Children of the desert

by Louis Dodge

Before the next spring came two entirely irreconcilable discoveries were made in Eagle Pass.

The first of these was made by certain cronies of the town who found their beer flat if there was not a bit of gossip to go with it, and it was to the effect that the affair between Sylvia and Runyon was sure to end disastrously if it did not immediately end otherwise.

The other discovery was made by Harboro, and it was to the effect that Sylvia had at last blossomed out as a perfectly ideal wife.

A certain listlessness had fallen from her like a shadow. Late in the winter—it was about the time of the ride to the Quemado, Harboro thought it must have been—a change had come over her. There was a glad tranquillity about her now which was as a tonic to him. She was no longer given to dark utterances which he could not understand. She was devoted to him in a gentle, almost maternal fashion—studying his needs and moods alertly and affectionately. Something of the old tempestuous ardor was gone, but that, of course, was natural. Harboro did not know the phrases of old Antonia or he would have said: “It is the time of embers.” She was softly solicitous for him; still a little wistful at times, to be sure; but then that was the natural Sylvia. It was the quality which made her more wonderful than any other woman in the world.

And Sylvia? Sylvia had found a new avenue of escape from that tedium which the Sylvias of the world have never been able to endure.

Not long after that ride to the Quemado a horse had been brought to her front gate during a forenoon when Harboro was over the river at work. Unassisted she had mounted it and ridden away out the Quemado Road. A mile out she had turned toward the Rio Grande, and had kept to an indistinct trail until she came to a hidden adobe hut, presided over by an ancient Mexican.

To this isolated place had come, too, Runyon—Runyon, whose dappled horse had been left hidden in the mesquite down by the river, where the man’s duties lay.

And here, in undisturbed seclusion, they had continued that intimacy which had begun on the night of the norther. They were like two children, forbidden the companionship of each other, who find something particularly delicious in an unguessed rendezvous. All that is delightful in a temporary escape from the sense of responsibility was theirs. Their encounters were as gay and light as that of two poppies in the sun, flung together by a friendly breeze. They were not conscious of wronging any one—not more than a little, at least—though the ancient genius of the place, a Mexican who had lost an eye in a jealous fight in his youth, used to shake his head sombrely when he went away from his hut, leaving them alone; and there was anxiety in the glance of that one remaining eye as he kept a lookout over the trail, that his two guests might not be taken by surprise.

Sometimes they remained in the hut throughout the entire noon-hour, and on these occasions their finely discreet and taciturn old host placed food before them. Goat’s milk was brought from an earthenware vessel having its place on a wooden hook under the eaves of the house; and there was a delicious stew of dried goat’s flesh, served with a sauce which contained just a faint flavor of peppers and garlic and herbs. And there was pan, as delicate as wafers, and coffee.

Time and again, throughout the winter, the same horse made its appearance at Sylvia’s gate at the same hour, and Sylvia mounted and rode away out the Quemado Road and disappeared, returning early in the afternoon.