Teddy woke up very early in the morning. The sun had come up and had
lost its colour: it hung above the flat line of earth like a colourless
lantern, a lamp made of gold but with no light in it. He did not know
what had waked him, but there was a chattering birdlike noise from a
hummock nearby. Prairie dogs, and they had been making a terrific row,
probably. One of them put his nose out of the hole as Teddy lay on his
side with wide-open eyes, watching. He crept out slowly, his plump
little body elongated with caution. He drew up his back legs one after
the other very gently, and sat down on the top with his paws dangling
before him. His head turned slowly and he looked at the world with
squirrel-like eyes that saw no importance in anything, even in the three
prone giants around the smoking pile of ashes. Then he suddenly started
to run close to the ground, looking for something to eat. Teddy sat up,
and he squeaked and rushed down his hole again; his tail gave a last
little twitch as it disappeared.
Gin’s head was covered with her blanket against mosquitos and dew; there
was nothing visible of Gin but a wisp of hair. Blake’s face was turned
to the sun, and his mouth was open. They both slept deeply. It must be
very early indeed.
Teddy yawned, rubbed his eyes and shook his head. He propped his elbows
on his knees, and his chin on his fists, waiting for something to
happen. The day was gathering colour again, as if light from the sun
were slowly filling the air, mixing imperceptibly, sinking down from the
layer of sunshine above the clouds in little driblets, like a mixture of
drinks. The ground had dropped away from under the sun. Beyond the long
shallow swell of ground in front of him there came a ghost of a yell.
Teddy leaned back among the folds of the blanket, and watched until he
saw far off the silhouette of a man on horseback driving before him a
flock of sheep, almost invisible in the irregular ground.
He moved nervously and looked again at Gin and Blake. He was depressed,
full of a foreboding and a loneliness. Every morning when he woke he was
uneasy until he had spoken to the others, and he was never completely at
his ease until they had stopped at a store or a gasoline station and
chatted with the attendant. It was like a feeling of guilt, the
conviction that came to him every morning that he had no right out here
under the sky. He was trespassing. Surely some day he would be waked by
a policeman, and ordered out of the desert. There must be a law about
sleeping out like this. One night he had been so uneasy that he had
waited until the others were asleep and then crept back to the curtained
car to sleep under some sort of cover, at least. It was all right unless
he woke up at night: if he slept straight through and found himself
still there in the morning, with no enemy standing beside him, he felt
triumphant and safe for the day. Just now he was nervous. That man with
the sheep—would he see them and come over to order them off? It was
ridiculous, of course. The land didn’t belong to the shepherd any more
than to himself, or Gin.
He looked at the sky. There were no clouds, and it would be a hot day.
Where were they going? Would they be in El Paso today? He twisted around
and looked at the tires of the car—no flats. The corner of the
packing-box where they kept the groceries was sticking up above the
door. He put on his shoes and stood up quietly.
When Gin and Blake woke they found him tearing a branch into bits,
feeding the small beginnings of a fire.
“What’s the idea?” Gin asked crossly. “It’s too early to get up.”
“I was cold,” he answered calmly, and put one foot on the branch while
he jerked at it.
“Cold! It’s so hot that we’ll be getting sunstroke.”
“Well then, get up. The coffee will be ready soon.”
They protested, but they helped him with the breakfast. It was growing
really hot and they were glad to get into the shade of the car. Blake
poured some of the water into the radiator and watched anxiously as it
disappeared.
“We’re using a lot of water,” he said. “I hope we don’t run out.”
“Not yet,” said Teddy. “There’ll be a couple of stations before we get
to town. Climb in.”
The morning was dull and dusty. They passed one or two ranch-houses and
rode through miles of flat lime country, and Teddy’s depression grew
stronger. He felt as if he had forgotten something. What was it? But of
course he had forgotten something; he had forgotten everything.
Everything in the world was back in Santa Fé or Minnesota. Did it
matter? He was starting out afresh, without anything in the world but
himself. They were all doing it. It was a rebirth. He looked around at
the desolate country and wondered what the Garden of Eden had looked
like. Blake and Gin were silent and impassive, strangers. He was so
miserable that he was afraid he would start to cry, and their firm young
faces were cruelly indifferent.
He knew what he wanted. He missed breakfast in Santa Fé, in the Eagle
Cafe. He wanted to go in and sit on a stool before the counter, the
greasy crumb-strewed coffee-splashed table that stretched the length of
the restaurant. He wanted another breakfast with the _Capital Times_ to
read; a stale roll and coffee with milk in it, and people to talk to.
People! And afterwards to stroll down De Vargas Avenue to the
barber-shop, or to sit in the taxi-stand and have a smoke with Harvey,
waiting for trade. He wanted to talk to someone, Harvey or the barber or
the Mexican who lived next door and kept a goat in the back yard.
And the others—Bob, or Lucy, or even Phyllis Parker. Who was new in
town, he wondered? Who was being taken for the Circle Drive, or eating
lunch in the Plaza?
The car stopped in front of a little frame shack with a green door and a
red gas pump. A Mexican came out when Blake honked the horn, and filled
the tank sullenly. Blake tried to find out something about the road
ahead. How far was El Paso? Would there be a place where they could have
lunch? Did the Mexican have an extra carrier for gasoline? The man
grunted in reply. He had no gas tank. El Paso wasn’t beyond three hours’
drive. A place for lunch three miles farther on. Road pretty good. He
shuffled back into the house and slammed the door.
There was a poster on the wall that looked new enough to be
contemporary. Curiously, Blake sauntered over to examine it and to read
it aloud:
“Prize Fight,” he said. “Between José Baca and the Montero Kid. Tonight.
Seats twenty-five cents. Reserved fifty. At the Palace Theatre....”
“Where is it?” Gin asked eagerly. “I’d like to see one. Or is it over?”
“It was last night, I guess. September sixth—what is today? Is it the
seventh?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gin said. “Come seven, come eleven.... Isn’t it my
turn to drive?”
They rearranged themselves and settled down. Teddy was in a daze. There
was something he had forgotten; he had certainly forgotten something.
Gin had reminded him of it. What was it?
The morning passed slowly and the sun grew hotter. Blake was excited,
more and more so as they drew near the border.
“What do you think the border looks like?” he asked cheerfully. “I
expect a sort of chicken-wire fence with flags on each side.”
“I think it’ll be a row of milestone things,” Gin said. “We can tell
better when we hear them talk. Blake, you wink at me when you hear
someone say ‘Carramba!’ and we’ll know that we’ve arrived.”
They screamed with laughter. Teddy stared at the road and frowned. Come
seven, come eleven. What was it? Something was wrong: he had forgotten
something.
“I’m off to my love with a boxing glove,” sang Blake. “Whoops!”
His voice irritated Teddy. It was too shrill, too young, too joyous. And
Gin too: Gin was a sentimental fool. Why need they talk? Couldn’t they
ever be quiet? What was that thing he had forgotten? It was important,
too; very important. What was it, and what had it to do with a
prize-fight? He shook his head violently, trying to jog it.
They had lunch in a little fly-swarmed town. He worked his way through
two pieces of leathery pie, trying to eat himself back to good humour.
They teased him about his appetite and his irritation almost broke
through. On the way to the car Blake swung himself over the door and it
was all Teddy could do to keep from striking him in the face.
He was tired of the car and the kids; he didn’t want to sleep out of
doors any more; he was worried about what they would do in Mexico. And
there was something he had forgotten.
He was driving. All of a sudden it happened. For the first time in his
life, something came over him that was so powerful, so cleanly sweeping,
that he was utterly without strength before it: he was wax.
He remembered.
September seventh, September eleventh. Mrs. Saville-Sanders. The bridge
party. It was September seventh today, and on the eleventh Mrs.
Saville-Sanders was having a bridge party, and she had asked him to come
and help.
He squeezed his eyes together and looked at Blake, sitting next to him,
and then he turned around wonderingly and peered at Gin in the back
seat. All three of them were dusty tramps, sitting in a dusty car a few
miles from El Paso, miles from Santa Fé. How perfectly appalling. How
had it happened? It was a bad dream and he couldn’t wake up. Seven from
eleven left four—four days to get back. Four days to climb out of this
pit.
Blake was kneeling and looking back at the road. They had passed a sign.
“Gin!” he cried, and his voice cracked with rapture. “Only eight miles!”
Teddy slowed down, stopped, backed the car up and started the other way.
Back to Santa Fé and Mrs. Saville-Sanders. Out of the haze, the receding
mist, he heard a tiny babble of voices pleading with him, but they meant
nothing. He did not listen.
“What’s the matter? Where are you going? What is it?”
Then Blake understood, and there was an anguished shriek. “Madden!”
An incredulous, outraged cry.
He stepped on the accelerator and his blood flowed faster as he felt the
road slipping by. Mexico was safely behind him. He was waking up. Who
were these people? He stepped on the gas.
They fell quiet behind him. Blake had crawled over the seat and was
sitting with Gin, whispering with her. Teddy glanced at them in the
mirror, sitting with their heads together, and closed his mouth grimly,
clenching his teeth.
It would be four days. Four days to drive with two sulking children, and
then he would be back in Santa Fé, safe. If he drove steadily it would
be shorter, maybe: three days if he had any luck. Three days if he
averaged twenty-five miles an hour. Only three days.