The following hoofs no longer rang sharply; they took on a muffled beat – they were in the sand’s edge not a mile behind.
“Ride ahead, you! I’ve got the gun, remember!” observed Jeff significantly; “but if you slur that girl again I’ll not shoot you – I’ll naturally wear you out with this belt.”
CHAPTER XV
GOOD-BY
“They have ridden the low moon out of the sky; their hoofs drum up the dawn.” —Two Strong Men, Kipling.
“I’m not speaking of her and I’m not going to,” protested Gibson, in a changed tone. “I’ll promise! My horse is failing, Jeff. I rode hard and fast from Escondido. Your horse carried nothing much but a saddle – that pack was mostly bluff, you know. And those fellows’ horses have come twenty miles less than either of ours.”
No answer.
“I don’t believe we’re going to make it, Jeff!” There was a forlorn little quaver in Charley’s voice.
Jeff grunted. “Uh! Maybe not. Griffith’ll be real pleased.”
Gibson rode closer. “Can’t we turn off the road and hide?”
“Till daylight,” said Jeff. “Then they’ll get us. No way out of this desert except across the edges somewhere. You go if you want to. They won’t bother to hunt for you, maybe, if they get me.”
“No. It’s my fault… I’ll see it out… I’m sorry, Jeff – but it was so funny!” Here, rather to Jeff’s surprise, Charley’s dejection gave place to laughter.
They rode up a sandy slope where mesquites grew black along the road. Blown sand had lodged to hummocks in their thick and matted growth; the road was a sunken way.
“How far is it from here, Jeff?”
“Ten miles – maybe only eight – to the river. We’re in Texas now – have been for an hour.”
“Think we can make it?”
“Quien sabe?”
Gibson drew rein. “You go on. Your horse isn’t so tired.”
“Oh, I guess not!” said Jeff. “Come on.”
The sound of pursuit came clear through the quiet night. There was silence for a little.
“What’ll you do, Jeff? Fight?”
“I can’t!” said Jeff. “Hurt those boys? I couldn’t fight, the way it is – hardly, even if ’twas the sheriff. I’ll just hang, I reckon.”
They reached the top of the little slope and turned down the other side.
“I don’t altogether like this hanging idea,” said Gibson. “I got you into this, Jeff; so I’ll just get you out again – like the man in our town who was so wondrous wise. Going to use bramble bushes, too.” Volatile Gibson, in the stress of danger, had forgotten his wrath. He was light-hearted and happy, frivolously gay. “Give me your rope and your gun, Jeff. Quick now! No, I won’t mention your girl – not once! Hurry!”
“What you going to do?” asked Jeff, thoroughly mystified.
“Ever read the ‘Fool’s Errand’?” Charley chuckled. “No? Well, I have. Jump off and tie the end of your rope to that mesquite root. Quick!”
He sprang down, snatched one end of the coil from Jeff’s hand and stretched it taut across the road, a foot from the ground. “Now your gun! Quick!”
He snatched the gun, tied an end of his own saddle-rope to the stretched one, near the middle, plunged through the mesquite, over a hummock, paying out his rope as he went; wedged the gun firmly in the springing crotch of a mesquite tree, cocked it and tied the loose end of the trailing rope to the trigger. He ran back and sprang on his horse.
“Now ride! It’s our last chance!”
“Kid, you’re a wonder!” said Jeff. “You’ll do to take along! They’ll lope up when they turn down that slope, hit that rope and pile in a heap!”
“And my rope will fire the gun off!” shrilled joyous Charley. “They’ll think it’s us – an ambuscade – ”
“They’ll take to the sand-hills,” Jeff broke in. “They’ll shoot into the bushes – they’ll think it’s us firing back, half the time… They’ll scatter out and surround that lonesome, harmless motte and watch it till daylight. You bet they won’t go projecting round it any till daylight, either!” He looked up at the sky. “There’s the morning star. See it? ‘They have ridden the low moon out of the sky’ – only there isn’t any moon – ‘their hoofs drum up the dawn.’ Then they’ll find our tracks – and if I only could see the captain’s face! ‘Oh, my threshings, and the corn of my floor!’… And by then we’ll be in Mexico and asleep… When Griffith finds that gun – oh, he’ll never show his head in Arcadia again!.. Say, Charley, I hope none of ’em get hurt when they strike your skip-rope.”
“Huh! It’s sandy! A heap you cared about me getting hurt when you dragged me from my horse!” said Gibson, rather snappishly. “You did hurt me, too. You nearly broke my neck and you cut my arms. And I got full of mesquite thorns when I set that gun. You don’t care! I’m only the man that came to save your neck. That’s the thanks I get! But the men that are trying to hang you – that’s different! You’d better go back. They might get hurt. You’ll be sorry sometime for the way you’ve treated me. There – it’s too late now!”
A shot rang behind them. There was a brief silence. Then came a sharp fusillade, followed by scattering shots, dwindling to longer intervals.
Jeff clung to his saddle-horn.
“I guess they ain’t hurt much,” he laughed. “Wish I could see ’em when they find out! Slow down, kid. We’ve got lots of time now.”
“We haven’t,” protested Charley. “Keep moving. It’s hard on the horses, but they’ll have a lifetime to rest in. They’ve telegraphed all over the country. You want to cross the river before daylight. It would be too bad for you to be caught now! Is there any ford, do you know?”
“Not this time of year. River’s up.”
“Cross in a boat then?”
“Guess we’d better. That horse of yours is pretty well used up. Don’t believe he could swim it.”
“Oh, I’m not going over. I’ll get up to El Paso. I’ve got friends there.”
“You’ll get caught.”
“No, I won’t. I’m not going across, I tell you, and that’s all there is to it! I guess I’ll have something to say about things. I’m going to see you safely over, and that’s the last you’ll ever see of Charley Gibson.”
“Oh, well!” Jeff reflected a little. “If you’re sure you won’t come along, I’d rather swim. My horse is strong yet. You see, it takes time to find a boat, and a boat means a house and dogs; and I’ll need my horse on the other side. How’ll you get to El Paso? Griffith’ll likely come down here about an hour by sun, ’cross lots, a-cryin’.”
“I’ll manage that,” said Gibson curtly enough. “You tend to your own affair.”
“Oh, all right!” Jeff rode ahead. He whistled; then he chanted his war song:
“Said the little Eohippus:
‘I’m going to be a horse!
And on my middle fingernails
To run my earthly course!’
The Coryphodon was horrified;
The Dinoceras was shocked;
And they chased young Eohippus,
But he skipped away and mocked.
“Said they: ‘You always were as small
And mean as now we see,
And that’s conclusive evidence
That you’re always going to be.
What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,
With hoofs to gallop on?
Why! You’d have to change your nature!’
Said the Loxolophodon.”
“Jeff!”
“Well?” Jeff turned his head. Charley was drooping visibly.
“Stop that foolish song!”
Jeff rode on in silence. This was a variable person, Gibson. They were dropping down from the mesa into the valley of the Rio Grande.
“Jeff!”
Jeff fell back beside Charley. “Tired, pardner?”
“Jeff, I’m terribly tired! I’m not used to riding so far; and I’m sleepy – so sleepy!”
“All right, pardner; we’ll go slower. We’ll walk. Most there now. There’s the railroad.”
“Keep on trotting. I can stand it. We must get to the river before daylight. Is it far?” Charley’s voice was weary. The broad sombrero drooped sympathetically.
“Two miles to the river. El Paso’s seven or eight miles up the line. Brace up, old man! You’ve done fine and dandy! It’s just because the excitement is all over. Why should you go any farther, anyhow? There’s Ysleta up the track a bit. Follow the road up there and flag the first train. That’ll be best.”
“No, no. I’ll go all the way. I’ll make out.” Charley straightened himself with an effort.
They crossed the Espee tracks and came to a lane between cultivated fields.
“Jeff! I’d like to say something. It won’t be breaking my promise really… I didn’t mean what I said about – you know. I was only teasing. She’s a good enough girl, I guess – as girls go.”
Jeff nodded. “I did not need to be told that.”
“And you left her in a cruel position when you jumped out of the window. She can’t tell now, so long as there’s any other way. What a foolish thing to do! If you’d just said at first that you were in the garden – Oh, why didn’t you? But after the chances you took rather than to tell – why, Jeff, it would be terrible for her now.”
“I know that, too,” said Jeff. “I suppose I was a fool; but I didn’t want her to get mixed up with it, and at the same time I cared less about hanging than any time I can remember. You see, I didn’t know till the last minute that the garden was going to cut any figure. And do you suppose I’d have that courthouseful of fools buzzing and whispering at her? Not much! Maybe it was foolish – but I’m glad I did it.”
“I’m glad of it, too. If you had to be a fool,” said Charley, “I’m glad you were that kind of a fool. Are you still mad at me?”
Since Charley had recanted, and more especially since he had taken considerate thought for the girl’s compulsory silence, Jeff’s anger had evaporated.
“That’s all right, pardner… Only you oughtn’t never to talk that way about a girl – even for a joke. That’s no good kind of a joke. Men, now, that’s different. See here, I’ll give you an order to a fellow in El Paso – Hibler – to pay for your horses and your gun. Here’s your belt, too.”
Charley shook his head impatiently. “I don’t want any money. Settle with Pappy for the horses. I won’t take this one back. Keep the belt. You may want it to beat me with sometime. What are you going to do, Jeff? Aren’t you ever coming back?”
“Sure I’ll come back – if only to see Griffith again. I’ll write to John Wesley Pringle – he’s my mainest side pardner – and sick him on to find out who robbed that bank – to prove it, rather. I just about almost nearly know who it was. Old Wes’ll straighten things out a-flying. I’ll be back in no time. I got to come back, Charley!”
The river was in sight. The stars were fading; there was a flush in the east, a smell of dawn in the air.
“Jeff, I wish you’d do something for me.”
“Sure, Charley. What is it?”
“I wish you’d give me that little turquoise horse to remember you by.”
Jeff was silent for a little. He had framed out another plan for the little eohippus – namely, to give him to Miss Ellinor. He sighed; but he owed a good deal to Charley.
“All right, Charley. Take good care of him – he’s a lucky little horse. I think a heap of him. Here we are!”
The trees were distinct in the growing light. Jeff rode into the river; the muddy water swirled about his horse’s knees. He halted for parting; Gibson rode in beside him. Jeff took the precious Alice book from his bosom, put it in the crown of his miner’s cap and jammed the cap tightly on his head.
“Better change your mind, Charley. Come along. We’ll rout somebody out and order a dish of stewed eggs.
“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The farther off from England the nearer ’tis to France;
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join
the dance.
Will you – won’t you – ”
“‘No, I won’t! I told you once!’” snapped the beloved snail.
“Here’s the little eohippus horse then.” As Charley took it Jeff wrung his hand. “By George, I’ve got to change my notion of Arcadia people. If there’s many like you and Griffith, Arcadia’s going to crowd the map!.. Well – so long!”
“It looks awful wide, Jeff!”
“Oh, I’ll be all right – swim it myself if the horse plays out – and if I don’t have no cramps, as I might, of course, after this ride. Well – here goes nothin’! Take care of the little horse. I hope he brings you good luck!”
“Well – so long, then!”
Bransford rode into the muddy waters. They came to the horse’s breast, his neck; he plunged in, sank, rose, and was borne away down the swift current, breasting the flood stoutly – and so went quartering across to the farther bank. It took a long time. It was quite light when the horse found footing on a sandbar half a mile below, rested, and splashed whitely through the shallows to the bank. Gibson swung his sombrero. Jeff waved his hand, rode to the fringing bushes, and was gone.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAND OF AFTERNOON
“Dreaming once more love’s old sad dream divine.”
Los Baños de Santa Eulalia Del Norte, otherwise known as Mud Springs, is a Mexican hamlet with one street of about the same length. Los Baños and Co. lies in a loop of the Rio Grande, half of a long day from El Paso, in mere miles; otherwise a contemporary of Damascus and Arpad.
Thither, mindful of the hot springs which supply the preliminaries of the name, Mr. Bransford made his way: mindful too, of sturdy old Don Francisco, a friend twice bound by ancient service given and returned.
He climbed the slow long ridges to the high mesa: for the river bent here in a long ox-bow, where a bold promontory shouldered far out to bar the way: weary miles were to be saved by crossing the neck of this ox-bow, and the tough horse tired and lagged.
The slow sun rose as he reached the Rim. It showed the wide expanse of desert behind him, flooded with trembling light; eastward, beyond the river, the buttressed and fantastic peaks of Fray Cristobal; their jutting shadows streaming into the gulf beyond, athwart the silvery ribbon of gleaming water, twining in mazy loops across the valley floor: it showed the black Rim at his feet, a frowning level wall of lava cliff, where the plain broke abruptly into the chasm beneath; the iron desolation of the steep sides, boulder-strewn, savage and forbidding:
“A land of old up-heaven from the abyss.”
Long since, there had been a flourishing Mexican town in the valley. A wagonroad had painfully climbed a long ridge to the Rim, twisting, doubling, turning, clinging hazardously to the hillside, its outer edge a wall built up with stone, till it came to the shoulder under the tremendous barrier. From there it turned northward, paralleling the Rim in mile-long curve above a deep gorge; turning, in a last desperate climb, to a solitary gateway in the black wall, torn out by flood-waters through slow centuries. Smallpox had smitten the people; the treacherous river had devastated the fertile valley, and, subsiding, left the rich fields a waste of sand. The town was long deserted; the disused road was gullied and torn by flood, the soil washed away, leaving a heaped and crumbled track of tangled stone. But it was the only practicable way as far as the sand-hills, and Jeff led his horse down the ruined path, with many a turning back and scrambling détour.
The shadows of the eastern hills drew back before him as he reached the sand-dunes. When he rode through the silent streets of what had been Alamocita, the sun peered over Fray Cristobal, gilding the crumbling walls, where love and laughter had made music, where youth and hope and happiness had been… Silent now and deserted, given over to lizard and bat and owl, the smiling gardens choked with sand and grass, springing with mesquite and tornillo; a few fruit trees, gnarled and tangled, drooping for days departed, when young mothers sang low lullaby beneath their branches… Passed away and forgotten – hopes and fears, tears and smiles, birth and death, joy and sorrow, hatred and sin and shame, falsehood and truth and courage and love. The sun shone cheerfully on these gray ruins – as it has shone on a thousand such, and will shine.
Jeff turned down the river, past the broken acequias, to where a massive spur of basaltic rock had turned the fury of the floods and spared a few fields. In this sheltered cove dwelt Don Francisco Escobar in true pastoral and patriarchal manner; his stalwart sons and daughters, with their sons and daughters in turn, in clustering adobes around him: for neighbors, the allied family of Gonzales y Ortega.
A cheerful settlement, this of Los Baños, nestling at the foot of the friendly rampart, sheltered alike from flood and wind. South and west the close black Rim walled the horizon, the fantasy of Fray Cristobal closed in the narrow east: but northward, beyond the low sand-hills and the blue heat-haze, the high peaks of Organ, Guadalupe and Rainbow swam across the sleepy air, far and soft and dim.
In their fields the gente of Gonzales y Ortega and of Escobar raised ample crops of alfalfa, wheat, corn, frijoles and chili, with orchard, vineyard and garden. Their cows, sheep and goats grazed the foothills between river and Rim, watched by the young men or boys, penned nightly in the great corrals in the old Spanish fashion; as if the Moor still swooped and forayed. Their horses roamed the hills at will, only a few being kept in the alfalfa pasture. They ground their own grain, tanned their cow-hides at home. Mattress and pillow were wool of their raising, their blankets and cloth their own weave. There were granaries, a wine-press, a forge, a cumbrous stone mill, a great adobe oven like a monstrous bee-hive.
Once a year their oxen drew the great high-sided wagons up the sandy road to El Paso, and returned with the year’s marketing – salt, axes, iron and steel, powder and lead, bolts of white domestic or manta for sheets and shirtings, matches, tea, coffee, tobacco and sugar. Perhaps, if the saints had been kind, there were a few ribbons, trinkets or brightly colored prints of Joseph and Virgin and Child, St. John the Beloved, The Annunciation, The Children and Christ; perhaps an American rifle or a plow. But, for the most part, they held not with innovations; plowed, sowed and reaped as their fathers did, threshing with oxen or goats.
The women sewed by hand, cooked on fireplaces; or, better still, in the open air under the trees, with few and simple utensils. The family ate from whitest and cleanest of sheepskins spread on the floor. But, the walls were snowy with whitewash, the earthen floors smooth and clean, the coarse linen fresh and white. The scant furniture of the rooms – a pine bed, a chair or two, a mirror, a brass candlestick (with home-made candles), a cheap print on the wall, a great chest for clothes, blankets and simple treasures, the bright fire in the cozy fireplace – all combined to give an indescribable air of cheerfulness, of homely comfort and of rest. This quiet corner, where people still lived as simply as when Abraham went up from Ur of the Chaldees, in the spring-time of the world, held, for seeing eyes, an incommunicable charm.
When Jeff came at last to Casa Escobar, the cattle were already on the hills, the pigs and chickens far afield. Don Francisco, white-haired, erect, welcomed him eagerly, indeed, but with stately courtesy.
“Is it thou indeed, my son? Now, my old eyes are gladdened this day. Enter, then, amigo mio, thrice-welcome – the house is thine in very truth. Nay, the young men shall care for thy horse.”
He raised his voice. Three tall sons, Abran, Zenobio, Donociano, came at the summons, gave Bransford grave greeting, and stood to await their father’s commands. Fathers of families themselves, they presumed not to sit unbidden, to join in the conversation, or to loiter.
Breakfast was served presently, in high state, on the table reserved for honored guests. Savory venison, chili, fish, eggs, tortillas, etole, enchiladas, cream and steaming coffee – such was the fare. Don Francisco sat gravely by to bear him company, while a silently hovering damsel anticipated every need.
Thence, when his host could urge no more upon him, to the deep shading cottonwoods. Wine was brought and the “makings” of cigarettes – corn-husks, handcut; a great jar of tobacco; and a brazier of mesquite embers. At a little distance women washed, wove or sewed; the young men made buckskin, fashioned quirts, whips, ropes, bridle-reins, tie-straps, hobbles, pack-sacks and chaparejos of raw-hide; made cinches of horse-hair; wrought ox-yokes, plow-beams and other things needful for their simple husbandry.
Meanwhile, Don Francisco entertained his guest with grave and leisurely recital of the year’s annals. Mateo, son of Sebastian, had slain a great bear in the Pass of All the Winds; Alicia, daughter of their eldest, was wed with young Roman de la O, of Cañada Nogales, to the much healing of feud and ancient hatred; Diego, son of Eusebio, was proving a bold and fearless rider of wild horses, with reason, as behooved his father’s son; he had carried away the gallo at the Fiesta de San Juan, with the fleet dun colt “creased” from the wild bunch at Quemado; the herds had grown, the crops prospered, all sorrow passed them by, through the intercession of the blessed saints.
The year’s trophies were brought. He fingered with simple pride the great pelt of the silver-tip. Antlers there were and lion-skins, gleaming prisms of quartz, flint arrowheads and agates brought in by the shepherds, the costly Navajo blanket won by the fleet-limbed dun at Cañada races.
Hither came presently another visitor – Florentino, breaker of wild horses, despite his fifty years; wizened and withered and small, merry and cheerful, singer of forgotten folk-songs; chanting, even as he came, the song of Macario Romero – Macario, riding joyous and light-hearted, spite of warning, omen and sign, love-lured to doom and death.
“‘Concedame una licencia
Voy á ir á ver á me Chata.’
“Dice Macario Romero,
Parando en los estribos:
‘Madre, pues, esto voy á ver,
Si todos son mis amigos!’”
And so, listening, weary and outworn, Jeff fell asleep.
Observe now, how Nature insists upon averages. Mr. Jeff Bransford was, as has been seen, an energetic man; but outraged nerves will have their revenge. After making proper amends to his damaged eye, Jeff’s remnant of energy kept up long enough to dispatch young Tomas Escobar y Mendoza to El Paso with a message to Hibler: which message enjoined Hibler at once to carry tidings to John Wesley Pringle, somewhere in Chihuahua, asking him kindly to set right what Arcadian times were out of joint, as he, Jeff, felt the climate of Old Mexico more favorable for his throat trouble than that of New Mexico; with a postscript asking Hibler for money by bearer. And young Tomas was instructed to buy, at Juarez, a complete outfit of clothing for Jeff, including a gun.
This done, the reaction set in – aided, perhaps, by the enervating lassitude of the hot baths and the sleepy atmosphere of that forgotten village. Jeff spent the better part of a week asleep, or half awake at best. He had pleasant dreams, too. One – perhaps the best dream of all – was that on their wedding trip they should follow again the devious line of his flight from Arcadia. That would need a prairie schooner – no, a prairie steamboat – a prairie yacht! He would tell her all the hideous details – show her the mine, the camp of the besiegers, the ambuscade on the road. And if he could have Ellinor meet Griffith and Gibson for a crowning touch!
After the strenuous violence of hand-strokes, here was a drowsy and peaceful time. The wine of that land was good, the shade pleasant, the Alician philosophy more delightful than of yore; he had all the accessories, but one, of an earthly paradise.
Man is ungrateful. Jeff was a man; neglectful of present bounties, his dreaming thoughts were all of the absent accessory and of a time when that absence should be no more, nor paradise be empty.
Life, like the Gryphon’s classical master, had taught him Laughter and Grief. He turned now the forgotten pages of the book of his years. Enough black pages were there; as you will know well, having yourself searched old records before now, with tears. He cast up that long account – the wasted lendings, the outlawed debts, the dishonored promises, the talents of his stewardship, unprofitable and brought to naught; set down – how gladly! – the items on the credit side. So men have set the good upon one side and the evil on the other since Crusoe’s day, and before; against the time when the Great Accountant, Whose values are not ours, shall strike a final balance.
Take that book at your elbow – yes, either one; it doesn’t matter. Now turn to where the hero first discovers his frightful condition – long after it has become neighborhood property… He bent his head in humility. He was not worthy of her!.. Something like that? Those may not be the precise words; but he groaned. He always groans. By-the-way, how this man-saying must amuse womankind! Yes, and they actually say it too – real, live, flesh-and-blood men. Who was it said life was a poor imitation of literature? Happily, either these people are insincere or they reconsider the matter – else what should we do for families?
It is to be said that Jeff Bransford lacked this becoming delicacy. If he groaned he swore also; if he decided that Miss Ellinor Hoffman deserved a better man than he was, he also highly resolved that she should not have him.
“For, after all, you know,” said Jeff to Alice:
“I’m sure he’s nothing extra – a quiet man and plain,
And modest – though there isn’t much of which he could be vain.
And had I mind to chant his praise, this were the kindest line —
Somehow, she loves him dearly – this little love of mine!”