The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey (best books to read for self development txt) đ
- Author: Zane Grey
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âYou are twenty-six years old, Carley,â retorted Aunt Mary.
âSuppose I am. Iâm as youngâas I ever was.â
âWell, letâs not argue about modern girls and modern times. We never get anywhere,â returned her aunt, kindly. âBut I can tell you something of what Glenn Kilbourne means in that letterâif you want to hear it.â
âI doâindeed.â
âThe war did something horrible to Glenn aside from wrecking his health. Shell-shock, they said! I donât understand that. Out of his mind, they said! But that never was true. Glenn was as sane as I am, and, my dear, thatâs pretty sane, Iâll have you remember. But he must have suffered some terrible blight to his spiritâsome blunting of his soul. For months after he returned he walked as one in a trance. Then came a change. He grew restless. Perhaps that change was for the better. At least it showed heâd roused. Glenn saw you and your friends and the life you lead, and all the present, with eyes from which the scales had dropped. He saw what was wrong. He never said so to me, but I knew it. It wasnât only to get well that he went West. It was to get away⊠. And, Carley Burch, if your happiness depends on him you had better be up and doingâor youâll lose him!â
âAunt Mary!â gasped Carley.
âI mean it. That letter shows how near he came to the Valley of the Shadowâand how he has become a man⊠. If I were you Iâd go out West. Surely there must be a place where it would be all right for you to stay.â
âOh, yes,â replied Carley, eagerly. âGlenn wrote me there was a lodge where people went in nice weatherâright down in the canyon not far from his place. Then, of course, the townâFlagstaffâisnât far⊠. Aunt Mary, I think Iâll go.â
âI would. Youâre certainly wasting your time here.â
âBut I could only go for a visit,â rejoined Carley, thoughtfully. âA month, perhaps six weeks, if I could stand it.â
âSeems to me if you can stand New York you could stand that place,â said Aunt Mary, dryly.
âThe idea of staying away from New York any length of timeâwhy, I couldnât do it I ⊠But I can stay out there long enough to bring Glenn back with me.â
âThat may take you longer than you think,â replied her aunt, with a gleam in her shrewd eyes. âIf you want my advice you will surprise Glenn. Donât write himâdonât give him a chance toâwell to suggest courteously that youâd better not come just yet. I donât like his words âjust yet.ââ
âAuntie, youâreâratherâmore than blunt,â said Carley, divided between resentment and amaze. âGlenn would be simply wild to have me come.â
âMaybe he would. Has he ever asked you?â
âNo-oâcome to think of it, he hasnât,â replied Carley, reluctantly. âAunt Mary, you hurt my feelings.â
âWell, child, Iâm glad to learn your feelings are hurt,â returned the aunt. âIâm sure, Carley, that underneath all thisâthis blase ultra something youâve acquired, thereâs a real heart. Only you must hurry and listen to itâorââ
âOr what?â queried Carley.
Aunt Mary shook her gray head sagely. âNever mind what. Carley, Iâd like your idea of the most significant thing in Glennâs letter.â
âWhy, his love for me, of course!â replied Carley.
âNaturally you think that. But I donât. What struck me most were his words, âout of the West.â Carley, youâd do well to ponder over them.â
âI will,â rejoined Carley, positively. âIâll do more. Iâll go out to his wonderful West and see what he meant by them.â
Carley Burch possessed in full degree the prevailing modern craze for speed. She loved a motor-car ride at sixty miles an hour along a smooth, straight road, or, better, on the level seashore of Ormond, where on moonlight nights the white blanched sand seemed to flash toward her. Therefore quite to her taste was the Twentieth Century Limited which was hurtling her on the way to Chicago. The unceasingly smooth and even rush of the train satisfied something in her. An old lady sitting in an adjoining seat with a companion amused Carley by the remark: âI wish we didnât go so fast. People nowadays havenât time to draw a comfortable breath. Suppose we should run off the track!â
Carley had no fear of express trains, or motor cars, or transatlantic liners; in fact, she prided herself in not being afraid of anything. But she wondered if this was not the false courage of association with a crowd. Before this enterprise at hand she could not remember anything she had undertaken alone. Her thrills seemed to be in abeyance to the end of her journey. That night her sleep was permeated with the steady low whirring of the wheels. Once, roused by a jerk, she lay awake in the darkness while the thought came to her that she and all her fellow passengers were really at the mercy of the engineer. Who was he, and did he stand at his throttle keen and vigilant, thinking of the lives intrusted to him? Such thoughts vaguely annoyed Carley, and she dismissed them.
A long half-day wait in Chicago was a tedious preliminary to the second part of her journey. But at last she found herself aboard the California Limited, and went to bed with a relief quite a stranger to her. The glare of the sun under the curtain awakened her. Propped up on her pillows, she looked out at apparently endless green fields or pastures, dotted now and then with little farmhouses and tree-skirted villages. This country, she thought, must be the prairie land she remembered lay west of the Mississippi.
Later, in the dining car, the steward smilingly answered her question: âThis is Kansas, and those green fields out there are the wheat that feeds the nation.â
Carley was not impressed. The color of the short wheat appeared soft and rich, and the boundless fields stretched away monotonously. She had not known there was so much flat land in the world, and she imagined it might be a fine country for automobile roads. When she got back to her seat she drew the blinds down and read her magazines. Then tiring of that, she went back to the observation car. Carley was accustomed to attracting attention, and did not resent it, unless she was annoyed. The train evidently had a full complement of passengers, who, as far as Carley could see, were people not of her station in life. The glare from the many windows, and the rather crass interest of several men, drove her back to her own section. There she discovered that some one had drawn up her window shades. Carley promptly pulled them down and settled herself comfortably. Then she heard a woman speak, not particularly low: âI thought people traveled west to see the country.â And a man replied, rather dryly. âWal, not always.â His companion went on: âIf that girl was mine Iâd let down her skirt.â The man laughed and replied: âMartha, youâre shore behind the times. Look at the pictures in the magazines.â
Such remarks amused Carley, and later she took advantage of an opportunity to notice her neighbors. They appeared a rather quaint old couple, reminding her of the natives of country towns in the Adirondacks. She was not amused, however, when another of her woman neighbors, speaking low, referred to her as a âlunger.â Carley appreciated the fact that she was pale, but she assured herself that there ended any possible resemblance she might have to a consumptive. And she was somewhat pleased to hear this womanâs male companion forcibly voice her own convictions. In fact, he was nothing if not admiring.
Kansas was interminably long to Carley, and she went to sleep before riding out of it. Next morning she found herself looking out at the rough gray and black land of New Mexico. She searched the horizon for mountains, but there did not appear to be any. She received a vague, slow-dawning impression that was hard to define. She did not like the country, though that was not the impression which eluded her. Bare gray flats, low scrub-fringed hills, bleak cliffs, jumble after jumble of rocks, and occasionally a long vista down a valley, somehow compelling-these passed before her gaze until she tired of them. Where was the West Glenn had written about? One thing seemed sure, and it was that every mile of this crude country brought her nearer to him. This recurring thought gave Carley all the pleasure she had felt so far in this endless ride. It struck her that England or France could be dropped down into New Mexico and scarcely noticed.
By and by the sun grew hot, the train wound slowly and creakingly upgrade, the car became full of dust, all of which was disagreeable to Carley. She dozed on her pillow for hours, until she was stirred by a passenger crying out, delightedly: âLook! Indians!â
Carley looked, not without interest. As a child she had read about Indians, and memory returned images both colorful and romantic. From the car window she espied dusty flat barrens, low squat mud houses, and queer-looking little people, children naked or extremely ragged and dirty, women in loose garments with flares of red, and men in white manâs garb, slovenly and motley. All these strange individuals stared apathetically as the train slowly passed.
âIndians,â muttered Carley, incredulously. âWell, if they are the noble red people, my illusions are dispelled.â She did not look out of the window again, not even when the brakeman called out the remarkable name of Albuquerque.
Next day Carleyâs languid attention quickened to the name of Arizona, and to the frowning red walls of rock, and to the vast rolling stretches of cedar-dotted land. Nevertheless, it affronted her. This was no country for people to live in, and so far as she could see it was indeed uninhabited. Her sensations were not, however, limited to sight. She became aware of unfamiliar disturbing little shocks or vibrations in her ear drums, and after that a disagreeable bleeding of the nose. The porter told her this was owing to the altitude. Thus, one thing and another kept Carley most of the time away from the window, so that she really saw very little of the country. From what she had seen she drew the conviction that she had not missed much. At sunset she deliberately gazed out to discover what an Arizona sunset was like just a pale yellow flare! She had seen better than that above the Palisades. Not until reaching Winslow did she realize how near she was to her journeyâs end and that she would arrive at Flagstaff after dark. She grew conscious of nervousness. Suppose Flagstaff were like these other queer little towns!
Not only once, but several times before the train slowed down for her destination did Carley wish she had sent Glenn word to meet her. And when, presently, she found herself standing out in the dark, cold, windy night before a dim-lit railroad station she more than regretted her decision to surprise Glenn. But that was too late and she must make the best of her poor judgment.
Men were passing to and fro on the platform, some of whom appeared to be very dark of skin and eye, and were probably Mexicans. At length an expressman approached Carley, soliciting patronage. He took her bags and, depositing them in a wagon, he pointed up the wide street: âOne block up anâ turn. Hotel Wetherford.â Then he drove off. Carley followed, carrying her small satchel. A cold wind, driving the dust, stung her face as she crossed the street to a high sidewalk that extended along the block. There were lights in the stores and on the corners, yet she seemed impressed by a dark,
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