Loe raamatut: «A Vendetta of the Hills», lehekülg 16

CHAPTER XXXVII – The Dawn of Comprehension

ALL through the afternoon at La Siesta, Merle was in a meditative mood. After luncheon Mrs. Darlington had returned to her letter-writing and her book-keeping. Munson and Grace had departed for a walk through the pine woods, after vain but not too strenuous endeavors to get Merle to accompany them. Left to her own resources she had retired to the drawing room, had tried to interest herself at the piano, but after a little while had given up the attempt; and, coiled in a big chair, had surrendered herself to a “big think,” as she mentally termed it.

In that momentary searching of the eyes between her and Mr. Robles just before their parting in the rose garden, there had come a flash of revelation to her soul. She had divined a yearning in his gaze that was surely more than the affection of an old and devoted friend. There was passionate tenderness that belied the gentle yet almost perfunctory kiss on the brow that he had finally bestowed at parting. Nor had she failed to notice the restraint which the strong man had imposed upon himself. And strangely enough, her own momentary impulse had been to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him, just as a fond daughter might have kissed a father at such an emotional moment – on the eve of a long journey, the whither unrevealed, the return all so uncertain.

She recalled, too, their previous conversation while she was gathering the roses – his words of kindly wisdom, his little bits of advice that now seemed to be weighted by more than mere friendly interest in her future happiness. Then her mind traveled back slowly, step by step, all the way to childhood days – a long vista marked by his comings and his goings, his prolonged absences, his unexpected but always welcome reappearances, his numberless acts of thoughtful kindness. Once she had been seriously ill, when a little girl, and the memory of that illness had ever been the memory of his face hovering over her cot, night and day, till the crisis had been passed and she had been on the way to assured convalescence.

There had always been an air of mystery about Mr. Robles, but she had never sought to penetrate it, instinctively recognizing that there had been some great sorrow in his life, and almost unconsciously accepting the affectionate regard he had lavished on Grace and herself as some sort of consolation for him in his loneliness. She knew that Grace was only her sister in name, but none the less Grace was to her a real sister, just as Mrs. Darlington was a real mother – the only mother she had ever known. Weaving together now the threads of memory, she became conscious of the mystery in her own life. There was assuredly some fuller story than the story she had been told in the past and had always tacitly accepted – that her parents had been neighbors and dear friends of Mrs. Darlington in the long ago, and when they had died, the baby girl left behind had been bequeathed to her motherly care.

At this stage in her ruminations Merle sat bolt upright in her chair. The shadows of evening were beginning to close around her, but the dawn of revelation was in her heart.

Would Mrs. Darlington still be alone in her boudoir? Merle answered the unspoken thought by stealing from the room.

Yes, Mrs. Darlington was at her writing table, lighted now by candles on each side which, covered by little red shades, only dimly illuminated the apartment. Merle flitted in without her coming being observed.

Mrs. Darlington was no longer writing – her elbows were resting on the table and both hands were covering her eyes in an attitude of deep thought, perhaps of sleep, as Merle for a moment imagined when she had noiselessly gained her side.

“Mother dear,” she said softly, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“You here, my child?” exclaimed Mrs. Darlington. There was no trace of slumber in her eyes.

“Yes, and I want to have a little talk with you – all alone,” said Merle, as she dropped into a chair, the very chair which Mr. Robles had previously occupied.

The look of vague sadness and anxiety in Mrs. Darlington’s face deepened.

“What about, dear?” she asked.

Merle’s mind had been made up, and she came to the issue with point-blank abruptness.

“Is Mr. Robles my father?”

The startled look on the other’s face was almost in itself an admission of the truth – Mrs. Darlington had been caught off her guard. But she made a desperate attempt to parry the question.

“What makes you fancy such a thing?” she faltered.

“Because there is certainty in my heart,” replied

Merle bravely. “It came to me first when he bade me good-bye in the garden. And now I see it in your face.”

The young girl dropped on her knees, and, an arm around her mother’s waist, gazed up imploringly.

Eyes met eyes. Falsehood was impossible in either case. Mrs. Darlington stooped and folded the kneeling girl in a fond embrace. Both were weeping now. No word had been spoken, but Merle knew that she had correctly divined.

It was a few minutes before there was sufficient self-control for the conversation to be resumed. But then, Merle still kneeling by her side, Mrs. Darlington spoke:

“I had promised to keep this secret, dear,” she began, fondling the girl’s tresses. “But you have gained your knowledge apart from me, so I cannot be held to have betrayed my trust. Yes, Mr. Robles is your father – your loving and devoted father. Your real name is his – Merle Robles you should always have been called.”

“And why not?” asked Merle. “Oh, I am proud and overjoyed to think of him as my father.”

“Because he has some important reason to have the world think otherwise. I know you will believe me, dear Merle, when I say I do not know that reason. He is too grand and honorable a man for me to have ever pressed for an explanation. I just accepted you as a gift from his hands – his child and the child of my girlhood chum, named Merle, as you know, like yourself.”

“So, if I have solved one mystery, there is still another mystery beyond,” murmured Merle.

She rose, seated herself, and remained silent for a moment, her hands locked across her knees, her brows knit in thought.

“But why distress your heart over unknown things?” said Mrs. Darlington. “As you have learned by your today’s experience, mysteries solve themselves in due time.”

“Yes,” replied Merle, “but somehow I feel that this is the due time that I should know everything – for my dear father’s sake,” she added, “not for my own. Oh, mother, you should have seen his face of anguish just before he parted from me this afternoon. It was revealed to me only for an instant. But now I feel sure that something terrible is going to happen – to him.”

She was sobbing again, as she flung her arms impulsively around Mrs. Darlington’s neck and sat in her lap, just as if once again she had become a little child.

“Oh, mother mine – I shall always call you mother mine, for you have been a dear, sweet, kind mother to me ever since I can remember. But don’t you see that today I have also found a father whom I deeply love? Nothing must happen to him.”

“Why should anything happen to him?”

“I do not know. Where is Tia Teresa?”

The question came with startling suddenness as Merle started up with another ray of illumination in her mind.

“I haven’t seen her since morning,” replied Mrs. Darlington.

“Nor have I,” said Merle, standing erect, wiping away the traces of her tears, and with a few pats adjusting her rumpled hair. “That is very strange.”

“No. I happen to know that this day, the eleventh of October, is always a sad anniversary for Tia Teresa – the death of some dear friend who lies buried in the little Mexican cemetery on the hill. She has always refused to tell me the story. But early this morning she went, as usual, to place flowers upon the grave.”

“Flowers – for a grave!” exclaimed Merle. She was thinking of the roses she had gathered that afternoon for Mr. Robles – for her father – because he specially wanted the most beautiful blooms. But she did not give her thought to Mrs. Darlington.

“It is all so strange,” continued Merle. Then her air of decisiveness returned. “I’ll go and see if Tia Teresa is in her room.”

Mrs. Darlington was gravely perturbed at this persistency. Oh, if only the mysteries of the past could be left alone, the joys of the present accepted for themselves! Probing into trouble cannot but lead to further trouble – that, for her, had been the secret of contentment. But she was powerless to intervene. Merle had already departed on her mission of enquiry.

CHAPTER XXXVIII – Exit Leach Sharkey

THE ponies were jogging down the trail, Leach Sharkey uncomfortably lurching in his saddle when some sudden bend or dip was encountered, Dick Willoughby good-humoredly holding him on when such emergencies rendered the service advisable if an ignominious fall were to be avoided. There was a song of joy in Dick’s heart – liberty was at hand; he was riding down from the hills to join his loved one again. But there was sullen brooding in the soul of the outwitted sleuth – growing more sullen with every mile traversed, with every kindness rendered, with the very realization of his own ridiculous predicament and the contrast of his companion’s light-hearted happiness.

At last they reached the foot of the trail, leading on to the road that crossed the plain. At the distance of a few miles the Rancho San Antonio showed amid its clustering shade and orchard trees.

“Let us dismount for a bit,” suggested Sharkey. “I feel all in – dead beat and tired.”

“But how will I get you on to your horse again?” replied Dick, a trifle dubiously.

“Oh, we’ll manage that. Please help me down.” Dick sprang to the ground, dropped the reins over his pony’s head, and soon had Leach Sharkey on terra firma.

“You’re no light weight to handle,” he laughed. “By the way, Sharkey, I forgot to ask: Where’s your boss this afternoon?”

Sharkey eyed Dick curiously.

“You don’t know?”

“Why should I know? It’s quite a time since I met the gentleman.”

“You are aware who Pierre Luzon is?”

“Certainly. Pierre has come to be quite a friend of mine. He’s a good fellow all right.” There was a moment’s pause. Dick was rolling a cigarette, Sharkey furtively watching every expression on his face.

“Well, the Frenchie played me a dirty trick when he threw that key away,” remarked the sleuth, rattling, the handcuffs behind his back.

“I guess Pierre was resolved to take no chances,” replied Dick, grinning through the tobacco smoke as he surveyed the helpless bodyguard. “He only needed a pair of hobbles to complete the job.”

A muttered curse came from Sharkey’s lips – but this was an aside. For Dick he had an insinuating smile.

“You might get these blamed handcuffs off all right, Willoughby. Look at that big boulder there. If I set my hands across it, you might hammer through the chain. Or if you have a pistol, that might do the trick.”

“No, I’ve got no pistol,” Dick replied.

He did not notice the gleam of satisfaction in Sharkey’s eyes – the wolfish smile at the corners of his wolf-like teeth. At the moment he was looking around for a convenient stone that might serve as a hammer.

“But I think I might break that chain all right with this,” he went on, as he stooped and picked up a heavy, sharp-edged fragment of granite from the rock-strewn ground. “Come along, then. Set your wrists just here. At least, we can try.”

The trial succeeded – the slender steel strain stretched across the boulder soon yielded to the succession of battering blows.

Sharkey flung his great big brawny arms aloft. He was still wearing the bracelets, but his hands were free.

“Feels better, don’t it?” said Dick, with a sympathetic smile.

“A damned sight better,” roared the sleuth, as he turned quickly round. “Now, young man, you are my prisoner. I arrest you for jail-breaking. There’s my star. I don’t say hands up, for I know you haven’t a gun.”

As he spoke, Sharkey opened his coat so that the official badge might be displayed.

Dick in his amazement stepped back, just one pace. Sharkey advanced, his high hands outstretched.

“Make no trouble, now. You know I am only doing my duty.”

“Duty be hanged,” cried Dick, as with a swift uppercut he caught his would-be captor on the jaw. Sharkey staggered, and Dick, with a right-arm swing, banged him on the temple, bowling him over like a ninepin.

Sharkey was soon on his hands and knees; then dazed and tottering, he got onto his feet again. But Dick was watchfully waiting, and with sharp jabs, right and left, sent him down once more. The sleuth lay motionless now.

Like a flash Dick grabbed the riata hanging from the saddle-horn of his pony, and without a moment’s loss of time had its coils around the arms and chest of the prostrate man, roping him like a thrown steer with all the skill of the trained cowboy. In a brief minute the knots were tied, and with the final clove-hitch the fallen Samson was turned over on his back. Sharkey’s eyes opened, glaring dully at his conqueror.

“You contemptible hound!” exclaimed Dick, as he tossed the loose end of the lariat from him. “By God, I’ve seen a few low-down things done in my lifetime, but this is certainly the limit. I suppose you would have betrayed me for the sake of the reward, even though you know now for certain that I was wrongfully arrested at the start. You damned Judas! You deserve to be hanged like a horse-thief, Leach Sharkey – that’s about your proper finish.”

And Dick in his righteous indignation glanced around as if in search of a convenient tree for the operation.

“I’ll give no further trouble,” mumbled Sharkey.

“It will be my particular care that you don’t,” replied Dick. “Get up, you hulking brute.” And grabbing the coils of the riata, he fairly lifted Sharkey to his feet.

“Now, I wouldn’t shame the pony by putting you on his back again. Follow me.”

Picking up the free end of the rope, and gathering the leading rein of Sharkey’s horse into the same hand, Willoughby vaulted into his saddle.

“Come along,” he called out, turning round as the riata came taut. And thus, a dozen paces behind, the sleuth, discomfited again a second time that day, and humiliated worse than ever, followed perforce in his victor’s trail.

Perhaps half a mile of the open road was thus traversed, Dick speaking not another word, but looking round occasionally and giving an energetic yank at the rope whenever there was evidence of laggard steps. Sharkey stumbled along, his chin buried in his breast, his eyes half-closed to conceal their dumb, vicious glare of concentrated but impotent fury.

They had now reached a gate; Dick dismounted and threw it open, pointing the way for Sharkey to take.

“It’s about five miles to the rancho,” he said. “I don’t know how you’ll get through the other gates, but I reckon you can crawl under them, like the snake you’ve proved yourself to be. Now, off you go,” and with the words he looped the loose end of the riata around the victim’s shoulders. “That’s a better necktie than you deserve, Leach Sharkey. If it was any one but myself, you would be helped to a start by a few vigorous kicks behind.”

The sleuth shambled through the gateway, with shamed, averted face. With a click the gate was closed. For just a few minutes Dick watched the figure moving away through the now gathering dusk. Then he laid a hand on his saddle-horn.

“I hope it’s the last I’ll see of that animal,” he murmured to himself, as he sprang lightly into the saddle. And at a canter he started along the road, the led pony, after a few heel-kicks as if in joy at being relieved of its burden, soon dropping into the swinging stride.

CHAPTER XXXIX – The Fight on the Cliff

FOR a few moments Don Manuel contemplated the cowering figure of Ben Thurston in contemptuous silence. His end was accomplished; his enemy was in his power; like the cat with the mouse just a few inches from its paw, he could strike at any moment. He spoke now with measured calm.

“Do you remember what day this is? The eleventh of October.”

He paused for a reply. Thurston’s lips were parted but remained dumb. Don Manuel resumed:

“Thirty years ago this very night – here at this very spot, you brutally killed my poor little sister, Rosetta.”

Thurston shrank back. His lips moved, but no sound came.

“Oh, attempt no denial,” continued Don Manuel, for the moment clenching a menacing fist over him. “You cannot forget the tell-tale button which you snatched from my hand to hide the proof. Nor have I forgotten the lash of your quirt that drew blood from my cheek” – and he wiped his face with the tips of his fingers as if to rub away the memory of the deadly insult – “the very day on which I buried my dear father and mother,” he added, in a voice vibrant with emotion.

He bowed his head; there was another brief period of silence. Then he recovered himself and went on:

“The deaths of my beloved parents are just as much on your head, Ben Thurston, as the death of the guileless, innocent, young girl whom you betrayed, and then with coward hands pushed over this cliff, mangling her body on the rocks below. My vengeance has been slow in coming, but after all, I am glad of the delay. For all through these years you have not only suffered the agony of constant fear, but I have lived to see you landless, bereft of the broad rich acres which belonged to my father and were never rightfully yours.”

“That’s not so – my claim was established in the law courts.” Thurston managed to articulate the words. The sound of his voice seemed to restore some little measure of courage, for he sat up, and leaning an elbow on a rock, adjusted himself in a more comfortable position. But he did not seek to gain his feet – the bandit’s figure still towered over him.

“Law courts – your American law courts!” exclaimed Don Manuel, with ineffable scorn. “You know you bribed the judge who gave the decision. Dare you deny it?”

Thurston ventured no denial – his dropped jaw proclaimed his consciousness of guilt.

“Nothing was too base for you,” Don Manuel proceeded. “You robbed, despoiled, destroyed my home. But now at last your hour has come. I have waited patiently for this hour. On many an occasion, Ben Thurston, I could have shot you dead from a distance. But I have waited – waited – waited for the time when you would know that it was I, the White Wolf, who was sending you to your doom just as I have already sent your ruffian son to his.”

“So it was really you – who murdered my boy?” stammered Thurston.

“Don’t call it murder – it was righteous retribution for both him and you. Oh, I can tell you something tonight, for a secret does not pass from a dead man’s lips.”

The victim so confidently doomed, shuddered. Don Manuel continued:

“Merle Farnsworth is my daughter; your vile and debauched son dared to insult her, and so he died – rightly died. Yes, at my hands – I take full responsibility. And I am glad to tell you this before you follow him out of the world. Tonight, Ben Thurston, you go over this cliff – you die the death you gave to my sister.”

As he spoke, Don Manuel cast loose his Spanish cloak, and dropped both it and his sombrero to the ground.

Thurston at last staggered to his feet.

“So get ready now to fight for your life,” Don Manuel resumed, folding his arms across his breast as he surveyed his victim.

“But I am unarmed,” cried Thurston, pointing to the revolver at the other’s belt. His outstretched hand trembled, his voice was a terrified shriek.

“Then I, too, shall be unarmed,” replied Don Manuel, as he unbuckled his belt and tossed it lightly from him. “Come along, then – it is man to man with naked hands.” His tone now was one of concentrated passion and hate, and he advanced with arms extended for an enfolding embrace.

Now did Ben Thurston realize that his only chance for life lay in his superior weight, possibly his superior strength. At the thought, craven fear changed of a sudden to the courage of desperation, and like a wild cat he leaped at the throat of his adversary.

Then began a terrible struggle – two strong men writhing in each other’s grip like savage beasts. Soon their clothes were torn, their bodies begrimed with sweat and mud, their faces and naked arms bespattered with blood, for Ben Thurston’s nose had been broken in one of the first falls. Thurston, besides his extra pounds, had also the advantage of being younger by a few years. But Don Manuel was in better physical condition and his muscles were like bands of steel. So it was pretty much of a level match in this grim fight to the death.

As they tugged at each other, as each attempted to bear the other down or trip and throw him, as at times, each tried in their locked embrace to crush in his adversary’s ribs and squeeze the last breath out of his body, as they milled round and round, swayed and fell and rolled over and then for a moment regained a kneeling or an upright position – both men realized that it was the one who could last the longest with whom the mastery would rest.

Pierre Luzon, running up the trail, came to the edge of the open space where the desperate contest was in progress. But the onlooker did not attempt to interfere – he had had his orders; he just crouched and watched the swaying, writhing figures.

For an hour or more the fight proceeded, at times fast and furious, with breathing spells to follow, during which grips were tenaciously maintained. Points of advantage alternated now to the one side, now to the other, but after each succeeding tussle both combatants were exhausted without victory being pronounced for either. Every vestige of clothing above the belt line had long since been torn away, and they were sweating like lathered horses.

The milling and wrestling had gradually grown weaker, and it was clear now that the final test of endurance could not be much longer delayed. Yet again Don Manuel renewed the attack, and had forced Thurston to his knees, when the latter by a supreme effort raised himself again, and then by sheer weight pressed his opponent back a pace or two. But just at this moment Thurston’s strength seemed to give out, for he dropped down sideways, dragging his enemy after him.

Then Pierre Luzon saw the object of the manoeuvre. Thurston had gained the spot where Don Manuel’s discarded pistol belt was lying, and now he was reaching out with a disengaged hand to grab the gun.

The Frenchman darted forward.

“Keep out of this,” cried Don Manuel, peremptorily, although he was breathing hard.

“Look out! Your gun!” screamed Pierre, as he seized Thurston’s wrist in a vice-like grip.

Just an instant too late, however, for Thurston’s fingers had already closed round the weapon and it went off with a bang.

Pierre dropped to his knees. It was he who had received the bullet – through one of his lungs. But he had wrested the pistol from the treacherous villain’s grasp and now it fell, still smoking, to the ground.

The wounded man coughed a great mouthful of crimson blood on to the slab of rock. Then he recovered himself and raised his head. Thurston and Don Manuel, even in their weakened state, were fighting more desperately than ever, blinded by hate to every sense of danger, and Pierre was just in time to see them slip on some loosened stones and then, still locked in the death clench, go rolling over the edge of the precipice.

“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” murmured the Frenchman. He staggered to his feet and without waiting turned and started down the steep trail, stumbling like a drunken man.

At the foot of the zig-zag pathway he gazed helplessly around. He would have pushed his way through the brushwood to seek his beloved chief. Dead! He must be dead. No one could have dropped that sheer three hundred feet onto the cruel jagged rocks below and live. Yet, who knows? A tree might have broken the fall – Don Manuel might still be alive.

Pierre, however, was incapable of further effort. His limbs trembled beneath him, and again he was spitting blood.

All of a sudden he spied the two horses tethered under the manzanita tree. He tottered toward them, untied the first one he reached, and with difficulty pulled himself up into the saddle.

To reach Dick Willoughby and get help – that was the thought in the reeling brain of Pierre Luzon as with a final effort, leaning forward over the saddle, he turned his steed in the direction of Buck Ashley’s old store, and urged it to a canter.