Tranquil and sad was his gaze on the majestic river as it swirled red and sullen between its wide green borders toward the upflung wilderness of colored peaks he remembered so well.
All day he strode behind his faithful burros, here high on the river bank where he could see the somber flood rolling to the south, and there low in the willow-shaded trail. And though he had an eye for the green, dry coverts and the wide, winding valley, he seemed to see most vividly the scenes of boyhood and of home. And the memory revived the love he had borne his brother Guerd. High on the grassy hill at the old village school—he was there once again, wild and gay, playing the games, tagging at the heels of his idol.
The miles slipped by under his tireless stride. Hour by hour he had quickened his pace. And when sunset caught him with its call to camp, he could see the grand purple bulk of old Picacho looming in the sky. Twilight and dusk and night, and the lonely camp fire! He heard the sullen gurgle of the river in the weeds and he saw the trains of stars reflected along its swirling surface. A killdeer, most mournful of birds, pealed his plaintive, lonely cry. Across the blue-black sky gleamed a shooting star. The wind stirred in the leaves, gently and low, and fanned the glowing embers, and bore the white ashes away into the darkness. Shadows played from the flickering blaze, fantastic and weird, like dancing specters in the gloom. Adam watched the gleaming river rolling on to its grave in the Gulf. Like all things, it died, was dispersed, and had rebirth in other climes. Then he watched the stars at their grand and blazing task.
* * * * *
On the afternoon of the third day he turned under the red bluff into the basin of Picacho. Long the trail had been overgrown and dim, and cattle tracks were scarce. The wide willow and mesquite flat, with its groves of cottonwoods, had grown denser, wilder, no more crisscrossed by trails. Adam had slowed down now, and he skirted the edge of the thicket till he reached the bank of bronze rock that had flowed down from the peaks in ages past. The ocatillas, so pearly gray, softly green, and vividly scarlet, grew there just the same as long ago when he had plucked a flower for the dusky hair of Margarita. He welcomed sight of them, for they were of the past.
And here, side by side, stood the crucifixion tree and the palo verde under which Margarita had told him their legends. The years had made no change that Adam could discern. The smoke tree and the green tree raised their delicate, exquisite, leafless foliage against the blue of sky, beautiful and soft, hiding from the eye the harsh law of their desert nature.
Adam tarried here. His wandering steps were nearing their end. And he gazed across the river at the wilderness of Arizona peaks. It seemed he knew every one. Had he seen them yesterday or long ago?
The sculptured turrets of Picacho were taking on a crown of gold, and from the sheer, ragged bluffs of the purple mass shadows and hazes and rays were streaming down into the valley. One golden streak slanted from the wind-worn hole in the rim. Solemn and noble the castled mountain towered in the sky. In its lonely grandeur there was strength.
One moment longer Adam watched and listened, absorbing the color and glory and wildness, stung to the depths of his heart by his farewell to loneliness. He retrograded one last instant to the savage who sensed but did not think. He thrilled to the old, mysterious, fading instinct. Then, as in answer to a sonorous call in his ear, he measured slow and laboring strides through the aisles to the river.
His burros scratched their packs on the thorny mesquites to get down to the arrowweed and willow. Where once had been open bank, now all was green, except for a narrow sandy aisle. The dock was gone. A sunken barge lay on a bar, and moored to its end were two leaky skiffs. Traffic and trade had departed from the river landing. Adam remembered a prospector had told him that the mill had been moved from the river up to the mine under the peak. So now, he thought, supplies and traffic must come and go by way of Yuma.