shefford.
With Fay leading, they followed the rim toward the head of the valley.Here the wall had caved in, and there was a slope of jumbled rock athousand feet wide and more than that in depth. It was easy to descendbecause there were so many rocks waist-high that afforded a handhold.Shefford marked, however, that Fay never took advantage of these. Morethan once he paused to watch her. Swiftly she went down; she steppedfrom rock to rock; lightly she crossed cracks and pits; she ran alongthe sharp
and broken edge of a long ledge; she poised on a pointed stoneand, sure-footed as a mountain-sheep, she sprang to another that hadscarce surface for a foothold; her moccasins flashed, seemed to holdwondrously on any angle; and when a rock tipped or slipped with her sheleaped to a surer stand. Shefford watched her performance, so swift,agile, so perfectly balanced, showing such wonderful accord between eyeand foot; and then when he swept his gaze down upon that wild valleywhere she had roamed alone for twelve years he marveled no more.
The farther down he got the greater became the size of rocks, untilhe found himself amid huge pieces of cliff as large as houses. He lostsight of Fay entirely, and he anxiously threaded a narrow, winding,descending way between the broken masses. Finally he came out upon flatrock again. Fay stood on another rim, looking down. He saw that theslide had moved far out into the valley, and the lower part of itconsisted of great sections of wall. In fact, the base of the greatwall had just moved out with the avalanche, and this much of it held itsvertical position. Looking upward, Shefford was astounded and thrilledto see how far he had descended, how the walls leaned like a great,wide, curving, continuous rim of mountain.
"Here! Here!" called Fay. "Here's where they got down--where theybrought me up. Here are the sticks they used. They stuck them in thiscrack, down to that ledge."
Shefford ran to her side and looked down. There was a narrow split inthis section of wall and it was perhaps sixty feet in depth. The floorof rock below led out in a ledge, with a sheer drop to the valley level.
As Shefford gazed, pondering on a way to descend lower, the Indianreached his side. He had no sooner looked than he proceeded to act.Selecting one of the sticks, which were strong pieces of cedar, wellhewn and trimmed, he jammed it between the walls of the crack till itstuck fast. Then sitting astride this one he jammed in another somethree feet below. When he got down upon that one it was necessary forShefford to drop him a third stick. In a comparatively short time theIndian reached the ledge below. Then he called for the lassos. Sheffordthrew them down. His next move was an attempt to assist Fay, but sheslipped out of his grasp and descended the ladder with a swiftnessthat made him hold his breath. Still, when his turn came, her spiritso governed him that he went down as swiftly, and even leaped sheer thelast ten feet.
Nas Ta Bega and Fay were leaning over the ledge.
"Here's the place," she said, excitedly. "Let me down on the rope."
It took two thirty-foot lassos tied together to reach the floor of thevalley. Shefford folded his vest, put it round Fay, and slipped a loopof the lasso under her arms. Then he and Nas Ta Bega lowered her tothe grass below. Fay, throwing off the loop, bounded away like a wildcreature, uttering the strangest cries he had ever heard, and shedisappeared along the wall.
"I'll go down," said Shefford to the Indian. "You stay here to help pullus up."
Hand over hand Shefford descended, and when his feet touched the grasshe experienced a shock of the most singular exultation.
"In Surprise Valley!" he breathed, softly. The dream that had come tohim with his friend's story, the years of waiting, wondering, and thenthe long, fruitless, hopeless search in the desert uplands--these werein his mind as he turned along the wall where Fay had disappeared. Hefaced a wide terrace, green with grass and moss and starry with strangewhite flowers, and dark-foliaged, spear-pointed spruce-trees. Below theterrace sloped a bench covered with thick copse, and this merged intoa forest of dwarf oaks, and beyond that was a beautiful strip of whiteaspens, their leaves quivering in the stillness. The air was close,sweet, warm, fragrant, and remarkably dry. It reminded him of the air hehad smelled in dry caves under cliffs. He reached a point from where hesaw a meadow dotted with red-and-white-spotted cattle and little blackburros. There were many of them. And he remembered with a start theagony of toil and peril Venters had endured bringing the progenitors ofthis stock into the valley. What a strange, wild, beautiful story itall was! But a story connected with this valley could not have beenotherwise.
Beyond the meadow, on the other side of the valley, extended the forest,and that ended in the rising bench of thicket, which gave place to greenslope and mossy terrace of sharp-tipped spruces--and all this led theeye irresistibly up to the red wall where a vast, dark, wonderful cavernyawned, with its rust-colored streaks of stain on the wall, and thequeer little houses of the cliff-dwellers, with their black, vacant,silent windows speaking so weirdly of the unknown past.
Shefford passed a place where the ground had been cultivated, but notas recently as the last six months. There was a scant shock of corn andmany meager standing stalks. He became aware of a low, whining hum and afragrance overpowering in its sweetness. And there round another cornerof wall he came upon an orchard all pink and white in blossom andmelodious with the buzz and hum of innumerable bees.
He crossed a little stream that had been dammed, went along a pond, downbeside an irrigation-ditch that furnished water to orchard and vineyard,and from there he strode into a beautiful cove between two juttingcorners of red wall. It was level and green and the spruces stoodgracefully everywhere. Beyond their dark trunks he saw caves in thewall.
Suddenly the fragrance of blossom was overwhelmed by the strongerfragrance of smoke from a wood fire. Swiftly he strode under thespruces. Quail fluttered before him as tame as chickens. Big grayrabbits scarcely moved out of his way. The branches above him were fullof mockingbirds. And then--there before him stood three figures.
Fay Larkin was held close to the side of a magnificent woman,barbarously clad in garments made of skins and pieces of blanket. Herface worked in noble emotion. Shefford seemed to see the ghost of thatfair beauty Venters had said was Jane Withersteen's. Her hair wasgray. Near her stood a lean, stoop-shouldered man whose long hair wasperfectly white. His gaunt face was bare of beard. It had strange,sloping, sad lines. And he was staring with mild, surprised eyes.
The moment held Shefford mute till sight of Fay Larkin's tear-wet facebroke the spell. He leaped forward and his strong hands reached for thewoman and the man.
"Jane Withersteen!... Lassiter! I have found you!"
"Oh, sir, who are you?" she cried, with rich and deep and quiveringvoice. "This child came running--screaming. She could not speak. Wethought she had gone mad--and escaped to come back to us."
"I am John Shefford," he replied, swiftly. "I am a friend of BernVenters--of his wife Bess. I learned your story. I came west. I'vesearched a year. I found Fay. And we've come to take you away."
"You found Fay? But that masked Mormon who forced her to sacrificeherself to save us!... What of him? It's not been so many long years--Iremember what my father was--and Dyer and Tull--all those cruelchurchmen."
"Waggoner is dead," replied Shefford.
"Dead? She is free! Oh, what--how did he die?"
"He was killed."
"Who did it?"
"That's no matter," replied Shefford, stonily, and he met her gaze withsteady eyes. "He's out of the way. Fay was never his wife. Fay's free.We've come to take you out of the country. We must hurry. We'll betracked--pursued. But we've horses and an Indian guide. We'll getaway.... I think it better to leave here at once. There's no telling howsoon we'll be hunted. Get what things you want to take with you."
"Oh--yes--Mother Jane, let us hurry!" cried Fay. "I'm so full--I can'ttalk--my heart hurts so!"
Jane Withersteen's face shone with an exceedingly radiant light, and aglory blended with a terrible fear in her eyes.
"Fay! my little Fay!"
Lassiter had stood there with his mild, clear blue eyes upon Shefford.
"I shore am glad to see you--all," he drawled, and extended his hand asif the meeting were casual. "What'd you say your name was?"
Shefford repeated it as he met the proffered hand.
"How's Bern an' Bess?" Lassiter inquired.
"They were well, prosperous, happy when last I saw them.... They had ababy."
"Now ain't thet fine?... Jane, did you hear? Bess has a baby. An', Jane,didn't I always say Bern w
ould come back to get us out? Shore it's justthe same."
How cool, easy, slow, and mild this Lassiter seemed! Had the man grownold, Shefford wondered? The past to him manifestly was only yesterday,and the danger of the present was as nothing. Looking in Lassiter'sface, Shefford was baffled. If he had not remembered the greatness ofthis old gun-man he might have believed that the lonely years in thevalley had unbalanced his mind. In an hour like this coolness seemedinexplicable--assuredly would have been impossible in an ordinary man.Yet what hid behind that drawling coolness? What was the meaning ofthose long, sloping, shadowy lines of the face? What spirit lay in thedeep, mild, clear eyes? Shefford experienced a sudden check to what hadbeen his first growing impression of a drifting, broken old man.
"Lassiter, pack what little you can carry--mustn't be much--and we'llget out of here," said Shefford.
"I shore will. Reckon I ain't a-goin' to need a pack-train. We saved theclothes we wore in here. Jane never thought it no use. But I figgered wemight need them some day. They won't be stylish, but I reckon they'll dobetter 'n these skins. An' there's an old coat thet was Venters's."
The mild, dreamy look became intensified in Lassiter's eyes.
"Did Venters have any hosses when you knowed him?" he asked.
"He had a farm full of horses," replied Shefford, with a smile. "Andthere were two blacks--the grandest horses I ever saw. Black Star andNight! You remember, Lassiter?"
"Shore. I was wonderin' if he got the blacks out. They must be growin'old by now.... Grand hosses, they was. But Jane had another hoss, a bigdevil of a sorrel. His name was Wrangle. Did Venters ever tell you abouthim--an' thet race with Jerry Card?"
"A hundred times!" replied Shefford.
"Wrangle run the blacks off their legs. But Jane never would believethet. An' I couldn't change her all these years.... Reckon mebbe we'llget to see them blacks?"
"Indeed, I hope--I believe you will," replied Shefford, feelingly.
"Shore won't thet be fine. Jane, did you hear? Black Star an' Night arelivin' an' we'll get to see them."
But Jane Withersteen only clasped Fay in her arms, and looked atLassiter with wet and glistening eyes.
Shefford told them to hurry and come to the cliff where the ascent fromthe valley was to be made. He thought best to leave them alone to maketheir preparations and bid farewell to the cavern home they had knownfor so long.
Then he strolled back along the wall, loitering here to gaze into acave, and there to study crude red paintings in the nooks. And sometimeshe halted thoughtfully and did not see anything. At length he roundeda corner of cliff to espy Nas Ta Bega sitting upon the ledge, reposefuland watchful as usual. Shefford told the Indian they would be climbingout soon, and then he sat down to wait and let his gaze rove over thevalley.
He might have sat there a long while, so sad and reflective andwondering was his thought, but it seemed a very short time till Fay camein sight with her free, swift grace, and Lassiter and Jane some distancebehind. Jane carried a small bundle and Lassiter had a sack over hisshoulder that appeared no inconsiderable burden.
"Them beans shore is heavy," he drawled, as he deposited the sack uponthe ground.
Shefford curiously took hold of the sack and was amazed to find that asecond and hard muscular effort was required to lift it.
"Beans?" he queried.
"Shore," replied Lassiter.
"That's the heaviest sack of beans I ever saw. Why--it's not possibleit can be.... Lassiter, we've a long, rough trail. We've got to packlight--"
"Wal, I ain't a-goin' to leave this here sack behind. Reckon I've beenall of twelve years in fillin' it," he declared, mildly.
Shefford could only stare at him.
"Fay may need them beans," went on Lassiter.
"Why?"
"Because they're gold."
"Gold!" ejaculated Shefford.
"Shore. An' they represent some work. Twelve years of diggin' an'washin'!"
Shefford laughed constrainedly. "Well, Lassiter, that alters the caseconsiderably. A sack of gold nuggets or grains, or beans, as you callthem, certainly must not be left behind.... Come, now, we'll tackle thisclimbing job."
He called up to the Indian and, grasping the rope, began to walk up thefirst slant, and then by dint of hand-over-hand effort and climbingwith knees and feet he succeeded, with Nas Ta Bega's help, in making theledge. Then he let down the rope to haul up the sack and bundle. Thatdone, he directed Fay to fasten the noose round her as he had fixed itbefore. When she had complied he called to her to hold herself out fromthe wall while he and Nas Ta Bega hauled her up.
"Hold the rope tight," replied Fay, "I'll walk up."
And to Shefford's amaze and admiration, she virtually walked up thatalmost perpendicular wall by slipping her hands along the rope andstepping as she pulled herself up. There, if never before, he saw thefruit of her years of experience on steep slopes. Only such experiencecould have made the feat possible.
Jane had to be hauled up, and the task was a painful one for her.Lassiter's turn came then, and he showed more strength and agility thanShefford had supposed him capable of. From the ledge they turned theirattention to the narrow crack with its ladder of sticks. Fay had alreadyascended and now hung over the rim, her white face and golden hairframed vividly in the narrow stream of blue sky above.
"Mother Jane! Uncle Jim! You are so slow," she called.
"Wal, Fay, we haven't been second cousins to a canyon squirrel all theseyears," replied Lassiter.
This upper half of the climb bid fair to be as difficult for Jane, ifnot so painful, as the lower. It was necessary for the Indian to goup and drop the rope, which was looped around her, and then, with himpulling from above and Shefford assisting Jane as she climbed, she wasfinally gotten up without mishap. When Lassiter reached the level theyrested a little while and then faced the great slide of jumbled rocks.Fay led the way, light, supple, tireless, and Shefford never ceasedlooking at her. At last they surmounted the long slope and, windingalong the rim, reached the point where Fay had led out of the cedars.
Nas Ta Bega, then, was the one to whom Shefford looked for everydecision or action of the immediate future. The Indian said he had seena pool of water in a rocky hole, that the day was spent, that here was alittle grass for the mustangs, and it would be well to camp right there.So while Nas Ta Bega attended to the mustangs Shefford set about suchpreparations for camp and supper as their light pack afforded. Thequestion of beds was easily answered, for the mats of soft needles underpinyon and cedar would be comfortable places to sleep.
When Shefford felt free again the sun was setting. Lassiter and Janewere walking under the trees. The Indian had returned to camp. But Faywas missing. Shefford imagined he knew where to find her, and upongoing to the edge of the forest he saw her sitting on the promontory.He approached her, drawn in spite of a feeling that perhaps he ought tostay away.
"Fay, would you rather be alone?" he asked.
His voice startled her.
"I want you," she replied, and held out her hand.
Taking it in his own, he sat beside her.
The red sun was at their backs. Surprise Valley lay hazy, dusky, shadowybeneath them. The opposite wall seemed fired by crimson flame, save fardown at its base, which the sun no longer touched. And the dark lineof red slowly rose, encroaching upon the bright crimson. Changing,transparent, yet dusky veils seemed to float between the walls; long,red rays, where the sun shone through notch or crack in the rim, splitthe darker spaces; deep down at the floor the forest darkened, the stripof aspen paled, the meadow turned gray; and all under the shelves and inthe great caverns a purple gloom deepened. Then the sun set. And swiftlytwilight was there below while day lingered above. On the opposite wallthe fire died and the stone grew cold.
A canyon night-hawk voiced his lonely, weird, and melancholy cry, and itseemed to pierce and mark the silence.
A pale star, peering out of a sky that had begun to turn blue, markedthe end of twilight. And all th
e purple shadows moved and hovered andchanged till, softly and mysteriously, they embraced black night.
Beautiful, wild, strange, silent Surprise Valley! Shefford saw it beforeand beneath him, a dark abyss now, the abode of loneliness. He imaginedfaintly what was in Fay Larkin's heart. For the last time she had seenthe sun set there and night come with its dead silence and sweet mysteryand phantom shadows, its velvet blue sky and white trains of stars.
He, who had dreamed and longed and searched, found that the hour hadbeen incalculable for him in its import.