The Blood of the Conquerors Part 10

Cross my heart. On my life and honour. Please take me home now, so they wont suspect anything. If only n.o.body sees us! Please hurry. Itll be dark pretty soon. You can write to me. Its so lonely out here!

He turned his car and drove slowly townward, his free hand seeking hers again. It was dusk when they reached the streets. Stopping his car in the shadow of a tree, he kissed her and helped her out.

He sat still and watched her out of sight. A tinge of sadness and regret crept into his mind, and as he drove homeward it grew into an active discontent with himself. Why had he let her go? True, he had proved her love, but now she was to be captured all over again. He ought to have taken her. He had been a fool. She would have gone. She had begged him not to take her, but if he had insisted, she would have gone. He had been a fool!

CHAPTER XVIII

The second morning after this ride, while he was labouring over a note to the girl, he was amazed to get one from her postmarked at Lorietta, a station a hundred miles north of town at the foot of the Mora Mountains, in which many of the town people spent their summer vacations. It was a small square missive, exhaling a faint scent of lavender, and was simple and direct as a telegram.

We have gone to the Valley Ranch for a month, she wrote. We had not intended to go until August, but there was a sudden change of plans.

Somebody saw you and me yesterday. I had an awful time. Please dont try to see me or write to me while were here. It will be best for us. Ill be back soon. I love you.

He sat glumly thinking over this letter for a long time. The disappointment of learning that he would not see her for a month was bad enough, but it was not the worst thing about this sudden development. For this made him realize what alert and active opposition he faced on the part of her mother and brother. Their dislike for him had been made manifest again and again, but he had supposed that Julia was successfully deceiving them as to his true relations with her. He had thought that he was regarded merely as an undesirable acquaintance; but if they were changing their plans because of him, taking the girl out of his reach, they must have guessed the true state of affairs. And for all that he knew, they might leave the country at any time. His heart seemed to give a sharp twist in his body at this thought. He must take her as soon as she returned to town. He could not afford to miss another chance. And meantime his affairs must be gotten in order.

He had been neglecting his new responsibilities, and there was an astonis.h.i.+ng number of things to be donedebts to be paid, tax a.s.sessments to be protested, men to be hired for the sheep-shearing. His uncle had left his affairs at loose ends, and on all hands were men bent on taking advantage of the fact. But he knew the law; he had known from childhood the business of raising sheep on the open range which was the backbone of his fortune; and he was held in a straight course by the determination to keep his resources together so that they would strengthen him in his purpose.

A few weeks before, he had sent Cortez to Arriba County to attend to some minor matters there, and incidentally to learn if possible what MacDougall was doing. Cortez had spent a large part of his time talking with the Mexicans in the San Antonio Valley, eavesdropping on conversations in little country stores, making friends, and asking discreet questions at _bailes_ and _fiestas_.

Well; how goes it up there? Ramon asked him when he came to the office to make his report.

It looks bad enough, Cortez replied lighting with evident satisfaction the big cigar his patron had given him. MacDougall has men working there all the time. He bought a small ranch on the edge of the valley just the other day. He is not making very fast progress, but h.e.l.l own the valley in time if we dont stop him.

But who is doing the work? Who is his agent? Ramon enquired.

Old Solomon Alfego, for one. Hes boss of the county, you know. He hates a gringo as much as any man alive, but he loves a dollar, too, and MacDougall has bought him, Im afraid. I think MacDougall is lending money through him, getting mortgages on ranches that way.

Well; what do you think we had better do? Ramon enquired. The situation looked bad on its face, but he could see that Cortez had a plan.

Just one thing I thought of, the little man answered slowly. We have got to get Alfego on our side. If we can do that, we can keep out MacDougall and everybody else buy when we get ready. We couldnt pay Alfego much, but we could let him in on the railroad deal something MacDougall wont do. And Alfego, you know, is a _penitente_. Hes _hermano mayor_ (chief brother) up there. And all those little _rancheros_ are _penitentes_. Its the strongest _penitente_ county in the State, and you know none of the _penitentes_ like gringos. None of those fellows like MacDougall; theyre all afraid of him. All they like is his money. You havent so much money, but you could spend some. You could give a few _bailes_. You are Mexican; your family is well-known. If you were a _penitente_, too.

Cortez left his sentence hanging in the air. He nodded his head slowly, his cigar c.o.c.ked at a knowing angle, looking at Ramon through narrowed lids.

Ramon sat looking straight before him for a moment. He saw in imagination a procession of men trudging half-naked in the raw March weather, their backs gashed so that blood ran down to their heels, beating themselves and each other. The _penitentes_! Other men, even gringos, had risen to power by joining the order. Why not he? It would give him just the prestige and standing he needed in that country. He would lose a little blood. He would win everything!

You are right, _amigo_, he told Cortez. But do you think it can be arranged?

I have talked to Alfego about it, Cortez admitted. I think it can be arranged.

CHAPTER XIX

He was all ready to leave for Arriba County when one more black mischance came to bedevil him. Cortez came into the office with a worried look in his usually unrevealing eyes.

Theres a woman in town looking for you, he announced. A Mexican girl from the country. She was asking everybody she met where to find you. You ought to be more careful. I took her to my house and promised I would bring you right away.

Cortez lived in a little square box of a brick cottage, which he had been buying slowly for the past ten years and would probably never own. In its parlour, gaudy with cheap, new furniture, Ramon confronted Catalina Archulera. She was clad in a dirty calico dress, and her shoes were covered with the dust of long tramping, as was the black shawl about her head and shoulders. Once he had thought her pretty, but now she looked to him about as attractive as a clod of earth.

She stood before him with downcast eyes, speechless with misery and embara.s.sment. At first he was utterly puzzled as to what could have brought her there. Then with a queer mixture of anger and pity and disgust, he noticed the swollen bulk of her healthy young body.

Catalina! Why did you come here? he blurted, all his self-possession gone for a moment.

My father sent me, she replied, as simply as though that were an all-sufficient explanation.

But why did you tell him it was I? Why didnt you come to me first?

He made me tell, Catalina rolled back her sleeve and showed some blue bruises. He beat me, she explained without emotion.

What did he tell you to say?

He told me to come to you and show you how I am. That is all.

Ramon swore aloud with a break in his voice. For a long moment he stood looking at her, bewildered, disgusted. It somehow seemed to him utterly wrong, utterly unfair that this thing should have happened, and above all that it should have happened now. He had taken other girls, as had every other man, but never before had any such hard luck as this befallen him.

And now, of all times!

In Catalina he felt not the faintest interest. Before him was the proof that once he had desired her. Now that desire had vanished as completely as his childhood.

And she was Archuleras daughter. That was the h.e.l.l of it! Archulera was the one man of all men whom he could least afford to offend. And he knew just how hard to appease the old man would be. For among the Mexicans, seduction is a crime which, in theory and often in practice, can be atoned only by marriage or by the shedding of blood. Marriage is the door to freedom for the women, but virginity is a thing greatly revered and carefully guarded. The unmarried girl is always watched, often locked up, and he who appropriates her to his own purpose is violating a sacred right and offending her whole family.

In the towns, all this has been somewhat changed, as the customs of any country suffer change in towns. But old Archulera, living in his lonely canyon, proud of his high lineage, would be the hardest of men to appease.

And meantime, what was to be done with the girl?

It was this problem which brought his wits back to him. A plan began to form in his mind. He saw that in sending her to him Archulera had really played into his hands. The important thing now was to keep her away from her father. He looked at her again, and the pity which he always felt for weaklings welled up in him. He knew many Mexican ranches in the valley where he could keep her in comfort for a small amount. That would serve a double purpose. The old man would be kept in ignorance as to what Ramon intended, and the girl would be saved from further punishment. Meantime, he could send Cortez to see Archulera and find out what money would do.

The whole affair was big with potential damage to him. Some of his enemies might find out about it and make a scandal. Archulera might come around in an ugly mood and make trouble. The girl might run away and come to town again. And yet, now that he had a plan, he was all confidence.

Cortez kept Catalina at his house while Ramon drove forty miles up the valley and made arrangements with a Mexican who lived in an isolated place, to care for her for an indefinite period. When he took Catalina there, he told her on the way simply that she was to wait until he came for her, and above all, that she must not try to communicate with her father. The girl nodded, looking at him gravely with her large soft eyes.

Her lot had always been to obey, to bear burdens and to suffer. The stuff of rebellion and of self-a.s.sertion was not in her, but she could endure misfortune with the stoical indifference of a savage. Indeed, she was in all essentials simply a squaw. During the ride to her new home she seemed more interested in the novel sensation of travelling at thirty miles an hour than in her own future. She clung to the side of the car with both hands, and her face reflected a pathetic mingling of fear and delight.

The house of Nestor Gomez to which Ramon took her was prettily set in a grove of cottonwoods, with white hollyhocks blooming on either side of the door, and strings of red chile hanging from the rafter-ends to dry. Half a dozen small children played about the door, the younger ones naked and all of them deep in dirt. A hen led her brood of chicks into the house on a foray for crumbs, and in the shade of the wall a mongrel b.i.t.c.h luxuriously gave teat to four pups. Bees humming about the hollyhocks bathed the scene in sleepy sound.

Catalina, utterly unembara.s.sed, shook hands with her host and hostess in the limp, brief way of the Mexicans, and then, while Ramon talked with them, sat down in the shade, shook loose her heavy black hair and began to comb it. A little half-naked urchin of three years came and stood before her. She stopped combing to place her hands on his shoulders, and the two regarded each other long and intently, while Catalinas mouth framed a smile of dull wonder.

As Ramon drove back to town, he marvelled that he should ever have desired this clod of a woman; but he was grateful to her for the bovine calm with which she accepted things. He would visit her once in a while. He felt pretty sure that he could count on her not to make trouble.

Afterward he discussed the situation with Cortez. The latter was worried.

You better look out, he counselled. You better send him a message you are going to marry her. That will keep him quiet for a while. When he gets over being mad, maybe you can make him take a thousand dollars instead.

Ramon shook his head. If he gave Archulera to understand that he would marry the girl, word of it might get to town.