by Max Brand
But still Gidden closed. There was no gun in the hand of his foe. Only the naked blade of a rapier gleamed in the hand of Gidden as he rushed in. Plainly he had determined that Guadalmo should die in the same fashion that Gidden’s brother had received a death wound from the hand of the Spaniard. He drove straight on at Guadalmo. It seemed fate, not a mere mortal man, who bestrode that horse. Then Guadalmo threw the pistol away with an oath of fury and snatched out his own rapier. Holding it like a spear at arm’s length before him, he spurred the barb at Gidden. They met in half a dozen lightning strides. There was a double flash of light. Then, as Gidden hurtled past and swept off in a great arch away from the Spaniard, Guadalmo threw out his arm and the sword dropped from his hand.
Still he held the saddle for a moment with his head thrown back to the sky. He was like a man who sees an enraptured vision. Then he slumped sideways to the ground.
XIV. A RESCUER
WITH SONG AND with dance, with shouting and with music, they brought the cavalcade to the Casa Torreño. In all the great house there was only one sad heart, and that was the heart of Lucia d’Arquista. And she, sitting behind her window, looked down across the moonlit valley and saw the bright winding of the creek and the broad silver surface of the lake, darkened at the margin by the shadows of the trees. The air was crisp in these highlands, and a cool breeze blew to her, filled with strange, pungent odors unlike the meadow perfumes of old Spain. All was huge and strong and new in this country at the other end of the world. She was oppressed by its newness; she was oppressed by its size; and for one familiar glimpse of the old land she would have given ten years of life. Even the singing and the merriment in the house oppressed her more. And her last ally was stolen from her. Anna d’Arquista had been sympathetic enough until she saw the Casa Torreño itself. But after she had walked through it, hall after hall, garden after garden; after she had seen the artificial pools, the statues brought at fearful cost, the stables large and costly as a palace in themselves, her mind was changed.
“There are marriages for love,” she had told her niece. “There are also marriages of state. The sons and the daughters of kings submit to them happily enough. Why cannot you, Lucia?”
And the girl made no answer; it was a thing not worth argument, she felt. And the willful blind cannot be made to see.
Torreño himself was quick to see the change in the girl’s chaperone. He was at this minute closeted with her. Perhaps he was suggesting certain methods by which she could change the mind of Lucia. As for that, the girl cared nothing. Steel cannot be changed to lead even by magic.
Here the wind increased suddenly almost to a gale — then fell away to its former strength. It was as though a door had been opened and shut behind her. So she turned her head, carelessly. She saw nothing, at first, but just as she was moving back again the tail of her eye caught on a tall black figure against the wall, half obscured by the curtain. She whipped around upon him. But even before she saw his face, she had no doubt.
“Señor Gidden!” she breathed.
“It is I,” said the Black Rider.
“You escaped from Guadalmo’s men. I knew that you would! But how by magic did you ever reach this room? They have guards everywhere.”
“The same means by which I shall leave it. The hill is tunneled through from top to bottom and steps cut. It was done before the house was built... so long ago that even Torreño has forgotten them, I suppose. They brought me up to the cellar level. After that, I have been feeling my way until I reached you.”
She was trembling with fear and with delight.
“Where shall I hide you? Where shall I put you, Richard Gidden, madman! They spy on me every step I make. They have listeners at every door!”
“They know that the bird will be out of the cage if they are not wary. But they are cautious too late. She is already gone!”
“Señor!” breathed the girl.
“What would you give, señorita, to be free from this house, and away on the sea?”
She paused.
“I am paying for every second of this talk,” said Gidden a little sternly. “Speak to me as if I were your inner mind. Let there be nothing between us but honesty.”
“I would give all my life!” said the girl suddenly. “You knew that or you would never have come. But I am lost. Not even a miracle could save me.”
“Yankee hands and Yankee wits will accomplish that miracle,” he said. “If you will trust yourself to me. Come to the window!”
He led her to the casement.
“Do you see the trees under that hill above the river? I have two horses there... my own and a strong black mare which Señor Torreño will miss out of his stable in the morning. They are saddled and bridled. In a few short hours they will take us to the sea. And in the port there is a Yankee ship loaded and waiting for a fair wind and a word from me. The wind has come. Do you feel it? There is only one thing that keeps the anchor of that skipper down and that is tidings from Richard Gidden. Will you come with me... down those same steps that I climbed to get to you?”
“If we are caught, you are a dead man, señor. I shall not go!”
“As well die now as later. They have marked me down. They are ten thousand to one. Sooner or later they are sure to take me if I stay in this land. Guadalmo’s men have sworn to take me!”
“Then flee, Richard Gidden! Ride for the shore and the ship of your friend.”
“And leave you here? I cannot! If they were an army, I should stay near you in the hope of seeing you once in a year... a single glimpse.”
“Do you care so much, Richard?”
“I love you, Lucia.”
“And I you, Richard, even when your skin was red and you stood so tall and proud and disdainful before Torreño. I was afraid of you, afraid for you, and I knew that I could love you.”
Like two shadows that the wind moved, they swayed together, whispering.
“But I never dreamed that such a wild joy could come to me.”
“Now I fear nothing, Lucia. Nothing! I used to think when I sailed for this country that I had only one great purpose in my life, and that was to revenge the death of my poor brother. I was shipwrecked and lived among Indians. I felt that God kept me for that end alone. I was hunted for my life. And still I felt something predestined that would bring me on. But it was not to meet Guadalmo. It was to find you, my dear, and save you from the calf, Don Carlos, and the bull, his father. Save you and keep you and love you forever.”
“Richard, if...”
A footfall in the hall; she started back from him.
“It is my aunt!”
“It cannot be!”
The footfall approached, paused at the door, and then went on.
“Now,” he said, “that is a warning. Are you ready?”
“One instant. My jewels, Richard...”
“Let them be! Let them be! I am robbing Torreño of you. Let him keep the jewels. They will be a part repayment. I want you as you are, dear. Without a thing, without a penny. To be all mine!”
“If they see us as we go... if you are lost, Richard... I want to carry some weapon. They shall not have me back!”
“Hush, my dear. That is a sin. No harm shall come. Are you quite ready?”
“Yes.”
“Is there one regret?”
“None in all the world!”
XV. ESCAPE
THEY SLIPPED INTO the outer corridor. A door opened; a shaft — a soft yellow lamplight slipped down the wall. But the footsteps which sounded immediately went before them, almost as though leading the way. And the lovers looked at one another with suffused faces, with glistening eyes, thinking the same thought.
Now down the hall to the rear of the house. They reached a stairway at the back, narrow, swiftly turning, and down this Richard Gidden descended first, with the girl behind him, and as he climbed down he could feel the tremor of her breath behind him and sometimes catch a whispered word, so he knew that she was praying for their s
afety. But he needed no prayers to help him; he felt the strength of a lion in him.
They turned a sharp corner of the stairs — a servant, scampering up, crashed against Gidden and recoiled, staggering.
“In the name of heaven,” he gasped out.
“Dog!” said Gidden sternly. “Are you a blind bat?”
The magnificence of his manner struck the other full of awe. He cowered against the wall.
“Alas, señor, on these steps... the servants only... I did not know...”
Gidden brushed past him with the girl on his arm.
“He has stopped and is staring after us. He begins to suspect something,” said Gidden. “The devil fly away with him. I should have stabbed him to the heart and gone on without a word!”
“No, no, Richard, only when your own life is in danger... swear that you will not harm a single human soul! If there is blood on this first day...”
“The devil is loose!” murmured Gidden. “He has given an alarm. Did you have the hood over your face?”
There was a loud babbling of voices from the rear of the great house.
“I had the hood over it. He could not have guessed.”
“He has guessed, nevertheless, Lucia. We can never reach the bottom of the hill by the hidden stairs before the whole household will be swarming like hornets.”
“We are lost, then, Richard? Shall I turn back? Shall I hide you?”
“You could not hide me here if I were no larger than a grain of sand. Old Torreño would smell me out. Keep heart, Lucia. We walk straight forward and trust to blind chance!”
They entered the great hall. Yonder sat Don Carlos himself at a small table with a book in his hand, but with idle, sad eyes fixed straight before him.
“We are lost!” whispered the girl.
“Not yet. He knows my red face, not my white one. And you are hooded. He will think it strange but he is in a dream. Perhaps he will not even see. We must walk straight toward the big door, yonder. If I have to delay, run straight forward, dear. There are horses in the courtyard tethered at the rack. Take one and ride with all speed down the hill. I shall be after you in a trice... or else I shall be a dead man. Do you hear?”
“Yes!”
“And are you afraid?”
“No!”
“Then...”
“Señor, señor!” broke in the voice of Don Carlos from the side.
“Señor Torreño!” said Gidden in his perfect Spanish and with a courteous intonation. To the girl: “Faster, my dear!”
“One moment!”
“On, on!” whispered Gidden. “I must stop here for an instant. Show no haste. Be slow and at ease. Sing a song softly. It will be better than a mask!”
He turned to Carlos.
“I have not your face in my mind, señor. Are you one of poor Don Hernandez’s men?”
“I am, señor,” said Gidden.
“Your name, then?”
“Christobal Paraña.”
“Paraña? I have heard all the names of his men. I do not recall that one. Yet there is something familiar about your face. It is connected with some sinister recollection in my mind, sir.”
“I shall explain to you whatever you wish when I return. The girl...”
He gestured.
“Señor!” said Carlos sternly. “Stand where you are. I have the strangest thought in the world. You are Gidden!”
He was drawing his pistol as he spoke. Half of its silver-chased length was in view when Gidden caught his wrist with fingers of hot steel that crushed the flesh against the bone and made him drop the weapon. He himself tore the pistol out and with the heavy barrel of it struck poor Don Carlos to the floor and that in the view of half a dozen mozos. The servants raised a shout. Someone fired a gun. But Gidden was already out of the hall and down the white stone steps into the courtyard. There he saw Lucia mounted on a tall gelding, with the reins of another in her hand. Before her stood a cavalier of Guadalmo’s troop, half frowning, half smiling. No doubt it was his very horse, by unlucky chance, that she had mounted.
He saw before him greater obstacles. There were a dozen armed men in that court. Two watched the gate steadfastly. Others were scattered here and there. It was plain that Torreño considered his house a garrisoned fort until that marriage was consummated.
“Don Carlos!” shouted Gidden as he raced out. “They are murdering Don Carlos! Help!”
That startling word brought a rush from the nearest men to the door, and there they crushed against the outcoming tide of those in pursuit of Gidden. Only one man had stayed by his place, and that was he who argued with Lucia. Gidden bounded on him like a tiger and struck him to the ground, then leaped into the saddle of the horse which Lucia held. He had one glimpse of her pale, set face, then they whirled and raced for the gateway.
Through that gateway they pressed at full speed and, out of the babble swelling confusedly behind them, they heard one great single voice — the voice of Don Carlos: “It is Gidden and the Señorita Lucia! Kill the man.”
A gun exploded; but it must have been fired wildly, for not even the sound of the bullet came to them. Then they were rushing down the looping road which led to the base of the hill. Halfway down they looked back to Casa Torreño’s stone face, pale in the moonlight, and a dark tangle of horsemen who spurred out from the gate. Then face forward, they goaded their horses and galloped for the stream. The stone bridge rang beneath the heavy hoofs. They tore up the valley toward that shadow of trees beneath the hills where the picked horses of Gidden waited for them.
Twenty riders stormed behind them, and the leaders were gaining when Gidden and the girl reached the covert. It seemed the ropes which tied the horses were strands of iron, refusing to be loosed. And the horses themselves were possessed of devils, dancing wildly, unwilling to be mounted. By sheer might of hand he raised the girl and put her into the saddle. Then into the saddle on the back of the bay. The brush was already crashing with the charge of Torreño’s men as they started away on their fresh mounts.
They issued on the farther side. Through the trees, shadows among shadows, the horsemen of Torreño cursed and spurred and shouted. Don Carlos, pressing toward the front, was offering thousands and fresh thousands for the capture.
But the fugitives had beneath them, now, speed like the gallop of the wind. A long level lay before them, twisting around the shoulders of hills which stepped down into the valley, and over it they raced, with the clamor growing fainter behind them.
It was a black sea under the cold light of dawn that they saw at last. But rocking on the waters of the little harbor they saw the long body of a ship. To them it was like a promised land. On the hilltop above the beach they loosed the two horses. The black mare raced off with high head and flaring tail, but the bay horse followed his master curiously and watched as the pair with numbed, weary hands, gathered driftwood and kindled two fires.
“If they come... if Torreño comes before the boat?” she breathed, as they stood shivering beside the growing fires.
“Fate,” said Gidden, “is against them. Look!”
From the side of the ship a boat had put off and was heading to the shore, swinging on with the rhythmic stroke of half a dozen men. It came closer. In the sheets stood a tall man, waving his hat, calling. And they hurried down to the edge of the water, where the wet sands yielded beneath their feet.
The bow cut the sand. The sailors leaped out, regardless of the icy water; but Gidden was already waist deep beside the gunwale, bearing the girl in his arms. And as she was lowered gently to a place, she heard a man in the bow saying in the unfamiliar English tongue: “Dick Gidden, we have cheated the devil and got you safe! But here are two birds instead of one!”
“It is the spring of the year,” said Gidden.
THE END
Acres of Unrest (1926)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTE
R V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII
CHAPTER XLIII
CHAPTER I
THIS WAS THE day of Ross Hale. The whole county knew it. When he got up that morning — and he had slept very little the night before. you may be sure — he looked at himself in the mirror and decided that he would now take ten years off his age and grow young once more.
He put on his best suit. scowling when he saw how shiny it was at the elbows. Then he went out and hitched his only team to the buckboard. It was a sorry pair, incurably thin, incurably down-headed, hardly fit to drag their feet along the road with the old buckboard trailing them, although Ross Hale forced them to carry him across the hills when he had to ride range.
Ross was desperately ashamed to go in for the great occasion in such a guise as this; nevertheless, he was mildly comforted by the knowledge that everyone understood. The whole county knew the wager that had been made between Ross and Andy Hale eleven years before, and the whole county was burning with excitement now that the decision was about to be made.