CHAPTER IVA COYOTE HOWLSAdjoining the quarters of the padres was a long adobe building used as a storehouse, and sounds indicated that a man was at work inside. It was towards the storehouse that the caballero now hurried, something of anger in his manner, his face still flushed, his dark eyes snapping and his chin thrust out in aggressive fashion.Seeing a face peering at him from one of the windows, he gave it scant attention, but lifted the latch, and the door of the storehouse flew open at his touch.For an instant he stood in the doorway trying to see, for the sun outside was bright, and inside there was a semi-gloom. Then he made out a rough counter, piles of skins from cattle and sheep, sacks of grain, casks of tallow, bolts of imported goods, and a man who paced back and forth before a rough desk, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bowed on his breast.“Good day,señor!” said the caballero.The other stopped and raised his head, looked the caballero straight in the eyes, then, without a word, stepped behind the counter and busied himself arranging some bolts of cloth on a shelf.“I greeted you good day,señor!”Still there was no reply, nor did the man behind the counter turn to face the one who spoke.“Is there man, woman or child in the mission who can speak Spanish, native or the sign language?” demanded the caballero now, angrily, stepping up to the counter and placing both his hands upon it. “Is this the hospitality of which San Diego de Alcalá has been so proud? Those persons I met in the plaza refused to answer my polite salutations. And you—I take it you are a sort of manager here, or superintendent, or clerk to the padres, or something of the sort—seem to have no word for me, not even the one common courtesy demands you should use in response to a greeting!”He waited; but an answer did not come. The man behind the counter had finished with the bolts of cloth, and now was taking from the shelf jars of honey and olives and oil, and putting them back exactly as they had been before, showing plainly that he was busying himself merely to avoid making a reply.“Has life in the bright sun dulled your wits?” demanded the caballero, now thoroughly angry. “Have you all taken a vow not to speak until such and such a time? Could I get your kind attention, perhaps, if I made a purchase? One would think an Indian attack had left you all without tongues in your heads!”Still there came no reply from the man behind the counter.The door opened, and a giant of a neophyte entered. He gave the caballero a glance, seemed to throw back his shoulders, and hurried up to the counter.“A quarter of mutton, Señor Lopez,” he said. “The padre said I was to have it until the grain is harvested.”“Certainly, Pedro,” came the reply.Señor Lopez turned and smiled at the man he had called Pedro, and went to the rear of the room, from where he carried the meat. Pedro took the mutton upon his shoulder, and Señor Lopez followed him to the door, opening it and holding it wide so that the other could pass out. For a moment they talked in low tones, then Pedro hurried away, and Lopez closed the door and went back behind the counter.“So you can use your voice when it pleases you to do so, it seems,” said the caballero. “Suppose you use a portion of it now, in answer to some questioning of mine. If it is necessary, I’ll pay for it. Give me this much voice, Señor Lopez!”He threw a gold coin down upon the counter so that it rang. Lopez turned slowly and faced him, looked him straight in the eyes a moment, then went back to the shelf and began arranging the jars again.If the eyes of the caballero had snapped before, they blazed now. He placed both hands upon the counter as if to spring over it and throttle the man who refused to speak, but he seemed to decide against that, and the smile came upon his face again, only the quality of the smile was not the same.On one end of the counter was a heap of small stone jars, filled, evidently with fruit and oil. The caballero picked up a bar of metal from the counter, walked deliberately to the heap of jars, and crashed the heavy bar down among them.Señor Lopez jumped as if he had been shot, and turned to see the caballero standing before the ruin, the inscrutable smile still upon his lips. He raised the bar again, and again he crashed it among the jars, sending fruit and oil to the floor.“Señor!” Lopez cried.“I thought that would make you find your voice. As for the damage, I’ll pay it. Now suppose you open your lips and explain this strange conduct, before I get genuinely angry and carry on the work of destruction.”Their eyes clashed for a moment, and then Lopez spoke:“I open my lips this once, and after that,señor, perhaps you will go back up El Camino Real and admit yourself a beaten man. San Diego de Alcalá has a name for hospitality, it is true, but there is none even here for Captain Fly-by-Night.”“It seems to me,” said the caballero, “that I have heard that name before.”“It is known from San Francisco de Asis to San Diego de Alcalá,señor, without credit to the man who bears it.”“Indeed?”“We play at words,señor, and that is not necessary. News of your coming was received several days ago. When the news went up El Camino Real that the good Señor Fernandez had gone the way of all flesh and left to his fair daughter, Anita, and her very distant relative, Rojerio Rocha, the fortune and broad acres he had acquired by a lifetime of hard work and danger,you boasted, before the body of theseñorwas scarcely cold in the ground, that here was a fair maid and a fortune to be won, and that you could and would win them.”“I boasted that, eh?”“’Tis well known, Captain Fly-by-Night. You boasted loudly. Even when it became known that Rojerio Rocha was to come down El Camino Real from distant San Francisco de Asis and wed his distant relative, and be the head of the great rancho, you boasted that, betrothal or no, you’d win Señorita Anita and the rancho would be yours.”“Indeed,señor?”“Many a mission and presidio, and many a rancho, you have visited during your career, Captain Fly-by-Night, always to leave behind you broken hearts and empty purses. Your skill with the cards and dice, it is said, is such as to be almost supernatural. There is another explanation for it, of course. Your way with women, too, has been made notorious. But never did you come near San Diego de Alcalá while Señor Fernandez was alive, knowing well what to expect if you did. Now that he is dead, you dare to come, after making your boasts.”“I am learning things regarding myself,” said the caballero.“When we heard of your boast, we considered what to do,” Lopez went on. “Did the padres let the men of the mission whip you and send you back up El Camino Real, as they should, you could say that you had no chance, one man against so many score, and,moreover, the well-known hospitality of San Diego de Alcalá would be outraged. So we decided upon another course, Captain Fly-by-Night.“The country is both long and broad, and we do not say you cannot live in it. But so far as San Diego de Alcalá and its people are concerned—ranch owner, fray, neophyte or soldier—you do not exist,señor. No man, woman or child will speak to you. You can purchase neither food nor wine here. The sweetseñoritawhose name you have insulted with your boasts will pass within half a dozen feet of you and see you not. You will be a nothing, not given as much consideration as a coyote. Do you understand me,señor?”“You speak plainly enough,” the caballero replied.“If you wish to remain under those conditions, we will make no effort to prevent you. When Rojerio Rocha arrives—and he is expected within a few days—and weds our fair Anita, being then in the position of a husband, he may see fit to chastise you for your ill-timed boasts. If you care to admit that you boasted once too often, and wish to return to the north, there is grain and hay for your horse at the end of the wall, and we will not call it theft if you feed your animal. Your absence would be well worth the price of a few measures of grain.”“That is all you have to say, Señor Lopez?”“I have opened my lips to tell you how things stand, Captain Fly-by-Night. Hereafter they shall remain closed in your presence.”“If there should be some mistake about that boast——”Lopez looked at the caballero, then turned toward the shelf and began arranging the jars again. The anger was dying out of the face of the caballero now, and the smile that came upon his lips was more inscrutable than before.“At least, I leave the coin in payment for the damage I have caused,” he said; and started toward the door.He heard the quick step of Lopez behind him, but did not turn. He threw the door open wide, and stepped out. Something whizzed past his head and struck the ground before him. He looked at it—the coin he had left on the counter.As he walked back across the plaza to where he had left his horse, the caballero chuckled like a man well pleased. There was no anger in his face or bearing now, no resentment, rather lively satisfaction. He passed the giant Pedro talking with another neophyte, and when they turned their backs to him and continued their conversation as if he had not been near he laughed outright.He led his horse from the plaza and down the slope, and there he removed saddle and bridle and picketed the animal where green grass grew along a trickling brook. Walking some distance from the mission he shot a rabbit, and, carrying the game back to where he had left the horse, he cleaned it with his knife, washed it in the creek, and hung it up on a forked stick.Then he arranged dry moss and grass for a fire, being particular to build it where it could be seen easily from the guest house of the mission and from thepadres’ quarters; and he knew that every action was being watched, that men and women might keep silent, but could not curb their curiosity.He had no flint and steel, neither did he know how to make fire by the Indian method, and he found himself now facing a predicament. But there were glass buttons on his cloak, and from one of them he made a burning glass, and crouching over the dry grass focused the sun’s beams and in time had a blaze.He cooked the rabbit, ate it without salt, put more fuel on the fire, then spread his cloak on the ground, picked up the guitar, and began playing softly. Presently he sang, his voice ringing out across the plaza and reaching the ears of those in the mission.Now and then an Indian child came to the end of the adobe wall and watched and listened. Men and women passed from hut to hut, but none paid the slightest attention to him. Smoke poured from chimneys, and there were odours of meals being prepared. His singing and playing over for a time, the caballero sat with his back against a rock, his sombrero tilted over his eyes, and rested.Presently he saw the door of the guest house open, and out of it came a vision of female loveliness that caused the caballero to catch his breath. Behind her walked an elderlyduennaof proud carriage.“This will be the fair Anita, with someseñorain attendance,” the caballero chuckled. “I wonder if they intend paying me a visit?”It looked it, for the girl led the way down the slope and toward the creek, walking with head proudly lifted,the elderlyseñoratripping at her heels. They passed within twenty feet of the caballero, but the girl did not look his way. The other woman, however, glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, and he smiled at her curiosity.They stopped beside the creek, and the girl filled a small jar with water, and began arranging wild flowers in it, while theseñorastood beside her, looking down the valley toward the presidio.“To think,” voiced Anita Fernandez, “that a husband is to come to me up El Camino Real all the way from San Francisco de Asis—a husband and distant relative at one and the same time! To marry a man I never have seen before—is that not a hardship, Señora Vallejo?”“Rojerio Rocha,” Señora Vallejo replied, “undoubtedly will be a gentleman, a pattern of a man and an excellent husband. There will be ample time for courtship after he arrives; there is no need for rushing the marriage ceremony. You do not have to wed him if he is not a proper man.”“But my father wished it,” Anita said.“Your father knew that Rojerio Rocha had been left without much of the world’s goods. He is of a very distant branch of the family; yet your father desired to see him better equipped with wealth. He desired your marriage to Rojerio Rocha, knowing the man’s good blood, but above all things he would desire, were he still on earth, your happiness. You can make up your mind, my dear Anita, after Rojerio Rocha arrives.”“I wonder what he will be like, how he will appear, whether he can smile and sing, and speak kindly.”“All of that, whether it be Rocha or Fernandez blood in his veins,” said Señora Vallejo.“I shall, indeed, be glad to see him. How long it has been since a stranger of quality came to us out of the north!”The man beside the fire chuckled at that, and got up to walk slowly down the slope toward them. Six feet away he swept his sombrero from his head and bowed his best, and he smiled when he spoke.“I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Señorita Anita Fernandez?” he said.“Señora Vallejo, did you speak?” asked the girl, without looking at the man beside her.“’Twas a coyote barked,” Señora Vallejo replied.“Indeed, my poor voice may seem like the barking of a coyote to one with a true musical ear,” the caballero said, “though some have said it is near perfect in tone.”“Are you mumbling, Señora Vallejo?” Anita demanded.“I am not, Anita, dear. It is the wind whistling through the olive trees.”“Ah! We grow with acquaintance!” said the caballero, lightly. “At first my voice sounded like the barking of a coyote, and now it sounds like the whistling of the wind through the trees. We grow more musical, indeed.”Señora Vallejo bit her lip, and resolutely kept her face from that of the man standing beside her.“Do you suppose, Señora Vallejo,” asked Anita, “that the odious Captain Fly-by-Night will have the audacity to come to San Diego de Alcalá, as he boasted he would do? Has the man no brains at all, no sense of the fitness of things? San Diego de Alcalá is no place for gamblers such as he. He pollutes the plaza if he walks across it!”“No doubt the creature is senseless enough to come,” said Señora Vallejo. She dabbed at her face with a lace handkerchief, and, in dabbing, dropped it. In an instant the caballero was down upon one knee, had picked up the handkerchief, and, remaining on one knee, tendered it.“Permit me,señora,” he said.Señora Vallejo’s hand went out, but there flashed from the eyes of Anita Fernandez a warning, and the hand was withdrawn. The caballero arose and tendered the handkerchief again, to have Señora Vallejo turn her back and face the girl.“Perhaps, Anita dear, we should return now,” she said. “Evening approaches, and there will be a fog rolling up the valley.”“As you please, Señora Vallejo.”The girl turned from the creek and started walking up the slope. The caballero stood in the path before her, determined. Anita Fernandez stopped, and seemed to look through him and at the mission beyond. From the adobe wall hurried Pedro, the giant neophyte, who had been watching and feared an affront to the women.“You are being annoyed,señorita?” he asked.“How could that be?” she demanded, laughing lightly. “There is none here to annoy me, unless it be Señora Vallejo.”“I beg your pardon,señorita. I thought I heard someone speak.”“’Twas but the distant barking of a coyote, Pedro. You may follow us to the guest house, if you wish. I will give you something for your little girl.”They started toward the caballero again and for a moment it seemed that they must recognise his presence. But Anita Fernandez had a subterfuge to prevent that. Just before reaching him, she turned aside, and the others followed.“I must speak to the padre about the neophytes allowing rubbish to collect so near the mission,” she said. “It always should be burned. Look at the stuff here!”She pointed to the caballero’s cloak, and with one tiny foot she kicked scornfully at the guitar. Then she swerved back toward the path again, and the others followed her toward the plaza. The caballero picked up the guitar and pressed his lips to the place where her foot had struck, knowing well that Señora Vallejo was watching him, though she pretended not to be.He looked after them until the girl and woman had passed around the end of the adobe wall and Pedro had gone to his own hut. Darkness was gathering rapidly now; lights appeared in the buildings; before the door of the storehouse sat a circle of men, talking and laughing, sipping bowls of wine. Sitting on theground, his back against a rock, the caballero watched the scene.“A beautiful woman,” he mused. “Proud, spirited, kind though she does not suspect it, naturally intelligent, very much to be desired.”One by one the lights in the buildings disappeared. The men before the storehouse crept away to rest. A fray called to a neophyte standing guard. And then there was no noise save for the singing of the breeze through the orchard, and the distant howling of a coyote.Presently the caballero arose and picked up his guitar, and crept up the slope until he reached the adobe wall. He followed it to the end of the plaza; made his way slowly through the darkness to the guest house. There he stationed himself below an open window and began playing softly. Several minutes he played, knowing a neophyte stood a score of feet away, watching; and then he began to sing a love song of Old Spain, a song of strong men and fair women. Between two verses he heard the voice of Señora Vallejo.“Anita, child, do you hear?”“Yes, Señora Vallejo,” the girl replied, clearly. “The coyotes are growing bold again. One is howling now beneath my window.”
Adjoining the quarters of the padres was a long adobe building used as a storehouse, and sounds indicated that a man was at work inside. It was towards the storehouse that the caballero now hurried, something of anger in his manner, his face still flushed, his dark eyes snapping and his chin thrust out in aggressive fashion.
Seeing a face peering at him from one of the windows, he gave it scant attention, but lifted the latch, and the door of the storehouse flew open at his touch.
For an instant he stood in the doorway trying to see, for the sun outside was bright, and inside there was a semi-gloom. Then he made out a rough counter, piles of skins from cattle and sheep, sacks of grain, casks of tallow, bolts of imported goods, and a man who paced back and forth before a rough desk, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bowed on his breast.
“Good day,señor!” said the caballero.
The other stopped and raised his head, looked the caballero straight in the eyes, then, without a word, stepped behind the counter and busied himself arranging some bolts of cloth on a shelf.
“I greeted you good day,señor!”
Still there was no reply, nor did the man behind the counter turn to face the one who spoke.
“Is there man, woman or child in the mission who can speak Spanish, native or the sign language?” demanded the caballero now, angrily, stepping up to the counter and placing both his hands upon it. “Is this the hospitality of which San Diego de Alcalá has been so proud? Those persons I met in the plaza refused to answer my polite salutations. And you—I take it you are a sort of manager here, or superintendent, or clerk to the padres, or something of the sort—seem to have no word for me, not even the one common courtesy demands you should use in response to a greeting!”
He waited; but an answer did not come. The man behind the counter had finished with the bolts of cloth, and now was taking from the shelf jars of honey and olives and oil, and putting them back exactly as they had been before, showing plainly that he was busying himself merely to avoid making a reply.
“Has life in the bright sun dulled your wits?” demanded the caballero, now thoroughly angry. “Have you all taken a vow not to speak until such and such a time? Could I get your kind attention, perhaps, if I made a purchase? One would think an Indian attack had left you all without tongues in your heads!”
Still there came no reply from the man behind the counter.
The door opened, and a giant of a neophyte entered. He gave the caballero a glance, seemed to throw back his shoulders, and hurried up to the counter.
“A quarter of mutton, Señor Lopez,” he said. “The padre said I was to have it until the grain is harvested.”
“Certainly, Pedro,” came the reply.
Señor Lopez turned and smiled at the man he had called Pedro, and went to the rear of the room, from where he carried the meat. Pedro took the mutton upon his shoulder, and Señor Lopez followed him to the door, opening it and holding it wide so that the other could pass out. For a moment they talked in low tones, then Pedro hurried away, and Lopez closed the door and went back behind the counter.
“So you can use your voice when it pleases you to do so, it seems,” said the caballero. “Suppose you use a portion of it now, in answer to some questioning of mine. If it is necessary, I’ll pay for it. Give me this much voice, Señor Lopez!”
He threw a gold coin down upon the counter so that it rang. Lopez turned slowly and faced him, looked him straight in the eyes a moment, then went back to the shelf and began arranging the jars again.
If the eyes of the caballero had snapped before, they blazed now. He placed both hands upon the counter as if to spring over it and throttle the man who refused to speak, but he seemed to decide against that, and the smile came upon his face again, only the quality of the smile was not the same.
On one end of the counter was a heap of small stone jars, filled, evidently with fruit and oil. The caballero picked up a bar of metal from the counter, walked deliberately to the heap of jars, and crashed the heavy bar down among them.
Señor Lopez jumped as if he had been shot, and turned to see the caballero standing before the ruin, the inscrutable smile still upon his lips. He raised the bar again, and again he crashed it among the jars, sending fruit and oil to the floor.
“Señor!” Lopez cried.
“I thought that would make you find your voice. As for the damage, I’ll pay it. Now suppose you open your lips and explain this strange conduct, before I get genuinely angry and carry on the work of destruction.”
Their eyes clashed for a moment, and then Lopez spoke:
“I open my lips this once, and after that,señor, perhaps you will go back up El Camino Real and admit yourself a beaten man. San Diego de Alcalá has a name for hospitality, it is true, but there is none even here for Captain Fly-by-Night.”
“It seems to me,” said the caballero, “that I have heard that name before.”
“It is known from San Francisco de Asis to San Diego de Alcalá,señor, without credit to the man who bears it.”
“Indeed?”
“We play at words,señor, and that is not necessary. News of your coming was received several days ago. When the news went up El Camino Real that the good Señor Fernandez had gone the way of all flesh and left to his fair daughter, Anita, and her very distant relative, Rojerio Rocha, the fortune and broad acres he had acquired by a lifetime of hard work and danger,you boasted, before the body of theseñorwas scarcely cold in the ground, that here was a fair maid and a fortune to be won, and that you could and would win them.”
“I boasted that, eh?”
“’Tis well known, Captain Fly-by-Night. You boasted loudly. Even when it became known that Rojerio Rocha was to come down El Camino Real from distant San Francisco de Asis and wed his distant relative, and be the head of the great rancho, you boasted that, betrothal or no, you’d win Señorita Anita and the rancho would be yours.”
“Indeed,señor?”
“Many a mission and presidio, and many a rancho, you have visited during your career, Captain Fly-by-Night, always to leave behind you broken hearts and empty purses. Your skill with the cards and dice, it is said, is such as to be almost supernatural. There is another explanation for it, of course. Your way with women, too, has been made notorious. But never did you come near San Diego de Alcalá while Señor Fernandez was alive, knowing well what to expect if you did. Now that he is dead, you dare to come, after making your boasts.”
“I am learning things regarding myself,” said the caballero.
“When we heard of your boast, we considered what to do,” Lopez went on. “Did the padres let the men of the mission whip you and send you back up El Camino Real, as they should, you could say that you had no chance, one man against so many score, and,moreover, the well-known hospitality of San Diego de Alcalá would be outraged. So we decided upon another course, Captain Fly-by-Night.
“The country is both long and broad, and we do not say you cannot live in it. But so far as San Diego de Alcalá and its people are concerned—ranch owner, fray, neophyte or soldier—you do not exist,señor. No man, woman or child will speak to you. You can purchase neither food nor wine here. The sweetseñoritawhose name you have insulted with your boasts will pass within half a dozen feet of you and see you not. You will be a nothing, not given as much consideration as a coyote. Do you understand me,señor?”
“You speak plainly enough,” the caballero replied.
“If you wish to remain under those conditions, we will make no effort to prevent you. When Rojerio Rocha arrives—and he is expected within a few days—and weds our fair Anita, being then in the position of a husband, he may see fit to chastise you for your ill-timed boasts. If you care to admit that you boasted once too often, and wish to return to the north, there is grain and hay for your horse at the end of the wall, and we will not call it theft if you feed your animal. Your absence would be well worth the price of a few measures of grain.”
“That is all you have to say, Señor Lopez?”
“I have opened my lips to tell you how things stand, Captain Fly-by-Night. Hereafter they shall remain closed in your presence.”
“If there should be some mistake about that boast——”
Lopez looked at the caballero, then turned toward the shelf and began arranging the jars again. The anger was dying out of the face of the caballero now, and the smile that came upon his lips was more inscrutable than before.
“At least, I leave the coin in payment for the damage I have caused,” he said; and started toward the door.
He heard the quick step of Lopez behind him, but did not turn. He threw the door open wide, and stepped out. Something whizzed past his head and struck the ground before him. He looked at it—the coin he had left on the counter.
As he walked back across the plaza to where he had left his horse, the caballero chuckled like a man well pleased. There was no anger in his face or bearing now, no resentment, rather lively satisfaction. He passed the giant Pedro talking with another neophyte, and when they turned their backs to him and continued their conversation as if he had not been near he laughed outright.
He led his horse from the plaza and down the slope, and there he removed saddle and bridle and picketed the animal where green grass grew along a trickling brook. Walking some distance from the mission he shot a rabbit, and, carrying the game back to where he had left the horse, he cleaned it with his knife, washed it in the creek, and hung it up on a forked stick.
Then he arranged dry moss and grass for a fire, being particular to build it where it could be seen easily from the guest house of the mission and from thepadres’ quarters; and he knew that every action was being watched, that men and women might keep silent, but could not curb their curiosity.
He had no flint and steel, neither did he know how to make fire by the Indian method, and he found himself now facing a predicament. But there were glass buttons on his cloak, and from one of them he made a burning glass, and crouching over the dry grass focused the sun’s beams and in time had a blaze.
He cooked the rabbit, ate it without salt, put more fuel on the fire, then spread his cloak on the ground, picked up the guitar, and began playing softly. Presently he sang, his voice ringing out across the plaza and reaching the ears of those in the mission.
Now and then an Indian child came to the end of the adobe wall and watched and listened. Men and women passed from hut to hut, but none paid the slightest attention to him. Smoke poured from chimneys, and there were odours of meals being prepared. His singing and playing over for a time, the caballero sat with his back against a rock, his sombrero tilted over his eyes, and rested.
Presently he saw the door of the guest house open, and out of it came a vision of female loveliness that caused the caballero to catch his breath. Behind her walked an elderlyduennaof proud carriage.
“This will be the fair Anita, with someseñorain attendance,” the caballero chuckled. “I wonder if they intend paying me a visit?”
It looked it, for the girl led the way down the slope and toward the creek, walking with head proudly lifted,the elderlyseñoratripping at her heels. They passed within twenty feet of the caballero, but the girl did not look his way. The other woman, however, glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, and he smiled at her curiosity.
They stopped beside the creek, and the girl filled a small jar with water, and began arranging wild flowers in it, while theseñorastood beside her, looking down the valley toward the presidio.
“To think,” voiced Anita Fernandez, “that a husband is to come to me up El Camino Real all the way from San Francisco de Asis—a husband and distant relative at one and the same time! To marry a man I never have seen before—is that not a hardship, Señora Vallejo?”
“Rojerio Rocha,” Señora Vallejo replied, “undoubtedly will be a gentleman, a pattern of a man and an excellent husband. There will be ample time for courtship after he arrives; there is no need for rushing the marriage ceremony. You do not have to wed him if he is not a proper man.”
“But my father wished it,” Anita said.
“Your father knew that Rojerio Rocha had been left without much of the world’s goods. He is of a very distant branch of the family; yet your father desired to see him better equipped with wealth. He desired your marriage to Rojerio Rocha, knowing the man’s good blood, but above all things he would desire, were he still on earth, your happiness. You can make up your mind, my dear Anita, after Rojerio Rocha arrives.”
“I wonder what he will be like, how he will appear, whether he can smile and sing, and speak kindly.”
“All of that, whether it be Rocha or Fernandez blood in his veins,” said Señora Vallejo.
“I shall, indeed, be glad to see him. How long it has been since a stranger of quality came to us out of the north!”
The man beside the fire chuckled at that, and got up to walk slowly down the slope toward them. Six feet away he swept his sombrero from his head and bowed his best, and he smiled when he spoke.
“I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Señorita Anita Fernandez?” he said.
“Señora Vallejo, did you speak?” asked the girl, without looking at the man beside her.
“’Twas a coyote barked,” Señora Vallejo replied.
“Indeed, my poor voice may seem like the barking of a coyote to one with a true musical ear,” the caballero said, “though some have said it is near perfect in tone.”
“Are you mumbling, Señora Vallejo?” Anita demanded.
“I am not, Anita, dear. It is the wind whistling through the olive trees.”
“Ah! We grow with acquaintance!” said the caballero, lightly. “At first my voice sounded like the barking of a coyote, and now it sounds like the whistling of the wind through the trees. We grow more musical, indeed.”
Señora Vallejo bit her lip, and resolutely kept her face from that of the man standing beside her.
“Do you suppose, Señora Vallejo,” asked Anita, “that the odious Captain Fly-by-Night will have the audacity to come to San Diego de Alcalá, as he boasted he would do? Has the man no brains at all, no sense of the fitness of things? San Diego de Alcalá is no place for gamblers such as he. He pollutes the plaza if he walks across it!”
“No doubt the creature is senseless enough to come,” said Señora Vallejo. She dabbed at her face with a lace handkerchief, and, in dabbing, dropped it. In an instant the caballero was down upon one knee, had picked up the handkerchief, and, remaining on one knee, tendered it.
“Permit me,señora,” he said.
Señora Vallejo’s hand went out, but there flashed from the eyes of Anita Fernandez a warning, and the hand was withdrawn. The caballero arose and tendered the handkerchief again, to have Señora Vallejo turn her back and face the girl.
“Perhaps, Anita dear, we should return now,” she said. “Evening approaches, and there will be a fog rolling up the valley.”
“As you please, Señora Vallejo.”
The girl turned from the creek and started walking up the slope. The caballero stood in the path before her, determined. Anita Fernandez stopped, and seemed to look through him and at the mission beyond. From the adobe wall hurried Pedro, the giant neophyte, who had been watching and feared an affront to the women.
“You are being annoyed,señorita?” he asked.
“How could that be?” she demanded, laughing lightly. “There is none here to annoy me, unless it be Señora Vallejo.”
“I beg your pardon,señorita. I thought I heard someone speak.”
“’Twas but the distant barking of a coyote, Pedro. You may follow us to the guest house, if you wish. I will give you something for your little girl.”
They started toward the caballero again and for a moment it seemed that they must recognise his presence. But Anita Fernandez had a subterfuge to prevent that. Just before reaching him, she turned aside, and the others followed.
“I must speak to the padre about the neophytes allowing rubbish to collect so near the mission,” she said. “It always should be burned. Look at the stuff here!”
She pointed to the caballero’s cloak, and with one tiny foot she kicked scornfully at the guitar. Then she swerved back toward the path again, and the others followed her toward the plaza. The caballero picked up the guitar and pressed his lips to the place where her foot had struck, knowing well that Señora Vallejo was watching him, though she pretended not to be.
He looked after them until the girl and woman had passed around the end of the adobe wall and Pedro had gone to his own hut. Darkness was gathering rapidly now; lights appeared in the buildings; before the door of the storehouse sat a circle of men, talking and laughing, sipping bowls of wine. Sitting on theground, his back against a rock, the caballero watched the scene.
“A beautiful woman,” he mused. “Proud, spirited, kind though she does not suspect it, naturally intelligent, very much to be desired.”
One by one the lights in the buildings disappeared. The men before the storehouse crept away to rest. A fray called to a neophyte standing guard. And then there was no noise save for the singing of the breeze through the orchard, and the distant howling of a coyote.
Presently the caballero arose and picked up his guitar, and crept up the slope until he reached the adobe wall. He followed it to the end of the plaza; made his way slowly through the darkness to the guest house. There he stationed himself below an open window and began playing softly. Several minutes he played, knowing a neophyte stood a score of feet away, watching; and then he began to sing a love song of Old Spain, a song of strong men and fair women. Between two verses he heard the voice of Señora Vallejo.
“Anita, child, do you hear?”
“Yes, Señora Vallejo,” the girl replied, clearly. “The coyotes are growing bold again. One is howling now beneath my window.”