0,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Mesa," Charles Alden Seltzer crafts a compelling narrative that delves into the intricate lives of its characters against the stunning backdrop of the American Southwest. Employing a rich and evocative literary style, Seltzer weaves together themes of conflict, survival, and the quest for identity, all while capturing the dramatic landscape of mesas and deserts. The novel reflects Seltzer'Äôs mastery in combining vivid descriptions with a robust dialogue, situating it within the context of early 20th-century American literature, a time when regionalism began to define distinct voices and settings in fiction. Seltzer, born in 1875 in a small town in Wisconsin, was significantly influenced by his experiences in the West, where he worked as a rancher and spent considerable time among the rugged landscapes he came to adore. His intimate knowledge of the land and its people imbued his writing with authenticity and emotional depth, as he sought to explore not just the external struggles of his characters but also their internal dilemmas and aspirations. This background provided the essential foundation for the nuanced storytelling found in "The Mesa." Readers who are drawn to intricate character studies set against evocative landscapes will find "The Mesa" a rewarding experience. Seltzer'Äôs keen observations and lyrical prose invite readers to immerse themselves in the harsh realities and profound beauty of the Mesa region. Thus, this novel is highly recommended for those interested in American literature's exploration of locale, identity, and the human condition.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
The Mesa
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Jim Nolan, who had ridden down from the Calabasas country to Nogales the night before, was sitting on a rough bench in front of the Lone Star saloon, so named because Lee Hawkins, the owner, had once been in Texas.
Nolan was enjoying a holiday. At least, he had intended enjoying a brief vacation from work. But now that he was away from the home ranch he felt like a boy playing truant from school. He kept thinking of the Rancho Seco and the many things that were to be done there; and like all conscientious men he felt that he should be back there doing them instead of loafing around Nogales seeking diversion.
Nolan was serious minded, and few of the things that a man could do in a town like Nogales appealed to him. He had sat in at stud the night before and had won some money, which he had squandered before dawn. And the prospect of another day and night in town bored him. He turned a saturnine eye down Nogales’s street. Immediately his gaze wandered out into the desert. He stretched his tall figure with a sigh of unutterable weariness of spirit, for Youth was still vibrant and eager in Jim Nolan’s heart; and his twenty-seven years—twenty of them spent in the saddle—had not made an old man of him despite the fact that in various sections of the Southwest he was known as a man who was “plenty growed up.”
Nolan’s first action upon arriving in Nogales the night before was to visit a barber, and as a consequence his crisp black curls curved closer to his head than usual, and the shape of his head was more clearly defined. But the combing his hair had received after the cut had not lasted through the night, had not, indeed, survived the card game during which, many times, Nolan’s fingers had been through it. It was now in a state of disorder. But so, for that matter, was its owner.
His saturnine eye glinted with disapprobation; one corner of his mouth drew down.
“Town’s plumb disappointin’,” he remarked.
“Shore is, stranger,” conceded a voice from the doorway of the saloon.
“There’s always too many folks breakin’ in on a man’s thoughts,” added Nolan.
“After this I’m doin’ my talkin’ to myself,” announced the voice from the doorway.
“It’s safer,” declared Nolan. “When a man’s havin’ thoughts an’ speakin’ them right out in meetin’, he don’t feel a hell of a lot like bein’ interrupted.”
“I’m talkin’ to myself,” said the stranger.
“Well, you’re makin’ considerable noise doin’ it. An’ I don’t mind tellin’ you that right now me an’ noise ain’t agreein’!”
“I’ve knowed a man to get right civil after gettin’ outside of one of Lec Hawkins’s bracers. It’s right new,” suggested the stranger.
“Why, you’re beginnin’ to talk intelligent!” said Nolan.
He turned his head and glanced at the other man. A whimsical smile appeared upon his lips. His eyes, which were softer and deeper with waywardness than a woman’s, twinkled at the man in the doorway.
“Why, it’s Bill Clelland!” he exclaimed with gentle mockery. “He’s just got in from Sonoita. An’ not bein’ drunk last night he’s figurin’ on actin’ superior. He’s doin’ his talkin’ to himself. He’s gassin’ about Lec Hawkins’s bracers when he don’t need any, him havin’ had no drinks of any kind for so long he’s forgot the taste of them. Bill’s got a habit of appearin’ in doorways that way an’ arguin’ with folks.”
“You damned old horse thief!” grinned Clelland. “You ain’t forgot how to sling language!”
They entered the barroom now, and drank together. They said little of a personal nature, though old friendship was eloquently expressed in their glances at each other. They had not met in a year, but no one, watching them, would have suspected.
Clelland had been through his reckless days. He was now foreman of the Bar L outfit over near Sonoita, which was west of Tombstone, and was beginning to take life more or less seriously.
Jim Nolan had, since the beginning of their friendship several years before, been a governor upon Clelland’s ebullience of spirit. Nolan, cool, confident, thoughtful, and imperturbable, had aroused in Clelland a desire for emulation, and unconsciously he had become remarkably like his friend.
For a number of years, however, both had been somewhat irresponsible and wild, and there were men who still gave them “plenty of room,” having no faith in them in their new rôles, and remembering their previous shortness of temper and their swiftness and accuracy with the guns that both still carried in the low-swung holsters at their hips. But most of all they remembered the hard blueness of Nolan’s eyes when his anger was aroused, and the strange flecks that appeared in Clelland’s when his mood settled definitely upon violence.
Yet now Nolan had a settled air of solid value. Experience had tempered him until he had become dependable. No longer did one have to fear that Nolan would deliberately provoke a quarrel. His temper, while still as hot as formerly, was governed by a saturnine tolerance. He had become a solid citizen of the county. He owned a great deal of stock in the Rancho Seco; he was a grim, relentless figure to the lawless; he had qualities of character that caused men to trust him and seek his advice.
Nogales in the daylight was not attractive, nor were there places where men might relieve the dullness that settled heavily down over the town like a depressing atmosphere. And so at last, after several drinks together, and a game of cards which had no interest for either, Nolan and Clelland found themselves sitting on the bench outside the saloon, where Nolan had been sitting when Clelland had appeared in the doorway.
“Town’s plumb disappointin’,” said Nolan, again.
“Not like it used to be,” suggested Clelland. “Once, we’d have tuned in on Nogales an’ made her hum. Seems someone’s mislaid the hummer. What’s wrong? Is it us or the town?”
“It’s us,” said Nolan. “Things are here, waitin’ for somebody to start them. Over there is Brinkley, the marshal. Walk over to him an’ take his badge away an’ you start somethin’. There’s a box of dried prunes settin’ on the stand in front of Licks’s store. Go over an’ kick them into the street an’ shoot the glass out of the store windows an’ you’ll start somethin’.”
“I reckon it’s us,” agreed Clelland. “I ain’t got no desire to do them things no more. Not that I’m scared of Brinkley or Licks, but just because somehow it don’t seem as engagin’ as it used to be.”
“Age is creepin’ upon us, I reckon,” said Nolan.
“I’m figurin’ to grow whiskers,” mourned Clelland. “I’ll pass my spare time combin’ them.”
“We ought to be growin’ children,” suggested Nolan. “I’m gettin’ so I’m longin’ for an armful of them.”
“Somethin’s happened to you since I seen you before,” said Clelland. “You ain’t the same. You’ve got a yearnin’ look in your eyes.”
Nolan did not answer. Both men sat silent, gazing deeply into the phantasmagoric haze of space and flaming desert that stretched southward into the hills of Mexico.
Nolan’s gaze grew reminiscent, troubled. He was trying to visualize something that he had forgotten, attempting to summon to memory an enchanting vision which had eluded him.
Clelland’s voice aroused him.
“There’s that hombre, Waldron, you had the trouble with two years ago!” warned Clelland. “The way he looks it still sticks in his craw!”
“Where’s he been all this time?” questioned Nolan.
“Down Durango way.”
“The oilers must have chased him out for stealin’ their dogs,” said Nolan.
Nolan fell to studying the southern horizon, while Clelland, less subtle than his friend, made no pretense of unconcern over Waldron’s approach, but frankly and with unfriendly eyes watched him.
Somewhat to Clelland’s amazement, Waldron grinned as he came near. He had approached from Nolan’s left, which was east; and he came to a halt in front of them, so that if Nolan desired to continue to gaze at the southern landscape he would be compelled to gaze through Waldron. As this feat was physically impossible, Nolan looked up, and his gaze met the stranger’s.
“Hello, Nolan!” greeted Waldron.
There was a breathless pause, for Clelland, who anticipated trouble. It was Waldron who avoided it. For Nolan’s voice was slow and cold and provokingly gentle.
“You’re back, eh?” he said. He got to his feet.
Waldron, a tall, slender man with deep, piercing black eyes, a rather full mouth, and a chin which receded slightly, reddened, paled, looked uncomfortable.
“That’s past, Nolan,” he said. “I’ve regretted it. Let’s shake.”
“So far as I’m concerned, it’s plenty past,” answered Nolan. “If your regret is sincere, you are showin’ a flash of man. But I won’t shake hands with you until you’ve proved it.”
For an instant the two men stood gazing into each other’s eyes. And then Waldron’s wavered, glinted with some otherwise concealed passion, then drooped.
“Suit yourself, Nolan,” he said.
He moved past Nolan, entered the saloon.
After Waldron entered the saloon Nolan, still standing, resumed gazing southward. Clelland followed Nolan’s gaze and for a long time could see nothing but the dun-coloured land that swept away until it melted into some distant hills. But at last he detected a moving dot that seemed to be coming toward the town along a threadlike line that wound a sinuous course through the dun country; and after a while Clelland spoke:
“Oiler, I reckon.”
Nolan nodded and resumed his place on the bench.
For an hour there was no word spoken. The moving dot grew larger in the vision and finally revealed itself as a horseman. And now, though each man’s mind was alive with conjecture as to the probable identity of the rider, both continued silently to watch.
When the rider came down through a little gully close to town, Clelland spoke:
“Yep, an oiler.”
“Vaquero,” added Nolan.
When the rider struck the edge of town and rode straight toward the saloon he raised his right hand with the palm forward, making the Indian sign of peace. And when he dismounted at the hitching rack in front of the saloon he grinned widely at Nolan and Clelland.
“Buenos dias, señors,” was his greeting.
The Mexican hitched his horse to the rack in front of the saloon and went into the building through the front door.
“Paloma brand,” said Clelland, pointing to the Mexican’s horse.
Nolan stared at the brand. His eyes gleamed. He strode to the doorway of the saloon and gazed into the room. There was an eager light in his eyes.
“H’m,” remarked Clelland, “sight of that there dove on the oiler’s horse seems to have stung you some!”
Nolan smiled at his friend, and the light in his eyes was so full of elation that Clelland almost gasped with amazement.
“Thought he was bored ’most to death,” he ruminated. “An’ all to once he looks like he’d swallowed a flock of songbirds! But a dove ain’t a songbird, not by a long shot. Therefore I reckon Jim is thinkin’ about a girl!”
Clelland’s surmise was correct. Sight of the Paloma brand on the Mexican’s horse had sent Nolan’s thoughts skittering back to a scene that he had witnessed more than a year before. In memory he was again standing in a red sandstone colonnaded courtyard. There were pepper trees all around him, a garden, rows of date palms. Sweeping away from the sandstone floor of the courtyard, gradually dipping downward into the grasslands, was the most beautiful section of country he had ever seen. And there had been something in the atmosphere about him that suggested the knightly days of old, fabled in song and story.
The red sandstone walls of the house, its low, sloping roofs and wide, overhanging cornices, covered with faded red Spanish tile; the broad doorway with its sill level with the flagstone floor of the courtyard; a patio seen through the door, and beyond the columns of an arcade—all had to him a regal aspect. The shuttered windows suggested exclusiveness; the rare old bits of furniture he saw, the rich embroidered tablepiece, the heavy silver, the glistening goblets, the silver tankards, the candlesticks, the massive table of lapacho wood, all suggested opulence with a hint of power.
The gross man who sat at the massive table listening to him might have been a figure of those ancient days upon which Nolan’s thoughts were dwelling, though he dazedly reminded himself that he was confronting Don Pedro Bazan, from whom he intended to buy cattle, and that Don Pedro had already agreed upon the price and the date of delivery.
But if Jim Nolan had felt the enchantment of the scene he was witnessing he was literally stricken dumb when he chanced to gaze beyond Don Pedro to see a girl standing at a little distance, watching him.
She was near one of the red sandstone columns, and the mellow sunshine coming down through a roofless section of the courtyard seemed to enfold her. She was slender, lissom. Nolan stared his amazement, his admiration. Her glistening black hair was drawn tightly about her head in bulging waves and coils, and the firm, slightly tinted skin of her oval face held a deep rich bloom and satiny smoothness that made Nolan instantly think of a ripe peach in a bower of leaves with the sun just touching it. Her neck had the rounded fullness of an adolescence not long past, and where it vanished into the folds of the rich brown lace mantilla she wore, it blended into ravishing curves.
Yet now that Nolan was again visualizing the scene, after having deliberately put it out of his mind for many months because pride of race had assured him that Mexican girls were not for him, he remembered that at the time he had seen her he had been aware of little but her eyes.
They had literally spoken to him; they had been as amazed and as full of admiration as his own. They had seemed to say to him, “At last we have met.”
And now, all at once, Nolan knew why “town” bored him; he knew why he had been losing interest in his work, in the country, in his friends. The Paloma brand on the Mexican’s horse had told him something that he had not suspected, that he loved Señorita Juana Bazan!
The Mexican was doing something inside the saloon. He was standing at the rear wall tacking up a paper, using the haft of a knife as a hammer.
Forgetting for the instant that Clelland was watching him intently, Nolan entered the saloon, strode to where the Mexican was tacking up the paper, leaned over his shoulder, and read:
To My Friends and Enemies. Greetings.
Too long has a spirit of animosity governed our actions toward our fellows; too long have we striven one against another in our efforts to garner the material things of life. We wound the flesh and we torture the souls of our fellow men from motives of hatred, of envy, and of greed. It is my wish that for one week each year we lay aside our grievances toward one another, our envies, our hatreds, and that we dwell for that brief time in amity and forebearance. Therefore:
Be it declared that beginning at six o’clock on the morning of the Tenth of August and continuing therefrom until the same hour on the Seventeenth, no person, man, woman, or child, shall be guilty of any hostile act toward another person. Since I have no jurisdiction over the entire world—though I wish for this purpose that I might—I designate a radius of one hundred miles in every direction from the Mesa del Angeles as sanctuary for the above time for all who have sinned or committed crimes against myself or others; for those who are hated and whose lives are sought, or whose persons are demanded for the infliction of punishment.
A person entering the zone of sanctuary during the aforementioned time shall be immune to molestation of any kind. He shall be free to go and come at his whim. Everybody is welcome, and there shall be no questions of a personal nature asked or answered.
“La Fiesta del Sanctuaire” shall be in progress on the Mesa del Angeles from the hour of beginning mentioned in this pronunciamento until the blessing is pronounced by Father Pelayez on the morning of the Seventeenth.
Given this day of Our Lord, August 8th; 18——
By Don Pedro Bazan.
When Nolan had finished reading he perceived that he did not lack company. Lec Hawkins was standing beside him, as were two residents of Nogales, and Clelland. And Waldron, having finished reading, was standing a little to one side, smiling.
“La Fiesta del Sanctuaire, eh?” said Hawkins. “Well, now, that old greaser does things up brown when he starts, eh? An’ he ain’t a bit modest, either. He takes in a right smart section of the United States when he goes to talkin’ about the limits where he declares sanctuary. It ain’t more’n sixty miles to the Mesa of the Angels. I’ve been there. An’ cuss me if it don’t seem there is angels up there if there is such a thing!”
Waldron was looking at the Mexican.
“That proclamation means that any man is safe within a distance of a hundred miles until the feast is over?” he asked.
“Si, señor.”
“No one can shoot him or capture him, no matter what he has done?”
“That is what the pronunciamento means, señor.”
“How will Don Pedro make sure of that? How will he punish anybody who breaks the rules of the pronunciamento?” asked Waldron.
Eager ears listened for the Mexican’s reply. It came with a shrug of the shoulders and a broad, subtle smile.
“Señor the Magnificent has many men, señor. No man knows how many. Some are in Nogales. As far as Calabasas there are those that worship him and do his bidding. Beyond Hermosillo there are hundreds. There are many in the Chihuahuas. As far east as Juarez he is served. As far south as Jimenez. Whoever breaks the rules of the fiesta will not long survive the wrath of Pedro the Magnificent!”
Waldron smiled. “I have heard of Don Pedro’s power,” he said. He looked straight at Nolan. “Maybe that’s why so many white men are knifed by Mexicans,” he suggested. “They may have done something to arouse Don Pedro’s temper?”
“The pronunciamento does not take effect until six o’clock to-morrow morning, Waldron,” said Nolan. “If you are thinking thoughts, you won’t be safe until then.”
Waldron moved to the bar and drank. The Mexican drank also, flashed his white teeth from the doorway, mounted his horse, and rode eastward.
For a time Nolan stood at the bar and listened to the talk about the pronunciamento. He did not join the discussion. Later, he again sought the bench in front of the place, where he sat and stared into Mexico.
After a while Clelland joined him, though no word was spoken between them as they sat there. In the afternoon Nolan got up, stretched, grinned at Clelland.
“Bill,” he said, “there’s nothin’ in town any more. I’m hittin’ the breeze back to the Rancho Seco.”
“You ain’t goin’ to Don Pedro’s feast?”
“Nope. I ain’t feelin’ like I used to feel. You goin’?”
“Nope. I’m goin’ home to grow them whiskers I was takin’ about.”
Nolan smiled. “Bill, I’m glad you rode in. See you some more. So long.”
He walked to the hitching rail and mounted his horse.
Clelland watched him as he rode down the street. In front of a store Nolan dismounted. When he emerged from the store he placed something in his slicker. Then he rode eastward over a level, down a slope, into a gully, and so out of sight.
Half an hour later Clelland leaped on his horse and rode down the street. He stopped at the store in front of which Nolan had dismounted. Inside, he fixed the proprietor with a truculent eye.
“My friend Nolan was in here a minute ago,” he said. “What did you sell him?”
“A can of airtights,” truthfully answered the storekeeper.
“H’m,” mused Clelland, “the Santa Cruz ain’t all dried up yet?”
“There’s always water in the ’Dobe Wells,” answered the proprietor.
“An’ Calabasas ain’t far, I reckon,” mused Clelland,
“No more than twenty miles.”
“H’m,” said Clelland. “Then airtights must give a man notions. I ain’t had an idee for so long that I plumb need one. Give me a can of them airtights.”
Clelland got his can of plums, went out, and climbed on his horse. He rode the trail Nolan had taken. Eastward he went, over a level. Down a slope, into a gully, and so out of sight from any who might have been watching him from Nogales.
Chapter II
Deep in a gorge that gashed the desert between the Cabeza Pireta and the Aja Mountains went two horses with riders. The horses moved slowly, as though spent, while the riders, gaunt and haggard, and so thickly covered with dust that their eyelashes were heavily rimmed with it, kept urging them on and frequently looked back as though fearful of pursuit.
And yet behind the two horses and their riders was no visible movement. Beyond the point where the gorge sank into the desolate land stretched a flat, unfeatured desert. Eastward rose the black summits of the Ajas, westward were the uncompromising peaks of the Cabeza Piretas. Southward, not more than a dozen miles, was Mexico in which, where they would enter if their pursuers did not reach them before that time, were lowland forests in which they might hide for a time without danger of discovery.
Half an hour later, when they had got out of the gorge and were riding around the shoulder of a hill, they got a glimpse of a green-brown land that stretched below them, southward.
“I reckon we’ll make it, Galt,” said one of the riders.
Galt merely nodded. His eyes were red as coals of fire with inflammation, his lips were thick and cracked. He was limp and saddle weary, and yet he snarled as he glanced backward into the yellow haze out of which he and his companion had ridden.
“Damn their hides, we’ll shake ’em yet!” declared the man who had first spoken. “If the Picacho Kid hadn’t let off his gun when he did, we’d have got away clean!”
The Picacho Kid was dead. He had been killed at Gila Bend, where the trio had held up a train. They had got away with ten thousand dollars in currency, which they had already divided, and which at that instant was safe in the pouches on their saddles.
A dozen times within the past two days they had discussed the robbery, had gone over every feature of it. And still their thoughts reverted to it as a subject which was of supreme importance. But always their final thoughts were of their chances of escape. For after the fight at Gila Bend they had discovered that two horsemen were on their trail.
However, they were natives of the country and were familiar with it, and they surmised that their pursuers were railroad detectives who would have trouble in tracking them. Their conviction of the ignorance of the two pursuers grew when they discovered quite a distance back that they were apparently alone in the desert.
“If we’d have pulled it off at Maricopa, where they’d have had a chance to get a posse together, we’d have been swingin’ by this time,” said the speaker. “As it is, if we can get into the lowlands we can hole up for a few days an’ then slip down to Hermosillo or Guaymas. Then we can take a boat up to ’Frisco.”
“Simms, you’re talkin’ sense,” answered Galt. “There ain’t no place in this greaser country where a man can spend cash like she ought to be spent.”
“Right now I’m more interested in water,” declared Simms. “I’m baked. My tongue is clackin’ ag’in’ the roof of my mouth.”
“If we keep on goin’ straight south we’ll hit the north fork of the Altar pretty soon,” predicted Galt. “That’ll bring us onto old Don Pedro Bazan’s land.”
Two hours later the riders were deep in a lowland wilderness. Behind them, rising like a dun wall, was the slope they had descended. Secure in their green fastness they turned in their saddles and scanned the high, irregular horizon. Galt cursed when he observed a pin-point dot moving on the skyline.
“There’s the critters!” he said. “Let’s fan it! If we keep in the brush, they can’t see us!”
Their horses scurried deeper into the wilderness. They reached a forest of cypress and eucalyptus which filled a flat. They went out of the flat into a prickly pear patch, miles wide, through which they sent their horses recklessly. They emerged with their clothing ripped and torn and the skin of their faces and hands scratched and bleeding. Again they turned in their saddles and surveyed the back trail. Where there had been one dot on the skyline there were now two.
Vitriolic profanity issued from their lips. They were saddle weary, and still they must press on.
“Them guys stick like burrs,” said Galt. “They must be tough!”
At dusk, in the solemn shadows of a forest, they reached a small stream of water. Regardless of the riders who were pursuing them, they dismounted, removed their clothes, rolled in the water, and drank. For half an hour they luxuriated in the pool; then, refreshed, they again mounted and sent their horses southward. Just as darkness began to fall, they reached a small town, which Galt learned from a native was called Peza.
They entered a cantina and drank thirstily of the fiery liquors they found there. After a dozen drinks Simms found Galt standing with legs wide apart reading a notice that had been posted on a wall of the cantina. Simms approached Galt and looked over his shoulder. The notice was written in Spanish, and Simms could not understand it. But when Galt interpreted it, Simms laughed aloud.
Galt had stumbled upon a copy of Don Pedro Bazan’s pronunciamento!
“Why, hell!” he declared. “We’re free as kings! Them hombres that’s been on our trail won’t dast touch us! That there pronunciamento has been in effect since six o’clock this mornin’!” He emitted a whoop of delight and grabbed Simms around the waist. Together they danced about the room and at last brought up against the bar.
“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed Galt. “Let them hombres come! Just as soon as I collect a couple hundred more drinks I’m headin’ for the Mesa del Angeles!”
Chapter III
Thirty-five miles southwestward from Cananea, the terminus of the C. Y. R. & P., Daniel Dean, engineer in charge of the construction work which would ultimately link the new railroad with the Sonora Line, stood in the doorway of the corrugated iron shack which answered as his temporary headquarters and gravely contemplated the result of his efforts. He also did some careful calculating. He finally decided that at the rate the work was going forward he would still have to remain for something more than a year in Mexico.
The prospect was not inviting. He had been accustomed to something vastly different. Right now he was longing for green fields, placid rivers whose waters ran over moss-covered rocks; cities where a man could renew acquaintance with a bathtub and drink things from thin glasses that tinkled with little chunks of ice.
“Ice!” he ejaculated. “Lord! I wonder if it still freezes anywhere?”
On the vast level across which he gazed a white-hot sun was baking the surface of what seemed to Dean to be a dead planet. There seemed to be no atmosphere such as a planet should have swirling around it. The sky was cloudless; not in months had a spot the size of a man’s hand floated between the sun and the earth. There was dust which seemed to have been floating in the air for centuries—a dun-coloured dust which incessantly hovered, night and day. It glittered in the sunlight like a great yellow curtain shot through with particles of gold, and at night it formed a dusky pall through which the stars shone hazily.
Dean gazed through the shimmering heat waves at the Mexican labourers who were stolidly working on the right of way a mile or so southwestward. They seemed not to mind the sun or the heat or the dust. And Dean had observed that they drank very little water.
As for the last, he did not blame them, for he himself drank as little as possible. But while the Mexicans appeared to be flourishing, Dean was convinced that he was rapidly drying up. He had lost weight amazingly, and though he was lean and brown and rugged, and knew he could work all day in the sun with no ill effect, he was continually tortured by thoughts of various cooling drinks.
“If a man’s never had them he won’t miss them, of course,” he decided as he stood in the doorway. “But if he has had them he’ll never quit longing for them.”
Dean was thirty and unmarried. He had no serious love affairs to haunt his leisure moments; no girl’s picture was among his effects. He had carefully avoided committing himself, because, until he got something “big” at home he would not be able to support a wife. Yet there were several faces that occasionally flashed into Dean’s memory, and he was beginning to look eagerly forward to the completion of the present job.
Dean made an attractive picture as he stood in the doorway. His chin was that of a man who feels the urge of ambition and who has the tenacity of purpose necessary to achieve it; his mouth was rather large but firm; his nose was distinguished with a rather high bridge, and his eyes, gray and clear, were set under brows that arched but very little. Dean was a man who was accustomed to being obeyed. He knew how to use the heavy revolver that reposed in the black holster that hung at his right hip.
Standing in the doorway of the corrugated iron shack, he observed two riders leave the group of Mexican workers on the right of way and start toward him.
A short time before, a lone rider had appeared from out of the dust haze. The rider had halted near where the Mexicans had been working, and within a few minutes the workers had all grouped around him. They appeared to be listening to him.
Now the first rider and another were coming toward the shack.
Dean knew the second rider was Bill Carey, his assistant, for he could recognize Carey as far as he could see him.
Also, Dean felt that the first rider must either be a man of importance or was the bearer of news of importance. For the Mexicans had not resumed their work but were still grouped and gesticulating.
Dean’s lips tightened. Such interruptions would delay the completion of the work still more. Dean decided that he would have something to say to the rider who was coming toward him with Carey.
Yet, as the two riders continued to approach, Dean was conscious of a growing curiosity. For the rider was a gaily arrayed vaquero, and he rode a horse that was magnificently proportioned.
When the two riders drew close it was Carey who spoke. The vaquero sat quietly in the saddle smiling at Dean as though certain of his reception.
Carey was short and heavily built. His hair was the colour of a cock’s comb, and unruly. His face was freckled and his eyes challenging.
“This hombre is a rider for a man named Don Pedro Bazan,” he told Dean. “Ever hear of him?”
“Yes,” answered Dean. “He’s rich and powerful. He owns the Rancho Paloma on the Altar.”
“H’m,” said Carey. “I thought at first that this guy was talking tall and wide. But if you know his boss I guess it’s all right. He’s got the gang milling. Says he’s got a note from Don Pedro. It’s in Spanish, or Mexican. He read it to the gang, and they’re all wanting to quit for a week. So I brought him to see you.”
He waved a hand at the vaquero and the latter urged his horse closer to Dean. He dismounted, bowed, and presented Dean with a paper.
As Dean read, the expression of his face changed. A new interest gleamed in his eyes, and he smiled faintly.
“The feast is to be held this week, beginning this morning,” he said. “And while the feast is in progress everyone is granted immunity. Tell me, señor,” he continued, looking at the Mexican, “what is the nature of this feast?”
“No comprehend, señor,” smiled the vaquero.
“What happens?” asked Dean, in the Mexican at his command.
“Ai, señor, everysing,” smiled the vaquero.
“Everything, eh,” said Dean. “It has a diverting sound. And the Mesa Del Angeles is between the two forks of the Altar?”
“Si, señor.”
“Well,” mused Dean. “I have never yet known a Mexican who could resist a feast. If I don’t agree to let the gang off, they’ll sneak. Tell them to vamos, Carey.” His eyes twinkled. “We’ll shut up shop and trail along. Maybe Don Pedro will have some ice!”
Chapter IV
From Nogales southwestward, the land had a downward trend. When dusk came Nolan was descending a big slope. Below him were systems of gorges, basins, low hills, mesas. A dead dry land. Beyond the desolate country, though, was a vista of green, stretching far along the horizon. That was the lower country, stretching away to the Gulf of California.
Nolan was descending the slope of a vast tableland. As he continued to drop, the atmosphere gradually changed. By the time he had reached the floor of the first of a series of basins the air had grown heavier. Also, darkness had come.
Yet Nolan rode on. More than a year ago he had made this same trip, and he had an eye for landmarks and a tenacious memory. He followed the course of the Altar, most of the time riding over the well-packed sand of the river bed.
At midnight, finding a small pool of stagnant water, he permitted the horse to drink sparingly. He pried open the can of airtights and moistened his own lips with the bittersweet plum juice. Then he rode on.
He regretted leaving Clelland. He liked Clelland. They had been together a great deal, and between them was a friendship that had survived more than one hazardous undertaking. And yet, after reading Don Pedro’s pronunciamento and seeing again in memory the face of Juana Bazan, he had suddenly lost interest in everything else. Nogales had bored him, thoughts of going back to Calabasas had sent a shiver of repulsion over him; he had even found Clelland uninteresting.
He rode all night, and the dawn found him descending a wooded arroyo which led into a little basin covered with a wild growth of nondescript trees and brush. The North Fork of the Altar ran through the basin. He followed it to an open space, where he found another pool of water. There again he watered his horse. Sitting on a huge rock near the water he drank the rest of the contents of the can of plums. He threw the can from him and watched it roll down a short slope into the river bed. For a time he sat, watching it. Then as a sharp sound reached his ears, he twisted around, slid down the rock, and landed between two huge boulders at the bottom of the slope near where the empty tin can had stopped rolling.
When he finally came to a halt one of his heavy Colt revolvers was in his hand; and with his body concealed between the boulders he listened for a repetition of the sound he had heard.
His horse had not moved, for the animal had made no sound. And yet, though Nolan was curious, he did not raise his head above the rock. One never knew what might happen in this section of the country. This was Mexico, and the outlaw, Zorilla, might have men in the vicinity. Or any other Mexican, filled with the Mexican national antipathy for Americans, might have developed notions.
Nolan was taking no chances. He kept himself concealed and strained his ears to catch all sound.
For a time he heard nothing. And then, when he had almost decided that the sharp sound he had heard had been made by some roaming animal breaking a twig, he heard it again.
The second sound resembled the first. It was sharp, crackling, near. This time Nolan established the direction from which it came. He peered cautiously around the boulder at his right and saw a man stealthily moving down the opposite slope of the river toward him.
