Over the Border Part 30

About the time Bull started, Lee and Gordon rose from the breakfast-table under the Los Arboles _portales_.

Perhaps with sympathetic intuition, for they exchanged an amiable grin, Sliver and Jake had already pa.s.sed out. It is true that Maria and Teresa, the small brown _criadas_, were peeping from the crypt-like depths of their kitchen. But even had she been aware of their vast interest, Lee would not have withdrawn the hand which, as they rose, had somehow tangled with Gordon's. Reflected and thrown up from the yellow wall, the strong morning lights bathed the flesh of her arms, face, and neck with suffused amber, wove a soft glow in the mesh of her hair. So different from her usual boyish activity, her gentle quiet, combined with the warm air, suffused lights, to create a dreamy spell. Goodness knows how long they would have stood if Maria had not come out to clear the table.

Then Lee spoke. "Such sloth! This will never do if I am to go to El Sol and return to-day. While I dress will you please get my horse?"

When Gordon reached the stable Sliver had already gone, but Jake had lingered to say a word. It was very much to the point. "Say! Bull tipped me off as how the young greaser was likely to show up an' raise some h.e.l.l to-day. Don't you allow I'd better hang around?"

He nodded, however, when Gordon explained the situation. "Missy don't know he's coming, hey?-thinks she's going over there. Then they'll meet on the way. Mebbe I'd better tag along."

But to this Gordon's pride would not consent. "Don't you think I can take care of her?"

"No one better," Jake hastened to appease. "But, say! If he doesn't show up, don't you let her go on over there-not if you have to rope an' drag her home."

"Like we did before?" He smiled at the memory. "This time I'll not leave her the saddle machete."

"Little bit too smart for you that time," Jake grinned in sympathy.

"Take care she don't spring a new one. She ain't so very slow."

Nevertheless, in the face of his apparent acquiescence, while apparently heading out on his usual beat, he whirled behind the first ridge and, proceeding at a fast lope, had covered five miles of the way to El Sol, the Icarzas' _hacienda_, by the time Lee came out. Slowing down, then, he rode more leisurely, had covered another mile when, over the crest of a ridge, he sighted Ramon coming at a gallop down the opposite slope. A clump of mesquite and _palo verde_ afforded convenient cover. Forcing his beast in, Jake stooped low and watched Ramon go by, so close that his stirrup whipped the bushes.

It had never been Jake's habit to notice Mexicans. But now he noted with surprise the change in the young man's face. The lines deeply plowed down the nose under the cheeks, the hardening of the red, womanish lips, the vindictive black sparkle that had contracted his great dusky eyes into burning black dots, added ten years to his age.

"The Mex is souring in him," Jake inwardly commented. "That guinea's liable to try an' hurt some one. Glad I came."

Allowing Ramon to pa.s.s on, Jake then rode after, and so, progressing from ridge to ridge, keeping always the height of land between them, was less than fifty yards behind when, peeping over the crest, he saw Lee and Gordon coming up the slope.

Another bunch of chaparral afforded cover, and after tying his horse in it, Jake crawled up to the ridge and looked over.

It was not without argument that Gordon had obtained Lee's consent to accompany her. When she found him standing with two horses at the gate, her brows rose in a troubled arch.

He understood that she hesitated to accuse him of bad taste, and quoted Bull's last orders to remove the impression. "He said that you were never to ride alone."

The responsibility being thus s.h.i.+fted, she felt able to speak. "It is rather- Really, I don't see how I can do anything else."

"Why go at all? Why not write?"

She shook her head. "I've known him since childhood-and have treated him badly. I owe him an apology and it will have to come from my own lips."

It was reasonable enough from her point of view, but not from his. If Ramon were an American he would have said, "Go, ahead; take your medicine!" Being Mexican, discretion bade him remain.

"At least let me ride with you part of the way. I will turn before you reach El Sol."

"Oh, that will be all right," she had conceded at once.

He had felt certain, of course, that they would meet Ramon. But the usual witcheries, sweep of the tawny earth-waves under the bright sun, satisfying thud of hoofs on the trail, creak and smell of hot leather, had combined to blind him to all but her presence. Now, before he could turn, Ramon reined in before them.

Like Jake, they noticed at once the sardonic furrows, set mouth, frown above the glittering eyes. With his youth had vanished that veneer of refinement which conceals natural Mexican grossness. Like veins in a stratum revealed by a landslide, selfishness, conceit, violence, revenge, lay exposed. With the natural instinct of good breeding, Gordon had half turned to withdraw. But even if one glance at the pa.s.sion-torn face had not checked the impulse, it would have been killed when Lee backed toward him. Shocked and a little afraid, she gazed at Ramon before she spoke.

"Are you ill? You look so-"

"So it was true, what the senora told me yesterday!" He spoke in low, strained tones. "It was true, though I did not believe; refused to believe. But now I see. It is true that you used me as bait for your fis.h.i.+ng."

"Ramon!" She raised her hand, but he switched suddenly from denunciation to appeal.

"No! it is not true! It cannot be! She lied! I will not believe it even though you tell me yourself!"

From this he ran on with an appeal, hysterical and disconnected, which reflected as in a clear gla.s.s the nature of his love. In it was no appreciation of the feminine personality with its delicacies of feeling, refinements, inconsistencies, helplessness, all the illogicalities that render it charming, as much or more than its faith and love. In terms of blind egotism, it expressed only his pa.s.sion and jealousy, fatuous conceit. As in a clear gla.s.s, under a powerful light, he revealed himself so that even a woman blinded by love could not have failed to see. In the middle of it Gordon heard Lee take a long breath, and knew it for thankfulness. Yet her relief did not kill her poignant regret for the part she had played.

She spoke softly, pityingly, when he stopped. "Ramon, I'm sorry. It was wicked of me to draw you on. But to marry you would be far worse. What can I do to make up?"

He told, with anger and offense. She had promised to be his wife! It was a betrothal! as binding in Mexican eyes as marriage! He had announced it to his father, mother, sister, friends! His conceit cropped out again as he pictured himself, jilted, in their eyes. Angered by his own imaginings, he was growing abusive when she cut him quietly off.

"I was on my way when we met, to own and ask pardon for my fault. I had counted on our old friends.h.i.+p and your generosity to make it less difficult. But I see, now, my error. There is nothing left but to bid you good-by."

Now came the ultimate revelation, that pa.s.sion of furious jealousy which drives the Mexican _peon_ to cut off the hands, slash the face and breast, of his love. His eyes narrowed to s.h.i.+fting, insane sparks. Hand raised, as though to strike, he spurred his beast forward.

"You-you-"

He got no further, for one hard dig of the spur shot Gordon's horse in between. From English to Spanish the argument had run, but from Lee's answers Gordon had gathered enough. Though slower, his beast was heavier than Ramon's, and while forcing horse and rider sideways with a steady pressure he issued his orders:

"That's about enough for you! Get!"

Ramon's hand flew to his saddle _machete_, but he did not draw, for Gordon's had gone to his gun. Leg pressed against leg, they manuvered their plunging beasts; without drawing a weapon fought the old fight of the brown man and the white; the struggle which began when Cortes imposed his will on the Aztec emperors; was continued by the Puritan forefathers against the American Indian; which has been fought to the same conclusion all over the world. And from the two faces-Gordon's cold, hard-eyed, Ramon's distorted with black fury-the cause of that inevitable ending might have been read.

So close they were Gordon could see the palpitation of light from the insane waverings of the other's eyeb.a.l.l.s steady under a doubt. He felt rather than saw the Mexican's sudden swift reach for his knife. Even more swiftly he s.n.a.t.c.hed, and with a sudden wrench of the other's wrist sent the knife flying and bore him back flat in the saddle. For a moment he held him, then with a powerful shove his horse sent Ramon's beast stumbling sideways and broke the grip. Wheeling in a circle, Ramon faced them again.

So far Lee had looked on distressed. Now she spurred forward and caught Gordon's arm. "Let him go!-please!" Her anger gone now, sorrow quivering in her voice, she added, "You will, won't you, Ramon?"

His fury, pa.s.sion, wild jealousy had settled in dark calm. "Yes, I am going _now_. But the next time-." He wheeled and galloped off.

Till the tip of his _sombrero_ vanished behind the ridge Lee watched him go, distress and relief mingling in a wintry smile.

"Don't give him too much of your pity," Gordon consoled. "One disappointment doesn't make much of a dent in such egotism as that.

After a while he'll find some pretty senorita to take him at his own valuation."

"I hope so." Her smile brightened. "Though I still feel guilty. But if he hadn't behaved so ridiculously I should feel much worse."

Gordon nodded toward the ridge. "You heard his threat. Do you suppose he'll--"

"Oh no!" Her hair flew in a cloud under her vigorous shake. "After he's had time to cool off he'll forget and forgive. But just to think"-her glance displayed an even mixture of mischief and reproach-"just to think that all this trouble was caused by you kissing that horrid girl!"

"Why-" he gasped, under the sudden attack. "Well, I'll be- Say! Who drove me to it with her disgraceful flirting?"

"Did it make you feel _awfully_ bad?"

"Did it?" The thought of his miserable unhappiness was still powerful enough to cloud his face, and she noted it with a little quiver of satisfaction. "Let's forget it." s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand, he worked his horse in against hers and tried to draw her to him. "There's a momentous question I wish to consult you about; one you refused to consider yesterday. Will you-"

But she pulled away. "Not yet. First there's something I want settled.