by Max Brand
“There will be something more than talk in a day or so. See those two heads together.”
So said some one in the procession of riders near to her. Constancia looked ahead, seeing de los Pazos and Guadalvo sitting their horses, side by side, in close conference. She looked back in her mind to other things—to the dreamy brown eyes that had seemed to look through her and have no knowledge of her as she walked past on the deck of the Santa Lucia—to the flashing arc of a man’s body diving over the rail and then cleaving through the deep waters of the ocean—to the wild man who had leaped from behind the rocks and charged down upon them for the sake of Christy, like a tiger upon a dog pack—to the form that had thrust open her door and strode toward her, making her eyes dim as she pulled the trigger of her revolver.
She stared at him again as he sat beside de los Pazos. He was not far away, and yet he was as distant and unknown as the farthest star in the heavens. A thing to be guessed at rather than known.
Chapter 14
Twice they shifted the angling course of their march. Once, looking down from the lofty shoulder of a mountain, they saw a long cloudy streak of white across the face of the sandy plain below them. The soldiers of the president, marching in pursuit of the bandits. And those hardy rascals looked and laughed. How sublime was their faith in their leaders.
Then, in a gray morning, they came out of a mountain defile and swept down toward a little valley, round as a basin, and green as an emerald, with a dozen watercourses streaking it with silver. The line of riders opened out, ten yards between each man. They looked, as they rode, like a long, supple, curving whip. Like a whip, they curled around that little valley and drove all that lived into a central pool. Horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and vaqueros, goatherds, villagers all were assembled on the bank of the river beneath the great sabina trees.
“You may be the judge, Valentin, my son,” said de los Pazos. “You should have training in these affairs. Suppose that a bullet should snuff me out, one of these days? My men must not be left without light.”
Guadalvo sat on a rock on the edge of the river. The captives went before him, one by one. Besides Guadalvo he had selected three poor men, two goatherds, and a ragged beggar.
“What is this man?” he would say.
“That is Domingo, the moneylender.”
“But a kind moneylender, is he not? He lets the day go by and waits for his money?”
“Alas, señor, business is business with Domingo.”
“Gualterio, take our friend Domingo. Talk to him and learn where he keeps his money. Perhaps you will have to persuade him. When you find what he has, take what you think is a fair share. Now who is this man?” He would point to another.
“That is Agustin Almadares, the rich owner of sheep. It was he who loaned me enough to make a beginning of my flock.”
“That is enough. For that kind act to a poor man, Almadares, you are free. Let the next man step out.”
So ran the judgments. Constancia listened and wondered. It was all very swift. When it was ended, they left the little valley with fat spoil in cattle and fleet-footed goats, to say nothing of hard cash. Yet she felt that there was little bitterness left behind the plunderers. There had been a certain justice in all that was done. She herself wondered at it. However, perhaps Don Valentin was a little more lenient than the chief would have had him.
“Justice, my son,” said de los Pazos, “is sometimes a luxury. You must remember that.”
Now they wound away through the steep mountains, driving their spoil before them. They had taken enough. All hearts were happy. Their valley homes were not far away. They came down into the long gorge, and Constancia, staring at the twisting line of adobe houses, wondered why it was that the government troops had failed to destroy the nest of these wasps, once they had mastered the place.
“I’ll tell you about that,” said one of the brigands of whom she asked that question. “Too many of those fellows did not know when they would be wanting to find a home in one of those same cottages.”
That, perhaps, was the answer.
A rider came spurring to meet them. Other riders came in his wake, shouting and waving their hats. People began to gather in front of the houses, like little spots of moving color in the distance.
That first messenger carried news that had a meaning for Constancia. Word had come into the mountains that the president of the republic had considered the matters proposed to him by Señor Alvarez. He would gladly liberate Lila de los Pazos in exchange for Constancia. But as for Guadalvo—he was something too much beside the mark.
Constancia, fixing her eyes on the face of Guadalvo, saw that his expression had not changed. He bore this news with the faintest of smiles. A sort of helpless rage swelled the heart of the girl. If she could once startle him from his self-control—if she could see him again, as he had been on the never-forgotten day when he fought for Christy against such great odds.
She was given a place in a hovel halfway down the scattering street of the village. In a cracked half of a mirror she saw herself for the first time in long, long days. She was a new creature. Her clothes were tatters. Her black hair was sun-faded a trifle here and there. Her face was a deep, deep walnut brown, with a big gray streak across the cheek where a chaparral thorn had scraped a day before. The palms of her hands were bruised with work. She looked, indeed, like one who has really faced a long and mighty storm.
From this same storm and stress, Guadalvo emerged cheerful. But it was a false smoothness, she felt. Once she could strike beneath the surface, she was certain that the tiger would show its head as she had seen it before.
At least, physical hardships had ended. The old woman who kept the house cooked and cleaned. There was nothing for the girl to do except to fill up the long, idle hours as best she might.
Evening came. A great bonfire was lighted in the rude little plaza that composed the center of the village, where the goats cropped the grass short in the day and the gossips gathered in the evening. In honor of the return of Don Guido, there was rejoicing on this day of days.
Guitars were thrumming, castanets clattered musically, and around the light of the fire the girls whirled through their dances. They danced alone, until, at a given signal, which was a shrill screech uttered by one of the men, the cavaliers also sprang into the circle. Each chose the lady of his pleasure, and they whirled through a breathless measure or two.
Constancia watched. She watched with a smile, and then with her head nodding to the rhythm.
Don Valentin himself stood among the onlookers. The signal came, and he stepped forward leisurely, while the other men sprang like panthers. He stepped forward at ease, sure of himself. Constancia saw that same pretty vixen, Teresa, dodge past the outstretched fingers of two other admirers and come laughingly home to the arms of this Guadalvo. How enchanted was Teresa to dance with so great a man. How her eyes shone, and her face flushed, until she outshone the other girls as the moon outshines the brightest stars.
The dance ended, and there stood Guadalvo, his arms folded, mildly amused, smiling on the merriment. It angered Constancia, and it something more than angered her. She felt that she hated this Teresa, and yet she had no reason for hatred. It was simply a burning thing in her breast, without a reason.
Now see Constancia hastily at work. She thrusts from the garden of the little house a great red rose in her hair, and she pins a cluster of slender buds at her breast. Her ancient hostess looks on with a toothless grin of understanding and of excitement. And she brings suddenly a net of opalescent spangles that she throws over the shoulders of the girl.
Before the cracked fragment of a mirror, Constancia turns herself about and about. There are plenty of tatters still to be seen, but the spangles are a brilliant veil. The rose in her hair is a blur of color—and she hurries out into the night.
Through the outer circle of the watchers she passes, unnoticed. But as the dance began again, and as the girls whirled through their steps with the yellow tides of fireli
ght washing about them, Constancia danced in turn. She knew those steps of her native country. She knew, also, certain refinements of grace that dancing masters in older and politer lands had schooled her in. When she began her dancing, she did not need the rattle of a castanet to call attention to her steps.
She saw the face of Teresa, with the dancer’s smile frozen on her lips and her eyes big with anger and envy. But the others were not even close enough to rival her. They could wonder and applaud with smiles and nods, like so many men.
And the men? She saw them sit up and then come to their feet. She saw their eyes glistening, and the white flash of their teeth as they smiled in appreciation. But that was not all. Yonder, Guadalvo, the proud and the complacent—what of him? She saw that his smile had gone out, and that was her first triumph. She saw that his face had grown stern, and that was the second step.
But here was the tall, grim figure of Gualterio. Before him she danced—for him she danced—for him she smiled, but, ever from the corner of her eyes, she watched closely the face of Guadalvo. It was not a hard look to read and the print was not exceedingly small. In another man, she would have called this jealousy, plain and simple. Why not in Guadalvo himself, for he was mortal?
The screeching signal sounded. Gualterio, his face aflame, started toward her, but she spun away. She whirled toward Guadalvo through the crowd and saw him suddenly leap forward to meet her. There was no calm complacency in him, now. He came with a set face and a stern eye. Almost in his touch, she floated back like a feather before the wind—Gualterio and Guadalvo met at the same instant.
The tremendous bass of Gualterio was crying: “She is mine, Valentin! I touched her first!”
“Gualterio,” said the other, “you are wrong.”
“Do you tell me that I lie, Valentin?” The music had fallen into an uncertain melody. The dancers were ceasing on every side. She heard the voice of de los Pazos shouting in the distance and coming rapidly closer, sternly commanding them not to touch one another.
But they had gone much too far to stop. She herself stood between them. The great hard-fingered hand of Gualterio gripped one of her arms. That of Guadalvo held the other. Their chests were rising and falling rapidly. Their eyes flashed at each other. These were the men who had been in the habit of calling one another brother. She remembered that, and laughed softly in her heart of hearts.
“This is not a place to be taking advantage of your place as lieutenant, Valentin.”
“You use me, Gualterio, because I have been kind to you.”
“Do you accuse me of that?”
“I do.”
“Then you lie.”
“Have a care.”
“Bah. Guadalvo, I despise you. This is for your heart.”
High words and even a blow, perhaps, she had expected. But this was something more. She saw the knife leave its sheath at the belt of Gualterio. It flashed in the firelight like a streak of crimson, straight at the throat of Stephen Macdona. But the latter was a shade faster. He had not waited to draw either gun or knife. A set of hard knuckles thudded against the jawbone of Gualterio and turned his eyes to glass. He fell on his face, with the knife rattling on a stone, far away.
Over him Macdona leaned for an instant, his whole body tense, until it seemed to the girl that he would throw himself on the stunned form of Castellar.
He recalled himself instantly, however, threw a wild glance at her, and walked hastily through the circle and away into the black of the night.
Chapter 15
Out of the midnight, Stephen Macdona came to the door of the hovel where Constancia was a prisoner, and she herself heard him parley with the old woman.
“Is Señorita Alvarez here?”
“Yes, Don Valentin. But she . . .”
“No more talk. Tell her that I wish to speak with her. Quickly. Then go off and study this by the light of the moon. Quickly.”
“De los Pazos has told me.”
“Here is something more. Forget de los Pazos. These are new orders, so far as you are concerned.”
The hand of the crone touched the shoulder of Constancia. “Waken and dress quickly. It is Don Valentin
himself.”
The old woman was gone; Constancia, as she dressed, heard the harsh, dry coughing of her guardian outside the house, hurrying away.
She came from the inner room and saw the black silhouette of a man in the outer doorway.
When he saw her, he said in a shaken voice: “Will you come out of this darkness under the open sky, Constancia?”
She went silently past him and stood beside the hedge, with the narrow cypress behind her pointing like a dark finger at the white stars above. Yonder, in the black square of the plaza, the dying fire had sunk to a sullen red eye that watched them.
“I have tried to keep away from you,” he said, standing at a little distance. “I went out and rode up and down through the valley. I have even tried to leave the valley, Constancia, but I could not. I have lost my pride. I am beaten. I have come back here to surrender.”
“You say it fiercely,” said the girl.
“Because I despise myself. But I cannot help it. I love you to a madness, Constancia. When I saw you in the circle about the fire, willing to dance with those ruffians, I felt that I had dragged you down and degraded you to that. And it snatched away the last bit of my sense and self-control. I began to pity you. Then I was helpless.”
“What shall I say?”
“Tell me whatever you please. Tell me that I am a fool for confessing these things to you.”
“I only remind you that, when we sat together on the deck of the Santa Lucia, you told me then that the sort of man who won me would treat me . . . as you treated your horse, Don Valentin.”
“I believe it still. Only a man strong enough to do that can conquer you. But I am not strong enough. I tell you, Constancia, when I saw you in the tattered dress and with the tawdry spangles thrown over you, it stabbed me to the heart. And when I saw the red rose in your hair, and the red of your lips, parted and panting, I lost myself. I have not come in hope. But only to confess. I am surely beaten. You may use me as you wish to use me.”
She thought of the shadowy rush of horsemen out of the night and the splendid form of Guadalvo at their head. He had been like a king; now he was like a slave. She was dizzy and weak with the shock of the contrast.
“Then tell me first what you are.”
“I am a penniless adventurer and wanderer. I have no home, no family, no friends. I was driven away from my country because I would have no law but my own pleasure, and I killed men like mountain grouse. My name is Stephen Macdona. Everything else that I have seemed to be is a pretense and a lie.”
She was very glad that she had the cypress behind her. She put back a hand now, gripped a slender branch, and steadied herself. “Then tell me this . . . it was you who suggested to de los Pazos that he come to my father’s ranch and steal me away in the place of his daughter. De los Pazos would never have dared to think of such a thing by himself. It was you?”
“It was I,” he admitted.
“And then you determined that you would break my spirit as you had broken the spirit of Christy, before me?”
“Yes, I thought that that was the only way in which you could ever come to love any man. To be mastered, Constancia.”
“And when I was proud and surrounded with servants and with wealth . . . why, then you could treat me coldly enough. But when I went and danced by the firelight, like any beggar might have . . .”
“Yes. I could not stand it. There was one thing that unnerved me. A scratch along your cheek. I know that I am a fool. But you see, I am telling you the whole truth. I want you to know what I am . . . a very weak man, but loving you enormously, Constancia.”
She raised her hand, and he bowed his head a little. “You took me from my father’s house, and it is only right that you should take me back again. Will you do that, Stephen Macdona?”
He st
ruck a hand across his face. “Listen to me,” he said. “Guido de los Pazos has been like an older brother to me. There is no kindness that he has not offered to me. Now, if I steal you away from him, I am stealing his own daughter, also.”
“And your own hope of a pardon?”
“Ah, do you think that would trouble me?”
“Look, Stephen Macdona. The night is running away. Will you take me off with you?”
“You tear up my honor like a pieces of paper covered with scribbling. Is there no other thing that will make you forgive me?”
“Nothing.”
“Constancia, if I do this thing, you will despise me afterward. Tell me if that is not true? Oh, I shall talk no more. Be ready in two minutes . . . the horses will be there . . . behind that clump of poplars.”
He was gone, hurrying through the night.
Constancia, watching under the shadow of the cypress, presently saw two glimmering shapes of horses drawn toward the poplars that had been pointed out beforehand. Then she went, hurrying. She found Christy waiting, and a tall and powerfully made gray horse—that same magnificent creature that had been stolen from her father’s ranch. Once in the saddles upon the backs of this pair, there was no question of them being overtaken in their flight.
She was helped in silence to her place on the back of the gray. Stephen Macdona mounted Christy, and it seemed that the horses turned of their own accord up the long side trail that wove across the wall of the valley. There was not a word between them. They worked their way steadily up to a high shoulder of the mountain above. Looking back, they could see the valley, half in shadow and half in the moon, with thin white ribbons of waterfalls leaving the opposite cliff. The murmur of the cascades came up to them like the faintest of voices. Below, pointing east, there was the downward ravine that would lead to the great plains and to safety, for her. She looked to Macdona, as he rode with her out of the shadow and into the moonshine, and she had never seen such torture as was on his face.
She checked the gray. Christy stopped, also.
