XVIII: THE "WIND" BLOWS CONTRARY
In the fundamentals of feeling poor humans are very much alike.
A university training confers no immunity from jealousy, and as he rodeinto the hills Gordon's thoughts exhibited all of the phases customarywith plowboys and professors who have been flouted and flirted andflurried till they can hardly say whether they are standing on theirheads or their heels. He assured himself, of course, that he "didn'tgive a damn"! and smoked a pipe to prove it. But after a few puffs thepipe burned out in his hand, wasting its fragrance on the desert air.
The flashes that fitfully broke his brooding again marked suddenimpulses to go back, punch Ramon's head, and lead Lee away by one prettyear. Mentally he twisted it till she cried out; whereupon he would letgo with the admonition, "There! that will teach you to behave!"
Once he even turned to go back. But sanity intervened. He rodeon--madder than ever. Also--but, as before said, his thoughts andfeelings conformed to the universal type. Let it suffice that when,hours later, he saw the _fonda_ lying like a cup of gold in the ravinebelow he was in a highly reckless state.
Up to that moment it is safe to say that no thought of Felicia had beenin his mind. But when suffering from injured pride, vanity, or love,plowman and professor alike proceed to "take a hair of the dog that bitthem" by turning to the nearest maid. Of husbands that have been socaught on the rebound, wives obtained, as it were, on a ricochet, thenumber shall never be told!
In accordance with this natural law, Felicia's pretty face now flashedup before Gordon's eyes. His exclamation, "Aw, take a drink and forgetit!" might, metaphorically, be applied to the _fonda's_ liquors lessthan to her.
A _peona's_ life gravitates between her grinding at the _metate_ andlaundering on the river boulders, with spells of "drawnwork" between.Having put out her "wash" and bathed herself in the stream, Felicia wasmaking her toilet before two inches of cracked mirror she had propped onthe lintel against the wooden bar shutter when Gordon came riding downfrom above.
From her smooth forehead, her cloud-black hair fell in dark waves arounda spotless chemisette whose low cut and lack of sleeves revealed thesatin-gold of her shoulders. Under the same circumstances a white girlwould, of course, have fled. But at the sight of him, alone, she spatout a mouthful of hair-pins that interfered with her welcoming smile,led his horse in under the shady _ramada_, then proceeded calmly withher toilet.
Toward both Sliver and Lee she had displayed a certain sullenness, thedull resentment born of racial oppression, but now while she combed andarranged her hair she flooded Gordon with smiles. And how she talked!eyes, hands, body, shoulders, and tongue going together in a way thatwould have given the most loquacious of white girls twenty yards startout of a hundred and beaten her to the tape.
The tongue Gordon could not understand. But the big eyes, small hands,golden shoulders told in the language of the universe that she wasexceedingly glad! To a young man who had been recently flouted andflattened, the nose of him held down, as it were, on the grindstone of agirl's contempt, it was very soothing. He bathed in the subtle flattery.Like a spring tonic, it percolated, a healing oil, through every pore ofhis wounded vanity, restoring, revigorating his self-esteem. So helooked on approvingly; even made admiring note of the perfect arms andshoulders.
Her toilet concluded, Felicia surveyed it a few inches at a time in thecracked bit of mirror. Then letting down the wooden shutter, she filledtwo _copas_ of anisette and, leaning on one shapely elbow, pledged himin Spanish.
"Salud y pesitos, senor!" (Health and a little money!)
In clinking glasses, she touched his hand, but he did not find thecontact unpleasant; neither took alarm when she refused a _peso_note--even after he had filled and drunk again.
A _peona_ refusing money? It was contrary to instinct and tradition! Hadhe known that, or her private mind, he would have moved on; for he wasnot only naturally shy with girls, but also responsible beyond hisyears. But being absolutely ignorant of _peona_ nature, and in finefettle for sympathetic philandering, he leaned against the bar andchatted as best he could, with his little Spanish helped out by signs.
When she suggested that he would learn more quickly if he had a_diccionario_ with "long hair" he laughed, but failed to catch thepersonal application. Again, if, as on the former occasion, she hadrepeated the offer made through Sliver, he would also have laughed. Butnow that she was sure, or thought she was, of her game, she enwrappedherself in a savage modesty; masked advances under alluring retreats.
To tell the truth, as the anisette fulfilled its ordained purpose andburned up his shyness in its consuming flame, he found the flirtation sodelightful that an hour slipped by unnoticed. During that time the"long-haired _diccionario_" was in constant use. While her father andmother dozed under the _ramada_ he consulted it about the scenery andnatural objects, trees, chickens, pigs; the path, stream, and hills. Butwhen, irresistibly, the range of his questions narrowed to nearerobjects--fingers, eyes, hair--the lesson passed the boundaries ofetymology into the domain of love.
He was well over that border before he realized it--how far he did notguess until, when he had asked playfully the Spanish for "kiss," the_diccionario_ answered swiftly, not with the word, but with the actionto illustrate it.
Over the Border: A Novel Page 18