登陆注册
5269500000022

第22章 THE MESA TRAIL(2)

Both the red fox and the coyote are free of the night hours, and both killers for the pure love of slaughter. The fox is no great talker, but the coyote goes garrulously through the dark in twenty keys at once, gossip, warning, and abuse. They are light treaders, the split-feet, so that the solitary camper sees their eyes about him in the dark sometimes, and hears the soft intake of breath when no leaf has stirred and no twig snapped underfoot. The coyote is your real lord of the mesa, and so he makes sure you are armed with no long black instrument to spit your teeth into his vitals at a thousand yards, is both bold and curious. Not so bold, however, as the badger and not so much of a curmudgeon. This short-legged meat-eater loves half lights and lowering days, has no friends, no enemies, and disowns his offspring. Very likely if he knew how hawk and crow dog him for dinners, he would resent it. But the badger is not very well contrived for looking up or far to either side. Dull afternoons he may be met nosing a trail hot-foot to the home of ground rat or squirrel, and is with difficulty persuaded to give the right of way. The badger is a pot-hunter and no sportsman. Once at the hill, he dives for the central chamber, his sharp-clawed, splayey feet splashing up the sand like a bather in the surf. He is a swift trailer, but not so swift or secretive but some small sailing hawk or lazy crow, perhaps one or two of each, has spied upon him and come drifting down the wind to the killing.

No burrower is so unwise as not to have several exits from his dwelling under protecting shrubs. When the badger goes down, as many of the furry people as are not caught napping come up by the back doors, and the hawks make short work of them. I suspect that the crows get nothing but the gratification of curiosity and the pickings of some secret store of seeds unearthed by the badger.

Once the excavation begins they walk about expectantly, but the little gray hawks beat slow circles about the doors of exit, and are wiser in their generation, though they do not look it.

There are always solitary hawks sailing above the mesa, and where some blue tower of silence lifts out of the neighboring range, an eagle hanging dizzily, and always buzzards high up in the thin, translucent air making a merry-go-round. Between the coyote and the birds of carrion the mesa is kept clear of miserable dead.

The wind, too, is a besom over the treeless spaces, whisking new sand over the litter of the scant-leaved shrubs, and the little doorways of the burrowers are as trim as city fronts. It takes man to leave unsightly scars on the face of the earth. Here on the mesa the abandoned campoodies of the Paiutes are spots of desolation long after the wattles of the huts have warped in the brush heaps. The campoodies are near the watercourses, but never in the swale of the stream. The Paiute seeks rising ground, depending on air and sun for purification of his dwelling, and when it becomes wholly untenable, moves.

A campoodie at noontime, when there is no smoke rising and no stir of life, resembles nothing so much as a collection of prodigious wasps' nests. The huts are squat and brown and chimneyless, facing east, and the inhabitants have the faculty of quail for making themselves scarce in the underbrush at the approach of strangers. But they are really not often at home during midday, only the blind and incompetent left to keep the camp. These are working hours, and all across the mesa one sees the women whisking seeds of chia into their spoon-shaped baskets, these emptied again into the huge conical carriers, supported on the shoulders by a leather band about the forehead.

Mornings and late afternoons one meets the men singly and afoot on unguessable errands, or riding shaggy, browbeaten ponies, with game slung across the saddle-bows. This might be deer or even antelope, rabbits, or, very far south towards Shoshone Land, lizards.

同类推荐
  • 弥勒菩萨所问经论

    弥勒菩萨所问经论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 方洲杂言

    方洲杂言

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 男女丹工异同辩

    男女丹工异同辩

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 读书分年日程

    读书分年日程

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 两同书

    两同书

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 买一送一:逃跑俏女友 [完]

    买一送一:逃跑俏女友 [完]

    她惹毛了这个男人了。而且在最不愿意的情况下,怀上了他的小孩。她不得不包袱款款收拾走人。趁着黑夜高风的时候,她悄悄地离开了这个霸道男人的身边。该死的女人……竟然在怀了他孩子的时候,跑了。真是惹怒了他了。他发誓,就算罗云蝶逃到天涯海角。他都要亲手将她捉回来!·推荐婷婷的完结稿——《黑帮CEO的筹码情人》请点击:http://m.wkkk.net/a/108164·推荐好友的完结书——《甜心别玩火》请点击:http://m.wkkk.net/a/99579·推荐婷婷的新坑——《报复:总裁的地下情人》http://m.wkkk.net/a/224835/·亲们,若是怕下次阅读找不到这本书,可以轻轻点击收藏加入。以便下次轻松阅读!
  • 御天神凰

    御天神凰

    人人喊打喊杀的大煞星,一不小心把万民敬仰爱慕的妖孽大人给睡了。说好的吃干抹净不负责,为什么变成了离床三尺要申请?大煞星恸哭:谁才是真正的煞星?……本文主角有强大外挂,不是纯古言,文文带有神秘的玄幻色彩
  • 剑荡九天

    剑荡九天

    肉四重,神通九重,五行至尊!三千大道便有三千世界,昊天乃是三千世界之中一方小界。因为弱小,竞争变得更加残酷。楚昊本为楚家庶出弟子,郁郁不得志。却因母亲遗愿不愿自甘堕落,机缘巧合之下融合了一枚远古留存的滴血琥珀,从此学什么都比别人快。狂蟒天罡,问道难寻,轮回纪元。以低劣资质,寻得大道三千,踏足武道巅峰,一人一剑,仗剑天涯,横扫环宇,名震八荒,问三千世界,诸般新奇,谁能挡我剑荡九天。
  • 白色监察官

    白色监察官

    6000纪元年,人类的世界里,科技高速发展、物种也在自然选择下进行了分化,一部分人类觉醒了特殊能力,被称为特殊能力者。弱肉强食的法则,使特殊能力者与无特殊能力的普通人类之间矛盾愈演愈烈,特殊能力者夺得了政权统一了世界,为了监视和去除评级低下的普通人类,统治阶级设立了一种特殊的职业——监察官。宋寻正是这些监察官中级别最高的一级监察官中的一员,被人们称为‘白色监察官’。那些乱世之下的爱与恨,人性的光与暗,未来世界的大门就此缓缓的打开。如果你能活到6000年,你会拥有怎样的特殊能力?你又会拥有什么样的生活?陪你一起踏入时空隧道……
  • 上海蓝调

    上海蓝调

    静安和闸北,一个诞生了近800年,一个不足400年;一个得名于寺庙,一个得名自水闸。出生时间不同,出生环境不同,甚至连陆路地域都不接壤,隔着苏州河相望。从全国解放到改革开放后,两个区都在曲折中发展,静安区走得稳,而闸北区追得猛,无论经济、文化,还是人口,都是你中有我,我中有你。有人把静安和闸北的商业、房产、交通、教育、文化等方面一一对比,得出结论:一个“洋气”、一个“霸气”,“洋气”的静安和“霸气”的闸北,那么远又这么近,终于在最好的时光里牵起了手。
  • 无非求碗热汤喝

    无非求碗热汤喝

    人生在世,吃喝二字。豆瓣、知乎、虎扑知名作者张佳玮暖心美食随笔。从家常食话,到零食小点;从应景吃食,到各地风物,从文化掌故,到童话臆想……引经据典,深入浅出。有吃,有文化,有故事;关于吃,吃什么,怎么吃;更关于吃的心情,陪你吃的人,你吃的时候想着你和你想着的人……
  • 龙剑魔法与少年

    龙剑魔法与少年

    如果地狱和天堂接壤,神话会变成怎样?又有谁知道这个世界,究竟埋藏着多少秘密?十八岁生日那天,梦中有莫名的召唤响起,满天的星辰在燃烧,有恶龙张开遮天的双翼,骑士的大剑沾满鲜血。楚江河一觉醒来,推开门,此世界已经非彼世界。
  • 微笑经济学

    微笑经济学

    微笑服务是一种力量,它不但可以产生良好的经济效益,而且还可以创造无价的社会效益。微笑不需要成本,却能够创造出许多价值。本书旨在指导读者如何将微笑转化为效益。作者在书中用平凡人的小故事指引读者看到微笑产生的能量,告诉读者微笑代表着真诚、付出,让人愿意亲近、接受,一步步指导读者如何发挥这一能量,创造美好的生活和出色的工作。
  • 千古泪

    千古泪

    临走之时他对诺小苡说的最后一句话便是“等三个花开花败后,不论在外面是成还是败,我都会回来亲手为你披上嫁衣,让你做这个世界上最幸福的女人”而诺小苡就这样年复一年,日复一日的看着四个花开,三个花败,盼了又盼的等着心爱的那个人回来,却想不到等来的却是一纸绝情书。
  • 顽劣小神医:谁的江湖谁做主

    顽劣小神医:谁的江湖谁做主

    她是乌云谷天不怕地不怕的小神医。一次意外认识了师父的头号大敌。她只是为了夺回自己的东西才会愿意跟他混在一起,哪知一夜之间“闻名”江湖。朝夕相处,让她无意的知道了很多他的冤屈。她心疼他的隐忍,想同他一起。哪知道早已有人陷阱重重,到底能否解开误会,能否如她所愿。看小神医如何绕指柔。