the Light Of Western Stars (1992) (10 page)

"Bill, he shore was sweet on Bonita, same as Gene was, an' Ed Linton before he got engaged, an' all the boys
.
She's shore chain-lightnin', that little black-eyed devil
.
Danny might hev sloped with her all right
.
Danny was held up on the way to town, an' then in the shame of it he got drunk
.
But he'll shew up soon
.
"

"Wal, mebbe you an' the boys are right
.
I believe you are
.
Nels, there ain't no doubt on earth about who was ridin' Stewart's hoss?"

"Thet's as plain as the hoss's tracks
.
"

"Wal, it's all amazin' strange
.
It beats me
.
I wish the boys would ease up on drinkin'
.
I was pretty fond of Danny an' Gene
.
I'm afraid Gene's done fer, sure
.
If he crosses the border where he can fight it won't take long fer him to get plugged
.
I guess I'm gettin' old
.
I don't stand things like I used to
.
"

"Bill, I reckon I'd better hit the Peloncillo trail
.
Mebbe I can find Danny
.
"

"I reckon you had, Nels," replied Stillwell
.
"But don't take more 'n a couple of days
.
We can't do much on the round-up without you
.
I'm short of boys
.
"

That ended the conversation
.
Stillwell immediately began to hitch up his team, and the cowboys went out to fetch their strayed horses
.
Madeline had been curiously interested, and she saw that Florence knew it
.

"Things happen, Miss Hammond," she said, soberly, almost sadly
.

Madeline thought
.
And then straightway Florence began brightly to hum a tune and to busy herself repacking what was left of the lunch
.
Madeline conceived a strong liking and respect for this Western girl
.
She admired the consideration or delicacy or wisdom-what-ever it was-which kept Florence from asking her what she knew or thought or felt about the events that had taken place
.

Soon they were once more bowling along the road down a gradual incline, and then they began to climb a long ridge that had for hours hidden what lay beyond
.
That climb was rather tiresome, owing to the sun and the dust and the restricted view
.

When they reached the summit Madeline gave a little gasp of pleasure
.
A deep, gray, smooth valley opened below and sloped up on the other side in little ridges like waves, and these led to the foothills, dotted with clumps of brush or trees, and beyond rose dark mountains, pine-fringed and crag-spired
.

"Wal, Miss Majesty, now we're gettin' somewhere," said Stillwell, cracking his whip
.
"Ten miles across this valley an' we'll be in the foothills where the Apaches used to run
.
"

"Ten miles!" exclaimed Madeline
.
"It looks no more than half a mile to me
.
"

"Wal, young woman, before you go to ridin' off alone you want to get your eyes corrected to Western distance
.
Now, what'd you call them black things off there on the slope?"

"Horsemen
.
No, cattle," replied Madeline, doubtfully
.
"Nope
.
Jest plain, every-day cactus
.
An' over hyar-look down the valley
.
Somethin' of a pretty forest, ain't thet?" he asked, pointing
.

Madeline saw a beautiful forest in the center of the valley toward the south
.

"Wal, Miss Majesty, thet's jest this deceivin' air
.
There's no forest
.
It's a mirage
.
"

"Indeed!How beautiful it is!"Madeline strained her gaze on the dark blot, and it seemed to float in the atmosphere, to have no clearly defined margins, to waver and shimmer, and then it faded and vanished
.

The mountains dropped down again behind the horizon, and presently the road began once more to slope up
.
The horses slowed to a walk
.
There was a mile of rolling ridge, and then came the foothills
.
The road ascended through winding valleys
.
Trees and brush and rocks began to appear in the dry ravines
.
There was no water, yet all along the sandy washes were indications of floods at some periods
.
The heat and the dust stifled Madeline, and she had already become tired
.
Still she looked with all her eyes and saw birds, and beautiful quail with crests, and rabbits, and once she saw a deer
.

"Miss Majesty," said Stillwell, "in the early days the Indians made this country a bad one to live in
.
I reckon you never heerd much about them times
.
Surely you was hardly born then
.
I'll hev to tell you some day how I fought Comanches in the Panhandle-thet was northern Texas-an' I had some mighty hair-raisin' scares in this country with Apaches
.
"

He told her about Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, the most savage and bloodthirsty tribe that ever made life a horror for the pioneer
.
Cochise befriended the whites once; but he was the victim of that friendliness, and he became the most implacable of foes
.
Then, Geronimo, another Apache chief, had, as late as 1885, gone on the war-path, and had left a bloody trail down the New Mexico and Arizona line almost to the border
.
Lone ranchmen and cowboys had been killed, and mothers had shot their children and then themselves at the approach of the Apache
.
The name Apache curdled the blood of any woman of the Southwest in those days
.

Madeline shuddered, and was glad when the old frontiersman changed the subject and began to talk of the settling of that country by the Spaniards, the legends of lost gold-mines handed down to the Mexicans, and strange stories of heroism and mystery and religion
.
The Mexicans had not advanced much in spite of the spread of civilization to the Southwest
.
They were still superstitious, and believed the legends of treasures hidden in the walls of their missions, and that unseen hands rolled rocks down the gullies upon the heads of prospectors who dared to hunt for the lost mines of the padres
.

"Up in the mountains back of my ranch there's a lost mine," said Stillwell
.
"Mebbe it's only a legend
.
But somehow I believe it's there
.
Other lost mines hev been found
.
An' as fer' the rollin' stones, I sure know thet's true, as any one can find out if he goes trailin' up the gulch
.
Mebbe thet's only the weatherin' of the cliffs
.
It's a sleepy, strange country, this Southwest, an', Miss Majesty, you're a-goin' to love it
.
You'll call it ro-mantic, Wal, I reckon ro-mantic is correct
.
A feller gets lazy out hyar an' dreamy, an' he wants to put off work till to-morrow
.
Some folks say it's a land of manana-a land of to-morrow
.
Thet's the Mexican of it
.

"But I like best to think of what a lady said to me ouct-an eddicated lady like you, Miss Majesty
.
Wal, she said it's a land where it's always afternoon
.
I liked thet
.
I always get up sore in the mawnin's, an' don't feel good till noon
.
But in the afternoon I get sorta warm an' like things
.
An' sunset is my time
.
I reckon I don't want nothin' any finer than sunset from my ranch
.
You look out over a valley that spreads wide between Guadalupe Mountains an' the Chiricahuas, down across the red Arizona desert clear to the Sierra Madres in Mexico
.
Two hundred miles, Miss Majesty!An' all as clear as print!An' the sun sets behind all thet! When my time comes to die I'd like it to be on my porch smokin' my pipe an' facin' the west
.
"

So the old cattleman talked on while Madeline listened, and Florence dozed in her seat, and the sun began to wane, and the horses climbed steadily
.
Presently, at the foot of the steep ascent, Stillwell got out and walked, leading the team
.
During this long climb fatigue claimed Madeline, and she drowsily closed her eyes, to find when she opened them again that the glaring white sky had changed to a steel-blue
.
The sun had sunk behind the foothills and the air was growing chilly
.
Stillwell had returned to the driving-seat and was chuckling to the horses
.
Shadows crept up cut of the hollows
.

"Wal, Flo," said Stillwell, "I reckon we'd better hev the rest of thet there lunch before dark
.
"

"You didn't leave much of it," laughed Florence, as she produced the basket from under the seat
.

While they ate, the short twilight shaded and gloom filled the hollows
.
Madeline saw the first star, a faint, winking point of light
.
The sky had now changed to a hazy gray
.
Madeline saw it gradually clear and darken, to show other faint stars
.
After that there was perceptible deepening of the gray and an enlarging of the stars and a brightening of new-born ones
.
Night seemed to come on the cold wind
.
Madeline was glad to have the robes close around her and to lean against Florence
.
The hollows were now black, but the tops of the foothills gleamed pale in a soft light
.
The steady tramp of the horses went on, and the creak of wheels and crunching of gravel
.
Madeline grew so sleepy that she could not keep her weary eyelids from falling
.
There were drowsier spells in which she lost a feeling of where she was, and these were disturbed by the jolt of wheels over a rough place
.
Then came a blank interval, short or long, which ended in a more violent lurch of the buckboard
.
Madeline awoke to find her head on Florence's shoulder
.
She sat up laughing and apologizing for her laziness
.
Florence assured her they would soon reach the ranch
.

Madeline observed then that the horses were once more trotting
.
The wind was colder, the night darker, the foot-hills flatter
.
And the sky was now a wonderful deep velvet-blue blazing with millions of stars
.
Some of them were magnificent
.
How strangely white and alive!Again Madeline felt the insistence of familiar yet baffling associations
.
These white stars called strangely to her or haunted her
.

V - The Round-Up It was a crackling and roaring of fire that awakened Madeline next morning, and the first thing she saw was a huge stone fireplace in which lay a bundle of blazing sticks
.
Some one had kindled a fire while she slept
.
For a moment the curious sensation of being lost returned to her
.
She just dimly remembered reaching the ranch and being taken into a huge house and a huge, dimly lighted room
.
And it seemed to her that she had gone to sleep at once, and had awakened without remembering how she had gotten to bed
.

But she was wide awake in an instant
.
The bed stood near one end of an enormous chamber
.
The adobe walls resembled a hall in an ancient feudal castle, stone-floored, stone-walled, with great darkened rafters running across the ceiling
.
The few articles of furniture were worn out and sadly dilapidated
.
Light flooded into the room from two windows on the right of the fireplace and two on the left, and another large window near the bedstead
.
Looking out from where she lay, Madeline saw a dark, slow up-sweep of mountain
.
Her eyes returned to the cheery, snapping fire, and she watched it while gathering courage to get up
.
The room was cold
.
When she did slip her bare feet out upon the stone floor she very quickly put them back under the warm blankets
.
And she was still in bed trying to pluck up her courage when, with a knock on the door and a cheerful greeting, Florence entered, carrying steaming hot water
.