Louisiana Lou. A Western Story

CHAPTER III

A SPORTING PROPOSITION

Louis de Launay, once known as “Louisiana” and later, as a general of cavalry, but now a broken man suffering from soul and mind sickness, was too far gone to give a thought to his condition. Thwarted ambition and gnawing disappointment had merely been the last straw which had broken him. His real trouble was that strange neurosis of mind and body which has attacked so many that served in the war. Jangled nerves, fibers drawn for years to too high a tension, had sagged and grown flabby under the sudden relaxation for which they were not prepared.

His case was worse than others as his career was unique. Where others had met the war’s shocks for four years, he had striven titanically for nearly a score, his efforts, beginning with the terrible five-year service in the Légion des Etrangers, culminating in ever-mounting strain to his last achievement and then – sudden, stark failure! He was, as he had said, burned out, although he was barely thirty-nine years old. He was a man still young in body but with mind and nerves like overstrained rubber from which all resilience has gone.

His uniform was gone. Careless of dress or ornamentation, he had sunk into roughly fitting civilian garb of which he took no care. Of all his decorations he clung only to the little red rosette of the Legion of Honor. Half drunk, he lolled at a table in a second-class café. He was in possession of his faculties; indeed, he seldom lost them, but he was dully indifferent to most of what went on around him. Before him was stacked a respectable pile of the saucers that marked his indebtedness for liquor.

When the cheerful murmur of his neighbors suddenly died away, he looked around, half resentfully, to note the entrance of a woman.

“What is it?” he asked, irritably, of a French soldier near him.

The Frenchman was smiling and answered without taking his eyes from the woman, who was now moving down the room toward them.

“Morgan la fée,” he answered, briefly.

“Morgan – what the deuce are you talking about?”

“It is Morgan la fée,” reiterated the soldier, simply, as though no other explanation were necessary.

De Launay stared at him and then shifted his uncertain gaze to the figure approaching him. He was able to focus her more clearly as she stopped to reply to the proprietor of the place, who had hastened to meet her with every mark of respect. Men at the tables she passed smiled at her and murmured respectful greetings, to which she replied with little nods of the head. Evidently she was a figure of some note in the life of the place, although it also seemed that as much surprise at her coming was felt as gratification.

She presented rather an extraordinary appearance. Her costume was the familiar one of a French Red Cross nurse, with the jaunty, close-fitting cap and wimple in white hiding her hair except for a few strands. Her figure was slender, lithe and graceful, and such of her features as were visible were delicate and shapely; her mouth, especially, being ripe and inviting.

But over her eyes and the upper part of her face stretched a strip of veiling that effectually concealed them. The mask gave her an air of mystery which challenged curiosity.

De Launay vaguely recalled occasional mention of a young woman favorably known in the hospitals as Morgan la fée. He also was familiar with the old French legend of Morgan and the Vale of Avalon, where Ogier, the Paladin of Charlemagne, lived in perpetual felicity with the Queen of the Fairies, forgetful of earth and its problems except at such times as France in peril might need his services, when he returned to succor her. He surmised that this was the nurse of whom he had heard, setting her down as probably some attractive, sympathetic girl whom the soldiers, sentimental and wounded, endowed with imaginary virtues. He was not sentimental and, beholding her in this café, although evidently held in respect, he was inclined to be skeptical regarding her virtue.

The young woman seemed to have an object and it was surprising to him. She exchanged a brief word with the maître, declined a proffered seat at a table, and turned to come directly to that at which De Launay was seated. He had hardly time to overcome his stupid surprise and rise before she was standing before him. Awkwardly enough, he bowed and waited.

Her glance took in the table, sweeping over the stacked saucers, but, behind the veil, her expression remained an enigma.

She spoke in a voice that was sweet, with a clear, bell-like note.

“Le Général de Launay, is it not? I have been seeking monsieur.”

“Colonel, if mademoiselle pleases,” he answered. Then suspicion crept into his dulled brain. “Mademoiselle seeks me? Pardon, but I am hardly a likely object – ”

She interrupted him with an impatient wave of a well-kept hand. “Monsieur need not be afraid. It is true that I have been seeking him, but my motive is harmless. If Monsieur Doolittle, the banker, has told me the truth – ”

De Launay’s suspicions grew rapidly. “If Doolittle has been talking, I can tell you right now, mademoiselle, that it is useless. What you desire I am not disposed to grant.”

Mademoiselle caught the meaning of the intonation rather than any in the words. Her inviting mouth curled scornfully. Her answer was still bell-like but it was also metallic and commanding.

“Sit down!” she said, curtly.

De Launay, who, for many years had been more used to giving orders than receiving them, at least in that manner, sat down. He could not have explained why he did. He did not try to. She sat down opposite him and he looked helplessly for a waiter, feeling the need of stimulation.

“You have doubtless had enough to drink,” said the girl, and De Launay meekly turned back to her. “You wonder, perhaps, why I am here,” she went on. “I have said that Monsieur Doolittle has told me that you are an American, that you contemplate returning to your own country – ”

“Mademoiselle forgets or does not know,” interrupted De Launay, “that I am not American for nearly twenty years.”

“I know all that,” was the impatient reply. She hurried on. “I know monsieur le général’s history since he was a légionnaire. But it is of your present plans I wish to speak, not of your past. Is it not true that you intend to return to America?”

“I’d thought of it,” he admitted, “but, since they have adopted prohibition – ” He shrugged his shoulders and looked with raised eyebrows at the stack of saucers bearing damning witness to his habits.

She stopped him with an equally expressive gesture, implying distaste for him and his habits or any discussion of them.

“But Monsieur Doolittle has also told me that monsieur is reckless, that he has the temperament of the gamester, that he is bored; in a word, that he would, as the Americans say, ‘take a chance.’ Is he wrong in that, also?”

“No,” said De Launay, “but there is a choice among the chances which might be presented to me. I have no interest in the hazards incidental to – ”

Then, for the life of him, he could not finish the sentence. He halfway believed the woman to be merely a demimondaine who had heard that he might be a profitable customer for venal love, but, facing that blank mask above the red lips and firm chin, sensing the frozen anger that lay behind it, he felt his convictions melting in something like panic and shame.

“Monsieur was about to say?” The voice was soft, dangerously soft.

“Whatever it was, I shall not say it,” he muttered. “I beg mademoiselle’s pardon.” He was relieved to see the lips curve in laughter and he recovered his own self-possession at once, though he had definitely dismissed his suspicion.

“I am, then a gambler,” he prompted her. “I will take risks and I am bored. Well, what is the answer?”

Mademoiselle’s hands were on the table and she now was twisting the slender fingers together in apparent embarrassment.

“It is a strange thing I have to propose, perhaps. But it is a hazard game that monsieur may be interested in playing, an adventure that he may find relaxing. And, as monsieur is poor, the chance that it may be profitable will, no doubt, be worthy of consideration.”

De Launay had to revise his ideas again. “You say that Doolittle gave you your information?” She agreed with a nod of the head.

“Just what did he tell you?”

Mademoiselle briefly related how Doolittle, coming from his interview with De Launay to hear her own plea for help, had laughed at her crazy idea, had said that it was impossible to aid her, and had finally, in exasperation at both of them, told her that the only way she could accomplish her designs was by the help of another fool like herself, and that De Launay was the only one he knew who could qualify for that description. He – De Launay – was reckless enough, gambler enough, ass enough, to do the thing necessary to aid her, but no one else was.

“And what,” said De Launay, “is this thing that one must do to help you?” It seemed evident that Doolittle, while he had told something, had not told all.

She hesitated and finally blurted it out at once while De Launay saw the flush creep down under the mask to the cheeks and chin below it. “It is to marry me,” she said.

Then, observing his stupefaction and the return of doubt to his mind, she hurried on. “Not to marry me in seriousness,” she said. “Merely a marriage of a temporary nature – one that the American courts will end as soon as the need is over. I must get to America, monsieur, and I cannot go alone. Nor can I get a passport and passage unaided. If one tries, one is told that the boats are jammed with returning troops and diplomats, and that it is out of the question to secure passage for months even though one would pay liberally for it.

“But monsieur still has prestige – influence – in spite of that.” Her nod indicated the stack of saucers. “He is still the general of France, and he is also an American. It is undoubtedly true that he will have no difficulty in securing passage, nor will it be denied him to take his wife with him. Therefore it is that I suggest the marriage to monsieur. It was Monsieur Doolittle that gave me the idea.”

De Launay was swept with a desire to laugh. “What on earth did he tell you?” he asked.

“That the only way I could go was to go as the wife of an American soldier,” said mademoiselle. “He added that he knew of none I could marry – unless, he said, I tried Monsieur de Launay. You, he informed me, had just told him that the only marriage you would consider would be one entered into in the spirit of the gambler. Now, that is the kind of marriage I have to offer.”

De Launay laughed, recalling his unfortunate words with the banker to the effect that the only reason he’d ever marry would be as a result of a bet. Mademoiselle’s ascendency was vanishing rapidly. Her naïve assumption swept away the last vestiges of his awe.

“Why do you wear that veil?” he asked abruptly.

She raised her hand to it doubtfully. “Why?” she echoed.

“If I am to marry you, is it to be sight unseen?”

“It is merely because – it is because there is something that causes comment and makes it embarrassing to me. It is nothing – nothing repulsive, monsieur,” she was pleading, now. “At least, I think not. But it makes the soldiers call me – ”

“Morgan la fée?”

“Yes. Then you must know?” There was relief in her words.

“No. I have merely wondered why they called you that.”

“It is on account of my eyes. They are – queer, perhaps. And my hair, which I also hide under the cap. The poor soldiers ascribe all sorts of – of virtues to them. Magic qualities, which, of course, is silly. And others – are not so kind.”

In De Launay’s mind was running a verse from William Morris’ “Earthly Paradise.” He quoted it, in English:

“Is that it?” he murmured to himself. To his surprise, for he had not thought that she spoke English, she answered him.

“It is not. It is my eyes; yes, but they are not to be described so flatteringly.” Yet she was smiling and the blush had spread again to cheeks and chin, flushing them delightfully. “It is a superstition of these ignorant poilus. And of others, also. In fact, there are some who are afraid.”

“Well,” said De Launay, “I have never had the reputation of being either ignorant or afraid. Also – there is Ogier?”

“What?”

“Who plays the rôle of the Danish Paladin?”

Mademoiselle blushed again. “He is not in the story this time,” she said.

“I hardly qualify, you would say. Perhaps not. But there is more. Where is Avalon and what other names have you? You remember

“What are they?”

“I am Solange d’Albret, monsieur. I am from the Basses Pyrenees. A Basque, if you please. If my name is distinguished, I am not. On the contrary, I am very poor, having but enough to finance this trip to America and the search that is to follow.”

“And Avalon – where is that? Where is the place that you go to in America?”

She opened a small hand bag and took from it a notebook which she consulted.

“America is a big place. It is not likely that you would know it, or the man that I must look for. Here it is. The place is called ‘Twin Forks,’ and it is near the town of Sulphur Falls, in the State of Idaho. The man is Monsieur Isaac Brandon.”

In the silence, she looked up, alarmed to see De Launay, who was clutching the edge of the table and staring at her as though she had struck him.

“Why, what is the matter?” she cried.

De Launay laughed out loud. “Twin Forks! Ike Brandon! Mademoiselle, what do you seek in Twin Forks and from old Ike Brandon?”

Mademoiselle, puzzled and alarmed, answered slowly.

“I seek a mine that my father found – a gold mine that will make us rich. And I seek also the name of the man that shot my father down like a dog. I wish to kill that man!”

CHAPTER IV

HEADS! I WIN!

De Launay turned and called the waiter, ordering cognac for himself and light wine for mademoiselle.

“You have rendered it necessary, mademoiselle,” he explained. Mademoiselle’s astounding revelation and the metallic earnestness of murder in her voice alike took him aback. He saw that her sweet mouth was set in a cruel line and her cameo chin was firm as a rock. But her homicidal intentions had not affected him as sharply as the rest of it.

Mademoiselle took her wine and sipped it, but her mouth again relaxed to scornful contempt as she saw him toss off the fiery liquor. She was somewhat astonished at the effect her words had had on the man, but she gathered that he was now considering her bizarre proposal with real interest.

The alcohol temporarily enlivened De Launay.

“So,” he said, “Avalon is at Twin Forks and I am to marry you in order that you may seek out an enemy and kill him. There was also word of a gold mine. And your father – d’Albret! I do not recall the name.”

“My father,” explained Solange, “went to America when I was a babe in arms. He was very poor – few of the Basques are rich – and he was in danger because of the smuggling. He worked for this Monsieur Brandon as a herder of sheep. He found a mine of gold – and he was killed when he was coming to tell about it.”

“His Christian name?”

“Pedro – Pierre.”

“H’m-m! That must have been French Pete. I remember him. He was more than a cut above the ordinary Basco.” He spoke in English, again forgetting that mademoiselle spoke the language. She reminded him of it.

“You knew my father? But that is incredible!”

“The whole affair is incredible. No wonder you have the name of being a fairy! But I knew your father – slightly. I knew Ike Brandon. I know Twin Forks. If I had made up my mind to return to America, it is to that place that I would go.”

It was mademoiselle’s turn to be astonished.

“To Twin Forks?”

“To Ike Brandon’s ranch, where your father worked. It must have been after my time that he was killed. I left there in nineteen hundred, and came to France shortly afterward. I was a cow hand – a cowboy – and we did not hold friendship with sheepmen. But I knew Ike Brandon and his granddaughter. Now, tell me about this mine and your father’s death.”

Mademoiselle d’Albret again had recourse to her hand bag, drawing from it a small fragment of rock, a crumpled and smashed piece of metal about the size of one’s thumb nail and two pieces of paper. The latter seemed to be quite old, barely holding together along the lines where they had been creased. These she spread on the table. De Launay first picked up the rock and the bit of metal.

He was something of a geologist. France’s soldiers are trained in many sciences. Turning over the tiny bit of mineral between his fingers, he readily recognized the bits of gold speckling its crumbling crystals. If there was much ore of that quality where French Pete had found his mine, that mine would rank with the richest bonanzas of history.

The bit of metal also interested him. It had been washed but there were still oxydized spots which might have been made by blood. It was a soft-nosed bullet, probably of thirty caliber, which had mushroomed after striking something. His mouth was grim as he saw the jagged edges of metal. It had made a terrible wound in whatever flesh had stopped it.

He laid the two objects down and took the paper that mademoiselle handed to him. It seemed to be a piece torn from a paper sack, and on it was scrawled in painful characters a few words in some language utterly unknown to him.

“It is Basque,” said mademoiselle, and translated: “‘My love, I am assassinated! Farewell, and avenge me! There is much gold. The good Monsieur Brandon will – ’”

It trailed off into a meaningless, trembling line.

The other was a letter written on ruled paper. The cramped, schoolboyish characters were those of a man unused to much composition and the words were the vernacular of the ranges.