Chapter 16
“For Weapons I Choose Riatas”
There must have been a good deal of gossip amongst the vaqueros of the various ranches, as they rode on circle or lay upon their saddle blankets around the evening camp-fires. As is ever the case when a man is young, handsome, rich, and holds proudly the gold medal which proclaims him the champion of the whole State—the golden disk which many a young vaquero longed to wrest from him in a fair test of skill—there were those who would rather like to see José humbled. True, they would never choose an alien to do the humbling, and the possibility was discussed with various head-shakings amongst themselves.
But there were the Picardo vaqueros stanchly swearing by all the saints they knew that these two gringos were not as other gringos; that these two were worthy a place amongst true Californians. Could they not see that this Señor Hunter was as themselves? And he was not more Spanish in his speech and his ways than was the Señor Allen, albeit the Señor Allen’s eyes were blue as the lupines, and his hair the color of the madrona bark when it grows dark with age—or nearly the color. And he could shoot, that blue-eyed one!
Valencia, having an audience of a dozen or more one night, grew eloquent upon the prowess of the blue-eyed one. And the audience, listening, vowed that they would like to see him matched against José, who thought himself supreme in everything.
“Not in fighting,” amended Valencia, his teeth gleaming white in the fire-glow, as he leaned to pull a brand from the blaze that he might relight the cigarette which had gone out while he told the tale of that running fight, when the two Americanos had shamed a whole crowd of gringos—for so did Valencia make nice distinction of names.
“Not in fighting, amigos, nor yet in love! And because he knows that it is so, the cheeks of Don José hang slack, and he rides with chin upon his breast, when he thinks no one is looking. The medalla oro is his, yes. But he would gladly give it for that which the Señor Allen possesses. Me, I think that the Señor Allen could as easily win also the medalla oro as he has won the other prize.” There was a certain fineness in Valencia that would never permit his tongue to fling the name of the Señorita Teresa amongst these vaqueros; but he was sure that they caught his meaning.
“Dios! me, I should like to see him try,” cried a tall San Vincente rider, shifting his position to ease a cramp in his long leg; and his tone was neither contemptuous nor even doubtful, but merely eager for the excitement there would be in the spectacle.
Some one in the shadows turned and walked quickly away to another fire-glow with its ring of Rembrandt figures and faces, and none save Valencia knew that it was Manuel gone to tell his master what had been said. Valencia smiled while he smoked.
Presently José was listening unwillingly to Manuel’s spite-tinged version of the talk at the San Vincente camp. “The vaqueros are making a mock of thy bravery and thy skill!” Manuel declared, with more passion than truth. “They would see thee beaten, in fight as well as in love—”
The stiffening of José’s whole figure stopped Manuel short but not dissatisfied, for he saw there was no need that he should speak a single word more upon the subject.
“They shall see him try, unless he is a coward.” The voice of José was muffled by the rage that filled him.
So it came to pass that Manuel saddled his best mustang within an hour and rode away to the north. And when Valencia strolled artlessly to the Pacheco fire and asked for him, José hesitated perceptibly before he replied that Manuel had gone home with a message to the foreman there.
Valencia grinned his widest when he heard that, and over two cigarettes he pondered the matter. Being a shrewd young man with an instinct for nosing out mysteries, he flung all uncertainty away with the stub of his second cigarette and sought Dade.
He found him standing alone beside a deep, still pool, staring at the shadows and the moon-painted picture in the middle, and looking as if his thoughts were gone on far journeys. Valencia was too full of his news to heed the air of absolute detachment that surrounded Dade. He went straight to the heart of his subject and as a precaution against eavesdropping he put his meaning into the best English he knew.
“José, she’s dam-mad on Señor Jack,” he began eagerly. “She’s hear talk lak she’s no good vaquero. Me, I hear San Vincente vaqueros talk, and Manuel she’s hear also and run queeck for tella José. José she’s lak for keela Señor Jack. Manuel, she’s ride lak hell for say José, she lak for fight Señor Jack. Me, I theenk Señor Jack keela José pretty dam-queeck!”
Dade had come to know Valencia very well; he turned now and eyed him with some suspicion.
“Are you sure?” he asked, in the tone that demanded a truthful answer. He had seen Manuel ride away in the white light of the moon, and he had wondered a little and then had forgotten all about it in the spell of utter loneliness which the moon brings to those who are cheated by Fate from holding what they most desire.
“Sure, me.” Valencia’s tone was convincingly positive. “Manuel, she’s go lak hell for tella Señor Jack, José, she’s lak for fight duelo. Sure. That’s right.”
Dade swung back and stared moodily at the moon-painted pool where the trout, deceived by the brightness into thinking it was day, started widening ripple-rings here and there, where they flicked the surface with slaty noses; and the wavering rings were gold-tipped until they slid into the shadows and were lost. Dade watched three rings start in the center and ripple the whole pool.
“How quick could you get to the rancho?” he asked abruptly, just as Valencia’s spirits were growing heavy with disappointment. “Could you overtake Manuel, do you think?”
“Me, I could with the caballo which I have in mind—Noches—I could pass Manuel upon the way, though he had two more hours the start of me!” English was too slow now for Valencia’s eagerness. “Manuel is fat, and he is not young, and he will not ride too fast for his fat to endure. Also he will stop at the Pacheco hacienda for breakfast, and to rest his bones. Me, I can be at the rancho two hours before Manuel, Señor.”
Valencia was not a deceitful young man, as deceit goes; but he wanted very much to be sent in haste to the ranch, for he was itching with curiosity to know the truth of this matter and if he were indeed right. If Manuel had gone bearing a challenge from José to the Señor Jack, then he wanted to know the answer as soon as possible. Also there was Felice, the daughter of Carlos, whose lips lured him with their sweetness. Truly, Valencia would promise any miracle of speed.
The pool lay calm as the face of a dead child. Dade stooped and tossed a pebble into it as if that stillness troubled him. He took his cigarette from his lips, looked at the glowing tip, and over it at the eager face of Valencia.
“We mustn’t let them fight. Take Noches and ride like the devil was at your heels. Get there ahead of Manuel and tell Jack—” He stopped there and bit his lips to hurry his slow thoughts. “Tell Jack he must go to town right away, because—well, tell him Bill Wilson—”
Valencia’s face had been lengthening comically, but hope began to live again in his eyes. “If the señor would write what he wishes to say while I am making ready for the start, he will then have more time to think of what is best. The moon will ride clear to-night; and the sun will find me at the rancho, Señor. Me, I have ridden Noches one hundred miles without rest, before now; these sixty will be play for us both.”
“Gracias, Valencia.” Dade dropped a hand gratefully upon the shoulder of the other. “I’ll write a note, but you must do your part also. You know your people, and I know Jack; if those two fight, the trouble will spread like fire in the grass; for Don José has many friends to take up the quarrel. You’ve had a long day in the saddle, amigo, and the sixty miles will not be play. I would not ask it if the need were less urgent—but you must beat Manuel. If you don’t, Jack will accept the challenge; and once he does that—” he flung out both hands in his characteristic gesture of impatience or helplessness.
“Sí, Señor. If the saints permit, Manuel shall not see him first.” It was like Valencia to shift the responsibility from his own conscience to the shoulders of the saints, for now he could ride with a lighter heart. Perhaps he was even sincere when he made the promise; but there were sixty miles of moonlight in which his desire could ride with him and tempt him; and of a truth, Valencia did greatly desire to see those two come together in combat!
The saints were kind to Valencia, but they were also grimly just. Because he so greatly desired an excuse for delay, they tricked Noches with a broken willow branch that in the deceptive moonlight appeared to be but the shadow of the branch above it. It caught him just under an outflung knee as he galloped and flipped him neatly, heels to the stars. He did not struggle to his feet even when Valencia himself, a bit dazed by the fall, pulled upon the reins and called to him to rise. The horse lay inert, a steaming, black mass in the road. The moon was sliding down behind the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the chill breeze whispered that dawn was coming fast upon the trail of the moonbeams.
Valencia, when he saw that Noches would never gallop again, because he had managed to break his sweat-lathered neck in the fall, sat down beside the trail and rolled a corn-husk cigarette. His mood swung from regret over the passing of as fleet and true a horse as ever he bestrode, to gratitude to the saints for their timely hindrance of his prompt delivery of the note. Truly it was now no fault of his that he could never reach the hacienda before Manuel! He would have to walk and carry his saddle, heavy with silver and wide skirts of stamped leather; and he was a long way from the end of his journey, when he must cover the distance with his own feet. Eight or ten miles, he estimated it roughly; for he had passed José’s hacienda some time before, and had resisted the temptation to turn aside and find out if Manuel were there or had gone on. He had not passed Manuel in the trail as he had boasted that he would do, and not once had he glimpsed him anywhere, though there had been places where the road lay straight, and he could see it clear in the moonlight for a mile or more.
When he had finished the cigarette and his thanks to Fate—or whatever power had delayed him—he removed his saddle and bridle from the horse and went on; and it was then that he began to understand that he must do a penance for desiring war rather than peace amongst his fellows. Valencia, after the first hour of tramping with his saddle on his shoulders, had lost a good deal of his enthusiasm for the duel he felt sure was already a certainty.
When he left the road for a straight cut to the hacienda, the wild range cattle hindered him with their curiosity, so that, using all the methods known to a seasoned vaquero for driving them back, his progress had been slow. But he finally came out into the road again and was plodding along the stone wall within half a mile of the house, his face very disconsolate because of his protesting feet and the emptiness in his stomach, when Manuel himself confronted him suddenly coming from the house.
Manuel was looking well pleased with himself, in spite of his night ride. He pulled up and stared wide-eyed at Valencia, who had no smile with which to greet him but swore instead a pensive oath.
“Dios! Is it for a wager that you travel thus?” grinned Manuel, abominably comfortable upon a great, sorrel horse that pranced all round Valencia in its anxiety to be upon its way home. “Look you, Valencia! Since you are travelling, you had best go and tell the padres to make ready the sacrament for your gringo friend, that blue-eyed one; for truly his time on earth is short!”
Valencia, at that, looked up into Manuel’s face and smiled in spite of the pain in his feet and the emptiness in his stomach.
“Does it please you, then, Valencia? All night I rode to bear a message to that blue-eyed one who thinks himself supremo in all things; a challenge from Don José, to fight a duelo if he is not a coward; so did José write. ‘Unless you are afraid to meet me’—and the vanity of that blue-eyed one is great, Valencia. Of a truth, the man is loco. What think you, Valencia? He had the right to choose the weapons—and José believed that he would choose those pistols of which you make so much talk. Madre de Dios! What says the blue-eyed one, then?—and laughed in my face while he spoke the words! ‘Go tell Don José I will fight him whenever and wherever he likes; and for weapons I choose riatas.’ Heard you anything—”
“Riatas!” Valencia’s jaw dropped an inch before he remembered that Manuel’s eyes were sharp and eager to read the thoughts of a man in the twitching muscles of his face.
“Sí, riatas!” Manuel’s whole fat body shook with laughter. “Even you, who are wholly bewitched by those gringos, even you are dismayed! Tell me, Valencia, have you seen him lasso anything?”
But Valencia, having pulled himself together, merely lifted his shoulders and smiled wisely, so that even Manuel was almost deceived into believing that Valencia’s faith was great because it was built upon a secret knowledge of what the blue-eyed one could do.
“Me, I heard you boasting to those San Vincente vaqueros,” Manuel accused, shifting the talk to generalities. “And the Señor Hunter boasts also that the blue-eyed one is supremo with the riata, as he is with everything else!” The tone of Manuel was exceeding bitter. “Well, he will have the chance to prove what he can do. No gringo can come among us Californians and flap the wings and crow upon the tule thatch for naught. There has been overmuch crowing, Valencia. Me, I am glad that boaster must do something more than crow upon the thatch, Valencia!”
“Sí, there has been overmuch crowing,” Valencia retorted, giving to his smile the lift that made it a sneer, “but the thatch has not been of Picardo tules. Me, I think they grew within hearing of the mission bells of Santa Clara! And the gallo [rooster] which crows is old and fat, and feeds too much upon the grapes that are sour! Adios! I must haste to give congratulations to the Señor Jack, that he will have opportunity to wring the necks of those loud-crowing gallos of the Pacheco thatches.”
Whereupon he picked up his saddle and walked on, very straight in the back and patently unashamed of the injustice of his charge; for it was the crowing of Valencia himself beside the San Vincente camp-fire that had brought Manuel with the message, and Valencia knew that perfectly well.
The family of Don Andres had been breakfasting upon the wide veranda when Manuel strode grimly across the patio and confronted them. They were still seated there when Valencia, having deposited his riding gear at the saddle-hut, limped to the steps and stood with his sunny smile upon his face and his sombrero brim trailing the dust. It seemed to Valencia that the don was displeased; he read it in the set of his head, in the hardness that was in his glance, in a certain inflexible quality of his voice.
“Ah, Valencia,” he said, rising as if the interruption was to put an end to his lingering there, “you also seem to have ridden in haste from the rodeo. Truly, I think that same rodeo has been but the breeding-ground of gossip and ill-feeling, and is like to bear bitter fruit. Well, you have a message, I’ll warrant. What is it?”
Valencia’s mien was respectful almost to the point of humility. “The majordomo sent me with a letter, which I was to deliver into the hands of the Señor Allen,” he said simply. “My hope was that I might arrive before Manuel”—he caught a flicker of wrath in the eyes of the don at the name and smiled inwardly—”but the moonlight played tricks upon the trail, and my caballo tripped upon a willow-branch and fell upon his head so that his neck was twisted. I was forced to walk and carry the saddle, and there were times when the cattle interrupted with their foolish curiosity, and I must stop and set the riata hissing to frighten them back, else they would perchance have trampled me. So I fear that I arrive too late, Don Andres. But truly I did my best; a full hour behind Manuel I started, and have walked ten miles of the sixty. The saints know well—”
Don Andres checked his apologies with a wave of the hand, and sat down somewhat heavily in his favorite chair, as if he were tired, though the day was but fairly begun.
“We do not doubt your zeal,” he observed dryly. “Give the letter to the señor and begone to your breakfast. And,” he added impressively, “wait you and rest well until the answer is ready; for perchance there will be further need to test the kindness of the saints—and the speed of a horse.”
Valencia fumbled within his sash and brought forth the small, folded square of paper, went up two steps and placed it in Jack’s upturned palm, gave Jack also a glance more kindly and loyal than ever he had received from that minx, Teresita, and went away to the vaqueros’ quarters. Valencia had learned nothing from the meeting, except that the don was in one of his rare fits of ill-temper.
“Yet I know that there will be a duelo,” he comforted himself with thinking, as he limped wearily across the patio. “The face of the patron is black because of it, and a little devil-flame burns in the eyes of the señorita because for love of her men would fight—(Such is the way of women, to joy in those things which should give them, fear!)—and the señora’s face is sagged with worry, and Señor Jack—ah, there is the fighting look in those eyes! Never have I seen them so dark: like the bay when a storm is riding upon the wind. And it will be riatas—for so Manuel told me. Me, I will wager my saddle upon the Señor Jack, even though riatas be the weapons. For he is wily, that blue-eyed one; never would he choose the rawhide unless he knew its hiss as he knows his own heartbeats. Let it be riatas, then, if so the señor chooses!”