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We're due at Juan Armigo's ranchito about sundown." So far as he was concerned, that was all there was to it for the time being. He had wounded and captured José Vaca, notorious in Sonora as leader in outlawry. That there were no others of Vaca's kind with him puzzled Waring. The young Ramon, Vaca's nephew, did not count. Ramon helped his uncle to mount.
Anyway, their report of golden cities and vast, undiscovered land pricked New Spain into launching Coronado's expedition of 1540. Preceding the formal military advance of Coronado, the Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza and two lay brothers guided by Cabeza de Vaca's negro Estevan, set out with the cross in their hands to prepare the way. Fray Marcos advanced from the Gulf of California eastward.
See what you can do for Vaca. He's pretty sick." "It shall be as the señor says. And the señor has made a fight?" "With those hombres? Not this journey! José Vaca made a mistake; that's all." Armigo, perturbed, shuffled to the house. Waring unsaddled the horses and turned them into the corral. As he lifted the saddle from Vaca's horse, he hesitated.
His chest, he thought, must burst under the strapped plastron, and sweat poured in a sheet across his eyes. The episode seemed utterly meaningless, undemanded; the more remarkable because of de Vaca's indifference to him, to all the trivialities of his Cuban duty. How yellow the face was, the eyes were like jet, through the mask.
For an hour or more he walked about, listening casually to this or that bit of conversation. Occasionally he heard Mexicans discussing the Ortez robbery. Donovan's name, Waring's own name, Vaca's, and even Ramon's were mentioned. It seemed strange to him that news should breed so fast. Few knew that he had returned.
Waring smiled with dry lips. The Mexican had stood the journey well. A white man in Vaca's condition would have gone to pieces hours ago. He called to Ramon, who gave Vaca water. The Mexican drank greedily, and threw the empty canteen into the bushes. Waring listened for some hint, some crazy boast as to the whereabouts of the stolen money.
Howard went to bed that night wondering what it was that impelled the gambler to this hurried travelling across the land. Was it something that lured and beckoned? Was it something that drove and harassed? His last thoughts were of the tracks he had seen by a dead calf and of the tale Sandy Weaver had told. Early the next morning he rode out to French Valley for a look at Tony Vaca's calves.
He should be accompanied by Stephen, the negro, who was one of De Vaca's companions; and thus he would be accurately guided to the places that had been described. The man chosen for this important reconnaissance was a devoted Franciscan, Fray Marcos, to whom I have devoted the next chapter of this book.
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