Explore "The Desert Road" by Marjorie Pickthall on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Cuthbertson, urging his jaded horse over the last of the weary miles / from the mines to Los Santos, always pulled up at old Juana's hut. He / had pulled up one day when new to the work and the land, deathly / sunsick; and Juana had dragged him into the shadow of the wall, and / given him water, and finally tramped into the town for the / superintendent's buggy and mules. Cuthbertson never found out why she / had done this, but he was grateful, in the silent way he had early / learned of the desert. Since then she always had cool water for him, and / a skin spread in the shade. And sometimes she would talk to him in brief / Spanish. He was the only white man to whom she ever spoke; and she spoke / to him because she thought him like the Rainmaker.
If you asked anyone in Los Santos how long Juana had been there, they / said, "God knows. " Cuthbertson thought it quite likely that God did / know, and kept account of it.