‘I’ll stay on with Mort for a day or so,’ Bart said. ‘I might hunt you up in Tucson, if I get there before you leave. They say there’s a hotel there—’
‘The Santa Clara,’ said Elbert.
He looked back toward Mort’s corral, as the old cattleman was bringing the rig to take him to the station. He moved to the gate and let himself in. Mamie walked toward him, but halted with lifted head, in the afternoon light, as he had seen her the first day, only now her coat was faded by many sweats and suns. Her head lifted higher. She was listening for something no one else could possibly hear—
‘One more listening mare,’ Elbert whispered.
Her forehead presently bumped his shoulder. Farther off the sorrel stake-horse was sniffing at the cracks in Mort’s hay-shed.
‘I’ll be coming back, Mamie. Oh, yes, I’ll be coming back—’
XXX
TUCSON AGAIN
It wasn’t a dappled gray this time, but one of the same breed. Elbert was abroad in the streets of Tucson, long before the city was astir, his train having set him down at an unseemly hour. He passed a harness shop and peered in through the window, where his eye encountered the cocked ears and pointed head of a wooden horse. Evidently its place was the sidewalk, daytimes, being wheeled into the shop at closing-hour on castors.
It was as if he were in the Plaza at Los Angeles again. It was more: like a man coming back to find his old nursery unchanged. Elbert’s lips moved.
‘Wouldn’t Mamie shy if she passed that palfrey on a lonely road?’