CHAPTER XXI

Three thousand Nopahs died of the plague, and from one end of the reservation to the other a stricken, bewildered, and crushed people bowed their heads. The exceedingly malignant form of the influenza and the superstitious convictions of the fatalistic Indians united to create a deadly medium. When spring came, with its warm sun, dissipating the strange wind of death, the Indians believed that the eating of horseflesh had saved them.

Slowly the clutch of fear loosed its possession of Marian’s heart. Slowly the long spell of gloom yielded to a hope inspired by sunshine and a steady decline in the death-rate of Nopahs. Yet not wholly did her old spirit return. There was something ineradicable–vague, tenacious, inscrutable–something she felt every time Nophaie smiled at her.

They all worked to alleviate the sufferings of the Indians. If the trader had ever saved any money, he lost it all and more that winter. Marian’s means had shrunken to almost nothing. Civilization seemed far away, absorbed in its own problems. The affairs of the reservation moved on as always. And the little circle of white people at Kaidab lived true to something the Indians had inspired in them, forgotten by the outside world.

March with its last icy breath of winter yielded to April with its sandstorms. The wind blew a gale one day and the next was calm, warm, with spring in the air. Only a few cases of influenza were reported, and deaths but seldom.

Yet Marian could not quite feel free. The tentacles of a deep-seated emotion, stranger than love, still were fastened in her heart.

Nophaie had ridden to Oljato, and when he did not return the following day the nameless thing that was neither thought nor feeling laid its cold hand on Marian’s soul.

She worked on Withers’s accounts that day; she wrote long-neglected letters; she busied herself for an hour over a sadly depleted and worn wardrobe; she rode horseback, out to the rocky ridge above Kaidab, and strained her eyes on the trail of Oljato.

But these energies did not allay her nervousness or quell the woman’s sixth sense. She tried the trading post, which of late had been hard to bear. Hungry, gaunt Indians would come in and stand around, staring with great dark eyes until Withers or Colman gave them something to eat. It was a starved tribe now.

Marian saw Indians carrying bows and arrows, a custom long past, which had been resumed because the hunters had sold their guns or could not buy ammunition. Wool had practically ceased its use as a means of trade. The Indians would not shear sheep for the price offered. A few goatskins and an occasional blanket were bartered over the counter. It was distressing to watch an Indian woman come in with a blanket, often a poorly made one that Withers did not want and could not sell, and haggle over a price which was ruinous for the trader to offer. In this way Withers kept alive the Nopahs of his district. They did not thank him, for none of them understood.

This day Marian encountered Shoie again, and despite the feeling almost of horror that he incited she resolutely stood her ground and watched him. Shoie’s companion was a young Nopah, very dark and wild looking, ragged and unkempt, with a crippled foot. Something about this second Indian impelled Marian’s sensitiveness even more than Shoie. He was watching Shoie’s signs and the contortions of his lacerated lips as he tried to convey some meaning. Withers observed Marian’s perplexity and gave her his interpretation.

“That crippled Nopah is one of the few criminals of the tribe. He’s the Indian who assaulted one of Etenia’s little daughters. They caught him and held his foot in the fire until it was burned to a crisp. That was his punishment and he is now an outcast. I reckon Shoie is trying to say that he’ll cast an evil spell over him.”

Marian earned her momentary forgetfulness of self then in contemplation of these two Indians. Extremes as they were, they fixed her mind on the mystery of life. A monstrosity she had seen at Copenwashie, a Noki albino Indian, white- haired and pink-eyed, hideous to behold, had not affected her as either of these two Nopahs. She compared them with Ba ho zohnie and Nophaie. But when thought of Nophaie recurred she could no longer stay in the store.

Outside it was growing cool. The sun had set, and there shone a ruddy effulgence over the tilted sections of wall in the west. Coyotes were wailing. Marian walked in the twilight. It seemed an immense and living thing, moving up out of the desert. An oppression weighed upon her. How dark and lonely the empty space out beyond! The stone-walled confines of the wasteland flung their menace at her thinking mind.

Withers appeared unusually quiet that night. His wife talked a little, in her low voice, grown like an Indian’s. But the trader had not much to say. Marian sat beside the hearth, with eyes on the glowing white and gold embers. Suddenly she was startled out of her reveries.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Horse. Must be Nophaie,” replied the trader, as if relieved.

Marian sat still, listening. But she heard on a strange knocking at her heart. At length the door opened with a sweep. Nophaie! His eyes were those of an Indian, but his face seemed that of a white man. He staggered slightly as he closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. His whole body was in vibration, strung, like that of an athlete about to leap. His piercing gaze left Marian’s face to search the trader’s.

“John–give me a room to die in!”

Withers gasped and sank back limp. His wife uttered a frightened and compassionate cry.

“It’s got me!” whispered Nophaie.

Marian’s terror voiced its divination of her nameless instinct.

“Oh, my God–Nophaie!” she screamed, and ran to him.

Nophaie reeled over her. Intense and terrible seemed the strain of spirit over body. He clasped her shoulders–held her away from him.

“Benow di cleash, I should have been dead–hours ago.... But I had to see you.... I had to die as–a white man!”

Marian shuddered under the strange clasp of his hands. They burned through her blouse.

“White woman–savior of Nophaie–go back to your people.... All–is– well!”

Then he collapsed against her and was caught by the trader. They half carried him to his room and laid him on the bed. Then began frantic ministrations in his behalf. The fire of his face, the marble pallor, the hurried pulse, the congested lungs, the laboring heart all proclaimed the dread plague.

Once in the dim lamplight, as Marian knelt beside the bed in agony, calling, “Nophaie–Nophaie!” he opened his eyes–somber, terrible, no longer piercing with his unquenchable spirit; and it seemed to her that a fleeting smile, the old beautiful light, veiled for an instant his tragic soul and blessed her.

Then it seemed to Marian that a foul black fiend began to thrust the life of Nophaie from her. It became a battle, all unconscious on the part of the victim. Poison fires sucked at his life’s blood. This was not an illness–not a disease–but a wind of death that drove out the spirit and loosed devastating corruption upon the living flesh. Yet the vitality of the Indian held it at bay.

The trader entreated her to leave the bedside and at length dragged her back to the sitting room. There Marian huddled down before the fire, racked with pangs. Oh! must this end in the futility of Nophaie’s life and of her love! Mrs. Withers came and went, softly stepping, tender of hand, but she did not speak. The night wore on. Outside the wind rose, to mourn into the dead silence. The vines under the eaves rustled.

Sometime in the late hours Withers came to her and touched her gently.

“Marian,” he said, huskily.

“Nophaie–he–is–gone?” whispered Marian, rising.

“No. Unconscious, but he’s stronger–or I’m crazy.... I must tell you the strangest thing. Many of these Nopahs who died of this plague turned black.... Nophaie talked of turning white. He’s out of his head. I was shocked. It’s as strange as what he said, ‘John, give me a room to die in!’–Marian, it must mean he is true at the last–to the mind–the soul developed in him. Yet his life here was one endless struggle to be true to his birthright. But I don’t believe Nophaie will die. He’s past the crisis that kills so many. I never saw such strife of spirit against disease. It just can’t kill him.”

Marian wrapped a blanket round her and went out into the night. The cold desert wind fanned her face and whipped her hair. Dawn was not far away. The stars were paling and the blackest hour was at hand. Desert and sky, the shadows, the mournful wind, the silence,–all kept their secret. But life was here, and there, only a step away was death. “All–is–well!” she breathed Nophaie’s words. Her soul seemed flooded with infinite thankfulness. Perhaps the tremendous conflict in Nophaie was for more than life. Her belief in God told her so. She stood once more with Nophaie on the heights above the Marching Rocks! Had this dark proximity to death illumined his unbelief?

The desert was to be her home, in spirit and dream. Always it must be an irresistible influence for thought, for good, for the clarifying of life. She quivered with happiness to divine that always she was to see the upland sage of purple, the golden-crowned monuments asleep in the sunlight, the long green sweep and slope, the shadows of the silent walls–and somewhere against that background, the Indian Nophaie.