* * *
For the first time, Juana mounted the mare she had named Florito, little flower, and sat tentatively in the saddle.
Her father sat a tall palomino stallion, Sol Diablo, one of California’s finest Andalusians, which he rode regularly, one of twenty beautiful palominos that were kept in the barn as brood stock. Inocente mounted his tall roan and reined up beside the girl.
“And the saddle, Juana, it is comfortable?”
“It is wonderful, Inocente, so soft I could ride all day.”
“We shall see, daughter,” Estoban said. Behind them Angelina climbed into the shiny black caleche, and her Indian driver took whip in hand.
Estoban watched his daughter ride, sitting straight in the saddle. The turtle-shell comb high above her chestnut hair held a lace mantilla, the emblem of a wealthy Californio lady. “She is a beautiful sight,” he thought, “a daughter to make a man proud.”
“You have done well, daughter,” Estoban said.
“I would not miss this trip, Father. It is said the last ship brought five bolts of the best silk, and the fandango will be here soon.”
Halfway through the journey they spotted five vaqueros working a small herd of cattle out of a thick grove of buckeye trees on a gentle hillside. One bullock broke from the herd and pounded toward the road. A tall vaquero, dressed more like an Indian in mission jerga, spurred his horse after the large calf. Before the animal could reach the road, the vaquero’s reata snaked out and caught the young animal, its perfect loop finding both horns. He took his daily and reined the horse to a sliding stop. Dust rose as the calf fought and tried to shed himself of the restraint. Finally, it bowed its neck and stood stiff-legged against the reata, only a few feet from the passing caleche.
The vaquero made no move to drag the bullock back to the herd. Instead, he sat motionless, watching with cold hard eyes.
Riding beside Juana, Inocente suddenly jerked his horse to a stop.
The vaquero, just over a reata’s length away, slowly pushed his bandanna from his head, exposing his sandy hair. His blue eyes did not move from those of the segundo.
Juana looked at the man over her turtle-shell fan. This was the marinero who had been dragged and almost killed by Inocente, this vaquero who had just caught a bullock with the skill of one of the best. Then she noticed the angry stare passing between the men.
“Inocente” she said harshly. “We must hurry.”
The tall dark-skinned vaquero cut his eyes to her for only a moment then looked back at the gringo vaquero. The man had not turned away. His blue eyes burned across the distance between them.
“Another time, Anglo,” Inocente’s voice rang across the silence.
“Inocente!” Juana called more loudly than her dueña would approve. Her father reined up and turned back to see what she was shouting about.
“Any time,” Clint said quietly to Inocente, but they all heard.
“To the pueblo!” Estoban shouted to Inocente.
“I will be at Teodoro’s Cantina tomorrow night Anglo,” Inocente said in a low voice, “if you desire another lesson in manners.” The tall thin vaquero jerked his horse around and left in a cloud of dust.
Frowning and still suffering from his hangover, Ramón rode up beside Clint, who watched the Padillas and their segundo ride away.
“You know Don Estoban?” Ramón asked.
“No, but I know the feel of that vaquero’s reata.”
“Inocente. He is not a bad man, but he is a very bad enemy.”
“Not bad?” Clint looked skeptically at Ramón. He roped me from behind and broke my arm. He dragged me until I was almost dead. He’ll wish he was bad when I finish with him.”
“He is no coward,” Ramón cautioned. “His blade and his musket have sent more than one man to meet his maker.”
“Good,” Clint said coldly. “Then I’ll have nothing on my conscience when I send him to join them.”
Clint nudged his horse away, dragging the bullock behind. Astride the big roan, Ramón watched him for a moment. This was a side of the Anglo he had not seen. He believed the Anglo meant exactly what he said.
But Inocente was his friend, just as Clint Ryan was his friend. This was a thing he did not wish to see happen.
That night, Clint slept soundly. He and Ramón had not made their usual visit to the cantina.
Padre Javier had reported that he had been unsuccessful at convincing the alcalde to go easy on Matt and had convinced Clint to stay away from the presidio, at least until the cholos had recovered from their injuries.
Clint snapped alert, straining his ears for what had awakened him. He could see through the cracks in the shutters that it was still very dark outside.
There was a strange soft pounding at the door. Taking his knife in hand, he moved silently across the room then jerked the door open. Matt Konokapali looked much like the crucifix over Clint’s bed, except for the grin. His head and hands still stuck through the thick timbers of the stock. Its base stuck out in front of him seven feet. That earth-covered appendage, gently rocking back and forth, had been pounding on the door.
“My God, man, how did you get here?” Clint stared in astonishment.
“I don’t like being stuck in the presidio in this thing. I jus’ kept working it back and forth until it loosed up. It took a long time to get the hole big enough. Then I pulled it out and backed up all the way here. Took most of the night.”
“Wait here,” Clint ordered, and left for the blacksmith’s shop next door. He returned with a hammer and chisel, quickly knocked off the brass lock, and helped Matt out of the stock.
Matt rubbed his chafed and bleeding neck and wrists.
“What time is it?” Clint asked.
“Almost dawn.”
“You’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
“Aye,” Matt said, and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Clint said. “We’ve got to get rid of this thing.” He picked up the light end of the massive stock, and marveled at the fact that the man had been able to drag it over half a mile. Following along behind Matt, who effortlessly carried the heavy end, they hurried out of the mission yard and up the hill through the vineyards,
Finally, when Clint felt almost ready to drop, Matt stopped.
“Is this far enough?”
“Far enough,” Clint gasped.
They pulled the stock into the vineyards and covered it with vines.
“I go now.”
“Where?”
“Away.”
“You’ve got to have somewhere to go.” Clint pondered a moment. “I know a place.” He pulled Matt to a clearing, and in the moonlight drew a map in the dirt. He explained where he wanted Matt to go and what he wanted him to say when he got there. The huge man waved and disappeared into the darkness of the scrub oaks.
The alcalde would want to know who had helped his prisoner escape, so Clint made sure he would not find out. He ran for the corral and saddled a horse. Cutting a bough from an evergreen tree, he rode the horse into the mission yard. Just as it was getting light enough to see, he dragged the bough behind him to wipe out the distinct trail of the stock. He sat on the horse and eyed the rest of the track that led on to the presidio. It pointed to the mission, but nothing could he proven. He laughed to himself. The footprints looked as if someone had dragged something to the presidio since Matt had walked backward.
After cleaning up as much of the trail as he dared in the time he had, he cast aside the bough and returned to the mission just as the sun fully crested the mountains and kissed the adobe with golden morning light.
By the time the sun reached its zenith, Clint and Ramón had worked a small band of cattle into a clearing where a team of spikers and skinners waited.
Clint spoke to no one, not even Ramón, about his planned confrontation with Inocente. He wanted no one to interfere with what he must do. He felt good, even with little sleep, and he was healed and ready to repay the beating he had received. Instin
ctively he knew that if he was to make a new life in this land, he must have the respect of its people. He had been aboard enough ships, worked with enough hard men, to know that no one respected a man who would not stand up for himself. And all but a fool would respect a man who did, even if he lost.
Clint threw his loop, capturing another bullock, and had begun dragging it to a spiker when he saw a fast-moving rider approaching from the distance. He delivered the bullock, waited until his loop was returne, then rode a few yards up the trail to meet the man. To his surprise, it was Padre Javier.
With his robes flapping in the breeze and his sandaled feet in the stirrups, he was a rather amusing sight, but when he reined to a sliding stop, Clint realized he was in dead earnest.
“You must ride into the hills for a few days,” he said.
“Why, Father?”
“The Charleston has returned, and with her Captain Sharpentier and some of your old shipmates.”
“Now is as good a time as any to prove my innocence to Sharpentier. Captain Armstrong of the Charleston is a fair man. I served under him when he was first mate on a cod ship. I’ve decided I don’t want to return to sea, but still, proving my innocence is important.”
“It seems Captain Armstrong was lost at sea, along with his helmsman. A very strange incident, so it is said—overboard on a quiet night in a calm sea. The ship is now under the command of Sharpentier, and he has a warrant issued by Thomas Larkin, the American consul in Monterey. The alcalde is compelled to honor it. You must not return.”
Ramón had remained silent until now. “We need to check the high country for stock, and now is as good a time as any.”
“I don’t like the thought of running,” Clint said.
Ramón’s eyes hardened. “Do you like the thought of swinging at the end of a rope while the ravens pluck at your eyes?”
Sharpentier has thirty men and the alcalde another forty or fifty,” the priest added. “Go! There will be much trouble if you return while the Charleston is in port and we wish no trouble in Santa Barbara. Go, my son, if only because I ask it of you.”
Clint regarded him for a long moment then decided he could not affront this man who had done so much for him. “If you wish,” he said, and reined the horse around.
He and Ramón headed away from Pueblo Santa Barbara at a trail-eating gallop.
Seventeen
Cha avoided the remnants of two Chumash villages as he and his band climbed higher and higher into the dry lee side of the coastal mountains. He did not fear them, for the Yokuts could have crushed them easily, but he wanted no chance of runners going ahead and betraying his coming, A party of a hundred armed Ton Tache Yokuts riders would attract great attention and excitement,
As a condor circled effortlessly high above, Cha reined up under a huge digger pine and took a deep breath of cool sea air. In the far distance, still two days’ ride through the rugged mountains, he could see the ocean for the first time since they had left the Ton Tache. With his men reining up beside him, he dismounted among the melon-sized digger cones that lay scattered in profusion. He took a long draw from his drinking gourd, then filled his palm and wet his mustang’s mouth. They had been most of the day without water, but he knew that on the coastal side they would find more and more as they worked their way lower and lower.
Sahmanot, Cha’s Winatun, or subchief, nudged his horse near Cha and dismounted to gaze into the sunset. “Sup has painted well tonight,” he commented as the sky changed from lemon to orange and the streaks of clouds lit with fire. “Do we ride to the small place of the leatherchests and settle for a few horses, or to the place of thousands?” Sahma asked.
“We have fared our journey well, Sahma. We are strong. I will watch the sun find his sleeping place and look for a sign.”
Now it was time for Cha to make a decision. If he headed into the sun, he would come upon the valley the Spanish called Santa Ines; if he continued with the setting sun to his right, he would come to Santa Barbara. He moved to a gold, green, and blue lichen-covered rock and sat. Santa Barbara would mean more horses but also more leatherchests.
The falling sun, drenched the distant clouds in a darkening array of colors, and still, Cha pondered quietly. By the time the sea had swallowed Father Sun in a leisurely gulp and the sky above gloried in the capture with a display that dulled the lichens, he had made up his mind.
The men had dismounted, removed their carved wooden saddles with their scant supplies and sleeping robes tied on the back, and turned out the horses. Some of the more industrious of the braves began to make a huge pile of digger pinecones, leaning dry branches against the pile to roast out the nuts, but Cha stopped them. It would not do to have a noticeable fire this close to the coast. They settled for acorn-mash cakes and the dried meat or fish that each of them carried then rolled in their sleeping robes and awaited the dawn.