won't kowtow to him.'
Suddenly there was a crashing and splintering of wood from the street, followed by a gunshot and. a chorus of Texas yells that split the night wide open, and then there was another outburst of firing and a shattering of glass.
'There they go!' Carpenter stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight. 'What did I tell you?'
Down the street charged four Rocking K riders, yelling and shooting. It reminded me of the old days when I was a youngster on my first trip up the trail.
The front door slammed open and McDonald came rushing out, an angry man by the sound of him. 'What's that? What's going on?'
The night was stabbed and slashed by the blaze of gunshots, and intermingled with them was the smashing of glass and raucous yells. The boys were having themselves a time.
'You fired Blake,' Carpenter said, 'and the lid's off.'
'We'll see about that!' McDonald said. 'Come on!'
They rushed for the street in a mass, and when they did I moved closer, stepped over the fence, and crossed the lawn to the house.
Suddenly as it had started, and just as we had planned, a blanket dropped upon the town. Not a shout, a shot, or a whisper. By the time McDonald got there the hands would be seated around, playing cards and talking, looking upon the world with the wide-eyed innocence of a bunch of two-year-olds.
The door opened under my rap and June stood there in a pale blue dress, even more lovely than I had expected.
'Why, it's you! But !' She looked beyond me into the night. 'Where is Uncle Aaron?'
'May I come in?'
Startled, she looked up at me again, then stepped back and I went in and closed the door behind me. Hat in hand I bowed to Mrs. McDonald, who was behind her.
The room was stiff, cluttered and lacking in comfort, with plush furniture and a false, unused elegance. There was too much bric-a-brac, and not a place where a man could really sit. Suddenly I remembered the spaciousness of the old Spanish-style houses I had known in Texas.
'We heard shooting,' June said.
'Oh, that? Some confusion in town. I believe your uncle went down to put a stop to it.'
She looked at me carefully, and I seemed to sense a withdrawing, a change that I could not quite grasp.
'You're not dressed for riding,' I said.
She flushed. 'You surely didn't believe ... you weren't serious?' She looked at me in amazement. 'I thought ... I mean, it was rather fun, but ... could you imagine, me going with you ...'
Something went out of me then and I stood there feeling the fool I undoubtedly was. Some fine, sharp flame flickered within me as though caught in a gust of wind, then snuffed out and left me empty and lost ... it might have been the last spark of my boyhood. A man must grow up in so many ways.
On the street she had seemed beautiful and strong and possessed of a fine courage, and in the romantic heart of me I had believed she was the one, that she was my dream, that she was the girl who rode in my thoughts in the dust of the drag or the heat of the flank.
She stared at me, half astonished, and within me there was nothing at all, not sorrow, not bitterness, certainly not anger.
'Good night,' I said. 'I am sorry that I intruded.'
She had cost me a dream, but suddenly I was aware that she would have cost me the dream anyway, for that was what I had been in love with ... a dream.
Opening the door, I was about to leave when Aaron McDonald pushed past me. Anger flashed in his eyes, and his face paled with fury that was in him. 'Look here!' he shouted. 'You !'
'Shut up, you arrogant windbag,' I said, and walked on out the door leaving him spluttering. And to the others who were outside, I said, 'Get out of my way,' and they stepped back and the gate creaked on rusty hinges when I stepped out.
A hand on the pommel of my saddle, I stood for 'a moment under the stars, cursing myself for seven kinds of an idiot. Like any child I had been carried away ... who did I think I was, anyway?
Yet although the fire was out the smoke lifted, and I hesitated to step into the saddle, knowing the finality of it. The things a man will wish for are harder to leave behind than all his wants, and who, at some time in his life, does not dream of gathering into his arms and carrying away the girl he loves?
The men of the Rocking K came from the saloons and stood around me, and when they looked at my face, something seemed to shadow theirs, for I think my dream was one lived by them all, and had it come true with me then all their lonely dreaming might be true also.
'We'll be going,' I said.
Yet there was a thing that remained to be done, for as I had lost something this day, I had gained something, too.
'I'll join you at the wagon,' I told them, and turning at right angles I rode between the buildings toward the south of town.
It was a simple room of rough boards with one window, a small stove, and a bed. John Blake had his coat off and he was packing, but he turned to face whoever was at the door.
'John,' I said, 'she would not come and I was a fool to expect it. I have grown a little tonight, I think.'
'You have grown a little,' he agreed, 'but don't expect too much of it, for there will be other times. Each time one grows, one loses a little, too.'
'John,' I said, 'there are cattle on the plains of Texas and I've land there. When I come north again I'll be driving my own herd. It is a big job for one man.'
'So?'
'There will be rivers to cross and the Comanches will be out, but there's a future in it for the men who make the drives.
'I like the way you straddle a town, and I like a man with judgment and principle. It is a rare thing to find a man who will stand square on what he believes, whether it is making a rule or an exception to it. So if you'll ride with me it's a partnership, share and share alike.'
A square, solid, blocky man in a striped white shirt and black sleeve garters, he looked at me carefully from those cool gray eyes, and then he said, quite seriously, 'I've little to pack,' he said, 'for a man who has never had anything but a gun travels light.'
*
THE LONESOME GODS
Who can say that the desert does not live? Or that the dark, serrated ridges conceal no spirit? Who can love the lost places, yet believe himself truly alone in the silent hills? How can we be sure the ancient ones were wrong when they believed each rock, each tree, each stream or mountain possessed an active spirit? Are the gods of those vanished peoples truly dead, or do they wait among the shadows for some touch of respect, the ritual or sacrifice that can again give them life?
It is written in the memories of the ancient peoples that one who chooses the desert for his enemy has chosen a bitter foe, but he who accepts it as friend, who will seek to understand its moods and whims, shall feel also its mercy, shall drink deep of its hidden waters, and the treasures of its rocks shall be opened before him. Where one may walk in freedom and find water in the arid places, another may gasp out his last breath under the desert sun and mark the sands with the bones of his ending.
Into the western wastelands, in 1807, a man walked dying. Behind him lay the bodies of his companions and the wreck of their boat on the Colorado River. Before him lay the desert, and somewhere beyond the desert the shores of the Pacific.
Jacob Almayer was a man of Brittany, and the Bretons are an ancient folk with roots among the Druids and those unknown people who vanished long ago, but who lifted the stones of Karnak to their places. He was a man who had walked much alone, a man sensitive to the wilderness and the mores of other peoples and other times, and now he walked into the desert with only the miles before him.
