Part 18

In their hope and consolation their quick looks at one another were wonderfully revealing. Bending, they took his blessing, and walked slowly away down the garden while he went back in the house.

Bull had looked and listened with sympathy so acute as to be almost pain. And yet--even while his gaze followed the nuns slowly down the garden, he was conscious of a tray of liquors and glasses that stood on a small side-table. On their way they had passed _cantina_ after cantina, all thronged with half-drunken _revueltosos_, all exhaling a thick reek of spirits that filled his thirsty nostrils, inflamed the drink desire. Now, after refusing the consul's invitation, he walked out on the veranda, and not till the bottles were recorked did he return in time to hear the consul's conclusion on Benson's business.

"As you say, he needs the horses, never more badly, but, again, he was never in worse humor than he has been since his defeat. It wouldn't help any for me to go with you, for I've been fighting him on other accounts all this week. You know him, and I will provide you with a letter that will secure your admittance."

On the way back Bull ran again the gantlet of the _cantinas_. With invisible hands they reached out to throttle his resolution. So powerful was the temptation, he walked like a man in a dream, blind to externals; seeing, hearing nothing till they brought up on the edge of the crowd that blocked always the gates of Valles's headquarters--simple _peones_ who waited patiently through the long, hot hours on the chance of obtaining a glimpse of their hero, a _peon_ like themselves who had abased the great _hacendados_, their taskmasters, confiscated their lands, beaten their generals, trampled their pride in the dust. Though he shouldered a path through for himself and Benson, he scarcely saw them; had only a dim vision of a guard in the patio, of officers coming and going up a wide stone stairway. Not till they were met by a secretary, seated in an anteroom, and Benson spoke, did he awaken to what was going on.

"That's 'Matador' Fero, Valles's killer." Benson nudged him as a man looked in through the open double doors of the next room and gave them a suspicious stare. "He shot two hundred Federal prisoners, one afternoon, in files of five, one bullet to a file, trying out a new high-power rifle. Looks it, doesn't he?"

He did. The hulking figure, gross jaw and mouth, small eyes, black, piercing, cold as ice, all bespoke cruelty that was accentuated by his colorless olive skin. Strolling back to his post behind Valles, whom they could see sitting at a desk in the next room, he stood there closely watching, both the American correspondents who were ranged before the desk, and also the _revueltoso_ officers who lounged on the window balconies. Not a hand stirred, foot moved, without his notice.

Fierce beast that the "Matador" was, Bull's keen knowledge of men, developed by years of hazard to an instinct, still set him down as less dangerous than his master. In the latter a towering forehead, massive upper head, indicated genius of the highest constructive order. But his thick lips, repulsive mouth, great amber eyes that were never at rest, sent always their sharp, suspicious glances darting hither and thither, told why it had been perverted to destructive ends; proclaimed the bandit _peon_, military dictator. He had stopped speaking when they entered. Now he began again, and as he talked the heel of his hand nervously tapped the table. Now and then, with a gush of savage feeling, it would rise and fall with a bang.

"You may tell your papers, señores, the reverse of the other day was sustained by one of my generals. But to-morrow--you have seen my reinforcements, twenty thousand brought down from Chihuahua?--to-morrow I shall command. We shall drive the Carranzistas like dust before a hot wind. And you can tell them"--he observed a sinister pause--"you may tell them that I am not pleased with the countenance your government is now giving the Carranzistas. So far I have been careful of American lives and property in the country I control, but if your government allies itself with my enemies--" His big fist struck the table with force that emphasized the threatening flash of the darting eyes.

Yet, pulsing with vindictive anger, the exhibition paled by contrast with his furious attack on one of his own officers who came in as the correspondents filed out. The fact that he had been wounded and had gone on, alone, when his command refused to face a galling fire, made no difference. Beast mouth stretched to a gorilla grin, every line of his face writhing in an awful smile, Valles scored him with coarse insult and seething invective while his hand toyed thirstily with the hilt of his knife.

Flushing and paling, the man stood with hanging head till an order issued from the last furious burst. "Go, now, and shoot every tenth man in your command. I will teach them that I am more to be feared than the damned Carranzistas!"

In the midst of it Bull nudged Benson. "Don't you allow we better leave him cool for a while?"

But the Englishman's obstinate jaw set hard. "I'm not afraid of him. Besides"--the secretary stood again in the doorway--"it is too late."

A curt nod marked Valles's recognition of Benson as they followed in. Then, as his tigerish eyes took in Bull, they lit with quick appreciation of his bulk, then went off again on their suspicious questing. While Benson talked, he beat again a soft tattoo with the heel of his hand; then, rising, he walked off into another room.

The secretary followed, and through the closed door they caught the harsh, throaty monotone. When it ceased the secretary came out.

"My general says that all of your property is subject to requisition to be paid for in legal currency issued by him as the chief of the republican armies."

"And he thinks we'll stand for that?" His eyes flashing under bent brows, harsh face burning with anger, Benson stepped toward the door. "I'll--"

But as he moved the "Matador" stepped in between. Half a dozen lounging officers, too, came hurrying from the balconies.

"It would do no good, señor." The secretary's shoulders rose in a shrug. "Wait a more favorable time."

Benson stared down upon him, big fists clenched, face purple with furious passion. Thinking he was about to strike, Bull put out his hand. But, turning suddenly, Benson strode out of the room, throwing his defiance back over his shoulder.

"He can't bluff a British subject that way! He'll give me his answer _himself_--and he'll give it _to-day_."

As Bull followed out a hand touched his shoulder. Thinking it was the secretary, he turned--then stood staring at the sentry on guard at the door, who returned a sheepish grin. Though the face seemed familiar, he did not recognize the man for one of the raiders Lee had saved from hanging till he spoke.

"Ah, señor, 'tis fine to see an old face. The señorita, she that saved us from your just anger, she is well? Tell her that fine mercy was defeated by the _revueltosos_ who took us from her servants. Ask if she will in her great kindness have the general set us free that we may return to our wives and babes in Las Bocas."

In spite of his own stress, Bull could not but grin. "Was the jefe of Las Bocas a better master than Valles?"

"A master is always a master." The man shrugged. "But one's pais is one's pais and the niñas, the flesh of one's body, blood of his blood, cannot be forgotten. Thou wilt speak to her, señor?"

The tear that trickled down his villainous face earned him a civil answer. Though he knew the futility of it, Bull nodded. "Si, I will speak."

Below he found Benson shoving like an angry bull through the _peon_ crowd. On its outskirts he turned and shook his fist at the building.

"I'm going back to the consul--to tell him something that he'll take better alone. Where shall I meet you?"

"Here?"

"No, I can't tell how long I may be. Make it after lunch at the car."

Bull nodded. Then remembering the correspondent's warning, he called after him, "I'd like to be there when you tackle him again."

Nodding, Benson walked on. Left alone, Bull sat down on a bench in the plaza. Already the drink desire was returned upon him. And as he sat there, in the grip of his mortal weakness, three soldiers seated themselves on the same bench and proceeded to pass a bottle of _tequila_.

Before he even saw it Bull's mutinous nostrils snuffed the odor. Looking away, he tried to think, to recall the vision that strengthened and cooled him in his hour of torture last night. But now, the stronger for his long abstinence, that enormous desire inflamed his brain; enveloped it in heated mists through which the pretty, wholesome faces loomed dim and indefinite. And then--

After a curious glance up at the huge figure, the nearest soldier tapped his arm. "You will drink with us, señor?"

What it cost him to refuse and walk away! Men have gone down in history as martyrs by the exercise of no more effort. But just as pressure enough will snap a bone, as persistent fatigue will paralyze a muscle, so the effort weakened his will, broke his resolution. Feeling curiously weak, utterly exhausted, he stopped at the plaza corner and gazed at a _cantina_ across the road.

Even then he did not give in. Hands writhing behind his back, face one purple suffusion, he circled and recircled the plaza half a dozen times before he stopped at the same spot again. In that time desire has no height he did not reach; passion no heat, hell no torture, he did not endure. And while he stood watching the _cantina's_ roaring trade, reluctant but conscious in his soul that the end was come, a hand dropped with a hearty slap on his back.

"Come on, Diogenes, you're just in time. We've discovered some beer, good cold beer, down at the German Club. Counting the consul, there's only two Dutchmen left in the town, but trust them to have their beer. Don't waste time in astonishment. Come right along."

In his mortal weakness Bull snatched at the straw. He could drink a barrel of the thin Mexican stuff without knowing it--at least he felt he could! But while, for an hour thereafter, they sat in a cool _patio_ talking and sipping, the despised brew was still potent enough to loose the mad rustler spirit that hearkened only to the voice of desire.

When the correspondents left to file their despatches, he remained.

"I'm waiting for Benson," he told them. "If you see him, tell him I'm here."

While they walked down the _patio_ and out through the bar into the street, he sat nervously making rings with his beer-glass. Then, trembling with eagerness, he called the waiter.

"This stuff hasn't a kick in it. Bring me a bottle of whisky!"

XXX: THE OTHER HALF OF THE TRUTH

As they sat at breakfast Gordon's glance went repeatedly to Lee. Her smile, soft and mischievous, told that she knew very well what was in his 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 never seen 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 other like two stamps at the end of a day's ride in a sweaty pocket; allus that close up walkin', standin' or settin', you had to walk around 'em twice to find the jine."

"An' after they was married?" Jake questioned.

Sliver scratched his head. "You-all mightn't believe it, but you c'd have fired a charge of buckshot between 'em at long range without hittin' either."

Jake nodded. "I'd have allowed as much. But these ain't that kind. Did you see how she deviled him all through breakfast? Well, she'll keep him on aidge that-a-way all his life. He'll never get all at once; never quite reach the end. They'll allus be something beyond."

"Say!" Sliver looked at him in dumb wonder. "Fer an old bachelor you know 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 my teacher."

Just then Gordon overtook them, but while helping them to saddle up--for it was his day on guard--Sliver curiously watched Jake. When, moreover, he mounted to the watch-tower above the gates and saw Lee and Gordon ride away, the sight accentuated a new feeling, one of a vacancy in his being which, so far, a long succession of fluffy, blondined ladies had somehow failed to fill.

Their strongly perfumed memory set his head wagging over that problem in morals 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 still terrible fond of two dozen? Why kedn't she a' b'en more single-minded?"

His brooding over these inconsistencies was suddenly disrupted by a flash of doubt, so pronounced as to be almost alarm. Lee and Gordon were now silhouetted against the sky-line. They were, however, no longer at correct riding distance. Eyes less keen than Sliver's could easily have perceived they were holding hands. He drew the phenomenon to the attention 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 go off 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 on the common view of things. "She kin ride with tough guys like you an' me an' it's all right; but she mustn't go out with the man that loves her more '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 a chapperonny." Vanquished by Jake's disgusted snort, he withdrew and went down 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 last fatal day, they reined in and looked back upon it lying like a huge painted cup in the great gold saucer of the sun-scorched plains. As then, the sweep of her hand took in the house, adobes, compound, giant cottonwoods sweeping with the dry arroyo across the view, the range rolling in bright billows to the far hills.

Her cry was the same: "Oh, isn't it beautiful? Soon the rains will come and turn everything green, but I like it best this way. Greens are to be had anywhere, but these golds--that is Mexico."

Stimulated by his responsive smile, just as she used to do with her father, she began to dive into the past, relate the battles and sieges, scandal and intrigue, recreate the vivid pageants of the old dons and their savage brown retainers. If she had chosen the differential calculus for her subject, he would have listened with pleasure to the soft, eager voice. The lithe, graceful figure that gained so in ease and grace of its flexures from her man's riding-clothes, the mobile face, molten under the touch of emotion, would have illumined the heaviest subject. But he was equally interested, plied her with questions when she showed signs of stopping.

"Oh, I'm so glad that you love it!" she sighed, happily. "It would have been such a disappointment if you-- But that is so silly, because it wouldn't have been you. Soon the rains will come, and in the long, dark evenings after"--she went on with a little flourish--"I shall read you stacks and stacks of the old letters and documents we found in an old leather trunk. It will be lots of fun."

Naturally they dipped into the future, building their own castles. Where she left off, he began. "Wait till we get my old dad down here! A big streak of romance crosscuts his business sense, and when he sees this--well, he promised me a hundred thousand when I finally settled down. After Uncle Sam steps in and puts an end to all this revolutionary nonsense, we'll--"

The reconstructed and beautiful Los Arboles that emerged from his imaginings was inhabited by a contented peasantry, better paid, healthier, and happier than the country had ever seen. What he forgot she filled in till, from sheer lack of material, they came to a happy pause.

Business concluded and the Mexican millennium achieved, they turned to their own pleasure. A certain Java forest was, of course, again lugged in by the ears. She, however, did not appear to notice it was getting a trifle shopworn, but enthused as brightly as though it were new goods freshly displayed. And while they ran on, rebuilding their earthly scheme of things according to their hearts' desire, the gods in resentment of their presumption were forging the thunderbolts that were to shatter it to bits. Unconscious of sharp eyes that were watching from the heart of the chaparral thicket half a mile away, they presently joined hands and rode on.

At first the direction seemed to suit the watcher's purpose. After they passed, he rode his horse out in the open and followed, keeping always out of their sight. Even when, an hour later, Gordon circled toward the mountains on his regular beat, the watcher followed. But when their course began to bend to the south he laid on quirt and spurs and went after 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's message from El Sol.

"Que? Filomena?"

As he answered, in rapid Spanish, sudden distress wiped out her happiness. "Oh, Betty is ill!" she translated for Gordon. "Mary Mills sent word to El Sol and asked them to send for me. Filomena can act as my escort, so it won't be necessary for you--" She paused, anticipating rebellion.

It came. "Bull told me that you were not to ride alone. I wouldn't let you, anyway."

If she made a little face, she was still secretly pleased. "That's what one 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 señor will go with me. You may ride on to Los Arboles and tell Don Sliver, the gringo señor, where we have gone."

Disconcertion showed through the man's _peon_ immobility. But with an obsequious "Si, señorita!" 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 to be taking the short cut through the hills. Till they passed out of sight he lay quietly. Then, after carefully clearing a patch of ground, he built a small fire of the dry grass and twigs and covered it with the succulent green leaves of a Spanish bayonet.

Instantly there rose on the still air a dense smoke column. Till it soared to its full height he waited. Then, alternately covering and lifting his scrape from the fire, he sent a succession of great smoke puffs rolling on high. Whereafter he stamped out the fire and, grinning, mounted and rode away.

About that time Lee and Gordon were entering the ravine. A slight embarrassment rose between them as they drew near the _fonda_. But in place of Felicia's smooth, dark face the wrinkled, purblind visage of old 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 her glance, he laughed and raised his right hand in attestation. Disarmed, she shook her finger, and the next minute their horses had scrambled around the bend, past the spot whence she had looked down and seen the kiss, into neutral territory.

Half an hour put them at the head of the staircase from where, as on the night they had brought home the raiders, they looked over spur and ridge to the distant plains. Then it had all been washed in the crimson and violet and gold of sunset. Now, beyond the black chaparral, that undulated like a woman's mantle over the shoulders and breasts of the hills, the plains lay to the eye, a sea of undulating gold flecked with green isles, trees, and far fields of growing corn. Mountains and plains, cañon and ravine, it was just as wild, infinitely beautiful in one mood as the other.

"A wonderful land!" Gordon breathed it.

Could his eyes have gone with the curving meridians over its length and its breadth, have followed the dim, blue ranges in their course across brazen 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 cañons, streets of the mountains that led into the tangled jungles where coffee and cocoa, rubber and tobacco, palms and bananas, sage, rice, spices, flourish in the languid tropics; could he have taken the land in its entirety, richer in its beauty, variety of crops, fruits, plants, than the fabled Garden of Eden--could he have done all this, even then imagination would have fallen far below the reality. Yet he saw enough to stimulate him to prophecy.

"Some day, when all this petty revolutionary business is squelched, this is going to be part of the greatest nation on earth."

That set them planning again, and while they talked the largest army yet brought forth by successive revolutions was in process of disintegration but an eagle's flight away. Following battle and retreat across sun-struck desert where thirst slew more than lead or steel, it was scattering fiery chaff blown by cannon's blast over the face of the land to set it aflame with minor disorders. Beyond the farthest blue range columns of smoke marked the sites of a hundred burning _haciendas_. With them, under the pitiless sky, rose the groans and cries of the wounded and tortured, wailing of ravished women.

In present ignorance of this, unconscious, again, of the keen eyes that had spied the _mozo's_ signal and were now watching them from the chaparral 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 few hundred yards away, might have heard the argument.

She would easily have recognized Ramon's voice. "True, amigo, and I love him less than thou; would kill him the quicker but for my promise to his compañero. While he held me under his rifle, I gave it--to make no attempt on their lives."

"A promise?" A low, hard laugh issued from the covert. "What is it but a deadfall 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 it to find a hot enough corner in hell. But _I_ gave no promise--and he killed Tomas, my man. If your stomach turns at the job, leave him to me."

"No, no!" Ramon's voice rose in quick protest. "His killing would still be at my hands. Also"--the addition came in lower tones--"I would rather he lived--to suffer the furies I have suffered when he thinks of her in my arms. No, señor, 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 of a slippery steep where loose rubble bank and a narrow passage through thick chaparral would allow only one horse to go down at a time. Ramon, with two of the revolutionists, crouched above, while the leader, with the others, hid at the foot. He had no more than gained back to his men before Lee and Gordon appeared silhouetted against the sky above.

She was in the lead, so close that Ramon could almost have touched her stirrup as she looked back at Gordon. "I'll go down first. If I break my neck you can pick up the remains."