THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
That night Mayer could not sleep. He kept assuring himself there was
nothing to fear, yet he did fear. Dark possibilities rose on his
imagination--in his excitement at finding the treasure he might have
left something, some betraying mark or object. Was there any way in
which the bandits could have obtained a clew to his identity; could they
have guessed, or discovered by some underground channel of espionage,
that he was the man who had robbed them? Over and over he told himself
it was impossible, but he could not lift from his spirit a dread that
made him toss in restless torment. With the daylight, his nerves
steadied, and a perusal of the morning papers still further calmed him.
Only one man had been caught--Knapp. Garland had broken through the
window, and with the darkness and his knowledge of the country to aid
him, had made his escape. The sheriff's bullet had not done its work; no
man seriously wounded could have eluded the speed and vigilance of the
pursuit. A posse was now out beating the hills, but with the long
stretch of night in his favor he had slipped through their fingers and
was safe somewhere in the chaparral or the mountains beyond. If his
friends could not help him, a force more implacable than sheriff or
deputy would bring him to justice: hunger.
The paper minutely described Knapp--young, thirty he said, a giant in
strength, and apparently simple and dull-witted. The game up, he accepted
the situation stoically and was ready to tell all he knew. Then followed
a summary of his career, his meeting with Garland six years before and
their joint activities. Of his partner's life where it did not touch his
he had no information to give. They met up at intervals, planned their
raids, executed them and then separated. He knew of Garland by no other
name, had no knowledge of his habitats or of what friends he had among
the ranchers and townspeople. His description of the elder man was
meager; all he seemed sure of was that Garland had once been a miner,
that he wanted to quit "the road," and that he was middle-aged, somewhere
around forty-five or it might be even fifty. Hop Sing, the Chinaman, was
equally in the dark as to the man who, the papers decided, had been the
brains of the combination. The restaurant keeper had merely been a humble
instrument in his strong and unscrupulous hand.
So far there was no mention of the cache in the tules. The reporters,
spilled out in the damp discomfort of the county seat, were filling their
columns with anything they could scrape together, but it was still too
early for them to have scraped more than the obvious, surface facts.
Mayer would have to wait. As he sat at the table, picking at his
breakfast, his mind darkly disturbed, he wondered if he had not better
get out, and then called himself a fool. He was secure, absolutely
secure. The man of the two who had had some capacity had escaped, and if
he had had the capacity of Napoleon how could he possibly have anything
to say that would involve Boye Mayer?
So he soothed himself and, braced by a cup of coffee and a cold bath,
began to feel at ease. But he decided to keep to his room till he knew
more. If anything should happen he could break away quickly and he felt
safer under cover. Now, more than ever, he feared the eyes of honest men.
He had reached this decision when he suddenly remembered Pancha. The
thought of her came with an impact, causing him to stiffen and give forth
a low ejaculation. His mind ran with lightning speed over what he had
been reading, then flashed back to her. Was this man, this hulking
country Hercules, her "best beau," or was it the other one, Garland, the
one who had the brains, and who was old? It was more likely Knapp. He
could have come to the city, seen her play, been inspired by a passion
that made him daring, been her choice till Mayer had come and conquered.
Her place in the affair, overlooked in the first shock of his own alarms,
rose before him, formidable and threatening. A desire to see her, deeper
than any he had yet experienced, seized him. Her guard would be down;
with all her sly skill she could not deceive him now. She would be
frightened, she was in danger, she would betray herself. Even if she had
long ceased to care for the man, she might have some fears for him, and
how much more fears for herself? As he realized the perils of her
position, a faint, slow smile curved his lips. It was not of derision but
of a cynical comprehension. He saw her scared to the soul, scared of
discovery as Knapp's girl, who was aware of his business, who kept tab on
his comings and goings. For all anyone knew some of that money of hers,
so thriftily hoarded, might be part of the bandit's unlawful gains.
"Whew!" he breathed out. "She must be frozen to the marrow!"
But he did not dare go to her till he was more certain of how he
himself stood.
The next day was Sunday, and on the _Despatch's_ front page appeared
Knapp's picture and his story of the rifled cache. Licking along his dry
lips with a leathern tongue, Mayer read it and then cast the paper on the
floor and sank back in his chair in a collapse of relief. Neither man
had had any suspicion of the identity of the robber; all they knew was
that their hiding place had been discovered and the treasure stolen.
He was safe, safer than he had ever felt before. As the tramp, only two
people had seen him near the marshes, a child and a boy in a ranch yard.
Even if either of them should remember and speak of him in relation to
the theft, was there a human being who would connect that tramp with Boye
Mayer, gentleman of leisure, in California for his health? He raised his
eyes and encountered his reflection in the mirror. Gathering himself into
an upright posture, he studied it, aristocratic, cold, immeasurably
superior; then, closing his eyes, he called up the image of himself as he
had been when he crossed the tules. No one, unless gifted with second
sight, could have recognized the one in the other. Dropping back in his
chair, he raised his glance to the floriated cement molding on the
ceiling, from which the chandelier depended, feeling as if borne by a
peaceful current into a shining, sunlit sea.
There was a performance at the Albion on Sunday night, but no rehearsal,
and in the gray of the afternoon he went across town to see Pancha.
He found her in a litter of dressmaking--lengths of material, old
costumes, bits of stage jewelry, patterns, gold lace, were outspread on
chairs, hung from the table, lay in bright rich heaps on the floor. The
shabby room, glowing with the lights on lustrous fabrics, the gloss of
crumpled silks, the glints and sweeps and sparklings of color, looked as
if in the process of transformation at the touch of a magician's wand. In
the midst of it--the enchanted princess still waiting for the wand's
touch--sat Pancha, in a faded blouse and patched skirt, sewing. Part of
her transformation was accomplished when she saw Mayer. If her clothes
remained the same, the radiance of her face was as complete as if the
spell was lifted and she found herself again a princess encountering her
long-lost prince.
His first glance fell away startled from that radiant face. There was
nothing on it or behind it but joy. He pressed a hand soft and clinging,
encircled a body that trembled under his arm and in which he could feel
the thudding of a suddenly leaping heart. Her eyes, searching his, shone
with a deep, pervasive happiness. She was nothing but glad, quiveringly,
passionately glad, moving in his embrace toward a chair, babbling
breathless greetings; she had not expected him, she was surprised, she
was--and the words trailed off, her face hidden against his arm.
It was far from what he had expected and he was thankful for that moment
when she stopped looking at him and he could master his surprise. It
nearly flooded up again when he saw the paper, news sheet on top, in a
pile by the sofa where it had evidently been thrown as she lay reading.
Presently he was in the armchair and she was moving about clearing
things away in a futile, incapable manner, darting like a perturbed bird
for a piece of silk, then dropping it and making a dive for a coil of
chiffon, which she pressed half into a drawer and left hanging over the
edge in a misty trail. As she moved, she continued her broken
babblings--excuses for the room's disorder, costumes for the new piece
to be made, all the time flashing looks at him, watchful, humble,
adoring, ready to come at his summons of word or hand. Finally, the
materials thrown into hiding places, the dresses heaped on the sofa, she
came toward him--a lithe, feline stealing across the carpet--and slipped
down on the floor at his feet.
"Well," he said, "what's the news?"
"There isn't any, except that I'm glad to see you."
She curled her legs under her tailor-fashion, and looked up at him.
"Nothing's happened to disturb the even tenor of your way?"
"Only rehearsals for the new piece and they don't bother me now.
That's all that ever happens to me, except for a gentleman caller now
and again."
She caught his eye, and, her hands clasped round one knee, swayed gently,
laughing in pure joy. He did not join in, adjusting his thoughts to this
new puzzle. Leaning against the chair back, the afternoon light yellow on
his high, receding temples and the backward brush of his hair, his look
was that of a fond, rather absent-minded amusement such as one awards to
the antics of a playful child. To anyone watching him his lack of
response would have suggested a preoccupation in more pregnant matters.
Receiving no answer, she went on:
"Only one gentleman caller, one sole alone gentleman, named Mayer, who, I
think, likes to come here." She paused, but again there was no answer and
she finished, addressing the carpet, "Or maybe I just imagine it, and he
only comes dull Sunday afternoons when there's nowhere else to go."
"Oh, silly, unbelieving child!" came his voice, slightly distrait it is
true, but containing sufficient of the lover's chiding tenderness to fill
her with delight.
But this was not what had brought him. The interview started, it was his
business now or never to solve the enigma. He stirred in his chair and,
raising a languid hand, pointed to the paper.
"I see you've been reading the _Despatch_."
"Um-um--this morning."
"Very good story, that one on the front page, about the bandit chap."
"Knapp? Yes, bully. They've got him at last. It was exciting, wasn't it?
Like a novel. I don't often read the papers, but I did read that."
She gave no evidence, either of agitation, or of any especial interest.
Unclasping her hands from about her knee, she turned a gold bracelet that
hung loose on her wrist, watching the light slide on its surface. Her
face was gently unconcerned, serene, almost pensive. The man's eyes
explored it, searched, scanned it for a betraying sign.
"Did you notice his picture? A pretty hard-looking customer."
She nodded, absently looking at the bracelet.
"He sure was, but they're not all as bad as that. Once down at
Bakersfield I saw a bandit. They caught him near a place where I lived
and the sheriff brought him in there. He looked like a rough sort of
rancher, nothing dangerous about him."
The expression of pensiveness deepened, increased by a sudden, disturbing
thought. Would she tell him about Bakersfield and the horrible life there
with Maria Lopez?
The temptation to be frank with him, to have no secrets, to let him
know her as she was, assailed her. She resolved upon it, drew a deep
breath and said,
"I never told you that I once lived in Bakersfield."
"There are lots of things you never told me. They seem to think the other
fellow--what's his name--Garland--has really made his escape."
The confession died on her lips. She was glad of it; she would tell him
later, some other time, he was too engrossed in the bandits now.
"I guess that's right. He's got up in the hills where there are ranchers
that'll help him."
"Would any rancher dare to help him now--wouldn't they be afraid to?"
"Not his kind. Country people aren't as dull as you'd think. I've seen a
lot of them, when I was a kid and lived round in small places. They act
sort of dumb, but some of them are awful smart behind it."
"Probably get their share of the loot."
"Sure. That would be the natural thing to keep them quiet, wouldn't it?"
Mayer murmured an assent and drew himself to the edge of his chair.
"I'd hate to be one of them the way things stand now! The law, when it
gets busy, has a pretty long arm."
"I guess it has," she agreed, toying with the bracelet.
"Anyone who has had any sort of dealings, been a friend or a confederate
of either of those fellows, is in a desperately ugly position."
She nodded. He leaned still further forward, his elbows on his knees, his
glance riveted on her.
"Suppose either of them had a wife or a sweetheart--and it's probable
they have--_that's_ the person the authorities will be after."
"Yes," she dropped the bracelet and looked away from him, her expression
dreamy, "it would be. They'll start right in to hunt for them. If they
got them, what would they do to them?"
"Do?" He suddenly stretched an index finger at her, pointing into her
face. "If they find a woman or a girl who's had any acquaintance or
intimacy with either Knapp or Garland they'll land her in jail so quick
she won't have time to think. Jail, young woman, and after that the third
degree. And if she's stood in with them--well, it'll be jail for a home
till she's served her term."
She pondered for a moment, then said softly,
"It wouldn't matter if she loved him."
"Jail wouldn't matter?"
Her glance had been fastened in meditation on the shadows of the room.
Now it shifted to him, rapt and luminous. She raised herself to her knees
and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Nothing would matter if he was her man. It would be great to stand by
him and suffer for him. It would be happiness to go to jail for him, to
die for him. There'd be only one thing that she'd be thinking about--that
would make her glad to do it--to know that he loved her, Boye."
Eye holding eye, she drew him closer till her black-fringed lids lowered
and her face, held up to his, offered itself--a symbol of a fuller gift.
Gathering her in his arms, he rose and drew her to her feet. Pressed
against him, shaken by the beating of the heart that leaped at his touch,
she again breathed the eternal question, "Do you love me"--words that
come from under-layers of doubt in the despairingly impassioned.
He reassured her as the unloving man does, lying to get away, soothing
with kisses, eager to break loose from arms that are unwelcome and yet
tempt. He played his part like a true lover and at the door was genuinely
stirred when he saw there were tears in her eyes. He had not guessed she
could be so tender, that her hard exterior hid such depths of sweetness.
His parting embrace might have deceived a more love-learned woman, and he
left her with a slight, unwonted sense of shame in his heart.
Away from her, where he could think, he pushed the shame aside as he was
ready to push her. The fire she had kindled in him died; the woman he
had clasped and kissed ceased to figure as a being to desire and became
an enigma to solve.
The fate of the bandits had touched no vulnerable spot in her. She had
been unmoved by it. Even did she adore Mayer so ardently and completely
that his presence was an anodyne for every other thought, she would have
shown, she _must_ have shown, some disturbance. He had known women who
lived so utterly in the moment that the past lost its reality, was as
dissevered from the present as though it had never existed. Was she one
of these? Could her relation--whatever it was--with either of the outlaws
have been so erased from her consciousness that she could talk of his
danger with a face as unconcerned as the one she had presented to Mayer's
vigilant eye?
It was impossible. There would have been a betrayal, a quiver of memory,
a flash of apprehension--And suddenly, gripped by conviction, he stopped
in the street and stood staring down its length.
Night was coming, the gray spotted with lamps. Each globe a sphere of
pinkish yellow, they stretched before him in a line that marched into a
distance of mingled lights and more accentuated shadows. He looked along
them as if they were bearing his thoughts back over the past, every globe
a station in the retrospect, stage by stage advancing him toward a final
point of certainty.
She didn't know!
It formed in a sentence, detached and exclamatory, in his mind, and he
stood staring at the lamps, people jostling him and some of them turning
to look back.
Now that he had guessed it everything became clear. It was like a piece
of machinery suddenly supplied with a lacking wheel which moved it to
instant action. He walked forward, seeing all the disconnected elements
take their places, seeing the whole, harmonious, intelligently related
and extremely simple. That was what had led him astray. He was not used
to simple solutions; intricate byways, complex turnings and doublings,
were what he was trained to. Working along the familiar lines, he had
overlooked what should have been easily discerned.
The man loved her, wanted to stand well with her and had deceived her as
to his occupation. And it was the older one--Knapp's picture had been in
the paper, she had seen it and it had meant nothing to her. So it was
Garland, the chap with the brains, on toward fifty--but these mountain
men with their outdoor life and unspent energies held their youth long.
His imagination, stirred to unwonted activity, pictured him, an outcast,
hunted and hiding in the mountain wilderness. As he had smiled at the
thought of Pancha's terrors, he smiled now, and again it was a curving of
the lips that had no humor behind it. It was the bitter smile of an
understanding that has no sympathy and yet has power to comprehend.
As for himself, he was out of it, the mystery was solved and he could go
his way in peace of mind. It was a fortunate ending, come just in time.
There was no need now for any more folly or philandering. They were cut
off short, romance snipped by Fate's shears, a full stop put at the last
word of the sentence. He had no fears of Pancha, she knew too much to
make trouble, and anyway there was nothing for her to make trouble about.
He had treated her with a consideration that was nothing short of
chivalrous. Even if there had been anyone belonging to her to take him to
task he could defend his conduct as that of a Sir Galahad--and there
wasn't anyone.
He felt brisk, light, mettlesome. Troubles that had threatened were
dispersed; the future lay fair before him. Relieved of all
encumbering obstacles, it extended in clear perspective toward his
idea. With keen, contemplative eye he viewed it at the end of the
vista, calculating his distance, gathering his powers to cover it in a
swift dash, sure of his success.