The Pride of Palomar Part 11

She closed her eyes to keep back the tears, and the car rolled gently down the grade into the valley. From the tonneau she could catch s.n.a.t.c.hes of the conversation between her father and the potato baron; they were discussing the agricultural possibilities of the valley, and she realized, with a little twinge of outrage, that its wonderful pastoral beauty had been quite lost on them.

As they swept past the mission, Kay deliberately refrained from ordering William to toss Don Mike's baggage off in front of the old pile, for she knew now whither the latter was bound. She would save him that added burden. Three miles from the mission, the road swung up a gentle grade between two long rows of ancient and neglected palms.

The dead, withered fronds of a decade still clung to the corrugated trunks. In the adjoining oaks vast flocks of crows perched and cawed raucously. This avenue of palms presently debouched onto a little mesa, oak-studded and covered with lush gra.s.s, which gave it a pretty, parklike effect. In the center of this mesa stood the hacienda of the Rancho Palomar.

Like all adobe dwellings of its cla.s.s, it was not now, nor had it ever been, architecturally beautiful. It was low, with a plain hip-roof covered with ancient red tiles, many of which were missing. When the house had first been built, it had been treated to a coat of excellent plaster over the adobe, and this plaster had never been renewed. With the attrition of time and the elements, it had worn away in spots, through which the brown adobe bricks showed, like the bones in a decaying corpse. The main building faced down the valley; from each end out, an ell extended to form a patio in the rear, while a seven-foot adobe wall, topped with short tile, connected with the ell and formed a parallelogram.

"The old ruin doesn't look very impressive from the front, Kay," her father explained, as he helped her out of the car, "but that wall hides an old-fas.h.i.+oned garden that will delight you. A porch runs all round the inside of the house, and every door opens on the patio. That long adobe barracks over yonder used to house the help. In the old days, a small army of peons was maintained here. The small adobe house back there in the trees houses the majordomo--that old rascal, Pablo."

"He is still here, dad?"

"Yes--and as belligerent as old billy-owl. He pretends to look after the stock. I ordered him off the ranch last week; but do you think he'd go? Not much. He went inside his shack, sorted out a rifle, came outside, sat down, and fondled the weapon all day long. Ever since then he has carried it, mounted or afoot. So I haven't bothered him.

He's a bad old Indian, and when I secure final t.i.tle to the ranch, I'll have the sheriff of the county come out and remove him."

"But how does he live, dear?"

"How does any Indian live? He killed a steer last week, jerked half of it, and sold the other half for some beans and flour. It wasn't his steer and it wasn't mine. It belonged to the Farrel estate, and, since there is n.o.body to lodge a complaint against him, I suppose he'll kill another steer when his rations run low. This way, daughter. Right through the hole in the wall."

They pa.s.sed through a big inset gate in the adobe wall, into the patio.

At once the scent of lemon and orange blossoms, mingled with the more delicate aroma of flowers, a.s.sailed them. Kay stood, entranced, gazing upon the hodgepodge of color; she had the feeling of having stepped out of one world into another.

Her father stood watching her.

"Wonderful old place, isn't it, Kay?" he suggested. "The garden has been neglected, but I'm going to clean it out."

"Do not touch it," she commanded, almost sharply. "I want it the way it is."

"You little tyrant!" he replied good-naturedly. "You run me ragged and make me like it."

From a rocker on the porch at the eastern end of the patio Kay's mother rose and called to them, and the girl darted away to greet her. Mrs.

Parker folded the girl to a somewhat ample bosom and kissed her lovingly on her ripe red lips; to her husband she presented a cheek that showed to advantage the artistry of a member of that tribe of genii who strive so valiantly to hold in check the ravages of age. At fifty, Kay's mother was still a handsome woman; her carriage, her dress, and a certain repressed vivacity indicated that she had mastered the art of growing old gracefully.

"Well, kitten," she said, a trifle louder and shriller than one seemed to expect of her, "are you going to remain with us a little while, or will next week see you scampering away again?"

"I'll stay all summer, fuss-budget. I'm going to paint the San Gregorio while it's on exhibition, and then this old house and the garden. Oh, mother dear, I'm in love with it! It's wonderful!"

The potato baron had followed Parker and his daughter into the patio, and stood now, showing all of his teeth in an amiable smile. Parker suddenly remembered his guest.

"My dear," he addressed his wife, "I have brought a guest with me.

This is Mr. Okada, of whom I wrote you."

Okada bowed low--as low as the rules of j.a.panese etiquette prescribe, which is to say that he bent himself almost double. At the same time, he lifted his hat. Then he bowed again twice, and, with a pleasing smile proffered his hand. Mrs. Parker took it and shook it with hearty good will.

"You are very welcome, Mr. Okada," she shrilled. "Murray," she added, turning to the butler, who was approaching with Okada's suitcase, "show the gentleman to the room with the big bed in it. Dinner will be ready at six, Mr. Okada. Please do not bother to dress for dinner. We're quite informal here."

"Sank you very much," he replied, with an unpleasant whistling intake of breath; with another profound bow to the ladies, he turned and followed Murray to his room.

"Well, John," Mrs. Parker demanded, as the j.a.panese disappeared, "your little playmate's quite like a mechanical toy. For heaven's sake, where did you pal up with him?"

"That's the potato baron of the San Joaquin valley, Kate," he informed her. "I'm trying to interest him in a colonization scheme for his countrymen. A thousand j.a.ps in the San Gregorio can raise enough garden-truck to feed the city of Los Angeles--and they will pay a whooping price for good land with water on it. So I brought him along for a preliminary survey of the deal."

"He's very polite, but I imagine he's not very brilliant company," his wife averred frankly. "When you wired me you were bringing a guest, I did hope you'd bring some jolly young jackanapes to arouse Kay and me."

She sighed and settled back in her comfortable rocking-chair, while Kay, guided by a maid, proceeded to her room. A recent job of calcimining had transformed the room from a dirty grayish, white to a soft shade of pink; the old-fas.h.i.+oned furniture had been "done over,"

and glowed dully in the fading light. Kay threw open the small square-hinged window, gazed through the iron bars sunk in the thick walls, and she found herself looking down the valley, more beautiful than ever now in the rapidly fading light.

"I'll have to wait outside for him," she thought. "It will be dark when he gets here."

She washed and changed into a dainty little dinner dress, after which she went on a tour of exploration of the hacienda. Her first port of call was the kitchen.

"Nis.h.i.+," she informed the cook, "a gentleman will arrive shortly after the family has finished dinner. Keep his dinner in the oven. Murray will serve it to him in his room, I think."

She pa.s.sed out through the kitchen, and found herself in the rear of the hacienda. A hundred yards distant, she saw Pablo Artelan squatting on his heels beside the portal of his humble residence, his back against the wall. She crossed over to him, smiling as she came.

"How do you do, Pablo?" she said. "Have you forgotten me? I'm the girl to whom you were kind enough to give a ride on Panchito one day in El Toro."

The glowering glance of suspicion and resentment faded slowly from old Pablo's swarthy countenance. He scrambled to his feet and swept the ground with his old straw sombrero,

"I am at the service of the _senorita_," he replied, gravely.

"Thank you, Pablo. I just wanted to tell you that you need not carry that rifle any more. I shall see to it that you are not removed from the ranch."

He stared at her with stolid interest.

"_Muchas gracias, senorita_," he mumbled. Then, remembering she did not understand Spanish, he resumed in English: "I am an old man, mees.

Since my two boss he's die, pretty soon Pablo die, too. For what use eet is for live now I don' tell you. Those ol' man who speak me leave theese rancho--he is your father, no?"

"Yes, Pablo. And he isn't such a terrible man, once you get acquainted with him."

"I don' like," Pablo muttered frankly. "He have eye like lookin'-gla.s.s. Mebbeso for you, mees, eet is different, but for Pablo Artelan--" he shrugged. "Eef Don Mike is here, n.o.body can talk to me like dose ol' man, your father, he speak to me." And he wagged his head sorrowfully.

Kay came close to him.

"Listen, Pablo: I have a secret for you. You, must not tell anybody.

Don Mike is not dead."

He raised his old head with languid interest and nodded comprehension.

"My wife, Carolina, she tell me same thing all time. She say: '_Pablo mio_, somebody make beeg mistake. Don Mike come home pretty queeck, you see. n.o.body can keel Don Mike. n.o.body have that mean the deesposition for keel the boy.' But I don' theenk Don Mike come back to El Palomar."

"Carolina is right, Pablo. Somebody did make a big mistake. He was wounded in the hand, but not killed. I saw him to-day, Pablo, on the train."

"You see Don Mike? You see heem with the eye?"

"Yes. And he spoke to me with the tongue. He will arrive here in an hour."

Pablo was on his knees before her, groping for her hand. Finding it, he carried it to his lips. Then, leaping to his feet with an alacrity that belied his years, he yelled:

"Carolina! Come queeck, _p.r.o.nto_! _Aqui_, Carolina."