第13章

While Presley had been reflecting upon all this, Vanamee had continued to speak.Presley, however, had not been wholly inattentive.While his memory was busy reconstructing the details of the drama of the shepherd's life, another part of his brain had been swiftly registering picture after picture that Vanamee's monotonous flow of words struck off, as it were, upon a steadily moving scroll.The music of the unfamiliar names that occurred in his recital was a stimulant to the poet's imagination.Presley had the poet's passion for expressive, sonorous names.As these came and went in Vanamee's monotonous undertones, like little notes of harmony in a musical progression, he listened, delighted with their resonance.-Navajo, Quijotoa, Uintah, Sonora, Laredo, Uncompahgre--to him they were so many symbols.It was his West that passed, unrolling there before the eye of his mind: the open, heat-scourged round of desert; the mesa, like a vast altar, shimmering purple in the royal sunset; the still, gigantic mountains, heaving into the sky from out the canyons; the strenuous, fierce life of isolated towns, lost and forgotten, down there, far off, below the horizon.Abruptly his great poem, his Song of the West, leaped up again in his imagination.For the moment, he all but held it.It was there, close at hand.In another instant he would grasp it.

"Yes, yes," he exclaimed, "I can see it all.The desert, the mountains, all wild, primordial, untamed.How I should have loved to have been with you.Then, perhaps, I should have got hold of my idea.""Your idea?"

"The great poem of the West.It's that which I want to write.

Oh, to put it all into hexameters; strike the great iron note;sing the vast, terrible song; the song of the People; the forerunners of empire!"Vanamee understood him perfectly.He nodded gravely.

"Yes, it is there.It is Life, the primitive, simple, direct Life, passionate, tumultuous.Yes, there is an epic there."Presley caught at the word.It had never before occurred to him.

"Epic, yes, that's it.It is the epic I'm searching for.And HOW I search for it.You don't know.It is sometimes almost an agony.Often and often I can feel it right there, there, at my finger-tips, but I never quite catch it.It always eludes me.Iwas born too late.Ah, to get back to that first clear-eyed view of things, to see as Homer saw, as Beowulf saw, as the Nibelungen poets saw.The life is here, the same as then; the Poem is here;my West is here; the primeval, epic life is here, here under our hands, in the desert, in the mountain, on the ranch, all over here, from Winnipeg to Guadalupe.It is the man who is lacking, the poet; we have been educated away from it all.We are out of touch.We are out of tune."Vanamee heard him to the end, his grave, sad face thoughtful and attentive.Then he rose.

"I am going over to the Mission," he said, "to see Father Sarria.

I have not seen him yet."

"How about the sheep?"

"The dogs will keep them in hand, and I shall not be gone long.

Besides that, I have a boy here to help.He is over yonder on the other side of the herd.We can't see him from here."Presley wondered at the heedlessness of leaving the sheep so slightly guarded, but made no comment, and the two started off across the field in the direction of the Mission church.

"Well, yes, it is there--your epic," observed Vanamee, as they went along."But why write? Why not LIVE in it?Steep oneself in the heat of the desert, the glory of the sunset, the blue haze of the mesa and the canyon.""As you have done, for instance?"

Vanamee nodded.

"No, I could not do that," declared Presley; "I want to go back, but not so far as you.I feel that I must compromise.I must find expression.I could not lose myself like that in your desert.When its vastness overwhelmed me, or its beauty dazzled me, or its loneliness weighed down upon me, I should have to record my impressions.Otherwise, I should suffocate.""Each to his own life," observed Vanamee.

The Mission of San Juan, built of brown 'dobe blocks, covered with yellow plaster, that at many points had dropped away from the walls, stood on the crest of a low rise of the ground, facing to the south.A covered colonnade, paved with round, worn bricks, from whence opened the doors of the abandoned cells, once used by the monks, adjoined it on the left.The roof was of tiled half-cylinders, split longitudinally, and laid in alternate rows, now concave, now convex.The main body of the church itself was at right angles to the colonnade, and at the point of intersection rose the belfry tower, an ancient campanile, where swung the three cracked bells, the gift of the King of Spain.

Beyond the church was the Mission garden and the graveyard that overlooked the Seed ranch in a little hollow beyond.

Presley and Vanamee went down the long colonnade to the last door next the belfry tower, and Vanamee pulled the leather thong that hung from a hole in the door, setting a little bell jangling somewhere in the interior.The place, but for this noise, was shrouded in a Sunday stillness, an absolute repose.Only at intervals, one heard the trickle of the unseen fountain, and the liquid cooing of doves in the garden.

Father Sarria opened the door.He was a small man, somewhat stout, with a smooth and shiny face.He wore a frock coat that was rather dirty, slippers, and an old yachting cap of blue cloth, with a broken leather vizor.He was smoking a cheap cigar, very fat and black.

But instantly he recognised Vanamee.His face went all alight with pleasure and astonishment.It seemed as if he would never have finished shaking both his hands; and, as it was, he released but one of them, patting him affectionately on the shoulder with the other.He was voluble in his welcome, talking partly in Spanish, partly in English.

So he had come back again, this great fellow, tanned as an Indian, lean as an Indian, with an Indian's long, black hair.