The Blood of the Conquerors
Page 30
CHAPTER XXVIII
The next few days Ramon spent quietly and systematically drinking whisky.This he did partly because he had a notion that it was an appropriatething to do under the circumstances, and partly because he had a genuineneed for something to jolt his mind out of its rut of misery. He was notsociable in his cups, and did not seek company of either sex, inviting aman to drink with him or accepting such an invitation only when he had todo so. His favourite resort was the Silver Dollar Saloon, which wasfurnished with tables set between low partitions, so that when he had oneof these booths to himself he enjoyed a considerable degree of isolation.He drank carefully, like a Spaniard, never losing control of his feet orof his eyes, taking always just enough to keep his mind away fromrealities and filled with dreams. In these dreams Julia played a vivid anddelightful part. He imagined himself encountering her under all sorts ofcircumstances, and always she was yielding, repentant, she was his. In adozen different ways he conquered her, taking in imagination, as men havealways done, what the reality had denied. Some of his fancies weredelightful and filled him with a sense of triumph, so that men glancedcuriously at the bright-eyed boy who sat there in his corner all alone,absorbed and intent. But there were other times at night when his defeateddesire came and lay in his arms like an invisible unyielding succuba,torturing, maddening, driving him back to the street to drink untildrunken sleep came with its sudden brutal mercy.
But after a few days alcohol began to have little effect upon him, exceptthat when he awoke his hands were all aflutter so that he spilled hiscoffee and tore his newspaper. He felt sick and weary, his misery numbedby many repetitions of its every twinge. A sure instinct urged him to getout of the town and into the mountains, but he hated to go alone andlacked the initiative to start. He had a friend in the capital namedCurtis, who was half Mexican and half Irish. This young man was a dealerin mules and horses, and he had a herd of some twenty head to take acrossthe mountains about sixty miles. Badly in need of a helper and unable tohire one, he asked Ramon to go with him. The proposition was accepted withrelief but without enthusiasm.
Trouble started immediately. The horses were only half broken, and the onethey chose for a pack animal rebelled ten miles from town and bucked thepack off, scattering tin dishes, sides of bacon, loaves of bread and cansof condensed milk all over a quarter of a mile of rough country. Theyrounded up the recalcitrant in a pouring rain, and made a wet andmiserable camp, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion in sodden blankets. Thenext morning the pack horse opened the exercises by rolling down a steepbank into the creek, plastering himself on the way from head to tail witha half gallon of high grade sorghum syrup which had been on top of theload. At this Ramon's tortured nerves exploded and he jumped into thewater after the floundering animal, belabouring it with a quirt, andcursing it richly in two languages.
He then put a slip noose around its upper lip and led it unmercifully,while Curtis encouraged it from behind with a rope-end. Like all Mexicans,they had little sympathy for horseflesh.
These labours and hardships were Ramon's salvation. The exercise and airrestored his health and in fighting the difficulties of unlucky travel herelieved in some degree the rage against life that embittered him.
When he got back to his room in the hotel he felt measurably at peace,though weary in mind and body. He came across Julia's letter, and thesight and scent of it struck him a sharp painful blow, but he did notpause now to savour his pain; he tore the letter into small pieces andthrew it away. Then he got out his car and started for home.
He went back beaten over the same road that he had followed in the momentof his highest hope, when life had seemed about to keep all the wonderfulpromises it whispers in the ear of youth. But strangely this trip was notthe sad and sentimental affair it should have been. His rugged health hadlargely recovered from the shock of disappointment and dissipation, anexcellent breakfast was digesting within him, the sky was bright aspolished turquoise and the ozonous west wind, which is the very breath ofhope, played sweetly in his face. He began to discover various consolingconditions in his lot, which had seemed so intolerable just a few daysbefore.
Probably no man under forty ever lost a woman without feeling in somedegree compensated by a sense of freedom regained, and in the man ofsolitary and self-reliant nature, to whom freedom is a boon if not anecessity, this feeling is not slow to assert itself. Moreover, Ramon wasnow caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose which had gatheredand concentrated his energies with passionate intensity for almost fourmonths. During that time he had lived with taut nerves for a single hope;he had turned away from a dozen alluring by-paths; he had known thatabsorbed singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers, artists andother monomaniacs.
The bright hope that had led him had suddenly exploded, leaving himstunned and flat for a time. Now he got to his feet and looked about. Herealized that the world still lay before him, a place of wonderful promiseand possibility, and apparently he could stray in any direction he chose.He had money and freedom and an excellent equipment of appetites andcuriosities. Things he had dreamed of doing long ago, in case he shouldever come into his wealth, now revisited his imagination. He had promisedhimself for one thing some hunting trips--long ones into the mountains anddown the river in his car. Gambling had always fascinated him, and he hadlonged to sit in a game high enough to be really interesting, instead ofthe quarter-limit affair that he had always played before. And there werewomen {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} other women. And he meant to go to New York or Chicago sometimeand sample the fleshpots of a really great city.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Life after all was stillan interesting thing.
Not that he forgot his serious purposes. He meant to open a law office, tocultivate his political connections, to pursue his conquest of ArribaCounty. But although he did not realize it, his plans for making himself astrong and secure position in life had lost their vitalizing purpose. Allof these things he would do, but there was no hurry about them. His desirenow was to taste the sweetness of life, and to rest. He was without astrong acquisitive impulse, and now that his great purpose in making moneywas gone, these projects did not strongly engage his imagination. He hadplenty of money. He refused to worry. He felt reckless, too. If he hadlost his great hope, his reward was to be released from the discipline ithad imposed.
Nor was there any other discipline to take its place. If there had been astrong creative impulse in him, or if he had faced a real struggle for hislife or his personal freedom, he might now have recovered that conditionof trained and focussed energy which civilized life demands of men. But hewas too primitive to be engaged by any purely intellectual purpose, andhis money was a buffer between him and struggle imposed from without.
As he thought of all the things he would do, he felt strong and sure ofhimself. He thought that he was now a shrewd, cynical man, who could notbe deceived or imposed upon, who could take the good things of life anddiscount the disillusionments.