Over the Border Part 36

Below he found Benson shoving like an angry bull through the _peon_ crowd. On its outskirts he turned and shook his fist at the building.

"I'm going back to the consul-to tell him something that he'll take better alone. Where shall I meet you?"

"Here?"

"No, I can't tell how long I may be. Make it after lunch at the car."

Bull nodded. Then remembering the correspondent's warning, he called after him, "I'd like to be there when you tackle him again."

Nodding, Benson walked on. Left alone, Bull sat down on a bench in the plaza. Already the drink desire was returned upon him. And as he sat there, in the grip of his mortal weakness, three soldiers seated themselves on the same bench and proceeded to pa.s.s a bottle of _tequila_.

Before he even saw it Bull's mutinous nostrils snuffed the odor. Looking away, he tried to think, to recall the vision that strengthened and cooled him in his hour of torture last night. But now, the stronger for his long abstinence, that enormous desire inflamed his brain; enveloped it in heated mists through which the pretty, wholesome faces loomed dim and indefinite. And then-

After a curious glance up at the huge figure, the nearest soldier tapped his arm. "You will drink with us, senor?"

What it cost him to refuse and walk away! Men have gone down in history as martyrs by the exercise of no more effort. But just as pressure enough will snap a bone, as persistent fatigue will paralyze a muscle, so the effort weakened his will, broke his resolution. Feeling curiously weak, utterly exhausted, he stopped at the plaza corner and gazed at a _cantina_ across the road.

Even then he did not give in. Hands writhing behind his back, face one purple suffusion, he circled and recircled the plaza half a dozen times before he stopped at the same spot again. In that time desire has no height he did not reach; pa.s.sion no heat, h.e.l.l no torture, he did not endure. And while he stood watching the _cantina's_ roaring trade, reluctant but conscious in his soul that the end was come, a hand dropped with a hearty slap on his back.

"Come on, Diogenes, you're just in time. We've discovered some beer, good cold beer, down at the German Club. Counting the consul, there's only two Dutchmen left in the town, but trust them to have their beer.

Don't waste time in astonishment. Come right along."

In his mortal weakness Bull s.n.a.t.c.hed at the straw. He could drink a barrel of the thin Mexican stuff without knowing it-at least he felt he could! But while, for an hour thereafter, they sat in a cool _patio_ talking and sipping, the despised brew was still potent enough to loose the mad rustler spirit that hearkened only to the voice of desire.

When the correspondents left to file their despatches, he remained.

"I'm waiting for Benson," he told them. "If you see him, tell him I'm here."

While they walked down the _patio_ and out through the bar into the street, he sat nervously making rings with his beer-gla.s.s. Then, trembling with eagerness, he called the waiter.

"This stuff hasn't a kick in it. Bring me a bottle of whisky!"

x.x.x: THE OTHER HALF OF THE TRUTH

As they sat at breakfast Gordon's glance went repeatedly to Lee. Her smile, soft and mischievous, told that she knew very well what was in his mind, but she did not answer till the end of the meal.

"I'm going to ride with Mr. Nevil to-day," she told Jake.

Sliver's nod and grin outside expressed his opinion of the arrangement.

"It's a cinch," he chuckled. "'Cepting Lee Haskins and his Sal, I never seen two folks more sot on each other."

Jake evidenced a dry curiosity. "An' who in h.e.l.l might they be?"

"Folks I knew up in the Palo Verde country. They was stuck on each other like two stamps at the end of a day's ride in a sweaty pocket; allus that close up walkin', standin' or settin', you had to walk around 'em twice to find the jine."

"An' after they was married?" Jake questioned.

Sliver scratched his head. "You-all mightn't believe it, but you c'd have fired a charge of buckshot between 'em at long range without hittin' either."

Jake nodded. "I'd have allowed as much. But these ain't that kind. Did you see how she deviled him all through breakfast? Well, she'll keep him on aidge that-a-way all his life. He'll never get all at once; never quite reach the end. They'll allus be something beyond."

"Say!" Sliver looked at him in dumb wonder. "Fer an old bachelor you know a heap. Where'd you learn it?"

"Where any man learns it-from a woman." A shadow swept, for a moment, the reckless face. "On'y-I didn't have sense enough to stay be my teacher."

Just then Gordon overtook them, but while helping them to saddle up-for it was his day on guard-Sliver curiously watched Jake. When, moreover, he mounted to the watch-tower above the gates and saw Lee and Gordon ride away, the sight accentuated a new feeling, one of a vacancy in his being which, so far, a long succession of fluffy, blondined ladies had somehow failed to fill.

Their strongly perfumed memory set his head wagging over that problem in morals which has puzzled wiser heads. "Ain't Natur' the fickle jade, a-setting a man to fall dead in love with one girl while he's still terrible fond of two dozen? Why kedn't she a' b'en more single-minded?"

His brooding over these inconsistencies was suddenly disrupted by a flash of doubt, so p.r.o.nounced as to be almost alarm. Lee and Gordon were now silhouetted against the sky-line. They were, however, no longer at correct riding distance. Eyes less keen than Sliver's could easily have perceived they were holding hands. He drew the phenomenon to the attention of Jake, who just then came riding from under the arch.

"Say," he called down, "d'you allow it's all right for them two to go off that-a-way by themselves?"

Jake snorted. "Didn't she ride with you yesterday an' me the day afore?"

"Yes, but she's our boss an'-well, they love each other a whole lot."

"So that's what's biting you?" In one sentence Jake countered heavily on the common view of things. "She kin ride with tough guys like you an' me an' it's all right; but she mustn't go out with the man that loves her more 'n anything on earth. Where's your sense?"

Sliver feebly scratched his head in a vain effort to find it. Failing, he made weak answer, "I was jest sorter thinking they orter, have a chapperonny." Vanquished by Jake's disgusted snort, he withdrew and went down to close the gates.

Meanwhile Lee and Gordon held on their way. At the crest of the rise, from where she and her father had overlooked the _hacienda_ on that last fatal day, they reined in and looked back upon it lying like a huge painted cup in the great gold saucer of the sun-scorched plains. As then, the sweep of her hand took in the house, adobes, compound, giant cottonwoods sweeping with the dry arroyo across the view, the range rolling in bright billows to the far hills.

Her cry was the same: "Oh, isn't it beautiful? Soon the rains will come and turn everything green, but I like it best this way. Greens are to be had anywhere, but these golds-that is Mexico."

Stimulated by his responsive smile, just as she used to do with her father, she began to dive into the past, relate the battles and sieges, scandal and intrigue, recreate the vivid pageants of the old dons and their savage brown retainers. If she had chosen the differential calculus for her subject, he would have listened with pleasure to the soft, eager voice. The lithe, graceful figure that gained so in ease and grace of its flexures from her man's riding-clothes, the mobile face, molten under the touch of emotion, would have illumined the heaviest subject. But he was equally interested, plied her with questions when she showed signs of stopping.

"Oh, I'm so glad that you love it!" she sighed, happily. "It would have been such a disappointment if you- But that is so silly, because it wouldn't have been you. Soon the rains will come, and in the long, dark evenings after"-she went on with a little flourish-"I shall read you stacks and stacks of the old letters and doc.u.ments we found in an old leather trunk. It will be lots of fun."

Naturally they dipped into the future, building their own castles. Where she left off, he began. "Wait till we get my old dad down here! A big streak of romance crosscuts his business sense, and when he sees this-well, he promised me a hundred thousand when I finally settled down. After Uncle Sam steps in and puts an end to all this revolutionary nonsense, we'll-"

The reconstructed and beautiful Los Arboles that emerged from his imaginings was inhabited by a contented peasantry, better paid, healthier, and happier than the country had ever seen. What he forgot she filled in till, from sheer lack of material, they came to a happy pause.

Business concluded and the Mexican millennium achieved, they turned to their own pleasure. A certain Java forest was, of course, again lugged in by the ears. She, however, did not appear to notice it was getting a trifle shopworn, but enthused as brightly as though it were new goods freshly displayed. And while they ran on, rebuilding their earthly scheme of things according to their hearts' desire, the G.o.ds in resentment of their presumption were forging the thunderbolts that were to shatter it to bits. Unconscious of sharp eyes that were watching from the heart of the chaparral thicket half a mile away, they presently joined hands and rode on.

At first the direction seemed to suit the watcher's purpose. After they pa.s.sed, he rode his horse out in the open and followed, keeping always out of their sight. Even when, an hour later, Gordon circled toward the mountains on his regular beat, the watcher followed. But when their course began to bend to the south he laid on quirt and spurs and went after them at a gallop.

Turning at a call, Lee and Gordon saw him coming down a long slope, and, as he drew nearer, she recognized the _mozo_ who had brought Ramon's message from El Sol.

"Que? Filomena?"

As he answered, in rapid Spanish, sudden distress wiped out her happiness. "Oh, Betty is ill!" she translated for Gordon. "Mary Mills sent word to El Sol and asked them to send for me. Filomena can act as my escort, so it won't be necessary for you-" She paused, antic.i.p.ating rebellion.

It came. "Bull told me that you were not to ride alone. I wouldn't let you, anyway."