‘I’ve been studying it lately a little. I had some Latin which helps--’
‘Lord, does Latin run in your family, Elbert?’
‘I speak Mexican,’ Slim reminded, in the tone of one wronged.
Cal squinted at the fire. ‘Sure, I forgot. Slim eats her.’
Elbert looked up at the stars. They had suddenly blazed out friendly,
and over the cattle came a warm wind and folded him in.
‘Excuse me,’ Cal added. ‘I’ve got some very close work to do right
now--threadin’ a needle to tack my war-sack together.’
IX
INITIATION
THEY crossed the Border at Nogales, Cal riding old Chester, Slim on his
‘Indian’ and Elbert astride.
‘Yes, Elbert,’ said Cal that first afternoon in Mexico, ‘she’s shore an
indulgence for the eyes.’
A few minutes before sundown they entered the small pueblo of Cienaga.
Six hours in the saddle; Elbert was tired, athirst; the early May
sunlight had been burning, but except for the occasional oppressive
doubt as to his power to carry on without his two friends finding out
his real mission, and the fear that his tenderfoot ways might slow up
their adventuring, Elbert was possessed by an extraordinary elation;
as if part of his lungs that had never known air before, had quietly
opened, alive at last.
The moment of fastening the horses at the hitching-rack in the sleepy
sandy street, before the little cantina in Cienaga, was memorable from
all others in life. There was a dust cloud in the low dobe doorway.
Such was the stillness and deep ease in the air, that each grain of
dust hung in enticing suspense, a meaning and purpose Elbert was sure
of, and needn’t try to think out.
‘Tequila,’ said Slim, as they entered the shadows.
‘Same here,’ said Cal.
It was like the hold of a ship in a way; the smell of dried
orange-peel; a range of barrels with Spanish writing on them, a breath
of coolness; shelves of canned and bottled goods, wines and catsup and
pickles resting together in dusty composure.
‘I will, too,’ Elbert said.
The little fat man of the place had been trimming his oil lamp, pouring
in coal oil from a large glass jar. He drew out a second piece of
glassware from under the counter, slightly smaller, but of similar
shape to the first. The contents of the two jars were of identical
color.
‘Here goes,’ said Slim, and the three small glasses were raised.
For a second Elbert thought he had been shot in the neck. Out of the
pandemonium of his faculties then formed the suspicion that either they
burned tequila in the lamps, or else that was the Mexican name for
kerosene.
‘The first one always hits me where I ain’t lookin’,’ Cal remarked.
‘Suppose we go through the formalities of three more.’
Elbert braced to do it again. He felt himself standing very straight,
only there was a curious illusion that his spine extended clear through
to the top of his head. The reverberations of the second shot having
died away, Elbert was conscious of a faint aroma, as if all the dried
fruits and tubers and woodwork had blent in enticing fragrance. A
horse nickered from afar down the street and their three ponies at the
hitching-rail raised their heads--Mamie’s instant answer being ramified
by Chester’s dignified head-tones, and a shrill broken pipe from the
‘Indian.’ A kind of union and interplay in all things--glint of drift
and daring in Cal Monroid’s eyes. The little fat man was shaking his
match box. It really wouldn’t do for the lamp to be lighted just yet.
Elbert spoke up:
‘We might risk one more,’ he said with slow care.
Now Cal and Slim took his invitation in a queer way. They pawed each
other and kept saying: ‘I told you so.’ Could they mean they weren’t
regretting they had let him come?
‘I like it here,’ said Slim.
‘I feel like stayin’,’ said Cal. ‘I could eat some of these here dried
herrin’ and pickles standin’ up, but I suggests we saunter to a table
somewhere and feed on somethin’ firm. I could stay all night--’
Elbert, standing very straight, turned away to the doorway that last
moment before the lamp was lighted, and there he beheld his Crimson
Foam--the whole West over the horses’ heads, shot with Indian red. It
was worth the beginning at Heaslep’s, the struggle with Fortitude, the
leather-store and even the years of Eastern schooling. Only he mustn’t
fall to telling how joyous he was. Meanwhile Slim and the little fat
man were having words. The former turned to Cal with his wronged look:
‘What you goin’ to do with a fellow like this? He keeps hornin’ in with
English. Says I called him a horse. Says I mean caballero, not caballo.
Wants to know if we’ll have our chickens boiled or fried.’
‘Quickest for me,’ said Cal. ‘Only tell him I ain’t broke off with
beans.’
After supper, Cal suggested that they go out to the corral to see
if the horses were making out as well as they were. Elbert sat back
against a stone. The straw smelled dry and clean; the sky was close and
velvety; the three horses were grinding sun-parched corn, a soothing
sound; everything expansive and exactly right, only a persistent
tendency to be reminiscent, which Elbert checked. Finally at his right,
a chuckle from Cal:
‘Slim--’
‘Yep?’
‘For a tenderfoot, I’m sayin’ our young friend Elbert holds his
fire-water aloft some successful, don’t you think?’
Slim allowed that, and Elbert’s face turned away to the dark, so his
exultation might not be seen. He felt on the eve of a mysterious
graduation ceremony....
* * * * *
Toward mid-afternoon two days later they entered the pueblo of
Nacimiento, and two thin dogs skulked across the road ahead of their
horses. An old man, beyond human speech, was sitting in the sun against
a wall, and a little farther on, another. That seemed the end of life,
as they paused before a fonda marked ‘El Cajon.’ The sandy road at this
point was beaten with many pony tracks.
‘Looks as if a troop of cavalry had halted here,’ Slim said in a hushed
tone.
A moment of rich promise to Elbert, except that he wished he didn’t
feel so played out. They entered the deserted wine-room. Slim drew a
finger over the bar-board and left his mark in the dust. A scared lame
boy finally came out from the shadows behind. No mistake about his
gestures; they were urged to move on.
‘What do you think we’re up against?’ Cal inquired. ‘Yellow fever or
just war?’
‘Can’t say,’ said Slim, ‘only far from home--far from home.’
‘We might keep on going to Burton’s oil wells at San Pasquali. Can’t be
more than eighteen miles from here, but it would take the edge off the
horses; also what little nape of Elbert’s, as ain’t wore off already.’
‘Oh, I’m all right,’ Elbert hastened to say, ‘whatever you think best.’
At the end of town they heard a phonograph, the twisty piping tones of
‘El Chocolo.’ In a doorway presently appeared a barefooted old woman
with a broom in one hand and a pair of castanets in the other. Slim
uncorked his Spanish. It sounded to Elbert as if he were asking for
rooms with bath. The Señora’s mouth opened, but no sound came. She
raised one foot and clucked the castanets, finally coördinating:
‘No sabe, Señor.’
Slim repeated.
The other foot vanished; the castanets vibrated and a single word
shot forth: ‘Baños,’ was the nature of it, the Señora pointing to a
tin wash-tub under the eaves. At this point Elbert had to attend to
Mamie, who wasn’t taking to the Señora and her castanets. Her feet
were planted firmly against advance to the hitching-rack, and a long,
tremulous wheeze poured out of her nostrils, signifying distrust, alarm.
‘I’ll love up the Señora,’ said Slim, confidently. He dismounted and
bowed low. The Mexican woman couldn’t resist and turned into the
doorway, bidding them follow. Mamie now relaxed, and Elbert was the
last to enter a flowered patio, where the Señora brought pans of water
for them to wash, and then began stirring in the ashes of the ancient
fireplace.
‘I’m takin’ on hope,’ Cal breathed. ‘She’s fixin’ to boil something, if
it’s only grool.’
‘Frijoles,’ lightly called Slim. ‘Also, huevos, Señora, also tortillas
tom bien.’
Her back was toward them, her face still bent over the fireplace, but
her hand shot up, registering the orders on the castanets.
At this instant something began to be wrong in the air. A far-off sound
took the heart out of Elbert; hatefully familiar, it was, spoiling at
once all the mysterious warnings of deserted Nacimiento--the chug-chug
of an earth-eater, high-powered, and coming fast.
A small, square, vined window in the patio faced the road. Elbert moved
to it, Cal and Slim following. The three heads looked out, a hush
fallen upon them. A cherry-colored sedan, dust of Mexico unable to
cover its incredible modernity, halted before the Señora’s door, and
three queer boyish figures hopped out.
X
‘WATER IS FOR HORSES’
‘THEY’RE white,’ whispered Slim. ‘They’re play-actors.’
Then from Cal: ‘What kind of little boys would you say them were,
Elbert?’
‘I wouldn’t. They’re girls in hikin’ clothes. Don’t you see their
vanities?’
‘Short hair and short pants, Elbert--where do you look for them points
you speak of--oh, you mean them little satchels?’
Mexico had petered out; hope dead.
‘You go in first, Elbert. I never coped with nothin’ like them,’ Cal
murmured.
They followed the Señora into the front room. A chunky, black-haired
girl, who had sat in the driver’s seat of the sedan, was letting it be
known that she and her two friends had stopped for refreshments, on
their way to San Pasquali. Her voice was resonant, and she tried to
make volume do, being without Spanish.
The Señora held up her empty hand; her mouth opened, no sound. Slim
hurried back to the fireplace to fetch her clappers.
The black-haired one stamped her foot. She was used to getting what she
wanted. ‘Oh, can’t you see, we’re hungry, thirsty--something to eat
and drink?’
She had muscle, and big blue eyes.
‘Put your hand on your belt. Miss,’ Cal called. ‘Make signs of bein’
caved in.’
‘Hush up, Cal. That ain’t no language to use,’ said Slim, stepping up
from the side. ‘Allow me to interperate for you, lady.’
‘Thanks, if you please.’
At this point Elbert’s hand touched a hand at his left. He turned and
said ‘Excuse me,’ in severe tones. A swift shy smile met his eyes--the
face of one unmistakably frightened, but handling it--a girl who could
cry engagingly, but only after everything was over. Her tones had a
curious way of not disturbing the stillness.
‘I think we made a mistake in coming--an awful mistake,’ she laughed.
‘I told Florabel we ought to turn round and go back, but she wouldn’t
hear to it--’
Elbert turned to Florabel whose blue eyes were flashing up to Cal’s.
‘I’m Miss Burton, and I’m going to San Pasquali to surprise Papa!’
‘Won’t you, though!’ enthused Cal.
The third of the girls was smaller, younger--a whitish, wide-eyed face,
hovering above a large and high-colored necktie. Slim had taken over
this little one, but she was slow to soothe, her eyes getting wider,
the white of her skin fading into colorless fear. Meanwhile, in shy
tones, Elbert was hearing the story of their coming from the girl at
his left.
‘We’re from Miss Van Whipple’s Finishing School in Tucson. It’s spring
vacation now, and we were sight-seeing in Nogales this morning, when
Florabel got the idea to rush down here and see her father. It was only
seventy miles, she said, and wouldn’t take more than three hours, and
then we’d be safe. I’m afraid we’ve made a terrible mistake--’
‘I’m afraid you have,’ said Elbert. He was used to a houseful of
sisters and he carried no heartstrings whatsoever for passing winds to
flap.
Her name was Mary Gertling. Her short hair was neither black nor
blonde, but there was a roll to it, down over her temples, that Elbert
remembered as a sort of aim of all his sisters’ girl friends before he
left. He forgot what Mary was saying for a minute, studying the creamy
light through her skin. It made him remember the thin bowl of alabaster
on the ceiling of the dining-room at home. She didn’t seem to mind his
severe ways. She just couldn’t seem to believe it of him. He recalled
the ominous signs which attended their riding into Nacimiento, the many
pony tracks.
‘If I were you, I’d ask Miss Burton to turn around now and go back,’ he
said.
‘But Florabel never would. She never turns back--in anything. She says
her father is less than twenty miles from here.’
She talked up to him so trustingly. The little fawnskin coat covering
her shoulders had that texture which draws the hand to touch. Her ways
were swift and still; but Elbert had lost his revolution and his heart
held hard as flint.
‘Come on, Mary!’ called Miss Florabel.
The three girls followed the Señora into the patio. Elbert stood in
deep thought a moment, before he realized that Cal and Slim had closed
in upon him.
‘Our little Elbert ain’t no hosstipath,’ said Slim. ‘I’ve seen smoother
hands all around with hosses, but for women and motor trucks he’s
faster than a coiled whip--’
‘Faster than the human eye,’ said Cal.
‘They belong to the Van Whipple Finishin’ School up in Tucson,’ Elbert
said thoughtfully.
‘So we draws.’
‘It’s vacation. They were sight-seeing in Nogales. They ought to be
sent back--’
‘We heard you tell her!’
‘It’s all this Burton girl’s fault.’
‘Slim,’ said Cal, unheeding, ‘you and me ain’t got no sway with this
finishin’ school, if Elbert ain’t.’
‘We’ve got to have some sway,’ said Slim, ‘or it’s goin’ to be the
plumb finish.’
‘What do you think our duty is?’ Elbert asked absently.
‘Our duty, I’d say, by these finishers,’ Slim whispered with
considerable weight, ‘our duty is to stay with ’em whether they like
it or not, and I’m meanin’ to do just that, only--’ He pointed to an
empty place in the room where the littlest of the girls had stood,
‘Only, every time I takes a step to her, this little one with the
rainbow necktie and the ruffle on her uniform, she looks as if she’s
goin’ to stagnate down an’ die. I shore expects a bleat out of her, my
next step, and all the time I see Elbert out of the corner of my eye,
gettin’ closer and closer and talkin’ lower and faster--’
‘Must be some perfume he has on,’ said Cal.
‘I didn’t take it she was particular afraid of my advance,’ modified
Slim, ‘just generally hos-tile. I sure drew the outlaw, though.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Cal, ‘if we turn over little Rainbow to Elbert, we
could manage the other two.’
‘That is as nature fixes it, Cal. We’d have some trouble right now,
tearin’ that little Mary female away from Elbert, the inroads he’s
made. But no use standin’ here. I’m goin’ to get a pair of knives and
whetstone out of my war bags an’ freshen up for supper.’
‘You’re not meanin’ to shave, Slim?’
‘That’s the presumption.’
Elbert rustled hay from the shed and carried it out to the
hitching-rack, the Señora’s house being suspiciously short-handed. Half
way between the corral and the kitchen door, he sat down, and moodily
watched the Señora getting supper. She did her work on the run, back
and forth in the old stone kitchen, castanets off. Her bare feet seemed
to roll up under her as she sped, one at a time reappearing to give the
stone floor a shove. It was like a double-action paddlewheel. Curious
sizzlings reached his ears from the open fire, also fascinating scents.
He was sure sliced onions were curling and browning on the pan.
Supper was set for six. Elbert found Mary Gertling seated at his
left. He rose from the table to get a glass of water, but the Señora
prevented, thrusting red wine in his hands.
‘Vino tinto! Vino tinto!’ she exclaimed.
‘I’m s’prised, Elbert,’ Slim corrected. ‘Didn’t you know water is for
the horses?’
‘Isn’t everything wonderful?’ whispered Mary Gertling.
‘Do you think so?’ Elbert inquired.
‘Dulzura!’ flamed Slim; then Cal’s easy voice as he monopolized the
attention of Florabel Burton: ‘So your father hasn’t written to you
none, Miss, that there’s a mixture of politics going on about his oil
wells?’
‘Oh, yes. Papa always allows for that. He says it wouldn’t be
Mexico--if there wasn’t some trouble in the air.’
‘No special trouble lately--things comin’ to a head?’
‘Oh, let’s go back!’ trembled the voice from behind the big necktie.
‘Just take it easy, lady,’ in Slim’s gentlest corral tones.
‘Things are always coming to a head down here,’ said Miss Burton.
‘I know,’ said Cal, ‘I can understand just how you feel. But we’re
concerned, especially Elbert here. If you knew that boy as well as I
do, you’d seen by his face that he’s sick with concern right now.’
‘Oh, Florabel!’ said Mary Gertling. ‘Can’t we ask them to go with us?
I’ll breathe so much easier.’
‘Oh, let’s!’ faintly from the little one, whom they called Imogen.
‘Why, we’ll be down there in an hour, before it’s really dark!’
Florabel objected, but finally gave way.
XI
GAS AND GUNS
ELBERT smelled gas, as he rode behind the sedan. It had always been
so; gas belonged to the deep fatigue of his bones. One of the keenest
minutes he had ever lived was that in which they had leaned down toward
the wide tangle of tracks in front of the fonda marked El Cajon--all
able-bodied men gone from Nacimiento, and big doings promised farther
on. And then, a matter of mere minutes afterward, his old enemy had
come roaring down the dirt road. Girls--everything spoiled--Cal and
Slim all changed around.
The sedan was just rolling forward, but it kept the ponies at a
lope. It seemed hours; the sliver of a moon had sunk out of the sky.
Florabel’s resonant voice reached him from the car. No secret now
why ‘Mexicali’ Burton dared to stand off Northern Sonora for his oil
wells--the father of this girl would be like that. Cal loomed in the
dark, having waited for Mamie to come up.
‘Your lady-friend’s got her mind made up to sit a horse for a ways,
Elbert. Slim’s Indian ain’t that kind of a horse, and your Mamie’s a
filly yet. I figure she’d better try old Chester, but you sort of ride
close and keep him consoled and her camped in the right place.’
‘How about you, Cal?’
‘Nothin’ else will do, but I’m to test my morals in the little red
buggie.’
The transfer was made. Elbert rode on through the thick May dark with
Mary Gertling at his left.
‘I’ve been on a horse before,’ she said.
No answer.
‘I’m afraid you think I’m being a trouble.’
Still Elbert’s lips were locked. He couldn’t see her clearly, but her
hands certainly were not in sight. Nobody with any sense of a horse
would leave her hands in her lap.
‘Oh, I’m afraid you don’t like to have me here!’ reached him in the
stillness.
‘Sure. Pick up your reins. We’re falling back--’
‘But he bumps so--’
‘They don’t make horses any smoother than he is. Want to get back in
the car?’
‘No-o.’
‘You’re doing all right.’ He had lied in spite of himself, and this
didn’t make him feel any better. Old Chester, tired as he was,
couldn’t be expected to keep his feet trim, with no hand of authority
communicating with the bit. Heat increased under Elbert’s collar. A
heave in the road and his left hand shot out before he thought. It was
clutched. Warm, small, firm. The two horses pulled apart a little, but
the hand didn’t let go. He was afraid of yanking her out of the saddle.
‘I’m so sorry to make you cross. I think it was awful for Florabel to
think of coming--oh--I’m falling!’
The hand slid out of his. He hurriedly dismounted. Mary was hanging
sideways, both hands on the pommel. Elbert knew the abused look of
Chester’s head, hanging low in the dark. He pushed her back up in the
saddle.
‘Need any help?’ Slim sang back from in front.
‘No!’
‘Why, Elbert, I never heard such tones as them, spoke from you before--’
‘Oh, please don’t be cross!’ in a whisper from his side. ‘I don’t know
what I’d ever have done--’
‘Oh, that’s all right.’ The miles were the longest in his experience.
During the last twenty minutes the horses had trudged up hill, the
motor making noisy business of the grade. Then the ridge and lights
below, San Pasquali, doubtless. Elbert fancied he smelled the oil
wells. He would never get away from gasoline.
‘Hadn’t you better get into the car?’ he remarked to Mary Gertling.
Cal was back on old Chester. The sedan had just started down-grade,
when Elbert saw three red perforations in the dark ahead. The fraction
of a second later, three separate concussions shocked his ears--not gas
explosions, guns! There was one scream--from the little one--and Cal’s
yell directed toward the car, as he spurred forward. ‘Better turn back,
Miss--they may have the town surrounded!’
Slim’s Indian and Mamie had settled down after Chester. Shouts of
Mexicans sounded beyond the car, just as Elbert’s mare came to abrupt
stop. The sedan had halted, too, but the lights still pointed straight
ahead. Florabel wasn’t making the turn; she was either shocked
helpless, or her engine stalled. In the wide fling of the head-lights,
Elbert saw armed Mexicans standing across the road. Then they started
this way--six or seven figures running toward them, hands upraised,
rifles held aloft For once Cal’s voice lost its drawl.
‘Get in the car, Kid! Let your horse go!’
Elbert’s leg lifted out of the stirrup--one of the hardest things he
was ever called to do, but that very second the lights of the sedan
went out. There was one clear call from Mary Gertling, deadened by
a blasting roar from the sedan’s exhaust at the very knees of his
mount. Too much for Mamie. She went straight up and tried to keep
going, Elbert at the very top, arms around her frantic throat at the
narrowest--as the darkened sedan gouged forward like a speed-boat.
Cal’s voice reached him:
‘... that Burton girl--she’s shootin’ the lines! Come on, Slim, it
means us, too! Come on, Kid!’
Shots in the air--shots from ahead and at the sides.
He felt Mamie tottering still on her hind feet; then a jerk as if some
one had given her a cut with a whip, and over she went backward. He
pushed her neck from him and fell back, and knew no more, until Cal’s
low tones, as he was being lifted.
‘It’s all right. Kid. Chester’s good for both of us.’
For a time, in spite of that, he thought he still had Mamie round the
neck, but it was Cal’s ample chest--Slim’s Indian in an easy gallop
alongside.
‘Where’s the sedan?’ he finally mumbled.
‘Lord, Kid, she’s surprised papa by this time!’
XII
FLASHLIGHT AND FAWNSKIN
ELBERT kept shaking his head; no bones broken there or elsewhere, but
seemingly no end to the phases of his coming-to. It dawned on him there
had been a blank from the time Mamie went over backwards, until he
found himself here on Chester with Cal. He regretted missing some part
in there--going through the Mexican lines.
‘Where’s Mamie?’ he demanded, jerking erect.
‘Came through all right. Slim’s got her safe.’
Now Elbert gradually made out that they were in ‘Mexicali’ Burton’s oil
town. They had been halted--first a voice in Mexican, then American,
Cal answering quietly. He saw the sedan, and heard from aside in the
dark, Mamie’s long-drawn wheeze, the same protest as when she had
refused advance to the hitching-rail before the Señora’s house in
Nacimiento. There was one cabin door from which light streamed, and
in the aperture a blocky, bareheaded man appeared, legs planted wide
apart, the air suddenly burned by withering profanities.
‘... bringin’ three young women through Vallejo’s lines!... Sap-heads,
you fellows. It’s running out of your ears!’
‘I’m not takin’ no free talk from no oil man,’ growled Slim.
Cal mildly broke in. ‘Now as to that, Mister--’
‘Can’t you see we’ve got a war on?’ the blocky one in the doorway
yelled. ‘Can’t you see they’re twenty to one, tryin’ to get our oil
wells?’ His face had turned sidewise; light fell upon the uncovered,
close-cropped head--massive jaw, thin lips and startlingly familiar
blue eyes. Around that roaring neck from behind, a pair of white arms
were flung at this instant, ‘Mexicali’s’ fury shut off:
‘But Papa! I keep telling you it was all my fault!’
Florabel had the floor, but another figure had moved into the light
behind her. ‘You see, Mr. Burton, when we three wouldn’t turn back,
they rode along with us, to protect us.’ That was Mary Gertling. So
they had all reached the cabin.
Elbert still felt confused. Slim’s voice broke in now, stern with
dignity. ‘Seein’ as there’s no further need for us to be engaged in
protectin’--otherwise we might ride on--’
Another rip. ‘... ride on what? Ride on where? Don’t you see we’re
surrounded?’
‘Papa!’