Over the Border Part 38

"Oh, but they will not do it! They were friends of my father; have known me from childhood-"

"They are Mexican-would love to see you mate with me, a Mexican like themselves. They will do as I say. If not"-his nod carried a sinister significance-"so much the worse for you."

Unable to believe, she stared down at him; as she looked into the brilliant, hard eyes there was borne in upon her understanding of his insane egotism. The veneer of softness, courtesy, lip service, burned away; there was left only the animal fighting for the possession of its mate.

She bent her head in sudden shame. "Ramon, please take me home."

"Yes, to _ours_." He s.n.a.t.c.hed her bridle. "Come! already we have wasted too much time."

As they had spoken in English, Gordon heard all. Now he spoke. "You stopped them killing me, but that would have been less wicked. Remember she is no _peona_, but an American subject. For any mistreatment you will be called to account by our government."

"Your government?" Turning his head, Ramon spat aside in the dust. "Your government? The Germans harried us for three years till we ran down and hanged the murderers of their countrymen at Covodonga. In Guerrero a villageful of people were shot for the murder of one Englishman. For the ma.s.sacre of its citizens at Torreon even the Chinese demanded and obtained an indemnity of five million dollars. But your government-for the murder of hundreds of its men, dishonor of scores of its women, it has lodged-complaints. One more or less will not embarra.s.s us-nor help _you_. Come on, hombre!"

As he moved off, leading Lee's beast, Gordon writhed in a last effort to break his bonds. For the moment he was blinded by the rush of blood to his straining eyeb.a.l.l.s, but as his sight cleared he saw Lee looking back. That womanly pity which transcends fear had lifted her for the moment above her own terrors. Like a light filtering through a storm, her smile gleamed wanly through the pale window of her distress. Then the chaparral swallowed her, and he settled back in black despair.

Though it was only a few seconds, it seemed an hour pa.s.sed before a foot swinging into his line of vision caused him to look up. The revolutionists had finished dividing the money and were looking down at him.

"Going to cut my throat, now he's gone," Gordon read it-and did not care.

But he had failed to count on the streak of good humor that crosscuts even a bandit nature. "We are the richer by a hundred pesos by him."

Ilarian, the fellow who had tried to cut his throat, grinned at the others. "Let us lift him over there in the shade."

"'Tis hard on thee, amigo," the fellow went on, after they moved him.

"'Tis hard to have thy girl s.n.a.t.c.hed thus away. But have no fear"-though he caught only an occasional word of Spanish, the gestures, helped out by a gross leer, threw light brilliant as lightning on his meaning-"we will avenge thee. These days the pretty ones go to the strong. He has not got her yet. Adios-and better luck!"

As, laughing loudly, they left him, all the romance that had colored, for him, the Mexican revolutions, drained away, leaving him with clear, cold vision to face its dread facts-the tragic realities even then in course where the smoke columns rose, far away, under brazen skies. In agony of fear for Lee that transcended physical torture he watched them go.

x.x.xI: "BRAINS WIN"

Two days later Bull awoke from a wild nightmare through which drunken faces, infuriated faces, maudlin women faces, had whirled in a mad phantasmagoria, devil's dance of singing, drinking, swearing, fighting.

As though it were another, he dimly saw himself hurling men through a window while gla.s.s crashed and furniture crumbled around him. More clearly, a second picture stood out-of a big black rustler-to wit, himself-set up against a wall before a firing-squad. He even saw the rifles aimed, and yet-his brain cool and that enormous desire gone, he lay in a little cell-like adobe room. Light streamed over the sheet across the doorway, and as, rising, he looked out into the _patio_ of the German Club he heard far off the boom of cannon punctuating the staccato pulsations of rifle-fire.

"The battle's on!"

As the thought pa.s.sed through his mind it was killed by sudden agony, poignant, though mental, as physical pain. His great hands went up and covered his face, but could not shut out despair. "My G.o.d! I've fallen down!"

Outside people were moving and talking. But he paid no heed; just stood, face buried in his hands, till he recognized the "dean's" voice.

"Well, come on, fellows! They're going to it again. Let's get out where we can see."

"I'll take a look at Diogenes first," came the voice of his friend. "You chaps go on. I'll catch up."

Bull dropped his hands, revealing bleared eyes and swollen face to the correspondent's gaze. "Well! well! Up and bright as a cricket! You went it some in El Paso, Diogenes; but-last night!" He shook his head in mock reproof.

"What did you do? What didn't you do? Drank up all the whisky here, then went out and tried to dry up the cantinas. A few are still in business-those you didn't break up. It took a troop to round you up.

They had you stuck against a wall when Enrico, my amigo, happened along.

Remembering that he had seen you with me, he brought you over here."

"Well, I'm sorry! d.a.m.ned sorry that he did!" Bull shrugged. "On'y to be shot, like a soldier, would be too good a death for me. My kind smother in the gutter."

His bitterness touched the other. "Look here, old man, don't take it so hard. We all of us have our slips. The only thing to do is to get up and go on again."

Underneath his first lightness and present sympathy a heavier feeling had made itself felt. Bull had stretched out again on the cot, and now, as he stood looking down upon him, the correspondent's face grew grave.

Once he opened his lips; then, unconsciously, Bull opened the way.

"Where's Benson?" He looked up. "Did he go again to Valles?"

"Unfortunately, yes. His consul warned him against it-without avail.

What happened we can only guess. You know his temper; remember what he said on the train. Perhaps he threatened Valles. He could not have done much more, for he left his guns in the car with the Chinaman. 'So if the son of a gun kills me,' he told him, 'the boys will know it for murder.'

He must have had a hunch, for he never came back."

"Dead?" Bull broke a shocked silence.

The other nodded. "They acknowledge it-say he tried to kill Valles, which is, of course, all rot."

Bull had leaped up. "Dead! And I did it! Drunken swine that I am! It's no use." He waved away expostulations. "You yourself warned me not to let him go alone!" He started out the door.

"Here!" the correspondent seized him. "Where are you going?"

"Out-to get drunk-get killed if I kin!"

Though he waved like a blown leaf at the end of the club-like arm, the correspondent stuck. "All right! all right! But what's your hurry?

You'll be a long time dead, old man. If you must get killed, come with me."

Through Bull's black despair flashed a sardonic gleam. "Humph! Stand on a hill with a pair of gla.s.ses five miles off?"

"Not on your life, hombre! When we interviewed him yesterday that's exactly the crack Valles made about 'gringo correspondents' and 'long-distance reporting.' I'm going to show the beggar. It's me for the outposts where folks get killed."

Now, in his turn, Bull showed no concern. "Don't be a fool! You're paid to get the news, not to do Valles's fighting."

The change of positions was so swift, the correspondent could not repress a grin. "What's sauce for Diogenes is sauce for me. If you have a right to get yourself killed, so have I."

The black shadow again wrapped Bull. "I've good reason. If I kin git myself shot, like a man, I'm just that much ahead. But you-"

"Aw, shut up! Do you think I am going to let that greasy bandit get away with a crack like that? We're doing too much talking. Come on!"

"I'd-" Bull hesitated. "I'd like to see-_his_ consul first. His wife-she'd naterally like to know. She's in El Paso, just now, an' I know her address."

"We go past there. Then I want a minute with our consul. In case I don't turn up, I wouldn't want my San Francisco girl to be wearing weeds too long."

Going out, Bull stopped at the bar. "You needn't to be scairt." He answered the other's look. "My thirst's over-for a while. But I need a bracer." Yet the half-gla.s.s of raw brandy he swallowed had a deadlier significance. It marked the utter abandonment of hope, sealed his return to the old life.

Shortly thereafter the two entered the British consulate. With the quiet of despair he listened while the consul talked.