The old house seemed to have grown out of the earth, and it was lovely. Bordoni used it for a cow barn. He was a Swiss, an immigrant, with his national passion for cleanliness. He distrusted the thick mud walls and built a frame house some distance away, and his cows put their heads out the deep recessed windows of the old Sanchez house.
The Bordonis were childless, and when the wife died in ripe years a lonely longing for his Alpine past fell on her husband. He wanted to sell the ranch and go home. Adam Trask refused to buy in a hurry, and Bordoni was asking a big price and using the selling method of pretending not to care whether he sold or not. Bordoni knew Adam was going to buy his land long before Adam knew it.
Where Adam settled he intended to stay and to have his unborn children stay. He was afraid he might buy one place and then see another he liked better, and all the time the Sanchez place was drawing him. With the advent of Cathy, his life extended long and pleasantly ahead of him. But he went through all the motions of carefulness. He drove and rode and walked over every foot of the land. He put a post-hole auger down through the subsoil to test and feel and smell the under earth. He inquired about the small wild plants of field and riverside and hill. In damp places he knelt down and examined the game tracks in the mud, mountain lion and deer, coyote and wild cat, skunk and raccoon, weasel and rabbit, all overlaid with the pattern of quail tracks. He threaded among willows and sycamores and wild blackberry vines in the riverbed, patted the trunks of live oak and scrub oak, madrone, laurel, toyon.
Bordoni watched him with squinting eyes and poured tumblers of red wine squeezed from the grapes of his small hillside vineyard. It was Bordoni's pleasure to get a little drunk every afternoon. And Adam, who had never tasted wine, began to like it.
Over and over he asked Cathy's opinion of the place. Did she like it? Would she be happy there? And he didn't listen to her noncommittal answers. He thought that she linked arms with his enthusiasm. In the lobby of the King City hotel he talked to the men who gathered around the stove and read the papers sent down from San Francisco.
"It's water I think about," he said one evening. "I wonder how deep you'd have to go to bring in a well."
A rancher crossed his denim knees. "You ought to go see Sam Hamilton," he said. "He knows more about water than anybody around here. He's a water witch and a well-digger too. He'll tell you. He's put down half the wells in this part of the valley."
His companion chuckled. "Sam's got a real legitimate reason to be interested in water. Hasn't got a goddam drop of it on his own place."
"How do I find him?" Adam asked.
"I'll tell you what. I'm going out to have him make some angle irons. I'll take you with me if you want. You'll like Mr. Hamilton. He's a fine man."
"Kind of a comical genius," his companion said.
3
They went to the Hamilton ranch in Louis Lippo's buckboard--Louis and Adam Trask. The iron straps rattled around in the box, and a leg of venison, wrapped in wet burlap to keep it cool, jumped around on top of the iron. It was customary in that day to take some substantial lump of food as a present when you went calling on a man, for you had to stay to dinner unless you wished to insult his house. But a few guests could set back the feeding plans for the week if you did not build up what you destroyed. A quarter of pork or a rump of beef would do. Louis had cut down the venison and Adam provided a bottle of whisky.
"Now I'll have to tell you," Louis said. "Mr. Hamilton will like that, but Mrs. Hamilton has got a skunner on it. If I was you I'd leave it under the seat, and when we drive around to the shop, why, then you can get it out. That's what we always do."
"Doesn't she let her husband take a drink?"
"No bigger than a bird," said Louis. "But she's got brassbound opinions. Just you leave the bottle under the seat."
They left the valley road and drove into the worn and rutted hills over a set of wheel tracks gulleyed by the winter rains. The horses strained into their collars and the buckboard rocked and swayed. The year had not been kind to the hills, and already in June they were dry and the stones showed through the short, burned feed. The wild oats had headed out barely six inches above the ground, as though with knowledge that if they didn't make seed quickly they wouldn't get to seed at all.
"It's not likely looking country," Adam said.
"Likely? Why, Mr. Trask, it's country that will break a man's heart and eat him up. Likely! Mr. Hamilton has a sizable piece and he'd of starved to death on it with all those children. The ranch don't feed them. He does all kinds of jobs, and his boys are starting to bring in something now. It's a fine family."
Adam stared at a line of dark mesquite that peeked out of a draw. "Why in the world would he settle on a place like this?"
Louis Lippo, as does every man, loved to interpret, to a stranger particularly, if no native was present to put up an argument. "I'll tell you," he said. "Take me--my father was Italian. Came here after the trouble but he brought a little money. My place isn't very big but it's nice. My father bought it. He picked it out. And take you--I don't know how you're fixed and wouldn't ask, but they say you're trying to buy the old Sanchez place and Bordoni never gave anything away. You're pretty well fixed or you couldn't even ask about it."
"I'm comfortably off," said Adam modestly.
"I'm talking the long way around," said Louis. "When Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton came into the valley they didn't have a pot to piss in. They had to take what was left--government land that nobody else wanted. Twenty-five acres of it won't keep a cow alive even in good years, and they say the coyotes move away in bad years. There's people say they don't know how the Hamiltons lived. But of course Mr. Hamilton went right to work--that's how they lived. Worked as a hired hand till he got his threshing machine built."
"Must have made a go of it. I hear of him all over."
"He made a go of it all right. Raised nine children. I'll bet he hasn't got four bits laid away. How could he?"
One side of the buckboard leaped up, rolled over a big round stone, and dropped down again. The horses were dark with sweat and lathered under the collar and britching.
"I'll be glad to talk to him," said Adam.
"Well, sir, he raised one fine crop--he had good children and he raised them fine. All doing well--maybe except Joe. Joe--he's the youngest--they're talking about sending him to college, but all the rest are doing fine. Mr. Hamilton can be proud. The house is just on the other side of the next rise. Don't forget and bring out that whisky--she'll freeze you to the ground."
The dry earth was ticking under the sun and the crickets rasped. "It's real godforsaken country," said Louis.
"Makes me feel mean," said Adam.
"How's that?"
"Well, I'm fixed so I don't have to live on a place like this."
"Me too, and I don't feel mean. I'm just goddam glad."
When the buckboard topped the rise Adam could look down on the little cluster of buildings which composed the Hamilton seat--a house with many lean-tos, a cow shed, a shop, and a wagon shed. It was a dry and sun-eaten sight--no big trees and a small hand-watered garden.
Louis turned to Adam, and there was just a hint of hostility in his tone. "I want to put you straight on one or two things, Mr. Trask. There's people that when they see Samuel Hamilton the first time might get the idea he's full of bull. He don't talk like other people. He's an Irishman. And he's all full of plans--a hundred plans a day. And he's all full of hope. My Christ, he'd have to be to live on this land! But you remember this--he's a fine worker, a good blacksmith, and some of his plans work out. And I've heard him talk about things that were going to happen and they did."
Adam was alarmed at the hint of threat. "I'm not a man to run another man down," he said, and he felt that suddenly Louis thought of him as a stranger and an enemy.
"I just wanted you to get it straight. There's some people come in from the East and they think if a man hasn't got a lot of money he's no good."
"I wouldn't think of--"
/>
"Mr. Hamilton maybe hasn't got four bits put away, but he's our people and he's as good as we got. And he's raised the nicest family you're likely to see. I just want you to remember that."
Adam was on the point of defending himself and then he said, "I'll remember. Thanks for telling me."
Louis faced around front again. "There he is--see, out by the shop? He must of heard us."
"Has he got a beard?" Adam asked, peering.
"Yes, got a nice beard. It's turning white fast, beginning to grizzle up."
They drove past the frame house and saw Mrs. Hamilton looking out the window at them, and they drew up in front of the shop where Samuel stood waiting for them.
Adam saw a big man, bearded like a patriarch, his graying hair stirring in the air like thistledown. His cheeks above his beard were pink where the sun had burned his Irish skin. He wore a clean blue shirt, overalls, and a leather apron. His sleeves were rolled up, and his muscular arms were clean too. Only his hands were blackened from the forge. After a quick glance Adam came back to the eyes, light blue and filled with a young delight. The wrinkles around them were drawn in radial lines inward by laughter.
"Louis," he said, "I'm glad to see you. Even in the sweetness of our little heaven here, we like to see our friends." He smiled at Adam, and Louis said, "I brought Mr. Adam Trask to see you. He's a stranger from down east, come to settle."
"I'm glad," said Samuel. "We'll shake another time. I wouldn't soil your hand with these forge hooks."
"I brought some strap iron, Mr. Hamilton. Would you make some angles for me? The whole frame of my header bed is fallen to hell."
"Sure I will, Louis. Get down, get down. We'll put the horses to the shade."
"There's a piece of venison behind, and Mr. Trask brought a little something."
Samuel glanced toward the house. "Maybe we'll get out the 'little something' when we've got the rig behind the shed."
Adam could hear the singing lilt of his speech and yet could detect no word pronounced in a strange manner except perhaps in sharpened i's and l's held high on the tongue.
"Louis, will you out-span your team? I'll take the vension in. Liza will be glad. She likes a venison stew."
"Any of the young ones home?"
"Well, no, they aren't. George and Will came home for the week-end, and they all went last night to a dance up Wild Horse Canyon at the Peach Tree school-house. They'll come trooping back by dusk. We lack a sofa because of that. I'll tell you later--Liza will have a vengeance on them--it was Tom did it. I'll tell you later." He laughed and started toward the house, carrying the wrapped deer's haunch. "If you want you can bring the 'little something' into the shop, so you don't let the sun glint on it."
They heard him calling as he came near the house. "Liza, you'll never guess. Louis Lippo has brought a piece of venison bigger than you."
Louis drove in back of the shed, and Adam helped him take the horses out, tie up the tugs, and halter them in the shade. "He meant that about the sun shining on the bottle," said Louis.
"She must be a holy terror."
"No bigger than a bird but she's brassbound."
" 'Out-span,' " Adam said. "I think I've heard it said that way, or read it."
Samuel rejoined them in the shop. "Liza will be happy if you will stay to dinner," he said.
"She didn't expect us," Adam protested.
"Hush, man. She'll make some extra dumplings for the stew. It's a pleasure to have you here. Give me your straps, Louis, and let's see how you want them."
He built a chip fire in the black square of the forge and pulled a bellows breeze on it and then fed wet coke over with his fingers until it glowed. "Here, Louis," he said, "wave your wing on my fire. Slow, man, slow and even." He laid the strips of iron on the glowing coke. "No, sir, Mr. Trask, Liza's used to cooking for nine starving children. Nothing can startle her." He tongued the iron to more advantageous heat, and he laughed. "I'll take that last back as a holy lie," he said. "My wife is rumbling like round stones in the surf. And I'll caution the both of you not to mention the word 'sofa.' It's a word of anger and sorrow to Liza."
"You said something about it," Adam said.
"If you knew my boy Tom, you'd understand it better, Mr. Trask. Louis knows him."
"Sure I know him," Louis said.
Samuel went on, "My Tom is a hell-bent boy. Always takes more on his plate than he can eat. Always plants more than he can harvest. Pleasures too much, sorrows too much. Some people are like that. Liza thinks I'm like that. I don't know what will come to Tom. Maybe greatness, maybe the noose--well, Hamiltons have been hanged before. And I'll tell you about that sometime."
"The sofa," Adam suggested politely.
"You're right. I do, and Liza says I do, shepherd my words like rebellious sheep. Well, came the dance at the Peach Tree school and the boys, George, Tom, Will, and Joe, all decided to go. And of course the girls were asked. George and Will and Joe, poor simple boys, each asked one lady friend, but Tom--he took too big a helping as usual. He asked two Williams sisters, Jennie and Belle. How many screw holes do you want, Louis?"
"Five," said Louis.
"All right. Now I must tell you, Mr. Trask, that my Tom has all the egotism and self-love of a boy who thinks he's ugly. Mostly lets himself go fallow, but comes a celebration and he garlands himself like a maypole, and he glories like spring flowers. This takes him quite a piece of time. You notice the wagon house was empty? George and Will and Joe started early and not so beautiful as Tom. George took the rig, Will had the buggy, and Joe got the little two-wheeled cart." Samuel's blue eyes shone with pleasure. "Well then, Tom came out as shy and shining as a Roman emperor and the only thing left with wheels was a hay rake, and you can't take even one Williams sister on that. For good or bad, Liza was taking her nap. Tom sat on the steps and thought it out. Then I saw him go to the shed and hitch up two horses and take the doubletree off the hay rake. He wrestled the sofa out of the house and ran a fifth-chain under the legs--the fine goose-neck horsehair sofa that Liza loves better than anything. I gave it to her to rest on before George was born. The last I saw, Tom went dragging up the hill, reclining at his ease on the sofa to get the Williams girls. And, oh, Lord, it'll be worn thin as a wafer from scraping by the time he gets it back." Samuel put down his tongs and placed his hands on his hips the better to laugh. "And Liza has the smoke of brimstone coming out her nostrils. Poor Tom."
Adam said, smiling, "Would you like to take a little something?"
"That I would," said Samuel. He accepted the bottle and took a quick swallow of whisky and passed it back.
"Uisquebaugh--it's an Irish word--whisky, water of life--and so it is."
He took the red straps to his anvil and punched screw holes in them and bent the angles with his hammer and the forked sparks leaped out. Then he dipped the iron hissing into his half-barrel of black water. "There you are," he said and threw them on the ground.
"I thank you," said Louis. "How much will that be?"
"The pleasure of your company."
"It's always like that," Louis said helplessly.
"No, when I put your new well down you paid my price."
"That reminds me--Mr. Trask here is thinking of buying the Bordoni place--the old Sanchez grant--you remember?"
"I know it well," said Samuel. "It's a fine piece."
"He was asking about water, and I told him you knew more about that than anybody around here."
Adam passed the bottle, and Samuel took a delicate sip and wiped his mouth on his forearm above the soot.
"I haven't made up my mind," said Adam. "I'm just asking some questions."
"Oh, Lord, man, now you've put your foot in it. They say it's a dangerous thing to question an Irishman because he'll tell you. I hope you know what you're doing when you issue me a license to talk. I've heard two ways of looking at it. One says the silent man is the wise man and the other that a man without words is a man without thought. Naturally I favor the second--
Liza says to a fault. What do you want to know?"
"Well, take the Bordoni place. How deep would you have to go to get water?"
"I'd have to see the spot--some places thirty feet, some places a hundred and fifty, and in some places clear to the center of the world."
"But you could develop water?"
"Nearly every place except my own."
"I've heard you have a lack here."
"Heard? Why, God in heaven must have heard! I've screamed it loud enough."
"There's a four-hundred-acre piece beside the river. Would there be water under it?"
"I'd have to look. It seems to me it's an odd valley. If you'll hold your patience close, maybe I can tell you a little bit about it, for I've looked at it and poked my stinger down into it. A hungry man gorges with his mind--he does indeed."
Louis Lippo said, "Mr. Trask is from New England. He plans to settle here. He's been west before though--in the army, fighting Indians."
"Were you now? Then it's you should talk and let me learn."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Why not? God help my family and my neighbors if I had fought the Indians!"