CHAPTER XIV
REVELATION
"Don Padraic's compliments, and he awaits the pleasure of his guests'company in the music room if the sick senor feels able." It was'Cepcion's soft patois that interrupted Bim Bagley's explosion ofpained surprise in mid-flight. Grant gave him a smile which interpretedthe diversion as something to his friend's advantage and, leaning onBim's shoulder, followed the servant to the great room in the centre ofthe house.
A fire burned in the cavernous fireplace, for spring nights in Altarhave a chill; candles in dull silver wall sconces tempered the redlight. The vast room was so peopled with dancing shadows from theantique furnishings that the tall man in white and the girl whoadvanced to greet the guests appeared to be moving in a company ofhooded monks.
"'Nicia, Senor Bagley, the friend of our friend." Don Padraic bowed toBim, who crooked his lank body with surprising grace.
"And I am a friend of you two," came Bim's forthright answer, "sinceyou have treated Grant Hickman so kindly. He is the salt of the earth."
Don Padraic indicated seats before the andirons. Benicia chose a lowsettle by the side of the great winged chair where her father seatedhimself. Grant saw shadows beneath her eyes where the firelight playedupon her features, almost waxen in uncertain light. The glint of copperin the piled-up mass of her hair was like summer lightning in clouds.Their eyes met, and Grant was disappointed in the hope he might stillfind the soul of the girl revealed there as it had been that afternoonin the unguarded moment when Benicia gave him wordless thanks. Heguessed she had told Don Padraic of the incident in the patio and thatwhat had passed between father and daughter thereafter had been a drainon the emotions of both.
Don Padraic turned to Grant with more than perfunctory concern inspeech and glance. "Your health, senor? I fear that certain events ofthe day, of which my daughter has told me--"
"Please!" Grant was quick to interrupt. "I am feeling fit as I couldbe, thanks to the careful nursing I have had in your house."
The thing that had been left unspoken by both weighed like an unlaidspirit on the silence that followed. Each of the four before thefire had little thought save for the chapter of circumstance leftunconcluded by one who had departed the Garden a few hours before,swollen with the venom of outraged pride. It was Don Padraic whobrushed aside reserve:
"Senor Hickman, I may speak before your friend, who must share yourconfidence. He will pardon my bringing personal affairs before him. Ican not postpone my thanks--my very sincere thanks--for what you didthis afternoon. My daughter was defenceless."
"And I--" Benicia began, but Grant quickly put in:
"Will you not consider that I was really serving my own private ends--ascore to be evened between Colonel Urgo and myself?"
Bim covered a reminiscent grin with a broad palm as Grant hurried on,eager to withhold from the girl opportunity to speak her thanks.
"When I was brought here I thought it best to keep silent on the matterof my own private grudge against this man. But now that it appears weall have common cause against him I think I may speak. Urgo himself wasresponsible for my being shot."
He saw Benicia's eyes grow wide, read the surprise that parted herlips in a breathed exclamation. He thought he saw, too, just the flashof something no eyes but his own could understand, and he was glad.Briefly he sketched the incident of the gambling palace in Sonizona,his encounter with Urgo in the office of the jail, the march with thechain gang.
"And so," Grant concluded, "Colonel Urgo found a dead man come to lifewhen he saw me in the patio to-day. When Senorita O'Donoju was out ofhearing for a moment I could not resist a shot which left our friendguessing whether or not I had told you, senor, how I came by my wound."
"Ah, yes," from Benicia in a hushed voice. "I knew the minute Ireturned there had been something between you. Urgo was like a corneredanimal."
"And so he turned on you," Grant could not help saying. "If only Icould have guessed beforehand his attack--"
Again silence fell. Grant was alive to the play of unspoken thoughtbetween father and daughter; these two alone in the immensity of thedesert and facing unsupported the craft of an implacable enemy. Hesensed the battle between their pride and their desperate need foran ally: the one impulse dictating that what was the secret affair ofthe House of O'Donoju must remain strictly its own secret, the othermoving them to confide in him, who unwittingly had been drawn into thestruggle. Gladly would he have offered himself as a champion; but hemust await their initiative. Suddenly Grant recalled what Bim had toldhim of Urgo's threat at the meeting with Don Padraic on the desertroad: how the head of the Casa O'Donoju would be held responsible forharbouring an escaped convict. There was no blinking his duty in thisdirection.
"My friend tells me, Don Padraic, that Colonel Urgo threatens yourarrest as well as my own; that you will be held responsible forconcealing a fugitive from justice. That cannot be, of course.To-morrow, if Quelele can take Bagley and myself in the car--"
"No!" Benicia's denial came peremptorily and with a hint of passionwhich gave Grant a sting of surprise. "No, senor, we do not turnwounded men into the desert--particularly a friend who has served us asyou have done."
Again Grant saw in the firelit pools of her eyes just an instant'srevelation of depths he yearned to plumb--the aspect of a beginninglove hardly knowing itself as such. He scarcely heard the voice of DonPadraic seconding his daughter's protest.
"The hospitality of the Casa O'Donoju," he was saying, "can hardlyrecognize such silly threats. Colonel Urgo's hope was that we wouldsend you back over the Road of the Dead Men to Caborca or Magdalenawhere, naturally, you would be made a prisoner. Please dismiss fromyour mind any idea of our permitting ourselves to play into this man'shands."
Bim Bagley ventured to break his silence: "Grant here and I haveimportant business together up over the Line. We ought to be movingsoon's we can." The white-haired don turned to Bim with a graciousspreading of the hands.
"When Senor Hickman feels able to make the journey Quelele will takehim and yourself, Senor Bagley, to westward. There is a way through ElInfiernillo up to the Arizona town of Cuprico. By so going you willavoid any trap Urgo might lay. But you will not hurry Senor Hickman'sgoing"--Don Padraic interjected reservation--"and you, Senor Bagley,surely can remain with us until then."
The direct Bagley, finding himself thwarted by the don's suavity, senta sheepish grin Grant's way in token of his defeat and maintainedsilence. Don Padraic, to dismiss the subject his reticence hadreluctantly introduced, struck a gong to summon a servant. Soon adecanter of sherry was glowing golden in the firelight and cigaretteswere burning. The master of the Casa O'Donoju artfully led Bim intotalk of cattle, always currency of conversation in the Southwest. Grantdrew his chair closer to Benicia's.
"You startled me with that 'No' of yours to my proposal to leave theGarden of Solitude at once," he said with a boldness he did not whollyfeel. "Being a little deaf, I am not sure I heard all the reasons yougave why I should not go."
"What you failed to hear me say my father supplied," the girl quicklyparried, giving him her steady gaze. He was not to be so easilyside-tracked. What had begun in boldness swept him on in passionatesincerity:
"There are many excellent reasons why I should be somewhere else thanhere this time to-morrow night; but there is one very compelling reasonwhy I welcome every added hour here in the Garden. May I tell you thatreason?"
"If you think I should know." The words came simply. He, looking downinto the hint of features the firelight grudgingly gave him, saw therethe frank camaraderie of a candid spirit: the soul that was BeniciaO'Donoju, unsullied of artifice or the vain trickeries of the womandesired. "If you think I should know"--call of comrade to comrade. Thedesert girl scorning subtleties and inventions; knowing what her wordswould prompt yet wishing them to be said.
"It is that I love you, Benicia, and that I cannot leave you, lovingyou so, when I know you are in danger." Grant gave her his heart'spledge in simple directness. Though
the girl was not unprepared forhis avowal, the call in his words, elemental as the sweep of preciousrain over the thirsting desert, set quivering chords of her being neverbefore stirred. He saw the trembling of her lips; her curving lashestrembled and were jewelled with little drops. She turned her gaze intothe fire for a long minute. Grant heard vaguely the voice of Bim Bagleyexpounding some theme of cattle ticks. His heart was on the rack.
"Grant--good friend--" Her voice broke, then valiantly found itself."You heard from Urgo the story of our house--of the Red One and hiscrime against God--"
"The hound!" he muttered. Benicia groped on:
"My father--no one ever told me that story because--because--" Grantsaw one hand steal up to touch with a gesture almost abhorrent the lowwave of red over her brow--"I bear the sign, you see."
He put out his hand to stay her, for the dregs of suffering wereworking a slow torture upon her; the face of the girl he loved hadbecome like some sculptor's study of the spirit of fatalism. He couldnot check her.
"My father when he returned to-day and I told him--my father said thestory was true as Urgo told it. Once in every second generation--thissign of El Rojo, murderer and violator of the sanctuary--"
"But, Benicia, surely you don't believe this fairy story!" Grant packedinto his low words all the willing of a spirit fighting for preciouspossession. He felt that every word the girl spoke was pushing herfarther from him.
"Ah, Grant, we desert people believe easily because the truth is nothidden. It _is_ true; my good grey father knew that I knew it to betrue and did not seek to deceive me when I asked him. The O'Donoju withthis"--again the shrinking touch of fingers to the dull-burning stripeon her forehead--"cannot give love, for with love goes unhappiness--anddeath."
She broke off suddenly, rose and hurried into the shadows beyond therange of firelight. Grant heard a door latch at the far end of the roomclick to.