Book: The Rainbow Trail

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Ages before life had evolved upon the earth it had spread its grand
arch from wall to wall, black and mystic at night, transparent and
rosy in the sunrise, at sunset a flaming curve limned against the
heavens. When the race of man had passed it would, perhaps, stand
there still. It was not for many eyes to see. Only by toil, sweat,
endurance, blood, could any man ever look at Nonnezoshe. So it would
always be alone, grand, silent, beautiful, unintelligible.

Shefford bade Nonnezoshe a mute, reverent farewell. Then plunging
down the weathered slope of the gorge to the stream below, he hurried
forward to join the others. They had progressed much farther than he
imagined they would have, and this was owing to the fact that the
floor of the gorge afforded easy travel. It was gravel on rock bottom,
tortuous, but open, with infrequent and shallow downward steps. The
stream did not now rush and boil along and tumble over rock-encumbered
ledges. In corners the water collected in round, green, eddying pools.
There were patches of grass and willows and mounds of moss. Shefford's
surprise equaled his relief, for he believed that the violent descent
of Nonnezoshe Boco had been passed. Any turn now, he imagined, might
bring the party out upon the river. When he caught up with them he
imparted this conviction, which was received with cheer. The hopes
of all, except the Indian, seemed mounting; and if he ever hoped or
despaired it was never manifest.

Shefford's anticipation, however, was not soon realized. The fugitives
traveled miles farther down Nonnezoshe Boco, and the only changes were
that the walls of the lower gorge heightened and merged into those
above and that these upper ones towered ever loftier. Shefford had
to throw his head straight back to look up at the rims, and the narrow
strip of sky was now indeed a flowing stream of blue.

Difficult steps were met, too, yet nothing compared to those of the
upper canyon. Shefford calculated that this day's travel had advanced
several hours; and more than ever now he was anticipating the mouth of
Nonnezoshe Boco. Still another hour went by. And then came striking
changes. The canyon narrowed till the walls were scarcely twenty paces
apart; the color of stone grew dark red above and black down low; the
light of day became shadowed, and the floor was a level, gravelly,
winding lane, with the stream meandering slowly and silently.

Suddenly the Indian halted. He turned his ear down the canyon lane.
He had heard something. The others grouped round him, but did not
hear a sound except the soft flow of water and the heave of the
mustangs. Then the Indian went on. Presently he halted again.
And again he listened. This time he threw up his head and upon
his dark face shone a light which might have been pride.

"Tse ko-n-tsa-igi," he said.

The others could not understand, but they were impressed.

"Shore he means somethin' big," drawled Lassiter.

"Oh, what did he say?" queried Fay in eagerness.

"Nas Ta Bega, tell us," said Shefford. "We are full of hope."

"Grand Canyon," replied the Indian.

"How do you know?" asked Shefford.

"I hear the roar of the river."

But Shefford, listen as he might, could not hear it. They traveled on,
winding down the wonderful lane. Every once in a while Shefford lagged
behind, let the others pass out of hearing, and then he listened. At
last he was rewarded. Low and deep, dull and strange, with some
quality to incite dread, came a roar. Thereafter, at intervals,
usually at turns in the canyon, and when a faint stir of warm air
fanned his cheeks, he heard the sound, growing clearer and louder.

He rounded an abrupt corner to have the roar suddenly fill his ears,
to see the lane extend straight to a ragged vent, and beyond that, at
some distance, a dark, ragged, bulging wall, like iron. As he hurried
forward he was surprised to find that the noise did not increase. Here
it kept a strange uniformity of tone and volume. The others of the
party passed out of the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco in advance of
Shefford, and when he reached it they were grouped upon a bank of
sand. A dark-red canyon yawned before them, and through it slid the
strangest river Shefford had ever seen. At first glance he imagined
the strangeness consisted of the dark-red color of the water, but at
the second he was not so sure. All the others, except Nas Ta Bega,
eyed the river blankly, as if they did not know what to think. The
roar came from round a huge bulging wall downstream. Up the canyon,
half a mile, at another turn, there was a leaping rapid of dirty red-
white waves and the sound of this, probably, was drowned in the
unseen but nearer rapid.

"This is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado," said Shefford. "We've
come out at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco. . . . And now to wait for
Joe Lake!"

They made camp on a dry, level sand-bar under a shelving wall. Nas
Ta Bega collected a pile of driftwood to be used for fire, and then
he took the mustangs back up the side canyon to find grass for them.
Lassiter appeared unusually quiet, and soon passed from weary rest on
the sand to deep slumber. Fay and Jane succumbed to an exhaustion
that manifested itself the moment relaxation set in, and they, too,
fell asleep. Shefford patrolled the long strip of sand under the
wall, and watched up the river for Joe Lake. The Indian returned
and went along the river, climbed over the jutting, sharp slopes
that reached into the water, and passed out of sight up-stream
toward the rapid.

Shefford had a sense that the river and the canyon were too magnificent
to be compared with others. Still, all his emotions and sensations
had been so wrought upon, he seemed not to have any left by which he
might judge of what constituted the difference. He would wait. He
had a grim conviction that before he was safely out of this earth-
riven crack he would know. One thing, however, struck him, and it
was that up the canyon, high over the lower walls, hazy and blue,
stood other walls, and beyond and above them, dim in purple distance,
upreared still other walls. The haze and the blue and the purple
meant great distance, and, likewise, the height seemed incomparable.

The red river attracted him most. Since this was the medium by which
he must escape with his party, it was natural that it absorbed him,
to the neglect of the gigantic cliffs. And the more he watched the
river, studied it, listened to it, imagined its nature, its power, its
restlessness, the more he dreaded it. As the hours of the afternoon
wore away, and he strolled along and rested on the banks, his first
impressions, and what he realized might be his truest ones, were
gradually lost. He could not bring them back. The river was
changing, deceitful. It worked upon his mind. The low, hollow
roar filled his ears and seemed to mock him. Then he endeavored
to stop thinking about it, to confine his attention to the gap up-
stream where sooner or later he prayed that Joe Lake and his boat
would appear. But, though he controlled his gaze, he could not his
thought, and his strange, impondering dread of the river augmented.

The afternoon waned. Nas Ta Bega came back to camp and said any
likelihood of Joe's arrival was past for that day. Shefford could
not get over an impression of strangeness--of the impossibility of
the reality presented to his naked eyes. These lonely fugitives in
the huge-walled canyon waiting for a boatman to come down that river!
Strange and wild--those were the words which, inadequately at best,
suited this country and the situations it produced.

After supper he and Fay walked along the bars of smooth, red sand.
There were a few moments when the distant peaks and domes and
turrets were glorified in changing sunset hues. But the beauty
was fleeting. Fay still showed lassitude. She was quiet, yet
cheerful, and the sweetness of her smile, her absolute trust in
him, stirred and strengthened anew his spirit. Yet he suffered
torture when he thought of trusting Fay's life, her soul, and her
beauty to this strange red river.

Night brought him relief. He could not see the river; only the low
roar made its presence known out there in the shadows. And, there
being no need to stay awake, he dropped at once into heavy slumber.
He was roused by hands dragging at him. Nas Ta Bega bent over him.
It was broad daylight. The yellow wall high above was glistening.
A fire was crackling and pleasant odors were wafted to him. Fay and
Jane and Lassiter sat around the tarpaulin at breakfast. After the
meal suspense and strain were manifested in all the fugitives, even
the imperturbable Indian being more than usually watchful. His eyes
scarcely ever left the black gap where the river slid round the turn
above. Soon, as on the preceding day, he disappeared up the ragged,
iron-bound shore. There was scarcely an attempt at conversation. A
controlling thought bound that group into silence--if Joe Lake was
ever going to come he would come to-day.

Shefford asked himself a hundred times if it were possible, and his
answer seemed to be in the low, sullen, muffled roar of the river.
And as the morning wore on toward noon his dread deepened until all
chance appeared hopeless. Already he had begun to have vague and
unformed and disquieting ideas of the only avenue of escape left--
to return up Nonnezoshe Boco--and that would be to enter a trap.

Suddenly a piercing cry pealed down the canyon. It was followed by
echoes, weird and strange, that clapped from wall to wall in mocking
concatenation. Nas Ta Bega appeared high on the ragged slope. The
cry had been the Indian's. He swept an arm out, pointing up-stream,
and stood like a statue on the iron rocks.

Shefford's keen gaze sighted a moving something in the bend of the
river. It was long, low, dark, and flat, with a lighter object
upright in the middle. A boat and a man!

"Joe! It's Joe!" yelled Shefford, madly. "There! . . . Look!"

Jane and Fay were on their knees in the sand, clasping each other,
pale faces toward that bend in the river.

Shefford ran up the shore toward the Indian. He climbed the jutting
slant of rock. The boat was now full in the turn--it moved faster--
it was nearing the smooth incline above the rapid. There! it glided
down--heaved darkly up--settled back--and disappeared in the frothy,
muddy roughness of water. Shefford held his breath and watched. A
dark, bobbing object showed, vanished, showed again to enlarge--to
take the shape of a big flatboat--and then it rode the swift, choppy
current out of the lower end of the rapid.

Nas Ta Bega began to make violent motions, and Shefford, taking his
cue, frantically waved his red scarf. There was a five-mile-an-hour
current right before them, and Joe must needs see them so that he
might sheer the huge and clumsy craft into the shore before it drifted
too far down.

Presently Joe did see them. He appeared to be half-naked; he raised
aloft both arms, and bellowed down the canyon. The echoes boomed from
wall to wall, every one stronger with the deep, hoarse triumph in the
Mormon's voice, till they passed on, growing weaker, to die away in
the roar of the river below. Then Joe bent to a long oar that appeared
to be fastened to the stern of the boat, and the craft drifted out of
the swifter current toward the shore. It reached a point opposite to
where Shefford and the Indian waited, and, though Joe made prodigious
efforts, it slid on. Still, it also drifted shoreward, and half-way
down to the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco Joe threw the end of a rope to
the Indian.

"Ho! Ho!" yelled the Mormon, again setting into motion the fiendish
echoes. He was naked to the waist; he had lost flesh; he was haggard,
worn, dirty, wet. While he pulled on a shirt Nas Ta Bega made the rope
fast to a snag of a log of driftwood embedded in the sand, and the
boat swung to shore. It was perhaps thirty feet long by half as many
wide, crudely built of rough-hewn boards. The steering-gear was a
long pole with a plank nailed to the end. The craft was empty save
for another pole and plank, Joe's coat, and a broken-handled shovel.
There were water and sand on the flooring. Joe stepped ashore and
he was gripped first by Shefford and then by the Indian. He was an
unkempt and gaunt giant, yet how steadfast and reliable, how grimly
strong to inspire hope!

"Reckon most of me's here," he said in reply to greetings. "I've had
water aplenty. My God! I've had WATER!" He rolled out a grim laugh.
"But no grub for three days. . . . Forgot to fetch some!"

How practical he was! He told Fay she looked good for sore eyes, but
he needed a biscuit most of all. There was just a second of singular
hesitation when he faced Lassiter, and then the big, strong hand of
the young Mormon went out to meet the old gunman's. While they fed
him and he ate like a starved man Shefford told of the flight from
the village, the rescuing of Jane and Lassiter from Surprise Valley,
the descent from the plateau, the catastrophe to Shadd's gang--and,
concluding, Shefford, without any explanation, told that Nas Ta Bega
had killed the Mormon Waggoner.

"Reckon I had that figured," replied Joe. "First off. I didn't
think so. . . . So Shadd went over the cliff. That's good riddance.
It beats me, though. Never knew that Piute's like with a horse. And
he had some grand horses in his outfit. Pity about them."

Later when Joe had a moment alone with Shefford he explained that
during his ride to Kayenta he had realized Fay's innocence and who had
been responsible for the tragedy. He took Withers, the trader, into
his confidence, and they planned a story, which Withers was to carry
to Stonebridge, that would exculpate Fay and Shefford of anything more
serious than flight. If Shefford got Fay safely out of the country at
once that would end the matter for all concerned.

"Reckon I'm some ferry-boatman, too--a FAIRY boatman. Haw! Haw!" he
added. "And we're going through. . . . Now I want you to help me
rig this tarpaulin up over the bow of the boat. If we can fix it up
strong it'll keep the waves from curling over. They filled her four
times for me."

They folded the tarpaulin three times, and with stout pieces of split
plank and horseshoe nails from Shefford's saddle-bags and pieces of
rope they rigged up a screen around bow and front corners.

Nas Ta Bega put the saddles in the boat. The mustangs were far up
Nonnezoshe Boco and would work their way back to green and luxuriant
canyons. The Indian said they would soon become wild and would never
be found. Shefford regretted Nack-yal, but was glad the faithful
little mustang would be free in one of those beautiful canyons.

"Reckon we'd better be off," called Joe. "All aboard!" He placed Fay
and Jane in a corner of the bow, where they would be spared sight of
the rapids. Shefford loosed the rope and sprang aboard. "Pard," said
Joe, "it's one hell of a river! And now with the snow melting up
in the mountains it's twenty feet above normal and rising fast. But
that's well for us. It covers the stones in the rapids. If it hadn't
been in flood Joe would be an angel now!"

The boat cleared the sand, lazily wheeled in the eddying water, and
suddenly seemed caught by some powerful gliding force. When it swept
out beyond the jutting wall Shefford saw a quarter of a mile of
sliding water that appeared to end abruptly. Beyond lengthened out
the gigantic gap between the black and frowning cliffs.

"Wow!" ejaculated Joe. "Drops out of sight there. But that one ain't
much. I can tell by the roar. When you see my hair stand up straight
--then watch out! . . . Lassiter, you look after the women. Shefford,
you stand ready to bail out with the shovel, for we'll sure ship
water. Nas Ta Bega, you help here with the oar."

The roar became a heavy, continuous rumble; the current quickened;
little streaks and ridges seemed to race along the boat; strange
gurglings rose from under the bow. Shefford stood on tiptoe to see
the break in the river below. Swiftly it came into sight--a wonderful,
long, smooth, red slant of water, a swelling mound, a huge back-
curling wave, another and another, a sea of frothy, uplifting crests,
leaping and tumbling and diminishing down to the narrowing apex of the
rapid. It was a frightful sight, yet it thrilled Shefford. Joe worked
the steering-oar back and forth and headed the boat straight for the
middle of the incline. The boat reached the round rim, gracefully
dipped with a heavy sop, and went shooting down. The wind blew wet in
Shefford's face. He stood erect, thrilling, fascinated, frightened.
Then he seemed to feel himself lifted; the curling wave leaped at the
boat; there was a shock that laid him flat; and when he rose to his
knees all about him was roar and spray and leaping, muddy waves. Shock
after shock jarred the boat. Splashes of water stung his face. And
then the jar and the motion, the confusion and roar, gradually lessened
until presently Shefford rose to see smooth water ahead and the long,
trembling rapid behind.

"Get busy, bailer," yelled Joe. "Pretty soon you'll be glad you have
to bail--so you can't see!"

There were several inches of water in the bottom of the boat and
Shefford learned for the first time the expediency of a shovel in
the art of bailing.

"That tarpaulin worked powerful good," went on Joe. "And it saves the
women. Now if it just don't bust on a big wave! That one back there
was little."

When Shefford had scooped out all the water he went forward to see
how Fay and Jane and Lassiter had fared. The women were pale, but
composed. They had covered their heads.

"But the dreadful roar!" exclaimed Fay.

Lassiter looked shaken for once.

"Shore I'd rather taken a chance meetin' them Mormons on the way out,"
he said.

Shefford spoke with an encouraging assurance which he did not himself
feel. Almost at the moment he marked a silence that had fallen into
the canyon; then it broke to a low, dull, strange roar.

"Aha! Hear that?" The Mormon shook his shaggy head. "Reckon we're
in Cataract Canyon. We'll be standing on end from now on. Hang on
to her, boys!"

Danger of this unusual kind had brought out a peculiar levity in the
somber Mormon--a kind of wild, gay excitement. His eyes rolled as he
watched the river ahead and he puffed out his cheek with his tongue.

The rugged, overhanging walls of the canyon grew sinister in Shefford's
sight. They were jaws. And the river--that made him shudder to look
down into it. The little whirling pits were eyes peering into his,
and they raced on with the boat, disappeared, and came again, always
with the little, hollow gurgles.

The craft drifted swiftly and the roar increased. Another rapid seemed
to move up into view. It came at a bend in the canyon. When the breeze
struck Shefford's cheeks he did not this time experience exhilaration.
The current accelerated its sliding motion and bore the flatboat
straight for the middle of the curve. Shefford saw the bend, a long,
dark, narrow, gloomy canyon, and a stretch of contending waters, then,
crouching low, he waited for the dip, the race, the shock. They came
--the last stopping the boat--throwing it aloft--letting it drop--
and crests of angry waves curled over the side. Shefford, kneeling,
felt the water slap around him, and in his ears was a deafening roar.
There were endless moments of strife and hell and flying darkness of
spray all about him, and under him the rocking boat. When they
lessened--ceased in violence--he stood ankle-deep in water, and then
madly he began to bail.

Another roar deadened his ears, but he did not look up from his toil.
And when he had to get down to avoid the pitch he closed his eyes.
That rapid passed and with more water to bail, he resumed his share in
the manning of the crude craft. It was more than a share--a tremendous
responsibility to which he bent with all his might. He heard Joe
yell--and again--and again. He heard the increasing roars one after
another till they seemed one continuous bellow. He felt the shock, the
pitch, the beating waves, and then the lessening power of sound and
current. That set him to his task. Always in these long intervals of
toil he seemed to see, without looking up, the growing proportions of
the canyon. And the river had become a living, terrible thing. The
intervals of his tireless effort when he scooped the water overboard
were fleeting, and the rides through rapid after rapid were endless
periods of waiting terror. His spirit and his hope were overwhelmed
by the rush and roar and fury.

Then, as he worked, there came a change--a rest to deafened ears--a
stretch of river that seemed quiet after chaos--and here for the first
time he bailed the boat clear of water.

Jane and Fay were huddled in a corner, with the flapping tarpaulin now
half fallen over them. They were wet and muddy. Lassiter crouched
like a man dazed by a bad dream, and his white hair hung, stained and
bedraggled, over his face. The Indian and the Mormon, grim, hard,
worn, stood silent at the oar.

The afternoon was far advanced and the sun had already descended below
the western ramparts. A cool breeze blew up the canyon, laden with a
sound that was the same, yet not the same, as those low, dull roars
which Shefford dreaded more and more.

Joe Lake turned his ear to the breeze. A stronger puff brought a
heavy, quivering rumble. This time he did not vent his gay and wild
defiance to the river. He bent lower--listened. Then as the rumble
became a strange, deep, reverberating roll, as if the monstrous river
were rolling huge stones down a subterranean canyon, Shefford saw with
dilating eyes that the Mormon's hair was rising stiff upon his head.

"Hear that!" said Joe, turning an ashen face to Shefford. "We'll
drop off the earth now. Hang on to the girl, so if we go you can
go together. . . . And, pard, if you've a God--pray!"

Nas Ta Bega faced the bend from whence that rumble came, and he was
the same dark, inscrutable, impassive Indian as of old. What was
death to him?

Shefford felt the strong, rushing love of life surge in him, and it
was not for himself he thought, but for Fay and the happiness she
merited. He went to her, patted the covered head, and tried with
words choking in his throat to give hope. And he leaned with hands
gripping the gunwale, with eyes wide open, ready for the unknown.

The river made a quick turn and from round the bend rumbled a terrible
uproar. The current racing that way was divided or uncertain, and
it gave strange motion to the boat. Joe and Nas Ta Bega shoved
desperately upon the oar, all to no purpose. The currents had their
will. The bow of the boat took the place of the stern. Then swift
at the head of a curved incline it shot beyond the bulging wall.

And Shefford saw an awful place before them. The canyon had narrowed
to half its width, and turned almost at right angles. The huge clamor
of appalling sound came from under the cliff where the swollen river
had to pass and where there was not space. The rapid rushed in
gigantic swells right upon the wall, boomed against it, climbed and
spread and fell away, to recede and gather new impetus, to leap madly
on down the canyon.

Shefford went to his knees, clasped Fay, and Jane, too. But facing
this appalling thing he had to look. Courage and despair came to him
at the last. This must be the end. With long, buoyant swing the boat
sailed down, shot over the first waves, was caught and lifted upon the
great swell and impelled straight toward the cliff. Huge whirlpools
raced alongside, and from them came a horrible, engulfing roar.
Monstrous bulges rose on the other side. All the stupendous power of
that mighty river of downward-rushing silt swung the boat aloft, up
and up, as the swell climbed the wall. Shefford, with transfixed
eyes and harrowed soul, watched the wet black wall. It loomed down
upon him. The stern of the boat went high. Then when the crash that
meant doom seemed imminent the swell spread and fell back from the
wall and the boat never struck at all. By some miraculous chance it
had been favored by a strange and momentary receding of the huge spent
swell. Then it slid back, was caught and whirled by the current into
a red, frothy, up-flung rapids below. Shefford bowed his head over.
Fay and saw no more, nor felt nor heard. What seemed a long time
after that the broken voice of the Mormon recalled him to his labors.

The boat was half full of water. Nas Ta Bega scooped out great sheets
of it with his hands. Shefford sprang to aid him, found the shovel,
and plunged into the task. Slowly but surely they emptied the boat.
And then Shefford saw that twilight had fallen. Joe was working the
craft toward a narrow bank of sand, to which, presently, they came,
and the Indian sprang out to moor to a rock.

The fugitives went ashore and, weary and silent and drenched, they
dropped in the warm sand.

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