in its sheath. The two men by the fire were on their feet; the third
stubbornly trying to gain the saddle, but Mamie slid from under, and
kept pulling away. Then an instant of utter amazement--the face of
Mamie’s tormentor near enough to be recognized--one of Bart’s bandits
whom he had raced away from the night before.
Elbert changed the quality of his shouting, but the Mexican had
let go the bridle-rein, and was speeding after his two companions,
who had vanished from the circle of firelight. They were at their
horses--mounting and spurring away. Elbert rubbed his dazed eyes--they
were gone--Mamie trotting toward him, head extra high to keep from
tripping on her bridle-reins.
The whistle had done it--and his shouts, which must have sounded like
a platoon closing in, to the leaderless bandit party. The whistle for
Mamie, the yell--Elbert did not know how he had come to vent that,
unless for his own courage.
Never before had he felt such a sense of belonging anywhere, as when
he folded over the Pitcairn stock-saddle. Sitting straight did not
suffice; he seemed fallen to clinging to the neck of his mare. Even a
minute later, he would have forgotten Bart’s sorrel, tied securely in
the bristling live-oak scrub, had not Mamie flirted her signal as she
galloped by on the moon-drenched hill.
‘They sure thought I was the rurales,’ he laughed.
At this juncture he missed his saddle-bags.
‘I suppose Bart would go back and get them right now,’ he thought. ‘Not
for me. Nothing in them I can’t do without. What silver there is--those
three fellows I ditched last night--may need that!’
His eyes were craning about the sky to locate the north star.
‘I won’t have to tell Bart how I lost Mamie, nor about the other
three,’ he communed later. ‘Now that I’ve got her back, I won’t have to
speak of it at all.’
It was a different matter about that grain-sack, however. The horses
would need that, and another drink from the creek to-night, before
facing to-morrow in the brown and sultry hills. He made the big circle
to the Fonseca road and the alders, but was back in a star-rimmed
mountain wilderness two hours before daybreak, the big gelding taking
an occasional nip at the grain-bag as he trotted along.
XXV
ELBERT LEARNS TO WAIT
NEXT day Elbert climbed the foothills and explored the mountains
eastward. He found many tracks of water, stream-beds of the rainy
season, but it was now autumn, the dryest time of the year, and hours
passed before he followed a trickle up a dim ravine to its first
pool. He had to grant that it was the horses that helped him locate
the water in the first place, but there was queer satisfaction about
the experience, as if he had been marooned on an island and his life
depended. No water ever tasted just like that. He watched the horses
drink and graze, and made them stand for a half hour at a time in the
sludgy grass at the side of the stream, while he stared up from the
shadowed cañon to where the sunlight burned on the ridges. ‘Only one
thing better than water for a horse’s hoofs,’ old Bob Leadley had said,
‘and that’s more water.’
No further need to cross the Fonseca road night and morning to reach
the creek. He would risk a night-call at El Relicario once in a
while--grub for himself and forage for the horses, but the old ruin was
now fifteen, possibly eighteen miles, and Bart was in good hands....
One by one, Elbert beat back the days, though he actually lost count,
even before it became apparent that Bart Leadley was going to live.
During his first two or three calls at the ranch house, there was a
good deal of doubt on this main point. From the very beginning, the big
fellow weakly pressed him not to stay.
‘No use of you hangin’ up all these days in the mountains, Doc,’ he
said. ‘I’ll follow north across the Border, as soon as I can make a
break.’
‘But I’m getting to like it out there,’ Elbert would tell him. ‘Only
lonesome a little at first. Why, there’s no place I could leave the
sorrel for you, if I went. The rurales would know that horse anywhere.’
‘Take him along. I’ll get a cayuse, somewhere--’
‘No, Bart, I came down here for you. That’s what your father
wanted--for me to bring you back--’
The other’s eyes held the low ceiling. ‘I’d hate to have you _after_
me,’ he laughed. ‘I mean like a sheriff--’
Elbert conned this all next day in his high solitude. He couldn’t get
it quite clear. Surely, no sheriff would ever suffer from hopeless
spells of faint-heartedness such as he was given to.... They were oddly
embarrassed with each other in those first talks, but when silence
became oppressive, Bart would enquire regarding some detail concerning
the horses. On this one subject alone, Elbert expatiated.
‘A little grain from here is keeping them fit,’ he would report in
effect. ‘And say, your Mallet-head sure has an appetite,’ he once
observed. ‘Mountains agree with him. He flavors up his forage with all
sorts of new leaves--even pine needles. Mamie’s more particular.’
Elbert caught a gleam from the cot. Bart’s black eyes were holding him.
‘You like ’em, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Horses.’
‘Sure,’ said Elbert.
‘I knew--the minute you climbed on that mare in front of the quarters
in Arecibo. We were a bit in a hurry right then, but you didn’t jerk
her round. I got to know pretty well before daylight that you were a
real hand with a horse, Mister.’
So Bart was really fooled. He had said something of this kind before,
that first daybreak here in El Relicario, but Elbert had feared then
that his mind was wandering. He didn’t answer now.
‘I like these people,’ Bart was saying, about the Mexicans. ‘I get
along with ’em pretty well, but they don’t savvy the horse. It doesn’t
seem to run in the blood. Monte Vallejo who had all Sonora thinking
he was a caballero--even to Monte, a horse was something to ride to
death. All these people saw and hack and ride on the bit. That’s what
got us into trouble with those race-horses, and that’s what got to me
from you, the first minute in front of el cuartel--to see a white man
sitting a horse and knowing what he was doing and what her mouth was
made of.’
‘Your father told me all about Mamie,’ Elbert said.
‘All the telling in the world wouldn’t do it, if a man didn’t have the
feel of a bridle-rein on his own hook.’
It was like being called to the carpet to be presented with a diploma
or a medal--no time for Elbert to trust his voice to relate that Mamie
was practically his first experience, and that only a few months ago.
‘How was it that the race-horses got you into trouble?’ he asked.
‘We couldn’t manage ’em. They were used to being babied for the
track--used to the sprint; didn’t know anything about saving themselves
for distance-running. There was a lot of young stuff among them, and
all our old cayuses were done for. We tried hammering the bang-tails to
the road, and they went crazy.... I drew the prize of the lot. All old
Mallet-head knows is to eat and run--so long as you keep the spur off
him!’
‘He keeps his feelings to himself, so they can’t be hurt. He’s sure
rugged,’ said Elbert.
Sometimes Bart seemed to be listening for a step as they talked; and
when the señorita appeared in the doorway, Bart’s eyes and hers would
meet and cling for a second.
There began to be a secret heaviness connected with this for Elbert.
What would happen to her when Bart left the little room of the cross
and the white flower?... So much taller she seemed, than in that first
moment in the dobe gateway. Had he seen her then as now, he might not
have asked her help. Perhaps, even if he had not heard the song of the
corn-dust maiden, he could never have thought of imposing as he did
that morning upon Valencia Vidaña, the daughter of El Relicario, now a
dobe ruin of many rooms, but in its day one of the famous ranch-houses
of Sonora.
‘Great name in these parts in the old days,’ Bart once whispered.
‘Valencia’s father was one of the big men of Sonora under Diaz, but
everything’s broken down since. Loot and confiscation’s the trick
here--worst of all from Juan Cordano. We happened in the right house.
The old don told me the other morning, he had hoped to see Monte
Vallejo in Cordano’s place here in Sonora.’
Long talks concerning all that led to Elbert’s coming to Sonora. Bart’s
deep laugh once sounded in the little room.
‘I’m used to Mexicans,’ he said. ‘I don’t know much about the States. I
s’pose there are a lot of people up there you can trust offhand, like
Dad trusted you.’
‘You see, he had to have somebody interested in Sonora, and willing
to do a lot of riding,’ Elbert answered. ‘You know, he wanted you to
have Mamie, but he wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find you--a
chance even, that I might not. He didn’t want her to change hands
another time. He always thought about her feelings--’
Elbert found himself staring at the little crucifix as he talked. Bart
didn’t seem to be troubled as much as he was--about the feelings of the
one in this house.... One night after about ten days in El Relicario,
Bart turned over and drew his right shoulder clear from its covering to
show how the wound was healing.
Elbert cleared his throat. ‘I don’t see how you stayed in the saddle
from that bridge until daybreak when we got here,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Why, that bullet would have knocked me out of the saddle like--like--’
He had quite forgotten--‘clear through to Nogales.’
A low laugh again. ‘Say, amigo mio--say, Mister, you’re sure nervous as
a filly, about being caught makin’ a move like a gamester!’
Elbert conned that all the next day in the hills.
XXVI
SILENCE
MEANWHILE he was learning undreamed-of-matters about himself. No amount
of riding such as he had done down in the valleys could have shown him
what he was getting now, in the stillness and sunlight and starlight of
high country. A hundred times a day, the flick of a lizard over leaf or
pebble or twig called his eye; that was the only continual distraction.
The days were mainly silent, though the nights were full of sound; the
coyotes sometimes a maddening chorus that stirred up unheard-of deeps
in the listener, and once as he lay awake at night a muffle-winged owl
swept past so close as to fan his face. That shook him like the sounds
during his first night out in White Stone Flats. In the stillness,
thoughts rose up in him with a power he hadn’t known before; one could
get so accustomed to this sort of life, he reflected, that he would be
entirely unfit in a little while for the towns again.
Here’s where a man reverted to type. What he was at bottom came
out. One might sink into being just an animal--eating and drinking
and sleeping--or get more fiery alive with the days, more quick and
sensitive with strange inner activity. There were times when Elbert’s
thoughts carried him along with a clear cool strength that was almost
frightening. He knew now that he had never been alone before; that a
man isn’t quite alone, even if locked in his own room--that he is only
really alone with the sky above and the earth beneath.
He had told Bart that he was getting to like it, but that didn’t become
wholly true until quite a number of days had passed. Again and again he
felt his jaw hardening, his lips pressed together; gradually his fears
fell away and the silence bit into the very center of his being. He
became a part of the outer silence of the days, a part of the fierce
still sunlight that slowly blackened his hands and face. He looked back
upon his dreams in the room at home, remembering the things he had
treasured there--Indian blankets, pictures, leather work--all had meant
something.
Out of these kid treasures and symbols, Cal and Slim had come to life,
Heaslep’s, Nacimiento, San Pasquali; Bob Leadley, Bismo on the Rio
Brava, Red Ante, the Dry Cache mine; Sonora, the cells, the corner of
the wall, flight from the rurales, El Relicario. He could shut his eyes
and think way back to the very beginning--hear the swish of motor cars
from his bedroom window, the sound of the piano below, the sounds of
his phonograph, and that last swung him swiftly across the continent
to the Plaza at Los Angeles--‘Cuando sali--’ and the leather-store.
All these a part of him now, but in the beginning there had only been
a little room of books and pictures and yearnings--yearnings that
finally drove him out to find his Crimson Foam. Something else he had
found--that still room in Tucson. Not a symbol of that in his father’s
house--oh, yes, of course, the alabaster bowl in the dining-room!
His thin lips stretched into the beginnings of a smile. He had heard
it said that each day brings to a man nine parts review and one part
advance work. Everything seemed like review to him now--the whole
circle rounded (at least, it would be when Bart and he were safely over
the Border into the States) everything review, except that still room
in Tucson. Very much advance work, that. His heart pumped so that he
could actually hear its beat.
Sometimes he felt, if he could get a little deeper into the silence,
he would know all about--even that. Anyway, it began to dawn on him
that everything would have been spoiled if he had rushed north alone,
leaving Bart--that the greatest adventure of all lay right in the
core of these days of solitude and silence. One night he felt like a
different man altogether, as he started down toward El Relicario in the
dusk.
XXVII
WORDS
‘YOU see, I was lazy--no two ways about it--lazy, from the very
beginning,’ Bart said during one of the night-talks. ‘I can see how Dad
felt now. I didn’t know any better than to think he was against me in
those days. I got the feeling I was wronged, and that’s bad. It’s bad
to let that wronged feeling pile up in a kid’s chest, until there is
no seeing it any other way. The thing that hurt me most was about that
horse--old Rat-tail from the Cup Q.’
Elbert kept still with effort. He knew the story of the rat-tail from
Bob Leadley’s telling, almost as well as Bart did, but the latter got
to talking too rarely to be interrupted.
‘A bad name, that horse had, but he wasn’t really bad. A horse isn’t
like a man; he isn’t like a dog. A horse is more like a woman--he
goes by feeling, not by his head. A dog will dope a thing out; a mule
will, but a horse feels his way. Why, that mare of yours--I’ll bet she
doesn’t miss much that’s goin’ on, even if her back’s turned. You’re
not foolin’ her a lot, even if you think you are. She’s cute as a
woman--
‘The more a man knows about a horse, the more he respects him, the more
careful he is,’ Bart went on. ‘You never see a real hand yank his
horse around or flourish none. You’re apt not to know a real ridin’
gent unless you’re one yourself. He works easy, and doesn’t attract the
eye. You never see him starting a horse into a run as soon as he leaves
the corral--unless there’s mighty pressin’ business, like that night we
first got together. You don’t see him rowel or quirt, because a real
hand doesn’t bring up a horse to need stimulants that way. And he isn’t
botherin’ with one that does--not for long. Nine times out of ten a bad
horse is man-spoiled, and a real hand doesn’t care to mix with other
men’s botched jobs.’
Elbert couldn’t help but see Cal Monroid in all this--Cal, and the way
he handled and sat old Chester. Bart and Cal were curiously alike in
the one utterly cool and nerveless quality. Evidently it was in this
quality, first of all, that their mastery over horses lay--no nerves to
confuse the feelings of a mount.
‘That old gray had been raked and hooked so long that all he knew was
to fight back. Everybody over at the rancho was afraid of him. Of
course, the fellows didn’t say they were; they’re more afraid of each
other finding out that they’re afraid, than they are of what they’re
afraid of--’
‘I can see that,’ said Elbert.
A curious look came into Bart’s eyes--a trace of deep rest. ‘You see,
a horse knows when a man’s afraid. He smells fear, or feels it. He gets
afraid, too, or confused--loses what little head he’s got. He begins
to look out through a sheet of blood, if you drive him deeper into
fear. If pushed far, he goes crazy, and that’s what they call a bad
horse. Sometimes they are ten times as strong as a horse in his right
senses--just like a man-maniac--’
Elbert had so much to say it was hard to keep still.
‘You see, I wanted that old gray so badly for my own,’ Bart went on.
‘They told me how bad he was, but I couldn’t believe it. He let me
get up to him--let me climb on his back. But when I got him back to
Bismo, everybody remembered him bein’ an outlaw. Dad tried breakin’ him
again--and they took him back to the Cup Q.’
Bart chuckled. One would think he had been telling some amusing boyhood
experience. His voice was easy, almost careless--Bob Leadley all over
again--not a sign for the listener that a deep misery of life was
being discussed. Suddenly Elbert realized that it was not only with
horses, but with men like Bob Leadley and his son--one had to trust his
feelings, or else miss a lot. And with women--
‘But your father knew better afterward,’ Elbert finally said.
‘How’s that?’
‘He knew you had something on the rat-tail, he didn’t have--’
‘How’s that?’
‘He told me. Everybody in Bismo kept warning him that the gray would
kill you. He got afraid _for you_, but he knew better afterward. Your
father came to understand what you meant about not wanting a ‘broke’
horse. He told me he thought about that one thing for years. It was
from him and some things from Mort Cotton--that I got any idea about
handling Mamie--’ Deep relief, Elbert knew as he halted a moment, the
same that he had known that night, as they rode away from el cuartel in
Arecibo. He was making it all clear at last. He got a queer feeling, as
if Bob Leadley were resting easier, too.
‘One of the squarest men anywhere, your father,’ he went on. ‘He knew
you had something on Rat-tail that he didn’t. He knew that “breaking”
a horse is old stuff. He said he had belonged to the old school that
thinks a horse is ruined if it ever gets its own way. One of the things
he liked to say best was that there are a whole lot of good riders, but
only once in a long while a good horseman--’
‘But he didn’t understand about Palto.’
‘Oh, yes, Bart. Even Mort Cotton did.’
‘They didn’t think I did right, did they?’
‘Yes,’ said Elbert.
‘Foolin’, aren’t you, amigo mio?’
‘Not on your life! He and Mort Cotton were crazy-tired, all shot to
pieces--that night in Red Ante. Of course, Letchie Welton only had his
idea of law. Why, your father thought it out for years, never got over
it--his part--or rather, what he didn’t do. Kept saying at the last
that a man can’t “wash his hands.”’
‘Took it hard?’
‘Rather, but he understood it all at the last. Mort Cotton did, too. It
was Mort who said at the hearing back in Bismo--that the most merciful
shot he ever heard fired was yours that night before you rode out of
Red Ante.’
‘I’m sorry Dad took it so hard.... You see--you see, I couldn’t get
Palto loose. He might have lived for days--until they got him to a
place where they could string him up--’
The next day alone in the mountains, Elbert found that the old story of
Red Ante was slipping out from him--that it didn’t hurt any more, that
it would be difficult, and likely unnecessary, ever to talk about it
again.
XXVIII
‘LIKE THE VIRGIN SPEAKING--’
FINALLY came the night when Bart said he would be ready to ride within
a week, but just then they heard a light step in the next room, and
Elbert’s voice became very hushed.
‘I’ve been looking for a way north through the mountains. My idea is to
take it easy, riding nights--keeping our eyes on--’
‘On what?’ Bart asked.
‘On the north star,’ in embarrassed tone.
‘Why, we’re not thirty miles from the Border right now. We can do it in
a night.’
‘But I’ve been thinking we’d better not enter Arizona on any of the
regular roads--and there’s quite a ride west after that--’
Señorita Valencia was in the doorway.
‘You’re the doctor!’ Bart laughed.
* * * * *
Two nights later Elbert made Mamie fast in an old lane about three
hundred yards from the Fonseca road directly back of El Relicario. This
was his next to last trip from the mountains down, according to the
plan. He was to bring both horses next time, two or three nights later.
Then north and west with Bart through the high range, which he had
explored so many days with the one single thought of ending his mission.
Nearing the old ranch house, he moved around in front to approach
by the road, but heard Mexican voices before reaching the gateway.
Stealing closer he saw three ponies standing just within--carbine-boots
and saber-sheathes! Only the rurales carried that outfit. He moved back
and circled among the scented vine-tangles of the grounds, at length
drawing near an unglazed window of an empty room, which was just across
a corridor from the little room where Bart lay. Faint reflection of
the candle-light came from there, careless strumming of a guitar and
laughter of the Mexicans from the front of the house.
A light step at his left, a movement of white, visible as he
turned--Valencia, alone in the grounds. Softly he called her name.
‘Oh, I prayed you would come, Señor! The rurales are here. They have
seen him! I have left them but a moment--saying I must dress--’ She was
all in white, her face held close to his, the breath of her whispering
part of the perfume of the dark.
‘You must take him away to-night--now, while they wait--or he will have
to go with them! You see, they are not quite sure yet, it is he, but
have sent for others in Fonseca who will know. Before the others come,
while I keep the ones here in the front of the house--you must take him
to the mountains--to your country!’
‘Have they got Bart in front with them?’
‘No, he’s still lying in there--but one of the men is watching in the
corridor. I have told them how ill he is!’
Elbert spoke swiftly: ‘I’ll go and bring the mare closer in, Señorita,
and be back to this window in ten minutes. Get word to Bart that I’m
coming back!’
‘I will try--or perhaps my mother. They are waiting for me in there
now. I must keep them in the front!’
He heard the Mexican voices. ‘In ten minutes--’ he hastily whispered.
He was running back toward Mamie’s tether. No moon, but a few great
stars, fireflies in a near low tree--a perfumed, humid night. Thoughts
ran with him. It was like the mystery of life--her pale upheld face in
the dark, with an untellable meaning for his heart, having to do with a
corn-dust maiden. Even as he ran, he marveled that she could help him
get Bart away ‘to the mountains, to your country!’ ... the breath of
her whispering--
Mamie was dancing, as his hands ran over the cinches. ‘The job of our
lives!’ he panted. ‘You’re fit, little one. Won’t be your fault if we
don’t make it! It’s for him--for old Bob Leadley, Mamie!’
He was riding back. He could not bring the mare too near to the ranch
house, lest she signal to the rurales’ horses standing in front. He
reached the unglazed window of the unused room. Perhaps she had been
unable to get Bart word, for he had not come. Perhaps, the full ten
minutes had not passed.
He waited a moment, then climbed into the empty room, crossing softly
toward the faint sheen of light in the corridor. Reaching the door,
he could look across the corridor into the little room where a single
candle burned. Only the foot of Bart’s cot was visible.
Now a step sounded down the corridor at his left. He drew back into the
dark. A Mexican approached, glanced into the little room, then turned
back toward the patio--the rurale pacing his post.
Elbert craned forward as far as he dared; this time he saw the covering
of the cot flung back, a single booted leg beneath. Something familiar
in the way it jerked that second, made him know that Bart was drawing
a boot on the other leg. How could he let Bart know he had come? The
slightest whisper was as impossible as it was for him to cross the
corridor while the sentry moved back and forth.
At this instant a liquid shower of chords sounded through the
house--the great harp in the front room coming to life--Valencia’s
voice lifting above her accompaniment:
‘Cuando sali de la Habana,
Valgame Dios!’
A heart-break in itself--that song.