The Bells of San Juan

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER VI

  A RIDE THROUGH THE NIGHT

  Ignacio Chavez, because thus he could be of service to _el senor_Roderico Nortone whom he admired vastly and loved like a brother, drewto the dregs upon his fine Latin talent, doubled up and otherwisecontorted and twisted his lithe body until the sweat stood out upon hisforehead. His groans would have done ample justice to the occasion hadhe been dying.

  Virginia treated him sparingly to a harmless potion she had secured ather room on the way, put the bottle into the hands of Ignacio'swithered and anxious old mother, informed the half dozen Indianonlookers that she had arrived in time and that the bell-ringer wouldlive, and then was impatient to go with Engle to Struve's hotel. HereEngle left her to return to his home and to send the saddle-horse hehad promised Norton.

  "You can ride, can't you, Virginia?" he had asked.

  "Yes," she assured him.

  "Then I'll send Persis around; she's the prettiest thing in horsefleshyou ever saw. And the gamest. And, Virginia . . ."

  He hesitated. "Well?" she asked.

  "There's not a squarer, whiter man in the world than Rod Norton," hesaid emphatically. "Now good night and good luck, and be sure to dropin on us to-morrow."

  She watched him as he went swiftly down the street; then she turnedinto the hotel and down the hall, which echoed to the click of herheels, and to her room. She had barely had time to change for her rideand to glance at her "war bag" when a discreet knock sounded at herdoor. Going to the door she found that it was Julius Struve instead ofNorton.

  "You are to come with me," said the hotel keeper softly. "He iswaiting with the horses."

  They passed through the dark dining-room, into the pitch black kitchenand out at the rear of the house. A moment Struve paused, listening.Then, touching her sleeve, he hurried away into the night, going towardthe black line of cottonwoods, the girl keeping close to his heels.

  At the dry arroyo Norton was waiting, holding two saddled horses.Without a word he gave her his hand, saw her mounted, surrenderedPersis's jerking reins into her gauntletted grip and swung up to theback of his own horse. In another moment, and still in silence,Virginia and Norton were riding away from San Juan, keeping in theshadows of the trees, headed toward the mountains in the north.

  And now suddenly Virginia found that she was giving herself overutterly, unexpectedly to a keen, pulsing joy of life. She hadsurrendered into the sheriff's hands the little leather-case whichcontained her emergency bottles and instruments; they had left San Juana couple of hundred yards behind, their horses were galloping; herstirrup struck now and then against Norton's boot. John Engle had notbeen unduly extravagant in praise of the mare Persis; Virginia sensedrather than saw clearly the perfect, beautiful creature which carriedher, delighted in the swinging gallop, drew into her soul something ofthe serene glory of a starlit night on the desert. The soft thud ofshod hoofs upon yielding soil was music to her, mingled as it came withthe creak of saddle leather, the jingle of bridle and spur-chains. Shewondered if there had ever been so perfect a night, if she had evermounted so finely bred a saddle animal.

  Far ahead the San Juan mountains lifted their serrated ridge of ebony.On all other sides the flat-lands stretched out seeming to have no end,suggesting to the fancy that they were kin in vastitude to the clearexpanse of the sky. On all hands little wind-shaped ridges were likecrests of long waves in an ocean which had just now been stilled,brooded over by the desert silence and the desert stars.

  "I suppose," said Norton at last, "that it's up to me to explain."

  "Then begin," said Virginia, "by telling me where we are going."

  He swung up his arm, pointing.

  "Yonder. To the mountains. We'll reach them in about two hours and ahalf. Then, in another two hours or so, we'll come to where Brocky is.Way up on the flank of Mt. Temple. It's going to be a long, hardclimb. For you, at the end of a tiresome day. . . ."

  "How about yourself?" she asked quickly, and he knew that she wassmiling at him through the dark. "Unless you're made of iron I'malmost inclined to believe that after your friend Brocky I'll haveanother patient. Who is he, by the way?"

  "Brocky Lane? I was going to tell you. You saw something stirring inthe patio at Engle's? I had seen it first; it was Ignacio who hadslipped in under the wide arch from the gardens at the rear of thehouse. He had been sent for me by Tom Cutter, my deputy. Brocky Laneis foreman of a big cattle-ranch lying just beyond the mountains; he isalso working with me and with Cutter, although until I've told younobody knows it but ourselves and John Engle. . . . Before the nightis out you'll know rather a good deal about what is going on, MissPage," he added thoughtfully.

  "More than you'd have been willing for me to know if circumstancehadn't forced your hand?"

  "Yes," he admitted coolly. "To get anywhere we've had to sit tight onthe game we're playing. But, from the word Cutter brings, poor oldBrocky is pretty hard hit, and I couldn't take any chances with hislife even though it means taking chances in another direction."

  He might have been a shade less frank; and yet she liked him none theless for giving her the truth bluntly. He was but tacitly admittingthat he knew nothing of her; and yet in this case he would prefer tocall upon her than on Caleb Patten.

  "No, I don't trust Patten," he continued, the chain of thought beinginevitable. "Not that I'd call him crooked so much as a fool for JimGalloway to juggle with. He talks too much."

  "You wish me to say nothing of to-night's ride?"

  "Absolutely nothing. If you are missed before we get back Struve willexplain that you were called to see old Ramorez, a half-breed overyonder toward Las Estrellas. That is, provided we get back too latefor it to appear likely that you are just resting in your room orgetting things shipshape in your office. That's why I am explainingabout Brocky."

  "Since you represent the law in San Juan, Mr. Norton," she told him,"since, further, Mr. Engle indorses all that you are doing, I believethat I can go blindfolded a little. I'd rather do that than have youforced against your better judgment to place confidence in a stranger."

  "That's fair of you," he said heartily. "But there are certain matterswhich you will have to be told. Brocky Lane has been shot down by oneof Jim Galloway's crowd. It was a coward's job done by a man who wouldrun a hundred miles rather than meet Brocky in the open. And now thething which we don't want known is that Lane even so much as set footon Mt. Temple. We don't want it known that he was anywhere but on LasCruces Rancho; that he was doing anything but give his time to hisduties as foreman there."

  "In particular you don't want Jim Galloway to know?"

  "In particular I don't want Jim Galloway to so much as suspect thatBrocky Lane or Tom Cutter or myself have any interest in Mt. Temple,"he said emphatically.

  "But if the man who shot him is one of Galloway's crowd, as yousay. . . ."

  "He'll do no talking for a while. After having seen Brocky drop hetook one chance and showed half of his cowardly carcass around aboulder. Whereupon Brocky, weak and sick and dizzy as he was, popped abullet into him."

  She shuddered.

  "Is there nothing but killing of men among you people?" she criedsharply. "First the sheepman from Las Palmas, then Brocky Lane, thenthe man who shot him. . . ."

  "Brocky didn't kill Moraga," Norton explained quietly. "But he droppedhim and then made him throw down his gun and crawl out of the brush.Then Tom Cutter gathered him in, took him across the county line, gavehim into the hands of Ben Roberts who is sheriff over there, and cameon to San Juan. Roberts will simply hold Moraga on some triflingcharge, and see that he keeps his mouth shut until we are ready for himto talk."

  "Then Brocky Lane and Tom Cutter were together on Mt. Temple?"

  "Near enough for Tom to hear the shooting."

  They grew silent again. Clearly Norton had done what explaining hedeemed necessary and was taking her no deeper into his confidences.She told herself that he was right, that these were not me
rely his ownpersonal secrets, that as yet he would be unwise to trust a strangerfurther than he was forced to. And yet, unreasonably or not, she felta little hurt. She had liked him from the beginning and from thebeginning she felt that in a case such as his she would have trusted tointuition and have held back nothing. But she refrained from voicingthe questions which none the less insisted upon presenting themselvesto her: What was the thing that had brought both Brocky Lane and TomCutter to Mt. Temple? What had they been seeking there in a wildernessof crag and cliff? Why was Roderick Norton so determined that JimGalloway should not so much as suspect that these men were watchful inthe mountains? What sinister chain of circumstance had impelledMoraga, who Norton said was Galloway's man, to shoot down the cattleforeman? And Galloway himself, what type of man must he be if all thatshe had heard of him were true; what were his ambitions, his plans, hispower?

  Before long Norton pointed out the shadowy form of Mt. Temple loomingever vaster before them, its mass of rock, of wind-blown, wind-carvedpeaks lifted in sombre defiance against the stars. It brooded darklyover the lower slopes, like an incubus it dominated the other spinesand ridges, its gorges filled with shadow and mystery, its precipicesmaking the sense reel dizzily. And somewhere up there high against thesky, alone, suffering, perhaps dying, a man had waited through the slowhours, and still awaited their coming. How slowly she and Norton wereriding, how heartless of her to have felt the thrill of pleasure whichhad possessed her so utterly an hour ago!

  Or less than an hour. For now again, wandering out far across the openlands, came the heavy mourning of the bell.

  "How far can one hear it?" she asked, surprised that from so far itsringing came so clearly.

  "I don't know how many miles," he answered. "We'll hear it from themountain. I should have heard it to-day, long before I met you by thearroyo, had I not been travelling through two big bands of Engle'ssheep."

  Behind them San Juan drawn into the shadows of night but calling tothem in mellow-toned cadences of sorrow, before them the sombre canonsand iron flanks of Mt. Temple, and somewhere, still several hours away,Brocky Lane lying helpless and perhaps hopeless; grim by day the earthhereabouts was inscrutable by night, a mighty, primal sphinx,lip-locked, spirit-crushing. The man and girl riding swiftly side byside felt in their different ways according to their differentcharacters and previous experience the mute command laid upon them, andfor the most part their lips were hushed.

  There came the first slopes, the talus of strewn, broken,disintegrating rock, and then the first of the cliffs. Now the sheriffrode in the fore and Virginia kept her frowning eyes always upon hisform leading the way. They entered the broad mouth of a ravine, foundan uneven trail, were swallowed up by its utter and impenetrableblackness.

  "Give Persis her head," Norton advised her. "She'll find her way andfollow me."

  His voice, low-toned as it was, stabbed through the silence, startlingher, coming unexpectedly out of the void which had drawn him and hishorse gradually beyond the quest of her straining eyes. She sighed,sat back in her saddle, relaxed, and loosened her reins.

  For an hour they climbed almost steadily, winding in and out. Now,high above the bed of the gorge, the darkness had thinned about them;more than once the girl saw the clear-cut silhouette of man and beastin front of her or swerving off to right or left. When, after a longtime, he spoke again he was waiting for her to come up with him. Hehad dismounted, loosened the cinch of his saddle and tied his horse toa stunted, twisted tree in a little flat.

  "We have to go ahead on foot now," he told her as he put out his handto help her down. And then as they stood side by side: "Tired much?"

  "No," she answered. "I was just in the mood to ride."

  He took down the rope from her saddle strings, tied Persis, and, sayingbriefly, "This way," again went on. She kept her place almost at hisheels, now and again accepting the hand he offered as their way grewsteeper underfoot. Half an hour ago she knew that they had swerved offto the left, away from the deep gorge into whose mouth they had riddenso far below; now she saw that they were once more drawing close to thesteep-walled canon. Its emptiness, black and sinister, lay betweenthem and a group of bare peaks which stood up like cathedral spiresagainst the sky.

  "This would be simple enough in the daytime," Norton told her duringone of their brief pauses. "In the dark it's another matter. Nottired out, are you?"

  "No," she assured him the second time, although long ago she would havebeen glad to throw herself down to rest, were their errand less urgent.

  "We've got some pretty steep climbing ahead of us yet," he went onquietly. "You must be careful not to slip. Oh," and he laughedcarelessly, "you'd stop before you got to the bottom, but then a dropof even half a dozen feet is no joke here. If you'll pardon me I'llmake sure for you."

  With no further apology or explanation he slipped the end of a ropeabout her waist, tying it in a hard knot. Until now she had not evenknown that he had brought a rope; now she wondered just how hazardouswas the hidden trail which they were travelling; if it were in truthbut the matter of half a dozen feet which she would fall if sheslipped? He made the other end of the short tether fast about his ownbody, said "Ready?" and again she followed him closely.

  There came little flat spaces, then broken boulders to clamber over,then steep, rugged climbs, when they grasped the rough rocks with bothhands and moved on with painful slowness. It seemed to the girl thatthey had been climbing for long, tedious hours since they had slippedout of their saddles; though to him she said nothing, locking her lipsstubbornly, she knew that at last she was tired, very tired, that anend of this laborious ascent must come soon or she would be forced tostop and lie down and rest.

  "Fifteen minutes more," said the sheriff, "and we're there. We'll usethe first five minutes of it for a rest, too."

  He made her sit down, unstoppered a canteen which, like the coil ofrope, she had not known he carried, and gave her a drink of water whichseemed to her the most wonderfully strength-making, life-giving draftin the world. Then he dropped down at her side, looked at his watch inthe light of a flaring match carefully cupped in his hand, and lightedhis pipe.

  "Nearly midnight," he told her.

  Without replying she lay back against the slope of the mountain, closedher eyes and relaxed, breathing deeply. Her chest expanded deeply tothe long indrawn breath which filled her lungs with the rare air. Shefelt suddenly a little sleepy, dreaming longingly of the unutterablecontent one could find in just going to sleep with the cliff-scarredmountainside for couch.

  She stirred and opened her eyes. Rod Norton, the sheriff of San Juan,a man who a few brief hours ago had been unknown to her, his nameunfamiliar, sat two paces from her, smoking. She and this man of whomshe still knew rather less than nothing were alone in the world; justthe two of them lifted into the sky, separated by a dreary stretch ofdesert lands from other men and women . . . bound together by a bit ofrope. She tried to see his face; the profile, more guessed than seen,appeared to her fancy as unrelenting as the line of cliff just beyondhim, clear-cut against the sky.

  Yet somehow . . . she did not definitely formulate the thought of whichshe was at the time but dimly, vaguely conscious . . . she was gladthat she had come to San Juan. And she was not afraid of the silentman at her side, nor sorry that circumstance had given them this nightand its labors.

  Norton knocked out his pipe. Together they got to their feet.

  "More careful than ever now," he cautioned her. "Look out for eachstep and go slowly. We're there in ten minutes. Ready?"

  "Ready," she answered.