Over the Pass

  XV

  WHEN THE DESERT BLOOMS

  Perhaps we may best describe this as a chapter of Incidents; or, to use asimile, a broad, eddying bend in a river on a plateau, with cataracts andcanyons awaiting it on its route to the sea. Or, discarding the simileand speaking in literal terms, in a search for a theme on which to hangthe incidents, we revert to Mary's raillery at the announcement of aneasy traveller that he was going to turn sober rancher.

  "You plowing! You blistering your hands! You earning your bread by thesweat of your brow!"

  But there he was in blue overalls, sinking his spade deep for settings,digging ditches and driving furrows through the virgin soil, while themasons and carpenters built his ranch house.

  "They are straight furrows, too!" Jack declared.

  "Passably so!" answered Mary.

  "And look at the blisters!" he continued, exhibiting his puffy palms.

  "You seem to think blisters a remarkable human phenomenon, a sensationalnovelty to a laboring population!"

  "Now, would you advise pricking?" he asked, with deference to herjudgment.

  "It is so critical in your case that you ought to consult a doctor ratherthan take lay advice."

  "Jim Galway says that the thorough way, I mulched my soil beforeputting in my first crop of alfalfa is a model for all future settlers,"he ventured.

  She remarked that Jim was always encouraging to new-comers, and remarkedthis in a way that implied that some new-comers possibly needed hazing.

  "And I am up at dawn and hard at it for six hours before midday."

  "Yes, it is wonderful!" she admitted, with a mock show of beingoverwhelmingly impressed. "Nobody in the world ever worked ten hours aday before!"

  "I'm doing more than any man that I pay two-fifty. I do perspire, and ifyou don't call that earning your bread with the sweat of your brow, whythis is an astoundingly illogical world!"

  "There is a great difference between sporadic display and that continuitywhich is the final proof of efficiency," she corrected him.

  "Long, involved sentences often indicate the loss of an argument!"declared Jack.

  "There isn't any argument!" said Mary with superior disinterestedness.

  By common inspiration they had established a truce of nonsense. She stillcalled him Jack; he still called her Mary. It was the only point of tacitadmission that they had ever met before he asked her to show aprospective settler a parcel of land.

  Their new relations were as the house of cards of fellowship: cards ofglass, iridescent and brittle, mocking the idea that there could beoblivion of the scene in Lang's store, the crack of Leddy's pistol in the_arroyo_, or the pulse of Jack's artery under her thumb! She was surethat he could forget these experiences, even if she could not. That washis character, as she saw it, free of clinging roots of yesterday'sevents, living some new part every day.

  In the house of cards she set up a barrier, which he saw as a veil overher eyes. Not once had he a glimpse of their depths. There was only thesurface gleam of sunbeams and sometimes of rapier-points, merry butsignificant. She frequently rode out to the pass and occasionally, whenhis day's work was done, he would ride to the foot of the range to meether, and as they came back he often sang, but never whistled. Indeed, hehad ceased to whistle altogether. Perhaps he regarded the omission as aninsurance against duels.

  Aside from nonsense they had common interests in cultural and daily life,from the Eternal Painter's brushwork to how to dress a salad. She didextend her approval for the generous space which he was allowing forflower-beds, and advised him in the practical construction of hiskitchen; while the Doge decorated the living-room with Delia Robbias,which, however, never arrived at the express office. He was a neighboralways at home in the Ewold house. The Doge revelled in theirdisputations, yet never was really intimate or affectionate as he waswith Jim Galway, who knew not the Pitti, the Prado, nor the Louvre, andcould not understand the intoning of Dante in the original as Jack could,thanks to his having been brought up in libraries and galleries.

  The town, which was not supposed to ask about pasts, could not helppuzzling about his. What was the story of this teller of stories? Thesecluded little community was in a poor way to find out, even if theconscientious feeling about a custom had not been a restraint that keptwonder free from inquiring hints. They took him for what he was in alltheir personal relations; that was the delightful way of Little Rivers,which inner curiosity might not alloy. His broader experience of thatworld over the pass which stretched around the globe and back to theother range-wall of the valley, seemed only to make him fall more easilyinto the simple ways of the fellow-ranchers of the Doge's selection, whowere genuine, hall-marked people, whatever the origin from which theindividual sprang. He knew the fatigue of productive labor as somethingfar sweeter than the fatigue that comes from mere exercise, and theneophyte's enthusiasm was his.

  "I'm sitting at the outer edge of the circle," he told Jim Galway."But when my first crop is harvested I shall be on the inside--areal rancher!"

  "You've already got one foot over the circle," said Jim.

  "And with my first crop of dates I'll be in the holy of holies ofpastoral bliss!"

  "Yes, I should say so!" Jim responded, but in a way that indicatedsurprise at the thought of Jack's remaining in Little Rivers long enoughfor such a consummation.

  When his alfalfa covered the earth with a green carpet Jack was under aspell of something more than the never-ending marvel of dry seedsspringing into succulent abundance without the waving of any magic wand.

  "I made it out of the desert!" he cried. "It laughs in triumph at thebare stretches around it, waiting on water!"

  "That is it," said Jim; "waiting on water!"

  "The promise of what might come!"

  "It will come! Some day, Jack, you and I will ride up into the rivercanyon and I will show you a place where you can see the blue sky betweenprecipitous walls two hundred feet high. The abyss is so narrow you canthrow a stone across it."

  "What lies beyond?" asked Jack, his eyes lighting vividly.

  "A great basin which was the bed of an ancient lake before the water woreits way through."

  "A dam between those walls--and you have another lake!"

  "Yes, and the spring freshets from the northern water-shed all held in areservoir--none going to waste! And, Jack, as population spreads the dammust come."

  "Why, the Doge has a kingdom!"

  "Yes, that's the best of it, the rights being in his hands. He sharesup with everybody and we get it when he dies. That's why we are readyto accept the Doge's sentiments as kind of gospel. If ornamental hedgeswaste water and bring bugs and are contrary to practical ranchingideas, why--well, why not? It's our Little Rivers to enjoy as weplease. We aren't growing so fast, but we're growing in a clean,beautiful way, as Jasper Ewold says. What if that river was owned byone man! What if we had to pay the price he set for what takes theplace of rain, as they do in some places in California? We're going tosay who shall build that dam!"

  "Think of it! Think of it!" Jack half whispered, his imagination in play."Plot after plot being added to this little oasis until it extends fromrange to range, one sea of green! Many little towns, with Little Riversthe mother town, spreading its ideas! Yes, think of being in at themaking of a new world, seeing visions develop into reality as, stone bystone, an edifice rises! I--I--" Jack paused, a cloud sweeping over hisfeatures, his eyes seeming to stare at a wall. His body alone seemed inLittle Rivers, his mind on the other side of the pass. He was in one ofthose moods of abstraction that ever made his fellow-ranchers feel thathe would not be with them permanently.

  Indeed, he had whole days when his smile had a sad turn; when, though hespoke pleasantly, the inspiration of talk was not in him and when BelvySmith could not rouse any action in the cat with two black stripes downits back. But many Little Riversites, including the Doge, had their saddays, when they looked away at the pass oftener than usual, as if seeinga life-story framed in the V. His came usual
ly, as Mrs. Smith observed,when he had a letter from the East. And it was then that he would pretendto cough to Firio. These mock coughing spells were one of the fewmanifestations that made the impassive Firio laugh.

  "Now you know I am not well, don't you, Firio?" he would ask, waggishly,the very thought seeming to take him out of the doldrums. "I could neverlive out of this climate. Why, even now I have a cough, kuh-er!"

  Firio had turned a stove cook. He accepted the humiliation in a spirit ofloyalty. But often he would go out among the sagebrush and return with afeathery tribute, which he would broil on a spit in a fire made in theyard. Always when Jack rode out to meet Mary at the foot of the range,Firio would follow; and always he had his rifle. For it was part ofJack's seeming inconsistency, emphasizing his inscrutability, that hewould never wear his revolver. It hung beside Pete's on the wall of theliving-room as a second relic. Far from being a quarrel-maker, he waspeaceful to the point of Quakerish predilection.

  "Nobody ever hears anything of Leddy," said Jim; "but he will neverforget or forgive, and one day he will show up unexpectedly."

  "Not armed!" said Jack.

  "Do you think he will keep his word?"

  "I know he will. I asked him and he said he would."

  "You're very simple, Jack. But mind, he can keep his word and still usea gun outside the town!"

  "So he might!" admitted Jack, laughing in a way that indicated that thesubject was distasteful to him; for he would never talk of the duel.

  Now we come to that little affair of Pedro Nogales. Pedro was ahalf-breed, whose God among men was Pete Leddy no less than Jack wasFirio's and the Doge was Ignacio's. In his shanty back of Bill Lang's theMexicans and Indians lost their remaining wages in gambling after he hadfilled them with _mescal_. It happened that Gonzalez, head man of thelaborers under Bob Worther, who had saved quite a sum, came awaypenniless after taking but one drink. Every ounce of Bob's avoirdupoiswas in a rage.

  "It's time we cleaned out Pedro's place, seh!" he told Jack; "and you andJim Galway have got to help me do it!"

  "I don't like to get into a row," said Jack very soberly.

  "Then I'll undertake the job alone," Bob retorted. "That will be a gooddeal worse, for when I get going I lose my temper and I tell you, seh,I've got a lot to lose! And, Jack, are you going to stand by and seerobbery done by the meanest, most worthless greaser in the valley--and agood Indian the victim?"

  "Yes, Jack," said Jim, "you've got such a formidable reputation sinceyour set-to with Leddy that the Indians think you are a regular master ofmagic. You're just the one to make Pedro come to terms."

  "A formidable reputation without firing a shot!" admitted Jackquizzically, and consented.

  "You'll surely want your gun this time!" Bob warned him.

  "No," said Jack.

  "But--"

  "I have hung up my gun!" Jack said decisively. "We'll try to handle thispeacefully. Come on!"

  "Well, we've got our guns, anyway!" Jim put in.

  It was mid-afternoon, a slack hour for Pedro's kind of trade, and theshanty was empty of customers when the impromptu vigilance committeeentered. Pedro himself was half dozing in the faro dealer's chair. Hissmall, ferret eyes flashed a spark at the visitors as he rose, but he waspoliteness itself.

  "Senores! It is great honor! Be seated, senores!" he said with eloquentdeference.

  The very sight of him set all the ounces in Bob quivering in an outburst:

  "No chairs for us! You fork over Gonzalez's money that you trickedout of him!"

  "I take Gonzalez's money! I? Senores?"

  "It's a hundred and twenty dollars that he earned honestly, and thequicker you lay your hands on it the better for you!" Bob roared back.

  Pedro was quite impassive.

  "Senores, if Gonzalez need money--senores, I honest man! Senores, sitdown! We talk!" Pedro dropped back into his chair and his hand, withcat-like quickness, shot under the faro table.

  Jack had come through the door after Jim and Bob. He was standing alittle behind them, and while they had been watching Pedro's face he hadwatched Pedro's movements.

  "Pedro, take your hand out from under the table and without your gun!"said Jack; and Jim Galway caught a thrill in Jack's voice that he hadheard in the _arroyo_.

  Pedro looked into Senor Don't Care's eyes and saw a bead, though theywere not looking along the glint of a revolver barrel.

  "_Si_, senor!" said Pedro, settling back in the chair with palms out inintimation of his pacific intentions.

  "Now, Pedro, you have Gonzalez's money, haven't you?" Jack went on, inthe reasoning fashion that he had adopted to Leddy in the store. "Andyou aren't going to make yourself or Bob trouble. You are going togive it back!"

  "_Si_, senor!" said Pedro wincing.

  While he was producing the money and counting it, his furtive glance keptwatch of Jack. Then, as the committee turned to go, he suddenly exclaimedwith angry surprise and disillusion:

  "You got no gun!"

  While Jim and Bob waited for Jack to precede them out of the door Jim hadtime to note Pedro's baleful, piercing look at Jack's back.

  "Just as I told you, Jack--and I reckon you saved a big row. You justput a scare into that hellion with a word, like you had a thousand devilsin you!" said Jim.

  "It's all over!" Jack answered, looking more hurt than pleased over thecongratulations. "Very fortunately over."

  "But," Jim observed, tensely, "Pedro is not only Leddy's bitterpartisan and ready to do his bidding, Pedro's a bit loco, besides--thekind that hesitates at nothing when he gets a grudge. You've got tolook out for him."

  "Oh, no!" said Jack, in the full swing of a Senor Don't Care mood.

  Jim and Bob began to entertain the feelings of Mary on the pass, when shethought of Jack as walking over precipices regardless of danger signs.After all, did he really know how to shoot? If he would not look afterhimself, it was their duty to look after him. Jim suggested that the rulewhich Jack had made for Leddy should have universal application. No onewhosoever should wear arms in Little Rivers without a permit. The newordinance had the Doge's approval; and Jim and Bob, both of whom hadpermits, kept watch that it was enforced, particularly in the case ofPedro Nogales.

  Meanwhile, Jack kept the ten-hour-a-day law. His alfalfa was growingwith prolific rapidity, but Firio had the air of one who waitsbetween journeys.

  "Never the trail again?" he asked temptingly, one day.

  "Never the trail again!" Jack declared firmly.

  "_Si, si, si_--the trail again!"

  "You think so? Then why do you ask?"

  "To make a question," answered Firio. "The big sadness will be toostrong. It will make you move--_si_!"

  "The big sadness!" Jack exclaimed. He seized Firio by the shoulders andlooked narrowly at him, and Firio met the gaze with soft, puzzling lightsin his eyes. "Ho! ho! A big sadness! How do you know?" he laughed.

  "I learn on the trail when I watch you look at the stars. And SenoritaEwold, she know; but she think the big sadness a devil. She--" and hepaused.

  "She--yes?" Jack asked.

  "She--" Firio started again.

  Jack suddenly raised his hands from Firio's shoulders in a gesture ofinterruption. It was not exactly Firio's place to hazard opinions aboutMary Ewold.

  "Never mind!" he said, rather sharply.

  But Firio proceeded fixedly to finish what he had to say.

  "She has a big sadness, which makes her ride to the pass. She rides outso she can ride back smiling."

  "Firio, don't mistake your imagination for divination!" Jack warned him.

  As Firio did not understand the meaning of this he said nothing. Probablyhe would have said nothing even if he had understood.

  "I'll show you the nature of the big sadness and that the devil is a joydevil when we harvest our first crop of alfalfa," Jack concluded. "Then Ishall make a holiday! Then I shall be a real rancher and something isgoing to happen!"

  "The trail!" exclaimed Firio, and the soft light in h
is eyes flashed."_Si_! The trail and the big spurs and the revolver in the holster!"

  "No!"

  But Firio said "_Si_"! with the supreme confidence of one who holds thatbelief in fulfilment will make any wish come true.