Fire on the Mountain Read Free Page B

the woman to come back.
    I poured myself a second glass of water from the pitcher and looked around, sucking on the ice cube in my mouth. All looked the same as ever: black pot of beans on the stove, a row of pans hanging on the wall, geraniums in tomato cans on the window sill, the big stainless-steel refrigerator and freezer, which workedon bottled butane, standing in the alcove beside the stove, where the old man had placed them years before. He had no use or need for electricity, but he did like ice in his drinks. The refrigerator, the pickup truck, and the disposable toothpick, he confessed, were the three great achievements of modern man.
    Cruzita returned, the baby in her arms, which she placed on the floor away from the stove before serving Grandfather and me each an overflowing plate of fried beans, fried beef, fried eggs, and fried potatoes, all liberally spiced with red chili sauce. With the plates came thick slices of her new-baked bread, and butter, jam, milk, and coffee. With a good appetite I ate the meal I’d been anticipating for a day and a half and nearly two thousand miles on the train. As I ate I wiped the tears from my eyes, blew my nose, drank all the water and milk in sight, and added an extra touch of hot sauce to my beans.
    Finished, unwrapping a fresh cigar, Grandfather leaned back in his chair, tilting it against the wall. “Where’s Eloy?” he asked. Meaning Eloy Peralta, Cruzita’s husband and the old man’s hired hand.
    Cruzita poured him another cup of coffee. “He say he go to the north line, Mister Vogelin. He want to fix that break in the fence below the cinder cone, where the jeeps come through.”
    The old man growled. “Yeah, them soldier boys. By God, if they do that once more I’m gunning for them.”
    “What happened?” I asked.
    Grandfather gave me a brooding stare, looking at something inside his head. The expression softened. “Well, Billy, they like to hunt jack rabbits, you see, these here soldiers from the Proving Grounds. They got nothing else to do, I guess, so they go barreling after the crazy scared jacks and bust right through my fence. Second time this year. You might think if they want a war so bad they could find one overseas somewhere and leave us citizens in peace.” He lit the cigar and partially disappeared behind a fog of gray smoke.
    From outside, the lowing of the milk cow reached our ears. Cruzita was washing the dishes and rinsing them off with boiling water from the kettle on the stove. “That cow,” she said, “always wants milking when I’m busy. Let her wait.”
    “She’ll jump the fence,” Grandfather said.
    “I finish these dishes first, damn cow.”
    “Maybe the calf got out. Ain’t that calf weaned yet?”
    “Two more weeks,” Cruzita said.
    The cow bawled again. With a clatter of noise she stacked the dishes in the drying rack, scooped up the baby from the floor, and bounced out of the kitchen. The old man and I watched her go.
    “Cruzita can do most anything, can’t she, Grandfather,”
    “She’s a good woman. She sure has spoiled me. How she can manage to look after all those kids and Eloy and the cow and the hens and me too is something I’m kind of afraid to ask about.” He puffed slowly on his cigar and stared at the dark ceiling through skeins of smoke. His own wife had died fifteen years ago in the hospital at Alamogordo. Watching his old and saddened face, I wondered if he was thinking now about that. I knew that something deep was troubling his mind. I wanted to ask but also knew that when he wanted he would talk to me about it.
    The dark and stillness of twilight was filling the room: sun going down beyond the barren snag of the mountain.
    Grandfather rose from his chair. “Let’s go out on the porch, Billy. Eloy should be tracking along now.”
    “When’s Lee coming, Grandfather?”
    “I don’t know for sure; sometime tonight, he said.”
    We pushed open the screen door of the kitchen and stepped out on the