Six days are not many when they are lived with companions and the numberless details of one's everyday occupation. They may seem a month if you pass them in jail, or in waiting for some great event,--or at Sinkhole Camp, down near the Border.
Three days of the six Johnny spent in familiarizing himself with the two or three detached horse herds that watered along the meager little stream that sunk finally under a ledge and was seen no more in Arizona. He counted the horses as best he could while they loitered at their watering places, and he noticed where they fed habitually--also that they ranged far and usually came in to water in the late afternoon or closer to dusk, when the yellow-jackets that swarmed along the muddy banks of the stream did not worry them so much, nor the flies that were a torment.
He reported by telephone to his employer, who seemed relieved to know that everything was so quiet and untroubled down at that end of his range. And once, quite inadvertently, he reported to Mary V; or was going to, when he recognized a feminine note in the masculine gruffness that spoke over the wire. And when she found he had discovered her:
"Oh, Johnny! I've thought of another verse!" she began animatedly.
Johnny hung up, and although the telephone rang twice after that he would not answer. It seemed to him that Mary V had very little to do, harping away still at that subject. He had been secretly a bit homesick for the ranch, but now he thanked heaven, emphatically enough to make up for any lack of sincerity, that he was where he was.
He got out his aviation circulars again and went over them one by one, though he could almost repeat them with his eyes' shut. He tried to dream of future greatness, but instead he could only feel depressed and hopeless. It would take a long, long time to save enough money to learn the game. And the earning was dreary work at best. The little adobe cabin became straightway a squalid prison, the monotonous waste around him a void that spread like a great, impassable gulf between himself and the dreams he dreamed. He wished, fervently and profanely, that the greasers would try to steal some horses, so that he could be doing something.
People thought the Border was a tumultuous belt of violence drawn from Coast to Gulf, he meditated morosely. They ought to camp at Sinkhole for awhile. Why, he could ride in an hour or two to Mexico--and see nothing more than he could see from the door of his cabin. He wished he could see something. A fight--anything that had action in it. But the revolution, boiling intermittently over there, did not so much as float a wisp of steam in his direction.
He wished that he had not "hung up" on Mary V before he had told her a few things. He couldn't see why she didn't leave him alone. The Lord knew he was willing to leave her alone.
A few days more of that he had before he saw a living soul. Then a Mexican youth came wandering in on a scrawny pony that seemed to have its heart set on drinking the creek dry, before his rider could drink it all. Johnny watched the boy lie down on the flat of his lean stomach with his face to the sluggish stream, and drink as if he, too, were trying to cheat the pony. Together they lifted their heads and looked at Johnny. The Mexican boy smiled, white-toothed, while deep pools of eyes regarded Johnny soberly.
"She's damn hot to-day, senor," he said. "Thank you for the so good water to drink."
"That's all right. Help yourself," Johnny said languidly. "Had your dinner?"
"Not this day. I'm come from Tucker Bly, his rancho. I ride to see if horses feed quiet."
"Well, come in and eat. I cooked some peaches this morning."
The youth went eagerly, his somewhat stilted English easing off into a mixture of good American slang and the Mexican dialect spoken by peons and some a grade higher up the ladder. He was not more than seventeen, and while Johnny recalled his instructions to put any greaser on the run, he took the liberty of interpreting those instructions to please himself. This kid was harmless enough. He talked the range gossip that proved to Johnny's satisfaction that he was what he professed to be--a young rider for Tucker Bly, who owned the "Forty-Seven" brand that ranged just east of the Rolling R. Johnny had never seen this Tomaso--plain Tom, he called him presently--but he knew Tucker Bly; and a few leading questions served to set at rest any incipient suspicions Johnny may have had.
They were doing the same work, he and Tomaso. The only difference was that Johnny camped alone, and Tomaso rode out from the Forty-Seven ranch every day, taking whatever direction Tucker Bly might choose for him. But the freemasonry of the range land held Johnny to the feeling that there was a common bond between them, in spite of Tomaso's swarthy skin. Besides, he was lonely. His tongue loosened while Tomaso ate and praised Johnny's cookery with the innate flattery of his race.
"Wha's that pic'shur? What you call that thing?" Tomaso pointed a slender, brown finger at a circular heading, whereon a pink aeroplane did a "nose dive" toward the date line through voluted blue clouds.
"That? Say! Didn't you ever see a flying machine?" Johnny stared at him pityingly.
Tomaso shook his head vaguely. "Me, I'm never saw one of them things. My brother, he's tell me. He knows the spot where there's one fell down. My brother, he says she's awful bad luck, them thing. This-a one, she's fell 'cross the line. She's set there like a big hawk, my brother says. Nobody wants. She's bad luck."
"Bad luck nothing." Johnny's eyes had widened a bit. "What you mean, one fell across the line? You don't mean--say what 'n thunder do yuh mean? Where's there a flying machine setting like a hawk?"
Tomaso waved a brown hand comprehensively from east to west. "Somewhere--me, I dunno. My brother, he's know. He's saw it set there. It's what them soldiers got lost. It's bad luck. Them soldiers most dead when somebody find. They don't know where that thing is no more. They don't want it no more. My brother, she's tol' me them soldiers flew like birds and then they fell down. It's bad luck. My brother took one hammer from that thing, and one pliers. Them hammer, she's take a nail off my brother's thumb. And them pliers, she's lost right away."
Johnny's hand trembled when he tried to shake a little tobacco into a cigarette paper. His lips, too, quivered slightly. But he laughed unbelievingly.
"Your brother was kidding you, Tom. Nobody would go off and leave an airplane setting in the desert. Those soldiers that got lost were away over east of here. Three or four hundred miles. He was kidding you."
"No-o, my brother, she's saw that thing! She's hunt cattle what got across, and she's saw that what them soldiers flew. Me, I know." He looked at Johnny appraisingly, hesitated and leaned forward, impelled yet not quite daring to give the proof.
"Well, what do you know?" Johnny returned the look steadfastly.
"You don't tell my brother--I--" He fumbled in his trousers pocket, hesitated a little longer, and grew more trustful. "Them pliers--I'm got."
He laid them on the table, and Johnny let his stool tilt forward abruptly on its four legs. He took up the pliers, examined them with one eye squinted against the smoke of his cigarette, weighed them in his hand, bent to read the trade-mark. Then he looked at Tomaso. Those pliers may or may not have come from the emergency kit of an airplane, but they certainly were not of the kind or quality that ranchmen were in the habit of owning. To Johnny they looked convincing. When he had an airplane of his own, he would find a hundred uses for a pair of pliers exactly like those.
"I thought you said your brother lost 'em," he observed drily.
Tomaso shrugged, flung out his hands, smiled with his lips, and frowned with his eyes. "S'pose he did lost. Somebody could find."
Johnny laughed. "All right; we'll let it ride that way. I ain't going to tell your brother. Want to sell 'em?"
Tomaso took up the pliers, caressed their bright steel with his long fingers, nipped them open and shut.
"What you pay me?" he countered.
"Two bits."
Tomaso turned them over, gazed upon them fondly. He shook his head regretfully. "No quero. Them pliers, she's bueno," he said. "You could find more things. My brother, she's tell lots of things is where that sets like a hawk. Lots of things. You don't tell my brother?"
"Sure not. I don't want the things anyway. And I don't know your brother."
Tomaso thoughtfully nipped the pliers upon the oilcloth table cover. He looked at the airplane picture, he looked at Johnny. He sighed.
"Me, I'm like see those thing fly like birds. I'm like see that what sets over there. My brother, she's tell me it's so big like here to that water hole. She's tell me some day it maybe flies. I go see it some day."
Johnny laughed. "You'll have some trip if you do. You take it from me, Tom, I don't know your brother, but I know he was kiddin' you. It was away over east of here that those fellows got lost."
After Tomaso had mounted reluctantly and ridden away, however, Johnny discovered himself faced southward, staring off toward Mexico. It was just a yarn, about that airplane over there. Of course there was nothing in it--nothing whatever. He didn't believe for a minute that an airplane was sitting like a hawk on the sands a few miles to the south of him. He didn't believe it--but he pictured to himself just how it would look, and he played a little with the idea. It was something new to think about, and Johnny straightway built himself a dream around it.
Riding the ridges in the lesser heat of the early mornings, his physical eyes looked out over the meager range, spying out the scattered horse herds grazing afar, their backs just showing above the brush. Behind his eyes his mind roved farther, visioning a military plane sitting, inert but with potentialities that sent his mind dizzy, on the hot sand of Mexico--so close that he could almost see the place where it sat.
This was splendid food for Johnny's imagination, for his ambitions even, though it was not particularly good for the Rolling R. He was not bothered much. Evenings, the foreman or Sudden would usually call him up and ask him how things were. Johnny would say that everything was all right, and had the stage driver made a mistake and left any of his mail at the ranch? Because he had been to the mail box on the trail and there was nothing there. The speaker at the ranch would assure him that nothing had been left there for him, and the ceremony would be over.
Johnny was fussy about his mail. He had spent twenty-five dollars for a correspondence course in aviation, and he wanted to begin studying. He did not know how he could learn to fly by mail, but he was a trustful youth in some ways--he left that for the school to solve for him.
Tomaso rode over again in a few days. This time he had a mysterious looking kind of wrench in his pocket, and he showed it to Johnny with a glimmer of triumph.
"Me, I'm saw that thing what flies. Only now it sets. It's got wheels in front--little small wheels. Dos--two. My brother, he's show me. I'm find thees wranch. It's got wings out, so." Tomaso spread his two arms. "Some day, I'm think she's fly. When wind blows."
Johnny felt a little tremor go over him, but he managed to laugh. "All right; you've been looking at the pictures. If you saw it, tell me about it. What makes it go?"
Tomaso shook his head. "She don't go," he said. "She sets."
"All right. She sets, then. What on,--back of the wheels? You said two wheels in front. What holds up the back?"
"One small, little leg like my arm," Tomaso answered unhesitatingly. "Like my arm and my hand--so. Iron."
Johnny's eyes widened a trifle, but he would not yield. "Well, where do men ride on it? On which wing?"
"Men don't," Tomaso contradicted solemnly. "Men sets down like in little, small boat. Me, I'm set there. With wheel for drive like automobile. With engine like automobile. My brother, she's try starting that engine. She's don't go. Got no crank nowhere. She's got no gas. Me, I'm scare my brother starts that engine. I'm jomp down like hell. I'm scare I maybe would fly somewhere and fall down and keel. No importa. She's jus' sets."
Johnny turned white around the mouth, but he shook his head. "Pretty good, Tommy. But you better look out. If there's a flying machine over there, it belongs to the government. You better leave it alone. There's other folks know about it, and maybe watching it."
Tomaso shook his head violently. "Por dios, my brother she's fin' out about that," he said. "She's don't tell nobody, only me. She's fin' out them hombres what ride that theeng, they go loco for walking too much in sand and don't get no water. Them hombres, they awful sick, they don't know where is that thing what flies. My brother, she's fin' out that thing sets in Mexico, belongs Mexico. Thees countree los'. Jus' like ship what's los' on ocean, my brother she's tell from writing. My brother, she's smart hombre. She's keep awful quiet, tell nobody. She's theenk sell that thing for flying."
"Huh!" Johnny grunted. "What you telling me about it for? Your brother'd skin yuh alive if he caught you blabbing it all out to me."
Tomaso looked a little scared and uneasy. He dropped his eyes and began poking a hole in the sand with his toe. Then he looked up very candidly into Johnny's face.
"Me, I'm awful lonesome," he explained. "I'm riding here and I'm see you jus' like friend. You boy like me. You got picshurs them thing what flies. You tell me you don't say nothing for my brother when I'm tell you that things sets over there." He waved a dirty, brown hand to the southward. "Me, I'm trus' you. Tha's secret what I'm tell. You don't tell no-body. You promise?"
"All right. I promise." Very gravely Johnny made the sign of the cross over his heart.
Tomaso's eyes lightened at that. More gravely than Johnny he crossed himself--forehead, lips, breast. He murmured a solemn oath in Spanish, and afterwards put out his hand to shake, American fashion. All this impressed Johnny more than had the detailed description of the thing which sat.
If he still laughed at the story, his laugh was not particularly convincing. Nor was his jibing tone when he called after Tomaso when that youth was riding away:
"Tell your brother I might buy his flying machine--if he'll sell it cheap!"
