El Lazo - The Clint Ryan Series

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  Clint’s horse pulled up lame with the lights of the rancho in sight. He dismounted, unsaddled and unbridled the sorrel mustang, and let him limp off into the pasture while Ramón rode on ahead.

  Clint realized how bone-tired he was as he swung the saddle over his shoulder and centered dust-filled eyes on the oil lamps of the rancho. He stretched and worked the kinks out of his shoulders, ran his kerchief over his teeth and under his eyes, and trudged forward. Before he had walked a hundred yards, Muñoz, the Chumash Indian boy who worked with Alfonso, loped up, leading another mount behind his own. Clint saddled while Muñoz caught the lame horse, and they rode on in.

  As he approached the rancho, Clint again thought of Inocente and wondered about the reception he would receive. At best, it would he cold. At worst, it could be deadly.

  When he entered the main house, Inocente was nowhere to be seen. Ramón and Alfonso stood in a long, wide main room in front of a small fire dwarfed by a huge fireplace.

  “They are all in town,” said Ramón handing Clint a cup of coffee that smelled as if it had been on the stove all night. “The fiesta begins today.”

  “I cannot leave you here alone Papa,” Ramón said to his father.

  “That is as it is. All of the voting men and women are at the fiesta. And you cannot stay, nor can, Señor Clint. As you have said, you must ride on to the pueblo. I have Muñoz, and old Rafael, and Luis.”

  ‘Two old men and a boy,” Ramón spat.

  “Careful with your tongue, muchacho.”

  As exhausted as he was, Clint could not help but smile. Alfonzo was a tough old vinagron. Ramón flinched but said no more.

  “We have muskets,” the old man continued, “and there is no reason for those loco Indians to know the vaqueros are away, if even they come near here.”

  “Then we ride,” said Ramón.

  The stable boy Muñoz entered the front door. “I have saddled two of Señor Padilla’s finest,” he said.

  Clint and Ramón drank down the last of the coffee and headed across the corredor to the horses. Clint mounted a seventeen-hand palomino and marveled at the size and strength of the animal. Never had he sat such a horse. It almost made him forget how weary he was. The golden horse pranced from side to side, and the powerful muscles in its neck, withers, and shoulders knotted and relaxed.

  “He is called Diablo del Sol” the old man said with pride, noting Clint’s expression, “the Sun Devil. He is one of the Patróns favorites, so ride him with care.”

  “I will return him safely, Alfonso,”

  “Bueno.” The old man patted Clint on the thigh, then turned to his son and did the same. Words were not necessary.

  Nineteen

  Riding to warn the other ranchos turned out to be no easy task. Even though both haciendas lay near the ocean, the trails were poorly marked, and shortly after Clint aroused the few members of the Juarez Rancho who were present, the fog crept over the long, gently sloping land that lay between the mountains and the sea. On his way to the Alverados’ hacienda, he had to pick his way carefully, and many times he lost the trail and had to backtrack.

  It was growing lighter by the time Clint reached an adobe wall and followed it to a gate. The Alverado Rancho, too, was watched by only a few old men and women, their faces creviced like peach pits. Clint arrived just as the morning meal was being served and sat gratefully to coffee and chocolate rolled in tortillas.

  The old people sent him on his way with a muslin sack full of tortillas stuffed with beef and stewed chiles. Had he not been worried about the Yokuts, he would have fallen asleep in the saddle as the surefooted palomino kept up a steady trail-eating walk back to Rancho del Robles Viejos.