When he had rested a few minutes, he took out his knife again and carefully, gently opened the vessels of his wrist.
The sun lost its brilliance and sheathed itself in thin clouds. Joseph regarded the dying moss and the circle of trees. “This is gone now. I am all alone.” And then a panic fell upon him. “Why should I stay in this dead place?” He thought of the green canyon over the Puerto Suelo. Now that he was no longer supported by the rock and the stream, he was horribly afraid of the creeping drought. “I’ll go!” he cried suddenly. He, picked up his saddle and ran across the glade with it. The horse raised its head and snorted with fear. Joseph lifted the heavy saddle, and as the tapadero struck the horse’s side, it reared, plunged away and broke its tether. The saddle was flung back on Joseph’s chest. He stood smiling a little while he watched the horse run out of the glade and away. And now the calm redescended upon him, and his fear was gone. “I’ll climb up on the rock and sleep a while,” he said. He felt a little pain on his wrist and lifted his arm to look. A saddle buckle had cut him; his wrist and palm were bloody. As he looked at the little wound, the calm grew more secure about him, and the aloofness cut him off from the grove and from all the world. “Of course,” he said, “I’ll climb up on the rock.” He worked his way carefully up its steep sides until at last he lay in the deep soft moss on the rock’s top. When he had rested a few minutes, he took out his knife again and carefully, gently opened the vessels of his wrist. The pain was sharp at first, but in a moment its sharpness dulled. He watched the bright blood cascading over the moss, and he heard the shouting of the wind around the grove. The sky was growing grey. And time passed and Joseph grew grey too. He lay on his side with his wrist outstretched and looked down the long black mountain range of his body. Then his body grew huge and light. It arose into the sky, and out of it came the streaking rain. “I should have known,” he whispered. “I am the rain.” And yet he looked dully down the mountains of his body where the hills fell to an abyss. He felt the driving rain, and heard it whipping down, pattering on the ground. He saw his hills grow dark with moisture. Then a lancing pain shot through the heart of the world. “I am the land,” he said, “and I am the rain. The grass will grow out of me in a little while.”
