"Lady-girl's a-going to have a birthday."
The remark issued from the blue tobacco reek that filled the bunk-house.
So thick it was the lamp on the table sent forth a feeble golden glimmer
that barely revealed the sketchy outlines of the Three stretched at ease
on their _catres_. But the title "Lady-girl," Sliver's especial name for
Lee, stamped the remark as coming from him.
"That so?" Bull and Jake spoke in chorus. "How'd you know?"
"She asked me to write a piece, t'other day, in her birthday-album, an'
looking through it I kem on her day."
"She asked me, too," Jake admitted. "What did you write?"
"'Roses is red, violets is blue; sugar is sweet, an' so air you.'"
"A real nice piece, too," Jake commented upon this classic. "I like it
better 'n mine." Nevertheless, with the secret pride of your true poet,
he gave his own:
Under pressure, Bull also admitted a descent into poetry. "I ked on'y
think of a verse that a girl once wrote in my sister's album when I was
a kid. 'Tain't near as good as yourn.
"My pen is dull, my ink is pale;
My love for you will never fail."
"I think it's pretty fine," the others commended the effort.
After a thoughtful pause, consecrated by heavy smoking, Bull asked, "How
old is she, Sliver?"
"Rising twenty, be the date."
"Seems to me we orter raise a little hell in honor of the 'casion--if
it's on'y to keep her from feeling lonesome."
"Little bit close on the funeral," Jake tentatively suggested. "Jest
about three months, ain't it?"
"Yes, for a regular party. My idea was just to tip off the Lovells an'
have 'em drop in that day."
"We might shoot things up a bit, too," Sliver began, but Jake cut him
off with utter scorn.
"This ain't no cowman's jamboree. Girls don't like any shooting except
what they do with their own pretty mouths. A cake with candles 'u'd be
my idee."
"'Cake'?" Sliver now returned the scorn. "Kain't you see these Mexican
dames baking a real, sure-enough birthday cake made out of raisins an'
curran's an' cit-tron peel, an' with spice fixin's to it? An enchilada
stuffed with store prunes 'u'd be the best they ked do."
"Oh, I don't know." Bull poured the oil of quiet counsel on the troubled
waters. "What about Mrs. Mills?"
He referred to the widow of an American rancher who, with the aid of her
young daughter and a few _peones_, had kept their _rancho_ going since
her husband's death. "If one of us was to ride over to-morrow I'll bet
you she'd fix up a cake, if 'twas only a three-layer chocolate. As for
candles, candles an' beer-factories are the main products of Mexico."
Thus was the ball set rolling, not only for the party, but also toward
consequences unforeseen; and it received a second fillip when Bull
delivered his invitation to the Lovells at San Miguel midway of the
following afternoon. It chanced that Phoebe's _fiancé_, a young mining
engineer, had arrived the preceding evening, bringing with him a friend,
a smelter man from El Paso. With the enthusiasm of youth they proceeded
to enlarge upon the plan after Bull rode on.
"It would be a shame to leave out Isabel Icarza," Phyllis warmly
declared. "She and Lee have always been such good friends."
Accordingly, a _mozo_ delivered an invitation at the _Hacienda del Sol_
about the same time that Bull dismounted at the widow's _rancho_.
The widow, a woman of thirty-five or six, whose comeliness indicated
former real beauty, fell at once for the plan. While Bull was eating
supper she began on the cake. Having met her but once before, he
developed a certain shyness. But if his communications with her bordered
on the formal, he yielded himself captive without reserve to Betty, her
small daughter.
Though nearly thirteen, with the promise of being as pretty in her
flaxen whiteness as Lee herself, isolation had conserved, if anything,
the girl's childishness. Sitting on a chair opposite Bull, she prattled
happily while they both seeded raisins, questioning him with an artless
directness that sometimes proved embarrassing.
Had he a father, mother, sister? Where did they live? What was his
business? Married? Why not? And when he returned the usual answer that
no one would have him she brought him to sudden and utter confusion.
"Oh, I'm so glad! Mother would take you, I'm sure. I'd just love to have
you for my father. Will you please marry her, then she will never be
anxious or fearful again?"
Her mother's merry laugh helped to cool Bull's blushes. "Don't be
specially insulted. She says that to every one." Then, brave little soul
though she was, she lifted a corner of the curtain that veiled an
ever-present fear. "It's true that I get sometimes terribly anxious.
Mexicans are lovely people when they're kept in their place. But since
Diaz was overthrown they're like a school of naughty children, let loose
without morality, discipline, or guidance to protect them from
themselves. Sometimes I think we ought to leave, but if we did the place
would be sacked and burned before we reached the railroad. So I'd rather
take the risk than be a pauper in the United States. But there, I'm
ungrateful talking this way instead of thanking Providence we've got
along so well."
"That's the way to look at it, ma'am," Bull encouraged her. While a
wicked flash shot from under his black brows he added, "If any one
bothers you jest send for us."
"Oo-oh, but you looked fierce then!" the child gave a delighted shudder.
"Do it again." Though a humorous twinkle sterilized the rehearsal, she
consoled herself with the reflection: "'Tisn't the same. But I'll bet
you're muy malo when you fight."
"It's a good thing if he is." From the sink, where she was washing
currants, her mother surveyed with approval Bull's imposing bulk. "It
was a great relief when we heard that you and your friends were staying
with Lee."
Later, when Bull's shyness had somewhat abated, she spoke more
intimately. From Ramon himself she had learned of his expulsion from Los
Arboles. "Ramon is a nice boy, yet no one could blame Mr. Carleton," she
said. "Yet what is Lee to do? Before the revolution she could have taken
her pick from scores of young Americans, but now they're all gone."
Laughing, she finished with a remark which was destined, later, to
produce unexpected results. "I guess we'll have to import her a
husband."
Bull's heavy rumble echoed her laugh. It broke out again when Betty
cried out: "While you're at it get one for me. I simply won't marry a
greaser."
Because of the unusual proceedings she was allowed to sit up. Caught
yawning while the cake was baking, she fled to Bull's knee, from which
strategic position she defeated her mother's best efforts to coax her to
bed. Whereafter she promptly celebrated her victory by falling asleep.
Curled against him in trustful comfort, she slept with her fair head
pillowed on his mighty chest till, the cake finished, he carried her to
bed. A _catre_ had been moved out for him under the _portales_. But
after silence and sleep descended on the house he sat for a long time on
its edge, softly musing, the warmth of the child's body enwrapping his
heart. Even Jake, whose sharp eyes had detected many an alien expression
on that scarred visage of late, would have wondered at its tenderness.
Betty was still asleep when he mounted to leave next morning, but at the
beat of hoofs she came running, bare feet and legs flying under her
nightdress. Stooping, he swung her to the saddle before him. The
pressure of her warm arms around his neck, soft lips on his cheek, put a
thrill of earnestness into his farewell.
"Remember, ma'am, we'll come whenever you call."
A quarter-mile away he drew rein and looked back. Though smaller than
Los Arboles, the _rancho_ buildings grouped picturesquely in a pocket of
the foot-hills. The rich purple and crimson blossoms of a bougainvillea
vine that almost buried the house made a fine splash of color against
the golden adobe walls and tawny pastures. Drenched in sunlight, roofed
in by fleecy clouds sailing across the deep blue vault above, it seemed
the abode of peace. But not so did Bull see it. It loomed through a
dread mirage that squirmed with ugly fighting shapes.
Shaking his big head, he spoke aloud. "'Tain't safe for them here,
'tain't safe!"
So vivid was that dread feeling, presage of evil, the sweat broke on his
brow. Into his mind shot a vivid picture of the miner hanging limply
from the _sahuaro_, face turned up to the torrid sun. Around it, as in a
whirling nightmare, revolved all of the horrors, outrages, and murders
of three awful years. Turning, he shook his big fist at the northern
horizon in fierce rebuke of the political lethargy and executive
indifference on the other side of the border that had not only made the
long list of outrages possible, but almost set the seal of approval upon
it. Anger choked him. With the growl of a furious dog he turned again
and rode on.
It may be laid down as a general principle that a woman never forgets
and a man seldom remembers anniversaries. These tendencies are due to
the fact that a woman lives principally in the past and present, a man
in the future; while she observes past occasions, he creates new ones.
Whether she be looking forward with youthful joy, or looking back with
increasing regret, a woman specializes upon her birthdays. But,
accustomed to her father's bad memory, Lee had not expected any one to
remember; was accordingly astonished and pleased when, coming to
breakfast that morning, she found the table decorated with trailing
vines and a bouquet of wild flowers at her plate that had been picked by
Sliver.
"Why--" she gave a little gasp. Then her shining glance accused the
Three, whose sheepish grins loudly proclaimed their guilt. "How _did_
you know? What's this?"
While she was unwrapping the tissue-paper in which Mrs. Mills had
wrapped the cake the Three looked on with eager expectance, and were
treated to a second bath of sunshine. "A _real_ cake! Where _did_ you
get it?"
In a country where cakes, if not actually hanging on every tree, may be
either home-grown or plucked from the counter of any pastry cook, her
joy might have seemed exaggerated. But in that alien desert, stripped of
its substance to the bare hot bones by repeated revolutions, the
conjunction of a sure-enough cake with a girl's birthday verged on the
miraculous. Nor was Lee's pleasure lessened after she heard at what
pains it had been produced.
It was, of course, merely the first of the day's surprises, some of
which were purely accidental, as when William Benson rode in at noon. As
a matter of fact, his visit pertained to a defensive alliance against
raiders, but, being warned in time, he straightway credited his visit to
the birthday. A bluff Englishman, almost as big as Bull, hot-tempered
and overbearing in manner, he fell with great joviality into the spirit
of the occasion; kissed and congratulated Lee with the license of old
friendship. His big, hearty laugh was resounding in the _patio_ when the
second irruption of the Lovells and their _fiancés_--for Phyllis had
conquered the smelter man in record time--occurred midway of the
afternoon. And they were no more than settled under the _portales_
before, like some rich, dusky bird, Isabel Icarza came floating under
the arched gateway into Lee's arms.
"But you surely did not come alone?" Though that was exactly what she
might have done herself, Lee looked at her in horror.
"Ah no, querida! Ramon escorted me, and will return to-morrow!"
"You don't mean to say that he has--" Lee stopped, for she had caught,
just then, a glimpse of him riding away.
"Your father--you remember--he thought--"
Isabel stopped in her embarrassed explanations for, like a scared white
bird, Lee was flying through the gateway. Grabbing Isabel's horse from
the _anciano_ who was just about to lead it around to the compound, she
leaped into the saddle and went flying down the trail.
Turning at the sound of hoofs, Ramon waited for her. It was the first
time they had met since the funeral, and though embarrassment would have
been quite natural, Lee's frank greeting put him at once at his ease.
"You were going away--on my saint's day?"
"It was out of respect for--"
She cut off his apology. "Yes, yes, but father was angry and unjust that
day. He would have acknowledged it himself, had he lived. You must come
back, at once, with me."
Not knowing the cause of her sudden flight, Bull had followed to the
gateway. As he stood there watching the two returning, Benson's voice
broke at his shoulder.
"That's the hell of raising a girl in this country. I spoke often to
Carleton about it, but he was a lonely man and couldn't bear to have her
away. I suppose that he felt she was perfectly safe with him."
Knowing him for Lee's sincere friend, Bull did not scruple to hand on
the information he had gained from Mrs. Mills. Benson received it with a
low, shocked whistle.
"And the poor man had to meet death with that on his mind? She hasn't
seen Ramon since the funeral, you say? That speaks well for him. He
tried to go, just now, too. He's not half bad. But when it's a question
of marrying Lee, no Mexican need apply. But come on back in. She'll pick
out in a second that we're talking about them."
During the lively chatter that whiled away the afternoon; at supper when
the cake appeared in a glory of radiant candles; while the young folks
laughed and chatted thereafter under the lighted _portales_, the two
stealthily watched Lee and Ramon. Sliver and Jake having retired early,
Bull and Benson engaged in an interminable game of poker which left them
free to discuss the proposed defensive alliance without neglecting their
watch.
Before night fell the girls had distributed candles here and there among
the foliage which now transmuted their waxen gleam into a greenish
incandescence. Behind the creeper that fell in a cascade from the roof,
the lamplit _portales_ gleamed in half-circles of gold. The massed
cluster of a bougainvillea dripped clotted blood down the façade of the
gate arch. As the girls moved under the golden arches opposite, their
white dresses might easily have been the fluttering wings of giant
tropical moths, and, noting it, Benson paused in filling his hand.
"It's like a beautiful stage setting."
Bull's nod took in the bright faces, soft laughter, happy chatter. With
a slow, indulgent smile he musingly watched the secret glances between
the two pairs of lovers; artless subterfuges by which the girls achieved
small personal contacts.
"Don't take much to make 'em happy, does it? A little laughter an' a
little song; plenty of chatter an' some pretty clothes; a baby to love
and a man to boss; 'tain't much, but Lordy, how many of 'em don't get
it. If men 'u'd on'y keep on admiring in their wives the things they
liked in their sweethearts, the divorce courts 'u'd go out of business.
If I had a daughter, I'd marry her to a boot-black that understood the
nature of women ahead of a merchant prince; for a man that says to his
wife at breakfast, 'Why, how pretty you look this morning!' is a-going
to get a reward that can't be bought with a million."
Just then Phoebe Lovell's clear voice floated across the _patio_. "What
a lovely night! Let's go for a walk."
"All right. Wait till I get a shawl."
As the others moved off, Lee ran back into her room. They had passed
through the gateway when she came out again, except Ramon, who took the
shawl and threw it over her shoulders. For a few moments they stood
talking under the lamplit _portal_, and, though the conversation was
quite ordinary, the glow in his big dark eyes was sufficiently
revealing. As Lee's back was turned toward them, her face told nothing.
But just before they moved off she reached up and straightened the lapel
of Ramon's coat.