A fitful breeze played among the mesquite bushes. The naked earth,
where it showed between the clumps of grass, was baked plaster hard. It
burned like hot slag, and except for a panting lizard here and there,
or a dust-gray jack-rabbit, startled from its covert, nothing animate
stirred upon its face. High and motionless in the blinding sky a
buzzard poised; long-tailed Mexican crows among the thorny branches
creaked and whistled, choked and rattled, snored and grunted; a dove
mourned inconsolably, and out of the air issued metallic insect
cries--the direction whence they came as unascertainable as their
source was hidden.
Although the sun was half-way down the west, its glare remained
untempered, and the tantalizing shade of the sparse mesquite was more
of a trial than a comfort to the lone woman who, refusing its deceitful
invitation, plodded steadily over the waste. Stop, indeed, she dared
not. In spite of her fatigue, regardless of the torture from feet and
limbs unused to walking, she must, as she constantly assured herself,
keep going until strength failed. So far, fortunately, she had kept her
head, and she retained sufficient reason to deny the fanciful
apprehensions which clamored for audience. If she once allowed herself
to become panicky, she knew, she would fare worse--far worse--and now,
if ever, she needed all her faculties. Somewhere to the northward,
perhaps a mile, perhaps a league distant, lay the water-hole.
But the country was of a deadly and a deceitful sameness, devoid of
landmarks and lacking well-defined water-courses. The unending mesquite
with its first spring foliage resembled a limitless peach-orchard sown
by some careless and unbelievably prodigal hand. Out of these false
acres occasional knolls and low stony hills lifted themselves so that
one came, now and then, to vantage-points where the eye leaped for
great distances across imperceptible valleys to horizons so far away
that the scattered tree-clumps were blended into an unbroken carpet of
green. To the woman these outlooks were unutterably depressing, merely
serving to reveal the vastness of the desolation about her.
At the crest of such a rise she paused and studied the country
carefully, but without avail. She felt dizzily for the desert bag swung
from her shoulder, only to find it flat and dry; the galvanized
mouthpiece burned her fingers. With a little shock she remembered that
she had done this very thing several times before, and her repeated
forgetting frightened her, since it seemed to show that her mind had
been slightly unbalanced by the heat. That perhaps explained why the
distant horizon swam and wavered so.
In all probability a man situated as she was would have spoken aloud,
in an endeavor to steady himself; but this woman did nothing of the
sort. Seating herself in the densest shade she could find--it was
really no shade at all--she closed her eyes and relaxed--no easy thing
to do in such a stifling temperature and when her throat was aching
with drought.
At length she opened her eyes again, only to find that she could make
out nothing familiar. Undoubtedly she was lost; the water-hole might be
anywhere. She listened tensely, and the very air seemed to listen with
her; the leaves hushed their faint whisperings; a near-by cactus held
its forty fleshy ears alert, while others more distant poised in the
same harkening attitude. It seemed to the woman that a thousand ears
were straining with hers, yet no sound came save only the monotonous
crescendo and diminuendo of those locust-cries coming out of nowhere
and retreating into the voids. At last, as if satisfied, the leaves
began to whisper softly again.
Away to her left lay the yellow flood of the Rio Grande, but the woman,
though tempted to swing in that direction, knew better than to yield.
At least twenty miles of barrens lay between, and she told herself that
she could never cover such a distance. No, the water-hole was nearer;
it must be close at hand. If she could only think a little more
clearly, she could locate it. Once more she tried, as she had tried
many times before, to recall the exact point where she had shot her
horse, and to map in her mind's eye the foot-weary course she had
traveled from that point onward.
Desert travel was nothing new to her, thirst and fatigue were old
acquaintances, yet she could not help wondering if, in spite of her
training, in spite of that inborn sense of direction which she had
prided herself upon sharing with the wild creatures, she were fated to
become a victim of the chaparral. The possibility was remote; death at
this moment seemed as far off as ever--if anything it was too far off.
No, she would find the water-hole somehow; or the unexpected would
happen, as it always did when one was in dire straits. She was too
young and too strong to die yet. Death was not so easily won as this.
Rising, she readjusted the strap of the empty water-bag over her
shoulder and the loose cartridge-belt at her hip, then set her dusty
feet down the slope.
Day died lingeringly. The sun gradually lost its cruelty, but a partial
relief from the heat merely emphasized the traveler's thirst and
muscular distress. Onward she plodded, using her eyes as carefully as
she knew how. She watched the evening flight of the doves, thinking to
guide herself by their course, but she was not shrewd enough to read
the signs correctly. The tracks she found were old, for the most part,
and they led in no particular direction, nowhere uniting into anything
like a trail. She wondered, if she could bring herself to drink the
blood of a jack-rabbit, and if it would quench her thirst. But the
thought was repellent, and, besides, she was not a good shot with a
revolver. Nor did the cactus offer any relief, since it was only just
coming into bloom, and as yet bore no fruit.
The sun had grown red and huge when at last in the hard-baked dirt she
discovered fresh hoof-prints. These seemed to lead along the line in
which she was traveling, and she followed them gladly, encouraged when
they were joined by others, for, although they meandered aimlessly,
they formed something more like a trail than anything she had as yet
seen. Guessing at their general direction, she hurried on, coming
finally into a region where the soil was shallow and scarcely served to
cover the rocky substratum. A low bluff rose on her left, and along its
crest scattered Spanish daggers were raggedly silhouetted against the
sky.
She was in a well-defined path now; she tried to run, but her legs were
heavy; she stumbled a great deal, and her breath made strange,
distressing sounds as it issued from her open lips. Hounding the steep
shoulder of the ridge, she hastened down a declivity into a knot of
scrub-oaks and ebony-trees, then halted, staring ahead of her.
The nakedness of the stony arroyo, the gnarled and stunted thickets,
were softened by the magic of twilight; the air had suddenly cooled;
overhead the empty, flawless sky was deepening swiftly from blue to
purple; the chaparral had awakened and echoed now to the sounds of
life. Nestling in a shallow, flinty bowl was a pool of water, and on
its brink a little fire was burning.
It was a tiny fire, overhung with a blackened pot; the odor of
greasewood and mesquite smoke was sharp. A man, rising swiftly to his
feet at the first sound, was staring at the new-comer; he was as alert
as any wild thing. But the woman scarcely heeded him. She staggered
directly toward the pond, seeing nothing after the first glance except
the water. She would have flung herself full length upon the edge, but
the man stepped forward and stayed her, then placed a tin cup in her
hand. She mumbled something in answer to his greeting and the hoarse,
raven-like croak in her voice startled her; then she drank, with
trembling eagerness, drenching the front of her dress. The water was
warm, but it was clean and delicious.
"Easy now. Take your time," said the man, as he refilled the cup. "It
won't give out."
She knelt and wet her face and neck; the sensation was so grateful that
she was tempted to fling herself bodily into the pool. The man was
still talking, but she took no heed of what he said. Then at last she
sank back, her feet curled under her, her body sagging, her head
drooping. She felt the stranger's hands beneath her arms, felt herself
lifted to a more comfortable position. Without asking permission, the
stranger unlaced first one, then the other of her dusty boots, seeming
not to notice her weak attempt at resistance. Once he had placed her
bare feet in the water, she forgot her resentment in the intense relief.
The man left her seated in a collapsed, semi-conscious state, and went
back to his fire. For the time she was too tired to do more than refill
the drinking-cup occasionally, or to wet her face and arms, but as her
pores drank greedily her exhaustion lessened and her vitality returned.
It was dark when for the first time she turned her head toward the
camp-fire and stared curiously at the figure there. The appetizing odor
of broiling bacon had drawn her attention, and as if no move went
unnoticed the man said, without lifting his eyes:
"Let 'em soak! Supper'll be ready directly. How'd you like your
eggs--if we had any?"
Evidently he expected no reply, for after a chuckle he began to whistle
softly, in a peculiarly clear and liquid tone, almost like some
bird-call. He had spoken with an unmistakable Texas drawl; the woman
put him down at once for a cowboy. She settled her back against a
boulder and rested.
The pool had become black and mysterious, the sky was studded with
stars when he called her, and she laboriously drew on her stockings and
boots. Well back from the fire he had arranged a seat for her, using a
saddle-blanket for a covering, and upon this she lowered herself
stiffly. As she did so she took fuller notice of the man, and found his
appearance reassuring.
"I suppose you wonder how I--happen to be here," she said.
"Now don't talk 'til you're rested, miss. This coffee is strong enough
to walk on its hands, and I reckon about two cups of it'll rastle you
into shape." As she raised the tin mug to her lips he waved a hand and
smiled. "Drink hearty!" He set a plate of bread and bacon in her lap,
then opened a glass jar of jam. "Here's the dulces. I've got a sort of
sweet tooth in my head. I reckon you'll have to make out with this,
'cause I rode in too late to rustle any fresh meat, and the
delivery-wagon won't be 'round before morning." So saying, he withdrew
to the fire.
The woman ate and drank slowly. She was too tired to be hungry, and
meanwhile the young man squatted upon his heels and watched her through
the smoke from a husk cigarette. It was perhaps fortunate for her peace
of mind that she could not correctly interpret his expression, for had
she been able to do so she would have realized something of the turmoil
into which her presence had thrown him. He was accustomed to meeting
men in unexpected places--even in the desert's isolation--but to have a
night camp in the chaparral invaded by a young and unescorted woman, to
have a foot-sore goddess stumble out of the dark and collapse into his
arms, was a unique experience and one calculated to disturb a person of
his solitary habits.
"Have you had your supper?" she finally inquired.
"Who, me? Oh, I'll eat with the help." He smiled, and when his flashing
teeth showed white against his leathery tan the woman decided he was
not at all bad-looking. He was very tall and quite lean, with the long
legs of a horseman--this latter feature accentuated by his high-heeled
boots and by the short canvas cowboy coat that reached only to his
cartridge-belt. His features she could not well make out, for the fire
was little more than a bed of coals, and he fed it, Indian-like, with a
twig or two at a time.
"I beg your pardon. I'm selfish." She extended her cup and plate as an
invitation for him to share their contents. "Please eat with me."