together with pitch and rawhide. It would be a difficult task and a long one.
"You can take your choice," I said, "but we must have water."
The
mayordomo
turned away, grumbling under his breath, but that afternoon he began a new well outside the walls in a nearby meadow. Two days later he sulkily announced that we had a new well. It yielded more water than the old one.
Juan Diaz never got used to taking orders from me but he did the work I gave him, as did the others: the blacksmiths, the leather-workers, the cooks, servants, and the vaqueros, the herdsmen who cared for the cattle and horses.
It was the vaqueros who were my friends and on whom I leaned and depended. It was these men who saw us through the worst drought in the memory of anyone then living.
The drought started early in the year, as I have said, and by June the hills were bare. Cattle began to die. Waterholes dried up. The stream shrank and we had to dig holes in the stream bed to tap small quantities of the water that ran beneath it.
In July we began the slaughter. Because everyone, all the ranchers from San Diego in the South to Santa Barbara in the North, were forced to kill their cattle, hides sold for only a few centavos and there was no market for tallow at any price. We stored almost a thousand
botas
against the time when it would bring a few centavos at least. The hides we could not cure or store, so we buried them in pits.
We struggled on through the month of August. We were sad at the sight of our cattle and horses dying. September was the time our first rains usually came, but this year clouds blew up in the afternoon and then disappeared at dusk. We ourselves began to run low on food, not on beef, because our coolhouse was stacked with meat, but on tea and chocolate, flour, sugar, salt, and on beans, which the servants and the vaqueros ate, liking them better than anything else.
Around the middle of September I took four of the vaqueros and extra pack horses and made the long journey to San Diego. Before the drought it was easy to get credit, but I found that the pueblo store now belonged to a gringo. Worried by the drought, I was afraid to buy all the goods we needed. Not knowing when I could pay for them, we packed the horses with only light loads.
When the time came for me to pay for the supplies, I asked the storekeeper, whose name was Caleb Thomas, to charge them to Dos Hermanos.
Mr. Thomas was a thin little man with a friendly smile, gold spectacles, and a pale nose. "You are buying lightly," he said. "Looking at your past account, I would say that you have bought about half of what you usually buy."
"I don't know when we can pay even for what I have," I said.
"The drought will end one of these days," Mr. Thomas said. "Until then, your credit is good. Let me give you a jug of Jamaica molasses. It just came in today."
He led me over to a counter and showed me a length of blue cloth. "Just in from Boston. The newest material. And these shoes; fashionable New York ladies are wearing them."
Mr. Thomas hopped from counter to counter, showing me everything that had arrived that day by ship.
My heart sank as I signed the bill. It was for more money than we usually spent on supplies for the ranch, even in good years. But I did have a big packet of Cuban tobacco for Doña Dolores and a beautiful China shawl for myself as well as a black bombazine dress that had real lace around the collar. As I rode away from the store and Mr. Thomas waved me goodbye, I felt very lightheaded.
24
September passed and the drought grew worse. Every day a dozen or more cattle died. The working horses we managed to feed by cutting branches from the willow groves along the stream. Our Indians caught rattlesnakes in the heavy brush, carried them across the barren mesa at dawn, and let them loose, telling them to beseech the rain gods. Doña Dolores and I knelt at the altar and prayed. But the rains did not come.
On a hot day early in December, Caleb Thomas
"You can take your choice," I said, "but we must have water."
The
mayordomo
turned away, grumbling under his breath, but that afternoon he began a new well outside the walls in a nearby meadow. Two days later he sulkily announced that we had a new well. It yielded more water than the old one.
Juan Diaz never got used to taking orders from me but he did the work I gave him, as did the others: the blacksmiths, the leather-workers, the cooks, servants, and the vaqueros, the herdsmen who cared for the cattle and horses.
It was the vaqueros who were my friends and on whom I leaned and depended. It was these men who saw us through the worst drought in the memory of anyone then living.
The drought started early in the year, as I have said, and by June the hills were bare. Cattle began to die. Waterholes dried up. The stream shrank and we had to dig holes in the stream bed to tap small quantities of the water that ran beneath it.
In July we began the slaughter. Because everyone, all the ranchers from San Diego in the South to Santa Barbara in the North, were forced to kill their cattle, hides sold for only a few centavos and there was no market for tallow at any price. We stored almost a thousand
botas
against the time when it would bring a few centavos at least. The hides we could not cure or store, so we buried them in pits.
We struggled on through the month of August. We were sad at the sight of our cattle and horses dying. September was the time our first rains usually came, but this year clouds blew up in the afternoon and then disappeared at dusk. We ourselves began to run low on food, not on beef, because our coolhouse was stacked with meat, but on tea and chocolate, flour, sugar, salt, and on beans, which the servants and the vaqueros ate, liking them better than anything else.
Around the middle of September I took four of the vaqueros and extra pack horses and made the long journey to San Diego. Before the drought it was easy to get credit, but I found that the pueblo store now belonged to a gringo. Worried by the drought, I was afraid to buy all the goods we needed. Not knowing when I could pay for them, we packed the horses with only light loads.
When the time came for me to pay for the supplies, I asked the storekeeper, whose name was Caleb Thomas, to charge them to Dos Hermanos.
Mr. Thomas was a thin little man with a friendly smile, gold spectacles, and a pale nose. "You are buying lightly," he said. "Looking at your past account, I would say that you have bought about half of what you usually buy."
"I don't know when we can pay even for what I have," I said.
"The drought will end one of these days," Mr. Thomas said. "Until then, your credit is good. Let me give you a jug of Jamaica molasses. It just came in today."
He led me over to a counter and showed me a length of blue cloth. "Just in from Boston. The newest material. And these shoes; fashionable New York ladies are wearing them."
Mr. Thomas hopped from counter to counter, showing me everything that had arrived that day by ship.
My heart sank as I signed the bill. It was for more money than we usually spent on supplies for the ranch, even in good years. But I did have a big packet of Cuban tobacco for Doña Dolores and a beautiful China shawl for myself as well as a black bombazine dress that had real lace around the collar. As I rode away from the store and Mr. Thomas waved me goodbye, I felt very lightheaded.
24
September passed and the drought grew worse. Every day a dozen or more cattle died. The working horses we managed to feed by cutting branches from the willow groves along the stream. Our Indians caught rattlesnakes in the heavy brush, carried them across the barren mesa at dawn, and let them loose, telling them to beseech the rain gods. Doña Dolores and I knelt at the altar and prayed. But the rains did not come.
On a hot day early in December, Caleb Thomas
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