IN THE DARKNESS OF THE PATIO
Through the silence of the outer night, as though actually Ignacio
Chavez were prophesying, came billowing the slow beating of the deep
mourning bell. Mrs. Engle sighed; Engle frowned; Virginia sat rigid,
at once disturbed and oppressed.
"How can you stand that terrible bell?" she cried softly. "I should
think that it would drive you mad! How long does he ring it?"
"Once every hour until midnight," answered Engle, his face once more
placid as he withdrew his look from the patio and transferred it to his
cigar. And then, with a half smile: "There are many San Juans; there
is, in all the wide world, but one San Juan of the Bells. You would
not take our distinction from us? Now that you are to become of San
Juan you must, like the rest of us, take a pride in San Juan's bells.
Which you will do soon or late; perhaps just as soon as you come to
know something of their separate and collective histories."
"Tell her, John," suggested Mrs. Engle, again obviously anxious to
dispel the more lugubrious and tragic atmospheres of the evening with
any chance talk which might offer itself.
"Let her wait until Ignacio can tell her," laughed Engle. "No one else
can tell it so well, and certainly no one else has an equal pride or
even an equal right in the matter."
But, though he refused to take up the colorful theme of the biographies
of the Captain, the Dancer, Lolita, and the rest, John Engle began to
speak lightly upon an associated topic, first asking the girl if she
knew with what ceremony the old Western bells had been cast; when she
shook her head and while the slow throbbing beat of the Captain still
insisted through the night's silences, he explained that doubtless all
six of Ignacio Chavez's bells had taken form under the calm gaze of
high priests of old Spain. For legend had it that all six were from
their beginnings destined for the new missions to be scattered
broadcast throughout a new land, to ring out word of God to heathen
ears. Bells meant for such high service were never cast without grave
religious service and sacrifice. Through the darkness of long-dead
centuries the girl's stimulated fancies followed the man's words; she
visualized the great glowing caldrons in which the fusing metals grew
red and an intolerable white; saw men and women draw near, proud
blue-blooded grandees on one hand, and the lowly on the other, with one
thought; saw the maidens and ladies from the courtyards of the King's
palace as they removed golden bracelets and necklaces from white arms
and throats, so that the red and yellow gold might go with their
prayers into the molten metals, enriching them, while those whose
poverty was great, but whose devotion was greater, offered what little
silver ornaments they could. Carved silver vases, golden cups, minted
coins and cherished ornaments, all were offered generously and devoutly
until the blazing caldrons had mingled the Queen's girdle-clasps with a
bauble from the beggar girl.
"And in the end," smiled Engle, "there are no bells with the sweet tone
of old Mission bells, or with their soft eloquence."
While he was talking Ignacio Chavez had allowed the dangling rope to
slip from his hands so that the Captain rested quiet in the starshine.
Roderick and Florence were coming in through the wide patio door;
Norton was just saying that Florrie had promised to play something for
him when the front door knocker announced another visitor. Florence
made a little disdainful face as though she guessed who it was; Engle
went to the door.
Even Virginia Page in this land of strangers knew who the man was. For
she had seen enough of him to-day, on the stage across the weary miles
of desert, to remember him and to dislike him. He was the man whom
Galloway and the stage-driver had called "Doc," the sole representative
of the medical fraternity in San Juan until her coming. She disliked
him first vaguely and with purely feminine instinct; secondly because
of an air which he never laid aside of a serene consciousness of
self-superiority. He had established himself in what he was pleased to
consider a community of nobodies, his inferiors intellectually and
culturally. He was of that type of man-animal that lends itself to
fairly accurate cataloguing at the end of the first five minutes'
acquaintance. The most striking of the physical attributes about his
person as he entered were his little mustache and neatly trimmed beard
and the diamond stick-pin in his tie. Remove these articles and it
would have been difficult to distinguish him from countless thousands
of other inefficient and opinionated individuals.
Virginia noted that both Mr. and Mrs. Engle shook hands with him if not
very cordially at least with good-humored toleration; that Florence
treated him to a stiff little nod; that Roderick Norton from across the
room greeted him coolly.
"Dr. Patten," Engle was saying, "this is our cousin, Virginia Page."
Dr. Patten acknowledged the introduction and sat down, turning to ask
"how Florrie was today?" Virginia smiled, sensing a rebuke to herself
in his manner; to-day on the stage she had made it obvious even to him
that if she must speak with a stranger she would vastly prefer the talk
of the stage-driver than that of Dr. Caleb Patten. When Florence,
replying briefly, turned to the piano Patten addressed Norton.
"What was our good sheriff doing to-day?" he asked banteringly, as
though the subject he chose were the most apt one imaginable for jest.
"Another man killed in broad daylight and no one to answer for it! Why
don't you go get 'em, Roddy?"
Norton stared at him steadily and finally said soberly:
"When a disease has fastened itself upon the body of a community it
takes time to work a cure, Dr. Patten."
"But not much time to let the life out of a man like the chap from Las
Palmas! Why, the man who did the shooting couldn't have done a nicer
job if he'd been a surgeon. One bullet square through the carotid
artery . . . That leads from the heart to the head," he explained as
though his listeners were children athirst for knowledge which he and
none other could impart. "The cerebrum penetrated by a second. . . ."
What other technical elucidation might have followed was lost in a
thunderous crashing of the piano keys as Florence Engle strove to drown
the man's utterance and succeeded so well that for an instant he sat
gaping at her.
"I can't stand that man!" Florence said sharply to Norton, and though
the words did not travel across the room, Virginia was surprised that
even an individual so completely armored as Caleb Patten could fail to
grasp the girl's meaning.
When Florence had pounded her way through a noisy bit of "jazz," Caleb
Patten, with one of his host's cigars lighted, was leaning a little
forward in his chair, alert to seize the first opportunity of snatching
conversation by the throat.
"Kid Rickard admits killing Bisbee," he said to Norton. "What are you
going to do about it? The first thing I heard when I got in from a
professional call a little while ago was that Rickard was swaggering
around town, saying that you wouldn't gather him in because you were
afraid to."
The sheriff's face remained unmoved, though the others looked curiously
to him and back to Patten, who was easy and complacent and vaguely
irritating.
"I imagine you haven't seen Jim Galloway since you got in, have you?"
Norton returned quietly.
"No," said Patten. "Why? What has Galloway got to do with it?"
"Ask him. He says Rickard killed Bisbee in self-defense."
"Oh," said Patten. And then, shifting in his chair: "If Galloway says
so, I guess you are right in letting the Kid go."
And, a trifle hastily it struck Virginia, he switched talk into another
channel, telling of the case on which he had been out to-day, enlarging
upon its difficulties, with which, it appeared, he had been eminently
fitted to cope. There was an amused twinkle in John Engle's eyes as he
listened.
"By the way, Patten," the banker observed when there came a pause,
"you've got a rival in town. Had you heard?"
"What do you mean?" asked the physician.
"When I introduced you just now to our Cousin Virginia, I should have
told you; she is Dr. Page, M.D."
Again Patten said "Oh," but this time in a tone which through its plain
implication put a sudden flash into Virginia's eyes. As he looked
toward her there was a half sneer upon the lips which his scanty growth
of beard and mustache failed to hide. Had he gone on to say, "A
_lady_ doctor, eh?" and laughed, the case would not have been altered.
"It seems so funny for a girl to be a doctor," said Florence, for the
first time referring in any way to Virginia since she had flown to the
door, expecting Norton alone. Even now she did not look toward her
kinswoman.
John Engle replied, speaking crisply. But just what he said Virginia
did not know. For suddenly her whole attention was withdrawn from the
conversation, fixed and held by something moving in the patio. First
she had noted a slight change in Rod Norton's eyes, saw them grow keen
and watchful, noted that they had turned toward the door opening into
the little court where the fountain was, where the wall-lamp threw its
rays wanly among the shrubs and through the grape-arbor. He had seen
something move out there; from where she sat she could look the way he
looked and mark how a clump of rose-bushes had been disturbed and now
stood motionless again in the quiet night.
Wondering, she looked again to Norton. His eyes told nothing now save
that they were keen and watchful. Whether or not he knew what it was
so guardedly stirring in the patio, whether he, like herself, had
merely seen the gently agitated leaves of the bushes, she could not
guess. She started when Engle addressed some trifling remark to her;
while she evaded the direct answer she was fully conscious of the
sheriff's eyes steady upon her. He, no doubt, was wondering what she
had seen.
It was only a moment later when Norton rose and went to Mrs. Engle,
telling her briefly that he had had a day of it, in the saddle since
dawn, wishing her good night. He shook hands with Engle, nodded to
Patten, and coming to Virginia said lightly, but, she thought, with an
almost sternly serious look in his eyes:
"We're all hoping you like San Juan, Miss Page. And you will, too, if
the desert stillness doesn't get on your nerves. But then silence
isn't such a bad thing after all, is it? Good night."
She understood his meaning and, though a thrill of excitement ran
through her blood, answered laughingly:
"Shall a woman learn from the desert? Have I been such a chatter-box,
Mrs. Engle, that I am to be admonished at the beginning to study to
hold my tongue?"
Florence looked at her curiously, turned toward Norton, and then went
with him to the door. For a moment their voices came in a murmur down
the hallway; then Norton had gone and Florence returned slowly to the
living-room.
Again Virginia looked out into the patio. Never a twig stirred now;
all was as quiet as the sleeping fountain, as silent and mystery-filled
as the desert itself. Had Roderick Norton seen more than she? Did he
know who had been out there? Was here the beginning of some further
sinister outgrowth of the lawlessness of Kid Rickard? of the animosity
of Jim Galloway? Was she presently to see Norton himself slipping into
the patio from the other side, was she again to hear the rattle of
pistol-shots? He had asked that she say nothing; she had
unhesitatingly given him her promise. Had she so unquestioningly done
as he had requested because he was the sheriff who represented the law?
or because he was Roderick Norton who stood for fine, upstanding
manhood? . . . Again she felt Florence Engle's eyes fixed upon her.
"Florence is prepared at the beginning to dislike me," she thought.
"Why? Just because I walked with him from the hotel?"
In the heat of an argument with Mrs. Engle there came an interruption.
The banker's wife was insisting that Virginia "do the only sensible
thing in the world," that she accept a home under the Engle roof,
occupying the room already made ready for her. Virginia, warmed by the
cordial invitation, while deeply grateful, felt that she had no right
to accept. She had come to San Juan to make her own way; she had no
claim upon the hospitality of her kinswoman, certainly no such claim as
was implied now. Besides, there was Elmer Page. Her brother was
coming to join her to-morrow or the next day, and as soon as it could
be arranged they would take a house all by themselves, or if that
proved impossible, would have a suite at the hotel. At the moment when
it seemed that a deadlock had come between Mrs. Engle's eagerness to
mother her cousin's daughter and Virginia's inborn sense of
independence, the interruption came.
It arrived in the form of a boy of ten or twelve, a ragged, scantily
clothed, swarthy youngster, rubbing a great toe against a bare leg
while from the front door he announced that Ignacio Chavez was sick,
that he had eaten something _muy malo_, that he had pains and that he
prayed that the doctor cure him.
Patten grunted his disgust.
"Tell him to wait," he said briefly. And, in explanation to the
others: "There's nothing the matter with him. I saw him on the street
just before I came. And wasn't he ringing his bell not fifteen minutes
ago?"
But the boy had not completed his message. Ignacio was sick and did
not wish to die, and so had sent him to ask the Miss Lady Doctor to
come to him. Virginia rose swiftly.
"You see," she said to Mrs. Engle, "what a nuisance it would be if I
lived with you? May I come to see you to-morrow?"
While she said good night Engle got his hat.
"I'll go with you," he said. "But, like Patten, I don't believe there
is much the matter with Chavez. Maybe he thinks he'll get a free drink
of whiskey."
"You see again," laughed Virginia from the doorway, "what it would be
like, Mrs. Engle; if every time I had to make a call and Mr. Engle
deemed it necessary to go with me . . . I'd have to split my fees with
him at the very least! And I don't believe that I could afford to do
that."
"You could give me all that Ignacio pays you," chuckled Engle, "and
never miss it!"
The boy waited for them and, when they came out into the starlight,
flitted on ahead of them. At the cottonwoods a man stepped out to meet
them.
"Hello," said Engle, "it's Norton."
"I sent the boy for Miss Page," said Norton quickly. "I had to have a
word with her immediately. And I'm glad that you came, Engle. I want
a favor of you; a mighty big favor of Miss Page."
The boy had passed on through the shadows and now was to be seen on the
street.
"I guess you know you can count on me, Rod," said Engle quietly. "What
now?"
"I want you, when you go back to the house, to say that you have
learned that Miss Page likes horseback riding; then send a horse for
her to the hotel stable, so that if she likes she can have it in the
early morning. And say nothing about my having sent the boy."
Engle did not answer immediately. He and Virginia stood trying to see
the sheriff's features through the darkness. He had spoken quietly
enough and yet there was an odd new note in his voice; it was easy to
imagine how the muscles about his lean jaw had tensed, how his eyes
were again the hard eyes of a man who saw his fight before him.
"I can trust you, John," continued Norton quickly. "I can trust
Ignacio Chavez; I can trust Julius Struve. And, if you want it in
words of one syllable, I cannot trust Caleb Patten!"
"Hm," said Engle. "I think you're mistaken there, my boy."
"Maybe," returned Norton. "But I can't afford right now to take any
unnecessary chances. Further," and in the gloom they saw his shoulders
lifted in a shrug, "I am trusting Miss Page because I've got to! Which
may not sound pretty, but which is the truth."
"Of course I'll do what you ask," Engle said. "Is there anything else?"
"No. Just go on with Miss Page to see Ignacio. He will pretend to be
doubled up with pain and will tell his story of the tinned meat he ate
for supper. Then you can see her to the hotel and go back home,
sending the horse over right away. Then she will ride with me to see a
man who is hurt . . . or she will not, and I'll have to take a chance
on Patten."
"Who is it?" demanded Engle sharply.
"It's Brocky Lane," returned Norton, and again his voice told of rigid
muscles and hard eyes. "He's hurt bad, John. And, if we're to do him
any good we'd better be about it."
Engle said nothing. But the slow, deep breath he drew into his lungs
could not have been more eloquent of his emotion had it been expelled
in a curse.
"I'll slip around the back way to the hotel," said Norton. "I'll be
ready when Miss Page comes in. Good night, John."
Silently, without awaiting promise or protest from the girl, he was
gone into the deeper shadows of the cottonwoods.