Following the Grass Read online

  The next moment he felt Joseph’s hand upon his arm. He had not expected such strength and, caught off his balance as he had been, he could not help being whirled about.

  “Let him go,” Joseph said tensely. “He is afraid of the horse.”

  Andres’s eyes narrowed beneath his shaggy brows. A snarl and a curse in Basque broke from his lips, and he sunk his fingers deeper into Felipe’s neck.

  “I’ll not ask you again,” Joseph warned as Felipe screamed. “I am unarmed. I have only my hands and my spirit with which to defeat you, but I ask for nothing more.”

  Andres’s answer was only to curl his lips and bare his yellow fangs as a beast might have done. Joseph did not wait longer. The crowd saw his right hand drop to his knee. With a swiftness that taxed the eye to follow, it came up, the weight of his body in back of it, and the next instant they saw Andres rock.

  The blow had caught him on his beefy neck, and his head snapped back as if worked by a string. He hurled Felipe away from him as he struggled to keep from falling.

  The blow would have been a knock-out had it been measured more carefully. Even so, Andres’s eyes were blurred. He shook his head to clear it. A moment later he bellowed his rage, and with his hands outspread as if they were claws, he rushed at Joseph, not to hit him, but to tear and smother him, to stamp him into the ground. His face was hideous, his eyes glittering like an angry ape’s.

  Joseph leaped out of his way, and as Andres dove past him, he struck him again. Blood spurted from the bully’s ear as he set himself for another rush. He was at least twenty pounds heavier than Joseph, and it seemed he must crush him as he leaped at him.

  He was prepared to see the boy jump aside once more, but Joseph stood his ground and as Andres came on, his arms flailing the air, Joseph braced himself and drove his fist into the big man’s middle. Andres stopped in his tracks, a horrible “whoosh!” forced from him as the air rushed from his lungs.

  Joseph leaped in to follow up his advantage, but Andres caught him and held on, trying to smother him with his weight. Strength began to flow back into the Basque’s arms. Joseph felt them tightening about him and try as he would he could not get free. Andres’s weight also was telling on him. He saw that the man was playing for just that advantage.

  Joseph beat his adversary’s face into a raw mass, but Andres did not let go. He was a beast and he fought as beasts fight—willing to suffer now; content to bide his time. When he had Joseph flat on the ground he would repay those blows in good measure with his hobnailed boots.

  The crowd wanted to see Andres whipped. At some time, each one there had felt his heavy hand. They had not dared to strike back. Joseph came to them as a champion out of the wilderness. They had proved themselves willing to believe anything of him in the past, and that he could crush Andres was quite within the possibilities.

  They had overcome their fear of the boy, and they thrilled to see him punish the man who had bullied them so long. But now the advantage was Andres’s and the crowd held its breath.

  A grin twisted the big fellow’s torn mouth as he felt the boy’s struggles weaken. His eyes blinked open, and Joseph caught the thought which crept into them and made them gleam hideously, two spots of fire in a face from which his hands had beaten all human resemblance. To be dragged down now, was to be fatal, to be stamped to death. Andres had become the insensate killer—all beast—back into the slimy pit from which the first man had emerged still walking upon all fours.

  And so they waited—one mad and the other with senses alert. Andres was past calculating his chances of victory. He was satisfied that he had won, and he could only hang on, knowing he had not long to wait.

  Joseph, however, was watching—he told himself he was not to die here. Some opening, some advantage must come to him.

  He felt his second strength flowing back to him, but he made no effort to break the big man’s grip. Rather did he seem to struggle less and less. He gasped for air, and Andres grunted eagerly. Another minute or two and it would be over. Abruptly, Joseph seemed to go limp. Andres leered at him and, seeing the boy’s eyelids close, he straightened up and let him sink to the ground.

  But now the unexpected happened, for Joseph caught himself, and snapped erect. Andres tried to close on him again, but before his great arms could circle the boy’s neck, Joseph’s fist flashed up.

  Every ounce of him—body and spirit—was in that blow. Energy he had not known he possessed, leaped within him. He could not have aimed and timed the blow better.

  The crowd heard his fist thud against Andres’s jaw, hut Joseph had aimed beyond that, and the force of his blow, as he carried it through, lifted the big man’s head. Almost instantly his body stiffened, and as his head had lifted, so now his body lifted until even his feet left the ground. The crowd gasped.

  Andres’s eyes were glazing. He was falling. He appeared about to go over backward, but suddenly his legs went limp. He crumpled up as a balloon does when the air is let out of it, and sank to the ground unconscious, blood trickling from his mouth and ears.

  Joseph stood over him, swaying crazily, his chest heaving.

  Felipe and the others came and stared at Andres.

  “Ees he dead, señor?” Felipe asked, his face pale.

  “No,” Joseph answered. “Get me a bucket of water.”

  Andres stirred uneasily as Icherraga drenched him. Minutes passed, however, before he attempted to sit up. Slowly, understanding crept back into his eyes, and with it craftiness. Clumsily he lifted his hand to Joseph.

  “You win, señor,” he mumbled. “But some day mebbe eet be my turn. You shake hands?”

  Joseph shook his head slowly.

  “No,” said he, “I will not take your hand now. You have not changed. You are still the bully. What name are you called?”

  “Andres,” the big man answered sulkily. Joseph could not repress a start.

  “So you are Andres, eh?” he asked, his voice chilling. The crowd as well as the man on the ground caught the intimation of previous knowledge.

  “I am not surprised,” Joseph went on, his eyes holding Andres’s. He paused, then:

  “Timoteo was right.”

  Only Andres understood him now, for the others had heard little of Timoteo. Joseph saw a question form on the big man’s lips.

  “It is nothing,” he said before Andres spoke. “Can you get up?”

  Andres tried to rise and Joseph reached down a hand to help him, but the man’s body had been too severely punished, and as Joseph let go of him he sank back to the ground. The smell of blood had drawn Grimm and, as Andres fell back, the crow hopped upon the man’s chest and stretched out his neck, his bill clacking a foot from Andres’s eyes.

  Andres screamed and tried to move away, but it was more than he could accomplish. Joseph called Grimm and the crow backed off, cawing angrily as he retreated. Joseph was convinced that Andres was helpless.

  “We will have to carry him into the cabin,” he said to the crowd. “He will not walk to-day.”

  “But, señor, he must,” Felipe announced. “He ees here weeth sheep. He ees on the way to my grandfather’s caserio. We are but a few for so many sheep. I can not go. Eet be night before I get back.”

  “Sheep going to the valley so soon?” Joseph asked.

  “Si, señor. Three hundred to be slaughtered. They are very fat.”

  One or two spoke to Felipe in Basque, but Joseph made no effort to learn what they said.

  “Where is his flock?” he asked at last.

  “Across the creek,” Felipe replied. “The dogs are there.”

  Joseph pondered for a moment.

  “Call in your dogs,” he said finally. “It is my fault that he can not go. I will take the sheep to your grandfather — if you will trust me with them.”

  Felipe conferred with the others before answering. They seemed none too willing that Joseph should take the flock even though he had won their confidence.

  “But you will need the dogs, se�
�or,” Felipe urged. “Three hundred sheep are too many for one man without dogs.”

  “No,” Joseph smiled, “the dogs would not help me. Call them in.”

  And while Felipe was busy with the dogs, Joseph and two others carried Andres into the cabin. On coming out, he started his own little flock toward Buckskin. He then called to Slippy-foot:

  “Home ! Go home!”

  The coyote stared at him perplexedly for a moment, but when Joseph repeated his command, she started off after her charges. The young Basques who saw this held it no less than a miracle. But they were herders, and peculiarly fitted to appreciate it.

  When Felipe returned with the dogs, Joseph called to Grimm, and with the crow perched upon his shoulder, he crossed the creek. He soon had the big flock moving.

  The young Basques watched him until he was lost to sight, marveling that in all that time not a single ewe had broken from the flock; not once had he been forced to stop for stragglers to catch up with the band. Sheep had never behaved that way for them.

  So, although they realized now that Joseph was a flesh and blood creature, they found him an even greater mystery than ever. Sheep they could understand, but they could not understand him.

  There is an old Spanish proverb to the effect that shepherds are foreordained to control the sheep. Felipe quoted it:

  “Dios los cria y ellos se juntan (God brings them up and they get together).”

  Icherraga exclaimed, “It is so.”

  CHAPTER XV.

  “WE ARE FRIENDS.”

  JOSEPH drove the flock into the valley over the road which dropped down from Hinkey summit. In entering the Reserve this road ascended so rapidly that it was little used, but for one returning to the vaiiey this mattered not at all. It was several hours shorter than the way that led around by Antelope Springs, so when Joseph arrived at old Angel’s caserio it was still daylight.

  The buildings which formed the caserio were some distance apart. In them resided the families of Angel’s sons and grandsons. Set off by itself, stood the old Basque’s own house, surrounded by barns, sheep pens and countless sheds, roofed over but open. on all sides, which served to house his reapers and other machinery. Corrals were everywhere—some of wire, some of brush.

  On that long past day when he had been there before, Joseph had been too young to notice how well-conditioned the rancho was. It struck him forcibly now. Everything was in its place; the buildings freshly white-washed, the fences prim and the stock—milch cows, pigs, horses and chickens—fat and healthy.

  The usual odds and ends of broken-down hay-rakes and mowers which clutter up most ranch-yards were missing. The barns were free from litter. Indeed, look about him as he would, he could find no sign of waste. The place breathed an air of happy abundance, of tireless husbandry and frugality.

  Only Andres, of all Angel’s children, remained unmarried, so the great man was quite alone in his big house. But he did not lack for those to wait on him. This night he sat at his table in dignity befitting the head of his clan.

  He heard Joseph drive the flock up to his door; but it had been expected all afternoon. Therefore, he did not arise. Others had noticed the flock, too, but believing the herder to be Andres they had gone on with their suppers. Hence Joseph passed almost unnoticed.

  It was warm and he found the door open when he reached it. Angel dropped his knife and fork as he recognized him.

  Joseph had long counted on facing his grandfather in this very room. In fancy, he had often seen the old man squirm before him, but the unexpected meeting at the Circle-Z had robbed him of that long-dreamed-of pleasure. However, Angel’s surprise at seeing him here, now, was genuine, and Joseph saw him draw back as Grimm stepped into the room.

  “May I ask why you come here?” Angel questioned. “And that thing?” he cried, his voice rising angrily.

  “I have brought the sheep that you expected Andres to bring,” answered Joseph. “They are outside the door.”

  “What has happened to Andres?” Angel demanded, pushing back his chair as he got to his feet.

  “Andres is a bully,” Joseph declared flatly. “I had to rebuke him.” And he told his grandfather what had happened at the ranger’s cabin that morning. “I felt that it was my duty to bring the herd,” he concluded.

  Angel offered no word of defense for his son as Joseph told his story, and now he walked around the table in silence, his eyes on the floor. If by any chance he compared the youth before him to his surly son, and cast up a balance in Joseph’s favor, no sign of it came into his eyes.

  The room had been Angel’s sanctum so long that it seemed to have taken on something of his personality. Tables and chairs gave evidence of an uncompromising fight with dust, for they had been scrubbed and scoured so often and so thoroughly that paint had long since ceased to adorn them. In fact, the pleasant odor of freshly scrubbed wood pervaded the room.

  The walls were bare, and undoubtedly helped to convey the feeling of severity which the eye felt. A row of old tankards hanging suspended from hooks above the sideboard gave the room its only note of color.

  In the corner stood a spinning-wheel (still in use whenever Angel’s daughters returned to the parental roof) and beside it a great bag of washed wool ready for the wheel. A gigantic fireplace, fit to cope with the severest winter, occupied a good share of one side of the room.

  A seven-pronged candelabra of beaten silver stood upon the table at which Angel ate his meals, its home-made candles standing somewhat askew and reminding one of a badly trimmed clipper ship. In forty years this room had changed but little. There was nothing in it to suggest America —not even a talking-machine. Nothing was “new”—veneered. Joseph liked his grandfather better for that.

  “Did Felipe and his cousins know you?” Angel asked as he paused abruptly.

  “I had not spoken to them until to-day,” Joseph answered.

  “And yet they trust you with three hundred sheep?” the old man muttered, shaking his head as if unable to understand from whence their confidence sprang.

  “They have no reason to regret their faith in me,” Joseph said pointedly. Angel chose to ignore this.

  “How much do I owe you?” he asked.

  “You owe me nothing. I went to the ranger’s cabin to buy salt. I will ask you to sell me what I need.”

  Angel did not say no or yes to this. The sheep were cailing nervously, and the old Basque went to the door and ran his eye over the flock.

  “Where are the dogs?” he demanded.

  “I had no dogs—nor any need of them,” Joseph replied.

  “You brought this flock from Heaton’s cabin without a dog?” Angel asked incredulously. Joseph nodded, but his grandfather found it hard to believe.

  “The day has been hot!” he exclaimed. “It is a long way from here to the ranger’s cabin. My herders can not drive my flocks that distance in the heat of the day. I have herded sheep myself. I know you can not drive them all day long in the blistering sun.”

  “But I did not drive them,” Joseph replied without raising his voice. “They followed me.”

  “What? Three hundred yearling ewes that have never seen you before—followed you?”

  “Three hundred or three thousand—it matters not: they follow me. Your sheep are fat and soft. And yet, I bring them to you as fresh as if they had not moved off their range.”

  The tradition of sheep was in the Basque. He knew their habits, their wants. Times almost without number he had proved his knowledge of them. The worries of lambing-time, of shearing, of fighting the storms of winter to get his herds under cover, of the long summer with its blistering heat, of breeding, of feeding—he had known them all. But here was an unbearded boy telling him he had done what sheepmen knew could not be done.

  “But the pinguey—the rubber-weed—it grows thick along that trail? Andres has often lost a dozen head because of it.”

  “These sheep have eaten no rubber-weed,” Joseph declared slowly. “They would he sufferi
ng now if they had. But you can walk among them, and you will not find one bloated ewe.”

  “You know the pinguey then, eh?”

  “I do,” Joseph said simply. “My sheep have grazed where the little yellow flower blossomed all about them, but they did not touch it.”

  “But my sheep have died from eating it,” Angel insisted.

  “Your herders were to blame. God never turned an animal from His hand altogether helpless. Sheep have instincts. If they eat pinguey it is only because they have been kept on one range too long—they are starving.”

  Angel stared at him in amazement.

  “You—are only a boy,” he grumbled, “how do you know these things?”

  “I am a shepherd,” Joseph replied. “It is in my blood. My father’s people were shepherds. My mother’s people—” Joseph stopped abruptly and, fixing his eyes on Angel, he said naïvely:

  “I would like to talk to you about my mother and the people from whom she sprang. I—”

  “No, no,” Angel cried, aghast at the turn the conversation had taken. “It—it would prove nothing,” he muttered, his face whiter than usual. “I am a sheepman. It is enough. I know sheep. Until now I would have laughed had any one told me they could be driven so far in June. I—”

  “You forget,” Joseph interrupted. “I did not drive them; they followed me. But they are tired. Where shall I put them?”

  “The brush corral,” Angel answered, indicating the desired one with his hand. Joseph nodded and moved away, the big flock eddying about him.

  “Wait!” Angel cried. “I will get my men. You can not put them in by yourself.”

  A patient smile flitted across Joseph’s face.

  “It is not necessary to call your men!” he said. “I will put the flock into the corral.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone,” Joseph replied. “In spite of your boast, I see that you know very little about sheep.”