“I donno but they’re better off drunk—they can’t kill so many o’ the others.”
“You don’t understand—” he began, but she cut him short curtly.
“I better get my ticket,” she said.
“I’ll get it,” he told her. “Barstow—ain’t it?”
“No, I’m not going to Barstow,” she answered. “Get it to Lamy.”
He faced her in astonishment.
“Lamy!” he cried. “Murderation. Clear east?”
“I’ve counted up,” she explained. “That’s as far as I’ve got the money to get. I can stay there till I earn some to go on with. I’ve got an aunt in Chicago.”
“East!” he said weakly. “Why, I never thought o’ you goin’ East.”
The station platform led with that amazing informality of the western American railway station, to the raw elemental sand of the desert. Within sight of the electric lamps of the station, were the tall flowers of the Yucca and the leaves of the Spanish bayonet and the flare of the spineless cactus under uninterrupted areas of dusky sky, stretched as sand and sky had stretched for countless ages. Of the faint tread of the soldiers, the commands of the captain, the trundle of a truck, the click of the telegraph instrument, those sands and those stars were as unconscious as they had been in the beginning. And abruptly, as he looked at these lifelong friends of his, the Inger felt intolerably alone.