The Blood of the Conquerors
Page 24
CHAPTER XXIV
A few days later one bright morning Ramon was sitting in the sun beforethe door of his friend, Francisco Guiterrez, feeling still somewhat sore,but otherwise surprisingly well. Guiterrez, a young sheep-herder, held theposition of _coadjutor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and one of hisduties as such was to take the penitent to his house and care for himafter the initiation. He had washed Ramon's wounds in a tea made byboiling Romero weed. This was a remedy which the _penitentes_ had used forcenturies, and its efficacy was proved by the fact that Ramon's cuts hadbegun to heal at once, and that he had had very little fever.
For a couple of days Ramon had been forced to lie restlessly in the onlybed of the Guiterrez establishment. The Senora Guiterrez, a pretty buxomyoung Mexican woman, had fed him on _atole_ gruel and on all of the eggswhich her small flock of scrub hens produced; the seven little dirty brownGuiterrez children had come in to marvel at him with their fingers intheir mouths; the Guiterrez goats and dogs and chickens had wandered inand out of the room in a companionable way, as though seeking to make himfeel at ease; and Guiterrez himself had spent his evenings sitting besideRamon, smoking cigarettes and talking.
This time of idleness had not been wholly wasted, either, for it had comeout in the course of conversation that Guiterrez had been offered athousand dollars for his place by a man whom he did not know, but whomRamon had easily identified as an agent of MacDougall. Tempted by anamount which he could scarcely conceive, Guiterrez was thinking seriouslyof accepting the offer.
Now that he had won over Alfego and had gotten the influence of the_penitentes_ on his side, Ramon's one remaining object was to defeat justsuch deals as this, which MacDougall already had under way. He intended tostir up feeling against the gringos, and to persuade the Mexicans not tosell. Later, such lands as he needed in order to control the right-of-way,he would gain by lending money and taking mortgages. But he did not intendto cheat any one. Such Mexicans as he had to oust from their lands, hewould locate elsewhere. He was filled with a large generosity, and with areal love for these, his people. He meant to dominate this country, buthis pride demanded that no one should be poor or hungry in his domain. Sonow he argued the matter to Guiterrez with real sincerity.
"A thousand dollars? _Por Dios_, man! Don't you know that this place isworth many thousand dollars to you?"
"How can it be worth many thousand?" Guiterrez demanded. "What have Ihere? A few acres of chile and corn, a little hay, some range for mygoats, a few cherry trees, a house.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Many thousands? No."
"You have here a home, _amigo_," Ramon reminded him. "Do you know how longa thousand dollars would support you? A year, perhaps. Then you would haveto work for other men the rest of your life. Here you are free andindependent."
Guiterrez said nothing, but he had obviously received a new idea, and wasimpressed. Ramon never returned to the direct argument, but he missed nochance to stimulate Guiterrez's pride in his establishment.
"This is a good little house you have _amigo_," he would observe. AndGuiterrez would tell him that the house had been built by his grandfather,but that its walls were as firm as ever, and that he had been intendingfor several years to plaster it, but had never gotten time. Before he wasout of bed, Ramon was reasonably sure that Guiterrez would never sell.
The house was indeed charmingly situated on a hillside at the foot ofwhich a little clear trout stream, called Rio Gallinas, chuckled over thebright pebbles in its bed and ran to hide in thickets of willow.
Sitting on the _portal_, which ran the length of the house and consistedof a projection of the roof supported by rough pine logs, Ramon could lookdown the canyon to where it widened into a little valley that lost itselfin the vast levels of the _mesa_. There thirsty sands swallowed the streamand not a sprig of green marred the harmony of grey and purple swimming invivid light, reaching away to the horizon where faint blue mountains hungin drooping lines.
By turning his head, Ramon could look into the heart of the mountainswhence the stream issued through a narrow canyon, with steep, forestedridges on either side, and little level glades along the water, set withtall, conical blue spruce trees, pines with their warm red boles, andlittle clumps of aspen with gleaming white stems, and trembling leaves ofmingled gold and green.
Ramon spent many hours with his back against the wall, his knees drawn upunder his chin, Mexican fashion, smoking and vaguely dreaming of the girlhe loved and of the things he would do. The vast sun drenched landscapebefore him was too much a part of his life, too intimate a thing for himto appreciate its beauty, but after his struggles with doubt and desire,it filled him with an unaccountable contentment. Its warmth andbrightness, its unchanging serenity, its ceaseless soft voices of wind andwater, lulled his mind and comforted his senses. The country was like somegreat purring creature that let him lie in its bosom and filled his bodywith the warm steady throb of its untroubled strength.
After a week of recuperation, he bought a horse from Guiterrez for a packanimal, loaded it with bedding and provisions and rode away into themountains. His task was now to find other men who had fallen under theinfluence of MacDougall, and to persuade them not to sell their lands.Some of them would be at their homes, but others would be with the sheepherds, scattered here and there in the high country. He faced long days ofmountain wandering, and for all that he longed to be done with his task,this part of it was sweet to him.