Chapter XIII. Solitude and Storm

by Zane Grey

　　In his hidden valley Venters awakened from sleep, and his earsrang with innumerable melodies from full-throated mockingbirds,and his eyes opened wide upon the glorious golden shaft ofsunlight shining through the great stone bridge. The circle ofcliffs surrounding Surprise Valley lay shrouded in morning mist,a dim blue low down along the terraces, a creamy, moving cloudalong the ramparts. The oak forest in the center was a plumed andtufted oval of gold.

　　He saw Bess under the spruces. Upon her complete recovery ofstrength she always rose with the dawn. At the moment she wasfeeding the quail she had tamed. And she had begun to tame themocking-birds. They fluttered among the branches overhead andsome left off their songs to flit down and shyly hop near thetwittering quail. Little gray and white rabbits crouched in thegrass, now nibbling, now laying long ears flat and watching thedogs.

　　Venters's swift glance took in the brightening valley, and Bessand her pets, and Ring and Whitie. It swept over all to returnagain and rest upon the girl. She had changed. To the darktrousers and blouse she had added moccasins of her own make, butshe no longer resembled a boy. No eye could have failed to markthe rounded contours of a woman. The change had been to grace andbeauty. A glint of warm gold gleamed from her hair, and a tint ofred shone in the clear dark brown of cheeks. The hauntingsweetness of her lips and eyes, that earlier had been illusive, apromise, had become a living fact. She fitted harmoniously intothat wonderful setting; she was like Surprise Valley--wild andbeautiful.

　　Venters leaped out of his cave to begin the day.

　　He had postponed his journey to Cottonwoods until after thepassing of the summer rains. The rains were due soon. But untiltheir arrival and the necessity for his trip to the village hesequestered in a far corner of mind all thought of peril, of hispast life, and almost that of the present. It was enough to live.He did not want to know what lay hidden in the dim and distantfuture. Surprise Valley had enchanted him. In this home of thecliff-dwellers there were peace and quiet and solitude, andanother thing, wondrous as the golden morning shaft of sunlight,that he dared not ponder over long enough to understand.

　　The solitude he had hated when alone he had now come to love. Hewas assimilating something from this valley of gleams andshadows. From this strange girl he was assimilating more.

　　The day at hand resembled many days gone before. As Venters hadno tools with which to build, or to till the terraces, heremained idle. Beyond the cooking of the simple fare there wereno tasks. And as there were no tasks, there was no system. He andBess began one thing, to leave it; to begin another, to leavethat; and then do nothing but lie under the spruces and watch thegreat cloud-sails majestically move along the ramparts, and dreamand dream. The valley was a golden, sunlit world. It was silent.The sighing wind and the twittering quail and the singing birds,even the rare and seldom-occurring hollow crack of a slidingweathered stone, only thickened and deepened that insulatedsilence.

　　Venters and Bess had vagrant minds.

　　"Bess, did I tell you about my horse Wrangle?" inquired Venters.

　　"A hundred times," she replied.

　　"Oh, have I? I'd forgotten. I want you to see him. He'll carry usboth."

　　"I'd like to ride him. Can he run?"

　　"Run? He's a demon. Swiftest horse on the sage! I hope he'll stayin that canyon.

　　"He'll stay."

　　They left camp to wander along the terraces, into the aspenravines, under the gleaming walls. Ring and Whitie wandered inthe fore, often turning, often trotting back, open-mouthed andsolemn-eyed and happy. Venters lifted his gaze to the grandarchway over the entrance to the valley, and Bess lifted hers tofollow his, and both were silent. Sometimes the bridge held theirattention for a long time. To-day a soaring eagle attracted them.

　　"How he sails!" exclaimed Bess. "I wonder where his mate is?"

　　"She's at the nest. It's on the bridge in a crack near the top.I see her often. She's almost white."

　　They wandered on down the terrace, into the shady, sun-fleckedforest. A brown bird fluttered crying from a bush. Bess peepedinto the leaves. "Look! A nest and four little birds. They're notafraid of us. See how they open their mouths. They're hungry."

　　Rabbits rustled the dead brush and pattered away. The forest wasfull of a drowsy hum of insects. Little darts of purple, thatwere running quail, crossed the glades. And a plaintive, sweetpeeping came from the coverts. Bess's soft step disturbed asleeping lizard that scampered away over the leaves. She gavechase and caught it, a slim creature of nameless color but ofexquisite beauty.

　　"Jewel eyes," she said. "It's like a rabbit--afraid. We won't eatyou. There--go."

　　Murmuring water drew their steps down into a shallow shadedravine where a brown brook brawled softly over mossy stones.Multitudes of strange, gray frogs with white spots and black eyeslined the rocky bank and leaped only at close approach. ThenVenters's eye descried a very thin, very long green snake coiledround a sapling. They drew closer and closer till they could havetouched it. The snake had no fear and watched them withscintillating eyes.

　　"It's pretty," said Bess. "How tame! I thought snakes alwaysran."

　　"No. Even the rabbits didn't run here till the dogs chased them."

　　On and on they wandered to the wild jumble of massed and brokenfragments of cliff at the west end of the valley. The roar of thedisappearing stream dinned in their ears. Into this maze of rocksthey threaded a tortuous way, climbing, descending, halting togather wild plums and great lavender lilies, and going on at thewill of fancy. Idle and keen perceptions guided them equally.

　　"Oh, let us climb there!" cried Bess, pointing upward to a smallspace of terrace left green and shady between huge abutments ofbroken cliff. And they climbed to the nook and rested and lookedout across the valley to the curling column of blue smoke fromtheir campfire. But the cool shade and the rich grass and thefine view were not what they had climbed for. They could not havetold, although whatever had drawn them was well-satisfying.Light, sure-footed as a mountain goat, Bess pattered down atVenters's heels; and they went on, calling the dogs, eyes dreamyand wide, listening to the wind and the bees and the crickets andthe birds.

　　Part of the time Ring and Whitie led the way, then Venters, thenBess; and the direction was not an object. They left thesun-streaked shade of the oaks, brushed the long grass of themeadows, entered the green and fragrant swaying willows, to stop,at length, under the huge old cottonwoods where the beavers werebusy.

　　Here they rested and watched. A dam of brush and logs and mud andstones backed the stream into a little lake. The round, roughbeaver houses projected from the water. Like the rabbits, thebeavers had become shy. Gradually, however, as Venters and Bessknelt low, holding the dogs, the beavers emerged to swim withlogs and gnaw at cottonwoods and pat mud walls with theirpaddle-like tails, and, glossy and shiny in the sun, to go onwith their strange, persistent industry. They were the builders.The lake was a mud-hole, and the immediate environment a scarredand dead region, but it was a wonderful home of wonderfulanimals.

　　"Look at that one--he puddles in the mud," said Bess. "And there!See him dive! Hear them gnawing! I'd think they'd break theirteeth. How's it they can stay out of the water and under thewater?"

　　And she laughed.

　　Then Venters and Bess wandered farther, and, perhaps not allunconsciously this time, wended their slow steps to the cave ofthe cliff-dwellers, where she liked best to go.

　　The tangled thicket and the long slant of dust and little chipsof weathered rock and the steep bench of stone and the worn stepsall were arduous work for Bess in the climbing. But she gainedthe shelf, gasping, hot of cheek, glad of eye, with her hand inVenters's. Here they rested. The beautiful valley glittered belowwith its millions of wind-turned leaves bright-faced in the sun,and the mighty bridge towered heavenward, crowned with blue sky.Bess, however, never rested for long. Soon she was exploring, andVenters followed; she dragged forth from corners and shelves amultitude of crudely fashioned and painted pieces of pottery, andhe carried them. They peeped down into the dark holes of thekivas, and Bess gleefully dropped a stone and waited for thelong-coming hollow sound to rise. They peeped into the littleglobular houses, like mud-wasp nests, and wondered if these hadbeen store-places for grain, or baby cribs, or what; and theycrawled into the larger houses and laughed when they bumped theirheads on the low roofs, and they dug in the dust of the floors.And they brought from dust and darkness armloads of treasurewhich they carried to the light. Flints and stones and strangecurved sticks and pottery they found; and twisted grass rope thatcrumbled in their hands, and bits of whitish stone which crushedto powder at a touch and seemed to vanish in the air.

　　"That white stuff was bone," said Venters, slowly. "Bones of acliff-dweller."

　　"No!" exclaimed Bess.

　　"Here's another piece. Look!...Whew! dry, powdery smoke! That'sbone."

　　Then it was that Venters's primitive, childlike mood, like asavage's, seeing, yet unthinking, gave way to the encroachment ofcivilized thought. The world had not been made for a single day'splay or fancy or idle watching. The world was old. Nowhere couldbe gotten a better idea of its age than in this gigantic silenttomb. The gray ashes in Venters's hand had once been bone of ahuman being like himself. The pale gloom of the cave had shadowedpeople long ago. He saw that Bess had received the sameshock--could not in moments such as this escape her feelingliving, thinking destiny.

　　"Bern, people have lived here," she said, with wide, thoughtfuleyes.

　　"Yes," he replied.

　　"How long ago?"

　　"A thousand years and more."

　　"What were they?"

　　"Cliff-dwellers. Men who had enemies and made their homes highout of reach."

　　"They had to fight?"

　　"Yes."

　　"They fought for--what?"

　　"For life. For their homes, food, children, parents--for theirwomen!"

　　"Has the world changed any in a thousand years?"

　　"I don't know--perhaps a little."

　　"Have men?"

　　"I hope so--I think so."

　　"Things crowd into my mind," she went on, and the wistful lightin her eyes told Venters the truth of her thoughts. "I've riddenthe border of Utah. I've seen people--know how they live--butthey must be few of all who are living. I had my books and Istudied them. But all that doesn't help me any more. I want to goout into the big world and see it. Yet I want to stay here more.What's to become of us? Are we cliff-dwellers? We're alone here.I'm happy when I don't think. These--these bones that fly intodust--they make me sick and a little afraid. Did the people wholived here once have the same feelings as we have? What was thegood of their living at all? They're gone! What's the meaning ofit all--of us?"

　　"Bess, you ask more than I can tell. It's beyond me. Only therewas laughter here once--and now there's silence. There waslife--and now there's death. Men cut these little steps, madethese arrow-heads and mealing-stones, plaited the ropes we found,and left their bones to crumble in our fingers. As far as time isconcerned it might all have been yesterday. We're here to-day.Maybe we're higher in the scale of human beings--in intelligence.But who knows? We can't be any higher in the things for whichlife is lived at all."

　　"What are they?"

　　"Why--I suppose relationship, friendship--love."

　　"Love!"

　　"Yes. Love of man for woman--love of woman for man. That's thenature, the meaning, the best of life itself."

　　She said no more. Wistfulness of glance deepened intosadness.

　　"Come, let us go," said Venters.

　　Action brightened her. Beside him, holding his hand she slippeddown the shelf, ran down the long, steep slant of sliding stones,out of the cloud of dust, and likewise out of the pale gloom.

　　"We beat the slide," she cried.

　　The miniature avalanche cracked and roared, and rattled itselfinto an inert mass at the base of the incline. Yellow dust likethe gloom of the cave, but not so changeless, drifted away on thewind; the roar clapped in echo from the cliff, returned, wentback, and came again to die in the hollowness. Down on the sunnyterrace there was a different atmosphere. Ring and Whitie leapedaround Bess. Once more she was smiling, gay, and thoughtless,with the dream-mood in the shadow of her eyes.

　　"Bess, I haven't seen that since last summer. Look!" saidVenters, pointing to the scalloped edge of rolling purple cloudsthat peeped over the western wall. "We're in for a storm."

　　"Oh, I hope not. I'm afraid of storms."

　　"Are you? Why?"

　　"Have you ever been down in one of these walled-up pockets in abad storm?"

　　"No, now I think of it, I haven't."

　　"Well, it's terrible. Every summer I get scared to death and hidesomewhere in the dark. Storms up on the sage are bad, but nothingto what they are down here in the canyons. And in this littlevalley--why, echoes can rap back and forth so quick they'll splitour ears."

　　"We're perfectly safe here, Bess."

　　"I know. But that hasn't anything to do with it. The truth is I'mafraid of lightning and thunder, and thunder-claps hurt my head.If we have a bad storm, will you stay close to me?"

　　"Yes."

　　When they got back to camp the afternoon was closing, and it wasexceedingly sultry. Not a breath of air stirred the aspen leaves,and when these did not quiver the air was indeed still. Thedark-purple clouds moved almost imperceptibly out of the west.

　　"What have we for supper?" asked Bess.

　　"Rabbit."

　　"Bern, can't you think of another new way to cook rabbit?" wenton Bess, with earnestness.

　　"What do you think I am--a magician?" retorted Venters.

　　"I wouldn't dare tell you. But, Bern, do you want me to turn intoa rabbit?"

　　There was a dark-blue, merry flashing of eyes and a parting oflips; then she laughed. In that moment she was naive andwholesome.

　　"Rabbit seems to agree with you," replied Venters. "You are welland strong--and growing very pretty."

　　Anything in the nature of compliment he had never before said toher, and just now he responded to a sudden curiosity to see itseffect. Bess stared as if she had not heard aright, slowlyblushed, and completely lost her poise in happy confusion.

　　"I'd better go right away," he continued, "and fetch suppliesfrom Cottonwoods."

　　A startlingly swift change in the nature of her agitation madehim reproach himself for his abruptness.

　　"No, no, don't go!" she said. "I didn't mean--that about therabbit. I--I was only trying to be--funny. Don't leave me allalone!"

　　"Bess, I must go sometime."

　　"Wait then. Wait till after the storms."

　　The purple cloud-bank darkened the lower edge of the setting sun,crept up and up, obscuring its fiery red heart, and finallypassed over the last ruddy crescent of its upper rim.

　　The intense dead silence awakened to a long, low, rumbling rollof thunder.

　　"Oh!" cried Bess, nervously.

　　"We've had big black clouds before this without rain," saidVenters. "But there's no doubt about that thunder. The storms arecoming. I'm glad. Every rider on the sage will hear that thunderwith glad ears."

　　Venters and Bess finished their simple meal and the few tasksaround the camp, then faced the open terrace, the valley, and thewest, to watch and await the approaching storm.

　　It required keen vision to see any movement whatever in thepurple clouds. By infinitesimal degrees the dark cloud-linemerged upward into the golden-red haze of the afterglow ofsunset. A shadow lengthened from under the western wall acrossthe valley. As straight and rigid as steel rose the delicatespear-pointed silver spruces; the aspen leaves, by nature pendantand quivering, hung limp and heavy; no slender blade of grassmoved. A gentle splashing of water came from the ravine. Thenagain from out of the west sounded the low, dull, and rumblingroll of thunder.

　　A wave, a ripple of light, a trembling and turning of the aspenleaves, like the approach of a breeze on the water, crossed thevalley from the west; and the lull and the deadly stillness andthe sultry air passed away on a cool wind.

　　The night bird of the canyon, with clear and melancholy notesannounced the twilight. And from all along the cliffs rose thefaint murmur and moan and mourn of the wind singing in the caves.The bank of clouds now swept hugely out of the western sky. Itsfront was purple and black, with gray between, a bulging,mushrooming, vast thing instinct with storm. It had a dark,angry, threatening aspect. As if all the power of the winds werepushing and piling behind, it rolled ponderously across the sky.A red flare burned out instantaneously, flashed from the west toeast, and died. Then from the deepest black of the purple cloudburst a boom. It was like the bowling of a huge boulder along thecrags and ramparts, and seemed to roll on and fall into thevalley to bound and bang and boom from cliff to cliff.

　　"Oh!" cried Bess, with her hands over her ears. "What did I tellyou?"

　　"Why, Bess, be reasonable!" said Venters.

　　"I'm a coward."

　　"Not quite that, I hope. It's strange you're afraid. I love astorm."

　　"I tell you a storm down in these canyons is an awful thing. Iknow Oldring hated storms. His men were afraid of them. There wasone who went deaf in a bad storm, and never could hear again."

　　"Maybe I've lots to learn, Bess. I'll lose my guess if this stormisn't bad enough. We're going to have heavy wind first, thenlightning and thunder, then the rain. Let's stay out as long aswe can."

　　The tips of the cottonwoods and the oaks waved to the east, andthe rings of aspens along the terraces twinkled their myriad ofbright faces in fleet and glancing gleam. A low roar rose fromthe leaves of the forest, and the spruces swished in the risingwind. It came in gusts, with light breezes between. As itincreased in strength the lulls shortened in length till therewas a strong and steady blow all the time, and violent puffs atintervals, and sudden whirling currents. The clouds spread overthe valley, rolling swiftly and low, and twilight faded into asweeping darkness. Then the singing of the wind in the cavesdrowned the swift roar of rustling leaves; then the song swelledto a mourning, moaning wail; then with the gathering power of thewind the wail changed to a shriek. Steadily the wind strengthenedand constantly the strange sound changed.

　　The last bit of blue sky yielded to the on-sweep of clouds. Likeangry surf the pale gleams of gray, amid the purple of thatscudding front, swept beyond the eastern rampart of the valley.The purple deepened to black. Broad sheets of lightning flaredover the western wall. There were not yet any ropes or zigzagstreaks darting down through the gathering darkness. The stormcenter was still beyond Surprise Valley.

　　"Listen!...Listen!" cried Bess, with her lips close to Venters'sear. "You'll hear Oldring's knell!"

　　"What's that?"

　　"Oldring's knell. When the wind blows a gale in the caves itmakes what the rustlers call Oldring's knell. They believe itbodes his death. I think he believes so, too. It's not like anysound on earth....It's beginning. Listen!"

　　The gale swooped down with a hollow unearthly howl. It yelled andpealed and shrilled and shrieked. It was made up of a thousandpiercing cries. It was a rising and a moving sound. Beginning atthe western break of the valley, it rushed along each giganticcliff, whistling into the caves and cracks, to mount in power, tobellow a blast through the great stone bridge. Gone, as into anengulfing roar of surging waters, it seemed to shoot back andbegin all over again.

　　It was only wind, thought Venters. Here sped and shrieked thesculptor that carved out the wonderful caves in the cliffs. Itwas only a gale, but as Venters listened, as his ears becameaccustomed to the fury and strife, out of it all or through it orabove it pealed low and perfectly clear and persistently uniforma strange sound that had no counterpart in all the sounds of theelements. It was not of earth or of life. It was the grief andagony of the gale. A knell of all upon which it blew!

　　Black night enfolded the valley. Venters could not see hiscompanion, and knew of her presence only through the tighteninghold of her hand on his arm. He felt the dogs huddle closer tohim. Suddenly the dense, black vault overhead split asunder to ablue-white, dazzling streak of lightning. The whole valley layvividly clear and luminously bright in his sight. Upreared, vastand magnificent, the stone bridge glimmered like some grand godof storm in the lightning's fire. Then all flashed blackagain--blacker than pitch--a thick, impenetrable coal-blackness.And there came a ripping, crashing report. Instantly an echoresounded with clapping crash. The initial report was nothing tothe echo. It was a terrible, living, reverberating, detonatingcrash. The wall threw the sound across, and could have made nogreater roar if it had slipped in avalanche. From cliff to cliffthe echo went in crashing retort and banged in lessening power,and boomed in thinner volume, and clapped weaker and weaker tilla final clap could not reach across the waiting cliff.

　　In the pitchy darkness Venters led Bess, and, groping his way, byfeel of hand found the entrance to her cave and lifted her up. Onthe instant a blinding flash of lightning illumined the cave andall about him. He saw Bess's face white now with dark, frightenedeyes. He saw the dogs leap up, and he followed suit. The goldenglare vanished; all was black; then came the splitting crack andthe infernal din of echoes.

　　Bess shrank closer to him and closer, found his hands, andpressed them tightly over her ears, and dropped her face upon hisshoulder, and hid her eyes.

　　Then the storm burst with a succession of ropes and streaks andshafts of lightning, playing continuously, filling the valleywith a broken radiance; and the cracking shots followed eachother swiftly till the echoes blended in one fearful, deafeningcrash.

　　Venters looked out upon the beautiful valley--beautiful now asnever before--mystic in its transparent, luminous gloom, weird inthe quivering, golden haze of lightning. The dark spruces weretipped with glimmering lights; the aspens bent low in the winds,as waves in a tempest at sea; the forest of oaks tossed wildlyand shone with gleams of fire. Across the valley the huge cavernof the cliff-dwellers yawned in the glare, every little blackwindow as clear as at noonday; but the night and the storm addedto their tragedy. Flung arching to the black clouds, the greatstone bridge seemed to bear the brunt of the storm. It caught thefull fury of the rushing wind. It lifted its noble crown to meetthe lightnings. Venters thought of the eagles and their loftynest in a niche under the arch. A driving pall of rain, black asthe clouds, came sweeping on to obscure the bridge and thegleaming walls and the shining valley. The lightning playedincessantly, streaking down through opaque darkness of rain. Theroar of the wind, with its strange knell and the re-crashingechoes, mingled with the roar of the flooding rain, and allseemingly were deadened and drowned in a world of sound.

　　In the dimming pale light Venters looked down upon the girl. Shehad sunk into his arms, upon his breast, burying her face. Sheclung to him. He felt the softness of her, and the warmth, andthe quick heave of her breast. He saw the dark, slender, gracefuloutline of her form. A woman lay in his arms! And he held hercloser. He who had been alone in the sad, silent watches of thenight was not now and never must be again alone. He who hadyearned for the touch of a hand felt the long tremble and theheart-beat of a woman. By what strange chance had she come tolove him! By what change--by what marvel had she grown into atreasure!

　　No more did he listen to the rush and roar of the thunder-storm.For with the touch of clinging hands and the throbbing bosom hegrew conscious of an inward storm--the tingling of new chords ofthought, strange music of unheard, joyous bells sad dreamsdawning to wakeful delight, dissolving doubt, resurging hope,force, fire, and freedom, unutterable sweetness of desire. Astorm in his breast--a storm of real love.