Hidden Water

“You go up first,” she suggested, and when he had scaled the slippery height and turned he found her close behind, following carefully in his steps.

“Well, you are a climber!” he cried admiringly. “Here, give me your hand.” And when he had helped her up he still held it–or perhaps she clung to his.

Before them lay a little glade, shut in by painted rocks, upon whose black sides were engraved many curious pictures, the mystic symbols of the Indians; and as they stood gazing at it an eagle with pointed wings wheeled slowly above them, gazing with clear eyes down into the sunlit vale. From her round nest in the crotch of a sycamore a great horned owl plunged out at their approach and glided noiselessly away; and in the stillness the zooning of bees among the rocks came to their ears like distant music. Beneath their feet the grass grew long and matted, shot here and there with the blue and gold of flowers, like the rich meadows of the East; and clustering along the hillsides, great bunches of grama grass waved their plumes proudly, the last remnant of all that world of feed which had clothed the land like a garment before the days of the sheep. For here, at least, there came no nibbling wethers, nor starving cattle; and the mountain sheep which had browsed there in the old days were now hiding on the topmost crags of the Superstitions to escape the rifles of the destroyers. All the world without was laid waste and trampled by hurrying feet, but the garden of Hidden Water was still kept inviolate, a secret shrine consecrated to Nature and Nature’s God.

As she stood in the presence of all its beauty a mist came into Lucy’s eyes and she turned away.

“Oh, Rufus,” she cried, “why don’t you live up here always instead of wasting your life in that awful struggle with the sheep? You could–why, you could do anything up here!”

“Yes,” assented Hardy, “it is a beautiful spot–I often come up here when I am weary with it all–but a man must do a man’s work, you know; and my work is with the sheep. When I first came to Hidden Water I knew nothing of the sheep. I thought the little lambs were pretty; the ewes were mothers, the herders human beings. I tried to be friends with them, to keep the peace and abide by the law; but now that I’ve come to know them I agree with Jeff, who has been fighting them for twenty years. There is something about the smell of sheep which robs men of their humanity; they become greedy and avaricious; the more they make the more they want. Of all the sheepmen that I know there isn’t one who would go around me out of friendship or pity–and I have done favors for them all. But they’re no friends of mine now,” he added ominously. “I have to respect my friends, and I can’t respect a man who is all hog. There’s no pretence on either side now, though–they’re trying to sheep us out and we are trying to fight them off, and if it ever comes to a show-down–well–”

He paused, and his eyes glowed with a strange light.

“You know I haven’t very much to live for, Miss Lucy,” he said earnestly, “but if I had all that God could give me I’d stand by Jeff against the sheep. It’s all right to be a poet or an artist, a lover of truth and beauty, and all that, but if a man won’t stand up for his friends when they’re in trouble he’s a kind of closet philosopher that shrinks from all the realities of life–a poor, puny creature, at the best.”

He stood up very straight as he poured out this torrent of words, gazing at her intently, but with his eyes set, as if he beheld some vision. Yet whether it was of himself and Jeff, fighting their hopeless battle against the sheep, or of his life as it might have been if Kitty had been as gentle with him as this woman by his side, there was no telling. His old habit of reticence fell back upon him as suddenly as it had been cast aside, and he led the way up the little stream in silence. As he walked, the ardor of his passion cooled, and he began to point out things with his eloquent hands–the minnows, wheeling around in the middle of a glassy pool; a striped bullfrog, squatting within the spray of a waterfall; huge combs of honey, hanging from shelving caverns along the cliff where the wild bees had stored their plunder for years. At last, as they stood before a drooping elder whose creamy blossoms swayed beneath the weight of bees, he halted and motioned to a shady seat against the cañon wall.

“There are gardens in every desert,” he said, as she sank down upon the grassy bank, “but this is ours.”

They sat for a while, gazing contentedly at the clusters of elder blossoms which hung above them, filling the air with a rich fragrance which was spiced by the tang of sage. A ruby-throated humming-bird flashed suddenly past them and was gone; a red-shafted woodpecker, still more gorgeous in his scarlet plumage, descended in uneven flights from the sahuaros that clung against the cliff and, fastening upon a hollow tree, set up a mysterious rapping.

“He is hunting for grubs,” explained Hardy. “Does that inspire you?”

“Why, no,” answered Lucy, puzzled.

“The Mexicans call him pajaro corazon–páh-hah-ro cor-ah-sóne,” continued the poet. “Does that appeal to your soul?”

“Why, no. What does it mean–woodpecker?”

Hardy smiled. “No,” he said, “a woodpecker with them is called carpintero– carpenter, you understand–because he hammers on trees; but my friend up on the stump yonder is Pajaro Corazon– bird of the heart. I have a poem dedicated to him.” Then, as if to excuse himself from the reading, he hastened on: “Of course, no true poet would commit such a breach–he would write a sonnet to his lady’s eyebrow, a poem in memory of a broken dream, or some sad lament for Love, which has died simultaneously with his own blasted hopes. But a sense of my own unimportance has saved me–or the world, at any rate–from such laments. Pajaro Corazon and Chupa Rosa, a little humming-bird who lives in that elder tree, have been my only friends and companions in the muse, until you came. I wouldn’t abuse Chupa Rosa’s confidence by reading my poem to her. Her lover has turned out a worthless fellow and left her–that was him you saw flying past just now, going up the cañon to sport around with the other hummers–but here is my poem to Pajaro Corazon.”

He drew forth his bundle of papers and in a shamefaced way handed one of them to Lucy. It was a slip of yellow note paper, checked along the margin with groups of rhyming words and scansion marks, and in the middle this single verse.

“Pajaro Corazon! Bird of the Heart!
Some knight of honor in those bygone days
Of dreams and gold and quests through desert lands,
Seeing thy blood-red heart flash in the rays
Of setting sun–which lured him far from Spain–
Lifted his face and, reading there a sign
From his dear lady, crossed himself and spake
Then first, the name which still is thine.”

Lucy folded the paper and gazed across at him rapturously.

“Oh, Rufus,” she cried, “why didn’t you send it to me?”

“Is it good?” asked Hardy, forgetting his pose; and when she nodded solemnly he said:

“There is another verse–look on the other side.”

Lucy turned the paper over quickly and read again:

“Pajaro Corazon! Bird of the Heart!
Some Padre, wayworn, stooping towards his grave,
Whom God by devious ways had sent so far,
So far from Spain–still pressing on to save
The souls He loved, now, raising up his eyes
And seeing on thy breast the bleeding heart
Of Jesus, cast his robes aside and spake
Thy name–and set that place apart.”

As she followed the lines Hardy watched her face with eyes that grew strangely soft and gentle. It was Lucy Ware of all the world who understood him. Others laughed, or pitied, or overdid it, or remained unmoved, but Lucy with her trusting blue eyes and broad poet’s brow–a brow which always made him think of Mrs. Browning who was a poet indeed, she always read his heart, in her he could safely trust. And now, when those dear eyes filled up with tears he could have taken her hand, yes, he could have kissed her–if he had not been afraid.

“Rufus,” she said at last, “you are a poet.” And then she dried her eyes and smiled.

“Let me read some more,” she pleaded; but Hardy held the bundle resolutely away.

“No,” he said gently, “it is enough to have pleased you once. You know poetry is like music; it is an expression of thoughts which are more than thoughts. They come up out of the great sea of our inner soul like the breath of flowers from a hidden garden, like the sound of breakers from the ocean cliffs; but not every one can scent their fragrance, and some ears are too dull to hear music in the rush of waters. And when one has caught the music of another’s song then it is best to stop before–before some discord comes. Lucy,” he began, as his soul within him rose up and clamored for it knew not what, “Lucy–”

He paused, and the woman hung upon his lips to catch the words.

“Yes?” she said, but the thought had suddenly left him. It was a great longing–that he knew–a great desire, unsensed because unknown–but deep, deep.

“Yes–Rufus?” she breathed, leaning over; but the light had gone out of his eyes and he gazed at her strangely.

“It is nothing,” he murmured, “nothing. I–I have forgotten what I was going to say.” He sighed, and looked moodily at his feet. “The thoughts of a would-be poet,” he mused, cynically. “How valuable they are–how the world must long for them–when he even forgets them himself! I guess I’d better keep still and let you talk a while,” he ended, absently. But Lucy Ware sat gazing before her in silence.

“Isn’t it time we returned?” she asked, after a while. “You know I have a great deal to do.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Hardy, easily, “I’ll help you. What do you want to do–clean house?”

Lucy could have cried at her hero’s sudden lapse–from Parnassus to the scullery, from love to the commonplaces of living; but she had schooled herself to bear with him, since patience is a woman’s part. Yet her honest blue eyes were not adapted to concealment and, furtively taking note of her distress, Hardy fell into the role of a penitent.

“Is my garden such a poor place,” he inquired gravely, “that you must leave it the moment we have come? You have not even seen Chupa Rosa.”

“Well, show me Chupa Rosa– and then we will go.”

She spoke the words reluctantly, rising slowly to her feet; and Hardy knew that in some hidden way he had hurt her, yet in what regard he could not tell. A vague uneasiness came over him and he tried awkwardly to make amends for his fault, but good intentions never yet crossed a river or healed a breach.

“Here is her nest,” he said, “almost above our seat. Look, Lucy, it is made out of willow down and spider webs, bound round and round the twig. Don’t you want to see the eggs? Look!” He bent the limb until the dainty white treasures, half buried in the fluffy down, were revealed–but still she did not smile.

“Oh, stop, Rufus!” she cried, “what will the mother-bird think? She might be frightened at us and leave her nest. Come, let’s hurry away before she sees us!”

She turned and walked quickly down the valley, never pausing to look back, even when Rufus stopped to pluck a flower from among the rocks.

“Here,” he said, after he had helped her down the Indian stairway; and when she held up her hand, passively, he dropped a forget-me-not into it.

“Oh!” she cried, carried away for a moment, “do they grow down here?”