He found time to ask himself what had happened to Ruiz and his men. Ruiz was too wary to walk into a trap with his eyes open. The boy fumed at his stupidity in having sent his best men ahead. With hope born of desperation, he drew his sword and made ready for the oncoming outlaws.
“Fool!” Miguel cried. “Don’t you see that it is Pérez?”
“Croaker, you are right for once! He’s ridden in between Ruiz and us. Well, look to yourself now! Close your ears to those cries; they’ve driven off more men than his guns ever have.”
“But we are only a handful! These peons will not fight. We had best run while we can.”
Ramon shook his head slowly. “No,” he snarled, his eyes narrowing; disgust for the other’s cowardice contorting his mouth. “I stay! Run, you with your rabbit’s soul! My father has already called me fool. Por Dios he’ll not write coward after my name. I am going to fight!”
CHAPTER II
A LADY’S NAME IS MENTIONED
PÉREZ and his band began to circle when they were still some three hundred yards away. It was a well-known Indian maneuver long since adopted by road-agents. It reduced the morale of those at bay to the minimum. Also, it resulted in a surprisingly small loss of life among the attackers.
Ramon hurled orders at his peons as he saw himself being surrounded. The poor devils had no heart for this affair. All of them were supplied with guns and had some minor skill with them; but the boy realized how little he could expect from them as they glanced at him, the whites of their eyes showing, their muscles seemingly atrophied.
“When I give the order,” Ramon cried, “you fire. I’ll run my blade through the heart of the one who throws down his gun. Ruiz will hear the shooting. If his party has not been captured, he’ll come to our aid. Take to the ground, now!”
The mules and horses had been hobbled and thrown. Using their bodies as a sort of breastwork, the little party crouched behind them and waited.
The wily Pérez stayed the advance of his men when he deemed that their circle had narrowed sufficiently. Without waiting for the order, his men threw themselves to the ground even as their quarry had. Pérez smiled as he viewed the preparations of the besieged.
“Well, Pablo,” he said with a grunt of appreciation to his lieutenant, “the boy is no fool. And yet, the cattle he counts on to win his battle will but defeat him. Indeed ’twill take but a little well-placed lead to bring those quickly hobbled mules to their feet. I’ll wager my head that when they begin plunging the señor’s carbineers will take to their heels. Let’s be at it.”
The men who rode with Benito Pérez were old hands at this game. A satisfied grin sat upon their leader’s face as he watched the effect of the firing which followed. It was as he had foreseen. The improvised hobbles were kicked off as the wounded animals struggled to get to their feet. Once upon all fours, the mules and horses limped or galloped off, leaving the peons exposed to their enemies. Slow as their mental faculties were, it took Ramon’s men no great time to digest the fact that theirs was a most unhappy position, and that it mattered little whether they remained where they were, to be shot down by Pérez and his band, or died by their leader’s sword in attempting to escape.
Whatever advantage the scales held inclined in favor of the latter chance. Pérez would most certainly kill them; Don Ramon, on the other hand, might take compassion on them.
Hope springs eternal, and a chance is always a chance whether it falls to the lot of don or peon. Enough that they became obsessed to get themselves elsewhere. A stealthy, calculating look toward their leader and they were off, the music of Pérez’s guns to speed them on.
This defection came so quickly that Ramon was left inert for a minute. Pérez saw him get to his feet. The bandit grinned as he heard the boy curse his men for the cowards they were. And then, as he watched, he saw him empty his pistol at the fleeing wretches.
“Par Dios, Pablo,” Pérez laughed, “see him! There’s good stuff in the boy, I tell you, even though his aim is not the best. He’ll handle a sword better than he does a gun. And that other one, that sniveling clown beneath the wagon—’tis the lawyer’s cub, is it not?”
Pérez chuckled to himself. “Well he trembles,” he added. “He has the many threats father lawyer has made upon my head to console him.” The bandit chieftain got to his feet boldly. “Let you and the others stay back,” he ordered. “I’ll have speech with our young knight.”
With a dignity that was little short of regal, for all his barbaric splendor, Pérez strode toward the wagon. The boy suffered him to approach to within ten yards of the spot where he stood before he spoke to him.
Although Ramon had never met the man, he knew from a hundred descriptions of him that he faced Pérez. There was a certain swagger to the man, a sense of poise and conceit which was not lost on the boy.
A devilish leer to the once handsome mouth, a light in his eyes as cold as snow-capped mountains, and the sagging cheek muscles of one who drank too much, were not enough to conceal the fact that the man had once been a highly promising gentleman.
The boy had it upon his tongue to stay the other’s advance, when Pérez stopped of his own accord. They took stock of each other before either spoke.
Pérez was the first to break silence. “My regards, young sir,” he said, accompanying his words with a sweeping gesture of his sombrero. “A thousand pardons for so forcibly ejecting myself upon you; but in truth there is no other way in which the lowly may meet those of high estate. And yet it grieves me to annoy one who is so evidently cut to my own pattern. You do well; but you are young. In time you will learn many things; let the first of them be, not to put trust in peon stock. They are as you have fashioned them——” Perez shook his head. “In your tailoring of them to do as they were bade, you forgot their spirit. You cut and trimmed it along with their bodies. And now—poor devils—they’re nought but sheep. But here is too much talk of mice and men. Allow me to present myself—in lieu of trusting friend, I, sir, am Benito Pérez. And you will be——?”
“Well enough you know me, you jesting devil,” Ramon answered hotly. “You have either fooled and killed my scouts—or both, for the matter of that; you have seen those bastard peons run to cover like rabbits before a wolf; you know that I face you alone—for that poor wretch beneath the wagon is but a student of books, a helpless creature, of no aid to me in this hour—I am outnumbered, sadly so, and there is no hand to help me but my own; but I would know what you intend.”
“ ’Tis a brave speech,” Pérez declared, not unkindly, “and one to my liking. With things so heavily set against you, it pleases me to hear you make plain talk. I had but to raise my finger to have you bound and on the way to my camp in the hills. The contents of yonder wagon, all unlawful goods I’ll swear, fill my eyes with itching curiosity. But even so, I blush to say that I am hard put to think only of contraband. You yourself are so rich a prize that already my fingers are counting the pesetas your honorable father would pay to have you returned to him.”
“Nay, that you shall not do,” the boy exclaimed. “The goods I waive; but you will not have me alive.”
“No? And how do you avoid the inevitable?”
“With fair ease, if half that I have heard of you were true. Only this day have I spoken good words in your defense. Time there was on this continent when men of our blood fought with honor for all. My men have left me alone on the field; you still have yours, but that were a small matter indeed between gentlemen. Man, we are two leaders. Here and now will I do combat with you, and who wins shall go free. If it falls that I am the fortunate one, your men shall raise no hand to stop me. What sayest you to that, friend Pérez?”
For an instant the bandit’s eyes lost their coldness. Here indeed was a man! This boy’s talk was not the empty boasting of unbearded youth.
“And you so easily hope to win free, eh?” he asked in bantering tones. “No! More like I should run you through at first thrust. More times than I have hairs on my head hav
e I held my life forfeit against my skill with the dancing steel. Men skilled in arms have held me no mean antagonist. Many there have been to say I was unmatched, and though flattery is the coin that circulates in the lives of those who live by the sword and gun, still, I have come safely through, up until now. Your words do you proud; but for all of them, you are only a boy, an untried gamecock. What bids you believe you will leave my bones here to be picked by those hovering buzzards?” Pérez’ smile melted to honest good-will as he answered his own question. “Is it that poor Pérez grows old, or that you have heard how the dampness of the hills swells his joints?”
“Your age and ills matter but little to me,” the boy said flatly. “I hold neither you nor myself cheaply. But truly, if your skill with the sword matches your cleverness with the tongue, then I had best beware. I offer myself in fair fight to you. An end to this, then,—what is your answer?”
“’Tis a pity, young cub, but since you will have it, stand ready.”
Pérez called in his men. They had not been so far distant but that they had some idea of what went forward here.
“Let no man’s hand but mine touch this boy,” he ordered. “It will be an honorable affair even though it is far less than a fair one. Should a miracle happen, and he best me, he goes free. But hiding clown, there beneath the wagon, you shall strip and tie upon a mule, and thus send him back all askew to his blatant father. And now, señor, if you are ready, fall to!”
Ramon’s blade flashed on the word. Pérez parried without seeming haste, and yet the movement seemed so easy only because of its grace. The bandit’s men had formed a circle about the swordsmen, and even the white faced Miguel had moved himself so as to witness this combat.
Crafty Pérez let the younger man circle round and round him, quite content to remain on the defensive, conserving his strength against the propitious moment. But it seemed to his followers that he took no advantage of his first opening, and the thought grew on them that he but played with this boy.
Some thought of this showed in Ramon’s eyes, too. It angered him to think he was played with. Still, with surprising good sense, he kept his head free of passion. In and out he continued to dance with the agility of tireless youth.
Pérez met his advances squarely, but time came when he looked to see the boy falter, only to find him as strong as ever. “You yield a stout blade,” he cried complimentingly, “for all your foolhardiness. ’Tis easy now to see from where your assurance sprang. Canst parry this?”
And with lightning-like swiftness the man lunged for the boy’s heart. Ramon could not get out of his way. A backward step was all he could allow himself at best.
Pérez’ eyes narrowed as he saw his opening. The smile was gone from his face and there remained only cupidity, cruelty, and the mirthless grin of the killer. He set himself, ready for his opponent’s backward step which should deliver the boy to him.
Too late, he saw that Ramon braced himself where he stood. Rare intelligence had whispered to the boy that retreat would only leave him unbalanced and a fair target. To stand his ground could be no more dangerous. A snap of his wrist altered the direction of his blade, so that it flashed at Pérez’ wrist. By the time it fell, the boy’s shoulder was behind it.
The older man saw his danger, but there was left him only the chance that his steel would reach the other in time.
A gasp escaped the onlookers, all fair swordsmen themselves. They knew that the decision impended and that it hung upon who should strike first,—a space of time so slight that to call it a second is to exaggerate.
Even with the thought came the answer,—a loud ringing of steel upon steel, their leader’s sword broken off short and the boy facing them unscathed. Remained now but for him to finish his antagonist.
Pablo groaned as understanding flashed upon him; but he made no move to turn the scales. He was an outlaw with a price on his head, as indeed were his fellows; they were without morals, illiterate, but they had their code. Pérez, himself, refused to reach for his pistol. Quixotic? But such ideas were abroad in 1835.
With the point of his blade resting upon his boot, Ramon stood facing Pérez. The boy’s face was flushed, his brow wet with perspiration.
“Get at your pig sticking,” the highwayman thundered.
“Let that remain for butchers. I am no peon,” the hoy flung back at him.
“So I perceive,” Pérez said tauntingly, “and yet I hear that you are passing fond of one who is.”
Hot anger flashed in the boy’s eyes at this.
“The ear often hears what the lips would do well not to repeat. Maybe ’twere better I had run you through. Get yourself another blade and I’ll pay you in full for those words.”
And so they fell to again, the ring of steel against steel sounding as they circled. Pérez no longer stood still, but forced the fighting whenever it was to his liking. The brightly polished blades caught the rays of the scorching sun, until it seemed at times that the men fought with swords of fire.
Minutes fled and still no advantage came to either. Awe, and envy for such skill, shone on the faces of those who watched. They had seen their leader give battle times without number, but not one could remember having seen him maneuver as he did now, and graceful as his footwork was, it less than matched the nimble agility of this dancing boy.
The crafty Benito saw that he tired the quicker, and that the long battle but served the cause of youth. Hence, he resorted to banter to aid himself.
Ramon, smarting under the man’s thinly veiled insinuations, let fly an angry thrust which Pérez avoided and placed to his own advantage by countering dangerously close to the boy’s throat.
The bandit’s eyes must have mirrored his thought, because the boy gritted his teeth and cursed himself for the fool he had been in thus delivering himself. Two could play at words as well as one! Even Pérez had to smile as he realized that he had tossed away his opening, for although he taunted and abused the boy, Ramon but grinned, and in turn, hurled biting bits of sarcasm and scorn at him.
So, in desperation, Pérez resorted to a dangerous trick. Purposely he made a wide thrust and seemed to lose his footing. Ramon rushed into the trap by lowering his rapier and setting himself for a death blow.
Pérez snapped erect at that, and his sword flashed out with unbelievable swiftness. Ramon divined his mistake when it was too late, but even so, Pérez saw him throw his body away from the piercing blade. That he could escape entirely was impossible.
The next instant came a faint, sucking sound and a spurting stream of blood. The boy’s weapon fell to the ground, as with his left hand he reached for his arm where Pérez’ blade had passed clean through.
A look of pain distorted the boy’s mouth as Pérez pulled free his blade. But with fine fortitude, he faced his conqueror the next instant.
The bandit’s eyes wore a strange veil as he stared at the youth before him. “Well,” he said gruffly, at last, “the tables are now turned, jovencito!”
Ramon bowed his head. “I await your pleasure,” he said bravely.
“My pleasure?” the robber questioned. “And do you think to shame me by expecting less than you so lately volunteered?”
“The incidents are not at all the same,” the boy averred. “It had been no fight at all had I finished you with your weapon useless to you; but now, no man can say but what we have both done our best. Your ruse was well executed, and I submit with what grace I can to you; but as I said on oath, I shall not be taken prisoner and carried off so that you may mulct my father.”
“Rest easy on that score,” Pérez said abruptly. “You, Pablo,” he called to his lieutenant, “look to the man’s wound.” Turning back to Ramon he continued: “Your bark is loud, but it is becoming; one that I warm to, for you have proved your worth in the only way that I set store by,—man to man. I have an ill name in this land, and yet I hold that no man, be he son of don or peon, can say that Benito Pérez ever failed to repay a courtesy with lesser coin. You shall
go on your way, and your wagon with you; but as a favor, and not as an order, I’ll take from you a piece of goods,—no less than a piece of the finest, either. Silk, or a yardage of some rare material such as I know you have purchased for your most august mother. I want it bright, colorful, of surpassing beauty, because it is for one who is surpassingly beautiful. Will you accommodate me?”
Pablo had bound the boy’s wound by now, and Ramon, his good nature restored in part, addressed himself to Pérez in a manner fully as grandiloquent as that which the bandit had employed. “The choice rests with you,” he said, pointing to the wagon. “The silks are beneath the seat, in a package by themselves.”
“A thousand thanks,” Pérez grinned impudently. “And it were well not to waste time in the choosing, for here comes your guard at full tilt.”
He pointed to the distant pass from which Ruiz and his men now emerged. Suiting his action to his words, Pérez speedily located the package of silks and broke it open. With a sweep of his hand he spread them so that the different pieces were displayed. One, in particular, caught his fancy. Holding it aloft, he turned to Ramon. “A rich mogador!” he exclaimed. “All shot with gorgeous colors,—the very thing!”
“Not being acquainted with the lady,” Ramon answered facetiously, “I can not advise you. You, who know her tastes, must decide.”
Pérez stopped abruptly in the act of folding the brightly colored silk. “That, I do not,” he exclaimed. “Nor, I suspect, does she. Her tempers, now, that were a different matter. For all her airy graces, she is a peon, and take this parting bit of advice,—even in love, a peon is a disappointment.”
Pérez swung on to his horse and with a wave of his hand sped away in full cry, his men in hot pursuit.
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