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!
THE PINES OF THE MOGOLLONES
In the forests on the mountains sing the pines a wondrous measure,
As the wind, the master-player, sways their branches to and fro:
Varied music, full of power, full of passion, joy, and sorrow;
Wild and loud with pain and heart-break, then with love and gladness low.
And that music holds the story of the world since its first waking;
Holds the secret of all living and the life that yet will be;
All the lore the wind has gathered as he roamed the wide earth over,
From the silent, sun-white desert to the restless, moaning sea.
In that singing whisper softly voices of the long lost peoples;
Hymns that rose o’er crumbled altars, prayers for the forgotten dead;
Mothers’ sighs and children’s laughter mingle with the soldiers’ war cry,
Clash of arms and blare of trumpets, and the conquering army’s tread.
And above this earth-born music rings a higher tone incessant,
Calling: “Upward! Upward! Upward! Rise and follow where I go;
Leave the camp-fire, leave the quarry, seek the joy that comes of seeking,
While the strong peaks keep their places and the snow-sweet waters flow.”
And the wind, the master-player, blends these varied tones together
Till they rise, a glorious paean, from the forests wide and free—
Rise and echo on forever; full of courage, hope, and daring;
Wild with all the pain of living, glad with all life’s harmony.
THE IVORY CRUCIFIX
In crossing southern Arizona many years ago the late Captain W. O. O’Neill, “Buckey” O’Neill, as he was then called, saw something protruding from a mound of sand at the foot of a giant cactus. Turning aside to investigate he found the sun-dried bodies of a man and woman, the withered, skeleton hand of the woman still holding an ivory crucifix.
Captain O’Neill buried the bodies and brought away the crucifix. Some time later he learned that it had belonged to the young wife of a Mexican cattle rancher. She had loved one of her husband’s vaqueros and they had gone away together. The husband and his men followed till turned back by the sand storm which had swallowed up the fugitives. It seemed that the woman, too weak to unclasp the crucifix from her neck, had stretched the slender rosary to its full length in her effort to lay the crucifix on her lover’s lips as he breathed his last.
“Ride, Juan, he follows, follows fast!”
Nay, darling, down the wind
You do but hear the trampling herds
That flee our path behind:
Look forward where the sunrise plays
Across the mountain’s rim;
There shall you measure fairer days
With me, and far from him.
“Oh! Juan, the desert lies between,
A waste of fear and dread;
Smitten with bitter winds that shake
The white bones of the dead:
It lies between, as in our hearts
Our sinful loving lies;
Think you that earth will grant us peace
An angry heaven denies?”
“Haste! Haste! I hear the click of steel,
The ring of muffled spur,
And fearful shapes loom grim against
The far mirage’s blur;
Up-swimming on its trembling light
Huge, shadowy giants ride,
Like blood-avengers through the haze—
He, with his men beside!”
Red swung the sun, a sullen disk
Across the copper sky,
And whirling sand-wreaths pale as ghosts
Beat upward spitefully;
Beat up and broke, and whirled anew,
And called their nameless kin
To race with them the race of death
No soul of man may win.
Forgot and far the fear behind;
Before the God of Wrath
Out-stretched his hand upon the storm
And barred their guilty path:
“A cross!” How grim and gray and gaunt
The tall zahauro loomed,
As if in solemn vigil o’er
Some martyr-saint entombed.
“Pray! Pray!” she whispered as they fell;
“The pitying saints may hear.
Jesus! One mercy in the name
Of her that is most dear!
Oh! Mary! Mother! if your grace
Be given to such as we,
I pray you of your tenderness,
Spare him and punish me!”
“The crucifix my mother gave!”
With dying breath she strove
To lay the carven, ivory Christ
Upon the lips beloved.
“Mine be the penance, gracious Lord!”
The dark wall closed apace,
As if earth strove to hide from Heaven
The anguished, pleading face.
Still, still, along the drifted sand;
How still the starlight crept!
How still his vigil sad and lone
The gaunt zahuaro kept!
There, where in wavering shadows that
Like life’s threads intermix,
Her dead hand still to his dead lips
Pressed close the crucifix.