XV. Desert Night

by Zane Grey

　　THE gray stallion, finding the rein loose on his neck, trotted forwardand overtook the dog, and thereafter followed at his heels. With thesetting of the sun a slight breeze stirred, and freshened as twilightfell, rolling away the sultry atmosphere. Then the black desert nightmantled the plain.

　　For a while this blackness soothed the pain of Hare's sun-blinded eyes.It was a relief to have the unattainable horizon line blotted out. Butby-and-by the opaque gloom brought home to him, as the day had neverdone, the reality of his solitude. He was alone in this immense place ofbarrenness, and his dumb companions were the world to him. Wolf patteredonward, a silent guide; and Silvermane followed, never lagging,sure-footed in the dark, faithful to his master. All the love Hare hadborne the horse was as nothing to that which came to him on this desertnight. In and out, round and round, ever winding, ever zigzagging,Silvermane hung close to Wolf, and the sandy lanes between the bowldersgave forth no sound. Dog and horse, free to choose their trail, trottedonward miles and miles into the night.

　　A pale light in the east turned to a glow, then to gold, and the rounddisc of the moon silhouetted the black bowlders on the horizon. Itcleared the dotted line and rose, an oval orange-hued strange moon, notmellow nor silvery nor gloriously brilliant as Hare had known it in thepast, but a vast dead-gold melancholy orb, rising sadly over the desert.To Hare it was the crowning reminder of lifelessness; it fitted thisworld of dull gleaming stones.

　　Silvermane went lame and slackened his trot, causing Hare to rein in anddismount. He lifted the right forefoot, the one the horse had favored,and found a stone imbedded tightly in the cloven hoof. He pried it outwith his knife and mounted again. Wolf shone faintly far ahead, andpresently he uttered a mournful cry which sent a chill to the rider'sheart. The silence had been oppressive before; now it was terrible. Itwas not a silence of life. It had been broken suddenly by Wolf's howl,and had closed sharply after it, without echo; it was a silence of death.

　　Hare took care not to fall behind Wolf again, he had no wish to hear thatcry repeated. The dog moved onward with silent feet; the horse woundafter him with hoofs padded in the sand; the moon lifted and the desertgleamed; the bowlders grew larger and the lanes wider. So the night woreon, and Hare's eyelids grew heavy, and his whole weary body cried out forrest and forgetfulness. He nodded until he swayed in the saddle; thenrighted himself, only to doze again. The east gave birth to the morningstar. The whitening sky was the harbinger of day. Hare could not bringhimself to face the light and heat, and he stopped at a wind-worn caveunder a shelving rock. He was asleep when he rolled out on thesand-strewn floor. Once he awoke and it was still day, for his eyesquickly shut upon the glare. He lay sweltering till once more slumberclaimed him. The dog awakened him, with cold nose and low whine. Anothertwilight had fallen. Hare crawled out, stiff and sore, hungry andparching with thirst. He made an attempt to eat, but it was a failure.There was a dry burning in his throat, a dizzy feeling in his brain, andthere were red flashes before his eyes. Wolf refused meat, and Silvermaneturned from the grain, and lowered his head to munch a few blades ofdesert grass.

　　Then the journey began, and the night fell black. A cool wind blew fromthe west, the white stars blinked, the weird moon rose with its ghastlyglow. Huge bowlders rose before him in grotesque shapes, tombs andpillars and statues of Nature's dead, carved by wind and sand. But somehad life in Hare's disordered fancy. They loomed and towered over him,and stalked abroad and peered at him with deep-set eyes.

　　Hare fought with all his force against this mood of gloom. Wolf was nota phantom; he trotted forward with unerring instinct; and he would findwater, and that meant life. Silvermane, desert-steeled, would travel tothe furthermost corner of this hell of sand-swept stone. Hare tried tocollect all his spirit, all his energies, but the battle seemed to begoing against him. All about him was silence, breathless silence,insupportable silence of ages. Desert spectres danced in the darkness.The worn-out moon gleamed golden over the worn-out waste. Desolationlurked under the sable shadows.

　　Hare rode on into the night, tumbled from his saddle in the gray of dawnto sleep, and stumbled in the twilight to his drooping horse. His eyeswere blind now to the desert shapes, his brain burned and his tonguefilled his mouth. Silvermane trod ever upon Wolf's heels; he had come intothe kingdom of his desert-strength; he lifted his drooping head andlengthened his stride; weariness had gone and he snorted his welcome tosomething on the wind. Then he passed the limping dog and led the way.

　　Hare held to the pommel and bent dizzily forward in the saddle.Silvermane was going down, step by step, with metallic clicks upon flintyrock. Whether he went down or up was all the same to Hare; he held onwith closed eyes and whispered to himself. Down and down, step by step,cracking the stones with iron-shod hoofs, the gray stallion worked hisperilous way, sure-footed as a mountain-sheep. Then he stopped with agreat slow heave and bent his head.

　　The black bulge of a canyon rim blurred in Hare's hot eyes. A tricklingsound penetrated his tired brain. His ears had grown like his eyes--false. Only another delusion! As he had been tortured with the sight oflake and stream now he was to be tortured with the sound of runningwater. Yet he listened, for it was sweet even in its mockery. What aclear musical tinkle, like silver bells tossing on the wind! He listened.Soft murmuring flow, babble and gurgle, little hollow fall and splash!

　　Suddenly Silvermane, lifting his head, broke the silence of the canyonwith a great sigh of content. It pierced the dull fantasy of Hare'smind; it burst the gloomy spell. The sigh and the snort which followedwere Silvermane's triumphant signals when he had drunk his fill.

　　Hare fell from the saddle. The gray dog lay stretched low in thedarkness. Hare crawled beside him and reached out with his hot hands.Smooth cool marble rock, growing slippery, then wet, led into runningwater. He slid forward on his face and wonderful cold thrills quiveredover his burning skin. He drank and drank until he could drink no more.Then he lay back upon the rock; the madness of his brain went out withthe light of the stars, and he slept.

　　When he awoke red canyon walls leaned far above him to a gap spanned byblue sky. A song of rushing water murmured near his ears. He lookeddown; a spring gushed from a crack in the wall; Silvermane cropped greenbushes, and Wolf sat on his haunches waiting, but no longer with sad eyesand strange mien. Hare raised himself, looking again and again, andslowly gathered his wits. The crimson blur had gone from his eyes andthe burning from his skin, and the painful swelling from his tongue.

　　He drank long and deeply, and rising with clearing thoughts and thankfulheart, he kissed Wolf's white head, and laid his arms round Silvermane'sneck. He fed them, and ate himself, not without difficulty, for his lipswere puffed and his tongue felt like a piece of rope. When he had eaten,his strength came back.

　　At a word Wolf, with a wag of his tail, splashed into the gravelly streambed. Hare followed on foot, leading Silvermane. There were little bedsof pebbles and beaches of sand and short steps down which the waterbabbled. The canyon was narrow and tortuous; Hare could not see ahead orbelow, for the projecting red cliffs, growing higher as he descended,walled out the view. The blue stream of sky above grew bluer and thelight and shade less bright. For an hour he went down steadily without acheck, and the farther down the rougher grew the way. Bowlders wedged innarrow places made foaming waterfalls. Silvermane clicked downconfidently.

　　The slender stream of water, swelled by seeping springs and little rills,gained the dignity of a brook; it began to dash merrily and hurriedlydownward. The depth of the falls, the height of cliffs, and the size ofthe bowlders increased in the descent. Wolf splashed on unmindful; therewas a new spirit in his movements; and when he looked back for hislaboring companions there was friendly protest in his eyes. Silvermane'smien plainly showed that where a dog could go he could follow.Silvermane's blood was heated; the desert was an old story to him; it hadonly tired him and parched his throat; this canyon of downward steps andfalls, with ever-deepening drops, was new to him, and roused his mettle;and from his long training in the wilds he had gained a marvelloussure-footedness.

　　The canyon narrowed as it deepened; the jutting walls leaned together,shutting out the light; the sky above was now a ribbon of blue, only tobe seen when Hare threw back his head and stared straight up.

　　"It'll be easier climbing up, Silvermane," he panted--"if we ever getthe chance."

　　The sand and gravel and shale had disappeared; all was bare clean-washedrock. In many places the brook failed as a trail, for it leaped down inwhite sheets over mossy cliffs. Hare faced these walls in despair. ButWolf led on over the ledges and Silvermane followed, nothing daunted. Atlast Hare shrank back from a hole which defied him utterly. Even Wolfhesitated. The canyon was barely twenty feet wide; the floor ended in aprecipice; the stream leaped out and fell into a dark cleft from which nosound arose. On the right there was a shelf of rock; it was scarce halfa foot broad at the narrowest and then apparently vanished altogether.Hare stared helplessly up at the slanting shut-in walls.

　　While he hesitated Wolf pattered out upon the ledge and Silvermanestamped restlessly. With a desperate fear of losing his beloved horseHare let go the bridle and stepped upon the ledge. He walked rapidly,for a slow step meant uncertainty and a false one meant death. He heardthe sharp ring of Silvermane's shoes, and he listened in agonizedsuspense for the slip, the snort, the crash that he feared must come.But it did not come. Seeing nothing except the narrow ledge, yet feelingthe blue abyss beneath him, he bent all his mind to his task, and finallywalked out into lighter space upon level rock. To his infinite reliefSilvermane appeared rounding a corner out of the dark passage, and wassoon beside him.

　　Hare cried aloud in welcome.

　　The canyon widened; there was a clear demarcation where the red wallsgave place to yellow; the brook showed no outlet from its subterraneanchannel. Sheer exhaustion made Hare almost forget his mission; thestrength of his resolve had gone into mechanical toil; he kept on,conscious only of the smart of bruised hands and feet and the ache oflaboring lungs.

　　Time went on and the sun hung in the midst of the broadening belt of bluesky. A long slant of yellow slope led down to a sage-covered level,which Hare crossed, pleased to see blooming cacti and wondering at theirslender lofty green stems shining with gold flowers. He descended into aravine which became precipitous. Here he made only slow advance. At thebottom he found himself in a wonderful lane with an almost level floor;here flowed a shallow stream bordered by green willows. Wolf took thedirection of the flowing water. Hare's thoughts were all of Mescal, andhis hopes began to mount, his heart to beat high.

　　He gazed ahead with straining eyes. Presently there was not a break inthe walls. A drowsy hum of falling water came to Hare, strange reminderof the oasis, the dull roar of the Colorado, and of Mescal.

　　His flagging energies leaped into life with the canyon suddenly openingto bright light and blue sky and beautiful valley, white and gold inblossom, green with grass and cottonwood. On a flower-scented windrushed that muffled roar again, like distant thunder.

　　Wolf dashed into the cottonwoods. Silvermane whistled with satisfactionand reached for the long grass.

　　For Hare the light held something more than beauty, the breeze somethingmore than sweet scent of water and blossom. Both were charged withmeaning--with suspense.

　　Wolf appeared in the open leaping upon a slender brown-garbed form.

　　"Mescal!" cried Hare.

　　With a cry she ran to him, her arms outstretched, her hair flying in thewind, her dark eyes wild with joy.