The Blood of the Conquerors

by Harvey Fergusson

  CHAPTER X

  His conquest was far from giving him peace. Her kiss had transformed hishigh vague yearning into hot relentless desire. He wanted her. That becamethe one clear thing in life to him. Reflections and doubts were alien tohis young and primitive spirit. He did not try to look far into thefuture. He only knew that to have her would be delight almost unimaginableand to lose her would be to lose everything.

  His attitude toward her changed. He claimed her more and more at dances.She did not want to dance with him so much because "people would talk,"but his will was harder than hers and to a great extent he had his way. Henow called on her regularly too. He knew that she had fought hard for himagainst her family, and had won the privilege for him of calling "not toooften."

  "I've lied for you frightfully," she confessed. "I told them I didn'treally care for you in the least, but I want to see you because you cantell such wonderful things about the country. So talk about the countrywhenever they're listening. And don't look at me the way you do.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

  Mother and brother were alert and suspicious despite her assurance, andmanoeuvred with cool skill to keep the pair from being alone. Only rarelydid he get the chance to kiss her--once when her brother, who was standingguard over the family treasure, was seized with a fit of coughing and hadto leave the room, and again when her mother was called to the telephone.At such times she shrank away from him at first as though frightened bythe intensity of the emotion she had created, but she never resisted. Tohim these brief and stolen embraces were almost intolerably sweet, likeinsufficient sips of water to a man burned up with thirst.

  She puzzled him as much as ever. When he was with her he felt as sure ofher love as of his own existence. And yet she often sought to elude him.When he called up for engagements she objected and put him off. And shesurrounded herself with other men as much as ever, and flirted gracefullywith all of them, so that he was always feeling the sharp physical pangsof jealousy. Sometimes he felt egotistically sure that she was merelytrying by these devices to provoke his desire the more, but at other timeshe thought her voice over the phone sounded doubtful and afraid, and hebecame wildly eager to get to her and make sure of her again.

  Just as her kiss had crystallized his feeling for her into driving desire,so it had focussed and intensified his discontent. Before he had been moreor less resigned to wait for his fortune and the power he meant to make ofit; now it seemed to him that unless he could achieve these things atonce, they would never mean anything to him. For money was the one thingthat would give him even a chance to win her. It was obviously useless toask her to marry him poor. He would have nothing to bring against thecertain opposition of her family. He could not run away with her. Andindeed he was altogether too poor to support a wife if he had one, leastof all a wife who had been carefully groomed and trained to capture afortune.

  There was only one way. If he could go to her strong and rich, he feltsure that he could persuade her to go away with him, for he knew that shebelonged to him when he was with her. He pictured himself going to her ina great motor car. Such a car had always been in his imagination thesymbol of material strength. He felt sure he could destroy her doubts andhesitations. He would carry her away and she would be all and irrevocablyhis before any one could interfere or object.

  This dream filled and tortured his imagination. Its realization would meannot only fulfilment of his desire, but also revenge upon the Roths for thehumiliations they had made him feel. It pushed everything else out of hismind--all consideration of other and possibly more feasible methods ofpushing his suit. He came of a race of men who had dared and dominated,who had loved and fought, but had never learned how to work or to endure.

  When he gave himself up to his dream he was almost elated, but when hecame to contemplate his actual circumstances, he fell into depths ofdiscouragement and melancholy. His uncle stood like a rock between him andhis desire. He thought of trying to borrow a few thousand dollars from oldDiego, and of leaving the future to luck, but he was too intelligent longto entertain such a scheme. The Don would likely have provided him withthe money, and he would have done it by hypothecating more of the Delcasarlands to MacDougall. Then Ramon would have had to borrow more, and so on,until the lands upon which all his hopes and dreams were based had passedforever out of his reach.

  The thing seemed hopeless, for Don Diego might well live for many years.And yet Ramon did not give up hope. He was worried, desperate and bitter,but not beaten. He had still that illogical faith in his own destiny whichis the gift that makes men of action.

  At this time he heard particularly disquieting things about his uncle. DonDiego was reputed to be spending unusually large sums of money. As hegenerally had not much ready cash, this must mean either that he had soldland or that he had borrowed from MacDougall, in which case the land haddoubtless been given as security. Once it was converted into cash in thehands of Diego, Ramon knew that his prospective fortune would swiftlyvanish. He determined to watch the old man closely.

  He learned that Don Diego was playing poker every night in the back roomof the White Camel pool hall. Gambling was supposed to be prohibited inthe town, but this sanctum was regularly the scene for a game, which hadthe reputation of causing more money to change hands than any other in thesouthwest. Ramon hung about the White Camel evening after evening, tryingto learn how much his uncle was losing. He would have liked to go andstand behind his chair and watch the game, but both etiquette and prideprevented him doing this. On two nights his uncle came out surrounded by alaughing crowd, a little bit tipsy, and was hurried into a cab. Ramon hadno chance to speak either to him or to any one else who had been in thegame. But the third night he came out alone, heavy with liquor, talking tohimself. The other players had already gone out, laughing. The place wasnearly deserted. The Don suddenly caught sight of Ramon and came to him,laying heavy hands on his shoulders, looking at him with bleary,tear-filled eyes.

  "My boy, my nephew," he exclaimed in Spanish, his voice shaking with boozyemotion, "I am glad you are here. Come I must talk to you." And steadiedby Ramon he led the way to a bench in a corner. Here his manner suddenlychanged. He threw back his head haughtily and slapped his knee.

  "I have lost five hundred dollars tonight," he announced proudly. "What doI care? I am a rich man. I have lost a thousand dollars in the last threenights. That is nothing. I am rich."

  He thumped his chest, looking around defiantly. Then he leaned forward ina confidential manner and lowered his voice.

  "But these gringos--they have gone away and left me. You saw them?_Cabrones!_ They have got my money. That is all they want. My boy, allgringos are alike. They want nothing but money. They can hear the rattleof a _peso_ as far as a _burro_ can smell a bear. They are mean, stingy!Ah, my boy! It is not now as it was in the old days. Then money countedfor nothing! Then a man could throw away his last dollar and there werealways friends to give him more. But now your dollars are your only truefriends, and when you have lost them, you are alone indeed. Ah, my boy!The old days were the best!" The old Don bent his head over his hands andwept.

  Ramon looked at him with a mighty disgust and with a resentment thatfilled his throat and made his head hot. He had never before realized howmuch broken by age and drink his uncle was. Before, he had suspected andfeared that Don Diego was wasting his property; now he knew it.

  The Don presently looked up again with tear-filled eyes, and went ontalking, holding Ramon by the lapel of the coat in a heavy tremulous grip.He talked for almost an hour, his senile mind wandering aimlessly throughthe scenes of his long and picturesque career. He would tell tales of hisloves and battles of fifty years ago--tales full of lust and greed andexcitement. He would come back to his immediate troubles and curse thegringos again for a pack of miserable dollar-mongers, who knew not themeaning of friendship. And again his mind would leap back irrelevantly tosome woman he had loved or some man he had killed in the spacious dayswhere his imagination dwelt. Ram
on listened eagerly, hoping to learnsomething definite about the Don's dealings with MacDougall, but the oldman never touched upon this. He did tell one story to which Ramon listenedwith interest. He told how, twenty-five years before, he and another mannamed Cristobal Archulera had found a silver mine in the GuadelupeMountains, and how he had cheated the other out of his interest by filingthe claim in his own name. He told this as a capital joke, laughing andthumping his knee.

  "Do you know where Archulera is now?" Ramon ventured to ask.

  "Archulera? No, No; I have not seen Archulera for twenty years. I heardthat he married a very common woman, half Indian.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I don't know whatbecame of him."

  The last of the pool players had now gone out; a Mexican boy had begun tosweep the floor; the place was about to close for the night. Ramon got hisuncle to his feet with some difficulty, and led him outdoors where helooked about in vain for one of the cheap autos that served the town astaxicabs. There were only three or four of them, and none of these were insight. The flat-wheeled street car had made its last screeching trip forthe night. There was nothing for it but to take the Don by the arm andpilot him slowly homeward.

  Refreshed by the night air, the old man partially sobered, walked with asteady step, and talked more eloquently and profusely than ever. Womenwere his subject now, and it was a subject upon which he had great storeof material. He told of the women of the South, of Sonora and Chihuahuawhere he had spent much of his youth, of how beautiful they were. He toldof a slim little creature fifteen years old with big black eyes whom hehad bought from her _peon_ father, and of how she had feared him and howhe had conquered her and her fear. He told of slave girls he had boughtfrom the Navajos as children and raised for his pleasure. He told of aFrench woman he had loved in Mexico City and how he had fought a duel withher husband. He rose to heights of sentimentality and delved into depthsof obscenity, now speaking of his heart and what it had suffered, andagain leering and chuckling like a satyr over some tale of splendiddesire.

  Ramon, walking silent and outwardly respectful by his side, listened toall this with a strange mixture of envy and rage. He envied the old Donthe rich share he had taken of life's feast. Whatever else he might be theDon was not one of those who desire but do not dare. He had taken what hewanted. He had tasted many emotions and known the most poignant delights.And now that he was old and his blood was slow, he stood in the way ofothers who desired as greatly and were as avid of life as ever he hadbeen. Ramon felt a great bitterness that clutched at his throat and halfblinded his eyes. He too loved and desired. And how much more greatly hedesired than ever had this old man by his side, with his wealth and hiseasy satisfactions! The old Don apparently had never been thwarted, andtherefore he did not know how keen and punishing a blade desire may be!

  Tense between the two was the enmity that ever sunders age and youth--ageseeking to keep its sovereignty of life by inculcating blind respect andreverence, and youth rebellious, demanding its own with the passion of hotblood and untried flesh.

  Between Old Town and New Town flowed an irrigating ditch, which theconnecting street crossed by means of an old wooden bridge. The ditch wasthis night full of swift water, which tore at the button willows on thebank and gurgled against the bridge timbers. As they crossed it the ideacame into Ramon's head that if a man were pushed into the brown water hewould be swiftly carried under the bridge and drowned.