INDICATING THAT THAT WHICH APPEARS THE EARTHLY
PARADISE MAY PROVE QUITE ANOTHER SORT OF PLACE
A strip of white beach three hundred feet long, a score of paces across
at its widest, with black barren cliffs guarding it and the faint pink
dawn slowly growing a deeper rose over it, such was the port of
adventure into which nosed the row boat bringing Jim Kendric and Twisty
Barlow treasure seeking. In the stern crouched Nigger Ben, come ashore
in order to row the boat back to the _New Moon_, his eyes bulging with
wonderment that men should come all the way from San Diego to disembark
upon so solitary a spot. The dingey shoved its nose into the sand,
Kendric and Barlow carrying their small packs and rifles sprang out,
Nigger Ben shook his head and pushed off again.
"Up the cliffs the easiest way," cried Barlow, his eyes shining with
excitement. "Up there I'll get my bearin's and we'll steer a
straight-string line for what's ahead, Headlong, old mate! Step lively
is the word now while it's cool. And by noon, if we're in luck----"
He left the rest to any man's imagination and hastened across the sand
and to the rock wall. But more forbidding than ever rose the cliffs
against the path of men who did not know their every crevice, and it
was full day and the sun was up before they came panting to the top.
Down went packs, with two heaving-chested, bright-eyed men atop of
them, while Barlow, compass in hand, got his bearings.
The devil's own he had named this country from afar; the devil's own it
extended itself, naked and dry and desolate before their questing eyes,
a weary land, sun-smitten, broken, looking deserted of God and man. As
far as they could see there were no trees, little growth of any kind,
no birds, no grazing beasts. Just swell after swell of arid lands,
here and there cut by ancient gorges, tumbled over by heaps of black
rocks, swept clean of dust on the high places by racing winds, piled
high with sand and small stones in the depressions. Where growing
things thrust up their heads, they were the harsh, fanged and envenomed
growth of desert places. The place had an air of unholiness in the
light of the new day. A thorn, as Barlow turned carelessly, tore the
skin on the back of his hand painfully. The parent stem had an evil
look and he cursed it as though it had been a conscious malign agent,
and struck at it with his clubbed rifle. From the place where the
branch was wrenched away exuded a slow red sticky ooze like coagulating
blood.
"There's our course," announced Barlow, pointing, "with half a dozen
hours of damned unpleasant walking, according to poor old Juarez. See
those three peaks, standing up together? We bear a little off to the
south for a spell and then straight toward 'em. And never a spring
until we get there! Look out you don't poke a hole in your canteen."
"Ready," said Jim. "Let's go."
They went on. Now that a new phase had come into their quest, with the
days of distant speculation giving place to action on the ground, a
certain difference of character was manifest in the two men. A growing
taciturnity, accompanied by deep frowning thoughtfulness, locked
Barlow's lips, while Kendric, to whom any such experience was always
primarily a lark, expanded and mounted steadily to fresh stages of
lightheartedness. It mattered less to him than to his companion what
might lie at the end of their journey; the journey itself was with Jim
Kendric the golden thing. He felt alive, jubilant, keenly in sympathy
with the lure and zest of the expedition. He felt like singing, would
no doubt have sung out in some wild border ballad or bit of deep sea
melody with a piratical swing to it, had he not been half the time
fairly breathless from the pace they maintained over the broken country.
In a couple of hours they left behind them the worst of the gorges and
cañons, flinty peaks and ridges, and dropped down into a long crooked
valley floored with dry sand ankle deep and grown over with a gray
shrub plainly akin to California sage brush. Here was some scant
evidence of animal life, a dusty jack rabbit, a circling buzzard, a
thin spotted snake, a wild pony with up-flung head staring at them from
the further ridge, gone whisking away as they drew on. And they came
to trees whose shade was grateful, oaks and, later, a few dusty
straggling piñons. Wisps of dry grass, an occasional patch of
flowering weeds or taller plants, a flock of bewildered-looking birds
that had the appearance of having strayed hitherward by mistake. No
water, no sign of water; no man-owned herds, no sign of man. The open
valley under the high, hot sun was a drearier place than the mountain
slopes.
Then came the up-hill climb as they passed out of the western edge of
the sandy flats, a steep spur of the Cordillera, a region silent and
saturnine and unthinkably hot. Three times, though they guarded
against profligacy with their water, they unstoppered their canteens
and rested in the shade on the way up. At last they came to the crest
of the barrier of the blistering hills, having been on foot for a full
five hours. And now, for the first time, looking forward, down the
steep slopes and across the miles, they saw the Valley of Las Flores,
the place of flowers. At first it was hard for them to believe that
their eyes, which the desert lands befool so often and so readily, had
not tricked them. It was as though in a twinkling the world had
changed about them.
The long wide valley below was one sweep of green: fresh, colorful,
cool green. Across it wandered many cows and horses and donkeys,
browsing where the herbiage was lushest, dozing in the shade of the
wide-spread oaks, standing indolent in the golden sunshine. A bright
stream of water cut the emerald sward in two, coming from the bordering
mountains at one end, gone flashing into the mountain-guarded pass at
the other. From a distance Kendric heard a bird singing away like mad
and saw the sweep and flutter of a butterfly's wing.
"The earthly paradise!" he cried admiringly.
But already Barlow's fixed eyes were upon the mountainous country
across the valley.
"Come on," he said, slipping his pack-straps over his shoulders and
swinging up his rifle. "It would be three to five miles, easy going,
and we're there! There are our three peaks, straight across."
Only when they were fairly down on the floor of the valley did they see
the ranch houses. There were several, a big, rambling adobe with
white-washed walls, barns and smaller outbuildings, all making a
sizeable group. They stood in an oak grove at the opposite side of the
valley, close to the common bases of Barlow's peaks. The two men
stopped and looked, reflecting.
"Neighbors," said Kendric. "They'll be wanting to know what we're
about, pottering around on the rim of their holding."
"It's anybody's land over there," growled Barlow. "They'd best keep
out of it."
They pushed on across the fields, noting casually how they were all
leveled and ditched for irrigation, and came at last to the creek where
they rested under an oak and drank deeply and smoked. As they rose to
go on they saw four horsemen bearing down upon them from the direction
of the ranch houses.
"_Vacqueros_," said Barlow. "They'll be wantin' to know if we're lost."
"They look more like brigands than cow men," grunted Kendric. "Every
man jack of them wears a rifle. And they're in a rush, Twisty, old
mate. What will you bet they don't herd us back where we came from?"
"Let 'em try it on," Barlow shot back at him, his eyes narrowing on the
oncoming riders. "I'm goin' to roll up in my blanket under those three
peaks tonight if the whole Mexican army shows up."
The two Americans stopped and stood ready to ease their shoulders out
of their packs and start pumping lead if the newcomers turned out to be
half the desperadoes they appeared. "The way to argue with these sort
of gents," said Barlow contemptuously, "is shoot their eyes out first
and talk next." But as the foremost of the little cavalcade drew up in
front of them, with his three followers curbing their horses a few
paces in his rear, the fellow's greeting was amazingly hospitable.
"_Buenas dias, amigos_," he called to them. But, though he hailed them
in the name of friendship, his eyes were sullen and gave the lie to his
speech. "You would be fatigued with walking across the cursed desert;
you would be parched with thirst. Yonder," and he pointed toward the
distant white walls, "is coolness and pleasant welcome awaiting you."
His followers were out-and-out ragamuffins, wild-looking fellows with
their unshaven cheeks and tangled hair and fierce eyes. Their
spokesman stood apart in appearance as well as in position, being
somewhat extravagantly dressed, showing much ornamentation both on his
own person and that of his mount in the way of silver buckles and
spangles. He was the youngest of the crowd, not over twenty-two or
three from the look of him, with a nicely groomed black mustache. The
horse under him was a superb creature, a great savage fiery-eyed sorrel
stallion.
"Thanks," returned Barlow. "But my friend and I are on our way over
there." He pointed. "We are students of entymology and are studyin'
certain new butterflies." All along, until the very moment, he had
fully intended explaining by saying they were on a hunting trip. But
as he spoke it struck him that the slopes about his three peaks would
not harbor a jack rabbit, and furthermore on the instant a big golden
butterfly went flapping by him, putting the idea into his head.
The young Mexican nodded but insisted.
"There will be time for butterfly catching tomorrow," he said
carelessly. "Today you will honor us by riding back to the Hacienda
Montezuma. You are expected, señores; everything is prepared for you.
_Oyez_, Pedro, Juanito," turning in his saddle and addressing two of
his men. "Rope two horses and let _los Americanos_ have yours." And
when both Pedro and Juanito frowned and hesitated, his eyes flashed and
he cried out angrily at them: "_Pronto_! It is commanded!"
They rode away toward a herd of horses half a mile down the valley,
their riatas soon in their hands and widening and swinging into great
loops. Presently they were back, leading two captured ponies.
Dismounting, they made impromptu hackamores of their ropes and mounted
bareback, leaving their own saddles empty for Kendric and Barlow.
"Look here, _amigo_," said Kendric then. "We're much obliged for the
kind invitation. But you've got the wrong guests. If your outfit was
expecting newcomers it was someone else."
The Mexican lifted his fine black brows.
"Then are you not Señores Kendric and Barlow?" he asked impudently.
They stared wonderingly at him, then at each other.
"You're some little guesser, stranger," grunted Barlow. "Who told you
all you know?"
"Go easy, Twisty," laughed Kendric, his interest caught. Affably, to
the Mexican, he said: "You're right, señor. And, to complete the
introductions, would you mind telling us who you are?"
"I?" He touched up his mustache and again his eyes flashed;
involuntarily, as he spoke his name, he laid his hand on the grip of
the revolver bumping at his hip, giving the perfectly correct
impression that the man who wore that name must ever stand ready to
defend himself: "I am Fernando Escobar, at your service for what you
please, señor!"
Never a muscle of either Kendric's face or Barlow's twitched at the
information though inwardly each man started. Before now, many times
in the flood of their tumultous lives, they had lived through moments
when the thing to do was control all outward expression of emotion and
think fast.
"I'd say, Twisty," said Kendric lightly, "that it is downright kind of
Señor Escobar to extend so hearty an invitation. It would be the
pleasant thing to rest up in the shade during the afternoon. Tomorrow,
perhaps, it could be arranged that he would let us have a couple of
horses to make our little trip into the hills butterfly-catching?"
But Barlow, fingering his forelock, looked anything but pleased. His
eyes went swiftly to the three peaks across the valley, then frowning
up the valley to the ranch houses. Obviously, he meant to go straight
about his business, all the more eager to come to grips with the naked
situation since Escobar was on the ground and had made himself known.
He opened his lips to speak. On the instant Kendric saw a swift,
subtle change in his eyes, a look of surprise and of uncertainty. And
then, abruptly, Barlow said:
"Oh, all right. I'm tired hoofin' it, anyway," and swung up into the
saddle on the nearest horse, pack and all.
Escobar wheeled his horse, as though glad to have his errand done, and
rode back toward the upper end of the valley, his ragged following
close at his heels, Kendric and Barlow bringing up the rear.
"What was it, Twisty?" demanded Kendric softly. "What did you see?
What made you change your mind all of a sudden."
"Look at the cordillera just back of the ranch house, Jim," answered
Barlow, guardedly.
Kendric looked and in a moment understood Barlow's perplexity. There
again were three upstanding peaks, much in general outline and height
like those across the valley. For the life of him Barlow did not know
which was the group toward which he had been directed by Juarez to
steer his course. Doubtless Escobar did know. And if Escobar were
going up valley, it would be just as well to go with him.
As they drew near the big adobe house both men were interested. The
building had once upon a time, perhaps two or three hundreds of years
ago, been a Spanish mission; so much was told eloquently by the lines
of high adobe walls ringing the buildings and by the architecture of
the main building itself. There were columns, arches, corridors after
the old mission style. But it had all been made over, added to, so
that it was now a residence of a score or more of rooms. It spread out
covering the entire top of a knoll whereon were many large oaks. At
the back, rising sharply, was the barren slope of the mountain.
Their gaze was drawn suddenly from the house itself to a rider darting
out through the high arched gateway in the adobe wall. A beautiful
horse, snowy, glistening white, groomed to the last hair, an animal of
fine thin racing forelegs proudly lifted and high-flung head, shot out
of the shadows like a shaft of sunlight. On its back what at first
appeared an elegantly dressed young man, a youth even fastidiously and
fancifully accoutered, with riding boots that shone and a flaunting
white plume and red lined cape floating wildly. Only when the
approaching rider came close and threw up a gauntleted hand to the wide
black hat, saluting laughingly, did they recognize this for the same
youth who had come with Ruiz Rios to Ortega's gambling house.
"Zoraida Castelmar!" gasped Kendric.
Turning in his amazement to his companion he caught a strange look in
Barlow's eyes, a strange flush in Barlow's cheeks. Then he saw only
the girl's dark, passionate face and scarlet lips and burning eyes as
she called softly:
"Welcome to the Hacienda Montezuma! The gods have willed that you
come. The gods and I!"
And into Kendric's bewildered face, ignoring Barlow, she laughed
triumphantly.