Starr, of the Desert

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A GREASE SPOT IN THE SAND

  Starr, took his cigarette from his lips, sent an oblique glance of mentalmeasurement towards his host, and shifted his saddle-weary person to amore comfortable position on the rawhide covered couch. He had eaten hisfill of frijoles and tortillas and a chili stew hot enough to crisp thetongue. He had discussed the price of sheep and had with much dickeringbought fifty dry ewes at so much on foot delivered at the nearestshipping point. He had given what news was public talk, of the great warand the supposedly present whereabouts of Villa, and what was guessedwould happen if Mexican money went any lower.

  On his own part, Estancio Medina, called Estan for short, had talked veryfreely of these things. Villa, he was a bad one, sure. He would yet maketrouble if some_body_ didn't catch him, yes. For himself, Estan Medina,he was glad to be on this side the border, yes. The American governmentwould let a poor man alone, yes. He could have his little home and hisfew sheep, and no_body_ would take them away. Villa, he was a bad one!All Mexicans must sure hate Villa--even the men who did his fighting forhim, yes. Burros, that's what they are. Burros, that have no mind forthinking, only to do what is tol'. And if troubles come, all Mexicans inthese country should fight for their homes, you bet. All these Mexicansought to know what's good for them. They got no business to fight gainstthese American gov'ment, not much, they don't. They come here becausethey don't like it no more in Mexico where no poor man can have a homelike here. You bet.

  Estan Medina was willing to talk a long while on that subject. Hismother, sitting just inside the doorway, nodded her head now and then andsmiled just as though she knew what her son was saying; proud of his highlearning, she was. He could talk with the Americanos, and they listenedwith respect. Their language he could speak, better than they could speakit themselves. Did she not know? She herself could now and thenunderstand what he was talking about, he spoke so plainly.

  "You've got new neighbors, I see," Starr observed irrelevantly, whenEstan paused to relight his cigarette. "Over at Johnny Calvert's," headded, when Estan looked at him inquiringly.

  "Oh-h, yes! That poor boy and girl! You seen them?"

  "I just came from there," Starr informed him easily. "What brought themaway out here?"

  "They not tell, then? That man Calvert, he's a bad one, sure! He don'stay no more--too lazy, I think, to watch his sheeps from the coyotes,and says they're stole. He comes here telling me I got his sheeps--yes.We quarrel a little bit, maybe. I don' like to be called thief, you bet.He's big mouth, that feller--no brains, aitre. Then he goes some_where_,and he tells what fine rancho he's got in Sunlight Basin. These boy andgirl, they buy. That's too bad. They don' belong on these desert, sure.W'at they know about hard life? Pretty soon they get tired, I think, andgo back where comes from. That boy--what for help he be to that girl?Jus' boy--not so old my brother Luis. Can't ride horse; goes up and down,up an' down like he's back goes through he's hat. What that girl do? Jus'slim, big-eye girl with soft hand and sickness of lungs. Babes, them boyand girl. Whan Calvert he should be shot dead for let such inocentes befool like that."

  "Where is Johnny Calvert?"

  "Him? He's gone, sure! Not come back, I bet you! He's got money--thembabes got rancho--" Estan lifted his shoulders eloquently.

  "What are they going to do, now they're here?" Starr abstractedly wipedoff the ash collar of his cigarette against the edge of the couch.

  "_Quien sabe_?" countered Estan, and lifted his shoulders again. "I thinkpretty quick they go."

  Starr looked at his watch, yawned, and rose with much evident reluctance."Same here," he said. "I've got to make San Bonito in time for thatEastbound. You have the sheep in the stockyards by Saturday, will you? IfI'm not there myself, I'll leave the money with Johnson at the expressoffice. Soon as the sheep's inspected, you can go there and get it._Addios. Mucho gracias, Senora_."

  "She likes you fine--my mother," Estan observed, as the two sauntered tothe corral where Rabbit was stowing away as much _secate_ as he couldagainst future hunger. "Sometimes you come and stay longer. We not see somany peoples here. Nobody likes to cross desert when she's hot like this.Too bad you must go now."

  Starr agreed with him and talked the usual small talk of the desertPlaces while he placed the saddle on Rabbit's still sweaty back. He wentaway down the rocky trail with the sun shining full on his right cheek,and was presently swallowed up by the blank immensity of the land thatlooked level as a floor from a distance, but which was a network of smallridges and shallow draws and "dry washes" when one came to ride over it.

  The trail was narrow and had many inconsequential twists and turns in it,as though the first man to travel that way had gone blind or dizzy andcould not hold a straight line across the level. When an automobile, forinstance, traveled that road, it was with many skiddings in the sand onthe turns, which it must take circumspectly if the driver did not carefor the rocky, uneven floor of the desert itself.

  Just lately some one had actually preferred to make his own trail, iftracks told anything. Within half a mile of the Medina rancho Starr sawwhere an automobile had swerved sharply off the trail and had taken tothe hard-packed sand of a dry arroyo that meandered barrenly off to thesoutheast. He turned and examined the trail over which he had traveled,saw that it offered no more discouragement to an automobile than anyother bit of trail in that part of the country, and with another glanceat the yellow ribbon of road before him, he also swerved to thesoutheast.

  For a mile the machine had labored, twisting this way and that to avoidrocky patches or deep cuts where the spring freshets had dug out thelooser soil. So far as Starr could discover there was nothing to bring amachine up here. The arroyo was as thousands of other arroyos in thatcountry. The sides sloped up steeply, or were worn into perpendicularbanks. It led nowhere in particular; it was not a short cut to any placethat he knew of. The trail to Medina's ranch was shorter and smoother,supposing Medina's ranch were the objective point of the trip.

  Starr could not see any sense in it, and that is why he followed thetortuous track to where the machine had stopped. That it had stood therefor some time he knew by the amount of oil that had leaked down into thesand. He did not know for certain, since he did not know the oil-leakinghabits of that particular car, but he guessed that it had stood there fora couple of hours at least before the driver had backed and turned aroundto retrace his way to the trail.

  In these days of gasoline travel one need not be greatly surprised tomeet a car, or see the traces of one, in almost any out-of-the-way spotwhere four wheels can possibly be made to travel. On the other hand, theman at the wheel is not likely to send his machine over rocks and throughsand where the traction is poor, and across dry ditches and amonggreasewood, just for the fun of driving. There is sport with rod or gunto lure, or there is necessity to impel, or the driver is lost and wantsto reach some point that looks familiar, or he is trying to dodgesomething or somebody.

  Starr sat beside that grease spot in the sand and smoked a cigaretteand studied the surrounding hills and tried to decide what had broughtthe car up here. Not sport, unless it was hunting of jack rabbits; andthere were more jack rabbits out on the flat than here. There was notrout stream near, at least, none that was not more accessible fromanother point. To be sure, some tenderfoot tourist might have been toldsome yarn that brought him up here on a wild-goose chase. You can,thought Starr, expect any fool thing of a tourist. He remembered runningacross one that was trying between trains to walk across the mesa fromAlbuquerque to the Sandia mountains. It had been hard to convince thatparticular specimen that he was not within a mile or so of his goal, andthat he would do well to reach the mountains in another three hours orso of steady walking. Compared with that, driving a car up this arroyodid not look so foolish.

  But tourists did not invade this particular locality with theiroverconfident inexperience, and Starr did not give that explanation muchserious thought. Instead he followed on up the narrowed gulch to higherground, to see
where men would be most likely to go from there. At thetop he looked out upon further knobs and hollows and aimlessdepressions, just as he had expected. Half a mile or so away theredrifted a thin spiral of smoke, from the kitchen stove of the SenoraMedina, he guessed. But there was no other sign of human life anywherewithin the radius of many miles, or, to be explicit, within the field ofStarr's vision.

  He looked for footprints, but in a few minutes he gave up in disgust.The ridge he stood on stretched for miles, up beyond Medina's homeranch and down past the Sommers' ranch, five or six miles nearer town,and on to the railroad. And it was a rocky ridge if ever there was one;granite outcroppings, cobblestones, boulders, anything but good loosesoil where tracks might be followed. A dog might have followed a trailthere before the scent was baked out by blistering heat; but Starrcertainly could not.

  He stood looking across to where the smoke curled up into the intenseBlue of the sky. If a man wanted to reach the Medina ranch by the mostobscure route, he thought, this would be one way to get there. He wentback to where the automobile had stood and searched there for some signof those who had ridden this far. But if any man left that machine, hehad stepped from the running board upon rock, and so had left no telltaleprint of his foot.

  "And that looks mighty darn queer," said Starr, "if it was justaccidental. But if a fellow _wanted_ to take to the rocks to cover histrail, why, he couldn't pick a better place than this. She's a dandyridge and a dandy way to get up on her, if that's what's wanted." Starrlooked at his watch and gave up all hope of catching the next eastboundtrain, if that had really been his purpose. He lifted his hat and drewhis fingers across his forehead where the perspiration stood in beads,resettled the hat at an angle to shade his face from the glare of thesun, ran two fingers cursorily between the cinch and Rabbit's sweatybody, picked up the stirrup, thrust in his toe and eased himself up intothe saddle; and his mind had not consciously directed a single movement.

  "Well, they've left one mark behind 'em that fair hollers," he stated, inso satisfied a tone that Rabbit turned his head and looked back at himinquiringly. Starr, you must know, was not given to satisfied tones whenhe and Rabbit were enduring the burden of heat and long miles. "And youneedn't give me that kinda look, neither. Take a look at them tiretracks, you ole knot-head. Them's Silvertown cords, and they ain'tequipping jitneys with cord tires--not yet. Why, yo're whole carcassain't worth the price uh one tire, let alone four, you old sheep. Youshow me the car in this country that's sportin' Silvertowns all around,and I'll show you--"

  Just what he would show, Starr did not say, because he did not know. Butthere was something there which might be called a mystery, and wherethere was mystery there was Starr, working tirelessly on the solution.This might be a trivial thing; but until he knew beyond all doubt that itwas trivial, Starr pushed other matters, such as a young woman afraid ofa horned toad, out of his mind that he might study the puzzle from allpossible angles.