“H’lo little Santa Claus,” chirruped Pike. “It’s just the proper caper to set off my manly beauty, so I’m one ahead of Kit who has no one to garnish him for the feast––and it sure smells like some feast!”
“Venison perhaps a trifle overdone, but we hope it won’t disappoint you,” remarked Singleton. “Have this seat, Mr. Rhodes. Captain Pike and Miss Bernard always chum together, and have their own side.”
“Rather,” decided Pike, “and that arrangement reaches back beyond the memory of mere man in this outfit.”
“I should say,” agreed the girl. “Why, he used to have to toss me over his head a certain number of times before I would agree to be strapped in my high chair.”
“Yep, and I carpentered the first one, and it wasn’t so bad at that! Now child, if you will pass the lemons, and Kit will pass the decanter of amber, and someone else will rustle some water, I’ll manufacture a tonic to take the dust out of your throats.”
“Everybody works but father,” laughed Billie as the Chinaman sliced and served the venison, and Tia Luz helped supply all plates, and then took her place quietly at the lower end of the table and poured the strong fragrant coffee.
Rhodes spoke to her in Spanish, and her eyes lit up with kindly appreciation.
“Ah, very good!” she commented amicably. “You are not then too much Americano?”
“Well, yes, I’m about as American as you find them aside from the Apache and Pima and the rest of the tribes.”
“Maybe so, but not gringo,” she persisted. “I am scared of the Apache the same as of El Gavilan, and today my heart was near to stop going at all when we lose señorita and that black horse––and I say a prayer for you to San Antonio when I see you come fetch her home again.”