With Hoops of Steel

CHAPTER XXIII

Darkness so dense lay over the Fernandez plain that not the faintest outline of the rimming mountains penetrated its blackness. Like some palpable, suffocating substance it filled the plain and mounted far up into the air, even to the blue-black sky, whence a million gemming stars pierced it with their diamond lances.

Perched alone among the foothills of the Fernandez range, Juan Garcia’s gray adobe house glimmered faintly through the darkness. Every sound about the house was hushed, and only the burro in the jacal down the hillside made known to the silent plain that he was still awake. The door into the portal opened softly, and with a quick, gliding, silent movement a dark figure came hastily out, closed the door, listened a moment, and then trod lightly across the portal and down to the road. There it paused, and Amada Garcia’s face, anxious and wistful, framed in the black folds of her mantilla, looked back at the silent house. A deep, dry sob shook all her frame and she half turned back, as if irresolute. Then she drew from her breast a folded bit of paper, pressed it to her heart and her cheek, and kissed it again and again. She cast another regretful, longing look at the gray adobe house, and started off in the direction of Muletown. The faintly glimmering track of the sandy road opened slowly before her in the darkness, and, drawing her mantilla closely around her shoulders, she walked briskly along the dusty highway.

She kept the folded paper in her hand, pressing it to her lips and cheek with little cooing sounds of love. Once, standing still in the darkness and silence of the wide, black plain, she unfolded the letter and kissed the open sheet. It was too dark for her to see a single word upon the page, but she knew just where were “mi esposa,” and “mi querida,” and “mi corazon.”

That afternoon, as she filled her olla at the spring, a young Mexican came riding by in brave attire of braided jacket and trousers and silver trimmed sombrero. She knew him well. Indeed, she had often bantered back his compliments and adroitly turned to merriment the sweet speeches he would rather have had her take in earnest. He stopped and gave her the letter, which he had brought all the way from the post-office at Muletown solely for excuse to see her. She poised the olla full of water upon her head and he walked up the hill to the house by her side, and while he talked to her mother she slipped stealthily out and hid in the jacal beside the burro for a chance to read the letter. When she returned she showed so plainly that his compliments and sweet speeches were distasteful to her that he sulkily left the house and galloped home again. Then her mother reproved her, telling her that she must not discourage the young man, because he was plainly in earnest in his attentions and would make the best and richest husband of all the young caballeros who came to the house, and that when next she saw him she must make amends for her unkind treatment. Amada listened with terror and rebellion in her heart; and in her brain there sprang into life the purpose which she set out to execute as soon as her father and mother were asleep.

In her pocket she had four dollars which she had saved from the sale of eggs and goat’s-milk cheeses at Muletown, and which she had been carefully keeping for the purpose of buying a new mantilla with a deep, deep silk fringe the next time they should go to Las Plumas to celebrate the fiesta of its patron saint. And under one arm she carried some enchiladas and tamales, left from that night’s supper.

She trudged on through the darkness and silence of the night, and, although she walked briskly, the frosty air now and again sent a shiver of cold through her body and made her draw her mantilla more closely across her chest. The staccato yelping of coyotes down in the plain was answered by short, sharp barks from the hills, and all night long the beasts kept up a running exchange of howls from one to the other side of the road. Sometimes Amada heard the stealthy rustle of the herbage as they neared the highway, or saw the gleaming of their eyes in the darkness. But she knew their cowardly nature too well to be afraid, and when they came too near, a pebble from her hand sent them scurrying away.

Hour after hour she followed the faint glimmer of the dusty road, over the low, rolling hills, across the sloping upland, and down into the edge of the Fernandez plain, steadily leaving behind her the slowly measured miles. At last the east began to glow above the Fernandez mountains and against the golden sky shone the thin, silver-white crescent of the old moon. The blackness of night gradually faded into the gray light of dawn, the sky blushed rosy red, the plain spread itself out before her, flooded with golden red sunlight, and still Amada held to the pace she had kept up all night long. Before her she saw columns of blue smoke rising from the chimneys of Muletown, and she thought longingly of the well in the plaza. But early though it was, she feared to be seen and questioned, for she knew many people in Muletown. So she turned from the main road, leaving the town far to her right, and struck across the trackless plain for the highway running toward the Hermosa mountains. When she reached it the sun was well up in the sky and she sat down on a hillock of sand to rest and eat her breakfast. She was very tired and it seemed good to lie still on the warm sand under the warm sun, so she rested there for a long time, thinking at first of the little gray adobe house far back in the foothills and wondering what the two old people would think and what they would do when they should find their one child gone and no trace left to tell them whither or why she had fled. These thoughts would bring the tears to her eyes, then she would open the letter and read it slowly over and over, and kiss the words of love, and, with soft little laughs and cooings, picture to herself her journey’s end.

At last she saw a cloud of dust coming toward her from the direction of Muletown and, reminded of the possibility of being seen and questioned by some one she knew, she got up and hurried on her way. She knew her father and mother would not at once be alarmed over her departure. They would think she had risen early and gone up into the foothills to gather sweet herbs. Even after they should find that she was gone she knew that, in the leisurely fashion of the land and people of mañana, it might be two or three days before they would hitch the horses to the wagon and drive to Muletown to ask if any one there had seen her. But she did not wish to be discovered in her flight by any one whom she knew, and so she hurried on, drawing her mantilla across her face until only her two great black eyes peeped from its folds.

The wagon behind her clattered up and its sole occupant, a middle-aged American, asked her in Spanish if she would like to ride. She hesitated, instinctively fearing speech with any one, and glanced shyly at the Americano, who was smiling down good-naturedly at her from the wagon. The man added that if she were going far she had better ride, for the road across the plain would soon be very hot. She considered that she did not know this man, that he would not know who she was, and thought how much more quickly she could cross that wide plain, so, with a grateful glance of her black eyes and a “muchas gracias, señor,” she climbed up and sat down in the seat beside him. He asked her how far she was going, and she answered, to the other side of the Hermosa mountains. He replied that he was going to his mining camp in the mountains, but that he would drive her to the top of the pass, as the road was rocky and steep up the mountain side. He had some water in a canteen, from which she drank gratefully, and as midday approached, he shared with her his luncheon of bread and cheese, while she divided with him what remained of her tamales and enchiladas.

The man’s kindly manner gave her confidence and the innate coquetry of her nature unconsciously began to assert itself. She talked gaily with him, her eyes by turns sparkled, invited and repelled, her mantilla almost covered her face one moment and the next was shaken gracefully down to her shoulders, leaving the coils of her hair shining black as a crow’s wing in the sun. Her little, rosebud mouth pouted and smiled, and altogether she was so sweet and dainty and graceful that the middle-aged, gray-bearded Americano began to beam upon her with admiring eyes and to hover over her with jerky, heavy attempts at gallantry. He asked her name, but she took sudden alarm and answered only with a shrug of her shoulders and a swooning glance of her great black eyes. He put his arm about her waist and stooped to kiss her smiling mouth. She struggled away from him with a terrified, appealing cry, “No, no, señor!” of whose meaning there could be no mistake.

The man looked at her with wide, surprised eyes and exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned!” and whipped up his horses. He glanced at her curiously several times and saw that she had edged away from him as far as she could and drawn the black folds of her mantilla well over her face. Presently he said, in her own tongue:

“Pardon me, señorita! I thought you would not care.”

Her only answer was a little shiver, and they drove on in silence up the winding mountain road to the top of the pass. There she climbed out of the wagon and smiled back at the man with a grateful “muchas, muchas gracias, señor,” and started down the road toward Las Plumas. He looked after her contemplatively for a moment and said to himself:

“Well, I’ll be damned! But you never can tell how a Greaser’s going to break out next!” Then he turned his team about and drove whistling back to his own road.

Amada’s spirits rose as she looked down into the Rio Grande valley and saw the thread of glowing yellow foliage which marked the course of the acequia and the long, straggling procession of gray dots which she knew was the town of Las Plumas. She had been there twice with her father and mother when they had gone to join in the fiesta of Santa Guadaloupe. They had a “primo” there, one of those distant relatives of whom the Mexicans keep track so faithfully, but she meant to stay far away from his house and to be seen neither by him nor any of his family. She was sure she could reach the town by nightfall. She began to wonder if the train on which she meant to go away would come after that and what she should do with herself all night if it did not. The two visits she had made to Las Plumas had been the only times in her life when she had seen a railroad train, and she asked herself if she would be afraid when she should get into the car and it should go tearing across the country so fast. Ah, it would not go fast enough for her, not nearly fast enough! And unconsciously she quickened her steps to keep pace with her thoughts.

Presently mighty pains began to rack her body. She groaned and clenched her fists until the blood stained her palms. But still she hurried on, urging herself with thoughts of her journey’s end, which began to loom distant and impossible through the haze of her suffering. The road wound over the rounded foothills, across the crest of one, down the hillside, and over another, and another, and another, until Amada thought their end would never come. She longed to lie down there in the dusty road and give herself up to the agony that held her body in its grip. But she so feared that she might yield to the temptation, and never rise again, that she ran down the hills and hurried her aching feet up the slopes until she panted for breath. An awful fear had come to terrify her soul. In its absorbing clutch she scarcely thought again of her wish to reach the railroad, and the love letter that had brought her comfort and sustained her strength was almost forgotten. If she should die there alone, with no priest to listen to the story of the sins that oppressed her soul, to give her the sacrament and whisper the holy names in her ear – ah, she could not – any suffering could be endured better than so terrible a fate. So she gathered up her strength and strove to force a little more speed into her aching, blistered feet and to endure the pains that gripped and racked her body, hoping only that she might reach the town and find the priest before the end should come.

At last the gray, rolling waves of the foothills smoothed themselves out and gently merged into the plain that rose from the valley below. So near seemed the houses and the long streets of the town, with the yellow cottonwoods flaming through its heart, that Amada felt encouraged. She hurried limping down the road, her black dress gray with dust, her mantilla pulled awry, her eyes wide with the terror that filled her soul, and her face tense and drawn with the pain that tortured her body.

She reached the edge of the town and saw people in the houses along the street. But she met none and she could not make up her mind to stop long enough to turn aside to one of the houses and ask the way to the priest’s dwelling. Presently she saw two children come hand in hand through a gateway. One of them, a tiny boy with flaxen curls about his neck and a thin white face, put his hands on the shoulders of his baby girl companion and kissed the face she lifted to his. As she went away she turned and threw kisses to him and he waved his hand to her and called out “bye-bye, bye-bye.”

Amada staggered against the fence and stood there resting a moment while she smiled at the pretty scene, notwithstanding her suffering and anxiety. When the child turned back into the yard she moved away from the fence and tried to go on. But her knees trembled and gave way, a cry of pain broke from her lips, and she fell upon the sidewalk. For woman’s greatest extremity was upon her and she could go no farther.

Marguerite Delarue stood upon the veranda steps smiling fondly upon little Paul as he came up the walk. She had noticed the strange young Mexican woman leaning against the fence, and when Amada fell she ran down to the gate to see if the stranger were ill. The look of awful agony in Amada’s face and eyes frightened her, and quickly calling the maid, the two women took her into the house and put her to bed. Then Marguerite sent in all haste for the physician, and herself removed the dusty shoes and stockings, bathed the swollen, blistered feet, took off the dust-filled garments and clothed the suffering girl in one of her own night robes.

All night long the physician worked, his face anxious and troubled, and in the early morning he gave up hope. For Amada lay in a stupor from which he thought there was no probability she would ever rouse. Suddenly she moaned, stretched out her hands and called, “My baby! Where is my baby?”

Marguerite knelt beside her and tried to tell her that the little one had never breathed, and Amada flung herself upon the girl’s neck and gave herself up to such transports of grief that the physician sat down in dumb, amazed helplessness, sure that immediate collapse would cut short her cries of woe.

“But you can’t tell a blessed thing about these Greasers,” he said afterward to Marguerite. “I was sure she was going to die, and I reckon she would if she had not done the very thing that I thought would be certain to finish her anyway. Maybe I’ll learn sometime that these Mexican women have got to let out their emotions or they would die of suppressed volcanoes.”

When Marguerite had sympathized with and soothed and comforted her accidental guest Amada asked if she would send for the padre.

“I shall die very soon,” she said, “and he must come at once. I thought I should die long before this, but God has let me live through all that time that I do not remember, when I was so nearly dead, only that the padre might come and make me ready for death.”

After the priest had gone Marguerite went to the sick girl’s room with a cup of gruel. Amada lay back on the pillow, her face gray with pallor against the background of her shining black hair. She kissed and fondled Marguerite’s hand.

“You have been very good to me, señorita, but I shall have to trouble you one little time more, and then I shall be ready to die, and some one can ride over to the Fernandez mountains, beyond Muletown, and tell my father, Juan Garcia, that his daughter, Amada, is dead, and that she was very, very sorry to bring so much grief to him and her mother. You will tell him that, will you not, señorita? But you must not tell him about the niño, because they do not know – ah, señorita, you must not think that I am a – a bad woman! See! Here is a letter that says mi esposa! But they might not believe it – and they must not know – you will not tell them, señorita!”

“But you are not going to die!” said Marguerite encouragingly. “You will soon be strong again.”

Amada shook her head. “No! I shall be dead before another morning comes. But now the padre says I must see el Señor Don Emerson Mead.”

The girl’s eyes caught a sudden, brief flicker which crossed Marguerite’s face, and, weak though she was, she raised herself on one elbow, her black hair streaming past her face and her eyes shining. She caught Marguerite’s hand, calling softly:

“Señorita! You love Don Emerson! Is it not so? I saw it in your face! Ah, señorita, it is good to love, is it not? Now you must bring Señor Mead to me here and I must tell him something that the padre says I must before I die. But you must not ask me what it is, for I can not tell you. I can not tell any one but Don Emerson.”

“He is in the court room now,” Marguerite replied, “and they would not let him leave. But his friend, Señor Ellhorn, is here, and I will see if I can find him.”

Marguerite met Nick Ellhorn coming out of John Daniel’s office with a broad smile curling his mustaches toward his eyes. He had been on a still hunt for his Chinese queue, and had run at once upon the certainty that something had happened which several people would like to keep quiet. And he had not only recovered the pig tail, but had found out what had been done and who had done it.

“Oh, Mr. Ellhorn!” exclaimed Marguerite, “I am so glad to find you! There is a Mexican girl at my house – she dropped down dreadfully ill at my gate last night and I took her in – who wants to see Mr. Mead. She says her father is Juan Garcia, and that he lives away beyond Muletown, in the Fernandez mountains. The padre confessed her this morning and now she says he told her that she must tell Emerson Mead something before she dies. I do not know what it is, and she says she can not tell any one except Mr. Mead. Will you come to the house and find out what she wants?”

Ellhorn’s eyes opened wide, but he kept an impassive face. “Amada Garcia! What the – whatever is she here for, and how did she get here!”

“I think she must have walked, for her feet were blistered.”

“Walked! Walked from old Garcia’s ranch! Good God! Well, I sure reckon she must have something to say. I’ll go right along and see her.”

When Nick Ellhorn came out of the Delarue house he heard the whistle of the train from the north.

“I’ve just time to make it,” he thought. “I can’t stop to say a word to anybody about this business, or I’ll miss this train. Well, I reckon I might just as well not say anything about it, anyway, as long as Tommy isn’t here, until I get back – if I ever get back! They’ll be only too glad to snake me in down there, if they get the chance. I’ll just have to make a quick scoot across the line, and trust to the luck of the Irish army! If Tommy was only here we’d get this thing through, if we had to wade through hell and tote home the back doors. But I can’t stop to wait for company. I’ll try it alone, and I sure reckon I’ll be too smart for ’em!”

CHAPTER XXIV

Emerson Mead’s trial had been in progress nearly two weeks, but most of the time had been exhausted in impaneling a jury. Almost the entire male population of Las Plumas had filed between the opposing lawyers and, for one reason or another, had been excused. At last a jury had been chosen, not because its members were satisfactory to either side, but because both sides had exhausted their peremptory challenges and neither could find further objection which the judge would allow.

Thomson Tuttle arrived soon after Nick Ellhorn’s departure, and was alternately puzzled and indignant over his absence. He felt sure that Nick had gone away on some expedition of importance and probably of danger. He was puzzled to think what it could possibly be, and indignant that Nick had thus risked himself without the aid and protection of his best friend.

“It was plumb ridiculous for him to go off alone like that,” he complained to Judge Harlin. “He knew I’d be along in a day or two, and here he goes flirtin’ the gravel off the road all alone as if I was some didn’t-know-it-was-loaded kind of a fool who couldn’t handle a gun! He’ll sure get into some kind of trouble if I’m not with him!”

Interest in the trial was universal and intense, and during the sessions of the court, especially after the taking of testimony began, the streets of the town were well nigh deserted, while a large part of the population crowded the court room, swarmed in the corridors, and filled the windows. Those who could not get into the court-house gathered in groups on the outside and discussed the news and the rumors, which came in plentiful supply from its doors.

The prosecution had put on several witnesses, employees of the Fillmore Cattle Company, who had sworn to the ill-feeling between Mead and young Whittaker, and one who had been a witness of the quarrel between them, just previous to Whittaker’s disappearance, when Mead had threatened the young man’s life. Then Colonel Whittaker took the stand. It was rumored that after him would be given the testimony of an eye-witness of the murder, and an even larger crowd than usual sought the court-house that afternoon. Two score of women sat comfortably in a space fitted with chairs at one end of the judge’s desk. But the body of the room was jammed with a standing crowd of men, both Mexicans and Americans. Late comers crowded the corridor, and those who could get them mounted chairs outside the door. Inside the room a row of men swung their heels from each window seat, while outside another row stood on the ledges and looked over their heads.

Colonel Whittaker told the story of how his son had set out from the ranch to come to town and had never been seen alive again. He declared that the young man had no enemies except the prisoner and that there was no possible explanation of his disappearance except that he had been murdered. Then he told of the work of the searching party which he had taken to the White Sands, and of the body which they had found. He had identified this corpse as the body of his son, and on the sketched outline of a man’s back he located the position of the three bullet holes by which the young man had come to his death. The shirt, with the initials worked in the collar, the ring, scarfpin, memorandum book and envelopes that had been taken from the body were placed before him and he identified them all as having belonged to his son. The crowded court room was still, with the silence of tense expectancy. Every neck was craned and every eye was fixed on these articles as one by one they were held up before him and then passed on to the judge’s desk.

A slight disturbance at the door, as of people unwillingly moving back, fell upon the strained hush. Some one was forcing his way through the crowd. The witness leaned back in his chair, waiting for another question, and the lawyers consulted together for a moment. Then the prosecuting attorney asked the witness if he had positively identified the body as that of his missing son, William Whittaker.

“I did, sir,” replied Colonel Whittaker. As the words left his lips his gaze fell past the attorney upon two men who had just struggled out of the crowd and into the free railed space in front of the judge’s desk. His jaw fell, his pale face turned an ashen gray, his eyes opened wide, and, with trembling hands upon the arms of his chair, he unconsciously lifted himself to his feet. The lawyers, the judge, and the jury followed his gaze. Some sprang to their feet and some fell back in their chairs, their mouths open, but dumb with amazement. All over the court room there was a shuffling of feet and a craning of necks, and a buzzing whisper went back from the foremost ranks.