It was as if he could see Mr. Leadley looking over the certificate of
registration and writing down that remark--not having any one to speak
aloud to. A lot of talk about Mamie’s father--too much silence about
old Clara, he had probably thought. A little later as Elbert touched a
match to some papers in the fireplace, these brief but laborious lines
caught his eye:
‘... On looking him over at your request, Bob, I don’t feel troubled
about his honesty, but I’m not so sure he’s real bright.’
It was the letter he had brought up trail from Mort Cotton that first
day at San Forenso. Another proof that Mr. Leadley had been thinking
of sending him down into Sonora for Bart, before the accident in the
shaft. He had asked his old partner’s judgment. This reminded Elbert of
Mr. Cotton’s first fierce appraisal of him in San Forenso. A low nicker
reached him from the corral and a flushed smile came to his face, as he
moved out.
Somehow in lifting the wooden pin of the cedar gate, the sense
came over him again of the quality of the man whom he had known so
well--just a pin of manzanito to hold the gate, but there was an art
about the way the knots were cut. The mare came up to him nodding
and stepping high with her front feet. She seemed to say that this
conspiracy to keep her in the dark had gone far enough; that the time
had come for her to know what was going on.
‘... And you’re to be mine, Mamie--from now on!’ Elbert muttered. He
had been trying to get used to it for days. ‘What do you think about
that? Not very much, I guess.... Not much more than Mort Cotton did,
probably.’
The mare wasn’t telling. She was friendly, however, nudging under the
arm, nosing at his hands and pockets.
‘Oh, I know what you want--a piece of cake.’
He went back to the cabin. The strangest feeling came over him in
the shadows. This was his place to come and go in, but the fact was
slow to settle in him. He missed his old friend and didn’t feel quite
up to the reality of possession. One man’s whole life--these things
represented--and a mare that couldn’t be bought.... There might have
been some hope, the doctor had repeatedly suggested, if Mr. Leadley
could have been moved down to San Forenso, but the old man had refused
to hear to that. He had to come to his own conclusion, apparently. Days
of just sitting around--Mort Cotton there, the doctor riding up to the
claim every day--about as hard days as the young man had lived through
so far.
* * * * *
The last chest was locked, the last cabinet.
Elbert glanced around before shutting and padlocking the outer door
of the cabin--a wonder passing through him about sometime coming
back--with Bart.... In a sense, this meant his start for Sonora right
now. Of course, there were matters to close up in San Forenso--affairs
of the Dry Cache, of banks, papers and probate, but Mamie was now to be
ridden down trail and it was like the beginning of a new life. From the
doorway, he studied the mare’s sculptured head. There she stood, as if
listening to sounds which she alone could detect.
Practically his first experience in saddling anything but the wooden
horse. The horses he had failed to tarry on at Heaslep’s had been
saddled by others--even old Chester on that unforgettable day. He knew
the straps and cinches--part of his recent business, and Mamie wasn’t
too restive, so far. Funny, Elbert thought, that he should have sold
that Pitcairn stock-saddle to himself, after all.
‘Thirty-eight pounds,’ he muttered.
Trouble came to Mamie’s eyes as he undertook to tuck the steel between
her teeth. She didn’t like the way he went about it; also it seemed,
he had to mash her ears about to get the bridle on. She was nervous
as a child being severely washed. Finally the man got his foot in the
stirrup and raised himself. With a little dance to the right, the mare
glided from under, and stood with trailing bridle-rein, looking at him,
confused and incredulous.
‘I guess I couldn’t have stepped up on her in the way she’s used to,’
he remarked.
He tried again. Mamie seemed to have a certain responsibility for him
this time, like a mother-hen trying to get on with an unfamiliar chick.
But she had her own mysterious forces and impulses to cope with, too.
She had been penned-in for altogether too many days and darted out of
the corral gate with a suddenness that jerked the man’s body and arm
back to keep his place. Mamie’s head flung upward in utter dismay,
and the awfulness of having put weight like that on her tender mouth,
uncentered Elbert entirely for the time. It was like clashing gears
in a fine machine that has been desperately hard to obtain--only ten
times--infinitely worse--this, a living thing, cherished from a baby by
an old man who had been a horseman all his days.
The saddle kept slipping forward. Elbert hadn’t known at first how
to tighten the girths. He didn’t dare to look underneath. At least,
there was no blood mixed with the foam around the steel of her bit....
Twenty-two miles down trail, and long before the end, his own agony
took the edge of strain from the fierce imaginings of damage he was
doing the mare. Mamie didn’t stop to walk; she danced down trail--to
friends of hers at Mort Cotton’s ranch. It was as if she expected,
when she got there, to hear the voice that had been silent so long.
A hundred times Elbert thought of this. His bones crunched; he felt
the scald of blood and sweat on his thighs. But once or twice, even in
the pain, a flash of splendor went through him--at her arched lathered
neck, the lift of power from beneath, some new magic from the earth--
No need to ask the way to Mort Cotton’s place. Mamie veered to the
left, at the end of San Forenso’s main street, following the wagon
tracks at a show-trot to the wide gateway, where she was welcomed from
all quarters at once. Mort Cotton called his greeting from the doorway
of the ranch house, as Elbert let himself down, steadying himself
before letting go of the pommel. Mort approached. What was left of the
younger man withered as those eyes, under the white bushy brows, fixed
upon the mare. This was far more severe than being appraised himself.
‘Lucky old Bob couldn’t see her, with the saddle as far back as that,’
Mr. Cotton remarked.
Elbert had ceased to breathe. Raw and angry patches wavered in
imagination before his eyes, as the saddle was being removed. Hide and
hair unruffled--a flood of thankfulness went through him. He moved
around to Mamie’s far side and all looked intact there, too. Mort’s
twisted hand was now knuckling down the buttons of the mare’s spine.
‘Thought so, all the weight on her kidneys. Say--’ The old man’s
glance had turned to Elbert really for the first time, the sharp eyes
settling upon his riding cords. ‘Caked, or I’m a Spaniard! I see you’ve
been punished, too. Come on into the house. The boys will take care of
Mamie. They know her.’
Elbert obeyed, but made no move to a chair as they entered the cool
front room.
‘I led her down part of the way,’ he confessed unsteadily. ‘But she
wanted to get here. She’s so much--all the time--’
‘She sure is--so much hoss all the time. I know her. And what you want
now, young man, isn’t to hurry away nowhere too sudden, but quarters to
cool down in right here, good upstandin’ quarters. And say, I’ve got
some hosses for you to do your rough ridin’ on. Mamie’s a bit too fine
to break a man in. I’m goin’ to give you some lessons personal, before
you leave, and bring you up, so’s you’ll know what you’re ridin’, when
you get Mamie under the saddle--’
‘Not at once,’ said Elbert.
‘No, you’ll be walkin’ like a bear for a week yet.’
VII
THE SOFT SIDE OF A SADDLE
ELBERT limped out to Mort Cotton’s stables next morning. Mamie saw him
coming, her head hanging out above the half-door. She began nodding in
a way that made him know she was pawing the ground, though he couldn’t
see her feet. It wasn’t hay she wanted. Was it word of the one who did
not come, or more of the Road, she was asking for? Elbert wouldn’t
have confided to any one the humility he felt, as he moved close. All
through a painful night, he had dreamed of the mare running from him,
fighting his approach and presence. She would stand up on her hind
legs and strike at him when he came near. Ugly lot of sleep torments,
in which Mamie was always getting hurt--his fault--but nothing to them
after all. Here she was fresh and blithe as usual, nudging, nosing,
ready as a child to begin all over again. A fine lift went through him,
that she didn’t hold a grudge.
He had to rub his eyes after a moment ... Mexico, riding South, plazas
at night, camps in the open, days in the saddle, the freedom he had
dreamed of.
... In the next ten days all business was finished in San Forenso and
Elbert was healed enough to begin his course in horsemanship under
Mort Cotton--the actual riding part. So far as words went, the drill
had begun at once.
‘What you need is hardenin’, young feller, and that comes gradual.
You’ve been sittin’ on cushions all your life and a stock-saddle ain’t
like that. The soft side of a stock-saddle is placed next to a horse.
You got to learn to fit to it, because it’s made not to give. After
that, you’ve got to learn to ride easy. It ain’t like sittin’ on a box
in a grocery store. You can always tell a man with no sense to a horse,
sitting up and takin’ it for granted, that a horse is meant to carry
him. A man’s weight’s got to be alive--part of his horse--not a dead
weight like a pack-mule carries. Bob Leadley used to say a good deal at
the last that there’s plenty of good “riders” but only one in a hundred
real horsemen.’
‘I’ve heard him say that,’ said Elbert. Times like this, he wished
Mort Cotton wouldn’t stop. The old cattleman was altogether unlike
Mr. Leadley, but the two had been so much together, that a feeling of
closeness to Bart’s father came to him as he talked and rode with Mort.
There was much still he needed to know about the old days.
‘... I wasted a lot of time hatin’ Letchie Welton,’ Mort Cotton once
said. ‘But there’s no good in that. Old Bob found that out, too. You
wouldn’t fancy him a fightin’ man, but I saw him flare up. Letchie
Welton can thank me that he lived for Lon Bimlock to kill him. It
was at the hearin’ back in Bismo, and Letchie was tellin’ our fellow
townsmen that he had a suspicion right at the beginning that Bart was
in with the other three in the murder of old Batten. That, he said, was
why he insisted on Bart bein’ allowed to ride on with the posse--so he
could watch him. As it happened Bart got away. No question in his mind,
Letchie Welton gave down at the hearin’, but that Bart had killed Palto
to prevent him squealin’, before ridin’ out to connect up with his
share of the loot. “Didn’t he want to stay up all night in order to let
Palto go free?” Letchie wanted to know.... As I say, I had my work cut
out to keep old Bob from killin’ our deputy sheriff that day.
‘... No, sir, we weren’t exactly right--never have been, Bob and me,
since that night in Red Ante,’ Mr. Cotton observed, another time. ‘They
talk of shell-shock these days. It wasn’t shells that got us, but we
were shocked men just the same. It worked this way: We never could
stay long where men were--never could get along in the settlements any
length of time. We took up prospectin’ to get up into the mountains
alone, but we couldn’t be too close, even to each other, for very long.
I’ve seen Bob go apart to smoke of an evenin’, after we’d worked
separate ridges all day, and I’ve felt the same way. It was quite a
while before we came to know we were so different. I began to see it in
Bob, and gradually it worked out that he could see it in me.
‘I wouldn’t have believed it of Bismo, and Bob couldn’t, but that town
wasn’t wrought up over what happened in Red Ante, like we were. Seems
as if Bob and me took the full shock of that, though we were slower
catchin’ on, than young Bart was. Palto’s bein’ a Mexican seemed to
make it all right for Bismo. A greaser had murdered a white man and
a whole Mexican village of men, women and children couldn’t pay for
that.... Always a man of law, Letchie Welton was. Bismo called him a
trail-burner for bringin’ in his man, and made him sheriff afterward.
He held his job until three or four years back when he was shot from
his horse, as I told you, on the trail of Lon Bimlock. They say Letchie
was sleepin’ his last sleep before he touched ground that day, havin’
taken Lon’s forty-five between the eyes.’
There was a lot of inexpressible feeling in Elbert’s chest as he
listened to certain observations of Mr. Cotton on the relationship
between Bob Leadley and his son. It made him draw a step nearer that
mystery of mysteries, his own father. ‘Bob was a strong man with men
before Bart came,’ Mort once said. ‘Then gradually on that one point
they came to think of him as the favorite fool of the diggin’s. Some
said he was too easy, some said he was too hard, but all said he was
wrong.
‘... But I was tellin’ you about the last days in Bismo. You see Bart
couldn’t come back if he had wanted to. It got worse against him as
weeks passed and Marguerin wasn’t brought in. Rueda was caught and
hung, his last words bein’ that Marguerin had done the killing. Word
reached Bismo that Marguerin and Bart were together in Mexico, ridin’
with Monte Vallejo, who was just a bandit-leader down in Sonora in
those days, but high up in Sonora politics right now--apt to be the big
gun if the Government turns over. Also we’ve heard various times that
Bart is still ridin’ with Monte Vallejo--that’s one of the things Bob
must have wanted you to know.
‘Bob was down in Mexico five years back and might have come up with
Bart, except as he tells it, all at once the rurales began to take an
interest in his case. They couldn’t do enough to help him find what he
was after. You see the rurales are a strong body of men, workin’ sort
of alone-like, mainly on the side of the Government, and hell-bent
after all bandits, when they feel like it--’
‘How did the rurales find out what Mr. Leadley was down there for?’
Elbert asked.
‘Now as to that, my mind’s at rest. Letchie wasn’t done for at that
time. He tipped ’em off, as I see it--always a man of law, Letchie
was. And, of course, the rurales would be interested in a white man
down there, lookin’ for his son who was said to be ridin’ with Monte
Vallejo, for the rurales have been tryin’ to get their hands on Vallejo
for years, but you see the common people like the big bandit, and are
not so strong for the rurales, who lord it over ’em and feel important,
havin’ the law on their side.
‘Old Bob always kept track of Monte on Bart’s account. He used to
bring me translations from the Mexican papers, how Monte had burned
this, and beaten his way through that, and how the rurales had just
missed capturin’ him. If I was you, I wouldn’t try to cross the Border
straight down from here. Ride east for three or four days, takin’ your
time and make your crossing at Nogales. You’ll be able to get in there,
more quiet and unwatched, and you’re more apt to be closer to the scene
of operations of the man you’re lookin’ for. It won’t be long before
you’ll be hearin’ of Monte Vallejo’s doings. He’s ’specially active
right now. If Bart’s still with him--that’s another thing. Anyway take
it easy, an’ take your time--’
‘I know that road south of Tucson to Nogales--worked at Heaslep’s
drivin’ a truck,’ said Elbert, ‘I might stop off for a day or two to
see a couple of friends of mine--’
‘So long as you don’t tell anybody what you’re out on,’ warned Mr.
Cotton. ‘I’m sure Bob would have advised you this way--if he’d had
time.’
‘I’ll be careful about that,’ Elbert said, and yet his pulse pricked up
at the thought of another sight of Cal and Slim.
VIII
HEASLEP’S AGAIN
HE was actually on the Road, traveling east toward Tucson, Mamie
showing up from hour to hour a little better than he could ask or
expect. Elbert had to keep telling himself that there was no hurry, no
stress, but the urges of all past years rose up in him, trying to make
him believe that everything was ahead, instead of here and now.
Expense money to work with, a gold mine back of him; best of all, there
was a purpose to carry out; a meaning back of his setting forth. Had he
tried to plan it all before leaving the East, he couldn’t have arranged
an adventure half so satisfactory as this--not just an aimless ride, no
mere purposeless freedom. By some marvelous destiny he had come into
the right to venture forth--a quest to work toward, an allegiance to
make good with Mr. Leadley and his son, with silence on his tongue all
the way.
No, he was not to tell any one--not even Cal and Slim, if they were
still at Heaslep’s.
He reached the main buildings of the big ranch shortly after noon, five
leisurely days of riding from San Forenso. Approaching the ‘Office,’
faces looked out from cook-house, farrier shop, and other doors and
windows. Elbert waved and nodded, but there was no flare of welcome,
no adequate answer for him--all eyes fixed on what he rode. He had to
wait a minute for Frost-face, who appeared from his back room, nodding
curtly. He moved at once to the outer door, where his sleety gaze fixed
on Mamie at the far end of the rail.
‘Your’n?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘In the advertisin’ business?’
‘No.’
‘Been workin’ in a movie?’
‘No.’
‘Show horse?’
‘No--’
‘Want a job?’
‘No. Just thought I’d stop off--possibly see Cal and Slim--and some of
the boys.’
‘Thought you’d come back to locate. Here’s a letter an’ telegram.
Thoroughbred?’
‘Her father was.’
Frost-face moved out to Mamie. The telegram was from Mort Cotton,
advising him to wait at Heaslep’s for a letter containing a certain
newspaper clipping. The letter already at hand, was the one referred to
in the telegram, for Elbert drew out a half-page of a Sunday newspaper
and a moment later was deep in the latest Sonora doings. Frost-face’s
jerky tones cut in presently:
‘Cal and Slim are out in the northeast range--about fifteen miles.
They’ll be ridin’ farther north to-morrow, but you can get to ’em by
sundown. Better drive the truck out, though.’
‘The mare isn’t tired,’ said Elbert.
‘Her thorough-breedin’ might wilt down.’
‘She can do fifteen--’
‘Be careful not to let any of the cow-truck out there bite her.’
‘I’ll watch close.’
‘Stop off here for a package of paper napkins and readin’ matter to
take out to the range--before you start.’
All that afternoon as he rode, Elbert conned the alleged facts of
the newspaper story. Monte Vallejo was said to be greatly enlarging
the number of his followers, turning away hundreds of peons because
they had no horses. This Monte was certainly a cavalry leader first
and last, Elbert reflected.... American holdings threatened; gold and
silver mines and oil properties of Northern Sonora, unsafe; General
Cordano reported to be establishing garrisons near the big mines in an
attempt to forestall seizure, but none could tell when Monte Vallejo
would strike--
Elbert reached the distant camp at sundown, but full darkness had
fallen, before the final thud of ponies on the range grass, and Slim’s
voice called from outside the circle of firelight.
‘... if it ain’t Elber-r-rt!’
And big Cal rocked forward, taking him by both shoulders at once--one
of those moments when Elbert wouldn’t have dared to use his voice.
‘What’s this I hear about a she race horse you’re ridin’?’ Slim asked.
Elbert pointed out toward his picket pin, and the two moved toward it.
Mamie was led in toward the fire, and examined in all points, her owner
being entirely overlooked for the time being.
‘Where did you say you come from?’ Slim asked severely.
‘San Forenso.’
‘Any more like that there?’
‘I didn’t see any.’
‘Somebody leavin’ the country?’
‘She was given to me.’
‘Was he dyin’?’
‘Yes.’
Cal and Slim glanced at each other.
‘Elbert,’ said Slim. ‘You didn’t hurry him off none?’
‘No.’
‘You see, it _has_ been done,’ said Cal. ‘For a hoss like that, it has
been done. I recollect hearin’ that old Chester was fought for in his
gay young days. Ever hear about that, Slim?’
The other nodded solemnly.
‘Ain’t back to stay, Elbert?’
‘No--’
‘Where you goin’?’
The partner’s eyes checked off each other again, and finally Cal
remarked: ‘Looks as if Elbert might need help--’
‘He’s makin’ me restless,’ said Slim.
After supper, the three sat down at a small fire a little apart from
the main camp. Elbert was watching himself closely, some tension not to
be lured into disclosure of any kind. One fact rested lightly on his
faculties at this time. The more that men knew about horses, the more
Mamie was appreciated. Cal and Slim had opened a newspaper package and
divided a big Sunday paper between them.
‘Please excuse us, Elbert, while we cool down our passions for news,’
said Cal.
A poring silence of many minutes; then from Slim: ‘This fellow’s crazy.’
‘How’s that?’
‘The fellow writin’ this--either crazy, or else there’s goin’ to be a
war less than a hundred miles from here!’
‘Who’s fightin’, Slim?’
‘Mexican war--over some oil wells--down San Pasquali way--’
‘Any white men?’
‘Sure. That’s why. This fellow Burton--“Mexicali” Burton--he’s
American. Struck it rich in oil, but looks to be unpopulyar with a
revolutionist, called Vallejo--’
‘Just a Sunday newspaper yarn,’ said Cal.
‘This feller who’s writin’ says Mister Vallejo could use them oil
wells of Burton’s to pay off his soldiers and finally take over the
government.’
Elbert wasn’t breathing right. Another version of the same newspaper
story Mort Cotton had sent. He felt as if the truth was being extracted
in spite of him; that Cal and Slim had somehow landed into the midst of
his private business. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come. At the same time,
he was powerfully thrilled by some vague prospect, his mind repeating
to itself that he had given nothing away so far.
Slim, meanwhile, was reading aloud laboriously about an American oil
man, named Burton, who had sent in a call for help to General Juan
Cordano, in charge of the Government soldiers in Sonora. This man
Burton was said to be standing pat on his property at San Pasquali with
a few dozen white men and some Mexican laborers he wasn’t at all sure
of.
‘Every time them newspaper fellers up in Tucson can’t think of anything
else to write on, they start a Mexican revolution,’ Cal said.
‘But why couldn’t it be?’ asked Slim, sitting up straighter, more
and more sleepless, his bridle-arm lifted, his right fallen limp as
if he were in the saddle. Slim had to wear his belt tight or it would
drop down over his hips. One had a feeling that it could be pulled up
over his shoulders without loosening a notch. ‘Why couldn’t it be?’ he
wanted to know in a louder tone.
‘You’re breaking in on my rest,’ Cal murmured.
Slim straightened out his legs and helped himself to his feet with
both hands. Taking a quart cup from his mess-case, he went back to the
cook-wagon and returned with it full of hot coffee. ‘This ain’t no
night for rest; this ain’t no place for me, Cal. I’ve been making forty
dollars a month so long, anybody’d think I was keepin’ up a twenty-year
endowment policy--’
The big one bent over to Elbert, whispering: ‘I shore hoped he was over
them spells. Six months since Slim’s been took like this. Sad, ain’t
it?’
But Elbert saw a reddish flare in Cal’s eyes, usually so icy gray and
cool. Something queer was taking place in himself at the same time, a
wild hope--the last chance on earth. But he couldn’t miss that he was
forgotten now, the pair more and more involved in each other as the
tension grew.
‘You’ll admit we’re dyin’ off here,’ said Slim.
‘Not so loud; hush yourself,’ said Cal. ‘We ain’t got no grudge
against Heaslep’s. We don’t want to start a stampede of hands just as
round-up’s comin’ on.’
‘That’s so,’ Slim muttered.
Elbert suddenly found the eyes of both men boring into his. ‘You won’t
tell ’em anything about this, will you? We ain’t got nothin’ against
old Frost-face,’ said Slim.
‘I shore would hate to see this outfit left short-handed through any
abrupt transformations takin’ place between me and Slim,’ added Cal.
‘I won’t say anything,’ Elbert declared, but the sound of his own voice
was strange and unsteady. A moment later he strolled off into the dark.
He didn’t trust his face or his feelings which to himself, at least,
were conveying meanings louder than words. In a moment or two, Cal’s
easy tones reached him.
‘Elbert!’
He went back.
‘Anything eatin’ you?’
‘No--’
‘You ain’t figurin’--’
‘No, I won’t tell Frost-face, or any of the fellows--’
Cal chuckled: ‘It ain’t that. Slim and me sort of forgot ourselves.
Bein’ married a long time, it works that way. Can’t be you’re honin’ to
perforate the Border like Slim?’
‘Wouldn’t I slow you up?’
‘We thought of that, but concluded we could do with a balancer--’
‘I think it would be fine--’