Following the Grass by Harry Sinclair Drago Page B

of. I looked for it. You know, Joseph,” and Peter fastened his eyes on the boy’s face, “I’ve always felt that your mother found it—that somewhere on this mountain little Timoteo lies buried. He was Angel’s baby. I tell you he looked for him. You know how range is now he needs more-but he’s never run a head of stock up here. In his eyes this mountain is a tomb.”
    â€œYes; and from this tomb I will arise to humble him and his sons.”
    He got to his feet and stood over the old man. Unconsciously he raised his right hand.
    â€œWhen you leave here, make no mystery of me. Let them know I am Joseph. You can serve me best that way. I have come back to avenge my mother; to see justice done my father—and it will be done unto both of them!”
    The blazing wrath of the avenger flamed in his eyes.
    â€œWhen I found my mother cold in death she held my school-boy slate clutched in her hands. On it she had written a message. I have come back to fulfill every word of it. I do not doubt that she found Timoteo, nor do I question but what I know where to find his body. He will serve me well.
    â€œAngel Irosabal—he and his sons—shall be humbled, broken-cast into the dust. Let them look to me! For I warn you, my friend, that the seven lean years are upon this land, even as they were upon Egypt. The time of plenty has passed.
    â€œThere shall be no rain in summer; no snow in winter; the sage and grass shall wither and die, and a famine will be upon the land. The very men whose flocks have worn the roads to powder will live to see their sheep dying of hunger.”
    Peter stared at him as though he were a character that had stepped out of the Bible. He sucked in his breath noisily as he waited for the boy to go on.
    â€œNever have they thought of the lean years, and yet, it was the lean years that drove them out of California—and lack of food will drive them out of this valley. In its abundance, they have wasted this land and they will have no place to turn in their anguish. They will sell their flocks and herds for a pittance, or they will die.”
    Joseph lowered his hand and gazed intently at Peter.
    â€œAnd now, my friend,” he said, “a secret for a secret. There is one who has moved about in these hills—unknown, unseen—leasing land, contracting for it against a day to come. And that day is near. He has schemed well. For months he has known that when fall comes, a scratch of the pen will close the Reservation to sheep.
    â€œAnd though he knows me not—that man is my father.”
    Old Peter was left speechless. There was something uncanny, unreal, about this boy. He spoke with such an air of finality, of truth, that the aged man felt the absurdity of questioning his words. Joseph’s appearance, his dress and the weirdness of his surroundings combined to instill in him a feeling of awe such as no other man had ever awakened. A Basque, steeped in superstition, would run in fear from the boy.
    Just now, with that matter-of-fact tone which one uses to announce trivial happenings, he made a statement not less startling than word of his own presence there on the mountain had been. And the calm assurance with which he looked forward to the adjusting of his account with his grandfather; his frankly expressed conviction that he was there as God’s instrument; the biblical flavor of his speech—Peter thought of these things in a muddled way.
    He wished himself elsewhere. As in a vision, he saw the Gaults—father and son—biding their time, waiting the propitious moment, gathering strength to strike—grim, unrelenting, unforgiving, never forgetting, placing their dependence on God. By comparison, he felt himself impotent, decisionless.
    Was it fear of this boy that made him so uneasy? Hot anger flared in his old veins as he answered his own question. Suddenly, he reached out for his boots, determined to sleep in the open, but