When Gin and Blake woke they found him tearing a branch into bits, feeding the small beginnings of a fire.
“What’s the idea?” Gin asked crossly. “It’s too early to get up.”
“I was cold,” he answered calmly, and put one foot on the branch while he jerked at it.
“Cold! It’s so hot that we’ll be getting sunstroke.”
“Well then, get up. The coffee will be ready soon.”
They protested, but they helped him with the breakfast. It was growing really hot and they were glad to get into the shade of the car. Blake poured some of the water into the radiator and watched anxiously as it disappeared.
“We’re using a lot of water,” he said. “I hope we don’t run out.”
“Not yet,” said Teddy. “There’ll be a couple of stations before we get to town. Climb in.”
The morning was dull and dusty. They passed one or two ranch-houses and rode through miles of flat lime country, and Teddy’s depression grew stronger. He felt as if he had forgotten something. What was it? But of course he had forgotten something; he had forgotten everything. Everything in the world was back in Santa Fé or Minnesota. Did it matter? He was starting out afresh, without anything in the world but himself. They were all doing it. It was a rebirth. He looked around at the desolate country and wondered what the Garden of Eden had looked like. Blake and Gin were silent and impassive, strangers. He was so miserable that he was afraid he would start to cry, and their firm young faces were cruelly indifferent.
He knew what he wanted. He missed breakfast in Santa Fé, in the Eagle Cafe. He wanted to go in and sit on a stool before the counter, the greasy crumb-strewed coffee-splashed table that stretched the length of the restaurant. He wanted another breakfast with the Capital Times to read; a stale roll and coffee with milk in it, and people to talk to. People! And afterwards to stroll down De Vargas Avenue to the barber-shop, or to sit in the taxi-stand and have a smoke with Harvey, waiting for trade. He wanted to talk to someone, Harvey or the barber or the Mexican who lived next door and kept a goat in the back yard.