by Zane Grey
“You do love me, don’t you, Manuel?” she demanded, a little fiercely. It was as if she wanted to drown any doubts she might have of her own feeling in the certainty of his.
“More than life itself, I do believe,” he cried in a low voice.
Her lithe body turned, so that her shining eyes were close to his.
“Dear Manuel, I am glad. You don’t know how worried I’ve been…still am. Perhaps if I were a man it would be different, but I don’t want my people to take the life of this stranger. But they mean him harm—especially since he has come back and intends to punish Pablo and Sebastian. I want them to let the law take its course. Something tells me that we shall win in the end. I’ve talked to them—and talked—but they say nothing except ‘Si, doña.’ But with you to help me—”
“They’d better not touch him again,” broke in her lover swiftly.
“It’s a great comfort to me, Manuel, that you have blotted out your own quarrel with him. It was magnanimous, what I should expect of you.”
He said nothing, but the hand that lay on hers seemed suddenly to stiffen. A kind of fear ran shivering through her. Quickly she rose from the couch.
“Manuel, tell me that I am right, that you don’t mean to…hurt him?” Her dark eyes searched his unflinchingly. “You don’t mean…you can’t mean…that—?”
“Let us forget the American and remember only that we love, my beloved,” he pleaded.
“No… No!” The voice of the girl was sharp and imperative. “I want the truth. Is it that you are still thinking of murdering him, Manuel?”
The sting of her words brought a flush to his cheeks. “I fight fair, Valencia. I set against his life my own, with all the happiness that has come flooding it. Nor is it that I seek the man’s life. For me he might live a thousand years—and welcome. But my honor—”
“No, Manuel. No—no—no! I will not have it. If you are betrothed to me your life is mine. You shall not risk it in a barbarous duel.”
“Let us change the subject, dear heart.”
“Not till I hear you say that you have given up this wicked intention of yours.”
He gave up the attempt to evade her and met her fairly as one man does another.
“I can’t say that, Valencia, not even for you. This quarrel lies between him and me. I have suffered humiliation and disgrace. Until those are wiped out there must be war between me and the American.”
“Since the day I first wore your ring, Manuel, I have asked nothing of you. I ask now that you will forget the slight this man has put upon you…because I ask it of you with all my heart.”
A slight tremor ran through his blood. He felt himself slipping from his place with her.
“I can’t, Valencia. You don’t know what you ask, how impossible it is for me—a Pesquiera, son of my honored fathers—to grant such a request.” He stretched his hands toward her imploringly.
“Yet you say you love me?”
“Heaven knows whether it is not true, my cousin.”
“You want me to believe that, even though you refuse the first real request I ever made of you?”
“Anything else in the world that is in my power.”
“It is easy to say that, Manuel, when it isn’t something else I want. Give me this American’s life. I shall know, then, that you love me.”
“You know now,” he answered quietly.
“Is love all sighs and vows?” she cried impatiently. “Will it not sacrifice pride and vanity for the object of its devotion?”
“Everything but honor,” answered the man steadfastly.
She made a gesture of despair.
“What is this honor you talk so much about? It is neither Christian nor lawful nor right.”
“It is a part of me, Valencia.”
“Then your ideas are archaic. The duel was for a time when every man had to seek his personal redress. There is law in this twentieth century.”
“Not as between man and man in the case of a personal indignity—at least, not for Manuel Pesquiera.”
“But it is so needless. We know you are brave; he knows it, too. Surely your vanity—”
He smiled a little sadly.
“I think it is not vanity, but something deeper. None of my ancestors could have tolerated this stigma, nor can their son. My will has nothing to do with it, and my desire still less. It is kismet.”
“Then you must know the truth—that if you kill this man I can never—”
“Never what?”
“Never marry you.”
“Why?”
“His blood would stand between us.”
“Do you mean that you—love him?”
Her dark eyes met his steadily.
“I don’t think I mean that, Manuel. How could I mean that, since I love you and am betrothed to you? Sometimes I hate him. He is so insolent in his daring. Then, too, he is my enemy, and he has come here to set this happy valley to hate and evil. Yet, if I should hurt him, it would stand between us forever.”
“I am sorry.”
“Only sorry, Manuel?”
He clamped his teeth on the torrent of protest that rose within him when she handed him back his ring. It would do no good to speak more. The immutable fact stood between them.
“I did not know life could be so hard—and cruel,” she cried out in a burst of passion.
She went to the open window and looked out upon the placid, peaceful valley. She had a swift, supple way of moving, as if her muscles responded with effortless ease to her volition; but the young man noticed that to-night there was a drag to her motions.
His heart yearned toward her. He longed mightily to take her in his arms and tell her that he would do as she wished. But, as he had said, something in him more potent than vanity, than pride, than his will, held him to the course he had set for himself. His views of honor might be archaic and ridiculous, but he lived by his code as tenaciously as had his fathers. Gordon had insulted and humiliated him publicly. He must apologize or give him satisfaction. Until he had done one or the other Manuel could not live at peace with himself. He had put a powerful curb upon his desire to wait as long as he had. Circumstances had for a time taken the matter out of his hands, but the time had come when he meant to press his claims. The American might refuse the duel; he could not refrain from defending himself when Pesquiera attacked.
A step sounded in the doorway, and almost simultaneously a voice.
“Doña, are you here?”
The room was lighted only by the flickering fire; but Valencia, her eyes accustomed to the darkness, recognized the boy as Juan Gardiez.
“Yes, I am here, Juan. What have you to tell me?” she said quickly.
“I do not know, señorita. But the men—Pablo, Sebastian; all of them—are gone.”
“Gone where?” she breathed.
“I do not know. To-day I drove a cow and calf to Willow Springs. I am but returned. The houses are empty. Señor Barela’s wife says she saw men riding up the hill toward Corbett’s—eight, nine, ten of them.”
“To Corbett’s?” She stared whitely at him without moving. “How long ago?”
“An hour ago—or more.”
“Saddle Billy at once and bring him round,” the girl ordered crisply.
She turned as she spoke and went lightly to the telephone. With the need of action, of decision, her hopelessness was gone. There was a hard, bright light in her eyes that told of a resolution inflexible as tempered steel when once aroused.
“Give me Corbett’s—at once, please. Hallo, Central—Corbett’s—”
No answer came, though she called again and again.
“There must be something wrong with the telephone,” suggested Don Manuel.
She dropped the
receiver and turned quietly to him.
“The wires have been cut.”
“But, why? What is it all about?”
“Merely that my men are anticipating you. They have gone to murder the American. Deputy sheriffs from Santa Fé to-day came here to arrest Pablo and Sebastian. The men suspected and were hidden. Now they have gone to punish Mr. Gordon for sending the officers.”
She could not have touched him more nearly. He came to her with burning eyes.
“How do you know? What makes you think so?”
She told him, briefly and simply, giving more detailed reasons.
Without a word, he turned and left her. She could hear him rushing through the hall, traced his progress by the slamming of the door, and presently caught sight of him running toward the corral. He did not hear, or heed, her call for him to wait.
The girl hurried out of the house after him, in time to see him slap a saddle on his bronco, swing to his seat lightly, and gallop in a cloud of dust to the road.
Valencia waited for no more. Quickly running to her room, she slipped on a khaki riding-skirt. Her deft, tapering fingers moved swiftly, so that she was ready, crop in hand, booted and spurred, by the time Juan brought round her horse.
It took but an instant to lift herself to the saddle and send Billy galloping forward.
Already her cousin had disappeared in great clouds of dust over the brow of the hill.
CHAPTER XXII
THE ATTACK
Dick Gordon and Davis were sitting on the porch of their cabin, which was about an eighth of a mile from the main buildings of the Corbett place. They had returned the day before from Santa Fé, along with two deputy sheriffs who had come to arrest Pablo and Sebastian. The officers had scoured the valley for two days, and as yet had not caught a glimpse of the men they had come to get. Their inquiries were all met by a dogged ignorance on the part of the Mexicans, who had of a sudden turned surprisingly stupid. No, they had seen nothing of Pablo or of Sebastian. They knew nobody of that name—unless it was old Pablo Gardiez the señors wished to see. Many strangers desired to see him, for he was more than a hundred years old and still remembered clearly the old days.
Gordon laughed at the discomfiture of his sleuths. “I dare say they may have been talking to the very men they wanted. But everybody hangs together in this valley. I’m going out with them myself to-morrow after the gentlemen the law requires.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that, Dick. With every greaser in the valley simmering against you, it won’t do for you to go trapsing right down among them,” Davis explained.
“That’s where I’m going, anyhow—to-morrow morning. The deputies are staying up at Morrow’s. I’m going to phone ’em to-night that I’ll ride with them to-morrow. Bet you a new hat we flush our birds.”
“What’s the sense of you going into the police business, Dick? I’ll tell you what’s ailing you. You’re just honing to see Miss Valdés again. You want to go grand-standing around making her mad at you some more.”
“You’re a wiz, Steve,” admitted his friend dryly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do want to see her again. Why shouldn’t I?”
“What good does it do you when you quarrel all the time you’re together? She’s declared herself already on this proposition—told the deputies flat-footed that she wouldn’t tell them anything and would help her boys to escape in any way she could. You’re just like a kid showing off his muscle before a little girl in the first grade.”
“All right, Steve. You don’t hear me denying it.”
“Denying it,” snapped the old miner. “Hmp! Lot of good that would do. You’re fair itching to get a chance to go down to the ranch and swagger around in plain sight of her lads. You’d be tickled to death if you could cut out the two you want and land them here in spite of her and Don Manuel and the whole pack of them. Don’t I know you? Nothing but vanity—that’s all there’s to it.”
“He’s off,” murmured Dick with a grin to the scenery.
“You make me tired. Why don’t you try a little horse sense for a change? Honest, if you was a few years younger I’d put you acrost my knee and spank you.”
Gordon lit a cigarette, but did not otherwise contribute to the conversation.
“Ain’t she wearing another man’s ring?” continued Davis severely. “What’s bitin’ you, anyhow? How many happy families you want to break up? First off, there’s Pablo and Juanita. You fill up her little noodle with the notion that—”
Dick interrupted amiably. “Go to grass, you old granny. I’ve been putting in my spare time since I came back letting Juanita understand the facts. If she had any wrong notions she ain’t got them any longer. She’s all ready to kiss and make up with Pablo first chance she gets.”
“Then there’s Miss Valdés and this Pesky fellow, who’s the whitest brown man I ever did see. Didn’t he run his fool laigs off getting you free so you could go back and make love to his girl?”
“He’s the salt of the earth. I’m for Don Manuel strong. But I don’t reckon Miss Valdés would work well in harness with him,” explained Dick.
Steve Davis snorted. “No, you reckon Dick Gordon would, though. Don’t you see she’s of his people—same customs, same ways, same—”
“She’s no more of his people than she is of mine. Her mother was an American girl. She was educated in Washington. New Mexico is in America, not in Spain. Don’t forget that, you old croaker.”
“Well, she’s engaged, ain’t she? And to a good man. It ain’t your put in.”
“A good one, but the wrong one. It’s a woman’s privilege to change her mind. I’m here to help her change it,” announced the young man calmly. “Say, look at Jimmie Corbett hitting the high spots this way.”
Jimmie, not yet recovered from a severe fright, stopped to explain the adventure that had befallen him while he had been night fishing.
“I seen spooks, Mr. Gordon—hundreds of ’em—coming down the river bank on horseback—honest to goodness, I did.”
“Jimmie, if I had your imagination—”
But Davis cut into Dick’s smiling incredulity:
“Did you say on horseback, Jimmie?”
“Yes, sir, on horseback. Hope to die if they weren’t—’bout fifty of them.”
“You better run along home before they catch you, Jimmie,” advised the old miner gravely.
The boy went like a streak of light. Davis turned quietly to his partner.
“I reckon it’s come, Dick.”
“You believe the boy did see some men on horseback? It might have been only shadows.”
“No, sir. His imagination wouldn’t have put spooks on horseback. We got no time to argue. You going to hold the fort here or take to the hills?”
“You think they mean to attack us in the open?”
“They’re hoping to surprise us, I reckon. That’s why they’re coming along the creek instead of the road. Hadn’t ’a’ been for Jimmie, they would have picked us off from the porch before we could say ‘Jack Robinson.’”
Both men had at once stepped within the log cabin, and, as they talked, were strapping on ammunition belts and looking to their rifles and revolvers.
“There are too many doors and windows to this cabin. We can’t hold it against them. We’ll take the trail from the back door that leads up to the old spring. From up there we’ll keep an eye on them,” said Dick.
“I see ’em coming,” cried the older man softly from the front window. “They ain’t on the trail, but slipping up through the rocks. One—two—three—four—Lord, there’s no end to the beggars! They’re on foot now. Left their hawsses, I expect, down by the river.”
Quietly the two men stepped from the back door of the cabin and swiftly ascended the little trail that rose at a sharp acclivity to the spring
. At some height above the cabin, they crouched behind boulders and watched the cautious approach of the enemy.
“Not taking any chances, are they?” murmured Gordon.
Steve laughed softly.
“Heard about that chicken-killing affair, mebbe, and none of them anxious to add a goose to the exhibit.”
“It would be right easy to give that surprise party a first-class surprise,” chuckled Dick. “Shall I drop a pill or two down among them, just to let them know we’re on the premises?”
“Now, don’t you, Dick. We’ll have to put half of ’em out of biz, and get shot up by the rest, if you do.”
“All right. I’ll be good, Steve. I was only joking, anyhow. But it ce’tainly is right funny to sit up here and watch them snake up to the empty cabin. See that fellow with the Mexican hat? I believe it’s my jealous friend Pablo. He’s ce’tainly anxious to get one Gringo’s scalp. I could drop a stone down on him so he’d jump about ’steen feet.”
“There’s one reached the window. He’s looking in mighty careful, you bet. Now he’s beckoning the other fellows. I got a notion he’s made a discovery.”
“Got on to the fact that the nest’s empty. They’re pouring in like bees. Can you make out how many there are? I count nine,” said Dick.
“They’re having a powwow now. All talking with their hands, the way greasers do. Go to it, boys. A regular debating society, ain’t you?”
“Hello! What’s that mean?” broke in Gordon.
One of the Mexicans had left the rest, and was running toward the Corbett house.
“Gone to find whether we’re on the porch with the family, up there,” continued the young man, answering his own question.
“What’s the matter with beating it while we’ve got a chanct?”
“I’m going to stay right here. You can go if you like, Steve?”
“Oh, well. I just suggested it.” Davis helped himself to a chew of tobacco placidly.
