THE MARK OF EL ROJO
Colonel Urgo straightened himself, and the smile that had twisted his
little waxed moustache awry suddenly was smudged out. For his eyes
encountered what they were hardly prepared to see--a living dead man.
His face went sickly white; one hand arrested itself in the motion of
making the sign of the cross. He stared at Grant, fascinated.
Grant himself was little less shaken at the appearance of his enemy.
It was as if a cobra suddenly had lifted its head from the patio’s
flowering jungle. In a moment of dreamy ecstasy, when he had felt his
heart yearning toward the girl’s over a bridge of music, came this
sinister apparition of evil. It was not fear of the man that caused
Grant’s heart to pound--the waspish little Spaniard possessed no
essence of malignity sufficient to terrify one of the American’s fibre;
rather a loathing and instinctive reflex of anger gorged his combative
nerves with blood. Grant read surely enough the shock of surprise in
his enemy’s eyes and cannily laid this revelation away as a weapon to
hand should necessity demand its use.
As for Benicia, she made no pretence of concealing her annoyance.
Quick perception seized upon the coincidence of her father’s absence
and Colonel Urgo’s coming; she knew the wily little suitor had somehow
managed to time his visit to that circumstance. In the first flush of
her surprise Benicia caught herself feeling a great thankfulness that
Grant Hickman was in the house.
“If you have come to see my father”--Benicia did not rise to greet Urgo
when he took a tentative step toward her--“he is absent at the moment.
I am sorry you have not found him at home.”
Urgo’s lynx eyes darted from the girl’s face to Grant’s and back again.
Plainly he was in a quandary, not knowing how much--if anything--this
American had told his hosts of the circumstances of a night in Sonizona
and its consequences. Benicia, misreading his perturbation, was quick
to interpose with a smile all irony:
“This is Señor Hickman, whom you may remember having seen on the
train. Señor Hickman, this is a distant cousin of mine, Colonel
Hamilcar Urgo, of the garrison at Sonizona. He is the gentleman who
believed you occupied his berth out of El Paso, if you recall. There
was some slight misunderstanding--”
Grant flashed a glance at the girl, read the mockery in her eyes and
took his cue from her:
“I believe I have seen the Colonel subsequently,” this in heavy
seriousness. “Was it not somewhere in Sonizona?”
“I do not recall having had that honour.” Teeth flashed in a nervous
smile and the man’s eyes veiled themselves furtively. He caught the
challenge to battle of wits with the American and entrenched himself
accordingly. Colonel Urgo found himself at a momentary disadvantage,
however; he did not know what ammunition his rival would choose.
Essaying a diversion, he addressed the girl in rapid Spanish.
“Our guest, Señor Hickman, does not understand Spanish,” Benicia
insinuated reproof. “Yes, it is quite true, as you have judged, that
he is recovering from a wound--a slight misadventure on the road to
Hermosillo. But pray be seated, my cousin, and let me order wine and a
light luncheon. You are visibly fatigued.” With a slight bow to Urgo
Benicia arose and crossed the patio to disappear in the shadows of the
arcade.
Urgo, surprised into an unpleasant situation by being left alone with
the man he had sent to death, fidgeted with the hasp of his cigarette
case. He made great difficulty of scratching a match. Grant, watching
his every move, decided to play some of the cards fate had dealt him.
“I guessed you were inquiring of Señorita O’Donoju about my condition,
Colonel. You are charmingly solicitous. I was shot in the back--bullet
through my shoulder. Left for dead with the other convicts.”
The little Spaniard let smoke seep through his nostrils and spread out
his hands to say, “So much for that!” Grant was not to be denied his
advantage:
“Of course, Colonel Urgo, I remember you were good enough to be present
when I was arraigned at the jail on a false charge of counterfeiting;
I shall not soon forget the promise you made then to do what you could
for me. You did--all you possibly could!” Grant’s smile had become set
and one hand resting on his blanketed knees flexed into a fist, white
across the knuckles.
Urgo expelled a cloud of smoke from his lungs and showed his teeth in a
wolf’s smile.
“You remember much, señor. Do not fail to remember, too, you are
a criminal under the laws of Mexico, to be tried on charge of
counterfeiting at the court of Hermosillo.”
“Yes?” Grant was cool under the other’s counter. “And will you move
to take me to Hermosillo after what happened--out yonder on that road
through the desert?”
“I?” Urgo’s shoulders lifted. “I am a soldier, señor. I have nothing
to do with justice and the courts. But assuredly you will be taken to
Hermosillo and put on trial.”
The little Spaniard had fully recovered his poise by now. The uneasy
light in his eyes had yielded to a dangerous flicker of craft. Suavity
of a tiger’s purr lurked in his voice. Grant mastered the rage which
ridged all his fighting muscles despite the weakness of his body; this
was no moment to be betrayed into throwing away a trick.
“But before I go to Hermosillo, Colonel, of course I shall take
precautions to insure that I get there--that there will be no more _ley
de fuga_ in my case. Don Padraic O’Donoju, who is an honest man; I
shall take him more fully into my confidence and--”
“Then you have told--?” Urgo bit his lip in mortification over having
fallen into a trap. Grant’s answering smile was innocent as a babe’s.
“I might prefer, Colonel Urgo, to confine our affair--call it a
misunderstanding between two gentlemen--strictly to yourself and
myself, trusting to take care of myself when I have recovered my
strength. But should I be driven to seek the assistance of an honest
man--”
Benicia appeared that instant; behind her was ’Cepcion with a silver
tray. Before Colonel Urgo bobbed to his feet Grant caught a shaft of
cold fury from his eyes which said that if the girl’s presence forced
an armistice no promise of peace lay at its termination.
Followed an interlude of quiet comedy. Grant, content to leave the
first move in the hands of his enemy, eased his shoulder lazily against
the chair back and let his eyes play over the Spaniard’s face and
diminutive figure. There was an indolent suggestion of probing, of
detached appraisal in the steady scrutiny which bit into Urgo’s pride.
That and dull rage over the unexplained presence of his rival here in
Benicia’s home kept the little whippet fidgeting.
He essayed addressing the girl in her own tongue, but again and more
pointedly Benicia reminded him of this breach of courtesy. She made
no effort to conceal the imp of humour that tugged at the corners of
her mouth; this flickering of a smile and the dancing of her eyes
made farcical the sober decorum of her speech. Urgo, no fool, was not
long realizing he was being made the butt of his cousin’s sport. Thin
lines of strain began to appear about the mouth that smiled so smugly;
just below his temples irritated nerves commenced setting the muscles
a-twitching. Grant, who did not fail to note these reflexes, saw in the
figure opposite a preying animal setting himself for a spring.
Urgo and Benicia had been exchanging commonplaces. Suddenly the man
leaned forward tensely and returned to the forbidden Spanish in a
hurried burst: “For your own good, my cousin, I must have a few minutes
with you alone. Arrange it, I command you.”
“You are hardly the one, sweetest cousin, to be the judge of my good.
Nor the one to command me.” Benicia retorted in the same tongue. Then,
turning with a smile of mock apology to Grant: “You will excuse Colonel
Urgo his occasional lapse from a tongue that is difficult for him.”
The Spaniard took a final draught of wine and pushed back from the
table where his luncheon had been spread. As he idly tapped the corn
husk of one of his cigarettes Grant thought he saw resolution shape
itself in the narrowed eyes. There was a moment’s silence, then Urgo
addressed himself graciously to Grant:
“Señor Hickman, perhaps my adorable cousin here has not found
opportunity to tell you anything of the history of this remarkable
house in the desert where you have found such agreeable convalescence.”
“I believe not.” Grant spoke warily, his senses alert for some pitfall.
He shot a warning glance at Benicia; but the girl, ignorant of the grim
feud between the two, could not read it understandingly. Colonel Urgo
surrounded his head with a blue cloud and continued:
“An engaging history, señor. Not a house in all Sonora with such
romance behind it, such--how do you say it?--such legend, eh? Though
I am distantly of the same family, our branch cannot claim the
distinction that falls to my cousin, who is the last of the veritable
O’Donoju.
“Behold her glorious head, Señor Hickman!” Urgo waved his cigarette
to point the burning of sunlight above Benicia’s brow; his own
head inclined as if in reverence. “There in my fairest cousin’s
so-marvellous hair lies all the legend and the history of the great
family O’Donoju.”
The girl, frankly amused at what appeared a turgid compliment, tossed
back her head in a gust of laughter. But Grant could not join with
her. As from some iceberg veiled in fog came to him the cold feel of
malignity moving to some unguessed purpose. Was Urgo planning to strike
at him through the girl he adored? Yet what possible obloquy could he
call up against Benicia, whose soul was unsullied as the winds of the
wastes? Urgo spoke on:
“Undoubtedly, my cousin, Señor Hickman has felt his heart snared by
those burning meshes of yours or he is not a judge of beauty”--gesture
of impatience from Benicia. “So it is for the benefit of the señor as
well as for your own, fairest cousin, that I recite this legend of the
red hair of the O’Donoju. Strange, is it not, that all Sonora knows it
and has told the story to its children for a hundred years, yet you,
_chiquita_”--a wave of the cigarette toward the girl--“who should be
most interested are the only ignorant one.
“There was in the long ago, señor, a Michael O’Donohue--what you call
of the wild Irish, who had flaming hair and an untamed spirit. A king
in Spain gave him the whole district of Altar for his estate, and he
came here to the Garden of Solitude with his Spanish lady and built
him this house where we sit. He was a man who considered the safety of
his soul, so he built a mission to the glory of the four evangelists
out yonder by the Gulf where the Sand People needed the comfort of the
Mother Church and--”
“He lived a life any one of his descendants might pattern after,”
Benicia put in with a smile carrying a sting. Urgo touched his breast
with delicate fingers and bowed. Then turning again to Grant:
“When the Apaches burned that mission, señor, a pious O’Donoju restored
it and the family, then numerous, endowed that mission altar with much
gold and silver. There was, too, a great string of pearls--pearls with
a green light, legend says, which the Sand People brought from the
shell beds of the Gulf to show their piety. You are following me, Señor
Hickman, eh?”
Grant made no sign. His eyes were upon Benicia’s face, reading there
a slow change. Now she, too, had begun to feel a nameless portent
stealing over her like the chill from hidden ice. The wells of her
eyes were deeper; faint colour came and went in her cheeks and throat.
Grant, certain that Urgo was preparing torture for her under the
innocent mask of narrative, was helpless to intervene; no diversion
short of the work of fists was possible, and that his weakness denied
him.
“There was of that generation which restored the mission, señor, a
wild youth, true descendant of the original O’Donoju. He was known
from Mexico City to Tucson as El Rojo--the Red One--for his hair was
the veritable colour of that which our cousin possesses. And the devil
rode his heart with spurs of fire. You have never been told of El Rojo,
Benicia?”
The girl made no answer. Her level gaze was a mute challenge. The
little colonel rerolled one of his eternal cigarettes, lighted it and
drank smoke with a sensuous inhalation.
“At the feast of the re-dedication El Rojo, banished from the family,
appeared out of nowhere. Conceive the consternation, señor! The red
head of the devil’s own come to sanctified ground. This fiery head, so
like our Benicia’s, swooping as a comet into the feasting place of the
family; well might the pious O’Donojus be fearful.
“And their fears were not without grounds. Before El Rojo quit the
Mission of the Four Evangelists he had murdered the priest, his own
uncle, and stolen the rope of pearls from the sacred image of the
Virgin. He rode away with one of his cousins, a foolish girl of the
Mayortorenas, who was wife to him in the desert without priest or book.”
Urgo let his voice trail away as with a tale finished. His teasing
glance lingered on the faces of his two auditors. Benicia drew a
tremulous breath and forced a smile, as though she were relaxing from
strain. On this cue the story teller unexpectedly continued:
“But I hear Señor Hickman ask, ‘What part has all this ancient legend
with Señorita Benicia’s red hair?’ Patience, señor. We approach that.
“Legend says that though El Rojo’s wife worked upon his heart and
brought repentance, it was too late. He returned to the mission a year
after his double crime to restore the Virgin’s pearls to the sanctuary.
The Apaches had been there just before him. The priests were slain and
the mission burned. El Rojo buried the pearls within the stark walls,
hoping the good God would accept this his acknowledgment of sin. There
the pearls lie to-day beyond sight of man, for the desert has blotted
out the last remnants of ruins.
“But the sin of El Rojo was not so easily to be forgotten in sight
of the good God, sweetest cousin.” Urgo suddenly turned away from
Grant, to whom he had been addressing his story, and fixed his eyes on
Benicia; almost there was the click of snapping fetters in his glance.
“You bear the mark of it above your brow like the mark of Cain--his
fire-red hair!”
“Stop!” The girl leaped from her chair, blazing wrath in every line of
her face. “I shall not listen--”
“The grandson of El Rojo and his grandson,” Urgo purred on with his
smile of a hunting cat, “every second generation of the O’Donoju has
one born with the curse of the red hair to tell all Sonora God does not
forget. And now you, the last of an accursed family, its great estates
gone--its power gone--your own grandfather with his red hair shot with
Maximilian!--You with the red head--daughter of a murderer--”
A hand closed over the collar of the colonel’s military jacket, gave
it a twist, throttling his speech. Grant had leaped from his seat--a
pain like a bayonet point shot through his shoulder at the sudden
movement--and come upon the spiteful little slanderer from behind.
“Gringo assassin!” whistled the little Spaniard, and his right hand
groped backward to a concealed holster. It fell into a grip too strong
to be broken. Grant was bearing all his weight on the other’s back,
for the instant he was on his feet he discovered a weakness of his
knees which would not support him. The impulse to shut off Urgo’s
venomous tongue had been acted upon without calculation; now that he
had committed himself to action the American realized how heavy was the
hazard against him. One arm useless, all the other muscles once ready
to respond instantly to call for action now seeming to be palsied. A
paralytic boldly attempting to bell a wildcat; this was the situation.
Benicia saw the American’s face over the squirming Urgo’s shoulder;
it wore a strained grin which hardly served to mask the toll taken of
weakened muscles. She whirled and ran out of the patio to call aid in
the servants’ quarters.
Now the hot fire from his wound was spreading across Grant’s back and
down his fighting arm as he swayed across the patio half supported
on the Spaniard’s back. The frantic jerkings of Urgo’s pistol arm in
Grant’s grip threatened momentarily to loosen the restraining fingers;
that done, the American’s end would be speedy.
Grant found himself near a wall, braced one foot against it and lunged
outward. Down went both men. Urgo twisted out from under the heavier
body, pinning him, and raised himself to one knee. Grant saw a tigerish
gleam of triumph in the other’s eyes as his right hand whipped back to
the holster on his hip.
Some power more rapid than thought moved the American’s sound arm
outward in a wild sweep which encompassed a giant fuchsia bush growing
in a Chinese tea tub. Over went the bush just as Urgo fired from the
hip, its branches swishing down over the latter’s head.
The bullet went wild. Grant, near swooning from the consuming pain of
his wound, scrambled for his enemy--went up with him when he found his
feet. The revolver had been knocked from Urgo’s hand by the avalanche
of greenery; a sideways kick of Grant’s foot sent it spinning into the
fountain.
Now the wounded man sent a final summons to his last reservoir of
strength. Slowly--slowly he forced the little Spaniard out of the
patio and down the long corridor toward the front door of the house.
When Benicia came running with two husky Indians they found Grant with
his man waiting before the heavy oaken portal. One of the Indians
swung back the door. Grant gave a supreme heave and the colonel went
sprawling like a straddle bug out onto the gravel.
The great door slammed behind him.