CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Before they had come to the gap that cuts a sharp high line of hills and marks the half-way point to Albuquerque, the sun came up. It was gloriously melodramatic over the little crawling black car; it spouted red and orange over the sky, and the fresh midsummer wind was cool and ethereal. Gin held up her chin and closed her eyes for a second, sniffing. Then she opened them hastily, for she was driving and it would not do to go to sleep. Not that she felt sleepy; she was still tingling and wide-awake. She peered into the mirror at Blake, asleep and white-faced in the tonneau, and wondered at his indifference. But the poor kid had been through a rotten night: only in the last half-hour he had stopped jerking and looking back over his shoulder at the empty black road behind them. It was awful to be a kid. Even the law wouldn’t help.
Thinking of the law, she felt afraid again. It was time to ask Teddy the question she had thought of hours before, but had put out of her mind.
“Teddy,” she said in a low voice. He woke from his doze, beside her, and cocked an eyebrow. “Teddy, are we all right with Blake?”
“Why not?” His voice was husky: a morning voice.
“Couldn’t we get into trouble driving off with the car like this?”
“No. It’s his car. His own car.”
“I don’t mean robbery; I mean the Mann act, or kidnapping, or whatever you call it. He’s a minor, isn’t he?”
She watched him and grew more uneasy, for worry appeared on his face.
“Gosh,” he murmured. “I don’t know anything about the law.... You think they might send the police after us?”
She shrugged helplessly. He pondered for a minute, then turned around and tugged at Blake’s foot.
“Wake up, kid—you can sleep again in a minute. Listen; how worried do you think your mother will be?”
Blake sat up with a guilty jerk and rubbed his eyes. He was frightened at first; then he remembered and smiled. Watching him through the driving mirror, Gin knew that she would fight for him no matter what the police did. She’d keep him out of school if he didn’t want to go back. She’d take care of him.
“What did you say?”
“We were wondering about your mother,” said Teddy. “Will she send the police after us? You’re a runaway, you know.”
The air was growing lighter, changing to pink. Blake looked around him at the passing juniper-bushes and said slowly, “She won’t think I’ve gone. Not till this afternoon. I said I wouldn’t be coming home; she’ll think I went with you.”
“But when she finds out?”
“I’ll tell her myself. I’ll telegraph something, and then I think she’ll be too proud to send after me. Don’t you worry; I’m not worried. Isn’t this great? Isn’t it? Let me drive awhile.”
“We’re going to wash as soon as we reach the river,” Gin said flatly, “colds or no colds.”
The sun was high when they came to the bridge and they took turns bathing, hidden more or less from the highway by a bush. Afterwards they had coffee in Albuquerque and sent a telegram to Mary: “Gone to Mexico Healthy Writing Do not Worry Love Blake.”
“There,” said Blake, “that looks perfectly reasonable. Now she won’t worry.”
Teddy drove out of town, while Gin sat in the back and watched him, wondering what he was thinking about it all. Was he enjoying it, or was he beginning to be sorry? His face reflected in the mirror was impassive and close-lipped. She stared at it until her eyes closed under the brightening sun, and she slept.
They stopped at last in a field and lay down in their coats on the ground to sleep, surrounded by stumpy bits of yellow grass growing in the dry soil. Gin dreamed that she was back at her desk in the office in Indiana, typing. A long complicated dream it was, with a dreary wretched atmosphere about it. It was even worse than the real thing had been. She woke in a bad mood; the relief that flooded through her when she found herself lying in a field with her shoulder dented by a rock couldn’t dispel the eerie horror of it. She looked at her watch: it was only noon. Shifting quietly, she lifted the edge of her coat and put it over her head to keep the sun from giving her more bad dreams. A burro was grazing a few yards away. He raised his head as she raised hers, and they looked at each other for some seconds with similar expressions of sun-drenched drowsiness. He sighed and dropped his head to the grass again. Vaguely comforted, she lay down and went to sleep.
They got up at four, because they had seen signs advertising a rodeo at Magdalena. This meant going forty miles out of the road to El Paso, but as Blake pointed out, they had the rest of their lives ahead of them. They drove into town at eight o’clock, when the whole place in the ordinary course of events would be going to bed. Tonight, however, it was different: the dusty streets were trampled with thousands of hoof-marks and people swarmed along the side of the road. Cowboys in blue jeans crowded the stores and leaned against the doors, picking their teeth. Four or five cars were parked on the main street, and in front of the post office a group of Indians sat on the ground, waiting for excitement.
Gin was too stirred to sit quietly. She stood up in the seat as they drove slowly down the road, turning her head this way and that. “It’s so thrilling,” she said. She looked at Teddy and impatiently shoved his shoulder. “Isn’t it thrilling?” she repeated.
“Let’s find something to eat,” he answered. There was a slight argument over this. Gin and Blake wanted to cook their own food, and Teddy was in too much of a hurry. In defence of himself, he developed a plan. He found out where the hotel was, and after making his companions promise not to say anything, he bargained with the proprietor for jobs for the lot of them. Gin, he protested, was a professional waitress and he and Blake were expert dishwashers. The man consented to take them on for the next two days, during the rush, at wages of ten dollars among the three of them, and meals included. Teddy tried to get rooms too, but this was no good. The proprietor compromised by selling them three blankets for fifty cents apiece. Afterwards they ate bowls of chili con carne and drank coffee and condensed milk, then drove out of town to make camp.
Rolled up in her blanket, Gin was almost comfortable. It was romantic and satisfactory under the chilly stars. Once, towards morning, she woke with a jerk and noticed that the world seemed much too large and quiet. She sighed and tried to edge nearer to Blake. The air smelled of sage and horses: she wondered dreamily why she was there, and then she remembered and was happy before she went to sleep again.
Breakfast and lunch next day merged in the kitchen into one long period of torture—aching arms and weary feet for Gin, and greasy, coolish water for Teddy and Blake. She carried trays back and forth from the dining-room and the flies followed everywhere. But the meals were good enough and they would need the money. After lunch, when they had rested and felt more cheerful, they brushed themselves off and went to see the most important part of the rodeo, the bronco-busting. All three of them had seen rodeos, the big famous ones that went even to New York and London, but this one was different and more fun. The horses were really wild, and lots of them were new to the game. The men were not professional riders, but cow-hands who spent most of the year working on ranches.
Gin and Blake and Teddy had never seen anything like it. The riding was thrilling. They stood on tiptoe to watch over the heads of the people who were so unlike the sightseers at Vegas on the Fourth of July. Town people, the Mexicans who lived in Magdalena and Datil and Socorro and San Antonio, were mixed up with the ranchers’ families who cheered their own punchers or watched excitedly silent when they had bet on the length of time some man would stay on the back of his horse, watched eagerly while he was tossed and bounced and jerked by his bronco.
There was a race of wild mules; the animals were saddled for the first time in their lives and the riders had to run them in a straight course for the goal. One of the mules got there: the other three rid themselves of their riders and then dashed round and round, kicking up wildly and almost splitting themselves in fright at the dangling stirrups and straps. They were caught and set free in a corral.
The air was dusty and hot. After two hours of it, Gin had had enough. She retired to the car and sat down there, waiting until the boys should want to go home. She sat with her back to the field and tried not to think at all. The only way to get anywhere, she knew, was to be an absolute imbecile, never reflecting on the past or the future. For instance, if she should start to worry about the trouble she had caused at the couriers’ headquarters, or if she had any qualms about leaving Flo and Harvey, she would weaken. Instead, she stretched out in the sun and began to recite the multiplication table.
The boys came back in a great hurry, having looked at the time and remembered their duties at the hotel. For the next three hours Gin forgot everything but her legs and arms: the dining-room was jammed. There was to be a big party at the dance hall and the boys wanted to go. When she tried to stay behind to rest, Blake begged her to come for only an hour, and she gave in. It wasn’t that she was so tired really, she confessed.
“I look like a mess,” she said to herself. But she borrowed a knife from the kitchen and trimmed the fringe of her shawl, and they all polished each others’ shoes as well as they could. They were an hour late for the beginning of the dance.
The orchestra was pretty bad, of course, and the floor was rough. Gin danced once with each of the boys and then suggested that they mix with the others. They ran off thankfully and left her alone, but it was not long before a tall cow-hand requested the honor of the next number, and after that she was so busy that she had no time to be tired.
The music seemed to get better. She danced often with a stocky man who had a scar on his chin and was a better dancer than he looked. He was foreman at a ranch, in for the celebration, and every now and then he disappeared and came back smelling of whisky. She would have liked a drink, but civilization had not yet reached Magdalena and no one offered her anything.
Another man told her that he was home-steading. She said, “But aren’t all the good lands used up? I thought——”
“Yes, ma’am. My land ain’t so good. I’m thinking of starting a sort of store when it’s settled, and making out that way. The only thing is, a fellow gets lonesome and there aren’t enough girls. I’ve known boys to ride eight miles both ways, just to call on a girl.” He surveyed her morosely. “If you was thinking of locating out here, you wouldn’t have much trouble getting yourself a husband. Take me, why, I’ve been looking for a wife for a couple of years. Can you cook? I seen you stepping pretty lively with the plates, up at the hotel.”
It was at that point that she called Teddy and reminded him that they had not danced lately. She apologized afterwards, but he said it was just as well she had done it while he was still winner at the crap-game.
It was late and cold when they went back to camp, but they were in good spirits and hummed all the way. After Gin had cuddled down in her blanket she could not go to sleep. She listened to the blood pounding through her lips, and thought of Teddy and Blake so near her, and wondered if anyone had ever been happier.