Читать книгу Pícaro - Charles Bernard Nordhoff - Страница 5

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It was the time of the annual branding of calves, and Blaise had been out every day with the men, rising long before daylight and coming home so tired that once he dropped off to sleep before the dinner bell. Day after day the cattle came streaming in—wild-eyed and half-defiant cows, with awkward calves frisking alongside; a few steers; and here and there a ponderous white-faced bull. They came from the flat coastal mesas, from brushy draws leading into the upper valley, from thickets of chaparral and manzanita among the cañons of the San Benito Hills. All day long, in the corrals along the river bottom, the riders worked under a haze of dust shot with the acrid fumes of burning hair. By night the valley was filled with a perpetual melancholy uproar—cows calling to their calves, and calves bawling for mothers from whom they were separated for the first time.

This was the work Blaise loved—a taste inherited from ancestors who had seen tall Boston ships at anchor in the bay, and heard the creaking wheels of bullock-carts moving toward the beach, laden with stacks of sun-dried hides. The major loved it, too—the bawling of the cattle, which would have strained the nerves of any city man, lulled him to sleep at night; and during the day he was to be seen in his spring wagon, tally book in hand, while old Julius dozed beside him on the seat, arousing himself now and then to disperse the flies on the backs of a pair of elderly trotting-horses.

At last, when only a handful of calves remained unbranded, Blaise offered to take his brother to the city for the day. There were sailings to inquire about and books to buy, for Pícaro felt that it was time he brushed up his stock of schoolboy French.

They had lunched together at a club and now their errands were done and they were homeward bound—past the confusion and din of the downtown traffic, through which Blaise threaded his way with the effrontery of a gamin taxi driver; past miles of diminutive bungalows, each with its two rectangles of lawn divided by a walk of cement; and past the great coastal plain—a chessboard of orchard, pasture, and market garden, broken by ranges of low hills on which oil derricks bristled hideously.

It was late afternoon when they smelled the salt perfume of the sea and turned to follow the road between the foothills and the dunes—a broad white road which stretched off to the south so straight that it seemed to end in the imaginary point where all the lines of perspective meet. Pícaro filled his lungs with the clean air, scented with salty drying kelp and the blossoms of the hardy plants that grow among the dunes. He had felt more than usually stifled in the city that day, confused by the disorderly rush and clamor of the streets and depressed by the white faces of the crowds.

After all, he thought, which was the more real—the swarming life of the city, or the little world of the ranch, with its peace, its dignity, its seclusion in the midst of a busy age? Mankind had long since passed the stage when everyone could live on the land. No ... with all its peaceful beauty, all its atmosphere of primitive kinship with the soil, the ranch was unreal—a relic of another age, preserved by walls of artifice against the encroachments of the world. Pícaro smiled to himself, a little sadly. For the first time, he saw his father in a new light: a quaint, old-time figure out of a forgotten past; an object of archæological interest—of local pride, perhaps—to point out to sentimental tourists in this California of motor cars, market gardens, bungalows in the mission style, oil wells and real estate....

Blaise was never a talker with men; he had scarcely exchanged a word with his brother since lunch. He seemed preoccupied and drove slowly, gazing moodily ahead. Suddenly Pícaro heard the trampling of a powerful exhaust, the harsh scream of an electric horn. Next moment he snatched at his hat as a heavy car swept past at sixty miles an hour. There were faint shrieks, a vision of veiled faces, the backward flutter of a handkerchief. Blaise gripped the wheel with a sparkle in his eye, all his languid moodiness gone.

“The Whitneys,” he said in explanation; “they told me they were going to Coronado. Sit tight and we’ll have some fun with them.”

He opened the cut-out, leaned forward to pump additional oil with his free hand, and pressed the sensitive throttle underfoot. Pícaro’s ears were stunned by the motor’s deep and rapid explosions; he felt the seat pressing against his back, saw the telegraph-poles leap toward him and flick past, felt the wind roaring in his ears as the car gathered speed and flew southward. He glanced down at the instruments under the cowl ... sixty-five—seventy—seventy-five. Jove! Blaise’s little car could go! They rushed at a long gentle hill, struck a culvert near the top, seemed to bound into the air and touch again with a faint buoyant impact, and flew down the straight five-mile stretch beyond. Now the big car was close ahead. Eighty! Blaise was going to pass them at eighty miles an hour. The little car shrieked twice, a shattering, discordant cry, and the machine ahead increased its speed as it moved slowly to the right. Next moment they were flashing past—Blaise raising one hand for an instant to wave mockingly at his friends.

It was late and the road was almost deserted. Blaise held the throttle open as they sped south, up hills, across mesas, along the base of bluffs that magnified the roar of the exhaust. Now they were on their own land, flying between two lines of fence posts that winked past with the rapidity of a cinematograph. Little by little the speed diminished as they approached the turn-off to the ranch; then at forty miles an hour Blaise flung the car about and headed up the valley to the house. Next moment the brakes were screaming as they came to a stop.

“Gad! Blaise,” remarked the elder brother as he climbed out stiffly, “you can drive!”

The other’s face was illuminated by one of the smiles he usually reserved for women. “She can move, eh?” he observed in his soft voice. “There’s something about speed ...”

Pícaro lingered for a moment while his brother struggled out of his dust coat and walked away. It was the hour when day faded into dusk, and in this gray, crepuscular light the old house seemed as much a part of nature as the hills. Along the gallery the arches and their supporting columns were outlined against a glimmer of warm lamplight; a murmur of subdued voices came from the servants’ bench; somewhere far away the howl of a coyote rose, quavered, and died. Under the cottonwoods he saw the glare of a bonfire with black moving figures against its light; there was a scent of wood smoke, the distant measured thudding of an ax, the faint twang of a guitar.... His thoughts were wandering again. Perhaps he had been wrong—perhaps the abiding realities were here, attuned to the soil, to the mountains, to the sea. Might not a day come when Nature would shake herself, to obliterate with a sudden impatient gesture the monstrous growths of the city—the rows of mushroom dwellings, the hurried swarms of unhappy men and women out of step with the procession of the years?

The major was walking on the gallery, a dim figure in riding clothes, signaled by the glowing end of a cigar.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he remarked as he stopped to greet his son. “We’ll have dinner early to-night. We finished the branding at noon, and Domingo came in to ask if I didn’t want to put off the fiesta. He was thinking of your mother, but I told him she would have wanted the men to have their good time. I’ve given them a barrel of wine and a steer to roast. We must go down for a while after dinner.”

An hour later the major offered Rita his arm and led the way to the grove of cottonwoods, where chairs were set out for them in the firelight. It had been the custom of the ranch, since times beyond the memory of the oldest man present, to celebrate the finish of the annual branding—the hardest work of the year. The Guadalupe was in reality an island, on which the half-Spanish life of an elder California had survived—one of a few fast-disappearing colonies still scattered in lonely portions of the state. Most of the major’s people were of the old blood, born on the land, but among the riders there was one Mexican from the Peninsula, and Pícaro saw a group of Americans sitting on the grass—the tractor crew and a pair of drillers from the new oil field—gaunt, sunburnt men, taller than the vaqueros and holding themselves a little aloof. The pit where the steer was roasting had not been opened, but Domingo had broached the hogshead of wine, cups were passing around, and the old-country Mexican—a tigerish man with narrow eyes and a thin drooping mustache—was striking up a favorite song. He sat leaning against the trunk of a cottonwood, with the firelight illuminating his swarthy, handsome face; there was a cup of wine on the grass beside him, and he held a guitar which he fingered skillfully without once glancing at the frets. He struck a series of chords in a minor key and suddenly Pícaro heard his voice, resonant and high-pitched:

“La Lola tiene un chiquillo

Y el pobrecillo

Se murió.”

He slapped his hand on the strings, threw back his head, and struck a single deep note. The crowd was swaying in time to the song, and at this signal the others took up the chorus with a will:

“Pasa Reverte

Le dice: ‘No llores Lola

Que aquí estoy yo!’”

There was no other singer like Juan Montez on the ranch. The major leaned toward his sons. “There’s a magnetism about that fellow,” he remarked in a low voice. “They’re a little afraid of him, too; he came north because he had killed a man in Rosario. Domingo tells me he’s the smartest cow-hand on the place.” He made a sign, and the foreman stood up, raising an arm for silence.

“The patrón wishes me to tell you,” he announced, “that this has been a good year for the ranch. He thanks every man for his work and desires you to know that you will share in its prosperity.”

A subdued noise of clapping greeted the words. Doña Margarita was only a short time in her grave, and there was delicacy in these people of Latin blood—they were pleased, and they knew how to show it without vociferation. Rita and the major rose during the momentary pause which followed, gave the company a pleasant good night, and walked away toward the house.

Ordinarily Pícaro would have followed his father, but now he watched the vaqueros and their women with a new sense of detachment, a fresh appreciation of a scene at once exotic and familiar from childhood days. As for Blaise, he was in his element. On these occasions he drank his share of harsh red wine; danced with the girls, or sang them a song when the guitar was passed his way. But to-night he seemed tired—lying in the grass with the palm of one hand supporting his head, eyes half closed and a cigarette hanging from his lips. His brother sat watching intently, with a grave half smile. He was intensely aware of the strangeness of the scene before him—the firelight reflected on the brown faces of primitive men; the wild figures of the riders, in their broad hats and breeches of leather, ornamented with hammered silver disks; the swaying bodies of the women, moving their arms in set gestures to the click of castanets.

All at once Pícaro heard shouts and saw that a ring had been cleared—that Lupita, the foreman’s graceful daughter, was moving out to dance. The girl was shy, and fat old Concha, her mother, was urging her with little encouraging pats. She was not more than sixteen, and she possessed the slender beauty to be found among the young girls of southern lands—women who are middle-aged at twenty-five. Her hair was piled high on her head and held by a silver comb, heavy earrings hung from her ears, and a tasseled scarf was tied about her hips in the revealing manner of her race. Blaise was sitting up, watching the dancer with a sudden interest in his eyes.

Montez plucked his guitar, fingers began to snap, and a violin took up the air—a swaying, throbbing offspring of the Seguidilla. The first note dissipated the girl’s timidity. Stepping lightly—her hips, her arms, her shoulders alive with the intoxication of the music—she moved slowly about the circle, challenging the young men to dance. Pícaro heard a chuckle of amusement and turned to see Blaise spring to his feet. The spectators, seated on the grass, moved aside to make way for him, and next moment he snapped his fingers and was dancing opposite the girl. The music throbbed and deepened in barbaric cadences. Now Blaise was pursuing the graceful Lupita, who retreated before him coquettishly—shy, flirtatious, half afraid. The dance was a pantomime of love, and he teased her, pleaded with her, entreated her with gestures that brought a murmur of approval from the watchers. Then, with a suddenness that was startling, the music ceased and the dancers stood motionless, as if the silence had frozen them in the poses of an instant before. Next moment the musicians took up the air where it had stopped, and the young pair sprang into life. This time it was Lupita who followed the slowly retreating Blaise—pleading, wooing, teasing with every sway of her body, every movement of her graceful arms....

Moved by a vague distaste, Pícaro rose and walked away among the shadows. In spite of himself, he had felt the spell of the dancing, but it displeased him to see Blaise amusing himself so soon after their mother’s death, and the spectacle of his brother and the foreman’s daughter had irritated him in a manner he could scarcely define. The girl was pretty enough in a vulgar way, but what business had Blaise dancing with this descendant of Indian women and low Spanish adventurers, when Rita du Quesne was waiting for him at the house?

He found Rita in a hammock on the gallery. The major was reading inside. The night was warm and a crescent moon was setting over Toros Point.

“They seem to be enjoying themselves,” she remarked, as a confused sound of shouting drifted up from the bottom land. Pícaro had brought a steamer chair and was stretching himself beside her.

“Trust the wine for that,” he answered.

“You seem a little dismal to-night. Did you have a tiresome day?”

“The crowds in the city depress me, Rita. They seem symbolical of these restless times. I don’t like people—there’s no use pretending that I do.” The girl turned her head in the darkness; he fancied that he could perceive her gentle smile.

“I’m going to preach you a sermon, Píc,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “You won’t mind? Well, you’ve always disliked people because you’ve never known them—never taken a part in everyday life. You live in a little world of your own, where the real things are birds, and beasts, and sunsets, and higher mathematics. No—don’t laugh! I mean what I say! I’ve seen you wrought up at the notion that some variety of bird was threatened with extermination, but if you opened a newspaper now, and read that a thousand Armenians had been massacred by the Turks, you would turn away with a yawn. And yet the people on the streets—the unattractive people you find so depressing, feel these things in a way you can’t understand—feel them enough to subscribe their pennies for relief.”

“By Jove!” he interrupted her, with a chuckle, “keep on another minute and I’ll subscribe, myself!”

“Let me finish. I love birds, too—you taught me that, and taught me to love the ocean and the hills—but I love human beings, and I wish you did! There—my sermon’s done.”

“Rita,” he asked, after a moment of silence, “do you believe in God?”

“Of course I do! What a question! Don’t you?”

“You have brains,” he went on, evading the reply. “Do you believe that your consciousness will continue after your body is dead? That our actions in this world will be punished or rewarded in a future life? That the world was made for us, and that each individual is a cog in an ordered progression?”

“Yes, I believe in all those things. I don’t think of them much, or try to convince myself one way or the other—I simply know.”

“I wish I knew,” he said, with a sigh. He filled his pipe, and the flare of a match illuminated his thoughtful face.

“I need religion,” he went on; “everyone does. But now, when it seems to me that I need it more than ever before, I’ve lost my grasp on the things mother taught me to believe. Forgive me for inflicting my thoughts on you.... I’m leaving on Monday, by the way.”

“Oh, Píc! I’m sorry it must be so soon!”

It was Monday morning and there was an unaccustomed stir about the house, for this was the day of Pícaro’s departure. His trunk had gone on ahead and he was in his room with Rita, who was helping him to pack his bag. Blaise’s low, dusty car stood outside the gallery, and its owner lay smoking in the hammock, turning the sheets of yesterday’s San Francisco paper. The major paced up and down before the door of his study, head bowed and hands clasped behind his back.

At the other end of the gallery a group of the Guadalupe people was clustered about the bench where old Julius sat, with his gold-headed stick between his knees. His son, known as young Julius, sat beside him—a powerful, coal-black man who treated his father with exaggerated respect. There was also a third generation of the tribe of Julius, and its single representative was playing in the dust beyond the arches—a small black boy, called Little Julius, whose toothless and disarming grin was belied by a malicious eye.

A gaunt old man stood by the bench, smoking a cigar the major had given him. His trousers, supported by a silver-studded belt, were pulled down over the legs of high-heeled boots, and he wore a black shirt under an unbuttoned vest. Long white mustaches drooped about his mouth; his skin was the color of old leather and seamed by a thousand wrinkles about the eyes and on the back of his neck. He stood with one leg bent, toe to the flagstones, and his weight resting on the other; when he walked, it was with an effort and an atrocious limp, for the muscles of his thigh had not healed properly after he had been thrown and gored by a heifer, many years before. But he asked no odds, and one forgot his injury the moment he was in the saddle. This was Domingo, the husband of Concha and the father of the girl Lupita. Like the others, he was waiting to bid the major’s son farewell.

Pícaro’s bag was packed and Rita watched him while he lingered to glance about the room which held so many memories. He had the feeling, common to all men when they quit a place they love, that this might be the last time his eyes would rest on these four walls, on the bed in which he had slept as a child, on the shelves with their rows of worn books, on the view of the sunny hills he knew so well. He raised his eyes to the stuffed birds along the picture rail. How well he remembered the day he had stalked that tree-duck on the marsh! It had risen out of range the first time, and flown to the creek at the south end. He could still feel the excitement of fourteen years ago—the realization that this was a bird that he had never seen—the fear of its escape—the thrill when it had folded its wings and plunged downward at his shot! It had proved a new northern record; his boyish paper published in the Auk had made a small stir among the ornithologists.

The breeze blowing through the open windows was perfumed with the warm scent of sage, and a valley quail was calling somewhere in the hills behind the house. The three clear notes, mellowed by distance, seemed to express the spirit of the place....

Pícaro took up his bag and followed Rita through the door. He walked to the bench on the gallery, where Julius was rising tremblingly to his feet.

“Good-by, sir, Mr. Henry,” muttered the old negro, his eyes blinking as he took Pícaro’s outstretched hand. “Don’t you forget us, in them foreign lands!”

Now he was shaking hands with Young Julius, and the grandson—a faithful companion on many days of fishing and shooting—trotted up and clung to his father’s leg. Finally it was Domingo’s turn, and his murmured “Adios, patróncito” expressed less than his eyes or the warm clasp of his hand. Pícaro felt oddly choked as he turned away from these friendly faces. His father had stopped and was watching him while he walked to where Rita was standing by the door, but the major’s eyes told him nothing, for Pícaro approached the girl without hesitation, took her in his arms, and kissed her in the offhand and affectionate fashion of a brother.

“Well, sir,” he said as he clasped his father’s hand, “we must be off! Good-by, and thank you again for making this trip possible!”

The major was standing very straight, holding in his left hand a cigar which sent up a ribbon of thin blue smoke. “Good-by, son,” he said.

Pícaro heard the rumble of the exhaust and saw that Blaise was already at the wheel. As he settled himself in the seat he was aware of sounds behind him, and turned to see fat old Concha, who had gone off to fetch her daughter, trotting up to bid him farewell. She had been his nurse before Blaise was born, and now she flung her arms about him with a breathless wail.

“Ay Dios! Wouldst thou have gone off without a kiss for old Conchita? God bless thee, nene, and bring thee safely back!”

The girl came forward timidly and held out her hand. Pícaro noticed that in the daylight she was extraordinarily handsome. “Good-by, Mr. Langhorne,” she said, in the English she had learned at school.