The eagle's wing: A story of the Colorado

by B. M. Bower

In the matter of recovery, young bones were healing much faster than the old. Rawley had been promoted to a gauze pad held in place by strips of adhesive over the long gash on his head. His arm had settled down to the dull, grinding ache and intolerable deep itching of knitting bone and healing flesh. Johnny Buffalo, splinted and bandaged, was able to sit propped in cushions in a big chair on the porch.

Rawley left him reading deliberately the matchless “Apology” of Socrates, which Peter had lent him that day, and started out for a walk, choosing between his own company and the companionship of Nevada, which seemed always to bring at least half the tribe of Cramer at their heels like the dragging tail of a kite. Rawley reflected disgustedly that as yet he had never had five consecutive minutes alone with Nevada. When her grandmother was not filling the foreground, the offspring of Aunt Gladys formed a snuffling, big-eared background which Nevada sweepingly termed the Little Pitchers. Whether Nevada enjoyed the company of the Little Pitchers on their infrequent strolls to the river bank, or approved the solid chaperonage of the juglike Anita, Rawley had never been able to decide. Nevada’s manner toward her dark-skinned kinsfolk was impartially and imperturbably gracious. Indeed, Rawley sometimes suspected that she deliberately encouraged their tagging along. Four goggling kids and three dogs, he considered, might be recommended as a romance-proof chaperonage.

Mechanically he walked straight down to the river, to the spot which Nevada always chose as their destination. A flat rock there formed a convenient place to sit and enjoy the view of the river and the hills beyond. Across the swift-moving, muddy stream, bottom lands covered with cottonwoods gave a refreshing touch of green to the picture. Arizona cottonwoods they were, since the Colorado formed the dividing line. Away to the southwest, he could see the hills made familiar at Kingman. Rough, rather forbidding mountains they had been at close range, but now they were made soft and alluring by the blue haze of distance. Straight down the river he could see the hill that looked down on El Dorado, that “city forsaken.” Up the river he could not see, because of the high, granite cliffs that blocked the view.

Because nature had seemed to bar the way, Rawley turned and made his way aimlessly toward the barrier. With his left arm in splints and carried in a sling, he could not do much in the way of climbing; but presently he stumbled upon a well-defined path leading amongst bowlders just under the rim of the basin. The path led up the canyon, and Rawley followed it with a desultory interest in seeing where it led,—and for the exercise it promised. Perhaps, had he given the matter thought, he would have owned that a strange trail never failed to tempt his feet to follow. At any rate, he held to the pathway.

Now the river was hidden completely from him, though he could hear it complaining over the bowlders in the canyon and hurrying through as fast as if indignation lent it speed. The path went on, finding the easiest places to worm through the jagged rocks and climbing closer and closer to the river, whose roar became more distinct as he neared it.

Through a split in the huge wall so narrow as to be almost a crevice, the trail led him quite suddenly to a narrow shelf set sheer above the river. Crude steps cut in the rock went down the cliff at a slant. He heard the water worrying over something unseen at the bottom, and began to descend, his right hand steadying himself against the granite wall. He was curious, somewhat mystified. Neither Peter nor Nevada had mentioned any possibility of reaching the water’s edge in the canyon.

He found himself in a tiny cove which had been formed when some primal upheaval had split the granite wall at the base, throwing the outside into the river. No more than a wide crack, it was, but it was serving well a purpose. A small, rock landing filled the shore end of the slit completely. Riding quietly in the slack water of the small anchorage, a squat, powerful looking launch sat bow to the landing, secured there by a heavy chain.

A great deal of labor had gone into the making of that landing and the steps leading down to it. His trained eyes could see where an inner portion of the jagged point had been cleverly blown off in such manner that the huge fragments formed a most natural appearing breakwater, making quiet water within instead of a moiling swirl. If the Cramers wanted a secret landing on the river, here was one ideally suited to their needs.

But the Cramers had another landing, in plain sight of the flat rock at the rim of the basin. At that landing also a launch was tied; a very ordinary launch of a type sufficiently sturdy to combat easily enough the strong river current. It was that other launch that was out of repair so that a trip to Needles had been declared impossible. True enough, this launch might also be out of commission, but Rawley did not think so. Stopping and looking in at the engine, he judged that it was in very good working order indeed, and from certain little, indefinable signs, he believed that it had been lately used. By whom he did not know, although he remembered now that Young Jess—who was not so young as he sounded, since he was well past forty—had not been in evidence lately among his family.

He saw all that was to be seen and retraced his steps up the rock stairway. It could not matter, one way or the other, if the Cramers kept a dozen secret landings on the river. Nevertheless, Rawley was frankly puzzled. He thought he could guess why his Uncle Peter had not wanted to take them to Needles in this large boat. If he really meant to keep this boat a secret, it would scarcely do to run it down to the house landing, alongside the smaller, crippled launch. Rawley and Johnny might come back, some time, and they might ask about the second launch, seeing only one down there at the other landing.