"Yes. I'll come," she whispered.
Their crawl down the rock-rolling embankment seemed desperately slow.
"Wait here," bade Milt, at the bottom.
She looked away from the grotesque car. She had seen that one side of it
was crumpled like paper in an impatient hand.
Milt was stooping, looking under; seemed to be saying something. When he
came back, he did not speak. He wiped his forehead. "Come. We'll climb
back up. Nothing to do, now. Guess you better not try to help, anyway.
You might not sleep well."
He gave her his hand up the embankment, drove to the nearest house,
telephoned to Dr. Beach. Later she waited while Milt and the doctor,
with two other men, were raising the car. As she waited she thought of
the Teal bug as a human thing--as her old friend, to which she had often
turned in need.
Milt returned to her. "There is one thing for you to do. Before he died,
Pinky asked me to go get his wife--Dolores, I think it is. She's up in a
side canyon, few miles away. She may want a woman around. Beach will
take care of--of him. Can you come?"
"Of course. Oh, Milt, I didn't----"
"I didn't----"
"--mean you were a caveman! You're my big brother!"
"--mean you were a snob!"
They drove five miles along the highway, then up a trail where the Gomez
brushed the undergrowth on each side as it desperately dug into moss,
rain-gutted ruts, loose rocks, all on a vicious slant which seemed to
push the car down again. Beside them, the mountain woods were sacredly
quiet, with fern and lily and green-lit spaces. They came out in a
clearing, before dusk. Beside the clearing was a brook, with a crude
cradle--sign of a not very successful gold miner. Before a log cabin, in
a sway-sided rocker, creaked a tall, white, flabby woman, once nearly
beautiful, now rubbed at the edges. She rose, huddling her wrapper about
her bosom, as they drove into the clearing and picked their way through
stumps and briars.
"Where you folks think you're going?" she whimpered.
"Why, why just----"
"I cer'nly am glad to see somebody! I been 'most scared to death. Been
here alone two weeks now. Got a shotgun, but if anybody come, I guess
they'd take it away from me. I was brought up nice, no rough-house
or---- Say, did you folks come to see the gold-mine?"
"M-mine?" babbled Milt.
"Course not. Pinky said I was to show it, but I'm so sore on that
low-life hound now, I swear I won't even take the trouble and lie about
it. No more gold in that crick than there is in my eye. Or than there's
flour or pork in the house!"