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[pg 034] seen. Black hair was pepper-salted for a finger-wide space 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, Bartolomé 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 Bartolomé 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[pg 035] 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 gods 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 cock 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.[pg 036] Dark-brown eyes, as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the Indians moved or spoke.