THE TRAIL OF DEATH
The Jornado del Muerto, the desert trail across southern New Mexico and Arizona.
We rode from daybreak; white and hotThe sun beat like a hammer-strokeOn molten iron; the blistered dustRose up in clouds to sere and choke;But on we rode, gray-white as ghosts,Bepowdered with that bitter snow,The stinging breath of alkaliFrom the grim, crusted earth below.Silent, our footsteps scarcely wrungAn echo from the sullen trail;Silent, parched lip and stiffening tongue,We watched the horses fall and fail:Jack’s first; he caught my stirrup strap;—God help me! but I shook him off;Death had not diced for two that dayTo meet him in that Devil’s trough.I flung him back my dry canteen,An ounce at most, weighed drop by dropWith life; he clutched it, drank, and laughed;Hard, hideous—a peal to stopThe strongest heart; then turned and ranWith arms outflung and mad eyes set,Straight on where ’gainst the dun sky’s rimGreen trees stood up, and cool and wetLong silver waves broke on the sand.The cursed mirage! that lures and tauntsThe thirst-scourged lip and tortured sightLike some lost hope that mocking hauntsA dying soul. I tried to call,—The dry words rattled in my throat;And sun and sand and crouching sky—God! How they seemed to glare and gloat!Reeling I caught the saddle-horn;On, on; but now it seemed to beThe spring-house path, and at the wellMy mother stood and beckoned me:The bucket glistened; drip, drip, drip,I heard the water fall and plash;Then keen as Hell the burning windAwoke me with its fiery lash.On, on; what was that bleaching thingAcross the trail? I dared not look;But on—blind, aimless, till the sunCrept grudging past the hills and tookHis curse from off the gasping land.The blessed dusk! my gaunt horse raisedHis head and neighed, and staggered on;And I, with bleeding lips, half-crazed,Laughed out; for just above us there,Rock-caught against a blackened ledgeA little pool; one last hard climb;Full spent we fell upon its hedge—One still forever. Weak I layAnd drank; hot hands and temples laved:Jack gone, alas! the horses dead;But night and water—I was saved!