the Light Of Western Stars (1992) (66 page)

The white, narrow road flashed out of the foreground, slipped with inconceivable rapidity under the car
.
When she marked a clump of cactus far ahead it seemed to shoot at her, to speed behind her even the instant she noticed it
.
Nevertheless, Madeline knew Link was not putting the car to its limit
.
Swiftly as he was flying, he held something in reserve
.
But he took the turns of the road as if he knew the way was cleared before him
.
He trusted to a cowboy's luck
.
A wagon in one of those curves, a herd of cattle, even a frightened steer, meant a wreck
.
Madeline never closed her eyes at these fateful moments
.
If Link could stake himself, the others, and her upon such chance, what could not she stake with her motive?So while the great car hummed and thrummed, and darted round the curves on two wheels, and sped on like a bullet, Madeline lived that ride, meant to feel it to the uttermost
.

But it was not all swift going
.
A stretch of softer ground delayed Link, made the car labor and pant and pound and grind through gravel
.
Moreover, the cactus plants assumed an alarming ability to impede progress
.
Long, slender arms of the ocotillo encroached upon the road; broad, round leaves did likewise; fluted columns, fallen like timbers in a forest, lay along the narrow margins; the bayonet cactus and the bisnagi leaned threateningly; clusters of maguey, shadowed by the huge, looming saguaro, infringed upon the highway to Mezquital
.
And every leaf and blade and branch of cactus bore wicked thorns, any one of which would be fatal to a tire
.

It came at length, the bursting report
.
The car lurched, went on like a crippled thing, and halted, obedient to the master hand at the wheel
.
Swift as Link was in replacing the tire, he lost time
.
The red sun, more sullen, duskier as it neared the black, bold horizon, appeared to mock Madeline, to eye her in derision
.

Link leaped in, and the car sprang ahead
.
The road-bed changed, the trees changed-all the surroundings changed except the cactus
.
There were miles of rolling ridges, rough in the hollows, and short rocky bits of road, and washes to cross, and a low, sandy swale where mesquites grouped a forest along a trickling inch-deep sheet of water
.
Green things softened the hard, dry aspect of the desert
.
There were birds and parrots and deer and wild boars
.
All these Madeline remarked with clear eyes, with remarkable susceptibility of attention; but what she strained to see, what she yearned for, prayed for, was straight, unobstructed road
.

But the road began to wind up; it turned and twisted in tantalizing lazy curves; it was in no hurry to surmount a hill that began to assume proportions of a mountain; it was leisurely, as were all things in Mexico except strife
.
That was quick, fierce, bloody-it was Spanish
.

The descent from that elevation was difficult, extremely hazardous, yet Link Stevens drove fast
.
At the base of the hill rocks and sand all but halted him for good
.
Then in taking an abrupt curve a grasping spear ruined another tire
.
This time the car rasped across the road into the cactus, bursting the second front-wheel tire
.
Like demons indeed Link and Nels worked
.
Shuddering, Madeline felt the declining heat of the sun, saw with gloomy eyes the shading of the red light over the desert
.
She did not look back to see how near the sun was to the horizon
.
She wanted to ask Nels
.
Strange as anything on this terrible ride was the absence of speech
.
As yet no word had been spoken
.
Madeline wanted to shriek to Link to hurry
.
But he was more than humanly swift in all his actions
.
So with mute lips, with the fire in her beginning to chill, with a lifelessness menacing her spirit, she watched, hoped against hope, prayed for a long, straight, smooth road
.

Quite suddenly she saw it, seemingly miles of clear, narrow lane disappearing like a thin, white streak in distant green
.
Perhaps Link Stevens's heart leaped like Madeline's
.
The huge car with a roar and a jerk seemed to answer Madeline's call, a cry no less poignant because it was silent
.

Faster, faster, faster!The roar became a whining hum
.
Then for Madeline sound ceased to be anything-she could not hear
.
The wind was now heavy, imponderable, no longer a swift, plastic thing, but solid, like an on-rushing wall
.
It bore down upon Madeline with such resistless weight that she could not move
.
The green of desert plants along the road merged in two shapeless fences, sliding at her from the distance
.
Objects ahead began to blur the white road, to grow streaky, like rays of light, the sky to take on more of a reddening haze
.

Madeline, realizing her sight was failing her, turned for one more look at Link Stevens
.
It had come to be his ride almost as much as it was hers
.
He hunched lower than ever, rigid, strained to the last degree, a terrible, implacable driver
.
This was his hour, and he was great
.
If he so much as brushed a flying tire against one of the millions of spikes clutching out, striking out from the cactus, there would be a shock, a splitting wave of air-an end
.
Madeline thought she saw that Link's bulging cheek and jaw were gray, that his tight-shut lips were white, that the smile was gone
.
Then he really was human-not a demon
.
She felt a strange sense of brotherhood
.
He understood a woman's soul as Monty Price had understood it
.
Link was the lightning-forged automaton, the driving, relentless, unconquerable instrument of a woman's will
.
He was a man whose force was directed by a woman's passion
.
He reached up to her height, felt her love, understood the nature of her agony
.
These made him heroic
.
But it was the hard life, the wild years of danger on the desert, the companionship of ruthless men, the elemental, that made possible his physical achievement
.
Madeline loved his spirit then and gloried in the man
.

She had pictured upon her heart, never to be forgotten, this little hunched, deformed figure of Link's hanging with dauntless, with deathless grip over the wheel, his gray face like a marble mask
.

That was Madeline's last clear sensation upon the ride
.
Blinded, dazed, she succumbed to the demands upon her strength
.
She reeled, fell back, only vaguely aware of a helping hand
.
Confusion seized her senses
.
All about her was a dark chaos through which she was rushing, rushing, rushing under the wrathful red eye of a setting sun
.
Then, as there was no more sound or sight for her, she felt there was no color
.
But the rush never slackened-a rush through opaque, limitless space
.
For moments, hours, ages she was propelled with the velocity of a shooting-star
.
The earth seemed a huge automobile
.
And it sped with her down an endless white track through the universe
.
Looming, ghostly, ghastly, spectral forms of cacti plants, large as pine-trees, stabbed her with giant spikes
.
She became an unstable being in a shapeless, colorless, soundless cosmos of unrelated things, but always rushing, even to meet the darkness that haunted her and never reached her
.

But at an end of infinite time that rush ceased
.
Madeline lost the queer feeling of being disembodied by a frightfully swift careening through boundless distance
.
She distinguished voices, low at first, apparently far away
.
Then she opened her eyes to blurred but conscious sight
.

The car had come to a stop
.
Link was lying face down over the wheel
.
Nels was rubbing her hands, calling to her
.
She saw a house with clean whitewashed wall and brown-tiled roof
.
Beyond, over a dark mountain range, peeped the last red curve, the last beautiful ray of the setting sun
.

XXV - At the End of the Road Madeline saw that the car was surrounded by armed Mexicans
.
They presented a contrast to the others she had seen that day; she wondered a little at their silence, at their respectful front
.

Suddenly a sharp spoken order opened up the ranks next to the house
.
Senor Montes appeared in the break, coming swiftly
.
His dark face wore a smile; his manner was courteous, important, authoritative
.

"Senora, it is not too late!"

He spoke her language with an accent strange to her, so that it seemed to hinder understanding
.

"Senora, you got here in time," he went on
.
"El Capitan Stewart will be free
.
"

"Free!" she whispered
.

She rose, reeling
.

"Come," replied Montes, taking her arm
.
"Perdoneme, Senora
.
"

Without his assistance she would have fallen wholly upon Nels, who supported her on the other side
.
They helped her alight from the car
.
For a moment the white walls, the hazy red sky, the dark figures of the rebels, whirled before Madeline's eyes
.
She took a few steps, swaying between her escorts; then the confusion of her sight and mind passed away
.
It was as if she quickened with a thousand vivifying currents, as if she could see and hear and feel everything in the world, as if nothing could be overlooked, forgotten, neglected
.

She turned back, remembering Link
.
He was lurching from the car, helmet and goggles thrust back, the gray shade gone from his face, the cool, bright gleam of his eyes disappearing for something warmer
.

Senor Montes led Madeline and her cowboys through a hall to a patio, and on through a large room with flooring of rough, bare boards that rattled, into a smaller room full of armed quiet rebels facing an open window
.

Madeline scanned the faces of these men, expecting to see Don Carlos
.
But he was not present
.
A soldier addressed her in Spanish too swiftly uttered, too voluble for her to translate
.
But, like Senor Montes, he was gracious and, despite his ragged garb and uncouth appearance, he bore the unmistakable stamp of authority
.

Montes directed Madeline's attention to a man by the window
.
A loose scarf of vivid red hung from his hand
.

"Senora, they were waiting for the sun to set when we arrived," said Montes
.
"The signal was about to be given for Senor Stewart's walk to death
.
"

"Stewart's walk!" echoed Madeline
.

"Ah, Senora, let me tell you his sentence-the sentence I have had the honor and happiness to revoke for you
.
"

Stewart had been court-martialed and sentenced according to a Mexican custom observed in cases of brave soldiers to whom honorable and fitting executions were due
.
His hour had been set for Thursday when the sun had sunk
.
Upon signal he was to be liberated and was free to walk out into the road, to take any direction he pleased
.
He knew his sentence; knew that death awaited him, that every possible avenue of escape was blocked by men with rifles ready
.
But he had not the slightest idea at what moment or from what direction the bullets were to come
.

"Senora, we have sent messengers to every squad of waiting soldiers-an order that El Capitan is not to be shot
.
He is ignorant of his release
.
I shall give the signal for his freedom
.
"