CHAPTER V
IT was thus that Virginia Valdés McVeagh, sole owner and proprietor of Dos Pozos, saddle-wise from babyhood, cool and competent as any man among them, presented her betrothed to the friends of her youth, to her world.
Her betrothed, in those swift seconds between his departure from the saddle and his arrival upon the ground, hoped fervently that he might have the good fortune to break his neck, but it appeared immediately that he had not broken anything whatever. He was dizzy, jarred and bruised and lamed, but he was entirely intact, as he curtly made clear to ’Rome Ojeda. ’Rome Ojeda, his white smile flashing, was first to rush to the rescue.
Dean Wolcott picked himself up and brushed himself off, resolutely keeping his eyes away from the veranda and Ginger; he felt he could bear all the rest of it if she would only keep away from him. She was there, however, almost as soon as’Rome was, her face as pale as possible beneath its brown warmth. She wanted breathlessly and with unashamed anguish in her voice to know if he was hurt, but directly she saw—and heard—that he was not, the color rushed hotly back into her cheeks and she turned shortly away on a spurred heel.
“Alittletoo much hawse, maybe,” said ’Rome Ojeda, smoothly. “Change with Mr. Wolcott, somebody with a quieter cayuse!”
Two or three of the riders promptly dismounted and came forward, but Dean Wolcott shook his head. “Thank you,” he said, stubbornly, “I shall ride this horse or none.” He sounded blatantly dramatic to his own ears. Why hadn’t he laughed it off, made determined comedy of the situation, made them laugh with him, instead of at him? He hated himself for the bombastic attitude he had struck; he hated ’Rome Ojeda and his quivering red roan; he hated his own fatuous folly of weakening the evening before under Ginger’s lips and promising her to make this ghastly fiasco; he was not at all sure that he didn’t hate Ginger.
Old Estrada came forward, respectful, helpful.Dean was fitted out with spurs and quirt, the horse was firmly held until the rider was solidly in the saddle, his feet braced, the reins in a tense grip. But now Snort, as if he had had his little joke, conducted himself in what was, for him, a staid and dignified manner; he pranced, he curvetted, he tossed his handsome head, but he made no effort to dislodge his passenger, and Dean, his head aching dully, his aching body intolerably jolted and jarred, followed in the wake of the procession.
The oldmayordomo, riding beside him, explained. They were to drive two hundred and forty steers—two-year-olds that he and his men had been bringing in from the remote pastures—to the shipping point—approximately eighteen miles. On the way back they would collect close to two hundred yearlings and bring them back to the main ranch. It sounded, on the Spaniard’s lips, as simple as hailing a taxicab and driving down Tremont Street.
The other riders, Ginger among them, had spurred ahead. Dean could see through the steadily brightening light that thevaqueroswereopening the gates of the great corrals, releasing sluggish, slow-moving, brown streams.
Estrada said softly in his heavily accented English. “Eef you kip near to me, I weel tell you all,Señor.”
“Thank you,” said Dean, civilly. “You are very kind.”
He was very kind, the black-eyed oldmayordomo; there was no scorn in his hawklike gaze, nothing but the most respectful desire to be of service. Let others forget that here among them rode—however clumsily—the friend and comrade of his youngseñor, Alejandrino McVeagh; Vincente Estrada would not forget.
They came up with the other riders, with the brown stream. It was not sluggish now; there were waves, breakers. Brown, twisting, turning bodies, tossing horns, wild eyes; ceaseless bellowing; dust. Ginger and hervaquerosand her neighbors rode on the edges of the stream, shouting, waving theirsombreros, now spurring ahead to guard a gate, now in sudden, swallow-swift pursuit of a bolting steer, passing him, turning him, heading him back into the herd.
Dean Wolcott tried to detach himself fromthe spectacle, to regard it objectively—something whose like he had never seen before, and never would see—but of course, he told himself, after he married Ginger he would often see this sort of thing. She would, he supposed, insist on coming back to her ranch occasionally, unless he could persuade her to sell it. He sought to see her in the frame and with the background of Boston; it was actually the first time, since that moment when they stood midway on Aleck’s bridge, that he had done this. The realization came sharply that he had been looking into a kaleidoscope for two glowing and highly colored weeks. On his summer vacations, when he was a small and quiet child, he had visited at an uncle’s Connecticut farm, and—better than the out-of-doors—he had loved the cool dimness of the big “Front Room.”
Being a gentle and trustworthy child he was allowed the freedom of it. He might turn the pages of the ancient album, lift the conch shells from the whatnot in the corner and listen to the imprisoned sound of the sea, climb carefully upon a chair to inspect the wax flowers and the hair wreaths framed and hanging on the walls;best of all he loved sitting on a slippery hair-cloth sofa, his eyes glued to the tiny window of the kaleidoscope, his soul warm with the joy of color and design. There was always, he remembered now, a distinct effort of his will necessary to remove his reveling eye, to take it away from crimson and jade and orange and ultramarine and deep purple, and return it to the grays and browns and drabs of the material world. And the time had come again, he told himself grimly, his head aching dully, his muscles aching sharply, to take his eye away from the kaleidoscope.
He was following Estrada into the thick of it; he was surrounded by the brown bodies; he was stifled by the brown dust which rose over him. The sun was high, now, and he had stopped being chilled, but he was miserable in so many other ways that he was not able to be thankful. He wondered dully, disgusted, why the powerful creatures, horned, capable of splendid battle, allowed themselves to be driven by a twentieth part of their number of men, herded docilely down to their death.
“Ur-r-ra, ur-r-ra, ur-rrrra!” said Estrada softlyto them, “Ur-r-ra!”—and they gave way before him, backing, whirling, pawing at the earth, the bolder ones rolling their red eyes, blowing futile defiance through their dust-grimed nostrils. Now and then a couple of them, truculent, locked horns for an instant, made a little whirlpool of private strife in the brown stream, but at Estrada’s shout, his whirling quirt, his swungsombrero, they gave up; they went on again in their sacrificial procession. Estrada, what time he rode close enough to him and the steers were not bellowing too loudly, gave him bits of information. They would be loaded into the cattle cars at noon, if all went well; they would not reach San Francisco for two days or three, perhaps; yes, the railroad company was obliged to water them—Estrada really did not know exactly what the law was, but there was a law, he was comfortably sure. Yes—thosewere “loco” steers; theseñorwould do well to keep his distance from them—they might be sufficiently loco to hook his horse, and his horse, unhappily, was not entirely trustworthy. The ones with the huge and hideous swellings at the sides of their heads had “lumpy jaw”; it was hard to tell theseñorexactly what caused it—a foxtail wedged between the teeth, perhaps, made the beginning. No, he shrugged, there was no cure that he had ever heard of; if it could be taken in the beginning—but it was never taken in the beginning. No, it did not hurt the meat, except that, as theseñorsaw, the lumpy-jawed steers were always poor; he thought—he was not certain of this, but he had heard that they went to feed the prisoners in State’s Prison. This was a very fine herd; theseñoritahad excellent feeding pastures; she was a remarkable judge of stock. And she was very kind, theseñorita; theseñorcould see for himself that she allowed the cattle to go at a walk; she would not allow them to be driven with dogs or with whips. That was very kind, and it was also very sensible; dogs made them nervous and made them hurry too much; they lost profitable pounds in transit; and the packers did not like you to use whips—they made bruises on the meat. Was not theseñoritaa wonderful horsewoman? He himself had seen her riding after the herd, just as she was riding to-day, at the age of seven. A proud man, the father ofSeñoritaGinger, the oldSeñorAlejandro McVeagh;a proud family. He let his raven-black eyes rest upon his companion for an instant. If theseñorwould let himself goloosein the saddle, he would find himself riding in greater comfort.
Dean Wolcott tried it; he tried it faithfully. He was willing and eager to try anything which would alleviate his wretchedness, but there was no looseness in him anywhere. Everything was taut, shrieking with painful tension. If he leaned forward, if he leaned back, if he shifted the weight from the stirrups to the saddle, from the saddle to the stirrups, it was worse in another strained or bruised or blistered locality. He knew that his stirrups were too short but he would not dismount to change them; he doubted if he could get on again. “How many miles have we come, Estrada?” He knew they must be almost at their destination, but it would be a comfort to hear it from the Spaniard’s lips.
Estrada considered. “Oh, maybe seex mile,Señor. Maybe leetle more; maybe not so moach.”
“Then we have twelve still to go?”
“Well, we call eet eighteen mile from DosPozos,Señor. The time pass very queek now,Señor.”
But it seemed to theseñorthat no day in his life, even in the trenches, had ever been so long. It was hot, now, blazingly, glaringly hot; it was incredible that he had ever been shivering.
It would last for hours yet, this personal misery, this unendurable monotony; brown, twisting, turning bodies, tossing horns, wild eyes; ceaseless bellowing; dust—stifling, choking, blinding dust; the smell of sweating hides.
Shortly before eleven o’clock they took their lunches out of their pockets and ate, in the saddle, but at any rate they were stationary. Thevaquerosheld the herd, loosely, in a shallow valley where there was water for them. The neighboring ranchers rode up with Ginger and hoped heartily that Mr. Wolcott was all right after his spill, and they were cordial and kind. As a matter of fact, though he did not dream it, they were very well aware of his plight, and they were feeling a good deal of respect for his sporting endurance. The word had passed more than once, that morning—“Pretty game bird, that boy of Ginger’s!”—“Say, that feller’s not quittin’ any, is he?—sicklylookin’ as he is, too!” A couple of the older men had sharply criticized ’Rome Ojeda for putting a stranger and a guest on a horse like the red roan, and they wondered at Ginger’s permitting it.
The girl rode close to her lover, bright-eyed and glowing and spoke softly. “All right, Dean? Are you all right?”
He told her he was all right. (Could he sit like an old woman at a summer resort and catalogue the number and character of his aches and strains?) He swallowed one sandwich with difficulty; no one had thought to bring a drinking cup, and besides, the steers had hopelessly muddied the creek. Well, they would be at Santa Rita in about an hour.
Dean studied Ginger and Ojeda and the rest of them with angry and grudging admiration, their boundless endurance, their lazy confidence, their utter oneness with their mounts. Then, honestly disgusted with himself, he set to work to see the thing as it was, not in its interrelationship to his own unfitness. He told himself unsparingly that he was like the type of American who goes to a foreign land and talks disparaginglyabout the foreigners; his sense of balance came back. He, Dean Wolcott, was the failure here. These people were integral parts of the virile picture; they fitted strongly into the high brown hills and the blue mountains far beyond, into the wide dry valleys and the deep cañons: he belonged on the pavement, in the shadow of grave buildings, art galleries, quiet clubs, dignified offices. It was absurd to let himself be overcome with such a sense of bitterness and rebellion; suppose he didn’t and couldn’t make good here, according to their crude and simple standards? Could they make good in Boston, according to his? He was weary enough to begin to quote, bromidically to himself. East was east and west was west, and never the twain— Ah, but the twain did, occasionally, brilliantly, satisfyingly, as he and Ginger had met on Aleck’s bridge, the good, simple Aleck who had opened a window into a new world for him, in the trenches; who had given him Ginger.
He looked at her through the blazing and merciless sunlight, blinking as he had done on that first morning. She was in corduroy, worn, rubbed, dusty corduroy, as were almost all of themen. It was the only wear, in this lusty land, apparently. Corduroy;corde du roi: he smiled inwardly; once, long ago, wider waled and softer, and in delicate hues, kings had favored it; wine-red, emerald-green, royal-purple, it had glowed in courts.... Now it had come down in the world—drab, utilitarian ... dust-colored, dust-covered....
They reached the shipping point at last; there was a hectic half hour of getting the steers across the concrete highway; they advanced upon it warily, putting their noses down to it, snorting, pawing, holding back against the pressure of the herd behind them; then they went with a rush, over, up and down, wild, terrified; plunging, slipping. Some one told Dean, curtly, to tie his horse and go out on foot on to the highway to stop the automobiles. It was exquisite relief and exquisite torture to be walking; it was ludicrous to feel a sudden access of power and authority, holding up his hand like a traffic policeman, seeing the cars slam on their brakes and obey him, to have people lean out and ask him questions about the cattle. He was busily useful for thirty minutes; he wasdoing his job as well as any man of them. Then he was hauling himself unhappily into the saddle again, and they were off.
“Got to make time while we can,” said Ginger, “before we pick up the yearlings. Let’s go!”
She was away at a swinging lope, and Snort, without notification from his rider, went after her. In spite of shrieking muscles and weeping blisters, there was a keen sense of exultation about it; he had balance, equilibrium; he was able to conceive of liking this sort of thing, loving it ...dominion....
’Rome Ojeda passed them, drew his horse back on his haunches, waited for them. “Well, goin’ to make a hand with the yearlings, Mr. Wolcott? That was easy this mornin’; they’d been moved two—three times, those steers. These young-uns are different.”
“He sure is going to make a hand, ’Rome,” said Ginger, confidently. “It’ll take all of us, and then some!”
He saw, presently, why it would take all of them, why he must strive, in his awkward and unready fashion, to “make a hand.” The young steers were timid, suspicious, quarrelsome; stupid,quick to get into a blind and unreasoning panic—brown streaks of speed when they broke away from the bunch. Ginger was here, there, everywhere, swallow-swift on Diablo, darting after a fugitive—up a sheer bank, down a steep cañon, hanging low out of her saddle, Indian-fashion, to dodge a dangerous branch. Estrada had had to give up his duties as guide; he was in the thick of the job. Dean rode alone, and Snort, who, by some miracle of mercy, had been mild and tractable earlier in the day, now developed temper and temperament. Any sort of riding, after the long hours in the saddle, was active discomfort; riding Snort was torture.
A dog ran out of a ranch house and barked; the herd, which had settled down for half an hour into something like order and calm, started milling; round and round, like an eddying whirlpool, trying to turn, to start back; there was the sharp sound of a fence giving way—they were into the rancher’s orchard, they were into his field, and then over his hill—they were off and away.
Thundering hoofs; shouts, curses; Ginger went by him in a furious flash. “Dean! What’s thematterwith you? Make a hand, can’t you?Make a hand!”
He made a hand, of sorts. He was part and parcel of the noisy, breathless chaos. He was never to know by what magic he remained in or near the saddle; certainly there was little left of power or volition in his racked and tired body. They were back at last upon the road; they were moving steadily forward again. ’Rome Ojeda came up to him. “Well, you sure are makin’ a hand,” he said, genially. Dust had settled thickly on his face; it made his smile whiter and more flashing than ever by contrast. “But we got’a watch ’em, still! They’re sure one wild bunch! They—” he broke off abruptly at Ginger’s cry—
“Dean!Dean!Head him off! Get him!Get him!”
A lone young steer had sneaked away from his side of the herd, from under his inattentive nose, and was galloping clumsily off across a field.
“’Atta boy!” said ’Rome Ojeda, loudly. “Go get ’em! Dig in your spurs! Ride ’em, cowboy!”
Doggedly, bitterly, he struck his spurs into hishorse: they cleared the edge of the road at a bound, they were after the steer, up with him, beyond him, turning him: he was loping back to his fellows. Dean’s head felt light and strange; it had ceased to belong to his body.
“’Attaboy!” sang out Ojeda.
Estrada was smiling: Ginger was smiling, too. It was the first time she had smiled at him, in that fashion, all day. He was going to fall off of Snort presently, any moment now, simply because he couldn’t sit him any longer, but, meanwhile, he’d turned the steer. He was making a hand. By some convulsive and involuntary motion of his aching leg muscles he dug the spurs into Snort once more. Instantly the horse, snorting, trumpeting, had bolted with him. He didn’t care, especially; let him take him fast and far, away from the dissembled scorn of Ginger’s world, away from ’Rome Ojeda’s cool appraisal, away from Ginger. He would hold on a little longer; then he would let go. He would hold on; he couldn’t stop Snort—there was nothing left in his arms to stop him with—but he would hold on. Hold on ... hold on.... He thought,presently, that he must be saying it aloud, but it was Ojeda’s voice.
“Hold on! Hold on! I’m a-comin’! Hold on!” There was, on the surface, hearty reassurance in it; underneath, he knew, there was sneering scorn. He came up with him, nearer, nearer, exactly like a rescuer in a wild west film, came abreast of him, reached out, caught hold of Snort, pulled him to a standstill, turned back his head so that he could not buck. “He sure was goin’ wicked,” he said, gently. “He sure was goin’ wicked.”
If Ginger had seen it, she gave no sign. Estrada came back to ride beside him. “Ur-r-ra!” he said soothingly to the wild young steers. “Ur-rrr-ra!Ur-rr-ra!”
No one spoke to Dean Wolcott and he spoke to no one. He was too much occupied with his black and seething hatred of ’Rome Ojeda. He had been rescued, moving-picture style; moving-picture style he was hating his rival, his rival who had shown him up; he was wishing passionately that he might get even with him. He groped for his sense of humor, of fitness. He, Dean Wolcott, hating this cow-puncher, planningto be revenged upon him— His sense of humor was gone, lost, swallowed up in the dust. Now they were back again in the old monotony; brown, twisting, turning bodies, tossing horns, wild eyes; ceaseless bellowing; the stench of hot and sweating hides; dust; enveloping, smothering dust. Ginger, save for her scarlet neckerchief and her scarlet cheeks, was covered with dust, dust-covered, dust-colored; dust-brown. Corduroy; what was it that plants and animals took on from their surroundings? (Was it possible that he was beginning toforgetagain?) What was it? He had learned it when he was a child. It was gone, though. No!Protective resemblance!That was what it was, and that was what Ginger’s inevitable corduroy was; it was the color of the dust, the blinding, stifling dust of this parched land of summer; protective resemblance; dust; corduroy.
“Señor, we are here! We are arrive’ at home,Señor! Do you not weesh to get down?” It was Estrada, dismounted, standing beside him, and they were just below the veranda of the oldadobeat Dos Pozos. “Señor, are you seek?”
He was not sick, he told him. (He was reallynot even suffering any longer; it was some time, now, since there had been any feeling at all in his arms or his legs.) “Yes, I wish to get down,” he said with dignity. He wanted to keep his dignity; ’Rome Ojeda was watching him, and Ginger was watching him, and the ranchers were watching him.
“Ees a long, hard day,Señor,” said Estrada, softly.
It was almost dusk now, and they had set out soon after dawn. “Oh—somewhat,” said Dean Wolcott, jauntily. “Rather long, of course, but very interesting.” Then he got down from his horse and stood for a moment, smiling uncertainly at the old Spaniard before he dropped to the warm earth for the second time that day. This time he had fainted.