But with the rising of the sun the wind dropped, it became warm and he felt dull and sleepy. When he came to a little juniper bush which spread its bit of shadow beside the road, he dismounted, pulled the saddle off his sweating mare, and sat down in the shade to eat his lunch. When he had finished he wished for a drink of water and philosophically took a smoke instead. Then he lay down, using his saddle for a pillow, puffing luxuriously at his cigarette. It was cool in his [pg 43] bit of shadow, though all the world about him swam in waves of heat.… Cool and very quiet. He felt drowsily content. This sunny desolation was to him neither lonely nor beautiful; it was just his own country, the soil from which he had sprung.… Colours and outlines blurred as his eyelids grew heavy. Sleep conquered him in a sudden black rush.
It was late afternoon when he awakened. He had meant to shoot doves, but it was too late now to do any hunting if he was to reach Archulera’s place before dark. He saddled his mare hurriedly and went forward at a hard gallop.
Archulera’s place was typical of the little Mexican ranches that dot the Southwest wherever there is water enough to irrigate a few acres. The brown block of adobe house stood on an arid, rocky hillside, and looked like a part of it, save for the white door, and a few bright scarlet strings of chile hung over the rafter ends to dry. Down in the arroyo was the little fenced patch where corn and chile and beans were raised, and behind the house was a round goat corral of wattled brush. The skyward rocky waste of the mountain lifted behind the house, and the empty reach of the mesa lay before—an immense and arid loneliness, now softened and beautified by many shadows.
Ramon could see old man Archulera far up the [pg 44] mountainside, rounding up his goats for evening milking, and he could faintly hear the bleating of the animals and the old man’s shouts and imprecations. He whistled loudly through his fingers and waved his hat.
“Como lo va primo!” he shouted, and he saw Archulera stop and look, and heard faintly his answering, “Como la va!”
Soon Archulera had his goats penned, and Ramon joined him while he milked half a dozen ewes.
“I’m glad you came,” Archulera told him, “I haven’t seen a man in a month except one gringo that said he was a prospector and stole a kid from me.… How was the fair?”
When the milking was over, the old man selected a fat kid, caught it by the hind leg and dragged it, bleating in wild terror, to a gallows behind the house, where he hung it up and skilfully cut its throat, leaving it to bleat and bleed to death while he wiped his knife and went on talking volubly with his guest. The occasional visits of Ramon were the most interesting events in his life, and he always killed a kid to express his appreciation. Ramon reciprocated with gifts of tobacco and whisky. They were great friends.
Archulera was a short, muscular Mexican with a swarthy, wrinkled face, broad but well-cut. His big, thin-lipped mouth showed an amazing [pg 45] disarray of strong yellow teeth when he smiled. His little black eyes were shrewd and full of fire. Although he was sixty years old, there was little grey in the thick black hair that hung almost to his shoulders. He wore a cheap print shirt and a faded pair of overalls, belted at the waist with a strip of red wool. His foot-gear consisted of the uppers of a pair of old shoes with soles of rawhide sewed on moccasin-fashion.
With no more disguise than a red blanket and a grunt Archulera could have passed for an Indian anywhere, but he made it clear to all that he regarded himself as a Spanish gentleman. He was descended, like Ramon, from one of the old families, which had received occasional infusions of native blood. There was probably more Indian in him than in the young man, but the chief difference between the two was due to the fact that the Archuleras had lost most of their wealth a couple of generations before, so that the old man had come down in the social scale to the condition of an ordinary goat-herding pelado. There are many such fallen aristocrats among the New Mexican peasantry. Most of them, like Archulera, are distinguished by their remarkably choice and fluent use of the Spanish language, and by the formal, eighteenth-century perfection of their manners, which contrast strangely with the barbaric way of their lives.