GENTLEMAN GEOFF PASSES THE DEAL
With the departure of Kearn Thode on his mission Gentleman Geoff sank
into a stupor from which all Billie's efforts failed to arouse him.
She glanced at the little watch on her wrist. Twenty minutes past
four! One hour for the massive door to hold against those crashing
blows which seemed beating upon her brain. One hour for the young
engineer to ride ten miles on an already jaded horse, provided he had
succeeded in making his perilous start, and bring the Carranzistas to
the rescue!
The din of the volley which had greeted him from the pickets could not
reach her ears above the roar of conflict surrounding her, much less
the receding hoof-beats of his mount. From the moment of his passing
into the darkness of the patio the girl could only wait, but her spirit
was staunch and unflagging. He would win through! He would return in
time!
At her order, two mozos had dragged a couch from an inner room and the
insensible body of Gentleman Geoff was placed upon it. Billie bound
the hideous gaping wound and forced a few drops of brandy between the
set lips, but he only moaned faintly and drifted into a deeper oblivion.
Twenty-five minutes of five! Unless he were lying stark and still in
the plaza, Thode must be well upon his way.
But Billie had no time to nurse her suspense; she could not even linger
by her father's side, for there was grim and urgent work for her hands,
and one by one the women crept out from behind the comparative safety
of the bar and joined her. Barely a man of all those who had thronged
the gambling-rooms remained unscathed, and the cries of the wounded
rang in her ears with piteous insistence.
As she passed from one fallen man to another, heedless of her own
exposure to stray bullets, administering brandy and water, improvising
rude bandages and comforting as best she might, one thought echoed like
a chant through her brain, solemn with its intensity. He would come.
Her head seemed bursting with each reverberating crash of the
battering-ram and her heart pulsed time to the slow march of the
interminable hour, but the thought remained. He would come.
Ten minutes to five. Thode must have reached the barracks at the
refinery by now, unless---- She set her small teeth firmly. Half of
the hour had passed, but already the door was sagging with each renewed
assault and the bolts were snapping beneath the strain. She dared not
look again toward that last failing defense, dared not consult the
little watch lest her self-control, her very reason give way. He would
come, of course, but would he be in time?
All at once the hammering strokes ceased and the rattle of rifle fire
died out in a desultory spatter as stray bullets impinged against the
stout adobe wall.
Jim Baggott from his perch upon a heap of chairs before the window
called out in amazement:
"They've drawn back clear across the road! Reckon they've given it up
as a bad job at last! The dawn's almost here."
"Don't fool yourself!" A burly gang foreman rested his rifle against
the wall and seized avidly upon the dipper of water held out to him by
one of the women. "Thanks, ma'am.--Maybe they're just taking a
breathing spell, but it's my opinion they're planning some new
devilment. Alvarez knows that once that door's down----"
He glanced toward the woman and the sentence ended in a shrug.
"What's the matter with Geoff?" Baggott for the first time had noted
the inert form stretched upon the couch.
"Dad's hit," Billie responded simply.
"Is he bad?" The foreman's tone was hushed.
"I'm afraid so. He's dreadfully cold; he's--he's bleeding internally,
I think. Perhaps, if a surgeon comes in time----"
"A what?" Baggott exploded. "Gosh almighty, where's a surgeon coming
from?"
"From the barracks," explained Billie, naïvely. "Mr. Thode's gone for
the troops."
"When? How? What do you think of that young---- Hurrah!"
The eager questions from a dozen throats ended in a husky cheer, but it
died as swiftly as it was born. From across the road a huge dark blur
had detached itself and was moving forward stealthily to the attack.
The fusillade of shots recommenced, but a groan had started and spread
among the watchers at the windows.
"What is it?" Billie's tone was still steady, but a chill had crept
into her veins.
"They've got a new battering-ram; looks like a telegraph pole! No door
could hold against it," Baggott muttered. "It's all up with us now!"
The rifles popped valiantly, but a thunderous impact fairly rocked the
house, and, fascinated, Billie watched the door bulge toward her, then
spring back into place as the topmost bolt snapped like a knife-blade.
One more onslaught, perhaps two----
Billie's hand closed on her revolver and she moved instinctively closer
to her father's couch. Then all at once she threw up her head, and her
voice rang out.
"Hark! What is that? Don't you hear it?"
None heeded as she stood with every muscle and nerve tense, straining
her ears. The night was no longer dark and a faint rosy light seeping
in at an easterly window reddened the glow of the swinging oil lamps
and transfigured her drawn blanched face. What sound, distant and far
away, had been borne to her on the wind of the dawn?
Again the giant battering-ram stove at the door and the middle bolt
crashed. The flimsy impromptu barricade toppled, then swayed back into
place and a shuddering sigh went up from the handful of white-faced
men. One more drive, and the end would come.
The other women had huddled again behind the bar, but Billie still
stood with uplifted face. And now she was smiling! Swift and sure the
rhythmic echo of galloping hoofs reached her consciousness and even as
the third shock came and the door crashed inward carrying the barricade
with it, a ringing shout burst upon the air and the staccato rattle of
a machine-gun sounded the final note in the symphony of battle.
The ragged, wild-eyed horde, sweeping in at the shattered doorway,
brought up standing, then turned madly and scattered like chaff. In
their stead, through the aperture leaped a tall, unrecognizable figure
caked with dust and clotted blood which reeled to the couch and
collapsed beside it, labored breath hissing from tortured lungs and
blood-shot eyes filmed with exhaustion.
Outside, the tide of conflict raged up and down the street and swept
out over the plaza, but neither the girl nor the man at her feet could
hear it.
"You made it! Dad said you would play to win!" There was a new note
of which she was herself unconscious in Billie's tones, and she added
softly, "You were just bound and determined to take care of me right
from the start! Weren't you, Mr. Duenna?"
The new day dawned and quiet was once more restored to Limasito. Those
of the bandits who escaped swift justice had fled toward the distant
hills with the troops in full pursuit and the plaza was a humming hive
of survivors, augmented, as the tidings spread, by all the countryside.
The dismantled Blue Chip had been turned into a temporary hospital and
the wounded lay in rows upon the tables and hastily improvised cots,
but Gentleman Geoff was not among them.
He had been moved by his own wish out to a shady corner of the patio
where he lay with a quiet, whimsical smile lifting the drooped ends of
his mustache and his genial eyes, with a curious questioning look in
their depths, stared straight before him.
Billie, huddled on the ground, her head pillowed against the side of
his cot, slumbered deeply, and Gentleman Geoff's slim, delicate fingers
touched her hair in a wistful caress. On a nearby bench Thode, bathed
and freshly bandaged, slept also. Jim Baggott had tried in vain to
drag him back to the hotel, for the young engineer had read a mute
desire in the dying man's glance and refused to leave his side.
The army surgeon had done his best, but the end was near and only the
superb vitality of the old gambler glowed still, like a living spark.
Now and then the surgeon paused in his busy round within to glance
speculatively from the doorway and each time Gentleman Geoff nodded
reassuringly to him. Not yet!
The blaze of noon subsided, and as the shadows lengthened in the patio,
Billie stirred, and Thode stretched and opened his eyes.
"Oh, Dad, I must have fallen asleep!" The girl's tones were filled
with contrition. "Do you want anything? Is the pain very bad?"
It seemed to her that a shadow had crept into her father's eyes, but
his faint voice was steady.
"No, Billie. No pain--just tired. Has young Thode gone home?"
"No, Sir, I'm here." He came eagerly forward. "Is there anything you
want me to do?"
"Only shake hands with me. You rode well, last night. I reckoned
Perry Larkin knew a man when he saw one, but he didn't know all that
was in you. Billie, girl, go ask the Doc if I can have a drink or a
little shot to pull me together." As the girl flew to do his bidding,
Gentleman Geoff's thin fingers tightened their grip. "Thode, the boys
will all stand by her and play square, but I'm leaving her alone. She
isn't their kind; she doesn't know it, nobody does, but my little
girl's of different blood. There's no one around here in her class,
except you. Kind of--look out for her, will you?"
"I will, Sir." Thode's voice shook with the fervor of his vow. "You
want her away from Limasito, from this environment? I have a sister up
North----"
"That's what I mean." A spasm of pain contorted the pallid face and he
went on hurriedly as if fearful of the inevitable interruption. "I
couldn't take her myself and couldn't part from her, but the life
hasn't been right for her, though I did all I could. She's a lady and
she must go back to her own. I'd like to myself, for an hour, now.
That's a Harvard seal on your cigarette-case, if I'm not mistaken, Mr.
Thode."
Thode leaned forward, a sudden exclamation half halted on his lips.
Gentleman Geoff nodded slowly.
"Name Rendell," he said. "Class of '84. I haven't mentioned it this
quarter of a century and I'm going to ask you to forget it now,
but--you'll do what you can for my girl?"
"On my honor, Sir," Thode reaffirmed solemnly. "It is a sacred charge."
"Jim Baggott will sell out the Blue Chip and give her the proceeds. It
ought to bring her a comfortable sum and the bank deposits are in her
name already. I'm not afraid she will throw it away; she has a level
head on her young shoulders, but I want to be sure she will have the
best of everything; all that she has missed. You'll see to it?"
The reappearance of the doctor precluded other answer on Thode's part
than a long hearty handclasp, but Gentleman Geoff understood.
Later his vigilant mind wandered and the watchers averted their faces.
"Best I could for her, Vi! Kept her like you--clean and true and
God-Almighty sweet! Never knew--not my own. . . ."
Still later, when the sun like a glowing ball of fire had sunk beneath
the wall of the patio, his lips moved again.
"Tell the boys I'm not cashing in--just passing this deal. I'm in on
the next one. . . . Billie . . . square, always----"
"I'm here, Dad!" The girl's voice choked with sobs breathed close to
his ear, but Gentleman Geoff did not hear. He had slipped into the
silence.
In the days that followed, Kearn Thode pondered long and deeply upon
his trust. The arrangement with his sister would be an easy matter to
adjust, he knew, but the immediate task confronting him was more
difficult of solution. The suggestion of a guardian thrust upon her
would meet with scant complacency in the girl's independent spirit and
secretly he quailed before the thought of her displeasure. Her
comrades of a lifetime, the rough, staunch men of Limasito, might well
resent the intrusion of a stranger, an alien, into what was evidently
to them a family affair; still less would they be able to understand
and appreciate the fact that Billie belonged to another world than
theirs.
He decided at length to lay the matter before her frankly in detail,
eliminating only the admission of Gentleman Geoff's identity. He
respected the dead man's confidence, but it only precipitated him into
a fresh quandary.
Billie's naïve surprise when the question of her surname arose brought
the matter to a crisis in his mind.
"Why, I'm just 'Billie,' I suppose," she had stammered. "I--I never
heard any other name. Do I have to have one?"
Jim Baggott settled the matter, for the moment at least.
"You do not!" he announced, with emphasis. "Not around here, anyway.
You were Gentleman Geoff's Billie and that's name enough for us. When
you do need a handle to it, I reckon there ain't any law 'gainst you
pickin' out one to suit yourself."
Baggott was the chief executor of the late gambler and mightily puffed
up with the pride and dignity of his office. Gentleman Geoff's private
papers were few and carefully indited, their instructions unmistakably
clear. Under them, Baggott sold the Blue Chip scrupulously to the
highest bidder, although it broke his heart to see Limasito's proudest
institution pass into the hands of a Tampico syndicate. He placed the
two hundred thousand, American, which the establishment brought,
unreservedly to Billie's account.
"If you ain't of age, nobody knows the difference," he announced.
"Gentleman Geoff left word it was to go 'to my daughter, known as
Billie,' and there you are. The money's your'n, and it's up to you to
do what you like with it."
Bewildered and numb in her first contact with poignant grief, the girl
had taken up her temporary abode at Henry Bailey's fruit ranch, a mile
or two out on the Calle Rivera, where his buxom wife, Sallie, mothered
her to her heart's content.
Thode rode out each day to see her, but a new inexplicable shyness in
Billie's attitude toward him made his task still more difficult and he
deferred the question of her future in sheer funk. The magnitude of
her fortune, too, was a stumbling-block. The girl knew nothing of him
save what intuition had taught her. What if she assumed that his
object were to gain control of her estate? The thought maddened him
into action at length and one day as they cantered slowly back from a
visit to the little José, he forced the issue.
"Billie, have you thought of the future, of what you will do?" he asked.
"Oh, yes." The reply was prompt and decisive. "I can't tell you, Mr.
Thode, or anyone, but I've got something to do, something big, and I've
made up my mind to see it through. It's just as much an inheritance
from Dad as the money and I mean to let nothing stand in my way."
There was a grim earnestness in her tone which made him glance
curiously at her.
"You are sure you can't tell me, and let me help, whatever it is?" he
asked gently.
Billie shook her head.
"It's my job. I'll have my work cut out for me, I expect, but nobody
else can share it. I've got to play a lone hand, but when it's over,
I--I don't know. I haven't made any plans beyond that."
"But surely you don't intend to remain here in Limasito all your life?"
"Why not?" She shot a swift glance at him. "It was good enough for
Dad."
"But not for you. That's the point. I--I had a talk with your father
just before he died, and he wants you to go away; to travel and study
and mingle with people of your own kind."
"Aren't these my kind?" Hot loyalty blazed in her tone. "They're all
the friends I have in the world, the folks right here in Limasito, and
all I want! What would I do among a lot of city people; stuck-up snobs
who don't know I'm alive? I wouldn't even know how to talk to them, or
what fork to eat with, and what's more, I wouldn't care. Why, I
haven't even got a second name! 'Gentleman Geoff's Billie' would look
well in the society papers, wouldn't it? No, thanks! I'll stick to
the folks I know and--and care for!"
"But they're not all snobs, Billie, just because some of their ways are
different from yours. I have a sister who can play a stiff game of
poker and ride as well as you. Edna spends most of her time out in the
open, and nothing feazes her. You would get on beautifully with her
and I thought perhaps you would let me take you to her, sometime."
Billie was silent. She was staring straight ahead of her, into the
vista above her pinto's ears, and had Thode looked at her he would have
seen a quick flush mantle her face, but he was occupied by his own
problem.
"You are different, you know, from the people about here; or anywhere
else for that matter, Billie. I--I've never met a girl like you, so
brave and true and wonderful! I want to take you away from all this
and show you how different the world can be. What does it matter about
your name? You are you, and that's all that counts. Everyone will
love you, they couldn't help it!----" He rushed on heedlessly,
oblivious to any ulterior construction which might be put upon his
words, intent only on assuring her of her welcome in the place which
her father had said was her rightful one, and in convincing her of his
disinterested friendship.
"I told your father that if you were willing I would gladly take you to
my sister, and we would all do our best to make you happy." He
reddened, in his turn. "Please, don't misunderstand; no one will ever
attempt to advise or suggest anything concerning the disposal of your
fortune, it is only that you must have, as your father said, the best
of everything; all that you have missed."
"Oh, don't talk of the money, please!" She stopped him with a swift
gesture. "I do understand, but I--I don't want to say anything now.
Maybe you'll change your mind. You were shocked, you remember, when I
told you Dad ran the Blue Chip, and you might be sorry you--you tried
to make your sister friends with a gambler's daughter, without a family
name. Besides, I've got a trust to perform, don't forget that. When
it's finished, perhaps--but let's wait until then."
He was well content to acquiesce, relieved that she had taken his
suggestion in good faith without impugning his motive. Had he dreamed
of the meaning she had read into his offer, his awakening would have
been illuminating.
On the following day Billie put her newly acquired wealth to its first
use. She cantered away from the Casa de Limas on her pinto without
taking the Baileys into her confidence, and at sundown careened in at
the gate in a battered touring car, the bewildered pony following on a
rope behind.
"Land alive!" Sallie ran out in the yard with Chevalita, the criada,
at her heels. "I didn't know you could run an automobile, Billie!"
"I couldn't this morning," Billie responded through set lips as she
grazed the hitching-post and came to a stop with a grinding jerk which
all but precipitated her through the cracked wind shield. "I've got to
get the hang of this in a couple of days or die trying. I'm going on a
little trip."
"Where to?" Sallie circled slowly around the dilapidated vehicle.
"Don't look as if this would carry you very far. Where on earth did
you get it?"
"It was poor Rufe Terwilliger's." The girl answered the last question
first. "I bought it from Mrs. Terwilliger for three hundred dollars.
Ben Hallock has got some tires to fit it that he'll let me have and if
the engine will only last for about four hundred miles I don't care
what happens to it after that."
"'Four hundred miles!'" repeated Sallie. "What have you taken into
your head now? There's nothing within four hundred miles o' Limasito!"
Billie regarded her with an enigmatic smile.
"There's a dream to bring true!" she said slowly. "That is Tia
Juana's; she's going with me. And there's a start to be made on
something I've set out to do, and this journey is the first step of the
way. No one must go with me but Tia Juana, no one must even know where
I have gone. Someone owes me a debt, Sallie, and they're going to pay!"
There was a grim note in her quiet tones which boded ill for the
debtor, and Sallie hastily changed the subject.
"And Mr. Thode? What'll I tell him? Does he know?"
"Not where I'm going, but you can say that I've made the first move in
the game I'm playing; I've started on what I've got to do. He'll know
what I mean. I can't tell you or anyone, Sallie, because I want to see
it through alone."
When next Thode rode up to the Casa de Limas, Sallie met him with
strange news.
"She's gone. Went off this morning in a car she bought from Rufe
Terwilliger's widow, and she bundled old Tia Juana along with her. She
said to tell you she'd made a start on what she had to do, and you
would understand."
But Kearn Thode didn't. What was this trust, this unknown inheritance
from Gentleman Geoff? There had been an ominous note in her voice when
she spoke of it, and he remembered what the gambler had told him of her
eye-for-an-eye creed of retributive justice. In her splendid, reckless
courage could she have pitted herself against El Negrito, the bandit of
the hills?