Over the Border: A Novel

Jake snorted. “Didn’t she ride with you yesterday an’ me the day afore?”

“Yes, but she’s our boss an’ – well, they love each other a whole lot.”

“So that’s what’s biting you?” In one sentence Jake countered heavily on the common view of things. “She kin ride with tough guys like you an’ me an’ it’s all right; but she mustn’t go out with the man that loves her more ’n anything on earth. Where’s your sense?”

Sliver feebly scratched his head in a vain effort to find it. Failing, he made weak answer, “I was jest sorter thinking they orter, have a chapperonny.” Vanquished by Jake’s disgusted snort, he withdrew and went down to close the gates.

Meanwhile Lee and Gordon held on their way. At the crest of the rise, from where she and her father had overlooked the hacienda on that last fatal day, they reined in and looked back upon it lying like a huge painted cup in the great gold saucer of the sun-scorched plains. As then, the sweep of her hand took in the house, adobes, compound, giant cottonwoods sweeping with the dry arroyo across the view, the range rolling in bright billows to the far hills.

Her cry was the same: “Oh, isn’t it beautiful? Soon the rains will come and turn everything green, but I like it best this way. Greens are to be had anywhere, but these golds – that is Mexico.”

Stimulated by his responsive smile, just as she used to do with her father, she began to dive into the past, relate the battles and sieges, scandal and intrigue, recreate the vivid pageants of the old dons and their savage brown retainers. If she had chosen the differential calculus for her subject, he would have listened with pleasure to the soft, eager voice. The lithe, graceful figure that gained so in ease and grace of its flexures from her man’s riding-clothes, the mobile face, molten under the touch of emotion, would have illumined the heaviest subject. But he was equally interested, plied her with questions when she showed signs of stopping.

“Oh, I’m so glad that you love it!” she sighed, happily. “It would have been such a disappointment if you – But that is so silly, because it wouldn’t have been you. Soon the rains will come, and in the long, dark evenings after” – she went on with a little flourish – “I shall read you stacks and stacks of the old letters and documents we found in an old leather trunk. It will be lots of fun.”

Naturally they dipped into the future, building their own castles. Where she left off, he began. “Wait till we get my old dad down here! A big streak of romance crosscuts his business sense, and when he sees this – well, he promised me a hundred thousand when I finally settled down. After Uncle Sam steps in and puts an end to all this revolutionary nonsense, we’ll – ”

The reconstructed and beautiful Los Arboles that emerged from his imaginings was inhabited by a contented peasantry, better paid, healthier, and happier than the country had ever seen. What he forgot she filled in till, from sheer lack of material, they came to a happy pause.

Business concluded and the Mexican millennium achieved, they turned to their own pleasure. A certain Java forest was, of course, again lugged in by the ears. She, however, did not appear to notice it was getting a trifle shopworn, but enthused as brightly as though it were new goods freshly displayed. And while they ran on, rebuilding their earthly scheme of things according to their hearts’ desire, the gods in resentment of their presumption were forging the thunderbolts that were to shatter it to bits. Unconscious of sharp eyes that were watching from the heart of the chaparral thicket half a mile away, they presently joined hands and rode on.

At first the direction seemed to suit the watcher’s purpose. After they passed, he rode his horse out in the open and followed, keeping always out of their sight. Even when, an hour later, Gordon circled toward the mountains on his regular beat, the watcher followed. But when their course began to bend to the south he laid on quirt and spurs and went after them at a gallop.

Turning at a call, Lee and Gordon saw him coming down a long slope, and, as he drew nearer, she recognized the mozo who had brought Ramon’s message from El Sol.

“Que? Filomena?”

As he answered, in rapid Spanish, sudden distress wiped out her happiness. “Oh, Betty is ill!” she translated for Gordon. “Mary Mills sent word to El Sol and asked them to send for me. Filomena can act as my escort, so it won’t be necessary for you – ” She paused, anticipating rebellion.

It came. “Bull told me that you were not to ride alone. I wouldn’t let you, anyway.”

If she made a little face, she was still secretly pleased. “That’s what one gets for being a girl, but I suppose I’ll have to put up with it.” Turning to the mozo, she gave him his orders in Spanish: “The señor will go with me. You may ride on to Los Arboles and tell Don Sliver, the gringo señor, where we have gone.”

Disconcertion showed through the man’s peon immobility. But with an obsequious “Si, señorita!” he rode on, but stopped over the next rise, dismounted, and crawled back to the crest on his belly.

Lying there, he watched them riding in a direction that showed them to be taking the short cut through the hills. Till they passed out of sight he lay quietly. Then, after carefully clearing a patch of ground, he built a small fire of the dry grass and twigs and covered it with the succulent green leaves of a Spanish bayonet.

Instantly there rose on the still air a dense smoke column. Till it soared to its full height he waited. Then, alternately covering and lifting his scrape from the fire, he sent a succession of great smoke puffs rolling on high. Whereafter he stamped out the fire and, grinning, mounted and rode away.

About that time Lee and Gordon were entering the ravine. A slight embarrassment rose between them as they drew near the fonda. But in place of Felicia’s smooth, dark face the wrinkled, purblind visage of old Antonio appeared at the bar window, where he was serving anarriero whose loaded mules cropped the lush grass along the stream.

As they passed Lee looked quickly at Gordon. But meeting and reading her glance, he laughed and raised his right hand in attestation. Disarmed, she shook her finger, and the next minute their horses had scrambled around the bend, past the spot whence she had looked down and seen the kiss, into neutral territory.

Half an hour put them at the head of the staircase from where, as on the night they had brought home the raiders, they looked over spur and ridge to the distant plains. Then it had all been washed in the crimson and violet and gold of sunset. Now, beyond the black chaparral, that undulated like a woman’s mantle over the shoulders and breasts of the hills, the plains lay to the eye, a sea of undulating gold flecked with green isles, trees, and far fields of growing corn. Mountains and plains, cañon and ravine, it was just as wild, infinitely beautiful in one mood as the other.

“A wonderful land!” Gordon breathed it.

Could his eyes have gone with the curving meridians over its length and its breadth, have followed the dim, blue ranges in their course across brazen deserts, to the deep forests, eternal snows of the Sierra Madres; then ranged south across the great central plateau rich in cotton, corn, and cane; have slid with lacy streams down the cañons, streets of the mountains that led into the tangled jungles where coffee and cocoa, rubber and tobacco, palms and bananas, sage, rice, spices, flourish in the languid tropics; could he have taken the land in its entirety, richer in its beauty, variety of crops, fruits, plants, than the fabled Garden of Eden – could he have done all this, even then imagination would have fallen far below the reality. Yet he saw enough to stimulate him to prophecy.

“Some day, when all this petty revolutionary business is squelched, this is going to be part of the greatest nation on earth.”

That set them planning again, and while they talked the largest army yet brought forth by successive revolutions was in process of disintegration but an eagle’s flight away. Following battle and retreat across sun-struck desert where thirst slew more than lead or steel, it was scattering fiery chaff blown by cannon’s blast over the face of the land to set it aflame with minor disorders. Beyond the farthest blue range columns of smoke marked the sites of a hundred burninghaciendas. With them, under the pitiless sky, rose the groans and cries of the wounded and tortured, wailing of ravished women.

In present ignorance of this, unconscious, again, of the keen eyes that had spied the mozo’s signal and were now watching them from the chaparral half a mile ahead, they rode on.

“Why waste good rope? One shoots him out of the saddle with ease.”

If the voices had not been pitched low, Lee and Gordon, now only a few hundred yards away, might have heard the argument.

She would easily have recognized Ramon’s voice. “True, amigo, and I love him less than thou; would kill him the quicker but for my promise to his compañero. While he held me under his rifle, I gave it – to make no attempt on their lives.”

“A promise?” A low, hard laugh issued from the covert. “What is it but a deadfall for one’s enemy? If all those I have broken, to men killed, women deceived, rise against me on the last day, Satan will be put to it to find a hot enough corner in hell. But I gave no promise – and he killed Tomas, my man. If your stomach turns at the job, leave him to me.”

“No, no!” Ramon’s voice rose in quick protest. “His killing would still be at my hands. Also” – the addition came in lower tones – “I would rather he lived – to suffer the furies I have suffered when he thinks of her in my arms. No, señor, we will rope him from behind.”

“Bueno! Have it thy – ” A sharp hiss cut them off.

Very cunningly they had taken up their positions at the head and foot of a slippery steep where loose rubble bank and a narrow passage through thick chaparral would allow only one horse to go down at a time. Ramon, with two of the revolutionists, crouched above, while the leader, with the others, hid at the foot. He had no more than gained back to his men before Lee and Gordon appeared silhouetted against the sky above.

She was in the lead, so close that Ramon could almost have touched her stirrup as she looked back at Gordon. “I’ll go down first. If I break my neck you can pick up the remains.”

Really anxious, he watched her go slipping and sliding, most of the way on her beast’s haunches, but at every stumble she picked it up with skilful use of the bridle.

“Come on!” she called back, laughing.

But before he could move, before she could even turn to look back, the noose of a riata writhed like a smoke ring out over the chaparral and was drawn with a swift, hard pull around her arms. At the same moment a man leaped and seized her bridle while the leader cinched her feet under her horse’s belly.

“Run!” From above Gordon saw her white, desperate face turned over her shoulder. “Run! Oh, run!”

He could not – had he wished it. It happened so quickly that he had barely time to use the spur, and if Ramon’s cast had been made a second sooner he would have been roped before his beast moved. As it was, the loop settled diagonally across his left arm and right shoulder. The next second he went flying backward out of the saddle and landed heavily. While he was still in the air, however, his hand had gone to his gun. Now he turned it loose downhill.

That it would shoot nine shots in eight seconds was its maker’s boast, and the weapon proved it. Aware that he might kill Lee, but conscious through his blind confusion that it might be worse, he emptied the clip, shooting close to the ground.

His aim, erratic enough, was rendered more so by the desperate tugging of the revolutionists on the rope. Like spray from a swinging nozzle, the bullets flew right and left, all but one, which went through the leader’s head. Then, a couple of whips of the rope caught the free arm in against his body.

At the foot of the hill the men were examining their fallen leader. “He has killed him, el capitan! Cut his throat, the gringo swine!”

Eyes glittering in his villainous, pock-marked face, one of them snatched out his knife and came rushing uphill.

Gordon knew it for the end, felt the chill of death. If he could only have risen and fought them! But to lie there, bound and impotent, while the knife was drawn across his throat! To pass out into the blackness and leave Lee to face her fate! He struggled fiercely, striving to break his bonds. As he relapsed in cold despair, Lee’s voice, shrill in its mortal terror, rang out:

“If he is hurt, Ramon, I shall hate you forever!”

To give him due, Ramon was already stepping forward. A sudden writhing, like the first quiver of boiling water, passed over his face. He looked, but without answer raised a warning hand. “The gringo is not to be harmed, hombre.”

“But he has killed el capitan. Also he shot Tomas, our compañero.”

“The fortune of war, amigo. I passed my word to one that held my own life in the hollow of his hand.”

Gun in hand, he faced the revolutionist who stood fumbling his knife. Out of the situation it appeared that only tragedy could issue. But in all the world there is nothing more mercurial than the moods of apeon. Behind them rose a coarse laugh.

“Santisima Trinidad! why quarrel over a dead man, Ilarian? Hast thou forgotten the ten strokes with the flat of his saber el capitan gave thee for wasting rifle cartridges on rabbits before the fight of El Ojo? As for Tomas – I owed him ten pesos. Also, there are now but four of us to divide this señor’s money.”

The argument reached down to their bandit instincts. “Bueno, Rafael, bueno!” Another called: “Trust thee to see a peso through a dead man’s shirt. Put up thy knife, Ilarian. It was Tomas’s throat it flashed at last when he took Catalina, the pretty mestiza, away from thee.”

The fellow still stood, undecided. He had drawn the knife. Dislike to back down kept him muttering and bristling like an angry dog till Ramon pulled a roll of notes from his breast.

“Here, hombre.”

The man’s huge mouth split in a grin. In his eagerness to secure his share, the fourth man came running uphill, dragging Lee’s horse by the bridle, and while they argued over the division and gambled for the last odd note, she spoke in English.

“I would never have thought to find you in alliance with bandits against me. Why did you do it? It can only bring disaster.” From which she ran on, touching with all her strength and skill on the chords of memory – their childhood, budding youth, incident, fond reminiscence, her own faith in his goodness, pride in his honor. “And now would you destroy it all? The respect and affection I have always had for you? And what have you to gain by it? Surely not my love.”

She thought he was shaken. Looking into his face, she had been shocked and astonished at the change wrought in a few days. Like mountain slopes stripped of their verdure, burned down to the hard slag by volcanic fires, so its softness and youth were gone, leaving in bold relief the hard lines of passion and hate. For one moment a quiver shook its grimness. But there was no softening of the burning eyes, for it took out of bitter anger.

“What have I to gain?” He threw up his head in defiance. “You! with love or without it!”

By its very unnaturalness his quiet was more ominous than his violent outpourings of the other day. She took her breath in sudden fear.

“Ramon, what are you going to do?”

Danger inhered in a light shrug, with its defiance of consequences. “Take you to San Angel – to be married, hard and tight, by jefe and priest.”

“Oh, but they will not do it! They were friends of my father; have known me from childhood – ”

“They are Mexican – would love to see you mate with me, a Mexican like themselves. They will do as I say. If not” – his nod carried a sinister significance – “so much the worse for you.”

Unable to believe, she stared down at him; as she looked into the brilliant, hard eyes there was borne in upon her understanding of his insane egotism. The veneer of softness, courtesy, lip service, burned away; there was left only the animal fighting for the possession of its mate.

She bent her head in sudden shame. “Ramon, please take me home.”

“Yes, to ours.” He snatched her bridle. “Come! already we have wasted too much time.”

As they had spoken in English, Gordon heard all. Now he spoke. “You stopped them killing me, but that would have been less wicked. Remember she is no peona, but an American subject. For any mistreatment you will be called to account by our government.”

“Your government?” Turning his head, Ramon spat aside in the dust. “Your government? The Germans harried us for three years till we ran down and hanged the murderers of their countrymen at Covodonga. In Guerrero a villageful of people were shot for the murder of one Englishman. For the massacre of its citizens at Torreon even the Chinese demanded and obtained an indemnity of five million dollars. But your government – for the murder of hundreds of its men, dishonor of scores of its women, it has lodged – complaints. One more or less will not embarrass us – nor helpyou. Come on, hombre!”

As he moved off, leading Lee’s beast, Gordon writhed in a last effort to break his bonds. For the moment he was blinded by the rush of blood to his straining eyeballs, but as his sight cleared he saw Lee looking back. That womanly pity which transcends fear had lifted her for the moment above her own terrors. Like a light filtering through a storm, her smile gleamed wanly through the pale window of her distress. Then the chaparral swallowed her, and he settled back in black despair.

Though it was only a few seconds, it seemed an hour passed before a foot swinging into his line of vision caused him to look up. The revolutionists had finished dividing the money and were looking down at him.

“Going to cut my throat, now he’s gone,” Gordon read it – and did not care.

But he had failed to count on the streak of good humor that crosscuts even a bandit nature. “We are the richer by a hundred pesos by him.” Ilarian, the fellow who had tried to cut his throat, grinned at the others. “Let us lift him over there in the shade.”

“’Tis hard on thee, amigo,” the fellow went on, after they moved him. “’Tis hard to have thy girl snatched thus away. But have no fear” – though he caught only an occasional word of Spanish, the gestures, helped out by a gross leer, threw light brilliant as lightning on his meaning – “we will avenge thee. These days the pretty ones go to the strong. He has not got her yet. Adios – and better luck!”

As, laughing loudly, they left him, all the romance that had colored, for him, the Mexican revolutions, drained away, leaving him with clear, cold vision to face its dread facts – the tragic realities even then in course where the smoke columns rose, far away, under brazen skies. In agony of fear for Lee that transcended physical torture he watched them go.