Part 6

Cal was back on old Chester. The sedan had just started down-grade, when Elbert saw three red perforations in the dark ahead. The fraction of a second later, three separate concussions shocked his ears--not gas explosions, guns! There was one scream--from the little one--and Cal’s yell directed toward the car, as he spurred forward. ‘Better turn back, Miss--they may have the town surrounded!’

Slim’s Indian and Mamie had settled down after Chester. Shouts of Mexicans sounded beyond the car, just as Elbert’s mare came to abrupt stop. The sedan had halted, too, but the lights still pointed straight ahead. Florabel wasn’t making the turn; she was either shocked helpless, or her engine stalled. In the wide fling of the head-lights, Elbert saw armed Mexicans standing across the road. Then they started this way--six or seven figures running toward them, hands upraised, rifles held aloft For once Cal’s voice lost its drawl.

‘Get in the car, Kid! Let your horse go!’

Elbert’s leg lifted out of the stirrup--one of the hardest things he was ever called to do, but that very second the lights of the sedan went out. There was one clear call from Mary Gertling, deadened by a blasting roar from the sedan’s exhaust at the very knees of his mount. Too much for Mamie. She went straight up and tried to keep going, Elbert at the very top, arms around her frantic throat at the narrowest--as the darkened sedan gouged forward like a speed-boat. Cal’s voice reached him:

‘... that Burton girl--she’s shootin’ the lines! Come on, Slim, it means us, too! Come on, Kid!’

Shots in the air--shots from ahead and at the sides.

He felt Mamie tottering still on her hind feet; then a jerk as if some one had given her a cut with a whip, and over she went backward. He pushed her neck from him and fell back, and knew no more, until Cal’s low tones, as he was being lifted.

‘It’s all right. Kid. Chester’s good for both of us.’

For a time, in spite of that, he thought he still had Mamie round the neck, but it was Cal’s ample chest--Slim’s Indian in an easy gallop alongside.

‘Where’s the sedan?’ he finally mumbled.

‘Lord, Kid, she’s surprised papa by this time!’

XII

FLASHLIGHT AND FAWNSKIN

ELBERT kept shaking his head; no bones broken there or elsewhere, but seemingly no end to the phases of his coming-to. It dawned on him there had been a blank from the time Mamie went over backwards, until he found himself here on Chester with Cal. He regretted missing some part in there--going through the Mexican lines.

‘Where’s Mamie?’ he demanded, jerking erect.

‘Came through all right. Slim’s got her safe.’

Now Elbert gradually made out that they were in ‘Mexicali’ Burton’s oil town. They had been halted--first a voice in Mexican, then American, Cal answering quietly. He saw the sedan, and heard from aside in the dark, Mamie’s long-drawn wheeze, the same protest as when she had refused advance to the hitching-rail before the Señora’s house in Nacimiento. There was one cabin door from which light streamed, and in the aperture a blocky, bareheaded man appeared, legs planted wide apart, the air suddenly burned by withering profanities.

‘... bringin’ three young women through Vallejo’s lines!... Sap-heads, you fellows. It’s running out of your ears!’

‘I’m not takin’ no free talk from no oil man,’ growled Slim.

Cal mildly broke in. ‘Now as to that, Mister--’

‘Can’t you see we’ve got a war on?’ the blocky one in the doorway yelled. ‘Can’t you see they’re twenty to one, tryin’ to get our oil wells?’ His face had turned sidewise; light fell upon the uncovered, close-cropped head--massive jaw, thin lips and startlingly familiar blue eyes. Around that roaring neck from behind, a pair of white arms were flung at this instant, ‘Mexicali’s’ fury shut off:

‘But Papa! I keep telling you it was all my fault!’

Florabel had the floor, but another figure had moved into the light behind her. ‘You see, Mr. Burton, when we three wouldn’t turn back, they rode along with us, to protect us.’ That was Mary Gertling. So they had all reached the cabin.

Elbert still felt confused. Slim’s voice broke in now, stern with dignity. ‘Seein’ as there’s no further need for us to be engaged in protectin’--otherwise we might ride on--’

Another rip. ‘... ride on what? Ride on where? Don’t you see we’re surrounded?’

‘Papa!’

‘Mexicali’ slowed down to bellow orders to his men, both Mexicans 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.

* * * * *