All morning we waited for the next attack. It failed to come. After a dinner of eggs and chili, potatoes and beans and iced coffee, I went for a ride on Blue while the old man sat on his rocking chair on the porch, shotgun across his knees and a look of sad resolution on his face.
That expression frightened me. I was glad to leave for an hour and wished very much that Lee would come.
The gelding and I walked along the Salado under the shelter of the trees. The sun roared directly overhead, baking the desert in a savage white glare. All was still except for a number of locusts that screamed continuously from invisible sources in the brush. It was really much too hot for riding, for work or war, for any form of physical effort. All living things were shaded up for the afternoon.
Blue and I did the same. I unbridled him and sat down against a cottonwood. There was no saddle to take off since I was in the habit of riding bareback when staying near the ranch-house. The horse, free, wandered a few paces away, snuffling at the sunburnt weeds along the bank. He soon stopped, deep in the deep green shade of the quiet trees, closed his eyes and went to sleep, his head drooping, his skin making involuntary twitches under the bites of flies.
The Salado was completely dry. Not a trickle flowed on the surface of the riverbed; whatever water remained had gone underground several weeks before. From where I sat, looking across the wash toward the ranch-house, I could see a few of the waterholes which the cattle had dug in the sand, when we still had cattle. These holes were now lined with cakes and shards of baked mud, each fragment curled at the edges and brittle as chinaware.
I sometimes wondered what would happen if the deep well by the house went dry. From that one well came all the water we had at this time of year—for household use, for the horses, for keeping the pasture grass alive. The well out west at the base of the hills would usually produce water, but that was four miles away. There were also a couple of unreliable waterholes farther up the Salado. The only completely dependable source was the spring high in the hills where I’d seen the mountain lion. According to Grandfather that spring had never been known to fail. I supposed that if the drouth got worse we would have to retreat to our mountain cabin.
I looked for rain but the sky was an unflawed blue from horizon to horizon, the beautiful clear blue that promised only heat and thirst and death.
Across the sand, tamarisk and willows, the ranch-house and outbuildings lay on the bench of ground above the river, partially shielded from the direct blast of the sun by the fat old cottonwoods, whose acid-green leaves contrasted strangely with the dun-colored earth, the tawny brush, the iron-red bluffs behind the ranch.
I could see the verandah of the house, where I knew Grandfather was waiting, but the shade in which he sat was so black, so profound, that I could not make out the old man himself, until he stirred, shifting his limbs—then I saw the glint of gun metal. And after that a wisp of smoke, faint and aery as a spirit, floated out of the darkness and I knew he had puffed on his cigar.
In the crystal silence I heard, above the whine of the locusts, the scratching noise of Grandfather’s rocking chair on the wooden boards of the porch.
I dozed off but opened my eyes a moment later when I heard the far-off drone of an engine. Looking up, I saw a plume of dust rising beyond the edge of the mesa, which meant that a car was nearing the ranch.
Joyfully I thought of Lee, jumped up and started to run across the riverbed, dragging the bridle reins on the sand. Halfway across I saw the car round the ledge at the top of the rise; it was not Lee’s car but a gray-government sedan. My heart seemed to drop a few inches. I stopped running.
I waded through the sand and the palpable heat, pushed through the willow and tamarisk thickets on the far side, and walked up over the burnt-over ground to the ranch-house, where Grandfather watched and waited for the uninvited guest.
The car came close and stopped in the shade. One man got out, the only man in the car. It was DeSalius again, smartly dressed in a tan summer suit and a narrow-brimmed hat; under his arm he carried the briefcase.
I reached the house first and took my stand beside the old man, waiting for our visitor.
Spangles of hot light flowed over his hat and shoulders as DeSalius walked toward us under the trees. He had to pass through an area open to the sun and instantly his whole figure paled and seemed to shrink. He entered shade again, coming close, and this made him look plausibly dangerous. But he was smiling his usual pleasant smile, affable as an undertaker, and though he could not help but see the shotgun on Grandfather’s lap he came without hesitation right up to the steps of the porch. He paused there, took off his hat and wiped his damp bald head with a handkerchief.
“Mr. Vogelin,” he said. “Good afternoon, sir.” When the old man made no response to his salute DeSalius looked at me, his bright little blue eyes curiously intent. “What’s this I hear about you wrecking a train in El Paso?”
“I didn’t wreck any train—sir,” I said sullenly.
Colonel DeSalius, mind and eyes wandering, shifted to my grandfather, obviously waiting for an invitation to sit down. But the old man was slow to extend the usual courtesies. To cover his embarrassment, if he was embarrassed, if it was possible for DeSalius to be embarrassed by anything, the visitor spoke again to me. “I read about it in the papers, Billy. All about the boy who pulled the emergency stop and almost wrecked the Southern Pacific’s crack train. Wasn’t that you?”
I didn’t trouble myself to answer.
“What do you want, DeSalius?” Grandfather said.
The colonel smiled, glancing at the chair beside the old man’s rocker. “May I sit down?”
“Sit down.”
DeSalius took the chair and rearranged it so that he could look at both the old man and the desert to the west. He fanned his red face with the trim straw hat and stared in silence, in unDeSalius-like silence, out into the furnace of the afternoon toward the wash, the trees, the bleached desert, toward Thieves’ Mountain floating like a purple ship in the distance,
This was the season of the mirage: if you watched the mountains steadily for more than a few minutes you’d likely see them shift in location and alter in shape, great peaks sliding off their bases and riding on waves of light and heat.
Grandfather puffed on his cigar. DeSalius lit a cigarette. The awful heat made even speech seem difficult.
“Billy,” the old man said, “would you fetch us a pitcher of ice water?”
“Yes sir.”
I rose from my roost against the wall and moved into the dark interior, The contrast between outside and inside was so great that for a minute I had to feel my way to the kitchen before my eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness.
As I filled a pitcher with water and broke ice cubes from a tray I heard DeSalius begin to speak, discoursing in his rich resonant voice on the weather: the heat, the drouth, the prospects for rain. But I did not hear my grandfather make any reply. How could he? What can the weather mean to a rancher who’s been robbed of his vocation? I returned to the porch with ice water and glasses.
“Thank you, Billy.”
The ice clinked cheerily in the glasses. We drank. Outside, in the glare, only the locusts seemed to be alive. Something about the terrible heat seemed to drive them into a frenzy of joy—or was it agony? Nothing else moved. Across the wash I could see the outline of old Blue standing with lowered head under the cottonwoods, asleep.
DeSalius sighed comfortably as he lowered his glass and drew on his cigarette. All of us were looking out toward the desert. “You like this country, eh Mr. Vogelin?”
Grandfather stirred. “Like it?”
“Yes. I mean, you like living here.”
“This is my home. I was born here. I’m going to die here.”
“Yes, I see. That’s what I mean.” DeSalius paused. There was a tone of wonder in his voice when he went on:
“Don’t you ever miss the sight of green grass, Mr. Vogelin? Of running water?—I mean clear steady running water, not these flash floods of liquid mud you have out here. Don’t you ever want to live where you’re in sight of the homes of other men? Of towns and cities? Of human activity, civilization, great enterprises under way in which whole nations participate?”
“Yes,” the old man said, after a moment’s reflection, “yes, I miss seeing those things. But not much.”
DeSalius smiled. “You’re a cynic, Mr. Vogelin.” He smoked his cigarette, staring toward Los Ladrones—the mountain of thieves. “You know, I can understand your affection for this desert country. I can’t share it but I can understand it, even sympathize with it. This country is—almost sublime. Space and grandeur, a spacious grandeur that’s overwhelming. And yet—it isn’t quite human, is it? By that I mean it’s not really meant for human beings to live in. This is a land for gods, perhaps. Not for men.”
“The Apaches liked it,” Grandfather said.
“The Apaches? Oh yes, the Apaches. A stone-age people.”
“They drive pickup trucks and watch television and drink beer out of tin cans.”
“Ah yes,” DeSalius said, “quite true. Quite remarkable. Adaptable people. Quite remarkable.” He paused. “Mr. Vogelin,” he began abruptly, with a brisk transformation of his manner and tone, “we are going to let you stay here.”
And for the first time he stopped gazing at the desert and turned his head to watch my grandfather’s reaction.
The old man did not reveal any gratitude. “Nobody is going to let me stay here,” he said, staring back at DeSalius with steady eyes and level gaze.
“Well, I mean we’re not going to try to evict you, put it that way, if you prefer. Now understand that I’m talking about the ranch-house only. This does not apply to the land, only to the house and the outbuildings. We’re going to allow—we’re going to concede your right to retain possession of this house and access to it for the remainder of your natural life. Technically and legally, the house will remain government property, but we are ready to sign an agreement granting you all the rights of ownership except those of sale or transfer. As a matter of fact we’ve already drawn up the papers.”
DeSalius unzipped his handsome cowhide briefcase. “I’ve got them right in here.” He poked his fingers among sheaves of documents—tools of the paper civilization. “There is one condition we must attach to this agreement,” He pulled out the paper, complete with carbons and copies, and looked it over, apparently waiting for Grandfather to ask what the attached condition might be.
But the old man did not ask. Shotgun on his lap, cigar in his teeth, he stared out through his spectacles at the mountains, seeming already to have lost interest in the proposition. Or maybe he was uttering a silent prayer of thankfulness—I don’t know.
“The further condition,” DeSalius continued, after waiting in vain for Grandfather to ask about it, “is that you agree to leave these premises during test periods, that is, on those days when rocket firings will take place.” He stopped, watching the old man slyly out of the corners of his eyes. Still no reaction. “I realize this may be an inconvenience but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a small price to pay in return for the privilege—for the right of living in your house at all other times. You’ll want to go to town occasionally anyway.”
As Grandfather still made no answer or revealed any emotion, DeSalius hurried on:
“Now this testing program will become more active over the years. We don’t deny that. But it’s never likely to exceed, say, seven or eight days a month. Each time a firing is scheduled you will be given a forty-eight hours advance notice. You will never be required to leave this house for more than two or three days at a time, I can almost guarantee that, and if the house is ever damaged, which is highly unlikely—the odds against it are something like a thousand to one—you will be fully compensated, just as you have been compensated for the acquisition of your ranch lands and the auction of your cattle.
“As I may have mentioned, this agreement applies to the adjacent buildings also.” DeSalius twirled his hand in the general direction of the sheds, corral, windmill and tank. “They too will be retained in your possession, to use as you see fit. If you wish you are perfectly welcome to keep a few horses on the place. The Government would have no objection to that, although we could not assume responsibility for their safety during test periods. As I said, our only stipulation is that you agree to leave the premises and the test area when a rocket firing is scheduled. In return for this minor concession the Government concedes to you the right to possess, live in and, as I said, enjoy the benefits of your family home for the remainder of your natural life, which, judging by your appearance, sir, should be for many years indeed.”
DeSalius finally stopped talking. You could see the effort it cost him—to stop talking. With firm resolution he shut his face for a minute and waited for a response from my grandfather.
But there was no response. The old man continued to gaze toward the mountains, his face calm, his hands still.
DeSalius waited, wiped the sweat from his brow and bald scalp, puffed on his cigarette, took a quick look at the mountains himself, rubbed his knee and rattled the papers in his hand. Finally, unable to wait any longer, he took a pen from his coat pocket and offered it, together with the papers, to the old man. “Well, sir, if you’ll sign this agreement now—there at the bottom, I’ve marked the place—we can conclude this discussion.”
The old man made no move. Hands reposed on the stock of the shotgun, he looked out over the desert toward the hills.
“Well, sir?” DeSalius said, holding pen and papers in the air.
At last the old man spoke. “No,” he said.
“Beg your pardon?”
“No.”
DeSalius very slowly withdrew his extended hands, putting the pen back in his coat pocket and the documents back in the briefcase. He left the briefcase open, however. Taking the new straw hat, which had been perched on one knee, the colonel fanned his heated face with one hand and poured himself another glassful of ice water with the other hand.
The ice jingled merrily, musically, as the chill water burbled through the spout of the pitcher. The pitcher was covered with a cold dew. When DeSalius finished pouring I reached for the pitcher myself.
“Sir, this is absolutely our final offer,” DeSalius said, sounding like a pitchman for a used-car lot.
“No,” said my grandfather. His favorite word.
“Absolutely your last opportunity.” The colonel took a deep drink of water, cooling his mouth and throat and gut. I could feel another speech coming.
It came: “The Government has been very patient with you, Mr. Vogelin, very patient and very generous. Extremely generous. Though we easily could, we have not yet proceeded to take advantage of the fact that your intransigence constitutes not only a violation of the law but also, in this case, a willful and deliberate obstruction of the national defense effort. You, sir, are the only man in this entire area who has not been able to see that national security takes precedence over private property and private sentiments. Are you aware of that Mr. Vogelin?”
Grandfather did not reply.
DeSalius went on:
“All of your neighbors have long since conceded this point and have allowed the Government to proceed with its necessary functions, meaning, in this regard, the provision for the national defense and the security of all Americans, including, Mr. Vogelin, yourself. The Government has no concern more vital in these times than the protection of all of us, our families and ourselves, against the menace, the ever-present menace, if I may say so, of a Soviet attack.”
The pause. The silence. I sipped my ice water, listening and observing with every nerve.
“Now Mr. Vogelin,” DeSalius said, “you have had almost six months, sir, six months … to reflect on this matter. You have been most generously compensated in every way. Furthermore you have been treated courteously, patiently, and fairly, with an indulgence for your stubbornness that exceeds all precedent. You have abused and threatened our officers and we have taken no legal action in reprisal. You have trespassed against Government property and we have chosen to disregard that. You have ignored and defied three court orders and we have even allowed that to pass. No other nation on earth, except one as great and powerful and humane as ours, could tolerate such insolent violations of legality. But Mr. Vogelin—” DeSalius stared earnestly at the old man “Mr. Vogelin, the time has come when this Government must act. This Government can no longer wait upon your pride and obstinacy. We have made this final generous offer, allowing you to live here subject only to the certain conditions I have mentioned. Now Mr. Vogelin, in the light of what I have said, I ask you to reconsider your decision. Will you accept our offer?”
Grandfather reconsidered. For about a minute. “I’m sure grateful for all you people have done for me.” He stopped at that.
“And about the offer?” DeSalius insisted.
“The offer. Yes, the offer.” The old man spoke softly and slowly. “Yes, Colonel, that’s a damn generous offer,” He stopped again.
DeSalius reached toward his pen and briefcase. “Then you accept?”
“No.”
“Mr. Vogelin, you must be reasonable. This is your last chance.”
“You said that before.”
“Sir, we’re not bluffing now, we’re not bluffing. We mean business. That you must understand.”
“Don’t fret, DeSalius, I believe you.”
“Will you reconsider?”
“No.”
DeSalius lapsed into stillness. He stared at the floor. The concavity of his chest, the slump of his shoulders, suggested a man driven beyond mere exasperation. “Mr. Vogelin,” he said, speaking slowly and quietly to the floor, “we have done everything we could to spare you embarrassment, to compensate you fully, to allow you plenty of time, to help you under stand why this removal is necessary. You have refused to cooperate. Mr. Vogelin, we cannot permit you to defy the Court any longer. If you refuse this final offer, sir, the Government will have no recourse but to fall back upon the direct instruments of the law.”
“Direct instruments? That sounds like what I’ve been expecting,” the old man said. “You mean that marshal, I suppose. You better tell him, DeSalius, to bring plenty of help when he comes. He’ll need it”
“He will get all that he needs, sir. And I must warn you that not only will you be evicted by force, if necessary, but you will also be subject to such charges as contempt of court, resisting an officer of the law and trespassing on Government property. You must realize what that can mean. You’re rather old for prison life, sir, if I may say so.”
The old man smiled. “Don’t bother trying to scare me, Colonel. I’m too old for that too. No sir, we’ll settle the whole business right here under the trees. Send your marshal around. I’m ready.”
Again DeSalius fell silent, staring out of the verandah shade toward the awful brute glare of the desert. Far off on the shimmering waves of heat and light Thieves’ Mountain drifted to the north, fifty miles, apparently, from its usual anchorage.
“You know, Mr. Vogelin,” DeSalius said after a while, “this will be the first time in my career as a trial attorney for the Corps of Engineers that I will have had to resort to force to carry out legal procedures. Unless you change your mind. The first time in over fifteen years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
DeSalius shifted about in his chair. He finished his glass of ice water and put his hat on, picked up his briefcase and stood up. He held out his right hand to Grandfather; Grandfather ignored the gesture.
“I want to thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Vogelin. You’ve been kind. Thank you, Billy, for the ice water, which was a great relief on a day like this. Sir,” he went on, addressing Grandfather, “I’ll see you again soon. Very soon. And under somewhat different conditions.”
“How soon?” Grandfather asked.
“I’m not prepared to reveal that, sir. But it will be soon. Very soon indeed. Perhaps within a few days. Perhaps within a few hours. The Government is going to take steps, sir, that you will be able to understand.”
“About time,” Grandfather said, not in mockery of the man but in genuine relief.
Suddenly DeSalius seemed on the verge of losing his temper. Maybe the heat was getting him. “Sir, don’t you—” he burst out, but he halted himself at once.
He turned sullenly away from us, stepped off the porch and out into the naked blaze of the sun, where his skin and straw hat withered perceptibly.
“Good God, this is a horrible place,” we heard him say, as he walked toward his car. He sounded half-delirious, muttering to himself as he shambled through the dust. I nearly pitied him—his beautiful new suit rumpled and stained with sweat, his hat wilting, his sharp shoes coated with dust, his shoulders rounded in defeat.
But when he reached the car, before getting in, he faced us with his old fake smile. “Goodbye, Mr. Vogelin. I’ve really enjoyed our little conversation. Goodbye, Billy. Be a good boy, help your grandfather all you can. See you again.”
He climbed with difficulty into the low-slung car, started the motor and drove violently away, sweeping in a wide U-turn around our pickup, under the trees and up the road past corral and barn and sheds toward the bluffs of clay that gleamed like fired iron under the sun.
When he was out of sight Grandfather and I stared at each other without speaking a word.
In the evening after supper came Lee Mackie with our mail, with fresh provisions, with news and advice and good cheer.
We celebrated—something. The rum gurgled from the gallon jug. The ice tinkled in the glasses. When the old man wasn’t looking, I sneaked some rum into my Coke, lacing it good.
We sat on the verandah and watched the spectacular death of a day in the sky beyond the mountain range: cloudy islands of auburn, purple and whisky-tinted snow, swan-necked birds with fiery wings as long as the mountains, golden lakes, seas of silver and green. Nighthawks plunged for supper in the foreground, black darts against the radiant light, the wind roaring through their wings. Bats flickered here and there, the horned owl sounded from his tree across the wash, and the horses stamped and shuffled at the water trough in the corral. From the mountains miles away came another sound which only I could hear—the scream of the lion.
“Now old horse, he’s right: it’s a fair offer; you should take it. It’s your last chance.”
Lee clutched his drink with his right hand and beat on the arm of his chair with the left. “Yes, John, you’re a fool to turn this down. Can’t you see it’s a victory for you? They’re giving in. They never made a deal like this with anyone else. You got ’em buffaloed, you old buzzard. If you turn this deal down, why I won’t know what to think. About you. Why I might begin to think you’re turning into a … a wild-eyed fanatic. Yeah, that’s the word, a fanatic. Would anything like this happen in Russia? Why they’d simply put a bullet through your neck. My God, John, you can’t expect the whole United States Government to give in to you completely. They’ve got face to save too.”
He stopped for a drink.
Grandfather, silent and unsmiling, highball in hand and the shotgun still on his lap, made no reply but continued to stare darkly into the west.
I saw a scorpion, stinger aloft, race across the boards and slip into a black crack.
Lee poured himself a fresh drink and rambled on, his face glowing with good humor and good intentions, his eyes bright with alcohol:
“I’ve talked this over with Annie, John, and she feels the same way I do. That this is a great offer, the best you’ll ever get, and you should accept it. In fact everybody in town has heard about it by now, don’t ask me how but you know how the word gets around, and they all think you’re a fool for turning it down. A fool—or something worse. I tell you, there’s not a man in New Mexico could agree with you now. If you reject this deal why there won’t be any sympathy for you at all any more. None at all.”
“I think Grandfather is right,” I said.
“You hush up,” Lee said, smiling briefly.
“Billy’s still with me,” Grandfather said. “You’re still with me, Lee.”
“That’s right, of course, we’re still with you. You can count on that. But my God—”
“As long as you two are with me I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks.”
“All right,” Lee said, “that makes three of us.” He drank, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and confronted us with his handsome, eager dark face. “Three of us against the whole United States Government and about a hundred and eighty million other Americans.”
“Three’s enough,” the old man said. “Might even be … too many. What do they say about three?”
“Now don’t talk that way. What do you mean?” Lee did not wait for an answer but rushed onward. “John, what more do you want? They’ll let you keep your house. You got that sixty-five thousand-dollar check waiting for you at District Court. Enough for a down payment on lots of far better cattle outfits than this ever was or ever could be.”
“I wouldn’t touch their money with a shovel.”
“You ought to think of other people, old horse. Think of your daughters. They could sure use some of that money. Think of the boy here. You could set him up good with a wad like that.”
“I wouldn’t touch it either,” I said.
“You keep out of this,” Grandfather said. Gently.
“Yes sir.” I sipped on my rum Coke.
“Listen, John,” Lee said, “I wonder if it ever occurred to you that you might be acting kind of selfish about all this. For the sake of some mysterious kind of—point of honor, you are losing your home, depriving your kin of considerable benefits, and maybe risking your own liberty. Because you know damn well if you keep this up you’re going to wind up in jail. In a Federal prison. Maybe worse, if you shoot some poor soldier boy who’s only trying to do his duty. Did you ever think of that?”
“I’ve thought of it.”
“Well think about it some more. And think hard. You don’t have much time left. Maybe only a few days.”
“Maybe only a few hours,” I volunteered.
Lee looked at me. “Why don’t you go for a ride, shorty? Those horses need some work.” His white smile shone through the twilight; that mouthful of perfect teeth.
“Will you go with me?”
He hesitated. The smile weakened, returned. “Yes! Let’s go. Right now.” He emptied his glass and jumped up. “Come on, Billy, we’ll have a race.”
“I’ll race you,” I said, feeling high and glorious myself. I finished my drink and stood up.
“You two be careful,” the old man said. “Don’t pitch into some gopher hole in the dark and break your fool necks. Think of the horses.”
“We’ll think of the horses, John. You think of Billy and your daughters. Come on, Billy.”
I jumped off the porch and started at a run toward the corral. Lee came running after and caught me halfway. Putting his arm around my shoulders he slowed me to a walk. He was panting a little. “Now you listen to me.” Panting. “Billy, you listen. You have some influence over your crazy grandfather. Right? He loves you. He might listen to what you say. You understand?”
I nodded.
“All right. You should try to use this influence you have—in a sensible way. Don’t keep on encouraging the old man. You understand? Try to make him listen to reason. You understand me?”
“No.” I said. “No I don’t, Lee.”
“What’s the use—you’re just like him.”
We reached the corral, climbed through, and bridled old Blue and Grandfather’s big sorrel. Skilletfoot as usual would be left out. I threw myself up on Blue’s back and struggled to a sitting position, clutching the mane. Lee vaulted onto the back of the stallion.
“Go ahead, Billy. I’ll give you a ten-second start.”
“Where we going?”
“Twice around the pasture. Close to the corners. Go ahead. One—two—”
I kicked Blue with my heels and he leaped forward, through the open gateway of the corral and into the field of twilight. At a dead run I bore straight for the southeast corner, counting to myself. When I reached the number eleven I heard a wild whoop from Lee and knew he’d started.
Reins loose in my right hand, left hand twisting the wiry hairs of the mane, I beat my heels on Blue’s flanks and watched the fence come toward us. At the corner we pivoted sharply and raced toward the south-west. In my rear I heard the sod-muted thunder of the stallion’s hooves.
“Let’s go, Blue,” I shouted, my body forward over his neck, my chin between his ears. The wind rushed by, the gloom parted wonderfully before us, I felt the beating of my mount’s great heart between my knees, the surge of his muscles under my body.
The corner rose before us, we turned and galloped north, along the fence and the ledge of the river. Iron clashed on stone, sparks flashed in the velvet air. “Come on, Blue, come on,” I panted in his ear. But old Blue was doing his best already; there was no further response. Sucking wind like a steam engine, he neared the northwest corner, swung right and galloped heavily upslope toward the ranch buildings. Halfway there Lee came alongside on the slick-gaited Rocky and bellowed at me:
“Shag him, Billy!”
The sorrel flowed steadily past us in a gleam of sweat and silken strength, pulled ahead, and created a gap which grew wider at every pace. When we turned at the northeast corner by the corral Lee was three lengths ahead and old Blue was beginning to falter. We were licked but he kept on running. I couldn’t have stopped him if I’d tried.
Lee was waiting for me inside the corral, brushing his horse, when Blue and I trotted in.
I slid off, removed the bridle and sloughed the gobs of lather off Blue’s trembling shoulders and chest. “Some race,” I said in disgust.
“Old Blue did pretty good,” Lee said. “He’s a big-hearted old brute. Here.” He gave me the brush.
“Next time I’ll ride the stud,” I said.
“Why sure, Billy. And we’ll hang a sack of grain under his belly. And you’ll give me a bigger start.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You did pretty good. Don’t get mad.”
“I’ll race you back to the house,” I said. “On foot.”
“You win already. Let’s walk.”
We gave the horses each a double handful of grain, turned them loose and walked back to the ranch-house, toward the red glow of the old man’s cigar. Again Lee tried to sweet-talk me into compromise. Arm over my shoulders, he said,
“Billy, old buddy, I want you to do me a favor. Will you do me a favor?”
“Sure. Anything.”
“Talk to your grandfather. Tell him not to go on with his crazy idea. Tell him to use his head.”
I was silent.
“Will you, Billy? It’s for his own good. You don’t want the old man to get shot, do you? Or locked up in prison for the rest of his life?”
“No.”
“Fine. Now we’re getting somewhere. Will you ask him to take DeSalius up on that last offer?”
I hesitated.
“Will you?”
“No.”
“My God, you sound just like the old man.”
“I think he’s in the right, Lee. Don’t you?”
After a moment Lee said, “I don’t really know, Billy. To tell the truth I don’t really know.”
“You’re going to help him, aren’t you?”
The tall man squeezed my arm. “Don’t worry about that. That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.”
Gratefully I smiled up at Lee.
“Who won?” the old man shouted as we approached the house. The owl behind the wash echoed his call.
“We did,” Lee answered, hugging me close.
“Lee won,” I explained as we climbed the porch steps, “But he was riding Rocky.”
We sat beside the old man and listened to the owl. The darkness was settling in fast, the lights fading over the mountains and the stars emerging, one by one, from the violet sky.
After some talk about the horses, the dry spell and the falling water table, Lee and Grandfather returned to the subject of real interest. This time Lee pursued it farther and with a greater intensity than ever before, as if with the knowledge that this might be the final opportunity to drive a wedge of logic and sense into the old man’s bitter mind.
“It’s not only the practical side of the thing,” Lee was saying, as I half-dozed, half-listened nearby, “you also have to think about the question of justice. Now you never before reared up on your hind legs and defied the law, the country and the Constitution. As long as you weren’t personally affected by what was going on, you seemed to consent to the laws and customs and so on. Many other people have to go through what’s happening to you, John, and you never protested against it before.”
“They have their choice,” the old man said.
“All right. It’s easy to say that now. But maybe the Government is really in the right here. If they need your land for the sake of the national security shouldn’t you give it up? Which is more important, your property or the national safety?”
“Nobody’s safe when the Government can take away his home.”
“Nobody would be safe in a world run by the Soviet Union.”
“All right,” Grandfather said, “there’s no safety anywhere. I don’t want safety. I want to die on my father’s ranch.” Grandfather puffed on his cigar: the red coal flared and faded, casting a dim transient light over the tough features of his face.
I smuggled more rum into my soda pop.
“Sometimes we have to make a choice between evils,” Lee said. “Maybe in a case like this military necessity is more important than your private desires. Am I right or wrong?”
“Wrong,” I said, lifting my glass.
“You be quiet, child,” the old man said to me. Quietly. To Lee he said, “I can see the sense in your argument. Not much but some. But all my feelings go against it. This is my home. I was born here. My father worked and fought all his life for this place. He died here. My mother died here. My wife almost died here. Now I want to die here, when I’m ready to die. I will not live here part-time as some sort of charity ward of the Government, while they think up new ways to wedge me off completely. No, by God, I can’t do that. I’ll fight it out with bullets before I’ll do that.”
Lee was silent for a while, as he stared with his good earnest eyes at the old man, at the floor, at me, at the old man again. “I know how you feel. I share that feeling. Didn’t I spend ten years of my own life on this place? But look, John—” He made a vague gesture with his hand. “Does the land really belong to you? Is it really yours? Does the land belong to anybody? A hundred years ago the Apaches had it, it was all theirs. Your father and other men like him stole it from the Apaches. The railroad company and the big cattle companies and the banks tried to steal it from your father and from you. Now the Government is going to steal it from you. This land has always been crawling with thieves. How do you suppose that mountain over there got its name? A hundred years from now, when we’re all dead and buried and forgotten, the land will still be here, will still be the same worthless dried-out burnt-up parcel of sand and cactus it is now. And some other fool of a thief will be stringing a fence around it and hollering that he owns it, that it belongs to him, and telling everybody else to keep out.”
Grandfather smiled and drew on the cigar. “I hope his name is Vogelin. Or Starr.”
“Why don’t you give in, old horse? Give in gracefully, like a gentleman, and let the generals make fools of themselves here for a while. Let them have their turn.”
“Let them. I’m willing. But I ain’t going to give in like a gentleman. If I have to give in I’m going to give in like an Apache. That’s part of the pattern, Lee. That’s the tradition around here.”
Lee stared hard at Grandfather before breaking into a smile. “You stone-headed old idiot. You are crazy. You must be crazy. Hand me that jug.”
“Billy, will you get us some more ice?” Grandfather asked.
“Yes sir.” I got up from the floor. The wall yawed toward me. I placed a hand on it to hold it up. “Ice,” I said.
“Now,” Lee said, after a deep sigh, “let’s begin all over again. Let’s see if we can’t study this thing from some other angle. …”
“Keep trying,” I heard the old man say, as I staggered into the darkness of the kitchen, feeling my way toward the lamp on the table. But the first thing I felt on the table was not the lamp but the rifle and beside it the box of ammunition. I sagged against the table, leaning on it with both hands, and waited for my head to stop swimming.
Through the fog which enclosed me I heard, out in the night, the great horned owl crying for hunger. And in the brush and sand along the wash all the little animals, the rabbits and bannertail mice and ground squirrels, would be listening, frozen in terror.