“Everything seems all right,—no harm done,” remarked Toby, with hasty cheerfulness, emerging from the taciturnity resulting from one closed eye and a general atmospheric depression among the rest of us. Her remark showed that she now expected to assume her usual place in society.
“If anything,” I answered bitterly, “the car is improved by its bath.”
The poor old wreck stood sagging heavily on one spring, two wheels off, the cushions water-logged, and a foot of mud and sand on the tonneau floor and encrusting the gears. Maps, tools, wraps, chains, tires and the sickly remains of our lunch made a sodden salad, liberally mixed with Rio Grande silt. Sticks and floating refuse had caught in the hubs and springs, and refused to be dislodged. A junk man would have offered us a pair of broken scissors and a 1908 alarm clock for her as she stood, and demanded cash and express prepaid. I think Toby gathered that my intent was sarcasm, for she relapsed into comparative silence, while in deep gloom we watched Bill scoop grit out of the gears. I braced myself to ask a question.
“Can you save her, Bill?”
“Well,” Bill cast a keen blue eye at the remains, “the battery’s probably ruined, and the springs will have to be taken apart and the rust emoried off, and the mud cleaned out of the carburetor and engine, and the springs rehung, and if any sand has got into the bearin’s you’ll never be through with the damage, and the cushions are probably done for,—life’s soaked out of them.”
As Bill spoke, the Rainbow Bridge, for which we had planned to start in a few days, became a rainbow indeed, but not of hope. The Grand Canyon, the Hopi villages, Havasupai Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier Park! Their red cliffs and purple distances shimmered before our eyes as dear, lost visions, and faded, to be replaced by a heap of junk scattered in a lone arroyo, and two desolate female figures standing on the Albuquerque platform, waiting for the through train east.
“Well, Bill, will you make us an offer for her as she stands?”
Bill squinted at her, and shook his head, “Don’t think I’d better, ma’am.”
The day shone brilliant blue and gold, and the valley of cottonwood sparkled like emeralds, but all seemed black to us. Toby looked almost as guilty as she deserved to look, and that, though unusual and satisfactory, was but a minor consolation.
“Too bad,” said Bill, sympathetically, “that you didn’t sound the river before you tried to cross.”