THE VALLEY
In the valley of Santa Clara, which lies cradled easily between
mountains and smiles up at the sun nearly the whole year through,
Spring has a winter home, wherein she dwells contentedly while the
northern land is locked in the chill embrace of the Snow King. In
February, unless the north wind sweeps down jealously and stays her
hand, she flings a golden brocade of poppies over the green hillsides
and the lower slopes which the forest has left her. Time was when she
spread a deep-piled carpet of mustard over the floor of the valley
as well, and watched smiling while it grew thicker and higher and the
lemon-yellow blossoms vied with the orange of the poppies, until the
two set all the valley aglow.
Now it was March, and the hillsides were ablaze with the poppies,
and the valley floor was soft green and yellow to the knees; with
the great live oaks standing grouped in stately calm, like a herd
of gigantic, green elephants scattered over their feeding-ground and
finding the peace of repletion with the coming of the sun.
The cabin of Manuel squatted upon a little rise of ground at the head
of the valley. When Jack stood in the doorway and looked down upon the
green sweep of grazing ground with the hills behind, and farther away
another range facing him, he owned to himself that it was good to be
there. The squalidness of the town he had left so tumultuously struck
upon his memory nauseatingly.
Spring was here in the valley, even though the mountains shone white
beyond. A wind had come out of the south and driven the fog back to
the bay, and the sun shone warmly down upon the land. Two robins
sang exultantly in the higher branches of the oak, where they had
breakfasted satisfyingly upon the first of the little, green worms
that gave early promise of being a pest until such time as they
stiffened and clung inertly, waiting for the dainty, gray wings to
grow and set them aflutter over the tree upon which they had fed.
One of them dropped upon Jack's arm while he stood there and crawled
aimlessly from the barren buckskin to his wrist. He flung it off
mechanically. Spring was here of a truth; in the town he had not
noticed her coming.
"You're right, Dade," he declared suddenly, over his shoulder. "This
beats getting up at noon and going through the motions of living for
twelve or fourteen hours in town. I believe I'll have Manuel get me
a riding outfit, if he will. Maybe I'll take you up on that rodeo
proposition. Reckon your old don will give me a job?"
"Won't cost a peso to find out," said Dade, coming out and standing
beside him in the sun. "I've been talking to Manuel, and he thinks
we'd better pull out right away. Valencia's got an extra saddle here,
and Manuel says he'll catch a horse for you."
"I believe I'll send a letter to Bill," proposed Jack. "He'll give
Manuel enough dust to buy what I need; and I ought to let him know how
we made out, anyway."
A blank leaf from the little memorandum book he always carried, and a
bullet for pencil--perforce, the note was brief; but it told what he
wanted: gold to buy a riding outfit, his pistols which Perkins had
taken from him, and news of Bill's well-being. When the paper would
hold no more and hold it legibly, he folded it carefully so that it
would not smudge, and gave it to his host.
"What if the Committee catches you with that buckskin, Manuel?" he
asked abruptly. The risk Manuel would run had not before occurred to
him. "Dade he's liable to get into trouble, if they catch him with
that horse; let's turn the darned thing loose."
"Me, I shall not ride where the gringos will see me," broke in Manuel
briskly. "The señors need not be alarmed. I shall keep away from El
Camino Real. At the Mission I will buy what the señor desires, and I
will bring it to him at the hacienda."
"Get the best they've got," Jack adjured him. "An outfit better than
Dade's, if you can find one. Bill Wilson has got about twelve hundred
dollars of mine; get the best if it cleans the sack." He grinned at
Dade. "If you're going to bully me into turning vaquero again, I'm
going to have the fun of riding in style, anyway. You've set the pace,
you know. I never saw you so gaudy. Er--what did you say her name is?"
"I didn't say."
"Must be serious. Too bad." Jack shook his head dolefully. "Say,
Manuel, do you know a good riata, when you see one lying around
loose?"
"Sí, Señor. Me, I have braided the riatas and bridles since I was
so high." From the height of his measuring hand from the beaten clay
beneath the oak, he proclaimed himself an infant prodigy; but Jack did
not happen to be looking at him and so remained unamazed.
"Well, you ought to know something about them. Get the best riata you
can find. I leave it to your judgment."
"Sí, Señor. To-morrow I will bring them to you." He hesitated, his
eyes dwelling curiously upon the coppery hair of this stranger, whose
presence he was not quite sure that he did not resent vaguely. Dade he
had come to accept as a man whose innate kindliness, which was as much
a part of him as the blood in his veins, wiped out any stain of alien
birth; but this blue-eyed one--"The señor himself is perhaps a judge
of riatas?" he insinuated, politely veiling the quick jealousy of his
nature.
"We-el-l--you bring me one ready to fall all to pieces, and I reckon I
could tell it was poor, after it had stranded."
Dade laughed. "Judge of riatas? You wait till you see him with one in
his hand!"
Manuel's teeth shone briefly, but the smile did not come from his
heart. "Me, I shall surely bring the señor a riata worthy even of his
skill," he declared sententiously, as he walked away with his bridle
slung over his arm and his back very straight.
"That sounded sarcastic," commented Jack, looking after him. "What's
the matter? Is the old fellow jealous?" Dade flicked his cigarette
against the trunk of the oak to remove the white crown of ashes, and
shook his head. "What of?" he asked bluntly. "Half your trouble, Jack,
comes from looking for it. Manuel's a fine old fellow. I stayed a few
days with him here when I first left town, and rode around with him.
He's straight as the road to heaven, and I never heard him brag about
anything, except the goodness of his 'patron,' and the things some of
his friends can do. I'll have to ask you to saddle up for me, Jack;
this arm of mine's pretty stiff and sore this morning. Watch how
Surry's trained! You wouldn't believe some of the things he'll do."
He turned towards the horse, feeding knee-deep in grass and young
mustard in the opening farther down the slope, and whistled a long,
high note. The white head went up with a fling of the heavy mane, to
perk ears forward at the sound. Then he turned and came towards them
at a long, swinging walk that was a joy to behold.
"Do you know, I hate the way nature's trimmed down the life of a horse
to a few measly years," said Dade. "A good horse you can love like a
human--and fifteen years is about as long as he can expect to live and
amount to anything. Surry's four now, by his teeth. In fifteen years
I'll still be at my best; I'll want that horse like the very devil;
and he'll be dead of old age, if he lasts that long. And a turtle,"
he added resentfully after a pause, "lives hundreds of years, just
because the darned things aren't any good on earth!"
"Trade him for a camel," drawled Jack unsympathetically. "They're more
durable."
"Watch him come, now!" Dade gave three short, shrill whistles, and
with a toss of head by way of answer, Surry came tearing up the slope,
straight for his master. The shadow of the oak was all about him when
he planted his front feet stiffly and stopped; flared his nostrils in
a snort and, because Dade waved his hand to the right, wheeled that
way, circled the oak at a pace which set his body aslant and stopped
again quite as suddenly as before. Dade held out his hand, and Surry
came up and rubbed the palm playfully with his soft muzzle.
"For a camel, did you say?" Dade grinned triumphantly at the other
over the sleek back of his pet.
"What'll you take for him?"
Dade pulled the heavy forelock straight with fingers that caressed
with every touch. "José Pacheco asked me that, and I came pretty near
hitting him. I don't reckon I'll ever be drunk enough to name a price.
But I might--"
Jack glanced at him, and saw that his lips were half parted in a smile
born of some fancy of his own, and that his eyes were seeing dreams.
Jack stared for a full minute before Dade's thoughts jerked back to
his surroundings. Dade was not a dreamer; or if he were, Jack had
never had occasion to suspect him of it, and he wondered a little what
it was that had sent Dade into dreams at that hour of the morning.
But Manuel was returning, riding one pony and leading another; so Jack
threw away his cigarette stub and picked up the saddle blanket.
Manuel came up and saddled his mount silently, his deft fingers
working mechanically while his black eyes stole sidelong looks at
Jack saddling Surry, as if he would measure the man anew. While he was
anathematizing the buckskin in language for which he would need to do
a penance later on, if he confessed the blasphemy to the padre, Jack
threw Valencia's saddle upon the little sorrel pony Manuel had led up
for him to ride.
"Truly one would not like to die for having stolen such a beast,"
stated Manuel earnestly, knotting a macarte around the neck of the
buckskin. "He is only fit to carry men to hangings. Come, accursed
one! The Vigilantes are weeping for one so like themselves. Adios,
Señors!"
He rode away, still heaping opprobrium upon the reluctant buckskin,
and speedily he disappeared behind a clump of willows clothed in the
pale green of new leaves.
Dade dropped the bullock hide which served for a door, to signify that
the master of the house was absent. Though the old don's cattle might
be butchered under his very nose, Manuel's few belongings would not be
molested, though only the dingy brown hide of a bull long since gone
the way of all flesh barred the way; a week, one month or six the hut
would stand inviolate from despoliation; for such was the unwritten
law of a land where life was held cheaper than the things necessary to
preserve life.
On such a morning, when the air was like summer and all the birds were
rehearsing most industriously their parts in the opening chorus with
which Spring meant to celebrate her return to the northern land, a
ride down the valley was pure joy to any man whose soul was tuned in
harmony with the great outdoors; and trouble lagged and could not keep
pace with the riders.
Half-way down, they met Valencia, a slim young Spaniard with one of
those amazing smiles that was like a flash of sunlight, what with his
perfect teeth, his eyes that could almost laugh out loud, and a sunny
soul behind them. Valencia, having an appetite for acquiring wisdom of
various kinds and qualities, knew some English and was not averse to
making strangers aware of the accomplishment.
Therefore, when the two greeted him in Spanish, he calmly replied:
"Hello, pardner," and pulled up for a smoke.
"How you feel for my dam-close call to-morrow?" he wanted to know of
Jack, when he learned his name.
"Pretty well. How did you know--?" began Jack, but the other cut him
short.
"José, she heard on town. The patron, she's worry leetle. She's 'fraid
for Señor Hunter be keel. Me, I ride to find for-sure." Valencia
dropped his match, and leaned negligently from the saddle and picked
it out of the grass, his eyes stealing a look at the stranger as he
came up.
"Good work," commented Jack under his breath to Dade. But Valencia's
ears were keen for praise; he heard, and from that moment he was
Jack's friend.
"I borrowed your saddle, Valencia," Jack announced, meaning to promise
a speedy return of it.
"Not my saddle; yours and mine, amigo," amended Valencia quite simply
and sincerely. "Mine, she's yours also. You keep him." While he
smoked the little, corn-husk cigarette, he eyed with admiration the
copper-red hair upon which Manuel had looked with disfavor.
Before they rode on and left him, his friendliness had stamped
an agreeable impression upon Jack's consciousness. He looked back
approvingly at the sombreroed head bobbing along behind a clump of
young manzanita just making ready to bloom daintily.
"I like that vaquero," he stated emphatically. "He's worth two of
Manuel, to my notion."
"Valencia? He's not half the man old Manuel is. He gambles worse than
an Injun, and never has anything more than his riding outfit and the
clothes on his back, they tell me. And he fights like a catamount when
the notion strikes him; and it doesn't seem to make much difference
whether he's got an excuse or not. He's a good deal like you, in that
respect," he added, with that perfect frankness which true friendship
affects as a special privilege earned by its loyalty.
"Manuel's got tricky eyes," countered Jack. "He's the kind of Spaniard
that will 'Sí, Señor,' while he's hitching his knife loose to get you
in the back. I know the breed; I lived amongst 'em before I ever saw
you. Valencia's the kind I'd tie to."
"And I was working with 'em when you were saying 'pitty horsey!' My
first job was with a Spanish outfit. A Mexican majordomo licked me
into shape when I was sweet sixteen. And," he clinched the argument
mercilessly, "I was sixteen and drawing a man's pay on rodeo when you
wore your pants buttoned on to your waist!"
"And you don't know anything yet!" Jack came back at him. Whereat they
laughed and called a truce, which was the way of them.