Willis Emerson - A Vendetta of the Hills

IT was a June morning in mid-California. The sun was just rising over the rim of the horizon, dissipating the purple haze of dawn and bathing in golden sunshine a great valley spread out like a parchment scroll. It was a rural scene of magnificent grandeur – encircling mountains, rolling foothills, and then the vast expanse of plain dotted here and there with clumps of trees and clothed with luxuriant grasses.

Thousands of cattle were bestirring themselves from their slumbers – some sniffing the air and bellowing lowly, others paving the earth in an indifferent way, and all moving slowly toward one or other of the mountain streams that wound serpent-like through the valley, as if they deemed it proper to begin the day with a morning libation.

To the south, commanding a narrow pass that pierced the Tehachapi mountain range, stood old Fort Tejon, dismantled now and partly in ruins, picturesque if no longer formidable – a romantic relic of old frontier fighting days. In the foreground of the crumbling adobe walls, sheltered under giant oaks, was a trading store and postoffice combined.

Within this building half a dozen men were in earnest conversation, swapping yarns even at that early hour. Perhaps they, too, like the cattle, had felt the call for their “morning’s morning.”

A young army officer, Lieutenant Chester Munson, was telling of a rough experience he had had a few days before with a mountain lion in one of the near-by rugged canyons.

The story was interrupted by a sound of galloping hoofs.

“Here’s Dick Willoughby,” someone announced.

The rider brought his mustang to a panting stop, threw the bridle rein over its head, and, leaping lightly from his saddle, entered the store.

Dick Willoughby was a tall, athletic, square-jawed, grey-eyed young fellow who looked determinedly purposeful. He was originally an architect from New York City, but during the last five years had become an adopted son of the West – had made the sacrifice, or rather gone through the improving metamorphosis, of assimilation.

“Good morning, Ches, old boy,” he shouted to the lieutenant.

The latter returned the salutation with a friendly nod.

“The camp was lonely without you last night, Dick,” he said. “Who is the fair senorita that keeps you away?”

“That’s all right,” replied Willoughby, smiling. “I will tell you later.” Then after a genial allround greeting for the others present, he eagerly exclaimed: “Boys, she is coming.”

“What! Guadalupe?” shouted everyone in chorus of surprise.

“Yes, Guadalupe is headed this way. I spied her on the mountain trail an hour ago, and thanks to my field glasses, was able to determine the moving speck was none other than the old squaw herself. She is just beyond yon clump of trees and will be here shortly.”

“I am wonderin’ if she’s got her apron filled again with them there gold nuggets,” remarked Tom Baker inquiringly, while a smile flitted over his grey-bearded countenance. “That squaw is a regular free-gold placer proposition.”

“She would have been held up before now in the old days, eh, sheriff?” laughed one of the cowboys. Tom Baker had been sheriff for a long term of years in early times, and, although no longer in office, the title had still clung to him.

“By gad!” exclaimed Jack Rover, another cowboy, and a gentlemanly young fellow in manner and appearance. “She’s not going to get back to her hiding-place this time, nor to that will-o’-the-wisp placer gold mine of hers unless she shows me.”

“That will do for you,” said Dick Willoughby with an admonishing look. “Don’t you forget that Guadalupe, although an old Indian squaw, is also a human being. There is going to be no violence if I can prevent it.”

“Well,” laughed Jack, pushing his hat back as if to acknowledge that he had been checkmated, “you’re my boss on the cattle ranch, and I’ll have to take your tip, I guess.”

“I say, Dick,” asked the other cowboy, “did you see anything of the white wolf?”

“Do you mean the real wolf?” interjected Jack Rover, “or the bandit, Don Manuel?”

Willoughby was looking along the road and took no notice.

“I guess both are real,” mused Tom Baker, grimly smiling, and a general laugh followed.

“Well, I for one will subscribe to that,” exclaimed Buck Ashley, storekeeper, postmaster, bartender, and all-round generalissimo of the trading establishment. “If Don Manuel is not a wolf in human form, and a bigger outlaw than Joaquin Murietta ever thought of being, why you may take my head for a football.”

“But he’s dead, ain’t he?” asked the cowboy who had introduced the subject of the white wolf.

“Just one thing that I want to emphasize good and plenty to you fellers,” said Tom Baker, “and that is – ”

“Here she comes!” interrupted Dick Willoughby.

A hush fell over the group as the bent, aged figure of an Indian woman was seen approaching the store. Her features were hidden by a shawl that closely muffled her head and shoulders.

Buck Ashley saluted Guadalupe with a “How?” The squaw answered with the same abrupt salutation, shuffled up to the counter and said brokenly, “Coffee – sugar – tea – rice.” With her left hand she had gathered up the lower portion of her calico apron and held it pouch fashion. She thrust her right hand into the pocket so formed, and bringing forth a handful of gold nuggets, laid them on the counter. Some were the size of peas, and others as large as hulled hickory nuts. Not a word was spoken by the onlookers, who were wild-eyed in their astonishment. Soon interest rose to high tension.

Buck Ashley tied up a large package of sugar and pushed it toward the bent form of his customer; then resting his hand on the counter, he looked fixedly at the squaw and said, “More gold.”

Again she thrust her hand into the apron pocket and brought out another handful of nuggets, whereupon Ashley proceeded to tie up a large package of coffee. This done, he repeated the request for more gold. Old Guadalupe added another handful of nuggets to those already on the counter, and Ashley tied up a package of rice.

The squaw looked up at the storekeeper for a moment and then said, “Tea.”

Buck Ashley’s laconic response was “More gold,” and immediately another handful of nuggets was brought forth, whereupon a fourth package was deposited on the counter.

Old Guadalupe stowed the parcels in her apron on top of any remaining gold nuggets she might have brought. Then she turned and walked limpingly away, through the low brushwood toward a little grove of gnarled and twisted sycamores close to the ruined fort.

When she had gone Buck Ashley observed, “No use following her – not a damn bit of use in the world! She’ll make camp out there under the trees until some time tonight, and then vanish like a shadow into the dark.”

While speaking, Ashley had been gathering up the gold.

“I say, Buck,” observed Dick Willoughby, winking at his friend Lieutenant Munson, “it is my private opinion that that bandit, the White Wolf, has nothing on you.”