CHAPTER FOUR
DREAMS
Although the paper was a year old, Senor Johnson in due time receivedan answer from Kansas. A correspondence ensued. Senor Johnsonenshrined above the big fireplace the photograph of a woman. Beforethis he used to stand for hours at a time slowly constructing in hismind what he had hitherto lacked--an ideal of woman and of home. Thisideal he used sometimes to express to himself and to the ironical Jed.
"It must sure be nice to have a little woman waitin' for you when youcome in off'n the desert."
Or: "Now, a woman would have them windows just blooming with flowersand white curtains and such truck."
Or: "I bet that Sang would get a wiggle on him with his little oldcleaning duds if he had a woman ahold of his jerk line."
Slowly he reconstructed his life, the life of the ranch, in terms ofthis hypothesised feminine influence. Then matters came to anunderstanding, Senor Johnson had sent his own portrait. Estrella Sandswrote back that she adored big black beards, but she was afraid of him,he had such a fascinating bad eye: no woman could resist him. SenorJohnson at once took things for granted, sent on to Kansas apreposterous sum of "expense" money and a railroad ticket, and raidedGoodrich's store at Willets, a hundred miles away, for all manner ofgaudy carpets, silverware, fancy lamps, works of art, pianos, linen,and gimcracks for the adornment of the ranch house. Furthermore, heoffered wages more than equal to a hundred miles of desert to a youngIrish girl, named Susie O'Toole, to come out as housekeeper, decorator,boss of Sang and another Chinaman, and companion to Mrs. Johnson whenshe should arrive.
Furthermore, he laid off from the range work Brent Palmer, the mostskilful man with horses, and set him to "gentling" a beautiful littlesorrel. A sidesaddle had arrived from El Paso. It was "centre fire,"which is to say it had but the single horsehair cinch, broad,tasselled, very genteel in its suggestion of pleasure use only. Brentcould be seen at all times of day, cantering here and there on thesorrel, a blanket tied around his waist to simulate the long ridingskirt. He carried also a sulky and evil gleam in his eye, warningagainst undue levity.
Jed Parker watched these various proceedings sardonically.
Once, the baby light of innocence blue in his eye, he inquired if hewould be required to dress for dinner.
"If so," he went on, "I'll have my man brush up my low-necked clothes."
But Senor Johnson refused to be baited.
"Go on, Jed," said he; "you know you ain't got clothes enough to dust afiddle."
The Senor was happy these days. He showed it by an unwonted jovialityof spirit, by a slight but evident unbending of his Spanish dignity.No longer did the splendour of the desert fill him with a vagueyearning and uneasiness. He looked upon it confidently, noting itsvarious phases with care, rejoicing in each new development of colourand light, of form and illusion, storing them away in his memory sothat their recurrence should find him prepared to recognise and explainthem. For soon he would have someone by his side with whom toappreciate them. In that sharing he could see the reason for them, thereason for their strange bitter-sweet effects on the human soul.
One evening he leaned on the corral fence, looking toward the Dragoons.The sun had set behind them. Gigantic they loomed against the westernlight. From their summits, like an aureola, radiated the splendour ofthe dust-moted air, this evening a deep umber. A faint reflection ofit fell across the desert, glorifying the reaches of its nothingness.
"I'll take her out on an evening like this," quoth Senor Johnson tohimself, "and I'll make her keep her eyes on the ground till we getright up by Running Bear Knob, and then I'll let her look up all toonce. And she'll surely enjoy this life. I bet she never saw a steerroped in her life. She can ride with me every day out over the rangeand I'll show her the busting and the branding and that band ofantelope over by the Tall Windmill. I'll teach her to shoot, too. Andwe can make little pack trips off in the hills when she gets toohot--up there by Deerskin Meadows 'mongst the high peaks."
He mused, turning over in his mind a new picture of his own life, aims,and pursuits as modified by the sympathetic and understandingcompanionship of a woman. He pictured himself as he must seem to herin his different pursuits. The picturesqueness pleased him. Thesimple, direct vanity of the man--the wholesome vanity of astraightforward nature--awakened to preen its feathers before the ideaof the mate.
The shadows fell. Over the Chiricahuas flared the evening star. Theplain, self-luminous with the weird lucence of the arid lands, showedghostly. Jed Parker, coming out from the lamp-lit adobe, leaned hiselbows on the rail in silent company with his chief. He, too, lookedabroad. His mind's eye saw what his body's eye had always told himwere the insistent notes--the alkali, the cactus, the sage, themesquite, the lava, the choking dust, the blinding beat, the burningthirst. He sighed in the dim half recollection of past days.
"I wonder if she'll like the country?" he hazarded.
But Senor Johnson turned on him his steady eyes, filled with the greatglory of the desert.
"Like the country!" he marvelled slowly. "Of course! Why shouldn'tshe?"
Arizona Nights Page 24
