Little was my worry over that black-eyed witch girl, for once free of the desert I'd an idea she could care for herself. And so far as she knew, I was dead back there on the sand of the Mojave.
Nonetheless, it was up to me to find out if she was getting a fair shake, and in the way of doing that I would have my gold back, and my horses.
This was the biggest town I ever did see, and I'd suspect there were all of ten thousand people in it.
I've heard tell of bigger towns ... come to think of it, New Orleans was bigger; but that had been long ago, and far away.
It seemed to me no town was large enough to hide that black-eyed woman, and I was right.
First person I saw when I came down stairs into the main lobby of the Pico House was Dorinda Robiseau.
She was across the room from me and she was talking to two men, dressed-up city folks. One of them was a big young man, handsome as all get out, but somehow he looked to me like a shorthorn. Although that slight bulge on the right side of his waist in front gave me to wonder. The other man, maybe fifty-odd years old, was shorter and square-shouldered.
Walking up to them, I said, "Ma'am, I'm glad to see you made it all right."
Her back had been toward me and there was an instant when it stayed toward me. Then she turned and looked me right in the eye and said, "I beg your pardon? were you speaking to me?"
The two men who stood with her both looked at me as if I had crawled out from under a log. The big young man started to speak, but I said, "When I got back and found you gone, I was some worried."
"I am afraid," she spoke coolly, "you have made a mistake. I have no idea who or what you are talking about."
Well, I started to explain. "Why, out there in the Mojave, ma'am, I--was The young man broke in on me. "You heard the lady. She doesn't know you."
He turned his back to me and took her by the arm, and they walked off and left me standing there.
Felt like a country fool, I did, them turning from me like that, and when I glanced around several people were looking at me and smiling with amusement. Made me mad, deep down. And me, traipsing over the desert, fighting and all to get her to safety, and then turned down like some stranger!
The more I thought of it the more it irritated me, and then it came over me that whilst I'd found her, I still hadn't my outfit back. I started to follow after them, but they were gone, clean out of sight.
There was a black carriage going away from the hotel, and mayhap they'd stepped into t.
Anyway, I was going to get my gold.
There were a hundred and ten saloons in Los Angeles about that time, but the one I'd been told to head for was Buffum's. It was the place to hear things, and was the most elegant in town. Buffum's ... that was the place.
Putting on my hat I stepped outside, and as I did so a man moved up beside me. He was a slender, dark young man. A Mexican ... or a Californian.
He spoke to me quietly. "It is of a possibility, se@nor, that we have interests in common."
"You're doing the talking."
"It is said the dark-eyed se@norita has been ill, and confined to her room. I think this is untrue. I believe she left Los Angeles and was brought back."
"Mister," I said, and I stopped and looked at him with no pleasant thoughts in my mind, "I expect what the lady does is her business."
"Ah? Perhaps. The se@nor is gallant, but is he also wise? The lady is not to be trusted, se@nor, nor those about her. And they are dangerous. Dangerous to me, but just as dangerous to you also. They will try to kill you."
It went against my nature to hear evil spoken of a woman, yet had I not myself figured her for a witch woman?
"We can talk at Buffum's," I said, "if you've got anything to say. I figure there might be somebody there that I'm hunting."
"There are a hundred and ten saloons in Los Angeles, of which Buffum's is only the finest, not necessarily the best place to look."
Maybe ... anyway, it was a place I'd heard tell of, and a place to start. Meanwhile, I had pondering to do. And it just might be this gent with me could point out some trail sign I'd missed.
Leastways, he knew the town, and I did not.
It came over me that he was probably shaping truth when he declared that black-eyed girl was not to be trusted. But she had been running scared ... of what?
Thinking back, I recalled something Hardy had said that night when I bought the horses from him before crossing the river. When he learned my name was Sackett he advised me not to tell Dorinda.
Why was that? What had my name to do with it?
At a table in Buffum's we ordered beer and sat back to watch. The place was crowded with a mixed lot of Spanish men and frontiersmen, businessmen and farmers.
"I was born here," my friend commented suddenly.
"My name is Roderigo Enriquez. I love this place, but it is changing, changing too much for my people."
As he spoke I saw across the room a man who looked like one of those I had seen that last night in Hardyville. He stood at the bar in conversation with another man whom I could not see because of those between us.
"My people are not thrifty," my companion went on, "and life in California has been too easy. They have not had to think about money, and there has always been enough to eat; so they are not able to compete in business with the Yankees. The lucky families are those into whom Yankees have married, yet even that is not always enough. As in our own case."
About that time I wasn't paying attention the way politeness demands, for I had my eyes on that man across the room. I was feeling the pistol on my hip, and was ready to move to follow him if he started to leave.
"The Yankee who married into my family was a pirate."
"I've heard of him. Joseph Chapman."
"No, this is another man. Se@nor Chapman is a good man, and he is a good citizen. My grandfather, Ben Mandrin, is like him in some respects. Only my grandfather was very much a pirate, and a very hard man ... except to his family."
The man across the room finished his drink and he was not ordering another.
Shifting in my chair, I made ready to rise, but Roderigo seemed not to notice.
"My people lived too easy for too many years, and now that they must compete they lack the capacity.
We will lose much."
"Sit tight. Just hang on."
"No, it is not enough. The drouth we have had for two years now ... it has placed us in debt.
And my grandfather signed a note for a friend, the bank failed, and the note will soon be due. We cannot expect an extension."
Me, I was scarcely listening. My attention was all centered on the man I figured to follow, once he started to leave.
"It was Dorinda Robiseau who got him to sign the note."
That stopped me. All Roderigo had been saying had seemed small talk, had seemed like something far away from me, for I had no California land, nor did I know anybody who had any. Now it suddenly seemed to tie in somehow.
"You mean she done it a-purpose?"
"One cannot always prove what one knows, but I believe there was agreement between the directors of the bank and the man with whom Dorinda Robiseau is working. I believe that she got my grandfather to sign the note for his friend when plans had been made to allow the bank to fail."
It made a kind of sense, what he said. The bank was already in a bad way, due to drouth and the resulting loss of cattle and crops. With the bank in serious trouble, if a man showed up offering a chunk of gold money and a chance to get out from under the crash--whichyou, those bankers would be apt to accept ... if they had larceny in them.
Yes, this made a crooked sort of sense.
All the banker had to do was go to his friend Ben Mandrin and get him to sign a note ... with Dorinda to help.