The Deer Stalker Page 6

  The Grand Canyon was an appalling rent, and not the least of its greatness lay in the ageless slopes of multihued rock that revealed the structure of the earth crust. Up the far slopes across the gulf, dark shadows were creeping, encroaching upon the red, swallowing the chrome cliffs. The westering sun, sinking behind the peaks and domes and turrets, and the rim, cast these mystic shadows. The purple depths turned to twilight gray. Far above and across the canyon, in the sunset light, blazed a golden belt with its black fringe silhouetted against the sky. Color and light and shadow changed and moved imperceptibly.

  Patricia listened for some sound to break the unearthly silence. At first it seemed as though there were no sound. The place was dead with the silence of the infinite. The canyon represented a wearing of rock by the action of water. Slower than an infinitude of time, and as silent! Yet, by straining her ears, she was able to distinguish sounds. Her heart beat, quick, soft, muffled. Then she heard a very low, very faint roar, far away and deep down like that of a train in the distance. That was the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon. Then there was an accompanying moan of the wind through the cedars, almost imperceptible. A bird, purple and black in hue, pitched with soft swish of wings down over the rim; and a tiny squirrel, gray as the rocks, dislodged little pebbles that rustled and rattled. So there were actual sounds, possible to hear; yet to Patricia these only accentuated the silence and loneliness.

  The Canyon had its peculiar fragrance that revealed itself intangibly to Patricia’s sensitive nostrils. She was familiar with the evergreen odor of the Adirondacks, the smell of smoke of burning leaves in autumn, both of which were recalled to memory here. But this canyon fragrance was different. She gathered a handful of the dry cedar needles and then stripped some of the green foliage, and again she crushed sprigs of the pale gray sage growing close by. These lent something to the canyon fragrance, but only a part. How sweet, new, exhilarating, and marvelously dry! That dryness was its outstanding feature. Patricia remembered then that this country was Arizona desert.

  The sun sank low, losing its white fire. Now there came a startling and marked change in the canyon. Patricia sat up quickly, suddenly alive to the imminence of a glorious transfiguration. Far below, shadows and shrouds obscured the walls, but now a moving mantle above the smoky haze cleared away under the dying fire of the setting sun. She saw leagues and leagues of the upper walls, a thousand million facets of chiseled rock, reflecting the deep red and rich gold of sunset. It was too beautiful for the eastern girl to bear, too glorious for her gaze. She closed her eyes. As she opened them again, the glory already was fading and dying. The sun slipped out of sight, and the canyon yawned dull red and drab, now appearing aloof and cold.

  Patricia shivered, suddenly aware of the chill in the air. She must hurry so that she would not be caught out along the lonely rim after dark.

  Once on the trail, she set out with swinging stride, buoyant and eager, thrilled yet anxious. Soon she found the exertion affected her like climbing a steep hill. It slowed her pace.

  Meanwhile the shadowy mantle in the canyon seemed to rise to meet the dusk creeping under the cedars. A cool wind brushed through the cedars. The trail was deserted. At last the lights of the hotel gleamed out of the gathering darkness. Patricia found herself relieved at the sight of their friendly glow. She paused to catch her breath. She panted, her skin was wet and burning, her feet were heavy as lead, yet these sensations seemed good and strangely welcome.

  She went on, at last to halt opposite the hotel and gaze at the Canyon. Now it was a black, windy void! It was full of night, mystery, terror. She hurried in to the lighted hotel.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHEN Patricia came to dress for dinner, she selected a gown from habit, without a thought of the motive that always actuated her friends. But her gowns were exquisite, and although she never approached any extreme in design or style, still they were in the latest mode. The moment she entered the dining room she was the recipient of flattering glances from tables all over the room.

  As she passed the table next to her own, she heard a woman’s whisper and then a girl’s voice exclaiming in delight in the voice of a girl. After she had seated herself and given the waitress her order she casually glanced up and around. The dining room was brilliantly lit and filled with guests, presenting rather a social and conventional atmosphere. She was surprised and more at her ease.

  At the table near her were two women and a girl, plainly dressed and undoubtedly westerners. The girl was rather small of stature, though not slight, and probably about eighteen. She was blond, with something attractive about her strong, tanned face. She was staring hard at Patricia with big, frank, clear eyes, dark with excitement and admiration. She blushed guiltily, evidently believing she had been rude to stare. It amused the eastern girl. How unsophisticated and old-fashioned! Then Patricia made the astonishing discovery that the girl’s hair was not bobbed, nor were her eyebrows plucked or her lips smeared with rouge. She tried to recall when she had seen a girl between fifteen and twenty whose face was not made up.

  When the girl looked up again Patricia smiled at her. The response was instant—a smile of shy surprise that rendered her face sweet and pretty. Patricia decided that here was a western girl she would like to know.

  After dinner she found the lobby full of guests and all the desirable chairs, especially those near the open fire, occupied. She strolled through the hall and then the picture room, fully enjoying the attention she was attracting. Casually she glanced over the groups of guests chatting together or moving about, until she espied the blond head of the girl she was searching for. Patricia approached and found her with her friends at the end of the long desk where Miss Hilton made arrangements with guests for the trail trips.

  “Clara, I shore don’t want Nelson to be our guide,” drawled the girl in a low contralto voice, unmistakably southern and singularly charming to the ear.

  “Now, Sue, I thought Nels was sweet on you and you’d like him as a guide,” replied the woman with a hint of malice.

  “Reckon you’re wrong,” retorted the girl. “Can’t we go down with Tine Higgenbottom? He’s a Flagstaff boy. My aunt’s nervous about mules and trails. I know Tine. He’ll take a special interest in us. Please do me a favor, Clara.”

  “Yes, I can arrange it, Sue,” rejoined Miss Hilton, studying her book. “Higgenbottom. Leaves at eight forty-five. Down Bright Angel to Indian Gardens, you said. Here are your tickets.”

  “My niece was born on a horse,” spoke up the aunt, addressing Miss Hilton. “But Mrs. Price an’ me are not much on ridin’. We want safe, gentle horses.”

  “We use mules on the trails. They’re perfectly safe, even for old ladies, which you two are far from being,” replied Miss Hilton, smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ve given you one of our best guides. And Sue knows every turn of the trails.”

  At this juncture Patricia stepped forward to confront the girl and said, “I beg your pardon. I was waiting to get a trail trip ticket from Miss Hilton and I heard the conversation. May I join your party?”

  “Shore—we’d be glad to have you,” was the girl’s swift rejoinder. “Won’t we, Auntie?”

  “Indeed you’re welcome,” replied the woman, with practical interest. “I take it you’re a tenderfoot from the East.”

  “Yes,” said Patricia smiling. “This is my first trip west. I am Patricia Clay from New York.”

  “Well, we’re glad to meet you. It’s our first trip north, if not west. We’re from Texas. This’s my friend, Mrs. Price, an’ this is my niece, Sue Warren. She’s been two years at the normal school in Flagstaff.”

  “Auntie, you forgot to introduce yourself,” spoke up Sue gaily. “She’s my father’s sister, Mary Warren.”

  “I’m very fortunate,” replied Patricia as she acknowledged the several introductions. “It will be something to remember—a day with real western folks, especially when one of them is a Texas girl who was born on a horse.”

  �
��Do you want a ticket, Miss Clay?” interrupted Miss Hilton rather abruptly.

  “Yes, thank you,” replied Patricia, aware of a scrutiny not wholly pleasant. Presently, having secured the ticket, she turned to the eager girl. The two older women had moved away to permit other tourists access to the trip agent. Patricia did not need to be keen to divine that she had made a conquest of this young western girl, and it stirred a warmth of pleasure in her breast.

  “May I not talk with you a little?” she inquired.

  “You shore may,” returned the girl gladly. “I’d be unhappy if you didn’t. Let’s find a place all by ourselves.”

  She quite proudly drew her new friend past the groups of curious guests to a vacant corner where they found chairs.

  “Was I very rude, staring at you so at dinner?” she asked, with a soft flush suffusing her cheeks.

  “I did not think so,” returned Patricia. “In fact I was flattered. And I returned the compliment, didn’t I?”

  “Auntie saw you first, as you came in,” went on Sue. “She said, ‘Heah comes a movie queen.’ But I knew you weren’t. Movie actresses paint, and they look different.”

  “When I saw you I said to myself, ‘There’s a girl who isn’t a flapper, and I want to meet her’—so we are even,” said Patricia, laughing.

  “No, we shore aren’t,” declared Sue with a blush. “But it’s nice of you to say so. I’m so tickled that I persuaded Auntie to come heah for dinner. You see, we’re staying at the Bright Angel Inn. It’s cheaper there, but plenty comfortable. We could not afford to stay at the El Tovar.”

  “You’ll be here at the Canyon for a few days, I hope,” said Patricia.

  “Tomorrow, anyway, and maybe another day—Sunday,” returned Sue. “I must get back by Monday.”

  “You go to normal school at Flagstaff, I think your aunt said. Then you’re studying to be a teacher?”

  “Shore am, and it’s no fun. I wish I could stay heah longer. One more week before summer vacation. I might come over then if—if you—”

  “I would like that very much,” returned Patricia. “I’m alone. The Canyon has me in its grip. I feel I’ll stay—quite a while. It was really quite an accident that I came here. The West didn’t mean anything to me. It was just a great wide unknown region where I could escape from New York. But this wonderful place is like a dream of an enchanted land. I know it’ll do me good.”

  “You’ve been ill?” asked the girl solicitously, with her large clear eyes intent on the eastern girl’s face. She was naive, warm-hearted; and her simplicity had a potent charm.

  “Oh, no—at least not in body,” replied Patricia.

  Sue laid a kindly hand, strong and warm, upon Patricia’s. The pupils of her eyes dilated, darkened with swift thought, with earnest compassion.

  “You’ve had trouble,” she whispered. “Lost someone you loved…. Death, I reckon.”

  “Why do you imagine that?” asked Patricia, curiously stirred.

  “Your face is so pale. Your eyes are so dark and sad…. Oh, you’re lovely, Miss Clay, but I—you—it was the sadness that caught me.”

  Patricia returned the pressure of that firm hand; and she averted her face slightly. “You are kind to a stranger,” she murmured tremulously. “Yes, I have lost—a great deal—though not exactly by death. But today that loss has seemed a gain, as it sent me out to your West, to your wonderful canyon.”

  “If you’re miserable, if your heart is broken—the Canyon…. Oh, how I wish Thad Eburne was here to tell you what the Canyon can do!”

  “Thad Eburne! Who in the world is he?” queried Patricia in surprise.

  “Excuse me, Miss Clay. I—I quite forgot myself in my earnestness…. But Thad Eburne is a ranger who lives across the Canyon. I’ve only met him twice, first in Flagstaff and then heah. I heard him talk about the Canyon to a—a—well, a friend of mine, Nelson Stackhouse. Nelson was a cowpuncher over on the Bar Z, and a wild bad boy if there ever was one. He drank, he gambled, he fought. And all the time he swore he was in love with me! … Well, he got into trouble and Thad Eburne helped him out of jail. It was then that I heard Thad talk about the Canyon. He persuaded Nels to take a job over heah.”

  Patricia was quick in turn to sense the pain and strife in the young girl’s troubled heart.

  “Well! Did the Canyon help your friend?” she inquired as the girl seemed to lose her train of thought.

  “I’m shore bound to confess it did,” replied Sue with effort.

  “This ranger, Thad Eburne, what is he like?”

  “Thad’s a wonderful man. Built like one of these Arizona riders, only he’s not as scrawny. He has a keen, fine, dark face, almost as brown as a Navajo’s. And his eyes—well, I heard an old cowman say Eburne’s eyes would make a dishonest man hate him and an honest woman love him. And shore that’s so…. Reckon I might have liked Thad Eburne pretty well. But he never even noticed me. Called me child! And he’s only about thirty. But he seems older. He’s an eastern man, well educated, and hails from New England. You’d think he was western-born—until he speaks…. He’s a deer stalker.”

  “You mean a hunter? Like the hero in Cooper’s novel The Deer slayer?”

  “No. He’s a deer tracker, according to what Nels told me. He works for the forest service, an inspector of wild animals in the national parks. Clara Hilton, the trail clerk heah at the El Tovar, claims to know Eburne well. She says he’s softhearted about deer. She made fun of him. I like him for that. Deer are such shy, wild critters.”

  Further conversation led to the subject of the town of Flagstaff, about which Sue waxed eloquent. She never walked into town but she espied at least one cowboy, and always there were Indians and horses.

  “I’ll teach school in Flag and live there, if I can coax my mother to come,” went on Sue. “My Daddy died years ago. There’s nothing for Mother in Texas save memories. But I’ll go back if I can’t get her to come heah…. Shore, Flag isn’t much of a town, but the people are nice, and there are such wonderful places to go; San Francisco Mountains, the Cliff Dwellings, Oak Creek Canyon, Montezuma’s Well, Sunset Peak—the mountain of volcanic cinders, the Painted Desert, and more places than I’ve time to tell about.”

  “I shall visit Flagstaff,” declared Patricia smilingly.

  “Oh, that’ll shore be fine!” exclaimed the girl, radiant. “But I want it to be when I’m out of school.”

  “We’ll plan my little visit when you come again.”

  “Heah are my folks looking for me. I reckon I’ll have to go,” said Sue regretfully.

  “I’ve enjoyed talking with you more than I can say,” returned Patricia, rising and holding out her hand to the flushed and smiling girl.

  “Thank you,” she said shyly. “Shore it has been a red-letter day for me. Adios, Miss Clay—till tomorrow.”

  During the half hour longer that Patricia lingered in the lobby, part of which she spent before the open fire, Miss Hilton approached her twice, first to inquire if the eastern girl wanted to hire one of the company’s riding habits, and secondly, if she might be interested in the Indian dances at the Hopi house. It dawned on her that these were but pretexts. Either the woman was eager to be seen talking with her, or she was openly attracted or intensely curious. She conceived an instant dislike for the woman, for which she rather reproved herself as being unreasonable. But the feeling was intuitive. Miss Hilton had an ingratiating manner, a ready and agreeable tongue, and she was handsome in a full-blooded way. Patricia had unusually acute receptive faculties, and she felt that Miss Hilton was jealous, calculating, inquisitive. She had nothing of the wholesomeness which characterized a girl like Sue Warren. Wherefore Patricia was polite, but brief, and did not respond to the woman’s advances.

  That night Patricia had a strange and distressing dream in which Miss Hilton figured largely as a vengeful nemesis. But when morning came Patricia could not recall it. There remained in her consciousness, however, an unpleasant aftertaste. While getting into
her riding clothes, Patricia meditated.

  “If you can’t escape from people, you’re doomed to love some and hate others. A few love you and the most hate you. Ruskin was right when he wrote so many people are like thorns. They sting you. Others are like stones that weigh you down. Still others are weeds.… Oh, I wonder what I am going to be. … No thorn or log— or weed! That I swear…. But out here in the West human life must be wider, broader, freer. I suppose I’m bound to meet people like Miss Hilton, even out here in this land with its scanty population. For that matter, Sue Warren would make up for a thousand Miss Hiltons. I am going to love that frank, sweet girl. … I’m curious about her bad cowboy Nels…. And that deer stalker she admires so much. I wonder if there are men like that?”

  At eight-thirty Patricia asked the clerk to direct her to where she could find the trail party she was to accompany. Outside the white sunlight dazzled her. Again the cold, pure, pine-scented air affected her like wine. It was only a short walk to the corral which was her destination.

  Patricia espied two parties, one on each side of the corral. The more distant one, consisting of ten or twelve men and women, all mounted on sturdy mules, seemed about ready to start. They presented a ludicrous appearance. The riders were little and big, fat and lean, all garbed in a motley assortment of riding clothes.

  Approaching the corral, Patricia, instead of entering the gate, went up to the fence and looked over the top bar at the second group of tourists. A few were already mounted, and they looked excited, self-conscious, and warm. Then she espied Sue, wearing flannel shirt, red scarf, fringed gauntlets, chaps, boots, and spurs—all of which had the look and the set of long service.

  Sue stood beside her aunt, who sat, looking completely helpless, on a mule. A bowlegged cowboy, also in chaps, was endeavoring to shorten or lengthen the stirrups. A spirited argument was in progress. It was interrupted by the advent of another cowboy, a tall, slim, keen-faced young fellow, well-muscled, lean-cheeked, and square-jawed, with eyes of sleepy blue. He sauntered over, his big spurs jingling, and pushed a huge sombrero onto the back of his head.