Chapter 14
Rodeo Time
In those days of large leisure and cyclonic bursts of excitement and activity; of midday siestas and moonlight serenades—and a duel, perchance, at sunrise—the spring rodeo was one of the year’s events, to be looked forward to all winter by the vaqueros; and when it was over, to be talked of afterwards for months. A mark from which to measure the passing of time, it was; a date for the fixing of incidents in the memory of men.
In the valley of Santa Clara, rodeo time really began when the Picardo vaqueros cinched saddles upon restive mustangs some misty morning, and with shouts and laughter and sombreros waving high over black heads in adieu to those who remained behind, swept down the slope like a charge of gayly caparisoned cavalry, driving the loose saddle horses before them. Past the stone and adobe wall of the home pasture, past the fences where the rails were held to their posts with rawhide thongs, which the coyotes sometimes chewed to pulp and so made extra work for the peons, they raced, exultant with life. Slim young Spaniards they were, clothed picturesquely in velvet and braid and gay sashes; with cumbersome, hairy chaparejos, high-crowned sombreros and big-roweled, silver spurs to mark their calling; caballeros to flutter the heart of a languorous-eyed señorita, and to tingle the pulse of the man who could command and see them ride gallantly to do his bidding.
Fairly in the midst of them, quite as gaudy to look upon and every whit as reckless in their horsemanship, rode Dade and Jack. If their hearts were not as light, their faces gave no sign; and their tongues flung back the good-humored jibes of their fellows in Spanish as fluent as any they heard.
When they left the highway and rode straight down the valley through the mustard that swept the chests of their plunging horses with dainty yellow and green, the two fell behind and slowing their horses to an easy lope, separated themselves from their exuberant fellows.
“I wish you were going along,” Dade observed tritely. “If José Pacheco changes his mind and stays at home, I’ll send you word and you can come on, if you want to.”
“Thanks.” Jack’s tone, however, did not sound thankful. “If I wanted to go, do you think I’d hang back because he’s going?”
“No, I don’t. I think the prospect of a fine, large row would be a temptation; and I must say I’m kinda surprised that you’ve been able to resist it. Still, I realize there’s compensations.”
“Sure, there are. I never denied it, did I?”
“Never. I reckon you’ve sent by Bill Wilson for a trumpet to proclaim—”
“Oh, shut up. I think,” Jack decided suddenly and without any visible cause, “I’ll turn off here and ride around by Jerry Simpson’s. Adios, old man, and heaps of good luck to you.” He swung abruptly off to the right and galloped away, looking back over his shoulder when he had ridden a hundred paces, to wave his sombrero and shout a last word or two of farewell.
“Truly, José will be disappointed when he does not see Señor Jack amongst us,” smiled Valencia, reining in beside Dade and looking after the departing horseman with friendly eyes. “Though if he had good sense, he would be thankful. Me, I should not like to have trouble with that friend of yours, Señor. In San Francisco they talk yet of that day when he fired three times from a galloping horse and killed three men. Dios! That was pretty shooting. I would have given much to see it. There will be few men so bold now as to make war with that blue-eyed hombre; but José is a fool, when his will is crossed. Me, I fight—yes, and love the heat of fighting in my blood; but I do not bellow threats before, as José has been doing. Carramba! To hear him, one would think he believed that men may die of curses; if they did, the Señor Jack would be lying now with candles burning at his head and his feet! Truly, love takes the sense out of a man quicker than wine.”
Dade agreed with him, though his lips did not open to form any words upon the subject.
Their first stopping place was José’s ranch down near Santa Clara, and he wondered just how far José’s hatred of him would interfere with the traditions of hospitality. It was not likely that José’s vaqueros would be ready to start that day; and although he carried his own camp equipment on pack-horses, and, guided by Valencia, ordered the camp set up in its accustomed place beside a little stream half a mile from the house, he sent many a questioning glance that way.
If he feared a hostile reception, he was soon reassured. José and Manuel speedily appeared, galloping side-by-side through the lush yellow and green. José’s manner was irreproachable, his speech carefully considered. If his eyes lacked their usual warm glow of friendliness, it was because he could not bring that look at will to beam upon the guest whom his heart failed to welcome. He invited Dade to dinner with him; and Dade, hoping to establish a better understanding between them, accepted.
Dade had not lived half his life amongst the dark-skinned race for nothing. He sipped the home-made wine with José, talked of many things in his soft, easy-natured drawl, and by letting his inner friendliness with the whole world look out of his eyes when they dwelt upon his host, went José one better in courtesy. And José, sauntering afterward across the patio to the porch, met Manuel face to face and paid tribute to Don Andres’ new majordomo in a single sentence.
“If all gringos were like this Señor Hunter, one could tolerate their coming to live amongst us,” he said frankly.
“Sí,” grudged Manuel. “But then, he is not all gringo. Many years he dwelt with our people in Texas, so that he has the Spanish ways; but me, I want none of him.”
José laughed without much mirth to lighten the sound. “The blue-eyed one—did you find from the vaqueros why he did not come? He need not have been afraid of me—not if his fame was earned honestly.” If his tone were patronizing, José perhaps had some excuse, since Fame had not altogether passed him by with face averted.
“Part of the way he came, and turned back. The vaqueros do not know why, except Valencia. And Valencia—he is growing a gringo heart, like the patron. He will speak nothing but boasts of what that blue-eyed one can do. Me, I came near fighting with Valencia; only he would not do anything but smile foolishly, when I told him what I think of traitors like himself.”
“Let him smile,” advised José, “while he may.” Which was not a threat, in spite of its resemblance to one, but rather a vague reference to the specter of trouble that stalks all men as a fox stalks a quail, and might some day wipe that broad smile from the face of Valencia, as it had swept all the gladness from his own.
He went back and smoked a final cigarette in Dade’s company; and if he said little, his silences held no hint of antagonism. It was not until Dade rose to return to camp for the night that José put the question that had tickled the tongue of him ever since the arrival on his ranch of the Picardo vaqueros.
“Your friend, the Señor Allen—he is to join you later, perhaps?”
“Jack was left to look after the ranch.” Dade’s eyes were level in their glance, his voice quiet with the convincing ring of truth. “He won’t be on rodeo at all.”
José went paler than he had been two weeks before with his hurt, but a simple word of polite surprise held all his answer. For Jack to stay at home, to be near Teresita every day, to have nothing in the way of his love-making—nothing, since those doting two, her parents, would but smile at whatever she might choose to do—there was acid enough in that thought to eat away all the warmth, all the generosity José possessed. He let Dade go without even the perfunctory phrases of regret, which custom had made almost compulsory; and Manuel, sitting in silent wrath upon the porch, listened to the steady footfalls moving up and down the room behind him until the moon, that had been shining in his smoldering eyes, slipped over the red tiles of the roof and left all but the tree-tops in black shade.
“Dios! There will be one gringo the less when those two meet,” he muttered, staring at the tiny glow of his cigarette; and afterward folded his arms tightly over a chest that heaved with the impatience within. When those two met, Manuel meant to be there also to see. “Me, I should like to drag him to death with the six-strand riata he despised!” was the beautiful thought he took to bed with him.
Sunshine was lifting the morning fog high above the tree-tops when the old, gray mare, whose every movement tinkled the bell hung around her neck, shook her rough coat vigorously to free it from the moisture which the fog had left; and so jangled a peremptory summons to the herd of saddle horses that bore the brand of Don Andres Picardo upon their right thighs. At the camp upon the bank of the Guadalupe, the embaladors were shouting curses, commands, jokes, and civilities to one another while they brought orderly packs out of the chaos of camp-equipment that littered the ground.
The vaqueros were saddling their mounts and fairly bubbling with a purely animal joy in the open; and Dade, his cigarette sending up a tiny ribbon of aromatic smoke as if he were burning incense before the altar of the soul of him that looked steadfastly out of his eyes, walked among them with that intangible air of good-fellowship which is so hard to describe, but which carries more weight among men than any degree of imperious superiority. Valencia looked up and flashed him a smile as he came near; and Pancho, the lean vaquero with the high beak and the tender heart, turned to see what Valencia was smiling at and gave instant glimpse of his own white teeth when he saw Dade behind him.
“To-day will be hot, Señor,” he said. “Me, I wish we were already at Tres Pinos.”
“No, you don’t,” grinned Dade, “for then you would not have the Sunal rancho before you, to build hopes upon, but behind you—and hope, they say, is sweeter than memory, Pancho.”
Pancho, being ugly to look upon, liked to be rallied upon the one señorita in the valley whose eyes brightened at sight of him. He grinned gratifiedly and said no more.
A faint medley of sounds blended by distance turned heads towards the east; and presently, breasting the mustard field that lay level and yellow to the hills, came José’s squad of vaqueros, with José himself leading the group at a pace that was recklessly headlong, his crimson sash floating like a pennant in the breeze he stirred to life as he charged down upon them.
“Only for the silver trimmings, you looked like a band of warlike Injuns coming down on us with the sun at your back,” laughed Dade, as José swung down near him. “They’re riders—the Indians back there on the plains; and when they pop over a ridge and come down on you like a tidal wave, your backbone squirms a little in spite of you. The way your vaqueros parted and galloped around our camp was a pretty good imitation of their preliminary flourishes.”
“Still, I do not come in war,” José returned, and looked full at the other. “I hope that we shall have peace, Señor Hunter; though one day I shall meet that friend of yours in war, if the saints permit. And may the day come soon.”
“Whatever quarrel you may have with Jack, I hope it will not hinder us from working together without bad feeling between us.” Dade threw away his cigarette and took a step nearer, so that the vaqueros could not hear.
“Don José, I know you don’t like a gringo major domo to lead Don Andres’ vaqueros on rodeo. I don’t blame you Californians for being prejudiced against Americans, because you’ve been treated pretty shabbily by a certain class of them. But you’re not so narrow you can’t see that we’re not all alike. I’d like to be friends, if you will, but I’m not going to apologize for being a gringo, nor for being here in charge of this camp. I didn’t choose my nationality, and I didn’t ask for my job. I’ll give you a square deal, and I want you to know that if there’s any grudge between us, it’s all on your side.”
José’s fingers fumbled the little corn-husk wrapping for the cigarette he meant to make. “Señor, I repeat what I said to Manuel last night,” he said, after a pause. “If all gringos were like you, we Californians would like the name better. But I thought you would stand by your friend—”
“And so I will, to the last—” Not being of a theatrical temperament, Dade balked at protestations of his loyalty. “Jack and I have worked and fought and played elbow to elbow for a long time, Don José. But I don’t mix into his personal quarrels, unless I see him getting a crooked deal. I believe you’ll fight fair. The rest lies between you two.”
“But is it not your boast that the Señor Allen is the supreme caballero of California?” José was frank, at least, and Dade liked him the better for it. “For three years I have held the medalla oro [gold medal] for riding and for riata throwing; if it is true that you boast—”
Dade, as was the way of him when disgust or chagrin seized him, flung out both hands impatiently. “I did say he couldn’t be beat. I said it to Manuel, when Manuel was sneering that Jack didn’t know a good riata from a bad one. I won’t take it back. I haven’t seen your work in the saddle, Don José. I have seen Jack’s, and I never saw any better. So, until I do, I can believe he’s the best, can’t I?”
“Sí.” José smiled without effort. “You are honest, Señor Hunter, and that pleases me well. I do not like you less because you are loyal to your friend; but that friend I hope one day to kill.” He looked at the other questioningly. “Now I am honest also,” his eyes said plainly.
“That’s your affair and Jack’s, as long as you don’t try to get him when he isn’t looking.”
“I am not an assassin, Señor Hunter,” José retorted stiffly.
“Then we understand each other, I guess. Let’s get these fellows started. It’s going to be hot, they say, and the horses are soft yet—at least, ours are. We took them off pasture yesterday, most of them.”
“Mine are the same, Señor. But to-day’s marcha will be an easy one. To Sunal Rancho is not far.” He turned to remount and give the signal for starting. And with a little of the pride that had impelled Jack to show off his skill that day when the Captain of the Committee commanded him to mount the buckskin, José also vaulted into the saddle without deigning to touch the stirrup.
There was doubt in the señor’s mind about his horsemanship being the best in all California? Very good. The señor would have the opportunity to judge for himself. Still, José had put to sleep most of his antagonism towards Dade, and his attitude of friendliness was not so deliberately forced as Manuel, watching eagerly for the first sign of a clash, believed it to be.