Читать книгу The Border Kid - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 4
ОглавлениеHe Is Like a Man
The golden wall of light no longer rolled down the street; in the distance the sky was turning crimson; but the ruffled hair of Ricardo Perez was still like a tangle of flame, and William Benn made sure that this was the pot of gold which fortune had placed in his way.
The young Mexican was now approaching him.
“I have said a good many bad things about the Americans,” said Ricardo. “But it was only because those others are my enemies. You, señor, have been my friend. I thank you, and offer you my hand.”
Benn took that hand. It was soft as the hand of a woman. No labor of any kind had hardened it with calluses, though it was full of a nervous strength.
“I never judge a man by what he says but by what he does,” said William Benn. “And I’ve seen you at work. How old are you, Ricardo?”
“Eighteen,” said the other.
“Eighteen years old. And what’s your work, then?”
“Work?” said Ricardo, rather blankly. Then he added quickly: “I’m preparing to go to work. One has to look around and decide what is the best thing to be done, señor!”
“Now,” said William Benn, “I’m on the lookout for just such a young fellow as you seem to be. Suppose you come along with me, Ricardo?”
The boy looked at him with eyes as blue and mild as the eyes of a woman; and yet there was thought in them.
“I would have to ask the permission of my father!” said he.
“Let us go to see him, then.”
“Perhaps he has not yet come back with the mules.”
“Is he a muleteer?”
“Yes,” said the boy, “he is an employer of mules.”
This more dignified manner of stating the case made Benn smile a little to himself, but he was careful not to allow that smile to be visible to the youngster.
The boy led him through several side streets, and at last into a district where the scent altered to that which inevitably fills the air where people eat frijoles, tortillas, and roast kid. The pungency of bacon and frying, burning steaks was changed to a softer tone.
So they came at last to the house of Antonio Perez, and found Antonio himself seated in front of his door smoking cigarettes. The day had been very hot and Antonio Perez had marched a long distance, beating his mules along the way. Therefore he was tired. His eyes were blank. His shirt was opened at the throat and showed a hairy chest. His sleeves were rolled up over brawny arms to the elbow. His whole body drooped with relaxation, and his face looked ten years older than in the morning of a new day.
Yet he rose with a good deal of dignity to respond to the greeting of his boy and his boy’s new friend.
In fact, there was a reason behind Antonio’s air. It was no affectation; it was his sincere estimate of himself which endowed him with a liberal portion of self-reverence.
For in the old days he had been a laborer in a mine. He had toiled up the long ladders, carrying baskets of ore upon his back. That was in Mexico, of course. There was still a deep mark across his brow where the head band that braced the load had passed. After a time, this sturdy peon had decided that he would venture farther away to the north. He went north. In a foolish moment he crossed the path of a gendarme. He had to flee across the river into the strange land of the United States.
There he lived miserably for a while. But he was willing to work. His hands were very strong. By degrees he was able to save money—more money in a year than he could have saved in ten, south of the Rio Grande. He bought himself a mule. This doubled his earnings. He then wandered through the Navajo nation and found there and took for his wife a tall, supple, Navajo girl.
She made him a good wife and in due course of time, she presented him with three sons. The last was born in this small town, and here Antonio settled permanently. He increased his mules to three. With these he made what he regarded as a large income. It did not matter to him that his boys were ragged. He contrasted their state favorably with the nakedness in which he himself had been reared. And if their food was little other than beans and cornmeal, cooked in varying ways, the appetite in the Perez family was always keen enough to make every sort of cookery delicious.
Antonio Perez felt that he had climbed from a low level up to a mountain height, and the dignity of that achievement was impressed upon his face, his speech, his manners. He had a good many words of English. Even his wife could speak a few! But each of his wise sons could chatter in either tongue with wonderful ease. To hear their rapid talk was, to the father, like listening to the pleasant sound of cool, running water. He loved nothing so much as to hear them speak words which he himself did not understand. Then he would smile at his wife. If she were too busy to notice, he would close his eyes and register the expression in his mind, so as to tell her about it afterwards.
He had risen, therefore, and greeted his boy and the stranger. He had so much dignity about him that he gave a sharp glance at the red stain on the face of Ricardo, and yet he said not a word about it. Instead, he begged Señor Benn to dismount and honor him by stepping into his house. And he had a bottle of beer for the señor; and perhaps he would honor them by partaking of their supper, also?
Except the Irish, no race in the world is so hospitable as the Mexicans. But William Benn preferred to dismount and sit on the step of the house and talk to the master thereof. When Perez was bidden he sat down on his stool, again. He offered tobacco and papers. These were accepted; they smoked together.
“I have been admiring your son,” said William Benn.
“Do you mean Ricardo?”
“Yes, I mean Ricardo.”
“There is blood on his face,” said the father thoughtfully.
“I saw him fight,” said Benn, “like a wild cat.”
“Ah!” murmured Perez.
The remark seemed of little interest to him.
“I have three other sons, also,” said he. “Ricardo is only the youngest.”
He called: “Pedro! Vicente! Juan!”
In the houses of poor people, children usually are obedient, because the parents have not time and strength to pamper the little ones. Arguments are cut short with a blow, not because of cruelty, but because of lack of energy.
Now three young men came hastily from around the corner of the house and stood in a row before their father. They stood silently. Each had observed the stranger and bowed courteously to him.
“My name is Benn,” said he, understanding.
“This is my son Pedro; that is Vicente; that is Juan.”
“They look like a strong trio,” said William Benn.
“I shall not have to worry in my old age,” declared the Mexican. He waved the boys away. “I like to show them,” he explained simply. “It makes me feel very rich.”
“That is true. I can understand that,” declared William Benn. “They are very different from one another!”
“Pedro is a lion,” answered the father. “I never have seen such a strong man. He does not know what fear is. Then there is Vicente. He was the one in the center. He is next to Pedro in age. You will have noticed that he has a beautiful face and that he is tall. That is because he takes after his mother. Vicente is like a tiger. He is terribly fierce. I have seen his eyes turn yellow. That smallest of the three is Juan. Juan is like a fox. He is always thinking. I have seen him sit with his head on his hand for an hour. Some day he will be rich, unless he is hanged,” said the father.
“You have had another wife?” said Benn.
“Why do you ask me that?”
“Because your fourth son, Ricardo, has yellow hair.”
“He is not my son at all. I found him crying on my threshold, one warm summer night,” said Antonio Perez. “And that is all that I can say.”
Benn jerked up his head like an animal who smells danger before he sees it.
“You adopted him?”
“Never legally. There are papers to sign. What is the good of that? He has lived with us and eaten our food. I am his father and my wife is his mother, and the three boys are his brothers. That is enough for us to know.”
“Of course it is,” agreed William Benn. “I want to tell you why I want Ricardo. But first of all, will you tell me what you know about him? You said that one son is like a lion, and one is like a tiger, and one is like a fox. What is Ricardo like?”
This question made the muleteer reflect for some time. After a while he said, with his usual frankness: “I cannot lie to you, but I will tell you what I know about him. He is very lazy. He will not work. He tells lies all day long. He would rather tell a lie than tell the truth. He will not even learn how to use a knife, and the one that he carries is always dull. Besides this, sometimes he strums on a guitar. He is, as you have seen, beautiful; also, he is brave. But he is cruel and cold-hearted, and my wife and I cannot be sure that he loves us. I have told you these things because you speak kindly about my boy. I want you to know the truth about him.”
“Perhaps,” said Benn, who was more delighted with every word that he heard uttered, “perhaps you could say that he is more like a fox than Juan, even?”
“No, that is not true,” responded the muleteer. “The truth about him is different from the truth about my other sons.”
“In what way, my friend?”
“In this important way. They are all brave and strong and clever, like a lion, a tiger, or a fox, but Ricardo is like none of them. He is only like a man, and he commands the other three, although he is the youngest!”
