XIV: NEMESIS DOGS THE THREE--AND IS "DOGGED," IN TURN, BY LEE
Midnight saw the prisoners safely bestowed in a 'dobe that had servedthe old Spaniard, Carleton's predecessor, for a jail. During theremainder of the night the Three stood guard in turn and Gordon, whorelieved Sliver at daybreak, was still at the door when Lee came out ofher bedroom on the upper gallery.
Goodness knows she was pretty enough in her man's riding-togs, but now aflowing kimono added the softness and mystery a man loves best in awoman. As she moved forward to the rail and stretched, looking off andaway to the mountains, the loose sleeves fell away and Gordon obtained adistracting glimpse of polished arms, small white teeth, in a round redmouth, all set in the blazing gold of her hair. Seeing him, she cut offthe yawn and smiled.
"You must be dreadfully hungry." Her clear call floated across thecompound. "Come to breakfast. I'll send Miguel to keep watch."
She was already seated at the table under the _portales_ when he camein, and as he took his seat Maria, the smaller of the two house_criadas_, reported the Three as being still lost in sleep.
"The poor fellows!" Lee commented, distressfully. "They must be dead.Don't awaken them."
Thus, after the crowding events of the previous day, which included afist fight, proposal of marriage from one girl, wild chase afteranother, a bandit raid and lynching-party, all rendered more impressiveby the dark ride through warm, mysterious night, Gordon now sat_tete-a-tete_ with his pretty employer.
The _patio_, with its arched _corredors_, cool as a grotto underflooding greenery, the bird song, and exotic flowers; flame of the_arbol de fuego_; glimpses in the crypt-like kitchen of a _criada_ downon her knees rubbing _tortilla_ paste on a stone _metate_; the softstealth with which Maria moved around the table on nude feet; all thesehelped to deepen those profound impressions. And while he watched Lee'ssmall hands fluttering like butterflies over the breakfast things, andgained confirmatory glimpses of the polished whiteness of her arms, camestill others.
Two brown girls, who stood twisting their skirts in the gateway, movedforward at Lee's word.
"They wish to take my advice about following their lovers to the wars,"she summed for him their Spanish. "I explained the risks of hunting themamong twenty thousand revolutionists, and advised them to wait till theycame home. But they say that is too indefinite. They may be killed, andthere is no one to marry them here but the _ancianos_, and they alreadyhave wives. So they are going--to join the rag and bobtail in the wakeof the revolution."
After the next client, a wrinkled old woman, had followed the girls out,Lee burst out in merry laughter. "She was telling me of a miracle thatoccurred at the funeral of her brother, who worked for William Benson.It appears that he had only his dirty cotton calzones to be buried in,so his wife begged a worn white suit from Mr. Benson. The poor oldfellow had been reduced by sickness to a rack of bones, and you couldhave rolled him in it like a blanket. And here came the miracle! Theweather, you know, was exceedingly hot last week, and instead of buryinghim at once they waited till some relatives from a distance had arrived.And when the coffin was opened for them to take a last look--lo! themiracle!
"'For Saint Joseph,' she said, just now, 'had wrought a most wonderfulthing, senorita. Whereas Refugio had lain in the senor's clothes like anut in a withered shell, he was now so large and handsome they fittedhim like his skin!'"
He laughed so heartily she was drawn on to tell him more, and pleasedherself thereby as much as him. For to be really happy, a girl must haveexercise for her tongue, and with all their genuine devotion the Threeoffered but a limited field for conversation. Naturally laconic, theircommunications touched principally upon flocks and herds; and holding,as they did, the traditional frontier viewpoint concerning Mexicans--towit, that they ranked in the scale of creation below the Gilamonster--they shared neither her affection for, nor understanding of,her brown retainers.
But Gordon, with his quick and reciprocal feeling, made an ideallistener. From the "miracle" she ran on with anecdotes and happenings,some quaint, others amusing, several tragic, that revealed with avividness beyond the power of description the mixture of love andtreachery, simplicity and savagery, ignorance and idealism, religiousfaith and gross superstition, that go into the making of a Mexican.While she talked and he listened, there was established a community offeeling which was destined to produce immediate results.
"What is it, Maria?" Pausing, she looked up at the _criada_ who had justcarried the prisoners their breakfast.
"They wish to speak to me," she translated the girl's answer, "alone.They say it is very important."
"Better let me go with you." Gordon rose. "I can wait outside."
"Surely." She accepted, at once, his offer, and when, moreover, hefollowed in after Miguel opened the prison door, she offered noobjection.
Neither did the raiders--for reasons that quickly developed. "It mattersnot, senorita." The man whose face had caused Bull such disturbanceshrugged his indifference when Lee explained that Gordon spoke noSpanish. "'Tis of the others, your servants, I would speak."
While crossing the compound she had puckered her smooth brow over themystery--without gaining any inkling to break the force of thecommunication. While the fellow ran on, hands and shoulders helping outhis torrential Spanish, Gordon saw her expression pass through surprise,incredulity, doubt, finally settle in deep concern, when, with emphasisthat carried conviction, the other three testified to the truth of theirfellow's words.
"I-- Oh, do you know what they say?" Distressed, she turned to Gordonwith blind instinct for help. "I really don't know whether I ought totell you. It so dreadfully, pitifully concerns our poor friends. Youhave been here such a short time, yet--I feel that you can be trusted.They say--"
But the tale, as elaborated and filled in by Gordon's cross-examination,is best summed. Not for nothing had been Bull's "hunch." The hauntingface fitted the _charro_ who had held their horses that day at the_jefe-politico's_ gate in Las Bocas. When the Three failed to returnwith Carleton's horses, that astute person--the "wicked one" ofyesterday's talk--had sent out others. In return for the _senorita's_great kindness in saving their lives--but principally, if the truth beknown, because they feared to be sent out under convoy of Sliver andJake--they wished to make grateful return by warning her against theseevil ones; these wolves in sheep's clothing that had slunk into herfold! Followed a recital of their border raids that lost nothing byreason of the details being filled in from imagination! They wereterrible _hombres_! _Muy malo_! greatly desired by the _gringo_ policefor dreadful crimes!
"Don't you suppose they are lying?" Gordon suggested.
She shook her head. "Their story is too literal. When a _peon_ lies, hegoes the limit. Some terrible tale of atrocious murder and torture wouldbe the least; something beyond mere banditry, which is scarcely a crimein their eyes. Then it is corroborated by a lot of little things. Youknow they were riding my horses yesterday and were differently dressed,yet this man described their horses and clothing as he saw them in LasBocas, just as they were the first day they came here. And do youremember how they looked at one another yesterday when I said that anyof us might have done the same thing?"
Gordon nodded. "They did look queer, and do you recall Bull's answer?'Under the same circumstances, we-all 'u'd expect to hang.' He spoke soslowly, looking at the others, and they both nodded."
"Then see how they came here--started up, as it were, out of the ground.In Mexico one doesn't ask strangers embarrassing questions. It would belike throwing stones at random in a city of glass. But if they stay withyou, one generally learns something of their past. But theirs is wrappedin mystery. I know no more of them than on the day they came. It isprobably true."
Her tone was quiet, indeed so casual in its acceptance of the fact thatGordon wondered. In El Paso he had been greatly impressed by theknight-errantry of the Three in espousing the cause of a lonely girl.During the last week he had seen for himself their simplicity of heart,rough kindliness
, genuine devotion; and now this land of surprises hadconfounded him again with its juggler's changes of good and evil. Thesekindly fellows were, after all, cattle-rustlers, but one remove frombandits.
To him it was a most astonishing situation. In New York, where folkswere sharply divided into the sheep and the goats, it would have beeneasily solved; one would have merely rung for the police. But here,where everything seemed to go by contraries, anything might happen.Accordingly, he looked at her and waited.
But she did not answer his unspoken question. She was looking at him,yes, with wide, distressed eyes. But he felt, without understanding,that she was looking across that queer situation. He had a sudden, vividsuspicion that he was on trial in her mind instead of the Three. He wascertain of it when she spoke.
"What would _you_ do?"
Ten days ago he would undoubtedly have viewed the case under hisprevious lights and have pronounced it one for the police. Now heanswered from the larger charity that belonged to the land: "Youremember what you said yesterday and repeated a moment ago--under thesame circumstances we might have done the same thing? It isn't what they_were_; it's what they _are_ that counts."
"Oh, I _knew_ you would say it!" She impulsively thrust out her hand,and as the small, firm fingers locked with his in a strong grip, he knewthat not only had he emerged victorious, but also that his answer hadestablished between them a real bond. Eyes shining, she ran on: "Theysaved my life, helped to nurse my father, have been so kind and good anddear! If they had been the vilest criminals it would make no differenceto me. They are my people, my _men_!"
"Of course they are!" Gordon cordially agreed. "Now what about thesefellows? What will you tell them?"
Doubt clouded her shining enthusiasm. "I don't quite know. What do youthink would be best?"
"The truth. If what they say is true, and we believe it is, they can'tbe bluffed. But it won't do to have them believe you knew nothing ofthis. I'd hint that though you were not acquainted with the details, youwere perfectly aware of your servants' past, but that they are nowleading honorable lives. Clinch it by adding that you hope they will dohalf as well with their chance."
"Fine!" Her face lit up again, and when, having put it all into Spanishfor the thieves, they went outside, she thanked him for the counsel. "Iknew you could help me. Now just one more thing--this is all between youand me. No one else must ever know--especially them."
"We'll forget it ourselves."
Once more her small cool fingers locked with his, and, smiling brightly,she went back to the house, leaving him to resume his guard till theprisoners were taken away by Sliver and Jake.
After they were gone there entered into Gordon's mind a small doubt.Supposing the raiders talked? Spread their report of the Three throughthe desert country? It remained, that little doubt, like a thorn in theside till it was drawn by Sliver and Jake when they returned thefollowing night.
"We'd calc'lated to hand 'em over to the vaqueros at Hacienda El Reposo,an' have them chase 'em beyond their bounds," Jake explained. "But atthe railroad we ran into a Valles colonel that was drumming up recruits.He grabbed 'em offen our hands that quick they hadn't time to kick."
"By now," Sliver added, "they're three hundred miles south on their wayto death an' glory."
"But the little girl mustn't know that," Bull's heavy bass rose incaution. "She was that sot on returning 'em to their women and children,it 'u'd half break her heart."
"Not a whisper," the two agreed, but Sliver added, with a chuckle, "Allesame, they'll stay put an' trouble her no more."
Inwardly Gordon echoed it, "They'll trouble _you_ no more."
While the others were away Bull had also been doing some thinking, andafter Gordon went out for his evening stroll through the compound helaid the results before them. "Say, I've placed that chap."
"Which chap?"
"Fellow with the pock-marks. D'you remember the mozo that held ourhorses at Don Miguel's gate?"
"No-o-o--" Jake began, but with memory thus stimulated Sliver recalledhim.
"Julius Seize-her! you're right!" As the possibilities of the latesituation flashed upon him he gave a low whistle. "What an escape! We'vehad some close calls in our time, but none to beat it. 'Twas lucky hedidn't recognize us, for he'd sure have peached, an' I wouldn't haveLady-girl to know for a cold million."
"Nor me," Jake added. "But it ain't likely--now."
"Thank God for that!" Sliver exclaimed it with almost religious fervor.With deep thankfulness Bull repeated it in his mind.