Read Online They Came To Cordura by Glendon Swarthout - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Glendon Swarthout
Tags: Fiction
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at the Presidio, in California, the gentlest. ‘Report,’ he ordered himself. ‘You are not a boy, you are forty, so report.’
From the doorways of the adobe houses little children peered gravely at him. He heard the slap, slap, slap of their mothers’ hands making tortillas. From the fields two teams of great oxen were driven in from ploughing, the drivers carrying on their shoulders one-handled wooden ploughs. Much of Mexico was tilled by such ancient means; the peons, believing that corn and beans require warm earth, that “steel makes the ground cold” and the mules had a “cold hoof,” preferred to use wood and oxen. As he walked among the outbuildings he came to a conical stone granary with rock steps worn by generations of peon feet, and near it the circular rock wall and floor of a threshing-pit in which mules tramped out wheat. Ojos Azules was very old and had much history, he supposed. It was incongruous that American soldiers should fight in a place of such sealed and feudal peace. It was a trick played by time upon itself. They had not been properly equipped to war here. He wondered what the reaction of the Quartermaster would have been to requests from the field for armor, crossbow, and the arquebus. He wondered how the ranch came to be called Ojos Azules , or Blue Eyes. He wondered how much longer he could loiter. ‘Report,’ he ordered himself. ‘The boy does not exist. The young Captain died a Colonel and will not have to watch. The Sergeant spankers are retired. No punishment can hurt you now as it did then. So report, boy of forty.’ He straightened his hat, adjusted his glasses, turned towards the casa grande .
A wide, covered passageway between walls three feet thick cut into the hacienda . From its dim coolness Major Thorn emerged into sun and colour of a patio. Bougainvillaea climbed the wooden pillars of portales. Centered was a second, smaller pool. Water purled from the head of a bull, long-horned. A lime tree grew to roof height. In summer there would be bees here, and the fan of hummingbirds. The silence was old-worldly. He recalled a description of the Alhambra as day closed, in a book by Washington Irving. About the patio the hacienda squared, the windows facing it small-paned and shuttered, a series of Moorish doors opening into rooms. As the officer stood, uncertain, he sensed that he was seen. Under the portale to his left sat a bird on a perch. It was some tropical variety, a macaw or toucan. Crude green, cardinal, blue, its plumage glittered in sun-ray, while its beak, enormous in proportion to its body, evilly hooked, rich as ivory, was of purest white. When Major Thorn moved towards it, pink unblinking eyes swivelled, following him, and it shifted weight on yellow claws. He put out a hand to stroke the bird, and with deliberate, almost sensual movement it seized his forefinger cruelly in its beak. Hurt, surprised, he pulled away his arm, toppling the bird from its perch so that it let go and with heavy wing-beat flew upwards to its perch, facing him inscrutably once more. He examined his finger. The sharp bill edge had broken skin.
Across the patio a trooper lounged beside a door. The officer asked where he would find Colonel Rogers, and the soldier pointed to another open door under the portale. Major Thorn went to it, hesitated, entered.
Unadjusted to the dimness, his eyes first made out only whitewashed walls, then a continuous bench along the outer wall covered with Indian blankets, then, in the middle, an arrangement of formal wooden furniture, straight carven chairs with leather seats along a high, narrow table. At one end of the room a stone fire-place yawned, in its face a design of Valencian tiles depicting an animal drama, a fox eating a drake. Suddenly he saw Selah Rogers. The Colonel knelt before the fire-place. He was praying. When he became aware of another presence he squinted, rose abruptly in recognition.
“Tom!” He crossed the room on bare feet. “Tom,
From the doorways of the adobe houses little children peered gravely at him. He heard the slap, slap, slap of their mothers’ hands making tortillas. From the fields two teams of great oxen were driven in from ploughing, the drivers carrying on their shoulders one-handled wooden ploughs. Much of Mexico was tilled by such ancient means; the peons, believing that corn and beans require warm earth, that “steel makes the ground cold” and the mules had a “cold hoof,” preferred to use wood and oxen. As he walked among the outbuildings he came to a conical stone granary with rock steps worn by generations of peon feet, and near it the circular rock wall and floor of a threshing-pit in which mules tramped out wheat. Ojos Azules was very old and had much history, he supposed. It was incongruous that American soldiers should fight in a place of such sealed and feudal peace. It was a trick played by time upon itself. They had not been properly equipped to war here. He wondered what the reaction of the Quartermaster would have been to requests from the field for armor, crossbow, and the arquebus. He wondered how the ranch came to be called Ojos Azules , or Blue Eyes. He wondered how much longer he could loiter. ‘Report,’ he ordered himself. ‘The boy does not exist. The young Captain died a Colonel and will not have to watch. The Sergeant spankers are retired. No punishment can hurt you now as it did then. So report, boy of forty.’ He straightened his hat, adjusted his glasses, turned towards the casa grande .
A wide, covered passageway between walls three feet thick cut into the hacienda . From its dim coolness Major Thorn emerged into sun and colour of a patio. Bougainvillaea climbed the wooden pillars of portales. Centered was a second, smaller pool. Water purled from the head of a bull, long-horned. A lime tree grew to roof height. In summer there would be bees here, and the fan of hummingbirds. The silence was old-worldly. He recalled a description of the Alhambra as day closed, in a book by Washington Irving. About the patio the hacienda squared, the windows facing it small-paned and shuttered, a series of Moorish doors opening into rooms. As the officer stood, uncertain, he sensed that he was seen. Under the portale to his left sat a bird on a perch. It was some tropical variety, a macaw or toucan. Crude green, cardinal, blue, its plumage glittered in sun-ray, while its beak, enormous in proportion to its body, evilly hooked, rich as ivory, was of purest white. When Major Thorn moved towards it, pink unblinking eyes swivelled, following him, and it shifted weight on yellow claws. He put out a hand to stroke the bird, and with deliberate, almost sensual movement it seized his forefinger cruelly in its beak. Hurt, surprised, he pulled away his arm, toppling the bird from its perch so that it let go and with heavy wing-beat flew upwards to its perch, facing him inscrutably once more. He examined his finger. The sharp bill edge had broken skin.
Across the patio a trooper lounged beside a door. The officer asked where he would find Colonel Rogers, and the soldier pointed to another open door under the portale. Major Thorn went to it, hesitated, entered.
Unadjusted to the dimness, his eyes first made out only whitewashed walls, then a continuous bench along the outer wall covered with Indian blankets, then, in the middle, an arrangement of formal wooden furniture, straight carven chairs with leather seats along a high, narrow table. At one end of the room a stone fire-place yawned, in its face a design of Valencian tiles depicting an animal drama, a fox eating a drake. Suddenly he saw Selah Rogers. The Colonel knelt before the fire-place. He was praying. When he became aware of another presence he squinted, rose abruptly in recognition.
“Tom!” He crossed the room on bare feet. “Tom,
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