Foxfire (47 page)

He glanced down at his left shoulder and laughed. “So had I.”

“Do they hurt?” She touched the bandage anxiously.

“No, they don't hurt, silly one.” He pulled her to him and kissed her softly on the mouth. “Here,” he said, “you're cold—” He picked up a blanket and wrapped it around her. “I'll make the fire while you get dressed.” He pulled on his pants and a sweater, and she heard him whistling as he laid their breakfast fire.

After breakfast they bathed together in the waterfall, and they laughed much, scrubbing their glowing bodies with the remnants of their soap, swimming in the tiny pool, splashing beneath the icy spray, and all the time beneath the love and the laughter a shadow deepened, and the knowledge of the question that she dreaded.

She voiced it at last after they had dressed again. She sat down on a rock beside the little pool, and gazing down the sunny valley towards their camp, she said, “When, Dart?”

The pain and the yearning in her heart were reflected in his own eyes. He touched her shining hair, but he answered with quiet firmness. “Tomorrow.”

“If we could stay—” she said, her voice faint above the sound of the waterfall, “if we could stay a little while...” “No, Andy. Very soon the snows will come. But anyway, we could not stay. You know that.”

She bowed her head. “Yes, I know that.”

“This isn't life,” he said. “This is the lost valley of the Ancient Ones. It's a dream that we forced ourselves into and where we found both tragedy and great beauty. But it's not enough. It could never be,enough.”

“No,” she said. “I know.”

“You must wonder what we're going back to.” His tone hardened. “It's better to speak of these things now, here—while we are still—protected.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I know now that we have each other, and we always will, our love will give us both strength—” He stopped.

But love is not all, she thought. There are other needs. For a man like Dart there is work, his profession, and honor. And this must be so, it was inherent in his virility, in the tough masculinity which she no longer wished to soften or to cloy.

“I have no job,” he said. “I was fired under circumstances of—of peculiar ignominy. Made to look a fool. An incompetent, exhibitionistic fool.”

“No. No,” she cried. “It isn't true.”

“You didn't believe it?” he asked, looking at her suddenly with startled eyes.

“Of course, I didn't believe it. I thought Big Ruby knew something that would help. I went to her. I went to Calise—on the day before the baby ... but it didn't do any good.”

Dart shut his eyes. He raised the soft, brown little hand he held and put it against his cheek. “My dear—” he said. “I didn't know. In everything that had to do with you I
was
a fool.”

“And I was a grasping, spoiled brat.—Oh, Dart, you talk of the hard things out beyond this valley, but they still seem far away and unimportant. When we get back we can forget Lodestone forever. Wipe it off the slate.”

“Perhaps we might,” said Dart slowly. “Except for one thing. I'll have to report Hugh's death—. To Mr. Tyson first, I suppose.”

At first she did not understand the meaning of his words, and then shock spiralled through her, and a terrified recoil—

“No, Dart—no. They didn't believe you before, they might think——” She shuddered. “You don't have to tell anything. Nobody cared what happened to Hugh.”

“Hush—darling,” he said, and the endearment she had never heard from him cut through her panic. She listened, knowing that he spoke the truth. “His death must be reported. Tyson must know who should be notified. The thing happened, and we can't pretend that it's never been. I was responsible for Hugh on this expedition and I must see it through.”

Yes, it was for this of many reasons that she loved him. She would not let fear strike down into her heart again, not yet.... Not while they were yet cradled in the enchantment, not while the sun shone through the pines, and the cascade rippled out its music.

“We still have today—” she whispered, and Dart, understanding, smiled and jumped up. “Come let's search for the lotus-eating burro. I'll bet by this time he thinks he's Oberon disguised, with myrtle and with roses twined. You'll have to be Titania and lure him.”

“He doesn't lure easy,” she said with a choking laugh. They ran together down the pine-scented trail into the canyon, still guarded by the magic of the lost valley.

The next day at seven they stood again upon the ledge beside the crevice in the rock which led outside, and they looked back for the last time at the green valley, fairyland of whispering trees and cool, life-giving waters. There was nothing left to show that they had been there. Dart had taken down the shelter and scattered the pine boughs back amongst the primeval carpet with their fellows. The ashes of their fires were buried under clean, sweet earth where the grass would soon grow. And they had taken nothing from the valley except the onyx and silver crucifix which had belonged to the Spanish padre.

All was as though they had never dared the forbidden journey, except that something of their spirits would remain with the other spirits of the long-ago and happy people who had once lived there.

They raised their eyes to the Pueblo Encantado. The frozen little city of stone floated blue and still in its shadowed eastern cave, hushed in mystery, guarding one more of the quiet and passionless dead.

Amanda's heart whispered farewell, her eyes burned, but the compassion and the yearning were too deep for tears.

She heard Dart's quivering breath as he stood beside her, and knew that it was the same for him.

They turned together and walked through the darkness of the little tunnel, leading their burro, back to the sharp, cruel light of the barren waste of rocks—the malpais.

They traveled fast, down, ever downward over the trail they had so painfully struggled up, as Dart's unerring memory retraced their steps. They found the hollow pit in the lava, and the store of cans they had had to leave behind to traverse the terrible country beyond with the lame burro.

Dart saw at a glance that three of the cans were gone, and on the edge of the lava pit there was a pile of interlocking small stones.

“What's that?” asked Amanda. “It wasn't here before.”

“No,” he said quietly. “John Whitman stopped here. He must have left this message for me.” He bent over and examined the position of the stones.

“What does it say, Dart?”

He straightened up, his mouth constricted. “It says ‘Friend.' He left it here in case we should ever get away alive. It's the Apache stone language we learned together as boys.”

She asked no further questions. He must always do as he thought right, and her love for him accepted him now as he was, with many things she would never entirely understand, though always she could trust his sense of justice. But what was justice in the case of John Whitman? She thought of John at the rancheria at San Carlos—of Rowena and the baby, and the kindness they all had shown her. She thought of the cruel Apache face in the Cave of the Dead, vindictive, sneering, as he kicked the body of the man he had shot. But then he had shown mercy according to his code. He had spared the two he might also have slaughtered, leaving them to the dispositions of fate. He had killed not from blood lust but for the preservation of an ideal. And yet he had murdered—And she did not know what Dart would do.

As they descended the mountains and the canyons she felt their troubles crowding up to meet them ever thicker and more dense. They never spoke of it, it was not necessary to speak of it, but when at last they descended the easy trail from Deadman's Creek towards the Verde, and saw in the distance the smoke of Payson Pete's General Store at Staghorn, she saw what awaited them with a cold and unshrinking clarity.

They had no money and no job, and in this year of 1933 jobs would be hard to find for a young engineer who had been fired in disgrace. Moreover, they must report a murder under circumstances which would probably not be believed. Her spirit quailed, and she tried not to think ahead.

Payson Pete waddled forth to meet them when he heard the tinkle of the burro's bell through the trees. “Howdy, folks,” he called, waving his fat arm. “D'you have a nice outing? Molly and me was kinda gettin' to wonderin' how you was makin' out. Been gone so long.”

He surveyed them shrewdly. Nice-looking pair for all they were grown lean and tough as a couple of young lions. The fellow's dark hair was longer and he moved easy and lithe like an Indian runner Pete had known in his youth. He might almost have been an Indian with that iron-quiet look about him that you knew there was a lot going on inside you'd never find out—except he was so tall and his eyes were gray. As for the girl, she was prettier than ever with a kind of glow in her pink cheeks under the tan. There was something straight and shining about the two of them hadn't been there before, when they took off. The mountains did that sometimes, changed people one way or the other.

Pete glanced back up the trail behind Amanda and Dart. “Where's the other fellow?” he asked, leaning over the burro to help Dart untie the pack rope.

Dart did not answer at once, and Amanda spoke in the brief silence. “He went—by another way.”

Dart glanced at her quickly. She saw doubt in his eyes, then he accepted her decision. This inquisitive old storekeeper was not the proper authority.

“You don't say,” said Pete quizzically. He had no doubt they'd had a fight over the girl and the other man had had to clear out. Which was okay. He and Molly hadn't liked the other guy anyhow. “D'you make any lucky strikes?” he asked chuckling. While he helped Dart unhitch he had managed to feel over the nearly empty packs, just in case. And there sure wasn't any ore in them any place.

“No, we didn't,” said Dart smiling. “But we certainly hit some rough country, as you said.” He smiled, but there was a cool dignity about him which made it impossible for Pete to question further. So he acquiesced cheerfully, saying, “You bet. Them Matazals're rough as hell,” and added, “What're you aimin' to do with the burro? I'll buy him back for six bits.” Pete might be curious about the few wayfarers that turned up at Staghorn, but he was also an old-timer bred to a country where everybody's business was his own, and it wasn't polite to get too nosy.

The Dartlands spent that night again on the floor of Pete's store, but this time not on different sides of the old pot-bellied stove. They slept close together on the bearskin, with Amanda's head on her husband's shoulder. The next morning at six o'clock they bade final farewell to Staghorn, and set off in the Ford. The faithful flivver coughed and snorted and bucked as usual before starting, but Dart persuaded it into action. “Like Tonto,” said Amanda laughing. “There's a resemblance between them, though even that burro must be considerably younger.”

She had given the battered, dilapidated car a rueful greeting when she saw it again, waiting patiently in Pete's back yard. Dart was an excellent mechanic, but the Ford was about worn out, and even Dart could not manufacture new parts. This problem was again on top of them like so many others. They drove back over the crest of the mountain pass and down into the Tonto basin, then Amanda said, “How much money have we got exactly, Dart?”

He grinned wryly, jerking his chin towards his hip pocket. “I don't know. Count it.”

She complied, piling the heavy silver dollars and the four tens on her knees. “Sixty-three bucks,” she said. “Definitely a fortune.”

“Sure. And it'll have to last quite a while,” said Dart mildly. “Maybe I can get a W.P.A. job pretty soon, if nothing else.”

“Of course you can. Something'll turn up. Dart...” she paused, looking out at the flowing landscape. Cactus again, and mesquite. “Maybe you'll feel this is crazy, but I think we might stop in Globe tonight at the Hotel, blow ourselves to a room and bath and a real dinner—pull ourselves together before, well—tackling Lodestone, and Mr. Tyson.” She spoke nervously, knowing well Dart's indifference to creature comforts, wondering herself if her idea were an idiotic extravagance.

“I think you're absolutely right,” said Dart; he glanced at her expression of relief, and said, “Lord, Andy, did you really think I was going to make you sleep in the car? Have I been that much of a tyrant?—And I'm in no hurry to get into the Lodestone mess, either.”

So they had a large room and bath at the Dominion Hotel, Dart bought a haircut in the barbershop, they changed their clothes and Amanda put on a skirt for the first time since they had left Lodestone—the heather tweed suit, and a clean though rumpled white shirtwaist.

They drank some beer and ordered a large meal, but neither of them could eat much when it came. And when they left the dining room, Dart said abruptly, “I guess I better phone Tyson, just let him know we're coming. He might refuse to see me at all unless he knew why.”

She nodded, but her heart sank. She sat in the lobby, with her hands clenched together while Dart was in the telephone booth.

He came out across the lobby, walking slowly and frowning. He sat down on the sofa beside her, and stared unseeing at a vase full of pampus grass.

She moistened her lips and said, “What it is? Was it bad?”

He shook his head and answered in a puzzled voice, “I don't know. The connection was lousy, but the old boy sounded sort of hysterical. You'd almost think he was drunk. He kept saying for God's sake to hurry back. I tried to tell him about Hugh, that he was dead, and he just kept saying ‘Come back here at once' and something about an investigation. He wouldn't listen to me.”

“Oh,” she said. Investigation into the mine accident, no doubt, or had they cooked up some new thing with which to bedevil Dart? “Did he sound—pleasant?” she asked anxiously.