The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  From where they stood a trail wound along the ridge and down into a valley beyond. At the farther edge of this, nestling close to the hills that took root there, lay the houses of a ranch.

  "That is where I live," she told him.

  He thought it a lovely spot, almost worthy of her, but obviously he could not tell her so. Instead, he voiced an alien thought that happened to intrude:

  "Do you know Señorita Valdés? But of course you must."

  She flung a quick glance at him, questioning.

  "Yes, I know her."

  "She lives somewhere round here, too, does she not?"

  Her arm swept round in a comprehensive gesture. "Over that way, too."

  "Do you know her well?"

  An odd smile dimpled her face.

  "Sometimes I think I do, and then again I wonder."

  "I have been told she is beautiful."

  "Beauty is in the beholder's eyes, señor. Valencia Valdés is as Heaven made her."

  "I have no doubt; but Heaven took more pains with some of us than others--it appears."

  Again the dark eyes under the long lashes swept him from the curly head to the lean, muscular hands, and approved silently the truth of his observation. The clean lithe build of the man, muscles packed so that they rippled smoothly like those of a panther, appealed to her trained eyes. So, too, did the quiet, steady eyes in the bronzed face, holding as they did the look of competent alertness that had come from years of frontier life.

  "You are interested in Miss Valdés?" she asked politely.

  "In a way of speaking, I am. She is one of the reasons why I came here."

  "Indeed! She would no doubt be charmed to know of your interest," still with polite detachment.

  "My interest ain't exactly personal; then again it is," he contributed.

  "A sort of an impersonal personal interest?"

  "Yes; though I don't quite know what that means."

  "Then I can't be expected to," she laughed.

  His laughter joined hers; but presently he recurred to his question:

  "You haven't told me yet about Miss Valdés. Is she as lovely as they say she is?"

  "I don't know just how lovely they say she is. Sometimes I have thought her very passable; then again--" She broke off with a defiant little laugh. "Don't you know, sir, that you mustn't ask one lady to praise the beauty of another?"

  "I suppose I may ask questions?" he said, much amused.

  "It depends a little on the questions."

  "Is she tall?"

  "Rather. About as tall as I am."

  "And dark, of course, since she is a Spanish señorita"

  "Yes, she is dark."

  "Slim and graceful, I expect?"

  "She is slender."

  "I reckon she banks a heap on that blue blood of hers?"

  "Yes; she is prouder of it than there is really any need of, though I think probably her pride is unconscious and a matter of habit."

  "I haven't been able to make out yet whether you like her," he laughed.

  "I don't see what my liking has to do with it."

  "I expect to meet her, and I want to use your judgment to base mine on."

  "Oh, you expect to meet her?"

  She said it lightly, yet with a certain emphasis that he noted.

  "Don't you think she will let me? Do I have to show blue blood before I can be presented? One of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower. Will that do?"

  Her raillery met his.

  "That ought to do, I should think. I suppose you have brought genealogical proofs with you?"

  "I clean forgot. Won't you please get on and ride now? I feel like a false alarm, playing the invalid on you, ma'am."

  "No; I'll walk. We're almost at the ranch. It's just under this hill. But there's one thing I want to ask of you as a favor."

  "It's yours," he replied briefly.

  She seemed to struggle with some emotion before she spoke:

  "Please don't mention Valencia Valdés while you are at the ranch. I--I have reasons, sir."

  "Certainly; I'll do as you prefer."

  To himself he thought that there was probably a feud of some kind between the two families that might make a mention of the name unpleasant. "And that reminds me that I don't know what your name is. Mine is Muir--Richard Muir."

  "And mine is Maria Yuste."

  He offered her his brown hand. "I'm right happy to meet you, Señorita Maria."

  "Welcome to the Yuste hacienda, señor. What is ours is yours, so long as you are our guest. I pray you make yourself at home," she said as they rode into the courtyard.

  Two Mexican lads came running forward; and one whom she called Pedro took the horse, while the other went into the house to attend to a quick command she gave in Spanish.

  The man who had named himself Richard Muir followed his hostess through a hall, across an open court, and into a living-room carpeted with Navajo rugs, at the end of which was a great open fireplace bearing a Spanish motto across it.

  Large windows, set three feet deep in the thick adobe walls, were filled with flowers or padded with sofa pillows for seats. One of these his hostess indicated to the limping man.

  "If you will be seated here for the present, sir, your room will be ready very soon."

  A few minutes later the fisherman found himself in a large bedroom. He was seated in an easy-chair before a crackling fire of piñon knots.

  A messenger had been dispatched for a doctor, Señorita Yuste had told him, and in the meantime he was to make himself quite at home.

  CHAPTER IV

  AT THE YUSTE HACIENDA

  The wrench to the fisherman's knee proved more serious than he had anticipated. The doctor pronounced it out of the question that he should be moved for some days at least.

  The victim was more than content, because he was very much interested in the young woman who had been his rescuer, and because it gave him a chance to observe at first hand the remains of the semifeudal system that had once obtained in New Mexico and California.

  It was easy for him to see that Señorita Maria Yuste was still considered by her dependents as a superior being, one far removed from them by the divinity of caste that hedged her in. They gave her service; and she, on her part, looked out for their needs, and was the patron saint to whom they brought all their troubles.

  It was an indolent, happy life the peons on the estate led, patriarchal in its nature, and far removed from the throb of the money-mad world. They had enough to eat and to wear. There was a roof over their heads. There were girls to be loved, dances to be danced, and guitars to be strummed. Wherefore, then, should the young men feel the spur of an ambition to take the world by the throat and wring success from it?

  It had been more years than he could remember since this young American had taken a real holiday except for an occasional fishing trip on the Gunnison or into Wyoming. He had lived a life of activity. Now for the first time he learned how to be lazy. To dawdle indolently on one of the broad porches, while Miss Yuste sat beside him and busied herself over some needlework, was a sensuous delight that filled him with content. He felt that he would like to bask there in the warm sunshine forever. After all, why should he pursue wealth and success when love and laughter waited for him in this peaceful valley chosen of the gods?

  The fourth morning of his arrival he hobbled out to the south porch after breakfast, to find his hostess in corduroy skirt, high laced boots, and pinched-in sombrero. She was drawing on a pair of driving gauntlets. One of the stable boys was standing beside a rig he had just driven to the house.

  The young woman flung a flashing smile at her guest.

  "Good day, Señor Muir. I hope you had a good night's rest, and that your knee did not greatly pain you?"

  "I feel like a colt in the pasture--fit for anything. But the doctor won't have it that way. He says I'm an invalid," returned the young man whimsically.

  "The doctor ought to know," she laughed.

  "I expect
it won't do me any harm to lie still for a day or two. We Americans all have the git-up-and-dust habit. We got to keep going, though Heaven knows what we're going for sometimes."

  Though he did not know it, her interest in him was considerable, though certainly critical. He was a type outside of her experience, and, by the law of opposites, attracted her. Every line of him showed tremendous driving power, force, energy. He was not without some touch of Western swagger; but it went well with the air of youth to which his boyish laugh and wavy, sun-reddened hair contributed.

  The men of her station that she knew were of one pattern, indolent, well-bred aristocrats, despisers of trade and of those who indulged in it more than was necessary to live. But her mother had been an American girl, and there was in her blood a strong impulse toward the great nation of which her father's people were not yet in spirit entirely a part.

  "I have to drive to Antelope Springs this morning. It is not a rough trip at all. If you would care to see the country----"

  She paused, a question in her face. Her guest jumped at the chance.

  "There is nothing I should like better. If you are sure it will be no inconvenience."

  "I am sure I should not have asked you if I had not wanted you," she said; and he took it as a reproof.

  She drove a pair of grays that took the road with the spirit of racers. The young woman sat erect and handled the reins masterfully, the while Muir leaned back and admired the steadiness of the slim, strong wrists, the businesslike directness with which she gave herself to her work, the glow of life whipped into her eyes and cheeks by the exhilaration of the pace.

  "I suppose you know all about these old land-grants that were made when New Mexico was a Spanish colony and later when it was a part of Mexico," he suggested.

  Her dark eyes rested gravely on him an instant before she answered: "Most of us that were brought up on them know something of the facts."

  "You are familiar with the Valdés grant?"

  "Yes."

  "And with the Moreño grant, made by Governor Armijo?"

  "Yes."

  "The claims conflict, do they not?"

  "The Moreño grant is taken right from the heart of the Valdés grant. It includes all the springs, the valleys, the irrigable land; takes in everything but the hilly pasture land in the mountains, which, in itself, is valueless."

  "The land included in this grant is of great value?"

  "It pastures at the present time fifty thousand sheep and about twelve thousand head of cattle."

  "Owned by Miss Valdés?"

  "Owned by her and her tenants."

  "She's what you call a cattle queen, then. Literally, the cattle on a thousand hills are hers."

  "As they were her father's and her grandfather's before her, to be held in trust for the benefit of about eight hundred tenants," she answered quietly.

  "Tell me more about it. The original grantee was Don Bartolomé de Valdés, was he not?"

  "Yes. He was the great-great-grandson of Don Alvaro de Valdés y Castillo, who lost his head because he was a braver and a better man than the king. Don Bartolomé, too, was a great soldier and ruler. He was generous and public-spirited to a fault; and when the people of this province suffered from Indian raids he distributed thousands of sheep to relieve their distress."

  "Bully for the old boy. He was a real philanthropist."

  "Not at all. He had to do it. His position required it of him."

  "That was it, eh?"

  Her dusky eyes questioned him.

  "You couldn't understand, I suppose, since you are an American, how he was the father and friend of all the people in these parts; how his troopers and vaqueros were a defense to the whole province?"

  "I think I can understand that."

  "So it was, even to his death, that he looked out for the poor peons dependent upon him. His herds grew mighty; and he asked of Facundo Megares, governor of the royal province, a grant of land upon which to pasture them. These herds were for his people; but they were in his name and belonged to him. Why should he not have been given land for them, since his was the sword that had won the land against the Apaches?"

  "You ain't heard me say he shouldn't have had it"

  "So the alcalde executed the act of possession for a tract, to be bounded on the south by Crow Spring, following its cordillera to the Ojo del Chico, east to the Pedornal range, north to the Ojo del Cibolo --Buffalo Springs--and west to the great divide. It was a princely estate, greater than the State of Delaware; and Don Bartolomé held it for the King of Spain, and ruled over it with powers of life and death, but always wisely and generously, like the great-hearted gentleman he was."

  "Bully for him."

  "And at his death his son ruled in his stead; and his only son died in the Spanish-American War, as a lieutenant of volunteers in the United States Army. He was shot before Santiago."

  The voice died away in her tremulous throat; and he wondered if it could be possible that this girl had been betrothed to the young soldier. But presently she spoke again, cheerfully and lightly:

  "Wherefore, it happens that there remains only a daughter of the house of Valdés to carry the burden that should have been her brother's, to look out for his people, and to protect them both against themselves and others. She may fail; but, if I know her, the failure will not be because she has not tried."

  "Good for her. I'd like to shake her aristocratic little paw and tell her to buck in and win."

  "She would no doubt be grateful for your sympathy," the young woman answered, flinging a queer little look of irony at him.

  "But what's the hitch about the Valdés grant? Why is there a doubt of its legality?"

  She smiled gaily at him.

  "No person who desires to remain healthy has any doubts in this neighborhood. We are all partizans of Valencia Valdés; and many of her tenants are such warm followers that they would not think twice about shedding blood in defense of her title. You must remember that they hold through her right. If she were dispossessed so would they be."

  "Is that a threat? I mean, would it be if I were a claimant?" he asked, meeting her smile pleasantly.

  "Oh, no. Miss Valdés would regret any trouble, and so should I." A shadow crossed her face as she spoke. "But she could not prevent her friends from violence, I am afraid. You see, she is only a girl, after all. They would move without her knowledge. I know they would."

  "How would they move? Would it be a knife in the dark?"

  His gray eyes, which had been warm as summer sunshine on a hill, were now fixed on her with chill inscrutability.

  "I don't know. It might be that. Very likely." He saw the pulse in her throat beating fast as she hesitated before she plunged on. "A warning is not a threat. If you know this Señor Gordon, tell him to sell whatever claim he has. Tell him, at least, to fight from a distance; not to come to this valley himself. Else his life would be at hazard."

  "If he is a man that will not keep him away. He will fight for what is his all the more because there is danger. What's more, he'll do his fighting on the ground--unless he's a quitter."

  She sighed.

  "I was afraid so."

  "But you have not told me yet the alleged defect in the Valdés claim. There must be some point of law upon which the thing hangs."

  "It is claimed that Don Bartolomé did not take up his actual residence on the grant, as the law required. Then, too, he himself was later governor of the province, and while he was president of the Ayuntamiento at Tome he officially indorsed some small grants of land made from this estate. He did this because he wanted the country developed, and was willing to give part of what he had to his neighbors; but I suppose the contestant will claim this showed he had abandoned his grant."

  "I see. Title not perfected," he summed up briefly.

  "We deny it, of course--I mean, Miss Valdés does. She shows that in his will the old don mentions it, and that her father lived there without interruption, even though Manuel Armijo later gra
nted the best of it to José Moreño."

  "It would be pretty tough for her to be fired out now. I reckon she's attached to the place, her and her folks having lived there so long," the young man mused aloud.

  "Her whole life is wrapped up in it. It is the home of her people. She belongs to it, and it to her," the girl answered.

  "Mebbe this Gordon is a white man. I reckon he wouldn't drive her out. Like as not he'd fix up a compromise. There's enough for both."