Jackson Gregory - Desert Valley

Tod Barstow handled the reins of the four mules; beside him on the high, rocking seat, sat Longstreet. During his sojourn on the ranch he had acquired a big bright-red bandana handkerchief which now was knotted loosely about his sun-reddened throat; the former crease in his big hat had given place to a tall peak: he wore a pair of leather wrist-cuffs which he had purchased from Barbee. Barstow grunted and turned the grunt into a shrill yell directed at his mules; they knew his voice and jammed their necks deep into their collars, taking the road at a run. Longstreet, taken unawares, bounced and came dangerously near toppling off the seat. Then with both hands he clung to the iron guard-rod at the back of the seat and took his joy out of a new mode of travel.

Helen had elected to go on horseback. Howard had brought out for her a pretty little mare, coal-black and slender-limbed, but sufficiently gentle. Barbee, who had been watching, suddenly set his toe in his own stirrup and went up into the saddle, racing on to overtake and pass the wagon. Howard and Carr glanced swiftly at each other; then their eyes went to the girl. Howard helped her to mount and reined in at her right, Carr dropped into place at her left, and so, the three abreast, they followed Barbee.

They rode slowly, and now Howard, now Carr, told her of the points of interest along the trail. When they crossed the lower end of the valley and came to the top of the gentle slope extending along its eastern edge, Helen made a discovery. All these latter days she had thought of the desert as behind her, lying all to the westward. Now she understood how the ranch was aptly named Desert Valley; it was a freak, an oasis, a fertile valley with desert lands to east as well as west, and to north and south. When they had ridden down the far slope of the hills they were once more upon the edges of the solitudes of sand-sweep and sand-ridge and cactus and mesquite and utter drought. Every step their horses took carried them further into a land of arid menace; at the end of the first hour it was difficult to imagine green water-fields only a handful of miles away.

‘It’s just the water that makes the difference,’ Howard told her. ‘Isn’t it, John?’ Carr nodded. ‘If a man could get water to put on this land that is burning our horses’ fetlocks off right now, he’d have all the crops and stock range he wanted. Why, the bigger part of Desert Valley was like this before John took hold of it; he developed the water, and I’ve gone on with his work, and look what we’ve got now!’

‘That makes your ranch all the more wonderful!’ cried Helen.

Howard’s eyes glowed; she noted that they always did when he spoke thus of Desert Valley or when she bespoke her hearty approval of his choice. Something prompted her to turn swiftly to Carr; his head was down; he was frowning at the horn of his saddle; Helen, not devoid of either intuition or tact, changed the conversation. But not before she noted that Howard, too, had looked toward his friend.

Big Run huddled among tall cottonwoods in a shallow hollow. It was blessed with several clear, pure springs, its only blessing. It was self-sufficient, impudent. About it on all sides was the sweep of grey desert; in the shade of its cottonwoods, along its thicket of willows, was a modicum of greenness and coolness; its ugly houses like toads squatting in the shade had an air of jeering at the wastes of sand and scrub. The place was old in years and iniquity. The amazing thing connected with it was that its water could remain pure; one would have thought that through the years even the deathless springs would have been contaminated. Long ago it had been a Hopi camp; in their tongue it was called the ‘Half-Way between Here and There.’ Later a handful of treacherous devils from below the border had swooped down into the cottonwood hollow. They had dissipated the Indian group, for the sake of robbery and murder. They had squatted by the water-holes, prototypes of the crooked buildings which now recalled them; they had builded the town by the simple device of driving Indian labourers to the task. White men subsequently had come, men of the restless foot, lone prospectors, cattlemen. They had lodged briefly at the hotel which necessity had called into being, had played cards in the adobe of ‘Tonio Moraga, had quarrelled with the surly southerners, had now and then shot their way out into the clear starlit night or had known the cruel bite of steel, and in any case had left Big Run as they had found it—a town oddly American in nothing whatever save its name, which had come whence and how no man knew.

First into town that morning rode Yellow Barbee; with no urge to linger and a definite destination ahead, he always rode hard, his hat far back, his blue eyes shining. He sent his lean roan on the run down the crooked street among the crooked houses; he scattered a handful of dirty ducks flopping and scuttling out of his way; he drew after him a noisy barking of dogs, startled out of their sleep in the shade; he brought his horse up with a sharp jerk of the reins before the blue-and-white sign of the saloon; he was half out of the saddle when a glimpse of something down the street altered his intention in a flash; he wheeled his horse, and, with one stirrup flying wildly, his big hat in his hand, his eyes on fire, he went racing back down the street and again stopped with a jerk. This time the sign before him spelled hotel. Leaving his horse to pant and fight flies, Yellow Barbee strode in at the open door.

Next came in due time Tod Barstow and the mule team and Longstreet. They clattered along in clouds of high-puffed dust, harness jingling. Barstow swung his leaders skilfully and narrowly around the broken corners of old adobes and slammed on his brake before the store, that is to say, half-way between saloon and hotel. He climbed down, Longstreet after him.

Finally came the loiterers, Helen and Carr and Howard. They noted Barbee’s roan at its hitching-rail; further they glimpsed through a thirsty-looking dusty vine—that which Barbee had glimpsed before them. Some one wearing cool, laundered white was out upon the side porch; Barbee’s voice, young and eager, low yet vibrant, bespoke Barbee’s proximity to the Someone.

‘The widow.’ said Carr. He looked at Howard. ‘I’ll bet you a hat it’s Mrs. Murray, Al.’

It was vaguely impressed upon Helen that a significance less casual than the light words themselves lay in Carr’s remark. She, too, looked at Howard. There was a frown in his eyes. Slowly, as his look met hers, a flush spread in his cheeks. Carr saw it and laughed amusedly.

‘Look out, Al,’ he chuckled. ‘She’ll get you yet.’

Now Howard laughed with him and the flush subsided.

‘John thinks he’s a great little josher, Miss Helen,’ he said lightly. ‘No doubt you’ll meet Mrs. Murray at lunch; you just watch the way she looks at John Carr!—there’s the professor waiting for us. John, I’ll lay you a bet of another hat!’

‘Well?’ asked Carr.

‘I’ll bet you Jim Courtot has turned up again.’

But Longstreet had sighted them and was out in the road calling to them, and Carr made no answer.

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