Gerty had been suffering with abscessed pride, inflamed vanity. This was the first relief; the angry venom spent itself.
The yellow eyes were on the dredge bucket as it swung across the channel, but they did not register. She was angry, outraged; she did not know with whom. With Gerty for telling her, with Rickard, with life that lets such things be. If Gerty would only stop talking! Why would she string it out, tell it all over again? She hated the hints which the accented voice was making. She jumped up. “Oh, stop it!” She rushed out of the tent, followed by a strange bitter smile that brought age to the face of Gerty Hardin.
In her own tent, Innes found excuse for her lack of self-control. She did not like the color of scandal; she hated smudge. Gerty had told her nothing, only hinted, hinted! What was it Tom did not want her to know? She would not think of it. She would be glad that something had occurred to check the foolish little woman’s folly. Gerty had said the whole camp knew it; knew why the Mexican woman was in camp! She did not trust Gerty in anything else; why should she trust her in that? She would not think of it.
True or not, it was better for Tom. She assured herself that she was glad that something, anything, had happened before her brother learned the drift of things. There was nothing now to worry about. She would forget Gerty’s gossip.
But she remembered it vividly that week as she washed her own khakis; as she bent over the ironing-board in Gerty’s sweltering “kitchenette.” She thought of it as she returned Rickard’s bow in the mess-tent the next morning; each time they met she thought of it. And it was in her mind when she met Señora Maldonado by the river one day, and made a sudden wide curve to avoid having to speak to her.
CHAPTER XXXI
TIME THE UMPIRE
A BLAZING sun rode the heavens. The river was low; its yellow waters bore the look of oriental duplicity. Men and horses were being driven to take advantage of the continued low water. Each day was now showing its progress. The two ends of the trestle were creeping across the stream from their brush aprons, as though sentient, feeling their way; watching the foe; ready to spring the trap when the river was off guard.
“Things are humming,” wrote MacLean, Jr., to his father, who was inspecting the survey below Culiacan for the new line on the west coast. The focus was indeed visible. A few weeks of work, at the present rate, and the gap would be closed, Hardin’s big gate in it; the by-pass ready; the trap set for the Colorado. The tensity of a last spurt was in the air.
It was inspiring activity, this pitting of man’s cumulative skill against an elemental force. No Caucasian mind which did not tingle, feel the privileged thrill of it. To the stolid native, as he plodded on his raft all day under a blazing sky, or lifted his machete against the thorny mesquit or more insidious arrow-weed, this day of well-paid toil was his millennium, the fulfilment of the prophecy. His gods had so spoken. Food for his stomach, liquor for his stupefaction; the white man’s money laid in a brown hand each Sunday morning was what the great gods forespoke. The completion of the work, the white man’s victory, would be an end of the fat time. A dull sense of this deepened the natural stolidity of their labor. Hasten? Why should they, and shorten their day of opportunity? Saturday night, feasting, dancing; then a day of rest, of stupor. To-day is theirs. The gods are speaking.
Between the two camps oscillated Coronel, silently squatting near the whites, jabbering his primitive Esperanto to the tribes. His friendship with the white chiefs, his age and natural leadership gave him a unique position in both camps. Forestier consulted him; Rickard referred to him. He was too lordly to work; long ago, he had thrown his fate with the Cocopahs whose name was a synonym for majestic idleness.