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I · Conquistador

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  Section one of Conquistador. This is a Liberox recording. All Liberox recordings are
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  in the public domain from information of the volunteer. These visit librox dot org.
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  Conquistador by Catherine Fullerton Gerold One politics which the planet over are the fly
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  in the amber, the worm of the bird. The rift in the lute
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  had, with great suddenness deprived Wharton Cameron of a job. The little spur
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  line destined to link Hermicio with the Santa Rosa mine would have looked to a
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  low flying aviator like a fossil slug track, a queer, little snaky excoriation
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  of the soil stared at from the sere, uncomfortable earth itself. As Wharton
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  Cameron was privileged in his loneliness to stare at it, it was more promising,
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  yet more pathetic to the young engineer's eye. The scarring of the soil,
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  their sketchwork of tithes and steel that led up to railhead, not far
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  beyond the very clutter of pickaxes and shovels, and the specks in the middle
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  distance that were happy abandoned mules, meant something. He knew to the last
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  detail what had been done and what remained to do that a particular section of
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  the state of Sonora this hot morning, the railroad meant just nothing except the
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  thing to get away from as fast as possible, lest Hernando Luca should suspect
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  the next day's payroll. Of being already on the spot, the personnel of
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  the Pharaoh Carille Dihamisio Is Santa Rosa, bonds already issued, had decamped to
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  its villages with unseemly and unnatural speed. Hernando Luca had arrived in the vicinity,
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  flashing through the defiles of the Sierra from western Chihuahua, and no one
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  wished to be within scope of his raidings. They did not, even on
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  suspicion of their wages lying in some snug corner of Signor Cameron's corrugated iron office,
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  which to be paid before they went. They passionately desired, indeed,
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  not only the appearance but the reality of indigence, and Ande Luca was well
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  known. As for the central government, it was less central than CenTra petl
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  al Presidente, far off in Mexico City, withdrew further and further monthly from
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  Sonora and all its ways and works. Without going to the psychology of the
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  mixed breeds that had participated in the building of the pharaoh Caildi hermasieu is Santa
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  rosa railhead, being at this time fifteen good miles from hermacieux, who may
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  say that no man has ever been more solitary physically and spiritually than Wharton Cameron
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  gazing at his deserted and senseless railway. It had not occurred even to Pedro
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  Gonsilas, his right hand man and a mestizo, who fancied himself above a
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  bid to probe the obvious imbecility of his young gringo chiefs. Remaining on the
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  spot, Pedro saddled the best mule he could find and did not burden himself
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  with any of the plans and documents that yesterday had been the pride of his
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  soul. Even Wharton Cameron knew as he lingered that this was one of the
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  occasions when it is fatal for man to be alone. Americans were Lucas's favorite
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  meat, and at present extremely scarce in Mexico. Cameron's taking over the spur
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  line had been a sporting proposition no one had guaranteed in proper assistance or an
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  easy time. The plans were all right, it has started out under the
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  best professional auspices. Then things had happened politics Wharton Cameron had been faced with
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  the necessity of deciding whether he would withdraw like his richer and more experienced compatriots,
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  or stick on and put it through with mestizo help trained, of course,
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  but mestizo, as had been amply proved in the recent exodus. He
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  lingered that morning, not because he was a fool, but because he did
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  not know what to do. And when you do not know what to do,
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  you grow sentimentally of what might have been the railway stretching there, unfinished,
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  impotent before him, might have been a man's job, the sort of
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  thing that makes rich furnishing for memory. Now it was nothing unless forsaken picks
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  and shovels could be used to break heads with They were low at the moment,
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  Thank heaven on dynamite. At last, with a sigh, he sauntered
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  over to his ignoble headquarters, hoping that if Pedro had burdened himself at all,
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  it had been with money rather than with cartridges. To his amused relief,
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  he found that Pedro must have ridden light. Some of the payroll was
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  gone, but small cash is heavy, and the bulk of it, in
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  both senses was there. Pedro had helped himself more generously to ammunition, though
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  plenty was left still an uncertainty. Cameron stared out of the unglazed window to
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  the south, and three minutes he turned quickly shocked out of lethargy into free
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  action. Those thin spirals of smoke on the horizon of Zubiateway meant only one
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  thing, who was suddenly very glad to be alone. Having no one to
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  help meant also having no one to console. He stowed away mechanically a little
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  money in his belt, but considering cartridges and food a better ballast even than
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  gold for one in his position, he spent most of his attention on them.
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  Taking the saddle bags outside, he fetched his horse saddled and packed them
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  for departure, then tethered him in the lee of the hut. Returning to
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  the window, Cameron marked again the dim spirals on the horizon. It was
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  high time for him to be off in another direction, but he, being
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  what he was, had to do something to show as contempt for everything south
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  of the Rio Grande, as well as his contempt for himself for being on
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  the wrong side of that historic stream. His gesture was characteristically to grab a
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  shovel and tunnel under one of the amount of sand by the track. He
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  worked quickly and sweated freely. In a quarter of an hour. The money
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  bags lay beneath the mound, and no one could have guessed which of those
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  processional piles of sand concealed them. Indeed, no one could have guessed anything.
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  If Pedro told Pedro himself would have to hunt, there was no sign
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  of digging. Cameron went back then and mounted his horse. As I need
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  most now is an alibi, he murmured himself, and in pursuance of that
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  advice, headed his mount northeast, passed railhead towards the network of canyons that
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  the engineers of the faroh Carilde Hermas yeo Is Santa Rosa had spent careful months
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  in planning to avoid. He could not tell what awaited him there, but
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  it was a case where eustere as clear as possible of anything and everything human.
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  By his pistol and cartridges. He had taken nothing from cab except the
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  food in the saddle bags, which might at any moment have to be abandoned,
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  together with his horse. Apart from the pistol and the cash and the
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  cartridges in his belt, hid nothing on his person except clothes, wrist,
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  watch, knife, compass, pipe, and certain papers, which, being
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  homeless, he aws carried with him. He was also provided with an excellent
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  memory. Thus equipped, Wharton Cameron headed into the hills. If Wharton Cameron
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  had been able to reach Texas, it is more than probable that he would
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  have done so, the feet being quite out of the question. However,
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  he permitted his mind to dally with other possibilities. If he pushed ever northeastward,
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  it was not simply to get away from the abominable cuimate of Hermacio and
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  his environs, not even to remove himself from Hernando Luca's stamping ground. It
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  was because over there, where Sonora melt into northern Schiuaa, he had a
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  conceivable objective. Not only his compass, but the papers in their worn leather
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  case, which lay in his inner breast pocket, pointed the way. He
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  did not stay long in the hills, though he sheered off from the larger
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  towns. In the first village, he changed into Mexican clothes of the sort
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  worn by the mestizo ranchero, packing his khaki outfit into the saddle bags,
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  the high peaked hat in the serape, together with his fluent Mexican Spanish,
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  make it possible for him to go anywhere, even to their hacienda. Whether
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  he was somewhat circutuitously tending the clothes had been his one worry, and they
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  were easily acquired at dusk, with words coming easily, pistols showing and quality
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  and fit no earthly consideration to the purchaser. What, and Cameron reasoned with
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  himself as follows could he have chosen? He would have chosen without doubt what
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  he called the right side of the Rio grande. But situated as he was,
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  there seemed no human chance of his getting through. His own country was
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  not at the moment in a position to protect its nationals in a neighboring state
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  that he had known when he elected to go with the pharaoh Carilde HERMASIOI Santa
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  Rosa. Everyone had warned him to stand from under because he was young and
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  foolish, and it was his first railway. He'd invited his superiors to wash
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  their hands of him. With a clear conscience. They had done so.
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  It was now inevitable that he should live for a time or die in Mexico.
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  He had no desire for a brush of Villa's scouts. His situation,
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  who was inclined to believe was or presently would be desperate. He was a
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  gentleman at large, but if he perished, it would at least be in
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  the course of satisfying an old but troublous curiosity. Since he couldn't get back
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  to the States, he would by hook or crook goes through to the hacienda
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  of Santa Eulalia. Indeed, it was his only alternative. Caroon put it
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  to himself in that way to save his Anglo Saxon face. Yet he knew
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  perfectly that except for Santa Eulalia, he would not have come to Hermasio and
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  its very carille at all. Except for Santa Eulalia, he would have headed
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  recently Luca or No Luca, not for the Sierra, but for Guimus and
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  a coasting schooner. Except for that unknown, unseen hacienda, he would not
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  be wearing sombrero and serape at this moment. He would have faced every devil
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  in Mega in his khaki shirt and breeches and his battered yet impeccable stetson.
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  Why had he, since he was orphan to t eighteen, carried those papers
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  on his person, never separating himself from them for a day. Santa Eulalia,
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  nothing else. He looked like a creole, as he'd always known,
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  and Spanish had accompanied all his youth. It had been of little use to
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  him at Harvard except for freer swearing, as his creole looks had been of
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  no use except in amateur theatricals. But they had been of use to him
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  on the Faro Caille, and in nearing Santa Ulalia they would be of use
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  one hundredfold. He patted the thin wall beneath his coat, those papers.
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  His destiny turned out neck and crop perhaps, but he'd always meant to see
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  the hacienda once big cattle rangers. He had heard well, he knew cattle,
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  all that stuff, Shakespeare and mathematics and choosing her career, and his
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  good friends and classmates, and the yard, and Wharton Cameron, nice boy,
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  and learning to be an engineer had come later the yard in spring,
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  and dorry Man with a chaperon. The quick vigil memory puckered his face for
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  an instant, almost not quite with humor. He flung his serapee deafly about
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  his shoulders and face, and muttered a cynicism in Spanish. Who'd come to
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  grips with that hacienda? The papers were in his pocket. Warton Cameron,
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  an obvious creole in cheap poccuro clothes, set his jaw as the Camerons have
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  always set their jaws. Santa Eulalia, who had reached it, And behold
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  with his own eyes he carried his letter of introduction with them, if not
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  in his face, in the thin wallet, if in spite of all he
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  were not welcomed, Oh hell, I'm an American, said Wharton Cameron,
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  and rode on caballerro every inch end of Section one read by a girl