The Bells of San Juan

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER IV

  AT THE BANKER'S HOME

  Rod Norton made no arrest. Leaving the card-room abruptly he signalledto Julius Struve, the hotel keeper, to follow him. In the morningStruve, in his official capacity as coroner, would demand a verdict.Having long been in strong sympathy with the sheriff he was to belooked to now for a frank prediction of the inquest's result. And,very thoughtful about it all, he gravely agreed with Norton; thecoroner's jury, taking the evidence offered by Jim Galloway, KidRickard, and Antone, would bring in a verdict of justifiable homicide.

  "Later on we'll get 'em, Roddy . . . mebbe," he said finally. "But notnow. If you pulled the Kid it would just be running up the countyexpense all for nothing."

  The sheriff left him in silence and leading his horse went the fewsteps to the hotel. Ignacio Chavez appearing opportunely Norton gavehis animal into the breed's custody; Ignacio, accustomed to doing oddjobs for el Senor Roderico Nortone, and to the occasional half dollarsresulting from such transactions, led the big gray away while thesheriff entered the hotel. It had been a day of hard riding and scantymeals, and he was hungry.

  Bright and new and conspicuous, a gold-lettered sign at Struve'sdoorway caught his eye and caused him to remember the wounded left handwhich had been paining him considerably through the long hot day. Thesign bore the name of Dr. V. D. Page with the words Physician andSurgeon; in blue pencilled letters upon the practitioner's card,affixed to the brass chain suspending the sign, were the further words:"Room 5, Struve's Hotel."

  The sheriff went to Room 5. It was at the front of the building, uponthe ground floor. The door opened almost immediately when he rapped.Confronting him was the girl he had encountered at the arroyo. Helifted his hat, looked beyond her, and said simply:

  "I was looking for Dr. Page. Is he in now?"

  "Yes," she told him gravely. "Come in, please."

  He stepped across the threshold, his eyes trained to quick observationof details taking in at a glance all there was to be seen. The roomshowed all signs of a fresh unpacking, the one table and two chairspiled high with odds and ends. For the most part the miscellanyconsisted of big, fat books, bundles of towels and fresh white napkins,rubber-stoppered bottles of varicolored contents, and black leathercases, no doubt containing a surgeon's instruments. Through an opendoor giving entrance to the adjoining room he noted further signs ofunpacking with a marked difference in the character of the litter; thegirl stepped quickly to this door, shutting out the vision of ahelter-skelter of feminine apparel.

  "It is your hand?" she asked, as in most thoroughly matter of factfashion she put out her own for it. "Let me see it."

  But for a moment he bestowed upon her merely a slow look of question.

  "You don't mean that you are Dr. Page?" he asked. Then, believing thathe understood: "You're the nurse?"

  "Is a physician's life in San Juan likely to be so filled with hisduties that he must bring a nurse with him?" she countered. "Yes, I amDr. Page."

  He noted that she was as defiant about the matter as the Kid had beenabout the killing of Bisbee of Las Palmas; plainly she had foreseenthat the type of man-animal inhabiting this out-of-the-way corner ofthe world would be likely to wonder at her hardihood and, perhaps, tojeer.

  "I came to-day," she explained in the same matter-of-fact way."Consequently you will pardon the looks of things. But I am one of thekind that believes in hanging out a shingle first, getting detailsarranged next. Now may I see the hand?"

  "It's hardly anything." He lifted it now for her inspection. "Just aslight cut, you know. But it's showing signs of infection. A littleantiseptic . . ."

  She took his fingers into hers and bent over the wound. He noted twothings, now: what strong hands she had, shapely, with sensitive fingersignorant of rings; how richly alive and warmly colored her hair was,full of little waves and curls.

  She had nothing to say while she treated him. Over an alcohol lamp sheheated some water; in a bowl, brought from the adjoining room, shecleansed the hand thoroughly. Then the application of the finalantiseptic, a bit of absorbent cotton, a winding of surgeon's tapeabout a bit of gauze, and the thing was done. Only at the end did shesay:

  "It's a peculiar cut . . . not a knife cut, is it?"

  "No," he answered humorously. "Did it on a piece of lead. . . . Howmuch is it, Doctor?"

  "Two dollars," she told him, busied with the drying of her own hands."Better let me look at it again in the morning if it pains you."

  He laid two silver dollars in her palm, hesitated a moment and thenwent out.

  "She's got the nerve," was his thoughtful estimate as he went to hiscorner table in the dining-room. "But I don't believe she is going tolast long in San Juan. . . . Funny she should come to a place likethis, anyhow. . . . Wonder what the V stands for?"

  At any rate the hand had been skilfully treated and bandaged; he noddedat it approvingly. Then, with his meal set before him, he divided histhoughts pretty evenly between the girl and the recent shooting at theCasa Blanca. The sense was strong upon him as it had been many a timethat before very long either Rod Norton or Jim Galloway would lie asthe sheepman from Las Palmas was lying, while the other might watch hissunrises and sunsets with a strange, new emotion of security.

  The sheriff, who had not eaten for twelve hours, was beginning his mealwhen the newest stranger in San Juan came into the dining-room. Shehad arranged her lustrous copper-brown hair becomingly, and lookedfresh and cool and pretty. Norton approved of her with his keen eyeswhile he watched her go to her place at a table across the room. Asshe sat down, giving no sign of having noted him, her back toward him,he continued to observe and to admire her slender, perfect figure andthe strong, sensitive hands busied with her napkin.

  A slovenly, half-grown Indian girl, Anita, the cook's daughter, came infrom the kitchen, directed the slumbrous eyes of her race upon thesheriff who fitted well in a woman's eye, and went to serve the singleother late diner. Norton caught a fleeting view of V. D. Page's throatand cheek as she turned slightly in speaking with Anita. As theserving-maid withdrew Norton rose to his feet and crossed the room tothe far table.

  "May I bring my things over and eat with you?" he asked when he stoodlooking down on her and she had lifted her eyes curiously to his. "Ifyou've come to stay you can't go on forever not knowing anybody here,you know. Since you've got to know us sooner or later why not begin toget acquainted? Here and now and with me? I'm Roderick Norton."

  One must have had far less discernment than she not to have feltinstinctively that the great bulk of human conventions would shriveland vanish before they could come this far across the desert lands.Besides, the man standing over her looked straight and honestly intoher eyes and for a little she glimpsed again the youth of him veiled bythe sternness his life had set into his soul and upon his face.

  "It is kind of you to have pity upon me in my isolation," she answeredlightly and without hesitation. "And, to tell the truth, I never wasso terribly lonesome in all my life."

  He made two trips back and forth to bring his plate and coffee cup andauxiliary sauce dishes and plated silver, while she wondered idly thathe did not instruct the Indian girl to perform the service for him.Even then she half formulated the thought that it was much more naturalfor this man to do for himself what he wanted than for him to sit downto be waited upon. A small matter, no doubt; but then mountains aremade up of small particles and character of just such smallcharacteristics as this.

  During the half hour which they spent together over their meal they gotto know each other rather better than chance acquaintances are likelyto do in so brief a time. For from the moment of Norton's coming toher table the bars were down between them. She was plainly eager tosupplement Ignacio Chavez's information of "_la gente_" of San Juanand its surrounding country, evincing a curiosity which he readilyunderstood to be based upon the necessities of her profession. Inreturn for all that he told her she sketchily spoke of her own plans,very vagu
e plans, to be sure, she admitted with one of her quick, gaysmiles. She had come prepared to accept what she found, she wasplaying no game of hide-and-seek with her destiny, but had wanderedthus far from the former limits of her existence to meet life half way,hoping to do good for others, a little imperiously determined toachieve her own measure of success and happiness.

  From the beginning each was ready, perhaps more than ready, to like theother. Her eyes, whether they smiled or grew suddenly grave, pleasedhim; always were they fearless. He sensed that beneath the externalsoft beauty of a very lovely young woman there was a spirit ofhardihood in every sense worthy of the success which she had plannedbare-handed to make for herself, and in the man's estimation no qualitystood higher than a superb independence. On her part, there was firsta definite surprise, then a glow of satisfaction that in this virilearm of the law there was nothing of the blusterer. She set him down asa quiet gentleman first, as a sheriff next. She enjoyed his low,good-humored laugh and laughed back with him, even while sheexperienced again the unaccustomed thrill at the sheer physical bignessof him, the essentially masculine strength of a hardy son of thesouthwestern outdoors. Not once had he referred to the affair at theCasa Blanca or to his part in it; not a question did she ask himconcerning it. He told himself that so utterly human, so perfectlyfeminine a being as she must be burning with curiosity; she marvelledthat he could think, speak of anything else. When together they rosefrom the table they were alike prepared, should circumstance so direct,to be friends.

  She was going now to call upon the Engles. She had told him that shehad a letter to Mrs. Engle from a common friend in Richmond.

  "I don't want to appear to be riding too hard on your trail," he smiledat her. "But I was planning dropping in on the Engles myself thisevening. They're friends of mine, you know."

  She laughed, and as they left the hotel, propounded a riddle for him toanswer: Should Mr. Norton introduce her to Mrs. Engle so that she mightpresent her letter, or, after the letter was presented, should Mrs.Engle introduce her to Mr. Norton?

  It did not suggest itself to her until they had passed from the street,through the cottonwoods and into the splendid living-room of the Englehome, that her escort was not dressed as she had imagined all civilizedmankind dressed for a call. Walking through the primitive town hisboots and soft shirt and travel-soiled hat had been in too perfectkeeping with the environment for her to be more than pleasurablyconscious of them.

  At the Engles', however, his garb struck her for a moment of the firstshock of contrast, as almost grotesquely out of place.

  At the broad front door Norton had rapped. The desultory striking of apiano's keys ceased abruptly, a girl's voice crying eagerly: "It'sRoddy!" hinted at the identity of the listless player, a door flungopen flooded the broad entrance hall with light. And then the outerdoor framed banker Engle's daughter, a mere girl in her middle teens,fair-haired, fair-skinned, fluffy-skirted, her eyes bright withexpectation, her two hands held out offering themselves in doubledgreetings. But, having seen the unexpected guest at the sheriff'sside, the bright-haired girl paused for a brief moment of uncertaintyupon the threshold, her hands falling to her sides.

  "Hello, Florrie," Norton was saying quietly. "I have brought a callerfor your mother. Miss Engle, Miss Page."

  "How do you do, Miss Page?" Florrie replied, regaining her poise andgiving one of her hands to each of the callers, the abandon of herfirst appearance gone in a flash to be replaced by a vague hint ofstiffness. "Mama will be so glad to see you. Do come in."

  She turned and led the way down the wide, deep hall and into theliving-room, a chamber which boldly defied one to remember that he wasstill upon the rim of the desert. In one swift glance the newcomer toSan Juan was offered a picture in which the tall, carelessly clad formof the sheriff became incongruous; she wondered that he remained at hisease as he so obviously did. Yonder was a grand piano, a silver chasedvase upon a wall bracket over it holding three long-stemmed, red roses;a heavy, massive-topped table strewn comfortably and invitingly withbooks and magazines; an exquisite rug and one painting upon the farwall, an original seascape suggestive of Waugh at his best; excellentleather-upholstered chairs luxuriously inviting, and at once homelikeand rich. Just rising from one of these chairs drawn up to the tablereading-lamp, a book still in his hand, was Mr. Engle, while Mrs.Engle, as fair as her daughter, just beginning to grow stout inlavendar, came forward smilingly.

  "Back again, Roddy?" She gave him a plump hand, patted his lean brownfingers after her motherly fashion, and came to where the girl hadstopped just within the door.

  "Virginia Page, aren't you? As if any one in the world would have totell me who _you_ were! You are your mother all over, child; did youknow it? Oh, kiss me, kiss me, my dear, for your mother's sake, andsave your hand-shakes for strangers."

  Virginia, taken utterly by surprise as Mrs. Engle's arms closed warmlyabout her, grew rosy with pleasure; the dreary loneliness of a long daywas gone with a kiss and a hug.

  "I didn't know . . . ." she began haltingly, only to be cut short byMrs. Engle crying to her husband:

  "It's Virginia Page, John. Wouldn't you have known her anywhere?"

  John Engle, courteous, urbane, a pleasant-featured man with grave,kindly eyes and a rather large, firm-lipped mouth nodded to Norton andgave Virginia his hand cordially.

  "I must be satisfied with a hand-shake, Miss Page," he said in a deep,pleasant voice, "but I refuse to be a mere stranger. We are immenselyglad to have you with us. . . . Mother, can't you see we have mostthoroughly mystified her; swooping down on her like this without givingher an inkling of how and why we expected her?"

  Roderick Norton and Florrie Engle had drawn a little apart; Virginia,with her back to them during the greeting of Mrs. and Mr. Engle, had noway of knowing whether the withdrawal had been by mutually spontaneousdesire or whether the initiative had been the sheriff's or MissEngle's. Not that it mattered or concerned her in any slightestparticular.

  In her hand was the note of introduction she had brought from Mrs. SethMorgan; evidently both its services and those of Roderick Norton mightbe dispensed with in the matter of her being presented.

  "Of course," Mrs. Engle was saying. An arm about the girl's slimwaist, she drew her to a big leather couch. "Marian never does thingsby halves, my dear; you know that, don't you? That's a letter she gaveyou for me? Well, she wrote me another, so I know all about you. And,if you are willing to accept the relationship with out-of-the-worldfolks, we're sort of cousins!"

  Virginia Page flushed vividly. She had known all along that her motherhad been a distant relative of Mrs. Engle, but she had had no desire,no thought of employing that very faint tie as an argument for beingaccepted by the banker's family. She did not care to come here likethe proverbial poor relation.

  "You are very kind," she said quietly, her lips smiling while her eyeswere grave. "But I don't want you to feel that I have been building onthe fact of kinship; I just wanted to be friends if you liked me, notbecause you felt it your duty. . . ."

  Engle, who had come, dragging his chair after him, to join them,laughed amusedly.

  "Answering your question, Mrs. Engle," he chuckled, "I'd certainly knowher for Virginia Page! When we come to know her better maybe she willallow us to call her Cousin Virginia? In the meantime, to play safe, Isuppose that to us she'd better be just Dr. Page?"

  "John is as full of nonsense after banking hours," explained Mrs.Engle, still affectionately patting Virginia's hand, "as he is crammedwith business from nine until four. Which makes life with himpossible; it's like having two husbands, makes for variety and so savesme from flirting with other men. Now, tell us all about yourself."

  Virginia, who had been a little stiff-muscled until now, leaned backamong the cushions unconscious of a half sigh of content and of herrelaxation. During the long day San Juan had sought to frighten, torepel her. Now it was making ample amends: first the companionablesociety of Rod Norton, t
hen this simple, hearty welcome. She returnedthe pressure of Mrs. Engle's soft, warm hands in sheer gratitude.

  After that they chatted lightly, Engle gradually withdrawing from theconversation and secretly watching the girl keenly, studying her playof expression, seeking, according to his habit, to make his guardedestimate of a new factor in his household. From Virginia's face hiseyes went swiftly now and then to his daughter's, animated in hertete-a-tete with the sheriff. Once, when Virginia turned unexpectedly,she caught the hint of a troubled frown in his eyes.

  Broad double doors in the west wall of the living-room gave entrance tothe patio. The doors were open now to the slowly freshening night air,and from where she sat Virginia Page had a glimpse of a charming court,an orange-tree heavy with fruit and blossom, red and yellow roses, asleeping fountain whose still water reflected star-shine and the lampin its niche under a grape-vine arbor. When Norton and Florence Englestrolled out into the inviting patio Engle, breaking his silence,leaned forward and dominated the conversation.

  Virginia had been doing the major part of the talking, answeringquestions about Mrs. Engle's girlhood home, telling something ofherself. Now John Engle, reminding his wife that their guest must beconsumed with curiosity about her new environment, sought to interesther in this and that, in and about San Juan.

  "There was a killing this afternoon," he admitted quietly. "No doubtyou know of it and have been shocked by it, and perhaps on account ofit have a little misjudged San Juan. We are not all cutthroats here,by any manner of means; I think I might almost say that the roughelement is in the minority. We are in a state of transition, like allother frontier settlements. The railroad, though it doesn't comecloser than the little tank station where you took the stage thismorning, has touched our lives out here. A railroad brings civilizinginfluences; but the first thing it does is to induct a surging tide offorces contending against law and order. Pioneers," and he smiled hisslow, grave, tolerant smile, "are as often as not tumultuous-bloodedand self-sufficient, and prone to kick over the established traces.We've got that class to deal with . . . and that boy, Rod Norton, withhis job cut out for him, is getting results. He's the biggest manright now, not only in the country, but in this end of the state."

  Continuing he told her something of the sheriff. Young Norton, havingreturned from college some three years before to live the only lifepossible to one of his blood, had become manager of his father's ranchin and beyond the San Juan mountains. At the time Billy Norton was thecounty sheriff and had his hands full. Rumor said that he had promisedhimself to "get" a certain man; Engle admitted that that man was JimGalloway of the Casa Blanca. But either Galloway or a tool ofGalloway's or some other man had "gotten" Billy Norton, shooting himdown in his own cabin and from the back, putting a shotgun charge ofbuckshot into his brain.

  It had occurred shortly after Roderick Norton's return, shortly beforethe expiration of Billy Norton's term of office. Rod Norton, puttinganother man in his place on the ranch, had buried his father and thenhad asked of the county his election to the place made empty by hisfather's death. Though he was young, men believed in him. Theelection returns gave him his place by a crushing majority.

  "And he has done good work," concluded Engle thoughtfully. "Because ofwhat he has done, because he does not make an arrest until he has hisevidence and then drives hard to a certain conviction, he has come tobe called Dead-sure Norton and to be respected everywhere, and fearedmore than a little. Until now it has become virtually a two-man fight.Rod Norton against Jim Galloway. . . ."

  "John," interposed Mrs. Engle, "aren't you giving Virginia rather asombre side of things?"

  "Maybe I am," he agreed. "But this killing of the Las Palmas man inbroad daylight has come pretty close to filling my mind. Who's goingto be next?" His eyes went swiftly toward the patio, taking stock ofthe two figures there. Then he shrugged, went to the table for a cigarand returned smiling to inform Virginia of life on the desert and inthe valleys beyond the mountains, of scattering attempts at reclamationand irrigation, of how one made towns of sun-dried mud, of where theadobe soil itself was found, drifted over with sand in the shade of thecottonwoods.

  But Mrs. Engle's sigh, while her husband spoke of black mud and straw,testified that her thoughts still clung about those events andpossibilities which she herself had asked him to avoid; her eyeswandered to the tall, rudely garbed figure dimly seen in the patio.Virginia, recalling Jim Galloway as she had seen him on the stage,heavy-bodied, narrow-hipped, masterful alike in carriage and the lookof the prominent eyes, glanced with Mrs. Engle toward Rod Norton. Hewas laughing at something passing between him and Florence, and for themoment appeared utterly boyish. Were it not for the grim reminder ofthe forty-five-caliber revolver which the nature of his sworn dutiesdid not allow of his laying aside even upon a night like this, it wouldhave been easy to forget that he was all that which the one wordsheriff connotes in a land like that about San Juan.

  "Can't get away from it, can we?" Engle having caught the look in thetwo women's eyes, broke off abruptly in what he was saying, and now satstudying his cigar with frowning eyes. "Man against man, and the wholecounty knows it, one employing whatever criminal's tools slip into hishands, the other fighting fair and in the open. Man against man and ina death grapple just because they are the men they are, with one backedup by a hang-dog crowd like Kid Rickard and Antone, and the otherplaying virtually a lone hand. What's the end going to be?"

  Virginia thought of Ignacio Chavez. He, had he been here, would haveanswered:

  "In the end there will be the ringing of the bells for a man dead. Youwill see! Which one? _Quien sabe_! The bells will ring."