The Heart of the Desert Part 40

Kut-le put both hands on her shoulders.

"Look here, Rhoda. What you call the 'right' instinct is just the remnant of the old man-made race hatred in you. It's just a part of the old conceit of the Caucasian."

Rhoda stirred restlessly, but Kut-le held her firmly and went on.

"I tell you, if we're not to go mad, we've got to believe that great things come to us for a purpose. There is no human being who has loved who does not believe that love is the greatest thing that has been given to man. The man who has loved knows that the biggest things in the world have been done for the love of woman. Love is bigger than nations or races. It's human, not white, or black, or yellow. It's above all we can do to tarnish it with our little prejudices. When it comes greatly, it comes supremely."

He lifted the girl's face and looked deeply into her eyes.

"Rhoda, if it has come as greatly to you as it has to me, you will not pause for any sorrow that your coming to me may cost you. You will come, in spite of everything. I believe that if in your smallness and ignorance you refuse this gift that has come to you and me, you will be outraging the greatest force in nature."

Rhoda stood sorrow-stricken and confused. When the deep, quiet voice ceased, she said brokenly:

"I haven't lived in the desert so long as you. The way does not lie so clear to me. If only I had your conviction, I too could be strong and walk the path I saw unhesitatingly. But I see no path!"

"Then," said Kut-le, "because I see, I'll decide for you! O Rhoda, you must believe in me! I have had you in my power and I have kept the faith with you. I am going to take you and marry you. I am going to make this gift that has come to you and me make us the big man and woman that nature needs. Tonight we shall reach the padre who will marry us."

He watched the girl keenly for a moment, then he again turned from her deliberately and walked to the edge of the canon, as if he wanted her to come to her final decision unbiased by his nearness. But he turned back to her with a curious expression on his face.

"Come and take a good-by look, Rhoda! Your friends are below. I hope it will be some time before we see them again!"

Rhoda went to him. Far, far below, she saw little dots of men making camp beyond the monastery near the desert. Suddenly Rhoda sank to her knees with a cry of longing that was heart-breaking.

"O my people! My own people!" she sobbed, crouching upon the canon edge.

Kut-le watched the little figure with inscrutable eyes. Then he lifted the girl to her feet.

"Rhoda, are you going to eat your heart out for your own kind if you marry me? Won't I be sufficient? It hadn't occurred to me that I might not be!"

"You haven't given up your people," answered Rhoda. "You are always going back to them."

"But you aren't really giving them up," urged Kut-le. "It really is I who make the sacrifice of my race!"

"And that is the reason for one of my fears," cried Rhoda. "I am afraid that some day you would find the price too great and that our marriage would be wrecked."

"Even if I went back for a few months each year, would that make you unhappy?" asked Kut-le.

"Kut-le!" exclaimed Rhoda. "I am not talking of externals. I mean that if your longing for your own kind made you lose your love for me.

Oh, I can't see any of it straight, but I am afraid!"

"Nonsense, Rhoda! I fought that battle long before I knew you. There is absolutely no danger of my reverting. I am going to spend the rest of my life among the whites even if you shouldn't marry me, Rhoda.

Rhoda, I wish I had had time to let you grow to it fully!"

Rhoda stood rigidly. Molly, sensing trouble, hovered restlessly just out of earshot.

"If you married DeWitt," Kut-le went on, "could you forget me? Forget the desert? Forget our days and nights? Forget my arms about you?"

"Oh, no! No!" cried Rhoda. "You know that I shall love you always!"

"And will DeWitt want what you offer him?" Kut-le went on, mercilessly.

Rhoda winced.

"I wish," said Kut-le huskily, "you never will know how I wish that you had come to me freely, feeling that the sacrifice was worth while!"

Rhoda looked at him wonderingly. After all the weeks of iron determination, was the young giant weakening, was his great heart failing him!

"I had thought," he went on, "that you were big enough to stand the test. That after the travail and the heart scourging, you would see--and would come to me freely--strong enough to smile at all your regrets and fears. That thought steeled me to put you through the torture. But if now, at the end, you are coming to me only because you must! Rhoda, I don't want you on those terms."

Rhoda gasped. She felt as one feels when in a dream one falls an unexpected and endless distance. The relief from the pressure of Kut-le's will that had forced her on, for so long, left her weak and aimless.

Yet somehow she found the strength to say:

"Kut-le, we must give each other up! I love you so that I can let you go! Oh, can't you see how I feel about it!"

Again Kut-le looked far off over vista of mountains and canon. His eyes were deep and abstracted, as if he saw into the years ahead with knowledge denied to Rhoda. Then he turned to Rhoda and searched her face with burning gaze. He eyed her hair, her lovely heart-broken face, her slender figure. For a moment his face was tortured by a look of doubt that was heart-shattering. He lifted Rhoda across his chest in the old way and held her to him with pa.s.sionate tenderness. He laid his face against hers and she heard him whisper:

"O my love! Love of my youth and my manhood!" Then he set her very gently to her feet. "Don't cry," he said. "I can't bear it!"

Rhoda threw her arms above her head in an abandonment of agony.

"Oh, I cannot, cannot bear this!" Then she added more calmly: "I suffer as much as you, Kut-le!"

Again the look of unspeakable grief crossed the young Indian's face, but it immediately became inscrutable. He led Rhoda along the canon edge.

"Do you see that little trail going down?" he said.

"Yes," said Rhoda wonderingly.

"Then go!" said Kut-le quietly.

Rhoda looked up at him blankly.

"Go!" he said sternly. "Go back to your own kind and I will go on, alone. Don't stop to talk any more. Go now!"

Rhoda turned and looked at Cesca squatting by the horses, at Molly hovering near by with anxious eyes. Never to make the dawn camp, again--never to hear Molly humming over the stew-pot! Suddenly Rhoda felt that if she could have Molly with her she would not be so utterly separated from Kut-le.

"Let Molly go with me!" she said. "I love Molly!"

"No!" said Kut-le. "You are to forget the desert and the Indians. Go now!"

With awe and grief too deep for words, Rhoda obeyed the young chief's stern eyes. She clambered down the rough trail to a break in the canon wall, then, clinging with hands and feet, down the sheer side. The tall figure, beautiful in its perfect symmetry, stood immovable, the face never turning from her. Rhoda knew that she never was to forget this picture of him. At the foot of the canon wall she stood long, looking up. Far, far above, the straight figure stood in lonely majesty, gazing at the life for which he had sacrificed so much. Rhoda looked until, tear-blinded, she turned away.

CHAPTER XXI