She leaned back and laughed merrily. “And the first thing I’d know the king would catch me eating peas with my knife and pull the throne out from under me.”
“I’m serious, Chita,” urged King. “Come with me; let me take you away from this. The only throne I can offer you is in my heart, but it will be all yours — forever.”
“I’d like to, Ad,” she replied. “You don’t know how great the temptation is, but—”
“Then why not?” he exclaimed, rising and coming toward her. “We could be married at the post; and I could get a short leave, I’m sure, even though I haven’t been in the service two years. All your worries about the ranch would be over. You wouldn’t have anything to do, Chita, but be happy.”
“It wouldn’t be fair, Ad,” she said.
“Fair? What do you mean?” he demanded.
“It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know whether I love you enough or not.”
“I’ll take the chance,” he told her. “I’ll make you love me.”
She shook her head. “If I was going to marry a man and face a life that I was sure was going to be worse than the one I was leaving, I’d know that I loved him; and I wouldn’t hesitate a minute; but if I marry you it might just be because what you have to offer me looks like heaven compared to the life I’ve been leading since Dad died. I think too much of you and my self respect to take the chance of waking up to the fact some day that I don’t love you. That would be Hell for us both, Ad; and you don’t deserve it — you’re too white.”
“I tell you that I’m perfectly willing to take the chance, Chita.”
“Yes, but I wont let you. Wait a while. If I really love you I’ll find it out somehow, and you’ll know it — if you don’t I’ll tell you — but I’m not sure now.”
“Is there someone else, Chita?”
“No!” she cried, and her vehemence startled him.
“I’ll wait, then, because I have to wait,” he said, “and in the meantime if there is any way in which I can help you, let me do it.”
“Well,” she said, laughing, “you might teach the cows how to drill. I can’t think of anything else around a cow outfit, right off-hand, that you could do. Sometimes it seems to me like they didn’t have any cows back where you came from.”
King laughed. “They used to. All the streets in Boston were laid out by cows, they say.”
“Out here,” said Chita, “we drive our cows — we don’t follow them.”
“Perhaps that’s the difference between the East and the West,” said King. “Out here you blaze your own trails. I guess that’s where you get your self-confidence and initiative.”
“And it may account for some of our short-comings, too,” she replied. “Where you’re just following cows you have lots of time to think of other things and improve yourself, but when you’re driving them you haven’t time to think of anything except just cows. That’s the fix I’m in now.”
“When you have discovered that you might learn to love me you will have time for other things,” he reminded her.
“Time to improve myself?” she teased.
“Nothing could improve you in my eyes, Chita,” he said, honestly. “To me you are perfect.”
“If Margaret Cullis hadn’t taught me that it was vulgar I should say ‘Rats’ to that.”
“Please — don’t.”
“I wont,” she promised. “And now you must run along. You know your orders never said anything about spending two hours at the Billings ranch this afternoon. What will your detachment think?”
“They’ll think I’m a fool if I don’t stay all afternoon and ride back to the post in the cool of the night.”
“And get court-martialed when you get there. Boots and saddles for you, Lieutenant Samuel Adams King!”
“Yes, sir!” he cried, clicking his heels together and saluting.Then he seized her hand and kissed it.
“Don’t!” she whispered, snatching it away. “Here comes Luke.”
“I don’t care if the World’s coming.”
“That’s because you don’t know what it is to be joshed by a bunch of cow punchers,” she told him. “Say, why when it comes to torture, Victorio and Geronimo and old Whoa could have gone to school to some of these red necks from the Pan Handle.”
“All right, I wont embarrass you. Good-bye and good luck, and don’t forget the message I brought from Mrs. Cullis. She wants you to come and spend a week or so with her.”
“Tell her I thank her heaps and that I’ll come the first chance I get. Good-bye!”
She watched him walk away, tall, erect, soldierly; trim in his blue blouse, his yellow striped breeches, his cavalry boots, and campaign hat — a soldier, every inch of him and, though still a boy, a veteran already.
And she sighed — sighed because she did not love him, sighed because she was afraid that she would never love him. Lines of bitterness touched the corners of her mouth and her eyes as she thought of the beautiful and priceless thing that she had thrown away — wasted upon a murdering savage - and a flush of shame tinged her cheeks.
Her painful reveries were interrupted by the voice of Luke Jensen.
“I jest been ridin’ the east range, Miss,” he said.
“Yes? Everything all right?”
“I wouldn’t say thet it was an’ I wouldn’t say thet it wasn’t, “ he replied.
“What’s wrong?”
“You recollect thet bunch thet always hung out near the head o’ the coulee where them cedars grows out o’ the rocks?”
“Yes, what about them?”
“They’s about half of ’em gone. If they was all gone I’d think they might have drifted to some other part o’ the range; but they was calves, yearlin’s, and some two-an’ three-year-olds still follerin’ their mothers in thet bunch; an’ a bunch like thet don’t scatter fer no good reason.”
“No. What do you make of it, Luke?”
“If the renegades warn’t all c’ralled I’d say Apaches.”
“‘Kansas’ reported another bunch broken up that ranges around the Little Mesa,” said Wichita, thoughtfully. “Do you reckon it’s rustlers, Luke?”
“I wouldn’t say it was an’ I wouldn’t say it wasn’t.”
“What does ‘Smooth’ say?”
“He allows they just natch’rally drifted.”
“Are you riding the east range every day, Luke?”
“Most days. Course it takes me nigh onto a week to cover it, an’ oncet in a while ‘Smooth’ sends me somers else. Yistiddy, he sent me plumb down to the south ranch-me an’ ‘Kansas’.”
“Well, keep your eyes open for that bunch, Luke — they might have drifted.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say they would of and I ,wouldn’t say they wouldn’t of.”
16. THE JACK OF SPADES
Luis Mariel, profiting by the example of the Americanos, stood up to “Dirty” Cheetim’s bar and drank cheap whiskey.
‘Wot you doin’, Kid?’ asked Cheetim. “Nothing,” replied Luis.
“Want a job, or hev you still got some dinero left?”
“I want a job,” replied Luis. “I am broke.”
“You got a hoss, ain’t you?”
“Si, Senor.”
“Come ‘ere,” he motioned Luis to follow him into the back room.
There Luis saw a tall man with sandy hair sitting at a table, drinking.
“Here’s a good kid fer us,” said Cheetim to the sandy haired man. “He aint been up here long; an’ nobody don’t know him, an’ he don’t know nobody.”
“Does he savvy U. S.?” demanded the man. “Si, Senor,” spoke up Luis. “I understand pretty good. I speak it pretty good, too.”
“Can you keep your mouth shut?”
“Si, Senor.”
“If you don’t, somebody’ll shut it for you,” said the man, drawing his forefinger across his throat meaningfully. “You savvy?”
“What is th
is job?” demanded Luis.
“You aint got nothin’ to do but herd a little bunch o’ cattle an’ keep your trap closed. If anyone asks you any questions in United States you don’t savvy; and if they talk Greaser to you, why you don’t know nothin’ about the cattle except that a kind old gentleman hired you to ride herd on ‘em.”
“Si, Senor.”
“You get thirty five a month an’ your grub — twenty five fer ridin’ herd an’ the rest fer not knowin’ nothin’. How about it?”
“Sure, Senor, I do it.”
“All right, you come along with me. We’ll ride out, an’ I’ll show you where the bunch is,” and the sandy haired man gulped down another drink and arose.
He led Luis north into the reservation, and at last they came to a bunch of about fifty head grazing contentedly on rather good pasture.
“They aint so hard to hold,” said the sandy haired man, “but they got a hell of a itch to drift east sometimes. They’s a c’ral up thet draw a ways. You puts ’em in there nights and lets ’em graze durin’ the day. You wont hev to hold ’em long.” He took a playing card from his pocket — the jack of spades — and tore it in two. One half he handed to Luis. “When a feller comes with tother half o’ this card, Kid, you let him hev the cattle. Savvy?”
“Si, Senor.”
“Oncet in a while they may a couple fellers come up with some more critters fer you. You jest let ’em drive ’em in with your bunch. You don’t hev to say nothin’ nor ask no questions. Savvy?”
“Si, Senor.”
“All right. Let’ em graze til sundown; then c’ral ’em and come down to the Hog Ranch fer the night. You kin make down your bed back o’ the barn. The Chink’ll feed you. So long, Kid.”
“Adios, Senor.” Luis Mariel, watching the tall, sandy haired man ride away, tucked his half of the jack of spades into the breast pocket of his shirt, rolled a cigarette, and then rode leisurely among the grazing cattle, inspecting his charges.
He noted the marks and brands, and discovering that several were represented, concluded that Cheetim and the sandy haired man were collecting a bunch for sale or shipment. Impressed by the injunction to silence laid upon him, and being no fool, Luis opined that the cattle had come into their possession through no lawful processes.
But that they had been stolen was no affair of his. He had not stolen them. He was merely employed to herd them. It interested him to note that fully ninety percent of the animals bore the Crazy B brand on the left hip, a slit in the right ear, and a half crop off the left, the remainder being marked by various other brands, some of which he recognized and some of which he did not.
The Crazy B brand he knew quite well as it was one of the foremost brands in that section of Arizona. He had tried to get work with that outfit when he had brought the pinto stallion up from the border for El Teniente King. At that time he had talked with Senor Billings, who had since been killed by Apaches; but he had been unable to secure employment with him. Later he had learned that the Billings ranch never employed Mexicans, and while knowledge of this fact aroused no animosity within him neither did it impose upon him any sentiment of obligation to apprise the owners of the brand of his suspicion that someone was stealing their cattle.
Luis Mariel was far from being either a criminal or vicious young man. He would not have stolen cattle himself, but it was none of his business how his employers obtained the cattle that he was hired to herd for them. Since he had come up from Mexico he had found means of livelihood through many and various odd employments, sometimes as laborer, sometimes as chore boy, occasionally in riding for some small cow outfit, which was the thing of all others that he liked best to do. It was the thing that Luis Mariel loved best and did best.
More recently he had been reduced to the expedience of performing the duties of porter around the bar of “Dirty” Cheetim’s Hog Ranch in order that he might eat to live and live to eat. Here, his estimate of the Gringoes had not been materially raised.
Pedro Mariel, the woodchopper of Casa Grande, was a poor man in worldly goods; but in qualities of heart and conscience he had been rich, and he had raised his children to fear God and do right.
Luis often thought of his father as he watched the Gringoes around “Dirty” Cheetim’s place, and at night he would kneel down and thank God that he was a Mexican.
Many of the Gringoes that he saw were not bad, only fools; but there were many others who were very bad indeed. El Teniente King was the best Americano he had ever seen. Luis was sorry that El Teniente had no riding job for him. These were some of the thoughts that passed through the mind of the Mexican youth as he rode herd on the stolen cattle
Up from the south rode Shoz-Dijiji. From the moment that he crossed the border into Arizona his spirits rose. The sight of familiar and beloved scenes, the scent of the cedars and the pines, the sunlight and the moonlight were like wine in his veins. The Black Bear was almost happy again.
Where there were no trails he went unseen. No longer were the old water holes guarded by the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee. Peace lay upon the battle ground of three hundred years. He saw prospectors and cowboys occasionally, but they did not see Shoz-Dijiji. The war chief of the Be-don-ko-he knew that the safety of peace was for the white-eyed men only - he was still a renegade, an outlaw, a hunted beast, fair target for the rifle of the first white man who saw him.
He moved slowly, and often by night, drinking to the full the joys of homeland; but he moved toward a definite goal and with a well defined purpose. It had taken days and weeks and months of meditation and introspection to lay the foundation for the decision he had finally reached; it had necessitated trampling under foot a lifetime of race consciousness and pride in caste; it had required the sacrifice of every cherished ideal, but the incentive was more powerful than any of these things, perhaps the greatest single moral force for good or evil that exists to govern and shape the destinies of man — love.
Love was driving this Apache war chief to the object of his devotion and to the public avowal that he was no Apache but, in reality, a member of the race that he had always looked upon with the arrogant contempt of a savage chieftain.
In his return through Arizona he found his loved friend, Nejeunee, an obstacle to safe or rapid progress. A pinto pony, while perhaps camouflaged by Nature, is not, at best, an easy thing to conceal, nor can it follow the trackless steeps of rugged mountains as can a lone Apache warrior; but, none the less, Shoz-Dijiji would not abandon this, his last remaining friend, the sole and final tie that bound him to the beloved past; and so the two came at last to an upland country, hallowed by sacred memories — memories that were sweet and memories that were bitter.
Luke Jensen was riding the east range. What does a lone cowboy think about? There is usually an old bull that younger bulls have run out of the herd. He is always wandering off, and if he be of any value it is necessary to hunt him up and explain to him the error of his ways in profane and uncomplimentary language while endeavoring to persuade him to return. He occupies the thoughts of the lone cowboy to some extent.
Then there is the question of the expenditure of accumulated wages, if any have accumulated. There are roulette and faro and stud at the Hog Ranch, but if one has recently emerged from any of these one is virtuous and has renounced them all for life, along with wine and women.
A hand-made, silver mounted bit would look as well and arouse envy, as would sheep skin chaps, and a heavy, silver hat band. A new and more brilliant bandana is also in order. Then there are the perennial plans for breaking into the cattle business on one’s own hook, based on starting modestly with a few feeders to which second thought may add a maverick or two that nobody would miss and from these all the way up to rustling an entire herd.
Thoughts of Apaches had formerly impinged persistently upon the minds of lone cowboys. Luke Jensen was mighty glad, as he rode the east range, that he didn’t have to bother his head any more about renegades.
He was riding up a coule
e flanked by low hills. Below the brow of one that lay ahead of him an Apache war chief watched his approach. Below and behind the warrior a pinto stallion lay stretched upon its side, obedient to the command of its master.
Shoz-Dijiji, endowed by Nature with keen eyes and a retentive memory, both of which had been elevated by constant lifelong exercise to approximate perfection, recognized Luke long before the cowboy came opposite his position — knew him even before he could discern his features.
“Hey, you!” called Shoz-Dijiji without exposing himself to the view of the youth.
Luke reined in and looked about. Mechanically his hand went to the butt of his six-shooter.
“No shoot!” said Shoz-Dijiji. “I am friend.”
“How the hell do I know that?” demanded Jensen. “I can’t see you, an’ I aint takin’ no chances.”
“I got you covered with rifle,” announced Shoz-Dijiji. “You better be friend and put away gun. I no shoot. I am Shoz-Dijiji.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Jensen. The one thousand dollars reward instantly dominated his thoughts.
“You no shoot?” demanded the Indian. Luke returned his revolver to its holster. “Come on down,” he said. “I remember you.”
Shoz-Dijiji spoke to Nejeunee, who scrambled to his feet; and a moment later the pinto stallion and its rider were coming down the hillside.
“We thought you was dead,” said Luke.
“No. Shoz-Dijiji been long time in Sonora.”
“Still on the war path?” asked the cowboy.
“Geronimo make treaty with the Mexicans and with your General Miles,” explained the Apache. “He promise we never fight again against the Mexicans or the Americans. Shoz-Dijiji keep the treaty Geronimo made. Shoz-Dijiji will not fight unless they make him. Even the coyote will fight for his life.”
“What you come back here fer, Shoz-Dijiji?” asked Luke.
“I come to see Wichita Billings. Mebby so I get job here. What you think?”
Many thoughts crowded themselves rapidly through the mind of Luke Jensen in the instant before he replied and foremost among them was the conviction that this man could not be the murderer of Jefferson Billings. Had he been he would have known that suspicion would instantly attach to him from the fact that Wichita had seen him near the ranch the day her father was killed and that on that same day the pony he now rode had been stolen from the east pasture.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 611
