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.
“A _little_ too 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 old _mayordomo_, 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 the _vaqueros_
were opening 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 old _mayordomo_; 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 young _señor_, 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 her _vaqueros_ and her neighbors rode on the edges of the stream,
shouting, waving their _sombreros_, 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 from the 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 softly to 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 swung _sombrero_, 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--_those_ were “_loco_” steers;
the _señor_ would 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 the
_señor_ exactly 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 the _señor_ saw, 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; the
_señorita_ had excellent feeding pastures; she was a remarkable judge
of stock. And she was very kind, the _señorita_; the _señor_ could 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
the _señorita_ a 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 of _Señorita_ Ginger, the old _Señor_ Alejandro
McVeagh; a proud family. He let his raven-black eyes rest upon his
companion for an instant. If the _señor_ would let himself go _loose_
in 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 Dos Pozos, _Señor_. The time
pass very queek now, _Señor_.”
But it seemed to the _señor_ that 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.
The _vaqueros_ held 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?--sickly
lookin’ 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 disparagingly about 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 the men. 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 was doing 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 the _matter_ with 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 his horse: 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.
“’Atta _boy_!” 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, planning to
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 to _forget_
again?) 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 old _adobe_ at Dos Pozos.
“_Señor_, are you seek?”
He was not sick, he told him. (He was really not 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.