Starr, of the Desert

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HELEN MAY SIGHS FOR ROMANCE

  Helen May was toiling over the ridgy upland which in New Mexico is calleda mesa, when it is not a desert--and sometimes when it is one--taking herturn with the goats while Vic nursed a strained ankle and a grouch underthe mesquite tree by the house. With Pat to help, the herding resolveditself into the exercise of human intelligence over the dog's skill. Pat,for instance, would not of his own accord choose the best grazing for hisband, but he could drive them to good grazing once it was chosen for him.So, theoretically, Helen May was exercising her human intelligence;actually she was exercising her muscles mostly. And having an abundanceof brain energy that refused to lie dormant, she had plenty of time tothink her own thoughts while Pat carried out her occasional orders.

  For one thing, Helen May was undergoing the transition from a mildsatisfaction with her education and mentality, to a shamed consciousnessof an appalling ignorance and mental crudity. Holman Sommers wasunwittingly the cause of that. There was nothing patronizing orcondescending in the attitude of Holman Sommers, even if he did run tolong words and scientifically accurate descriptions of the smallestsubjects. It was the work he placed before her that held Helen Mayabashed before his vast knowledge. She could not understand half of whatshe deciphered and typed for him, and because she could not understandshe realized the depth of her benightedness.

  She was awed by the breadth and the scope which she sensed more or lessvaguely in _The Evolution of Sociology_. Holman Sommers quoted freely,and discussed boldly and frankly, such abstruse authors as Descartes,Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Comte, Gumplowicz, some of them names she hadnever heard of and could not even spell without following her copyletter by letter. Holman Sommers seemed to have read all of them and tohave weighed all of them and to be able to quote all of them offhand;whereas Schopenhauer was the only name in the lot that sounded in theleast familiar to Helen May, and she had a guilty feeling that she hadalways connected the name with music instead of the sort of thingsHolman Sommers quoted him as having said or written, she could not makeout which.

  Helen May, therefore, was suffering from mental growing pains. Shestruggled with new ideas which she had swallowed whole, without anyprevious elementary knowledge of the subject. Her brain was hungry, herlife was stagnant, and she seized upon these sociological problems whichHolman Sommers had placed before her, and worried over them, and wonderedwhere Holman Sommers had learned so much about things she had never heardof. Save his vocabulary, which wearied her, he was the simplest, thekindest of men, though not kind as her Man of the Desert was kind.

  Just here in her thoughts Holman Sommers faded, and Starr's lean,whimsical face came out sharply defined before her mental vision. Starrcertainly was different! Ordinary, and not educated much beyond the threeRs, she suspected. Just a desert man with a nice voice and a gift forprovocative little silences. Two men could not well be farther apart inpersonality, she thought, and she amused herself by comparing them.

  For instance, take the case of Pat. Sommers had told her just why andjust how desperately she needed a dog for the goats, and had urged her byall means to get one at the first opportunity. Starr had not saidanything about it; he had simply brought the dog. Helen May appreciatedthe different quality of the kindness that does things.

  Privately, she suspected that Starr had stolen that dog, he had seemed soembarrassed while he explained how he came by Pat; especially, sheremembered, when she had urged him to take the dog back. She would not,of course, dare hint it even to Vic; and theoretically she was of courseshocked at the possibility. But, oh, she was human! That a nice manshould swipe a dog for her secretly touched a little, responsivetenderness in Helen May. (She used the word "swipe," which somehow madethe suspected deed sound less a crime and more an amusing peccadillo thanthe word "steal" would have done. Have you ever noticed how adroitly wetone down or magnify certain misdeeds simply by using slang or dictionarywords as the case may be?)

  Oh, she saw it quite plainly, as she trudged over to the shady side of arock ridge and sat down where she could keep an eye on Pat and the goats.She told herself that she would ask her Man of the Desert, the next timehe happened along, whether he had found out who the dog belonged to. Ifhe acted confused and dodged the issue, then she would know for sure.Just what she would do when she knew for sure, Helen May had not decided.

  The goats were browsing docilely upon the slope, eating stuff which onlya goat would attempt to eat. Helen May was not afraid of Billy since Pathad taken charge. Pat had a way of keeping Billy cowed and as harmlessas the nannies themselves. Just now Pat was standing at a little distancewith his tongue slavering down over his white teeth, gazing over the bandas a general looks at his army drawn up in review.

  He turned his head and glanced at Helen May inquiringly, then trottedover to where she sat in the shade. His tongue still drooped quiveringlyover his lower jaw; and now and then he drew it back and licked his lipsas though they were dry. Helen May found a rock that was hollowed like acrude saucer, and poured water into the hollow from her canteen. Patlapped it up thirstily, gave his stubby tail a wag of gratitude, lay downwith his front paws on the edge of her skirt with his head dropped downupon them, and took a nap--with one eye opening now and then to see thatthe goats were all right, and with his ears lifting to catch the meaningof every stray bleat from a garrulous nanny.

  Helen May had changed a good deal in the past two or three weeks. Nowwhen she stared away and away over the desert and barren slope and ridgesand mountain, she did not feel that she hated them. Instead, she saw thatthe yellow of the desert, the brown of the slopes, and the black of thedistant granite ledges basseting from bleak hills were more beautifulthan the tidy little plots of tilled ground she used to think so lovely.There was something hypnotic in these bald distances. She could not read,when she was out like this; she could only look and think and dream.

  She wished that she might ride out over it sometime, away over to themountains, perhaps, as far as she could see. She fell to dreaming of theold days when this was Spanish territory, and the king gave royal grantsof land to his favorites: for instance, all the country lying between twomountain ranges, to where a river cut across and formed a naturalboundary. Holman Sommers had told her about the old Spanish grants, andhow many of the vast estates of Mexican "cattle kings" and "sheep kings"were still preserved almost intact, just as they had been when this was apart of Mexico.

  She wished that she might have lived here then, when the dons held swayand when senoritas were all beautiful and when senoras were every one ofthem imposing in many jewels and in rich mantillas, and when vaqueroswore red sashes and beautiful serapes and big, gold-laced sombreros, androde prancing steeds that curveted away from jingling, silver-rowelledspurs. Helen May, you must remember, knew her moving-picture romance. Shecould easily vision these things exactly as they had been presented toher on the screen. That is why she peopled this empty land so gorgeously.

  It was different now, of course. All the Mexicans she had seen werelike the Mexicans around the old Plaza in Los Angeles. All the senoritasshe had met--they had not been many--powdered and painted abominably tothe point of their jaws and left their necks dirty. And their petticoatswere draggled and their hats looked as though they had been trimmed fromthe ten-cent counter of a cheap store. All the senoras were smokylooking with snakish eyes, and the dresses under their heavy-fringedblack mantillas were more frowsy than those of their daughters. Theycertainly were not imposing; and if they wore jewelry at all it lookedbrassy and cheap.

  There was no romance, nothing like adventure here nowadays, said HelenMay to herself, while she watched the little geysers of dust go dancinglike whirling dervishes across the sand. A person lived on canned stuffand kept goats and was abjectly pleased to see any kind of human being.There certainly was no romance left in the country, though it had seemedalmost as though there might be, when her Man of the Desert sang and allthe little night-sounds hushed to listen, and the moon-trail acro
ss thesand of the desert lay like a ribbon of silver. It had seemed then asthough there might be romance yet alive in the wide spaces.

  So she had swung back again to Starr, just as she was always doinglately. She began to wonder when he would come again, and what he wouldhave to say next time, and whether he had really annexed some poor sheepman's perfectly good dog, just because he knew she needed one. It wouldnever do to let on that she guessed; but all the same, it was mighty niceof him to think of her, even if he did go about it in a queer way. Andwhen Pat, who had seemed to be asleep, lifted his head and looked up intoher eyes adoringly, Helen May laid her hand upon his smooth skull andsmiled oddly.

  No more romance, said Helen May--and here was Starr, a man of mystery, aman feared and distrusted by the sons of those passionate dons of whomshe dreamed! Here was Starr, Secret Service man (there is ever a glamorin the very name of it), the very essence and forefront of such romanceand such adventure as she had gasped over, when she had seen it picturedon the screen! She was living right in the middle of intrigue that wasstirring the rulers of two nations; she was coming close to realadventure, and there she sat, with Pat lying on the hem of her skirt, andmourned that she was fifty or a hundred years too late for even a glimpseat romance! And fretted because she was helping Pat herd goats, andbecause life was dull and commonplace.

  "Honestly," she told Pat, "I've got to the point where I catch myself,looking forward to the chance visits of a wandering cowboy who isperfectly commonplace. Why, he'd be absolutely lost on the screen; youwouldn't know he was in the picture unless his horse bucked or fell downor something! And I don't suppose he ever has a thought beyond his workand his little five-cent celebrations in San Bonito, maybe. Most likelyhe flirts with those grimy-necked Mexican girls, too. You can't tell--

  "And think of me being so hard up for excitement that I've got to playhe's some mysterious creature of the desert! Honest to goodness, Pat,it's got so bad that the mere sight of a real, live man is thrilling.When Holman Sommers comes and lifts that old Panama like a crown prince,and smiles at me and talks about all the different periods of the humanrace, and gems and tribal laws and all that highbrow dope, I just sit anddrink it in and wish he'd keep on for hours! Can you beat that? And if byany chance a common, ordinary specimen of desert man should ride by, Imight be desperate enough--"

  Her gaze, wandering always out over the tremendous sweep of plateau whichfrom that point looked illimitable as the ocean, settled upon a whirlwindthat displayed method and a slow sedateness not at all in keeping withthe erratic gyrations of those gone before. Watching it wistfully with ahalf-formed hope that it might not be just a dry-weather whirlwind, herdroning voice trailed off into silence. A faint beating in her throatbetrayed what it was she half hoped. She was so desperately lonesome!

  Pat tilted his head and looked up at her and licked her hand until shedrew it away impatiently.

  "Good gracious, Pat! Do you want to plaster me with germs?" she reproved.And Pat dropped his head down upon his paws and eyed her furtively fromunder his brown lids, waiting for her to repent her harshness and smoothhis head caressingly, as was her wont.

  But Helen May was watching that slow-moving column of dust, just asshe had watched the cloud which had heralded the coming into her lifeof Holman Sommers. It might be--but it couldn't, for this was awayoff the road. No one would be cutting straight across that hummockyflat, unless--

  From the desert I come to thee,On my Arab shod with fire--

  "Oh, I'm getting absolutely mushy!" she muttered angrily. "If I'vereached the point where I can't see a spot of dust without gettingheart-failure over it, why it's time I was shut up somewhere. What areyou lolling around me for, Pat? Go on and tend to your goats, why don'tyou? And do get off my skirt!"

  Pat sprang up as though she had struck him; gave her an injured glancethat was perfectly maddening to Helen May, whose conscience wassufficient punishment, and went slinking off down the slope. Half-way tothe band he stopped and sat down on his haunches in the hot sun, asdejected a dog as ever was made to suffer because his mistress wasdispleased with herself.

  Helen May sat there scowling out across the wide spaces, while romanceand adventure, and something more, rode steadily nearer, heralded by thesmall gray cloud. When she was sure that a horseman was coming, sheperversely removed herself to another spot where she would not be seen.And there she sat, out of sight from below and thus fancying herselfundiscovered, refusing so much as a sly glance around her granite shield.

  For if there was anything which Helen May hated more than another it wasthe possibility of being thought cheaply sentimental, mushy, as thepresent generation vividly puts it. Also she was trying to break herselfof humming that old desert love-song all the while. Vic was beginning to"kid" her unmercifully about it, for one thing. To think that she shouldsing it without thinking a word about it, just because she happened tosee a little dust! She would not look. She would not!

  Starr might have passed her by and gone on to the cabin if he had not,through a pair of powerful binoculars, been observing her when she sentPat off, and when she got up and went over to the other ledge and satdown. Through the glasses he had seen her feet crossed, toes up, justpast the nose of the rock, and he could see the spread of her skirt.Luckily, he could not read her mind. He therefore gave a yank at thelead-rope in his hand and addressed a few biting remarks to awhite-lashed, blue-eyed pinto trailing reluctantly behind Rabbit; androde forward with some eagerness toward the ridge.

  "'Sleep?" he greeted cheerfully, when he had forced the two horses toscramble up to the shade of the ledge, and had received no attentionwhatever from the person just beyond. The tan boots were still crossed,and not so much as a toe of them moved to show that the owner heard him.Starr knew that he had made noise enough, so far as that went.

  "Why, no, I'm not asleep. What is it?" came crisply, after aperceptible pause.

  "It ain't anything at all," Starr retorted, and swung Rabbit into theshade which Helen May had left. He dismounted, sat himself down with hisback against a rock, and proceeded to roll a cigarette. By no meanswould he intrude upon the privacy of a lady, though the quiet, crossedfeet and the placid folds of the khaki skirt told him that she wassitting there quietly--pouting about something, most likely, he diagnosedher silence shrewdly. Well, it was early, and so long as he reached acertain point by full dark, he was not neglecting anything. As a matterof fact, he told himself philosophically, he really wanted to kill half aday in a perfectly plausible manner. There was no hurry, no hurry at all.

  Pat looked back at him ingratiatingly, and Starr called. Pat came runningin long leaps, nearly wagging himself in two because someone he liked wasgoing to be nice to him. Starr petted him and talked to him and pulledhis ears and slapped him on the ribs, and Pat in his joy persisted intrying to lick Starr's cheek.

  "Quit it! Lay down and be a doormat, then. You've got welcome wrote allover you. And much as I like welcome, I hate to be licked."

  Pat lay down, and Starr eyed the tan boot toes. They moved impatiently,but they did not uncross. Starr smiled to himself and proceeded to carryon a one-sided conversation with Pat, and to smoke his cigarette.

  "Sick, over there?" he inquired casually after perhaps five minutes;either of them would have sworn it ten or fifteen.

  "Why, no," chirped the crisp voice. "Why?"

  "Seemed polite to ask, is all," Starr confessed. "I didn't think youwas." He finished his smoke in the silence that followed. Then, becausehe himself owned a perverse streak, he took his binoculars from theircase and began to study the low-lying ridge in the distance, in a pocketof which nestled the Medina ranch buildings. He was glad this ridgecommanded all but the "draws" and hollows lying transversely between hereand Medina's place. It was Medina whom he had been advised by his chiefto watch particularly, when Starr had found a means of laying his cluesbefore that astute gentleman. If he could sit within ten feet of HelenMay while he kept an eye on that country over there, all the better.

  He
saw a horseman ride up out of a hollow and disappear almostimmediately into another. The man seemed to be coming over in thisdirection, though Starr could not be sure. He watched for a reappearanceof the rider on high ground, but he saw no more of the fellow. So after alittle he took down the glasses to scan the country as a whole.

  It was then that he glanced toward the other rock and saw that the tanboots had moved out of sight. He believed that he would have heard her ifshe moved away, and so he kept his eyes turned upon the corner of therock where her feet had shown a few minutes before.