Captives of the Desert. Zane Grey
too. Only after Curry recovered control and regained the few feet they had slid could she find breath or voice.
At last they gained the canyon rim and the car shot out upon the desert. Mary clapped her hands in approval of Curry’s masterly handling of the car. One of the ladies quavered, “Well, I never!” a sentiment which the Eastern girl heartily endorsed.
“I’ll let the old nag cool off a bit and then I’ll stick my spurs in her and make her run,” said Curry. “It’s a pretty even stretch now all the way to Leupp. We ought to make it in a half-hour.”
* * * *
Katharine’s impression of Leupp from a distance was of a treeless community of toy buildings set haphazardly on pale yellow cardboard. But the buildings, which surrounded a formal walk, took substantial proportions as they approached. Several were dark, vacant structures.
“School buildings and dormitories,” Curry informed them, indicating the largest of the group. “No youngsters here now. Vacation. Teachers gone too, I guess. Leupp’s sure a dead place in summer.”
They drove by the buildings and on toward a square brick house where a light shone. There they stopped.
“Hey!” yelled Curry. “Anybody home?”
“You betcher!” bellowed a voice from the doorway. A man of giant stature strode out to greet them. He was grizzled and desert-worn, and had a homely good-natured face.
“Howdy, everybody!” he said in thundering tones. “Want a lodging for the night?”
Mr. Curry introduced the man to his party. His name was Jenkins. He was the government agent at Leupp.
“Aw, shaw! And to think Mrs. Jenkins is in Taho when there’s ladies to entertain!” His disappointment was so genuine that Katharine could not help sharing it.
“Miss Winfield and I are from Taho,” spoke up Mary. “Sorry I haven’t met Mrs. Jenkins there. Guess she’s newly arrived.”
“Yes, she shore is. But if you ain’t away for long you’ll have lots of time to be good to her. She’s to spend a month there with the Burnhams. You know ’em, I guess. You can’t live in Taho and not know everybody.”
“Indeed I do know Mrs. Burnham. It’s certain we’ll meet your wife.”
While the ladies accepted Jenkins’ invitation to “step out and shake your skirts,” Curry explained Wilbur Newton’s plight.
“Shore. I’ll pull him out,” agreed Jenkins. “Likely he’s diggin’ a pair of spurs into a rock somewheres. Ain’t he the dandy? Arizona couldn’t support two of him.”
Curry’s effort to stop the man before he had his full say was futile. Half-whispered words passed between them; then Katharine caught, “Well I’ll be damned! I didn’t get it that she was the missus. Now, ain’t some men lucky, and some women fools!”
Mary was serene through it all, as if she had not heard.
Their arrival had interrupted a card game in which sat a professor from Harvard University and two students, all of archeological bent. This information came unsolicited with the introductions. Jenkins was proud of his guests.
After professor had met professor, no one could separate them, and much to the consternation of the students it became their lot to decide who should accompany Jenkins on his relief expedition. It was obvious that they preferred the company of the ladies. Katharine did not wonder at it, marooned as they were in this remote place where they likely had not seen a girl for many weeks. Finally, in heroic brothers-in-arms fashion they agreed that they both would go.
Jenkins turned the house over to the ladies. They were to do with it what they pleased. There was a kitchen stocked with any amount of canned food. They could cook, play the victrola—at this the students exchanged despairing glances—look through his albums and guest book, or anything else that took their fancy. When it came to sleeping time they could send the men folks to the dormitories where they would find a dozen beds apiece. There were three bedrooms for which the ladies could draw. He wanted them to be sure to “make themselves to home.”
Guided by their host’s suggestion, Mary and Katharine explored the rooms as soon as he left. No small home could have been more complete than the Jenkins’ desert place. And it was spotlessly neat. In the kitchen the girls found Curry, sleeves rolled above his elbow, laying out food supplies he had brought in from the car.
“You’ve had no supper,” said Mary. “You and your party must be starved!”
“Just watch me rustle some grub!” Curry grinned happily.
“Let us do it!” Katharine begged.
“Not while I’ve got legs to stand on.”
“Then let us help,” chimed in Mary. “It will hurry things.”
Curry swung one arm high in surrender. “That’s putting it too straight for me. Dip in if you want to.”
If it had been a competition, Katharine would have had difficulty in deciding whether Curry or Mary were the better cook. While she herself awkwardly carried out the tasks they directed her to do, Mary and Curry were talking as they worked and yet accomplished twice as much. Between the three the work was dispatched quickly.
Mary and Katharine waited table against the protest of the others. Attention of this kind, they declared, would spoil them forever.
Never had Katharine felt such joy in service; never had people seemed so necessary to each other, their interdependence been more clearly established, than here, far from the civilized world. The desert had a power over men, linking their destinies or pulling them far asunder. People met as friends or enemies. There was no intermediate bond.
After supper the maiden ladies retired to their room. They much preferred the room with a double bed to the separate rooms and single beds. The desert seemed to have made them conscious of their impotence, and they clung to each other for strength. Youth had greater vigor and less fear.
Katharine stepped out into the pale yellow night. The droning voices of the two professors came to her. She wanted to hear their interesting conversation on the subject of archeology. But even more than this she wanted the moonlight of the desert and its strange impelling silence; so she walked down the barren path that led to the trail.
This desert solitude was the storehouse of unlived years, the hush of the world at the hour of its creation. It was solemn, grand, incorruptible. It did something to one, something inexplicable; it drew one’s narrow soul from out oneself, and poured in something big, so big it was almost too great to bear. It set one’s heart beating faster. Tears came too, and a strange yearning. Was it the desire to be in tune with the Infinite? Was it self trying to meet God? Was it God trying to storm her soul? Had Mary surrendered to this force, this power, this unnamable magic, that she could find in the desert infinite peace? . . . “Come unto me all ye who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” . . . It must be that Mary meant that God had received her in the desert, that she too could find Him there. But Katharine was too unsure. This vast, solemn, ageless sepulcher was voiceless and fearsome, and too merciless in aspect. The stars looked down coldly, and the moon. The Eastern girl found companionship in her shadow; and watching it before her, she returned slowly to the house.
Curry and Mary were alone on the porch; he sat against a pillar; she, at the far end of the steps, seemingly unconscious of his presence, was wrapped in deep meditation. Neither was aware of Katharine’s approach until her voice brought them to their feet.
“I didn’t mean to run off. I simply couldn’t resist it.”
“The desert has a way of wooing all its own,” said Mary. “However, I knew you weren’t far.”
“It’s wonderful and so terrifying! Do you ever feel that way about it, Mr. Curry?” Katharine asked.
“I’ve lived on it for years, and I don’t savvy it yet,” Curry returned.
“Someday