Over the Border Part 6

"You couldn't wish him a better ending."

It was man's reasoning, therefore contrary to her woman's feelings, yet it helped to control her grief. She acquiesced at once when Bull suggested that she ride ahead and prepare a room.

By her departure Sliver was afforded an opportunity to get something off his mind. After a glance at Carleton, who had relapsed again into unconsciousness, he nodded at the horses. "Don't you allow I'd better leave 'em here? After we get through with him we kin come back an'-" He stopped, shuffled uneasily, under Bull's stare.

"You're dead right! Don't trouble to say it. I'd steal the horses offen a hea.r.s.e."

Bull's glance dropped again to the unconscious man. Then, very slowly, he voiced his opinion, formed on frontier code: "Wait till he's well enough to fight for his own. Till then-we leave him alone."

Stepping at a lively gait, they pa.s.sed in half an hour under the _patio_ gateway. Within, arched _portales_ ran around three sides, supporting the gallery of an upper story. From the red-tiled roof above a wonderful creeper poured a cataract of green lace, so dense, prolific, that only vigorous pruning kept it from burying the _portales_ beneath. In the center rose a great _arbol de fuego_, "tree of fire," contrasting its flaming blossoms with the rich greens of palms and bananas.

They were met at the entrance by a flock of frightened brown women, house servants, and _peonas_; for of the scores of men who had worked for Carleton before the wars there were left only three withered _ancianos_ to bear his body up the wide stone stairway to a room that caught the fresh breeze from the mountains.

Here Bull redressed the wounds. His skill, however, was only of the surface. As it would require at least four days to bring a doctor even from Chihuahua, he felt that unless Jake materialized one out of the dry desert air Carleton would surely die. Nevertheless, he stoutly denied the possibility to Lee during the two days that he shared her watch.

Sliver, on his part, also did his best to cheer and comfort, relating marvelous tales of accidents and illnesses that, by contrast, made shooting through the lungs and stomach look smaller than a toothache.

"You she'd have seen Rusty Mikel, Miss, the time his Bill-hoss turned a flip-flop onto him. Druv' the pommel clean through his chest, it did.

Yet he was up an' around, lively as a bedbug by candle-light, in less 'n five weeks."

Surely without them the girl would not only have broken down, but her father could never have survived to see the doctor, whose arrival was announced by a rapid beat of hoofs the following evening. For Jake had achieved the impossible, grabbed him, if not from midair, at least from a revolutionary-hospital train that had stopped at the burned station to bury its dead.

The doctor was American. But even as he dismounted at the gate Bull picked him for a "colonist." Just how, he himself could not have said.

His premature grizzle, unhealthy pallor, might have been due to overwork. But a certain brooding quiet, seen only in those who have been cut off for long periods from communication with their fellows, impressed even Sliver. He remarked on it while they sat with Jake under the _portales_ while he ate.

"Say! but he's whitish. Looks like he'd done time."

"He has," Jake nodded. "I had it from a Yankee machine-gunner in Valles's army that had got himself shot through both arms an' was being taken back to the base hospital with about a hun'red others. When I landed at the burned station he was a-setting with his legs dangling out of a box-car door, watching 'em bury his _companeros_ that had died on the way.

"'Gotter do it quick,' he says. 'They don't keep worth a darn in this clime.'

"He'd met Carleton once in Chihuahua, an' 'twas him that sent the doctor an' tol' me about him while he was packing his grip. Seems that he'd belonged to a gang that worked insurance frauds on American companies.

They'd insure some _peon_ that was about ready to croak, paying the premiums themselves an' c'llecting the insurance after he cashed in. If he lingered 'twas said that they hurried him. That was never quite proved, most of 'em being too far gone to testify when they was resurrected. But the doc had furnished the death certificate, an' as the Mexicans ain't so particular about technicalities as our courts, he was sentenced to be shot along with his pals. If he'd been Mexican they'd have done it, too. But Diaz, who liked a bad gringo better than a good greaser, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. He'd actually served twelve years-think of it, hombres! twelve years in a Mexican jail before the revolutionists let him out to serve on their hospital-trains."

"Twelve years!" Sliver echoed it. "An' just for croaking a few Mex? He orter ha' practised in New Mexico. They'd have give him a medal up there."

After Jake had eaten, the Three sat and smoked till the doctor came down. While eating he made his report. "If I could do any good I'd stay.

But he will surely die to-night. It's going to be mighty hard on that poor girl. Like most of us"-his glance took in all Three-"Carleton didn't come down here for his health. It's bad form in Mexico to inquire about a man's past. Nevertheless, it's pretty well known that he killed the seducer of his wife and came here with the child when she was four years old. She's never been away since, and has no kin that she knows of. To run a hacienda, these days, is too big a job for a girl."

His deep concern showed an underlying goodness. Genuine sadness weighted his words when he gave his last orders from the saddle. "I've left an opiate in case he suffers. He may regain consciousness, but don't be deceived. It will be the last flare before the dark."

It happened at midnight. An hour before, Bull had put Lee out of the room with gentle force to take needed rest. He had then moved his chair to the door, which opened out on the _corredor_, to secure the free air his rustler's lungs demanded. Across the compound he could see the moon's pale lantern hanging in the branches of a yucca that upraised its maimed and twisted shape on a distant knoll. Northward the mountains loomed, dim and mysterious, in tender light that reduced the vivid chromes and blues of lime-washed adobes in the compound to pale violet and clear gold.

_Gringo_ as he was, his people had lived under Carleton's hand fuller, freer lives than their forebears had ever known under the Mexican overlords, and, day or night, the _patio_ had never lacked a dozen brown _peonas_ on their knees at their prayers to the saints. Under the _arbol de fuego_ in the center of the _patio_ below three old crones had erected a small altar, and its guttering candles now threw splashes of gold up through the crimson dusk of the tree. Adding the human note which, by contrast, accentuated the infinite mystery of that still night, their mutterings rose up to Bull; bits of gossip sandwiched between prayers.

"Three crows perched here at sundown, Luisa. Thou knowest what that means?"

"Si; they were devils come for a soul."

"'Tis a pity that all gringos are doomed to the flame. The senor was a good master to us that had felt the iron fist of the Spaniard."

"The senorita? She that is so sweet and good. Thinkest thou, Luisa, that she also will be cast into h.e.l.l?"

"Not if my prayers can save, Pancha. Three great candles, at twenty centavos the candle, have I burned on the altar of Guadalupe for her soul's sake. There is yet time for her. But the poor senor-" her pause doomed him. Nevertheless, with greater vigor they returned to their prayers for his saving.

The dim beauty of the night with its spread of moonlit plain, loom of distant mountains, querulous supplication rising under cold stars, combined to produce that awful sense of infinity that shrouds the riddle of life. If Bull was incapable of philosophizing upon it, to translate the feeling in thought, he still came under its sway. While it weighed heavily upon him, there came a gasp and feverish mutter from the bed.

In a second he was there. As he removed the shade from the candle he saw Carleton's face lit by the last flare. Recognition and intelligence both were there.

"Where is-Lee? Sleeping? Don't wake her. Listen! She-must not-stay here.

Tell William Benson-he's rough and a bully-but honest and good. Tell him to get a permit-from the revolutionists-to drive my cattle and horses-across to the States. They will bring enough-to keep Lee for many-a year. Be sure-"

The halting voice suddenly failed. Even while Bull was reaching for a stimulant the soul of the man pa.s.sed out into the mystery beyond the moonlit plains.

For a while Bull stood looking down upon him. Then, very slowly, he made toward the door that led to the girl's room. But as her tired face rose before him he stopped and shook his head. "Let her finish her sleep."

Tiptoeing, instead, out to the gallery rail, he leaned down and softly called the old women.

VII: THE RUSTLERS ARE ADOPTED

"Well, I reckon this about lets us out."

The Three sat under the _portales_, heavily smoking. Bull puffed meditatively at a strong old pipe. Between lungfuls Sliver toyed absently with a cigarette. The necessities of dealing faro-bank had trained Jake in the l.a.b.i.al manipulations of his fat native cigar. As all necessary readjustment could be made with the tongue or lips, his hands were thrust deep in his pockets, a proof of profound mental concentration. It was he who had spoken, and the "this" alluded to Carleton's funeral, which had taken place the preceding day.

It had been a quiet affair. William Benson, the nearest white neighbor, happened to be in El Paso. Of a round dozen Mexicans of the better cla.s.s, eleven were wearily waiting on the other side of the border till still another revolution should restore their territorial rights. The Icarzas, Ramon and his father, a bewhiskered _hacendado_, attended, with Isabel, the dusky beauty of the house. The Lovells, a small American rancher and his two pretty daughters, represented the hundreds of _gringos_, miners, ranchers, engineers, smelter men, who would have come in normal times. So these, with Lee, Carleton's _peones_, and the Three, had followed the rude ox-cart that bore him to the graveyard of a little adobe church in the hills. Their duty in the premises being thus consummated, the Three had resolved themselves into a committee on ways and means.

"Yes, I s'pose we'll have to move on." If not actually dismal, Sliver's indors.e.m.e.nt both expressed regret and invited contradiction.

Bull did not speak. He was watching Lee and the Lovell girls, who had just then stepped out of her room across the _patio_. Phyllis, the younger, was to stay for a week, while Phbe, the elder, returned home with her father, who had just brought the horses to the gateway. As Lee walked with her guests the length of the _patio_ she took with her the sympathetic glances of the Three.

Nature mercifully provides her own anesthesia, stunning the victims of her catastrophes till the dangerous period of shock be pa.s.sed. Later, the sight of Carleton's riding-whip, spurs, or gloves, carelessly thrown in a corner, would bring a violent recurrence of grief, set her agonizing once more before the great blank wall of death. But just now complete emotional exhaustion left her quiet and calm. Neither had she made any attempt to bury her youth under the frowsy trappings of grief.

Even the black velvet riband she wore at her throat was purely accidental, a natural tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of her dress.

Indeed, the other girls showed more outward sorrow. Though American born, they were almost Spanish in their coloring, and their dusky eyes, dark hair, rich cream skins provided a vivid foil for Lee's fairness. If their eyes were swollen and nose tips chafed, the fact merely accentuated their feminine charm. To the Three, deprived for years of a.s.sociation with any but the lowest Mexican women, they swam in sweetness and light. The graceful turn of a rounded neck, lift of a smooth chin, flexure of a lithe waist aroused powerful memories. Like a cleansing stream, the sweetness of their first young, cool loves swept through their beings, purging them, for the moment, of shame and dross and pa.s.sion.

"Adios, you fellows!" Lovell's friendly voice came floating back from the gate. "Come and see us at San Miguel."

It was the climax; the climax of a week during which, in place of suspicion and distrust bred of the knowledge that every man's hand was against them and theirs against every man, they had met only faith and trust and friendship. The invitation instigated Sliver's muttered exclamation: "Lordy! I'd like to! but-"

"-it's no place for us." Bull nodded toward Lee. "It 'u'd be easier if she was provided for. Think of her, alone here, an' a new revolution breaking every other day!"

"Pretty fierce," Jake coincided. "But if 'twas left to that young Mex at the funeral yesterday-Ramn Icarza, wasn't that what they called him? If 'twas left to him she'd soon be-"

"-d.a.m.ned an' done for!" Sliver exploded. Hard eyes flashing, he added: "Come to think of it, the son of a gun did behave sorter soft. No Mex that was ever pupped is fit to even herd sheep for the little lady-girl.

h.e.l.l! if I thought she'd look twice his way, I'd croak him afore we left."