Part 23

In ignorance of all the night had shrouded, that the sun now shone on, of the horror even then in course a few miles away, they pursued their second day, fished and swam, walked among the pasturing horses, had the gayest of times concocting a tasty lunch out of their crude supplies. Thereafter Gordon was lying in luxurious content, head pillowed on Lee's knee, when he first spied a slender smoke column rising far away beyond the rim.

"Look!"

Though he sat up, pointing, he did not comprehend till Lee cried out: "It's the Millses' beacon! Oh, they are attacked! Get the horses! Quick!"

XXXVII: THE THREE--AGAIN

Bull walked a few paces, then looked back at his horse. Its quivering knees, long, slow shivers, told that it was beyond further service. He returned to the woman. She had sunk into a second collapse, but she looked up at his touch.

"You heard them talking before--before--"

"Si, señor, from our stables they had stolen three horses. I heard them speaking of Los Arboles; that they would take all of its horses and sell them at the border."

Nodding, Bull went on his way afoot. But as, head bent, he passed the ruined wall from behind which Terrubio had challenged him long ago a voice called out, "Ole, señor!"

Startled, Bull looked up, half expecting to see again the uncanny eyes, weird cold face. But the faithful servitor was gone; gone with his loved mistress--to wait on her, if such things be, beyond the consuming flame. From behind the wall, leading his horse, hobbled old Rafael, the father of the woman.

"I had thought thee one of those wicked ones." The old fellow slapped the butt of an old musket. "Once my finger tightened on the trigger, but by the mercy of God I waited. Si, señor, I saw them go. After I sent up the smoke I came back slowly, crawling along the valleys, keeping always the height of land between us. Thus I gained so close that I counted them when they passed; a full score, señor, and more, on their way by the plains trail to Arboles. But the mistress and the niña, señor? They did not harm--"

He stopped, halted by Bull's look, then cried aloud while the tears coursed down his wrinkled face. "The white ewe and the lamb! Gone! and I, the old dog, am left? But so it was always. Death takes his pick of the best! I would go after them, señor, those wicked ones; but of what use, save to make a noise, is an old dog after the teeth are gone? The biting must be done by stronger jaws; the running by fleeter feet. Take thou my horse."

Thus freshly mounted, Bull made such time that he climbed to the smoldering beacon on the mountain's shoulder before daylight failed. Below lay the valleys in mysterious pools from which long shadows issued to crawl up the flaming hills. Westward the dying sun had left a crimson wake, barred with black across the smoldering sky; a reflection, Bull felt it, of the fiery blossom that glowed in one dark valley. The faint stars weaving a wan embroidery across the trailing skirts of night, the fading light, the first cool breath of the evening, all helped to intensify the loneliness that clothed the obscure prospect. Yet in it that loneliness, the stillness of great solitudes, wide oceans, Bull sensed sympathy and peace; Nirvana, the peace of great worlds, planetary systems swinging through space on their appointed ways. She! They! That pleasant woman, lovely child, had been absorbed into, were part of it, this peace that quieted his troubled spirit.

He did not think this. Such philosophies were beyond him. But he felt and, feeling, a hoarse sob rose in his throat. Bowing his dark face in his hands, the big, black rustler shook in the throes of saving grief. He did not hear the thud of approaching hoofs; saw nothing until with a clatter of displaced stones Sliver and Jake came shooting out of the sage.

Because of its position far out on the plains, the warning smoke had been seen at Los Arboles long before its soaring column rose high enough to be noticed by Gordon above the rim; in fact, Jake and Sliver gained the forks of the Bowl trail while Gordon and Lee lacked still a mile of the summit. As Pedro had delivered Lee's note the preceding evening, Jake knew that the couple were there. After a moment's thought he voted down Sliver's proposal to ride down for Gordon.

"He'd come in handy. Kin shoot some an' his nerve's all right. But you jes' kedn't shut her out. Better to leave them where she's safe."

"That's right," Sliver had added. "An' it 'u'd shore be a shame to break up their honeymoon."

Accordingly, unaware that the pair were riding hard at their heels, Jake and Sliver had held on until, as before said, they came shooting out on Bull. He had whirled, hand on his gun, but it dropped when a cowman's yell issued simultaneously from their throats.

"Why, you dolgorned old son of a--" Sliver stopped as, riding closer, he saw Bull's face. "Why, hombre! What--"

Turning in his saddle, Bull pointed at the crimson blossom in the dark valley below. He did not explain. With that keen intuition natural in those who live alone in the wide spaces, they had read in his face that which is denied to speech--the soul agony of a strong man. Given that blossom of fire, their knowledge of Mexican raiders supplied the rest.

"Murdered!... Mother and child!... Burned ... with the house!"

To one skilled in the polished phrases which city folks hold in readiness for all occasions, the manner in which the two received the news might have appeared heartless. Jake looked off and away over the darkening world. Sliver bit a chew off his plug, then fell to examining a fray in his _riata_. When the latter finally spoke the aforesaid city person would have been greatly shocked.

"The poor damn kid!"

"Hell, ain't it?" Jake's tone was quite indifferent.

But Bull had seen Sliver gulping in an attempt to swallow the choking lump in his throat; also the sudden moisture that quenched the cold, snake sparkle in Jake's bleak eyes. These were all-sufficient.

"They was heading for Los Arboles by the plains trail." After a long silence he answered Jake's question concerning the raiders. "Must be nearly there. My God! Miss Lee an'--"

"They ain't there." Sliver hastened to relieve his anxiety. "They're--" He was relieved from further explanation by a second clatter of hoofs. Out of the gathering dusk came Lee and Gordon.

Ever since they spied the smoke column, its dread possibilities had weighed down the girl's spirit. But at the sight of Bull she forgot--for the moment. Uttering a glad cry, she dismounted, was running to him, hands outstretched, but suddenly halted, shocked by his look.

"Why--what--" Following his pointing finger, she saw the fire. That, their inaction, told all before he spoke. "Gone!--both!--burned with the house!" Crying bitterly, she turned instinctively, as though to run to Gordon. Then, recognizing a need greater than her own, she faced about again and ran to Bull.

"Oh, you poor, _poor_ man!"

Grasping his big, hard hands, she pressed her wet face against his knee while she sobbed out her sorrow and sympathy. Freeing one hand, Bull gently stroked her hair. Nodding for Sliver and Gordon to follow, Jake led them a few yards back up the trail; so there was none but Bull to hear when she began to sob out a broken confession.

"Oh, I feel--so wicked. While all this--was happening--I--I was--getting married!"

"Married?"

"Yes--to Gordon." She ran on brokenly, giving him in bits the tale of all that had happened since his departure--her abduction, Ramon's death, Gordon's ultimatum. "He begged so hard--and the padre and the jefe said--that I ought--and I wanted to, myself--and we were so happy until--we saw the smoke. And now I--I feel like a criminal."

"Then you needn't." He patted her shoulder. "The jefe was right. Never again will you have more need of a man's strength."

"But? At this time? While--"

"How were you to know? An' remember how hard _she_ worked and wished to bring this very thing about. 'Twould have filled her with joy to know that it had come to pass. 'Deed, Missy, she does know an' is glad at this very moment." With that mixture of rude faith and humility that made his enormous strength incongruous, he went on: "Sure she knows an' some day she'll tell you so herself. 'Twon't be for me to hear it. My kind don't go where she is. But you will, an', mark me, the first thing she'll tell will be how happy she was in your marriage."

"Oh, if I thought she would!"

"Be certain of it, child." The last lights had now gone out on the highest peaks. Looking off and away into the gathering gloom, he recited many a hope that Mary Mills had expressed.

While he talked Lee's sobs diminished. She looked up when he finished. "That makes me feel better. And _you_? You, too, think I did right?"

She could see, through the gloom, his sadness lighten. "For what d'you s'pose I brought him here?"

"Not to marry _me_?" She gasped. In spite of the gravity of the moment, her own real sorrow, she could not repress feeling natural in a girl who, having made, as she supposes, her own free choice, finds that, from the very beginning, her husband had been wished upon her. "Oh, if I'd only known it!" She added, with loving illogic, "I'm _so_ glad that I didn't."

"That's fine." He patted her head. "It will be easier, now, if you have to live for a while in the States."

"_The States?_" she repeated.

In a brief way, omitting mention of Benson's death--she had enough to bear--he described the scattering of Valles's army, concluding, "They're wild against Americans." He nodded at the fire. "The men that did this are on the way to Arboles; must be almost there."

"My poor people!" she broke out, in sudden distress. "Gordon! Come here!" When, with Sliver and Jake, he emerged from the shadows she cried it again: "Our poor, poor people! They are on their way--the raiders! To Arboles! We must go--at once!"

"Too late!" Bull spoke heavily. "Even an aeroplane couldn't get us there in time." After, even more briefly, he had sketched for the others recent events, he went on: "I came back to bring you and Mary and the child out. For them it's too late, but you must go at once--you an' your husband an' Sliver an' Jake."

"And you?" Lee questioned.

"I'm going on." The statement in its simplicity carried more significance than the wildest vow of revenge.

"Alone?" Lee again demanded. "And you think we'd go slinking home to the States and leave you to face that band yourself?"

"It's my quarrel, my work." His answer, steady and heavy, issued on the darkness. "You are young and have your husband. Your future is all ahead. Mine is most behind. You folks head at once for the border. With Sliver an' Jake to guard you--"

But here he ran against a second obstacle. Sliver's voice rose in the darkness. "An' there's nothing I'd like better 'n to look after Lady-girl. But I ain't so much of a fool that I don't know the store she sets by you, Bull, that's been father an' mother to her, now, for nigh on a year. So it don't go that-a-way. It's me for Arboles while you-all hit with them for the States."

"Good enough!" Jake's acid tones trembled through the gloom. "With a small amendment. You're that young an' foolish, Sliver, it 'u'd be a shame to cut you off--worse 'n the green grass that goes to the oven. So it stan's like this--you-all go back; I go on."

"No, you don't." Gordon's quiet voice interrupted. "At any other time I'd feel diffident about putting in my oar. But these are our people. I could never look my wife"--he felt her hand steal up into his--"I could never look her in the face again if I stood for this. She ought to get out at once, and if you fellows will see her to the border--"

"They won't--till we all go," Lee broke in. "It's easy to see that you've all made up your minds to stay--and you'll need me to hold the horses. We'd better be getting on."

"But, Missy--" Bull began.

But already she had mounted. The clatter of her horse's hoofs returned unmistakable answer.

XXXVIII: FIRE

Hitherto Bull had always ridden on Lee's right, but when the trail permitted two to ride abreast he now, with instinctive delicacy, yielded his old place to Gordon. In this order they rode along the flank of the mountain, their hoofs beating a dark tattoo to the lower rhythm of creaking leather, flapping holsters; rode on past the San Carlos trail, the Bowl forks, had almost reached the head of the ravine above Antonio's _fonda_ when Lee, who was riding ahead, reined in with an exclamation.

Out of the gloom that wrapped the plains below had burst a sudden glow which gave birth, as they gazed, to a flower of flame that quivered and swung under the breath of the night wind. It was too far away for them to see the buildings; but, clearly as though they were looking down upon it from the first rise, their minds filled in the picture; supplied the flames roaring through the Arboles _patio_, bursting from doors and windows, scaling the guard-house, running a scarlet race along the rows of adobes.

"My poor people!" Lee sat her horse and gazed.

The shock of realization is often less than anticipation; its finality strips away exaggeration. Down there everything Lee valued was going up in flames--her wardrobe, jewelry, girlish treasures; household effects and _hacienda_ stores; that which she valued most of all, the trove of old Spanish manuscripts and letters, doubly dear because so intimately connected with her father's memory. Surely a great loss! but if it flashed up in her mind, regret was instantly wiped out by consuming indignation--not at her personal loss; not that her loved home was being destroyed under her eyes; but at that which it stood for; the malice, ignorance, wantonness, irresponsibility which has lighted a thousand such fires, would light a thousand more, laying waste all Mexico with its cruelties and lusts. When Sliver's voice broke in the darkness behind her his attempt at rude comfort came almost as a shock.

"Never mind, Lady-girl. They kain't burn them yard-thick walls."

"An' we left word for the _ancianos_ to drive the stock into the mountains," Jake added. "Must ha' b'en cl'ar away long before they got there."

"It isn't that." She spoke so low that only Gordon caught her whisper. "My poor girls! I would give all, place and stock, to make sure they escaped." As that bitter indignation resurged within her she added: "There's only one thing left. We must--"

Bull's heavy voice completed it for her,--"catch 'em before daylight."

While the horses slid and slipped down the steep trail his voice rose above the scrape of hoofs, laying out his plan. After their long march the raiders would undoubtedly camp at Arboles! The fire proved one thing--they had broken open the store and drunk up the stock of _aguardiente_! At dawn they would be found stretched in swinish sleep. And then--

His surmise was reasonable, founded on probabilities, but subject to the change of circumstance. As they rode on down a red glow in the black bowels of the ravine grew into a fire that dyed a deeper chrome the yellow walls of the _fonda_. It also restored a little color into the bronze faces of a score of refugees from Arboles, women and children, herded together like sheep around its blaze.

When Lee rode into the firelight they gave tongue in a chorus of joy, apprehension, every shade of feeling from fear to relief. From their babble she gathered, first, that they had been warned by a _peon_ who had run in from Lovell's _rancho_; second, that the _ancianos_ had driven the horses into the mountain pasture and scattered the cattle among the ravines. Finally, from out of their midst a lad was thrust forward to tell his tale.

He had been sent to hunt stragglers from the herds. Feeling tired, with that _peon_ indolence which is not to be disturbed by mere rumors of raiders, he had curled up in a bunch of chaparral and gone to sleep. Awakened by voices, he had seen the raiders coming. Men of gigantic stature and evil visage his excited fancy painted them, and among them he recognized a _peon_ who had run away to the wars after being whipped for some grossness by the señor Benson. So close did they pass, he heard them quarreling among themselves. They appeared to be tired and downcast over their poor luck in obtaining horses; and he, the boy, heard the renegade's expressions of reassurance.

"Si, señores. A few miles more and you will rest with the women at Los Arboles. There we shall find the finest horses, bred by blooded stallions, fit for a general to ride. Or if they have run them away for safe-keeping, 'twill not serve, for I, Pedro Gonzales, know the secret pasture in the great Bowl."

Flaming up under fresh fuel while the lad talked, the firelight showed the Three deep in reflection. The same thought was in their minds: a vivid mental picture of the raiders from Las Bocas ascending the precarious zigzags of the Bowl staircase. If these others could be caught in the same way? Jake's remark expressed their joint conclusion.

"It 'u'd be a _cinch_!"

"Horses all tired out now, too," Sliver added. "If anythin' went wrong, we'd have no getaway. Not that I'd care, but we kain't take no chances with Lady-girl."

Bull's word decided. He made his dispositions, sent the youth to sleep out on the plains and bring early warning of the raiders' movements; posted other sentries at intervals. Finally, he saw first to the horses, that they were watered and fed and groomed; then to the serving of a meal.

He ate, but even his steady, methodical munching bespoke purpose, the conserving of strength for his ends. As he sat, after the meal, gazing into the fire, even Lee failed to discern much difference from his usual self. But after the others, refugees and all, lay wrapped in their serapes, dim, muffled figures under the red light of half a dozen fires, he still sat, a somber figure in black outline against the glow.

After Lee had cried herself to sleep he sat on. At midnight her awakening eyes showed him still there. When she awoke again he was gone--on the round of sentries. He returned before she fell asleep again and sat on, staring into the fire, an ominous figure fraught with danger.

XXXIX: "VENGEANCE IS MINE"

From the "hog's back" where Sliver had accidentally discovered Felicia and the _fonda_, Lee, Gordon, and the Three watched a yellow dust cloud rolling slowly across the plains. The occasional silver flash that stabbed it through as the sun struck a saber or bayonet told that it enveloped the raiders. Three hours ago Sliver had come galloping in from a reconnaissance with the news of their advance. Instantly the refugees had fled like frightened quail into the secret places of the hills. After burying various bottles that contained the liquid abominations wherewith he burned out the stomachs of his customers, Antonio had followed. So for two hours the ravine had been untenanted.

Even after the watchers sighted the dust, an hour passed before it disappeared in the mouth of the ravine; for, as their few horses were loaded down with loot, the raiders moved slowly. Another half-hour dragged by before they appeared, filing like ragged ants up the path along the silver stream. Sighting the _fonda_, they stopped, hastily took cover behind some bushes, and held a hurried consultation. When the file split and began to work its way through the chaparral on each side of the ravine Jake interpreted the manoeuver.

"Nobody home, amigos. Fooled this time."

A hoarse yell presently confirmed his diagnosis. Its note changed almost immediately to rage and disappointment, and presently a thin coil of smoke issued from the doorway, followed by a bright flash of flame as the fire licked up the dry thatch of the _ramada_. Like infuriated ants the raiders ran next to fire the stables. They were within easy rifle-shot and Sliver was drawing an experimental bead when Jake knocked up his rifle.

"One shot," he replied, to Sliver's grumble, "an' they'll go like a flock of quail into the chaparral."

Happening to glance at Bull just then, he nudged Sliver to look.

On his knees, peering through a bush, the man looked for all the world like some great animal, bear or black tiger, crouching for its prey. Under dark brows, his coal eyes burned. Like some huge dog held in leash, slow shivers coursed through his frame. Always the two had recognized in him depths of feeling beyond them. The slow shake of the head that passed between them expressed consciousness of a hurt beyond their plumbing. They looked quickly away as Bull turned toward them.

"Time to be moving. They'll be coming presently."

An hour later saw them all placed--Gordon in the chaparral at the top of the trail; Bull, Sliver, and Jake at intervals of quarter of a mile down the zigzag trail.

"No shooting as they go down," Bull cautioned them. "Coming back, they'll be among the horses without a chance to turn."

The arrangement, while wise, was not altogether to Sliver's taste; he grumbled to Jake as they moved on down to their places: "Fat chance for us. He'll pick half of 'em off going up between him and Gordon, then turn and plug the others. Any maverick that gets by to us will be that riddled a bullet 'ull slip through him without t'eching."

"Ain't it coming to him?" Jake scornfully questioned. "He's welcome to my share--if it's any comfort. But listen, hombre--let me tell you that the killing of every _revueltoso_ in Mexico ain't a-going to cure his hurt."

Leaving Sliver at his post, Jake moved on down, and after he also disappeared in the chaparral silence spread a warm spell over valley and mountain; golden, sunlit silence that was emphasized rather than broken by the wild screech of a hawk.

From above Gordon looked right down into the amber heart of the Bowl. Almost beneath him, the _jacal_ rose like a doll's house out of the vermilion splash of Pedro's ripe peppers. From it the green veining of the stream ran through the tawny pastures that were spotted with black dots, the feeding horses. Far down, just where the stream slipped out of the Bowl, he could see the giant oak that marked their camp; and though even his strong young eyes were unequal to the distance, imagination supplied the ashes of their fire, the bed of leaves under the spreading branches.

Instantly he began reliving, tenderly reliving that happy day so absorbed that he forgot for the moment the tragedy that had brought it to a close. He did not notice a slight rustle in the chaparral nor catch the gleam of peering eyes. Were it a raider, he had proved an easy prey. But the eyes were soft; the hand that presently stole out of a bush and shook his foot was small and white. Whirling, he came face to face with Lee.

"What are you doing here?"

She placed her finger to her lip. "Hush! they are coming! I just couldn't stand it, up there in the chaparral all alone. So I tied the horses and--here I am."

There was nothing that could be done--except to look stern. Reaching, he pulled her down beside him, shook her a little, then spoiled the effect by a kiss. Then, lying flat on their stomachs, they kept a joint watch till the scrape of a hoof, rumble of voices, broke on the trail.

Peeping cautiously, they saw a motley procession file on to the plateau. Like the soldiers of Las Bocas, their clothing ran the gamut of the service uniforms of Porfirio Diaz's army; the silver and gray of _rurales_, red and blue of the infantry, variations from these of cavalry and artillery, fatigue linen mixed in varying quantities with _charro_ and _peon_ costumes. Accentuating this motley, their loose gross mouths, blunt animal noses, lewd eyes in the midst of faces swollen by last night's debauch, fully justified Gordon's judgment:

"Gosh! what a gallows crew!"