“Hannes!” Monte shouted. “We were coming for you! He’s gone!”
“Who is gone? What has happened?”
“There was a raid at the ranch. We fought them off, but they drove off some of the horses, and others simply escaped. One was your stallion,” Monte said. “He killed one of the thieves who tried to take him, and he escaped. Your big black has gone back to the hills!”
Forty-two
My beautiful black horse was gone! Well, he had waited long for this moment, ever alert, ever watchful, eager to escape. Perhaps the wilderness out there was the best place for him. Yet I missed him, for I believed we understood one another.
He had, I always believed, belonged to somebody at some time. He seemed to respond to some overtures readily enough, and he might even have been ridden. To say he was beautiful might be stretching a point, yet he was magnificent. His coat was scarred by teeth and by hooves from his many battles with other stallions, too many for him to be called beautiful, but his conformation was perfect, he had a fine arch to his neck, delicate flaring nostrils that spoke of Arab blood, and eyes that spoke of intelligence. First, we had to ride on to the ranch and discover just what had happened, then take steps. How many horses were gone? How long ago did the raid occur? How many attackers had there been? Then we had to organize pursuit. At least forty horses had been taken. Tomas Machado, who worked on the ranch for Miss Nesselrode, stopped me. “The stallion? He not go with them. He escape. He round up two, three mares and run off. He has gone back to the wild.” “Finney and Kelso are here; they rode in just before you did,” Monte said. “Do we go after them?”
“What else?”
“They’ll be looking to ambush us like they did with Sheriff Barton,” Finney suggested. “This is a bad lot. I think it was some of Pancho Daniel’s outfit.” “We’ll have to be careful.” I pushed my hat back on my head. “I can go alone.
The fewer of us, the better, if we’re to slip up on them and avoid an ambush.” “We rode over from El Monte because we figured there’d be some action,” Owen Hardin said. “You tryin’ to deal us out of it?” He was a short, barrel-chested man with a thick neck who at twenty-two was already growing bald. “Monte said we’d see some action. Now you’re tryin’ to hog it all.” “Come along, then. Kelso,” I said, turning to him, “I wish you’d stay. Miss Nesselrode will need you, and there’s no telling how long we will be gone.” “How long you figure?”
“As long as it takes to find our horses.”
“That may take you clean into Sonora.”
“Fine! I’ve never seen Sonora. Nor Chihuahua.”
“Ain’t nobody waitin’ for me,” Myron Brodie said, “and I ain’t been to Sonora neither. Although,” he added, “I did ride down Chihuahua way one time.” “You know that country?” Finney asked.
Brodie grinned. “Not too well. I was ridin’ mostly at night.”
“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “we leave before daybreak.” The ranch house was long, low-roofed, and pleasant, adobe plastered with white, and a tiled roof made with tile the fathers had taught the Indians to make. It was a trade quickly abandoned when the fathers lost their autocratic control over the Indians. Several rooms opened on the galeria, which was shaded and cool. Inside, there was a central room with a fountain, a table, some chests, and a few hide-covered chairs. The rugs on the floors had been woven by Indians. Dropping into one of the chairs, I dropped my hat on the floor nearby. Elfego brought me coffee. After a sip or two I leaned my head back. I did not like it. Raids upon outlying ranchos were not uncommon, but such a raid on our horses so soon after the other was unlikely. Several of the would-be thieves had been killed, and it was strange, I thought, that they would strike again so soon. The object lesson from the previous raid would make them wary. Yet there had been a raid and some horses stolen. What was I to make of that? Something about it made me uneasy. There were a dozen horse herds more vulnerable than ours and less well-guarded, so why us? And why so soon? It was cool and pleasant there. I thought back to Meghan, and shied from the thought. She had not betrayed me. She was her own person and could do as she wished. No doubt Don Federico was a handsome and exciting man. Because he was my enemy did not make him her enemy. I was stupid. Nevertheless, the thought irked me, and I opened my eyes, staring at the ceiling for a moment, trying to bring my thoughts back to the problem at hand. I sipped coffee. Suppose … ?
No, that was unlikely. Yet, to consider … Suppose the stealing of the horses was a deliberate plan to kill me? To lead me into a trap, as Barton had been led and shot down?
Friends of those who died in the previous attempt? Or Don Isidro? Or perhaps even Don Federico? Suppose when Meghan had mentioned me he decided to eliminate me from that field, too?
Or was I too involved with my own problems and not seeing clearly? Suppose it was simply a case of horse theft? Play it that way, but remembering the ambush of Sheriff Barton, be very cautious.
Long since, I had learned that one needs moments of quiet, moments of stillness, for both the inner and outer man, a moment of contemplation or even simple emptiness when the stress could ease away and a calmness enter the tissues. Such moments of quiet gave one strength, gave one coolness of mind with which to approach die world and its problems. Sometimes but a few minutes were needed. Long walks can provide this, or horseback rides, reading a different book, or even just sitting. Here, in the pleasant coolness of this galeria, listening to the waters of the fountain, I could gather my forces again, and perhaps reach some conclusions about myself.
Hatred is an ugly thing, more destructive of the hater than the hated, and this I had tried to avoid. I did not hate Don Isidro, I did wish there were a justice that would see him pay for what he had done to my parents. Yet in his pursuit of them he may have given them a closeness, a needing of each other they might not otherwise have known.
Although I did not hate, neither did I wish evil to succeed in its evil. Don Isidro had fierce pride in a name whose reputation had been won by others and to which he had contributed nothing. He had fled to this country to keep from his peers a knowledge he deemed disgraceful, and he had driven his daughter from his doors for the same reason. Now, a lonely and embittered old man, he was left with nothing.
The old family servants had left him because of his actions, and those now around him were men he could not control and who showed him outward respect while secretly holding him in contempt.
Thus far I had been occupied in growing up, learning a little, avoiding enemies, but moving no farther, and it depressed me that I was not moving. Nor had I found my direction. From my window I could look off across the grassland, spotted with groves of trees or patches of prickly pear. In the distance lifted the smoke of Los Angeles. Someday, Don Benito Wilson had said, this would be a great city. Perhaps, but it must find other industries than cattle and grapes, which provided its income now.
Nor was I sure I wished it to become a great city, for we who are among the first always yield reluctantly to the latecomers, seeing our meadows fade, our trees cut down, our horizons obscured. We who were the first-comers accepted the dollar prices but bemoaned the loss of beauty, yet what was happening was inevitable, I suppose.
Yet we must never forget that the land and the waters are ours for the moment only, that generations will follow who must themselves live from that land and drink that water. It would not be enough to leave something for them; we must leave it all a little better than we found it.
Never did a tree fall that I did not feel a pang, and rightly so, for when the trees are gone, man will also be gone, for without them we cannot live. The very air we breathe comes from trees, and when they are gone, the air will thicken and men will die and our great towers of stone will fall away to rubble and there will be only weeds, and then grass to cover the unsightly mounds we leave behind.