Following the noise in the moonlight, he came to a flat pan or gully through which a brook, that had made the gully, still passed on its way to the sea. The hills came closely about the pan, giving it shelter from all gales: this (with the water supply) had made it desirable to the Indians in old time.
The Indians had long since gone from it. It was now peopled by the outlaws who had done the hanging in the pine-barren: their tracks led into it; their voices sounded from the midst of it. Sard made out a line of huts stretching irregularly across the pan on the line of a track or trail. The falsetto singer was in the midst of the pan, dancing as he sang. Men were sitting about at the doors of their huts, talking, or at least uttering remarks.
“Such, indeed, is life.”
“Between Sunday and Monday there is ever midnight.”
“She, being a woman, is, as one may say, a woman.”
“The gringos, the accursed: is there anything more accursed?”
“Good wine, good water and good sausage: truly three good things.”
Sard heard these things uttered with all the dignity of a Solomon pronouncing judgments. Dogs were nosing about among the huts, picking bits of tamale. Sard felt that it would be wiser to move boldly down to the village than to stay skulking in the brush till a dog nosed him. He walked boldly down into the gully and passed at the back of the first huts straight into a lover with his lass. Both cursed him under their breath, but were too much interested in themselves to heed him. He muttered an apology as he escaped. A few huts further along the line he came to a corner where an old ruined adobe wall jutting from an occupied hut made shelter for him. He settled into the shelter, meaning to wait till the men were quiet, when he hoped to be able to find food or a pass, perhaps both. He knew that he was in the presence of men who would cut his throat if they found him, yet he listened to what was going on with enjoyment.
Two or three men were sitting on the other side of the adobe hut; they were engaged chiefly in silence, which they sometimes broke with speech, but more often by spitting. The wind blowing from them brought Sard wafts of cigarette smoke.
“Was that someone passing at the back of the house?” one asked.