On the third night of silence he camped on Pine Ridge. He had climbed the tortuous Golden Stairs in the golden, burning afternoon, and man and horse and dog were weary and warm. Once, on a narrow and treacherous bit of trail, a rattler had sounded his warning just ahead of them, and Snort, with a swift reversion to his earlier manner, had trumpeted, reared, whirled dangerously, but his rider had sat him capably until he was calmed, had dismounted and crept forward, reins over his arm, revolver in hand, located the venomous sound, taken cool aim, and shot the big snake neatly in two. Then, remembering the doctor’s warning, had stamped on its head for good measure before he cut off the twelve rattles. “Well, Rusty, not so bad, eh?” he had inquired complacently of the Airedale, and the dog had replied with a brief and grudging wag of his shabby tail.
He had watered his horse, staked him out to graze, made his supper and fed Rusty, spread his sleeping bag on a foundation of crisp leaves, lighted his pipe, folded his arms beneath his head; reveled. He was the only human being in forty precipitous miles; sometimes the dog gave a sleepy and luxurious sigh; there was the low sound of Snort’s cropping of the dry grass; twice a twilight bird dropped his six silver notes into the silence; otherwise, it was incredibly still. Beyond him there was another mountain which presented a profile to him with a forest of young pines dark against an apricot sky; far below, faintly seen, the sea shone again like an abalone shell. Presently the glow faded and the trees turned black, and a fairy-tale moon came out, primly attended by one pale star.
He was up at dawn and off at six for his ride to Tassajara, tingling with zestful well-being. He made a swift detour about the lively Springs, picked up Tony’s Trail and followed it into the heat of the afternoon, made an early camp at Willow Creek and was off again in the morning dew, headed, the long way round, for home. Past Shovel Handle Creek, through Strawberry Valley, gay as a garden with little flowers of yellow and magenta and hearty pink, up and up, and up again, unceasingly, to the summit of Marble Peak. He loosened his cinch, lighted his pipe, granted himself a half hour for gazing.
He understood perfectly how the gentleman had felt in Darien. It was beyond words, above words. Not even the Wolcott connection could do it justice.
Then, greatly to his surprise, he found that he didn’t want to be silent any longer. He wanted to talk, not to Snort and the tolerant Airedale, but to some one who would reply. He wanted to point out Lost Valley, far below and far away; to explain about the Ventana—how once, the oldest settlers said, it had been closed across the top of that sharp, square-cut space in the mountain’s upper edge, making a perfect ventana—window; he needed a looker and a listener in order that he might demonstrate how perfectly he remembered all the peaks and places the doctor and the Ranger had named to him. It was probable that he would have been moved to quote a restrained amount of poetry; the Wolcotts quoted a good deal, not to be bookish or superior, but because of their nice sense of values; people like Keats and Tennyson had said these things so handily, had brought the art of poetic expression to a fine point while the Wolcott connection was busy with the law and medicine and anthropology....
Now he recalled that the stout (and misnamed) gentleman upon the peak in Darien could be silent as long as he chose and then address his men (there was distinct mention of them in the sonnet) and receive their respectful raptures. He, however, could only address, unavailingly, a horse and a frankly bored dog, so, with swift decision, he tightened his cinch again and set off down the mountainside in the direction of Slate’s. He would change his plan, make port there, hearten himself with cheerful human intercourse and toothsome fare, and return to Post’s next day. His beasts seemed to catch his idea and approve it, and they made excellent speed.
But Slate’s was deserted. No promising smoke curled out of the chimney; his hail brought no reply, but echoed hollowly against the big barn. It was evidently one of the rare occasions when the head of the house made a saddle trip over the long trail to the Post Office at Big Sur, and his wife might be far afield on some ranch matter. There was nothing for it but to push on to his headquarters at Post’s, by the long route, now; he would not reach there until well after dark.
He set out, doggedly and joylessly. He could not even take time for a rest and a meal; he munched at crackers and raisins as he rode. Rusty began to lag wearily behind and he caught him by the collar and dragged him up and across his saddle and held him there, crouched and disapproving, his tail clamped dismally down. He passed three or four little deserted houses on long-abandoned ranches; it was strange, whatever could have brought people into that wilderness; it was pitiful to think of the losing fight they must have put up before they admitted themselves beaten and went away. Sometimes he drew rein and studied them; at one there was a rattlesnake asleep in the sun on the worn sill of the open door; after a little while, to accentuate his loneliness, the sun went under a cloud and a damp and penetrating fog rushed in from the sea; then the little, gray, ghostly houses seemed to shiver and shrink. He found himself picturing the people who had pioneered in them—the men who had come back to them at meal-times, aching-tired and lagging with discouragement, the women who had swept the sagging floors and tacked up calico curtains; women who had said, red-eyed, “It’s more’n a month since we’ve had the mail,” and the other sort of women, who had said—“Look! My seeds are comin’ up a’ready! We’ll have a truck garden here before you can say ‘Jack Robinson!’”
Visualizing them kept him occupied for several miles and when he had left them all behind and found the gray emptiness of the world more and more trying he began to recite to himself—verse, fragments of orations, scraps of old high school debates....
My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills