The Missourian

by Eugene P. Lyle

  CHAPTER XXIII

  A CURIOUS PAGAN RITE

  "E un peccato che se ne va con l'acqua benedetta." --_Machiavelli_.

  The Storm Centre looked round, about and above. He was as a fly in abottle. A massive rough-hewn door, jammed tight, sealed him within adobewalls two feet thick. There was one window, cross-barred, as high as hischin, and only large enough to frame his head. They had brought him tothe carcel, or dungeon, of the hacienda, where peons were constrained todocility. A wide masonry bench against the wall approximated a couch,but it was as blocked ice. By the flickering of a lone tallow dip, DinDriscoll noted these things with every sense delicately attuned tostrategy. But his verdict was unpromising.

  "Tough luck!" he observed.

  The adobe was built among the stables that bordered on the pasture, andwhen not needed as a calabozo, it served snugly for the administrador'sbest horse. From the one stall came a tentative whinny. Driscoll jumpedwith delight. "Demijohn! W'y, you good old scoundrel, you!" The nightbefore, he remembered, he had seen the horse bedded here. "Say howdy asloud as you want," he cried, slapping him fondly on the flank, "you'llnot betray us. _That's_ been done already."

  Driscoll was cavalryman to the bone, and it heartened him unaccountablyto find his horse. If, only, he could have his pistols too! Ever sincethe Federals had cut him off from his furloughs home, those black uglynavies were next to the nearest in his affections. The nearest was thebuckskin charger. And now, only the buckskin was left, which simply madethe dilemma more poignant. The condemned man gazed critically at thewalls, the rafters, the ground, and shook his head. Supposing a chancefor escape, could he bring himself to leave Demijohn behind? He got hispipe to going, sat down, and frowned ruefully at the candle.

  "I don't want to be shot!" he burst out suddenly, with a plaintivetwang. Then he grinned. The boy still in him had prompted the absurdity.And the rough warrior had laughed at it. Boy and warrior faced eachother, either surprised that the other existed. The boy flushedresentfully at the veteran's contemptuous grunt. His eyes still had theboy's naively inquisitive greeting to the world before him. Next, quiteabruptly, the warrior knew a bitterness against himself. If he could,but once, whimper as the lad about to be soundly strapped! He took nopride in his irony, nor in his hardened indifference to the visage ofdeath. How far, how very far, had the few past years of strife carriedhim from the youngster who used to gaze so eagerly, so expectantly, outon life!

  First, he was home from the University, from the pretty, shady littleMissouri town of Columbia. But the vacation following he spent inbloodily helping to drive the Jayhawkers back across the Kansas line.And soon after, when the fighting opened up officially, and his State,at the start, had more of it than any other battle ground, how manyhundreds of times did his life bide by the next throw of Fate? Duringone cruel winter month he had lain with other wounded in a hospitaldug-out in the river's cliff, and there, wanting both quinine and food,he would peep through the reeds, only to see the merciless Red Legsprying about in search of his hiding place.

  And then there was the wild, busily dangerous life with Old Joe'sBrigade, with that brigade of Missouri's young firebrands. Once,stretched on the prairie, where he had dropped from exhaustion andhunger and loss of blood, the Storm Centre awoke to find a Pin Indianstooping over him for his scalp. On that occasion, the deft turning ofthe wrist from the waist outward, with the stripping of the pistol'shammer simultaneously, had enabled him later to restore to relativescertain other scalps already dangling from the savage's girdle.

  And now here he was in an adobe with walls two feet thick, and numeroussaddle-colored Greasers proposing to shoot him first thing in themorning!

  "I'll be blessedly damned," he drawled querulously, "I object!"

  It was the warrior who spoke now, and with him the boy joined hands.They became as one and the same person. The common foe was without. Theywould see this through together, with grim stoicism, with young-bloodeddaredeviltry.

  The door opened, and one of the common foe, bearing a tray, came within.

  "Well, Don Erastus, how goes it?" With a pang of homesickness theMissourian thought of darkies who carried trays.

  "Juan Bautista, at Y'r Mercy's orders," the Dragoon corrected him.

  "Don John the Baptist then, como le whack?"

  "Bien, senor, bien."

  "Any theory as to what you've got there?"

  "Y'r Mercy's supper. The Senor Coronel Lopez does not desire that Y'rMercy should have any complaint."

  "Oh, none whatever, Johnny, except what I'm to die of. Set it down, hereon the feather bed."

  There were a few native dishes, with a botellon of water and a jar ofwine. Driscoll tipped the botellon to his lips. His whiskey flask hadcontained poison, though the poison of ink, and as he drank, he ponderedon why water should not be an antidote for the poisons that lurk inwhiskey flasks. Then he wondered why such foolish conceits at such timespersist in shouldering death itself out of a man's thoughts. Andmeanwhile, there stood the precursor of his end, in the emblematicperson of a very brown John the Baptist. The fellow's gorgeous redjacket was unbuttoned, revealing a sordid dirty shirt. He was officer ofthe guard, and had a curiosity as to how a Gringo about to be shot wouldact. He waited clumsily, lantern in hand. But he was disappointed. Thereseemed to be nothing out of the commonplace. Some condemned Mexican,though a monotonously familiar spectacle, would yet have been moreentertaining.

  Driscoll looked at him over the botellon. That earthen bottle had notleft the prisoner's lips. It had stopped there, poised aloft by an idea.

  "See here," Driscoll complained, "where's the rest of the water I'm tohave?"

  "Of what water, senor?"

  "For my bath, of course. Don't I die to-morrow?"

  "Yes, but----"

  "Here, this wine is too new for me. Drink it yourself, if you want."

  "Many thanks, senor, with pleasure. But a bath? I don't understand."

  "No? Don't you Mexicans ever bathe before you die?"

  "We send for the padre."

  "Oh, that's it! And he spiritually washes your sins away? But supposeyou couldn't get your padre?"

  The Indian shuddered. "Ai, Maria purisima, one's soul would go toeverlasting torment!"

  "There! Now you can understand why I count so much on ablution. It'sabsolution."

  The native readily believed. Like others of his class, he thought allProtestants pagans, and none Catholic but a Mexican. "Must be somethinglike John the Baptist's day, verdad, senor?" he said. "On that holy day,once a year, we must all take a bath."

  "Quite right too," Driscoll returned soberly. "A man should go throughmost anything for his religion.--Haven't noticed my horse there, haveyou, Johnny?" The guard pricked up his ears. "Of course not," Driscollwent on, "you're worrying about my soul instead. Well, so am I. WeAmericans, you know, save our yearly baths for one big solemn final one,just before we die. And if I don't get mine to-night, I'll beassociating with you unshrived Mexicans hereafter, and that would bepretty bad, wouldn't it? It's what made me think of my horse there. Thathorse, Johnny, is heavy on my soul. He's most too heavy to wash away.Now, I'm not going to tell you that I actually stole him; but just thesame, if a good man like you would take him, after I'm gone--why, I'dfeel that he was washed off pretty well."

  The Mexican's sympathy grew more keen.

  "But the other sins," Driscoll added, "they'll need water, and a greatplenty, too."

  Juan Bautista was feeling the buckskin's knees. Driscoll longed to chokehim, but instead, he drove again at the wedge. "Another thing, I'll haveto leave my money behind." He mentioned it casually, but his breathstopped while he waited for the effect. The guard straightened.Demijohn's knees seemed to be all right. He took up the tray, and openedthe door, yet without a word. Driscoll's fist doubled, to strike and runfor it. Then the fellow spoke.

  "Does Y'r Mercy want soap too?"

  The fist unclenched. "No," came the reply, almost in a j
oyful gasp,"this is for, for godliness only."

  "One jar, senor?"

  "Bless me, no! Two big ones, bigger'n a barrel."

  With a parting glance at Demijohn, the guard stole forth to gratify theheathen's whim.

  "I'll give him enough to _buy_ a horse," Driscoll resolved.