We climb black, boulder-strewn cliffs and look painfully once more at the bleached bones of cattle. We walk our horses all the afternoon over a sun-blazing prairie toward a horizon that seems infinitely removed. And we see in the distance the bright, gleaming wheel of a water windmill, and the wheel is surely revolving. Though not our way, it means water, and we will go to it.
We are soon on a cow trail, a goat trail, a human trail—all making for the windmill. How gayly the wheel flashes in the sunlight. It is truly a delight—a token of happiness. But, alas, when we get to it we find the cisterns and the troughs all empty. The wheel is revolving, but it is drawing forth no water. All is desolate. We dismount and sit on the wall of the concrete reservoir, and the horses wonder why they are there.
But up above us revolves the wheel, once descried afar, now over our very heads and actual. And it cries as it revolves:
No waw ... ter—Hell!
Creak, cranger—
He ... ll,
No waw ... ter—
And all strewn around on the ground are discarded bottles and cans, and a cross of new wood marks somebody's grave.
"No waw ... ter!" Well, on to the horses again. We'll be on the great Rio to-morrow, far away, low down below this sun-cursed moor. The horses will drink deep when we get there. And we shall join the Indians who on the day of St. Dominic are going to intercede and dance for rain.