“When I can.” I threw the rest of my coffee on the ground. “It is an old place. I can feel that. It has changed, but it has been here. When I look at those mountains, I see the centuries pass like seasons.
“My father often said that men talk of what they call the ‘Old World.’ It is no older than this, if as old. Men had the Bible and they had the Greeks. They knew of the Egyptians and Babylon, so when the scholars began to dig, it was to find familiar things, things of which they had read. Whatever they found tied into something, and when they found something strange, they shied from it because it would have no place, no connection.
“Who knows when men first came here? Who knows how many people were here before you whom we call Indians? So much decays. So much disappears in the passage of years.”
“You must come back.”
The coals had burned down to nothing, only a few faint fingers of smoke rising. I looked at the dying red of the coals and thought of Meghan.
Did she ever think of me? Why should she? I was only a boy who had sat beside her.
I looked around. What would she think of my desert? Of these, my mountains? Was it vain to think of them as mine? Yet they were mine in a secret place in my mind. They were mine because I belonged to them and them to me. Or was this simply a romantic idea I had because my father and mother had sought a refuge in the desert?
Taking up my saddle, I kicked sand over the coals.
“You are one of us.”
“I am Johannes Verne. Beyond that I know nothing. What I am to be is something I must become. I must create myself from this that I have.” I glanced around at him. “We are nothing until we make ourselves something.”
“No doubt.”
“I do not know what I shall be except that I wish to be something, to be someone.”
“Before the world? Before other men?”
“Perhaps. Sometimes that also comes, but what I wish is to be complete in myself.”
Ramón took up his saddle. “Not too complete—to be too complete is often to be lonely. A man needs a woman, and a woman a man. It is the way of things.”
We walked down to the corral and caught up our horses. Francisco was there, and he walked over to me. “You will take the stallion? He is trouble, I think.”
“Let him be my trouble. If he escapes, let him go.”
Monte walked over to me. Jacob was already in the saddle. “We’re going to let out a few of the tame ones first, and I think the others will go to them with a mite of urging. We’ll head them toward Tejon Pass.”
“They’ll be watching,” I said. “They may try to stampede the horses.”
“Maybe, but I think they will try to steal them at night, after they’re trail-broke. They won’t have men enough to handle a herd of this size. Or the horses.”
We let a few of the horses out, and Francisco and Martín headed them off and held them; then we let a few more out and they fled at once to join them. After a few minutes we let out some more, and then some more, and Jacob led off, leading the herd down the old Indian trail.
Francisco and Martín flanked them, and we let out more and then more. By the time we let the stallion out, the herd was trailing along in good shape, with Jaime and Diego falling in beside them.
His mares were already with the herd, so the black stallion went after them and we closed in. Selmo started from habit to close the gate.
“Leave it,” I said. “Other animals will want to get to the water.”
“Of course,” he agreed.
Monte McCalla was waiting. He had his rifle in his hands, and I the same. “We’ll sort of bring up the rear,” Monte said, “just in case we have visitors.”
Ramón had mounted up and disappeared, and when I looked around for Alejandro, I did not see him.
“Scoutin’,” Monte said. “He thought he’d have a look around, but he’ll be along.”
A dapple-gray mare had taken the lead. She was older, and had been saddled and ridden in some bygone time. There was a strange brand on her shoulder that we could not make out. When she shed some more of her winter hair, we would see it better.
“You going to ride that stallion?” Monte asked.
“Sooner or later,” I admitted. “When the time seems right.”
“Give it plenty of time,” Monte advised. “He’s a fighter.”
We kept them moving at a good gait. “Get them tired,” Jacob had said, “so when we bed down they’ll be ready to rest.”
The trail we followed was old, leading through low hills crested with boulders. Larger rocks were scattered across the low ground among the hills. There were only scattered oaks, but the grass was good.
Selmo was bringing up the rear, close behind the last of the horses. Monte and I fell back.
“You ever been in a fight, kid?” he asked me.
“I lived through a couple, loading guns for my pa. Miss Nesselrode was there, too.”
“Her? In a fight?”
I told him about the Indian she had killed trying to crawl into the wagon. “And that wasn’t the only one,” I told him. “She can shoot.”
“I’ll be damned. You’d think she’d faint at the sight of blood.”
“Not her,” I said.
Late in the afternoon we slowed the pace and let the horses scatter out a bit. There was good grass in that little basin, and some water. They ate and they drank a little, and we moved them on.
Alejandro came up to us just as we were going into camp. There was an old horse corral, half of natural boulders and pieced out with poles. We let them graze a little more and then bunched them into the corral. There was room enough for all of them, but not much more. Each of us roped another horse and picketed them outside for easy access in case of trouble. I chose a dark dapple-gray that I had been watching.
Martín put together a small fire and Francisco squatted on his heels nearby.
“They come,” Francisco said.
“You’ve seen them?”
“They come. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
Well, we had understood that. We had known they would come, and we were near ready, as ready as anyone can be. When it was not quite dark, I took my rifle and went down to the corral with a couple of tortillas. I fed half of one to the mare, with the black stallion looking on. I held out a piece to him and he took a step forward, then shied away. The mare wanted it, but I would not give it to her.
Francisco came over to me. “There are Mohaves out there.”
Surprised, I said, “Mohaves? Indians?”
“Sí. Maybe ten, maybe twelve.”
Mohaves, too? I thought about that. Were they working with Fletcher? Or were they on their own? More likely the latter, but if so, did Fletcher know they were there?
When I had taken a circle around the area, I went back to the fire, took my coffee, some tortillas, and jerky, and backed off from the firelight.
When Jacob came over, I told him what Francisco had said. He squatted on his heels beside me, and Monte came over, too.
“What d’you think?” Monte asked.
“I say we catch an hour’s sleep, then get the herd down the trail. Alejandro just came in and he says there is a good place with grass and a seep of water down the trail about an hour’s drive. We can leave the fire burning low.” Jacob straightened up. “I’ll go tell the boys.”
He glanced at me. “That set all right with you?”
“It does.” I drew the back of my hand across my mouth and looked up at the stars. There would be light enough.
Ramón came in from the darkness. The blackened coffeepot still sat by the coals. He took his cup and filled it and came and sat near me.
He sipped his coffee as the others scattered to what they must do. “What is it you wish?” he asked.
“To be a complete man.”
“And what is that?”
“I do not know yet. One lives so long to learn so little.”
“So you will come again to the desert and the mount
ains?”
“I will.” I looked off toward the east, where the morning would begin, and then to the west, where along the distant mountains we would see the first light.
I was thinking then of Meghan, but I was remembering the vanishing books. I spoke abruptly. “Do you know the house of Tahquitz? Where I live?”
“I know it.” He sipped his coffee and was silent, watching the rim of the mountains for the first light. “Of course it is not Tahquitz,” he said then, almost impatiently.
“Of course,” I agreed; then added, “They say he is a monster.”
Ramón shrugged. “Which of us is not a monster to something else? To the ant in my path, I am a monster. Do you think this Tahquitz a monster?”
“No,” I said. “He reads. No one who reads can quite be a monster. Or,” I added, “perhaps he is only partially a monster.”
“I cannot read.”
“But you think,” I said, “and you listen.”
The Cahuillas were in the saddle. I got up and walked over to the dark dapple-gray and saddled up. The stallion was watching. “One of these days,” I said to him, “this saddle will be for you.”
He snorted and tossed his head, almost as if he understood, which might have been nonsense.
We trailed the horses off down the dim track, with Monte and me bringing up the rear again. Francisco fell back beside us, holding his rifle.
Then suddenly from far behind us there was a quick rattle of distant firing. Sharp, quick explosions, very close together. Francisco turned in his saddle and looked back, but all was still darkness and we could see nothing.
We heard other firing, but much less, and then silence, and after a bit, a single shot.
Death had come in the morning, death blowing gently across the hills like a breeze at dawn.
Had those who died been ready? Was one ever ready?
Monte glanced at me. “Maybe we won’t have trouble after all.”
“Not now,” I agreed, “not this time.”
The Mohaves and Fletcher’s men. But somehow, I knew, not Fletcher.
Somehow I knew he was for me or I was for him, yet I said nothing of that.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go to Los Angeles!”
“Somebody would think you had a girl there,” Monte said, smiling.
“I have,” I said, and then I smiled, too. “Only she doesn’t know it.”
“You never know about a woman,” Monte said. “You never know.”
Chapter 35
HOW LONG THE green, green valley! How veiled with distant haze the hills beyond!
From the back of the dark dapple my eyes searched out the place where the pass was, so narrow a pass, so small an opening, and so much a place where trouble might be.
The horses were tired now, and they had found their places in the pecking order of the herd. The old mare still led and the rest trailed out behind, only my black stallion aloof, alone, watchful but accepting, too. He was growing accustomed to the long drives, to the night camps, to the presence of men whom he had come to recognize and not to fear.
“Will the Mohaves follow us? Or will they go back?”
Francisco shrugged. “Who knows? They lost men, I think.”
Of course. There had been much shooting, and all the shots could not have missed, so they might have turned back, no longer sure of their medicine, even though they had probably won.
At noon I changed horses and took from the herd a sturdy bay with a black mane and tail. He had been ridden but little, and when I hit the saddle he ran forward, stopped suddenly, then, switching ends, spun in a tight circle. I stayed with him, rather enjoying it, and when he quit, I patted him on the neck and said, “Take it easy, boy, it’s going to be a long day.”
He was a good horse, a tough horse, and he moved well. He was very quick to pick up any horse that started to cut out from the herd.
We saw an old cow and two lean steers coming down a trail from the green hills. I watched them along a narrow trail, wondering how they could make it at all, yet they did, with no more trouble than so many mountain goats.
At night we made camp in the open, not liking it very much, but the valley was wide and flat and we were hours from the pass that opened into the hills. From here on we would be climbing slowly. Atop a small rise I studied our back trail and all the country we had left behind. I saw no dust, no sign of movement.
We had only a rope corral, but when we had eaten I took a tortilla and walked down to the corral and stood near the black stallion. He tossed his head and watched me from the corners of his eyes, but after a bit I moved closer and held out the tortilla to him.
He showed no interest, so I let my hand fall, waiting. After a bit I edged closer and held it out again. Tentatively he stretched his neck toward me, sniffed, and drew sharply back, shook his head, then reached his neck toward me again, and this time he nibbled cautiously at the tortilla. He got a bit of it, seemed to like it, and reached for more. I let him have it all, then walked away from him and back to the fire.
It had been three days since we had seen Ramón when he rode in from the darkness.
“They are behind us, and they need horses.”
“Mohaves?” Monte asked.
“The others. The white men. Three were killed, and one Mohave, I think.”
“They need horses?”
“Four men, two horses. Two ride, two walk, then they change.”
It was still dark when we moved out, keeping the horses moving at a good gait until the pass opened before us and the trail grew steeper. It was a narrow place between high, grassy hills dotted with clumps of oak.
“Further along,” Ramón said, “there is a spring and the burial place of a French trapper, Peter Lebec. There is a carving on a tree which says he was killed by—” he drew an “X” on the ground with his foot to show us the way it had been carved—“a cross bear.”
Monte chuckled. “You’d be cross too, if a bunch of fur trappers started setting traps around your home!”
“It is the rancho of José Antonio Aguirre and Ignacio del Valle,” Ramón explained, “but they are not often here. Too many raids by Indians.”
It was a stiff climb up through the pass, and we let the horses take their time, grazing a little as they moved.
Taking my hat from my head, I mopped the sweat from my brow and looked back to where the tall V of the canyon opening looked out upon the vast sweep of the San Joaquin Valley. Far away there seemed to be a tiny plume of dust.
Riders? Or a dancing dust devil?
Topping out on a small hill, I saw the long line of horses going down the slope before me and around the side of the low hill. Despite the dust on their coats, they were a fine lot of horses. Suddenly, far ahead of us where the pass widened into a valley, I could see a small cloud of dust.
Riders! Several of them. Turning in the saddle, I said to Ramón, “Stay with us. I think we’re going to have trouble.”
Pulling out from the drag end of the herd, I rode swiftly along the flank until I came up with Jacob, who was in the lead.
“Riders coming,” I explained. “Quite a few of them.”
Jacob turned and motioned to Monte McCalla, who rode up beside us.
“Trouble,” Jacob said, “or it could be. There are more bandits in this country than bears, and there’s a lot of grizzly.”
From where we were we could see no dust cloud as I had spotted it from the top of a rise. Jacob dropped back, speaking to Francisco, and they began bunching the horses.
We walked the horses forward, and my eyes swept the terrain ahead. There was a low hill crowned with a few cedars backed by the steep grass-covered mountainside. To the east of it there was a deep gully cut by runoff water.
“Jacob?” I pointed.
“Good idea.” He turned in the saddle and pointed, and Francisco moved up and began to turn the herd. They went into the few acres of grass against the hill, and almost at once Jaime and Martín faded into the cedars. Francis
co stepped down from his horse behind a boulder where there was also a fallen, decaying tree trunk with its web of branches. The others found their places, and we waited.
The riders came on. That they had seen us from afar was obvious, for two of them were standing in their stirrups, searching for us. There were seventeen or eighteen men in the lot, a mixed bunch of Anglos and Mexicans, heavily armed.
“Bandidos,” Francisco said.
We waited. Suddenly one of them pointed, and they turned and rode toward us in a wide skirmish line.
“If there’s trouble,” Jacob said, “the tall one with the red scarf is mine.”
“I want the two on the paint horses,” Monte said.
They rode nearer, slowing their pace as they took in the situation.
“Looking for something?” I asked.
The man who answered was a thin, wiry man with a pockmarked face. He smiled quickly, his even, very white teeth showing under his black, trimmed mustache. “We are looking for lost horses,” he said, “and we have found them.”
“Good for you,” I said. “We’ve been lucky, too. We captured some wild horses and broke them. We’re taking them into Los Angeles.”
“It seems there is a difference of opinion,” he said.
One of the Indians up in the cedars cocked his rifle. The sound was sharp and clear, and I saw several of the men turn their heads in surprise. From where they sat their horses they could have seen no more than four of us. Now they knew there were more, but how many more?
My heart was beating slowly, heavily. Sweat trickled down the side of my cheek, yet I did not feel nervous. I was curiously relaxed, ready.
“It is a lovely day,” I said mildly. “The way is clear for you to ride on.”
“Give us the horses,” the pockmarked one said, “and you will not die.”
“We watched you coming,” I said, smiling at him, “and we have a bet among us. Selmo,” I said, “is almost behind you now. He was betting we could kill twelve with the first firing. I am more modest. I believe nine or ten only. The rest we will have to get later.”
“Ten,” Monte said. “I figure we can get ten, settin’ out in the open like that, and our boys under cover.”
“We got you outnumbered,” the pockmarked man protested.
The Lonesome Gods Page 24
