THE TRAIL OF DEATH
The Jornado del Muerto, the desert trail across southern New Mexico and Arizona.
We rode from daybreak; white and hot
The sun beat like a hammer-stroke
On molten iron; the blistered dust
Rose up in clouds to sere and choke;
But on we rode, gray-white as ghosts,
Bepowdered with that bitter snow,
The stinging breath of alkali
From the grim, crusted earth below.
Silent, our footsteps scarcely wrung
An echo from the sullen trail;
Silent, parched lip and stiffening tongue,
We watched the horses fall and fail:
Jack’s first; he caught my stirrup strap;—
God help me! but I shook him off;
Death had not diced for two that day
To meet him in that Devil’s trough.
I flung him back my dry canteen,
An ounce at most, weighed drop by drop
With life; he clutched it, drank, and laughed;
Hard, hideous—a peal to stop
The strongest heart; then turned and ran
With arms outflung and mad eyes set,
Straight on where ’gainst the dun sky’s rim
Green trees stood up, and cool and wet
Long silver waves broke on the sand.
The cursed mirage! that lures and taunts
The thirst-scourged lip and tortured sight
Like some lost hope that mocking haunts
A dying soul. I tried to call,—
The dry words rattled in my throat;
And sun and sand and crouching sky—
God! How they seemed to glare and gloat!
Reeling I caught the saddle-horn;
On, on; but now it seemed to be
The spring-house path, and at the well
My mother stood and beckoned me:
The bucket glistened; drip, drip, drip,
I heard the water fall and plash;
Then keen as Hell the burning wind
Awoke me with its fiery lash.
On, on; what was that bleaching thing
Across the trail? I dared not look;
But on—blind, aimless, till the sun
Crept grudging past the hills and took
His curse from off the gasping land.
The blessed dusk! my gaunt horse raised
His head and neighed, and staggered on;
And I, with bleeding lips, half-crazed,
Laughed out; for just above us there,
Rock-caught against a blackened ledge
A little pool; one last hard climb;
Full spent we fell upon its hedge—
One still forever. Weak I lay
And drank; hot hands and temples laved:
Jack gone, alas! the horses dead;
But night and water—I was saved!