Forbes left the ranch after breakfast the next day, and Cairness went
with him to Tombstone. He had business there, connected with one of his
mines.
Felipa spent the day, for the most part, in riding about the ranch and
in anticipating the night. Her husband had promised to be back soon
after moonrise. When it had begun to turn dark, she dressed herself all
in white and went out to swing in the hammock until it should be time
for her lonely dinner.
Before long she heard a horse coming at a gallop up the road, to the
front of the house. She put out her hand and pushed aside the vines, but
could see little until the rider, dismounting and dropping his reins to
hang on the ground, ran up the steps. It was the mail carrier, the young
hero of the Indian massacre. Felipa saw in a moment that he was excited.
She thought of her husband at once, and sat up in the hammock.
"Well?" she said peremptorily.
"It's--" the boy looked around nervously. "If you'd come into the
house--" he ventured.
She went into the bedroom, half dragging him by the shoulder, and shut
the door. "Now!" she said, "make haste."
"It's Mr. Cairness, ma'am," he whispered.
"Is he hurt?" she shook him sharply.
The boy explained that it was not that, and she let him go, in relief.
"But he is goin' to be. That's what I come so quick to tell you." He
stopped again.
"Will you make haste?" cried Felipa, out of patience.
"He's coming back from Tombstone with some money, ain't he?"
Felipa nodded. "A very little," she said.
"Well, they think it's a lot."
"Who?"
"The fellers that's after him. They're goin' to hold him up fifteen
miles out, down there by where the Huachuca road crosses. He's alone,
ain't he?"
"Yes," said Felipa.
"How do you know this?"
"Old Manuel he told me. You don't know him. It's an old Greaser, friend
of mine. He don't want no one to tell he told, they'd get after him. But
it's so, all right. There's three of them."
A stable man passed the window. Felipa called to him. "Bring me my
horse, quick, and mount four men! Don't take five minutes and be well
armed," she ordered in a low voice. Hers was the twofold decision of
character and of training that may not be disregarded. The man started
on a run.
"What you goin' to do?" the boy asked. He was round-eyed with dismay and
astonishment.
Felipa did not answer. She broke her revolver and looked into the
chambers. Two of them were empty, and she took some cartridges from a
desk drawer and slipped them in. The holster was attached to her saddle,
and she rarely rode without it.
"You ain't goin' to try to stop him?" the boy said stupidly. "He was
goin' to leave Tombstone at sundown. He'll be to the place before you
ken ketch him, sure."
"We'll see," she answered shortly; "it is where the Huachuca road
crosses, you are certain?"
He nodded forcibly. "Where all them mesquites is to one side, and the
arroyo to the other. They'll be behind the mesquite. But you ain't goin'
to head him off," he added, "there ain't even a short cut. The road's
the shortest."
The stableman came on a run, leading her horse, and she fairly leaped
down the steps, and slipping the pistol into the holster mounted with a
spring. "All of you follow me," she said; "they are going to hold up Mr.
Cairness."
On the instant she put her horse to a run and tore off through the gate
toward the open country. It was dark, but by the stars she could see the
road and its low bushes and big stones that danced by as her horse, with
its belly to the ground, sped on. She strained her ears and caught the
sound of hoofs. The men were following her, the gleam of her white dress
guiding them. She knew they could not catch her. The horse she rode was
a thoroughbred, the fastest on the ranch; not even Cairness's own could
match it. It stretched out its long black neck and went evenly ahead,
almost without motion, rising over a dog hole now and then, coming down
again, and going on, unslacking. She felt the bit steadily and pressed
her knee against the hunting horn for purchase, her toe barely touching
the stirrup, that she might be the freer in a fall.
If it went like this, she thought, she might get to the cross-road
first, and beyond. The four men would not matter much then, if she could
but stop her husband. Why had he started back alone--and carrying money
too? It was foolhardy. But then there was so little money, she knew,
that he had probably not thought of it as booty. She turned her
uncovered head and listened. Her hair had fallen loose and was streaming
out in the wind. She could not hear the others now. They must be well
behind.
There was a faint, white light above the distant mountains in the east.
The moon was about to rise. In a few moments more it came drifting up,
and the plain was all alight. Far away on the edge was a vague,
half-luminous haze, and nearer the shadows of the bushes fell sharp and
black. A mile ahead, perhaps, along the road, she could make out the
dark blot of the mesquite clump. Behind, as she looked again, she could
just see four figures following.
It occurred to her now for the first time that there was danger for
herself, so far in front, so entirely alone. The chances for passing the
mesquites were not very good. If the men were already there, and that
might be counted upon, they would not let her pass if they could help
it. It occasioned her but one fear--that she could not stop her
husband. If she were to turn from the road out into the open, she would
lose time, even if the horse did not fall, and time was not to be lost.
The mesquites were very near. She bent down over the horse's neck and
spoke to him. His stride lengthened out yet more. She drew the little
revolver, and cocked it, still bending low. If they were to fire at her,
the white gown would make a good mark; but she would show as little of
it as might be, and she would not waste time answering shots, if it
could be helped.
The mesquites were directly ahead. A horseman came out from behind them
and placed himself across the road. There was a sheen of moonlight on a
revolver barrel and a shouted "Halt there!"
He was in front of her, not a hundred feet away; to the left were the
mesquites, to the right the ragged arroyo. There could be no turning
aside. She threw up her own revolver, and fired, not at the man, but at
the head of his horse. It reared and fell, and a moment after her own
rose in the air, touched the ground beyond, and went on. It had leapt
the fallen one and his rider, and was leaving them behind.
The man on the ground twisted his body around on his crushed leg, pinned
under the pony, aimed deliberately at the white figure, and fired.
Felipa's firm hold upon her revolver turned to a clutch, and her mouth
fell open in a sharp gasp. But very deliberately she put the revolver
into its holster, and then she laid her hand against her side. At once
the palm was warm with blood.
She drew her horse down to a gallop, and the jar of the changed gait
made her moan. There was no haste now. Her own men had come upon the
desperadoes and there was a quick volley. And ahead, riding fast toward
her from the top of a little rise, was a man on a white horse--her
husband, she knew.
She gave a dry little sob of unutterable glad relief and tried to raise
her voice and call to him, the call they used for one another when they
rode about the ranch. But the sound was only a weak, low wail.
The horse came down to a walk. She had lost all control of the reins
now, and clung to the pommel with both hands, swaying from side to side.
She could hear galloping hoofs, behind and in front--or was it only the
blood, the icy cold blood, pounding in her ears?
The horse stopped, and she reeled blindly in her seat into a pair of
strong arms that caught her and drew her down. A voice was saying words
she could not hear, but she knew the voice so well. And she smiled and
dropped her head down upon her husband's shoulder. "Just--just in time,"
she whispered very low.
"In time, Felipa? In time for what, dear?" but there was no answer.
He turned her face up to the moonlight, and the head fell heavily back
with the weight of hair. The half-closed eyes looked unseeing up to him,
and the quiet lips smiled still.
"Felipa!" he cried, "Felipa!"
But only a coyote barked from a knoll near by.