The Man of the Desert (9 page)

Soon he came back with an Indian boy carrying an iron pot and some fresh mutton. Hazel watched them as they built a fire, arranged the potful of water to boil, and placed the meat to roast. The missionary was making a corn cake that was presently baking in the ashes and emitting a savory odor.

An Indian squaw appeared in the doorway of one of the hogans, her baby strapped to her back, and watched her with round eyes. Hazel smiled at the papoose, who soon dimpled into an answering smile. Then she discovered the missionary watching them both, his heart in his eyes, a strange joy in his face, and her heart beat faster. She was pleasing him! As she smiled back at the baby, she discovered her own interest in these neglected people of his. She couldn’t know that the dark-skinned baby she’d noticed would from now on become the missionary’s special object of care, just because she noticed it.

They enjoyed a cheerful meal, though not as intimate as the others were. Indeed, a group of Indian women and children huddled outside the nearest hogan and watched their every move with wide staring eyes and stolid but interested countenances. And the boy hovered not far away to bring anything they might need. It was all pleasant, but Hazel felt impatient because of the interruption when their time together was now so short. She was glad when, mounted on Billy again and her companion on a rough Indian pony, they rode away together into the afternoon sunshine.

But now it seemed only a breathless space before they’d encounter more people, for the two horses made rapid time, and the distances flew past them mile by mile.

Each moment the girl felt more shy and embarrassed and conscious of the words she’d overheard in the early morning. It seemed like a burden on her soul she couldn’t carry away unknown. Yet how could she let him know?

Renunciation

T
hey entered a strip of silvery sand, about two miles wide, and rode almost in silence, for a singular shyness had settled upon them.

The girl was conscious of his eyes on her with a tender yearning as if he’d impress the image on his mind for the time when she wouldn’t be with him anymore. Each had a curious sense of understanding the other’s thoughts and needing no words. But as they neared a great rustling stretch of corn he looked at her keenly again.

“You’re very tired, I’m sure.”

It wasn’t a question, but she lifted her eyes to deny it, and the color swept over her cheeks.

“I knew it,” he said, searching her raised eyes. “We must stop and rest after we pass through this corn. There’s a spot under some trees where you’ll be sheltered from the sun. This corn lasts only a mile or so more, and after you rest we’ll have only a short distance to go.” He caught his breath as though the words hurt him. “Our journey is almost over.”

They rode in silence through the corn. But on the other side, when they were seated beneath the trees, the girl lifted her eyes to him.

“I haven’t known how to thank you,” she said earnestly, the tears almost in evidence.

“Don’t, please!” he said gently. “It’s been good for me to be with you. How good you can never know.” He paused and then looked keenly at her.

“Did you rest well last night, your first night under the stars? Did you hear coyotes or feel at all afraid?”

Her color fled, and she dropped her glance to Billy’s neck, while her heart throbbed painfully.

He saw how disturbed she was.

“You were afraid,” he charged gently. “Why didn’t you call? I was close by all the time. What frightened you?”

“Oh, it was nothing!” she said evasively. “It was only for a minute.”

“Tell me, please!” His voice was compelling.

“It was just for a minute,” she said again, speaking rapidly and trying to hide her embarrassment. “I woke and thought I heard talking, and you weren’t in sight. But it wasn’t long before you came back with an armful of wood, and I saw it was almost morning.”

Her cheeks were rosy, as she lifted her clear eyes to meet his searching gaze and tried to face him steadily, but he looked into the very depths of her soul and saw the truth. She felt her courage leaving her and tried to turn her gaze lightly away but couldn’t.

At last he said in a low voice full of feeling: “You heard me?”

Her eyes, which he’d held with his look, wavered, faltered, and dropped.

“I was afraid of that,” he said as her silence confirmed his conviction. “I heard someone stirring. I looked and thought I saw you going back to your shelter.”

His tone held grave self-reproach but no reproach for her. Nevertheless her heart burned with shame, and her eyes filled with tears. She hid her face in her hands.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be listening. I thought from the tone of your voice you were in trouble. I was afraid someone had attacked you, and perhaps I could do something to help—”

“You poor child!” he said, deeply moved. “How unpardonable of me to frighten you. It’s my habit of talking out loud when I’m alone. The vast loneliness out here has cultivated it. I didn’t realize I might disturb you. What must you think of me?”

“Think!” she exclaimed softly. “I think you’re wrong to keep a thing like that to yourself!”

And then she realized what she had said, and her face crimsoned with embarrassment.

But he was looking at her with an eager light in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Won’t you please explain?”

Hazel was sitting now with her face turned away, and the soft hair blowing about concealed her burning cheeks. She felt as if she must run away into the desert and end this terrible conversation. She was getting in deeper and deeper every minute.

“Please!” said the gentle, firm voice.

“Why, I think—a—a—woman—has a right—to know—a thing like that!”

“Why?” asked the voice again after a pause.

“Because—she—she—might never—she might never know there was such a love for a woman in the world!” she stammered, still with her head turned away from him. She felt she could never turn around and face this wonderful man of the desert again. She wished the ground would open up and show her some comfortable way to escape.

The pause this time was long, so long that it frightened her, but she dared not turn and look at him. If she had, she would have seen him sitting with bowed head for some time, in deep meditation, and at last lifting his glance to the sky again as if to ask a swift permission. Then he spoke.

“A man has no right to tell a woman he loves her when he cannot ask her to marry him.”

“That,” said the girl, her throat tightening, “that has nothing to do with it. I—wasn’t talking about—marrying! But I think she has a right to know. It would—make a difference all her life!”

Her throat was dry. The words seemed to stick as she uttered them, yet they would be said. She longed to hide her burning face in some cool shelter and escape from this terrible talk. But she could only sit rigidly quiet, with her fingers fastened in the coarse grass at her side.

A longer silence covered them now, and still she dared not look at the man.

A great eagle appeared in the heavens and sailed toward a mountain peak. Hazel sensed her own smallness and the fact that her words brought anguish to her companion’s soul. Yet she couldn’t think of anything to say that would improve matters.

At last he spoke, and his voice was like one performing a sad, sacred rite for one tenderly loved: “And now that you know I love you, does it make any difference to you?”

Hazel tried three times to answer, but every time her trembling lips would frame no words. Then suddenly her face dropped into her hands, and the tears came. She felt as if a benediction had been laid upon her head, and the glory of it was greater than she could bear.

The man watched her, his arms longing to enfold her and soothe her agitation, but he wouldn’t. His heart was on fire with the sweetness and pain of the present moment, but he wouldn’t take advantage of their situation on the lonely plain and desecrate the beauty of the trust she’d placed in him.

Then her strength returned, and she raised her head and glanced into his waiting eyes with a shy look, though true and earnest.

“It will make a difference—to me!” she said. “I’ll never feel quite the same toward life because I know there’s such a wonderful man in the world.”

She controlled her voice now and was holding back the tears. Her well-bred manner from the world was coming to her aid. He mustn’t see how much this meant to her. She put out a cold little hand and laid it timidly in his big brown one. He held it a moment and looked down at it, closing his fingers over it in a strong clasp, then laid it gently back in her lap as though it were too precious to keep. Her heart thrilled at his touch.

“Thank you,” he said simply, with formality in his tone. “But I can’t see how you can think well of me. I’m an utter stranger to you. I have no right to talk of such things to you.”

“You didn’t tell me,” answered Hazel. “You told—God.” Her words were slow and low with awe. “I only overheard. It was my fault—but—I’m not—sorry. It was—wonderful to hear!”

He watched her shy dignity as she talked, her face half turned away. She was beautiful in her confusion. His whole spirit yearned toward her.

“I feel like a monster,” he said suddenly. “You know I love you, but you don’t understand how, in this short time even, you’ve filled my life, my whole being. And yet I may never try or hope to win your love in return. It must seem strange to you—”

“I think I understand,” she said softly. “You spoke of it in the night—you know.” She shrank from hearing it again.

“Will you let me explain it thoroughly to you?”

“If—you think best.”

She turned her face away and watched the eagle, now a mere speck in the distance.

“You see, I’m not free to do as I might wish—as other men are free. I’ve consecrated my life to serve God in this place. I know—I knew when I came here—that it was no place to bring a woman. Few can stand the life. It’s filled with deprivation and hardship. They’re inevitable. You’re used to care and luxury. No man could ask a sacrifice like that of a woman he loved. He wouldn’t be a man if he did. It isn’t like marrying a girl who feels called and loves to give her life to the work. That would be a different matter. But a man has no right to expect it of a woman—”

He paused to find the right words, and Hazel in a small, dignified voice reminded him: “You’re forgetting one of the reasons.”

“Forgetting?”

He turned toward her, and their eyes met for just an instant. Then she turned hers away again.

“Yes,” she continued, “you thought I—wasn’t—fit!”

She was pulling up bits of green from the ground beside her. She felt a frightened flutter in her throat. It was the point of the thorn that had remained in her heart. It wasn’t in her nature not to speak of it, yet when she uttered it she felt he might misunderstand.

But the missionary answered in a cry like some hurt creature.

“Not fit! Oh, my dear! You don’t understand—”

His tone extracted the last piece of rankling thorn from Hazel’s heart and brought the blood to her cheeks again.

With a light laugh that echoed with relief and a deep new joy she dared not face yet, she sprang to her feet.

“Oh yes, I understand,” she said cheerfully, “and it’s true. I’m not a bit fit for a missionary. But shouldn’t we be moving on? I’m quite rested now.”

With sadness on his face he acquiesced, fastening the canvas in place on the saddle and putting her on the horse with swift, silent movements. Then as she gathered up the reins he lingered for an instant and, taking the hem of her dress in his fingers, stooped and touched his lips lightly to the cloth.

Something so humble and self-forgetful in the homage brought tears to the girl’s eyes. She longed to put her arms around his neck and draw his face close to hers and tell him how her heart was beating in sympathy.

But he hadn’t even asked for her love, and there must be silence between them. He showed it was the only way. Her own reserve closed her lips and commanded her to show no sign.

They rode on silently for the most part, the horses’ hooves beating in unison. Now and then a rabbit scuttled on ahead of them, or a horned toad hopped out of their path. Short brown lizards palpitated on bits of wood along the way, and occasionally a bright green one showed itself and disappeared. Once they came upon a village of prairie dogs and paused to watch their antics.

As they turned away, she noticed a bit of green he’d stuck in his buttonhole and recognized it for the same grass she’d played with as they talked by the wayside. Her eyes charged him with picking it up afterward, and his eyes replied with the truth. But they said nothing about it, for they needed no words.

Not until they reached the top of a sloping hill and came in sight of the valley with its winding track gleaming in the late afternoon sun, the little wooden station, and the few cabins dotting here and there, did she realize their journey together was at an end. She’d started from here two days ago.

He didn’t need to tell her. She saw the smug red gleam of the private car standing on the track not far away. Her friends were down there in the valley, and the stiff conventionalities of her life stood ready to build a wall between this man and her. They would sweep him out of her life as if she’d never met him, never been found and saved by him, and carry her away to their tiresome round of parties and pleasure excursions again.

She lifted her eyes with a frightened, almost pleading glance as if to ask him to turn back to the desert with her again. She found his eyes on her in a long deep farewell gaze, as someone looks on the face of a loved one soon to be parted from earth. She couldn’t bear the brilliance of the love she saw there, yet her own heart leaped up anew to meet it in answering love.

But they had only this one glance, before they heard voices and the sound of horses’ hooves. Almost instantly three horsemen—Shag Bunce, an Indian, and Hazel’s brother—swept into sight around the clump of sagebrush below the trail. They were talking excitedly and evidently starting out on a new search.