The Mystery of The Barranca

by Herman Whitaker

  CHAPTER IX

  Living in the letter of his intention, Sebastien was up next morning andhad covered ten miles of the trail before the sun rose over the Barrancawall. Early as it was, however, others were already abroad. The suddenincrease in his family had obliged Seyd to make a journey out to therailroad for more provisions, and when Sebastien paused to breathe hisbeast halfway up the grade to the bench, a good glass would have shownhim Light and Peace gingerly picking their way along the trail that hadbeen built by Don Luis's orders around the slide on the opposite wall.

  As usual, Sebastien's approach was announced by the ring of hoofs, but,imagining it to be some charcoal-burner, Billy, who was already at hisbricks, did not look up till warned by Caliban's stealthy hiss. In hissurprise he forgot to reply to Sebastien's greeting, and simply answeredthe other's question.

  "Don Roberto? He is not here?"

  "No, gone out to the railroad. Won't be back for three days."

  "_Caramba!_ After I had climbed these heights to see him!" Thoughhis eyebrows and hands both testified to Sebastien's disappointment,a sharper eye than Billy's might have discerned the underlyingsatisfaction. Moreover, if he appeared merely inquisitively friendlyduring the hour he stayed to chat, not one minute was wasted. From thefirst question to his final comment on Billy's work, "You gringos arecertainly a wonderful people," all was directed to one end.

  "Yes, we usually get there," Billy modestly admitted, and his next wordspaved a lovely road for Sebastien to come to his purpose. "The buildingwould go faster if I hadn't so many things to do. After laying bricksall day I have to turn in and cook, and, though it's pretty tough, theredoesn't seem to be any way out of it. We tried both of the peons at thecooking and nearly died of the hash they served up."

  "Tut! tut!" Sebastien was there with ready sympathy. "This is too bad.Soon you will be completely worn out." After a pause, during which hemay be imagined as taking Billy's mental temperature, he said: "_Bueno!_I have it! I shall send you a cook--one than whom there is no finer inall this country."

  If he had harbored any suspicions, Billy's beaming smile now wiped themout. "That's awfully good of you. Seyd will be ever so glad. When can weexpect your cook?"

  "To-morrow afternoon." Scenting hospitality in Billy's glance towardthe hut, Sebastien hastily added, "That is, if I reach home to-night--todo which I shall have to be going." And refusing the offer of lunchwhich justified his premonition, he rode away, leaving Billy puffed upwith pride.

  "I rather think I turned that trick well," he congratulated himself."Seyd couldn't have done it a bit better." Occasional fat chucklesemitted during the afternoon testified to his increasing opinion of hisown diplomacy. But his rising pride did not attain its meridian until,midway of the following afternoon, a pretty brown girl came driving aburro up the trail.

  Having anticipated a man cook, it required five minutes of vehementSpanish, helped out by a wealth of gesticulation, to convince Billy thatthe girl was not an estray from a neighboring hamlet, and while her darkeyes, white teeth, and shapely brown arms were engaged in explanationthey wrought other work. By the time Billy was finally able tounderstand the fact he was hardly in condition to pass upon it.

  It is only right to state that he had little time for reflection, forfrom the very beginning the girl took the direction of affairs into herown hands. Driving her burro over to the stable she unpacked a stone_metate_, or grinding-stone, a pestle, and a quantity of soaked corn.She turned the beast out to graze, then dropped at once on her knees andbegan grinding paste for the supper tortillas, or cakes. When, towardevening, Billy dropped in for a drink he found her mantle spread on hisbed and certain articles of feminine wear depending from the nails whichhad hitherto been sacred to his own clothing.

  Blushing furiously, he went out--without the drink. But, though hiscolors would have done credit to a girl, they were not to be weighed inthe same balance with the green peppers stuffed with minced beef thatshe served at supper with the tortillas. While eating with an appetiteborn of a protracted canned diet it is to be feared that he fed just asravenously on the atmosphere shed by her luxurious presence. When, aftersupper, he sat in the doorway and watched the blood-reds of the sunsetflow through the valley he might, with his fiery stubble, have passedfor some ancient Celt at the mouth of his cave. Not until he caught asecond glimpse of the mantle while stealing a look at the girl washingup dishes did he return to his usual bashful self. Slipping quietlyinside, he gathered up the blankets off Seyd's bed and carried them outto make his own couch under a tree.

  This procedure on his part the girl watched with a certain astonishmentwhich she vented on Caliban while giving him his breakfast next day. "Ihad thought differently of the gringos. Be they all like this one--"

  "Give time, give time!" the hunchback advised. "Big fish are ever slowat the hook, but when they once rise--" The tortilla he used forillustration vanished at one gulp. "Wait till thou seest Don Roberto.There's a man! Of his own strength he threw a burro off the trail intothe Barranca and so turned the train that would otherwise have drivenhim and the 'Red Head' into the canon. 'Tis so. The history of it waswritten by Don Sebastien's whip on the shoulders of Mattias and Carlos.And what of the magic that turned my bullet fired at twenty yards, thenfound me and Calixto in black jungle and shot us down from the highcliff? Si, chief of the other is he, so waste not thy freshness."

  "Bah! am I a fool?" She elevated her nose.

  This conversation undoubtedly explains the staidness of her demeanorthat day. Not that it was necessary to keep Billy at his distance.Leaving his painful modesty out of the question, in his ignorance of theMexican peon folk he placed her in his imagination on the same planeas a white girl, and as the color of a skin cuts no figure in thecalculations of the little god, providing that it be fitted smoothlyover a pretty body, she found favor in his sight. At work both the nextand the following days he kept always an eye open for the flash of herwhite garments in the doorway. When, with the earthen jar on her head,she went to draw water from the spring his glance followed the swayingrhythms of her figure. If not actually in love by the time Don Luis andFrancesca put in their appearance next morning, Billy was at leastliving a tropical idyl, one not a whit less beautiful because its objectdeparted far from his ideal in all but her physical perfection.

  The visit had been skilfully timed to miss lunch, and Billy was alreadyback at his work. Crossing the bench, Don Luis's eye went instantly tothe girl who had been drawn to the door by the sound of hoofbeats. Buthis expression gave no hint of his grim amusement. The keenest ear wouldhave found it difficult to detect sarcasm in his remark.

  "I see, senor, that you have added to your family."

  Also it need not be said that Francesca's woman's eye had summed at aglance the smooth oval face, rounded arms, shapely figure; yet theirundeniable comeliness brought no pleasure to her expression. If Billyhad overlooked Don Luis's sarcasm it was impossible to miss her scorn.

  "A capable housekeeper--if one may judge from her looks--and quite athome. You are to be congratulated, Mr. Thornton."

  Looking up in quick surprise, Billy noticed the absence of the sympathythat she had shown him during her last visit. Feeling the cold angerbehind, and sadly puzzled, he was not sorry when, after a few minutes ofstrained talk, Don Luis asked to be shown the vein. Judging by hisbackward glance from the mouth of the tunnel, it would appear that hehad coined the request to pave the way for that which happened theinstant they disappeared. For, walking her beast over to the house,Francesca spoke to the girl.

  "Thy name?"

  "Carmelita, senorita."

  "Of what village?"

  "Chilpancin--I am the daughter to Candelario, the maker of hair ropes."

  Though she answered with the glib obsequiousness of her class, theappraising glance which swept Francesca from head to heel carried a mutechallenge and conveyed her full knowledge that a battle was pitched suchas women fight all the world over. Neither could Francesca's patricianfeeling smother equal
recognition. It was revealed in her next question.

  "How long hast thou been in this employment?"

  The girl paused. Then, whether it was due to Sebastien's tutoring or herown malice, she gave answer. "Eight days, senorita."

  "Who hired thee?"

  Downcast lashes hid the sudden sparkle of cunning. "Don Roberto." Butthey lifted in time for her to catch the sudden hardening of Francesca'sface.

  "Then see that thou renderest good service, for these be friends ofours."

  As beforesaid, neither the cold patronage of the one nor the sullenobsequiousness of the other could hide the issue from either.Francesca's calm, as she turned her beast, did not deceive. Maliciousunderstanding flashed out as the girl called after, "_Si_, he shall havethe best of service."

  Returning to the smelter, Francesca began to talk to Caliban, yetwhile questioning him concerning his new employment she could not beunconscious of Carmelita lolling in the doorway, hands on shapely hips,an attitude gracefully indolent and powerfully suggestive of possession.Perhaps it was her acute consciousness of it which injected an extrachill a few minutes later into her refusal of Billy's invitation todismount and rest. His suggestion that Seyd was likely to arrive anymoment drew a still more decided shake of the head. Moreover meetingSeyd as they rode downgrade she passed with the slightest nods, nor evenlooked back to see if her uncle were following.

  Doubtless because he felt that he could well afford it, Don Luis didstop, and before riding on he once more threatened Calixto, therice-huller, who was with Seyd. "This fellow--he still gives goodservice?" His courtesy, however, did not remove the chill of Francesca'ssnub. Hurt and wondering, Seyd passed on up to the bench--to have hiseyes opened the instant that he saw the girl in the doorway. When, afterdismounting, he walked across to where Billy was at work on thefoundation, her big dark eyes took him in from tip to toe in a flashingembrace. She studied him while he stood there talking.

  "What is _she_ doing here?"

  He cut off Billy's welcome with the sharp question, and while listeningto explanations his gray eyes drew into points of black. In the middleof it he burst out, "You don't mean to say that you fell for it aseasily as that?"

  "Fell for what?"

  Billy's round eyes merely added to his irritation. "You chump! didn'tyou see the trap?"

  "The trap?"

  "Yes, trap! _T-r-a-p_, trap! Got it into your fat head? Don't you seethat you have catalogued us with the San Nicolas people as a pair ofblackguards forever? Oh, you fat head!"

  That was not all. While he stormed on, saying things that he wouldwillingly have taken back a minute later, every bit of its usualmercurial humor drained out of Billy's face. Over Seyd's shoulder hecould see the girl in the doorway. A certain dark expectancy in herglance told that she knew herself to be the bone of contention. As a doemight watch the conflict of two bucks in the forest, she looked on, and,meeting Billy's eye, her glance touched off his anger.

  "Stop that!" he suddenly yelled. "Stop it or I'll hand you one! I will,for sure! What do I care for your San Nicolas people? I didn't come downhere to do a social stunt, and why should the opinions of a lot ofgreasers cut any ice? Let 'em go hang. The girl looks all right to me."

  "All right! You innocent!" Shaking with anger, Seyd turned and spoke toCaliban, who was mixing mortar close by. "As I thought! If half he saysis true her reputation would hang a cat."

  But Billy's jaw only set the harder. While he might easily have beenpersuaded out of his idyl, he was not to be driven. Out of pureobstinacy he growled: "What of it? I reckon her morals won't spoil thefood. She's proved she can cook, and that is all I want. She's going tostay."

  "She's not."

  "She is."

  For a pause they eyed each other. Though their friendship had survived,nay, had been cemented by many a quarrel, never before had adisagreement gone such lengths.

  "Look here, Billy." Seyd spoke more mildly. "This won't do. She's got togo."

  "Not till you've shown me--not now," he hastily added, as Seyd began tostrip. "I'd hate to hit a cripple, and--"

  "Come on."

  But, ducking a swing, Billy gave ground, genuine concern on his face."No, no, old man! You are still weak. Let it go for another week. Thatleft fin of yours--"

  Landing at that precise moment on his ear, however, the member inquestion proved its convalescence and ended the argument by toppling himsideways. Up in a second, he closed, and for the next ten minutes theywent at it, clinching and breaking, jabbing and hooking, with an energyand science that would have filled the respective souls of a moralistand a prize-fighter with disgust and delight. Avoiding both of theseextreme viewpoints, the account may very well be given in the terms usedby Caliban in describing the affair next day to one of his _companeros_,a charcoal-burner.

  "Like mad bulls they go at it, grappling and tearing, each striking theother so that the thud of their blows raise the echoes. It is in thevery beginning that the Red Cabeza fells Don Roberto, but instead ofsplitting his head with the spade that stands close by--was ever suchfolly!--he helps him up from the ground. I then think it the finish,but no, they go at it again, hailing blows in the face hard as the kickof a mule, and so it continues for a time with only pauses to catchtheir breath. I am beginning to wonder will it ever come to an endwhen--crack! sharp as the snap of thy whip and so swift that I do notsee the blow, it comes. The Red Cabeza lies there quietly on the ground.Believe it or not, Pedro, he is knocked senseless by a blow of thehand."

  The immediate consequences may also be left to Caliban. "Their quarrel,as I have said, is over Carmelita, the dove of Chilpancin, and I nowexpect to see Don Roberto take her for his own. That she is of the samemind is proven when she comes running with her knife for him to finishup the Red Cabeza. But again, no! who shall understand thesegringos?--he gives her the sharpest of looks.

  "'_Vamos!_' He shouts it with such anger that she stumbles and falls,running back to the house. Also she makes such a quick packing that sheis driving her burro out to the trail before the Red Cabeza comes to hissenses."

  Billy's eyes, indeed, opened on the departing flash of her garments."You didn't lose much time," he commented, with a quizzical glanceupward. "Well, to the victor the spoils--or the rejection thereof. Thatwas a peach of a punch--the bum left, too, wasn't it?" The old merrylook flashing out again from the blood and bruises, he asked: "How'llyou trade? In exchange for one admission from you I'm willing to grantyou're right."

  "Shoot!" Seyd grinned.

  "Would you have been as careful of the proprieties if the senorita wereout of the case?"

  Smiling, Seyd raised doubtful shoulders. "_Quien sabe_, senor?"

  "Ahem!" Billy coughed. "Now you justify the continuance of my wretchedexistence. All the same, while it may be correct in theory your darnedmorality is mighty uncomfortable practice. That girl could cook. Thenext time you fall in love please--"

  "_Now_, what are you talking about?"

  "What have I done?"

  Before his look of hopeless surprise Seyd's anger faded. "I beg yourpardon. Of course you didn't know, but--I'm already married."

  "You?"

  "Me." With grim sarcasm he added, "And you know that it is against thelaw of both God and man for a married man to fall in love."

  Feeling dimly that something was expected of him, but debarred fromcongratulations by the other's irony, Billy floundered, bringing severalattempts at speech to a lame conclusion. "When--when did it--happen?"

  "Happen? That's it." Seyd jumped at the word. "It _happened_ in NewMexico three years ago when I was down there 'experting' the Calumetgroup. She was the daughter of a mine foreman, pretty and neat as agrouse in the fall, but of the hopelessly common type. I don't have todescribe her. You've seen them, in pairs, swinging their skirts alongthe boardwalks of any small town, their eyes on every man and a burstof giggles always on tap. I should never have paid her any seriousattention if several of her admirers hadn't done me the honor of gettingjealous. Until one big lou
t warned me to leave her alone under penaltyof broken bones it was never more than a mild flirtation, but after thatI went deeper--so deep that it was soon impossible for me to withdraw.At least, I thought it was then, though I have since come to regard mymarriage with her almost as a crime. You see, I thought it would breakher heart, but in less than a week after the marriage I discovered thatshe was nothing but a bundle of small vanities bound up in a prettyskin, that she hadn't a thought above the money and position sheexpected to gain through me. And how she changed! As a girl she wassoft, fluffy, and innocent as a kitten, but one by one her smallvanities and frivolities developed into appetites and passions, and Iawoke to the fact that she was altogether animal--a beautiful animal,prettier than ever in her young wifehood, but without the slightestcapacity for intellectual or spiritual development.

  "If that had been all--one can love a handsome horse or a dog, and Ihave seen women of as low a type to be lifted out of themselves by thestrength of their love. But she was absolutely selfish--loved onlyherself. What made it even more unbearable, she was conceited with thesupreme conceit of absolute ignorance that scorns all that is unknownto itself. She would try to impose her own inch-and-a-half notions ofthings upon me, and she did not hesitate to pit the scraps of knowledgeshe had picked up around the mines against my professional training. Shewas bound to remold me on her own crude model. Actual wickedness wouldhave been easier to bear, and I can assure you that the third month ofour married life found me absolutely miserable. Fortunately, I receiveda commission just then to 'expert' a group of Mexican mines, and, as shepreferred civilization as it goes in New Mexico to the hardships of atrip through the Sonora desert, I left her behind. Later I came south ona prospecting trip through the Sierra Madres, and have never seen hersince."

  All through he had spoken with the furious vehemence of a man easing aload off his mind. Thrusting a letter into Billy's hand, he finished,walking away: "Read that--I got it at the station yesterday. It revealsmore than I could tell you in the next twenty-four hours."

  And it surely did. The stiff round hand, as much as the bald statementof want and desires, revealed a nature blind to all but its own ends.Every phrase was a cry or complaint. He had no business to go off andleave her alone! All her friends agreed that it was a "shame and adisgrace." But he needn't think that she would stand such treatmentforever! He had better come home, and that at once! So far she hadn'ttried to "better herself." But it wasn't for lack of the chance! Therewas a gentleman--no fresh dude or college guy, but a rich mining man,eminently respectable, who had shown a decided interest! He (Seyd) hadbetter look out. Thus and so did the awkward hand run over many pages,and, while Billy's eye followed, his expression gradually settled incomplete disgust.

  "Hopelessly common! You poor chap," he muttered, looking after Seyd, whowas now helping Caliban to arrange the goods as he carried them from themules into the adobe. "To think that you have had this on your mind allthis time!" After a moment's reflection he added, "But--married orunmarried, you are still in love."

  Unaware of this frank opinion, Seyd went on arranging the stores. Whileworking, the eager vehemence of his manner settled into heavy brooding,and it was not for some time that a cheerful flash indicated his arrivalat some conclusion.

  "I've got it!" he murmured. And turning so suddenly that Caliban droppedthe package he was carrying in, he asked, "Hast thou any acquaintance atSan Nicolas?"

  Reassured that the strange gringo madness was not to be vented on him,the hunchback nodded. "One of the kitchen women is daughter to mysister."

  He nodded again in answer to a second question as to whether his niececould convey certain information to the senorita Francesca's ear?

  "_Si_, there is always gossip moving among the women. It could bepassed through Rosa, her maid."

  For a man who had just taken offense at the very suggestion that he wasin love Seyd's face expressed a surprising amount of satisfaction. Alittle sheepishly he now went on: "It must be that thou wouldst care tosee thy relative? To-morrow is Sunday, and, as thy service has beengood, it shall be a holiday, and thou shalt have a mule to ride to SanNicolas."

  To tell the truth, the hunchback did not seem overjoyed at the prospect,at least not until Seyd tossed a silver peso on the table. "This is tobuy thee meat and drink by the way, and if it be that thy niece canwhisper--"

  His beady eyes glittering with comprehension, the hunchback broke in,"That the dove flew at thy coming. She shall know it, senor--also fromwhose hand she came hither."

  The quickness with which the fellow leaped to his meaning was ratherdisconcerting, and Seyd blushed. But, commanding his guilty colors, hebrazened it out. "But see! She is not to know that it proceeds from me."

  "_Si_, senor." The man's quick grin indicated an unearthlycomprehension. "It will be a bit of gossip from the mouth of amuleteer."

  It was at this juncture that Billy, who had just returned to work afterwashing the blood from his face, heard a cheerful whistling inside.When, an hour later, he went in to help with supper he found Seyd hisusual cheerful self. Next morning his spirits were still higher, but didnot attain their meridian until Caliban departed for San Nicolas,bravely attired in a gaudy suit which he had dug from some obscurecorner of the stable. Toward evening, however, a touch of anxietydampened his mood. It might almost have been regarded as premonitory ofthe news Caliban delivered in the dusk outside.

  "The senorita Francesca has gone to visit her mother's people atCuernavaca. It is not known when she will return."

  "Very well; thou hast done thy share," Seyd answered.

  His quiet tone, however, did not deceive the hunchback. "Did I not saythese gringos were a mad people?" he demanded of Calixto, showing twopesos by the light of the stable lantern. "He pays me a peso to bringhim good news, and gives me two when I return with bad--and to thinkthat I was minded to feed him lies. Truly, there is no knowing when tohave them! 'Tis the truth serves best with fools and gringos."