Читать книгу Folded Hills - Stewart Edward White - Страница 11

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All these things were a matter of great interest. Travelers went out of their way to stop at Folded Hills, where they were welcome and abundantly entertained. They praised and enjoyed; but it is curious and significant that they did not imitate. Nevertheless Andy was considered of remarkable energy and enterprise and ingenuity, and a valuable citizen of the commonwealth. It was he, and a number of others like him, who established a favorable reputation for Americans that persisted even after the first immigrations, and into the very gold-rush days. Though the Boone rifle hung on the wall, and though to himself Andy seemed to have settled down to peaceful content, nevertheless his destiny bore him on.

The frame of his routine seemed established. It was a frame capacious to contain many varieties.

He was a true ranchero and followed the customs of his kind. Each morning he was awakened at dawn. He drank chocolate in bed, at the same time naming, to the servant who attended, the horse he would ride. Attended by Panchito he rode the range until about nine o’clock when he returned to the casa for breakfast. After four hours of riding this was justified as a hearty meal. When he had finished this, and had dawdled a little with the fascinating Djo, he mounted another horse until near one o’clock. An hour and a half later, after a light meal and a short siesta, yet a third horse was brought, on the back of which he remained until dusk. All his business, practically, was conducted from horseback. The saddle was his movable throne, or council seat, as it were. He went to bed early.

That was the ordinary pattern of his days. It was simple, almost monotonous when viewed from a far perspective. Leaving aside the spiritual content of love of wife and child, of social contact with visitor and resident, the merely material problems and exactions were sufficient to keep the frontiersman’s active interest fully occupied; at least for the present. When Andy rode on the palomino, Ramón’s gift, or one of the other “mannered” horses—the generosos—of his favoring, he did more than take horse exercise. The handling, to the best advantage, of fifteen thousand or more head of cattle is a highly technical matter. Panchito and the vaqueros knew their business, none better. Andy was a frontiersman trained through years of dangerous necessity to keen observation. But in this one matter of cattle—and horses—he never quite equaled his men. They seemed not only to know the individual animals by sight, but to be able to recognize them almost as far as they could see them. This ability was a continual astonishment to Andy. Panchito would rein his horse, and stand in his stirrups, puckering his dark eyes in focus upon a distant hillside.

“It is as I thought, señor,” he would say presently. “Last week those ones were at Boca Estrecha. Juan, ride you to Boca Estrecha and find out why those ones have come away.”

And Juan would ride, and later would report his findings—the water was low; there had been a fire; a plague of locusts had swept clean the grass; a grizzly had come down from the hills; or possibly it was merely a case of drift, a sudden aimless seizure of the wandering foot. One must know these things and be guided by them, must carry in one’s mind a bird’s-eye picture of the entire rancho and its shifting distributions and conditions. And of course there were the small daily jobs that were never ending; a creature caught in a bog hole to be extricated; the injured or sick to be roped and thrown and treated; the increase to be noted, sometimes to be branded and marked in the field. At least once a fortnight there must be a rough and informal rodeo, with every man asaddle driving the cattle to established rendezvous, where they were held for an hour and then permitted to disperse. This maneuver was essential and could not be omitted or postponed. Its object was to accustom the animals to handling. Otherwise they would soon scatter in the brushlands and become true wild beasts, elusive as the deer themselves. In spite of all vigilance a certain number did thus revert. They inhabited the chaparral and were a total loss, except for the few that could be hunted down and roped and brought in by means of the especially tamed cattle, the cabestros, to which they were lashed by the horn.

In the spring of the year was held the great rodeo when the calves were branded, the excess of bulls castrated, and the cattle that had drifted in from contiguous ranchos separated out and driven home. This was also a festival; or rather a sequence of festivals, for each rancho in turn had its rodeo. These were great gatherings. Every owner of stock was supposed to attend, bringing all his grown sons and all his male servants and dependents. The obligation was rigorous. The only permitted exceptions were the “unmounted”—that is, the mechanical workers—the sick, and those above sixty years of age, and the “non-owners.” A non-owner was defined as one who had less than a hundred and fifty cattle. Each brought not only his remuda of horses—from six to ten per man—but his own little herd of cabestros by means of which to hold and handle such of his cattle as might be found. One of the older men of position and influence was appointed juez-de-campo to settle disputes, should any arise.

The gathering was notable. Ordinarily the women of the ranchos and haciendas came along for the fun of the thing. Though not a formal fiesta, there were feasting and music and dancing and love-making. The dances had not the stately formality of the baile. They were made up impromptu by those nearest at hand; valecitos casaros they were called. They ended early. The women were indefatigable and would have continued all night. They poked fun at their escorts for not holding out better. But the latter were tired business men after their hard day’s riding, which had begun at dawn.

When the round of rodeos had been finished came the matanza, when the selected cattle were slaughtered, their hides prepared, and the tallow tried out and packed in skin containers, ready for transportation to the seacoast to be sold or traded to the Boston ships. Only a small proportion of the meat could be utilized. Andy was always troubled at this waste, but he could not see any way out of it, though he saved more than did his neighbors, drying quantities of jerky, which, he found to be moderately acceptable to some of the poorer people near the sea. Panchito shrugged his shoulder.

“There is no waste, señor,” he expostulated. “This is the fat season for some. And are they not also the creatures of God who must be fed?”

And indeed the California of that day was aswarm with vultures and coyotes bred to this abundance. The night hills were vocal with the diabolic ululations of the little wolves. The sky was never vacant of the slow-circling birds. With the passing of the great cattle ranches the vultures disappeared, where or why no man knows. Certainly not through the efforts of man, as in the case of the coyote. Nature withdrew them, their need fulfilled.

Andy was not entirely convinced.

“And how about the rest of the year, when there is no matanza?” he inquired. “How then are they fed?”

“That,” said Panchito, “is the affair of God.”

At the time the rodeo was held at Folded Hills, appeared a dignified and courtly gentleman, who traveled in some state. He introduced himself as named Castañares, adding that he was alcalde of the pueblo of Monterey. He apologized further for what he called his “slight delay.” Andy had difficulty in making out what it was all about. When finally he understood, he was dismayed. He had thought the governor’s grant had given him legal ownership of his land. It seemed not. The title amounted to nothing until the land’s boundaries had been properly measured and marked by the proper official, who was Judge Castañares. All the labor and improvements meant nothing, less than nothing, if a governor should change his mind, or someone of influence should come along covetous of the land. He had been nothing better than a squatter. He shivered a little at the thought; but no one else seemed disturbed. The day following the alcalde’s arrival he, two mounted assistants, Ramón and Estevan Rivera as witnesses, together with Andy himself, rode to the southwest corner of the grant. This corner was supposed to start upon El Rancho Soledad, but the monuments of the latter holding had disappeared, or could not be found, at least without a more diligent search than the alcalde was inclined to undertake. He perused his copy of the Soledad grant, and peered about him, and finally gave it up.

“It is undoubtedly somewhere in this valley, señor,” said he to Andy, “and I do not imagine you and Señor Linares will quarrel over a few tufts of sagebrush.”

So he caused to be piled a heap of rounded stones from the wash, and on it planted a wooden cross. This was the official starting point and was called the mojonera. Its existence was solemnly witnessed by Ramón and Esteban. The alcalde then began the business of marking the boundaries of the seven leagues comprised in the grant. This was a leisurely process and must consume several days. Andy’s business at the rodeo did not permit him to assist; though he rode with the party for an hour or so. The process was very simple and not at all laborious. Señor Castañares rode ahead, following the proposed boundary line, sometimes in consultation with a small pocket compass, sometimes with an eye on the sun, but frequently following merely his sense of fitness as to where a proper rancho should end. He was followed by a man on horseback dragging a fifty-foot reata. This was the measure of length. The horseman noted in a lazy sort of fashion how often he thought this fifty feet spanned the course of the party, and announced each five units in a somnolent voice; whereupon the clerk, who rode another horse, made a mark in his little book. As long as Señor Castañares held his mount to a foot pace this rough measurement was not as inaccurate as it sounds; but when, as occasionally, he indulged himself in a canter, the measurement entered the realms of fantasy. Nevertheless the reata man continued to announce results in all confidence.

The alcalde said nothing, save when the little procession came directly against some natural object in the line of its course. Then he would fling over his shoulder to his clerk, “A large live-oak tree,” “A white oak riven by the wind,” “A curious rock,” or the like.

After the latest of the little tallies in his book the clerk would note down the observation, which constituted it duly an official landmark. Later, when Andy received the parchment that represented his grant, all these things were imposingly set forth. It read well: south three hundred and fifty estradas to a large live-oak tree, thence a hundred and twenty-five estradas to a white oak riven by the wind; thence two hundred and ten estradas to a curious rock; and so on. The document had a beautiful seal, and ribbons. Andy was quite satisfied with it. A degree or so of compass bearing; the perishability or surprising similarity of trees, or the abundance of rocks that might be called curious was not to be called to his attention for many years to come, and certainly not by his present neighbors.