Suddenly I wanted very much to see her. She had been kind, and she had known my father, even if only for a short time. I knew he had respected her. Also, she was a no-nonsense sort of woman. I remembered the Indian she had shot. Then, for the first time, I was admitting I was lonely.
“She’s worried about your education. She says she promised your pa she’d look after you if anything happened to him.”
“I like it here.”
“You could always come back. Look here, Hannes, you ain’t an Injun. This here is all right for now, but what will you do when you’re a man? Your pa had education. He could go anywhere. He could have been anything. “You ain’t an Injun, and no amount of livin’ out here will make you one. You come along to Los Angeles and have a talk with Miss Nesselrode. If you want to come back, nobody will stop you.”
“I like this house, and some of the things belonged to my father.” “Leave ‘em. I’ll speak to the old gent down at the store, and you can tell your Injun friends.”
“They do not come here. They are afraid.”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“They say this is the house of Tahquitz. They think because I live here that I have a special power, that my medicine is very strong.” He knew nothing of the story of Tahquitz, so I told him the little I knew. He listened attentively, then said, “I ain’t one to scoff at superstitions. To my thinkin’ there’s always some truth to the stories you hear.” He pulled off the other boot “Then this place will be safe. We’ll just leave any truck you don’t need.”
Lying awake, listening to Jacob Finney snoring lightly in the other room, I wondered about Los Angeles. It had been long since I had visited a town, so long I scarcely remembered anything before Santa Fe except glimpses here and there, little things that clung to the memory. And Santa Fe was nearly four years ago. When morning came, I would take a hundred dollars in gold and leave the rest hidden. I would have my own horse, my own pistol and rifle. When I wanted to return, I could saddle up and ride. Traveling in the wild country was an old story now.
Francisco appeared as I was putting the rifle in its scabbard. “You go?” he asked.
“To Los Angeles,” I said, a little proudly.
“It is far,” he said.
“Five days,” I said, “perhaps six. I am not sure.”
“My papa was there. There are many big houses.”
“No doubt.”
“You will not come back.”
“My home is here, in this house. My father is buried here. I will come back.”
“You will not come back.” His face was solemn.
“You are my friend, Francisco. You will always be my friend. I shall come back to this house, and I leave my father’s things here. I leave even the books.” “Ah, the books.” He knew how I valued them. “Perhaps you will come back.” So we rode away when the sun was touching the peaks of Mount San Jacinto and Mount San Gorgonio, and the pass we followed led into the darkness that lay between them.
As we topped the first rise, I looked back at the scattered palms, the mesquite, and the few huts, even the flat roof of the store. My house was hidden among the dunes, and I wondered about my unknown visitor who borrowed books and left others. Well, he would be pleased, I thought, to find two new books on the shelf. I had found them among my father’s things and I placed them in the place from which he had last borrowed a book.
Looking back, I could see the Leaning Rock at the mouth of Chino Canyon. Some named it the Calling Rock, and it is said that when one is away the Calling Rock calls you to return. It is also said that if you turn and see it as you leave, you will always come back. I looked long, for I wanted to come back. Francisco was there, and he was my friend.
Jacob spoke of Los Angeles. “Is it by the sea?” I asked, remembering my father had come to it on a ship.
“No, it is twenty miles from the sea. At least twenty miles.”
“Will we see the sea?”
“There are low hills and mountains from which it can be seen. There are islands far out across the water. You will see them. It is said that long ago the Chumash Indians made plank boats and went to the islands. They painted them red. I do not know why.”
“My father told me of them.”
“It was a custom, I suppose. Remember, now! Tell no one you have come from the desert. Do not even speak of the desert. You have come by sea, newly arrived from the States. Before we arrive in town, you will change into your city clothes.”
“But they are small for me now,” I protested.
“No matter. We will get others in Los Angeles. You have been months at sea. You would naturally have grown. You must be careful! There is always talk, and even the gentes de razdn have large ears. If it is discovered you are from the desert, if they know you are your father’s son, you will be in danger.” “I will remember.” After a few steps by the horses I said, “I have no friends in Los Angeles. To whom could I speak?”
“You will make friends. Also, there is Miss Nesselrode, and I, too, am your friend. Most people talk too much, anyway.”
We rode on, and my thoughts returned to words my father had spoken, for I was much with him, and being silent, I heard a great many things which I wondered about later. There was much I did not understand and much I came to understand as I grew older. But there was much to think about when I was alone, and often I lay awake wondering about things that were said. There was a time when a man spoke very impatiently to my father. He had seen a copy of the Iliad lying on the table. “You are reading this?” he asked. “I have read it many times. Now I read it to my son.”
“But he is too young!” The man protested, almost angry. “Is he? Who is to say? How young is too young to begin to discover the power and the beauty of words? Perhaps he will not understand, but there is a clash of shields and a call of trumpets in those lines. One cannot begin too young nor linger too long with learning.
“Who knows how much he will remember? Who knows how deep the intellect? In some year yet unborn he may hear those words again, or read them, and find in them something hauntingly familiar, as of something long ago heard and only half-remembered.
“Yet perhaps it is only that I like to hear those rolling cadences. People, I think, read too much to themselves; they should read aloud from time to time to hear the language, to feel the sounds.
“Homer told his stories accompanied by the lyre, and it was the best way, I think, to tell such stories. Men needed stories to lead them to create, to build, to conquer, even to survive, and without them the human race would have vanished long ago. Men strive for peace, but it is their enemies that give them strength, and I think if man no longer had enemies, he would have to invent them, for his strength only grows from struggle.” My father had waved his hand about at the stark Arizona mountains and the desert where the wagon rested.
“Homer sang of his ‘wine-dark seas,’ but we, I think, will sing of these. You will find that our Homers will sing of the plains, the deserts, and the mountains. Our Trojans may appear in feathered war bonnets, but none the less noble for them. Our Achilles may be Jim Bowie or some other like him, our Ajax might be Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone.”
My father was a tall man, and now he stood up. “My friend,” he said, “I do not know what else I shall leave my son, but if I have left him a love of language, of literature, a taste for Homer, for the poets, the people who have told our story-and by ‘our’ I mean the story of mankind-then he will have legacy enough.” Was this, then, this ride to Los Angeles, was this like a voyage among the Greek islands? Was this to be part of an epic? If so, it was a dusty one! And I was wishing Jacob would decide to rest the horses, because I was tired. Yet, looking over my left shoulder and turning a little, I could see a fine sweep of mountains, and the pines that grew there.