Over the Border: A Novel

Her tone was so casual, he felt convicted of vast and unlimited greenness. But where, according to the lights under which he had been raised, he ought to have suffered a severe revulsion, he actually experienced a thrill. This juxtaposition of life and death, the violence and quickness with which events rang their changes, somehow stripped away the veils from the riddle of existence, reduced its complex terms to their basic factors. Here in the mountains, desert, plains, they were very simple – to eat well, sleep well, fight well, and die well, even as these thieves, comprised the whole duty of man. The thrill recorded his acceptance of the terms.

While they were riding down and down the sun lowered its great crimson orb till it hung, transfixed, on a distant peak. The mountain steeps above, spurs, and ridges beneath, were washed in its dying crimson. Deep purple filled the hollows; faint violet clothed the distant plains. Over all a cloud-flecked sky spread its parti-colored glories. Mountain and plain, cañon and deep ravine, it was a scene infinitely wild, infinitely beautiful, and as he looked over it all Gordon took his breath in a deep sigh.

“This is life! I hate to leave it.”

“Leave it?” If Lee’s surprise was assumed, it was exceedingly well done. She went on, with a low laugh: “Oh, I see! Papa wins out. The prodigal will return to marry the beautiful heiress and live happy ever afterward.”

“Who told you? Oh, Bull, of course. Now that comes of owning a blabbing tongue. Confound him! Well, since you want to know, I won’t. In my present mood, New York is the last place in the world I want to see.”

“Then you have tired of us —so soon?”

“Or you of me? You forget —I’m fired.”

She noted the subtle accent, and equally subtle was her reply. “Why, yes, so you were.”

Then, looking at each other, they both laughed.

XIV: NEMESIS DOGS THE THREE – AND IS “DOGGED,” IN TURN, BY LEE

Midnight saw the prisoners safely bestowed in a ’dobe that had served the old Spaniard, Carleton’s predecessor, for a jail. During the remainder of the night the Three stood guard in turn and Gordon, who relieved Sliver at daybreak, was still at the door when Lee came out of her bedroom on the upper gallery.

Goodness knows she was pretty enough in her man’s riding-togs, but now a flowing kimono added the softness and mystery a man loves best in a woman. As she moved forward to the rail and stretched, looking off and away to the mountains, the loose sleeves fell away and Gordon obtained a distracting glimpse of polished arms, small white teeth, in a round red mouth, all set in the blazing gold of her hair. Seeing him, she cut off the yawn and smiled.

“You must be dreadfully hungry.” Her clear call floated across the compound. “Come to breakfast. I’ll send Miguel to keep watch.”

She was already seated at the table under the portales when he came in, and as he took his seat Maria, the smaller of the two housecriadas, reported the Three as being still lost in sleep.

“The poor fellows!” Lee commented, distressfully. “They must be dead. Don’t awaken them.”

Thus, after the crowding events of the previous day, which included a fist fight, proposal of marriage from one girl, wild chase after another, a bandit raid and lynching-party, all rendered more impressive by the dark ride through warm, mysterious night, Gordon now sattête-à-tête with his pretty employer.

The patio, with its arched corredors, cool as a grotto under flooding greenery, the bird song, and exotic flowers; flame of thearbol de fuego; glimpses in the crypt-like kitchen of a criada down on her knees rubbing tortilla paste on a stone metate; the soft stealth with which Maria moved around the table on nude feet; all these helped to deepen those profound impressions. And while he watched Lee’s small hands fluttering like butterflies over the breakfast things, and gained confirmatory glimpses of the polished whiteness of her arms, came still others.

Two brown girls, who stood twisting their skirts in the gateway, moved forward at Lee’s word.

“They wish to take my advice about following their lovers to the wars,” she summed for him their Spanish. “I explained the risks of hunting them among twenty thousand revolutionists, and advised them to wait till they came home. But they say that is too indefinite. They may be killed, and there is no one to marry them here but the ancianos, and they already have wives. So they are going – to join the rag and bobtail in the wake of the revolution.”

After the next client, a wrinkled old woman, had followed the girls out, Lee burst out in merry laughter. “She was telling me of a miracle that occurred at the funeral of her brother, who worked for William Benson. It appears that he had only his dirty cotton calzones to be buried in, so his wife begged a worn white suit from Mr. Benson. The poor old fellow had been reduced by sickness to a rack of bones, and you could have rolled him in it like a blanket. And here came the miracle! The weather, you know, was exceedingly hot last week, and instead of burying him at once they waited till some relatives from a distance had arrived. And when the coffin was opened for them to take a last look – lo! the miracle!

“‘For Saint Joseph,’ she said, just now, ‘had wrought a most wonderful thing, señorita. Whereas Refugio had lain in the señor’s clothes like a nut in a withered shell, he was now so large and handsome they fitted him like his skin!’”

He laughed so heartily she was drawn on to tell him more, and pleased herself thereby as much as him. For to be really happy, a girl must have exercise for her tongue, and with all their genuine devotion the Three offered but a limited field for conversation. Naturally laconic, their communications touched principally upon flocks and herds; and holding, as they did, the traditional frontier viewpoint concerning Mexicans – to wit, that they ranked in the scale of creation below the Gila monster – they shared neither her affection for, nor understanding of, her brown retainers.

But Gordon, with his quick and reciprocal feeling, made an ideal listener. From the “miracle” she ran on with anecdotes and happenings, some quaint, others amusing, several tragic, that revealed with a vividness beyond the power of description the mixture of love and treachery, simplicity and savagery, ignorance and idealism, religious faith and gross superstition, that go into the making of a Mexican. While she talked and he listened, there was established a community of feeling which was destined to produce immediate results.

“What is it, Maria?” Pausing, she looked up at the criada who had just carried the prisoners their breakfast.

“They wish to speak to me,” she translated the girl’s answer, “alone. They say it is very important.”

“Better let me go with you.” Gordon rose. “I can wait outside.”

“Surely.” She accepted, at once, his offer, and when, moreover, he followed in after Miguel opened the prison door, she offered no objection.

Neither did the raiders – for reasons that quickly developed. “It matters not, señorita.” The man whose face had caused Bull such disturbance shrugged his indifference when Lee explained that Gordon spoke no Spanish. “’Tis of the others, your servants, I would speak.”

While crossing the compound she had puckered her smooth brow over the mystery – without gaining any inkling to break the force of the communication. While the fellow ran on, hands and shoulders helping out his torrential Spanish, Gordon saw her expression pass through surprise, incredulity, doubt, finally settle in deep concern, when, with emphasis that carried conviction, the other three testified to the truth of their fellow’s words.

“I – Oh, do you know what they say?” Distressed, she turned to Gordon with blind instinct for help. “I really don’t know whether I ought to tell you. It so dreadfully, pitifully concerns our poor friends. You have been here such a short time, yet – I feel that you can be trusted. They say – ”

But the tale, as elaborated and filled in by Gordon’s cross-examination, is best summed. Not for nothing had been Bull’s “hunch.” The haunting face fitted the charro who had held their horses that day at thejefe-politico’s gate in Las Bocas. When the Three failed to return with Carleton’s horses, that astute person – the “wicked one” of yesterday’s talk – had sent out others. In return for the señorita’sgreat kindness in saving their lives – but principally, if the truth be known, because they feared to be sent out under convoy of Sliver and Jake – they wished to make grateful return by warning her against these evil ones; these wolves in sheep’s clothing that had slunk into her fold! Followed a recital of their border raids that lost nothing by reason of the details being filled in from imagination! They were terrible hombres! Muy malo! greatly desired by the gringo police for dreadful crimes!

“Don’t you suppose they are lying?” Gordon suggested.

She shook her head. “Their story is too literal. When a peon lies, he goes the limit. Some terrible tale of atrocious murder and torture would be the least; something beyond mere banditry, which is scarcely a crime in their eyes. Then it is corroborated by a lot of little things. You know they were riding my horses yesterday and were differently dressed, yet this man described their horses and clothing as he saw them in Las Bocas, just as they were the first day they came here. And do you remember how they looked at one another yesterday when I said that any of us might have done the same thing?”

Gordon nodded. “They did look queer, and do you recall Bull’s answer? ‘Under the same circumstances, we-all ’u’d expect to hang.’ He spoke so slowly, looking at the others, and they both nodded.”

“Then see how they came here – started up, as it were, out of the ground. In Mexico one doesn’t ask strangers embarrassing questions. It would be like throwing stones at random in a city of glass. But if they stay with you, one generally learns something of their past. But theirs is wrapped in mystery. I know no more of them than on the day they came. It is probably true.”

Her tone was quiet, indeed so casual in its acceptance of the fact that Gordon wondered. In El Paso he had been greatly impressed by the knight-errantry of the Three in espousing the cause of a lonely girl. During the last week he had seen for himself their simplicity of heart, rough kindliness, genuine devotion; and now this land of surprises had confounded him again with its juggler’s changes of good and evil. These kindly fellows were, after all, cattle-rustlers, but one remove from bandits.

To him it was a most astonishing situation. In New York, where folks were sharply divided into the sheep and the goats, it would have been easily solved; one would have merely rung for the police. But here, where everything seemed to go by contraries, anything might happen. Accordingly, he looked at her and waited.

But she did not answer his unspoken question. She was looking at him, yes, with wide, distressed eyes. But he felt, without understanding, that she was looking across that queer situation. He had a sudden, vivid suspicion that he was on trial in her mind instead of the Three. He was certain of it when she spoke.

“What would you do?”

Ten days ago he would undoubtedly have viewed the case under his previous lights and have pronounced it one for the police. Now he answered from the larger charity that belonged to the land: “You remember what you said yesterday and repeated a moment ago – under the same circumstances we might have done the same thing? It isn’t what theywere; it’s what they are that counts.”

“Oh, I knew you would say it!” She impulsively thrust out her hand, and as the small, firm fingers locked with his in a strong grip, he knew that not only had he emerged victorious, but also that his answer had established between them a real bond. Eyes shining, she ran on: “They saved my life, helped to nurse my father, have been so kind and good and dear! If they had been the vilest criminals it would make no difference to me. They are my people, my men!”

“Of course they are!” Gordon cordially agreed. “Now what about these fellows? What will you tell them?”

Doubt clouded her shining enthusiasm. “I don’t quite know. What do you think would be best?”

“The truth. If what they say is true, and we believe it is, they can’t be bluffed. But it won’t do to have them believe you knew nothing of this. I’d hint that though you were not acquainted with the details, you were perfectly aware of your servants’ past, but that they are now leading honorable lives. Clinch it by adding that you hope they will do half as well with their chance.”

“Fine!” Her face lit up again, and when, having put it all into Spanish for the thieves, they went outside, she thanked him for the counsel. “I knew you could help me. Now just one more thing – this is all between you and me. No one else must ever know – especially them.”

“We’ll forget it ourselves.”

Once more her small cool fingers locked with his, and, smiling brightly, she went back to the house, leaving him to resume his guard till the prisoners were taken away by Sliver and Jake.

After they were gone there entered into Gordon’s mind a small doubt. Supposing the raiders talked? Spread their report of the Three through the desert country? It remained, that little doubt, like a thorn in the side till it was drawn by Sliver and Jake when they returned the following night.

“We’d calc’lated to hand ’em over to the vaqueros at Hacienda El Reposo, an’ have them chase ’em beyond their bounds,” Jake explained. “But at the railroad we ran into a Valles colonel that was drumming up recruits. He grabbed ’em offen our hands that quick they hadn’t time to kick.”

“By now,” Sliver added, “they’re three hundred miles south on their way to death an’ glory.”