Jackson Gregory - Desert Valley

A big lizard went rustling through a pile of dead leaves and all three of them started. Howard laughed.

‘We’re right near Superstition Pool!’ he informed them with suddenly assumed gravity. ‘Down in Poco Poco they tell some great tales about the old Indian gods going man-hunting by moonlight. Quién sabe, huh?’

Professor Longstreet snorted. Helen cast a quick, interested look at the stranger and one of near triumph upon her father.

‘I smell somebody’s coffee boiling,’ said the cattleman abruptly. ‘Am I invited in for a cup? Or shall I mosey on? Don’t be bashful in saying I’m not wanted if I’m not.’

‘Of course you are welcome,’ said Longstreet heartily. But Howard turned to Helen and waited for her to speak.

‘Of course.’ said Helen carelessly.

‘You were merely speaking by way of jest, I take it, Mr. Howard,’ remarked Longstreet, after he had interestedly watched the rancher put a third and fourth heaping spoonful of sugar in his tin cup of coffee. ‘I refer, you understand, to your hinting a moment ago at there being any truth in the old Indian superstitions. I am not to suppose, am I, that you actually give any credence to tales of supernatural influences manifested hereabouts?’

Alan Howard stirred his coffee meditatively, and after so leisurely a fashion that Longstreet began to fidget. The reply, when finally it came, was sufficiently non-committal.

‘I said “Quién sabe?” to the question just now,’ he said, a twinkle in the regard bestowed upon the scientist. ‘They are two pretty good little old words and fit in first-rate lots of times.’

‘Spanish for “Who knows?” aren’t they?’

Howard nodded. ‘They used to be Spanish; I guess they’re Mex by now.’

Longstreet frowned and returned to the issue.

‘If you were merely jesting, as I supposed——’

‘But was I?’ demanded Howard. ‘What do I know about it? I know horses and cows; that’s my business. I know a thing or two about men, since that’s my business at times, too; also something like half of that about half-breeds and mules; I meet up with them sometimes in the run of the day’s work. You know something of what I think you call auriferous geology. But what does either of us know of the nightly custom of dead Indians and Indian gods?’

Helen wondered with her father whether there were a vein of seriousness in the man’s thought. Howard squatted on his heels, from which he had removed his spurs; they were very high heels, but none the less he seemed comfortably at home rocking on them. Longstreet noted with his keen eyes, altered his own squatting position a fraction, and opened his mouth for another question. But Howard forestalled him, saying casually:

‘I have known queer things to happen here, within a few hundred yards of this place. I haven’t had time to go finding out the why of them; they didn’t come into my day’s work. I have listened to some interesting yarns; truth or lies it didn’t matter to me. They say that ghosts haunt the Pool just yonder. I have never seen a ghost; there’s nothing in raising ghosts for market, and I’m the busiest man I know trying to chew a chunk that I have bitten off. They tell you down at San Juan and in Poco Poco, and all the way up to Tecolote, that if you will come here a certain moonlight night of the year and will watch the water of the pool, you’ll see a vision sent up by the gods of the Underworld. They’ll even tell you how a nice little old god by the name of Pookhonghoya appears now and then by night, hunting souls of enemies—and running by the side of the biggest, strangest wolf that human eyes ever saw.’

Helen looked at him swiftly. He had added the last item almost as an afterthought. She imagined that he had embellished the old tale from his own recent experience, and, further, that Mr. Alan Howard was making fun of them and was no adept in the science of fabrication.

‘They go further,’ Howard spun out his tale. ‘Somewhere in the desert country to the north there is, I believe, a tribe of Hidden People that the white man has never seen. The interesting thing about them is that they are governed by a young and altogether maddeningly pretty goddess who is white and whose name is Yahoya. When they come right down to the matter of giving names,’ he added gravely, ‘how is a man to go any further than just say, “Quién sabe?” ’

‘That is stupid.’ said Longstreet irascibly. ‘It’s a man’s chief affair in life to know. These absurd legends——’

‘Don’t you think, papa,’ said Helen coolly, ‘that instead of taxing Mr. Howard’s memory and—and imagination, it would be better if you asked him about our way from here on?’

Howard chuckled. Professor Longstreet set aside his cup, cleared his throat and agreed with his daughter.

‘I am prospecting,’ he announced, ‘for gold. We are headed for what is known as the Last Ridge country. I have a map here.’

He drew it from his pocket, neatly folded, and spread it out. It was a map such as is to be purchased for fifty cents at the store in San Juan, showing the main roads, towns, waterholes and trails. With a blue pencil he had marked out the way they planned to go. Howard bent forward and took the paper.

‘We are going the same way, friend,’ he said as he looked up. ‘What is more, we are going over a trail I know by heart. There is a good chance I can save you time and trouble by making it a party of three. Am I wanted?’

‘It is extremely kind of you,’ said Longstreet appreciatively. ‘But you are on horseback and we travel slowly.’

‘I can spare the time,’ was the even rejoinder. ‘And I’ll be glad to do it.’

During the half-hour required to break camp and pack the two horses, Alan Howard gave signs of an interest which now and then mounted almost to high delight. He made no remark concerning the elaborate system of water-bottles and canteens, but his eyes brightened as he aided the professor in making them fast. When the procession was ready to start he strode on ahead, leading his own horse and hiding from his new friends the widening grin upon his face.

The sun was up; already the still heat of the desert was in the air. Behind the tall rancher and his glossy mare came Professor Longstreet driving his two pack animals. Just behind him, with much grave speculation in her eyes, came Helen. A new man had swum all unexpectedly into her ken and she was busy cataloguing him. He looked the native in this environment, but for all that he was plainly a man of her own class. No illiteracy, no wild shy awkwardness marked his demeanour. He was as free and easy as the north wind; he might, after all, be likeable. Certainly it was courtois of him to set himself on foot to be one of them. The mare looked gentle despite her high life; Helen wondered if Alan Howard had thought of offering her his mount?

They had come to the first of the low-lying hills.

‘Miss Longstreet,’ called Howard, stopping and turning, ‘wouldn’t you like to swing up on Sanchia? She is dying to be ridden.’

The trail here was wide and clearly defined; hence Longstreet and his two horses went by and Helen came up with Howard. Hers was the trick of level, searching eyes. She looked steadily at him as she said evenly:

‘So her name is Sanchia?’

For an instant the man did not appear to understand. Then suddenly Helen was treated to the sight of the warm red seeping up under his tan. And then he slapped his thigh and laughed; his laughter seeming unaffected and joyous.

‘Talk about getting absent-minded in my old age,’ he declared. ‘Her name did use to be Sanchia; I changed it to Helen. Think of my sliding back to the old name.’