XXIIIFENCELESS FOOTHILLS OF SONORA
Therewas a room in which he saw a full-sized harp in its shroud; there was a trellised patio, two great ollas standing on the heaved tiles and jasmine vines very thick and ancient. At the far corner, in the gray morning light, stood an elderly man with bared head. To him, the señorita gave the signal of silence with her finger touching her lips, and also to an old woman in the latticed kitchen.... Ruin of an old plantation house, very large, some of the windows unglazed; El Relicario—the name ran through Elbert’s brain which throbbed from the stress of his burden—all this a matter of seconds only.
Then a corridor and a little room to the left—queer warmth rising in Elbert’s heart, as he placed Bart upon a cot that had recently been slept in. The sense came to him that this was a kind of sanctuary—a cross upon the wall, a white flower beneath, the girl standing against the wall, her arms slightly lifted, her hands toward the long booted figure on her own cot. Elbert bent over Bart now—a rush of memories of the day he had brought his father to the cabin and set him down like this. The eyes were looking up to him; the lips moved with hardly audible words.
‘Back at the gate—as we turned in—the tracks of our horses!’
‘Yes, sure, I’ll fix them.’ Then he added: ‘Listen, can you hear me, Bart?’
‘Yes, sure—’
‘I’m going to ride on and leave you here. I’m taking both horses—so the rurales won’t stop, but follow me on. I’ll hide in the foothills to-day, and circle back here to-night or to-morrow night.’
‘I hate to see you go, but you’re—you’re the doctor!’ Bart laughed. ‘About the sorrel—he knows the whip, but goes mad under a spur—just a pointer in handling him—but you know a horse.’
Elbert’s jaw hardened. ‘Thanks, I’ll remember,’ he said.
The voice went on faintly: ‘I didn’t miss how you handled the mare!’
‘You didn’t miss—anything!’ Elbert replied, fearing the other was delirious from his wound.
‘Sorry—you go—’
‘It’s the only way. Adios, Bart—and to you, Señorita, this—’
He placed two gold pieces on the table, but saw her hurt and troubled look, as she came forward from the wall.
‘You see, I’m leading them away from him!’ he said, as if the point were of great moment to her.
Bart’s hand lifted; but his face was cut off by the girl’s bending profile. Queer joy lived in him from Bart’s recent words about his handling of the mare, but a sudden weariness came over him, too, as he turned away. A nicker outside answered his step as he hastened across the broken stonework of the patio. Mamie had never before been left unceremoniously to cool in a yard—in company with a stranger.
He led the horses out to the road; no sight or sound so far at least, from the direction he had come. Leaving them standing on the highway, he reëntered the gate and began fanning out the hoof-marks in the yard, using his broad hat. Out through the gate again, he worked until all was clear; then mounted and pushed on, leading the sorrel.
Day was brightening among the foothills. The big range he had ridden toward through the night was now intimately uncovered on his right hand; Fonseca, three miles straight ahead, Bart had said. Both horses were pulling toward the creek. They were too hot for a deep drink, but might have a few draughts without harm. Besides, he must replenish his pack-canteen.
The sorrel fought to drink his fill. Elbert had to climb into Bart’s saddle to get the big fellow out of the stream. Back on the road again, he followed for about a quarter of a mile, towardFonseca, before turning eastward to the mountains. He had left a clear trail so far, and now off the road, he began to weave back and forth along the stony waste, following a vague idea to confuse and delay pursuit, being well past the old dobe house. Bart would have done all this better, he thought, recalling how the other, half dead, had not forgotten to tell him to wipe out the tracks leading from the road in through the dobe wall.
Many minutes afterward, he came to a halt upon an eminence and looked down, at a frail low smoke pattern of the town to the north. Also he glanced back to familiarize himself with the lay of the land around El Relicario. The hills shut him off from much of the road; he caught no glimpse of possible pursuit. Still later in full sunlight he halted in a rift between the hills and forked out a few mouthfuls of breakfast from a glass jar of frijoles, packed in his saddle-bags at San Isidro three days before.
Now in a rush it closed upon him—the heaviness, the coldness, the blur of fatigue. Languidly, he set to work upon the horses. They were sweated out, cakes of dust and salt at the cinchlines and blanket-edges, both restlessly athirst, but apparently not lastingly hurt by the long gallop of the night. He took off only one saddle at a time; holding the other ready instantly tomount and be off at the first sight or sound, working meanwhile with wisps of grass and cloths from his kit. Strange, it seemed, to play the groom to another than Mamie; unfamiliar, the bones and textures of this rangy gelding; no curiosity or particular affection from the sorrel runner such as Elbert was accustomed to. Running was what this one knew, but Mallet-head was presently adapting his taste, nevertheless, to the scant sun-dried grass with better grace than the mare. She couldn’t see why a stop should be made in this waterless, fenceless wilderness. Standing by, she nudged the man’s arm repeatedly for light on the subject.
‘Night-running’s all right with her,’ he mused, ‘but she doesn’t get the inconveniences of being a bandit’s mare.’
His thoughts were running queerly from so many shocks and tensions. The sun was well above the eastern mountains, but not yet nine in the morning—just about the time he used to be getting to the leather-store. Fenceless foothills of Sonora, a wearing grind of thoughts and questions. Little inner room—cross and white flower and cot so recently slept in. Did the señorita always get up so early? Were the old people her parents? How had it all been arranged with so few words, as if some power intervened to help in a pinch? Was Bart going to live, orwould it be as it was with his father? Had the rurales by this time stopped at that open dobe gateway? Had it been yellow of him to run away from the other three bandits?
He began to think he had done rather poorly. If Bart had held the lead, he wouldn’t have run away from his men. Bart had spoken of the matter three or four times after his wound, and then given up—‘You’re the doctor!’ In the thick bruised feeling of his brain, Elbert’s depression deepened. He recalled his bad judgment in letting Mamie out—so close to Arecibo, and in telling the rurale that he had come from San Isidro.
The sickish smile came again to his lips. He wasn’t much for this sort of life; he ought to be driving a car, a truck, possibly. He recalled his funk in the prison at Arecibo, even before he was locked up, and afterward in the cell—and how the bandits had given themselves to death. ‘... peaceful to be with like cattle. I don’t mean they’re cattle, only that they loll around and ruminate like ’em,’ old Bob Leadley had said, summing up the whole matter in the remark that he wished he had treated the Mexicans as well as they treated him.
Moreover, the old man had found out that there were times when a man couldn’t wash his hands. ‘Wasn’t that just what I did about theother three?’ Elbert questioned, squinting up at the sky. Now a painful rush of pictures went through his brain—the wall in the prison patio, the corner of the wall—only yesterday morning—standing at the bars of the cell.
He caught himself rubbing his right cheek.
No, there was something in him that didn’t belong to this sort of life. As for Red Ante, he couldn’t have done the thing Bart did—he couldn’t have lived through it, as Bart’s father did.
All day the horses kept their heads turned down hill. They snipped the sparse grass—eyes and ears and muzzles stretched toward distant hollows—all instincts fixed upon unseen water. Elbert didn’t trust the sorrel, not even to tether him, but kept a hand on his bridle-rein. Once he dozed and was awakened from a thirst dream by the sound of horses sucking in water from a stony stream.
... Mexico with her quaint, gentle ways—a plaintive singing voice ‘carved out of starlight’—but underneath—violence. Men fell to killing each other. Just so much of all this killing a man could stand, and no more. How had Bart stood it for so long? Bart wasn’t like that, himself. He hadn’t even roughed it with the soldier of the keys in the Arecibo prison—not even in that moment of fierce danger and haste! ... andthat easy flowing voice of coolness and laughter and daring, but how had Bart dared to put Palto out of his misery?
Elbert pondered a long time, finally remembering how he had felt the need of carrying Bart deeper and deeper into the house, as if he had known all the time there was an inner room. When he reached there and had laid his burden down—a sudden sense of peace had come over him. What was the meaning of that? With his eyelids closed he saw a light shining through alabaster. Yes, he had met one who would know the meaning and could answer this.... But what was the meaning of the power that had seemed to come to him to make the señorita understand with so few words?...
Cross and white flower—Spanish-faced girl standing back against the wall... Elbert dozed again, and the inner room of El Relicario and the still flowered room of Tucson softly, magically folded into one. It seemed quite easy and natural.
A grim day, his nerve at lowest ebb, nothing of the lift or glow he had known in moments of last night’s riding with Bart. Would they ever ride together again? Was Bart lying dead now in that inner room?
Fenceless foothills of Sonora—ages in a day! He didn’t feel quite sane, riding down to thecreek in the dusk at last. He couldn’t hold his mind to thought of danger, but to water only. Mamie smelled it and could scarcely be held in; the sorrel plunged at her side.