THE MOUNTAIN THAT WAS
On the same day on which all this happened, a young man, Pizzozi by
name and of Italian parentage, left the little town of Ione in Amador
County, California, with a small truck-load of salt. He was one of the
cattlemen whose headquarters or home-farms are clustered about the
foothills of the Sierras. In the wet season they stay with their
home-land in the valley; in the summer they penetrate into the
mountains. Pizzozi had driven in from the mountains the night before,
after salt. He had been on the road since midnight.
Two thousand salt-hungry cattle do not allow time for gossip. With the
thrift of his race, Joe had loaded up his truck and after a running
snatch at breakfast was headed back into the mountains. When the news
out of Oakland was thrilling around the world he was far into the
Sierras.
The summer quarters of Pizzozi were close to Mt. Heckla, whose looming
shoulders rose square in the center of the pasture of the three
brothers. It was not a noted mountain—that is, until this day—and had
no reason for a name other than that it was a peak outstanding from
the range; like a thousand others, rugged, pine clad, coated with
deer-brush, red soil, and mountain miserie.
It was the deer-brush that gave it value to the Pizzozis—a succulent
feed richer than alfalfa. In the early summer they would come up with
bony cattle. When they returned in the fall they went out driving
beef-steaks. But inland cattle must have more than forage. Salt is the
tincture that makes them healthy.
It was far past the time of the regular salting. Pizzozi was in a
hurry. It was nine o’clock when he passed through the mining town of
Jackson; and by twelve o’clock—the minute of the disaster—he was well
beyond the last little hamlet that linked up with civilization. It was
four o’clock when he drew up at the little pine-sheltered cabin that
was his headquarters for the summer.
He had been on the road since midnight. He was tired. The long weary
hours of driving, the grades, the unvaried stress though the deep red
dust, the heat, the stretch of a night and day had worn both mind and
muscle. It had been his turn to go after salt; now that he was here,
he could lie in for a bit of rest while his brothers did the salting.
It was a peaceful spot! this cabin of the Pizzozis; nestled among the
virgin shade trees, great tall feathery sugar-pines with a mountain
live oak spreading over the door yard. To the east the rising heights
of the Sierras, misty, gray-green, undulating into the distance to the
pink-white snow crests of Little Alpine. Below in the canyon, the
waters of the Mokolumne; to the west the heavy dark masses of Mt.
Heckla, deep verdant in the cool of coming evening.
Joe drew up under the shade of the live oak. The air was full of cool,
sweet scent of the afternoon. No moment could have been more peaceful;
the blue clear sky overhead, the breath of summer, and the soothing
spice of the pine trees. A shepherd dog came bounding from the doorway
to meet him.
It was his favorite cow dog. Usually when Joe came back the dog would
be far down the road to forestall him. He had wondered, absently,
coming up, at the dog’s delay. A dog is most of all a creature of
habit; only something unusual would detain him. However the dog was
here; as the man drew up he rushed out to greet him. A rush, a circle,
a bark, and a whine of welcome. Perhaps the dog had been asleep.
But Joe noticed that whine; he was wise in the ways of dogs; when
Ponto whined like that there was something unusual. It was not
effusive or spontaneous; but rather of the delight of succor. After
scarce a minute of petting, the dog squatted and faced to the
westward. His whine was startling; almost fearful.
Pizzozi knew that something was wrong. The dog drew up, his stub tail
erect, and his hair all bristled; one look was for his master and the
other whining and alert to Mt. Heckla. Puzzled, Joe gazed at the
mountain. But he saw nothing.
Was it the canine instinct, or was it coincidence? We have the account
from Pizzozi. From the words of the Italian, the dog was afraid. It
was not the way of Ponto; usually in the face of danger he was alert
and eager; now he drew away to the cabin. Joe wondered.
Inside the shack he found nothing but evidence of departure. There was
no sign of his brothers. It was his turn to go to sleep; he was
wearied almost to numbness, for forty-eight hours he had not closed an
eyelid. On the table were a few unwashed dishes and crumbs of eating.
One of the three rifles that hung usually on the wall was missing; the
coffee pot was on the floor with the lid open. On the bed the
coverlets were mussed up. It was a temptation to go to sleep. Back of
him the open door and Ponto. The whine of the dog drew his will and
his consciousness into correlation. A faint rustle in the sugar-pines
soughed from the canyon.
Joe watched the dog. The sun was just glowing over the crest of the
mountain; on the western line the deep lacy silhouettes of the pine
trees and the bare bald head of Heckla. What was it? His brothers
should be on hand for the salting; it was not their custom to put
things off for the morrow. Shading his eyes he stepped out of the
doorway.
The dog rose stealthily and walked behind him, uneasily, with the same
insistent whine and ruffled hair. Joe listened. Only the mountain
murmurs, the sweet breath of the forest, and in the lapse of bated
breath the rippling melody of the river far below him.
“What you see, Ponto? What you see?”
At the words the dog sniffed and advanced slightly—a growl and then a
sudden scurry to the heels of his master. Ponto was afraid. It puzzled
Pizzozi. But whatever it was that roused his fear, it was on Mt.
Heckla.
This is one of the strange parts of the story—the part the dog played,
and what came after. Although it is a trivial thing it is one of the
most inexplicable. Did the dog sense it? We have no measure for the
range of instinct, but we do have it that before the destruction of
Pompeii the beasts roared in their cages. Still, knowing what we now
know, it is hard to accept the analogy. It may, after all have been
coincidence.
Nevertheless it decided Pizzozi. The cattle needed salt. He would
catch up his pinto and ride over to the salt logs.
There is no moment in the cattle industry quite like the salting on
the range. It is not the most spectacular perhaps, but surely it is
not lacking in intenseness. The way of Pizzozi was musical even if not
operatic. He had a long-range call, a rising rhythm that for depth and
tone had a peculiar effect on the shattered stillness. It echoed and
reverberated, and pealed from the top to the bottom of the mountain.
The salt call is the talisman of the mountains.
“_Alleewahoo!_”
Two thousand cattle augmented by a thousand strays held up their heads
in answer. The sniff of the welcome salt call! Through the whole range
of the man’s voice the stock stopped in their leafy pasture and
listened.
“_Alleewahoo!_”
An old cow bellowed. It was the beginning of bedlam. From the bottom
of the mountain to the top and for miles beyond went forth the salt
call. Three thousand head bellowed to the delight of salting.
Pizzozi rode along. Each lope of his pinto through the tall tangled
miserie was accented. “_Alleewahoo! Alleewahoo!_” The rending of
brush, the confusion, and pandemonium spread to the very bottom of the
leafy gulches. It is no place for a pedestrian. Heads and tails erect,
the cattle were stampeding toward the logs.
A few head had beat him to it. These he quickly drove away and cut the
sack open. With haste he poured it upon the logs; then he rode out of
the dust that for yards about the place was tramped to the finest
powder. The center of a herd of salting range stock is no place for
comfort. The man rode away; to the left he ascended a low knob where
he would be safe from the stampede; but close enough to distinguish
the brands.
In no time the place was alive with milling stock. Old cows, heifers,
bulls, calves, steers rushed out of the crashing brush into the
clearing. There is no moment exactly like it. What before had been a
broad clearing of brownish reddish dust was trampled into a vast cloud
of bellowing blur, a thousand cattle, and still coming. From the
farthest height came the echoing call. Pizzozi glanced up at the top
of the mountain.
And then a strange thing happened.
From what we gathered from the excited accounts of Pizzozi it was
instantaneous; and yet by the same words it was of such a peculiar and
beautiful effect as never to be forgotten. A bluish azure shot though
with a myriad flecks of crimson, a peculiar vividness of opalescence;
the whole world scintillating; the sky, the air, the mountain, a vast
flame of color so wide and so intense that there seemed not a thing
beside it. And instantaneous—it was over almost before it was started.
No noise or warning, and no subsequent detonation: as silent as
winking and much, indeed, like the queer blur of color induced by
defective vision. All in the fraction of a second. Pizzozi had been
gazing at the mountain. There was no mountain!
Neither were there cattle. Where before had been the shade of the
towering peak was now the rays of the western sun. Where had been the
blur of the milling herd and its deafening pandemonium was now a
strange silence. The transparency of the air was unbroken into the
distance. Far off lay a peaceful range in the sunset. There was no
mountain! Neither were there cattle!
For a moment the man had enough to do with his plunging mustang. In
the blur of the subsequent second Pizzozi remembers nothing but a
convulsion of fighting horseflesh bucking, twisting, plunging, the
gentle pinto suddenly maddened into a demon. It required all the skill
of the cowman to retain his saddle.
He did not know that he was riding on the rim of Eternity. In his mind
was the dim subconscious realization of a thing that had happened. In
spite of all his efforts the horse fought backward. It was some
moments before he conquered. Then he looked.
It was a slow, hesitant moment. One cannot account for what he will do
in the open face of a miracle. What the Italian beheld was enough for
terror. The sheer immensity of the thing was too much for thinking.
At the first sight his simplex mind went numb from sheer impotence;
his terror to a degree frozen. The whole of Mt. Heckla had been shorn
away; in the place of its darkened shadow the sinking sun was blinking
in his face; the whole western sky all golden. There was no vestige of
the flat salt-clearing at the base of the mountain. Of the two
thousand cattle milling in the dust not a one remained. The man
crossed himself in stupor. Mechanically he put the spurs to the pinto.
But the mustang would not. Another struggle with bucking, fighting,
maddened horseflesh. The cowman must needs bring in all the skill of
his training; but by the time he had conquered his mind had settled
within some scope of comprehension.
The pony had good reasons for his terror. This time though the man’s
mind reeled it did not go dumb at the clash of immensity. Not only had
the whole mountain been torn away, but its roots as well. The whole
thing was up-side down; the world torn to its entrails. In place of
what had been the height was a gulf so deep that its depths were
blackness.
He was standing on the brink. He was a cool man, was Pizzozi; but it
was hard in the confusion of such a miracle to think clearly; much
less to reason. The prancing mustang was snorting with terror. The man
glanced down.
The very dizziness of the gulf, sheer, losing itself into shadows and
chaos overpowered him, his mind now clear enough for perception reeled
at the distance. The depth was nauseating. His whole body succumbed to
a sudden qualm of weakness: the sickness that comes just before
falling. He went limp in the saddle.
But the horse fought backward; warned by instinct it drew back from
the sheer banks of the gulf. It had no reason but its nature. At the
instant it sensed the snapping of the iron will of its master. In a
moment it had turned and was racing on its wild way out of the
mountains. At supreme moments a cattle horse will always hit for home.
The pinto and its limp rider were fleeing on the road to Jackson.
Pizzozi had no knowledge of what had occurred in Oakland. To him the
whole thing had been but a flash of miracle; he could not reason. He
did not curb his horse. That he was still in the saddle was due more
to the near-instinct of his training than to his volition.
He did not even draw up at the cabin. That he could make better time
with his motor than with his pinto did not occur to him; his mind was
far too busy; and, now that the thing was passed, too full of terror.
It was forty-four miles to town; it was night and the stars were
shining when he rode into Jackson.