“DOWN BY THE RIO GRANDE”
Every thriving Western town, if its politics are right, looks down
on its hotels and up to its post-office. Del Rio was no exception;
her granite post-office, imposing enough for three towns of its size,
suggested Congressional sensitiveness to fences, while down street a
block or two, the weather-beaten boards of “Frank’s,” with its creaking
verandahs and uncarpeted lobby, printed the earlier pages of the little
settlement, which, straddling the river from Mexico, had become the
nucleus for frontier trade eddying to its banks.
It is true that other hotels, of the spick and span brick ugliness
the New West delights in, flanked the motion picture houses and
drug-stores, but we chose Frank’s, the oldest inhabitant,--a type of
hotel fast becoming extinct. Downstairs, plain sheathing; upstairs
the same. Our bedroom opened on a veranda which we had to traverse to
reach the bath. It was a novelty to us, but the traveling salesman next
door took it casually enough,--or else he had forgotten to pack his
bath-robe.
Our hostess was the first of a long list of ladies young and old we
were to meet, who knew well the gentle art of twirling a toothpick
while she talked. Perhaps it is the badge of a waitress in these parts,
like a fresh bush over ancient wine-houses, a silent, but eloquent
testimonial to the gustatory treats of the hotel. I think we never
met, from now on, a waitress in Texas, Arizona or New Mexico, who was
not thus equipped. Ours did not flourish hers in vain. The flakiness
of the biscuits, the fragrance of the wild honey, and the melting
deliciousness of the river fish, caught fresh in the Rio Grande an hour
before, caused us to see Del Rio with happy eyes. To this day, Toby
speaks of it as if it were the third finest metropolis of the West,
which must be attributed entirely to the seven biscuits which floated
to her hungry mouth. I might as well admit at once our tendency, which
I suspect other travelers share, to grade a town by the food it served.
I suspect that Del Rio, to one unfed, would seem a commonplace hamlet,
save for its interest as a border settlement. Mexico, three miles away,
held out the charm of a forbidden land. We circled next morning to
its border, past thatched shanties of Mexicans and negroes, and took
a glance at the desolate land beyond, barren, thorny, rolling away to
faint blue hills. A camp of United States soldiers lay athwart our
path, and two alert soldiers with a grin and a rifle apiece barred our
progress.
Toby had been keen to cross the line, but when she saw them she said
characteristically, “Mexico seems to me vastly overrated.” So ignoring
the khaki, of our own free will and choice we turned back. I confess I
was relieved. Toby has the post card habit to such an extent that I was
prepared to have to fight our way across the border, dodging bullets
and bandits, so that she might mail nonchalant cards to her friends,
beginning, “We have just dropped into Mexico.”
Our curiosity as to Mexico gave us an early start. Soon we were on
a high plateau, all the world rolling below us. Soft brown hills led
out to faint blue mountains outlined on the horizon. With a thrill we
realized we were viewing the beginnings of the Rockies. For the first
time in my life, I felt I had all the room I wanted. We basked in the
hot sun, expanding physically and spiritually in the immensity of the
uncrowded landscape. The air in this high altitude was bracing, but not
cold. From time to time we passed prosperous flocks of sheep, spotted
with lively black goats. Occasionally a lonely group of steers held out
against the encroaching mutton. We shared with them the state of Texas.
At Comstock, a flat and uninteresting one-street town, we lunched,
forgetting entirely to make a four-mile detour to view the highest
bridge in the world. All day, we bent our energies to covering another
half inch on the interminable map of Texas. We passed our last stopping
place for the night. There was too much outdoors to waste; we decided
to make our first camp in a live-oak grove somebody had described to us.
With a sense of adventure, we purchased supplies for our supper and
breakfast at a little town we reached at glowing sundown. The grocery
was closed, but the amiable proprietor left his house and opened his
store for us. Rumors of deep sand ahead disturbed us, and against the
emergency we purchased for “seven bits” a shovel which came jointed,
so that it could be kept in the tool box under the seat. The fact that
it was so short that it could easily repose there at full length did
not mar our delight at this novel trick. It had the elemental charm for
us of a toy which will do two things at once,--a charm which in other
eras accounted for the vogue of poison rings, folding beds, celluloid
collars and divided skirts. It was a perfectly useless little shovel,
which made us happy whenever we looked at it, and swear whenever we
used it.
Thus fortified we sped on, and it soon became pitch dark, and a windy
night. The country suddenly stood on end, and we coasted down a
surprising little canyon, to emerge into a long black road tangled with
mesquite on both sides. When we almost despaired of finding a suitable
camp, we came casually on a snug little grove, and heard nearby the
rush of a stream. The black sky was radiant with stars. Orion stood
on his head, and so did the dipper, surrounded by constellations
unfamiliar to our Northern eyes.
In the chill dark we felt for a spot to pitch our tent. Spiky mesquite
caught and tore our hair nets. Texas’ millions of untenanted acres
brooded over our human unimportance, till a charred stick or empty tin
can, stumbled over in the dark, became as welcome a signal as Friday’s
footprint to Crusoe. Jointing our useless little spade, we dug a trench
in the soft sand for our hips to rest in, hoisted our tent-rope over a
thorny branch, folded blanket-wise our auto robes, undressed and crept
inside our house. The lamps of the car gave us light to stow away our
belongings, and its lumbering sides screened us from the road. With
a sense of elation we looked at the circling stars through our tent
windows, and heard the wind rise in gusts through the bare branches.
The world becomes less fearsome with a roof over one’s head.
Dawn is the camper’s hour of trial. I woke from a dream that a
mountain lion had entered our shelter, when Toby sat up excitedly.
“I just dreamed a bear was trying to get in,” she said. The coincidence
was forboding, yet no menagerie appeared. Our aching hips, tumbled
bedding and chilled bodies made us dread the long hours to breakfast.
Toby hinted I had my share and more of the blanket. I had long
entertained a similar suspicion of her, but was too noble to mention
it. We portioned out the bedding afresh, vowed we never again would
camp out, and in a moment it was eight o’clock of a cold, foggy morning.
Yesterday the sun had been hot enough to blister Toby’s cheek. Today
was like a nor’-easter off Labrador. We were too cold to get up,
and too cold to stay shivering in the tent. It seemed a stalemate
which might last a life-time, when suddenly indecision crystallized,
exploded, and we found ourselves on the verge of the ice-cold stream
compromising cleanliness with comfort.
How different seems the same folding stove viewed on the fifth floor
of a sporting goods store in New York, and in the windy open. Piffling
and futile it appeared to us, its natural inadequacy increased by our
discovery that our fuel cans were locked in our trunk, and the lock had
become twisted. It further appeared that most of our cooking outfit
was interned in the same trunk. Accordingly I tried to build a fire,
while Toby took down the tent. Camp cooking is an art which I shall not
profane by describing our attempts to get breakfast that bleak morning.
The fire smouldered, but refused to break into the bright cheery
crackle one hears about, and finally, untempted by the logs of green
mesquite we hopefully fed it, went out entirely. We breakfasted on
the remains of last night’s supper, washed down with a curious sticky
mixture made of some labor-saving coffee preparation. Realizing that
it took more than the outfit to make good campers, we went our subdued
way. Our water bag bumped on the running-board, falling off frequently,
and once we retraced ten muddy miles to retrieve it.
It was not a lucky day. Our scant breakfast, lost waterbag and an
unhappy lunch, our locked trunk and all, were but the-precursors of a
worse afternoon. The air was thick with yellow dust, and the western
sky, sickly green, showed columns of whirling, eddying sand to right
or left of us. Though we followed the Southern Pacific with dog-like
devotion we lost our way once in a crooked maze of wagon tracks which
led us to a swamp, and had to drive back ten miles to the nearest house
to ask directions. To make up for lost time, in the bitter, reckless
mood every driver knows, when nobody in the car dare speak to him, I
raced for two hours at forty-five, through sandy, twisting tracks, with
the car rocking like a London bus, and Toby clinging to the side, not
daring to remonstrate, for it was she who had lost us our way. Each
turn was a gamble, but the curves were just gentle enough to hold us to
our course.
[Illustration: OUR FIRST CAMP, TEXAS. “I tried to build a fire.”]
We had every chance of making our night’s stop before dark, when the
air oozed gently out of the rear tire. Behind us a sandstorm rising in
a shifting golden haze lifted twisted columns against the vivid green
sky, over which dramatic dark clouds drove, while a spectacular sunset
lighted the chains of cold dark blue and transparent mauve mountains
on both sides. It was a glorious but ominous sight, and the tire meant
delay. A flat tire, however, acts on Toby like a bath on a canary.
The jack holds no mysteries for her, and tire rims click into place
at sound of her voice. And our peculiar luck had halted us within
a few yards of the only house we had passed all afternoon. Having
learned that frail womanhood need neither toil nor spin in Texas, I
was for seeking aid, but Toby scorned help, and so painted the joys
of independence that though it was hot and dusty and the sand storm
threatened, I bent to her will. And the next moment, the key which
locked engine, tool-box and spare tire, broke off in the padlock. As I
had with unprecedented prudence bought a duplicate in New York, we were
not completely stranded, but that, I mentioned bitterly to Toby, was no
fault of hers. Only a cold chisel could release the spare tire, and we
found we had none.
“I will now go for help,” I said to Toby who was defiantly pretending
to do something to the locked tire with a hammer, “as I should have at
first but for your foolish pride.”
As stately as I might with hair blown by the wind, yellow goggles,
leather coat and a purple muffler tied over my hat, I retreated toward
the ranch-house. In the kitchen I startled a grizzled old couple
sitting near the fire. When I explained our predicament, and begged the
loan of a cold chisel the old man asked, “You two girls all alone?”
When I admitted we were, he called to his son in the next room,
“Horace, go see what you can do for the ladies.”
More bashful than most Texans, the lank Horace followed me in painful
silence for a few yards. Then in a burst of confidence, he said, “When
you come in just now, I thought it was maw dressed up to fool us. Yes,
sir, I sure did.”
My glimpse of his septuagenarian parent would not have led me to
suspect her of such prankishness, but appearances are often deceitful.
For all I knew she may have been just the life of the family, doubling
up Horace and his paw in long writhes of helpless mirth at her
impersonations. So I accepted the compliment silently and led our
rescuer to the car.
Once more I triumphed unworthily over Toby. For she had hinted that
my fast driving had flattened the tire, but investigation revealed a
crooked nail,--the bane of motoring in a cattle country. Horace proved
most business-like in handling tools. In less than half an hour,
bashfully spurred on by our admiration, he had cut the lock and helped
us change the tire. Then he saw our sign,--and said it. As if it were
a thought new-born to the ages, he smiled at his own conceit, and
remarked, “You’re a lawng ways from home!”
As Horace did not smoke, we drove away from the ranch-house eternally
in his debt. We put him down to the credit of Texas, however, where he
helped off-set sand-storms and mud holes, and added him to the fast
growing list of cavaliers who had rescued us from our folly. The storm
had died, and with it our bad luck had apparently departed, but when a
day begins badly, it is never safe to predict until the car is bedded
down for the night. According to a bad habit she has, Toby telescoped
two paragraphs of the route card, skipping the middle entirely.
Consequently we turned left when we should have gone right,--and found
our front wheels banked where a road had been playfully altered by
the wind to a mountain of sand. On all sides were waist-high drifts
of fine white sea sand, from which the tops of mesquite bushes showed.
We could not turn, so we tried running straight ahead,--and stuck.
Twilight had fallen, and if there were a way out, it was no longer
discernible. At what seemed a short half mile, a light gleamed from a
house. Once more, I cravenly went for help, while the optimistic Toby
began to shovel sand with our toy shovel. The half mile trebled itself,
and still the house was no nearer. At last I came to the end, only
to find that a wide canal separated us and the car from the road. I
shouted across to two men in a corral, and at last they heard and came
to the edge of the canal while I asked to borrow a rope. They debated a
while, perhaps doubting my intentions, but finally threw a rope in the
back of a little car, cranked it and, coming to the bank of the canal,
helped me across. Unlike a Westerner who when he leaves a spot never
fails to orient himself, I had not noticed in which direction I had
struck out from the car. I fear my deliverers thought me a mild kind of
incompetent when I confessed I had no idea where to find it: darkness
and sand dunes completely hid it from sight. But after some skirmishing
about canal beds and bridges, we reached the broad shape looming up in
the dark, and found that Toby had dug the car out, wrapped an old tire
about the spinning back wheel, and driven it on firm ground.
Our rescuers put us on the road to our night’s objective, and with mild
patience told us we could hardly miss it, it being a straight road all
the way. They did not compliment us too highly, for by the time Venus
had risen we reached the hotel, kept by a sad, distrustful one-eyed
man from Maine, who in spite of twenty years’ residence still abhorred
Texas as a desert. He fed us liberally with baked beans and apple pie
before showing us to a bare, clean little room furnished with a tin
basin and a patchwork quilt.
We were nearly dead. We had much with which to reproach luck and each
other, but by mutual consent postponed it and sank into peaceful sleep
in the lumpy bed.
As somebody said, luck is a fickle dame. Having flouted us to her
heart’s content, she tagged docilely at our heels as we started for
El Paso next morning. Two hundred miles away, the average run was ten
hour’s time, but we made it in eight and a half. The garage-man’s
wife’s cousin was a dentist on Huntington Avenue, and the extraordinary
coincidence drew her to us almost as by the bonds of kinship. She
hurried her spouse into mending our tires promptly, and speeding us on
our way with valuable directions. It was ten when we left, but moving
westward into Rocky Mountain time saved us an hour.
Once out of the village we encountered the enveloping desert again.
Driving in those sandy tracks became a new sport,--we learned to make
the sand skid us around corners without decreasing our speed; we could
calculate with nicety when a perceptible drag on the wheels warned
us to shift gears. And then they must be shifted instantly, for at a
moment’s delay the car sank deep, and mischief was done which only
shoveling could undo. Once we found ourselves facing another car
blocking the road, and sunk in thick, unpacked sand. We could not
turn out, and the instant’s stop put us in a like predicament. They
wistfully asked us to pull them out, but as we were heavier than they,
and would have made two obstacles instead of one in the road, we had
to refuse the only help asked of us, who had so many times been the
beneficiaries. We left them to an approaching mule team, after they had
returned good for evil by pushing us out of the sand. For twenty miles
we had hard going, but by spinning through the sand in low gear we
escaped trouble.
We were still in the desert, but serrated peaks with lovely outlines
and stormy, snowy tops marched beside us the entire day. The aspect
of the country became semi-tropical. The single varieties of cactus
and century plants were increased to dozens. The ocotillo, sometimes
wrongly called octopus cactus, waved slender green fingers, on which
a red bud showed like a rosy fingernail. The landscape warmed from
lifeless gray to gold, mauve, blue and deep purple, and always on our
left were the benign outlines of the blue Davis Mountains. We mounted
higher and higher on a smooth orange road cut through the mountains
and came out on a broad open highway with wide vistas. Close by, the
mountains looked like huge heaps of black cinder and silt, but distance
thinned them, as if cut from paper, into translucent lavender and blue,
the edges luminous from the setting sun.
Thirty miles out of El Paso we were astonished to find ourselves on a
concrete road in perfect museum condition, on which in dismal file many
cars crept city-ward at the discreet pace of fifteen miles an hour.
It was the first bit of good road Toby had encountered for days but
an uncanny something in the self-restraint of the El Pasans on the
only good road in Texas recalled Houston to us. We joined the funereal
procession and arrived in the city without official escort.
Mexico in this southwest corner is merged with Texas, making gay its
vast grayness with bright spots of color and slouching figures, and
suggesting other-world civilization by its Spanish street signs, and
the frankness with which the Latin welcomes the world to the details
of his daily life. The outskirts of the town were lined with one story
’dobe huts, and even more fragile shelters made of wattled reeds and
mud. Forlorn little Mexican cafés, with temperance signs brazening
it out above older and more convivial invitations, failed of their
purpose; their purple and blue doors were empty as the be-Sundayed
crowds swarmed the streets.
El Paso has its charms, but to us it was too modern and too large to
mean more than a convenient place to sleep, shop and have the car
overhauled, and the gumbo of Texas, now caked until it had to be
chipped off with a chisel, washed from its surface. “The old lady,”
as Toby nick-named the car, was to leave Texas as she had entered
it,--with clean skirts. Once more we viewed her gray paint, which we
had not seen for many a long day. She seemed to feel the difference
from her former draggle-tailed state; she pranced a bit, and lightened
by several hundred-weight of mud, shied around corners. We gave her her
head as we passed the great smelters on the western edge of the town,
whose smoke stacks cloud the rims of the mountains they are attacking,
and slowly, slowly eating into. A smooth macadam road led us,--at
last!--out of Texas. We were not sorry to leave, hospitably as we had
been treated. Ahead lay greater miracles of nature than Texas could
offer, and adventure no less. The great prairie of which in two weeks
we had only nibbled one corner was behind us. We were fairly embarked
on the main objectives of our journey.