Free Young Zorro by Diego Vega Page B

increase, too. Every unmarked calf the de la Vega vaqueros rounded up would become de la Vega cattle as soon as the branding iron marked them. This was the law of the range.
    The herd was backed against the Santa Monica hills. It was time to brand this year’s calves. Instead of the great dust cloud of moving cattle over the plain, there were individual plumes of smoke rising from dozens of small, hot fires where the iron brands had been heating in the coals since first light.
    But the field judge had to signal for the start. Scar was impatient but reluctant to question the juez de campo’s authority. “Sergeant Figueroa is still damp from soaking in a bowl of wine last night. We’ve got to persuade him that he’s alive enough to get things rolling. Diego, take him a big mug of coffee.”
    Diego and Bernardo could see Sergeant Figueroa sitting against a tree, asleep. The vaqueros had long since finished their porridge and coffee, and the camp cook was clattering around in his wagon, starting things for the midday meal. Diego picked up a mug and was about to fill it with thick, sweet, vaquero coffee when Bernardo headed over to the cook’s camp box and picked up a pot. Diego stepped quietly toward Bernardo. The pot contained tiny chili peppers, dried almost black, hotter than the Devil’s pillow. Diego shook several into the mug and crushed them with a wooden spoon, then poured in the coffee.
    The sergeant was snoring. Diego put the coffee beside him and backed away. “Sergeant Figueroa!” he called. The fat soldier jerked awake and looked around, disappointed he was not back in the garrison kitchen, where he usually slept in the morning.
    â€œShall I fetch you a cup of coffee?” Diego asked. “The one you have there may be cold by now.”
    Figueroa felt the mug. “No, young de la Vega. No, it’s just right for drinking now. I was waiting for it to cool a bit, you see.”
    Diego nodded and walked back toward the horses with Bernardo. When they had gone a dozen paces, they heard a bullish bellow behind them. “Whoo! Whoo!” The sergeant leaped up, threw the coffee mug into the fire, then began to dance around the tree. “Whoo! Whoo!” He was very lively for a fat man. He took off his hat, waving it to fan his mouth. “Whoo! I’m dying! Bring water!” He was waving both arms as he danced around the tree.
    Diego called to Scar, “The juez de campo is signaling us to begin, Jefe.” But by then every vaquero within three hundred paces had seen the signal and mounted up. Their tough ponies were moving toward the herd, reatas whistling above them.
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    Back and forth. A hundred times, it seemed, each boy rode into the herd. His leather reata curled out and, when he was lucky, snared a calf. He dallied turns on the saddle horn and backed out, dragging the new member of the de la Vega herd toward the fire. The calf balked and bawled, jerked at the reata, and planted its short legs, but it was no match for the pony. By the fire,one vaquero seized the calf by its tail and back leg, another by the head and front leg, and toppled it. One would sit on its head while the other grabbed a rag-wrapped iron from the coals and pressed it into the calf’s flank. For a moment it sizzled and smoked, and then the branded cow was released. They shooed it away from the herd toward the open plain. A few minutes later, it was grazing as though the morning had been uneventful.
    The boys roped and they branded. There was no comparison. As hard as the riding and roping was, the calf wrangling was harder. Some of these brutes had grown to the size of a dinner table, and not one of them was cooperative. Toppling a frisky cow was work, and the smell of burning hair was awful.
    They were sweating by the fire as Juan Three-fingers dragged an especially large calf toward them. Bernardo looked toward the mission with a wistful expression.
    â€œYou’re