The B. M. Bower Megapack

by B. M. Bower

  They would fight, those two, and fight to kill. Since the world was first peopled, men had fought as they would fight—for love; for the possession of a pretty thing—warm, capricious, endearing, with possibly a heart and a soul beneath; possibly. And love—what was love, after all? What is love worth? He had loved her, too; at least, he had felt all the emotions that either of them had felt for her. He was not sure that he did not still feel them, or would if he let himself go. He did not believe, however, that those emotions were worth more than everything else in the world; more than his life, or honor, or friendship. He had choked love, strangled it, starved it for sake of friendship; and, sitting there staring abstractedly into the filming coals, he wondered if he had done wrong; if those two were right, and love was worth fighting for.

  The man who fought the hardest, he felt, would in this case win that for which he fought. For he felt in his heart, that Teresita was only a pretty little animal, the primitive woman who would surrender to strength; and that he would win in the end who simply refused to yield before her coquetries.

  With a quick, impatient gesture he threw his cigarette into the coals, kicked viciously a lazily smoking brand which sent up a little blaze and a spurt of sparks that died almost immediately to dull coals again.

  “Love’s like that,” he muttered pessimistically, standing up and stretching his arms mechanically. “And the winner loses in the end; maybe not always, but he will in this case. Poor old Jack! After all, she ain’t worth it. If she was—” His chin went down for a minute or two, while he stared again at the fire. “If she was, I’d—But she ain’t. Love’s worth—what is love worth, anyway?”

  He did not answer the question with any degree of positiveness, and he went to bed wishing that he had never seen the valley of Santa Clara.

  CHAPTER XIX

  ANTICIPATION

  To give a clear picture of the preparations for that fiesta, one should be able to draw with strokes as swift as the horses that galloped up and down the valley at the behest of riders whose minds titillated with whatever phase of the fiesta appealed to them most; and paint with colors as vivid as were the dreams of the women, from the peonas in the huts to the señoritas and señoras murmuring behind the shelter of their vines.

  One would need tell of those who went boldly into the mountains to find a grizzly bear and bring it alive and unhurt to the pen, which the peons, with feverish zeal and much chattering amongst themselves, were building close beside the smallest corral.

  A great story it would make—the tale of that hunt! A man came back from it with a forearm torn sickeningly, to show how brave he had been. And the bear came also—a great, gaunt she-bear with two cubs whimpering beside her in the cage, and in her eyes a sullen hunger for the giant redwoods that stood so straight and strong together upon the steep slopes while they sang crooningly the songs she knew of old, and a glowing hatred for her captors.

  A story that would make! A story in which Jerry Simpson and Tige played valiant part and bore more than their share of the danger, and became heroes to those who went with them.

  One would need to picture somehow the bubbling excitement of Teresita, while she planned and replanned her festal garments, and tell how often she found it necessary to ride with Jack across the valley to talk the matter over with the “pretty Señora” Simpson, or to the Mission San José to see what Rosa had at last decided to wear.

  Then, there would be the solemn conferences in the kitchen, between Margarita and the señora herself; conferences that had to do with cakes and preserves and the like, with the niños getting in every one’s way, while they listened and smacked lips over the very naming of so many good things to eat.

  One would need see the adobe corral that was to be transformed into an amphitheater where were hammering and clatter from sunrise till dark, without even a pause for midday siesta amongst those lazy peons who would sleep over their cigarettes, though the padres stood over them predicting the end of the world the next moment.

  Well in the foreground of the picture would be Jack, to be sure; Jack riding far afield upon Surry, whom he had found the best horse for his purpose upon the whole ranch; lassoing cattle to get his hand in, practising certain little twists of his own invention, and teaching Surry to know without fail just what certain signals meant, and obey instantly and implicitly when they were given.

  Sometimes, when the señorita was not in a perverse mood, she would ride with him and applaud his dexterity; at other times she would boast of José’s marvelous skill, and pity Jack in advance for the defeat which she pretended was inevitable. Whether she pitied or praised, she seemed always sincere for the moment, so that Jack gave up any lingering hope of knowing how she really felt about it, and contented himself with the determination to deflect all the pity towards José when the time came, and keep the praise for himself.

  There would be other contests; and scarce a day passed wherein no horse loped heavily up the slope and stopped with heaving flanks in the patio, while its rider dismounted and bowed low before Don Andres, giving news of some vaquero who wished his name to be listed as a contestant in the riding, or the lassoing and tying of steers, or in the bull-fight, perchance.

  But there was no third name offered in the riata contest for which Solano was announced as a prize. All up and down the valley; at the ranches, on the trails when men met and stopped to talk awhile, and around the camp-fires of the rodeo they talked of it; and many bets would have been laid upon the outcome, had not all men been of one mind. When José was not present, or Dade, or the more outspoken of the Picardo vaqueros, always they spoke of it as the duelo riata, and took it for granted that it would be fought to the death. Thus are secrets kept from men who can read from their own natures the truth! The men of Santa Clara lowered lids and smiled whenever they spoke of it as a contest, for as a duel had the word first gone forth from the exultant lips of Manuel; as a duel would it still remain among themselves, spite of the fiesta and the prize that was offered, and the reiteration that it was but sport.

  One should picture the whole valley for the background; a sunken paradise of greenery, splotched with color, made alive with bird-songs and racing cloud-shadows on the grass; with the wooded slopes of the Santa Cruz mountains closing in upon the west and sheltering it from the sweeping winds from off the ocean, and the grassy hills rising high and rugged on the east, giving rich pasturage to the cattle and all the wild things that fed there.

  When it was complete—that picture—then might one weep to be there in the midst of it all! For there would be much laughter, and the love-making would make young pulses beat fast to think upon. There would be dancing, and the tinkle of guitars and mandolins, and a harp or two to beat a harmonious surf-song beneath the waves of melody. There would be feasting, with whole beeves roasted over pits which the peons were already digging in their dreams; with casks of wine from the don’s own vineyard to wash down the juicy morsels. There would be all that throughout one long, moonlit night, with the day of sports to think back upon. And through the night they would talk of the duelo riata between two men who loved one little señorita who laughed much and cared little, said certain wise señoras, and nodded their heads while they said it.

  What if some hearts were bitter over the prospect? From Santa Barbara, even, were they coming to the fiesta! (Gustavo had the news from a peon who came straight through from Paso Robles on an errand for his master.)

  What if Dade, thinking and thinking until his brain was dizzy, lay long hours awake in his blankets and stared up at the star-sprinkle in the purple night-sky, trying to find a path that would lead to peace? The señorita lay awake also, thinking smilingly that she had nearly finished the embroidery upon the bodice she meant to wear, and that the pretty señora had promised to do her black hair in a new and wonderful way that should smart with envy the eyes of all the other señoritas when they saw; and that the señora her mother had reluctantly promised that she should wear the gold chain with the rubies glowing
along every little thumb-length of it; thinking also, perhaps, of how she had made the Señor Jack’s eyes grow dark and then flash anger-lights, when she taunted him again about going to the wise old woman at the Mission San José for a charm to make the riata fly true!

  What if the old don, seeing also that trouble hung like a vulture over the feast, paced uneasily up and down the vine-hidden veranda, while he meditated upon the follies of youth? The young steers that had been driven in for the roasting-pits were trampling uneasily about the little corral where they had been put to fatten; and Gustavo walked with his head thrown back upon his shoulders that he might read that open page which was the sky, and to any anxious ones who asked, he had but one answer and that a comforting one:

  “The day will be a day of sunshine, with linnets singing in the trees and the smallest breeze to cool the cheek.” The anxious ones, hearing so good an augury, would pass on, their thoughts upon the day-of-days and on their lips a little smile.

  CHAPTER XX

  LOST! TWO HASTY TEMPERS

  “One more throw, and then no more until the contest,” Jack announced placatingly, when he spied a lone bull standing just before a thicket of chaparral and staring at them with stupid resentment that his siesta had been disturbed. “A kiss for luck, little one!”

  Riata coiled in his hand, Jack rode closer and leaned to the girl, his eyes and his voice caressing, his lips quivering for the kiss he craved. It had come to kisses long before then, and to half promises, when her mood was tender, that she would marry her blue-eyed one—sometime.

  Just now her mood was not tender. Jack was not to blame, nor was the pretty Señora Simpson, although Mrs. Jerry was quite innocently and unconsciously the cause. Mrs. Jerry had a headache, that day, and a fit of the blues; and from the first moment when Teresita had entered the cabin she had felt a lack of warmth in the pretty señora’s manner that had piqued her, who had lived upon adoration all her life. Mrs. Jerry had even shown a disposition to shirk keeping her promise anent the new way of doing Teresita’s hair.

  She said that she didn’t think she’d go to the fiesta, after all—which was like calmly telling a priest that one does not, after all, feel as if heaven is worth striving for.

  Teresita failed to see how the wistfulness was quite submerging the twinkle in Mrs. Jerry’s eyes, and if she had seen, she would never have guessed what put it there; nor would she have understood why Mrs. Jerry might shrink from attending that magnificent festival, perhaps the only gringo woman in all the crowd, and a pitifully shabby gringo woman at that. To her mind, Mrs. Jerry was beautiful and perfect, even in her shapeless brown dress that was always clean. Teresita herself would never have worn that dress at all, yet it did not occur to her that Mrs. Jerry might have some very feminine quality of pride crowded down into some corner of her sweet nature. So Teresita was mightily offended at what she considered a slight from the only gringo woman she had ever known; and she was also bitterly disappointed over the abandonment of the new coiffure.

  “Why don’t you wear it just the way it is, honey?” Mrs. Jerry had suggested—and very sensibly, too. “I wouldn’t go and twist it all up and stick pins through it, if I was you. It’s prettier just that way.”

  Teresita had understood enough of that, thanks to the teachings of her blue-eyed one, to know that the pretty señora did not mean to keep her promise. She had gone almost immediately to the cabin door to tell Jack that she was ready to go home. And Jack, deep in one of those interminable conversations with Jerry himself, over on the pile of logs that would one day be a stable if Jerry’s hopes reached fruition, had merely waved his hand carelessly when he saw her, and had given all his attention to Jerry again.

  Of course, Teresita could not know that they were discussing a brief but rancorous encounter which Jerry had had with Manuel that morning, when the two happened to meet farther down the valley while Manuel was riding his share of the rodeo circle. Two of José’s men had been with Manuel, and their attitude had been “purty derned upstropolus,” according to Jerry. (Jack decided after a puzzled minute that the strange word which Jerry spoke with such relish must be Simpsonese for obstreperous.) They had, in fact, attempted to drive off three of Jerry’s oxen to the rodeo ground, and only the characteristic “firmness” of Jerry had prevented them from doing it. Jemina, he said, had helped some when pointed at Manuel’s scowling face; but Jerry opined that he would hereafter take the twins along too when he rode out anywhere, and that he guessed he’d cut another loophole or two in his cabin walls.

  All of these various influences had created an atmosphere which Teresita felt and resented without attempting to understand. The big señor had not given her the smiles and the funny attempts at conversation which she had come to accept as a matter of course. The pretty señora had not been as enthusiastic as she should have been, when Teresita showed her the ruby chain which, like a child, she had brought over for the pretty señora to admire.

  Therefore, Jack’s lips found reason to tighten and cease their eager quivering for a kiss. For Teresita twitched her shoulders pettishly and her reins dexterously, and so removed herself some distance from the kissing zone.

  “No? Well, I’ll have to depend on my good riata, then. I’ll take that gentleman at twenty-five feet, and if I can get him to run right, I’ll heel him. Don’t ride any closer, Teresita.”

  He had not called her dulce corazon (sweetheart) as she had expected him to call her; he had not even insisted upon the kiss, but had given up altogether too tamely; and for that she rode closer to the bull in spite. She even had some notion of getting in Jack’s way, and of making him miss if she could. She was seventeen, you see, and she was terribly spoiled.

  Jack had never made any attempt to study the psychological twists of a woman’s nature. He contented himself with loving, and with being straightforward and selfish and a bit arrogant in his love, after the manner of the normal man. It would never occur to him that Teresita was piqued because he had not called her sweetheart, and he straightway sinned more grievously still.

  “Go back, the other way! He’s liable to start in your direction,” he cried, intent upon her safety and his own whim to rope the beast.

  Teresita deliberately kicked her horse and loped forward.

  It would not be nice to say that bulls are like some humans, but it is a fact that they are extremely illogical animals, full of impulses and whims that have absolutely no relation to cause or effect. This bull had not moved except to roll his eyes from one to the other of the riders. If he meditated war he should, by all the bovine traditions of warfare, have bellowed a warning and sent up a whiff or two of dirt over his back, as one has a right to expect a pessimistic bull to do. Instead of which he flung down his head and made an unexpected rush at Teresita—and Jack had left his pistols at home.

  Jack’s riata was coiled in his hand and his head was turned towards the girl, his brain busy with his thoughts of her and her wilfulness. From the tail of his eye he caught the first lunge of the bull, and that automatic mental adjustment to unexpected situations, which we call presence of mind, sent a knee-signal to Surry which that intelligent animal obeyed implicitly.

  Surry rushed straight at the bull, but the triangle was a short one, and there was much to do in that quarter of a minute. Teresita was stubborn and would not turn and run; but she happened to be riding Tejon, who knew something about bulls and was capable of acting upon his knowledge. He whirled with hind feet for a pivot and ducked away from the horns coming at him, and it was not one second too soon. The bull swept by, so close that a slaver of foam was flung against Teresita’s skirt as he passed.

  He whirled to come back at the girl—and that time he seemed sure to give that vicious, ripping jab he had so narrowly missed giving before; even the girl saw that he would, and turned a little pale, and Tejon’s eyes glazed with terror.

  But Jack had gained the second he needed—the second that divided adventure from tragedy. The riata loop shot from his upflung
hand and sped whimperingly on its errand, even as Tejon tried to swing away, tripped, and tumbled to his knees. The riata caught the lifted forefeet of the bull just as he stiffened his neck for the lunge. Surry braced himself automatically when Jack drew tight the loop, and the bull went down with a thud and lay with his forefeet held high in air, so close to his quarry that the tip of one horn struck Tejon upon the knee and flicked a raw, red spot there.

  Then Jack, in the revulsion from deadly fear to relief, was possessed by one of those gusts of nervous rage that seized him sometimes; such a brief fit of rage as made him kill lustfully three men in the space of three heart-beats, almost, and feel regret because he could not keep on killing.

  He did not run to Teresita and comfort her for her fright, as a lover ought to have done. Instead he gave her one look as he went by, and that a look of indignation for her foolishness. He ran to the bull, drew his knife from his sash and tried to stab it in the brain; but his hand shook so that he missed and only gave it a glancing gash that let much blood flow. He swore and struck again, snapping the dagger blade short off against the horns. Whereupon he threw the dagger violently from him and gave an angry kick at the animal, as if he would kill it that way.

  “Savage!” cried Teresita, hysterically shrill. “Brute! Leave the poor thing alone! It has done nothing, that you should beat it while it cannot fight back.”

  Jack, lifting his spurred foot for another kick, set it down and turned to her dazedly.

  In her way as shaken by her narrow escape as he was himself, she straightway called him brute and savage again, and sentimentally pitied the bull because he lay upon his back with his front feet in the air, and because the gash on his head was bleeding.

  Jack’s rage passed as quickly as it came; but it left him stubborn under her recriminations.