He squatted on his heels, and I did likewise. “We hope to catch many horses,” I said, “and we will need help.” With a twig I dug in the soil for a pebble, turning it over. “We would like to find five or six Cahuillas to help us.” Francisco pushed his hat back and squinted at the pebble I had dug from the hard-packed earth. He picked it up and turned it in his fingers. “We are thinking of three or four hundred horses. We would build a long fence of brush to guide them into a corral. There would be much work, but we would pay or share the horses.”
“We do not need horses,” he said. After a silence he said, “You catch cows, too?”
“Maybe.”
“Catch cows, we take some cows.”
“All right.”
We sat silent, watching a raven plucking at something in a palm tree. There had been times when I was a boy that I had gone with them to the oak groves to gather acorns, or to the mesquite for their beans. I had worked beside them and learned to know them, a little.
There were old men I remembered who sometimes talked to us as they worked. I remembered the stories of the coyote who had planted mesquite beans after the sea disappeared from the basin and left it dry. The fish and the seabirds on which the Cahuilla had lived were gone, but there were forests of mesquite soon. Yet, until the mesquite grew, times must have been hard. They did not speak of that, only the story of the coyote planting the mesquite. Later, talking to Monte, I mentioned the story. “A legend,” he said. “The Plains Injuns, too. They have many stories of the coyote.” “But in all the legends there is some truth. As for the coyote planting the mesquite, it could be true.”
He took the cigarette from his mouth, “You mean you believe that?” “Why not? The coyote eats the mesquite beans. He goes into the desert to hunt rabbits. Where he stops to do his business, he leaves some undigested beans, perhaps? They grow. Why not? That’s the way plants are often scattered, through bird and animal droppings.”
“Didn’t think of that,” Monte admitted. “Runoff water would bring down some seeds, too, I suspect.”
He glanced at me. “You think those Injuns will come?”
“You can depend on it,” I said. “They will come and they will be ready.”
“You’ve been in their villages?”
“Time and again. Lived with them when I was a boy. I stayed in this house but often went hunting with them, gathering nuts and seeds, listening to the old men tell of when the water disappeared, little by little. It came and went several times. Sometimes it came slowly, and at least once it came with a great rush, carrying great logs on a vast wave that swept up the valley. Many Indians were lost. The only ones saved were those hunting in the mountains or close enough to the mountains to escape.”
Gesturing toward the mountains, I said, “They have villages up there. In the Santa Rosas, too.
“There are old trails in the mountains and on the desert. A few of them I have followed, and there are more I shall follow.”
“Why?”
Why, indeed? Turning that over in my mind, I shrugged. “How do I know? It is my destiny, I think. All I know is that I shall never rest easy until I have gone into the desert alone. Until I have followed some of thbse trails to wherever they go.”
“I know,” Monte said wistfully. “It’s something around the bend in the trail or over the next ridge. I feel it, too.”
We would need extra ropes, so we bought hides from the Indians or the Mexicans and we made ropes. We worked, waiting for the day. Our horses were in good shape, as we knew they must be for the work ahead. The next morning, when we went outside, Francisco was there, and five Cahuillas were with him; with them were their horses.
“Come on in,” Jacob invited. “We’re fixin’ some grub.” Nobody moved. One Indian lit a cigarette; the others simply looked across the desert toward the mountains. Francisco looked at me and shrugged. “It is the house of Tahquitz,” he said.
Jacob walked over and looked at their horses. They were good stock, mustangs all, and built for the work they must do.
“Tomorrow we go,” he said. He glanced at Francisco. “All right with you?”
“Bueno.”
There were still a few supplies to get, a little work to do. When my part was done, I sat down with The Last Days of Pompeii, by Bulwer-Lytton. It was one of the books I was leaving for my unseen visitor, but I wished to read it first. However, I was scarcely reading, for my thoughts were of him.
Who was he? What was he? A giant? A monster? An evil spirit, as some presumed? Had my father known him? Had the Indians seen him? If he was so large a being, how could they not have seen him? Where did he live? How did he move back and forth without being seen?
At night … of course, he did travel at night, at least until he returned to the mountains. That he came from the mountains, I was sure, for there was the smell of pines about him. Where had he come from? Where had he learned to read? Or to lay mosaics as he had here? Or to build so beautifully? How did he pass his days?
The only thing I actually knew about him was that he was or had been a builder, a worker in tile and timber. Also, that he liked to read, and read good books. Presumably he was a thoughtful man, but I did not know. Nobody knew. Suppose he was mad? Suppose on some occasion he should suddenly go berserk? Or decide that I was spying upon him? What then? He could-he had-come into this house in the night. Suppose he did it when I was here alone? Inadvertently I glanced over my shoulder. What did I know of him? Nothing… By the time I closed the book, all were asleep. I extinguished the candle and went outside. The Cahuillas had chosen to sleep in the shed, so I walked along the path that led into the sandhills. It was very still, the stars bright as only desert stars can be.
Alone, I stood, feeling the stillness, the softness of the night. Far off I heard a faint music. Straining my ears, only half-believing… It sounded like a flute, like one of those I had often made as a child. I listened, but the sound faded, vanished. The night was empty again.
An Indian? Some of them played flutes, but the music had a sound … It must have been European or American music.
At last I walked back to the house and went to bed. Tomorrow the desert, and after that the northern valley-the San Joaquin, some called it. Captain Pedro Pages had been there, probably the first one. Others had followed, but very few. The northern desert was the haunt of the Mohaves, at least at times. In the mountains a few Piutes remained, although from what Francisco had told me, they were leaving, going away. There was something about that Tehachapi country they no longer liked.
“I do not know it,” Francisco said. “Ramon does.”
“Ramon?”
“He will meet us. I do not know where, but he will.” He glanced at me. “He comes when he will. Of you I have spoken, and he will come. He will know where the horses are. Ramon is of the desert,” he added, “and the mountains. He comes alone to join us.”
“He is Cahuilla?”
“No Cahuilla, no Chemehuevi, no Piute. I do not know.”
“There are wild horses there?”
“Muchos. There is grass, amigo, and from there to the north and in the mountain there are horses. There are also cattle.”
“We will touch no branded cattle.”
“Of course. It is understood.”
I thought over the situation, and what lay ahead. It was good to be with Francisco again, and I must come to know the others. And in the morning before we left, I must sweep the floors, leave all as we had found it. At daybreak I was up and dressed, going outside to saddle my horse before Jacob had started breakfast. Monte joined me, and the Indians were already trooping into the yard, bringing their packhorses to tie to the corral bars. As they rode, I followed, trailing behind. Glancing toward the store, I saw four saddled horses at the water trough.
Whose horses? Why? It was unusual at this hour, and the sight of them disturbed me. The Indians, too, were noticing them and talking among themselves. As the last of them disappeared down the trail into another clump of mesquite, I glanced back again.