Roy Bean's Gold (11 page)

“Yes, but I was thinking that it had something to do with those poor devils we fetched in when I first came to town. the ones you had Sánchez plant over in Boot Hill.”

“Well”—Josh helped himself to another plate of grub—“you may be right. That message on them was signed ‘Men of the Night', wasn't it?” He looked sideways at me, and then nodded at Abraham for another round of wine, while he began to talk about some actress named Lottie Crabtree.

Somehow I had a feeling that my brother would just as soon not talk about night riders and stretched necks at the supper table, so I dropped it—for the time being.

When I rode over to the Casa Castañeda on Calhoun Street for our regular Tuesday morning jaunt, I found both Castañeda sisters already up and waiting for me on their mounts.

“
Señor
Roy, my and don't you look the
brillante
one in your
bonito
new white sombrero,” said Estrellita, laughing as her sister shied a riding crop at her to be still.

“
Señor
Roy, pardon that little minx. she knows you still mourn for that sombrero
espléndido
you lost when that horse
estúpido
bolted with you in that storm.” Lucia spurred her black mare over to me and put a hand on mine. “You must never mind that tease. I think your new topper is most becoming.” She glanced at her sister and her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Besides, I have something to make you forget any number of old sombreros.”

Estrellita gave a cry and shook her finger at Lucia. “You very bad thing, you! You know we agreed to both tell
Señor
Roy when we rode together . . . and. . . .”

“Never you mind, you tease.” Lucia bent toward me, whispering: “Our dear Dulcima arrives on the coach from the north this very Tuesday afternoon, before the supper hour.”

“
Sí
, and we are asked to come over to Rancho de la Fuentes this Saturday eve for a grand
baile
,” her sister rattled on, trying to get in her share of the news. “Her aunt has sent an invitation to us and others in town and about the country.”

“She tells us in her note,
Señor
Roy, that you have had a personal invitation from her when you were at the
rancho
last week. which you never told us, you sly rogue,” Lucia chattered away, breaking in on her lively sister. “
Señorita
Almada also sends another word to you. that she expects to see you again. . . .”

“At the
baile
. . . ,” Estrellita began.

“Or before, if
Señor
Roy comes with us to the stage station, for the
Señorita
expects to come over in her conveyance to pick up Dulcima.”

“You know we plan to ask them to stay at our
casa
overnight. It will be late for them to travel back to the
rancho
, even if there is nearly a full moon tonight.” Estrellita got in her final shot before putting the spur to her white horse. “And
Señor
Roy might be asked to come for supper!”

We left town in a flurry of dust and laughter, loping down to Point Loma and a picnic lunch.

That afternoon I was standing in the small crowd at the little brown adobe station under the cottonwoods on Crabillo, along with
Señor
and
Señorita
Castañeda and their girls.

“It is getting on for five o'clock”—Lucia, who hadn't changed her riding habit, was bouncing on the toes of her little, red riding boots—“and
Señorita
Almada isn't here yet. and the stage should be arriving anytime now.”

Estrellita, fine and furbelowed in a wide white silk dress, kept her yellow fan flickering like some sort of butterfly. Suddenly she snapped it shut and waved it over the heads of the crowd, knocking several sombreros galley west. “Wrong, dear Sister. here she is now!”

A red-topped surrey, driven by the old Mexican from the
rancho
, drew up alongside the hitching rail, and there sat Rosita Almada in the back, a small, dark sombrero in her hand, and with her flame-colored hair blowing about her shoulders.

She saw the Castañedas and waved to them, but before she could alight, the two-mule mail hack from Los Angeles came pounding around the corner, with a pinto stallion loping along behind. It wheeled up to the station in a cloud of dust and a volley of shouts from the bearded driver.

The first person in the hack that I spotted was Salvador Salazar, his big sombrero flapping as he peered from the rig's side curtains.

All was uproar as the driver leaped down, waving his arms, and we learned that there'd been an attempt to stop the stage—and not five miles outside of town.

“Young Bean, well met!” Salazar shouted at me over the hubbub. “Watch this scoundrel while I get my horse secured!” He tossed his Walker Colt underhand to me.

I managed to catch the heavy weapon and keep it pointed at an ugly-looking Mexican with one eye, who stood glaring at the crowd as if he'd like to eat them all.

“That there
hombre
is one of th' jaspers what tried jumpin' us at Washerwoman's Gulch!” And the hack driver shook a big red fist under the hardcase's flat nose. “Iffen it hadn't 'a' been for Sheriff Salazar and Dick Powers, there, bein' on board, we'd 'a' been gone goslin's fur damn' sure!” He pointed to a dapper-looking stranger in a dark frock coat and a gray topper who was getting out on the far side of the hack. The dude was helping a prim young lady step down beside himself and fussing with her baggage.

I was so busy staring at her, I was suddenly jolted back to the three-ring circus when Salazar grabbed his weapon out of my hand and jammed it into the robber's mid-section.

“Hey there,
borrego!
So you thought you'd take yourself a stroll, did you, Juan Pico? Well and good, if you took a stroll while this gentleman stared at the ladies, eh?”

I could feel my ears getting bright red as the young woman coming around the hack with the dude looked me full in the face. It was the girl of the tintype, blue eyes clear as the summer sky and that same fine-featured face, suddenly alight with a soft rosy tint. Then she dropped her gaze and was surrounded by the lively Castañeda sisters and their parents.

“Guess I forgot what I was doing for a minute,” I told the sheriff.

“
Sí
, young Roy.” Salazar grinned. “I know what you are thinking. And I know, also, who that young
señorita
is. I must say we had a fine talk on the way down. By San Luis's double halo, it ain't every day that two survivors of those devils of Comanches can ride along in one coach, let me tell you.”

“
Señor
Bean!
Señor
Roy Bean, come here, if you would, please.” There was Estrellita and Lucia, arms around the girl they called Dulcima, and both waving me over to Rosita's surrey.

“Go along, young Bean.” Salazar nudged me with an elbow. “I'll see you later on. I got to get this one to your brother's
calabozo
.” Away he went, shoving the hulking road agent along, followed by half of the crowd, while the rest stood stockstill, listening to the hack driver jaw away just how the sheriff and Powers had stood off a trio of
bandidos
and dropped one of them by puncturing the robber's horse dead center.

I skirted the bustling knot of gawkers and found myself the target of those unforgettable blue eyes. The Castañeda girls had been telling the girl of my tintype.

“Most interesting, I'm sure. But
Señor
Bean will have an opportunity to talk of such things when he comes to our
baile
on Saturday,” came the vibrant voice of Rosita from her surrey. “But now we must start out for the
rancho
. if we are to get there before midnight.”

She reached out and helped the new arrival into a seat beside her, while the old Mexican finished stowing the baggage onto the front seat of the rig.

There came a flurry of protests from the Castañedas, but to no avail. “
Señorita
Almada,”
Señora
Castañeda sputtered, “how can you even consider riding back to Las Fuentes now. and with such ruffians roving our countryside?”

Rosita rummaged down into a straw handbag and pulled out a Colt Baby Dragoon pistol, while the old Mexican on the front seat flourished a pair of man-sized six-shooters.

Then I saw that slow, tantalizing smile, I remembered, quiver at the corners of Rosita's red mouth, while her brilliant green gaze swept over me. Then she murmured an order to the driver, wheels creaked, and the carriage rolled away through the yellow afternoon sunlight.

The man called Dick Powers stood with gray topper in hand, staring with a furrowed brow after the dwindling rig. Suddenly he gave a short, odd laugh. “Heaven help the highwayman who tries to meddle with that lady.”

T
he night of the
baile
at Fountain Rancho was just about as fine as I can remember in all my time in California. A moon, at the full, gleamed down from a cloudless sky jam-packed with millions of glittering stars, as I rode up to the gate of the big old house where it sat flooded in the silvery light and flanked by shadowy orchards and lowering black pine woods.

I'd ridden over from town in the late afternoon, taken myself a room at the Casa de Oro—House of Gold—tavern just two miles from the
rancho
on the crossroads and was ready for a lively evening. I'll admit that I had a couple of second thoughts about those rascals who'd given me that merry chase a week back, and I wasn't about to ride all the way back to San Diego in the small hours of the night—even if the feisty
Señorita
Almada had no qualms about jaunting through the dark.

From the look of the wagons, buggies, and saddle horses strung out along the hitching rails, I was far from being the first arrival. Over the whispering of the breeze-tossed fountains behind the walls came the twang and tinkle of guitars and the murmur and laughter of voices.

Dismounting, I tied up my horse and tugged at the bell pull once, twice, and then a good dozen times before I roused out the old manservant. From the whiff I got when he swung open the gate to bow me in, I figured he'd been celebrating with the
botella
pretty lively himself.

Just before the gate clanged shut another rider, decked out in a dark riding outfit, serape, and sombrero, came loping up. The stranger piled from his horse, flung the reins to the Mexican, then swaggered into the patio beside me.

“Say there, isn't this our good
alcalde
's relative?” The man was none other than the dude gambler Powers—my brother's rival in the local saloon business.

I allowed as much and was about to make some talk about the fine night when we were surrounded by a noisy crowd of guests. I recognized more than one that I'd visited on my tax rounds and saw they knew me, but I was mighty glad they only bowed and smiled and went on with their visiting. They hadn't forgotten my threats about talking out of turn.

A sudden hand tugged at mine and Estrellita Castañeda was laughing at me, and, at her side, was the girl in the tintype—and both as pretty as two just-minted gold pieces.

“Roy! Come and dance with us.” Lucia Castañeda swept up out of the dark crowd, swirling her new silver ball gown for my benefit. The music rang out in a gay little tune, and, as the partners moved out on the patio floor, I found myself dancing with
Señorita
Dulcima.

All I could think of as we circled and swayed around the floor, while the fiddle, flute, and guitar swelled into the silvery moonlight, was that here was the very girl I'd thought about many times through long nights on the trail, and how downright strange it was that I now held her in my arms.

While we danced, she sang the words along with the rest of the folks, in a gay little voice, all sweet and lively:

Aforrado de mi vida!
¿Come estas, como te va?
Como has pasado la noche,
No has tenido novedad?
Y vente con 'migo
Y yo te dare
Zapatos de raso
Color de café.

When the little orchestra finally ran down, the guests broke into applause and chatter while I looked around for my partner.

Lucia suddenly popped up and poked me in the ribs with her fan. “If you're looking for
Señorita
Dulcima, she's over there by the far fountain.”

I followed her directions and saw the tintype girl standing near the orange trees in the tawny glow of a string of Chinese lanterns. She and the gambler Powers seemed to be mighty busy talking.

“
Señor
Bean?” I recognized Rosita's unforgettable voice and turned to find her standing just behind me, one hand on her hip and the other holding a closed fan that she tapped against her perfect chin. “I'm happy you could attend our little affair and that you were gallant enough to attend to my young ward.” She smiled that slow smile that never failed to send a jolt of fire right through me. Turning, she nodded to Lucia, who immediately bobbed her head and walked away. “From Dulcima's appearance when she danced by, it is easy to see that she finds her fellow
Americano
a person of fascination,” she went on.

“But I'm not the only interesting Yank here, it seems.” I made a slight motion toward Powers and Dulcima, where they stood chatting in the wavering lantern glow.

A look passed across Rosita's face, so swift as to be almost invisible. “Yes, but I have no way of supposing how such a person got in here. I gave old Carlos definite instructions that you or your brother were to be the only Anglos allowed . . . or invited.”

“He arrived about the same time I did, and your sentry seemed to have thought it was Josh with me.”

“He is as familiar with the
alcalde
as the rest of us.” Bringing up her painted fan, she fluttered it like a watchful cat switching its tail as she stared at Powers, then she turned back to me. “I've heard that you obtained a tintype of Dulcima out in Arizona some place and were a bit. how shall I put it?. somewhat taken with her.”