"OJOS AZULES NO MIRAN"
"_Ojos azules no miran_--Blue eyes don't see," said a soft voice to
Stephens in gently rallying tones. He was sitting on Captain Jinks in
the roadway, nearly opposite to the first house in San Remo, with his
eyes shaded under his arched hands, and gazing fixedly back across the
long levels of the Indian lands over which he had just ridden.
"_Si, miran_,--Yes, they do see," he answered coolly, without either
looking at the speaker or removing his hands from his forehead, as he
still continued his searching gaze. He was trying to make out whether
the animals he had left in Felipe's charge were kept by him still
grazing safely in the meadow, or if they had been allowed to wander off
into the young wheat. The distance to where he had left them feeding was
nearer two miles than one, but nature had gifted him with singularly
keen vision, and the frontiersman's habit of being perpetually on the
lookout had developed this power to the utmost. He was able to identify
positively his own stock amongst the other animals at pasture, and to
assure himself that, so far, they were all right.
He took his hands from his forehead, straightened himself in his saddle,
and looked down at the person who had ventured to speak in so
disrespectful a way of the quality of his eyesight. The speaker was a
young Mexican woman, and he encountered the glance of a pair of eyes as
soft as velvet and as black as night, set in a face of rich olive tint.
At that pleasant sight his firm features relaxed into a smile, and he
took up her bantering challenge.
"_Si, miran_," he repeated,--"Yes, they do see, señorita; they see a
very pretty girl"; and with a ceremonious sweep of his arm he took off
his broad sombrero, as the conventional way of emphasising the
conventional gallantry.
The girl blushed with pleasure at the American's compliment. She had a
dark scarf drawn over her head, and she now tossed the end of it
coquettishly across her face, and kept up her bantering tone.
"Then," replied she, "as you had them directed straight towards the
Indian pueblo, I suppose it was a pretty little Indian squaw they were
gazing back at so earnestly."
"No," he returned bluntly, matter-of-fact Anglo-Saxon that he was; "I
was looking back towards Santiago in order to make out whether my horses
had got into the Indians' wheat. But they're all right. And how is your
father, Don Nepomuceno?" he added civilly.
"He is very well, señor; he is now at home. Won't you come in and see
him? He said he hoped you would be coming down this morning, as it was
mail day."
"I am much obliged to him," answered Stephens. "I am on my way now to
the stage station, and I will look in as I return."
San Remo was the place where the weekly mail from Santa Fé to Fort
Wingate crossed the Santiago River. It was a village of the Mexicans,
and lay just outside the boundary of the four square leagues of the
Indian grant.
"That is where we two were going," she answered, "my little sister and
myself," and she laid her hand on a little brown maiden of ten years or
so, who had come out of the house and now stood shyly behind the elder
sister, holding on to her dress. "We have to buy some sugar," she
continued, "and there is a new storekeeper at the stage station, and
they say he sells cheap."
"Then with your permission, señorita, I'll walk along there with you,"
said the American. He suited the action to the word, throwing his right
leg lightly over the neck of his mule and then dropping both feet
together to the ground so as to alight facing the girl.
"Say, Chiquita," and he addressed the younger girl, "don't you want a
ride? Let me put you up"; but the child only smiled, showing her ivory
teeth and clinging more closely behind her sister.
"Don't be a silly, Altagracia," cried the latter, bringing her round to
the front. "Why don't you say 'thank you' to the American señor for his
kindness in giving you a ride on his mule?" and she pushed her, in spite
of her affected reluctance, into the hands of Stephens, who raised her
from the ground and placed her, sitting sideways, in the wide California
saddle, and gave her the reins to hold. Then, resting his right hand on
the mule's neck, he walked forward towards the store beside the elder
girl.
"I heard a new man had moved in and taken charge of the stage station
and post-office this week," he said. "Has he got a good stock?--many
pretty things for the señoras?"
"They say he has beautiful things,--velvet dresses and splendid shawls,"
she replied; "but I haven't seen them yet. I've only been in with my
aunt to buy things for the house, not to see his dress goods. But I hope
my father will take us there soon, before all the best of them are gone.
The wife of Ramon Garcia got a lovely pink muslin there. She showed it
to me yesterday in her house. He's a very clever man, too, is the new
storekeeper; he is a Texan, but he speaks Spanish beautifully, just like
ourselves. He has a Mexican wife."
"Ah," remarked Stephens, "has he? What's his name, do you know?"
"Bah-koose," answered the girl, giving full value to the broad Spanish
vowels which she imported into the somewhat commonplace name of
"Backus." "Don Tomas Bah-koose is his name," she repeated. "He is not
old, he appears to be about thirty, and he has three children. But
perhaps you have met him; is he a friend of yours?"
"Backus," said Stephens reflectively; "Thomas Backus. No, I can't say
that he is; I don't remember ever meeting anyone of that name."
"It sounds almost like our Spanish name, Baca," said she; "but he is not
one of the Bacas, though he has been living at Peña Blanca, where so
many of them live." The Bacas of New Mexico are a fine old family,
sprung from the loins of Cabeza de Vaca, the comrade of Ponce de Leon,
one of the heroes of the Spanish conquest.
"Well," said Stephens, "we'll soon see what he looks like, anyhow, for
here we are at the store." He lifted the child down from the saddle,
and the two girls at once went inside while he tied up his mule to a
hitching-post that was set in front of the door.
After he had finished doing so, he followed them in; and stepping across
the threshold he was instantly aware of a surprised glance of
half-recognition darted at him by a man who stood behind the counter,
where he was showing some cotton prints to three shawl-clad Mexican
women. "Mornin', mister," said the storekeeper, in English. "Excuse me
if I keep you waitin' a minute while I 'tend on these ladies."
"All right," answered Stephens briefly, and he leaned quietly back
against the mud-plastered adobe wall till the other should be at
leisure. He ran his eye over the shelves, which, like those of most
Mexican country village shops, contained a varied assortment that ranged
from tenpenny nails to the tin saints whose shrines decorate even the
poorest hovel in New Mexico. His gaze reverted to the storekeeper, who
was a tall, dark, spare man, with a clean-shaven face, a bilious
complexion, and snaky black hair. This, then, was Mr. Thomas Backus, an
American citizen married to a Mexican wife. She had certainly helped him
to a fluent command of her mother tongue, and Stephens could not help
envying the easy way in which he poured out lavish praises of his new
goods to the customers whom he was serving. The purchases of these
ladies were presently completed, but they still remained in the store
carrying on an animated conversation with Don Nepomuceno's daughter, who
had joined them in discussing the patterns they had chosen.
"And now what can I do for you?" inquired the storekeeper, looking
Stephens in the face as he turned to him.
"Surely I have met this man before, but where?" said Stephens to
himself, while he answered Mr. Backus's question by remarking politely,
"Oh, I'm not in any hurry, thank you. Won't you serve this young lady
first?" and with a slight gesture he indicated Manuelita, who was still
absorbed in the muslins of her friends. Rack his memory as he would, he
could not recall the occasion when he and Backus had met previously, yet
he felt almost certain it had occurred.
"Why certainly, certainly," returned the storekeeper cheerily; "so long
as you don't mind waitin' a few minutes," and he turned to the girl.
"Then what may I have the pleasure of being allowed to show you,
señorita?"
"Two peloncillos, Don Tomas, if you will be so kind," answered the young
lady; and two conical loaves of the brown Mexican sugar so popular in
the Territory were accordingly wrapped in paper and handed over to her;
but it was manifest that the pretty frocks were what were nearest to her
heart, and she and her three friends still continued to discuss the
subject with all the ardour of connoisseurs.
Meantime Stephens became more and more convinced in his own mind not
only that this was not his first encounter with Backus, but that the
latter was also engaged in watching him as closely as possible. He
chose, however, not to call attention to this by any inquiry when at
length the storekeeper announced himself ready to wait upon him,
contenting himself with simply explaining the object of his visit to the
store.
"I just wanted to see," he said quietly, "if you happened to have a
parcel here for me by the stage to-day from Santa Fé. Stephens is my
name, John Stephens. It's a parcel from Spiegelberg's," he added
explanatorily, "that I'm looking for; a small, heavy parcel; it's
Winchester cartridges."
"Oh yes, they're here; the stage driver left 'em for you all right,"
said Mr. Backus promptly, reaching down for them under the counter and
handing them over. "And I think there's some mail matter too for you;
I'll just see"; with which remark he disappeared into the little
post-office that was boarded off at one end of the store, returning from
there presently with some papers in his hand. "I reckon this letter's
for you"; he read out the address with the laboured enunciation of a man
of limited education. "To Mr. John Stephens, living among the Pueblo
Indians, Santiago, N.M."
"Yes, that'll be for me," said Stephens, putting out his hand for it.
"I reckoned as how you must be the man as soon as I seed you come in,"
answered Backus, handing over the letter along with a newspaper and a
postal packet, "'cos by what I hear thar' aint no other American living
in this valley."
"Just so," assented the prospector; "I'm the only one there is anywhere
around here. I've been playing a lone hand down in these parts all
winter. For six months I haven't spoken to an American except the
stage-driver."
It was a relief to him to talk English to anyone again after so long an
interval, although he was not exactly prepossessed by Mr. Backus's
looks, nor by the only thing he knew for certain about him, namely, that
he had gone and married a Mexican wife, a decidedly eccentric thing for
an American to do, in Stephens's eyes. But the mere sound of his native
language again was music in his ears, even though it were spoken by a
man as illiterate as the storekeeper. For, compared to the other,
Backus was illiterate. And it was a thing worth noting about Stephens,
who had had the advantage of a high-school education, that though he now
freely made use of the rude, vigorous colloquialism of the West,--so
much so, indeed, that he talked to himself in it,--yet he could drop it
in a moment on occasion. Before a stranger for whom he felt an
instinctive distaste, he at once became formal, and his language took on
a precision and his tone a punctiliousness that were foreign to his more
familiar discourse. As he would have said of himself, "If I don't cotton
to a man at once, I always feel like putting on a lot of frills."
"You bin long in these parts?" inquired Mr. Backus carelessly.
"About a year now in New Mexico," replied Stephens; "but I've been in
this Western country a good deal longer than that. I'm not a tenderfoot,
exactly, if I may say so; I didn't come to this country for my health."
Many men whose lungs are affected have hoped to shake off their dread
malady by breathing the pure, thin, dry air of Colorado and New Mexico.
The hardy Western pioneer pities the consumptive patient; he succours
him freely in distress; and, above all things, he hates to be mistaken
for one himself. Stephens was determined that his fellow-countryman
should be under no misapprehension on this point.
"No," laughed Mr. Backus lightly, "nor you don't look much like one of
them pore health-seekers neither. Say, though," he continued, more
warily, "you'll excuse my axin', but was you never in New Mexico before
this last year?"
"No," replied Stephens--"that is--yes, I should have said," correcting
himself, "I was once, but only for a short time, and that was some years
ago, and not in this part of the Territory." He shifted his position
against the adobe wall a little, and laid down on the counter in a
casual sort of way the parcel and the mail matter which he was holding,
as if to indicate that he was ready for a long chat. In reality he was
setting his hands free in case he might possibly need to use them. To be
at all closely questioned about one's past life by an absolute stranger
acts on the experienced Western man as a danger signal. He noted the
intense glow in Backus's eyes, and as he did so he grew conscious of a
strange sense of doubleness in his own brain, as if all this scene had
been enacted once before, and he ought to know what was coming next. He
shifted his waist-belt and left his thumbs resting lightly on the buckle
in front; it was a perfectly natural thing to do, and yet it left his
right hand within six inches of the trusty Colt's revolver at his hip.
Assuredly Stephens was no tenderfoot; he was watching every motion of
Backus out of the corner of his eye.
"Say, stranger," began the latter, leaning forward over the counter, and
speaking low and clear, "no offence, but I want to ax you a certain
question. It's a little sudden-like, but I have a reason for it; allers
no offence, you understand?"
"You can ask me any question you have a mind to, Mr. Backus," said
Stephens coolly. "Of course, whether I answer it or not is my choice."
Mr. Backus might be his fellow-countryman, but he must learn not to be
presuming. Almost unconsciously to himself his tone hardened. Stephens
could stand the easy familiarity of races that were not his own, and
treat the Indians of Santiago with a friendliness that was all the more
kindly for his own underlying sense of superiority, but for an American
to treat him lightly was another matter. The pride and reserve that had
grown up in solitude revolted at this man's inquisitiveness.
"Wal' then, stranger," continued Backus, with an apologetic manner that
was due to the other's change of voice, "allers, as I said before,
meanin' no offence, did you ever happen to kill a man?"
Manuelita, though apparently absorbed in a rose-sprigged muslin, caught
a note in the Texan's tone that aroused her vigilance. She knew no
English, but her quick brain divined that when he asked, "Did you ever
kill a man?" he was putting no common question.
Stephens started at the abrupt query, and his face flushed. He paused a
moment, looking hard at the other; then he slowly answered, "I don't
_know_ that I have ever killed anyone."
"Meanin', I take it," rejoined the other, "that you don't know for
certain, neither, that you haven't. I ax yer pardon again, stranger, but
as sure as God made little apples I've got a reason for what I'm saying.
That ar' time you was in New Mexico years ago that you spoke of just
now, was you, by any chance, at the battle of Apache Cañon?"
The words "Apache Cañon" sent a thrill through Manuelita; she knew well
that there had been a bloody fight there.
"Yes," answered Stephens, a strange new light beginning to dawn upon
him; "I fought at Apache Cañon, if you must know."
"You was on the Northern side, warn't you?" queried the storekeeper
again.
"Yes," said the prospector quietly; "I was a volunteer in the Second
Colorado Regiment."
"By gum, then, I knowed it!" cried the Texan excitedly; "you was one of
the Pet Lambs."
At the beginning of the Civil War the Colorado troops, a pretty tough
lot, were sometimes sportively alluded to as the "Pet Lambs."
A dry smile came to Stephens's lips at the sound of the old name. "I was
a Lamb," said he.
"And I was one of Baylor's Babes," returned the other.
"Baylor's Babes" was the nickname bestowed upon a force of Texas rangers
who invaded New Mexico, and had the audacity to propose to conquer the
whole Rocky Mountain country for Jefferson Davis off their own bats.
"Yes, you bet I was a Babe," he repeated, "and a whale of a Babe at
that, and hurrahed for Jeff Davis as long as I could stand. But that's
all over and done with now, and we've buried the war hatchet. But say,
stranger, do you happen to recollect what kind of a wepping you was
carrying at Apache Cañon? There warn't no Winchesters in them days," he
added, patting the parcel of cartridges that lay on the counter.
"I was armed with a muzzle-loading Springfield U.S. rifle, altered in
Denver to fire with a tape cap," replied Stephens. His nerves grew
tense, and he braced himself for a possible struggle to the death, for
he thought the Texan was about to spring on him; but he only asked with
quaint earnestness:
"Du tell; what's a tape cap, mister?"
"Why, did you never see one?" said Stephens. "But of course they're out
of date now. It was a dodge for capping a gun automatically. There was
a tape fitted with caps that was fed forward on top of the tube in
front of the hammer. It worked like a charm. You bet there was no time
lost fumbling around in your pouch for a cap with your fingers if you
had one of them fixed on your gun."
"Great Scot!" cried Backus, "then now I know how't was."
He raised his hands so suddenly to the neck of his shirt that he made
Stephens think he was reaching for the bowie-knife which some fighting
men carry in a sheath under the coat at the back of the neck. Manuelita
thought the same thing, and drew her breath hard, feeling her heart leap
with terror. Instinctively Stephens's fingers found the butt of his
revolver, but he felt paralysed at the thought of the defenceless women
by the counter. If there was to be a fuss, how could they make their
escape before it began?
But Mr. Backus was not preparing to start a fuss, and he was not feeling
for a weapon. He tore open the front of his shirt excitedly and bared
his breast, and showed a livid bluish mark close beside the collarbone.
"Strange!" he cried, "'t was you as give me that; 't was that darned
tape cap of yourn as done me. Now, don't you remember?"
"By thunder, I do!" exclaimed Stephens. "You were the man I shot that
day at close quarters. I recall your face now. I thought I'd seen you
before."
"I knowed you the minute you set foot inside this door," answered the
Texan, drawing himself up, and eyeing Stephens keenly. "You see, you
give me a good argyment for remembering you that day. Shake, partner,"
he added quickly, thrusting out his bony right hand across the counter.
"Bygones is bygones. As I said just now, we've buried the war hatchet
for good, and _I_ don't bear _you_ no ill-will."
Was this a move to get him off his guard? Stephens felt more than half
doubtful, but he decided to chance it, especially as he had a stout
sheath-knife handy at his left hip. He loosed his fingers from the ready
revolver butt, and the two strong hands met in a vigorous clasp.