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The Heritage of the Desert-Part25_Zane Gray(1872-1939)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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leakage did not claim, and so he shared alike with Wolf, and gave the

rest to Silvermane.



For an hour the mocking lilac mountains hung in the air and then paled in

the intense light. The day was soundless and windless, and the



heat-waves rose from the desert like smoke. For Hare the realities were

the baked clay flats, where Silvermane broke through at every step; the



beds of alkali, which sent aloft clouds of powdered dust; the deep

gullies full of round bowlders; thickets of mesquite and prickly thorn



which tore at his legs; the weary detour to head the canyons; the climb

to get between two bridging mesas; and always the haunting presence of



the sad-eyed dog. His unrealities were the shimmering sheets of water in

every low place; the baseless mountains floating in the air; the green



slopes rising close at hand; beautiful buttes of dark blue riding the

open sand, like monstrous barks at sea; the changing outlines of desert



shapes in pink haze and veils of purple and white lustre--all illusions,

all mysterious tricks of the mirage.



In the heat of midday Hare yielded to its influence and reined in his

horse under a slate -bank where there was shade. His face was swollen



and peeling, and his lips had begun to dry and crack and taste of alkali.

Then Wolf pattered on; Silvermane kept at his heels; Hare dozed in the



saddle. His eyes burned in their sockets from the glare, and it was a

relief to shut out the barren reaches. So the afternoon waned.



Silvermane stumbled, jolting Hare out of his stupid lethargy. Before him

spread a great field of bowlders with not a slope or a ridge or a mesa or



an escarpment. Not even a tip of a spur rose in the background. He

rubbed his sore eyes. Was this another illusion?



When Silvermane started onward Hare thought of the Navajos' custom to

trust horse and dog in such an emergency. They were desert-bred; beyond



human understanding were their sight and scent. He was at the mercy now

of Wolf's instinct and Silvermane's endurance. Resignation brought him a



certain calmness of soul, cold as the touch of an icy hand on fevered

cheek. He remembered the desert secret in Mescal's eyes; he was about to



solve it. He remembered August Naab's words: "It's a man's deed!" If so,

he had achieved the spirit of it, if not the letter. He remembered



Eschtah's tribute to the wilderness of painted wastes: "There is the

grave of the Navajo, and no one knows the trail to the place of his



sleep!" He remembered the something evermore about to be, the unknown

always subtly calling; now it was revealed in the stone-fettering grip of



the desert. It had opened wide to him, bright with its face of danger,

beautiful with its painted windows, inscrutable with its alluring call.



Bidding him enter, it had closed behind him; now he looked upon it in its

iron order, its strange ruins racked by fire, its inevitable



remorselessness.

XV



DESERT NIGHT

The gray stallion, finding the rein loose on his neck, trotted forward



and overtook the dog, and thereafter followed at his heels. With the

setting of the sun a slight breeze stirred, and freshened as twilight



fell, rolling away the sultryatmosphere. Then the black desert night

mantled the plain.



For a while this blackness soothed the pain of Hare's sun-blinded eyes.

It was a relief to have the unattainable horizon line blotted out. But



by-and-by the opaque gloom brought home to him, as the day had never

done, the reality of his solitude. He was alone in this immense place of



barrenness, and his dumb companions were the world to him. Wolf pattered

onward, a silent guide; and Silvermane followed, never lagging,



sure-footed in the dark, faithful to his master. All the love Hare had

borne the horse was as nothing to that which came to him on this desert



night. In and out, round and round, ever winding, ever zigzagging,

Silvermane hung close to Wolf, and the sandy lanes between the bowlders



gave forth no sound. Dog and horse, free to choose their trail, trotted

onward miles and miles into the night.



A pale light in the east turned to a glow, then to gold, and the round

disc of the moon silhouetted the black bowlders on the horizon. It



cleared the dotted line and rose, an oval orange-hued strange moon, not

mellow nor silvery nor gloriouslybrilliant as Hare had known it in the



past, but a vast dead-gold melancholy orb, rising sadly over the desert.

To Hare it was the crowning reminder of lifelessness; it fitted this



world of dull gleaming stones.

Silvermane went lame and slackened his trot, causing Hare to rein in and






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