Children of the Desert Part 23

Late in the afternoon he was back in Piedras Negras again. He had eaten nothing save a handful of figs which an old woman had given him, together with a bowl of goat's milk. He had wished to pay for them, but the old woman had shaken her head and turned away.

He encountered a tourist in clerical garb--a thin-chested man with a colorless face, but with sad, benevolent eyes--sitting in the plaza near the sinister old _cuartel_. He sat down and asked abruptly in a voice strangely high-pitched for his own:

"Is a man ever justified in leaving his wife?"

The tourist looked startled; but he was a man of tact and wisdom, evidently, and he quickly adjusted himself to what was plainly a special need, an extraordinary condition. "Ah, that's a very old question," he replied gently. "It's been asked often, and there have been many answers."

"But is he?" persisted Harboro.

"There are various conditions. If a man and a woman do not love each other, wouldn't it seem wiser for them to rectify the mistake they had made in marrying? But if they love each other ... it seems to me quite a simple matter then. I should say that under no circ.u.mstances should they part."

"But if the wife has sinned?"

"My dear man ... sinned; it's a difficult word. Let us try to define it.

Let us say that a sin is an act deliberately committed with the primary intention of inflicting an injury upon some one. It becomes an ugly matter. Very few people sin, if you accept my definition."

Harboro was regarding him with dark intentness.

"The trouble is," resumed the other man, "we often use the word sin when we mean only a weakness. And a weakness in an individual should make us cleave fast to him, so that he may not be wholly lost. I can't think of anything so cruel as to desert one who has stumbled through weakness. The desertion would be the real sin. Weaknesses are a sort of illness--and even a pigeon will sit beside its mate and mourn, when its mate is ill. It is a beautiful lesson in fidelity. A soldier doesn't desert his wounded comrade in battle. He bears him to safety--or both perish together. And by such deeds is the consciousness of G.o.d established in us."

"Wait!" commanded Harboro. He clinched his fists. A phrase had clung to him: "He bears him to safety or both perish together!"

He arose from the seat he had taken and staggered away half a dozen steps, his hands still clinched. Then, as if remembering, he turned about so that he faced the man who had talked to him. Beyond loomed the ancient church in which Sylvia had said it would seem possible to find G.o.d. Was He there in reality, and was this one of His angels, strayed a little distance from His side? It was not the world's wisdom that this man spoke, and yet how eternally true his words had been! A flock of pigeons flew over the plaza and disappeared in the western glow where the sun was setting. "Even a pigeon will sit by its mate and mourn...."

Harboro gazed at the man on the bench. His face moved strangely, as a dark pool will stir from the action of an undercurrent. He could not speak for a moment, and then he called back in a voice like a cry: "I thank you."

"You are welcome--brother!" was the response. The man on the bench was smiling. He coughed a little, and wondered if the open-air treatment the physician had prescribed might not prove a bit heroic. When he looked about him again his late companion was gone.

Harboro was hurrying down toward the Rio Grande bridge. He was trying to put a curb on his emotions, on his movements. It would never do for him to hurry through the streets of Eagle Pa.s.s like a madman. He must walk circ.u.mspectly.

He was planning for the future. He would take Sylvia away--anywhere. They would begin their married life anew. He would take her beyond the ordinary temptations. They would live in a tent, an igloo, in the face of a cliff.

He would take her beyond the reach of the old evil influences, where he could guide her back to the paths she had lost. He would search out some place where there was never a dun horse with golden dapples, and a rider who carried himself like a crier of G.o.d, carrying glad tidings across the world.

Yet he was never conscious of the manner in which he made that trying journey. He was recalled to self when he reached his own door. He realized that he was somewhat out of breath. The night had fallen and the house revealed but little light from the front. Through the door he could see that the dining-room was lighted. He tried the door stealthily and entered with caution. It would not do to startle Sylvia.

Ah--that was her voice in the dining-room. The telephone bell had sounded, just as he opened the door, and she was responding to the call.

Her voice seemed cold at first: "I didn't catch the name." And then it turned to a caress: "Oh, Mendoza--I didn't hear at first. Of course, I want to see you." There was now a note of perplexity in her tone, and then: "No, don't come here. It would be better for me to see you at my father's. In the afternoon."

Harboro found himself leaning against the wall, his head in his hands.

Mendoza! The town's notorious philanderer, who had regarded Sylvia with insolent eyes that night out at the Quemado! Yes, and she had danced with him the minute his back was turned; danced with him with unconcealed joy.

Mendoza....

He climbed the stairs slowly. He heard Sylvia's footsteps as she moved away; into the kitchen, probably. He climbed stealthily, like a thief. He mustn't permit Sylvia to hear him. He couldn't see her now.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

Sylvia had spent the entire day by her window, looking down the road. She had refused the food that old Antonia had brought, and the comforting words that came with it. Something that was not a part of herself argued with her that Harboro would come back, though all that she was by training and experiences warned her that she must not look for him.

At nightfall she turned wearily when Antonia tapped at her door.

"_Nia!_" The troubled old woman held out a beseeching hand. "You must have food. I have prepared it for you, again. There are very good eggs, and a gla.s.s of milk, and coffee--coffee with a flavor! Come, there will be another day, and another. Sorrows pa.s.s in the good G.o.d's time; and even a blind sheep will find its blade of gra.s.s." Her hand was still extended.

Sylvia went to her and kissed her withered cheek. "I will try," she said with docility.

And they went down the stairs as if they were four; the young woman walking with Despair, the old woman moving side by side with Knowledge.

It was then that the telephone rang and Sylvia went to the instrument and took down the receiver with trembling fingers. If it were only Harboro!...

But it was a woman's voice, and the hope within her died. She could scarcely attend, after she realized that it was a woman who spoke to her.

The name "Mrs. Mendoza" meant nothing to her for an instant. And then she aroused herself. She must not be ungracious. "Oh, Mendoza," she said; "I didn't hear at first." She felt as if a breath of cold air had enveloped her, but she shook off the conviction. From habit she spoke cordially; with grat.i.tude to the one woman in Eagle Pa.s.s who had befriended her she spoke with tenderness. The wife of Jesus Mendoza wanted to call on her.

But Sylvia had planned the one great event of her life, and it occurred to her that she ought not to permit this unfortunate woman to come to the house on the morrow. It would be an unforgivable cruelty. And then she thought of her father's house, and suggested that her visitor come to see her there.

She hung up the receiver listlessly and went into the kitchen, where Antonia was eagerly getting a meal ready for her. She looked at these affectionate preparations indulgently, as she might have looked at a child who a.s.sured her that a wholly imaginary thing was a real thing.

She ate dutifully, and then she took a bit of husk from Antonia's store and made a cigarette. It was the first time she had smoked since her marriage. "He's not coming back," she said in a voice like that of a helpless old woman. She leaned her elbows on the table and smoked. Her att.i.tude did not suggest grief, but rather a leave-taking.

Then with returning briskness she got up and found street apparel and left the house.

She went down into the town almost gayly--like the Sylvia of old. In the drug-store she told an exciting little story to the clerk. There had been a nest of scorpions ... would he believe it? In the kitchen! She had been given such a start when the servant had found them. The servant had screamed; quite naturally, too. She had been told that a weak solution, sprinkled on the floor, would drive them away. What was it?... Yes, that was it. She had forgotten.

She received the small phial and paid the price with fingers which were perfectly firm. And then she started back up the hill.

Under a street light she became aware that she was being followed. She turned with a start. It was only a dog--a forlorn little beast which stopped when she stopped, and regarded her with soft, troubled eyes.

She stooped and smoothed the creature's head. "You mustn't follow," she said in a voice like hidden water. "I haven't any place to take you--nowhere at all!" She went on up the hill. Once she turned and observed that the lost dog stood where she had left him, still imploring her for friendship.

At her door she paused and turned. She leaned against the door-post in a wistful att.i.tude. A hundred lonely, isolated lights were burning across the desert, as far as the eye could reach. They were little lights which might have meant nothing at all to a happier observer; but to Sylvia they told the story of men and women who had joined hands to fight the battle of life; of the sweet, humble activities which keep the home intact--the sweeping of the hearth, the mending of the fire, the expectant glance at the clock, the sound of a foot-fall drawing near. There lay the desert, stretching away to the Sierra Madre, a lonely waste; but it was a paradise to those who tended their lights faithfully and waited with a.s.surance for those who were away.

... She turned and entered her house stealthily.

At the top of the stairs she paused in indecision. Antonia had not heard her enter. (She did not know that the old woman was standing in the kitchen under the picture of the Virgin, with her hands across her eyes like a bandage.) The lovely boudoir called to her, but she would not enter it.

"I will go into the guest-chamber," she said; "that is the room set apart for strangers. I think I must always have been a stranger here."

She opened the door quietly.

A pungent odor of smoke filled her nostrils. She groped for the light and turned it on.

Through little horizontal wisps of smoke she saw Harboro lying across the bed, his great chest standing high, his muscular throat exposed to the light, a glint of teeth showing under the sweeping black mustache. His eyes, nearly closed, seemed to harbor an eager light--as if he had travelled along a dark path and saw at last a beacon on a distant hilltop.

A pistol was still clasped in his dead hand.

The unopened phial Sylvia carried slipped to the floor. She clutched at her lips with both hands, to suppress the scream that arose within her.

He had no right to lie so, in this room. That was her thought. He had taken the place she had chosen for her own.

And then she thought of Harboro as a stranger, too. Had she ever known him, really?