Her features were large, sun-darkened, creased and seamed with crow’s-feet that betokened long exposure to wind and weather. Ever and anon she drew, with manifest enjoyment, at an old brown corncob pipe. Above her firm lips and beak-like nose a pair of blue eyes struck out gaily and keenly at the world; eyes of a piercing, intense blue, whose brilliancy, as of living jewels, gave the lie to their surrounding tokens of toil and age.
“Drat it!” she burst forth, after a new bucking endeavour on the part of the car. “If I was to shoot this damned thing through the innards, maybe she’d quit sunfishin’ on me! I’m goin’ to sell her to Santy Fé sure’s shooting; I’ll get me a pair o’ mules and a wagon, then I’ll know what I’m doing. Dunno how come I ever was roped into buying this here contraption——”
She suddenly halted her observations. Laying aside her pipe and peering out from the side of the dusty windshield, her keen eyes narrowed upon the road ahead.
Against that yellowish ribbon, with its bordering emptiness of mesquite, greasewood, and sage, there was nothing moving; but squarely in the centre of the road showed up a dark, motionless blotch. It was the figure of a man lying as though asleep. No man would or could lie asleep in the middle of this road, however, under the withering blaze of the downpouring New Mexico sun.
Suddenly the fitful flivver coughed under more gas; it roared, bucked, darted ahead, bucked again, and a dozen yards from the prostrate man it went leaping forward as though impelled by vindictive spite to run over the motionless figure. The woman swore savagely. She seemed inexperienced as a chauffeuse; only by a hair’s breadth did she manage to avoid the man, and then she stopped the car.
Her great size became more apparent as she alighted. Standing, she gazed down at the man, then leaned forward and turned the unfortunate vagrant upon his back. The body was listless to her hand, the head lolled idly.
“Hm!” said the woman, reflectively. “Ain’t drunk. Ain’t hurt. Hm!”
She reached into the car and produced a whiskey flask, then sat down in the dust and took upon her ample lap the head of the senseless man. A sudden deftness became manifest in her motions, an unguessed tenderness relieved the harshness of her features.