That Was All Very Well, I Replied, But How
Could Any One Who Was Not A Poltroon Endure To Be Publicly Insulted
And Challenged Without Flying Into A Rage And Going For His Enemy?
He smiled and answered that I was an ignorant boy and would understand
these things better some day, after
Knowing a good many fighters.
There were some, he said, who were men of fiery temper, who would fly
at and kill any one for the slightest cause - an idle or imprudent word
perhaps. There were others of a cool temper whose ambition it was to
be great fighters, who fought and killed people not because they hated
or were in a rage with them, but for the sake of the fame it would
give them. Barboza was one of this cool kind, who when he fought
killed, and he was not to be drawn into a fight by any ordinary person
or any fool who thought proper to challenge him.
Thus spoke my mentor and did not wholly remove my doubts. But I must
now go back to the earlier date, when this strange family were newly
come to our neighbourhood.
All of the family appeared proud of their strangeness and of the
reputation of their fighting brother, their protector and chief. No
doubt he was an unspeakable ruffian, and although I was accustomed to
ruffians even as a child and did not find that they differed much from
other men, this one with his fierce piercing eyes and cloud of black
beard and hair, somehow made me uncomfortable, and I accordingly
avoided Los Alamos. I disliked the whole tribe, except a little girl
of about eight, a child, it was said, of one of the unmarried sisters.
I never discovered which of her aunts, as she called all these tall,
white-faced heavy-browed women, was her mother. I used to see her
almost every day, for though a child she was out on horseback early
and late, riding barebacked and boy fashion, flying about the plain,
now to drive in the horses, now to turn back the flock when it was
getting too far afield, then the cattle, and finally to ride on
errands to neighbours' houses or to buy groceries at the store. I can
see her now at full gallop on the plain, bare-footed and bare-legged,
in her thin old cotton frock, her raven-black hair flying loose
behind. The strangest thing in her was her whiteness: her beautifully
chiselled face was like alabaster, without a freckle or trace of
colour in spite of the burning hot sun and wind she was constantly
exposed to. She was also extremely lean, and strangely serious for a
little girl: she never laughed and rarely smiled. Her name was Angela,
and she was called Anjelita, the affectionate diminutive, but I doubt
that much affection was ever bestowed on her.
To my small-boy's eyes she was a beautiful being with a cloud on her,
and I wished it had been in my power to say something to make her
laugh and forget, though but for a minute, the many cares and
anxieties which made her so unnaturally grave for a little girl.
Nothing proper to say ever came to me, and if it had come it would no
doubt have remained unspoken.
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