Santa Fé had becomeinexpressibly dull to
her.
No, no, cried the prisoner, it is more than that!
The man bowed to her as she sat in her hooded cart witha seat.
Didnt you wish to return whence you came even then?
Her mind travelled backward and forwardinto the remote past and into the not so
distant future. There were two white women with children.
The whites had arranged themselves asbest they
could in another corner. The viceroy knew exactlywhat to do with both. Inthe archway
beyond there was a faint play of shadows and in thedistance the rumble of wheels.
The summer waned, and thenights began to become uncomfortably cold.
They buriedCarlton that night with the ghostly
Indians standing around. The colonel turned away without noticing Salezar, although
hesaluted several times. And this was also the last time in hislife that he lay in
the dust and wept.
And he had shotHidalgo last, on the last day of the
month, at Chihuahua.
What are we goingto do if these people keep on
coming? She had neverreally been able to share destiny with anyone. At one end of it
the Indians satstoically upon the stones.
It would be just like You, he said, to send me to
hell for itnow You are finished with me. Theylooked gaunt but were playing eagerly,
although one little girl waspainfully lame. Then, as ifcool fingers had stroked him,
one side of it became still with theeye closed. His two young boys tookthemselves
along manfully, but were too small to help. She looked about her in the moonlight as
though searchingfor Him. Perhaps, the kind of work they were needed to do was
over?
Perhaps, that was what he had been waiting
for.
His feelings and actions were both cruel and
confused.
Itwas her curiosity to see what would happen that
finally tipped thescales for her decision. The child would sleep and hewould plod on
mechanically, one foot after the other. Don Luis got into his litter with great
difficulty and was carriedhome. It seemed inevitable to Don Luis that Sancho should
have been treedlike a cat.
Van Ness and Griffith, two of the Texans,actually
tried to sing a little. Tomorrow he would pass through its gates.
My baby is going to die, she said simply. It was
only in the presence of prisoners that he felthimself to be superior. An air of
quiet friendliness pervadedthe sunny patio of the bare adobe cárcel.