It was this problem which brought his wits back to him. A plan began to form in his mind. He saw that in sending her to him Archulera had really played into his hands. The important thing now was to keep her away from her father. He looked at her again, and the pity which he always felt for weaklings welled up in him. He knew many Mexican ranches in the valley where he could keep her in comfort for a small amount. That would serve a double purpose. The old man would be kept in ignorance as to what Ramon [pg 144] intended, and the girl would be saved from [further] punishment. Meantime, he could send Cortez to see Archulera and find out what money would do.
The whole affair was big with potential damage to him. Some of his enemies might find out about it and make a scandal. Archulera might come around in an ugly mood and make trouble. The girl might run away and come to town again. And yet, now that he had a plan, he was all confidence.
Cortez kept Catalina at his house while Ramon drove forty miles up the valley and made arrangements with a Mexican who lived in an isolated place, to care for her for an indefinite period. When he took Catalina there, he told her on the way simply that she was to wait until he came for her, and above all, that she must not try to communicate with her father. The girl nodded, looking at him gravely with her large soft eyes. Her lot had always been to obey, to bear burdens and to suffer. The stuff of rebellion and of self-assertion was not in her, but she could endure misfortune with the stoical indifference of a savage. Indeed, she was in all essentials simply a squaw. During the ride to her new home she seemed more interested in the novel sensation of travelling at thirty miles an hour than in her own future. She clung to the side of the car with both hands, and [pg 145] her face reflected a pathetic mingling of fear and delight.
The house of Nestor Gomez to which Ramon took her was prettily set in a grove of cottonwoods, with white hollyhocks blooming on either side of the door, and strings of red chile hanging from the rafter-ends to dry. Half a dozen small children played about the door, the younger ones naked and all of them deep in dirt. A hen led her brood of chicks into the house on a foray for crumbs, and in the shade of the wall a mongrel bitch luxuriously gave teat to four pups. Bees humming about the hollyhocks bathed the scene in sleepy sound.
Catalina, utterly unembarassed, shook hands with her host and hostess in the limp, brief way of the Mexicans, and then, while Ramon talked with them, sat down in the shade, shook loose her heavy black hair and began to comb it. A little half-naked urchin of three years came and stood before her. She stopped combing to place her hands on his shoulders, and the two regarded each other long and intently, while Catalina’s mouth framed a smile of dull wonder.
As Ramon drove back to town, he marvelled that he should ever have desired this clod of a woman; but he was grateful to her for the bovine calm with which she accepted things. He would visit her once in a while. He felt pretty sure [pg 146] that he could count on her not to make trouble.
Afterward he discussed the situation with Cortez. The latter was worried.
“You better look out,” he counselled. “You better send him a message you are going to marry her. That will keep him quiet for a while. When he gets over being mad, maybe you can make him take a thousand dollars instead.”
Ramon shook his head. If he gave Archulera to understand that he would marry the girl, word of it might get to town.
“He’ll never find her,” he said confidently. “I’ll do nothing unless he comes to me.”