Norton, Andre - Novel 15 (2 page)

 
          
 
Sturgis was buttoning his jacket. "My,
my"—he shook his head sadly—"how your education has been neglected,
my son. It is now my duty as a sober and respectable member of this community
to remedy that lack. Let us fare forth and add to the sum of your knowledge of
this rare beauty spot of nature. I would suggest pulling another scarf about
the ears. In this season our breezes are not so much balmy as straight."

 
          
 
Santa Fe was brown adobe houses with the scent
of pinon smoke fighting older and less pleasant odors; it was irrigation
ditches through the town; it was creaking oxcarts and shawled women; it was
blanketed Indians staring about them with oddly blank eyes; and, last of all,
after a most perfunctory tour led by Sturgis, it was the Eagle.

 
          
 
At first the cloud of heavy tobacco smoke
tainted with whisky fumes almost made Ritchie gag. He might have stepped out
again, but Sturgis caught his sleeve and tugged him through the murk raised by
the long cigarrillos, which most of the patrons seemed to smoke incessantly, to
an empty table.

 
          
 
"We must blood you right." Sturgis
banged on the table for the attention of one of the hurrying Mexican waiters.

           
 
"They serve the real food of the country
here. You, Jose, we'll have chile
Colorado
and tortillas and all the rest—"

 
          
 
The brown-skinned boy nodded.
"Si, senor."

 
          
 
"A man needs a decent meal once in a
while, maybe only to realize how bad army grub can be. We have us a cook who
knows just how many coffee beans to put in to color the water—and uses those—no
more, no less! Hello! There's Tuttle. Wonder when he got back." He pointed
to a man crossing the room toward the long table where a faro game was in
progress.

 
          
 
The long hair and pointed beard of the
newcomer were iron gray, and he walked with a limp, which, while it gave him a
rocking gait, did not seem to slow his pace any.

 
          
 
"Tuttle's one of the scouts attached to
us.
Old
Mountain
Man! Ran furs through here twenty years
ago, made his pile in the gold fields, and lost it all again. But he's come
back here to stay.
Knows more about the Indians than they do
themselves.
Some say he was blood brother to Mangus
Colorado
, the great Apache chief. He's a darn good
scout and a fool gambler. Ha—here we are! Now lift a lip over that, son, and
tell me what you think of our native dishes!"

 
          
 
Ritchie regarded with some wariness the
contents of the earthenware plate that had been slammed down before him. The
smell, spicy and strange, was not too forbidding, and he took a cautious
spoonful, a spoonful which set him gasping openmouthed for air to cool his
blistered tongue. Sturgis, laughing, thrust a glass into his hand, and he
swallowed a good half of its contents in one gulp before he discovered that it
too was misleading. He then faced his companion with suspicion.

 
          
 
"Go on; it's harmless.
Just
tiswin.
The native youngsters are weaned on it. Take it easy—slow and
sure—"

           
 
Ritchie chose a minute portion of what looked
like a grayish mush and chewed it thoughtfully with no bad aftereffects. And
then he tried a tortilla but with none of the nonchalance with which Sturgis
swallowed.

 
          
 
Now that his eyes had become more accustomed
to the smoke, he looked at those around them. The weathered, worn blue of army
uniforms mingled with buckskin and the gaudy shoulder blankets and embroidered
coats of the Mexicans. He was so busy watching this constantly changing crowd
of fellow diners that he did not see the small man who came drifting up until
he had slipped into the empty seat at their table.

 
          
 
"You hav' seen Pedro, senores?" His
voice was very soft, hardly pitched above a whisper, and he looked from Sturgis
to Ritchie, a thick line of worry scored the skin between eyes which were brown
and curiously childlike. It was hard to judge his age, for his face was boyishly
smooth except for a jagged white scar along the angle of his jaw.

 
          
 
"No." Sturgis shook his head and
spoke slowly. "I have not seen him, Ramon. Here!" He filled his own
glass from the bottle Jose had brought and pushed it into the little man's
hand. "Have a drink, amigo."

 
          
 
"Drink," repeated the little man and
stared at the glass as if he did not quite understand what he was to do with
it. Then he took a single sip. "You will pardon me please, senores. It is
necessary that I find my brother Pedro—" He slipped out of the chair,
bowed, his hat in his hands, and wandered off.

 
          
 
"Where is his brother?" Ritchie
asked.

 
          
 
Sturgis answered almost harshly. "Under
some rocks in Bloody Canyon about a hundred miles from here—where he has been
lying some five years now. The Salazars had a rancho down along the river,
raised cattle and some horses.

           
 
Then the Apaches came raiding. They took a big
slice of the Salazar herd with them. Pedro Salazar came up to the fort for
help. He and a squad of the boys hit a hot trail leading back into the
mountains. They followed it and were ambushed. The lucky ones were killed
outright. By the look of Pedro when he was found, he wasn't one of the lucky
ones.

 
          
 
"When they didn't come back, Ramon came
up to the Colonel. He was only a kid then, but he said he was riding alone to
hunt his brother if we wouldn't help. So the dragoons went out again. They
found what was left of the first gang and were picking them up for burial
when"—Sturgis made a quick gesture with his hands—"the world blew up.
The Apaches had set a trap—set it with the bait of the bodies of their first
victims. If one buck hadn't been just a little too eager and shot a second too
soon, they would have had a full bag the second time, too. As it was, about ten
escaped. Ramon came
back,
his face hanging in shreds,
with the memory of how his brother looked after the Apaches had amused
themselves in their usual fashion. It was a little too much for his mind. So
now he can't remember Pedro's death, and he waits here for him. Five years he's
been waiting. Finished eating? Let's see some action."

 
          
 
Jose, who had been hovering beyond the table,
now
pounced, assembling a pile of dishes in a lingering way.
Sturgis grinned.

 
          
 
"Birke was right, y'know. Months since
the paymaster hit these parts. Can you spare a little of the needful?"

 
          
 
Ritchie spun a coin across to the waiter.
"And what if I keep accounts?"

 
          
 
Sturgis shot him a single glance. For a moment
there was a hint of something less than laughter about his mobile mouth. But
when he answered, his words were light enough.

           
 
"As you wish, sir, as you wish. Now for
the action—"

 
          
 
He threaded his way through the maze of
crowded tables with the ease of long familiarity, and Ritchie followed.
Sturgis' grim tale of Apache warfare had been unsettling. One read of such
things back home, and there was always tall talk in the barracks, but Ramon's
story now—
And
sometimes under the surface of casual
good nature that cloaked Sturgis, there appeared to hide another person
entirely. But the older dragoon was the nearest companion to those of the old
days that Ritchie had yet found; he was a link with that past which Ritchie had
thrown away on a hot dreary day in July when he had turned his back on his old
life with what he hoped was firm courage.

 
          
 
They fetched up beside the faro table and for
a few minutes stood watching the play, Ritchie with the interest of a newcomer
and Sturgis with the narrowed, intent eyes of one to whom this was an absorbing
business.

 
          
 
Besides the scout, Tuttle, there was a full
circle of other players. Every seat was filled, and onlookers crowded two and
three deep behind their shoulders. About half were Spanish-New Mexicans, but
among them was a buckskin-shirted frontiersman, three soldiers, and the dealer,
a small, whitehanded man whose linen was immaculate and whose frock coat was of
the latest fashionable cut.

 
          
 
Pomaded curls were low across the forehead of
his almost boyish face, and there was the sheen of pearls in the ruffles of his
shirt front. Now and again he looked up from the cards and shot a swift,
measuring glance around the circle of players and the men who watched. And all
the time his hands moved with the quick precision of one engaged in a delicate
art.

 
          
 
Ritchie nudged Sturgis.

 
          
 
"Who is he?"

           
 
"Who?
Oh, you
mean Quinn? He's a gambler. They say he owns half interest in this place.
Used to be in the Mounted Rifles during the Mexican War.
Invalided out with a game leg and stayed on. He's straight, though.
Straight and tough.
And the deadliest shot in town. Ha,
Currillo's cleaned out—"

 
          
 
One of the New Mexicans, a
dignified gentleman whose puce velvet coat was stiff with silver embroidery,
had pushed back his chair.
Sturgis edged forward. He glanced out of the
corner of his eyes at Ritchie.

 
          
 
"Care to try your luck?"

 
          
 
Ritchie shook his head firmly. Quinn had
paused in the game to speak a few courteous words of Spanish to the retiring
player. Now he got to his feet, reaching as he did so for an ivory-headed cane.
Another dark-coated man, not quite so perfect of linen or polished of manner,
slid into his place. Quinn, leaning heavily on the cane, stumped past Ritchie
and Sturgis, then stopped and turned back with a half nod to Sturgis, who
answered with what seemed to Ritchie real reluctance.

 
          
 
"Good evening." The gambler's voice
was an emotionless monotone.

 
          
 
Sturgis muttered. His squared shoulders had
the look of defiance.

 
          
 
"The paymaster did not come in, I
believe," Quinn continued.

 
          
 
A dull red flush spread across Sturgis'
cheekbones, and it did not come, Ritchie guessed, from the heat of the
overcrowded room.

 
          
 
"He did not," the dragoon answered
shortly.

 
          
 
Quinn's thin lips stretched in what might or
might not have been intended for a smile of social good manners.
"A pity.
He is sadly overdue, is he not? Good evening,
gentlemen." This time he plainly; spoke in dismissal and swung away in a
slow hobble headed for the back door of the room.

 
          
 
Sturgis watched him go, the dark flush still
staining his tanned skin. Then he turned and strode away, his spurs clicking on
the flooring. Ritchie tagged along a little uncertainly.

 
          
 
They fetched up against the bar. Sturgis had
already ordered and was pouring most of that order down his throat. He flicked
a finger at the bartender, who slid another glass along to Ritchie. The younger
dragoon pushed it back. Sturgis laughed, and something in that sound tightened
Ritchie's mouth and made him wary.

 
          
 
"Don't gamble, don't
drink,
and you call yourself a dragoon!" Sturgis held his drawl down so that it
couldn't carry beyond their own ears. "Johnny Green—maybe you are a little
too green for us!"