Part 16

"Must be yesterday's train a bit overdue," Bull defended his theory, as the cars clicked by with slowing rhythm. "The comandante'll be in the passenger-coach ahead. We'd better to mosey along an' brace him."

But their passage was much more easily gained. A man who sat with legs dangling from the open doorway of a box-car emitted a whoop.

"Ole! Diogenes! Como le va! What of our matrimonial venture? How did it pan out?"

It was Naylor, the correspondent, Bull's friend and Cupid's aide. As his car rolled slowly up, there hove in sight placards that announced the titles of certain American papers in dignified Spanish that their oldest subscribers would never have recognized. But there was nothing foreign in the half-dozen of friendly faces that filled the doorway. From the dignified visage, with its short, gray beard and trim mustache, of their dean, down to the boyish face of a field photographer, all joined in a composite welcoming grin.

"Weekes, Mason, Martin, Roberts, Cummings." The correspondent breezily ran off the names. "There were more before Santos-Coy, Valles's chief of staff, stuck us all up against a wall the last time our government clapped one of its hit-and-miss embargoes on munitions. Valles saved us, but after that most of the fellows skipped out. So we have lots of room. Come right up."

A partition divided the car into kitchen and living-quarters. Bunks rose in a tier of four at the end of the latter. Four more could be slept on long lockers at each side of the table which was being set for supper by the Chinese cook. From the oldest to the youngest, the correspondents were on edge for the approaching battle. At supper their talk ran on its possibilities.

"If Valles is beaten again," Weekes, the gray-haired dean, summed the conversation, "our government will throw another of its silly flip-flops and turn him down. And then--"

"--this corresponding job won't make good insurance."

"And then--" the dean began again.

"We'll hit for El Paso before Santos-Coy grabs us again."

"And then"--the dean triumphed over interruptions--"God pity the poor gringos in northern Mexico."

Bull's friend nodded. "Valles's army will scatter into bands that will rake the country with fine-tooth combs for the least bit of plunder. You had better get your girl and her fellow, Diogenes, and come out with us."

Later, when they had all climbed up on the roof and sat watching the oil-smoke from the laboring locomotive whirl and twist, then float away and lay its great sable plumes against the rich reds and golds of the evening sky, they gave expert opinion on Benson's mission.

"If Valles wins, so do you," the dean opined. "He needs horses worse than money, and, as you say, has slathers of it in the El Paso banks. But if he loses--hit for the border at once. I saw him the other day after the first defeat, and hell couldn't produce his equal. He was crazy; a maniac; a tiger gone stark, staring, frothing mad.

"And lose he will. How do I know?" He answered a challenge. "It's a mere problem of mathematics, the first equation of which was worked out in the battle the other day. Given two men of equal military ability, the one with a trained mind is bound to win. The other fellow, as you know, is a college man--a college man against a bandit." He turned to Bull and Benson. "It's a cinch that he'll win. If I were you, gentlemen, I'd wait the event."

Benson shook his head. "If we see Valles now and strike a bargain, we can get our cattle across the border before he's all in."

"Good enough reasoning," the dean admitted. "But--ever since the first defeat he's been in one of his towering rages. Even his own generals hardly dare go near him."

Benson shrugged; with British obstinacy he clung to his point. "It won't be the first time I've seen him in his rages. He may be dangerous--to Americans, but John Bull looks after his people and even Valles is careful of how he flies in the old fellow's face. I shall go to see him at once, and if he refuses--well"--his voice grew harsh and menacing--"he'll hear the truth about himself."

Not knowing him, the correspondents received it in silence. While they smoked Benson went on in his hard, rough voice. "I tell you, amigos, that your people have made a sad mess of this whole Mexican business. For three years, now, you have been trying to apply the principles of your Declaration of Independence to a race which won't have evolved to a point where it has the faintest understanding of them for a thousand years to come. You stand on your Monroe doctrine, but refuse to take up its obligations and give alien nationals the protection you will not allow their own government to extend. While your statesmen prattle about the sacred right of revolution and Mexico's ability to settle her own affairs, the country is overrun with bandits and mobs of pelados who are killing off the decent people and destroying billions in property they never created.

"Bah!" he snorted his disgust. "Don't talk to me of republics. Do you suppose that either England or Germany would have stood for the anarchy which rules here? For centuries John Bull has been ruling brown peoples and he knows his job. 'Be good and you'll be happy!' he tells them. If they're not--they get it, hot and heavy, on the spot where it will do most good. The brown man is all right in his place--which isn't on top of the white man--but your government, so far, has failed to perceive it."

He went on from a pause: "Republics are incapacitated by nature in any case for the job. They are too divided in their counsels--swayed to-day by capital that will accept any dishonor rather than jeopardize its revenues; to-morrow by sentimentalists who hold up hands of horror at the very thought of war; governed most of the time by a ridiculous yellow press. Individually, you Yanks are good people, but taken collectively, as represented by your government and papers, you are hypocritical, weak, hysterical, sentimental, without dignity or force. You are grown fat with wealth, soft with luxury, too lazy and indifferent to undertake your responsibilities abroad, and if you were not, you lack the first essentials--centralized federal authority and military strength to enforce your will. If you do anything here it will be accidental--such as when the blowing up of the _Maine_ aroused one of your periodical brainstorms, stung you into action. But in the mean time the destruction of Mexico will be complete. There will be nothing left of the civilization built up at such enormous pains by Diaz and which it was your duty to maintain."

Silence followed, the uncomfortable silence that attends the digestion of unpalatable truth. While they talked, the cars had resolved into dim masses that swayed and swung through hot dusk that was splashed, here and there, with the red glow of charcoal cooking fires. On those immediately ahead and behind, dim sombreroed figures still loomed in half-gloom. The flash of a match occasionally set a dark face out in startling relief. The tinkle of a guitar accompanying a high, nasal _peon_ chant, mingled with the roar and rattle of wheels. For some time its whine rose under the stars before the voice of the dean broke the silence.

"What you say is true--most of it. We have been tried in the balance and found wanting. We've neglected our duty to the Mexicans and our own people--that's the hell of it! But nations, like individuals, learn their lessons through painful mistakes. We've had bad leadership and worse counsels--so much of it that it would almost seem that we were irrevocably stamped as incapable. But it's only a phase. Under it all the heart of the people still beats sound and true. Sooner or later its voice will be heard. And when it is--the bleating of the sentimentalists will be drowned in the tramp of marching men."

"You bet you!" It rolled out in chorus.

"In the mean time," a voice added, "what's the matter with a little drink?"

Instantly the recumbent figures rose in a shadowy mass, and as its units made their way down over the edge of the swaying car, the correspondent jogged Bull's elbow. "Come along, Diogenes!"

But though a flame, sudden and fierce, had leaped within him; though he trembled under the intensity of his desire, he shook his head. "Thanks, I'm not drinking."

"Why--Diogenes? Whatever is the matter? If parental responsibilities do this, damned if I know whether I'll ever dare to hook up--providing my San Francisco girl ever consents. Is this straight?"

"Straight."

Warned, perhaps, by a certain earnestness, the other answered: "All right, old man--only--if you change your mind, come on down."

Bull made no answer, could not, for as he lay there, huge bulk stretched out on the running-board, face turned up to the stars, every ounce of his energy, even the bit that would have been used up in speech, was consumed in the fight against the furious desire that brought the sweat starting on his brow, shook him like a leaf. Out of the rack and bang of the swinging cars, click and roar of the wheels, his ear presently picked the clink of glasses. Out through the lamp-lit doorway floated Benson's rough voice.

"Well, here's to Uncle Sam! wishing him better counselors and quicker understanding!"

Bull heard no more, for he had rolled over, buried his face in his arms to hide from his snuffing nostrils whiffs of spirits. Once he half rose, looking toward the ladder. But, strengthening his resolution, there rose in his mind just then a picture of Betty and her mother as he had seen them at parting--her hands on the child's shoulders, stooped in slight dejection, yet radiating faith and trust.

Lying down again, he lay, hands clasped under his head, gazing up at the fire of stars, while his mind traveled back to the _rancho_, lived over and over again the slow, sweet hours of last night. Below, an undertone to the roar of the speeding train, he now caught the hum of talk. But he took no heed--even when it ceased. He dreamed on till a hand shook his foot.

"Aren't you coming down to bed?"

"No; I reckon I'll lay out here. It's cooler." He did not acknowledge to himself his fear of sniffing the spirituous odors.

"All right, only don't roll off." The correspondent paused on his way back to the ladder. "Say! did your friend mean what he said? Or was it just talk?"

When Bull answered with a sketch of Benson's violent temper, illustrated by a few instances, the correspondent shook his head. "Well, don't let him see Valles alone." Going down the ladder, he called back, "If you should change your mind about the drink, you'll find the jug on the table."

Instantly it materialized in Bull's vision, a round stone jug and glasses, as solid and real as though it stood within the reach of his hand. Nor could he shut out the vision, as he had the odor, by burying his face. With the cars swinging and swaying through the night, shut out, it stood forth clearer than ever. He saw himself snatching out the cork; felt the burning liquid coursing down his throat.

"My God! why did I come? I'll never be able to stan' it!"

The thought of the temptation, ever present, growing more powerful through the coming days, gaining in strength while he grew weaker, brought out of him a cry of dismay: "I'll never be able to stan' it!" Then, very quickly, "I'll have to! If I don't--then I'm no fit man for her!"

The thought brought her face again in all its sweet wholesomeness. Through the warm dusk, as it were beside him, he saw her hand fluttering like a homing dove into his. He felt it lifting, raising him above his temptation. The memory of its soft pressures strengthened and comforted. Presently his fingers relaxed their convulsive grip on the running-board. Exhausted, he fell asleep.

XXVIII: A "REQUISITION"

Slipping in over the patio wall, a golden sunbeam struck behind where Gordon sat writing and flooded the _portales_ with topaz lights. From the kitchen came the soft spat, spat of _tortillas_ in the course of shapement between Teresa's palms, competing splash and flop of Maria's cloth as she washed off the brown-tiled floor. No other sound disturbed the morning freshness, for Gordon had risen early to get off a letter with Lovell, who had dropped in last night on his way to El Paso to attend Phoebe's wedding.

So engrossed was he that a gentle agitation of the sheet which hung across Lee's bedroom doorway on the gallery above passed unnoticed. The rail hid from his view the small, bare feet, but he missed a glimpse of white shoulder, flash of brown eyes under her hair's bright tousle, round, red mouth opened in a yawn before, seeing him, she hastily dropped the sheet. He did not see her even when she came out in kimono and slippers and soft-footed it down the stone stairs at his back. Though, sitting up on her heels, Maria looked on smiling, Gordon's first notice came from the soft palms that slipped over his eyes.

With loose treachery the kimono sleeves had slipped back and he could feel the soft coolness of her forearms on his neck and cheeks; wherefore it is not to be wondered at that he found difficulty in guessing whom she might be. Jake, Sliver, Maria, Teresa, Lovell, the _ancianos_, he was enumerating by name all the women, children, cats, and dogs of the _hacienda_ when she cut him off.

"Your stupidity is suspicious, sir. But it punishes itself. If you had guessed right I might have given you a--"

He took it--in triplicate, then pulled her down on his knee. "To my father and mother," he replied to her question. "I thought it was about time I dropped them a line--haven't written home since I came down."

"What?" She uttered a small shocked scream. "You've let them suffer all this time in suspense and alarm?"

He looked up in innocent surprise. "Why should _they_ suffer? I didn't."

_He hadn't?_ Her hands went up, appealing to the wide heavens against such utter lack of imagination--but dropped again quickly, owing to a second base treachery on the part of the sleeves.

"Oh, you men! What fools women are ever to bother about you. _You_ didn't suffer? _Oooooh!_" She pulled his ear till he yelled. "If you ever dare to treat me like that!"

"That would be impossible, for you see we shall always be together."

After he had placed the customary seals on this affidavit of intent, she asked: "But why this sudden plunge into correspondence--after such long abstinence?"

"To inform them," he replied, with great dignity, "of a certain momentous change impending in my condition."

"Oh, you are telling them about--_me_? May I see what you have written?"

She could! And did! With one arm around his neck, heads so close that his face was hidden in an aura of flying hair, she began. As her eyes passed along the lines, her smooth cheek came harder and harder against his. Her clasp on his neck tightened until, just before she sat up, it had evolved into a bear hug.

"Oh, what a liar they will think you!"

"To guard against that, I want you to let me have the photo in the silver frame on your writing-table. Seeing's believing."

Of course she declared it "wasn't a bit like her" and the rest of it. Nevertheless, she brought it and, having resumed her perch on his knee, picked out the bad points and dwelt thereon while her eyes appealed for the contradiction which he voluminously furnished. While he severally and _in toto_ denied her scathing indictments and substituted therefor panegyrics, she glowed radiantly and finally gave consent.

"Only you are so blind. They'll hate me when they see it."

"Trust dad for that!" he laughed. "He still has a soft spot for a pretty damsel. When he sees this--well, he'll go straight out and buy a fatted calf."

"But your mother and sister? They'll never forgive me for taking you from that other girl."

"Wrong again! They weren't a bit anxious about it. It was all my father--with his nonsense about rounding out fortunes. They'll love you as much as I--no, that's impossible! But they'll love you, all right."

A little thoughtful gleam now explained itself. "That other girl? You never told me about her. Did you ever--kiss her?"

"Lots of times." Laughing, he held her as she tried to break away. "At parties, when I was a kid--and when we played 'post-office' and sich."

"Never since you grew up?"

"Never."

"Oh, well," she sighed, "I suppose I'll have to forgive you since you were so very small, and it's such a long time ago I'll really have to--make up."

Some of the arrears were paid right then. In fact, it was not until she had demurred at paying all that he tapped the letter. "And now--what about the date? Shall I tell that we will be married by the time they receive it?"

Her hair flew in a bright cloud under her vigorous shake. "Such impatience! Aren't you happy?"

"Happy?" His voice rang with sincerity. "Happier than I ever thought possible, but--"

"But--?"

"I want to be happier still."

He meant and thought it. But she with her woman's intuition knew this, their love time, for what it was--the flowerage of their lives. Later would come the ripe fruit--content mixed with the joys and sorrows that form the substance of life; but then this hour would have passed forever. Like all women, with whom love is always the great end, she would have drained its last sweet essence. But like all women, she was not at all displeased by his impatience. Presently she yielded to it.

"After--after Bull comes home."

In the course of the argument she had coiled up on his knees, and the shy consent issued from the ambush of hair that hid her profile. Wrapped in his arms, soft and warm, she lay in blissful content for some time before he spoke.

"If Bull were here now, we could have gone up with Lovell and have made it a double marriage. Why, what's the matter?"

She had sat up with a little shiver. "Oh no! I could never be happy in one of those great hotels, huge human warrens!" Coiling up again, she allowed him a peep into her girlish dreamings. "I never saw him, he who was to be my all. His face was always dim, indefinite, as a bright moon behind a cloud, but he felt--like you. In my visions he always took me into the wilds--the hills, woods, cañons, and it is there we must go.

"It would be lovely if we could have taken horses and a pack-mule and gone down the length of the Sierra Madres--at first alone, later traveling with the arrieros up the mule trails to the snow-line, then down on the other side through giant cañons. We should have seen only the simple folk of the country. But the revolution has made that impossible. But this we can do--go to the priest and jefe of San Carlos, who are both old friends of my father's, to be married, then ride straight out to the mountain pasture and keep house there all by ourselves till--till we feel like coming home. I will cook while you look after the horses, and we can play that we are simple _peones_ and be--oh, _so_ happy!"

Nothing could have appealed to him more strongly. It was almost as good as a Java forest! He wondered at himself. "How perfectly lovely! Why didn't I think of that myself?"

"You would have, in time. Oh!" She sprang from his knee at a stir and tinkle of water. "Mr. Lovell is up. I must shoot up-stairs and dress."

"You'll go out with me to-day?" he called after her.

"No." She bent down over the rail to answer. "I promised Jake to go with him to Cañon del Norte to look at the colts."

"Twice with him, twice with Sliver, and only once with me?" he protested. "'Tisn't fair."

But all that he gained was a little soft laugh that came floating out from behind the sheet.

From his third of the wide circle which he, Jake, and Sliver now described about the _hacienda_, Gordon came in at sundown to the rise from which he and the widow had looked down on Los Arboles. It had become his daily habit to pause there and look for Lee returning with Sliver or Jake--and to-night he saw all three, small dots on the crests of great earth waves--then to sit and muse while the declining sun washed the wide world with its resplendence.

As on that other evening, the hacienda lay with its walls, painted adobes, _patio_, and compound aglow and plumed with soft smoke. As then, the plains lay, an undulating carpet of crimson and violet away to the burning hills. But--in place of soft woman voices, laughter low and wild--there came floating up to him a frightened murmur broken by a cry.

"Beast! she is but a child!"

Startled, he looked more closely and now saw, first; half a dozen horses standing with trailing bridles in the center of the compound; then as a flash of brass caught the sunlight, their riders straggling among the adobes.

"Raiders!" he thought, then noting their khaki, he changed it to, "_Revueltosos!_"

A glance north and south would have shown him the others coming in at a fast lope. But at the cry, thrilling in its human anguish, wild in its panic, he was seized with excitement blind and savage as the blood fear which turns a band of peaceful cattle into a snorting, bellowing herd. Digging in his spurs, he shot down the slope, in through the back compound gate just as a woman came staggering back through the doorway of the nearest adobe, felled by a blow on the mouth.

From within issued a wild, hysterical sobbing. At first Gordon's sight, blinded by the bright sun, showed him only a convulsive movement in the half-gloom, but as they swung back into the light of the doorway he saw a slim brown girl struggling in the arms of a _revueltoso_. The elder sister of his little playmate, she herself was but a child, but this helped her no more than her heartbroken sobbing.

"Señor! Señor! Pity of Mary!"

At sight of the girl a cold shiver went down Gordon's spine. Blind, breathless, choking, conscious only of a savage impulse to rend and tear, he rushed in, tore the girl out of the man's arms, and threw him violently against the wall.

So savage was the impulse he had never thought to use a weapon till the fellow reached for his long gun. Then, suddenly aware of death looming imminent there in the half-gloom, he grabbed his automatic and fired, aiming with the natural intuitive precision with which one points a finger. He felt the rush of a body past him through the smoke. Then, stepping to the door, he saw the man run a few steps, fall, and roll over.

Suddenly aware that he, Gordon Nevil, had killed a man, intensely surprised at his lack of emotion, commonplace acceptance of the fact, he stood with the smoking pistol in hand until, with a sudden rush, the mother pushed him back in, then slammed and barred the door behind them.

The next moment came a scurry of feet, and the door quivered under a heavy shove. But it was not the varnished leaf of civilization, designed to keep out conversation. Barred top and bottom and three inches thick, it withstood a violent hammering.

The instant she was released the girl had dived like a scared rabbit under the canvas cot in the far corner and lay there, still as a mouse. But, picking up the knife which the dead man had wrenched from her hand, the dark mother ranged herself alongside Gordon. Though he understood very little of her whispered Spanish, the gleaming intelligence of the burning eyes, eloquent gestures, carried her meaning.

"They say to bring fire and burn down the door." Her quick motion simulated the lighting of a match, followed by the upleap of flame. Whispering: "Tira! señor, tira! Shoot! Shoot!" she pointed at the window.

It was merely a square hole, flush with the thick wall on the outside, and barred with heavy oaken staves, and the _revueltosos_ were hugging the wall. Nevertheless, with a quick thrust of his weapon between the bars Gordon fired two shots along the wall. Though the bullets flew at random, there followed a quick scurry of feet.