Part 19

The spotted mustang was pushing through water that foamed about his shoulders. Close to the bank, she reined him and bent over in her saddle as if overcome.

“No! no!” Father José implored. She lifted her head then--he swung his lantern forward--and saw the awful stiffness of her white face, the wild terror of her eyes. All at once he understood what he had not guessed before. “Oh, poor little woman!” he said compassionately.

“When did he start home?”

“Eight.”

“Oh, he went down!” Now, she half-turned the mustang, and rode against the current. All the while, she looked about her, first on one hand then on the other, and uttered little, piteous, despairing calls.

“Be careful!” warned the father. “You are above the ford.”

She reined. “Where is the cross? He must have started in at the cross. John! John!”

Father José hunted about. “I cannot find it,” he answered. “Perhaps it has been swept away.” Then, hurrying forward, “No; here it is--but how far up. This is not the ford!”

“Father! Someone has changed the cross!” Suddenly, the mustang halted as if in fear. She strove to urge him on, striking at his flanks with a quirt.

“Come a little farther,” called Father José.

“My horse is _sinking_!”

That moment, with a shudder, then a quick backward plunge that struck up a shower of spray, the mustang threw himself toward the bank and floundered out.

The girl was panting and crouching on her saddle again. “The crossing’s bad!” she wept. “He rode right into it. Oh, Father José!”

The father did not answer. He had waded out a few steps. And now as he stood in the water, the current was catching at the bottom of his gown and whirling it. To and fro he swept the lantern.

All at once the girl sat up and faced riverward. “What’s that?” she asked. “Didn’t you hear it? And, look! There--down there, away out!”

The light had grown. She pointed below them to the middle of the flood. It had divided at one point and was running on either side of a sand-bar which showed above the surface of the water. At the near edge of the bar lay something black--something that moved a little.

Almost before the father knew where she pointed, the spotted mustang was fighting the current once more, now making his way through water that only washed above the stirrups, now falling suddenly into deep channels that he swam. All the while she encouraged him, or shouted ahead, or back to Father José.

The father had put down his lantern. Now he ran to the cross, pried it out of the sand and started along the bank with it, stopped at a point a little above where he judged she could come out, for the cross was heavy and the current could help him to carry it.

Now, she had stopped in midstream and was heading the spotted mustang about. Next, she had leaned down and reached a hand to the exhausted man lying in water to his shoulders. Then, very slowly, the spotted mustang, alternately swimming and walking as before, she began the return.

She came on without a word, for all her breath and strength were needed for her task. Her left arm was crooked around the horn of her saddle, her right was outstretched, still holding its heavy weight. When she had made half the distance Father José advanced into the water to meet her, pulling the floating cross along at his side.

Together they brought Señor John to shore, he clinging to a stirrup at the last, and she to his sleeve, for her hold had not borne the long strain. He was clinging to the cross as well, Father José having pressed the base of the upright under the water and under his arm. As they laid him upon the ground, and the father wiped at his face, he looked up at them with a wan smile.

“Roberta,” he whispered hoarsely, “I--was getting--tired.”

“I nearly died with fear,” she answered. “John, where’s your horse?”

“Went down.”

“Rest for a little,” bade the father.

They all rested, breathing hard--Señor John lying and they seated beside him. But presently he struggled up to a sitting posture, bracing himself on one dripping arm.

“Roberta,” he said, his voice firmer even with so short a respite, “I’m cold.”

They helped him to stand, and half-carried him to the top of a low ledge of sand near by. Then, while the father supported him for a moment, she led the spotted mustang to the ground below the ledge, and Señor John was enabled easily to mount.

“First, to the store,” said Father José, “for dry clothing. Then, hot coffee.”

Señor John was too weak to sit up in the saddle, and leaned forward--his back bowed, his chin on his breast, his hands clasped around the saddle-horn. “You won’t have to hold me on,” he said, when they reached up from either side. “No; I’m all right. Just worn out, that’s all, keeping myself from being sucked under.” He turned a haggard face to Father José. “Think!” he added, “--if it hadn’t been for that rock!”

“A _rock_, señor?” demanded the father. “There are no rocks here in the Rio Grande.”

Señor John lifted a feeble hand to point. “You can _see_ it,” he protested; “a big one, too, sticking out of the sand.”

Father José looked out to where the channel divided on either side of the bar. There was a strange light in his eyes, and his cheeks were pale as he faced the dawn. “Something _is_ there,” he said, speaking low, as if to himself.

The spotted mustang started now, slowly, with the girl walking alongside to guide him. The father did not follow. He went down to the water’s edge instead, and stood watching out toward the bar in midstream. And so they left him.

As for Señor John, he was soon wearing a suit from off the shelves at the store and was reviving after a smoking draught of the brew which Paloma’s mother brought. Then a seat behind the stove was fixed up for him and here he was showered with attention, no less by the young storekeeper--haggard as himself--than by a cluster of inquisitive, but kindly, Indians.

To one side loitered Paloma, quietly observant. But when Señor John, despite his little audience, reached up to kiss the girl who had braved the water and the sands to find him, Paloma approached the two and drew from her finger the ring with the green stone.

“I return what I borrowed,” she said. Her face was a sullen black and ivory, and when she walked away it was with an air somewhat forlorn--like that of a girl who has neither ring nor lover. But when she reached the door a tinge of colour rushed into cheek and lip. Outside, two dark eyes were fixed upon her from under a wide hat, for Anastacio was hovering near, wrapped in his serape--hovering as if he wished to look on, yet was anxious to escape notice. All at once, Paloma’s pretty head came high again and she tripped proudly out.

It was at this juncture that shouting was heard from the direction of the river. Instantly the crowd about Señor John dwindled and started in loose order down the winding pueblo street. Paloma’s mother went too, joining Paloma. And the storekeeper followed, bareheaded. Then--the shouting had grown--Señor John got up and trailed after the others, leaning on a willing shoulder.

The sun was up now and shining warmly. As they came out of the village upon the path which led past the chapel, it glistened on the wet grey roofs of the town and on the wide, yellow river.

All of Los Morales was in front of them, crying out excitedly, running, cheering wildly. And now, as the noisy throng parted, here came a procession, moving up the gentle slope that led from the Rio Grande to the chapel of San Felipe. Father José led it, his thin face uplifted and transformed, his dark eyes wide, serene and luminous, his slender hands clasping the jet cross on his breast. Behind him trooped the Pueblos, reaching out brown hands to touch something that was in their midst. Their black eyes sparkled, their white teeth showed with smiling. At the center of the throng walked six bright-blanketed Indians abreast, a long, stout pole in their hands. And swung on the pole through its iron loop, with its clapper wagging as the six walked, and sounding a mellow, clear-throated, joyous greeting to all the town, came the lost silver bell of Los Morales.

* * * * *

The very morning that the lilac bush in a corner of the father’s garden showed a first cockade of purple bloom among its heart-shaped leaves, the silver bell rang for a wedding--for Paloma married Anastacio, and wore the white dress, and a ring with a pearl to guard her new gold band. And the gift of the groom to his bride was a fawn, which was to have a garden all its own. And the gift of the bride’s mother was a freshly-built house of adobe, flat-roofed, with doors that were bluer than any doors in the city of Albuquerque, and with a trellis as blue as the doors. While, curiously enough, the gift of the bride to the father was a yellow custard.

Señor John and the girl who rode the spotted mustang crossed the river to attend the wedding. (Señor John came, because--in Los Morales--it is well to let sleeping dogs lie.) And when the ceremony was finished, the two visited a while with Father José.

“Well,” said the father to them cheerfully, “I have married the Spanish peacock off. She will strut a little, no doubt, and delight in her own beauty; perhaps accomplish nothing in her new life--after the manner of peacocks. But when it comes to that, could not one say _almost_ as much against my roses? Yes.” As he talked he busied himself with a salad. In the bottom of the white-and-gold dish he first laid a slice of buttered bread; then, upon the bread, leaf against leaf, so that the effect was that of a huge green rose, he placed the lettuce, all glistening with its dressing of oil and vinegar; next, a-top the lettuce----

But here Señor John left the wide-ledged window and came forward, smiling, to whisper something slyly into his ear. At that the father left his salad and seized a hand of each of them. “Señor and Señora Gordon!” he cried. “Well, a double blessing! Ah!--how like ever seeks out like!”

And so surprised was the good father at their news that for the first time in all the years that he had possessed the white-and-gold porcelain, he forgot to add--as a top to the big, green rose--the thin circles of silvery onion.

THE REVENGE OF MANUELITA

Manuelita shooed the chickens one way, pursing out lips as scarlet as the ripe _cacao_; with a round, copper-tinted arm she wielded a length of bamboo to prod the pigs the other. An exit made, she pulled the door shut behind her to keep out the naked babies cluttered before it among pigs and chickens, and took a proud, leisurely look up and down the double row of _paja_-thatched huts.

It was Sunday afternoon, and fairly cool, for the almost vertical Venezuelan sun was screened by the drab clouds of a gathering storm. So the womankind of the San Jacinto _hacienda_ were before their low houses, some with men beside them, others alone but gossiping volubly to whomever chanced near. Manuelita bent her pretty head to survey the slipper-like _alpargatas_ Ricardo had just bought her, and the new skirt, bright-figured, and of a length that left the leg bare from dimpled knee to foot. Then, smoothing her little jacket, and putting her wide straw hat at its jauntiest angle, she set off slowly down the narrow, dirty street.

At some distance from it was Antonia Toro, slouching, hands on hips, in her own door. When she saw Manuelita advancing, she straightened, and let her bony hands fall, clinched, against her petticoat. Small eyes half closed in hate, frowzy head thrust forward, she began to call out, addressing a neighbour, but aiming her words at her successful rival.

“Bah!” she cried, with a laugh. “Look how our parrot’s new feathers stick out!”

Manuelita heard, and walked more slowly. Her brown eyes sparkled delightedly, her round chin went up, her red mouth parted in a smile over even, white teeth.

“Bah!” snorted Antonia again, and put out her tongue. “Let her strut now. But--ha! ha!--Ricardo is a man that likes change. Who knows?”

There was a threat in the hoarse voice. It stung Manuelita. She paused.

“When did a man choose a rotten instead of a ripe banana?” she inquired sweetly, and raised her plump shoulders.

At that, a laugh ran from hut to hut. Antonia’s wrath grew.

“How long does the ripe stay ripe?” she cried. “Ricardo will go. Ha! ha!”

Manuelita was proceeding gracefully. Now she stopped once more, turning her full, girlish throat to look round.

“Yes,” she answered, “when Rio Tuy flows back to the mountains.”

Ricardo came by Antonia’s a little later, just as the last scattered drops of a heavy downpour were falling. He was mud to the waist, muddy of face, and dripping. One hand was busy with a cigarette; from a finger of the other, by their heel straps, hung his _alpargatas_. He had been out since noon, walking across the ditches of the _hacienda_.

Again Antonia was slouching in her door.

“Loan me your fire, Ricardo?” she asked.

He glanced up the street uneasily, then halted and lit the long cigar she was preparing.

“Ah, but you are tired,” she went on, with a great show of concern, “and wet to the skin. Come, will you enter? Juan is gone, and for good--_á Dios gracias!_ I never liked him. He was stingy and ugly and old. Come----”

“Where is he gone?” asked Ricardo, making no move toward accepting her invitation.

“Where?” she repeated, between puffs. “To join the Revolutionists at Rio Chico. He is anxious to fight, he said. _He_ fight!”

Ricardo’s pale face widened in a grin.

“Maybe you taught him,” he suggested slyly. She understood. “Ah, now, Ricardo, you are wrong. Yes, you are wrong. Once I was quick-tempered, perhaps. But I am not _brava_ now. No, no. I have learned better. And Juan was happy with me.”

Ricardo was sober again. Suddenly, nostrils swelling, he threw up his head.

“Sometimes I think of going to join _La Gente_, too,” he said.

“Do not be a fool,” Antonia returned. “Within the hour I start for Carenero. But”--her voice was lowered engagingly--“I will stay here if you wish it.”

But Ricardo, having tossed aside his cigarette, was pulling nervously at a curly lock and edging away.

“_Adiós_,” he said, with more troubled glances toward home. “A pleasant journey. _Adiós._”

“_Adiós_,” echoed the other regretfully.

All this while, from her one window, Manuelita had been watching. She had seen Ricardo stop before Antonia’s, seen him light her _tabaco_, and their talking back and forth. And as he started for his hut once more, she scolded to herself in a passionate undertone, she stamped the floor with an angry foot. He had made of her an object for further taunting. He had made her the laughingstock of the San Jacinto.

“_Madre de Dios!_” she exclaimed over and over, her lips white with rage and mortification. “But I shall punish him for this!”

Ricardo had scarce entered, her name on his tongue, when the full volume of her ire burst upon him with tropical rigor and suddenness.

“So you have been to see that crooked face,” she cried furiously. “You sneak, you! you that are full of lies!”

Not altogether surprised, he strove to meet her attack by replying, to stem it through endearments. She would not hear. She would have none of his caresses. And he could do nothing but seat himself on a bull’s-hide chair, rest his chin somewhat sheepishly on his breast, and listen.

“Oh, I will not stay with you another day,” she vowed, breath and wits taxed at last for epithets. “I, a girl that all have desired, that could have a better house, yes, one covered with pink stucco, and finer clothes, and shoes, and even a ring or two, and no work, and all the cigarettes I want--here I am with you, who are coiled like a _culebra_, ready to sting, to kill. You coward!”

“I have always treated you well,” retorted Ricardo sulkily, “and I am not a coward. I shall show you. I shall go to fight with the Revolutionists.”

“Go, go, go,” she answered. “_I_ shall not mourn. You cannot shame me before them all. Go, and take her with you!”

She flung herself upon the bed, without a look at him, without a thought for their supperless baby, curled up on a gunny sack by the door. There, worn out with the violence of her quarrelling, she sobbed herself to sleep.

Late in the night she awoke suddenly and sat up. She was cold; she felt alone; she was startled, too, as if something direful had happened. Forgetting her wrongs in her fear, she reached out her arms and called softly. The _cubierta_ was not spread over her. Only the under blanket was left upon the rushes of the bed. And Ricardo was not by her side! She sprang out upon the floor, feeling this way and that.

“Ricardo! Where are you?” she demanded. “Answer. You will have me wakening Niñito next.”

She touched the reed partition, the table, the chairs. Then she lit the _lámpara_ and held it above her, looking into every corner of the living room and the kitchen. He was not in the hut!

On the instant she was like one gone mad.

“_Madre de Dios!_” she gasped. “They are together!”

She set the lamp on the table, snatched up a flat, spear-shaped _lanza_, and raced off down the street. Arrived at Antonia’s, she entered swiftly.

By the light of the single window, that, here, faced the moon, she saw that the room was deserted.

In her own home, once more, she examined the mud walls closely. Ah!--the new _machete_ was gone from its nail! And, farther along, the carved gourd flask that held _aguardiente_! They had left the _hacienda_!

She blew out the light and took her stand by the door. Her eyes blazed with hatred and anger. She gave out little inarticulate cries. She shook the keen-pointed _lanza_ at the hut down the street.

For a long time, thus. Then she grew quieter, and leaned back wearily against the wall. Then she slipped down to a sitting posture on the ground, and her head drooped forward to her knees.

The day broke, the pigs came up, grunting and rooting. A chicken flew to her shoulder and pecked at a bright flower in her waist. She looked up, and the memory of her quarrel and her loss came back. She groaned and covered her face.

From across the street her mother saw her and scented trouble. She came waddling over, her shrivelled face all anxiety.

“What is it, Manuelita?” she asked. “Is the _niño_ dead?” Then, spying the baby, “Or, perhaps, a pig?”

Manuelita shook her head.

The old woman peered about her, searching for the cause of the trouble.

“What, then, what?” she inquired.

“Ricardo is gone!”

The other stared.

“Gone!” she repeated in a tone of disgust; “gone! Do you say that you are deserted? Nineteen, only, and deserted. Pst! You are a fool! I kept your father beside me until I was more than twenty-five!”

“Oh, mamma!” It was a plaintive, heart-broken cry.

“But there is no use to snivel over it. What will you do? Do not make a fuss outside here, for all the men to see. Be up, and act gay. Now, there is Felipe, the younger one. He gets four _reales_ a day in the _cacao_ court. He is worth something, I can tell you. And there is Juan. As you know, Antonia Toro----”

Now, Manuelita looked up, and her whole body trembled with fury.

“Antonia!” she repeated hoarsely. “He has gone with her!”

“So?” The old woman looked incredulous. Then she hitched a shoulder. “Ah, well, no matter. You have chickens and pigs, and you are but nineteen. You have only one baby, too, and he is not much trouble. Soon he will be old enough to look out for himself. Why”--in a burst of generosity--“I will take him off your hands myself for a while. Get up.”

In her eagerness, she put out a claw of a hand to pull at her daughter’s sleeve.

“Ah! mamma! mamma!” Manuelita’s voice was deeper now, almost a groan. “You forget, mamma,--Felipe is not Ricardo.”

“Bah! Ricardo! He is gone. Look you--look you, there is Felipe now!”

“No--no,” Manuelita protested, raising a tear-stained face.

Felipe was indeed coming up the street. He looked angry too, and was rubbing his kinky hair at every step.

“Where is Ricardo?” he demanded as soon as he was within hearing. “Where is he, I say? Why should I work if he does not?”

And now such a mingling of voices--Felipe repeating questions to which he received no answer; the old woman boldly stating Manuelita’s new domestic status; the girl crying out against her mother’s hasty planning.

But after a time, when matters became clear to Felipe, he fell silent to ponder, and the old woman quieted to await his reply. As for Manuelita, she was sobbing a determination. “I shall follow, I shall follow,” she declared. “And when I find them, I shall kill!”

“Felipe can go along,” suggested her mother, “and help you.”

Manuelita glanced at Felipe, and recoiled.

“Where have they gone?” he asked her. “Do you know?”

“He took our _cubierta_, the new _machete_, and a flask. Yesterday he threatened to join the Revolutionists.”

“He will go either to Tacarigua or to Rio Chico, in that case,” Felipe declared. He began to look dubious. Laying an index finger in the palm of a hand, he did some calculating. It would take not less than so many days, perhaps. At four _reales_ each day--he counted on his fingers. “Out so much for just a woman!” he concluded. “I will not do it.”

But Manuelita did not hear. She was on her feet and getting ready to leave. The baby, awake and hungry, seemed to know her purpose. He began a lusty howling.

“Take, mamma.” She pushed him toward her mother.

The old woman caught the squalling child between her knees, hastily lit a _tabaco_, put it between her toothless gums to make it burn, and gave it to him. He grew still at once, seized the long cigar in both little hands, and fell to smoking industriously.

“Foolish! foolish!” she scolded. “And you will have your trouble for naught. Can you hold a man who does not want you? No woman can do that. You had better stay.”

Manuelita ignored the advice. She was putting the last touches to her preparations. In a bright cotton handkerchief she tied a comb, several baked plantains, some round thick _arepas_ made of mashed corn, and her cigarettes; she swung her straw hat over one arm and dropped the _lanza_ into a sheath of inlaid leather at her belt. Then, without a glance at mother, child, or neighbour, she went rapidly up the street and entered the _cacao_ under low-hanging branches.

But soon she paused to consider a moment. What if she were travelling the wrong way! Suppose they had gone in an easterly direction, toward Rio Chico. Yet, no, for Juan was there. Besides, since the _hacienda_ of San Jacinto, a portion of the northern half of the plain of Barlovento, curves in to meet the Rio Tuy, the couple would have had to cross the swollen stream at the very start. They would go north, to Tacarigua. She was sure of that. And, taking off her _alpargatas_, she walked in a great semicircle, looking for fresh footprints.

Across ditch after ditch she went, through black water and blacker ooze. Sometimes her steps were sure, more often she sank to the knees, or fell, her hands flattening against a ditch side.

She found fresh footprints in countless numbers, and leading toward every point of the compass. Some had been made by naked feet, some by _alpargatas_. Some were long and wide, some were short and more narrow. She was bewildered by them.

“Ah! _Madre de Dios!_” she faltered.

Presently, pointing northward, she found two sets, the one plainly a man’s, the other smaller. They were new, too, for the ooze still stood in them. Instantly her attention fixed upon these. She floundered after them, rod upon rod, as certain that she was upon the right trail as if she could see Ricardo and the woman ahead of her. Here the footprints were close together--she ground her teeth. Here they were farther apart. And here someone had stumbled, for there was the mark of a naked palm on the soft earth. She laughed, and stroked the handle of the _lanza_.