Lights showed the wheel-tracks; still the derricks on either hand. Not a sound or a touch from his side. More rifles cracked ahead. It had to be done again.
‘Get down, way down!’ he called. Again the car shot forward through the flashes. This time hands touched the outside; bumps of metal, more splintered glass. The wheel jerked out of his hand; the sedan ditched, but didn’t overturn. In a flash of one rifle, he saw a second figure—mouth open, pistol raised. He seemed to look right into that open mouth and belching muzzle. The fenders on the same side screeched against stone.
He wasn’t right. He had to throw his body forward on the wheel to hold it, as he turned on the lights—only the right hand working. He was back in the wheel-tracks, but the car kept fighting away from him—a flat tire. He felt an absurd need to explain. ‘It was that left front tire that threw me—’ but she wasn’t listening. His foot sank upon the throttle.
Now Elbert was badly mixed about that left front tire and his own left side—both flat. He had to hurry now while his right arm lasted. ‘I’ll vouch for Elbert.... He’ll get through, Mister.... So long, Kid.’ But all the time he was getting farther and farther from Mamie—from Bart!
The wheel-tracks had circled back to the main road. His right foot steadied down. He had to hold the wheel with all his strength to make up for the retard on the left.... Not a touch or a sound from his side. Thirst was stealing into him like the cold. Maybe she was thirsty.... Maybe they wouldn’t know which was which—tequila, coal oil.... ‘I’ve been on a horse before.... He bumps so.’... ‘Thirty years late.’... He had lights; he held to the highway, his foot pressed to the floor.... She wasn’t helping—not a touch, or did she mean to help by keeping still?
Vaguely Elbert heard low words like this:
‘He doesn’t relax. He keeps listening for a voice. The rest of the time he seems to think he’s driving something—a horse or a car. It’s not always clear. If he could only stop driving himself, every time he comes to, and get some rest’—a strange woman’s voice.
‘Put him to sleep again,’ a man replied from the far side of the room. ‘I’ll answer his father’s telegram, but nobody could satisfy these newspaper men, and have time for anything else.’
Of course, they didn’t understand. He had to get through. He had to keep on, while his right arm lasted—clear through to Nogales. And even if he did, it wouldn’t mean that he was making good to what he set out for. He had passed up the main chance, falling for another.... There was a pricking in his right arm now, but no sound from that side, not a word—everything muffled and getting farther away ... until Cal’s easy tones really began to set him straight: