Fire on the Mountain

by Edward Abbey

  “Mr. Vogelin?” he asked, offering his right hand to my grandfather.

  The old man refused the handshake. He was getting a little tired of shaking the hands of enemies. “I’m Vogelin,” he said. “Get off my property.”

  The captain, a handsome young man, paled a bit but did not lose his poise. “I’m very sorry, sir. This is Government property.”

  “The hell it is,” Grandfather said. “This is my home. What are you doing out there?” He pointed to the dust billowing above the flats.

  “We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Vogelin. That’s why I came to meet you. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, sir, that we are under orders to round up your cattle and horses and take them off the land.”

  Watching the old man closely, counting on him for courage and strength, I was unable to see any change in the stony expression of his face. Except, maybe, that it got stonier. Harder than stone, maybe. The old man looked as if he might turn into some kind of metal right before my eyes.

  “Those cattle are not for sale,” Grandfather said slowly, looking not at the captain but at the action out on the flats. “You’re loading my stock,” he said.

  I stared as hard as I could and saw through the dust the big trucks lining the road near the central loading chute. Six, seven, eight trucks—I couldn’t tell for sure.

  “Yes sir,” the captain said. “All the trucks are loaded now but one.”

  “You knew I was gone.”

  “Yes sir. We were under orders to do it this way.”

  Still not looking at the captain, Grandfather said: “Sort of a cowardly way to do it, wouldn’t you say?”

  This time the captain did not flinch. “Yes sir,” he said, “I agree with you. But—” He stopped, hesitated.

  “There seems to be so damned many of you people,” the old man said. “Every other day a new—face.” Abruptly he diverted the course of thought. “What happened to Eloy? You’d have to kill him to get away with this.”

  “Eloy?” the captain said. “Eloy …? You mean Eloy Peralta?”

  “Eloy Peralta,” Grandfather said. He stared at the loading operations through the dust and cruel glare of the sun.

  “If you mean your hired hand, Peralta—” The captain paused to lick the sweat from his upper lip. “—If you mean Peralta, I’m afraid I have to tell you that he’s under arrest. In fact he’s already in jail. He gave us a little trouble this morning. …”

  “I should’ve stayed home,” Grandfather said. “I should’ve let Lee bring the. …” Louder, he said, “Is he all right?”

  “Is who all right, sir?”

  “Is Eloy all right?”

  “Yes, Mr. Vogelin, he didn’t get hurt. Nobody got hurt, actually. We’re trying to keep this a clean, decent courteous operation.”

  The captain’s irony was wasted on my grandfather. The old man would not smile, would not even look at the man. Grandfather kept his eyes averted, as though something unclean stood before him. After a considerable and significant silence he turned to me. “Let’s go, Billy.”

  The officer shifted nervously. “You’re not going to attempt to interfere, are you, Mr. Vogelin?”

  The armed man at the wheel of the jeep kept his small pink eyes focused on us, a twitchy irritable grin on his mouth. A second Air Policeman sat in the back seat. He too watched us with shiny eyes and a face shiny with sweat.

  The pair of them sitting there in the jeep, sweating, silent, motionless, holstered automatics on their wide hips, gave me a sensation of nausea.

  “No,” Grandfather said. He climbed into the pickup truck and I got in beside him.

  “I must request that you do not interfere,” the captain said quite seriously, stepping close to the truck and placing one restraining hand on the windowless window frame. “You understand, Mr. Vogelin, I am under orders to prevent any kind of interference with the property in this, ah, this transaction. The procedure is entirely legal.”

  “Legal thievery,” the old man said. He started the engine. “Legal thievery. No,” he added, shifting into low gear, “I won’t interfere. Take the poor beasts. Take them all, they’re starving anyway. But don’t try to send me any money. I don’t take money from thieves.” He engaged the clutch and we moved off. Looking back through the window I saw the captain step briskly to the jeep and get into it. They were going to follow us.

  The sun went down, suddenly, as we approached the flat. The first of the big cattle trucks came toward us, headlights burning through the dust and twilight. Behind the first came others—one, two, three, four, five, siv. Grandfather turned off the road. We halted to watch the fleet go by. Each truck carried about twenty-five head of cattle, the last of the Box V herd.

  One of the truckdrivers waved at us as he went by. “Hi, John,” he shouted.

  Grandfather was looking elsewhere.

  The trucks rumbled by, each loaded with living flesh—I had glimpses of the brown flanks and the rolling eyeballs through the grating of the vans, and heard the bawling of the calves.

  After the trucks came a half-ton pickup with a pair of saddle horses—not ours—in the racked bed and two strange cowhands sitting up front. They gave us a sullen greeting; we ignored them. After that another Air Force jeep appeared, layered with dust, loaded with dusty airmen. They stared at us as we stared at them.

  We were ready to go on home when the first jeep came alongside and the captain got out and came to see us again, though nobody was looking for him. His clean-cut well-intentioned face confronted us through the open window at Grandfather’s side.

  We ignored him for a while.

  He said, “Mr. Vogelin?”

  Grandfather did not reply.

  “Mr. Vogelin,” the captain said. “I’d like to apologize for my part in this sorry business. I’m really ashamed of the whole thing and didn’t want any part of it, but—but I couldn’t get out of it.” The captain smiled, a wistful smile. “I work for the Government. I have to do what I’m told.”

  “No, you don’t,” Grandfather said.

  “Will you accept my apology, sir?”

  For the first time Grandfather looked at the man. “Don’t worry about it, son. But please get off my ranch and don’t ever come back.”

  The captain’s face vanished as Grandfather stepped on the gas pedal and the truck leaped ahead. The old man didn’t look back once, but I did. I looked back and watched the caravan of trucks and jeeps winding toward the east under planes of golden dust, taking away the heart of my grandfather’s life.

  “Hope they remember to close the gate,” the old man said softly.

  Why? I thought. We don’t need gates now. We don’t need fences. I wanted to cry. I found it difficult not to cry, but resolved to wait until I was alone. If Grandfather would not weep, neither would I.

  There was a spectacular sunset over the mountains that evening—a bright, gay circus of scarlet clouds and radiant sky. The spectacle filled me with disgust.

  We reached the ranch-house and parked close to the front door to unload our war supplies. Cruzita sat on the verandah with her five children, waiting for us. She began to sob as we walked heavily toward her.

  “Meestair Vogelin!” she cried. “Meestair Vogelin!’” and she staggered toward the old man, wiping her lovely face on her apron.

  Grandfather stroked her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Cruzita, it’s all right. We ain’t whipped yet.” She continued to bawl, leaning against him. “Please don’t cry,” he said gently. “Fix us something to eat. We’re hungry. The boy’s hungry.”

  The liar. I had no appetite either. No appetite for anything but war and revenge.

  The children, brown and dirty, solemn as a row of owls, sat quietly and watched us.

  “It’s all ready,” Cruzita said. “I warm it up a little now.” She turned and led the way into the house and into the kitchen, the old man and I following with our boxes of battle rations. The house was dark and cool, full of somber shadows, filled with an air of regret,
of disaster.

  Grandfather lit a pair of kerosene lamps as Cruzita stirred up beans, potatoes, meat, tacos, enchiladas and coffee over the blue flames of the gas burner. “You sit down,” she said. “I feed you.”

  We washed some of the dust off our hands and faces under the tap. The water felt lukewarm from being all day in the tank. We sat down at the table as Cruzita piled food on our plates.

  “My Eloy,” she blubbered, standing over us with the pot, “he try to stop them, Meestair Vogelin. But they was so many. He could do nothing. They arrest him, take him to town, put him in the jail, I think.”

  “I know, Cruzita,” Grandfather said. “We’ll go back to town tonight and bail him out.” He fiddled with his supper. “But you and Eloy can’t stay here any more. You’ll have to leave until this business is settled.”

  I didn’t care for the sound of that remark. And I could guess easily enough what was in my mother’s letter: School begins in three weeks. Come home at once.

  Cruzita objected, of course, to Grandfather’s command, and swore that she and Eloy would not leave him, would fight to the end. So Grandfather said he’d let Eloy rot in the county jail instead, if that’s the way she wanted it. And he ordered her to pack her things and be ready to go in an hour. Cruzita refused. The old man bellowed at her. Finally she backed down and left the kitchen, sobbing and protesting, and went off to her own house with the children trotting beside her.

  “Where is Lee?” Grandfather said quietly to me.

  I was wondering the same thing. We forced some grub down our reluctant gullets, got up, piled the dishes in the sink (but not for Cruzita this time) and brought in the remainder of our supplies from the truck.

  The old man set about fortifying the house. We closed all the heavy wooden shutters and hooked them on the inside. We bolted and barred the kitchen door and the back door and stacked mattresses against both, supporting the mattresses in place with tables, chairs and bedsteads. We filled the washtub and all of our buckets, mason jars, and rum jugs with water, in case the enemy should try to cut the waterline from the tank outside. We left the main entrance open, for the time being, since we still expected a few hours or even days to pass before the seige began.

  There was not much more we could do for the present. The old man sent me off to Peralta’s house to see if Cruzita was ready.

  I’d enjoyed the military preparations—they seemed so practical—but this child’s errand annoyed me. As I stumbled through the August gloom under the whispering cottonwood trees, remotely aware of the nighthawk’s booming over the wash, I resolved to do something dramatic and significant. I wasn’t sure what. First of all I’d steal that revolver out of the truck again and make sure it remained in my possession. That would be a beginning.

  I passed the corral. Three horses waited there, hoping for grain. There was Blue and Skilletfoot and Grandfather’s stallion, Rocky. The others were gone.

  I entered Peralta’s house through the open front door, into a hot, crowded lamplit room where Cruzita sat among a litter of cardboard boxes and ancient suitcases. She was packing a trunk with clothes and household utensils. The holy pictures still hung on the walls: Jesus with his bleeding heart; the Madonna and child, obvious gringo types; and a tinted photograph of the Pope with miter and crozier.

  Cruzita still wept a little as she worked, but I noticed that she’d washed her face and brushed her hair, and that the children, running around through the transformed house, looked clean and neat. She could accept the inevitable: Grandfather and I could not.

  I wondered where she would go. As I helped her finish stuffing the trunk she volunteered the information: she and the children would stay with relatives in El Paso until Mr. Vogelin sent for them; Eloy would work for his brother, who owned a small bar and package store in Las Cruces, only twenty miles from El Paso. They’d manage.

  I heard a car coming down over the barrancas. I left Cruzita, ran outside and watched the car come near. It was Lee in his big automobile. The lights washed over the yard, swung past the corral and the shining eyes of the horses and came to a bead on Grandfather’s pickup as the car stopped. The lights went out. I ran to greet him.

  He looked pretty serious but gave me a smile as I grabbed his arm. “Hi, Billy, what’re you all excited about? Where’s the old man?”

  “In the house. Gosh, Lee, I’m glad you came.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders. “I hope I’m not too late, Billy.”

  We went in the house and found Grandfather by the fireplace in the parlor, cleaning his shotgun and carbine by the light of the kerosene lamps.

  “This looks like war,” Lee said, with a tired smile.

  Grandfather grunted some kind of answer as he drew a clean white patch from the bore of the carbine. With the action open he held the gun up to the light and peered through the barrel. “Where you been?” he said.

  “What? I just heard about it,” Lee said. “Those dirty rotten. … John, I want to tell you, I want to tell you that’s the lousiest dirtiest trick I ever heard of. Cowardly and sneaky. Something like this ought to be written up in every paper in the country. Maybe it will be. Maybe if we get enough publicity we’ll scare off the Air Force yet. Stranger things have happened.”

  Grandfather said nothing—just broke open the double-barreled shotgun.

  “We don’t need publicity,” I said, horning in where I knew I wasn’t needed. “We need ammunition.” I remembered the revolver in the truck. I started toward the door.

  “Stay here, Billy,” the old man said. “Keep your little paws off that revolver.”

  Lee came nearby and patted my shoulder. “He’s a good boy, John. You ought to be mighty grateful to have a boy like this around.”

  The old man squinted through the shotgun barrels at the lamplight. “Look pretty good,” he muttered. But he threaded a new patch through the eye of the cleaning rod.

  A short silence as we watched him at work: Lee said, “I suppose you’re sure this is what you want to do. Fight them off with guns, I mean.”

  “Well …” Grandfather grinned slyly at Lee. “It’s traditional.”

  Lee paused again before speaking. “Are you really planning to—you really expect an attack?” He looked at the barricaded windows.

  “They drove nearly all my stock off today,” the old man said. “I expect I’m next.” He looked around for me. “Cruzita ready?”

  “Yes sir. Just about.”

  Grandfather turned his face to Lee. “You want to help me some tonight?”

  Lee lifted his hands in a gesture of surprise. “Why do you think I’m here?”

  “Just asking. Well, if you want to help me, how about taking Cruzita and her kids to town and bailing out Eloy and putting them all on the El Paso bus. No, I have a better idea. Take them all direct to El Paso. Them—and something else.”

  I stood up.

  “Sit down, Billy,” Grandfather said.

  I sat down. The front door stood open; moths and millers swarmed against the screen.

  “Okay,” Lee said. “You mean tonight?”

  “Right away. Right now.”

  “You staying here?”

  “That’s right. I left this ranch for the last time today. I learned my lesson. Next time I leave it’ll be in a box, feet first, unless the Government gets off my back.”

  “They won’t.” Lee glanced uneasily at me. “Billy …”

  “Take him,” the old man said. “Pack him on the train. And make sure—”

  “Wait a minute,” I howled, rising again.

  “Make sure he’s still on that train when it leaves.”

  “No,” I cried. “No. I won’t go. I want to stay. Please, Grandfather.”

  “His suitcase is in the hallway,” Grandfather said. “All packed. Take him out of here, Lee.”

  “Sure.” Lee looked at me again, smiling but obviously embarrassed. “Guess you’re going home, Billy.”

  “Please,” I shouted, “please, Grandfath
er, don’t make me go. Not now. You need me. I want to help. Please.”

  “Get your suitcase, Billy,” he said.

  “I’ll get it.” Lee strode out of the room, returning in aa moment with my bag in his hand. “Is everything in here?” he asked both of us.

  “I didn’t pack it,” I said bitterly.

  “It’s all in there,” the old man said. “All his gear. Take him, Lee. If you need a rope there’s a rope in the pickup.”

  “My hat,” I said weakly. I took my rotten and crumpled straw hat off the deer horns by the fireplace. And reconsidered. “I’m not going,” I said. “Sir, I’m not going. You can’t make me go, Grandfather.”

  The old man laid the shotgun on the table. Leaning on his hands, he looked me over carefully. The cigar stub was still in his mouth. “What did you say, Billy? Maybe I ain’t hearing so good tonight.”

  “Come on, Billy,” Lee said, while I gaped at Grandfather, framing a plea in my mind. Good God, what could I say? I was numb with shock and disappointment and the feeling of helplessness.

  Lee wrapped his big fingers gently around my upper arm. “You’re under arrest, Billy. Let’s go.”

  “Sorry I can’t offer you a drink tonight, Lee,” Grandfather said. “I could but I think we ought to get these women and children off the place and get Eloy out of jail as soon as possible.”

  “He’s been there plenty of times before,” Lee said.

  “I know.”

  “What do you mean,” I burst out, “Women and children? I’m no child. Don’t call me a child, sir.”

  “He didn’t mean you, Billy.”

  “I meant the woman and children and Billy Vogelin Starr,” Grandfather said. “Excuse me.”

  Lee increased his pressure on my arm and nudged me toward the door. I leaned forward. My legs seemed to be paralyzed. “You want me to carry you?” Lee asked.

  My legs came slowly alive. “I’ll walk. Gimme that suitcase.” I took the heavy bag from Lee’s hand, crammed the hat on my head and started forward, lugging the weight. Before pushing open the screen door I stopped for a final appeal to the old man. His back was turned to me and he looked bulky as a bear. “Grandfather …” I began.