The Man of the Desert (16 page)

Should she return to her home, summon her brother and aunt, and plunge into society again? The idea sickened her. Never again would she care for that life, she was certain. As she searched her heart to see what she really craved, if anything in the whole world, she found her only interest was the mission field of Arizona. And now that her dear friend was gone she was cut off from knowing much about that.

She gathered herself together after awhile and told Amelia Ellen of Mr. Brownleigh’s decision. Together they planned how the house should be closed and everything put in order to await its master’s will to return.

But that night Hazel couldn’t sleep, for suddenly, in the midst of her sad reflections, came the thought of the letter left in her trust. It was forgotten during the strenuous days following the death of its writer. Hazel thought of it only once and that on the first morning, with a comforting reflection that it would help the son bear his sorrow and she was glad it was her privilege to put it in his hand. Then the occasion’s perplexities drove it from her thoughts. Now it came back like a swift light in a precious bond that would hold him to her for a little while longer. But how should she give it to him?

Should she send it by mail? No, for that wouldn’t fulfill the letter of her promise. She knew the mother wished her to give it to him herself. Well then, should she write and summon him to his old home at once, tell him about the letter and yet refuse to send it to him? How strange that would seem! How could she explain it to him? His mother’s whim would be sacred to him, of course. But he’d think it strange for a young woman to make so much of it and not trust the letter to the mail now that circumstances made it impossible for him to come at once.

Neither would it do for her to keep the letter until he returned to the East and looked her up. It might be years.

The puzzling question kept whirling about in her mind for hours until at last she formulated a plan that seemed to solve the problem.

She would coax Amelia Ellen to take a trip to California with her, and on the way they’d stop in Arizona and put the letter into the young man’s hands. By that time no doubt his injured ankle would be sufficiently strong for him to return from the journey to the Indian reservation. She’d say she was going West and, since she promised his mother she’d put the letter into his hands, she took this opportunity to stop off and keep her promise. The trip would be a good thing for Amelia Ellen, too, and take her mind off her loneliness for the mistress who was gone.

Eagerly she broached the subject to Amelia Ellen the next morning and was met with a blank look of dismay.

“I couldn’t noways you’d fix it, my dearie,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d like nuthin’ better’n to see them big trees out in Californy I’ve been hearin’ ’bout all my life—an’ summer an’ winter with snow on the mountains what some of the boarders ‘t th’ inn tells ’bout. But I can’t bring it ’bout.

“You see it’s this way. Peter Burley ‘n’ I ben promused fer nigh on to twelve year now, an’ when he ast me I said no, I couldn’t leave Mis’ Brownleigh long’s she needed me. An’ he sez will I marry him the week after she dies, an’ I sez I didn’t like no sech dismal way o’ puttin’ it. An’ he sez well then, will I marry him the week after she don’t need me no more. An’ I sez yes, I will, an’ now I gotta keep my promus! I can’t go back on my faithful word. I’d like real well to see them big trees, but I gotta keep my promus!

“You see he’s waited long ‘nough, an’ he’s ben real patient. He couldn’t always see me every week, an’ he might ‘a’ tuk Delmira that cooked to the inn five year ago. She’d ‘a’ had him in a minnit, an’ she done her best to git him. But he stayed faithful, an’ he sez, sez he, ‘ ‘Meelia El’n, ef you’re meanin’ to keep your word, I’ll wait ef it’s a lifetime, but I hope you won’t make it any longer’n you need.’ An’ the night he said that, I promused him agin I’d be hisn soon ez ever I was free to do’s I pleased. I’d like to see them big trees, but I can’t do it. I jes’ can’t do it.”

Now Hazel wasn’t a young woman easily balked in her plans once they were made. She was convinced the only thing to do was take this trip and Amelia Ellen was the only person in the world she wanted for a companion. Therefore she made immediate acquaintance with Peter Burley, a heavy-browed, thoughtful, stolid man, who looked his character of patient lover, every inch of him, blue overalls and all.

Hazel’s heart almost misgave her as she unfolded her plan to his astonished ears and saw the look of dismay spreading over his face. He hadn’t waited all these years, however, to refuse his sweetheart anything within reason now. He drew a deep sigh, inquired how long the trip as planned would take, allowed he “could wait another month ef that would suit” and turned patiently to his barnyard to think his weary thoughts and set his hopes a little further ahead. Then Hazel’s heart misgave her. She called after him and suggested that perhaps he might like to have the marriage first and go with them, taking the excursion as a wedding trip. She’d gladly pay all expenses if he would. But the man shook his head.

“I couldn’t leave the stock fer that long, ennyhow you fix it. Thur ain’t no one would know to take my place. Besides, I never was fer takin’ journeys. But ‘Meelia Ellen, she’s allus ben of a sprightlier disposition, an’ ef she hez a hankerin’ after Californy, I ‘spect she’ll be more contented like ef she sees ’em first an’ then settles down in Granville. She better go while she’s got the chancet.”

Amelia Ellen succumbed, though with tears. Hazel couldn’t tell whether she was more glad or sad at the prospect before her. At times Amelia Ellen wept and bemoaned the fate of poor Burley, and other times she questioned whether there really were any big trees like what you saw in the geographies with riding parties sitting contentedly in tunnels through their trunks. But at last she consented to go. With many injunctions from admiring, envious neighbors who came to see them off, Amelia Ellen bid a sobbing good-bye to her solemn beloved in the gray dawn of an October morning. Then she climbed into the stage behind Hazel, and they drove away into the mystery of the great world.

Amelia Ellen looked back at her Peter, standing patient, stooped, and gray in the familiar village street looking after his departing sweetheart who was going sightseeing into the world. She would almost have jumped out over the wheel and run back if it hadn’t been for what the neighbors would say, for her heart was Burley’s. Now that the big trees were actually pulling harder than Burley, and she’d decided to go and see them, Burley began by his very acquiescence to pull harder than the big trees.

A very teary Amelia Ellen climbed into the train a few hours later, looking back dismally, hopelessly, toward the old stage they’d just left, and wondering after all if she’d ever get back to Granville safe and alive. She had strange fears of dangers that might come to Burley during her absence, which if they did she’d never forgive herself for leaving him, and strange horrors of how things might hinder her return. She began to regard her, until now, beloved traveling companion with almost suspicion, as if she were a conspirator against her welfare.

As the miles grew and the wonders along the route multiplied, however, Amelia Ellen sat up and took notice and was even exulting that she’d come. Weren’t they nearing the great famed West now, and wouldn’t it soon be time to see the big trees and turn back home again? She was almost glad she had come. She’d be wholly glad when she was safely home again.

And so one evening about sunset they arrived at the little station in Arizona which more than a year ago Hazel had left in her father’s private car.

Home

A
melia Ellen, stiff from the unaccustomed travel, powdered with desert dust, weary with the excitement and lack of sleep amid her strange surroundings, stepped down on the wooden platform and surveyed the magnificent distance between her and anywhere. She observed the vast emptiness, with purpling mountains and limitless stretches of multicolored ground arched by a dome of sky, higher and wider and more dazzling than her stern New Hampshire soul ever conceived. And she turned panic-stricken back to the train already moving away from the station.

Her first sensation was relief at feeling solid ground under her feet again, for this was Amelia Ellen’s first trip into the world, and the cars bewildered her. Her second impulse was to get back into that train as fast as her feet could carry her and get this awful journey over so she might earn the right to return to her quiet home and her faithful beloved.

But the train was well under way. She looked after it half in envy. It could go on with its work and not have to stop in this wild wasteland.

She gazed about again with the frightened look a deserted child gives before it puckers its lips and screams.

Hazel was talking calmly with the rough-looking man on the platform, who wore a wide felt hat and a pistol in his belt. He didn’t even look respectable to Amelia Ellen’s provincial eyes. And behind him—horror of horrors!—loomed a real live Indian, with long hair, high cheekbones, blanket and all, just as she’d seen them in the geography! Her blood ran cold. Why, oh, why did she ever do this daring thing—leave civilization and come away from her good man, and the quiet home awaiting her, to certain death in the desert? All the stories of horrid scalpings she’d ever heard appeared before her excited vision. With a gasp she turned again to the departing train, now a mere speck on the desert. And even as she looked, it vanished around a curve and was lost in the dim foothills of a mountain.

Poor Amelia Ellen! Her head reeled, and her heart sank. The vast prairie engulfed her, as it were, and she stood trembling and staring in dazed expectancy of an attack from the earth or air or sky. The very sky and ground seemed tottering together and threatening to extinguish her, and she closed her eyes, caught her breath, and prayed for Peter. It was always her habit in any emergency to pray for Peter Burley.

It was no better when they took her to the eating house across the track. She picked her way among the rough-looking men and surveyed the long dining table with its coarse food and its broad seats with disdain. She declined to take off her hat when she reached the room the slatternly woman showed them because she said there was no suitable place to lay it down. She scorned the simple bed, refused to wash her hands at the basin furnished for all, and was more disagreeable than Hazel dreamed her gentle, serviceable Amelia Ellen could ever be. She ate no supper and remained only briefly at the table after the men began to file in, with curious eyes toward the strangers.

She stalked to the rough, unroofed porch in the front and stared off at the dark vastness, afraid of the strangeness, the looming mountains, the multitude of stars. She said it was ridiculous to have so many stars. It wasn’t natural. It was irreverent. It was like looking too close into heaven when you weren’t intended to.

And then a bloodcurdling sound arose! Her hair stood on end. She turned with wild eyes and grasped Hazel’s arm, but she was too frightened to utter a sound. Hazel had just come out to sit with her. Out of deference to the strangers, the men had withdrawn from their customary smoking place on the porch to the back of the woodpile behind the house. They were alone—the two women—out there in the dark, with that awful sound!

Amelia Ellen’s white lips framed the words “Indians?” “War whoop?” But her throat refused her sound, and her breath came short.

“Coyotes!” laughed Hazel, secure in her wide experience, with almost a joyous ring to her voice. The sound of those distant beasts assured her she was in her beloved’s land at last, and her soul rejoiced.

“Coy—oh—”

But Amelia Ellen’s voice was lost in the recesses of her skimpy pillow where she fled to bury her startled ears. She’d heard of coyotes, but she never imagined to hear one outside of a zoological garden, of which she’d read and always hoped one day to visit. There she lay on her hard little bed and quaked until Hazel, laughing still, came to find her. But all she could get from the poor soul was a pitiful wail about Burley.

“And what would he say if I was to be et by one of them creatures? He’d never forgive me, never s’long ‘s I lived! I hadn’t ough’ to ‘a’ come!”

Nothing Hazel could say would allay her fears. She listened with horror as the girl attempted to show how harmless the beasts were by telling about her own night ride up the canyon and how nothing harmed her.

Amelia Ellen merely looked at her with a frozen glance made fiercer by the flickering candle flare and answered dully, “An’ you knew ’bout ’em all ‘long, an’ yet you brung me! It ain’t what I thought you’d do! Burley, he’ll never fergive me’s ‘long ‘s I live ef I get et up. It ain’t ez if I was all alone in the world, you know. I got him to think of, an’ I can’t afford to run no resks of bein’ et, ef you can.”

Not a wink of sleep did she get that night. When morning dawned, to the night’s horrors was added a telegram from a neighbor of Burley’s saying Burley had fallen from the haymow and broken his leg; but he sent his respects and hoped they’d have a good journey. Amelia Ellen grew uncontrollable. She declared she wouldn’t stay in that awful country another minute. She’d take the first train back—back to her beloved New Hampshire that she’d never leave again as long as her life was spared, unless Burley went along. She wouldn’t even wait until Hazel delivered her message. How could two lone women deliver a message in a land like that?

Never would she ride, drive, or walk, no, or even set foot on the desert sand. She’d sit by the track until a train came along, and she wouldn’t look further than she had to. The frenzy of fear that sometimes possesses simple people on seeing a great body of water or a roaring torrent pouring over a precipice had gripped her when she saw the desert. It filled her soul with its immensity, and poor Amelia Ellen just wanted to sit down on the wooden platform and hold onto something firmly until a train rescued her from this awful emptiness that was trying to swallow her up.

Poor Peter, with his broken leg, was her weird cry! One would think by the way she took on about it and blamed herself that she broke it with the wheels of the car in which she traveled away from him. The tragedy of a broken vow and its consequences was the subject of her discourse. Hazel laughed, then argued, and finally cried and pleaded. But nothing could avail. Go she would, and speedily, back to her home.