Noting my blank amazement, he hurried into an explanation.
“One of the legal amusements at an Indian Agency is keeping the help occupied, on the theory that, as with horses, it can think of only one thing at a time. Now it has been discovered in this Service that a dozen women paring peaches for preserving not only are happy in the thought of reducing expenses, but the more easily talk of what ails ’em. We’ll suggest peaches to them, they’ll bring pressure on the Boss, and we’ll go. Lots of rabbit in that country, and ducks at the Lakes. Oraibi is some place to visit, too. It was built about the time of Noah, and hasn’t been cleaned since. Flood didn’t reach it.” [[82]]
All of which was very interesting to one who wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, after having been penned up for months. I had viewed the same draggled trees, the same cement walks, the same old trading-post, for so long that all judgment was leaving me, and I had begun to buy Navajo blankets. When one reaches this point, the inoculative powers of the subtle Desert are beginning to work.
Everything came about just as the doctor had prophesied. The Chief returned one day at dusk, encrusted with sand and a week’s growth of beard. While he was shaving, I made a complete report against the stoker and the boiler, with comment on those in Washington responsible for both. Then the doctor heard of a terrifically sick Indian over beyond the Lakes, and the pressure of peaches-and-economy was brought by the other parties. Next morning, the medico and I made our get-away before the utter absence of dogs was discovered.
The only thing that tried to affect our escape was a little animal perched on my walk in the late moonlight. The doctor cautioned me not to disturb this visitor, and for once I did not neglect a physician’s advice. The team being harnessed at the barn, we drove to within fair shooting-distance of this guest, and the doctor handed me the lines, saying:—
“When I shoot, let ’em go.”
Which he did, and I did.
Later, we regretted this adventure, for the stupid ammoniacal creature proceeded to dive into the mess cellar, and all food in storage was strangely savored. A matter of this kind, begun in the innocent vacation spirit, may be far-reaching. When we returned with our cargo of peaches, the sewing-circle did not receive us with any fervent warmth. In fact, it was most broadly insinuated that we, having worked a leave, had performed this trick on purpose, [[83]]to the utter horror and dismay of all unsuspecting persons.
Our going down to the river was through that mysterious half-luminous light that follows the darkness before dawn. Then the Desert has an ashen pallor, and a chill and silence that are like winter at whatever season of the year. The bare spaces seem to be covered with snow. There are no calls from birds. One moves in a dead world.
At the ford the wheels clattered ominously over flat slabs of rock, and then the horses splashed through shallow pools to the far bank. We turned westward, and the mountains showed their volcanic peaks, grim gray wings in the pallid dawn. They lifted, gaunt and rugged, from a ruff of pines. There had been a fall of snow on those higher levels between the timber and the crests, and the shoulders were draped in white. Now—the very tips of the range were seared with red-gold; and now—each snowbound crest began warming with a rosy glow, as if blood were stirring, pulsing, through the masses of icy lava and eroded stone. And the whole range warmed in a blaze of fresh rose and glinting gold as it turned to greet the sun.