Before sundown we would ride off the trail and camp in a secluded spot, preparing our meal while it was light and with wood that gave off no smoke. By darkless the fire was put out and we slept until morning, trusting our horses to warn us of danger.
We stopped to buy a few supplies at El Campo, a place of one store and a few adobes.
“Stay with the horses,” Jacob told me, “and keep out of sight. Folks remember travelers when there’s so few.”
It was hot and still. The horses stood in the shade of some trees and I sat down against the trunk of a thick old tree. Flies buzzed lazily. The horses dipped their noses in the water and drank; bees also came for water. I looked off toward the store, several hundred yards away, and wished Jacob would hurry. The warm sun made me sleepy. I tugged my hat lower over my eyes. The horses flicked their tails to drive away the flies. I dozed. There were footsteps in the dust. A boot crunched in the sand. I put my hand under my coat where the gun was, for the step was not Jacob’s. Boots and legs. From under my hat’s brim without lifting my head I saw them. Narrow Spanish boots, large-roweled California spurs, pants split from the knee down. “Most folks,” a voice said, “would think you was asleep, but not Monte McCalla.
I’ve played ‘possum a time or two m’self.”
Tilting my head back, I looked up at him. He was sum and wiry, not a tall man, but with broad shoulders and the hips of a man of the saddle. “How are you?” I said.
“You can take your hand off that gun, boy. I’m friendly.”
“As long as I have my hand on this gun, you better be,” I said. He chuckled. “Now, I like that! That’s a proper answer.” He squatted on his heels and tilted his broad-brimmed Mexican sombrero back from his face. He was a handsome man, with sideburns and a black mustache and eyes that laughed a lot. “Sort of curious,” he said. “Isn’t often a man leaves his horses and walks away to a store when there’s a hitchin’ rail right out front.” “There’s shade here.”
“Now, that could be it. A boy like you, now. He’d like to look around in that store, maybe see something he wants, but you ain’t doin’ it. When I was a boy-“ “I was sleepy,” I said.
“Maybe,” he agreed, “an’ maybe you just don’t want to be seen. An’ why would that be? Isn’t likely you’d be a cow thief or a horse thief, not at your age. So who are you, anyway?”
“I’m sleepy,” I said.
Twenty-eight
The two-story adobe was shaded by massive oaks whose branches hung above the porch on the second story. In the patio a fountain bubbled. The night was cool and pleasant, and in the main room on the first floor Don Isidro sat with his cigar, a glass of wine on the table close by.
He was a thin man with high cheekbones and hollow cheeks. His hair was gray and his mustache and beard were streaked with it. He was dressed with quiet elegance, and when he heard the sound of booted feet on the patio pavement, he frowned slightly. What? At this hour?
A man appeared in the open door, a man with a flat hose and a scarred face, holding his hat in his hand. The man wore a white shirt, a red sash, and fringed leggings. A big pistol in a holster, and a knife. He was a man, Don Isidro recalled, who preferred the knife.
“You wished to see me?”
The man turned his hat in his hand; then he said, very softly, “He lives.” An icy chill seemed to touch the back of Don Isidro’s neck. He leaned forward and dusted the ash from his cigar.
“Bah!” There was contempt and impatience in his tone.
“I have seen him. I have seen him alive.”
“You are mistaken. You have seen another. He could not survive.”
“The father survived.”
Blue veins showed on Don Isidro’s brow. “Nonsense!” Then he asked, “Where did you see this … this child?”
“In the pueblo. On the street. It was he. I know it was he.” Dona Elena had appeared, almost ghostlike, at his elbow. There was irritation in his tone. “It cannot be. It is not possible.”
“There is a woman, an Anglo. It is Senorita Nesselrode. He lives at her house.”
Without turning his head, he said to Elena, “What do you know of this?” “I know the woman. She has many friends.” Then gently she added. “She is a friend to Don Abel Stearns and Don Benito Wilson.” “Bah! Who are they? Anglos!”
“You have forgotten, my brother. It is not we who are in power, but the Anglos.”
Then she added, “Pio Pico is also her friend, and General Vallejo.”
“Do you know her?”
“She knows everyone, my brother. She has many friends.”
“So you have said. And we have not, is that what you imply?”
“It is well to have friends.”
“So you say. So you often say. This woman? This Senorita Nesselrode? I wish to visit her home. I wish to visit it now … tonight!”
“Tonight? But it is far. It would be after midnight-“
“So much the better. I wish to arrive without warning.” He got to his feet.
“You! Get five men and come with me. Five armed men, do you understand?”
“You cannot do this! Go to a woman’s house in the middle of the night?” “I shall do as I please. If the boy is there, he is mine, and I shall take him away. What right has this woman to have my grandson?” “So you can kill him? Kill him as you have tried before?” She paused. “You do not know the Anglos, my brother. They do not care for you or your name. You would hang.”
“Hang? Do not talk like a fool!”
He turned sharply around, glaring at a serving woman. “You! My boots! Quickly now!”.
He tugged on the boots, then stamped into them. He turned to his sister. “You are a woman, so I can expect no more, but you are a fool, also! This child’s existence is an insult! My daughter and that… that peon!” “He was a fine man, and he would soon have been a ship’s captain.” “Bah! A ship’s captain! Of some miserable little coastal vessel? Married to my daughter?”
He strode to the door, turning there. “Do not worry yourself. The child is dead.
I go but to make sure.”
Dona Elena listened to his footsteps as they retreated across the patio. For an instant she thought of getting her own horse and trying by back trails to reach the town before him. Yet it was no use. She did not know the trails well enough and could easily become lost.
She remembered the cool beauty of Miss Nesselrode. She was a woman, that one.
She would not be easily defeated.
Yet, Dona Elena was frightened. What of the boy? Isidro would see him, recognize him, know he was alive, and he would kill him. Even the courts, even the law, would return a grandson to a grandfather.
Miss Nesselrode awakened suddenly as a rider rode past her window. She sat up. Had Johannes and Jacob come back? What was wrong? No, of course not! Nobody in her employ would ride past on that side of the house. Outlaws? Thieves? Quickly she got to her feet and slipped into her robe. Where was Kelso?
Taking up her pistol and holding it at her side, concealed in the folds of her gown, she went into the living room just as the door burst open and several men charged in. The first one through the door was Don Isidro. “You have a boy here. I want to see him.”
“I do not know what you are talking about, senor, but you have broken into my home. You have broken into a lady’s home in the middle of the night, a despicable act, something no gentleman would do. Now I must ask you to leave.” “Search the house!” Don Isidro ordered.
Miss Nesselrode lifted her pistol. “Senor! I am a dead shot! If you or one of your men takes a single step, I shall shoot you through the ear, senor, and tomorrow morning it shall be told all over the pueblo that the noble Don Isidro was shot through the ear by a woman!”
A voice from her right said quietly, “They ain’t goin’ nowhere, ma’am. I got me a scatter-gun.”
Kelso turned up the wick on the lamp, shedding more light into the room, holding the shotgun ready, elbow braced against his right hip. “You!” She pointed suddenly at a vaquero standing toward the rear, a younger and seemingly somewhat embarrassed young man. “Will you do me the honor of walking through those rooms? If you see a boy, please call out.” Furious, Don Isidro glared at the man with the flat nose. “You!” He turned back to Miss Nesselrode. “Senorita, I am-“ He hesitated a moment, then came forward. It required only a minute, for the doors of the rooms stood open. He emerged from the kitchen at the last. “Senor? There is no boy. There are only these, and the cook. No more.”