There was a bed in the corner, and a man was lying on the clean sheets.
On the table beside him was a glass pitcher, half-full of water. Spanish
Johnny looked younger than his wife, and when he was in health he was
very handsome: slender, gold-colored, with wavy black hair, a round,
smooth throat, white teeth, and burning black eyes. His profile was
strong and severe, like an Indian’s. What was termed his “wildness”
showed itself only in his feverish eyes and in the color that burned on
his tawny cheeks. That night he was a coppery green, and his eyes were
like black holes. He opened them when the doctor held the candle before
his face.
“MI TESTA!” he muttered, “MI TESTA,” doctor. “LA FIEBRE!” Seeing the
doctor’s companion at the foot of the bed, he attempted a smile.
“MUCHACHA!” he exclaimed deprecatingly.
Dr. Archie stuck a thermometer into his mouth. “Now, Thea, you can run
outside and wait for me.”
Thea slipped noiselessly through the dark house and joined Mrs.
Tellamantez. The somber Mexican woman did not seem inclined to talk, but
her nod was friendly. Thea sat down on the warm sand, her back to the
moon, facing Mrs. Tellamantez on her doorstep, and began to count the
moon flowers on the vine that ran over the house. Mrs. Tellamantez was
always considered a very homely woman. Her face was of a strongly marked
type not sympathetic to Americans. Such long, oval faces, with a full
chin, a large, mobile mouth, a high nose, are not uncommon in Spain.
Mrs. Tellamantez could not write her name, and could read but little.
Her strong nature lived upon itself. She was chiefly known in Moonstone
for her forbearance with her incorrigible husband.
Nobody knew exactly what was the matter with Johnny, and everybody liked
him. His popularity would have been unusual for a white man, for a
Mexican it was unprecedented. His talents were his undoing. He had a
high, uncertain tenor voice, and he played the mandolin with exceptional
skill. Periodically he went crazy. There was no other way to explain his
behavior. He was a clever workman, and, when he worked, as regular and
faithful as a burro. Then some night he would fall in with a crowd at
the saloon and begin to sing. He would go on until he had no voice left,
until he wheezed and rasped. Then he would play his mandolin furiously,
and drink until his eyes sank back into his head. At last, when he was
put out of the saloon at closing time, and could get nobody to listen to
him, he would run away—along the railroad track, straight across the
desert. He always managed to get aboard a freight somewhere. Once beyond
Denver, he played his way southward from saloon to saloon until he got
across the border. He never wrote to his wife; but she would soon begin
to get newspapers from La Junta, Albuquerque, Chihuahua, with marked
paragraphs announcing that Juan Tellamantez and his wonderful mandolin
could be heard at the Jack Rabbit Grill, or the Pearl of Cadiz Saloon.
Mrs. Tellamantez waited and wept and combed her hair. When he was
completely wrung out and burned up,—all but destroyed,—her Juan always
came back to her to be taken care of,—once with an ugly knife wound in
the neck, once with a finger missing from his right hand,—but he played
just as well with three fingers as he had with four.
Public sentiment was lenient toward Johnny, but everybody was disgusted
