The Olneyville tribune. (Providence, R.I.) 1893-189?, 1893-12-09
RIaTa TOM.
A STORY OF THE ARIZONA DESERT.


'How is Bill this morning, doctorp
"Just left him-badly off-typhoid
fever-needs careful nursing more than
visits from me-" replied the post-surgeon
as he pushed back his gray campaign hat
TO wipe his dusty face.
Now this was June and the land Ari-
zona, where summer is secure but ice i'm
possible and trained nurses II taunting
vision OF days, unassociated with sage
brush, accomplished in pleasant Eastern
hospitals.
'On place like this. sensible man
would die first and have his typhoid
fever afterward," growled the post
surgeon, still sweltering from twenty
mile ride across the dusty mesa in the
face of the hot morning sun, where he
had gone, after surgeons call, on II char
ity visit to Bill Meron, n rancher in the
Sierra Bonita foothills.
Once he had been mild spoken man,
this surgeon, AS he was still mild hearted.
For, even while speaking, he resolved to
telegraph for ice and TO send n man
away miles across the desert to the
station after it. His brusquc-
ness was the shell "A sensitive nature
had acquired in adjusting itself to the
wear and tear of garrison life in super
heated climate. He wondered at it him
self, and often, when he had spoken, felt
startled as one feels surprised TO find the
voice suddenly grown coarse with cold.
Yet he could have told you accurately
why the skin on the hand thickens in
time OF toll to keep the nerves quick
within.
"Doc, don't know nuthin' bout nurs-
ing, but il can be any good, I'll lend
hand. My bronco's outside, an | amt
doing hutlnn' particular"
The speaker was young cowboy,
clad in blue cOttonade and high -heelcd
boots, after the fashion of the country
he stood uneasily on one foot near the
door of the officers club, in the general
storeroom where the Mexicans loter and
the ranchers buy their bacon and tobac-
CO. The surgeon glanced at the boy
and his eyes rested on him moment
without reply.
''Riata Toms all right, doctor. lie
cooked for Mccain on the roundup
thi. spring, and is handy as woman
about place" added II bystander
Very well, Tom; tell the steward
sent you to the hospital for lesson in
nursing typhoid fever. This evening go
over to Sierra Bonita and take charge of
Bill Meron. I'll call tomorrow, after
muster"
"Ain't there anything l can send
Bill2n asked the trader.
mo; nothing now, Williams. MAY
want little champagne later" lie
was thinking of ice. In crossing the
hot parade to the hospital, he wondered
IL the Pullman car supply could possibly
last across the desert
In the dispensary he wrote telegram,
and told the steward to send it 10 the
operator and 10 tell Morrisy to put the
ambulance mules in the blackboard and
drive to the Needles. Then he visited
the sick ward.
The next afternoon DR.. Davis rode to
Meron's ranch. The sun shone hotly.
and the sparse sage tufts plumed the
mesa bowlder mounds in thin, half-clad
gray. The Berenice hair tossed in the
heatwaves and the mountain profiles
trembled, fretting on horizon of un-
broken blue. There were no clouds
above and the glare was intense, caus-
ing the eye to recoil and strain itself in
the effort to contract and shut out all
the light, while the quick, throbbing
pulse of the heat laden air felt like fever
breath on the face.
In such strong light, as in great fogs,
the outside world escapes us and vision
turns inward on the brain. The doctor
was now following that curious chart
memory-where details are recorded,
then remembered or forgotten. He no
longer saw the stretch OF trail iinme
diately before him; he saw the whole
trail-saw il where il left the pest aud
wandered across the weary mesa saw il
span the arroyo TO enter the broken
table-land and then wind higher and
higher among the ascending foothills.
Then he strained his eyes against the
shimmerng heat and iancicd the foot
hills were swaying with the motion OF
pillows; he could see their crests reach
ing toward the black scarp of the Sierra,
like crests Of breakers toward beach of
frs; while below the Sierra was Rancho
Bonita, tossing on n brown billow of this
barren sea. Four--fse-swells mere
and the rancho will be dashed in the
face of the Sierra No, it is not the sea.
IL Is only the desert. Yet how like the
sea-so monotonous. so desolate.