The Bad Man Part 11

"It isn't ready yet," Gilbert informed him. Lucia took advantage of her husband's question to move over toward the door.

"Why, good G.o.d, man, it's nearly three o'clock! We're not on a hunger strike, are we?" And he laughed at his own dull witticism.

"I'll see about it now," Jones promised.

"Haven't got a drink, have you, while we're waiting? Not that I need an appetizer! And it's d.a.m.ned hot, I know, to guzzle whiskey."

"There's nothing good in the place. But I think the cook has some tequila."

"Tequila? What's that, Jones?"

"It's a Mexican drink."

"Has it got a kick in it?" the other wanted to know.

"I never heard anybody complain," Gilbert smiled. "After two or three of 'em, I never saw anybody able to complain!"

He started toward the kitchen.

"What does it taste like?" said Pell, detaining him.

"Oh, sort of like gasoline with b.i.+.c.hloride of mercury in it," Jones answered his eager questioner.

"No wood alcohol?" suspiciously. Pell was always looking out for himself.

"Oh, it's safe enough, I a.s.sure you. Would you like to try some of it?"

Gilbert suggested.

Pell thought a moment--but only a moment. "I'll try anything once, and anything to drink more than once--if I'm alive the second time."

His host smiled. "I'll get you some if there's any left," and went to the kitchen to see. He couldn't help wondering why a man like Morgan Pell, with so many responsibilities, should wish to drink tequila.

Left alone, there was that strange silence between Lucia and her husband which so often occurred nowadays. A barrier was between them, none the less real because it was invisible. She knew his moods so well, and she dreaded the things he might say, all his inhibitions gone, if he drank any of this deadly Mexican stuff. She would have halted Gilbert had she dared; but she knew that any such action on her part would have aroused Pell the more, inflamed him to anger; and, like most women of fine breeding, she dreaded a scene more than anything in the world. All that she said now was merely,

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the satchel he had brought in.

"Order a man around in his own house."

"And why not, I'd like to know?" Pell inquired. "Who's he, anyhow, and what difference does it make?"

Lucia remained perfectly calm. "Well, if you can't see, of course--"

"There's no use your trying to tell me. Is that what you were going to say?" His face showed his rage.

She did not answer. That infuriated him all the more.

"I see what you mean! But I don't agree," Pell pursued. "This Jones person is nothing in my life. And why I should be deprived of my liquor and forced to eat burnt beans three times a day, I can't see." He emitted a sound that might have been designated a laugh.

"But--while we--" Lucia started to argue, and then thought better of it.

"Why doesn't he set his liquor out and see that the meals are right, himself? Then there wouldn't be any need of my saying anything." His tone was brutally frank. He really disliked Jones, and would be glad when they could get back to New York. There was nothing here worth his consideration.

Sturgis had been stupid to think so.

"But when we are enjoying his hospitality--"

"Enjoying? Ha! Suffering, I guess you mean!" And Pell's head went back and he gave out a guffaw.

Lucia waited for his false mirth to vanish. Then, "But you seemed very anxious to come here."

"Yes; because I thought he lived in a house, not a--"

The sentence was not completed; for Gilbert came back with a bottle of the deadly tequila in his hand.

"I'm terribly sorry," he apologized, "to have to tell you that dinner will be late."

"You mean later, don't you?" Pell edited the remark.

Gilbert handed him the bottle. "Maybe this will atone for the postponed banquet," he smiled. He got the water-bottle hanging on the peg by the fireplace, and brought that to Pell also. He tried to be as gracious as he could to anyone under his roof.

Pell took a swig out of the bottle--a long one. "Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed, his face almost purple, his brow puckered like a dwarf's.

"What's the matter?" Gilbert said. And he handed him the water-bottle.

"It's poison!" Pell cried. And as if he really believed it, and as though water were an antidote, he grabbed the water-bottle and drank from it swiftly and loudly. It was horrible the way he guzzled the liquid down. An animal would have done better.

"The Mexicans like their liquor strong," young Jones explained. "That's what's the matter with the cook."

Lucia was puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Simply that he's been imbibing again. That's why dinner is so late. But we're getting used to it. There is nothing to do but stand it."

"Drunk?" Pell asked.

"Quite," answered Gilbert.

"Well, I don't know as you can blame him," Pell excused. "I'd be drunk too if I had to live here. What are you going to do about it?" He hung the water-bottle in its place on the peg.

"Red's trying to sober him up," Gilbert said.

They had had enough of the cook, Pell decided within himself. Dinner was inevitably late, and that was all there was about it. So he changed the subject abruptly.

"This ranch belongs to you, doesn't it?" he put the question direct to Jones.

"What's that?"

"I asked you," went on Pell, a little disconcerted at having to repeat his question, "if you own this ranch."