XXXII: TRAVAIL
The instant she passed from Gordon's sight Lee's smile went out,quenched by mortal fear. For years tales that defied by their blackhorror exaggeration by even the fervid _peon_ minds had filtered intoLos Arboles, and, more vividly than Gordon, she realized her danger.
It was not so much Ramon. At San Carlos she would have a fightingchance; stood ready to match her woman's wit against his man's strength.Her fear centered on the men.
As, overtaking them, he rode by on the narrow path, Ilarian pressedclose against her. "Cheer up, little one! 'Tis the fighting cock thatwins his hen. 'Tis the way of the world, and what matter it so long asshe be won? 'Tis his turn now, but later 'twill be for thee to keep himitching."
Laughing hoarsely, he rode on, but in passing his rude fingers searchedthe softness of her arm and she caught the bold look into her eyes ofhis grinning fellow. Thereafter she felt their glances touching,plucking at her like fumbling fingers. Now glowing with shame, againfrozen with terror, she endured it--to her it seemed hours before shespoke to Ramon.
"I'm afraid of those men. Can't you--send them away?"
He shrugged. "You have more reason to be afraid of me."
"You?" In spite of the deadly chill at her heart she managed a littlelaugh. "That is impossible."
"Why?"
"Fear one's oldest friend?" Already, with intuitive guile, she waslaying the foundations of her defense. Though he looked at her withquick suspicion, she returned the innocent eyes nature has given womanfor her chief protection. "For you--a man of whom I have known onlygood? But these men fill me with fear."
Suspicion clouded, for a moment, his eyes. Passing, it left his gloomlighter. Reassurance softened his tone. "Don't be afraid. They willleave us at San Carlos."
"But, Ramon, it is now noon. If we ride hard we cannot get there beforedark." She shuddered at the thought.
"You would rather we were alone?"
"A thousand times." She returned to his gaze the same innocent eyes--andonce more his gloom lightened a shade.
"They are going to San Carlos anyway, so I can hardly send them away.But I am armed, and there is no necessity for you to be afraid.Also--you said that the jefe and priest at San Carlos would refuse tomarry us. If so, these are the men who can help me compel."
"Ramon!" she spoke with dread earnestness, "look quickly behind you!"
He did, and his quick frown told that he was not pleased. Dismountingunder a pretext of cinching up his saddle, he motioned for the two menbehind to pass ahead.
"You saw!" she said, riding on. "You are armed, but they are four toone; may take you unawares. I ask only one thing. Keep my feet bound,take any other precaution you choose, but unfasten my hands and--lend meyour knife."
"To use on _me_, if you get the chance?"
"Not on you nor them!" Her steady look carried her meaning.
His glance went forward to the revolutionists, who broke out, just then,in uproarious laughter.
"If I thought--" His hand went to his gun, then fell again. "No! theyare rough and coarse, but they know well that my father is Valles'sfriend; that if they lifted a hand against me he would flay them alive.Really, there is no danger, yet--if it will make you less fearful. Butyou promise--to return it, the knife, at San Carlos?"
"I promise."
"I never knew you to lie, and I--" His face lost a little of itshardness. "I would prefer to be gentle."
Leaning over, he unbound her arms, then gave her the case-knife thathung at his hip. "I suppose I'm a fool," he said as she slid it underher belt inside her shirt.
"Indeed you are not!" she began, in a flush of relief. Then, as apicture of Gordon lying bound on the trail rose to her mind, she turnedher head in fear that he might read the sudden impulse to slash the leadrope and go galloping back.
The certain knowledge that she would be overtaken checked the impulse.Also, with a woman's self-abnegation, she comforted herself with thethought that every mile she traveled lessened his hazard. She rode ontill certain whisperings between the revolutionists ahead brought heragain under fear that grew and reached its climax when, later in theafternoon, they swung at right angles on to the San Carlos trail androde, now along the flank of a mountain, again through a wooded valley,thence up and over a great hill, while the sun slid down behind them.While they traveled dusk quenched the flaming peaks. The long shadowsdrew together, enwrapping hill and valley in a thick veil through whichmen and horses loomed as dark, sinister shapes. When they stopped,suddenly, where a stream emerged from a wood, she shook withapprehension.
"The beasts are tired, senor, and this is a good place to camp," a voicecame back.
"Oh, don't! Let us keep on!" she pleaded.
"The animals are tired and must be fed," Ramon answered. "After they arerested we will go on."
As, dismounting, he began to untie her feet, she was seized again with awild impulse to turn and dash away in the dark. But even had it beenpossible, just then a heap of dried grass and leaves flared up from amatch illuminating the woods and stream. Reaching up, Ramon lifted herdown and seated her close to the fire.
Sitting there, she watched him unsaddle and hobble their beasts. Herswift, uneasy glances showed the revolutionists doing the same. Yet--allthe fears of that long afternoon now concentrated in a cold horror.Intuitively, she knew. When, his hands full of food he had unpacked fromhis saddle-bags, Ramon came walking past the revolutionists toward her,she broke out with a sudden scream:
"Take care!"
Too late! A pair of sinewy arms locked like brown snakes around him,pinioning his arms to his body. As he went down, fighting madly, Leeleaped up and ran. But already Ilarian and another man had startedtoward her. Running her swiftest, straining madly with the beat of hispursuing feet, like a drum in her ears, she had gained the edge of thewood, was almost within its safe blackness, when she was seized andpulled back with a wrench that tore the shirt away from one whiteshoulder and threw her to the ground.
She rose instantly on one knee, then paused at the sight of the brutishface above. One hand clutching the torn shirt at her neck, eyes darklamps in a face of white horror, she crouched like an animal at baytill, with a sudden snatch, he stooped and lifted her bodily.
"No, no!" The snatch of the second man loosened the other's grip so thatshe fell between them to the ground. "No, hombre, fair play betweencompaneros. We shall gamble for her. The winner, if he choose, can thensell his chance."
The fighting, writhing mass at the other side of the fire nowstraightened out, and as they rose, leaving Ramon securely bound on theground, the other two added their protests. "Si, hombre, we will notstand for that. She goes first to the winner, according to our custom.Bring her back to the fire."
To avoid their handling, she rose and walked herself. As she came wherethe light fell on Ramon she saw that he had managed to struggle up onhis knees. Now he began to speak, pleading, arguing, threatening hiscaptors with the displeasure of their general.
But he drew only jokes and laughter. "Valles?" Ilarian answered him. "Hewas defeated by the Carranzistas, and has trouble enough to care forhimself. The requisition el capitan showed was made out months beforethe battle. Had the senor, your father, been fool enough to fill it, weshould have taken the horses for ourselves." With a shove that sentRamon flat on his back, he added: "Lie down, hombre! For these manyyears thou and thy fathers laid the whip on our backs. While we starvedthey fed fat and made free with our women. Now it is for thee to watchus at the eating and loving."
Laughing, he caught Lee again with a sudden snatch, was forcing her headback, when Rafael again interfered. "Hands off, hombre, till the cardssay she is thine!"
"Si, muddle not the waters for our drinking," the others added. "Let useat, then get to the cards."
"The bride? She must not go hungry at the wedding feast." The fourth manoffered her food. "Here, little one."
Weak and faint, she was backing away, but stopped with a suddeninspiration. "If I may share it with h
im?"
"Seguro." Rising, the man dragged Ramon a few feet away and set him up,back propped against a tree. "Only take care he bite not thy prettyfingers."
Laughing, he went back to the fire, leaving her to sit and watch theirfeeding of meat and _tortillas_, with gulps of liquor from clay bottles.
Between her and them yawned a gap in time wider than the centuries thatintervened between herself and her wode-stained ancestors running wildin the woods of Britain. Their low, sloping foreheads, unbalanced headswith all the weight below; their loose mouths, brute jaws, dark skin,nature's infallible stigma of inferiority, pronounced them half amillion years behind her, the last-bloom of a higher race.
In her a solitary youth had intensified the delicate fancies,sensitiveness, timorous imaginings, shrinkings, and retreats that mark ayoung girl's first reachings toward love. And now--her idealizationswere suddenly confronted with the caveman's brutal practice. Sittingthere, she endured a thousand tortures. Worse than their coarse jestswere their glances. She shrank under them in hot shame; to escape themtook the food they offered, moved over and knelt beside Ramon.
He was sitting, head hanging, but as, now, he looked up the firelightshowed the sweat in beads on his brow. "_You_ bring _me_ food?" Hisaccent carried more than a thousand self-reproaches.
She did not attempt consolation she did not feel. "Pretend to eat." Shespoke in English. "They are watching, now. But soon they willgamble"--she shuddered, thinking of the stake--"will see only the cards.I still have your knife. When the time serves I will cut you loose.Their rifles are piled behind us with the saddles. They may shoot youdown from the fire. But to reach them is our only chance."
He lowered his head to hide a sudden flash of hope. "I will do anything,take any chance. Greater punishment no man could suffer than I amenduring. But it has made me think--realize my blind selfishness. I canonly ask your forgiveness."
"Now, companeros, the cards! Cut and shuffle for love!" A hoarse voicecame from the fire.
While the first hand of a game she did not understand was being dealtshe watched the flying cards with dread interest; was still watchingwhen Ramon whispered:
"I know that game. Five minutes will see it finished. By leaning alittle to one side, your body will cover my elbows. One cut will setthem free. I will still sit as I am, and when I whisper slash the riataat my feet, then run! run into the depths of the woods. From here to SanCarlos is but a couple of leagues. Once there--with the jefe, you willbe safe."
Ilarian's bellowing laugh rang out, just then, marking the close of thefirst hand. "One to me, little one! Be not impatient. The luck is withus. Soon we shall take a little pasear together."
"If he wins again it will be over in a minute," Ramon whispered, whilethe cards were fluttering around again. As the men bent over them,thumbing their hands, he gave the word, "Now!"
With two slashes she did it, one at his arms, the other at his feet. Butswift as was the movement, Rafael caught it in the tail of his eye. Whenhe turned she had dropped the knife in the grass and, though her heartstood still, she resumed her pretense of feeding Ramon. As he watchedher the suspicion died out of the man's stare. He was just about to turnagain to the game when, as Ramon leaned forward to take the bite she wasoffering, the severed _riata_ fell from his elbows.
Given two men in a sudden juncture, the one with a definite plan winsthe lead. As the man jumped up, pointing, Ramon sprang, reached therifles, aimed and shot him down. The others looked up, startled, and ashe aimed again they pulled and fired.
"Run, querida, run!" Ramon had called it, leaping up. As he collapsed onthe heap of saddles it issued again on his last dry whisper, "Run!"
It had all happened while she was scrambling up. Naturally she turnedwhen Ramon fell and paused, horror-stricken. Not till the others werealmost upon her did she turn and run--too late.
As, heart fluttering like that of a frightened quail, she ran for thewood Ilarian seized her. Wildly beating the brutal, pock-marked face,she writhed helplessly in his arms.