Children of the Desert. Louis Dodge

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       Louis Dodge

      Children of the Desert

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066161231

Table of Contents

       PART I

       HARBORO AND SYLVIA

       PART II

       THE TIME OF FLAME

       PART III

       FECTNOR, THE PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

       PART IV

       THE HORSE WITH THE GOLDEN DAPPLES

       PART V

       A WIND FROM THE NORTH

       PART VI

       THE GUEST-CHAMBER

       PART VII

       SYLVIA

PART I

       Table of Contents

HARBORO AND SYLVIA

       Table of Contents

      Children of the Desert

      CHAPTER I

      They were married in the little Episcopal church in Eagle Pass on a September day in the late eighties. The fact may be verified, I have no doubt, by any who will take the trouble to examine the records, for the toy-like place of worship still stands.

      The church structure is not, perhaps, so small as my imagination presents it to me; but I cannot see it save with the desert as a background—the desert austere and illimitable. You reach the prim little front door by climbing a street which runs parallel with the Rio Grande, and the church is almost the last structure you will pass before you set forth into a No-Man’s land of sage and cactus and yucca and mesquite lying under the blazing sun.

      Harboro his name was. Of course, there was a Christian name, but he was known simply as Harboro from Piedras Negras to the City. She was Sylvia Little. Sylvia, people called her, both before and after her marriage. The Little might as well never have belonged to her.

      Although neither Harboro nor Sylvia really belonged to Eagle Pass, the wedding was an event. Both had become familiar figures in the life of the town and were pretty well known. Their wedding drew a large and interested audience. (I think the theatrical phrase is justified, as perhaps will be seen.) Weddings were not common in the little border town, unless you counted the mating of young Mexicans, who were always made one by the priest in the adobe church closer to the river. Entertainment of any kind was scarce. But there were other and more significant reasons why people wanted to see the bride and the bridegroom, when Harboro gave his name to the woman of his choice.

      The young people belonging to some sort of church guild had decorated the church, and special music had been prepared. And indeed when Harboro and Sylvia marched up the aisle to the strains of the Lohengrin march (the bridegroom characteristically trying to keep step, and Sylvia ignoring the music entirely), it was not much to be wondered at that people craned their necks to get the best possible view. For both Harboro and the woman were in a way extraordinary individuals.

      Harboro was forty, and seemed in certain aspects older than that. He was a big man, well built, and handsome after a fashion. He was swarthy, with dark eyes which seemed to meditate, if not to dream. His hair was raven-black, and he wore a heavy mustache which stopped just short of being unduly conspicuous. It was said of him that he talked little, but that he listened keenly. By trade he was a railroad man.

      He had been heard to remark on one occasion that he had begun as a brakeman, but there were rumors of adventurous days before he became a member of a train crew. It was said that he had gone prospecting into Mexico as a youth, and that he had spent years working at ends and odds of jobs about mines and smelters. Probably he had hoped to get into something in a big way.

      However, he had finally turned to railroading, and in the course of uncertain events had become an engineer. It was a year or two after he had attained this position that he had been required to haul a special train from Torreon to Piedras Negras. The General Manager of the Mexican International Railroad was on that train, and he took occasion to talk to the engineer. The result pleased him mightily. In his engine clothes Harboro looked every inch a man. There was something clean and level about his personality which couldn’t have been hid under a sarape. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the General Manager, making the latter look like a manikin, and talked about his work and the condition of the road and the rolling stock. He talked easily and listened intelligently. He was grave in an easy fashion. He took no liberties, cracked no jokes.

      The General Manager got the idea that the big fellow would be a good man to stand shoulder to shoulder with in larger events than a special trip.

      When he got back to headquarters he made a casual inquiry or two, and discovered that Harboro wrote an exceptionally good hand, and that he spelled correctly. He assumed that he was an educated man—though this impression may have been largely due to the fact that Harboro was keenly interested in a great variety of things, and had a good memory.

      The General Manager waited for certain wheels to turn, and then he sent for Harboro and offered him a position as chief clerk in one of the headquarter departments.

      Harboro accepted the position, and said “Thank you,” and proved to be uncommonly competent.

      The people of Piedras Negras took a liking to him; the women wanted to get acquainted with him. He was invited to places, and he accepted the invitations without either belittling or magnifying their importance. He got on rather well from the beginning.

      The social affairs of Piedras Negras were sometimes on a fairly large scale. The General Manager had his winter residence there—a meticulously cultivated demain which lay like a blue spot in a cloudy sky. There were grass and palms and, immediately beyond, the vast desert. At night (on occasion) there were Chinese lanterns to add their cheerful note to pretty revelries, while the stars lay low and big over all the desert expanse. The General Manager’s wife had prominent social affiliations, and she used to bring winter guests from the north and east—from Chicago and New York and Boston. There were balls and musicales,