THE LAND OF AFTERNOON
"Dreaming once more love's old sad dream divine."
Los Banos de Santa Eulalia Del Norte, otherwise known as Mud Springs, is
a Mexican hamlet with one street of about the same length. Los Banos and
Co. lies in a loop of the Rio Grande, half of a long day from El Paso,
in mere miles; otherwise a contemporary of Damascus and Arpad.
Thither, mindful of the hot springs which supply the preliminaries of
the name, Mr. Bransford made his way: mindful too, of sturdy old Don
Francisco, a friend twice bound by ancient service given and returned.
He climbed the slow long ridges to the high _mesa_: for the river bent
here in a long ox-bow, where a bold promontory shouldered far out to bar
the way: weary miles were to be saved by crossing the neck of this
ox-bow, and the tough horse tired and lagged.
The slow sun rose as he reached the Rim. It showed the wide expanse of
desert behind him, flooded with trembling light; eastward, beyond the
river, the buttressed and fantastic peaks of Fray Cristobal; their
jutting shadows streaming into the gulf beyond, athwart the silvery
ribbon of gleaming water, twining in mazy loops across the valley floor:
it showed the black Rim at his feet, a frowning level wall of lava
cliff, where the plain broke abruptly into the chasm beneath; the iron
desolation of the steep sides, boulder-strewn, savage and forbidding:
"_A land of old up-heaven from the abyss._"
Long since, there had been a flourishing Mexican town in the valley. A
wagonroad had painfully climbed a long ridge to the Rim, twisting,
doubling, turning, clinging hazardously to the hillside, its outer edge
a wall built up with stone, till it came to the shoulder under the
tremendous barrier. From there it turned northward, paralleling the Rim
in mile-long curve above a deep gorge; turning, in a last desperate
climb, to a solitary gateway in the black wall, torn out by flood-waters
through slow centuries. Smallpox had smitten the people; the treacherous
river had devastated the fertile valley, and, subsiding, left the rich
fields a waste of sand. The town was long deserted; the disused road was
gullied and torn by flood, the soil washed away, leaving a heaped and
crumbled track of tangled stone. But it was the only practicable way as
far as the sand-hills, and Jeff led his horse down the ruined path,
with many a turning back and scrambling detour.
The shadows of the eastern hills drew back before him as he reached the
sand-dunes. When he rode through the silent streets of what had been
Alamocita, the sun peered over Fray Cristobal, gilding the crumbling
walls, where love and laughter had made music, where youth and hope and
happiness had been.... Silent now and deserted, given over to lizard and
bat and owl, the smiling gardens choked with sand and grass, springing
with _mesquite_ and _tornillo_; a few fruit trees, gnarled and tangled,
drooping for days departed, when young mothers sang low lullaby beneath
their branches.... Passed away and forgotten--hopes and fears, tears and
smiles, birth and death, joy and sorrow, hatred and sin and shame,
falsehood and truth and courage and love. The sun shone cheerfully on
these gray ruins--as it has shone on a thousand such, and will shine.
Jeff turned down the river, past the broken _acequias_, to where a
massive spur of basaltic rock had turned the fury of the floods and
spared a few fields. In this sheltered cove dwelt Don Francisco Escobar
in true pastoral and patriarchal manner; his stalwart sons and
daughters, with their sons and daughters in turn, in clustering _adobes_
around him: for neighbors, the allied family of Gonzales y Ortega.
A cheerful settlement, this of Los Banos, nestling at the foot of the
friendly rampart, sheltered alike from flood and wind. South and west
the close black Rim walled the horizon, the fantasy of Fray Cristobal
closed in the narrow east: but northward, beyond the low sand-hills and
the blue heat-haze, the high peaks of Organ, Guadalupe and Rainbow swam
across the sleepy air, far and soft and dim.
In their fields the _gente_ of Gonzales y Ortega and of Escobar raised
ample crops of alfalfa, wheat, corn, _frijoles_ and _chili_, with
orchard, vineyard and garden. Their cows, sheep and goats grazed the
foothills between river and Rim, watched by the young men or boys,
penned nightly in the great corrals in the old Spanish fashion; as if
the Moor still swooped and forayed. Their horses roamed the hills at
will, only a few being kept in the alfalfa pasture. They ground their
own grain, tanned their cow-hides at home. Mattress and pillow were wool
of their raising, their blankets and cloth their own weave. There were
granaries, a wine-press, a forge, a cumbrous stone mill, a great _adobe_
oven like a monstrous bee-hive.
Once a year their oxen drew the great high-sided wagons up the sandy
road to El Paso, and returned with the year's marketing--salt, axes,
iron and steel, powder and lead, bolts of white domestic or _manta_ for
sheets and shirtings, matches, tea, coffee, tobacco and sugar. Perhaps,
if the saints had been kind, there were a few ribbons, trinkets or
brightly colored prints of Joseph and Virgin and Child, St. John the
Beloved, The Annunciation, The Children and Christ; perhaps an American
rifle or a plow. But, for the most part, they held not with innovations;
plowed, sowed and reaped as their fathers did, threshing with oxen or
goats.
The women sewed by hand, cooked on fireplaces; or, better still, in the
open air under the trees, with few and simple utensils. The family ate
from whitest and cleanest of sheepskins spread on the floor. But, the
walls were snowy with whitewash, the earthen floors smooth and clean,
the coarse linen fresh and white. The scant furniture of the rooms--a
pine bed, a chair or two, a mirror, a brass candlestick (with home-made
candles), a cheap print on the wall, a great chest for clothes, blankets
and simple treasures, the bright fire in the cozy fireplace--all
combined to give an indescribable air of cheerfulness, of homely comfort
and of rest. This quiet corner, where people still lived as simply as
when Abraham went up from Ur of the Chaldees, in the spring-time of the
world, held, for seeing eyes, an incommunicable charm.
When Jeff came at last to Casa Escobar, the cattle were already on the
hills, the pigs and chickens far afield. Don Francisco, white-haired,
erect, welcomed him eagerly, indeed, but with stately courtesy.
"Is it thou indeed, my son? Now, my old eyes are gladdened this day.
Enter, then, _amigo mio_, thrice-welcome--the house is thine in very
truth. Nay, the young men shall care for thy horse."
He raised his voice. Three tall sons, Abran, Zenobio, Donociano, came at
the summons, gave Bransford grave greeting, and stood to await their
father's commands. Fathers of families themselves, they presumed not to
sit unbidden, to join in the conversation, or to loiter.
Breakfast was served presently, in high state, on the table reserved for
honored guests. Savory venison, chili, fish, eggs, _tortillas_, _etole_,
_enchiladas_, cream and steaming coffee--such was the fare. Don
Francisco sat gravely by to bear him company, while a silently hovering
damsel anticipated every need.
Thence, when his host could urge no more upon him, to the deep
shading cottonwoods. Wine was brought and the "makings" of XXXX
cigarettes--corn-husks, handcut; a great jar of tobacco; and a brazier
of mesquite embers. At a little distance women washed, wove or sewed;
the young men made buckskin, fashioned quirts, whips, ropes,
bridle-reins, tie-straps, hobbles, pack-sacks and _chaparejos_ of
raw-hide; made cinches of horse-hair; wrought ox-yokes, plow-beams and
other things needful for their simple husbandry.
Meanwhile, Don Francisco entertained his guest with grave and leisurely
recital of the year's annals. Mateo, son of Sebastian, had slain a great
bear in the Pass of All the Winds; Alicia, daughter of their eldest, was
wed with young Roman de la O, of Canada Nogales, to the much healing of
feud and ancient hatred; Diego, son of Eusebio, was proving a bold and
fearless rider of wild horses, with reason, as behooved his father's
son; he had carried away the _gallo_ at the _Fiesta de San Juan_, with
the fleet dun colt "creased" from the wild bunch at Quemado; the herds
had grown, the crops prospered, all sorrow passed them by, through the
intercession of the blessed saints.
The year's trophies were brought. He fingered with simple pride the
great pelt of the silver-tip. Antlers there were and lion-skins,
gleaming prisms of quartz, flint arrowheads and agates brought in by the
shepherds, the costly Navajo blanket won by the fleet-limbed dun at
Canada races.
Hither came presently another visitor--Florentino, breaker of wild
horses, despite his fifty years; wizened and withered and small, merry
and cheerful, singer of forgotten folk-songs; chanting, even as he came,
the song of Macario Romero--Macario, riding joyous and light-hearted,
spite of warning, omen and sign, love-lured to doom and death.
"'Concedame una licencia
Voy a ir a ver a me Chata.'
"Dice Macario Romero,
Parando en los estribos:
'Madre, pues, esto voy a ver,
Si todos son mis amigos!'"
And so, listening, weary and outworn, Jeff fell asleep.
* * * * *
Observe now, how Nature insists upon averages. Mr. Jeff Bransford was,
as has been seen, an energetic man; but outraged nerves will have their
revenge. After making proper amends to his damaged eye, Jeff's remnant
of energy kept up long enough to dispatch young Tomas Escobar y Mendoza
to El Paso with a message to Hibler: which message enjoined Hibler at
once to carry tidings to John Wesley Pringle, somewhere in Chihuahua,
asking him kindly to set right what Arcadian times were out of joint, as
he, Jeff, felt the climate of Old Mexico more favorable for his throat
trouble than that of New Mexico; with a postscript asking Hibler for
money by bearer. And young Tomas was instructed to buy, at Juarez, a
complete outfit of clothing for Jeff, including a gun.
This done, the reaction set in--aided, perhaps, by the enervating
lassitude of the hot baths and the sleepy atmosphere of that forgotten
village. Jeff spent the better part of a week asleep, or half awake at
best. He had pleasant dreams, too. One--perhaps the best dream of
all--was that on their wedding trip they should follow again the devious
line of his flight from Arcadia. That would need a prairie schooner--no,
a prairie steamboat--a prairie yacht! He would tell her all the hideous
details--show her the mine, the camp of the besiegers, the ambuscade on
the road. And if he could have Ellinor meet Griffith and Gibson for a
crowning touch!
After the strenuous violence of hand-strokes, here was a drowsy and
peaceful time. The wine of that land was good, the shade pleasant, the
Alician philosophy more delightful than of yore; he had all the
accessories, but one, of an earthly paradise.
Man is ungrateful. Jeff was a man; neglectful of present bounties, his
dreaming thoughts were all of the absent accessory and of a time when
that absence should be no more, nor paradise be empty.
Life, like the Gryphon's classical master, had taught him Laughter and
Grief. He turned now the forgotten pages of the book of his years.
Enough black pages were there; as you will know well, having yourself
searched old records before now, with tears. He cast up that long
account--the wasted lendings, the outlawed debts, the dishonored
promises, the talents of his stewardship, unprofitable and brought to
naught; set down--how gladly!--the items on the credit side. So men have
set the good upon one side and the evil on the other since Crusoe's
day, and before; against the time when the Great Accountant, Whose
values are not ours, shall strike a final balance.
Take that book at your elbow--yes, either one; it doesn't matter. Now
turn to where the hero first discovers his frightful condition--long
after it has become neighborhood property.... He bent his head in
humility. He was not worthy of her!... Something like that? Those may
not be the precise words; but he groaned. He always groans. By-the-way,
how this man-saying must amuse womankind! Yes, and they actually say it
too--real, live, flesh-and-blood men. Who was it said life was a poor
imitation of literature? Happily, either these people are insincere or
they reconsider the matter--else what should we do for families?
It is to be said that Jeff Bransford lacked this becoming delicacy. If
he groaned he swore also; if he decided that Miss Ellinor Hoffman
deserved a better man than he was, he also highly resolved that she
should not have him.
"For, after all, you know," said Jeff to Alice:
"I'm sure he's nothing extra--a quiet man and plain,
And modest--though there isn't much of which he could be vain.
And had I mind to chant his praise, this were the kindest line--
Somehow, she loves him dearly--this little love of mine!"