Over the Border: A Novel

“Sure,” Sliver breezily answered. “I told her that you said for her to go to hell.”

“Oh, well” – Gordon recovered his breath again – “at least that puts the whole business beyond further doubt.”

“Don’t you believe it.” Sliver gave a third and last grin. “She says that you-all kin always find her here if you happen to change your mind.”

“Now that’s very nice.” Really pleased under his amusement, Gordon brought the little comedy to a graceful end. Unsnapping the leather watch-fob that bore his initials worked in gold, he laid it in the girl’s hand. “A fellow doesn’t get a proposal of marriage every day. Tell her for a little remembrance.”

“And now for another drink.”

But as Sliver reached for the bottle Gordon seized his arm, and any doubts as to his sobriety were removed then and there from the cowman’s mind. “You’ve had two already, and I’m not going to stand by and see you burn your stomach out. Come on, gol darn you! or I’ll hand you one.”

His smiling good humor removed the offense. Nevertheless, the curious brown specks were floating again in the blue of his eye.

Sliver knew the threat was real. “Just this one?”

“Well, if you’ll down it quick and come on.”

With feelings that had hovered between gratification at Gordon’s sobriety and regret for his own, Sliver drank, bade the girl “Adios,” and mounted again. Standing in the doorway, her glance followed them, enwrapping Gordon’s upright figure with its dark caress. Just as they crossed the stream at the foot of the path, her face lit with sudden remembrance. Turning at her call they saw her coming at a breathless run.

“Kain’t bear the parting,” Sliver interpreted the action.

But his grin faded as he listened to her voluble talk. “She says that four strange Mexicans stayed here last night. They didn’t belong to this country, an’ they questioned her closely about the different haciendas. They were ’specially curious about our horses. Us being gringos an’ her Mex, they naturally concluded she’d be ag’in us, and they would have been right but for the fancy she’s taken to you. So they opened right up; asked all about the mountain pastures an’ whether we kep’ a close guard. She says they was heading for there. While I go after ’em, you ride like the mill tails o’ hell an’ bring out Bull an’ Jake.”

That crude but strong expression accurately described Gordon’s progress homeward. While his beast scrambled like a cat up one side of the ravine, slid like a four-footed avalanche down the other, and streaked like a shooting star up and down the long earth rolls, he learned more of horsemanship than during all his previous years. Lee, who saw him coming from the upper gallery above the patio, nodded her approval. Such haste, of course, had but one interpretation – raiders; and by the time Gordon dashed into the compound she was already mounted and a fresh beast waiting for him.

“They are up in the Cañon del Norte,” she answered his inquiry for Bull and Jake. “Come on!”

“You are surely not thinking of – ”

Before he could finish, however, she shot under the gate arch; was off at a speed that kept him galloping his hardest to keep her in sight. Not until she slowed down on the rough trail that led into the cañon, within sight of Bull and Jake, who had just roped a foal for branding, did he catch her. But it was just as well, for that which he would have said came with more authority from the lips of Bull.

“All right, Missy. There’s on’y four, so you don’t need to be skeered. You kin go right back home with Gordon an’ leave us to take keer of them.”

“Indeed I won’t!” she exclaimed, hotly. “I’m going, too! I am! I am!” She cut off his remonstrance. “I am! I am! I am!”

It was the first time their wills had clashed. Bull glanced at Jake, who shook his head – not that he required support or intended to waste time in fruitless argument. “You mean that?” His glance, grave with stern disapproval, came back to Lee.

It hurt her. But though her lips quivered, she answered, doggedly: “I do! I won’t go back.”

“Very well. We’ve no time to waste. Ride on while I cut this foal loose.” But as she obeyed, with one flick of the wrist he roped her above the elbows from behind. Then, in spite of angry protests that ended in tears, he cinched her little feet from stirrup to stirrup.

“Now take her home.” Handing the lead rope to Gordon, he leaped into the saddle and galloped after Jake.

Till they disappeared, Lee looked after, wavering between anger and tears. Tears won. Bowing her fair head, she wept unreservedly for fully a minute. Realizing then that she was gaining nothing but swollen eyes and a red nose, she stopped crying and turned to Gordon with a little laugh.

“Isn’t this ridiculous? Please untie me.”

But now she found herself gazing into the sullen face of a young man who, through her, had been cut out of a real fight. He shook his head.

“You won’t?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You’d go after them.”

They looked at each other. Her eyes were now gleaming brightly above two red spots; but he met their gaze with stubborn obstinacy.

“You mean to say that you are going to take me home tied up like a veal calf?”

He nodded.

Biting her lips, she looked at him again. “Do you realize, sir, that you never set eyes on me till a week ago?”

“Sure!”

“Also that you are my hired man?”

He nodded again.

“Very well, you’re fired! Now untie this rope, then get off my land!”

But even this was turned against her. “I don’t have to. I’m no longer your servant. I’ll get off your land, yes – after I’ve delivered you at your home.”

If looks could kill, to use that hackneyed but still expressive term, he would have died there and then. But they don’t, and, masking his own disappointment with a hypocritically cheerful whistle, he turned his beast and rode down the cañon, towing her behind.

It was dreadfully humiliating, and, being a girl, she cried some more – this time for sheer anger. But soon her tears dried and she fell into deep musing. Soon a small smile restored its softness to her mouth. Her voice, seductively pleasant, mingled with the tramp of hoofs. “Won’t you please untie me? The rope is hurting my arms.”

He stopped, pulled her horse up alongside, and as he began to fumble with the ropes she turned her head so that he could not see her smile. It was transmuted into a flash of fury when, finding the rope a little loose, he drew it tighter.

“I thought you were a gentleman!” she shot it viciously at his back as he rode on. “Gentlemen don’t tie up ladies!”

“Ladies don’t fire men for obeying orders. You needn’t think I’m enjoying this. Just because you shoved in where you were not wanted, I have to go back.”

She did not like that, either. What girl would? Once more she bit her lip, yet, for all her anger, a touch of respect mingled with her resentment. Concerned principally with his own disappointment, he rode on without looking back and so missed the little persistent wriggles by which she gradually freed one hand. Soon she was able, by leaning forward, to reach and draw her saddle machete. Indeed, she worked with such caution that he got his first warning when, with one slash, she cut the rope between them. By the time he had swung his beast around she was going like the wind back up the cañon.

Her mocking laughter came floating back.

XIII: AMERICAN RUSTLERS VS. MEXICAN RAIDERS

Shoving rapidly into the mountains, Sliver ascended with the trail in a couple of hours through upland growth of piñon and juniper to the height of land, a pass riven by earthquake or subsidence between twin jagged peaks, from where he overlooked the valley pasture.

Like a great jade bowl, bisected by the silver line of a stream, its wide green circle, miles in diameter, lay within a broad ring of purple chaparral. Over its surface black dots were scurrying toward the corrals at the northern end, and under Sliver’s glass these resolved into horses that were being rounded up by four Mexicans; for he could see their peaked sombreros, tight charro suits, even at that distance. Turning the glass on the jacal, a rude hut of poles and grass thatch near the corrals, he looked for Pedro, the anciano.

“Poor old chap! they’ve sure got his goat.” While clucking his commiseration, however, he shifted the glass to a patch of white on a near-by tree, and it immediately resolved into the old fellow’s blouse and calzones. “No, they’ve just tied him up. Then these ain’t no Colorados. It’s Felicia’s gang, all right, all right.” He added, chuckling, “Four nice little raiders in a pretty trap, along comes Jake and Bull, then there was none.”

And trapped they were. Except where the stream slipped out over a precipice between two narrow walls, the mountains rose sheer around the Bowl, unscalable save where the trail rose by precarious zigzags to where Sliver held the pass a thousand feet above. At few places was it possible for two horsemen to ride abreast. At that point there was barely room for one; if necessary, he could have held it, alone, against a score. But it was not. Watching closely, he saw the raiders first drive the horses into the corrals, then settle down for a siesta in the shade of the jacal.