“Stillwell!”
Madeline’s cry was more than the utterance of a breaking heart. It was
full of agony. But also it uttered the shattering of a structure built
of false pride, of old beliefs, of bloodless standards, of ignorance
of self. It betrayed the final conquest of her doubts, and out of
their darkness blazed the unquenchable spirit of a woman who had found
herself, her love, her salvation, her duty to a man, and who would not
be cheated.
The old cattleman stood mute before her, staring at her white face, at
her eyes of flame.
“Stillwell! I am Stewart’s wife!”
“My Gawd, Miss Majesty!” he burst out. “I knowed somethin’ turrible was
wrong. Aw, sure it’s a pity—”
“Do you think I’ll let him be shot when I know him now, when I’m no
longer blind, when I love him?” she asked, with passionate swiftness.
“I will save him. This is Wednesday morning. I have thirty-six hours to
save his life. Stillwell, send for Link and the car!”
She went into her office. Her mind worked with extraordinary rapidity
and clearness. Her plan, born in one lightning-like flash of thought,
necessitated the careful wording of telegrams to Washington, to New
York, to San Antonio. These were to Senators, Representatives, men high
in public and private life, men who would remember her and who would
serve her to their utmost. Never before had her position meant anything
to her comparable with what it meant now. Never in all her life had
money seemed the power that it was then. If she had been poor! A
shuddering chill froze the thought at its inception. She dispelled
heartbreaking thoughts. She had power. She had wealth. She would set
into operation all the unlimited means these gave her—the wires
and pulleys and strings underneath the surface of political and
international life, the open, free, purchasing value of money or the
deep, underground, mysterious, incalculably powerful influence moved
by gold. She could save Stewart. She must await results—deadlocked in
feeling, strained perhaps almost beyond endurance, because the suspense
would be great; but she would allow no possibility of failure to enter
her mind.
When she went outside the car was there with Link, helmet in hand, a
cool, bright gleam in his eyes, and with Stillwell, losing his haggard
misery, beginning to respond to Madeline’s spirit.
“Link, drive Stillwell to El Cajon in time for him to catch the El Paso
train,” she said. “Wait there for his return, and if any message comes
from him, telephone it at once to me.”
Then she gave Stillwell the telegrams to send from El Cajon and drafts
to cash in El Paso. She instructed him to go before the rebel junta,
then stationed at Juarez, to explain the situation, to bid them expect
communications from Washington officials requesting and advising
Stewart’s exchange as a prisoner of war, to offer to buy his release
from the rebel authorities.
When Stillwell had heard her through his huge, bowed form straightened,
a ghost of his old smile just moved his lips. He was no longer young,
and hope could not at once drive away stern and grim realities. As he
bent over her hand his manner appeared courtly and reverent. But either
he was speechless or felt the moment not one for him to break silence.
He climbed to a seat beside Link, who pocketed the watch he had been
studying and leaned over the wheel. There was a crack, a muffled sound
bursting into a roar, and the big car jerked forward to bound over the
edge of the slope, to leap down the long incline, to shoot out upon the
level valley floor and disappear in moving dust.
For the first time in days Madeline visited the gardens, the corrals,
the lakes, the quarters of the cowboys. Though imagining she was calm,
she feared she looked strange to Nels, to Nick, to Frankie Slade, to
those boys best known to her. The situation for them must have been one
of tormenting pain and bewilderment. They acted as if they wanted to
say something to her, but found themselves spellbound. She wondered—did
they know she was Stewart’s wife? Stillwell had not had time to tell
them; besides, he would not have mentioned the fact. These cowboys only
knew that Stewart was sentenced to be shot; they knew if Madeline had
not been angry with him he would not have gone in desperate fighting
mood across the border. She spoke of the weather, of the horses and
cattle, asked Nels when he was to go on duty, and turned away from the
wide, sunlit, adobe-arched porch where the cowboys stood silent and
bareheaded. Then one of her subtle impulses checked her.
“Nels, you and Nick need not go on duty to-day,” she said. “I may want
you. I—I—”
She hesitated, paused, and stood lingering there. Her glance had fallen
upon Stewart’s big black horse prancing in a near-by corral.
“I have sent Stillwell to El Paso,” she went on, in a low voice she
failed to hold steady. “He will save Stewart. I have to tell you—I am
Stewart’s wife!”
She felt the stricken amaze that made these men silent and immovable.
With level gaze averted she left them. Returning to the house and her
room, she prepared for something—for what? To wait!
Then a great invisible shadow seemed to hover behind her. She essayed
many tasks, to fail of attention, to find that her mind held only
Stewart and his fortunes. Why had he become a Federal? She reflected
that he had won his title, El Capitan, fighting for Madero, the rebel.
But Madero was now a Federal, and Stewart was true to him. In crossing
the border had Stewart any other motive than the one he had implied to
Madeline in his mocking smile and scornful words, “You might have saved
me a hell of a lot of trouble!” What trouble? She felt again the cold
shock of contact with the gun she had dropped in horror. He meant the
trouble of getting himself shot in the only way a man could seek death
without cowardice. But had he any other motive? She recalled Don Carlos
and his guerrillas. Then the thought leaped up in her mind with gripping
power that Stewart meant to hunt Don Carlos, to meet him, to kill him.
It would be the deed of a silent, vengeful, implacable man driven by
wild justice such as had been the deadly leaven in Monty Price. It was
a deed to expect of Nels or Nick Steel—and, aye, of Gene Stewart.
Madeline felt regret that Stewart, as he had climbed so high, had not
risen above deliberate seeking to kill his enemy, however evil that
enemy.
The local newspapers, which came regularly a day late from El Paso
and Douglas, had never won any particular interest from Madeline;
now, however, she took up any copies she could find and read all the
information pertaining to the revolution. Every word seemed vital to
her, of moving significant force.