Gordon nodded, and, satisfied, he rode away with Lee’s last charge floating after him, “Come home soon!”
The words were still ringing in his ears, he still felt the firm, cool clasp on his neck, when he drew rein at the first rise and looked back at the hacienda. From one corner, where an anciano had burned some rubbish, rose a lazy pennon of smoke, but the brown girls, women, and children who usually filled the compound with restless life were in full enjoyment of the noon siesta. Within its bright walls, the place dozed in the pleasant shade of its towering cottonwoods.
Somehow the stillness recalled to Bull’s mind the Spaniard’s house he had shown Gordon from the railroad—sacked, burned, its vacant windows staring like empty eyes over the desert. His face clouded. He moved uneasily in his saddle, but presently the golden peace that incited the memory worked its own remedy. Jake and Sliver and Gordon were there, and the place was still far beyond the surge and swirl of the revolution.
“And I’ll be home again in less than a week,” he encouraged himself.
Home! It recalled again Lee’s words. He felt her clasp, thrilled at the memory. He, “Bull” Perrin, the rustler! Around his neck that had been in constant hazard of the halter for a dozen years, this fine, clean girl had thrown her arms. His tender musing over the wonder would have excited the scorn of a city man, blasé and stale from the constant presence and attentions of pretty women. But it was sincere. While he rode on over the hills and plains, the thought warmed his heart, quickened the seed planted therein by Benson, freed his soul from the bonds of his great humility.
“Of course it’s damn foolish for you even to think of it,” he chid himself. Nevertheless, he did, slowly, heavily, taking stock with minute exactness of his own demerits. How great they were none knew better. The rustling, of course, he had abandoned along with certain gross habits of life. But the liquor? These periodical debauches? Was he strong enough to conquer them?
“If I c’d only ride into a town an’ either leave it alone or take a man’s fair allowance,” he mused. “But kin I? Mebbe with a fine little woman like that to help me.” But the next instant he shook his head. “An’ have her take the chance? No, no, hombre, you’re crazy. You put all that behind you by your own act years ago.”
Yet this conclusion did not end the argument. When, at sundown, he drew rein at the accustomed spot and looked down on the rancho buildings now dyed a flaming apricot he took his breath deeply. With its bougainvillea draping walls and porches in rich purple clusters, its pretty patio and outside kitchen garden, it was just such a home as would fit the dreams of a common man. Instantly his mind filled in the picture, the man and woman sitting after supper on the veranda, he with his pipe and paper, a child on his knee, she with her sewing. A thousand intimacies were supplied by his lonely, hungry soul, and when the picture stood complete he burst out with a great resolve.
“By God, I’ll do it! You’re a-going to walk like a man into town an’ come out without teching a drop!”
From where he was sitting he usually could see—either Betty at play on the veranda, her mother moving in and out, or Terrubio moving around the stables. To-night silence wrapped the place. From the west, as on the south where he sat, the land fell rapidly toward the rancho, and as he rode forward, puzzled, the silence was explained. Over the western ridge the widow, Terrubio, and Betty came riding, and reached the house just as he rode up.