Bull walked a few paces, then looked back at his horse. Its quivering
knees, long, slow shivers, told that it was beyond further service. He
returned to the woman. She had sunk into a second collapse, but she
looked up at his touch.
"You heard them talking before--before--"
"Si, señor, from our stables they had stolen three horses. I heard them
speaking of Los Arboles; that they would take all of its horses and sell
them at the border."
Nodding, Bull went on his way afoot. But as, head bent, he passed the
ruined wall from behind which Terrubio had challenged him long ago a
voice called out, "Ole, señor!"
Startled, Bull looked up, half expecting to see again the uncanny eyes,
weird cold face. But the faithful servitor was gone; gone with his loved
mistress--to wait on her, if such things be, beyond the consuming flame.
From behind the wall, leading his horse, hobbled old Rafael, the father
of the woman.
"I had thought thee one of those wicked ones." The old fellow slapped
the butt of an old musket. "Once my finger tightened on the trigger, but
by the mercy of God I waited. Si, señor, I saw them go. After I sent up
the smoke I came back slowly, crawling along the valleys, keeping always
the height of land between us. Thus I gained so close that I counted
them when they passed; a full score, señor, and more, on their way by
the plains trail to Arboles. But the mistress and the niña, señor? They
did not harm--"
He stopped, halted by Bull's look, then cried aloud while the tears
coursed down his wrinkled face. "The white ewe and the lamb! Gone! and
I, the old dog, am left? But so it was always. Death takes his pick of
the best! I would go after them, señor, those wicked ones; but of what
use, save to make a noise, is an old dog after the teeth are gone? The
biting must be done by stronger jaws; the running by fleeter feet. Take
thou my horse."
Thus freshly mounted, Bull made such time that he climbed to the
smoldering beacon on the mountain's shoulder before daylight failed.
Below lay the valleys in mysterious pools from which long shadows issued
to crawl up the flaming hills. Westward the dying sun had left a crimson
wake, barred with black across the smoldering sky; a reflection, Bull
felt it, of the fiery blossom that glowed in one dark valley. The faint
stars weaving a wan embroidery across the trailing skirts of night, the
fading light, the first cool breath of the evening, all helped to
intensify the loneliness that clothed the obscure prospect. Yet in it
that loneliness, the stillness of great solitudes, wide oceans, Bull
sensed sympathy and peace; Nirvana, the peace of great worlds, planetary
systems swinging through space on their appointed ways. She! They! That
pleasant woman, lovely child, had been absorbed into, were part of it,
this peace that quieted his troubled spirit.
He did not think this. Such philosophies were beyond him. But he felt
and, feeling, a hoarse sob rose in his throat. Bowing his dark face in
his hands, the big, black rustler shook in the throes of saving grief.
He did not hear the thud of approaching hoofs; saw nothing until with a
clatter of displaced stones Sliver and Jake came shooting out of the
sage.
Because of its position far out on the plains, the warning smoke had
been seen at Los Arboles long before its soaring column rose high enough
to be noticed by Gordon above the rim; in fact, Jake and Sliver gained
the forks of the Bowl trail while Gordon and Lee lacked still a mile of
the summit. As Pedro had delivered Lee's note the preceding evening,
Jake knew that the couple were there. After a moment's thought he voted
down Sliver's proposal to ride down for Gordon.
"He'd come in handy. Kin shoot some an' his nerve's all right. But you
jes' kedn't shut her out. Better to leave them where she's safe."
"That's right," Sliver had added. "An' it 'u'd shore be a shame to break
up their honeymoon."
Accordingly, unaware that the pair were riding hard at their heels, Jake
and Sliver had held on until, as before said, they came shooting out on
Bull. He had whirled, hand on his gun, but it dropped when a cowman's
yell issued simultaneously from their throats.
"Why, you dolgorned old son of a--" Sliver stopped as, riding closer, he
saw Bull's face. "Why, hombre! What--"
Turning in his saddle, Bull pointed at the crimson blossom in the dark
valley below. He did not explain. With that keen intuition natural in
those who live alone in the wide spaces, they had read in his face that
which is denied to speech--the soul agony of a strong man. Given that
blossom of fire, their knowledge of Mexican raiders supplied the rest.
"Murdered!... Mother and child!... Burned ... with the house!"
To one skilled in the polished phrases which city folks hold in
readiness for all occasions, the manner in which the two received the
news might have appeared heartless. Jake looked off and away over the
darkening world. Sliver bit a chew off his plug, then fell to examining
a fray in his _riata_. When the latter finally spoke the aforesaid city
person would have been greatly shocked.
"The poor damn kid!"
"Hell, ain't it?" Jake's tone was quite indifferent.
But Bull had seen Sliver gulping in an attempt to swallow the choking
lump in his throat; also the sudden moisture that quenched the cold,
snake sparkle in Jake's bleak eyes. These were all-sufficient.
"They was heading for Los Arboles by the plains trail." After a long
silence he answered Jake's question concerning the raiders. "Must be
nearly there. My God! Miss Lee an'--"
"They ain't there." Sliver hastened to relieve his anxiety. "They're--"
He was relieved from further explanation by a second clatter of hoofs.
Out of the gathering dusk came Lee and Gordon.
Ever since they spied the smoke column, its dread possibilities had
weighed down the girl's spirit. But at the sight of Bull she forgot--for
the moment. Uttering a glad cry, she dismounted, was running to him,
hands outstretched, but suddenly halted, shocked by his look.
"Why--what--" Following his pointing finger, she saw the fire. That,
their inaction, told all before he spoke. "Gone!--both!--burned with the
house!" Crying bitterly, she turned instinctively, as though to run to
Gordon. Then, recognizing a need greater than her own, she faced about
again and ran to Bull.
"Oh, you poor, _poor_ man!"
Grasping his big, hard hands, she pressed her wet face against his knee
while she sobbed out her sorrow and sympathy. Freeing one hand, Bull
gently stroked her hair. Nodding for Sliver and Gordon to follow, Jake
led them a few yards back up the trail; so there was none but Bull to
hear when she began to sob out a broken confession.
"Oh, I feel--so wicked. While all this--was happening--I--I was--getting
married!"
"Married?"
"Yes--to Gordon." She ran on brokenly, giving him in bits the tale of
all that had happened since his departure--her abduction, Ramon's death,
Gordon's ultimatum. "He begged so hard--and the padre and the jefe
said--that I ought--and I wanted to, myself--and we were so happy
until--we saw the smoke. And now I--I feel like a criminal."
"Then you needn't." He patted her shoulder. "The jefe was right. Never
again will you have more need of a man's strength."
"But? At this time? While--"
"How were you to know? An' remember how hard _she_ worked and wished to
bring this very thing about. 'Twould have filled her with joy to know
that it had come to pass. 'Deed, Missy, she does know an' is glad at
this very moment." With that mixture of rude faith and humility that
made his enormous strength incongruous, he went on: "Sure she knows an'
some day she'll tell you so herself. 'Twon't be for me to hear it. My
kind don't go where she is. But you will, an', mark me, the first thing
she'll tell will be how happy she was in your marriage."
"Oh, if I thought she would!"
"Be certain of it, child." The last lights had now gone out on the
highest peaks. Looking off and away into the gathering gloom, he recited
many a hope that Mary Mills had expressed.
While he talked Lee's sobs diminished. She looked up when he finished.
"That makes me feel better. And _you_? You, too, think I did right?"
She could see, through the gloom, his sadness lighten. "For what d'you
s'pose I brought him here?"
"Not to marry _me_?" She gasped. In spite of the gravity of the moment,
her own real sorrow, she could not repress feeling natural in a girl
who, having made, as she supposes, her own free choice, finds that, from
the very beginning, her husband had been wished upon her. "Oh, if I'd
only known it!" She added, with loving illogic, "I'm _so_ glad that I
didn't."
"That's fine." He patted her head. "It will be easier, now, if you have
to live for a while in the States."
"_The States?_" she repeated.
In a brief way, omitting mention of Benson's death--she had enough to
bear--he described the scattering of Valles's army, concluding, "They're
wild against Americans." He nodded at the fire. "The men that did this
are on the way to Arboles; must be almost there."
"My poor people!" she broke out, in sudden distress. "Gordon! Come
here!" When, with Sliver and Jake, he emerged from the shadows she cried
it again: "Our poor, poor people! They are on their way--the raiders! To
Arboles! We must go--at once!"
"Too late!" Bull spoke heavily. "Even an aeroplane couldn't get us there
in time." After, even more briefly, he had sketched for the others
recent events, he went on: "I came back to bring you and Mary and the
child out. For them it's too late, but you must go at once--you an' your
husband an' Sliver an' Jake."
"And you?" Lee questioned.
"I'm going on." The statement in its simplicity carried more
significance than the wildest vow of revenge.
"Alone?" Lee again demanded. "And you think we'd go slinking home to the
States and leave you to face that band yourself?"
"It's my quarrel, my work." His answer, steady and heavy, issued on the
darkness. "You are young and have your husband. Your future is all
ahead. Mine is most behind. You folks head at once for the border. With
Sliver an' Jake to guard you--"
But here he ran against a second obstacle. Sliver's voice rose in the
darkness. "An' there's nothing I'd like better 'n to look after
Lady-girl. But I ain't so much of a fool that I don't know the store she
sets by you, Bull, that's been father an' mother to her, now, for nigh
on a year. So it don't go that-a-way. It's me for Arboles while you-all
hit with them for the States."
"Good enough!" Jake's acid tones trembled through the gloom. "With a
small amendment. You're that young an' foolish, Sliver, it 'u'd be a
shame to cut you off--worse 'n the green grass that goes to the oven. So
it stan's like this--you-all go back; I go on."
"No, you don't." Gordon's quiet voice interrupted. "At any other time
I'd feel diffident about putting in my oar. But these are our people. I
could never look my wife"--he felt her hand steal up into his--"I could
never look her in the face again if I stood for this. She ought to get
out at once, and if you fellows will see her to the border--"
"They won't--till we all go," Lee broke in. "It's easy to see that
you've all made up your minds to stay--and you'll need me to hold the
horses. We'd better be getting on."
"But, Missy--" Bull began.
But already she had mounted. The clatter of her horse's hoofs returned
unmistakable answer.