The sensation caused by Ricardo Guzman's disappearance was as nothing
to that which followed the recovery of his body. By the next afternoon
it was known from Mexico to the Canadian border that the old ranchman
had been shot by Mexican soldiers in Romero. It was reported that a
party of Americans had invaded foreign soil and snatched Ricardo's
remains from under the nose of General Longorio. But there all reliable
information ceased. Just how the rescue had been effected, by whom it
had been done, what reasons had prompted it, were a mystery. With the
first story the newspapers printed a terse telegram, signed by Captain
Evans and addressed to the Governor of Texas, which read:
"Ranger force crossed Rio Grande and brought back the body of Ricardo
Guzman."
This message created tremendous enthusiasm, for the Texas Rangers have
ever stood for prompt and decisive action; but two hours after the
publication of this despatch there came a sharp inquiry from
Washington, and on the heels of that the State House at Austin denied
the receipt of any such message.
When this denial was in turn made public, the newspapers demanded to
know who had performed this sensational exploit. One rumor had it that
the sons of Ricardo Guzman had risked their lives to insure their
father Christian burial. This was amplified by a touching pen-picture
of the rancher's weeping family waiting at the bank of the Rio Grande,
and an affecting account of the grief of the beautiful Guzman girls. It
mattered not that there were no daughters.
In other quarters the expedition was credited to members of a secret
order to which Ricardo had belonged; from a third source came a
statement that the Guzman family had hired a band of Mexicans to exhume
the body, so that proof of death might be sufficient to satisfy an
insurance company in which the rancher had held a policy. Even at
Jonesville there were conflicting rumors.
But, whatever the facts of the rescue, it was generally recognized that
the result had been to bring on a crisis in the affairs of the two
nations. People declared that since the outrage was now proven the next
move was the duty of the State Department at Washington. Therefore,
when several days passed and nothing was done, a wide-spread feeling of
indignation grew. What mattered these diplomatic communications between
the two governments? it was asked. Why wait for another investigation
by General Longorio?
Strong influences, however, were at work to prevent that very outcome
for which the people of Texas prayed. During the delay there arose a
report that Ricardo Guzman had borne an evil reputation, and that he
had been so actively associated with the Rebel cause as to warrant
punishment by the Federal government. Moreover, a legal question as to
his American citizenship was raised--a question which seemed to have
important bearing upon the case.
Public interest is short-lived; few living men can hold it more than a
day or two, and it reckons no dead man worthy of more than an obituary
notice. Other Mexican offenses, equally grave, had failed to stir the
Administration to definite action; the death of this obscure border
ranchman did not seem to weigh very heavily in Washington. Thus in the
course of time the Guzman incident was in a fair way of being
officially forgotten and forgiven.
Of course the people of Texas did not forget, nor did those who had
personally known Ricardo forgive. Dave Law, for instance, felt bitter
over the matter, for he had counted upon prompt and definite results. A
little pressure, properly applied, would have wrung the truth from
Colonel Blanco and fastened some measure of guilt upon the men who had
actually arranged the murder. Dave did not doubt Tad Lewis's part in
it, but there was only one source from which pressure could be brought,
and when this failed he found his further efforts blocked. There
remained to him only the consolation of knowing that he had in a
measure squared his account with old Ricardo.
But there were several persons who felt intense relief at the course
events had taken, and among these was Alaire Austin. In the days
following that midnight expedition she had had ample time in which to
meditate upon her husband's actions, "Young Ed" had taken advantage of
the confusion to slip out of the crowd and escape in his roadster, and
when Alaire arrived at Las Palmas she had found that he was gone,
leaving behind no word as to when he would return. It seemed probable
that he had fled to San Antonio, there to remain until interest in the
Guzman matter had abated. If Ed was relieved to escape the immediate
consequences of his connection with the affair, his wife was no less
thankful for his absence, since it left her free to think and to plan.
Their relations were becoming constantly more difficult; she realized
that it was impossible for her to go on in this way much longer. Before
leaving Ed had again rifled the safe, thus disregarding for a second
time his explicit agreement with his wife. Of course, he was welcome to
whatever money he needed, even in excess of his allowance; but his act
showed his weak sense of honor and strengthened Alaire's conviction
that he was in every way rapidly deteriorating. As yet she could not
believe him really wicked at heart--he had many qualities which were
above the average--nor could she convince herself that he had been
criminally involved in Tad Lewis's schemes. And yet, what other
explanation could there be? Ed's behavior had been extraordinary; his
evident terror at news of Dave Law's expedition, his conversation with
Tad Lewis over the telephone, his subsequent actions at the river, all
seemed to indicate that he had some vital interest in maintaining the
mystery of Guzman's death. What could it be?
Suspicions like these were extremely disturbing. In spite of herself
Alaire began to think more seriously about that separation which Ed had
so frequently offered her. Her whole nature, it is true, recoiled at
the thought of divorce; it was a thing utterly repugnant to her
sentiment and her creed--a thing that stood for notoriety, gossip,
scandal. Deep in her heart she felt that divorce was wicked, for
marriage to her had always meant a sacred and unbreakable bond. And yet
there seemed to be no alternative. She wished Ed would go away--leave
her quietly and for ever, so that she might live out her empty life in
seclusion--but that, of course, he would never do.
Such longings were not strangers to Alaire; they were old and
persistent enemies; but of late the prospect of a loveless, childless
future was growing more and more unbearable. Even her day dreams failed
to give their customary relief; those imaginary figures with whom she
took counsel were strangely unresponsive.
She had told Paloma Jones about her dream-children, but she had not
confessed the existence of another and a far more intimate creature of
her brain--one who occupied the place Ed Austin should have held. There
was such a person, however, and Alaire called him her dream husband.
Now this man's physical aspect was never long the same; it altered
according to her changing ideals or to the impression left by new
acquaintances; nevertheless, he was in some ways the most real and the
most tangible of all her pale romantic fancies. No one who has watched
a solitary child at play can doubt that it sees and hears playmates
invisible to others. Alaire Austin, in the remotest depths of her
being, was still a child. Of late her prince had assumed new
characteristics and a new form. He was no longer any one of the many
shapes he had been; he was more like the spirit of the out-of-doors--a
strong-limbed, deep-chested, sun-bronzed creature, with a strain of
gipsy blood that called to hers. He was moody, yet tender, roughly
masculine, and yet possessed of the gentleness and poetry of a girl. He
was violent tempered; he was brave; he rode a magnificent bay mare that
worshiped him, as did all animals.
During one of these introspective periods Alaire telephoned Dave Law,
arguing to herself that she must learn more about her husband's
connection with the Lewis gang. Dave arrived even sooner than she had
expected. She made him dine with her, and they spent the evening on the
dim-lit gallery. In the course of their conversation Alaire discovered
that Dave, too, had a hidden side of his nature; that he possessed an
imagination, and with it a quaint, whimsical, exploratory turn of mind
which enabled him to talk interestingly of many things and many places.
On this particular evening he was anything but the man of iron she had
known--until she ventured to speak of Ed. Then he closed up like a
trap. He was almost gruff in his refusal to say a word about her
husband.
Because of Ed's appropriation of the ranch cash, Alaire found it
necessary a few days later to go to the bank, and, feeling the need of
exercise, she rode her horse Montrose. When her errands had been
attended to, she suddenly decided to call on Paloma Jones. It was years
since she had voluntarily done such a thing; the very impulse surprised
her.
Paloma, it happened, was undergoing that peculiar form of feminine
torture known as a "fitting"; but insecurely basted, pinned, and tucked
as she was, she came flying down to the gate to meet her visitor.
Alaire was introduced to Mrs. Strange, the dressmaker, a large,
acidulous brunette, with a mouthful of pins; and then, when Paloma had
given herself once more into the seamstress's hands, the two friends
gossiped.
Since Mrs. Strange was the first capable dressmaker who had ever come
to Jonesville, Paloma had closed her eyes and plunged with reckless
extravagance. Now the girl insisted upon a general exhibition of her
new wardrobe, a sort of grand fashion review, for the edification of
her caller, in the course of which she tried on all her dresses.
Paloma was petite and well proportioned, and the gowns were altogether
charming. Alaire was honest in her praise, and Paloma's response was
one of whole-hearted pleasure. The girl beamed. Never before had she
been so admired, never until this moment had she adored a person as she
adored Mrs. Austin, whose every suggestion as to fit and style was
acted upon, regardless of Mrs. Strange.
"I don't know what Dad will say when he gets the bill for these
dresses," Paloma confessed.
"Your father is a mighty queer man," Mrs. Strange observed. "I haven't
so much as laid eyes on him."
Paloma nodded. "Yes. And he's getting more peculiar all the time; I
can't make out what ails him."
"Where is he now?" asked Alaire.
"Heaven knows! Out in the barn or under the house." Taking advantage of
the dressmaker's momentary absence from the room, Paloma continued in a
whisper: "I wish you'd talk to Dad and see what you make of him. He's
absolutely--queer. Mrs. Strange seems to have a peculiar effect on him.
Why, it's almost as if--"
"What?"
"Well, I suppose I'm foolish, but--I'm beginning to believe in spells.
You know, Mrs. Strange's husband is a sort of--necromancer."
"How silly!"
There was no further opportunity for words, as the woman reappeared at
that instant; but a little later Alaire went in search of Blaze, still
considerably mystified. As she neared the farm buildings she glimpsed a
man's figure hastily disappearing into the barn. The figure bore a
suspicious resemblance to Blaze Jones, yet when she followed he was
nowhere to be seen. Now this was curious, for Texas barns are less
pretentious than those of the North, and this one was little more than
a carriage-house and a shelter for agricultural implements.
"Mr. Jones!" Alaire called. She repeated Blaze's name several times;
then something stirred. The door of a harness closet opened cautiously,
and out of the blackness peered Paloma's father. He looked more owlish
than ever behind his big, gold-rimmed spectacles. "What in the world
are you doing in there?" she cried.
Blaze emerged, blinking. He was dusty and perspiring.
"Hello, Miz Austin!" he saluted her with a poor assumption of
breeziness. "I was fixin' some harness, but I'm right glad to see you."
Alaire regarded him quizzically. "What made you hide?" she asked.
"Hide? Who, me?"
"I saw you dodge in here like a--gopher."
Blaze confessed. "I reckon I've got the willies. Every woman I see
looks like that dam' dressmaker."
"Paloma was telling me about you. Why do you hate her so?"
"I don't know's I hate her, but her and her husband have put a jinx on
me. They're the worst people I ever see, Miz Austin."
"You don't really believe in such things?"
Blaze dusted off a seat for his visitor, saying: "I never did till
lately, but now I'm worse than a plantation nigger. I tell you there's
things in this world we don't sabe. I wish you'd get Paloma to fire
her. I've tried and failed. I wish you'd tell her those dresses are
rotten."
"But they're very nice; they're lovely; and I've just been
complimenting her. Now what has this woman done to you?"
It seemed impossible that a man of Blaze Jones's character could
actually harbor crude superstitions, and yet there was no mistaking his
earnestness when he said:
"I ain't sure whether she's to blame, or her husband, but misfortune
has folded me to herself."
"How?"
"Well, I'm sick."
"You don't look it."
"I don't exactly feel it, either, but I am. I don't sleep good, my
heart's actin' up, I've got rheumatism, my stomach feels like I'd
swallowed something alive--"
"You're smoking too much," Alaire affirmed, with conviction.
But skepticism aroused Blaze's indignation. With elaborate sarcasm he
retorted: "I reckon that's why my best team of mules run away and
dragged me through a ten-acre patch of grass burrs--on my belly, eh?
It's a wonder I wasn't killed. I reckon I smoked so much that I give a
tobacco heart to the best three-year-old bull in my pasture! Well, I
smoked him to death, all right. Probably it was nicotine poisonin' that
killed twenty acres of my cotton, too; and maybe if I'd cut out Bull
Durham I'd have floated that bond issue on the irrigation ditch. But I
was wedded to cigarettes, so my banks are closin' down on me. Sure!
That's what a man gets for smokin'."
"And do you attribute all these misfortunes to Paloma's dressmaker?"
The man nodded gloomily. "That ain't half! Everything goes wrong. I'm
scared to pack a weapon for fear I'll injure myself. Why, I've carried
a bowie-knife in my bootleg ever since I was a babe in arms, you might
say; but the other day I jabbed myself with it and nearly got
blood-poisonin'. The very first time I ever laid eyes on this man and
his wife a great misfortune overtook me, and ever since they come to
Jonesville I've had a close squeeze to make a live of it. This fellow
Strange, with his fortune-tellin' and his charms and his conjures, has
hocus-pocussed the whole neighborhood. He's gettin' rich off of the
Mexicans. He knows more secrets than a priest; he tells 'em whether
their sweethearts love 'em, whether a child is goin' to be a boy or a
girl, and how to invest their money."
"He is nothing more than a circus fakir, Mr. Jones."
"Yes'm! Just the same, these Greasers'd vote him into the legislature
if he asked 'em. Why, he knows who fetched back Ricardo Guzman's body!
He told me so."
"Really?" Alaire looked up quickly, then the smile left her face. After
a moment she said, "Perhaps he could tell me something that I want to
know?"
"Now don't you get him started," Blaze cautioned, hastily, "or he'll
put a spell on you like he did on me."
"I want to know what Ed had to do with the Guzman affair."
Blaze shook his head slowly. "Well, he's mixed up somehow with Lewis.
Dave thinks Tad was at the bottom of the killin', and he hoped to prove
it on him; but our government won't do anything, and he's stumped for
the time bein'. I don't know any more about Ed's dealin's than you do,
Miz Austin: all I know is that I got a serpent in my household and I
can't get shed of her. I've got a lapful of troubles of my own. I've
ordered Paloma to let that woman go, but, pshaw! It's like a bowlegged
man drivin' a shoat--there ain't any headin' Paloma off when her mind's
made up. You mark what I say, that female spider'll sew venom into
those dresses. I never seen a woman with a mustache that was any good.
Look here!" Blaze drew a well-thumbed pack of playing-cards from his
pocket. "Shuffle 'em, and I'll prove what I say. If I don't turn up a
dark woman three times out of five I'll eat that saddle-blanket, dry."
Alaire shuffled the deck, and Blaze cut the cards. Sure enough, he
exposed the queen of spades.
"What did I tell you? There's the bearded lady herself! Now I'll
shuffle and you cut."
Alaire smilingly followed directions; she separated the deck into three
piles, after which Jones interpreted the oracle.
"You got a good fortune, Miz Austin. There's a light man comin' to your
house, danger, and--marriage. You're goin' to marry a light man."
Alaire's laughter rang out unaffectedly. "Now you see how utterly
absurd it is."
"Maybe it is, and maybe it ain't." From another pocket Jones drew a
small volume entitled The Combination Fortune-Teller and Complete
Dictionary of Dreams. Alaire reached to take it, and the book dropped
to the floor; then, as she stooped, Blaze cried: "Wait! Hit it three
times on the floor and say, 'Money! Money! Money!'"
As Alaire was running over the pages of the book, one of Blaze's
ranch-hands appeared in the door to ask him a question. When the fellow
had gone his employer rose and tiptoed after him; then he spat through
his crossed fingers in the direction the man had taken.
"Now what does that mean?" Alaire inquired.
"Didn't you see? He's cross-eyed."
"This is too occult for me," she declared, rising. "But--I'm interested
in what you say about Mr. Strange. If the Mexicans tell him so much,
perhaps he can tell me something. I do hope you have no more
misfortunes."
"You stay to supper," Blaze urged, hospitably. "I'll be in as soon as
that tarantula's gone."
But Alaire declined. After a brief chat with Paloma she remounted
Montrose and prepared for the homeward ride. At the gate, however, she
met Dave Law on his new mare, and when Dave had learned the object of
her visit to Jonesville he insisted upon accompanying her.
"You have enough money in those saddle-bags to tempt some of our very
best citizens," he told her. "If you don't mind, I'll just be your
bodyguard."
"Very well," she smiled; "but to make perfectly sure of our safety,
cross your fingers and spit."
"Eh?" Seeing the amusement in her eyes, he declared: "You've been
talking to Blaze. Well, last night I dreamed I was eating chestnuts,
and he told me I was due for a great good fortune. You see, there's
something in it, after all."
"And you must be the 'light man' I discovered in the cards. Blaze
declared you were coming to my house." They jogged along side by side,
and Law thanked his lucky stars for the encounter.
"Did Blaze tell you how he came to meet the Stranges?"
"No. He only said they had brought him bad luck from the start."
Dave grinned; then, in treacherous disregard of his promise to Jones,
he recounted the tale of that disastrous defeat on the beach at
Galveston. When he had finished the story, which he ingeniously
elaborated, Alaire was doubled over her saddle. It was the first
spontaneous laugh she had had for days, and it seemed to banish her
worries magically. Alaire was not of a melancholy temperament; gaiety
was natural to her, and it had required many heartaches, many
disappointments, to darken her blithe spirit.
Nor was Dave Law a person of the comic type; yet he was a
gloom-dispeller, and now that Alaire was beginning to know him better
she felt a certain happy restfulness in his company.
The ride was long, and the two proceeded leisurely, stopping now and
then to talk or to admire the banks of wild flowers beside the road. No
country is richer in spring blooms than is South Texas. The cactus had
nearly done blooming now, and its ever-listening ears were absurdly
warted with fruit; gorgeous carpets of bluebonnets were spread beside
the ditches, while the air above was filled with thousands of yellow
butterflies, like whirling, wind-blown petals of the prickly-pear
blossom. Montrose and Montrosa enjoyed the journey also; it was just
the mode of traveling to please equine hearts, for there were plenty of
opportunities to nibble at the juicy grass and to drink at the little
pools. Then, too, there were mad, romping races during which the riders
laughed and shouted.
It was Law who finally discovered that they had somehow taken the wrong
road. The fact that Alaire had failed to notice this gave him a sudden
thrill. It aroused in his mind such a train of dizzy, drunken
speculations that for some time following the discovery he jogged
silently at his companion's side.
It was early dusk when they reached Las Palmas; it was nearly midnight
when Dave threw his leg across his saddle and started home.
Alaire's parting words rang sweetly in his ears: "This has been the
pleasantest day I can remember."
The words themselves meant little, but Dave had caught a wistful
undertone in the speaker's voice, and fancied he had seen in her eyes a
queer, half-frightened expression, as of one just awakened.
José Sanchez had beheld Dave Law at the Las Palmas table twice within a
few days. He spent this evening laboriously composing a letter to his
friend and patron, General Luis Longorio.