cut him in two was Hippy, and in the worse place a man could be. His head and arms was under the horse's chest, and his legs was dragging on the ground while it looked like that ornery pony was reaching under with his hind legs and kicking that cowboy to pieces. I sort of wanted to close my eyes for a second for I thought sure Hippy was going to be kicked and dragged into scattered remains, but my eyes didn't close none at all. Instead, and in less time than it takes to tell it I was off my horse, had my knife out, and luck being with me for once I got a holt of the rope. . . . I never seen such a hard rope to cut as that one seemed to be right then. I whittled at it and was jerked around a trying to keep a holt of it till I thought my eye teeth would jar loose, but finally she came apart, the two thousand pounds of earth tearing critter and horse-flesh was separated and the coils that'd wrapped around Hippy's waist let go. The cowboy slipped to the ground and the wild pounding hoofs of the bucking horse barely missing him went on over leaving him, clothes half tore off, his body all twisted, and looking like dead. I straightened him out quick as I could and to looking like human again, and I was sure some surprised to find after tallying up on where and how bad he was hurt that with all the rope marks around his waist, a few bruises and a busted ankle there was nothing about him that wouldn't heal up again. It was a couple of days later when passing by where Hippy was laying in the shade of the chuck-wagon and recuperating that that cowboy hollered at me and says: "Say Bill, I thought you knowed better than cut a good rope in the centre and spoil it like you did mine, you could of just as well cut it by the hondoo and saved it, couldn't you?" I VERA CRUZ AWN startled the night, and you could feel the heat coming. There was no morning in the east, only peaks of fire on the sea rim. The lifeless water shrank to the heat and the lank wind drooped under the burden. The shore lay inert awaiting the hot impact of the day. Sky and water were pig-iron gray and the town grayed silver. The wan light on the pharos dwindled. Mexico . . . Thin towers of pale stone; domes of lilac tiles; red shanks of rusted cranes. . . . The west was shallow blue, spotless. Except for the hump of Orizaba rising white and frozen out of the dim valley. A wave of heat submerged the reef of the morning, spattered the shore, waking the three dirty buzzards limp on the gilt cross of the cathedral. The air was dead and hot. The silence was hot. Nothing moved but the heat. The towers were lovely in the colorless light. Red balconies on white house fronts. Blue balconies on pale-yellow house fronts. Green balconies on paleblue house fronts. The windows were black and empty. Bill said: "I don't know why . . . This place makes me think of Richard Harding Davis." It did. That was curious. . . . The town looked adventurous and not quite real. Dark women began unfurling great white sheets on the balconies to hide the interiors from the direct beat of the sun. It was as though the whole place were getting under sail; an expedition of clumsy ships bound for the low tangle of the foot-hills. The day broke in a tumult of light and color. A column of soldiers in assorted uniforms came abruptly around the custom-house. Two buglers and four drummers played a pagan march of three descending and three rising notes. It was like a dance. We half expected to see the soldiers begin the opening pattern of a ballet, but they relaxed over their rifles and dabbed at their sweated faces. smelling spot where we sat. Going up-a long way-slowly. With great labor like being born again. Difficult to breathe; like being born. Calculating the height The heat struck the back of your neck from the metre marks on the station signs. like a whip-lash. . . . Mexico. The valley falling away; tediously slow; winding up. The mountains turning old II MOUNTAINS ON the way up . . . Along the sky-line, black still mountains. The heat still lay in the car, it hung like a great banner from the rear. Dust and heat flung back to the shore, toward Vera Cruz. Rapidly ascending, the twin converging rails. At a station all the passengers bought gardenias. The car smelled like a perfumery shop on the Rue Royal, like a rich sick garden. Every one had a lapful of the ivory, sweet flowers. On the way up . . . The near mountains were friendly green. In the distance the mountains turned blue. And then black. An immense bowl with a green bottom, a blue band, a black rim. Filled with clouds. And a tiny sweet and barren; dying at the peaks. The continual death. Dead a long time Far below, the living valley of bright green. Up there, a keen wind blowing among the dead bones of mountains. Clouds and rain bursting. All the time the car smelling like a wan perfumed woman. No more heat. The hot banner torn loose. Torn out of a warm womb into a thin cold living Along the sky-line, black still mountains; east, south, north, west. Old, bitter mountains, weary of the game-squatting on the edge of the world. Watching the Aztecs building their pyramids. Watching the Spaniards building their cathedrals. Watching us taking photographs of the pyramids and the cathedrals. Having a good laugh at all of us . . . He knelt in the middle of the pavement, his blind head back thrown.-Page 462. the cool mountain wind. Stupid little song-birds in wicker cages, all sleeping. Ojos de China, slant dark eyes; the lids half folded like dark thin wings: folded on her cheeks. . . Dreaming of the "States," longing to go to the "States." Eighteen years old and crazy to go to Boston, to Chicago, to New York, and Philadelphia. With small hands amber color, and amber skin. Querida! In the tortilleria with the fancy name, the dark women pat the dough, sounding applause. Pat-pat-pat-pat. Applauding her dream; the sad-eyed women who never had been beyond San Angel or Xochimilco. . . . "Woman is to give love to that one she love. How she know who she love if navar she go nowhere?" Moon, the mountains; over the dust of Montezuma, the lost bones of Cortez, the remembered beauty of Carlotta, the stupid grandeur of Diaz, along the windworn valley to the jungle, Orizaba, heatdrugged Vera Cruz-where the boats go north to New York and Boston and Philadelphia-the "States". . . In the "States"-Muchas cosas felices . . Restlessness in the hearts of women the world over. Restlessness in her heart, Mexican child-woman. . . . "I do not want to do no nothing. Sit and sew all day. And wait." . . . Pat-pat-pat-pat. The dark women flattening the silver cakes of the tortilla in their dusky hands. "Tsst"-to the black cat at her ankles "We go north someday." Drinking bit |