A fortnight passed. Soon a month had gone by. Felipe gloomed about his
rancho, solitary, taciturn, siding the sheep-walks and cattle-ranges for
days and nights together, refusing all intercourse with his friends. It
seemed as if he had lost Buelna for good and all. At times, as the
certainty of this defined itself more clearly, Felipe would fling his
hat upon the ground, beat his breast, and then, prone upon his face, his
head buried in his folded arms, would lie for hours motionless, while
his pony nibbled the sparse alfalfa, and the jack-rabbits limping from
the sage peered at him, their noses wrinkling.
But about a month after the meeting and parting with Buelna, word went
through all the ranches that a hide-roger had cast anchor in Monterey
Bay. At once an abrupt access of activity seized upon the rancheros.
Rodeos were held, sheep slaughtered, and the great tallow-pits began to
fill up.
Felipe was not behind his neighbours, and, his tallow once in hand, sent
it down to Monterey, and himself rode down to see about disposing of it.
On his return he stopped at the wine shop of one Lopez Catala, on the
road between Monterey and his rancho.
It was late afternoon when he reached it, and the wine shop was
deserted. Outside, the California August lay withering and suffocating
over all the land. The far hills were burnt to dry, hay-like grass and
brittle clods. The eucalyptus trees in front of the wine shop (the first
trees Felipe had seen all that day) were coated with dust. The plains of
sagebrush and the alkali flats shimmered and exhaled pallid mirages,
glistening like inland seas. Over all blew the trade-wind; prolonged,
insistent, harassing, swooping up the red dust of the road and the white
powder of the alkali beds, and flinging it--white-and-red banners in a
sky of burnt-out blue--here and there about the landscape.
The wine shop, which was also an inn, was isolated, lonely, but it was
comfortable, and Felipe decided to lay over there that night, then in
the morning reach his rancho by an easy stage.
He had his supper--an omelet, cheese, tortillas, and a glass of
wine--and afterward sat outside on a bench smoking innumerable
cigarettes and watching the sun set.
While he sat so a young man of about his own age rode up from the
eastward with a great flourish, and giving over his horse to the
_muchacho_, entered the wine shop and ordered dinner and a room for the
night. Afterward he came out and stood in front of the inn and watched
the _muchacho_ cleaning his horse.
Felipe, looking at him, saw that he was of his own age and about his own
build--that is to say, twenty-eight or thirty, and tall and lean. But in
other respects the difference was great. The stranger was flamboyantly
dressed: skin-tight pantaloons, fastened all up and down the leg with
round silver buttons; yellow boots with heels high as a girl's, set off
with silver spurs; a very short coat faced with galloons of gold, and a
very broad-brimmed and very high-crowned sombrero, on which the silver
braid alone was worth the price of a good horse. Even for a Spanish
Mexican his face was dark. Swart it was, the cheeks hollow; a tiny,
tight mustache with ends truculently pointed and erect helped out the
belligerency of the tight-shut lips. The eyes were black as bitumen, and
flashed continually under heavy brows.
"Perhaps," thought Felipe, "he is a _toreador_ from Mexico."
The stranger followed his horse to the barn, but, returning in a few
moments, stood before Felipe and said:
"Señor, I have taken the liberty to put my horse in the stall occupied
by yours. Your beast the _muchacho_ turned into the _corrale_. Mine is
an animal of spirit, and in a _corrale_ would fight with the other
horses. I rely upon the señor's indulgence."
At ordinary times he would not have relied in vain. But Felipe's nerves
were in a jangle these days, and his temper, since Buelna's dismissal of
him, was bitter. His perception of offense was keen. He rose, his eyes
upon the stranger's eyes.
"My horse is mine," he observed. "Only my friends permit themselves
liberties with what is mine."
The other smiled scornfully and drew from his belt a little pouch of
gold dust.
"What I take I pay for," he remarked, and, still smiling, tendered
Felipe a few grains of the gold.
Felipe struck the outstretched palm.
"Am I a _peon_?" he vociferated.
"Probably," retorted the other.
"I _will_ take pay for that word," cried Felipe, his face blazing, "but
not in your money, señor."
"In that case I may give you more than you ask."
"No, by God, for I shall take all you have."
But the other checked his retort. A sudden change came over him.
"I ask the señor's pardon," he said, with grave earnestness, "for
provoking him. You may not fight with me nor I with you. I speak the
truth. I have made oath not to fight till I have killed one whom now I
seek."
"Very well; I, too, spoke without reflection. You seek an enemy, then,
señor?"
"My sister's, who is therefore mine. An enemy truly. Listen, you shall
judge. I am absent from my home a year, and when I return what do I
find? My sister betrayed, deceived, flouted by a fellow, a nobody, whom
she received a guest in her house, a fit return for kindness, for
hospitality! Well, he answers to me for the dishonour."
"Wait. Stop!" interposed Felipe. "Your name, señor."
"Unzar Ytuerate, and my enemy is called Arillaga. Him I seek and----"
"Then you shall seek no farther!" shouted Felipe. "It is to Rubia
Ytuerate, your sister, whom I owe all my unhappiness, all my suffering.
She has hurt not me only, but one--but----Mother of God, we waste
words!" he cried. "Knife to knife, Unzar Ytuerate. I am Felipe Arillaga,
and may God be thanked for the chance that brings this quarrel to my
hand."
"You! You!" gasped Unzar. Fury choked him; his hands clutched and
unclutched--now fists, now claws. His teeth grated sharply while a
quivering sensation as of a chill crisped his flesh. "Then the sooner
the better," he muttered between his set teeth, and the knives flashed
in the hands of the two men so suddenly that the gleam of one seemed
only the reflection of the other.
Unzar held out his left wrist.
"Are you willing?" he demanded, with a significant glance.
"And ready," returned the other, baring his forearm.
Catala, keeper of the inn, was called.
"Love of the Virgin, not here, señors. My house--the _alcalde_--"
"You have a strap there." Unzar pointed to a bridle hanging from a peg
by the doorway. "No words; quick; do as you are told."
The two men held out their left arms till wrist touched wrist, and
Catala, trembling and protesting, lashed them together with a strap.
"Tighter," commanded Felipe; "put all your strength to it."
The strap was drawn up to another hole.
"Now, Catala, stand back," commanded Unzar, "and count three slowly. At
the word 'three,' Señor Arillaga, we begin. You understand."
"I understand."
"Ready.... Count."
"One."
Felipe and Unzar each put his right hand grasping the knife behind his
back as etiquette demanded.
"Two."
They strained back from each other, the full length of their left arms,
till the nails grew bloodless.
"_Three!_" called Lopez Catala in a shaking voice.