The Blood of the Conquerors
Page 43
CHAPTER XXXVI
Ramon's life on his farm quickly fell into a routine that was for the mostpart pleasant. He hired an old woman to do his cooking and washing, and aman to work on the place. Other men he hired as he needed them, and hespent most of his days working with them as a foreman.
He attended to the business of farming ably. The trees of the old orchardhe pruned and sprayed and he set out new ones. He put his idle land underirrigation and planted it in corn and alfalfa. He set out beds ofstrawberries and asparagus. He bought blooded livestock and chickens. Heput his fences in repair and painted the woodwork of his house. Thecreative energy that was in him had at last found an outlet which wascongenial though somewhat picayune. For the place was small and easilyhandled. As the fall came on, and his crops had been gathered and the workof irrigation was over for the season, he found himself looking aboutrestlessly for something to do. On Saturday nights he generally went totown, had dinner with his mother and sister, and spent the eveningdrinking beer and playing pool. But he felt increasingly out of place inthe town; his visits there were prompted more by filial duty and the needof something to break the monotony of his week than by a real sense ofpleasure in them.
He was still caring for Catalina on the ranch up the valley, and when thewoman who had been doing his work left him, he decided to bring the girlto his place and let her earn her keep by cooking and washing. He nolonger felt any interest in her, and thought that perhaps she would marryJuan Cardenas, the man who milked his cows and chopped wood for him. ButCatalina showed no interest in Juan. Instead, she emphatically rejectedall his advances, and displayed an abject, squaw-like devotion to Ramon'swelfare. Everything possible was done for his comfort without his asking.The infant, now almost a year old, was trained not to cry in his presence,and acquired a certain awe of him, watching him with large solemn eyeswhenever he was about. Ramon, reflecting that this was his son, set out tomake the baby's acquaintance, and became quite fond of it. He often playedwith it in the evening.
He paid Catalina regular wages and she spent most of the money on clothes.When she prepared herself for Church on Sunday she was a truly terriblespectacle, clad in an ill-fitting ready-made suit of brilliant colour, andwearing a cheap hat on which a dead parrot sprawled among artificialpoppies, while her swarthy face, heavily powdered, took on a purple tinge.But about the place, dressed in clean calico, with a shawl over hershoulders, she was really pretty. Her figure was a good one of peasanttype, and the acquisition of some shoes which fitted her revealed the factthat she had inherited from her remote Castilian ancestry a small andshapely foot and ankle.
Ramon could not help noticing all of these things, and so gradually hebecame aware of Catalina again as a desirable woman, and one whom it waseasy for him to take.
After this his animal contentment was deeper than ever. He did not go totown so often, for one of the restlessnesses which had driven him therewas removed. Often for weeks at a stretch he would not go at all unless itwas necessary to get some tools or supplies for the farm. Then rather thantake any of his men away from work, he would himself hitch up a team anddrive the five miles. Sitting hunched over on the spring-seat of a bigfarm wagon, clad in overalls and a print shirt, with a wide hat tiltedagainst the sun and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he wasindistinguishable from any other _paisano_ on the road. This change inappearance was helped by the fact that he had grown a heavy moustache.Often, as he drove through the streets of the town, he would passacquaintances who did not recognize him, and he was just as well satisfiedthat they did not.
As is the way of unreflecting men, Ramon formed no definite opinion of hislife, but liked it more or less according to the mood that was in him.There were bright, cool days that fall when, lacking work to do, he tookhis shot-gun and a saddle horse and went for long rambles. Sometimes hewould follow the river northward, stalking the flocks of teal and mallardsthat dozed on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream, perhaps killingthree or four fat birds. Other times he went to the foot of the mountainsand hunted the blue quail and cotton tail rabbits in the arroyos of thefoot-hills. Once he and his man loaded a wagon with food and blankets anddrove forty miles to a canyon where they killed a big black-tail buck, andbrought him back in high triumph.
Returning from such trips full of healthy hunger and weariness, to findhis hot supper and his woman waiting for him, Ramon would doze offhappily, every want of his physical being satisfied, feeling that life wasgood.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} But there were other nights when a strange restlessness possessedhim, when he lay miserably awake through long dark hours. The silence ofthe black valley was emphasized now and then by the doleful voices of dogsthat answered each other across the sleeping miles. At such times he feltas though he had been caught in a trap. He saw in imagination the endlessunvaried chain of his days stretching before him, and he rebelled againstit and knew not how to break it. His experience of life was comparativelylittle and he was no philosopher. He did not know definitely either whatwas the matter with him or what he wanted. But he had tasted highaspiration, and desire bright and transforming, and wild sweet joy.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Thesethings had been taken away, and now life narrowed steadily before him likea blind canyon that pierces a mountain range. The trail at the bottom waseasy enough to follow, but the walls drew ever closer and became moreimpassable, and what was the end?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}