Fire on the Mountain Read Free Page A

and all my friends, and spend the rest of my life in the desert eating cactus for lunch, drinking blood at cocktail time, and letting the ferocious sun flay me skin and soul. I’d gladly have traded parents, school, a college education and career for one dependable saddle horse. Later that night, of course, alone in bed, the deadly homesickness would strike me faint.
    “Sir, if you’ll let me, I won’t go back. I’ll never goback. I’ll stay here and work for you for the rest of my life.”
    The old man laughed. “You’re a good boy, Billy.” He squeezed my shoulder. We gazed down at the ranch for another minute or so, then Grandfather raised his arm and pointed toward Thieves’ Mountain. “That’s where we’ll be tomorrow. Looking for that pony. We’ll spend a night at the old line cabin and I’ll show you some lion tracks.” He turned the ignition key and started the engine. At the same time I saw the contrails of three jet planes coming out of the north and blazing white across the clean clear blue of the sky. I pointed to them. “Three jets, Grandfather. See them, way up there?” More beautiful, I thought, even than vultures.
    The old man didn’t share my sentiment. “Trespassers,” he muttered, the smile fading from his face. His good humor had vanished again. We talked no more on the drive down to the ranch. Parking the truck under the trees, Grandfather walked in silence toward the house, ignoring the dogs that leaped at us, barking with happiness. Wolf, the big German police, leaped on my chest and lathered my face with his wet tongue, and a couple of pups I’d never met before galloped and rolled around us like idiots.
    Everything looked and smelled and sounded marvelous to me: the fat trees with their trunks like the legs of gigantic elephants and their masses of translucent, quaking acid-green leaves; the windmill clanking and groaning as it turned in the breeze and pumped good cold water up out of the rock; the saddle horses snorting at the water trough in the corral; the milk cow bawling and the hens squawking; the sound of an angry baby howling over in the mud hut where the Peralta family lived. Best of all was the sight of the ranch-house with its massive walls of adobe brick and its small square windows like the gunports of a fortress.
    We climbed the steps onto the long verandah, passed under the rack of buckhorns and the horseshoe, and entered the cool dark interior of the house. At onceI smelled the familiar fragrance of simmering pinto beans, of chili sauce and fresh-baked bread, and knew I was home again.
    Through the gloom of the parlor, advancing to meet us, came Cruzita Peralta, Grandfather’s cook and housekeeper. Plump, brown as saddle leather, handsome, Cruzita cried out with delight when she saw me and embraced me as she would a child of her own, half-smothering me against her ample and pneumatic bosom.
    “Billy,” she said, “it is so good to see you. My how big you get in just one year, now you come up to my neck, eh? Soon you be big and tall like a real man, taller than your grandfather. Only not so ugly, I think. Give me another kiss, my Billy. I bet you are hungry, no? Such a long trip, all by yourself, like a big man.”
    I managed to struggle free of her entangling arms and admitted that I was hungry, that I would like something to eat.
    “You better take care of your baby, first,” Grandfather said. “He’s awake again. Then come back and feed this boy. He ain’t had nothing to eat since we left El Paso.”
    Cruzita rushed out of the door and trotted through the sun-spangled shade of the trees toward her own house. The old man and I moved through the darkness toward the kitchen, where he fixed me up with a tall glass of ice water and mixed himself a highball of ice, rum and water. Stirring his drink, he sat down at the table and invited me to do the same. The long drive across the desert had burned us dry. Refreshed but tired, we sat in silence and waited for