The Bells of San Juan Part 6

Continuing he told her something of the sheriff. Young Norton, having returned from college some three years before to live the only life possible to one of his blood, had become manager of his father's ranch in and beyond the San Juan mountains. At the time Billy Norton was the county sheriff and had his hands full. Rumor said that he had promised himself to "get" a certain man; Engle admitted that that man was Jim Galloway of the Casa Blanca. But either Galloway or a tool of Galloway's or some other man had "gotten" Billy Norton, shooting him down in his own cabin and from the back, putting a shotgun charge of buckshot into his brain.

It had occurred shortly after Roderick Norton's return, shortly before the expiration of Billy Norton's term of office. Rod Norton, putting another man in his place on the ranch, had buried his father and then had asked of the county his election to the place made empty by his father's death. Though he was young, men believed in him. The election returns gave him his place by a crus.h.i.+ng majority.

"And he has done good work," concluded Engle thoughtfully. "Because of what he has done, because he does not make an arrest until he has his evidence and then drives hard to a certain conviction, he has come to be called Dead-sure Norton and to be respected everywhere, and feared more than a little. Until now it has become virtually a two-man fight.

Rod Norton against Jim Galloway. . . ."

"John," interposed Mrs. Engle, "aren't you giving Virginia rather a sombre side of things?"

"Maybe I am," he agreed. "But this killing of the Las Palmas man in broad daylight has come pretty close to filling my mind. Who's going to be next?" His eyes went swiftly toward the patio, taking stock of the two figures there. Then he shrugged, went to the table for a cigar and returned smiling to inform Virginia of life on the desert and in the valleys beyond the mountains, of scattering attempts at reclamation and irrigation, of how one made towns of sun-dried mud, of where the adobe soil itself was found, drifted over with sand in the shade of the cottonwoods.

But Mrs. Engle's sigh, while her husband spoke of black mud and straw, testified that her thoughts still clung about those events and possibilities which she herself had asked him to avoid; her eyes wandered to the tall, rudely garbed figure dimly seen in the patio.

Virginia, recalling Jim Galloway as she had seen him on the stage, heavy-bodied, narrow-hipped, masterful alike in carriage and the look of the prominent eyes, glanced with Mrs. Engle toward Rod Norton. He was laughing at something pa.s.sing between him and Florence, and for the moment appeared utterly boyish. Were it not for the grim reminder of the forty-five-caliber revolver which the nature of his sworn duties did not allow of his laying aside even upon a night like this, it would have been easy to forget that he was all that which the one word sheriff connotes in a land like that about San Juan.

"Can't get away from it, can we?" Engle having caught the look in the two women's eyes, broke off abruptly in what he was saying, and now sat studying his cigar with frowning eyes. "Man against man, and the whole county knows it, one employing whatever criminal's tools slip into his hands, the other fighting fair and in the open. Man against man and in a death grapple just because they are the men they are, with one backed up by a hang-dog crowd like Kid Rickard and Antone, and the other playing virtually a lone hand. What's the end going to be?"

Virginia thought of Ignacio Chavez. He, had he been here, would have answered:

"In the end there will be the ringing of the bells for a man dead. You will see! Which one? _Quien sabe_! The bells will ring."

CHAPTER V

IN THE DARKNESS OF THE PATIO

Through the silence of the outer night, as though actually Ignacio Chavez were prophesying, came billowing the slow beating of the deep mourning bell. Mrs. Engle sighed; Engle frowned; Virginia sat rigid, at once disturbed and oppressed.

"How can you stand that terrible bell?" she cried softly. "I should think that it would drive you mad! How long does he ring it?"

"Once every hour until midnight," answered Engle, his face once more placid as he withdrew his look from the patio and transferred it to his cigar. And then, with a half smile: "There are many San Juans; there is, in all the wide world, but one San Juan of the Bells. You would not take our distinction from us? Now that you are to become of San Juan you must, like the rest of us, take a pride in San Juan's bells.

Which you will do soon or late; perhaps just as soon as you come to know something of their separate and collective histories."

"Tell her, John," suggested Mrs. Engle, again obviously anxious to dispel the more lugubrious and tragic atmospheres of the evening with any chance talk which might offer itself.

"Let her wait until Ignacio can tell her," laughed Engle. "No one else can tell it so well, and certainly no one else has an equal pride or even an equal right in the matter."

But, though he refused to take up the colorful theme of the biographies of the Captain, the Dancer, Lolita, and the rest, John Engle began to speak lightly upon an a.s.sociated topic, first asking the girl if she knew with what ceremony the old Western bells had been cast; when she shook her head and while the slow throbbing beat of the Captain still insisted through the night's silences, he explained that doubtless all six of Ignacio Chavez's bells had taken form under the calm gaze of high priests of old Spain. For legend had it that all six were from their beginnings destined for the new missions to be scattered broadcast throughout a new land, to ring out word of G.o.d to heathen ears. Bells meant for such high service were never cast without grave religious service and sacrifice. Through the darkness of long-dead centuries the girl's stimulated fancies followed the man's words; she visualized the great glowing caldrons in which the fusing metals grew red and an intolerable white; saw men and women draw near, proud blue-blooded grandees on one hand, and the lowly on the other, with one thought; saw the maidens and ladies from the courtyards of the King's palace as they removed golden bracelets and necklaces from white arms and throats, so that the red and yellow gold might go with their prayers into the molten metals, enriching them, while those whose poverty was great, but whose devotion was greater, offered what little silver ornaments they could. Carved silver vases, golden cups, minted coins and cherished ornaments, all were offered generously and devoutly until the blazing caldrons had mingled the Queen's girdle-clasps with a bauble from the beggar girl.

"And in the end," smiled Engle, "there are no bells with the sweet tone of old Mission bells, or with their soft eloquence."

While he was talking Ignacio Chavez had allowed the dangling rope to slip from his hands so that the Captain rested quiet in the stars.h.i.+ne.

Roderick and Florence were coming in through the wide patio door; Norton was just saying that Florrie had promised to play something for him when the front door knocker announced another visitor. Florence made a little disdainful face as though she guessed who it was; Engle went to the door.

Even Virginia Page in this land of strangers knew who the man was. For she had seen enough of him to-day, on the stage across the weary miles of desert, to remember him and to dislike him. He was the man whom Galloway and the stage-driver had called "Doc," the sole representative of the medical fraternity in San Juan until her coming. She disliked him first vaguely and with purely feminine instinct; secondly because of an air which he never laid aside of a serene consciousness of self-superiority. He had established himself in what he was pleased to consider a community of n.o.bodies, his inferiors intellectually and culturally. He was of that type of man-animal that lends itself to fairly accurate cataloguing at the end of the first five minutes'

acquaintance. The most striking of the physical attributes about his person as he entered were his little mustache and neatly trimmed beard and the diamond stick-pin in his tie. Remove these articles and it would have been difficult to distinguish him from countless thousands of other inefficient and opinionated individuals.

Virginia noted that both Mr. and Mrs. Engle shook hands with him if not very cordially at least with good-humored toleration; that Florence treated him to a stiff little nod; that Roderick Norton from across the room greeted him coolly.

"Dr. Patten," Engle was saying, "this is our cousin, Virginia Page."

Dr. Patten acknowledged the introduction and sat down, turning to ask "how Florrie was today?" Virginia smiled, sensing a rebuke to herself in his manner; to-day on the stage she had made it obvious even to him that if she must speak with a stranger she would vastly prefer the talk of the stage-driver than that of Dr. Caleb Patten. When Florence, replying briefly, turned to the piano Patten addressed Norton.

"What was our good sheriff doing to-day?" he asked banteringly, as though the subject he chose were the most apt one imaginable for jest.

"Another man killed in broad daylight and no one to answer for it! Why don't you go get 'em, Roddy?"

Norton stared at him steadily and finally said soberly:

"When a disease has fastened itself upon the body of a community it takes time to work a cure, Dr. Patten."

"But not much time to let the life out of a man like the chap from Las Palmas! Why, the man who did the shooting couldn't have done a nicer job if he'd been a surgeon. One bullet square through the carotid artery . . . That leads from the heart to the head," he explained as though his listeners were children athirst for knowledge which he and none other could impart. "The cerebrum penetrated by a second. . . ."

What other technical elucidation might have followed was lost in a thunderous cras.h.i.+ng of the piano keys as Florence Engle strove to drown the man's utterance and succeeded so well that for an instant he sat gaping at her.

"I can't stand that man!" Florence said sharply to Norton, and though the words did not travel across the room, Virginia was surprised that even an individual so completely armored as Caleb Patten could fail to grasp the girl's meaning.

When Florence had pounded her way through a noisy bit of "jazz," Caleb Patten, with one of his host's cigars lighted, was leaning a little forward in his chair, alert to seize the first opportunity of s.n.a.t.c.hing conversation by the throat.

"Kid Rickard admits killing Bisbee," he said to Norton. "What are you going to do about it? The first thing I heard when I got in from a professional call a little while ago was that Rickard was swaggering around town, saying that you wouldn't gather him in because you were afraid to."

The sheriff's face remained unmoved, though the others looked curiously to him and back to Patten, who was easy and complacent and vaguely irritating.

"I imagine you haven't seen Jim Galloway since you got in, have you?"

Norton returned quietly.

"No," said Patten. "Why? What has Galloway got to do with it?"

"Ask him. He says Rickard killed Bisbee in self-defense."

"Oh," said Patten. And then, s.h.i.+fting in his chair: "If Galloway says so, I guess you are right in letting the Kid go."

And, a trifle hastily it struck Virginia, he switched talk into another channel, telling of the case on which he had been out to-day, enlarging upon its difficulties, with which, it appeared, he had been eminently fitted to cope. There was an amused twinkle in John Engle's eyes as he listened.

"By the way, Patten," the banker observed when there came a pause, "you've got a rival in town. Had you heard?"

"What do you mean?" asked the physician.

"When I introduced you just now to our Cousin Virginia, I should have told you; she is Dr. Page, M.D."

Again Patten said "Oh," but this time in a tone which through its plain implication put a sudden flash into Virginia's eyes. As he looked toward her there was a half sneer upon the lips which his scanty growth of beard and mustache failed to hide. Had he gone on to say, "A _lady_ doctor, eh?" and laughed, the case would not have been altered.

"It seems so funny for a girl to be a doctor," said Florence, for the first time referring in any way to Virginia since she had flown to the door, expecting Norton alone. Even now she did not look toward her kinswoman.

John Engle replied, speaking crisply. But just what he said Virginia did not know. For suddenly her whole attention was withdrawn from the conversation, fixed and held by something moving in the patio. First she had noted a slight change in Rod Norton's eyes, saw them grow keen and watchful, noted that they had turned toward the door opening into the little court where the fountain was, where the wall-lamp threw its rays wanly among the shrubs and through the grape-arbor. He had seen something move out there; from where she sat she could look the way he looked and mark how a clump of rose-bushes had been disturbed and now stood motionless again in the quiet night.

Wondering, she looked again to Norton. His eyes told nothing now save that they were keen and watchful. Whether or not he knew what it was so guardedly stirring in the patio, whether he, like herself, had merely seen the gently agitated leaves of the bushes, she could not guess. She started when Engle addressed some trifling remark to her; while she evaded the direct answer she was fully conscious of the sheriff's eyes steady upon her. He, no doubt, was wondering what she had seen.

It was only a moment later when Norton rose and went to Mrs. Engle, telling her briefly that he had had a day of it, in the saddle since dawn, wis.h.i.+ng her good night. He shook hands with Engle, nodded to Patten, and coming to Virginia said lightly, but, she thought, with an almost sternly serious look in his eyes: