"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!"