by Max Brand
“No bullets! No bullets, amigos míos! All is over!”
At his command guns that had been leveled were lowered, and the horsemen drew rein hard to keep from driving their frantic horses into the tangle of fugitives.
And that was Valentin Guadalvo.
Chapter 12
That fascination left Constancia now, and its place was taken by a grand terror. She raised Tita with a vigorous hand. “Tita, Tita, there is no time for crying and fainting. Run!”
Tita ran with all her might, her mistress behind her. They found that the halls of the house were already deserted. Truly, they were very late. Only, as they passed the dining room, they saw the old butler, who had always been so deeply trusted, raking the silver into a sack. She did not have time even for indignation.
They rushed breathlessly to the little rear door of the house where her father had said that horses would be waiting. She stumbled out against the figure of a man in the night. A hand of iron caught her by the throat and shoulder and hurled her back. She struck against Tita. Both went to the floor inside, with Tita shrieking. But a grim, careless voice followed them:
“If you try to come out again, I’ll use the quirt. Keep inside.”
The door was flung shut, and in the ears of the girl, as she raised herself to her feet, were echoing such words as she had never heard before. Even Tita had time to understand that this was no occasion when screams would be of any service.
They stole back toward the room of Constancia, and, as they went down the hall, they heard the bolt of the great front door being shot back, and then the door itself grating open while the familiar voice of the butler was raised cheerfully.
“Enter, Señor Guadalvo. I have prepared the silver in some sacks for you. It is waiting in the dining room.”
In her own chamber, Constancia sank into a chair and said to Tita: “Now, Tita, don’t make a sound. I want ten seconds of perfect silence, while I think.”
Tita sat like a mouse and watched the face of her mistress grow stern while her blank eyes turned their glance inward. Whatever the thoughts of Constancia, they made her start up and shoot home the bolt of her door. She had barely done it when there was a voice in the hall—was it not that same Teresa, that young maid for whom she, Constancia, had done so much? Yes, it was her voice crying out cheerfully:
“This is her room, señor! I watched every moment. She did not get away. She is in there now, I swear.”
A hand rapped gently at the door.
Constancia leaped up and cried: “Señor, I am standing within here, armed. If you force that door, I shall shoot, and I shall not miss!”
A man’s voice laughed softly in the hallway, and a thrill of ice went to her heart. That was the voice of Guadalvo. She had heard that same laughter on the old steamer, but she had never dreamed that it could have so many meanings.
“Be warned, however, señor, in the name of heaven,” broke in Teresa wildly. “If you touch that door to break it down, she will fire . . . and she shoots straight. I have seen her.”
“We shall see,” said Stephen Macdona from the hall, and instantly the heavy door groaned inward. The stout bolt bent under the terrible pressure of his strength. It was a thing to wonder at and hardly to believe.
Constancia caught up the revolver that she had already laid upon the table. From outdoors, there was a great sound of battering. Someone, someplace, was smashing down doors. She had to raise her voice almost to a scream to top the racket. “Señor, I have warned you . . . I am not a fool or a child. If you . . .”
At that instant, the bolt was ripped from its screws, and the door swung open, while with a great, lurching step Stephen Macdona entered the room.
Savage pride and white fury made the girl raise the revolver and fire straight at the mark. Then, as an instant’s darkness swam across her eyes, thinking of the thing that she might have done, her wrist was seized by a grip by no means gentlemanly, and the revolver was plucked out of her hand.
“Is he dead?” gasped Constancia, her eyes closed.
“He is not harmed,” said the voice of Stephen Macdona.
She opened her eyes. There was the tall fellow standing above her and his brown eyes cold and stern as he looked down to her. “Are you not a horse thief only, but a murderess, also?” He turned and called out. Half a dozen wild-looking men crowded instantly through the doorway. “Leave the old woman,” he said, “but take this one.” And he strode from the room.
To Constancia it was very much like the difference between dreaming of battle and battle itself. Battle dreams may be glorious, but battle itself is apt to be a dusty, dirty affair. These stained hands gripped her on either side.
There crouched Tita, swaying back and forth, her face raised, her eyes blind and closed, her hands clasped together as she prayed. It was not a prayer for herself, but for her young mistress. The heart of Constancia swelled. Trying to stop, she called gently: “Do not be afraid, Tita. They will not dare to hurt the daughter of Alvarez.”
“You she-wolf,” snarled one of the men who led her along. “If I had my way, I would cut your throat and hang you up by the heels. Take her along.”
She was jerked violently ahead. They brought her rapidly through her father’s house and into the open night. It was a scene of grand turmoil. Men were running here and there. And not all of them were the bandits. More than one face of her father’s servitors she recognized, and wrote them down in her heart for a future reference.
Yonder sat a rough-looking fellow on a tall gray horse. She recognized that horse. It was her father’s favorite thoroughbred on which he was accustomed to ride at the head of parades now and again, or on which he pranced along when he was showing some distinguished guest over his estate. But if this were her father’s horse, where was Don Rudolfo himself?
She was brought forward through the swirling crowd to a little inner and open circle, and there she saw her father in person, with his hat thrown off, his long hair disarranged so that he looked more like a cartoon of a musician than a great patriot. His hands were tied behind his back. She stared from him to the man on the gray horse. That was de los Pazos.
The bandit pointed a gloved hand at the girl. “She is there,” he said.
Alvarez turned his head, and his wild, despairing eye lighted as it fell upon his daughter.
“Now, Alvarez,” said the chieftain, “I could take you along with your daughter and sell the lives of the pair of you for a good fat sum, but there is something that I prize more than money. You are free. You have lost nothing, but a little spilled wine, a few horses and cattle, and perhaps a pound or two of silver . . . besides your daughter. I could have gutted your house and set fire to it afterward. But I have spared everything except the girl. If she behaves herself, she will be treated well enough. She is in the hands of a gentleman. You are free, Alvarez. The instant that you arrange to set my daughter free, you will receive yours back.”
“Then stop now, in heaven’s name, de los Pazos,” said the politician. “That is a thing which can be done instantly and I . . .”
“And one little thing more. I have with me a young gentleman who may grow tired of this cheerful life that we lead together in the mountains. His name is Valentin Guadalvo. I shall wish to have a pardon for him, also.”
Alvarez raised his voice again, but de los Pazos cut him short by placing a whistle at his lips and blowing a rapidly thrilling note.
Instantly the place was crowded with men, mounting and riding toward their leader. Alvarez himself was lost in the swirl. She saw one fleeting glimpse of him as he shouted to one of his captors. She could see the movement of his lips, but she could not hear a murmur of his voice. Then the whole body of men was thrown into rapid forward movement. She herself was put into the saddle on a fiery little mustang, with a lead rope running to the pommel of the bandit beside her. And suddenly they were away through the night. As they gathered headway in the moonshine, beyond the trees that surrounded the Casa Alvarez, she could s
ee the whole of them with a glance forward and a glance behind. And behold, of the little army that had scattered the forces of Alvarez in such a shameful rout, there were hardly more than twenty couples cantering across the plain—not more than forty men. Yet they had done such things.
It reminded her suddenly of other tales that she had heard out of the past, of how a score of buccaneers, English, Portuguese, French, and renegade Spaniards, mixed with Indian half-breeds, or Negroes from the West African coast, had been able to scale the sides of the tall Spanish galleons that sailed the Spanish Main—twenty against two hundred, sometimes those odds had been. With the fury of mad dogs they had ripped up and down the decks until the crew fled below.
Now she could believe those old stories and understand them. These fellows were of the same breed. Each man, careless, wild-eyed, stern of jaw, was ready to risk his sacred life and soul for the sake of a halfpenny of gold or pleasure. The result was that ordinary human beings could not stand before them.
The canter increased to a grand gallop. A cloud of dust rose from the hoofs of the horses that ran before her. Then a voice rang through the night. She heard someone come flashing up from the rear on a beautiful horse, cursing in Spanish most magnificently, and demanding to know if the leaders wished to run their horses to rags before they had well begun the return march?
The order was instantly obeyed, although Constancia trembled with expectation as she saw the scowls that passed over the faces of those moonlight riders. Still, not a voice dared to be raised in answer, and the rider of the beautiful horse fell back again to his position of captain of the rear.
That was Valentin Guadalvo.
Chapter 13
Afterward, of course, Guadalvo would come and ride at her side. Then she would tell him firmly enough what she thought of his way of life, and these new associates of his—and the raiding of a peaceful house in the middle of the night, and the taking away of a helpless girl. But Guadalvo did not come.
They halted toward the gray of the dawn, when she was very tired, and that instant Guadalvo came. “You are not to be watched,” he said, “or troubled so long as you do not leave the sight of the column. There is your blanket.” He threw it across the pommel of her saddle, and rode on.
Constancia dismounted slowly. This was not the way matters went in books. This was not the way of heroes to heroines. A girl’s voice came past her, laughing gaily. It was Teresa, walking beside a swaggering giant of a bandit.
“Teresa!” she called. “Unsaddle this horse and put the . . .”
Teresa stepped before her and snapped her fingers in her face. “What are you,” said Teresa, “to give me commands?” And she whirled about and went off with her cavalier, who was nodding and chuckling approval.
The head of Constancia was spinning with bewilderment. This was not the habit of her life. The whole world had turned topsy-turvy. But could it be that in a world of men, the beauty of a woman, of a wronged and helpless woman, had no power? She stood as one stunned.
A blaze went up. They were tearing up small brush and piling it to make a fire to break the chill of the night wind. And then a harsh voice beside her: “Go fetch in wood, lazy one. Be quick.” That was that double-dyed scoundrel, the butler. She looked at him, helpless with fury. He caught her shoulder and thrust her away. “Be off!” he commanded.
She stumbled away, her teeth set. She passed a tall man seated on a fallen log, making a cigarette and whistling softly to himself while others made a bed for him out of the tips of evergreen branches from the woods and spread his blankets over the top. That was Guadalvo.
Once in the brush, she leaned automatically and laid her hands on a small shrub. As she leaned, a thought came to her. Suppose that she scurried softly away; no eye seemed to be upon her. Once among the shadows of the rocks, they could hunt far and far before they would see her. With a little luck . . .
A quirt cracked not an inch from her ear. “Are you dreaming, little fool?”
She looked up to a swarthy monster that swung the whip in his hand, only anxious, it seemed, for a fair excuse to lay the lash on her shoulders with his next gesture. Constancia tugged at the shrub. Her grip failed. A thorn tore her palm.
“Quickly,” commanded the brute behind her, and she wrenched the brush from the soil and carried it back toward the fire.
The flames were mounting. The bandits were scattered about it, laying down their blankets, making a comfortable place for de los Pazos. Yonder came Teresa, fairly staggering under a great load of wood, but laughing with her burden. Willing hands lifted it. It was flung onto the fire.
“Brave girl!” they called to her.
One of them leaned and kissed her cheek.
So Constancia threw her own burden on the fire and heard a harsh roar behind her: “Is that all at one journey? Go back and fetch an armful.”
It was the tyrant of the whip, and she turned bitterly away, and heard the soft, easy voice of Guadalvo saying: “Come here, Gualterio, my brother.”
She glanced sharply back and saw the form of the giant with the whip striding toward Guadalvo. Was it possible, then, that he could call such a monster “brother”?
She was staggering with weariness and her very vitals were pinched with hunger when, at last, she was allowed to stop her work. Packs of provisions had been opened. Food was being passed around.
“And this for you,” called a voice. Two or three cold tortillas were flung toward her. She stepped aside in haste, and they fell in the dirt.
“Very well, she will go hungry, then. She is too good to take food from my hand?”
Constancia crept to her blanket and wrapped it around her. She was bitterly tired. But hunger was worse than weariness. It was a wolf in her. With all her heart she regretted that she had not snatched those tortillas from the air.
It seemed to her that she had barely closed her eyes when a whistle sounded. She opened her eyes wearily, wondering what alarm this could be. All about her, men were saddling their horses. She saw, yonder, Guadalvo riding up and down on the panther-like beauty of the mare. What a queen was Christy with her master on her back. She disdained the earth that she trod upon.
Constancia stood up to saddle her own down-headed mustang. While she tugged at the cinches miserably, a voice cried:
“What, is the whole march to be held up for one stupid woman?”
She threw over her shoulder a frightened glance at that same monster of the quirt—at him who had been called “Gualterio, my brother.” Then she drew the cinches taut with a wrench, tied the slipknot, and climbed into the saddle. Yonder was Teresa, laughing at her and scorning her—Teresa, looking as fresh as a lark.
She was the only other woman from the ranch. But there were half a dozen men, the very choicest spirits from her father’s house, men trusted for courage and faithfulness. Such as these, apparently, were wanted by the bandits, and perhaps for the same qualities. She could understand now, why the strength of de los Pazos did not wane. He knew how to recruit his forces through the very actions that wasted away his flying columns. He would return to the mountains stronger than he had been when he set forth.
It was nearly noon when, looking up from the sun-whitened ground, dizzy with weakness and with hunger, she saw Guadalvo passing. It was the sliding shadow of the mare that had roused her.
“Señor!” she called.
Christy was turned instantly to her side.
“Señor Guadalvo,” she said, “I do not wish to keep you long. I only have to say that I understand everything. You have set on these men to bait me and torment me and bully me. You hope to break my spirit and my heart. But I understand and I despise you, do you hear me?”
“Are you finished?” said Guadalvo.
“Yes. I shall never open my lips to speak to you again.”
Christy carried him swiftly up the line of the marching column, and she heard the shrill cadence of his whistle come back to her. Another shadow crossed her. She looked up to the giant, Gualter
io, with his quirt hanging from his wrist.
“Insolent devil,” said Gualterio. “My brother Valentin may let you speak as if he were your slave, but I shall not permit it. Do we not all know that you stole a horse and drove him into outlawry to take back what was his own? Do we not know that you would have sent a bullet through his heart, if a kind God had not turned it aside, last night? What wrong had he done you, then? And if it were not for the daughter of de los Pazos for whom you must be a ransom, I would tie you to the tail of that horse, and whip it through the cactus. Do you remember this thing . . . and watch your tongue.”
He glared at her for an instant, and then fell back, but Constancia rode on in a weary trance. Surely, in her life, she had done a thousand worse things to other men, and they had thanked her for it. They had come a thousand miles when she beckoned. And when she was tired of them, she had dismissed them with a wave of her hand. Yet they had willingly forgiven her. And she could call them back a second and a third time. But it seemed that there were differences between them. Some were lead, and some were steel that had passed through fire and cold water. Valentin Guadalvo was steel, indeed.
They made a late noon halt. Once more she and Teresa moiled and toiled to carry wood for the fire. Once more the crisp voice of a man called—“This is for you!”—and threw a few tortillas at her.
She snatched them out of the air. Nothing had tasted half so divine as this food. She saw yonder man grinning and nodding.
“Hunger teaches us better things than Latin,” he said.
She stared at him. What did he know of Latin? What was he beneath his shaggy whiskers? But what were all these others? Perhaps not altogether the scum of the earth, but free men, valuing themselves and their freedom.
All the eastern faces of the hills were painted crimson with the low-hanging sun. Long purple shadows crept from the western mountains, and every ravine was pooled with blue water.