Book: The Rainbow Trail

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"What'll they do to Ruth?" demanded Shefford. "We can't accept her
sacrifice if she's to suffer--or be punished."

"Reckon Ruth has a strong hunch that she can get away with it. Did
you notice how strange she said that? Well, they can't do much to
her. The bishop may damn her soul. But--Ruth--"

Here Lake hesitated and broke off. Not improbably he had meant to say
that of all the Mormon women in the valley Ruth was the least likely
to suffer from punishment inflicted upon her soul.

"Anyway, it's our only chance," went on Joe, "unless we kill a couple
of men. Ruth will gladly take what comes to help you."

"All right; I consent," replied Shefford, with emotion. "And now after
she comes out--the supposed Ruth--what then?"

"You can be natural-like. Go with her back to Ruth's cabin. Then
stroll off into the cedars. Then climb the west wall. Meanwhile Nas
Ta Bega will ride off with a pack of grub and Nack-yal and several
other mustangs. He'll wait for you or you'll wait for him, as the
case may be, at some appointed place. When you're gone I'll jump my
horse and hit the trail for Kayenta and the San Juan."

"Very well; that's settled," said Shefford, soberly. "I'll go at once
to see Ruth. You and Nas Ta Bega decide on where I'm to meet him."

"Reckon you'd do just as well to walk round and come up to Ruth's from
the other side--instead of going through the village," suggested Joe.

Shefford approached Ruth's cabin in a roundabout way; nevertheless,
she saw him coming before he got there and, opening the door, stood
pale, composed, and quietly bade him enter. Briefly, in low and
earnest voice, Shefford acquainted her with the plan.

"You love her so much," she said, wistfully, wonderingly.

"Indeed I do. Is it too much to ask of you to do this thing?" he
asked.

"Do it?" she queried, with a flash of spirit. "Of course I'll do it."

"Ruth, I can't thank you. I can't. I've only a faint idea what you're
risking. That distresses me. I'm afraid of what may happen to you."

She gave him another of the strange glances. "I don't risk so much as
you think," she said, significantly.

"Why?"

She came close to him, and her hands clasped his arms and she looked
up at him, her eyes darkening and her face growing paler. "Will you
swear to keep my secret?" she asked, very low.

"Yes, I swear."

"I was one of Waggoner's sealed wives!"

"God Almighty!" broke out Shefford, utterly overwhelmed.

"Yes. That's why I say I don't risk so much. I will make up a story
to tell the bishop and everybody. I'll tell that Waggoner was jealous,
that he was brutal to Mary, that I believed she was goaded to her mad
deed, that I thought she ought to be free. They'll be terrible. But
what can they do to me? My husband is dead . . . and if I have to go
to hell to keep from marrying another married Mormon, I'll go!"

In that low, passionate utterance Shefford read the death-blow to the
old Mormon polygamous creed. In the uplift of his spirit, in the joy
at this revelation, he almost forgot the stern matter at hand. Ruth
and Joe Lake belonged to a younger generation of Mormons. Their
nobility in this instance was in part a revolt at the conditions of
their lives. Doubt was knocking at Joe Lake's heart, and conviction
had come to this young sealed wife, bitter and hopeless while she had
been fettered, strong and mounting now that she was free. In a flash
of inspiration Shefford saw the old order changing. The Mormon creed
might survive, but that part of it which was an affront to nature, a
horrible yoke on women's necks, was doomed. It could not live. It
could never have survived more than a generation or two of religious
fanatics. Shefford had marked a different force and religious fervor
in the younger Mormons, and now he understood them.

"Ruth, you talk wildly," he said. "But I understand. I see. You are
free and you're going to stay free. . . . It stuns me to think of that
man of many wives. What did you feel when you were told he was dead?"

"I dare not think of that. It makes me--wicked. And he was good to
me. . . . Listen. Last night about midnight he came to my window and
woke me. I got up and let him in. He was in a terrible state. I
thought he was crazy. He walked the floor and called on his saints
and prayed. When I wanted to light a lamp he wouldn't let me. He
was afraid I'd see his face. But I saw well enough in the moonlight.
And I knew something had happened. So I soothed and coaxed him. He
had been a man as close-mouthed as a stone. Yet then I got him to
talk. . . . He had gone to Mary's, and upon entering, thought he heard
some one with her. She didn't answer him at first. When he found her
in her bedroom she was like a ghost. He accused her. Her silence made
him furious. Then he berated her, brought down the wrath of God upon
her, threatened her with damnation. All of which she never seemed to
hear. But when he tried to touch her she flew at him like a she-
panther. That's what he called her. She said she'd kill him! And
she drove him out of her house. . . . He was all weak and unstrung,
and I believe scared, too, when he came to me. She must have been a
fury. Those quiet, gentle women are furies when they're once roused.
Well, I was hours up with him and finally he got over it. He didn't
pray any more. He paced the room. It was just daybreak when he said
the wrath of God had come to him. I tried to keep him from going back
to Mary. But he went. . . . An hour later the women ran to tell me he
had been found dead at Mary's door."

"Ruth--she was mad--driven--she didn't know what she--was doing," said
Shefford, brokenly.

"She was always a strange girl, more like an Indian than any one I
ever knew. We called her the Sago Lily. I gave her the name. She
was so sweet, lovely, white and gold, like those flowers. . . . And
to think! Oh, it's horrible for her! You must save her. If you
get her away there never will be anything come of it. The Mormons
will hush it up."

"Ruth, time is flying," rejoined Shefford, hurriedly. "I must go
back to Joe. You be ready for us when we come. Wear something loose,
easily thrown off, and don't forget the long hood."

"I'll be ready and watching," she said. "The sooner the better, I'd
say."

He left her and returned toward camp in the same circling route by
which he had come. The Indian had disappeared and so had his mustang.
This significant fact augmented Shefford's hurried, thrilling
excitement. But one glance at Joe's face changed all that to a
sudden numbness, a sinking of his heart.

"What is it?" he queried.

"Look there!" exclaimed the Mormon.

Shefford's quick eye caught sight of horses and men down the valley.
He saw several Indians and three or four white men. They were making
camp.

"Who are they?" demanded Shefford.

"Shadd and some of his gang. Reckon that Piute told the news. By to-
morrow the valley will be full as a horse-wrangler's corral. . . .
Lucky Nas Ta Bega got away before that gang rode in. Now things won't
look as queer as they might have looked. The Indian took a pack of
grub, six mustangs, and my guns. Then there was your rifle in your
saddle-sheath. So you'll be well heeled in case you come to close
quarters. Reckon you can look for a running fight. For now, as soon
as your flight is discovered, Shadd will hit your trail. He's in with
the Mormons. You know him--what you'll have to deal with. But the
advantage will all be yours. You can ambush the trail."

"We're in for it. And the sooner we're off the better," replied
Shefford, grimly.

"Reckon that's gospel. Well--come on!"

The Mormon strode off, and Shefford, catching up with him, kept at his
side. Shefford's mind was full, but Joe's dark and gloomy face did
not invite communication. They entered the pinyon grove and passed
the cabin where the tragedy had been enacted. A tarpaulin had been
stretched across the front porch. Beal was not in sight, nor were
any of the women.

"I forgot," said Shefford, suddenly. "Where am I to meet the Indian?"

"Climb the west wall, back of camp," replied Joe. "Nas Ta Bega took
the Stonebridge trail. But he'll leave that, climb the rocks, then
hide the outfit and come back to watch for you. Reckon he'll see you
when you top the wall."

They passed on into the heart of the village. Joe tarried at the
window of a cabin, and passed a few remarks to a woman there, and
then he inquired for Mother Smith at her house. When they left here
the Mormon gave Shefford a nudge. Then they separated, Joe going
toward the school-house, while Shefford bent his steps in the
direction of Ruth's home.

Her door opened before he had a chance to knock. He entered. Ruth,
white and resolute, greeted him with a wistful smile.

"All ready?" she asked.

"Yes. Are you?" he replied, low-voiced.

"I've only to put on my hood. I think luck favors you. Hester was
here and she said Elder Smith told some one that Mary hadn't been
offered anything to eat yet. So I'm taking her a little. It'll be
a good excuse for me to get in the school-house to see her. I can
throw off this dress and she can put it on in a minute. Then the hood.
I
mustn't forget to hide her golden hair. You know how it flies. But
this is a big hood. . . . Well, I'm ready now. And--this 's our last
time together."

"Ruth, what can I say--how can I thank you?"

"I don't want any thanks. It'll be something to think of always--to
make me happy. . . . Only I'd like to feel you--you cared a little."

The wistful smile was there, a tremor on the sad lips, and a shadow of
soul-hunger in her eyes. Shefford did not misunderstand her. She did
not mean love, although it was a yearning for real love that she
mutely expressed.

"Care! I shall care all my life," he said, with strong feeling. "I
shall never forget you."

"It's not likely I'll forget you. . . . Good-by, John!"

Shefford took her in his arms and held her close. "Ruth--good-by!" he
said, huskily.

Then he released her. She adjusted the hood and, taking up a little
tray which held food covered with a napkin, she turned to the door.
He opened it and they went out.

They did not speak another word.

It was not a long walk from Ruth's home to the school-house, yet if it
were to be measured by Shefford's emotion the distance would have been
unending. The sacrifice offered by Ruth and Joe would have been noble
under any circumstances had they been Gentiles or persons with no
particular religion, but, considering that they were Mormons, that
Ruth had been a sealed-wife, that Joe had been brought up under the
strange, secret, and binding creed, their action was no less than
tremendous in its import. Shefford took it to mean vastly more than
loyalty to him and pity for Fay Larkin. As Ruth and Joe had arisen to
this height, so perhaps would other young Mormons, have arisen. It
needed only the situation, the climax, to focus these long-insulated,
slow-developing and inquiring minds upon the truth--that one wife,
one mother of children, for one man at one time as a law of nature,
love, and righteousness. Shefford felt as if he were marching with
the whole younger generation of Mormons, as if somehow he had been
a humble instrument in the working out of their destiny, in the
awakening that was to eliminate from their religion the only thing
which kept it from being as good for man, and perhaps as true, as
any other religion.

And then suddenly he turned the corner of school-house to encounter
Joe talking with the Mormon Henninger. Elder Smith was not present.

"Why, hello, Ruth!" greeted Joe. "You've fetched Mary some dinner.
Now that's good of you."

"May I go in?" asked Ruth.

"Reckon so," replied Henninger, scratching his head. He appeared to
be tractable, and probably was good-natured under pleasant conditions.
"She ought to have somethin' to eat. An' nobody 'pears--to have
remembered that--we're so set up."

He unbarred the huge, clumsy door and allowed Ruth to pass in.

"Joe, you can go in if you want," he said. "But hurry out before Elder
Smith comes back from his dinner."

Joe mumbled something, gave a husky cough, and then went in.

Shefford experienced great difficulty in presenting to this mild Mormon
a natural and unagitated front. When all his internal structure seemed
to be in a state of turmoil he did not see how it was possible to keep
the fact from showing in his face. So he turned away and took aimless
steps here and there.

"'Pears like we'd hev rain," observed Henninger. "It's right warm an'
them clouds are onseasonable."

"Yes," replied Shefford. "Hope so. A little rain would be good for
the grass."

"Joe tells me Shadd rode in, an' some of his fellers."

"So I see. About eight in the party."

Shefford was gritting his teeth and preparing to endure the ordeal
of controlling his mind and expression when the door opened and Joe
stalked out. He had his sombrero pulled down so that it hid the
upper half of his face. His lips were a shade off healthy color.
He stood there with his back to the door.

"Say, what Mary needs is quiet--to be left alone," he said. "Ruth says
if she rests, sleeps a little, she won't get fever. . . . Henninger,
don't let anybody disturb her till night."

"All right, Joe," replied the Mormon. "An' I take it good of Ruth an'
you to concern yourselves."

A slight tap on the inside of the door sent Shefford's pulses to
throbbing. Joe opened it with a strong and vigorous sweep that
meant more than the mere action.

"Ruth--reckon you didn't stay long," he said, and his voice rang clear.
"Sure you feel sick and weak. Why, seeing her flustered even me!"

A slender, dark-garbed woman wearing a long black hood stepped
uncertainly out. She appeared to be Ruth. Shefford's heart stood
still because she looked so like Ruth. But she did not step steadily,
she seemed dazed, she did not raise the hooded head.

"Go home," said Joe, and his voice rang a little louder. "Take her
home, Shefford. Or, better, walk her round some. She's faintish
. . . . And see here, Henninger--"

Shefford led the girl away with a hand in apparent carelessness on
her arm. After a few rods she walked with a freer step and then a
swifter. He found it necessary to make that hold on her arm a real
one, so as to keep her from walking too fast. No one, however,
appeared to observe them. When they passed Ruth's house then
Shefford began to lose his fear that this was not Fay Larkin. He
was far from being calm or clear-sighted. He thought he recognized
that free step; nevertheless, he could not make sure. When they
passed under the trees, crossed the brook, and turned down along
the west wall, then doubt ceased in Shefford's mind. He knew this
was not Ruth. Still, so strange was his agitation, so keen his
suspense, that he needed confirmation of ear, of eye. He wanted
to hear her voice, to see her face. Yet just as strangely there
was a twist of feeling, a reluctance, a sadness that kept off the
moment.

They reached the low, slow-swelling slant of wall and started to
ascend. How impossible not to recognize Fay Larkin now in that swift
grace and skill on the steep wall! Still, though he knew her, he
perversely clung to the unreality of the moment. But when a long braid
of dead-gold hair tumbled from under the hood, then his heart leaped.
That identified Fay Larkin. He had freed her. He was taking her away.
Then a sadness embittered his joy.

As always before, she distanced him in the ascent to the top. She went
on without looking back. But Shefford had an irresistible desire to
took again and the last time at this valley where he had suffered and
loved so much.




XVI. SURPRISE VALLEY


From the summit of the wall the plateau waved away in red and yellow
ridges, with here and there little valleys green with cedar and pinyon.

Upon one of these ridges, silhouetted against the sky, appeared the
stalking figure of the Indian. He had espied the fugitives. He
disappeared in a niche, and presently came again into view round a
corner of cliff. Here he waited, and soon Shefford and Fay joined
him.

"Bi Nai, it is well," he said.

Shefford eagerly asked for the horses, and Nas Ta Bega silently
pointed down the niche, which was evidently an opening into one of
the shallow canyon. Then he led the way, walking swiftly. It was
Shefford, and not Fay, who had difficulty in keeping close to him.
This speed caused Shefford to become more alive to the business,
instead of the feeling, of the flight. The Indian entered a crack
between low cliffs--a very narrow canyon full of rocks and clumps
of cedars--and in a half-hour or less he came to where the mustangs
were halted among some cedars. Three of the mustangs, including
Nack-yal, were saddled; one bore a small pack, and the remaining
two had blankets strapped on their backs.

"Fay, can you ride in that long skirt?" asked Shefford. How strange
it seemed that his first words to her were practical when all his
impassioned thought had been only mute! But the instant he spoke
he experienced a relief, a relaxation.

"I'll take it off," replied Fay, just as practically. And in a
twinkling she slipped out of both waist and skirt. She had worn
them over the short white-flannel dress with which Shefford had
grown familiar.

As Nack-yal appeared to be the safest mustang for her to ride, Shefford
helped her upon him and then attended to the stirrups. When he had
adjusted them to the proper length he drew the bridle over Nack-yal's
head and, upon handing it to her, found himself suddenly looking into
her face. She had taken off the hood, too. The instant there eyes
met he realized that she was strangely afraid to meet his glance, as
he was to meet hers. That seemed natural. But her face was flushed
and there were unmistakable signs upon it of growing excitement, of
mounting happiness. Save for that fugitive glance she would have
been the Fay Larkin of yesterday. How he had expected her to look
he did not know, but it was not like this. And never had he felt
her strange quality of simplicity so powerfully.

"Have you ever been here--through this little canyon?" he asked.

"Oh yes, lots of times."

"You'll be able to lead us to Surprise Valley, you think?"

"I know it. I shall see Uncle Jim and Mother Jane before sunset!"

"I hope--you do," he replied, a little shakily. "Perhaps we'd better
not tell them of the--the--about what happened last night."

Her beautiful, grave, and troubled glance returned to meet his, and he
received a shock that he considered was amaze. And after more swift
consideration he believed he was amazed because that look, instead of
betraying fear or gloom or any haunting shadow of darkness, betrayed
apprehension for him--grave, sweet, troubled love for him. She was
not thinking of herself at all--of what he might think of her, of a
possible gulf between them, of a vast and terrible change in the
relation of soul to soul. He experienced a profound gladness. Though
he could not understand her, he was happy that the horror of Waggoner's
death had escaped her. He loved her, he meant to give his life to her,
and right then and there he accepted the burden of her deed and meant
to bear it without ever letting her know of the shadow between them.

"Fay, we'll forget--what's behind us," he said. "Now to find Surprise
Valley. Lead on. Nack-yal is gentle. Pull him the way you want to
go. We'll follow."

Shefford mounted the other saddled mustang, and they set off, Fay in
advance. Presently they rode out of this canyon up to level cedar-
patched, solid rock, and here Fay turned straight west. Evidently she
had been over the ground before. The heights to which he had climbed
with her were up to the left, great slopes and looming promontories.
And the course she chose was as level and easy as any he could have
picked out in that direction.

When a mile or more of this up-and-down travel had been traversed
Fay halted and appeared to be at fault. The plateau was losing its
rounded, smooth, wavy characteristics, and to the west grew bolder,
more rugged, more cut up into low crags and buttes. After a long,
sweeping glance Fay headed straight for this rougher country.
Thereafter from time to time she repeated this action.

"Fay, how do you know you're going in the right direction?" asked
Shefford, anxiously.

"I never forget any ground I've been over. I keep my eyes close ahead.
All that seems strange to me is the wrong way. What I've seen, before
must be the right way, because I saw it when they brought me from
Surprise Valley."

Shefford had to acknowledge that she was following an Indian's instinct
for ground he had once covered.

Still Shefford began to worry, and finally dropped back to question
Nas Ta Bega.

"Bi Nai, she has the eye of a Navajo," replied the Indian. "Look!
Iron-shod horses have passed here. See the marks in the stone?"

Shefford indeed made out faint cut tracks that would have escaped
his own sight. They had been made long ago, but they were
unmistakable.

"She's following the trail by memory--she must remember the stones,
trees, sage, cactus," said Shefford in surprise.

"Pictures in her mind," replied the Indian.

Thereafter the farther she progressed the less at fault she appeared
and the faster she traveled. She made several miles an hour, and
about the middle of the afternoon entered upon the more broken region
of the plateau. View became restricted. Low walls, and ruined cliffs
of red rock with cedars at their base, and gullies growing into canyon
and canyon opening into larger ones--these were passed and crossed and
climbed and rimmed in travel that grew more difficult as the going
became wilder. Then there was a steady ascent, up and up all the
time, though not steep, until another level, green with cedar and
pinyon, was reached.

It reminded Shefford of the forest near the mouth of the Sagi. It was
so dense he could not see far ahead of Fay, and often he lost sight of
her entirely. Presently he rode out of the forest into a strip of
purple sage. It ended abruptly, and above that abrupt line, seemingly
far away, rose a long, red wall. Instantly he recognized that to be
the opposite wall of a canyon which as yet he could not see.

Fay was acting strangely and he hurried forward. She slipped off Nack-
yal and fell, sprang up and ran wildly, to stand upon a promontory,
her arms uplifted, her hair a mass of moving gold in the wind, her
attitude one of wild and eloquent significance.

Shefford ran, too, and as he ran the red wall in his eager sight
seemed to enlarge downward, deeper and deeper, and then it merged
into a strip of green.

Suddenly beneath him yawned a red-walled gulf, a deceiving gulf seen
through transparent haze, a softly shining green-and-white valley,
strange, wild, beautiful, like a picture in his memory.

"Surprise Valley!" he cried, in wondering recognition.

Fay Larkin waved her arms as if they were wings to carry her swiftly
downward, and her plaintive cry fitted the wildness of her manner and
the lonely height where she leaned.

Shefford drew her back from the rim.

"Fay, we are here," he said. "I recognize the valley. I miss only
one thing--the arch of stone."

His words seemed to recall her to reality.

"The arch? That fell when the wall slipped, in the great avalanche.
See! There is the place. We can get down there. Oh, let us hurry!"

The Indian reached the rim and his falcon gaze swept the valley.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed. He, too, recognized the valley that he had
vainly sought for half a year.

"Bring the lassos," said Shefford.

With Fay leading, they followed the rim toward the head of the valley.
Here the wall had caved in, and there was a slope of jumbled rock a
thousand feet wide and more than that in depth. It was easy to descend
because there were so many rocks waist-high that afforded a handhold.
Shefford marked, however, that Fay never took advantage of these. More
than once he paused to watch her. Swiftly she went down; she stepped
from rock to rock; lightly she crossed cracks and pits; she ran along
the sharp and broken edge of a long ledge; she poised on a pointed
stone and, sure-footed as a mountain-sheep, she sprang to another that
had scarce surface for a foothold; her moccasins flashed, seemed to
hold wondrously on any angle; and when a rock tipped or slipped with
her she leaped to a surer stand. Shefford watched her performance,
so swift, agile, so perfectly balanced, showing such wonderful accord
between eye and foot; and then when he swept his gaze down upon that
wild valley where she had roamed alone for twelve years he marveled
no more.

The farther down he got the greater became the size of rocks, until he
found himself amid huge pieces of cliff as large as houses. He lost
sight of Fay entirely, and he anxiously threaded a narrow, winding,
descending way between the broken masses. Finally he came out upon
flat rock again. Fay stood on another rim, looking down. He saw that
the slide had moved far out into the valley, and the lower part of it
consisted of great sections of wall. In fact, the base of the great
wall had just moved out with the avalanche, and this much of it held
its vertical position. Looking upward, Shefford was astounded and
thrilled to see how far he had descended, how the walls leaned like
a great, wide, curving, continuous rim of mountain.

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