Suzanna (9 page)

Dressed as he was, he seemed surprisingly thin and narrow about the hips. It is a way with boys raised in the saddle. He elected to tame a wild-eyed piebald cayuse, which had been saddled only after a bad twenty minutes. With a wave of his hand, he ordered his vaqueros to let go. A flying leap landed him squarely in the heavy saddle. For a second the battle was his; but the horse had only been stunned by the suddenness of his action. With an angry snort the animal leaped into the air and came down stiffly upon all fours. It is a back-breaking experience for the rider. Ramon clung on, and with his spurs straightened out the horse.

The spectators applauded vociferously as the boy sent the animal round and round the corral, meeting every trick the horse tried. Ramon was no mean rider and inside of forty minutes he had subdued the animal to the point of being able to mount him without having him buck.

The boy had caught a glimpse of the handsome stranger, and recognizing an audience, had done his best, as is the way with youth. The fellow's devil-may-care swagger had quite won him. As he left the corral, Ramon saw the man bow to him. Returning his greeting, he addressed the stranger.

“My compliments,” the latter murmured. “From experience, I know that the proper breaking of a horse is solely a matter of touch,—an art in itself. Allow me to introduce myself, sir: I am Juan Montesoro, of Mexico City, dubbed Pancho for short, by those who know me.”

“You honor me, sir,” the boy replied. “I am Ramon, the eldest son of Don Fernando Gutierrez. I take it, you are a stranger in this land.”

“I am, indeed! Was that piebald the last of the
remuda?”

“No. We have some fifteen ahead of us, but only one a trouble-maker,—that gray with the lop ears.”

Ramon wiped the perspiration from his face as he surveyed the animal about which he had just spoken. It was unbearably hot for so late in the year. The men had saddled another horse, and he raised clouds of dust as he tore, riderless, around the corral. A lariat swished through the air, and the horse went down. Vargas, the hacienda's best vaquero, was upon him when he reared erect.

This work was hard, dangerous, but these men accepted it as an adventure. Vargas soon led his mount from the corral, and Ramon and Montesoro saw the lop-eared gray singled out for his turn. The boy voiced a foreboding grunt as he watched his men approach the horse.

“Is he so bad?” Montesoro asked.

“He threw the best of us yesterday afternoon. The horse has got the devil in him. But for a lucky leap, Vargas, our best man, would have been dashed to death against the fence”

Montesoro studied the gray for another minute. Then:

“I'll break that horse for you, if you'll permit me, Señor Gutierrez.”

The offer came as so great a surprise to Ramon that he looked at the other dumbly for a second. At last:

“It is no easy task, señor. I wonder if you realize what a mistake would cost?”

Montesoro nodded his head. “I assure you, I am no fool. I have yet to see the horse that could throw me. Have I your permission?”

Ramon had half-hoped that the stranger would insist, for naturally he was human enough to want to see the mettle of this dashing
caballero
. As you wish,” he answered, then: “I warn you, keep him away from the fence.”

Vargas was none too well pleased at hearing that he was not to be given a chance to redeem himself for yesterday's fiasco. With bad grace he held the hat and jacket which Montesoro handed to him.

Four others got the gray into the corral and threw him. Montesoro shouted instructions as they struggled to put on a saddle. The feat was accomplished finally, and with a cry to stand clear, the stranger leaped to the gray's back.

Ramon had not underestimated the horse. Whirling, kicking, bucking, the gray careened around the corral. Straight up into the air he reared, and although the stranger ripped him with his spurs, he did not flatten out. But these were only parlor tricks. When they failed, the horse began bucking in earnest. He stood, stiff-legged, and bucked from the tip of his tail to the end of his nose, in whip-snapping, hack-breaking lunges.

The rider held on, and shrieked to goad the horse further. Again and again the gray tried this. It availed nothing. The air grew so heavy with dust that man and beast were hidden from view temporarily. The horse snorted in rage. Up, and up, he reared, until even the wise Montesoro thought he was going over upon his back.

In a flash the horse came down, and like lightning, dashed for the fence. The gray's bloodshot eyes rolled. It was apparent that if he could not buck the man off, he would crush him to death against the fence. Ramon yelled for him to jump.

Vargas' lip curled. Now they would see the stuff of the man!

The stranger was alive to his danger. He made no effort to turn the horse; but instead, with grace and a flourish, he swung his inside leg over the pommel. The cinches were tight; the saddle held. The gray crashed into the fence and rocked from the impact. With a badly bruised shoulder for his trouble, he backed off, and like a charging bull tried it again. But the man's eye was too quick for the horse. Always, with a second to spare, he was free, and daring the animal to do its worst.

From plunging into the fence, the horse changed its tactics to racing alongside it, hoping to brush off his tormenter. With all of his mighty speed he dashed around the corral until he was winded. Panting and heaving, he came to a broken halt, his head swinging from side to side.

It became Montesoro's turn then. With quirt and spur he made the pace. Sweat and lather dripped from the gray. He was thoroughly beaten. But the man lashed him on. It was cruel!

Suzanna had returned to the scene of the horse-breaking astride a ragged-looking pony, daring with eyes and lips a repetition of the laughter with which the crowd had bidden her godspeed an hour before. The sight of the dashing cavalier, who outrode Don Fernando's vaqueros with seeming ease, caused her to eye her tomboy attire disparagingly.

Ramon had not seen Suzanna, so intently had he been watching the man in the corral. He held up his hand now for the stranger to stop. The gray was being punished needlessly. As the boy signaled, a shout of applause rang out; the rider had brought the horse to a slithering stand directly in front of where Suzanna sat her pony. With a sweep of his arm he bowed to the ground. The applause increased. Montesoro had used showman-ship of a sort these emotional children could understand.

Vargas led away the gray. Suzanna shivered as she saw its torn, bleeding mouth. The stranger's horsemanship had awed her, but her eyes flashed now as the man stood before her smiling.

Montesoro had caught that flash of her eyes and the thought behind it. He grinned. He believed that nothing succeeded so well with women as a heavy hand. He assayed Suzanna more rapidly than other men had been wont to. He read the impudence in her tilted lips, the roguishness in her eyes, and because his experience with women was wide, he drew upon his ego to answer unhesitatingly many other questions about her. Enough, that she had seen him flay the horse. She would not forget that. And though evidently a peon, he found her very attractive.

“A girl could ride that gray, now,” he said to her without further ado.

Suzanna was not slow to retort.

“Why did you break his heart?” she snapped. “Better that he run wild on the range than be the hang-dog he is now.”

Montesoro smiled admiringly at her.

“No one has ever broken you—yet, have they?” he asked his question with all the intimacy he could put into his voice.

Suzanna laughed, but points of fire flared in her eyes. Tauntingly she said:

“Perhaps you would like to try, eh?”

The stranger did not put his answer into words, hut he told himself that he knew the way of these hot-heads. Give them time and a free-hand, and they would come to book as easily as the shy and demure ones.

Ramon came up then, and his appearance put an end to the little scene. The boy had been impressed by the bit of skill and daring the tall stranger had shown. Glancing at him now, he saw him smiling, unruffled, and rather envied the man.

The hoy was thoroughly annoyed with Suzanna for having ventured back to the corral, and without meeting her eyes he offered his arm to the stranger and led him toward his horse.

Suzanna bit her lips angrily at this, but someone had dislodged the coyote from his hiding place and she found amusement enough in the chase which followed to soon forget Ramon's treatment.

“I suppose you are hound for Monterey,” the boy said to the stranger as they reached the roadside.

“Yes, eventually,” the man declared. “California appeals to me. I rather expect to settle here.”

“Well,” Ramon exclaimed hospitably, “if you are in no great haste why not tarry awhile? Allow me to extend the courtesy of the hacienda to you. My father will make you most welcome.”

Montesoro was quite moved by this show of friendship.

“You but prove the tales I have heard of California,” he said graciously. “Where else in the New World would a stranger be shown such kindness? To a certainty, I should be much pleased to accept your hospitality. I trust I disarrange no plans of yours.”

“Perish the thought. We see all too few new faces. Vargas can manage here; let us go on to the
caserio
. I presume you have friends somewhere in the province?”

“Only one; a lady whom I met in Mexico,—the charming daughter of Don Diego de Sola.”

“Chiquita de Sola?” Ramon exclaimed questioningly, and in evident surprise.

“But of course you would know her,” Montesoro declared. “A friar informed me this morning that your hacienda adjoined her father's rancho.”

“Know her?” the boy said musingly. “Indeed! We have been betrothed since childhood.”

It was Pancho Montesoro's turn to be surprised. Chiquita had never mentioned any such embarrassing entanglement to him. His eyes narrowed menacingly as he looked away. With a silent curse, he asked himself if he had made this trip for nothing. This boy's father was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in California. How was he, a penniless adventurer, to compete with him?

He had counted most heavily on capturing the girl, and thereby gaining access to the De Sola fortune. He had been quite at ease, financially as well as otherwise, in Mexico City. Bull-fighting as a sport was yet to be introduced, in a professional way, in the Province. There was no work at hand for him here. Every plan he had made was lost to him if he failed to win Chiquita.

While the flirtation between them had ripened into love with the girl, Montesoro had only found her beautiful, interesting,—and a means to fortune. So while what Chiquita represented had become a matter of vital interest, the girl herself disturbed him not at all. He found it possible to hate her for having compromised him in this fashion.

“It's about what one should expect from an aristocrat,” he muttered to himself, and so immeasurable was his ego that he saw nothing to smile at in his thought. But while Montesoro's chagrin was great, he was gambler enough to keep his emotion from the boy. With seeming sincerity he addressed himself to Ramon.

“You are to be congratulated,” he said. “Your future wife is one of the most queenly women I have ever had the honor of knowing.”

CHAPTER X

P
ANCHO
M
ONTESORO
found life at the
Hacienda de Gutierrez
most pleasant. Don Fernando accepted him at face value, and Doña Luz saw in him only a most agreeable young man.

Suzanna had not left for the Mission as yet, and she found opportunities for comparing the man with Ramon and the bold Pérez. The newcomer suffered but little in this. Her inexperienced eyes being quite dazzled by his graces. Whenever he smiled at her, little chills raced down her spine. She seemed caught up and drawn to him. Several times she had almost obeyed the impulse; but, unsophisticated as she was, intuition whispered to her to beware of the fellow. Being a woman, Suzanna's curiosity quite outweighed her caution, and she alternately advanced and retreated in the flirtation Montesoro connived to keep alive.

On the fourth night of his stay at the hacienda, he strolled in the shadows of the servants' patio, thrumming his guitar. The hour was so late that he openly dared this loss of caste.

Suzanna, wrapped in her mantilla, sat in the deeper shadow of the doorway which led into the granary. She saw him pass without suspecting her presence. Her first impulse was to call him, and she half-raised her hand, only to let it drop again, caution bidding her beware.

The decision was taken from her, however, for as slight as her movement had been, the man had noticed it, and turning, he sat down upon the step below her.

He rolled a cigarette in silence, feeling sure that he impressed her with the intimacy of the situation by his very lack of speech. The cigarette lighted, he leaned towards her, and looking up into her face with veiled eyes, he whispered:

“Mi corazón palpita per tí; no oyes?”
his hand closing over hers.

It was a pretty speech: “My heart throbs for you; can't you hear?”

Suzanna had always found love most pleasant, but her throat went dry now, as his flesh touched hers. With an effort she murmured:

“Cállate!
Someone will hear.”

Montesoro continued to gaze at her intently, drinking his fill of her excitement. With nothing short of artistry he turned from her and picked up his guitar and struck off into a lilting melody.

His keen ears caught the uneasy sigh which escaped her lips as the song ended. Suzanna made to rise, but his strong arm reached out and caught. her around the waist.

“Do I sing so illy, little bird?” he whispered.

“'Tis late,” Suzanna protested as she fought to disengage his arm.

The man smiled at her effort, and pulling himself up a step so that he sat heside her, he plucked a rose from a bush which twined about the door, and chucked her under the chin with it. Involuntarily, Suzanna turned up her face so that her lips were close to his. Before she could recover, he drew her close to him and held her helpless.