by Celia Hayes
The next morning dawned clear and chill, but the sun promised warmth. They took leave of the Stielers with gratitude for their hospitality, and continued along the road. It sloped down a long decline towards the river-crossing and the hamlet of Comfort: yet another one of those tidy German settlements, this one built in a grove of towering cypress trees.
“I went to school here,” Dolph nodded towards a dilapidated log house at the edge of the settlement. “It was almost too far to come, most days—but Mama insisted, once they started a school. The schoolmaster was a bit strange, too. He was too lazy to use a switch—he threw pebbles at us when we weren’t paying attention. Good aim, too. Some of the older boys would come home, all covered with red welts. One of Mr. Steves’s sons taught school after that. I liked him better. I might have come to like school but he had to quit about the time that Papa was killed and the Army sent us away. I didn’t go to school much after that.”
They passed out of Comfort, following a rutted track along the northern bank of the Guadalupe River that looped north and west into the hills. Scattered stands of cypress trees, with their coarse feather-like foliage, lined its banks and leaned over the deeper pools. The water slipped quietly over pure white gravel, as perfectly rounded as marbles. The hills closed in on the track and the river, now and again opening on a vista of meadows and gnarled stands of oak trees, still darkly green even though winter still gripped the land.
They saw no one other than themselves, nothing living but cattle drifting like cloud shadows on the distant hillsides. Once they rounded a bend where the rush of water falling over tumbled stones disguised the sounds of harness, wagons and horses, and Pepper surprised a white-spotted deer drinking from the waterside.
“Supper,” Fredi remarked in delight, unshipping a carbine from the holster on his saddle. “What do you say to a haunch of venison, lads?” He looked over his shoulder at them while urging his horse forward. The deer bounded away in fright and the dog gave chase until Dolph whistled for him to return.
“Too much work to skin and gut, now,” he said. “We’re almost there, Fredi—you can chase him down some other day.”
“It looks a wild place,” Peter remarked. “As if there had never been any white folk here. If it weren’t for the tracks, I’d never believe there had been any settlement out here at all.”
“Duff’s partisans plundered and burnt out most of the Germans,” Dolph explained stoically. “And the Comanche raiders drove away most of the rest. You’d see ten burnt chimneys between here and Kerrville for every whole roof standing. Most of the valley farms look like that one.” He jerked his chin towards several dilapidated piles of half-burnt logs, in the middle of a clearing overgrown with cedar saplings. A single chimney stabbed upwards, like an accusing finger. “’That was our closest neighbors. ‘Course, it didn’t look all that much better when the Browns lived there.”
“What happened to them?” Peter asked.
Dolph shrugged. “I dunno. Old Brown’s brother-in-law was taken at the same time Papa was killed—hung from an oak tree with some other Unionist men from hereabouts, taken by the Hanging Band, all in a single evening. Some of their boys went with Tegener’s company and the rest hid out in the bush country. Their youngest boy Nate used to work for Papa—he went to Mexico, meaning to join the Union Army. He’s never come back, so he either got killed or liked where he went to much better. I know the old folks finally had a belly-full and went north to Missouri.”
“Were they Unionists, too?” Peter asked.
His cousin shrugged again. “No. I don’t think they cared one way or another. They just wanted to be left alone.”
Left to himself and his admittedly sketchy grasp of woodcraft, Peter would never have found the track to the Becker place, not without casting up and down the river for a considerable distance, or knowing that the weather and fire-stained walls just barely glimpsed between the trees was not an outcrop of natural stone. If the apple trees had been in bloom, that might have provided a clue to him—but they were not.
It fell to his cousin, drawing rein midmorning at a particularly large oak tree and saying quietly, “This is it, Fredi.” Fredi whistled between his teeth, and looked away from the riverbank, towards a knoll some half-mile distant and the line of taller hills beyond it.
“You’d never know, would you, lad?” he said, heavily.
Dolph shook his head. “I’d know it in daylight,” he answered. “In daylight, from the line of hills and the look of the river.” He whistled to Pepper, and plunged his horse off the track and into the knee-high thicket of dead grass and scrub that lined it. “Follow close, Cuz. There is a trail, enough for a wagon—less’n a tree has fallen across it.”
Peter urged the team to follow close upon the two horsemen, a long looping track away from the river, across a gently sloping meadow that in summer would be a lush green sweep starred with wildflowers. Presently he discerned the remains of a zigzagging cedar-rail fence, peeping coyly out from the undergrowth. Weathered grey by age and exposure, the rails would have looked like something that had occurred naturally, save for the very regularity. Within its confines, Peter thought he could see traces of furrows and long-dead corn plants, bleached to a startling pale yellowish color, strewn amongst last year’s dead grass and the tender green blades just peeping up from the ground.
The track curved around the base of the knoll. It followed a wall of natural stone, man-made but weathered to the color of old ivory, streaked and patched here and there with green, grey and black lichen and mosses. Peter saw that the wall attached naturally to the ruins of a house; not, as first appeared, a natural outcrop of the hills. It crowned the knoll on the riverside, overlooking the valley below on one side, and a cleared space on the other. The cleared space was overgrown with tall grass and cedar saplings, out of which protruded an occasional blackened timber. The empty windows of the house looked blankly out on that space, like eye-holes in a skull. Ragged wooden fragments of a door hung from a set of hinges in the center of a porch, lost in a drift of dead leaves and grass grown nearly to the same level. At the opposite side of the clearing at the crest of the knoll, a stone cistern held a pool of unhealthily still water, thick with livid green scum and dark dead leaves. Peter’s heart sank into his boots—this was a ruin, a ruin beyond redemption.
In the middle of that space, Fredi and Dolph dismounted. Following their lead, Peter halted the team. For a moment they stood, looking around at the bleak desolation, the black-streaked ruins of the house. Pepper sat with his tongue lolling out, scratching luxuriously at a flea. He nudged Dolph’s hand, for his master stood, holding the reins of his horse and looking at the ruined house, the bare knoll, the empty sky, and the ever-present hawk spiraling overhead. Although his cousin’s face seemed carefully blank of expression, Fredi’s was all too transparent and Peter recalled that he also had lived and worked here for a number of years. This had been his home, at least as much as Vati’s rambling Friedrichsburg house was; the place he had always returned to between his wanderings with herds of cattle to California and other places. Peter thought of how he would have felt, trudging wearily up the hill to his mother’s house, only to find it ruined, grass and scrub bushes already taking hold. One always expected places to stay the same, the same as they were when last seen, as if one’s memory preserved them in amber.
Dolph fondled Pepper’s head, patting the dog with absent-minded affection. He turned towards Peter, calm and serene as a marble saint in a Catholic church, and observed, “We’ll repair the roof first, I think. Then build a stable for the horses. Porfirio’s boys will be here in a month or so. Onkel Hansi thinks to begin improving the breed of cattle then, so this will have to serve as ranch headquarters.”
“In the meantime, we’ll have to sleep somewhere,” Peter observed.
“There’s enough roof left over the kitchen end,” his cousin answered. “Even if it leaks like hell, the upper floor will give better shelter than open air. We’ll picket the
horses out in the orchard at night. There was a gate to it around the side.”
Fredi appeared to be overcome by sorrowful sentiments; he silently clapped his nephew on the shoulder. Finally, he said in halting tones, “I can scarce take it in, boy. This was such a fine farmstead, such a fine place as is hardly seen in the west!” His eyes filled and he added, “And such a happy place, too!”
“It will be so again,” Dolph said, with perfect assurance. He ruffled Pepper’s ears affectionately, and repeated, “It will be so again. You’ll see.”
They picketed the horses and set to work before even unloading the wagon. In truth there was so much to be done that Peter could scarce decide where to begin—raking out enough rubble from the largest room, or building window shutters and a door to secure at least that one room at night? Clearing the chimney of bird’s nests, or cleaning out the cistern? Reinforcing the stout gate in the orchard wall, or building a ladder to reach the roof? For much of the day it seemed to Peter that each task undertaken either needed or inspired another five or six. Labors in the house or in the other ruins on the knoll left all three of them grimy and smeared with old ash and black soot. The grass and undergrowth was everywhere mined with the remains of burnt timbers, of charcoal and unidentifiable lumps of pottery and metal—yet another dirty chore, sorting out that which might be reused, once re-forged or pounded back into shape. A faint odor of ancient fires hung over the knoll like a ghost as they worked in the house, vying with the fresher smell of newly sawn wood.
“Not much left that we can use, Cuz,” Peter remarked after a grueling stint of hauling yoked buckets of rubble from the bottom floor.
Dolph answered, “What they didn’t steal, they smashed before they fired the barn. I’ll be surprised to find anything whole or useful besides the walls.” Yet he seemed remarkably cheerful for a man laboring in the ruins of his family home; Peter could only think his cousin was so happy to have returned at last that the matter of its condition was secondary. He himself could never have managed to put on such a stoic face.
“I’ll buy a drink for whoever finds something whole or undamaged,” Peter promised. He stood up with a grunt of effort, lifting a pair of buckets on a yoke across his shoulders, full of blackened pottery and rubble, and carried them through the hallway. Fresh dust swirled through sunlight that slanted down through floor-beams above and the ruined roof beyond that. Seasons of rain had streaked the plastered walls with soot. He and Fredi had already evicted a family of owls from the chimney.
He carried the buckets across the clearing, tipping their contents into a shallow pit on the far side of where the barn had been. Something moved in the cedar thicket below, something smaller than a man. It watched him warily, a gaunt tan-colored hound with fearful eyes. It scuttled deeper into the thicket when he made as if to come closer, then skulked out to watch again as soon as he retreated.
“There’s a dog outside,” he said conversationally to Dolph, on his return. “Looks as wild as a wolf.”
“If it was truly wild,” Dolph answered, setting down the shovel he used to move rubble, “it wouldn’t be hanging around.” He took a piece of their luncheon bread and cheese, and followed Peter to the rubble dump. Peter watched as he went halfway towards the thicket, then knelt down, coaxing the dog closer with the food and many soft and wooing words.
The dog eventually crept out to snap up the food and allow Dolph to stroke its nose and ears. “If you courted pretty girls with talk like that,” Peter observed, “you’d be the maiden’s delight of two or three counties. As it is, they must be weeping for all the charm you waste on poor dumb animals.”
“Perhaps,” Dolph answered, “but at any rate, you owe me a drink now.”
“For what?” Peter demanded. The dog flinched at the indignation in his voice, but Dolph reassured him with a gentle caress.
“Finding something whole and useful,” he answered, appearing quite pleased. “Papa always said there was nothing more useful around the place than dogs.”
Peter shook his head. “I swear, Cuz, you must have an invisible mark on you somewhere. Everything halt, lame or starving never fails in finding you.”
Dolph shrugged. “Truth is, Cuz, I like animals better than most people. Feed a stray dog, give it a home—it would never turn around and show black ingratitude like a man would.”
The new dog followed them hopefully back to the house, where Pepper sniffed warily and growled a little under his breath. The new dog cringed, showing its belly and every rib under its dusty tan hide. Dolph tossed them both a little dried meat, which both dogs fell on with eagerness. When Peter came out from the house again, both dogs had curled up—not quite touching each other—in a place where the sun fell warmly against a sheltered angle of the lime-plastered wall.
By afternoon, they had emptied out enough of the least-ruined room, the kitchen, and swept the floor clean enough to set up bachelor housekeeping. Fredi’s hastily-constructed shutters hung only slightly awry from hinges salvaged out of the burnt remnants of the old ones, and a good fire burned in the stone fireplace. They had spread out their straw-filled pallets and bedrolls there, unloaded the wagon and bailed out the water cistern until the foul-smelling, slimy filth was replaced by a trickle of fresh water from the spring. Peter ached in every bone from exhaustion, as did Fredi and Dolph.
Late in the afternoon, Fredi looked around at what they had accomplished so far and sighed contentedly. “Ah, it’s a good start, boys. More than I thought we’d do on the first day.”
“Still a long way to go,” Peter agreed. Outside, Pepper barked several times—the “alert” bark that he used for friends and acquaintances, rather than the “danger” bark for strangers and odd noises in the night. Someone called from outside the house at some little distance and Fredi went out to the door.
“It’s Berg!” he said.
Dolph’s face lit up. “So he’s still around,” he exclaimed. “I guess he was too odd for the Hanging Band to bother with. The Indians think he is mad, you know. Papa always thought that was why they left him alone. He lived in a tower that he built for himself, away back in the hills. He’s a stonemason. Papa hired him to help build this house, but he tinkers with all matter of inventions and gadgets.” Dolph hesitated and then warned, “He’s a little strange. Don’t take offense at his manner. He’s a good sort, for all that.”
“One of those proven friends?” Peter asked, as he followed Dolph towards the door. His cousin nodded in the affirmative. For a good sort in Dolph‘s estimation, Berg the stonemason proved to be a very odd man indeed—and Peter thought that he had seen all sorts, around his mother’s dinner table, or in the Army. A middle-aged man whose uncut hair straggled to his shoulders, he wore rough workman’s pants and a roundabout jacket patched in leather over a rough homespun cloth shirt so worn that it was impossible to tell what color it had been—if it had ever been any color at all. As Dolph and Peter joined Fredi, he fixed all three of them with an unnervingly direct gaze and said, “Good. I thought you would return sooner than this. Another season and the beams would be ruined. Even so, you must rebuild the north wall.”
“How very pleasant to make your acquaintance,” Peter said to the open air. “You must be Mister Berg. My cousin has spoken of you.”
Berg’s attention swerved to Peter. There was something almost mechanical about his regard like the mouth of an artillery piece transiting through an arc to fix on a new position. Dolph elbowed him warningly in the ribs. You only said he was odd, Peter told his cousin with a silent expression, not as mad as a March hare. No wonder the Indians leave him alone.
“This is my cousin, Peter Vining,” Dolph explained, as if nothing were the least bit awkward about this exchange. “We’re going to rebuild the house and run cattle again, once we sort out what is the best market for beef.”
“And what of the orchard?” Berg still had his attention fixed unswervingly on Peter. “Your father had such a care for the orchard. I would not see it neglected.”
“We’ll take good care of the orchard,” Dolph answered.
Berg nodded abruptly, apparently satisfied with this assurance. “You have lost your arm,” he announced, dropping that flat statement like a man tossing his hat and gloves onto a table.
“Not lost,” Peter retorted. “I know perfectly well where it went—the Army surgeon took it away. It saves on shirts, you know.”
Berg stared at him, utterly without humor. “You have not a . . .what do they call it? A mechanical?”
“No,” Peter answered. The man was mad, utterly mad—perhaps the best way of dealing with him was merely to answer the question.
“I can make,” Berg nodded confidently. “Show me.”
“What?” Peter stared at him, utterly baffled. “Make a mechanical arm? For me?”
“Of course,” Berg answered, with considerable impatience. “Take off your shirt. I must see both.”
“Do it,” Dolph whispered. Fredi watched with enormous interest and nodded agreement. “He can build anything. I think he could even build a mechanical head, if it was required and he had the whim to do it.”
“Can’t we go inside first?” Peter asked.
The strange hermit, Mr. Berg, shook his head. “No. Light is better outside. Now show,” and he made a gesture of pulling at his shirt. Peter had no choice but to obey, taking off his coat and pulling his shirt over his head. He stood shivering in the thin winter sunshine as Mr. Berg scrutinized his arms with close attention, the whole one and the abbreviated one, first holding them out straight in front, then hanging at Peter’s sides as the mad hermit directed. Finally he said, “Good. I make to fit.”
Peter hastily and gratefully donned his outer clothing again. “You don’t need to make any measure?”
“No. I have the eye.” Berg answered.
With that, he nodded curtly and strode away, leaving Fredi shaking his head and Peter saying, “That must be the strangest social call ever paid—I never met a person less acquainted with an etiquette book in my whole life.”
