The Runaway Papoose/Chapter 4

Moyo could not say now that the cañon was a dark place! The golden sunlight splashed down from the rocky walls and turned the creeping water into flashing jewels; and beautiful colors in the rocks themselves, almost hidden when the light was dim, came out now and danced in the sunshine. Fear thoughts could not live when the sun smiled like this, and Nah-tee did not have any at all. She jumped up from her little ledge and gave a shake to her small skirts.

“What shall we do now, Moyo?” were the words that she said. “I think if we go in the very edge of the water the sand will not be soft.”

“Look there,” said Moyo, and he pointed to the ​place where, just a little while ago, the pony had disappeared around a bend of the cañon. At that place tall sharp rocks reached from the high walls far out into the center of the cañon, and already the water was swirling swiftly around them.

“I saw that place,” he said, “and that was why I stopped here. We could not pass that place, and here the wall is not so steep and we might climb up a little way. No, we cannot go in the edge of the water, we cannot go in the water at all—we can only wait here. Maybe it will not be long—maybe the water will go down before night comes.”

“But I do not want to wait here until night comes, there is no place to sleep here,” said Nah-tee a little impatiently. “The cave place was a better place to wait—and I think I do not want to wait at all.”

“You are little and do not know things,” answered Moyo. “I have seen how the waters do. Before this I have seen them rise, and it is not a bad thing to wait. A worse thing might come if we did not wait.”

“But why do we not climb up?” asked Nah-tee. “What is at the top of this cañon?”

“We cannot climb where there is no place to put our feet,” answered Moyo, but always his eyes were ​searching the rocky wall, and now he began to work his way cautiously away from the little ledge, feeling with fingers and toes for places to hold to. Nah-tee watched him eagerly. The walls of the cañon were almost straight up and down in most places, as if some great giant had taken a huge knife and cut big slices out of the earth, but in other places there were pinnacles and jagged ridges of rock running clear back and up to the tops of the high, brightly colored walls, and in still other places winds and storms had broken off great slabs and dug into the walls with powerful fingers, making shelves and caves and great cracks, and Moyo hoped to find one of these cracks or caves for a shelter until the waters went away, for he had little hope of climbing to the top of the cañon wall, as Nah-tee had suggested. That looked to be quite an impossible thing from here. Not only was it very high and steep, but the top seemed actually to lean forward and to lend no possible hope of a hold for feet or hands. But still he would not stop trying, not ever, until he came to a place where he could not move forward at all. He moved a little farther now—and a little farther—but there did not seem to be any place toward which he was climbing. Not anywhere could he see a ledge ​even as small as the one on which Nah-tee was waiting. But still he kept moving, just a little bit at a time, and Nah-tee watched him breathlessly. It surprised him to see how far away she looked—he had come farther than he had expected; and then he stopped suddenly, and quickly moved on again with more assurance. He had come to a place that led up gradually—a place that was much easier to climb; he did not have to go slowly at all now, he almost ran. It was like a trail. Nah-tee cried out when she saw how quickly he climbed now.

“You go now like a mountain sheep,” she cried. “I want to come up to that place, too.”

“You cannot come over this way if I do not help you,” he cried. “Wait there—this has the look of a place where others have been—maybe it is an animal trail. I will see where it goes,” and there was a sound of excitement in his voice. He remembered now the sound of that falling rock, the one that had frightened the pony. It had come from high in the cañon wall, and this was high in the cañon wall. He would see. It was a very steep climb, but always there was some place to put his hands and his feet, and in a little he saw that the way led through a big crack and he could not see Nah-tee any more.

​“Where are you?” she called. “I cannot see where you have gone. Is it a cave place, Moyo?”

“It is a little like a cave place,” he called back, but he had to call very loud, and the first time she did not hear him. “I will tell you how it is when I come,” he called again, and then he did not call any more, for he knew that she could not hear him. Nah-tee was a little frightened to be left alone like this, but she waited with her eyes always on the place where she had seen Moyo go into the rock—for it looked like that from the place where she was—and almost she held her breath to see if she could hear him again. But there was no sound at all now in all that big place, and she could hear her heart beating as she had heard it in the tree when she was alone in the desert, and she did not like that—it made a very lonely feeling come to her.

“MOYO!” she called with all her strength, but only an echo answered back from the other side of the cañon—very far away it sounded—“Moyo”—and then again as if it were almost a dream-thing—“Moyo” . . .

Nah-tee did not like that at all—and she started to climb over the way Moyo had climbed, but her feet slipped and almost she went down into that ​swirling stream of water that had been sand such a little while ago, and when she slipped she began to tremble so hard that she knew she could not climb anywhere more, and a feeling came into her throat that she knew very well—it was a feeling that did not go away easily unless she could press her little body close into the tight, warm arms of her mother, and, oh, how she did long to do that!

But Moyo was still climbing. Steadily up went that great crack, until he saw, with a jump of his heart, that he was very near to the top of the wall itself—and then he reached it!—that top—and, as he saw over, his heart fell again, ’way down into the toes of bis little buckskin shoes, for he looked over a thin edge of rock down into another cañon almost exactly like the one from which he had just climbed! There were the pinnacles of rock and the splashes of red and blue and yellow and purple where the sun drew out in rich beauty the color of the lime and sandstone and shale, and there was the same flashing stream at the bottom of it, and the caves and cracks and crannies carved by the winds. Only one thing was missing, and that was little Nah-tee on her thin little ledge of rock, waiting for him. “She will want to come up to this place,” he thought a ​little wearily, and then he started back down the way he had come.

Nah-tee had little red spots in her cheeks when he came to her.

“How I am glad you have come back!” she cried, and when he had told her of what he had found she was very greatly excited. “Maybe there will be a good cave in that place,” she said in a happy voice, “and maybe we will find food. Let us go quickly, Moyo.”

It was not easy to get her over the first part of the way, but when they reached the trail part and the crack, it was very easy and Nah-tee could climb as easily as he climbed. And she cried out when she saw down into that other cañon.

“It is much nicer down there,” she cried. “See how there are many cave places, and I can smell the desert from here.” She threw back her head and sniffed, and Moyo looked eagerly over to the other rim of the cañon.

“When the waters go down,” he said, “we will climb up that other side. Maybe the desert is there.”

“I smell camp fires,” went on Nah-tee, “and a stew cooking—it is in a big pot. In my mind I can see that pot, and can you not smell the stew?”

​Moyo gave a sudden sniff, and his eyes grew big, and he leaned over and studied the cañon carefully again.

“Maybe it is because we are very hungry,” he said, and he could not help the little sound of longing that came into his voice.

“Yes, I am very hungry,” said Nah-tee wistfully. “Is there any food in the little bag, Moyo?” Moyo took the bit of cloth that had wrapped their food and showed Nah-tee how it was empty.

“But I will get something,” he said quickly, when he saw the look in her face. “We will find a place to stay down there, and then I will go and look for food. Maybe there are goats. Many times there are goats living in places like this—and goat milk is good.” But inside himself he did not have much hope to find goats, for he had not seen anything alive at all in this cañon. “But where there are sounds,” he thought to himself again, “always a sound is made by something, and this trail has the look of something living,” but whether of man or beast he could not know. In the other cañon it was not so easy to get down as it had been in the first one, and after a while Moyo knew that somewhere they must have missed the trail—this did not seem like a place ​now where anyone had ever been before—but they could not climb back, it was too steep for that.

“I am tired,” said Nah-tee suddenly, after they had been going for what seemed a very, very long time, and she sat down on a flat rock to rest. It made a hurt place to come in Moyo to see how little she looked and how tired and hungry, but he was doing all that he could think to do, and already the sunshine was gone away from the bottom part of the cañon and was creeping steadily up toward the top and turning very rapidly from gold to a dusky red.

“Can you see any cave place?” asked Nah-tee. “Soon it will be night and we cannot sleep on the side of the wall like spiders,” and she tried hard to smile.

“You wait here,” said Moyo, “and I will find a cave place. But do not move while I am gone. If you move maybe I could not find you, or you might fall. Make a promise that you will stay in this very place.”

“I will stay here,” answered Nah-tee, with a nod of her head, “but do not be away long—I think I do not like to stay all by myself in this place for long.”

​“I will be back very soon,” answered Moyo, and already he was scrambling away down the cañon wall. It was a steep place, but there were not very many places where Moyo could not climb—he was very sure of foot—and he felt certain that he would soon find a shelf of rock or a cave: the cañon was full of them. But more than a place of shelter he was now anxious to find food—the inside of him fairly cried out with hunger, and he knew that Nah-tee must feel the same way. But the chances for food did not seem to be very good, and he frowned at the thought; but he did not stop on his downward scramble to the foot of the cañon wall. He was not sure why he went down except he felt that he could search the cañon better from the bottom, and anything alive would be more likely to be down there. Nah-tee watched him as long as she could, but very soon he slipped out of sight behind a place in the rock, and then the sound of his scrambling over the hard surface of the cliff died away and she felt altogether alone again. And it was very quiet now, and the sunlight ​when she opened them again with a start, Moyo was looking at her with a little grin on his face, and the sun had gone away from the cañon rim, and it was almost dark.

“I have found a cave place,” said Moyo, “and we must go before it is altogether dark—but what is this?” and he stared with unbelieving eyes at the rock on which Nah-tee was sitting, and quickly she looked where he was looking. A bowl was there—a good-sized pottery bowl—and it was filled to the very top with a stew of meat that sent forth such a delicious odor that Nah-tee grew dizzy with hunger and closed her eyes for a moment. And beside the bowl, on a little piece of cloth, was laid a great piece of piki bread—plenty for them both.

“Where did that come from?” asked Moyo, and his eyes were almost as big as the bowl itself.

“I do not know,” answered Nah-tee, “but, oh, Moyo, how the smell is good—and see, it is still warm.”

“We will eat it quickly,” said Moyo, and his lips smacked of themselves. “It will be dark before we can reach that cave place, and besides, this may be a magic thing that will not stay long.” Nah-tee did not wait for him to say anything else, and they ​did not think about what would be the polite things to do, but Moyo dipped out with a piece of piki bread the nicest pieces of meat and gave them to Nah-tee, and when the meat was gone they took turns drinking the soup that was left, and never had either of them tasted anything so delicious!

“I feel now that I could go anywhere,” said Moyo, “and it does not matter if we have to wait in the cañon if—if—we get stew like this again.”

Nah-tee gave a little laugh, and she stood up on her tiptoes and looked as far along the wall of the cañon as she could in every direction.

“I give you thanks, maker of very good stew!” she cried—and was it a little chuckle that came back to them in answer? Neither Nah-tee nor Moyo could be quite certain, but it seemed to them that it sounded much like that!