"Whisky? Wine?" He gestured to a tray with waiting glasses.
"Sherry." Drew automatically answered without thought.
"What do you think of the stock you saw down in the corral?" Don Cazar poured a honey-colored liquid from the decanter into a small glass.
As the Kentuckian raised it to sip, the scent of the wine quirked time for him, making this for a fleeting moment the dining room at Red Springs during a customary after-dinner gathering of the men of the household. The talk there, too, had been of horses—always horses. Then Drew came back in a twitch of eyelid to the here and now, to Hunt Rennie watching him with a measuring he did not relish, to Bartolomé's round face with its close-to-hostile expression. Deliberately Drew sipped again before answering the question.
"I'd say, suh, if they're but a sample of Range stock, the breed is excellent. However——"
"However what, señor?" Bartolomé's eyes challenged Drew. "In this territory, even in Sonora, there are none to compare with the horses of this hacienda."
"That is not what I was about to say, Señor Rivas. But if Don Cazar wishes to try the eastern methods of training, these horses are too old. You begin with a yearling colt, not three-year-olds."
"To break a foal! What madness!" Now Bartolomé's face expressed shock.
"Not breaking," Drew corrected, "training. It is another method altogether. One puts a weanling on a rope halter, accustoms him to the feel of the hackamore, of being with men. Then he grows older knowing no fear or strangeness."[pg 063]
The Mexican looked from Drew to Don Cazar, his shock fading to puzzlement. Rennie nodded.