Oh, you dont know and you do know, and maybe and perhaps, and youre not so sure, vociferated Annixter. How about ignoring the value of our improvements? Nothing hazy about THAT statement, I guess. It says in so many words that any improvements we make will not be considered when the land is appraised and thats the same thing, isnt it? The unimproved land is worth two-fifty an acre; only timber land is worth more and theres none too much timber about here.
Well, one thing at a time, said Harran. The thing for us now is to get into this primary election and the convention and see if we can push our men for Railroad Commissioners.
Right, declared Annixter. He rose, stretching his arms above his head. Ive about talked all the wind out of me, he said. Think Ill be moving along. Its pretty near midnight.
But when Magnuss guests turned their attention to the matter of returning to their different ranches, they abruptly realised that the downpour had doubled and trebled in its volume since earlier in the evening. The fields and roads were veritable seas of viscid mud, the night absolutely black-dark; assuredly not a night in which to venture out. Magnus insisted that the three ranchers should put up at Los Muertos. Osterman accepted at once, Annixter, after an interminable discussion, allowed himself to be persuaded, in the end accepting as though granting a favour. Broderson protested that his wife, who was not well, would expect him to return that night and would, no doubt, fret if he did not appear. Furthermore, he lived close by, at the junction of the County and Lower Road. He put a sack over his head and shoulders, persistently declining Magnuss offered umbrella and rubber coat, and hurried away, remarking that he had no foreman on his ranch and had to be up and about at five the next morning to put his men to work.
Fool! muttered Annixter when the old man had gone. Imagine farming a ranch the size of his without a foreman.
Harran showed Osterman and Annixter where they were to sleep, in adjoining rooms. Magnus soon afterward retired.
Osterman found an excuse for going to bed, but Annixter and Harran remained in the latters room, in a haze of blue tobacco smoke, talking, talking. But at length, at the end of all argument, Annixter got up, remarking:
Well, Im going to turn in. Its nearly two oclock.
He went to his room, closing the door, and Harran, opening his window to clear out the tobacco smoke, looked out for a moment across the country toward the south.
The darkness was profound, impenetrable; the rain fell with an uninterrupted roar. Near at hand one could hear the sound of dripping eaves and foliage and the eager, sucking sound of the drinking earth, and abruptly while Harran stood looking out, one hand upon the upraised sash, a great puff of the outside air invaded the room, odourous with the reek of the soaking earth, redolent with fertility, pungent, heavy, tepid. He closed the window again and sat for a few moments on the edge of the bed, one shoe in his hand, thoughtful and absorbed, wondering if his father would involve himself in this new scheme, wondering if, after all, he wanted him to.
But suddenly he was aware of a commotion, issuing from the direction of Annixters room, and the voice of Annixter himself upraised in expostulation and exasperation. The door of the room to which Annixter had been assigned opened with a violent wrench and an angry voice exclaimed to anybody who would listen:
Oh, yes, funny, isnt it? In a way, its funny, and then, again, in a way it isnt.
The door banged to so that all the windows of the house rattled in their frames.
Harran hurried out into the dining-room and there met Presley and his father, who had been aroused as well by Annixters clamour. Osterman was there, too, his bald head gleaming like a bulb of ivory in the light of the lamp that Magnus carried.
Whats all up? demanded Osterman. Whatever in the world is the matter with Buck?
Confused and terrible sounds came from behind the door of Annixters room. A prolonged monologue of grievance, broken by explosions of wrath and the vague noise of some one in a furious hurry. All at once and before Harran had a chance to knock on the door, Annixter flung it open. His face was blazing with anger, his outthrust lip more prominent than ever, his wiry, yellow hair in disarray, the tuft on the crown sticking straight into the air like the upraised hackles of an angry hound. Evidently he had been dressing himself with the most headlong rapidity; he had not yet put on his coat and vest, but carried them over his arm, while with his disengaged hand he kept hitching his suspenders over his shoulders with a persistent and hypnotic gesture. Without a moments pause he gave vent to his indignation in a torrent of words.
Ah, yes, in my bed, sloop, aha! I know the man who put it there, he went on, glaring at Osterman, and that man is a PIP. Sloop! Slimy, disgusting stuff; you heard me say I didnt like it when the Chink passed it to me at dinnerand just for that reason you put it in my bed, and I stick my feet into it when I turn in. Funny, isnt it? Oh, yes, too funny for any use. Id laugh a little louder if I was you.
Well, Buck, protested Harran, as he noticed the hat in Annixters hand, youre not going home just for
Annixter turned on him with a shout.
Ill get plumb out of here, he trumpeted. I wont stay here another minute.
He swung into his waistcoat and coat, scrabbling at the buttons in the violence of his emotions. And I dont know but what it will make me sick again to go out in a night like this. NO, I wont stay. Some things are funny, and then, again, there are some things that are not. Ah, yes, sloop! Well, thats all right. I can be funny, too, when you come to that. You dont get a cent of money out of me. You can do your dirty bribery in your own dirty way. I wont come into this scheme at all. I wash my hands of the whole business. Its rotten and its wild-eyed; its dirt from start to finish; and youll all land in States prison. You can count me out.
But, Buck, look here, you crazy fool, cried Harran, I dont know who put that stuff in your bed, but Im not going; to let you go back to Quien Sabe in a rain like this.
I know who put it in, clamoured the other, shaking his fists, and dont call me Buck and Ill do as I please. I WILL go back home. Ill get plumb out of here. Sorry I came. Sorry I ever lent myself to such a disgusting, dishonest, dirty bribery game as this all to-night. I wont put a dime into it, no, not a penny.
He stormed to the door leading out upon the porch, deaf to all reason. Harran and Presley followed him, trying to dissuade him from going home at that time of night and in such a storm, but Annixter was not to be placated. He stamped across to the barn where his horse and buggy had been stabled, splashing through the puddles under foot, going out of his way to drench himself, refusing even to allow Presley and Harran to help him harness the horse.
Whats the use of making a fool of yourself, Annixter? remonstrated Presley, as Annixter backed the horse from the stall. You act just like a ten-year-old boy. If Osterman wants to play the goat, why should you help him out?
Hes a PIP, vociferated Annixter. You dont understand, Presley. It runs in my family to hate anything sticky. Itsitsits heredity. How would you like to get into bed at two in the morning and jam your feet down into a slimy mess like that? Oh, no. Its not so funny then. And you mark my words, Mr. Harran Derrick, he continued, as he climbed into the buggy, shaking the whip toward Harran, this business we talked over to-nightIm OUT of it. Its yellow. Its too CURSED dishonest.
Whats the use of making a fool of yourself, Annixter? remonstrated Presley, as Annixter backed the horse from the stall. You act just like a ten-year-old boy. If Osterman wants to play the goat, why should you help him out?
Hes a PIP, vociferated Annixter. You dont understand, Presley. It runs in my family to hate anything sticky. Itsitsits heredity. How would you like to get into bed at two in the morning and jam your feet down into a slimy mess like that? Oh, no. Its not so funny then. And you mark my words, Mr. Harran Derrick, he continued, as he climbed into the buggy, shaking the whip toward Harran, this business we talked over to-nightIm OUT of it. Its yellow. Its too CURSED dishonest.
He cut the horse across the back with the whip and drove out into the pelting rain. In a few seconds the sound of his buggy wheels was lost in the muffled roar of the downpour.
Harran and Presley closed the barn and returned to the house, sheltering themselves under a tarpaulin carriage cover. Once inside, Harran went to remonstrate with Osterman, who was still up. Magnus had again retired. The house had fallen quiet again.
As Presley crossed the dining-room on the way to his own apartment in the second story of the house, he paused for a moment, looking about him. In the dull light of the lowered lamps, the redwood panelling of the room showed a dark crimson as though stained with blood. On the massive slab of the dining table the half-emptied glasses and bottles stood about in the confusion in which they had been left, reflecting themselves deep into the polished wood; the glass doors of the case of stuffed birds was a subdued shimmer; the many-coloured Navajo blanket over the couch seemed a mere patch of brown.
Around the table the chairs in which the men had sat throughout the evening still ranged themselves in a semi-circle, vaguely suggestive of the conference of the past few hours, with all its possibilities of good and evil, its significance of a future big with portent. The room was still. Only on the cushions of the chair that Annixter had occupied, the cat, Princess Nathalie, at last comfortably settled in her accustomed place, dozed complacently, her paws tucked under her breast, filling the deserted room with the subdued murmur of her contented purr.
CHAPTER IV
On the Quien Sabe ranch, in one of its western divisions, near the line fence that divided it from the Osterman holding, Vanamee was harnessing the horses to the plough to which he had been assigned two days before, a stable-boy from the division barn helping him.
Promptly discharged from the employ of the sheep-raisers after the lamentable accident near the Long Trestle, Vanamee had presented himself to Harran, asking for employment. The season was beginning; on all the ranches work was being resumed. The rain had put the ground into admirable condition for ploughing, and Annixter, Broderson, and Osterman all had their gangs at work. Thus, Vanamee was vastly surprised to find Los Muertos idle, the horses still in the barns, the men gathering in the shade of the bunk-house and eating-house, smoking, dozing, or going aimlessly about, their arms dangling. The ploughs for which Magnus and Harran were waiting in a fury of impatience had not yet arrived, and since the management of Los Muertos had counted upon having these in hand long before this time, no provision had been made for keeping the old stock in repair; many of these old ploughs were useless, broken, and out of order; some had been sold. It could not be said definitely when the new ploughs would arrive. Harran had decided to wait one week longer, and then, in case of their non-appearance, to buy a consignment of the old style of plough from the dealers in Bonneville. He could afford to lose the money better than he could afford to lose the season.
Failing of work on Los Muertos, Vanamee had gone to Quien Sabe. Annixter, whom he had spoken to first, had sent him across the ranch to one of his division superintendents, and this latter, after assuring himself of Vanamees familiarity with horses and his previous experienceeven though somewhat remoteon Los Muertos, had taken him on as a driver of one of the gang ploughs, then at work on his division.
The evening before, when the foreman had blown his whistle at six oclock, the long line of ploughs had halted upon the instant, and the drivers, unharnessing their teams, had taken them back to the division barnsleaving the ploughs as they were in the furrows. But an hour after daylight the next morning the work was resumed. After breakfast, Vanamee, riding one horse and leading the others, had returned to the line of ploughs together with the other drivers. Now he was busy harnessing the team. At the division blacksmith shoptemporarily put uphe had been obliged to wait while one of his lead horses was shod, and he had thus been delayed quite five minutes. Nearly all the other teams were harnessed, the drivers on their seats, waiting for the foremans signal.
All ready here? inquired the foreman, driving up to Vanamees team in his buggy.
All ready, sir, answered Vanamee, buckling the last strap.
He climbed to his seat, shaking out the reins, and turning about, looked back along the line, then all around him at the landscape inundated with the brilliant glow of the early morning.
The day was fine. Since the first rain of the season, there had been no other. Now the sky was without a cloud, pale blue, delicate, luminous, scintillating with morning. The great brown earth turned a huge flank to it, exhaling the moisture of the early dew. The atmosphere, washed clean of dust and mist, was translucent as crystal. Far off to the east, the hills on the other side of Broderson Creek stood out against the pallid saffron of the horizon as flat and as sharply outlined as if pasted on the sky. The campanile of the ancient Mission of San Juan seemed as fine as frost work. All about between the horizons, the carpet of the land unrolled itself to infinity. But now it was no longer parched with heat, cracked and warped by a merciless sun, powdered with dust. The rain had done its work; not a clod that was not swollen with fertility, not a fissure that did not exhale the sense of fecundity. One could not take a dozen steps upon the ranches without the brusque sensation that underfoot the land was alive; roused at last from its sleep, palpitating with the desire of reproduction. Deep down there in the recesses of the soil, the great heart throbbed once more, thrilling with passion, vibrating with desire, offering itself to the caress of the plough, insistent, eager, imperious. Dimly one felt the deep-seated trouble of the earth, the uneasy agitation of its members, the hidden tumult of its womb, demanding to be made fruitful, to reproduce, to disengage the eternal renascent germ of Life that stirred and struggled in its loins.
The ploughs, thirty-five in number, each drawn by its team of ten, stretched in an interminable line, nearly a quarter of a mile in length, behind and ahead of Vanamee. They were arranged, as it were, en echelon, not in filenot one directly behind the other, but each succeeding plough its own width farther in the field than the one in front of it. Each of these ploughs held five shears, so that when the entire company was in motion, one hundred and seventy-five furrows were made at the same instant. At a distance, the ploughs resembled a great column of field artillery. Each driver was in his place, his glance alternating between his horses and the foreman nearest at hand. Other foremen, in their buggies or buckboards, were at intervals along the line, like battery lieutenants. Annixter himself, on horseback, in boots and campaign hat, a cigar in his teeth, overlooked the scene.