Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  But, in the meantime, there was the bustle of starting on that day’s journey, and during that time he was able to avoid the eye of Lucia. And when the carriage was lumbering along the road, at last, he was spared a face-to- face encounter with the girl again. For Hernandez Guadalmo had found it necessary to change direction in which he was traveling and had decided to accompany the cavalcade of Torrefio. There was no doubt in the minds of the others that he was moved by fear of Richard Gidden. But such an opinion could not, of course, be shown. The important thing was to make the celebrated Guadalmo welcome, and for that purpose both the elder and the younger Torrefio rode at his side

  It was a gloomy day’s journey, and, at the close of it, when they reached the third rest house of Torreño, built for the comfort and for the honor of Lucia d’Arquista, Don Carlos realized by something in the glance which she cast upon him that the interview had been postponed — not dulled by the delay!

  And she had hardly gone to her chambers when one of her serving maids came to him. She wished to see him, and at once. And poor Don Carlos girded up the loins of his resolution and prepared for trouble. It came almost the instant he was before her.

  She sat beneath a window of her room with the dust of her journey still upon her clothes, tapping at the big stone flags upon the floor with a tapered riding whip. And while he talked, her glance went continually from the floor to his face to the floor; and every time she looked at him, he felt as though he had been struck by the lithe body of the whip itself!

  “Carlos,” she said, “this morning I begged a small favor of you, which was the life of a slave.”

  He sought his first refuge behind a quibble.

  “It was no slave, after all,” he said, “but a white man... Richard Gidden. I could have saved a hundred, a thousand Indians, Lucia. But this fellow, Gidden...”

  “What had he done?”

  Don Carlos waxed warm with a simulated heat.

  “You must remember, Lucia! He invaded my father’s house, struck down his servants, took away a guest from his chamber...”

  “Tush!” said Lucia d’Arquista. “He came for a professional fighter... a man who murders according to a legal form... Hernandez Guadalmo. He is notorious! He bound two of the servants of that cutthroat. He entered the room of Guadalmo. Did he stab the villain to the heart to revenge the death of his murdered brother? No, no, Carlos. Like a gallant fellow, he took Guadalmo out from the house to a little distance; no matter what Guadalmo says, I know the truth and you have guessed it, too, and so have all the others. He challenged Guadalmo to a fair fight. And before the fight was ended, in came your father’s men and saved Guadalmo. That is the only crime against Taki... I mean Richard Gidden. I asked that you save this man, Carlos!”

  He bit his lip. He was ashamed of his own fear of her.

  “Such a man does not need saving,” he said with an attempt at lightness. “He saved himself, you see.”

  “He saved himself from the dogs,” said the girl, her anger trembling in her voice now. “Oh, God, that such a thing should be! An honest Christian man hunted with dogs! To be torn to pieces like a wild beast.”

  “But he was not!” protested Carlos. “He was saved, Lucia. Surely you know that.”

  “Saved by you?” she asked bitterly.

  “Lucia, hear reason...”

  “I wish to hear much reason. I wish to know, Carlos, why I needed to beg such a favor of you. Why were you not already working with all your might because you loathed such barbarism? Why were you not? Or was it because he had beaten you in a play of foils? Or in your heart, were you not hungering to see that manhunt?”

  When the truth is told about us, it carries with it a sting that pierces through our utmost complacency. Don Carlos had been shaken already. Now he was crimson, and panting as he spoke.

  “I could not stir my father. I talked until he was in a furious anger. I could not budge him from his purpose, Lucia!”

  “Ah,” she said, “if I had been a man, I should have taken my stand at the side of poor Richard Gidden. If the hounds were loosed at him, they should have taken me also!”

  He threw out his hands in a gesture of wonder. “After all, he is the Black Rider... he is a highway robber, Lucia. You forget!”

  “I forget nothing. What justice could he have in this country except from his own strength? He came here to revenge his brother. He fell into trouble. He was saved by your father... by accident, I may say. He went into slavery and took to the highway to repay a debt. Was that not like an honest man? He has repaid the debt. Now he is free to turn his hand to Guadalmo. But you catch him and hunt him with dogs! Ah, it sickens me, Carlos! I only wondered if you would truly try to justify it. And I have heard you.”

  She turned her back on him and stared out the window. Don Carlos hesitated, turned two or three sentences in his mind, and then decided that the words would not do. He wanted, above all, to have the free blue sky above his head, and he fled at once. He had scarcely left the house when he encountered the last person he wished to meet — his father. Torreño stopped him.

  “You have the face of a sick man, Carlos,” he said.

  “It is nothing,” stammered Carlos.

  “You are white; you are dripping with perspiration. What is it?”

  “Nothing,” said Carlos.

  “Fool!” thundered Torreño. “Will you attempt to hide from me?”

  The son surrendered on the spot. That ringing voice went through him like a sword.

  “It is Lucia,” he said faintly. “She is in a fury because of Gidden and the dogs.”

  “She is in a fury?” repeated Torreño. “She has complained to you?”

  Don Carlos sighed and shook his head.

  “I shall go to her myself,” said Torreño.

  Don Carlos caught his arm with an exclamation. “She is not herself... she does not know what she says!” he pleaded.

  “I shall bring her to herself,” said the father roughly and, shaking himself loose, he went to the door of Lucia’s chamber. She herself opened it to him. He stalked in and threw himself unceremoniously into a chair. She remained standing, looking calmly down at him. Her very calmness enraged him the more. For he loved to inspire fear.

  “You have been talking with Carlos,” he said sternly.

  “He has gone tattling, I see.”

  “He has answered his father’s questions, as a respectful son should.”

  “I have no doubt, señor, that he is a perfect son.”

  “You are scornful, Lucia. Now you must understand that in this country all is not done as it is done in Spain. In a rough land rough ways are needed.”

  “I think I understand. Men are hunted instead of boars. Why, señor? Because they are more helpless?”

  Torreño writhed in his chair. His voice doubled its volume.

  “What I order,” he said, smiting his hands together, “is never questioned.”

  “Do you choose to be obeyed through fear only?” she asked him.

  “Obedience is what I demand. The cause of it does not matter.”

  “Señor, I am as yet a free person. If I marry, I shall swear obedience to your son.” And she smiled. The smile maddened Torreño.

  “Have a care, girl!” he cried to her. “That marriage has not yet taken place. If you return to Spain unwed...”

  “You threaten with a sword which has no point, Señor Torreño,” she said. “I, also, have been thinking of Spain.”

  That answer brought Torreño stiffly out of his chair. He stared at her, bewildered. It came suddenly home to him that this was not mere sham — that this girl could indeed contemplate a petty life in old Spain rather than become the queen of the Torreño estate. It staggered him. It shamed him.

  “Is that in your brain?” he said. “However, Lucia, you are not a free agent. The marriage has been contracted for. It shall be celebrated if I have to drag you to the altar with my own hands. And when the ceremony is ended, we shall see if you have not two ma
sters instead of one. That is a thing which we shall see!”

  He strode to the door and then turned back to her.

  “To those who give me obedience, girl,” he said, “I am gentle as a lamb. To those who cross me, I am a lion. Lucia, beware!”

  With this, he left her, and she heard the beat of his heels and the jingling of his spurs as he went down the corridor. She went into the next room and found Anna d’Arquista crouched on a bench in the corner with a stricken face.

  “You have heard everything?” asked Lucia.

  “He spoke so loudly...”

  “Oh, I am glad that you have heard. That doesn’t matter. You see, Aunt Anna, that I have fallen into the hands of hunters. If I cross this frog-faced devil, I suppose that he would set the dogs on me?” She began to laugh, savagely, without mirth.

  “Lucia, poor child,” moaned the spinster, “I have had a foreboding of evil to come. Let us pray God to bring you happiness in spite of all!”

  “It is time to think and to plan,” said Lucia. “It is time to remember that I am a d’Arquista. It is time to wish that I were a man!”

  XIII. THE SEVENTH ENCOUNTER!

  PRUDENCE HELD SOME sway in even Francisco Torreño, however, and after supper he walked with the girl in the outer garden where they could hear the steady roar of distant water through a ravine, a sullen noise which seemed to come from the quivering ground beneath their feet.

  “Now, Lucia,” he said, “while we are alone, and without anger, let us talk over everything and admit that we have made mistakes... both of us. I was wrong in treating you as if you were without a brain and a will of your own. You were wrong in saying that you did not wish to marry Carlos. Shall we begin by admitting these things?”

  “Señor Torreño,” said the girl, “there is no need for sorrow. We have seen the truth about one another. You, señor, have no room on all of your lands for more than one person... and that is yourself, of course. I have the same need of room, señor. We could never be happy near one another.”

  Torreño felt the blind rage swell in his heart. But he controlled himself. He even managed to smile.

  “You are still angry,” he said. “Young people remain angry longer than old ones do. Because anger is a childish passion, do you see? But, Lucia, how could your wishes conflict with mine? What is there which we mutually could desire? Will you have rich clothes and many of them? Whatever is made in China or Flanders and all the lands between is yours! Are you fond of jewels? I already have caskets heaped with them... trays piled deep as your fingers can clutch! But if you wish more, you shall have more. Are you a lover of hunting! The finest English runners shall be brought half the distance around the world and put in your stables... your stables, Lucia. Do you hear me? Perhaps you love hawking. We have some falcons already. You shall have more! Do you love rich fittings in a house? You may plate your walls with solid gold if you choose! What more is there that a woman can wish? I have known of some bold hearts among your sex who loved the water. Lucia, there are many waterways where the sea is quiet between the islands and the coast. Aye, Lucia, and if you wish to be alone and reign like a queen and never feel any power, you shall have one of those islands... the largest... for your own. It shall be stocked with cattle and with servants. You shall build a house there according to your will. You shall build ships and trade with them on the seven seas, if you desire.

  “You see, child, that when you speak of finding room on my estate, you may have as much as any prince... and more! And still, I shall never know what you have taken!”

  To this lordly tale the girl listened with a faint smile.

  “There is one rock on which all of those plans would split,” she said.

  “And that?” asked Torreiio.

  “Don Carlos.”

  “Ah? What of him?”

  “Which of us would rule him?”

  Torreño’s face grew dark with angry blood.

  “He shall rule himself, señorita.”

  She waved her hand. “That is folly, señor. I can twist him around my finger; and your very breath makes his whole strong body tremble like a dead leaf! Which would prove the stronger with him? Which of us would he dread the most? Which would he prefer... that I should laugh at him or that you should rage at him? I cannot tell. But I feel, señor, that after a time I should be too strong for you. Therefore I advise you for your own sake. Break off this unhappy marriage.”

  There was enough of the fox in Torreño to appreciate craft in others. He looked at Lucia with a glint of appreciation in his eyes.

  “If I were twenty years younger... yes, or ten... there would be no question of Carlos. I myself should marry you, Lucia!”

  “There would be no peace in your house.”

  “For a year, for two years, no! But after that, I would give you commands by mere glances and liftings of the finger! So! Your voice would never be heard except in answer to my questions. Ah, yes. It would be that way!”

  “But since you are too old for this battle, do you think that Carlos has strength for it?”

  “I shall teach him,” said Torreño. “In the meantime, our grip is on you. You are in our cage. We have thrown the net over your head. Beat your wings, sing your song, but escape if you can, my dear! But you cannot. You belong to me; you belong to Carlos. There is the end! In a few months, a few years... what is a little time?... you will learn to curl up in your nest! All will be well!”

  To this she made no answer, but she smiled at him in a way that made his heart fall.

  “Tell me, Lucia,” he said, “what manner of man could make you love him?”

  She answered instantly: “One who could fill me with fear.”

  “And have you seen such a man in all the world?”

  “One.”

  “And what was he?”

  She was silent again, and Torreño stared at her in real bewilderment. But here their interview ended. Filled with a whimsical impulse, he went to Carlos and told him everything, word for word.

  “Would you have her under these conditions?”

  “I love her,” said Carlos sadly. “And if love can breed love, she will come to care for me before the end!”

  “Bah!” said the elder man. “The mailed fist is the thing for her!”

  After that, the great Torreño gave little thought either to his son or to Lucia herself. He had before him what he felt to be more important matters, the details leading to the celebration of the marriage itself, which was to take place within three or four days after their arrival. And so, on the following day, they arrived at Casa Torreño itself.

  It was like a child’s dream of a castle. Through a shallow little valley a stream ran and pooled its waters in a spacious lake. Beside the lake was a village of white adobe houses; above the village the road wound to the flat top of a great hill, and on the plateau stood the house itself, built of hewn stone. And at one side, a great square tower arose against the sky.

  “Why will you have such a fortress and such a dungeon keep for a house?” asked Lucia.

  “So that all the people in the plains may look up to this in clear weather and see the top of the tower... you see that it is painted white? And so they know that the eye of their master is on them while they work, while they sleep!”

  The instant they were in view over the top of the hills, a bell in the great house began to ring, and its larger voice was taken up by the jangle of other bells in the hollow where the village lay. People appeared, streaming from the Casa Torreño, and out of the village a gay-colored procession started up the road. Torreño looked triumphantly toward the girl, but her face was a blank. The next instant he had broken into curses. For the most inopportune interruption came to break up the solemnity of this occasion. At the last rest house there had been added to his train some couple of fleet greyhounds, and they had been brought along on the leash all day without finding anything to their liking in the way of game. But just at this instant their sharp voices were raised; Hernandez Guadalm
o was heard loudly ordering them to be slipped, and in another instant half a dozen of the lean-bodied hunting dogs were straining across the hills after a flying hare. Behind them rushed Guadalmo and a few others of his immediate train; the followers of Torreño had far too much wit to leave the ranks at such a moment as this.

  The diversion took much from the grandeur of the moment, but Hernandez Guadalmo gave no heed to that. He was as greedy a hunter of wild game as he was of man. It mattered not the size of the quarry. The hunt itself was the thing for which he lived. He followed the greyhounds over the first hills and through the next valley. He leaped his horse recklessly across the brook and plunged up the slope beyond, many a length ahead of his closest followers, for nothing they bestrode was comparable with his fine barb. Uphill, however, the hounds gained fast upon him. And the hare fled like a thing possessed of the fiend. It darted up the hill, gaining ground on the dogs at every enormous bound. It reached the more even country beyond, and here the dogs gained at each stride as the hare had gained uphill. And, with each second, the gap between Guadalmo and his men grew greater. He was at the heels of the flying dogs when he saw something stir among the next grove of oaks. A deer, he thought at first. It burst into full view — a bay horse of matchless beauty with flying black mane and tail as it swept toward him, and on its back a tall, familiar figure — Richard Gidden come for the seventh time against him.

  The seventh time! If there were any special fate in numbers, one of them must surely fall on this day! And the courage of Guadalmo wavered. There even came into his mind the thought that back yonder among his followers there would be safety — if he turned and fled to them!

  But at the thought of flight — and flight before so many witnesses — his soul was steeled to face the ordeal. He caught out a horse pistol from its holster beside the saddle. He brought down the pace of his horse to a hard gallop and, taking careful aim, he fired at the advancing rider.