El Lazo - the lasso: A Clint Ryan Western by L. J. Martin

Author:L. J. Martin [Martin, L. J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2013-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

Cha avoided the remnants of two Chumash villages as he and his band climbed higher and higher into the dry lee side of the coastal mountains. He did not fear them, for the Yokuts could have crushed them easily, but he wanted no chance of runners going ahead and betraying his coming, A party of a hundred armed Ton Tache Yokuts riders would attract great attention and excitement,

As a condor circled effortlessly high above, Cha reined up under a huge digger pine and took a deep breath of cool sea air. In the far distance, still two days’ ride through the rugged mountains, he could see the ocean for the first time since they had left the Ton Tache. With his men reining up beside him, he dismounted among the melon-sized digger cones that lay scattered in profusion. He took a long draw from his drinking gourd, then filled his palm and wet his mustang’s mouth. They had been most of the day without water, but he knew that on the coastal side they would find more and more as they worked their way lower and lower.

Sahmanot, Cha’s Winatun, or subchief, nudged his horse near Cha and dismounted to gaze into the sunset. “Sup has painted well tonight,” he commented as the sky changed from lemon to orange and the streaks of clouds lit with fire. “Do we ride to the small place of the leatherchests and settle for a few horses, or to the place of thousands?” Sahma asked.

“We have fared our journey well, Sahma. We are strong. I will watch the sun find his sleeping place and look for a sign.”

Now it was time for Cha to make a decision. If he headed into the sun, he would come upon the valley the Spanish called Santa Ines; if he continued with the setting sun to his right, he would come to Santa Barbara. He moved to a gold, green, and blue lichen-covered rock and sat. Santa Barbara would mean more horses but also more leatherchests.

The falling sun, drenched the distant clouds in a darkening array of colors, and still, Cha pondered quietly. By the time the sea had swallowed Father Sun in a leisurely gulp and the sky above gloried in the capture with a display that dulled the lichens, he had made up his mind.

The men had dismounted, removed their carved wooden saddles with their scant supplies and sleeping robes tied on the back, and turned out the horses. Some of the more industrious of the braves began to make a huge pile of digger pinecones, leaning dry branches against the pile to roast out the nuts, but Cha stopped them. It would not do to have a noticeable fire this close to the coast. They settled for acorn-mash cakes and the dried meat or fish that each of them carried then rolled in their sleeping robes and awaited the dawn.

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