Dust of the Desert

by Robert Welles Ritchie

South and west about the skirts of the Pajarito they went, and then into the old road up from Caborca, the ancient highway called the Road of the Dead Men which swings north parallel with the Line, cutting the tails of numerous ranges that are great in Arizona. And so, when the day was hardly more than half spent, the little car crawled to the height called the Nose of the Devil, and Benicia saw below her land of desire.

Fists of the mountains grudgingly opened out to permit a broad basin running from east to west, and there against the savage baldness of sentinel ranges showed a ribbon of green. Green of precious gems it was. So vivid in the setting of the drought land. So cyclonic its assault of colour against the eye inured to the duns and greys of a hundred miles of parched terrain. And in the midst of the oasis the shining white dot, which was the house of the O’Donoju; of Benicia’s father and his fathers before him back to the day of a royal favourite baptized Michael O’Donohue. The Casa O’Donoju in El Jardin de Soledad—the Garden of Solitude.

Indian women, in skirts of orange and cerise and with gay mantles over their sleek hair, lined the way to the avenue of royal date palms which led from the bridge over the Rio Dulce straight to the white single-story house of ’dobe, heavy walled and loopholed like a fort. They waved and sent shouts of welcome to the mistress of the casa as she passed.

Benicia knew her father would not be outside the house to greet her; their love was not for the servants to see. Rather he would be waiting in their own trysting place, the place where he had given her farewell two years before. The girl leaped from the car before the heavy studded oak door breaking the solid white front of the house at its centre. It was opened to her by old ’Cepcion, feminine major domo of the household servants. Benicia paused to give the parchment cheeks a kiss, then she danced down a flagged hall to the flare of green marking the patio garden in the centre of the house.

Here was a place of beauty and a fragrant cave of coolness—the very secret heart of the Garden of Solitude. Open to the sky and with cloistered dimness of the four sides of the house all about, the patio was a tiny jungle of climbing things, all green and riotous blossoms. A stately date palm reigned in the centre behind the little basin of the fountain; curtains of purple bougainvillea draped themselves down its shaggy ribs; lavender water-hyacinths sailed their little barques in the pool; geraniums flamed in living fire against the pillars of the arcades.

There in the garden waited a man all in white. Snow white his heavy hair and beard, though the life in his deep-set eyes and the vigorous set of his shoulders belied age; white were his thin garments of silk and flannel.

He caught the flash of a red head through the greenery, saw an eager, breathless face turned questioningly.

“’Nicia, heart of my heart—!”

Then she ran to him, paused just an instant to lift swift fingers under his chin and tilt his head. Their eyes measured each the love that welled brimming in the soul’s windows. Then the father drew his daughter close to his heart and his lips brushed her forehead.