El Lazo - The Clint Ryan Series

  * * *

  Ramón unsaddled the big roan he had been riding, then unbridled him, rubbed him down, and turned him out. He watched Clint do the same to a skunk-striped dun stallion.

  “Come, Anglo,” Ramón said, “I will spend a real of my hard-earned wages to buy you a mug of aguardiente.”

  It had been two weeks of dawn-to-dusk riding and working the cattle and throwing a thousand loops with the reata. Clint now wore the jerga of a mission Indian and a pair of boots given him by Padre Javier as payment for Clint’s work in the tannery. He carried one of Ramón’s fine woven reatas everywhere he went, constantly coiling and uncoiling, roping and retrieving.

  He loved the familiar feel of the reata in his hands. It reminded him of bending lines shipboard.

  Though dressed far better than the rags he had been wearing when he arrived, Clint was not dressed nearly as stylishly as Ramón. The vaquero sported leather calzonevas, the Californio equivalent of chaps, with silver conchos for buttons down the sides, usually unfastened halfway up the leg. More practical than chaps, they were worn without an underlayer of trousers in the summer, and over woolen jerga trousers when it turned cold. The flared bottoms accommodated tall boots, usually well oiled but now dusty from the long day in the saddle. The vaquero’s dyed wool shirt was red, and he wore a multicolored bandanna tied around his head. Over it rested a flat-brimmed black felt hat with a woven rawhide chin tie. Most of the time the hat rode on his back. In winter he wore a waist-length jacket embroidered with darker thread to match the wool pants under the calzonevas.

  A quirt, or romal, of multicolored leather hung from his waist, fitted through a leather belt that held only the quirt and his gleaming steel, bone-handled knife.

  When afoot, Ramón carried his coiled reata over his shoulder, never willing to let the braided well-tallowed sixty-foot leather line far from his sight. The supple tool was his most prized possession.

  Huge spurs with three-inch rowels jangled as he walked, as did those Clint wore. A vaquero would never mount the half-wild stallions they were sometimes forced to ride without the vicious spurs.

  When they reached the cantina, Matt Mataca Konokapali, the huge Kanaka, was lounging under a nearby oak. Clint waved him over to the hide-covered doorway. Each day since they had met, Matt had joined them for a drink, but only one. Never would the huge Kanaka take the second.

  A young boy sat on his haunches by the cantina door. As was the custom, each man allowed the boy to remove his spurs and return them to his saddle horn or drape them across the hitching rail. As was expected, Ramón gave him two coppers and received a “gracias” in return.

  Clint pushed aside a black and white cowhide door covering, and they entered. Several other vaqueros and a few townspeople occupied the place, pushing up to the rough-plank bar and filling many of the sturdy wooden tables. Tobacco smoke hung beneath the ceiling from pipes and cigars, and wisps of black smoke rose from whale-oil lamps backed by tin sconces that lined the adobe walls. A black and white spotted shoat named Gordo begged for handouts and was occasionally accommodated by amused patrons or kicked by those who were not. Ramón sat at a vacant table and waved at the barmaid, who without being asked brought them three mugs of aguardiente.

  “You have done well, Anglo,” Ramón said quietly to Clint after taking a deep draw.

  Matt smiled and sat silently as he usually did.

  “Gracias, Ramón,” Clint said seriously. He had learned that compliments from the vaquero were hard-earned. In fact, this was the first one he had received.

  “Salud.” Ramón clinked mugs with him.

  “The way of the vaquero is far different from the way I learned to handle stock in New England,” Clint said.

  “To the vaquero the horse is everything.” Ramón sipped his drink. “A man without a horse is no man at all. A man who cannot use the reata is no man at all.”

  “You’ve been a good teacher, Ramón.”

  “You still have much to learn, Anglo.”

  They drank in silence for a while. Clint knew only too well how much he had to learn. He had watched Ramón do things with the reata that he would have believed impossible. Once, the vaquero had roped a bullock at full speed, the loop forming a figure eight and catching both horns and one foreleg. With a daily on the tall pommel, the bullock then tumbled head over heels in a cloud of dust, and Ramón had commented quietly, “He was a mean one, or I would not have been so rough with him.”

  As Clint watched his new friend drink, he thought of how the man rode. It was almost a surprise to see him dismount at the end of a day’s work, for he seemed a part of the horse during the day. In his years at sea and the strange ports he had visited, Clint had seen Berbers and Mongols and Argentine gauchos ride, but none surpassed the skill of these Californios.

  “Clint, you have the touch,” Ramón said, for the first time using Clint’s first name. “Never have I seen a man take to the reata as you have… certainly never an Anglo. I hope you will stay with it.”

  Clint felt the heat on the back of his neck and his face. It was more than a compliment, coming from this man. “I will stay with it as long as you’re willing to teach me,” he said.

  “Bueno,” Ramón said. “But we will take it slowly. A wise man does not build the gate until he’s constructed the corral. More aguardiente!” he called to the girl. He turned back to Clint. “In one week, we celebrate the procession of Corpus Christi. Then it is fandango and fiesta time. After the celebration, we will ride against the other ranchos, and all will know who the finest vaqueros are.”

  “I’ll enjoy watching that,” Clint said as the girl arrived with the filled mugs.

  “Watching’? You will ride by my side, amigo, so you must be ready. I would not like to be embarrassed by my student.” Clint looked at him in surprise, then smiled, “Salud, amigo.” They clinked mugs.

  “I should not have this,” Matt said softly, eyeing the second drink that now sat in front of him. Gordo the pig had tracked the barmaid to the table and nudged Matt’s thick leg with his snout. Matt considered giving the animal the mug, but Clint interrupted the thought.

  “Hell’s fire, man, it’s a celebration!” Clint slapped him on the back with dust-raising enthusiasm. “You’ve got to drink to the rodeo.”

  Matt looked at him skeptically, but upended his first mug, then reached for the second. Gordo squealed his displeasure, then wandered away. Both Ramón and Clint extended their mugs, and the three of them toasted.

  “Salud.”

  “Bring us morel” Ramón ordered loudly.

  The robust serving maid walked away swinging her broad hips. Clint eyed her appreciatively and offered a toast: “To both ends of the busk.”

  “Wait, wait, amigos,” Ramón said. “I wish to know what I drink to.”

  “The busk, mate,” Clint said, and he and Matt laughed. “‘Tis a sailor’s toast. The busks are the whalebone stays the ladies wear in their corsets. We sailors favor the parts at both ends.’’

  “I can drink to that, amigos.”

  By the end of the first hour, they had consumed several mugs, and the usually stoic Matt Konokapali rocked back and forth in his chair, joining Clint in singing sea chanteys in English with a booming voice,

  Where there ain’t no snow,

  And the winds don’t blow,

  What d’you think we had for supper?

  Possum tails and a donkey’s crupper.

  If whiskey was a river and I could swim,

  I’d take a jump and dive right in,

  Though Ramón understood little of the songs, he kept time, enthusiastically thumping his mug on the table. Gordo, who had begged more than his share, lay at Matt’s feet, occasionally contributing a snort to the tune.

  Matt’s brown face was blotched with red, but his smile shone as usual. Each time a mug was set in front of him, he downed it in a single gulp, laughed and reached for another, then struck up another song.

  Four cholo guards sat at a table
across the room where they had been since Matt, Clint, and Ramón had entered the cantina. They had warily watched Clint and his friends for the last hour. Finally, the largest of the four got up and crossed the room, stopping next to Matt, who sang loudest. The man cocked a booted foot back and kicked Gordo with a resounding thump. The shoat ran squealing to the door.

  Clint stopped singing and glared up at the man.

  The cholo, a large man in his own right, spoke from under a full handlebar mustache. He bent near Matt, eyeing him up and down. “You are loud, gordo, and you are disturbing our conversation.”

  “What? I don’t understand. Do you call me Gordo the pig, or gordo, as in fat?” Matt asked drunkenly, but his eyes took on a cunning cast. Being called fat did not particularly bother him, but he preferred to think of himself as regal, like the ancient kings and queens of the Sandwich Islands who weighed over four hundred pounds, just as he did.

  “You are loud, and borracho. Your gringo songs are not entertaining. We wish to drink in peace. Why don’t you and your friends drink outside.” His three compadres walked up behind him.

  Matt appraised the man and his three friends but never stopped smiling. “He thinks I’m fat—and drunk.” Matt guffawed and slapped a tree-trunk thigh. “He’s right, you know.”

  But Ramón saw no humor in the cholo’s manner. “These are friends of mine.” Ramón rose slowly and faced the much larger guard across the table,

  “You should choose your friends with more care, Ramón Diego,” the man said.

  Clint also rose, his eyes glinting like blue ice, but said nothing. Several other vaqueros and townspeople came to their feet and backed off, sensing that a conflict was brewing.

  “Oh, I do choose carefully” Ramón said, returning the cholo’s arrogant smile, “If I chose carelessly, I would have sat with you, Enrique.”

  The big guard’s smile faded.

  “I think outside is good,” Matt mumbled, still, sitting, still smiling.

  Enrique said, “Your friend shows much wisdom, even if he looks the oaf and is gordo and borracho.”

  Clint felt the heat rising in his neck, but still he said nothing. He figured it was Ramon’s show. Clint was a guest in this land, and these were men Ramón knew.

  But Matthew Mataca Konokapali must have decided it was time to move on. He slammed down his mug and exploded out of the chair. He charged into the men, harvesting all four of them like sheaves of wheat.

  El toro, Clint thought just as Padre Javier said.

  With biceps the size of most men’s waists and powerful oak-stump legs churning beneath him like a ship’s pump, Matt drove into the men, shoving them ahead of him toward the door. Gordo scrambled out of the way, his hooves flailing on the slippery plank floor.

  Though someone had closed the two-inch-thick door behind its hide cover, it did not even slow the powerful Kanaka and his six-hundred-pound burden. The hide ripped away, and the door splintered off its hinges, crashing over the porch and into the road.

  Clint and Ramón charged out behind, willing to help their friend, but their assistance was not needed. One man was on his knees gasping for breath, the second and third lay in the road, not moving. Enrique clawed for the knife in his waistband, but Matt had him by the throat with one hand. With an expression of bliss still on his face, Matt brought the other ham-size fist down on the guard’s head driving him to his knees, his eyes rolling up into his senseless head. Matt released him, and he dropped like a fallen timber.

  Matt smiled at Clint and Ramón. “More aguardiente.”

  “My door!” Teodoro, the barkeep, screamed from behind Clint and Ramón. They turned to see the cantina owner and a crowd of very quiet vaqueros and townspeople staring in astonishment. “You’ve ruined my door!” the owner wailed.

  “I will pay for it,” Ramón said.

  Gordo made his way between the legs of the watching crowd to sniff at the fallen guards.

  “If I leave them here, maybe the pig will eat them,” Matt said, then turned to Ramón. “Since it is now your door I, borrow it.” He reached down and picked up two cholos by their belts. He carried them to the door and unceremoniously dropped them on it, then returned for the other two. One was struggling to his feet.

  “You must join your friends.” Matt brought his balled fist down on the man’s head with a thunk. The guard went down as if he had been struck with a bung mallet. Matt picked him up like a rag doll and deposited him on top of the others. Like a mother caring for her brood, he covered them with the hide ripped from the doorway, then hoisted one end of the laden door and began dragging them away. “I will take them home,” he said.

  “It’s a half mile to the presidio, Clint said.

  “Don’t steal my drink,” Matt said, and continued effortlessly dragging the door and the pile of cholos away, leaving a deep wide groove in the dirt road. Gordo trotted along behind, seemingly interested in the turn of events and possibly planning to snack on any item that tumbled from the makeshift travois.

  Matt’s voice rang out across the dusty road.

  If whiskey was a river and I could swim,

  I’d take a jump and dive right in.

  We dug his grave with a silver spade,

  And lowered him down with a golden chain.

  Who’s been here since I’ve been gone?

  A nice little gal with booties on.

  There once was a farmer in Sussex did dwell,

  Now he is dead and he’s gone to hell.

  Teodoro called after him, “I need my door!” but he made no effort to chase the big man.

  “I think I could use another drink,” Ramón said with a baleful glance at the disappearing Kanaka .

  “And I,” Clint agreed.

  “Not in this cantina,” Teodoro said, then looked sheepish. “I’m afraid your loco friend will come back.”

  “We will go to Paco’s Cantina,” Ramón said with righteous indignation, and handed the man a fistful of coins. Clint and Ramón straightened their clothes and walked proudly, if drunkenly, away.

  “If this is not enough, I will call upon you, Ramón!” Teodoro yelled behind them.

  “Tell Matthew Mataca Konokapali where we have gone,” Clint said.

  “I will be closed!” Teodoro hurried back inside to figure a how to close without a door.

  When Matt did not return, Clint figured he had gone off somewhere to sleep off the gallon of aguardiente he had consumed.

  Sixteen

  The next morning, Padre Javier shook Clint awake.

  “Buenos dias,” Clint managed. He certainly did not feel that it was a good morning. As he tried to focus his eyes, he remembered what he had learned long ago: Wild oats make a poor breakfast.

  “Your friend Matthew has had some trouble with the mission guards.”

  Clint sat up rubbing his eyes, his mouth tasting as if he had kissed Gordo good-night. I know, Father,” he mumbled as he stretched. “I was there.”

  “You know he is in the stocks?”

  “The stocks?” Clint threw off’ his blanket and rose. “Where?”

  “At the presidio. I understand he arrived with four unconscious guards. When they questioned him, he said only that he was going back to the cantina to meet some friends.”

  “And?” Clint asked, stepping into his breeches.

  “And several of the guards disagreed. He fought at least six of them into submission. It was only when they called out to some passing vaqueros for help and they were able to use their reatas on him that he was subdued. Like roping the grizzly, they said later.”

  “Is he all right?’ Clint tucked his shirttail in.

  “He is better than most of the cholos he fought with, or the vaquero who injured his leg when the Kanaka sat back against the reata and pulled his horse down on top of him.”

  “But Matt’s all right?”

  “As well as can be expected in the stocks. I have not seen the stocks used in Santa Barbara for years.” Padre Javier shook his head.


  “What can we do?’ Clint pulled on his boots.

  “There is nothing to do, I’m afraid. It is said he will be released from the stocks in a week. But then he faces six months in the juzgado.”

  “Six months? I need to see him.”

  “No! I will relay any message. The cholos are not so happy with Anglos right now.”

  “All right, you talk to him. But see if you can arrange for his release. Ramón will vouch for him. I’ll get him a job aboard ship, or something.”

  “I see. You have good relations with ship captains now?” The priest smiled indulgently and shook his head, “I will talk to the alcalde, but he has never changed his mind about a punishment yet.”