Mystery in Arizona (13 page)

Trixie left them then and hurried back to her room. Honey, Brian, and Jim were there waiting for her.

“Oh, don’t scold her,” Honey began, but Brian interrupted sternly.

“Your theme consists of one short sentence in which two words are misspelled.”

“You got the wrong answers,” Jim added, “to every one of your problems. Your mistakes were in simple addition and subtraction which certainly proves that you weren’t exactly concentrating.”

Trixie felt cold in her damp bathing suit but her cheeks were burning hot. “I did so concentrate,” she said stormily.

Brian raised his dark eyebrows. “In the pool?”

“Oh, leave her alone,” Honey cried out. “Can’t you see she’s shivering? After she gets dressed I’ll show her the mistakes she made in her math and then she can work on her theme until it’s time for us to leave for town.”

“Okay.” The boys left and Trixie quickly brought Honey up to date on events.

“You’ve got to do something about Mrs. Sherman,”
she finished. “Don’t bother about those silly old problems. I’ll find my own mistakes. But for Uncle Monty’s sake we can’t let Mrs. Sherman leave. You’re the tactful one of the gang. Go and talk her into staying.”

Honey shook her head. “She doesn’t like me. You heard her say that I made her feel uncomfortable. When I was tidying her room this morning I was pretty sure that she knew I was trying hard not to laugh at her. But I couldn’t help it, Trixie. She’s so silly. Why don’t we just let her go? Nobody likes her.”

“Well, go and talk to Di about it anyway. Maybe she’s got some ideas.” Trixie sighed and sat down at the small desk. She longed to tell Honey that she suspected that the cowboy, Tenny, was a phony and why. But there wasn’t time for that now. If she wanted to go to the festival that evening she had better buckle down and work—and forget everything else.

Trixie finished correcting her problems and was on the second page of her theme when Maria tapped on the door and came in. “Fresh blouses for tomorrow,” she said, and hung them in the closet. “Fortunately, my sisters-in-law washed and ironed everything like that before they left.”

“Why
did
they leave, Maria?” Trixie blurted. “They were happy here, weren’t they?”

“Oh, very happy,” she replied. “So much so that they did not want to go. But they had to go.”

Trixie frowned. “I don’t understand why they didn’t give Mr. Wilson notice ahead of time so he could have hired someone else to take their place.”

Maria thought for a minute. “This much I guess I can tell you. They did not plan to go until the last minute and then they were afraid. One year they did not go and that was the year in which my husband died.”

“Oh.” Trixie stared at her in surprise. “But you’re not afraid?”

“I am not an Orlando,” Maria replied, “except by marriage.”

“But Petey is an Orlando,” Trixie pointed out.

“It is true,” Maria said after a moment of silence. “And it is also true that I am afraid. But I am more afraid of losing my job. Here I have such a nice home for Petey. The
patrón
has arranged it so that he is driven to and from school every day. He is allowed to wade in the pool and to ride on a pony. And as for me, the work is pleasant and the pay is good. I have only a few small expenses, so some day my savings will amount to a great deal—enough so that Petey can go to college.”

She started for the door and added softly, as though she were thinking out loud, “But still I am afraid—very afraid. If something happened to Petey I would never forgive myself.” She was gone before Trixie could say anything.

Honey and Di came in then through the adjoining bath. They had been swimming and chattered their teeth at Trixie. “It sure gets cold suddenly out here,” said Di. “Me for a hot shower.”

Honey quickly changed into a sweater and skirt. “We’ll be leaving in half an hour,” she told Trixie. “Our group is going in the station wagon. Tenny is going to drive.”

“Do you like him?” Trixie asked suddenly. “I mean you got to know him pretty well while you were riding this afternoon, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Honey said enthusiastically. “He’s simply darling. The foreman is an old crosspatch. Wouldn’t even speak to us girls, but he never goes along on the rides so who cares about him? Tenny is the boss of the dudes and he’s so patient about answering questions and all.”

“But he’s not an honest-to-goodness cowboy,” Trixie said.

Honey was scrabbling through her bureau drawer trying to find the wool socks which matched her blue sweater. “I know I packed them,” she said. “At least, Miss Trask did. I saw her—” and then she interrupted herself. “What did you say?”

“Tenny is a phony,” Trixie said briefly.

“You’ve lost your mind. Ah, here they are.” Honey sat down on the lower bunk and began to pull on her socks.

“You’ve simply got to stop suspecting people all the livelong time, Trix,” she said. “And if you’re going to have any fun out here, you’d better forget about mysteries. I mean it. Jim and Brian were furious when you did such poor work today. They’re not going to let you
get by with that kind of thing. You know it.”

Trixie had been feeling very forlorn because it seemed to her that she had been glued to that desk most of the day. And now her best friend was scolding her. It was too much. Her round blue eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, I wish we’d never left home,” she sobbed. “I hate it here. All I do is work like a slave and then when I take a dip in the pool you all treat me as though I’d committed a crime.” She folded her arms on top of her papers and buried her face in them. “If I were home now I’d be having fun.”

“You’d still be going to school every day until Friday,” Honey reminded her. “And you’d have a lot of homework to do every day, also chores. You could have a lot of fun here if you’d just stop wasting so much time on so-called mysteries.” Then she relented and gave Trixie a quick hug. “All right, I give up. Tell me why you suspect Tenny.”

Trixie raised her head. “Because I heard him talking to Rosita out on the patio when I guess he didn’t think anyone could hear them. He didn’t talk at all like a cowboy.” She repeated as much as she could remember of the conversation.

“Why, that
is
mysterious,” Honey admitted. “I mean the Rosita part of it. Somebody hurt his hand in an
accident and she feels responsible. Who? Do you suppose it was an automobile accident and she was driving?”

“I have no idea,” Trixie said. “But she’s in an awful scrape and in disgrace with her family, too. When she said she couldn’t go back she must have meant she couldn’t go back to her hogan. Whatever happened was so awful that they probably expelled her from school. Maybe she
was
driving a car and hasn’t got a license.”

“But I don’t think she stole that hundred dollars,” Honey said staunchly. “Maybe Uncle Monty loaned it to her.”

Trixie shook her head. “In that case she would have to pay it back. From the way she talked I could tell that she has to earn only four hundred dollars more.”

Di came in then wearing a pretty wool suit which matched her violet eyes. “I forgot to tell you, Trix, that Mrs. Sherman isn’t leaving until tomorrow after lunch. She couldn’t get a plane reservation until then. She and Uncle Monty are going to have supper together in his suite, so maybe he can persuade her not to leave after all. Anyway, we’d better go. The others must be waiting for us in the station wagon.”

Trixie and Honey slipped on the jackets which matched their skirts and they all hurried out to the driveway. Mr. Wellington and Jane Brown were sharing the front seat with Tenny who was behind the wheel.
The boys were waiting impatiently in the back seat, and the girls quickly climbed in to occupy the middle seat.

Tenny released the brake and stepped on the gas. “We got a heap of travelin’ to do,” he said, “if we’re goin’ to have time to tie on a real good feed bag before that there
fiesta
gets started.”

“Where are we going to have dinner?” Jane Brown asked. “I forgot to ask Uncle Monty when he was explaining my new job to me.”

Trixie thought with satisfaction,
So, it’s “Uncle Monty” already
. Jane was wearing a very becoming suit and a perky little hat and she looked almost pretty.

“At a right swanky chuck wagon,” Tenny answered her question. “The dining-room of the Pioneer Hotel.”

“That
is
a swanky place,” Honey put in. “Delicious food, too. I can’t imagine why Mrs. Sherman preferred to eat a cold supper at the ranch. Do you suppose she did it just to be mean? To make Rosita stay and serve the food?”

“Mrs. Sherman mean?” Tenny demanded. “Why, what’re you-all talkin’ about? Her heart’s as big as a saddle blanket.”

“You’re crazy,” Trixie said tartly. “She’s just about the most disagreeable person I ever met.”

Tenny laughed. “Only trouble with her is that she got more than her share when humans was given the
power of speech. When she gets goin’ you couldn’t check her with a choke rope and a snubbin’ post. But she don’t mean half o’ what she says.”

“How did you get to know her so well?” Trixie asked suspiciously. “She didn’t arrive until Saturday and I gather that she doesn’t like to ride.”

“She’s a great one for askin’ questions, too,” he went on, just as though Trixie hadn’t said anything. “Jist this mornin’ she wanted to know why I always wear a bandanna. I told her a cowboy could hardly get along without his bandanna.

“When we’re on the range and wash at a water hole it comes in handy as a towel. If the drinkin’ water is muddy it gits strained through a bandanna. Makes a mighty good blindfold if the bronc you’re ridin’ has to be blindfolded afore you can put a bridle on him. Serves as a piggin’ string if you come across a calf and don’t happen to have a piggin’ string along with you at the time.”

“A what?” Di asked.

“A short piece of rope,” he explained. “Many a calf has had its legs tied together with a bandanna.”

“But mostly,” Mart put in, “it’s used to protect you from the sun, isn’t it, Tenny? Keeps the back of the neck from getting burned and if you’re riding into the sun you wear it as a mask to protect the lower part of your face.”

“Serves as a respirator, too,” Jim added, “when the cattle you’re working kick up a cloud of dust. Right, Tenny?”

“Right,” the cowboy said. “Guess you all know that if a cowpoke gets hurt his bandanna can be used as a sling or a tourniquet. But mebbe you didn’t know that in olden times it was used as a sort of signal flag. If a stranger was approachin’ you from the distance and you wanted to tell him to scram, you’d wave your bandanna from left to right in a semicircle. And when a cowboy is workin’ in a gale what do you suppose he uses to keep his hat from blowin’ off? And when it’s hot enough to fry an egg on the desert he wears his bandanna under his hat to help keep his head cool.”

“My goodness!” Jane Brown exclaimed. “I always thought you wore those kerchiefs as sort of decorations. I mean, instead of a necktie. And those things you wear on your legs—chaps—they’re just for fun, aren’t they?”

“I should say not!” Tenny exploded. “They keep our legs from gettin’ scratched by thorny brush and barbed-wire fences. And our cuffs perteck our wrists from sprains and rope burns. You can get a real bad burn from a rope; that’s why we always wear gloves. And our high-heeled boots—there’s nothin’ sissy about ’em. They keep our feet from slippin’ through the stirrups. If you get throwed and the hoss runs away, you’re pretty likely
to get kilt if a foot is caught in the stirrup. Also, when we’re ropin’ a hoss or a steer on foot, we can dig right into the ground with them high heels.”

They were on the main highway now, speeding toward the center of Tucson. “Here’s somethin’ you may not know,” Tenny continued. “A cowboy never lassoes a critter; he ropes it.”

They all began to ask him questions then, but Trixie sat silently, listening attentively. Could this be the same man who had talked to Rosita without a trace of cowboy lingo?

It wasn’t possible. There must be another cowboy at the ranch
, Trixie decided,
who looks enough like Tenny to be his twin
.

But later that evening as they were leaving the school after the ceremony, Tenny stopped at the entrance to speak to one of the teachers. Trixie had been so absorbed by the colorful religious pageant that she lagged dreamily behind the others. Then all of a sudden she became very wide-awake as she heard Tenny say, “It’s working out splendidly, thank you.”

“Good,” the other man replied. “In another year we’ll be calling you
Dr
. Stetson.”

Now there could be no doubt about it. Tenny was masquerading as a cowboy. But why?

Trixie decided to keep her suspicions of Tenny to herself. Nobody, not even Honey, would believe her, and the boys would either make fun of her, saying she was imagining voices, or scold her for not minding her own business.

As they dressed the next morning Honey said, “I wouldn’t have missed
La Posada
for anything. Didn’t those little Mexican children look darling dressed up as Mary and Joseph and the pilgrims in the procession? And while they were chanting the ancient litany I got a great big lump in my throat. ‘Open the door,’ ” she quoted, “ ‘that the Queen of Heaven may enter.’ ”