From the Improvement Era, December 1960 –

Strength from the Desert

By Alby R. Mearse

The Christmas season was approaching. Alton MacCanlass was in no mood to enter into its spirit.

He stood on the back porch of his small house, located at the Bot of the Organ Mountain. It was .just off the military reservation and on the outskirts of Pesilla, a tiny Mexican settlement. He looked up at the pipe-like peaks of the mountain and then out over the vast New Mexico semi-desert.

Here, on that balmy fall morning, he saw Pedro for the first time. The small lad, riding his mangy, gray burro, waved his sombrero and drew a rein on his beast as if to stop for a neighborly call. Alton turned a stiff back on the boy and walked into his house. Pedro slapped his lazy burro and rode on.

What right have a desert kid and a dirty burro to intrude on my privacy? thought Alton. I don’t like kids anyway or burros, either.

He stalked through the four rooms of his recently acquired house, thanking his luck that he had so easily come by a lease on this comfortable health-seeker’s retreat. At the same time he was seized by a sense of loneliness and the disappointments of the past months; and by the emptiness of the desert country to which he had come to forget-and to regain his health.

He had not expected Eloise to come with him. No girl could take such a risk. It was the fact that she was not willing to wear his ring while she waited for the recovery of his health that had thrown him into this expanse of gloom.

“I’ll wait for you, Alton, but of course you can’t expect me to hibernate,” she said as she handed him his ring.

“Of course not, darling.” That was when he began to freeze inside. The heat of the desert had done nothing to warm his heart.

He was an artist. As his health lessened, on his own body. And he would never love again.

One day as he sat dabbing at a canvas, trying to capture the spiky spears of a yucca and its snowy crown, he was startled by a youthful voice.

“Hi, Senor, you be great painter. I come through your casa and see your pictures everywhere, but I do not know them.”

“Who cares?” snapped Alton. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Who are you and what do you want?”

“I’m Pedro, the goat herder. I bring leche to them as needs it. But . . . but your picture, Senor, the yucca that you are painting, it is too thin, like you. Look across the desert and see how bold they be. They march across the desert like a army. They hold their white heads high. They have green skirts that sweep the ground. Their roots cling to the earth to save desert moisture. They, Senor, are just like desert people, tall and strong, so they can make the good stand.”

Alton turned and faced the boy. “Where, Pedro, did you learn such talk?”

“Mostly from the desert,” said Pedro, his liquid brown eyes as full of understanding as his words had been. “But I go to the city sometimes. It is not far. I see the great paintings. No one notice me, but I listen. I hear what they say. Mr. LaVey, the fine art man, he always there. I walk behind him and listen. I learn about desert pictures. But mostly I see pictures when I look at the desert.”

“But your English, Pedro? You are an extraordinary young chap, now a philosopher with beautiful English; now a simple lad struggling with a tongue foreign to you.”

“Si, Senor,” said Pedro, shifting his weight timidly, “until this year, when I was twelve years old, I go to the Academy and study the English. I love the English and study it well. Now my father is dead, and I quit the school to help Mamacita.”

“I see,” said Alton thoughtfully.

“Mr. Mac . . .” began Pedro timidly, “excuse if. . . .”

“Mac . . . Mac . . . indeed. . . .” Alton looked up in surprise.

“I see Mac on all your paintings. Forgive if I say wrong.”

“Okay, okay,” Alton gave Pedro the first faint sign of friendship, a qualified smile. “Okay, you be Pedro, I’ll be Mac.”

Pedro beamed. “Mr. Mac, hit me if I be bold, but I tell you right. Go see the desert from the mountain, over there. See it all— then you paint it.”

“Huh,” grunted Alton. “You may go now, Pedro. I am busy.”

Never was Alton to forget this first lesson in desert landscaping.

Thereafter each morning a bottle of milk and three fresh eggs were left at Alton’s back door.

“Why do you ride so far to do this for me?” asked Alton on the second morning.

“I need the money, Senor, to give to Mama for food. You need leche to put meat on your bones. I save the egg money for something special … I buy Mama a new coat for Christmas. She need it. If some money, a few centavos, be left I buy for me a box of crayolas, to paint pictures, like you, Senor.”

After that Alton kept himself out of sight. He would not be student to this slip of a desert boy; and he would not become involved in Pedro’s family affairs.

Then one day, under the milk and eggs, Alton found a charcoal sketch. Without aid of color the sketch had such depth and scope, such symmetry, that he began to ask himself if this strange Pedro might not be the embodiment of the desert spirit that he himself had determined to discover.

After his next trip into the city, Alton left, with the empty bottle and the day’s pay for milk and eggs, a box of pastel chalks. Why not give this kid, with a dream in his heart, a small break? As days went by this exchange of artistic goodwill between Pedro and Alton continued, without their meeting again.

No one but Pedro could have been responsible for the unexpected visit Alton received in the late fall from a committee of artists from the city. Wouldn’t he exhibit his paintings at the annual southwestern painter’s outdoor art show?

“But I don’t qualify,” he protested. “My subjects are foreign to this locale.” In the end he hung three of his paintings.

He was confused and angered at comments overheard at the show, “Modern, but emotionless; rhythm, balance, perfect technique, but no feeling, no heart.” After all he hadn’t asked for space in their art show. He went further into his shell of introspection.

One day after the healing magic of the desert began to stir within him, he said to himself, “I’ll go so far, I’ll climb so high, that I’ll be able to see and to feel what that crazy kid said about his desert.”

And so on the strength of Pedro’s goat’s milk, his fresh eggs, and the desert’s alchemy, he climbed to the highest peak of the Organ Mountain. It was the perfect day. In late fall, when the north-lands are snow-covered, the western desert is warm and clear. Alton looked across the valley, shimmering in sunshine, and to the far-distant mountains. He felt strength surging through his whole being. What a day for a man to drain his heart of bitterness. As he sat and gazed, a calmness fell upon him, a peace entered his heart.

He no longer saw army installations as products of the desert, aimed at death and destruction. The White Sands Proving Grounds, the center of guided missile warfare, no longer provoked thoughts of war, but a sense of peace, in security. He no longer hated the dryness and the heat. He was seeing color, distance, light, and shadows as he had never seen them before. He arose and extended his arms in an attitude of blessing.

“Beautiful, boundless,” he said aloud. “Created by a mind beyond man’s conception— and I was created to paint it.”

“I knew, Senor, you’d keep looking at the desert until you’d see its beauty. It has the gray and the blue and the purple. It has the blue-pink and the gold at sunset. This be the place to see it all. I knew someday you’d come here.”

Alton lost his balance and regained it just in time to prevent the end of his artistic career.

“You little rascal, you scamp, even if you are a better artist than I am, I don’t want you scaring the wits out of me. And there you go with those pretty words again. You amaze me, boy.” He gave Pedro’s ear an affectionate tweak and touseled his dark hair. “Do you come here often, yourself?”

“When there are not so many errands for Mama. I’ve waited for you here before. It is the real place to see our desert. I knew you’d come, Senor.”

“You did, huh? You are quite an artist yourself, Pedro. Thanks for the sketches under the milk bottles. They are good. By the way, fellow, have you saved up enough egg money to buy your mama that coat for Christmas?”

“No, Senor, we have the bad luck. Our goat, she died last month. Mama need all my money for food.”

“Hey, look, Pedro, have I been drinking milk from a dead goat?”

“Oh, no, Senor, I bargain for your leche. On the desert we must bargain—or die. I buy your leche from my friend, Juan. I make five centavos each day on your leche. My Mama need all I make. No coat for her at Christmas. Our goat, she take bad time to die.”

“How unkind of her,” said Alton. “Five centavos, five cents. . . .” He stood erect and took another long look across the valley. He spoke aloud, not to Pedro, but to his inner self. “Bargain on the desert! Bargain for health, for strength, for new beauty— and for the love of a Mexican kid.”

“Since you come here, Senor, now you will make the great painting. Now you will paint the desert.”

“Yes, I shall paint the desert,” said Alton.

They sat in silence, throwing small stones down the mountain side.

“Look, Pedro,” said Alton, “I’ve been lonely out here, and I want to do something about it. I want to throw a big Christmas party.”

“Si, Sen or. Many fine artists from the city will come,” said Pedro,

“No, Pedro, no artists. I want you to come, you and your mamacita and all the boys and girls you can find on the desert and in the village nearby. You run along now and invite them all.”

The boy obeyed at once. “Adios, Senor.”

Alton took a last searching look across the desert and went down the slope, carrying in his mind every facet of light and color, all the enchantment and the haunting beauty of the desert.

A buoyancy that he had not felt for months swept through him, an impatience to be about the work of transmitting to canvas the bigness, the mood, and the strength of the desert; and to plan a Christmas party, such as the children of the desert had never seen. These thoughts spurred him on, and he found himself almost running.

The painting, which no one but Pedro had seen, was finished with such speed and dexterity that Alton himself stood in awe of his own skill. No less miraculous was the peace in his heart.

The party? Nothing was lacking, as the avalanche of children swept in on Christmas Eve for the celebration. Alton was prepared, he had bought all that the village had to offer of gifts and party food and had stormed the city for more.

There was a coat for Mamacita, such as she had never dreamed of. For Pedro there was an artist’s easel, paints and brushes in all media— and tied just outside the door a live milk goat.

“I had no gift to bring you, Senor, nothing but this,” said Pedro, hanging his head in shame.

Alton raised the plain brown paper that concealed a winter bouquet of such artistic arrangement and pure beauty that he hesitated to speak.

“Where? . . . How . . . Pedro?

“When you told me about the party, Senor, I start collecting, all free, from the desert.”

The sweep of tumbleweed, the yuca burrs, the cacti spears, the tall whisp of dry grass, and the mesquite root, used as driftwood, was made into a piece of art that was worthy of a place beside Alton’s own painting, where he proudly placed it.

As the party got under way, the valley rang with laughter. Pedro had proved himself a man about the desert. He knew everybody, and all were invited. They commingled in a symphony of happiness not unlike the way colors blend in a bouquet of flowers.

When horns were blowing at their distracting loudest, drums were being mercilessly pounded, and laughter was rippling like waves, a knock was heard at Alton’s front door.

“Mr. Alton MacCanlass?” asked a dignified man as Alton opened the door a crack. “I am Ira LaVey.”

“I’m sorry, Sir, but we are in the midst of a Christmas celebration— I might say, to end all celebrations.”

“I know,” said Mr. LaVey, “I’m not crashing the party, I was invited.”

“I beg your pardon. . . .” But before more explanation could be offered, Pedro was at the door.

“Please, Senor, I ask the great art man from the city to come, not just for the party, but to see your desert picture. Please forgive if I do wrong.”

And that is how the critic, who at the art show, had been overheard to say, “too cold, no heart,” now said to Alton, “Truly a great painting, a great understanding of your subject. Keep the painting as long as it has something to say to you. When there are more of its kind, and perhaps even better, and you feel that you can spare it, I should like to hang it with my collection of the greatest of the southwestern masterpieces.”

Alton MacCanlass had brought Christmas to the children of the desert. A desert lad had brought peace and a new spirit of love into the heart of a man.