by Max Brand
“I won’t believe it.”
“Oh, yes, but she did. She loved me tremendously. So much so, that when you see her, you will find the love shining in her eyes. She does not care one bit if the whole world should know.”
“I am to see her, then?”
“Yes, indeed. She is on this boat, you know.”
“On this boat?”
“Yes.”
“But . . . where is she?”
“She is confined to her cabin.”
“Is she ill, poor thing . . . and in these dark little cabins in such weather?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t care to have her mix with the people on the deck. And when men see her, you must understand that they lose their minds completely. They would lay down their souls to have her. So I have to watch her with the greatest of care.”
“But does your wife . . . ?”
“Oh, she is not my wife. No. We decided that we loved each other so perfectly that marriage was an unnecessary ceremony. I knew, when she began to come at the mere crooking of my finger, that it was unnecessary for me to go through the formality of a marriage. So we have been living together as happily as two lovers in the Garden of Eden.”
“Thank you for the . . . confession,” said Constancia.
“You must take it carefully to heart,” he said, “because, unless some man comes to you with a high hand, you’ll never find a husband worthy of you, Señorita Alvarez.”
“I am a little sleepy,” she said. And at that instant, the duenna wakened.
Stephen rose. “I shall introduce you to her as you leave the ship,” he said. “When we land tomorrow, you shall see her. Then you will confess that she is the most lovely thing in the world.”
There was no answer from Constancia, and therefore he bowed to her and went down the deck singing softly to himself. He was very pleased, because he knew that she would never forget. He also did not intend to let this thing slip from his mind.
But he did not dare to come near her during the rest of that evening, or the next morning, as the shore came toward them, blue, and then turning to green, and then glossy and glistening under the hot sun. Back beyond these too rich, feverish lowlands, where the rain fell every day, and the steam was drawn up by the sun, stood the mountains, beyond which were the fine, high tablelands that were the wealth of Venduras—where the city of Venduras stood, surrounded by its ring of dependent towns, in which rebellion was constantly raising its head. In the mountains themselves were the mines, and any one of the wealthy owners could turn the political world of that little country topsy-turvy at a moment’s notice. For all was ever at a fine balance, ready to waver at the first hostile breath.
Not for the mines or the rich farmlands, or the cattle ranges where cowpunchers could find work—not for any of these things had Stephen Macdona come to Venduras, but because of those same political upheavals, those wars that commenced at a card game in the evening and continued in street fighting and massacres the next day. In such a world there was sure to be a place for him, as soon as he could make himself known to the powers that were. He thought of these things as he watched the ship being brought to dock and the cover taken from the main hatch, and the derrick with its long sling lowered into the depths.
He hurried down to take charge. For, of course, Christy would treat them as a tiger treats dogs if they started to fit the sling around her without her master’s presence. He arrived at the critical moment. They had her placed on a little platform, and Stephen lashed her to the sides. Then, standing beside her, he was swung ashore.
It was the old story. The instant the mare was freed from the ropes of the sling, men began to gather. Ragged fellows in tattered clothes that had once been white came peering and grinning and nodding their heads until the great brims of their straw hats were flopping up and down. In the meantime, Stephen groomed her, gave her a mouthful of oats, and fitted the saddle on her back. Then he let her walk about in a narrow circle, getting her land legs under her once more, and breathing the land air, with her eye brightening each instant.
His luggage was brought. A porter was shouldering it. But where should he go?
A little avenue opened through the gaping throng. It was Constancia Alvarez and her duenna at her side. Constancia Alvarez with glistening eyes.
“Señor Guadalvo! That is the lady. . . . . that is the beautiful lady.”
“See,” said Stephen. “She is not ashamed to show the world how she loves me.”
For the mare had come up from behind and rubbed her muzzle at his shoulder.
“She is a lamb,” said Constancia. “Tush, are you afraid of me? Look, señor, we are friends already. Oh, what a lovely thing.”
“Señorita,” said the warning voice of the duenna.
Yonder, surrounded by men carrying heaps of luggage, appeared a dignified gentleman, with the crowd giving way before him. Constancia Alvarez hurried to rejoin him. She had time for only one bright smile to Stephen Macdona, and, as he swept off his hat and bowed after her, he heard her voice saying “adieu.” Then the crowd closed around her again.
Even the beauty of Christy could not keep all eyes in her direction now, for the father of Constancia was a great man in Venduras, and every face was turned to watch the progress of Don Rudolfo across the square, toward the one respectable building that fronted on the plaza.
When her duenna and she were alone in their room, Constancia hurried to the window and looked out. Still she could see the flashing body of the mare.
“Tita, Tita,” she moaned.
Tita was, in the presence of others, the most circumspect of elderly ladies, but with young Constancia she was the opposite. And she said now: “Is it really the horse or the man, my dear?”
“He is the most impertinent rascal in the world,” said the girl, frowning. Then she laughed. “And the bravest, Tita.”
“All brave men are dangerous,” said Tita with the gravity of one reading from a book.
“No, I don’t mean that he means as much as that,” corrected the girl. “Only . . . I wish to see more of him.”
“Shall I tell your father what you wish?”
“Oh, Tita, that would never do in the wide world. Never. He would begin by asking questions . . . who is this Señor Guadalvo and all the rest. But . . . if this Don Valentin . . . if he were to follow us to the city . . . do you understand? How can it be done?”
“A word from me, my dear?” said the old woman with a faint smile.
“Oh, a word might never do,” said the girl. “He is all fire and words, this Guadalvo. On the ship he had nothing to do . . . except to pull drunken sailors out of the water and talk to a girl, one evening. Talk nonsense . . . but you heard, of course.”
“Of course . . . every word. And it was not such very foolish talk, señorita. However, if you wish to have him follow you, suppose that you take his horse away from him.”
“His horse? His horse . . . he would go mad, Tita. He would kill a hundred men for her sake.”
“What are a hundred men?” Tita smiled again.
“But how could the horse be taken?”
“Is there anything that your father cannot do in this country of ours? And suppose that you point out that horse and say that you want her . . . why, my dear, the thing is done.”
Constancia stood with her eyes closed, her smile going and coming. “It is tremendously wicked . . . such a thought,” she said. “And tremendously delightful.”
Chapter 5
There were two things of which Rudolfo Alvarez was prouder than of all else in the world. The first was his title of general, which he had obtained on a certain occasion in the city of Venduras. A too-ambitious president had overtaxed the mine owners, and the result was an invasion of hardy fellows from the mountains, well armed, with European and American leaders, their ranks bolstered up with more than a little of the same sort of fighting blood. They took the city of Venduras and put the president to flight. As one American in the fray put it: �
�There was nothing to it but come and take while the taking was good.”
Alvarez had not been among the enemies of that president. Indeed, he had been so enriched by the land grants of the chief official of the republic of Venduras that he had been included in a little impromptu proscription list that had been published by the mine owners. So, along with a crowd of others, he had been driven helter-skelter out of the town. That evening they had camped upon the hills overlooking beautiful Venduras, saw the sparkle of its lakes beneath the moon, and trembled in the naked, chilly air.
Then Alvarez breathed inspiration from the air, sweetened with the scent of the pure pines. He gathered the downcast throng together and pointed out that they were a scant ten miles from the town. The victors were now engaged in celebrating their victory. What could be more simple than to sweep down from the heights, rush across the city, rout their drunken enemies, and reclaim all that they had lost, plus glory?
The idea was a catching one. By mutual assent, Don Rudolfo was placed at the head of the expedition. It was too perilous a task for other heroes and important men to envy him his place at the head of the silent column. It was not over-silent, at that. But in the city of Venduras all was hilarious noise. For the men from the mountains were making up for the heat and the dust of their long, hard march across the plains. They had found wine by the hogshead; all was dancing and singing and joy, as long as head and feet could hold out.
In the midst of this there came a sudden, sullen rumble out of the south, and then the crackling of firearms. It only meant that some of their friends, of course, were celebrating the battle with powder and lead. So they remained at their jollities until the streets were black with an onrushing throng. There were guns, indeed, and guns that were pointed to kill.
In half an hour after the attack reached the vitals of the city, all was over.
After that, Alvarez was seen rushing about the city on a conspicuous white charger, carrying the word everywhere that there were to be no reprisals. For he had had a second inspiration. He had determined that, by this coup d’état, he should make nothing but friends. The next morning he could count the heads of a dozen important mine owners in the city prison, and other people of much note, here and there. He gathered the miners together in a single chamber.
“If the last taxes were oppressive, what can you afford to pay?” he had asked.
And they had told him, meeting frankness with frankness.
The late unhappy president was straightway boosted from his place by Dictator-General Alvarez. He himself was too wise to wish to stay in power long. All that he collected were a few modest square leagues of good timberland in the hills, farmland in the river bottoms, and cattle range on the plains. He put in another figurehead at the helm of the republic, and, for his part, he was contented to go back to his ranch and let time roll again beneath his feet.
It was the one great action in his life. Before that, the most distinguished thing that he had done was to inherit a large property. But upon that one turbulent night and the deeds of the days after, his fame was based as upon a rock. Thereafter, he was looked upon as sort of a deity behind a cloud. He could do no wrong. He could not ask too much.
The foreign capitalists whose whims and fancies so often upset the political situation of the republic always made one exception in the list of the proscribed, and that exception was sure to be Alvarez. He had been their friend in the hour of need, and they blessed him for it ever after.
As for the politicians themselves, they looked upon him with even a greater reverence, for he was the only citizen of Venduras who, being at the head of the state with resistless power—for the nonce—had had the modesty and the strength of will to step out from the chair of state and give the scepter to another.
These affairs were now many years in the past, but General Alvarez had never lost his overnight title, and he had never lost his prestige. In fact, he had never allowed his reputation to become tarnished by being used. This, then, was the most memorable thing in the life of the general, and rather than lose that title, he would have given up both legs and ten years of his life.
However, there was another possession of his of which he was proud to a degree only less than his fame. That was his daughter. He considered her from a thousand angles, and, from every new viewpoint, he found that she was perfect. And when it came time to send her away to a far country to be “finished,” the general had been buried in grief. Every evening he wrote a letter to her—no mere note, but something that told her everything that had happened in the course of the last twenty-four hours. He was certain that all that happened to General Alvarez was of real importance to the world, therefore, how trebly important to his daughter.
She wrote him in return a scrap of news twice a month, perhaps, and disregarded volleys of frantic cables in between. It was not that she did not love him, but because she was a continual procrastinator.
Now, as the general sat and twisted his long, gray mustaches and worshipped her with his eyes, wondering how God could ever have made a creature so beautiful, so delightful, so perfect—as he thought of these things, he heard her ask if he would do one thing to make her the very happiest girl in the world?
One thing? He would do a million things. Ah, let her see.
She led him to the window. “That black chestnut mare. Father, she is the most exquisite thing that ever walked on four feet. I have seen her. My heart is breaking to have her. Can you . . . ?”
“My dear child, my dear, silly child, if he were a Derby winner, he should be yours. Instantly.” He said to the servant who came in answer to his summons: “There is a horse yonder in the square. A pretty, dark chestnut. She belongs to young Valentin Guadalvo. Buy her and bring her instantly to the hotel.”
“And the price?”
“Buy her,” said the general, and frowned.
“But a thousand . . .”
“A thousand or a hundred thousand pesos. Be off.”
The man was off, gaping. He went to young Stephen Macdona and found that gentleman in the act of getting into the saddle, while Christy turned her head to watch her master with loving eyes.
Their conversation was not as brief as Stephen Macdona would have had it. He listened for five minutes, while the offers constantly climbed. Finally he leaned from the saddle and placed his strong hand on the shoulder of the other.
“Have you a wife and children, amigo mío?”
“I have, God be praised.”
“Would you sell them for gold or diamonds?”
The man fell back, amazed, and he carried this strange story to the general.
“It is as it should be,” said General Alvarez. “I look about me and wonder what there is to show my girl that I love her. Now fortune brings this way into my hand. Very good.” He changed his coat, took his polished stick, wore his heaviest gold chain, with the Swiss watch at one end of it, and a certain rich medal at the other. Then he went to see Señor Oñate.
Oñate was not an official. He was more. He was the power that pulled all the strings at the seaport town. He listened to the general with respectful attention. It was not for him to ask questions. It was sufficient that the general had a desire for yonder horse.
“It is done,” he said, smiling most agreeably.
“May I ask how?”
“The horse is sick,” said Oñate. “The horse is sick, and the veterinary . . . the lazy scoundrel . . . who pronounces upon every animal that enters the country . . . will see that it would be fatal to permit this mare to live for five hours on this land. Very well. The mare is taken . . . she disappears. If another horse very like her should come into the hands of General Alvarez, it would be an odd coincidence. And there is nothing more to it.” He waved his hands and bowed above the gesture.
Alvarez said: “You are a thousand times kind, Oñate. I wish you to take this to remember me by.” He put a thin sheaf of bills on the table. There were three thousand pesos in that stack.
Oñate looked a
t that money, and his heart ached for it. However, he knew policy too well to accept. This was the first time that he had been lucky enough to have Alvarez ask a favor of him. He only wished that such favors were asked every day of the year.
He actually turned pale as he caught up the money in both hands and carried it to Alvarez.
“General Alvarez, you crush me,” said Oñate. “How could I take this money? It would haunt me. My first opportunity of serving the great benefactor of his country . . . señor . . .”
“It has left my hands, Oñate,” said the general. “I cannot take it back again.” And he left the room.
Chapter 6
The worthy who stopped Stephen Macdona was splendid above the waist and negligible below. He had a uniform coat of brilliant blue, surmounted with staring epaulettes of gold at either shoulder; enormous brass buttons flamed down its front. He had crossed belts, each set off with cheap gold-and-silver threadwork. The cap on his head was set off with a towering plume of crimson, and his belt supported two revolvers, to say nothing of a magnificent sword. But below the waist he had on a pair of white cotton trousers, frayed to rags halfway down the calves of his legs, and his bare toes wriggled in huaraches that had withstood much battering, in the service of his country.
It was very unlikely that Stephen Macdona would have paid much attention to him, in spite of guns and sword and stout and useful knife. But behind this dignitary strolled half a dozen others, all loaded with weapons, looking exceedingly familiar with the use of them. They had been accustomed to terrifying the peaceful populace of that town for years, and therefore they knew that they were invincible. So Stephen stood by and listened, while they informed him that he was guilty of a great crime in having introduced his horse into their country before the veterinary inspection. Already, the seeds of dreadful disease might be speeding abroad to depopulate the myriads of cattle on the wide uplands.