Over the Border: A Novel

by Herman Whitaker

  XVI: ONE MAN CAN TAKE A HORSE TO WATER, BUT--

  The sun shone brightly on the morning of the widow's birthday. Not thatthere was anything sensational in the fact. Except in the rainy season,the sun always shines brightly in Chihuahua--altogether too brightly fora white man's comfort, so while waiting for Lee, Gordon led their horsesinto the shade of the 'dobe where dwelt his little playmate. Seated inthe doorway, under the pleased eyes of the brown mother, he wasinitiating the chubby thing into the mysteries of "cat's cradle" with aloop of string, when Lee came walking across from the house.

  At the sight of the two heads bent over the "cradle," the girl's facelit up with a soft glow that was not belied by her mock severity."Hello, Brother! What are you doing to my godchild?"

  "Is this she?" Rising, he swung the child up on his shoulder. "I hadjust about made up my mind to adopt her myself."

  "Let me see--" Lee's smooth brow achieved a thoughtful wrinkle. "She'sabout one-fiftieth of it. You know I am padrina to all that have beenborn here in the last fifteen years. But this is my favorite, and Icannot suffer you to steal her allegiance as you tried the other night.Oh, you needn't blush! Maria brought the news with my coffee. She wasloud in your praises. 'Don Gor-r-r-don sat with Refugio's sick babe allnight. What a husband for some happy senorita!'"

  "That was very nice of Maria." He laughed. "Only, I'm afraid there'snothing doing. Girls of this size get me going, but after they growup--somehow I lose interest."

  It was an awesome confession to make to a girl whose mirror reflectedfar more than the average of feminine looks. Like a stag of ten tinesthat paws the forest mold in the pride of freedom, he had marked himselffor the slaughter. It was the due of her sex that his pride be humbled.The soft glow changed to a gleam; but her attention was drawn just thenby the prattle of two children who, unaware of the proximity of theparties of the first and second part, were conducting a make-believehousekeeping around the corner.

  "Now I shall be Don Gor-r-r-don, and thou the senorita," came a voice,gruff with masculine authority. "Only we be married."

  "But will they be married, Pancho?" piped a softer treble.

  "Si, that will they. Only an hour ago I heard thy mother and old 'Lupetalking at the well. 'Is not Don Gor-r-r-don a fine man, and she a womanwith never a duenna to her name? 'Tis shocking, Amalia, but gringo bloodruns colder than Spanish; their ways are not ours. Yet, cold or hot,this may not end without marriage.' This is what old 'Lupe said to thymother."

  Rich color swept from the roots of Lee's hair down to her neck. Shehastily hid it from the observation of the party of the first part;then, remembering that his Spanish was still confined to a few jerkysentences, she regained her composure.

  "Woman!" "Don Gor-r-r-don" was speaking again. "What is this--thetortillas burned once more? Have I not told thee to be more sparing ofthe wood I gain with my sweat? And this chile? 'Tis sour as swill, fitonly for swine."

  "Then it should suit thee very well," came the softer voice, withunexpected spirit.

  "A-r-r-r-h!" It was an excellent imitation of the angry howl with whichDon Gor-r-r-don's father resented household rebellions. "Thou wouldstanswer me? Thy mouth is too big! Take this to fill it!"

  Followed a wail and as Lee rushed around the corner to the rescue, DonGor-r-r-don scuttled like a little pig under her arm and dived into thehouse. Having comforted the small housewife, Lee returned to Gordon.

  "Panchito is not quite so afraid of girls as you," she teased him. "Theywere playing house. Because the beans were not quite to his liking, hehanded Dolores one on the mouth."

  He laughed. "The young dog! At least he has a good working idea of theproper relation of the sexes."

  This, indeed, was tempting Providence! The little gleam appeared againand lingered till, taking her foot in one hand, he lifted her to thesaddle without perceptible effort, when it was wiped out by pleasedsurprise.

  Strength and tenderness? Age-long experience has taught woman to valuethese above all else in man! A skilful diagnostician--the widow, forinstance--would have noted and approved her unconscious content as theyrode out through the gates and followed the trail up and down the longearth rolls. Sometimes, when the vagaries of travel forced him ahead,her little stealthy glances were not nearly so unconscious; displayed acuriosity both healthy and sincere. And when, as occurred quitefrequently, their frank interest was broken by a return of the littlegleam, the diagnostician would still have concurred. For it displayednothing more than the pride proper in a sex which has handled--andmishandled--man, directed his policies and intrigues, set him at thewars, made his peaces, used him as a catspaw to pull its privatechestnuts out of the fires of love and hate, while the poor, blindedbeing imagined all the time that he was following his own ends.

  He "lost interest in them after they grew up." Indeed! Why, thefreshness of the morning, the creak and odor of hot leather, rhythmicbeat of hoofs, sunlit roll of pastures within the hedging mountains, allthe sights and sensations which he mistook for joy in the ride, werenothing more than a setting for her lovely youth. The ebb and flow ofher color, easy flexures of her lithe body, counted as much in nature'scosmogony as the rush of the winds, flush of sunset skies; only, as yet,he did not know it. The "fire and tow" still lacked a "wind."

  They headed, at first, out on the trail which led through Lovell's_rancho_ to the widow's; but presently Lee swerved toward the hills. "Itis rougher," she said, "with a few bits of stiff climbing, but bothshorter and prettier. It follows an old, old mule trail up a woodedcanon past a country _fonda_. There I'll show you the prettiest Mexicangirl in all Chihuahua."

  "At the _fonda_? Then I have seen her."

  Her quick look said quite plainly, "Oh, _you have_?"

  "Sliver took me there the day we caught the raiders. Pretty? I shouldsay!" He added, laughing, "She made me a very nice proposal of marriage,adding the _fonda_ as an extra inducement."

  Her expression now said, "Oh, she _did_?" But as she looked away, hefailed to see it, got only her words, "And you had the heart to refuse?"

  "Sad to relate."

  "And you haven't even been to see her again?"

  "No time."

  She took her answer from his unconcern rather than the words. And yet,as they rode along, she gave him little brooding looks thatexpressed--perhaps not altogether disbelief so much as that rooted andreasonable doubt which her sex invariably entertains when another womanis in question. As they rode around the end of the spur and proceeded upthe canon her glances grew in frequency; finally settled in a stealthywatch as they approached the _fonda_.

  "There's your beauty--attired like a bride for her groom."

  Lee nodded at Felicia, who was coming up from the stream with an _olla_of water gracefully poised on her head. For a cushion she had twisted ahandful of scarlet runners into a thick chaplet, and, escaping fromunder the _olla_, half a dozen vivid tendrils streaked the black wavymass of her hair. With her velvet pools of eyes, satiny arms andshoulders, pliant, shapely figure, she might have been a golden Hebebearing wine to Aztec gods. Small wonder if Gordon stared at the prettypicture overmuch for his companion's taste.

  His interest undoubtedly instigated her addition, "Perhaps she hasn'tlost hope?"

  She did not, either, like his laugh, for it seemed just a bit conscious.While drinking a glass of native concoction, barley water flavored withseeds, she kept a stealthy watch that was none the less efficientbecause masked by gay chatter with the old man and woman who camehobbling out of the house. She saw not only the dark glance thatfollowed and enfolded Gordon in a lingering embrace, but as the girlreached up, handing the glass, she caught a glimpse of Gordon's fobdangling within the golden bosom at the end of a chain of beads.

  At first she recognized it only for an American-made trinket. But underpretense of admiring the hand-made lace edging on the girl's chemisette,she managed another peep and saw the leather worked with Gordon'smonogram in gold.

  "Ah, _ha_! senor!"

  Her mental ejaculation
expressed on the surface only mischief. But underit a deeper feeling moved like a stir of wind through sultry heat. Wasit the widow's "wind" fanning an unsuspected flame? Perhaps. At leastwhen, looking back after they rode on, she saw the same dark gazefollowing, enwrapping Gordon, she was seized with sudden unhappiness.Plainly as the day that dark gaze spoke:

  "I am yours!"

  After they had ridden on, out of sight, and her beast was scramblingafter Gordon's up the mule trail that rose in a series of zigzagstaircases, the little queer looks at his back asked a vital question.