The Mystery of The Barranca

by Herman Whitaker

  CHAPTER VI

  So silently did the girl come that the charcoal-burners were forced tojump aside, and, springing in the wrong direction, the hunchback wasbowled over by the beast of the _mozo_ who rode at her back.

  "Why, senor!" she exclaimed, reining in. Then taking in the knives,pistol, broken club, she asked, "They attacked you? Tomas!"

  Her Spanish was too rapid for Seyd's ear, but it was easy to gather itstenor from the results. With a certain complaisance Seyd looked on whilehis enemies scattered on a run that was diversified by uncouth leaps asthe _mozo's_ whip bit on tender places.

  "He struck at you?" She broke in on the rice-huller's voluble plea thatnever, _never_ would he have raised a finger against the senor had heknown him for a friend of hers! "Then he, too, shall be flogged."

  "I would not wish--" Seyd began.

  But she interrupted him: "You were going toward San Nicolas? Then Ishall turn and ride with you." Anticipating his protest, she added,"I had already ridden beyond my usual distance."

  Very willingly he fell in at her side, and they rode on till they metthe _mozo_ returning, hot and flushed, from the pursuit. He was keenas a blooded hound; it required only her backward nod to send himdarting along the trail, and just about the time they overtook thecharcoal-burners a sudden yelling in their rear told that the accountof the rice-huller was in course of settlement.

  Passing his late enemies, Seyd could not but wonder at theirtransformation. With the exception of the hunchback, in whose beady eyesstill lurked subdued ferocity, all were sobbing, and even he broke intodeprecatory whinings. Having read his Prescott, Seyd knew something ofthe rigid Aztec caste systems from which Mexican peonage was derived.Now, viewing their abjectness, he was able to apprehend, almost with thevividness of experience, the ages of unspeakable cruelty that had givenbirth to their fear. But that which astonished him still more was theindifference with which the girl had ordered the flogging.

  Such glimpses of her face as he was able to steal while they rodedid not aid him much. It was impossible to imagine anything moretypically modern than the delicately chiseled features lit with a vividintelligence which seemed to pulse and glow in the soft shadow beneathher hat. And when from her face his glance fell to her smart riding-suitof tan linen he was completely at sea.

  Curiosity dictated his comment: "Your justice is certainly swift. ReallyI am afraid that I was the aggressor. At least I struck first."

  "But not without cause." She glanced at his smudged clothes. "Tell meabout it." And when he had finished she commented: "Just as I thought.And these are dangerous men. They would have killed you without a qualm.In the days that Don Sebastien was clearing the country of bandits hecounted that hunchback one of his best men."

  "Yet he whined like a puppy under your man's whip."

  Smiling at his wonder, she went on to state the very terms of hispuzzle. "You do not know them--the combination of ferocity andsubservience that goes with their blood. In the old days he who raisedhis hand against the superior caste was put to death by torture, and,though, thank God, those wicked days are past, the effect remains. Theyare obedient, usually, as trained hounds, but just as dangerous to astranger. If I had not ordered them flogged they would have taken it aslicense to kill you at their leisure."

  "Now I realize the depth of my obligation."

  He spoke a little dryly, and she leaped to his meaning with a quicknessthat greatly advanced her in his secret classification. "I have hurtyour pride. You will pardon me. I had forgotten the unconquerable valorof the gringos."

  "Oh, come!" he pleaded.

  She stopped laughing. "Really, I did not doubt your courage. But do notimagine for one moment that they would attack you again in the open. Aknife in the dark, a shot from a bush, that is their method, and if youshould happen to kill one, even in self defense, gringos are not so wellbeloved in Guerrero but that some one would be found to swear it amurder. Be advised, and go carefully."

  "I surely will." He was going on to thank her when she cut him off withthe usual "It is nothing." Whereupon, respect for her intuition wasadded to the classification which was beginning to bewilder him by itsscope and variety.

  In fact, he could not look her way nor could she speak without somephysical trait or mental quality being added to the catalogue. Now itwas the quivering sensitiveness of her mouth, an unsuspected archness,the astonishing range of feeling revealed by her large dark eyes.Looking down upon the charcoal-burners, they had gleamed like blackdiamonds; in talking, their soft glow waxed and waned. Sometimes--butthis was omitted from the classification because it only occurred whenhis head was turned--a merry twinkle illumined a furtive smile. Taken inall its play and sparkle, her face expressed a lively sensibilityaltogether foreign to his experience of women.

  After a short silence she took up the subject again. "But I am givingyou a terrible impression of our people. It is only in moments ofpassion that the old Aztec crops out. At other times they are kind,pleasant, generous. Neither are we the cruel taskmasters that someforeign books and papers portray us. You would not believe how angrythey make me--the angrier because I have a strain of your blood in myown veins. My grandfather, you know, was Irish. It was from him Ilearned your speech."

  The last bit of information was almost superfluous, for from no othersource could she have obtained the pure lilting quality that makes theDublin speech the finest English in the world. To it she had added anindividual charm, the measured cadence and soft accent of her nativeSpanish, delivered in a low contralto that had in it a little break. Herlaugh punctuated its flow as she came to her conclusion.

  "But you will soon be able to see for yourself what terrible people weare."

  He obtained one glimpse within the next mile. He had already noted thepassing of the last wild jungle. From fields of maize which alternatedwith sunburned fields of _maguey_ they now rode into an avenue that ledon through green cane. Rising far above their heads, the cane marchedwith them for a half mile, then suddenly opened out around a primitivewooden sugar mill. Under the thatched roof of an open hut half-nudewomen were stirring boiling syrup in open pans, and at the sight ofFrancesca one of them came running out to the trail.

  "Her baby is to be christened next Sunday," the girl told him as theyrode on. "She was breaking her heart because she had no robe. But nowshe is happy, for I have promised to ask the good _mama_ to lend hermine, which she has treasured all these years."

  Soon afterward as they turned out of the cane into a new planting theyalmost ran down her uncle, who had come out to inspect the work. Onlyhis quick use of the spur averted a collision, and as his own spiritedroan sprang sideways Seyd noted with admiration that despite his bulkand age horse and man moved as one. If surprised at the sight of hisniece in such company, the old man did not reveal it by so much as thelift of a brow. It was difficult even to perceive the twinkle in hiseyes that lightened his chiding.

  "_Ola_, Francesca! If there be no respect for thy own pretty neck,at least have pity on my old bones. It is you, senor? Welcome to SanNicolas."

  Neither did Seyd's explanation of his business abate his brownimpassivity. If assumed, his ponderous effort at recollection waswonderfully realistic. "Ah, _si_! Santa Gertrudis? If I remember aright,it was denounced before. Yes, yes, by several--but they had no goodfortune. Still, you may fare better. Paulo, the administrador, willattend to the business."

  With a wave of the hand, courteous in its very indifference, he put thematter out of his province and displayed no further interest until thegirl told of the attack on Seyd. Then he glanced up quickly from underfrowning brows.

  "You had them whipped? _Bueno!_ The rascals must be taught not to molesttravelers. And now we shall ride on that the senor may break his fast.And thou, too, wicked one, will be late. As thou knowest, it is the onlyfault the good mother sees in thee."

  "Would that it totaled my sins," she laughed. "To escape another blackmark I shall have to gallop. _Ola!_ for a race!"

  As from a light touc
h of the spur her beast launched out and away, theroan reared and tried to follow, and while he curbed it back to a walkthe old man's heavy face lit up with pleasure. "She rides well. I havenot a vaquero with a better seat. But go thou, Tomas, lest she come toa harm. And you, senor, will follow?"

  With a vivid picture of the figure Peace would cut in a race occupyingthe forefront of his mind it did not take Seyd long to choose. After thegirl had passed from sight behind a clump of tamarinds he took note, asthey rode along, of the peons who were laying the field out in shallowditches wherein others were planting long shoots of seed cane. To hispractical engineer's eye the hand-digging seemed so slow and laboriousthat he could not refrain from a comment.

  "It seems to me that a good steel plow would do the work much cheaper."

  "Cheaper? Perhaps." After a heavy pause, during which he took secretnote of Seyd out of the corner of his eye, the old man went on: "Todo a thing at less cost in labor and time seems to be the only thingthat you Yankees consider. But cheapness is sometimes dearly purchased.Come! Suppose that I put myself under the seven devils of haste thatcontinually drive you. What would become of these, my people? Who wouldemploy them? It is true that theirs is not a great wage--perhaps, afterall, totals less than the cost of your steel plow and a capable man torun it. We pay only three and a half cents for each ditch, in ourcurrency, and a man must dig twelve a day. If he digs less he getsnothing.

  "That does not seem just to you?" He read Seyd's surprise. "It would ifyou knew them. Grown children without responsibility or sense of dutyare they. If left free to come and go, they would dig one, two, threeditches, enough and no more than would supply them with _cigarros_ and_aguardiente_, and our work would never be done. As it is, they dig thefull twelve, and have money for other necessities.

  "The wage seems small?" Again he read Seyd's mind. "Yet it is all thatwe can afford, nor does it have to cover the cost of living. Each manhas his patch of maize and frijoles, and a run for his chickens andpigs. Then the river teems with fish, the jungle with small game. Hiswage goes only for drink and _cigarros_, or, if there be sufficientleft over, to buy a dress for his woman. They are perfectly content."Slightly lifting his heavy brows, he finished, looking straight at Seyd:"I am an old Mexican hacendado, yet I have traveled in your country andEurope. Tell me, senor, can as much be said of your poor?"

  Now, in preparing a thesis for one of his social-science courses, Seydhad studied the wage scale of the cotton industry, and so knew that,ridiculously small as this peon wage appeared at the first glance, itactually exceeded that paid to women and children in Southern cottonfactories. In their case, moreover, the pittance had to meet everyexpense.

  He did not hesitate to answer. "I should say that your peons were betteroff, providing the conditions, as you state them, are general."

  "And they are, senor, except in the south tropics, where any kind oflabor is murder. But here? It is as you see; and why disturb it by theintroduction of Yankee methods?"

  Pausing, he looked again at Seyd, and whether through secret pleasure athis concession or because he merely enjoyed the pleasure of speaking outthat which would have been dangerous if let fall in the presence of acountryman, he presently went on: "Therefore it is that I do not standwith Porfirio Diaz in his commercial policies. He is a great man. Whoshould know it better than I that fought with or against him in a dozencampaigns. And he has given us peace--thirty years of slow, warm peace.Yet sometimes I question its value. In the old time, to be sure, we cuteach other's throats on occasion. In the mean time we were warmerfriends. And war prevented the land from being swamped by the millionsthat overrun your older countries, the teeming millions that willpresently swarm like the locusts over your own United States. As I say,senor, I am only an old Mexican hacendado, but I have looked upon it alland seen that where war breeds men, civilization produces only mice. IfI be allowed my choice give me the bright sword of war in preference tothe starvation and pestilence that thins out your poor."

  Concluding, he looked down, interrogatively, as though expecting acontradiction. But though, after all, his argument was merely arestatement of the time-worn Malthusianism, coming out of the mouth ofone who had strenuously applied it during forty years of internecinewar, it carried force. Maintaining silence, Seyd stole occasionalglances at the massive brown face and the heavy figure moving in statelyrhythm with the slow trot of his horse, while his memory flashed overtale after tale that Peters, the station agent, had told him when he wasout the other day to the railroad--tales of bravery, hardy adventures,all performed amidst the inconceivable cruelties of the revolutionarywars. Even had he been certain that the eventual peopling of the earth'svacant places would not force a return to at least a revisedMalthusianism, it was not for his youth to match theories with age. Whenhe did speak it was on another subject.

  "I have been riding all morning on your land. I suppose it extends asfar in the other direction?"

  "A trifle." A deprecatory wave of the strong brown hand lent emphasis tothe phrase. "A trifle, senor, by comparison with the original grant toour ancestor from Cortes. 'From the rim of the Barranca de Guerrero onboth sides, and as far up and down from a given point as a man mayride in a day,' so the deed ran. Being shrewd as he was valiant, myforefather had his Indians blaze a trail in both directions before heessayed the running. A hundred and fifty miles he made of it when hestarted--not bad riding without a trail. But it is mostly gone by familydivision, or it has been forfeited by those who threw in their luck onthe wrong side of a revolution. Now is there left only a paltry hundredor so thousands of acres--and this!"

  For the first time pronounced feeling made itself felt through hismassive reserve, and looking over the view that had suddenly opened,Seyd did not wonder at the note of pride. After leaving the cane theyhad plunged through green skirts of willow to the river that split thewide valley in equal halves, and from the shallow ford they now rodeout on a grassy plateau that ran for miles along low lateral hills.Dotted with tamarinds, banyans, and the tall ceibas which held hugeleafy umbrellas over panting cattle, it formed a perfect foreground forthe hacienda, whose chrome-yellow buildings lay like a band of sunlightalong the foot of the hill. The thick adobe walls that bound stables,cottages, and outbuildings into a great square gave the impression of afortified town, castled by the house, which rose tier on tier up theface of the hill.

  When they rode through the great gateway of the lower courtyard theinterior view proved equally arresting. Mounting after Don Luis upsuccessive flights of stone steps, they came to the upper courtyard,wherein was concentrated every element of tropical beauty--widecorridors, massive chrome pillars, time-stained arches, luxuriousfoliage. From the tiled roof above a vine poured in cataracts of livinggreen so dense that only vigorous pruning had kept it from shutting offall light from the rooms behind. Left alone, it would quickly havesmothered out the palms, orchids, rare tropical plants that made of thecourtyard a vivid garden.

  "They call it the _sin verguenza_." While he was admiring the creeperFrancesca had joined them from behind. "Shameless, you know, for itclimbs 'upstairs, downstairs,' nor respects even the privacy of 'mylady's chamber.' Thanks to the good legs of my beast, I escaped ascolding. Sit here where the vines do not obstruct the view."

  If Seyd had been told a few minutes before that anything could havebecome her more than the tan riding-suit he would have refused tobelieve. But now by the evidence of his own eyes he was forced to admitthe added charm of a simple batiste, whose fluffy whiteness accentuatedher girlishness. The mad gallop had toned her usual clear pallor with atouch of color, and as she looked down, pinning a flower on her breast,he noted the perfect curve of her head.

  "Room for a good brain there," he thought, while answering herobservation. "It is beautiful. But don't you find it a little dullhere--after Mexico City?"

  "No." She shook her head with vigor. "Of course, I like the ballsand parties, yet I am always glad to return to my horses and dogsand--though it is wicked to put them in the sam
e category--my babies.There are always at least three mothers impatiently awaiting my returnto consult me upon names. I am godmother to no less than seven smallFrancescas."

  "I never should have thought it. You must have begun--"

  "--Very young? Yes, I was only fifteen, so my first godchild is nowseven. That reminds me--she is waiting below to repeat her catechism.There is just time--if you would like it."

  "I would be delighted. So the position is not without its duties?"

  "I should think not." Her eyes lit with a touch of indignation. "I holdthe baby at the christening after helping to make the robe. When theyare big enough I teach them their catechism. You could not imagine theweight of my responsibilities, and I believe that I am much moreconcerned for their behavior than their mothers. If any of them were todo anything really wicked"--her little shudder was genuine--"I shouldfeel dreadfully ashamed. But they are really very good--as you shalljudge for yourself. Francesca!" As, with a soft patter of chubby feet, asmall girl emerged from a far corner, she added with archness that waschastened by real concern, "Now you must not dare to say that she isn'tperfect."

  In one sense the caution was needed. After a brave answer to thequestion "Who is thy Creator, Francesca?" the child displayed a slightuncertainty as to the origin of light, added a week or two to the "daysof creation," and became hopelessly mixed as to the specific quantitiesof the "Trinity"--wherein, after all, she was no worse than thetheologians who have burned each other up, in both senses, in furiousdisputes over the same question. But better, far better than letterperfection, was the simple awe of the small brown face and the devotionof the lisping voice which followed the tutor's gentle prompting.

  "Fine! fine!" Seyd applauded a last valorous attack on the TenCommandments, and the small scholar ran off clutching a silver coin,just so much the richer for his heretical presence. As he rose to followhis hostess inside he added, "If all the Francescas are equal to sample,the next generation of San Nicolas husbands will undoubtedly rise up andcall you blessed."

  "Now you are laughing at me," she protested. "Though that might be trulysaid of my mother. She is a saint for good works. But come, or I shallyet earn my scolding. And let me warn you to take care of your heart.All of the _caballeros_ fall in love with mother."

  It was quite believable. While seated in the dining-room, a vaultedchamber cool as a crypt in spite of the sunblaze outside, a room whichwould have seated an army of retainers, he observed the senora with thesatisfaction that even a stranger may feel in the promise a handsomemother holds out to her girls. In addition to the sweetness of her eyesand her tenderly tranquil expression she had retained her youthfulcontour. She exhibited the miracle of middle age achieved without fat orstiffness. In her scarf and black lace she was maturely beautiful.Waving away his apologies for the intrusion, she was anxiouslysolicitous for his wants through the meal. Yet he noticed that intaking his leave an hour later she did not ask him to call again.

  Up to that moment there had been no further mention of his business. Butas he stood hesitating, loath to introduce it, Don Luis relieved hisembarrassment. "Now you would see the administrador? I am sorry, senor,but it seems that he is away at Chilpancin about the sale of cattle. Butif you will intrust your moneys to Francesca she will see to thebusiness and have the papers sent out to the mine."

  Neither did Francesca, when saying good-by, ask him to return. But,conscious that with all their kind hospitality they still regarded himas an intruder, Seyd was neither offended nor surprised. He was even alittle astonished when Don Luis stated his intention of riding with himas far as the cane.

  Until they came to the ford they rode in silence. Though only a fewinches deep at this season, the river's wide bed proclaimed it one ofthose torrential streams which rise from a trickle to a flood in veryfew hours, and when he remarked upon it Don Luis assented with his heavynod.

  "_Si_, it is very treacherous. One night during the last rains it rosefifty feet and swept down the valley miles wide, bearing on its yellowbosom cattle, houses, sheep, and pigs, and it drowned not a few of ourpeople. And each year the floods go higher. Why? Because of the cursedlust that would mint the whole world into dollars. Year by year yourYankee companies are stripping the pine from the upper valley, and,though I have spoken with Porfirio Diaz about it, he is mad forcommerce. He would see the whole state of Guerrero submerged before herevoked one charter. And they even try to make me a party to it.'General, if you will grant us a concession to do this, that, the other?If you will only allow us to run a branch line into your pine we canmake big money--guarantee you half a million pesos.' When I am in Mexicoyour Yankee promoters swarm round me like hungry dogs. But never have Ilistened, nor ever will!"

  He struck the pommel of his saddle a heavy blow, then looked hissurprise as Seyd spoke. "I should not think that you would. I understandyour feelings."

  "You do? _Caramba!_ Then you are the first Yankee that ever did. Inreturn for your sympathy let me offer you advice. You are not the firstman to denounce on my land, nor is Santa Gertrudis the only location.Yankees, English, French, Germans, they have come, denounced claims hereand there, but no man has ever held one. No man ever _will_. Already youhave tasted the bitter hostility of my people, and were I to nod noteven the American Ambassador could save you alive. And this is only thebeginning. Let me return your money? Mexico is one great mine. Anywhereyou can kick the soil and uncover a fortune."

  "But none like the Santa Gertrudis." Seyd smiled. "Of course, I feelit's pretty raw for me to force in on your land; but, knowing thatif I don't some other will, I shall have to refuse. As for theopposition--that is all in the day's work." He finished, offering hishand. "But I hope this won't prevent us from being good neighbors?"

  Shaking his massive head, Don Luis reined in his horse. "No, senor, wecan never be that. But next to a good friend I count a hearty enemy, andyou may depend upon me for that."

  With a courteous wave of the hand he rode off; and, watching him go ata stately canter, Seyd muttered, "Enemy or friend, you are a fine oldchap."

  * * * * *

  "You are surely a fine old chap."

  Retracing his path through the long succession of farm, jungle, andfields, Seyd repeated it, and as he rode along he saw things in a newlight. As he passed through one village at sundown the entire populationwas filing into church, the peons in clean blankets, their women indecent black. The next hamlet was in the throes of a fiesta. Girls inwhite, garlanded with flaming flowers, were dancing the eternal jig ofthe country with their brown swains. And these two functions, church and_baile_, marked the bounds of their simple life. A plenty of rice andfrijoles, a peso or two for clothing, were all that they asked orneeded.

  While prospecting in the Sierra Madres Seyd had drawn many a comparisonbetween the happy indolence of the peon and the worry, strain, strife tolive up to a standard just beyond income that obtains in American life.Because the peon had time to think his simple thoughts, listen to birdsong and the music of babbling streams, to watch the splendors ofsunrise and sunset over purple valleys, Seyd's suffrage had often goneto him. Observing this pastoral life in its tropical setting of palmsand jungle, the opinion grew into a strong conviction.

  "The old fellow's right!" he ejaculated, riding out of the last villageinto the jungle proper. "We have nothing to give his people, and we'dsurely kill all they have."

  Though the profusion of foliage which made of the trail one long greentunnel prevented him from seeing it, he was now riding along at thefoot of the Barranca wall. Its deep shadow already filled the junglewith a twilight that thickened into night as he rode. But, knowingthat whatever her faults of temperament Peace could be trusted tofetch her own stable, he left her to take her own way while hepursued his thoughts. While the siren whistle of beetles, chatter of_chickicuillotes_--wild hens of the jungle--deafened his ears, he triedto bring the crowding impressions of the day into some kind of order--noeasy task when a fire-eating old general and a typical Mexican
motherhad to be reconciled in thought with a young girl who possessed the faceof a Celt, eyes of a Spaniard, vivacity of a Frenchwoman, and Americanintelligence.

  Next he fell to speculating upon the causes which had kept her single atan age that, according to Mexican standards, placed her hopelessly uponthe shelf, and he found the answer in the gossip of the American stationagent on his last trip out to the railroad. "She could have had hercousin Sebastien any time, and there were others around these parts. Butonce let a high-strung girl like her get a glimpse of the outside worldand no common hacendado can ever hope to tie her shoestring. They sayshe has had other chances--attaches of foreign legations in Mexico City.But she turned 'em down--I don't know why, unless it's ideals." With ahumorous twinkle the agent had added: "Bad things, ideals--always in theway. If you happen to have any in stock give 'em to the first beggar youmeet along the road. Hers are keeping San Nicolas and El Quiss fromreuniting, but she don't seem to care."

  "A fine girl--the man will be lucky that gets her." Seyd nowre-expressed the agent's homely verdict. "If it wasn't--" He stoppedshort, with a savage laugh. "You darned fool! mooning over a girl whowould turn up her pretty nose at any gringo, much more one that hasforced himself in on her uncle's land. Your business is to get afortune out of the mine, and do it quick. And even if it wasn't--"

  The thought was never finished, for the last few minutes had brought himout into the starlight at the foot of the Barranca wall, and as Peacegathered herself for the scramble upward the jungle lit up with a suddenflash. Before Seyd's ears caught the report he felt his left shoulderclutched, as it were, by a red-hot hand. The next second he was almostthrown by the mule's sudden plunge--fortunately, for otherwise thebullet that came out of a second flash would have smashed through hisbrain.

  "Muzzle-loaders!" In the moment he lay on the mule's neck he divined itfrom the thick explosion. Then the thought, "It will take them a minuteto reload," followed a quick calculation, "They'll catch me again on thefirst turn."

  With him action always sprang of subconscious processes which werequicker than thought, and while he crouched on her neck and Peace tookthe turn on a scrambling gallop he turned loose with both of his Colts,aiming at the spot from which the flashes had come. And the sequelproved his judgment. This time a single flash announced the bullet whichgrazed the mule's rump just as she shot into a patch of woodland.

  "Reckon I made one of you sick," he interpreted the single shot.

  The burning smart of his wound and the treachery of the attack hadloosed within him a fury of anger. Reining in, he felt his shoulder. Thebullet had plowed a furrow in the flesh of the upper arm, but, muttering"I guess it's bled about all it's going to," he first tied the mule to atree, then slid the "reloads" into his guns.

  It would have been foolish to expose himself in the open trail under theclear starlight. Resisting the savage impulse which urged him to closequarters, he crawled back to the edge of the timber and again turnedloose his guns, searching the jungle below with a swinging muzzle. Timeand again he did it, thanking his stars whenever he reloaded for theforethought which had caused Billy to slip an extra box of cartridgesinto the holsters, and not until only one charge was left did he pauseto listen.

  Whether or no it was the firing that had frightened even the night birdsinto temporary quiet, not even a twig stirred in the darkness below. Hecaught only the distant whooping which told that Billy had heard, and asthis drew nearer with astonishing quickness Seyd rose and went back tohis mule.

  "Coming downhill hell for leather!" he muttered. "If I don't hurry he'llbreak his neck."