The Red Sombrero Read Online Free PDF Page B

light, but she habitually stood in such awkward positions because of the self-consciousness induced by a long bout with some kind of spinal affliction that most people, seeing her, took away an impression of gawkiness.
    Her hair was brown, parted in the middle and whipped back above her ears in the prevailing Spanish fashion which made her face seem longer than it actually was. She wasn’t pretty or even mildly handsome but there were depths in her most men had overlooked and, because she was not gifted in the art of aimless chit-chat, none of the local eligibles had ever offered to court her. Left pretty much to her own resources during an unexciting adolescence, she had grown away from people in a world of her own while her father applied his energies to building up the second best ranch in the country — the first, of course, being its adjoining neighbor, Tadpole.
    The Farrel ranch, Broken Spur, had been without a mistress while Linda was growing up. Her mother had died in childbirth which was reason enough, according to some sources, for Linda’s peculiarities. “Growing up in that place with all them men,” Mrs. Burlingate had remarked more than once to her circle, “it’s no wonder the poor thing’s so queer in the head. I’m surprised she don’t wear pants like the rest of them. Probably would if old Tom would of let her.”
    When Linda received the note she reacted about as Lewis Cordray had imagined she would. It was late afternoon and the ranch was deserted except for the cook when she went to the door and found a ragged boy standing there. “Meez Farrel?” he said, hat in hand. And when she nodded he dug it out of a pocket and handed it to her. She had opened it, read it. When she looked up he was back on his horse and riding out of the yard.
    Her first impulse had been to confide in Don Luis. By the time he rode in with the men she’d reconsidered. Lewis Cordray, she was sure, would have advised her to disregard it. She had already, by that time, considered the arguments he would have presented. It might indeed very well be some sort of a hoax — it might even be dangerous to keep such a tryst, but her mind was made up. If there was a chance she might come by the promised information she was of a mind to leave no stone unturned. She and her father had never been particularly close for, in some strange way, he had seemed to regard her as the cause of her mother’s death, but he was still her father and she wanted his killers punished.
    She said not a word to anyone. Pleading a headache she had remained in her room until all the rest were at supper. Very quietly then she had slipped around to the stable and quickly saddled the steeldust gelding Don Luis had given her shortly after she had come here.
    There was an oddness about his way of giving her that horse. “The animal needs riding,” he had told her one morning after the hands had left for the range. “He is a peculiar horse, a pure strain that was gelded by mistake while I was away. There is a great heritage of fine horses behind him; his father is my proudest stallion, his dam was by the stallion Old Billy who traces to the colonial Quarter stock. My men have no time to understand such a horse. His name is Cuadro — he threw one colt before they took his power away. Permit me, Linda, to give him to you.”
    It was the first gift Linda had ever received.
    Perceiving her embarrassment Don Luis had said with great charm, “It is nothing. The horse needs riding. And who, in all this country, knows how to ride better than you?”
    It had not taken Linda long to discover why no one had wanted the horse. He took the saddle with apparent indifference and was docility itself while she walked him around the yard, but out on the range he’d swiftly shed his bland posture and demonstrated his bag of tricks, the worst of which had been a suicidal impulse to fall over backwards. She had let him know she was a fighter, too — as good a one as he was —