Gold was reported in the Panamints; a new strike, placer. I always liked placer. It’s a one-man proposition, no great outlay for mill and refinery, no blocking out of ore and looking for capital, no delving underground. And again, I always liked new strikes.
So I flung on the packs, saddled the riding burro and started the trek north. Sometimes I thought of the girl and the two men, and sometimes at night the desert would whisper strange sounds, sentences that seemed to indicate I was to have more of them, was to write a closing chapter to the incident. But I could never make anything more out of it than whispers.
If I was awake enough to listen, I was too awake to understand. If I could make sense out of the sand whispers, it was because my consciousness was dulled with sleep, and I wouldn’t wake up until morning, trying to remember the sand whispers like I would a dream.
The placer proved to be a bunch of hooey, put across by some get-rich-quick mining company that was unloading stock in Los Angeles; but I had to cover half of the Panamints and a shoulder of the Funeral Range before I discovered it was a plant. By that time I was thinking of the border again, and I turned the burros back there.
On the map, if it’s large-scale enough, you’ll find a little place that’s listed as Andrade. It’s on the Colorado, just west of Yuma, where the California boundary takes a jog down the river. And that twenty-odd-mile jog of boundary takes in some of the toughest border country in the States, bar none.
It’s a saying in the customs at Tijuana that the farther east you go the tougher it gets. They have reference to Mexicali. Go to Mexicali and you’ll hear the same thing. The farther east, the tougher the border. They have reference to this jog in the boundary.
Anyway, the place is listed on the map as Andrade. Go there and you’ll find it’s Cantu on one side of the line, and Los Algodones on the other. You won’t find anything that looks like Andrade.
And there’s lots of action at Los Algodones. They say there’s never been a border crew there for six months that didn’t have white hair. The theory is that six months on that post will give any of ’em white hair.
Anyhow, I went to Los Algodones, across the drifting sand hills that never stay put, but march like great white ghosts across the face of the desert. My burros were staked and watered, and I had an evening on my hands. I tried roulette and won, and got tired of it.
The evening begins at Los Algodones at around three o’clock in the afternoon. It’s over by six. Ask any of the wise ones why they don’t keep that section of the border open until nine o’clock, the way they do at Tijuana and Mexicali, and see what he says. If he’s a wise one he’ll say it with a smile. If he uses words, it’s an odds-on shot he won’t be one of the wise ones — or else he’ll be figuring on leaving the border.
I went into the Log Cabin and rubbered around for a while, and then I went to one of the places where the girls hustle drinks for a commission. It’s all done right out in front. A square of dance floor, a greasy-skinned orchestra, a long bar, girls who can flick eyes over a face and classify the character at a glance, and the tourists, suckers, hangers-on and rubbernecks. The girls could play the game straight — or not. Mostly, at Los Algodones there aren’t many tourists.
There I saw her. The same black eyes, just like two moist ripe olives, the same full lips, the same swing to her walk, the same independent poise of her head.
A blowzy kid with staring eyes gave me a level glance of appraisal, then turned away. A cute trick came mincing up to me, talked a few words of baby talk and made a half-hearted attempt to smile winsomely. Then she went away.
The black-eyed kid came over. “Hello, pard.”
“Hello.”
“Looking around?”
“Looking around.”
“Listen, big boy, I’m on the up and up. I’m hustling drinks. If you want to dance give me a chance. I can use the ticket. If you want to drink and want somebody to can the mush and drink alongside of you, I need the coin. If you’re just rubbering don’t waste my time and I won’t waste yours. You look like a guy that knows the ropes and knows what he wants. I’m the kid that hands it to ’em straight.”
I nodded. “We’ll sit at a booth and have a couple of drinks and a talk.”
She jerked her head toward the bartender and walked to a table.
“Here’s mud in your eye,” she said.
I looked her over. “Last time I saw you was when you were being taken to a hospital.”
She straightened a bit.
“Yes?”
“Yes. How did you happen to get into this racket?”
She smiled cheerfully. “None of your damned business!” she answered.
I nodded and drank my beer. She watched me with speculative eyes. “You Bob Zane?”
“Yes; why?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Wondering about the night you lay back of a sand hill and watched a man talking to me?”
“Say, you’re a wise guy, ain’t you?”
“You might be surprised.”
“Not me! ’Nother drink?”
“One more.”
She waved a hand toward the bartender.
He started toward the booth, and the outer door opened. A sloppy man with hard eyes set in a flabby face pushed his stomach through the entrance.
“That’s my call,” said the girl. “Sorry, Bob Zane, but you’re ditched. I wanted to talk to you, but I’ve got a date.”
And she did what blamed few dance hall girls do to a guy who is spending — she got up and left me, cold. The bartender grinned and walked away. I turned my head so I could get a better look at the man who had entered.
Right away I saw that she had been lying. She didn’t have any date with him. As far as I could see, he’d never set eyes on her before.
But she was out to make him. She tried all the wiles of the dance hall girl. And, in the end, he motioned to the cute trick with the winsome smile and the mincing walk.
The kid with the olive eyes got a chance and whispered to the cute trick. The cutie let her eyes widen, nodded her head. After a little while she pleaded some excuse, shunted the fat one to the girl with the olive eyes, and beat it.
The paunchy man and the girl who had been drinking with me talked and drank. Mostly they talked. At first it was the regular line of conversation. Then it got lower and more confidential. When I left the place the fat man was pulling himself across the slimy surface of the moist table by his elbows, so that his voice would carry to the girl without his having to speak loud.
What they were talking about I couldn’t tell, but they didn’t have eyes or ears for anything or any one else.
I filed that fact away, went over to the Casino, where I tried a system at roulette. The system didn’t work but it came near enough to it so my original five dollars lasted me pretty well through the afternoon.
The border was about to close when I got back to the dance hall. It’s a period of frantic haste. Perspiring bartenders fling drinks at the crowd that’s determined to get in its last lick. Couples stop dancing, hurry to the bar and start scurrying for the border a good ten minutes too early — afraid of getting left.
I looked around for the girl with the olive eyes and the fat man, and didn’t get a trace of either. Then a subtle whisper rippled the crowd; glasses clanged to the bar, and the exodus commenced. Ten seconds, and the bar was deserted. Another ten seconds and the doors were closed, locked, and the street became a parade toward the border.
Tired-eyed inspectors surveyed the seething mass with skilled eye. Occasionally their hands darted out, and some man or woman stepped aside. They weeded the sheep from the goats with a flicker of steely glance that penetrated the mask of indifference the smuggler tries to wear. It’s possible to smuggle a bottle across the border — but the percentages are against it.