XXX: THE OTHER HALF OF THE TRUTH
As they sat at breakfast Gordon's glance went repeatedly to Lee. Hersmile, soft and mischievous, told that she knew very well what was inhis mind, but she did not answer till the end of the meal.
"I'm going to ride with Mr. Nevil to-day," she told Jake.
Sliver's nod and grin outside expressed his opinion of the arrangement."It's a cinch," he chuckled. "'Cepting Lee Haskins and his Sal, I neverseen two folks more sot on each other."
Jake evidenced a dry curiosity. "An' who in hell might they be?"
"Folks I knew up in the Palo Verde country. They was stuck on each otherlike two stamps at the end of a day's ride in a sweaty pocket; allusthat close up walkin', standin' or settin', you had to walk around 'emtwice to find the jine."
"An' after they was married?" Jake questioned.
Sliver scratched his head. "You-all mightn't believe it, but you c'dhave fired a charge of buckshot between 'em at long range withouthittin' either."
Jake nodded. "I'd have allowed as much. But these ain't that kind. Didyou see how she deviled him all through breakfast? Well, she'll keep himon aidge that-a-way all his life. He'll never get all at once; neverquite reach the end. They'll allus be something beyond."
"Say!" Sliver looked at him in dumb wonder. "Fer an old bachelor youknow a heap. Where'd you learn it?"
"Where any man learns it--from a woman." A shadow swept, for a moment,the reckless face. "On'y--I didn't have sense enough to stay be myteacher."
Just then Gordon overtook them, but while helping them to saddle up--forit was his day on guard--Sliver curiously watched Jake. When, moreover,he mounted to the watch-tower above the gates and saw Lee and Gordonride away, the sight accentuated a new feeling, one of a vacancy in hisbeing which, so far, a long succession of fluffy, blondined ladies hadsomehow failed to fill.
Their strongly perfumed memory set his head wagging over that problem inmorals which has puzzled wiser heads. "Ain't Natur' the fickle jade,a-setting a man to fall dead in love with one girl while he's stillterrible fond of two dozen? Why kedn't she a' b'en more single-minded?"
His brooding over these inconsistencies was suddenly disrupted by aflash of doubt, so pronounced as to be almost alarm. Lee and Gordon werenow silhouetted against the sky-line. They were, however, no longer atcorrect riding distance. Eyes less keen than Sliver's could easily haveperceived they were holding hands. He drew the phenomenon to theattention of Jake, who just then came riding from under the arch.
"Say," he called down, "d'you allow it's all right for them two to gooff that-a-way by themselves?"
Jake snorted. "Didn't she ride with you yesterday an' me the day afore?"
"Yes, but she's our boss an'--well, they love each other a whole lot."
"So that's what's biting you?" In one sentence Jake countered heavily onthe common view of things. "She kin ride with tough guys like you an' mean' it's all right; but she mustn't go out with the man that loves hermore 'n anything on earth. Where's your sense?"
Sliver feebly scratched his head in a vain effort to find it. Failing,he made weak answer, "I was jest sorter thinking they orter, have achapperonny." Vanquished by Jake's disgusted snort, he withdrew and wentdown to close the gates.
Meanwhile Lee and Gordon held on their way. At the crest of the rise,from where she and her father had overlooked the _hacienda_ on that lastfatal day, they reined in and looked back upon it lying like a hugepainted cup in the great gold saucer of the sun-scorched plains. Asthen, the sweep of her hand took in the house, adobes, compound, giantcottonwoods sweeping with the dry arroyo across the view, the rangerolling in bright billows to the far hills.
Her cry was the same: "Oh, isn't it beautiful? Soon the rains will comeand turn everything green, but I like it best this way. Greens are to behad anywhere, but these golds--that is Mexico."
Stimulated by his responsive smile, just as she used to do with herfather, she began to dive into the past, relate the battles and sieges,scandal and intrigue, recreate the vivid pageants of the old dons andtheir savage brown retainers. If she had chosen the differentialcalculus for her subject, he would have listened with pleasure to thesoft, eager voice. The lithe, graceful figure that gained so in ease andgrace of its flexures from her man's riding-clothes, the mobile face,molten under the touch of emotion, would have illumined the heaviestsubject. But he was equally interested, plied her with questions whenshe showed signs of stopping.
"Oh, I'm so glad that you love it!" she sighed, happily. "It would havebeen such a disappointment if you-- But that is so silly, because itwouldn't have been you. Soon the rains will come, and in the long, darkevenings after"--she went on with a little flourish--"I shall read youstacks and stacks of the old letters and documents we found in an oldleather trunk. It will be lots of fun."
Naturally they dipped into the future, building their own castles. Whereshe left off, he began. "Wait till we get my old dad down here! A bigstreak of romance crosscuts his business sense, and when he seesthis--well, he promised me a hundred thousand when I finally settleddown. After Uncle Sam steps in and puts an end to all this revolutionarynonsense, we'll--"
The reconstructed and beautiful Los Arboles that emerged from hisimaginings was inhabited by a contented peasantry, better paid,healthier, and happier than the country had ever seen. What he forgotshe filled in till, from sheer lack of material, they came to a happypause.
Business concluded and the Mexican millennium achieved, they turned totheir own pleasure. A certain Java forest was, of course, again luggedin by the ears. She, however, did not appear to notice it was getting atrifle shopworn, but enthused as brightly as though it were new goodsfreshly displayed. And while they ran on, rebuilding their earthlyscheme of things according to their hearts' desire, the gods inresentment of their presumption were forging the thunderbolts that wereto shatter it to bits. Unconscious of sharp eyes that were watching fromthe heart of the chaparral thicket half a mile away, they presentlyjoined hands and rode on.
At first the direction seemed to suit the watcher's purpose. After theypassed, he rode his horse out in the open and followed, keeping alwaysout of their sight. Even when, an hour later, Gordon circled toward themountains on his regular beat, the watcher followed. But when theircourse began to bend to the south he laid on quirt and spurs and wentafter them at a gallop.
Turning at a call, Lee and Gordon saw him coming down a long slope, and,as he drew nearer, she recognized the _mozo_ who had brought Ramon'smessage from El Sol.
"Que? Filomena?"
As he answered, in rapid Spanish, sudden distress wiped out herhappiness. "Oh, Betty is ill!" she translated for Gordon. "Mary Millssent word to El Sol and asked them to send for me. Filomena can act asmy escort, so it won't be necessary for you--" She paused, anticipatingrebellion.
It came. "Bull told me that you were not to ride alone. I wouldn't letyou, anyway."
If she made a little face, she was still secretly pleased. "That's whatone gets for being a girl, but I suppose I'll have to put up with it."Turning to the _mozo_, she gave him his orders in Spanish: "The senorwill go with me. You may ride on to Los Arboles and tell Don Sliver, thegringo senor, where we have gone."
Disconcertion showed through the man's _peon_ immobility. But with anobsequious "Si, senorita!" he rode on, but stopped over the next rise,dismounted, and crawled back to the crest on his belly.
Lying there, he watched them riding in a direction that showed them tobe taking the short cut through the hills. Till they passed out of sighthe lay quietly. Then, after carefully clearing a patch of ground, hebuilt a small fire of the dry grass and twigs and covered it with thesucculent green leaves of a Spanish bayonet.
Instantly there rose on the still air a dense smoke column. Till itsoared to its full height he waited. Then, alternately covering andlifting his scrape from the fire, he sent a succession of great smokepuffs rolling on high. Whereafter he stamped out the fire and, grinning,mounted and rode away.
About tha
t time Lee and Gordon were entering the ravine. A slightembarrassment rose between them as they drew near the _fonda_. But inplace of Felicia's smooth, dark face the wrinkled, purblind visage ofold Antonio appeared at the bar window, where he was serving an_arriero_ whose loaded mules cropped the lush grass along the stream.
As they passed Lee looked quickly at Gordon. But meeting and reading herglance, he laughed and raised his right hand in attestation. Disarmed,she shook her finger, and the next minute their horses had scrambledaround the bend, past the spot whence she had looked down and seen thekiss, into neutral territory.
Half an hour put them at the head of the staircase from where, as on thenight they had brought home the raiders, they looked over spur and ridgeto the distant plains. Then it had all been washed in the crimson andviolet and gold of sunset. Now, beyond the black chaparral, thatundulated like a woman's mantle over the shoulders and breasts of thehills, the plains lay to the eye, a sea of undulating gold flecked withgreen isles, trees, and far fields of growing corn. Mountains andplains, canon and ravine, it was just as wild, infinitely beautiful inone mood as the other.
"A wonderful land!" Gordon breathed it.
Could his eyes have gone with the curving meridians over its length andits breadth, have followed the dim, blue ranges in their course acrossbrazen deserts, to the deep forests, eternal snows of the Sierra Madres;then ranged south across the great central plateau rich in cotton, corn,and cane; have slid with lacy streams down the canons, streets of themountains that led into the tangled jungles where coffee and cocoa,rubber and tobacco, palms and bananas, sage, rice, spices, flourish inthe languid tropics; could he have taken the land in its entirety,richer in its beauty, variety of crops, fruits, plants, than the fabledGarden of Eden--could he have done all this, even then imagination wouldhave fallen far below the reality. Yet he saw enough to stimulate him toprophecy.
"Some day, when all this petty revolutionary business is squelched, thisis going to be part of the greatest nation on earth."
That set them planning again, and while they talked the largest army yetbrought forth by successive revolutions was in process of disintegrationbut an eagle's flight away. Following battle and retreat acrosssun-struck desert where thirst slew more than lead or steel, it wasscattering fiery chaff blown by cannon's blast over the face of the landto set it aflame with minor disorders. Beyond the farthest blue rangecolumns of smoke marked the sites of a hundred burning _haciendas_. Withthem, under the pitiless sky, rose the groans and cries of the woundedand tortured, wailing of ravished women.
In present ignorance of this, unconscious, again, of the keen eyes thathad spied the _mozo's_ signal and were now watching them from thechaparral half a mile ahead, they rode on.
"Why waste good rope? One shoots him out of the saddle with ease."
If the voices had not been pitched low, Lee and Gordon, now only a fewhundred yards away, might have heard the argument.
She would easily have recognized Ramon's voice. "True, amigo, and I lovehim less than thou; would kill him the quicker but for my promise to hiscompanero. While he held me under his rifle, I gave it--to make noattempt on their lives."
"A promise?" A low, hard laugh issued from the covert. "What is it but adeadfall for one's enemy? If all those I have broken, to men killed,women deceived, rise against me on the last day, Satan will be put to itto find a hot enough corner in hell. But _I_ gave no promise--and hekilled Tomas, my man. If your stomach turns at the job, leave him tome."
"No, no!" Ramon's voice rose in quick protest. "His killing would stillbe at my hands. Also"--the addition came in lower tones--"I would ratherhe lived--to suffer the furies I have suffered when he thinks of her inmy arms. No, senor, we will rope him from behind."
"Bueno! Have it thy--" A sharp hiss cut them off.
Very cunningly they had taken up their positions at the head and foot ofa slippery steep where loose rubble bank and a narrow passage throughthick chaparral would allow only one horse to go down at a time. Ramon,with two of the revolutionists, crouched above, while the leader, withthe others, hid at the foot. He had no more than gained back to his menbefore Lee and Gordon appeared silhouetted against the sky above.
She was in the lead, so close that Ramon could almost have touched herstirrup as she looked back at Gordon. "I'll go down first. If I break myneck you can pick up the remains."
Really anxious, he watched her go slipping and sliding, most of the wayon her beast's haunches, but at every stumble she picked it up withskilful use of the bridle.
"Come on!" she called back, laughing.
But before he could move, before she could even turn to look back, thenoose of a _riata_ writhed like a smoke ring out over the chaparral andwas drawn with a swift, hard pull around her arms. At the same moment aman leaped and seized her bridle while the leader cinched her feet underher horse's belly.
"Run!" From above Gordon saw her white, desperate face turned over hershoulder. "Run! Oh, _run_!"
He could not--had he wished it. It happened so quickly that he hadbarely time to use the spur, and if Ramon's cast had been made a secondsooner he would have been roped before his beast moved. As it was, theloop settled diagonally across his left arm and right shoulder. The nextsecond he went flying backward out of the saddle and landed heavily.While he was still in the air, however, his hand had gone to his gun.Now he turned it loose downhill.
That it would shoot nine shots in eight seconds was its maker's boast,and the weapon proved it. Aware that he might kill Lee, but consciousthrough his blind confusion that it might be worse, he emptied the clip,shooting close to the ground.
His aim, erratic enough, was rendered more so by the desperate tuggingof the revolutionists on the rope. Like spray from a swinging nozzle,the bullets flew right and left, all but one, which went through theleader's head. Then, a couple of whips of the rope caught the free armin against his body.
At the foot of the hill the men were examining their fallen leader. "Hehas killed him, el capitan! Cut his throat, the gringo swine!"
Eyes glittering in his villainous, pock-marked face, one of themsnatched out his knife and came rushing uphill.
Gordon knew it for the end, felt the chill of death. If he could onlyhave risen and fought them! But to lie there, bound and impotent, whilethe knife was drawn across his throat! To pass out into the blacknessand leave Lee to face her fate! He struggled fiercely, striving to breakhis bonds. As he relapsed in cold despair, Lee's voice, shrill in itsmortal terror, rang out:
"If he is hurt, Ramon, I shall hate you forever!"
To give him due, Ramon was already stepping forward. A sudden writhing,like the first quiver of boiling water, passed over his face. He looked,but without answer raised a warning hand. "The gringo is not to beharmed, hombre."
"But he has killed el capitan. Also he shot Tomas, our companero."
"The fortune of war, amigo. I passed my word to one that held my ownlife in the hollow of his hand."
Gun in hand, he faced the revolutionist who stood fumbling his knife.Out of the situation it appeared that only tragedy could issue. But inall the world there is nothing more mercurial than the moods of a_peon_. Behind them rose a coarse laugh.
"Santisima Trinidad! why quarrel over a dead man, Ilarian? Hast thouforgotten the ten strokes with the flat of his saber el capitan gavethee for wasting rifle cartridges on rabbits before the fight of El Ojo?As for Tomas--I owed him ten pesos. Also, there are now but four of usto divide this senor's money."
The argument reached down to their bandit instincts. "Bueno, Rafael,bueno!" Another called: "Trust thee to see a peso through a dead man'sshirt. Put up thy knife, Ilarian. It was Tomas's throat it flashed atlast when he took Catalina, the pretty mestiza, away from thee."
The fellow still stood, undecided. He had drawn the knife. Dislike toback down kept him muttering and bristling like an angry dog till Ramonpulled a roll of notes from his breast.
"Here, hombre."
The man's huge mouth split in a
grin. In his eagerness to secure hisshare, the fourth man came running uphill, dragging Lee's horse by thebridle, and while they argued over the division and gambled for the lastodd note, she spoke in English.
"I would never have thought to find you in alliance with bandits againstme. Why did you do it? It can only bring disaster." From which she ranon, touching with all her strength and skill on the chords ofmemory--their childhood, budding youth, incident, fond reminiscence, herown faith in his goodness, pride in his honor. "And now would youdestroy it all? The respect and affection I have always had for you? Andwhat have you to gain by it? Surely not my love."
She thought he was shaken. Looking into his face, she had been shockedand astonished at the change wrought in a few days. Like mountain slopesstripped of their verdure, burned down to the hard slag by volcanicfires, so its softness and youth were gone, leaving in bold relief thehard lines of passion and hate. For one moment a quiver shook itsgrimness. But there was no softening of the burning eyes, for it tookout of bitter anger.
"What have I to gain?" He threw up his head in defiance. "You! with loveor without it!"
By its very unnaturalness his quiet was more ominous than his violentoutpourings of the other day. She took her breath in sudden fear.
"Ramon, what are you going to do?"
Danger inhered in a light shrug, with its defiance of consequences."Take you to San Angel--to be married, hard and tight, by jefe andpriest."
"Oh, but they will not do it! They were friends of my father; have knownme from childhood--"
"They are Mexican--would love to see you mate with me, a Mexican likethemselves. They will do as I say. If not"--his nod carried a sinistersignificance--"so much the worse for you."
Unable to believe, she stared down at him; as she looked into thebrilliant, hard eyes there was borne in upon her understanding of hisinsane egotism. The veneer of softness, courtesy, lip service, burnedaway; there was left only the animal fighting for the possession of itsmate.
She bent her head in sudden shame. "Ramon, please take me home."
"Yes, to _ours_." He snatched her bridle. "Come! already we have wastedtoo much time."
As they had spoken in English, Gordon heard all. Now he spoke. "Youstopped them killing me, but that would have been less wicked. Remembershe is no _peona_, but an American subject. For any mistreatment youwill be called to account by our government."
"Your government?" Turning his head, Ramon spat aside in the dust. "Yourgovernment? The Germans harried us for three years till we ran down andhanged the murderers of their countrymen at Covodonga. In Guerrero avillageful of people were shot for the murder of one Englishman. For themassacre of its citizens at Torreon even the Chinese demanded andobtained an indemnity of five million dollars. But your government--forthe murder of hundreds of its men, dishonor of scores of its women, ithas lodged--complaints. One more or less will not embarrass us--nor help_you_. Come on, hombre!"
As he moved off, leading Lee's beast, Gordon writhed in a last effort tobreak his bonds. For the moment he was blinded by the rush of blood tohis straining eyeballs, but as his sight cleared he saw Lee lookingback. That womanly pity which transcends fear had lifted her for themoment above her own terrors. Like a light filtering through a storm,her smile gleamed wanly through the pale window of her distress. Thenthe chaparral swallowed her, and he settled back in black despair.
Though it was only a few seconds, it seemed an hour passed before a footswinging into his line of vision caused him to look up. Therevolutionists had finished dividing the money and were looking down athim.
"Going to cut my throat, now he's gone," Gordon read it--and did notcare.
But he had failed to count on the streak of good humor that crosscutseven a bandit nature. "We are the richer by a hundred pesos by him."Ilarian, the fellow who had tried to cut his throat, grinned at theothers. "Let us lift him over there in the shade."
"'Tis hard on thee, amigo," the fellow went on, after they moved him."'Tis hard to have thy girl snatched thus away. But have nofear"--though he caught only an occasional word of Spanish, thegestures, helped out by a gross leer, threw light brilliant as lightningon his meaning--"we will avenge thee. These days the pretty ones go tothe strong. He has not got her yet. Adios--and better luck!"
As, laughing loudly, they left him, all the romance that had colored,for him, the Mexican revolutions, drained away, leaving him with clear,cold vision to face its dread facts--the tragic realities even then incourse where the smoke columns rose, far away, under brazen skies. Inagony of fear for Lee that transcended physical torture he watched themgo.
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