Adam had to be alone. He needed to be high above the desert, where he could look down. Another crisis in his transformation was painfully pending. The meeting with Dismukes had been of profound significance, and its effect was going to be far-reaching.
He climbed up the zigzag, dim trail, rising till the canyon yawned beneath him, and the green thicket where he had left Genie was but a dot. Then the way led round the slope of the great foothill, where he left the trail and climbed to the craggy summit. It was a round, bare peak of jagged bronze rock, and from this height half a mile above the desert the outlook was magnificent. Beyond and above him the gray walls and fringed peaks of San Jacinto towered, sculptored and grand against the azure blue.
Finding a comfortable seat with rest for his back, Adam faced the illimitable gulf of color and distance below. Always a height such as this, where, like a lonely eagle, he could command an unobstructed view, had been a charm, a strange delight of his desert years. Not wholly had love of climbing, or to see afar, or to feel alone, or to travel in beauty, been accountable for this habit.
Adam’s first reward for this climb, before he had settled himself to watch the desert, was sight of a condor. Only rarely did Adam see this great and loneliest of lonely birds—king of the eagles and of the blue heights. Never had Adam seen one close. A wild, slate-colored bird, huge of build, with grisly neck and wonderful, clean-cut head, cruelty beaked! Even as Adam looked the condor pitched off the crag and spread his enormous wings.
A few flaps of those wide wings—then he sailed out over the gulf, and around, rising as he circled. When he started he was below Adam; on the first lap of that circle he rose even with Adam’s position; and when he came round again he sailed over Adam, perhaps fifty feet. Adam thrilled at the sight. The condor was peering down with gleaming, dark, uncanny eyes. He saw Adam. His keen head and great, crooked beak moved to and fro; the sun shone on his gray-flecked breast; every feather of his immense wings seemed to show, to quiver in the air, and the tip feathers were ragged and separate. He cut the air with a soft swish.
Around he sailed, widening his circle, rising higher, with never a movement of his wings. That fact, assured by Adam’s sharp sight, was so marvelous that it fascinated him. What power enabled the condor to rise without propelling himself? No wind stirred down there under the peaks, so he could not lift himself by its aid. He sailed aloft. He came down on one slope of his circle, to rise up on the other, and always he went higher. How easily! How gracefully! He was peering down for sight of prey in which to sink cruel beak and talons. Once he crossed the sun and Adam saw his shadow on the gleaming rocks below. Then his circles widened across the deep canyon, high above the higher foothills, until he approached the lofty peak. Higher still, and here the winds of the heights caught him. How he breasted them, sailing on and up, soaring toward the blue!
Adam watched the bird with strained eyes that hurt but never tired. To watch him was one of the things Adam needed. On and ever upward soared the condor. His range had changed with the height. His speed had increased with the wind. His spirit had mounted as he climbed. The craggy gray peak might have harbored his nest and his mate, but he gave no sign. High over the lonely cold heights he soared. There, far above his domain, he circled level for a while, then swooped down like a falling star, miles across the sky, to sail, to soar, to rise again. Away across the heavens he flew, wide winged and free, king of the eagles and of the winds, lonely and grand in the blue. Never a movement of his wings! Higher he sailed. Higher he soared till he was a fading speck, till he was gone out of sight to his realm above.
“Gone!” sighed Adam. “He is gone. And for all I know he may be a spirit of the wind. From his invisible abode in the heavens he can see the sheep on the crags—he can see me here—he can see Genie below—he can see the rabbit at his burrow.... Nature! Life! Oh, what use to think? What use to torture myself over mystery I can never solve? I learn one great truth only to find it involved in greater mystery.”
* * * * *
Adam had realized the need of shocks, else the desert influence would insulate him forever in his physical life. The meeting with Dismukes had been one.