what a snip-click! snip-click! snip-click! of the big steel shears, till the corral rang like an exaggerated telegraph office! hoarse voices kept calling out “numer’ uno!” “dieziseis!” “veintetres!” and tall, handsome lorenzo, standing in a corner with the tally card in his hand, penciled a mark opposite no. 1, no. 16, no. 23, and so on as each man called out the number by which he was known. the calls came fast, and for each one a shabby gray shadow, looking like the ghost of a boy with a home hair-cut, “only more so,” went scurrying into the ranks of his yet unshorn fellows. the big corral was full as it could hold. fifteen hundred sheep were there, so tightly packed that a mouse tossed upon their backs could hardly have found its way to the ground between them. only in the triangular corners of the fence (which was built of logs laid up in zigzags) was there a trifle of room; and it was from these that all the noise came. in each was a fast-swelling[204] heap of dirty, gray wool, and just in front of it the shearer. each, as he turned a victim loose, yelled out his number, to be tallied one, and running upon the huddled mass of sheep, caught one by the fleece with each hand, dragged it to his corner, flopped it upon its side, knotted its four sharp feet together with a dextrous movement, and, snatching the shears from his belt, fell instantly to work. it was a scene to bewilder an eastern sheep-grower. there were no shearing tables. each man bent over, as though there were a hinge in his waist, until his hands were within six inches of the ground, and thus worked all day long. holding and turning the sheep with the left hand, with the right he drove the sharp blades snipping through the wool with startling rapidity—till, almost before one knew it, the whole fleece rolled off to one side, very much as if it had been an unbroken pelt. as quick a motion freed the feet again and the shorn creature scrambled up and ran to hide his confusion, while the shearer was already playing barber to the “next gentleman.”
so it was no sleepy work, tallying for the thirty-seven swart fellows who were doing don roman’s fall shearing, and any one less practiced than lorenzo might have lost[205] count now and then. every one seemed to be working his best, but the two cries that came oftenest of any were “trece” and “diezisiete.” number thirteen was a short, thickset mexican from los lunas, known (because of his unusually dark complexion) as black juan, and number seventeen was that two-fisted pedro of cubero. they had been for several years the two best shearers in valencia county, and therefore, very naturally, rivals—though in some way they had never come together before. but now finding themselves, on the eve of the fall clip of 50,000 sheep, face to face each with a man he had never seen, but had disliked for ten years, neither could refrain from a slight curl of the lip. that fellow such a guapo? huh! he might make a noise among the slowpokes down in the valley, but beside a real shearer there wouldn’t be enough of him to make a shadow! it was not long before their thoughts came to speech, and soon they had made a wager for a sheep-shearing race on the morrow. the ponies upon which they had come, their tattered blankets and a large proportion of their prospective wages were staked on which should shear the more fleeces between sunrise and sunset.
[206]
for eleven hours, now, the race had been in progress. lorenzo had given the word when the first rim of sun peered above the yellow mesas. at noon the other shearers had taken the usual half hour to swallow the rude meal of tortillas and roasted sheep-ribs, but juan and pedro had worked doggedly on. the crunch of their shears seemed never to stop, and against the numbers thirteen and seventeen the little slanting marks (each fourth one crossed) had crept clear across the tally card and lorenzo had to start a new line for each of them.
five o’clock—five-thirty—six—and suddenly the timekeeper shouted “ya ’stá!” the noise redoubled for a moment as each man hurried to finish his present sheep, and then stopped. bent backs straightened slowly amid a general sigh of relief. a hard day, truly. not a man in the corral, even down to young blea, who had not sheared his sixty or seventy sheep. but the rivals? all crowded around lorenzo as he began to count up.
“m—m—m—twenty-four, twenty-five—twenty-five tallies and three. pedro has one hundred and twenty-eight sheep!” and juan? “m—m—m—twenty-seven tallies and one—one hundred and thirty-six![207] bravo! que guapo!” and the evening air rang with shouts.
“thou couldst not have done it fairly!” growled pedro, with rage in every line of his dusty face.
“how, fairly, sleepyhead? have i not worked openly before all?”
but pedro went over the fence sullenly and walked away, muttering to himself. only when a couple of other shearers joined him at his camp-fire did he give further vent to his feelings.
“thrice fool that i was,” he snarled, “to make a bet against that! for clearly to-day my shears were bewitched and would not cut well. and you know well the why—it is that old bruja of a candelária who has given them the evil eye! for yesterday, as she passed, my dog ran at her, whereat i laughed, and in the act she turned and cursed me.”
“thou didst ill,” said one of his companions. “all know that she is a witch, and works all manner of evil to them that offend her. why, there was marcelino, who refused to give her meat when he killed a sheep, and straightway she made a mouse to steal into his stomach, so that it was near to kill him.”
[208]
“but i am not marcelino, then, to go pay a horse to another witch to cure me. no, i will have-me-them with her. she shall pay me for this loss and for the laughter they have put upon me.”
“what is that, pedro?” said young alonzo, coming up just then and squatting by the fire. “you wouldn’t hurt the poor old woman?”
“who gave you a candle in this funeral?” snapped the defeated shearer. “that is what i will do. there are too many of these brujas putting spells on innocent folks, and there’s only one way to cure them—the way they did in san mateo last year. we’ll stone her for a witch. and much care thou, that thou get not hurt also!”
the two others made no serious opposition to pedro’s plan. they had nothing against the old woman themselves, but every one knew that such witches were a great pest to the community—perhaps it would be a public service to put her out of the way. besides, they were rather used to being led around by the nose by pedro, who, in addition to his prowess as a shearer, was so powerful and reckless that he had become the acknowledged leader of a certain class.
[209]
“pues, understood! we will go over presently and give the old hag a shower of st. peter’s tears! and thou”—turning to alonzo, who was rising to go—“the less tongue, the less sore bones, eh?”
candelária lived across the arroyo in a miserable little jacal of pi?on[37] trunks chinked with mud, right up against the side of the great lava flow. she was a sorry-looking hag; and, on seeing her, the first thought of much better educated people than pedro would very likely have been: “what an old witch!” she was tall and gaunt and incredibly wrinkled, but with such keen black eyes that almost every one shrank at her gaze.
alonzo himself was certainly not fond of her, and probably it would not be too much to say that he was secretly a bit afraid of this grim, dark figure in greasy tatters, despite his year of school in the little mission at san rafael. but at thought of her being stoned to death he felt a sudden revulsion.
“but what to do?” he muttered to himself as he slouched away from the camp-fire. “pedro is bad to meddle with, and no one here will help me; even don roman is afraid of the witches, and hates them. ea! i will[210] go warn her, so she can hide till the shearers have gone.”
it was already very dark as he stumbled over the rocky ground and turned west along the bank of the arroyo. this was a deep ravine plowed through the meadow by the intermittent brook from the snows of the zu?i mountains. in summer there was no stream, but here and there were pools enough for the thirsty sheep and cattle. now there had been rains, and a narrow rill connected the brimming pools. he found the white, peeled log which served as a footbridge from bank to bank, and started to walk cautiously across it. midway he stopped suddenly with an audible chuckle, turned, came back and shambled toward the corrals. something seemed to amuse him mightily, for at every few steps he paused to laugh softly. camp-fires burned all about the corral, and even far up the rocky mesa, where the sheep were being herded for the night; but alonzo had eyes for but one. near an angle of the enclosure stood a stout post, and not far from its foot was a bed of embers surrounded with sooty kettles and frying pans. it was telango’s slaughter house and kitchen, where that greasy gentleman turned twenty[211] sheep a day into soups and joints for the shearers.
telango was at the moment absent, and when he returned to his post a kettle of mutton tallow that had been trying out over the embers was missing. that should have made a pretty row, for the cook was a touchy autocrat; but, supper being over, telango was so sleepy that he would scarce have noticed it had his whole kitchen been carried off.
“well, are we ready?” asked pedro in a low tone of his allies a little after 8 o’clock. every one else was asleep, apparently. the camp-fires had all died down and no one was moving. pedro rose quietly and stole off into the darkness, followed by pepe and ’lipe. “close behind me,” he whispered, “and with care, for if she hears us she can hide in the malpaís, where no one could find her.”
“but perhaps she would not run,” broke out ’lipe uneasily, as they neared the arroyo. “since she is a witch she might rather throw a spell on us.”
“quiet you the mouth, stupid! we have only to take care that she does not hear us.”
“but i have heard that they need not the ears, for the evil spirits tell them.”
[212]
“let the evil one tell her, if he will!” growled pedro. “i would like to see him keep this from her,” and he picked up a jagged lava fragment over which he had stumbled. “be not sheep! close behind me, now.”
pedro stepped out upon the log whose white length stretching into the gloom seemed to rest upon nothing. his teguas made no noise upon the wood, and he was midway across when suddenly there came a stifled oath. his feet flew right and left and he dropped astride the log with a violence that shook the breath out of him, and in the same instant began to slip to one side. in vain he clutched at the log. it gave no hold, and lurching over he dropped twenty feet. there was a tremendous splash; and then another and another. pepe and ’lipe had followed their leader downward without even stopping to sit down first.
the shores here were steep and rocky, cut deep in a lava flow millenniums older than that whose jet black miles lay along the pretty meadow. in the middle was a long, deep pool wherein the few boys of alamitos were wont to swim in summer. just now it was not particularly attractive. during the shearing several thousand sheep[213] were watered daily at the head of this pool and at the shallower one above, and at such times no one thought of bathing in the odorous mess.
any one listening might have heard for some seconds after the splashes nothing but a faint gurgle, as of bubbles breaking. then there were curious snorts and plashings, as if that invisible black abyss had suddenly become the home of a hippopotamus family, and then a laborious thrashing about. presently there was a rattle of pebbles, mingled with coughs and angry mutterings, as if some one were trying to scale the banks.
“why didn’t you come this side, stupids?” pedro whispered across when he had done choking and sputtering. “the bruja lives over here—not yonder. vamos!”
“but man! we are not crazy! seest thou not that she has the power and so easily has bewitched us? if we go further we shall find worse.”
“four times fools! it was only that i slipped, and you, being scared, fell also. come on!”
“thanks,” answered pepe and ’lipe in a breath. “but even fools know better than to defy the evil one.”
[214]
“come over or you answer to me!” snorted pedro, forgetting his caution. “cowards that you are, i’ll show you,” and he started back across the log to get in arguing reach of the deserters.
but four steps from the bank his feet again suddenly leaped out from under him and the log smote him in the back with a loud thump, and a wild splash flung a dirty rain in the faces of his terrified companions.
“uh, uh!” he gasped, coming to the surface at last. “kff! tchoo!” for he had swallowed a most unsavory pint.
“ah, ha-ha!” rang a weird, shrill laugh from the southern bank. pepe and ’lipe crossed themselves and took to their heels, without thought of waiting for their leader. it struck a chill through pedro, too, as he floundered to the shore and clambered up the jagged rocks frantically, cutting his hands and knees. but he hardly noticed that—all he could think of was the mocking laugh. candelária’s laugh! after all, she was too strong! there was no use fighting against these witches—just see how easily she had undone his strength and wit! no more witch hunts for him—and he scrambled up the bank in utter rout. just then a dark form reached out overhead. pedro[215] did not see it; but in an instant came a warm, suffocating avalanche which choked his cry of terror and half blinded him.
“murder!” he managed to sputter at last. “so-cor-r-r-ro!” and he fled to the camp like one chased by wolves.
“so, thief! shameless! it was thou that stole my tallow, then!” roared telango, who had discovered his loss just now. “to anoint that dirty head, eh? then take this!” and with a stout cudgel he belabored the luckless pedro till the latter broke away and fled into further darkness. no wonder telango had found him out—his great shock of hair and beard were matted in a gray, greasy mask, like the runnings of a cheap candle.
pedro did not finish the shearing season. next morning he was missing from alamitos, and a few days later news came that he was in cubero. his accomplices had no explanations to offer for his disappearance or for their wet clothing, and as for alonzo, he “told nothing to nobody.” only at times he was observed to drop his shears and double up as though he had a pain in his stomach, while his face would become suspiciously red. furthermore, he came carelessly up to telango at noon with:
“oh, here’s your lard bucket—i picked it up by the arroyo. and say—if you want to make candles, you’d better go scrape the foot-log. somebody has greased the whole middle of it!”
“what thing?” grumbled telango. “of the witches, no doubt. and quizas the same who anointed pedro.”
“quizas,” answered alonzo solemnly, and he walked off without cracking a smile.
