and Americans hurrying in and out. He rang bells in both languages.
Meanwhile Cal and Slim had entered the lamp-lit quarters, and Elbert
followed, meeting the eyes of Mary Gertling. Still those eyes hadn’t
broken into tears; still that inexplicable stillness around her--the
same faint trace of a smile, as in the first moment in Nacimiento.
Now ‘Mexicali’ Burton and Cal Monroid were facing each other, like two
chiefs--one instantaneous look. All they had seemed to need was this
one look in the lamplight. Each knew a man. It was a moment of romantic
fulfillment to Elbert. His mind had suddenly renewed its grasp on the
fact that Bart Leadley might be a part of Vallejo’s lines now closing
about; yet at the same time he could not miss the way the fighting face
of ‘Mexicali’ Burton had suddenly softened and turned in appeal to Cal.
‘It was bad enough before,’ he was saying, slowly. ‘Vallejo’s got
numbers. I trust my white men, but you never can trust the Mexicans.
Cordano himself may double-cross me. Can’t tell when he’ll get some
troops here. It was bad enough before, but what can a man do with three
girls--?’
A whimsical smile was on Cal’s lips, which formed to answer, but the
words were never spoken.
That was the instant the gods of North America undertook to get
a flash-light photograph of the lower end--stupefying flash and
crash--blinding glare, heaving darkness, falling timbers, the scream of
one horse.
Elbert was on his knees, eyes and nostrils choked with dust. He thought
of Mamie outside; then certain new business and nothing else occupied
his brain. In that unbelievable glare, he had seen the face of Mary
Gertling. The light hadn’t shone upon her face, it had flowed into it,
through it. He had seen the secret of her stillness, and though he
couldn’t recall the nature of it now, he was perfectly aware that an
explosion like that might breed another and he must somehow get to her,
before it happened again.
He was calling. She called back just once. He was groping for her
now. His hand touched objects, but they had nothing to do with what
he groped for. His ears were filled with voices, but he was really
listening only for one. His fingers touched the little fawnskin jacket,
and beneath his face as he knelt, there was the queerest low sob; one
arm came up and held him, and the words:
‘You shouldn’t have been quite so long--’
At his side was the distracting rattle of a match box, the strike of
the stick. A face appeared--‘Mexicali’ Burton--all below the eyes, a
gleaming black of blood.
‘Florabel!’
‘Papa!’
‘You and the other two--get into the sedan--before they explode the
second powder house. One of my own natives probably. Get into--get
into the sedan--’ subdued, sincere, not an extra syllable. Father and
daughter--they had found each other. Cal and Slim had found each other.
Elbert bent. ‘I didn’t mean to be so long--’ he said.
The one arm tightened around him. Another match was struck. Florabel
screamed at the sight of her father’s face. ‘Mexicali’ drew the hollow
of his sleeve down over it. ‘Shut up, Flo’,’ he said in the same
subdued way. ‘Just a scratch. Pile into the sedan--’
‘I can’t move.’
‘You must--who’s this lyin’ across your lap?’
‘That’s Imogen. She’s fainted. She did it before.’
‘I’ll put her into the sedan. Come on--’
‘I can’t--’
‘I’ll lift you in.’
‘I can’t drive--’ The sentences shot back and forth; even Cal Monroid
spoke: ‘Speakin’ of drivin’--that’s the Kid’s job--’ all while the
second match burned.
‘Sure, Elbert’ll drive,’ from Slim.
Elbert bent again. ‘We’ve got to go to the sedan.’
‘Yes--’ from under his lips, but she did not stir.
‘Come on. Won’t you help me?’
‘Oh, yes--’
‘Can you walk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come then--they’re putting Imogen in.’
‘But you--’
‘I’m going with you--’
‘Oh!’
He felt the queer uncertainty of her body, as she gained her feet, yet
she seemed trying to help him. Yes, she had promised to help; her one
hand was actually trying to lift him, at the same time holding on.
Florabel and Imogen were in the back of the car. He couldn’t see if
they were rightly in the seats. Elbert took the wheel, and drew Mary
Gertling in after him. Her hand didn’t feel right. Another hand was now
thrust in through the door after Mary was seated--‘Mexicali’s’--wet,
hot, hairy.
‘You’ve got to get there, young fellow!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Clear through to Nogales.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll vouch for Elbert,’ came from Cal, who seemed standing just behind
Burton.
‘But how about Mamie?’
‘Slim and me’ll take care of her.’
‘I ain’t gone over her, but she’s on her feet.’ This last was from
Slim. ‘We’ll keep her for you.’
‘You can’t take the road you came by--not for a ways.’ ‘Mexicali’ went
on, thickly. ‘Keep goin’ toward the derricks. Follow the wheel-tracks;
they’ll work you back to the main road later. Use your lamps--when you
have to--’
‘Papa--’
‘Don’t bother me!’ The voice was thick, as if ‘Mexicali’s’ throat was
filling with blood. ‘We’re stayin’ here, but these oil wells aren’t a
hell of a lot, compared to the baggage you’re carryin’, young fellow.
Clear through to Nogales, do you hear?’
‘He’ll get through, Mister,’ said Cal, and then the same voice trailed,
‘So long, Kid.’
XIII
VALLEJO’S LINES
ELBERT’S mind didn’t steady down at once to the wheel. A moaning kept
up from behind. That was Imogen. Part of him, too, seemed listening
for Florabel’s voice; he had vaguely counted on her undertaking to
drive from the back seat, as his sisters used to, but not a word....
Gasoline.... Girls.... ‘Thirty years late.’... Tequila--coal-oil--vino
tinto.... ‘Water is for horses.’... Mamie.... Thus his mind kept
churning, as if to get a certain harrowing review out of the way,
before he took up the matter at hand. Certainly matters at hand--the
wheel, the girl at his side. He expected her hand to rise out of the
dark and tangle him further, but it didn’t come. Queer to have her on
his right. She had been on his left always before.
He was following the wheel-tracks among the derricks, using his
lights when he had to. Perhaps he was getting close to the second
powder house; anyway, he was doing what he was told.... He wasn’t
exactly right; he had to stop to think that he wasn’t back in old
Fortitude’s stiff-backed seat. A deep hurt about leaving Mamie behind
and not being exactly true to his secret quest, preyed upon him; also
the possibility that Bart Leadley was within a mile of him at this
moment, working with Vallejo to get Burton’s oil. A voice shouted from
ahead--Mexican--part of Vallejo’s cordon. Now Bart or not, he had to
get down to business. He had baggage. He had to get through.
All was black before his eyes. He was holding the sedan to a mental
picture of the dirt road, impressed upon his memory an instant ago when
he turned on the lights, but the black scaffoldings of the derricks
wove crazily before his eyes; the chance of a smash taking his breath.
He felt the wheel jerk as it left the tire-grooves. A row of rifle
flashes showed ahead; glass splintered around them.
‘Get down--way down,’ he gasped.
He pressed the throttle, holding the wheel toward the guns; the engine
roared underfoot. The firing was from behind now, but he kept going
into the blackness until he couldn’t risk another second; the sense of
leaping off into an abyss of darkness was so keen.
Lights showed the wheel-tracks; still the derricks on either hand. Not
a sound or a touch from his side. More rifles cracked ahead. It had to
be done again.
‘Get down, way down!’ he called. Again the car shot forward through
the flashes. This time hands touched the outside; bumps of metal,
more splintered glass. The wheel jerked out of his hand; the sedan
ditched, but didn’t overturn. In a flash of one rifle, he saw a second
figure--mouth open, pistol raised. He seemed to look right into that
open mouth and belching muzzle. The fenders on the same side screeched
against stone.
He wasn’t right. He had to throw his body forward on the wheel to hold
it, as he turned on the lights--only the right hand working. He was
back in the wheel-tracks, but the car kept fighting away from him--a
flat tire. He felt an absurd need to explain. ‘It was that left front
tire that threw me--’ but she wasn’t listening. His foot sank upon the
throttle.
Now Elbert was badly mixed about that left front tire and his own left
side--both flat. He had to hurry now while his right arm lasted. ‘I’ll
vouch for Elbert.... He’ll get through, Mister.... So long, Kid.’ But
all the time he was getting farther and farther from Mamie--from Bart!
The wheel-tracks had circled back to the main road. His right foot
steadied down. He had to hold the wheel with all his strength to make
up for the retard on the left.... Not a touch or a sound from his side.
Thirst was stealing into him like the cold. Maybe she was thirsty....
Maybe they wouldn’t know which was which--tequila, coal oil.... ‘I’ve
been on a horse before.... He bumps so.’... ‘Thirty years late.’... He
had lights; he held to the highway, his foot pressed to the floor....
She wasn’t helping--not a touch, or did she mean to help by keeping
still?
* * * * *
Vaguely Elbert heard low words like this:
‘He doesn’t relax. He keeps listening for a voice. The rest of the
time he seems to think he’s driving something--a horse or a car. It’s
not always clear. If he could only stop driving himself, every time he
comes to, and get some rest’--a strange woman’s voice.
‘Put him to sleep again,’ a man replied from the far side of the room.
‘I’ll answer his father’s telegram, but nobody could satisfy these
newspaper men, and have time for anything else.’
Of course, they didn’t understand. He had to get through. He had to
keep on, while his right arm lasted--clear through to Nogales. And even
if he did, it wouldn’t mean that he was making good to what he set out
for. He had passed up the main chance, falling for another.... There
was a pricking in his right arm now, but no sound from that side, not a
word--everything muffled and getting farther away ... until Cal’s easy
tones really began to set him straight:
‘Take it easy, Kid. You got ’em here--right here in Nogales! You
brought ’em through--days ago. Listen, Kid, you don’t need to drive no
more!’ That voice always straightened things out.
‘But Mamie--’ he finally broke out.
‘She’s waitin’ for you. We brought her up--fine--’
Elbert felt himself moving softly after that, into an altogether
different zone of sleep. ‘But where?’ He locked his lips. He mustn’t
ask anything more.
Cal came again, and finally with Slim, but it was a dreary time before
they let him ask questions. Mamie was right here in Nogales. ‘Mexicali’
Burton’s party had held out until morning at San Pasquali, when General
Cordano had come, driving Vallejo away.
‘Did he lose any men?’ Elbert mumbled.
‘Who?’
‘Vall--I mean Cordano--or Mr. Burton?’
‘Some,’ said Slim, suspicious of delirium again.
* * * * *
... Another time, and they were telling him everything but what he
wanted especially to know. Yes, Mexicali with a crushed jaw had kept on
his pins all through that night of the explosion, until relief came.
‘He’s here in Nogales right now--jaw in a sling,’ added Cal.
Elbert craftily inquired about Florabel.
‘She got broke somewhere--I didn’t hear where,’ said Slim.
‘Not so she ain’t goin’ to recover,’ finished Cal.
Elbert’s lips forced him to say, ‘And little Rainbow?’
‘Not a scratch,’ said Slim. ‘She just fainted and wasn’t there to get
hurt--when that explosure took place.’
Elbert was silent. Cal’s voice took up the story: ‘As for that little
Mary-woman, I’m holdin’ a letter for you she left before her parents
took her up to Tucson.’
It was like splintered glass, the way Slim broke in: ‘We’d better go,
Cal. Elbert ain’t lookin’ as well as he should.’
Cal arose: ‘She got all right before she left, except for one broken
arm.’
Several seconds ticked, before the question: ‘Which arm?’
‘Now it was the left arm, as I recall.’
‘Oh, I see, she couldn’t--’ Elbert halted with a jerk. It seemed they
never would go.
XIV
A LETTER
THEY had put out the lights. Even the night-light at the far end of the
hall was turned low, but sentences wrote themselves out on the ceiling;
a pause, then a sentence; a pause, then another.
‘_... Could it have been the wine she gave us at supper--the
barefooted old woman? I was so very thirsty!... I can’t understand. I
can’t believe, yet I distinctly remember insisting that I ride that
horse.... I was so horribly frightened--except when I was near you....
I couldn’t help seeing how the others turned to you.... Won’t you
please believe I never acted like that before?... It was because you
were so firm--that I could breathe better where you were.... And in
the car--it was like hanging on a cross, wasn’t it?... Oh, won’t you
get word to me that you forgive?_’
Such a stillness around each sentence.
XV
TUCSON
HE was sitting up when Cal and Slim came again. That was the day of the
telegram that his father was leaving the East and would be in Tucson in
three days more. Also there were more Tucson and Border papers with a
lot extra to say about Vallejo’s attack on the San Pasquali oil wells;
of the rescue of the American party by Mexican government troops; but
especially of the motor drive of one white man through the rebel’s
lines--seventy miles north, clear through to Nogales--how the car had
been found at dawn at the edge of town, the driver close to death from
a gunshot wound in his left side, two American girls unconscious in the
car, and another unhurt, but too scared to talk.
‘Not a drop of gas in the tank or you’d have rammed right into the
Border, Elbert,’ Cal said.
‘You sure stepped on the oats,’ said Slim.
‘We didn’t get to stay in Mexico,’ Elbert complained after a time. ‘We
had to come right back.’
Cal and Slim looked at each other, faces long and grave.
‘He didn’t get to stay,’ said Cal.
‘Only one horse went over back with him,’ said Slim. ‘Only one powder
magazine blew up. Only hit by one forty-five--’
‘Had to come right back,’ said Cal.
‘I thought I’d get to ride,’ said Elbert, ‘but I had to drive that
car--’
Cal inquired after a moment: ‘Do you reckon we might take Elbert along
again sometime?’
‘I ain’t a well man. I ain’t ready to state as to that right now’,’
said Slim. ‘I need to be babied along at Heaslep’s, where they ain’t
rough, and talk gentle--’
‘He wants to hear about old hoof-and-mouth,’ Cal suggested.
‘They’re going to let me out of here to-morrow,’ said Elbert. ‘I’ll be
goin’ up to Tucson--to meet my father.’
* * * * *
Elbert was clear of the hospital before he began to see things
straight. In fact, he was standing with Mamie in her box stall the
next day in the livery stable at Nogales, on the American side, when
some perfectly useless frictions and pressures fell away. In the first
place, here was Mamie safe and sound, and the future opened with a new
chance to begin over again at the bottom. Had he lost the mare, there
could have been no real beginning over, at the bottom or anywhere else.
Secondly, he hadn’t divulged his secret, even in delirium. Certain
time had been lost, the fault his in deciding to stop at Heaslep’s for
a friendly call on the way from San Forenso to the Border.
Beyond doubt he must travel alone from now on. He was breathing easier.
A bit weak on his legs--too long in bed--but ready to begin again.
Queer, how it all cleared up for him standing with Mamie like this.
‘Stand around and talk to her,’ Bob Leadley had said. ‘She likes to be
consulted on family affairs. It won’t do you no harm. She’s one more
listening mare.’
‘I’ll just leave you right here, Mamie,’ he whispered, ‘while I go
up to Tucson for a day or two. These people seem to be treating you
right--and it’s handy to the Border. Take it easy till I come back,
because we’ll be losing ourselves in work after that.’
* * * * *
... A queer, embarrassed half-embrace, neither knowing just what to
do or say, and a swift look into his father’s eyes after several
months--really the first exchange that had the beginnings of
understanding in it. Elbert finally grasped what a son is so slow to
find out--that his father was not merely a parent, but a separate human
being, with his own struggles, silences, dilemmas, like the rest of the
world. It was Elbert’s first understanding of his own house, and the
man of it, from the attitude of an outsider. Another moment of a fresh
beginning in life, he realized. Meanwhile sentences like this were
passing:
‘Got yourself pretty badly shot up?’
‘It was a bad jumble for a minute--’
‘But you saw them through--’
‘I had to. I don’t even remember, most of it.’
‘Come on, let’s go in to dinner.... No, Nancy isn’t married yet, but
the house feels as if news might break out any day--likely by the time
I--we--get back--’
The last was nothing like a foregone conclusion, but phrased
tentatively, with questioning look.
‘No, I won’t be going back just yet,’ Elbert said.
He felt the silence; also suddenly he felt his father’s side as well as
his own. A man accustomed to a houseful of daughters might really want
to have his only son standing beside him very much. It was an entirely
new angle.
‘Haven’t got enough?’
‘Not quite through--’
‘Going back to Heaslep’s?’
‘Oh, no--’
No resistance from his father. Elbert hardly knew how to handle this
new man-to-man acquiescence--no tampering. He had braced himself, but
no strength was required; and now for a moment he was unnerved by
friendliness. Was his father changed, because of things the newspapers
said about his drive to Nogales? A whole lot of stuff had been written
which no fellow could pay any attention to, about himself. Elbert began
to feel an almost irresistible impulse to tell the whole story to his
father.
‘Not going back to San Pasquali?’ the latter asked.
‘No.’
‘I was hoping you didn’t mean to tie up with this man, Burton--’
‘Oh, no.’
‘And those friends of yours--those cowhands--’
‘I’m planning to be alone for a while.’
Elbert’s answers were automatic. A fight was still on in him, not to
divulge about Bob Leadley and the gold mine. It seemed almost that his
father had the right to know--but Elbert kept his mouth shut.
Toward the end of dinner the elder man said with a laugh: ‘You’ll be
needing some money--’
‘No, I’m all fixed, thanks.’
Elbert couldn’t follow his father’s reaction to that. Mr. Sartwell said
nothing, but seemed both glad and sorry at the same time. After that he
spoke with even a little more care, not to impose his will. It was like
two men talking in a club, about anything in the world, except what
each meant to the other.
* * * * *
Elbert was waiting in the reception room of the Finishing School.
It was the summer season and only a few of the girls were staying
over--those whose families did not live in Tucson, possibly. The place
was shaded and flowery; blossoms on all the tables, and one great
basket, shaped like a French hat of an old day, on the piano, filled
with young pink roses. He heard laughter and whispering in the hallway.
It wasn’t exactly clear to him what he must say or do. He felt his
wound right now, a sort of general breakdown. The door he was looking
toward--the direction the voices came from--didn’t open. Her step
sounded from behind. He saw her first among the vines at the window,
facing the porch. Her lips moved, her hand lifted, the door opened, but
everything was stiller than one could imagine.
‘I would have known you--’
‘Of course--’
‘It’s probably because I saw you before--I mean before dark that
night--’
He felt a vague surprise in himself that he caught the drift so
readily. ‘At the barefooted woman’s--’ he finished.
‘Yes--’
‘It was different, after supper that night,’ she went on, ‘but I’m
glad I would have known you, as you are to-day. Reading the papers was
so confusing.’
‘They never know when to stop.’
‘They didn’t tell it nearly all, either--’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t have known it was the same story by reading it in the
papers.’
‘I see--’
She was changed--less glitter somehow, as if her light came from deeper
in, a light more delicate. She had on a creamy dress, no folds in it,
but not tight anywhere. This meeting wasn’t like the first time in the
Señora’s house; nor yet, was it like the sense of her which had come
in the hospital, from so many hours of pondering over the separate
sentences of her letter. Suddenly he knew he must never tie himself to
any particular moment when with her, because she wasn’t going to be the
same the next time. Tying to one meeting would keep him from catching
on to all that the next held in store. His mind clung for a moment,
however, to the memory of the alabaster bowl at home, while she was
still going on about the newspapers.
‘They didn’t see you. They didn’t know what we did--what we tried to
do. They sort of laughed at us, and talked of your great bravery, but
there was something no one saw--’
She was standing at his left--a hush between the sentences. ‘... They
didn’t know that somebody was helping us--’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean it wasn’t just your strength. Why, you were like one dead;
and yet you still drove. It was only when we were safe that your hand
relaxed--’
‘A case of knowing I had to, wasn’t it?’
‘More than that. That helped, of course, but there was something more--’
He said: ‘I didn’t know much of what was happening at the time--that
is, to remember, but I had a feeling you were helping--’
‘Did you know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really, did you know that?’
‘I had the feeling you were helping,’ he repeated. ‘First I thought
your hand--you know, I thought your hand would come up and help--’
‘It couldn’t.’
‘I didn’t know then.’
‘It was because it couldn’t, don’t you see?’
‘No. I don’t understand.’
‘When I found I couldn’t lift my hand, I knew I had to help another
way!’
‘You mean you--you prayed?’
‘I never did before,’ she laughed. ‘Yes, it was like that--’
It was as if the windows were all thrust open into a wide silent
summer, like the stillness of mountains, where there is not even the
rustle of a wing. A clean perfume came in, and there was a clear seeing
in Elbert’s brain, as if an arc-light were burning, where only candles
had shone before.
‘It was so dreadful, because I had promised,’ she said.
‘How was that?’
‘You had asked me to help you, and I had promised. Then I found I could
not even lift my hand. It was then I kept saying, “I have to help him,
please. I have to help him, please--”’
‘I see,’ said Elbert.
‘And then it was as if I could see the car below--see right through
into it, and I could see you and me, sort of little and broken inside,
and I could feel _our_ pain, but we were really together outside and
above, and we knew it would be all right--’
Now he could actually help carry out her picture. ‘I remember in the
hospital,’ he said quickly, ‘when they gave me an anæsthetic, I could
look down at myself like that. I wouldn’t tell anybody--if I were you.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t for worlds! They’d call it being out of the head!’
So she had kept all this, until he came. Just now he turned to her, and
there wasn’t a sound from the halls. The light was easy and flowing in
the room. Everything was like a slow movement. His right foot raised to
take the step toward her, but suddenly he knew if he took the step, it
would be next to impossible to remember clearly that he must find Bart
Leadley; quite plain, it was, that if he took this step toward her, he
wouldn’t be able to go down into Mexico alone and keep his mind to the
allegiance he had entered with Bart’s father. His foot settled back to
the floor.
‘... And the later part--all different--I’ll never forget!’ she was
telling him. ‘It was when the dawn came--the time we were in the
awful cold--and they found us, and you were hanging forward on the
wheel--your face was like stone--eyes open, but no life. Oh, I’ll never
forget! It was as if the skin of your face were pulled back over the
bones from behind ... and they lifted me out to an ambulance, before
they lifted you, and I saw your left side--all wet and stained dark ...
and then I knew I wasn’t helping--so frightened from your look--and I
knew I must not fall into fears, nor pay any attention to your wound,
but help more--from higher up, and never stop--’
It was getting harder and harder to think of the work ahead. Elbert
plunged into the inevitability of it right now.
‘I’ve got a work to do,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go away. I’m glad I came
to-day. About all this--I won’t forget any of it. I’ll know more about
it--when I come back--’