THE SHERIFF OF SAN JUAN
The girl in the old Mission garden stood staring at Ignacio Chavez a
long time, seeming compelled by a force greater than her own to watch
him tugging and jerking at his bells. Plainly enough she understood
that this was an alarm being sounded; a man dead through violence, and
the bell-ringer stirring the town with it. But when presently he let
two of the ropes slip out of his hands and began a slow, mournful
tolling of the Captain alone, she shuddered a little and withdrew.
That it might be merely a case of a man wounded, even badly, did not
once suggest itself to her. Ignacio had spoken as one who knew, in
full confidence and with finality. She should see! She returned to
the little bench which one day was to be a bright green, and sat down.
She could see that again the pigeons were circling excitedly; that from
the baking street little puffs of dust arose to hang idly in the still
air as though they were painted upon the clear canvas of the sky. She
heard the voices of men, faint, quick sounds against the tolling of the
bell. Then suddenly all was very still once more; Ignacio had allowed
the Captain to resume his silent brooding, and came to her.
"I must go to see who it is," he apologized. "Then I will know better
how to ring for him. The sheepman from Las Palmas, I bet you. For did
I not see when just now I passed the Casa Blanca that he was a little
drunk with Señor Galloway's whiskey? And does not every one know he
sold many sheep and that means much money these days? Si, señorita; it
will be the sheepman from Las Palmas."
He was gone, slouching along again and in no haste now that he had
fulfilled his first duty. What haste could there possibly be since,
sheepman from Las Palmas or another, he was dead and therefore must
wait upon Ignacio Chavez's pleasure? Somehow she gleaned this thought
from his manner and therefore did not speak as she watched him depart.
That portion of the street which she could see from her bench was
empty, the dust settling, thinning, disappearing. Farther down toward
the Casa Blanca she could imagine the little knots of men asking one
another what had happened and how; the chief actor in this fragment of
human drama she could picture lying inert, uncaring that it was for him
that a bell had tolled and would toll again, that men congregated
curiously.
In a little while Ignacio would return, shuffling, smoking a dangling
cigarette, his hat cocked against the sun; he would give her full
particulars and then return to his bell. . . . She had come to San
Juan to make a home here, to become a part of it, to make it a portion
of her. To arrive upon a day like this was no pleasant omen; it was
too dreadfully like taking a room in a house only to hear the life
rattling out of a man beyond a partition. She was suddenly averse to
hearing Ignacio's details; there came a quick desire to set her back to
the town whose silence on the heels of uproar crushed her. Rising
hastily, she hurried down the weed-bordered walk, out at the broken
gate, and turned toward the mountains. One glance down the street as
she crossed it showed her what she had expected: a knot of men at the
door of the Casa Blanca, another small group at a window, evidently
taking stock of a broken window-pane.
The sun, angry and red, was hanging low over a distant line of hills,
the flat lands were already drawing about them a thin, faintly colorful
haze. She had put on her hat and, like Ignacio, had set it a little to
the side of her head, feeling her cheeks burning when the direct rays
found them. The fine, loose soil was sifting into her low slippers
before she had gone a score of paces. When she came back she would
unpack her trunk and get out a sensible pair of boots. No doubt she
was dressed ridiculously, but then the heat had tempted her. . . .
A curious matter presented itself to her. In the little groups upon
the street she had not seen a single woman. Were there none in San
Juan? Was this some strange, altogether masculine, community into
which she had stumbled? Then she remembered how the bell-ringer had
mentioned Mrs. Engle, the banker's wife, and his daughter and Mrs.
Struve and others. Besides all this she had a letter to Mrs. Engle
which she was going to present this evening. . . .
She was thinking of anything in the world but of a tragedy not yet
grown cold, so near her that for a little it had seemed to embrace her.
Now it was almost as though it had not occurred. The world was all
unchanged about her, the town somnolent. She had shuddered as Ignacio
played upon his bell; but the shudder was rather from the bell's
resonant eloquence than from any more vital cause. A man she had never
seen, whose name even she did not know, had been shot by another man
unknown to her; she had heard only the shots, she had seen nothing.
True, she had heard also a voice crying out, but she sensed that it had
been the voice of an onlooker. She felt ashamed that the episode did
not move her more.
As, earlier in the afternoon, she had been drawn from the heat of her
room at Struve's hotel by the shade to be found in the Mission garden,
so now did a long, wavering line of cottonwoods beckon to her. In
files which turned eastward or westward here and there only to come
back to the general northerly trend, they indicated where an arroyo
writhed down, tortured serpent-wise, from the mountains. Through their
foliage she had glimpsed the Engle home. She expected to find running
water under their shade, that and an attendant coolness.
But the arroyo proved to be dry and hot, a gash in the dry bosom of the
earth, its bottom strewn with smooth pebbles and sand and a very
sparse, unattractive vegetation, stunted and harsh. And it was almost
as hot here as on San Juan's street; into the shade crept the
heat-waves of the dry, scorched air.
Led by the line of cottonwoods she found a little path and followed it,
experiencing a vague relief to have the town at her back. She knew
that distances deceived the eye in this bleak land, and yet she thought
that before dark she could reach the hills, where perhaps there were a
few languid flowers and pools, and return just tired enough to eat and
go to sleep. She rather thought that she would postpone her call on
the Engles until to-morrow.
"It's mañana-land, after all," she told herself with a quick smile.
Half an hour later she found a spot where the trees stood in a denser
growth, looking greener, more vigorous . . . less thirsty. She could
fancy the great roots, questing far downward through the layers of dry
soil, thrusting themselves almost with a human, passionate eagerness
into the water they had found. Here she threw herself down, lying upon
her back, gazing up through the branches and leaves.
Never until now had she known the meaning of utter stillness. She saw
a bird, a poor brown, unkempt little being; it had no song to offer the
silence, and in a little flew away listlessly. She had seen a rabbit,
a big, gaunt, uncomely wretch, disappearing silently among the clumps
of brush.
Her spirit, essentially bright and happy, had striven hard with a new
form of weariness all day. Not only was she coming into another land
than that which she knew and understood, she was entering another phase
of her life. She had chosen voluntarily, without advice or suggestion;
she had had her reasons and they had seemed sufficient; they were still
sufficient. She had chosen wisely; she held to that, her judgment
untroubled. But that stubbornly recurrent sense that with the old
landmarks she had abandoned the old life, that both in physical fact
and in spiritual and mental actuality she was at the threshold of an
unguessed, essentially different life, was disquieting. There is no
getting away from an old basic truth that a man's life is so strongly
influenced as almost to be moulded by his environment; there was
uneasiness in the thought that here one's existence might grow to
resemble his habitat, taking on the gray tone and monotony and bleak
barrenness of this sun-smitten land.
Yielding a little already to the command laid upon breathing nature
hereabouts, she was lying still, her hands lax, her thoughts taking
unto themselves something of the character of the listless, songless
brown bird's flight. She had come here to-day following in the
footsteps of other men and a few women. Her own selection of San Juan
was explicable; the thing to wonder at was what had given the hardihood
to the first men to stop here and make houses and then homes? Later
she would know; the one magic word of the desert lands: water. For San
Juan, standing midway between the railroad and the more tempting lands
beyond the mountains, had found birth because here was a mud-hole for
cradle; down under the sand were fortuitous layers of impervious clay
cupping to hold much sweet water.
The slow tolling of a bell came billowing out through the silence. The
girl sat up. It was the Captain. Never, it seemed to her, had she
heard anything so mournful. Ignacio had informed himself concerning
all details and had returned to the garden at the Mission. The man was
dead, then. There could be no doubt as one listened to the measured
sorrowing of the big bell.
She got to her feet and, walking swiftly, moved on, still farther from
San Juan. The act was without premeditation; her whole being was
insistent upon it. She wondered if it was the sheepman from Las
Palmas; if he had, perhaps, a wife and children. Then she stopped
suddenly; a new thought had come to her. Strange, inexplicable even,
it had not suggested itself before. She wondered who the other man
was, the man who had done the killing. And what had happened to him?
Had he fled? Had other men grappled with him, disarmed him, made of
him a prisoner to answer for what he had done? What had been his
motive, what passion had actuated him Surely not just the greed for
gold which the bell-ringer had suggested! What sort of creature was he
who, in cold, calculating blood could murder a man for a handful of
money?
There was nothing to answer unless she could catch the thought of
Ignacio Chavez in the ringing of his bell. She moved on again,
hurrying.
Following the arroyo, she had come to the first of the little, smooth
hills, the lomas as the men on the stage had named them. Through them
the dry watercourse wriggled, carrying its green pennons along its
marge. She went up gentle slopes mantled with bleached grass which
directly under her eyes was white in the glare of the sun. But the sun
was very low now, very fierce and red, an angry god going down in
temporary defeat, but defiant to the last, filled with threat for
to-morrow; at a little distance he tinged the world with his own fiery
hue. The far western uplands cut the great disk squarely in two; down
slipped the half wafer until it seemed that just a bright signal-fire
was kindled upon the ridge. And as that faded from her eyes the slow
sobbing of the swinging bell was like a wail for the death of the day.
She had removed her hat, fancying that already the earth was throwing
off its heat, that a little coolness and freshness was coming down to
meet her from the mountains. She turned her eyes toward them and it
was then, just after the sunset, that she saw a man riding toward her.
He was still far off when she first glimpsed him, just cresting one of
the higher hills, so that for him the sun had not yet set. For she
caught the glint of light flaming back from the silver chasings of his
bridle and from the barrel of the gun across the hollow of his left
arm. She did not believe that he had seen her in the shadow of the
cottonwoods.
If she went on she must meet him presently. She glanced back over her
shoulder, noting how far she had come from the town. It was very still
again; the bell had ceased its complaint; the hoofs of the approaching
horse seemed shod with felt, falling upon felt. She swung about and
walked back toward San Juan.
A little later she heard the man's voice, calling. Clearly to her,
since there was no one else. Why should he call to her? She gave no
sign of having heard, but walked on a trifle faster. She sensed that
he was galloping down upon her; still in the loose sand the hoof-beats
were muffled. Then when he called a second time she stopped and turned
and waited.
A splendid big fellow he was, she noted as he came on, riding a
splendid big horse. Man and beast seemed to belong to the desert; had
it not been for the glint of the sun she realized now, she probably
would not have distinguished their distant forms from the land across
which they had moved. The horse was a darkish, dull gray; the man,
boots, corduroy breeches, soft shirt, and hat, was garbed in gray or so
covered with the dust of travel as to seem so.
"What in the world are you doing way out here?" he called to her. And
then having come closer he reined in his horse, stared at her a moment
in surprised wonderment, swept off his hat and said, a shade awkwardly:
"I beg pardon. I thought you were some one else."
For her wide hat was again drooping about her face, and he had had just
the form of her and the white skirt and waist to judge by.
"It is all right," she said lightly. "I imagined that you had made a
mistake."
It was something of a victory over herself to have succeeded in
speaking thus carelessly. For there had been the impulse, a temptation
almost, just to stare back at the man as he had stared at her and in
silence. Not only was the type physically magnificent; to her it was,
like everything about her, new. And that which had held her at first
was his eyes. For it is not the part of youth to be stern-eyed; and
while this man could not be more than midway between twenty and thirty,
his eyes had already acquired the trick of being hard, steely,
suggesting relentlessness, stern and quick. Tall, lean-bodied, with
big calloused hands, as brown as an Indian, hair and eyes were
uncompromisingly black. He belonged to the southwestern wastes.
These things she noted, and that his face was drawn and weary, that
about his left hand was tied a handkerchief, hinting at a minor cut,
that his horse looked as travel-worn as himself.
"One doesn't see strangers often around San Juan," he explained. "As
for a girl . . . Well, I never made a mistake like this before. I'll
have to look out." The muscles of the tired face softened a little,
into his eyes came a quick light that was good to see, for an instant
masking their habitual sternness. "If you'll excuse me again, and if
you don't know a whole lot about this country . . ." He paused to
measure her sweepingly, seemed satisfied, and concluded: "I wouldn't
go out all alone like this; especially after sundown. We're a rather
tough lot, you know. Good-by."
He lifted his hat again, loosened his horse's reins, and passed by her.
Just as she had expected, just as she had desired. And yet, with his
dusty back turned upon her, she experienced a sudden return of her
loneliness. Would she ever look into the eyes of a friend again?
Could she ever actually accomplish what she had set out to accomplish;
make San Juan a home?
Her eyes followed him, frankly admiring now; so she might have looked
at any other of nature's triumphant creations. Then, before he had
gone a score of yards, she saw how a little tightening of his horse's
reins had brought the big brute down from a swinging gallop to a dead
standstill. The bell was tolling again.
Again he was calling to her, again, swinging about, he had ridden to
her side. Now his voice like his eyes, was ominously stern.
"Who is it?" he demanded.
"I don't know," she told him, marvelling at the look on his face. His
emotion was purely one of anger, mounting anger that a man was dead?
"The man who rings the bells told me that he thought it must be a
sheepman from Las Palmas. He went to see. . . . I didn't wait. . . ."
Nor did this man wait now. Again he had wheeled; now he was racing
along the arroyo, urging a tired horse that he might lose no
unnecessary handful of moments. And as he went she heard him curse
savagely under his breath and knew that he had forgotten her in the
thoughts which had been released by the dull booming of a bell.