Over the Border Part 8

It was not done with malice aforethought, for Sliver had not quite reached the point where "he couldn't stan' it any longer." It just happened. Heavy drinkers may be divided into three cla.s.ses-to wit, the sporadic, who break out in occasional wild debauches; the "steadies,"

who sop, sop, sop all the time; and a third cla.s.s which combines the traits of the other two. Of the Three, Bull represented the first, Jake the second, Sliver the last and worst.

If Sliver had not ridden his horse along the crest of a certain hog's back on the chance that the cattle he was hunting might be in the ravine below, it might never have come to pa.s.s. If Napoleon Bonaparte, for matter of that, hadn't developed indigestion at Waterloo; if Christopher Columbus had followed the Church instead of the sea; if Julius Caesar had been born a girl; if all the cats on all the famous fences of history had happened to jump the other way-this world would be quite different.

So let it suffice that Sliver rode along the hog's back.

At its end the ridge ran out on a wide bench from which Sliver looked over the foot-hills, rolling tumultuously under a black blanket of chaparral out to the tawny valleys of the _hacienda_ pastures. Below, he could see a path that ran with a silver stream at the bottom of the ravine. Its deep rut, no wider than the swing of a mule, marked it for one of those ancient highways whose place had been usurped by the Diaz railways. In its heyday the canon had rung with the tinklings of the mule-trains that transported _aguardiente_, maize, tobacco, serapes, and cloths between Mexico City and Santa Fe. But of that great traffic there now remained barely enough to support the little _fonda_ that lay with its mule _patio_ almost at Sliver's feet.

Though no one was in sight, he set down certain moving black dots as chickens, goats, or pigs. Thus a.s.sured of tenancy, and thinking that he might pick up some news of his strays, he rode on down a trail that zigzagged through the chaparral.

Looking down from above, Sliver had noted the resemblance of the place to the lair back on the miner's bench in Sonora. The _ramada_ of gra.s.s and cornstalks might have been the same. Only that she was younger and prettier, the Mexican girl who knelt before a _metate_ grinding _tortilla_ paste could have pa.s.sed for Rosa herself. Though Mexican Indian, some vagrant Spanish strain had pushed up her brow, reduced her cheek-bones, shortened her waist, and lengthened her limbs. Ma.s.ses of black hair framed her oval face. Her eyes were velvet pools; the nose small and well shaped. Her bare arms tapered from fine shoulders to small wrists, and if she followed Juno rather than Psyche in her luxurious molding she was pliant as a willow, carried her shapely poundage with an effect of slimness.

If Sliver noted these desirable personal a.s.sets, his interest therein disappeared after he had spied the sign, "Fonda," over the door. True, the month which had now elapsed since they entered Lee's service had not, however, been entirely "dry." At the close of each day's work the Three took their _copa_ with the _ancianos_ at the _hacienda_ store in the Mexican fashion. But the application of liquor in such medicinal doses to a thirst like Sliver's was equivalent to the squirting of gasolene upon a fire. Now, as he gazed at the sign, spirituous desires flamed within him. It was with difficulty that his dry lips formed his question to the girl.

Was there a _copita_ of _aguardiente_ to be had?

Nodding, she rose, and as she let down a small wooden door in the wall Sliver's glance licked the rows of bottles within.

_Tequila_, anisette, _aguardiente_, _mescal_, every variety of liquid fire with which the Mexican _peon_ burns out his stomach, stood there in deadly array. Beginning at one end, Sliver worked his way, during the next two hours, along the row, and had just started back again when, with some surprise, he noted a most curious phenomenon-to wit, the gray hair and deep wrinkles the girl had suddenly acquired. Quite unaware that she had resigned his thirst to her father, and was even then vigorously rubbing _tortilla_ paste behind his back, he solemnly studied this startling metamorphosis. Drunk as he was, his cowman's instinct had kept him warned of the sun's declension. Sure, now, that he had had enough, he paid his score, gravely addressing his host, meanwhile, concerning his changed appearance.

"You she'dn't do it. It's-hard on the nerves. Keep it up an'-you'll drive your custom away."

Having climbed into the saddle, he remained there because of that merciful provision of nature by which a man may ride long after he has lost the power to walk. Realizing his condition, he left the business of going home to his horse. While it carried him down the canon and out across the plains he concentrated his remaining energies on "The Cowboy's Lament," howling its one hundred and one verses at the top of his voice, sending warning of his coming a full mile ahead.

In the mean time Bull with Lee, Jake "on his lonely," had pursued the search for the strays in other directions. It chanced that luck rode with the former. Returning home at sundown, Jake saw them driving the cattle along a shallow valley.

During the month which had elapsed since her father's death Lee had taken the only real panacea for grief-hard work. In addition to the management of the house _criadas_, she exercised a feudal overlordship over the _hacienda peones_. Besides hiring and letting, leasing of lands on charges, she acted as judge in their squabbles, adviser in their small affairs, comforter in trouble. In addition, her womanhood brought extra duties. She had to G.o.dmother the babes, attend christenings, doctor the sick, lend her patronage to the _bailes_ and _fiestas_.

Most of these duties she discharged in the mornings. Afternoons she donned her man's riding-togs and rode out with the Three, rounding up strays, new-born calves, and foals. At nights her fair head might be seen under a golden aureole lent by the lamp, while she mended or made for them and herself. If it lacked the stimulation and color of city life, it was, at least, a healthy and honest existence. Already it had restored her shocked nerves, given back her roses. She had never been prettier than when, reining in, she looked back at Jake as he came up!

"We found them! _we_ found them!" Her pride in the fact provoked Jake's smile. "They were up in the Canon del Norte. Whatever in the world is that?"

It might have been anything from the last puff of a worn-out calliope to the yelp of a sick coyote, for at its best Sliver's voice rarely came within a quarter of a mile of a specified tune, and an hour's steady tearing into "The Cowboy's Lament" had not improved its tone. As the raucous strains came floating down the wind Lee burst into a bubbling little laugh.

"Mr. Sliver isn't hardly what you could call a singer. Is he-often taken like that?"

They could have answered quite easily, Sliver's vocal efforts being ever timed by his potations. Instead, they looked at each other in blank disgust. Nor was answer necessary, for just then Lee dug in her spurs and shot after a wild steer that had taken a sudden notion to go back to the Canon del Norte.

"Piously drunk!" Jake swore loudly, as soon as she pa.s.sed beyond earshot. "Wonder where he got it!"

"Search me," Bull shrugged. "The question is how to stop him. You know what to expect if he's loose an' drunk among all them _peonas_. You ride on an' head him off. Don't stan' any nonsense. Bat him over the can if nec'ssary."

The admonition was not required, for Jake was always thorough. Neither was it his habit to waste time on argument or persuasion. Having roped Sliver, ten minutes thereafter, from behind a convenient bush, he gagged and cinched him in his saddle, hustled him in by the back gate of the compound, had him lashed to his _catre_ in their adobe before Lee and Bull arrived.

So far, all was well. Their real troubles began when at supper Bull replied to Lee's inquiry concerning Sliver's absence that he "wasn't feeling well."

She jumped up at once. "Oh, the poor fellow! I must go and see what he can eat!"

A vivid mental picture of the "poor fellow," gagged and lashed to his _catre_, filled them with consternation. Bull inwardly cursed himself for not having reported Sliver absent. But while he floundered, beating his brains for a second excuse, the crafty Jake supplied it.

"I wouldn't-really, Miss."

She stopped, half-way along the _portales_. He had spoken so earnestly.

"Why not? Is it-catching?"

Bull would have replied in the affirmative, regardless of further complications. Jake shook his head. "No, it's just chills an' fever, a sorter const.i.tutional ague he's taken with at this time o' the year.

But-well, Miss, it's this way, Sliver's that bashful, though you mightn't think it to look at him, he'd die of shame if a young lady was to see him in his bunk."

She hesitated, then came back. "But-he ought to be looked after."

"He has been." Jake clinched the victory. "A copa's the finest thing in the world for chills. He's had a couple an' was sleeping like a babe when we came in."

She gave in with a sigh. "Then we won't wake him. But you must take him a tray when you go out."

But if her dominant instinct was thus, for the time, frustrated, it broke out more violently the following morning. When Sliver would fain have carried his aching head and sick stomach out to some secluded portion of the range, to be wretched at his ease, Lee "shooed" him like a sick chicken into a corner of the _patio_, there to be coddled and doctored with slops and brews compounded by her brown maids, every mother's daughter of whom had her own infallible "_remedio_." His real contrition was made none the lighter by the veiled jestings of his companions at meals.

"Invalid looks a bit better," Jake would opine.

"A week's careful nursing orter bring him around," Bull would add. Then while prodding him with secret gibes, they ate with a zest that turned his poor, burned-out stomach.

That night, moreover, he furnished the text for a rude sermon after they got him alone in the adobe. "I s'pose neither of you saints would ha'

stopped even to smell of it," he sarcastically inquired, after confessing how and where he obtained the liquor.

"'Tain't that," Bull admonished him. "I'm pretty near due for a bust myself. But when it hits, you bet I'll go somewheres so's the sight of my hoggishness ain't a-going to offend our girl. No, 'tain't that you acquired a bun we're kicking at, but that you toted it back here."

"You bet y'u," Jake added. "Next time you're took that-a-way, have 'em hide your horse, then lie down with your nose in it an' don't budge till you're through. Have you done, now, or is there anything out there you forgot to drink?"

"Through? Oh, Lordy! Lordy!" Sliver groaned. "My liver's burned right out!"

"Bueno!" Jake nodded his satisfaction. "Then if you've finished I'm free to begin. My fingers has been itching to get into a game for a week.

That's where you fellows have me at a disadvantage. All you've gotter do is to find a bottle, but mine's simply gotter have cards in it. I don't get off short of El Paso. I reckon some of that important mining business of our'n calls for my presence there day after to-morrow."

"All right, get it over," Bull agreed, after a moment's rumination.

"Tell her at breakfast. She'll fix you up with the fare."

"'Tell her at breakfast'?" Jake looked his scorn. "An' have her running an' fixing me out with socks an' shirts an' things like I was going off on honest business. Not on your life! When she looks at me, so amiable and trustful, like she felt I was straight grain through an' through, I simply kain't fix up my mouth for a good lie. No, you fellows can jest give me all you've got. With any kind of luck it'll turn you big interest. You can tell her that I left in the night so's to catch an early train."

So real was his feeling, he did rise and leave before daylight. But thereby his moment of shame was merely postponed.

When Jake arrived in El Paso-But the less said about his sojourn there the better. His operations, which included the fleecing of some cattlemen, would not make edifying reading. He may be picked up again at the moment he was, as aforesaid, overtaken by shame, when Lee spied him, a week later, coming through the _patio_ gateway.

"Oh, you poor man!" she exclaimed at the sight of his haggard face.

"They must have worked you all night."

"Which they did work me overtime," he confessed to Bull, in the adobe that evening. "Five days an' most of the nights I sat inter one game.

Look at this!"