第63章

"Borrowing money of S.Behrman," commented Annixter, "mortgaging your little homestead to the railroad, putting your neck in the halter.Poor fool! The pity of it.Good Lord, your hops must pay you big, now, old man."Annixter lunched at the Yosemite Hotel, and then later on, toward the middle of the afternoon, rode out of the town at a canter by the way of the Upper Road that paralleled the railroad tracks and that ran diametrically straight between Bonneville and Guadalajara.About half-way between the two places he overtook Father Sarria trudging back to San Juan, his long cassock powdered with dust.He had a wicker crate in one hand, and in the other, in a small square valise, the materials for the Holy Sacrament.Since early morning the priest had covered nearly fifteen miles on foot, in order to administer Extreme Unction to a moribund good-for-nothing, a greaser, half Indian, half Portuguese, who lived in a remote corner of Osterman's stock range, at the head of a canon there.But he had returned by way of Bonneville to get a crate that had come for him from San Diego.He had been notified of its arrival the day before.

Annixter pulled up and passed the time of day with the priest.

"I don't often get up your way," he said, slowing down his horse to accommodate Sarria's deliberate plodding.Sarria wiped the perspiration from his smooth, shiny face.

"You?Well, with you it is different," he answered."But there are a great many Catholics in the county--some on your ranch.

And so few come to the Mission.At High Mass on Sundays, there are a few--Mexicans and Spaniards from Guadalajara mostly; but weekdays, for matins, vespers, and the like, I often say the offices to an empty church--'the voice of one crying in the wilderness.' You Americans are not good churchmen.Sundays you sleep--you read the newspapers.""Well, there's Vanamee," observed Annixter."I suppose he's there early and late."Sarria made a sharp movement of interest.

"Ah, Vanamee--a strange lad; a wonderful character, for all that.

If there were only more like him.I am troubled about him.You know I am a very owl at night.I come and go about the Mission at all hours.Within the week, three times I have seen Vanamee in the little garden by the Mission, and at the dead of night.

He had come without asking for me.He did not see me.It was strange.Once, when I had got up at dawn to ring for early matins, I saw him stealing away out of the garden.He must have been there all the night.He is acting queerly.He is pale; his cheeks are more sunken than ever.There is something wrong with him.I can't make it out.It is a mystery.Suppose you ask him?""Not I.I've enough to bother myself about.Vanamee is crazy in the head.Some morning he will turn up missing again, and drop out of sight for another three years.Best let him alone, Sarria.He's a crank.How is that greaser of yours up on Osterman's stock range?""Ah, the poor fellow--the poor fellow," returned the other, the tears coming to his eyes."He died this morning--as you might say, in my arms, painfully, but in the faith, in the faith.Agood fellow."

"A lazy, cattle-stealing, knife-in-his-boot Dago.""You misjudge him.A really good fellow on better acquaintance."Annixter grunted scornfully.Sarria's kindness and good-will toward the most outrageous reprobates of the ranches was proverbial.He practically supported some half-dozen families that lived in forgotten cabins, lost and all but inaccessible, in the far corners of stock range and canyon.This particular greaser was the laziest, the dirtiest, the most worthless of the lot.But in Sarria's mind, the lout was an object of affection, sincere, unquestioning.Thrice a week the priest, with a basket of provisions--cold ham, a bottle of wine, olives, loaves of bread, even a chicken or two--toiled over the interminable stretch of country between the Mission and his cabin.Of late, during the rascal's sickness, these visits had been almost daily.

Hardly once did the priest leave the bedside that he did not slip a half-dollar into the palm of his wife or oldest daughter.And this was but one case out of many.

His kindliness toward animals was the same.A horde of mange-corroded curs lived off his bounty, wolfish, ungrateful, often marking him with their teeth, yet never knowing the meaning of a harsh word.A burro, over-fed, lazy, incorrigible, browsed on the hill back of the Mission, obstinately refusing to be harnessed to Sarria's little cart, squealing and biting whenever the attempt was made; and the priest suffered him, submitting to his humour, inventing excuses for him, alleging that the burro was foundered, or was in need of shoes, or was feeble from extreme age.The two peacocks, magnificent, proud, cold-hearted, resenting all familiarity, he served with the timorous, apologetic affection of a queen's lady-in-waiting, resigned to their disdain, happy if only they condescended to enjoy the grain he spread for them.

At the Long Trestle, Annixter and the priest left the road and took the trail that crossed Broderson Creek by the clumps of grey-green willows and led across Quien Sabe to the ranch house, and to the Mission farther on.They were obliged to proceed in single file here, and Annixter, who had allowed the priest to go in front, promptly took notice of the wicker basket he carried.

Upon his inquiry, Sarria became confused."It was a basket that he had had sent down to him from the city.""Well, I know--but what's in it?"

"Why--I'm sure--ah, poultry--a chicken or two.""Fancy breed?"