[Minnie S. Snell, The Desert Ghosts, Out West Magazine, April 1907]

 

THE DESERT GHOSTS.

By MINNIE S. SNELL

          I HAD seen them—I could swear I had seen them! Eight hours' sleep had in no wise dulled my recollection, and I knew just how they had looked in the wonderful desert moonlight, as they came across the white sand.

          I had watched their approach until they almost reached the steps of the little porch upon which I sat, and then a strange thing happened. I could smell—yes, unmistakably I could smell—the fragrance of honeysuckle. It seemed to be all about me; the air was heavy with it. Could it be that the forlorn ugly little building, part dwelling and part store, boasted a honeysuckle vine that I had overlooked in my survey that afternoon ? I glanced hastily to the right and to the left ; not so much as a leaf could I discover. Making a mental note of this strange phenomenon for inquiry later, I rose to greet my callers. To my utter bewilderment, they were nowhere to be seen.

          I stared at the rickety steps—the bottom one was broken—at the blank sand stretching emptily into the silence all about me. There was not a spot where they could have hidden themselves in that length of time, and yet they were gone. Where could they be ?

          In my excitement I forgot for the moment my invalid condition, and, jumping up, I ran down the steps and around the building. They were not in sight. Wearily climbing the steps again, I sank rather breathlessly into my chair. Surely I had seen them come across the sand; and, surely, in my moment of inattention, they had not had time to disappear so completely. I hesitated before going in to put the problem before Mr. and Mrs. Kelly. Could the moonlight have so deceived me? Or could it be—after all, could it be that I had been asleep, and was it all only a strangely vivid dream ? Surely my mind was not affected! I jumped up and almost ran into the kitchen.

          Mrs. Kelly was neither young nor comely ; but as she turned a pair of snapping black eyes in my direction, and, with her toil-worn hand, wet as it was from the dish-water, pushed back a lock of straggling and unkempt hair, I realized that in her youth she had possessed more than a fair share of beauty. She had fought a long fight with the desert, and the desert had won. After years of buffeting with sun and wind, she had grown and warped and dun-colored like her poor little house.

          Sam Kelly was as weather-beaten as his wife. Rheumatism had bent and twisted him both as to mind and temper, until it was hard to realize that he could ever have been attractive.

          They stopped their work to listen to my story ; but it was plain

[361]

362    OUT WEST

from their faces that they considered me more than slightly demented. Respect for my good board-money, however, restricted any free expression of their sentiments, and they told me, with what politeness they could summon, that Mrs. Kelly and myself were the only women for miles around. Men frequently stopped on their way to and from the mines ; in fact it was due to the trade of the miners and to its position half way between the mines and the railway, that the little store owed its existence, but of women there were none.

          Mrs. Kelly remarked, with suspicious kindliness, that she would not recommend sitting out in the night-air for a person just recovering from a long illness, and further hinted that my bed was ready. In truth, I think the poor woman found my society embarrassing.

          As I lay on my bed and watched the early morning light shine through the small panes of my window, I mentally grappled with the puzzling thing again. I raised myself on my elbow and peered out. They had come from over toward the west. Not that it made much difference, for it was the same, west or east—or, for the matter of that, north or south ; just sand and rocks and more sand and rocks, and then sand and rocks again until you reached the ragged line of foothills against the horizon.

          The afternoon found me in my chair on the porch, still turning over and over my strange experience of the evening before. The white sand shimmered under the relentless sun, and an occasional gust of furnace-heated air made whirlwinds which raced dizzily along until lost in the white haze over the irregular sky-line. It was not an ideal location for a dwelling, but then the choice of building lots in the desert does not offer the variety of some more favored locations.

          For myself it was well enough, possessing as it did the charm of novelty—and already I felt confident that the air, heated by centuries of tropical sunshine, was beginning its healing effects upon my lungs—but I shuddered as I thought of the woman in the house. She was probably doomed to spend the rest of her life, as she had spent the best part of it, in this blank and dreary spot.

          My mind, however, refused to dwell for long upon any subject other than the strange happening of yester-eve. Upon one point I was determined—I would be on the porch this evening as soon as it was dark, and if they should come again I would not take my eyes from them though the air be heavy with frankincense and myrrh.

          Directly after supper I pulled my little rocking-chair out onto the porch and sat drinking in great draughts of the dry, bracing air, and gazing at the usually distant stars which here in the desert had suddenly grown near and friendly. I had not long to wait. They came as before, moving up the path with no haste and seemingly no purpose. I could see them even more distinctly than I had on the

THE DESERT GHOSTS   363

previous evening, and I caught my breath with a new wonder. Where, where had I seen them both before? Even the girl's movement, as she brushed a curling lock of hair away from her eyes, struck me as strangely familiar. And the man, looking down at her with such evident adoration ? I goaded my memory in a desperate effort, but to no effect.

          They were coming slowly toward me, his arm about her as before, and they made a picture good to look upon, with their strong young bodies and love-wrapt faces. They apparently paid no attention to me, and I noticed that as they drew near the air was again heavy with perfume.

          They stopped at the edge of the porch within two feet of me and I gazed at them, fascinated. They were so close I could have touched the sleeve of the girl's dress—a pink and white polka-dot of calico or some other cheap print. They spoke not a word, but the man reached up, and, breaking off a feathery spray of yellowish-white blossoms, fastened it in his sweetheart's hair. I could smell the pungent odor of the broken stem—and I had supposed there was not a green leaf within sight of the house. Supposed? Even now I could see that the rough posts which held up the roof were as innocent of vine or flower as they were of paint. I lifted my eyes to the ceiling to make sure, doubly sure—and they were gone!

          I think I must have fainted then—I was not strong—but I could not have been unconscious long, and the first sound I heard when I opened my eyes was that of Mr. and Mrs. Kelly bickering in the kitchen. Poor things! It was the way they spent their evenings and seemed to be their only amusement, though I believed they were really fond of one another.

          I dragged myself into my room and dropped upon my bed. The next day I was delirious with fever and Mrs. Kelly was my devoted nurse. I think if it had not been for this relapse of mine I should never have reached the heart of this strange, silent woman; but, as she added the task of caring for me to her already over-burdened strength, she melted somewhat—grew almost to love me, I believe it was when I was convalescing that, with quite surprising loquacity for her, she told me something of her life.

          It was a simple enough story. While she was yet a young girl, her father had come here and "homesteaded" this bit of the desert, because he had supposed the railroad would run through—in fact, he had thought that right here was to be a stopping-place and he planned to ran an eating-house. Then the survey was changed, for some reason locked in the giant minds of those in control, and the railroad went ten miles west. Incidentally, the old man's heart broke. He had made the effort of his life and had failed—he had no ambition to try again. Here he stayed until he died, several years later.

364    OUT WEST

          It was during those few years that the girl had her one short romance. "Sam" was wont to stop on his way down from the mines to buy tobacco from her father, and the youth and maid fell in love with each other with the unthinking abandon of a pair of healthy young animals.

          "Many a time," she said, a faint blush coming over her sallow cheek, "Sam used to come from the mines—they're fifteen miles east of here—just to spend an hour with me of an evenin'. He had to be back early in the mornin' and it meant bein' in the saddle most of the night. Sam was handsome then—you wouldn't think it now," she added, a little defiantly, "but he was ! Of course that was before the rheumatism crippled him—and he didn't drink none then.

          "We used to walk out toward the hills and plan what we'd do when we was married. When we'd get back to the house"— she broke off with a short laugh. "Now, you wouldn't believe we could raise flowers here, would you ? Well, we can—pervidin' we water em ! Why, I had that porch jest covered with honeysuckle. It is on the south, you know, where it is protected a little from the wind. Pa used to begrudge me the water, fer the ground takes it up jest like a sponge, an' we had to pack it, same as we do now ; but I cared a lot how things looked them days and I would have my honeysuckle vine. As I started to say, when we'd get home Sam he'd fasten honeysuckle flowers in my hair." Her eyes grew dreamy as she rambled on. "I had a pink and white polka-dot dress, I mind. It was awful pretty—I was married in it, too. I didn't have many dresses, even them days.

          "Yes, when Pa died, we settled down here. We thought we'd stay till something better turned up and somehow we jest kept staying. Then Sam got to drinking and seemed to lose all his ambition, so we live here yet—and will to the end of the chapter, I suppose." She sighed as she concluded, and pushed a straggling lock of hair away from her eyes.

          I had been so interested in the story that I had forgotten my ghosts for the moment, but the familiar gesture suddenly closed some open circuit on the delicate lines of memory—and I knew.

Los Angeles.