A DISCOVERY
THE murder of Maldonado shook the camp next morning. The wife had run
from Rickard’s tent to Mrs. Dowker, who had put the hysterical creature
to bed. All night, she babbled of her horror. There had been no sleep
at the Dowkers’; the boy woke up shrieking with fright at the strange
sobbing. Dowker spoke of it at the mess-tent at breakfast; an hour
later, Rickard met the story there. He wondered if it had yet reached
Hardin’s sister. He decided to send MacLean down to the house of the
oleander to get at the facts.
He was rushing MacLean through the morning’s dictation, when three
rurales, in brilliant trappings, rode up to his ramada. They looked
like stage-soldiers, small and pompous in their spectacular uniforms
and gold-laced hats. The leader, entering the office, announced that
they were on the track of a criminal, the murderer of a rurale,
Maldonado. The crime had occurred two nights ago, down the river. The
señor knew the place. There was a famous oleander--
“Do you know who it was?” Rickard felt sure of the answer. He himself
thought that the murderer lay sleeping in Mrs. Dowker’s tent.
The spokesman of the party, of fierce mustaches, and glittering
bullion, surprised him. “An Indian, named Felipe.” He repeated the
story Rickard had heard before. Felipe had escaped his guards, the
companions of the speaker. They had followed him, tracked him to
his home; then, conclusively on to the adobe of the oleander where
Maldonado and the woman were found--butchered. It was quite clear. He
had left a stupid trail behind him of noisy threats, revenge--
“Maldonado’s girl herself opened the door for him; she saw him run out.
Oh, he will be shot for this. Maldonado was a good officer.”
Rickard did not feel called upon to question the adjective. The evil
place would be closed; the commandant would see to that. He asked about
the dead man’s children, if they were still at the adobe--
“An Indian woman, their only neighbor, is with them. They will be cared
for. Would the señor give his respected permission for notices to be
posted about the camp? A description of the Indian, a reward for his
capture; the favor would be inestimable.”
Rickard took the placard, written in fairly correct English and
Spanish. The government of Mexico was calling its people to capture
“One Felipe, Indian, belonging to the tribe of Cocopahs. His skin dark
to blackness, with high cheek-bones, and an old fading scar, bluish,
which runs from mouth to ear. Five feet, eight inches tall, with black
hair reaching below his shoulders. One hundred dollars reward for his
arrest, or apprehension. When last seen, he was wearing blue cotton
trousers, a faded cotton shirt. The fugitive speaks Spanish, a little
broken English and several Indian dialects.”
The two solemn rurales stood at attention as the resplendant officer
repeated his convictions.
“He is somewhere in the river-bed, otherwise we would have found him.
The thick undergrowth shelters him, señor. He is skulking somewhere
between Hamlin’s and Maldonado’s. He has had a start of twenty-four
to thirty-six hours, maybe more, but then--our horses, señor! If we
may be allowed to post these notices, we will then push up to Hamlin’s
Crossing. A posse is scouring the country around Maldonado’s. He will
not escape.”
Rickard gave the card back to the pompous little officer whose sword
and spurs clanked as he bowed over it. He thanked the señor eternally
for his attention and courtesy. He saluted again, wheeled, marching out
of the ramada, with his stage-soldiers.
Rickard saw the notice later that day. It was nailed to the back
platform of the _Palmyra_. He was on Marshall’s trail, his chief having
failed to keep an appointment with him. They were to test the gate that
afternoon; Marshall was returning soon to Tucson.
Rickard found Claudia in the darkened car reading a note from her
husband. With a rising inflection that did not escape him, she told her
visitor that her husband had been called to Yuma on business.
“Oh, that’s so,” cooperated Rickard, concealing his amusement at
Marshall’s truancy. “I’d forgotten about that business.” Claudia
Marshall had reason for her anxiety. But not for wifely worry would he
mention that forgotten appointment at the river!
“He may be kept late, he says.” Rickard was conscious that she was
watching his face. “He says not to wait up. _That_ means late hours.
Oh, Tod ought not! Every time, his cough comes back--” He had caught
her off guard. Her fears were a crucifixion.
In Tucson, Rickard had heard a dwarfing version of over-solicitude.
Since he had been with them at the river, the thing smacked to him
of tragedy. He had seen the gentle rogue slip that wistful bridle
before. Her eyes, to him, looked robbed. Why should she not grudge
each unnatural night, insist on life at her terms instead of the
full-blooded recklessness of his?
He left the car musing on marital ironies. Daring adventure to throw
together a team of unmatched natures, gambling on exteriors--as teams
are chosen. Without a driver, he followed his thought whimsically, what
team left so to itself would not smash its harness? Terrible plunge,
that! What can two people, neighbors even, know of congeniality, that
mutual delight which must survive the nagging friction of every-day
life? Harder for a man to know the nature of the woman he picks
out, than for the girl. She has his work as a guide; she can guess
at temperament and taste. What guide has a man in the choice of the
home-bred girl, the only sort he himself could imagine being willing
to pin his faith to? Modern life, the home, shelters the woman; she
has no profession to betray her taste or disposition. In a place like
this, it’s different. Camp life shows up the real man or woman. A good
preliminary course, that, in matrimony, love-sick couples, made to work
out a probation in a rough camp, the woman to cook, the man to hunt
for grub and fire-wood! Fewer marriages, perhaps, but then not so many
divorces.
A group of Indian children were playing under a clump of willows,
directing a mimic stream through a canal of their own making. Even
the children were playing the river game! He stopped to watch their
mimicry. A pool of deserted water lay caught in a depression. The
little brown hands had raised a labored levee, had scooped out the
return canal.
“Hold on,” cried Rickard. An engineering problem had stopped their
game. The stream, returning, threatened to overwhelm their breastworks.
“Do it this way.” The miniature of a stolid bronze buck looked up
uncomprehendingly. Rickard tried Spanish. The children shook their
heads. He got down on his knees, and in a few minutes straightened
out the rebellious river. Many a year since he had played with kids!
The little faces looking up at him, the confidence, stirred quiescent
longings. He was no longer what one would call a young man. He was
living so hurriedly that he was allowing life in its great, sweet
solemn meaning to pass him by. It was always _mañana_ with him, or
_pasada mañana_. And he was getting along!
Stretching the kinks in his legs, he continued his walk. He would
take a look at the levee while he was there. The youngsters’ problem
recurred to him. He had had a new thought back there. He pulled a
note-book from his pocket, scrawling as he went. An idea pulled him
stock-still. Why not, he asked himself with some excitement? Custom
says _borrow-pits on the outside_. What was the origin of that custom?
“Is not our problem different?” he demanded. “A dike is placed usually
to protect immediately usable land. Not so, here. Well, then, why?” The
borrow-pit must be a menace on the stream side, must expose fallible
softness to floods--queer he hadn’t thought of that before. He must
think that well over before he made a change, but it certainly did look
reasonable to him.
He hailed Parrish, down the levee a distance. Parrish was the foreman
of that section of levee, in charge of a big gang of Indians and
hoboes. He came up running.
“Go slowly here,” advised his chief. “I may change the orders. Going to
open up muck-ditches this afternoon?”
Parrish thought that they might, late.
“Wait to see me. Come up to camp this evening. I’ll go over it by
myself first. I’ll talk it over with you.”
Parrish asked hesitatingly would the next night do as well? He had
promised Mrs. Parrish to go to Yuma to fetch some medicines she needed.
She wasn’t well, but if it was pressing--
“Surely, go,” agreed Rickard. “But you will be passing the camp. Lay
off early to-night, and start in time to have a talk with me before
going to Yuma. Here, this is what I’m figuring on.” He wanted to try it
on the practical mind, unbiased by conventions. He drew his idea again,
elaborating the suggestion of inside borrow-pits.
“I don’t see why it isn’t right,” frowned Parrish, whose ideas grew
slowly.
“I believe it _is_ right. But I’ll go over it carefully at the office.
Drop in early. I’ll give you your orders for to-morrow.”
Rickard turned back toward camp, deep in his thought; so intent that a
sharp cry had lost its echo before the import came to him. He stopped,
hearing running steps behind him. Innes Hardin was loping up the bank
like a young deer, with terror in her eyes.
“Mr. Rickard,” she cried, “Mr. Rickard!”
She was trembling. Her fright had flushed her; cheek to brow was
glowing with startled blood. He saw an odd flash of startling beauty,
the veil of tan torn off by her emotion. The wave of her terror caught
him. He put out his hand to steady her. She stood recovering herself,
regaining her spent breath. Rickard remembered that this was the first
time he had seen her since the murder of Maldonado, since the meeting
with the Mexican woman at his tent. “What was it frightened you?”
“The Indian, the murderer. Just as they describe him on those notices,
the high cheek-bones, the scar, a terrible gaunt face. I must have
fallen asleep. I’d been reading. I heard a noise in the brush, and
there was his face staring at me. Foolish how frightened I was.” Her
breath was still uneven. “I screamed and ran. Silly to be so scared.”
He started toward the willows, but she grabbed his sleeve. “Oh, don’t.”
She flushed, thinking to meet the quizzical smile, but his eyes were
grave. He, too, had had his fright. They stood staring at each other.
“I’m afraid--” she completed. How he would despise her cowardice! But
she could not let him know that her fear had been for him!
He was looking at her. Suppose anything had happened to her! He had a
minute of nausea. If that brute had hurt her--and then he knew how it
was with him!
He looked at her gravely. Of course. He had known it a long time. It
was true. She was going to belong to him. If that brute had hurt her!
She shrank under his gravity; this was something she did not
understand. They were silent, walking toward the encampment. Rickard
did not care to talk. It was not the time; and he had been badly
shaken. Innes was tremulously conscious of the palpitating silence. She
fluttered toward giddy speech. Her walk that day, Mr. Rickard! She had
heard that water had started to flow down the old river-bed; she had
wanted to see it, and there was no one to go with her. Her sentence
broke off. The look he had turned on her was so dominant, so tender.
Amused at her giddiness, and yet loving her! Loving her! They were
silent again.
“You won’t go off alone, again.” He had not asked it, at parting. His
inflection demanding it of her, was of ownership. She did not meet his
eyes.
Later, when she was lying on her bed, face downward, routed, she tried
to analyze that possessive challenge of his gaze, but it eluded words.
She summoned her pride, but the meaning called her, sense and mind and
soul of her. It cried to her: “I, Casey Rickard, whom your brother
hates, once the lover of Gerty Holmes, I am the mate for you. And I’m
going to come and take you some day. Some day, when I have time!”
Oh, yes, she was angry with him; she had some pride. “Why didn’t he
tell me then?” she cried in a warm tumult to her pillow. “For I would
have given him his answer. I had time, ample time, to tell him that
it was not true.” For she wanted a different sort of lover, not a
second-hand discard; but one who belonged all to herself; one who
would woo, not take her with that strange sure look of his. “You’ll be
waiting when I come.” Ah, she would not, indeed! She would show him!
And then she lay quite still with her hand over her heart. She _would_
be waiting when he came for her! Because, though life had brought them
together so roughly, so tactlessly had muddled things, yet she knew.
She would be waiting for him!
Before he had left her, Rickard had followed a swift impulse. Those
bronze lamps averted still? Was she remembering--last night? No
mistake like that should rest between them. He must set that straight.
That much he allowed himself. Until his work was done. But she
knew--she had seen--how it was with him!
“I wonder if you would help me, Miss Hardin? Would you do something
for that poor crazed woman? I wanted to ask Mrs. Hardin, but for some
reason I’ve got into her black books. The Mexican needs help,--she ran
away from her children, she thought the suspicion would fall on her--I
suppose we must not blame her for cowardice. Just the little kindness
one woman can give another. A man finds it difficult. And these Mexican
women don’t understand a man’s friendship.”
Her eyes met his squarely. His tantalizing smile had gone. He was
making a demand of her--to believe him, his request his defense. The
glances, of yellow eyes and gray, met with a shock, and the world was
changed for both. Life, with its many glad voices, was calling to
senses and spirit, the girl’s still rebellious, the man’s sure.
It was the serene hour of the day. The work of the day was done, save
Ling’s and the river shifts’. The wonderful slow evening of the desert
was unfolding. Beyond, the distant deep-shadowed mountains, which shut
them out from the world, made a jagged rent across the sky.
Rickard pulled himself free from the solemnity of that moment. They
were to be friends--first! He sought her eyes. Good! They were not to
be enemies any more!
He put out his hand. “Good night!” To both, it carried the sound of “I
love you!” She put her hand in his, then tore her fingers away, furious
with them for clinging. Where was her pride? When he had time!
She fled into her tent, his look from which all laughter had faded,
following her.
Neither of them had seen Gerty Hardin watching them from her tent door.