“If it hadn’t been for old Bill Johnson,” he said, “we wouldn’t have a live cow on our range to-day, we’d’ve been sheeped down that close. When he’d got his ammunition and all the bacon and coffee I could spare he sat down and told me how he worked it to move all them sheep last Spring. After he’d made his first big play and see he couldn’t save the Pocket he went after them sheepmen systematically for his revenge. That thirty-thirty of his will shoot nigh onto two miles if you hold it right, and every 398 time he sees a sheep-camp smoke he Injuned up onto some high peak and took pot-shots at it. At the distance he was you couldn’t hear the report––and, of course, you couldn’t see smokeless powder. He says the way them Mexican herders took to the rocks was a caution; and when the fireworks was over they didn’t wait for orders, jest rounded up their sheep and hiked!
“And I tell you, pardner,” said the big cowman impressively, “after thinkin’ this matter over in the hot sun I’ve jest about decided to go crazy myself. Yes, sir, the next time I hear a sheep-blat on Bronco Mesa I’m goin’ to tear my shirt gittin’ to the high ground with a thirty-thirty; and if any one should inquire you can tell ’em that your pore friend’s mind was deranged by cuttin’ too many palo verdes.” He smiled, but there was a sinister glint in his eyes; and as he rode home that night Hardy saw in the half-jesting words a portent of the never-ending struggle that would spring up if God ever sent the rain.
On the day after the visit to Carrizo a change came over the sky; a haze that softened the edges of the hills rose up along the horizon, and the dry wind died away. As Hardy climbed along the rocky bluffs felling the giant sahuaros down into the ravines for his cattle, the sweat poured from his face in a stream. A sultry heaviness hung over the land, and at night 399 as he lay beneath the ramada he saw the lightning, hundreds of miles away, twinkling and playing along the northern horizon. It was a sign––the promise of summer rain!
In the morning a soft wind came stealing in from the west; a white cloud came up out of nothing and hovered against the breast of the Peaks; and the summer heat grew terrible. At noon the cloud turned black and mounted up, its fluffy summit gleaming in the light of the ardent sun; the wind whirled across the barren mesa, sweeping great clouds of dust before it, and the air grew damp and cool; then, as evening came on the clouds vanished suddenly and the wind died down to a calm. For a week the spectacle was repeated––then, at last, as if weary, the storm-wind refused to blow; the thunder-caps no longer piled up against the Peaks; only the haze endured, and the silent, suffocating heat.
Day after day dragged by, and without thought or hope Hardy plodded on, felling sahuaros into the cañons, his brain whirling in the fever of the great heat. Then one day as the sun rose higher a gigantic mass of thunder-clouds leapt up in the north, covering half the sky. The next morning they rose again, brilliant, metallic, radiating heat like a cone of fire. The heavens were crowned with sudden splendor, the gorgeous pageantry of summer clouds that rise rank 400 upon rank, basking like newborn cherubim in the glorious light of the sun, climbing higher and higher until they reached the zenith.
A moist breeze sprang up and rushed into the storm’s black heart, feeding it with vapors from the Gulf; then in the south, the home of the rain, another great cloud arose, piling in fluffy billows against the grim cliffs of the Superstitions and riding against the flying cohorts that reared their snowy heads in the north. The wind fell and all nature lay hushed and expectant, waiting for the rain. The cattle would not feed; the bearded ravens sat voiceless against the cliffs; the gaunt trees and shrubs seemed to hold up their arms––for the rain that did not come. For after all its pomp and mummery, its black mantle that covered all the sky and the bravery of its trailing skirts, the Storm, that rode in upon the wind like a king, slunk away at last like a beaten craven. Its black front melted suddenly, and its draggled banners, trailing across the western sky, vanished utterly in the kindling fires of sunset.
As he lay beneath the starlit sky that night, Hardy saw a vision of the end, as it would come. He saw the cañons stripped clean of their high-standing sahuaros, the spring at Carrizo dry, the river stinking with the bodies of the dead––even Hidden Water quenched at last by the drought. Then a heavy 401 sleep came upon him as he lay sprawling in the pitiless heat and he dreamed––dreamed of gaunt steers and lowing cows, and skeletons, strewn along the washes; of labor, never ending, and sweat, dripping from his face. He woke suddenly with the horror still upon him and gazed up at the sky, searching vainly for the stars. The night was close and black, there was a stir among the dead leaves as if a snake writhed past, and the wind breathed mysteriously through the bare trees; then a confused drumming came to his ears, something warm and wet splashed against his face, and into his outstretched hand God sent a drop of rain.