THE WALKING MAN
Sundown's sense of the dramatic, his love for posing, with his
linguistic ability to adopt the vernacular of the moment so impressed
the temperamental Murphy that he disregarded a portion of his friend
Corliss's note, and the morning following his lean guest's arrival at
the ranch the jovial Irishman himself saddled and bridled the swiftest
and most vicious horse in the corral; a glass-eyed pinto, bronc from
the end of his switching tail to his pink-mottled muzzle. He was a
horse with a record which he did not allow to become obsolete, although
he had plenty of competition to contend with in the string of broncs
that Murphy's riders variously bestrode. Moreover, the pinto, like
dynamite, "went off" at the most unexpected intervals, as did many of
his riders. Sundown, bidding farewell to his host, mounted and swung
out of the yard at a lope. The pinto had ideas of his own. Should he
buck in the yard, he would immediately be roped and turned into the
corral again. Out on the mesas it would be different--and it was.
He paid no attention to a tumble-weed gyrating across the Apache road.
Neither did he seem disturbed when a rattler burred in the bunch-grass.
Even the startled leap of a rabbit that shot athwart his immediate
course was greeted with nothing more than a snort and a toss of his
swinging head. Such things were excuses for bad behavior, but he was
of that type which furnishes its own excuse. He would lull his rider
to a false security, and then . . .
The pinto loped over level and rise tirelessly. Sundown stood in his
stirrups and gazed ahead. The wide mesas glowing in the sun, the sense
of illimitable freedom, the keen, odorless air wrought him to a pitch
of inspiration. He would, just over the next rise, draw rein and woo
his muse. But the next rise and the next swept beneath the pinto's
rhythmic hoofs. The poetry of motion swayed his soul. He was enjoying
himself. At last, he reflected, he had mastered the art of sitting a
horse. He had already mastered the art of mounting and of descending
under various conditions and at seemingly impossible angles. As Hi
Wingle had once remarked--Sundown was the most _durable_ rider on the
range. His length of limb had no apparent relation to his shortcomings
as a vaquero.
Curiosity, as well as pride, may precede a fall. Sundown eventually
reined up and breathed the pinto, which paced with lowered head as
though dejected and altogether weary--which was merely a pose, if an
object in motion can be said to pose. His rider, relaxing, slouched in
the saddle and dreamed of a peaceful and domestic future as owner of a
small herd of cattle, a few fenced acres of alfalfa and vegetables, a
saddle-horse something like the pinto which he bestrode, with Chance as
companion and audience--and perhaps a low-voiced señora to welcome him
at night when he rode in with spur-chains jingling and the silver
conchas on his chaps gleaming like stars in the setting sun. "But me
chaps did their last gleam in that there fire," he reflected sadly.
"But I got me big spurs yet." Which after-thought served in a measure
to mitigate his melancholy. Like a true knight, he had slept spurred
and belted for the chance encounter while held in durance vile at
Antelope. "But me ranch!" he exclaimed. "Me! And mebby a tame cow
and chickens and things,--eh, Chance!" But Chance, he immediately
realized, was not with him. He would have a windmill and shade-trees
and a border of roses along the roadway to the house--like the Loring
rancho. But the señorita to be wooed and won--that was a different
matter. "'T ain't no woman's country nohow--this here Arizona. She's
fine! But she's a man's country every time! Only sech as me and Jack
Corliss and Bud and them kind is fit to take the risks of makin' good
in this here State. But we're makin' good, you calico-hoss! Listen:--
"Oh, there's sunshine on the Concho where the little owls are cryin',
And red across the 'dobe strings of chiles are a-dryin';
And if Arizona's heaven, tell me what's the use of dyin'?
Yes, it's good enough down here, just breathin' air;
"For the posies are a-bloomin' and the mockin'-birds are matin',
And somewhere in Arizona there's a Chola girl a-waitin'
For to cook them enchiladas while I do the irrigatin'
On me little desert homestead over there.
"While I'm ridin' slow and easy . . ."
"Whoa! Wonder what that is? Never seen one of them things before. 'T
ain't a lizard, but he looks like his pa was a lizard. Mebby his ma
was a toad. Kind of a Mormon, I guess."
He leaned forward and gravely inspected the horned toad that blinked at
him from the edge of the grass. The pinto realized that his rider's
attention was otherwise and thoroughly occupied. With that
unforgettable drop of head and arch of spine the horse bucked. Sundown
did an unpremeditated evolution that would have won him much applause
and gold had he been connected with a circus. He landed in a clump of
brush and watched his hat sail gently down. The pinto whirled and took
the homeward road, snorting and bounding from side to side as the dust
swirled behind him. Sundown scratched his head. "Lemme see. 'We was
ridin', slow and easy . . .' Huh! Well, I ain't cussin' because I
don' know how. Lemme see . . . I was facin' east when I started. Now
I'm lit, and I'm facin' south. Me hat's there, and that there
toad-lizard oughter be over there, if he ain't scared to death. Reckon
I'll quit writin' po'try jest at present and finish gettin' acquainted
with that there toad-lizard. Wonder how far I got to walk? Anyhow, I
was gettin' tired of ridin'. By gum! me eats is tied to the saddle!
It's mighty queer how a fella gets set back to beginnin' all over ag'in
every onct in a while. Now, this mornin' I was settin' up ridin' a
good hoss and thinkin' poetical. Now I'm settin' down restin'. The
sun is shinin' yet, and them jiggers in the brush is chirpin' and the
air is fine, but I ain't thinkin' poetical. I'd sure hate to have a
real lady read what I'm thinkin', if it was in a book. 'Them that sets
on the eggs of untruth,' as the parson says, 'sure hatches lies.' Jest
yesterday I was tellin' in Usher how me bronc piled me when I'd been
ridin' the baggage, which was kind of a hoss-lie. I must 'a' had it
comin'."
He rose and stalked to the roadway. The horned toad, undisturbed,
squatted in the grass and eyed him with bright, expressionless eyes.
"If I was like some," said Sundown, addressing the toad, "I'd pull me
six-shooter, only I ain't got it now, and bling you to nothin'.
Accordin' to law you're the injudicious cause preceding the act, which
makes you guilty accordin' to the statues of this here commonwealth,
and I seen lots of 'em on the same street, in Boston, scarin' hosses to
death and makin' kids and nuss-girls cry. But I ain't goin' to shoot
you. If I was to have the sayin' of it, I'd kind o' like to shoot that
hoss, though. He broke as fine a pome in the middle as I ever writ, to
say nothin' of hurtin' me personal feelin's. Well, so-long, leetle
toad-lizard. Just tell them that you saw me--and they will know the
rest--if anybody was to ask you, a empty saddle and a man a-foot in the
desert is sure circumvential evidence ag'in the hoss. Wonder how far
it is to the Concho?"
With many a backward glance, inspired by fond imaginings that the pinto
_might_ have stopped to graze, Sundown stalked down the road. Waif of
chance and devotee of the goddess "Maybeso," he rose sublimely superior
to the predicament in which he found himself. "The only reason I'm
goin' east is because I ain't goin' west," he told himself, ignoring,
with warm adherence to the glowing courses of the sun the frigid
possibilities of the poles. Warmed by the exercise of plodding across
the mesa trail in high-heeled boots, he swung out of his coat and slung
it across his shoulder. Dust gathered in the wrinkles of his boots,
and more than once he stopped to mop his sweating face with his
bandanna. Rise after rise swept gently before him and within the hour
he saw the misty outline of the blue hills to the south. Slowly his
moving shadow shifted, bobbing in front of him as the sun slipped
toward the western horizon. A little breeze sighed along the road and
whirls of sand spun in tiny cones around the roots of the chaparral.
He reached in his pocket, drew forth a silver dollar, and examined it.
"Now if they weren't any folks on this here earth, I reckon silver and
gold and precious jools wouldn't be worth any more than rocks and mud
and gravel, eh? Why, even if they weren't no folks, water would be
worth more to this here world than gold. Water makes things grow
and--and keeps a fella from gettin' thirsty. And mud makes things
grow, too, but I dunno what rocks are for. Just to sit on when you're
tired, I reckon." The sibilant burring of a rattler in the brush set
his neck and back tingling. "And what snakes was made for, gets me!
They ain't good to eat, nohow. And they ain't friendly like some of
the bugs and things. I'm thinkin' that that there snake what clumb the
tree and got Mrs. Eve interested in the apple business would 'a' been a
whole lot better for folks, if he'd 'a' stayed up that tree and died,
instead o' runnin' around and raisin' young ones. Accordin' to my way
of thinkin' a garden ain't a garden with a snake in it, nohow. Now,
Mrs. Eve--if she'd had to take a hammer and nails and make a ladder to
get to them apples, by the time she got the ladder done I reckon them
apples wouldn't 'a' looked so good to her. That's what comes of havin'
a snake handy. 'Course, bein' a woman, she jest nacherally couldn't
wait for 'em to get ripe and fall off the tree. That would 'a' been
too easy. It sure is funny how folks goes to all kinds o' trouble to
get into it. Mebby she did get kind o' tired eatin' the same
breakfast-food every mornin'. Lots o' folks do, and hankers to try a
new one. But I never got tired of drinkin' water yet. Wisht I had a
barrel with ice in it. Gee Gosh! Ice! Mebby a cup of water would be
enough for a fella, but when he's dry he sure likes to see lots ahead
even if he can't drink it all. Mebby it's jest knowin' it's there that
kind o' eases up a fella's thirst. I dunno."
Romance, as romance was wont to do at intervals, lay in wait for the
weary Sundown. Hunger and thirst and a burning sun may not be
immediately conducive to poetry or romantic imaginings. But the 'dobe
in the distance shaded by a clump of trees, the gleam of the drying
chiles, the glow of flowers, offered an acceptable antithesis to the
barren roadway and the empty mesas. Sundown quickened his pace. Eden,
though circumscribed by a barb-wire fence enclosing scant territory,
invited him to rest and refresh himself. And all unexpected the
immemorial Eve stood in the doorway of the 'dobe, gazing down the road
and doubtless wondering why this itinerant Adam, booted and spurred,
chose to walk the dusty highway.
At the gate of the homestead Sundown paused and raised his broad
sombrero. Anita, dusky and buxom daughter of Chico Miguel, "the little
hombre with the little herd," as the cattle-men described him, nodded a
bashful acknowledgment of the salute, and spoke sharply to the dog
which had risen and was bristling toward the Strange wayfarer.
"Agua," said Sundown, opening the gate, "Mucha agua, Senorita," adding,
with a humorous gesture of drinking, "I'm dry clean to me boots."
The Mexican girl, slow-eyed and smiling, gazed at this most wonderful
man, of such upstanding height that his hat brushed the limbs of the
shade-trees at the gateway. Anita was plump and not tall. As Sundown
stalked up the path assuming an air of gallantry that was not wasted on
the desert air, the girl stepped to the olla hanging in the shade and
offered him the gourd. Sundown drank long and deep. Anita watched him
with wondering eyes. Such a man she had never seen. Vaqueros? Ah,
yes! many of them, but never such a man as this. This one smiled, yet
his face had much of the sadness in it. He had perhaps walked many
weary miles in the heat. Would he--with a gesture interpreting her
speech--be pleased to rest awhile? Without hesitation, he would. As
he sat on the doorstep gazing contentedly at the flowers bordering the
path, Anita's mother appeared from some mysterious recess of the 'dobe
and questioned Anita with quick low utterance. The girl's answer,
interpretable to Sundown only by its intonation, was music to him. The
Mexican woman, more than buxom, large-eyed and placid, turned to
Sundown, who rose and again doffed his sombrero.
"I lost me horse--back there. I'm headed for the Concho--ma'am.
Concho," he reiterated in a louder tone. "Sabe?"
The mother of Anita nodded. "You sick?" she asked.
"What? Me? Not on your life, lady! I'm the healthiest Ho--puncher in
this here State. You sabe Concho?"
"Si! Zhack Corlees--'Juan,' we say. Si! You of him?"
"Yes, lady. I'm workin' for him. Lost me hoss."
Anita and her mother exchanged glances. Sundown felt that his status
as a vaquero was in question. Would he let the beautiful Anita know
that he had been ignominiously "piled" by that pinto horse? Not he.
"Circumventions alters cases," he soliloquized, not altogether
untruthfully. Then aloud, "Me hoss put his foot in a gopher-hole.
Bruk his leg, and I had to shoot him, lady. Hated to part with him."
And the inventive Sundown illustrated with telling gesture the
imaginary accident.
Sympathy flowed freely from the gentle-hearted Señora and her daughter.
"Si!" It was not of unusual happening that horses met with such
accidents. It was getting late in the afternoon. Would the
unfortunate caballero accept of their hospitality in the way of
frijoles and some of the good coffee, perhaps? Sundown would, without
question. He pressed a dollar into the palm of the reluctant Señora.
He was not a tramp. Of that she might be assured. He had met with
misfortune, that was all. And would the patron return soon? The
patron would return with the setting of the sun. Meanwhile the vaquero
of the Concho was to rest and perhaps enjoy his cigarette? And the
"vaquero" loafed and smoked many cigarettes while the glowing eyes of
Anita shone upon him with large sympathy. As yet Sundown had not
especially noticed her, but returning from his third visit to the
cooling olla, he caught her glance and read, or imagined he read, deep
admiration, lacking words to utter. From that moment he became a
changed man. He shed his weariness as a tattered garment is thrown
aside. He straightened his shoulders and held his head high. At last
a woman had looked at him and had not smiled at his ungainly stature.
Nay! But rather seemed impressed, awe-stricken, amazed. And his heart
quickened to faster rhythm, driving the blood riotously through his
imaginative mind. He grew eloquent, in gesture, if not in speech. He
told of his wanderings, his arrival at the Concho, of Chance his great
wolf-dog, his horse "Pill," and his good friends Bud Snoop and Hi
Wangle. Sundown could have easily given Othello himself "cards and
spades" in this chance game of hearts and won--moving metaphor!--in a
canter. That the little Señorita with the large eyes did not
understand more than a third of that which she heard made no difference
to her. His ambiguity of utterance, backed by assurance and illumined
by the divine fire of inspiration, awakened curiosity in the placid
breast of this Desdemona of the mesas. It required no sophistication
on her part to realize that this caballero was not as the vaqueros she
had heretofore known. He made no boorish jests; his eyes were not as
the eyes of many that had gazed at her in a way that had tinged her
dusky cheeks with warm resentment. She felt that he was endeavoring to
interest her, to please her rather than to woo. And more than that--he
seemed intensely interested in his own brave eloquence. A child could
have told that Sundown was single-hearted. And with the instinct of a
child--albeit eighteen, and quite a woman in her way--Anita approved of
this adventurer as she had never approved of men, or man, before. His
great height, his long, sweeping arms, moving expansively as he
illustrated this or that incident, his silver spurs, his loose-jointed
"tout ensemble," so to speak, combined with an eloquent though puzzling
manner of speech, fascinated her. Warmed to his work, and forgetful of
his employer's caution in regard to certain plans having to do with the
water-hole ranch, Sundown elaborated, drawing heavily on future
possibilities, among which he towered in imagination monarch of rich
mellow acres and placid herds. He intimated delicately that a
rancher's life was lonely at best, and enriched the tender intimation
with the assurance that he was more than fond of enchiladas, frijoles,
carne-con-chile, tamales, adding as an afterthought that he was
somewhat of an expert himself in "wrastlin' out" pies and doughnuts and
various other gastronomical delicacies.
A delicate frown touched the gentle Anita's smooth forehead when her
mother interrupted Sundown with a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of
frijoles, yet Anita realized, as she saw his ardent expression when the
aroma of the coffee reached him, that this was a most sensible and
fitting climax to his glowing discourse. Her frown vanished together
with the coffee and beans.
Fortified by the strong black coffee and the nourishing frijoles,
Sundown rose from his seat on the doorstep and betook himself to the
back of the house where he labored with an axe until he had accumulated
quite a pile of firewood. Then he rolled up his sleeves, washed his
hands, and asked permission to prepare the evening meal. Although a
little astonished, the Señora consented, and watched Sundown, at first
with a smile of indulgence, then with awakening curiosity, and finally
with frank and complimentary amazement as he deftly kneaded and rolled
pie-crust and manufactured a pie that eventually had, for those
immediately concerned, historical significance.
The "little hombre," Chico Miguel, returning to his 'dobe that evening,
was greeted with a tide of explanatory utterances that swept him off
his feet. He was introduced to Sundown, apprised of the strange
guest's manifold accomplishments, and partook of the substantial
evidence of his skill until of the erstwhile generous pie there was
nothing left save tender reminiscence and replete satisfaction.
Later in the evening, when the Arizona stars glowed and shimmered on
the shadowy adobe, when the wide mesas grew mysteriously beautiful in
the soft radiance of the slow moon, Chico Miguel brought his guitar
from the bedroom, tuned it, and struck a swaying cadence from its
strings. Then Anita's voice, blending with the rhythm, made melody,
and Sundown sat entranced. Mood, environment, temperament, lent
romance to the simple song. Every singing string on the old guitar was
silver--the singer's girlish voice a sunlit wave of gold.
The bleak and almost barren lives of these isolated folk became
illumined with a reminiscent glow as the tinkling notes of the guitar
hushed to faint echoes of fairy bells hung on the silver boughs of
starlit trees. "Adios, linda Rosa," ran the song. Then silence, the
summer night, the myriad stars.
Sundown, turning his head, gazed spellbound at the dark-eyed singing
girl. In the dim light of the lamp she saw that his lean cheeks were
wet with tears.