XXVELBERT LEARNS TO WAIT
Nextday 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 byone, 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 youafterme,’ 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 seemto 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 theprize 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 hopedto 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.