Arizona Nights

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE ARRIVAL

  The Overland drew into Willets, coated from engine to observation withwhite dust. A porter, in strange contrast of neatness, flung open thevestibule, dropped his little carpeted step, and turned to assistsomeone. A few idle passengers gazed out on the uninteresting, flatfrontier town.

  Senor Johnson caught his breath in amazement. "God! Ain't she justlike her picture!" he exclaimed. He seemed to find this astonishing.

  For a moment he did not step forward to claim her, so she stood lookingabout her uncertainly, her leather suit-case at her feet.

  She was indeed like the photograph. The same full-curved, compactlittle figure, the same round face, the same cupid's bow mouth, thesame appealing, large eyes, the same haze of doll's hair. In a momentshe caught sight of Senor Johnson and took two steps toward him, thenstopped. The Senor at once came forward.

  "You're Mr. Johnson, ain't you?" she inquired, thrusting her littlepointed chin forward, and so elevating her baby-blue eyes to his.

  "Yes, ma'am," he acknowledged formally. Then, after a moment's pause:"I hope you're well."

  "Yes, thank you."

  The station loungers, augmented by all the ranchmen and cowboys intown, were examining her closely. She looked at them in a swift sideglance that seemed to gather all their eyes to hers. Then, satisfiedthat she possessed the universal admiration, she returned the fullforce of her attention to the man before her.

  "Now you give me your trunk checks," he was saying, "and then we'll goright over and get married."

  "Oh!" she gasped.

  "That's right, ain't it?" he demanded.

  "Yes, I suppose so," she agreed faintly.

  A little subdued, she followed him to the clergyman's house, where, inthe presence of Goodrich, the storekeeper, and the preacher's wife, thetwo were united. Then they mounted the buckboard and drove from town.

  Senor Johnson said nothing, because he knew of nothing to say. Hedrove skilfully and fast through the gathering dusk. It was a hundredmiles to the home ranch, and that hundred miles, by means of fiverelays of horses already arranged for, they would cover by morning.Thus they would avoid the dust and heat and high winds of the day.

  The sweet night fell. The little desert winds laid soft fingers ontheir checks. Overhead burned the stars, clear, unflickering, likecandles. Dimly could be seen the horses, their flanks swingingsteadily in the square trot. Ghostly bushes passed them; ghostly rockelevations. Far, in indeterminate distance, lay the outlines of themountains. Always, they seemed to recede. The plain, all butinvisible, the wagon trail quite so, the depths of space--these flungheavy on the soul their weight of mysticism. The woman, until now boltupright in the buckboard seat, shrank nearer to the man. He feltagainst his sleeve the delicate contact of her garment and thrilled tothe touch. A coyote barked sharply from a neighbouring eminence, thentrailed off into the long-drawn, shrill howl of his species.

  "What was that?" she asked quickly, in a subdued voice.

  "A coyote--one of them little wolves," he explained.

  The horses' hoofs rang clear on a hardened bit of the alkali crust,then dully as they encountered again the dust of the plain. Vast,vague, mysterious in the silence of night, filled with strangeinfluences breathing through space like damp winds, the desert tookthem to the heart of her great spaces.

  "Buck," she whispered, a little tremblingly. It was the first time shehad spoken his name.

  "What is it?" he asked, a new note in his voice.

  But for a time she did not reply. Only the contact against his sleeveincreased by ever so little.

  "Buck," she repeated, then all in a rush and with a sob, "Oh, I'mafraid."

  Tenderly the man drew her to him. Her head fell against his shoulderand she hid her eyes.

  "There, little girl," he reassured her, his big voice rich and musical."There's nothing to get scairt of, I'll take care of you. Whatfrightens you, honey?"

  She nestled close in his arm with a sigh of half relief.

  "I don't know," she laughed, but still with a tremble in her tones."It's all so big and lonesome and strange--and I'm so little."

  "There, little girl," he repeated.

  They drove on and on. At the end of two hours they stopped. Men withlanterns dazzled their eyes. The horses were changed, and so out againinto the night where the desert seemed to breathe in deep, mysteriousexhalations like a sleeping beast.

  Senor Johnson drove his horses masterfully with his one free hand. Theroad did not exist, except to his trained eyes. They seemed to beswimming out, out, into a vapour of night with the wind of their goingsteady against their faces.

  "Buck," she murmured, "I'm so tired."

  He tightened his arm around her and she went to sleep, half-waking atthe ranches where the relays waited, dozing again as soon as thelanterns dropped behind. And Senor Johnson, alone with his horses andthe solemn stars, drove on, ever on, into the desert.

  By grey of the early summer dawn they arrived. The girl wakened,descended, smiling uncertainly at Susie O'Toole, blinking somnolentlyat her surroundings. Susie put her to bed in the little southwest roomwhere hung the shiny Colt's forty-five in its worn leather"Texas-style" holster. She murmured incoherent thanks and sank againto sleep, overcome by the fatigue of unaccustomed travelling, by thepotency of the desert air, by the excitement of anticipation to whichher nerves had long been strung.

  Senor Johnson did not sleep. He was tough, and used to it. He lit acigar and rambled about, now reading the newspapers he had brought withhim, now prowling softly about the building, now visiting the corralsand outbuildings, once even the thousand-acre pasture where hissaddle-horse knew him and came to him to have its forehead rubbed. Thedawn broke in good earnest, throwing aside its gauzy draperies ofmauve. Sang, the Chinese cook, built his fire. Senor Johnson forbadehim to clang the rising bell, and himself roused the cow-punchers. Thegirl slept on. Senor Johnson tip-toed a dozen times to the bedroomdoor. Once he ventured to push it open. He looked long within, thenshut it softly and tiptoed out into the open, his eyes shining.

  "Jed," he said to his foreman, "you don't know how it made me feel. Tosee her lying there so pink and soft and pretty, with her yaller hairall tumbled about and a little smile on her--there in my old bed, withmy old gun hanging over her that way--By Heaven, Jed, it made me feelalmost HOLY!"