The Fugitive

by Max Brand

  It was an old habit with General Alvarez. He felt that it surrounded him with dignity and calm. In a way, he aspired to be considered a sort of George Washington of Venduras. So he maintained these evening vigils, and, after dark, the fragrance of his Havanas crept down and mingled with the perfumes in the patio, and sometimes, a little later, the soft murmur of his snoring descended, also. However, the general never dreamed that the servants dared to smile, even behind his back. He was a rare soul, who saw so few faults in himself that he could not guess where others might criticize him.

  On this evening, he had finished his first cigar and had wrapped the goatskin rug closer about his knees as the night breeze grew a little chillier. He looked drowsily forth across the dark until he was not at all sure where the lights of his outermost villages ended and the stars of heaven began. Just at this moment he was drawn rudely back to the earth by the sharp tapping of heels that crossed the floor of his library, behind. There was only one person with authority to break in upon him in this fashion.

  She came out onto the balcony with the swishing of her skirts about her like the noise of a wind through ferns. “Father, it is not true,” she said. “You haven’t sent Christy away.”

  Some of his sense of greatness departed suddenly from Don Rudolfo. His aura, as one might say, grew dim, and he bundled the silken softness of the goatskin tighter around him. “Sit down beside me, child.” She did not budge from before him, looking down at him with blazing eyes. He was glad of the dimness of the night, which screened his face, although some of the lamplight from within shone upon her. In these moods she was very like her mother—a little too splendid—a little too like. “There is one’s duty to be considered as well as one’s pleasure,” said Don Rudolfo.

  “Duty? Duty?”

  “To one like your father, who must think of his country as well as himself.”

  “I’m not talking about the country. I’m talking about Christy . . . just when I’d taught her to take sugar from my hand . . . and . . . and I would have ridden her in another week.”

  She fairly stammered in her passion, and her father looked at her with a vague uneasiness.

  “If it were only this Guadalvo, he would have been nothing to your father. But when de los Pazos comes in . . . ah, that is another matter.”

  “Guido de los Pazos,” echoed the girl.

  Her father sighed. He had not been sure that even this name would impress her. “That same Guido,” he said.

  “But de los Pazos, the bandit . . . what has he to do with Don Valentin?”

  “This much . . . that they ride together, my dear. I heard it this morning. And the instant I heard it, I knew what I should have to do.”

  “Guido de los Pazos,” said Constancia again, breathless.

  “The party was sighted near San Lorenzo. Troops rode out.”

  “And caught the wind!” cried his daughter. “Oh, that is all that they ever catch when they try to net that terrible man. Oh, go on.”

  “They did catch the wind, and it proved to be a hurricane,” said her father. “They laid an ambush to surprise de los Pazos twenty miles north of San Lorenzo . . . twenty miles nearer to me and to you, my dear, if you know the map of your country.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “When they had arranged their troop, there were enough of them to swallow de los Pazos and all his crew, they thought. And then they saw Don Guido coming across the plain with a little handful . . . hardly enough to be worth talking about . . . and they prepared themselves to capture the old lion at last.”

  “Ah, but they never could do it!” exclaimed Constancia. “Tell me what he did?”

  “Nothing but ride straight forward toward the government men. It seemed plain that he suspected nothing.”

  “Ah, how splendid!” cried Constancia.

  “Child, child, do you love nothing but bloodshed?”

  “Quick . . . tell me everything. When he came closer . . . he slipped away?”

  “He came too close to them to slip away. He came right on into the range of their rifles.”

  “Dreadful.”

  “Is this de los Pazos your brother that you love him so well?”

  “Every brave man is my brother. Go on.”

  “The troops saw that they had him in their grip. They held their fire, ready to blast Don Guido to bits. They only wondered that there were so few of the bandits with him. Forty had been reported in sight at San Lorenzo. And here were a scant dozen with him. And of the government, nearly two hundred, say the reports.”

  “Two hundred, and poor Don Guido had only a dozen. But that would mean a miracle, Father.”

  “Do you think so? Well, it was a miracle that came from a different direction. Just as they were ready to open fire and blow de los Pazos to bits, there was a rattle of hoofs from behind the rocks of a tall hill that lay at the side of the troops. And down came a little crowd of horsemen at full speed, each man with a pair of revolvers spouting fire and lead. As they galloped, they shouted . . . what do you think they shouted?”

  “They shouted for de los Pazos. Did they not?”

  “That was only part of their yell,” said Don Rudolfo. “They shouted for de los Pazos and for Guadalvo. De los Pazos and Guadalvo. They made the hills ring with their cheers. And in front of them rode a tall young man whose guns killed from either hand.”

  “It was Valentin Guadalvo. And he crushed them.”

  “He tore the troopers to shreds. They rode away as fast as they could, and that left the field to nothing but the bandits and the wounded. There were plenty of the latter, and plenty of dead, also.”

  She threw up her face and laughed softly. “Did I not tell you that he was such a man?” she said. “Oh, I saw it in him. Soft as silk, but a tiger’s claws under the velvet. A dreadful man, Father. A glorious man. And now that he and Don Guido are together . . . will they not burn through the country like a great flame?”

  “My dear,” said her father. “I’m glad to see that you agree with me. Now, if a man has a bear’s cub in his tent, and he sees the mother bruin come raging down the path, does he not put the little one outside where it may be seen? And in exactly the same fashion, would I not have been a fool to retain that mare with me when I knew that Guadalvo and Don Guido were riding together?”

  “Oh,” said the girl, “to surrender without striking a blow.”

  “Consider, my dear, that I have something beyond myself to think of. There is my country, as I said before. Who can tell when this poor, bewildered, harassed Venduras of ours may need me again? Am I to throw myself away fighting brigands? Will you tell me that, Constancia?”

  Constancia looked down at him for a long moment. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. There was something almost like pity in that kiss, and it disturbed the equanimity of Alvarez more than anything that had ever happened in his entire life.

  “Dear Father,” she said, “of course, you have done exactly the right thing.”

  And she went from the balcony, although Don Rudolfo could not settle again toward drowsiness. He was filled with a coldly disturbed thought. It was as though his daughter’s eyes had been looking through him, and finding in his inmost nature something of which he himself was not aware. What could it be?

  She found Tita enjoying a covert cigarette in her own room. That worthy old woman hastily put out the cigarette, and Constancia pretended not to see.

  “Do you know what it is?” she cried.

  “And what, then? I thought that you would be down there much longer than this, complaining.”

  “It is de los Pazos.”

  Tita clasped a little pendant ruby that glowed at her throat, and she looked about her in terror.

  “De los Pazos and Guadalvo have joined hands. And Father, like a wise . . . politician . . . has sent Christy away, where they can find her more easily, you know . . . sent her away without a guard. Oh, how could a man’s pride let him do such a thing?”

  “Yet you d
o not seem unhappy, child?”

  “When he has Christy will that be the end, Tita?”

  “Will that be the end? Will that be the end? Of what are you talking, Constancia? What should be the end?”

  Constancia sat by the window and watched the stars and clasped her hands across her throat and laughed and shuddered. “Will he stop when he has Christy . . . merely?”

  “Oh, Constancia, are you mad? Do you mean . . . do you guess . . . would he dare?”

  “I have never seen the stars so bright,” crooned Constancia contentedly. “And what is that bird singing out yonder in the darkness, Tita?”

  “Is a screech owl a singing bird, Constancia?” asked the other, still breathless.

  “I never knew,” said Constancia, “that the world could be so beautiful before.”

  Chapter 11

  It was the manifest intent of Don Rudolfo to avoid trouble with the bandit if he could, but it was also most necessary that he should maintain a bold and politic front. Because, worse than death itself, he feared the compromising of his dignity as a national figure. Therefore, he made the most careful preparations to impress the public eye.

  He called in from the hills some scores of his hardy herdsmen on their shaggy, wild-eyed little ponies, all looking as formidable as tigers. He brought down from the forests and the rougher upper mountains a number of woodsmen and goatherds, more stolid than the riders and therefore, it was felt, suitable for use as a sort of infantry to be thrown about the house of Don Rudolfo and protect that house from the onset of the enemy.

  But a mere defensive campaign was not what Don Rudolfo pretended. He would have people believe him capable of still more than this. Accordingly he sent out a few scouts, riding in the direction of the supposed line of the bandit’s march. The people of the countryside were given to understand that Don Rudolfo was merely concentrating his forces before launching an irresistible attack against de los Pazos.

  However, it was never the intention of the politician to do more than strike a few attitudes for the sake of impressing his fellow countrymen. He posed as a great upholder of law and order. All the while he earnestly prayed that Don Guido would exercise discretion and good sense and forbear the battle. If the terrible de los Pazos had made an ally of Valentin Guadalvo, there could really be nothing that the pair wanted from him, Alvarez, except that same unlucky mare, Christy. So he had sent Christy out to pasture on the verge of his dominions, in an unguarded range. Let the bandits pick her up as they would. So ran the thoughts of Don Rudolfo.

  The very next day they had news of a kind that convinced him he had nothing more to fear. Word came over the wire that the government, while de los Pazos was ranging across the lowlands, had dispatched a flying column that had penetrated softly through the mountains and had reached the valley where the bandits kept their headquarters. There the men who remained in the place had fled to the fastnesses of the higher ravines. But they had captured several children and women—a small booty, to be sure, except that one of the girls was none other than the daughter of de los Pazos himself.

  Don Rudolfo, rubbing his hands together, communicated these tidings to his family at the noon meal. What would be the result? Why, that grim bandit would whirl about and scour across the plains, breathing death and destruction and headed for the misguided spirits who had dared to violate his valley in the mountains. This was clear to Alvarez, and he wondered when his daughter dropped her head and frowned.

  But of the actual movements of de los Pazos, there were no tidings. He was lost in the vast sea of the plains and there was no word of him, until late that afternoon a flying rider rushed to the Casa Alvarez with the word that de los Pazos and his men had been seen—many miles away. There was word that they had paused to capture a certain black chestnut mare.

  Alvarez was in a quandary until he had had a chance to think the matter over. “It is all clear,” he said. “De los Pazos has not yet heard about his daughter. But now he knows the truth and he will turn back.”

  Constancia had ideas of her own, and Tita heard them before the day was ten minutes older. “If Don Valentin has taken Christy again, tell me, Tita, will he turn back until he has come to see me, also? Or has he made all of those desperate rides across the plains only for the sake of a horse?”

  “All the saints have mercy,” whispered Tita. “Do you think that he would try to steal you out of your own house?”

  “Steal me? Oh, no, he would not dare to do that. How could they face all my father’s men? No, but before tomorrow morning . . . you will see if I lie . . . he will attempt to slip into the house and see me. He will come on with Christy. He will try to see me if it is only to berate me for having stolen his horse.”

  “Child, child, is he a madman, then?”

  But Constancia merely laughed, and all the rest of that day she was as happy as a child. In the evening, she watched from her window as a broad moon lifted its golden face above the eastern trees and covered the plains with soft shadows and unearthly light. She could not sleep; she could not read. But she sat for a long time listening to the voices from her father’s little army that was housed in the outer sheds, living happily, and waiting for the word of command that was to send them out against the bandits.

  They would never receive that command. Constancia knew her father far too well to expect that. But it gave her a pleasant sense of strength to hear those distant, murmuring sounds. They began to die out; they passed into a few faint laughs; the men of Alvarez were going to bed. And what of Valentin Guadalvo?

  When Tita came to say good night, she stood at the window, saying: “You see, you have been only dreaming, child. Even a madman would not dare to come here . . . but why do the men of your father keep up such a noise?”

  For a sudden tumult had broken out again from the sheds. Then it seemed to Constancia that she could hear a single voice, far away through the night, shrieking a distant, dim warning. After that, the clear, small ringing reports of guns half covered up by the thundering of hoofs that swept rapidly toward the house.

  Tita clutched her. “What is it, Constancia? Oh, my guardian angels, what can it be?”

  Constancia put her suddenly away and sprang to the window. The noise from the sleepers had turned into a deafening babble of sounds. Men were shouting commands, questions. She could see them pouring out, half dressed. Some carried rifles. Others went about half asleep, half bewildered with fear, their hands empty.

  From a window farther down the house, the voice of Don Rudolfo shouted orders. There were no obedient ears to hear. Half a dozen riders came swirling into the confusion of men. They were gesticulating wildly and pointing behind them.

  “Constancia!” gasped Tita. “Tell me before I die . . . what is it? What can it mean?”

  The door of the room was dashed open. Don Rudolfo ran in, girding a cartridge belt about his hips.

  “Constancia!” he cried. “Come quickly! There may be little time. They are coming. That devil . . .”

  The uproar outside drowned his voice, and Constancia, clinging fascinated to the window, heard the roar of the charge rush louder and closer. She strained her eyes and saw a long line of shadowy horsemen pouring out of the night. A wild voice went up from them: “Pazos! Pazos! Guadalvo! De los Pazos!”

  Guadalvo. Her mind flashed back to the deck of the old Santa Lucia as it weltered through the warm gulf seas, tossing its rail against the rising moon. Guadalvo had held her hand gently, and spoken as no other man had ever dared to speak to her.

  “Constancia!” shouted her father at her ear. “Do you hear? Are you mad?”

  She did not turn her head. She would not lose one iota of the magic scene outside. “We are as safe here as anywhere!” she exclaimed. “Ah, what men.”

  “I am coming again. I shall have the horses placed at the rear of the house. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come there instantly.”

  He was gone, racing from the room, and there was only T
ita, sobbing convulsively on the floor beside her. But yonder came that line of galloping shadows. They gleamed clearer in the moonshine, and the yelling cut like knives against her ear:

  “De los Pazos! Guadalvo! Guadalvo!”

  Words of magic, it seemed, so far as those heroes who had been drawn together by her father were concerned. They had heaped themselves together, forming in some semblance of solid ranks, like infantry about to receive a cavalry charge, but, under the thunder of those approaching cheers, they began to melt away at the flanks where the men skulked away into the shelter of the house and the sheds.

  As soon as they were a little distance away, fear seemed to leap upon their backs. She saw them throwing down guns and racing off at full speed. The body of horsemen that had been forming staggered as though struck by a tidal wave of terror. Then they, too, wheeled away, wailing:

  “All is lost! All is lost!”

  There was a grim attraction between them and the remaining body of foot fighters. One or two discharged their guns into the air, unaimed, and then, as though their own daring had paralyzed them with fear, the whole mass turned and fled in a screeching body that turned into a churning mass, leaping and scrambling, and falling down, tearing one another to the earth in a wild effort to get first to safety.

  But they would have paid dearly for their stand had it not been that, in front of the wild band of riders out of the night, there rode one taller than the rest and on a taller horse, a creature as beautiful as a glistening black panther beneath the moon. He rode in the lead, a revolver in one hand, his horse perfectly guided by the pressure of his knees apparently. His other hand was raised high above his head as he shouted in a voice that sounded with a wonderful clearness through the uproar: