Bred of the Desert Part 1

Bred of the Desert.

by Marcus Horton.

CHAPTER I

A COLT IS BORN

It was high noon in the desert, but there was no dazzling sunlight. Over the earth hung a twilight, a yellow-pink softness that flushed across the sky like the approach of a shadow, covering everything yet concealing nothing, creeping steadily onward, yet seemingly still, until, pressing low over the earth, it took on changing color, from pink to gray, from gray to black--gloom that precedes tropical showers. Then the wind came--a breeze rising as it were from the hot earth--forcing the Spanish dagger to dipping acknowledgment, sending dust-devils swirling across the slow curves of the desert--and then the storm burst in all its might. For this was a storm--a sand-storm of the Southwest.

Down the slopes to the west billowed giant clouds of sand. At the bottom these clouds tumbled and surged and mounted, and then, resuming their headlong course, swept across the flat land bordering the river, hurtled across the swollen Rio Grande itself, and so on up the gentle rise of ground to the town, where they swung through the streets in ruthless strides--banging signs, ripping up roofings, snapping off branches--and then lurched out over the mesa to the east. Here, as if in glee over their escape from city confines, they redoubled in fury and tore down to earth--and enveloped Felipe Montoya, a young and good-looking Mexican, and his team of scrawny horses plodding in a lumber rigging, all in a stinging swirl.

"Haya!" cried Felipe, as the first of the sand-laden winds struck him, "Chivos--chivos!" And he shot out his whip, gave the lash a twist over the off mare, and brought it down with a resounding thwack. "R-run!" he snarled, and again brought the whip down upon the emaciated mare. "You joost natural lazy! Thees storm--we--we get-tin'--" His voice was carried away on the swirling winds.

But the horses seemed not to hear the man; nor, in the case of the off mare, to feel the bite of his lash. They continued to plod along the beaten trail, heads drooping, ears flopping, hoofs scuffling disconsolately. Felipe, accompanying each outburst with a mighty swing of his whip, swore and pleaded and objurgated and threatened in turn.

But all to no avail. The horses held stolidly to their gait, plodding--even, after a time, dropping into slower movement. Whereat Felipe, abandoning all hope, flung down reins and whip, and leaped off the reach of the rigging. Prompt with the loosened lines the team came to a full stop; and Felipe, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a blanket, covered his head and shoulders with it and squatted in the scant protection of a forward wheel.

The storm whipped and howled past. Felipe listened, noting each change in its velocity as told by the sound of raging gusts outside, himself raging. Once he lifted a corner of the blanket and peered out--only to suffer the sting of a thousand needles. Again, he hunched his shoulders guardedly and endeavored to roll a cigarette; but the tempestuous blasts discouraged this also, and with a curse he dashed the tobacco from him.

After that he remained still, listening, until he heard an agreeable change outside. The screeching sank to a crooning; the crooning dropped to a low, musical sigh. Flinging off the blanket, he rose and swept the desert with eyes sand-filled and blinking.

The last of the yellow winds was eddying slowly past. All about him the air, thinning rapidly, pulsated in the sun's rays, which, beaming mildly down upon the desert, were spreading everywhere in glorious sheen. To the east, the mountains, stepping forth in the clearing atmosphere, lay revealed in a warmth of soft purple; while the slopes to the west, over which the storm had broken, shone in a wealth of dazzling yellow-white light--sunbeams scintillating off myriads of tiny sand-cubes. The desert was itself again--bright, resplendent-gripped in the clutch of solitude.

Felipe tossed his blanket back upon the reach of the rigging. Then he caught up reins and whip, ready to go on. As he did so he paused in dismay.

For one of the mares was down! It was the off mare, the slower and the older mare of the two. She was lying p.r.o.ne and she was breathing heavily. Covered as she was with a thin layer of fine sand, and tightly girdled with chaotic harness straps, she was a spectacle of abject misery.

But Felipe did not see this. All he saw, in the blinding rage which suddenly possessed him, was a horse down, unready for duty, and beside her a horse standing, ready for duty, but restrained by the other.

Stringing out a volley of oaths, he stepped to the side of the mare and jerked at her head, but she refused stubbornly to get up on her feet.

Gripped in dismay deeper than at first, Felipe fell back in mechanical resignation.

Was the mare dying? he asked himself. He could ill afford to lose a mare. Horses cost seven and eight dollars, and he did not possess so much money. Indeed, all the money he had in the world was three dollars, received for this last load of wood in town. So, what to do! Cursing the mare had not helped matters; nor could he accuse the storm, for there had been other storms, many of them, and each had she successfully weathered--been ready, with its pa.s.sing, to go on! But not so this one!

She--Huh? Could it be possible? Ah!

He looked at the mare with new interest. And the longer he gazed the more his anger subsided, became finally downright compa.s.sion. For he was reviewing a something he had contemplated at odd times for weeks with many misgivings and tenacious unbeliefs. Never had he understood it!

Never would he understand that thing! So why lose time in an effort to understand it now?

Dropping to his knees, he fell to work with feverish haste unbuckling straps and bands. With the harness loose, he dragged it off and tossed it to one side. Then, still moving feverishly, he led the mate to the mare off the trail, turned to the wagon with bracing shoulder, backed it clear of the prostrate animal, and swung it out of the way of future pa.s.sing vehicles. It was sweltering work. When it was done, with the sun, risen to its fierce zenith, beating down upon him mercilessly, he strode off the trail, blowing and perspiring, and flung himself down in the baking sand, where, though irritated by particles of sand which had sifted down close inside his shirt, he nevertheless gave himself over to sober reflections.

He was stalled till the next morning--he knew that. And he was without food-supplies to carry him over. And he was ten miles on the one hand, and five up-canyon miles on the other, from all source of supplies. But against these unpleasant facts there stood many pleasant facts--he was on the return leg of his journey, his wagon was empty, and he had in his possession three dollars. Then, too, there was another pleasant fact.

The trip as a trip had been unusual; never before had he, or any one else, made it under two days--one for loading and driving into town, and a second for getting rid of the wood and making the return. Yet he himself had been out now only the one day, and he was on his way home.

He had whipped and crowded his horses since midnight to just this end.

Yet was he not stalled now till morning? And would not this delay set him back the one day he had gained over his fellow-townsmen? And would not these same fellow-townsmen rejoice in this opportunity to overtake him--worse, to leave him behind? They would!

"Oh, well," he concluded, philosophically, stretching out upon his back and drawing his worn and ragged sombrero over his eyes, "soon is comin'

a _potrillo_." With this he deliberately courted slumber.

Out of the stillness rattled a wagon. Like Felipe's, it was a lumber rigging, and the driver, a fat Mexican with beady eyes, pulled up his horses and gazed at the disorder. It was but a perfunctory gaze, however, and revealed to him nothing of the true situation. All he saw was that Felipe was drunk and asleep, and that before dropping beside the trail he had had time, and perhaps just enough wit, to unhitch one horse. The other, true to instinct and the law of her underfed and overworked kind, had lain down. With this conclusion, and out of sheer exuberance of alcoholic spirits, he decided to awaken Felipe. And this he did--in true Mexican fashion. With a curse of but five words--words of great scope and finest selection, however--he mercilessly raked Felipe's ancestors for five generations back; he objurgated Felipe's holdings--chickens, adobe house, money, burro, horses, pigs. He closed, snarling not obscurely at Felipe the man and at any progeny of his which might appear in the future. Then he dropped his reins and sprang off the reach of his rigging.

Felipe was duly awakened. He gained his feet slowly.

"You know me, eh?" he retorted, advancing toward the other. "All right--_gracios_!" And by way of coals of fire he proffered the fellow-townsman papers and tobacco.

The new-comer revealed surprise, not alone at Felipe's sobriety, though this was startling in view of the disorder in the trail, but also at the proffer of cigarette material. And he was about to speak when Felipe interrupted him.

"You haf t'ink I'm drunk, eh, Franke?" he said. "Sure! Why not?" And he waved his hand in the direction of the trail. Then, after the other had rolled a cigarette and returned the sack and papers, he laid a firm hand upon the man's shoulder. "You coom look," he invited. "You tell me what you t'ink thees!"

They walked to the mare, and Franke gazed a long moment in silence.

Felipe stood beside him, eying him sharply, hoping for an expression of approval--even of congratulation. In this he was doomed to disappointment, for the other continued silent, and in silence finally turned back, his whole att.i.tude that of one who saw nothing in the spectacle worthy of comment. Felipe followed him, nettled, and sat down and himself rolled a cigarette. As he sat smoking it the other seated himself beside him, and presently touched him on the arm and began to speak. Felipe listened, with now and again a nod of approval, and, when the _compadre_ was finished, accepted the brilliant proposition.

"A bet, eh?" he exclaimed. "All right!" And he produced his sheepskin pouch and dumped out his three dollars. "All right! I bet you feety cents, Franke, thot eet don' be!"

Frank looked his disdain at the amount offered. Also, his eyes blazed and his round face reddened. He shoved his hand into his overalls, brought forth a silver dollar, and tossed it down in the sand.

"A bet!" he yelled. "Mek eet a bet! A dolar!" Then he narrowed his eyes in the direction of the mare. "Mek eet a good bet! You have chonce to win, too, Felipe--you know!"

Felipe did not respond immediately. Money was his all-absorbing difficulty. Never plentiful with him, it was less than ever plentiful now, and was wholly represented in the three dollars before him. A sum little enough in fact, it dwindled rapidly as he recalled one by one his numerous debts. For he owed much money. He owed for food in the settlement store; he owed for clothing he had bought in town; and he owed innumerable gambling debts--big sums, sums mounting to heights he dared not contemplate. And all he had to his name was the three dollars lying so peacefully before him, with the speculative Franke hovering over them like a fat buzzard over a dead coyote. What to do! He could not decide. He had ways for this money, other than paying on his debts or investing in a gambling proposition. There was to be a _baile_ soon, and he must buy for Margherita (providing her father, a caustic _hombre_, bitter against all wood-haulers, permitted him the girl's society) peanuts in the dance-hall and candy outside the dance-hall. The candy must be bought in the general store, where, because of his many debts, he must pay cash now--always cash! So what to do! All these things meant money. And money, as he well understood, was a thing hard to get. Yet here was a chance, as Franke had generously indicated, for him to win some money. But, against this chance for him to win some money was the chance also, as conveyed inversely by Franke, of his losing some money--money he could ill afford to lose.

"You afraid?" suddenly cut in Franke, nastily, upon these reflections.

"I don' see you do soomt'ing!"

Which decided Felipe for all time. "Afraid?" he echoed, disdainfully.

"Sure! But not for myself! You don' have mooch money to lose! But I mek eet a bet--a good bet! I bet you two dolars thot eet--thot eet don' be!"

It was now the other who hesitated. But he did not hesitate for long.

Evidently the spirit of the gambler was more deeply rooted in him than it was in Felipe, for, after gazing out in the trail a moment, then eying Felipe another moment, both speculatively, he extracted from his pockets two more silver dollars and tossed them down with the others.

Then he fixed Felipe with a malignant stare.

"I bet you t'ree dolars thot eet cooms what I haf say!"

Felipe laughed. "All right," he agreed, readily. "Why not?" He heaped the money under a stone, sank over upon his back with an affected yawn, drew his hat over his eyes, and lay still. "We go to sleep now, Franke,"

he proposed. "Eet's long time--I haf t'ink."

Soon both were snoring.

Out in the trail hung the quiet of a sick-room. The long afternoon waned. Once a wagon appeared from the direction of town, but the driver, evidently grasping the true situation, turned out and around the mare in respectful silence. Another time a single horseman, riding from the mountains, cantered upon the scene; but this man, also with a look of understanding, turned out and around the mare in careful regard for her condition. Then came darkness. Shadows crept in from nowhere, stealing over the desert more and more darkly, while, with their coming, birds of the air, seeking safe place for night rest, flitted about in nervous uncertainty. And suddenly in the gathering dusk rose the long-drawn howl of a coyote, lifting into the stillness a lugubrious note of appeal.

Then, close upon the echo of this, rose another appeal in the trail close by, the shrill nicker of the mate to the mare.

It awoke Felipe. He sat up quickly, rubbed his eyes dazedly, and peered out with increasing understanding. Then he sprang to his feet.

"Coom!" he called, kicking the other. "We go now--see who is winnin'

thot bet!" And he started hurriedly forward.

But the other checked him. "Wait!" he snapped, rising. "You wait! You in too mooch hurry! You coom back--I have soomt'ing!"

Felipe turned back, wondering. The other nervously produced material for a cigarette. Then he cleared his throat with needless protraction.