Roldan raised himself on his elbow and looked about him. Adan was some
quarter of a mile away, approaching him, leading the mustangs. Cleaving
the horizon on four sides was a vast plain. On it was not a tree, nor
even a hut. Here and there were clumps of palms and cacti, as stark as
if cut from pale green stone. At vast intervals were short, isolated
mountains, known in the vernacular as "buttes." On the ground was not
the withered remnant of a blade of grass; but there were many fissures,
and some of them were deep and wide. Of the things that crawl and
scamper and fly there was no sign, not even a hole in the ground; for
even reptiles must have food to eat, and there was nothing here to
sustain man nor beast. The fleckless sky was a deep, hot blue; a
blood-red sun toiled heavily toward the zenith.
"Adan!" shouted Roldan; he was suddenly mad for sound of any sort. A
discouraged "Halloa!" came promptly back.
Roldan dressed himself rapidly. His clothes were quite dry; indeed the
very atmosphere of this strange beautiful place was so dry that it
seemed to crumble in the nostrils. As he finished dressing Adan reached
him. The horses' heads were hanging listlessly. Adan's face had lost
its ruddy colour.
"Roldan," he said, "where are we?"
"I know not," said Roldan, setting his lips.
"I left you to look for water, and there are not even tarantulas in
this accursed place. There is no water, not a drop. Nor a handful of
stubble for the horses."
"We must go back the way we came, and start once more from the foot of
the mountain."
"Can you remember from which point we entered this place? This soil
might be rock; there is not a hoof-print anywhere."
"We should have gone south and we came east. On the northwestern
horizon is something which looks like mountains--a long range--almost
buried in mist. There is no sign of a range anywhere else; so the only
thing to do is to go back to them; they are our mountains; I feel sure
of that."
"If the horses do not give out. They are empty and choking, poor
things. Well, there is no reason we should not eat, and, thanks be to
that good mayor domo, we still have a bottle of wine. But I would give
something for a gourd of water. However, we have not been girls yet,
and we will not begin now, my friend."
The boys ate their breakfast, but their spirits felt little lighter,
even after a long draught of wine. The awful quiet of the place, broken
only by an occasional whinny from the mustangs, seemed to press hard
about them, thickening the blood in their veins. Roldan was filled with
forebodings he could not analyse, and strove to coax forth from its
remote brain-cell something that had wandered in, he could not recall
when nor where.
They saddled the mustangs, mounted, and were about to make for the
northwest when Adan gave a hoarse gurgle, caught Roldan's arm, pulled
him about, and pointed with shaking hand to the south.
"Dios de mi alma!" exclaimed Roldan. "It is Los Angeles. We were right,
after all. But why were we never told that it was so beautiful?"
On the southern horizon, half veiled in pale blue mist, showed a
stately city, with domes and turrets and spires and many lofty
cathedrals. It was a white city; there were no red tiles to break those
pure and lovely lines, to blotch that radiant whiteness; even the red
sun withheld its angry shafts.
Roldan gazed, his lips parting, his breath coming quickly. If his
imagination had ever attempted to picture heaven, its wildest flight
would have resembled but fallen short of that living beauty before him.
It was mystifying, exalting. It was worth the dangers and discomforts
of the past month multiplied by twelve, just to have one moment's
glimpse of such perfection. And it was Los Angeles! A city of the
Californias, built by Indian hands! No wonder his family had been
careful to leave its wonders out of the table talk; had he known, he
would have been at its feet long since.
"It isn't the wine?" asked Adan, feebly.
"No. There must have been a fog before; Los Angeles is near the sea."
"Shall we start?"
"Yes, but slowly. The poor mustangs! But it will not be long now. We
cannot be more than two leagues from there. See, it grows plainer every
moment; the fog must have been very heavy."
They cantered on slowly, the mustangs responding automatically to the
light prick of the spur. The beautiful alluring city looked to be
floating in cloud; it smiled and beckoned, inciting even the weary
famished brutes to effort. But at the end of an hour Roldan reined in
with a puzzled expression. "I do not understand," he said. "It seemed
not two leagues away when we started, and we have come that far and
more, and still it seems exactly the same distance beyond."
"The atmosphere is so clear," suggested Adan. "But I wish we were
there. My mouth is parched, my tongue is dry--and the horses, Roldan.
Soon they will be as limp as sails in a calm."
"True, but we could easily walk the distance now. We could return for
them at once with water and food." But he was beginning to feel vaguely
uneasy once more. The odd sensation of death, of a buried world, had
returned. Could it be that that fair city beyond was heaven? Surely, he
thought with unconscious humour, it was very un-Californian.
They passed the lonely buttes, the parched beds of lakes, salt-coated.
Still they saw not a living thing; still the city seemed to recede with
the horizon, its sharp beautiful outlines unchanged. For some time the
horses had been trotting unevenly. Gradually they relaxed into a dogged
amble, their heads down, their tongues out. Every now and again they
half paused, with quivering knees.
Adan's was the first to collapse; it fell to its knees, then rolled
over, Adan scrambling from under, unhurt.
Roldan also dismounted, and both boys, without a word, unsaddled the
poor brutes, thrust the pistols into their belts and what was left of
the provisions into their pockets. They cast off their ponchos, then
once more turned their faces to the south. But they did not advance.
They stood with distended eyes and suspended breath. The city had
disappeared.