JAKE FULLER
A month after Fuller sailed his son arrived at Santa Brigida, and Dick,
who met him on the mole, got something of a surprise when a handsome
youth landed and came straight towards him. Jake Fuller was obviously
very young, but had an ease of manner and a calm self-confidence that
would have done credit to an elderly man of the world. His clothes showed
nice taste, and there was nothing about him to indicate the reckless
scapegrace Dick had expected.
"You're Brandon, of course," he said as he shook hands. "Glad to meet
you. Knew you a quarter of a mile off."
"How's that?" Dick asked. "You haven't seen me before."
"For one thing, you're stamped Britisher; then you had a kind of
determined look, as if you'd come down to yank me right off to the
irrigation ditches before I'd time to run loose in the city. Matter of
duty to you, and you were going to put it through."
Dick said nothing, and Jake laughed. "Well, that's all right; I guess
we'll hit it! And now we'll put out when you like. I laid in a pretty
good breakfast on the boat; I like smart service and a well-chosen menu,
and don't suppose you have either at the camp."
"They might be better," Dick agreed, feeling that he had promised Miss
Fuller more than he might be able to perform. Then he told a peon to take
Jake's luggage and led the way to a mule carriage at the end of the mole.
"I didn't expect to ride in a transfer-wagon," Jake remarked. "Haven't
you any autos yet? If not, I'll indent for one when the next stock order
goes home."
"Perhaps you had better wait until you see the roads."
"You're surely British," Jake replied. "If you'd been an American, you'd
get the car first and make the roads fit in. However, you might tell the
ancient dago to get a move on."
Dick was silent for the next few minutes. On the whole, he thought he
would like Fuller, and made some allowance for the excitement he, no
doubt, felt at beginning his career in a foreign country, but none for any
wish to impress his companion. It was unlikely that the self-possessed lad
would care what Dick thought of him, although it looked as if he meant to
be friendly. Then as the sweating mules slowly climbed the rutted track
out of the town Dick began to point out the changing level of the land,
the ravines, or barrancos, that formed natural drainage channels from the
high watershed, and the influence of drought and moisture on the
cultivation. Jake showed a polite interest, but inquired what amusements
were to be had in Santa Brigida, about which Dick gave him as little
information as possible. If he had understood Miss Fuller's hints, the
Spanish city was no place for her brother.
Jake spent the day following Dick about the works and made no complaint
about the heat and dust, though he frowned when a shower of cement or a
splash of oil fell upon his clothes. It was obvious that he knew nothing
about engineering, but the questions he asked indicated keen intelligence
and Dick was satisfied. A room adjoining the latter's quarters had been
prepared for the newcomer, and they sat, smoking, on the veranda after
the evening meal.
"Do you think you'll like your work?" Dick asked.
"I've got to like it, and it might be worse. Since I'm not allowed to
draw or model things, I can make them, and I guess that's another form of
the same talent, though it's considerably less interesting than the
first."
"But perhaps more useful," Dick suggested.
"Well, I don't know. Our taste is pretty barbarous, as a rule, and you
can't claim that yours is more advanced, but I allow that the Spaniards
who built Santa Brigida had an eye for line and color. These dagos have a
gift we lack; you can see it in the way they wear their clothes. My
notion is that it's some use to teach your countrymen to admire beauty
and grace. We're great at making things, but there's no particular need
to make them ugly."
"Then you're a bit of an artist?"
"I meant to be a whole one and might have made good, although the old man
has not much use for art. Unfortunately, however, I felt I had to kick
against the conventionality of the life I led and the protest I put up
was a little too vigorous. It made trouble, and in consequence, my folks
decided I'd better be an engineer. I couldn't follow their arguments, but
had to acquiesce."
"It's curious how you artists claim to be exempt from the usual rules, as
if you were different from the rest of us."
"We _are_ different," Jake rejoined with a twinkle. "It's our business to
see the truth of things, while you try to make it fit your formulas about
what you think is most useful to yourself or society. A formula's like
bad spectacles; it distorts the sight, and yours is plainly out of focus.
For example, I guess you're satisfied with the white clothes you're
wearing."
"I don't know that it's important, but what's the matter with them?"
"Well," said Jake, with a critical glance, "they're all wrong. Now you've
got good shoulders, your figure's well balanced, and I like the way you
hold your head, but your tailor has spoiled every prominent line. I'll
show you some time when I model you in clay." He paused and grinned. "I
guess the Roman sentinel pose would suit you best, as I noted it when you
stood on the mole waiting for me, determined to do your duty at any cost.
Besides, there is something of the soldier about you."
"I wish you'd stop rotting," said Dick with a touch of awkwardness,
though he saw that Jake knew nothing about his leaving the army. "Was it
your father's notion that you should be an engineer?"
"He thinks so," Jake answered, grinning. "My opinion is that you have to
thank my sister Ida for the job of looking after me. She made this her
business until I went to Yale, when, of course, she lost control. Ida has
a weakness for managing people, for their good, but you ought to take it
as a delicate compliment that she passed me on to you."
"After all, Miss Fuller's age must be nearly the same as mine," Dick
remarked.
"I see what you mean, but in some respects she's much older. In fact, I
guess I could give you a year or two myself. But it seems to me you've
kind of wilted since we began to talk. You've gone slack and your eyes
look heavy. Say, I'm sorry if I've made you tired."
"I don't think you had much to do with it," said Dick. "My head aches and
I've a shivery feeling that came on about this time last night. A touch
of malarial fever, perhaps; they get it now and then in the town, though
we ought to be free from it on the hill. Anyhow, if you don't mind, I'll
get off to bed."
He went away, and Jake looked about the veranda and the room that opened
on to it. There was a canvas chair or two, a folding table, a large
drawing board on a trestle frame, and two cheap, tin lamps. It was
obvious that Dick thought of nothing much except his work and had a
Spartan disregard for comfort.
"A good sort, but it's concrete first and last with him," Jake remarked.
"Guess I've got to start by making this shack fit for a white man to live
in."
Dick passed a restless night, but felt better when he began his work on
the dam next morning, though he did not touch the small hard roll and
black coffee his colored steward had put ready for him. The air was
fresh, the jungle that rolled down the hill glittered with dew, and the
rays of the red sun had, so far, only a pleasant warmth. Cranes were
rattling, locomotives snorted as they moved the ponderous concrete blocks
and hauled away loads of earth, and a crowd of picturesque figures were
busy about the dam. Some wore dirty white cotton and ragged crimson
sashes; the dark limbs of others projected from garments of vivid color.
Dick drove the men as hard as he was able. They worked well, chattering
and laughing, in the early morning, and there was much to be done,
because Oliva's dismissal had made a difference.
The men flagged, as the sun got higher, and at length Dick sat down in
the thin shade of a tree. The light was now intense, the curving dam
gleamed a dazzling pearly-gray through a quivering radiance, and the
water that had gathered behind it shone like molten silver. One could
imagine that the pools reflected heat as well as light. Dick's eyes
ached, and for a few minutes he let them rest upon the glossy, green
jungle, and the belts of cultivation down the hill.
Then he roused himself, because he must watch what was going on. The
great blocks must be properly fitted into place, and one could not trust
the dusky laborers to use the care that was needed; besides, they were
getting slack, and the fresh blocks the locomotives brought would soon
begin to accumulate. Since this would mean extra handling and consequent
expense, the track must be kept clear. Still, Dick wished noon would
come, for his head ached badly and he felt the heat as he had not felt it
before.
It was hard to force himself to begin again after the short mid-day rest,
but he became a little more vigorous as the sun sank and the shadow of
the black cordillera lengthened across the valley. After dinner, when he
lounged on the veranda, the headache and lassitude returned, and he
listened to Jake's talk vacantly and soon went to bed. He knew he was not
well, but while malarial fever was not unusual in the neighborhood people
seldom took it in a virulent form, and as there was a good doctor at
Santa Brigida he determined to consult him when he had occasion to visit
the town. As it happened, a crane broke next day, and when evening came
he set off to inquire if new castings could be made for it in the Spanish
foundry. While he waited for an engine to take him down the line, Jake
announced his intention of coming.
"I've never been round a Spanish town," he said.
"You're not going round a Spanish town now, if I can prevent it," Dick
rejoined. "However, I suppose I can't order you off your father's
locomotive."
Jake smiled. "You can resent my taking the line you hint at when I've
done so, but I guess one must make allowances. You're getting the fever
badly, partner."
"It's the heat," Dick answered in an apologetic tone. "Anyhow, Santa
Brigida's a dirty, uninteresting place."
"I expect your ideas of what's interesting are different from mine.
Concrete's all right in the daytime, though you can have too much of it
then, but you want to please your eye and relax your brain at night."
"I was afraid of something of the kind. But here's the locomotive. Get
up, if you're coming."
Dick was silent as the engine jolted down the track, for he was feverish
and his companion's talk irritated him. Besides, he had promised Ida
Fuller to take care of the lad and knew something of the license that
ruled in the city. Jake seemed to claim the supposititious privileges of
the artistic temperament, and there were wine-shops, gamblers, pretty
Creole girls with easy manners, and ragged desperados who carried knives,
in Santa Brigida. In fact, it offered too many opportunities for romantic
adventures. In consequence, Dick went to the Hotel Magellan, which they
reached after walking from the end of the line, and took Jake into the
bar.
"You had better stop here; I won't be longer than I can help," he said.
"They'll make you a rather nice iced drink of Canary _tinto_."
"Just so," Jake replied. "_Tinto's_ a thin, sour claret, isn't it? In New
York not long ago you could get iced buttermilk. Can't say I was fond of
it, but I reckon it's as exhilarating as the other stuff."
Dick left him with some misgivings and went about his business. It was
eight o'clock in the evening and the foundry would be closed, but he knew
where the manager lived and went to his house, which was situated in the
older part of the city. He had not taken Jake because he had to pass some
of the less reputable cafés and gambling dens and thought it undesirable
that the lad should know where they were. The foundry manager was not at
home, but a languishing young woman with a thickly powdered face, who
called her mother before she conferred with Dick, told him where Don
Tomas had gone, and Dick set off again in search of the café she named.
A half moon hung low in the clear sky, but, for the most part, its light
only reached a short distance down the white and yellow fronts of the
flat-topped houses. These got light and air from the central courtyard,
or patio, and the outer walls were only pierced by one or two very narrow
windows at some height from the ground. The openings were marked here and
there by a faint glow from within, which was often broken by a shadowy
female form leaning against the bars and speaking softly to another
figure on the pavement below.
There were few street lamps, and in places the houses crowded in upon the
narrow strip of gloom through which Dick picked his way with echoing
steps. Most of the citizens were in the plaza, and the streets were quiet
except for the measured beat of the surf and the distant music of the
band. A smell of rancid oil and garlic, mingled with the strong perfumes
Spanish women use, hung about the buildings, but now and then a puff of
cooler air flowed through a dark opening and brought with it the keen
freshness of the sea. Once the melancholy note of a guitar came down from
a roof and somebody began to sing in a voice that quivered with fantastic
tremolos.
Dick went carefully, keeping as far as possible away from the walls. In
Santa Brigida, all white men were supposed to be rich, and the honesty of
the darker part of its mixed population was open to doubt. Besides, he
had learned that the fair-skinned Northerners were disliked. They brought
money, which was needed, into the country, but they also brought machines
and business methods that threatened to disturb the tranquillity the
Latin half-breed enjoyed. The latter must be beaten in industrial strife
and, exchanging independence for higher wages, become subject to a more
vigorous, mercantile race. The half-breeds seemed to know this, and
regarded the foreigners with jealous eyes. For all that, Dick carried no
weapons. A pistol large enough to be of use was an awkward thing to hide,
and he agreed with Bethune that to wear it ostentatiously was more likely
to provoke than avoid attack.
Once he thought he was followed, but when he stopped to look round, the
shadowy figure behind turned into a side street, and he presently found
the man he was in search of in a quiet café. He spent some time
explaining the drawings of the patterns that would be required before Don
Tomas undertook to make the castings, and then languidly leaned back in
his chair. His head had begun to ache again and he felt strangely limp
and tired. The fever was returning, as it did at night, but he roused
himself by and by and set off to visit the doctor.
On his way he passed the casino and, to his surprise, saw Jake coming
down the steps. Dick frowned when they met.
"How did you get in?" he asked. "It's the rule for somebody to put your
name down on your first visit."
"So it seemed," said Jake. "There are, however, ways of getting over such
difficulties, and a dollar goes some distance in this country; much
farther, in fact, than it does in ours."
"It's some consolation to think you've had to pay for your amusement,"
Dick answered sourly.
Jake smiled. "On the contrary, I found it profitable. You make a mistake
that's common with serious folks, by taking it for granted that a
cheerful character marks a fool." He put his hand in his pocket and
brought it out filled with silver coin. "Say, what do you think of this?"
"Put the money back," Dick said sharply, for there was a second-rate
wine-shop not far off and a group of untidy half-breeds lounged about its
front. Jake, however, took out another handful of silver.
"My luck was pretty good; I reckon it says something for me that I knew
when to stop."
He jingled the money as he passed the wine-shop, and Dick, looking back,
thought one of the men inside got up, but nobody seemed to be following
them when they turned into another street. This was the nearest way to
the doctor's, but it was dark and narrow, and Dick did not like its look.
"Keep in the middle," he warned Jake.
They were near the end of the street when two men came out of an arch and
waited for them.
"Have you a match, señor?" one who held a cigarette in his hand asked.
"No," said Dick suspiciously. "Keep back!"
"But it is only a match we want," said the other, and Jake stopped.
"What's the matter with giving him one? Wait till I get my box."
He gave it to the fellow, who struck a match, and after lighting his
cigarette held it so that the faint illumination touched Dick's face.
"Thanks, señor," said the half-breed, who turned to his companion as he
added softly in Castilian: "The other."
Dick understood. It was not Jake but himself who was threatened; and he
thought he knew why.
"Look out for that fellow, Jake!" he cried. "Get back to the wall!"
Jake, to Dick's relief, did as he was told, but next moment another man
ran out of the arch, and somebody in the darkness called out in
Castilian. Dick thought he knew the voice; but the men were behind him
now, and he turned to face them. The nearest had his hand at his ragged
sash, and Dick saw that he must act before the long Spanish knife came
out. He struck hard, leaning forward as he did so, and the man reeled
back; but the other two closed with him, and although his knuckles jarred
as a second blow got home, he felt a stinging pain high up in his side.
His breathing suddenly got difficult, but as he staggered towards the
wall he saw Jake dash his soft hat in the face of another antagonist and
spring upon the fellow. There seemed to be four men round them and one
was like Oliva, the contractor; but Dick's sight was going and he had a
fit of coughing that was horribly painful.
He heard Jake shout and footsteps farther up the street, and tried to
lean against the house for support, but slipped and fell upon the
pavement. He could neither see nor hear well, but made out that his
assailants had slunk away and men were running towards Jake, who stood,
calling for help, in the middle of the street. Shortly afterwards a group
of dark figures gathered round and he heard confused voices. He thought
Jake knelt down and tried to lift him, but this brought on a stab of
burning pain and he knew nothing more.