Fire on the Mountain (5 page)

“Like everybody else,” Lee said. “Looks like he was making cutlets out of you.”

“He sure was,” the old man said.

We rode on quietly for a few long moments. “What did you do, Grandfather?” I asked.

“I’m ashamed to say I lost my temper. But I made him bleed in the irrigation ditch so none of the valuable
fluid was wasted and I planted the body by the bunkhouse door, where you might have noticed those hollyhocks growing so straight and vigorous. The ones with the big pink flowers. The next day a young fella from the National Fish and Wildlife Service came out to see me, wanted to show me a new type of gun—a cyanide gun for exterminating coyotes, foxes, mountain lions and other meat-eating predatory species of animals.”

“How did the cyanide gun work, John?”

Grandfather dropped the stub of his burning cigar on a passing anthill. “It worked very well.”

“You can’t stop progress.”

“No, they got around me. Now they just fly over the country in an airplane and drop tallow balls everywhere. The wild animals like them. Maybe children do too, I don’t know.”

“Tallow balls?” I asked.

“Meatballs,” Lee explained, “loaded with Ten-Eighty.”

“If you don’t know what that is,” Grandfather said, “you’ll probably get a chance to taste some someday. It’s a wonderful new kind of poison that works through a whole chain of animals. It kills the first animal that eats it, kills the animal that eats the first animal, kills the animal that eats
him
, and so on down the line. Of course the poison gets diluted as the victims pass it along so I suppose we’ll end up eventually with buzzards too fat to fly and maggots too bloated to crawl.”

“That’s progress,” Lee said. “You can’t deny that.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Grandfather said. “Progress. I say, Let’s turn back the clock. Why does progress have to progress over me and the coyotes?”

“Well, you’ve heard of the Juggernaut. When missiles get bigger, missile testing ranges have to get longer.”

The old man frowned; he didn’t want to talk about that. Changing the subject, he said:

“Close your jaw and open your eyes and look at
that mountain.” He raised an arm and pointed toward the granite of the high peak, now glowing with light from the rising sun.

“Why do they call it Thieves’ Mountain?” I asked, staring up at the transmutation of bare gray rock into gold.

“It belongs to the Government,” Grandfather said.

“Yes, the Government stole it from the cattlemen,” Lee said. “And the cattlemen stole it from the Indians. And the Indians stole it from the—from the eagles? From the lion? And before that—?”

“—Before that?”

“Look,” Grandfather said proudly, “see how the light comes down the mountain now. Rolling toward us like a wave.”

Old man, proud of his mountain. I looked where he pointed. Swiftly and smoothly the sunlight was spreading downward from the peak to the crest of the lesser mountains north and south, down over the belt of pine to the juniper and pinyon stands of the foothills. Bands of light extended across the green sky, passing above us from the east, expanding from the fiery core that swelled below the rim of the world. Turning in the saddle I looked for the sun and in a moment the first arc of it appeared, then more until the entire fireball rose, dazzling and incredible, more beautiful than thought, above the Guadalupe range eighty miles away.

“Yes,” continued Lee, “like a wave. But whose light? whose mountain? whose land? Who owns the land? Answer me that, old horse. The man with title to it? The man who works it? The man who stole it last?”

The sun blazed on our backs as we rode toward the mountain, Grandfather’s mountain, and the shadows we cast stretched out before us, grotesquely exaggerated, miles long, folding over rock and shrub and prickly pear and crescent sands, clear to the foot of the hills. Flocks of sage sparrows swirled like dark confetti ahead of us, chirping mildly, and off to the left in the
shadows of the brush a covey of Gambel’s quail ran off obliquely from the path of our advance, making their piteous little cries.

“I am the land,” Grandfather said. “I’ve been eating this dust for seventy years. Who owns who? They’ll have to plow me under. My God, I forgot my cigars.”

“Brains full of sand,” Lee grumbled, cheerfully. “Arrogant as a bull. Head screwed on backwards.”

“Every man has his faults,
politico.”

We came to a fence, the west boundary of the old man’s deeded property. Beyond this line began the hills and the mountains which my grandfather and his father had used as summer range for ninety years but which belonged, in the legal sense of the word, to the Federal Government. Grandfather held the land now on lease within the complicated provisions of the Taylor Grazing Act. The land on the other side of the fence did not, however, reveal in any way its legal status: it was rocky and dry and sunny and almost though not quite worthless—it looked perfectly real and natural. You could never have guessed, looking at it, that it belonged to the United States of America and was colored a uniform green on maps.

There was also a gate, which my grandfather had built and maintained, and which it was my turn to open. I opened the gate, led my horse through, and closed the gate after the old man and the young man rode through. A great number of dead tumbleweeds lay banked against the fence; also a few immaculately white, sand-scoured cattle bones, the little that remained of the victims of a remote and almost forgotten blizzard.

We rode on, the hills much closer now. The individual junipers that grew on the northern slopes of the hills looked bigger but no clearer, no more distinct, than they had looked from five miles away. The air in that country, except when the wind blew, was of a startling clarity, filled with nothing but light, oxygen,
and the promise of lightning. Good for breathing and seeing.

Directly ahead of us a canyon came down and parted the hills and spread a delta of sand and rocks over the plain. Near the mouth of this canyon stood a corral and a windmill and a tank full of water, where a small herd of cattle with wet muzzles waited, observing our approach. Each animal wore on its left flank the brand of the Box V, and all of them, including the little calves, watched us intently, like deer. No horse was up there. We stopped.

“Before we do anything else,” Grandfather suggested, “before they shy and mess up the trail, let’s cut sign clear around that bunch and see if that pony’s been down here.”

“Do you think the lion might’ve got him?” I asked.

“No.”

“A lion’s mighty lucky to catch a full-grown horse,” Lee said. “Even a scatterbrain like Rascal.”

“Rascal’s not scatterbrained,” I said.

“How would you phrase it?”

“Will a lion attack a man?” I asked.

“What for?” Grandfather said.

“The meat.”

Lee grinned at me. “A lion will never attack a man unless the lion is too old or too sick to catch decent game. Or unless the lion is cornered, or angry, or wounded, or bored, or curious, or very hungry, or just plain mean.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That answers my question.”

“Are you gentlemen ready to proceed?” Grandfather asked.

“We are.”

“Then meet me about one hundred and eighty degrees from here.” He started off to the right in a big circle that would take him around the windmill and around the cattle, examining the ground as he went. Lee moved off to the left; I followed Lee.

“What are we looking for?” I asked.

“Tracks. What are you looking for?”

“Trouble.”

“You’re a hard customer, Billy Starr. But you came to the wrong country. People out here don’t like trouble. They don’t even like people. That’s why they live out here.”

I stared up at the hard and silent hills; the rocks would soon begin to bake. “Why do you live in Alamogordo, Lee? Don’t you like it out here anymore?”

He studied the sandy desert floor ahead as the horses ambled forward. “Cow and calf. Whiptail lizard. Road runner. More cows. No horse. Raven. Another lizard. Little birds. Cow and calf. Coyote. Everybody comes down here for a drink.”

“Why, Lee?”

He kept his eyes on the ground. “Why, Billy? A man gets ideas, Billy.” He spoke slowly and gently. “Sometimes he wants to do something—something big. He wants to play a part in things, have something to say about the way things go—and grow. Sure I liked it out here—I loved it. But ten years is a long time. The world is changing, Billy. Your grandfather don’t like to admit it but the world is changing. And even New Mexico is part of the world now. You’ll know what I mean, Billy, pretty soon.”

My heart sank a little as I listened to those quiet words—they had a knell-like tone. I had no answer for them.

Lee halted his horse and looked at me, his dark eyebrows arched at a quizzical angle, his expression kindly but serious. For a long moment he gazed at me with that grave, disheartening seriousness on his face; then his dark eyes lit up again, warm and gay, he broke into that flashing smile, reached out and thumped my back. “Hey, buddy, get that funeral look off your face! Cheer up and smile. The end of the world’s still a long way off.” He watched me steadily until my face began to reflect his contagious humor. “There, that’s better—my God, Billy, for a minute you looked exactly like one
of those shoe clerks up in Albuquerque. Now come on, let’s join up with the old man.”

We started up our horses again, completed our half of the circle without finding any sign of Rascal, and met Grandfather on the far side of the windmill. “Well,” he said.

“No sign,” Lee said.

“No, I didn’t expect we’d find any. He’s still up there in the hills, somewhere, damn his ornery nature. Let’s go tank up on water and then we’ll make tracks for the sky.”

We turned and rode slowly toward the windmill. The heat was rising; already I saw the first whirlwind standing up out in the desert, a pillar of dust that spun crazily for a few seconds, crashed into a giant yucca and collapsed. I was thirsty enough to smell the water.

“I see one sick calf in that bunch,” Lee said, uncoiling his rope and shaking out the loop. The cattle began to move.

“Somebody build a fire,” the old man said wearily. “I was afraid of this.”

I recognized an order when I heard it; much as I needed a drink, I dismounted on the way to the tank to pick up twigs and dead sticks for kindling. While Lee went galloping after the cow and her calf and Grandfather drew a running iron and the vaccine syringe out of his saddlebags, I opened my knife, pared shavings from a stick and lit a little fire. Grandfather placed the tip of the iron in the fire, opened his own knife and tested the blade’s edge with his thumb. I led old Blue to the tank, watered him and tied him to the corral fence; at the same time Lee came back to the fire dragging the calf at the end of his rope. Beside the calf came the mother cow and both of them were bawling.

I preferred not to watch what was going to happen. I leaned over the wall of the steel tank, which was already hot from the sun, took off my hat and submerged my head in the cool water. Under the water’s
surface I opened my eyes and peered down through green mystic depths to where tadpoles undulated dreamily among clouds of algae.

Coming out for air, I turned my head for a look at the struggle. Through the dust I saw Grandfather kneeling on the trussed-up calf, the blade glinting in his hand, and saw Lee drawing the white-hot iron out of the fire. The bellow of cow and calf were deafening; I went under water again.

The next time I came up the operation was over: branded, castrated, earmarked, de-horned and inoculated, the calf had staggered on trembling limbs back to its mother. But something was wrong: the old man sat on the ground in the meager shade of the corral fence, sweating, his glasses off, and Lee was fanning his face with a hat.

“I tell you I’m all right,” my grandfather snarled. “Give me back my hat.” And he reached out, snatched it from Lee’s hand, and smashed the hat down on his head.

“You sure you’re all right?” Lee was saying.

I ran up to them. “What happened?”

“Your grandfather—”

“Nothing happened,” Grandfather roared, though his face shone with sweat. “A bellyache, that’s all. I’m okay now, just let me get my breath, will you?”

“I think you better—”

“Lee, will you stop fussing over me?” the old man pushed himself up on his knees and from there to a standing position. He brushed the dust from his pants and felt around for his glasses. “Now where in the devil—”

“Here, here.” Lee put the glasses in his hand.

“Thank you.” The old man drew the bandana from his hip pocket, wiped the glasses carelessly and put them on. “All right. Let’s get a drink of water and get out of here.” He walked heavily toward the tank, muttering and grumbling. Lee and I looked at each other.
“Maybe he ate too much chili last night,” Lee said, shrugging his shoulders. “That’s what he claims.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You think he’s all right now?”

“Maybe. He seems to be mad enough.”

Grandfather raised his dripping face from the water, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, untied his horse and swung briskly into the saddle. Without a word to us he started up the rough trail road that led into the mountains. We stared at him. He checked his horse and glared back at us. “Well—? You two coming or do I have to do everything myself?” We climbed on our mounts and rode hastily after him.

“Nice day,” he said as we all drew abreast on the narrow road. “But hot. It’ll be good to get up yonder.” He squinted at the crest above, the line of granite against the deep dark delirious blue. Not even a shred of cloud could be seen in that vibrant sky.

“We’ll split up when we reach the south ridge trail.”

“Sure,” said Lee.

“Keep your eyes peeled from here on, Billy.”

“Yes sir.”

I looked intently about. The vegetation changed as we gained elevation, the brush of the desert yielding place to parks of pinyon pine and juniper and thickets of shiny green scrub oak. I could smell the sweet scent of resin and pine needles, and heard, from somewhere up ahead, the excited clamor of flocks of pinyon jays. I saw a redheaded woodpecker dart through the air and land on a dead and lightning-blasted jackpine. Some of the juniper trees stood decked out in showers of tiny berries the color of turquoise; I plucked a berry and bit into it—hard, bitter, the flavor of turpentine—or gin. I spat it out. My shirt was beginning to stick to my back; I pulled the tail out and let it hang free.