The Vanquished Read Free Page B

men’s bored droning voices rolled out past him. With several unconnected thoughts idling through his mind, he tarried briefly where he was, then turned with a half-brisk snap of his young-wide shoulders and pushed into the place.
    He found Norval Douglas sitting behind a table, with a solitaire game laid out half-finished in front of him, and a mug half full of beer idle by his forearm. Douglas’s yellow eyes lifted and acknowledged Charley’s presence, and Douglas said, “You want the job?”
    â€œI don’t know.”

CHAPTER 2
    Henry Crabb’s eyes were deep and dark and brooding, set back in hollow sockets. His beard was dark brown and he had a habit of stroking it with his left hand when he was in thought. He sat in the deep-red overstuffing of the chair and looked across the plush parlor through the bay window, out across Market Street at the hazed-over waters of San Francisco Bay. Wind rustled the branches of a maple tree outside the window; it was mild for a winter’s day. Across the room, seated stiffly in a cane-bottom chair, was the Spaniard, Hilario Gabilondo. Gabilondo was awaiting Crabb’s reply, and held his neck rigid while he tried unsuccessfully to contain his impatience. Farther back in the poor light, Filomena sat quietly with her hands folded, and, looking once at his wife there on the divan, Crabb softened his expression just a little. She smiled wistfully. Beside her, her brother Sus watched from under heavy brows. Sus sat with one lanky leg thrown irreverently over the arm of his chair; when he noticed Crabb’s glance on him, his teeth flashed out of his dark face in a friendly, easy-going smile.
    Crabb returned his glance to the window and considered the mists over the waterfront. He could barely make out the island. His eyes settled on that faint blue-gray outline; his hand tugged at his beard. He was thinking not so much of Pesquiera’s offer, to which Gabilondo, having delivered it, now expected a reply; Crabb was thinking more of little faraway things, like the croaking of bullfrogs in the dark bayous and the smell of honeysuckle on a porch in Nashville. But Nashville, and the Baton Rouge bayous were half a continent and many years away, and just now he should not be drifting toward those things, and so he dragged his mind away from these little pleasantries and hauled in the anchor of his attention, allowing it to drag back to the mustached, sun-brown face of Hilario Gabilondo.
    â€œSeñor,” Crabb began, and in the corner of his eye caught his wife’s slight quizzical smile—Crabb spoke very little Spanish, and she liked to chide him for it—“Señor, let me understand you properly, in simpler terms than I find in this flowery document.” The document was in Spanish, and he was not confident of his reading of it. Gabilondo smiled courteously and leaned forward a little in the cane-bottom chair. He seemed perched on the edge of it in a subservient yet mocking manner. Crabb dipped his head and looked inquiringly at the Spaniard from under his heavy, lowered eyebrows.
    â€œHas Señor Ainsa read the agreement?”
    â€œI’ll read it now,” Sus said, lazily uncoiling and getting out of the chair. He came forward with his indolent long-legged stride, all his joints loose, and took the paper scroll from Crabb. Then Sus stood by the back of Crabb’s chair, his hand on it near Crabb’s head, while he read. Meanwhile, Gabilondo was talking in his smoothly accented and half musical voice:
    â€œThe agreement provides that in return for the arms and supplies that you propose to supply us with, you will receive the right to establish a colony of six hundred families in Sonora. Of course this will not be until we have secured office. It further provides that you are free to choose your own site for colonization, and that if your site is privately owned, our government will pay the purchase price on behalf of