From the "hog's back" where Sliver had accidentally discovered Felicia
and the _fonda_, Lee, Gordon, and the Three watched a yellow dust cloud
rolling slowly across the plains. The occasional silver flash that
stabbed it through as the sun struck a saber or bayonet told that it
enveloped the raiders. Three hours ago Sliver had come galloping in from
a reconnaissance with the news of their advance. Instantly the refugees
had fled like frightened quail into the secret places of the hills.
After burying various bottles that contained the liquid abominations
wherewith he burned out the stomachs of his customers, Antonio had
followed. So for two hours the ravine had been untenanted.
Even after the watchers sighted the dust, an hour passed before it
disappeared in the mouth of the ravine; for, as their few horses were
loaded down with loot, the raiders moved slowly. Another half-hour
dragged by before they appeared, filing like ragged ants up the path
along the silver stream. Sighting the _fonda_, they stopped, hastily
took cover behind some bushes, and held a hurried consultation. When the
file split and began to work its way through the chaparral on each side
of the ravine Jake interpreted the manoeuver.
"Nobody home, amigos. Fooled this time."
A hoarse yell presently confirmed his diagnosis. Its note changed almost
immediately to rage and disappointment, and presently a thin coil of
smoke issued from the doorway, followed by a bright flash of flame as
the fire licked up the dry thatch of the _ramada_. Like infuriated ants
the raiders ran next to fire the stables. They were within easy
rifle-shot and Sliver was drawing an experimental bead when Jake knocked
up his rifle.
"One shot," he replied, to Sliver's grumble, "an' they'll go like a
flock of quail into the chaparral."
Happening to glance at Bull just then, he nudged Sliver to look.
On his knees, peering through a bush, the man looked for all the world
like some great animal, bear or black tiger, crouching for its prey.
Under dark brows, his coal eyes burned. Like some huge dog held in
leash, slow shivers coursed through his frame. Always the two had
recognized in him depths of feeling beyond them. The slow shake of the
head that passed between them expressed consciousness of a hurt beyond
their plumbing. They looked quickly away as Bull turned toward them.
"Time to be moving. They'll be coming presently."
An hour later saw them all placed--Gordon in the chaparral at the top of
the trail; Bull, Sliver, and Jake at intervals of quarter of a mile down
the zigzag trail.
"No shooting as they go down," Bull cautioned them. "Coming back,
they'll be among the horses without a chance to turn."
The arrangement, while wise, was not altogether to Sliver's taste; he
grumbled to Jake as they moved on down to their places: "Fat chance for
us. He'll pick half of 'em off going up between him and Gordon, then
turn and plug the others. Any maverick that gets by to us will be that
riddled a bullet 'ull slip through him without t'eching."
"Ain't it coming to him?" Jake scornfully questioned. "He's welcome to
my share--if it's any comfort. But listen, hombre--let me tell you that
the killing of every _revueltoso_ in Mexico ain't a-going to cure his
hurt."
Leaving Sliver at his post, Jake moved on down, and after he also
disappeared in the chaparral silence spread a warm spell over valley and
mountain; golden, sunlit silence that was emphasized rather than broken
by the wild screech of a hawk.
From above Gordon looked right down into the amber heart of the Bowl.
Almost beneath him, the _jacal_ rose like a doll's house out of the
vermilion splash of Pedro's ripe peppers. From it the green veining of
the stream ran through the tawny pastures that were spotted with black
dots, the feeding horses. Far down, just where the stream slipped out of
the Bowl, he could see the giant oak that marked their camp; and though
even his strong young eyes were unequal to the distance, imagination
supplied the ashes of their fire, the bed of leaves under the spreading
branches.
Instantly he began reliving, tenderly reliving that happy day so
absorbed that he forgot for the moment the tragedy that had brought it
to a close. He did not notice a slight rustle in the chaparral nor catch
the gleam of peering eyes. Were it a raider, he had proved an easy prey.
But the eyes were soft; the hand that presently stole out of a bush and
shook his foot was small and white. Whirling, he came face to face with
Lee.
"What are you doing here?"
She placed her finger to her lip. "Hush! they are coming! I just
couldn't stand it, up there in the chaparral all alone. So I tied the
horses and--here I am."
There was nothing that could be done--except to look stern. Reaching, he
pulled her down beside him, shook her a little, then spoiled the effect
by a kiss. Then, lying flat on their stomachs, they kept a joint watch
till the scrape of a hoof, rumble of voices, broke on the trail.
Peeping cautiously, they saw a motley procession file on to the plateau.
Like the soldiers of Las Bocas, their clothing ran the gamut of the
service uniforms of Porfirio Diaz's army; the silver and gray of
_rurales_, red and blue of the infantry, variations from these of
cavalry and artillery, fatigue linen mixed in varying quantities with
_charro_ and _peon_ costumes. Accentuating this motley, their loose
gross mouths, blunt animal noses, lewd eyes in the midst of faces
swollen by last night's debauch, fully justified Gordon's judgment:
"Gosh! what a gallows crew!"
Weary and footsore after two days of heavy marching, neither their
appearance nor their spirits were improved by the fact that half of them
limped. Their voices had been raised in strident altercation. One
fellow's angry complaint carried across to Gordon and Lee.
"The two gringo señoritas at the Lovell _rancho_, where were they?--fled
to El Paso. At the second we got what?--one woman, a child, and three
horses--and lost three men. At Los Arboles there were to be women, a
score at least, young and pretty; also a gringo girl with golden hair
and a skin of milk? And horses by the hundred, blooded beasts of fine
breeding? What got we?--an empty house! Thou art a pretty leader,
Filomena."
"Si!" came a second growl. "And the _fonda_? 'Courage, señores,' he says
but two hours ago. 'In the barranca we shall find a _fonda_ with liquors
and a girl, none prettier in all Chihuahua.' And--"
"Again an empty house!"
By one and another it was kept up. "We limp like lame cats," the first
man spoke again. "If this business go like the first and there be no
horses--I know of one throat that will be cut."
"And I of another!" The guide, an ugly, squat _peon_, turned on him with
a snarl. "Was it I that sent up the warning smoke? No? Then fasten your
tongue with your teeth. If you want women, they are to be had at San
Carlos, a few hours away, a fine town untouched by war."
"Si, more marching," the first grumbler was beginning, when the other
cut him off. He had advanced to the edge of the plateau and stood
pointing down into the Bowl.
"And horses, say you? There they are--scores! Si, hundreds! enough to
make us all rich when sold at the border."
Success! the shibboleth of the modern world! Even among these scoundrels
it wrought the customary effect; turned malcontents into enthusiastic
friends. "Bueno!" He who had issued the sinister hint of cut throats was
the first to clap the guide on the back. "Bueno, amigo! thou art a
leader indeed. 'Twas no fault of thine that the white-skinned girl
escaped. I will slit the gizzard of the next that says it."
On his part the guide swelled and ruffled in the flattering sunlight. "I
told ye. 'Leave it to Filomena,' said I. 'Leave it to him to show ye fat
booty.' Behold!"
Also he assumed the airs and authority of real leadership. "The horses
we shall need to rope fresh mounts. Hide the stuff in the bushes till we
return. 'Twill be only for a couple of hours."
Fired by the sight of the horses, the raiders fell feverishly to work
unloading their loot, which--Gordon noted it with satisfaction--was
largely provisions. Then, lameness and blisters forgotten, unaware of
the cold, fierce eyes watching from the bushes, they followed the
horsemen downhill, yelling and hooting, raising the echoes with snatches
of ribald song.
A thin wisp of smoke above the _jacal_ followed by an explosive flash as
the dry thatch took fire announced their arrival at the bottom. From
above Gordon and Lee saw them move down the valley in a long line that
presently came sweeping back in a half-circle with the horses in its
belly.
There followed half an hour of confusion at the corrals while mounts
were being roped. Yells, wild laughter, vile oaths, rose like a fetid
vapor out of the Bowl, fouling the clear sunlight, sweet warm air. Then
the massed animals began to move from the corrals and thin out to single
file at the foot of the trail. Just as Bull had foreseen, a raider
sandwiched in at intervals to keep them moving. As before, the watchers
looked down upon the thin file wriggling like a slow, black snake up and
around the trail's yellow convolutions.
After an interminable time, it seemed to them, the head of the file rose
to Jake's post. Lying there, his long, thin body stretched at length in
the sage, narrowed eyes fixed on the first raider, Jake had never looked
more like "The Python" he appeared in _peon_ eyes. And he had the
serpent's patience. Though his finger played impatiently with his rifle
trigger, he watched man after man go by, waiting, waiting, for Bull's
shot above. Always cool, he did not give vent, like Sliver, to inward
grumblings as the file rose to him.
"If 'twasn't for orders," he mentally harangued the first raider that
passed, "your black soul 'u'd be a-busting now on its way to hell!"
High above, Gordon waited with equal impatience, his hazel eyes
transmuted once more into blue steel flecked with hot, brown lights. But
his imagination revealed to him much that was hidden from the prosaic
vision of the cowman. The clear, clean air that flowed like tawny wine
across the Bowl; dry whisper of the wind in the sage at his side; drift
of white cloud across the blue above; the hum of busy insects; slow
winding upward of the herd; it was all pastoral; stirred in his mind a
vagrant recollection of the peace and quiet of Gray's "Elegy." In place
of the thunders and lightnings, murky night, black rains with which
man's imaginings clothed, tragedy, nature had set the stage in sunlight
and flowers; invested it with Sabbath calm. Yet, the more powerfully for
that peaceful contrast, he felt--felt with savage joy--Death, the grim
angel, hovering above.
With her girl's strong intuition, Lee shared his feeling. Just as the
wriggling black line rose up to Bull's station she leaned forward and
broke off a twig that might have interfered with Gordon's sighting. Yet,
in spite of a deep desire for vengeance, the retribution earned by a
black deed, she shuddered. As, propping himself on his elbow, Gordon
drew a bead on the leading raider she covered her eyes with her hands.
And Bull? As the raiders had passed him on the way down every brute line
of their evil visages had seared itself on his brain--the beast mouths,
blunt noses, conical ears, gross cheek-bones; the sloping foreheads, in
the center of which his imagination placed a small, round, purplish
spot. Now, as they returned, his dark face in its implacable hate was
the face of Death itself--the Death Gordon and Lee felt hovering near.
In the most tense moments, while the being is under shock of a tragic
emotion, the brain will sometimes play strange tricks, register trifles
too light for notice in normal times. As the first horse rounded the
bend below Bull recognized it for a mare that Lee sometimes rode; a
flighty, brainless creature, that would shy at its own shadow when
nothing better offered.
About fifteen passed him before the head of the first raider showed
below. Instantly Bull's rifle flew up; the rifle that never missed, its
sights lined true on the spot, the purple spot of his imagination. But
the trigger did not fall. Passing on down, his glance had shown him that
the last two raiders were still below Jake's station.
He lowered the rifle again, intending, as Sliver had divined, to let
three or four of the raiders go on up toward Gordon; and, with the
action, vengeance passed out of his hands. If there was anything in the
world the flighty mare preferred to shy at, it was a snake. Perhaps a
haunting memory of a bitten fetlock in her colthood was responsible for
the preference. Be that as it may, when with a dry staccato warning a
fat rattler raised its deadly head from bunched, glistening coils on the
edge of the path the mare whirled and darted madly downhill, leader in a
mad stampede.
A hoarse yell marked the first raider's realization of his danger. With
spur and quirt, he tried to force his mount against the bank. But a
hatchet head intervened, the wedging body forced in between sent man and
beast sideways over the cliff.
Springing up as the mare whirled, Gordon saw laid out directly beneath
the course of the stampede down and around the stony staircases. At
first it stood out clearly as in those cinema pictures of galloping men
taken from a height. Following the first man's cry came the wild yells
of the second and third. One! two! three! he saw them squeezed out over
the cliff; saw them strike the next level and bound off and over on a
longer leap; saw them turn, slowly in midair till the horses showed like
fat slugs above the men; saw the final crash and disappearance in the
chaparral below. But when his glance came back the crystal clearness was
gone, obscured by yellow dust cloud from the bowels of which men and
horses were ejected sideways as the stampede whirled on down.
Of the thirty raiders, but one had a chance--he who brought up the rear.
But as he turned to run he came face to face with Jake, who had sprung
up to see. Instantly Jake raised his gun, but there came a roar and
rattle of stones and hoofs. Before he could fire the dust cloud
swallowed the man. Three minutes later it rolled down the last night to
the pastures.
Over the Bowl silence fell again, golden, sunlit silence broken only by
the screech of the hovering hawk. As before, the wind whispered in the
sage, the clouds marched slowly across the blue fields above, the bees
went busily upon their ways; but in the mean time--when the dust settled
there remained, of the two hundred horses and thirty men, only the few
animals that spread out fanwise as they galloped across the level
bottoms.
With the swiftness, sureness of a lightning stroke in the night it had
come, the doom--so swiftly that Lee and Gordon above, Jake and Sliver
below, could only stand and stare, doubting their eyes. And Bull--
The instant the mare turned his mind leaped to the inevitable
conclusion. With a roar, bellow of rage, inchoate, wild as the snarl of
a balked tiger, he threw his hands on high, rifle waving like a reed in
one great fist. Crash! lock, stock, and barrel, it flew in a thousand
pieces as he brought it down on a rock! From the bank he leaped down to
the trail, in his hot mind some mad idea of stopping the rush. But
already the stampede had passed. He ran a few yards, as though to
overtake and pull it back. But it swept on and down beyond his speed.
Stopping, then, arms raised skyward, fists clenched, teeth bared, eyes
glaring in the midst of his swollen, purple face, he stood, a towering
figure of furious despair.
Into those few minutes were compressed all the agonies he had endured in
the last few weeks--his trial, temptations, failure, bitter
disappointment, tragic grief, crowned by this, the robbing of his just
revenge. Swelling with a sense of vast injustice, the injustice that
created the world on a scheme of struggle and pain, he turned maniacal
eyes to the sky; stood shaking his bunched fists while a terrible
blasphemy rose to his lips. But it never issued. For in the moment that
it seemed his reason must crack there came slipping into his hot mind,
like a cooling breath, the old vision--of Mary and Betty as on that last
night.
In the sunlight that wrapped the valley, just as in the vast world
loneliness under the quiet stars, he sensed her presence. His arms
dropped, the mad light died. Bowing his dark face in his hands, he shook
again with the throes of silent grief--but only for a short space.
Presently he looked up, the old humility restored, its expression on his
lips.
"'Twasn't for me. I wasn't fit. 'Twas taken out of my hands."
Quiet now, he watched the horses careering over the bottoms. When at
last Sliver joined him he gave quiet orders: "Go down, you an' Jake, an'
collect up their guns--an' ammunition. Bring up fresh horses for all of
us an' a couple for the packs. We'll have to light out for the border at
once."