Range Of Golden Hoofs Page 8

  “We’re goin’ to separate ’em,” he said. “I want the wethers out of there.”

  Dan nodded absently. “Where’s Marillita?” he asked.

  “Look at the sheep a minute,” O’Connor commanded.

  Dan looked at the sheep. O’Connor placed his hand on Dan’s shoulder. “That’s what makes El Puerto del Sol,” he said. “Sheep.”

  He was silent a moment and then spoke again. “My wife’s people have a saying: ‘El pie de la oveja siempre deja oro.’ I guess it’s true.”

  “Wherever the sheep sets his hoof, there gold is found,” Dan interpreted automatically.

  “El Puerto has always been sheep.” O’Connor’s hand remained on Dan’s shoulder. “Come on in and sit down, Dan.”

  Dan followed O’Connor into the patio. There on a bench beside Don Martin’s bulk he seated himself. O’Connor relaxed, leaning back.

  “Dan,” he said abruptly, “there’s a cure for what ails you.”

  “Nothing ails me!” Dan refuted. “I…” He stopped, sensing rather than seeing the laughter that was in Martin O’Connor’s eyes. There was a thing that ailed Dan Shea, a thing that tormented him. Dan knew it.

  O’Connor teetered his bulk on the bench. “There’s two parts to a man’s business,” he said abruptly. “First there’s his livin’. He’s got to work at that because a man without work is a husk of a man. There’s no meat to the kernel of him. An’ then there’s the rest of a man.” O’Connor’s voice grew soft. “He can build himself a place an’ have his work an’ all of that an’ still not be a whole man because he lacks somethin’. You lack somethin’, Dan Shea!”

  O’Connor paused. When he spoke again his voice was softer still. “When I was young I lacked somethin’ too. I found it an’ then I lost it: Marillita’s mother. She was what I lacked an’ what I lost. But I’d had her, Dan. She’d been mine. Do you know what I mean?”

  There was a long silence in the patio. Dan Shea did not answer. Martin O’Connor hoisted himself from the bench. “Well,” he said prosaically, “I’ve got to separate them sheep.” He strode away, leaving Dan alone.

  Overhead the sun was bright, and the patio was quiet in the heat. There was a movement that Dan did not detect, and then the bench where Martin O’Connor had sat was occupied again. Dan, reaching out his hand, found another hand placed within it. For a time longer he sat there, not turning, simply holding that other hand in his own, and then he spoke, his voice hoarse with the thing that was in his mind.

  “Marillita?”

  “Yes, Dan?”

  Again a moment’s silence. Then: “I love you, Marillita,” Dan Shea said. “I’m half a man. Will you make me a whole one?”

  The hand that Dan Shea held turned slowly until the palm was uppermost. Marillita did not speak. The small hand closed and Dan Shea turned. The girl was looking at him, her eyes brave and direct, and in them was his answer. Dan freed his hand and reached out his arms, and as she moved toward him the sunlight, bright and glinting, caught in her hair and turned it all to gold. And then that golden head was against Dan’s chest and Marillita’s face was hidden from his eyes and his arms were tight about her. Dan Shea had found his gold.

  They were still on the bench when Martin O’Connor came back from the pens. The big man paused in the patio gate and surveyed the scene, the little plot of grass, the shade of the cottonwood, the flowers that bloomed along the wall, the two on the bench, man and woman, self-conscious as children before his gaze. Big and formidable, his legs widespread, his blue eyes questioning, Don Martin stood there.

  Then Marillita left the bench and, running to her father, threw her arms about his neck and kissed him, and Dan Shea, rising awkwardly, approached the two.

  “I…” he began. “Don Martin, I…”

  Martin O’Connor freed one hand from his daughter’s shoulders and reached it out to Dan Shea.

  “I’ll trust her to you, Dan,” Don Martin said. “She’s the best I have, but I’ll trust her to you.”

  And now a busy time came to El Puerto del Sol. At Rancho Norte the carpenters and masons put the final touches to Dan Shea’s new rock house, building another room and completing those already built. At the hacienda of El Puerto del Sol the women began their bustling. Dan Shea, Marillita and Martin O’Connor, consulting together, had set the wedding date for fall. When the sheep had gone to market and when the work was through, there at the harvesttime was the time for weddings, Don Martin said, and Dan, impatient, perforce agreed. All across the grant, from the great house and the little settlement, on to the camps of the pastores, to the small houses of the partidarios, the word spread and El Puerto del Sol blossomed and made plans and groomed itself.

  Dan Shea moved in a daze. He went about his work at Rancho Norte with but half his mind attending to his tasks. Marillita, beautiful, gained more beauty with her love. Martin O’Connor was expansive and happy. The month of August waned.

  Then in early September, riding toward El Puerto’s hacienda, impatient with his horse’s slowness, Dan Shea saw a rider coming toward him. The rider came on apace through the heat of the afternoon and, drawing close, Dan recognized Youtsey, the sheriff from Bendición. He drew rein as Youtsey came up, and the officer likewise halted. The greetings they exchanged were courteous and brief. Youtsey asked Dan Shea if he had seen Louder of the YH, and when Dan answered that he had not Youtsey spoke his good-by and rode on. Curiosity piquing him, Dan, too, resumed his journey.

  Marillita met him at the door when Dan dismounted. Her face showed anxiety, and her kiss was brief. Dan held the girl at arm’s length.

  “What’s the matter, dearest?” he asked.

  Marillita shook her head. “Father’s in his room, Dan,” she answered. “Something’s happened. You’d better go to him.”

  Leaving the girl, Dan sought O’Connor. The big man was in the room where the business of El Puerto del Sol was transacted. His eyes were angry and his cheeks were flushed. For the first time Dan Shea saw the hard, ruthless man who in all the Bendición country had no friends. O’Connor rose as Dan came in, papers grasped in his great fist.

  “Youtsey was here,” O’Connor rumbled. “I’d have sent for you if I hadn’t known you were comin’.”

  “I passed Youtsey going north,” Dan said calmly. “What’s wrong, Don Martin?”

  Fist and papers came down with a thump upon the table top. “You’re with me in this, Dan!” O’Connor growled. “They’re at it again. By God, this time I’ll go through with it. I’ll kill the dirty devils. Tryin’ to take El Puerto! They can’t do it. They can’t have any part of it. I tell you…”

  Dan Shea broke into the tirade, his calm voice cutting into O’Connor’s anger like a knife.

  “Sit down, Don Martin,” he commanded.

  O’Connor’s voice checked, and he stared at Dan Shea in bewilderment.

  Dan held out his hand. “Before I get into a fight,” he said easily, “I want to know who I’m fighting an’ why. Sit down an’ tell me about it. Let’s see what you’ve got there.”

  Like a child stopped in the midst of a tantrum, Martin O’Connor sat down and, reaching out, laid the crumpled papers in Dan’s outstretched hand.

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  DISPUTED TITLE

  The papers that Dan Shea received from O’Connor were a complaint and a summons. Ramon de la Luz, in company with others of his clan, was seeking satisfaction from Martin O’Connor and Jesse Louder, so the complaint read. The complaint stated that O’Connor had sold a portion of the grant to Louder; that he had no right to make that sale for he held no title to the land; that the title was vested in a grant given to one Selberio de la Luz by Francisco Cuervo, governor general of New Mexico, in the days when all of Mexico belonged to Spain. Ramon de la Luz and all other of Selberio’s heirs prayed redress from Martin O’Connor and were suing for that redress.

  Having finished reading, Dan looked up at Martin O’Connor. “Suppose,” he drawled, “that you tell me about it,
Don Martin.”

  O’Connor, his anger ebbing before a sympathetic listener, rasped out words. The tale was complex enough, but simple in the telling. El Puerto del Sol had been given to an early Alarid by Philip of Spain himself. The Alarids had held it. Then later, at the end of the Spanish occupancy, Cuervo, as governor general, had given land to Selberio de la Luz. Some of that land had lain across the grant of El Puerto del Sol. The Alarids and the De la Luzes had gone to court. The viceroy had appointed a judge, and when the trial was done El Puerto del Sol belonged to the Alarids and the De la Luz grant had been changed to land along the river.

  Dan listened gravely to Don Martin’s tale. There were many angry interruptions, many wrathful interjections. Through these Dan followed the thread of the story. When it was done Dan sat, thoughtful, while Martin O’Connor watched him.

  This was his battle, just as it was Don Martin’s. Now Dan could feel the grip of El Puerto del Sol; now he could feel its hold upon him. He was tied, bound to the grant. Nothing that affected El Puerto but that affected him also. Chains held him to the place. His love for Marillita, his affection for Martin O’Connor, his stake at Rancho Norte: all these were the chains. But more than these, stronger and greater than any or all of them, was El Puerto del Sol itself. Dan Shea looked up and met Don Martin’s eyes.

  “There’s been a settlement,” he said. “We’ve no cause for worry. What we need is a lawyer, a good sharp man that can find the records and settle this. We’ll get one, Don Martin.”

  “But the nerve of them La Luzes!” Don Martin snapped. “The very nerve of them. There’s always been a fight between the La Luzes an’ the Alarids. I’ve had some trouble in my time with them. An’ now they bring this up, just when you an’ Marillita are gettin’ married an’ all. By God, I could kill the man that…”

  Dan laughed. “You’ll have to go to Albuquerque to get your lawyer,” he said. “Marillita told me the last time I was here that she wanted to go to the pueblo to buy some things. We’ll mix business with pleasure, Don Martin, an’ take the trip together.”

  Martin O’Connor could not restrain a laugh with Dan. Good humor—ever close to the surface in the big man, just as anger was ever close—rose up to drown the anger. “Why,” said Martin O’Connor, “we can make a party of it, Dan. That’s what we’ll do. Let’s get the girl in now an’ make our plans.”

  Dan called Marillita into the room. The girl came hesitantly. When she saw Don Martin’s face her own brightened and her trepidation vanished. O’Connor drew his daughter down upon his knee and gently pinched her firm chin with a big forefinger and thumb.

  “We’re goin’ to Albuquerque, Dan an’ me,” he boomed. “Do you think now that you could look after things whilst we’re gone?”

  Anger glinted in Marillita’s eyes. “Look after things?” she snapped. “If you and Dan go to Albuquerque and leave me here you needn’t look for me when you come back. I’ll…I’ll…”

  O’Connor’s laughter boomed. “In that case mebbe we’d best take you along,” he said when the laughter was finished. “Mebbe it would be safer.”

  “You’re trying to tease me,” Marillita accused. “Father, I never thought it of you. You don’t love me, either one of you.”

  It was the girl’s turn to tease, and she made the most of it, hiding her face in her hands and weeping realistically. Dan sprang up and O’Connor, alarmed, sought to placate his daughter. It was not until he saw the corners of her lips and noted that they were upturned that Dan realized Marillita was retaliating. Then the farce was over and, laughing, the three sat down and planned the journey.

  Nothing was said to Marillita as to the cause of O’Connor’s trip. She hinted concerning the sudden decision, but her father gave no answer. It was not until later, when they were alone, that Dan told the girl the reason. Marillita was grave.

  “I was afraid that there was trouble, Dan,” she said. “You’ll stay with Father, won’t you? You won’t let him do anything that he shouldn’t?”

  “Of course I’ll stay with him,” Dan assured. “It’s just a legal matter. There’s nothing to worry about, sweet.”

  Marillita laid her hand in Dan’s. “All my life,” she said, “I’ve seen trouble, Dan. It’s only been these last few years that we’ve been free of it. Dan…when we’re married there won’t be any more trouble, will there?”

  “None,” Dan assured.

  It seemed as though the girl did not hear that assurance. Her voice was musing. “Before I was born,” she said, “when Father and Mother were first married, there was trouble at El Puerto del Sol. My grandfather had mortgaged the place. There were a lot of Alarids, Dan, and they all lived on the grant. All the cousins and second cousins and aunts and uncles and people that weren’t relatives at all. And none of them were willing to help. They lived off the grant. Can you understand that, Dan?”

  Dan nodded. He had seen just that thing happen, seen parasites prey upon a place until only a husk remained.

  Marillita went on. “Dad married my mother and began to get things into his own hands. He sold some land and paid part of what was owed. He bought the interests of others. Some of them he sent away. Grandfather died, and my mother was the direct heir. And then I was born and my mother died. Father wanted to save the place for me. He fought for it, Dan.”

  Dan Shea listened in silence. He could see now why Martin O’Connor had the reputation of being a hard man, a ruthless man. It was necessary that he be hard and ruthless; essential that he put aside humanity in order to hold together the great domain that was El Puerto del Sol.

  “Sometimes,” Marillita said thoughtfully, “I don’t think he did it for me or that he did it for my mother. I think he did it for El Puerto del Sol. It’s kind of a religion with him, Dan. Ever since I was a little girl I can remember his talking to me, always talking about El Puerto del Sol and what it meant to him and what it must mean to me. He isn’t like himself when somebody does something to El Puerto. He’s like…” The girl paused, then: “He’s like one of those ogres that I used to read about in fairy stories. He’s…he’s terrible, Dan.”

  The small hand that rested in Dan Shea’s closed convulsively. “And he’s old, Dan,” the girl said. “I didn’t know how old he was. He works terribly hard. And someday…”

  “Marillita,” Dan said earnestly, “you mustn’t fret. You’ve got me now, and it’s my business to keep trouble from you. I’ll tend to it.”

  Marillita lifted her hand from Dan’s, and her arms went about his neck. Her head against his chest, she murmured softly, “I feel so safe with you. Is it because I love you, Dan? Is it because…?”

  “It’s because you are safe with me,” Dan Shea said. “Nothing will touch you, sweet. Nothing that I can prevent.”

  “What are you two talkin’ about?” Martin O’Connor boomed from a doorway. “Plottin’ against the old man, are you? I’ll not have it. Not with me around. You’ll have to take me into the plot.”

  Marillita lifted her head. “We were just thinking how long it is until October, Father,” she answered. “And wishing that the days were shorter.”

  Later that day when O’Connor and Dan Shea sat talking together Jesse Louder came to El Puerto del Sol. He rode up on a sweating horse, stopping just at the great wooden gates that were opened into the patio, and with him were two hard-faced, lanky men who sat their horses and stared into the peace of the shaded enclosure.

  Louder dismounted stiffly and came stalking forward, scowling. Behind him his two men also dismounted and, letting their horses stand, moved so that they were at either side of the patio gate, lounging beside the gateposts.

  Martin O’Connor and Dan, rising, waited for Louder to approach. “Good day to you, Mr Louder,” Don Martin greeted.

  Louder did not respond to the salutation but plunged immediately into his errand. “Youtsey come to my place today,” he announced. “Served these papers on me. I come to you about ’em, O’Connor.”

  “He was here to
o,” O’Connor answered. “I’ve had a summons.”

  Louder spread out the complaint and summons, pulling them from his pocket. “I bought that country from you in good faith,” he said belligerently. “From what I read here you didn’t have no right to sell it. I’m goin’ to hold you responsible, O’Connor, an’ if you’ve rooked me I’ll…”

  “What’ll you do?” Don Martin snapped. “See here, Louder…” O’Connor’s anger was rising and his voice was hostile. It was just as though two strange dogs had met and, snarling in preliminary, were ready to throw themselves at each other’s throats.

  “I’ll…” Louder began, interrupting Don Martin.

  “We’ve been talking about this, Mr Louder,” Dan interposed quietly. “I’m glad that you’ve come over. Don Martin and I are going to Albuquerque to hire a lawyer to look into this for us.”

  Louder turned his angry eyes on Dan. “So you’re in it too!” he snapped. “You told me that you didn’t work for O’Connor.”

  “I don’t,” Dan answered levelly, keeping his temper in check. “But I’m interested. I’ve got sheep on shares with him, and my range comes under this suit.”

  “Why did they serve me?” Louder demanded, turning back to Don Martin. “I don’t savvy. You sold me the land. It’s up to you to make the title good.”

  “You’ll not tell me what it’s up to me to do!” O’Connor was red with his anger. “I know what I’ve got to do an’ what I haven’t. I…”

  “Now wait!” Dan’s calm voice cut into the tirade. “I’ll tell you why you were served, Mr Louder. You’re occupying part of the land that is included in the suit. That’s why you were named and that’s the only reason.”