CHAPTER IV

TAKING STOCK

Raquel had been home two weeks. It had been, as luck would have it, a busy time from the minute of Dad’s going. Jami had driven Mr. Daniels and Jimmy into town and had come roaring back within an hour and a half at nearly sixty miles an hour, so that even with the handicap of the arroyo to cross he had to brake the Pathfinder down with a skidding of tires that brought Russell and Raquel running from the corrals.

Jami, heady with the freedom of the car, swung carelessly out and, without a backward glance at the steaming radiator, strode off toward the bunkhouse.

Raquel went quickly up to the car. The engine was fairly smoking. The tires were hot and showed the wear of the sudden braking down and skidding. The back tires were gouged with bad stone bruises, and as she and Russell stood there suddenly one went flat. It had been perforated by a sharp rock.

Raquel was furious. She followed quickly down towards the bunkhouse.

“Jami,” she called softly, “Jami. Come here a minute, will you?” And to Russell, “You go on in and take Mom these packages, will you, Russ?”

“Jami,” as he came up sheepishly, sensing something wrong, “do you think that’s the way to treat property, the minute Dad’s back is turned? Look at the radiator. Not a drop left in it. And on a winter’s day at that. Look at the tires. Six months’ wear taken out of them so you can ’ride ’em, cowboy, ride ’em.”

“Engine smoking, rear tire flat, got to have a shoe. No need in it. Now, Jami,” looking at him severely, “it isn’t as though you hadn’t been through this before, and been warned and respectfully requested.”

Which was all too true. Jami, crestfallen, dejectedly started to tote water for the engine now that it was too late.

Jami was a good mechanic, but he simply couldn’t be trusted to run the car, Raquel thought, a bit discouraged. And there was no one else but herself now to drive.

When she went down with Russ to inspect the garage she found that the lavish supply of oils which had been there when she left for school was almost gone. A couple of spare tires were also missing.

Raquel was aghast. “Why, Russ, where--what’s happened to the supply shop?”

“Well, ma’am, you know how the old man is. Every one comes along, ocean to ocean tin-tourer, shorthorn sports, grub-line riders, hunters, politicians, friends, give ’em what they want. Sure, stranger, help yourself. An’ then after they’ve filled up on our gas an’ your ma’s cookin’ they’re off. An’ when the ladies have cold-creamed the dust of Los Ranchos off their faces and the hombres have wiped it off their boots, that’s the last of us.”

Raquel could not help but laugh at Russell’s rage. “But, Russ, you ought not to fuss that way about strangers eating here. Where else would they eat within fifteen or twenty miles?”

“Well, you Westerners is open-handed, but I’m a Yankee, come from Kansas, an’ we don’t believe in scatterin’. Let ’em tank up before they come.”

“Well, we’re going to save every penny from now on, and we ship a thousand head March first, remember, or not later than the seventh.”

“We’ll need it,” said Russ. “So little seed this year, an’ the quail et up a lot.... I’ve got Angel and Pancho going over all the leather on the place this week, and Jami makin’ the rounds of the windmills. Catamounts and coyotes been pretty bad this year, an’ that angora goat you set such store by, Raquel, a mountain cat got her an’ her summer’s kids--le’s see, last month it was.”

“Oh, Russ, she was such a beauty! What did you do with the pelts?”

“Well, the kids was sort o’ spoiled, but Angel made a right purty rug for your ma’s sittin’ room o’ the old she. I got near enough lobo skins for a new carriage robe for you, curin’ down back o’ the coolin’ house now.”

They went down so that Raquel could see the thick, lustrous pelts, tawny, with flecks of black.

“You know,” said Russ, “we been losin’ too many cattle this winter.” He looked ominous.

“What do you mean, Russ? Wild animals?”

Russ nodded. “An’ more’n that, I’d guess. Last spring I made sure I counted at least two hundred calves over on that plain yonder alone. This fall I can’t see more’n half that. Coyotes didn’t get ’em all.”

Raquel laughed. “Why, there’s nobody in this country would rustle a calf off Los Ranchos. Come on, Russ, I want to show you how I want the grove cleaned up. If it’s goin’ to be a dry spring we’ll need the reservoir there.”

The cottonwood grove down in the glen southeast of the house was an oasis in a desert of grass, the heavy white trunks towering up against the blue sky. In summer it was a green-lighted refuge from the brilliance of the sun, and in the autumn a golden glory, as though the leaves had been marvelously hammered out of beaten gold.

But now the grove was a welter of brushwood, old iron and ranch junk: an old plow, an old buggy, an ancient cart with wooden wheels. And the great reservoir in the center was filled with leaves and twigs. When the rainy season was on, the tiny stream that ran through the glade from the mountains behind it would fill the reservoir. There had been a time when the boys used this tank as a swimming hole, to which the cattle did not seem to object.

Raquel had in mind to pipe the overflow from the windmill tank at the house down to the glen, and to rely on wind and rain to keep the reservoir water fresh and renewed. She had been wanting to clean the place out for several years, but while Dad spent lavishly on cars, musical instruments and upkeep, he had little use for improvements that were out of sight of the house.

The house itself had been newly whitewashed in the early fall and the patio wall given a fresh layer of pink plaster, mixed from a pink silica outcrop in the mountains back of the ranch. Everything else was in excellent shape--pumps, windmills, sheds.

Mom had always tended the patio, a small velvet oasis, shut away from desert winds by the pink wall, against which stood vivid hollyhocks. A square of “onhealthy” grass, the boys considered it, because it was so soft and fine; here, too, were beds of old-fashioned flowers, with honeysuckle and bougainvillea hanging thick over the cloistered porches.

Mom had a _gracia_ in her fingers that made things grow, just as it made bread rise, Raquel often thought, looking disgustedly at a sickly vine of her own planting.

“But Raquel can sew beautiful. Her seams and hems’re so fine you can hardly see ’em,” Mom would defend.

“But I can’t _make_ anything a-sewing, Mom! Look at the fit of this darn dress!” They always seemed to turn out very queerly, it was true.

So after that Raquel bought what dresses she had in town. They hadn’t been many, for she was only seven when Ole Hossfoot had brought her down a tiny pair of woolies to wear over her ginghams, and before she was in her teens she rode on the roundups always in her cowboy rig. It was so that Jimmy was used to seeing her, like a slim boy, with clustering dark hair, wearing a sombrero, a bright neckerchief, a leather jacket.

Raquel had ridden bareback at three, and before she was five had clambered aboard a cowboy saddle, clinging to the pommel, hard, bare feet thrust into the straps above the stirrups, dark hair flying, eyes round with daring. Dad had forbidden her to ride bareback as she grew older. He was afraid she would climb on a bad broncho some day. She had done so, but not to be thrown. That, however, is a story all to itself.

By the time she was fourteen her gift for “gentling” horses had become known throughout the county. There were times when Raquel took the place of a grown man, and in some kinds of work she was better than a man. Her lithe, tireless body could be carried over more ground without wearing out her horse than the heavy weight of a man; and whether the animal was a biter or a bucker, if it had the qualifications of a good cowhorse, Raquel could have it behaving when she rode it.

Sometimes she stayed home and helped Mom cook for the hands, and sometimes Mom had a Chinaman out from town to help. Sometimes, as now, she got on with the little Mexican girls, for during the shipping and branding seasons it took all hands to look after the cattle.

The Daniels had not long had so much money. There had been years and years when Mom did everything at the ranch house, and carried all her water in from the windmill when the men folks were out on the range and Dad was his own riding boss, in the saddle sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four.

And then one autumn Dad said, “Mom, we got seventy-five thousand dollars reposin’ in the bank. Let’s all take a trip to Chiny or Californy.” So he had drawn five thousand dollars from the bank and they stayed in California until it was spent.

* * * * *

The Boss of Los Ranchos was not up to ring the rising bell herself the morning after Dad’s departure. Dad or one of the boys always rang it every morning, at six o’clock in winter and five in summer.

Now it was the crackling of the fire on her hearth that roused Raquel. Panchito Esquibal was slipping quietly out as she opened her eyes. The fires were Georgie’s job, but he was now doing the milking and the young milch cow would give down her milk to no one else.

Raquel remembered in a flash, and in a flash came wide awake, with the glorious aliveness of the healthy young. Jumping up she crossed to the sheepskin rug before the open fire. The crackling tulas gave out an extraordinary amount of heat and yet over in the corner by her washstand she could have seen her breath.

Tingling with an exhilaration that she had not felt at sea level, she splashed herself with the icy water and five minutes later was pulling on her boots before the fire. Not such riding boots as are found in smart city booteries but a cowboy’s pair, elaborately stitched, and perhaps a trifle quaint as to cut about the toe, but nevertheless beautiful.

Breakfast was already on the table when she opened the dining-room door. Hot bread, yellow corn meal and salt pork, stewed dried peaches and coffee. At Raquel’s place was a little pitcher of cream.

“It’s from Ruth,” explained Georgie proudly. “I’m goin’ to let her sleep in the shed off the summer kitchen from now on. It’s gettin’ too cold for her.”

“You certainly are not,” said Raquel with a grin. “From there it would be just a step into the kitchen. You’ll be wanting to put Old Whitey into the patio next.”

Georgie clanked out in disgust, his leather chaps concealing the fact that as yet his legs were unbowed in the manner befitting a real cowman. At his heels rattled a murderous-looking pair of spurs, which were in reality so blunt that at best they could only massage Old Whitey’s hide.

In fact the spurs were just a sort of friendly hint to Whitey as between friends. And being a faithful cowhorse of many years’ standing, Whitey always tried to oblige when Georgie gave the signal, and would break into a run. Perhaps the run lasted only a few steps before subsiding into an apologetic trot. But at a scratch of the spur Whitey was off again.

“Georgie, you’re to ride with Angel over to the second windmill and see if everything’s all right. Mom, why hasn’t Elena been up to the house? I was down there yesterday and no one was at home. I’m going down there right now. I want to see Pancho.”

Elena Esquibal, Pancho’s wife, had lived at Los Ranchos ever since she was a girl. Somewhere there was a strain of proud Spanish blood, and her father had owned his own rancho. He had been a friend of Old Man Daniels, and when at his death it was found that the rancho, on which Dad had already loaned him money, was lost on a mortgage, Dad brought the girl back and gave her a home.

“I don’t know what’s come over Elena,” said Mom. “She’s sort of queer these days. But the little girls’re sweet little old things, and Panchito’s too young to be mean yet.

“I never did take much to Pancho Esquibal, though he’s got real purty manners,” added Mom, “and it was sort of a pity that Elena couldn’t have kept that rancho of her father’s; but it wasn’t your father’s fault that the bank had to take it over for his debts. Seems like Esquibal didn’t seem to sense that; he thinks Dad was to blame some way. They think influence should do anything.”

“Well, I’m going down there now, Mom; I want to go over some things with Pancho.”

The Esquibal _casita_, a flat-roofed adobe house, nestled down at the foot of a hill below the corral, and faced the Alamos, the cottonwood grove. There seemed to be no one at home, but back of the house Raquel found Panchito asleep in the sun, his back to some empty oil cans.

As she stood looking at him Panchito awoke, rubbed his eyes, and stood up, grinning shyly. His papa and mamma had gone in the wagon over to visit a sick _tio_ [uncle]. They would be back tomorrow, tonight maybe. “_Si Señorita._”

The _ranchito_ they had gone to? La Bolsa, they had called it, he thought.

Raquel pushed one of the oil cans with the toe of her boot. “What does your papa use these for, Panchito?”

“Oh, those are just the empty cans. He has sold already the oil,” Panchito answered innocently. “Since the gate below the Alamos was closed there come by our house many automovil-es.”

Raquel walked back to the big house thoughtfully. Pancho Esquibal was a bad hombre all right. And going off like that without a word. He always had an excuse. And there was nothing to do but shrug the shoulders at the institution of a Latin-American family and the demands of relatives upon the time of first, second and third cousins.

But this business of the oil--no wonder they couldn’t keep oil! What else was Pancho selling? Passing by the bunk house, where Angel was sweeping out with a tender regard for the broom, she called to him to saddle the Alezan mare. The horse was a quivering, high-strung creature which Raquel herself had cured of fright and which she would let no one but herself or Jami ride. Jami was hard on a car but easy on a critter.

Raquel swung quickly into the saddle. It was a pretty thing to watch her mount. There were times when she simply vaulted in, her feet seeming to find the stirrup leathers by instinct. But now she did not wish to startle the Alezan.

Left hand grasping the reins smoothly at the base of the horse’s neck, left foot thrust under the stirrup hood, she made a quick upward flight of her slim body, feet together, until the right foot swung quicker than the eye over the saddle--it never seemed to sprawl over the horse’s flank. She rode with a somewhat shorter stirrup than a good Panhandler usually does, and didn’t lean back for a lope or a slow trot. This morning the mare was off like the wind, down the road leading to the pass.

Beyond the arroyo Raquel turned back to the right, and followed the road that led past the cottonwood grove, round which ran a fork that joined the main road again beyond the Alamos. The inner road had always been closed with a gate, but now a new gate closed the main road, and the inner road, which led past Pancho’s house, was open. Cars would have to go this way now, and the detour could not be seen from the big house.

“Easy way to make a little money.” Raquel was angry as she loped back. “But I wouldn’t have thought it of Elena.”

Pancho would never have been hired at Los Ranchos had it not been for Elena. When she married, Dad took Esquibal on because of her, rather than because he was an expert cowpuncher and brander.

Well, selling oil could be settled easily enough. But what else was Pancho Esquibal up to?

At that moment Pancho was concluding a very satisfactory sale of La Bolsa, the ranchito of Elena’s uncle, to “A. B.” Meyers for a sum satisfactory to both parties, and terms that were most agreeable. The ancient uncle and aunt were to continue to live there the remainder of their lives, and Esquibal was to work the place for “A. B.” on shares.

La Bolsa was what the name implied, a pocket of land lying in a tiny valley that ran down to the Daniels range and was entirely surrounded by Los Ranchos property, except on the northwest corner.