"'Bout th' best in these here parts. He runs 'em on th' Range th' old style-stud an' twenty-twenty-five mares together in a _manada_, all one color to a band. They sure is a grand sight: band o' roans, then one o'

duns, an' some blacks. He's got one _manada_ all of grullas. Sells some to th' army, drives more clear to Californy. An' th' old _Dons_ down in Sonora come up once in a while to pick them out some fancy saddle stock.

He sure would enjoy seem' these grays o' yours. Iffen you ever want to sell, _Don_ Cazar'd give you top price."

"But I'm not sellin'." Drew folded the piece of paper he had been waving to dry the ink and put it back in the belt pocket. "What's that?"

He could almost believe he heard an army bugle, but the call it sounded was unlike any cavalry signal he had known. Callie was already on his way to the door.

"Wagon train's comin'!" he cried as he ran out.

Drew lingered by Shadow's box. The filly was resting in the straw, her match-stick legs folded under her, and the mare was munching the extra feed of oats the Kentuckian had tipped in for her. He could hear the sound of other running feet outside. It would seem that all Tubacca was turning out to welcome the wagon train of traders from the south. Drew's curiosity got the better of him. He went on out to the plaza.

3

Only a well-armed and convoyed set of wagons with a highly experienced and competent master could dare travel the Apache-infested trails these days.

The first of the freighters, pulled by a sixteen-mule team, fairly burst into the plaza, outriders fanning about it. One of the mounted men was dressed in fringed buckskin, his shoulder-length hair and bushy black beard the badge of a frontier already pa.s.sing swiftly into history. He rode a big black mule and carried a long-barreled rifle, not in the saddle boot, but resting across the horn as if even here in Tubacca there might be reason for instant action.

The mule trotted on to the middle of the plaza. Then the weapon pointed skyward as its owner fired into the air, voicing a whoop as wild as the Rebel Yell from the throat of a charging Texas trooper.

He was answered by cries and shouts from the gathering crowd as five more wagons, each with a trailer hooked to its main bulk, pulled in around the edge of the open area, until the center of the town was full and the din of braying mules was deafening.

Drew retreated to the roofed entrance of the Four Jacks. The extra step of height there enabled him to get a good look at two more hors.e.m.e.n pushing past the end wagon. Both wore the dress of Mexican gentlemen, their short jackets glinting with silver braid and embroidery; their bridles, horse gear, and saddles were rich in scrolls and decorations of the same metal.

Navajo blankets lay under the saddles, and serapes were folded over the shoulder of one rider, tied behind the cantle of the other.

They pulled up before the cantina, and one man took the reins of both mounts. If the riders' clothing and horse furnishings were colorful, the horses themselves were equally striking. One was a chestnut, a warm, well-groomed red. But the other ... Drew stared. In all his years about the stables and breeding farms of Kentucky, and throughout his travels since, he had never seen a horse like this. Its coat was pure gold, a perfect match to one of the eagles in his money belt. But the silky locks of mane and tail were night black. Its breeding was plainly Arab, and it walked with a delicate pride as gracefully as a man might foot a dance measure.

Drew had a difficult time breaking his gaze from the horse to the man dismounting. The ranchero was tall, perhaps an inch or so taller than Drew, and his body had the leanness of the men who worked the range country, possessing, too, a lithe youthfulness of carriage. Until one looked directly into his sun-browned face he could pa.s.s as a man still in his late twenties.

But he was older, perhaps a decade older than that, Drew thought. Too high and prominent cheekbones with slight hollows below them, and a mouth tight set, made more for strength of will and discipline of feeling than conventional good looks. Yet his was a face not easily forgotten, once seen. Black hair was pepper-salted for a finger-wide s.p.a.ce above his ears, which were fronted by long sideburns, and black brows were straight above dark eyes. In spite of his below-the-border dress and his coloring, he was unmistakably Anglo, just as the man looping both horses' reins to the rack was Mexican.

"So, you're still wearing your hair in good order? No trouble this trip?"

Topham had come to the door of the cantina, his hand outstretched.

"Welcome back, Hunt!"

"Paugh!" The Mexican spat. "Where is there one Indio who is able to face _Don_ Cazar on his own ground? The folly of that they learned long ago."

_Don_ Cazar smiled. That mask of aloofness was wiped away as if he were ten years younger and twenty years less responsible than he had been only seconds earlier. "And if they did not beware our rifles, Bartolome here would talk them to death! Is that not so, _amigo_?" His speech was oddly formal, as if he were using a language other than his own, but there was a warmth to the tone which matched that sudden and surprising smile.

Topham's arm went about the shoulders under the black-and-silver jacket, drawing _Don_ Cazar into the light, music, and excitement of the cantina.

While Drew watched, the stouter back of Bartolome cut off his first good look at his father.

So ... _that_ was _Don_ Cazar-Hunt Rennie! Drew did not know what he had expected of their first meeting. Now he could not understand why he felt so chilled and lost. He had planned it this way-no demands, no claims on a stranger, freedom to make the decision of when or how he would see his father; that was the only path he could take. But now he turned slowly away from that open door, the light, the laughter and singing, and walked back toward the stable, loneliness cutting into him.

Tubacca had slumbered apathetically before; now the town was wide awake.

In a couple of days the wagon train would head on north to Tucson, but now the activity in the plaza was a mixture of market day and fiesta. Small traders from Sonora took advantage of the protection afforded by _Don_ Cazar's outriders and had trailed along with their own products, now being spread out and hawked.

Parrots shrieked from homemade cages; brightly woven fabrics were draped to catch the eye. As he wandered about viewing cactus syrup, sweet, brown panocha-candy, fruit, dried meat, blankets, saddles, Drew was again aware of the almost strident color of this country. He fingered appreciatively a horn goblet carved with intricate figures of G.o.ds his Anglo eyes did not recognize. The hum of voices, the bray of mules, the baa-ing and naa-ing of sheep and goats, kept up a roar to equal surf on a seacoast. Afternoon was fast fading into evening, but Tubacca, aroused from the post-noon siesta, was in tumult.

A fighting c.o.c.k tethered to a cart wheel stretched its neck to the utmost in an attempt to peck at Drew's spurs. He laughed, attracted, wrenched out of his own private world. The smell of spicy foods, of fruit, of animals and people ... the clamor ... the sights....

Drew rounded one end of a wagon and stepped abruptly into yet another world and time. All the stories which had been dinned warningly into his ears since he had left the Mississippi now brought his hand to one of the Colts at his belt. Most of the half-dozen men squatting on their heels about a fire were three-quarters bare, showing dusty, brown bodies. Two had dirty calico shirts loose above hide breech-clouts. Dark-brown eyes, as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the Indians moved or spoke.

Common sense took over, and Drew's hand dropped from the gun b.u.t.t.

Hostiles would not be camping peacefully here in the heart of town. He could not be facing wild Apaches or Navajos. But they were the first Indians he had seen this close since he had ridden out of Texas.

"Somethin' buggin' you, boy?"

Drew's war-trained muscles took over. He was in a half crouch, the Colt flipped over and out, pointing into the shadows where the newcomer emerged. Then the Kentuckian flushed and slammed his weapon back into the holster. This was the buckskinned man who had whooped the train into town that morning.

"Mite quick to show your iron, ain't you?" There was a chill in the question, and Drew saw that the long rifle was still held at alert by its owner.

"Cat-footin' up on a man ought to make you expect somethin' of a reception," Drew countered.

"Yep, guess some men has sure got 'em a bellyful of lead doin' that." To Drew's surprise the other was now grinning. "You huntin' someone?"

"No, just lookin' around." Drew longed to ask some things himself, but hesitated. Frontier etiquette was different from Kentucky custom; it was safer to be quiet when not sure.

"Wal, thar's aplenty to see tonight, right enough. Me-I'm Crow Fenner; I ride scout fur th' train. An' these here-they're Rennie's Pimas, what o'

'em is runnin' th' trail this trip."

So these were the famous Pima Scouts! No wonder they took their ease in the Tubacca plaza. Every man, woman, and child in those adobe buildings had reason to be thankful for their skill and cunning-the web of protection Rennie's Pima Scouts had woven in this river valley.

"I'm Kirby, Drew Kirby." He hastened to match one introduction with another. "This is my first time in the valley-"

"From th' east, eh?"

"Texas."

"Texas...." Something in the way Fenner repeated that made it sound not like a confirmation but a question. Or was Drew overly suspicious? After all, as Callie had agreed last night, the late Republic of Texas was a very large strip of country, housing a mult.i.tude of native sons, from the planting families of the Brazos to the ranchers in crude cabins of the Brasado. There were Texans and Texans, differing greatly in speech, manners, and background. And one did not ask intimate questions of a man riding west of the Pecos. Too often he might have come hunting a district where there was a longer distance between sheriffs. What a man volunteered about his past was accepted as the truth.

"Rode a far piece then," Fenner commented. "Me, I've been trailin' round this here country since th' moon was two-bit size. An' I ain't set my moccasins on all o' it yet. Thar's parts maybe even an Injun ain't seed neither. You jus' outta th' army, son?"

Drew nodded. Apparently he could not escape that part of his past, and there was no reason to deny it.

"Iffen you be huntin' a job-_Don_ Cazar, he's always ready to hire on wagon guards. Any young feller what knows how to handle a gun, he's welcome-"

"Can't leave Tubacca, at least for now. Have me a mare over in the livery that just foaled. I'm not movin' until she's ready to travel-"

"Must be right good stock," Fenner observed. "Me, I has me a ridin' mule as kin smell Apaches two miles off. Two, three times that thar mule saved m' skin fur me. Got Old Tar when he turned up in a wild-hoss corral th'

mustangers set over in th' Red River country-"

"I saw him when you rode into town. Good-lookin' animal."

Crow Fenner nodded vigorously. "Sh.o.r.e is, sh.o.r.e is. _Don_ Cazar, he's partial to good stock-favors Tar, too. Th' _Don_ has him a high-steppin'

hoss every hoss thief in this here territory'd like to run off. Bright yaller-"