Roy Bean's Gold (17 page)

“I'll see you tomorrow afternoon at the usual time.” And I walked off, with Powers stalking along at my side.

When we met the two young shavetails as they ambled toward the grape arbor, Powers muttered: “Too damned many folks around who don't know their place.”

I'd have answered him but we had to take our leave of
Señor
and
Señora
Castañeda, both of us asking after Estrellita, and laying it on with the old folks about the fine time we'd had at the musicale.

Once outside the gate, I turned on Powers before he could open his mouth. “I heard your remark about folks not knowing their place and I just about locate you right in the middle of such a tribe. In other words, I'm warning you to keep your ugly face away from the Casa Castañeda and Miss Dulcima in damn' particular!”

Powers made a motion toward one of his holsters, but I stood my ground. I was close enough to crack him on his pointed jaw before he could draw a weapon. As the
alcalde
's brother it didn't behoove me to get into any sort of a brawl with his business rival, but, the next minute, damned if the hothead didn't try to pull a gun on me anyway!

And half a minute later I was helping him back to his feet and dusting off his pretty white suit. I kept his six-shooter in my left fist, while I set about getting him steady on his pins.

I must have hit him mighty hard because he stood weaving in the moonlight like a pole-axed steer and blinking his eyes.

“What'd you sandbag me with?” he muttered, rubbing his jaw and waggling it from side to side. “You hadn't ought to have done that. All I was going to do was make you eat a little crow. I'm no dad-burned killer, you know.”

He stuck out his hand for his weapon, but I shook my head. “No dice, Mister Powers. I tend to believe you might have just gotten enough grit to pull that trigger on me.”

“Grit?” Powers backed off and flipped open his coat. “By hell, I'll show you who's got grit. I never was afeard of the devil himself from the time I could walk.” He shook a fist at me. “Put that pistol of mine in your fancy go-to-meeting sash and we'll just see who's got the sand!”

“No dice again. I hear you're a bearcat at fighting, but this is not worth going to war about.” I turned my back on him and started off, half expecting to hear him slap leather.

“You Beans are all alike. crawfish cowards. Your fine brother plays hide-and-seek with those damned bandits instead of trying to run down such rascals as an
alcalde
's sworn to do. Well, election is coming and we'll see how he makes out then. But that's got nothing to do with you trying to lollygag around with Red Rosita's precious shirt-tail niece.”

“The way
you've
been trying to do ever since she came to town.” I'd spun around and had my hand on the butt of the Navy Colt. “And while we're trading insults, let me tell you there never was a Bean hatched that couldn't take on half a dozen tinhorns like you at once.”

Powers made a grab at his left-hand gun, but I had the pistol out and pointed straight at his mid-section before he could take a breath.

“Bean, I haven't taken to you since I first caught sight of you, and the same goes for your red-headed gasbag of a brother.” He shook his fist at me again. “Now let me tell you one thing. I knew Dulcy before you did. and knew her mighty well!” He gave a dirty laugh.

“Where you knew her or when is none of my affair,” I snapped, while my neck began to burn to think of this slippery sport and Dulcima. “There's just one thing for you to remember and paste in your fancy hat, and that's to keep plumb away from that young lady from now on. It's not just me talking, either.
Señorita
Almada orders you to stay in your own pasture.
comprende?
” And I kept the six-shooter pointed right at the middle button on his pretty vest.

Powers stood stockstill, and then with a snort turned on his heel and stalked off toward his saloon. “Tomorrow we'll finish this and you will hear from me. don't forget it!” he shouted as I shrugged and went on to my brother's
casa
.

The moon overhead was drowning in a sea of dirty silver clouds.
Well
, I thought,
here's a devil of a way to end an almost perfect evening
.

“G
ot yourself into a hassle with that side-winding Dick Powers?” Josh held his head and managed to get down some black coffee, served up by a silent but watchful Abraham.

I sat across the breakfast table from him in the
alcalde
's low-beamed dining room and looked seriously at Diamond Dick's personal Navy Colt as I polished it with a napkin and checked it over. “Where'd you hear that?”

“I took the liberty of mentioning it,
Señor
Roy.” Pokerfaced Abraham stepped up and poured some more Arbuckle's for both of us. “It's all about town this morning. It seems
Señor
Powers has already inquired of the
Señor alcalde
's new deputy, Agostín Haraszthy, for permission to hold the
duelo
. Such has been allowed, from time to time, hereabouts as an ancient Spanish custom.”

“Confounded blackleg should have come to me for any permission,” Josh grumbled, pecking at his flapjacks. “And that Haraszthy's already got his eye on my job . . . if those damned elections come out the wrong way.”

“Seems to me you're more concerned with your job than my skin.”

“Never mind that. I've already sent word to Agostín I wouldn't allow any such fool thing in my town. So you needn't get a chill about it, anyhow.”

“We'll see,” was all I said. I was thinking of Dulcima and her sweet lips, and last night. If I punctured Diamond Dick just a little, it would show her who was cock of the walk and make him sing small for a change. It would also be a way of keeping him away from Rosita's ward—damaged. I recalled what Salazar had said about Dulcima, that she wasn't like other girls, and never would be. Her performance at the Castañedas was some kind of proof of that, all right. She was certainly one amazing and talented young lady. But it bothered me that she had such strong, almost resentful feelings toward Rosita. It could be a family matter, I supposed—a young filly just balking at being saddled and bridled at a strict finishing school, when she really just wanted to kick up her heels a bit and run free. I also found myself wondering what she actually knew of Rosita and particularly Joaquín. Then finally I got to ciphering just what Diamond Dick Powers had been driving at when he bragged of knowing Dulcy before—and so blamed well.

Josh, who'd seemed to have forgotten all about that thump on the jaw I'd given him, held out his hand as I got up and thrust the pistol back into my sash and pulled on my jacket. “Where are you going, now?”

“Just up to the plaza.”

“I felt we should talk some about those gold eagles you've been spreading around the country.”

“Later.”

“Well, stay away from that tinhorn Powers . . . he'd do anything to put me in a bad light through you . . . and he's rattler-mean.”

“I'll cut his rattles for him, but all in due time.” I grinned and went out the hall and slammed the front door.

Twenty minutes later I had myself a private talk with the skinny, mournful-looking Agostín Haraszthy at the corner of Mason and Calhoun. Some folks were saying that as the successor to Sánchez, Agostín had enough to worry him, but he seemed to come by his gloomy air naturally.

“Well,
señor
, I guess if the
alcalde
says he's changed his mind, then you are at liberty to accept thees Diamond Deek's challenge. He has given me this to make it legal.” And the deputy pulled out two folded slips of paper. “One is for you and the other for my records.”

“Why didn't he send one to the
alcalde
. or to me?”

“He says that he is not on such good terms with either of you
señores
, and so delivered this to me to pass on to yourself.” Haraszthy stared sadly at me, while I read the note, which was short and sweet.

I, Richard T. Powers, as the affronted party do hereby challenge one Roy Bean, known to be a hanger-on about San Diego, and a relative to that corrupt local official who calls himself Joshua Quincy Bean. The said
duelo
to be conducted with pistols on horseback at noon two days hence on the streets adjacent to the plaza of the Village of San Diego, California.

There was also a pencil scribble at the bottom:

Bean, I intend to take your hide in full view of the local populace, and a certain young lady, who shall remain nameless! Dick Powers

Early in the afternoon I stopped by the Casa Castañeda to see if the girls were ready to take a horseback jaunt along with Dulcima, but the old
señora
sent word down to the gate that Estrellita was still under the weather and all three young ladies were at
siesta
.

It looked as though she'd gotten wind of the upcoming fracas with Diamond Dick and had penned up the
señoritas
until things were over.

When I walked away, I caught sight of one of the girls at an upstairs window, waving a handkerchief and dabbing it at her eyes. I lifted my sombrero, giving the house a low bow, as I thought to myself that the
señora
would have herself a high time keeping those headstrong fillies close herded, Dulcima included.

I sauntered back to the
casa
and got out my horse, saddling her up without being noticed by Josh. Abraham came sidling out into the adobe barn.

“
Señor
Roy rides out with the
Señoritas
Castañeda?”

“They're not riding out today. One of the
señoritas
is just a bit under the weather.”

“Then the
señor
plans to ride toward Rancho de la Fuentes?” Abraham proved right there that he was a first-class mind-reader as far as I was concerned.

“Think it's dangerous over that way?” I asked as I led my roan out of the barn and swung up into the saddle.

“No,
Señor
Roy. I believe the roads are safe enough, but. . . .”

“
Adiós
, then.” I gave my mount her head and we loped up the alley leaving the little Indian, a white blur in the velvety blue shadows.

When I racked past the plaza, turning the corner of Calhoun, I saw Diamond Dick Powers and a pair of his flunkies lounging in the shade by the Crossed Muskets. They only stared until Powers made some smart remark, then laughed with nasty expression. One, a big, overgrown ­plug-ugly, Hidalgo Montano, who was about the least likely Mexican in the whole of California to be confused with any genuine
hidalgo
, yanked a dirty thumb across his neck and lolled out his tongue; then I left them covered with dust and was gone.

Outside of town the day was fine for late summer as great curdled white clouds drifted eastward from the ocean and hundreds of birds continued to sweep up out of the scrub and grass ahead of us. Over in the shimmering, lavender distance, where the Lagunas bulked, several pairs of dark wings hung motionlessly in the fleece-spangled blue, as if painted there, and I recalled Salazar cursing out the thoughtless selfishness of the prospectors who'd killed such monarchs of the heavens in order to get their wing-tip quills to tote their gold dust.

If Rosita would really level with me about Kirker's hoard and I could locate that huge pile of gold, then we'd need a lot more than a flock of California vultures' wing tips to transport that treasure.

And wouldn't all that glittering gold open up Dulcima's pretty eyes about as wide as they could be? There were a couple of flies in the ointment, of course, such as Francisco Almada and his murderous sidekick—that other half of Joaquín Murieta, Incorporated! I'd have to make some sort of deal with them, if it came to that, or keep as far away from them as possible. I knew one thing, though—it wouldn't be with that loco Carlos Hechavarría if I could help it.

So on I rode at a brisk clip, keeping my eyes open for any sort of trouble, but I had a mighty good idea that Abraham had his own way of knowing if there were any outlaws in the area. He seemed to know just about everything that went on, in and out of the Almada
rancho
.

The countryside was peaceful and lonesome, but I did see a column of dust coming up from the south around 2:00 p.m., and finally a party of men, some on mules and a few on horseback, but kept my distance. From the racket they were making, I guessed them to be another bunch of half-drunken miners on their way back up to the northern diggings. I noticed they were traveling on one of the wagon roads that by-passed town, and guessed they'd heard of the San Diego
alcalde
's hard-nosed attitude toward rowdy mobs passing through his bailiwick.

They were bawling the ditty about Joaquín running off with the mules when they ambled out of sight beyond La Cañada de los Coches, and I wondered what they'd really do if they should come headfirst onto Joaquín himself.

Racking on between the brush-covered Lagunas, and then wending through the Valley of the Old Women, I still kept an eye peeled for any sort of ambush, for I was certainly right spang in the middle of Murieta country, if ever there was such a place. All remained calm as cream, with the breeze riffling the scattered willows and black oak into green-and-yellow shimmers of colored light and sending little golden dust devils dancing along in front of us.

Once, rounding a blind curve, a beautiful mountain lion burst out of the roadside brush on the lope, hard on the heels of a scrambling wild hog. My mount reared and plunged, but the big cat gave us just one quick, green-eyed stare and was gone into the scrub after his squealing dinner.

I fought the mare to a standstill, wiped the sweat from my face, then really put the steel to her and left that place in a hurry.

Within the hour I was passing little scattered farms with their small flocks of sheep, and skirting the humpbacked bulk of Mount Selix, now beginning to flame with masses of Indian paintbrush and the last of the season's poppies. Another hour and I came out on the Allison's Springs road, turning to the northeast at the tavern where I'd waited for Rosita Almada and wound up spending part of the night with Joaquín Murieta.