In the city, to lose one’s way may be foolish without being unfortunate; but in the Desert one must arrive at his destination, or the results may be serious. And all the road directions from old-timers are similar. The Plains [[40]]Indian can be more definite. He may say, “Three hills and a look.” The Arizona guide is a despair.
“You can’t miss it,” they invariably prelude. “Take the main road until you reach that little cornfield just beyond the hogan of Benally Bega’s—remember that draw before you come to Black Mesa? That’s it. Then the left trail until you reach that scraggy cedar; then head down across for that old corral, where the sheriff caught Bob Peterson; then—you know where we nooned in 1913? It’s right east of that; and then, you can’t miss it—it’s right over from there—” the whole distance being sixty miles, and no water in the first five townships.
One plunges deeply on the optimism indicated by “you can’t miss it,” and starts. At midnight, with a tired team and no blankets, one suddenly realizes that he has missed it, and missed it bad. The sun sinks to rest, the desert grows black and threatening, he is off the main-traveled road, and no candle-lights are gleaming through the dark. There he remains until morning, when, cold and cramped, having kindled a fire to warm a can of beans that a more sensible man had slung under the seat, he finds that he has invited in the whole Navajo tribe. Five minutes after the wisp of smoke and the aroma of the burnt beans, comes an Indian, and another, and another, each looking earnestly for breakfast. It never fails. Between many signs and all the beans, not forgetting the passing of “thathli ibeso,” which is one dollar in hard, bitable silver, he finds that he is only five miles off the road, and that his original destination is “right over from there.”
On the cook-side of the board I played in luck. A row occurred in the short-order section of a Harvey House, and one first-class itinerant cook was flung headlong out [[41]]of a job on the morning I reached town. It might never happen again. And knowing nothing of the back-country, and especially being ignorant of an Indian Service mess, he embraced the opportunity to sign up for a desert cruise. It was necessary for him to pack his belongings, the most precious of which were a trick dog and a phonograph, together with one record entitled: “She Is the Ideal of My Dreams”; and this he insisted would occupy him several days. I arranged for him to meet a team at the Agency freight-station, and next day he assisted me in the purchase of supplies for the coming month. We bought nearly a ton of foodstuffs. My vehicle was one of those light spring wagons, a “desert hack,” rated to carry about one thousand pounds. Like an Indian freighter who loads pig lead, we never tallied the dead weight, but piled it in. The wagon groaned in its every joint under the load; and so I began the return trip.
One could not miss the right direction, for there were the distant mountains to point it, with the river as an eastern boundary. So long as one remained west of the river he must arrive somewhere. True. But for that river, and my sensible determination not to cross its half-dry bed, I might still be en route.
The roads of the desert are many, and all converge toward a settlement. Proceeding to town is very simple. But on leaving it the roads begin diverging in a most puzzling fashion, and there is a decision to be made at each departure. Of course the main-traveled road is usually plain and definite—usually. About half way to the Agency I was deceived by ten yards of bunch grass at a road juncture, and blithely accepted the branch leading to a river-ford. Nearing sunset, I had reached the river,—which was no place to be at that time. [[42]]
“If alone, always tie the horses to the wheel.”
There isn’t anything else in the Desert to tie them to. So I did it, and started on foot for the nearest rise to make a reconnaissance. The scene of empty desolation, blurring in the first grays of twilight, was not inspiring. The scarlet and gold of the sunset behind the ’Frisco Range did not awaken poetry within me. I was thinking about something else, and joyfully I hailed a faint gleam on the far middle-distance, the last rays gilding the Agency tank-roof.
Between my position on the river, and that haven of rest, as the crow would negotiate it, stretched at least five miles of the Desert. So short a distance caused me to snort at my former fears. I went back to the wagon and found that the impatient horses had wound the lines around that wheel until they resembled a chariot pair reined in at the finish of an exciting race. With some difficulty I managed to release them, and climbed in as they plunged off seeking their feed.
The shortest distance between two given points is a straight line, or so the books have it. I followed my early schooling, and headed straight for the tank.