His hands swept out to indicate the country. “The mountains are too high,” he cried. “The place is too savage. And all the people carry the seed of this evil thing in them. I’ve seen them, and I know. I saw the fiesta, and I know. I can only pray that your son will not inherit the rot.”
Joseph resolved quickly. “I will swear if you will stay. I don’t know how I’ll keep it, but I’ll swear. Sometimes, you see, I might forget and think in the old way.”
“No, Joseph, you love the earth too much. You give no thought to the hereafter. The force of an oath is not strong in you.” He moved away toward his house.
“Don’t go at least until we talk this over,” Joseph called, but Burton did not turn nor answer him.
Joseph looked after him for a minute before he turned to Elizabeth. She was smiling with a kind of contemptuous amusement. “I think he wants to go,” she said.
“Yes, that’s partly it. And he really is afraid of my sins, too.”
“Are you sinning, Joseph?” she asked.
He scowled in thought. “No,” he said at last. “I’m not sinning. If Burton were doing what I am, it would be sin. I only want my son to love the tree.” He stretched out his hands for the baby, and Elizabeth put the swathed little body in his hands. Burton looked back as he was entering his house, and he saw that Joseph was holding the baby within the crotch of the tree, and he saw how the gnarled limbs curved up protectingly about it.
20
BURTON did not stay long on the ranch after his mind was made up. Within a week he had his things packed and ready. On the night before his departure he worked late, nailing the last of the boxes. Joseph heard him walking about in the night, chopping and hammering, and before daylight he was up again. Joseph found him in the barn, currying the horses he was to take, while Thomas sat nearby on a pile of hay and offered some short advice.
“That Bill will tire soon. Let him rest every little while until he gets well warm. This team has never been through the pass. You may have to lead them through—but maybe not, now that the water is so low.”
Joseph strolled in and leaned against the wall, under the lantern. “I’m sorry you’re going, Burton,” he said.
Burton arrested his curry-comb on the horse’s broad rump. “There are a good many reasons for going. Harriet will be happier in a little town where she can have friends to drop in on. We were too cut off out here. Harriet has been lonely.”
“I know,” Joseph said gently, “but we’ll miss you, Burton. It will cut the strength of the family.”
Burton dropped his eyes uneasily and went back to currying. “I’ve never wanted to be a farmer,” he said lamely. “Even at home I thought of opening a little store in town.” His hands stopped working. He said passionately, “I’ve tried to lead an acceptable life. What I have done I have done because it seemed to me to be right. There is only one law. I have tried to live in that law. What I have done seems right to me, Joseph. Remember that. I want you to remember that.”
Joseph smiled affectionately at him. “I’m not trying to keep you here if you want to go, Burton. This is a wild country. If you do not love it, there’s only hatred left. You’ve had no church to go to. I don’t blame you for wanting to be among people who carry your own thoughts.”
Burton moved to the next stall. “It’s turning light,” he said nervously. “Harriet is getting breakfast. I want to start as soon after daylight as I can.”.
The families and the riders came out into the dawn to watch Burton start away.
“You’ll come to see us,” Harriet called sadly. “It’s nice up there. You must come to visit us.”
Burton took up the lines, but before he clucked to the horses, he turned to Joseph. “Good-bye. I’ve done right. When you come to see it, you’ll know it was right. It was the only way. Remember that, Joseph. When you come to see it, you’ll thank me.”
Joseph moved close to the wagon and patted his brother’s shoulder. “I offered to swear, and I would have tried to keep the oath.”
Burton raised the lines and clucked. The horses strained into the collars. The children, sitting on the load, waved their hands, and those who were to stay ran behind and hung to the tail-board and dragged their feet.
Rama stood waving a handkerchief, but she said aside to Elizabeth, “They wear out more shoes that way than by all the walking in the world.”
Still the family stood in the morning sunlight and watched the departing wagon. It disappeared into the river wood, and after a while it came in sight again, and they saw it mount a little hill and finally drop from sight over the ridge.
When it was gone a listlessness came over the families. They stood silently, wondering what they should do now. They were conscious that a period was over, that a phase was past. At length the children moved slowly away.
Martha said, “Our dog had puppies last night,” and they all ran to see the dog, which hadn’t had puppies at all.
Joseph turned away at last, and Thomas walked with him. “I’m going to bring in some horses, Joe,” he said. “I’m going to level part of the vegetable-flat so the water won’t all run off.”
Joseph walked slowly, with his head down. “You know I’m responsible for Burton’s going.”
“No you aren’t. He wanted to go.”
“It was because of the tree,” Joseph went on. “He said I worshipped it.” Joseph’s eyes raised to the tree, and suddenly he stood still, startled. “Thomas, look at the tree!”
“I see it. What’s the matter?”
Joseph walked hurriedly to the trunk and looked up at the branches. “Why, it seems all right.” He paused and ran his hands over the bark. “That was funny. When I looked at it, I thought something was wrong with it. It was just a feeling, I guess.” And he continued, “I didn’t want Burton to go away. It splits the family.”
Elizabeth passed behind them, toward the house. “Still at the game, Joseph?” she called mockingly.
He jerked his hand from the bark and turned to follow her. “We’ll try to get along without another hand,” he told Thomas. “If the work gets too much for us, I’ll hire another Mexican.” He went into the house and stood idly in the sitting-room.
Elizabeth came out of the bedroom, brushing her hair back with her fingertips. “I hardly had time to dress,” she explained. She looked quickly at Joseph. “Are you feeling badly about having Burton go?”
“I think I am,” he said uncertainly. “I’m worried about something, and I don’t know what it is.”
“Why don’t you ride? Haven’t you anything to do?” He shook his head impatiently. “I have fruit trees coming to Nuestra Señora. I should go in for them.”
“Why don’t you go, then?”
He walked to the front door and looked out at the tree. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m afraid to go. There’s something wrong.”
Elizabeth stood beside him. “Don’t play your game too hard, Joseph. Don’t let the game take you in.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what I’m doing, I guess. I told you once I could tell weather by the tree. It’s a kind of ambassador between the land and me. Look at the tree, Elizabeth! Does it seem all right to you?”
“You’re overwrought,” she said. “The tree is all right. Go in and get the fruit trees. It won’t do them any good to be standing out of ground.”
But it was with a powerful reluctance to leave the ranch that he hitched up the buckboard and drove to town.
It was the time of flies, when they became active before the winter death. They cut dazzling slashes in the sunlight, landed on the horses’ ears and sat in circles around their eyes. Although the morning had been cool with the sharpness of autumn, the Indian-summer sun still burned the land. The river had disappeared underground, while in the few deep pools that remained, the black eels swam sluggishly and big trout mouthed the surface without fear.
Joseph drove his team at a trot over the crisp sycamore leaves. A foreboding followed him and enveloped him. “Maybe Burton was right,” he thought. “Maybe I’ve been doing wrong without knowing it. There’s an evil hanging over the land.” And he thought, “I hope the rain comes early and starts the river again.”
The dry river was a sad thing to him. To defeat the sadness he thought of the barn, piled to the roof trees with hay, and of the haystacks by the corral, all thatched against the winter. And then he wondered whether the little stream in the pine grove still ran from its cave. “I’ll go up and see pretty soon,’ he thought. He drove quickly, and hurried back to the ranch, but it was late at night when he arrived. The tired horses hung down their heads when the checkreins were loosened.