The Heart of the Desert (Kut-Le of the Desert)Morrow, Honoré
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The Heart of the Desert (Kut-Le of the Desert)
Morrow, Honoré
Indians of North America -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction; Love stories; Western stories
Rhoda swung her blanket to her shoulders, for the night was stinging
sharp. She was not afraid. She had grown so accustomed to the night
trail that she moved unhesitatingly along black rims that had at first
paralyzed her with fear.
"Now," said Kut-le, "I'm not going to travel on foot. The only horses
within easy distance are some that a bunch of Navajos have in the canon
below here. So we will go down and get them. We will go together
because I can't risk coming back for you. We will have to hike
_pronto_ after we get 'em. Just remember that you are contaminated by
the company you are keeping and that if you make any noise, the Navajos
will shoot you up, with the rest of us! Keep right behind me."
The little group moved carefully down the canon trail. In a short time
they reached a growth of trees. They stole through these, the only
sound Rhoda's panting breaths. Suddenly Kut-le stopped.
"Wait here!" he breathed in Rhoda's ear, and he and Alchise disappeared.
A hand was laid on her arm and Rhoda knew that Molly and Cesca were
guarding her. Almost immediately the soft thud of hoofs was upon them.
Kut-le seized Rhoda and tossed her to a pony's back.
"It was dead easy!" he whispered. "They were all asleep! I even took
a saddle for you! Now hike!"
Rhoda gripped her pony with her knees as the little fellow cantered
unerringly through the darkness after Kut-le. She felt a sudden pride
and exultation in the security she had developed in the saddle during
the travail of her night rides. She knew that no man of her
acquaintance could ride a horse as she could now. And with the
exultation she was trembling with excitement. She knew that none of
them could expect mercy if the Navajos discovered their loss in time to
take up the chase. All the eagerness of the gambler who stakes his
life on a throw of the dice; all the wild thrill of the chase; all the
trembling of the panting, woodland things that hunt and are hunted,
were Rhoda's as the night wind rushed past her face. The apathy of
illness was gone. Tonight she was as wild a thing as the night's birds
that brushed across their trail on sweeping wing.
When they made camp at dawn Rhoda tumbled into her blanket and was
asleep before Alchise finished covering their trail. When she woke she
found that they were camped in a strange eerie. They were high up on a
mountain on a shelf that gave back into a shallow cave. In front,
facing the desert, was a heap of rock that formed a natural rampart. A
tiny spring bubbled from the cave floor. Here the little party would
seem as secure in their dizzy seclusion as eagles of the Andes.
It was barely noon and the mountain air was sweet and exhilarating.
Kut-le sat against the rampart, smoking a cigarette, while Molly and
Cesca worked over the fire. Rhoda lunched on the tortillas to which
Molly had clung through all the vicissitudes of flight.
"Where are the horses?" she asked Kut-le.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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