Then alone, in his blankets, with gaze up at the inscrutable, promising stars, Adam gave himself over to insistent and crowding thoughts, back of which throbbed a dominating, divine hope in his power to save this woman’s life and soul, and perhaps even her happiness.
* * * * *
Next day Adam’s natural aggressiveness asserted itself, controlled now by an imperturbable spirit that nothing could daunt. He approached Virey relentlessly, though with kindness, even good nature, and he began to talk about Death Valley, the perilous nature of the camping spot, the blasting heat of midsummer and the horror of the midnight furnace winds, the possibility of the water drying up. Virey was cold, then impatient, then intolerant, and finally furious. First he was deaf to Adam’s persuasion, then he tried to get out of listening, then he repudiated all Adam had said, and finally he raved and cursed. Adam persisted in his arguments until Virey strode off.
Mrs. Virey heard some of this clash. Apparently Adam’s idea of changing her husband amused her. But when Virey returned for supper he was glad enough to eat, and when Adam again launched his argument it appeared that Mrs. Virey lost the last little trace of mockery. She listened intently while Adam told her husband why he would have to take his wife away from Death Valley, before midsummer. Virey might as well have been stone deaf. It was not Virey, however, who interested the woman, but something about Adam that made her look and listen thoughtfully.
Thus began a singular time for Adam, unmatched in all his desert experience. He gave his whole heart to the task of teaching Magdalene Virey and to the wearing down of Virey’s will. All the lighter tasks that his hands had learned he taught her. Then to climb to the heights, to pick the ledges for signs of gold or pan the sandy washes, to know the rocks and the few species of vegetation, to recognize the illusion of distance and color, to watch the sunsets and the stars became daily experiences. Hard as work was for her delicate hands and muscles, he urged her to their limit. During the first days she suffered sunburn, scalds, skinned fingers, bruised knees, and extreme fatigue. When she grew tanned and stronger he led her out on walks and climbs so hard that he had to help her back to camp. She learned the meaning of physical pain, and to endure it. She learned the blessing it was to eat when she was famished, to rest when she was utterly weary, to sleep when sleep was peace.
Through these brief, full days Adam attacked Virey at every opportunity, which time came to be, at length, only during meals. Virey would leave camp, often to go up the slope of weathered rocks, a dangerous climb that manifestly fascinated him. Reaching a large rock that became his favorite place, he would perch there for long hours, watching, gazing down like a vulture waiting for time to strike its prey. All about him seemed to suggest a brooding wait. He slept during the midday hours and through the long nights. At dusk, which was usually bedtime for all, Adam often heard him talking to Mrs. Virey in a low, hard, passionate voice. Sometimes her melodious tones, with the mockery always present when she spoke to her husband, thrilled Adam, while at the same moment it filled him with despair. But Adam never despaired of driving Virey to leave the valley. The man was weak in all ways except that side which pertained to revenge. Notwithstanding the real and growing obstacle of this passion, Adam clung to his conviction that in the end Virey would collapse. When, however, one day the Indians came, and Virey sent them away with a large order for supplies, Adam gave vent to a grim thought, “Well, I can always kill him.”
All the disgust and loathing Adam felt for this waster of life vanished in the presence of Magdalene Virey. If that long-passed sunset hour over Death Valley had awakened the woman, what had been the transformation of the weeks? Adam had no thoughts that adequately expressed his feeling for the change in her. It gave him further reverence for desert sun and heat and thirst and violence and solitude. It gave him strange new insight into the mystery of life. Was any healing of disease or agony impossible—any change of spirit—any renewal of life? Nothing in relation to human life was impossible. Magnificently the desert magnified and multiplied time, thought, effort, pain, health, hope—all that could be felt.
It seemed to Adam that through the physical relation to the desert he was changing Magdalene Virey’s body and heart and soul. Brown her face and hands had grown; and slowly the graceful, thin lines of her slender body had begun to round out. She was gaining. If it had not been for her shadowed eyes, and the permanent sadness and mockery in the beautiful lips, she would have been like a girl of eighteen. Her voice, too, with its contralto richness, its mellow depth, its subtle shades of tone, proclaimed the woman. Adam at first had imagined her to be about thirty years old, but as time passed by, and she grew younger with renewed strength, he changed his mind. Looking at her to guess her age was like looking at the desert illusions. Absolute certainty he had, however, of the reward and result of her inflexible will, of splendid spirit, of sincere gladness. She had endured physical toil and pain to the limit of her frail strength, until she was no longer frail. This spirit revived what had probably been early childish love of natural things; and action and knowledge developed it until her heart was wholly absorbed in all that it was possible to do there in that lonesome fastness. With the genius and intuition of a woman she had grasped at the one solace left her—the possibility of learning Adam’s lesson of the desert. What had taken him years to acquire she learned from him or divined in days. She had a wonderful mind.
Once, while they were resting upon a promontory that overhung the valley, Adam spoke to her. She did not hear him. Her eyes reflected the wonder and immensity of the waste beneath her. Indeed, she did not appear to be brooding or thinking. And when he spoke again, breaking in upon her abstraction, she was startled. He forgot what he had intended to say, substituting a query as to her thoughts.
“How strange!” she murmured. “I didn’t have a thought. I forgot where I was. Your voice seemed to come from far off.”