Over the Border Part 29

Then for a brief moment Bull was taken into the dream. While Gordon went for his horse, Lee packed his saddlebags with clean things for the journey, and was giving him the usual last critical inspection. As he stood smiling down on her, hugely pleased, her eyes rose from the tie she was arranging to his; and as she read their sympathy and intelligence, she clasped his neck and hid her face against his broad breast.

Until the beat of hoofs at the _patio_ gate announced Gordon's return, he held her to him with one arm while the other hand gently patted her shoulder. Neither spoke. Words would have told less. When she withdrew and walked with him to the gate, she was soothed and comforted as any girl that ever made a confidante of her mother.

When she ran back after the quirt he had purposely left on the table, he had time to pa.s.s a word to Gordon. "Remember, she don't leave this house to go _anywhere_ alone!"

Gordon nodded, and, satisfied, he rode away with Lee's last charge floating after him, "Come home soon!"

The words were still ringing in his ears, he still felt the firm, cool clasp on his neck, when he drew rein at the first rise and looked back at the _hacienda_. From one corner, where an _anciano_ had burned some rubbish, rose a lazy pennon of smoke, but the brown girls, women, and children who usually filled the compound with restless life were in full enjoyment of the noon _siesta_. Within its bright walls, the place dozed in the pleasant shade of its towering cottonwoods.

Somehow the stillness recalled to Bull's mind the Spaniard's house he had shown Gordon from the railroad-sacked, burned, its vacant windows staring like empty eyes over the desert. His face clouded. He moved uneasily in his saddle, but presently the golden peace that incited the memory worked its own remedy. Jake and Sliver and Gordon were there, and the place was still far beyond the surge and swirl of the revolution.

"And I'll be home again in less than a week," he encouraged himself.

Home! It recalled again Lee's words. He felt her clasp, thrilled at the memory. He, "Bull" Perrin, the rustler! Around his neck that had been in constant hazard of the halter for a dozen years, this fine, clean girl had thrown her arms. His tender musing over the wonder would have excited the scorn of a city man, _blase_ and stale from the constant presence and attentions of pretty women. But it was sincere. While he rode on over the hills and plains, the thought warmed his heart, quickened the seed planted therein by Benson, freed his soul from the bonds of his great humility.

"Of course it's d.a.m.n foolish for you even to think of it," he chid himself. Nevertheless, he did, slowly, heavily, taking stock with minute exactness of his own demerits. How great they were none knew better. The rustling, of course, he had abandoned along with certain gross habits of life. But the liquor? These periodical debauches? Was he strong enough to conquer them?

"If I c'd only ride into a town an' either leave it alone or take a man's fair allowance," he mused. "But kin I? Mebbe with a fine little woman like that to help me." But the next instant he shook his head.

"An' have her take the chance? No, no, hombre, you're crazy. You put all that behind you by your own act years ago."

Yet this conclusion did not end the argument. When, at sundown, he drew rein at the accustomed spot and looked down on the _rancho_ buildings now dyed a flaming apricot he took his breath deeply. With its bougainvillea draping walls and porches in rich purple cl.u.s.ters, its pretty _patio_ and outside kitchen garden, it was just such a home as would fit the dreams of a common man. Instantly his mind filled in the picture, the man and woman sitting after supper on the veranda, he with his pipe and paper, a child on his knee, she with her sewing. A thousand intimacies were supplied by his lonely, hungry soul, and when the picture stood complete he burst out with a great resolve.

"By G.o.d, I'll do it! You're a-going to walk like a man into town an'

come out without teching a drop!"

From where he was sitting he usually could see-either Betty at play on the veranda, her mother moving in and out, or Terrubio moving around the stables. To-night silence wrapped the place. From the west, as on the south where he sat, the land fell rapidly toward the _rancho_, and as he rode forward, puzzled, the silence was explained. Over the western ridge the widow, Terrubio, and Betty came riding, and reached the house just as he rode up.

"Though we brought bad news to his son," she explained the delay, "the old Icarza would not permit us to leave till we had broken his bread.

How did Ramon take it? Just as I said he would-out came the Mex in in all of its nasty selfishness, blind conceit. She was promised to him and he would hold her to it! He'd kill any one who interfered. Goodness! you never _saw_ such fireworks! He showed no trace of the real pride that would have kept one of our boys from showing his hurt; and still less consideration for Lee. It was"-she gave a little sniff of disgust-"just sickening. I was almost sorry she couldn't have been there, for it would have effectually cured her remorse. But she'll get it to-morrow, for he's going over to plead his own cause."

Unease swept Bull's dark visage. After a brief statement of his mission he voiced his apprehension. "But if he's coming to-morrow, I don't know but I orter go back."

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Mills pooh-poohed the idea. "It's all fireworks-and there's Sliver and Gordon and Jake."

To which Betty added a direct command. "You are just going to stay here.

We haven't seen you for ever so long, and mama is just dying to tell you her troubles."

"Tea and trouble," the widow laughed. "A genuine woman's party."

When he lifted and placed her with one swing on the veranda she allowed one hand to remain on his shoulder, and he was not so ignorant of woman nature as not to recognize the liking behind the action. While she bustled around, adding dainties to the meal Terrubio's woman had ready, he watched her with an expression that she, on her part, could not fail to interpret. And whereas, on previous visits, she had managed all kinds of accidental contacts, watched with mischievous delight for the effect, she was now filled with pleasurable confusion that manifested itself in an almost girlish shyness.

When, afterward, they moved out upon the veranda, Bull's dream of an hour ago was almost fulfilled. For Betty snuggled as usual in his arms, while the widow busied herself with a bit of sewing-a fine excuse that lent itself to the lowering of eyes, permitted stealthy glances.

While they were at supper, the sun had slid down to the western horizon.

Pools of deep indigo now filled the hollows. Above them the plains ran, a deep violet sea broken with apricot foam where the crests of the great earth waves rolled high, ran off and away around the bases of gold and crimson mountains.

It was unearthly in its beauty, and while they could not have put their feeling in words, it filled both with that sense of vastness before which man in his littleness quails. Often the widow paused in her sewing, and as Bull saw that infinite loneliness reflected in her face, the big, simple soul of him melted with love and pity. Till the lights faded and she no longer needed its excuse, she alternately sewed and gazed; then when warm gloaming settled over all, wiped out the loneliness with its friendly gloom, she recovered her voice.

"Oh, I had almost forgotten."

It was that which she had seen in the morning-to wit, Gordon s.n.a.t.c.hing Lee out of her saddle.

"And oh, isn't it nice to think that she'll be settled, at last, with that fine boy!"

Happy in the conclusion, she began to sketch a picture of them settled happily at Los Arboles. Her voice, as she ran on, took a little quiver that powerfully expressed her own loneliness, inspired in Bull an intense desire to seize and squeeze it out. Instead his arms tightened around the child.

"Not one marriage in a hundred turns out what it might be. But with the exception, when respect, friendliness, affection, and a sense of duty are reinforced by love-well, it's the nearest to heaven that poor humans ever gain." She added, with a sigh: "Excepting that it gave me this child, my own wasn't all that it might have been. She's been a joy and comfort, but-in a few years more she'll be marrying, herself. Then I'll be again alone."

"Why did _you_ never marry?" Betty's small, soft voice stole out on the darkness from the depths of Bull's embrace.

The stock excuses rose to his lips-but did not pa.s.s, for through the friendly gloaming he was aware of a rustle. His face turned toward it.

"I never felt myself fit."

"Why, that's just nonsense!" Betty indignantly declared. "Any woman that wasn't a downright fool would be glad to have you. I know one that would give her best shoes-"

"Betty!"

But the small rebel ran on, "Well, she would-even if I can't tell you her name."

Once more Bull faced a stir in the darkness. "I've led a hard, rough, bad life. No decent woman would ever want me."

Now he saw the dim whiteness of her face turning to him. Her quiet voice took up the argument. "It's a thin, pinched nature that's always good. A big, strong one is liable to be led astray by its own force before wisdom comes to teach and chasten. In the long run I don't know but that it gains by it in charity and loving-kindness. Wickedness of the flesh doesn't count so much as wickedness of the heart; the inward vileness that rots and corrupts; and I've seen as much of that in the churches as among downright sinners." She concluded with the very words that Gordon had used with Lee. "It isn't what you _were_, but what you _are_ that counts."

From a second warm silence issued Bull's vibrant rumble. "You think a man that has lived hard has a right to speak, to a good woman-providing he's put it all behind him?"

Low, but confident and firm, her answer thrilled through the gloaming.

"I do, and-she'd _love_ to help him."

Almost without his volition, Bull's huge paw stole out. He half hoped she wouldn't see it. He had begun to withdraw it when, like a dim white dove, her hand came fluttering and nested in his.

Every life has its golden hour. That was Bull's, and, like a pearl shining in the mire, it stood out from the blackness of his past life.

Though neither spoke, the peace and quiet, surety of perfect understanding, settled upon them. When, presently, Betty resumed her chatter, they listened or joined in. After she fell asleep they relapsed again into happy silence; just sat like a shy boy and girl, hand in hand, till she rose and carried the child off to her bed.

To meet her, next morning, was to Bull something of an ordeal, but her quiet smile restored at once the perfect understanding. Her sense of proprietorship showed in the way she fussed over his coffee and eggs, berated him for his lack of appet.i.te. Her final inspection before he left could not have been outdone in severity by Lee herself. But nothing was said. She knew that he would speak in his own good time.

Except that her hand clung a little in parting, it differed little from their usual. "I shall look for you when you return." Her call after him reiterated ownership.

His answer confirmed it. "I shall come here, ma'am, straight from the station."

Indeed, the real parting came when, reining in at fifty yards, he looked back over his shoulder. With both hands on Betty's shoulders, slightly dejected, yet with her honest, level gaze sending out trust and hope, she stood watching him go, as the race of wives and mothers have stood throughout the generations. And just as, throughout time, the sight of a woman's trust and child's faith have urged real men on to big deeds, so the sight of them set the ex-rustler's heart swelling within him. As, with a last wave of the hand, he turned again and rode on, the spirit within him equaled in love and reverence that of an ancient knight-errant starting out in pursuit of the Holy Grail.

XXVI: A SETTLEMENT