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The Enchanted Bluff
By Willa Cather
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We had our swim before sundown, and while we were
cooking our supper the oblique rays of light made a
dazzling glare on the white sand about us. The translucent
red ball itself sank behind the brown stretches of corn field as
we sat down to eat, and the warm layer of air that had rested
over the water and our clean sand-bar grew fresher and
smelled of the rank ironweed and sunflowers growing on the
flatter shore. The river was brown and sluggish, like any other
of the half-dozen streams that water the Nebraska corn lands.
On one shore was an irregular line of bald clay bluffs where a
few scrub-oaks with thick trunks and flat, twisted tops threw
light shadows on the long grass. The western shore was low
and level, with corn fields that stretched to the sky-line, and
all along the waters edge were little sandy coves and beaches
where slim cottonwoods and willow saplings flickered.
The turbulence of the river in spring-time discouraged milling,
and, beyond keeping the old red bridge in repair, the
busy farmers did not concern themselves with the stream; so
the Sandtown boys were left in undisputed possession. In the
autumn we hunted quail through the miles of stubble and
fodder land along the flat shore, and, after the winter skating
season was over and the ice had gone out, the spring freshets
and flooded bottoms gave us our great excitement of the year.
The channel was never the same for two successive seasons.
Every spring the swollen stream undermined a bluff to the
east, or bit out a few acres of corn field to the west and
whirled the soil away to deposit it in spumy mud banks somewhere
else. When the water fell low in midsummer, new
sand-bars were thus exposed to dry and whiten in the August
sun. Sometimes these were banked so firmly that the fury of
the next freshet failed to unseat them; the little willow seedlings
emerged triumphantly from the yellow froth, broke into
spring leaf, shot up into summer growth, and with their mesh
of roots bound together the moist sand beneath them against
the batterings of another April. Here and there a cottonwood
soon glittered among them, quivering in the low current of
air that, even on breathless days when the dust hung like
smoke above the wagon road, trembled along the face of the
water.
It was on such an island, in the third summer of its yellow
green, that we built our watch-fire; not in the thicket of dancing
willow wands, but on the level terrace of fine sand which
had been added that spring; a little new bit of world, beautifully
ridged with ripple marks, and strewn with the tiny skeletons
of turtles and fish, all as white and dry as if they had
been expertly cured. We had been careful not to mar the freshness
of the place, although we often swam out to it on summer
evenings and lay on the sand to rest.
This was our last watch-fire of the year, and there were
reasons why I should remember it better than any of the others.
Next week the other boys were to file back to their old
places in the Sandtown High School, but I was to go up to
the Divide to teach my first country school in the Norwegian
district. I was already homesick at the thought of quitting the
boys with whom I had always played; of leaving the river, and
going up into a windy plain that was all windmills and corn
fields and big pastures; where there was nothing wilful or unmanageable
in the landscape, no new islands, and no chance
of unfamiliar birdssuch as often followed the watercourses.
Other boys came and went and used the river for fishing or
skating, but we six were sworn to the spirit of the stream, and
we were friends mainly because of the river. There were the
two Hassler boys, Fritz and Otto, sons of the little German
tailor. They were the youngest of us; ragged boys of ten and
twelve, with sunburned hair, weather-stained faces, and pale
blue eyes. Otto, the elder, was the best mathematician in
school, and clever at his books, but he always dropped out in
the spring term as if the river could not get on without him.
He and Fritz caught the fat, horned catfish and sold them
about the town, and they lived so much in the water that they
were as brown and sandy as the river itself.
There was Percy Pound, a fat, freckled boy with chubby
cheeks, who took half a dozen boys story-papers and was always
being kept in for reading detective stories behind his
desk. There was Tip Smith, destined by his freckles and red
hair to be the buffoon in all our games, though he walked like
a timid little old man and had a funny, cracked laugh. Tip
worked hard in his fathers grocery store every afternoon, and
swept it out before school in the morning. Even his recreations
were laborious. He collected cigarette cards and tin
tobacco-tags indefatigably, and would sit for hours humped
up over a snarling little scroll-saw which he kept in his attic.
His dearest possessions were some little pill-bottles that purported
to contain grains of wheat from the Holy Land, water
from the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and earth from the Mount
of Olives. His father had bought these dull things from a
Baptist missionary who peddled them, and Tip seemed to derive
great satisfaction from their remote origin.
The tall boy was Arthur Adams. He had fine hazel eyes that
were almost too reflective and sympathetic for a boy, and
such a pleasant voice that we all loved to hear him read aloud.
Even when he had to read poetry aloud at school, no one ever
thought of laughing. To be sure, he was not at school very
much of the time. He was seventeen and should have finished
the High School the year before, but he was always off somewhere
with his gun. Arthurs mother was dead, and his
father, who was feverishly absorbed in promoting schemes,
wanted to send the boy away to school and get him off his
hands; but Arthur always begged off for another year and
promised to study. I remember him as a tall, brown boy with
an intelligent face, always lounging among a lot of us little
fellows, laughing at us oftener than with us, but such a soft,
satisfied laugh that we felt rather flattered when we provoked
it. In after-years people said that Arthur had been given to
evil ways even as a lad, and it is true that we often saw him
with the gamblers sons and with old Spanish Fannys boy,
but if he learned anything ugly in their company he never
betrayed it to us. We would have followed Arthur anywhere,
and I am bound to say that he led us into no worse places
than the cattail marshes and the stubble fields. These, then,
were the boys who camped with me that summer night upon
the sand-bar.
After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for
driftwood. By the time we had collected enough, night had
fallen, and the pungent, weedy smell from the shore increased
with the coolness. We threw ourselves down about the fire
and made another futile effort to show Percy Pound the Little
Dipper. We had tried it often before, but he could never be
got past the big one.
You see those three big stars just below the handle, with
the bright one in the middle? said Otto Hassler; thats
Orions belt, and the bright one is the clasp. I crawled behind
Ottos shoulder and sighted up his arm to the star that
seemed perched upon the tip of his steady forefinger. The
Hassler boys did seine-fishing at night, and they knew a good
many stars.
Percy gave up the Little Dipper and lay back on the sand,
his hands clasped under his head. I can see the North Star,
he announced, contentedly, pointing toward it with his big
toe. Any one might get lost and need to know that.
We all looked up at it.
How do you suppose Columbus felt when his compass
didnt point north any more? Tip asked.
Otto shook his head. My father says that there was another
North Star once, and that maybe this one wont last
always. I wonder what would happen to us down here if anything
went wrong with it?
Arthur chuckled. I wouldnt worry, Ott. Nothings apt to
happen to it in your time. Look at the Milky Way! There
must be lots of good dead Indians.
We lay back and looked, meditating, at the dark cover
of the world. The gurgle of the water had become heavier.
We had often noticed a mutinous, complaining note in it at
night, quite different from its cheerful daytime chuckle, and
seeming like the voice of a much deeper and more powerful
stream. Our water had always these two moods: the one of
sunny complaisance, the other of inconsolable, passionate
regret.
Queer how the stars are all in sort of diagrams, remarked
Otto. You could do most any proposition in geometry with
em. They always look as if they meant something. Some folks
say everybodys fortune is all written out in the stars, dont
they?
They believe so in the old country, Fritz affirmed.
But Arthur only laughed at him. Youre thinking of Napoleon,
Fritzey. He had a star that went out when he began to
lose battles. I guess the stars dont keep any close tally on
Sandtown folks.
We were speculating on how many times we could count a
hundred before the evening star went down behind the corn
fields, when some one cried, There comes the moon, and its
as big as a cart wheel!
We all jumped up to greet it as it swam over the bluffs
behind us. It came up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous,
barbaric thing, red as an angry heathen god.
When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to
sacrifice their prisoners on the temple top, Percy announced.
Go on, Perce. You got that out of Golden Days. Do you
believe that, Arthur? I appealed.
Arthur answered, quite seriously: Like as not. The moon
was one of their gods. When my father was in Mexico City he
saw the stone where they used to sacrifice their prisoners.
As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked
whether the Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs.
When we once got upon the Mound-Builders we never willingly
got away from them, and we were still conjecturing
when we heard a loud splash in the water.
Must have been a big cat jumping, said Fritz. They do
sometimes. They must see bugs in the dark. Look what a
track the moon makes!
There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where
the current fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold
pieces.
Suppose there ever was any gold hid away in this old
river? Fritz asked. He lay like a little brown Indian, close
to the fire, his chin on his hand and his bare feet in the air.
His brother laughed at him, but Arthur took his suggestion
seriously.
Some of the Spaniards thought there was gold up here
somewhere. Seven cities chuck full of gold, they had it, and
Coronado and his men came up to hunt it. The Spaniards
were all over this country once.
Percy looked interested. Was that before the Mormons
went through?
We all laughed at this.
Long enough before. Before the Pilgrim Fathers, Perce.
Maybe they came along this very river. They always followed
the watercourses.
I wonder where this river really does begin? Tip mused.
That was an old and a favorite mystery which the map did not
clearly explain. On the map the little black line stopped somewhere
in western Kansas; but since rivers generally rose in
mountains, it was only reasonable to suppose that ours came
from the Rockies. Its destination, we knew, was the Missouri,
and the Hassler boys always maintained that we could embark
at Sandtown in flood-time, follow our noses, and eventually
arrive at New Orleans. Now they took up their old argument.
If us boys had grit enough to try it, it wouldnt take no time
to get to Kansas City and St. Joe.
We began to talk about the places we wanted to go to. The
Hassler boys wanted to see the stock-yards in Kansas City,
and Percy wanted to see a big store in Chicago. Arthur was
interlocutor and did not betray himself.
Now its your turn, Tip.
Tip rolled over on his elbow and poked the fire, and his
eyes looked shyly out of his queer, tight little face. My place
is awful far away. My uncle Bill told me about it.
Tips Uncle Bill was a wanderer, bitten with mining fever,
who had drifted into Sandtown with a broken arm, and when
it was well had drifted out again.
Where is it?
Aw, its down in New Mexico somewheres. There arent
no railroads or anything. You have to go on mules, and you
run out of water before you get there and have to drink
canned tomatoes.
Well, go on, kid. Whats it like when you do get there?
Tip sat up and excitedly began his story.
Theres a big red rock there that goes right up out of
the sand for about nine hundred feet. The countrys flat all
around it, and this here rock goes up all by itself, like a monument.
They call it the Enchanted Bluff down there, because
no white man has ever been on top of it. The sides are
smooth rock, and straight up, like a wall. The Indians say that
hundreds of years ago, before the Spaniards came, there was a
village away up there in the air. The tribe that lived there had
some sort of steps, made out of wood and bark, hung down
over the face of the bluff, and the braves went down to hunt
and carried water up in big jars swung on their backs. They
kept a big supply of water and dried meat up there, and never
went down except to hunt. They were a peaceful tribe that
made cloth and pottery, and they went up there to get out of
the wars. You see, they could pick off any war party that tried
to get up their little steps. The Indians say they were a handsome
people, and they had some sort of a queer religion.
Uncle Bill thinks they were Cliff-Dwellers who had got into
trouble and left home. They werent fighters, anyhow.
One time the braves were down hunting and an awful
storm came upa kind of waterspoutand when they got
back to their rock they found their little staircase had been all
broken to pieces, and only a few steps were left hanging away
up in the air. While they were camped at the foot of the rock,
wondering what to do, a war party from the north came
along and massacred em to a man, with all the old folks and
women looking on from the rock. Then the war party went
on south and left the village to get down the best way they
could. Of course they never got down. They starved to death
up there, and when the war party came back on their way
north, they could hear the children crying from the edge of
the bluff where they had crawled out, but they didnt see a
sign of a grown Indian, and nobody has ever been up there
since.
We exclaimed at this dolorous legend and sat up.
There couldnt have been many people up there, Percy
demurred. How big is the top, Tip?
Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the rock doesnt look
nearly as tall as it is. The tops bigger than the base. The bluff
is sort of worn away for several hundred feet up. Thats one
reason its so hard to climb.
I asked how the Indians got up, in the first place.
Nobody knows how they got up or when. A hunting
party came along once and saw that there was a town up
there, and that was all.
Otto rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. Of course
there must be some way to get up there. Couldnt people get
a rope over someway and pull a ladder up?
Tips little eyes were shining with excitement. I know a
way. Me and Uncle Bill talked it all over. Theres a kind of
rocket that would take a rope overlife-savers use emand
then you could hoist a rope-ladder and peg it down at the
bottom and make it tight with guy-ropes on the other side.
Im going to climb that there bluff, and Ive got it all planned
out.
Fritz asked what he expected to find when he got up there.
Bones, maybe, or the ruins of their town, or pottery, or
some of their idols. There might be most anything up there.
Anyhow, I want to see.
Sure nobody else has been up there, Tip? Arthur asked.
Dead sure. Hardly anybody ever goes down there. Some
hunters tried to cut steps in the rock once, but they didnt get
higher than a man can reach. The Bluffs all red granite, and
Uncle Bill thinks its a boulder the glaciers left. Its a queer
place, anyhow. Nothing but cactus and desert for hundreds of
miles, and yet right under the bluff theres good water and
plenty of grass. Thats why the bison used to go down there.
Suddenly we heard a scream above our fire, and jumped up
to see a dark, slim bird floating southward far above usa
whooping-crane, we knew by her cry and her long neck. We
ran to the edge of the island, hoping we might see her alight,
but she wavered southward along the rivercourse until we lost
her. The Hassler boys declared that by the look of the heavens
it must be after midnight, so we threw more wood on our
fire, put on our jackets, and curled down in the warm sand.
Several of us pretended to doze, but I fancy we were really
thinking about Tips Bluff and the extinct people. Over in the
wood the ring-doves were calling mournfully to one another,
and once we heard a dog bark, far away. Somebody getting
into old Tommys melon patch, Fritz murmured, sleepily,
but nobody answered him. By and by Percy spoke out of the
shadow.
Say, Tip, when you go down there will you take me with
you?
Maybe.
Suppose one of us beats you down there, Tip?
Whoever gets to the Bluff first has got to promise to tell
the rest of us exactly what he finds, remarked one of the
Hassler boys, and to this we all readily assented.
Somewhat reassured, I dropped off to sleep. I must have
dreamed about a race for the Bluff, for I awoke in a kind of
fear that other people were getting ahead of me and that I
was losing my chance. I sat up in my damp clothes and
looked at the other boys, who lay tumbled in uneasy attitudes
about the dead fire. It was still dark, but the sky was blue
with the last wonderful azure of night. The stars glistened like
crystal globes, and trembled as if they shone through a depth
of clear water. Even as I watched, they began to pale and the
sky brightened. Day came suddenly, almost instantaneously. I
turned for another look at the blue night, and it was gone.
Everywhere the birds began to call, and all manner of little
insects began to chirp and hop about in the willows. A breeze
sprang up from the west and brought the heavy smell of ripened
corn. The boys rolled over and shook themselves. We
stripped and plunged into the river just as the sun came up
over the windy bluffs.
When I came home to Sandtown at Christmas time, we
skated out to our island and talked over the whole project of
the Enchanted Bluff, renewing our resolution to find it.
Although that was twenty years ago, none of us have ever
climbed the Enchanted Bluff. Percy Pound is a stockbroker in
Kansas City and will go nowhere that his red touring-car cannot
carry him. Otto Hassler went on the railroad and lost his
foot braking; after which he and Fritz succeeded their father
as the town tailors.
Arthur sat about the sleepy little town all his lifehe died
before he was twenty-five. The last time I saw him, when I
was home on one of my college vacations, he was sitting in a
steamer-chair under a cottonwood tree in the little yard behind
one of the two Sandtown saloons. He was very untidy
and his hand was not steady, but when he rose, unabashed, to
greet me, his eyes were as clear and warm as ever. When I had
talked with him for an hour and heard him laugh again, I
wondered how it was that when Nature had taken such pains
with a man, from his hands to the arch of his long foot, she
had ever lost him in Sandtown. He joked about Tip Smiths
Bluff, and declared he was going down there just as soon as
the weather got cooler; he thought the Grand Canon might
be worth while, too.
I was perfectly sure when I left him that he would never get
beyond the high plank fence and the comfortable shade of the
cottonwood. And, indeed, it was under that very tree that he
died one summer morning.
Tip Smith still talks about going to New Mexico. He married
a slatternly, unthrifty country girl, has been much tied to
a perambulator, and has grown stooped and gray from irregular
meals and broken sleep. But the worst of his difficulties
are now over, and he has, as he says, come into easy
water. When I was last in Sandtown I walked home with him
late one moonlight night, after he had balanced his cash and
shut up his store. We took the long way around and sat down
on the schoolhouse steps, and between us we quite revived
the romance of the lone red rock and the extinct people. Tip
insists that he still means to go down there, but he thinks
now he will wait until his boy, Bert, is old enough to go with
him. Bert has been let into the story, and thinks of nothing
but the Enchanted Bluff.
Harpers, April 1909
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