CHAPTER V
IN THE DARKNESS OF THE PATIO
Through the silence of the outer night, as though actually IgnacioChavez were prophesying, came billowing the slow beating of the deepmourning bell. Mrs. Engle sighed; Engle frowned; Virginia sat rigid,at once disturbed and oppressed.
"How can you stand that terrible bell?" she cried softly. "I shouldthink that it would drive you mad! How long does he ring it?"
"Once every hour until midnight," answered Engle, his face once moreplacid as he withdrew his look from the patio and transferred it to hiscigar. And then, with a half smile: "There are many San Juans; thereis, in all the wide world, but one San Juan of the Bells. You wouldnot take our distinction from us? Now that you are to become of SanJuan you must, like the rest of us, take a pride in San Juan's bells.Which you will do soon or late; perhaps just as soon as you come toknow something of their separate and collective histories."
"Tell her, John," suggested Mrs. Engle, again obviously anxious todispel the more lugubrious and tragic atmospheres of the evening withany chance talk which might offer itself.
"Let her wait until Ignacio can tell her," laughed Engle. "No one elsecan tell it so well, and certainly no one else has an equal pride oreven an equal right in the matter."
But, though he refused to take up the colorful theme of the biographiesof the Captain, the Dancer, Lolita, and the rest, John Engle began tospeak lightly upon an associated topic, first asking the girl if sheknew with what ceremony the old Western bells had been cast; when sheshook her head and while the slow throbbing beat of the Captain stillinsisted through the night's silences, he explained that doubtless allsix of Ignacio Chavez's bells had taken form under the calm gaze ofhigh priests of old Spain. For legend had it that all six were fromtheir beginnings destined for the new missions to be scatteredbroadcast throughout a new land, to ring out word of God to heathenears. Bells meant for such high service were never cast without gravereligious service and sacrifice. Through the darkness of long-deadcenturies the girl's stimulated fancies followed the man's words; shevisualized the great glowing caldrons in which the fusing metals grewred and an intolerable white; saw men and women draw near, proudblue-blooded grandees on one hand, and the lowly on the other, with onethought; saw the maidens and ladies from the courtyards of the King'spalace as they removed golden bracelets and necklaces from white armsand throats, so that the red and yellow gold might go with theirprayers into the molten metals, enriching them, while those whosepoverty was great, but whose devotion was greater, offered what littlesilver ornaments they could. Carved silver vases, golden cups, mintedcoins and cherished ornaments, all were offered generously and devoutlyuntil the blazing caldrons had mingled the Queen's girdle-clasps with abauble from the beggar girl.
"And in the end," smiled Engle, "there are no bells with the sweet toneof old Mission bells, or with their soft eloquence."
While he was talking Ignacio Chavez had allowed the dangling rope toslip from his hands so that the Captain rested quiet in the starshine.Roderick and Florence were coming in through the wide patio door;Norton was just saying that Florrie had promised to play something forhim when the front door knocker announced another visitor. Florencemade a little disdainful face as though she guessed who it was; Englewent to the door.
Even Virginia Page in this land of strangers knew who the man was. Forshe had seen enough of him to-day, on the stage across the weary milesof desert, to remember him and to dislike him. He was the man whomGalloway and the stage-driver had called "Doc," the sole representativeof the medical fraternity in San Juan until her coming. She dislikedhim first vaguely and with purely feminine instinct; secondly becauseof an air which he never laid aside of a serene consciousness ofself-superiority. He had established himself in what he was pleased toconsider a community of nobodies, his inferiors intellectually andculturally. He was of that type of man-animal that lends itself tofairly accurate cataloguing at the end of the first five minutes'acquaintance. The most striking of the physical attributes about hisperson as he entered were his little mustache and neatly trimmed beardand the diamond stick-pin in his tie. Remove these articles and itwould have been difficult to distinguish him from countless thousandsof other inefficient and opinionated individuals.
Virginia noted that both Mr. and Mrs. Engle shook hands with him if notvery cordially at least with good-humored toleration; that Florencetreated him to a stiff little nod; that Roderick Norton from across theroom greeted him coolly.
"Dr. Patten," Engle was saying, "this is our cousin, Virginia Page."
Dr. Patten acknowledged the introduction and sat down, turning to ask"how Florrie was today?" Virginia smiled, sensing a rebuke to herselfin his manner; to-day on the stage she had made it obvious even to himthat if she must speak with a stranger she would vastly prefer the talkof the stage-driver than that of Dr. Caleb Patten. When Florence,replying briefly, turned to the piano Patten addressed Norton.
"What was our good sheriff doing to-day?" he asked banteringly, asthough the subject he chose were the most apt one imaginable for jest."Another man killed in broad daylight and no one to answer for it! Whydon't you go get 'em, Roddy?"
Norton stared at him steadily and finally said soberly:
"When a disease has fastened itself upon the body of a community ittakes time to work a cure, Dr. Patten."
"But not much time to let the life out of a man like the chap from LasPalmas! Why, the man who did the shooting couldn't have done a nicerjob if he'd been a surgeon. One bullet square through the carotidartery . . . That leads from the heart to the head," he explained asthough his listeners were children athirst for knowledge which he andnone other could impart. "The cerebrum penetrated by a second. . . ."
What other technical elucidation might have followed was lost in athunderous crashing of the piano keys as Florence Engle strove to drownthe man's utterance and succeeded so well that for an instant he satgaping at her.
"I can't stand that man!" Florence said sharply to Norton, and thoughthe words did not travel across the room, Virginia was surprised thateven an individual so completely armored as Caleb Patten could fail tograsp the girl's meaning.
When Florence had pounded her way through a noisy bit of "jazz," CalebPatten, with one of his host's cigars lighted, was leaning a littleforward in his chair, alert to seize the first opportunity of snatchingconversation by the throat.
"Kid Rickard admits killing Bisbee," he said to Norton. "What are yougoing to do about it? The first thing I heard when I got in from aprofessional call a little while ago was that Rickard was swaggeringaround town, saying that you wouldn't gather him in because you wereafraid to."
The sheriff's face remained unmoved, though the others looked curiouslyto him and back to Patten, who was easy and complacent and vaguelyirritating.
"I imagine you haven't seen Jim Galloway since you got in, have you?"Norton returned quietly.
"No," said Patten. "Why? What has Galloway got to do with it?"
"Ask him. He says Rickard killed Bisbee in self-defense."
"Oh," said Patten. And then, shifting in his chair: "If Galloway saysso, I guess you are right in letting the Kid go."
And, a trifle hastily it struck Virginia, he switched talk into anotherchannel, telling of the case on which he had been out to-day, enlargingupon its difficulties, with which, it appeared, he had been eminentlyfitted to cope. There was an amused twinkle in John Engle's eyes as helistened.
"By the way, Patten," the banker observed when there came a pause,"you've got a rival in town. Had you heard?"
"What do you mean?" asked the physician.
"When I introduced you just now to our Cousin Virginia, I should havetold you; she is Dr. Page, M.D."
Again Patten said "Oh," but this time in a tone which through its plainimplication put a sudden flash into Virginia's eyes. As he lookedtoward her there was a half sneer upon the lips which his scanty growthof beard and mustache failed to hide. Had he gone on t
o say, "A_lady_ doctor, eh?" and laughed, the case would not have been altered.
"It seems so funny for a girl to be a doctor," said Florence, for thefirst time referring in any way to Virginia since she had flown to thedoor, expecting Norton alone. Even now she did not look toward herkinswoman.
John Engle replied, speaking crisply. But just what he said Virginiadid not know. For suddenly her whole attention was withdrawn from theconversation, fixed and held by something moving in the patio. Firstshe had noted a slight change in Rod Norton's eyes, saw them grow keenand watchful, noted that they had turned toward the door opening intothe little court where the fountain was, where the wall-lamp threw itsrays wanly among the shrubs and through the grape-arbor. He had seensomething move out there; from where she sat she could look the way helooked and mark how a clump of rose-bushes had been disturbed and nowstood motionless again in the quiet night.
Wondering, she looked again to Norton. His eyes told nothing now savethat they were keen and watchful. Whether or not he knew what it wasso guardedly stirring in the patio, whether he, like herself, hadmerely seen the gently agitated leaves of the bushes, she could notguess. She started when Engle addressed some trifling remark to her;while she evaded the direct answer she was fully conscious of thesheriff's eyes steady upon her. He, no doubt, was wondering what shehad seen.
It was only a moment later when Norton rose and went to Mrs. Engle,telling her briefly that he had had a day of it, in the saddle sincedawn, wishing her good night. He shook hands with Engle, nodded toPatten, and coming to Virginia said lightly, but, she thought, with analmost sternly serious look in his eyes:
"We're all hoping you like San Juan, Miss Page. And you will, too, ifthe desert stillness doesn't get on your nerves. But then silenceisn't such a bad thing after all, is it? Good night."
She understood his meaning and, though a thrill of excitement ranthrough her blood, answered laughingly:
"Shall a woman learn from the desert? Have I been such a chatter-box,Mrs. Engle, that I am to be admonished at the beginning to study tohold my tongue?"
Florence looked at her curiously, turned toward Norton, and then wentwith him to the door. For a moment their voices came in a murmur downthe hallway; then Norton had gone and Florence returned slowly to theliving-room.
Again Virginia looked out into the patio. Never a twig stirred now;all was as quiet as the sleeping fountain, as silent and mystery-filledas the desert itself. Had Roderick Norton seen more than she? Did heknow who had been out there? Was here the beginning of some furthersinister outgrowth of the lawlessness of Kid Rickard? of the animosityof Jim Galloway? Was she presently to see Norton himself slipping intothe patio from the other side, was she again to hear the rattle ofpistol-shots? He had asked that she say nothing; she hadunhesitatingly given him her promise. Had she so unquestioningly doneas he had requested because he was the sheriff who represented the law?or because he was Roderick Norton who stood for fine, upstandingmanhood? . . . Again she felt Florence Engle's eyes fixed upon her.
"Florence is prepared at the beginning to dislike me," she thought."Why? Just because I walked with him from the hotel?"
In the heat of an argument with Mrs. Engle there came an interruption.The banker's wife was insisting that Virginia "do the only sensiblething in the world," that she accept a home under the Engle roof,occupying the room already made ready for her. Virginia, warmed by thecordial invitation, while deeply grateful, felt that she had no rightto accept. She had come to San Juan to make her own way; she had noclaim upon the hospitality of her kinswoman, certainly no such claim aswas implied now. Besides, there was Elmer Page. Her brother wascoming to join her to-morrow or the next day, and as soon as it couldbe arranged they would take a house all by themselves, or if thatproved impossible, would have a suite at the hotel. At the moment whenit seemed that a deadlock had come between Mrs. Engle's eagerness tomother her cousin's daughter and Virginia's inborn sense ofindependence, the interruption came.
It arrived in the form of a boy of ten or twelve, a ragged, scantilyclothed, swarthy youngster, rubbing a great toe against a bare legwhile from the front door he announced that Ignacio Chavez was sick,that he had eaten something _muy malo_, that he had pains and that heprayed that the doctor cure him.
Patten grunted his disgust.
"Tell him to wait," he said briefly. And, in explanation to theothers: "There's nothing the matter with him. I saw him on the streetjust before I came. And wasn't he ringing his bell not fifteen minutesago?"
But the boy had not completed his message. Ignacio was sick and didnot wish to die, and so had sent him to ask the Miss Lady Doctor tocome to him. Virginia rose swiftly.
"You see," she said to Mrs. Engle, "what a nuisance it would be if Ilived with you? May I come to see you to-morrow?"
While she said good night Engle got his hat.
"I'll go with you," he said. "But, like Patten, I don't believe thereis much the matter with Chavez. Maybe he thinks he'll get a free drinkof whiskey."
"You see again," laughed Virginia from the doorway, "what it would belike, Mrs. Engle; if every time I had to make a call and Mr. Engledeemed it necessary to go with me . . . I'd have to split my fees withhim at the very least! And I don't believe that I could afford to dothat."
"You could give me all that Ignacio pays you," chuckled Engle, "andnever miss it!"
The boy waited for them and, when they came out into the starlight,flitted on ahead of them. At the cottonwoods a man stepped out to meetthem.
"Hello," said Engle, "it's Norton."
"I sent the boy for Miss Page," said Norton quickly. "I had to have aword with her immediately. And I'm glad that you came, Engle. I wanta favor of you; a mighty big favor of Miss Page."
The boy had passed on through the shadows and now was to be seen on thestreet.
"I guess you know you can count on me, Rod," said Engle quietly. "Whatnow?"
"I want you, when you go back to the house, to say that you havelearned that Miss Page likes horseback riding; then send a horse forher to the hotel stable, so that if she likes she can have it in theearly morning. And say nothing about my having sent the boy."
Engle did not answer immediately. He and Virginia stood trying to seethe sheriff's features through the darkness. He had spoken quietlyenough and yet there was an odd new note in his voice; it was easy toimagine how the muscles about his lean jaw had tensed, how his eyeswere again the hard eyes of a man who saw his fight before him.
"I can trust you, John," continued Norton quickly. "I can trustIgnacio Chavez; I can trust Julius Struve. And, if you want it inwords of one syllable, I cannot trust Caleb Patten!"
"Hm," said Engle. "I think you're mistaken there, my boy."
"Maybe," returned Norton. "But I can't afford right now to take anyunnecessary chances. Further," and in the gloom they saw his shoulderslifted in a shrug, "I am trusting Miss Page because I've got to! Whichmay not sound pretty, but which is the truth."
"Of course I'll do what you ask," Engle said. "Is there anything else?"
"No. Just go on with Miss Page to see Ignacio. He will pretend to bedoubled up with pain and will tell his story of the tinned meat he atefor supper. Then you can see her to the hotel and go back home,sending the horse over right away. Then she will ride with me to see aman who is hurt . . . or she will not, and I'll have to take a chanceon Patten."
"Who is it?" demanded Engle sharply.
"It's Brocky Lane," returned Norton, and again his voice told of rigidmuscles and hard eyes. "He's hurt bad, John. And, if we're to do himany good we'd better be about it."
Engle said nothing. But the slow, deep breath he drew into his lungscould not have been more eloquent of his emotion had it been expelledin a curse.
"I'll slip around the back way to the hotel," said Norton. "I'll beready when Miss Page comes in. Good night, John."
Silently, without awaiting promise or protest from the girl, he wasgone into t
he deeper shadows of the cottonwoods.
The Bells of San Juan Page 6