Читать книгу Oil! - Upton Sinclair - Страница 33

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The San Elido valley lay on the edge of the desert, and you crossed a corner of the desert to get to it; a bare wilderness of sun-baked sand and rock, with nothing but grey, dusty desert plants. You sped along upon a fine paved road, but the land was haunted by the souls of old-time pioneers who had crossed it in covered wagons or with pack-mules, and had left their bones beside many a trail. Even now, you had to be careful when you went off into side-trails across these wastes; every now and then a car would get stuck with an empty radiator, and the people would be lucky to get out alive.

You could get water if you sunk a deep well; and so there were fruit ranches and fields of alfalfa here and there. There came long stretches where the ground was white, like salt; that was alkali, Dad said, and it made this country a regular boob-trap. The stranger from the East would come in and inspect a nice fruit ranch, and would think he was making a good bargain to get the land next door for a hundred dollars an acre; he would set out his fruit-trees and patiently water them, and they wouldn’t grow; nothing would grow but a little alfalfa, and maybe there was too much alkali for that. The would-be rancher would have to pull up the trees, and obliterate the traces of them, and set a real-estater to hunting for another boob.

Strapped to the running-board of Dad’s car, on the right hand side where Bunny sat, was a big bundle wrapped in a water-proof cover; they were camping out—which meant that the mind of a boy was back amid racial memories, the perils and excitements of ten thousand years ago. Tightly clutched in Bunny’s two hands were a couple of repeating shot-guns; he held these for hours, partly because he liked the feel of them, and partly because they had to be carried in the open—if you shut them up in the compartment they would be “concealed weapons,” and that was against the law.

Near the head of the valley a dirt road went off, and a sign said: “Paradise, eight miles.” They wound up a little pass, with mountains that seemed to be tumbled heaps of rock, of every size and color. There were fruit ranches, the trees now bare of leaves, with trunks calcimined white, and young trees with wire netting about them, to keep away the rabbits. The first rains of the season had fallen, and new grass was showing—the California spring, which begins in the fall.

The pass broadened out; there were ranch-houses scattered here and there, and the village of Paradise—one street, with a few scattered stores, sheltered under eucalyptus trees that made long shadows in the late afternoon light. Dad drew up at the filling station, which was also a feed-store. “Can you tell me where is the Watkins ranch?”

“There’s two Watkinses,” said the man. “There’s old Abel Watkins—”

“That’s the one!” exclaimed Bunny.

“He’s got a goat-ranch, over by the slide. It ain’t so easy to find. Was you plannin’ to get there tonight?”

“We shan’t worry if we get lost,” said Dad; “we got a campin’ outfit.”

So the man gave them complicated directions. You took the lane back of the school-house, and you made several jogs, and then there were about sixteen forks, and you must get the right one, and you followed the slide that took the water down to Roseville, and it was the fourth arroyo after you had passed old man Tucker’s sheep-ranch, with the little house up under the pepper trees. And so they started and followed a winding road that had apparently been laid out by sheep, and the sun set behind the dark hills, and the clouds turned pink, and they dodged rocks that were too high for the clearance of the car and crawled down into little gullies, and up again with a constant shifting of gears. There was no need to ask about the quail, for the hills echoed with the melodious double call of the flocks gathering for the night.

Presently they came to the “slide,” which was a wooden runway carrying water—with many leaks, so that bright green grass was spread in every direction, and made food for a big flock of sheep, which paid no attention to the car, nor to all the tooting—the silly fools, they just would get under your wheels! And then came a man riding horseback; a big brown handsome fellow, with a fancy-colored handkerchief about his neck, and a wide-brimmed hat with a leather strap. He was bringing in a herd of cattle, and as he rode, his saddle and his stirrup-straps went “Squnch, squnch,” which was a sort of thrilling sound to a boy, especially there in the evening quiet. Dad stopped, and the man stopped, and Dad said “Good evening,” and the man answered, “Evenin’.” He had a pleasant, open face, and told them the way; they couldn’t miss the arroyo, because it was the only one that had water, and they would see the buildings as soon as they had got a little way up. And as they went on Bunny said, “Gee, Dad, but I wish we could live here; I’d like to ride a horse like that.” He knew this would fetch Dad, because the man looked jist the way Dad thought a man ought to look, big and sturdy, colored brown and red like an Injun. Yes, it wouldn’t take much to persuade Dad to buy the Watkins ranch for his son!

Well, they went wabbling on down the sheep-trail, counting the arroyos, whose walls loomed high in the twilight, crowned with fantastic piles of rocks. The lights of the car were on, and swung this way and that, picking out the road; until at last there was an arroyo with water—you knew it by the bright green grass—and they turned in, and followed a still more bumpy lane, and there ahead were some buildings, with one light shining in a window. It was the ranch where Paul Watkins had been born and raised; and something in Bunny stirred with a quite inexplicable thrill—as if he were approaching the birth-place of Abraham Lincoln, or some person of that great sort!

Suddenly Dad spoke. “Listen, son,” he said. “There might be oil here—there’s always one chance in a million, so don’t you say nothin’ about it. You can tell them you met Paul if you want to, but don’t say that he mentioned no oil, and don’t you mention none. Let me do all the talkin’ about business.”

It was a “California house,” that is, it was made of boards a foot wide, running vertically, with little strips of “batting” to cover the cracks. It had no porch, whether front or back, nothing but one flat stone for a step. The paint, if there had ever been any, was so badly faded that you saw no trace of it by the lights of the car. On the other side of the lane, and farther up the little valley, loomed a group of sheds, with a big pen made of boards, patched here and there with poles cut from eucalyptus trees. From this place came the stirring and murmuring of a great number of animals crowded together.

The family stood in the yard, lined up to stare at the unaccustomed spectacle of an automobile entering their premises. There was a man, lean and stooped, and a boy, somewhat shorter, but already stooped; both of them clad in faded blue shirts without collar, and denim trousers, very much patched, held up by suspenders. There were three girls, in a descending row, in nondescript calico dresses; and in the doorway a woman, a little wraith of a woman, sallow and worn. All six of them stood motionless and silent, while the car came into the yard, and stopped, and the engine fell to a soft purring. “Good evening,” said Dad.

“Howdy, brother,” said the man.

“Is this the Watkins place!”

“Yes, brother.” It was a feeble, uncertain voice, but it thrilled Bunny to the depths, for he knew that this voice was accustomed to “babble” and “talk in tongues.” Suppose the family were to “let go,” and start their “jumping” and “rolling” while Bunny was there!

“We’re huntin’,” Dad explained, “and we was told this would be a good place to camp. You got good water?”

“None better. Make yourself to home, brother.”

“Well, we’ll go up the lane jist a bit, somewheres out of the way. You got a big tree that’ll give us shade?”

“Eli, you show ’em the oak-tree, and help ’em git fixed.”

And again Bunny was thrilled; for this was Eli, that had been blessed of the Holy Spirit, and had the “shivers,” and had healed old Mrs. Bugner, that had complications, by the laying on of hands. Bunny remembered every detail about this family, the most extraordinary he had ever come upon outside of a story-book.