Fire on the Mountain

  Returning from there, we followed wandering deer paths and cattle trails along the spine of a ridge that led toward a junction of two other ridges high on the east side of Thieves’ Mountain. Up in there, too far away to see, was the perennial spring, the corral, and the old log cabin where we would camp overnight. And far above the camp, above timberline, the naked and jagged peak soared into the blue.

  “What’s up there?” I pointed toward the summit.

  “What do you see up there?” Lee’s gaze followed my pointing finger.

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t see anything up there.”

  Lee was silent. He lowered his head, returning his eyes to the trail and terrain ahead of us.

  “There must be something up there,” I insisted.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Something.”

  “You won’t find it up there.”

  “How do you know, Lee? Were you up there?”

  “Yes, I climbed it once. On foot. You can’t get a horse all the way to the top.”

  “Well, you must have seen something up there.” He did not answer. “What did you see up there, Lee?”

  “Good God,” he said. “I mean, my God, you’re persistent.” He smiled at me. “You really got the disease, don’t you.”

  “What disease?”

  “The disease. I don’t know what else to call it, I already feel sorry for the woman who marries you.”

  “I’m not going to marry anybody. I like horses better.”

  “That’s a twist.”

  “All right,” I said patiently. “When you went up there, Lee, what did you find? I mean, besides rock?”

  “Besides rock? Well—I found a little grass. Not much. A strange green kind of grass. And some tiny little flowers. Tiny flowers, no bigger than snowflakes.” He paused. “Some wild-sheep droppings. One eagle’s nest.” He stopped.

  “What else?”

  “That’s about it.”

  Lee fell silent again. We rode quietly side by side, through a glade among the stunted pine trees. The quick wild birds flew before us, the sky deep and silent over their spontaneous cries. I waited.

  “Are you positive you were up there, Lee?”

  “Look,” he said, pointing to sharp hoofprints intersecting the trail ahead of us. “A buck and a couple of does pase por aqui not five minutes ago. See where one of them peed on the ground? Not five minutes ago. We should’ve seen them. I must be getting old.”

  “How old are you, Lee,”

  “Last year I was thirty-three. Old enough to be crucified. I got married instead. Next year I’ll be thirty-five. Old enough to run for President.”

  “Are you going to run for President?”

  “I’d rather be right than be wrong. My country, right or wrong? There’s talk about it, Billy. There’s a ground swell of support appearing in Guadalupe County. The grass roots are growing and I’m mending my fences.”

  “Let’s talk about something important.”

  “Like what? What could that be?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Now you’re talking. Now you’re making sense. Let’s jog up these here saddleracks and see what the old man has for supper.”

  The sun was hanging close to the shoulder of the mountain, roaring down from the cloudless sky, when Lee and I regained the old wagon road and measured its final few switchbacks up to the bench of level ground where the corral and cabin stood. We saw the sorrel stallion, barebacked and glossy, staked out in the little dry park in front of the corral. A thread of smoke dangled over the cabin chimney and Grandfather himself, when he heard our horses, appeared in the open doorway.

  “Evening,” he said. “I thought you boys would show about now. I got three cans of beans and a panful of corned beef warming up on the stove.”

  “That’ll do for a start,” Lee said.

  We dismounted and unsaddled our horses. I was tired. In fact the saddle, as I lugged it to the corral fence, seemed to weigh approximately five hundred pounds.

  “You can just turn old Blue loose, Billy,” Grandfather said. “He’ll stick close to Rocky. You might brush him down a little.”

  Lee picketed his horse. We curried our animals with juniper twigs and then went into the cabin, following the scent of food. The inside of the cabin was neat and clean, was furnished with an iron cot, a table and chairs, a cupboard full of canned goods, a kerosene lamp, and other supplies, including a sack of grain suspended on baling wire from the rafters to make life more difficult for the mice and squirrels. A pot of coffee simmered on the stove.

  “That smells good,” Lee said.

  “Ain’t quite ready yet,” the old man said, stirring the corned beef with a fork. He handed me the empty water bucket. “Billy, would you mind filling that? We’ll be ready to eat as soon as you get back.”

  “Yes sir.” I swallowed my disappointment, took the bucket, left the cabin and walked along the footpath toward the spring at the head of the ravine. The path led downward along the base of a cliff, winding among boulders big as boxcars and under tall stately yellow pines, until it reached a sort of glen or grotto in a deep fold of the mountainside. The air felt cool, the light was green and filtered down in there—I thought of the lion. I knelt by the sandy basin of the spring and drank from my cupped hands before filling the pail. The glen was very quiet; I could hear no breeze, no bird cries, no sound at all except the gentle purr of the water as it glided over moss-covered rocks and sank out of sight into the mud and weeds below the spring.

  I returned to the cabin, the bucket of water pulling down my arm and shoulder. Grandfather was dishing out the food into tin plates and pouring the coffee. Lee stood near the corral, feeding grain to the horses.

  “Come and get it!” Grandfather shouted. To me he said, “Put the water on the stove, Billy, and bring your plate outside. Too hot to eat in here.”

  The three of us sat on the grass against the cabin wall, in the shade, and faced the sunlit world below. We were all silent for a while and too busy to admire the spectacular view, eating what I thought was probably the best meal I had ever had in my life. Later, after second helpings all around, full and comforted, we set our plates aside and began to talk and look at things again.

  “How could I forget my cigars.”

  “Have a tailormade,” Lee said, offering a cigarette to the old man.

  Grandfather examined the cigarette. “They say women enjoy these things.”

  “That’s right,” Lee said, “and I enjoy women.” He offered his pack to me. “Cigarette, Billy?”

  I hesitated. I wasn’t allowed to smoke, of course. Besides, I preferred the corncob pipe I had hidden in my suitcase back at the ranch-house.

  “Put them back,” Grandfather said. “Don’t give the boy one of those.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a filthy, evil, despicable habit, a disgrace to the human race.” Grandfather lit his cigarette and took a deep drag. “He’s too young. Put them back.”

  They smoked. I pulled a stem of grass and chewed on it and looked. There was much to look at from where we sat. With the great mountain at our backs, we had a full and open view to the north, east and south—one-half the known world. I could see four different mountain systems, not counting the one holding me up, the lights of two cities, and about seven thousand square miles of the desert in between. I saw the San Andres Mountains rolling north, the Sacramento Mountains beyond Alamogordo, forty miles away to the northeast, the Guadalupe Mountains some eighty miles due east and the Oregon Mountains and the hazy smudge of El Paso far to the south, with the deserts of Chihuahua spreading toward infinity beyond.

  The sun dropped lower. I saw the shadow of Thieves’ Peak creep across the plain toward Grandfather Vogelin’s ranch, toward the village of Baker, toward the Guadalupe Mountains, reaching out to meet the curtain of darkness coming toward u
s from the east.

  “Grandfather?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you ever climb the mountain?”

  “What mountain?”

  “The one above us. Thieves’ Mountain.”

  “No, can’t say I did. And I never will. This cabin here’s high enough for me. About as close to Heaven as I ever want to get. You can bury me here.”

  “We’ll need dynamite for that,” Lee said.

  “Here Lies John Vogelin: Born Forty Years Too Late, Died Forty Years Too Soon,” Grandfather said.

  “Why forty years too soon?”

  “I figure in forty years civilization will collapse and everything will be back to normal. I wish I could live to see it.”

  “Why? You’d be right back were you started from.”

  “I’d like that. That’s the place to end up.”

  “Don’t you want to get ahead?” Lee grinned at me.

  “I’d rather stay behind. I already got a head.”

  “You already got a behind, where your head ought to be.”

  “Don’t confuse me. It took me seventy years to figure this much out. Who’s going to water the horses?”

  Nobody spoke. I stared out at the approaching union of light and dark. Lee and Grandfather stared at me.

  “Okay,” Grandfather said, “we’ll try again: who’s going to wash the dishes?”

  “I’ll water the horses,” I said.

  “Fine. If you start right away you’ll still have time to wash the dishes.”

  “I’ll light the lamp for you,” Lee said, “when you’re through watering the horses. So you don’t have to wash the dishes in the dark.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But us real cowboys always wash our dishes in the sand.”

  Lee was silent.

  “Lee, you lose,” Grandfather said. “You wash the dishes. The boy’s whipped you again. Billy, you’ll find another old bucket inside the corral.”

  “Why can’t I just take the horses down to the spring?”

  “That boy asks a lot of questions,” Lee said.

  They stared at me hopefully.

  “All right,” I said, “why not? That’s all I asked. Wouldn’t it be easier to take the horses to the spring than to carry the spring back here to the horses?”

  “A bucket is lighter than a horse,” Lee pointed out.

  “The horses can walk,” I said.

  “But they’re tired.”

  “Will you please answer my question?”

  The old man smiled and patted my knee. “You’re right, Billy, it should be easier to do it your way. But the horses don’t like it down in there. And the trail is too tight for all three at once; you’d have a rough time. And besides, think what a mess three big horses, full of water and grass and grain, would make of one little spring which is barely big enough to dip a pail into. We drink out of that spring too.”

  “I guess you’re right, Grandfather. I should’ve thought of that.” I stood up.

  “Someday we’ll cover the spring, run a pipe from it down to a water trough the horses can get to.”

  “How long have you been using this place?” Lee asked, winking at me. “How many years, John?”

  “You shut up and wash your dishes.”

  I walked to the corral, found the bucket and started down the path to the spring. Lee and the old man rose to their feet, stretching. “We’ll give you a hand, Billy,” Grandfather said, “as soon as we clean up.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The twilight was moving in. I had to go carefully to find my way, for the trail seemed awfully vague in the deep shadows under the cliff. When I reached the spring the tree toads were bleating, a dismal noise and a sure sign of night. There was no other sound, except the murmur of the flowing water. A few fireflies twinkled in the gloom above the weeds.

  The long day in the desert sun had drawn a lot of water from my body. I was thirsty again. I squatted close to the spring, scooped up a double handful of water and drank. I dipped up more and bathed my face.

  When the last tinkle of falling drops had died away I became aware of a deep and unexpected silence. The toads had gone silent and the water seemed to run more quietly than before. Even the fireflies had disappeared. I waited for a moment, listening to the silence, then reached cautiously for the bucket and dipped it into the water as quietly as I could, afraid to make too much noise. Looking around in all directions I could see nothing, nothing but the damp weeds, the wall of rock, the grand trunks of the yellow pines, the dusky woods. I looked up.

  I should not have looked up. On the brink of the crag above the spring I saw a pair of yellow eyes gleaming in a sleek head, saw a dark powerful shape of unforeseeable hugeness crouched as if to leap. I could not move, I could not make a sound. I stared up at the lion and the lion stared down at me. Paralyzed, I squatted by the spring, gripping the water bucket and unconscious of the ache in my muscles, and waited for death to fall upon me.

  My grandfather called through the silence, from the far-away cabin out of sight and out of reach beyond the twilight: “Billy?”

  I tried to answer but my throat was numb. The lion watched me.

  My grandfather called again: “Billy? Where are you?”

  This time the lion turned his massive head and with his yellow eyes looked blandly, without curiosity or fear, up the pathway.

  I heard the old man’s boots scraping on the stones of the path, coming toward me, and at last the big cat stirred himself and rose and vanished, all at once, suddenly, with uncanny grace and stillness, into the night and the forest.

  Grandfather called me for the third time, coming closer, and now I thought I could answer. “Here,” I croaked. “I’m here.” I managed to stand up, the heavy bucket frozen in my grip. As the old man came toward me down the path I took a few leaden steps to meet him.

  He stared at my face. “What happened to you?”

  I told him.

  He put one arm around my shaking shoulders and with his other hand unwrapped my fingers one by one from the handle of the water bucket. Carrying the water himself, he led me up the pathway among the boulders to the cabin where Lee waited for us in the welcome glow of the lamp.

  “What’s wrong?” Lee said, wiping a tin plate with a bandana.

  “He saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “The lion.”

  “Ah. …” said Lee. He looked at me and smiled, his deep eyes tender. “You’re a lucky boy.” He gripped my arm. “How about a cup of your grampaw’s coffee?”

  “Yes,” I said calmly. “I can drink anything.”

  A little later all three of us went back to the spring, with both buckets, and looked around. Lee even climbed up to the ledge above the spring but by that time it was too dark to see any tracks. We went back up the trail, watered the horses, built a little squaw fire outside between the cabin and the corral, and unrolled the sleeping bags which the old man kept in the cabin. We sat around the fire for a while after that, watching the moon over the eastern ranges, and talked of the lion, the lost horse, the next day’s work, in which Lee announced he would not be able to join—he was leaving us in the morning. But he promised to come back to the ranch in two or three days.

  “What does a mountain lion sound like?” I asked.

  “Well,” Grandfather, “like a woman. Like a woman screaming. How would you describe it, Lee?”

  Lee considered. “Compadres, a lion does sound something like a woman. Like a vampire-woman wailing for her demon lover.”

  “Are we going to hunt the lion, Grandfather?”

  “No, we’ll let well enough alone. If we don’t hunt him, why he won’t hurt us. Besides, it’s the only lion left on the place. I can’t afford to lose him.”

  “Do you think he’s watching us now?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Nobody said anything for a minute or so. The moon crept up into the stars. I added more sticks to the fire.

  Grandfather stretche
d his arms and yawned. “I don’t know about you men but I am tired. Anybody want to sleep on the cot inside?”

  Lee grinned. “Is there room for all three of us?”

  “Not with me in the middle there ain’t.”

  “Then let’s all sleep out here.”

  “By the fire,” I said.

  “You boys do that,” Grandfather said, “but somebody might as well use that cot. I’ve been sleeping on the ground for about seventy years now, give or take a few.”

  “You ought to be used to it,” Lee said.

  “I’m used to it. But I never did like it much.” Picking up his bedroll, the old man walked toward the cabin door. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

  “Goodnight,” we said.

  Lee and I shook the scorpions and black widow spiders out of the sleeping bags, spread them out again on the ground close to the fire, removed our boots and hats and crawled inside. We did not use our saddles for pillows. A saddle is hard enough just to sit on.

  At first I lay on my side, gazing at the coals of the burning pine. Then I lay on my back and stared straight up at the marvelous stars. The flaming blue stars. Out in the little park the horses stumbled around, munching grass, and I heard one of them staling on the hard ground. A meteor stroked quietly halfway across the sky.

  “Lee?”

  “Yes?”

  “Up there on the peak: Was it—something like the lion?”

  He did not answer at once. “Would you mind repeating that question?”

  “What you found up there—was it something like the lion?”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes, Billy. It was something like the lion.”

  I thought about that as I looked straight up at the stars. The marvelous stars. A marvelous day. The stars became dimmer as I watched them, as if they were drifting farther and farther away from us. I closed my eyes and slept and dreamed of the missing pony, fireflies, a pair of yellow eyes.