WHAT BECAME OF RAQUEL
Where was Raquel? When she realized, as Paintbrush raced through the
darkness, that she had outdistanced not only the _teniente_ but Georgie
also, she stopped and gathered the flimsy skirts tightly about her waist
so that they would no longer terrify the pinto. Making a wide circle,
she returned in the direction from which she had fled.
But in the dark she could not find her way, and after an hour she came
to the bank of the river that flows west of Moctezuma. Here in the trees
she was forced to hide till daylight. As soon as she could see she
changed back into her boy’s clothes, having discovered the bundle which
Georgie had thrust into the saddle bag.
Alas, when morning actually came she found she was north of the town,
and could not go back again, for a cordon of soldiers rode back and
forth across the outskirts all day.
She was hungry and thought thankfully of the lunches she had providently
packed in both Georgie’s and her own saddle bags the afternoon before.
Her saddle bag now looked curiously lumpy. “Mom’s sterno,” she thought
ruefully. But investigation brought to light some delicacies which
Georgie had evidently filched from the party the night before--delicious
loaves of brown cane sugar and sweet native cakes.
As soon as it grew dark she crept into town afoot and ventured upon the
streets. Not a soul was abroad. The soldiers had the occupants
thoroughly well scared, and Raquel was roughly ordered to get back into
the house when she peered from the shadow of a sheltering doorway. So
she had to retire within a strange house, climb over a wall, and make
her way through dark lanes down to the spot on the riverbank where she
had left Paintbrush tethered.
That was perhaps the most precarious experience of the entire adventure,
that careful, creeping journey, stumbling from bush to bush; and what
joy finally to hear the pinto’s nicker, to fall upon his neck! She slept
on the ground near him; if he had lain down she would have pillowed her
head upon his flank. As it was, when she woke in the morning he was
standing almost over her, keeping watch.
And so it was every day, hiding by day, hunting by night. Finally hunger
forced her away in search of food, which she bought easily at far-away
houses, returning always to her covert among the trees by the river.
Finally on the evening of the fourth day the detachment of
_Carrancistas_ left Moctezuma, and that night she slipped into town to
make a thorough search for Georgie. First to the priest’s house, of
course. The housekeeper was irate at being roused after dark.
What, a miserable child! Yes, one had hung around there for a few days,
three days, but she had sent it away. An ugly little girl in a gingham
dress--yes, _color-de-rosa_.
Well, Georgie wasn’t held by her _teniente_ then. Somewhat relieved,
Raquel gave the woman a piece of money that made her gasp, and a note
for the child should she come back. “He,” Raquel amended, confiding that
it was really a boy, and that he might be dressed as one if he came
back.
Hardly knowing what to do next she found her way to the Hotel Moctezuma,
and under its flower-hung balconies found rest for the night. While she
waited for the man servant to carry water up to her room she inquired
from the _moso_ in a low voice if he had seen anything the last few days
of a boy of twelve--a _guero_, a blonde, with front teeth wide apart.
At that description the man started involuntarily, and then shook his
head stupidly without answering. Raquel pressed upon him a piece of
money which loosened his tongue. He motioned her to follow, picking up
her saddle and bags to carry them to her room. When they had entered he
whispered cautiously, “What do you wish to know, _gracioso Señorito_?”
Yes, such a lad had been at the hotel last night and had been attached
as orderly for the officers and soldiers. The lad had inquired of him,
old Pacifico, where a Rancho Escondido was. He had never heard of such a
place. And the soldiers had departed that day, taking the boy with them.
Raquel went to bed trembling with relief. Sleep came at once, but she
woke before dawn. There was a plentiful breakfast served on a white
cloth by candle light, and then she was off.
Before her lay seventy-five miles before she could reach the Ranch of
the Desert, their hidden rendezvous. Good old Paintbrush--how splendid
were his sinewy legs! At regular intervals she dismounted, took off his
saddle, cooled his back, smoothed the blanket. When they came to a
stream she washed him off.
Late the next afternoon the road brought them up to one of those ruined
houses that lay in the wake of soldiers, dotting the revolution-ridden
land. The whole front of the dwelling had been torn away. There it
stood, its poor mutilated interior still adorned with framed pictures, a
cupboard still standing in the corner, a table in the center of the
floor. It looked like a stage set, its homely intimacies bared to the
passer-by. It must have been a good country home once, like the
comfortable peasant homes of Europe.
“I’ll sleep on the other side,” thought Raquel. She wanted to reach
Nacozari before noon the next day; to start out from there again for El
Escondido. How would she find the ranch if she did not run across some
one to guide her again?
On the other side of the house she found the remnants of a family living
in what remained of the house. She stood upon a threshold that remained
with no enclosing walls.
“_Entra, entra_, come in,” an old crone cooking over a little fire in a
corner called hospitably. Through a far doorway Raquel caught a
momentary glimpse of an exquisite madonna face, its perfect oval framed
in long braids. It vanished with terror-stricken swiftness.
“Could I perhaps get something to eat, and rest here tonight?” Raquel
asked wearily. “I am on my way north. Do you perhaps know where El
Rancho Escondido is?”
The old woman looked up at the lad, dressed like a peon in his denim
_pantalones_, in the _teguas_ of the mountaineer. Something in the fine
tired face, the sweetness of expression, assured her of the innocence of
their prospective guest and she swept a place by the hearth.
But surely! And what did the lad know of the Ranch of the Desert? It was
long since she had heard of that place, she said, but right well did she
know where it lay.
With the despatch of the ever-ready bean pot she set a plate of food
before Raquel, talking to her while she ate. The girl with the madonna
face slipped timidly out of her room.
And so strangely, in this chance manner, Raquel learned the way to the
Hidden Ranch. The old woman had once gone there, years ago, when she
lived in Nacozari as a servant to the _padrona_.
The _muchacho_ must follow this road up the stream bed, said the old
woman, until he came to the canyon of Nacozari, not twenty _leguas_
above. He should go through the town, she said, and above the place
where the houses of the American superintendents had since been built
Raquel would see a fair road leading east over the hills.
“Follow it across the sand dunes,” she said, “and when you come to the
stream, ford it. But be careful of quicksands. A desert of sand dunes
lies beyond, with not a palmetto, not a cactus on it, unlike most of our
Mexican deserts. Go straight across it,” she continued, “a few miles
only. Keep the trees of the river at your back and two dark dunes ahead
for a guide. Over the last dune El Escondido spreads before you, a
paradise, as well you know if you have been there.
“There is another way. But it is much longer, and only those who know it
well and have traveled the road could possibly find the way among the
trees and the hills. It was made after my time, this road, and I do not
know it. That is where the _rancho_ gets its name. It is indeed
_escondido_.
“You are fatigued,” added the old woman. “Spread your blanket in that
corner.”
Raquel slept, grateful in the thought that Georgie was ahead of her
rather than behind. But where was he? And where the steers she had come
to find?