The Blood of the Conquerors

by Fergusson, Harvey

  This man had no money, and it is customary in such cases for the court to appoint a lawyer to conduct the defence. Usually a young lawyer who needs a chance to show his abilities is chosen, and the honor now fell upon Ramon.

  This was the first time since he had begun to study law that he had been really interested. He understood just how Juan Valera had felt. He called on him in jail. Juan Valera was composed, almost apathetic. He said he was willing to die, that he did not fear death.

  “Let them hang me,” he said. “I would do the same thing again.”

  Ramon studied the law of his case with exhaustive thoroughness, but the law did not hold out [pg 227] much hope for his client. It was in his plea to the jury that he made his best effort. Here again he discovered the eloquence that he had used the summer before in Arriba County. Here he lost for a moment his sense of aimlessness, felt again the thrill of power and the joy of struggle. He described vividly the poor Mexican’s simple faith, his absolute devotion to it, showed that he had killed out of an all-compelling sense of right and duty. He found a good many witnesses to testify that Juan’s father-in-law had hectored the young man a good deal, insulted him, intruded in his home. Half of the jurors were Mexicans. For a while the jury was hung. But it finally brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree, which was practically inevitable. Juan accepted this with a shrug of his shoulders and announced himself ready to hang and meet his Methodist God. But Ramon insisted on taking an appeal. He finally got the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. He then felt disgusted, and wished that he had let the man hang, feeling that he would have been better off dead than in the state penitentiary. But Juan’s wife, who really loved him, came to Ramon’s office and embraced his knees and laughed and cried and swore that she would do his washing for nothing as long as she lived. For now she could visit her husband once a month and take him tortillas! Ramon [pg 228] gave her ten dollars and pushed her out the door. He had worked hard on the case. He felt old and weary and wanted to get drunk.

  One day Ramon received an invitation to go hunting with Joe Cassi and his friends. He accepted it, and afterward went on many trips with the Italian saloon-owner, thereby doing further injury to his social standing.

  Cassi had come to the town some twenty years before with a hand organ and a monkey. The town was not accustomed to that form of entertainment; some of the Mexicans threw rocks at Cassi and a dog killed his monkey. Cassi was at that time a slender youth, handsome, ragged and full of high hopes. When his monkey was killed he first wept with rage and then swore that he would stay in that town and have the best of it. He now owned three saloons and the largest business building in town. He was a lean, grave, silent little man.

  Cassi had made most of his money in the days when gambling was “open” in the town, and he had surrounded himself with a band of choice spirits who were experts in keno, roulette and poker. These still remained on his hands, some of them in the capacity of barkeepers, and others practically as pensioners. They were all great sportsmen, heavy drinkers and loyal-to-the-death [pg 229] friends. At short intervals they went on hunting trips down the river, generally remaining over the week-end. It was of these expeditions that Ramon now became a regular member. Sometimes the whole party would get drunk and come back whooping and singing as the automobiles bowled along, occasionally firing shotguns into the air. At other times when luck was good everyone became interested in the sport and forgot to drink. Ramon had a real respect for Cassi, and a certain amount of contempt for most of the rest of them; yet he felt more at home with these easy-going, pleasure-loving, loyal fellows than he did with those thrifty, respectable citizens in whose esteem the dollar stood so invariably first.

  Cassi and his friends used most often to go to a Mexican village some fifty miles down the river where the valley was low and flat, and speckled with shallow alkaline ponds made by seepage from the river. Every evening the wild ducks flew into these ponds from the river to feed, and the shooting at this evening flight Ramon especially loved. The party would scatter out, each man choosing his own place on the East side of one of the little lakes, so that the red glare of the sunset was opposite him. There he would lie flat on the ground, perhaps making a low blind of weeds or rushes.

  Seldom even in January was it cold enough to [pg 230] be uncomfortable. Ramon would lie on an elbow, smoking a cigarette, watching the light fade, and the lagoon before him turn into molten gold to match the sunset sky. It would be very quiet save for such sounds as the faraway barking of dogs or the lowing of cattle. When the sky overhead had faded to an obscure purple, and the flare of the sunset had narrowed to a belt along the horizon, he would hear the distant eerie whistle of wild wings. Nothing could be seen yet, but the sound multiplied. He could distinguish now the roar of a great flock of mallards, circling round and round high overhead, scouting for danger. He could hear the sweet flute-notes of teal and pintails, and the raucous, cautious quack of some old green-head. A teal would pitch suddenly down to the water before him and rest there, erect and wary, painted in black upon the golden water. Another would join it and another. The cautious mallards, encouraged by this, would swing lower. The music of their wings seemed incredibly close; he would grip his gun hard, holding himself rigidly still, feeling clearly each beat of his heart.

  Suddenly the ducks would come into view … dark forms with ghostly blurs for wings, shooting with a roar into the red flare of light. The flash of his shotgun would leap out twice. The startled birds would bound into the air like blasted [pg 231] rock from a quarry, and be lost in the purple mystery of sky, except two or three that hurtled over and over and struck the water, each with a loud spat, throwing up little jets of gold.

  Sometimes there were long waits between shots, but at others the flight was almost continuous, the air seemed full of darting birds, and the gun barrels were hot in his hands. His excitement would be intense for a time; yet after he had killed a dozen birds or so he would often lose interest and lie on his back listening to the music of wings and of bird voices. He had that aversion to excess which seems to be in all Latin peoples. Besides, he did not want many ducks to dispose of.… It was the rush and colour, the dramatic quality of the thing that he loved.

  Most of the others killed to the limit with a fine unflagging lust for blood, giving a brilliant demonstration of the fact that civilized man is the most destructive and bloodthirsty of all the predatory mammals.

  The coming of spring was marked by a few heavy rains, followed by the faint greening of the cottonwood trees and of the alfalfa fields. The grey waste of the mesa showed a greenish tinge, too, heralding its brief springtime splendor when it would be rich with the purple of wild-peas, pricked out in the morning with white blossoms [pg 232] of the prairie primrose. Now and then a great flock of geese went over the town, following the Rio Grande northward half a mile high, their faint wild call seeming the very voice of this season of lust and wandering.

  Ramon felt restless and lost interest in all his usual occupations. He began to make plans and preparations for going to the mountains. He bought a tent and a new rifle and overhauled all his camping gear. He thought he was getting ready for a season of hard work, but in reality his strongest motive was the springtime longing for the road and the out-of-doors. He was sick of whisky and women and hot rooms full of tobacco smoke.

  Withal it was necessary that he should go to Arriba County, follow up his campaign of the preceding fall, arrange a timber sale if possible so that he might buy land, and above all see that his sheep herds were properly tended. This was the crucial season in the sheep business. Like the other sheep owners, he ranged his herds chiefly over the public domain, and he gambled on the weather. If the rain continued into the early summer so that the waterholes were filled and the grass was abundant, he would have a good lamb crop. The sale of part of this and of the wool he would shear would make up the bulk of his income for the year. And he had already [pg 233] spent that income and a little more. He could not afford a b
ad year. If it was a dry spring, so that lambs and ewes died, he would be seriously embarrassed. In any case, he was determined to be on the range in person and not to trust the herders. If it came to the worst and the spring was dry he would rent mountain range from the Forest Service and rush his herds to the upland pastures as early as possible. He was not at all distressed or worried; he knew what he was about and had an appetite for the work.

  One morning when he was in the midst of his preparations, he went to his office and found on the desk a small square letter addressed in a round, upright, hand. This letter affected him as though it had been some blossom that filled the room with a fragrant narcotic exhalation. It quickened the beat of his heart like a drug. It drove thought of everything else out of his mind. He opened it and the faint perfume of it flowed over him and possessed his senses and his imagination.…

  It was a long, gossipy letter and told him of nearly everything that Julia had done in the six months since they had parted “forever”. The salient fact was that she had been married. A young man in a New York brokerage office who had long been a suitor for her hand, and to whom she had once before been engaged for part of a [pg 234] summer, had followed the Roths to Europe and he and Julia had been married immediately after their return.

  “I give you my word, I don’t know why I did it,” she wrote. “Mother wanted me to, and I just sort of drifted into it. First thing I knew I was engaged and the next thing mother was sending the invitations out, and then I was in for it. It was a good deal of fun being engaged, but when it came to being married I was scared to death and couldn’t lift my voice above a whisper. Since then it has been rather a bore. Now my husband has been called to London. I am living alone here in this hotel. That is, more or less alone. A frightful lot of people come around and bore me, and I have to go out a good deal. I’m supposed to be looking for an apartment, too; but I haven’t really started yet. Ralph won’t be back for another two or three weeks, so I have plenty of time.

  “I don’t know why in the world I’m writing you this long frightfully intimate letter. I don’t seem to know why I do anything these days. I know its most improper for a respectable married lady, and I certainly have no reason to suppose you want to be bothered by me any more after the way I did. But somehow you stick in the back of my head. You might write me a line, just out of compassion, if you’re not too busy with all [pg 235] your sheep and mountains and things.” She signed herself “as ever”, which, he reflected bitterly, might mean anything.

  At first the fact that she was married wholly engaged his attention. She was then finally and forever beyond his reach. This was the end sure enough. He was not going to start any long aimless correspondence with her to keep alive the memory of his disappointment. He planned various brief and chilly notes of congratulation.… Then another thought took precedence over that one. She was alone there in that hotel. Her husband was in London. She had written to him and given him her address.… His blood pounded and his breath came quick. He made his decision instantly, on impulse. He would go to New York.

  He wired the hotel where she was stopping for a reservation, but sent no word at all to her. He gave the bewildered and troubled Cortez brief orders by telephone to go to Arriba County in his place, arranged a note at the bank for two thousand dollars, and caught the limited the same night at seven-thirty-five.

  * * *

  [pg 236]

  CHAPTER XXXII

  He looked at New York through a taxicab window without much interest. A large damp grey dirty place, very crowded, where he would not like to live, he thought. He managed himself and his baggage with ease and dispatch; his indifferent, dignified manner and his reckless use of money were ideally effective with porters, taxi drivers and the like. When he reached the hotel about eight o’clock at night he went to his room and made himself carefully immaculate. He studied himself with a good deal of interest in the full length mirror which was set in the bath room door; for he had seldom encountered such a mirror and he had a considerable amount of vanity of which he was not at all conscious. It struck him that he was remarkably good-looking, and indeed he was more so than usual, his eyes bright, his face flushed, his whole body tense and poised with purpose and expectation.

  He went down to the lobby, looked Julia up in the register, ascertained the number of her room, and made a note of it. Then he asked the telephone girl to call her and learn whether she was in.

  [pg 237] “Yes; she is in. She wants to know who’s calling, please.”

  “Tell her an old friend who wants to surprise her.” He did not care to risk any evasion, and he also wanted his arrival to have its full dramatic effect.

  The telephone girl transmitted his message.

  “She says she can’t come down yet … not for about half an hour.”

  “Tell her I’ll wait. If she asks for me I’ll be in that little room there.” He pointed to a small reception room opening off the mezzanine gallery, which he had selected in advance. He had planned everything carefully.

  When he stood up to meet her she gave a little gasp, and took a step back.

  “Why, you! Ramon! How could you? You shouldn’t have come. You know you shouldn’t. I didn’t mean that … I had no idea.…”

  He came forward and took her hand and led her to a settee. Despite all her protests he could see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his own favour. She was flustered with excitement and pleasure. Like all women, she was captivated by sudden, decisive action and loved the surprising and the dramatic.

  They sat side by side, looking at each other, [pg 238] smiling, making unimportant remarks, and then looking at each other again. Ramon felt that she had changed. She was as pretty as ever, and never had she stirred him more strongly. But her appeal seemed more immediate than before; she seemed less remote. The innocence of her wide eyes was a little less noticeable and their flash of recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him that her mouth was larger, which may have been due to the fact that she had rouged it a little too much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over the shoulders one of which kept slipping down and had to be pulled up again.

  Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged anticipation, but he held himself strongly in hand. He felt that he had an advantage over her—that he was more at ease and she less so than at any previous meeting—and he meant to keep it.

  But she was rapidly regaining her composure, and took refuge in a rather formal manner.

  “Are you going to be here long?” she enquired in the conventional tone of mock-interest.

  “Just a week or so on business,” he explained, determined not to be outpointed in the game. “I had to come some time this spring, and when I got your note I thought I would come while you are here.”

  “But I’ll be here the rest of my life probably. This is where I live. You ought to have come [pg 239] when my husband was here. I’d like to have you meet him. As it is, I can’t see much of you, of course.…”

  He refused to be put out by this coldness, but tried to strike a more intimate note.

  “Tell me about your marriage,” he asked. “Are you really happy?… Do you like it?”

  She looked at the floor gravely.

  “You shouldn’t ask that, of course,” she reproved. “Everyone who has just been married is very, very happy.… No, I don’t like it a darn bit.”

  “It’s not what you expected, then.”

  “I don’t know what I expected, but from the way people talk about it and write about it you would certainly think it was something wonderful—love and passion and bliss and all that, I mean. I feel that I’ve either been lied to or cheated … of course,” she added with a little side glance at him, “I didn’t exactly love my husband.…” She blushed and looked down again; then laughed softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken heart.

  “If mother could only hear me now!” she observed.… “She’d faint. I don’t care.… That’s just the way I feel.… I don’t care! All my lif
e I’ve been trained and groomed and prepared for the grand and glorious event of marriage. I’ve been taught it’s the most wonderful [pg 240] thing that can happen to anyone. That’s what all the books say, and all the people I know. And here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable bore.…”

  He looked gravely sympathetic.

  “Do you think it would have been different with—someone you did love?” he enquired cautiously.

  She gave him another quick thrilling glance.

  “I don’t know,” she said.… “Maybe … I felt so different about you.”

  Their hands met on the settee and they both moved instinctively a little closer together.

  Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking him in the eyes with her head thrown back and a smile of irony on her lips.

  “Aren’t we a couple of idiots?” she demanded.

  “No!” he declared with fierce emphasis, and throwing an arm about her, pounced on her lips.

  Just then a bell boy passed the door. They jerked apart and upright very self-consciously. Then they looked at each other and laughed. But their eyes quickly became deep and serious again, and their fingers entangled.

  She sighed in mock exasperation.