The Pride of Palomar Part 50

Four days before Thanksgiving Brother Anthony returned from El Toro with Father Dominic's little automobile purring as it had not purred for many a day, for expert mechanics had given the little car a thorough overhauling and equipped it with new tires and brake lining at the expense of Miguel Farrel. Father Dominic looked the rejuvenated ruin over with prideful eyes and his saintly old face puckered in a smile.

"Brother Anthony," he declared to that mildly crack-brained person, "that little conveyance has been responsible for many a furious exhibition of temper on your part. But G.o.d is good. He will forgive you, and has He not proved it by moving our dear Don Mike to save you from the plague of repairing it for many months to come?"

Brother Anthony, whose sense of humor, had he ever possessed one, had long since been ruined in his battles with Father Dominic's automobile, raised a dour face.

"Speaking of Don Miguel, I am informed that our young Don Miguel has gone to Baja California, there to race Panchito publicly for a purse of ten thousand dollars gold. I would, Father Dominic, that I might see that race."

Father Dominic laid his hand on poor Brother Anthony's shoulder.

"Because you have suffered for righteousness' sake, Brother Anthony, your wish shall be granted. Tomorrow you shall drive Pablo and Carolina and me to Tia Juana in Baja California to see Panchito race on the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day. We will attend ma.s.s in San Diego in the morning and pray for victory for him and his glorious young master."

Big tears stood in Brother Anthony's eyes. At last! At last! Poor Brother Anthony was a human being, albeit his reason tottered on its throne at certain times of the moon. He did love race-horses and horse-races, and for a quarter of a century he had been trying to forget them in the peace and quiet of the garden of the Mission de la Madre Dolorosa.

"Our Don Mike has made this possible?" he quavered. Father Dominic nodded.

"G.o.d will pay him," murmured Brother Anthony, and hastened away to the chapel to remind the Almighty of the debt.

Against the journey to Baja California, Carolina had baked a tremendous pot of brown beans and fried a hundred tortillas. Pablo had added some twenty pounds of jerked meat and chilli peppers, a tarpaulin Don Mike had formerly used when camping, and a roll of bedding; and when Brother Anthony called for them at daylight the following morning, both were up and arrayed in their Sunday clothes and gayest colors. In an empty tobacco sack, worn like an amulet around her fat neck and resting on her bosom, Carolina carried some twenty-eight dollars earned as a laundress to Kay and her mother; while in the pocket of Pablo's new corduroy breeches reposed the two hundred-dollar bills; given him by the altogether inexplicable Senor Parker. Knowing Brother Anthony to be absolutely penniless (for he had taken the vow of poverty) Pablo suffered keenly in the realization that Panchito, the pride of El Palomar, was to run in the greatest horse race known to man, with not a centavo of Brother Anthony's money bet on the result. Pablo knew better than to take Father Dominic into his confidence when the latter joined them at the Mission, but by the time they had reached El Toro, he had solved the riddle. He changed one of his hundred dollar bills, made up a little roll of ten two-dollar bills and slipped it in the pocket of the brown habit where he knew Brother Anthony kept his cigarette papers and tobacco.

At Ventura, when they stopped at a garage to take on oil and gasoline, Brother Anthony showed Pablo the roll of bills, amounting to twenty dollars, and ascribed his possession of them to nothing more nor less than a divine miracle. Pablo agreed with him. He also noticed that for reasons best known to himself, Brother Anthony made no mention of this miracle to his superior, Father Dominic.

At about two o'clock on Thanksgiving Day the pilgrims from the San Gregorio sputtered up to the entrance of the Lower California Jockey Club at Tia Juana, parked, and approached the entrance. They were hesitant, awed by the scenes around them. Father Dominic's rusty brown habit and his shovel hat const.i.tuted a novel sight in these worldly precincts, and the old Fedora hat worn by Brother Anthony was the subject of many a sly nudge and smile. Pablo and Carolina, being typical of the country, pa.s.sed unnoticed.

Father Dominic had approached the gateman and in his gentle old voice had inquired the price of admittance. It was two dollars and fifty cents! Scandalous! He was about to beat the gatekeeper down; surely the management had special rates for prelates--

A hand fell on his shoulder and Don Miguel Jose Maria Federico Noriaga Farrel was gazing down at him with beaming eyes.

"Perhaps, Father Dominic," he suggested in Spanish and employing the old-fas.h.i.+oned courtly tone of the _haciendado_, "you will permit me the great honor of entertaining you." And he dropped a ten-dollar bill in the cash box and ushered the four _San Gregorianos_ through the turn-stile.

"My son, my son," murmured Father Dominic. "What means this unaccustomed dress? One would think you dwelt in the City of Mexico.

You are unshaven--you resemble a loafer in _cantinas_. That _sombrero_ is, perhaps, fit for a bandit like Pancho Villa, but, my son, you are an American gentleman. Your beloved grandfather and your equally beloved father never a.s.sumed the dress of our people--"

"Hus.h.!.+ I'm a wild and woolly Mexican sport for a day, padre. Say nothing and bid the others be silent and make no comment. Come with me to the grandstand, all of you, and look at the races. Panchito will not appear until the fifth race."

Father Dominic bent upon Brother Anthony a glance which had the effect of propelling the brother out of earshot, whereupon the old friar took his young friend by the arm and lifted his seamed, sweet old face toward him with all the _insouciance_ of a child.

"Miguel," he whispered, "I'm in the throes of temptation. I told you of the thousand dollars which the Senora Parker, in a moment of that great-heartedness which distinguishes her (what a triumph, could I but baptize her in our faith!) forced Senor Parker to present to me. I contemplate using it toward the needed repairs to the roof of our Mission. These repairs will cost at least three thousand dollars, and the devil has whispered to me--"

"Say no more about it, but bet the money," said Miguel. "Be a sport, Father Dominic, for the opportunity will never occur again. Before the sun shall set this day, your one thousand will have grown to ten. Even if Panchito should lose, I will guarantee you the return of your money."

Father Dominic trembled. "Ah, my son, I feel like a little old devil,"

he quavered, but--he protested no more. When Don Mike settled him in a seat in the grand-stand, Father Dominic whispered wistfully, "G.o.d will not hold this worldliness against me, Miguel. I feel I am here on His business, for is not Panchito running for a new roof for our beloved Mission? I will pray for victory."

"Now you are demonstrating your sound common sense," Don Mike a.s.sured him. His right hand closed over the roll of bills Father Dominic surrept.i.tiously slipped him. Scarcely had he transferred the Restoration Fund to his trousers' pocket when Brother Anthony nudged him and slipped a tiny roll into Don Miguel's left hand, accompanying the secret transfer with a wink that was almost a sermon.

"What news, Don Miguel?" Pablo ventured presently.

"We will win, Pablo."

"_Valgame dios_! I will wager my fortune on Panchito. Here it is, Don Miguel--one hundred and eighty dollars. I know not the ways of these Gringo races, but if the stakeholder be an honest man and known personally to you, I will be your debtor forever if you will graciously consent to attend to this detail for me."

"With pleasure, Pablo."

Carolina drew her soiled little tobacco bag from her bosom, bit the string in two and handed bag and contents to her master, who nodded and thrust it in his pocket.

Two tiers up and directly in back of Don Miguel and his guests, two men glanced meaningly at each other.

"Did you twig that?" one of them whispered. "That crazy Greaser is a local favorite, wherever he comes from. Those two monks and that _cholo_ and his squaw are giving him every dollar they possess to bet on this quarter horse entered in a long race, and I'll bet five thousand dollars he'll drop it into that machine, little realizing that every dollar he bets on his horse here will depress the odds proportionately."

"It's a shame, Joe, to see all that good money dropping into the maw of those Paris Mutuel sharks. Joe, we ought to be kicked if we allow it."

"Can you speak Spanish?"

"Not a word."

"Well, let's get an interpreter. That Tia Juana policeman yonder will do."

"All right. I'll split the pot with you, old timer."

Directly after the first race a Mexican policeman touched Farrel on the arm. "Your pardon, _senor_," he murmured politely, "but two American gentlemen have asked me to convey to you a message of importance. Will the _senor_ be good enough to step down to the betting ring with me?"

"With the utmost delight," Don Miguel replied in his mother tongue and followed the policeman, who explained as they proceeded toward the betting ring the nature of the message.

"These two gentlemen," he exclaimed, "are book-makers. While book-makers who lay their own odds are not permitted to operate openly and with the approval of the track authorities, there are a number of such operating quietly here. One may trust them implicitly. They always pay their losses--what you call true blue sports. They have much money and it is their business in life to take bets. These two gentlemen are convinced that your horse, Panchito, cannot possibly win this race and they are prepared to offer you odds of ten to one for as much money as the _senor_ cares to bet. They will not move from your side until the race is run and the bet decided. The odds they offer you are greater than you can secure playing your money in the Mutuel."

Don Mike halted in his tracks. "I have heard of such men. I observed the two who talked with you and the _jefe politico_ a.s.sured me yesterday that they are reliable gentlemen. I am prepared to trust them. Why not? Should they attempt to escape with my money when Panchito wins--as win he will--I would quickly stop those fine fellows." He tapped his left side under the arm-pit, and while the policeman was too lazy and indifferent to feel this spot himself, he a.s.sumed that a pistol nestled there.

"I will myself guard your bet," he promised.

They had reached the two book-makers and the policeman promptly communicated to them Don Mike's ultimatum. The pair exchanged glances.

"If we don't take this lunatic's money," one of them suggested presently, "some other brave man will. I'm game."

"It's a shame to take it, but--business is business," his companion laughed. Then to the policeman: "How much is our high-toned Mexican friend betting and what odds does he expect?"

The policeman put the question. The high-toned Mexican gentleman bowed elaborately and shrugged deprecatingly. Such a little bet! Truly, he was ashamed, but the market for steers down south had been none too good lately, and as for hides, one could not give them away. The American gentlemen would think him a very poor gambler, indeed, but twelve hundred and twenty-eight dollars was his limit, at odds of ten to one. If they did not care to trifle with such a paltry bet, he could not blame them, but--

"Holy Mackerel. Ten to one. Joe, this is like shooting fish on a hillside. I'll take half of it."

"I'll take what's left."

They used their cards to register the bet and handed the memorandum to Don Mike, who showed his magnificent white teeth in his most engaging smile, bowed, and insisted upon shaking hands with them both, after which the quartet sauntered back to the grand-stand and sat down among the old shepherd and his flock.

As the bugle called out the horses for the handicap, Father Dominic ceased praying and craned forward. There were ten horses in the race, and the old priest's faded eyes popped with wonder and delight as the sleek, beautiful thoroughbreds pranced out of the paddock and pa.s.sed in single file in front of the grand-stand. The fifth horse in the parade was Panchito--and somebody had cleaned him up, for his satiny skin glowed in the semi-tropical sun. All the other horses in the race had ribbons interlaced in their manes and tails, but Panchito was barren of adornment.

"Well, Don Quixote has had him groomed and they've combed the cactus burrs out of his mane and tail, at any rate. He'd be a beautiful animal if he was dolled up like the others," the book-maker, Joe, declared.

"Got racing plates on to-day, and that cholo kid sits him like he intended to ride him," his companion added. "Joe, I have a suspicion that nag is a ringer. _He looks like a champion_."