WHEN THE WIRES WERE CUT
Don Manuel rode into the moonlit plaza of the Valdés ranch, dismounted,
and flung the reins to the boy that came running. Pesquiera nodded a
careless greeting and passed into the house. He did not ask of anyone
where Valencia was, nor did he send in a card of announcement. A lover's
instinct told him that he would find her in the room that served both as
an office and a library for her, seated perhaps before the leaping
fireglow she loved or playing softly on the piano in the darkness.
The door was open, and he stood a moment on the threshold to get
accustomed to the dim light.
A rich, low-pitched voice came across the room to him.
"It is you, Manuel?"
He stepped swiftly forward to the lounge upon which she was lying and
knelt on one knee beside her, lifting her hand to his lips. "It is I,
_corazon mia_, even Manuel the lucky."
She both smiled and sighed at that. A chord in her responded to the
extravagance of his speech, even though vaguely it did not quite
satisfy. A woman of the warm-blooded south and no plaster saint, she
answered presently with shy, reluctant lips the kisses of her lover. Why
should she not? Had he not won her by meeting the test she had given
him? Was he not a gallant gentleman, of her own race and caste, bound to
her by ties of many sorts, in every way worthy to be the father of her
children? If she had to stifle some faint, indefinable regret, was it
not right that she should? Her bridges were burned behind her. He was
the man of her choice. She listened, eyes a little wistful, while he
poured out ardently the tale of his devotion.
"You do love me, don't you, Manuel?" she demanded, a little fiercely. It
was as if she wanted to drown any doubts she might have of her own
feeling in the certainty of his.
"More than life itself, I do believe," he cried in a low voice.
Her lithe body turned, so that her shining eyes were close to his.
"Dear Manuel, I am glad. You don't know how worried I've been ... still
am. Perhaps if I were a man it would be different, but I don't want my
people to take the life of this stranger. But they mean him
harm--especially since he has come back and intends to punish Pablo and
Sebastian. I want them to let the law take its course. Something tells
me that we shall win in the end. I've talked to them--and talked--but
they say nothing except 'Si, doña.' But with you to help me----"
"They'd better not touch him again," broke in her lover swiftly.
"It's a great comfort to me, Manuel, that you have blotted out your own
quarrel with him. It was magnanimous, what I should expect of you."
He said nothing, but the hand that lay on hers seemed suddenly to
stiffen. A kind of fear ran shivering through her. Quickly she rose from
the couch.
"Manuel, tell me that I am right, that you don't mean to ... hurt him?"
Her dark eyes searched his unflinchingly. "You don't mean ... you can't
mean ... that----?"
"Let us forget the American and remember only that we love, my beloved,"
he pleaded.
"No ... No!" The voice of the girl was sharp and imperative. "I want the
truth. Is it that you are still thinking of murdering him, Manuel?"
The sting of her words brought a flush to his cheeks. "I fight fair,
Valencia. I set against his life my own, with all the happiness that has
come flooding it. Nor is it that I seek the man's life. For me he might
live a thousand years--and welcome. But my honor----"
"No, Manuel. No--no--no! I will not have it. If you are betrothed to me
your life is mine. You shall not risk it in a barbarous duel."
"Let us change the subject, dear heart."
"Not till I hear you say that you have given up this wicked intention of
yours."
He gave up the attempt to evade her and met her fairly as one man does
another.
"I can't say that, Valencia, not even for you. This quarrel lies between
him and me. I have suffered humiliation and disgrace. Until those are
wiped out there must be war between me and the American."
"Since the day I first wore your ring, Manuel, I have asked nothing of
you. I ask now that you will forget the slight this man has put upon you
... because I ask it of you with all my heart."
A slight tremor ran through his blood. He felt himself slipping from his
place with her.
"I can't, Valencia. You don't know what you ask, how impossible it is
for me--a Pesquiera, son of my honored fathers--to grant such a
request." He stretched his hands toward her imploringly.
"Yet you say you love me?"
"Heaven knows whether it is not true, my cousin."
"You want me to believe that, even though you refuse the first real
request I ever made of you?"
"Anything else in the world that is in my power."
"It is easy to say that, Manuel, when it isn't something else I want.
Give me this American's life. I shall know, then, that you love me."
"You know now," he answered quietly.
"Is love all sighs and vows?" she cried impatiently. "Will it not
sacrifice pride and vanity for the object of its devotion?"
"Everything but honor," answered the man steadfastly.
She made a gesture of despair.
"What is this honor you talk so much about? It is neither Christian nor
lawful nor right."
"It is a part of me, Valencia."
"Then your ideas are archaic. The duel was for a time when every man had
to seek his personal redress. There is law in this twentieth century."
"Not as between man and man in the case of a personal indignity--at
least, not for Manuel Pesquiera."
"But it is so needless. We know you are brave; he knows it, too. Surely
your vanity----"
He smiled a little sadly.
"I think it is not vanity, but something deeper. None of my ancestors
could have tolerated this stigma, nor can their son. My will has nothing
to do with it, and my desire still less. It is kismet."
"Then you must know the truth--that if you kill this man I can
never----"
"Never what?"
"Never marry you."
"Why?"
"His blood would stand between us."
"Do you mean that you--love him?"
Her dark eyes met his steadily.
"I don't think I mean that, Manuel. How could I mean that, since I love
you and am betrothed to you? Sometimes I hate him. He is so insolent in
his daring. Then, too, he is my enemy, and he has come here to set this
happy valley to hate and evil. Yet, if I should hurt him, it would stand
between us forever."
"I am sorry."
"Only sorry, Manuel?"
He clamped his teeth on the torrent of protest that rose within him when
she handed him back his ring. It would do no good to speak more. The
immutable fact stood between them.
"I did not know life could be so hard--and cruel," she cried out in a
burst of passion.
She went to the open window and looked out upon the placid, peaceful
valley. She had a swift, supple way of moving, as if her muscles
responded with effortless ease to her volition; but the young man
noticed that to-night there was a drag to her motions.
His heart yearned toward her. He longed mightily to take her in his arms
and tell her that he would do as she wished. But, as he had said,
something in him more potent than vanity, than pride, than his will,
held him to the course he had set for himself. His views of honor might
be archaic and ridiculous, but he lived by his code as tenaciously as
had his fathers. Gordon had insulted and humiliated him publicly. He
must apologize or give him satisfaction. Until he had done one or the
other Manuel could not live at peace with himself. He had put a powerful
curb upon his desire to wait as long as he had. Circumstances had for a
time taken the matter out of his hands, but the time had come when he
meant to press his claims. The American might refuse the duel; he could
not refrain from defending himself when Pesquiera attacked.
A step sounded in the doorway, and almost simultaneously a voice.
"_Doña,_ are you here?"
The room was lighted only by the flickering fire; but Valencia, her eyes
accustomed to the darkness, recognized the boy as Juan Gardiez.
"Yes, I am here, Juan. What have you to tell me?" she said quickly.
"I do not know, _señorita_. But the men--Pablo, Sebastian; all of
them--are gone."
"Gone where?" she breathed.
"I do not know. To-day I drove a cow and calf to Willow Springs. I am
but returned. The houses are empty. Señor Barela's wife says she saw men
riding up the hill toward Corbett's--eight, nine, ten of them."
"To Corbett's?" She stared whitely at him without moving. "How long
ago?"
"An hour ago--or more."
"Saddle Billy at once and bring him round," the girl ordered crisply.
She turned as she spoke and went lightly to the telephone. With the need
of action, of decision, her hopelessness was gone. There was a hard,
bright light in her eyes that told of a resolution inflexible as
tempered steel when once aroused.
"Give me Corbett's--at once, please. Hallo, Central--Corbett's----"
No answer came, though she called again and again.
"There must be something wrong with the telephone," suggested Don
Manuel.
She dropped the receiver and turned quietly to him.
"The wires have been cut."
"But, why? What is it all about?"
"Merely that my men are anticipating you. They have gone to murder the
American. Deputy sheriffs from Santa Fé to-day came here to arrest Pablo
and Sebastian. The men suspected and were hidden. Now they have gone to
punish Mr. Gordon for sending the officers."
She could not have touched him more nearly. He came to her with burning
eyes.
"How do you know? What makes you think so?"
She told him, briefly and simply, giving more detailed reasons.
Without a word, he turned and left her. She could hear him rushing
through the hall, traced his progress by the slamming of the door, and
presently caught sight of him running toward the corral. He did not
hear, or heed, her call for him to wait.
The girl hurried out of the house after him, in time to see him slap a
saddle on his bronco, swing to his seat lightly, and gallop in a cloud
of dust to the road.
Valencia waited for no more. Quickly running to her room, she slipped on
a khaki riding-skirt. Her deft, tapering fingers moved swiftly, so that
she was ready, crop in hand, booted and spurred, by the time Juan
brought round her horse.
It took but an instant to lift herself to the saddle and send Billy
galloping forward.
Already her cousin had disappeared in great clouds of dust over the brow
of the hill.