"Good. These people are the real wild-horse experts, Kirby. Not much the Trinfans don't know about horses." Don Cazar was already on his way to the door and Drew fell in behind Bartolomé.
The Trinfan outfit was small, considering the job they intended, Drew thought. A cart pulled by two mules, lightly made and packed high, was the nucleus of their small caravan. Burros—two of them—were roped behind and, to Drew's surprise, a cow, bawling fretfully and intended, he later learned, to play foster mother to any unweaned foals which might be picked up. The cart was driven by a Mexican in leather breeches and jacket over a red shirt. Behind him rode the boy and girl Drew had seen in the Tubacca alley, mounted on rangy, nervous horses that had speed in every line of their under-fleshed bodies. Each rider trailed four spare mounts roped nose to tail.
"Buenos días, Don Cazar." For so small a man the Mexican[pg 066] on the cart seat produced a trumpet-sized voice. He touched the roll-edged brim of his sombrero, and Drew noted that his arm was crooked as if in the past it had been broken and poorly set.
"Buenos dias, Señor Trinfan. This house is yours." Rennie went to the side of the cart. "The west corral is ready for your use as always. Draw on the stores for any need you may have—"
"Gracias, Don Cazar." It was the thanks of equal to equal. "You have some late news of the wild ones?"
"Only that the pinto still runs near the well."
"That spotted one—sí, he is an Apache for cunning, for deviltry of spirit. It may be that this time he will not be the lucky one. There is in him a demon. Did I not see him, with my own eyes, kill a foal, tear flesh from the flanks of its dam when she tried to drop out of the run? Sí—a real diablo, that one!"
"Get rid of him one way or another, Trinfan. He is a danger to the Range. He killed another stud this season. I am as sure of that as if I had seen him in action."
"Ah, the blue one you thought might be a runner to match Oro. Sí, that was a great pity, Don Cazar. Well, we shall try, we shall try this time to put that diablo under!"
An hour later Drew was facing a diablo of his own, with far less confidence than Hilario Trinfan had voiced. Just how stupid could one be? Around him now were men trained from early childhood to this life, and he could show no skill at their employment. All the way out from Texas he had practiced doggedly with the lariat, and his best fell far short of what a range-bred child could do.