Free Crossroads by Max Brand

figures stealing through some far distant night upon a trail visible to their eyes alone. He saw them slip through the blackness toward the red eye of a camp fire. He saw the bulk of Dix Van Dyck, Herculean among the shadows thrown by the fire. He saw one of those stealthy prowlers of the night creep behind, crouch, saw the spring, the flash of the knife driven home, the leap and outflung arms of the white man, his fall, face down, among the red embers of the fire. Oñate shivered again, but he grinned as he leaned toward El Tigre.
    “The man is Dix Van Dyck, big man on a great horse. A great warrior. El Tigre will win much honor by that killing, and he will take a mighty load from the heart of his father. Moreover, there is a price on the head of the man, and El Tigre may hunt him as freely as he would hunt a coyote with traps or with guns. He was last seen at Double Bend.”
    “The heart of his father is the heart of El Tigre,” responded the Indian, and without further speech he vanished.

12
Dolores
    T he Anglo-American, when his heart is full, seeks action; the Mexican-American, when his heart is full, seeks words; the Indian, when his heart is full, seeks silence. So it happened that the next morning Señor Oñate, on his inevitable verandah, was ill at ease. He was happy, to be sure, and wore an automatic smile, but his thoughts were running to the north on the heels of El Tigre and his five companion bloodhounds.
    These things being known, it is not difficult to imagine why Señor Oñate watched with interest the tall form of Dolores, daughter of El Tigre. She came from the squat door of the adobe hut, where the Yaquis dwelt, and moved onto a little hillock nearby. There she took her stand and screened her eyes against the glare of the sun while she looked north into the shadows of the hills. The wind fluttered the loose end of her crimson rebozo , and blew the dress about her, clinging at every curve. She was very tall, very slender, very erect. As she came down the hill again toward the hut, walking with the easy, swinging grace of youth, Señor Oñate felt a very great need of words. His heart, indeed, was filled to overflowing, for the gringo should know, before many days, what comes to those who cross the path of Señor Don Porfirio Maria Oñate.
    He called: “Dolores!”
    She swerved in the midst of a stride and stood stiff andstraight, looking toward him, as if she could not understand that he had called. He had never summoned her before, but now she was the only creature in the world who could entirely understand and sympathize with him. Her father had taken the war path, and he had taken it at the command of the sheriff.
    Señor Oñate felt a sudden kinship with the girl. He forgot, for the instant, that she was a Yaqui. So he called again: “Dolores, come hither!”
    She came with the same buoyantly graceful stride, like a young man, and her small feet paused beyond the verandah at a respectful distance. She stood much as her father stood in the presence of the great sheriff. In place of removing a hat that she did not wear, she took off the rebozo that partially veiled her face. It was the ultimate tribute of respect. It was like the act of a child who will hide nothing from the eye of its father. The heart of Señor Oñate was touched.
    It was his habit to carry about with him pockets full of trinkets. For a little gift here and there, given with a good grace, is more to the childish heart than a rich bribe. He fumbled now automatically in one of his loose coat pockets and brought out a slender necklace of coral—a flimsy trinket but very bright in the morning sun. He held it high so that the light could catch at it and run flashing from bead to bead. The face of Dolores, daughter of El Tigre, lighted a single instant with desire, and then the light went out. Her eyes had grown luminous and darkened again like the flashing of a red torch over a black pool—a glimmer, and then a more profound