It was not done with malice aforethought, for Sliver had not quite reached the point where “he couldn’t stan’ it any longer.” It just happened. Heavy drinkers may be divided into three classes—to wit, the sporadic, who break out in occasional wild debauches; the “steadies,” who sop, sop, sop all the time; and a third class which combines the traits of the other two. Of the Three, Bull represented the first, Jake the second, Sliver the last and worst.
If Sliver had not ridden his horse along the crest of a certain hog’s back on the chance that the cattle he was hunting might be in the ravine below, it might never have come to pass. If Napoleon Bonaparte, for matter of that, hadn’t developed indigestion at Waterloo; if Christopher Columbus had followed the Church instead of the sea; if Julius Cæsar had been born a girl; if all the cats on all the famous fences of history had happened to jump the other way—this world would be quite different. So let it suffice that Sliver rode along the hog’s back.
At its end the ridge ran out on a wide bench from which Sliver looked over the foot-hills, rolling tumultuously under a black blanket of chaparral out to the tawny valleys of the hacienda pastures. Below, he could see a path that ran with a silver stream at the bottom of the ravine. Its deep rut, no wider than the swing of a mule, marked it for one of those ancient highways whose place had been usurped by the Diaz railways. In its heyday the cañon had rung with the tinklings of the mule-trains that transported aguardiente, maize, tobacco, serapes, and cloths between Mexico City and Santa Fé. But of that great traffic there now remained barely enough to support the little fonda that lay with its mule patio almost at Sliver’s feet.
Though no one was in sight, he set down certain moving black dots as chickens, goats, or pigs. Thus assured of tenancy, and thinking that he might pick up some news of his strays, he rode on down a trail that zigzagged through the chaparral.
Looking down from above, Sliver had noted the resemblance of the place to the lair back on the miner’s bench in Sonora. The ramada of grass and cornstalks might have been the same. Only that she was younger and prettier, the Mexican girl who knelt before a metate grinding tortilla paste could have passed for Rosa herself. Though Mexican Indian, some vagrant Spanish strain had pushed up her brow, reduced her cheek-bones, shortened her waist, and lengthened her limbs. Masses of black hair framed her oval face. Her eyes were velvet pools; the nose small and well shaped. Her bare arms tapered from fine shoulders to small wrists, and if she followed Juno rather than Psyche in her luxurious molding she was pliant as a willow, carried her shapely poundage with an effect of slimness.
If Sliver noted these desirable personal assets, his interest therein disappeared after he had spied the sign, “Fonda,” over the door. True, the month which had now elapsed since they entered Lee’s service had not, however, been entirely “dry.” At the close of each day’s work the Three took their copa with the ancianos at the hacienda store in the Mexican fashion. But the application of liquor in such medicinal doses to a thirst like Sliver’s was equivalent to the squirting of gasolene upon a fire. Now, as he gazed at the sign, spirituous desires flamed within him. It was with difficulty that his dry lips formed his question to the girl.
Was there a copita of aguardiente to be had?
Nodding, she rose, and as she let down a small wooden door in the wall Sliver’s glance licked the rows of bottles within.
Tequila, anisette, aguardiente, mescal, every variety of liquid fire with which the Mexican peon burns out his stomach, stood there in deadly array. Beginning at one end, Sliver worked his way, during the next two hours, along the row, and had just started back again when, with some surprise, he noted a most curious phenomenon—to wit, the gray hair and deep wrinkles the girl had suddenly acquired. Quite unaware that she had resigned his thirst to her father, and was even then vigorously rubbing tortilla paste behind his back, he solemnly studied this startling metamorphosis. Drunk as he was, his cowman’s instinct had kept him warned of the sun’s declension. Sure, now, that he had had enough, he paid his score, gravely addressing his host, meanwhile, concerning his changed appearance.
“You she’dn’t do it. It’s—hard on the nerves. Keep it up an’—you’ll drive your custom away.”