‘... And the later part—all different—I’ll never forget!’ she was telling him. ‘It was when the dawn came—the time we were in the awful cold—and they found us, and you were hanging forward on the wheel—your face was like stone—eyes open, but no life. Oh, I’ll never forget! It was as if the skin of your face were pulled back over the bones from behind ... and they lifted me out to an ambulance, before they lifted you, and I saw your left side—all wet and stained dark ... and then I knew I wasn’t helping—so frightened from your look—and I knew I must not fall into fears, nor pay any attention to your wound, but help more—from higher up, and never stop—’
It was getting harder and harder to think of the work ahead. Elbert plunged into the inevitability of it right now.
‘I’ve got a work to do,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go away. I’m glad I came to-day. About all this—I won’t forget any of it. I’ll know more about it—when I come back—’
The most astonishing thing of all, she seemed to understand even that—no resistance whatever from her, as there had been none from his father. Was it always like this—when one was sure of himself?
‘I have work to do, too,’ she told him at the window. ‘We’ll know all about everything, when the time comes.’
XVI
THOROUGHBREDS ENTER
‘Cuando sali de la Habana,
Valgame Dios—’
Weeks afterward in old Mexico. He hadn’t moved straight down toward Nacimiento and San Pasquali, where Monte Vallejo was last heard of, but had followed the Border west, leaving the main highway, sinking himself into the country. He was taking it easy, learning the language from the voices in the daytime and his Spanish book at night. Days of learning—getting to know the feel of the people, learning Mamie, and that was not all—learning himself. No more leather-store; he wasn’t dreaming. An old fear that something was wrong about him, even anatomically wrong, in relation to a saddle, had pretty well died out. Sometimes he even fancied that Mamie answered his rein, as if it were old man Leadley’s velvety touch.
‘Era la que me miraba