Following the Grass (7 page)

“I walked.”

Margarida caught her breath. Whatever it was that had impelled him to do this had been no trivial thing.

“Left last night,” Joseph went on. “Been coming ever since. The dogs knew me right off, didn't they?”

“No, no, Joseph!” Margarida entreated. “Don't put me off! Why did you leave? You know I want you to stay in school.”

“Not in that school, mother!” the boy declared earnestly. “Folks are always talking about me in Paradise; sorta making fun of me, I reckon, 'cause I ain't got clothes like they've got. A boy commenced it yesterday, and I sassed him back. He said my daddy was a bad man. I called him a liar. Then he said his grandpa said you and my daddy wasn't married right; that you didn't have a priest. He wouldn't take it back, so I hit him. The teacher came running. But I hit him again, —'cause you did have a priest, didn't you, mother?”

Margarida was on her knees before him, her arms outstretched to enfold him.

“Come to me, my little man!” she cried. “Come to me! Let me kiss you! Of course we had a priest; but he was not the kind of priest they know in Paradise. He had no robes, but he preached the word of God, and your father and I believed in him. It didn't matter, did it, dear?”

Joseph shook his head as his mother's tears wet his face.

“And that boy, Joseph?” Margarida questioned, “you hit him hard?”

“I 'most killed him, mother!”

“Oh, I'm glad! I'm glad! And his name?”

“Juan Irosabal!” said Joseph.

Margarida winced.

“An Irosabal, eh?” In a wild fury she swept her son from his feet.
“I'm glad!'
she cried;

“I'm glad you 'most killed him, Joseph!”

T
A
BOR K
INCAID
paid a visit to Buckskin shortly after Joseph's return. His broad, usually smiling face wore a frown, for he was the bearer of bad news, and bad news was the last thing in the world that he wished to carry to Margarida Gault. His courage almost failed him as he stood before her, her thin white hand in his.

She smiled bravely at him, but his keen eyes were not deceived, and he prayed that she might not see the surprise her appearance caused him. It was hard for him to believe that she was the Margarida Gault, who as a bride, had come to Buckskin such a few years ago.

Kincaid kept back the news which had brought him up the mountain, and it was not until he was ready to leave that he broached it. Then with that indirection which appears to belong only to desert men, he spoke.

“Did Joe ever try to buy this land?” he asked.

“He often spoke of it,” Margarida answered. “But that was before it was put in the Forest Reserve. For the last three years we have been paying a grazing fee; ten cents a head this year, not counting the lambs.”

“Forest Reserve!” Kincaid exclaimed with biting sarcasm. “Did it ever strike you as strange that Buckskin should have been included in a reserve? They ain't enough timber on this mountain to build a man a house—stunted cedar and mountain mahogany, and maybe a piñon pine or two, don't sound to me like much of a beginning for a forest reserve. No sir-ree!

“The way public lands have been juggled around in this state is something scandalous. The State Land Office has been swapping good for bad so long that they've pretty near run out of good things. Somebody has been casting eyes at Buckskin. The Surveyor-General restored it to the public domain last week.”

“You mean the mountain is no longer a part 0£ the Forest Reserve?” Margarida asked anxiously.

“It was thrown open to entry last week. It was filed on immediately—almost, I might say, before the dear general public knew about it. It went for a dollar and a quarter an acre. I could have used it.”

Margarida began to understand what Kincaid was telling her. At first, his matter-of-fact tone had not aroused any sense of suspicion in her, and she had not been prepared for what he had just told her.

“Do I understand that Buckskin has been sold?” she demanded, her voice strange to her ears.

Kincaid nodded.

“Your father bought it in.”

The big man was watching her covertly, and he reached out his hand to catch her as he saw her lean against the cabin door for support.

A startled, “Oh!” was Margarida's only answer, her weary brain refusing to grasp the full significance of what she had heard.

“He won't be able to take possession until the first of the year,” Kincaid went on. “But the snow will be here then. I suppose he won't ask you to go before spring. Even so, you and the boy had better come down to my place for the winter. I had this in mind when I spoke a while back about your coming.”

Margarida shook her head determinedly:

“You are very kind. Please do not think we fail to appreciate what you have done. But my place is here. I promised my husband that he would find me waiting for him. Why, I can not say, but he has seemed near me these last days. When he comes, he will find me. My father has left nothing undone to break my heart; let it remain for him to drive me away.”

And although Kincaid was persistent, urging her health as a reason for accompanying him, he went back to the valley alone. Somehow her saying her husband seemed near lingered in his mind even after he had reached his ranch. He did not doubt that her spirit was wandering already into the limitless void, straightening its wings for the great flight to those sublime heights from which it could commune with the missing loved one.

Joseph found his mother in tears on the evening of Kincaid's visit. She told him what had occurred. The effort exhausted her. Enriquez and he carried her to her bed.

Margarida's magnificent will had always sustained her; that it had failed· her at last, filled her with fear. Her body had long been weary, but she had willed it on; and now her will was weary. With the knowledge came hopelessness, for the props on which she had leaned had been built on her will; over night they came tumbling down like a house of cards.

The following day she had her bed moved so that she could look across the mountain. She knew that the end was near. Out there, somewhere, was the man she loved. She wondered if he was waiting for her, or had her spirit called to him in the flesh and turned his feet in her direction?

Sometime, somewhere, they must meet again! It could not be otherwise. With the thought, a great peace came to her. Resignation robbed her eyes of their wistfulness, painting in them a light of happiness, of coming glory.

For hours at a time Joseph sat beside her, his eyes ever on her face. He knew nothing of death, save as he had seen it in the wild; but he knew something tremendous was about to happen, something bigger than anything he had known. It kept his throat tight and stabbed at his heart.

“Daddy ought to be here, mother,” he said to her. “He'd know what to do. I'm only a boy, and I don't know how to get you well. You're always smiling when you look at me, but I know there's something inside of you that hurts. Maybe I'd better make Enriquez go for Tabor Kincaid. If anybody could get a doctor, he could.”

“Mother doesn't need a doctor, dear,” Margarida whispered to him.

“Enriquez says we ought to get a priest,” Joseph went on. His mother drew his face close to hers:

“No—no, Joseph! Enriquez is mistaken. But maybe you'd better send for Mr. Kincaid. Tell Enriquez to take the horse and go.”

Margarida seldom closed her eyes. Whenever she did, Joseph pulled off his boots and crept about the cabin in his stocking feet. Sometimes, through half closed eyelids, his mother watched him as he moved about doing what he could for her. Once, when he thought her asleep, she heard him “talking to God,” as he called it.

After that, she often “talked to God;” but it was of Joseph, and not of herself, that she spoke. What was to become of him? Dared she hope that her father would care for him? Reason said no; but if she sent Joseph to him now, could he refuse to come to her?

What message could she send that would bring him ?—and a voice whispered; “The secret on the mountain-top!”

Yes, she told herself, that was it! Angel Irosabal could not deny that summons. She had kept the secret well, but as she called Joseph to her side when Enriquez had gone, and gave him the message for her father, she promised herself that if he failed to come to her, Joseph should have the secret of Buckskin.

Her own life had been laid waste by hatred, but she had tried to hide it from her son. Even so, had she kept from him the story of the injustice done his father. Her husband had asked that. A legacy of hate was a poor heritage, but she could not ask her son to always turn the other cheek.

Never before had she asked her father's mercy. She was on her knees to him now. If he failed her, it must be for Joseph to right the wrong which had been done his father and her.

Since babyhood, in Joseph's eyes, Angel Irosabal's
caserio
had been an ogre's castle. The bad man of his dreams lived there, but it was with a brave smile to his mother that he set forth. He knew he must go swiftly. The trail which Enriquez had taken to the valley was not to be thought of, for Joseph had no horse. An old deer run led down the side of the mountain, and that was the course he took.

Margarida knew it would be morning before he could return with her father. At dawn her eyes were open, searching the mountain-side for them. She knew they must come soon, or else be too late. Her spirit waited only for them.

It must have been eight o'clock when she thought she saw a speck moving up the mountain. Weak as she was, she pulled herself into a sitting position and watched the running, jumping object that was surely hurrying hurrying toward the cabin. It was Joseph! And he was alone! Angel Irosabal had turned him from his door!

Margarida wished that she might call out to Joseph and bid him not to hurry, for, no matter how fast he ran, he would be too late. Never again would their mortal eyes behold each other.

An hour later, tired and hollow-eyed, the boy reached the cabin. Twice he raised his hand to open the door before he found courage to do it. He called to Margarida, but there was no response. Rushing to her side, he clutched her hands; they were still warm. For an instant he took hope, and shook her faintly. And then he knew!—his mother was dead!

He had left the door open and Brindle, his favorite of Slippy-foot's pups, had followed him into the cabin. The dog put his paws upon the bed and nuzzled Margarida's hand. Joseph hugged the dog, and as Brindle threw back his head and voiced the misery that was in him, the boy sobbed out his grief.

Time passed unnoticed. Here was the end of all things. What good to go to the door and see if Enriquez was returning with Tabor Kincaid? The dogs were barking; perhaps the sheep were in trouble—Joseph shook his head. The sheep mattered not.

How long he knelt beside his dead mother before he became aware of his slate, propped against the wall, he did not know. Only yesterday he had used it. He saw the pencil lying upon the coverlet, where it had evidently fallen from his mother's fingers. And then, before he fully realized that the slate held a message for him, he was reading it:

The last two lines were so faint the boy read them with difficulty. Brindle stared at him quizzically. Word by word, he committed the message to memory. The dog stiffened at the sound of Enriquez's voice. Joseph heard Kincaid, too. They must have hurried to have come so soon.

He put the slate upon his knees, and with the sleeve of his coat rubbed out his mother's words. He wished they had not come just yet, for he wanted to be alone. He grabbed his hat and walked to the door as Kincaid knocked.

Joseph's eyes told their own story.

“I'm mighty sorry, Joseph,” Kincaid muttered. “The Doc was off to Quinn River, but I guess he couldn't have done nothing.”

Joseph nodded dumbly.

“You go off up the mountain for a spell,” Kincaid went on. “I'll do what I can here.”

Later, in a crude coffin of his own making, he and Joseph buried Margarida. Enriquez looked from one to the other—the burial left nothing undone. What was to become of him? Kincaid caught the herder's questioning look; he wondered, too. It was necessary that he go back to his own ranch. Something definite must be done about Joseph. That night he spoke to him about the future.

“You can't stay here, my boy,” Kincaid said.

“I'm not aiming to stay here,” Joseph answered. “My grandpa can have the place. Guess the best thing for me to do is to roll up a few things and go.”

“The sheep are yours, Joseph. Irosabal didn't get them thrown in when he bought the mountain. How many head do you reckon on?”

“Nigh four hundred,” the boy replied without any show of interest. He couldn't take the sheep along with him to the vague and distant land to which he was going.

“The market's about six dollars a head now,” Kincaid muttered, busy with his pencil. “That won't be so bad. If you say so, I'll sell the sheep for you. It'll give you enough to get a decent education, Joseph.”

Joseph shook his head at the word education. Kincaid shook his head, too :

“I don't mean
Paradise
. When I say education, I mean back East—Chicago, or some place like that. You know, Joseph, your daddy just about saved my life once. He'd never let me do anything to pay him back. I swear he must have been waiting to have me do it for
you
instead of
him
. Ain't no one been near you but me. Don't seem as if any one cared what happened to you, but old Tabor Kincaid.

“I'd adopt you, Joseph, sure as shooting, if I thought your grandpap would let me. The law don't give me any right to sell your sheep—you being a minor, and me no legal guardian of you, but I'm going to do it. I won't see old Angel grab them, and have you bound out to boot!

“Maybe he'll make me some trouble, but he'll find he ain't fighting a ten year old boy and his mammy. But we ain't got no time to waste, Joseph. What do you say?”

“You been most like a daddy to me, since mine went away,” the little fellow replied cautiously. “I reckon I'd be pretty mean not to do as you say. But I've got to come back here some day. I've got something to do here that I mustn't never forget.”

“I guess I know what you mean,” Kincaid murmured. “And I'm not saying you shouldn't come back. But I want you to come back a man, Joseph.”

“That's what my mother said,” Joseph agreed. “And I reckon that's the way I'm coming back.”