by Zane Grey
A name came from the muffled lips. It was “Pablo.”
Valencia’s brain was lit by a flash of understanding. “Pablo is your lover. Is it not so, niña?”
The dark crown of soft hair moved up and down in assent. “Oh, Doña, he was, but—”
“You have quarreled with him?”
Miss Valdés burned with impatience, but some instinct told her she could not hurry the girl.
“Si, Señorita. He quarreled. He said—”
“Yes?”
“—that…that Señor Gordon…”
Again, groping for the truth, Valencia found it swiftly.
“You mean that Pablo was jealous?”
“Because I had nursed Señor Gordon, because he was kind to me, because—” Juanita had lifted her face to answer. As she spoke the color poured into her cheeks even to her throat, convicting evidence of the cruel embarrassment she felt.
Valencia’s hand dropped to her side. When she spoke again the warmth had been banished from her voice. “I see. You nursed Mr. Gordon, did you?”
Juanita’s eyes fell before the cold accusation in those of Miss Valdés. “Si, Señorita.”
“And he was kind to you? In what way kind?”
The slim Mexican girl, always of the shyest, was bathed in blushes. “He called me…niña. He…”
“—made love to you.”
A sensation as if the clothes were being torn from her afflicted Juanita. Why did the Doña drag her heart out to look at it? Nor did the girl herself know how much or how little Richard Gordon’s gay camaraderie meant. She was of that type of women who love all that are kind to them. No man had ever been so considerate as this handsome curly-headed American. So dumbly her heart went out to him and made the most of his friendliness. Had he not once put his arm around her shoulder and told her to “buck up” when he came upon her crying because of Pedro? Had he not told her she was the prettiest girl in the neighborhood? And had he not said, too, that she was a little angel for nursing him so patiently?
“Doña, I—do—not—know.” The words came out as if they were being dragged from her. Poor Juanita would have liked the ground to open up and swallow her.
“Don’t you know, you little stupid, that he is playing with you, that he will not marry you?”
“If Doña Valencia says so,” murmured the Mexican submissively.
“Men are that way, heartless…selfish…vain. But I suppose you led him on,” concluded Valencia cruelly.
With a little flare of spirit Juanita looked up. Her courage was for her friend, not for herself.
“Señor Gordon is good. He is kind.”
“A lot you know about it, child. Have nothing to do with him. His love can only hurt a girl like you. Go back to your Pablo and forget the American. I will see he does not trouble you again.”
Juanita began to cry again. She did not want Señorita Valdés or anybody else interfering between her and the friend she had nursed. But she knew she could not stop this imperative young woman from doing as she pleased.
“Now tell me how you know that Pablo has gone to injure the American. Did he tell you so?”
“No-o.”
“Well, what did he say? What is it that you know?” Valencia’s shoe tapped the floor impatiently. “Tell me—tell me!”
“He—Pablo—met me at the corral the day he left. I was in the kitchen and he whistled to me.” Juanita gave the information sullenly. Why should Señorita Valdés treat her so harshly? She had done no wrong.
“Yes. Go on!”
If she had had the force of character Juanita would have turned on her heel and walked away. But all her life it had been impressed upon her that the will of a Valdés was law to her and her class.
“I do not know… Pablo told me nothing…but he laughed at me, oh, so cruelly! He asked if I…had any messages for my Gringo lover.”
“Is that all?”
“All…except that he would show me what happened to foreign devils who stole my love from him. Oh, Señorita, do you think he will kill the American?”
Valencia, her white lips pressed tightly together, gave no answer. She was thinking.
“I hate Pablo. He is wicked. I will never speak to him again,” moaned Juanita helplessly.
Manuel, coming out of the post-office with his mail, looked at the weeping girl incuriously. It was, he happened to know, a habit of the sex to cry over trifles.
Juanita found in a little nod from Miss Valdés permission to leave. She turned and walked hurriedly away to the adobe cabin where she slept. Before she reached it the walk had become a run.
“Has the young woman lost a ribbon or a lover?” commented Pesquiera, with a smile.
“Manuel, I am worried,” answered Valencia irrelevantly.
“What about, my cousin?”
“It’s this man Gordon again. Juanita says that Pablo and Sebastian have gone to kill him.”
“Gone where?”
“To Santa Fé. They asked for a leave of absence. You know how sullen and suspicious Sebastian is. It is fixed firmly in his head that Mr. Gordon is going to take away his farm.”
Manuel’s black eyes snapped. He did not propose to let any peons steal from him the punishment he owed this insolent Gordon.
“But Pablo is not a fool. Surely he knows he cannot do such a mad thing.”
“Pablo is jealous—and hot-headed.” The angry color mounted to the cheeks of the young woman. “He is in love with Juanita and he found out this stranger has been philandering with her. It is abominable. This Gordon has made the silly little fool fall in love with him.”
“Oh, if Pablo is jealous—” Pesquiera gave a little shrug of his shoulders. He understood pretty well the temperament of the ignorant Mexican. The young lover was likely to shoot first and think afterward.
Valencia was still thinking of the American. Beneath the olive of her cheeks two angry spots still burned. “I detest that sort of thing. I thought he was a gentleman—and he is only a male flirt…or worse.”
“Perhaps—and perhaps not, my cousin. Did Juanita tell you—?”
“She told me enough. All I need to know.”
Again the young man’s shoulders lifted in a little gesture of humorous resignation. He knew the uncompromising directness of Miss Valdés and the futility of arguing with her. After all, the character of Gordon was none of his business. The man might have made love to Juanita, though he did not look like that kind of a person. In any case the important thing was to save his life.
After a moment’s thought he announced a decision. “I shall take the stage for Santa Fé this afternoon. When I have warned the American I’ll round up your man-hunters and bring them back to you.”
His lady’s face thanked him, though her words did not. “You may tell them I said they were to come back at once.”
At her cousin’s urgent request Miss Valdés stayed to eat luncheon with him at Corbett’s, which was a half-way station for the stage and maintained a public eating-house. Even Valencia hesitated a little at this, though she was at heart an emancipated American girl and not a much-chaperoned Spanish maid. But she wanted to repay him for the service he was undertaking so cheerfully, and therefore sacrificed her scruples.
As they were being served by Juanita the stage rolled up and disgorged its passengers. They poured into the dining-room—a mine-owner and his superintendent, a storekeeper from the village at the other end of the valley, a young woman school-teacher from the Indian reservation, a cattleman, and two Mexican sheepmen.
While the fresh horses were being hitched to the stage Pesquiera and his guest stood back a little apart from the others. Corbett brought out a sack containing mail and handed it to the driver. The passengers found again their places.
Pesquie
ra shook hands with Valencia. His gaze rested for a moment in her dark eyes.
“Adios, linda,” he said, in a low voice.
The color deepened in her cheeks. She understood that he was telling her how very much he was her lover now and always. “Good-bye, amigo,” she answered lightly.
Pesquiera took his place on the back seat. The whip of the driver cracked. In a cloud of white dust the stage disappeared around a bend in the road.
Valencia ordered her horse brought, and left for the ranch. Having dispatched Manuel to the scene of action, it might be supposed that she would have awaited the issue without farther activity. But on the way home she began to reflect that her cousin would not reach Santa Fé until next morning, and there was always a chance that this would be too late. As soon as she reached the ranch she called up the station where the stage connected with the train. To the operator she dictated a message to be wired to Richard Gordon. The body of it ran thus:
“Have heard that attack may be made upon your life. Please do not go out alone or at night at all. Answer.”
She gave urgent instructions that if necessary to reach Gordon her telegram be sent to every hotel in the city and to his lawyer, Thomas M. Fitt.
Now that she had done all she could the young woman tried to put the matter out of her mind by busying herself with the affairs of the ranch. She had a talk with a cattle buyer, after which she rode out to see the engineer who had charge of the building of the irrigation system she had installed. An answer would, she was sure, be awaiting her upon her return home.
Her anticipation was well founded. One of the housemaids told her that the operator at San Jacinto had twice tried to get her on the telephone. The mistress of the ranch stepped at once to the receiver.
“Give me San Jacinto,” she said to the operator.
As soon as she was on the wire with the operator he delivered the message he had for her. It was from Santa Fé and carried the signature of Stephen Davis:
“Gordon has been missing since last night. I fear the worst. For God’s sake, tell me what you know.”
Valencia leaned against the telephone receiver and steadied herself. She felt strangely faint. The wall opposite danced up and down and the floor swayed like the deck of a vessel in a heavy sea. She set her teeth hard to get a grip on herself. Presently the wave of light-headedness passed.
She moved across the room and sank down into a chair in front of her desk. They had then murdered him after all. She and her people were responsible for his death. There was nothing to be done now—nothing at all.
Then, out of the silence, a voice seemed to call to her—the voice of Richard Gordon, faint and low, but clear. She started to her feet and listened, shaken to the soul by this strange summons from that world which lay beyond the reach of her physical senses. What could it mean? She had the body of a healthy young animal. Her nerves never played her any tricks. But surely there had come to her a call for help not born of her own excited fancy.
In an instant she had made up her mind. Her finger pressed an electric button beside the desk, and almost simultaneously a second one. The maid who appeared in the doorway in answer to the first ring found her mistress busily writing.
Valencia looked up. “Rosario, pack a suitcase for me with clothes for a week. Put in my light brown dress and a couple of shirt-waists. I’ll be up presently.” Her gaze passed to the major domo who now stood beside the maid. “I’m going to Santa Fé to-night, Fernando. Order the grays to be hitched to the buggy.”
“To-night! But, Señorita, the train has gone.”
“Juan will go with me. We’ll drive right through. My business is important.”
“But it is seventy miles to Santa Fé, and part of the way over mountain roads,” he protested.
“Yes. We should reach there by morning. I mean to travel all night. Make the arrangements, please, and tell Juan. Then return here. I want to talk over with you the ranch affairs. You will have charge of the ditches, too, during my absence. Don’t argue, Fernando, but do as I say.”
The old man had opened his mouth to object, but he closed it without voicing his views. A little smile, born of his pride in her wilfulness, touched his lips and wrinkled the parchment skin. Was she not a Valdés? He had served her father and her grandfather. To him, therefore, she could do no wrong.
CHAPTER XV
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
The night of his disappearance Dick had sauntered forth from the hotel with the jaunty assurance to Davis that he was going to call on a young lady. He offered no further details, and his friend asked for none, though he wondered a little what young woman in Santa Fé had induced Gordon to change his habits. The old miner had known him from boyhood. His partner had never found much time for the society of eligible maidens. He had been too busy living to find tea-cup discussions about life interesting. The call of adventure had absorbed his youth, and he had given his few mature years ardently to the great American game of money-making. It was not that he loved gold. What Richard Gordon cared for was the battle, the struggle against both honorable and unscrupulous foe-men for success. He fought in the business world only because it was the test of strength. Money meant power. So he had made money.
It was not until Dick failed to appear for breakfast next morning that Davis began to get uneasy. He sent a bellboy to awaken Gordon, and presently the lad came back with word that he could get no answer to his knocks. Instantly Steve pushed back his chair and walked out of the room to the desk in the lobby.
“Got a skeleton key to Mr. Gordon’s room—317, I think it is?” he demanded.
“Yes. We keep duplicate keys. You see, Mr. Davis, guests go away and carry the keys—”
“Then I want it. Afraid something’s wrong with my friend. He’s always up early and on hand for breakfast. He hasn’t showed up this mo’ning. The bell hop can’t waken him. I tell you something’s wrong.”
“Oh, I reckon he’ll turn up all right.” The clerk turned to the key rack. “Here’s the key to Room 317. Mr. Gordon must have left it here. Likely he’s gone for a walk.”
Davis shook his head obstinately. “Don’t believe it. I’m going up to see, anyhow.”
Within five minutes he discovered that the bed in Room 317 had not been slept in the previous night. He was thoroughly alarmed. Gordon had no friends in the town likely to put him up for the night. Nor was he the sort of rounder to dissipate his energies in all-night debauchery. Dick had come to Santa Fé for a definite purpose. The old miner knew from long experience that he would not be diverted from it for the sake of the futile foolish diversions known by some as pleasure. Therefore the mind of Davis jumped at once to the conclusion of foul play.
And if foul play, then the Valdés claimants to the Rio Chamo Valley were the guilty parties. He blamed himself bitterly for having let Dick venture out alone, for having taken no precautions whatever to guard him against the Mexicans who had already once attempted his life.
“I’m a fine friend. Didn’t even find out who he was going out to call on. Fact is, I didn’t figure he was in any danger so long as he was in town here,” he explained to the sheriff.
He learned nothing either at the police headquarters or at the newspaper offices that threw light on the disappearance of Gordon. No murder had been reported during the night. No unusual disturbance of any kind had occurred, so far as could be learned.
Before noon he had the town plastered with posters in English and in Spanish offering a reward of five hundred dollars for news leading to the recovery of Richard Gordon or for evidence leading to the conviction of his murderers in case he was dead. This brought two callers to the hotel almost at once. One was the attorney Fitt, the other a young woman who gave her name as Kate Underwood. Fitt used an hour of the old miner’s time to no purpose, but the young woman brought with her one piece of news.
The little man got to his feet in great excitement. “My dear young woman, you’re the very person I’ve been wanting to see. He told me he was going calling, but I’m such a darned chump I didn’t think to ask where. Is Dick a friend of your family?”
“No, hardly that. I met him when he came to our office in the State House to look up the land grant papers. We became friendly and I asked him to call because we own the old Valdés house, and I thought he would like to see it.” She added, rather dryly: “You haven’t answered my question.”
“I’ll say that so far as I know you are the last person who ever saw Dick alive except his murderers,” Davis replied, a gleam of tears in his eyes.
“Oh, it can’t be as bad as that,” she cried. “They wouldn’t go that far.”
“Wouldn’t they? He was shot at from ambush while we were out riding one day in the Chama Valley.”
“By whom?”
“By a young Mexican—one of Miss Valdés servants.”
“You don’t mean that Valencia—?”
She stopped, unwilling to put her horrified thought into words. He answered her meaning.
“No, I reckon not. She wanted Dick to tell her who it was, so she could punish the man. But that doesn’t alter the facts any. He was shot at. That time the murderer missed, but maybe this time—”
Miss Underwood broke in sharply. “Do you know that he has been followed ever since he came to town, that men have dogged his steps everywhere?”
Davis leaned across the table where he was sitting. “How do you know?” he questioned eagerly.
“I saw them and warned him. He laughed about it and said he knew already. He didn’t seem at all worried.”
“Worried! He’s just kid enough to be tickled to death about it,” snapped the miner, masking his anxiety with irritation. “He hadn’t sense enough to tell me for fear it would disturb me—and I hadn’t the sense to find out in several days what you did in five minutes.”
