Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [127]
They rode alongside Delfino for a while, listened to him softly whistle an impromptu tune. “How I’d like to have my feet in front of a nice big fire,” he said.
“This time tomorrow night you will,” said Ariel.
“More likely they’ll be in the fire,” said Marcos, which made her laugh.
At four or so, their clothes began to collect moisture. The huge moon had set. Some matin bird threw itself in bursts through the murk before them, unseen, unheard, noted perhaps by the scant draft it displaced in the otherwise utter stillness. The mountains, their contours discernible now in that they possessed one quality of black, a heavy unrelieved plane of pure lightlessness, while the sky bore another shade, much bluer, backlit, grained with stars—these mountains aptly called oscura—ranged close by.
Time passed in jerks and fragments through the night, as one or another of them dozed off, head resting on the leather pommel or rocking forward, chin on chest. The dew that dampened their thighs and shoulders now felt cold on their faces. Gwinn Tank they passed two hours ago, and Nabor’s came by now as they cut back up a washboard road, a rutted trail all but erased by wind and rain, toward Helms Tank, which marked the last leg of the journey. They would arrive around dawn, a little after. Whether they’d arrive alone remained to be seen, but Delfino guessed they were still untracked. Otherwise they’d have been greeted by a cadre of rangers on the western brim of the malpais when they emerged, wouldn’t they? He put any hopeful thoughts aside as soon as he conjured them, though. No easier way to bring trouble on your head than to presume its improbability.
Winds began to kick up, harbinger of daybreak. Stretches of sky along the serrated vista—pale, ardent blues and reds—started to gleam. Neon pinks, dim at first, soon would prosper, flourishing toward turquoise, and then the clear horizon would conceive banks of prodigious muscular clouds. Quickening morning breezes coming off the mountains roused the travelers.
“Not far now,” Delfino told no one in particular.
First sight of it came in late dawnlight. Marcos fell back with the packhorse. The possibility that Kip might be nearby made Ariel feel suddenly very wide awake. Alert, she breathed in hard and the landscape crystallized before her. But there appeared to be no one at Dripping Spring other than themselves. She tightened her grip on the reins, bringing her horse to a halt, and allowed Delfino to ride up first.
The old windmill still stood, its tail flap looking like the wing of some great russet bird, several windblades dangling, breast feathers ruffled in a blow. That was what she saw before anything else. Then, as they moved across the smooth flats of the low mesa, the rest of the ranch came into view. Its colors were those of the land in which it sat, and so it was discernible mostly by its forms, the collection of man-made angles in a place of natural faults, needles, jumbles, crests, scarps. The porch had collapsed. The tin roof, scalloped like a shell along its fore edges, remained intact but was rusted to the color of a rotten orange. It sat like an origami children’s hat, boat-shaped and sideways on its rectangular adobe head. Gutters for rain collection clung to the eaves, and dusty vegetation clung to the rain gutters. Window frames still had traces of green paint on the weathered wood. The house was surrounded by a low stone wall. Delfino tied up his horse, but before he began inspecting the hacienda, he tugged at a pile of metal sheets on the ground at the base of the windmill.
Marcos asked Ariel how she was faring.
“Okay,” she answered gamely, climbing down. He helped her tie her horse, and together they got the pack animal unburdened. “What’s your uncle doing?”
“I expect he’s looking to see if the well’s got water.”
“You think I can shout now?”
Marcos said, “Don’t see why not. We’re here,