“Well, I wasn’t seein’ an’ findin’ the life I’d hoped for. That New York is as near hell as I ever got. I saw men with quiet faces an’ women who seemed happy. But only in the passin’ crowds. I never got to meet any of them. They had their homes an’ troubles an’ happiness, I figured, an’ they were not lookin’ for anyone to fleece. It was my habit to get into a crowd an’ watch, for I come to believe the mass of busy, workin’ ordinary people were good. Maybe if I’d somehow made acquaintance with a few of them it’d have been better. But that wasn’t seein’ life. I thought I knew what I wanted.
“All my yearnin’s an’ dreams seemed to pall on me. Where was the joy? Wansfell, the only joy I had was in findin’ some poor beggar or bootblack or poor family, an’ givin’ them gold. The great city was full of them. An’ I gave away thousands of dollars. God knows that was some good. An’ now I see if I could have stuck it out, livin’ among such people, I might have been of some use in the world. But, man! livin’ was not possible in New York. All night the hotels roared. All night the streets hummed an’ clanged. There was as many people rushin’ around by night as by day, an’ different from each other, like bats an’ hawks. I got restless an’ half sick. I couldn’t sleep. I seemed suffocatin’ for fresh air. I wanted room to breathe. When I looked up at night I couldn’t see the stars. Think of that for a desert man!
“At last I knew I couldn’t find what I wanted in New York, an’ I couldn’t hunt any longer there. I had to leave. My plans called for goin’ abroad. Then came a strange feelin’ that I must have had all the time, but didn’t realize. The West called me back. I seemed to want the Middle West, where I’d planned to buy the green farm. But you know I’m a man who sticks to his mind, when it’s made up. There were London, Paris, Rome I’d dreamed about an’ had planned to see. Well, I had a hell of a fight with somethin’ in myself before I could get on that ship. Right off then I got seasick. Wansfell, the bite of a rattlesnake never made me half as sick as that dirty-gray, windy sea. The trip across was a nightmare.... London was a dreary place as big as the Mohave an’ full of queer fishy-eyed people whom I couldn’t understand. But I liked their slow, easy-goin’ ways. Then Paris.... Wansfell, that Paris was a wonderful, glitterin’ beautiful city, an’ if a city had been a place for me, Paris would have been it. But I was lost. I couldn’t speak French—couldn’t learn a word. My tongue refused to twist round their queer words. All the same, I saw what I’d set out to see.... Wansfell, if a man fights despair for the women of the world, he’ll get licked in Paris. An’ the reason is, there you see the same thing in the homely, good, an’ virtuous little wives as you see in those terrible, fascinatin’, dazzlin’ actresses. What that somethin’ is I couldn’t guess. But you like all Frenchwomen. They’re gay an’ happy an’ square. If I applied the truth of this desert to these Frenchwomen, I’d say the somethin’ so fascinatin’ in them is that the race is peterin’ out an’ the women are dyin’ game.
“From Paris I went to Rome, an’ there a queer state of mind came to me. I could look at temples an’ old ruins without even seein’ them—with my mind on my own country. All this travel idea, seein’ an’ learnin’ an’ doin’, changed so that it was hateful. I cut out Egypt, an’ I can’t remember much of India an’ Japan. But when I got on ship bound for Frisco I couldn’t see anythin’ for a different reason, an’ that was tears. I’d come far to find joy of life, an’ now I wept tears of joy because I was homeward bound. It was a great an’ splendid feelin’!
“The Pacific isn’t like the Atlantic. It’s vast an’ smooth an’ peaceful, with swells like the mile-long ridges of the desert. I didn’t get seasick. An’ on that voyage I got some rest. Maybe the sea is like the desert. Anyway, it calmed me, an’ I could think clear once more. As I walked the deck by day, or hung over the rail by night, my yearnin’s an’ dreams came back. When I reached Frisco I’d take train for the Middle West, an’ somewhere I’d buy the green ranch an’ settle down to peace an’ quiet for the rest of my life. The hope was beautiful. I believed in it. That wild desire to search for the joy of life had to be buried. I had been wrong about that. It was only a dream—a boy’s dream, on the hope of which I had spent the manhood of my best years. Ah! it was bitter—bitter to realize that. I—who had never given in to defeat!... But I conquered my regret because I knew I had just mistaken what I wanted. An’ it was not wholly too late!... Wansfell, you’ve no idea of the size of the old earth. I’ve been round it. An’ that Pacific! Oh, what an endless ocean of waters! It seemed eternal, like the sky. But—at last—I got to—Frisco.”
Here Dismukes choked and broke down. The deep, rolling voice lost its strength for a moment. He drew a long, long breath that it hurt Adam to hear.
“Wansfell, when my feet once more touched land it was as though I’d really found happiness,” presently went on Dismukes, clearing his throat of huskiness. “I was in the clouds. I could have kissed the very dirt. My own, my native land!... Now for the last leg of the journey—an’ the little farm—the home to be—friends to make—perhaps a sweet-faced woman an’ a child! Oh, it was as glorious as my lost dreams!
“But suddenly somethin’ strange an’ terrible seized hold of me. A hand as strong as the wind gripped my heart.... The desert called me!... Day an’ night I walked the streets. Fierce as the desert itself I fought. Oh, I fought my last an’ hardest fight!... On one hand was the dream of my life—the hope of a home an’ happiness—what I had slaved for. Forty years of toil! On the other hand the call of the desert! Loneliness, solitude, silence, the white, hot days, the starlit nights, the vast open desert, free and peaceful, the gray wastes, the colored mountains, sunrise and sunset. Ah! The desert was my only home. I belonged to the silence an’ desolation. Forty years a wanderer on the desert, blindly seekin’ for gold! But, oh, it was not gold I wanted! Not gold! Nor fortune! That was my dream, my boyish dream. Gold did not nail me to the desert sands. That was only my idea. That was what brought me into the wastelands. I misunderstood the lure of the desert. I thought it was gold, but, no! For me the desert existed as the burrow for the fox. For me the desert linked my strange content to the past ages. For me the soul of the desert was my soul.... I had to go back!... I could live nowhere else.... Forty years! My youth—my manhood!... I’m old now—old! My dreams are done.... Oh, my God!... I had to come back!”
Adam sat confounded in grief, in shock. His lips were mute. Like a statue he gazed across the wasteland, so terribly magnified, so terribly illumined by the old prospector’s revelation. How awful the gigantic red rock barriers! How awful the lonely, limitless expanse of sand! The eternal gray, the eternal monotony!
“Comrade, take the story of my life to heart,” added Dismukes. “You’re a young man still. Think of my forty years of hell, that now has made me a part of the desert. Think of how I set out upon my journey so full of wild, sweet hope! Think of my wonderful journey, through the glitterin’ cities, round the world, only to find my hope a delusion!... A desert mirage!”