CHAPTER III
The following day, when Mr. Ezekiel Corwin had delivered his letters ofintroduction, and thoroughly canvassed the scant mercantile community ofSan Buenaventura with considerable success, he deposited his carpet-bagat the stage office in the posada, and found to his chagrin that he hadstill two hours to wait before the coach arrived. After a vain attemptto impart cheerful but disparaging criticism of the pueblo and itspeople to Senor Mateo and his wife--whose external courtesy had beenvisibly increased by a line from Demorest, but whose confidence towardsthe stranger had not been extended in the same proportion--he gave itup, and threw himself lazily on a wooden bench in the veranda, alreadyhacked with the initials of his countrymen, and drawing a jack-knifefrom his pocket, he began to add to that emblazonry the trade-mark ofthe Panacea--as a casual advertisement. During its progress, however,he was struck by the fact that while no one seemed to enter the posadathrough the stage office, the number of voices in the adjoining roomseemed to increase, and the ministrations of Mateo and his wife becamemore feverishly occupied with their invisible guests. It seemed toEzekiel that consequently there must be a second entrance which he hadnot seen, and this added to the circumstance that one or two loungingfigures who had been approaching unaccountably disappeared beforereaching the veranda, induced him to rise and examine the locality. Afew paces beyond was an alley, but it appeared to be already blocked byseveral cigarette-smoking, short-jacketed men who were leaning againstits walls, and showed no inclination to make way for him. Checked, butnot daunted, Ezekiel coolly returned to the stage office, and taking thefirst opportunity when Mateo passed through the rear door, followed him.As he expected, the innkeeper turned to the left and entered a largeroom filled with tobacco smoke and the local habitues of the posada.But Ezekiel, shrewdly surmising that the private entrance must be in theopposite direction, turned to the right along the passage until he cameunexpectedly upon the corridor of the usual courtyard, or patio, ofevery Mexican hostelry, closed at one end by a low adobe wall, in whichthere was a door. The free passage around the corridor was interruptedby wide partitions, fitted up with tables and benches, like stalls,opening upon the courtyard where a few stunted fig and orange treesstill grew. As the courtyard seemed to be the only communication betweenthe passage he had left and the door in the wall, he was about to crossit, when the voices of two men in the compartment struck his ears.Although one was evidently an American's, Ezekiel was instinctivelyconvinced that they were speaking in English only for greater securityagainst being understood by the frequenters of the posada. It isunnecessary to say that this was an innocent challenge to the curiosityof Ezekiel that he instantly accepted. He drew back carefully into theshadow of the partition as one of the voices asked--
"Wasn't that Johnson just come in?"
There was a movement as if some one had risen to look over thecompartment, but the gathering twilight completely hid Ezekiel.
"No!"
"He's late. Suppose he don't come--or back out?"
The other man broke into a grim laugh. "I reckon you don't know Johnsonyet, or you'd understand this yer little game o' his is just the oneidea o' his life. He's been two years on that man's track, and he ain'tgoin' to back out now that he's got a dead sure thing on him."
"But why is he so keen about it, anyway? It don't seem nat'ral for abusiness man built after Johnson's style, and a rich man to boot, to gointo this detective business. It ain't the reward, we know that. Is itan old grudge?"
"You bet!" The speaker paused, and then in a lower voice, which taxedEzekial's keen ear to the uttermost, resumed: "It's said up in Friscothat Cherokee Bob knew suthin' agin Johnson way back in the States;anyhow, I believe it's understood that they came across the plainstogether in '50--and Bob hounded Johnson and blackmailed him here wherehe was livin', even to the point of makin' him help him on the road orgive information, until one day Johnson bucked against it--kicked overthe traces--and swore he'd be revenged on Bob, and then just settledhimself down to that business. Wotever he'd been and done himself hemade it all right with the sheriff here; and I've heard ez it wasn'tanything criminal or that sort, but that it was o' some private troublethat he'd confided to that hound Bob, and Bob had threatened to tellagen him. That's the grudge they say Johnson has, and that's why he'sallowed to be the head devil in this yer affair. It's an understoodthing, too, that the sheriff and the police ain't goin' to interfere ifJohnson accidentally blows the top of Bob's head off in the scrimmage ofa capter."
"And I reckon Bob wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing to him when hefinds out that Johnson has given him away?"
"I reckon," said the other, sententiously, "for it's Johnson's knowledgeof the country and the hoss-stealers that are in with Bob's gang of roadagents that made it easy for him to buy up and win over Bob's friendshere, so that they'd help to trap him."
"It's pretty rough on Bob to be sold out in that way," said the secondspeaker, sympathizingly.
"If they were white men, p'rhaps," returned his companion,contemptuously, "but this yer's a case of Injin agen Injin, ez the menare Mexican half-breeds just as Bob's a half Cherokee. The sooner thatkind o' cross cattle exterminate each other the better it'll be for thecountry. It takes a white man like Johnson to set 'em by the ears."
A silence followed. Ezekiel, beginning to be slightly bored with hischeaply acquired but rather impractical information, was about to slipback into the passage again when he was arrested by a laugh from thefirst speaker.
"What's the matter?" growled the other. "Do you want to bring the wholeposada out here?"
"I was only thinkin' what a skeer them innocent greenhorn passengerswill get just ez they're snoozing off for the night, ten miles fromhere," responded his friend, with a chuckle. "Wonder ef anybody's goin'up from here besides that patent medicine softy."
Ezekiel stopped as if petrified.
"Ef the ---- fools keep quiet they won't be hurt, for our men will beready to chip in the moment of the attack. But we've got to let theattack be made for the sake of the evidence. And if we warn off thepassengers from going this trip, and let the stage go up empty, Bobwould suspect something and vamose. But here's Johnson!"
The door in the adobe wall had suddenly opened, and a figure in a serapeentered the patio. Ezekiel, whose curiosity was whetted with indignationat the ignominious part assigned to him in this comedy, forgot evenhis risk of detection by the newcomer, who advanced quickly towards thecompartment. When he had reached it he said, in a tone of bitterness:
"The game is up, gentlemen, and the whole thing is blown. The scoundrelhas got some confederate here--for he's been seen openly on the roadnear Demorest's ranch, and the band have had warning and dispersed. Wemust find out the traitor, and take our precautions for the next time.Who is that there? I don't know him."
He was pointing to Ezekiel, who had started eagerly forward at the firstsound of his voice. The two occupants of the compartment rose atthe same moment, leaped into the courtyard, and confronted Ezekiel.Surrounded by the three menacing figures he did not quail, but remainedintently gazing upon the newcomer. Then his mouth opened, and he drawledlazily:
"Wa'al, ef it ain't Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, I'ma treed coon. Squire Blandford, how DO you do?"
The stranger drew back in undisguised amazement; the two men glancedhurriedly at each other; Ezekiel alone remained cool, smiling,imperturbable, and triumphant.
"Who are YOU, sir? I do not know you," demanded the newcomer, roughly.
"Like ez not," said Corwin dryly, "it's a matter o' four year sense Ilived in your house. Even Dick Demorest--you knew Dick?--didn't know me;but I reckon that Mrs. Blandford as used to be--"
"That's enough," said Blandford--for it was he--suddenly mastering bothhimself and Corwin by a supreme emphasis of will and gesture. "Wait!"Then turning to the two others who were discreetly regarding theblank adobe wall before them, he said: "Excuse me for a few minutes,gentlemen. There is no hurry now. I will see you later;" and with a
nimperative wave of his hand motioned Ezekiel to precede him into thepassage, and followed him.
He did not speak until they entered the stage office, when, passingthrough it, he said peremptorily: "Follow me." The few loungers, whoseemed to recognize him, made way for him with a singular deference thatimpressed Ezekiel, already dominated by his manner. The first perceptionin his mind was that Blandford had in some strange way succeeded toDemorest's former imperious character. There was no trace left of theold, gentle subjection to Joan's prim precision. Ezekiel followed himout of the office as unresistingly as he had followed Demorest into thestables on that eventful night. They passed down the narrow street untilBlandford suddenly stopped short and turned into the crumbling doorwayof one of the low adobe buildings and entered an apartment. It seemedto be the ordinary living-room of the house, made more domestic bythe presence of a silk counterpaned bed in one corner, a prie Dieu andcrucifix, and one or two articles of bedchamber furniture. A womanwas sitting in deshabille by the window; a man was smoking on a loungeagainst the wall. Blandford, in the same peremptory manner, addresseda command in Spanish to the inmates, who immediately abandoned theapartment to the seeming trespasser.
Motioning his companion to a seat on the lounge just vacated, Blandfordfolded his arms and stood erect before him.
"Well," he said, with quick, business conciseness, "what do you want?"
Ezekiel was staggered out of his complacency.
"Wa'al," he stammered, "I only reckoned to ask the news, ez we are oldfriends--I--"
"How much do you want?" repeated Blandford, impatiently.
Ezekiel was mystified, yet expectant. "I can't say ez I exaklyunderstand," he began.
"How--much--money--do--you--want," continued Blandford, with frigidaccuracy, "to get up and get out of this place?"
"Wa'al, consideren ez I'm travellin' here ez the only authorized agentof a first-class Frisco Drug House," said Ezekiel, with a mingling ofmortification, pride, and hopefulness, "unless you're travellin' in theopposition business, I don't see what's that to you."
Blandford regarded him searchingly for an instant. "Who sent you here?"
"Dilworth & Dusenberry, Battery Street, San Francisco. Hev their card?"said Ezekiel, taking one from his waistcoat pocket.
"Corwin," said Blandford, sternly, "whatever your business is hereyou'll find it will pay you better, a ---- sight, to be frank withme and stop this Yankee shuffling. You say you have been withDemorest--what has HE got to do with your business here?"
"Nothin'," said Ezekiel. "I reckon he wos ez astonished to see me ez youare."
"And didn't he send you here to seek me?" said Blandford, impatiently.
"Considerin' he believes you a dead man, I reckon not."
Blandford gave a hard, constrained laugh. After a pause, still keepinghis eyes fixed on Ezekiel, he said:
"Then your recognition of me was accidental?"
"Wa'al, yes. And ez I never took much stock in the stories that you werewashed off the Warensboro Bridge, I ain't much astonished at finding youagin."
"What did you believe happened to me?" said Blandford, less brusquely.
Ezekiel noticed the softening; he felt his own turn coming. "Ikalkilated you had reasons for going off, leaving no address behindyou," he drawled.
"What reasons?" asked Blandford, with a sudden relapse of his formerharshness.
"Wa'al, Squire Blandford, sens you wanter know--I reckon your businesswasn't payin', and there was a matter of two hundred and fifty dollarsye took with ye, that your creditors would hev liked to hev back."
"Who dare say that?" demanded Blandford, angrily.
"Your wife that was--Mrs. Demorest ez is--told it to her mother,"returned Ezekiel, lazily.
The blow struck deeper than even Ezekiel's dry malice imagined. For aninstant, Blandford remained stupefied. In the five years' retrospect ofhis resolution on that fatal night, whatever doubt of its wisdom mighthave obtruded itself upon him, he had never thought of THIS. He had beenwilling to believe that his wife had quietly forgotten him as well asher treachery to him, he had passively acquiesced in the results of thatforgetfulness and his own silence; he had been conscious that hiswound had healed sooner than he expected, but if this consciousnesshad enabled him to extend a certain passive forgiveness to his wifeand Demorest, it was always with the conviction that his mysteriouseffacement had left an inexplicable shadow upon them which theirconsciences alone could explain. But for this unjust, vulgar, anddegrading interpretation of his own act of expiation, he was totallyunprepared. It completely crushed whatever sentiment remained of thatact in the horrible irony of finding himself put upon his defence beforethe world, without being able now to offer the real cause. The anguishof that night had gone forever; but the ridiculous interpretation of ithad survived, and would survive it. In the eyes of the man before himhe was not a wronged husband, but an absconding petty defaulter, whom hehad just detected!
His mind was quickly made up. In that instant he had resolved upon astep as fateful as his former one, and a fitting climax to its results.For five years he had clearly misunderstood his attitude towards histreacherous wife and perjured friend. Thanks to this practical, selfishmachine before him, he knew it now.
"Look here, Corwin," he said, turning upon Ezekiel a colorless face,but a steady, merciless eye. "I can guess, without your telling me, whatlies may be circulated about me by the man and woman who know that Ihave only to declare myself alive to convict them of infamy--perhapseven of criminality before the law. You are not MY friend, or you wouldnot have believed them; if you are THEIRS, you have two courses open toyou now. Keep this meeting to yourself and trust to my mercy to keep ita secret also; or, tell Mrs. Demorest that you have seen Mr. Johnson,who is not afraid to come forward at any moment and proclaim that heis Edward Blandford, her only lawful husband. Choose which course youlike--it is nothing more to me."
"Wa'al, I reckon that, as far as I know Mrs. Demorest," said Ezekiel,dryly, "it don't make the least difference to her either; but if youwant to know my opinion o' this matter, it is that neither you norDemorest exactly understand that woman. I've known Joan Salisbury sinceshe was so high, but if ye expected me to tell you wot she was goin' todo next, I'd be able to tell ye where the next flash o' lightnin' wouldstrike. It's wot you don't expect of Joan Salisbury that she does. Andthe best proof of it is that she filed papers for a divorce agin youin Chicago and got it by default a few weeks afore she marriedDemorest--and you don't know it."
Blandford recoiled. "Impossible," he said, but his voice too plainlyshowed how clearly its possibility struck him now.
"It's so, but it was kept secret by Deacon Salisbury. I overheerd it.Wa'al, that's a proof that you don't understand Joan, I reckon. Andconsiderin' that Demorest HIMSELF don't know it, ez I found out only theother day in talking to him, I kalkilate I'm safe in sayin' thatyou're neither o' you quite up to Deacon Salisbury's darter in nat'ralcuteness. I don't like to obtrude my opinion, Squire Blandford, ez we'reold friends, but I do say, that wot with Demorest's prematooriness andyer own hangfiredness, it's a good thing that you two worldly men hevgot Joan Salisbury to stand up for North Liberty and keep it from bein'scandalized by the ungodly. Ef it hadn't been for her smartness, whary'd both be landed now? There's a heap in Christian bringin' up, and apower in grace, Squire Blandford."
His hard, dry face was for an instant transfigured by a grim fealty andthe dull glow of some sectarian clannishness. Or was it possible thatthis woman's personality had in some mysterious way disturbed his rootedselfishness?
During his speech Blandford had walked to the window. When Corwin hadceased speaking, Blandford turned towards him with an equally changedface and cold imperturbability that astonished him, and held out hishand. "Let bygones be bygones, Corwin--whether we ever meet again ornot. Yet if I can do anything for you for the sake of old times, Iam ready to do it. I have some power here and in San Francisco," hecontinued, with a slight touch of pride, "that isn't dependent upon themere nam
e I may travel under. I have a purpose in coming here."
"I know it," said Ezekiel, dryly. "I heard it all from your two friends.You're huntin' some man that did you an injury."
"I'm hunting down a dog who, suspecting I had some secret in emigratinghere, tried to blackmail and ruin me," said Blandford, with a suddenexpression of hatred that seemed inconsistent with anything that Ezekielhad ever known of his old master's character--"a scoundrel who tried tobreak up my new life as another had broken up the old." He stopped andrecovered himself with a short laugh. "Well, Ezekiel, I don't know ashis opinion of me was any worse than yours or HERS. And until I catchHIM to clear my name again, I let the other slanderers go."
"Wa'al, I reckon you might lay hands on that devil yet, and not faraway, either. I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and askittish sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that hadfrightened her. And Miss Pico said--"
"What! Who did you say?" demanded Blandford, with a violent start.
"Wa'al, I reckoned I heerd the first name too--Rosita."
A quick flush crossed Blandford's face, and left it glowing like aboy's.
"Is SHE there?"
"Wa'al, I reckon she's visitin' Joan," said Ezekiel, narrowly attentiveof Blandford's strange excitement; "but wot of it?"
But Blandford had utterly forgotten Ezekiel's presence. He hadremained speechless and flushed. And then, as if suddenly dazzled by aninspiration, he abruptly dashed from the room. Ezekiel heard him call tohis passive host with a Spanish oath, but before he could follow, theyhad both hurriedly left the house.
Ezekiel glanced around him and contemplatively ran his fingers throughhis beard. "It ain't Joan Salisbury nor Dick Demorest ez giv' him thatstart! Humph! Wa'al--I wanter know!"