Part 5

‘Sure. That’s why. This fellow Burton--“Mexicali” Burton--he’s American. Struck it rich in oil, but looks to be unpopulyar with a revolutionist, called Vallejo--’

‘Just a Sunday newspaper yarn,’ said Cal.

‘This feller who’s writin’ says Mister Vallejo could use them oil wells of Burton’s to pay off his soldiers and finally take over the government.’

Elbert wasn’t breathing right. Another version of the same newspaper story Mort Cotton had sent. He felt as if the truth was being extracted in spite of him; that Cal and Slim had somehow landed into the midst of his private business. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come. At the same time, he was powerfully thrilled by some vague prospect, his mind repeating to itself that he had given nothing away so far.

Slim, meanwhile, was reading aloud laboriously about an American oil man, named Burton, who had sent in a call for help to General Juan Cordano, in charge of the Government soldiers in Sonora. This man Burton was said to be standing pat on his property at San Pasquali with a few dozen white men and some Mexican laborers he wasn’t at all sure of.

‘Every time them newspaper fellers up in Tucson can’t think of anything else to write on, they start a Mexican revolution,’ Cal said.

‘But why couldn’t it be?’ asked Slim, sitting up straighter, more and more sleepless, his bridle-arm lifted, his right fallen limp as if he were in the saddle. Slim had to wear his belt tight or it would drop down over his hips. One had a feeling that it could be pulled up over his shoulders without loosening a notch. ‘Why couldn’t it be?’ he wanted to know in a louder tone.

‘You’re breaking in on my rest,’ Cal murmured.

Slim straightened out his legs and helped himself to his feet with both hands. Taking a quart cup from his mess-case, he went back to the cook-wagon and returned with it full of hot coffee. ‘This ain’t no night for rest; this ain’t no place for me, Cal. I’ve been making forty dollars a month so long, anybody’d think I was keepin’ up a twenty-year endowment policy--’

The big one bent over to Elbert, whispering: ‘I shore hoped he was over them spells. Six months since Slim’s been took like this. Sad, ain’t it?’

But Elbert saw a reddish flare in Cal’s eyes, usually so icy gray and cool. Something queer was taking place in himself at the same time, a wild hope--the last chance on earth. But he couldn’t miss that he was forgotten now, the pair more and more involved in each other as the tension grew.

‘You’ll admit we’re dyin’ off here,’ said Slim.

‘Not so loud; hush yourself,’ said Cal. ‘We ain’t got no grudge against Heaslep’s. We don’t want to start a stampede of hands just as round-up’s comin’ on.’

‘That’s so,’ Slim muttered.

Elbert suddenly found the eyes of both men boring into his. ‘You won’t tell ’em anything about this, will you? We ain’t got nothin’ against old Frost-face,’ said Slim.

‘I shore would hate to see this outfit left short-handed through any abrupt transformations takin’ place between me and Slim,’ added Cal.

‘I won’t say anything,’ Elbert declared, but the sound of his own voice was strange and unsteady. A moment later he strolled off into the dark. He didn’t trust his face or his feelings which to himself, at least, were conveying meanings louder than words. In a moment or two, Cal’s easy tones reached him.

‘Elbert!’

He went back.

‘Anything eatin’ you?’

‘No--’

‘You ain’t figurin’--’

‘No, I won’t tell Frost-face, or any of the fellows--’

Cal chuckled: ‘It ain’t that. Slim and me sort of forgot ourselves. Bein’ married a long time, it works that way. Can’t be you’re honin’ to perforate the Border like Slim?’

‘Wouldn’t I slow you up?’

‘We thought of that, but concluded we could do with a balancer--’

‘I think it would be fine--’

‘It’ll be a blow to Frost-face, if we do break out. Speak Mexican?’

‘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.