religion, said the mining man, sometimes puts me in mind of one of those new blasting powders; there’s no just telling when it’ll go off or whom it’ll blow up.
i was thinking then of radway and billsky: “bad” radway, him that beat up ellis at borromeo and shot fargue o’leary. you will have heard of him. every one was hearing of him at one time, and then all the talk kind of faded out. by and by radway himself faded out. it was billsky that faded him.
billsky was a little, serious, hairy fellow, not much higher than radway’s elbow; a good little fellow, that never gave any trouble to any one. he always seemed, in a meek sort of way, puzzled over existence in general and his own share in it in particular. men liked him. he was awful kindhearted, but he’d the same sense of humor as an apache. primitive, that’s what he was. he was part russian, and he’d a primitive sort of name that no one ever tried to pronounce. billsky came near enough.
he scarcely ever came in rad’s way, though he moved with the same crowd. rad was in the center, you see, billsky just wanderin’ on the outskirts. they got mixed up pretty close, though, later.
it began with a girl, of course, a girl at p. 88borromeo. no need for names. she was a nice girl, and a nice-lookin’ girl, just one of many, thank god. no one so much as guessed billsky was sweet on her till she went away suddenly and was seen no more, and her folks moved away. it was put down to rad, and he didn’t deny it; sort o’ smiled and looked knowin’. you know the kind. then billsky heard of it. he was working up at the joyeux then, for that was before the irrigation was put through, and it was all cattle. he sent a message through to radway. “i’m coming down to kill you,” said the message, “soon as i can get my time. don’t go away.”
well, that was billsky all over, and most men thought it was a great joke. radway did. “what does the little rat take me for?” he said. “i guess he’s in no hurry. i’ll have some time to wait.” most men thought so, too, but not all.
meanwhile, billsky stuck to his job till he could quit without giving inconvenience. then he got his time. he sunk every dollar of his pay in a fine pony, a quick goer. and down he came the eighty miles to borromeo, like a fire in grass.
the betting was all on rad, of course. it was said he thought billsky too good a joke to shoot; he’d just beat him up a bit if he was troublesome, and let him go.
twenty miles out of borromeo, billsky had to stop at a preacher’s. and there he got religion.
yes, it’s a fact; he got it overnight. what he told the preacher, or the preacher said to him, i don’t know. i don’t begin to know. but billsky went off afoot into the desert, five miles maybe; and it is pretty much of a desert round there. he had nothing with him but the gun he was going to p. 89shoot radway with, and a bible. he laid them both under a sagebush, and all night he knelt in front of them, and waited for the lord to begin on him. there isn’t much in the desert at night, you know, but stars; and a sky back of ’em that makes even the planets look cheap. the lord must have had his way with billsky, without fear or favor, for at dawn he came staggering back to the preacher, drenched with sweat and dew. he had only the bible with him.
“i believe,” he said to the preacher, “and as i hope for forgiveness, so i forgive the man it was in my heart to kill. tell him so from me,” he said; “but it’s laid on me,” said billsky, “that i’ll never save my soul till i tell him so myself. so tell him, too, to wait for me, for i’m a-coming to forgive him.” then he went down in a heap at the preacher’s feet.
that old man was a real christian, and he put billsky to bed and looked after him like a father. he’d never had an out-and-out hot-on-the-spot convert like that before, and he was so worked up and excited over it that he saddled his old horse and rode into borromeo himself to give radway the message of forgiveness.
i was in duluth’s, with some of the other fellows, looking at some new saddles he had in; and rad was there, too, and there was a good deal of talk going on of one kind and another. some one must have told the old preacher where rad was, for he pulled up his old white nag outside duluth’s, and “mr. radway!” he called, in a high voice, “mr. radway! i have a message for you.”
“hello!” said rad, winking at his cronies,—i wasn’t one,—“is billsky coming with his gun? i must get ready to hide.” and there was laughing.
p. 90sitting his old horse straight as an indian, the old preacher raised his head and took his hat off. his white hair shone in the sun. there seemed to be more than sun shining on his face. “mr. radway,” says he, “the message i bring is one of forgiveness. you have nothing to fear from billsky. he forgives you. and i was to tell you that he will never rest until he himself can assure you of that forgiveness. and may the lord have mercy on you,” said the old man, and put on his hat and rode away. i give you my word, i never heard duluth’s so quiet! there wasn’t a sound till radway caught his breath and began to curse.
funny what’ll get a man’s nerve, eh? it sent rad quite wild to think billsky wanted to forgive him!
billsky was sick at the preacher’s some time. he came into borromeo looking queerer and hairier than ever, and simply eaten alive with the longin’ to forgive rad. “’tisn’t him i’m thinking of,” he explained in his careful way, “he’ll get what’s coming to him, anyway; it’s me,” he said. “how’m i to save my soul if i don’t forgive him?”
“well, you can’t forgive him just yet,” said the man he was talking to, sort of soothing. “he ain’t here. he’s on a new job: foreman at the llindura, and went out last week.”
“oh!” said billsky. he looked all around him, kind of taken aback and hurt. “oh! why’d he do that?”
“he didn’t do it because he was afraid of you, old sport,” said the other man, laughing fit to hurt himself, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”
billsky looked more hurt than ever. he’d big collie-dog eyes in his furry face, and now they p. 91fairly filled with tears. “why should i think that?” he said earnestly. “i only want to forgive him. i only want to tell him i forgive him.” and he went away, all puzzled at the contrariety of things in general.
he kept pretty small and quiet about borromeo for a few days; and then i saw him looking awful pleased with himself. “gray thomas,” he told me, “he’s going out to the llindura with some mules, and he’ll take me along. so now i’ll be able to forgive radway,” he said, “and get it off my mind.”
he went out to the llindura with the mules. when he got there, he found rad had been sent to sageville with a bunch of calves the day before.
he stayed a week at the llindura, almost too worried to earn his keep, waiting for radway. radway didn’t come. at the end of the week, he lit out for sageville. halfway there, he met the rest of rad’s outfit, coming back. “rad’s been bit with the mining fever,” they told billsky, “and he’s off into the altanero country with a man he met in sageville. the boss’ll be mad with him.” billsky looked more grieved than ever.
“did he know i was waiting for him?” said he.
“no,” said they, “how should he?”
well, how should he? but i believe he did. you see, billsky’s forgiveness had got on his nerves.
it was a close call in sageville that radway’d get forgiven in spite of himself. he actually rode out one end of the town with his new partner as billsky came in at the other.
the fellows laughed at billsky; but they liked him; and maybe they began to wonder. anyway, billsky stayed in sageville a week, selling his pony p. 92and getting an outfit together. when they asked him what he wanted a prospectin’ outfit for, he just looked at them in a surprised, hurt sort of way, and said, “why, to go after rad and forgive him, of course. what’d you think?” pretty soon, they stopped laughing. it was the look on billsky’s face stopped them. you know how queer brown and yellow faces look to us? that’s because the expression never changes. billsky began to look queer, like a chink or an indian; he’d just one expression in those days, stamped on his hairy face as if he’d been branded with it.
he got two burros and an outfit of sorts, and off he went at the end of the week, trailing radway into the altanero. three days before he went, a mule wagon pulled out for seear; it overtook radway and his partner, and the driver told him his forgiver was following on. so, you see, rad knew.
have you ever seen the opening of the altanero: the gates of the altanero? there’s desert, and there’s hills, and there’s ca?ons; and there’s the altanero. this side the gates, you’re still somebody, with work to do, and money to get, and girls to kiss: anything, if you go find it. other side the gates, you’re nobody, nothing. you just go out. yes, you just go out. it’s like dying while you’re alive. you don’t count at all; and quite often you die dead.
have you ever seen the gates? you go on and on in the heat, away from sageville, and seear, and everything you know. they lie flat behind you, lost in the heat. you don’t see ’em if you turn and look. you don’t see anything. even the sage thins out and goes. it’s all dust. then ahead, ever so far, you see something gold. it rises higher, little p. 93by little,—oh so slow! and you see it’s rocks, great golden rocks. they lift, and lift, and lift. one day you find they’re behind you as well as in front: nothing but golden rocks; unless it’s red rocks or green rocks or rocks like clear black glass. i’ve known some queer moments, but there’s nothing so queer as when it first comes home to you that, for miles and miles in every direction, there’s just nothing but the rocks—like a world rough-cut from precious stones and left to die.
there’s few wells in the altanero: few that are known. you travel by, and accordin’ to, the wells. radway struck off into the hills from the seaar trail, making for the first well. a week later, there was billsky following over the same ground. each night he’d camp by one of radway’s cold fires; and, each night, he’d kneel in the ashes and pray. sometimes he’d pray an hour, or two hours, or three, under the tremendous stars; but it was always that he might catch up with rad quick, and forgive him, and get it off his mind. he wasn’t worrying. he was just eager. he knew he was bound to come across rad sooner or later in the altanero. then he’d sleep, and eat, and off he’d go, singing hymns to the burros: “greenland’s icy mountains,” most likely.
once, in the dead ashes, he found a broke-off saucepan handle. he was so pleased he carted it along with him, like a mascot. it seemed to put him in touch with radway: to bring the happy moment o’ forgiveness nearer.
and radway? well, there you have me.
the altanero’s a bad country to travel in if you’ve anything on your nerves. i passed through a few miles of it once when i had something on p. 94mine: a sick child two hundred miles away; and i tell you, by the third day i was seein’ the kid everywhere. but radway—i can’t just explain radway. i wonder if he was seein’ the girl that started it.
billsky made the first water-hole six days behind rad; he’d gained a day.
rad and company had used considerable of the water in that hole. it had shrunk, and there in the margin, baked hard and white like clay, were footprints of men and burros. billsky picked out rad’s footprints and patted ’em, he was so pleased. he rested by the water a few hours, and freshened up his burros. then he went on.
between the first water-hole and the second the country opens up. it isn’t just a huddle of rocks. it’s mesas rising from a dead level of dust like the worn foundations of towers and cathedrals and cities, banded in rose and violet and gold. you could no more climb most of ’em than you could climb the outside of a skyscraper. but billsky found one he could climb, and up he went. he’d seen some sort of dry, grassy stuff at the top, and he wanted it for sarah, one of the burros that was ailing. he found more than the grass on top. he found a grave. didn’t know whose, of course; nobody knows, nor ever will. he gave the grass to sarah; but next day she died. billsky was terrible hurt and grieved, he was always so careful of beasts. he never realized that sarah was just beat out: couldn’t stand the pace.
at the second water-hole he was only four days behind rad.
he rested up a bit, being worried over his burro; and took out the lost time in prayer. then p. 95on he went, at that terrible pace, overhauling rad by the mile, achin’ to forgive him. it’s a long stretch to the third hole. billsky gained two days on it. i can’t guess how. he told me he took short cuts through the ca?ons, and that they always turned out all right; and that he sang “hold the fort, for i am coming,” right along.
he found the third hole fouled and shrunk. in a stretch of mud, rad had written with a stick, “if you follow me any further, i will shoot you on sight.” how did he know billsky was so near? maybe he’d seen his fire the night before. billsky read the writing, and was dreadful hurt and grieved. “he doesn’t understand,” he said, “that i’m going to forgive him. it’s what i’m follerin’ him for.” he prayed half the night, and went on quicker than ever next day.
few have ever been so far into the altanero as the fourth hole. it’s hard to find. long before billsky made it, he saw a speck in the sky; it was a great bird, sailing round in little, slow circles. under it was the fourth water-hole.
it was quite a pool when billsky came to it. there were bushes round it, and fibrous grass. there were three burros feeding on the bushes, and a small tent pitched. a man came out of the tent, and when he saw billsky he held up his hands.
“don’t shoot,” he said, “i’m not radway. you’ve no quarrel with me.”
“nor with him,” said billsky. “i’ve come to forgive him. where is he?”
“gone,” said the man, “gone mad, i guess. he’s pushed on alone. day before yesterday i took sick. we was to rest up here, and then cast round careful, always within reach o’ this water. p. 96this morning he went out and climbed them rocks there. then he came back, and said he must go on, he couldn’t wait. i went to stop him, and he laid me out. see here.” the man was most cryin’; he turned his face, and billsky saw a great black swelling on his jaw. “he went on,” he said, “as if the devil was after him. and the devil’s you!”
billsky was the meekest little hairy man; and now he too was fit to cry. “he don’t know me,” he said, very sad, “but it’ll be all right. . . . what’s on there?” he said, pointing beyond.
“god knows, who made it,” said the man, “out of hell’s leftovers. but no one else does, for no one’s ever been there.”
“it’ll be all right,” said billsky again. “i’ll go on after him, and forgive him, and bring him back.”
he started out to do it, taking one of rad’s burros, which were fresher than his; and bound he’d come up with rad this time.
i don’t rightly know what happened there, beyond the last water. one thing, i never been there. i gather billsky just pushed on as usual, following rad’s tracks. he followed ’em easy: the only footsteps within a hundred miles or so! as he went he sang “glory for me,” because he was going to be able to forgive rad at last.
the big bird in the sky, he swung off from the water-hole and followed billsky. there was just them two moving things for him to see: radway on ahead, mad to get away from billsky, and old billsky, mad to forgive him, and singing the glory song.
billsky couldn’t tell me much about this part of it. he just went on, and on, and on. p. 97sometimes, he said, there were stars. the place was so still he began to think he could hear ’em shine: a sort of fizzing, like an arc-light, which, of course, he knew to be foolishness. sometimes there was just the sun, a great fire, like as if it were fastened to the earth and burning all the life out of it. there were the rocks, of course, but he didn’t remember them much: only one great black cleft, and a glimmer in the walls of it. the glimmer was gold-veined turquoise, just sticking out o’ that cliff so you could have pried it loose with a toothpick. billsky couldn’t tell you where it was if you paid him. he wasn’t thinking of anything but forgiving rad.
then, with a noise, he says, like a roll of rifle-fire, that big bird dropped out of heaven like a stone, and shot past him, and settled just ahead. there was a dead burro there, and an empty water can. but radway, he’d gone on. billsky went after him, singing powerful; but his voice didn’t make much noise.
then there was a little crack ahead. something sang past billsky, and flipped a tiny flake off of the side of the ca?on. billsky stopped and looked at the flake lying at his feet, just as pretty as a pink rose-leaf. he knew a bullet had chipped it off, and that he’d come within shooting length of radway. he let out a yell of joy. “it’s me, rad!” he yelled. “i’m comin’ to forgive you!” but radway didn’t stop. he went on, as if he was mad; and behind him came the man that was killin’ him: the man that only wanted to forgive him.
there were more shots. billsky said rad fired at him all that afternoon, but owing to the refraction, he wasn’t hit once. besides, rad was p. 98breaking up. once your nerve goes, you break up quick in the altanero.
it was evening when billsky came up with him.
you know evening on the altanero? the sun’s down on the edge of things, as big as a burning house. all the rocks turn clear as glass for a minute. it’s as if the light went clean through them, and came out colored with their colors: rose, violet, gold. the air you breathe glows. the rosy-red ca?on billsky was in ended sudden in a wall that hit the sky. the sunset touched it, and it became like a veil, says billsky, a blood-red curtain hung from earth to heaven. at the foot of it lay bad radway.
billsky ran at him, trying to yell. he had his water flask ready. all day he’d been saving water to give to radway, but he was too late. rad just looked at him; and all that had been inside him: all the remorse, the guilt, the black fear, the unknown damage of the soul that first drove him to be scared of billsky, came out in that look.
it struck billsky to the heart. “rad, rad,” he said, “don’t you be scared o’ me! i forgive you, rad!” he said.
but bad radway didn’t hear. he was dead.
billsky had done his part, but he was all broke up. he got back to the water-hole somehow, after burying rad at the foot of the cliff. he and the other man that had been rad’s partner lit out for home right away. they’d had enough of the altanero.
when i last saw billsky, he was terrible hurt and grieved because the other man held him to blame for what had happened to radway. “he seems to think,” said billsky to me, “that i done p. 99something to him! me that follered him all that way just to forgive him! he seems to think, that guy does, that i done something!”
then, in a puzzled, exasperated kind of way, he laughed. “but come to think of it,” said billsky, “it was funny.”
well, as i said before, religion’s a queer thing to handle; but i don’t see anything funny in it.
marjorie l. c. pickthall.
