CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE CHEWED SUGAR CANE
"I'd like to have trailed you fellows," sighed a voice from the corner.
"Would you!" said Colorado Rogers grimly.
It was five days to the next water. But they were worse than the eightdays before. We were lucky, however, for at the spring we discoveredin a deep wash near the coast, was the dried-up skull of a horse. Ithad been there a long time, but a few shreds of dried flesh still clungto it. It was the only thing that could be described as food that hadpassed our lips since breakfast thirteen days before. In that time wehad crossed the mountain chain, and had come again to the sea. TheLord was good to us. He sent us the water, and the horse's skull, andthe smooth hard beach, without breaks or the necessity of climbinghills. And we needed it, oh, I promise you, we needed it!
I doubt if any of us could have kept the direction except by such anobvious and continuous landmark as the sea to our left. It hardlyseemed worth while to focus my mind, but I did it occasionally just byway of testing myself. Schwartz still threw away his gold coins, andonce, in one of my rare intervals of looking about me, I saw Dentonpicking them up. This surprised me mildly, but I was too tired to bevery curious. Only now, when I saw Schwartz's arm sweep out in whathad become a mechanical movement, I always took pains to look, andalways I saw Denton search for the coin. Sometimes he found it, andsometimes he did not.
The figures of my companions and the yellow-brown tide sand under myfeet, and a consciousness of the blue and white sea to my left, are allI remember, except when we had to pull ourselves together for thepurpose of cutting fishhook cactus. I kept going, and I knew I had agood reason for doing so, but it seemed too much of an effort to recallwhat that reason was.
Schwartz threw away a gold piece as another man would take a stimulant.Gradually, without really thinking about it, I came to see this, andthen went on to sabe why Denton picked up the coins; and a greatadmiration for Denton's cleverness seeped through me like water throughthe sand. He was saving the coins to keep Schwartz going. When thelast coin went, Schwartz would give out. It all sounds queer now, butit seemed all right then--and it WAS all right, too.
So we walked on the beach, losing entire track of time. And after along interval I came to myself to see Schwartz lying on the sand, andDenton standing over him. Of course we'd all been falling down a lot,but always before we'd got up again.
"He's give out," croaked Denton.
His voice sounded as if it was miles away, which surprised me, but,when I answered, mine sounded miles away, too, which surprised me stillmore.
Denton pulled out a handful of gold coins.
"This will buy him some more walk," said he gravely, "but not much."
I nodded. It seemed all right, this new, strange purchasing power ofgold--it WAS all right, by God, and as real as buying bricks--
"I'll go on," said Denton, "and send back help. You come after."
"To Mollyhay!" said I.
This far I reckon we'd hung onto ourselves because it was serious. NowI began to laugh. So did Denton. We laughed and laughed.
"A damn long way To Mollyhay."
said I. Then we laughed some more, until the tears ran down our cheeks,and we had to hold our poor weak sides. Pretty soon we fetched up witha gasp.
"A damn long way To Mollyhay,"
whispered Denton, and then off we went into more shrieks. And when wewould sober down a little, one or the other of us would say it again:
"A damn long way To Mollyhay,"
and then we'd laugh some more. It must have been a sweet sight!
At last I realised that we ought to pull ourselves together, so Isnubbed up short, and Denton did the same, and we set to laying plans.But every minute or so one of us would catch on some word, and thenwe'd trail off into rhymes and laughter and repetition.
"Keep him going as long as you can," said Denton.
"Yes."
"And be sure to stick to the beach."
That far it was all right and clear-headed. But the word "beach" letus out.
"I'm a peach Upon the beach,"
sings I, and there we were both off again until one or the othermanaged to grope his way back to common sense again. And sometimes wecrow-hopped solemnly around and around the prostrate Schwartz like apair of Injins.
But somehow we got our plan laid at last, slipped the coins intoSchwartz's pocket, and said good-bye.
"Old socks, good-bye, You bet I'll try,"
yelled Denton, and laughing fit to kill, danced off up the beach, andout into a sort of grey mist that shut off everything beyond a certaindistance from me now.
So I kicked Schwartz, he felt in his pocket, threw a gold piece away,and "bought a little more walk."
My entire vision was fifty feet or so across. Beyond that was greymist. Inside my circle I could see the sand quite plainly and Denton'sfootprints. If I moved a little to the left, the wash of the waterswould lap under the edge of that grey curtain.
If I moved to the right, I came to cliffs. The nearer I drew to them,the farther up I could see, but I could never see to the top. It usedto amuse me to move this area of consciousness about to see what Icould find. Actual physical suffering was beginning to dull, and myhead seemed to be getting clearer.
One day, without any apparent reason, I moved at right angles acrossthe beach. Directly before me lay a piece of sugar cane, and one endof it had been chewed.
Do you know what that meant? Animals don't cut sugar cane and bring itto the beach and chew one end. A new strength ran through me, andactually the grey mist thinned and lifted for a moment, until I couldmake out dimly the line of cliffs and the tumbling sea.
I was not a bit hungry, but I chewed on the sugar cane, and madeSchwartz do the same. When we went on I kept close to the cliff, eventhough the walking was somewhat heavier.
I remember after that its getting dark and then light again, so thenight must have passed, but whether we rested or walked I do not know.Probably we did not get very far, though certainly we staggered aheadafter sun-up, for I remember my shadow.
About midday, I suppose, I made out a dim trail leading up a break inthe cliffs. Plenty of such trails we had seen before. They weregenerally made by peccaries in search of cast-up fish--I hope they hadbetter luck than we.
But in the middle of this, as though for a sign, lay another piece ofchewed sugar cane.