by Zane Grey
“I wouldn’t take the Rio Chama Valley as a gift if I had to steal it from Miss Valdés and her people. Ain’t I making enough money up at Cripple Creek for my needs? No, Steve! I’m playing for bigger game than that. Size up my hand beside Don Manuel’s, and it looks pretty bum. But I’m going to play it strong. Maybe at the draw I’ll fill.”
“Mebbe you won’t.”
“I can bet it like I had an ace full, can’t I? Anybody can play poker when he’s got a mitt full of big ones. Show me the man that can make two pair back an all-blue hand off the map.”
“Go to it, you old sport. My money’s on you,” grinned the miner admiringly. “I’ll go order a wedding present.”
Through the pleasant coolness of the evening Dick sauntered along the streets to the Underwood home, nor was his contentment lessened because he knew that at a safe distance the brown shadows still dogged his steps. In a scabbard fitted neatly beneath his left arm rested a good friend that more than once had saved its owner’s life. To the fraction of a second Gordon knew just how long it would take him to get this into action in case of need.
Kate Underwood met him at the door and took her guest into the living-room. Beside a student lamp a plump little old lady sat knitting. Somehow even before her soft voice welcomed him the visitor knew that her gentle presence diffused an atmosphere of home.
“Thee is welcome, Mr. Gordon. Kate has been telling us of thee.”
The young man gave no evidence of surprise, but Kate explained as a matter of course.
“We are Friends, and at home we still use the old way of address.”
“I have very pleasant memories of the Friends. A good old lady who took the place of my own mother was one. It is nice to hear the speech again,” answered Gordon.
Presently the conversation drifted to the Valdés family. It appeared that as children Kate and Valencia had known each other. The heiress of the Valdés estates had been sent to Washington to school, and later had attended college in the East. Since her return she had spent most of her time in the valley. So that it happened the two young women had not met for a good many years.
It occurred to Dick that there was a certain aloofness in Miss Underwood’s attitude toward Valencia, a reticence that was not quite unfriendliness but retained the right of criticism. She held her judgment as it were in abeyance.
While Miss Underwood was preparing some simple refreshments Gordon learned from her mother that Manuel Pesquiera had been formerly a frequent caller.
“He has been so busy since he moved down to his place on the Rio Chama that we see nothing of him,” she explained placidly. “He is a fine type of the best of the old Spanish families. Thee would find him a good friend.”
“Or a good foe,” the young man added.
She conceded the point with a sigh. “Yes. He is testy. He has the old patrician pride.”
After they had eaten cake and ice cream, Kate showed Gordon over the house. It was built of adobe, and the window seats in the thick walls were made comfortable with cushions or filled with potted plants. Navajo rugs and Indian baskets lent the rooms the homey appearance such furnishings always give in the old Southwest. The house was built around a court in the center, fronting on which were long, shaded balconies both on the first and second floor. A profusion of flowering trailers rioted up the pillars and along the upper railing.
“The old families knew how to make themselves comfortable, anyhow,” commented the guest.
“Yes, that’s the word—comfort. It’s not modern or stylish or up to date, but I never saw a house really more comfortable to live in than this,” Miss Underwood agreed. She led the way through a French window from the veranda to a large room with a southern exposure. “How do you like this room?”
“Must catch the morning sunshine fine. I like even the old stone fireplace in the corner. Why don’t builders nowadays make such rooms?”
“You’ve saved yourself, Mr. Gordon. This is the sacred room. Here the Princess of the Rio Chama was born. This was her room when she was a girl until she went away to school. She slept in that very bed. Down on your knees, sir, and worship at the shrine.”
He met with a laugh the cool, light scorn of her banter. Yet something in him warmed to his environment. He had the feeling of having come into more intimate touch with her past than he had yet done. The sight of that plain little bed went to the source of his emotions. How many times had his love knelt beside it in her night-gown and offered up her pure prayers to the God she worshiped!
He made his good-byes soon after their return to Mrs. Underwood. Dick was a long way from a sentimentalist, but he wanted to be alone and adjust his mind to the new conception of his sweetheart brought by her childhood home. It was a night of little moonlight. As he walked toward the hotel he could see nothing of the escort that had been his during the past few days. He wondered if perhaps they had got tired of shadowing his movements.
The road along which he was passing had on both sides of it a row of big cottonwoods, whose branches met in an arch above. Dick, with that instinct for safety which every man-hunter has learned, walked down the middle of the street, eyes and ears alert for the least sign of an ambush.
Two men approached on the plank sidewalk. They were quarreling. Suddenly a knife flashed, and one of the men went with an oath to the ground. Dick reached for his gun and plunged straight for the assailant, who had stooped as if to strike again the prostrate man. The rescuer stumbled over a taut rope and at the same moment a swarm of men fell upon him. Even as he rose and shook off the clutching hands Gordon knew that he was the victim of a ruse.
He had lost his revolver in the fall. With clenched fists he struck hard and sure. They swarmed upon him, so many that they got in each other’s way. Now he was down, now up again. They swayed to and fro in a huddle, as does a black bear surrounded by a pack of dogs. Still the man at the heart of the mêlée struck—and struck—and struck again. Men went down and were trodden under foot, but he reeled on, stumbling as he went, turning, twisting, hitting hard and sure with all the strength that many good clean years in the open had stored within him. Blows fell upon his curly head as it rose now and again out of the storm—blows of guns, of knives, of bony knuckles. Yet he staggered forward, bleeding, exhausted, feeling nothing of the blows, seeing only the distorted faces that snarled on every side of him.
He knew that when he went down it would be to stay. Even as he flung them aside and hammered at the brown faces he felt sure he was lost. The coat was torn from his back. The blood from his bruised and cut face and scalp blinded him. Heavy weights dragged at his arms as they struck wildly and feebly. Iron balls seemed to chain his feet. He plowed doggedly forward, dragging the pack with him. Furiously they beat him, striking themselves as often as they did him. His shoulders began to sway forward. Men leaped upon him from behind. Two he dragged down with him as he went. The sky was blotted out. He was tired—deadly tired. In a great weariness he felt himself sinking together.
The consciousness drained out of him as an ebbing wave does from the sands of the shore.
CHAPTER XIV
MANUEL TO THE RESCUE
Valencia Valdés did not conform closely to the ideal her preceptress at the Washington finishing school had held as to what constitutes a perfect lady. Occasionally her activities shocked Manuel, who held to the ancient view that maidens should come to matrimony with the innocence born of conventual ignorance. He would have preferred his wife to be a clinging vine, but in the case of Valencia this would be impossible.
No woman in New Mexico could ride better than the heiress of the Rio Chama. She could throw a rope as well as some of her vaqueros. At least one bearskin lay on the floor of her study as a witness to her prowess as a Diana. Many a time she had fished the river in waders and brought back with her to the ranch a creel full of trout. Years in the untempered sun
and wind of the southwest had given her a sturdiness of body unusual in a girl so slenderly fashioned. The responsibility of large affairs had added to this an independence of judgment that would have annoyed Don Manuel if he had been less in love.
Against the advice of both Pesquiera and her foreman she had about a year before this time largely increased her holdings in cattle, at the same time investing heavily in improved breeding stock. Her justification had been that the cost of beef, based on the law of supply and demand, was bound to continue on the rise.
“But how do you know, Doña?” her perplexed major domo had asked. “Twenty—fifteen years ago everybody had cattle and lost money. Prices are high to-day, but mañana—”
“To-morrow they will be higher. It’s just a matter of arithmetic, Fernando. There are seventeen million less cattle in the country than there were eight years ago. The government reports say so. Our population is steadily increasing. The people must eat. Since there are fewer cattle they must pay more for their meat. We shall have meat to sell. Is that not simple?”
“Si, Doña, but—”
“But in the main we have always been sheep-herders, so we ought always to be? We’ll run cattle and sheep, too, Fernando. We’ll make this ranch pay as it never has before.”
“But the feed—the winter feed, Señorita?”
“We’ll have to raise our feed. I’m going to send for engineers and find what it will cost to impound, water in the cordilleras and run ditches into the valley. We ought to be watering thousands of acres for alfalfa and grain that now are dry.”
“It never has been done—not in the time of Don Alvaro or even in that of Don Bartolomé.”
“And so you think it never can?” she asked, with a smile.
“The Rio Chama Valley is grazing land. It is not for agriculture. Everybody knows that,” he insisted doggedly.
“Everybody knows we were given two legs with which to walk, but it is an economy to ride. So we use horses.”
Fernando shrugged his shoulders. Of what use to argue with the doña when her teeth were set? She was a Valdés, and so would have her way.
That had been a year ago. Now the ditches were built. Fields had been planted to alfalfa and grain. Soon the water would be running through the laterals to irrigate the growing crops. Quietly the young woman at the head of things was revolutionizing the life of the valley by transforming it from a pastoral to a farming community.
This morning, having arranged with the major domo the work of the day, Valencia appeared on the porch dressed for riding. She was going to see the water turned on to the new ditches from the north lateral.
The young mistress of the ranch swung astride the horse that had just been brought from the stables, for she rode man-fashion after the sensible custom of the West. Before riding out of the plaza she stopped to give Pedro some directions about a bunch of yearlings in the corral.
The mailman in charge of the R.F.D. route drove into the yard and handed Valencia a bunch of letters and papers. One of the pieces given her was a rather fat package for which she had to sign a registry receipt.
She handed the mail to Juan and told him to put it on the desk in her office library; then she changed her mind, moved by an impulse of feminine curiosity.
“Give me back that big letter, Juan. I’ll just see what it is before I go.”
Five minutes later she descended to the porch. “I’m not going riding just now. Keep the horse saddled, Pedro.” She had read Dick Gordon’s note and the letter marked Exhibit A. Even careless Juan noticed that his mistress was much agitated. Pedro wondered savagely whether that splendid devil Americano had done something fresh to annoy the dear saint he worshiped.
Gordon had not overemphasized the effect upon her of his action. Her pride had clung to a belief in his unworthiness as the justification for what she had said and done. Now, with a careless and mocking laugh, he had swept aside all the arguments she had nursed. He had sent to her, so that she might destroy it, the letter that would have put her case out of court. If he had wanted a revenge for her bitter words the American had it now. He had repaid her scorn and contempt with magnanimity. He had heaped coals of fire upon her head, had humiliated her by proving that he was more generous of spirit than she.
Valencia paced the floor of her library in a stress of emotion. It was not her pride alone that had been touched, but the fine instincts of justice and fair play and good will. She had outraged hospitality and sent him packing. She had let him take the long tramp in spite of his bad knee. Her dependents had attempted to murder him. Her best friend had tried to fasten a duel upon him. All over the valley his name had been bandied about as that of one in league with the devil. As an answer to all this outrage that had been heaped upon him he refused to take advantage of this chance-found letter of Bartolomé merely because it was her letter and not his. Her heart was bowed down with shame and yet was lifted in a warm glow of appreciation of his quality. Something in her blood sang with gladness. She had known all along that the hateful things she had said to him could not be true. He was her enemy, but—the brave spirit of her went out in a rush to thank God for this proof of his decency.
The girl was all hot for action. She wanted to humble herself in apology. She wanted to show him that she could respond to his generosity. But how? Only one way was open just now.
She sat down and wrote a swift, impulsive letter of contrition. For the wrong she had done him Valencia asked forgiveness. As for the letter he had so generously sent, she must beg him to keep it and use it at the forthcoming trial. It would be impossible for her to accept such a sacrifice of his rights. In the meantime she could assure him that she would always be sorry for the way in which she had misjudged him.
The young woman called for her horse again and rode to Corbett’s, which was the nearest post-office. In the envelope with her letter was also the one of her grandfather marked “Exhibit A.” She, too, carefully registered the contents before mailing.
As she stood on the porch drawing up her gauntlets a young man cantered into sight. He wore puttees, riding breeches, and a neat corduroy coat. One glance told her it was Manuel. No other rider in the valley had quite the same easy seat in the saddle as the young Spaniard. He drew up sharply in front of Valencia and landed lightly on his feet beside her.
“Buenos, Señorita.”
“Buenos, cousin.” Her shining eyes went eagerly to his. “Manuel, what do you think Mr. Gordon has done?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “How can I guess? That mad American might do anything but show the white feather.”
In four sentences she told him.
Manuel clapped his hands in approval. “Bravo! Done like a man. He is at least neither a spy nor a thief.”
Valencia smiled with pleasure. Manuel, too, had come out of the test with flying colors. He and Gordon were foes, but he accepted at face value what the latter had done, without any sneers or any sign of jealousy.
“And what shall I do with the letter?” his cousin asked.
“Do with it? Put it in the first fire you see. Shall I lend you a match?”
She shook her head, still with the gleam of a smile on her vivid face. “Too late, Manuel. I have disposed of the dangerous evidence.”
“So? Good. You took my advice before I gave it, then.”
“Not quite. I couldn’t be less generous than our enemy. So I have sent the letter back to him and told him to use it.”
The young man gave her his best bow. “Magnificent, but not war. I might have trusted the daughter of Don Alvaro to do a thing so royal. My cousin, I am proud of you.”
“What else could I have done and held my self-respect? I had insulted him gratuitously and my people had tried to kill him. The least I could do now was to meet him in a spirit like his own.”
“Honors are easy. Let us see
what Mr. Gordon will now do.”
The sound of a light footfall came to them. A timid voice broke into their conversation.
“May I see Doña Valencia—alone—for just a minute?”
Miss Valdés turned. A girl was standing shyly in the doorway. Her soft brown eyes begged pardon for the intrusion.
“You are Juanita, are you not?” the young woman asked.
“Si, Doña.”
Pesquiera eliminated himself by going in to get his mail.
“What is it that I can do for you?” asked Valencia.
The Mexican girl broke into an emotional storm. She caught one of her hands in the brown palm of the other with a little gesture of despair.
“They have gone to kill him. Doña. I know it. Something tells me. He will never come back alive.” The feeling she had repressed was finding vent in long, irregular sobs.
Valencia felt as if she were being drowned in icy water. The color washed from her cheeks. She had no need to ask who it was that would never come back alive, but she did.
“Who, child? Whom is it that they have gone to kill?”
“The American—Señor Gordon.”
“Who has gone? And when did they go? Tell me quick.”
“Sebastian and Pablo—maybe others—I do not know.”
Miss Valdés thought quickly. It might be true. Both the men mentioned had asked for a holiday to go to Santa Fé. What business had they there at this time of the year? Could it be Pablo who had shot at Gordon from ambush? If so, why was he so bitter against the common enemy?
“Juanita, tell me everything. What is it that you know?”
The sobs of the girl increased. She leaned against the door jamb and buried her face in the crook of her arm.
The older girl put an arm around the quivering shoulders and spoke gently. “But listen, child. Tell me all. It may be we can save him yet.”