Children of the desert

by Louis Dodge

And then he jerked his head in denial of that conclusion. No, he did not want her. She had laid a path of pitch for his feet, and the things he might have grasped with his hands, to draw himself out of the path which befouled his feet—they too were smeared with pitch. She did not love him, certainly. He clung tenaciously to that one clear point. There lay the whole situation, perfectly plain. She did not love him. She had betrayed him, had turned the face of the whole community against him, had permitted him to affront the gentle people who had unselfishly aided him and given him their affection.

He wandered about the streets until nearly midnight, and then he engaged a room in the Internacional and assured himself that it was time to go to bed. He needed a good rest. To-morrow he would know what to do.

But the sight of the room assigned to him surprised him in some odd way—as if every article of furniture in it were mocking him. It was not a room really to be used, he thought. At least, it was not a room for him to use. He did not belong in that bed; he had a bed of his own, in the house he had built on the Quemado Road. And then he remembered the time when he had been able to hang his hat anywhere and consider himself at home, and how he had always been grateful for a comfortable bed, no matter where. That was the feeling which he must get back again. He must get used to the strangeness of things, so that such a room as this would seem his natural resting-place, and that other house which had been destroyed for him would seem a place of shame, to be avoided and forgotten.

He slept fitfully. The movements of trains in the night comforted him in a mournful fashion. They reminded him of that other life, which might be his again. But even in his waking moments he reached out to the space beside him to find Sylvia, and the returning full realization of all that had happened brought a groan to his throat.

He dressed in the morning with a feeling of guilt, mingled with a sense of relief. He had slept where he had had no business to sleep. He had been idle at a time when he should have been active. He had done nothing, and there was much to be done. He had not even rested.

He put on an air of briskness, as one will don a garment, as he ordered coffee and rolls in the dining-room. There were things to be attended to. He must go over to the offices and write out his resignation. He must see the General Manager and ask him for work on the road elsewhere. He must transfer his holdings—his house and bank-account—to Sylvia. He had no need of house or money, and she would need them badly now. And then ... then he must begin life anew.

It was all plain; yet his feet refused to bear him in the direction of the railroad offices; his mind refused to grapple with the details of the task of transferring to Sylvia the things he owned. Something constructive, static, in the man’s nature stayed him.

He wandered away from the town during the day, an aimless impulse carrying him quite out into the desert. He paused to inspect little irrigated spots where humble gardens grew. He paused at mean adobe huts and talked to old people and to children. Again and again he came into contact with conditions which annoyed and bewildered him. People were all bearing their crosses. Some were hopelessly ill, waiting for death to relieve them, or they were old and quite useless. And all were horribly poor, casting about for meagre food and simple clothing which seemed beyond their reach. They were lonely, overburdened, despondent, darkly philosophical.

What was the meaning of human life, he wondered? Were men and women created to suffer, to bear crosses which were not of their own making, to suffer injustices which seemed pointless?...

Late in the afternoon he was back in Piedras Negras again. He had eaten nothing save a handful of figs which an old woman had given him, together with a bowl of goat’s milk. He had wished to pay for them, but the old woman had shaken her head and turned away.