Face to the Sun
Page 15
‘They will not leave Malpelo.’
‘Yes, yes, we must, Carlota,’ her mother sobbed, ‘or they will kill Cayetano here and now.’
Nothing would have given me more satisfaction than to see one of those four lances driven home and Heredia wriggling like a hooked fish just hauled from the water.
But there was another loyalty ready to be tested. One of the four stepped back a pace and lowered his lance. His comrade spotted in time what he intended, parried the thrust and drove home his own. The effect was what I had seen in my own fevered imagination. Carlota leaped forward, drew out the lance and stood between her father and the growing pool of pumping blood. By God, the courage of it! There was a sort of hiss, a hoarse hiss, between the hills and the sea. Father and daughter formed a bond more sacred to Latin culture than to ours. There was a straggled cheer from the Heredistas which picked up volume and suddenly died. I could imagine the reaction of a company sergeant major from the disciplined north. Two arrests. Close of play.
It was the Church which rescued us from mutual massacre. The same priest who had been present in the mess when I was invited to join the officers of the Retadores at their supper strode out to the dead lancer. He had ridden with Teresa in the certainty of being needed. He raised his hand to extinguish the last of the sparks creeping in his hair, knelt by the dead guard and called on God with what, at a less emotional moment, I should have called a conventional Letter of Introduction. I don’t think the dead lancer needed one. He had obeyed his heart.
Oh God, protect us from our loyalties! The killer had been true to his military oath of obedience: the victim to requital of some outrage committed upon his family or perhaps some single woman. What is our duty?
Mayne, owing no allegiance to either, showed his power of command. He withdrew the remaining three guards, leaving Heredia alone to the judgement of his people. It has been disputed whether or not he turned to me for advice. His eyebrows, raised in swift question, could only have been detected by a few and they were watching the priest.
‘Viva Carlota!’ he shouted.
He took off the Punchao, carried it to Carlota and hung it round her neck.
‘Subject to the approval of the army, I propose the Lady Carlota as your President.’
The cove rang with approval. Nobody wanted to fight it out. Carlota herself was amazed, but did not show it. After all, she was a reasonable alternative. She must have known that her election could not endure but no one was in a mood to say so. Then came her most brilliant touch. She took off the Punchao and invested Hector.
‘To the museum,’ she cried, ‘where it belongs.’
There were too many interests alive to start another civil war. Heredia could never recover his power. Mayne was only too thankful to gather up his daughters and return to his beloved Jumilla. Even Donna did not wish to declare herself. She had discovered Pepe was in the crowd and she wanted no other. God, how I envied her!
The rest of my story you know except, perhaps, the last moments of a man and woman measuring, as I thought, the end of a beginning.
‘Do you remember Nueva Beria,’ Teresa asked, ‘where you stole for me a wedding dress?’
‘Yes. It was too large.’
‘But I still have it.’
‘It won’t be smart enough for you to wear.’
‘It will if I have the Punchao as well. Hector, can I borrow it for the day?’ ‘Yes, of course, if you give me sufficient notice.’
‘I will ask the curandera how long she needs. She has had practice enough under that devil – more experience than any army doctor.’
‘How long she needs for what?’
‘For us to ride or march forever so long as you are by my side.’
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1988 by Geoffrey Household
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
978-1-4532-9353-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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