CHAPTER XVIII

After Nophaie’s departure Marian felt as if the end of all had come. She had not looked beyond this last meeting. And now with the poignant and stinging experiences in the past she seemed lost and broken- hearted. She fell into a terrible depression out of which she struggled with difficulty. The desert called her; the promise to Nophaie was a sacred obligation; but she could not at once return to her work among the Indians. She decided to go back East for a while.

The hour she arrived in Philadelphia she realized that outside of her need of change and the pleasure of old associations there was other cause for her to be glad she had returned.

Philadelphia, like other great cities, was in the throes of preparing for war. The fever of the war emotion had seized every one. The equilibrium of the staid and tranquil city of brotherly love had been upset. Marian found her relatives as changed as if many years had intervened between her departure and return. They had forgotten her. Each was obsessed by his or her peculiar relation to the war. The draft of a son or brother or nephew, the seeking of war offices, the shifting of trade to meet the exigencies of war demands–all these attitudes seemed personal and self-seeking. Many of Marian’s acquaintances, young men under thirty, in one way or another evaded the clutch of the service. Conduct such as this was thrown into relief by the eagerness with which others enlisted before the draft. Young women were finding the world changed for them. Every opportunity appeared thrust upon them, even to the extreme of donning khaki trousers and driving ambulances in France. Marian could have found a hundred positions, all more remunerative than any she had ever had. It was a time of stress. It was a time of intense emotional strain. It was a time when the nobility and selfishness of human nature were enhanced. It was a time that tried the souls of mothers. It was a time which called forth strange, deep and far-reaching instincts in young women. It was a time when many soldiers misused the glamour of their uniforms.

Marian had her own reasons for being personally and tremendously stirred by the war. That made her charitable and generous in her judgments of others. But the wildness and unrestraint she could not condone. She could not blame any girl for heedlessly rushing into marriage with a soldier–for she had yearned to marry Nophaie–but she was affronted and disgusted by the abandon she saw in so many young people. The war had given them a headlong impetus toward she knew not what.

Yet Marian felt this strange and terrible thing herself.

Why did her heart swell when she saw a soldier? Why did her eyes dim when she saw from her window a train-load of soldiers speeding toward New York? The spectacular sale of Liberty Bonds, the drives, the bazaars, the balls, the crowded theaters, the enlistment of half the graduating class of the University of Pennsylvania–in the midst of all this strange exalting atmosphere Marian found her reason for being glad she had come. No American should have failed to see and feel these days. The desert had isolated and insulated Marian, until it had seemed she was no longer a part of the great Republic. She had as much reason as any woman–except mother of a soldier–to be terribly drawn into the chaos of war times. Whenever she thought of Nophaie a shuddering possessed her internal body and she was sick. Yet there was a pride in him that was growing infinite.

Marian did her bit in the way of buying and selling bonds, and in Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross work. But for her promise to Nophaie to go back to the reservation she would have gone, like so many young women, to extremes of war enthusiasm. The urge to go to France was something hard to resist.

Nophaie’s letters were few and far between, and not what they had been out in the desert, but upon them Marian lived and sustained her hope. In September she went to the seashore to get away from the humidity and tainted air of the city, which, since her sojourn in the West, she could hardly endure. And she needed rest. She went to Cape May and haunted the places on the beach where she had been with Nophaie.

The restless bright Atlantic! Marian bathed in the surf and spent long hours upon the sand. This period was restful, yet it was singularly acute and living. The grand roll of the breakers, the thunder and boom, the white foam and the flying spindrift, the green heaving sea far out–these elements seemed to be understood better and appreciated more through her memory of the desert. But she loved the desert most; and every day the call of the wide colored wastes, the loneliness, and something she could not define, rang more insistently in her ears.

So time flew by, and autumn began to decline into winter. It took time for Marian to dispose of the little property she had, and following that came a letter from Nophaie telling her when he was to sail from New York for France. Marian went to New York in a vain hope of seeing him. But all she had of him was the sound of his voice over the telephone. For this she was unutterably grateful. The instant she had answered his “hello,” he had called: “Benow di cleash?” Then shaking all over there in the little booth, she had listened to his brief words of love and farewell.

She was one of the throng of thousands of women on the Hoboken docks when the huge liner left her moorings. Thousands of faces of soldiers blurred in Marian’s sight. Perhaps one of them was Nophaie. She waved to them and to him. She was only one of these thousands of women left behind to suffer and endure. This was harder for Marian than the farewell in Flagerstown.

White fluttering sea of waving handkerchiefs! Flash of ruddy boyish faces! These meant so much. They were so infinitely more than just incidents of life.

The keen bright winter sun shone down on the deck of weeping women, on the huge liner with its tan-colored fringe of human freight, on the choppy green- waved Hudson River, and the glitter of the city beyond.

Marian returned to Philadelphia with her spirit at lowest ebb and for once in her life fell prey to an apparently endless dejection. Besides, the cold wet climate had a bad effect upon her after the dry bracing desert. She suffered a spell of illness, and when she recovered from that she deemed it best to wait for spring before starting west. Meanwhile she went into war work. All of her notes on the reservation and the Indian school remained untouched. She had not the heart to rewrite them for publication. She read newspapers and periodicals upon the war until her mind was in a chaotic state. Once at least she was stung into specific realization and an agony of suspense.

A newspaper printed a report of French operations along a river at the front. For some reason not stated it was important that observations be kept from the end of a certain bridge, long under German gun-fire. For three days a soldier had stood motionless, whitewashed to resemble a post, at the exposed end of that bridge. He was successful in his observations and had not drawn the gun- fire of the enemy. But he died from the strain and the coatings of whitewash. This scout was an American Indian.

“He–he might have been Nophaie!” whispered Marian, in torture.

In the spring Marian received a reply to a letter she had written Mrs. Wolterson:

Dear Marian:

I am long indeed in replying to your most welcome and interesting letter. But you will forgive me, for my excuse is work, work, work. Imagine! out of six white people and thirty little Indian children I was the only one not down with influenza.

First your account of the goings-on of people in the East, and all that war stuff, stirred me to thrills, made me long to be home–for I too am an Easterner–and yet caused me to thank God I am out in the open country.

We were transferred here, as you already know, and left Mesa without regret, except for our few true friends there. We are fortunate to be retained in the service at all. The wrong done my husband by Blucher and Morgan was not undone and never will be.

Blucher, you will be glad to hear, had a sudden check to his open pro- Germanism. Something or somebody frightened him. My friends write me that his reaction to this fear, whatever it was, resulted in his applying himself to reservation work. But he will not last much longer as superintendent. He will get the ‘steam-roller.’

Morgan, however, goes on his triumphant way with his Old Book behind him. What a monster that man is! It is utterly inconceivable that such a fanatical devil could have such power among many good missionaries.

Here is a bit of news that comes closer to us. Gekin Yashi has again disappeared. Headquarters reported she had run off. But my correspondent in Mesa does not believe it. No attempt was made to trace her. If she had run off she would have been tracked. Neither Rhur or any of the policemen has left Mesa. I know what I think, and so does Robert. But it seems best not to trust my suspicions to a letter. Some day the truth will come out. Alas for the Little Beauty of the Nopahs! When I think of her, and the child prodigy Evangeline, and noble Nophaie, I am sore at heart.

King Point is not at all like Mesa. I loved Mesa, despite what I suffered there. This place is high up on the desert, over seven thousand feet above sea level. It is bleak, barren, bitter cold, and the winds are terrible. The snow last winter blew level with the sand. It did not fall! But there is beauty here. Great red bluffs, covered with cedars and sand dunes forever changing with the wind, and yellow mesas, and long white slopes of valley. But the solitude, the cold, and the mournful winds are dreadful. Influenza swooped down on us late in winter, a very fortunate circumstance. Had spring not come I believe the whole population of thirty-six would have been wiped out.

As it was everybody but myself fell sick. Can you imagine my labors? I had them all to myself before a doctor came, and then after he was gone. The poor little Indian children–they were so sick! I hardly had time to eat, let alone sleep. And when relief came it was none too soon for me.

I have no direct information regarding influenza ravages at other points on the reservation. But I understand it hit the Nopahs pretty hard. I never saw any disease like this. I dread the return of winter. Warm weather kills the germ or whatever spreads this sickness. If it should come early in winter I shudder to think what might happen out here on the reservation.

You wrote in your letter of returning. We are glad to hear this news. Mrs. Withers wrote me that she had received a letter from Nophaie from France, and that he said he had seen you on the pier at Hoboken just before his ship sailed. But you did not see him!–How strangely things happen!... I have two brothers at the front in France. When I think of them I think of Nophaie.

All good wishes to you, Marian, and let us hear from you.

Sincerely,

Beatrice Wolterson.

Marian went back to the Indian country prepared to work independently for the welfare of the Nopahs. At Flagerstown she rented a little cottage out near the pines, from which she could see the green slopes and gray peaks of the mountains. This time, with knowledge and means to set about her task, she provided a comfortable place to live in during absences from the desert.

Marian’s first trip on the desert took her to King Point, where she spent a profitable day with the Woltersons. King Point was as cool and pleasant in summer as Flagerstown. Marian found instant antagonism in the head of the Indian school there, making any project of hers rather out of the question. Besides, there was no place to stay. The school was a small branch of the main system, and no Indians lived in the near vicinity. The missionary there had been stationed by Morgan. And his wife seemed to regard Marian with ill- disguised suspicion.

To Marian’s regret, she found matters not happy for the Woltersons. Blucher’s enmity had a long arm. Wolterson had encountered the same underhand tactics that had been operative at Mesa. Moreover, the altitude and the cold, and the poor quarters furnished by the government, had not improved his health. Marian advised him to leave the Indian service.

“Shore, I’ve got to,” he drawled, “but I hate to quit just now. Looks like I’d be driven out.”

Before Marian left she received a suggestion from Wolterson that made her thoughtful. He told her about the little settlement of Nokis at Copenwashie, how they were growing poorer in water and land and had a hard winter ahead of them.

“Shore, they’ll not be able to feed their stock,” said Wolterson.

“Why?” inquired Marian.

“Because they have less land than formerly and very little water. They can’t raise enough alfalfa.”

“Why less land than formerly?”

“Friel and Morgan have gotten most of the Indians’ land.”

“Oh, I remember. But how can they do that? It seems absolutely unbelievable to me.”

“Listen and I will tell you,” replied Wolterson. “First Friel or Morgan selected the particular piece of ground he wanted. Then he got the superintendent to report to Washington that his land was not needed by the Indians. It was naturally the best piece of ground. The government granted the use of a little tract of land upon which a church might be built. Soon it was further reported that this was not sufficient for the missionary to raise garden and hay. Another tract was available and this was also turned over. After a time Friel applied for and received a patent to this land. Other patents are pending. With the land goes a supply of water for irrigating, and often in addition a good spring, and this much water is simply taken from the Indians. Water on the desert is limited. Last year was dry. This one may be drier.–And there you are.”

“Well!” ejaculated Marian. “So that is how these men acquire their lands!”

Marian had planned to go next to Kaidab, but influenced by the incentive of Wolterson’s suggestion, and a dread of seeing just yet the beautiful sage uplands beloved by Nophaie, she decided first to look over the field at Copenwashie. The Paxtons at Mesa gave her a warm welcome, and between them, for the sake of a subterfuge that might be wise, they arranged a basket and blanket buying job for her.

Copenwashie lay down on the edge of the mesa two miles or more from the government post. At any time it was a barren, desolate outlook, and in summer under the leaden haze of heat it was surely mercilessly inhospitable to a white person.

The Nokis were agricultural in their pursuits, not nomads like the Nopahs. The two tribes had long been inimical to each other. One aged Noki woman, who was so old she did not know her age, had told Paxton she could remember when the Nopahs could ride down on the village and throw Nokis over the cliffs. Their houses were flat-roofed, built of stone and adobe, cool in summer and warm in winter, a very great improvement on the hogan of the wilder Nopah. In many cases rude corrals adjoined the houses. The several lanes of the village were, upon Marian’s first visit, colorful and active with burros, dogs, chickens, cows, and Indian children. A keen tang of cedar smoke filled the air. It brought to Marian’s mind the camp fire of the upland country. Thin curling columns of blue smoke rose from invisible holes or chimneys.

Marian went from door to door of these little low houses and asked for baskets. She saw stoves, beds, sewing- machines common to white households. The rooms she got a peep into were whitewashed and clean. The Nokis were short in stature, broad-faced, resembling a Japanese more than a Nopah, and the women all appeared to be heavy. They spoke a little English, but they were reserved and shy. Marian was hard to please in style of baskets, but she paid the price asked without haggling. Thus she carefully felt her way along the line of procedure she had adopted. When she left the village and ascended the slope to the level of Mesa she looked back.

The place seemed a jumble of little rock and mud huts perched on the very edge of a precipice. Below lay a wide green valley with Indian laborers at work and threads of water running to and fro. Across the valley rose a red-and- yellow bluff, rimming out on the ghastly desert. To the right of where Marian stood loomed an imposing structure of stone, built by masons, two stories high and with a tower. This was the home of Friel. Somehow Marian resented its presence there. She was looking at it with an Indian’s eye. She thought of the cowboy missionary, Ramsdell, who had slept and lived like the riders of the open. Knowing what she knew, Marian had difficulty in restraining more than prejudice.

Paxton had driven her down to Copenwashie, and said he did not consider it safe for her to walk. Opportunity to ride was infrequent, so Marian adjusted herself to a slow progress of passing the time and winning the confidence of the Nokis. But there were other demands upon her time–study, reading, writing letters, keeping in touch with all pertaining to the war. The heat of midday was, after all, not unendurable, and she got used to it, though she endeavored to stay indoors during those hours. She hired the Indian mail carrier, who remembered her, to carry her letters to Flagerstown and to do her errands. Three or four times a week she visited the Noki village. On each trip she bought baskets, and she always left candy and dolls and musical toys with the children. When a Noki woman asked her if she was a missionary Marian thought she had gained a point in her emphatic negative.

She anticipated embarrassing situations and prepared for them. Jay Lord sat on the trading-post steps during the summer evenings. Morgan had asked somebody what that “white-faced cat” was doing back on the reservation? Friel had learned of her presence. But so far Marian had been clever and fortunate enough to avoid meeting either of them face to face. She did not care, however, when that might happen.

If happiness could have been hers it might have come to her here on the desert that had somehow changed her, and in the work she had chosen. But she could not be really happy. Nophaie wrote but seldom. He was “somewhere in France.” His letters were censored, and he wrote so little of himself. Marian lived in constant dread that she would never hear from him again–that he would be killed. It did not torture her that he might be injured. For she knew that he was an Indian to whom injuries were nothing. She could not break the morbid habit of reading about the war. She had terrible dreams. She hated the Germans more and more. Even the tranquillity of the desert, its wonderful power to soothe, did not help her with this war emotion. Life did not stand still, but her heart seemed to. She endured, she made the most of her opportunities among the Nokis, and she tried not to fail in faith and hope. But the long hot summer dragged, relieved only by one short visit to the cool and mountain altitude of Flagerstown.

With the end of summer there seemed to be an end to the uneventful waiting monotony of her life.

Withers called for her one day and packed her off in his car to Kaidab. His wife was not very well and needed a change of climate, and wanted Marian to take a short trip with her to California. Marian gladly consented, and while preparations were under way for this journey she rode horseback, and climbed high on the black mesa to try to get a glimpse of Nophaie’s country. All she could attain was sight of the red pinnacles of the monuments of the Valley of Gods. But she was grateful for that.

Looking across that wild and wonderful desert of upflung rocky ramparts and green reaches of lowland, Marian thought of the Indian boy who had been born there, who had shepherded his flock in the lonely solitude, listening to the secret voices of Indian spirits, who was now fighting in France for the white men and for America. Marian’s old strength seemed to flow back to her heart. She had been sick, lonely, brooding, weary for Nophaie. She needed love. But she realized her utter selfishness in contrast to Nophaie’s nobility. Just a sight of the upland country revived her earlier spirit. She must not be found wanting. Every day added to this renewal of courage and with that, and the cooler days, there came a quickening of her energies.

Withers found the time propitious for a short absence from Kaidab. His partner, Colman, said business would grow poorer instead of better. The decline of the Nopahs’ fortunes had begun. Price of wool had been steadily falling. There was no demand for baskets and blankets. The Indians had been prodigal of everything. There were no stores laid away. And they misunderstood the decline in price for their wool while the price of all the trader’s wares soared higher.

“They’re facing the hardest winter they ever had on this desert,” concluded Colman.

“Wal, you’re talkin’,” responded Withers thoughtfully. “And if that ‘flu’ disease strikes the reservation when cold weather comes it’s good night!”

“Will the war never end?” sighed Mrs. Withers.

“End? It’s ended now. The Germans are licked. They’re stallin’ for time right now,” retorted the trader, with fire in his eyes. “They’ll never go through another winter. I almost wish they would not show a yellow streak. France has got their number. Marshal Foch ought to be allowed to wipe the Germans off the earth. If he isn’t, the Germans will trump up some trick, and they’ll come back in the future, worse than ever.”

Wither’s son Ted had gotten to France, but he was still among the reserves, back of the front line, and that fact evidently irritated the Westerner. He wanted his son to fight. Mrs. Withers, on the other hand, was grateful for the chances that had so far spared her only son. The sister of this boy shared her father’s aggressive ideas. Marian had grown war- weary. The whole terrible, incredible, and monstrous riddle revolved around Nophaie. And she had not heard from him for many weeks.

The last day of Marian’s stay at Kaidab she prevailed upon Miss Withers to ride out and climb the highest point available. Withers sent one of his Indian riders with them. They had a long, hard, and glorious ride. From the brow of a great divide Marian saw the whole vast reach of the Valley of Gods– the red sentinels of the desert–lonely and grand against the haze of distance. She saw the dark organ- shaped mesa under the shadow of which Nophaie had been born. Then far to the westward, up and up over the giant steps, she caught a glimpse of green-cedared and purple-saged uplands, and above them the huge bulk and dark dome of Nothsis Ahn.

Marian felt a tremor that was more than thrill. Her breast heaved, her sight dimmed. Wild, lonely, beautiful land of sage and canyon! She loved it. The clearest teaching of her life had come from its spell. She longed to climb the endless and rugged trail to Nophaie’s silent walls. They were not silent for her.

This day had been full, poignant, resurging with the old flood of emotions. As Marian rode across the level stretch of gray desert before Kaidab the sunset was gilding the rims of the distant mesas. Rose and lilac hazed the breaks in the walls, and the waste of sand and grass waved away under a luminous golden light.

Withers was waiting at the gate for the riders. His face wore an excited, eager, and happy expression, such as Marian had never before seen there. What could have broken this intrepid Westerner’s reserve? Marian experienced a sensation of weakness.

“Get down and come in,” he called. “Come a-rustlin’ now. I’ve got news.”

Marian tumbled off some way, and ran at the heels of Wither’s daughter, who was crying: “Oh! Dad’s got a letter from Ted!”

So indeed it turned out to be. Mrs. Withers had been crying, but was now radiant. The trader fumbled over many sheets of paper, closely covered with writing.

“Sis, you can read all of this afterward,” he was saying. “Ted’s all right. Fussin’ because he won’t see any real fight. He says what I told you all- -the Huns are licked. Whoopee!... You know I wrote Ted months ago and asked him to find out about our Indians. I’d given up hoping. But he’s found out a lot, and I’ll read it. Marian, your Nophaie has got the D.S. medal! What do you know about that?”

Marian could not have spoken then to save her life. She seemed locked in sensation–mute in the sweetest, richest, fullest, most agonizing moment of her life.

The trader fumbled over the sheets of paper. His fingers were not wholly steady.

“Here,” he began, “this letter seems less cut up than any we’ve had. Ted writes: ‘I had some luck. Happened to run across a soldier–who’d been in the thick of the front-line battles with some of our Indians. What he had to say about them was aplenty. He knew Lo Blandy when he played college football. So it’s a good guess Lo Blandy is our Nophaie. I got thick pronto with this soldier. His name is Munson. He hails from Vermont. He’d not only been in the front-line trenches with our Indians, but in the hospital with some of them. I’ve forgotten names and places, if he told me. This French lingo is sure hard for me. Munson said an officer told him there were thousands of American Indians in the service. That was news to me. It sure tickled me.

“‘A good many Indians have been killed. Whether or not any of them were Nopahs I can’t say. But the Indian who pulled the bear-trap stunt is our own nutty Shoie, the spellbinder. Munson said they called him that, and he answered exactly to the description I gave. Now it appears that every night or so Shoie would pull a crippled German into the trenches. These German soldiers would have either an arm or leg broken, and terribly lacerated. Shoie never had much to say over here. You know the Indian. But like all the other redskins, he was a wonderful scout, and therefore had something more of freedom than the white boys. These Indians were no more afraid of No Man’s Land than of crossing the desert at night. Shoie was watched. And it was discovered that he pulled these crippled Germans into the trenches in a number four bear trap, attached to a long wire. Shoie would crawl out in the darkness–they say he always picked the places where German soldiers were sneaking–and set the bear trap. Then he’d slip back to the trench to wait. When he got one, everybody along that line sure knew of it. For the Germans hollered like hell. At that to crawl into a number four bear trap would make any man holler. All Shoie said was: “Me catch- um whole damn German army!”... I guess maybe the buddies didn’t hand it to this Indian.

“‘Well, there’s more about Lo Blandy. Munson lay in the hospital with him, and found out he had been wounded four times, the last time seriously. But he seemed nearly well then. That was three weeks ago. Blandy–or Nophaie–was to be discharged and sent home as an invalid, incapacitated for further service. He had been in everything the war afforded except actual death. That seemed to miss him. Munson said Nophaie was indifferent to danger and pain. Shell-shock had affected him somewhat, and gassed lungs made him a probable consumptive. But to Munson he was certainly far from a physical wreck. I think Munson said Nophaie got into the great Chatoo-Therry (how’d you spell that?) mix-up, and that an officer gave him the D.S. right off his own breast. Sure some stunt for an officer, believe me!

“‘Anyway, Nophaie, along with other Indians, must be on the way home by now. I’m sure glad. It simply was grand to hear what devils they were among the Germans. I can’t remember ever caring a whoop about the Nopahs. But I’ve a hunch that a lot of Americans, including myself, haven’t ever appreciated the red man.

“‘My chance of plugging a Fritz has become slim indeed, and for that reason I’m sure homesick for you all, and the smell of cedar smoke and sheep wool.’”