Stepsons of Light

“Oh, him? He’s down the cañon, sir. He went with Bob after horses. He hasn’t got back yet, sir.”

“Dines, you scoundrel! Are you trying to make a fool out of me?”

“Oh, no, sir! Impossible. Not at all, sir. If you and your posse will take cover, sir, I’ll capture him for you when he comes back, just as I did this one, sir. We are always glad to use the Bar Cross house as a trap and the Bar Cross grub for bait. As you see, sir.”

“Damn you, Dines, that man isn’t coming back!”

Johnny considered this for a little. Then he looked up with innocent eyes.

“Perhaps you are right, sir,” he said thoughtfully.

Long since, the floods have washed out the Bar Cross horse camp, torn away pens and flat and house, leaving from hill to hill a desolate wash of gravel and boulders – so that no man may say where that poor room stood. Yet youth housed there and hope, honor and courage and loyalty; there are those who are glad it shall shelter no meaner thing.

III

“I do believe there shall be a winter yet in heaven – and in hell.”

    – Paradise and the Periscope.

“Realism, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads.”

    – The Devil’s Dictionary.

“They sit brooding on a garbage scow and tell us how bad the world smells.”

    – Berton Braley.

“Just round the block” is a phrase familiar to you. To get the same effect in the open country you would say “thirty miles” or sixty; and in those miles it is likely there would be no water and no house – perhaps not any tree. Consider now: Within the borders of New Mexico might be poured New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware. Then drop in another small state and all of Chesapeake Bay, and still New Mexico would not be brimful – though it would have to be carried carefully to avoid slopping over. Scattered across this country is a population less than that of Buffalo – half of it clustered in six-mile ribbons along the Rio Grande and the Pecos. Those figures are for to-day. Divide them by three, and then excuse the story if it steps round the block. It was long ago; Plancus was consul then.

Some two weeks after the day when Johnny Dines went to horse camp, Charlie See rode northward through the golden September; northward from Rincon, pocket of that billiard table you know of. His way was east of the Rio Grande, in the desperate twisting country where the river cuts through Caballo Mountains. His home was beyond the river, below Rincon, behind Cerro Roblado and Selden Hill; and he rode for a reason he had. Not for the first time; at every farm and clearing he was hailed with greeting and jest.

Across the river he saw the yellow walls of Colorado, of old Fort Thorne, deserted Santa Barbara. He came abreast of them, left them behind, came to Wit’s End, where the river gnaws at the long bare ridges and the wagon road clings and clambers along the brown hillside. He rode sidewise and swaying, crooning a gay little saddle song; to which Stargazer, his horse, twitched back an inquiring ear.

Oh, there was a crooked man and he rode a crooked mile—

Charlie See was as straight as his own rifle; it was the road he traveled which prompted that joyful saddle song. As will be found upon examination, that roistering ditty sorts with a joyful jog trot. It follows that Charlie See was not riding at a run, as frontiersmen do in the movies. It is a great and neglected truth that frontiersmen on the frontier never ride like the frontiersmen in films. And it may be mentioned in passing that frontiersmen on frontiers never do anything at all resembling as to motive, method or result those things which frontiersmen do in films. And that is the truth.

The actual facts are quite simple and jolly. In pursuit of wild stock, men run their horses at top speed for as short a time as may be contrived; not to make the wild stock run faster and farther, but to hold up the wild stock. Once checked, they proceed as soberly as may be to the day’s destination; eventually to a market. Horse or steer comes to market in good shape or bad, as the handling has been reckless or tender; and the best cowman is he whose herds have been moved slowest. At exceptional times – riding with or from the sheriff, to get a doctor, or, for a young man in April, riding a fresh horse for a known and measured distance, speed is permitted. But the rule is to ride slowly and sedately, holding swiftness in reserve for need. Walk, running walk, pace, jog trot – those are the road gaits, to which horses are carefully trained, giving most mileage with least effort. Rack and single-foot are tolerated but frowningly.

The mad, glad gallop is reserved for childhood and for emergencies. Penalties, progressively suitable, are provided for the mad, glad galloper. He becomes the object of sidelong glances and meaning smiles; persistent, he becomes the theme of gibe and jest to flay the skin. If he be such a one as would neither observe nor forecast, one who will neither learn nor be taught, soon or late he finds himself set afoot with a give-out horse; say, twenty-five miles from water. It is not on record that wise or foolish, after one such experience, is ever partial to the sprightly gallop as a road gait. Of thirst, as of “eloquent, just and mightie Death,” it may be truly said: “Whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded.”

The road wound down to the bottom land for a little space. Then sang Charlie See:

Oh, mind you not in yonder town
When the red wine you were fillin’,
You drank a health to the ladies round
And slighted Barbara Allan?

Followed a merry ditty of old days:

Foot in the stirrup and a hand on the horn,
Best old cowboy ever was born!
Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi,
Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!

Stray in the herd and the boss said kill it,
Shot him in the ear with the handle of the skillet!
Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi,
Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!

That rollicking chorus died away. The wagon road turned up a sandy draw for a long detour, to cross the high ridges far inland. Stargazer clambered up the Drunkard’s Mile, a steep and dizzy cut-off. High on an overhang of halfway shelf, between water and sky, Stargazer paused for breathing space.

The world has no place for a dreamer of dreams,
Then ’tis no place for me, it seems,
Dearie!.. My dearie!

Echo rang bugle-brave from cliff to cliff, pealed exulting, answered again – came back long after, faint and far:

“Dearie!.. My dearie!”

He looked down, musing, at the swirling black waters far below.

For I dream of you all day long!
You run through the hours like a song!
Nothing’s worth while save dreams of you,
And you can make every dream come true —
Dearie! My dearie!

Drunkard’s Mile fell off into the valley at Redbrush and joined the wagon road there. They passed Beck’s Ferry and Beneteau’s; they came to a bridge over the acequia madre, the mother ditch, wide and deep. Beyond was a wide valley of cleared and irrigated farm lands. This was Garfield settlement.

You remember Mr. Dick and how he could not keep King Charles’ head out of his Memorial? A like unhappiness is mine. When I remember that pleasant settlement as it really was, cheerful and busy and merry, I am forced to think how gleefully the super-sophisticated Sons of Light would fall afoul of these friendly folk – how they would pounce upon them with jeering laughter, scoff at their simple joys and fears; set down, with heavy and hateful satisfaction, every lack and longing; flout at each brave makeshift, such as Little Miss Brag crowed over, jubilant, when she pointed with pride:

For little Miss Brag, she lays much stress
On the privileges of a gingham dress —
A-ha-a! O-ho-o!

A lump comes to my throat, remembering; now my way is plain; if I would not be incomparably base, I must speak up for my own people. Now, like Mr. Dick, I must fly my kite, with these scraps and tags of Memorial. The string is long, and if the kite flies high it may take the facts a long way; the winds must bear them as they will.

Consider now the spreading gospel of despair, and marvel at the power of words – noises in the air, marks upon paper. Let us wonder to see how little wit is needed to twist and distort truth that it may set forth a lie. A tumblebug zest, a nose pinched to sneering, a slurring tongue – with no more equipment you and I could draw a picture of Garfield as it is done in the fashion of to-day.

Be blind and deaf to help and hope, gay courage, hardship nobly borne; appeal to envy, greed, covetousness; belaud extravagance and luxury; magnify every drawback; exclaim at rude homes, simple dress, plain food, manners not copied from imitators of Europe’s idlesse; use ever the mean and mocking word – how easy to belittle! Behold Garfield – barbarous, uncouth, dreary, desolate, savage and forlorn; there misery kennels, huddled between jungle and moaning waste; there, lout and boor crouch in their wretched hovels! We have left out little; only the peace of mighty mountains far and splendid, a gallant sun and the illimitable sky, tingling and eager life, and the invincible spirit of man.

Such picture as this of Garfield comme il faut is, I humbly conceive, what a great man, who trod earth bravely, had in mind when he wondered at “the spectral unreality of realistic books.” It is what he forswore in his up-summing: “And the true realism is … to find out where joy resides and give it a voice beyond singing.”

This trouble about Charles the First and our head – it started in 1645, I think – needs looking into.

There are circles where “adventurer” is a term of reproach, where “romance” is made synonym for a lie, and a silly lie at that. Curious! The very kernel and meaning of romance is the overcoming of difficulties or a manly constancy of striving; a strong play pushed home or defeat well borne. And it would be hard to find a man but found his own life a breathless adventure, brief and hard, with ups and downs enough, strivings through all defeats.

Interesting, if true. But can we prove this? Certainly – by trying. Mr. Dick sets us all right. Put any man to talk of what he knows best – corn, coal or lumber – and hear matters throbbing with the entrancing interest born only of first-hand knowledge. Our pessimists “suspect nothing but what they do not understand, and they suspect everything” – as was said of the commission set to judge the regicides who cut off the head of Charles the Martyr – whom I may have mentioned, perhaps.