Читать книгу Hidden Water - Coolidge Dane - Страница 4

On the edge of the barren mesa and looking out over the sandy flats where the Salagua writhed about uneasily in its bed, the casa of Don Pablo Moreno stood like a mud fort, barricaded by a palisade of the thorny cactus which the Mexicans call ocotilla. Within this fence, which inclosed several acres of standing grain and the miniature of a garden, there were all the signs of prosperity–a new wagon under its proper shade, a storehouse strongly built where chickens lingered about for grain, a clean-swept ramada casting a deep shadow across the open doorway; but outside the inclosure the ground was stamped as level as a threshing floor. As Creede and Hardy drew near, an old man, grave and dignified, came out from the shady veranda and opened the gate, bowing with the most courtly hospitality.

“Buenos tardes, señores,” he pronounced, touching his hat in a military salute. “Pasa! Welcome to my poor house.”

In response to these salutations Creede made the conventional replies, and then as the old man stood expectant he said in a hurried aside to Hardy:

“D’ye talk Spanish? He don’t understand a word of English.”

“Sure,” returned Hardy. “I was brought up on it!”

“No!” exclaimed Creede incredulously, and then, addressing the Señor Moreno in his native tongue, he said: “Don Pablo, this is my friend Señor Hardy, who will live with me at Agua Escondida!”

“With great pleasure, señor,” said the old gentleman, removing his hat, “I make your acquaintance!”

“The pleasure is mine,” replied Hardy, returning the salutation, and at the sound of his own language Don Pablo burst into renewed protestations of delight. Within the cool shadow of his ramada he offered his own chair and seated himself in another, neatly fashioned of mesquite wood and strung with thongs of rawhide. Then, turning his venerable head to the doorway which led to the inner court, he shouted in a terrible voice:

“Muchacho!”

Instantly from behind the adobe wall, around the corner of which he had been slyly peeping, a black-eyed boy appeared and stood before him, his ragged straw hat held respectfully against his breast.

“Sus manos!” roared the old man; and dropping his hat the muchacho touched his hands before him in an attitude of prayer.

“Give the gentlemen a drink!” commanded Don Pablo severely, and after Hardy had accepted the gourd of cold water which the boy dipped from a porous olla, resting in the three-pronged fork of a trimmed mesquite, the old gentleman called for his tobacco. This the mozo brought in an Indian basket wrought by the Apaches who live across the river–Bull Durham and brown paper. The señor offered these to his guest, while Creede grinned in anticipation of the outcome.

“What?” exclaimed the Señor Moreno, astounded. “You do not smoke? Ah, perhaps it is my poor tobacco! But wait, I have a cigarro which the storekeeper gave me when I–No? No smoke nothing? Ah, well, well–no smoke, no Mexicano, as the saying goes.” He regarded his guest doubtfully, with a shadow of disfavor. Then, rolling a cigarette, he remarked: “You have a very white skin, Señor Hardy; I think you have not been in Arizona very long.”

“Only a year,” replied Hardy modestly.

“Muchacho!” cried the señor. “Run and tell the señora to hasten the dinner. And where,” he inquired, with the shrewd glance of a country lawyer, “and where did you learn, then, this excellent Spanish which you speak?”

“At Old Camp Verde, to the north,” replied Hardy categorically, and at the name Creede looked up with sudden interest. “I lived there when I was a boy.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Don Pablo, raising his eyebrows. “And were your parents with you?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Hardy, “my father was an officer at the post.”

“Ah, sí, sí, sí,” nodded the old man vigorously, “now I understand. Your father fought the Apaches and you played with the little Mexican boys, no? But now your skin is white–you have not lived long under our sun. When the Apaches were conquered your parents moved, of course–they are in San Francisco now, perhaps, or Nuevo York.”

“My father is living near San Francisco,” admitted Hardy, “but,” and his voice broke a little at the words, “my mother has been dead many years.”

“Ah, indeed,” exclaimed Don Pablo sympathetically, “I am very sorry. My own madre has been many years dead also. But what think you of our country? Is it not beautiful?”

“Yes, indeed,” responded Hardy honestly, “and you have a wonderful air here, very sweet and pure.”

“Seguro!” affirmed the old man, “seguro que sí! But alas,” he added sadly, “one cannot live on air alone. Ah, que malo, how bad these sheep are!”

He sighed, and regarded his guest sadly with eyes that were bloodshot from long searching of the hills for cattle.

“I remember the day when the first sheep came,” he said, in the manner of one who begins a set narration. “In the year of ’91 the rain came, more, more, more, until the earth was full and the excess made lagunas on the plain. That year the Salagua left all bounds and swept my fine fields of standing corn away, but we did not regret it beyond reason for the grass came up on the mesas high as a horse’s belly, and my cattle and those of my friend Don Luís, the good father of Jeff, here, spread out across the plains as far as the eye could see, and every cow raised her calf. But look! On the next year no rain came, and the river ran low, yet the plains were still yellow with last year’s grass. All would have been well now as before, with grass for all, when down from the north like grasshoppers came the borregos–baaa, baaa, baaa– thousands of them, and they were starving. Never had I seen bands of sheep before in Arizona, nor the father of Don Jeff, but some say they had come from California in ’77, when the drought visited there, and had increased in Yavapai and fed out all the north country until, when this second año seco came upon them, there was no grass left to eat. And now, amigo, I will tell you one thing, and you may believe it, for I am an old man and have dwelt here long: it is not God who sends the dry years, but the sheep!

“Mira! I have seen the mowing machine of the Americano cut the tall grass and leave all level–so the starved sheep of Yavapai swept across our mesa and left it bare. Yet was there feed for all, for our cattle took to the mountains and browsed higher on the bushes, above where the sheep could reach; and the sheep went past and spread out on the southern desert and were lost in it, it was so great.

“That was all, you will say–but no! In the Spring every ewe had her lamb, and many two, and they grew fat and strong, and when the grass became dry on the desert because the rains had failed again, they came back, seeking their northern range where the weather was cool, for a sheep cannot endure the heat. Then we who had let them pass in pity were requited after the way of the borregueros– we were sheeped out, down to the naked rocks, and the sheepmen went on, laughing insolently. Ay, que malo los borregueros, what devils they are; for hunger took the strength from our cows so that they could not suckle their calves, and in giving birth many mothers and their little ones died together. In that year we lost half our cows, Don Luís Creede and I, and those that lived became thin and rough, as they are to this day, from journeying to the high mountains for feed and back to the far river for water.

“Then the father of Jeff became very angry, so that he lost weight and his face became changed, and he took an oath that the first sheep or sheep-herder that crossed his range should be killed, and every one thereafter, as long as he should live. Ah, what a buen hombre was Don Luís–if we had one man like him to-day the sheep would yet go round–a big man, with a beard, and he had no fear, no not for a hundred men. And when in November the sheep came bleating back, for they had promised so to do as soon as the feed was green, Don Luís met them at the river, and he rode along its bank, night and day, promising all the same fate who should come across–and, umbre, the sheep went round!”

The old man slapped his leg and nodded his head solemnly. Then he looked across at Creede and his voice took on a great tenderness. “My friend has been dead these many years,” he said, “but he was a true man.”

As Don Pablo finished his story the Señora opened the door of the kitchen where the table was already set with boiled beans, meat stewed with peppers, and thin corn cakes–the conventional frijoles, carne con chili, and tortillas of the Mexicans–and some fried eggs in honor of the company. As the meal progressed the Señora maintained a discreet silence, patting out tortillas and listening politely to her husband’s stock of stories, for Don Pablo was lord in his own house. The big-eyed muchacho sat in the corner, watching the corn cakes cook on the top of the stove and battening on the successive rations which were handed out to him. There were stories, as they ate, of the old times, of the wars and revolutions of Sonora, wherein the Señor Moreno had taken too brave a part, as his wounds and exile showed; strange tales of wonders and miracles wrought by the Indian doctors of Altár; of sacred snakes with the sign of the cross blazoned in gold on their foreheads, worshipped by the Indians with offerings of milk and tender chickens; of primitive life on the haciendas of Sonora, where men served their masters for life and were rewarded at the end with a pension of beans and carne seco.

Then as the day waned they sat at peace in the ramada, Moreno and Creede smoking, and Hardy watching the play of colors as the sun touched the painted crags of the Bulldog and lighted up the square summit of Red Butte across the river, throwing mysterious shadows into the black gorge which split it from crown to base. Between that high cliff and the cleft red butte flowed the Salagua, squirming through its tortuous cañon, and beyond them lay Hidden Water, the unknown, whither a single man was sent to turn back the tide of sheep.

In the silence the tinkle of bells came softly from up the cañon and through the dusk Hardy saw a herd of goats, led by a long-horned ram, trailing slowly down from the mesa. They did not pause, either to rear up on their hind feet for browse or to snoop about the gate, but filed dutifully into their own corral and settled down for the night.

“Your goats are well trained, Don Pablo,” said Hardy, by way of conversation. “They come home of their own accord.”

“Ah, no,” protested Moreno, rising from his chair. “It is not the goats but my goat dogs that are well trained. Come with me while I close the gate and I will show you my flock.”

The old gentleman walked leisurely down the trail to the corral, and at their approach Hardy saw two shaggy dogs of no breed suddenly detach themselves from the herd and spring defiantly forward.

“Quita se, quita se!” commanded Don Pablo, and at his voice they halted, still growling and baring their fangs at Hardy.

“Mira,” exclaimed the old man, “are they not bravo? Many times the borregueros have tried to steal my bucks to lead their timid sheep across the river, but Tira and Diente fight them like devils. One Summer for a week the chivas did not return, having wandered far up into the mountains, but in the end Tira and Diente fetched them safely home. See them now, lying down by the mother goat that suckled them; you would not believe it, but they think they are goats.”

He laughed craftily at the idea, and at Hardy’s eager questions.

“Seguro,” he said, “surely I will tell you about my goat dogs, for you Americans often think the Mexicans are tonto, having no good sense, because our ways are different. When I perceived that my cattle were doomed by reason of the sheep trail crossing the river here at my feet I bought me a she-goat with kids, and a ram from another flock. These I herded myself along the brow of the hill, and they soon learned to rear up against the bushes and feed upon the browse which the sheep could not reach. Thus I thought that I might in time conquer the sheep, fighting the devil with fire; but the coyotes lay in wait constantly to snatch the kids, and once when the river was high the borregueros of Jeem Swopa stole my buck to lead their sheep across.

“Then I remembered a trick of my own people in Sonora, and I took the blind pups of a dog, living far from here, and placed each of them with a she-goat having one newborn kid; and while the kid was sucking at one teat the mother could not help but let down milk for the puppy at the other, until at last when the dog smell had left him she adopted him for her own. Now as the pups grew up they went out on the hills with their goat mother, and when, they being grown, she would no longer suckle them, they stole milk from the other she-goats; and so they live to-day, on milk and what rabbits they can catch. But whenever they come to the house I beat them and drive them back–their nature is changed now, and they love only goats. Eight years ago I raised my first goat dogs, for many of them desert their mothers and become house dogs, and now I have over a hundred goats, which they lead out morning and night.”

The old man lashed fast the gate to the corral and turned back toward the house.

“Ah, yes,” he said musingly, “the Americanos say continually that we Mexicanos are foolish–but look at me! Here is my good home, the same as before. I have always plenty beans, plenty meat, plenty flour, plenty coffee. I welcome every one to my house, to eat and sleep–yet I have plenty left. I am muy contento, Señor Hardy–yes, I am always happy. But the Americanos? No! When the sheep come, they fight; when their cattle are gone, they move; fight, fight; move, move; all the time.” He sighed and gazed wearily at the barren hills.

“Señor Hardy,” he said at last, “you are young, yet you have seen the great world–perhaps you will understand. Jeff tells me you come to take charge of the Dos S Rancho, where the sheep come through by thousands, even as they did here when there was grass. I am an old man now; I have lived on this spot twenty-four years and seen much of the sheep; let me advise you.

“When the sheepmen come across the river do not fight, as Don Jeff does continually, but let them pass. They are many and the cowmen are few; they are rich and we are very poor; how then can a few men whip many, and those armed with the best? And look–if a sheepman is killed there is the law, you know, and lawyers–yes, and money!” He shrugged his shoulders and threw out his hands, peeping ruefully through the fingers to symbolize prison bars.

“Is it not so?” he asked, and for the first time an Americano agreed with him.

“One thing more, then,” said Don Pablo, lowering his voice and glancing toward the house, where Creede was conversing with the Señora. “The papá of Don Jeff yonder was a good man, but he was a fighting Texano–and Jeff is of the same blood. Each year as the sheep come through I have fear for him, lest he should kill some saucy borreguero and be sent to prison; for he has angry fits, like his father, and there are many bad men among the sheep-herders,–escaped criminals from Old Mexico, ladrones, and creatures of low blood, fathered by evil Americanos and the nameless women of towns.

“In Sonora we would whip them from our door, but the sheepmen make much of their herders, calling them brothers and cuñados and what not, to make them stay, since the work is hard and dangerous. And to every one of them, whether herder or camp rustler, the owners give a rifle with ammunition, and a revolver to carry always. So they are drunk with valor. But our Jeff here has no fear of them, no, nor decent respect. He overrides them when the fit is on him, as if they were unfanged serpents–and so far he has escaped.”

The old man leaned closer, and lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, acting out his words dramatically.

“But some day–” he clasped his heart, closed his eyes, and seemed to lurch before a bullet. “No?” he inquired, softly. “Ah, well, then, you must watch over him, for he is a good man, doing many friendships, and his father was a buen hombre, too, in the days when we all were rich. So look after him–for an old man,” he added, and trudged wearily back to the house.