Arizona -- Fiction; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Fiction; Western stories
Diana did not reply at first. Moonlight and firelight had not
permitted her before to read clearly the story of suffering that was in
Enoch's face. During breakfast he had been laughing and chatting
constantly. But now, as he stood before her, she was appalled by what
she saw in the rugged face. There were two straight, deep lines
between his brows. The lines from nostril to lip corner were doubly
pronounced. The thin, sensitive lips were compressed. The clear,
kindly blue eyes were contracted as if Enoch were enduring actual
physical pain. Tall and powerful, his dark red hair tossed back from
his forehead, his look of trouble did not detract from the peculiar
forcefulness of his personality.
"If you hesitate so long," he said, "I shall--"
Diana laughed. "Begin to cry, as Curly said? Oh, don't do that! I
shall be very happy to have you with me, but before we start, I think I
shall develop some of the films I exposed on the way over. A ten
o'clock start will be early enough, won't it? I have a developing
machine with me. It may not take me even until ten."
Enoch nodded. "How does the work go?" he asked eagerly. "Did you
attend the ceremony Na-che sent word to you about?"
"Yes! Out of a hundred exposures I made there, I think I got one
fairly satisfactory picture." Diana sighed. "After all, the camera
tells the story no better than words, and words are futile. Look!
What medium could one use to tell the world of that?"
She swept her arm to embrace the view before them. The tiny sandy
beach was on a curve of the river so sharp that above and below them
the rushing waters seemed to drive into blind canyon walls. To the
right, the Canyon on both sides was so sheer, the river bed so narrow
that nothing but sky was to be seen above and beyond. But to the left,
the south canyon wall terraced back at perhaps a thousand feet in a
series of magnificent strata, yellow, purple and crimson. Still south
of this, lifted great weathered buttes and mesas, fortifications of the
gods against time itself. The morning sun had not yet reached the
camp, but it shone warm and vivid on the peaks to the south, burning
through the drifting mists from the river, in colors that thrilled the
heart like music.
Enoch's eyes followed Diana's gesture. "I know," he said, softly.
"It's impossible to express it. I've thought of you and your work so
often, down here. Somehow, though, you do suggest the unattainable in
your pictures. It's what makes them great."
Diana shook her head and turned toward her tent, while Enoch lighted
his pipe and began his never-ending task of bringing in drift wood. He
paused, a log on his shoulder, before Curly, who was squatting beside
his muddy pan.
"Curly," he said, "is that stuff you have on Fowler and Brown,
political, financial, or a matter of personal morals?"
"Personal morals and worse!" grunted Curly. "It's some story!"
Enoch turned away without comment. But the lines between his eyes
deepened.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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