XIII
"WE ARE married, Saxnorthrup! Is it not nice to be married to Yahoya?"
She came into his arms like a bird to its nest, fluttering a little, eager to be there.
"You are my man!" she whispered. "And I am your mana! Oh, but I am proud of you, Saxnorthrup! There is no other man like you in the world! Did I not see you lift up Tiyo and cast him down so that his bones ached? Did I not see you strike Eddie mightily so that he reeled back afraid? I am glad you are no god, but a man, Saxnorthrup. Glad that I am no goddess, but a maid to love as other maids love—but harder!"
Outside, the last of the procession had passed by, the shouting forms had gone down the stairway; men were forgetting them in their eagerness for a test of strength and speed between Tiyo and Muyingwa.
Northrup drew the girl tenderly to him, a little sense of awe upon him now that they were alone together, a little sense of pity for her, a feeling that though Inaa had given her to him, and the tribe had cheered, all was not well. They were forgotten for the moment. But Northrup had not missed the look in Strang's eyes, in Inaa's, in Tiyo's, as they had passed the open door and gone on.
"Yahoya," he said gently, "I love you. Things have a way of happening which I had not expected. I didn't know just what love was, and now I know. I didn't believe in it overmuch, I suppose; and now I know that there is nothing else in the world this morning that counts. If a man looks at you I want to murder him. I am going to try to take you away with me, Yahoya, where you will see other men, better men to look upon than I am. I am going to play square, if I can. And if you find you don't love me after all, that you do love some other man, then"
"Then, Saxnorthrup?" she asked softly.
"I think I'd kill the brute!" said Northrup savagely.
Whereupon Yahoya was vastly delighted.
"You do love me," she told him sagely. "For I feel like that! And," eagerly, "you'll take me into the world of the Bahanas? So that I shall see the wagons running uphill without horses? And great houses that float on the water? And many, many wonderful things?"
Could he do these things? Could he one day take Yahoya to her first opera? Could he take her to marvel at the great spectacular shows of the great cities? Could he be the first to initiate her into a life which would be a veritable wonderland to her? Had his destiny saved this one glorious thing for him to do? Would ever any one in all the world have been so equipped as was Yahoya for enjoyment, for marveling from day to day, from night to night?
He could imagine her little cry of ecstasy when they drove down Broadway the first night, when she saw the lights, the many-colored electric displays above. To her it would be magic. The train upon which they traveled, the women's gowns, the porters in their uniforms, books and pictures and music; dainty things to eat—why, an ice-cream would be a thing of wonder to her. Could he, Sax Northrup, take this maid by the hand and lead her out into the new world?
He remembered Strang's look, Tiyo's and Inaa's, and his brows contracted. Yahoya looked at him wonderingly.
"What is it, Saxnorthrup?" she asked uncertainly. "I have displeased you?"
He laughed at her, drew her even closer to him, kissing the alarmed look out of her eyes.
"I was just thinking, my little wild girl," he told her gaily. "Thinking makes a man's face look like that. I won't do it any more."
So much, loverwise. Then, man-like, he began thinking seriously again. Here was the situation:
He had come here, led by the lure of gold. If he got out at all it seemed that he would go as empty-pocketed as he had come. He thought disparagingly of the thousand dollars he had outside in a bank. He didn't know much about the cost of women's garments, but he had the hazy idea that the sort of gown he wanted Yahoya to wear would cost the greater part of his thousand. And then, how was he going to take her everywhere in the world, give her everything she would be sure to want? She'd be asking for a hundred things every minute at first.
So much for the money end of it. There was still left the greater question—
"Can we get out at all?"
It was almost as if she had read some of his thoughts. She had slipped away from him, running to the door of one of the ante-rooms. Holding aside the curtain there, she said happily,
"This is Yahoya's sleeping-room. Will you see how pretty it is, Saxnorthrup? And the pretty things her people gave her as gifts to the goddess?"
He hesitated at the door a moment, uncertain if he should profane it with his presence. It drew from him a little gasp of admiration and amazement.
There was a couch made cozy with the skins thrown over it. A table, cunningly made of wood so precious here, stood out in the center of the little room, a square of snow-white buckskin thrown over it. Upon the table was a vase with pale-blue flowers. And the vase itself was of solid gold, skilfully hammered.
Upon the floor, arranged about the walls, were countless cups and vases, tiny jugs, belts, forehead bands, moccasin ornaments, jeweled bracelets—all of solid gold, many set with flawless turquoises.
"All presents to Yahoya," she smiled at him. "You see, Saxnorthrup, Yahoya was a goddess and a great lady before she gave herself away to you! And presently, after Tiyo and Muyingwa race, there will be more presents. For me, the bride, and for you, the bridegroom, Saxnorthrup."
She made herself comfortable upon one end of her couch, drew up her feet under her, gathered her knees into her arms and dimpled over them at Northrup.
"No wonder Strang counts himself a millionaire," thought Northrup. "And small chance that he will let us get away if he knows the way to stop us."
And to Yahoya he said slowly:
"Do you know—Mrs. Sax Northrup—" she laughed delightedly and blushed becomingly at the new name which she interrupted him by saying over softly to herself—"you are a disgracefully rich young woman?"
"Oh," she laughed, "this is nothing! In each of the Seven Cities Yahoya has a house"
"Seven Cities!" broke in Northrup quickly. "What Seven Cities, Yahoya?"
She lifted her brows at him in surprise.
"You do not know then? This is but one of the Seven Cities of Chebo, the smallest, where Yahoya has come but seldom for the Festival of Silence. The others have many people and big houses in the cliffs, with wide stairways up and down, and hundreds of rooms. And in each is a great house with five, six, nine rooms, all belonging to Yahoya. Here I bring but two maids; there I have many to dress my hair, to bathe me, to do little things for me that I do not wish to do. There I have many golden things: a table all of gold, with many turquoises; a little bed with golden feet; white furs to walk on; a chair to ride in, heavy with gold, that strong men carry. You shall see, Saxnorthrup! And you shall know that Yahoya does not come to her lover with empty hands!"
Nayangap and Tocha came in to serve them a breakfast of milk and little corn-meal cakes in Yahoya's room, and until they had gone, taking their trays away with them, Northrup listened eagerly to what Yahoya had to tell him. And, in brief, this is what he learned:
The Seven Cities of Chebo controlled a district, perhaps two hundred miles across. There were rich valleys, hidden in the mountains, where they grew their melons and corn and cotton. There were mines from which they took vast quantities of gold and silver, fashioning ornaments and table service for the rich.
A young man was overlord of the Seven Cities, having been elected to hold office for life. He had turned his eyes upon Yahoya, but since he had already two wives, the priests, very powerful throughout the district, had forbidden him wedding her.
In order that white men might not come into a country which nature had so cunningly hidden from them, there were stationed out through the desert, upon any of the water-trails, sentinels who signaled by fire or smoke when a man came into sight. Generally these were the older folk, men and women, useless to the state for other purposes, who believed that thus they would be pleasing their gods, and who considered it a high honor to be chosen for so responsible a task.
So if a white man had turned toward the Seven Cities, he might not come within fifty miles of the nearest of them when he was met by runners sent out to intercept him. A friendly greeting, a sharp knife from the back, and one more name stricken from the list of adventurers. Or, if men were needed in the mines, a living death. Besides the outposts, there were lookouts upon the cliff-tops, alert, keen-eyed men, who did not miss the slinking form of a gray coyote upon the gray sands.
Northrup thought swiftly of the sandstorm, of his lying so long blotted out from sight against the drifting sand; of how when he had at last come on, it was night, and the lookouts had perhaps come down to take part in the Festival of Silence.
"If you did not know of the Seven Cities," Yahoya asked him, "how is it that you came journeying this way, Saxnorthrup?"
He began telling her of the Indian in Santa Fé, only to be interrupted by Yahoya saying quickly—
"You were with Eddie then, when the runner died?"
"Yes. Strang has told you about that?"
"No," she answered. "He always lied to me, not knowing that I knew he lied. He said that in his heart he dreamed a dream of me, and that that brought him across the sands, hurrying!"
Northrup grunted. Then, moved to curiosity he demanded—
"If Strang didn't tell you of it, how do you know?"
"Tiyo told me," she answered, puzzling him still more.
"Tiyo? Who told Tiyo?"
"He was there. It was Tiyo who shot the poisoned arrow in at the window."
"Tiyo went way down to Santa Fé, killed his man, and came back here?"
She nodded.
"The other was Chiwakala, son of the old man that Strang would make head priest in the place of Inaa. Chiwakala was a friend of Kish-taka, the Hawk Man, who is overlord of the Seven Cities, and not without power himself. Between him and Tiyo there has always been rivalry and hatred. Kish-taka sought to make him head captain of the youths of the Hidden Spring. But even Kish-taka's power was less in this matter than Inaa's, and so Tiyo was elected.
"Chiwakala was bad in his heart, nukpana. People said he was a Powaka, who casts evil and sickness into men. It was Tiyo's doing that Chiwakala was condemned to spend all his life down in a mine where bad men and women are put, and those that Kish-taka or the priests do not like. Then Chiwakala, who was a great runner like Tiyo and Muyingwa, fled, having in his heart to go out among the Bahana and, because he hated Tiyo and others, to send certain of the Bahanas into our land, telling them of riches to be had.
"Chiwakala went swiftly, but Tiyo went after him, also swiftly. Chiwakala, coming first among the Bahanas, had told his story, and men laughed at him, calling him liar. Then, in Santa Fé, he was to tell a man who is known among the Bahanas as a hardy adventurer. There Tiyo came up with him, and, shooting quickly through the open window a little blue-winged arrow with poison tip, killed him. Then Tiyo came back, and even Kish-taka, who had befriended Chiwakala, said that he had been nukpana, and that Tiyo had done well for the people of the Seven Cities."
From Santa Fé, Northrup estimated roughly that he had traversed some four hundred miles in coming here. A round trip of eight hundred miles! And yet Yahoya spoke of the matter lightly, as if Tiyo had run but a little way.
"How long was Tiyo gone?" he asked curiously.
"From the moonrise when he departed until the dawning when he dropped down before me," she answered, "twenty days had passed!"
"Twenty days!" gasped Northrup.
"Oh," she said quickly, misunderstanding his thought, "it was because he lost time in seeking out Chiwakala among the white men. Tiyo would have come back sooner but for that."
Eight hundred miles in twenty days! And Yahoya was apologizing for Tiyo's slowness! A clip of over forty miles a day, day in and day out, over such country as Northrup knew stretched between these people and Santa Fé! It was incredible—and yet it was the sober truth. For here are a people not like other men, a people with a strange, seemingly tireless power and swiftness, that is the result of desert training, inheritance, evolution, all aided by the religious ceremonies calling for an abnormally developed physique. The desert had made creatures like the coyote, the snake, the jackrabbit that knew how to live a very long time without water. The desert had made its own plant life to exist and flourish where water was not. The desert had made its men.
Even now that a great issue held in balance, that issue was to be decided by such a race as perhaps no white man had ever seen. Tiyo and Muyingwa, down in the cañon were ready.
"Shall we go out upon the cliff edge and watch them?" said Northrup. "I think that very much depends on this race—for you and me, Yahoya!"