The Mine with the Iron Door

by Harold Bell Wright

“We must eat and go on over the line quickly. Feed and water the animals but do not remove the saddles.”

Then leading Marta into the house, he took her to a little room and told her to lie down and rest until their breakfast was ready, and left her.

When she was alone, the girl looked about with wondering interest. She had felt, even as they were approaching the house, that there was something strangely familiar about the place. She seemed to have been there before or else to have seen it all in some dream. That corral—the well—the water trough—the adobe building—the hard-beaten yard—the pile of mesquite wood—the heap of old tin cans and rubbish. Surely, she had seen it all before. The interior of the house, too, was familiar in every detail. The bed upon which she was lying—the old rawhide bottom chairs—the cracked mirror on the wall and that print of the Holy Family. How strange it all was! She was certain that once before she had been shut in that room, and, lying on that bed, had heard those voices talking in Mexican on the other side of that door.

In her wanderings with the old prospectors, Marta had picked up enough of the Mexican language to understand a little of the conversation. She learned that the old woman was Sonora Jack’s mother. As she listened now, she gathered that they were discussing her. She caught the words prospectors, Cañada del Oro, and several times she heard, little girl, while the old woman and the man who had come in after caring for the animals exclaimed with astonishment. In a flash, the meaning of it all came to her. She was the little girl. This was the place from which the Pardners had taken her.

But try as she might, she could not bring back that childhood experience with any degree of clearness. It was a hazy fragment—a memory. She could not recall how she was first brought to that place, nor what her relationship to those people had been. If only Hugh and Natachee would come. If only they could be here now. Perhaps—perhaps, they could force these people to tell what they knew about her.

At breakfast, the old woman and the man treated Marta with great deference. Again and again, they assured her in Mexican and broken English that she must not be frightened, that she would come to no harm if she obeyed Sonora Jack. When, with Sonora Jack, she rode away to the south, they watched until she passed from sight.

They had ridden two or three hours when the outlaw said:

“Señorita, we goin’ come now to the end of our ride, for a little time. This is Mexico. The line is ten mile back. Over them hills ahead is a rancho. We goin’ stop there. It is not so good place as I like for you, but it is best I can do for now. Many men are goin’ to be there—vaqueros—all kinds—bad hombres. All the time they come an’ go. You no want to be scared, ’cause me—I’m goin’ take good care of you. It is best if we make like you was my wife.”

When the girl cried out with fear and he saw the horror in her eyes he hastened to explain:

“Señorita, you mistake—it is only that we make believe you are my wife. You sabe? If I take you to that place as Señorita Hillgrove, you goin’ to be in much danger. I can fight them, yes—they know that I can fight, but—“ he shrugged his shoulders, then: “Señora Richard would be safe, sure. Nobody is goin’ make insult to the wife of Sonora Jack. They know for that Sonora Jack would sure kill.”