Rebel Spurs | Page 5

He was his own man, not Rennie's son, unless he chose....
Two more lamps had been lighted in the cantina. Drew sat down at a table. There was a swish of full skirts, and he looked up at a girl. She smiled as if she liked what she saw of this brown-faced stranger with quiet, disciplined features and eyes older than his years.
"You like, se?or ... tequila ... whiskee ... food?"
"Food, se?orita. You see a most hungry man."
She laughed and then frowned anxiously. "Ah, but, se?or, this is a time when the cupboard is, as you would say, bare! When the wagons come--then what a difference! Now, tortillas, frijoles, maybe some fruit ... sweet for the tongue, like wine in the throat. Perhaps an egg--"
"To me that is a feast." Drew fell into the formal speech which seemed natural here. "You see one who has done his own trail cooking too long."
"Ah--el pobrete--poor man! Surely there will be an egg!" She was gone and Drew began covertly to study the other men in the room.
In any western town the cantina, or saloon, was the meeting place for masculine society. Even if Hunt Rennie did not appear bodily in the Four Jacks tonight, Drew could pick up information about his father merely by keeping open ears. As far away as Santa Fe he had heard of Rennie's Range and Don Cazar (the name the Mexicans had given its owner, Hunt Rennie).
Escaped from a Mexican prison in 1847, believing his wife and the son he had never seen to be dead, Hunt Rennie had gone west. In contrast to the tragedy of his personal life, whatever Rennie had turned his hand to in the new territory had prospered. A prospector he had grub-staked, found the Oro Cruz, one of the richest mines in the Tubacca hills. Rennie owned two freighting lines, one carrying goods to California, the other up from Sonora. And his headquarters in the fertile Santa Cruz Valley was a ranch which was also a fort, a fort even the Apaches avoided after they had suffered two overwhelming defeats there.
That was Rennie's Range--cultivated fields, fruit orchards, manadas of fine horses. Don Cazar supplied Tucson and the army posts with vegetables and superb hams. He had organized a matchless company of Pima Indian Scouts after the army pulled out in '61, had fought Apaches, but had sided with neither Union nor Confederate forces. During the war years he had more or less withdrawn within the borders of the Range, offering refuge to settlers and miners fleeing Indian attacks. Don Cazar was a legend now, and a man did not quickly claim kinship with a legend.
"Want a room, Kirby?" Topham paused beside his table.
"No. I have to stay close to the mare."
"Yes. I can understand that. Kells is good with horses, so you needn't worry. Ever raced that colt of yours?"
"Not officially." Drew smiled. There was that lieutenant with the supply wagons. The man hadn't talked so loudly about Johnny Rebs after Shiloh showed his heels to the roan the soldiers had bragged up.
"This is a sporting town when the wagons come in, and they're due tomorrow. Johnny Shannon just rode in to report. Might be some racing. You aim to stay on in Tubacca?"
"Have to until Shadow can trail again. How's the prospect for a job?"
"With cattle--horses--teaming?"
"Horses, I guess."
"Well, Don Cazar--Rennie--runs the best manadas. You might hit him for work. He'll be riding in to meet the wagons. Carmencita, did you bring all that was left of the supplies?" Topham's quizzical eyebrows lifted in greeting to the waitress's loaded tray. "I'd say, young man, that you are facing a full-time job now, getting all that inside of you."
Drew ate steadily, consuming eggs and beans, tortillas, and fruit. Topham joined three men at the next table, substantial town citizens, Drew judged. The owner of the cantina raised his glass.
"Gentlemen, I give you another successful trading trip!"
"Saw Johnny ride in," one of the men returned. "Kid seems to be settlin' down, ain't he? That ought to be good news for Rennie."
"One believes in reformations when they are proven by time, Se?or Cahill," the man wearing rich but somber Spanish clothing replied.
"It sure must go hard with a man to have his son turn out a wild one," commented the third.
Drew's cup was at his lips, but he did not drink. Whose son? Rennie's?
"No son by blood, that much comfort Don Cazar has. But foster ties are also strong. And the boy is still very young--"
"A rattler with only one button on the tail carries as much poison as a ten-button one. Rennie ought to cut losses and give that kid the boot. The way he's going he could involve Hunt in a real mess," Cahill said.
"You are Don Cazar's good friend, Don Reese, his