The Valley of the Moon Jack London

night, after supper, he and Saxon posted their books. Afterward,

  in the big morris chair he had insisted on buying early in the

  days of his brickyard contract, Saxon would creep into his arms

  and strum on the ukelele; or they would talk long about what they

  were doing and planning to do. Now it would be:

  "I'm mixin' up in politics, Saxon. It pays. You bet it pays. If

  by next spring I ain't got a half a dozen teams workin' on the

  roads an' pullin' down the county money, it's me back to Oakland

  an' askin' the Boss for a job."

  Or, Saxon: "They're really starting that new hotel between

  Caliente and Eldridge. And there's some talk of a big sanitarium

  back in the hills."

  Or, it would be: "Billy, now that you've piped that acre, you've

  just got to let me have it for my vegetables. I'll rent it from

  you. I'll take your own estimate for all the alfalfa you can

  raise on it, and pay you full market price less the cost of

  growing it."

  "It's all right, take it." Billy suppressed a sigh. "Besides, I

  'm too busy to fool with it now."

  Which prevarication was bare-faced, by virtue of his having just

  installed the ram and piped the land.

  "It will be the wisest, Billy," she soothed, for she knew his

  dream of land-spaciousness was stronger than ever. "You don't

  want to fool with an acre. There's that hundred and forty. We'll

  buy it yet if old Chavon ever dies. Besides, it really belongs to

  Madrono Ranch. The two together were the original quarter

  section."

  "I don't wish no man's death," Billy grumbled. "But he ain't

  gettin' no good out of it, over-pasturin' it with a lot of scrub

  animals. I've sized it up every inch of it. They's at least forty

  acres in the three cleared fields, with water in the hills behind

  to beat the band. The horse feed I could raise on it'd take your

  breath away. Then they's at least fifty acres I could run my

  brood mares on, pasture mixed up with trees and steep places and

  such. The other fifty's just thick woods, an' pretty places, an'

  wild game. An' that old adobe barn's all right. With a new roof

  it'd shelter any amount of animals in bad weather. Cook at me

  now, rentin' that measly pasture back of Ping's just to run my

  restin' animals. They could run in the hundred an' forty if I

  only had it. I wonder if Chavon would lease it."

  Or, less ambitious, Billy would say: "I gotta skin over to

  Petaluma to-morrow, Saxon. They's an auction on the Atkinson

  Ranch an' maybe I can pick up some bargains."

  "More horses!"

  "Ain't I got two teams haulin' lumber for the new winery? An'

  Barney's got a bad shoulder-sprain. He'll have to lay off a long

  time if he's to get it in shape. An' Bridget ain't ever goin' to

  do a tap of work again. I can see that stickin' out. I've

  doctored her an' doctored her. She's fooled the vet, too. An'

  some of the other horses has gotta take a rest. That span of

  grays is showin' the hard work. An' the big roan's goin' loco.

  Everybody thought it was his teeth, but it ain't. It's straight

  loco. It's money in pocket to take care of your animals, an'

  horses is the delicatest things on four legs. Some time, if I can

  ever see my way to it, I 'm goin' to ship a carload of mules from

  Colusa County--big, heavy ones, you know. They'd sell like hot

  cakes in the valley here--them I didn't want for myself."

  Or, in lighter vein, Billy: "By the way, Saxon, talkin' of

  accounts, what d'you think Hazel an' Hattie is worth?--fair

  market price,"

  "Why?"

  "I 'm askin' you."

  "Well, say, what you paid for them--three hundred dollars."

  "Hum." Billy considered deeply. "They're worth a whole lot more,

  but let it go at that. An' now, gettin' back to accounts, suppose

  you write me a check for three hundred dollars."

  "Oh! Robber!"

  "You can't show me. Why, Saxon, when I let you have grain an' hay

  from my carloads, don't you give me a check for it? An' you know

  how you're stuck on keepin' your accounts down to the penny," he

  teased. "If you're any kind of a business woman you just gotta

  charge your business with them two horses. I ain't had the use of

  'em since I don't know when."

  "But the colts will be yours," she argued. "Besides, I can't

  afford brood mares in my business. In almost no time, now, Hazel

  and Hattie will have to be taken off from the wagon--they're too

  good for it anyway. And you keep your eyes open for a pair to

  take their place. I'll give you a check for THAT pair, but no

  commission."

  "All right," Billy conceded. "Hazel an' Hattie come back to me;

  but you can pay me rent for the time you did use 'em."

  "If you make me, I'll charge you board," she threatened.

  "An' if you charge me board, I'll charge you interest for the

  money I've stuck into this shebang."

  "You can't," Saxon laughed. "It's community property."

  He grunted spasmodically, as if the breath had been knocked out

  of him.

  "Straight on the solar plexus," he said, "an' me down for the

  count. But say, them's sweet words, ain't they--community

  property." He rolled them over and off his tongue with keen

  relish. "An' when we got married the top of our ambition was a

  steady job an' some rags an' sticks of furniture all paid up an'

  half-worn out. We wouldn't have had any community property only

  for you."

  "What nonsense! What could I have done by myself? You know very

  well that you earned all the money that started us here. You paid

  the wages of Gow Yum and Chan Chi, and old Hughie, and Mrs. Paul,

  and--why, you've done it all."

  She drew her two hands caressingly across his shoulders and down

  along his great biceps muscles.

  "That's what did it, Billy."

  "Aw hell! It's your head that done it. What was my muscles good

  for with no head to run 'em,--sluggin' scabs, beatin' up lodgers,

  an' crookin' the elbow over a bar. The only sensible thing my

  head ever done was when it run me into you. Honest to God, Saxon,

  you've been the makin' of me."

  "Aw hell, Billy," she mimicked in the way that delighted him,

  "where would I have been if you hadn't taken me out of the

  laundry? I couldn't take myself out. I was just a helpless girl.

  I'd have been there yet if it hadn't been for you. Mrs. Mortimer

  had five thousand dollars; but I had you."

  "A woman ain't got the chance to help herself that a man has," he

  generalized. "I'll tell you what: It took the two of us. It's

  been team-work. We've run in span. If we'd a-run single, you

  might still be in the laundry; an', if I was lucky, I'd be still

  drivin' team by the day an' sportin' around to cheap dances."

  Saxon stood under the father of all madronos, watching Hazel and

  Hattie go out the gate, the full vegetable wagon behind them,

  when she saw Billy ride in, leading a sorrel mare from whose

  silken coat the sun flashed golden lights.

  "Four-year-old, high-life, a handful, but no vicious tricks,"

  Billy
chanted, as he stopped beside Saxon. "Skin like tissue

  paper, mouth like silk, but kill the toughest broncho ever

  foaled--look at them lungs an' nostrils. They call her

  Ramona--some Spanish name: sired by Morellita outa genuine Morgan

  stock."

  "And they will sell her?" Saxon gasped, standing with hands

  clasped in inarticulate delight.

  "That's what I brought her to show you for."

  "But how much must they want for her?" was Saxon's next question,

  so impossible did it seem that such an amazement of horse-flesh

  could ever be hers.

  "That ain't your business," Billy answered brusquely. "The

  brickyard's payin' for her, not the vegetable ranch. She's yourn

  at the word. What d'ye say?"

  "I'll tell you in a minute."

  Saxon was trying to mount, but the animal danced nervously away.

  "Hold on till I tie," Billy said. "She ain't skirt-broke, that's

  the trouble."

  Saxon tightly gripped reins and mane, stepped with spurred foot

  on Billy's hand, and was lifted lightly into the saddle.

  "She's used to spurs," Billy called after. "Spanish broke, so

  don't check her quick. Come in gentle. An' talk to her. She's

  high-life, you know."

  Saxon nodded, dashed out the gate and down the road, waved a hand

  to Clara Hastings as she passed the gate of Trillium Covert, and

  continued up Wild Water canyon.

  When she came back, Ramona in a pleasant lather, Saxon rode to

  the rear of the house, past the chicken houses and the

  flourishing berry-rows, to join Billy on the rim of the bench,

  where he sat on his horse in the shade, smoking a cigarette.

  Together they looked down through an opening among the trees to

  the meadow which was a meadow no longer. With mathematical

  accuracy it was divided into squares, oblongs, and narrow strips,

  which displayed sharply the thousand hues of green of a truck

  garden. Gow Yum and Chan Chi, under enormous Chinese grass hats,

  were planting green onions. Old Hughie, hoe in hand, plodded

  along the main artery of running water, opening certain laterals,

  closing others. From the work-shed beyond the barn the strokes of

  a hammer told Saxon that Carlsen was wire-binding vegetable

  boxes. Mrs. Paul's cheery soprano, lifted in a hymn, doated

  through the trees, accompanied by the whirr of an egg-beater. A

  sharp barking told where Possum still waged hysterical and

  baffled war on the Douglass squirrels. Billy took a long draw

  from his cigarette, exhaled the smoke, and continued to look down

  at the meadow. Saxon divined trouble in his manner. His rein-hand

  was on the pommel, and her free hand went out and softly rested

  on his. Billy turned his slow gaze upon her mare's lather,

  seeming not to note it, and continued on to Saxon's face.

  "Huh!" he equivocated, as if waking up. "Them San Leandro

  Porchugeeze ain't got nothin' on us when it comes to intensive

  farmin'. Look at that water runnin'. You know, it seems so good

  to me that sometimes I just wanta get down on hands an' knees an'

  lap it all up myself."

  "Oh, to have all the water you want in a climate like this!"

  Saxon exclaimed.

  "An' don't be scared of it ever goin' back on you. If the rains

  fooled you, there's Sonoma Creek alongside. All we gotta do is

  install a gasolene pump."

  "But we'll never have to, Billy. I was talking with 'Redwood'

  Thompson. He's lived in the valley since Fifty-three, and he says

  there's never been a failure of crops on account of drought. We

  always get our rain."

  "Come on, let's go for a ride," he said abruptly. "You've got the

  time."

  "All right, if you'll tell me what's bothering you."

  He looked at her quickly.

  "Nothin'," he grunted. "Yes, there is, too. What's the

  difference? You'd know it sooner or later. You ought to see old

  Chavon. His face is that long he can't walk without bumpin' his

  knee on his chin. His gold-mine's peterin' out."

  "Gold mine!"

  "His clay pit. It's the same thing. He's gettin' twenty cents a

  yard for it from the brickyard."

  "And that means the end of your teaming contract." Saxon saw the

  disaster in all its hugeness. "What about the brickyard people?"

  "Worried to death, though they've kept secret about it. They've

  had men out punchin' holes all over the hills for a week, an'

  that Jap chemist settin' up nights analyzin' the rubbish they've

  brought in. It's peculiar stuff, that clay, for what they want it

  for, an' you don't find it everywhere. Them experts that reported

  on Chavon's pit made one hell of a mistake. Maybe they was lazy

  with their borin's. Anyway, they slipped up on the amount of clay

  they was in it. Now don't get to botherin'. It'd come out

  somehow. You can't do nothin'."

  "But I can," Saxon insisted. "We won't buy Ramona."

  "You ain't got a thing to do with that," he answered. "I 'm

  buyin' her, an' her price don't cut any figure alongside the big

  game I 'm playin'. Of course, I can always sell my horses. But

  that puts a stop to their makin' money, an' that brickyard

  contract was fat."

  "But if you get some of them in on the road work for the county?"

  she suggested.

  "Oh, I got that in mind. An' I 'm keepin' my eyes open. They's a

  chance the quarry will start again, an' the fellow that did that

  teamin' has gone to Puget Sound. An' what if I have to sell out

  most of the horses? Here's you and the vegetable business. That's

  solid. We just don't go ahead so fast for a time, that's all. I

  ain't scared of the country any more. I sized things up as we

  went along. They ain't a jerk burg we hit all the time on the

  road that I couldn't jump into an' make a go. An' now where d'you

  want to ride?"

  CHAPTER XXII

  They cantered out the gate, thundered across the bridge, and

  passed Trillium Covert before they pulled in on the grade of Wild

  Water Canyon. Saxon had chosen her field on the big spur of

  Sonoma Mountains as the objective of their ride.

  "Say, I bumped into something big this mornin' when I was goin'

  to fetch Ramona," Billy said, the clay pit trouble banished for

  the time. "You know the hundred an' forty. I passed young Chavon

  along the road, an'--I don't know why--just for ducks, I guess--I

  up an' asked 'm if he thought the old man would lease the hundred

  an' forty to me. An' what d 'you think! He said the old man

  didn't own it. Was just leasin' it himself. That's how we was

  always seein' his cattle on it. It's a gouge into his land, for

  he owns everything on three sides of it.

  "Next I met Ping. He said Hilyard owned it an' was willin' to

  sell, only Chavon didn't have the price. Then, comin' back, I

  looked in on Payne. He's quit blacksmithin'--his back's hurtin'

  'm from a kick--an' just startin' in for real estate. Sure, he

  said, Hilyard would sell, an' had already listed the land with

  'm. Chavon's over-pastured it, an' Hilyard won't give 'm another

  lease."

  When they had climbed o
ut of Wild Water Canyon they turned their

  horses about and halted on the rim where they could look across

  at the three densely wooded knolls in the midst of the desired

  hundred and forty.

  "We'll get it yet," Saxon said.

  "Sure we will," Billy agreed with careless certitude. "I've ben

  lookin' over the big adobe barn again. Just the thing for a raft

  of horses, an' a new roof'll be cheaper 'n I thought. Though

  neither Chavon or me'll be in the market to buy it right away,

  with the clay pinchin' out."

  When they reached Saxon's field, which they had learned was the

  property of Redwood Thompson, they tied the horses and entered it

  on foot. The hay, just cut, was being raked by Thompson, who

  hallo'd a greeting to them. It was a cloudless, windless day, and

  they sought refuge from the sun in the woods beyond. They

  encountered a dim trail.

  "It's a cow trail," Billy declared. "I bet they's a teeny pasture

  tucked away somewhere in them trees. Let's follow it."

  A quarter of an hour later, several hundred feet up the side of

  the spur, they emerged on an open, grassy space of bare hillside.

  Most of the hundred and forty, two miles away, lay beneath them,

  while they were level with the tops of the three knolls. Billy

  paused to gaze upon the much-desired land, and Saxon joined him.

  "What is that?" she asked, pointing toward the knolls. "Up the

  little canyon, to the left of it, there on the farthest knoll,

  right under that spruce that's leaning over."

  What Billy saw was a white scar on the canyon wall.

  "It's one on me," he said, studying the scar. "I thought I knew

  every inch of that land, but I never seen that before. Why, I was

  right in there at the head of the canyon the first part of the

  winter. It's awful wild. Walls of the canyon like the sides of a

  steeple an' covered with thick woods."

  "What is it?" she asked. "A slide?"

  "Must be--brought down by the heavy rains. If I don't miss my

  guess--" Billy broke off, forgetting in the intensity with which

  he continued to look.

  "Hilyard'll sell for thirty an acre," he began again,

  disconnectedly. "Good land, bad land, an' all, just as it runs,

  thirty an acre. That's forty-two hundred. Payne's new at real

  estate, an' I'll make 'm split his commission an' get the easiest

  terms ever. We can re-borrow that four hundred from Gow Yum, an'

  I can borrow money on my horses an' wagons--"

  "Are you going to buy it to-day?" Saxon teased.

  She scarcely touched the edge of his thought. He looked at her,

  as if he had heard, then forgot her the next moment.

  "Head work," he mumbled. "Head work. If I don't put over a hot

  one--"

  He started back down the cow trail, recollected Saxon, and called

  over his shoulder:

  "Come on. Let's hustle. I wanta ride over an' look at that."

  So rapidly did he go down the trail and across the field, that

  Saxon had no time for questions. She was almost breathless from

  her effort to keep up with him.

  "What is it?" she begged, as he lifted her to the saddle.

  "Maybe it's all a joke--I'll tell you about it afterward," he put

  her off.

  They galloped on the levels, trotted down the gentler slopes of

  road, and not until on the steep descent of Wild Water canyon did

  they rein to a walk. Billy's preoccupation was gone, and Saxon

  took advantage to broach a subject which had been on her mind for

  some time.

  "Clara Hastings told me the other day that they're going to have

  a house party. The Hazards are to be there, and the Halls, and

  Roy Blanchard. . . ."

  She looked at Billy anxiously. At the mention of Blanchard his

  head had tossed up as to a bugle call. Slowly a whimsical twinkle

  began to glint up through the cloudy blue of his eyes.

  "It's a long time since you told any man he was standing on his

  foot," she ventured slyly.