Elbert smelled gas, as he rode behind the sedan. It had always been so; gas belonged to the deep fatigue of his bones. One of the keenest minutes he had ever lived was that in which they had leaned down toward the wide tangle of tracks in front of the fonda marked El Cajon—all able-bodied men gone from Nacimiento, and big doings promised farther on. And then, a matter of mere minutes afterward, his old enemy had come roaring down the dirt road. Girls—everything spoiled—Cal and Slim all changed around.
The sedan was just rolling forward, but it kept the ponies at a lope. It seemed hours; the sliver of a moon had sunk out of the sky. Florabel’s resonant voice reached him from the car. No secret now why ‘Mexicali’ Burton dared to stand off Northern Sonora for his oil wells—the father of this girl would be like that. Cal loomed in the dark, having waited for Mamie to come up.
‘Your lady-friend’s got her mind made up to sit a horse for a ways, Elbert. Slim’s Indian ain’t that kind of a horse, and your Mamie’s a filly yet. I figure she’d better try old Chester, but you sort of ride close and keep him consoled and her camped in the right place.’
‘How about you, Cal?’
‘Nothin’ else will do, but I’m to test my morals in the little red buggie.’
The transfer was made. Elbert rode on through the thick May dark with Mary Gertling at his left.
‘I’ve been on a horse before,’ she said.
No answer.
‘I’m afraid you think I’m being a trouble.’
Still Elbert’s lips were locked. He couldn’t see her clearly, but her hands certainly were not in sight. Nobody with any sense of a horse would leave her hands in her lap.