VIII: "THE LEOPARD'S SPOTS"
It was not done with malice aforethought, for Sliver had not quitereached the point where "he couldn't stan' it any longer." It justhappened. Heavy drinkers may be divided into three classes--to wit, thesporadic, who break out in occasional wild debauches; the "steadies,"who sop, sop, sop all the time; and a third class which combines thetraits of the other two. Of the Three, Bull represented the first, Jakethe second, Sliver the last and worst.
If Sliver had not ridden his horse along the crest of a certain hog'sback on the chance that the cattle he was hunting might be in the ravinebelow, it might never have come to pass. If Napoleon Bonaparte, formatter of that, hadn't developed indigestion at Waterloo; if ChristopherColumbus had followed the Church instead of the sea; if Julius Caesarhad been born a girl; if all the cats on all the famous fences ofhistory had happened to jump the other way--this world would be quitedifferent. So let it suffice that Sliver rode along the hog's back.
At its end the ridge ran out on a wide bench from which Sliver lookedover the foot-hills, rolling tumultuously under a black blanket ofchaparral out to the tawny valleys of the _hacienda_ pastures. Below, hecould see a path that ran with a silver stream at the bottom of theravine. Its deep rut, no wider than the swing of a mule, marked it forone of those ancient highways whose place had been usurped by the Diazrailways. In its heyday the canon had rung with the tinklings of themule-trains that transported _aguardiente_, maize, tobacco, serapes, andcloths between Mexico City and Santa Fe. But of that great traffic therenow remained barely enough to support the little _fonda_ that lay withits mule _patio_ almost at Sliver's feet.
Though no one was in sight, he set down certain moving black dots aschickens, goats, or pigs. Thus assured of tenancy, and thinking that hemight pick up some news of his strays, he rode on down a trail thatzigzagged through the chaparral.
Looking down from above, Sliver had noted the resemblance of the placeto the lair back on the miner's bench in Sonora. The _ramada_ of grassand cornstalks might have been the same. Only that she was younger andprettier, the Mexican girl who knelt before a _metate_ grinding_tortilla_ paste could have passed for Rosa herself. Though MexicanIndian, some vagrant Spanish strain had pushed up her brow, reduced hercheek-bones, shortened her waist, and lengthened her limbs. Masses ofblack hair framed her oval face. Her eyes were velvet pools; the nosesmall and well shaped. Her bare arms tapered from fine shoulders tosmall wrists, and if she followed Juno rather than Psyche in herluxurious molding she was pliant as a willow, carried her shapelypoundage with an effect of slimness.
If Sliver noted these desirable personal assets, his interest thereindisappeared after he had spied the sign, "Fonda," over the door. True,the month which had now elapsed since they entered Lee's service hadnot, however, been entirely "dry." At the close of each day's work theThree took their _copa_ with the _ancianos_ at the _hacienda_ store inthe Mexican fashion. But the application of liquor in such medicinaldoses to a thirst like Sliver's was equivalent to the squirting ofgasolene upon a fire. Now, as he gazed at the sign, spirituous desiresflamed within him. It was with difficulty that his dry lips formed hisquestion to the girl.
Was there a _copita_ of _aguardiente_ to be had?
Nodding, she rose, and as she let down a small wooden door in the wallSliver's glance licked the rows of bottles within.
_Tequila_, anisette, _aguardiente_, _mescal_, every variety of liquidfire with which the Mexican _peon_ burns out his stomach, stood there indeadly array. Beginning at one end, Sliver worked his way, during thenext two hours, along the row, and had just started back again when,with some surprise, he noted a most curious phenomenon--to wit, the grayhair and deep wrinkles the girl had suddenly acquired. Quite unawarethat she had resigned his thirst to her father, and was even thenvigorously rubbing _tortilla_ paste behind his back, he solemnly studiedthis startling metamorphosis. Drunk as he was, his cowman's instinct hadkept him warned of the sun's declension. Sure, now, that he had hadenough, he paid his score, gravely addressing his host, meanwhile,concerning his changed appearance.
"You she'dn't do it. It's--hard on the nerves. Keep it up an'--you'lldrive your custom away."
Having climbed into the saddle, he remained there because of thatmerciful provision of nature by which a man may ride long after he haslost the power to walk. Realizing his condition, he left the business ofgoing home to his horse. While it carried him down the canon and outacross the plains he concentrated his remaining energies on "TheCowboy's Lament," howling its one hundred and one verses at the top ofhis voice, sending warning of his coming a full mile ahead.
In the mean time Bull with Lee, Jake "on his lonely," had pursued thesearch for the strays in other directions. It chanced that luck rodewith the former. Returning home at sundown, Jake saw them driving thecattle along a shallow valley.
During the month which had elapsed since her father's death Lee hadtaken the only real panacea for grief--hard work. In addition to themanagement of the house _criadas_, she exercised a feudal overlordshipover the _hacienda peones_. Besides hiring and letting, leasing of landson charges, she acted as judge in their squabbles, adviser in theirsmall affairs, comforter in trouble. In addition, her womanhood broughtextra duties. She had to godmother the babes, attend christenings,doctor the sick, lend her patronage to the _bailes_ and _fiestas_.
Most of these duties she discharged in the mornings. Afternoons shedonned her man's riding-togs and rode out with the Three, rounding upstrays, new-born calves, and foals. At nights her fair head might beseen under a golden aureole lent by the lamp, while she mended or madefor them and herself. If it lacked the stimulation and color of citylife, it was, at least, a healthy and honest existence. Already it hadrestored her shocked nerves, given back her roses. She had never beenprettier than when, reining in, she looked back at Jake as he came up!
"We found them! _we_ found them!" Her pride in the fact provoked Jake'ssmile. "They were up in the Canon del Norte. Whatever in the world isthat?"
It might have been anything from the last puff of a worn-out calliope tothe yelp of a sick coyote, for at its best Sliver's voice rarely camewithin a quarter of a mile of a specified tune, and an hour's steadytearing into "The Cowboy's Lament" had not improved its tone. As theraucous strains came floating down the wind Lee burst into a bubblinglittle laugh.
"Mr. Sliver isn't hardly what you could call a singer. Is he--oftentaken like that?"
They could have answered quite easily, Sliver's vocal efforts being evertimed by his potations. Instead, they looked at each other in blankdisgust. Nor was answer necessary, for just then Lee dug in her spursand shot after a wild steer that had taken a sudden notion to go back tothe Canon del Norte.
"Piously drunk!" Jake swore loudly, as soon as she passed beyondearshot. "Wonder where he got it!"
"Search me," Bull shrugged. "The question is how to stop him. You knowwhat to expect if he's loose an' drunk among all them _peonas_. You rideon an' head him off. Don't stan' any nonsense. Bat him over the can ifnec'ssary."
The admonition was not required, for Jake was always thorough. Neitherwas it his habit to waste time on argument or persuasion. Having ropedSliver, ten minutes thereafter, from behind a convenient bush, he gaggedand cinched him in his saddle, hustled him in by the back gate of thecompound, had him lashed to his _catre_ in their adobe before Lee andBull arrived.
So far, all was well. Their real troubles began when at supper Bullreplied to Lee's inquiry concerning Sliver's absence that he "wasn'tfeeling well."
She jumped up at once. "Oh, the poor fellow! I must go and see what hecan eat!"
A vivid mental picture of the "poor fellow," gagged and lashed to his_catre_, filled them with consternation. Bull inwardly cursed himselffor not having reported Sliver absent. But while he floundered, beatinghis brains for a second excuse, the crafty Jake supplied it.
"I wouldn't--really, Miss."
She stopped, half-way along the _portales_. He had spoken so earnestly."Why not? I
s it--catching?"
Bull would have replied in the affirmative, regardless of furthercomplications. Jake shook his head. "No, it's just chills an' fever, asorter constitutional ague he's taken with at this time o' the year.But--well, Miss, it's this way, Sliver's that bashful, though youmightn't think it to look at him, he'd die of shame if a young lady wasto see him in his bunk."
She hesitated, then came back. "But--he ought to be looked after."
"He has been." Jake clinched the victory. "A copa's the finest thing inthe world for chills. He's had a couple an' was sleeping like a babewhen we came in."
She gave in with a sigh. "Then we won't wake him. But you must take hima tray when you go out."
But if her dominant instinct was thus, for the time, frustrated, itbroke out more violently the following morning. When Sliver would fainhave carried his aching head and sick stomach out to some secludedportion of the range, to be wretched at his ease, Lee "shooed" him likea sick chicken into a corner of the _patio_, there to be coddled anddoctored with slops and brews compounded by her brown maids, everymother's daughter of whom had her own infallible "_remedio_." His realcontrition was made none the lighter by the veiled jestings of hiscompanions at meals.
"Invalid looks a bit better," Jake would opine.
"A week's careful nursing orter bring him around," Bull would add. Thenwhile prodding him with secret gibes, they ate with a zest that turnedhis poor, burned-out stomach.
That night, moreover, he furnished the text for a rude sermon after theygot him alone in the adobe. "I s'pose neither of you saints would ha'stopped even to smell of it," he sarcastically inquired, afterconfessing how and where he obtained the liquor.
"'Tain't that," Bull admonished him. "I'm pretty near due for a bustmyself. But when it hits, you bet I'll go somewheres so's the sight ofmy hoggishness ain't a-going to offend our girl. No, 'tain't that youacquired a bun we're kicking at, but that you toted it back here."
"You bet y'u," Jake added. "Next time you're took that-a-way, have 'emhide your horse, then lie down with your nose in it an' don't budge tillyou're through. Have you done, now, or is there anything out there youforgot to drink?"
"Through? Oh, Lordy! Lordy!" Sliver groaned. "My liver's burned rightout!"
"Bueno!" Jake nodded his satisfaction. "Then if you've finished I'm freeto begin. My fingers has been itching to get into a game for a week.That's where you fellows have me at a disadvantage. All you've gotter dois to find a bottle, but mine's simply gotter have cards in it. I don'tget off short of El Paso. I reckon some of that important miningbusiness of our'n calls for my presence there day after to-morrow."
"All right, get it over," Bull agreed, after a moment's rumination."Tell her at breakfast. She'll fix you up with the fare."
"'Tell her at breakfast'?" Jake looked his scorn. "An' have her runningan' fixing me out with socks an' shirts an' things like I was going offon honest business. Not on your life! When she looks at me, so amiableand trustful, like she felt I was straight grain through an' through, Isimply kain't fix up my mouth for a good lie. No, you fellows can jestgive me all you've got. With any kind of luck it'll turn you biginterest. You can tell her that I left in the night so's to catch anearly train."
So real was his feeling, he did rise and leave before daylight. Butthereby his moment of shame was merely postponed.
When Jake arrived in El Paso--But the less said about his sojourn therethe better. His operations, which included the fleecing of somecattlemen, would not make edifying reading. He may be picked up again atthe moment he was, as aforesaid, overtaken by shame, when Lee spied him,a week later, coming through the _patio_ gateway.
"Oh, you poor man!" she exclaimed at the sight of his haggard face."They must have worked you all night."
"Which they did work me overtime," he confessed to Bull, in the adobethat evening. "Five days an' most of the nights I sat inter one game.Look at this!"
The roll he held up contained two thousand and some odd hundreds ofAmerican dollars. "When I seen how the luck was heading my way I pulleda side partner into the game, for I saw what a chance it was to fattenMiss Lee's hand. He was a--
"What are you crinkling your nose at?" he hotly demanded of Bull. "Thisain't no tainted money. I took it from some sports that had been buyinghorses from Mexican raiders. Mebbe some of 'em came from this veryranch. Anyway, in default of finding the real owners, who has a betterright to their money than the little girl?"
"'Tain't that." Bull shook his head. "I was on'y thinking that I'dliefer you tried to give it her than me. She don't look like she'd takeeasily to charity."
"_That so?_" Jake regarded him cynically. "Now kain't you jest hear mea-saying, 'Please, Miss, will you please take this, you need it so bad?'But is there any reason why she should object to us investing a coupleof thousand in horses?"
"No; but she will."
And Bull was right. When, next morning, Jake, speaking for the Three,made his proposition, Lee shook her head. "It's only a question of timebefore the revolutionists run off all the stock. Then where would beyour two thousand dollars?"
"In the same box with yours--stowed safely away where we can't spend orlose it, till Uncle Sam makes Mexico pay our claims," Jake argued. "Therisk we're willing to take, because we expect to buy cheap on thataccount."
At that she wavered; with a little more pressing, acceded. And thus bydevious ways did the blind god of chance atone for many a former error,turning evil to good, if only for once.
Over the Border: A Novel Page 8