Peter’s gun boomed, and as he started to load it, I took it from his hands and showed him the shotgun, which he took.
Careful to spill no powder, I reloaded Peter’s rifle and then crossed to stand behind my father, but those who had been about to attack were gone. One man, the Anglo, lay sprawled on the hard earth where I had drawn Francisco’s picture. There were spots of blood where another had bled, and two riderless horses stood in the yard.
Suddenly a horseman spurred by us at a dead run down the lane, and my father watched him go, gun in hand. “No use to shoot him,” my father said. “He’s anxious to get away. I do not think he will come back.” “He’s lost some fingers,” Peter Burkin said. “He dropped on the far side of his saddle, so I shot off the pommel and took some fingers with it.” “Thank you, Peter.” My father turned to me. “And thank you, Hannes. You are very cool. I like a man who doesn’t lose his head.”
My father sat down suddenly, as if exhausted. He looked at Peter and shook his head. “I don’t have the strength anymore, Peter. I lack stamina.” “You’re lookin’ better.” Peter walked over and closed the outer door. “No matter what you may think, this air’s good for you.”
“Possibly.”
Peter went out, and when I looked again, the body was gone and the spots of blood had disappeared.
When we were alone, my father said, “To kill a man is not a nice thing, no matter what the reason. He would have killed me, and you, so I had no choice. I hope this will be an end to it.”
“Who was he, Papa? He is not the don?”
“No, just a man hired to kill, as they all were.”
“Is the don afraid, that he does not come himself?” “No, he is not afraid. I do not believe he knows fear. Perhaps he has never had occasion to be afraid. He hires such work to be done, just as he would hire a man to break horses or trap coyotes.”
It was almost a month before Peter Burkin rode again to our house at the end of the lane. He rode a fine bay gelding and sat well in the saddle, and he brought a sack of good things to eat and three books. “Got ‘em from a ship’s master,” he said. “Your pa dearly loves reading, so I keep my eyes out for him. I do a mite of tradin’ now and again. This time I had me some sea otter pelts, prime fur. I made him throw in the books to boot.”
He stripped the gear from the bay, talking the while. “He remembered your pa, and his pa before him. You come from a seafarin’ family, boy. Your pa was more’n seven years at sea before he come to California. Get him to tell you about those places he went to.
“My stars! When I hear him talk, his words are like a song my ears have been wanting. He sailed afar, boy, to places with names like music: Gorontalo, Amurang, Soerabaja, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Mombasa, and places like that. I d’clare, I could sit and hear him talk forever. It’s no wonder Consuelo fell in love with him. The way I hear it, half the girls in California were in love with him. He was a talker, your pa was.”
Peter turned the bay into the corral and put his saddle and gear in the small barn. “Listen to me, boy, and gather memories while you can. They come easily now and will warm an old man’s heart when the time comes. “Do not forget the lasses who were good to you along the years. Remember their eyes and their laughter and the way they were with you. It is a good thing not to forget. And remember the shadows on the bills at sunset or in the dawning.” He paused. “Your father is better?”
“I think so. He seems to cough less, but he coughs.” “Aye, it is a miserable thing, the lung disease. Stay in the fresh air, boy.” He looked around at me, taking off his chaps. “Have you seen the Indian lad?” “No.”
“Do not worry about it. He will come again. They are strange folk, Indians. Perhaps not so strange as just different from us, but he will come back. I know his father, too. He’s an important man among them.” “Will you come in?”
“Of course I shall. Am I interrupting, then?”
“My father reads to me at this hour. Less than he used to because of the coughing, but he reads.”
“Good! He can read to me, too. If it’s Scott or Byron, I’ll prove a good listener. Or Shakespeare. There was a cowhand once who said that Shakespeare was the only poet who wrote like he’d been raised on red meat.” “Shakespeare?” my father said when asked. “Not today, I think. This is a day for Homer. You will like him, Peter. His people were very like those around us now. Achilles or Hector would have done well as mountain men, and I think Jed Smith, Kit Carson, or Hugh Glass would have been perfectly at home at the siege of Troy.”
“Troy?” Peter Burkin said. “I mind something of Troy. That’s where they fought that war over a woman. Helen, wasn’t it?”
“She was the excuse, Peter. Troy controlled travel from the Black Sea into Mediterranean waters, and the Greeks wanted to be rid of Troy. If it had not been Helen, they would have found another excuse.” Those were the wonderful, beautiful days! My father grew better. The clear dry air seemed good for him, and he began to take walks with me, and sometimes to ride. Yet never without a rifle and a pistol. We saw the Indians from time to time. Once I saw Francisco, and waved. He stood watching us ride away, yet I continued to look, and finally he waved.
My father talked of the desert, of books and men and ships. Peter Burkin returned and rode with us. He was worried about the old don, and warned my father.
“He’ll try again. I don’t figure he’s worried as long as you’re here, just among Indians. If you started for Los Angeles…
“He don’t want you there, no way.” He rode in silence, then added, “After what happened here, nobody is very anxious to try you. At first it seemed like money found, just to ride out here and kill a man already sick. “When that first outfit came back with one man dead and two wounded, those who might have tackled you were short on enthusiasm.” My father tired quickly, so sometimes we sat down right where we were and talked. When he grew tired, his cough was worse. Often he spoke of the Indians, of how they lived and of their beliefs. “We do wrong,” he said, “to try to convert them to our beliefs. First we should study what they believe and how it applies to the way they live. First they must be sure of our respect.” “Francisco does not come.”
“Give him time. They believe ours was the house of Tahquitz.”
“It was another thing, I think.”
My father waited, watching the cloud shadows on the desert. “I spoke of the Indian I saw at the Indian well. The old man who wore turquoise.” “You really saw such an Indian?”
“I do not know if he was an Indian. I thought he was.” There was a time when I said nothing, and then I said, reluctantly, for I did not wish to be thought a fool, “I do not know where he was standing. I have thought of it since.” “I do not understand.”
“At the foot of the steps, beside the water, there is a flat place of hard earth. I stood there. When I took a drink, I looked around and he was standing there.”
“Beside you?”
“Facing me. He was standing where there is no place to stand.” I hesitated; then I said, “I offered him a drink, in the dipper. He just looked at me.” “And then?”
“You called.”
My father was silent for some time and then he said, “Hannes, we know so little. Our world is far stranger than anyone has guessed. We know a little and scoff at much we do not understand, but the Indians are either a simpler people or one far more complex who merely seem simple.
“There are trails in the desert, and mountains, Hannes, trails the Indians no longer follow. Here and there, for a little way, they use them. The trails were made by the Old Ones, the people who were here before the Indians. We do not know who they were or what became of them, and some of the white people do not believe in them at all. The fathers at the missions have told the Indians it is nonsense and they must not speak of them.”